 My name is Richard Shear, and this is Mount Pilier City Forum, and we're going to be talking about the election, the town meeting day that's coming up, and this is one of our presentations. This is District 1, and we have an incumbent this time. We have Donna Bate, and this is not the first time that we've done this. I think... No, this is our third. This is our third. Donna, for those who do not know you, what part of District 1 do you live in? I live in North Franklin Street, which is near the lane shops by the North Branch. And is it far away from Finch Lane and Rosie as you can get? Not very, actually, but it's interesting how sometimes the counselors end up living in very similar locations, but we really try to represent the whole district. And as well, I answer people who call me who aren't from my district. I think you should be able to talk to any counsel person. Boy, talk about District 1. When I talk about District 2, that's all the way from Murray Hill down to Berry Street, set the parameters of District 1, please. District 1, I like to think of it as starting out way out the city limits Elm Street, and it comes down and goes across the river just a little bit to get part of North Franklin, Franklin, and then just one half of Main Street comes down and gets one half of State Street all the way out past the Dairy Creek. And everything in that pie is District 1. What's the commonality there in this gerrymander? Well, no. It's counting the bodies and then cutting a pie. You know how sometimes people are very finicky. Well, this was really about body counts. Boy, I have talked to you all the way from when you were a candidate down in Bate, running for city council. What did candidate down in Bate want to change? There was a moment when you were not the incumbent, take me back to that. It was a moment when I had to decide if I wanted to do it and what my platform would be. And literally at that time, Gwen Halsmith was definitely the catalyst. She went out and said to people, do you know your council member has never had an opponent? And that shocked me to feel like a council person. That's true for me or anyone else has never had an opponent. And so I got thinking about if I was on city council, what would be my focus? And number one is to really understand the safety issues for our community, the service issues for our community. And I was very much interested in all the committees and transparency. Are all the committees really transparent? Are their minutes posted? Are their meetings posted? Can people attend them? And I did a lot of attending of a lot of committees, my first year. And I've said I've had to. As phenomenal, we have such involvement of our citizens. It's wonderful. It's all so hard, like last night at the council meeting, we had several appointments and we had more appointments than we had slots. And so you read, not just the resume, but where the person is, their involvement. Wasn't it good? Oh, it was wonderful. But it was very hard to say no to the people who were just as qualified because you only had two slots and you had six candidates. We hope they'll all come back when then other slots come up. But it's just I'm very proud of the level of involvement we have. No, I'll hit you with one that's so trivial that you probably won't know. Approximately how many committees and commissions do we have in this city? It feels like three dozen, somewhere between two dozen and three. Committees and commissions. It's amazing. And some are just temporary. It's like we had that short dog committee or we have a committee to review committees. I was on one of those short committees. I was on the parking committee. Parking committee. Yes, you were. And that was very important. You had a group of really intense minds looking at how do we deal with this real estate? And they looked at what we charge at our meters, how we deal with demand management. I mean, there were a lot of things that they dealt with that the council nor the staff had time to dive into. It was because of that committee that we ended up with credit card meters. I think that's great. Also, that committee got rid of the snowman. Well, yes, yes. And I will say persistence is what made it work. Oh, absolutely. I will also say really hard that first two years. The staff person on that committee was Kevin Casey from Planning, who was an excellent co-member of the committee and contributed a great deal. Is there an outside agency that you sit on the board of? Council does, has a person on a lot of the library. Right, I'm also on the Central Vermont Public Safety Authority. And I sit on the Montpellier Transportation Interstructure Committee. I sit on the Regional Planning Transportation Advisory Group. I definitely have transportation on my brain. Could you talk to us a bit, because that's a passion of yours. It is. And a specialty. And you bring that to council. When council gets organized in March, they turn to you and you say, I want transportation covered. Please, please. And that's because I feel that transportation is a role model to integrate everything. When you have a vehicle going down the road