 Good evening everyone. Thank you for being here. I want to just start by recognizing that today is September 11th. I know at school when we were recognizing the day that some of my students were saying, you know, I was alive then, but I was, you know, two days old or I was, you know, three months old or whatever it is. They thought it was particularly odd that, you know, they had been alive for this event but didn't remember it. But we had a really great conversation about what it meant and, you know, I think it would be appropriate for us to take just a moment of silence to remember the victims of the 9-11 attacks and their families. All right. Thank you. So there are, well, before we get into the consent agenda, so in reviewing and approving the agenda there were a few addendums to the agenda and I want to break these up into a few parts. So I would like to consider the approval of purchasing of truck parts as a part of the consent agenda so that would make it item G potentially of the consent agenda unless someone objects. We can take it up then. Do you have, sorry, do you have a comment or a question? We have not yet gotten there. Don't worry, that's next. So and then with the appointment of a city council representative to the Main Street School Committee, I would like to take that up after the historic preservation appointment so that would make it item basically, item six and a half. And then as for the event fees, I'd like to do that just after we do item 9, chapter 9 licensing or the license ordinances and then after that we'll do the appointment of a council rep to the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, Town Fair. So just before basically council reports. All right, so unless there's any objection to that order or unless there's anything else, I'll consider the agenda approved, okay, no objections, great. So we're going to move on. So now is the time for general business and appearances. So this is a time for the public to comment on any item, any topic that is otherwise not on our agenda. And if you would attempt to keep your top, your comments to about two minutes or less, that would be wonderful. So any comments from the public? Oh, it's fine. No worries. My comments. Close the gap. But you should say your name and where you're from. Walk him around on District 3 resident. My comments might take a little longer. I'd like to read the following for the record. From Ed Pequen, Executive Director of Disability Rights Vermont regarding Mack Johnson Memorial Fund. Dear interested groups and individuals, the Disability Rights Vermont Board of Directors today responded to a concerned Montpellier citizen who hoped for a public remembrance of Mack Johnson and for some vehicle for people to make contributions in Arizona that might be used to help with relationships between law enforcement and people in emotional or mental health crisis. The Disability Rights Vermont Board took the action of passing the following resolution. Disability Rights Vermont head by creates the Mack Johnson Memorial Fund to assist in our efforts to improve the response of law enforcement to incidences involving people with disabilities or who are in mental health or emotional crisis. Disability Rights Vermont will use the fund to further our system improvement efforts by working collaboratively with law enforcement and other community partners and when necessary by investigating reports alleging inappropriate uses of force. Donations may be made to the Mack Johnson Memorial Fund care of Disability Rights Vermont 141 Main Street Suite 7 Montpellier Vermont 05602. We appreciate all who work to make Montpellier a welcoming and safe community and that's from Ed Pequen and if I may something I wrote is a tribute to Mack Johnson in remembrance there ever be a time somewhere down the road come tomorrow our dear neighbor and caring friend taken from us very tragically one early morning be too easily dismissed and forgotten we shall always remember our hearts remain grieved still filled with deep sorrow over the sudden loss of the good soul the gentle side we all knew and greatly missed who to us was Mark Johnson rest in peace thank you thank you Morgan and Morgan thank you for your energy in the Memorial Fund and your tribute to him we appreciate it alright thank you any other comments again thank you Morgan I did hear expression at a prior meeting that the council wanted to move with all haste to be as transparent as possible with records related to that I think I've asked our city manager to move with rapidity to identify what records are not subject to the criminal invest or the investigative shooting and and release them promptly to inform and community discussion and transparency and involvement distressed lives matter I said that at the prior shooting and I had hoped to never say it again our my public records response to the police department revealed that there is no policy in place to escalate to Washington County mental health when a person who's known to be a client of Washington County mental health is engaged for the third time in a month with the police department that could have saved a life so I would ask y'all to take immediate action to get such a policy in place with the police department I want to register my impatience and objection that weeks have passed and we still don't have a date set because the way for the homeless task force the the way it was delegated to a city staffer who is on vacation or whatever it it seems to wreak of a lack of a sense of urgency it's cold out and people are sleeping with without a place to use the bathrooms at night etc without a place to charge their phone the this is not something to study for next year's consideration this is something that needs immediate and I'm even proposing to some of the folks who weren't appointed that we