 Can you hear me? No, it is 6 PM on Monday, November 2nd. So I will call to order this regular meeting of the Manuski City Council. Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance, led by Deputy Mayor Hal Colston. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Thank you. We are at agenda review here, and I understand that staff has a last minute grant application for us to consider adding to tonight's agenda. Yes, for my earlier email to the council, we have our new library director has found a grant opportunity through the UVM extension. And because we have a delay until our next meeting, we are hoping you would consider adding it as a late agenda item between items D and E. Thanks, Jesse. This is obviously because we're adding it last minute. It wasn't part of the public warning, and folks don't know it's on here. But I would say that this is a good thing, a non-controversial thing. And so I am not concerned with that. I would entertain a motion to update the agenda to add this grant request as the new item. It's all moved. Second. Motion by Mike, second by Hal. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Never say no to free money. Never say no to free money. So next up, we have a public comment. This is an opportunity for members of the public to speak on items that are not on the agenda. If you are here for the public hearing or anything else included in the agenda, please wait for that item. I do see a hand raised. Is it OK if I speak now? Can folks hear me OK? Yes, I can hear you. Please. Thank you very much. So it actually does pertain to the parks and open space master plan because that's on the agenda. The problem is I can't make a comment because I'm not available by the time you get to that on the agenda. Is that problem right? Sure, go ahead. Writing or? No, Percy, you can speak to it right now. OK, great. I'll be brief. First, it's a fantastic document. It's really, really exciting. A hat tip to Ray and everybody who was really instrumental in getting that going. My point is really it's a tiny little bit of minutiae in the plan. There are two pages in the plan with maps that identify gaps in the city's existing sidewalk infrastructure. And on both of these maps, it's missing where the sidewalk is not complete on Maple Street, on the hill on Maple between Maple and Mallets Bay Avenue. And it would just be my hope that as an addendum or to the plan, just as we're going forward using this incredible document, that that section of Maple Street be also listed as lacking sidewalks and connectivity, especially considering some of the improvements to the West Allen Street Park that are outlined in the plan. So that's it. Other than that, fantastic work for everyone involved. And I'm hoping that change can be made. So on pages 32 and 152 of the plan. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. OK, thank you very much. Yeah, enjoy the rest of your evening. You as well. Are there any other folks with public comment tonight? As a reminder, you can raise your hand in the Zoom app or press star nine if you are called in by phone. So we will move on to our consent agenda. We have three items this evening. We have city council minutes from our meeting, October 19. And accounts payable war and hiccoc loan agreements since Amy was not here for the previous meeting. I want to address separately council minutes from October 19. Are there any questions, concerns about those minutes? Would someone like to move to approve the council minutes from October 19? Almost. Second. Motion by Mike, second by Jim. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Abstaining. Aye. Abstaining. We get the drift. So then other items are the accounts payable warrants ending October 29 and payroll warrant for October 4 to 17 and hiccoc loan agreements associated with that ongoing project. Any questions or comments about the remaining consent agenda items? All right. Would someone like to move to approve the payroll warrant, both payroll warrant and hiccoc loan agreements? Almost. Second. Motion by Mike, second by Jim. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. This brings us to council reports. Hal, can we start with you this week? Sure. I was able to attend the groundbreaking at Manuski Middle High School. It was really great despite the weather. Really exciting to see how this project has come to be and really had a really good feel about how it's going to impact our community in a positive way. So it was a great event to check out. And I just want to offer some appreciation. And I'm sure I'm still in a little bit of thunder from maybe Heather and Jesse. But I just really want to just acknowledge their leadership in going after this Working Communities Challenge grant through the Boston Federal Reserve Bank. And I remember when I first mentioned it to them, like, hey, might want to check this out. And they were all over it. And I have yet to see the application because of my involvement with the project. But I know it was phenomenal and amazing. So kudos. And I'll let them say the rest. But I just wanted to thank them and their team for making this happen. So thank you. Thanks, Hal. Jim? Yes, I only reports, two reports from midnight. One is on the Housing Commission, which met on Monday last week. And they were reviewing some policy responses to code related impacts and housing thanks to some resources compiled by our great community economic development officer, Heather Carrington. They've got a list of resources that other cities, other states are trying out and responses to some of the issues that they're facing there. So the commission is looking now at compiling one of the most pressing issues that might be facing renters and owners in the city and then looking at what policy options might be out there that we can learn from our peers and neighbors. So if there are any items that counselors or staff want to have them consider, I encourage you to let me know or contact Robert Millar, the chair of the commission, to share those concerns so that they can be tracking that in a consolidated way. They also received a report that the Housing Trust Fund is continuing to move forward. So thanks, Heather, for your work on that, to keep that moving and get that going, despite all the other things we have on our plates. The other piece I wanted to mention is I'm excited that the city has purchased seven new trees to plant along Maple Street and along Weber Street as part of our canopy maintenance project or program. So I'm excited to see that those trees going in the ground and appreciative of public works of not only purchasing them but picking them up and planting them. So the tree committee members have been really excited to see that moving forward. We were planning to do that in May and now it's happening here before the start of winter, which is really awesome. So I'm excited to share those two things. Thanks, Jim. Amy? I attended the Downtown Winooski board meeting last week and the group is continuing to recruit for new board members. So that was what the majority of the meeting was dedicated to talking about and also the agenda item that they have come here tonight to talk about. So I will save most of my comments for that. And I also just wanted to give a big shout out to Downtown Winooski, to Ray and all of the community services team for Halloween in Winooski and all of the pumpkins down at Rotary Park. I think that it's always a great event but especially this year, it brought a level of normalcy to our community that everybody was really looking forward to. So I think it just meant a lot to folks this year to be able to do something in our city for Halloween. So, big thank you. Thanks, Amy. Mike? Hey, everybody. I'd like to echo that thank you from Amy to the city and Ray and for all who participated in the Halloween tradition down at Rotary Park. I didn't attend a night event but I saw the pumpkins and it just puts a smile on your face when you see all those pumpkins lit up. It was great. I also like to wish everyone good luck tomorrow that's on the ballots. Hopefully it goes your way. Thanks, Mike. To piggyback a little bit off of Hal's updates, I attended along with staff and partners final interview for the Working Communities Challenge grants. Feel really good about that and we are looking forward to hearing the outcome of selection there a little bit later this month. I also was pleased to attend a joint press conference with Burlington Airport and South Burlington Leadership along with Vermont Gas Systems to make a public announcement that Vermont Gas Systems will be providing the 10% local match funding to kick off the FAA funded noise mitigation work. We put an update about that from the city with more details, but this should get that process kicked off next year to start actually mitigating homes in Muskie in 2022. There's still a lot more funding to seek but excited to see that getting the ball rolling. And if you're looking for more information, you can always visit the city website. We have a page on there that says how do I learn about, I think it's airport noise mitigation, maybe, anyhow, wheniskevt.gov. And with that, I will pass it over to city manager Jesse Baker for city updates. Thank you. Yes, it's how do I learn about airport sound mitigation under the how do I link on the website? I have to link that as well. Or you can visit ctvsound.com which is the page that the airport maintains. Along just to start there, also want to report to the council that Eric Warwald, who is here on this call, is working with the airport and Jones Payne on updating the data they are using to identify homes that may be eligible for sound mitigation. So as that rolls out in 2022, having that most up-to-date data will be super helpful. So thank you, Eric. Also want to pile on to the kudos and thanks to the community and to RAISE team for coming out for Halloween. And when you see, it was our 18th year of pumpkins in downtown. And we are just so thankful to the community and to the team that it was such a success. It was so great to see so many folks downtown and smiles on faces and whatnot. We had 2,300 visitors over the three nights who are all extremely patient with COVID precautions and being masked up and following the physical distancing requirements. So I wanted to thank everyone who visited, who partnered with us on having a safe event. We also want to thank the 250 people who volunteered through the pumpkin pledge and carved pumpkins and at home in a socially distanced way and brought them down to the senior center for their rotary. And then of course, a special thanks to RAISE, his team, city staff, including Molly, Kate and Barb, Josh, Nate, Kate, Anderson, Francine, Jen, Gwinnie and Phoebe, who all worked for many days on the event and over the weekend as well. Tomorrow is, Councilor Meyer said tomorrow is a big, big day in Winooski and across our nation. We have