 Hey everyone As folks are starting to come in here, I think we're gonna we're gonna go ahead and get started Folks who are coming in feel free to come towards the front of the room. I won't bite Welcome everyone My name is Gary Holloway. I've been asked to facilitate this discussion on supporting downtowns In my profession, I'm the downtown program manager for the state of Vermont So I work with downtowns across to Vermont helping them in normal days But also in in crises, too, right? We get called to all kinds of duties. So In my day job, that's what I'm doing is to help support downtowns and obviously a lot of attention has been put towards my pillar I'm also a resident of my pillar. I live in the town Hill neighborhood My my home and my family. Okay. We were we were spared by the by the flooding But we know that a lot of folks in this room in our community were significantly impacted by the flooding and we're here today Kind of building off the conversation that many of us were at a couple weeks ago to talk about What we're scared about, you know, what we're you know actionable items that we can move forward So a lot was expressed a couple weeks ago. I'm just to kind of lay everything on the table today We're trying to take it a step further and we're trying to move towards Some things that we may be able to do together as a community So we're going to really try to think about positive forward thinking ideas that have action behind them And we're not going to although we can still be frustrated And that's okay to express that we're not going to spend too much time on What could have happened but what we can now do moving forward? So all the ideas that that are going to be expressed here today are going to be recorded We have a scribe over here that's taking all the ideas so we don't want you to think that we're doing our best to capture everything and all of the sessions and What we're trying to get to after our You know our 50 minutes however much time we have here together is to really identify those two or three things We have a list of ideas and they're all important But we really want to get to two or three things both short term that we can feel like we can have some Achievement towards as well as some long-term things that we can work together now. Who's going to do these things? All of us or maybe some of us But what we're not going to do is hand the list over to the city and say here's the laundry list of things that the city is going To do for us or that the state should do or that the federal government should do for us We're all partners in this and we all are going to have to stand behind the things that we come up with in the room And that's what we're going to try to get to On the 6th on the 7th of September. We're going to take these kind of top ideas From all the different rooms and there may be some ideas that don't make it to the top But as we kind of look through all the ideas from all nine sessions We might see a theme that emerges in every single room that we say, you know what this needs to be a priority And we pull it into that and then on September 7th We're going to talk more about that and figure out what the action plan is and who's going to line up behind it And who's you know, how are we going to get this done? Let me see if there's any other And the other thing I'm just going to kind of set this tone for and then we're going to start to hear from all of you is You know, we think about supporting downtown's there's lots of ways we can support the downtown, right? We know that the businesses have been impacted. We know that the residences have been impacted property owners our public spaces The events that we like coming to in downtown or haven't been happening or they've been happening somewhere else They've been happening up at the college green which is which fortunate that we have that We need to think about Reimagining as Sarah said at the end that things are going to look different and we have to adapt to that change I really appreciate how she framed that as we reopen downtown It's not like we're going to flick a switch and it's all going to be back open again We're going to see businesses that are going to open up in a couple weeks or a month We're going to see a few more businesses open up a month later. Some businesses will never return So there's going to be a lot of different changes and things and we're going to have to kind of think about that as As we reopen the downtown as we promote the downtown to others to come and visit again so I Want to spend about ten minutes just thinking about What are all the things that we're doing already? Collectively as a community to support the downtown and that can be anything. I'm not going to give anyone really more than a minute I'm going to hold the mic And so this is an opportunity for you to kind of share quickly some ideas One or two and then I'm going to move on to the next person so that everyone in the room feels like they have a chance to speak And we're going to spend about ten minutes just talking about what's already existing and supporting so we can kind of get that documented and then we'll move into the ideas that we can Discuss together and then prioritize in the last 20 minutes But before I jump into that I want to recognize that we have some Resource members in the room here who are Either those who were directly involved Like Montpelier alive. We have some representatives here and I'll have them introduce themselves who were involved directly with the response and recovery During this flood or we may have others in the room who were who were around during tropical storm Irene And we're helping other communities during this time and then we have We have some other experts in the room that have kind of a broad Range of experience dealing with fires or dealing with floods or dealing with other types of disasters in downtown so it can be Just there to they're here to listen. They're here to provide a little perspective for the community to listen to Someone we really appreciate they're taking their time to be here and then we have our scribe over here So I'm going to start with with Alice if you wouldn't mind just introducing yourself Hi, I'm Alice and I work with Gary at the state of Vermont and I'm your scribe I'm Peter walk. I'm a resident of my pillar Helped my with my pillar alive flood relief efforts and I run efficiency Vermont. So I'm here in that too Help is an understatement there. Thanks, Peter. I'm Bob Stevens I'm an engineer with Stevens and associates down in Brattle roll and a developer So I own a bunch of buildings. I've done a lot of design work a lot of flood restoration design after Irene I'm Katie trouts and I'm the director of Montpelier alive and Many of you know, I've been working on this since day one Hi, everyone. I'm Leanne Ting gay. I was Gary before Gary And and was around for I know it's so weird I was around for the recovery during Irene right now. I'm also with I'm a senior program associate with The Orton family foundations community heart and soul I forget anyone who was not listed on the resource team, please Hi, I'm Rebecca Ellis, I'm the state director for Senator Peter Welch. Sorry about that I was also the chair of the Waterbury select board in one of the two state reps during tropical storm Irene and I led Waterbury's Long-term community planning process, which was about a nine month effort somewhat similar to this and took about Five ten years to complete I'm MK Monley, I was president of revitalizing Waterbury during tropical storm Irene and Rebecca was a rock star I'm leish