 John, welcome Amy, and welcome everyone else. We do have a full agenda today, so we missed our August meeting, so we'd like to move along with what we have here in September. So with that in mind, any changes to our agenda, I'll call your attention to the fact that we have a consent agenda, but would anybody like to make motions, the addition, solutions or changes to our agenda? Hearing or seeing none, I'm gonna move on to item two. This is now open to public comment for any items that are not on our agenda today. Any members of the public present who would like to comment. Hearing and seeing none, we're gonna move on for staff introductions. We have Sai, Chris and Jason. Can I go in order that we have them in the agenda? Sai, are you ready? Yes. Willing and able? Yeah, sure. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Jeff. Yeah, good afternoon everyone. My name is Sai Sarapali, senior transportation planning engineer and professional engineer. I've been working at CCRPC for the last 11 years now. Before moving to Vermont, I was working in Idaho as a design engineer and I was working for a consultant company. They were like county and city engineers. So I have some design background and transportation planning background from Idaho. I did my master's degree from University of Idaho in transportation engineering. So at CCRPC, my main responsibilities are, I manage the technical assistance program. I attend to the safety and speed studies, safety and traffic calming studies at the municipal requests, and I also manage a scoping studies and assist other project managers in on other projects, including storm water management projects. I also work with the, like, you know, Chris, Jason and other transportation staff on corridor studies and other studies. I also manage the regional intelligent transportation systems program, which involves like a modern technology in transportation system, including like smart signals. Like, you know, so we do evaluation of existing municipal managed traffic signals upon the request and, you know, we come up with some recommendations for municipalities for future plans, like implementation plans. And I also serve as, I'm serving as a local service manager for local sidewalk design and construction projects for a couple of municipalities, Shelburne and Jericho. So I oversee those projects for municipalities. Yeah, and also like, I work on some traffic modeling projects, some, like micro simulation models. Yeah, there's a lot of people Yeah, there's a lot of things that sounds pretty complete. So I'm gonna let other folks come up with a question, but I had two or three on my own immediately. Number one, how long have you been with us and what town do you live in? Hopefully in the county. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. Yeah, I've been with RPC for 11 years. This is 11 years and I live in South Burlington. I live with my wife and two sons, 13 years old and six years old. They both are at soccer game now. Ah, there you go. Yeah. Wednesday night's soccer. Wednesday night's soccer, yeah. Ours go on Monday. And so a second question I might have would be a specific example. And I think you mentioned Shelburne with the sidewalks. Are they trying to fill in gaps there? How does that work briefly? So Shelburne received a bike path grant in 2019 to fill in a gap on Irish Hill Road. So, and also to install a prefabricated pedestrian bridge on the Laplight River on Irish Hill Road. So it's pretty much the final design is done. We also have a federal funding obligated for this project. So it's pretty much ready to go for a bid. Well, great. And I think the bridges are very important in this day and age as we can see from Richmond and Barb's experience. And I'm going to get to you in a minute, Barb. One last question for you, Sai. Intelligent traffic, can you give us a transportation system? Yeah, transportation. Thank you. Yeah, I do, yes. Can you give us maybe something coming online that's exciting or something about the present systems that excites you that we may or may not know about? Yeah, sure. I see those cameras. Yeah, there are a couple of projects happening in the region, especially on Shelburne Road and one is on Dorset Street. So South Wellington has some earmark funding. They're upgrading signals on Dorset Street from Williston Road to Kennedy Drive. So they're putting in smart system, smart signals on Dorset Street, which is like, you know, more like, you know, they detect vehicles and they can provide efficient signal timing plans. So yeah, they're coming with like new controllers. On Dorset Street. And I think Weetland is also working on Shelburne Road signal project. Yeah, those are the two projects that I'm very interested in because you know, I live in Burlington and those two are really kind of stakeholders. It's always nice to see it at home. I'm going to give away the barred and if anybody else had a question for Sai, please put your hand up and I will get you the next. I know this is a question that could lead to a long answer, but I'll ask you to keep it short sort of by traffic study. So this probably of greater interest to the small or more rural towns than the larger towns and cities. But whenever we bring up the idea of traffic study, people want to go from 50 to 25 and you go, well, that's probably not going to happen. You know, and your micro simulation traffic study, maybe briefly describe like what are the issues in traffic studies and what that means. Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, traffic signal, like micro simulation model, the model shows like what's the level of service and what's the congestion, what are the queue lengths before and after scenarios. So yeah, we do, when we run those models, it does help us to come up with recommendations for improvements. Any more questions? Any more questions for Sai? If not, I'll move on for Chris. Thank you Sai. Thank you. Yeah. And help me with the pronunciation of your last name, Chris. And by the way, to keep me from asking questions, let us know how long you've been with the CCRPC and hopefully what town you live in in the county. Totally, thanks Chris. Yeah, my name is Chris Dubin, senior transportation planner here. I graduated from UVM back in 2008, hopped around looking for sort of a final landing place and landed at the CCRPC in 2012. So I've passed my tenure mark here for sure. My main areas of focus here are kind of in the worlds of GIS and data management, data collection within transportation and water quality specifically. During the summer months, the main focus is managing our team of interns, which I'm sure a lot of you have seen or heard about, which do a boatload of data collection for municipalities for various reasons. Traffic counts, municipal asset condition assessments, road erosion inventories for MRGP compliance, it's quite a list. And it's really fun to work locally with municipalities really just to serve their needs within that summer or that kind of current year. I also manage a variety of water quality planning projects year to year through the UPWP program. They range from video condition assessments to stormwater infrastructure asset management planning. But generally I'm here to kind of provide really good quality data products to towns within these areas of focus, especially in the form of mapped data, GIS data specifically. And the goal is really to hope that that drives better strategic decision-making at a local level. You enjoy all the GPS, GIS information and mapping that goes with that. Could you unpack that acronym MRGP? Yeah, sure, the municipal roads general permit is a stormwater water quality permit that went into effect in 2018. It's a 20 year permit that is looking to look at local roadways that are sort of in close proximity to waterways of our state. And kind of evaluate their potential for transporting sediment into our waterways. There's kind of a set of stormwater standards that should be met for those roadways. Our team of interns myself are headed out every summer to evaluate some or all of these sections of road in a given town and kind of get that big data lift up to the state on behalf of municipalities. And the fun part is we get to often kind of work with municipalities to tell the story of that data and kind of dig in and really help better, again, drive decision-making. Outstanding, does anyone else have a question for Chris who I'm going to label as our youth focus group coordinator for about what, three to six months of the year? You got it. Very good. And anyone else have a question? Raise your hand or speak up. Well, thank you, Chris. And I'll move on to Jason and Sherrest. Jason. Thanks, Chris. Hi, everyone. Jason Sherrest, Senior Transportation Planning Engineer here at the CCRPC. I started here in 2007. So it's about six, a little over 16 years now. Resume is pretty short. This has been my one employer. So you can take that in. I graduated from St. Michael's College and the University of Vermont. I have dual bachelor's degrees, no master's, two bachelor's degrees, liberal arts from St. Mike's Civil Engineering from UVM. And let's see, I live in Burlington. I have a second grader who's also at soccer practice tonight. Met my wife at St. Mike's, liked it here, decided to stick around. I'm actually originally from the Manchester, New Hampshire area, in case anyone's interested in that. And currently, I've worn a lot of hats. Filled a lot of different roles at the CCRPC over my tenure here. Focused mostly on managing a host of projects in our work program every year. Like Cy being one of the engineers on staff. Focused mainly in the technical realm of things. Corridor, scoping studies, any sort of feasibility studies. Assist Cy with speed studies on occasion, traffic simulation modeling, that sort of thing. In my free time outside of work, like the snowboard, mountain bike, still play soccer. I'm not sure how much longer I'm gonna be able to do that, but I'm thankful for every day. I'm able to run around out there. I know my time is getting tight on that one. I'm sure my knees will give out at some point. But until that day, it's still going. And yeah, let's have kind of a brief introduction there and happy to take any questions. Well, thank you. I'll ask you another one. If you could tell us a project that's occupying a lot of your time right now, or just give us a flavor and example of something that would be on your plate. Well, right now, I tend to work a lot in Richmond right now. I thought you might like that part. Just wrapping up a study that I've dubbed the US-2 pinch points, there as a result of the paving in Richmond on route two, there were still maybe, I don't know, I think 13 points along US-2 that V-Trans was unable to achieve a full five feet of shoulders on either side of the roadway. So we had a small technical assistance study with Stantec that we did to evaluate those and showcase any, I guess, outline what they needed to do to achieve those wits. So just a kind of a high level order of magnitude cost estimates there. But soon to be kicked off is a corridor study on Cochrane Road in Richmond. Very active corridor by multimodal users, a lot of cyclists, a lot of runners. But it's also a very popular transportation route for people in vehicles. So there's a lot of conflicts as you might imagine along there. So it should be a pretty spicy one. Looking forward to it. I know that the town is very much in tune with a lot of fun. Absolutely. I think if we want to encourage alternate forms of transportation biking being one, that would be key on it. Let's hear from Bart. So I was just going to observe, if anybody was looking for a perverse silver lining to the recent flooding, it would be for us, the reduced recreational pressure on Cochrane Road and use of the river. So for those who don't pay attention to the condition of the Winooski River, getting in the river would have been contraindicated for the last six weeks or so. And it really has substantially changed