over 2,500 absentee ballots already per the Secretary of State. The city clerks have been hard at work, not only receiving all of those in and tracking them, sending out ballots, registering new folks to vote remotely and here at City Hall. And just have done an amazing amount of work. So special thanks to Angel and Carol and Janet for all of their work over the last couple of months. Of course, you can always vote in person tomorrow at the senior center from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. And if you are not registered to vote and those who would still like to vote in Winooski, you can also register a date of at the senior center. If you have absentee ballots still at home, you can still drop those off with us. Please, we encourage you to go down to the senior center tomorrow to do that. While we will still be collecting them here at City Hall and making sure that they get there before 7, the safest bet is just to bring them directly to the polling place tomorrow if you still have them at home. And then finally, we've gotten a bunch of questions about results and when we will know at least local Winooski results, the poll and the city clerks have arranged to post those on our website as soon as we know them here locally. So stick, stay tuned to our website, to our social media pages. Paul will be getting those up as soon as possible tomorrow after the polls close. And thanks for all for keeping our elections safe and respectful. A couple of other updates bear with me. As you probably have read about Vermont, last week had a Vermont drug take back event. As you know, prescription drugs that remain in our cabinets are a huge problem in our state. We collected 149 pounds of prescription drugs during that Vermont take back day. So thank you for all who participated. And there is also, if people were not able to participate on that day, we do have a location downstairs where folks can always drop off their unused prescriptions at the police department. You don't have to talk to anyone. You can just go into the lobby and it's right there. I did want to give you an update on 133 Elm Street, the CBD company. We promised that we would regularly provide updates. So I will provide those now and Eric, please jump in if I misspeak on anything. So just as a reminder, the zoning administrator issued a notice of violation on August 10th. That was appealed to the development review board for our land use regulations on September 17th. Or it was appealed and heard by the DRB on September 17th. The DRB upheld that notice of violation. On October 23rd, the appellant filed a notice of appeal of the DRB decision with the environmental court. And we have filed a notice of appearance in that case. Concurrently, the Department of Environmental Conservation has also noticed a notice of alleged violation on September 23rd and our appeal period, since our period of appeal for the DRB violation concluded on October 28th, the city is now with outside legal counsel preparing formal action in the court to move that violation forward. So very bureaucratic, but we are continuing to move that process forward. The state continues to work on their enforcement action as well to enforce their regulations that are of course separate from our regulations. Quite frankly, we are eager to keep this company in Winooski and we would love for them to reach out to us, which they have not done yet, and partner on a solution for moving forward. Just also want to update you on our work with Champlain Housing Trust. We continue to work with them. Heather, John, Rasha, and myself on a home ownership, affordable housing home ownership opportunity at the O'Brien Community Center. You will likely see some testing being done there in the next few weeks if you haven't already. And we are anticipating bringing documents to the council to consider for that project in December. So more to come on that front. With the cold weather snowflakes this morning, we also want to remind residents that of our winter parking ban that starts on December 1st. But so we are starting to notice that this month and thanks to Paul for putting together that material. So just as a reminder, when there is a snow parking ban, snow parking ban in place overnight, parking on city streets is prohibited between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. We noticed that through our website, social media channels, the flashing lights at the entrance to the city, and we have a snow line folks can call in for information. You can also register for Nixle Alerts by texting Winooski to 888-777. Paul, correct me if I'm wrong on that. And we also offer, for nights where there's parking ban in place, you can park in the garage downtown. Just as one other reminder for our downtown residents, downtown is always prohibited in the downtown core from 2.30 a.m. to 6 a.m. December 1st through March 31st. And there's a map of that on our website if you're curious. Two quick, last quick things. The Winooski Memorial Library was awarded a grant separate from the grant you will consider tonight through the Vermont Department of Libraries for a Wi-Fi hotspot at the library and out to protect outside the library. That will be installed this week and is valued at $2,500. And thanks to our new library director for jumping on that application. And then finally, Jenny Hill will be joining our team as our new Recreations Program Manager on November 9th. Jenny brings a wealth of experience in event and program management. Most recently as the event coordinator for the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. So we're really excited to have Jenny join the team and look forward to introducing you to her at a future council meeting. So thank you very much. Thank you, Jessie. This brings us to item eight on our agenda, a public hearing. So this public hearing was noticed for consideration of changes to the Winnieski City Charter. At this time at 6.21 p.m., I'd like to open the public hearing. I'll start by sharing some background information. We'll detail the three articles that are part of this charter change and then open it up for public questions and comments. So in 2018, the previous iteration of city council looked at a proposal to change our city's charter and governing document to allow residents who are not yet U.S. citizens to vote in local elections. In 2019, we established a charter commission to look at that option and other possible changes to our charter and bring forward a recommendation to city council. Through a series of public meetings, direct outreach and engagements, the commission brought forward their recommendation, including all resident voting, a so-called home rule change, and then a suite of administrative changes, which make up the three different articles. These items are on the general election ballot that you have seen, or we'll see tomorrow if you haven't yet, for registered Winnieski voters to vote on. The city also sent a mailer to every registered voter, including details on each of these items. And we will talk through those now. So I believe our charter chair, Liz, is in attendance and can give us an overview of article one, which would be the all resident voting. Welcome, Liz. Thank you, Mayor Lott. And thanks, everybody. My name is Liz Edsall. I'm the chair of the Winnieski Charter Commission that worked for over the past year on the proposed charter changes on the ballot. So I'll just talk about the all resident voting section of the charter changes. And there is a ton of helpful information on the city website also that folks can take a look at. As the mayor mentioned, the city council established our charter commission last year. So over a year ago, and our charge was to examine options to present to Winnieski voters a charter change that would enable non-citizen residents to vote in Winnieski municipal elections, protect Winnieski voter information, align the school and city's charters and consider additional governance changes identified by the council, staff and the public. So our commission was appointed in October and first met in November. Our membership included five voting members, two alternates, two school board liaisons and two city council liaisons all with different backgrounds, citizenship status, perspectives and community affiliations that have informed our work. And we had 15 formerly warned meetings where we had really substantive conversations and we centered the principles of equity and inclusion that the city strives for to the best of our ability throughout the process. The onset of COVID-19 interrupted our outreach plans substantially but thankfully the multilingual liaisons employed by the school district really helped us conduct some key outreach particularly to different new American community groups. So we gained a lot of valuable input from those voices that have been felt to be missing in earlier conversations of all resident voting. So with that, our commission felt that the question should be presented to voters to decide after a couple of years of discussion and engagement. So we submitted a report recommending that the city council place all resident voting and other charter changes on the November ballot. Those ballots arrived in September and over the last six weeks have been rolling in. Who knows what the outcome will be but hopefully folks felt like they have the information on the question and can make an informed decision and that was really one of the reasons why we pushed to get this question on the November general election ballot because we knew all of those ballots would be mailed out and people would have plenty of time to do their own research using the information that we've provided and deliberate in the comfort of their own home or tomorrow at the polls. And I want to just note a couple of noteworthy discussions and decisions that we had as a commission. First couple have to do with the language that we used and some specific amendments to the language in our charter. So one was whether to call this all resident or non-citizen voting and replace the word citizen in our charter wherever it's not necessary. The other is whether to specify a legal resident in the language. So the use of inclusive language was important for us in all of the written materials in the charter and on the ballot language. And we concluded that defining people by what they are not rather than what they are did not align with the city's commitment to equity and inclusion. So we intentionally stopped using the term non-citizen and fact sheets and presentations and in the recommended ballot language. One member felt that that wasn't quite transparent enough to just say all resident. And so to clarify that official ballot language uses the phrase all legal residents of the city parentheses, including those who are not US citizens. So I think that's pretty clear. On the second, we chose to be specific about legal