and you're putting public dollars in it, it should let anyone ride it. But also, you have some private vehicles and vans and shuttles, and they should be integrated with public transit. Because the more we maximize that vehicle on the road to more services, it's more affordable. Now, transportation, in your view, also includes pedestrian transportation and bicycling? Absolutely. I'm a walker, pedestrians, bikes, even scooters. I mean, there has to be a place to allow people to have these mobilities, even if some of them are more for fun than getting there, like scooters. Now, I don't want to sit and age you, but you've been in Montpellier for a few years now. 51 years, yeah. How is transportation different 51 years ago than it is now? Just the whole downtown, the presence, it's more attractive, it's more oriented, I think, to pedestrians. And getting people out into the streets, the amount of street closures we have now were unheard of when I moved here in the late 60s, unheard of. In terms of transportation, what does the Transportation Committee do in terms of coordinating this? The Transportation Infrastructure Committee came out of having, we had a bike committee, a pedestrian committee, a parking committee, energy committee. We still have the energy committee, but was integrating these. And just now, we're looking at the infrastructure. The bike committee was very much the catalyst for the Montpellier and Motion Plan. And from that, what is the Montpellier and Motion Plan, please? It's a plan looking at all the resources we have now, and how can we modify them so there's more room for bikes on the road, more safety for bikes on the road, but also those bike paths, those shared paths. They start out, I think, as a bike path, but we really want them to be shared paths with pedestrians and others so that we have the connection. You can go from one end of town to the next without being on a street, if you want to. Now, correct me, because you're in the end. I'm on the out. I think that the bike path goes all the way to Civic Center starting in 2019. Well, yes, that's the goal. And we own the real estate. The project is there, and it's just getting it all completed. Yes. How does that relate to someone call the Taylor Street Project? Some still call it the Carlott Project. How does that relate to that project? Well, Taylor Street is in the middle, and we actually have two, three studies going on. So Taylor Street itself is the building and the transit center and developing human access to the river. And then we have Taylor Street itself that is going to be done as a complete street. So you'll have. Wait, how is it an incomplete street right now? It's incomplete right now because it only accommodates cars. So it's not very attractive. So you would put in sidewalks with what you call grass protection buffers. You'd have trees. You'd have lanes for bikes. Are we going to replace the bridge there? Oh, no, no, no. But the street itself stays too lane, but there's a space there to put in sidewalks, bike accessibility. And likewise, because the transit center brings the buses in and off the road, it won't interfere that it's just such a small street. We were hoping to get rid of all the wires, but we are going to be able to reduce a lot of the overhead wires on that street and really try to make it work for cars, bicyclists, walkers. Everybody. When do we get the pedestrian bridge behind where the farmers market used to be? Well, see, and that's part of the extension of one street and the bike path there is going across the pedestrian bridge in behind M&M Redemption. That's been. Which is leaving. That's been moved. We've given them a little extra time, but all of those projects are being breaking earth this spring. So this spring early summer, that's really good. And the bike path itself, we also have a study that's now looking at Berry Street and Main Street, because that's a bad connection. You have this walkway on the other side of Sarduchies, but that doesn't connect to the other side of a walkway over by Taylor Street. So we want to work to connect those. Was that where they were proposing a mini traffic circle? Well, that's one of the things they're exploring, not only a traffic, potential traffic roundabout at Berry and Main, but also Main and State. Once you get one traffic circle, it really works better to have them join together. That traffic light at State and Main really holds up traffic. And if you put a traffic circle in State and Main, although they're going to study it, but this is just my opinion prior to the study and looking at other roundabouts, it would really facilitate movement. It would allow pedestrians to cross more safely, but individually, road by road, so they wouldn't have to wait for the whole five streets to go before it's their turn. A change on console since you've been here has been an emphasis on infrastructure. And I know that you have had your hands in the planning to put more into the streets and more underneath the streets into water and sewer. Oh, underground utilities are just desperate to be upgraded. Can we do that realistically and still