traffic. But to Jason's point, it's got all these things going on in this one road, which seems like not a big deal compared to, our diamond interchanges and stuff, but for a small town, it becomes kind of a big deal. And the conflict between the commuters, the residents and the recreationists is just an intriguing thing to watch. Thank you. Benjamin, you'll need to unmute Benjamin. I'm sorry, I was just wanting to, I was waiting actually for a spot just to let you know that I'm here. I'm sorry if I was two minutes late and signing in, but yeah, I'm sorry. Let's hear from Catherine. Catherine. This has to go with the idea of, multimodal pathways that you're talking about like Cochrane Road. Well, we have a very busy road obviously with Skunkalo and parts of it were just recently paved, but the company who put some, the fog lines on did double fog lines extra wide. And boy, have the bicyclists complained like crazy because it was, took away whatever little space they had on the side of Skunkalo, plus as we've been told that the paint is very, very, very slippery when wet. So is this anything that can be changed over time? Well, we have people that said they'd like to go and scrape it off. But how do you, the question is that how do municipalities on these busy roads, help it become a, at least have the bicyclists feel a little safer on the roads because it's not exactly a large road. Jason, I think that's for you, huh? Yeah, yeah, happy to feel that. Generally speaking, that delves into the realm of traffic calming. And I'm very familiar with the history of Skunkalo Road having conducted some of the earlier analyses before that middle section wasn't paved. And I think you all have done a pretty good job of with it, installing the speed tables that you have along it. I think the nearby residents in Richmond actually really liked those. And I think cited those as something that they'd like to see on Cochrane Road. And so it just, traffic calming is really a toolbox. And it's kind of a, there's no one silver bullet. It's kind of an assembly of different pieces to try to make it fit for the context of the roadway. And maybe the best you can to slow cars to encourage them to feel like they should go slower, kind of introduce some sort of friction in the roadway, whether it be vertical or horizontal changes so that it just feels uncomfortable to go fast. That's generally speaking, the goal behind traffic calming. And it seems counterintuitive. I would think that widening the road has been something bicyclists have been asking for, but would probably encourage the cars to go faster. Sorry, Kathy. Absolutely, I was going to say, to go along with it, does putting up, share the road signs or painting make much of a difference on a road like Skunkalo? I think it's a good reminder for people who are going to pay attention to signs and read them. I don't think it hurts. How much it helps is a very difficult thing to quantify, but I don't think it's a bad idea so long as it's not to the point where you are cluttering your roadway with signage to the point where it's just distracting and difficult for a driver to take in. Thank you. Does anyone else have a question for Jason? absent that, I'm going to defer to Michael Bryan for a moment, Mike. Juan, take a minute to introduce our Mayor Christine Lott is here with us tonight. She's recently appointed our alternate. So you'll be seeing her from time to time. Christine, I don't know if you want to jump in and kind of introduce yourself. Sure, thank you. Some of you I know, some of you I do not. I have been serving as Mayor of Winnieski for five years now working closely with Mike through our planning commission and CCRPC and with various other staffers there. I'm excited to take on the alternate to support Mike in representing Winnieski and ensure that there's close coordination between city leadership and the work of this regional body. Well, thank you and welcome. We very much appreciated meeting you in person at the McWam gathering that we had back in June which was fabulous. Thank you again, Charlie and staff you guys put together what I thought was a premiere event. So welcome and we look forward to your bridge project and hopefully things will go smoothly. Don't forget Main Street. Oh gosh, I like the old concrete slabs. I don't know. Well, anyhow, let's move on to item number four which is the action on the consent agenda. We do have a tip amendment. We do have a consent agenda. So I'll need a motion to recommend that the tank approve the proposed tip amendment. Okay, thank you, Andy. In a second. This is Bardell second. Thank you, Bard. Let's vote on the consent agenda item. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Raise your hand. Aye. Anyone opposed or abstaining, please speak up. Okay, thanks. The way is consent agenda item should move. Thank you. Let's look at item number five approving the minutes of July 19th meeting. We'll be looking for a motion to approve the minutes, perhaps with changes as noted. And will someone help us along? Is that you, Diedra? Yes, I just have one question. Dana was at the last meeting, I was not, but I noticed that Charlotte is listed twice once as Dana being present and once as absent. And in the voting, Charlotte also appears as absent. And I had an opportunity to check in with her this afternoon. She didn't tell me how she voted, but I wonder if there's an opportunity just to check in with her, maybe to correct that. Because she believes she was at the meeting for the duration. Okay. Unless there's another explanation of why it appears that way, but. It only appears that way because sometimes you show up and so I think we had two Charlotte reps on that list. So apologies, you weren't there. I didn't catch that. We'll fix that. Okay. That's the only. Okay. So it's a hiccup. So that would be a change. We're still looking for a motion to. Absolutely. Thank you, Catherine. And you're removing that with the changes, Catherine. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I'll second. Thank you, Andrew. Anybody else have some changes that they need to know it on the minutes? There are a few changes that I noticed and I will get those edited. Barbara Elliott's name is spelled wrong. We've left off a T and then there's a couple of other small things that I noticed and I will make sure that the ones that I noticed are corrected. Thank you. Anyone else have an eagle eye on anything that needed to be corrected? You want to listen to all my mess then? It may be duplicative, but if you don't mind, sure. Well, I want to say that the minutes were very thorough and detailed. And so I've noticed some of the stuff that had been already mentioned, but on other things there are either little changes or can I rewrite the entire sentence kind of thing? But other people might have other ideas how to write the sentence because some sentences were needed more clarity and others were not finished. Well, just call attention to which sentence and we'll see if Amy's already on it. Katherine and I can work together on those edits. We did this previously. Very good. The only one that may need, of course, Amy might know this too, but there was a, let's see, we're talking about the SIDS. There was a timeline difference on that one, but again, I think Amy and I can work on that. Okay, so are we making a motion then amended, Katherine, that we're going to have changes for clarification purposes only with Amy in conjunction with Amy? Well, let's see, which page had the, let's see, I had page four, but I think that's just sentences. Yeah, oh yeah, page four is actually a number that should be changed because it, but it may be something that Amy's found, but I don't know, it's line 23 on page four and it says Christine said that 0.4% is the actual amount for the park and ride. I mean, that needs to be a different number rather than a percentage. And I did not go back to notes or anything to find out what that number was. Yeah, it's Christine driving. She was, I thought a moment ago. All right, so we could get that number clarified. Yeah, and then, okay, that's just a simple one. That's actually the other one we're going to change, we just language, gosh, it's terrible when you pay attention to language like that. Well, Charlie, in the interest of time, should we bring this back around for October's meeting? How's that? Oh, I found it. Okay, the important, a technical number that should be changed, it says on page nine, line five, it says between February, 2023 and March, 2033, the RPCs and RBCs, you know, et cetera, et cetera implemented a public input-driven planning process funded by, I think it was a lot longer than that, the start date on that than just February. More than just two months. Yeah. Okay, so we'll need clarification on that. And that number, we'll review that number on the park and ride and that date for the SEDS. Catherine, but I will know, I think 0.4% may be correct about the percentage of the tip that's for park and ride, so. This was a specific one for Williston, how much it was gonna cost or something like that. Yep. So it'd be better to have a number, just because the people reading that won't go with 0.4% of what? Yeah, it was the 0.4% of the 40 million that was in the previous sentence is going to park and rides. Christine just weighed in on it. She said, we're talking about the percent of funding that went to park and rides. There we go. Yeah, and I just think, you know, when somebody else is reading it, they might not know that. Okay, I don't think the number's wrong. I think maybe we just need a few more words in the sentence to make the reference. Exactly, exactly. Gotcha. Thank you. So that sounds like a wording presentation as well. The one you just mentioned on that date sounds a little more problematic than me. Is that correct, Charlie? Probably. I'm not sure. Again, there may be a couple of words missing that we did a public outreach for those couple months as opposed to the two years. Right. Since this is so long. It's not very clear at all. All right, can we defer this to next month's meeting and look at it again and re-approval? In the meantime, Catherine, you can work with Amy on this and Charlie can get the basis for that number. I think that would avoid confusion that will keep us on track with the decent approval of minutes. Is that all right? Does that work? Works great. And Andy, does that work with you? We'll withdraw the motion. Bard, go ahead. Well, I'm just wrestling this. This is Bard is a point of order. So are we trying to clarify what people said or are we as minutes documenting what was actually said? And I think it's the latter that we're obligated to do in minutes rather than correct any errors that were included. We could include maybe in parentheses as opposed to change what was said during the meeting which would be properly noted in an accurate set of minutes. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes sense. Because typically these are not exact quotes. I mean, if it's an exact quote, but there were some things that you go, well, what's missing here? Yeah, in terms of like, so something needs to be added or, you know. Yeah. And we have the recording. So we can go back and Bard to your point, see what was actually said versus what our summary of what was said it says. So, but, and I assume Chris that you wanna, that we're tabling this till next month. I'm sorry, not withdrawing it. I am not quite up on that, but I do think if we just push it off to next month, we might be in better shape if that's all right with all. Okay, fair enough. That's a motion that needs a motion to table it. Okay, so then will someone move to table this? I move to table it. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, Dan. This is part I will second that. Okay. Or Michael. Another point of order. Do we need to withdraw the previous motion, which is still pending to approve? The table emotion takes precedence. Okay, thanks. Okay, so any further discussion? Then all those in favor say aye or raise your hand. Aye. Aye. And anyone opposed or abstaining, please speak up. Thank you. Brad's abstaining. Was anybody else besides Brad abstaining? Yes, sorry. Abstaining because I was absent at the meeting. Thank you, Brad. Okay, we're gonna move on to item six, board and committee appointments. You'll note on page 15 of your packet that per the bylaws, the regional board members are appointed by the Chittenden Regional Planning Commission for a term of two years for even numbered fiscal years of the June meeting. And that's all the municipalities that are present. At the same time, we have one of the terms for those other positions, Charlie, special interest groups. The regional, I'm sorry, I'm a little confused. I have two motions here. Yeah. Chris, the first one is to point to regional board members. So, and you see them listed. There is one person missing in Austin. Thank you for flagging that for me. Austin Davis should be listed as an alternate for the industrial business representatives. But yeah, so those are for the regional board members. Yeah, is that, sorry, Chris, was that answer your question? Yes, because I've got the nomenclature a little off as far as agriculture, socioeconomic housing, industrial business and conservation and environmental. And that's the end of it. And they're termed regional board members, correct? Exactly. All right, because I had thought that there was a term like, you know, commercial. They get appointed for every two years, for the even numbered years. Okay. So we need a motion for that? Yep. Good, I get someone to move to appoint these members. And who was the added individual? Austin Davis. As an alternate for industrial business. We approve the regional. Thank you, Dan, Karen. And a second. Thank you, Andy. This is Michael, I'll second it. All right. Or Andy. Or Michael Bissonette. Thank you. Never. Further discussion on these? All those in favor, please raise your hand or say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed or abstaining, please speak up. Okay. Thank you. And then part two is in my bailiwick, I believe, the chair shall, with the concurrence of the county regional planning, which established the appoint committees and their members. So do we need to vote on this one, Charlie, or a motion on this one with the concurrence? Or you want to handle, you at least need to declare your appointment and as long as the rest of the board's up. Okay. With no objection. Exactly, yeah. I think other chairs have done it that way. Yeah. I like that. Gives me a feeling in my bones. The power go mad. Yes, exactly. I mean, by fiat. So the only thing that would be missing would be more participation from some of our members. There are vacancies, as you can see on the long range planning committee, which responsibilities are, perhaps you can dig into it a little more for me, Charlie. That's really the committee that guides the development of the regional plan or what we've called the ECOS plan. We are kind of, we spent a lot of time in that committee the last year or so and are about to produce a draft in the next couple of months. There probably is another phase of work that happens probably next summer, fall. So, but it only meets, kind of for a period of time every five years, typically. So it's not a regular meeting all the time, but when needed. But it is an opportunity to add a chapter, subtract a chapter or otherwise, expand the regional plan into something a bit different. Andy, go ahead. Chris, you could add me to that one, Chris. Okay, thank you. Appreciate that. We're gonna have more chargers in Burlington. Or we can expand to new areas. And then the other piece that we have is the Brownfields advisory committee and we're looking for a member from the board on this committee as well. And can you give us a little background on that, Charlie? Yeah, this, you may remember a few months ago, we announced we got a $500,000 grant from EPA to do Brownfields assessments. So this committee guides where, what properties those assessment dollars are used on. Again, a little bit more of ad hoc schedule, not a regular monthly meeting, but when we have properties ready and we have funding available, we bring those to this committee to review and approve. So is there a volunteer to help us on Brownfields, the advisory committee, the ad hoc committee? Yes, Andy Watts from Essex. I'd like to do that one. Thank you. And I will note Essex, Andy Watts. So the bills to thank you, Andy Watts, Williston for being in the room. So... Andy, sorry, I just want to mention that that committee does mostly meet during the day. And I just wanted to mention that before you agreed to serve on that committee. I went and looked at the webpage and noted the meeting time, so I'm fine with that. Okay, and Joe Segal, can we hear from you? Hi, Chris. Yeah, I'm just, for folks who don't know me, I'm taking over for Barbara Elliott from Huntington as the Huntington rep. And I'm interested in being on the unified planning work program committee, if that's an option. It looks like there's three to five members and looks like maybe there's three on it right now. Is now the time to ask to be put on that committee? Now would be the time. I am sure Charlie would cast a blind eye if by Fiat, the board chair wanted to squeeze on a member from Huntington. No, that's good reading, Joe. Yeah, thanks. I should probably have a blank line there, so there's an opportunity. Well, good. So my only other question would be on the equity advisory committee. Are we full there? Are there any blanks there? It was hard. You must be to that. Yeah, so the meeting this month with the equity advisory committee, that's happening next week, we're gonna do, I'm starting to do like an assessment of membership and hoping to recruit a few additional folks to continue to diversify that committee, but no additions at the moment. Okay, it wasn't presented in the same format as the other committee, so I wasn't able to see if there was a blank line or not. So then with the board's tacit approval, I'm going to appoint the establishment to appoint these committees with their members as listed in the packet, with the finance committee, the board development committee, for the unified planning work program committee by adding Joe Seagal, is it Joe Seagalli or Seagal? That's right, yes. Seagalli? Yes. Thank you. From Huntington to the UPWP committee and the Transportation Advisory Committee, the TAC interest group reps. There's the word I was looking for, interest groups, special interest groups. Charlie, sorry, earlier with the regional planning members. And then the planning advisory committee, the long-range planning committee with the addition of Andy Montrol, thank you, Andy. Clean Water Advisory Committee and the ad hoc Brownfields Advisory Committee with the addition of Andy Watts of Essex Town. Thank you, Andy, along with the equity advisory committee as presently listed. If there are any objections or any further discussion, please speak up now. If not, we will move on to the equity update and then Ann Nelson-Stoner. Ann Nelson? Yeah, thanks, Chris. I'm gonna share my screen. Can you all see that? Okay, cool. Looks good. I have, all right, great. Apologies to all of you in the room who have seen and heard this spiel multiple times at this point, but I'm gonna run through some, most of it again. We've been working with staff and with the equity advisory committee to develop an organizational equity assessment, or a statement over the past few months. CCRPC has a mission statement and we have a vision statement. Our mission statement is, as all mission statements, why do we exist? What is our purpose? Our vision statement, what are we working towards? For now, we're not touching those two statements because they require bylaw updates. We're not gonna go through that process at the moment. So we're trying to add on an equity statement, which basically says who do we need to look out for and why? Following the equity statement will come a code of conduct. How do we need to behave along the way to live up to that equity statement and an equity action plan? What does this work actually look like? So here's our kind of equity foundation workflow. Right now we're step one equity statement. The code of conduct will come and then the equity action plan and both of those are in the works right now. So the process for developing this statement, I started meeting with all CCRPC staff members in small groups and we really workshopped this statement. We took, gathered a bunch of examples from elsewhere throughout the country locally, had discussions around what we liked and didn't like about other statements and came up with goals and priorities for our own statement. I then took that language to the equity advisory committee. We workshopped it with them and then consulted with a few community partners that I've been in touch with, brought it to the executive committee, back to CCRPC staff, back to the equity advisory committee, back to the executive committee and then now we're here at the board. So it's been in the works for quite some time. All right, I'm gonna run through this background quickly. I know most of you have seen it before but some of you haven't and I think it's just important to ground ourselves in it before we actually think and talk about the equity statement. So why do we need an equity statement? We're not operating in a vacuum here. If we go way back before there was the United States there was slavery, we all know this. It's the basis of our economic and social order. There's a tendency to think we are far from this time in our history and we really are not. Roughly $70 trillion was made off of free black labor. If disparities in wealth were to continue at the current pace it would take black families 228 years to amass the wealth that white families now have. 2022 marks the first year that the United States will have been independent for as long as slavery lasted and no current day adult will be alive in the year in which African-Americans as a group will have been free for as long as they've been enslaved. Won't come until the year 2111. So planning has been used throughout our history as a central tool of the government at the federal, state and local levels to perpetuate racial inequalities and inequalities in many different areas. Here's a list. This list could go on as just examples of ways that planning has been involved or tangentially involved in these practices. Vermont is no exception. Moving here from Virginia it's a common kind of sentiment up here that Vermont is this progressive space and it is and there's a lot of wonderful things about it but it's interesting that even back in 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville who's a French explorer wrote a book called Democracy in America. He traveled throughout the states and kind of commented on social life here. He has this quote that says the prejudice of race appears to be stronger in the states that have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists. And nowhere is it so intolerable as in those states where servitude has never been known. The Negro is free but he can share neither the rights nor the pleasures nor the labor nor the afflictions nor the tomb of him whose equal he has been declared to be. And he cannot meet him upon fair terms in life or death. Vermont's planning history I have been doing I've been trying to dig since I started here last year to gather history of planning in Vermont. It is surprisingly difficult to find but some examples that I think we're all also aware of of we're operating on unseated territory. We've had state-finction deugenics here. We have had exclusionary housing covenants, urban renewal in our own form and poor quality public housing, exclusionary single family zoning, highway construction that has gone through neighborhoods, environmental and climate injustices. Okay, jump ahead. Where are we today? There was a blog post that was posted, I