resident of Winooski for two main reasons. One was to alleviate the concern that some residents had that people without documentation would vote in Winooski elections and thus be targets for deportation. And knowing that the voter file must be a public record and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment. We wanted to avoid having new voters be targets of those individuals or agencies concerned about illegal immigration. So while excluding residents who are living in Winooski without federally sanctioned documents could be considered going against the goals of inclusion the commission felt that this initiative should be centered on further engagement and inclusion of our diverse population and not a debate on immigration itself. We assumed that the vast majority of residents who would be motivated to vote in local elections are current with legal residents documentation and would not be excluded. We wouldn't be excluding any new potential voters. And then the other key component of article one if approved would provide equal protection to Winooski's municipal voter file that the state voter file has. The state checklist is protected from being used for commercial purposes and from being released to federal agencies. And that gets to a small administrative piece that a separate Winooski checklist will be maintained by the city clerk. That will include all registered voters for the city in the same kind of way that it's organized now but it won't include any citizenship status. So that is legal, all resident and voterless points. And then finally, there's some areas that we recommended the charter be updated to replace the word citizen with another relevant term where citizenship status is not a requirement for the statement to be true. And all of that is listed in the tract changes on the informational mailer that the city sent out and is available on the website. So I'm gonna pause here, Mayor Lott. Was there anything else you wanted me to cover? I would just add quickly to two points because of questions that come up one is that our charter does refer to registered voters as those who can run for office. So this also expands who can run for our local positions. And that's it. I feel like I had a second point, but I've lost it. Thanks, Liz. All right. So quickly, article two, which we were referring to as home rule change, this would permit Winooski voters to adopt charter amendments that have been approved by the Vermont legislature for other municipalities. So for example, in our current scenario, we as voters in Winooski will vote on this charter change if we pass it, it must go to the state legislature for further approval and then to the governor for signature into law. And so this home rule change could change that process so that let's say the legislature had approved this change for Montpelier already, who also sent forward a similar charter change in the past, we would be able to also put this in place just with our own vote because the state had approved it for somebody else. So another example would be local options tax. We voted as Winooski residents to put that into place in Winooski at some point in the past, which required legislative approval and many other cities have a local options tax. We could have skipped that legislative approval step because of the precedent set. So we have language vetted by the Vermont League of Cities and Towns that we have inserted in here for approval in the future, potentially we could access charter changes that other communities have already had approved without having that extra step of the state legislature reviewing, which would also save our legislators some time in reviewing the same changes for different municipalities. And I will pass it to Jesse for article three, our administrative changes. Thank you. So article three outlines five different, what the charter commission and staff viewed as administrative changes to the charter. The first is to conform the charter language with the current state law around signing petitions. Our current charter only allows you to sign as many petitions as there are vacant seats. So if there's, so for example, if the mayor's seat is vacant, you can only sign one petition for mayor. The state law changed on that. State law trumps our municipal charter. So we are updating that language. The second administrative change is to remove language referring to volunteer firefighters. We no longer have volunteer firefighters in the city. We have firefighters who are on call, paid on call, are paid for training or compensated for safety training and to respond to calls when the alarm tones. Three is to permit the city manager to give the staff person performing human resources functions, the title of human resources director, much as we have other content area directors throughout the city in a city of over a hundred employees and many different categories. We feel like this is important in order to recruit and retain the best qualified folks. The fourth is to amend the provision related to tax assessment. To currently it refers to market values, which is not a tool that's used anywhere in the state to calculate municipal assessed value. So updating that. And then finally is to modify the oath of office language to eliminate the religious reference. Thank you. Thanks, Jesse. And at the recommendation of the charter commission, we did separate these three articles so that voters can pick and choose which, if any, they would like to see move forward. That was a lot of information. Now I will stop for any questions or comments from members of the public. As a reminder, please use the raise hand feature in Zoom or chat if you wish to speak. If you are attending my phone, you can press star nine. This is our third public hearing on this topic. So it may be that we have seen our attendance already. We'll give it another moment to see if anyone has public comment. All right. Seeing no comment at this time, I would like to close the public hearing and thank you, Liz, for joining tonight. Thank you. We will then move on to our regular items. So up first, item A is up for approval for a request from Downtown Winooski. Heather, you will introduce for us. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm here to introduce a funding request from Downtown Winooski Inc., which is our designated downtown organization, which we're required to have in order to have the downtown designation that we have. And that gives us access to a wide variety of funding sources. And we have certainly taken advantage of that in the past. The request is for $30,000 from the Winooski General Fund Balance. And that's really to support ongoing operations. The organization had intended to go to a business membership model this year, which turns out to be exactly the worst possible year that you could start charging businesses for their services. So they've had a loss of some significant revenues they were unable to put on the Winooski Farmers Market, which is their biggest revenue generator this year. In addition, the city took a couple of actions in order to help support our businesses, one of them being to waive the fees on sidewalk usage. And that is another one of the revenue sources for Downtown Winooski. So while they had intended to come to us with an ask at this time, it is slightly higher than what they had originally intended in order to make up some of that revenue. Before I turn it over to the two members of the board, Seth Leonard and Paige Fiezer, as well as the executive director, Meredith B. Tyak, I just wanna weigh in to say that since Downtown Winooski has had a full-time executive director and in particular throughout the pandemic, the value that they have added to our community and the resources that they have added to our businesses have been unbelievable. It's increasing, they're increasing their reach constantly. And I think that they are a resource not only to businesses who are in a very challenging financial time and trying to seek resources that are available to them, which are constantly shifting and constantly have new rules. Downtown Winooski has been betting those, but they have also been a really big help to the city in helping us to expand our communications reach. So I personally strongly support funding this ask. And with that, I will turn it over to Meredith. I think you wanna start first. Meredith B. Tyak is the executive director of Downtown Winooski. So much Heather. I think you said it all. No, if anyone knows me in person, you know, I always have more to say, but I will say that this ask in particular, you know, it does come at a time that I realized the city also isn't in full financial health just because everyone is feeling the crunch from pandemic, but we really feel that we have a lot of momentum right now. I've been in my position for about a year. As Heather said, we just continue to expand our reach, expand our relationship building, expand the networks that we're building, and we have a lot more work to do. And we really do feel that we can, you know, with this ask, we can reach to new levels and then we can actually create more of a sustainable financial future for the organization where we're not necessarily coming to you every year, which is the main goal. We want to be able to stand as our own to be or whatever an organization has. And then basically we want to make sure that our relationship with the city and our relationship with the community is fully positive and moving forward. And we're not kind of having to step back after we've had all this momentum, which is what would happen if we had to completely help operations due to funding just sort of drying up. So I would be happy to answer questions based on the materials that we provided or if the board members that are present want to make statements, you can do that, whatever anyone wants to do. Happy to say just a few words if that's okay. Great, so thank you all for having us. I can't believe you all are still doing this on Monday nights. I didn't know this was still a thing that was happening every week. Just kidding. But in seriousness, the word downtown Manuski appears in the master plan 45 times. So we know it's an important critical part about the future of the city. We're getting ready to go through some transition on the board, which is actually really exciting to bring in new fresh perspectives. But what's really different about the board transition that we're having now is the group that's been leading the organization has done a tremendous job and has left us in a really good place with a functional agreement with the city where we just see that partnership as how the reference continuing to grow. And we're really excited about more buy-in from business owners and employees as well. So the composition of the board is shifting towards a more business membership as well. So we'll be doing some additional strategic work over