 I've got 6.02 on Monday, March 20th. I'm going to call to order this meeting of the Wenduski City Council. Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance led by Deputy Mayor Thomas Frenner. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. So next up, we have a gender review. Any order questions, concerns? No. OK. So we are on to public comment section of our meeting. This is the portion of our meeting where folks who are here are not for an item on the agenda. So if you are here for something on tonight's agenda, please wait for that time. We will start public comment with Eric Gravin. Did I get that right? Yep. All right. If you want to introduce yourself and you may make comment. My name is Eric Gravin. I'm supposed to get the Wi-Fi wait? Yeah. Just one second. I'm trying to connect the Wi-Fi. If you wanted to try and handle a house keeping. Which one? I'm going all the way down. Let me double check if there's anyone in the city hall. Anyone I need to promote in the. While you're getting set up, is there anyone on Zoom who is here for public comment? Or you can use the chat or raise hand feature. And anyone else in the room? I think you're all here for items. Yeah, go ahead. So how do I connect to that? Do you have a problem with them? Like Safari? Probably. That's the one with the compass. Type in Google.com. OK, looks like you're connected. So you should be able to launch it wherever it is. All right. Oh, it's on my dog's arms. All right, so I'm going to join the Zoom. Right, so I'm going to go to one of these. I'm going to put it in here, watch it through here. Do you want me to send it to you again? Well, could join the Zoom, and then. I'll just send it to you again. OK, let's turn it up. Do you want to take the minutes or do the consent agenda? Can we do that? I guess, well, we could go back and review the agenda. All right, so while we're getting this organized, we will come back to public comment. So for the consent agenda, we have city council and liquor control board minutes of March 13th, the payroll warrants for February 5th and February 19th, the accounts payable warrant for February 28th and March 15th. I'm going to separate these out, given your term, Charlie. So are there any questions on the consent agenda items? All right, can I have a motion to approve item A, the city council and liquor control board minutes of March 13th? So moved. Motion by Thomas, second by Aurora. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Items B and C, the warrants. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Motion by Bryn, second by Aurora. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And those abstaining? Abstain. Thank you. OK, that is the consent agenda. Elaine, do you need another moment? I'm trying to get me the link so I can try to share it from here. You want to handle the first agenda item, the finance commission appointment? Sure. Well, we can do council reports while we're waiting. Aurora, would you like to start? Certainly. So on March 14th, we had a meeting of the State Public Connected People Commission. The primary discussion during that meeting was a detailed review of the work that's been done over the course of the last fiscal year in the departments of Fire Police and our community service. And then discussing thinking about priorities going forward. There's a lot of great discussion, and there was the feel of thinking about the items of equity, child care, slash access to early education, access to mental health, and health care, as well as recruiting and retaining Fire Police slash emergency services personnel. Bryn has more detailed information that will be in the notes and brought to the strategy and priority meeting in May. We went a little bit more than three or four, I think, was the request, but we saw special leading items around equity kind of tying into some of the other priorities. OK. If you can share notes, each of you, with me, I'll put them together, and we'll actually get those on a council agenda so we can see them all when all the commissions are done. Thank you. Anything else? The next inclusion and belonging commission is going to be appropriate. OK. And for municipal infrastructure, we met March 16. And similar to State Philopathy and Connected, we primarily focused on strategies and priorities, what's been accomplished to date, as well as what we have capacity for in FY24. The group is really interested in moving forward for primary areas for the council to consider for further ordinance, build out, or other policy build out as appropriate, with primary interest being for protection of green space, city-owned green spaces, furthering some language, ordinance language, or as appropriate, promoting green belts. And as there's streets that are paved and have curbing go in, building those out, as well as potentially having some green belts or bull barn effects, where there's a green way that's a dividing line down the road. So there was a great amount of interest in that. And then other additional areas that they want to have additional consideration in conversation, either at the council level or with other commissions, was on energy code compliance within the city for new construction, especially for renovation of existing homes, as well as any salvage yard regulations. So while it's not an issue now, it's within the authority and jurisdiction of the city to develop that legislative adoption and preventive for potential future salvage yard adoption. So the group had really good attendance, which was exciting to see. And the next meeting will be April 20. Thank you. Finance Commission didn't have quorum. So we did not have this discussion. It got rescheduled to the 28th. And Councillor Oakleaf is filling in. Yes. Because I'll be recording in the world when you see that evening. Planning Commission meets on Thursday at 6.30. They are continuing the discussion on parking regulations and historic preservation incentives. I think their following meeting, so the first meeting in April, is when they'll have their priority discussion. I was actually unable to attend downtown one of these last meetings. But they are just continuing their work and searching for a new executive director. Anything to report? Not in so far. I'll be on a commission after today, I think. So hopefully. Potentially, yes. Potentially. All right. Thank you. Are we good to go back to public comment? I'm just going to play it off my computer here. Sure. Are you in the Zoom? I don't think so. No, he doesn't have it installed. And I didn't want to do that to his computer or something. OK. I couldn't get it to launch from the ground. I'm not very technologically savvy, so. Do you want to? Well, the audience is right there. You guys have all seen the video. Yeah, I got it. Yes? You guys haven't? OK, so the only piece behind it. Where's the Zoom camera at? Right there, facing you. OK. If you, I mean, you could point it to the camera and then they can all see. OK, yeah, cool. Yeah, that works for me. Well, they didn't even think of that kind of slow. OK. Hey, stop the fucking car and become the lights on. Oh, you want to say it's stupid to call me over? When the fucking lights are on, yes. Right. OK. What? What did I do for you guys to want to call me over? You're upset, you need it. OK, A, give back the car. OK? Car, it's my driveway. All right. What do you want? You're all my property. Did I say just to be Eric Garner's residence? You're out, Eric Garner. Let me talk. You're not behind. Sir, give back the car for me. No. I'm talking to you. What's the cost of everything? All right. What's your house number? Why do you bother me right now? Quarter of buying an MBA for a file supplementary just to go. OK. Don't reach your pocket. OK? Just talk to me. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Hey, motherfucker. Don't. Hey, hey, don't you fucking me like that. I'm not the fucking one. Don't fuck with my shit. That's it. You're like that. You're so annoying. That's not all. Don't touch my shit. All right. No, I was the fucker. You break my shit, you fucker. Turn around. Turn around. Turn around. OK? Turn around. Turn around. No, you're not here to come. Wait. I don't need you. I don't need you. I'm out. Are you done? Yeah. So I can see your hands. Thank you. They keep them there. It's dark out so I can see what's going on. We'll give them 10 a minute, OK? Yeah, no, we'll give them 10. I don't want to do this. I'm going back to school. All right. So what do you guys want? OK. You did your job. What are we doing now? Oh, you're going to give me a message. Turn around now. Here, let me get on the shoes. What do you want? What do you want? All right. Give me my battery. I don't need your phone. I just want the best fucking screen. I don't want to settle until right here. That's Millerfield. You're resting right now. I don't need you. You just don't arrest me. You haven't read my rights. I'm a fucking idiot. He doesn't need to if he's not asking you a question. Put him in the car. No, get in the car. You're under arrest for alerting police. So you put on his lights and started. You didn't start? What are you talking about? What happened? You're a fucking idiot. Is that the chart? All right. And we'll give you I feel tomorrow. OK. OK. We'll deal with it there. Well, since you want to talk properly, what's this going to happen? Do you try now that she doesn't have weapons? OK. So listen. So Miles just put on his blue lights way back in West Spring Street. OK. And then he started. They can hear it on the radio when he did try himself. OK. So it wasn't in the driveway. I can hear it. You know. And I can tell you right now, Justin, you're not in good standing with the courts right now. Our state's turning. We are 100% against right now. She's 100% against us. And you have some follow-up comments, right? Yes, I do. That was a that was a very short video that I sent to the city council. Well, like four days ago, five a week ago, I actually have a two hour long one that I created that I sent to everybody as well. Has anybody had a chance to view that yet? It's all the footage. It's all the video. I outlined all the violations that took place when they took place and how they took place. So I'm just going to take a moment to read what my