 I'd like to explore the Transportation Energy and Utility Committee meeting with the City Council at 5.01 and I'd entertain the motionality agenda. So I will move the agenda with the note that the five minutes on the North Wenuski Avenue update number six is insufficient because of a complaint by a business owner that I need to bring to the here and then to talk about so as we know that that is the case. I don't know how long you'll want, but I like a real conversation about it. I'm open to that. I added timing, times to the agenda just to give us framework to work within tonight. Beautiful. In that case, I would move the agenda as drafted with that understanding. I'll second. All those in favor? Eight. Eight too. Next on the agenda is approval of the minutes from our 8.15 meeting. So I'm going to move their approval, but I have not actually read them, so I just, they don't have to be approved anyway, so if I come and find some mistake, somewhere down the line at all, let y'all move. Okay, I'll second that. All those in favor? Aye. Next up is public forum. We don't appear to have anybody in the room, which is very a typical two meeting recently, but I'm sure we have some folks on line. So. Jonathan Scott, you should be able to unmute. Hi, Jonathan. Hi, everyone. Thank you. Can you hear me okay? We can. Great. Thank you for the opportunity to speak briefly. My name is Jonathan Stodd. I am a resident of Burlington, Vermont. I'm a user of the airport. I've had the opportunity to connect with you all before, and I want to say thank you for the work you do to make the airport a really good airport, and I use it a lot for work. So thank you for that. I am going to go on comment and recommend that you all consider banning F-35s from the airport as well as private aircraft. And I think today you're going to see a presentation. I'm sure you've all already looked at it. That's going to provide a very easy opportunity to say there's nothing that we can do. And I would encourage you all to think about this particular moment in time and your role within it. All of you have an opportunity to do something that 20 years later you can look back and say, when there was a climate emergency, I had the opportunity to step up and do something within my space and I did it. So I would encourage you guys when you go through the process of learning about the rules and regulations concerning essentially a city's response like a city's inability to restrict aircraft and aircraft types from the airport. I would remind you to consider that all of these are created through breaking rules. And that's what has to happen for us to change the system so that we can work ourselves out of the planetary crisis. And we have all been living through the hardest summer on record here in Vermont, and we're seeing it from air quality. We're seeing it in our water quality. And we know that aviation accounts for a significant driver of emissions. And yes, the decision to ban F-35s, it won't have a massive measurable impact on global emissions, but it's a statement. And it's a statement that Burlington as a city is leading and taking steps to make changes to save our planet. And so when you have the opportunity to consider what it would look like, I would ask yourself to think, what would it look like for us to make a recommendation that yes, it breaks the rules. And to see what the FAA does. And I would say start with the F-35s. Again, I'm a user of the airport. I'm not suggesting that we eliminate the airport entirely. But I think there's an opportunity here. And I would hate for us to miss it as a city and for you to miss it as leaders. And thank you for your time today. I appreciate it. Thank you, Jonathan. No one else has their hand raised, but if anyone would like to speak during public comment, he needs to raise hand. Ashley Adams. Go ahead, Ashley. Hi there. Can you hear me? We can. Okay, great. As any decision maker will attest, there are any number of justifications, including expert opinions such as the one that you're being presented with today on the airport that will ostensibly prove to you why you must maintain the status quo. Or that will help you justify, in this case, for example, not doing what you must do to salvage a habitable planet. Or to explain why it is acceptable not to stand up for residents in neighborhoods surrounding the airport who are suffering daily from the onslaught of F-35 noise. And today I'd like to just take a few minutes to share the voices of some of my tenants whose lives are affected by the F-35s. I have three statements that I'd like to share with you tonight because they can't be here. One tenant shared this. The F-35s are extremely loud. I think it's hard for people who don't live right here to understand. I have the opportunity to work from home or have needed to due to childcare issues or illness, but can't because the jets are simply way too loud and disruptive. During COVID, when I was forced to work from home, there were times when clients in crisis would hang up on me because they couldn't hear me or me them for such an extended period of time that they didn't know what was going on. My partner is in the early years with his own commercial cleaning business and he works at night. He suffers from insomnia and when he gets woken up, it can be very difficult to fall back asleep. When the jets take off in the morning, it's only about halfway through his sleep time. They are so loud that they're impossible to sleep through. There are so many of the jets. Lack of adequate sleep is very harmful, especially to him because he has a brain injury and requires a healthy sleep routine to function more than the average person. The jets make it very difficult. There's no such thing as sleeping in when the jets take off. We all want to sleep in sometimes. I've had headaches, the flu, etc., and the jets only make things worse. I've been so upset when I had sick kiddos that were up half the night and finally getting some sleep when the jets take off. If you are outside when they take off, it's very uncomfortable and simply too much. It's so loud, it's difficult to handle. We have to go inside the second we hear them. When my kids were younger, they would get really scared and run inside covering their ears. A second tenant shared this, I'm lucky I don't work at home, but I've also experienced when the girls are sick and I have to be at home and don't have a babysitter. The F-35s are loud, painful, piercing sounds, and it's not just one jet, at least six or seven fly by one after the other. And honestly, I've been so scared that the house would crash in on us when the jets fly by. There are cracks on the house that could be from those jets. Luckily, they've never flown by at night, but if they did, it would be terrifying. Imagine being woken up by that sound. This is a truly beautiful place to have a home, a family, the nature around us makes it all better to call home. I hope they get rebased. And a third tenant shared this, the F-35 noise doesn't bother me so much because I believe it protects our freedom. Our country is challenged with its values, which is freedom. When I look around the world, what's going on? I always pray to God to continue to protect America. Only here we have freedom and free speech. So many places you can't speak about this on TV and go home and sleep peacefully. You may not see your family again. At work we really enjoy seeing them take off. We run outside to see them take off. Only when we have an important call, you can't hear anything. But it lasts for only 10 minutes. My kids are terrified by the noise. They run out inside the house or hold me by fear. But they are still little. I don't want anybody to take away my freedom. So USA, USA. These voices represent just a few of the people who suffer daily, including those children, because no public official in this state has the decency to, number one, say that people like my tenants matter and that their suffering is unacceptable and it's wrong. And number two, seek ways to right that wrong. And number three, persist until the harm is stopped. Thank you. Thank you, Ashley. There's one other person, but they don't have their hand raised. Are there any others who would like to speak in public forum? So please raise your hand so we can recognize you. Okay. Well, with that we'll close public forum at 510 and the next item on our agenda is a presentation. From the airport on the city's authority to regulate your plan. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah, absolutely. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for, for having us for inviting us. I'll just do a quick round introduction introductions. This is Dave Carmen. Dave is our deputy director of aviation operations of course. I know Kyle Klaus here from the assistant city areas from the city attorney's office. And online we have Nick clobbers of with our outside council for the airport for the city. And we, we heard a lot about this from previous public meetings, public forums at the airport mission meeting and the two meetings. So I think our presentation is tailored somewhat to those comments from the past. We did present this very similar presentation to our airport commission was in various questions and then again Nick clobbers was able to adjust it based on the comments received then but I'm going to hand it right over to Nick to go through the presentation and of course I didn't answer any questions. Did you say there was an extra slide? Nick just send Maddie an extra slide presentation. I don't know if you're presenting or if he's presenting. I was going to run it from my computer, Nick. And it's, it's not an extra slide, but I've made some, some asterisks where I made edits to the version that you all probably saw beforehand. I know there was, there was a question that came in. About an hour ago and we wanted to make sure that we address that so I'll go ahead and share my screen. Hopefully everyone will be able to see that that visible to everybody. It is. Okay, great. Well, first I just want to say thanks to Nick and to this, this group, the committee for having me here. And I know that there have been a lot of questions raised around the city's ability to restrict or regulate aeronautical activities at the airport. And as Nick said, we gave a very similar presentation to the airport's commission about three weeks ago. So we're just going to review this. And I want to preface this by saying this is intentionally something of a high level presentation. And I'm going to, you know, hit the very top line bullet points of the relevant pieces of legal authority here. I'm