the next year. And of course, a lot of what we're gonna do is just gonna aim and target to support Heather's work that is being done to achieve the city's vision via the master plan. So we're really excited about that. And just wanted to put a quick plug out for people that do see this is that we are still interviewing potential new board members. So we welcome that. And in addition to looking for business owners we're bringing in additional diversity on the board both geographic and hopeful in the composition of the people themselves. We'd like to be more representative of the way our community looks. And that's important. But we're also bringing in manufacturing and large building and commercial property owners too. So there's gonna be diversity of voices moving forward. Thank you both. Paige, did you want to attack on? I just wanted to thank you all so much for considering this ask. And we've been so grateful for the support of not only the city council but also Heather and Jesse's strong guidance as we continue moving forward on this very ambitious strategic shift for this organization. And as Seth Sowell said, I think we are in the organization is in the strongest that it has been in a very long time. And thanks to the first ask, the funding ask that you provided us in 2018 we've had the wonderful success of bringing on Meredith who has just really taken this organization into leaps and bounds. And as Seth Sowell said this new board composition that will be mostly made up of business members but also the diversity that we so dearly need. We're really excited of the direction that this organization is going to be and the service that I can provide this organization or well the city more appropriately. So thank you so much for considering this ask. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Amy, I wonder if you have anything you wanna add from your liaison role. Yes, thanks. I think a lot of what was said already is what I would bring up. I was a board member of downtown Winooski before becoming a city councilor and I have just seen this organization transform so much over the past few years. And it felt like with Meredith on board in particular everything was headed in a very good direction lots of momentum and then of course COVID hit. I also just wanna emphasize what Heather said which is that the organization is not coming today with this ask because they did anything wrong or because there was any sort of financial mismanagement it really is just a matter of how we fund them as an organization. Not only do they receive sidewalk fees which we waived this year for businesses but they also receive money from the parking fund which of course we cut back on in the city as well and the farmers market. So I think that downtown Winooski is just an invaluable partner to our businesses. I would hope that the other counselors would support me in pushing through this funding request. Thank you. So I just wanna add that I have personally seen a lot of value coming out of Meredith and the downtown body and heard that appreciation from multiple business owners particularly this summer as we've really been struggling. And I think now is certainly not a time to pull back on the supports we're offering to our small business community. I'm also frankly surprised at the number on this request given that we did sort of anticipate a funding ask coming anyway. And so it's not as significantly higher as I would have anticipated given the pandemic effects. But I do wanna ask inquire a little bit more about your plans for future financial sustainability. What I see in this projection these numbers don't balance out. And so I'd be curious to hear some more. Also curious if how much of these grants, donations, memberships, like how much of that is committed and how positive you're feeling about moving forward with this plan? Well, I'm happy to step in there. Yeah, you're right. It doesn't add up. And part of that is because we don't know yet. And we don't have financial commitments on the donation portion but we have been doing some soft ask or putting dealers out actually since March even just asking larger businesses or businesses in our community that have not been affected by the pandemic, which there aren't many but there are a few. And we're kind of building those relationships now. We did see, I don't know if this is appropriate to share right now, but we did get from BEIC right when they moved in, they identified us as a player in the city and that the kind of vibrancy that they wanted to see and they gave us a significant donation. And so we do see that some of the larger employers and anyone who sort of like I said wasn't affected by the pandemic is seeing our value and supporting the kind of city that they want to be in. A lot of their employees even just wanting to get great lunch, that's something that they really value. And it sounds maybe insignificant but it is super significant when you look at how these small businesses are supported by the employees of these larger businesses and how quite frankly it's part of their HR. It's part of their outreach to say we're in when you see, don't you wanna be here? Don't you wanna work here? And so we're playing, we're working with a lot of those larger businesses to see if they can support us moving forward. I also do hope that based on how other cities and towns have operated that we will be able to move forward in a safe way next summer with the farmers market and with other events that we might have just based on learning those lessons from other people. So whereas this year, we just couldn't make it work in terms of the staffing that would be needed in terms of making it safe and serving our community and serving the vendors. I think that moving forward, we have a better idea of how to do that. So we won't be holding as many programs, I hope. And in terms of grants, I think that's honestly something that I'm learning and something that our organization is getting more professional as that's not more professional but some still more diverse in terms of who is on the board. And we're really pulling on some people who have just incredible wealth of business knowledge. And I think we are gonna tap into that this coming year. So I really feel like as much as we don't have those answers and I don't have the grants pulled up and yeses on all of these things, I feel like because of the makeup of the board and because of a lot of the work that we've been doing the last year, I feel pretty confident that those other funding sources that we'll be able to secure those. So Heather might have more details. Amy and Seth may have more information on the numbers but I just feel that based on the work that we've done this year and based on kind of the learning that I've done in terms of figuring out what are the appropriate grants and what are the appropriate acts to make outside of the municipality, I really feel that we can have some sustainability achieved. Thanks Meredith. Mike, I see your hand is raised. Yes, I have a couple of questions. I think our downtown is a great area. I think it's a welcoming downtown and I think your organization does a lot of good work. My question is, have you been brainstorming on a contingency plan in case we do go into another COVID-19 impact where it hits us hard again and the state has to shut down and we have to do away with the parking and we start back from square one. Is there a plan B that you guys have been brainstorming about? We don't have an official plan B in place but sort of like how I mentioned with the farmers market we've learned a lot of lessons. The business owners have learned a lot of lessons. A lot of them have pivoted and didn't pivot back to normal. A lot of those business owners that has experienced mandatory shutdowns due to the stay home, stay safe order they haven't completely ramped back up to where they were. We hope that a lot of them are still seeing some good success based on their pivoting but it's just a question of, if this hits us again and a lot of us assume that it will it's just a question of taking on those lessons that we learned individually and as a group and working together. I think a lot of the business owners, if you ask them we weren't really necessarily meeting face to face a lot. We had plans to do it but the pandemic really forced our hand and we did a lot of, I mean over Zoom but we did a lot of great meetings face to face and kind of collaborating not just with the businesses that are downtown. I'm just gonna pause for a second and make a clarification that our organization does focus on the entire city. So it doesn't actually matter geographically where your business is or even if you're an entrepreneur or anything like that we actually take pride in serving everyone in the city. So I just want to make that point first but also I just think that collectively we've learned a lot of lessons and collectively we've made a ton of connections. Like there are people, businesses talking to each other that didn't even know each other before the pandemic and it's hard to say that there's any good that's come out of this but if there were to be something I do think kind of working together and not trying to all work separately inventing our own thing. When you see is a special place and this really just showed that everyone can work together and I think we'll just continue to lean on each other and I'll do whatever I can to facilitate those connections between businesses and those connections between businesses and us because like I said, we did learn a lot of lessons and hopefully we'll be able to use what we learned moving forward. Jim I see your hand was raised. Yes, but I did want to see if I don't know if Seth you were trying to speak to that point as well so I can wait until Seth has a chance. Thanks, I was just going to add very quickly there's 23 designated downtowns in the state and their advocacy around how the state put out the $1.25 billion we received was very influential and made a big difference in the way the ACC crew at the state approached funding support for businesses and on the chopping block at the very end was actually direct financial support for designated the designated organizations which they continue to work on the mechanics of getting an okay from attorneys to be able to do in the future. So Meredith was signing on for advocacy letters and attending meetings with that group to give them feedback about what they were seeing on the ground. So it also provided our community with a pretty invaluable seat at that policy making table. And I think we should all expect that this is probably not the last round of stimulus hopefully that the state receives and that programming gets designed hopefully we'll be right back to that table because of her work. Did you want to jump in Jim? Yes, thanks. So this is probably more of a logistical question. I just want to I was a