 This conference will now be recorded. Okay. I would like to call to order the South Burlington City Council meeting of Monday, May 15th 2023 and our first item of business is pledging 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. I forgot to get water. Oh well. Okay instructions on exiting the building in case of an emergency. Thank you. For those of you who are in the room, you can go to the left and right at the back of the auditorium and then left to right out of the building if there's an emergency. For those participating remotely, thank you for joining us. If you're interested in speaking on any item on the agenda, you can indicate your interest in the chat and I'll have the chair call on you other or you can just turn your camera on. Otherwise, we are not monitoring the chat for content. Thank you. Okay, good enough. Item three agenda review. Are there any additions, deletions or changes in order of agenda items? No, seeing none. Okay. We'll move on to comments and questions from the public, not related to the agenda. So, Lori, why don't you? And please make sure that the light on the mic is a bright green. Also, then you push the little where it says push. There. There. Okay. Good evening. Good evening. So my name is Lori Smith. I am a planning commissioner, but I'm here as a citizen and a resident of Queen City Park today. I'm here to follow up on the environmental court trial of the Burton higher ground project applications and to request that the city attorney coordinate with attorney Jim Demond to ensure that the briefs filed with the court on June 5th present the strongest possible case to the court. It was great to have Colin McNeil at the trial and observe the proceedings. I hope that he provided you all with a follow up report and that you are aware of the issues pertinent to South Brilington that were discussed at length. A primary concern of the potential impacts on Red Rocks Park. The impacts of overflow parking on Queen City Park neighborhood, as well as Red Rocks parking lot and the increased need for police services that will be required by the proposed venue, which will have concerts that are twice as large as the largest concerts at the current higher ground venue. In spite of testifying that their experts are confident there would be no disturbance to the neighbors from overflow parking or noise, Burton's representatives refused to accept any permit condition that would make those disturbances a violation of their permits. Burton's representatives and experts stated that any issues that occur off their campus such as noise and overflow parking and traffic will have to be the responsibility of the respective municipalities for enforcement. These incidents that will undoubtedly occur many times will have a significant financial impact on our city resources and anything that we can do preemptively could prevent ongoing future expenses. The residents of Queen City Park were also concerned about the lack of sidewalk from the end of Central Avenue to where the sidewalk begins on the east side of the One Lane Bridge. We're walking to be at best quite hazardous sometimes. I understand that Collin's role in the trial was that of an observer. However, having him reinforce the concerns and the needs for conditions to protect the surrounding neighborhoods prior to any final approval of the project would be very helpful and would support Jim's arguments. I, along with the over 125 financial contributors to this effort, request that the city council direct Collin to coordinate with Jim and submit a brief to the courts or follow any other recommendation that Jim has to support his efforts. And I also open to answer any questions that you guys may have about the trial or about status and where we are and how it's moving forward. Okay. Well, this is really loud. We haven't had an update that I recall because the trial was the fifth and we met before that. Well, the trial was three weeks ago. Right. Oh, but we didn't, we haven't had a, we have not had an update. No, we haven't had an update. June 5th. He had vacation directly after the trial. Oh, okay. So he wasn't here to even give us an update. June 5th is the date that the briefs are due to court. So I don't know how that fits with your schedule in terms of being able to vote on authorizing anything, but okay, just to be clear. So when, when you wrote me the letter, I guess I read it too quickly. And I thought what you were asking is that Colin meet with your lawyer to discuss what was said and provide some advice, but not necessarily submit a brief from the city, but that's not what you're asking. I would like would be for the city's attorney to coordinate with Jim Dumont and provide either support and or briefs in support of the concerns that are specifically important to South Burlington, so that as the judge is reviewing all the material, she has the strongest case in front of her for protecting Red Rocks and the parking. As they said, you know, if people are parking on the public streets, that's the, that's the municipality's responsibility, but we don't have a resident only parking ordinance in the city of South Burlington so we can't do resident parking only. We don't have good enforcement. They've had over 100 incidents a year, 130 incidents a year at the current higher ground, the facility which is significantly smaller than the new facility. And it's going to be right on the South Burlington border as far away from the police department as you can get. These are going to be significant impacts long term for the city. So anything we can do to get support from the city to help protect not only Queen City Park but our finances would be awesome. Okay, I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah, I would like to have us discuss this under other business given the June 5th date and I would like to know and we can do that under under other business unless you are so inclined. I would suggest you to let us know when Colin Neil will be returned or if he's already here and when he would be available to give us an update. So I would suggest you not talk about this under other business but do an executive session. Given that we're pretty early in the meeting if you want to add that to the executive session we have tonight. We're not necessarily prepared to exactly talk about this but you could do that and schedule a special session. I didn't even realize we had an oh yeah 19 possible executive session at midnight. No, it will be intense. Maybe sooner. But yes. All right, well we can add that to the agenda for everyone is I would recommend somebody make a motion and approve them. I believe that we add attorney client privileges added to our executive session agenda where we will be discussing the Burton matter. Second, because I further comment. All right, all in favor. Okay, so we'll add that to the agenda. Thank you very much. Any other questions. I wonder what Colin has to say and thank you guys for all your support and all the work you do. Well, you're very welcome. Thank you. Okay. Are there any other comments. Roseanne. I'm Roseanne Greco resident South Burlington I agree with Laurie. I'm not up here to speak about that but I totally agree that could be a disaster. We already know what happened when we bring noisy things into communities and what happens so. I'd like to talk to you about the ash trees. It's been about two years now that I first brought this up to y'all. And I'm here to request that the city consider treating the ash trees that we have. If you have not yet made a decision to do so, at least at a minimum will buy time for you to determine what you actually do want to do with the ash trees. I spoke to a tree expert today on this and apparently the emerald ash borer is in South Burlington. They found it over in the some of the trees in the parking lot at Dynapower. If you remember they found it on on at the ash trees in the parking lot of best buy in Williston last year. The borer goes to stressed trees trees that are not super healthy. So most of the trees in my neighborhood and other places where there are ash trees in neighborhoods, those trees are healthy. They're not in the middle of a concrete jungle. So we could save those but we're running out of time. Generally you treat the trees in the spring time. And so this is the time I've been getting calls from tree places that want to know if I want to treat my ash trees. We are treated the last year. One of the guys I talked to today says about 10 bucks an inch and there's discounts for for many trees. So I'm really requesting that the city take action. That's the diameter. Diameter. Yeah. Yeah. Diameter. Okay. Just to clarify that. Right. And it's anyway if you treat them now and the borer is not there or if it's just coming in then there's the opportunity to stop it. The treatment is like 99% effective. It's been trees in Michigan have been treated for 15, 16 years are still healthy and alive. Remember Don Stevens. Chief Stevens was here speaking to the council a while back. He pleaded with us to say that it builds up the resistance. Some of the trees can build up a resistance and but if they all died then obviously, you know, they can't. So I'm asking that you take action pretty quickly. And if only to treat the healthy ones in neighborhoods. Right. It's a small amount of money, I think to go a long way because we definitely need our trees. One of the guys did a heat test in trees shaded areas that the temperature is up to 30 degrees cooler. And as we lose our trees, we're going to create more heat islands. So let's please save the trees. Thank you. I'll just add that that was an ARPA request from the. Right. I know I'd read about it and considered it. Natural resources and conservation resources and energy. No, just natural resources committee did request money for the trees in their. We request so we haven't made a definite determination on that yet. Okay. Any other commenters in the audience. At home or here. John coming down. Yeah. No, I think he's just kidding. Okay. All right. Well, then we will move on to counselors announcements and reports on committee assignments. And then the city manager's report. Andrew, do you have anything to report? Not this week. Okay. Tim. Just a couple of things. So, um, I came here for the economic development committee meeting last week and it was canceled. I didn't know until I got here with a big piece of paper there and said cancel, but I think it's been rescheduled for tomorrow. I also attended. I was the only south brilliant city counselor to attend the Northwest Vermont Realtors Association meeting at pizza 44 last Thursday. You know, there were a couple of when you ski city council reps there and it was a small group, but Peter Tucker gave a very long presentation about the status of legislation at the, at the close of the session, you know, because it was last week. And I met several people and we had interesting discussions about development. So it was good. It was good. I also attended the, the charter committee feedback session on Thursday and heard some really interesting points made about, you know, the proposal to perhaps go to a ward slash district slash whatever, you know, mayor type governance model. I also ran in the Vermont corporate cup 5k and Montpelier on Thursday with a team from Global Foundry's. I think it's like the eighth one I've done. We hadn't done it in four years or three years, at least because of the pandemic. And that was a blast. I think the crowd was about 3000 rather than 4000 as it has been in the past because I think just people have washed out because of the pandemic. And it was still great fun. And I won't tell you how slow I ran it, but I did finish it and I didn't stop. And that's important. It is important for you. I also wanted to say that we have a tradition in our household from other's day where we take all the bikes to the Cosway and Colchester and we do a bike and a run and then we have bagels at the end when we're in the park. And I just had an observation just sitting there waiting for them to come back and their bikes about the number of people using airport park and Colchester and what a great facility it is. And how well maintained it seems to be and how much fun it really was having, you know, either on the swings or just tons of people coming on their bikes from the Burlington bike path transferring over to the Cosway path that it out towards the cut. You know, just how important park, sorry, I just can't overstate that. And the last thing I wanted to say is, folks, if you have a car and you park it outside at night and it's not in a garage, please lock your car. Front porch form is loaded with instances of people's unlocked cars being ransacked and gone through at night. And things being taken, whether it's your, you know, a sack of quarters for the tolls going down to Boston or it's like more expensive equipment that are left in the car. Please don't leave your car unlocked anywhere, ever. Just take a bit of advice. I've had my car ransacked in the past and I lock it up even in my own driveway. Even every time I get out of my car, I lock my car. So please, I'm just trying to get that message across. If you can hear me or you watch a recording in the future, everybody lock your car. That's all I have. Good advice. Thank you. Megan? Yeah. I used to run, but I know longer. So that's not the kind of marathon that I've been doing over the past week. I've been grading. I'm a marathon grader. So if I have dark circles under my eyes, it's because of that. And also because I traveled to Rochester, New York and back from my son's graduation. So it was a weekend of celebrations. Yeah. It was a big, big deal. Lots of South Burlington kids out there at Rochester Institute of Technology. So he actually, his roommate in his apartment who moved in in January or March, I can't remember. They were, they took a class together. They weren't in the same class, but they took, you know, same year, but they took a class together. It's a really small world. So anyway, that's, that's my marathon story. And he did very well. So congratulations. He did do very well. Magna cum laude. Yes. Yeah. He did very well. And he got a BS and an MS and he's off to Irvine, California. So I won't run there either. Just about four things. I really regret that I wasn't able to attend the SBBA meeting at the airport. I really wanted to go, but because of my marathon, I have gotten just really consumed with, with work. I do want to just note that I, I am curious if morale Weinberger did have any outreach to us regarding the name of the airport. And I respect Senator Leahy. I do not respect one of his decisions, which was to reimpose on our neighborhood as well as Winooski and Williston, among other neighborhoods and communities, the F 35. And so it's a little bit of a slap in the face for the people who live in that neighborhood. But I think he's done wonderful things. I just was curious if our neighbor had reached out to us. Second thing, our dear friend Vince Bolduc and his family have sustained incredibly traumatic loss. It's been in the paper, so I'm not breaking any, any news, but his 40, 40, 44 year old daughter Christie passed away a week ago Sunday, leaving behind a 10 and a 12 year old. And the 12 year old is in my daughter's class. And I just want to stay with regard to the power of love that when I was in touch with Vince last Tuesday night into Wednesday morning a week ago, inquiring into Christie's well being. And knowing that the play that my daughter and his grandson were were playing in the musical last weekend a week ago. He said that she might not make it to opening night. That play was Friday, Saturday matinee and Saturday night. And she held on until Sunday morning. And that's just the power of a mother's love. And I just, in honor of mothers and peace that Mother's Day was originally created to celebrate. She did everything she could, I think, to bring peace to that little boys. I shouldn't say little boy, but he is life over that very celebratory weekend of him being the star of the musical. So my heart goes out to the Bull Ducks, including Andrew, who has played an incredibly important role for the city. Third thing I have just thinking. And I know it's been brought up before, but I just want to say I'm adding my voice to this recommendation. When I attended online, the Charter committees community forum and heard Elizabeth Fitzgerald talk about the traffic here. Is there any way for us to create a one way, at least during certain hours and have buses come in, but go out as well as parent cars go out onto Williston Road, just to simplify the flow of that traffic. And I know that there was some resistance when that idea came up. But I just want us to, I just wanted my voice and if that little bit of impetus could, could make, you know, that thinking happen again, I would support that. And finally, the Charter community forum last Wednesday, these days are so long. I thought it was wonderful. I want to congratulate the members of the committee. They are really doing a tremendous service because they bring so much knowledge, not only about how elections work, how government works here at the municipal and at the state level. And we have one of the members here in the audience in Donna. And just the neutrality of it all and really the tenor of that whole meeting where there was, I thought, a really open discussion with widely varying opinions being being, you know, being discussed. I just think that's the way it should be. I was sitting there and I just wanted to applaud everybody. So thank you, Donna. Thank you to your committee members and Donna is certainly not just slinking off. She is full bore through to her glorious days here that we will be celebrating as she, as she, you know, not rides off into the sunset, but hopefully it has more time with her granddaughter and perhaps other grandchildren that I don't know about. So, thank you. Well, Megan, thank you for putting that context around the bulldox. I think it was very kind, very thoughtful, very timely. And I along with you, my heart goes out to that family into the community. So it's a terrible tragic loss from a committee assignments standpoint. I was inspired by the dialogue that took place last week, last week around the issue of the fields at JC Park. And A is being part of that committee and B also because I know a number of the constituents who ultimately jumped in the email chain. I just wanted to get a little deeper understanding of what the core issues were and perhaps how we could, we as a community could be more proactive in those areas. And so I just, I started the process of trying to learn more. Admittedly, much of the input that I received was, there's some inherent bias in it, and in the sense that it's mostly from constituents who use the field for baseball and softball. And that's not a reflection of not wanting to draw from a larger sample size, but from a civic engagement standpoint, those sports are fairly remarkable in how engaged they are and how just culturally ingrained, you know, taking care, even though sports it seems is in baseball and softball in particular seems like that's just part of how they operate. I didn't play baseball all that much as a kid. So I don't, I can't say I can't speak to it one way or another, but they just have the highest levels of civic engagement. And the discussions were collaborative. It was not by no means was it was it caustic. They're grateful for everything that the city does. But they did bring up some points which I thought were salient. And it reminded me a lot of what Councillor Barrett mentioned last week of our two excuse me when we were talking about our funds. A, about what we have, we have a list of great proposals. Let's start diving into them and stack ranking them and let's take some action on them. I thought that that point came to my mind numerous times in those conversations. So at some point I'd like to revisit that. And another one that I think was not, albeit I think the although how it was expressed I think could it was a bit gruff, although I understand the frustration. I think the point that another member of the community made during the last meeting about if we can't take care and again I apologize. I'm not doing anyone at a service with exactly with exactly home and articulated. So just caveat, but if we can't take care of what we have right now, we should be mindful of that as we go about trying to do new things. Those two sentiments came to mind again and again and again in these conversations. There's a clear and urgent need for us to, and we suspect, and again I don't know, but that a lot of it is funding based, but there's a clear and urgent need to accelerate many of the capital works projects or maintenance that otherwise has been deferred on some of our parks and rec fields. And I'm excited to revisit that issue at some point in the future and also there have been some really great plans and proposals that have been put forth by very thoughtful members of the community and that are included in those art proposals and I'm looking forward to implementing those as potential solves. Great, thank you. Helen, may I gather my thoughts? Oh, you're something else had sure. Yeah, just a few things. Yeah. So I did attend the energy committee meeting. They're planning on having a climate change event in late September, early October here in city hall vendors food they want to possibly close a market street and have vendors along the street so it should be a good event and a big event. I met with the director of curriculum for our schools, Lisha backman along with a gentleman who runs a website subject to climate to talk about how we can get more climate education in the school system and we're going to be setting up some subsequent meetings with the science teachers and the principals and see if we could figure that out. So I'm excited about that. I did attend green up day. I was excited to see lots of folks out there and a lot of trash collected and it's a wonderful community event. It was dismayed though, riding my bicycle a few days later to see some of the sections that I cleaned up with. Somebody buys those like 12 packs of it's some kind of like, you know, Carlita liquor soda and the boxes are just thrown on Dorset Street every quarter mile. It is, it is really so it's the neighborhoods. Yeah, I don't know what we can do about that. And just one thing I want to know, I guess we will receive an invitation to ground breaking for hillside east. Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend. I'll be out of town, but I was really, really excited by that announcement. 155 carbon free homes, all electric, all the solar, all the battery backup just seems like a real model for this community for the state for the nation. So, I think the abroad is just sort of a lot of credit for, for, for that for putting that together. I'd love to learn more about exactly how they're doing it. So, I think that's very exciting. Okay, that's great. I'm going to go and represent the city. So, and but I read that and was very impressed. I actually didn't know was in the planning. So it's very cool. Just to comment, Tyler, I think your reflections are illustrate how all the decisions we make are so nuanced and integrated. It's never really an easy. Yes, of course, some things are, or no, not ever. And that's what I think makes serving on the city council interesting because you get all the perspectives. And then you have to rumble through it and figure out what's really the best decision potentially for the most people. And it's challenging, but I'm sort of glad you see that. I didn't do much except I did go to a book group meeting that was offered by the affordable housing committee. And I'm reading the book that they were talking about called fixer upper. It's available at the library. That's pretty good reading man is a lot of different ideas. I think much of it is focused more on urban areas than South Burlington or Vermont, even, but you can always learn something. So it's, it's worth a read. And I was out in Salt Lake visiting my grandkids and my daughters. And I would add, I think a couple of years ago, I shared with the council and with you a concept Jesse of a guy who happens to live around the corner, but he's made a ton of money doing something. He's a real philanthroper and really creates businesses to help people who are either formerly incarcerated. And now he's really on this effort on the homeless and has bought a large track of land and is planning a community that has single homes and all sorts of amenities for those residents. This Salt Lake has an enormous homeless problem. And I just thought they apparently had just gotten the okay from the city council to go forward on this. And I'm sure that with you and you went, whoa, that's a big one. And it was enormous. So I'll keep you posted and see what information I can get because there might be, again, some tidbits for South Burlington about how you can address homeless issues. Okay, city manager. Okay, thanks. So just to thoroughly embarrass them. It's barb services birthday. Happy birthday, Barb and Sue Alex birthday. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Sue. Happy birthday to you. That's right. So thank you. Happy birthday, Sue. We did have to cancel the economic development committee meeting last week for lack of a quorum, which is a reminder that we are seeking applications for committee members. We have 36 positions that are coming up for reappointment. So if you are interested, the deadline for applications for commissions is Thursday this Thursday, the 18th, and we will start interviewing in your subcommittees next week. I do want to confirm with the council that June 26 from four to six, four to eight is our FY 24 policies and strategies for treat. Hopefully here, I haven't talked to Holly yet about space, but the 26th. Is that what you said? Yeah, it's the last Monday of the month. So non accounts meeting Monday. We want to provide a few quick public works construction updates. So work to reconstruction and prove the Kenny drives. Stormwater pond to to second storm our pond near the West twin Oaks terrace. We'll be starting this week. There will be a period in that time where the access is closed off. We will fully communicate that, but just a heads up that that is coming. Also, the work on the linwood storm our project is wrapping up in the next 2 to 3 weeks and that full. Linwood road will be paved as part of that project. So residents will see that. I'm recreation continues to add a lot of programming for the summer. So stay tuned to the website for updated programming. There is still time to sign up for summer. And there are scholarships available. Thank you for mentioning the charter forum. We have our second charter forum next Thursday evening, the 25th, it's a Wednesday, Wednesday evening, the 25th. Is it a Thursday? Yeah, that's Thursday, the 25th from seven to nine here. Actually, it's going to be upstairs and 301. All right. This is my brain. It's my brain. Okay. And then just a reminder to the council that before your next meeting, which is June 5th, there will be art reception in the lobby for the. Change out of the art exhibit. That's it will be this high school students. So we're really excited to welcome their artistic nice. That's all I have. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Moving on to items 6 and we're not too far behind here. The consent agenda. There's 11 items. Disbursements, the purchase of a fire engine and ambulance, the TIF appraisers, the applying for a lead service. Pardon me. Lead. Yeah. Did I say lead? Oh, I said I meant lead. Excuse me. Lead service line inventory. Award of the FY 24 annual paving program to pike industries, a contract for replacement of the main line gate valves on Shelton Road. Road stuff or water. Approve a grant application for a V trans municipal roads grants and aid program. Receive the 24th, April financials for FY 24, approve a natural resources and conservation committee request to provide a letter of support for the Vermont invasive species management day. Approve submittal of the should be northern, right? Northern borders regional commission catalyst program grant for the water storage tank that y'all read about in the other paper. And an addendum to a maintenance agreement for the public art project located in front of healthy living. So I'll go to approve, but I just have a question about the lead service line. Let's get a second and then we'll discuss. Second. Okay, but I will. I wanted some discussion on the lead. No, on a different. Okay. So your question on lead, how often is this done? Is this a new initiative? Is it because we have reason to believe that we have lead in our water? There are all kinds of questions. Thank you, Tom is a federal program. I'm guessing it's from Flint. It's good that he's here as a result of Flint, but it took them a long time to get attention. Good evening, counselors. This is a new requirement. So it has nothing to do with South Burlington specifically. It's a federal requirement that sort of passed down to the states down to us. So we have to investigate, document what the lines are made of, make sure they're not lead. If we do find the lines, you have to make a plan to replace them. We don't believe there's a high likelihood in our community, but we're required to do it. Is this the first time we're testing for lead? This is a new program, a new requirement. Jay would have to tell us when we stopped using the service lines, but our requirements to not use lead have been many years. Are we testing the water or just determining where the lead lines are that we need to replace? We're just reviewing documentation about the lines and what they're made of right now. And then in the next phase, if we're required, if we don't know what lines made up, we may have to dig it up and look as part of the rules. The inventory program itself is right now, we just go into homes, businesses, whatever, and see what the line material is coming in. That's the inventory. That's all there is to it. So you don't test the water. Now, the second phase will be to determine what the line material is between the main and the curb stop. That's after October 16th of 24. This was an EPA mandate program that began, or talking about it began in 2019 came law last year. But the ultimate decision, I guess, or consequence would be that lead lines would be dug up, taken out and replaced with whatever you're replacing. That is correct. Yes. First, we want to identify them. There'll be more federal money coming down the, coming down the line for when we do identify a lead line, it's removal. And I'm assuming it's from a lot of clamor from Flint that the final Congress is finally doing something. That's where it got its start. May I ask a question? It took a while. Yes, ma'am. Does the Champlain Water District today deploy chemistry to counteract the effects of possible lead lines leading to homes? Yes. I can't tell you what year it happened. 1980s, early 90s, maybe Champlain Water began introducing zinc orthophosphate, which is kind of a liner. And it reduces the risk of lead leaching. Okay. Yeah. And that's what happened in Flint was they changed the source of the water and that negated that and then it dissolved all that, you know, lining and then the water was just, anyway, that's a long story. Okay. All right. Any other, you have another question? Yes. So with regards to the pike paving contract, may I read the names of the streets that will be repaved so that the audience and we'll see if their street is on that list. You certainly may. Thank you. So, Black Lantern Lane, Cottage Grove, Eastwood Drive, Hayes Avenue, Nolan Farm Road, Pinnacle Drive East Portion, Proctor Avenue from Meadow Road to Rice High School, Spear Street from Pinnacle to Swift Street, Twin Oaks, Butler Drive from Marcy Street to Whiteface, Cedar Glen, all the way around Spear Street to the cul-de-sac, Kinskin Terrace, Woodside Drive, and also Cheese Factory Lanes will be reclaimed, regraded and have a base course on top course of asphalt installed. What does that mean? We're going to grind up the road, compact it into a base course and then pave over it. So they're going to grind it completely down. Yeah. All right. Not just grind off the top inch and a half, but they're going to rebuild the road basically to some degree. Okay. Yep. We did this with White Street many years ago. You may recall. Okay. So it doesn't have that bump in the middle, or do you want the bump? You want to bump the crown? Oh, so that helps water. That helps water. Yeah, off the side. Yeah. Why did you meant the bump that goes up the hill? Oh, no. We're going to tunnel our way to Highsburg Road. Cheese Factory. Okay. Are we ready for the vote? Yes. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Thank you. And I'll just say we didn't want to get ahead of the council by publishing that list before you actually approve the contract, but we will be sure it is available to the public in an easily accessible fashion. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Item seven, approve an offer of appointment and introduce the city's new city clerk and Daisy Brayton, our human resources director. I don't think the light is bright. It is not right. It is right now. Thank you everybody. Daisy Brayton. I'm the HR director for the city of South Burlington. It was my pleasure to help you with the recruiting and the interviewing and the final job offering to the top candidate that that you had chosen. We had an excellent pool of candidates that had applied for the city clerk position. And it is my honor to say that Holly Reese has agreed to accept our offer and our position. So Helen has a letter of offer to sign to officially give that position. And we will, the author, the offer is for beginning the position on May 30th. She'll transition into the incoming city clerk position by working 20 hours a week in her current role as the, as the recreation and parks director and then also as the city clerk. Donna has very graciously agreed to assist with training and has set a tentative or a kind of firm date of August 18th as to when her transition out will be. And Jesse has reminded me in this meeting we will need a motion to appoint her into the position. And any other questions you have for me about the offer. We're very excited to bring her on board. So as the city clerk is an elected position here in the city and this is a mid election vacancy. The council has the sole authority to appoint a city, a city clerk just until the term of the town meeting day 2024 election. So you need to officially take that action this to be final. Right. And I just might add that appointment carries with it all of the responsibilities and duties of duly elected city clerk. So it's not a step down. And that would be through March 5th of 2020. Yeah. Okay, so I would entertain a motion to approve this offer. Second. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay. All in favor. Hi. We were slow. Like all voted at the same time. Right. Congrats. We are so pleased. All right. Now one of the duties that you'll soon have is next. So Donna wanted to show you what you have to do sometimes. And this is, uh, we'll receive the warrant of unlicensed dogs and cats and provide direction. I might add, I think the first year I was on the council, I missed the deadline. And so before it became public, Donna very nicely called me and said, you might want to not have your name on this of which I've always been appreciative. So. Take it. But it's too late now because they're all published. They're here. Yeah. Hi, thank you. So it's that time of year again. The clerk's office works hard every year to make sure that all the dogs are licensed. We advertise four times on the other paper. I sent out an email to everybody who gives us their email. Um, I think I did four times this year. Dear Norie Febber in the March and the last week in March. I'm like, please, please, please, please. We don't want to collect your late piece. Please come in. Um, as well as forage farm postings. So we do get a lot of, um, advertisement out there. And so actually we are, I say this every year, but we've actually have the most register that we've ever had at this point in time. It's like each year we keep going up and up. And, um, so yeah, so we're doing really well. Um, as people recall, Winston was our cat who was our first feline and sunny is our top dog. And they both love the packages they got is their prizes. Um, so yes, what I'm presenting to you tonight is a list of those dogs and cats which have not registered since last year. We have gone through recent sales. And a few other things to try and get this list down. And as it stands right now, we have about two, what did I say? It was 203 dogs and 47 cats currently unregistered, which is down from last year. But the clerk's office is kind of leaked has reached our limitations on what we can do. We're not an enforcement agency. We're a registration agency. And so we have gone through and everything we can to try and encourage people to register. Um, and then state law says that I turn over the list to, um, the legislative body and is up to them to decide what they wish to do with this list. Um, they can ignore it. They can request that we send out more requests. Um, and up to and I hate to say this, but, um, you do have the right to go and to take a dog or cat from a residence and even destroy it. So you're so wish. Yeah. I'm not recommending that. But that is the law that is built. Those are the extremes that you guys have, um, and your decision. Okay. In the past, have we ever published the names? We haven't. Have we? Well, paper. I don't recall. I do an opposite one because people get mad because we're running out the enforcement agents and they say, well, I register mine and my next door neighbor doesn't. So what we've done is we've take and we put out on the list on our website, a list of all the dogs and cats that we registered very limited information. We're trying not to make it so people couldn't search. They'll say, you know, at, you know, 180 Market Street does a fight. Oh, and he's a dog. I mean, that that's the limit of what we'll put out there. Um, and so what we created was the ability for people to anonymously report an unlicensed dog or cat. There is a form on our website that they can click on it and they can say, I know there's a cat in this address. It comes to me anonymously. I have no idea who the email comes from. And I then send a letter out to, um, that home and just very nice letter to send. It may just be new to the city. You're not sure of the state laws, et cetera, et cetera, but, um, it is state law that you must register your dog or your cat. Please come into the office and remedy this as soon as possible. And if this is received by mistake, please just let us know. So we won't bother you. And then if they don't respond to that within two weeks, I send it to the animal control officer to. Okay. But the list you have tends to be, they were registered last year and just forgot this year. Or they may have moved and just not contacted us. The cat is no longer alive or they've moved. And unfortunately, with a lot of the rentals that we have in the city here, I don't have sales for them. I don't know if someone turned over, um, because they rented a house and moved. I don't have that detail. So some of them may be that we have gone through and sent out letters or whatever's come back to us. We have removed those people. Okay. What's your pleasure? What's the total number of registered dogs and cats just getting a sense? What's the total number that are registered? Total number that are registered right now, 1600. 