 You're the same for all three of you, so I might as well do all three of you at once, and then the second one is office systems. Can I have to be sworn in? Oh, you have to be sworn in too. Thank you. We can keep doing that. I don't exist. I'm re-elected. It's like a vote or so. I wasn't sure. I was going to get to speak last evening, because everybody is just really late. Anyway, you did. You did. I thought I was very pleased, but I also was surprised because it hasn't been happening. And when we're done with this part, this is not required. It's just a cool thing. We have this ancient oak book that lives in the vault, and this one has signatures from folks going back to the 60s, the late 60s. So folks often like to add their names to the record. And this is a meaningless oath that uses some archaic language. You'll see men crossed out in persons written in. And it also was full of, so help me God, and if you don't want God to help you, you can always cross that line. But anyway, it's just a fun little thing, and it's something I can pass around. You'll see the top part is for you all, and then the bottom, and then the other. But anyways, okay, I know we have a short agenda, but I don't want a fiddle buster here. So I'll just have all four of you stand up for the first one. I swear I wasn't going to stand up next to this guy. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will be true and faithful to the state of Vermont, and that you will not directly or indirectly do any act or thing injurious to the Constitution or government thereof, so help you God or under the aims and benefits of surgery? I do. Okay, this next part. The last one is office specific, so I'll start with you all. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will faithfully execute the office of city councilor for the city of Montpelier, and will therein do equal right and justice to all persons to the best of your judgment and ability, according to law, so help you God or under the aims and benefits of surgery? I do. I'll officially escort you. Right. Okay. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will faithfully execute the office of mayor for the city of Montpelier, and will therein do equal right and justice to all persons to the best of your judgment and ability, according to law, so help you God or under the aims and benefits of surgery? I do. Thank you very much. Okay. So I just noticed that the two mayor and one will be, right? Oh, that's right. We're right in line. Thank you so much. Okay. Well, I guess we'll call the meeting to order. It's the first thing. Yay. This is going to be great. Okay. So first thing is to review and approve the agenda, and we have a couple of changes. One is, I guess we're not doing the audit report today. So we're, they're sick. So we're going to wait till they are healthy and can come back and present to us in person. We're also not going to have the bills on there because they need to be printed out with the correct counselor's name. So you'll just have extra stuff to sign next. Okay. Are there any other changes? Well, it's shown as a. I think it's on there. Next item is an add-on. Yep. Oh, what's on the add-on agenda? Oh, yes, Donna. Since some things have been removed, I would ask that we consider talking about a retreat date so we could possibly get that on our calendars. I think we were going to cover that under the orientation and or the goal process. Okay. Does that, does that sound okay? Okay. Great. So the, the objection will consider the agenda approved. The general business, business and appearances. Time for anyone to address the council on some matter that is not on our agenda. I'm assuming that no one's jumping up. Okay. So consideration of the consent agenda. Do we have a motion to approve or to, to move that and then we'll, and then we can remove items. Do we want to pull H off the consent agenda so that we can just clarify what we're. Yes. Yeah. I think if I'm not mistaken, we should probably approve, have a motion to approve the consent agenda and then we'll pull it off. Does that make sense? Or you can either approve everything else and just. Just, well. Don't you have to have a motion to, to then remove something? No. Oh, okay. Any single council that can remove the consent agenda. Okay. At any time. Before. Well, before you vote on it. Well, right. I guess I'm thinking like, do you have to have a motion first? No. Move to approve the consent agenda except for. Or reserving item H for. Any second. I will second that. Any further discussion. Are you all in favor? Please say aye. Aye. Opposed. Great. Yeah, let's do H right now. So my understanding was that we had a recommendation from the police chief to approve this with a change. And the change was to. The condition of, they had asked for the whole state street and aren't we just think between Davis and Taylor. Aiken and Davis makes sense. And then people can get into the parking. So our recommendations approve it with that condition. Smaller space. That way they still have state street to spill out into. And we will have barricades. Have city staff communicated with them about that? And if that's acceptable to them. Yeah, the application just came in. Okay. Yeah. Oh, yes, Donna. And that was one of my concerns is that we have nothing that I know of in place when someone. Needs a street closure. They're planning an event, but they haven't included us in that planning. And yes, we want to work with them, but it seems at some point there also ought to be some. A penalty, some community service, something they do to help pay us back because. It's a major inconvenience and it's unsafe for them to do it. It's not been authorized or approved through the police department. Well, and what would have happened, we did talk about that is, you know, the police has the authority to take certain actions. We were aware of the event and knew that the size. Was coming up and, you know, if we'd had to, we would have closed the street anyway. I mean, the police would have got barricades and close the street. They're going to have enough personnel on. So in this case, we're really just formalizing the action. Would have happened anyway. So, you know, we, you never know how big a crowd's going to be. They had duly reserved the state house line. I spoke with the organizers this week and they had, you know, they've got their porter parties. They're doing, they were actually talking about ADA issues and they were like, oh, but we realized we're going to spill. You know, now we think it's getting so big we're going to need state streets that we just filed, you know, street closure permit. You know, I mean, yeah, good. I mean, at least we all know and we're doing it properly. I guess we'd still rather they do it in advance than, you know, we're still more prepared by doing it this way than not at all. Right. Just as long as you get what you ultimately want, you just keep doing it. That's all and it concerns me. This is not the first time. Did the organizers know that this is the recommendation from the city staff? Yes. Okay. And did they have any? No, they were fine. They just, their concern was that the crowd was going to spill out into the street. And if it does, I mean. Then the street would be closed. If it does, we would have closed the street because we would have been the safe thing to do. I would move then that we approve the application as amended. So it would close from Eakin to Davis. Right. Any further discussion? On favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. Electing officers. So you, the council have three officers as per the charter, a president, a vice president, a parliamentarian president presides over the meeting. If the mayor is absent or at the other function that the mayor might otherwise do, the vice president fills that role. If both the mayor and president are not available and the parliamentarian is the official parliamentarian for the council, although the city clerk also does a fine job with it. And it has happened. We have used both the vice president and the vice president. Yes. We have. Sometimes in the same meeting. So last time we did this, I think we sort of nominated people to do this. So are there any suggestions? Yeah. I will nominate Ashley to be president. Ashley, are you up for that? I accept. Any other nominations? Well, do we need to make this a motion? Yes. Well, you do if there's, yes. Yeah. Okay. So I'm moving. Should we slate it if it's? Sure. Okay. I'm going to take Ashley to councilor help. To council president. Any other nominations or a second? Donna, did you have a second? No, no, I was good. I saved my second before because you said not to. Oh, okay. Okay. So, all right. Any further discussion on that? Hey, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. And all right. So vice presidents. Do you have any nominations for? I would nominate Donna. Councilor Bate for vice president. Or do you want to stay? Okay. It's far enough. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. I didn't think about that. I didn't expect it. I had a vice president. I really did. All right. Any other nominations? I think councilmember Olson was the vice president last year. I think that is true. Yes, that's right. Yeah. Okay. No other nominations? Okay. So is that a motion? It is a motion. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Any other discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. Parliamentarian. Any nominations? I will do it if nobody wants to. I would also give. I was going to say this. Connor and Glenn. Opportunity. I nominate councilor Kruger. Or the role of parliamentarian. And no other nominations? Yeah. Okay. Well, any other discussion? Hey, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. Well, congratulations all. Great. So we move on. Okay. Ethics policy. So this is, this is something that we sign every year. Do you want to say anything more about that? Yeah. Obviously you're welcome to make any amendments to it if you choose, but the ethics policy makes clear issues of recusal conflict of interest, anything like that. And we have the council approve this at the first meeting or soon thereafter every year, just so that there's a record that this group of. Six or seven has seen this and approved it. And it's in the first meeting. And I think that this group of six or seven has seen this and approved it and it's in the record and they're aware of it. So there's no very new issue. Any questions about the ethics policy? Anything, any discussion? No. Okay. Great. And I believe that Jamie has gone through and retooled it to put all the gender neutral language in. Thank you. Great. So I guess we do need a motion on this to approve this as our ethics policy. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? And the rules of procedure. Likewise, council sets up rules that are meant to lay out how things are done and how meetings are conducted. These were approved prior to our retreat last year. And so, again, any changes? I know the mayor caught one. Yep. I have one I'd like to make. So I guess I'll start, I mean, under number seven, and it says any items discussed in the agenda under the heading of general appearances should be. Under general appearances. Under general appearances. Hmm. Wasn't. That is not what I thought. So. If it were under general, like the agenda, um, thinking that we would limit the time to 10 minutes for a subject seemed pretty intense. But having said that, I just as a, we don't need to include it in here, but, um, just so you know, I would like to, um, just have some guidelines for ourselves as to how much time we allocate to any item. And which is not to say that like we couldn't take more time in a, you know, a certain amount of time. I was thinking like if we just set a limit for ourselves of like 20 minutes, let's say per item, and if something needs to go longer, that's fine. But let's just check in with ourselves about like, hey, it's been, it's been 20 minutes. Uh, do we want to keep talking? And actually, um, in addition to that, one of the things that I would like to do, and again, it does not necessarily need to be in here. Um, but, you know, for people who come to, um, speak to the council, uh, I think it's reasonable to have those, uh, comments be limited in time as well. Um, just as a general statement, I mean, we want to hear from the public. We want to hear everything that people have to say, but, uh, if it's going to take more than let's say two minutes, uh, then my expectation is that people would submit their, those comments in writing. Uh, and, uh, absolutely welcome that. And just for equity's sake, I mean, I'm happy to keep time, um, for that, but I'd want to do that basically all the time so that when it is really crucial and we have a big crowd, um, that we are being equitable to people who, uh, have been at previous meetings, that maybe we're not so, um, you know, uh, there weren't so many people wanting to comment. Um, how does that sit with you all? I mean, thoughts or comments about that? Yeah. Well, it's written, they have up to 10 minutes, I believe, because I remember one year I tried to change it, and it's, it's okay to have that range if you want to leave it in the writing, but I think it's important to let people know it's the beginning of every meeting that that's the standard, and I'm with you. Don't wait till the last people, make everybody consistently have the two minutes. It's really important for fairness. Well, I wonder if we want to, I mean, I'm happy to say it, uh, at the beginning of, uh, meeting, I mean, if we limit it to 10 minutes for general business and appearances, that, that works for me, that's fine. Um, but for any further comments, you know, two minutes seems, seems reasonable. Um, one possibility is we just say it every time, another possibility is we actually build it into this document. Um, what's your, what's your thought on that? Either one, I think even within the agenda, if you're going to have like public comment and say no more than five minutes. Mm-hmm. Or, and testimony, two minutes. I think the more we can let the public know that, I think the better off they'll be informed. Do you think that's a change we could make to the template of our agenda? I mean, if we, if we approve or agree, um, that would be great, that'd be really helpful. Uh, Rosie, then, Ashley. So, the way that I read this was that the total discussion, if the item was, uh, just under general business and appearances would be limited to 10 minutes, but we could further limit individual comments to two minutes within that, you know. Presumably if somebody brings an issue up that the rest of us want to discuss, I thought that that was what the 10 minute limit was. That, that makes sense to me. That the topic in general would be 10 minutes, but we could still hold that two minutes, um, requirement potentially to any individual. That's how I read that. Okay. But that sounds good. Thank you for that clarification. Yep. I'm wondering if it might make sense to get, like a clock or something that everyone can see. So that way, like we don't have to interrupt folks or just, just so everyone's on the same page about the two minute mark. I know the Supreme Court in some states has one and it's quite helpful to know where you're at. Yeah. So, if there's some particularly significant point you want to convey. Yes, Donna. I could volunteer to do, to do that under my Vice President's row and my desk. As I'm sitting here. That would be great. I'll look for a battery clock. Yeah, just something so people can see two minutes counting down or up, whichever. I'd prefer down, but. Yeah. So, I mean, I don't think we need a motion about this, but just hopefully city staff can find us some program or dedicate a tablet to it or something like that. Okay. Great. All right. Any further thoughts, questions, concerns, amendments to this document? All right. Hearing nothing. Zero motion. I would move that we adopt the rules of procedure. Second. Any further discussion? All right. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. Central Vermont solid waste district. So, we need to make an appointment to, to this body. If I'm mistaken, we have one applicant for one seat. Is that right? All right. All right. So I. Is Ellen here? We've moved on that we appoint Ellen Cheney to the solid waste district. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Great. We are cruising. I was going to be. Eddie's rights. What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? Okay. We have two weeks to. The whole thing. Yep. Okay. So the, the district two seat. So I am obviously not a district two counselor anymore. So yes. Do we need an official resignation from you? Or is it just. What do you think, John? I think you do. Since you're in conflict right now. So. Two votes. Then I'm, I'm just going to let you all. I know, right? So I guess I'll just take this moment to say I'm officially resigning for my district two council seat. I suppose I should have done that prior to. It exists. Yeah. Right. There you go. Okay. Okay. So the process from here for appointing someone to that seat. I mean, I can lay out what I, how I envision this process going. Or Bill, do you want to explain it or. Well, so there is no legal process. As I noted in the, in the memo, the charter just says the council shall appoint and gives no other guidance as to how that should be done. I can tell you that the last two times we've had vacancies, the council asked people to get 25 signatures the same as anyone who's running for election wish to be. We've not had a situation that I can find in certainly recent time when it was in conjunction with an election that had just been held. They've both, they've all been someone who left year and in one case someone passed away suddenly. And so, I have to explain to you guys that they just, they had been a former member. It was right about budget time. And the person who just got outside will all do it. And they just appointed them with no process at all. And the person didn't run again in March. So it was truly an interim fill. So it's really up to you how you choose to do it. You can, whatever, whatever you see fit. When we open up a position on any other board or group, what, how many, is it usual to allow two weeks for somebody to get their name in? Like how long is the usual time frame for that? It's at least two weeks, but you know. Oh really? Well, it's not like this has been unexpected. I don't want the seat to sit vacant for that long given. Right. So, I mean, my, my inclination, I can tell you what I'm inclined to do. And, you know, we can certainly talk about that. People have other thoughts. But I mean, my inclination is that we would set a deadline at least a couple of weeks out for people to get their names in and their, their resumes a letter of interest to express that they would like to be, you know, considered for this appointment. And, and we'll take those names and give everybody a fair shake and, and then make an appointment at the next council meeting. What are, what are your thoughts? Yes. I think it is fair to have whoever applies submit the 25 signatures that any candidate would when they run for this office. That makes sense. I think having a letter or resume and the signatures or, you know, or some combination as long as the signatures are required and then just. I'd offer just a fair amendment that if either of the two candidates who just ran that they not have to get signatures. Sure. Yes. One of them has already expressed interest. Not signaling any preferences, but just campaign and do that. I think that makes sense. Yeah. Yes, Donna. But if you're asking him to get signatures, I don't think it's fair to think it all has to be done in two weeks. So I would tend to go to the first meeting in April with a decision. We could have a special meeting in between if we needed to talk about it. But I think they need more than two weeks. What are you suggesting sort of specifically? I'm not, not super clear that we give them say three weeks and then when do we, what, what's exact length of time? Well, I would say the first meeting in April, three weeks out. Eleven, right? It's a ways away. Well, three weeks out from today. One, two, three would put us at April 4th. Possibly have a special meeting. Well, so, but if we, if they're in by the fourth, then, I mean the deadline for the, the 11th meeting would be the next day. So we could still potentially have the appointment happen on the 11th. Does that make sense? Yeah. So if, but if we give them till the fourth. Yes, Rosie. The other thing is that we were presumably, if we had multiple applicants meet in executive sessions, so it might make sense to do it as a special meeting. So when, when you say special meeting, I mean, are you, are you thinking of a different time or? Right. Not as part of our regular, not our regular Wednesday night meeting, but prior to that so that whoever we appointed to join us for that Wednesday night meeting. Oh, for the 11th. Yeah. I'm not opposed to that. We'd also have to just find a time when we could all meet. That could be tricky. We have done, I mean, when I was appointed originally to that position, it was during a regular council meeting. So it's, it, I took the seat at the end of the meeting, at the end of the meeting. But, but if we want to find a time before that, that's probably other thoughts. Is there a mechanism for some sort of public input? I noticed when there are other council vacancies in other cities, maybe a questionnaire is submitted to ask questions. That would, it would also give the opportunity to circulate those questionnaires to city employees, voters, other stakeholders, and of a public input process for that. Just something we consider. I mean, are you thinking about like, can people come and comment on recommending someone? So with their letter and intent with the signatures, maybe they would be asked to fill out a questionnaire with specifically asking their vision for the city here. I'd want to open it up to as broad a group of stakeholders as possible. And they might not be, they might not be able to attend a forum or something. This would be something to circulate other stakeholders. The department heads, the collective bargaining agencies. I'm not really in favor of doing that. It's our responsibility to appoint. I wouldn't be in favor of doing that. Although I would encourage folks in their letter of interest to lay out their vision for the city. You could say this is what we're looking for. We're seeking applications. Please provide X. The answer to the question of public process is this is a public, this is a public process and at least in the past when people have been appointed, they've come before the council, whether it's a special meeting or regular meeting and made their pitch and answered questions and supporters have come and also spoken to urge the council to express opinion and people are welcome to send letters of support to new folks or emails or contact you. It's sort of the electoral college. So do we need to, we don't need to vote on this process. It would be good to have a clear statement of what you intend to do. I think just because, again, it's all entirely up to you, but I do tend to think that sooner we have a full council, the better we're going to be. Okay. I mean, if we're going to have a special meeting outside of the appointments on, or I'm sorry, special meeting for the appointment, we would probably need to just figure out schedules for that, but just as a straw poll or people in favor of doing that as a separate meeting or do you want to build that into the meeting on the 11th? I would like to do it as a separate meeting and have the person, so just give them an opportunity to prepare for the meeting on the 11th. So we could have applications due on Friday the 30th, which is two and a half weeks from now. That's a full week. Can I hear this calendar? I'm sorry. Oh, sure. We've got a month and I keep looking. What's that? It doesn't go into April. I bet it can. I don't want to June. Oh, there's no March. Well, March is almost over anyway. In the past, we've always had it where the big one was repeated. So I have to tape it back. We'll have to get a new calendar. So I was saying that if we, if you decided tonight, we could have applications due Friday the 30th and then could hold a special meeting the week of the second to six somewhere that week. And then