little unclear on the fiscal year funding years that we're talking about. So this is a request for use of Manuski FY21 funds. Is this what is your fiscal year and which fiscal year are you asking for funding? Cause I noticed the $30,000 gap in the 21 budget but I just was curious what you're operating your fiscal year is. Steve, can I speak to you? So my understanding and Heather and Meredith correct me if I'm wrong is this is actually a request for $30,000 from the general fund fund balance which rolls over annually. So it is part of the FY20 the kind of the balance that we have existing going into FY21 but it won't sit on any one fiscal year's books. Basically if this is approved it will be treated like a grant and we will write a check to downtown Manuski and it will go into their bank account and they will maintain it. Just because we did not put on the cover sheet I do want to let you know that if this is approved tonight the general fund fund balance the money you all still have available to you would be $538,000. So there's still quite a savings account here if you choose to approve this tonight. Does that answer your question Jim? Half of it so thanks for clarifying because I wasn't sure if this is a budget request for us coming up or but knowing that it's a general fund transfer that makes sense but still for downtown Manuski is this a what's your fiscal year is this fiscal year 20 or 21? So we recently switched to a fiscal year that's aligned with the calendar year. So this would be for our operations in 2021 but we're asking for it now so that there is not, that we're not coming to an ask when the city council is in the middle of budget process. That was my understanding of the timing but I, yeah, but for our 2021 budget. Are there any questions or comments from members of the public? Other questions from council? I would like to call out one item I saw in the memo here about future discussion around using a portion of local options tax for a funding source. I think that's absolutely worthwhile discussion to have. I do wanna put it out there that that has been historically advertised to voters as something that we would put towards capital projects and we have been discussing applying all of that to, you know, Main Street and pool. So that's something we'll need to be conscious of if we're gonna talk about pivoting there. I wonder if somebody wants to move to approve this funding request? I will, so moved. I can. Motion by Mike, second by Amy, all of those in favor of approving this funding request for downtown Winooski, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you so much to each of you for coming in to update us and very good luck to you. Fingers crossed about how the summer goes. Thank you so much everyone, really appreciate it. Thank you for your support. Thank you. Christine, I'm glad you brought that up about the option tax all because I was gonna ask that same question until I read it was at a later conversation because I thought we kind of already allocated that money towards other projects already. So. I have in theory, not in theory. Okay. So yeah, we will wanna talk about that. Moving on to item B, small business Saturday resolution with Heather speaking of business, our small business community. Yeah, so in this year of the COVID-19 pandemic, I think it's more important than ever for us to encourage our community to support local businesses in safe ways. So I brought you a proclamation establishing November 28, 2020 as Small Business Saturday. Generally, this is one of the signature events held by downtown Winooski and they will do the promotion around this again this year. Although it will not look the same, probably will not be on site locations handing out swag bags, but really organizing and pushing out promotions of how you can support local businesses during the coronavirus pandemic. So I encourage you to proclaim November 28, Small Business Saturday in Winooski. Thanks, Heather. That is nice to hear. There's something in the works even if it won't look like every other year. Any questions about the Small Business Saturday resolution? I'd like to get a swag bag. Maybe next year, Mike. Any questions, comment from members of the public? All right, so I would entertain a motion to approve the Small Business Saturday resolution. So I'll move. Second. Motion by Mike. Second by Hal. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Did you say aye, Jim? I didn't hear. I did. Okay. Thank you. Then motion carries. We will move on to item C, our FY 21 quarter one Treasurer's report with our Treasurer, Alex on the Stasi Hill. Are you in the meeting yet, Alex? Alex, can you hear us? Welcome. Yeah, please. If you want to just give us a brief overview of your report. Yep. Good evening, City Council. It is an honor to present the first quarter Treasurer's report for the 2021 fiscal year. Typically this report sort of has three roles. It's one is to just sort of provide general projection analysis. Two to sort of highlight any items that may sort of distort that initial picture. So when you're looking at the members, anything significant that may not be that you can, that might just kind of distort the general, what you're going to be interpreting. And then finally just provide a general summary on the city's ability to determine whether procedures are being followed. Obviously due to the uncertainty caused by COVID, sort of that first role is going to be a little distorted and might not necessarily, can't always be followed with the grain of salt, the financial picture three months from now. I mean, we have elections. We have economic stimulus that may or may not come. There's so many factors that, or even out of cities control that could positively or negatively impact financials. But as such, you know, I've sort of tried to adjust some of the analysis. So instead of looking just at the 21, 21 budget that we've set up, I try to look against priors to kind of compare to see, or is the city being conservative with their budget. An example, you know, the general fund this year has just to the first quarter has only used 18.9% of the expense budget versus prior last year, the first quarter, they'd use 21.2%. Yeah, it's only 1.3% reduction, but we have a budget of multi-million dollars. That's a huge contribution sort of represents a lot of the sacrifices that staff and the community members and business members have kind of made in order to make this all happen. You know, overall combining all the enterprise funds and general funds, you do have over half a million dollar projected sort of deficit from the projected budget. However, there are significant singular items that could help close this, but there are also some that could help close some of that. And also as Jesse had mentioned, the general fund, for example, still has over half a million dollars in actual cash asset assets as far as a lot of the measures that have been taken. As far as being successful and we still have a lot of levers that the city can, that hasn't had pulled yet, but can do so if we need to, in order to sustain financial stability. Do you have any questions? You know, we have been with your previous reports sort of, I feel like the overarching story is we are in decent shape. There is deficit that we are working against, but we have resources to address that thus far. Has anything changed about your picture since your last report? I mean, once again, I feel like my role is to sort of not to scare anyone. Obviously, you know, Angela and the staff are sort of aware, you know, I'm sort of the cleanup crew. And so a lot of times, the time I'm coming through a lot of, you know, if there's something that's concerning that will jeopardize the financial status that will be approached, you know, we can, you know, we have banking partners. So if we need to pull funding, we will do that. Obviously just the item, two items above are still able to fund like downtown Winooski. You know, if items like that suddenly start becoming more of a risk and we're not able to provide those services. That's when sort of the crush kind of the crunch might start happening and I will become my engagement will become greater, but that's why I don't see that quite yet. And obviously it's hard to say where things will be in a month or two months or three months from now. But obviously I'm keeping a close watch and, you know, hopefully things will kind of turn around, but we will see how that goes. Thanks. I did have a specific question. It might be an Angela question. What is the deficit in the rental registry? Can you remind me? The rental registry program had included in their revenues this year, bringing on some of the properties that have special agreements. And given the environment that maybe something that is being raised in a little more slowly than we had originally anticipated. Okay, great. Thank you for the reminder. Do other folks have questions? Jim, I see your hand is raised. Thank you. And thank you both Alex and Angela for putting us together. Quick question on the parking fund. I just was got a little bit confused on the language. Around the $123 and savings. So could you just walk me through that? So you say without debt payments, this deficit would shrink as expenses are estimated to contribute $123 and savings. Are you saying that we had on, because we were at a lower operational level, we saved $123,000 in operating? Or could you explain that a little bit more? Let me run back to my analysis real quick. I think that was my, yeah, I was reading that again. That was a little bit confusing. Let me run back real quick. And I'm going to guess that, that is specifically related to potential abnaki garage debt service. There's currently no existing debt service within the parking fund. So we are currently anticipating using some of the reserves from our on street meters from prior years to begin financing the abnaki garage. That project, as you know, is also slow due to COVID. So I think that there's the potential that that money isn't transferred this year, or is transferred at a later date than normal. Yes. Yes. So just, I mean, that was the answer, but essentially if you remove these sort of fixed costs, if you add up sort of the deficit and the revenue expenses, kind of line up perfectly. So there's the expense side. They're not, salaries are not contributing to like that deficit. Thank you. Yeah, there was a planned deficit in the on street meters budget this year for that transfer. Okay. Thanks. Any other questions? Jim. I feel so silly to raise my hand on seeing without using my actual hand. So I just continue to be concerned about thrive. And I know that this is a program that's been doing a lot, but seeing the numbers there on the deficit, I think it's a good idea to move forward in the next few months. I think it's a good idea to move forward in the next few months. And I think that spending by being about 20 