comment is and then I'll be out of the way. I come before the city council and members of the public to discuss police training and oversight based on my knowledge of the law as well as from my personal experience on March 22nd, 2022 with Sergeant Bova, Field Training Officer Dugan and Officer Sharif of the Winooski Police. I've been a resident of Winooski for four years before this council and the public to discuss the funding of police training due to a clear system of police corruption in Winooski that I found myself defending myself against in court for which all charges were dismissed. I had only spoken to the police one time in the years I had lived in Winooski until March 22nd, 2022 and that was when I unknowingly provided chief Hebrew video evidence of my neighbor, the mayor's father-in-law coming onto my property to an attempt to steal my political yardstone that you'd not agree with. He would have been successful if it were not for my other neighbor catching me doing it and bringing it to my attention. Chief Hebrew did nothing with my complaint. I come today in good faith that I will be heard and not deny my right to petition my government for redress of grievances for the unlawful arrest and detainment of my person by Winooski Police and the subsequent cover-up of these officer's actions by Chief Hebrew and city manager Elaine Wayne when I brought it to their attention. I fear that this intended objective to cover for their subordinates only fuels their officer's desires to continue their unlawful practices and is a huge miscarriage of the budget that exists due to our tax dollars. I fear that unchecked more tax dollars will be wasted in poor training and on financial compensation to officers that knowingly intentionally, deliberately and willfully violate the rights of the residents of Winooski. What is very evident to me is that since these behaviors have gone unchecked, I have now become a target of Winooski Police as they retaliate against me and harass me. I've sent you numerous videos of that in email. For example, on January 9, 2023, 30 minutes after an interaction with Sergeant Bova, I came home to two Colchester police officers stuck in my home. On March 4, 2023, Officer Willingham followed me numerous blocks to my home, stopped at the end of my driveway for 12 seconds, activated his alley light pointed at my house and took off as I went to see why he was there. On March 6, 2023, I took my 18-year-old stepdaughter to the police station to report an adult online desiring to rape my 10-month-old granddaughter. Officer Willingham chose to do nothing with this information until it was learned that we had contacted the agency involved to check the status of the investigation. They never received any such report. Then only after this failure came to light was an attempt made to contact my stepdaughter. These are three examples of many I've recorded regarding these officers failure to perform their duties as outlined in all policies, laws, state annotations, or any other governing documents to societal detriment. My experience cannot be one-time occurrence as is evidenced by the casual way in which these officers knowingly chose to perform the duties they were sworn an oath to in contradiction to their oath and in my protected rights. This is also evident by the fact that at no time during this experience did any of these officers report the other for their unlawful behavior but only covered it up. I believe with the help of the chief of police, the internal affairs investigators, and quite possibly Elaine Wang, something that a full investigation will uncover if this investigation was not hidden from the public, public eye as so many are. On March 23rd, 2023, Sergeant Bova was on scene for 60 seconds before he made the impulsive decision to fabricate charges on my person without even first taking the time to become fully informed and appraised cases. Sergeant Bova failed Sergeant Bova without knowledge of the scene found jurisdiction for performing the unlawful rest of my person who was the object of field training officer do against unjustified irritation which resulted in his unlawfully detaining me and depriving me of my first and fourth amendment rights. A clear case of contempt of cop based on Sergeant Bova's comment that I get or I he wanted to talk or cooperate. The lack of proper police training and oversight as result in and rogue officers victimizing the citizens of Winooski in my case I spent over $5,500 in nine months fighting the not excuse me I spent over $5,500 in nine months fighting the not to be fighting to not be another victim of Winooski police corruption in closing of the public officials but my fear does not exceed my morals and values so I implore this council to investigate my claims not just via a strictly bureaucratic approach but rather as elected officials with a sworn oath of office to uphold the constitution for we the people. Thank you. Thank you. As I shared as you know I think that I'll be following up on and one of us will be in touch. With that we're on to city updates. Elaine do you want to promote me to the panels? What's that? Did you promote me to the panels? I thought I did. City updates for March 20th, 2023. So a reminder that the city clerk's office hours are temporarily changed. They're open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays, closed on Tuesdays. We currently have several job openings. Please learn more and apply at Winooski dot gov dot jobs. That doesn't seem right. Jobs dot Winooski dot gov. And Winooski Recreation and Parks are hosting a pickleball tournament on Saturday April 8th, 2023 at the Winooski School District Gym. This tournament is open to all abilities. Community members will be provided with the best sportsmanship even best dress teams and more. It's $30 to sign up. All registration proceeds will be donated to the Recreation and Parks Scholarship Fund. That's all. All right. Thank you. So we're moving into our regular items and the first thing is on for discussion approval a finance commission appointment. Angela, you want to introduce? You do that. I don't see that Januka has joined us. She's here in the room. There's nice come up Januka. So the chair of the finance commission myself and her personal for the inclusion and belonging commission all introduce Januka and made our recommendations to the mayor. We all think that Januka will be as an alternate with the term expiring to 30 2024. Thanks, Angela. Januka, do you want to come introduce yourself? At the microphone, please. Hi, everyone. My name is Januka Acharya. I've been Winozki resident for about eight years. I was out for a few years but then came back to Winozki. I decided to join the finance commission because I've been here for so long but Winozki has offered me so many things and now I think it's my obligation to give back to the community. So and my experience I working as a finance personnel I think I have a lot to give in the finance commission. Thank you so much. Thank you for your interest. Anyone have any questions for Januka? Do I have a second? Motion by Brin second by Aurora all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Motion carries thank you. Item B this is on for discussion this school year 2022 audit presentation. Yes John Blay is in the attendees list. John is our improvement to bring him over now. John welcome. I'm sorry I thought you said or using the dial by phone option. No still no good. Oh I thought I heard something just said. I can hear you. John I can partially hear you. It's kind of cutting in and out. Maybe if he holds up the speaker. John can you hear us? Testing one two. We can hear you. Oh I can hear you now. Okay okay great. It's awesome. Just plug my headphones back in. It is it is. Okay okay good. Thanks for having me on today. I'll just go through some things. It just got really quiet. Could we just turn it up a bit? That's good enough. Okay it's time to speak up too. So thank you for having me here today. I just wanted to start by saying thank you to Angela for being so responsive and giving us the documents that we requested. It was it was a remote audit this year. So she's been very helpful you know emailing and just very interactive and it's made the whole process go very smooth and efficient. It's been great. So I've just prepared a FY 22 audit that I'd like to go over. You know what I usually do is look at prior years compared to this year and kind of go through some of the you know major differences that I noted and you know we'll go through some of the notes that are you know further down in the audit. Great. So I've got the audit in front of me. I don't know if anybody else does but I do have notes on mine. They received a copy right after it came out. So they've had it since late December early January. Perfect. Perfect. So I will start on statement E which is on page 24. You know this is your income statement. Basically shows revenues, expenses, any changes in fund balance. And what I like looking at on this schedule right here is all the way to the right you've got the total section and I go to the bottom the third number from the bottom on the right that 815,000. You know that's the increase in total fund balance over a prior year and that's a good increase. And I will go through some of the smaller funds that make up that increase. I would say the general fund is where most of that increase came from and that was you know intergovernmental revenues. Expenses seem to be about the same. So that intergovernmental revenue, that 1.63, 4 million, that's a much bigger number than in prior year. And as if you can see at the bottom the excess or deficiency of revenue and other financing sources the general fund fund balance increased 1.37 million as well. Going to the TIF downtown fund you know there's a decrease of 134,000 and I believe that is just you know higher bond and no principal payments. It's that 2.438 million and in prior year it was a little less 2 million I believe don't know the exact number but definitely a little higher this year and I think that's where that decrease came from. I'll skip over the community development loan fund it's 12,000 you know it's a really material in the grand scheme of things but moving on to that capital reserve fund