legel I helped Rebecca and MK during tropical storm Irene and I am the vice chair of our long-term recovery committee this time around in Waterbury Did I miss any resource team members that are here? I know you all are resources, but did I miss anyone who was called out as a resource member? Okay, it's great to have you all here Alice you're gonna help me keep track of time if we get too long right all right I'm gonna go around the room now we're gonna spend like I said ten minutes talking about what we already What are the things that we're already doing to support downtown and be brief reconciled? But if you're gonna introduce yourself if you're affiliated with a business if you're affiliated with an organization You can share that or if you're just a resident Maybe just I'm sure it's what neighborhood you live in and we'll just do it like that So I'm gonna open it up to the floor, and I'm gonna do my best to run around crazy with the mic Anyone like to start? Hi there, I just wanted to take a minute to introduce myself I'm Kelly Murphy the assistant city manager just here to listen and I also wanted to notice Jack McCullough in the back They're the mayor just Yeah, thank you. I'm in Cummings. I'm one of your state senators I'm a represent I live in Montpelier, and I was the mayor during the 92 flood and the recovery efforts Really a lot of experience here in the room So let's get some ideas out there like what are we doing to support downtown right right now? To support the recovery efforts. Let's try and get those ideas out there So we're not missing anything as we start to come up with our own ideas. I just want to say thank you to Montpelier alive for developing the hub and Organizing all the volunteers in the hours after the flood that was a huge help for Bethany Church where I'm the minister and That's been terrific. So the organization my name is Joe Castellano I live over on Sabin Street and Just in order to try and support any sort of business which primarily Shaw's at this point downtown I shop there as often as I can and then my wife and I supported the Rome sale that they had and we also Support the businesses up on the green during the farmers market. So we really appreciate that Yeah, there's a merchants market happening at the college green go there Saturday morning when you go to the farmers market It's gonna be up there for a little while I'm Michael Sherman. I'm a resident up in the near the college I just wanted my wife and I used to make fun of the setback that we listened to garrison keelers And again one of his his sponsors were Ralph's pretty good grocery You may remember that the scope the the logo was if you can't find it a Ralph's you can probably do without it And what and when that's basically saying Try to shop in in the downtown to everything, you know I try to find it first here and then if you can't find it think about whether you need it But then you know, I know we have lots of temptations around us But that's important by what if you're gonna what you're gonna buy try to buy it here Hi, my name is Anne Ferguson. I live on North Franklin Street, and I want to echo what Michael just said Especially relative to front porch forum and how it is such a great vehicle to let us know What is opened and so that we can go and support it? Eric Gilbertson, I used to work for the state and I work for the preservation trust of Vermont and we tried to help in Planning downtown. I know we've got assessments going on in three of the churches I'm Glenn Hutchison. I work at the drawing board and I'm one of the owners at the front And I guess I would say as far as what's happening now. I think that it's Worth noting that the businesses are helping each other in interesting ways the drawing board for example is this is to be Figured out, but we're planning to hire Annabelle who is on staff at capital copy and open something like a Capital copy function under the drawing board name. We need more space to do that and we're trying to work with Folks who own Abishans Work out where that space might be among other possibilities and then for example at the front Maybe less of a business in a way, but we are still officially a business and we're working with other arts organizations around to At least coordinate our show openings because we're still having shows. So just trying to kind of co Advertise so come out on September 1st for an art opening But yeah, I think that that kind of collaboration between businesses and the kind of openness is already happening And it is helpful. It feels like it isn't perhaps The cutthroat model And I think that that's helpful In this situation to kind of be a little more open Yes, most of you may know this and I don't know all the details, but I will mention that I understand there are conversations going on between five churches that have been providing community lunch in their own churches and Working on seeing if there's a space that they can collaborate on and share together Perhaps with the food pantry, but I don't know about that yet And is that that idea came up when Jonah had been mentioned that was someone had mentioned at the last meeting Right, I got shared a shared kitchen amongst the amongst the churches for shared food food pantry and yeah, yeah Great. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah Yeah, please help me points it Hi, I'm Sharon white Estes and I'm the owner of Althea's attic boutique downtown and in the vein of collaboration What a group of us neighbors have been doing is Doing pop-ups together in bigger spaces Which might be charging a fee to rent so just to give you an it for instance last Thursday We went to Bar Hill and there were four of us and we split the you know 1250 and we had It was marketed by Bar Hill we also independently marketed and We're continuing to look for events and event opportunities like that because we're ready to just get out there and do what we do best and Support our neighbors in doing the same and giving everybody some variety in their shopping opportunities Sorry to make you walk across the room gay I just wanted to highlight there are some resources that the state emergency board identified that can help residents with heating Hot water and other appliance needs as well as we've identified some resources The revisions you're not to support businesses with some of their appliance and equipment's needs. It's not going to be sufficient For anybody, but it is something to help and those details of that program will be announced on the Tuesday after Labor Day as we've had to do a lot of work to get those ready to go to be able to access by folks But they'll be retroactive back to The day of the flood so if you bought equipment you can access this So we're going to we're going to transition now is there anything else that we need to get on the table like that We forgot to mention Things is already happening the support downtown All right The Montpelier strong fund what at 1.8 million or 1.6 million pretty amazing Thank you all for in the room here that will help help raise that money To a few of the other things that Montpelier alive is helping with because these are the things that are happening now the Montpelier strong fund Advocacy for the businesses and giving them space and opportunity to speak about their experiences And developing partnerships as we go along which I think will play a really important role as we enter this rebuild phase And also assembling Resources for the downtown and for the businesses. These are all things I'm working on every day and our big part of that initial The initial