create a strike force and take care of some of the immediate needs but it really should be government that's involved in this I just want to interject as as I understand it there is I have received a notice of a date and I'm on the on the task force yes you should have received a notice of the date I have it here it's September 23rd from 430 to 630 Monday right Monday the 23rd at 430 the 23rd I didn't see that that was the only time that will could make it but I never heard a confirmation from staff that that had been set anyway that I'm glad it's set our meters were running again no notice to the tourists that they didn't have to pay the meters on Labor Day I again would ask that we refund everyone who paid by credit card and get set in motion a process to bag the meters on those days with the bags being courtesy of the merchants you can't credit the merchants with the holiday but you can credit the merchants with the bags so I think that's a good will and instead of people feeling ripped off they will feel gratitude no progress in a month on the lot over here no progress whatsoever other than the city sidewalks no action has been done on that lot in a month and that's unconscionable from a construction management point of view my piece which was an elaboration of my comments at the prior meeting on a list misplaced priorities and then a version ran in the paper I'm happy to provide an email copy to Bill and let him circulate it to you it's worth reading more than once I want to commend the receptivity of our new public works director we've had a good conversation hope to have many more specifically around it a in a publicly viewable inventory of all of the things so that it can be the public can be engaged in prioritizing those a municipal Wi-Fi zone would be an immense benefit to the community I even suggested that our cameras could automatically upload the pictures of the public works or the crap on the sidewalk that needs cleaning you need to take further action on the CV PSA whatever you did last time a watered down like be nice and work together was ineffective at getting any effective action out of CV PSA and the clock is running out and the money is going to run out I want to appeal I'm last items I want to appeal that the my complaint regarding the public nuisance of un-maintained building hazardous building was I think for political reasons squashed at the building inspector level I got the request from I got the response from bill that he said oh no we can't open up this can of worms because it will involve a lot of other buildings but you can't have done selective enforcement on the home farm road and then overlook failing foundations and failing in peeling lead paint etc hazards in the community just because it's a powerful landlord our new pop-up is popped in to our cool running chicken is now in the inside of rabble Rousers and I told rabble Rousers that they stole my name thank you Steven any other comments from the public okay alright so on to the consent agenda is there a motion regarding the consent agenda I move we pass the consent agenda as amended second further discussion all in favor please say aye opposed okay great thank you so we are only five minutes off from the advertised time for the first public hearing on some zoning amendments and so I'm gonna officially open the public hearing on this and welcome Mike and Mike Miller I'm the planning director and so I was just gonna quickly go over a quick summary of the significant changes if you if anyone wants to see what the changes are there online in the zoning fixes 2019 tab on the main page and there's a strikeout version there's a clean version and some of the additional materials there if anyone has questions they can email or call my office and Mike for people who want to residents who want to review it the the document they should be looking at is the one called city council hearing draft yes because most of these that are before you our zoning fixes that were based on typos or some small changes or some search replace items I'll just focus on what may be a couple of the larger more significant policy changes that are contained in the document the first being that this hearing will make permanent the two interim changes that were approved in March so back in March we approved that slopes over 30% can now be developed with certification from an engineer in a hearing at the DRB so that was an interim change that would only be effective for two years so we're gonna make that permanent and the new landscaping and screening rules that were developed to address a number of issues including the amount of total landscaping non-conforming landscaping and some waivers so there's some additional changes that were made for landscaping I won't go into the details but so those would be a couple of the more significant changes during the second round there probably I would describe three policy changes the first being that we're removing the requirement for stream buffers on the unchannelized portions of the urban center village so that big a bit of a mouthful but previously when this had been adopted there was a requirement to have buffers on what was an undefined term of unchannelized portions so if it was unchannelized then you should have buffers if it's channelized and you don't have to have buffers if you're in the downtown core the DRB has made determinations over the past year and a half and found most stream segments in the downtown to be channelized also being channelized would require natural naturally vegetated buffers which would interfere with projects like Confluence Park so it was felt by the planning commission that that that requirement should just be removed there was a memo that the planning commission has has provided the council that is also online if people want to really drill into