there was a decrease of 413,000 you know which isn't awful and I would say that is mainly due to the public works expenditures the 921,000 and this year you know that was just the biggest increase in expenditures in that fund that I know of so you know regardless of those decreases in the middle of this document you know the overall fund balance at the end of the year increased by around 815,000 one thing to note for council that fund balance increases primarily due to the receipt of well that's like the last note on my notes list is the single audit so you know every year if you receive over 750,000 or if you spend over 750,000 in grant state grant funds or federal grant funds sorry you know we have to do a single audit and this year we ended up doing ARPA you know didn't find any material weaknesses no significant deficiencies so that was very smooth statement H which is on page 28 now this is another income statement you know with changes in that position for the proprietary funds you know water sewer parking and again I'll go over the fund balance in this one as well so that total column all the way at the bottom third number from the top changed around 638,000 decreased around 638,000 from prior year now I did look at prior year and I did note that last year there was also a decrease a little less than this but you know typically in the same range and as I look at the total net position that you have I mean it's it's a lot so I'm not too worried about that either you know I think that that large difference came from you know the purchase services and the parking fund the purchase services and the parking fund were around 300,000 you know in prior year I don't know I don't I don't recall if it was zero but it was very it was a lot less than that and that was the biggest difference out of this whole schedule that I noted and those are the payments to the developer for the lot 70 hotel and parking so yeah I mean if that's if that's a one-time thing then I don't expect you know that fund balance to decrease much more than 600,000 in subsequent years so I'm not I'm not worried about that that that takes care you know the proprietary funds I'm moving to page 42 now now this is when I will get into some of the notes to the financial statements some more detail you know page 42 letter B receivables you know this small schedule basically you know shows what you're receiving as a governmental activity versus a business type as in you know water, sewer and then this the only note I have for this one is if we look at the grants line you receive 1.1 million in grants that was the most significant change that I noted from prior and again most likely due to the ARPA funds and there's probably some other you know grant funds that were received that could have a that would take care of that one I'm moving to page 65 now now I did at the beginning I did talk a lot about the fund balances and you know the difference for prior year you know this statement or this note to the financials talks about the breakdown you know what's in governmental activities versus business type activities and the only note I have for this is the restricted this was the large difference from prior year that I noted it increased drastically and you know having more net position fund balance is always a good thing especially as a large city municipality so that's a good thing to see increase there skip into page 79 page 79 is the budget to actual schedule schedule 1 basically compares budgeted amounts for revenue expenses compares them the actual shows the difference and the only note I have for this you know we do look in detail at every single line sometimes and say oh you know some were overspent some were underspent at the end of the day I look at the excess of revenue over expenditures and that total is 61,464 from change expenditures so you know revenues over expenditures is always a good thing you know into these fund balance things like that and yeah that that is you know my that's that's my presentation I mean I did I did have one last note about the single audit that I kind of touched on that earlier we tested the ARPA funds and we had no findings for the audit or the single audit that you are qualified as a low risk audit T and there you know are a couple of factors that play into that you know whether or not the last two years you had a single audit performed and then if there were no findings in the prior two fiscal years then that would also constitute a low risk audit so you know moving forward most likely that would be a yes that you are low risk just because we've done that for a member and you know we haven't we haven't found any major weaknesses significant efficiencies things of that sort so you know overall really healthy really really good shape policies procedures are in place in effective you know I don't I don't have any issues with the town with the city I think Angela is doing a great job over there Excellent Any questions council sorry No I'm open to questions yeah Any questions from members of the public as a reminder if you are in Zoom you can use the chat or raise hand great Christine could I make one call? Yes Elaine go ahead So at one point when Angela was very busy working in the current year preparing for the next audit or for that audit and working on the budget I said is there something that I would like to work for at some point when you're through with this and she said all I need is when the the auditor presents the audit and it's clean that's all the recognition I need so just want to take a moment as long as that That's awesome yeah she's doing a great job I mean you know it's definitely a stressful position but she keeps she keeps us we send out not a checklist every year with for example Assessor A-1 and 2 things like that sort and when she uploads them as that it just makes our life you know 10 times easier so who does Excellent work Angela another clean one in your record book I'm very happy about that okay so let's move on to item C this is the Fiscal Year recommendation so we had actually gone out to bid for the FY22 audit and R.H.R. Smith was the only responsive bidder at that time it was for a term of at least one year with two additional years upon completion of an audit successfully and with no issues we feel good accepting the continuation of this contract additional two years starting in FY23 and also looking forward to FY24 the FY24 contract would be brought to you separately this is strictly for the current year audit contract okay great any questions concerns from council I don't know if it raises a concern but I just noticed that the letter is addressed to the previous city manager and not to the current city manager and I don't know if that needs to be updated so our current city manager Elaine was not yet on board with the audit contract last year so this is new information for them and they can absolutely get updated perfect thank you anything else okay to have a motion to approve the fiscal year 23 audit contract award so moved second motion by charlie second by thomas all those in favor please say aye aye motion approved thank you angela and thank you john thank you very much take care everybody we will move on to item d this is on for discussion approval a charter change to the wanouski memorial library committee hello hello and I think there are likely some folks in the participant list I don't have that pulled up but I know some of the committee members were planning to be here if you are on the committee do you want to raise your hand in zoom and I will move you over excellent and while folks are coming over just a quick table set so as I mentioned back in June 2020 the committee met and sort of laid out their goals for this current year that we're in one of which was to look at creating a youth position for the library committee so Nate and the committee members have done a ton of work over that time to come to where we are today and I'm going to let Nate sort of shepherd things from here if that's alright thanks and thank you committee members for being here really appreciate your presence so as Ray said we've been working with the library committee to create a youth position for the library committee members and we've been working on this probably since July or August and it's been good study work and we have finally I think all come to an agreement on what a position description slash recruitment would look like for when you see youth to join the committee and we're here tonight in front of council to start in red and essentially it is adding language recognizing that a youth member will be hopefully recruited and approved by city council to join the committee awesome thank you and thank you committee members and Nate thank you all for your continued support for the library great change any questions from council good to see it my one question is I appreciate kind of the equal opportunity language at the end I'm just wondering if we want it to be kind of more in line with what we've put out for job positions and other commissions just for consistency or if there was a very specific reason why it's slightly different from what we've seen elsewhere yeah that's a good question so we actually talked about what that language would look like among the committee and also I reached out to Paul to ask about city approved language and there were just some different feelings about the especially the use of BIPOC with some acronym among the committee members and everybody people I think for the committee members we thought it was important rather than to use the acronym BIPOC to call out specifically different groups so we were open to hearing from and hopefully recruited to the position and I don't know if any committee members would also like to voice your thoughts on that you're more going to as well I'll just comment because we did want to make sure that the language was specifically inclusive to call out voices that aren't always at the table and call in new voices but also to make sure that anybody who is interested did not feel like they couldn't participate as well so the attempt was really just to make sure to be as inclusive as possible including around the BIPOC terminology that Nate had already mentioned so it was really the attempt