hold our budget? We're only a town of 7,500. The buzzword, the term that the council adopted before I got there, was the steady state plan to start putting a certain amount of money aside for streets. And likewise, the staff has gone after grants for utilities. So yes, we're spending money on utilities, but to try to have that grants in place, state and federal. So when we do a street, we can do the underground utilities. I mean, we're replacing piping. Some of it is wooden. I mean, that just shocks me. Right. I think that it's so antiquated. I think that our sewer, some of it in our water, is 80 years old, 100 years old? Oh, yes, yes. And yes, so that's really important. But I also feel that we need a steady state plan to support our parks. I feel our parks are underfunded and understaffed. Can you define our parks? There's more than Hubbard. It's much more than Hubbard. And more than that, even though I'm in Strict 1, which is on the downtown side of the city, I want to get parks across the river. I want the whole city to have parks within a reasonable walking distance at the very minimum parks that will accommodate young children. Where would a park across the river in your mind possibly be? I'm trying to envision where there's green land that you could deal with a park. Well, you know, it's interesting. Although I don't think it will happen because it's too valuable. Don't worry, everybody can keep this secret. Well, you know, there's skiing right now and walking being done in all that woods up off of Northfield Street. If you go across the condo lodge and the houses there, there's a common area of woods that people walk and skin. And there's the woods that go up to national life. Yes, so I think on either side, you could put an accommodation of an area with benches and just small things that kids that are toddlers would be safe to play. I'd like to see we're doing a lot of public art. I'd like to see more public art that kids can climb on. We can climb on the rubble that used to be at the Econolodge. Well, right. I mean, who knows? The Econolodge may end up to be some very, very creative spot because I think something needs to go in there that really is green and pretty and inviting for us to be. In District 2, Sabin's Pasteur. Yeah. What is the fate of Sabin's Pasteur? We're going through all these projects and started over a decade ago. We're covering a lot. Yes, well, Sabin's Pasteur, I feel, was on the cusp of the Zorzi family moving forward with some level of development and partnership. And I think it may get there, but there's some bumps with the most recent zoning. We spent a lot of time with zoning. And we know that at this given time, we made decisions and it's in the paper. It's on the final print of zoning. But it's not in concrete. It's on paper. So I do think that we're going to be relooking because the parts of Sabin's Pasteur that the city council, which I disagreed with, made the lower part, we dealt with for density. So you could put housing in there, both for the Vermont College, excuse me, Vermont College of Fine Arts property down by Berry Street, as well as the Sabin's Pasteur area down by Berry Street. But the council majority voted to make the upper part rural. And that made the value of the land less. So when the Zorzi family went to the land trust, because they were going to be trying to make a partnership there, it made it less valuable. And my understanding is, as Zorzi family at this point said, no, we can't do that now. But I think if we do some tweaking with how we zone the upper meadow, I think we'll have the Zorzi family back on board and we'll be able to move forward to get that land reserved for public use. In a town that's notorious as an imby town, not in my backyard, do you think we can get a consensus to loosen up on that upper bowl? We've, I think people are really looking at, okay, we say we want more density. I mean, we're the little city in our region. And so we need to look not only at downtown development and increasing density, but in filling in other portions and looking at houses that are a little different than what's there. And also not saying that you can't have multi dwellings outside of downtown. I think we have to look at more diversity and fairness of our zoning. So the downtown, if you're low income, you have to be downtown. There should be choices of housing up on the hill as well. Now, the development that we're doing for the brewery, the distillery, I'm sorry. Yes, calisthenics. Now, some of that would logically feed towards helping Savins Pastry, yes? Well, yes, but that was a separate deal and we worked with the Zorzi family there in the railroad. I mean, there were a lot of moving parts to getting that land and that agreement through. But extending water and the like, it's a hop, a skip and a jump to take it across the street, isn't it? Is that an investment? It's definitely an investment. And we also, I mean, we had to move some piping. So it's an investment that we feel will pay back not only as a tax paying and an employer, but also they'll be using our water. Which we've got a bundle of stuff. It's one of