the details of that of that change but mostly it's just a change to remove the requirement for naturally vegetated buffers in the downtown another change is to remove the requirement that density be calculated on buildable area rather than parcel size most communities use parcel size staff found that the rules that had been adopted as buildable area were burdensome to applicants and we had anticipated that new slope maps high resolution slope maps would make this easy but it turns out it didn't added a lot of cost to very small and simple projects as zoning districts were already based on parcel size anyways when we did all those calculations for 90% they were based on parcel size not on buildable area size we felt that removing the requirement with would not impact the character of the neighborhoods again planning commission agreed and they provided a memo to that effect and then the third change was the one you approved at the last meeting which was the VCFA parcel boundary change which I don't think I think everyone was here for that one which I don't believe is which I believe would be more of a policy change I also received a question about the strikeout version on why a word would be deleted or struck out and then put back in that's just a funky thing if you do search replace at the last meeting I think I mentioned that there was a legal decision that came down that made the Oxford comma official and if you don't have it then it's read as not having it so we did a search replace on that so when it has which comma or if it was which and it needed a comma then when you added the comma it struck out the whole word and then re added the word the comma or vice versa so that's most of those you'll probably see if there's just a word that got erased or struck out and then replaced again that's why it did that funky thing and the last thing I'll just mention is administratively this is the first of two hearings if you if anyone has comments are welcome to comment now or in two weeks or to email anyone in the interim you you the council still have powers to make changes if you do not make any substantial changes then you may adopt these following the hearing on the 25th if you do make changes then we'll go from there but if they're substantial changes so I guess with that I'll take questions and public comment Jack I'm interested in the in a slope steep slopes interim change because it's been in effect for a few months now have have you had cases come in where where that's made a difference in in approvals yeah we've had a number of cases where that actually came up we haven't had too many with the late new landscaping rules but we have had I would say at least three or four applications on the slopes a number of projects had actually been held up because they needed a retaining wall or they needed something that couldn't get replaced because it was more than a 30% slope so it's and it's working the way you intended it to work it's working well there's some additional changes that are in in here that will make make it even a little bit better thanks other comments any comments from the public on these changes okay so I think we are probably ready then to close the public hearing on this and I think we need to set the second public hearing is there a motion regarding a second public hearing on these changes I move that we set a second public hearing for our next scheduled meeting great any further discussion okay all in favor please say aye opposed great all right thank you thank you thank you oh good question don't make enough all right so we have a couple appointments to make so one is to the historic preservation commission and to that body we had a I think it's one vacancy and one person applied and Sarah Smith applied I know you're here would you like to come introduce yourself to the council really called Sally Smith I live at Murray Hill in District 2 I have served at the interface of history art and civil government for most of my life and lived in middle sex for 20 years and was justice of the peace and served on the board of civil authority and was town moderator briefly and during that time I built and renovated a number of old houses in the central Vermont area so I'm familiar with some of the architectural history of the of the area I've lived in a number of places in Pacific Grove California I served on the Planning Commission which was rife with arguments and discussions about historic preservation so I'd like to put some of that experience to use here I must confess I was interested primarily in the the plans maybe of the renovation or resurrection of the house at the corner by that by the circle out there route to circle the five home farm way yes yes so that's me if you have any questions I'm happy to any questions great thanks thanks all right is there either a motion to go into executive session or an appointment or whatever you'd like I move that we appoint Sally getting Smith to the Historic Preservation Commission for we have a second all right for the discussion all in favor please say hi all right thank you very much yeah all right so we have another appointment to make which is amongst ourselves but I felt like there might be some questions about it so there's a going to be a committee sponsored by the school board to look into the future of the Main Street Middle School building and the future potential use of that building is there and they're looking for someone from the council to serve on that committee is there any questions about that or anyone who is interested in serving on that I would like to nominate Lauren I did speak to her about it okay is anyone else interested Lauren are you willing to serve I am willing to serve obviously with young children who go through the middle school very interested also cautious about new commitment so somebody