to be inclusive as much as possible especially considering we're doing like a younger population I guess I'm just wondering is there other things to add do you have something in mind? we need to add do you have an example or something? I was both thinking about some of the language or are declaration of inclusion which we've been trying to use a little bit more consistently I think but I don't know I guess my thought to is what is most approachable for youth who are coming to work at this position too so I kind of have both of those of like should there be some additional call outs or is this language more accessible? I think specifically around like ability around specifically maybe calling out ethnicity, culture, religion I'm happy to add different language it's not a problem at all I do appreciate kind of the breaking out yeah I would just wonder adding a couple more but otherwise it looks really great and that looks very reading it over it seems like accessible language for folks who might be interested in this type of position yeah go ahead I was going to say we should give some much clearer guidance like I think looking at what is listed here I could see adding disability unless you're suggesting that instead of saying including those who identify as but using the language from the declaration of inclusion that says including all persons regardless of race color religion origin etc oh the declaration yeah I think I can put the link in the chat if I could offer Christine yeah it would probably be less confusing for the community if there was consistency not to undermine the work that the library commission has been putting in over a long period of time that these things sort of happened in parallel I'd say and if there's consistent messaging again consistent messaging or language from the city we'll just replace what we have with that we also wanted to appeal to the younger people who might be applying so that was in the back of our mind so whatever decision I would hope that make it readable so accessible so people who might be interested or so leave the language that is there and maybe add like a link to the declaration of inclusion and belonging like and we welcome all persons etc yeah that section or as listed in the declaration of inclusion and belonging so just add keep the language otherwise as is for that as brings up making it more accessible but still have that link yeah so add a sentence at the end like when you ski welcomes all persons please see our declaration of inclusion yeah with a link that sounds good would you all be okay with that yeah okay okay any other questions you had something yeah just two questions so for eligibility let her go to school I'm assuming that is to be inclusive of home students that are home schooling is that correct okay we just wanted to make sure that I had that and then B in grades 8 through 12 that just read a little it I feel like some clarity of entering grades 8 through 12 just given the timing of September through June so if somebody I don't know when you're planning on doing your recruitment if it's going to be over the summer so they may not have started grade 8 yet but will be entering grade 8 in September yeah so I think the intent was entering correct me if I'm wrong so yeah so that that's a quick change so that was just a minor just two minor things there but that was it for me yeah cause I expect we would do some recruitment probably towards the end of the prior school year and then through the summer for the fall so that's a good catch anything else any questions from members of the public okay do I have a motion to approve the Winnieski Memorial Library committee charter change so moved second motion by Thomas second by Charlie all those in favor please say aye aye motion carries thank you all thanks everyone thank you thank you thank you we are on to item E this is on for discussion or approval a request for use of reserves for hazardous tree removal yeah so this came to our attention based on some community feedback we've gotten around a few specific trees and staff went out and did sort of a insane informal audit and realized there was more than we had realized so we brought in a staff member DJ's tree service which we have worked with over the past few years had them come through and identify you know this group of trees about 20 in the three areas that we felt like were important of health and presenting enough of a public risk that we wanted to have them taken down upon getting that initial quote the bid was above $10,000 which is our bid threshold so we paused the process went back out to bid had three eligible bidders that we received ended up being the low bid after that process and so we are here tonight requesting initially funds to do tree removal that's $12,675 for those 20 trees and then are going to be looking at some alternative funding sources hopefully but make have to come back to address replacement trees as part of our tree ordinance so wanted to start with the removal get that kind of public risk mitigated and then the ordinance gives us two years to deal with the trees so we would be over those next two years looking to replace those Okay Any questions from Council? No So we would just be authorizing at this point the $12,675 For the moment yeah I think we want to go out and see if there's some outside funding that we can bring in for the planting of the new trees and we'll kind of look at that over the next year or so and then come back if not Any questions from members of the public? I did have a quick question Once the trees are removed is there any plan or intention with how to use the trees once they're cut down? So we are going to chip those and try to reuse the chips where we can and we are going to look and see I talked to DJ's the first time they came through so Tom Locotel has been doing some we're working for us maybe able to use I think it's going to be a matter of what's salvageable and whether he could make some more kind of park based amenities out of those but otherwise we're going to try to salvage chips and reuses on like garden paths and things like that so that's the hope Great Yeah I was thinking that there's over by the senior center where some of the garden plots are you can tell there's a foot path that's kind of naturally grown there and some good chips might help mitigate some of the mud to maintain kind of a a little bit of a beautification for that space I will say a few of the trees in particular at Landry and I think one or two of the three in Casvam to remember we did discuss kind of just letting them fall and leaving them because there's enough you know natural space there that's kind of part of the natural cycle of things anyhow so those would not be removed they'd just be dropped but the ones that like the one next to the pool for instance we can't just leave there so that it's okay great all right well here are no concerns does someone want to make a motion to approve this request of use of reserves for hazardous tree removal so moved second motion by Bryn second by Thomas all those in favor please say aye aye motion carries thank you thanks Ray we are on to item f this is the operational overview of city manager clerk's office planning zoning yes it's going to take me a minute to get this to work I'll share my screen oh can you enable screen sharing let's see what I can do can I okay I think I did it just plug into that sorry let's do a five minute recess we will reconvene at 706 so we are trying something a little new this year to help orient a new councillor and to refresh returning members of council staff are presenting overviews of operations over the next several meetings this might also help the public better understand how your local government works so in that vein council please hold your questions unless it's a clarification question until the end of that office's introduction so for council our goal is also to present these overviews and time for you to digest and inform your thinking during the annual council policy parties and strategies retreat which you said earlier sorry can you hear us now Angela or anyone on zoom you're good now okay thank you Angela thank you we'll start over so we're trying something new this year to help orient a new councillor and to refresh returning members of council staff are presenting overviews of operations over the next several meetings this might also help the public understand how your local government works so in that way it's a clarification question so for council our goal is to present these overviews and time for you to digest and inform your thinking during the annual council policy parties and strategies retreat which they set for Saturday May 13th the public is also welcome to attend that it'll be at the senior center I'll acknowledge that we're not in operations every day as is appropriate we did want to remind you of what staff does do on a day-to-day basis again so you have that as context when you're considering whether and what new priorities to add to this coming year starting with the organizational chart today we'll be talking about the city manager's office staff by me the city clerk's office and public safety administration administrative assistant so to start with the city manager's office I am part of the administration department the administration department includes these staff you'll hear from the heads of each of these offices except for assessing because assessing is a contractor an equity which is paused I'm filling in for the city clerk for that office's overview today so on a daily basis the city manager staff's council leads the organization has some finance related responsibilities has some customer service responsibilities has some personnel director responsibilities and has some other roles including the emergency management director acting as a member of the information technology team serving as a point of contact for downhill when you see acting as I'm currently acting as a staff liaison to the housing commission and I also manage the assessment contract that's this year to date we've made progress on this year's council policy priorities and strategies in addition to the day-to-day work that isn't listed at this level so by a vision area that top row all