happy to answer questions at the end of the presentation, but there's, there's a large body of law behind a lot of these concepts. And really my, my objective here is in, you know, approximately 10 minutes or so to just hit those top line pieces so that we really understand what it is that we're working with them. So just a quick background on myself and our firm, Cap and Cursion Rockwell. We are a national law firm with a focus on representation of airports. We don't represent aircraft owners, airlines, pilots, or aeronautical service providers. We are, we pride ourselves on being real advocates for airports and we don't take positions that are adverse to airports. So we have a lot of experience in this arena and we've counseled many, many clients on potential aeronautical access restrictions. So what are the questions that have been raised around BTV and different aircraft operating at BTV? The questions that have been discussed with me and I think with Nick and for some of you as well. What is the city's legal authority to prohibit or restrict aircraft operations at the airport? What is the require or what is their authority to require that only aircraft meeting a certain fuel efficiency standard or a certain noise standard may operate at the airport? What's the authority to limit military operations or to prohibit the sale or use of leaded aviation fuel at the airport? The addition that I made here is just the asterisk on noise standard. And I want to highlight that right now to say that most of these bullet points are sort of taken under the same general concepts. Noise standards are subject to a slightly different standard that I'll talk about on each particular slide here. The top line answer is that the city has essentially no authority to adopt or enforce these types of restrictions. And again, the asterisk there is that noise restrictions are subject to a slightly different standard, a different legal standard as to when they may or may not be permissible. But the practical standpoint or practical reality is that those noise based restrictions are still very difficult to adopt or enforce and are subject to a very high threshold for for enforceability. So the top line consequences here are that attempts to adopt or enforce restrictions like the ones that I just put in the previous slide likely would result in FAA enforcement actions, informal or formal complaints from airport users or industry groups. And ultimately, if those problems are not corrected in the eyes of the FAA, it could result in the city losing eligibility for federal grant funds. That's that's generally the final step in the process. So what are the legal sources of the city's, the legal restrictions on the city's ability to enact these restrictions. The first that we'll talk about is the city's grant assurances. The second is the very broad concept of federal preemption in the airport and aviation context. And then we'll move to just a quick discussion of two specific federal statutes, the airline deregulation act and the airport noise and capacity act. And each one of those particular statutes has a has a specific preemptive effect on these types of regulations. Excuse me. Here's not cooperate. There we are. So to start off grant assurances, you all may be familiar with the concept of the federal grant assurances. These are obligations that are established by federal statute as a condition of receiving FAA grant funds. So each time the city accepts a federal grant from the FAA for development projects at the airport, repaving a runway, reconstructing an apron, lighting, signage, all sorts of different things that the city regularly accepts funds from from the FAA. They sign an agreement that requires as relevant here the city to make the airport quote available as an airport for public use on reasonable terms and without unjust discrimination to all types kinds and classes of aeronautical activities. And I bolded that reasonable terms and without unjust discrimination because as we'll see on the next slide that really is the key part of the analysis here. The city also commits itself to avoid granting a quote exclusive right to use the airport and also to permit quote government aircraft utilize all facilities at the airport. And there's a very broad definition of government aircraft that would include military aircraft as well. So restrictions on aeronautical activities may be reasonable and not unjustly discriminatory if two factors are met. One, if they're justified for aeronautical safety reasons, and two, if they're approved by the FAA, they have to meet both of those factors. As a general rule, prohibitions on certain types of aircraft are rarely acceptable. And it's only if the aircraft cannot be safely accommodated. And when we talk about being safely accommodated in the concept of aeronautical safety, what we're really talking about and what the FAA is really talking about is airspace considerations. There are many instances where things like skydiving or hang gliding or ultralight aircraft for whatever reason are not safe to operate within the airspace of a certain airport. What does not fall within that aeronautical safety prong are things like fuel efficiency and pollution. Those have other safety implications, but it's not part of the analysis that the FAA makes when they look at restrictions under the grant assurances. Restrictions on aeronautical activities for reasons other than aeronautical safety, that is, you know, if the airport is making a distinction between type A aircraft and type B aircraft, and that doesn't have anything to do with whether the runway can accommodate that type of aircraft, for example. Those would most likely violate the grant assurances, the requirement that the airport be open for all types kinds of classes of aeronautical activities. Otherwise, that restriction is considered most likely unreasonable and or unjustly discriminatory. So moving to federal preemption generally, the FAA has exclusive jurisdiction over many, many aspects of aviation. That includes aircraft in flight, airspace and aircraft fuel efficiency. And local attempts to directly or indirectly regulate those types of things may infringe on FAA's jurisdiction and therefore would be invalid. There's a large body of case law out there that discusses airports' attempts to regulate, for example, certain routes of aircraft taking off from an airport and going to a different airport. That is preempted under the large federal scheme that encourages national regulation of the airspace and not local regulation. The asterisk that I've added there is with respect to noise. Airport proprietors do have the ability to regulate certain aircraft operations on the basis of noise. The issue becomes that those regulations must be, we can go right back to this slide, reasonable and not unjustly discriminatory and not arbitrary is another term of art used by some courts to describe that ability. The issue with noise-based restrictions is that the FAA is the one that must pass judgment on whether those are enforceable, very, very similar to the analysis under the grand assurance that I cited in the previous slide. This is not to say that noise-based restrictions are impossible. They are just very difficult and the FAA requires a pretty substantial showing to believe or be convinced that those are viable protections of the airport's local community. With respect to all the other issues and sort of distinctions that I drew, aircraft fuel efficiency, the sale of leaded aviation gasoline, those types of things. The FAA has taken the position, at least with respect to the sale of leaded aviation gasoline, that any local attempts to ban that sale or to regulate the sale of aviation gasoline does infringe on the FAA's federal jurisdiction. There's a recent case out of Santa Clara County, California, where the airport proprietor in that case, the county which owns and operates two airports, took steps to prevent all of its fixed-base operators from selling aviation gas. They essentially passed an ordinance that said we will no longer enter into any leases with any fixed-base operator that sells leaded aviation gasoline. And the FAA sent a letter of investigation to the county claiming that that action violated the grant assurances and several principles of federal preemption. And that case has been abeyance, but the county is also the target of a complaint from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association alleging essentially the same thing, and that portion of the case is still ongoing. So it's just to illustrate that those are the types of restrictions that the FAA views as very much infringing on their jurisdiction, and the FAA is pretty aggressive about defending its jurisdiction in those instances. So the two specific federal statutes that I just want to raise in this context are the Airline Deregulation Act in the Airport Noise and Capacity Act. So to start with the Airline Deregulation Act, it expressly preempts any local law or regulation that relates to the, quote, prices, routes or services of an air carrier with some very limited exceptions that really would not apply here. And the point that I want to raise here is that airlines are well known in the industry to be very litigious when it comes to any local regulation that is arguably preempted by the ADA, meaning anything that arguably touches their prices, routes or services. As you might expect, airports and airlines have different definitions of things that may relate to prices, routes or services, airports generally think that what they adopt is very narrow and airlines think that everything airports do affects their prices, routes and services. It's very difficult to say, you know, whether a given restriction, for example, on fuel efficiency of aircraft using the airport would in fact be preempted under the Airline Deregulation Act. But the takeaway is that if an airline, even a single airline or some airline industry groups believe that it did, the chances of them filing suit to stop that type of restriction are relatively high. Airlines have fought this in courts across the country. They've made many attempts to get various ADA issues in front of the Supreme Court. This is not a sort of fake sword that they wield. They try to invoke this at every opportunity. The second federal statute is the Airport Noise and Capacity Act. And this is a procedural statute that has requirements for adoption of any airport access restriction. And this really goes back to the noise restriction piece that I mentioned before. The FAA and Congress have permitted proprietors to enact noise