picture Last one okay, and last one Peter jog my memory the emergency board also approved 20 million dollars for Business grants So that's out there, too Yeah, that's that's through the agency of commerce be gap is the acronym Up to $20,000 grants available. So hopefully folks can get access to that. All right We're gonna we're gonna transition now Into your time here Now now we're gonna look at some actionable ideas Forward-thinking positive actionable ideas that would be that our community can get behind once again This isn't a list we're handing someone else is this things that we may need to participate in or work together with existing Organizations or the city with or present to the city to consider right so these can be big ideas But let's think of both short-term and long-term ideas So we can we can get a wide array of things. So we're gonna spend spend some time now talking about that Quick service FEMA term. I think looking at ways to harden existing buildings Washable Surfaces using metal Two by four instead of wood because you could just wash them off In Minnesota some people actually fill the basements with clean water To match the flooding And that avoids the mud and avoids pressures on the foundation so that's Yeah, hi I'd like to address us to some of the people who were related or were water buried during the Irene Because obviously they have some firsthand experience on what they did to recover And I think that would be helpful as far as insight to make our downtown more resilient What a very team can think about that as we're going around if you want to chime in now or in a minute Other folks Hi, my name. My name is Mark. I do not live here, but I'm a professional consultant looking at this Observing it. I'm a designer and architect and urban designer at any rate I do like what was mentioned about some of the merchants gathering and doing pop-ups I would highly encourage as much of the community as can is to enliven the street maybe on a programmed Basis for as long as the weather holds out and as long as you can be resilient to that to get people on the street doing business in commerce for convenience and for entertainment Until things start to stabilize so I don't know who would be the leader of that in this community if it's the Chamber of Commerce or if it's The live group or whatnot, but I think feet on the street will help nurture You know resilience it'll help nurture kind of a sense of ownership again a regaining a sense of downtown and and again I would encourage something like that to happen as en masse and Programmatically as you can I think you really would enjoy it as a community. I'll I'll come and buy some stuff, too Well, I was working at the Vermont Historical Society when we had the big ice flow And one of the things that we had all of our collections in the basement of the pavilion We were lucky that we there this the legislature was in session and they did made a Fire gang and we recovered everything out of the but it it the important thing that I want to get at is that many of the losses many of the businesses are in their inventory which is stored in the basement and One of the things I've been thinking about is there a way for the city to get involved in the construction of or the renovation of buildings so that there can be a common above floodgrain floodplain storage area that all the merchants can use so that they don't have to store things in their basements and Suffer that loss every time there's a flood One of the things that I was talking to Glenn about a little bit earlier. It's sort of a hodgepodge as far as Landlords being able to help out, you know, whether they forgive rent or whether they're able to Contribute in some way to some of the losses of some of the business owners And I'm wondering if maybe we can have some sort of community Organization to reach out to all the landlords downtown and figure out how we might have a more cohesive system rather than you know a piecemeal And the other thing is I would encourage us to explore grants because a lot of the business owners I've talked to has said that they are not interested in having another small business loan I mean their margins are as slim enough as it as it is and to encourage them to come back. They need to have grants there's always the small thing called money and This doesn't recognize that but there are many towns who have built different kinds of streetscapes that are intentionally above the level and I was struck by the person who was talking about Artists in sand and how they they sort of watched the water all around them and that building was built after the Standards were were put in place I don't know what it would take to what kinds of massive infusion of money to Rebuild the cityscape, but if we want Montpelier in proximity to rivers It seems to me that has to be part of the long-term plane Gary I wanted to just share a thought about understanding the long-term implications of Whether buildings get hardened that meet the flood plane and what the long-term implications are if you don't do that with respect to Future operational costs for insurance for changes in the floodplain ordinance There's a lot of things that may sort of whittle away at people's assets They're their properties if you're not able to bring it up to speed. So there there's a broader understanding of the implications of this I Think one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot in sort of the immediate aftermath There was a clear set of inequities that existed Amongst the those who work a recovering some more way ahead some had massive go fund me campaigns Some were peace milling as they go and needed a lot of help I'd love to maybe K This is something we could think about it is understanding what the universe of need is still out there in terms of helping Those who are further behind try to catch up so that we can have that full Vibrant downtown and not just those who have been able to recover quickly That's a good short-term one to identify Well, we'll see if the community you all decide, you know, not me, but that is an example of a short-term Okay, so here's another short-term one that's absolutely free and that is that it's like a ghost town downtown And the more people that are downtown the more vibrant it is and When I'm downtown and I run into people that are from away. I'm like, oh, let me talk to you about this Let me show you that and you know, so I think many of us can do that and Won't be any cost or just get downtown and be downtown and greet people High-impact low-cost is really a good thing to look at right? That's a that's a free one freeze good. Oh I didn't I didn't but Sarah de Felice and the last one said let's have a flower bomb downtown and I read shortly thereafter that Barry did a lot of that immediately and I've been looking at my planters on my deck that don't have flowers yet and wondering if as soon as they bloom I should take them downtown and that too would be free Name is Mark Seltzer building upon what the two folks next to me said I think the short-term plans thinking through how we can make the downtown appear appealing to Tourists who coming to town those who are gonna hit up the couple shops We have open is thinking through whether we can have maybe a mural and a lot of the Empty storefronts that haven't yet been able to rebuild those who've started to put dry well up and whatnot might not want to do that But those that are sort of look like ghost towns maybe a mural a community mural Maybe photographs of what the flood looked like and what we're doing to rebuild painting a