refers to activities that touch on each of the four priority areas you can see all but one of those here the one that's missing is municipal infrastructure since those progress items will be reviewed during the public works during the budget process we supported council advancing planning for when the tax increment financing district expires at the end of FY24 essentially we've allocated those funds by budgeting bridge funding in FY24 and when I see Lee I don't mean it to be a royalty but everything I do is supported by other staff so that's what I mean by week we've also incrementally been growing capacity going on to the next bullet in under all we've been working for diversity equity inclusion work by increasing awareness of equity challenges among the leadership team and starting on department specific activities the next bullet many people have contributed to bringing me on board by sharing knowledge and perspectives with me and giving me the grace of time to learn and experiment including staff council commissioners school staff at Winooski school district and saviors several community we've been trialing next bullet in that under all we've been trialing a stipend for inclusion belonging commissioners as a method to increase access to serving on any of the commissions see how that goes and the next area economic vitality more specific to that area again with reference to the council parties for this year the working community challenges grant was worded to Winooski by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston for the application to promote workforce development through equity especially among our new American community members we've been working towards reforming the so-called core team in their language basically this function of the steering committee reforming that core team will help us determine how best to use those funds I decided not to fill it but to pivot the funds toward a housing position but that did leave a gap in terms of what the economic development officer used to do most of those tests have been redistributed to other positions the function of scanning for grants that proactively or cross-departmentally address Winooski needs is a remaining gap some of the grant writing capacity specific to the housing priorities from council next row down we launched and publicized the housing trust fund program that has been in the works for several years with low uptake and with input from our contracted loan administrator opportunities credit union will be supporting the housing commission considering revisions to that program especially the down payment assistance program if the housing commission does decide to act on those recommendations I'll come back to you as council the citywide reappraisal of property values was required by the state because our homes overall dropped below the threshold level of appraised value compared to fair market value the citywide reappraisal is underway and about on schedule the next bullet we've been supporting efficiency Vermont's efforts to provide energy efficiency services to Winooski renters and landlords just for the as some of you might have seen in the front porch forum post recently and as noted above we are hiring Winooski's first housing initiative director around to interview with a finalist will be tomorrow and then finally regarding council's priorities for safe healthy connected people the last row we are close to finalizing the plan with Champlain Housing Trust for renovating the Brighton Community Center that's just phase one there's still grant raising to do and actual work of course but at least the planning is reaching the last like and we are staying engaged in regional dispatch for emergency services we have had two types of setbacks recently that you will hear about soon once the governing body for regional dispatch has met does anyone have any clarification questions on this slide so for the fiscal year 2024 goals and initiatives for my office most of this will look familiar to the week now and not anticipating that to change much as we on board the housing initiative director and that is a sustainable number of hours for me so I'll just focus on the new items under the all vision area for new items I do recommend a goal for developing and implementing an inclusive community plan for staff similar to the one council has for engagement that is the last item is updated just note that there's a difference there we are planning on a community engagement effort targeting the equity audit findings that the city as an organization can't sell on its own like the finding that we are a welcoming but not inclusive community we can't solve that by ourselves for new items that relate to economic vitality the current downtown executive director is stepping down soon they're anticipating extending an offer soon as for replacement for economic vitality and it's so it's certainly consistent with this vision area that I support their onboarding housing is more or less the same as the current year oh sorry and then for new items that relate to safe healthy connected people our police chief is planning to retire in October so we'll need to recruit on board and support a new one and similarly the superintendent Manuski school districts last day is June 30th of this year and I meet every other week to discuss and advance our shared priorities especially equity Sean McMahon and the current superintendent also helped me helped bring me up to speed when I first started so given our shared service area of Manuski and the huge impact that the school has on our families especially it is consistent with community goals for me to be helping on board the next superintendent so that's all I was going to say about the city manager's office are there any questions all right so the city clerk's office again I'm covering for the city clerk who's on leave so on a daily basis the city clerk processes land records processes payments and invoices processes all licenses for the city including those that are state mandated or locally required provides notary public services to anyone coming in for free stewards all records and provides customer service to walk-ins and phone calls most of which go through the city clerk's office on a less than daily basis they also provide administrative assistance to three other offices and service clerk of the council and of course perhaps the most significant sporadic or occasional responsibility is the office manages elections for the city school regional state and federal votes are there any clarification questions on this matter on this slide because of all the statutory responsibilities the city clerk will be more operational unless at the council level so fiscal year 2023 the one that we're currently in progress on items of note have included supporting the formation of the inclusion and belonging commission and staffing that commission the city clerk stepped up to this when the equity director resigned Jenny Wallingham who is the current city clerk she has led increasing the availability of land records by having them digitized back to the year 2000 departure we have been onboarding a new assistant city clerk Amanda Kasper McFadden this is a particular note because the second assistant Angelina's on the extended lease so it's a challenging time in that office and everyone's really pitching in Janet was supporting the reappraisal so Jenny and Amanda are handling that now together any clarification questions on this slide for fiscal year 2024 goals again most of these are operational and likely won't make it to the council or other level priorities at the point here is to give some idea of what will be occupying this office's time I will say a few a few words about the first and last items so the communications director will discuss the language access plan during his overview at your next meeting and then the last item on here is due to the small number of dogs we have licensed compared to the number of dogs we see out and about log licensing is important because of the deadly nature of rabies those low risk high impact issues that local governments are part of managing since the fatality rate of rabies is almost 100% in humans dog licensing is one way we make sure all dogs are vaccinated for rabies without a license or proof of vaccination responding to a dog by call takes more time than it needs to an anxiety for both the dog owner and the person who was bit any questions on the city clerk's operation okay so with respect to similar outline for all of the departmental overview so if this didn't work for you let me know and we can look at potentially adjusting the remaining ones and I'll pass it over to planning and zoning manager Eric Warwald thank you very much as Elaine mentioned I am Eric Warwald I'm the planning and zoning manager for the city of Winnowski I am also appointed as the city's zoning administrator part I do have support from as Elaine mentioned from the city clerk's and from our public safety administration but for the most part this is all happening within my within my realm so I'm going to talk about this in two departments or two components basically one side being the planning and one side being the zoning the zoning being more of the current what's happening right now in the direction of the department so a lot of what I do with the zoning side is communications with the public this is through emails through walk-ins through phone calls and it's anything from general inquiries to you know what is the zoning of my property you know can I build X on my property can I see the very specific plans for this property that is being redeveloped right now to doing site specific visits and site development proposals things like that multi-million-dollar projects like you see going up all around the city I should mention a lot of these points will kind of tie in together so there I will I may kind of reference some things as as I talk about them jump back and forth so part of the zoning function the current planning function is that land development review and this is really primarily through the zoning applications this includes posting properties for either notice of intent to issue a permit during decisions of the development review board things of that nature it