restrictions under very limited circumstances, but there's an empirical showing that's required of airport proprietors and FAA approval and a substantive threshold that needs to be met under the regulations to permit that restriction to become effective. Since the adoption of ANCA in 1990, no airport has successfully adopted restrictions on any modern aircraft. So it's very few airports have attempted it and those that have attempted it have failed for one reason or another. So what are the likely consequences if the city were to adopt a restriction without following some of the ANCA rules in the case of noise or to adopt a restriction on one of those other bases that I mentioned earlier? The most likely consequence is an FAA enforcement action or investigation. The FAA, as I mentioned in that Santa Clara case, takes a pretty proactive approach to asserting its jurisdiction and patrolling potential violations of the grant assurances. Generally, what that looks like is an FAA first letter of investigation that starts either an informal or formal proceeding that proceeds similar to a court case, but not quite exactly the same. The ability also exists for formal or informal complaints from airport users, airlines or industry groups. The applicable regulations here under 14 code of federal regulations part 13 and part 16 are pretty broad in allowing essentially anyone that feels they may be adversely affected by some type of violation on the part of the airport sponsor to file a complaint with the FAA. And that's adjudicated much the same way that an FAA initiated complaint would be. They are long and painful processes. It is not uncommon for them to take anywhere from two to four years to resolve completely unless the airport sponsor changes its ways and comes into compliance in the eyes of the FAA. Adverse findings in one of those proceedings could result in an FAA or court injunction against enforcement of any of those restrictions. The FAA often will withhold federal grant funds, even in the absence of adverse findings. They won't officially declare an airport sponsor to be ineligible, but they have discretion to withhold new grant funds during the dependency of an investigation. Ultimately, if the sponsor is found to be in violation and refuses or declines to change its behavior, the FAA can declare that sponsor ineligible for future grant funds and in extreme cases the FAA has the ability to issue civil penalties for certain violations. So that's a very high level overview. And I understand that I have not delved into all the nuances here. And that's just sort of a product of the time that we have. But again, I'm happy to answer any questions that any of you may have about anything that I just discussed or anything else. Oh, I have far too many questions. But let me start. Nick, thank you for this high level. And I got to get a little more clarity about the Santa Clara cases procedural posture. Sure. Sure. So my understanding of the Santa Clara case is this. And I can start from the beginning. So the Santa Clara County adopted an ordinance where they proposed, I believe, that they would no longer enter into any lease agreements with a fixed base operator that permitted or sold leaded aviation gasoline on the field. And just for context, the FAA has not approved an unleaded aviation gasoline for use in aircraft. They're working on it. There's been a whole congressional push to try to get the FAA to phase in unleaded gasoline, but it hasn't quite happened yet. And so the FAA standard at this point is leaded aviation gasoline for most aircraft. And the FAA took the position that the county's action violated the grant assurances because it was effectively discriminating and precluding certain aircraft from utilizing those airports. It also took the position that it violated provisions of the Clean Air Act under which the FAA has the ability to regulate aviation fuels as a source of pollutants. And I believe the Commerce Clause as well, because the county was effectively interfering in interstate commerce. Those were the positions that the FAA took. There were a number of meetings between the county and the FAA. And ultimately, the county and the FAA signed a memorandum of understanding. And the FAA's investigation is currently in abeyance. And I believe that that memorandum expires at the end of September. So they essentially gave each other some time to potentially figure out a solution until the end of September. That's the FAA investigation. Around the same time as the FAA initiated its own investigation, which of course is public, the aircraft owners and pilots association filed its own complaint with the FAA alleging the county was violating all the same things that the FAA itself had alleged. The FAA really does not have the ability to dismiss that complaint if, you know, absent a legal showing that it doesn't meet whatever threshold standard. So that proceeding is ongoing and the FAA is, you know, I don't know whether they're going to just take that very, very slowly so that the new complaint doesn't outpace the FAA's own investigation. But the county is, you know, in active litigation in front of the FAA with that industry. And so that's the forum is within the FAA and their regulatory process. And Santa Clara actually adopted regulations and then were said, whoops, fundamentally. Well, so it as I understand it, the ordinance is currently adopted, but not being enforced. That's that's my understanding of where it stands. And, and in, in some senses, it was a little bit of a moot point because the FBOs that they have, excuse me, that they have on the field currently, we're not selling lead aviation gasoline. So it was a, it didn't have much of an effect practically. So it's less of a less of an issue. Okay, thank you. That's really helpful. And I don't know how long a leash I've got from from the chair. But I'm wondering about your knowledge of any changes at the FAA regarding the climate emergency and, you know, regulations that would come into effect, say to increase fuel standards. A fuel efficiency and the like. I am not aware of anything at this time. I know that those discussions are ongoing within the agency just from sort of anecdotally speaking with FAA folks that we work with on a regular basis. You know, I do think that this is an issue that they are sensitive to. And as I mentioned, there's, there is an ongoing effort from, you know, as a result of a congressional statute that required the FAA to accelerate its phase in of unleaded aviation. Yes, I know that that effort is absolutely ongoing. But in terms of fuel efficiency standards, I'm not aware of anything that is, you know, imminent coming down the pike. And are you aware of any other airports that are looking at fuel efficiency standards and are broaching that with the FAA or adopting regulations prior to approaching the FAA? Either one of those. I am not. No. Okay. Thanks. I think that the last is sort of a grouping of questions and that relates to noise. And so I understand your point related to the difficulty of crafting a regulation. That would meet the FAA's requirements. But I would like to understand it. This may not be the time and the place for that, but I would like to understand what that type of standard, what type of showing we would have. And I would just say just so that, you know, I listened to what seemed to be about 13 of those fighter bombers overhead this morning as I was farming down in my flooded interrail gardening area. And it was, it went on for a really long time. I am very, very supportive of the folks here who really believe that this city is not the place to be hosting and allowing the training of those jets. And, you know, among other things, noise. So I am very interested in understanding what the showing we would have to take and, you know, the evidence and standards, the decibel levels, the actual nature of the decibels, because there are a couple of different ways that you can read them. And the like and what a regulation that might have a decent shot at passing the FAA's muster is. So that's a long way of saying is that I'm sort of asking maybe for more than what we can do now. But I just got to say, and I'll end by just saying the people here in my estimation absolutely deserve it. And they deserve no less. And we should be doing everything that we possibly can to eliminate that problem. So. Sure. Well, I think you're right in that it is a question that has an answer longer than what we have time for here. Those generally require a full noise study under what's called part 150. And that is a complicated engineering and, you know, sound consultant noise consultant process that I is beyond my pay grade, frankly. But there are standards and, you know, I'm happy to work with Nick and his team to put something together that gives you a more complete answer on that. But it is, it is a, it's an empirical standard if I'm recalling correctly, the, you know, sets particular limits there with respect to those restrictions. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. If I can add just a couple of context, one is specific to the 14 C of our part 150 the noise compatibility program. We are and have been part of that program for decades. So we have a noise exposure map that came out in 2019 we are updating that map. And throughout this next 12 months and it will be published next year in the meantime, public meetings, public hearings, public communication regarding what that partner 50 process entails. Not just on a noise exposure map update, but also the noise compatibility program. The NEM versus NCP. The end the NEM is the map that our of eligible properties that NCP is what eligible mitigation funding is associated within the contour lines defined by part 150 and the federal standards. Right now we have a host of available options to homeowners, renters and any residential property owners in some places of worship and things like that that are eligible with a contour line. And those are those are with public meetings which the next meeting will be on September 14 at the Chamberlain elementary school we're currently advertising or starting the advertising process on that. It'll be a dual meeting one associated with the investment that the airport's taking to maintain and to preserve the space across the street. And this is a public use recreational path and work, essentially a park program, connecting throughout that, the Chamberlain neighborhood, we're presenting those ideas to the neighborhood to see and hear feedback associated with that that program. And it was very appropriate considering that I'm talking