1600. Okay. About 15% or so. And Donna, so if I'm, if I'm understanding you correctly that the, the figure that we have for unregistered that comes from. Two sources either a and I'm supporting or be. Um, non registered non renewals from the prior year. No, this is directly people that have not registered from last year. Oh, it's true. It's just from that. Okay. Yep. Cause if I send a note out to someone and they register them, then. We're fine. And if I hear, don't hear from them, then. Um, something I'm a control officer and they would just come in and register if they were there. Um, so in the past, what we have done and whether you wish to do so or not again is, um, we do send out a letter. Um, with the envelope from the police department. Um, and the letter that's approved by the police chief, just stating that, you know, very nicely again, that your dog or cat was registered last year is not this year. Please come in and register. Um, and I did really quick review and it's kind of hard to tell because the program is very limited. But after that letter went out last year, we did about in the 60s. 70 people that came in after getting that police letter to register their pet. So, I mean, so what do you want to do? I want to send out another reminder. That's what's worked in the past. Yeah. Okay. I mean, do we have, we have the ability to find people? Well, they have to pay a late fee. They pay. Um, for instance, a cat or excuse me, a dog that gets the spater neutered registered on time is 25. And then we give them a month of April and say, okay, you may have just kind of forgotten and people think April 15th, everything happens on April 15th. So the late fees are not as drastic. So it goes up to like maybe like 34, 35. Once you hit May 1st, um, it goes up to 58. So dog that used to cost 25 is now $58. And the idea of doing that was to get people to register on time to make it. Yeah. The problem is you don't know that everyone on this list owes that, right? Otherwise you can just send it all for the late today. But you just don't know, right? Right. Yeah. The dog may have died. Yeah. Okay. So is that what you would like? So we would like to direct the city clerk to send out one more reminder through the auspice of the police department. With their letterhead. I guess chief work signs it. Yeah, I'll coordinate with him to make sure he's okay. Let them know we mean business. Okay. You did a great job, Donna and getting the thank you. Yeah. So it is good areas. Right. Thank you. Item nine is another fun thing tonight. And would you like to read? We have a resolution. Honoring Leslie black plume off for years and years and years of service. Particularly on the affordable housing committee. So all right. And I got, I get the honor as liaison to the committee on which you've served so well and for so long to read the resolution. So this is the city council resolution honoring Leslie black plume off for her years of service volunteering. Whereas Leslie black plume member on the affordable housing committee resigned on April 19th 2023. After 10 years of outstanding and praise worthy service to the city of south Burlington. And whereas Leslie began her service with the affordable housing committee in 2012, bringing her housing affordability experience from the Vermont housing finance agency, where she is the community relations and research manager in the policy and planning department at Vermont housing finance agency. Whereas Leslie has consistently responded with resourcefulness and foresight to the duties and responsibilities given her fulfilling them with outstanding competency. And whereas Leslie was instrumental in the development and implementation of impactful projects, such as development of the path to affordability affordable housing report adopted by the city council in 2013. This report helped lead the way to several municipal policies household still benefit from today, such as the establishment of a housing trust fund, inclusionary zoning, diversification of building types, diversification of plan development, form based codes, access to outdoor space, encouragement of municipal water and sewer and many more. And whereas Leslie's insight and strong advocacy helped lay the groundwork for a decade's worth of policies and funding that directly helped numerous singles, families, students and elders to be able to have safe, accessible and affordable housing in this great community. And whereas Leslie has set an example of dedication to principle, which has been an inspiration to her fellow committee members and there are many of them here with you. This is an incredible committee. It's really very close. Now therefore be it resolved that we the city council do hereby extend Leslie black plumeau are sincere and grateful appreciation for her dedicated service to the city of South Burlington. Our congratulations on her continued work for creating an affordable state of Vermont, and our best wishes to her and her family for continued success, happiness and good health in the years to come. Oh, thank you. Does she come up? Yeah. Yeah, we have to sign this resolution. Oh, we have to approve it. That's true. It seems like we all approved it. So I'll entertain a motion to approve this resolution. So moved. Second second at all in favor. Hi. Hi. So, We will, I mean, you all do need to sign it, but we will also put it in a frame and. Okay. Would you like to come up and receive it please. Thanks. Yeah. Okay. Moving on to 10 or two minutes early, but I think we could start the warning for a public hearing on land development regulations, amendments of LDR 22. Which are updates to article 12, the environmental standards. Paul. Hey, folks, Paul Conner here, director of planning zoning. Michael Matag from the planning commission is also in the audience here. So thank you, Michael for attending as is Donna leave and online from the planning commission. So this is the set of amendments that on April 17, you gave the okay to one the second public hearing on after you'd received some feedback in March. And again, some relatively minor adjustments to the environmental protection standards. Happy to go through them, but I know that the council has seen them a couple of times at this point. So I'll invite you if you'd like to open the public hearing. We did not receive any additional feedback at the staff level during the last few weeks. Are there any questions or any elaboration that we have over this a couple of times. Okay. Well, then I would entertain a motion to open a public hearing on LDR 22 dash of nine. So moved. Second, all in favor. Okay. So is there, I guess we turn over to the public. Is there anyone who would like to comment on these changes seeing none in the audience and seeing no hands raised. I guess I could conclude that you did an excellent job and listen to people and crafted language that they are happy about. So that's great. No comments. I guess we can close the public hearing. Do you want a motion? Yes, please. So I moved to close the public hearing on amendment to the land development regulations LDR 22 dash of nine. Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any discussion. All right, all in favor signify by saying hi. And then we have the option to approve them. Correct. Yes, there's a motion in your packet. There is a motion. Would you like to motion? Yes. So I would also like to move to adopt amendment to the land development regulations LDR 22 dash of nine as presented tonight. Second. All in favor. Hi. Hi. Great. Thank you, Paul. Thank you for your time. Don't worry, I'll be back at your next meeting. Yeah, just sit there. You're up next. Item 11 is the possible action on land development regulations and amendment. We just did that. Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me. Item 12 receive an updated rental ordinance and implementation plan and provide direction to staff and Stephen law is going to take us through that. Good. Good evening. So we did the project team did update the ordinance, the draft ordinance and it's in your packet to address the questions and concerns that you had last time. And so Colin has taken care of doing those. And so I think the next phase and that if, if we have addressed the questions in the ordinance that you wanted to have all considered is the conversation about the income, the potential revenue and expenses that would go along with this ordinance. So, you know, without, without the staff to put into enforcement, they're really that they really have to those two things have to go together the both having the ordinance and they having the staffing availability to enforce the ordinance. So if you'll remember that we currently do not inspect rental properties unless there is a complaint, we certainly have the authority to. It's just that we do not have the capacity. And so typically we only do complaint based inspections of rental properties. And, and so this proposal by creating the rental registry fee and depending on which model you go with. So the current draft ordinance sets a fee of $100 and then a discount for our large buildings. But that does not generate enough revenue annually to cover the entire expense of the program. And so in your, in your packet of memo, there are some options that you could either do away with the discount or raise the fee of $25 or so to get to a point where you had built in enough capacity. So did provide you some over some options. The staffing capacity that we believe would take two inspectors. And we need the administrative support. So that's working with HR and finance to come up with what those positions with benefits would cost. And then there, and there is some one time cost to a fit. And then as well as that reoccurring cost. So that's that kind of sets the table. I think the kind of 2 action points that the team needs from from you at this point is a direction of is the does the ordinance as we've crafted it with the exception of fees. Meet your expectation. And then secondly, are you where are you thinking you your thoughts on the fee structure. And then if those things with appropriate direction, I think the next step would be moving towards a public hearing. So with that, I'll summarize it and go to your questions. Questions or comments. Go ahead, Tim. A million dollars. Can you explain that and where would this million dollar office space be. I just want to make sure that you understand, I mean, for me a million dollars. Unfortunately, renovations are extremely expensive and there's not, there's no, there's no space or very limited space. Existing space built out space. And so what we would have to do is do some for a renovation at 575 Dorset Street. And that would allow us to have a space where the public could come into for to both meet with staff and file permitting. That's that office currently our fire prevention office gets a lot of foot traffic every day. And we believe we could offset some, the opening in the back of the building move the prevention division town to really the, I don't know what it used to be. Currently now used for some storage, but it would require some work in order to up fit that for appropriate office space that currently is not does not have that capacity capability or capacity. So does it mean you have to build a new bill in addition. No, it's rented. No, it's completely renovation. Complete renovation. And I'll say this, this is our best estimate. This is not even our best. This is a back and napkin estimate. I want you to know that we would have to go out for design build and do some meeting on renovation and get some budget Terry numbers for you. But I want you to think that this will be this will be an expensive rehab. This won't be $100,000 refurb to make off the softest space. Is there any space that we gave literally to the school department that they're not using that maybe we could rent from them for this. I don't know. I haven't been in since it's the school department. So I don't know how they're using all the space. It certainly was a lot larger than what they had before. So certainly on the first floor is pretty well occupied. And my conversations with the city attorney was that they were looking for all the space and we're happy with the space. I don't know if the manager could renegotiate that. But currently there is not capacity that I'm aware of. And that's first floor space. And this is space that we the city has held back as part of the lease. So it's already space that's under. I understand that but they're the space I was talking about is what the school department has that has been rehabbed and would be could be off the space but apparently there's nothing available. Some similar similar question chief. I guess is there are other economies of scale. How creative could could we realistically be in exploring alternatives. Is it critical that this for the space that it's on site. Is it something that could be done across town. Trying to get it. Don't don't dispute that it's going to be an expensive fix but just interested in knowing how creative can we be. I think you can be creative. I think you cannot have alternatives. I think you could hot desk. You could do all those things. But every every one of those things you do cut down on the ability of having a cross departmental team where everyone within the organization knows what's going on within within the prevention division. There's a real close tie between prevention and operations and and oftentimes the operation folks see something in the field they go see the prevention people and prevention people determine that there's a danger in a building and they walk down the hall and talk to the operational folks. The more you disrupt that the less those teams work together so certainly can be creative certainly are open to all those things. You just have to be aware that everything we do that moves away from the standard typical office environment with Cross departmental collaboration or cross division department in the department. It hurts the overall mission. Understood. Thank you. And so the million dollars is reflected is not reflected in the numbers. Right. And I'll say and again I want to be. I didn't want you to think you were going to be able to do 100 do this for 100,000. I think a million dollars is a realistic number from what I've seen for construction projects lately. And I think we can be creative. We may have some options that how we would fund that that doesn't necessarily mean you have to go out to bond for it. But we we need your direct we want you to be aware that there are things beyond people and and that you have to consider for the long term viability of this. Okay. Other questions just just looking forward a bit when this rental ordinance hopefully is in place. I was thinking we might be able to leverage it to also talk to landlords about whether station and I'm wondering whether or not if we hired to staff that would also be something that those folks would be able to What could it be in scope without because fish and staffing if we expanded kind of rental program in that direction. I think the short answer is yes if we provide them the these I'm going to call them inspectors the training then and I believe if Terry's on even their their most recent guidebook that they gave out looks at more than just the fire code violations but as much some of the health and health and safety codes. So so I think the short answer that is yes it could be. It would just require training and awareness for the inspectors. Okay. Other questions. Yes. Yeah. I have been wanting to meet with a constituent and our schedules just have not worked out. We have a working farm within our municipal borders. That is not owned by the farming family. And we have engaged with this this property as a city in order to make it possible for this farm to operate and to expand. There is the original farmhouse how vague I should be on this property that the family has purchased but they live in a rental home that is a long term rental just within the vicinity and I want to propose something. I have no idea if this will meet the residents needs because we have not been able to meet but I just wanted to kind of float this idea before we take it to the next step. You do not become wealthy on a small family operated farm. This is not, you know, a big Midwestern farm like we see right. And I think that this family has been able to look toward homeownership by using short term rentals on the farmhouse while renting long term in another house in order to make ends meet. And I know that there were reports done through, you know, some organization, it was published through BT digger, how there are families in the state who see this as a way to remain in a community that they have been outpriced, right, in which they've been outpriced. Now, I am asking this council to consider potentially, you know, creative solutions that could be applied in the case that I've just described where it would be a way for a small working farm and the family who was operating it to be able to remain in our city. I think that they are a valued business and valued residents. And so perhaps some kind of, you know, waiver for that kind of situation, perhaps it could be a combination because we know from other discussions that finding housing for farm workers is really challenging. And so if we wish to perhaps come up with a creative proposal where the farmhouse could serve as farm worker housing and a long term situation past six months and then have over the winter months when they are not cultivating the fields or as active that that could be a time for short term. So I was just loading this out there because I think this deserves some conversation. But like I said, I have not talked to the interest of party. I've just received some emails. I guess I don't quite understand how this would prevent that. I'm missing the need for and I doesn't mean I'm against it. I just let's not owner occupied currently. It can be tenant occupied. So that was my suggestion. It can be tenant occupied as long as the landlord allows it basically to be sublet. Yeah, essentially it sounds a little bit different than what you're describing though. You're what you're describing is they have a this particular hypothetical has a that's a farmhouse that's unoccupied and that's used as a short term rental. Correct. That would not be allowed if they rented it out to a tenant that tenant could short term rental it if they had permission of the landlord but the tenant would have to establish it as their primary residence. So we think about having, you know, six plus one day long term rental, and then the homeowner could, you know, for seasonal workers, and then for five months, or six months minus the day that that could be used as a short term rental. I don't know if I'm exactly following the example, but the, you know, there's always exceptions you can create the danger of creating exceptions is they sometimes apply when you don't mean them to apply. And it sometimes makes an ordinance a little bit more complicated than you than you want it to be. But we can, you know, we can always try to come up with something if, if we can understand what what exactly is you're asking us to do. Yeah, the other the other and I was talking with an Arab, not an Airbnb actually we were both not very happy by Airbnb and a bed and breakfast owner over the weekend. And she does a wonderful job in her business. And she suggested it could be helpful for students, it could be helpful for nurses, traveling nurses, it could be helpful for even faculty who are coming in to do kind of a semester. So finding kind of, you know, a six month plus a day rental situation could be a creative solution for some folks who who do not need to have a year lease, a year long lease. It just, I don't think this ordinance prevent a six month lease, or any, I mean, that would be considered a long term tenant under this ordinance. And that would be perfectly allowed. So if there was a student who's here for a semester or visiting nurse who's here for less than a year. That would be, there's no prohibition in this ordinance against that just that the landlord would have to register the unit as a, as a rental and it would have to it would be subject to inspection. And then for the remainder of the year that homeowner could, could use it for a short term rental. No, I don't, I don't believe so. No, six month tenant or another three month tenant or something like that. Right. But couldn't use it as a short term rent rental unless it's owner occupied or because currently a home or home, an owner occupied residence as long as you're there for six months in a day, and then you can go off to Florida or wherever. And have that then be a home that's used for short term rentals for six months minus the day. So it's kind of a variation on that theme is what I was. Can I just, yeah, I think what you're proposing is basically a delet for farm worker housing, a delegation of the home ownership requirement to a long term tenant on the property that would then enable short term rental. So it would be a waiver or variance to the ordinance. Except she mentioned traveling nurses. Yeah, it could be that saying basically the, the farm owner would delegate the ownership right to a long term tenant. There by enabling short term rentals. I think we need to look into the possibility of whether we could legally do that. I understand. Yeah, Paul. You go to the mic. You want to go to stand up. Paul Connor planning zone director. The ordinance as as being as discussed right now, the short term part kicks in for stays of less than 30 days. So if it's more than 30 days, whether it's 31 days, six months a year, that's all considered a long term rental. So I don't know if that addresses some of these categories. I don't know how long traveling nurses or farm workers stay, but if it's more than 30 days that there may not be a challenge here. This sounds to me like someone has a farm. Can you speak right? This sounds to me someone has a farm for a good portion of the year. It's occupied by farm workers and they're trying to make as much as they can during the portion of the year when it's not occupied by farm workers. And it may well be making a short term in less than 30 days. That feels like something that should be okay to me. Honestly, if it's a building that's used for seasonal workers, and because the seasonality it's unoccupied for a portion of the year feels to me like that should be okay to allow short term rentals during that portion. It may be helpful to if we talk offline about it, and perhaps it's completely within the scope of what we've done, or else maybe we have to tweak it a little bit. But if we understand your question, it may be more helpful for us to talk offline and bring you back an option that at least tries to address it. Absolutely, we can do that. One concern I think that we would want to, and part of our conversations we want to have is to move the conversation into who is using get the rental makes it a little more complicated. It goes beyond where right now we're