 Okay, I'd like to call to order the special meeting of the South Burlington City Council of Monday, January 10th, 2022, and the first item of business is the Pledge of Allegiance. Megan, do you want to? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. And I would note for the public that both Councillor Kota and Chitenden are joining us from their homes. Apparently, both had close encounters with COVID, I guess. Yuck. So, stay careful. Item two, instructions on exiting the building in case of emergency and review of technology options. Jesse? Thank you. So, just a reminder for those in the room, there are two exits at the rear of the auditorium. You can turn right or left out either door and proceed directly outside. For those in the room, we do have assistive listening devices in this room. So, if you would like a connection of that directly to your hearing device, reach out to Andrew. And then for those online, just thank you for participating online and remotely and keeping us all safe. We will be, I will be monitoring the chat for those who would like to participate and share verbal comments with the council. We will not be taking content, comments in the chat. So, if you want the council to consider your comments, feel free to indicate that you would like to speak and we will call on you and you can turn on your mic and your camera. Thank you. All right, thank you. So, item three, agenda review. Are there any additions, deletions or changes in order of agenda items? Seeing none, comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda. Please come forward, state your name and make sure the mic is on. There's a little button in the middle and the light should go on. There we go. And you may take your mask off to speak with us. Just please don't spit. My name is Shane Lynn. I'm the executive director of series med, which is a medical cannabis dispensary here in South Burlington. We used to be known as Champlain Valley dispensary. And I wanted to come before you and inquire about getting opt in language for adult cannabis retail sales here in South Burlington. I have printed out, I got kind of a two pager here of information I'd like to share with the council and hand that out to you. I've emailed several council members at this point over the weekend as well. I've also talked to John Burton with the economic committee. I spoke in front of them back in March last March. I don't think a memo was ever sent out after that meeting and so I'm not sure if they ever spoke to the council afterwards if they'd come to a conclusion to recommend it or not. So I think the economic council is committee is meeting tomorrow as well. I'm available for more information for them potentially around cannabis sales here in South Burlington. I wanted to make myself available to the council now if you might have any questions in regards to retail adult cannabis sales. Like I said, series med, which is formerly Champlain Valley dispensary has been operating here in South Burlington for since 2013. We have a cultivation facility here in South Burlington. We also dispense medical cannabis on to Green Tree Drive. We've been dispensing cannabis there probably for about three years at this point. We have located a location for adult sales. It would be over on Farrell Street. We're in talks with the landlord over there in regards to that. And, you know, it's it's that. Yeah, I don't know how much detail to go into at this point considering it's not an agenda item, but. You know, back to I've been involved with cannabis here in Vermont for the past decade, maybe a dozen years even. Just recently, the cannabis control board was nominated by the governor probably about six months ago. The CCB, they've been working very diligently on creating rules for the program. They've submitted five of those rules at this point to the Secretary of State. They've also have numerous, you know, other papers that they've given the State House and the State House is going to start to finalize those rules and regulations this session. So, you know, there's been numerous bills already introduced this January. So, you know, the program itself is still being formulated. There's roughly probably 21 towns in the state of Vermont that have opted into adult cannabis sales at this point. Burlington has, Winooski has, Brattleboro has, Metalbury has. We also have our, yeah, we have a medical facility in Brattleboro. We dispense in Brattleboro already. We also dispense in Metalbury as well. So, we employ roughly about 60 people and we're what you call a vertically integrated operation. So, we cultivate cannabis. We extract it. We have a commercial kitchen. So, we make edibles as well. Then obviously we retail dispense cannabis. We also provide delivery, home delivery for our medical patients. So, so that's a vertical operation. And like I said, we've been operating since 2013 already here in South Burlington. Okay, thank you. Can you tell me your last name again? Lynn, L-Y-N-N. Okay. And Shane is spelt with a Y-S-H-A-Y-N-E. Okay. Thank you. Well, I would appreciate the paper you have and I guess we could put them in the other two mailboxes. I can scan them and get them to or scan them. That would be great. Okay. Super. Okay. My understanding because we did follow up with the Economic Development Committee and they decide, they said to us back and I don't know whenever it was months ago that they were going to hold off on making a recommendation until the state had promulgated the rules. Okay. Yeah. And that's where I'm hoping. So, I assume that they are holding true to that. Yeah. Okay. I probably want to see all of the rules, not just the first five. Yeah, the first, I'm trying to remember if there are going to be additional rules. The first five just might be flushed out more. I think they are the kind of the chapters that, you know, the five chapters to the program. So, I'm not sure if there'll be additional ones, but it's pretty complete at this point. So hopefully it's enough for them and I guess I'll reach out to them again this evening tomorrow and make myself available if they have questions for tomorrow. That'd be appropriate. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Get on their agenda. I mean, when you have the set of rules and they have a chance to review them, that would probably be a good process to. For sure. Have that conversation. And just for the high level of being here, you know, the opt-in language is required by the state and so it has to be on the ballot. I know there's deadlines on the ballot and I know there's a meeting next week here of the council again and, you know, basically asking if I can be on that agenda to submit the opt-in language for the ballot. I'm not familiar with the city council's, you know, procedures and rules here on doing that. So I just wanted to state that up front, you know, that's the intention is to get this language onto the ballot, which is coming up in March so that we could potentially open this year here in South Burnlington. So deadline is the 25th of January. So there's two different, yes, if you petition on an item, there's two different ways onto the ballot. The council can vote to put any item on the ballot. So in theory at the, your meeting on the 18th, you could vote to put on language onto the ballot, maybe, you know, I think that what you would want the Economic Development Committee to make a recommendation to that end. So that would be your deadline for doing that for this time meeting day. It's next Tuesday. And then there is the deadline of January 25th to have an item petitioned onto the ballot. Okay. And is that something that if we missed that deadline, we have another, we have a primary and we have a general. You could put it on the August. So those are two other dates. One is in August and the other in November. So that's another time frame for you. Yeah. Could you, Jesse, could you describe the, the petition, I guess, if, you know, if the council wasn't to take a vote on it, what is the petition process look like? So a petition, you have to be in touch with the city clerk. She gives you a petition. I believe it has to be signed by 10% of the registered voters. 5% of the registered voters. And submitted by, I believe it's 5pm, 4.30pm on the 25th. And then she, the city clerk's office verifies all of those signatures to ensure that they are actually registered voters. Gotcha. And they go from there. Okay. What's that? There's some work there for sure. Yeah. So, all right. Well, is there, are there any other questions I can answer for folks? You know, it's a kind of a complicated issue, and yet pretty straightforward. There's probably, I don't know, there's over 30 states at this point in the country that at least have medical programs. You know, Massachusetts has been selling adult cannabis now for the past two to three years. Maine is doing it as well. New York is opting into it. They'll be proceeding pretty quickly. Connecticut is moving forward. New Jersey is moving forward with it as well. So, you know, the Northeast at this point is moving quickly with adult cannabis sales. I'd love to have a discussion with another meeting. Okay. With or without Economic Development Committee's input, because I think they're slow to react. Okay. Well, the rules have been developed. So, I guess that was their holding off last time. So, I guess we could encourage them to consider it and give us a recommendation one way or the other. Yeah. And then we can do with it as we wish. But we can have that certainly. I guess I'd have to be the eight. Are you anxious to get it on this ballot, Tim? I think we should have the discussion. And if we all feel the same about it, we should try to do it if we can, if we want to. But it's not an agenda item tonight, so. Okay. I was just trying to figure out the, if you, your request is for the next meeting, which is next Monday. Tuesday. Excuse me. Was it a question to repeat it? Would you want us to put that on the agenda for the 18th? It's the 18th, right? Yeah. If it fits, I don't. So. Okay. Well, why don't we consider it? We'll see how busy we are. That's good. Yeah. It'll be, I mean, we should have considered it before, but we didn't have enough information, I guess, so. Any comments or questions? How about from home? No? All right. Well, thank you very, very much, Lynn. Thank you very much. I'll give you the papers, Jesse. Shane with a Y. Shane with a Y. Okay. Great. Are there any other. Individuals who would like to share a. Topic. Thank you very much from home or. Okay. Seeing none. There aren't any that little two up there or something else. Yeah. Well, we move on then to announcements and the city managers report. So. We'll start at home. Matt, do you have any announcements? I do not at this time. Okay. Thank you. How about you, Tom? Just say one thing. Last week, I had three kids in public school, three different schools and we received six close contact applications. That was like on Thursday or Friday. And then I'm teaching in person with UVM students next week. So I'm going to be. Planning to just stay remote through these cold months, just for. Exuberance of safety. I also say the Burlington city council decided to go entirely remote. And I think it just makes sense with what we know about these things. So for everybody at anybody at home wondering why I'm not there in the building. I just think it makes sense in this extremely cold January I just think it makes sense in this extremely cold January. I just don't know if it's necessary. I just don't know if it's necessary. I just don't know if it's necessary. It's not that it's not that it's not that it's not that it's not that it's not. A congregation if it's not necessary. Cheers. Okay. Thank you. Megan, yeah. Well, having missed the last two council meetings and I. Thank you all for your patience with me and. I needed. Some patients with the airlines, I wanted to say I did watch through seven plus hours of city council meetings and just heard Megan O'Rourke as the last speaker at the last council meeting and I just wanted to as a former president and treasurer of the channel 17 board of trustees express my gratitude to the excellent service. It was clear I could follow the discussion and follow the PowerPoints both of people who attend online and here in person. I felt like I was a part of the discussion and I came away feeling very well informed. So I wanted both thank channel 17 as well as our employees and department heads who came forward and gave very articulate and comprehensive but concise presentations. So I feel very well informed as well as to all of the residents who came forward for the public hearing on the third which I did intend to be here for and I'm sorry I wasn't. I just had a second announcement too. Having come back to a very different reality where we see that vaccines and boosters do not necessarily prevent contagion. So far it seems that Omicron is less serious but nevertheless the vaccines are not I think enough for those who are most vulnerable to this disease. I would like us to revisit the mask mandate. I have been in touch with a couple of counselors and I think that having stocked up my shelves I've seen people masked. I think the public's ready to take this on and so I just wanted to let you know that one of the counselors I spoke to was our chair and Helen informed me that that will be on the agenda next Tuesday. So I think that I like to act based on evidence and I think the evidence is there that's really requiring us to be more vigilant for those members of our community who need the extra protection but also for the schools. I think that we just need to come together as a community and support having things remain as open as possible and masking is one of those ways. Okay, at that meeting with the council wish to discuss whether we should go have everyone stay at home and be for the foreseeable future. That's what I mean is that my question is not that to ask you that question to answer it right now but would you like that to be part of the conversation on the masking? Of course we can do that. Yeah, yeah. Because I think Tom raises a good point and we've got three council members who have kids in school. So this could be a never ending cycle of people having to stay home. So I think we should have the conversation. Okay. Yes, you may. Just as a reminder, the state statue is still in place that we have to have an in-person option. Obviously many communities like as council attendance had Burlington are doing it where just one person is in person to allow people to come which I'm happy to do and then the council could stay all remote otherwise. So just wanted to add that in. And we may see that that legislation change this session as well. Okay. All right, and we can consider the impact on the committees as well, which is what we did last time. And I just, I wrote to the school board as well as the superintendent just expressing gratitude. They have done an excellent job in communicating to parents and keeping the schools as open as possible. Fortunately, we have not been close contacts. And so my daughter has been full-time since the beginning of the school year. And it is just worth so much to these young people. So I just wanted to express that publicly. I sent a letter. Okay, Tim. I just wanna say thank you to everybody for their patience at the last meeting during my tumble down by the desk here. I recovered, I'm doing okay and walking almost normally again. Thank you very much. And I hope to not do that again, so. Well, I hope you don't either. If you wanna watch it, it's at one hour, 50 minutes on the meeting, recording. Luckily, it's almost completely off the camera. It was off camera. It was off camera, but okay. Nothing else really. We all felt fear out there in TV land. Yeah. It was reported. Okay. Any other comments? Nothing else, thanks. Okay. I don't have anything to report either. Jesse. Thank you. A few things for me tonight. One just on the COVID basis. So looking at the data from the week ending December 29th to the week ending January 5th, South Burlington's on increase of 261 new COVID cases in that seven day time. That is, you know, was the holiday big spike after the holiday time. This is double what we had seen in the previous week. So with that, you know, we are encouraging folks to participate in meetings remotely. If that is best for you, you'll see more staff participating remotely as well. And of course, be careful and wear masks and get boosted. Did wanna give you a quick heads up that the final ARPO rule for municipalities was released last Thursday. It's about 500 pages long. So we are going through it and relying on the league's experts to go through it as well. Much more to come in February on ARPA, but we actually believe that the new rule will be very beneficial to us, that there are some new details in there that will give us a little more flexibility about how we use those funds. So more to come, but just wanted to let you know that that was happening. We've received a request from Summit Properties, which are the developers who are developing the affordable housing at O'Brien Farms to co-apply for a community development block grant for that project as we have done for Allard Square and CHT and City Center. So they will be coming before you at your next meeting to outline their project, the value added that they will bring to the community if this grant's received. And then you can decide from there if you'd like to submit that grant on their behalf to CDBG Vermont. Can I just ask, we have $50,000 in the kitty for that now? Or is it more? So in the affordable housing trust fund, we have a balance of 100,000. 100,000, okay. This is specifically an allocation for a community development block grant, which is separate from our fund. Oh, okay. Trust fund. This is a state administered fund and they're asking for, I believe it's 1.2 million. So it's a much more than we have in the. Right, so they aren't asking us for any. They're asking us, well, they're, so only municipalities can apply for CDBG funds. So they are asking us to apply on their behalf. We're the conduit, right? We're the conduit. It's the same model that we have been for Allard Square. That's right. Okay. And that would be on your next agenda and up to you about how we move forward. Cool. Additionally coming, so on, also on the next agenda, the agenda planner I shared with you on Friday said that the auditors are going to be here at the next meeting, they are not. They need a few more weeks to finalize that document. SCI will be here to talk to you about the city pension, but the auditors, we are moving until February 7th. Another upcoming meeting I want you to know about was the next I-89 to 2050 visioning session will be held on January 25th at six o'clock. That will be all virtual. They are looking at this point. They've been doing a lot of research about limiting vehicle miles travel to address climate change. So they will be presenting on those findings to the community and then playing together recommendations for the future. So we'll distribute that through city news, et cetera, but wanted to let you know it was happening. Again, that's January 26th at six. 26th, okay. I'm sorry, did I say so? I wrote that on 25th, but that doesn't mean you said that. 26th, 26th, okay. And then with the legislature back in session, there are a number of pieces of legislation we are monitoring. There is a bill on the wall in Houseways and Means about undoing local options tax, local options tax revenues for municipalities and redistributing them across the state. This would be very problematic to Shandon County communities. We don't know if it has legs that will get off the wall, but we are monitoring that closely. And if it does come off the wall, we may ask the council for some action. I see Matt has unmuted. Well, they claim will be made whole, they claim. So just put that out there, verify, but we'll see. See it to believe it, yeah. Yeah. And then other bills we're tracking are on qualified immunity, support for affordable housing and potential permitting changes that could impact us. The rental registry bill appears to be back masks and virtual meetings that we've talked about. And if there are any other bills or any of these that the council would like to take positions on, please feel free to bring those to my attention. I'm happy to put those on a future agenda. That's all I can. Okay, great. Thank you. Okay, moving on then to opportunities for counselors in the public to share information and resources on climate change. And I would like to just start and say a few minutes. Matt, I know has read the entire 274 pages of the action plan. Yeah, there's 273 pages, yes. Okay, I've read through about half of it and I would really recommend that people do. It's, and I would just note, if any of you have kept abreast with reading the articles that Ray Gonda sends us, then you've heard all the information. I swear to God, they use the same source of information, scientific journals and papers and stuff as Ray has passed along to us. So I think if you haven't read his stuff, I guess you could read it in the 273 pages, but it allowed me to kind of breeze through it, some of it pretty quickly because it was kind of like, yes, I've read that. I've seen the chart and so that was comforting to me in the sense that we have someone right in our community who seems able and willing to share with us the kind of critical scientific information that the state group used to develop their proposal. So I haven't gotten through the end to the end. Of course, I'm anxious to see what kinds of recommendations and strategies they have for us, but I would just encourage you to look at it. You can get it online and it's pretty easy reading. So does anyone have any other thoughts or things to share or articles or thoughts? Okay, there's none in the public. We'll come back to it later, but I just wanted to, oh, Roseanne? Yes, I thought, okay, are you looking for public comment now on the climate issue? Sure, if you wanted, we have this little 15 minute box. So if you have some new information or something, an article to direct us to or whatever, we'd like to hear it now. Yeah, well, I wanted to take a bigger picture approach for your first climate discussion. And actually it comes back to a book that Helen mentioned at a city council meeting a few months ago called Saving Us by a Climate Scientist by the name of Catherine Hayhoe. And in case the other counselors have not yet read this book, I highly recommend it, but I just wanted to point out that you're doing what she is advising. And I'll give you a little bit of data, just a smidge. And she says that they've done all kinds of surveys on people and our views of climate change. And she says that the surveys show that over 50% of adults in the United States are alarmed or concerned about the climate change. Later on she breaks down this and people in other countries are far more concerned than we are in the U.S. up to 90% in some countries, especially those that are in danger of losing their land because of the climate change impacts. And she says in the U.S., seven out of 10 say they wish they could do something to fix it, but half of them don't know where to start and only 35% say they never talk about it, even occasionally. Her book, by the way, is full with scientific data, but she makes this suggestion which you're doing. And she says, she believes that after all her research and surveying and discussion with thousands of people, literally the one thing that, and the most important thing anybody can do is the very thing that we fear the most and that is to talk about it. So she said many, especially people in the United States want to talk about it, but they don't know how. So I am encouraged that you're doing this, that you're blocking off, I hope, in every council meeting a few minutes for people to express their concerns, their views, information, scientific data and so forth so that we can start the conversation. And if you started at the municipal level, there's a great possibility that the conversations will continue in neighborhoods and among neighbors and family and friends. So that's what I wanted to say. I got tons of information that I could share with you, but that was sort of a big thank you that you're doing this. You're starting or giving an opportunity for people to start talking about it. So thank you. Thank you. Megan, you are reminding me. I'm happy to send a report by the American Psychological Association, I believe. I did send it to a resident, someone you all know well, Vince Bulldoke. Bulldoke, I'm sorry. And it does express what Roseanne just articulated. And I think that it affects young children. My daughter rarely talks about her worries, but this is the one thing that she is worried about. And so it is, I think that it is very good thing for us to have this on the agenda to let people know that we think it is worthy of a policy level discussion. And so I thank you for starting that. Is that gonna be a regular? I hope so, yeah. I mean, the impetus for me was the book. And Jesse and I agreed and 15 minutes is not a whole lot of time, but it's not meant at this point to be that total conversation, but it's more to remind people that it really is an issue and here are some things to read or talk to your family or friends about that may, and they could start with the state plants. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah. They wanted a lot of reading. Yeah, and I would say too, I did meet prior with Serene in his last name, the pronunciation. Oh, right, yeah. Who's on our Economic Development Committee and he has a wealth of articles to share with folks. And just I find it to be very, again, hopeful that he's retired. He moved into our community and he's willing to do this kind of research just like Ray. So we're not talking about just one person. There are many, many people here in this community who are seeking solutions and seeking to have that conversation. So I look forward to having more conversations. That's great. I hope so too. And I think we can potentially work with the library to see about some events that they could, I don't know, help plan to have those conversations with various people in our community and share some of the reading and conversation about it. Okay, all right. If there are no other comments, we'll move on. We're a little bit, a tiny bit early. We're 10 minutes early. So are we? Yeah, we're good. Oh, it's warranted seven. Oh, and this was supposed to go to 715. Okay. So we will move on to the public hearing item seven, the public hearing on the FY23 all funds budget and capital improvement plan. So I would entertain a motion to open the public hearing. So moved. Second. Any discussion? All in favor, signified by saying aye. Aye. So we have opened that public hearing. Did you want to make any comments before the public or not? Sure, just as a reminder to the community, this is I believe the fourth or fifth night we're talking about the FY23 budget. We've linked off of the agenda, the page on our finance teams website, where all of the FY23 budget information is linked. So if folks are watching and interested in a particular presentation or general fund or enterprise fund budget, they're all available there. This is really your opportunity to hear from the community about this proposed budget. And then the next agenda item will be for you all to discuss the budget before it is approved either tonight or you can also approve on the 18th. Okay. And I might just add there have been two minor updates since this was originally warned. One I talk about a little bit in the packet which is just our regional assessments which is an increase of 24,000 from the originally proposed. We also got our water rates. So the enterprise funds have been updated and those are on the website as well. Okay, thank you. That was in part of the packet that was sent out or at least linked or something. All right, are there, is there anyone in the public who would like to speak? Okay, Bob. John, are you planning to make a comment? Oh, okay. Thank you. My name is Bob Britt. You may take your mask off if you're comfortable with that. It'll make it easier. Now it's wrapped around my glasses. I serve as the vice chair of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee and I'm here for this comment from the committee. The committee is asking the council tonight to approve the allocation of between two to 4% of the paving budget that represents 15,000 to 30,000 to make some immediate repairs or as soon as possible FY23 repairs to the rec path system. Obviously we'd love to have the upper end of that range and I don't even know what the city has in mind. I think that we all agree that the rec path system, shared use path system is an incredibly valuable resource for health, recreation, as well as for transportation, the value of our homes and for climate mitigation. Number one, we don't wanna lose this amenity because of deterioration of the rec path system. Right now or up to this point, the city has never allocated, doesn't have a line in its budget for maintenance of the rec path system and it's come to the point where we have a bunch of small projects that need to be done almost immediately. One, a couple of those are the end of Nolan farm where it intersects with Dorset. There's tree root damage. There's tree root damage on the path from leading out of the Samansky Park to the Stone Hedge neighborhood where there's a quarter to a third of the path has sunk and also there's tree root damage there. I think there's other areas that are going to need help really soon. In the past, every once in a blue moon we would get some money allocated from the paving budget to fix areas like the Midland Avenue rec path. They use crack filler to try to lengthen the life of the path there. Same with on Nolan farm as you go to Spear Street. Again, trying to lengthen the life of the path so you don't have to repave it from scratch. So basically we are looking for the city to start having an allocation every year going forward. This is a safety issue and it supports at least two of the comprehensive goals which is green and clean and blockable. So the committee is asking for an allocation tonight and we're open to any other way of funding it but we thought that doing it through the paving budget it doesn't increase the amount that's hit in the general fund. And because of the increase in the paving budget it was a good time to do it. And again, small amount of dollars, 30,000. 30,000 is your request? Unless the city had another request but any going any higher there, Jesse? I thought you had said 30 to 50. So I was curious, the committee is asking for 30. I'd go for 50 if you guys all supported. I didn't want to take away your whole increase to the paving budget. I mean, you can never have enough paving money. Did you have a question? No. Oh, okay. Yes, Tim. So, I mean, I get this. This is really important because without a line item that says paving for rec paths, it won't get, I don't think it'll get done unless there was a lot of emphasis on repairs. And it's those locations plus the golf course bike path as well has got some tree ripples. There's a lot of places with ripples, right? Butler Farm and the golf course. Yeah, yeah. It needs crack filler desperately or we'll have to repave the whole thing. So, and you can witness what Burlington has done. I went down to the end of Flynn Avenue a couple of weeks ago and actually, New Year's Day, I ran down the bike path from Flynn Ave all the way to Burlington and back and they've done a wonderful job of reconditioning and replacing the concrete blocks that kind of made a little seawall at the end of Flynn Avenue with a nice big rocks and riprap and like some stairs and a ramp that goes down and some circular stones and things. And so that that bike path now is, like it puts standard 12 feet wide or 10 feet. 10 feet wide with sure pack on either side except we're constrained by bridges or other things, right? And all along the waterfront next to Hulu all the way, is it Hula? Hula building. All the way down, new fencing, new sure pack. It means beautiful. So, and that's been a big investment by them and I think they probably passed a bond issue. They did do a bond. It was a couple of million dollars, I believe. Right, right. So, I mean, we're looking at just much simpler, like, you know, rip out a section to chop out the tree roots, right? Put down some new stuff and then repave where those sections are needed. Plus, I mean, the pending for paths is supposed to fill the gaps. Did I hear that? Yeah, not the gaps in, not as in repair and maintenance but it cannot be used for maintenance, repairs and maintenance. It's only for new infrastructure. I think this is the public's time to be speaking. So, I want you to make those comments when it's our turn. Sorry to take time away from this. Oh, no, I'm fine. I'm over. I mean, they were good questions and I think. I have two other issues or questions to ask but I've already taken time. I know there's other people I can come back as appropriate or I can go on. So what I am asking for though is an actual allocation of the paving budgets. We don't have to break it out because that's a lot of work for Martha and everybody else. If we could just say that we're going to do it. Would like the council to verbally say, give them that direction as a policy decision, which we will get to when we have our budget discussion, which is the next item. OK. OK. We won't forget. And you can, if you want to sit for another half hour, you can hear it again. Sure. So do you want me to do the others now or do you want to wait and let other people? A few of some other items. Yeah, this is your time. I had a little question that I, this is a personal question. There's a special projects line in the streets and highway budget, and it's for 600,000. But all it's labeled as special projects. And I didn't know what that was. And I'd just be curious because it's such a big amount. That's the adaptive signals for Dorset Street. Yeah, that's the ongoing project that we have. I believe it's almost, we've spent some money from it in the past for the adaptive signals. Martha, correct me if I'm wrong on this one. But we have it as a revenue line as well coming in. We have the grant already for that project. OK, so last year it just wasn't spent. That's why it's repeated this year? Correct. Thank you. All right, so as a personal request, because I don't, I'm not speaking for the committee now, I was asking, I'm asking the city council to please reprioritize the Spear Street widening project in the CIP. That is a project that has been waiting around for, since 2004, I believe, there was a road study then. And originally, or as far back as I could find in the rec bath stuff, it was, you know, there in 2013, in fiscal year 2013 to 2015, it was supposed to be done in 2022. In fiscal year 16 to 19, it was going to be done in 2023. Then from FY 20 to 22, 2027. And then in this year, CIP, 2029. You know, I think, I mean, originally it looked like the city had thought, well, we don't really have to do this because we have a scoping report from the CCRPC that says the road is 31 feet. We can do 10 foot, two 10-foot vehicle lanes and two 5 and 1 half foot bike lanes. Unfortunately, that's not what's on the ground. Justin, I should say, since he's gone, not long gone, but gone, that the DPW two or three years ago when the bike and ped committee asked, he did drop the bike, I mean, excuse me, the vehicle lanes down to 10 feet. When he did that, you would think if that report from the scoping report was correct, then there would be 5 and 1 half feet on both sides of the road. Well, I mean, any neighbor or anybody living along there will tell you that it's not 5 and 1 half feet for the length. And it's really dangerous. I mean, when I walk down the South Village, I'm up on the lawn because it's so dangerous there. It's only 2.8 feet wide. And there's a ditch to the side of it. So and we're about to put in a soccer field and a convenience store at the corner of where in South Village. And so it's going to be even needed more for people to be able to safely walk in that area. We've got hundreds of houses going up between spear meadows, South Villages adding a bunch of more units. And we've got Quinniasca Ridge and Bill. Is that Cytermill? Right now. Cytermill? Well, Cytermill's on the other side. Oh, but they can. Yeah, they're not. Well. Get to Spear Street. I mean, they're biking. They can. Yes. So the soccer field. No. And then we've got the long property that's going to be soon developed. So this road is going to get busier and busier. And if we push it off again to 2019, the houses are going to be here before, excuse me, 2029. The houses are going to be here a lot earlier. And we're not going to be ready. That path is used. It's probably the number one commuting route for people who commute to work on their bikes. So they branch off in different places. But in total, it is one of the busiest. So I know I'm just afraid that if we keep pushing it off and we don't bring it back, and we may decide as a city that, no, maybe 2029 is the right time. But if we don't bring it back now when we have the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that the federal government just passed coming, I'm just afraid we won't be ready to do it when we have time to make it happen. That is a leader path to different, to all the different recreation paths, the new Tom Hubbard Park. People are walking on that. Even if we end up being able to do a bike way that parallels Spear but not on Spear, all the neighborhoods still use it. If you're a pheasant Wayne, you're trying to get to the Hubbard Park, you've got to walk down Spear Street. Let's see. Can I respond to Bob? Is that a Penny for Paths project? It is not. I'm sorry, it's on the road. It's in the roads budget. The Penny for Path, we're spending the money to connect off road. So we can get all the way down to Spear Meadow and then to Swift Street to make it safer for kids. But regardless, commuters are not going to use the go around, go through the park, go around Vale and around. They're just not going to do it. It doesn't happen that way. And other people who live on the street need to use that street to get to these other facilities. Is that answer? Yes, it does. Thank you. Thank you. So again, it doesn't hurt to move it forward. It can be reviewed by the next DPW and the city in a future time. But I'm so afraid if we don't move it back to 2027 or even 2026, if possible, we could miss an opportunity for funding through all this money that's coming. And who knows what the era changes were? So and again, no general fund per the CIP. This is no general fund impact based on how the money is raised. Is that correct? Through grants. Andrew, do you know if that's correct that it's not a general fund? I mean, that's what it says in the CIP, that there's no general fund money. So it's not like it's going to destroy a budget in two years or whatever the money would come from grants. Correct. And we redo it every year anyway. Right. And so clearly. So I'd love to see it move back to 20, at least 2027. And then if we decide later on not to do it until later. But I just hate to see we build all the houses, then we have the emergency, and we don't anticipate it by doing the work up or at least at the same time. OK. Any other questions? No, that's very clear on your emails. OK. Thank you. That's the detail. Thank you. John. Oh, yes, you may. So I just want to float. I know we're not supposed to respond to you, but I just want to float this out there. And I may have shared this with you before. If the city of South Burlington ever considers paid parking, one of the innovative things that we did in Montpelier was to allocate a percent of the paid parking revenue to path maintenance and path building. So basically using car revenue streams to support alternative transportation streams. So just a future idea. OK, John. Dinklage, did you want to piggyback? Here is the support guy. His wingman, right? I'm not a commuter cyclist. I'm a recreational cyclist, and I love to ride Spear Street. It's a premier on-road cycle area in this county, as I'm sure you know. And I just want to ask you to think about how you would feel when and if we have a serious accident, maybe a very serious accident, on that stretch of road. And it wasn't widened and made safe just because of indifference and lack of attention. Please widen it and do it right. Thank you. Soon. Thank you. Rick Hubbard, we can't hear you. You need to unmute Rick. There you go. I'll try again. Good evening, everybody. Can you hear me? Yes. OK. I wanted to support both Bob and John's comments about Spear Street. I was on the rec pat commission then called for eight years from 2004 to 2012. During that time, the Spear Street widening to at the time we called for six foot shoulders on either side was the highest priority of our committee. And it was recommended repeatedly to the city council. In addition to that, going back before I was on the rec pat committee, the previous rec pat committee chaired by Bill Simonetti had sent a letter to city council saying exactly the same thing. The math does not work for safety. It's the highest through travel zone for bicyclists out of South Burlington. And frankly, it is quite disappointing that the highest recommendation over some 25 years to fix that from the committee you've asked to, you know, you have a lot of bright people that you've asked to help make recommendations, it appears to basically have sat and not been addressed. And I think it raises some questions. The committee or the council ought to really think about in terms of what you want, how you want to value, what you get from the committee, and what's causing these delays in terms of communication, coordination, and budgeting. The second point I would like to make is that during the time that I've been involved in since, South Burlington has made relatively little, poor progress in prioritizing bicycle and pedestrian improvements in relation to our nearby neighbors, Shelburne and Williston. Both of those cities are less than half our size and considerably less than half our budget. Yet in the time since we backed quite a while ago, let Bruce Hor go as our public works director and he went over to Williston and brought in Justin as an engineer to move things forward, we have considerably lacked in progress. Bruce Hor went over to Williston and they have put miles and miles of recreation paths on. The city of Shelburne has coordinated beautifully between its city council, its public works director, and their equivalent rec path committee to put miles and miles of both widening Spear Street quite cheaply all the way down from where it leaves off from South Burlington and also putting in loads of bike miles of pedestrian pathway and sidewalk. I don't see a good excuse for this and so I would like to strongly recommend that and also recommend that you take a look at how to create since we have a new public works director coming in, better coordination between City Hall away from the city council and the city council. I would like to thank both of the committees, all committees, but specifically the recreation path committee to have a regular time each year to bring you there in person, their proposals, recommendations, and to get feedback from you and also that there just be much better coordination worked out. Okay, next we have Tim Duff. Thanks. I just wanted to reiterate Bob Britt's comments on the bike path. You have a lot of friends. The bike path is an important community resource and I just want to see it properly maintained so we don't get the big bill that the city of Burlington just got and had to pass a bond issue and spend millions of dollars to repair and replace their rec path. So whatever we can do to consistently fund repairs I think is a very wise investment and also about Spear Street, as someone who both bikes and drives along Spear Street regularly, I've seen the impacts that that street has evolved into an arterial and people are using it more and more and thankfully for both in a multimold away with bikes and with cars, but we've allowed a lot of development to occur along Spear Street. As a community, we've collected impact fees so I think it's incumbent upon the city to look at the impacts and to spend the money wisely where it's needed. Thank you. Thank you Tim. Next we have Diane Bugby. Hi, thank you. I'm not camera ready so I hope you don't mind just my voice. So I have two comments. I just, you know, the gentleman that opened with the public comments about the dispensary, I feel like as a citizen I just want to know more about that and if you take that up as a council a week from tonight or tomorrow night, actually then I would like to know more about, you know, what is informing your decision making about whether to include it as a valid item in March or whether or not to include it because that's that's a week out and so I just I want to better understand what that was about and then secondly I just had a quick comment. I was looking at the information from December 6 and there was money earmarked for community