about the areas that were purchased with acquisition funding through the part 150 process that we also update the neighborhood on the status of these most programs as well so that meeting will talk about both of those those topics. The second point you made earlier on was about fuel and Nick mentioned specific about no leaded fuel and associated with FAA's program on implementing that or moving that more quickly. So we started to talk about the sustainable aviation fuel. We gave a presentation a couple of months ago, the FAA standards on that are still moving forward but they have goals by 2030 to Institute, and I don't recall the percentage of it but it's to those programs. Since that meeting I've been working with Heritage Aviation to get sustainable aviation fuel delivered to the Burlington, sorry the Patrick Lee Burlington International Airport, immediately as quickly as possible, even though the commodity is very difficult to actually deliver to the Northeast, but we are on the list to Heritage Aviation specifically on the list to receive that so both on the no leaded fuel which is more for piston powered propeller aircraft versus the sustainable aviation fuel for jet aircraft are both being discussed with our FBO operator. If I could just say, so I appreciate the efforts of the airport to protect people from the noise. I think that that continues to put a burden on us and does not rightfully say to the Air Force that you need to do something as well and so I actually see the question that I raised with Nick as okay, you know we're doing what we can to insulate all these buildings to protect these little kids when they're going to school or getting the shit steered out of them. Sorry, but that still puts it on all of us and the fact of the matter is that it's just not right in my mind that they are a number of flights today out of that airport, one after the other from 940 to 1030 was just outrageous. There was an hour where that's the way it seemed when I looked at my clock and stuff I mean I was stopped from many things you know communications all you know for a long you know that's not an insignificant amount of time. And this isn't down in the Tommy Thompson's community garden by the internet. So I, I want to know if we can meet the standards because I understand about preemption so understand about their jurisdiction, but but to be able to meet a standard that would say you can't fly that many times I don't care how much insulation you put in the building I don't care about any of this other stuff you can't lie that many flights there it's just not right take the damn plane to the desert you want to go and train somewhere, not in the city. So that's what I'm looking for in terms of a part 150 analysis. I totally appreciate what you're doing, but I think it's insufficient and it puts up the burden on us. I think that the Air Force needs to bear a burden, and I'm absolutely sort of curious and this is as much for for you in terms of looking out to ways that we can talk with other airlines other airports, not just about sustainable fuel, but about efficiency standards, and see if we can make some progress at the FAA and with a federal delegation, because the planet's burning, as I'm speaking to the choir here, right, I know it, right. We got to do something more than what we are doing now. And that is, I that looks like a path, which is less litigious, and more in line with trying to get the forces that are getting necessary to make the change that we absolutely need so in terms of the fuel industry, trying to make no changes in the airline industry and really like us to be looking at that and being expansive within the confines that I think are accurately reflected in the presentation by me. So, nothing surprising from what I'm saying. Thanks. I had a question. Going back to the slide where you talked about the FAA, and how they have ultimate say on what is or isn't allowed and I was just wondering, Nick, and your sort of review of this material and looking at any of the existing sort of case law around it. Are there any cases you can point to where the FAA has ruled in favor or along, you know, favorably with a complainant with regard to noise? When you say with regard to noise, are you referring to a restriction that the airport adopted to reduce noise? Yeah, generally speaking, yeah. I mean, so if an airport wanted to reduce noise and created a regulation or restriction and was the one that was either challenged or reviewed by the FAA and then ultimately upheld. Yes. Yeah. So there's there's quite a bit of case law out there about airport sponsors who have adopted. I hesitate to call them explicitly noise restrictions because many of them are a ban on aircraft, for example, over a certain size or over a certain weight or, you know, some other characteristic that does not specifically point to noise with the intention of sort of getting around the airport noise restriction. And the FAA said, no, no, no, we see this for what it is. You are trying to, you know, reduce noise and you haven't followed the procedures. And this is an invalid restriction. There are also many examples out there of airports who have adopted an explicit noise restriction. And the FAA or in some cases a federal court has said, no, this is either not a reasonable restriction and it infringes on the grant assurances or the FAA is exclusive jurisdiction. Or in some instances, the courts have said, yes, this is a reasonable exercise of the proprietors right to regulate noise. But that that latter category is much smaller than those that have been invalidated. It's also somewhat difficult to separate out the earlier cases from the more recent cases because of the adoption of the Airport Noise and Capacity Act, which threw a pretty substantial procedural hurdle into that type of restriction. And the most recent case that comes to mind immediately is at a East Hampton, New York, where that airport tried to adopt a number of access restrictions that were based on noise and the vast majority of those were invalidated by the federal courts. Okay, thank you. And I had other questions around fuel efficiency that they've all been asked already so I won't ask them again. Well, I don't, do you have an addition? I mean, I just would love to see the cases that where noise restrictions were upheld. And I guess I'm understanding that they're all pre 1990, but they're they're not all pre 1990, but it does. There's, I, I always hesitate to make sweeping statements in the field of airport noise law because it is very complicated. But the introduction of anchor in 1990 sort of changed the calculus around things. So, you know, to the extent that there are pre 1990 cases out there they may not have the same type of presidential effect as those after 1990. Well, it would be great if we can if we can get those cases and we can get some clarity about the procedural requirements that need to be met. I mean, Sure, I'm happy to work with Nick on that and get something if that's that's the route we want to go. Thank you. And thank you, Nick. And thank Dave. One thing I was going to do is allow James Lee's who is originally brought public comment to us that prompted us to ask for this review. You didn't make public comment the one to make a statement. So, you know, allow that. Okay, thank you. So, representation just heard actually the support of doing the following, and it's just 10 words, the city adopt a noise ordinance that's identical to the FAA aircraft noise standard for application to all Air Force users. FAA only regulates civilian aircraft. So it's noise standard of buys to the civilians but not to the military jets. We have two standards at our area. We have the FAA standard for all our civilian and have no noise standard for our military. The FAA standard for prior to can establish the FAA standard as the standard for all aircraft, because the FAA regulations require the airport if it's going to establish a standard that it applied to all aircraft. Somehow business loophole for military, because nobody is regulating that not the FAA, not the proprietor the airport right. The only thing I have to do is say, there are different stages for error, since you're only 1970s. The FAA has been regulating the aircraft themselves they have to meet a noise standard to get certified stage one stage to we're working once they're working on stage five, which is the quietest noise standard. The FAA was adopted in 1990 as the standard that all aircraft must meet no matter whether they're new or old, and the F35 will not and cannot meet that standard. All the airport has to do for noise is established the FAA's own standard. Who can complain to the FAA that they shouldn't be allowed first of all when you've heard any civilian aircraft whatsoever. They're already meeting it. The only one who could complain is the military. There would be the only ones who would meet it. So that is a solution. It doesn't require parts 150. It doesn't require all kinds of studies. It isn't preempted by the FAA. It isn't any of those things. We just need to step the same standard. Now that's just the noise. But I think we've already learned from him that it's even more possible based on emissions, based on greenhouse gas. I think that's what I was hearing. So I think what we would want to do, now there's a third one also, and that's the military's own discipline. So there are three ordinances that the city could enact. One would establish the FAA's noise standard for all aircraft using the airport. The other would establish some reasonable miles per gallon passenger miles per gallon standard. We learned from that, I think, that the big aircraft, the commercials gets 120 passenger miles per gallon, whereas some of the F-35 only gets half a passenger per gallon. So some reasonable standard could be enacted. And then the third one is the military has its own regulations that prohibit intermingling of military operations with civilian populated areas. So I think that that's the basis on which those are three separate bases on which the city could go forward and protect the civilian population and protect our planet. Thank you. Thank you, James. You might be able to get a reply so that you're all talking the same language, if there's disagreement that we understand. Because Jimmy made certain statements that if they were factored, if there's a debate or a dispute, then we should lay that out. If there isn't then, whether it's a caveat or a nuance, then we shouldn't look back. Certainly. Is there anything that you can respond to from Mr. Lee's comments or something that we would like to respond in