grand over what was forecast for this year already. I guess I'm. The fund balance doesn't look like it's a concern yet based on what's still available, but I'm just curious if. How concerned we should be. I know Ray, you had talked about initiating a process and Oh, I think it was February. We talked about it's kind of following up on those budget discussions. And I know that it's not. I think it's a good idea to move forward in the next few months. I think it's a good idea to move forward in the next few months. And then to budgeting. And we look at this deficit and what we're looking at for. Drive. As a community program here. Yeah. And Angela, definitely jump in here. If you've got specific numbers to add to the mix, you know, I think for us to Alex's earlier point, first quarter is definitely going to be a little bit of an anomaly because our summer program was significantly smaller than usual. So I think we're going to have a better sense of how things are looking. And I think comparing quarter two to quarter one. We'll be pretty telling in terms of how the year round is going to be. I think we're going to have a better sense of how things are going to be. And I think that the numbers are much smaller than we've typically seen now that we're back to four days a week. We're up to, you know, twice the service essentially that we were providing. And we've actually added a number of kiddos up over the last month or so. So I think, you know, I'm, I'm, I don't want to paint a falsely rosy picture here because I think we're going to have a better sense of how things are going to be in terms of how the year rounds out. You know, again, Kate's done a great job. Enrollments going up. We've got a lot of new kids coming in. So that's all good. So I do want to sort of, I think keep an eye on that over the next couple of months and sort of revisit that mid year. You know, start to make a plan from there. And I, you know, it's tough too. I think looking towards the summer. I'd like to say optimistically that we're going to be running a normal summer program next year. I think it's still, you know, early, early summer. I think it's still going to be a lot of work. I don't know what it's going to look like, but that is certainly our, our hope in the planning that we're going to be doing is for a more normalized summer program with higher enrollments. Um, so everything Ray said is absolutely accurate. And I do want to just add that. There are a number of subsidy families where we are receiving money over and above the amount that is billed. And the forecast for amount is not taken into consideration in this forecast, because I'm not certain how long that additional amount is going to be there versus taken up by going into four day a week enrollments. Um, so the forecast for revenues for thrive was strictly based on collections to date. And then the amount outstanding in the civic rec system, we are doing fantastic with collections. Um, so I think that is, I think that is, I think that is, I think that is amazing. And we have almost no families with a rearage right now. So we're in a really good position for the revenues as they exist. Okay. Thanks. Any further questions on this? Any public comments? All right. Well, thank you as always for the. Just the diligent financial oversights that. All of our staff have in place. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the city running so that ideally that by next summer. If things are better that we can bounce right back to where we normally want them to be. Let's hope. Um, with that, we can move on to item D. This is also for discussion. This is an update on the city school memorandum of understanding and Jesse will. Provide us with that update. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the update on this tonight because, um, as you probably remember, typically in normal year, we approve a joint city school memorandum of understanding in September at the beginning of the school year. Um, this year, as you know, weeks, the superintendent and I expanded that or extended that by 45 days in order to hopefully get through some community conversations that are still very much underway. Um, I think we're going to have a foreshadow to you where I think we're going in order to get any feedback from you as the superintendent and I, um, continue these conversations. So what you have before you is both. A joint, um, memo from myself and the superintendent as well as a draft MOU that we would bring to you in February to execute pending conversations. The community will have over the next several months. Um, I think we're going to have, um, I think we're going to have, um, in the last month talking about our shared expectations, talking about this MOU and are making these set of recommendations. These are coming to you tonight. I'm going to the school trustees at their regular meeting next week. Um, so we're making four specific recommendations. Um, one, uh, the. The current or previous MOU was is a very lengthy document from a time when the city and the school district were not so aligned in vision. Now that we have shared, um, an end statement at the school and our strategic vision at the city that are codified and master planning documents and other documents and members of both communities participated in each other's planning processes. We feel like we can take out a lot of those that other language and really have this, the focus of this MOU be our financial commitments to one another and how services and financing our, our, um, dollars move between the two organizations. So that is our recommendation to you is really to simplify this document and really focus on those, uh, shared resources. Um, our third recommendation is to change the schedule by which this is reviewed annually. As you know, it was done in September to align to the school year and to advance the budget process. Um, we are running into a challenge of that this year. And we have some concerns that by doing that, by having that review period be in September, um, we are not allowing the elected officials to have the full opportunity of just the discussion during a budget process. So what we are recommending is that that review period switches from February to February with a notice state by November 1st, if either side is thinking of significant changes during their budget cycle that could impact, um, the MOU for February to February. Um, and then fourth, we, um, we are very just as your kind of administrative executives are so thankful for the shared commitment that, um, that we have that each of our elected bodies has on our staffs have to continue partnering and really feel like that is a real strategic advantage specifically in Vermont that we have a single school district, single municipality. That is among my manager friends, very unique where they may have a regional school district with many communities going into one. So we want to maintain that commitment. So those are our set of recommendations for, I've also attached the current draft of this revised MOU. We are not asking you to, for you to approve this tonight, but to give you a sense of where we are going with that, um, codifying those shared financial agreements. And I'm happy to answer questions about that or what he threw that, if that's helpful. Thanks, Jesse. Um, good. I'm sorry. Can I get a little more clarity on the new timeline? We would be still discussing this in the fall. But it would actually is begin in February. Is that what I've read here? Yeah. So sorry for the confusion. So the idea is to, in February, February bring you MOUs that codify whatever the two elected bodies have decided through the process. So you could make changes through the budget process, either school trustees or city council that then would be codified in the MOU for the following fiscal year. Having said that, that's a little bit of a challenge because it's two separate budget processes. So if either body is thinking about making some significant change, they would notify the other body by November so that the parties can work out, um, those issues during their individual budget processes. So for example, this year, um, the school has indicated that they may want to eliminate the school resource officer position. They have notified us of that. We will call it out in, in the budget. We bring forward to you. Um, but we aren't going to codify that until whatever is decided through the school trustees as part of their budget process. And then through your body as part of your budget process until February. And then you would approve it in February for the following months. Okay. That makes sense. Thank you for re. Re-explaining that point as well. It's the time Sean and I have spent a lot of time talking through different options. And this is as good as we could come up with right now, but open to ideas. If others have ideas. Well, I think that's a great point. Um, Historically, this MOU has been a little bit. Um, What's the word I'm looking for? We sign it every year, right? And there's some pretty basic stuff in there around like the plowing and sharing facilities. Um, and I think this is a good reminder that. We do work in partner with the school district and vice versa. And there are things that we need to keep each other in the loop on. Um, you know, when the charter change discussions came up, that was something that we needed to, to bring them into the community. Um, So it's just something that we all have to be cognizant of. I actually already put a reminder in my outlook. For next fall. If there's something that we need to talk to them about. Um, do folks have other questions about the. Trajectory that this is headed in. Jesse, I do have one additional question. Uh, Shucks, what line is this in? Oh, in, in item four in the draft agreement about the school resource officer. Um, The district agrees to reimburse the city for expenses, et cetera, up to $55,000. Um, since that. Position is sort of controlled by a collective bargaining agreement. Um, I don't know if that's a good idea. I don't know if that's a good idea. I don't know if that's a good idea. I don't know if that's a good idea. I don't know if that's a good idea. I don't know if that's a good idea. Um, I don't know if that's a good idea. I don't know if that's a good idea. So position is sort of controlled by a collective bargaining agreement. I'm curious about the logic there. Like. What if salary and benefits cost more than 55,000, is that coming out of our pocket. You know, how was that decision made? Yep, that's a great question. So, um, years MOU that regardless of whether the position stays or doesn't or I guess if the position stays but looks different that language will look different. The position is controlled by the bargaining unit. I do want to just point out that the the current employee in that position is actually not in the bargaining bargaining unit and we have