programs in the amount of 843,000 plus and I just wondered specifically what those dollars were meant for. So I'm looking back at the the budget presentation from 12.6 and there was a breakout of service area and the FY23 proposed budget community programs was one that was was pulled out and I don't I don't necessarily know just see what the individual departments that were highlighted in that in that breakout but I believe that's the spending we spend on our regional partners that's how it's labeled in the budget book. So it's GBIC, the Vermont League of Seas and Towns, the Chamber of Commerce, our annual social service allotments, town meeting TV, front porch forum, the county clerk tax, Winooski Valley Park District, GMT and CCRPC. Those are all of our regional community service partners. Is there a place to find that Jesse? Yeah if you go into on the if you're looking at the website and you go into the proposed general fund budget there, the one I'm looking at which is the one that's linked off of the 16 2022 update, most recent one, and you scroll almost all the way to the bottom it's labeled social service and other operating entities. It's now 867,000 and that's reflects the changes that Andrew mentioned at the beginning of the public hearing where we've gotten updated allocations since this was built in early in November. Okay great thank you. I just screen shared it so you have a snapshot of where it where it sits. Okay thanks. Is that everything Diane? Yes thank you. Okay are there is there anyone else in public? Oh Linda Norris. Great welcome. Hi thank you Helen everybody. I just want to also add my support on to the topic of Spear Street. I didn't know all the history that I've been hearing about it and I've been here I guess we moved here in 1995 and my commute on Spear Street over to work all these years as if you've seen I don't have the commute anymore on my car but I will go on my bike on the street quite often. The traffic with just the autos is increased dramatically. I couldn't give you a doubling tripling effect since 1995 so there's a lot of traffic because obviously you've heard of all the development that has happened since at least I know I moved here in the South Village one and the others on the plan that are coming. Pinnacle wasn't here also so we're probably talking about almost what 500 to 800 or more units around here and so as someone who does use it every day probably at least twice a day and and tonight I washed a a biker out there all dressed up with goggles and not one part of his skin showing at five o'clock. It's a scary dangerous street to be on. I love the street and and I totally support please prioritizing monies for expansion of of the the bike lanes on either side. I the safety if you if you ever use this street very often whether it's biking or walking or driving it is probably along with Dorset Street the two most dangerous streets in our town that we really need to take care of because they're so valuable they're used so often by a lot of traffic and there's barely two feet on the side sometimes I saw this young man tonight if there were two feet there that's all he had because also there's snow coming over but not that far even without snow when I'm biking it recreationally if you have two and a half three feet you're lucky and then if you're driving on it how many of you actually drive down and have to move over into the middle lane practically to let the biker go by let the biker continue straight down the street so I just wanted to add those on that from safety from our a very strong and and respected arterial that a lot of people use around this area and and beyond we owe it to our our town and our residents to bring it up to what the specs really should be so hope we can do that thank you thank you very much is there anyone else on any topic on the budget Donna Laban just turned her Donna Laban yes just I just wanted to make a slightly different point but supporting Bob Britt's request for funds for Spear Street widening as well as the maintenance of the rec path and that is sort of the saying build it and they will come the this relates very closely to the climate action plan allowing people to have safe routes to commute and you know widening of roads is certainly a very very important and and pretty inexpensive way of doing that not everybody's going to feel comfortable riding on the road but I just I saw a statistic that seven times as many people bought e-bikes in the last couple of years as bought electric cars and you have to realize that e-bikes are going to be on the road and we have to make our road shoulders safe for people you know the the strong year-round cyclists who who commute by bicycle but the growing number of people and particularly people in their middle age and older who are riding e-bikes now because they can now get up the hills so you know I think some of us you know a lot of people can relate to that so you know we we are going to have to increase the number of miles of bike lanes available on all the major thoroughfares and have to do everything we can to make it safer because it's going to help us meet our climate action goals thank you okay looks like thank you very much um rosanne greco i think wanted to make a comment on this uh yes i wanted to support what's already been said by bob and john and tim um and uh dana and linda and all those who spoke in favor of the making the bike lanes on spear and i'm going to throw in dorset as well wider and safer uh you can count me as an e-bike owner and i would use it for most things except i'm afraid uh to use it i would never use it on spear street that is if you haven't done it been there as other people have said that is an incredibly dangerous place um for anybody that's not protected by a few thousand pound vehicle uh even if you're on the bike lanes sometimes they drop off um and uh if a bike catches a rut or something it's a recipe for disaster but the other thing is it doesn't not doing this doesn't comply with our vision in the comprehensive plan about being a walkable bikeable all modes of transportation not car-centric although we haven't done anything to do that so this would you know um efforts to expand and protect the bike lanes on spear and dorset is in sync with our comprehensive plan and i totally agree with everything that everyone has said prior to me thank you thank you any other comments on any topic it doesn't have to be about bikes okay um so i guess we could i'd entertain a motion to close the public hearing salute second all in favor i i all right i okay so the public hearing is closed we will move on to item eight which is the discussion and possible approval of the f y 23 general fund capital improvement plan and the enterprise fund budgets with direction to send all this to the steering committee hello oh yes so andrew andrew with it are you on yes so and martha's going to join you as well yeah correct good martha machar so andrew bolduck deputy city manager martha machar our finance director so just to kind of step back as to how we got here um back in december um kind of the initial budget that was presented um jessie outlined kind of the the three main the key goals that we tried to realize number one maintain current levels of service stay at or below a three percent tax rate increase for municipal operations ensuring a sustainable fund balance for future councils and maintain investments in capital other high level items that are included in this budget is a gradual restoration of pre-pandemic cip funding levels gradual return to pre-pandemic levels of funding on other line items these are small things like travel and training lines to bigger things like getting us $50,000 closer to paving goals um another high level item effectively meeting service needs of 180 market street as we've moved into this building we've realized additional costs such as a higher property insurance premium um expanding library hours um and it and facilities costs we've also maintained conservative revenue forecasts particularly um in the midst of the pandemic um particularly in rooms and meals uh the good news there i think we reported at a prior council meeting um so far in fy 22 we are well ahead of our projections there and in some cases outstriping um even pre-pandemic levels um finally this budget also reflects the conservative application of some arpa dollars when applicable we've inserted those as a revenue source to help immediate unfunded cip needs to ease the tax burden as we restore service levels council previously allocated back in uh uh august in 80 percent funding for three unfunded positions um that's going to be was going to be folded into the fy 23 budget that is about $230,000 of arpa funds for fy 23 we also have new allocations of $272,000 these will help fund dispatch consoles that are at the end of their life cycle it'll help fund record continued records digitization for better remote public access particularly in planning and zoning uh the implementation of some critical fiber uh cyber security systems as well as critical needs in fire and ambulance department such as replacing a deferred ambulance uh purchase as well as replacing deferred firefighter equipment from prior years um you'll see in the memo that was prepared as well as there's there's one sheet and i'll uh screen share it for you here um i have a couple of asks that council brought forward at the last meeting these include the cctv service increase for planning commission meetings fire ems staffing support climate action plan reserve $50,000 there and you will see that this these increase increases total approximately a 1% increase which brings the overall increase to 3.10% and we put those in and uh highlighted it here for your general general discussion um just a couple of key notes uh when we're talking and going back and forth a little bit about the budget a 100 about 175 uh thousand represents a 1% increase to the tax rate um that 1% represents about a 19 dollar annual increase for an average residential home and about a 13 dollar annual increase for an average condo so so we're that happy to take kind of those increases um in in any order um and or uh any of the other kind of public hearing comments that we put tonight okay so council we've got these are three items that i think we added as a of interest and we wanted to see the impact on the budget the first one um let me just take it from the top the 15,960 dollars to add the planning commission to cctv um broadcast is that still something that the council would like to consider seriously it's a long-standing request but we have to take it into account along with other long-standing requests such as the spear street i i wanted to hear from uh jesse or and or andrew about what that would mean to move that spear street study to actual action plan um so if it's if it's grant funded is it a manpower situation or is there a match spear street widening correct um so i think the request is to so that's not on here the request that's a cip request to move it um up in the 10-year cip plan i think it's right now it's scheduled f y 27 through f y 29 i think the request was to move it up to f y 25 f y 27 um we are happy to do that we can include it we do have we want to look at um i wish we had done this last week when justin was here but the uh study that was conducted about the scoping of that project we will need to update that because it i think includes some incorrect information um so we will need to do that but quite frankly that doesn't have a budgetary impact for f y 23 it's moving it up in prioritization for future years right um i understand preparing ourselves you know for having readiness if we have other other financing that comes into play so as far as on concerned if if the council if that's the will of the council to move it up in the in the 10-year cip that's just fine it doesn't have any general fund impact for f y 23 oh i understand but i've always understood the cip budget is kind of a balance as well right so by moving that up does it have any impact on some other item that's it on the cip right um it may i i am not prepared to answer that tonight i understand i understand all right all right and and just to clarify we don't have any additional funding sources for the project at this time um whether it's grant funding and it's not any we don't have any impact fee money coming in for it either so this would have to be at in its current state a hundred percent funded through the general fund or bond code or whatever all right so if we moved it sooner though would that provide some impetus to look for grant funding you know i mean if it's 29 to 20 29 it's kind of like well i don't have to be looking at the possibilities for grants this year for something that many years away but maybe two years away i could get my act together and the other reason i ask is you know getting back to what rick hubbard was saying about williston and shellburn i think it was last year um i think i asked charlie baker you know could there ever be a regional planner for for the biking network uh it just it it's one of those things that makes sense because we don't live in a vacuum right people from shellburn probably come down spear straight right people from williston probably come down kimble or williston road kimble is a road that really needs a bike lane that's that's you know but i just i see the wisdom behind the idea of having a regional planner so the question the reason why i asked it is i i believe that question came out of a discussion where justin just said manpower it's just a matter of the hours to get this done and so is that a reason why it was pushed off would it require a hire or is there some other way to to think about where these manpower hours can come from no i mean i i think um a new dpw director will have a lot to say about that in particular um i believe jesse brought it up at the uh in the original presentation there is money in this budget for an additional dpw position um the thought was that that would sort of be a cip planner um that may give additional capacity for projects such as well good to know good to know i think when we were talking about our priorities as well or maybe i'm making this up and it was a different conversation but at some point i remember um having a conversation about well what we really need to do is to um really assess the um activities um and all the things that the city has um provided like all the bike paths and the and the parks and all those kinds of amenities and really get um honest with ourselves about what kind of maintenance budget is required because we always it's kind of like planning dollars on the state level if you're ever going to cut something they always go to planning you know because then you're not taking a meal away from someone you know but i think as a community um and as an administration especially with a new director um you know we really need to think about that and kind of bite the bullet and not just kind of keep doing some fringe things and then letting what we already have in place deteriorate because it hadn't occurred to us to budget in the the maintenance or we'll we cut that because it's you don't really need to fix the pavilion at red rocks this year you know we can put it off yes go ahead um so that is the intention of that cip the kind of undefined at this point cip staff person for the new public works director to determine is to better link that connection between our capital investments and our ongoing maintenance um right now we have staff across the city not in public works but in other departments who are managing capital projects and managing that new investment but the link back to if we are going to invest x number of miles of path how does that link back to the maintenance and operations um abilities over time so that is the intention of that position so good answer and negan to your point maybe that is where um that that new investment that if you approve the budget as is will make in f y 23 is in that staffing capacity to make that connection and if opportunities present find other revenue streams to expedite other capital projects very good okay well i would really support that yeah matt and tom do you have any thoughts on that matt go ahead uh yeah the everyone makes a compelling case i don't think you have to convince me that we need to protect our bikers uh no i think not okay tom so i think the conversation started with the 16 000 for cctv and then it sort of went into the other bike path i agree with all the bike path conversation going back to the 16 000 and i think you framed the starting discussion chair i would just uh i say i fully support it we are the second largest city in the state and people are interested in our planning decisions and cctv needs the resources i'd also uh to connect that i'm looking at page three of the general fund budget in the planning development review section and the last line item we're seeing a 39 percent increase a 40 percent increase in our planning development review this coming year and i get the salaries about half of that but could you refresh my memory what the 75 000 and special projects are and i'm also seeing that we're carrying over another 55 000 for consultants but we're coming out of interim zoning uh so i'm just curious if is there some flat latitude is the 16 000 uh fall somewhere in some of the uh the budgeted amounts that i'm seeing in planning development review and the 40 percent increase we're seeing in that in that area of the budget so i i can answer uh first to the 75 000 special project a portion of that is so that that project is the kind of the the not i wouldn't say digitization but um in addition a new online platform for planning and zoning for our permitting um that implementation we look to have an fy 23 um i believe it's 40 000 of that that we are looking to be funded through arpa dollars um and the additional allocation of that is coming from some of our clerk's digitization fund um so that is a project that will be funded through those sources um from on the consulting line martha i don't know if you yeah um yeah i think the consulting line is a line that paul conner normally uses to consult out some of the project and if he needed help outside of what we can provide here at the city yeah and oh i see i see paul's on so but i mean i i can make a general guess but paul can speak directly um thanks folks paul conner planning his zoning director um the 55 000 in the consulting line is something that we added probably about five or six years ago so it it wasn't interim zoning based it was in order to um one uh fund the projects where we um do transportation planning with the cc rpc so we have a 20 percent match on all those projects we have used it also to hire the cc rp to see themselves for mapping support for general planning support this year we're using them to develop our climate action plan um and so uh it is a consulting for planning consulting services um that we would generally do across the board whether it's transportation land use natural resources it's not uh be specifically in interim zoning though of course that was a priority during that time just as a quick follow-up i'm an advocate i'm a one yes vote for the 16 000 to get the planning commission to be broadcasted i think it's an important thing for us to do as a city and it doesn't seem like the money necessarily could come from here the 40 000 that we're hoping from arpa i'm curious if if it does come from arpa does that then free up the 40 k i'll i'll say is i support the 16 thousand dollars and i'd like to find a place from the budget or i would support adding it to this budget okay but so are we sort of done with the the bike thing that we were talking about no that's another thing too you want to just stay with the let's just stay with the planning commission is there anyone who is opposed to that no okay i would just say i am very much in support of it i would be very careful though about taking um the funds from the only flexibility in the planning department's budget to do the things that as the year goes by y'all know we're going to be asking them to do a report on this or to get some information on that and it takes money and so i i think it's good planning to have those kind of reserves because most of the time they're all spent yeah by things that we asked them to do right and we forget that it all adds up but anyway so i would support the 15 9 60 and um included in the tax rate how about you tim uh yeah no that's fine i mean i think it extends our technology recording capabilities for important meetings and okay they never had it before so i mean it probably is a good long-range plan to do that i support that okay um yeah yeah the the the one you know it's almost the question do you allow a camera into a courtroom you know that's very sensitive discussion i think sometimes so i i just i'm mindful of that that the camera can change things um but i do understand the public interests of that and i think that um you know the the planning commission for the amount of uh effort that they put into this this very potentially and you know as we see it can be content contentious uh amendment process that they really worked hard to maintain kind of the the blindness of justice in a way and i was very struck by that talking with jessica where she said we don't talk about landowners you know and i think that that's just something we need to keep in mind that this this has to be kind of a blind justice kind of thing where we don't discuss landowners so okay so i guess we'll add that to the list or the to the budget um what else what do you want to can we go back to the bikes just for certainly me so i just want to say i support moving that spear white seriously winding project closer in time um i i rode bike on spear quite often and personally i don't have i i know where it does narrow down and i and i can deal with it it's okay but here's the problem when i want to run from south village over to um an overlook park if i choose to run on spear when you have pedestrians and cyclists at the same time on the same side of the road it it's difficult it's difficult and that is a high volume area most of the motorists are are helpful and you know in courteous so so that would that be a good idea as far as but to bob's point about the maintenance and and a possible paving line item i mean there are smaller steps that the city that public works could take directly to address those spots worth i mean obviously roots trees have grown and and the roots have come up and and caused ripples in the pavement i mean that's a small