picture and telling a story Hi, I'm MK from Waterbury and in addition to being president of revitalizing waterbury. I was the art teacher at the primary school and Art is gonna be important to the healing process of y'all and One of the things we did was we put together an after-eye the reen floodgates art project that actually opened a year after Irene and we went around a group of artists in town and had kits together and You know just asked people to Express yourself What's your reaction to the flood and then we put together? this amazing art show that people would come in and Just burst into tears Looking at it and it was a healer part of the healing But I also like the idea of like bringing people back downtown like I come to Montpelier to shop I love Montpelier, you know it like breaks my heart and Yeah, I want to be here I want to come where you're at Bar Hill and I don't want you to have to pay Bar Hill to be there I want I want to go down this. Let's put flowers in the street. Let's have a block party You know can they hose off the streets and bring in a band and You know I'm wish like on my day job. I work for the alchemist, which was famously flooded and Irene and so John and Jen came I hosted October Fest Right like two months after and so we had a giant Street Party It is important to have parties it is important to do things that really bring people together as I say give people Have reasons to stroll right you can still put together a scavenger hunt, you know that things that people can look for Whether they you know are able to to do lots of things the piece That's really important to hold on to is how much you love your downtown How much you love this community how much people love being here saying it again and again in every way possible You know, and I don't want to be like Debbie downer. It takes a long time. It's a multi-year process, right as Rebecca said, right? We had a nine month this visioning process We sent love letters to the state employees who are missing right? They were up at IBM and Essex We brought them Valentine's we brought them Halloween candy We went again and again and again So they knew how much we wanted them back and how much we miss their business and how much we miss their present And we did that with you know the the same way You're supporting restaurant staff supporting people who are not here It those are things that you can do and keep reminding people that you know We love you and we want to see you here Thank you I just pick up on one of the things that and said Dublin apparently has some kind of a range of where you meet A Dubliner and you sign up and they take you to a coffee shop or something like that And then and you have for a few hours a conversation in which that person says well you should be sure to see this and that and so on and And a friend of mine did that and he has been in contact with that person for years now So it really creates a bond. It also creates a kind of You know travel agency thing But you could do it with little vouchers for the places where they can get food and have informal conversation so I have two things the first is that Bethany church while our building has a lot of issues with it right now Our green space in front of the church is wide open and the lawn is mowed and it would be a great place once people at the farmers market, I mean I this Sunday's the last farmers market is that Okay Okay, because you know if you want to come down and use the lawn It's right there and it's downtown and it gets people into the downtown again The second thing is that I've been in conversation with Joan Harvier Duval who's the minister at the Unitarian Church And she and I are talking about Something called a vigil of lamentation where the whole community could come together and have a time of grief of Processing the grief that's going on and we're kind of feeling people out to see if that's something that you would be interested in so I'm mostly here to listen to the ideas in the room But I did want to mention just to put on your radar in terms of clean up August 26th this Saturday is officially a green up day we will have tables at VSF VCFA and at the Volunteer Hub to pick up bags and gloves and We really realize that it's important to have our streets looking nice especially for the upcoming tourist season so everyone doing a little more in that way and Also, I have been meeting with Vermont tourism And I plan to meet next week with the Arts Council because these ideas that you're talking about You're not alone in thinking that and I would love to hear more of those artistic based ideas and find some partners and Making some things happen. We have a wonderful public arts commission with the city of Montpelier and I think this would be a great opportunity to also talk to them There is an a benike mural And a grand opening I think coming up and I forget the date But there will be things happening and it's never enough. So keep the ideas coming It's a quick dumb idea, but Montpelier used to celebrate mud season and What about tours of downtown a bit people are really curious about what happened and what people are doing? tours Just don't not bus tours walking tours of downtown peeking the doors see what condition the buildings are in Merchants could put out tables to stuff like that I think at the one period alive is that amazing job and the merchants downtown have been so innovative. I think that's Get people back Hi Sabrina Fadal so I had written in my notes empty storefronts boards murals and Katie will tell you I come up with public art idea projects all the time And so I'm stewing on a public art flood project already and On September 30th, there's going to be a bent nails bistro fundraiser in the street of Langdon Street with bands all day long And a celebration so Music's coming back We're talking with the chief police and I understand that they are going to be doing a Washing up the sidewalks and then then after that they're going to sweep the streets So they're working on trying to clean it up and make it look really sharp cleansing Two things one a short-term and one long-term. I noticed on length speak of Langdon Street. I noticed on Langdon Street the flood marker on the bridge Someone had stickered something on there. I think definitely having An official marker put up as well as photos of what this flood looked like to sort of tell the story and bring tourists back into town will be Helpful and I think that having dedicated storefront alone to be able to have photos of the events and You know what the future will be with it can be an art project or whatever else more of the long term I know we had someone from efficiency Vermont and one of the things I saw on our Agenda here was you know purchasing heat I was wondering if we've thought about and if it's possible to maybe do a community heat plant for all of the downtown businesses If that's a viable option so we can think through and if that would be efficiency I was in Waterbury a couple weeks ago And they were just prohibition pig was just reopening for the first few hours and on the side of their wall They had a just a playoff of what you were saying. There was a canoe and it said July whatever data was 10 You know flood flood on canoe parking here And so it was a kind of a play and they had pictures of where the flood water was and then you could turn around and see what you were Just saying talking about where the Irene was and the historic flood was and so anyway just wanted to share that So there was a question about what did Waterbury do after tropical storm Irene? It's so