else is eager I would also I'm also interested I've talked to Andrew Stein about about it and about what the approach is and so I would also be happy to do it gosh I don't want to push away someone who wants to do it well what would you what would you rather given that my five-year-old a dinner tonight was like mommy do you have to go to City Council meeting maybe I'll let Jack take it I'm with my children with to their armor that'll be is there anyone else interested I'll make a motion to a point Jack your middle Main Street Middle School committee okay thank you any further discussion all in favor please say aye opposed all right well thank you Jack and thank you for working that out okay okay all right so I think we are up to a discussion about the responsible employer ordinance and I think this was something that counselor Connor Casey brought to us so I'm going to turn it over to you to introduce it and then I'm sure we'll have some good discussion good no that's great really appreciate it and you know appreciate both the mayor and the council taking this up I know we discussed it quite a bit we had a previous hearing on this and set this as a priority for the council goals that are a treat here so look forward to getting in the weeds a little bit looking at the specific language but I will start off by saying this is an issue I feel very strongly about in my career I've always represented sort of frontline workers and what I notice is we've got a lot of buildings going up in Montpelier right now we have the transit center we have a possible parking garage we have a wastewater treatment plant which is sort of inviting a new set of workers in Dorotown a set of workers I think has been largely invisible nationwide if we look at how they've been treated I think this is a group that's been sort of abandoned by the federal government if you look at the Davis Bacon Act it isn't what it once was and we can actually see people who are risking their lives working on construction sites with a wage that would be less than what we would want as minimum wage maybe 12 bucks an hour right we have a state government who sought to essentially eliminate the Department of Labor and merge it with the agency of commerce and community development and that is opposed I think almost any initiative to help these frontline workers at every point here so when we look at ourselves as municipal government I think it's easy to say okay this is in our job somebody else can do it you know the Department of Labor can certainly do it and enforce it but I believe and I'm proud as the city of Montpelier that we've sort of taken a stand on issues like climate change by setting energy efficiency standards that go above and beyond what state and federal government has done looking at non-US citizen voting which I believe only 13 other municipalities in the entire country has done the responsible contracting ordinance is certainly a you know in-depth proposal that goes above and beyond what other municipalities have done in Vermont but I think it's important to look at and actually consider these folks because even though they might not be Montpelier residents they deserve to be treated with the same standards that we treat our own workers of which we have three collective bargaining units in our own city government and I'm really happy that you know we're looking at a personnel policy to make sure we take care of the rest of the workers in our government and I believe anybody we contract anybody who receives a dime of taxpayer money deserve to be treated with the respect and make sure they can put food on their table just like our own municipal workers here I want to commend our city staff I think we've done a much better job just after talking to folks about making sure that things are transparent on some of these work sites and make sure we help out these workers that said I don't think that's a reason for it not to be codified in an ordinance and actually cemented so that any future city staff would also make sure we hold this to the same standard I only got a really brief chance to look at the memo by Sue Allen as she was going out the door and I know we have another set of proposals so again grateful to the Department of Public Works for also supporting this initiative I think we can work again to hammer out some of the details but yeah going forward I have invited a few folks from the building trades who actually are on some of these sites and see what happens from a first-person perspective I know there was the recommendation to talk to the AGC the general contractors there I would point out that you know the vice president of the general contractors is also an employee of DEW who is one of our biggest contractors in town here so I think they should have a voice at the table it should be invited to any public hearing should we choose to set it tonight but again I always prefer to hear from frontline workers it is a very dangerous job I think we have examples statewide of wage theft misclassification discrimination based on somebody's gender or race in some of these jobs and again I think we have the ability to address it and it won't be easy but again that's not the approach we usually take on issues and I don't think there's any reason we might not be provocative here and set the standard for other municipalities to really look at this in depth the language I submitted was based on Portland main and I think it would be beneficial as Sue Allen recommended maybe having the mayor of Portland testify over the phone if we go public hearing and see how in you know in reality it is played out in the last couple years and I think you'll find that unlike some of the myth myths perpetrated by the opponents of an ordinance like this this really doesn't result in higher rates for they would discourage and have