the person would be take their seat on the 11th and would get all the packet materials and advance and everything else on that Friday the 6th. Does that make sense? And that's so it's a little over two weeks for somebody to get signature. So when are you suggesting that we do a special meeting? It would have to be the week of April 2nd to 6th. Two, three, four, five, six. Six is Friday. Six being Friday. It's even bigger. Now I can see it. Wow. We are instant service. Oh my gosh. Look at that. You can actually see that one. Yes. It's great. All right. So you're suggesting that we have applications we do on Friday the 30th. And then have a special meeting that first week of April. And that gives us the weekend to send them out to you. So you all have time to look at them. Rosie, Should probably be an evening meeting assuming that we're expecting people to come and present to us. Donna, how does that sit with you in terms of timing? Okay. Great. It's a little more than two weeks. Public comment. Yeah. Let's take your name and your address. Yeah. Jim would be 56 Liberty street. District two. So this person is going to be my representative. So it's a little unclear to me if you could be really clear about what's going to happen at the two meetings. And it would be unusual. I think to have a person make a presentation on the 6th. And have a vote on the 11th. No, as I understood it, they were going to have the presentation be the week of the 4th of 5th. They'll decide who the person they'll make the decision. That would allow the person time to be prepared for the meeting of the 11th and come in. That answers your question. Great. Okay. So how do we package this all in a motion? Well, first, let's pick a date on the week of the date and time. You can do Wednesday the 4th. I can do Wednesday the 4th. I can do Wednesday the 4th. I can do Wednesday the 4th. The 4th is good. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Like eight calendars. I'm good for the 4th. I too am good for the 4th. May the 4th be yes. But it's right. Except it's 8th. Wow. Daily in a dollar short. I assume we're talking some comparable time like 6.30. Yeah. Okay. Special meeting April 4, 6.30 for the purpose of discussing the district two and making the appointment. I guess seven o'clock just to give folks a, because we won't have our normal beginning business to give folks a, Sure. Seven o'clock? Seven is way better for me. Okay. Actually eat dinner. Jamie, you'll send out a calendar. Invite. Okay. She's on it. Okay. I have all the bits that you all talked about. I might have to carry bones for a, I might have to write it then someone could just say that. Okay. So what I have is a motion that would, maybe someone would want to make to set a deadline of Friday, March 30th for candidates for, I don't have any errors, for the open district two council seat to collect 25 signatures unless they were a district two council candidate on the 2018 city meeting ballot and submit letters of interest to be considered for a council position to be chosen at a special meeting on Wednesday the fourth at seven. And is the city clerk's office prepared to check the signatures? Oh, sure. They're valid. Oh, yeah. Valid from district two. They have to be district two signatures. Right. I'm saying this. Yes. I would second what John Odom said. I mean, I would first. First. Actually we'll make the motion. I'll second it. All right. Any for the discussion? All right. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. Okay. And have a plan. You have a plan. Okay. So council orientation and information. Okay. So just really wanted to make sure everyone was available, aware of the resources and I put together a little memo. So just to help you through tonight, you should have your brand spanking new handbook on your desk. So it urge the new members and prior members to read through that. We try to have as much as possible in it. If there are things in it that you would like to see for the future or that we can even add to it, please let us know. For example, there's now a map of city owned property based on a conversation I had with a council member earlier this week. And if you think there's too much, for example, I noticed there's at least three different memos about, I think it's the public meeting on, you know, if you think that's overkill, let me know, we can distill it down to one or just put the law in or something. We want it to be your resource guide for the year. You can use that whenever you need. Other documents, I clearly would advise you city charter. It is available online. Anyone who wants a bound hard copy like this, just let us know. We will make sure you have it as soon as you want it. So there's that. Same with the annual report also available online, but if you don't have the written copy, there's a lot of information there. Soon, the FY19 budget book will be coming out. That's, we're just, obviously budget's got approved. So we're putting that all together. That has a lot of information. You will get those left on your desk. Some of that overlaps with the annual report, but there's still a lot of detailed information. So I advise you to keep those. Obviously you've got your audit in, in with this memo was an update of stuff that the council does. I mean, excuse me, the departments. So that I think is just, we update those from time to time is, is those are needed. So those are documents. I'd suggest and that we, is that in the next few meetings, once we do our goals and all this kind of stuff for our, our meetings will start filling up. We're going to have a lot of content, but the early meetings, we're doing some finish up from the prior group, but there's, you know, right now we don't have a lot of new initiatives. I'd suggest that at each meeting, we put one department on and maybe toward, at the end of the meeting, just call it a workshop where they can go through their, their staff, their budget, their range of services, pending issues that they have. I kind of highlighted something and that you all can have a general question and answer with them. You know, why do you do this? How do you do this? I've been asked. I never understood. And we'll start with the largest one so that when we get more full agendas, we'll have smaller departments on, but it's okay with everyone. I didn't want to presume that, but we'll start scheduling those. I think that would be useful. You know, even as someone who, knows the departments generally, I mean, I'm never short on questions or things to talk about. So, assuming that that's all right. And, I mean, as long as we don't have agendas that are otherwise crammed, it sounds good to me. We have tried that in the past and usually they're at the end and then someone says, well, it's too late. Let's skip over this. So, it'd be nice to do it while we can. And finally. Oh, yeah. To add to that, John Snell shared that the tree board is going to have May as a tree month. Just as we have Poet Tree Month, they're going to have things in the store shops downtown all about trees. So, they would love to come and talk to us sometime before that. And they hope to do that in May. Well, that also raises the question of, it may make some sense to have some of our committees that we don't hear from often, all sort of in that rotation as well. I mean, I think of the Conservation Commission, just I'd love to, you know, hear about what is on their radar for the year and what they're working. We'll do a committee and a department. Okay. Right. And then lastly, is site visits and tours. These are, I think, people that do them and find them very helpful, but they are hard to coordinate. They take some time. And it's, you know, people always want to do them and it's very difficult. So, I don't know if you all want to try to coordinate one as a group or a couple. We'll have to be a series of them. We can get a Vian or something. We can use the senior set of Vian perhaps. I think one that would be really valuable, and I did this already, but I would be more than willing to do it again, is the water recovery facility. Since there's going, yes, the wastewater recovery facility, there's going to be a