complex I don't think I want to list all of the projects that happened But I do want to emphasize that we went through a process similar to this it was About a nine-month process. We went through a lot of ideas. We came up with about 21 ideas I was just looking at the list of ideas right now and kind of laughing at some of them some of we did about half of them But I think it was more important to go through the process We did many more things that are that are not on that list as well, but For each project they were sort of bigger ideas like higher or a downtown business Promoter you know manager somebody like Katie Which we didn't have at the time and then that person was able to then generate a whole bunch of ideas and do a whole bunch of things In terms of hardening structures probably the best example is the state office complex That wasn't the town that did that that was the state, but that was a four-year project There's some really great ideas there probably not possible for every little Organization we also had an idea to do a pilot project with FEMA using hazard mitigation funds to elevate ten homes We ended up only doing one because it was at the time very bureaucratic But maybe this time around is less so but anyway I guess I just want to emphasize that it's just a really it's the more important thing is to go through the Process and come up with your ideas and then have a champion for those ideas and go forward with them because whatever you Do will be great. I can't remember the number But someone just last week and I remember was Karen Nevin But she had said like we've we've achieved we've implemented like 20 of those 23 or whatever the number Well, it was like pretty remarkable, but it's helpful to have that those goal set right to try to work towards and it's taken You know five to ten years to get to get through that list This is more of a question for Roberta. Now. Did you guys contact the Army Corps of Engineers to help with flood resiliency downtown? so one of our projects was to look at river management and doing a study and of the river and we got some grant money to do that I think it was FEMA money and we actually hired a Melonymic broom, which is a happens to be in Waterbury We did not end up with Army Corps of Engineers But that doesn't mean that you can't ask them for funds They've done projects in Montpelier, so they might be well suited to do a project going forward This is kind of a detailed building on some of the things that have been said, but maybe the city council or the police department so they might consider When you get more activity in the street, whether it's a carnival or an evening or maybe it's a program thing particularly in tourist season Maybe there can be an you know in as much as indoor spaces may not be available that you have a limited Block or so of an open liquor license where people can walk around with a beer go between You know vendors or represent the business owners there, you know and have a little night of activity But it's in a very controlled managed way. But again to get more people moving around in the downtown in You know entertaining themselves basically Okay, I'm gonna work my way Describe has an idea. Okay. Hold on a second Alice Many towns have maps with walking tours and there was one from Montpelier and actually there are two There were two volume two short brochure high books 1976 I think about historic homes historic buildings in Montpelier So I think and I've noticed that the activity is what you can do in Montpelier those maps that are around the city They've been just disappearing out of them. So that would be good if we could get another walk around of Montpelier map for self-guided tours I remember Harris who I used to be on the complete streets committee with and Harris came up with this this map of like Interesting things around Montpelier and I made maybe some of you participated in that walk But it's really interesting like how many hearts are on top of the Methodist Church, right? Those kind of interesting things that are all around you don't see them Anyway, great idea Where else and I'll make my way to you next Alice well as we all know fall is coming pretty quickly and I like the idea somebody had mentioned earlier about an Oktoberfest and I'm thinking that with Montpelier alive Maybe we do some sort of promotion like an Oktoberfest and maybe some sort of art installation downtown and If you send something out to like the Boston Globe Christopher mother who's the travel guy or you can get a mention in there Maybe you know help draw start drawing some people downtown or drawing people to back to Montpelier So my question was about Platforms that allow people to do community supported you would know what this is called community supported Not fundraising, but like investing in small businesses Enterprises and if that would be something that I don't know if Montpelier alive would be involved in that or if there was some platform that could be promoted to businesses to use as a As a way for people in Montpelier to invest in the small businesses directly So community supported enterprises and there's there's a lot of models of that around the state I was just thinking about the church example of like shared kitchen, right? That's kind of a in a way a form of a community supported enterprise so that you can provide Prepared foods for the community. I Just like to echo what Rebecca just said. We've had a lot of conversation around Elevating the downtown moving it to up to the up to the college all the things that could happen We need to understand what we might need to do Obviously, there are a lot of unknowns in the face of climate change about how what the next Thousand and year storm looks like because it's gonna happen within the next ten years It's not gonna be a thousand years from now So the question is we need to understand what that looks like and it's an interaction with the riverine group to understand What the sort of natural pieces to that effort are to manage our interactions with the river, right? It's not about Having the river be less dangerous. It's about recognizing that we live in we need to live in harmony with that river And so or those rivers So I want to I would love to see that study occur and I you know Look going after that funding to make sure that we understand If we need to build up higher what that needs to look what would that need to look like what options there are They're out there and frankly it starts to interact with you know a lot of the questions and concerns that came up around The rightsville reservoir damn and what would happen if this bill way overtopped So I'd love to see some some work put there So we have concrete answers to plan for rather than We should do this based on what we all surmise the solution to be and I think what's great Is Montpelier has a lot of really smart people and some people that probably study this like as their profession I think Jamie Ray mentioned at the last meeting that you know There's people who were studying at Dartmouth and the Middlebury College and a UVM that are experts on this So like bringing those resource teams together to discuss that and share ideas I think FEMA needs to do an hydrological study as a whole basin thinking about keeping the water out of Montpelier and Beavers gave me an idea of a whole series of very small dams At the headwaters to just slow the water down And but that all needs to be done as a result of a hydrological study of where the water is coming from How it's getting here how it can be slowed down? I think in there's so many ideas