writing to after this, but I'll leave it to Attorney Claver's. I'll work backwards on those three items. The first, as to the military's regulations, I really can't speak to that. I haven't reviewed those and don't really know what they say. So I'll defer on that to someone who may have more expertise on that. As to the greenhouse gas emission and passenger miles per gallon analysis, I think that that would fall under the same type of impermissible restriction because it would have the effect of excluding certain aircraft from the airport. That is what the FAA looks at. If the airport were to set a restriction saying that aircraft must be a certain color to use the airport. If there's even one aircraft that is that color that therefore cannot use the airport, the FAA sees that as an impermissible restriction. As I said, the only permissible criteria that the FAA allows for restriction of particular aircraft setting noise aside for a moment is safety based restrictions and the safety in that context is aviation safety and airspace conflicts and things of that nature. It's not related to safety of environmental safety. Notwithstanding anyone's views on whether that is or is not an important safety consideration, it's just not part of the FAA's calculus in looking at whether those restrictions are permissible under the grant assurances. Then with respect to setting a noise standard that matches the FAA's standard for civilian aircraft, I think that would run into potential issues because it is explicitly done for the purpose of excluding the military aircraft from the airport. And I'll admit that this is not a situation that I've encountered before. So take this with the appropriate caveats and grains of salt. But setting a standard that in effect precludes one aircraft from the airport for much the same reason that the greenhouse gas emission or fuel efficiency threshold would exclude aircraft would have that same effect. I think you potentially run into a compounding issue there with respect to the grant assurances that require airports to make the facilities available to government aircraft at the same time. That's a separate factor there. The third thing that I would postulate, but admittedly say that I don't know enough to draw a conclusion about is whether that type of restriction would be preempted, not by the FAA, but by some sort of Department of Defense or other federal statute. Either requiring cooperation or something of that nature. I don't know the answer to that, but the long arm of the federal government tends to take a pretty robust approach in defending with respect to military operations. I know also that the city has a lease with the Vermont Air National Guard and I don't know what that lease says with respect to those operations. And so that's that's another consideration there as well. Very briefly, we're over time. On the government aircraft, the grant assurances don't just say that it has to be available for all the aircraft, it says for each by government aircraft in common with all other aircraft at all times. So, if there was a, if there was an established ordinance for all aircraft in common with that, the government would have to select aircraft that meets that requirement to be in common with all other. But I guess that's cool. But I think I could answer a little bit. Thank you. You're welcome to submit responses. Any other additional questions? Sure, I move that we accept all this material and place on file of our own committee and also for this to the to the city council. And that concludes the consideration leaving the question of whether there should be a liberty of session upon it or not to the council press. I'll second that. All those neighbor. Hi. And that concludes this. This is for discussion tonight. I think thank you Nick for joining us remotely and make a day for joining us here in person. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you all. Next up, we have the GMT bear policy. Special. Thanks for having me back. I'm going to walk you through our bear plan. And one of the things that I just wanted to check in is that the last time it's here I talked to you a little bit about the history of why we need to do gender fairs. And so I wasn't planning on talking about that, but if you want me to go into that again. Okay. And so. So what I wanted to start with is the roads of the routes that are going to be affected. So I think that our fair plans are for there as far as the reintroduction affairs. And I think probably most importantly is the discussion of how we're going to be able to cap costs. Because I think that's sort of critical to understanding how the term will work. So GMT offer will be returning fares to the urban bus routes that go through for LinkedIn and connect us to the different municipalities routes. Those are like the ones that use the sixes the vibes that you see on the streets. It will return to fair service for our computer lines that connects us from say Milton and Heinsberg. And I think express routes that connect us from Montpelier to Burlington and then Saint Albans to Burlington. And so thinking back prior to our going to a zero fair practice, the city routes were $1.50 with a $2.40 a month pass. And the link express routes were $2 with a $75 a month pass. And the link express routes were $4 with an $150 pass. As you probably imagine, a whole lot of folks that were buying that more expensive. So what we are proposing is to simplify the route structure and the fair structure so that it would be a common fair of $2 across all of those who are trying to fare. And so for our urban routes, that's a 33% increase for commuter routes. That's staying the same. And then for link routes, it's actually 50% reduction. The thing that will be critical is that we'll have price caps because unlike the current system where once somebody would get in or get on the bus, they'd give their dollar $15 or they would swipe a card with a magnetic strip. That card doesn't know anything about that rider doesn't know that it's, you know, Chapin Spencer and that Chapin has been, you know, on the bus 10 times this week already. The new system will have that technology. And so what, what that allows us to do is that instead of having a going to people and say, hey, you can get the best deal of you buy a monthly pass. We're flipping that around to say, once you get to the cost of our monthly pass, the rest of your lines are free. And so that means that people don't have to pony up the money for a pass. And they don't have to get into the situation where, gee, I hope that I use this enough to make it work for them. And, and so that's why I can make a statement where it seems paradoxical. I want to raise rates on urban routes by 33%. But no rider is going to have to pay more than they previously would have had to. And so that's because we're going to cap the amount each month to $40. And that will be across all of those. And so, so that will make regional transportation. Obviously it's not more accessible to free, but you know, free has been, but it will make sure that it stays accessible. One of the reasons why we want to do that is that we've noticed that the people who are using our service on the Lincoln computer is different than it was pre pandemic. It tends to be more people who are accessing services. Because our belief is that many of our professional folks that would be coming, say from up to a Burlington or vice versa are now working remotely. And so we wanted to make sure, obviously, going from zero fare to $8 round trip for somebody who say coming to University Medical Center. That's, if they have to make that trip pretty regularly, that's going to be too much. So it really has been a balancing act of sort of compressing in a way, because what we're going to do is, is that for our casual users, they will be spending more, because they won't use it enough to to have the price cap to into effect. But for our folks who are daily riders, the price caps for kick in that will protect them. I also want to make sure that folks know that we have a discount system where anyone who is below the age of 18, anyone who is over the age of 60, or anyone who self identifies as disabled gets a half price fare. And so there's no bureaucratic process, all they have to do is let us know that they consider themselves to be disabled. And then we will go into their account and they will be charged the half price. And that half price is both for. So instead of it being $2 that'd be $1 but also the cap will be $20 instead of $40. And so with this, the thinking being that our vulnerable riders will have their transportation throughout the region. Cap that $20, which can be realized it's not as good as fair or free, but it's pretty good. And I think that for, especially for our folks who are using the computer and link service, because previously they would have to pay their $4. And if they used another one of our buses to then get around town, they would then have to pay a fare on top of that. And I forgot to mention, in addition to the monthly rate of $40 and $20 from the discount, we're going to have a daily rate of $4 and $2. So essentially, if you pay for two rides, then the rest of the day is done. You need that. You need a special card. You need that card. You do need the card. And so one of the things that we wanted to make sure is that our cash based riders would be able to have access to these protections. And so one of the things that we are finding is that even for folks who are cash based, many of them have a smart phone. And so they're going to be able to do all that independently of us by just downloading the GMT red app that comes with the fare system. And they'll be able to use that as their pass. It'll be a contactless or they just wave the pass over the fare box. So right now you've got an app that shows where the buses are. Yes. That's going to be replaced. We will, we will keep both of them to start and we're going to see how the bus tracking system and the gen fare app itself works because that also offers tracking. So come January, our riders will be able to use the transit app and the gen fare app for their. If we find that we like the gen fare app without to get rid of transit, then we may just unify them. We are not going to start at least there is the potential that we would also then keep both and have people be able to pay at both apps. That makes us nervous though because then we have two companies with all of our riders. So we're probably hesitant to do that, but that could be a possibility in the future because we recognize with many things. I prefer the transit