a chilling effect for people to you know bid on some of these contracts I have asked the building trades to actually go into some examples of that and how in some cases this is actually saved money by having professional employees who are committed to the job and hopefully you know paying your wage that would allow somebody who is you know a plumber a pipe bidder somebody doing this dangerous work in our town paying them a wage giving them the benefits that they could actually live in our community because right now I could not find anybody who's working on one of these projects who would come and testify because everybody I've spoken to they said they can't afford to live in Montpelier so I think we have an opportunity to change that so I know that's a bit of a long introduction but again I have invited some people who I think can be bigger experts on this than myself heaven never you know work the construction and answer a lot if not all of the questions that was put in that memo recently so thanks very much everybody thank you so I know there are some folks here who might want to speak on this topic we'd love to hear from you number one number two I know we've got probably a lot of questions that you know we want to dig into and so I think we could probably do both of those things I think it probably makes sense if there's just some general comments that folks would like to make on this I think now would be a good time and then we'll we'll get into some of the weeds on this topic so Conor is there anyone in particular that that you were like you know I've been invited these people here to you know like I'm just want to make sure I were giving them yeah and Larry and Tim I know I was I was able to send them a copy of the questions yesterday okay so they probably have some answers but maybe you would want to kick it off or Larry and you're welcome to be here or sit at the table either way is fine I'll stand here okay thanks yes thank you for having us back here to continue the this very important conversation I'm Danielle Bombardier I live in Colchester I'm an electrician an organizer and a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers local 300 being a part of the IBW I knew that I always made the same amount of money as any other apprentice or journey worker at the same level as me not 84 cents to my male co-worker's dollar I enjoy employer paid health insurance and an employer contributed retirement account this is because I was fortunate to work for a responsible contractor and the reason they were and still are responsible is because they signed an agreement with the union they are contractually bound to be responsible to pay a decent wage and provide benefits to properly classify and register apprentices and to provide a safe working environment the union contract is one example of responsible contractor language and has proven effective over the course of history in strengthening the middle class however it's not the only way to ensure responsible contracting this ordinance is another opportunity to provide necessary benefits to hard working men and women think for a minute about the money that popular taxpayers spend and want to spend to build and improve the capital city if you can visualize these projects now visualize the workers showing up every day to work on city improvements men and women in hard hats and car hearts constructing buildings and making infrastructure improvements that will last for decades after the job is complete most likely these workers depending on who they are are not paid particularly well nor offered paid benefits and have little say in whether or not their hours are counting toward a registered apprenticeship program I have met with countless helpers in my role as training director for the IBW who are promised apprenticeship wages and education but saw no follow-through I've also had conversations with long-term employees of companies they may be offered a health insurance benefit but some of that cost would come out of their pay at an average pay of $24 an hour for a licensed electrician in the state I can tell you most cannot afford to lose any of them even if it means going without health insurance Montpelier has an opportunity to set an example for the state the city website states that Montpelier has a strong job market that pays living wages and recognizes that to be prosperous the Montpelier community must care for the physical and mental well-being of all residents your community the taxpayers and you the elected officials have a responsibility to ensure that anyone working on projects paid for with community dollars are offered a livable wage and proper benefits to ensure their well-being has Connor mentioned to treat those that work in your city with the same respect that you treat the residents that live here the Vermont prevailing wage includes a percentage currently at 42 and a half percent above the set wage and I saw you had a packet here that included the prevailing wage so the wages actually are 42 and a half percent higher to account for the fringe benefits and states without strong prevailing wage laws spend more on social welfare benefits for these workers yes there's a state prevailing wage law that currently exists it was passed right here in Montpelier however no town or city in Vermont has adopted a responsible contractor ordinance to strengthen and build upon the state law and this really needs to happen this state must do more to increase wages for some of the hardest-working Vermonters these are folks including myself who travel our hours on the road to get to job sites then work eight to twelve hours on site typically outside and grueling conditions as we all know in Vermont performing manual labor requiring years of training and skill pretty much a college degree to become a licensed trades