here tonight, but I think that Generally Americans like to look at one big solution I think this is going to be hundreds of small ones whether it's hardening buildings slowing the water down Controlling the buildings what goes in what happens to the buildings? Another sort of short term idea and that is is that central Vermont is rich with musical talent and the idea of what Amy mentioned about her lawn being available for Maybe a tent where there could be some musicians at and different places around town So that when we do have the tourists come for the foliage season There could be some different music going on around town Building on what the gentleman in the orange shirt said I think we need to showcase our climate adaptation strategies rather than just doing them We should make it very apparent and we should have signage that indicates. This is what we did This is why we did it and as well as man in a checkered shirt earlier Maybe we can have translucent Drywall in some areas where we're able to indicate this is why we put this metal two by four and as he talked About earlier to really show others who are going through this in the future. This is why we did this and this will help because I'm mostly here to listen to but one of the things since the topic is How to support downtown one of the ways that I think of to support downtown is to have a commitment to have our downtown Because you know, I don't Think it's realistic to say well, we're gonna take all the buildings and all the stores and all the jobs downtown and Move them up on top of Hubbard Park or move them up on top of East State Street, and I think having a commitment to doing the physical work to Have the buildings that are downtown which are part of what gives Montpelier The heart and what what makes Montpelier attractive to people is to have those buildings be able to continue to exist and thrive I'm gonna take what we got five minutes Alice Three minutes. All right, let's let's keep it keep it going here. There's a lot of hands, but let's let's get them all out there Hi, everyone. My name is Vince Morocco My wife and I operated the hippie chickpea restaurant and on Elm Street for almost five years I just want to preface this by saying I haven't been to the last few meetings It's the first one I've been able to attend for a while. So what I'm saying has already been said. I apologize I just wanted to follow this this gentleman's comments You know We are committed to doing something positive for our community because we love our living here and we're raising our children here It's been pretty tough obviously the last few weeks And we still don't know what we can do for us to Build a business Downtown again in that space off of loans is not a viable option for us so my comment is to this group and to this Gathering is kind of I've been known to have random ideas, but just to share them You know, I'm not a political person, but I think we do need to advocate And change laws because to have FEMA not support businesses the way they're supporting residences. I think is Just crazy to me And that needs to change And it's hard to understand how This is the capital city of our state and we are still in this position We are in when we are sending hundreds of billions of dollars to other countries I just don't understand how that makes any sense. So We are committed to bringing something back to the community. We just don't know what we can do yet And it has to make sense I will continue to share ideas as as I can think of them But I am open to anyone sharing some with us because we do not know what we should be doing right now Well, we're really glad that you're here and expressing, you know from the business community You know your feelings because I mean that's it's it well That's a big task right to kind of change policy, you know, maybe that's what's needed, right? Is to kind of look at how the better support our local businesses So thanks for sharing that Okay, these are gonna be probably the last couple here. We're gonna have to move on Yes, I don't know if this is already happening But I think it would be really good to have some resource perhaps to Unplay your life, etc a database particularly for any downtown businesses to share what they're doing that is forward-looking like Yellow mustard's metal corrugated Walls are brilliant and there's just a lot of other ideas around town I imagine could be shared that are valuable and maybe they are be Yeah, and I think right on that and on Vince's comment earlier I think that it was wonderful and brilliant to see the volunteer hub earlier and how I Helpful and and open that was that if you needed help you went there and people knew you needed help and people came in helped I think that Some of the businesses will be kind of on the knife edge of Trying to figure out whether they can come back into business or not or how to do it for some months at least and I think that it might be worthwhile just having something like a Public schedule or or an internal schedule for a Montpellier live or other Organizations to reach out to businesses and say okay, you know, we're four months out. What do you need? Where are you? like It may not be possible to help those businesses all the time, but at least not to let folks kind of go out of business Because people have stopped paying attention kind of check back in on a schedule I think so we are gonna we're gonna have to move on but I'm gonna get I'm gonna let Peter have We'll make sure before we close this we we don't have anything that we're missing here, but We have to prioritize Sorry, I just wanted to echo what Jack said. This is the It lost we can't lose in all of this at the most important tool We have to fight climate change is a livable walkable community like Montpellier To shop local to buy local to walk to be able to have work and Places to live in a you know concentrated area is our best tool And so we can't lose that as part of the process so as long as we can keep that at the forefront I think we will be okay Okay, so we're gonna thank you all Wow We got a lot of ideas out there and this is gonna be a challenge For us as a group to figure out how we're gonna prioritize this down to two or three I think there's some themes that I'm Alice is gonna help me in a minute here She's finishes time But we're trying to figure out some themes that we heard here That we can then kind of report back to the larger group So they hear kind of what the priorities are coming out of this group We're not forgetting about anything that was said here all of these are being recorded and may spin off on their own But we we do want to try to kind of get to some kind of consensus or a majority vote To kind of say these are the ones we're gonna elevate that we think we can get behind to make happen So that's what we're gonna attempt to do right now, which you know when I've done these processes before There's often a lot of pieces of paper behind me and there's dots and stuff that you can stick on the wall And I don't have though You know we're in the state house, and we can't put anything on the walls and there's no dots And so we're gonna we're gonna do the best we can here to kind of buy show of hands kind of thing on How we can how we can advance You know some of the priorities on our list to kind of speak to the larger group and maybe move forward as we meet again September 7th, so Alice is gonna help kind of call out what we just heard and we're gonna read them out We have about 19 minutes to do this and if Let's let's see how we can do it I'm not gonna read back all of the