also includes site visits which are pre post development during development to just make sure they are what is being built is consistent with our regulations as far as setbacks building heights things of that nature I provide staff to the development review board which we meet generally once a month the development review board is a quasi-judicial body that really is looking at conditional uses wavers and variances and appeals of decisions that I make so as the zoning administrator so that's one of the bodies that I staff also the project review committee is another entity that I provide staff support for the project review committee is made up of the department heads of the city and we meet specifically two review projects in our gateway zoning district so any of them we meet as a committee to review those projects also in my role as the zoning administrator I provide enforcement of our land use regulations so if anything is happening out there that is inconsistent I follow up with the property owner issue a notice of violation if necessary and also follow that process through to some of the projects that I also follow that process through to some form of conclusion whether that the the property owner decides they correct the violation we do give them the opportunity or if they want to appeal that violation taking that forward to the development review board and then potentially even to the environmental division of the Supreme Court if it gets to that point also in the function of the zoning side property record review and research this is part of a whenever property is sold we do a review of our land records to see if there's any outstanding permits that are still open figure out if they should be closed if they need to be inspected and then closed we also do a review of the assessor cards to make sure that what we're seeing on the application for that property sale matches what we have in our records as well so looking at bedroom counts looking at square footage of the the role that I have on the zoning side any questions about any of that okay so the other function that I serve is on the the planning side the future side of things so this is really more kind of the setting of the policy and kind of following through with some of those aspects so as part of that role I provide staff to the planning commission we typically meet two times a month the planning commission's role is also statutory their primary role is is maintaining the city's master plan adopting the policies for the city and I'll talk a little bit more about that later on they also another role of the planning commission which we've been doing a lot lately is working on amendments to our unified land use and development regulations I would also just like to mention not because I asked him to be here but Connor Daley sitting in the back of the room is one of our members who recognize him because he's here also in my role in the planning function is GIS administration and maintenance our geographic information systems is the basis for the mapping that we do that includes police incident reporting land development tracking and mapping mapping and tracking property sales all of our infrastructure not all of our infrastructure a lot of our infrastructures also included in that GIS to make sure they're accurate and can be used to make maps like the one that's sitting on the table there so that's part of what I do as the planning side also a lot of what I do in the capacity from planning is amendments to our land development regulations it's a living document so we like to make sure that it's current either with state statute when the legislature makes changes that we sometimes also make changes that are that help improve clarity for people that are using the document we want to make sure that the residents that are trying to figure out how to develop the property can understand this our land use regulations as well to the best ability as possible and also so that somebody that's interpreting them the future zoning administrators that are interpreting these regulations can do it easily so there's not a lot of not a lot of gray area want to be able along with along with that I also do some some project oversight for consultant projects that we have where we generally what that involves is the our we get funding through the regional planning commissions unified planning work program so right now we are working on a a walk bike master plan in the past as you may recall we did a parking study those are projects that I would provide oversight for from the city's perspective not necessarily the day-to-day project management we're making sure that the city's needs are being met through those efforts and finally master plan development and progress tracking the master plan is really the city's primary policy document that sets the general policy for the city this is something that's outlined in statute in order for us to have things like zoning to have standing in Act 250 in section 248 to be able to get us some grant funding we need to have a master plan that is consistent with state statute so one of the roles I play as planning and zoning manager on the planning side is working with the planning commission to update that document it's it gets updated every eight years our last master plan was adopted in 2019 so we're coming up on our four-year check-in with the regional planning commission so we'll start generally we start about two years before the update for that document could you give the four-sentence overview of Act 250 in section 248 yes yes so Act 250 is the state's land use law it is a it was enacted in I believe in the 60s really kind of as a response to a lot of the development of the ski resorts and kind of the larger uncontrolled development that was bringing so the state stepped in and said we need to provide some oversight here to with state goals in these communities where there might not be local land use regulations section 248 is a similar component but it deals with energy and not just energy telecommunications the public utility commission is really the body that reviews section 248 processes and Act 250 and section 248 are references to one that the bill Act 250 that was adopted initially the state statute that those regulations are included in two items that I did not include on the slide just because they're not as consistent is speaking of legislation I I serve on the Vermont planning the Vermont planners association executive committee and also participate in their legislative committee as such one of the things I do is track legislation through the sessions on the city's the city's regulations to that point recently working with the mayor provided some language to to one of the senate committees the name is escaping me now because it's a long name development or something yes there's like three names to it related to Act 250 specifically and looking at ways to to have some of that some of that permitting authority delegated to the municipalities because there's in what we do and what Act 250 does so that's one of the components that I serve in in this role as well and also I am the city's representative to the planning advisory committee which is a subcommittee of the regional planning commission so those are not as day to day but those are those are also activities that I serve looking at progress for 2023 and to date I will say a lot of this work is going to be related to the to the planning side the future planning not the current planning as the zoning piece of it is less kind of project specific in this regard so again continuing to work with the planning commission on amendments to our land use regulations to support council's goals continuing to digitize our land records specifically our street files we have a file on every address in the city for all of our permits that basically have ever happened a lot of a lot of a lot of documents in those files some of them are very outdated when properties are redeveloped we need to figure out what to do with those older files so we're trying to get all that information scanned in so that eventually as the assessment starts to come online we can potentially tie those property files with the assessment so it can all be available electronically to the public either via web base or it's a slow process but we're working through it because it also involves getting rid of some of those documents as well that are either outdated unnecessary duplicative things of that nature so working with the regional planning commission again as I mentioned on the master plan for your check-in that should be coming up here in a couple of months okay so that's kind of under the general all category economic vitality working on ways to update our sidewalk use permit we talked a lot about that in the last several meetings so that's kind of on hold for right now until we'll bring that back up in the coming months to kind of re to refresh that effort and hopefully make some progress there supporting the citywide appraisal as necessary and we also developed an application in process for reviewing cannabis applications through the state those being retail or basically any of the available including the establishment of the cannabis the local cannabis control board which is you all from the housing side working again to make changes to the land use regulations to support more housing including affordable units and multi-bedroom units that's a component we did include some amendments several months ago that are now in place to provide incentives for that type of housing also making other changes as necessary to support other council priorities so that's one of the ongoing things that we look at just happens to be under housing in this case and again as I mentioned leading the city's efforts on the walk like master plan through the regional planning commission and there's a separate effort through that unified planning work program funding that is doing a scoping study for Lafountain Street and Dion Street so trying to structure on that effort as well looking at proposed goals and initiatives for 2024 yeah if you want to you can finish the slide or yeah I should be pretty quick on this I was going to say a lot of the same items that were on the last slide or on the