big proposal coming to us. And I think it really, it changed my perspective on sort of what we, as a council need to do and sort of why we need to do things. And I think it would be really important, given the nature of the ask and how large that project is in terms of dollars and cents, but also infrastructure upgrade and development. I think that's one we should probably really try to get everyone at. That would be good. I wonder if, I mean, I think it'd be great if we could do multiple tours. And I think it's probably not reasonable to expect that we can all make all of them. But I know I would like to go, even just as a new mayor, just to, you know, go check everything out again. And I mean, one possibility is that we put out some doodle polls to see who could be available for different tours. Well, I think we could get critical mass and then if there's one person that has to miss one particular tour, we can always get them through that individual site on their own. But we did this a number of years ago. I don't know when Mary Hooper was mayor. We got a GMT ban. He met two or three, during the summer, you know, when it was slower and everyone went together. We warned it. And it was, I mean, I don't know if you can do a plow truck ride along. I do know you can do a police ride along and you can do a night at the fire station. Oh, what? Yes, Donna. You know, the place we don't go is the wreck building. And we are, it's part of, I think it definitely needs to go to the wreck department. Yes. That's a good idea. All right. Well, the other thing too that I, that's on my radar, I'm curious, have you ever seen a plow truck ride along? That's a good idea. All right. Well, the other thing too that I, that's on my radar, I'm curious how people feel about this. But also, I mean, I guess they'd have to be open to the public, but it might make some sense that people are interested. You know, they've never seen the Water Resource Recovery Facility. Like that might be a great opportunity for people who want to check it out to go see it. And we can put anything out there about that. If we weren't it as a public meeting. Yeah. Rosie. Well, last year, water folks did a whole water day. Right. And opened the facility to the public. Both facilities. Water and wastewater. Yeah. Not sure how many folks took them up on it, but yeah. That was a thing. Sure. Sure. Cool. So can we put that on your list to do? We will. Yep. And we will put something together and at least propose it. Okay. Great. That was really all I had on that item and I'm sure that you want to do those agenda items. Any other comments or questions about? And I just say again, most of you already know this, but any time you need to reach Sue, I mean Jamie, the question is called email. I guess I would just add, I thought it was great to have all of the, you know, upcoming challenges and needs like just broken out. That was very helpful. Donna. We would discuss having a board retreat to work on our goals. I think we'll do that next. Next. Tell Donna wants a retreat. She's pretty excited about that. She said during goal, but those were in goal. Well, transitioning to goals. Is there anything more that we need? We don't need to. There's no real action. So now I guess we can open up the part about goals and possibly doing a retreat. So we thought the retreat last year was a really bad idea. So I think we're just going to start. Charming Bill. We'll punch it. I thought it was super helpful and I think we should really do another one. And I don't know, I don't know that I loved the two separate time format, especially since it was like during work days, which is really hard with a really crazy work schedule now. So I would like to push that it be in one day. And then if we have any follow ups that they be in the evenings, I can definitely like one day is easy, but taking like a half day here and a half day there. It's really complicated. So I am in the proposal. I talked about bringing a consultant to do. Priorities goals, strategic planning. I think what we would be looking at is probably the first night would be kind of would be a retreat. It would be what they call governance. So I don't know that we need as much time as we did in retreat last year. I think we reaffirmed the group norms. We reaffirmed those kinds of things. I mean, this is my opinion. I don't know. We did a lot of the work to make sure that the new people are on board with all that and talk through roles and those kind of things. And then the second, there would probably be two nights in a row, what I think it would be. And then the second, the day would be spent mostly with staff and then the night, so we'd probably do the first part of the first night on governance. The second part with the council laying out big picture goals and work those two with the staff and have us all together the second night and really come up with the plan. And that's how that would go. But if we wanted to do a separate retreat on how we function with each other, we could do that too. But I think we could, I'm certain having talked to people that would be included, we could do that all in one effort. So perhaps I just missed it now, but would that, the two nights in a row, would that include the strategic planning of the goals? That is, yes. Okay, that's what would take up the most the bulk of the time. So I'm saying, say it was four night, four hours the first night, it might be first hour, two one, governance and how we behave. And then the second, I don't mean that in a pejorative way, just how we conduct ourselves and how we, what our roles are and those kind of things and just any questions about that. And then, and we have a basis to work from from the last year. Those are all included in the material that we sent out. It's in, they're all in the handbook that we got from last year's retreat is in there. And then the second part of the first night would be the council starting with the work on goals, priorities, strategic planning. Then we do work with staff from the day, get their take on those things and then put us all together for a second, probably be a long, might be a one time or something starting a little later afternoon. Yeah, Rosa, do you think that staff would be in one day able to respond to like, have all the information they needed to respond to us about what things are doable and that kind of stuff? That would be my only concern with that. I think they could probably do the best they can and I think that's what the consultant would push us on too. And also you want to hear from the staff about what they're talking about. Sure. I think there's, well, again, it depends who we have to do it, but there's some advance work done to this too, so talking to everybody, probably they talk to everyone individually, talk to our staff individually, so we would already be thinking about some of those kinds of things. I mean, I guess that's my only other concern with that too. I mean, I don't know, is there a reason to do it two days in a row? Usually because someone's here. Oh, for their time, for the consultant's time. In our memory. The other thing that happened last time with the retreat, and I would like to see us spend time on, is council's evaluation. I felt what we started it, but it's very lacking as far as I'm concerned. And so, would this be the time we could spend time on actually having some... You mean the evaluation itself or the evaluation of the council itself, and then if we're going to look at yours and have any modifications, is this... We might want to do that separately. It ended up happening last year, part of the subject matter. Okay. I could picture doing, I mean, especially as we are reviewing our norms, that, I mean, it does seem like it would lend itself as a time to reflect on how we've done. At least start the conversation and be open to having that there for the works. And I think it would be good to give new members that kind of an opportunity to see and observe and participate and kind of get a feel for what it is that we have done and sort of where we're headed. I think that would be fair to give everybody a chance to figure out. And realistically, when