 Okay. We are going to get started here. So I'm going to call the meeting to order. The first item of business is to review and approve the agenda. It's funny, number two here, it says adjournment. There we go. That's kind of hilarious. And we're done. Let's go. Okay, cool. Jamie gets a raise. That's pretty funny. All right. But actually, though, we're going to review and approve the agenda. There are probably going to be some changes to the consent agenda, but we'll deal with that next. But aside from that, I don't think there's any additions or deletions from the agenda. One thing that I do want to be really clear about is when we get to the part about the validation resolution, which is item eight, the validation resolution is pertaining to the changing of some warning dates as well as the itemization of some funds. And so that is the type of thing that would be appropriate to discuss with item eight. And anything aside from those two topics would probably be outside of what's pertinent to that. So if you have comments about TIF or the value of TIF or how much it was discussed, I would recommend that you make those comments during item four, which is general business and appearances, which is next. So that's all I have to say generally speaking about that. So on to general business and appearances. So this is a time for any member of the public to address the council on an item that is otherwise not on our agenda. And if you would say your name and where you live, and try to keep your comments to two minutes. I've been a little lax on that in the past, but I am going to attempt to actually hold people to two minutes. And if you do go, you know, find that you need more than two minutes, I just want to let you know like we wanted, we do want to hear you. It's okay. It's weird to hear your own voice there. We do want to hear you. And so I'd recommend that anything further, please email us. We do read all of that. And that that's very helpful. So but it is also good to get out of here before 10 o'clock. So you know, we got to just keep keep it going. All right. So any, anyone have anything they want to bring up that is otherwise not on our agenda? Okay, great. We've already spoken some. So what's left? I just at your suggestion, took the issue of the Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. And also where you live. I'm feeling okay. Thank you. I took the issue of the hydrant. I got clarity from the city manager, a hydrant ticket, which on an area that had been parked. The ticket says Park six feet from a hydrant. I went up and measured the current recurring stream of cars that park there, minimum nine feet from the hydrant. So our height, our ordinance does not reference six feet. It just says no car or horse within in the general vicinity there. So we've got a problem with the ordinance. We've got a problem with an uneven enforcement. But I'm happy to take whoever I need to take up there and prove that I can't you can't park closer than nine feet without totally parking on top of the sidewalk covering the entire sidewalk. So you need to clean up your ordinance and need to clarify that appeals of a parking ticket need to go somewhere beyond the PD saying this appeal is fine. Because then I'm told that it's to the city council or elsewhere. The I'm going to raise the parking thing for the benefit of the rest of the council. The new parking lot going in behind the mowot property has 18 new spaces in it and anticipates trucks backing in from Main Street, where the Main Street and Berry Street intersection backing all the way into office jobs. The truck drivers will not do that. They have it's been clearly stated that they won't do that. The only solution needs to be planned now while that construction is still malleable to possibly forfeits for spots in the north branch lot behind positive pie. So Steven, it's been about two minutes to try to think about wrapping up. Okay, thank you. I did ask that the issues of CV fiber, EC fiber, this fiber on the heat plan and CV PSA be made formal agenda items because I've been bringing them up for over a year and they've not been put on the agenda and I can't fit them into my two minutes. Fair enough. If you remember to email me, we'll see if we can find a spot for that on the agenda. Welcome. Hi, I'm Sigrid Olson and I live on Main Street in Montpelier and I don't have anything to bring up. I just wanted to introduce myself and say that I'm a member of the social and economic justice advisory committee and there's two of us here tonight and one of our goals is to make sure that we have members attending. So just wanted to say hi. Thank you very much. Anyone else? If you're bringing up an item from the consent agenda, we are going to take it up soon. Let's see if something else. All good. Howie Wilkins, president of United Motorcyclists of Vermont. Our organization has been conducting the toy run to benefit triners hospitals for children for 32 years. It is always the second Saturday in August is always kickstands up at noon. It is a tradition for a generation of Vermonters who ride. They planned their weekends around it. They know the schedule. They don't need to consult anything. They just know what's going to happen. We make it happen. The triners and we have the potentate here gentlemen here are always very appreciative. We have raised over hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of toys and cash and checks that go towards research for the triners hospitals. Our chairman or chairperson for this committee came here on April 4th to file for our street closure that we always do. He found out that the farmers market had been granted street closure in our in our time slot. We had not been given any any heads up about this, which is kind of odd. Tony Fecos knows us. I thought maybe it had it would raise a couple of you know, Oh, isn't that when the toy run is? We didn't hear about it. I immediately tried to contact someone from the farmers market to talk about it to see if possibly they could give up one Saturday. And apparently they are down for every Saturday, which is great for them 2026 Saturdays. All we need is a fraction of one Saturday to try to keep our current time slot because we know if we change this routine, we will lose participants. It's just a given. It's just so hard to get people anyway with their schedules. So the manager contacted me. She said they would be able to close one hour early close at noon. But however, I guess it takes them two hours to break down. So she said that they could close at noon that we could come through at 2pm. I have to say I'm sorry, but we cannot do that. We cannot change our schedule that much. So I'm going to interrupt you. Not because Oh, is my mic not working? I got closer. Oh, goodness gracious. Okay. We're gonna take this up as a basically as a part of the consent agenda. So I'm gonna ask you to come back. Is that okay? Absolutely. Okay, great. I already got two minutes in there. Okay, thank you. All right. Thank you. I'll be listening. Okay, sounds good. It'll be just a couple of minutes. It just just Yeah, it'll be really soon. Okay, anyone else for an item that's otherwise not on our agenda? Okay, so we're gonna move on so to the consent agenda. Now I know there are some items that people want to pull. Is there a motion or things people want to pull? How's it? No, can you hear me? There you go. All right, thank you. All right, so we're taking Oh off the consent agenda. I've got something to add. Also, I've got a last minute liquor first class liquor license request from the abbey group, which does catering at the State House. And they were just advised to, you know, they don't have a physical location to just get a first class license through us. I also just want to mention real quick. I'm sorry. In regards to the minutes, I just received a correction over email. And I just want to put out there and recognize it that I've already changed it online that item 19-165 paragraph to the word mean has been changed to meet. There was a typo in there. So that is now correct. And I assume if someone would take item C off so that we can further discuss the toy run. Out point. Pull C. Is there a motion to move the consent agenda as amended? So that makes sense. Second. Okay, further discussion? All right. Oh, yes. Do you have anything more for further discussion? If not the consent agenda for the consent agenda? First of all, I want to apologize because I have to leave early tonight. So apologies that I'll miss some agenda items. The only thing I wanted to note that was on the consent agenda, I'm going to vote in support of it, but was just looking at the plastic piping for our drinking water and having just been in Bennington for an event on Friday and seeing the impacts of chemical contamination of drinking water on a community there and how devastating it's been. I HDPE as a plastic pipe is one of the better plastics, but just something and I apologize I didn't have time to talk to Tom before this evening. So I just wanted to raise it as something that I hope we are already looking at or if not would love to talk with the public works team on just how we're looking at cost performance and just health impacts of different choices of piping that we're making. So I will have that conversation offline, but just wanted to raise it as something I was thinking about. Okay, there is any further discussion on the consent agenda as amended. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed. Okay, so we're going to immediately take up these other two items. And actually, I think I think we should probably do oh first and then we'll do C. So yeah, I'm going to turn over to you, Jack. Okay, thank you. I thought of this idea. I'll give people a general idea is this came up came to my mind last year when I was newly on the council and didn't come to me in time to didn't think of it in time to get it adopted. Many people know that June 19th is recognized, especially in the African American community as Juneteenth as the end of slavery in the United States. And so I have circulated and proposed a resolution or proclamation recognizing Juneteenth in Montpelier and I'd like to read it so people know what the content is and there may be some discussion. Whereas the history of slavery in the United States is a history of unspeakable brutality and oppression. And whereas the existence of slavery, beginning with the earliest settlements and what became the United States and continuing through the Civil War was a betrayal of the values and the United States was created to defend. And whereas the proclamation to end of the end of slavery in Texas on June 19th, 1865, long after both the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War is widely recognized as the end of slavery in the United States. And whereas with the experience of over 150 years of history, we now know that the official eradication of slavery was merely a start to the continuing effort to liberate this formerly enslaved people and their descendants. And whereas June 19th, celebrated as Juneteenth, celebrates African American freedom and achievement while encouraging continuous self-development and respect for all cultures. And whereas Juneteenth, celebrates the fundamental promise of America and the need for all Americans to continue to work for universal justice and freedom. And whereas the City of Montpelier is committed to the values of liberty and justice enunciated in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. And whereas the City of Montpelier is further committed to providing a home for all peoples and cultures to form the Montpelier community, now therefore it is resolved that June 19th, 2019, is recognized in the City of Montpelier as Juneteenth. And it is further resolved that the people of Montpelier are encouraged to celebrate the fundamental American values that underlie the founding of our nation, our state and our city, and to recommit themselves to the cause of liberty, justice and acceptance of all people. And I move that we adopt this. I'll second. Further discussion. I just want to say thank you, Jack, for making sure this was on our agenda and also for highlighting it and reading it. That was great. Any further discussion? Okay. Oh, Gomet, yes, no. I was just reiterating. It sounds great. Thanks, Jack. All right, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, thank you. All right, so on to C. So this is the item regarding the toy run on August 10th. So if you want to come back, actually, you can come up and sit at the table if you'd like. And I'm sure, Tony, you probably also want to be, I don't know if you want to come up here and sit up here as well, or if you... Yeah, if you want to sit here facing the people or facing us, but those are mics that you can use. Your situation, more you want to add to that? Yes, I say, well, in our last episode, I left off finding out that the farmers market was granted the slot that we have. And I contacted the farmers market manager and she sent me an email and she suggested that she said that they were willing to close at noon, but and then that would allow us to come through at 2 p.m., which still is time wise, not good for us. I we feel that the the the responsibility of compromise perhaps should be on the newcomers who are in the spot for the very first time ever, who are for profit, who aren't doing a charity run rather than the people who have been in place for for 32 years, our nonprofit and are doing a charity run and are only asking for a fraction of one Saturday as opposed to the farmers market who has 26 Saturdays, you know, to do business. And I guess that's it for me. Anything you all want to add? If not, that's fine. Yeah, names. Don Hanham, former president of the UMB. I was down here before when they tried to shut us down for the street there a few years back. Like I said, we've been doing this for 32 years. I mean, it's all about the crippled and burned kids. You know, I mean, like Holly said, hundreds of thousands of dollars in toys and, you know, and they're going to, you know, they're they're here for profit and they can't give us one day. You know, I'm just a tad bit annoyed, but this is the head of the Schriners. Hello, my name is Michael parent. I'm the potentate or translated. That means I'm the president of the local Shriners, the Mount Sinai Shriners out of Montpelier. We've been fortunate enough to have United Motorcyclists support us with their toy run. I would hope that there's some sort of compromise that can be made so that their event can help us. They're wonderful. They bring basically three to four truckloads of toys in for the children. They do make monetary donations, which do go to the hospitals to help. I'm sure it was an oversight in the timing in the days that may have caused the problem. I'm just hoping there's some way it can be worked around so that they can keep their scheduling and and they can continue to go on. The only guys for the record is that we have supported we being the Montpelier Police Department of Ordered Officers. And we're the only department that does for 32 years. And I think I've only been able to ride in this event maybe once because I'm working it usually. That being said, just want me to clear that the city of Montpelier through the police department's actions and public works always has and will continue to support this event. As far as compromise, that's a key word I did reach out to because I was not part of the original discussions with the farmers market. But once we realized that the city worked together to try to come up with a compromise, recognizing that there was an oversight, if you will, because of when the permit came in, I did speak with Michael Burt after learning that the farmers market was going to close early. And we thought, well, you know, they give up an hour, you know, and we can there can be a delay in the ride start. And by an hour, then that would be the compromise. That was how I left it. I know I know Mr. Burt did say he had to bring it to to your organization before he wasn't he didn't have the obviously the you know, the soul say. And so here we all are. But I just want to let you know what the what the you know, what's happening behind the scenes and again, just want to make clear that the city of Montpelier has and will continue to support the event, you know, just to get to get through that. So and whatever responsibility there for communication, I also accept on behalf of the police department. And the other thing is, I mean, our permit that we set in, when we got the copy back had been whiteed out and everything been changed and without our consent. You know, I mean, they didn't even tell us. Thank you. Also, I'm wondering if there's anyone here from the farmers market, if not, that's fine. Any other, I know Vicki, you had something you want to say. So you all don't have to hang out up here if you don't want to, but thank you. And then so we'll take some comments from the public. And then we'll, I think we'll see about where to go from here. I just didn't hear it stated what time you wanted. Was it 130? Was it one? What time do you want? We leave Blue Cross and New. So at 12.30, we're coming down. Okay, thank you. I just didn't have that time. Okay, usually the street is closed up, I think an hour ahead of time. This is what we asked for. You can just hang out here, we're gonna be discussing. Yeah, Vicki. I only just heard about this tonight since I'm here for another thing. Vicki Lane and I live in Montpelier. I don't think that anything should prevent the toy run from happening as it's happened always. I think if the farmer's market has to either lose one Sunday or one Saturday or move back to 60 State Street for one Saturday, I think that's fine. I don't think the farmer's market should get it over the toy run. Okay, thank you. Any further comment? Peter Kalman, I live in Montpelier. Just toy run is great. Everybody here would like to support the toy run for sure. I think characterizing the farmer's market as a for-profit activity really glosses over the fact that the farmer's market has dozens of very small vendors whose livelihood depends on its operation. So I would just like us to make sure that we do actually work out a compromise. They've given up an hour. I'd like to ask the toy run group whether they could work out a way to also give up an hour so there is actually a compromise. It's an unfortunate issue, but I don't think that the farmer's