think it was in August of an anonymous author who is moving away from Vermont, a black Vermonter moving back down south. And they wrote this reflection on why. I just wanted to pull this quote. Mississippi's racism is the kind that will look you in your face and say, yes, I'm a racist. Racism in Vermont is death by 1,000 pinpricks. When you start with a population that can at least acknowledge the presence of racism, it pushes the fight for equity 20 steps forward past the point of denial. How can we gain support to stop oppression from a population that won't even say it exists? This photo below came from Cambridge, Vermont. If anybody's interested in that blog post, I can pop a link in the chat. Okay, our population is changing. Over the past 10 years, our population has grown by roughly 12,000 people. Over 99% of those are people of color. If this trend continues, we'll have nearly 60,000 new people of color in Chippin County by 2070. Income equality, we've seen almost no change since the civil rights days. The wealth disparity has only gotten wider. Income inequality has been rising since the 70s. 86% of black and African-American households rent in Chippin County, while 65% of white households own homes. Again, just black-white home ownership gap since 2010 is getting wider. Our homelessness rates are almost the worst in the country. We have among the lowest vacancy rate, over half of Chippin County renters pay over one-third of their income on housing. This was new to me. Vermont has the largest median home lot size in the US and climate change. This summer really showed climate change's face here in Vermont. Obviously, these disasters are not gonna impact everybody the same. Housing, more affordable housing, tends to get put in more vulnerable land. We saw this already. Okay, so it just all begs the question of who are we planning for? For a future-oriented organization that needs to be planning for all of our communities and everybody involved in those communities. So components of the statement, staff members, these kind of four priorities really came from CCRPC staff of like one, it's really important that we acknowledge the problem. It's important that we recognize our own role and responsibility, our commitment moving forward and state our goal. So the statement and thanks, Chris, I think this was your suggestion in the executive committee meeting of organizing it this way, but I'm gonna read through it. I've organized it in these kind of four categories per se. CCRPC acknowledges that structural oppression contributes to persistent disparities and condemns racism and discrimination in all its forms. As a governmental planning organization with decision-making influence, the work of CCRPC significantly impacts people throughout Chittenden County. We hold ourselves responsible for identifying and addressing historic and current inequities in our own practices, as well as those with the planning field as a whole. We commit to constantly evaluating our work to transform our actions, policies, and procedures through continuous education, leveraging assets to improve access and meaningful collaboration with those most impacted by the problems we seek to address. In doing so, we hope to co-create a community where identity and socioeconomic status no longer influence life outcomes and where all not the select few are heard, seen, belong and treated as experts in their own experience. Here it is kind of not divided up by those sections. And then I'm gonna stop sharing my screen. I'm happy to hop this in the chat. And I also have some slides over that summarize feedback from the different groups that were involved in this process, if that's of interest or if that's where folks have questions. But I'm just gonna open it up there and see if anybody has questions and we'll go from there. Very good, thank you Nelson. Anyone would like to weigh in on the four items of our equity statement, our task in front of us is to approve and adopt this statement. We in the executive committee did have a peek at it as they announced the references. We kicked it back to the equity advisory committee to refine that language similarly to how Catherine was looking for some clarification on the minutes. And so we were trying to get more of that bullet point look at it so we can look at the four elements of the equity statement so that we're acknowledging we are recognizing our role in the responsibility that we're making a commitment to move forward from where we're at and here's our goal in the end. So I think to us, that's manageable. And as you can see that's one step in what and Nelson a three step process as you showed in the slides. Never ending step process, honestly Chris, but yeah, three steps. Well, I think you have the code of conduct next and then remind me of my visual memory is failing me. Yeah, the code of conduct and then the equity action plan and that action plan is really taking the organizational equity assessment that the creative discourse did years ago and kind of filling in the gaps. It's really our plan moving forward. What does this work actually look like? Great, so and I see Diedra just asked for the slides to be shared in a way I suppose that we can collect them and download them on our own. Is that a method that you're gonna give us a link for or somehow we can- Yeah, I'm happy to share them. Super, and Barb. Well, first that, yeah, I think the other materials would be helpful and as somebody who helped push and Nelson Stoner and the other group back into the wonderful world of word snipping, I wanna thank her and the others for going back because they're like some of the changes are subtle but I actually think this is a better product personally than came before. And even though I know it's probably tedious and at times challenging for folks to keep going around the circle. So thanks for that. Now I appreciate everybody's input. It really does make it a better statement. So yeah, I much prefer people be nitpicky with feedback than have no feedback. Are there any other thoughts for Nelson before I ask for a motion on this? If not, we are looking to approved and adopt this as our equity statement for CCRPC. All right, love you. All right, bye. That probably was not a motion. No, it sounded like an E motion. First, I'll make a motion. First, I'll make a motion to approve. Thank you, Micah Bryan. Thank you. This is Barb, I'll second that. I think Dan Karen beat you to the punch. Thank you, Dan. We appreciated your affection. Any further discussion on the matter? Okay, I'll ask all those in favor, please say aye or raise your hand. And anyone opposing, please speak up and or abstaining, please speak up. Well, thank you. And thank you, Ann Nelson. We are going to be working more as I understand as we move along and there's more work to be done. Thank you. Thank you all so much. We're gonna move to number eight, Economic Development District Memo of Understanding. Is this Taylor? That'd be me, Chris. Thank you. So in your packet, you have a memo and you have a draft memorandum of understanding. The memo explains a bit about what we're asking you to approve tonight. And what we're asking you to approve is essentially to provide authorization for CCRPC to enter in an MOU to create an Economic Development District. With our Regional Planning Commission and Regional Development Corporation partners in Addison, Rutland counties, in central Vermont, mostly Washington County and through municipalities in Orange County. So, if you remember back when we approved the sets, we talked about what an Economic Development District is a little bit. An Economic Development District is essentially another governmental entity that exists all across this country, including the rest of Vermont is covered by an Economic Development District except for these four counties and two down south that are in the application process would have been Bennington. They are a governmental unit that essentially is a, anyone can create, but they're recognized by EDA, the Economic Development Administration. And in the memo, I outlined a couple of reasons why we may want to enter into an EDD with our SEDS partners. First off, there may be opportunities to wear that EDD. EDDs sometimes can access non-competitive EDA funding. An example of that was the CARIS Act funding that was issued at the beginning of the pandemic. Every EDD in the country received, I think it was about, yeah, $400,000 to implement Economic Development Planning related to COVID response. So we missed out on that a few years ago, but the other EDDs in the state were able to access that money. So if there are future opportunities to access similar non-competitive grants, we would be in the queue for that if we had an EDD. Secondly, it puts us in a more competitive position if any of our partners or any of our municipalities are seeking EDA grant funds. If they do it through the EDD itself, there are central priority points to go for the EDD. Lastly, in having an EDD, the EDD is able to aggregate projects from across different parts of the state. That can be really beneficial to some of actually most of our municipalities here in Chittenden County. And that's because most of our municipalities can't, are not competitive for EDA grants as it stands now because median household incomes are too high and unemployment rates are too low here in Chittenden County. And so we potentially could aggregate a project, I hate to pick on Shelburne, John, but we could aggregate a project potentially in Shelburne with a very city, which has economic indicators that are eligible or a project potentially in a Rutland city. And so we see that as a benefit here in Chittenden County. We're gonna create an EDD through an intergovernmental agreement, that's the MOU. The member talks about a couple other ways that we could create an EDD. They'll seem more complicated and more cumbersome. So we decided to go the simple route and just do the MOU for the time being. Any questions on the MOU itself? Well, a question for you is you, for instance, use Berry as an example, and certainly South Burlington would love to access the money that might otherwise go to Berry. How is it prevented within this EDD that Berry might get priority over South Burlington or Rutland operation might get priority? If no one's bidding, I suppose, then it's worthwhile. But if there's a limited pot of money and you get where I'm headed, how is this gonna be? There's a limited pot of money nationally, you know, kind of per EDA grant program. But the point I'm trying to make here Chris is, you know, as it stands now, you know, Berry City, Berry City is clearly gonna be competitive for most EDA grant programs and South Burlington isn't going to be. I don't think signing this MOU changes anything in terms of competition between those two municipalities, if that makes sense. Yeah, that's sort of what I'm getting at as to where's the determining factor between competing requests for those monies. You know, does Berry going to be looked at as a standalone versus part of the EDD or is it all gonna be looked at as an EDD issue? And then within the subset of the EDD, they're gonna say, well, Berry should get this specified or is it up to, you know, the requester to push forward all that? Oh, I got it in first, you know, a timeframe. Okay, Chris, I'm seeing this more as a, you know, if the EDD is aggregating projects or multiple municipalities, are you asking what the match would be or what the competitive nature of that application would be? It's way more general and maybe not specific to what needs to be done with a member of understanding, but I was worried that what's an advantage to South Burlington, for instance, is a disadvantage potentially for Rutland and or Berry. And I don't wanna, you know, see, I would hope that there's a mechanism or there's a way within the federal EVA that they're making that determination as not being done locally and two elbows from South Burlington crowd out for Rutland and Berry. I certainly don't think that's the case. I think, you know, certainly in our case here with a Berry city or a Rutland city or, you know, even a Winooski, you know, those municipalities have capacity limits and may not be able to apply at all for EDA funding as it stands now. And that's where creation of this EDD could be an advantage to those municipalities if anything else. Okay, all right. So that was my question. Anyone else have a question for Taylor? I'm sorry to get a lot on it. Well, there you are. And you would have us approve the West Central Vermont Economic Development District Memorandum of Understanding and authorize the Executive Director and Charlie Baker to sign the MOU on behalf of us. That is a motion. All right. Will someone help make that motion? This is Bart. Thank you, Andy Watts from Williston. This is Bart, I'll second. Thank you, Bart from Richmond. And any further discussion on the Memo of Understanding for the West Central Vermont Economic Development District? Hey, Chris. Yes, sir. This is probably not a very important question, but Taylor, just curious because it said that not all of Addison or Washington County were included. Is that because the towns that are excluded are in a different original planning? They are. Yeah. There are two municipalities in Addison County that are part of two rivers on Ikwichi and there is one municipality in Rutland County that's part of two rivers on Ikwichi Regional Commission. Thank you. Any further discussion? Then all those in favor, please say aye or raise your hand. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposing or abstaining, please speak up. All right. Thank you. Do we stick with you or we go to Charlie for number 10? Number nine, the Echoes Plan Update for the Echoes Prosperity Review. You're sticking with me, Chris. And can I interject one quick thing, Amy, for the minutes? Amy just noted to me that she was abstaining from that last vote. Amy Bell, thank you. Amy Bell, yeah. Thanks. All right. Do you guys see the full screen version of this and not present review? Yes, we do. Thank you. All right. So I'm here to provide an update on the 2024 Echoes Plan and to review part of the 24, sorry, 2024 Echoes Plan Review tonight and that's the Echoes Prosperity Sections. So you want to remind us that prosperity is what used to be economy? I'll talk a bit about what is in prosperity here in a second, Chris. Yes. I wanted to talk timeline first because we talked timeline back in July and since that time, things have changed. There's a lot here on the screen, but in essence, we've determined that we need to delay the adoption process for the 2024 Echoes Plan from spring 2024 until likely fall 2024 into winter 2025. There are really three main reasons behind delaying adoption. First off is that we feel like we need additional time to do specific outreach with underrepresented communities. We hope to work with Ann Nelson and to work with the Equity Advisory Committee to sculpt an engagement plan specific reaching out to underrepresented communities this winter and this spring. And we hope to continue working with the Long-Wrench Planning Committee to make edits to the plan next summer based on that outreach. The second reason is that as a part of the HOME Act this past year, the legislature required that the agency at Commerce and Community Development develop regional housing targets as a part of the statewide housing needs assessment. Back in July, we thought that statewide housing needs assessment was gonna happen in 2025. They've actually moved it up a year. And so now that statewide housing needs assessment is gonna be done in March 2024 before we had planned to adopt the plan in June 2024. That complicates adoption as it is. It also doesn't provide a lot of time to do the other thing we're supposed to do per the HOME Act, which is to take those regional housing targets and municipalize them, essentially set municipal targets to put in our regional plan. And so we plan now to work on the methodology of how we're gonna municipalize with our Planning Advisory Committee this winter and to be ready to municipalize our regional target this spring and into next summer, 2024 in order to move with adoption next fall. The third reason is that we anticipate statutory changes related to the future land use map in the ECOS plan. Charlie's gonna talk more about that later, but we just felt like that was not a really valid reason to delay adoption of the plan itself. And so now this fall is really unchanged. We hope to work through the draft plan in really four sections, the introduction and then ECOS prosperity, ECOS people and ECOS place. We're gonna work with the Long Range Planning Committee and the Board. And then this spring and going into next summer really address those three outstanding things that we wanna work on and then start adoption in October, 2024. Any questions on timeline? So to summarize, we're gonna push out our self-imposed deadline of June of 2024. There's no penalty for not making June of 2024. It just happens to be the six year mark for our existing plan, correct? Correct, Chris, yeah. We're gonna push it out another four to eight months for the convenience of all these other things that got tossed into the bin here at the last moment by the legislature during the last session. Correct. Okay, and to take advantage of that. And just for everyone's own knowledge, our actual deadline, not our self-imposed deadline, our actual deadline when our plan will expire is not until June, 2026. And so we still have some wiggle ruin on the back end of this in case we do need to delay again. I hope we don't have to. But that is our actual deadline in terms of expiration. And the three pieces we're gonna incorporate more outreach with our Equity Advisory Committee. We're going to look at the real bona contention, I suggest, which will be the housing targets for the municipality. And then Charlie's gonna fill us in on that last piece and the next item on the agenda, the Regional Land Use Future Maps or Future Regional Land Use Maps. Thank you. Anyone else with questions at this point? Go on. All right, just I know we have a lot of new board members. So I wanna talk a bit about the structure of the plan. So the plan is going to be structured much like the current 2018 ECOS plan is structured. We have a main document and in that main document, we have a vision of introduction, some framing, some regional context. And then we have 16 goals and then we have 10 strategies with actions under those strategies. And so what you'll be reviewing today are the goals and the strategies and actions for the ECOS people section, which again, we'll talk about what that means in a second. The plan is also composed of a bunch of supplements. There's one supplement on the actual planning process itself. There's one that's specific to the regional plan and our regional land use districts. There's the SEDS itself, which will incorporate as a supplement the Metropolitan Transportation Plan. Then lastly, the data component of our Enhanced Energy Plan is also a supplement. Any questions on the structures of the structure of the plan? Will the SEDS include the West Central or Vermont Economic Development District discussion? I think it'll probably just be the SEDS that we just adopted this past year without any amendment. Okay, I'm just looking for maps. So I know who our partners are on that map. There's a map on that SEDS, Chris. I can get it to you. Thanks. So as I mentioned earlier, we're going to review the ECOS plan really in three different sections. Prosperity, people in place. And in prosperity, we have seven different goals. Economy, household finance, et cetera. I do want to note that you do not see infrastructure facilities in the drafts that we sent out with this packet. We're having some version control issues. You're going to see infrastructure facilities when we review place in November. I just wanted to mention that out of the gate. Any questions on these themes, these sections, and how we're going to review the plan this fall? So in terms of the edits, you're going to see this document versus 2018. There's going to be data updates, particularly to the Enhanced Energy Plan. We'll see that when we review ECOS place in November. We've tried to at least address the topic of equity in terms of data and the key issue sections and having some specific actions related to equity. You'll see that mostly in the ECOS people section in October. We also wanted to address the LRPC impact comments on a prior draft that you guys did not see that we started way back in late 2021, early 2022. The intent of today is really to do a basic outline of the additions and deletions to the plan from 2018 and to provide an opportunity for the board to ask questions or provide comments on the draft language. So now you have in your memo an overview of what's changed by goal and by strategy. But I'm going to do the same thing here in this PowerPoint presentation. And I'll go one by one. Please stop me if you have any comments, questions on any of these sections. I figured this was less tedious than going page by page. And so the economy goal. In the economy goal, we added a bunch of data from the seds related to the local economy. We also added information about labor force participation rate. And we looked at that in particularly by rates. During the pandemic, there was quite a big difference actually in labor force participation in the state based on race with labor force participation being much higher for the BIPOC community than for the white community. There'll be a lot of reasons for that, but we thought it was worth noting. We also looked at average wage by municipality. Just wanted to show that jobs and municipalities and the wage you can get from those jobs varies pretty greatly by municipality in Chittenden County. Any questions on economy? Miller? Yes, Michael Bryant. Just a quick question. The data you're getting, where is it from? And what year is it from? How current is it? Yeah, in the current drafts, you're going to see a lot of probably 2021 ECS data. It's a five-year survey most of the time. So that would be what, 2017 to 2021 ECS data. Census data, if it's applicable from 2020, you're going to have information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Vermont Department of Labor, mostly from 2021. Maybe some 2022 data where we can get it. The data, when we go to adopt this plan, Mike, we'll probably have to do another update next spring, just to make sure we have the latest and greatest before we had to adoption in fall 2024. Yeah, I was concerned about that the last time. I'm always in concern about how current the data is, because if we're doing a 2024 plan and we're using 2020 data or 2021 data, it's kind of old. Yeah, we'll update the data the best we can next spring before we bring another draft back for review by the LRPC next summer and then to the board for the adoption process. Great, thanks. So this is part of the first comment. Yeah, I will say all these data sources are much better at telling us where we were than where we are, much less where we're headed, right? That's just a fact of life. My substantive question though is around household finance. We have data by race. Have you thought of other groups like disability? And I point that out because in my world, that's strikingly different. There are huge wage disparities among people with disabilities. If you can get me a data source part, I'd love to look at that. I'm just not sure I can get my hands on it. Cornell. Cornell, okay. Is that by state or by county or? Well, you have to look at margins of error because it has to do with sample sizes and stuff. But it does exist even though it's got holes. It's much better statewide. So it's probably reasonable at county, especially for Pittman County, as opposed to town level. I have to track that down, Mark. And Nelson. Yeah, I just want to jump in around the data conversation because we're also adding in the