excavator pick up truck pull it up there dig it up get some hot patch bring it in and roll it out i mean that should be something that public works can take care of in those hot spots where it really is bumpy and not safe i mean in lieu of a full pavement repaving of the whole path right um because those need help sooner than than later just i mean that's an idea that that that i don't think is that expensive based upon what public works does with streets and pothole repair it's just like pothole repair you know and then there is one on the bike path going from lower below overlook park down towards stone hedge there's a very large hole that has to be filled those are just normal maintenance items on the bike path that need to be taken care of so are you go ahead i'll let you yeah sorry again uh just uh on that those two areas that we talked about the uh in down in stone hedge uh from samansky park and the one uh at the end of nolan farm we've asked for that to be done with the dpw since november of 2018 is when we first brought it up and we brought it up every quarterly meeting since it has always been um promise that it'll get done and it never does because it's not a separate line or it's not an you know a policy that says we're going to allocate you know two to five or 10 of the paving budget or whatever to do this unless we don't need to because there's not not enough to repair but we've tried to to ask for it to be done and it never gets done and so having it as a separate right a separate allocation is important these are and these repairs don't seem like they need to be a line item to me that if you had a like if you have a pothole like a large one in a major road like dorset street right i mean you didn't didn't need a line item to patch the you know the the long troughs where they filled it up with some um hot hot mix you know uh like a year ago i don't think you needed that i mean you know but since some kind of budget that for hot mix so i think that there's opportunity to make these repairs sooner than later without having it to be a major budget item yeah jesse so i think this was staff's intention of increasing the paving line was to have more funds available to prioritize the maintenance of the paths so yes we agree and if the community would feel more comfortable with a policy statement saying you know 30 000 of the 50 000 you are adding to the budget with this proposed budget is allocated to path maintenance that's great that was our intention anyway well great that sounds like a wonderful motion are you making that motion and we do see it under the city hall library and police department we see facility stewardship and i just i think some kind of reserve fund it's a reserve fund right when you have a stewardship line right you might need it you might not need it right and i think that's that's something important for us to consider for all the things all over the assets as much as we can so does someone want to or do you agree with that statement that jesse made council members is that what we want to um adopt as a policy the what percentage no i think it's of the 50 000 new dollars that were put into the paving fund yeah approximately or up to 30 000 is intended to address bike path maintenance issues yes does it need to be a formal motion well if we want it to be policy and hold weight yes i mean so i move that sorry travis can you um change the change the view so we can see the cameras i think matt is trying to speak i can see it on my screen oh okay matt did you want to say something oh i just i would agree if that's a formal motion i would be willing to second it okay is there further discussion did it get seconded matt seconded yeah i sort of did you second okay he's seconded okay yeah i didn't hear the second okay so all in favor i i all right so that's clear direction and gives you enough flexibility oh i'm sorry no that's an that's another um direction policy direction and we do wish to move the spear street um widening i guess you would call it to um 25 to 27 okay yeah so i'd recommend the next item on our agenda right i think we've we've lumped it all together we lumped it all together yeah another one agenda item so um yeah i maybe uh go through the the other a couple of okay so we've got but that that can be one of the amendments that we include is amendment amending the cip to change that the dates of that from what it is to 25 through 27 right do you want to vote on that council or is we just saying it good enough i think what andrew's saying is give i don't think you need to vote on it i think if you give us direction of all of these things we will bring you back on the 18th the final okay updated cip updated budget and you can approve that in a lump sum okay i think voting on the the 30 000 is was a smart move because that's policy direction to us within the existing budget okay great okay then um that's oh i'm sorry matt did you have something else to say yeah i'm sorry i didn't want to upset the order i just have a question that's not related anything that we've talked about related to the budget is there appropriate time to ask that or or just yeah why don't we get through these things and then yes if there's other questions um the fire ems staff support a hundred thousand dollars this was in response to i think tom said he had some concerns um um what is the thinking of the hundred thousand uh so this was in response to councillor chendon's request um after the fire ems budget presentation that we look at um how we are supporting our first responders especially our fire and ems professionals who are working incredibly hard and have been working incredibly hard throughout the pandemic um so this is a recommendation to add a hundred thousand dollars to the budget um that would be um flexible staffing funding as we think about we're in negotiations right now with the fire department um looking forward to the start of f y 23 what's the best way to bring on staff to most appropriately support our men and women of the fire department okay so there's flexibility it's not like one more person but this would provide whatever it is you figure out you need yes okay are people tom are you okay with that yeah yeah no no concerns really i just wanted to hear the administration respond to some of the uh the comments that we heard at a December meeting so this makes sense to me i think the fire ems needs our support and especially in these challenging days so i as long as the administration sees this hundred thousand dollars in the way it's presented as something that can work within the uh the plans for the coming year i'd support it other thoughts i echo what tom said that the administration coming back with this proposal gives weight to and and you know i know that we're going over three percent if we go ahead with all three and i do support the climate action plan reserve fund as well but that that's fairly close to three and and so i would support it as well okay great and i um i like the providing the flexibility as well because we don't really know what they need and to just sort of add another firefighter or emt isn't necessarily um would address the concerns okay climate action plan reserve this is $50,000 how would that be spent well we don't we don't know so this yeah we don't know um this was in reaction to the request that we are current as we all know we are currently working on developing our own climate action plan um and we don't have any dedicated funding in the budget to implement that as it's brought to you over the summer um i will say we do have lots of pots of money in other parts of the budget um that will contribute like increasing um bike lanes for example but not flexible to be determined funds so our thinking on $50,000 was it's comparable to what you're investing in the affordable housing trust fund this year so it's matching another priority um other than that we don't you know the we believe as a staff team that to fully implement the climate action plan and properly respond to climate action to the climate change crisis over time is going to be many many years many many millions of dollars but at least this gets some funding in the budget to help start that process in FY 23 yeah yeah okay thinking matt you've got your speaker on yeah the only thing that i would add to that and i'm not i'm not saying that the um that it wouldn't be money well spent because planning costs money we know that um but part of after the climate action plan was published climate action council still meets and talks about how they can allocate resources from mostly from arpa because those are discretionary funds that the governor has proposed a hundred million dollars dedicated to this and part of that is for municipalities to get planning grants to mitigate climate change so i'm not saying i'm not saying count that money because we don't have it yet but there may be an opportunity for the city of south burlington to grab state designated arpa funds that has been determined by the legislature and the governor to go towards climate change mitigation i'm just saying there's another pot of money for this cause that might be available in the future i think that's great and the 50 000 may very well indicate the seriousness that the committee or the the city feels about this issue which would make perhaps for a better um application for some of that money that they're really serious about it or on the flip side they might say they already have the money let's give it to playing field well that's always hard to know tom not not against this but i i heard jesse just say something that i remember in two or three years ago and kevin was the city manager about pots of money i thought we created a climate change reserve fund that had channeled the monies that we would be getting from the the solar field and then the other savings but i forget the name of it but i thought it was in in effect a reserve fund to to catch the the notable financial savings from the environmental improvements that we did so that we could reinvest them in climate initiatives tim you remember any of that so do you want to comment yeah sure yeah that's the that's the energy our energy reserve fund that was set up a few years ago and we also have a line in the budget that 40 000 for energy and that energy reserve fund generally is funded it's around i think 100 100 000 a year a little bit under that from our solar improvements and solar solar credits so that's a little bit of a you know that that's for energy specific projects um lou breezy i think talked about some of the some of the ones on the horizon that we've talked about so i thought the lion's share though was going to pay for the solar panels for the library that we sort of bought them ahead of time and are using you know on we borrowed the money and and we need the income from the solar field to pay for that correct i don't know how many years into the future but it's the fund is currently in the red and i know lou just uh sent those numbers out but we will be back in the black within a year or two good in that money and it is in the red because of that solar right yeah yeah no we well that was paid off faster than i thought lou breezy gave that yeah right yeah yeah kind of that begs the question i mean do we need a full 50 000 or can you sort of you know say abstractly that you know that that is a climate action you know event that happened by you know purchasing those solar panels do we want to decentralize it for now and make that number less in lieu of possible ARPA funds being available later and cut it to 25 to start with and then see where we go from there i'm just putting it out there to see if we actually need a full 50 000 to start or not i'm okay with 25 000 i just think it's important to have a line item to have a line item to reflect that this is a serious undertaking it's not just a task force that's going to come up with a um a plan and we shelve it right and as paul connor said you know they have consulting funds that they have available as well that could also be used for something like this because that's you know another direction that we're taking with us so i'm just proposing maybe we don't want a full 50 to start with maybe start with something like that 25 and make that a line item or 10 i mean the reality is is what's going to happen is is the ARPA funds are going to be distributed to towns that have to have plans to reduce their energy consumption and certainly we need to have a line item i agree i just don't think it needs to be 50 or even 25 would there be matches for those funds coming from the state it's unclear how the legislation will develop but um if there will be will certainly um there'll be there'll be enough timeline for us to match it we wouldn't have to match it pre-match it in other words because we have until 2024 well i'd be happy to reduce it to 25 000 because i do think we may come up with some local ideas that are cheap that aren't necessarily in the state plan because they haven't dug down deep enough for those kinds of strategies and it would be something we want to do right and if the ARPA money couldn't pay for it we'd have a little bit of our own money to do something that is deemed really important okay so is 25 a golden figure there okay now matt you had a question is that all the issues and then matt had a question on some other part of the budget i believe okay yeah just the the general fund non-propery tax revenue in and i i just may may have missed this so i apologize pre-apologize here uh andrew and jesse which is uh we're predicting a million more than last year so this is our this is our um rooms and meals right and our in our local option tasks tax yeah so that that's certainly a portion of it a big chunk of that is the ARPA about 900 000 and additional ARPA dollars okay i was one i was trying to figure out why we were so rosy on 2023 with 11 12 increase but if you tell me there's ARPA funds mixed in there which is helping juice that and that that makes more sense to me now thank you for clearing that up okay are there other questions or comments well we haven't talked about the the pennies for paths and open space uh oh okay about the increase in in their funding based upon being a penny of the the total grand list and and that's effect on the budget as well and then the it was andrew going to make talk about the possible um question to ask on the ballot about excluding previous voter approved levies and then so that discussion for me involves do we want to take an action to add two more ballot items or one ballot item that restricts the pennies for paths and open space to a finite number in some way to reduce this increase of almost 100 000 for each fund because when the voters approved it do we want to talk about this now or do we want to yeah okay when the voters approved that i remember voting on it right you know i mean at that point the grand list was x and the penny represented this and i'm sure it it grew slightly over a few years but with a reassessment it's a huge change so that tax rate for the city goes from effectively i think you said here it goes to from 2.16 percent to a six and three quarter percent municipal tax increase for the for you know on on our tax bills and and that difference is represented by the almost 200 000 increase that that's reaped by those two um bond questions that were you know voted on a long time ago so to to me from a voter's perspective a long time ago this seems unfair that they're having to pay more than they chose to back however many years ago it was and with all the respect for the money that's collected for the purpose that we voted on which we approved we didn't know at that point that we voted on it that we were going to see a 30 increase in in the revenue for those two this next year you know because of the reassessment so i would propose and i don't know how to do it that we somehow limit those to some number that's around 310 or some increase above that if we wanted to but i i can't support them getting an extra 31 percent each this tax year and increasing our tax rate up to over 6 percent i'll let the attorney wearing the deputy city manager had to respond but the voters you know approved that language which was they approved the language sure but they didn't they didn't they could never have known in advance that a reassessment would bump up our values so much that they had a 31 percent increase in the amount of money that would that would take but my thinking is we'd have to go back to the voters that's what i'm saying i'm asking the question can should we put i mean this could be difficult right but we might want to add another ballot item that says whatever it is that's required to limit them to $310,000 you know can't you know shall the voters amend the previously voted on you know question about pennies for pass and open space to limit it to this amount well it's i i mean again i go to the that table there because they think some assumptions have been made based on that grand list increase so i don't know yeah i mean if we're talking about the whether it would be a valid valid item or not i think the the voters always have the ability to amend something previously approved again i i say that with a big caveat i would love to check with our city attorney on that question but um yeah so when when the voters pass this and i remember specifically the penny penny for pass um that was uh one cent on the tax rate um and i absolutely right i don't know if it was considered that we would have in one year a 30 jump in what that revenue would be but i think part of the reason why we're realizing that and seeing that is just the way historically it's been it's been in the budget it's been part of the the general fund budget and hasn't been separate separately pulled out and by separately pulling out we we feel that that more accurately reflects what the voters intended but i guess i would say you you can do what you yeah i mean at the same token land values have gone up so one of the purposes for the open space fund is to purchase land to conserve i understand that i mean an increase in their um the allocation um of the penny um it does grow with the grand list and it has i mean i think when we first passed it it was i don't know like 250 000 dollars approximately is what we were getting so it's bumped up slowly over time and that's fine slowly right this is a huge jump sure okay it's okay um just i'm not authorized on you know for the bike and ped to but my in my opinion i mean we have at least three million of projects that we don't have any funding for that residents have asked to build and these are crosswalks um more rec paths so we didn't know where we're going to find it we and this is without even getting grant we are already assuming grants but then we said oh gosh we run out of of penny for path money if we look at our 10-year cip so i understand it is a big jump but it's needed for all the growth that we've had in the city that we need to have that money to meet our climate goals to meet and to meet our transportation alternate transportation goals okay tom that's how i i think matt is gonna first go ahead now pardon me well i'm sorry go ahead so this is matt uh i just want to uh just determine what tim was referring to tim we were referring to making a were you suggesting that we have a vote affirming that the current rate based on the grand list is is what are you saying a vote to basically confirm that this is what we intended and that we should do it are you are you saying a a motion to reduce the the penny to whatever the math works out to so it's below 300 000 uh no to to to reduce it so it's not uh 406 000 so so this year it's going to be 406 versus last year 310 which is a 31 increase so i'm saying some kind of ballot language to reduce the pennies for paths revenue so that it's more in line with what it was before here's my problem and and this happens with the education budget all the time right they pass bond issues to take care of certain things that they don't want to have in the general budget so when they then calculate what the tax rate is you got to look at two different kinds of tax rates one for the budget and then you have to think about we passed a bond issue for you know a new athletic field with a new track we passed a bond issue for you know replacing all the windows we placed a bond issue and all these little line items are on the side and then you wonder why your tax bill is higher because those were not always brought into the calculation for the final tax rate i don't want the city to get in the same boat when we quote a tax rate increase i want to be the entire amount that's on the municipal line on your tax bill that's all so it i i don't i'd rather that we said oh if we're going to not adjust the pennies for patent open space amount that's received then we should just say the total you're going to be paying is six point you know seven five percent increase over last year so that there's just no ambiguity whatsoever forget the budget or forget the bond issues this is the total amount okay and and this does go ahead finish your question and then jessey would like to respond well i just wanted to comment that this does exist in other taxing realms particularly with the state when it deals with the gasoline tax there is a cap spaced on the price of per gallon but there is a cap so i i i think you'd have to make the motion and three out of two of us would have to agree to put it on the ballot but i think we'd have to formulate what that motion is and how you would how you would ask that question okay jessey i just wanted to say i really agree with tim and that's part of why andrew and i are recommending pulling out the pennies from the general fund presentation um we i understand why previous administration did it that way because they are pennies that sit in the general fund so it makes sense to present them that way but i think by pulling it out and then talking about the aggregate city budget which is the operations general fund and then the two pennies over time starting now over time we can accomplish what you're trying to achieve by how we message the budget as opposed to having those pennies rolled up into the the general fund operating budget so i just want to say i agree with you and we will endeavor to communicate it that way in the future so we're back to um how difficult is it i mean i guess it's just math right so if you put a firm number around what you want to on an annual basis regardless of what happens to the um grand list if you want to just raise you know $350,000 for open space each year not a penny more not a