market should be dismissed. We're talking about dozens of very small farmers. Steve Whitaker, I would note that the market was moved onto State Street in anticipation of the payday lot not being available due to garage construction. That's not totally correct. I can't hear you through your mic. That's not totally correct. But there, other than about 20 feet where the bridge has now been installed, the lot is still there and available for, I don't know if they've added too many merchants, but it is possible that for one Saturday the market could fit into and around the garage in the Haney lot and around. So I think honoring the seniority, especially when I've watched the seniority play out in the farmer's market, honoring the seniority of the toy run and the flexibility of the market to take advantage of, it'll take a week of planning, but they could fit those merchants into the Haney lot and in and around the garage, even around the back of the garage. I'm sure that that would cooperate, et cetera. Thank you. Hi, my name's Ken Russell. I live on Elm Street. Thank you for coming. I appreciate the toy run. I appreciate the farmer's market. I think this is a great opportunity for these different groups to work out something positive. I'm, my family's living in Vermont forever, but I'm also kind of a transplant in other ways. So I'm part flat lander, you know, part tree hugger. And I can't help but note that that's part of potentially some conflict here. So I think what, you know, I don't know how, it takes a while for the, how long does it take for the motorcycles to go through? Like half hour to get through? I mean, I mean, I don't know. I mean, it just seems like there's gotta be something that in the spirit of working together and appreciating what each other are and not like negativity about this group or that group. Like, you know, maybe the farmer's market can have a great para and get the place ready for 1230 or maybe you guys can move it a little bit or maybe I've probably shutting off Langdon Street would just be a nightmare. But it'd be kind of fun to try. No, but I think bottom line is the spirit of this is an opportunity to work things out and not be all like old farmers versus motorcycles or whatever, just to say it and all that. Thanks again. Thomas More Prospect Street, Montpelier. I ride in this toy run, you know, as much as I can. And it is, it's a good group of people that come from all over Vermont. And just to get the one time to use, you know, State Street, it is my street. So you know, I am a resident here too. And I'd like to use State Street once in a while. I don't go to all the events that happen here. I mean, we closed down State Street for what, presidential candidates, dancing in the street, parades and everything. You know, it's, let's share it with everybody. You know, I'd like to use it too, just one day, one day. You know, and it is, it's a real good thing. And these people, they're not out there to raise hell and have a keg party, bomb fires, mud wrestling and all that. They're there, well, you can get biker parties like that, but this is just something that is for kids. You know, have you ever seen the commercial from Shriners? You know, it gets to you. And I'm, I would just like my city to give me maybe one day of State Street one day and then you can do your dances and do your farmers markets. You can do parades, but just one day. Not for me, but mostly it is for the kids. It is. Thank you. Thank you. Before you come up again, Stephen, I want to check to see if there's anybody else who has not yet spoken. Oh yeah, and you go ahead and come on over here and you just get in line too if you want. I'm Laura Smith-Riv I live on Berlin Street. I am a farmer, have a small farm up there. Some folks might have noticed the sheep that have moved in up at the top of the hill. Thank you. I do not vend at the Montpelier Farmers Market, but I have vended at markets for years and I would put my vote in for the spirit of cooperation to find a compromise. Thank you. To agree with you about seeing if possibly the farmer's market could be extremely accommodating because even a small compromise will throw off things for the toy run phenomenally. So I don't have hard details, but I greatly appreciate the toy run. I also think, and I'm taking a big chance here saying this, that Montpelier has a reputation in some circles as being a tad snobby. And I know that's not what this is about. I love the toy run and I have done a lot of work with kids in foster care and with people who are homeless and I'll tell you one of my go-to groups when I just wanna say, hey, can anybody help me out with this is this group. So I would really like to see the fabulous toy run really respected and allowed to continue in the same slot. And I would do anything I could to help, I don't know what it would be, but to help with any communication that needs to happen to help make that happen. Before you go, could you just identify yourself for the record? My name is Lauren Sales. Steven, you did also already have two minutes. No, I did not. She showed the one minute when I left. Okay, fair enough, go ahead. One minute and 15 seconds to be exact. 45 seconds less the amount you just wasted. As a technical possible compromise, for that one day, the market could potentially be asked to lay out entirely in one lane and throw up some police tape and let them ride right through. If staff and the police tape solution works, it's a challenge but it is possible compromise that would be exciting for both. Great, thank you. Anything further, if you wanna, yeah go ahead. Since this is about you, you know, get more time. As we said, the spirit of cooperation is vital lots of times and making compromises. I do wanna point out that in the communique I got from the farmer's market manager, she said that she has already, they have gone ahead and secured all of next year state street, which I didn't know was possible, that you could do this a year in advance. I guess we could have done this every year if we knew this was possible but they are in place for next year and advised us the collective United Motorcyclists of Vermont to make alternate plans, alternate routes, alternate times. That is her message to us. Okay, all right, good to know, thank you. So I have a suggestion to make, which is that I think we should, oh, sorry, yeah, Vicki, did you already speak? I can't remember. Just three three months. Yeah, go ahead. Let's not forget all the kids and people that come out to watch the toy run. It's a big deal. Great, thank you. All right, so my suggestion would be that we, I don't know that we're gonna be able to work out all the nitty gritty like logistics here tonight in this venue. I'm fine with holding off on approving this for now in the hopes that the folks from the Shriners and the toy run can again work something out together with the farmer's market and because I also believe that there may be a solution out there that could work for everybody. So that's my suggestion, other thoughts from the council. I guess what I'm saying is I would recommend them table it. Donna, then Connor? Well, I would just like to get a reaction. If indeed the route was modified that you did go down Langdon Street, is that something that's been discussed with the police? Is that off the table totally? Or is it a possibility? Just to go around them, Langdon, then back to state. I guess we would have to do like a site review because logistically it is guiding safely 600 plus motorcycles also trying to get to where we park we have the red lights, motorcycles. You should be at the mic so they can hear you. Yeah, and then I'm sorry. And maybe you don't want to get in the detail but I just, nobody mentioned alternative route and I just. Right. Oh, shock. Electric. Just logistically, I guess, figuring out if the route would work with the amount of motorcycles, any different turns that we're making. So I guess, I mean, I'm not as familiar with Montpelier, maybe as I should be. It's like State Street is here and one bank building to go around. Hey team, let's discuss these details. Okay, I guess we would, we would consider, yes, if we could work it out with the police and such. Okay, we're super, thank you. Connor, go ahead, Connor. No, totally agree with Tablin. So the thought is the city would play a role in facilitating the discussion there. We will try to get the farmers market and like together, we met with them each separately before we talked to people but I think we need to all be in the same room and have a conversation. Ready? Can you just say what I think? Yes, sure. I just wanna say something that make this completely clear. The city of Montpelier 100% supports the toy run and always has. And this issue is not about trying to prevent it from happening and I know there were people here in the past that thought the city was trying to shut it down but that wasn't the case and you may recall it was a unanimous vote to support it that year. The city is the only city on your route that actually spends money to have police out at overtime and use our DPW and everything else and we will continue to do so. So I just don't want anyone to think that the city of Montpelier is in any way against the motorcycles. It's a wonderful event. The children are wonderful beneficiaries and we do support that. The farmers market is also very important to our community. They are struggling farmers. They're part of the ethos of our community and they help support our downtown 26 weekends a week. They bring people to help support our businesses and they provide also an equally value thing. What we were hoping for is that there is some way that we can accommodate you both. Hopefully the farmers market will continue in the future and hopefully the toy run will continue in the future and it seems to me that we can find a solution and it's got to be a safe solution. You're absolutely right Holly that we can't have motorcycles going where they're not and I'm not sure about having a bunch of people on the street and them going by so we need to work out safety concerns but I'd ask everyone to take a deep breath, take a step back and let's see if we can figure this out because it's all good people here and I do know I'm not here to defend or speak for the farmers market but I also know that logistically for them it's also a huge big deal. They've got things to set down, they've got locations for farmers, they've got to bring trucks in to get their things up. It's just, they can't change on the fly that well either and so if we can figure out a way to plan and do this right we can really be a good model for everybody. Jack and then I'd love to see maybe a motion on postponing but oh okay, is there a motion to postpone this item? Just one short bit which is just to say that as far as I can tell this is still two months in the future nearly, it's the 10th so I have every expectation that we will be able to work something out either in terms of time adjustment or space adjustment and then also I just want to say I'm sorry that I didn't notice that they were both scheduled for the same time. I do try to pay attention to that kind of thing and they both are really important things so and can I maybe just go ahead and make a motion to table the thing at this point? So moved. All right so the motion is to postpone this item to a later date next to the next meeting till after. It's two weeks from tonight, June 26th. Folks have had a chance to meet. All right, any further discussion? Oh there was a second I think more in a second didn't it? Further discussion. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay so motion passes. Thank you all and thanks for your attention to this issue and now we can move on past the consent agenda. All right so we are up to the Berlin Street Speed Limit public hearing so before I forget I'm going to officially open the public hearing. So there's actually I'm going to let either you or Tom introduce it. Great. Welcome Tom. Good evening. Glasses on. Not timing yet. Oh yes that'd be fine. Keep me on track here. So Tom McCartle, director of public works. This is the consideration of a engineering traffic investigation to determine the appropriate speed limit on Berlin Street from Granite Street to the Berlin Montpelier boundary. The recommended action is to consider the posted speed limit in the report. This is a two hearing process so asking you to approve first reading and set the date for the second reading if the majority of the council agrees that an alteration of the speed limit is warranted. This is a official action of city council. It's in accordance with state statute establishing the legal speed of a public highway. The study that's presented is in accordance with the state statute I so I believe as well as a manual of uniform traffic control devices. So I cited the statute, it's applicable. So we conducted, initially conducted an investigation of Berlin Street in 2010 and reached some conclusions that the appropriate speed limit is 35 and conducted another investigation this year. The speed limits are established by a study to, without a pre-determined or pre-conceived outcome the, so what does the data lead us to? And we utilize six different factors in reaching that conclusion. So engineering judgment as well as actual tabular data. Notice that the, so I'll go through those briefly. There's the factor one with road surface and sight lines and alignments with other geometric aspects. Factor two is actual speeds and I'll talk about that a little more. What that means, why that's a relevant factor. So roadside development or friction impacting the speeds and driver behavior. Factor four is the, any specific areas of the roadway segment that may impact a speed maybe an advisory speed is warranted or is it more of a wide ranging issue. Five is the, again the sides friction on street parking, driveways, sidewalks, road shoulder. And six is the accident side of things. So speaking to the specific data why the, it's known as the 85th percentile speed or the prevailing speed of free flowing traffic is relevant is the reason why that's generally given great weight is that the, this is an older thing I've got but I'll read that. Majority of drivers respond in a safe and reasonable manner. The normally careful and competent action of a reasonable person should be considered legal. Laws are established for the protection of the public and the regulation of unreasonable behavior of the individual and laws cannot be effectively enforced without the consent and voluntary compliance with the majority. So the majority of the drivers are looked at as 85% of the drivers will, motorists will adhere to a speed that is appropriate for the actual conditions of the street whether that is narrow residential wide highway and then respond accordingly. The misconceptions of speed zoning is speed limit signs will actually slow traffic and will decrease the accident rate. The posting of a speed limit will increase the speed of traffic if it's raised. The, so some studies that were done that about raising speeds and lowering them and how that actually affected driver behavior really had little effect. It's what actually is occurring on the roadway. So the advantage of realistic speed limits is to satisfy the requirements of state law. Invite public compliance by conforming to the behavior of majority by giving a clear reminder of non-conforming violators. And offer an effective enforcement tool to the police by clearly separating occasional violator from the reasonable majority. We want to try to reduce public antagonism toward police enforcement of obviously unrealistic or unreasonable regulations. So the conclusion reached in 2010 was based heavily given a lot of weight based on the 85th percentile reached the 35 mile an hour conclusion. Reviewing this, looking at other considerations primarily the lack of continuous sidewalks, traffic volume is one thing that was considered as well. The functional conflict of a minor to arterial road passing through a residential area and number of driveways, crosswalks, lack of reported good compliance with crosswalk compliance with a lot of yield. So the felt that the 35 miles an hour is somewhat excessive given the extenuating circumstances, so that we shouldn't rely entirely on the 85th percentile or looking at the pace speed. There's some guidelines about that that I described in the report. Breaking distance, other factors. We feel that although 30 miles an hour may lead cause otherwise law abiding citizens to be a higher percentage of the violations that we'd see on this street, believe that the other factors affecting motor's behavior should be given greater weight and that the posted speed should be reduced to 30 miles an hour. So I'm open to take questions and comments. Thanks, Tom. I heard from a constituent today who raised the question. I mentioned to her that there was a proposal to reduce it to 30 and this person said, well really, it should be reduced to 25, not 30 drawing parallel to Main Street and College Street which have certain similarities although they're not identical. I wonder if you'd comment on that. So again, we don't look at the conducting of a traffic engineering study what the outcome should be or hope to be. And there's no basis of actual comparison unless there are true similarities in alignment, driveways, other factors. So the geometric conditions, the differences between Main Street, College Street, Northfield Street are, there's multiple, I mean, Berlin Street's 34 feet wide. There's a long continuous section whereas College Street has multiple blocks and shorter segments. Again, a speed limit doesn't mean that the speed can be maintained for the entire length of the street, it's College Street. I'm not aware of a recent study done of college. It may show that that speed could be by the 81st percentile actually increased. So speed limits that are long established are in fact grandfathered. It's when a substantial alteration is made and revising that speed limit where it must be supported by the study. And I've been here for quite a while and I don't remember ever having studied College Street or Main Street was revised and that was probably 20 years ago. And that's another topic. But there are differences in width, alignment, rate, a lot of factors as identified in the report. Okay, thanks. I'll take some public comment, Don. So I wanna make sure I'm understanding that in order to