app. I prefer the gen fare app. We want to use whatever you can. But what the transit app will have is a connector so that if somebody's in transit and they want to pay, they'll just go to pay and instead of it, then paying would then transit and then open the other app that's already installed so that they'll be able to access it. Let's see. I was thinking more about the our cash based folks because we've spent a lot of time making sure that we're not overly burdened about. They will still be able to pay cash on all the buses, but they won't have price protection if they pay cash in that way. So for our folks who want to stay cash, don't use the buses that often, you know, just pay cash on the bus is the way to go. It will be just like it was before. Maybe a little easier because we don't have to change. When it comes to being cash based and using the price protections for the first 18 to 24 months, they'll need to come to one of our transit centers or GMT HQ, which is down on 101. And essentially they'll just hand over their 1020 or whatever cash that they have, you'll then add it to their account. So that does mean that there is an inconvenience factor where only the transit centers or the HQ is where we're going to have people at cash value to their cars. One of the nice things about the general fare system is that it comes with connectivity to what's called the income network. And that is a retail network that includes Walgreens, CVS, Walmarts. And so once that becomes active, then our cash based riders can go to any of those places and give them their smart pass, they give them cash and that will be added to the car. And so that will just make it much more convenient. Convenient obviously because one of the things that worries me, you know, I don't suspect we have a ton of cash based only riders who are making the connection from Essex to Wilson. But if they are right now, they would have to make a trip into town to get their pass. So we recognize that eventually that will be resolved to start. I think that as you heard last time, I mean, we loved operating fare free. We think that this, if we do need to return to fares is going to be a significant improvement over the past. I really like that we're not going to ask people to pony up money up front for passes. And the other thing that I really like about the system is that it will make it much easier for some of our partners that want to either support employees or support clients of theirs or students to be able to fund transit because what will end up happening with the system and I'm going to, you know, pick on Howard Center for a second. So we'll be going to Howard Center and say hey, if you would like to support riders, you know, you let us know which riders are affiliated with your organization and we'll have some sort of secure way to do that. And then Howard Center would be able to go online have access just to those particular rider accounts to be able to have funds today. So that that way, if we had particular or Howard Center said hey, you know, for this client, we want to pay for all of their transit, you know, they would be able to do that. If this client just needed transit on a couple of days, they would be able to add, you know, $4 for the day rate. And we think that that is going to expand upon our previous work of having other people are essentially paying for the service, because one of the problems that we would have is that employers would have thought at the, you know, they're going to be issuing passes to particular people that will then have an ID that person that's no longer works for us but yet they're still showing their past, you know, and then we sent the bill saying that you counted X number of folks, they're like well gee, that's way more than who we have working here, you know. And so, so we think that that will be helpful. We suspect and this is getting in the way it's probably more you're interested, but our big provider it's a free rides through Kama, which is the general area associated. And they represent Champlain College UVM Medical Center for free rides for those students and employees. At first we thought that they would be psyched about being able to only pay for their rides. What we found and negotiated with them that they actually find that it would be more helpful to have a negotiated rate because then the problem with paying for how it's used is that then those costs are very free, you know, widely from month to month. And they seem to be much more interested in having that hey, it's 400,000 to be provided here. You know, that's been so I think that there is still will be some of the large partners that won't use the system. Some of the smaller and that should happen with no cost. So, if an employer says hey we want to pay for the employees to be able to have service. We can set that up. So that's kind of in a nutshell. I do think it's paradoxical that we're, you know, we're talking about a significant raise and and single rates while, you know, kind of constraining. I can tell you that one of our concerns is that the legislature. I think it became suspicious that we wanted to give away our service and so they gave us a target that we have to generate 10% of our revenue for the new affairs. So that's, you know, we don't discount too heavily. And one of the things that we're going to be able to achieve that 10% with this, but once we have the real data, we may need to adjust again, because our ridership right now is not granular enough. So that I would be able to say, you know, what percentage of our riders would reach that $40 capital and their rights. So that's the point into a sort of concerns. So, starting with the last point, which is about demographics, I mean this is very much about demographics is where people are going. It's about their socioeconomic status, so to speak, it's about their age, their disability. So are you are you collecting that granular information? So moving forward into the new system, we're going to have great data on where people get on the bus. We're not going to have the best data where they get off the bus. And the thing that would be nice is that unlike in the past, we can pick a specific stop, and we can say what percentage of riders who get off or get out of this stop are being paid for by Howard Center, are receiving a discount, or, you know, whatever so like right now, we can't tell if that 10 people who are getting on the bus are sort of what we call choice riders who are paying the full price, or if those are 10 people who are getting on the bus, that's their only option and they have other vulnerabilities. We do hope, although it may be too aggressive for me to say this, that by the end of 2024, we have at least partial deployment of automatic counters for seeing when people get off. We don't have the granularity on when people get off what pay model that they used, but at least that will then give us an idea of along the way. This is where people come on, this is where people come off so that we do sort of like real grown up data analysis. I'm sorry, let's see. The, you were mentioning Katma. So we have now got city wide for larger developments transportation demand management requirements, and they're ongoing so our have you looked or worked with the planning office of people who are doing the permitting of the new developments to have got these new requirements to encourage them to get their folks out of the buses. I can suggest you. I can tell you, I don't think that there's coordination between that energy and tea. At least not that I'm aware of. I would, I would plead with you to do everything you can and you would like some assistance from city councilor. Well, you know, it is interesting to me because, for example, I heard some of the new apartments complexes in Colchester, you know, we're able to get reduced parking requirements because of access to public transit. And I'm like, you know, I don't know what you're doing there. I wonder how they're doing that. And so, yeah. Yeah, I That would be it would be very helpful with a regularized process by which you got information. So they, you know, whoever you can you have to do outreach to a developer to an owner to a business. That would be great. I can tell you that I think that that totally makes sense. I will certainly shape and I hope that this is something that you could perhaps guide me a little bit on how we can go about it. Sure. And although at the same time I know that I would be hesitant to create any thing that would be perceived as another barrier for all we got to get jam to sign off or the apartment. No, this is more like they, they've got to do, they got to choose between list of options and, and it's part of their permit. So it's public information. Access that's going to be able to get you a hold of that. It's kind of done that. We don't act on that on the outreach or to the current writers about the changes and because there's a lot of logistical changes. Yes. What are you doing for. Thank you for asking about that. So I was supposed to mention it. We will have additional temporary staff starting in November and going through the end of January that we'll be doing outreach events throughout the region. Or we'll be advertising, you know, hey, come down, create your bus pass so that on January 2nd, you know, you'll have it if you're ready to go. We're bringing on temporary staff to staff those. And so I'm guessing I hope the weather is nice because there will be folks, you know, working on the platform. And that's when we'll be able to talk to them about how it's going to work, if I'm signed up. We are also working to get videos on how to use the system and have it translated in different languages. So that we can reach people who are not native English speakers. And if Jamie, our marketing person, he or she could go down the list of other things, but those are sort of the big ones. I think that, you know, one of the things that amazes me about signs is how we've become so used to not seeing them. And so there will be signs inside all of the buses. There will be signs as the downtown transit center. And I'm sure that unless we have people like, you know, almost cold calling, hey, get your, get your smart pass. I don't think we'll be surprised by that. What do you mean we're going back to Paris? So, you know, I have to do that. My, my suggestion is actually put people on the buses. Maybe in November and or for the month of December to let people know. We have so lucky because we've got an AmeriCorps this employee whose job is riding the buses. Exactly. So she's, she is. Excellent. Last question is College