ideas because that's many many ideas I'm just trying to kind of group them into actionable items So here's what I and then we we will kind of Prioritize those so let me go through them first what I have and people tell me if I'm missing something big So I have some kind of major public art project Temporary or we didn't go into that Some kind of large event like an October Fest or flower bombing or something downtown Hydrological studies as to what the river will do and how to react to that Investment in the community through either micro investment shopping downtown helping visitors navigate downtown Some kind of shared storage area for businesses Other shared business resources like information sharing among businesses as to what they're doing Storytelling via murals photos or other means in the downtown That's all I've got so far Are there other other ones that we we just totally I mean we recorded a lot of things So I want to hear me. Let's make sure we get all the priorities kind of identified so we can start to determine Which ones we're gonna prioritize I Wonder if it might be possible to divide the actionable ideas into Short-term ideas and long-term ideas because there's some real need I feel for some of these short-term ideas and Then we can put that aside and think about one or two long-term ideas Okay, how's the group thing you think we maybe like let's look at the short-term ideas And we'll identify a couple priorities there and then we'll look at the long-term and we'll identify a couple there That's a good suggestion. I think is a group feel like that's a good idea Okay, you want to add to that in all those ideas. I I was hearing and I know I said one of them but I heard a lot of people say is Create program activities that get people on the street with its retail or food entertainment regularly not just I mean the October fest is a great idea, but regularly programmatically two days a week three days a week do a and I'll say this do a What's I call it in London Portobello Street Market all the vendors just come outside for a day, right? And they and that's one of the most wonderful places in London to go You've never been there. It's incredible and they just the retailers are coming outside They're not in their shops and all the people around the street on Saturdays. That's incredible I mean you could do that programmatically here Bob is hearing a theme like that Programmed outdoor activities for the foreseeable future as long as you tolerate the weather. Okay, we got we got that. Okay, all right So once again, we're gonna we have about we just have a little bit of time here And we're gonna what are we missing Katie or how our suggestion on how we can group this? Yeah One thing that I thought I heard that didn't get a noticed is more funding to support the downtown businesses Am I correct? and also Yes, and that may be long term, but also I need to hire three of me his one note that I'm taking So Kate. Hey Katie, can I can I just blow up that for just one second? So how does how do we turn funding into an actionable item that we can all get behind like is that like a group that's studying? Like what kind of funding is out there or like? Funding fund marked we need a lot more money, but what's the action step out of that? Community supported enterprises microfunding, okay, and there's models of that that we can look at so maybe a group to look at Some funding models to help support, you know, quite frankly everyone needs money right the property owners need money The businesses need money the city needs money. I mean across the boards, right? So kind of looking at maybe some specific strategies within that So we have 12 minutes to get to the priorities. So real quick Just wanted to add to that Funding and resourcing because I think what Katie just said is a really good point So staffing to support all the action items that can't just be volunteer driven and there's a discussion on leadership You know in one of the other rooms and I have a feeling they're getting to a little bit of that capacity question I'm like, how's the city got getting the capacity or how are these organizations? I'm getting the capacity to kind of do the work that they're doing so I'm gonna I'm gonna keep us on track here and try to Are there have you identified any other themes here, or are we ready to kind of Are we missing anything from what Alice called out from what? A couple other ones that were added in there in terms of grouping the promotions events Ongoing one time kind of that can be maybe one bucket of kind of marketing the downtown promoting the downtown It's back open Anything that we missed before we start to go into kind of show of hands on where we want to pick our two or three And maybe we'll look at the short term first and then we'll look at the longer term next building hardening or blood mitigation Okay, so mitigation of buildings and I know one of the topics and it's okay for us to identify here was kind of like looking Upstream and thinking about what we can do in the river corridors. I know there's a whole group focused on that So I might we can mark that as like the group said that's important and we'll make note of that and share that with the other groups But I have a feeling like that's going to be covered, right? But the buildings in downtown and the hardening is specific to how we can support downtown and so that's a good one to mark Anything else Alice? All right So let's let's go to the short Let's go to ones that you can see that would be identified a short term And I think unless someone has a better way of doing this We can just do the old-fashioned show of hands But maybe we do like if you think this is the best idea raise your hand and if Save your hand for what you think is the best idea So we're going to read all the short term and only raise your hand if you think it's the best one They're all good ideas, but which one's your favorite? Quick question. Okay, real quick This has to do with the fact that I really like what you said about needing the staffing Because that's what is needed But we also had hundreds and hundreds of people that want to volunteer and so the hub was phenomenal for that You know specific timeframe but that volunteer energy is still out there and So those are that there's got to be a system in place to tap that to help You know, I would volunteer for Montpelier life who wouldn't you know So so harnessing the the volunteer spirit that we have in Montpelier while Recognizing that we also have a capacity that needs to be adjusted So some could be filled with you know staffing while others can be filled with with volunteers as well So kind of looking at that whole picture of how to fill the capacity to get the work done Okay Or the favorite Okay, so here's what I've got under the the short term and some of these could be longer term as well But I've got them here for now Look at funding models to help support businesses Staffing to support organizations like Montpelier alive in the city to do this work a major art project a large-scale event Program smaller scale, but regular program activities that get people on the street like the merchants market at VCFA Shared business information sharing resources. So businesses know what each other is doing Murals photos or other storytelling within the downtown in the probably in the storefronts Investment in the community through shopping downtown helping visitors micro investments And harnessing the volunteer spirit Okay, so I might offer a suggestion to make this a little easier if we can combine combine October fest with the