a side agreement with the union about that individual but the pay rate and benefits as you mentioned is controlled by that agreement. Okay good to know this is previous language can will be updated as needed. What one other along along those lines what is currently not reflected pending grant notification is any comment on our partnership with the school around the working communities challenge grant if that funding is awarded then we would reflect that in this document as well because there will be new dollars moving back and forth between our parties around the community. That is great news as well just to sort of codify what we have been discussing in that grant should it come to fruition. Any questions from members of the public? I'm not hearing any concern about where this is headed. I think based on lack of lack of comments you and Jim. I feel obligated to ask about the housing commission because I noticed it was removed and I'm just curious you can speak Jesse to kind of the it doesn't seem like it's been needed. I don't know having been relatively new on the council if you feel like things are just set and that stuff is rolling to have participation outside those financial arrangements but just I'm curious about that particular one because I was looking back at the old MOU and that's really one piece that's been translated over into the financial landscape. So that's a great question Jim and certainly if it was something that was concerned to the body could be added back you know again this our focus really here is on those financial transactions with the belief that there are so many ways we are currently partnering on community conversations including the housing commission. Having the superintendent on the housing commission obviously has been a huge advantage that could look different in the future where it was you know another part of his administrative team or a student representative or a parent representative and we think just based on again the end statements the school's commitment to outside of the school walls learning and our shared master plan that that covers us but if it's a concern of the council we can certainly discuss that going forward. Thanks I don't have any concern at the moment just wanted to curious what your thoughts were thanks. Is there any other specific feedback that would be helpful for you Jesse? No I just hadn't talked with you all about it in a while and so I wanted to make sure that I was going in the right direction with Sean. Sounds like it and do appreciate the update. We will then move to item E the what should I call this? UVM extension library grant. UVM extension library grant thank you. And I will turn it over to Ray. Perfect so yeah so unfortunately Nate is still getting his internet hooked up here in Winooski but he is officially a resident out of the city which is exciting so we'll take that. So I'm gonna do my best to cover for him here tonight. As Jesse mentioned in her email to you he's been doing a great job keeping an ear to the street and looking for resources you know sort of right out of the gate. So this grant came across the radar I believe late Thursday. Nate moved really quickly to apply the due date was today so we're hoping to to move ahead with that application and looking at some new public computers that would really enhance our ability to provide internet access and computer access for residents who are needing that and I think you know within Nate's application there's some pretty good data here showing that that's a gap for us and certainly kind of per capita comparing our computer numbers to a lot of our partner libraries around the state we are a little bit on the low side definitely bottom third so I think this would be a really nice boost for our services and it's definitely something we're seeing as a growing need as the library has gone on and certainly I don't anticipate that being different when we reopen so definitely excited to be here presenting tonight and hopeful that you know will be successful and have this resource available for residents when we reopen. Thanks Ray yeah and I can confirm this is a need I know I've has come up in past discussions with this this body and previously are there any concerns or questions from council about applying for this grant any questions from the public with that I would entertain a motion to approve an application for the UVM extension grant so move second motion by Mike second by Jim all those in favor please say aye aye aye motion carries thank you and please thank our new employee for hitting the ground running I agree I think that's great I mean hitting the ball hitting the road running like that is awesome I mean it's just good news to hear that yeah like this for our public library super super awesome so far so lots of things come in and we're working right now on a reopening plan so we're hoping to have that rolled out sometime pretty soon so very exciting um before we move to our next item we have a couple left on the agenda so I am going to call a three-minute recess for those who need it we will reconvene at 728 Jim Mike Angel Angel are you good yes I am great all right so let's reconvene then um and we are on the new item F this is up for approval this is our parks and open space master plan um that we are seeing for the second time um Ray do you want to share any details about this update yeah sure um so thanks for having us back to go over this um so as you recall we came to you on October 5th um to present the initial draft and got a lot of feedback at that meeting which we really took to heart and I think tried our best here to incorporate in this updated draft um I think collectively we're feeling really good about the direction that that feedback led the the plan and you know a couple things I want to highlight here I think there was a lot of a lot of comments and and sort of guidance from you all about just the the phasing and needing to be more explicit about how that looked um so we really did take that into consideration here and and look at trying to identify an early set of recommendations that jive with a time frame that aligns with our current um master plan horizon so roughly that five to eight year window um and really sort of emphasize that um that's on page 16 that's the plan recommendations um there's a set of eight recommendations there and I think the other thing that we really tried to do and I think again it was um helpful to have some new eyes on this we really tried to be more explicit about tying both current and then future considerations um current recommendations and future considerations back to a set of four main themes that came out from the community feedback um those being connected and defined trail network uh multi seasonal programming recreation and sports more public amenities and more places to play so um you know again tried to be really um throughout the plan more explicit about that um that connection point back to what the community told us and how that information led to the recommendations that are here um and then the other thing that we did add which I think um hopefully fun helpful as an executive summary just to sort of highlight the the process and and sort of what we walked through again I think being being really closely um seated with this for a year I think there were some things that that outside perspective was helpful to sort of call out that were perhaps not as clear in that first draft so again I'm hoping that executive summary was helpful in um in doing that so yeah I think those are the things I wanted to highlight here you know again one other piece too is just that with these recommendations I think really looking at and I think Christine this was a point you made trying to really emphasize our efforts around uh some of the parks that have not been as favor favorably received or sort of reviewed by by community members I think really trying to emphasize how do we get those parks that maybe are not as viewed as public amenities and the way we want them to be kind of lift those up as a priority and then shift our focus from there to our other spaces um kind of later in the game so I think those are some things I'd highlight um I do want to just give Eric and I'm not asking you to speak but I do want to give you some some kudos Eric's been really instrumental in helping over especially over the last few weeks getting this plan kind of where it is um and really making sure that there's a strong tie back to the master plan so I just I appreciate his planning mind and the ways that that's been involved but just want to give him that accolade here so so yeah I think with that I would kind of welcome any thoughts and feedback and happy to answer any questions thanks Ray um and thanks for bringing this back to us you know when we when we saw this last time I did I definitely had a lot of feedback on the phasing and connection to you know our actual resident feedback um and I do feel like you that feedback was heard and this new version definitely to me does feel more connected to to what we heard from residents and to the master plan um I also think it is structured in a way that is more in line with an implementation plan you know I feel like our master plan is kind of our aspirational document and these other plans that sit beneath that you know this transportation master plan housing needs assessments really are those implementation plans that we need to be able to execute on and it's important for public process that when we're asking people to participate in these things that the product we come out with is something that we can that they can see put into action and they don't think of it as you know was that worth my time um you know how was my feedback taken in so I'm I'm pretty pleased with this iteration here um and I don't really have any questions I would open it up to the rest of our counselors for any questions or feedback they want to share Mike this is up for approval tonight are we gonna be are we going to be able to prove this document and then add in uh mr gillens about his findings on maple street gap and is there any other sidewalk gaps that we're missing on this on these maps that we should implement on here we can certainly give that a look and I don't know um I jessie and christine I look to you from in terms of approval language whether that needs to be included as an addendum to the the motion but we can definitely incorporate sass feedback there and we'll give that map another look over but I'm I feel pretty good about where it is I think that's a pretty small stretch that we just we missed in our review so I'm really glad he brought that up because I think it's a good point so I actually don't think this document matters as strongly around that I think the filling in of missing sidewalks is dictated by our transportation master plan um and so I'm less concerned about what's in here but