kind of upfront introduction section, there will be a subsection that helps frame data because it is a big issue, just like what data we have access to and what we don't have access to, especially in a rural state like Vermont. And margins of error tends to be really large for marginalized communities. And even if the data were accurate and we were a more urban area, data like disability data tends to already be fairly inaccurate because the category is so porous in some ways. So anyways, that's all to say that this data conversation is a really tricky one specifically in Vermont. And yeah, we're hoping to frame it a little bit, a little bit more honestly in the report as well. I just wanted to add that. Thank you, Ann Nelson. I think I just also want to note that introduction portion of the plan with that data conversation, we're going to bring to the board with ECOS Place in November. So you folks will see that first iteration of that introduction section this fall. And then could you unpack the two bullet points under working lands there for me, Act 59 and regenerative economy? Sure thing. So Act 59 refers to the law I passed Charlie Kirkman, this was last year in the legislation, legislative session before, but it deals with Vermont's new goal to conserve 30% of the state's land by 2030 and 50% of the state's land by 2050. And so just wanted to reference that act and the goals of that act and how ambitious that is in the ECOS plan. And median lot size doesn't automatically have concern. I mean, the median lot size is really big in Vermont, but heck, even the average lot size of Vermont, I think most land trusts won't be that interested in conserving because they want really big tracks. But how we reach that goal, Chris, is a pretty open question. Well, can I jump in, Taylor? So that's an example of the data. If we're doing median lot size in Vermont versus median lot size in Chittman, I think those are likely really different values. Yeah, and actually, I don't think we necessarily talk about lot size in the ECOS plan as it stands now, but I know we can get average lot size information from the VNRC forest fragmentation study, I believe. So yeah, we can get that data included if you'd like. In terms of regenerative economy, go ahead. Since we're actually including a section on parcelization in ECOS Place, so you'll see that in November. In terms of, I'm glad Darren popped up, in terms of regenerative economy, Darren's gonna have a much better explanation of that and much shorter than me. So I'm gonna kick over to Darren to talk about the regenerative economy. Oh, boy, with that kind of preface, now the pressure's on. Hi, folks, Darren Shibbler. So I help write the section on regenerative economy. It's a fairly simple concept, but essentially modern industrialized economies are fairly resource-extractive. We mine something out of the earth, we process it into a product, we give it to people, and then at some point it goes into a landfill. That's the simple explanation of how things work today. What we are trying to get to is a more circular or regenerative economy where you take a resource, you use it, it goes back into the ecosystem somehow, and then you're able to continue working with the resources you have, circulating them rather than using them and disposing them. That also refers to the ecosystem of economics and how different parts of that support each other, more like a food web instead of a food chain. But the general idea is place our human society into the limited resource context that we live in reality on a finite planet. Great. Thank you. For the sake of time, I will not review the rest of the bullet points in the slide, but are there any other questions related to economy, household finance, or working lands? All right, I'll keep us moving. Goals in terms of scenic, recreational, historic resources, not much changed there. We just updated some information related to the amount of bike and pedestrian infrastructure here in Shitting County. Again, not much changed in arts and culture. We cite the Fantastic Create VT Action Plan. This was planned in the year in Vermont a few years ago. That plan is so great, we're just going to cite it and probably try to implement that plan as it is. In terms of education, we provided some information about different educational outcomes by race in terms of standardized test scores and long-range outcomes. We talked specifically about the child care bill that passed last legislative session and how that relates to child care costs. And then we also referenced the impact of COVID-19 on the teaching profession itself and teacher burnout. Any questions on those goals? All right, moving forward to the strategies and actions. This is where the rubber meets the road. What are we going to do to implement our plan over the next eight years after we adopt it? The economic infrastructure strategy has actions that are pretty much just the sets or a summary of the sets. Where we've summarized is mostly around actions that are that in our SEDS, our regional development corporation partners are more likely to implement instead of the RPC. So we've summarized and shortened. In the ecological systems working lens strategy, we've just consolidated at a very, very little actually related to habitat preservation to be much more succinct. And then we also referenced implementing working lands actions that are referenced in the SEDS and in the Farm to Plate strategic plan, another really great statewide plan that's much more detailed than we'll get into the SEDS that is well written and well researched. Minor changes in the governance strategy. We move some language related to housing and energy related financing to those respective other strategies. And so you'll see that language at a later meeting as a part of ECOS Place. Any questions on changes to strategies and actions? All right. That's it in terms of the review of ECOS prosperity. And I know we have limited time here tonight. And so if any board members have reviewed that draft section of the plan, you have specific comments or specific text edits if you wanted to go that detailed, please feel free to email me or even set up time to talk to me. I'm happy to do that. I want to provide two other quick updates on ECOS plan process. First off, just want to let folks know that we've selected a consultant to build a specific ECOS plan website. That consultant, we're not quite under contract yet, so I won't say their name, but they're very experienced actually in doing ArcGIS hub sites. And so sites where we can integrate a lot of mapping with text and make it much more interactive than the current site that we have. And I believe we hope to have essentially a draft plan on the web up by June 2024, if not earlier. I, dates have changed a bit with the scope of work with the contractor. So that might be a little bit off. It might be a little earlier than June 2024. Also, just want to let the board know that we're going to contract with the same copy editor that we used for the MTP this past spring. Hope to start working with them on these varying sections of the ECOS plan this fall. Any questions on the website or copy it? Excellent. That is what I have for you folks tonight on the ECOS plan. Well, thank you. Again, please let me know if you have any comments on the draft. Great. We will look forward to it and as we segue into item 10, the regional future land use concepts, it will build on the third piece of your changes to our agenda at the timeline that we had. Charlie, are you covering that as well? Yeah. So I mentioned this a little bit in previous meetings, but it's been a couple of months since we met. So I want to update you as to what's going on with the various studies that came out of S100 and then I'll kind of end that talking about potential changes to make our future land use maps more consistent with other RPCs statewide and ask for your feedback on that. So just to ground us, there are four studies that are all kind of interrelated that came out of S100. Some of them, a couple of them started before that, but in terms of this legislation, but for our purposes, we'll just call them S100 studies. The first one is Act 250. So the Natural Resources Board is pursuing a study to look at, I think they called it Necessary Updates to Act 250, but really the legislature was asking the NRB to look at modernizing and updating Act 250 to be, and they specifically said, to look at location-based jurisdiction issues. And so there's been a steering committee and different public meetings and focus groups have been going on around Act 250. And there is some pretty, I think significant movement being discussed in that steering committee. And this has been, it's pretty consistent actually with our Act 250 policy from, God, I don't know what year, maybe 2016, 2015, like it's six to 10 years old that we spent some time trying to develop a policy on Act 250. And that basic approach to Act 250 was we would like to see, and this was a position of the CCRPC Board, the Act 250 relief some of their jurisdiction over our areas where we're trying to encourage growth in exchange for increasing jurisdiction and regulation of more natural resource areas in the state. And this was really a reaction to the jurisdictional threshold being 10 lots or 10 units of housing triggers Act 250. And that was kind of my term, a little insidious, you know, kind of encouraged nine lot subdivisions all around the state to just be under the threshold. And so we really, that's what happens in 1970, our rate of rural subdivision and apologies, it's no offense to anyone who lives in one of those houses. This is not a personal issue. It's just from a land use policy standpoint, it did encourage a lot of rural sprawl in Chinden County, our rate of rural subdivision almost doubled after Act 250 passed. So that, there was kind of this bargain and this bargain has been getting debated the last few years. You know, could we ease up in the places we want to encourage growth and tighten down in the rural resource areas. And this steering committee of that's advising the NRB right now is talking about what they're calling a three tier approach tier one, being the places they want to encourage growth. Let's maybe ease up, you know, increase jurisdictional threshold or maybe even eliminate Act 250 jurisdiction all together in those places. At the other end of the spectrums is that tier three is what they've been calling it which are more important resource lands where they would increase jurisdiction. So it wouldn't necessarily be no go zones, but it would, you know, maybe instead of 10, a 10 lot subdivision trigger Act 250, maybe it's five or three lots or something, something below 10, I think. There may be other things that they look at, you know, elevation. They've been talking about a road rule, but it's really, you know, how to get at the rural subdivision impacts on particularly kind of high quality forest lands, et cetera. And there is also more attention because of climate change and the greenhouse gas goals looking at those forest lands with regard to sequestration, right? So anyway, that's a quick update on the Act 250 recommendations are kind of, so far they've been talking about these three tiers. I think they've got agreement of the steering committee on those three tiers. They're now starting to get the next level down of detail. And that's where it will get messy. So the second study is, maybe I should pause. Questions on the Act 250 study or issues that ought to be brought up there. Okay. I will take that as do good things. The second study is the what's been getting referred to as a designation study. The Department of Housing and Community Development got, frankly, they asked the Legislature and Legislature asked them to reexamine the designations. For those of you not too familiar with the designations, you're probably familiar. You've heard downtown designations. In Chittany County, we have the most designations but we have