person I know that Vermont can do better and the capital city has an opportunity to prove that the facts are available Larry will address some of those the stories are out there Vermont needs you elected officials and leaders to push this forward in order to give a better quality of life to its citizens working in construction we build the city but we can't afford to live in it on behalf of IBW and the Vermont building and construction trades council I strongly support this responsible contractor ordinance and I encourage you all to do the same thanks just a quick question thank you Danielle I just very quick question I want to make sure I understood you said we the state passed a law for this but that no city has adopted it does that mean the state has to do this it's it's for state money so the state the state's already doing this on their yes a hundred thousand dollars or more of capital thank you thank you pull the mic over I think there was snow on the ground the last time I was here just last week yeah that's true could have been this week actually a couple of those highs but my name is Larry Mokwin I live in Swan and I work with the Labor's International Union of North America I'm here tonight to support this responsible employer ordinance to refresh your guys memories I'm a fifth generation Vermonter very proud of it I grew up in a union whole household here in Vermont graduated from Winooski High School in 1996 I jumped around from dead-end job to dead-end job once I graduated and then when I was 20 my father forced me to join the union best decision that or that he made for me ever my pay immediately increased as soon obviously I mean you guys know but the problem was is I had to leave the state to work because the opportunities for the laborers in Vermont and the union aspect is very slim to none this ordinance a big portion of it is the attachment of the prevailing wages to the city-funded projects there's some myths that claim that attaching prevailing wages will cost taxpayers up to 20% more for the construction projects I'm going to debunk this there's some statistics from a smart cities prevail it's a non-profit non-partisan research and educational organization they receive their information from peer reviewed empirical studies that are performed by respected academic organizations and they definitely contradict the idea of that based on a 2012 census of construction survey labor costs for construction only account for about 17 percent of the project so let's just say we're gonna save 20% on this project by cutting wages for the workers you're gonna have to either not pay them or pay them well below federal minimum wages state states in this country that have weak or no prevailing wage standards spend 367 million dollars a year on food stamps and earned income tax credits for construction workers only and that's more than the states that have strong prevailing wage laws which I believe there's 30 of them right now the workers in those states with the strong laws actually can contribute over 5.3 billion dollars more a year in federal taxes than the than the workers with the weak or no prevailing wage laws prevailing wages will actually strengthen local economies and these studies are shown because they hire locally and raise wages of the middle-class workers and in turn that boosts the economy creating other jobs in different sectors other than the construction sector it's found that for every dollar paid in prevailing wages it produces a dollar fifty in economic activity prevailing wage construction workers are also more likely to have health insurance and less likely to live in poverty nationally the veterans that we all care about work constructions at higher rates than non-veterans and in prevailing states with these laws this number is even higher and poverty amongst these veterans employed with the building trades in these states decreases by as much as 31% by passing this ordinance I believe Mom Piliar will be supporting local workers spurring the economy and even helped to cut past taxpayer costs such as welfare subsidies I know all of you here as members of the council as the city manager assistant city clerk you guys want to be fiscally responsible with the taxpayer dollars of the residents here Mom Piliar but I encourage you guys to consider the importance of the social responsibilities you have to and pass this ordinance and that's all I have for you and I thank you thank you very much any question thank you good evening Madam Mayor and Council members my name is Dennis LaBounie from Lindeville and I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak briefly on this on this ordinance just for the record we are 10,000 union members strong here in Vermont and that we do support this ordinance as councilman Connor Casey alluded to earlier about how dangerous the jobs are in construction and you may recall we had a number of people that killed or seriously injured out on the highways this year performing these construction jobs and I highly doubt they were getting paid prevailing wage wages or even had you know benefits that for healthcare or any other benefits that may be out there and also as you know Danielle said I was at the State House working when they passed prevailing wage for the state and I think it's you know it is the right thing to do to make sure that workers are getting a livable wage just like minimum wage I'm also at the State House supporting minimum wage we need to put money to people's pockets so that they would have the funds to pay the rent I'm sure my player is also is and has has high rent just like every place else in the state it is hard for especially young people to find a place to rent young families we have many people that are on social programs paying a livable wage would help ease ease that so again I just want to