Street. The College Street shuttle is still free. Yes, does that happen? Do we have any, we have put monies in the past into three routes? I think that we're still figuring out which route we want. Correct. Yeah. The Council historically has approved a budget that's allowed the College Street shuttle to be free or was now the Merge College Street Shuttle and Southern Circulator. Yeah. So the problem is the portion of that route is free. You also pass a resolution looking to make the Old North End loop free as part of the North When you ski Avenue effort. For both of those, we've asked GMT to give us what that's going to cost as of January. And we're going to measure that against our assessment and see if we can, our budget and money for the assessment, see if we can afford that. And it's possible that we're going to have to pick one or the other or modify the fares on those. But we're going to have to have that conversation for January. And Chapin, the way you so wonderfully worded that makes me think that we haven't given you that information yet. That's the way that's okay. That's why you're here. Yeah. So that we can make sure that all these things are taken care of, right? Yeah. I can tell you a lot. The thing that worries me is when we return to fares having that awkward situation where, all right everybody, we're past the free point. Everybody on the bus has to get up and pay a fare now. And that's, you know, I'm not sure how we're going to resolve that. And we're going to have a similar situation. I should have mentioned earlier with one of our commuter rounds because Tri Valley Transit does some of the runs during the day. We do some of the runs during the day, and it's going to be this awkward situation where, unless we wave that, you know, people will have to know which are the free rides. Luckily, that doesn't generate enough ridership that if we were to wave that, that would be a significant possibility. I had quite some basic questions. Will I couldn't glean from the memo whether or not if someone transferring would have to pay with the $1, $2 fare covered the transfer as well? The transfers will no longer be covered. And that's why we went with the daily cap of two rides being the cap for the day. So that one ride may cost $4? Yes. And so the one one way traffic is going to be a place where people are going to be. We believe that most of our riders are round trip riders. But for folks who say use the bus to get into work and then have other means to get home, right, they potentially would have that. So I'm thinking about like school riders. And that was my next question is there's a relationship between GMT. And in the growing to school school district, and I'm wondering, you know, some of those riders who may ride the bus in the morning, the school out. Yes, you know, other circumstances. So then then I'll just sort of parlay that question into how will the new system work for going to school district? They'll still get on show their ID and have a free ride and they want me to have any type of pass. One of the things that I'm not crazy about is that like I wouldn't like for that past or for that to be able to do that at any time. The school has kind of wanted us to limit it for liability purposes to, you know, just adjacent to school hours. So I know we're still working on that. Thanks. So, so basically no changes for that. The other thing I was thinking about is really it kind of it's come up with like part mobile. There's a demographic demographic of users who are like a burst of part mobile because they don't have they don't use their smartphones. Wow. And I know that it works great. Yeah, I don't think essentially. And I'm not going to generalize. I know in a way. All right, let me know when it doesn't work. A number of older older users that want to park and I know that Jeff Padgett parking is coming up with a potential system to address that. I'm wondering about like the demographic of the bus ridership, whether or not there's older users who may not be as tech savvy and may have a version and they would be, you know, unintentionally sort of penalized for that tech. But there's anything that that GMT is contemplating to address. What I would recommend that they do is that they just get the smart pass and because then they can have all the price protections. And if they just the smart pass, you can add a credit card or debit card to it so you never set it up once again. But again, it's a credit card. The, we were talking before about the smart passes requiring payers with cash to go to the transit center, but if they are, if they are paying their smart pass with a debit or credit card they'll ever have to go to. And so what I would that's what I would expect that will be asking people when we have the events is what do you feel more comfortable with. Because the other thing that's nice about the card is, is my understanding this is that since it's a proximity sensor instead of having to want to swipe through, I could potentially just have it my wallet going out. You know, and so I ask people, is that the experience they want or they want to wave their phone. And I think that many people will want the simplicity of the plastic card that just, you know, they don't have to think about. Will those folks be able to like call GMT in order of a smart card, potentially, and have it like sent to their house that gets out of the bank connection and all of that. Again, for the, for the non cash payers, we'll be able to at the headquarters take the call. Somebody says, hey, I lost my smart pass, we'll turn off the old one, and we'll send them a new one. And that's also the benefit of the system where, you know, if you paid 40 bucks for your monthly pass, you lost it. And my last question is really around the potential effect of legislative action on this, this plan. I mean, I'm thinking about the legislative session doesn't begin till January that you're anticipating the start of January. Yeah. So this will be in effect or regardless of or something like this will be in effect regardless of any action the legislature would. Yes, they require that we provide them our plan by December 30 because they wanted to see what that will look like. And yes, their, their expectation is that by the time they come back in session, they're pretty well in comparison. I can tell you that I'm worried that it may be more like February 1, because one of the things I'm finding in my new gig is that everything takes longer than I expect and transportation. And I thought that I had a handle on understanding government systems from the human services side and transit is slower. So, yeah, we may be more like February. Well, I don't have anything. February for this to go. Yeah, yeah. What we don't want to do is start to have a couple. We know that we're going to have one shot to have this work correctly for folks to, you know, be like, okay, I think we've got this. Do you need to get the trans approval of that? If we wanted them to pay for the lost fair revenue, we would have to get their approval, but we're going to take it out of reserves. If we can't do it. So there's a huge incentive for us to do it. 66,000 a month. And is there still work on the sustainable funding. There is. I can tell you that. So Vermont public transportation association was asked to provide a study with recommendations on how to obtain non federal match. I think that their leadership has taken a position that went to link over funds there being extremely conservative about what they're asking for. And so I think that they are playing on making a recommendation that would only generate between one and five million statewide to be distributed. And so I don't suspect that that is going to help us. Significantly is that in terms of reintroducing bears or not. And so I think that their hope is that this would be the classic note of intent. You know, and then once a mechanism is placed that potentially expand but I think that the going into the second year of a session. With a governor who's openly hostile about new revenue sources. I have a feeling that a better long term solution become, you know, at a different session. My prediction, just to show you my cynicism is that just as we have perfected our fair system. That we'll go back to signal fair. And this will just be a character building exercise. Coming up to us today. Thank you always happy to talk to y'all and Chapin. I see it twice in the same day. It is and I think just to finish up the war is going to be asked to approve the fair plan. Generally it has been positively received by the board and by the public. I am generally supported. There's a lot here that I like the capping, you know, the additional kind of ways to pay, you know, the order over the phone, all these things that we currently don't offer or we didn't offer prior. So I think you all raised some good pieces. I've taken notes. I will see what needs to be worked on in advance work with Clayton, but I expect the board to approve this the next month or two. Thank you so much. And we do have a new commissioner, Andreas Wozo and to a new alternate will Anderson. I was joined Tom Derek also, I've been emailing them collectively. They're going to the new members are getting trained in orientation next week and I'm trying to get them up to speed the best I can. So feel free to email me. Others and I shouldn't be the only conduit to GMT. What? You want more people than just work. Yes. Before we move to our next item, I want to go back to our last item. I asked Maddie, we actually don't see what motion we did. Cause I know I seconded it and I had this like. This. I wrote all together. Sounds good to me. Okay. But we are. We'll be on record as having voted. I thought I heard it both. Okay. Well, we have the recording. Our next item is the North Moosky Avenue update. Turn over to Chief. There's a memo in your packet. We're proposing a plan to continue support to me. House centers, their efforts to look at off street parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, parking and parking. There's a bunch of information in the memo. There's a proposed motion given the time. Nope. See if you have any questions. A, any, any. I would like to read. An email that I got on to a telephone call I got from the stolen auto. Today's. He getsро format or conversation minutes ago. from 8 a.m. to it's 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and we've been here for four years. We have deliveries almost every day and sometimes many times during the day. Snap-on tools got a $75 ticket on August 8th from the parking enforcement for delivering a tool