slide as well as it's most of what I do is a continuing effort not many of the projects that I work on for the kind of planning side really have an expiration they kind of always are happening so the same things kind of carried forward in this slide as well again a lot of it is really reacting to council policies and making sure that whatever policies you all set we are incorporating into our regulations so that we're actually implementing those policies so with that I will be happy to take any questions about the master plan check-in what is that involved what does that look like and will council get an update yeah that's a great question what does that look like this was I don't know how many of the check-ins have actually been done through the regional planning commission it's that's a I want to say not terribly recent piece of statute but that change I think happened 2017 2018 so we're just starting to get to the first round of master plans that have been adopted since then that would go through that for your check-in so I think since I've seen when the legislation was being drafted it's really going to be kind of progress on our master plan goals and as you may recall last year I believe we spent some time talking about the master plan goals and kind of where we are with progress on those goals so I'm envisioning something like that so but yeah we'll definitely bring that forward to council for information and not that I envision it to happen wherever has there ever been with you know the limited history of some of the folks in the room but any mid review it's an eight-year plan has there ever been a mid plan amendment or adjustment I'm not aware yeah so previous to the change in statute the plans were they were five-year plans and so they were being updated fairly regularly we can update the plan at any time but it is depending on what the update looks like it can be a fairly extensive process with all the public hearings that are required and review by the regional planning commission depending on whether or not it's a substantive change we may have to update the whole plan to any current statute so oftentimes it's it can be a lot of work to update but I'm hopeful that the four-year checking will give us a sense of whether or not we should be looking at any potential amendments before we do the full update but I think we'll know more when we do that check-in this is our first eight-year plan that's correct this is our first eight-year plan great thank you for the questions any questions from attendees okay thank you all very much thank you item G 2022-23 update for all yep so conveniently well first background so council receives a quarterly update on all of the annual policy priorities and strategies that they set in May or June as I mentioned in the city manager's office overview those that touch on all of the vision areas get its own update although in the priority and recommended items we've made progress where we had staff capacity and not where we didn't is there any particular item you'd like to ask about now that's of general interest also if it's in the lease we can certainly take it offline as I first talked about working with school on both the recommended practice plan and yeah Paul can speak to that next meeting the IT services bed it says winter 2022 we just might want to update that maybe well we kind of can't because that's what it says okay fair and in terms of the priorities document that yeah council said and then the phone systems door access system upgrades that the first step on that looking for putting a bit out to see who to do that yeah there are several vendors that could potentially supply so we definitely want to put it out because it could be quite expensive right okay all I have questions thank you and I just want to say considering all of the changes in this past year and we're not sure they did work on this any questions for members of the public okay that's the link moving on to item H this is not for discussion or approval scheduling the validation boot for just cause eviction okay so I'm basically going to be reading from my cover sheet so you can take a break if you've read it already in December 2022 the city clerk accepted a voter council to pass a just cause eviction ordinance a council's January 3rd 2023 meeting staff advised and council approved public hearing dates of January 26th and February 4th after the January 3rd meeting staff found out that the first public hearing date was too early to be in compliance with state law on responding to voter backed charter change must be warned 30 to 40 days in advance of the hearing date so the first hearing should have been set between February 2nd and February 12th so that it could be warmed for enough days staff consulted VLCT's municipal assistant center attorneys the city's attorney and the secretary of state's office on how to cure this compliance issue we also have a petition based on all this input at councils January 17th 2023 meeting staff advised and council agreed on the original plan meaning public hearings on January 26th and February 4th and voting on the just cause eviction charter change on March 7th 2023 this option required the city to hold a vote after March 7th 2023 to validate and vote the two types of options on when to vote when to hold it are before next town meeting day or on next town meeting day you could technically do it after town meeting day next town meeting day that doesn't seem advisable so before next town meeting day recommended to be in the fall due to staffing challenges in the clerk's office spring then voters potentially vacationing during the summer more likely to remember what the vote is about the cons are requiring extra cost and work the estimate of the extra cost is $2,500 to $2,800 that would not include staff time or postage which of course would be required and the turnout is likely to be low if it was held on the next town meeting day which is March 5th 2024 the advantages of this there is no additional expense more people are expected to go to special elections the con of this option is that it's the opposite of before so voters might be more confused about why they're voting on this matter again I recommend or what might seem like again I recommend holding the validation vote next town meeting day to reduce expense and workload and because the vote is likely to be confusing regardless of when it is held so that consideration is not really too much in favor just to note the language of the vote is provided by statute so that would be shall the shall the action excuse me taken at the meeting of this city held on March 7th 2023 in spite of the fact that and this is some this is the specific situation for us the first public hearing on the voter proposed just cause of eviction charter change issue and then the rest of those statutory languages and any act or action of the municipal officers or agents pursuant there to be read adopted ratified confirmed basically it's saying that the vote was valid despite this issue and everything else that happened since that issue is also okay are there that's a great question so no we asked the secretary of state about that we certified the election just like you would certify any other election we've told them that there was this issue they're so they understand that as a context for the vote at this point the legislature can do whatever they want they could take this advisory they could go with it or they could wait on it or wait for the validation voter or whatever it's about at the meetings let's see how I understand how meeting day is people might be confused about meeting but it's like that might not be a real thing correct unfortunately so that was just the other talking because I must talk about it people might need that clarification right yeah I tend to agree with the recommendation it's confusing no matter what we're already going to be doing outreach this is just another item we're going to have to include when we talk to people and put out communications there's no election before there's no primary correct right if there are any other regular election we would have said as soon as we can but unfortunately this is the soonest any questions from the public any other questions from Johnson so would someone like to second motion by Thomas second by Charlie all those in favor please say hi motion carries thank you now we finally can tell people what it's going to be we can get that question on a regular basis okay let's move on to item I on for discussion approval the O'Brien Community Center Rehab Request so again sorry I want to make a note I'm going to refuse myself from this conversation excellent so again mostly reading um congressionally directed spending are yeah never mind congressionally directed spending are federal budget appropriations put forward by members of the U.S. Congress on behalf of their constituents they are more or less what used to be called earmarks in Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders Senator Peter Welch and Representative Becca Ballant all have online forms for submitting congressionally council approval is needed for grants for more than $5,000 this request is for a million dollars so quite a bit over that uh Champlain Housing Trust worked with the city manager to write the request the building is in need of improvements to enhance its ability to serve the community through its many service organization tenants some people are interested the tenants are listed in the cover sheet for this agenda item on the website for submitting the three requests have passed in these cases past practice is staff will submit on time so they have been submitted and then ask council for retroactive approval as soon as possible and always before any funds are accepted any questions I just want to say there's some really good narrative in here so appreciate whoever took the time to wrote this and add some color to how this building works I'll say that the community and economic development officer Heather Carrington knows the source of a lot of this good narrative so her work continues and I'm not able to post in the chat so that's why it's not showing up I dropped in the cover sheet I can put the other one to you any questions from the public okay