not asking who are you renting it to for the six months and who are you not renting it to. Right. Like visiting nurses or students or something. And I think because of the complexity, we need to have the homeowner be local homeowner. So that would satisfy, you know, my concern that this not be, you know, some outside investment entity wanting to, you know, kind of play with our rules and I really want to have that homeowner being a resident. It just doesn't get very complex. Once we start putting in waivers or exceptions and it does put our staff and even a more challenging spot. So I just caution. Well, let us take a look at it, but it does. It does cause us pause. So, that's fair. Yeah. Okay. Are there other questions about the ordinance, or do you want to go right to the money? I mean, because that's an important piece. And if we can't agree that we want to charge acts to pay for this program. I'm, we're in a different place. One more question about the ordinance. So are there any in drafting this as I understand it. And as I read it. I don't see one of the concerns that I might have. And is adding more of a cost burden on to managers of low income housing properties or properties that are there otherwise have some controls. And as I understand it right now, there's the with the fee structure. It's universal across there's no exceptions made. And while it's it, I think the fee structure as it stands is very reasonable. If I think about it in terms of a business that's already operating on very low margins, number one and number two, as you start to operate that at scale. And then if you think about regular turnover, that could be something that again is eroding into already a very tight bottom line for a nonprofit in your a is my assumption correct that there is no consideration there. And be did was that something that was discussed or or considered during the deliberation process and can explain what your thought process was and how we arrived at. So you are correct. There is no discount for low income housing or affordable housing or anything beyond a unit cost 100 x dollars per year. And a unit is a unit unless as it's currently proposed, unless you're in a building with greater than 40 units did have some conversations with members of the affordable housing committee. I have that right. Who certainly are advocating for a reduced fee or a waiver fee for those occupancies. That's a policy decision for you to make. I will tell you that the plan currently doesn't pay it for itself. And without staffing, you can't have the plan. So you're just going to be completely blunt. You're either have to raise the rate on other units or not have a program. And so, yes, part of a discussion and but but the but the reality is the reality and that's that's why it is but it is a policy to split the decision for you. I understand that begs a really good question like in Burlington, the BHA. I mean, do they expect like, you know, Decker, Decker tower every year. Do they expect every unit. So my understanding in Burlington is that their code code enforcement department doesn't expect those but it's on a one to five year schedule. Right. So if you have very little little few violations, it's five years. If you have significant violations, it's every year. So, yes, do they pay every year. Yes. But this had an exemption for new builds for three years. Right. So you, does that mean you wouldn't pay the fee for the first three years of the new business. Yeah, exactly. And the theory there is so many of these buildings paid a pretty substantial permit fee when they had it when they were built, we're in there doing inspections every week during construction that I guess in our opinion they've kind of paid that fee for the first few years and there'd be relatively few violations your first few years. And so that was the that was the thought that was the thought process but again, you're welcome to change that's another policy question. Well, they're also built to code. Correct. Right. And so many of the rentals or homes out there on South Burlington or not built, or at least not to the current code. So that is I mean I would support giving them a break. Certainly for a new build. That would be nuts. But if it was just 100, that's spread over 12 months. So it's not a huge cost to a renter. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I mean, I know it's paid by the owner, but they all pass it off. Pass on. Pass it on to the renter and I know $8 a month. That's about what it would be. Can mean a lot, but it also could mean that the home you're in has appropriate electrical outlets and, you know, smoke detectors and carbon monoxide. And it's the safer place to live. That's right. It has some value to it. Yes. If it's and I agree. I just if it's $8 a month. Well, that's what if it's 100 bucks a month. Yeah, I mean, it's probably 850 right or per month. 850 per month. Right. So it's 96. Yeah. I guess what I'm saying, Helen is, if, if there's an operator who has 600 700 units and on average is doing, you know, 100 times 600. Right. That's, that's 60 to $70,000 in margin. Right. And with that, yeah, would that, would that, would that, when you look at it from that perspective? Well, with that, and they get 1500 bucks a month for each of those 600 units. I mean, do that. It's still, it's still $8 in change. It's still $8 in change per unit per month. It's the same. It's the same math. It is. I just used, when, if I'm, my concern is less, when, when is the operator going to look at that $50,000 and say I need to raise my rates by 10 bucks each month, or does that $8 to $10 turn into a much larger number? Well, we don't have control over that, do we? No, ma'am. I mean, you'd have to have, what do they call it when they don't let the ring go up? They have it in New York. Ring control. Yeah. But we're not talking about ring control. No. We're just trying to get, not yet. Well, Well, are there other questions about that? I do like the discount for buildings greater than 40 units because of our inclusionary zoning requirement that would typically mean that there are affordable units. Which I think that's a way to not include a specific provision for affordable units, but yet acknowledge. So then let's go back to how we raise the money. I mean, it's going to come back to, I like the 110 per unit and 90 dollars per unit and buildings greater than 40 units. So that raises 110 and 90 raises 295. 400, yeah. 400, which doesn't quite cut it either. Yeah, that does, if you, the 110 90 pretty much covers the program, but it doesn't cover the renovation. No, it doesn't cover the renovation, but I think I would propose that you, if you're feeling okay about the 110 90 to cover the reoccurring cost, let us come back to you again with some, some hard numbers, right? We can spend a little bit of money on an engineering firm, architectural firm. We'll get some hard numbers. We'll come back with you to add some options about how you could perhaps do that with internal monies you already have and pay it back over time. Give us some time to do that. I think that's the next, to me, the next logical step if you're liking the things that are going along the way. The one million is a non-starter for me. If you can come back with an alternative to being in the firehouse and have four offices, whatever you need, it's a much, much lower cost. It's reasonable. I'd be glad to entertain it, but right now I can't support this thinking about a million dollar renovation for this program. So you got to find some alternatives. It's not going to work for me. Sorry. That's the concern. The concern is too much money. I mean, we, you know, we have expenses that are recurring one time. I understand that office equipment, but I, we never never told that we had to do a complete renovation for a million dollars for this. So that's a, that's a real surprise. And for the type of organization that you want to do there, there are lots of ways to communicate. I understand you'd like to be able to have the people right there with you, but not for a million dollars. So, so let's let us do the work. This is back of the envelope. We don't work. We're trying to be very intentional here because this is a brand new thing and not get ahead of where you're okay with us going. So if you're conceptually on board with the idea of on an annual basis, charging an amount that is going to cover the cost of operations. Let us do the work on the one time cost bringing back some models of what those rates would have to be to cover that cost over time. And then if you're okay with that, then we can have the first reading of the ordinance and water public hearing. Okay, are you in favor of the 110 and 90? Okay. Is that consensus? Hi, yeah. Can, can I ask one clarifying question? Yeah. So, I think a red flag in this, in this analysis for me that you're talking about now is the affordable housing waiver or reduced fee that if that is something that the commit council wants to look at, then that's another financial model we're going to have to. Well, I thought that the $90 per unit in buildings with greater than 40 units was kind of taken care of that. And for the most part. Yeah, I think the 110 90 works financially for the program today. Yes. I think what, I think what I understand the conversation to be that in several of those large units has inclusionary housing, which this discount would then apply to every unit within that building. And so there's the discount being applied. Oh, wow. Well, it would be good to know. I mean, we only, we only require 10%, right? The affordable housing, is there 12, 10? Originally we wanted 25%, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's 12%, if it's a hundred units. But let us do some modeling. Yeah. Well, that would be good to have that modeling out and see what that costs. You can't have a different charge, depending on what the unit is. It's a policy decision that you can have us put in any. Put a lower rate on the affordable units. I'm all for it. But if there's out of 100 units, if 85 are at, you know, market rate, I think that the correct me if I'm wrong, that the apartment buildings in our city. Up until recently have all had affordable units in them. And now that we actually have it in our rules, they will have affordable units going forward. So I think that when we have, you know, 12 units or above. I mean, that night, that $20 reduction, I think adds up when you have several units, including some market rate units, right? It's not all affordable units. Oh, I understand. I'm just saying when it's a big development and just a portion of it, that 12% is affordable. Is this viable to not earn the 110 for all the people who presumably can afford that because you're paying their best market rate. Maybe they can afford it. I don't. I don't mind carving out the affordable units in a building. Well, you know, I'm just not certain I want to do it for the whole building that has 10, 10 affordable units and then all the unit. But I think, I mean, I don't know, but I think that if as a building owner, you wouldn't charge across the board because you are, you have these formulas, right? 30% of the area median income or 60% of the area median income. I would assume that it would have to fit into that formula in order to satisfy our rules, which means they couldn't go over by 10 bucks. They couldn't, you know, and so that $10 would have to go onto a market rate unit. Does that make sense? What I'm saying? Or is that, you know, I don't know in terms in my perfect world. I mean, is that true when we do the impact fees that we charge a little less of impact for affordable units? I don't think I'm talking, I'm talking about the building, the building owner. Well, I know the building owner pays the impact fees. Right. So we don't, I mean, the sustaining the obvious between no, you know, we don't have control over how they handle the expense right on their side of the books. So I think there is, so I don't know how that happens with the private develop on the developer side of things. What does it mean, though, to be affordable? There must be a limit on what the rent can be. Yes, there's formulas. Right. So make must be right that the landlord wouldn't have license to just pass it through because they're limited by the formula. Right. Yeah, that's my, that's my thinking. I just get also point out that you're going to be running a deficit for the first three years as you start to ramp up, you know, people. You know, responding to you paying you, it's not going to be a step function, right? You're not going to get everybody all at once. It's going to be at least a couple of years. I think before you have every unit sending you money, you think. So I think we were conservative on the number of units. Like we didn't count any of the units on the street because they're less than three years old. So, you know, we, we know we're going to pick up some units that we that we didn't count. We know we'll have some units coming on probably year one or year two that this building over in stores been in effect a year. So I don't know that we're running $100,000 deficit. It's going to be lean margins the first couple of years. I'm just thinking of the cat and dog license issue. I think what is I think what is different here and to some extent how we very quickly came up with an accurate that we have about 3000 units we know of. There's a handful of property managers that we have good relationships with call them up and say how many built how many units do you have at this one this one this one. So I think those were going to catch very easy. The person who's going to Airbnb of an ADU in their backyard. We're probably never going to catch that until someone reports it or or something some other something like that happens. So, so I think the big units we're going to catch. Thanks. Okay, so we're sort of set on the 110 and 90 and we'll figure out if there's any deduction for what the numbers look like. And then you'll come back to us with the real cost of retrofitting or establishing appropriate space. I do like you. You're buying electric cars though. I'll say this we bought them in Burlington for the prevention division before we before just for a left and it's a great use for electric vehicle. Yeah. So, there you go with some savings, even when it's 22 cents. I have to say that coming back from Rochester were hot rotting is apparently the teenage thing to do like wheelies on motorcycles down major thoroughfares. Through 3am in the morning. This, this is Rochester. Yeah, I just an event. I don't want to speak into the microphone. This is apparently this is apparently a nationwide phenomenon. And, you know, you leave Vermont and you enter the United States. So, we just have to really realize that we have an amazing, you know, standard here. Right. Okay. So, have we got. Do you have any other questions for us clarification? Thanks. I'm just staying because I'm the next on the agenda as well. So. All right. So you're excused. And something else they do this at, they do this at the county level. So all of the permitting for, for bed and breakfast and Airbnb is at the county level. I just thought I'd throw that out there. It's a whole other taxing. It's a good segue to dispatch regional government. Oh, does anyone online want to make a comment or have a question? Looks like. You got a little sign. If you turn your face on your video, we can. Or just talk. No. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Would you come up please. Okay. Tell people who you are. Hi, I'm Barbara service. I live in summer woods. The birthday girl. Doing okay for age 77, you know, as you are. Anyway, what? Yeah. May 15, 1946. What can I tell you? The town where I spend the winter has a permit for any kind of short term rentals. It's $1,800 per unit per year. So I just thought I'd toss that out. 1800. Now, the other part of that is that the Coachella music festival that you may have heard of. People, people rent a two bedroom, two bath condo for $5,000 for the weekend. So it all balances out, but I think it's, it's, it's just to put it in a little perspective. And I think that, that I want to thank you for being careful about this conversation, especially with regard to affordable housing, but also looking across the spectrum. But I also think it's a good idea for the city. Thanks. Thanks. Okay. All right. So now we're on to item 13, which is we're going to receive an update on the regional dispatch discussions. So we have police chief, Sean Burke and our fire chief. This is your role in this, your fire chief. Steve Locke. So I'll see it up in Chief Burke will jump in as well. So we wanted to take a moment just to update you both on the regional dispatch project as well as some almost parallel track of dispatch work that's being done between the chief and I and some partners as we await for potential action at the regional dispatch level. So most of you probably remember in 2018, the community voted to support moving along with five other communities, moving into or creating the Chittin County Public Safety Authority that would create a regional county model for emergency dispatching. And those efforts had had been proceeding pretty nicely and collecting, gathering quite a lot of grant money. And up to a few months ago, around the end of the calendar year, last year, we're proceeding a way that we were anticipating hire an executive director and to begin dispatching sometime in late 2023. At that point, Colchester made the decision that they were not going to be able to fund continued involvement within it. And then the financial model somewhat started to fall apart. The legislature had earmarked about $11 million last legislative session for regional dispatch efforts. We initially were awarded about 750,000 for the Chittin County Public Safety Authority. That money got clawed back as the state decided to re-evaluate the direction that they were going. And just over the last couple of days, the final house bill, the final budget bill included new language that does say the state is responsible for dispatching. The state sees it that way and that they're going to create a, I don't want to call it a study group, but it's a transitional group that's going to allow basically to set up parameters of how dispatching should work, how it could work at the regional level with the caveat that of the $11 million, $4.5 million could be released to, it does say, areas of the state that are in dire need. And so we may be able to make an argument and that are ready to go. And so we may be able to make an argument that Chittin County is one of those. It's too early to tell. I do, while this is as good that they're at least going to release some of the money, I am worried that this is going to be something that slows down all of our regional efforts and be quite honest. I almost feel it's like a poison pill to me, although I don't think it was done that way. It was done with the best of intentions, but it's making it extremely complicated when you're trying to run our own center and stand up a new center at the same time. And so I think some part of what we're here to talk about tonight, probably more importantly, is that part of the CCPSA award was about 225,000 for dispatch consoles. Well, in the South Brompton capital budget this year, there was about that same amount of money for dispatch consoles. We were able to have the state transfer ownership of those same radio stations to the city of South Brompton. We're saving us those monies, but more importantly, we're going to repurpose those monies still within the dispatch center to allow us some freshening up of the space, reworking the workstations so we would have the ability to have forward workstations for dispatch positions. And perhaps there are, we have some neighbors that are interested in working with us for dispatching, so a mini regional without being through the CCPSA. And so what we're seeing is a parallel track here to perhaps accomplish what we were always wanted, which was efficiency and collaboration with our neighbors. But at the same time, doing it now under the city of South Brompton and a shared services model with some of our regional partners or some of our neighboring partners. Some technology upgrades that we're going to be able to do what we're looking to buy into is sharing the same computer-aided dispatch system that the city of Brompton uses. When that system was bought, it was bought with the agreement that it could be built out. And so by getting these dispatch consoles for transfer ownership to the states allowing us, to us, is allowing us to use those same capital dollars to invest in that, which will almost take a year for implementation. But that's going to make our work of our dispatchers more efficient and much easier for us in the fire department to share resources. I think finally, for our general and chief work, I have to just, you know, our overall goal is to get to the