because he was parked in the street with four-way flashers on for a couple of minutes. This person never got a car. I mean, the parking enforcement person took a picture of the truck and sent a ticket in the mail. I will have Snap-on Appeal for a refund and have him send you a copy as well, which I did get. We need a solution to this. Our business is suffering from the lack of parking for customers and now for deliveries. We need a journal. I think that we need to have a loading zone or some clear. I thought that we weren't going to be enforcing until September and so the idea that a business getting a delivery, having their delivered get a $75 ticket, 8th of August in a run-up to this. This isn't good. Even if it were all legit, I think that what she told me is not in here, but that the delivery zone is on the other side of street is too far away. Basically, you're talking about deliveries of heavy stuff. So the need to be able to make a delivery on the street just like FedEx runs in, even when they're not a part of the right side of the street. They do it all the time. I think that we need to create a loading zone so that they can run their business. As a biker, sometimes I've got to move out into the street or something changes. I think that particularly given the still the low bicycle traffic on that street that it will not be a bad thing as we, particularly as we made this transition. So that would be my question. We get this company, I don't know, a business delivery zone so that they can get their stuff and not get driven out of business. We're not forging this and we'll take it. Because I don't know that. Great. Cher, do you want to focus on the issue that was on the agenda? Or do you want me to respond to that? How do you? Thank you. You're welcome to respond. I think as a general update, you will get it to that, to the issue. But please respond. Yeah. No problem. It's helpful to get feedback on how this is rolling out. I think if I understand the person, the truck was parked in the bike lane. We do not have anywhere in the city where we permit parking in a travel lane, whether it be a motor vehicle lane or a bicycle lane. There was a process to look at where the loading zone should be. I can look back and see where the dolmens requested to have the loading zone on the other side of the street. If they can't pull into the driveway or use the loading zone, we can explore other solutions. We had promised warning tickets for people who did not comply with time limited parking restrictions. That's the language that was put in the memo. That's what we have gone and committed with. And this sounds like it was not a time limited parking violation at a time limited space. It was a parking in a bike lane. So that's why they got the $75 ticket. We did reduce the time limited violations down to $20. This wasn't a time limited violation. So I'm happy to follow up with whatever additional information there is. And I can look if they did park in a bike lane, that is city ordinance. We could look at changing city ordinance, allowing parking in bike lanes. Probably a slippery slope, but that's, I think, why the situation occurred the way it did happen at the bottom. When I was talking with her, a Benix truck pulled up to my neighbor on the wrong side of the street, right? There's no parking on the street. It's a, it's a travel lane. He got out, he delivered parking. I see it happen all over the place. It's a short operation. I would, I just forwarded you this material. I would ask that you support a the interest of good community, you know, service in this transition that you, you see, they're going to appeal that you weigh in with the city attorney's office to weigh in the client. I think that I would also ask that you reach out to the Dolan's and figure out a solution to what I think is going to be probably say that the other truck unloading or the unloading zone is too, too short a period of time. It's only in the morning and it's always full. It's what she said. Time to verify that. Okay. Ask. Yeah. But you do that. Sure. We can absolutely reach out and we can absolutely change the hours of a truck loading zone if requested by a Jason. I would just add to this that I, as a North Avenue user, I see this practice with delivery trucks and others parking in the bike lane to make, because there's nowhere for them really to pull off. So this is, even if it is against city ordinance, I think it is a common practice. Not that it doesn't make it right. I'm just saying that this is what they're used to doing. Right. So we could be more explicit or we could update the ordinance or whatever we need to do. Clearly, there's a discontinuity there that needs to be addressed. I would agree that during this transitional period, we should be a little bit more unique on people getting used to the configuration. And it was an oversight on my part to think that, I mean, I think you're right. I mean, it was for time limited parking, but I would, I would maybe be even more generous than some of the difference. I would, I would love that. I think that the sensitivities that exist around this, the content, their continued opposition to it. And I do not think that it does the comprehensive transportation strategy any good to have the conflicts that are easily applicable. So I would, I would agree with you on that 100% to I'm going to great pivot to our topic here around trying to further the off-suite parking efforts of community health center. So, so can you talk a little bit more about, I know it's in the memo here, but for those who are reading the memo might be watching what happened and how this came about, and then we can go to the action. Sure. City staff been working with CHC as well as some city counselors, including Councilor Bergman, Councilor Paul, to try to find ways to help the community health center has a lot of employees. They've been traditionally using on-street parking for their employees. And as we all know, on-street parking has been constrained with the installation of the bike lane. So at first we ran a $15,000 grant program that you all helped us allocate funds to several groups, including CHC, the community health centers. And CHC has done some geotechnical work. They had originally thought that they had to provide access to this additional parking through their lot and not through any adjacent lot, but in further conversations with other property owners. There's receptiveness to having access through others lots, as long as it's just for staff and wouldn't be coming and going of the public every day. So that has opened up an opportunity to look at design solutions that are simpler and potentially cheaper than the million dollar proposal that they had designed from their consultant. So we in good faith would like to offer some planning design funds to go back and do some additional design work and geotech work to understand these cheaper, simpler solutions could be viable. We have a little for funding for construction, both CHC as well as the city. We haven't gotten a lot of traction. Having found good fits, it's likely since this is a private lot for private use, i.e. their employees, it's going to be harder to find public grant funds. And as such, this is one way we can help leverage some public funding for them with the understanding that then this cheaper option would be theirs to construct if it's viable. I support that. You do as well. I get to move the proposed motion as stated. I will second that. I guess I would like clarification for you go down. Who will be authoring the concern issued by the request for the staff? You're I'm happy to do it either way. So if it's your preference, staff, staff, take care of the draft and forward it to committee members to. OK, yeah. I mean, this goes. This is approved by the board. By the board, it's small enough to make it there. I believe so. And then, well, I don't. Yeah, I believe that that's correct. I think that's the only place that needs to be approved. Yeah. Yeah. OK. I'm happy to. To move in. Specially to two members. Got it. Yeah, OK, so now we're in favor. So I know this is. I. I mean, there's only two of you very much. When I say seconds, it's sort of the same, right? Yeah. OK, so appreciate the time. And I will follow up with Dolan's and King Jane. Good day. I mean, so what I'm going to do is send a is say that I had this conversation I'm doing to the people I asked, or I really would you with that say that you were going to follow up with them and I'm going to include the driver who I've said you need to appeal. You know, that's the process we there's no other way to go about dealing with that. Our next item is the director's report. I'm good. Thank you. Councilor updates. So I I see these electric bikes all around the city, sometimes parked in the middle of a part of a sidewalk. I would like an update. I just I see them parked all the way to place. I've only seen a few people riding them. So I really like to know what is a bird. So the bike is is doing. And then I had a list of other things that I just think that we need to get in front of us again. And it could well be actually that a conversation about TDM would be good in light of the conversation that we've had on. G.I.T. Because. Deadletters. But you brought up the bird, bird, like I said, similar questions about the fact that they are everywhere. I wanted to believe that. That they are. Yeah, I would have to bring a report to the next meeting. I don't have the numbers in front of me. So I can't speak to it. I don't know, Maddie, if you have anything, I know Julia and Rob and I have been kind of point people. So and in with regard to your the other ideas for scheduling, I think those are definitely in the hopper. And we're sort of working through those things. Yeah, as we can, depending on I've written down the bike share piece, I'll add the TDM to our planning documents so we don't lose that request. Great. Maybe TDM's. It was either maybe to sustain one. Maybe it's. You know, I think we could think about. How, you know, how we can organize it. Yeah, there are a lot of there are a lot of pieces and parts and and yeah. So that that might. I don't have anything conditioning on next meeting. 926 to work for everybody, I think so. I think once again, I left my phone on my kitchen table. Can we get this room? Yeah, I've already put that for. Yeah, that's what. So I got. And then with no further business, I will adjourn us at six fifty six. Twenty six minutes later than I intended, but we we we gained 20 minutes on the forum. They kind of squandered it also. So it's a good delivery process. Thanks, folks. Thanks.