those things that, you know, you do all this economy and the city water usage when everyone went to low water use toilets. I mean, in one. Particularly national life. In one month, you've got it, of national life using low water toilets. Our water usage went down. Well, the overhead doesn't change. So unfortunately, our water bills are higher than we would like them. And until we get more water users, it'll stay that way. So this is, I think is a win-win with Caledonia Spirits. What about, let's stay in water. The methane project up at the plant. Oh, I think, again, that to me is another infrastructure. Okay, we have aging, aging operational equipment at our water waste treatment plant. And they've all, a lot of the parts have outlived their expectations. And at any moment, you know, whoops, we're gonna have to upgrade them. I mean, replace them. So we can replace them for $6 million or we can upgrade them so that the plant is producing energy, capturing it and creating its own electricity and probably more than it needs. And we can sell electricity. But not only that, but then we can also be such an upgraded facility we can get more vendors, haulers, bringing their waste in so that it becomes a revenue generator instead of taking. But that's a $9 million investment. So $6 million to stay where you are and just do the replacement or $9 million replacement upgrade and energy. So we're moving towards the net zero. What about the project out on, I keep going at Sump Dump Road instead of Finch Drive where Rosie lives, the solar panels out there. What's the status on that project proposal? Well, we ended up not having solar panels at the dump stump on Flint's Road. And that was, once again, you look at this land and you and I say, that's an ideal spot. And oftentimes landfills are, but it turned out that that terrain was so, would demand so much modification that we couldn't financially afford to do it. The vendors couldn't do it. So hence we now, the city has solar panels but their house somewhere else. So we get credit for them. We invested in them but they're not on our land. Now in the future again as solar rays and all that equipment gets better, perhaps we can put some there but it wouldn't hold the extensive amount that we initially wanted to do. They spoke of downtown density. Net zero's plan that they awarded the $10,000 for the one that had the trams going up to national life. What were your feelings on that plan? Okay, now you jump to a vision and I must say I do like having a vision and to me that's like the wastewater plant. If we're gonna put money in that infrastructure, let's put money where we want it to be. We want it to use less energy and we want it to produce revenue for itself and the community. So likewise, when you look at all these other facts with infrastructure, oops, I lost my pot. We were talking about net zero downtown and their vision. Okay, the vision, sustainable Montpellier. Exactly. Sustainable Montpellier vision. To me, I want that vision there so when I'm having to spend money to maintain something, I wanna know I'm working towards that vision. So I like the idea of having something unusual like the tram from national life down. I think, wow, because there's potential land up there for housing and not to increase car usage, but to reduce car usage. I'd love to see the train developed way back in the 90s, early 2000s. I was on the governor's rail council and is it expensive? Yes, but trains are a way to get cars out of the road, get rid of construction. So I'm open to seeing what we can do and what we can partnership with. I'm not saying I'm willing to spend all that money, but I wanna talk about it and have it one of our options of discussion. When we talk about aging infrastructure, the recreation center on Berry Street is a piece, a classic piece of aging infrastructure. Right. What would you do on that one? Well, you see, and again, when you go back to that sustainable Montpellier competition and I see how much they brought the river in. I didn't like, a lot of the presenters had buildings right against the river and one thing that was really good about Tim Bridges, they didn't do the traditional city build up right against her, but they allowed us to have public access and view of the river. And likewise, I'd like to see a center that meets our need for the full age span that the rec department now does and with the seniors. So we have a much more multi-age facility such as we now have parks, recreation, senior center, under the heading of community services. One place to call, whether you're calling for your kid, yourself, or the grandparents. You know, it's one place to call to make a reservation. I think that's good and I want the facility to have the same sort of flavor. How much do you think that the town can bond for that sort of facility? Right now, I'm not even looking at that because I'm practical enough to say that's my vision. We have some proposals in for a feasibility study. And wait until the feasibility study comes back. You look at what the need is, but just my own biases are one, it needs to be a private public venture. I