go lower than the state, we need this engineering study to reduce the speed? That's correct. The default is 35 miles an hour if a town wishes to lower it below 35. It needs to be supported by a traffic engineering study. So if we opted to make it more narrow and put a full bike lane there and not just where the cars are or aren't, then would that help qualify it for 25? It would warrant a follow-up study, may come to the same conclusion. It depends on how that impacts all the various factors, how it affected the conclusions that are reached and reviewing each of those. Because there are crosswalks there and again, again, I see people not able to react quick enough when somebody steps into it. And likewise, when I'm trying to stay at the speed limit or actually between 30 and 35, people ride my bumper. And having been hit by a car 25 miles an hour on a crosswalk, I feel we should really go for 25 on most of our residential streets. You've got cars coming in and out and you've got people and we're encouraging bicycles. So I would try to do whatever I could to that street to help it qualify for 25. Yeah, so those alterations would need to be substantial enough that actually impacts motorist behavior. Again, 85% of the motorists are driving at a safe and appropriate speed based on the conditions and the environment. So the crosswalks, pedestrian activity, the bike lanes, the numerous studies have been done by Federal Highway about raising and lowering speed limits, but not so much about changing the actual physical characteristics of a roadway and how that affects driver behavior. So I suspect that would result in some behavioral changes and may lead to a conclusion that the speed limit should be lowered. But reducing it at this point under the current situation, you're more likely to have a significant amount of, because it doesn't relate or connect with what motorist is actually seeing and experiencing with optimal sight lines, wider road typical, few, there's driveways, but there's good sight lines to them. It's more likely that there's going to be a tremendous burden on the police department enforcing potentially an arbitrary low speed limit. I think 30 is going to be required, the police department, to extend a considerable amount of effort to educate the public to reach the 30 mile an hour speed, because again, it really points to driver behavior and motorist behavior in these situations. I know, but I don't want the motorist to dominate, and I was around, and I'm sure you were in the department when we renovated that road, and I thought the community, the neighborhood, was promised that even though this street was being smoothed out, that it wasn't going to impact them, and yet the faster the speed does, because it is easy to go fast on that street. So I feel we shouldn't help it, and maybe that's one of those places where we'll use the traffic coming, but I feel it's a neighborhood and it needs to be treated as such. And I believe that's the reason why I reached the conclusion in discussing it with staff that the 2010 study should be reconsidered and that greater weight should be given to the residential setting in a minor arterial. So there's what we refer to as a functional conflict between the actual purpose and use of this roadway is a connecting commuter route with its service, its use also as a land access, property access, in a residential setting. So that is why greater weight was given to the actual conflicts that occur with their driveway, pedestrian bicyclists, those lanes have been added. We don't see an awful lot of pedestrian use up there. Believe there's probably just a lack of comfortable feeling that it's a good place to walk and be on a shoulder. So. Thank you. Yep. Connor, and then let's take some comments from the public. Sure, just real quick. Any other speed studies being conducted at the moment now, or if they're watching? Northfield Street will be reviewed. It was substantially reconstructed by Clayn also sidewalk. So that will be reviewed once we have some data collected after that now that the dust is settled and the construction's gone away. It's important that no actual influences occur while you're collecting the data. And so that warrants a follow-up study. I don't know the schedule, whether it's this year or next year, but it will be soon. I know we have some folks from the public who would like to comment. So come on up. If you'd introduce yourself and set me up. Jean Leon, 265 Berlin Street. Thank you, Donna, for your comments and for finally bringing this to the table. I've been in the area coming to three years and I might be more in two minutes because I'm also talking for a lot of people. I couldn't make it here tonight. If you do, I'll let you know when you're out two minutes. Sure. My dad's been an engineer for 50 years and he is a project city manager in Florida City where school zones in Florida are actually 15 miles per hour. He is shocked at this neighborhood, which is a residential neighborhood in this day and age when it was grandfathered in, when it was a rural farmland. Now it's communities with children, with families, with seniors, with a bike path, with pedestrian crosswalks, school bus stops and public city bus stops. So why, for lack of a better word, discriminated Berlin Street. North Hill Street has the same pitch, uphill, 25 miles an hour, with less residents. Uphill Main Street, 25 miles an hour. Same pitch, going uphill. Elm Street, which is typically enforced, 25 miles an hour. College Street, 25 miles an hour. I work on College Street and I've gotten to know a lot of the residents in that area. And their main complaint is, when speeders are speeding at a 25 mile an hour zone, guess what they're doing, 35 miles an hour. When speeders are going fast and at 35 mile an hour zone, they're doing 45, 50. I invite all of you to sit in my driveway during any traffic hour, including yourself, because you said there's not a lot of families, there's not a lot of, I don't know who we, because I have kids and there's a lot of families and kids who are constantly moving in this neighborhood. I invite you all to sit in my driveway during traffic hour and see for yourself, whether it's with a speed gun or just plowing in the winter and you see how dangerous and unsafe it is. Talk about data. In 2016, there was an extensive data in Massachusetts in many of the urban areas. 2017, after extensive studies, the 35 mile per hour zones were reduced to 20 miles per hour. So I want to let you know you're at two minutes. So just think about. Yeah, so after, does anyone know what the fatality rate is for doing 30 to 35 miles an hour? This is all data from a European study. It's 45%. The fatality rate, if someone was in an accident, hit someone, going 20 to 25 miles an hour is 5%. So these are factors. And now on behalf of a Christie Sternbeck that also lives off Burning Street, she agrees to the 25 mile per hour. And she's concerned that the flashing lights in the pedestrian crosswalks are not always visible or on. And that helps eliminate traffic. So, and I have like the best data is eyewitnesses, residents, citizens who live in this neighborhood. That is your best data. And a lot of us are here to speak and I'll let them. Thank you. Thank you. Berlin Street and I've been there for 25 years and this is not holding up. That was an awfully nice letter to get in the mail. I was expecting bad news until I read it. Now I would be really happy with 25 miles an hour as I've asked that before, but I'll settle for 30 because that means they'll only go 40 versus 50. And maybe at 30, we won't be, our windows and things won't shatter from those ridiculous exhaust pipes and sound systems. Anyway, so I think this is great. As far as pedestrians go, I don't know where you live, but there's pedestrian traffic on Berlin Street on the sidewalks. The thing we don't have on Berlin Street is the other side of the street because you're taking your life in your hands to walk across the street and visit your neighbor across the street. And when you're trying to clear your driveway of snow, it's a real challenge, particularly for those of us on the hill because people just kind of slide down and most of the time, they're on their cell phones anyway, but so I think this is wonderful. I would encourage you, since we've now got these little flashing lights at these two pedestrian crosswalks downtown, that it is far more important to have them on the two crosswalks on Berlin Street because people don't stop. They rev up that hill and they slide down and if you're the unfortunate person to be in that crosswalk, too bad. So let's get some of those, that would be great. I think though, in the outlying areas, those little flashing lights, I mean, granted, you have to push it, but eventually people will get educated and as far as driving 30 and educating the public, they get behind me and they're gonna get educated because 30's it. Thank you, Vicki. 25 at night. Hi everyone, James Brady, I live on Prospect Street. Actually, I wasn't expecting to comment tonight, but here I am for the next agenda item. So I just, I wanted to put an idea out there, which I don't know if it's been brought up before, but it's what Burlington does and go a city-wide speed limit and maybe this is completely unrealistic, but it might be easier to educate the public and have some more compliance if you know that if you're in Montpelier going 25, obviously with exceptions, the interstate, some of the state routes. I don't know if that's been considered at all or if that's something we might be thinking about. As a family who tries to use our cars the least amount is possible. Burlington Street, yes, I agree, can be scary and also if there is low pedestrian use, I think that can actually be an argument in favor of kind of more thought because drivers are less likely to be thinking about pedestrians and so that interaction occurs less, so they're less likely to be on their minds, so just that's another factor, but I just wanted to bring up the idea of a potential city-wide factor instead of trying to focus on little bits and pieces throughout the city, just throwing that out there. So thank you. Thank you. Peter Lux, Montpelier. First I want to say that this 85% idea is really bizarre to me and if that's a state rule we have to change this because I mean, any kind of crime you could do if 85% of people do it, it's okay. The other thing is I'm new to town and anytime I come down Berlin I'm like, wow, look at that view. It's one of the most beautiful stretches in this town and we treat it like a highway. I'm also looking for a place to buy if anyone knows anything. And Berlin Street was on my list but I'm reluctant because I want to be able to get to downtown on foot or bike. And it's really not safe, there are bike paths but it is very risky to bike up Berlin Street, I can tell you that. And so it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem if the bicyclists are not comfortable to bike up Berlin then the drivers feel like they can go as fast as they want because they've got the road. So saying that 85% of people drive 44 miles per hour and that that should influence what the speed limit is is a little silly. And so the other thing I want to mention is that I believe that area is seen by the city as kind of a growth zone where future development could take place. It's really not far from downtown. So if we don't make it possible to walk or bike there, we lose an opportunity and there are people who consider those areas who would walk and bike to downtown. Thank you. Hi there, my name's Mary Carol Dobbins. I live at 300 Berlin Street at the top of the hill at the corner of Sherwood Drive. And I can say from personal experience, this is a regular occurrence that I am blown away by how fast people drive by my home. They're coming off the hill from the Walmart and the hospital and they make no regard whatsoever, that it's a residential neighborhood. They've entered the city. They're in the city of Montpelier now. And I had six legislative pages stay with me from January to May of this year. And I can, from around the state, and I can tell you that they all commented along with their parents that they were afraid on that street and they were afraid to let their kids walk down to the state house. I hear this all the time. The family center is at the on Sherwood Drive. There are children and very young children and parents who have to use that road to access to get to the family center. We should encourage that and not scare them to death to get there. When I shovel my drive of snow or mow my grass, I have literally, repeatedly been blown off balance by how fast the cars go by me. And I need to be able to access to take care, to take care of my property. And it's just ridiculous and it is not an occasional occurrence. It is repeated. So again, it's our neighborhood. It's a beautiful street and I appreciate your comments. And so many people live there. It's a large, active neighborhood. And if people are not walking it, it's because we're afraid to walk it. We would like to very much more often walk it. And so please protect our safety. We'd appreciate that 25 miles per hour will be ignored to a certain extent. People will drive faster than that. Please keep it to 25 because as they go down a hill or come up a hill, they're gonna accelerate some. And the police can understand that if we keep it to 25, people can adjust their habits. They will, we do it all the time. And so we'd appreciate your consideration to please change the speed limit to 25. Thanks. Hi, good evening. My name's Noah Sexton. My wife and I live on 200 Berlin Street. And I can tell you, Jean's correct. You know, I know all the data and everything. But cars zip by all the time. You know, we walk our dog every day. And it's just amazing how fast cars are going up and down. When we sometimes have had the flashing sign to showing the speed, you know, you'll see 37, 30 miles an hour. So, and it is a residential area that's even, I've been, we've been there four years now and you're having young families now with kids, the crosswalk. And it's really scary for the kids and everything and pedestrians going across. And like you say, we're part of the city. And I was thrilled when they said we're gonna drop, maybe drop the speed limit. And like you said, 30 is a start, 25 would be better, but really think we should drop the speed limit. Thank you. Everyone, speaking of my capacity as a resident at 209 Berlin, I can kind of agree with everything that everyone has said. One of the things I think is a major concern for me on my property at the corner of Berlin and Wilson is that there's a bus stop right there. And every single morning at 740, 745, families come down Wilson Street from the neighborhoods with little kids on the street. And there is no, there's no sense of anyone stopping for the four people in the crosswalk, particularly little kids going to the school bus. So reducing the speed limit, I understand the technical side of it, I get it, but you know what, like in that neighborhood, I'm seeing so many kids these days, I've got three. So, you know, geez, I just jumped the population. But you know, it's really important because we do have a lot of people walking in the neighborhood or would walk more if they had that opportunity. The sidewalks are narrow on that far side. You know, I would give up some of my property for sidewalks, it's, yeah. So thank you. My name is Bob Tilly, I live at 276 Berlin Street. We've been there 52 years and that's back when it was a paved road, but there was no traffic like there is today. Couple of my biggest problems, and I'm in favor of lowering it to 25, we live up at the top on the left-hand side of the road, just this side of the curve. And when I back out every morning, there's nothing coming that I can see on that curve. By the time I get out into the road and into gear to start to go down, I've got someone right on my tail and that's almost every single morning at 7.30. And in the wintertime, I had to stop mail delivery because I can't get across the road to shovel in daylight hours with the traffic going the way it is. It almost seems like some of them take pride in seeing how close they can come to you because I'm out there trying to shovel and it just whizz, whizz, whizz, and it just, so I think they're going 40, 45 seems to be the normal regardless of what the stats say. So just for that comment. I'm Laura Smith-Riva. I live at 286 Berlin Street. I mentioned earlier some folks probably have seen the sheep up there at the top of the hill, that's us. And it has been very shocking to see the traffic flow on that street and the speed. But the thing that I noticed that really was hard for me was the number of school-aged children who are walking past my house, which is, I would, I'd like to say too, I would offer up some land for sidewalks if there was anything left there, but there isn't. There's no sidewalk there. The sidewalk ends at Hebert Street and kids are exiting the sidewalk onto what I guess is being called the bike lane, although it's hard to understand that concept given, given that area. So I don't understand how the city would want to have school-aged children walking on that street with traffic flying by there, you know, approaching speed limits of 50 miles an hour. It's unreal, honestly. The other thing I'd like to say is there is, when you get to the top of that hill, there is a curve there, and then you have Sherwood Street. And effectively what's been created there is a mechanism for people to bypass the Route 2 traffic during rush hour. And so they just come racing up Berlin Street and then drop down on Sherwood, which is a 25-mile-an-hour speed limit. And they've had a lot of complaints from what I can understand from, at least from reading Front Porch Forum, with the traffic speeding on that road to avoid, you know, hitting the roundabout over there on Route 2 to come back down that way, or they're going out to the very artery there. And so we've created this arterial highway in a residential neighborhood, simply so that people can bypass the traffic down on Route 2 and effectively go faster than people are going on Route 2 half of the time. So it just seems like a real, a not very good situation up there, but particularly for the kids. And I have watched people out there trying to shovel their driveways. Folks, there's a couple of my neighbors are elderly and it's definitely a