penny less then you would have some weird percentage so but you could do it or or you create a floor and a cap you create a floor and a cap that the the penny for path them out will be at least this so we can raise x but it can flow up but no more than this so we can raise y and then megan man i want to say two things one i agree with bob we need this money and my sense of south burlington and me personally as one taxpayer fully support putting some more money in open space and for the bike and pet but i agree completely with tim that it just it doesn't feel right to change this language the year of the appraisal in order to try to sell or otherwise present this as less than a tax increase than it actually is so i'd be supportive of looking at that cap and and adjusting how these open space dollars funds are but i i don't think we can really pull that together in a thoughtful manner in the next seven days before we have to approve this language so i'm more inclined to support language that's consistent with how we've done in the past to show the true tax increase and if the voters don't like that if they don't want that and they they can vote the budget down i hope they don't this is an important budget i think it's a reasonable budget but i think we need to be fully transparent that with the reassessment that actually is increasing the amount of money we're collecting for open space and bike and pet but my sense of south burlington is they're going to be happy to give that a little that 30 percent more adjusting for the new assessment i just i just want to reiterate the fact that we have been saying over and over and over to all the taxpayers in this city that the reassessment is revenue neutral we have said that many times in the last year and a half revenue neutral reassessment in this case it is not revenue neutral and it's because we didn't have the foresight i think back when we originally created the ballot language to not put a cap on it or an annual percentage cap in lieu of the fact that we could have a reassessment that would boost it by 31 percent i'm not saying that these funds don't deserve to have this money i'm just saying it's almost a mode of false advertising to say that that the reassessment is revenue neutral it's not revenue neutral for these two issues which then boosts our tax rate to six and three quarters percent that's the point i'm trying to make and i just wish that we could come to an agreement on how we can create a budget or a ballot item that would do something to reduce the 31 percent to something that's more understandable to the voters and what they imagine would happen when they voted on it a number of years ago. Megan i want to hear from more of the public so i just saw linda norris put on her camera so i'm going to see it i also see that bob britt would like to say something so okay yeah i would just as an observer here and looking at that that that did come up in my uh review of some of this uh budget it's it's very big increase and i know i voted for it way back when but going up 31 percent and this whole revenue neutral thing i am i'm all in tim's camp on this one and the voters really should have a a vote on this that's my opinion and though i'm a big biker but that's it's really uh it's quite a big increase okay um rosanne greco wants to comment and oh oh that's the ldr yeah rosanne yeah yeah i i understand what tim is saying and i totally get that um but uh but there's another aspect to this and that is for the pennies for the path and for the open space fund is you have to know i think before you make any decisions what monies do you need to accomplish what you want to do with the open space and the pennies for pass so you're you know find out what the end uh requirements are so if you truly want more pass more bike pass etc you first of all how much is it going to cost so maybe what you're raising is less than what you really need same thing with the open space fund if you truly want to do the maintenance in the lands in the park areas we currently have what does that cost so far we haven't had the money to do what needs to be done and if you ever do want to purchase property what could you anticipate that would cost then you find out okay is the increase you're going that's going to result from the reappraisal will that cover what the expected cost will be in both areas will that to determine whether you know how you if you put it on the ballot but i also agree i think it was matt that said or tom that in the next seven days this is so complicated i don't know how you're going to get ballot language for the march and maybe it might be something for august but start at the end what how much do you need for both of those and then determine the best way of raising it the real thing is make it a line item but i know we've talked about that in the past you know budget for what you need so andrew can for our next meeting next monday could we see some language that would be a ballot item that would accomplish um i mean it sounds like tim is saying okay i'd go with a top and a bottom line you know a minimum and so that but you know at the end of the day if the grand list that we voted on changes a little tiny bit we're not caught in some kind of draconian issue with trying to figure out exactly how many pennies we're going to put in each of these piles yeah um certainly can come to you with a few options of different ballot language to accomplish that goal okay um and have a recommendation at that time do council members have a sense of how what they want that range to be well that's that's one what i'm sorry i didn't mean to go well i know that's just one way maybe there's another okay yeah that that's one way if we if we put a floor in cap and the other way is to ask the voters whether or not is to admit as tim put it that is not the reassessment was not revenue neutral and then to ask the voters if they're okay with it not being revenue neutral when it comes with pennies are passing our open space fund i like that and yeah i don't know can we craft a motion a ballot item that says that i don't know i i very much i very much support what matt just supported that they're what he suggested that there be a yay or nay do we continue with the penny on the grand list yay or nay you know with clearly laying it out and i well clearly laying out that say if you say yay then your tax rate will be up by six and three quarters percent that's the clearly that's the transparency and then if it's an a then we have to go back but i think like roseanne says it's it's something that will require more than a week to to come up with and and plus there's also the uncertainty if they vote one way on the city budget and another way on that item it could you know it could yeah it cause issues with what the actual final budget i mean i i just i i don't know how much certainty there is in jessica i think it'd be a shame if it was worded in a way that it removed the fund entirely so it seems like it's either affirm the way it is or put a cap in place but don't i don't know i think it'd be a real shame to give people the option of like getting rid of the oh the nay wouldn't be get rid of it the nay would be we have to come up with a different a different uh calculation a different algorithm that i wouldn't want to just say no it's gone yeah i don't want to do that either right i know that's not your intent right yeah no that wasn't that wasn't my intention either to be clear no a nay would be a yay would be at the current at the 30 30 36.6 jump whatever it is and then the and then the nay would be no reduce it so it is it is revenue neutral as we have been saying this reassessment is which whatever that number is and then we could i don't know this ballot language is always very limited but at least in the communications say you know we're there need to to review we have two other elections this this year so it's something that could be handled quickly the the other alternative is to change the penny into some fraction of a penny to represent what the 315 might be shall we reduce the one penny to you know 0.8 cents or whatever it is but that's the simplest way to do it but the issue of inflation is important that helen pointed out and and as we saw during the pandemic all of these materials have increased in pricing so you can buy a lot less you know with all of the the the shortage of material so i i'm i'm not in favor of a static number something that moves that's what i'm saying if you if you decrease the penny to some fraction it will then do the same thing it's doing right now and it will grow as the grand list grows it just won't be you could be three quarters of a penny i see okay it's so it's just a ratio that brings it back to what it was before that's all and that could just be an affirmative do do you want to change it from a penny to 0.82 or whatever and if they say no then it stays at a penny right that's another option that's oh yeah that's explaining do does the city have the right to temporarily remove this from the budget that people will be approving and explain that it will be decided or voted on or in august like just push it push the entire piece over so that you can explain that it's separate from revenue neutral on the the rest of the city budget that this was a unique circumstance explain what comes in the out years it's what you're discussing is it's good that you're discussing it and not trying to just you know put it over on the tax payers but it clearly needs more time and i don't know if you have the right to temporarily remove it from this budget put it on hold for the august an august vote and that would give you that time i think the i think what i'm hearing is we have the first annual the first valid item is the annual budget and that's what's in front of you as the now updated 2.95 percent and then there's a second battle item that either has an amendment to the prior two votes at a fraction or ratio ratio or with a cap associated with it if that is voted down it reverts back to the one cent if it is affirmed then it's capped in the way we collect that well that would be a better vote because then we wouldn't lose it right right yeah so the so the ballot language that i propose where we have the the annual budget excluding the pennies would remain and so the second ballot item would be specifically on those pennies whether or not it's reduced or kept the same okay i think that's what i'm hearing to bring forward well i think that would be our intent yeah yeah i guess we have to look at that language and figure it out or see if you can write it bob but the funding the funding for pennie for path was going to go up anyway so i you got to be careful if you go back and make it neutral because there was going to be an increase anyway if we didn't have the reassessment so i it gets really complicated our grand list goes up every year yeah even before the reassess so i'm sure that we have a little bit of room to grow yeah i mean whatever the houses whatever that ratio is the whatever instead of a penny if it's point eight two whatever right it gets us back to whatever the growth was you were seeing before it just scales you back so that you're still on that same curve but without the reassessment jump that's all and we'll hopefully could let the public it's going to be a trickier conversation but um i suspect we can have it so is that amenable to everyone on the council that that um we next week we see that language you don't have to vote we're not voting for that right now it's a concept that seems as if people are willing to um think about and want to see the language i prefer this to a cap yeah i do too yeah and and so yes yeah i think a cap would be a challenge because yeah i think so too um because in the tax bill we already pull it out and i don't want to have to be thinking about refunds or other things so i think the oh my god can you imagine i mean yeah but you're going to do what bob suggested where you would kind of follow the growth of the grand list to see where we would be before the assessment yeah yeah so yeah take the 310 whatever our average growth i think it's 1.1 percent of the grand list um and then just divide that by the by the one okay good all right good are there any other oh i'm sorry you want both of those valid items pennies and open space together in one i think we yes i think so does that matter that one's time delineated and one's not um yeah it'd be in it'd be in the language it shouldn't it shouldn't matter okay so exactly language could be used for both but just replacing the name yeah but it'd be great if they were combined because it's simpler for the voter right but i think it shows real respect for the voter so i do appreciate this conversation yeah yeah i would agree okay any other items um related to this budget that you would like to see changes going forward i mean for next week for potentially approval all right good enough so all right if there's no more discussion then we can move on to item nine almost on time we're a little bit over and this is a continued discussion of the land development regulations received from the planning commission um uh you have had a number of meetings about the ldr's um including public hearing um paul is here as is just will lose so thank you very much um tonight is really your opportunity and monica is here as well uh tonight is really your opportunity to discuss the ldr's and um provide to uh staff any policy direction you would like us to consider um as we bring you back potentially um ldr draft language changes just a question do we have to approve this resolution for the cip uh no it will be all part of it'll be all part of all right this week i just wanted to know okay thank you okay sorry for the interjection okay so um how do you i mean i guess we had a number of questions that were asked and um um and i actually asked paul to pull together some figures because what i heard at the um hearing was quite a few people saying that this is the first time they heard about it um any of the ldr's and that um it was so complicated that we needed to take more time and that the process you know they never really got to um share their concerns and um since i live with one of the planning commission members um who would come home and share with me what went on at the meetings um that didn't ring true to me so um paul pulled together between 2016 and 2021 there were a total of 70 70 meetings of the um planning commission they had 38 meetings of that 70 was between last august and september of this year they received the city council had received briefings or discussions on ldr amendments at 20 of our meetings and 12 of those were between august 2020 and the present the um we've received in this last round with the final approximately 102 letters and emails so i think we've heard a lot um i don't know how many letters and um comments that the the planning commission had heard but um they had countless people at all their meetings um often speaking um often on on all these different items including lawyers for developers and developers themselves so i just want to kind of put that out there as those are the facts that's how many people came and how many times they met and um so i i i think that dispels the characterization that this is this has been rushed along and that um thought hadn't been provided or consideration hadn't been provided by the planning commission and i know at the end of the day it has stuff in it that people don't like and that's probably good because neither side is really pleased fully um to me that means and tom you'll probably have already learned this if the final bill nobody likes you've probably reached the sweet spot and that's how legislation works you know you can't get everything you want nobody ever does so i just want to kind of frame some of this some of our conversation with at least i hope providing some facts about the process so people aren't still feeling that um they haven't been heard we had some questions from um legis uh from counselors as well megan had a couple and then matt had quite a few well i have 22 proposed amendments right and i was passing along questions that i received in dozens of communications so i just wanted to have okay paul's take on it so before we undertake 22 amendments um are there some comments that counselors would like to make in terms of sort of what they're feeling about the ldr's man i certainly don't want to go down the rabbit hole of having paul pulled together a lot of um amendments um if there isn't consensus that that's a smart path to take i will just say that having sat in on uh some planning commission meetings discussed with individual planning commission members i i believe that they have truly come up with a very fine um proposal um that we could in no imaginable way replicate in our short few months um over three years that the thought that they have given to this and like everyone else are there pieces that i would do differently most likely yes but i would say on the whole that this these proposed amendments match our comprehensive plan remarkably well um with its and it was just um i read it on i believe it was um the v-trans website uh regarding smart growth that you know uh uh attaining our needs for economic development uh you know and and as well as the need to respond to the climate crisis and to to protect our environmental resources this is a very tough thing and i truly believe that the planning commission has done an incredibly um thoughtful uh and and um has produced a very thoughtful and i would say thorough uh document and i i have full confidence uh and i am very willing to approve it i i um living with someone on the natural resources committee um they had very you know little small tweaks with regard to uh who does the the environmental um assessment of of parcels and i would like us to consider consider having you know some say in that um but i i truly feel confident that the people that we gave this this task to that they took on actually but then through izi we we put a time limit to it um there's no way that we could do what they did so i i have full confidence in in their work okay others tom so a few things um i just want to say i too i think the planning commission has done a lot of great work during a global crisis a global pandemic and i think they i i support a lot of these environmental protection standards so i think that's important for me to restate because of some of the communications that i've been seeing of late and i just want to recognize what you also said helen that the number of meetings prior to now by the planning commission it doesn't diminish the importance of our role our role as counselors all five of us have walked the neighborhoods all five of us respond to voters all five of us have were elected by the voters to represent their interests and we we sit in a role we have to approve these so as much as i agree with you counsel army that the planning commission has done a great job i think every single one of them would agree that these things are not perfect and that there's certainly uh amendments there's tweaks there's adjustments that could be made i've called for just two now i i too recognize smart growth i'm not saying throw this out i'm not saying we're throwing the baby out in the bathwater i call for two small tweaks which is one having to do with the the concerns that have been raised about the habitat blocks and how they're very rigid in their definition and the first time we saw this in november i sent a note saying i'd like to look at tom daley's language tom daley suggests that we have a habitat delineation assessment language but you have specific language that i would love to know how if the planning commission looked at it because all i called for in my letter and what i'm still calling for today is language that makes sense that when these properties when somebody wants to do something on any of the properties that have these habitat blocks that they assess the habitat at that time be it five years from now be it two days from now or be it 30 years from now to just have that habitat assessment of the adaptive so i think that's a small tweak that might address the very forceful concerns all five of us have received from attorneys this is my seventh going eighth year on the council i haven't seen this type of language lawyers since the jam golf settlement that we lost all i'm saying is my my concerns are high that we are setting ourselves in a course that we could avoid if we pause and look at reasonable comments that i'm sure the planning commission might also take and see a reason to also consider the other change that i've been calling for and i still think is worth considering and i really appreciate this table i guess this is councilor kota that put it together but my my changes are in here so thank you for that which is just to be fair and thoughtful and have the ecology of the parcels in the southeast quadrant give those landowners the choice i'm calling for a choice between the conservation pud or the traditional neighborhood development pd that's how it was presented through two and a half plus years of interim zoning but then last october that pivoted and changed and then there was a conservation pv mandate there is a reason to believe that that would just be a more fair more equitable and also would address the very valid housing concerns from the affordable housing committee raised so that too is something i think that there was not perfect agreement on the planning commission and i as one counselor really am advocating for that that doesn't mean i'm saying get rid of the 500-year floodplain and that doesn't mean i'm agreeing or saying get rid of anything else so for anybody that thinks i'm just an anti-environmentalist really that's not what i'm advocating for here i'm advocating for two small changes i i'm not as much of a policy wonk as counselor kota and counselor barrett so i would welcome diving into each of these 22 amendments because i think there's something here when i looked for and preparing for this meeting today that i i think we have till april 9th that i love because how important these things are for paul connor and the planning staff to really take and consider and present to the council a rationale for maybe making a small tweak or not i met with the last thing i want to say is i met with a very informed individual on these today and he said a confusing ldr is unenforceable and he also said that in most circumstances when a confusing ldr is presented before a judge they side with the property owner as i'm looking at these 22 amendments in