think pulling in businesses and business expertise as well as funding. And I think it has to be a real regional service. Now this is the first time this year that we've actually taken questions in our survey monkey or a survey monkey. What would you ask the council? And one person wrote in, you cannot interview Donna Bate without asking about dogs. Okay, dogs. I like dogs. Do I own a dog? No, I have a family full of allergies. And I'm sorry that people took my request to put the should dogs be leashed in Hubbard Park on the ballot for last summer because I wanted to pause, not just of the people who are dog walkers, pro or con in Hubbard Park, but people from all over the city. It is a city park. And indeed we found that the dog committee was split, what to do with Hubbard Park, other than we wanted to make it. Except for change the name of the dog committee to something like the canine committee. The canine committee. I mean, there was definitely some progress with the last few years of the park commission with their canine code of conduct. Is that being followed? Well, it's a good step. I think it just needs more education, more promotion. But back to the voting about it, I think the whole city needs to embrace the fact, okay, we have some dog issues, both owners and non dog owners. Well, how can we work on that? So I strive for more communication and I'm sorry people felt threatened by it. What we found out that it's about the little more than half said, don't leash him, little less than half said, please leash them. So it's like, okay, we know we need to make some changes. It doesn't mean extreme changes, but we know we need to make some changes. What was the dog ordinance that you sponsored and that passed? Could you explain that simply to people? Okay, well, the dog ordinance wasn't really sponsored by me, but it came out of the dog committee. And what the dog committee decided was that dogs should be leashed on city streets, sidewalks, streets, and shared recreational paths. What are shared recreational paths? So that was one of the definitions that came up and it was confusing. So what we added last night was that except for Hubbard Park, and Hubbard Park would be governed by the canine code of conduct unless there's a conflict. And if a dog gets in trouble in Hubbard Park, then they'll go through the same steps of the ordinance of any other dog. What are those steps if a dog gets in trouble? Okay, so at first they actually get a warning. I say they- The owner gets the warning, not the dog. Well, yeah, the dog gets a warning, but there's very levels. I mean, very clear definitions of what's a dog running at large, what's a dog that's a nuisance, what's a dog that's dangerous, and then there's a actual animal control committee, and they have veterinarians on there that have expertise in dog behavior. And so they would really have help in analyzing what is the issue and what was the specific situation circumstances because that makes a big difference. And so people are not trying to be black and white about this, but they are trying to have clear guidance to help understand all the gray areas. And I just think we're always ahead when we talk more and we get more opinions, not less. So whatever happens in the future, I want people to enjoy all of our parks. I want people to enjoy being downtown because I think having safety is feeling safe from harm but also from harassment. I'm gonna hop skip to the farmer's market, which is moving the state straight. What's your view on that? I thought that was great. I was a little disappointed that they ended up, I liked that they were all in the middle of the summer, but there were lots of functional problems with wiring and safety and some individuals with different physical disabilities felt it was more unsafe, was safer to have them with their backs to the sidewalks. So we're going back to the more open kind of venue and that also meant some better criteria for the fire department, should they have to get in or out. So again, we're talking to one another, we're trying things out. I think it's a good move to bring them up into the community and I hope that it supports our other businesses. Business development downtown. As everyone knows who's watching this, my wife does own the pet store in town. Yes, yes. What can we do to help our businesses downtown to prosper? And at the end of the day, we still are a town of 7,500 and we're having the same small business blues that other towns are having across the country and the competition with the internet and the like. So you think the city can do? I think the council has tried to support the downtown businesses with Montpelier Live, with the Economic Development Council for Business, with these open venues of closing down the street and having events and I think between- As well as the DID, Downtown Improvement District Tax. Yes, yeah, and applying that. I mean, Montpelier Live gets to apply that. And so always looking for improvements to how to increase people. It's people's presence out of their cars, downtown, interfacing, shopping and experiencing positive events, whether that's