we come to schedule this, it's going to be at least a couple months out, I wouldn't imagine, just by the time. So people will have had a little bit of a chance to... I don't. I really didn't want to talk about this. One of the things that came up in my reelection campaign was that for me, it's real important to have a goal and whether that's the community service goal, that you have it and then you start steps towards it. I feel we sort of drop team bridges in that concept and I would like to get it back in place before we start setting goals so that we have a wider vision we're going to and then a chunk for this year is related to the whole. And I think that kind of approach would get us away from just continuing our goals that we've had in the past. So not to comment on team bridges. My goal, my plan, my thinking for this, my reason for proposing this is I would like... Nothing's anything bad with the prior goals. We really have kind of a whole new group here and would really be to start and build goals from scratch and some of them might end up being the same and some of the activities may end up being the same, but it truly what is developed from this group of seven as community so with team bridges or that approach is one of the things that's a top priority and we want to work on that, then we come up with the action steps and if it's not then we know. And it's based on a deliberative conversation with someone else pushing the conversation so I'm not trying to manage my bosses but also I'm going to want to participate or the mayor trying to manage the group. We have someone who works with municipal governments. Is that some reasonable? Or is there more to your comment? My point was, I hope we don't just take last year's goals. No, not at all. But I've just seen one of the ingredients I would hope to incorporate is to go back to the vision that was put out through that contest and I don't know where to insert it if we don't talk about it. Either we have some time spent on it before the retreat so that our new council members can be more aware of what those were and make some decisions outside of the retreat or do we do it all at the retreat? I'm thinking out loud here we could have an informational discussion prior to the retreat for people that want to get updated on it but we don't think of this. Sure. My thinking on that too had been that really the place for that conversation is in the context of the city plan because that is the document that guides the work of the staff and the general direction of the city. So that's how I had anticipated talking about specifically the team bridges proposal but if there are other... I mean if you're interested in doing more, yeah, go ahead. No, just that in one of the planning commissioners that I talked to recently felt that they have been left a little bit of limbo as to what is the vision of the council as they approach redoing the master plan or whatever we're supposed to call it now. City plan. City plan. And I realized they're right and she referred to team bridges and I said, oh yes. There was a lot of inspiration there and there may be pieces of it we want to follow through on but we haven't made any decisions about it. And to me that's part of our goal. The staff follows our goals too. So if not now, later. Well we can certainly talk about that during the retreat time. Do you think that would be sufficient? It would appease me. Okay. Or the rest of you interested in it. I'll say yes, I am. And I have heard similar ideas to you that there was this whole process that it seems to have been to some degree left alone and that it should be brought back to the city plan, I believe. So I think that you and Anne are on the same page as far as I can tell. As far as getting the, incorporating what came out of the net zero contest into the city plan and discussing it ourselves as necessary. Yes? Yeah. Great. Okay, sounds good. So there was a bit of a spending request in there. And I've talked to Bill about this a little bit and I'm fairly comfortable with it but I thought that we should kind of bring that out and just talk about that for a second. We are making a significant investment in this process this year. That's more than we've done in the past. So for a consultant and for some tracking software. Which will allow for public disclosure of where we're at. So we have a, I did look at I, meaning Todd, looked at opportunities for funding and we're pretty confident we can do this. We have about 97.50 in a software purchase this year that we anticipate to spend more that we won't. So that's available for software. We have $10,000 in project management and what this is is a project management software tool that would be available. And then we would allocate these resources also to the Watered Sewer Funds so that would be about another $10,000. So that's about $30,000 of the total. And then I think we're probably going to be in the $33,000 so the rest would come from fund balance whatever we exceeded that but it wouldn't be a big significant hit. And then in the future the $10,000 per year licensing fee we actually had a $14,000 licensing fee planned that we probably won't continue with so that would free that up and we would use this as a licensing fee. So it should be covered. Otherwise we would save that money so I'm going to be clear that it's not free but there are places that are relevant. Any comments about that? One of the things that I am very interested in in moving forward over the course of this year is having some way to track a lot of different data for the city particularly over time to see how we're doing and I think it tells there's a lot of stories that can be told from data. I mean this is the science teacher in me speaking that loves data and telling stories from data. If I'm not mistaken Bill this is the kind of software that would handle potentially a lot of different kinds of data. Would handle informational data also so basically once we develop a strategic plan the plan itself would go into the software with the action steps and then as people were completing those steps it wouldn't just have to come from me filling out the little form in green and red but maybe the DPW staffer says yes this task is completed it goes in so any of you can look and the public gets a higher end version of it that they can see how things are coming whether streets are being paved on time or whatever indicators that we've had how we're doing for certain indicators. So they call them dashboards and look at a quick glance and see the various outcomes that are happening So I think we probably do need a motion because we're spending some money on this Any other thoughts on these aspects? Alright so is there a motion? So I would move that we instruct the city manager to move forward with the goals process as he has presented it to us including arranging for a consultant and moving forward with the purchase of the tracking software. Second? Great. Any further discussion? All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? I think we will all benefit from this. Really useful. Okay and committee appointments and Donna I know you had some comments about the committee appointments. Well I think it would be good to maybe discuss some of the committees especially for our new councillors but I would like to wait until we have six member in place before we do the appointments. It's fine with me. I just want to check in. Are there any committees that need another person before? Yeah, two it looks like. It looks like the community services steering committee Justin was the only councillor on that. And they're not really active right now. Okay and then the housing task force? I'm interested in that one so if others aren't I mean I went to one of the meetings and I planned to continue going to the meeting so maybe we don't need to do a formal appointment but I will commit to going to the meetings for the next couple months on that so there is some council representation there. Great. And then it looks like the Montpelier foundation. Those don't necessarily have to be council members although we put a rep on. I know Jean was really