downtowns, village centers, new town centers, growth centers. And the most reasonable was neighborhood development areas. And there's kind of two flavors of those, I'll say. The downtowns and the village centers are really about those historic centers and tax credits and rehabbing historic buildings in those centers. That actually seems to be working fairly well. But the other three designations are a little bit more about where we want to have growth. And those kind of came in very hodgepodgey over the years. All five of those designations happened in the Legislature and got added to statute over the last 20 years at different times. So it's not a coordinated package. It doesn't all work together well. But those last three are more of the growth areas. And there seems to be some growing momentum in that study to collapse from five maybe down to two or three designations. And I think it's headed towards larger, being able to designate larger areas for growth. And this is also coming as a response to the flooding that happened. We have a lot of villages and I mean Montpelier, right? We saw the damage there. And I say larger areas for growth in reckoning and tying it to the flooding damage because part of the conversation in those places that are sustaining heavy flood damage along the rivers is okay, we need to flood proof some of those buildings but maybe some of it we need to have housing growth outside of the flood plain. So we may need some more land as part of that growth area in that center. And there was a big workshop last Tuesday. Probably 130 people I think down to Randolph talking about this. So I think that's also making good progress. And in a way those growth areas that are getting talked about the designations I think are lining up pretty well with this idea tier one in the NRB study. And then there's two more studies that the RPCs are responsible for. One of them is I've been kind of thinking about it as a as a highest level of designation but the legislature referred to it as delegation. And this really came up from Burlington, Winooski, South Burlington saying it's not just our growth areas that need to be excluded or exempted from Act 250. Like our regulations are at such a level Act 250 is not really adding any value. And so we should be like fully delegated or exempted for the whole municipality. I will say that there were some legislatures that had some trouble with that which is why I didn't get into statute right then. This was debated in the spring time but it turned into a study. We're kind of working on the details of that right now. I'm doing a lot of the facilitation for that. And I think it's going to turn into more of let's give the opportunity for a municipality if they want to have their full municipality not have Act 250 be a second layer of regulation. Let's allow for a process where they maybe can negotiate with the NRB on a delegation agreement which is actually a process that exists for other purposes like shoreland protection, building codes, fire codes where municipalities have agreements with the state agency how they're going to do accomplish kind of the same purpose maybe not exactly the same way the state would but it allows the state agency to have a negotiation and you know even sometimes the state says but we'll hold on to this one part you do the rest so it may be something like that for Act 250. Sorry that's a really complex topic but any questions? Can we summarize that in effect? I think you talked about the Act 250 with the Tier 1 Towns Tier 2 and Tier 3 categorization not towns well I'm sorry I misspoke but areas areas yep because these are fuzzy maps still as future land use maps correct they're not going to be delineated with on the ground the markings there or anything of that sort you are a disciple of Paul Conner I can tell as soon as you said fuzzy maps Paul is the preeminent disciple of fuzzy maps but no these will be delineations they'll have lines on them okay and of course that's where everybody gets excited when we see a map and I'm on the other side of the line or even if it's fuzzy yellow and I want to be fuzzy green that's when you can all your public comments but then the second piece you just referred to I believe is the delegation for municipalities that would have their acts together as far as planning and zoning is concerned and act 250 is it overreach is that how it feels yeah that's actually the third piece I talked about and there was designations as the second piece the third piece would be Chris the entire municipality like your regulations and enforcement are so good you don't need act 250 anymore yep okay and then the designations just recap that for me I must have glitzed out yeah that's right yeah the designations are probably consolidating those five designations that exist now into what it looks to me like growth areas and then the downtown historic village tax credit centers so kind of tax credit incentives and then growth area incentives so that's where that's going and then I do want to get to the fourth study but Joe has a question yeah Charlie I was wondering on the particularly the village village center designation Huntington has two of those they're really small and there's not really much room for any sort of growth in them and we've done a lot of work just passed new regulations last year to you know make our village centers a little bit bigger and to allow for more density and is there any I mean if it's just the purpose is just tax credits maybe it's not really the right fit for us I guess but is there any you know any push or consideration of making that those sorts of centers bigger is there really small when you look at maps around the around the state of all these village centers can you know to where that where the even the concentrated mixed youth growth growth is around these communities there the the designated centers just really small it is and so for the rest of you and that actually has been coming up for municipalities as one of the issues around the village center designation is it's state has been working with the town and drawing really precise lines just around the commercial properties in your village center and you know sometimes whether like oh that one's three properties away so we're not going to include it it's been kind of I think even the state would say kind of a torturous process that I think frankly the state would like to get out of and Joe if I can I'm going to segue to the fourth study because I think we are trying to wrestle down with that issue or John something quick yeah I was wondering you were talking about the flood I'm pretty much on act 250 but I have not been involved in any even reading things about what's going on since the flood but our a lot of our villages are in flood plains and to designate growth outside the means you're going to sprawl act 250 is one of its main things is to prevent sprawl I see complete conflict here is there any any chat about that that really is the issue John is and I think we're working on the the labeling that's that it may be it's not sprawl if it's planned growth but you're right adjacent to your center so so it's you know let's say the I don't know the land area right upstream of or not upstream sorry uphill let's I'll pick on Richmond just because Bards on my screen right there and has had some flooding impacts right in your village but there is upland area that's outside the flood plain that's not that's pretty adjacent to the village that could be an area for housing growth in the village that would but it would be a larger village area than maybe what is designated now for sure so John I think there is I think we're going to have to kind of work our way through you know what's the growth area in there that's not traditional sprawl which might happen like without infrastructure and just you know into the rural lands but more planned growth adjacent to our communities does that make sense this department make one comment that some of the development we have that was built just 20 30 years ago could not be built today because it's in the flood plain yeah yeah no that I think there's going to be a lot of conversation sorry to go on this tangent but there's going to be a lot of conversation in this legislative session about how to best regulate what happens in the flood plains and river corridors you know I think there's some concerns you know even 20 years ago there might have been flood plain regulations or even more recently and not all towns maybe are administering them equally not as much of an issue in Chinden County but around the state so anyway that is an issue though John and and Bard like you know how to how to appropriately plan and regulate these areas while also addressing our housing crisis right this is kind of a lot of how this got started was we need to identify ways to plan for and support the building of more housing in hopefully appropriate places right out of flood plains adjacent to our villages so and those are competing things depending on exactly where you are Charlie you I have no doubt you are smart enough to know all of this and you're doing a very good job of telling us that just a quick question are all those under the dome understand the thing who are involved in this on what a his historic tussle that is going to become yeah and I think everybody is kind of like dealing with let's have both things be true right like let's figure out how to safely build more housing and let's figure out how to keep people out of harm's way you know in those river quarters and flood plains and not consider it sprawl right exactly and I so political commentary I will say you know vnrc does seem to be on board with this this grand bargain right like let's ease up on these growth areas in exchange for more protection in the rural resource areas okay all right fair fair now that's only in concept right so the and at both ends of the spectrum there's going to be debates right like you know there they may want the resource area to be bigger than property owners or the state at large is comfortable with and and they probably they being vnrc may want the growth areas to be smaller than what you know the rpcs or municipalities perceive is an appropriate growth area for their town that is we're going to work that out the next in the coming weeks john before the session I'm quite confident fair enough I just my brain couldn't help but ask that question sorry no no no it's really fair and it is it is the crux of the debate that needs to get resolved before the end of the session the fourth study is really at the rpc you know trying to update these future land use maps this is a handy handy I'm you know doing my van a white thing back here this is our future land use map now we are the rpcs all 11 of us are having conversations about how to use a consistent terminology and criteria for future land use maps because the state would like to base more policy decisions whether it's you know Act 250 exemptions or designations on mapping that is and I think I've had peers use this municipally driven regionally reviewed and approved and you know maybe state reviewed at some level and so we so and I credit to Darren and Sarah on our staff but we kind of looked at what all the other rpcs were doing kind of tried to look for consistencies and last a couple weeks ago we were down to nine land use areas tonight I just got it down to six that may work but kind of just to review those real quickly with you and this is what I would appreciate any specific feedback or questions if you have one is the plan growth area and for our region it is most of this or maybe all of this urban area like the you know what we've been calling center metro enterprise suburban but fundamentally it's where we have planning or zoning water and sewer has been kind of the basic criteria we've been looking at statewide like those are our growth areas you have infrastructure and zoning you're probably at least fairly prepared for growth depending on infrastructure