this table i think clarity the time and attention that it would take to seek some clarity before the april 9th deadline would actually make it so that the city's in a better position to protect our ecological environmental and other city interests so that's what i'll say i i support us addressing each of these 22 amendments and having a rich discussion and i think that means improving upon what the planning commission has reflecting and incorporating what we all have in this important role representing our community but that'll stop talking thanks matt june want to say some general statements or sure i go through yeah seven and eight uh thomas's concerns are there i too want to protect habitat blocks and corridors but i don't believe that this is the method to do it i think you have to map it just like you do wetlands i come from the developer review board hat um chairing that committee and being on it we've got to make some fixes here people and i'm not saying that the professional staff and our volunteers didn't do an incredible job and you can devote an incredible amount of time especially the volunteers because we all know our city really runs on volunteers and i don't want to diminish any of that at all but there are some simple fixes here we haven't named all the pud types we i get more complaints about that i saw on shellburn road that used to be a pizza hut we can't fix that because we didn't name all the pud types there are areas where we just simply didn't get to and i understand we're on a time crutch we had a global pandemic but we need to fix it we need to fix it and there are 22 things that i would like to fix and we have the time to do it i'd like to forward these to the planning commission and to the staff i think you can come back when they say we disagree with your assessment your legal assessment and the lawyers will figure it out over the next three or four years that's fine being on the development review board i'm not scared of lawyers we get lawyers all the time they question all of our decisions we need to have our land development regulations that we can defend and that's what we need to fix okay tim do you want that yeah so i really appreciate the the meetings that i've had with people uh between christmas and new years um and and you know that the groups are diverse um and what i appreciated and and other discussions i've had with people is the tension between the people that want more development and the attention and the opposite of the people who want less development right so what strikes me is the fact that uh it appears that nobody's happy and when i hear that nobody is happy after the planning commission voted seven zero um to put these ldr changes in front of us that tells me that there is a high degree of compromise in these ldrs already and that if you look back as to why we went into izzy in the first place i think this draft satisfies those reasons primarily and it strikes the right balance between what can be developed and and what probably should never be developed and and and i and i support it and i i think that we we the the planning commission put the stake in the ground and we have to move forward from that stake to put another stake in the ground and say so this is where we this is the reality boom you know their law now all right and and i know that nothing is perfect and there may be instances in the future where we have to come back and ask the planning commission very specifically for some items for certain situations to make sure that they're they're clarified and you know but that happens all the time anyway so i i think we need to move forward i support the changes um let's have the discussion anyway you know because it's important and it's for educational purposes and and i'm sure that paul has a lot of responses and i read collin's responses too and okay thank you um i i think i am in your camp tim i think this was um an excellent document um we have a commitment from the planning commission to complete the rest of the puds and i met with the o'brien brothers and understand they have some um confusion and would like that clarified and um i think we can do that but i would like to move on with what has been um developed and presented by the planning commission with the knowledge and understanding that a few pieces will continue and as always i mean matt you know you brought things before to the council about what didn't work in ldr's um you aren't weren't the first chair to do that and changes get made um but we will never ever have a perfect set of rules that contemplate can contemplate every single nuance change or idea for development it's just it's impossible to get it that comprehensive so that there's never ever either a challenge or um a misunderstanding and and i think some of that comes down to meeting with the planning direct the department which i guess they do when you come in with your idea you meet with them and they go through the ldr's with you and and um assess or help the developer understand what they can and cannot do and then they go back and do some work and it comes in the the original plat and they get some more feedback from the drb and i i suspect they can go back to the planning department and get some additional um insights and it's an iterative process and that's what makes for better development i think the whole purpose for interim zoning was to find a way to protect the the important environmental um sections or types in the southeast quadrant and i think that's directly related i supported that because i mean since we started interim zoning i think climate the climate crisis has been acknowledged as kind of a red alert and if you don't agree with that i think you have your head in the sand sorry and so you know i think every little thing that a community can do is a help i i'm not in the camp that the only thing you can work on is something that is monumental and will change the world i think it's piece by piece small stuff after small stuff and um so i'm i'm very supportive of these and i'm extremely leery about making 22 amendments yeah um in our time frame so that's kind of where i stand paul did you could i add on yeah because i i gave my position in support but also just what i like about them i want we have two commissioners here and one online at least one online that i saw uh is that even though we're not going to change the globe right as one community i do find these amendments monumental i do find that you have succeeded in rethinking how development occurs in a way that is sensitive to our green infrastructure and how colin laid it out with the 70 percent that how you kind of reach that that that that golden mean of a number um i find to be just really emblematic of the careful thought that went into every every number and and calculation so that's that's the one thing i think it's really important that 70 percent and and to have that that math shown to be just the the balance that really works in our community but also to have that that workforce housing close to the employment centers close to those those roads i think is really important for who we are as a community so i believe that we are meeting the goals of our comprehensive plan this is opportunity oriented completely we are doing something that i hope will lead to other communities to to look and to to plan based on the example that you have provided us i believe that it is green and clean because we are protecting uh i read the arrow would report i i i recommend that the other counselors read it as well it's it's fabulous and it explains that it's not capricious it's not arbitrary it's actually got a very clear scientific method to it um and it that we are walkable i see that if we can have that dense housing along the roads we could potentially have public transit going down uh you know going down 116 that would be my ideal we would no longer have to have the special route to um go to the uh the senior housing there off the feinsburg road and we would actually have public transit to tilly drive how fabulous would that be and i think that the rezoning of the hill farm property will will give weight to to that and i really really applaud that change um so i really see on the fourth one hold on i'm missing so we have opportunity oriented clean and green walkable what's the fourth goal in affordable affordable there we go the workforce housing so i thank you um i just want to to really say that i it's it's you did it you did an outstanding job and i know that many people who are not on the commission also attended those meetings to make sure that those goals were advocated and and you listen to them and i very much appreciate that paul do you want to um address some of the questions maybe that are outstanding we can't hear you for some reason because i didn't have my phone down um paul cloner dresser planning and zoning um i guess one thing that i'd like to note is that um the commission uh planning commission recognized that there were uh that there are some additional pieces to this puzzle um they have prioritized at this time uh completing over this winter and this spring uh infill mixed-use puds and or other tools along places like shelburn road williston road to facilitate places like um the example that um councillor coda brought up a few minutes ago um as for the specific of the of the 22 comments i guess um you know we're prepared to have sort of a general discussion on any of the ones uh that council would like to get into but i'm not sure that i want to pick and choose amongst them i think that's for for you guys to decide which ones you'd like to uh the way in which you'd like to go about this discussion paul paul why do we have to wait why can't we revert those areas where you did not name a pud type back to original pud language and we can allow projects that we've been waiting for for a very long time to proceed and not be caught in this regulatory vortex if the council wanted to establish sort of a generic pud something that um allowed for places that don't have a pud to exist that could be created um today under the current former regulations um currently adopted regulations puds and subdivisions are inextricably tied they've been separated out in this draft um it's our read that if the council would like to have a generic pud that applied in other places it certainly can do that to comply with state statute under how the the enabling statutes of what a pud is it would most likely need to say a little bit more frankly than what the current ones do which is innovation in exchange for flexibility that the statutes lay out some specific um direction that that has to be given to basically in the sort of post jm golf era of what does it mean to provide flexibility but it certainly can be prepared for council or the planning commission however you choose to do it it might not be a two-day turnaround but it could be done what about a simple amendment that says that that that footprint lots within a residential subdivision are allowed the specific sub subject of footprint lots um our current regulations are silent on them as are as are the future regulations and so there is a little bit of flexibility that exists frankly in that subject area outside of a tnd where the in a tnd the uh the lots dictate everything about the the scale of development um i think it might be if if we were to specifically acknowledge them in our regulations then that's sort of going in a in a different direction than we already are um it's it's a little bit of a nuanced subject but we can certainly dive into it if council would like to yeah we we're talking about creating affordable housing let's create affordable housing i am a benefit of a footprint lot right the footprint lot was put in place financing is put in place so that when they're building high rises no one moves into the first floor and then they never build the top eight floors but the same principle applies people when you're talking about houses that have footprint lots i don't own the land around my house as do many other developments but i was able to move in before the rest of the development was made because of the financing afforded to footprint lots and if we don't have that we are harming our ability to bring affordable housing to south burlington let's fix this that's a motion second what is the alternative uh that's not having uh footprint lots paul is there some other way to accomplish the same thing um well in a in a in a in a setting where the drb has the authority to have flexibility in lot sizes which it does for example in a conservation pud then um the the alternative to a footprint lot would be that lots are of a are touching one another and that the shared maintenance items are that the that the association manages land that crosses across multiple lots um so that would be the alternate way instead of the footprint is what you own and then the the area around it is is owned by and maintained by the association townhomes are a little bit trickier those ones really do need footprint lots absent a building type that a building type standard because it's party walls so that that probably fits best with a footprint lot um but fundamentally um the the the the shape of development is the key factor in all of this is to what the council what the planning commission what the community is looking for what it wants as an as an output in terms of the arrangement and proximity of homes to one another um the tool of whether it's a footprint lot or it's frankly just reduced lot sizes that say that a single family home or duplex or whatever can be on a lot size of 2,500 square feet instead of 10,000 it's it's the same basics um question well we need to fix that we need to allow puds in areas where the where this document does not allow them so we can have these projects on Shelburne road that have been eye sourced for years be fixed immediately and not wait for the next round of updates to our land development regulations to come around why aren't why aren't we allowing someone who owns a lot a parcel to allow a second house on it rather than go through the now very complicated very expensive subdivision or puds if we're trying to help look we have an affordable housing crisis we have 10,000 people that work at the uvm medical center we've got 4,000 teachers at University of Vermont they're not going away they're going to drive through here unless we find places for these essential workers to live and we've just made it more expensive and less we've made it less affordable and more complicated for anyone to build home for these essential workers let's fix it where are these essential workers going to be building homes matt that you're talking about we have a hospital the two largest employers in vermont are right in our border if we don't if we make it more expensive for us to build affordable housing in south bruenton which these regulations do those that hospital and that school isn't going to go away those employees this housing you're talking about they're going to talk about the southeast quadrant right now are we talking about the southeast quadrant right now are we talking about the shelburn road corridor with a proposal for some more high-rise apartments fire land development regulations i heard that three and you have the vote so you can call it right now and tell me to be quiet but we have three votes that say they worked really hard pass it as is and i think if i'm any good at counting votes we have two votes that say hold on let's address these specific issues before we move for motion to vote these these these uh these land development regulations but two of your items matt are about habitat blocks and other hazards and you call them totally indefensible you you call two of the items which is habitat blocks the other one totally indefensible so you ask the question are they legally defensible or not correct in your in your list of items no what i said is we need to rewrite the habitat quarters so we don't instead of doing a windshield survey based on parcels that we're actually doing field mapping to determine where the habitat quarters are but you make the point that it's indefensible that's what you said in your table right not legally defensible not legally defensible okay so that is your that's the point you're trying to make is that you believe that our designation of habitat blocks is legally indefensible that's two of 22 amendments that's a pretty big one considering why we went into iz in the first place right okay i think i'm just trying to get i mean i looked at all of your points and the two of them were the biggest ones which were just said legally indefensible if we take those and just throw the whole thing in the trash right then we haven't accomplished a darn thing since we went into iz right and the rest of it's just technical after that in my estimation so either we move forward all right and approve these ldr's the way they are today and smooth out wrinkles afterwards or we're just going to be spinning our wheels for years by may council bearer to take the two that you think are non-starters put them aside and can we fix these technical issues before we pass these so that we're less limbo and less chaos and less undefensible regulation we do have till April 9 so take the two that you see as completely non-starters but the rest of the technical fixes i'm ready to have extra meetings i think it's worth us taking this on in our in our important roles of setting the land development regulations and improving them for the second largest city in the great state of Vermont well i guess i don't understand why you wouldn't want the planning commission to continue with their work on the pud's since i mean their level of understanding and expertise is far they may be volunteers but it's far greater than this council so i'm for that if the if the if the if the planning commission and professional staff look at these issues that have been brought up and they can they can say okay matt's this number and this number we disagree that's fine that's okay but if they disagree with all 22 then let's hear it if they say no no it actually makes sense that we legally warn a it's a property owner in the city if we're changing their zoning who wouldn't be for that matt how would you go about that i mean who knows i would be developing and need to i mean if you're doing um broad ldr's for the whole city um what do you send a letter to everyone owns property and tell them we're changing the zoning so and the rules so you might want to know and that you know where that piece of paper would go because most of them where does this happen i mean i'm someone who lives near the f-35s the only reason i knew that they were coming was because someone had seen that there was a scoping meeting in wanouski they didn't even contact the city government of south brilington where they were going to be based so who does this what you're requesting we do it happens in the city of south brilington whenever a project is proposed we're legally required to warn all of the abutters yes it's the abutters and it's a specific project i get that i get those notices all the time from because of where i live but when you talk about um retooling the ldr's and redoing some of the pud's that would be anywhere it's incon inconceivable to me that we would be obligated to tell every single person that possibly if they ever wanted to or their neighbor wanted to do something that they should understand all these ldr's we are going through the process right now we don't do zoning changes all the time these are very very irregular once every five years ten years and we didn't send mailers to every property owner in the state in the state not the state the city we send out tax mailers we send out other mailers just like councilor codis said so i don't think this is ridiculous tom let me just get to the point here we are going through the legal process that's defined by vermont statue to change our ldr's the planning commission has done their work city council has done their work and the administration has done its work warning every meaning required to inform the public about the changes that are coming we don't have to notify anybody because we've been doing it for three years and now we're we're the point where the rubber meets the road and you want to send out letters to people they've had plenty of warning the other paper has published every warning for every meeting that we've required that's the process to notify the public i'm saying adding the rule as one of these amendments to just consider here from the planning commission for a future a global landing zone zoning change or land development regulation changes i'm not saying for right now i'm saying one of the amendments proposed is in the future land changes or zoning changes that affect parcel owners they get a letter but i sense for two are two states let's take a real let's take a really simple one we haven't named all the pud types we are in a regulatory vortex since in several areas of our city can't can't we fix that can't we amend that to at least revert back to the old puds i think paul said that he could quickly put together some language that we as a council could approve just a general pud and i think that's something that we would be willing to do well that's great i appreciate that council armory and i would also appreciate if the paul and the planning commission and i'm not saying that they have to agree with me but i am saying that they should consider it and offer some or just explanation steep slopes where do you measure the steep slope and paul might have the answer in his pocket or he might develop the answer and we can annotate the ldrs to make it clear where you start measuring steep slopes and where you stop measuring it it means something when you're on the when you're on the drb and you have to interpret these things and as it does to marla keen and paul and everyone else okay we have um jessica louisos would would like to make a few remarks and i think since she was chairing the committee she probably has a pretty good sense of the conversations that were had and how they arrived at their conclusions or if you've hit the nail on the head and these are really important things that we need to change okay i think you need to turn it on so i'm i'm not prepared to address all of these necessarily today but i i think that um more than half are probably like what i would consider to be a policy discussion of a specific policy direction where we have had a discussion made a vote and put something into the ldrs that's um you know so i mean i could go through those or you can just