challenge. And we've been quite challenged to figure out what to do with the snow in our area. So I got one more minute. What do I want to say in one minute? I have to say, actually, I have you as slow. Oh, she's saying stop. Okay, so I will stop. I am in favor of reducing the speed limit. I understand, I read the study in the 85th percentile. I'm having a hard time with that. Maybe something's different between 2017 and now, but I'm in favor of reducing that speed limit and doing whatever we need to do to make that area motorist, to create awareness for motorists to slow down. Thank you. Melissa Kasarik and I live on Pleasant View Street, which is parallel to Berlin Street. And I didn't actually know that there was a proposal to reduce the speed until just tonight. I'm the mother of two small children and my husband and I like to try and take advantage of downtown Montpellier as much as we can. And when the weather is nice, we like to try and take the stroller. Double strollers are not convenient vehicles no matter how good the sidewalks are, but it's actually really difficult to manage to get into this crosswalk. It seems almost like it's a really tight corner. Hopefully we can keep them in the double stroller for a little bit longer, because I mean the alternative is having one in a stroller and trying to wrangle the other one on a very busy street. I also was not aware of the fact until very recently I'm a somewhat new resident of Montpellier that there were no buses after a certain point to school. I don't think I'm a very overprotective parent, but I could not imagine sending a small kid down Berlin Street to walk to the public schools every day. So I'm not sure what I'm gonna do when I get to that point. I have a few more years to deal with it, but I think that reducing the speed on Berlin Street would certainly help with a lot of the issues. Thank you. Let's see if there's anybody else, Vicki, who has not yet spoken. I'll be very brief. I do not live on Berlin Street. I have no selfish interest in it. I travel Berlin Street frequently. I have to use cruise control to make sure I don't violate it. I've caught myself doing that. In fairness, I would encourage the 25 to be comparable to Elm and Northfield that in effect you'll be retraining those in a hurry traffic people to find another route. But to protect, this shouldn't be a lesser grade neighborhood. And treat it as such. I would encourage you to send them back to do it. Come back with a 25 proposal. Lauren, sales again. Just a couple of quick things. The crosswalks, people warn new people in the neighborhood not to use them because unless the lights are flashing, it's like they're not even seen. It would be less dangerous if they weren't there because people are so conditioned to think it's safe to use a crosswalk. It's very scary. I've known multiple people who've grabbed people out of them. And the other thing I was wondering about is, I actually got a couple of tickets quite a few years ago in that area. It's very open and going faster makes sense. And then without a lot of indication you're suddenly in a residential area. And I think it suddenly becomes Montpelier, isn't there a town line there? And I wondered if there, as part of the whole picture, if maybe there could be a welcome sign or something that had some psychological impact that you're about to go around a corner and there will be children and houses and dogs. Because the change does happen really quickly. A little like where you speed ahead kind of thing. Yeah, but not just that. Maybe welcome to Montpelier or. That's great, something. That's great. Vicki, I wanna see if there's anyone else who has not spoken, who would like to. All right, Vicki, you've already had two minutes, so is it super short? Did I have a full two minutes? No. Oh, good. Are there flashing lights at those two crosswalks? I didn't think so. The, now I've forgotten. Crap. Vicki, you can always, this is just the first public hearing. If you have more to say, why don't we save it for the next one, okay? Well, I'll remember. Eventually here. I do like the citywide 25 mile, I think Berry City does that, too. So I don't see why we can't do that. I mean, that's a good thing. Hey, so Vicki, I am gonna cut you off. You've had two minutes and I'm gonna try to, is it really brief? It's really brief. It's really brief. I just wanna mention, as a new resident, I used to GPS to get around and find my way around. And it will actually send you up Berlin, Dunn-Sherwood, instead of River 202, because it thinks it's the fastest route. So it's not just people who wanna take a shortcut. Thank you. Let's save it for next time, I'm thinking. You can send us an email, how about that? Like we just, we need to keep, there you go, we just need to, we need to keep going. And I wanna be consistent, right? With folks, so. Okay, so it seems pretty obvious that we're going to at least reduce it to 30. That seems pretty clear. And it also seems, at least very interesting to me to reduce it to 25. But I wanna clarify something with you, Tom. You said in order to change the speed limit, basically you need to study to support that. Is that more or less true? That's correct. Okay, so, I mean, I have a suggestion, but I don't wanna cut up other people off. Yes, I would just be really interested in researching the total 25 for the whole city. And less in some areas. There, if I could respond to that. And I did have a couple of just follow up comments. But the, my player is currently, does currently have a 25 mile an hour as overall speed limit and less otherwise posted. I don't think we sign it very well. And I just actually was looking at that and what's recommended in the manual. So, that is currently in place and has been for a long time. No, it's, I said, unless otherwise posted. So that is currently to then change all the speed limits to less than 35 miles an hour. If it's already posted at that, does require by state statute the conducting a traffic engineering study. It must be supported by that or your tickets will be challenged and you'll probably won't prevail in court when that is challenged. So, the study has to be prepared. I'm less clear about whether council has the prerogative to deviate from the results of that. I believe you're allowed to. I can't change what I've concluded. But that is, I would have to find out perhaps a legal question, whether or not a speed limit does not, that the set that is not supported by the study would be, would still prevail. Couple of quick questions if you don't mind or answers. We are looking at the sidewalk extension from Hebert Road to Sherwood Drive. That is, will be designed and a funding request for that will be possibly through a grant on Sherwood Drive when we paved it, repaved it last year. We altered drainage structures in anticipation of a sidewalk on one side of Sherwood Drive. From Berlin Street to Forest Drive. So, we are working on those alterations. We realize the need for pedestrian connections and for not have people walking in the street would like to see more people walking. And last, the flashing lights on the crosswalks is in the works and that's something that's being looked at by the Transportation Committee. So, something that seems clear to me as well from all the comments. By the way, Berlin Street, congratulations on like having such great representation. That was, that's excellent. I'm so impressed. It seems clear that the speed limit is even just one factor among many here. You know, what if there was a sign that gave people a visual or psychological cue that something was changing. I know there are other traffic calming measures that can be looked into. I mean, that might be street narrowing or adding a sidewalk. And I don't know what the possibilities are for that street. But now is probably not the time when we'll be able to figure that out. But it seems like it would be really worth looking into even other strategies to help reduce speeds. Because, I mean, we can change the speed limit even to 25 and if that's not what people are doing it may not, it still may not register when people still, people still, it may still be normal for people to go excessively fast. So there needs to be some other cues there to help, I think. Agreed. There will be a reduced speed ahead sign on the approach from Berlin. So I'm sorry I didn't mention that. I think the idea of a welcome to volunteer sign is a very good idea. And if we were to, so I'm very interested if we can look into this legal question about whether the council has jurisdiction to deviate from the recommendation, perhaps we do, that would be wonderful to know. If we are not, then I think it would also be interesting to look into, sort of as Donna you were sort of suggesting that maybe if we do some of these other strategies that 30 might be what we do for now and then we implement some of these other strategies and then take a look at it again and the report may then come back recommending 25. So that's, at least that's how it could play out unless of course we have other authority. Well, and just in case everyone else doesn't know the Montpelier Transportation Infrastructure Committee has been looking at a traffic calming policy which offers many different ways and they could take on this street as an example of applying the policy that the city has adopted. That would be excellent. Okay. So we have the first reading, we have the new one in two weeks and we can look at some of these using feedback for two weeks. Is it brief? Because there's another hearing, there's a whole other hearing. The problem is, so let's wait, let's do 30 now, wait another two years, people want this now. I mean, let's not continue to, regardless of your inconclusive data in my opinion. I mean, there's no police data here. I mean, there's no enforcement. So there's no, you know, where the traffic citation data. I mean, we don't have that. The people, I can get a petition for over 500 people in this area if necessary. The city has an obligation to keep citizens safe. Yes or no. So the council has the power to make a citywide 25, that's an amazing proposal. 25 mile per hour, citywide. You guys have the power, you have been voted by the citizens that live here. Thank you. Okay, thank you. So I think we have some things to investigate for next time and so we'll, I don't know that we need to alter anything substantially at this point, but we'll have another reading on this to revisit this in two weeks. That's it. Can I? Hang on, Donna, did you have something? Do you need a motion to close the hearing? No, I think we'll first read it. Yeah, so I'm gonna, is it very brief? Very, very brief. Can I recommend that you ask PD to do strict enforcement to actually build some data between the two hearings? Well, we can dig up some data about that. Well, I mean, strict enforcement would, right. Okay. Mine is real quick. It's real quick. Okay, go ahead, Victor. And then I'm gonna close the public hearing. So I already have a precedent. Okay. Speaking of Sherwood Drive, can you repaint the yellow line on Sherwood Drive? So people understand that it is a two-way street. A lot of people seem to think Sherwood Drive, they can drive straight up the middle, or down the middle. Repaint a center line? Yeah, the yellow, whatever color that is, the center line. So they know it's a double. There's two lanes on that street, because it's, I'm gonna say that that's probably a question for another time. But I mean, that's just my suggestion. Thank you. All right, so I'm gonna close the public hearing and Connor, and then I think we need a motion to have our second hearing, unless you wanna do that. I think there's consensus to move in this direction. So that I'd approve to approve the first reading and set the date of the second reading to June 28th, 2006. Second. For the discussion, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? I just want to comment, Tom, I really appreciate your lengthy memo that lays out all the six standards. It was very helpful. So it has been about an hour and a half. Do you want to break team? Yes. Let's take a five minute break, and then we'll be back with the conservation commission. So we are up to the conservation commission updates. Yay, welcome. If you would introduce yourselves. Great. I'm James Brady, current chair of the conservation commission. Paige Gerton, conservation commission member. And I'm Michael Zorchak. Also a member. I just wanted to say I was on a personal note. My term is up this month, and I will not be asking to renew. It's been four and a half years, and it was a tough decision. We have a lot, I'm just kind of looking back at the notes or even just the last year, and there's a lot of really amazing things going on, but with personal life and just kind of knowing when I don't want to get to the point where I get kicked off. So I was just kind of like, okay, this seems like a good time. So, you know, get a little tired, been there four and a half years, so I think it'd be good to kind of give somebody, kind of empower somebody new to kind of take over the reins. And as you'll see, we have a lot of really cool things going on for somebody to, and the rest of the group to sink their teeth into. So we're thinking just kind of going over what some of our highlights were in the last year since we last met with you. And it's, there has been quite a bit, which is awesome. And then I'll let Michael and Paige weigh in on some of the details of our more particular, our stormwater project, which has gotten a lot of traction lately, a lot of excitement, even some news just from earlier today. So we, one of our big events of the year, we were able to co-host the BioBlitz with North Branch Nature Center, and it was awesome. It was a total success. There's 600 plus participants, people driving from, I think all parts of the country, to offer their expertise, thousands of observations, and it just, it was really inspiring. And we were really excited to be able to co-host and help use some of our funding to support some of what was needed for that event. And not only that, we got some incredible data that few other cities, especially cities of our size, that get in terms of present ecological baseline that we can use to inform us in the future. So it was like basically hiring 500 consultants for one day. So it was incredible. We're really, really excited about how that went. And all the data's online. And it was the second one in 10 years. So there might be events like it in the future, but so that was an incredible success. I'd like to jump right into the stormwater topics that we've been focusing on. And as a conservation commission, we sat down about two years ago to decide what makes sense for our size, our scope, the city, and stormwater rose to the top pretty easily. We have a lot, you know, an urban compact in a confluence of multiple rivers and a stormwater issue that goes all the way to the lake. So that was the top of our priority. And Paige and Michael kind of took that and ran as fast as they could and have been doing that for a year and a half now. So please Paige, take it away. Oh, okay. Michael and Jamie Bates and I have been working on a stormwater collaboration with the credit union to build a rain garden on their property to infiltrate water from about a quarter of their parking lot. And the rest of them are another plan for the future. Is the same place, credit union? Yes. And so in the fall, we put together a grant and we got a grant allocated to do that. That happened in November. Credit unions all over it, they think it's a great idea. They really want to reduce their impact. I've been very impressed working with them. And so slowly, slowly we've gotten all the bits and pieces together. And we finally, about two weeks ago, got the official grant documents from the funding agency and sent out an RFP to about 10 companies. And as of today, today's the due date. As of today, I have at least four proposals that I've seen so far, I haven't read any of them, but that's really exciting because I wasn't sure we were gonna, some of them came out of the blue. It was on the city website and we worked with a professor from UVM named Mark Companion who was also, which Michael got in touch with, who also is involved with the Clean Water Initiative of the state and the Sea Grant Program, which is part of the funding agency. So that's proceeding slowly, but we're getting there. And hopefully this will be a template for future projects, public-private collaborations that we can do in support of the City Stormwater Master Plan. So that's the goal and it's happening. Any questions on that topic? Any comments? Okay, any questions? Anyway, we're really excited about that. It's gonna be kind of a high-profile site with the bike path, so a lot of education and outreach opportunities, yeah. Right on Bailey Avenue, so it'll be really visible. Yeah. It's gonna be really exciting. And we're gonna have a party. Excellent. A cleaning party every year. I think that's functioning correctly. So yeah, so that's just the first of our stormwater project. So the hope is to kind of use the City Stormwater Master Plan as a way of guiding conservation commission to either A, help public works or B, help other foundations or C, kind of picking away some of these smaller ones that might even be just without so much support. So yeah, thanks to everybody. Hopefully this will be a template for how we can do it or how we cannot do it next time. So it's a start. It's a whole new thing for me. So moving on, over the past year, we also finished up some of our projects related to vernal pools and one of them was as simple as just completing fencing around one of the pools in Hubbard Park, why we're fencing. So, oh, sorry. Yeah, I apologize. So fencing around one of the vernal pools near the structures at Hubbard Park and basically what that means is, so occasionally a dog would get in there and they'd be silting or other, or predatory actions from, you know, natural. Right. Yeah, so. Anyway, so that was a very simple project, but it's very effective and that pool has been very productive even just this spring. So that was a simple project, but very successful. And when John Jose was a commission member, he helped use our city with our really good baseline data on vernal pools to help do a proof of concept for a model that the UVM Spatial Analysis Lab, along with the Vermont Center for Eco Studies has been working on to predict vernal pool