program activities in the Storytelling like make that all just programming events programming Because they're very similar and the group can decide later which ones are the priorities and you know realistic and and whatnot And one thing I'm just gonna say is let's let's as we're voting. Let's think about What's gonna have the biggest impact? And what's feasible right so there's high impact and low cost free is really good High impact and high cost is also good low impact high cost is let's get rid of those right like that kind of thinking High cost low impact. We don't want those we want the high impact Lower cost and maybe maybe some high impact and higher cost You know a mix of those so just think about the impact and think about the feasibility. All right, we have nine minutes I think we can do this so we're gonna give short term Just a few minutes. We're gonna read through them and we're gonna do a show of hands And we're gonna make sure once again, these are all being recorded and doesn't mean we can't move forward with all these We're just sharing the bigger ideas with the with the larger group to kind of talk about more on the 7th Look at funding models to help support businesses our show of hands That that's your top priority Okay More staffing to support organizations like Montpelier alive and the city Maybe a major art project events Programming events. Okay one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven Shared information sharing resources for business I have a feeling we're gonna do that one. I Think we're gonna do that one Investment through micro-investment shopping and helping visitors Harnessing volunteer spirit. I think we're gonna do anyway Harnessing volunteer spirit Okay, and then these are the long term longer term one Let's let's let's let's keep on the short term for just a second because if we're gonna make those Let's maybe have two of those and two of the longer term that we're gonna focus on so it It's were we missing something you had your hand back Organization of everybody living water very the lead our building process and hire three steps Like you can't hate he cannot do this. You can do everything on that list If you give her the people to do it. Yeah, so I would You have Like the money is there To pay the people to do the things to bring more money to the community And your volunteers need a coordinator. They need someone who can't say This organization needs this. We need three people It can't be one person trying to figure out where all the volunteers go. All right, so we're gonna go Okay, thank you know, I Just in my views were very as an example over the last month a lot And so we're gonna lean on you all for kind of that structure So what we're noting and tell us if we're wrong for the short term is looking at that organizational structure the volunteer network Trying to figure out how to get how to get the support where it's needed and we can identify where that's where that's needed later But we're gonna mark that as a high priority. Okay short term To long-term right short and long-term kind of priority kind of fits both and then the other one that was at the top Organizing events promotions and marketing did we hit the mark on the short term you think okay Paul will get pissed in me if we're not back in like five minutes So we're gonna we're gonna try to do the long term here in five minutes. I think we can do it Okay, so the long-term ones were Studies as to what the river will do Shared storage areas for businesses more funding to support the downtown businesses via grants And building hardening and mitigation within the downtown Did we did we miss any of the the longer term? Yeah Okay, so just looking at the structure like maybe both a combination of various things here elevation Hardening kind of looking at kind of the arc. I don't know Yep. Yep. Okay, great And once again, I will I will note that I think city infrastructure This will probably come up in some of the city infrastructure as well But it's good for us to kind of prioritize what we think is most important here as well Because it may be a high priority in a couple different groups. All right, let's go through the list here So hydrological studies as to what the river will do in the future Five Shared storage for businesses more grant funding for the downtown I'm gonna add that it's more grant funding, but it's also like this is an action So more grant funding isn't an action. The action is looking into ways For more funding to get to where it needs to go to businesses right to support advocating Okay So it's not just businesses so more funding to support downtown and just call it downtown Whether it's residents businesses property owners all of it, right? Yeah So looking into ways and models that are existing in other places, right? Okay And building hardening and mitigation including possibly elevation within the downtown Oh 11 any others There is a yeah Yeah, yeah, thanks. Yeah, he makes a good point there. It's a whole discussion just on financing right now. So So I think yeah Yeah Those two things It's true. It's all we're all part of one watershed. It's not just Montpelier, right? It's upstream. It's it's here It's it's the whole the whole watershed So let me let me ask that one again How many folks feel like it's important for us to consider both the you know the hardening of our buildings and and Raising buildings as well as kind of like mitigating the waters coming into Montpelier and like what we can do around that Who feels like that is an important thing for us to okay, so that sounds like that's a that's a priority We may have to you know, this group might spin off more specific focus from that to downtown While another group makes makes it makes some sense to look more upstream and look at some of the more natural features While we look at the built environment. So anyway, we can decide that later I think we're down to the last two minutes here. So what is there anything that we missed on the on the list? So those two would be then the hardening and the advocating for more grant funding Did you all hear that So let's let's go ahead Alice Let's let's read our short and long term and let's me I want to make sure the group feels good about this as we presented out Okay, so our short-term priorities are looking at organizational structure and possibly to add staffing to support organizations like Montpelier alive and Organizing events and promotions in the downtown Longer-term priorities are building hardening elevation and mitigation in the downtown and finding and advocating for more grant funding for the downtown Does that does that hit the mark? Okay, everyone feels good about that. All right good. We did it So Trying to think if there's anything else. So next steps in this or we're going to report this back to the group We're all going to head back to the chamber But really this is just the beginning we really encourage everyone in this room to come back on the 7th And and bring other folks that maybe are knowledgeable or interested in participating in this conversation as it starts to grow legs Because this really is once again going to be a community effort and where it's not going to be something We're just going to hand to somebody to do like where it's going to take all of us So thank you all for coming out today and there's you know Folks who are watching this on the recording and they're also providing comments through padlet So folks who aren't able to attend this or actually providing their comments We're going to take that into consideration as well. So thank you so much