see what's in there and see what we voted and chose um i think there are a handful of these that i would consider to be technical one of them is the steep slopes um you know i i remember there being something in there and i you know should have gone back today to see exactly how we measure it so that's an example of something that i think it probably makes sense for us to just circle back make sure there's a definition because it's a technical item so i don't know that you know i think it's probably up to you how warnings are done you know so you could continue to have a discussion about sending mailers but it's not once every five or ten years that we're doing these changes like we make changes the land development regulations um you know often twice a year and i don't know which of you exactly said it but um you know the idea that something could be on their neighbor's property or a buffer to a natural resource that you don't even know is on your property till you do an assessment you know i think it would be very difficult to target it would really need to be a blanket mailing to all um landowners for any size change like if you would go that route so we have talked about things like that and so far have not chosen go that route of mailings what we have done is um done a whole variety of other types of outreach um with the city social media with uh postings to the front page for or front porch forums um specific articles in the other papers while it is targeted um like summaries and of our meeting topic so you know i think we've been trying to reach people using different mediums but but it is true we have not done a blanket mailing to this point so i mean if that's something that maybe there's a threshold over which in future changes you want to go with something like that you know we could um you know consider that for future outreach and a great expense and so i guess um if you as a council want us to look at some specific things you know we can do that but um you know i think as some of you have pointed out some of the things on this list are kind of specific policy directions i don't know that we need to kind of rehash because we've already kind of forwarded you our decision um i mean we'll take your direction that's fair that's a very good explanation jessica paul can i just ask you um when i met with the o'brien guys today um one of their concerns was that they already have um their major plan and they are i don't know 50 percent or 70 percent through the build out and they were concerned that if they needed to amend their master plan you know would that how monumental would that be if it were um something you know pretty either modest or kind of made sense that didn't change the entire master plan i mean i think they gave an example of their build they were planning to build or are planning to build a i don't know five or six story apartment thing and in order to accommodate um affordable housing they needed to change i don't know if they needed to change the footprint or they needed to add some additional land to that plot it's sort of a pud inside a a big development and they were really concerned and they probably shared this with you so i'd be interested in your your answer um so how how big a deal is that going to be they're feeling like they could really get caught um can i just add to that helen i'm sorry to interrupt but it's not just the master plan it's the pud there's updates to puds that we see at the drb so what just guidance is this marla trying to figure out a wonderful professional staff member who's tries to figure this all out for on behalf of the volunteers that run the drb if you if you're changing a pud that was approved under the old pud rules but now we have the new pud rules is this a pud within a pud it yeah i guess that's the question so how how would you answer that paul what should they i guess expect sure so um i don't want to go too deeply into the specifics of one application because i think that that can be tricky because oh yeah i don't want you to what is the scenario and if one exact thing might not be the same as another broadly speaking um the um if we're talking about something like a change to a footprint or a change in a layout of something um of a building that would typically move to becoming a site plan issue so it's not necessarily a change to the pud that's how things have taken place in city center where um you got rid of the um puds back in 2016 so things are either subdivisions or site plans and so if somebody said well you know previously my building was a rectangle like this now i want it to be a square like this that can be done within it within a site plan um a change more thoroughly to a planned unit development is a little bit trickier with the change in these regulations because the old regulations um use planned unit developments as essentially a broad brush tool for um flexibility the proposed regulations where puds exist are a very guided flexibility so it's it's a it's it's it's a pretty different tool the thing that the two the two tools two tools have in common is they both use the word pud but they are fairly different in how they function if somebody was making a change to a master plan uh that was existing there um there are provisions for minor and major amendments to master plans the master plan in the draft regulations are is quite a bit more substantive than the existing one that's uh that's um you know i think that's a that's a fair statement to make so there'd have to be a judgment call about how significant the change was if it was truly minor then it would likely the board would have some flexibility to say that you know all these other things that would be required in a new one aren't really relevant to this review if it was a substantial enough increase uh to where it it really was changing the project then it um might be subject to a full um master plan review i'm not sure that i answered in the quite the level of specificity that you're looking for but that's so it would go before the drb and there would be some deliberation about the the degree of change and whether or not it would require uh something more significant rather than a minor adjustment yes anytime there's a substantial change in regulations this is you know the transitional period is challenging um the if the regulation said one thing and now they say something quite different um there is a recognition of what has been uh what has been approved what has been essentially vested under older rules and and acknowledging that but it is a it is a difficult transition anytime that you're doing a a major change to regulations that has to be looked at on a case by case basis and the case by case basis um would first be the recommendation from marla who or whoever is staffing the drb and then the drb would take her counsel and make a decision yes within the within the within the bounds of what the new regulations say can happen so if the regulations say that this thing that is being proposed isn't possible then the board wouldn't have that authority um if the board if there is a uh an area of trying to recognize that it's a transition period between an old and old and new then you know we always try to work with applicants to see how issues can be addressed um but that's that would become a case by case situation okay in in your experience paul would you suggest that um the the charge that it will be more expensive to develop affordable housing um would it have anything to do with the cost of a master plan um i think it depends a little bit on scale so i would say that our master plan requirements are an an increase at our end but most larger developments and developers are doing all of that work in the background anyway um whether it be for their own proformas or their own designs or act 250 or otherwise it is possible that for some smaller ones uh that there's some additional expense because they're being asked to look at a context of development that they weren't being asked to look at before is there a way to monetize that cost like a ballpark figure i think it's so variable that i i'm not sure that i can give that answer um i'd like to but it really depends on how somebody approaches their project what kind of you know what what kind of team they're looking at how they just generally go about things i can say probably for some smaller projects that it would increase their upfront costs but i can't give a number to it another question that forward is that for landowners who don't wish to build up to the minimum density immediately the the requirement to come back every 10 years with the master plan was seen as onerous by some people who contacted me could you respond to that yeah so i that's a good one that i wanted to clarify there's no requirement to come back every 10 years what what the master plan says is that if you are doing a project let's say this is a place where you're doing a conservation pud and you choose to under build the scale of your project or even if you're doing a project and you're um you're you're uh you just didn't get to full build out in in that time and you are planning to build out if you choose let's say you're somebody who never wanted to build the whole thing you were just planning it out you can let it expire you can build the 20 that you wanted to and then you let the master plan expire and then you're you're done if you're somebody who's continuing to build something that's multiple phases and it's taking more than 10 years what the draft regulations are doing that prior regulations have not done is they are vesting the applicant in the current regulations the regulations that they applied for for a period of 10 years that's not something that we presently do so it's it's a little bit of a contract so if if somebody ultimately winds up taking more than 10 years to build out then they have a responsibility to come back to the city and re-up their master plan under the regulations that are in effect at that time today there is no there is no such guarantee for those 10 years even today um so that's that's how that would work okay yeah we have a Matt and Matt why don't you ask your question then we have two people um out in tvland who want to speak also I just want to say it's not just the cost of master plan master plans are big projects right it's subdivisions it's the fact that if you own a piece of land and you want your son or daughter to build a house there now it's a subdivision and the subdivision costs are more extensive than they were prior to these regulations same with the pud's the great thing about form-based code and what do you base that Matt what where is this the cost the right so so you didn't have to create a subdivision if you had a two acres of land and you wanted to build a second unit on it now you have the cost of doing a subdivision is it a permitting cost is it a permitting cost is it you've got you've got it you've got a higher civil engineer i'm going to be talking to ten twenty thousand dollars do you have to hire a civil engineer to establish a home and then you've got then you've got the cost of pud the great thing about form-based code is what is that we know what the form is and the use has to fit the form and the great thing for the developer or the owner of that land is that they have some regulatory assurances that they can go through this process fairly quickly because that's what the cost is it's in time and it's the lawsuits that inevitably happen in many of these cases form-based code works what we have with these pud's is more complications more cost more time and more opportunities for those that are opposed to projects to to slow it down go through the environmental court that's what i don't want to see it happen to our drb where they have to interpret these rules for these pud's and then it goes to the environmental court and the environmental court kicks it back and we don't have the protections that we wanted in the first place my understanding of these regulations is that they would in fact streamline the process because um the they're still flexibility but yet they're they're more guided and that second because there is predictability that there would be really no basis for a lawsuit so i i've based on what i've learned about these new regulations is that one it will be easier in the design process in order to get it approved and two the with regard to any kind of legal challenges that they wouldn't have a basis because our our regulations have clearly laid out the potential of any given parcel based on its characteristics and i find the opposite in in view so there we have it say that again and i view the opposite i view it we have a different perspective from the opposite perspective of your perspective well i don't i don't call it a perspective i think that predictability is is has been a proven kind of best practice uh absolutely i agree and we don't have that i think that's what these regulations provide jessica did you want to comment um just clarifying um every lot can have an accessory dwelling um so there are many times where you could have you know two residential units on the same property i know that i don't know that that addresses all of what matt's concern was but those accessory unit rules do exist okay can it be separate from the main residence or does it it can be a separate structure yes yep so i have michael mittag who would like to make a comment and then followed by evan langfield and then um sandy duly would like to make a comment so when we start with michael yep good evening councillors um i'm i'm very interested in what in the 22 um requested amendments that councillor cotter has presented uh unfortunately they come at the last moment and in my view should or could have properly been presented uh to the planning commission which had two public hearings and or to the city council's public hearing back on january the third um while i think there are a lot of of interesting and useful suggestions in councillor cotter's list um i don't think this is something that can be done quickly and i would ask the council to instruct the planning commission to take up these suggested amendments and study them and come back to the council with their review or suggestions um the planning commission will will begin its next round of of development regulations amendments tomorrow but this list that councillor cotter has presented is not it's not short and it's not simple and it won't cannot be done quickly i think it will take we would fool ourselves if we think it will only take a couple of months it'll take a long time and in the meantime we will have developers remaining in this no man's land between the old regulations and a new draft and it would it would be much better for all concerned for the council just to approve what the planning commission has proposed to date and then instruct the commission to review these suggestions from councillor cotter during its next round of amendments that's my my suggestion and my request as a planning commissioner and one who's put hundreds of hours of work into this and we're not not going to shy away from the work that's to come to the things that councillor cotter has has listed as being missing are in the very at the very top of our agenda those are the neighborhood commercial development pud and the info pud which would um answer councillor cotter's question about the eyesore down on on shelbin road which i pass very regularly and i agree with him it is an eyesore so these need to be looked at carefully and not in a hurry we need to do a proper job in this on this the commission does so i would ask that the council approve what we've given you to date and and instruct us the commissioners to do what is necessary or take up those suggestions of councillor cotter the 22 of them okay thank you thank you langfield i'm sorry did you need to make a comment matt i just want to say thank you to michael that's okay okay thank thank you and actually i would uh so evan langfield from o'brien brothers i would actually echo a little bit of what michael just said which is you know for one the planning commission did put in hundreds of hours and i think you know by and large they did some really good work but i think you know one issue uh which is what he referenced which is there is sort of a no man's land here because there are areas of the city including the high density residential neighborhoods like r12 as well as the mixed use commercial like the c1 lr in other commercial districts that do not have pud types available to them but it's removing the existing pud types in the absence of creating a new pud type and i think what happened is that the planning commission prioritized pud types that they came up with and they ran out of time because they were trying to get the new ldrs to the city council before interim zoning expired which they did and that's fine but the problem is if you move forward with it as it's written right now you're throwing a number of significant landowners developers projects into a bit of chaos because there there's just an absence of a pud mechanism and so i i think the question you know i i put it in the the comment section is why not just have a period of time as the p the planning commission is moving forward on creating these additional pud types simply to say in the absence of a new pud type the existing pud type just remains in effect until the planning commission provides the new ones to city council and the city council moves forward on it's i don't think it's that complicated but by virtue of not doing it you're creating chaos and you're creating this no man's land that michael just uh uh explained thank you okay thank you and then sandy and i actually maybe before sandy poll did you want to make a can you respond i'm sorry but it seems like it would make sense to have them respond a little bit to this no man's land um i think you know i i i recognize that there are areas of the city the planning commission recognize that there are areas of the city that don't have a pud type right now um to some extent uh there could be a tool that that created a bridge um i would also you know note that puds are not the only way in which development can occur and so some of what we're going to be looking with the planning commission about starting tomorrow night a long place like shelburn road is how do how does the city achieve the uh the objectives it has for infill development for smart development for streamline development for development that that accounts for circumstances that we can't envision today in the most straightforward way possible so it may or may not actually be a pud a pud is a tool in the toolbox there are other tools that could be done that may be frankly just as if not simpler than some of the puds um but uh there is there is this bridge area that we spoke about previously and if it's council's pleasure that it either be prioritized for the planning commission or that the council wants to see something that um that addresses these comments in the in the shorter term then we will um endeavor to provide those okay thank you sandy i wanted to revisit what i brought up last week um and that would be the fourth proposed amendment on on um councillor kota's list uh and we had uh paul come to the affordable housing committee this morning um our principal concern here is that well two one is it reinforces a requirement for large lots which usually means large homes and high prices when you're talking about no more than 1.8 units per acre as opposed to four four is not a high density um zoning level um and for example we looked at a lot at the end of where du boy's drive joins heinsberg road according to paul it's about 0.94 acres it has been developed with a duplex uh two of our members live on du boys are in that area and talked about how thrilled the neighborhood is that there's a duplex there and the units cost less than half a million dollars finally say that again i'm sorry the units cost the price was less than half a million dollars which is very atypical for that neighborhood that could not be done under the proposed rules you could not do a duplex on that lot we looked at another area where it's being divided into three separate lots that would have each and these are not tiny lots each would have a home on it and but that would have to be two lots under this proposal um which of course means another um i guess 50 increase in the sizes a lot and probably a 50 percent are close to that increase in the price of the house uh it also makes it less likely that you would get to a threshold of uh inclusionary zoning but actually it's more about not having the missing middle types of types of housing that are more accessible to your middle income uh households i'm told by our liaison that these consequences of this proposal were not discussed by the planning commission um and i think they're important the other thing is the reason we were told the reason but unfortunately no example was provided us today of a potential conservation pug bordering one of these lots where we could see the result and whether we could consider whether the perceived by the planning commission i guess adverse result would outweigh the fact that you'd end up with bigger lots and bigger houses the other thing is all you would have to do to address this is keep the the rule the way it is right now which is maximum of r4 no more than four units in a building that's all you'd have to do you would not have to write anything you just have to take out the change and i implore you to do it i just say one thing in response to michael's comments several of the proposals on this list from counselor coda are not new several of them came from the affordable housing commission committee to the planning commission so they're not new they were not separately considered by the planning commission um but i just want to be clear they weren't new they didn't just come up last week thank you thank you okay i don't think there's any do it you're all set okay so what's what's your pleasure we have a commitment it sounds like well a potential option for um directing the planning commission to look at some of these 22 issues the technical ones perhaps and come back with some language i mean clearly some of them are bigger than technical so that would be um in the in the what i would request that they do um or just accept what they've done without any changes i i come back to you know the idea that amendments can be done and kinks worked out as as they're encountered and if um i i i think that the form-based codes in city center there were one or two kinks that were worked