locations throughout the state using existing mapping. So LIDAR, if you're not familiar with that, you know, 3D imagery, basically. And so we had the data and we had a little bit of funding so we were able to use that funding to get a consultant to run the model and the model hit existing vernal pools. So it proved the model was working correctly and it was really exciting for both parties and now we have another data set that we're excited to have in our tool belt. That's a win for science. Yeah, science. It was cheap and easy and so we were really excited about that project. We're also, we've been involved with the public outreach and kind of thoughts and concerns of Confluence Park. And so we've been really happy to partner with the River Conservancy. On that project, we helped use one of our meetings for their public outreach, which was really successful. That was a lot of fun. And then so we're definitely excited to continue with that process in the future because that's gonna be, I think, a real gem for the city as we start to finally focus back on the rivers. So that's a high priority for us and we're really excited about how that's going. So another success from last year. So one of the other topics that has been high on our list of priorities has been outreach and education and it's been a slightly harder nut to crack just because of time and energy from already busy volunteer staff. So that's something hopefully we can kind of continue to evolve. And a few things that did go on were like Paige and I don't know if Jamie went to but there was some participation at the farmers market at least once last year. Yeah, at least once. Yeah, so just to start, you know, just to. We're hoping to do that more, but. But we now have a logo, which we're also very excited about. And so that just that kind of having that presence and we're able to use that logo. For instance, Do you want me to get a copy? I could get you in any form. Yeah, we can send you a link to it. But we were able to use that logo at the BioBlitz. So that was a good way of kind of debuting and kind of getting that recognition out beyond the core group. So that was one of the ways to kind of start the outreach portion of our priority. So that's something we're gonna have to kind of work on to evolve as things go on. One of and then the next kind of big item that we started to sink our teeth into recently was our participation for projects that require conservation commission review for the new zoning. And we are not planners. So it was, hey, we're really excited about this language in here, but what does it actually mean kind of deal? And so we started to have some folks from the city, the planning office and the DRB come in. They spoke with us recently and it kind of, it became clear that that process, even if we don't participate very often, we have to get our ducks in a row and there's gonna be quite a bit of work for us to do that. And so that kind of brings me to one of the biggest points I wanted to bring up to the council is we're really interested in and wanna kind of get some more insight on how the conservation commission could get more formal and more regular staff support as we continue on. Because our projects as they evolve, this is just from one year, they can get unwieldy pretty quickly and it's not that we can't handle it, but if we had some support from, even just some administrative support or some guidance for internal communications, I think that this group would be taken to the next level. So I understand that there might be some, there's staff changes going on throughout. So whoever that, I understand some other committees and groups have a dedicated person that can offer at least a few hours of their paid time to help. So I'm just curious to see if we could flesh that out a little bit better moving forward for this group to kind of continue on this growth to make it successful. So I wanted to make sure that that was mentioned and brought up because like I said, we're continuing to grow, we're taking on bigger and bigger projects that are getting really great traction and we want to continue to be successful without burning people out. But thank you for letting us kind of talk about our year in review and what we're looking at in the future. I think coming up it's gonna be a slight continuation and the storm water project is gonna take up quite a bit of time, which is not a bad thing. I think it's gonna, to make sure it's successful, we're gonna have to make sure that the time and effort is put in there to make sure that that is done in a good timeframe and also that's gonna start to include more people, for instance, maybe more student involvement for the high school, which is right across the street. We have two student members right now which is awesome, a fifth grader, Jasper and a high school student Ian, which has been awesome. So having liaisons through the schools, through them, gives us an easy conduit to kind of involve even more of the student population and then we have a nice project that they can get their hands literally dirty on. So it's really exciting. So yeah, so thank you I'm happy to take any questions or comments or? Any questions? Ah, Don. Well, it's not a question, but thank you for your service, James. Thank you. And you too, Paige and Mike and your whole group. And I'm glad that you're getting more out there letting us know what you're doing. So we can appreciate you as well as maybe give you some challenges along the way. Great, thank you so much, Don. I'm happy with a free appointment at your time. Yeah. We've had a couple of years. Well, I have a 50. Yeah, right. As I said, we can, first of all, thank you as well, but we can follow up, you and I, about what your staff needs. Thank you, yeah. And I understand there are a lot of constraints already. Everybody's running thin, so totally understand that. And thank you for the reminder about the youth participants. I wanna make sure that we're on track to find more youth to be represented on board once again for the following year. It's great, and yeah, I was able to write a letter of recommendation for former members and it's just awesome, yeah, totally awesome. So thank you. Just a very casual question for anyone who might not know what vernal pools produce. You said that the one in Humbert Park was very productive. Oh, good point. I was wondering, what was it producing? It was wood frogs and I think that there are spotted salamanders in that particular pool. And so vernal pool, you know, it's ephemeral, dries up and that's important because that way fish can't establish and so it's a pool that's wet long enough to support the phases from egg to larvae to a full adult that can walk out of the pool but then dry out. So it's a very specific window and it's very rare and that's why even if they're very small they have the highest protection for the state wetlands, not the highest, but they're regulated as if they're a significantly larger wetland. And so yeah, they're incredibly important even for their size. They might not dry out this year, the fish may start moving in. Yeah, right. And that's how things were, you know, it's a... Thank you. Sure. Thank you all for your work. Yeah, thank you. So we are now up to the validation resolution, item eight. We had at one point anticipated going into an executive session. I don't think we will likely do that. So this was a postponement from the last meeting. We had a letter from James Dumont in the, representing the appellants, sort of in a late sort of hour, last time. And so we decided to postpone and also had a response from our lawyer. And so we have read through both of those letters or James Dumont's letter as well as our lawyer's response. And so I think we might have a motion I'm not sure, but yeah, go ahead. Yes, I would like to make a motion that we approve validation resolution. I'll second. Further discussion. Now I'm sure there is discussion that people would like to have on this. So I, because this is a postponement, we've already taken a lot of comments on this last time. I would ask that if anyone wants to make any further comments today that they be new, considering that we heard all your comments last time. And we've also read through all the written materials that were submitted to us. So if you have anything to say, you would keep it to only new information or new material as well as that which is only pertaining to the item at hand, which is the validation of the date of the warning as well as the itemization of the funds. That is what this resolution is about. And I don't know, Paul Giuliani, it looks like you're like wanting to come up and say something if you would like to. Do you have anything, if you have anything new or additional to add that is also fine. Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. After the, for the record, Paul Giuliani representing the city of Montpelier. You may want to pull one of the mics towards you. After the postponement at the last city council meeting on this, is that better? That's great. City manager contacted me and asked me to analyze the situation, make a conclusion and render an opinion on the laws that applies to this set of facts, which I've done and I'm glad to share with the council. And I think it's important in this discussion for the council to understand the context in which your deliberations are taking place. In Vermont, as in every other state in the United States, there's a strong, almost irrevocable presumption of validity and regularity that attaches to municipal meetings, to the vote, to electoral action, to votes on municipal matters, as well as to actions taken by legislative bodies such as yourself. Can I interrupt you for one second? Is, are you just going through your opinion to us? That you've already, oh, this is new, okay. I would like to do is just reiterate or focus on a couple things that were in my memo of March, which I think came up at the last meeting, which I think needed a little clarification. Okay, fair enough, thank you. The point is that the law in Vermont, as in other jurisdictions, attaches a great deal of significance to the effect and the legal effect of municipal meetings. In Vermont, that expression of interest or concern, if you will, is evidenced by the statutes that are cited in my memo and a very fairly recent Vermont Supreme Court decision involving the city of Montpelier. And what it comes down to is that this presumption of validity and regularity that attaches to municipal meetings has with it an extremely high burden of proof, a burden of going forward to either challenge or invalidate or contest in any way the action taken at a municipal meeting. Under our statutes, that contest has to be initiated within 15 days of the vote. That never occurred with the November meeting on this particular bond election. Nor was there any petition files seeking reconsideration or rescission of that vote. So we fast forward to today where the question has come up or issue has come up. There's some irregularities in the, not the warning itself of the meeting or the conduct of the meeting. The statute says that certain information needed to be given or imparted prior to the vote. And there was beyond a good faith attempt to comply with that statute. It was an immense attempt. But the statute is complicated. The regulations that are under the TIF statute leave a lot to be desired. And there's some question as to whether all the I's were dotted and the T's were crossed. So that's a legitimate question. A little legitimate concern. But again, the legislature has stepped in and said, here's how you fix the problem. You go back to the city council or the legislative body. You identify where the glitches or to use the Supreme Court's characterization. The irregularities exist. And you pass a validation resolution under one or both statutes. The statutes by their terms validate and confirm and regularize that original election as if these irregularities never occurred. It's a totally curative statute. There's similar enactments all over the country. I don't pretend to know about them. In Vermont, these validation statutes are used with some frequency because things happen. Something slips between the cracks. The statute uses the word inadvertence. Well, people make mistakes, but thank goodness the legislature has seen a way to fix the problem. Now, that is background leads me to my opinion and my conclusion that the city council, the city council, if it feels appropriate to move forward to take advantage of the validation statutes to ratify and confirm what happened at the special meeting back in November, in my opinion, you folks run very, very solid ground to do so. The decision is yours, obviously, but if I could leave you with a thought is that it's not up to you as a city council to defend or justify what happened in November. Those actions are presumed valid. If somebody wishes to contest or object, that's, there's a process for that. Whether it's been followed or not, I'm not prepared to answer. But the point is that, again, in my opinion, you folks run very solid ground entertaining this validation resolution and acting on it. Thank you very much. If anyone has anything that is new to offer and pertaining to the date adjustment for the itemization of funds, now is the time. Sandy Wittstume, 14 Luma Street. New information. There were two articles published in Vermont Digger after the last discussion publicly on this topic. I wanted to make sure that counselors are aware of that. And the reason why is there are several similarities between the St. Albans Project and Montpelier situation. Want to make sure that you're aware of that. The garages are both for about 400 spaces. They lease some portion. Sandy, is this about the date or the itemization of funds? It is. The Hampton Inn is a benefiting project immediately adjacent to the garage. The consultant was Burke and White. One of my questions, and it is related, is what was the process that the city went through when they retained Burke and White? I'm concerned about Burke and White's advising to the city about numerous parts of the TIFP plan as well as afterwards any advice they may have given for the warning and getting the project going. Was there a bid process? How was Burke and White chosen? Were any other firms actually interviewed? Because St. Albans did consider borrowing to pay down their debt. This is important because Bill did clarify that Montpelier is not doing that, but the city did consider doing that, and that was around the time that taxpayers were told that they would not have to pay for the garage. Also, there is this confusion about whether the garage was taxable, and Montpelier has, following Mr. Giuliani's advice, that it is not. Again, that does impact the taxpayers. And thirdly, St. Albans seems to have also had some validation issues as well. Does the taxability issue relate to either of those topics? Either the debt or? Yes, because if it is taxed, it affects the pro forma, and the city's having whether it's going to affect my mill rate. Sue Print wrote the second article, and she pointed out. So you know you're at a little over two minutes. So she points out that the St. Albans voters had little chance but to rely on the guidance of their paid city managers and other professionals that they could not be expected to understand how the statute works or the repayment terms. I really do hope the councilors take time to understand this if they haven't already read this. I'm submitting this information, I guess, to... Great, thank you. To John, Odom. Thank you. Any further questions? Okay. I have a comment. Okay. I want to caution again. The council appears to be doubling down if there's somewhat of an acknowledgement, it sounds like Giuliani's admitting mistakes were made, and rather than let these appeals play out, we're going to double down and try to barrel through, which is what I warned you about before the vote was ever taken, that in effect, you're further dividing the community. And there was a quote in one of the articles referenced in Digger that, and I'm sure it was in a bit of peak, but if these decisions are vulnerable to appeals and actions by parties that don't have proper standing, it's really not for our city staff to be deciding who has standing and who doesn't here. So I think we've got this, I think we need to... Steven, this should pertain to either the date or the itemization of funds. Okay. Any further comments? All right. So if there's no further comments, we have a motion in a second about this validation resolution. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. So the motion passes and we are going to move on. Thank you. Okay. So the alternative transportation fund budget, I am pretty excited to talk about that. So sure there, oh yep, so Corey is here, awesome. Welcome. So we had circulated the proposed multi-year spending plan for the alternative transportation funds with a brief description of everything listed. I wasn't going to go through line by line. I did just want to give a brief overview and the past these funds have been, committees really tried to utilize both other matching grant funds and opportunities where other projects are happening to kind of further the multi-year motion plan. And I think they've put together a plan here that does that. I know there's some items that they had gone back and forth on, but all in all I think it's a pretty responsible plan. One other focus point is when it comes to planning studies and implementing those planning studies, and not just planning studies, but other things like the traffic calming policy that's being developed. It's not just about funding the development of those plans and programs, it's making sure something is there at the end to help implement it. I think that's been a focus of theirs discussion. Questions, Jack. Not a question, but a comment. I was at the Transportation Committee meeting at which this was developed and I can confirm that people, members of the committee really went through this line by line, made choices for what made sense, what didn't make sense, what items or expenditures we could defer in order to get to the things that we really wanted to do. We did some changing around of the sidewalk gap planning for instance and the question I had was whether, how the city would accommodate the issue of not devoting as much money to some of the planning as had been requested. I understand from the comments tonight that the city can live with it and find the money elsewhere for their planning so I think we should just adopt this budget. Kevin, do you have something to add? I do, so the planning department had requested approximately $44,750 from the Alternative Transportation Fund for the downtown master plan as a part of the number of pieces as part of the Rialto Street Bridge which we got a $23,000 grant for. We've got $6,000 to do storm water modeling. We need that additional money to pay for that contract and that request was under the guys that this type of comprehensive downtown planning is ideally suited for this type of thing. We're looking at bike and pedestrian issues and how we wanna use that space downtown, where we're gonna put city benches, how we incorporate the planning that has been done before, like the main Berry Street scoping study and this is the key piece to get implementation funds. So we're gonna be looking at storm water and we're gonna be looking at those other pieces. So I understand that the committee did good work and if there is another source of funding, it's fantastic. But I just wanted to put that out there is that I do believe that this would be an appropriate use of these funds. I missed the meeting in June but in May when we talked about it, we had compromised with around 30,000 for the street scape master plan. So what happened last Tuesday that we lost $20,000 on that line item? I think the main thing was when we had taken that straw poll, we weren't really looking or the committee really wasn't looking at the hard numbers at the time. I think it was more of a, yeah, we wanna fund this to a point and then when they started looking at potential projects that other projects that could be funded, it started to go down and down. Yeah, I'm disappointed, I must say. I'm disappointed. I think it's competition between planning money and expenditures on concrete measures that are ready to be implemented right now and out over the next three years. So there we are. I'm just psyched to have a plan for this money over the next three years after not really having a plan for. We gave you a five-year plan. Oh, fair enough. And then a three-year plan. We went five years, then three, and then forgotten. So I'm sorry, we've had a clear budget. No, you're good, yeah. You're good. We come back every year. I have forgotten. And every year we have unspent money. And so I was really for the street scape so that we could have something that we could implement with our future money. So I'm not familiar, I'm afraid to say, where the other money's coming from for the master plan. Do we have any idea? You said you understood that was solved. Yeah, like. I don't have any idea. What I meant by that was that I wouldn't have been surprised if the city staff had come to us. You know, we've got a recommendation to approve the budget. I wouldn't have been surprised if the recommendation had been, don't do what the committee said, but in fact, we realigned the budget to provide more to the street scape master plan. So that's where I try to undermine our committees that way. Well, I appreciate that. No, and I don't think it would have been, I don't think they would have been surprised either because they know this item is out there and they understand the importance of it. And I just wanted to put out there too is that I think that, you know, one of the pieces that comes through this is that with this comprehensive downtown plan, this is going to be the piece that gives us leverage to additional pieces. So one of the pieces that we're doing that was an add-on is a stormwater modeling piece. So when we look at what the options are, we can say, okay, if we install 18 raiding gardens along the street, it will reduce the total impacts on the river by X. When we have those numbers, when we go to apply for like an ERP grant, you know, they're gonna say, okay, we have a concrete number that we can look at. So I would just kind of encourage the council and not necessarily against the committee, but you know, to look at this and say that, you know, it's gotta come from somewhere. So it is an expense and whether or not you wanna take it from this or somewhere else. Glenn. Thanks. I think I was at the May meeting too and then I haven't been since then. I guess I'm curious to hear because I think that the streetscape master plan is a really strong priority for me, certainly. And I love all the things that we're planning to do with this money as laid out in the proposal here, but can you speak more specifically about what the streetscape master plan can do for now with $10,000 and where we might look beyond that? We could call the consultant. So if we go ahead with this, then the streetscape master plan is basically tabled for now. No. No. No. Yeah, we have a contract. We just have to find the money somewhere else. Yes, we have to find the money. Whether it comes from here or somewhere else with money. So then, and maybe this question is premature, but Bill, and the idea is about where that money might come from, if not from. That's the top of my head. No, but we'll be reviewing it tomorrow morning. Yeah, okay. Don. Well, I mean, I'm looking at this, you know, and as much time as we've spent on the covered bike parking, there really isn't a lot of support for it. And 5,500 is not gonna cover it. That's just the material. It's no labor to install it. So I'm looking there and saying, why can't we use that piece? And then there's the one on, one of some of the sidewalks that weren't there before. And this Main Street Berry taking the full 50, Corey? That's the estimate that's in the report right now. Yes, I don't have any further numbers than that, but that is where. I thought the estimate was gonna get closer as we're getting almost to the end of it. No, that'll be the number at the end of this. They won't change that number much, if at all. Oh, okay. My inclination here is to leave this as is, unless others have ideas as to how we, specifics as to how we wanna change it. But before we consider that, comes from the public. Peter Lux Montpelier. I was privileged to be an observer at the budget meeting. And I wanna thank the committee members for their hard work. They were very diligent and responsible to put together the budget. The thing that concerned me a little bit during the meeting was that it seemed that not all the committee members were fully informed on how the pieces connect together. And I know the city is doing really amazing and awesome work on strategic planning, master planning, and what the priorities should be for the city. And I didn't hear the decisions really roll up to those priorities necessarily or the principles that the city is trying to put forward. And so my heart did go out to the committee members who had to decide whether or not they have two or three beacons to keep pedestrians safe or put a sidewalk here to keep people safe. And so the fundamental issue is that maybe their budget isn't big enough. But beyond that, I think also it should be a primary principle to look at whether that line items help people drive less. And I think in this discussion, someone needs to say the word climate change because this is really what people in this community care about is that we want people to drive less. And there was one particular line item that I was, it's not a bad line item, a sidewalk on Hubbard, but it does not get people out of their cars. It does not fundamentally change whether or not people can walk there or bike there. There is a sidewalk on one side. So I wonder why that one went in and other items don't make it. And as you know, I'm looking for a place to live. Murray Hill condos are out because I want to be able to walk to town. I cannot walk from there. Berlin Street is questionable. There's a lot of other places. And so this is also a housing issue partially. And there is a housing shortage in town. And I talked to more and more people who are actually moving to Barrie. So what are we doing to make the connection to Barrie better in terms of bike paths or other connections like that? So I don't want to negotiate the budget here, but I do think that it's important for committees to have the full picture. And when organizations typically decide on priorities, they have a list. And that list will say why it's a priority, how it fits into the bigger planning. And then there's like a line and what makes it above the line and below the line is decided on the current priorities of the city. And one of the changes since the Montpelier motion plan is that we will now have a bike path to more or less around about at three or two. So that could connect to Sherwood Drive, for example. So those kind of discussions, I think should be part of the budget planning. And I didn't feel that that was actually the case. Well, thank you for raising the issue of climate change in the context of this conversation. That's absolutely important in part what motivated this money in the first place. Jack. I'll show you how you can walk down to the city from Hurry Hill and go right through my yard. But the Hubbard Street sidewalk, the proposal as it came to us was to put the money into the College Street gap where there's sidewalk on only one side and we decided to put the money onto Hubbard Street instead because that's where kids at Union School might be using the sidewalk. And that seemed like we would contribute more toward pedestrian safety than doing college street at this point. You'll notice, Donna, that this plan over the next three years really spends up almost all the money, which... Oh yeah, we budgeted it, where were you? So right now, we're entering fiscal 20 with a $128,000 carry forward. If this gets spent the way it's anticipated, we're gonna be not at zero and close to zero for a couple of years. The budgets always show expenditures. We just don't end up spending. Okay. Just another addition to the Hubbard Street sidewalk, that was another opportunistic item with work taking place on that street next year. It's scheduled to be resurfaced. There is a retaining wall along there that is gonna be rebuilt. So that was a coordination effort with ongoing city project. But it was a topic, just what Peter said was there is sidewalk on the other side of the street and how do we prioritize those situations? So yes, it was those same points were brought up when going over this. What year is the Hubbard Street sidewalk planned for? This year. This year. Glenn. Thanks, I'm glad to hear about the Hubbard Street thing. I also wanted to recall, Tom McCartle said earlier this evening that there is a plan to extend the sidewalk on Berlin Street, I believe, out to Sherwood Drive. And the thing I missed in that comment was when that might happen or how far out that might be. Do we have an idea how long out that is? Yeah, last year we applied for a grant to construct that sidewalk. We didn't get it. So now we're on to kind of plan B. And it's a multi-year in-house project. It is a pretty long distance. So I don't think our crews would be able to complete it over one year. It may take a couple of years, but that is the plan to do it in-house. So basically starting something like the next fiscal year if we can get the grant and extending more than one year before it's completed, is that? No, the grant is no longer. Oh, I see. It's just in-house force account work. Thank you, I have an understanding. Okay. Any further public comment? Okay, is there a motion regarding the multi-year budget for the Alternative Transportation Fund? Can I move we adopted as proposed? One second. Further discussion? Okay. All right, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Nay. You're gonna have to vote. I am gonna vote aye. I don't often get to vote. There's no. Yeah, no, fair enough. Fair enough. I knew you would. Yes, that's all good. All right, so the motion carries. And thank you. Thank you for your comments. Okay, so the winter operations debrief. Also, I just want to make a note, it is nine o'clock. I anticipate that we may not, I don't know, it depends on if the ordinance items are fast or re-jet us in them. Do you want to get a weather report on that now? Yeah. What? I think it could be fast. I think both of them are fast based on my review. Yeah. Okay, all right, we're not gonna jettison them then. We don't do our PTO people. That's right. That's what I'm saying. Okay. Awesome, welcome. Again, thank you for being here. We'll be a lot faster than this winter seemed. I hope so. I hope so. This is Brian Tuttle, our superintendent, and Tom McCartle. Don't see an awful lot of Brian, so he's usually out eating the charge for our work out in the field. It's not good to have him. So the reason for this debrief, I believe I did one last year as well, is the significance of the winter and the impacts that we all saw and felt while we're doing the work, everybody's seeing it and feeling it. So it was a, wanted to remember, try to forget kind of winter. It was a challenging one. Ice, snow, freeze, thaw. You've read the report, so I won't go over all the details. It's that the city has its topographical and development patterns that lead to a lot of the difficulty in managing it. I think overall, we did a good job under the circumstances and I'm proud of our crew for fraying in there with us in the long nights. And weekends and holidays. And, but look at these, this type of, these types of challenges, not terribly unusual. Like to see less rain following storms. But it's a learning experience and we try to reflect on that. What went well, what didn't. Even talked to Barry City, how they did their work. We were getting some comparisons with us and when I spoke with them, with their public works director, he said, well I've been hearing that Montpelier's doing a better job than we are. So it's all in the perspectives we have and the streets we live on, what people are seeing. I love that comment in your report, sorry to interrupt, about people in barrier getting the comment that Montpelier's doing it better. That's not what I heard. Exactly, Montpelier's doing it better, Barry's doing it better. Just good perspective there. Yeah, I think so, that was helpful speaking with them about that. Somebody suggested I do that and I thought it was a good idea, so I appreciate that. So I'll talk about that a little more. Things that we've learned and the changes that we're considering is how we address the snow bank removal, how frequently do we wait until the next storm comes in? We got kind of caught on that decision when that snow bank then became ice. So is that something that we can manage? It's a personnel, it's a staffing issue. As I mentioned, we don't own the trucks that we need to keep that snowblower busy. So if we put our little trucks out there, where there's a lot of downtime, so we usually rent trucks and Barry City has one or two I believe. So that's a difference. We lease or purchase a one-to-ten wheeler for the season and then we get into a season where we have very little snow, does that make sense? So some things we have to look at and consider before we get into the next winter. Because the rentals can be unreliable and then there's heavy demand for them when we call and they're not available. We've talked about shift changes with our union, that's not a popular thing, but it's something we have to look at. I'm not sure whether that's gonna go anywhere, but again, it's a learning experience looking back at this. Another one is the winter parking ban and I think that's one of the big focuses and certainly a change in difference with Barry City that has a full season parking ban, on-street parking ban. That has been challenging. We absolutely recognize and appreciate the beneficial aspects of it and are here to support our community and do whatever we can to support these policy decisions. But it's also important that you know that there are trade-offs as I mentioned and that there's a matter of way priorities. When we can't plow to the street to the curb at will and those snow banks get bigger, we do have to plan for snow bank removal rather than let's do it tonight. We've got a good crew, we're rested, let's move forward, we've got a storm coming in. So there are things that we need to do to respond to that, changes that we've made ever since it was implemented in 2014-15 winter. One thing we know must improve is we must achieve a better voluntary compliance. The thing that we're struggling with right now is our towing company exceeded their capacity, the ability to remove vehicles and now we're having to plow around them and we have one towing company left to work with and trying to, we met with them and trying to come up with a plan to keep them here working for us so that we don't have to buy a towing truck. So to approve that is what can we do to improve compliance? This is often the case, no good deed goes unpunished. We are, there's the complaints, challenging appeals are mostly heard by the manager's office and the police department. So those are difficult to try to work through and explain and so what needs to be done, one thing we'd like to come back with is increasing fines, not to make money, but to get the word out if there's people that are maybe gaming the system, maybe I get towed four or five times a year, it's less expensive than finding alternative off-street parking. I don't know what the situation is, but whatever the case is, we need the vehicle off the street for this plan to work. Did you give us the towing numbers in here? I didn't see them, but I may just read it to you. I believe they are in the statistics, so yeah, they're in there. I thought they had slowed down, maybe it was just at first. I mean, a lot of people do their own evaluation maybe of, well, it's gonna storm tonight and so I probably got the vehicle, but if we're doing cleanup or snowbank removal, I'm speculating only that they are assuming that we don't need the parking ban, I'm not sure how that works, but the numbers are good for a predicted storm and much less later, so maybe we should extend that parking ban time period till we get full cleanup completed. Snow banks removed, it's another option. Reducing the areas, the snow ban actually is in effect. Where do we really need it in town? Where is parking demand for off-street, the capacity doesn't exist? Because we have to provide an alternative parking location. I hope is if the garage moves forward, that would be a great place for alternative overnight