reiterate that we do support this and we hope that you will pass this ordinance thank you thank you hi folks my name is David van doos and I'm a union rep with asthma AFSCME local 1369 in the city of Montpelier between home health care providers Kellogg Hubbard library and support staff at the school we represent more than 50 employees here in Montpelier we also support this ordinance strongly and as public for the most part public sector employees we feel very strongly that public money needs to be spent in the public good and so the city of Montpelier in our opinion should not be putting taxpayer money towards jobs which are essentially paying poverty wages we need to support a livable wage we need to support this ordinance and we need to have a sustainable economy here month player thank you for your time thank you good evening my name is Daniel bovin I'm a direct product of everything that these three people just mentioned I'm a new father I've been a union worker for seven years now we recently just moved into Northfield we bought our own house none of this would be possible if I wasn't a strong union member I would try get up every morning at four o'clock in the morning I have to walk my dog take care of my child drive an hour to work sometimes an hour and a half depending on where the job site is and then I'm going to work for the next 10 hours in the heat of the cold and all I want to do all day is go home to my son but I have to put in these hours in order to make the life that I want for my son and none of it would be possible if I didn't make the prevailing wage that everyone here is talking about tonight so I really I really support this bill or whatever the you know whatever it is I'm not a very political person but yeah I strongly support it and thank you for your time thank you any other comments one as we go we can if there's more comments made certainly continue the conversation I I would actually love to invite Donna Barlow Casey up if you don't mind because you made some some comments here about the ordinance and I I'm sure everyone had it well actually did everybody have a chance to read them well and fair enough so especially since they were sort of new if would you mind just like summarizing some of your comments and and then I know I've got some some questions for you so sure there so first this was a collective endeavor by the team in the public works department we are in support of a livable wage we did have some concerns about language that would be adopted so that it would reflect practices and procedures that were clear understandable and consistent with how we operate job sites and and so that basically set the tone for thinking about what we had seen in the ordinance and what we would suggest would be workable in response to that so if you and I can just go down the bullet points if you want well I might as well just ask my my questions I suppose so I was very interested in the comment you made that you thought that this would simplify the processes involved that's that's very interesting can you just describe how this ordinance might actually simplify your processes so I the prevailing wage rates and I provided a copy of just one of the pages have a variety of levels depending on the job at hand and if there was a rate that was the base rate no matter what job you were doing it would provide that livable ground wage for everybody so even if the prevailing rate at the lowest end was less than that it would not affect the prevailing rate if it were higher than that it would just be a minimum standard that the city could budget for and bank on and so that's how we were looking at that situation okay thank you and are there any other questions I don't want to hog time here too if you all have questions as well go ahead Glenn I mean it may be getting too far ahead of ourselves but looking at the sample sheet of prevailing wage rates you're right there's a whole range of them and there's a lot of them and you say this is only one sheet of many do you have a sense what a reasonable base rate like did you have something in mind when you said base rate obviously that's for us to determine but right are we looking at the highest numbers here or the lowest anyway we didn't get we did we didn't want to put that out we can certainly think about that but we didn't get into that discussion today sure the the other question that I had was I'm trying to find yes your second point in section 64 add language to make it apply to on-site laborers and not to other categories for instance officer administrative workers can you explain why the reasoning behind that from so we were not trying to discriminate against office or administrative workers but we were trying to set the rate for those workers who were working on the job in the community here and not in another state or so we were wrestling with that that was the intent of that we were thanks that makes sense so I have another question about enforcement so I was feeling like I had a couple of mixed messages on that point there was you know one comment from the city's questions that was like you know we have a hard time getting people to complete time sheets this might be you know even more difficult what is your thought on on the enforcement of this again is this how how what does enforcement look like in your in your take on this is it is it relatively easy is it not relatively easy we're envisioning that it should be relatively easy that we hold the contractor accountable we didn't what we were struggling with was requirements that would have people sign in and out a daily review we're not a very large community in terms of our public works department we're feeling as if the number and the contracts that we award each year are not we don't necessarily have to look at it daily sign in sign out validate that on