point where we have two dispatchers on 24-7. If I've never been a dispatcher, but I've been in a lot of dispatch centers and that is an extremely stressful job, an extremely difficult job. And when you're in that center alone at two in the morning or seven at night and a significant call comes in, you know, you're behind the ball from the beginning because the phone's ringing. You're trying to speak to your officers or your firefighters. And so I know our shared goal is to try to find a way that we can achieve that. And some part of that will come with if we can find alternative revenue sources. So anyways, I'll turn it over to the chief. We did want to chat to you about where we're at, what's going on, and the great work, really, our dispatchers are doing every day. Thank you. Thank you, Sean Burke, police chief. I think the only thing I wanted to add is that we had budgeted for new radio consoles because our current consoles are at end of life. So this is fortuitous in the sense that if we can repurpose these radio consoles, get our dispatch center up and running to a level where it sustains our operations and potentially starts the regional partnership. That's fantastic, but our equipment does need to be replaced. I just have a question in terms of, I mean, originally when we were talking about this, I mean, way, way back before either of you were in Burlington, in South Burlington, you're both in Burlington. And it seemed like there was a significant challenge that the city of Burlington kept bringing forward. Is that just the wrong recollection? I mean, there are all sorts of interesting comments or discussions about, you know, what's the pay level and, you know, people, towns have different pay levels. So that would be really tough. But it also, I think it was around the CAD system. And that was pretty expensive and not everyone wanted to buy it and Burlington was just going to buy it. And I'm just wondering if that holds back a little bit. I mean, if they've gone to the legislature and said, we're in this, we're a big part of the community or the county, let's go for it. So to be fair to our partners in Burlington, I do think in the last couple of weeks that has happened that the mayor has been very vocal about this, the legislation that was been before them this year. I would say, having been at Wuduski as well, all of the communities face different challenges going to regional dispatch and face different needs going to regional dispatch. You know, the one on most communities, but for Burlington and South Burlington only ever operate with one on, which is a very, as a manager, very scary place to be. That's a problem to try and solve. That wasn't Burlington's problem. Burlington had other challenges. And I think trying to set up a share, what's called Union Municipal District, a shared government to solve everybody's problems with all of those chiefs and all of those elected officials is a big heavy lift. Which is why the chiefs and I are interested in this parallel path where we explore meeting our specific goals, which are to all at all times and getting CAD that may lead to an improved shared services agreement with other communities for the economies of scale that then may lead to a Union Municipal District in the future. We think that that's a good incremental step change. So we just want to make, we've been making these decisions kind of going in this path, but wanted to make sure that you all were on board with that, that kind of stepped system over time. And I also just want to underline what both the chiefs said, which are we have exceptional dispatchers on staff. Now we are fully staffed on our dispatch team, which is pretty unique in the county. And we also want to demonstrate to them to our dispatchers that we want to ensure that we maintain our excellent services as we think about these changes over time. And people know that they have a good employment option with us or with a future partner agency. Does shared services mean that we'll maybe have some excess capacity? We've read that capacity out to neighboring towns for a fee. Is that what that means? Shared services? Basically, it means that other communities contract with us and we provide them services rather than what CCPSA is, which is a Union Municipal District where we stand up a whole new government with a whole new board of directors to administer a share money. So we'll contract out our excess capacity for a fee. Yeah, I mean we wouldn't necessarily build extra capacity unless we had those contracts, which is the risk with shared services agreements for the host community. But can the dispatcher from like Shelburne sort of join forces? So it's, so there's some additional staffing for, I mean is that how you're kind of seeing it? Or our communities who want to partner or buy our services then just can their full system? I think the obvious partner is a community that doesn't necessarily have its own dispatchers and it would be more looking for switching where they're getting the contracted services. So is there an opportunity to get a few other communities to share the resource for us to work with them and provide services for them in some way that they get paid? And then if we get enough people then just to, you know, to translate into the Union District? I think the Chief and I are interested in, I mean I'm trying to be delicate here, saying we don't want to ruin a good thing. And so some part of it is taking on the right partner that allows for efficiency and sharing the resources and all the good things that regionalizing services can bring and some sharing of the money. But at the same time not going too big too fast that we disrupt our current workforce and create a problem of our own making. So I think we, is that a good way to put it? It's exactly what happened at the state level. So as the State Department of Public Safety consolidated from four down the two dispatch centers, the employees complained, not complained but just observed and could no longer work given the complexity of operations in those centers. And really a focus of the legislature has been of late is if DPS rolls back their commitment to providing services to towns that have no other option, what does that mean? And that's the critical need that the legislature is looking at. They're less concerned with communities like ours where we can sustain operations. However, we need to sustain operations because we've had a lot of growth in terms of not only the city and population, but especially as fire-based EMS has seen dramatic increase in call volume complexity on the police side. We're asking our dispatchers to do a lot. So although contracted services may be fantastic in the future, the goal of this project now is to get a sustainable emergency communication center that's professionalized, adequate that our employees want to continue to work at. So do you need like another 10,000 to 15,000 people in terms of community size to add to South Burlington to justify two dispatchers full time? So there's not a population formula. You have to look at call volume and right now, so if a serious car accident comes in, which one did earlier today, the dispatcher has to make a decision. Do I send the police first or do I send the fire and EMS first when we only have one on? When we had that incident at the University Mall in February of 2021, the dispatcher was in there alone. I know that we came in and we talked about that. It was actually the foundation for the seventh full-time employee. That was terrifying. I walked down to the dispatch center and I couldn't believe what our dispatcher was trying to accomplish there. So right now the demands on our center really require two full-time employees on at all times. And then we can look at what communities potentially want to partner with us and what would that mean operationally? And I think the number and correct me, you know, I think what we're talking about was we would need two more FTEs to get to 224.7. I think that's, yeah, maybe, so if I misspoke that please, but I think just so you can get your own frame of reference what it takes to get there. So that's not the ask now, but if we can do some offsetting revenue, that obviously makes everyone's life a little bit easier. Okay. Any other questions or comments? I would encourage you to keep working. Yeah. Thanks for the update. Thank you for the update and I have a lot of faith in you too. Okay. Item 14, we're going to receive the status update on Hubbard Park, the preliminary engineering and next steps. Is Erica then, oh, she's here. Sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't see you. Sorry. Is somebody going to do the presentation? Where do you think I was going to do it? Apparently I'm doing it. Talk amongst yourselves while I'm doing it. No, no, no, I can do it. So this is one of the just a quick table setting. This is one of those very multi-year projects that we've been working on that has garnered some community feedback. So, you know, we are a moving chain kind of going down plant long term multi-year planning and we want to give you a status update. Oh, boy, this works to make sure we are still pulling in the direction you would like us to pull. Feel free to fix it. Oh, no. Introduction. So Holly Reese, recreation and parks director. I'm Erica Kowall and deputy director of capital projects with public works. So, as Jesse said, we're just going to do a little review of history. So the past 10 years consolidated into a nutshell. And just for frame of reference, this project has had five different recreation and parks directors involved in it and to your pandemic. So we're going to try to catch everybody up to speed here. And of course, the objective for tonight is just to, you know, present the design efforts to this point and also review some of the council actions as well as public input. So the project area that we're talking about just to make sure everyone is in the same place is what was known as the Underwood property and has been renamed to honor and celebrate Tom Hubbard. So the Hubbard recreation and natural area is along Nolan farm road and spear street. So that green area. And then this is the history and timeline. So starting back in 2013 when the council approved the acquisition of the Underwood parcel with the conservation fund. And then in 2014 quickly realizing that there needed to be a task force created to take a look at the property and do a visioning. That visioning began in March of 2015, which led us into developing into the comprehensive plan that need to do a master plan for this parcel. And then in 2018, we contracted the SE group to be the provider of that master plan process will get into a little bit of what that public process looked like. And then the resulting was the beginning designs that Erica will go into depth for the passive recreation component. And then again in 2020 is when we started leasing the land for agriculture with common roots. So quick questions. Yep. What year was it we had the tethered hot air balloon. That was 2018. Yep. It was August day when Maggie went up in the blue. I don't think Maggie went up. Did she go up in the blue. Well, there you go. The director number four. So if we can advance to the next slide, we can, you know, discuss kind of the council's involvement to date and some of these dates will will overlap from the previous slide. But again, the council approved the 2013 purchase of the land. And then council did the creation of the Underwood task force. In 2016 was the approval of the open space and natural area enhancement plan. We call that oh snap and and then based on that was the task force to then kind of carry that plan out and formulate those numbers. And then in 2016 was the recommendation approval from from those spaces and what we were going to do with those. You'll remember it's a pretty color coded chart of priority one priority to priority three and Eric and can go into more detail. I think she probably looks at it pretty frequently. And then in 2020, of course, was the approval for the actual four acres of lease plan for common roots, which they are actively farming. And then in terms of public outreach to date, the public was involved in the visioning process, which led to the master plant process as as Tim noted, there was quite a festive event that included a hot air balloon and food track. As well as multiple stations around the parcel to kind of hit at some of those target areas and people are actually given, you know, funny money to put into different pockets to show their prioritization of what they wanted to see on this land. It was a great process. Out of that came a report that was shared in a, you know, another community iteration where there was then a ranking similar to the dots that happened at the retreat, but not quite as much fun. So that that public workshop happened as well. And then in 2021. Ashley Parker, who was the project manager for the open space and bike bike ped projects at that point, as well as Justin Rabidou and myself led that public workshop. And that was actually attended by the natural resources committee, the recreation parks committee and the bike and pet committee and kind of a shared public meeting to talk about that that first development, which was the passive recreation area. When, when the community did the vision framework. These are kind of the 10 guiding principles that were developed and significantly were to promote natural resources, agriculture and recreation resources throughout the park. And then we can kind of go through to see that, you know, Rachel natural resource conservation and sustainability was certainly a big component. And then supporting that was the need for getting people onto the land of all ages and all abilities. So there could be a focus on education. And that's where some of the other pieces came in as well. Another component of this was to make sure that it provided a gateway to recreation and a conduit of connectivity along our park inventory and helped string the park system along. There was a high desire to have a lot of different elements different reasons why people might interface with this land and come to this space. A structure was seen as an anchor that would provide four seasons worth of activity. And there's been some different iterations of what that might look like an event barn, perhaps, or some sort of, you know, indoor covered space. But one thing that was really important was that there wasn't a desire to over build this piece of property and land. And while both active and passive recreation were desirable, you know, kind of the developed soccer field or developed baseball field or something that was a singular focus was taken off as a priority and and was more, you know, organic layout for for a variety of different activities, trails that have already been established in the woods, mode paths, as well as, you know, spaces for people to safely get to some viewing pavilions or areas to engage with the land. And then this is just a concept. I'll point out a couple of pieces here so the kind of lime greenish areas are agricultural in those circular pieces, and then some more community gardens, perhaps a flower garden, you know, much of anything that's lime green is agricultural based. When you first at that top star on Nolan farm road that would be the, the access point or the entry point with some parking and then some vegetative buffering. At this point in the visioning framework there were a couple different stormwater amenities that were imagined and then you can see the connected white dots are walking trails that would kind of meander and circle through and connect to the woods as well. And then you have broad brush stroke here but just so you had a visual. And then that got strengthened into a master plan and the strategic planning focused on, you know, these six areas so agricultural passive recreation. And we consider that when people just come on to the land and active recreation is something that's more planned or, you know, incentivize through a developed programmer event, as well as an event facility. And, you know, taking care of the natural resources that are there and any supportive facilities like parking, or, you know, lighting or, you know, vegetative structures or, or anything like that. So then if we break up those a little bit just to see, you know, what those tabs really are articulating the community gardens as well as the lease for the agriculture make up that right now there are those four least acres there's also water on the site and electrical conduit. For passive recreation. There's, you know, mode trails that are there now. These would also be places to come to so a table setting so you could come to a picnic table you could come to a shade structure you could come to a specific site that would support, you know, views of sunsets or also other viewing options. So active recreation so open field space for people to fly kites throw ball. You know anything like that as well as a natural playground and potentially a treehouse. Clearly rich in natural resources so habitat protections invasive species removals and storm water improvements. And then those supporting facilities that we talked about so lighting and by cracks and trail markers and and of course the anchor of supported parking. And then that kind of got refined into this 80 2018 master plan concept. And so on this one Nolan farm is down below and then spear street on the right. And here you'll see the mapped out for acres where common roots actually is farming. That's a little more clear. And then you'll still see the desire to have kind of look some looping trails as well as, you know, through the the meadowlands of the park into the forested area, as well as connection north and south, which will get into a little more. But you can see you'd come into the park access the park and then there would be some sort of desire to get a little further into the park for best viewing options. And then that's where Erica is going to jump in. Thank you Holly for a great history that I was not here for. So this is kind of where I've jumped in and I've been here before talking about like pet infrastructure. So this in addition to enhancing the open space that the city owns. This is also a really key part of our bike pad network. That's been laid out in a few different areas in both the visioning process and the master plan. It's called out that there's a paved bike path connection or shared use path connection across the park to continue this. Growing connection that's happening along spear street in the 2020 South Brillington bike pad feasibility study, which is where this graphic comes from. It lays out and really formalizes the recommendation of doing a path network that's not right along spear street. We know spear street is a really common route for like road cyclists that confident road cyclists who are out on their rides on the weekend. Or just folks that are generally more comfortable sharing space with the road with vehicles, but as our path network grows spear street is a place that has a bit of a gap. So this study recommended that between Swift and the South Village neighborhood, it comes off of the road to the West here. North is on the left side here. So the Shelburton town line is at the edge. It's that thin black line here. And these are coming along South Village has low stress networks and shared use paths through there takes you across south and north Jefferson. And there's just some little gaps, but this is a really big gap in this area. And also a spear meadows continues that northern section towards Swift Street also progresses. So moving on to the next slide. Sorry, mine's not as clear because I have two sided. You could see Holly flipping easily. So laying this out just kind of in the context of what we're in design for right now, some of those pieces that Holly ran through in the open space project task force recommendations. There were that was accepted by the council at that time, it allowed open space funds in Hubbard or to be used for projects in Hubbard. And then in 2018, that's when those projects got laid out. And so just to kind of highlight some of the background thinking also there was a survey that was put out during that master planning process. One of the questions here was about, is there a need for improved bike infrastructure accessing the park. And you can see that most people said yes here is 67% and with some of these approvals that we've laid out design began in January 2020. And this was just the initial contract to do some of the pre formalized design, doing more of the conceptual level design to just kind of see the feasibility of what was laid out in that master planning document. And as Holly mentioned, there's been a lot going on between 2020 and now. So there was a bit of a hiatus in it, but it's been picking up in earnest in 2022. So the design elements that I'm going to run you through