parking, and meanwhile, we have to use these two lots and stone cutters and that's been a challenge because we do have to plow them eventually. And. Tom, do the parking fines or the towing fines at least cover the cost of each tow? So there's the fine for on-street parking, that's for being on the street when the event's towed. And then there's, towing fee is a separate charge, so they're not combined. So if that vehicle's actually towed, then they have to pay the towing company. People sometimes get tickets and not towed because the towing company just doesn't get to them in time. Another strategy we use is just the ticket, the fine only if we're doing snow bank removal in a certain part of town, we really have to put the whole band in effect because we have no other means of doing that. So those vehicles won't get towed but they'll just get the fine. Some other ideas that we're looking at is the expenditure part of this, possibility is the additional message board signs and maybe some remote beacons, lights that are on, Plattsburg, New York has that, light is on, the parking band is in effect. Again, the idea is to gain compliance. Is Burlington at those two? Burlington has, you're familiar with Burlington. When the lights are on, the cars are gone, yeah. And just to check in on that, because I saw that too, the request is to do something like six beacons and it says 7,000, is that for all six or is that per each or unclear? I don't recall, I actually wrote this report some time ago, so it's, is that price for each? Is that price for each? Yeah, okay. I'd have to get back to you on that, I'm not positive. So this is an actual expenditure request right now where we're looking, so kind of a follow up to this. I mean, and while you, Tom, will have retired by time, by the time we are making our next budget, and so I suppose this is obvious, but one would assume that whoever steps in will have this information and be able to budget accordingly. Yeah, so it'll work with whoever the successor is with the file and thick file on our winter parking that I've accumulated and other things, so yes, that's true. You'll be running assaults. I would really like to have this house in order by the time I leave, I don't want to leave problems or issues for the next person, so to the extent that we can come up with a plan, it's that much less stressful for the next guy. And something that works for the community is really what this is all about, what we're trying to achieve, and to do our job as well, so it's a balance. Mr. Retirement Day? I'm sorry? City Managers Weekly Report, like two weeks ago or so. Oh yeah, I'm gone, two weeks, okay. Yeah, no, I haven't read your announcement. There was an announcement, that's why you're retired. I know. Right? You could pass an ordinance preventing it. What's that? I said they could pass an ordinance preventing it. Preventing your retirement. Sorry. I have trouble enforcing that one. Good luck. Super will. It's a speed study, honey. Trying to get these things off my bucket list. So are you one of those retirees we can get back part-time? I will make myself available as much as necessary. Well, thank you for putting this together. Any other comments, questions? Glenn, yeah. I had just one other thing to mention. Peter Lux beat me to be the first person in the meeting to talk about climate change, I think. But this discussion, this report, which is great, and thank you very much for it, immediately reminded me of going to see Roger Hill talk a couple of weeks ago at the Unitarian Church. And I learned a lot of stuff there among which learned that his prediction is that we're going to get more long spells of precipitation over weeks and months, sort of like we saw this past winter, more and more often over the coming 20, 30, 80 years. And given that, it was very convincing. I think it would be interesting to watch it too, just because it's a lot of cool stuff about the temperature gradient from the equator to the pole and why that takes energy out of the circumpolar cycle, which makes it less like a fast, straight river and more like oxbows, which is where the standing fronts come in and why we get just rain forever and then drought forever because it's just standing there like an oxbow. Anyway, given all that, I wonder whether you think we might consider more dramatic changes to our policy or plans in terms of staffing or how we operate. We may get a winter like this every year for a long time. Do we currently have the capacity to handle that every year? Well, I guess I was trying to be kind, but not really get to that. Thank you for mentioning that. I think if, the word retire is the operative part of that is tired and this is significantly very, very tiring in this position and that kind of winter is really draining. The staffing level remains to be seen whether or not that's sustainable with what we have today if this were to actually continue and I wish I'd seen that, but Roger does our weekly reports or actual updates of local contracting and I think that would be a significant impact on just the burnout rate of personnel, but equipment, our budgets are, and just the impact on everybody's lives on what that means, that there's nothing worse than rain in the winter. Everything freezes, we can't get on top of it quickly enough, we can't de-ice it, and then it just freezes over again you haven't done anything on my street yet or sidewalk and that's tough to take and I hope it's not true, but we do have to be prepared for those types of possibilities and eventualities. This winter parking being event-based program made a great deal of sense. We went two, three, four weeks without any precipitation that was ploughable and yet we were requiring people to not park on the street so it's, if we're in that type of season from a winter plowing or management perspective, it's not workable. If this were to continue, this is the norm, the new norm. I would suggest or think that we would have to bring that to the city council's attention and say the city manager needs to really implement the winter parking being event for the rest of the winter. If we can't get the snow banks cleared, the sidewalks don't drain. The sidewalks don't drain, people are tripping and falling and so or you can't get from your car into the sidewalk. That's just not acceptable from our perspective. That's not the operational standard we want to take. I think that this year we had 11 rain events which I've never seen before. I've been doing this for 36 years and I've never seen that many rainstorms in the winter. Before I think, let the year before that was five which I thought was a lot. So Roger probably has a point that maybe it'll get worse. And from my perspective, I wonder if our staffing levels are going to be adequate. If this is going to be the normal winter. I was wondering when people were going to mutiny this year. It was that bad. People would just burn out and warn out when they weren't getting enough sleep. So if this is going to be the normal winter, somewhere down the line, something has to change. And the parking band is part of it but I think staffing is another part of it. And I was using water sewer people. I was using mechanics and everybody was tired. I mean, absolutely everybody just wanted it to be over and it just seemed like it never ended. Thanks Roger, for bringing that great information to us. Yeah, it needs to be brought up I think. At least he confirmed why you were tired. That's right. Yeah, I've got one more winter in me. That's it, so. Well it seems like there's no level of just appreciation that can overcome that level of tired. You know what I mean? We all were so very grateful. But yeah, I totally hear you that if this is normal, we just need more people to handle that. Right, and it's operational changes as well. So you make adjustments I think too. I think you'll see the whole industry will start addressing this as we went, both Tom and I went to two snow conferences, national snow conferences and I'm sure if you went, this year you would find that people are finding ways to adapt to this and how do we do this. And I don't have the answer, but I would assume that everybody's looking at it. Yeah, it's helpful to network. We're not in this alone. It's a gain a lot from those conferences and talking with their colleagues. So what people are doing, how they're innovating and so maybe equipment changes. On a different sidewall plow, that was kind of cool. And maybe have our own trucks for all the snow. So where we used to just rent them four times a year, now it's, we need them about every week. So it's, and then try to get it out before it turns to ice, which is another, whole other matter. So yeah, and Brian sends me stuff about this ice breaking machine that goes down there. So yeah. Never got a response, but anyway. Well, thank you so much for putting this all together and for all of your work this year and through this tough winter. And yeah, so we'll look for some of these suggestions to be implemented potentially for next winter. Sounds good. I think definitely, if you have one takeaway from this, other than appreciating what DBW does, it's the winter parking band. I mean, it's definitely, you know, as Tom mentioned, we're not a one towing company and they're barking. I mean, it's because they're getting tired, too. They're out pulling these all night. And if we can't tow, we don't have a band. And yet it was implemented to help make downtown housing more feasible and all that. So it's certainly, when we get a lot of complaints in the winter about, oh, the roads aren't clean, and you look and you see cars didn't move, they had to work around cars and they'd get those big vehicles down some of the streets because the snow started too late to call a ban. And it's tricky, yeah, so. Well, and I guess I wanna make sure that we, as a council, are still open to hearing if the suggestion from DPW were this arrangement of the parking band is no longer working, is no longer functional, that would be a really important message. For us, that's not necessarily what I'm hearing at this point, but it sounds like that is a real possibility for the future. So anyway, I just wanna make sure that we're all at least aware that that could be the message. Well, you know, the social media's out there. I think that's truly beneficial if we use it that way, talk to our neighbors. If you have a visitor in town that's here and isn't aware of what this event base is, you see a neighbor's car around the street, let them know. Work with us on this. It's not all about us just making these calls. We rely on eyes on the street to tell us if there's a problem and we would really find it helpful if people would help their neighbors and get those cars moved. Put it in my driveway, kind of a neighborly gesture, would help us a lot, help them. So it's a two-way street. If we look at it that way, it's challenging as the winter can be. We can all do this together. It's not always a two-way street if the cars don't move. Especially when it gets down to one lane. That's right. That's a great point. Well, thank you again. You're welcome. I don't think we need to take any action on this at this point. All right, thank you. Thank you. Okay, up to the ordinance amendments. So this is the second time we are reviewing chapter two. And I just want to, sorry, get to this item here a second. I'm assuming this is a public hearing. So I'm going to open the public hearing on the proposed amendments to chapter two, the code of ordinances. Any comments from the public or the council? I'm happy with them the way they are. And no comments from the public. So I'm going to close the public hearing on chapter two. Any further comments from council? I feel good, pretty good about it as well. I move chapter two. Second. Further discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, on to chapter three. So I am going to open the public hearing on the first reading, oh wait a minute. This says third reading. I think it means, this is the first reading of chapter three. So yeah, opening public hearing. Any comments on chapter three? I didn't see anything I wanted to change. Good. I have a few things. Some of them are maybe questions. In section three dash three oh five, I, which is about, well there's a sentence in there that says the city council may reduce or waive at its discretion the connection charge for non-residential connections. And I wonder whether it would be worth considering giving ourselves the ability to reduce or waive connection charge for residential connections. It feels like we have some movement toward ADUs, for example. And if we want to encourage that, we might want to have the option to reduce or waive. I'd be curious to hear if anyone has an opinion on that or we can just follow up next time. Well, why don't we get some feedback on that? Because I think, I'm not sure what, I'm assuming that the waiver for commercial was as part of some kind of, trying to get a company to come here or something. Yeah. Whereas, probably, this is an old ordinance that they probably didn't want every single new homeowner trying to get and saying, can you waive my? I would not want to have that be the result. Maybe there's some kind of, I do know we've had complaints in the past when people have added units in their house, kind of what you're talking about. And they've already got a connection and now they're adding a second apartment. The other side of that is, well, now there's more impact on the water system and so you're basically buying into an investment that people who pay for the water treatment plan and all the lines made and you're becoming a stockholder, sort of speaking. Oh, daughter, I was wondering if the non-residential connection had more parts to it and the residential was more straightforward, no? Don't know. Yeah. The other speculation I want to put out on that is, makes sense when you have a new connection, you're buying in and so on. I wouldn't want to forego the option to get that fee. I also was thinking, reading this, that I think we heard here a couple of meetings back that many of the houses, the older houses in Montpelier had an average occupancy of, or normal family was something like 16 people back when and now it's two in these big old houses. So transforming some of those old houses with ADUs or something, yes, you're going from two people to three or four or five, but I would think that at least in some cases you're still not even coming close to the original capacity of that house. So I think it'd be worth following up anyway. I'm having trouble pulling up the actual ordinances so I'm looking at my email list. What section was that again, Glenn? I just want to make sure I flag. I think I've got it. I'm sorry? What section? That was three dash 305 section I. H6. And then three dash 405 section C4, I just want to say out loud that I think this was about preventing going into the sewer system various things including whole blood, punch, manure, hair and fleshings which is a wonderful little array of things and it seems to me like we, I mean, in some ways I'd love to keep that in there just for the sake of it. It also feels like we could cut it off early in that section and say something, I think it's something like anything under, anything over half an inch is not allowed. And again, I might have to get back to the, anyway, that had to say it in public meeting. Section three dash 412 about the sewer benefit charge. That language change is a little bit confusing to me. It looks like the original language was city council determines that it's a benefit and so on and therefore determines that we will charge for it. And the new language is something like the city council may determine. My impression is that we've already, that city council did determine and I'm not sure why we would have to redetermine. So it just is confusing. I'm still savageable to find it. Sorry, three dash four one two. The new three dash four one two, right? Sewer separation benefit charge. Sewer separation benefit charge, that's right. So if it goes from city council determines that separation, well, let me back up. If it's not the city council who's determining it, I don't know who would determine it. Interesting question. Yeah, I guess it just, I'm not sure why it's phrased. Honestly, I'm not sure it's why it's phrased either of those ways. It feels to me like it should be something more like it's a benefit and we charge for it. Anyway, again, we don't need to determine it now, but I think it may need some follow-up. Yeah, I don't know why we put that in. Someone added that. I'm not sure who I'll add a question mark on that one. Okay. And then the last thing, which is just for my own enjoyment, does me for a moment. I want to fess up that I am in violation, I believe, of section three dash five 10. No person shall in any manner change any natural water course on private property without first obtaining permission from the public works director. There was a beautiful little trickle of water on our backyard and I dug a hole and put a bathtub in it and it is a joy and a pleasure in the summer and I will ask. You will ask for it. I will ask for forgiveness from Tom before he retires. And I mean, a little bit more seriously, that seems potentially overreaching maybe. It seems like a pretty heavy burden if anyone doing anything to a little trickle of water on their land has to ask public works first. I actually disagree. How do you measure that? Well, and I recall. I'm really apologize, sorry. No, it's okay. I recall conversations with Jessica Edgley Walsh on the council who lives on Blackwell Street where diverting drainage was a huge problem and that if you divert it on your own property that has potentially unknown but serious consequences for people downhill that it might go into their foundation or et cetera, it can be cumulative. I stand corrected. That makes perfect sense. Yeah, no worries. We're still getting emails from someone regarding the Scribner Street situation. I have one thing from Lauren actually. She could not be here. Sorry, unless you're not done. That's it for me, thank you. Okay, so Lauren, I have not found this in my scrolling through, but she says, I wanted to note that I was interested in looking into possibly updating the language in section three dash 405, C2. So I'll give you a second to get there. Three dash 405, C2, that's the use of public sewers. Okay, so she says in particular to provide