interested to ask if she wanted to stay on but he's done some fundraising. Someone's interested again but I don't think that's a critical need. Water rate study committee. That is dormant. Are they mostly done? Either done or need to start again but we would start from scratch. I think that in my estimation the one that we probably most need people is the TIF core group the mayor, Holler, Jean Olson and Donna and so we've already co-opted and unfortunately a lot of those meetings are daytime meetings so it's tough to have a council that isn't as available as some have been in the past but if someone's interested at least being looped in in more detail it would be good to have another person because we're hearing out. And the new council members might want to attend some meetings this month and consider what they would request. One we may need somebody on as the building code appeals committee I haven't been notified of any but I'm just noting that we're coming up on that permitting season so this is a likely time to get some. Although the bulk of those were right. The vast majority. Should we talk about maybe the TIF group and the building code appeals and say the other ones? You guys make interim appointments too on those. Is anybody else interested in being on the TIF committee? Tax increment financing just for those. We're talking a lot of short hand. Don't interrupt it. I'd like to continue. How many do we need? It's up to us. We're really in crunch time now and in fact we're going to talk about that closing in on probably wanting to send a letter of intent which isn't committed to anything but it gets us into a queue for the state and then coming back with a proposal to the full council and so I think it's the time for buy-in to be involved but it's also, I do acknowledge their meetings dealing with the consultants. So can we deal with Donna and I for now? Do we need any more? Is that more? Okay. If anyone's interested or wants to talk to any of us let us know. I'm free but no more than that. Anybody for the building code appeals committee? No. I'm happy to serve on that. Great. Thank you, Glenn. I'm going to assume that we don't need a motion on it. What are we doing? We can make the motions. For the building code you definitely would because it's part of our ordinance. Okay then. I will move to a point and plan to the building code appeals committee. Second. Any other discussions? At some point we should talk about what's going on in the citizens for the building code. I don't think I remember reading anything about the limit. Okay. Great. Any other discussion? All in favor please say aye. Aye. The other one that I wanted to bring up is not on this list is we have formulated a council committee on committees which was tasked rather tongue in cheek name but it was tasked with figuring out what our criteria was going to be on that committee because we were running into situations where we were having lots of competition for the seats and we weren't sure whether to just re-point people over and over or what our criteria should be there. So I believe that Mayor Holler was one of the folks on that committee so you probably need a third or another person. I thought there were three of us. I thought it was you and myself. You, John and I I was actually, I was but John never called a meeting so we never meant We never, yeah we did never, we did not need but I would like to actually I was just talking about this today actually at work with some folks but I think we do need schedule meeting but I'd like to wait and see if I think we had one appointment tonight but it was one person applying for one spot I want to make sure everybody has the chance to figure out what we're doing. Two coming up. I mean in the next couple meetings you know it's the next It's all able 11, 12, 11, 14 full board meeting. Okay well so do you three want to continue or you were not on it? Actually and I were with John. I'll just say I probably don't want to be on that committee but if there's I'm happy to be on it. Okay. Should we do this as a motion or we can just since there's no the council committee anyway it's not a Who's going to call it? That was the problem last time. You're going to have the committee someone change it. Actually go for it. It's such a Leslie Nope thing. So I move that we appoint Ashley as the chair of the committee on committees and that we appoint Connor as the third member. Second. Any other discussion? All right. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Okay. And we'll take up the other appointments at another time. Does that sound reasonable? Great. So that is it. So council reports. Did you guys hear about what council reports are basically? All right. Well I guess let's start over there. But I have nothing to report. I would just like to thank the city staff for putting together last night's event. I think it was a really great send off for John and Jean and Justin and it was nice to sort of see everybody socially which doesn't happen very often and welcome Madam Mayor Ann Watson and our two new members Connor and Glenn. It's going to be a pleasure to serve with you guys. This is your opportunity to bring up anything particularly if you have something you want your constituents to know. And so the one thing I'd like to see us do is develop a better system to tell voters where the information is. One of the complaints I got standing on the stoop prior to election was that people were hunting for information and even when they walked into the election the voting boom they didn't see the charts to the right of them they just didn't see it some people didn't understand how much was on the website so I think we need to do some public education about where things are and under what title. That was the other thing. People really surprised how many articles we had. So I think if we have the information assimilated, but we don't let people know that we have it assimilated, that sounds cool. Anyway, so I'd like to sort of work on that and keep that in our awareness and just thank the voters for re-electing me and being back here. Sure, I just echo what Ashley said there. There was a lovely reception last night so thanks to everybody for putting it together. And really it's a bit daunting being a new council member but everybody's been nothing but welcoming so far. Sort of doing trust falls, you know. Everybody's been... That's a retreat. There's still time. For the previous councillors to everybody on there now I can tell it's going to be a great experience working with all of you there. So really looking forward to it and I would also thank the voters of District 2 that was a hard fought campaign and my opponents there who ran very clean races. So I appreciate that. The one announcement, and we already covered it a bit would be March 24th March where our lives noon to two on the State House lawn so just to put you down with us thanks very much. I have very little to report but I'm pleased to be here and again as Connor said, grateful to everyone for the warm welcome thanks to the voters everyone who voted and to everyone who ran it was a real learning experience for me and it continues to be. So I look forward to working with you all. Thank you my best. I remember to head one thing to report. Oh yes, go ahead Rose. I just wanted to thank city staff particularly Jamie and Zach for putting the new parking map on the city website. There's an interactive version that allows you to kind of move around and there's also a principal version as well as the parking prices posted so hopefully that will help alleviate some confusion. Alright, so I have a few things. First of all I just want to thank everybody who turned out to vote the last election. Thanks for participating and thanks for your votes. I mean I know I had no opponent but I'm still very grateful and I just want to also say to all of you that I'm really excited to work with you and to help lead this group. Just a couple of other things that are coming up. I just want to make sure people are aware so one of the upcoming meetings we're going to be appointing is someone to the newly formed Central Vermont Internet or CVI