are laid out here. There's the 10 foot paved shared use path and improve parking lot that has some low level lighting, some accessible parking spaces. And that connects you to the existing path network and the proposed path. This also has a viewing area that has some natural elements of Stonewall mode area, some new shade trees put in and some open grass space. And a conversation that we've been having is about the potential to include public art in this project, having a little section off of the path that would we'd work with the public art committee to get their approval on one of the pieces they've been working with an artist and looking for a location. And then with all of this, obviously, we need to treat stormwater it was part of the master planning process as part of the natural resource conservation section of this. And so that is also in design. So looking at it graphically, we'll zoom into each of these. But this is kind of the overall look we have Nolan farm road on the left and up so up Lane and South Point on the right here. And so the parking area the driveway gets realigned to be directly across from pinnacle it's a bit safer of an intersection access point there. So that is not where it is now. No, it is up just a little bit higher on this about where the shared use path is shown to be starting with the part and shared. Yeah, the other side. Yep, so it's up there just barely off alignment so it's that kind of wonky offset. And I've heard from folks that the headlights from that area kind of shine in a very inconvenient way for some folks. So this realignment of it. There's some hedges shown on the lower part of that parking lot to shield those headlights that folks are in there. And you can see it takes you over to the overlook viewing area. And then a very constant level location for public art. The stormwater is all being cited currently so it's not shown here it would just be kind of blobs that isn't that's the like active stage of design we're in right now. And then it gets you to the mode path connection that takes you into a plane. So the area for common roots is not on this map. It's below it's kind of to the right of those two homes. Yeah, it's underneath where it says overlook viewing area the images had off but it's under there. Yeah. So going through each design element the first one is the entrance and parking area. And it's realigned to be in a bit more advantageous area. It would be a paved lot about 2530 spaces with accessible parking spaces in there. Native shrubs to block the headlights because there are those houses to the east of it. Sorry to the west to make sure that no light would be just shining in their house. And low level lighting for personal safety not something that would kind of spill out of the parking lot but enough for folks to feel comfortable getting back to their cars or getting back to their bike whatever they took to the park. And then this includes those support facilities like trailhead signage in a map. So this is just a little graphic looking at it a bit closer showing all of those elements. That low level lighting it would just be about for it would be just about four lights. So, keeping it very dim and that's something that after park hours they would go really really dark potentially like a motion sensor something like that. So that they're not obstructing and spilling out of the park. It could go on with animals though that could be walking by. Yeah, that would be something we'd have to explore we're looking at that in another study also. We're looking at the sensitivity or how it would work in a setting like this because if if it's closed, ideally you go on all night. Yeah. And if it's closed ideally there isn't anyone there. And so they could just be kept very dim or off at a certain time. But yeah those details will definitely come later. So now going to the shared use path like we saw in the picture and we'll see it again. It connects from Nolan farm road to up swept lane. There is currently a shared use path on Nolan farm so this would have a crosswalk that would go right across there to connect the two paths. And then this would bring you to where that where the mode path section is just past the park parcel limit we do have an easement through there. There's no potential to formalize that connection in the future but there's a stream crossing there. There is a very informal bridge and it just, it opens up a lot more to do that connection as part of this project. But it is currently maintained by the city or is that part of. So just people itself done. Okay. And this again it just going for the all ages and abilities in terms of physical abilities and also comfort with where folks want to walk or bike. So, yep, we looked at this and we can pull it back up later if you have questions about it. So now getting into the viewing area. On the graphic you could see it's accessible from the path, the paved path it would be a kind of stone dust walkway. And there'd be a spot right at that little intersection where you could drop your bikes and go down maybe have lunch or something is oriented to face west for those beautiful views through there. There's a stone wall on the back of it a low stone wall so that you can kind of separate yourself. There's seating picnic tables at around that chairs. And then there's also a small mode grass area for folks. I know I like to just bring a blanket and sit in the grass. So leaving that option there too. And the current plan is to have some swamp white oak trees that could grow pretty large but provide some nice shade and area also. So this is you can see kind of where the trees are currently being proposed that mode area is up in the front and then the back it would all be stone dust. So it's crushed stone and ADA surface so anyone could get to this area. There's some picnic tables and chairs and that thicker line on the back is the stone wall. So a stone dust path is ADA accessible. It's harder to maintain but when it's maintained properly it is if it's packed properly. So going to public art this is just a potential opportunity here it's something that we've been having ongoing conversations with. I think it's a cool idea here so I'm hoping the collaboration moves forward. But we would have a space for sculpture installation from a local artist. Again a stone dust path would take you to the sculpture with opportunities for some natural wood seeding and interpretive signage about the art and about the park. Kind of anything we want to give people an opportunity to learn about. And so that's the whole design I'm sure we'll have questions and we can go back and look at them. I wanted to give you a rundown also of what's been spent to date because we are pretty far in this project. So just kind of looking at where we are in the scale of all of this. The 2013 purchase was about one point six million dollars from the conservation fund. And then as it became eligible to start using the open space and conservation fund that was used towards the visioning framework and the master planning. Totaling about fifty five thousand and then currently in our permitting and design effort we spent about fifty three thousand dollars. Mostly from open space funds but because this is that shared use path connection it becomes penny for paths eligible. And this is an eligible wreck impact fee project. So the design elements that I showed you so this was would be what is forthcoming in terms of cost. Looking at all these broken out by the element here but it totals to a little over six hundred thousand dollars. This is a very preliminary cost estimate it's the one we have most recent. So some of these are kind of lump sum guesses as we hone material costs and see what this construction season brings us in terms of costs. But a lot of it is in the where paving is because you have that involves gravel and the pavement and some construction space and then it gets all receded. The viewing area it's owned as paths are another hundred thousand or so. And then there's all of the other incidentals like preparing the site. And this does include believe it's a 15 percent contingency and a 10 percent mobilization and demobilization spring and everything out and bringing it back. So we're holding a pretty high contingency at this point because of all those uncertainties. Oh this is the last one that's okay. This is pretty close. So this will be going through a DRB hearing. So in the coming months that will be getting submitted as we finalize permitting kind of concurrently. We've received a lot of initial approvals to make sure everything is OK with wetlands in the area and active 50 because there has been an active 50 permit on the property already. And so there have been a lot of ongoing conversations with the state and things have gone well and they're OK with the way that we plan to treat stormwater and that everything is being taken into account properly. So contract plans pretty much the same late fall early winter of this year is the plan so we could put it out to bid and then construction being next spring and summer and just one construction season ideally. So I will open it up. Thank you very much. Okay. And it will be done by June 21st of 2024. June 21st. Do you need it by then? Well spring ends. That's true. In the one that's not highlighted it says spring slash summer. We have a few extra months. I would pay for all of it. Questions during the eclipse. Yes. Andrew. A couple of questions and some comments just in terms of the stormwater is the reason that the stormwater is basin is contemplated is because of the larger parking lot and the paved path or is there a thought that that meadow needs to have a stormwater basin regardless. So the site does need some stormwater improvements that was called out as natural resource improvements in the master plan. And so this was being it's all being sized and the treatment needed is related to the new surfaces that would go in. Do you have anything else? Thank you. One comment. I just wanted to note in the master planning phase we were looking at the flow restoration plan for Bartlett Brook. And we did have a rather large stormwater detention system down by the road downstream of that. There's a pipe that carries water through the neighborhood that we've had wash out three times since I've been here. So we were trying to put that treatment system into kind of control the water as it comes downhill. So the proposed one now is smaller in scale and it's just dealing with park elements. It's not dealing with anything off site. Okay. So we just did. So the proposed one is just because of the new pavement. Is that accurate? So it's going to deal with the impervious surface. It's from that existing gravel lot gravel parking, gravel stone paths all considered impervious surface. So we're managing that in the new system. Right. I'm sorry. Just to, if there were no shared use path and no impervious parking lot, would you need that stormwater basin? From a permitting perspective. You would not. Natural resource perspective for, for many, for many. So we're always trying to control the water that's coming down that hill. Yeah. I'm getting probably a little finer detail of the drainage system downstream. But from a permitting perspective, no, you wouldn't need it. Okay. So I have to say, look, I appreciate all the hard work and it's a thorough presentation. And the design has moved from my perspective in a, in a, in a good direction significantly toward a more passive use of the space and more respect for the natural state of the area. But I still, I have real concerns with it. Honestly. I think that it's overbuilding and really degrading the natural state of that meadow to put an asphalt 10 foot path through the middle of it. I don't love constructing a viewing area in the middle of the meadow. And we were, there already is a parking lot and there's tons of parking on the farm road. You know, I, I really, um, I think it is important to agree strongly that we need bike and pet connectivity. And I, you know, cycle a lot, I use spare a lot, you know, regular cyclists use spare. The kids are ready to use that dirt path. My kids use the dirt path all the time with their bikes. Like it's perfectly fine that there is connectivity ready because the regular cyclists use the road. And folks are not, you know, that comfortable on the road. I usually, you know, use, use dirt path and, um, I don't see why it makes sense to pave that dirt path. And I just think it really, again, just, just degrades that area terribly aesthetically from a biodiversity perspective. There are a few low spots on that dirt path that when it's hit, like right now it's completely dry because I walk it all the time. There are a few low spots that get a little wet when there's a heavy rain. And I could see maybe, you know, building that up a bit so that it's drier even when it's heavy rain. But, um, from my perspective, I'd much rather use, you know, the 600,000 that's going to go into this plan to put trees on the repairing area, to restore that wetland, put cotton woods and other repairing trees and really improve the natural state of that meadow and improve the biodiversity and, and, you know, make it a real showcase what we can do with the natural area rather than begin to, you know, anthropomorphize the meadow and like make it something that's used by humans. You know, like, let's, let's leave it to be used by the animals and the wildflowers. That's my perspective. I would just encourage the counselors to talk to each other in this conversation because staff is reacting specifically to ask council guidance. So the discussion is to you all not they're following the direction of previous councils. Sure. Okay. Other comments, Tim? I have two questions. One, obviously, I'm thinking there is an easement to get to up sweat plane that already exists. But there's probably not one across the former long property, right? Correct. Which is now. To connect South Point and South Village. Yeah. That's correct. Have there been any discussions with the new owners about this at all? It's really too preliminary to even think about it or. Yeah, it's very preliminary. Okay. All right. So, so, but the goal is to make that connectivity all the way to North Jefferson. Eventually that is what's shown in our comp plan and in this bike pad feasibility. Yeah, which is, which is really great connectivity because from there you can get back across Midland all the way back to Dorset Street with on another path go away back to. Side or middle where you can have an ice cream, right? Which is very important. So, and to not to contradict Mr. Chalonic, Councillor Chalonic about the dryness of the path across that park, but I often run from South Point, you know, northward to no one farm road. It's wet. I mean, I have no, no, the path that comes from South Point straight across to the parking lot, right, that one trimmed area, which is it's not a road. It's just a walking path. But I think it's the primary path. It's really always it to me in the spring or the fall, it's wet. You have to walk into the deep grass to get around the puddles and stuff like that. If that's the approximate location of where them. I mean, you can look at the parking lot today and straight south. There is a path all the way to South Point. That's the path I'm talking about. An improvement would be a stone dust path. I don't have any problems with that whatsoever. A pavement I'm not fond of. And viewing area. I mean, what do we do with Overlook Park? What do we do with Overlook Park once we have this new Overlook Park? Do we do have two Overlook Parks or? Well, my understanding was that there would be events at this natural. Well, in this one design consideration that we're looking at right now, I mean. So, I mean, it's more parks is better than no parks, right? I mean, I understand that I'm just, but we have one Overlook Park, which is like half of it's totally obscured by the, you know, the Arbor Vides that are standing in front of a house that's obscuring the view as well. Right. This park has absolutely no obstacles in front of it. Has the most one of the most sweeping views of the lake and the Adirondacks that I've ever seen from a piece of land, you know, especially in South William, which is really, really great. You know, it's very unique and I really love it. So, that's all I have for now. Yeah. Well, I received a letter from the South Burlington Land Trust. I also received a letter from Bob Britt, who's the chair of the bike and peg committee. And I think that both points are valid with regard to, and I don't know if it's the same term in English, but the French call it artificialization of the soil. I don't know if that's at all what we say in English, but I think we have to be careful about what chemicals could go into that soil. And petroleum based blacktop might not be, you know, the ideal, but I do hear the interests of taking cars off Spear Street and getting bikers to really use this path that would be traveling, you know, all the length of Spear Street, and not only for kids, but for, you know, other people who simply just don't feel comfortable riding on Spear Street, which I think the width is pretty controlled. So that's a compelling argument, you know, to really make this a thoroughfare for cyclists. And I do respect that those woods should remain natural. That part of Underwood, which I've walked through the meadow and the woods, and it is wet, the meadow, and there are trails in the woods, which of course should be remained, and I see no plans to change that. So it's, I think that the goal, there's always going to be people there. So for us to say that we're not going to anthropomorphize it, it already is anthropomorphized. We use that land. People are there. So I see that we have to really think strategically about what lands we want to attract people to, and what lands we want to really maintain in their natural state. In this case, since we're already using this pretty heavily, and there have been research projects there with pollinators and all kinds of things, which is wonderful, as well as the common roots guarding plot. I mean, this is really a multi-use natural area where people are going to come. And if we could turn it into, you know, some kind of, you know, event destination, that's what the discussion was for weddings to be held there. It would be a moneymaker for the city, and I think that we have to be careful. We certainly want to respect the woods, but it is anthropomorphized. We have to really, I think, acknowledge that. People use it all the time, just like you say, you go there every day. So it's not a pristine method. Lightly. Right. And so I think, you know, I think we have to think about what chemicals could be going into the soil. I know that the fine stone is considered impervious. Right. That's my understanding. I've been talking about this with my husband. So it's, you know, we have to find that balance. And I think that the argument to make this truly a road for, you know, bikers and cyclists who are communing, it's compelling. We have to... And walkers too. And walkers. Right. They come to say that a spear is already that road. There's already a wide... It's pretty... There's already a wide... Folks that are going to get out of their cars to bike are on spear. Can I respond to that? I really trust the bike and pet committee for their, you know... Spear is a bike... You know how... I understand, but I really think that they know what they're talking about. I don't think they're throwing this out there to say, we don't care about this land. We're just going to plow right through it. I don't think so either. But there are competing considerations. Yeah. Can I respond to that last point, Andrew? Thank you, Megan. I agree with you. And I think it's important that we underscore how profound the challenge is to try and convince people to start commuting by bike, particularly in North America. Just as a frame of reference, cyclists... And I apologize. I'm going to nerd out for a little bit because this is what I've done for a majority of my professional career as I spend a lot of time working in the bicycle industry. But cyclist participation and the core of cycling enthusiasts and whereby enthusiasts, we're talking about people who spend north of $10,000 on a bicycle, right? Who ride over 300 days a year. The number of them who... They still ride their bike. They're still enthusiasts. But the number of them who are willing to go out and ride on the road nationwide, it's dropping at a precipitous rate. Double digits year over year. And that's during the pandemic as well. Because of the dangers? Because of the dangers of these. And so even those folks, these are people who ride 300 days a year and spend $10,000 on a toy are reluctant to ride their bike to work. What shot do we have of getting average people and convincing them to leave their car at home and to pedal to work if we don't give them