cultural, singing, music. I think just having that presence. What's the strength of Montpelier? You've lived here 51 years. How is this different than it was 51 years ago that's a strength? Well, I was a mid-westerner. I came from southern Ohio. You can hear it sometimes in my words. And people didn't talk to strangers on the street. I mean, I embarrassed many people in the grocery store and just say hi to them or share, did you get this coupon and I guess- What, were you wearing the flatlander's t-shirt or something? No, no, because I was just speaking to strangers and no, kidding. They didn't speak to strangers when I came here in the late 60s. It was a much more New England shutdown community. And I feel it's gotten more vibrant. People have gotten more involved, more extended, more diversified. I mean, the Black Lives Matter flag at the high school- Could you explain the council resolution last night? Well, that's okay, but the Black Lives Matter flag at the high school to me is huge. Wow, we are changing. Isn't this wonderful? I mean, we are not all Caucasians. We come from different cultures, different backgrounds, ethnic groups. I mean, there's so many ways in which America says we like diversity, but I'm now seeing in a Montpelier, but that means we're also challenged by it and we're also experiencing, unfortunately, racism and inequality and we need to work together. What was the resolution the council about? Well, the resolution, and I'm gonna use some of the better-chosen word, was a decision that we want to address counter racism and inequality, that we're gonna be reaching out to the high school resources and the high school students who have a racial justice alliance, racial justice alliance and various, there's so many groups, a woman spoke last night that are all trying to work in some way to help us understand our differences and respect them that we really do live with a different reality, walking down the street, walking into a store and hearing those stories. And the one piece that I shared last night that I would like to share here is a student gave a speech at Rotary on Monday about Black Life Matters, and she says, absolutely, all lives matter, but compare being one house on fire in a neighborhood, the ambulance goes to the house that needs them the most that's having the biggest crisis and what it does to save that household will benefit everyone to be safer and to be more inclusive. And so everything we do towards Black Lives Matters, every time we do, do towards, we do sexism, ageism, racism helps everyone. And so that's the goal, but I want this council to be really active in it. I want it to make it one of our goals next year and to really work on a lot of community workshops, training, sensitivity. We don't have 30 minutes on this, but what about ICE? What about immigration and undocumented people in our community and how our police relate to them? Our police have such a commitment to treat everyone fairly and that comes first, that we want people to go to the police when they need them and not worry about ICE. That's not our job. ICE being the immigration police. The immigration police, that's a whole nother discussion, but for sure our police and our city council and the statements from our own governor is very clear that we want to treat everyone equitably and fair. And when you need police, you need police. It's not about whether you've immigrated here or we're born here, that you get the same services. The final question, why are you running again? All of the meetings and all the time commitment, I know they don't pay city council people much. Why are you running? I realize how much of an information junkie I am. I love having all this information. It takes a lot of time, not just the meetings, but you have to study a lot of documents and listen to testimony in various opinions. And I feel like I want to keep doing that because there's a lot dealing with safety, the issues of not only safety from harm, but from harassment are very important to me. And that I want to work on how services can be more sustainable. And so as we become more green, more energy aware and trying to reduce that, trying to find alternatives that we can move towards a vision we want, but in a way that's reasonable within our limitations of our resources and that are sustainable. Donna, thank you very much for this discussion. And you have heard Donna, as you're gonna, I hope that you'll watch all of these and be able to hear everyone. I hope that you'll follow the school budget and the city budget because we have shows on both those. And I hope that you'll become informed. And what's most important, I hope you get out and vote on town meeting day and urge your family and friends to get out and vote. These are contested races in all three districts. I think that's fantastic. I think it's, I think it would have been better had we had someone that run against Ann for mayor. And hopefully that will happen next time. But get out there and vote on town meeting day, become engaged, read the articles in the bridge, the profiles. And thank you very much for watching. Thank you, Richard.