hearing no concerns would someone uh authorize the congressionally directed spending request motion by Aurora second by Brinn all those in favor please say aye aye those abstaining aye motion carries thank you thank you item J acting city manager designation again mostly reading from the cover sheet Manuski city charger says by letter file with the city clerk the manager shall designate subject to approval of the council the city administrative officer to exercise the powers and perform the duties of manager during a temporary absence or disability during such absence or disability the council may revoke such designation at any time and appoint another officer of the city to serve until the manager shall return or the disability shall cease this is a reference 24 appendix to the Vermont state 5-0-2 my request is for you to approve my designation of community services director Ray Coffey fire chief and director of code enforcement John Audie or public works director John Rauscher to serve as acting city manager in my absence or disability with John Rauscher as acting if I am incapacitated and unable to designate for a specific outage this is like a blanket correct I will upload seems fine any questions concerns okay do I have a motion to approve acting city manager designations for the city manager so moved motion by Charlie second by Thomas all those in favor please say aye aye motion carries thank you item K council liaison assignments okay so this is on for discussion or approval essentially we act as liaisons for the commissions that are policy advisory bodies to us one for each of the strategic vision areas and also the inclusion and belonging commission and the planning commission which is state statute required we also have a couple of other like partner organizations so we designate someone to downtown someone from council some of these others are appointed residents that you'll see in the document and then there's the heart of when you see she didn't solid waste district is actually usually a resident we brought that through with you into the council role and then we discussed it a previous meeting having an engagement liaison role to sort of be point person to help organize so we can make these assignments tonight or just share feelings or preferences and work it out and see how that goes and the document is listed like who is currently assigned to any given thing so I think I would first just ask if anyone has strong feelings about wanting to retain their current roles any of their current roles I would like to continue on the shouldn't solid waste district and I would also like to continue on the municipal and structure commission they had an informal vote on Thursday and unanimously asked me to say excellent so good two so that's the one really want to make a pitch okay yeah I'd like to say I'm done on this gate we heard if the airport commission is maintaining about 4 p.m. any thoughts on the issue I believe I believe they are Brin are you willing to serve on that one I can take that on almost you have interest not above anything else in particular okay I'll put so Charlie we have housing which Jim Duncan was the liaison for and then finance which I have been doing I do not have a strong preference either way on those so I'm curious if you do I would love I kind of thought so with your background yeah I think that's a really good fit I would be much less useful in regards to finance okay but I'm willing to work along the way I did want to just mention for the first Wednesday in April I will need coverage yeah okay I may be able to do that but I'll follow up and then is anyone interested in taking on this based on role I was before we get there I'm happy to take up the heart of women's skin oh sure I skipped over that one thank you we have not historically actually appointed someone to that that was my thought by a left-wing fan is it what are they preventing Ray are you still attending that no I'm not there needs to be a bit sporadic with the heat now oh yeah so I see them pretty much okay thank you Ray they're they're preventing addiction thanks oh yeah sorry I assumed but I didn't want to assume so yeah thank you any takers on engagement leave can you explain a little bit what that yeah actually okay sorry I should give you some more back no that's okay so we essentially last year put together the goal was to go where people are and like go meet them and we came up with a list of like known organizations groups community groups and have been attempting to do some regular reach out like I think theoretically we discussed quarterly but twice a year is probably more realistic but I guess at least reaching out quarterly to say hey do you want to have a member of the council come meet with you in your group or whatever one to share if there's you know what's happening what are we doing as a city but then two would also invite like what do you care about what do you want us to know and then with subsequent visits actually like close the loop on some of that like we heard this last time here's what we've done since then and so there's we've got a spreadsheet where we like assigned people out but it would be really useful if one of us if somebody like took a lead and like hey did you ping them like have you heard from them and then we also want to commit to doing a quarterly the way that you saw staff present earlier the priorities and strategies like a quarterly update we wanted to commit to doing a quarterly update too to show essentially hold ourselves accountable like here's what we have done as far as engagement to try to get better at it but we said we do here because it's been a little bit challenging to I'll speak for myself at least to consistently like be checking in on that and making sure I'm following up on outreach and that sort of thing you all gave me the honor of being deputy mayor so I feel like the least I can do is keep you all on track so I'm happy happy to take that out I love it Thomas thank you bake that into the role later for future obligations okay well this is great we have filled in a lot of thoughts can I get a motion to approve these city council liaison assignments for 23-24 second second motion by Thomas second by Aurora all those in favor please say aye thank you no arm wrestling required yeah I can send out like a recap email too just to so we all remember who's doing what so on to item L a resolution recognizing March 31st International Transgender Day of Visibility Councilor Wood would you like to introduce sure I'll read mostly from my and bring the floor to the council and mayor to recognize March 31st International Transgender Day of Visibility as the most diverse city in the state will then start Council make up and give them a national narrative in respect to human rights those transgender people I'm hoping that this restriction um as well as which includes uh which states we recognize the value of diversity in our community contributes to the vibrancy of our youth cultural fabric in our youth which makes our community exciting to live it also aligns with recent actions with the Burlington City Council and a proclamation made last year by President Biden to recognize March 1st I also want to include a quote from Outranked Executive Director director which states that in a national political climate where the hate and fear continued to escalate youth urges we need to hear that their community has their backs and that their rights will be protected so I'm hoping that we by adopting this resolution can join us in giving this support to those transgender members of our community and thank you for bringing this on to the agenda are there any questions from Council or comments? I had read a little late unfortunately so I wanted to ask if I could amend the language a little bit on the third whereas you'll see it says resulting in murder vandalism comma as before and certainly I also open to vandalism of anti-trans-propaganda and then it will continue as written is that something good of it to folks? I think so giving this support yeah do you have that written out? I do can you just email it to me? yep are there any other comments? just that I appreciate it yeah in light of national rhetoric I think it is important to and I didn't know about this so I'm glad to be learning about that and I appreciate both comments and Charlie and Bryn offering some suggestions alright do I have a motion to approve this resolution recognizing March 31st as International Transgender Day of Visibility as amended as amended as amended thank you so moved second motion by Charlie second by Bryn all those in favor please say aye aye yes and we can push this out the way we do our other important resolutions so we are on to item M the city manager evaluation summary so Charlie before you joined we conducted our annual evaluation of our city manager this is a process where council and members of the leadership team provide feedback and then we so that's like a private survey we review those results and have a discussion in an executive session this document is meant to serve as a summary so that there is something documented for the public to see for the performance review are there any questions from council members? I just want to add that it may seem a little odd that we're doing an annual evaluation less than a year after the ensiring with that there's I don't know if you want to get into the standard cycle yeah we could state in the intent but with the council turnover in March also just trying to assure that council that's been with the length of long this is the entity is the group that's doing the evaluation so that's why that time is also attributed to the I don't know it seems logical given that the attorney of the time so to speak yeah so we'll probably engage in this process again next June right good any questions? thank you all for contributing your summary thoughts as well do I have a motion to approve the city manager evaluation summary? it's not sorry about that can we just put it in consent agenda? yes of course next one thank you okay thanks for the discussion that's the end of tonight's agenda do I have a motion to adjourn? motion by Thomas second by Aurora all those in favor please say aye aye motion carries meeting adjourned okay