access, safe access, reliable access to paths? And to Megan's point, I think it's a myth. If we don't, if we don't afford them that opportunity with this here. I welcome the idea of, you know, a crushed stone path or a crushed stone surface. We're already struggling to maintain the parks that we have. And to Erica's point, these are more costly. If we use them selectively great, but to use that as the primary, particularly when this could be a major hub for thoroughfare. I think it would be a mess and I would strongly advocate for the design as proposed. Well, can you remind me, I'm going back to the picture that has the project area and the purple lines, which are existing shared use. So in terms of getting bikes off Spear Street, you, you have to, what you're saying is you go across Hubbard and then down Nolan and across Spear Street and then go kind of down toward, you know, go west. So the network on the project area slide, I think it's the third one in. Yeah, that's the one I'm looking at. Yeah. So the connection through here would be you could go from Midland through South Village on, they have some paths, but also just low volume roads. You would go through South Point across Hubbard and then you would go up and over to Vale, which is again just a very low volume kind of neighborhood road. And from that cul-de-sac and out through Spear Meadows, which is ongoing as their path network progresses that would take you all the way to Swift Street where a path exists. Is that being built now? Parts of it. The final connection we're doing coordination on that, but there have been ongoing conversations with Spear Meadows to get those paths in. Is it going to come out above the little pond, right? There's a little pond there on Swift Street. That's the last section we're doing some coordination on is that final connection street. So the final outlet point isn't. You'll come out east of the crosswalk, right? Yeah. So the crosswalk might move that final connection. And it's been in the CIP, but the Spear Street shared use path also connects to that Swift Street path. So that would be the next section. But yeah. So it would go through Hubbard and then the expectation would be go up to Vale and through Spear Meadows. Well, I'm just wondering, you know, to your point, if we're looking for a commuter path for bikes, do commuter bicycles like the scenic path? They like the straight path. They would rather just go on. I am an e-bike commuter. Pardon me? I am an e-bike commuter. Yeah. And I use a combination of city streets, highways shared or bike paths. The Lou Brezee Bridge between Community Park and Tilly Drive. Most people do because they don't want to spend an extra half an hour on their bike. But I do my best to avoid things like Williston Road Industrial Avenue. Right. You know, and in doing that, I have to use North Brown now, which isn't too bad, but it's a little heavy in the morning, but I use a lot of sidewalks. I go through Rossignol Park on a sidewalk. I use the flasher lights to get across industrial. I go up the, is at the eastern side of industrial to like Gale Drive and Sharon Drive, Gale Terrace and Sharon Drive to bypass to get to 2A. So, but 2A has a wonderful bike path that goes all the way down to the junction. So anyway. I wouldn't feel comfortable if I had a choice. And I would ask this to the council, if you could, if you were to, if your kids were asking you if they could ride their bikes to school, how would you rather have them go? Well, we live on Heinsberg Road and I would not allow them. My husband doesn't even ride on Heinsberg Road. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, we have a bike path that's dumping into it, but that's another conversation. Yeah. Well, I am like Tyler. I think we need to have separated bike paths and we're far from that. I mean, we have it on Kennedy and on Dorset, a little bit on Heinsberg and on the Lou Brzee Bridge and the whole Kimball Avenue kind of business park there. But we're far from where we should be to truly. And I, I, I'm swayed by Bob's, you know, description of this being really a parallel to Spear Street, but within, you know, a buffer, which is far away from cars. And I think for car drivers, I hear them saying those cyclists, they think they own the road. I think it's also positive for the drivers. So, but are you set to have this paved? I am for the fine stone. I don't want petroleum. Okay. How about you? I would, I would worry about, I'm not a fan of paving over the recreation area. And again, as it, for me personally, I'm not yet at the point where I won't ride my bike on Spear Street. But that's, if I'm being honest, I'm not the representative demographic number one and number two, I'm naively optimistic. I grew up, I've lugged hundreds of thousands of miles and those are that road. I don't like saying it. And it's not, I'm not a fan of it. I learned to mountain bike in that land and on the land that counselor Chelmick's house is built on. But I'd go for, I'd go for paving. You prefer paving? I don't prefer it, but I think it's the best option for promoting commuting, for interconnectivity, for minimal maintenance on behalf of the city. I don't want to do it and then have it be something that we are, that people start to get frustrated by because it requires ongoing maintenance or because it's too expensive. I grew up on, on the prayer path, which is the fine stone path that goes on the old rail line into Chicago from my hometown. And it held up pretty well. It was fine stone and we have four seasons and the pavement, you have construction every year in Chicago. So I, you don't, I'm not convinced that the pavement would be of, you know, an economical choice. Well, we're not paving frosty and, you know, between Hubbard and the road. Well, wasn't that the question whether that should be paved or not? Well, I think this part's paved, but are we paving? No, I'm talking about that. Church Hill Street. It's currently proposed to be paved across the whole Hubbard parcel, north to south. And then it would, the part that's not part of this project is from the parcel line to Upswept Lane. Upswept. Oh, that's a little, oh, and then you get. So it's just the short section, but across the whole parcel north, south on this graphic, the dotted purple through the green block of Hubbard is proposed to be paved currently. I just want to reiterate what I said earlier about being at Airport Park and them having a four and a half mile stone dust path all the way to the cut on the causeway. It's great. Nobody minds it. Nobody minds it. It's not paved. It works fine. And it's pretty low maintenance, unless the, you know, the lake washes it out, which we wouldn't have. It would wash out an asphalt, too. Right. Or undermine it and then it would crash through. I'm guessing. Other comments. You're, you don't want anything. Is that right? Or you want to keep it the, the mode. That exists now. I think that we should consider alternatives either. Moving the path to the foot of the meadow, which is pretty flat, not through the center of the meadow, or expanding the existing bike lane on spare, perhaps putting those, I know when you're in DC on a bike lane that's next to a road and many places will have like those. Stanchions like they have on, you know, right, right. So that there's a physical barrier. So folks feel safer. My. Look, my. Emotional reaction to this is it's degrading the meadow in a way that's not appropriate. So, but you might be willing to have it go. Like right behind those houses property. Well, the foot. I mean, if you, if you, you know, bike longer, which, which I do a lot, the foot of that meadow is actually pretty flat. There's just a little Peter raised raised up, right as you come to Nolan farm road. But I think it would be, you know, easy to construct a bike path away from traffic at the foot of the meadow and not have something go bisect right through the ridge line of that meadow. Well, it's not just a bike path. I mean, it's for, it's the path for people to get from the parking lot to the viewing area. And so they're going to want to be able to use that to get all the way to the southern part because they might then want to walk in the meadow areas around the whole property. Well, they can walk already, which is what people. Well, no, but that, that path, like I said, it is wet at least half the time. If you raised it up. And you engineered it and you put stone dust on it, then people can get to that spot without having to have wet feet. I guess I had a different experience on that. Two weeks ago, two weeks ago, we were talking about how important it was that we have green spaces that people can use and enjoy and that the community can share. And to the point where we were talking about buying additional land for use. Here we have a proposal that does exactly that. And it's stuff. It's one that the entire community can use. It's one that's easily accessible via bike that folks don't have to drive to. I guess my question is what makes like it, it feels like this checks off all of those boxes. I'm not saying it's be quick. I'm, I hope I'm not coming across as, as being flipping. I'm just genuinely trying to understand why, if that's what we're trying to achieve, it's like it checks off all of those boxes. What is it about this that makes it different? Cause I haven't seen anything that suggests that there's an animal habitat that we need to protect here, that there's anything that's unique to this particular parcel. Why not here? Why not create this here? This park with the, except for the parking lot is not ADA compliant, right? The parking lots, the only place that somebody could move a wheelchair around freely off of no one farm road. The rest of the property, you can't unless you had some specially adapted mechanism. Right. So I mean, right, right off the bat, that's kind of unfair. If you want to get to the middle of the meadow, you can't do it if you have a wheelchair. Or if you have Parkinson's or if... Michael wanted to say something. I've got a couple of people who want to speak. Are we done as a council? Is everyone shared their thoughts? Okay. So I know this isn't really a public hearing, but the public's here and they're interested. We don't have to make a decision on this tonight, right? Just an update. I think we should give them a direction, right? What I would request if you don't, it doesn't sound to me like you have a positive vote to stop entirely what we're doing. It sounds like you may have a positive vote to re-look at materials or something like that. So I guess the direction we're looking for is keep going down this path, but bring back some options to look at materials and look at other improvements that we could make. But keep going down this path. So if that's not the direction, and obviously you need to hear from the public before you make that determination, but that's what I'm hearing as direction for me right now. Okay. Well, I think that's fair enough. So Michael, we got Roseanne and then Janet. Is there anyone else? Oh, and Barb. Okay. Maybe there's some. Okay. Michael Mitag. I'm speaking for myself. Are you bright green? Well, I do so. Are you bright green? Am I what? Is it? Is your mic bright green? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. Well, you weren't as clear as often are. How's that? Sorry, Michael. That's better. That's okay. My name is Michael Mitag. I live on Swift street. And I'm speaking for myself, not as a member of the planning commission and not as a director of the South Burlington land trust. And I sent you an epistle earlier today, which I hope you've had a chance to read because I don't want to spend the time to read the whole thing to you again. If that's okay with you. No, I read it. We got it. So. I was making a case for a less invasive and more environmental friendly approach to the. Work that's proposed to do on. Underwood Hubbard. Nature. Area. Natural area. In the 10 years that have passed since it was purchased. We've all learned a lot. About the value of. And importance of open space. And preserved habitat. Not only for the preservation of biodiversity, but for our emotional health, well being. And in some part, mitigation for climate change. But it is one of the most valuable natural habitats in the city and it is connected to and is supporting habitat for the great swamp, which is the most important habitat block in South Burlington. Our environmental prediction standards do not allow private landowners to encroach upon wetlands. And this proposal includes a breach across. Those wetlands. And I believe the city should live by the same rules as everybody else. And not encroach upon that wetland. Hubbard contains meadows. Slopes. Grassland. Shrubland. Wetland. Forests. And supports a huge variety of. Of wildlife. We don't need that bridge because the pods within the forested area are accessible from. Non farm road. To the north. And via South Point to the south. So it's not necessary to cross. And interfere with. The wetland. Construction of a paved or impervious path and paved impervious parking lot. Is really inconsistent with many, many of the city's objectives. I won't go into them here, but. I've listed them in the note I said to. And it also gives rise. As I think. Mr. Mr. Pietro mentioned that gives rise to the need for a stormwater management because of runoff from. Impervious parking lot and impervious path for it. It's also part of our plan. City plan for 2024. And I'll read exactly what it says. It would not be city policy to convert passive natural recreation areas currently possessed. Into developed park. That's in the city plan. 2024. And I don't think we should be. Contradicting the plan before it's even been published. We are fortunate that we have a lot of. Parks for sports and active recreation. Listed them there. J. C. C. Mansfield barrel. Baycrest. And so on. So we don't really need. We. I don't think we should be. Contradicting the plan before it's even been published. We don't really need. We and we have. Of course memorial. The veterans Memorial Park. Which is a big one. We also have a plan to have a few soccer fields. Just north. Well as part of South Village. So we have. A lot of opportunities for active. Recreation. We love. And red rocks. And. We only. Remain. Natural areas for passive recreation. Only. And. We need that. We need passive recreation just as much as we needed for sports. And recreation. There are viable alternatives to. Having this. Paved path across the. Ridgeline. And. I think when you met a few weeks ago. You reviewed a map. Of the city's paths and highways which showed. That there was a. Bike path. Planned. Along Spear Street. On the western edges of the properties along Spear. Including. Of course the park. That is a much better idea. Or. I think I heard. Councilor Chandlik say. It could be at the bottom end of the park. Which I think that's what that plan shows. And. We don't need additional parking. The park. The gravel parking lot we've got there right now. Will accommodate 18 cars at least. And. There's unrestricted parking. On both sides of Nolan farm road. So. We don't need additional parking. And. Adding another. A hard scraped. Parking lot is really unnecessary. And. It's. It goes against the grain that we are. Adding. Impervious services. To what is a natural area. In fact. We try not to do that. Anywhere in the city if we can avoid it. But. We have a lot of. Plastic budget for this. And they're all kinds of. Good causes. For which it could be used if we didn't spend it on this. But it could certainly be. Used. To add. Or to fund. The reconfiguration of that plan. Bike path. To a multi. Use shared. And. To the shelter. And you wrap this up please. Yes. I've got one more thing to say. Hard scraped development. Is not appropriate. Or necessary. On such a pristine. Valuable natural asset. It is not a place for a thoroughfare. It is not a parcel. It's a park. And a park. To a thoroughfare. And a place. For. Healthy. That's a recommendation. Thank you. Thank you. And then. And then barb. Looks like Donna wants to talk to. Can you try to keep your remarks. I'll be as short as Michael. No, I'm. I'm shorter. I will not repeat anything he says, but I totally agree with everything he says. I want to respond to Tyler. You said there was nothing unique about this parcel, this land, it's a natural area. Yes, absolutely there is. I really suggest you read this. In fact, I put it in some of the thing I was going to say here at the end, but I'm going to say it now. I'm just going to mention what this vision report says about this parcel and just very briefly, the entire parcel contains farmland area. Part of it is prime ag soil. It's a water resource. The Monroe Brook is there and the Potash Brook is there. Both are impaired, but they need to be, but they are helping us. Wetlands are, these are quotes, hydrographic functions and they significantly, the overall hydrology of this wetland appears to be undisturbed, which is essential to the health of the natural community. Next one, the South London Wildlife and Community Natural Community Assessment found that this is probably the most significant natural community within the Southeast Quadrant. So I just want to say that's all in this report. I really, really suggest you take a look at it. This is a very unique parcel. It needs to be, in my opinion, maintained in its pristine condition. I wasn't going to say this because this is very emotional to me. The best thing I did when I was on the city council was vote to purchase this land. I consider it the crowning jewel of the three years I spent on the city council. It is heartbreaking to listen to you talking about paving it over, putting a wall in, adding impervious surfaces. My God, we don't need more impervious surfaces, especially over a meadow. Andrew's idea about, I really support bypass. We need protected bike paths, but not over a meadow. Fix the bike paths that are in place. After 15 years I've been coming to meetings, people talking about fixing the bike paths, protecting them. We have a bike path, fix it, don't ignore it, and then pave over a meadow to put another bike path there, for God's sake. This, for 10 years, people have been walking on this land and looking at the magnificent views. They don't need a paved area to do that. They don't need a stone wall. They don't need benches. They don't need artwork. My God, what is more beautiful than the Adirondacks and Lake Champlain? How could you possibly put a piece of art that's gonna block those views that would be any better than this? Economically it is a disaster. Why are you going to spend over a half a million dollars to do the things we are saying we should not do anymore, because of the climate crisis? The land right now is giving you money. The natural resources on that land are providing economic benefits to us now. Environmentally we need that land. There are wildlife on that land all the time. I see them. There's bobcats. There's coyotes. There's birds. There's fox. There's deer on that land all the time. You're gonna pave over their habitat. For God's sake, we gotta keep the biodiversity. We gotta keep our wildlife. We gotta stop fixing nature. Nature will help us, but we're destroying it. We have plenty of paved and pavement areas and in active recreation areas. This is a natural area. As Andrew said, we've got plenty of those. We have very few natural areas in their pristine situation. This is one of them. Read the reports. There are 13 other studies a city paid for that talks about the magnificence of the southeast quadrant and this parcel of land, which is connected to the Great Swamp. So lastly. No, that was lastly. No, one more thing. This study was put together back in 2015. Over a hundred people participated in this. And when you look at everything they said, and I was gonna read it, but I won't. The vast majority, the overwhelming majority wanted to keep Underwood in its pristine state and keep the natural resources minimized to the very little what you could do. They didn't want any development on. Read this report. That's what it said. And I think it is a betrayal of the social contract, somewhat like city center. And we talked about that weeks ago where people came out, spent hours in meetings and said, we wanna keep this as a natural area. That's exactly what they say in this over and over again. Respectful, but what we told you in 2021, there were 15 people that spoke out about this. And I think that's where this project is coming from. I'm sorry to get so emotional, but please don't destroy this land. Please. Thank you. Janet, we'll go Janet, Barb, Donna and Miles and try to keep it. Janet Bellavance and I'm with the South Burlington Land Trust Board of Directors and I'm speaking on their behalf. Hubbard Natural Area Purchase with Open Space Funds is a testament to our city's commitment to land conservation and a benefit to all its citizens. The South Burlington Land Trust has concerns regarding the development plans for the natural area. Specifically, we oppose any paving of paths or parking in this field. In light of the city's commitment to addressing the climate crisis, we should not be adding any more impermeable surface, especially in the middle of a field. In this instance, less is best for the environment, people and wildlife who depend on these wetlands. If you do move forward with upgrading the existing footpath, we urge you to follow the examples of neighboring towns, as you mentioned, and choose one of the many permeable path surface options for public access and shared use. Helen, I'm thinking of you saying that decisions are nuanced and it's integrated and this is a very good example of that. As a private citizen, I just wanna say a comment on the amount of parking. It seems like 30 spaces is a lot and if the existing space accommodates 15 and you have the road, that seems pretty sufficient. I don't know how that number gets accounted for, but just an aside. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Barb? I'm planning to say anything tonight. Well, you know, it's a gift or a gift to you. Yeah, thanks so much. First, I have a question. How many people responded to the survey that you showed us? In the 2018 one, it was 95 there and I'm not sure about the attendance at the workshop. All right, just that was, I couldn't read the small numbers. Yeah. Anyway, listening to the conversations, I have heard nothing about pedestrians. I am here tonight as the voice of the walker. Some of you know that I walk probably 900 to 1,000 miles a year in our city or in the communities that our city connects to. That means that I spend $750 a year on walking shoes. So I have $10,000 in walking shoes. I haven't heard anything about pedestrians and with all due respect, I have been to the bike ped committee and I have asked them to please do something about cyclists in our city. They are rude, they don't pay attention. It is dangerous often for me to walk on our paths. And so tonight, and I believe that we should create access for cyclists. I'm not opposed to that, but I'm here on behalf of the pedestrians who want to be able to walk safely. Cyclists don't ring their bells. Cyclists, I only wear an earbud on the side of the path that's away from the path. I don't do this because I know that's not smart. And I still don't always hear cyclists who come up behind me and they don't say anything. And if I happen to take one step in the wrong direction, I could be dangerously hurt. And I've come close to that more times than I'd like to think about. So I'm asking that you consider an alternative for bikes that protects those who walk. A 10 foot path is not the answer. And I'm not gonna go into all the environmental issues. I'm just talking about protection for those who walk and for those who enjoy the paths through Hubbard Park. Well, and I mentioned about that. And all that said, of course, I am concerned about the environment and the provision of public parks for citizens. And with all due respect to Councilor Barnes, Hubbard Park is not the answer for the entire city. It's far away from where I live. We need things throughout our city, something that is more central, something that is more accessible to those of us who live in Chamberlain. Yes, we're not very big, but it still is not a place that people other than I will walk to if they live in the neighborhood where I live. So it's the answer for a segment, but it's not accessible for all. The answer I hope will be in a bike path that bypasses Hubbard Park, but still allows a cyclist to get from point A to point B safely. And allows me also to feel safe as I walk on bike paths. Thank you. Thank you. Donna, Laban. Yes, thanks. Interesting conversation. I feel as though, for some reason, the bike and ped committee isn't very well represented tonight. I don't know if it was. Well, Bob did send us, Britt, sent us all a letter. Right, but he's not here. No, he could have left a letter. Yeah, and I think, I mean, I utilize the walking paths throughout the city. And so I think the bike and ped committee also, probably very hard to represent walking paths and natural paths, as well as the idea of having a complete transportation network for bicycles and pedestrians in South Burlington. And one thing I just wanna emphasize is that, bike and ped has been working for 20 years to try to create a safe, off-road network of shared use paths that allow all users of bicycles to access that network. And does it need to be asphalt? I think any surface that is a hardened surface that is not gonna degrade with rainstorms, it makes me question, like why don't we use crushed stone driveways in South Burlington? Well, we know what happens to crushed stone driveways. They wash out and they end up, the stone dust ends up in the roadway, creating another hazard for bicycles and other users of the roadway. So I think you wanna be really, it's like in Europe, I think they used very, very well graded paths, but a lot of times they use pavers on top, which can be pretty dangerous when you have freezing conditions. I was just on a tour where one of our people went flat down on the road on pavement because it was very slippery. So I think you wanna be careful to make sure that not only is it a surface, any kind of shared use path is a surface that is not gonna require frequent maintenance. It has to be something that's not gonna wash out in a rainstorm, which is one of the good reasons that it's on the ridge. It's just like maybe a stone path could hold up there, but we know that you have to harden the surface of the path for it to hold up for a long period of time and it shouldn't be slippery. So those are all safety concerns, but hey, I vote for, okay, no more asphalt in the city, no more asphalt roads, no more asphalt driveways. Yeah, let's try to eliminate asphalt everywhere and let's try to eliminate all plastics in our buildings as well because they all have fossil fuels in them. We know that's not practical right now, but we can work toward it. And so I just wanna make sure that the bike and ped, the work of the bike and ped committee over all these years is not forgotten that we do need to have a complete system of bicycle and pedestrian pathways that are not on Spear Street because Spear Street is not gonna be a safe road for the kind of users who do not wanna be near cars. It's just not safe there for young children and less confident users. I mean, I even avoid the part of Spear Street where I can, you know, because I go down Nolan Farm Road usually and then connect back to the bike path on Dorset Street. But so that's kind of my comments. Well, and I do think that I do agree with the comments that suggested that, you know, we probably have enough vehicular parking already without adding more vehicular spaces. Nolan Farm Road is a very excessively wide road. And I think we need to put it on a diet, use more of it per parking and make more of that parking useful to the users of Hubbard Park. And that's my comments. Great, thank you very much. Okay, we're gonna finish up with Miles. Hi there. This is my first time ever speaking at something like this, but the area in question holds a very special place in my heart. I don't know the names of the people in the council area, but whoever said that there's no unique species or there's nothing unique here to protect, you couldn't be more wrong. This land is sacred, it is pristine, it is beautiful. It would be completely devastating to be built on. And clearly the main concern is connectivity. So I don't even know why pavilion is being considered. Why are we considering increasing parking? Why do you need a sunset viewing area to see the sunset? These things make no sense. I can understand the connectivity. Yes, this makes sense. But the other things, no. It's completely unnecessary and I'm frankly confused as to why they've even been questioned here today. It's a complete waste of time. As for the connectivity piece, if we have the resources to build a stone wall and improve parking and put up lighting and pave the metal as an ecological necessity, surely we have the resources to slightly extend Spear Street and maybe you put more paint down and make it more accessible by path. Building up these natural areas is, we're in a moment in time where it is so crucial to leave these places alone. I mean, putting more asphalt down, putting more buildings in a completely wrong direction that we need to be going in. Let's use this money and resources to plant trees, to plant fruit trees, to plant nut trees, to feed people. Why are we wasting money on building up areas with stone and asphalt? I mean, people crazy, I just don't understand. You talk to any young people nowadays and they would think this is a crazy idea. I'm an avid biker, I love biking, I'm all for it, but not through this pristine area. But yeah, I don't know what else to say. I really hope that you... You need to too, yeah. I really hope that you listen to Mother Earth and all that she can give to you. I mean, yeah, just walk through that field when it's muddy with your bare feet and look at the sun and enjoy it. It doesn't need to be paved and you don't need stones there. I'm sorry, it's just... Okay. Yeah. Thank you very much. You did a great job. All right, we have no other commenters. Do you have the direction you need? I think you had kind of generalized it, good. So we will take a five minute break and then we'll be back to discuss the social service appropriations. It's all right, it was all good conversation. So I'd like to call back to order the South Burlington City Council member, Council, we're all members, I guess, of this exclusive club on Monday, May 15th, 2023 and we're taking up item 15, which is discussing the FY23 social service appropriations and we have Martha Machar, Finance Director, is your title. Did I pronounce that right? Is it Machar? Machar. Machar, I'm sorry. Martha Machar, Finance Director, Social Services Funding, what is presented to you today is what the city has funded for the last few years with the recommendation that we just recommended what you have actually allocated in the past and if you have any suggestion or any changes then it's to be made to it and included in that too, there's a note of the council previously during the last two years, funding Trinity Education Center that is the request from Dr. Charles. We are expecting a request this year that will be coming and it's not included in here. In the past the city has funded that with the fund balance and last year was funded through surplus funds. This seems good to me. So the recommendation is to continue with the same. Well, level funding would be continuing on so that's what we're maintaining as a quo. It's your prerogative how we spend this 15,000 so it's up to you. Well, I mean, I like this. I mean, there's a good thing in great places. I have to say I'm not positive I wanna go as high with the TEC program. I haven't seen any data. I keep being told they're gonna be some significant fundraising and it hasn't happened. I don't think, I don't know. Yeah, the funding for that is not including in this right now that will be coming during the next few weeks here. And Martha has requested that data report. Okay, I'd like to see it. I mean, I'd like to see how many kids use it and what the fundraising and have a little more feedback because I think we were very generous, especially in relationships with everything else we fund. But I also recognize that it's important to have a teen's center, but this may not be the way we get there. So that's just my ignorance. What the, can you, can someone? Trinity Educational Center, it's at the mall. Oh, is it the infinite? It's a youth center? Yeah. The infinite youth center. Okay, all right, sorry. I'm not used to seeing it as Trinity Education Center. Okay, right. So that's just my two cents. But when we get to the end of the year with surplus funds, we can argue about it then. Yeah, yeah. I will say that last summer, because I did donate food, she was taking up the federal USDA program for feeding families during COVID. So she's been active. I don't know since then, I haven't been in other than looking through the gate. But right, she was very, very much active last summer. Well, I just think it's important to have that. Oh yeah, definitely. Confirmed in some kind of report. Yep, definitely. Yeah, any report that we will receive from her with the request will be sent to the council at that time. Yep, mm-hmm. I agree, and Helen, I think that's especially appropriate given the spend, it's a big jump, but yeah. Yeah, okay. Do we, so the 15,000 is the budget, right? That's way of budget. I guess the question is, do you like all these numbers for FY23, which starts in, you know, three weeks? I do. Do we have enough money to increase the total? So in the budget, the amount budgeted is 15,000. If the council, when we close the year, would like to make suggestion that from the surplus fund to fund all this other organization, that would be the council decision at that point, but right now we are just allocating the 15,000 that's in the budget. Right, so I mean, given that there is a lot of inflation and that these organizations probably are having their own budget shortfalls or difficulties, right? Sure. And probably increasing pay to their people. I'm just curious whether we would like to throw another 5,000 to make it 20. That's just, I'm just putting it out there, I'm not. Well, I mean, we used to give, it was 35. Yeah, at one point I think it was 60,000. That was given to multiple organizations. But I also have to add that we have not made any commitment to any of the organizations that this 15,000 is being allocated to. Okay. Well, I very much liked the list we have. Yeah. I agree that we should consider using some surplus to increase that given everything that's happened. Well. Like for example, if we just added 1,000 to each one, that would be $8,000. Yeah, we also have a lot of asks from our committees. I just don't want to do that tonight without thinking, you know, because we saw the surplus last time and I can't remember exactly, but I remember turning to you and saying, ah, we could use the surplus for that, Tim. So I think that I'd want to have a more rounded conversation. And I just, I just want to show what's popping up on my screen that looks like a very natural trail. Yeah. I mean, well, I think of parking down at Red Rocks, that is not paved. Right. You pull off the road and you, scoot in toward the bushes. Yeah. You're not polluting the soil there. We're going backwards, but we did actually discuss that quite a bit. So, yeah. All right. So I guess, Martha, what we're saying is we do want to come back to this when we have the surplus number that might be available for a whole host of things. And this might be one area. So is it the recommendation that we're not going to be cutting checks? We'll just wait until we know how much you'd want to locate or do you want us to pay out this current location and you can increase later on? 15 and then increases where I am if that's what we decide later. Yeah. 15. Well, do we usually cut the checks before the fiscal year? Yeah. So if you approve. For the end of the fiscal year. So before June. We do cut this check before June. So if you approve them tonight, this will be included in the warrant for June 1st. These are FY23 budgeted funds. Oh, that's right. Yes. Well, I was actually thinking of using the surplus for next year. Okay. That's fine. You know, to look at, because we approve these for FY24. Did we not? Yeah, there's a 15,000 in the budget, FY24 budget. Time out. You, in the FY23 budget and in the FY24 budget, you have 15,000 budget. Right. This recommendation is just for the FY23 current spending. So I think what Martha's suggesting is if you're okay with this list now, let's put the checks in next week's warrant to get the money out to the nonprofits. And then if you want to add to it with a surplus conversation, you can always do that. There you go. Okay, that sounds good. Does everyone, Kopa, do we need a vote? No, because you'll approve it in the warrants. Okay. Good enough. Thank you. And now we move on. Thank you, Martha. Sorry you had to wait this long. All right. FY23 policy priorities and strategies. Report number three. So we wanted to give you this report on the FY23 status update on where we are achieving all of the policy priorities and strategies in advance of you doing your homework for the retreat. Thank you, Councilor Chaldec for already submitting his homework. God, has he raised the bar? Holy, you're such a, you know, apple polisher. Whoa. So we wanted to give you a sense of where we were with our current priorities. I'm happy to answer any questions about any of these, but I certainly don't need to walk through the 17 pages tonight. And obviously a lot of these will be focused of discussion for our retreat on the 26th. Yep, I don't need any more. I mean, it's pretty well laid out. And you bring us up to date. You've done what you haven't. And if any of the new councillors who haven't gone through this before want to talk about any of these individual things, happy to talk about those offline as well. Okay, good. Moving on. Now we're, no, we're right on schedule. Convene is the South Burlington Liquor Control Commission to consider, I guess there's three, aviation, deli and fine foods for a tobacco license, higher ground, third class club and Hudson can, whatever, wherever that is. Is it the airport? Is it the Hudson? Hudson can. Oh, that's right. That's, I should know that, but I didn't recognize the can part. The commissary, you know, yeah, it's like a little new stand. New stand, yeah, for a tobacco license. So entertain a motion to become the liquor control. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. So we have these three items to consider. I move that we approve the all three. Second. Any discussion? All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Okay. Now we have one other, I, Oh, I'm sorry. Let's vote to come out of liquor control. I move that we come out of being liquor control. Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. So we're back to being who we really are. And now we'll go into other business. And we have one item you wanted to discuss. Oh, oh, we're gonna do that. No, exactly. Right, excuse me. So we do not have. I have one item. But brief, it'll be brief. All right. Just as a, we can talk about it at a future time. The issue keeps coming up about South Village and the money that's set aside for the rec field. And what should it be? What does parks and recs want? What does South Village want? What does the community need? And what is feasible to put there and how much money is there? So there needs to be a discussion at some point that probably involves us to push it in a right direction, you know? Well, all I can recall is I thought that that had been established. When they got the permits to do South Village, including in that was a soccer field. So yes, staff has been having a conversation about this. The challenge with the soccer field is, is it's a U8 field? A full-size soccer field cannot fit there. So that there are conversations happening between staff and the developer about, is that appropriate? Is there a higher and better use? Is there a complementary use to what they already have and say, so we're going through that? The rec impact fees that have been paid for for that project are solely paid for by that developer. So as long as they're on board with a change, we can make a change. So when we have some ideas of what that could be, we will bring that back to the question. So pickleball could be a change. It could be pickleball. You put a ton of pickleball courts there. What's the other thing? That's an impervious surface. I know, I know. There are a lot of grandchildren and children. I played on that area. So we are working on it and yes, we will bring something. Thank you. I will bring that back to the concerned citizen. Okay. So I would entertain a motion to go into executives. Oh, I have that motion. You have that and we added one item. It's both pending litigation. So I would move that the council make a specific finding that premature general public knowledge of a discussion of pending civil litigation to which a city as a party would clearly place the city at a substantial disadvantage. Second. All in favor? Aye. So I now move that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing pending civil litigation to which the city is a party. And who's invited? Inviting in Jesse Baker, Colin McNeil and Paul Conner. Second. Not. He wants to go home. Lucky you. Okay. Not Paul. Not Paul. Just Colin, McNeil and city mayor, Jesse Baker. We have a motion. We have a second. Second. All in favor? Aye. And we will not be coming back. This is the sweetest words I've heard. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Travis.