capacity part already question well I'm just going to make a comment that we are sort of a little social laboratory case study in that wherever there's water and sewer the open land is flood plain and where there's open potentially develop a land there's no water sewer and literally the cost of getting water sewer out there is like a million dollars which doesn't sound like much until you try to find somebody to pay for it and nobody wants to pay for it the current users are not going to pay for it the new users can't afford it and so that's where I think this infrastructure question if we're going to dislocate if you will village development it strikes me for some of the small pounds like you know we have 400 customers on our water sewer yeah but you can't do a TIF district because it's not part of the village because it doesn't have water and sewer and then if you do it then you have to get agreement of the landowners of what they want to do it's just it's tortured and some of these vehicles sound great if you're a town with a bunch of staff infrastructure we got a handful of staff and a select board I'm just going to observe for small towns they're not taken on these long-term complex projects that require a lot of time and in many cases a lot of money that's kind of the obstacle I see for the sort of fringe towns if you will like Huntington Richmond Bolton yeah no it's not you're not fringe towns you're your normal Vermont towns you know maybe in the center areas that's the fringe part but in part you put your finger right on the I think the issue amongst my peers is there needs to be more work on water and sewer infrastructure funding financing you know whatever it is if this is going to really be widely useful um so that is an issue and and actually I want to move to the second land use area that we're have been talking about is just the village centers and and Joe I think you know Huntington is in this boat right like you don't have water and sewer yet but it's kind of you're in the planning and you know not clear to me and maybe Barbary Richmond Village is in this area too like yeah you have water and sewer but maybe you're not really ready to be a growth area because you can't get the extensions or you can't get the infrastructure financed so we are going to leave like just a village center like if you don't want to have growth and you just want to have those historic tax credits and all those other types of rehab investments in your village center that would be the second type of area and then the third area not sure this is what the end result will be would be we were calling transition and those are areas and Barbary maybe this is kind of like that million dollar thing like hey we have an area here we would like to grow into but we're going to need some help you know private and public funding probably to get there and so and you know there will be questions and really we're trying to make a point of like this is where state infrastructure dollars need to go into these three areas our growth areas our village centers and these transition areas that you know may be added to our growth areas and then so growth areas we have a couple special areas they were calling a resource based maybe I should scroll in the document so I don't get this wrong resource based recreation recreation area thanks thanks John and so though we had it was first called resort areas but resource based but it's kind of the ski areas and maybe some other areas that you know might pop up if there's you know who knows a lake side resort or something like that but those are ski areas just as a different type of land use that will probably I expect will stay under active 50 jurisdiction of fifth area just called enterprise kind of noting that there are these industrial parts that are kind of separate from villages and growth areas are in lots of places not so much in Chittany County but other parts of the state and then finally Hamlets kind of noting like we have little crossroads they don't have infrastructure they may not even have zoning but just to note them probably more as points on the map and this is probably eight of the RPCs use that right now and then finally rural with kind of noting which is kind of what we do all that area 85 percent of our counties rural but there's a whole bunch of different things in that rural area right there's kind of rural residential there's working farms and forests and then there are kind of permanently protected resource areas you know whether they have you know easement conservation easements or it's actually in public ownership so that rural is yeah it's what it is most of the state so anyway that's yeah any other feedback and thoughts as we talked about this I know Austin has a lot of thoughts Charlie I was wondering just back to the designation state designation program how do those areas some of those growth areas and the village areas line up with what's going on in that process yeah the the conversation between the two studies is the designation study I think would like to rely on the RPC mapping and get themselves out of the mapping business so like it would be you know your how the municipality defines their village area with and in our regional plan as opposed to just the part of your village that maybe has a designation now so make sense sort of yeah I think so so I hope the commission have to sign off on that on when all those here when you guys come up with whatever those definitions are and where those lines are going to go is that something the commission signs off on as part of the Eco's plan and right yeah that was and that's why I tell her that that was one of the things we're expecting if statue does change that there'll be pretty quick demand or at least asks to update the map to reflect those new definitions and and hopefully there's new benefits and things that come with it right you know designations or exemptions or investments but I do think you know and this is mostly Joe from like Chris Cochran you know trying to get more you know I think being a little bit more realistic about these areas and not so tight okay thanks yeah all right sorry that was just a lot of stuff I just threw at you and thank you for your patients well thank you any other people again I'm just looking for the summary we have four studies the first one remind me the the active 15 yep and then the second one about designation right and then the third one about delegation you got it and the fourth one how would you just summarize what we were just that's the future land you said all now bring your Sharpie okay well and to be honest the conversation amongst the RPC's has not been bring your Sharpie Chris it's been we've we pretty much have already mapped these areas yeah we're changing the name and and maybe you know tightening up maybe you gotta either you know shrink or expand your area a little bit to be consistent with the criteria but it's these are not this is a these aren't new concepts in any of the regions really no no we've all had our own versions at right hopefully the city level and and here at the county level so we're just trying to get all on the same page with the nomenclature and everything exactly super and thank you for trying to consolidate things into six or seven categories I'm sure it's yeah well we're trying yeah we think I know there were probably 30 different ones across the RPC's all right are we ready to move on and yep so you're gonna be going around to your annual tour of the select boards and city councils yeah so just heads up I've done my first couple thank you mayor a lot for your hospitality Monday night and I think I have all of them scheduled I will endeavor to copy you you know Benjamin I don't think I have Westford scheduled I think that's the only one I know I do I do have it I do know when that do you know when that is I do and that's what I was just about to say is I will I have appointments on my calendar for each of those I will add you to my appointment so just heads up and it may be just like the week before the meeting or something but I'll try to go through my calendar in the next week or so and add you to those appointments so you're very well aware when I'm gonna be at your town select board right or city council and I'll also add yeah and I'll also try to add the actual report that I've provided to the town so you can see that in advance as well that was my update there and then the B item was you see the question mark there I think as staff was kind of working with the executive committee to put this agenda together like we kind of realized like oh you know we have typically done trainings for new board members September, October, November before those meetings it didn't feel like we had a lot of new board members this summer and I'm kind of looking around but Joe I guess you're new but you know us very well and Austin as well do folks feel like there are there's a topic or two that we should do a training on next month or November we're open to it but you know we'd like a little direction or feedback on what would be most helpful to you silence it's going to make me think you're good good I'll certainly speak up and this is your opportunity I know that I found the board trainings invaluable when I first joined because of just the acronym on slot between the UPWP the ECOS plan and etc etc and understanding our role in both you know the transportation side and the planning side and then now the water quality side and now both the economic development side it all and now these four studies that are going to be I think monopolizing a lot of our time as well so if there is something that you're unsure of do you need more education on we'd spend a half hour before the meeting from say five thirty to six o'clock and we'd get that topic covered we wouldn't cover all the topics but we would certainly understand our role and responsibilities and creating work plans and showing that they were financially constrained for the upcoming five years six years that we were required to do so if anyone feels please speak up otherwise I'm going to go by Charlie's sense that we're in pretty good shape can I see Benjamin or is it yeah just a point of information in westford our town administrator who was also for many years the town clerk then town administrator for many many years Nanette Rogers just a formidable individual has been plucked to another town in Chittenden County to become their administrator so if there's any there may be some an evenness there is supposed to be somebody monitoring the the email box and the like but if you have any questions about that if I can help facilitate setting the date for your visit please let me know yeah Benjamin thank you I did get it scheduled with her yeah oh you did okay yeah we were very aware of when she was leaving so that we could you know take advantage of her while she was there right yeah she's a town clerk a six town town clerk a six town where she moved to so again I'm going to leave space for anyone who feels board training topic if not I think we at the executive any might talk about it when we meet in October in the first week and see if we can find any holes that need to be filled but in the meantime bubble up or email Charlie myself and we can take it from there anything else Charlie nothing else for me thank you okay so item 12 is all the committee and liaison activities and reports that I would hope you would swat up on if you feel so inclined there at the end of your packet and cover all of our work over August and September so far so we're looking forward to our next meeting on October 18th and we will ask for a motion to adjourn I'll say like a Brian motion to adjourn I move we adjourn Bernal second it I second thank you Benjamin thank you Bart and thank you for waving Mike and getting us all awake for the exiting yeah I've got to unmute myself any further discussion otherwise all those in favor please say I raise your hand I I hit your leave key if you object or abstain