making it as accurate as possible is good yeah well I was it you know it's a approval item so I want to make sure are we you know there isn't any controversy later on yeah you can certainly approve it with the addition of that change in the document any other um comment on this Amy Amy I see your head up thank you um I think that this new iteration the flow of it really makes a lot more sense and I just want to say thank you for taking our recommendations and incorporating that um I especially like how it outlines what the recommendations are for the first five years and then goes into more long-term goals and kind of spells out what the bigger costs are going to be and it also seems like um from the surveys originally there was a really long list of like every possible recommendation that could ever happen and it seems like your team really kind of scaled back all of those and tried to prioritize it in a way that made sense for each park so I just I appreciate all of the changes uh any members of the public wish to make comments all right so now I'll put it back here Jim um I also want to appreciate the revision I like the way the themes are now laid out visually within each of the recommendations that made it so easy for me to tie not only the initial recommendations that we should work together so thank you for that I do think it's I just a squinting at the sidewalk map um to revisit that I do think it would be good to include that as part of the motion just because it looks like also north street is not highlighted as an area with no sidewalks on that lease and set on page 32 um I that's like on a very cursory glance but um just having that verified would be great but other I mean again I think like you said may or the transportation plan also very much deals with this uh issue but in terms of connectivity between our parks highlighting those connections here would help it's a great work thank you all right so hearing no other comment I would entertain a motion to approve the parks and open space master plan with an update to the sidewalk maps to ensure accuracy so I'll move second motion by Mike second by Hal all those in favor please say aye hi hi motion carries thank you thank you very much thanks Ray for the work super excited here we go um this brings us to item g also on for approval the cedar street closing and john's listed here is john on our meeting yep there he is welcome john how are you yeah so this is um you may remember this is the property that was damaged um by water main um back in last january um the the city took that property over and we put out an rfp for selling the property as is we did receive three bids back for the property um and we're asking tonight to accept the highest bid award for 110 000 dollars if I can just add a few sentences there um that fall more into the legal than the public works um bucket so land uh selling land selling real estate is one of the your primary authorities under our charter so there are some very specific um things we need you to authorize tonight if you uh want to award to the highest bidder those are outlined in the resolution um and specifically entail authorizing us to sell 10 cedar street as outlined in the purchase and sale contract um authorizing me to execute all documents related to um that sale and allocating the proceeds from that sale to the general fund so I'm certain coming from staff this is your recommended step you think this is the best thing that we can do with this piece of property um is there any I don't know any detail you would add on what we are trying to achieve here like 110 000 sounds like a low amount what is it that we're you know what is the condition of this property that's making us sell it for so low sure so just as a reminder we bought it for 88 000 um so we're actually selling it at quite a bit more than we purchased it for three weeks ago four weeks ago um this is a property that's a currently a was a single family home um in a neighborhood of primarily single family homes significantly damaged um and needs a lot of um repair this is not a space that would be appropriate for any kind of public use it really is most appropriate for home ownership or rental so by turning it over so quickly we put it back on the market and let allow a new owner to either fix up the property or tear it down and rebuild a home at this location that's bringing it not only back on the property tax rolls but also providing a home to somebody looking for a home in the new ski thank you Mike I see your hand raised yes so with the new purchase is this going to have to it starts to be zoned as a single family home though correct there is there's not they can't put a duplex there or multi multi family home correct oh that's a great question Eric I don't know if you're still on what the residential zoning requirements are for that property yeah so currently that property is in our our residential a zoning district which only allows for single unit development it does not allow for two unit or multi family dwellings so it could be a single unit or um it could have an accessory dwelling as well but that would be the most it could be developed as okay and then Jesse if this property doesn't get demoed and they fix it up is the city going to have any permits or or eyes on this to make sure that there isn't another issue that we can be held accountable for such as mold issues or faulty foundation issue um because I know if we sell it where's where's our liability yeah it's great question so we are very clearly under the purchase and sale contract selling it as is um so we are not making any claims about the suitability of the foundation or current um environmental standards of the property so it's an as it is sale um and they understand there you know there was no inspection required things like that um assuming it's demolished and rebuilt or even um just fixed up and rehabbed um either way they would have to go through the building permit process here in the city during which we would have that the same eyes on it that we have on any construction project in the city thank you any concerns from council uh i would entertain a motion to approve the purchase of sale contract and resolution regarding 10 seater street closing so move second motion by mike second by amy all those in favor please say aye hi hi hi right motion carries thank you thank you i could turn around there finally after a lot of time um we are on to item h this is our 2020 plan report out number three with jesse so this is our um monthly report out of our um goals for 2020 um it's very similar to what you've seen before so a few weeks ago the significant difference is that any text i changed in this document or a member of the leadership team changed is in red so you can kind of scan through and see what is changed um there so i guess i will leave it there and answer any questions you might have thank you i actually have two items that i wanted to inquire about so the first is under housing um um you know i saw this update to reviewing our housing standards um updating ordinance for equity in the system that now you're looking to bring us an update on that this winter um i'm just thinking about that and jim's update earlier on the housing commission and something that i think i have heard persistently from residents is just a concern about housing quality and i i personally don't feel familiar enough with our you know inspection complaint processes like how we maintain quality in our community and would love to see more information on that as this update comes through or as part of the budget presentations for um fire and and rental registry or code enforcement rather yes agreed and that is what we hope to bring you in um and hopefully by the end of the calendar year it will require a update to the rental registry ordinance so it will come before you a number of times thank you um the second question i had was and i am now lost at a loss for where i saw this there's a mention regarding main street of finding shallow ledge and that appears to be an issue and so i was wondering if you could share some more details on that i can share some details on that so you may have seen last last week we did um we had a drill rig out on main streets um up here high again um Stephen street in that area so um some preliminary boardings we that were done previously um they did show that there was some some rock ledge surface that um you know potentially was shallow um so we did this these additional boardings to confirm what that depth was for the sanitary sewer um routing so we did find that you know it was shallow um which in in this stage of design is not a major factor because um we can redesign uh reroute the pipe or use the existing sanitary routing that's that's already um already in place and where they have probably done some ledge removal so um at this point not a major deal and it doesn't look like it's going to be a major cost impact um it's something we can redesign around but much better to find out now than while we're in construction great thanks for adding some context there i know i would just add um john is being very humble in his presentation of this this was not um uh investigation that was initially planned but because of what john had seen on the plans requested that it move up in the schedule to allow for that redesign um time and option so definitely something that because of his expertise we caught earlier in the process than otherwise we could have so great to have great staff on the team kudos um are there other items in here that counselors have questions about or would like to hear more jim uh thanks mayor i just wanted to ask after the um regional dispatch of fund balance request that might be coming up is there a sense of scale on that fund balance uh request that you anticipate or is that still being decided on the november 9 meeting um it is still very much being decided the concept now to lay it out for folks is um regional dispatch has three different or our involvement in regional dispatch has three different components there is the building fit up um where the new regional dispatch center will go the actual walls and desks there's the technology fit up so radios consoles and then there's the fit up we need to do here in building um because we will no longer have that staff in our building 24 seven so i am if you are looking for a dollar amount i think that will likely help you're not looking for a that will likely hover i think around a hundred thousand dollars to do three amounts of fit up i don't know more after the november 9 meeting anything else on our priorities strategies updates any public comments great well this brings us to the end of our agenda this evening um i would entertain a motion to adjourn uh motion by jim second by mike all those in favor please say aye hi hi hi motion carries thank you everyone have a good night everybody good night