group and I'm particularly excited about that entity and the service that they may bring to Central Vermont so hoping that we get some good candidates for who can be our representative to their board. So that's one thing. Sort of on the issue of information and getting information out to the public committees that doesn't exist necessarily yet is I'm interested in getting a group together of people who would be interested in working on information digitally with the city. I've been sort of working on this sort of behind the scenes with city staff to get our systems to be more searchable and I think we're making progress in that conversation which is great but there are lots of other things to take on in terms of information with the city so if you're interested in helping me out with that that's great so just putting that on your radar and then another thing just as gosh as a teacher when you step into a new role the first thing you do is look at the walls of your classroom and what are you going to use them for and so I've been thinking about the walls of this chamber and what do we want the purpose of the walls to be and I mean while these paintings are great I would love to see just a little bit of intention as to what is going on the walls and specifically the things that I want to see in here are images that remind us of who isn't here and who can't be here another possible goal is just where do we want to go as a city like where are we headed what's our vision so things that remind us of that vision and then third just representation matters right and so images where people who come to sit at this table up here and don't see themselves represented on this horseshoe they might see themselves represented on the walls somehow so I have a request out to the T.W. Wood Gallery who supplies us with these images if they had anything that would fit those criteria and so they the fellow over there has gotten a proposal to me which I'll end up sharing with all of you but I'm certainly open to suggestions or if you have thoughts or ideas as to what that should look like so maybe there might be a couple of you interested in helping pick out some art to go in on these walls that would be great and then we're also just today we're talking about all the mayors that are out front and that maybe we want to use that space differently as well so again if there were a couple of people who wanted to have some input into that we can I don't want it to just be me it's all got to go but if there's more input that would be useful so that's it from me just a few quick things I warned you all I might have a dramatic announcement today but I don't yet so this is going to be boring I wanted to thank the Board of Civil Authority and all the election volunteers for making the election which was surprisingly high turnout based on the early vote so we were coddled a loft guard that it all went well I want to thank the voters of the city for a third term I know it wasn't exactly a contest but thank you anyway having said that water and sewer bills are due tomorrow and just quickly so Donna you were talking about the information on the right not being available just so you know the same information was actually physically put into each voting area and that is actually required by law with the charter changed now we have to make all that information available to everybody so just in that particular instance I feel like they were inundated with it I know I mentioned to people and they would say oh was that what that was they just put their ballots on top and pick up the paper so they need to know that it's in there I know it sounds a little elementary but I think people are so overwhelmed that we may need to leave them a little breadcrumbs I would just argue from the election administrator standpoint that there is only so much you can do a part of participating in democracy does require you to sort of step out you can't have everything delivered to your door the charter changes it's an extraordinary amount of communication you do with them I think with the bond votes it's more than usual I don't know if that's more but those are also prescribed by law so I'm not saying I'm opposed to other things but I can tell you from personal experience you're no matter what you do there are going to be people who always feel that way so we can take those steps but we have to take that step too on that point I did note there was a letter to the editor asking for us to go back to sending out the books to every home saying that they missed out I just have a few things as members of Vermont league of cities and towns we have access to certain training if you guys didn't already receive this there is a spring select board institute elected officials such as yourselves on governing bodies covering things like roles and responsibilities open meeting law conflicts of interest clean water act requirements maintaining local highways human resources legislative updates it is on saturday march 24 at lake moray so if anyone is interested in this or any of these types of VLCT training you can support your attendance so those are available to you hopefully we'll train you so well you won't be spending certainly welcome to them as I mentioned earlier we are working toward a TIF letter of intent I know that's a very complicated topic and a lot of issues that the council is going to have to work through and decide and so it will be clear that we may need to file this to meet a filing deadline but it does not commit us to an actual application so we'll have to wait until next day also didn't want to create any surprises when someone says oh you filed your letter and we didn't know about it a couple of administrative things with the former mayor that weekly we had kind of a running list of topics we discussed and at the request of the previous council I would email out that list most every week so people could see what the mayor and I talked about we had our first meeting today to get it's the same list just updated so I'm semi-reliable at that and at least you can see the topics that we're discussing and you can ask either one of us more information about it because sometimes we are gearing up on topics that are pre-counseled so it's good for you to know what's going on and a very simple question but as a new group you do get to make one big executive decision do you want to continue keeping your meetings at 6.30 or do you have a different start time I don't have strong feelings about this I know other people have more constraints we've started as late as 7.30 and as early as 5.30 5.30 is way too early that was during the zoning other times do we want to think about 7 unless we have significantly larger agendas 7 would be fine with me I also hope to keep things moving that might inspire us to do that I would accept 7 let's try it we can try it only problem with 7 is the back end right is it a hardship for city staff to come back at 7 look we're here I stay through we can just also see if we are even with a lighter agenda not getting through it by 10 I would like to be ending our meetings by 10 if not earlier so 10 to me is the latest I want to go start turning into a pumpkin after that we can try to control what goes on the agenda obviously last year we had a very time consuming thing we also all talk at these meetings we ourselves a question on that what time does the city staff day typically end apart from you the office hours are 8 to 4.30 department heads management staff what's happening so earlier or later start times for our meetings don't necessarily make a huge difference I don't know Todd what do you think actually for people who lives in town might actually run home instead of staying that's what I used to do when I was later but most of the time I'm just getting ready for the meeting sounds like there's some consensus about 7 it's worth a try and if it doesn't work out then 6.30 is fine alright let's try for that is that alright great I think that's it so as long as we're done by 10 minutes I anticipate this is going to be one of our shorter meetings of the year so without objection yeah a little adjourn 10 of 8 thanks everyone