greater clarity on defining toxic or poisonous substances, perhaps referencing state or federal hazardous waste lists or statutes to ensure that we are robustly protecting our waters from toxic contamination. Need for any comments from the public? Chapter three, thank you for being here. All right, so I'm gonna close the public hearing on chapter three. We have some things to look into on that. And I think we need to vote on the second reading for chapter three. I move we schedule second reading for chapter three for our meeting on June 26th, second. Further discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, it's 9.30 and we are at Outcomes and Work Plan. Ready, shall I turn it over to you? Yeah, sure, I mean this is taking, you've seen some of the outlines of this before, but basically taking the strategic plan work that you'd approved the content of it a meeting or two ago and simply calendaring this. And you have a draft of the calendar actually on your desks as well. And we've included it in the weekly memo. But if you don't like this or you wanna make changes to the sequencing, we just tried our best to figure out when the best times might be and how much time we were gonna need to prepare for something and what topics might go with other topics on a certain night so that we could group staff and those kinds of things. One thing that isn't explicitly mentioned on this list, I just noticed tonight, but we are planning to have a committee report to one of most of these meetings as you had the conservation committee tonight. That was our request. So this is basically trying to take your plan and put it into action. Connor. Yeah, just one note. I sort of considered the livable wage and socially responsible contracting ordinances, two separate ordinances, one being sort of the narrow scope of construction projects over $200,000. So just wanted to make sure that was everybody else's feeling. It's livable wage seems like a different animal, but I could see how they would be connected. I think the idea was to have them the same night. That was, so you're right, I can split that, so it's clearer. I had a question about under environmental stewardship, building Confluence Park, who's scheduled for July 2019. It's listed right after a complete or riverfront master plan. Just in thinking through the process with the Vermont River Conservancy, I mean, the Confluence, I mean, they're doing all kinds of visioning of what that can look like. And my assumption when we say here, build Confluence Park, that's just the first iteration and that it may be revised. Right, and in fact, if you look at the actual calendar, we haven't, when I met with Riccardo, we actually moved that to September. Based on that schedule. So it's on the calendar for September, that's when they're gonna provide us the update of the plans and we'll select it. I was feeling like that was fast, so okay, great. Yes. Glad to hear that. You know, I'm very interested in the stormwater master plan. I saw that implementation of the stormwater master plan recommendations, again, under environmental stewardship is listed as ongoing. Ongoing is fine, but I would also love to just have a report, like where are we at, how, you know, I don't know if it's possible for it to be like a no pressure kind of situation because like, I just want to know. I just want to know where we're at and that's just helpful and informative, but having some kind of a check-in as to where we are. And in part, the ongoing, the deadlines that say ongoing, again, is in part fine, but just having some kind of a status update would be helpful, like upgrading streetlights to LED, maybe update us when they're done or... We have a list and I'm trying to find it and I'm not seeing it with the material that we have here. In the weekly report, there's the calendar of events and then underneath it, it has a list of pending reports and then also a list of pending items that need to be discussed during budget time. So there's these items that have sort of specific council actions that are a calendar and then we took, so I think your stormwater plan is in that list of reports, but I'll confirm that, but I think it is and just like the streetlights is a budget decision, so it's on that list as a budget decision. Okay, great. I mean, that was the only comments I had. Let's see, do we need to, I think we need to approve if there's no other comments and is there a motion regarding the strategic outcomes work plan unless there are more. So moved. Further discussion? Okay, seeing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, it's a motion carries. Thank you for putting that together. Yeah, looking forward to all this great work. Okay, and we are done with our regular business and it's only 9.40, that's pretty good. Okay, so council reports. As much as it's great to have the flashing beacons, I find that I really don't cognize them well as a driver, as a pedestrian you push it and maybe it's with all the construction and especially the one down at Main and Berry Street, I just don't see it. And I wondered if the lighting went around the triangle that would be more. We got discussing it at the May meeting at the Montlear Transportation Committee and Jennifer and others said the same thing, Heather, that they weren't noticing them as a driver and were concerned that the pedestrians were depending on them but for the driver they weren't easily seeing. So just ask all of you to note it and where they are and how you react to them as a driver. Thank you. I think that's a very good point and I think that those flashing beacons might really be a step on the way to a pedestrian activated red light. That might be what's supposed to happen, someone's supposed to stop anyway when you're at, when you're in a crosswalk. I don't know how feasible it is to say well, every time someone wants to cross the street you can activate a red light but we may be gone. Because it was supposed to leave some responsibility on the pedestrian to look both ways and the light wouldn't counter. All right, with a couple things. Scooter e-bike updates, I had my third phone call with Gotcha, the company who's working with Burlington. It'll just be e-bikes starting soon there, they're expending their program. You know, they're still considering us and our viability factor for them but right now we have no proposals on the table for e-bikes or scooters. So I sort of been holding back on having a big public input session until we have something to have public input on. So I'll continue having conversations and I'm keeping so in the loop on this stuff. Should have another meeting with them next week. I did say we'd be interested in the e-bikes too, just given the starfish shape of Montpelier here. It was kind of embarrassing on Halloween when I was trying to ride a scooter up the hill and a bunch of trick or treaters were actually passing me, just walking, making fun of me and stuff that awful. So I keep everybody posted but we still have 116 survey results from the previous pilot run as well as the analytics that Bird gave us. So I keep everybody posted on that. A couple of other things, just piggybacking off. I think Lauren brought it up last time. We passed our single-use plastics ban but the legislature thought it was such a good idea that they passed it statewide. It's on the governor's desk right now because we passed it by an overwhelming majority there. If anybody's interested in seeing this going to effect, I could be governor's office call at 802-828-3333 over the next couple of days, I think that would be important. And lastly, I just wanted to flag like in our last budget we appropriated $2,000 for childcare at city council meetings just with July coming up. I don't know if city staff's been thinking about this at all but I do have a contact in Pittsburgh where it's a very successful program. So I don't think we'd have to reinvent the wheel. And I see it being a pretty modest program but night like tonight, there are a lot of people who might have had trouble. They'd find a childcare. So it might have been beneficial. So happy to work on that with city staff if that's helpful. That's it for me. I have nothing to say tonight except see you tomorrow morning at baguitos 830-930. Thank you. Maybe just one thing. Tonight, I recently heard from a resident asking us to look into an ordinance that would prohibit balloon releases in the city. There's been a lot of information that's come out lately about balloon releases and how they spread this toxic material all over wherever they go because every balloon that is released pops and comes back down and it affects wildlife. And so I just started looking at that, figuring out to figure out if that is something that's already within the powers and duties of the city council in the charter. But, and I'm not sure what the answer is yet. Maybe it is, but so it would be good if we could adopt it as an ordinance without having to go to the legislature. On the other hand, we could be the model for the rest of the state like the plastic bag bag, but you'll be hearing more about that. Just as a first pass, that seems very interesting to me and probably not surprising, but let's talk more about it. Oh, one other thing, because are you gonna say something? About? About winning the championship. Oh, I was not. I had it on my list. Well, okay. I didn't think you were gonna blow your own horn but congratulations to the Montpelier Boys and Girls Ultimate teams for winning the state ever, first ever state championship and congratulations to our mayor and coach for one thing, getting the state championships established and two, leading those teams to victory. It's really, I think Ultimate is really a great sport in terms of contribution to physical fitness, stamina, eye-hand coordination and good sportsmanship and the great, the most important value of the whole sport which is the spirit of the game. And for Ann to take such a lead at promulgating that through our youth is just a great thing. Yeah, well thank you so much. It's incredibly satisfying to get Ultimate to this point and I don't usually like to toot my own horn so it's a little weird to say but it really was historic for the country to have that happen and it's very exciting. I mean the national organization, USA Ultimate is regularly in touch with myself and other coaches who are influential in making this happen because they want us to be a model for the rest of the country and we all are sort of aware that this is the direction Ultimate is going and it's just very exciting to be out front so thanks, yeah, it's cool. And it's over, whew, and the season's done and I can move on with my life, okay, great, thank you. Awesome, anyway. And now it's your report. Oh right, right, I'm up, okay. So I just want to acknowledge that we had two different conferences happening in Montpelier the last week, downtown historic preservation as well as an arts conference and as far as I know they were huge successes and my goodness, brought so many people to town and I don't know if you got a chance to go to the party on Langdon Street but that was very fun, it was pretty exhilarating there. And yeah, I hope that we can continue to have such conferences, that was great. So that was one thing I wanted to highlight. I also wanted to highlight just the new painting that's on the Heaney Lot, that's just super cool to see some public art happening right in our downtown. Besides that, I just want to also note that I am really interested in a few upcoming conversations and we've talked a little bit about having a night dedicated to all things transportation in Montpelier, it'll probably be a Wednesday night, that's not regularly scheduled council meeting where we'll get a lot, there'll be no motions to be passed necessarily but just get updates and get some information there, I'm looking forward to that. Looking forward to further conversation about energy efficiency and energy labels or profiles in residential buildings. Yeah, that should be a good conversation, I want to make sure that people are aware that that is happening and we're gonna intentionally reach out to stakeholder groups to make sure that we've got a robust set of input on that and two that I'm looking to have some further dialogue with particularly residents of Berry Street on the Berry, well and Main Street I suppose as well, on the Berry Main Street scoping study as to what to do, particularly at the intersection of Berry and Main, so I'm yet to iron those out but now that the season is over and school's almost done, I have a lot more space in my brain so I'm looking forward to putting those on the calendar sometime, likely over the summer and hopefully with lots of opportunities potentially for further input so just wanted to highlight those and that is it for me. Well I'm sorry folks but actually I have a really long list of things, I don't usually say much. First of all I'm sure you all know Peggy in my office, if you haven't heard her husband passed away a couple weeks ago so we've all been keeping her and her family in our thoughts but I didn't know if you all had known that so. Also staying in my office, Crystal Chase is back after being away for more than a year helping her daughter recover from leukemia and I wanna thanks, covering for her has been sort of piecing together people at various times in various ways and I really need to thank Sheila Healy, Cindy Larson, Lee Youngman, Jennifer Laughlin who've all been one time or another to one degree or another really filling those roles and just things would not have worked without them. Let you all know that I passed my Civil War letters over to Glenn who's taking care of them for me. You're what now? My Civil War letters, they're all gonna get framed. Beautiful, wonderful. The whole little museum thing. Yes encapsulate them and frame them. I can't wait. So that's pretty cool, I'm really glad I was really worried about carrying them around all the time. I was afraid I was gonna spill coffee on them or something. They're safe in the press. And Paul Carnahan is helping with transcribing them because I've only gotten so far, they're very hard to read. I should mention that water bills are gonna be due Monday since the deadline falls on a weekend. Also let folks know, if anybody's still listening, that recording and vault time costs in the clerk's office are going to go up by 50% and 100% respectively next month as per the new statute. So be ready for that. And last thing, I am going to blow my own horn for a little moment here. That I completed the University of Minnesota, Humphreys Public Affairs Schools Certificate and Election Administration finally, although I think I still owe them for the last bill. And also I've been asked to speak at the biggest international hackers conference, DEF CON in Las Vegas, on an alternative logical construction for protecting statewide election systems. And they've given him a paper and I'm very happy about that. Awesome. Anyway, that's all. The paper, it's actually not very technical. I'll do it, I'll send it around. Educate us. All right. Couple things. One, to follow up, so actually the first thing of all is while we were talking about ultimate, we failed to mention that both of those teams were undefeated for the entire season. Right. And then following up on the very main process I actually had on my list to bring up too, I have learned, because I occasionally talked to our fellow staff members, that the downtown master plan that we now apparently need money for is getting ready to start or is starting. And one of the key pieces it needs is our decisions, or at least likely decisions, at the very least on the two, on the very main intersection and the Spring Street intersection, will they be roundabouts? Will they be those kinds of things? Because their design will be working around our choices. So Mike Miller really hopes that we can have some sort of decision, at least on that aspect of it, maybe not necessarily taking out parking spaces and the other things, by the August 14th meeting, or at the August 14th meeting. So whatever process we wanna have, and this was news to me since I last talked to you, so we need to get- When are you hoping to have that done by? Well, he actually was hoping by July and I told him that just wasn't gonna happen. And so we compromised on August 14th. So that's one of our meetings. So that's gotta happen. Another perhaps more interesting deadline. I got a call yesterday from the gentleman who's sort of the, I don't know what his actual title is. Let me see if I can, he's the communication and public affairs manager, Nick Sherrick from All Earth Renewables. And they're aware of something called federal build grants. And these are new grants that support transportation infrastructure projects, including passenger rail. And apparently this year, half of the total money goes to rural areas and for the grant from all of Vermont is considered rural. And they're for both construction and infrastructure, but they can also be used for the first time this year for planning and project development. And so there's an opportunity to apply for up to $10 million for upgrades in the line between Barrie and Montpelier, as well as additional planning funds, all without a need for matching dollars. And given that the transportation bill this year, specifically directed features to look at the Barrie and Montpelier corridor and not anywhere else. They think that would be somewhat competitive anyway. So there's a grant application deadline by July 15. He actually thought it was June 15th and he was calling me in a panic that he wasn't gonna make it in time for this meeting, but it was July 15th. So I told him, I believe this is something we would want to support, that it was consistent with our strategic plan and goals and policies. But just so you know, there will likely be an official action on your agenda to approve an application for this. And I think they're gonna reach out to the city of Barrie as well. That's just an FYI. Again, we also need to, you already mentioned the Alternate Transportation Forum. Oh, that was one of my questions. Should, no, I was gonna say, should we include the Barrie main stuff on the Alternate Transportation Forum? But I just talked myself out of it. Okay, fair enough. Okay, so I believe there is no other outstanding business. So, right, without objection, we're going to adjourn the meeting and it is five till 10. Oh yeah.