out after they went through um i you know amendments can be made again i mean this is not set in stone um and i think that um the level of thoroughness that they've already given that suggests to my mind and and that you know it's it's ready to go for for for a test drive i think it's ready to go and and if we need to review some things um that can still be done nothing is is precluding that i'm very glad to hear that um there could potentially be generic or general pud language that the council could review uh just to make a bridge um i think that's that's a positive thing but i do not want to wait until because they are meticulous the planning commission is meticulous and and the the thing is though is that uh that's what's required of the job to be quite honest having sat in on these meetings um that's what's required of the job and i give them a lot of credit that they are so detail oriented and i certainly do not want to assume that anything could be done within you know the hundred fifty days or whatever we have i i i think that um having some kind of bridge makes perfect sense we went into in term zoning for a reason and they have produced the product that we asked them to do matt you need your hand up uh yes so my i understand planning commission the majority of the planning commission doesn't want to touch article 12 okay all right but we have until April 8th April 9th um where these these regulations are vested let's fix the stuff that we all agree are technical changes now and if they can't be fixed then have the planning commission tell us they can't be fixed if they don't want to change anything about article 12 okay but at least forward them in an official way this package of amendments and have them come back and say well we can fix this in the in the final regulation that we're going to ask you to vote on i'm not convinced of the wisdom of that because then we'd have to do a test drive after that so why not do a test drive now we're not i'm not convinced that these technical amendments are necessary i haven't heard anything other than we can build a bridge to to deal with what's north of i-89 and on shelburn road and i i feel comfortable with that and if it comes to pass that a sentence needs to be removed as sandy duly and the affordable housing committee has suggested that's also an amendment that can be done relatively easily after the fact i don't see a reason to hold this up until april for those two reasons we have until april we don't have to hold it up till april they could get it done in a week and get it back to us and you could have a vote before march 1st it's possible or they could come back to us and say it's not possible but we don't know that yet and that's why i would entertain a motion i would make a motion that we forward these 22 amendments to the planning commission to review to determine whether or not they can be incorporated to a another draft of the land development regulations and if they decide well we can do this small thing because it's a technical fix that can improve our city improve affordability but we can't do these other things because that that's fine as sandy said they have seen these before we all have received the affordable housing resolution so i think i'm gonna second that motion okay but as sandy said they have seen many of these many of these comments already i i just i don't see they haven't heard it from one of the five counselors yet and now they have i seconded the motion and i just want to say i think that's a very reasonable thing to do and it's that important it is that important and we have the time we're up against april ninth is a deadline this we aren't even looking at this until february 7th so there's even time between them and these are that important with that many different factors that i think it's a very reasonable motion i'm glad to second it well i guess i would ask the um we're still under discussion we have a motion on the floor but jessica i mean michael just said that he wouldn't mind looking at these but it will take quite a while it's not a simple two week two meeting um so what is your i mean taking off the so the article 12 recommendations but i guess i i feel like these fall into three categories like we could look at this list and there's a few of these that i think are like a technical thing that we could probably talk about and maybe there maybe there's a change or maybe there's not then i think there's a few of these that might be okay this is maybe a good idea but you know it's going to take four months it's part of the next round would be maybe a recommendation and then i think there's other ones that are um one one or more counselors opinion that's just different than the policy decision that we've made and forwarded to you and you know i think some of those i'm hesitant to rehash and i mean that's what's going to take four months if we have to revote on each of these things that maybe we've already made a policy decision on it so and i don't know i mean maybe um you know that that's my take you know there's i think maybe a few of these that are a technical thing that might make sense to look at i didn't go through and check all these before the meeting so so paul connor you have to sort of manage this does that sound like three good buckets that the count the commission could um do in a in an evening i mean there's or or just focus on just the technical ones that are simple and potentially there might be um you know coming together of an agreement um and so that we can i mean if they're technical we don't have to have another public hearing correct um if they're substantial you need to have another public hearing if there's any changes that you make more than 15 days before the hearing you need to have another hearing so those are those are two two two slightly different buckets i guess um in terms of in terms of um jessica's buckets i i would agree that those are generally the buckets um i would encourage the if the council has areas that it wants the commission to be re-looking at especially things let's say the environmental protection standards where it really is a policy decision i would agree with um what jessica said earlier that you know there's a fair amount of debate at the commission level and that that would be a lengthy re-debate unless the council wants to give some specific you know we are of the view that floodplain should be looked in this manner please revisit it through this lens i think just saying we want to look at floodplains or habitat blocks or or wetlands again i think could potentially lead to to some wheel spinning frankly um on areas i i think that there's technical and then there's items that that council dakota brought up that are um that the solutions could be either bridge solutions or developing the additional pud types um developing additional pud types are you know it's not i agree with with michael metag they're not necessarily a one meeting and done kind of thing um and so i think making a decision point about what's the objective out of um some of these sort of semi-technical would be helpful well the semi-technical ones could certainly be attended to after the the initial draft is approved and goes into play into play becomes law you could still go back to some of the technical issues and and then as you said this sort of the different kinds of puds to address other issues so that i'm sure before the next building season there could be a fair amount of um amendments that would address some of these if they need to be addressed tom sure really yeah um so i think if going back to the planning commission if you go down that list and you identify 18 of them that are just a desire demand more conversation that you'd spin your wheels on i think you could chuck through that pretty quickly and have the planning commission say you know what we're not going to take on those 18 we already settled it but for the if it comes back with there's four really small ones that would be responding to what we heard from the public i mean that's what the process was we had a public hearing we've heard from the public we've had a lot more eyeballs of people that are affected by these these rules and they've said hey santa yuli's example that one line which i don't think the planning commission was necessarily aware of i think we need to stay true to the process and the intent of the process which is to hear from the public and then to use that to make better land development regulations so i think this is a very reasonable thing to do to take these 22 whatever amendments go back to the planning commission you all can say whatever number of them we already addressed and they would just take too much time but you know what the public did identify these three small things and we think we should amend these we have till april 9th but even if we're four weeks out from from february 7th so if those four three or four small things come back to us within a week then we don't even need a new public hearing and so we would stay with the the february 7th so that's all i'm looking for and i think that's the right way to conduct business here to hear from the public and to use that to factor in and improve improve us before us but with that i'm going to stop talking and i think we should just move on with the discussion okay we have a we have a motion on the floor yes we do we're still discussing though yeah i haven't been convinced though i mean i need to hear why and where those parcels are and i mean the case has not been made in my eyes and and there are people here who could make a case and i haven't heard a case see i'm more inclined to just have them look at these after the fact and if there's 14 ones that only take one meeting which i would be surprised that it would only take one meeting but if that's the case then you know they can come back to us in may with an amendment that satisfies some of the concerns but i tim i i mean i appreciate the hard work that councillor coda put into assembling all of these but since it's a mishmash of technical and policy line items it seems like it's a bolus bigotte that he wants to throw against the wall of the planning commission no offense matt but that's how i see it so that bolus bigotte then then gums up the planning commission and slows down the whole process and then probably just stifles any ldr's that come out of izzy at all so to me it's a stall tactic and i don't support it and i want to move forward and if there are these real technical issues the planning commission will have time to deal with them as they need to as the applicants come in so i say we move forward and i would like to call a vote on on the motion that's on the table right now if we could okay are you ready for the vote then okay all in favor signify by saying aye aye and those opposed nay so the um motion fails oh i'm sorry we have to do a roll call excuse me oh because they're at home all right so those in favor of the amendment mac coda well i'll just go through so mac coda was a tom chitenden i megan emery nay and tim barrett and really is nay so the motion fails three to two so now we're no we're not warned to actually um vote on this whole thing tonight aren't we no oh right so yeah we're we're not we have a public hearing we have another public hearing that's right on the seventh right okay so um i think we're done with this i mean i would hold on to your um amendments um hold on to them yeah because i think the council i mean the planning commission may at a future date be interested in um in in addressing some of them okay i think that's a certainty uh rosen greco wanted to say one last thing and then we'll move on yeah it this is yeah this is a brief comment and it's sort of piggybacks on what tom just said um he said you've heard from the public and so that's what prompted maybe what mac put together on on some of these 22 uh amendments based on what you heard from the public so my question is you've heard a lot from the public uh what are you going to do with what you heard from the public i'm guessing although i i don't know which public comment but i'm guessing there are maybe a handful of landowners that prompted some of the amendments that matt is putting forward but what about the comments from the rest of us the non landowners the non developers uh the people who live in this city you've gotten a lot of comments i think you mentioned the numbers i forget what it was what do you do with the comments you got from the rest of us that's my segue to my second question paul okay good how does how do how do these new amendments uh take into account grasslands and and prime ag soils uh sure so um a couple of things on that one uh the planning commission when they invited the folks from arrowwood uh back in in june of 2021 um one of the questions they talked about with them was was what how does one manage grasslands and one of the tricky things about grasslands is that grasslands in vermont in new england is a managed state of land so it's it's it's unlike a wetland or a forest it it is it exists because it is maintained that way which makes it tricky from a regulatory perspective to say that it must be um left in a certain condition because if left alone most grasslands in vermont will turn to forest um the commission following that discussion and looking at the realm of all the things that were in the comprehensive plan of um grasslands and prime ag soils and uh additional riparian that's where the commission landed on the conservation pud as a tool in some cases being optional in some cases per the commission's uh direction being mandatory to establish that um 70 percent of a property would become uh would be set aside as conserved if it happens to be that that 70 percent is all habitat blocks and wetlands or it's all wetlands then then so be it but in in the circumstance where let's say it's only 50 percent or 60 percent then it gives an opportunity for a property owner to identify the other valuable resources like grasslands and and ag soils um the other thing I'll note is that from the ag soil specifically this wasn't specifically part of the planning commission's uh decision making but it was noted that the um state through act 250 does have a um agricultural soil mitigation program so anytime there is um development proposed on prime or statewide agriculture or soils the state first looks to seeing it being um conserved on site and then if not looking to go to the the state mitigation fund um so that's how the commission looked at those resources in addition to the tools that are in outside of regulations um in terms of land conservation and other tools that can be looked at I think Jessica would like to comment as well yeah just to add a little bit to that um you know the nrp district does have some grasslands and some of those resources included in the nrp district um and there's some um some of those resources in the expanded in the regular or the original or expanded wetland buffer areas um so there were a few it's not a comprehensive separate protection of those resources on their own um and part of that discussion was also the the difficulty in um assessing them and drawing a line around them on a property so we didn't want to have to create a whole new assessment process for some of those things um at least the grassland piece that doesn't have a kind of defined definition and kind of put us in that position of having to create a new resource assessment so so we were using some of those other tools to kind of capture some of that and um as but has been pointed out um quite a few times our habitat blocks and habitat connectors are not always 100 percent um full canopy forest so there are some of those resources kind of at the edges and um in the pieces of the habitat defined areas as well so thank you thank you oh okay one last comment from michael mittag yes i just wanted to comment on something that paul might have led you to believe there was substantial discussion about the issue of grasslands farmland and prime ag soils um which were protected as part of the old chapter nine and that part of it was left out and and thus the protection for those three classes of resource went away so i don't want you to get the impression that this wasn't a very very intense discussion uh on the planning commission it was um and of course there are are very strongly held opinions in on in both directions on whether these are worth these resources are worth conserving or aren't that's not what i heard jessica say though i heard jessica say in terms of def defining it and coming up with a new statutory um category of of conservation resource i didn't hear the pro versus con but i weren't new but these were these these um classes of resource existed in the old regulations um and um but not in the new and one another point that paul made is that uh grasslands are have to be maintained and we had ara would come and explain to us that the only thing that has to be done to maintain a grassland is to brush hog it every two years and that will be a perfect way of um maintaining and keeping it as a grassland naturally you have to pick your time so that you don't mess up uh ground-missing birds uh breeding times but um that's all that's required brush brush hogging every two years and your grassland is maintained thank you thank you jessica wanted to just said did you oh i i just wanted to say that it is it is true there was a difference of opinions to how and by what mechanism those resources were addressed so what what i described and what paul described was you know that compromise that we came to there were some commissioners that felt like it should be a separate piece of like a specifically defined piece of chapter um 12 so um you know it was one of those areas i pointed out a few weeks ago where there was significant discussion along the way as to how to do it um you know consulting with ara wood experts and you know what we brought forward was part of it and you know the conservation pud is being mandatory in some parts of the city was was part of that discussion um of how do we kind of address some of these other resources that aren't specifically in chapter 12 so it was one of the large debates okay well thank you very much for all of your input we appreciate that let's move on to item 10 are the reports from counselors on committee assignments anything for um green mountain transit sorry i'll be brief we brought up the struggle that we're having quite frankly as the as our public transportation recovers from covid on and we've had this this largesse from the federal government to have free fares can we do that in perpetuity and so and i brought that up and and ellen you brought up the great idea of asking people what they thought about public transportation and and i just want to show you the cost when you're talking about the loss of of fares um and and if there's no federal government to back it up it's talking about 2.2 million dollars for urban that would be lost revenue and 575 for our rural coverage for gmt so it's a significant amount of money that fares provide and you want to encourage people to ride but you also don't want to take a significant source of funding so i'm i'm struggling with it about about what to do as we discuss it and i just wanted to lay that out for you okay they're they're just to share with you matt there was a study it's not in our country it was in france um but they did experiment whether or not ridership increased when you took away fares and it didn't so it's a different culture a different mindset so it might not be applicable but that's just one study that kind of you know made me think because it seems you know uh intuitive you take away the fare you take away any barrier more people will get on but as someone who rides the bus uh now we're in a pandemic but there haven't been more people since the fares have gone away i just don't have to take out my id every day which is a nice practical thing but okay thank you matt uh come i just want to as our gmt representative i would love to hear about the pilot of on-demand response vehicles in montpelier maybe not tonight but in the future i'd love to know if that's been successful and possibly increasing ridership or otherwise being a cheaper model that they might be looking to employ the rest of the state but if that's for another night something i know it's a fascinating topic microtransit and smaller buses and yeah that's something i saw during our trip they have teeny tiny little buses electric buses man number 11 my bus should be that that's what it should be i don't need a big a big bus how many seats in the little teeny ones it's like 10 10 seats and there's cute this they're so cute i bet more people would get on and then you'd have more people right oh that's just because they're adorable they're like little bugs well that's what we need is some more insects we've got to save the insects there we go it's part of global warming okay so so any other business yeah um i would really like to get an agenda item in the future if it's necessary but i really want to have the discussion about having the electrical inspection do all single-family home new construction in the city having pardon i want the so right now the electrical inspections occur on the electric family or commercial i want to include single family i think we need to to dig our nails into that because i think it's going to yield other benefits as well in the future okay so i don't know if that requires you know more manpower or how that would be managed but we should you know kind of like look forward through cider mill two the rest of rye spear meadows and see what we think it might take to do that and you know hill farm and the rest of o'brien hillside farm right i'm just just curious whether it would pay for itself and then actually generate a little extra revenue um i know it would be an extra car i believe you know since you'd have the builder would have to pay for that right so then there would be uh that cost as well but i i think that in the long term it's a good thing tim are you talking about new construction remods or everything um new new construction right now all right well we can put that on an agenda probably not in the next month but we can okay um any other business did you want to know okay no all right a motion to adjourn it's a move all in favor hi all right thank you very much i know we had some tough conversations but i appreciate the civility by and large and um the different viewpoint as matt pointed out you know i just see it differently and that's the way things go sometimes but i appreciate your energy and interest