the spot we could do that in a weekly monthly preferably monthly situation where we're reviewing that kind of information better use of our staff's time and still having accountability all the rest of my questions are basically like like language related there are things that are logistics basically you know things like okay so if we have basically a wage that we're setting then like how often does that get reviewed and who reviews it or you know actually in looking at the document that Michael Sherman submitted to us which was full of great information you know the there was a clause or a portion of his research that was about non-retaliation and it occurred to me that that might be something that would be potentially relevant to this document as well anyway there's there's lots of sort of smaller things that I this it doesn't feel like this is made necessarily the right venue to talk about it because like these are things that we can figure out at least that's where that's where I am at I will say though that one other thing that I am interested in is if if it's not too onerous a task if it were possible to collect a list of projects that we've done let's say in the last year or perhaps I'm not sure how long how far we want to go back five years I don't know of projects that this would have affected I mean I know that you know if the state is doing this then you know that that covers a certain subset of projects but there may be some other subset of projects that are not covered and again to Michael's point in his letter to us you know it may end up only affecting a very small number of workers but I'll just say for my part anyway I if it's not you know causing us an extra FTE to review this you know if the if the cost is not substantial then it's it's worthwhile even for the few number of workers but that's I know I'm starting in getting into like where where I stand but I'm sure you all others may have questions or want to express what how they're feeling so unless Peter did you have something you want to add I was on the social justice committee Peter Kalman I was on the social economic justice committee when Michael wrote that report and he's not here tonight so I think there's some things that need to be discussed not tonight but notice the language we've heard prevailing wage living wage minimum wage and now flat base rate and some of the same people have even used two different terms we have to be really clear when we do this what we're talking about secondly this is called here a responsible employer ordinance somebody said oh it's actually a responsible I'm contract contract ordinance because this particular one only seems to apply to contractors and that's where this conversation are we talking about just the workers or also the people in the office and then what about other community contracts this seems to be about contractors but again very important to be clear about that the issue that Bill asked about the state law applies to state monies being expended it doesn't apply to city monies being expended lots of projects have both in them right so my the reason for my question actually was if they have both monies in them or if actually they have federal monies to them we have to follow the rules of those people so one of what I wasn't completely sure about was if we're already having to do this for projects with state funding then a the contractors already know how to do this and be we're already managing it anyway so I wasn't clear about that until Danielle said that so that's I just want to be sure that we weren't creating something that contractors aren't already used to working with right so just as you go forward be sure about it's a Venn diagram there are some projects that aren't or people won't be covered just because of where the monies lie and then finally I think and this is where maybe Michael will have more to say about it but it's clear that this kind of an ordinance has symbolic value the leadership and so forth it is less clear in a municipality of our size whether or not it would affect that many people and that is something that needs to be weighed it needs to be thought about there's not a simple answer to that's a sort of a moral ethical and financial decision so I just would urge that this kind of this this ordinance be looked at very carefully from all these perspectives and that you do bring in some of the people from the contract industry not just the union people and that you also bring in lower income people who might not benefit from something like this at all because if they were to earn more they would fall into the benefits gap so these are some things that need to be considered as well as it's a complicated it's a very symbolically important ordinance but only if unintended consequences don't result thank you thank you for comments from council questions or otherwise Donna a core question I'm not sure maybe it's Larry who I'm asking but it could be any anybody the data comes from large cities that I read in the materials and some of that was in my mind I was reading Michaels about livable wage but likewise I believe you quoted a study of 2012 2013 there's nothing more current and is there anything about small communities like us if you would come up to the mic so we can have the record of what you're saying thanks all this information that I was sorry hang on one second Ashley did you have something you want to say I'm asking if he had any to present yes so he's referring me to a website it's small small cities prevail org that's the actual because what they say is with smaller cities in bigger cities it all equals out I mean if we're gonna go with Vermont there is not a big city here as an example of maybe a city of 8,000 but I mean and we can't use Portland Maine has because they're 200,000 right but it has proven to not raise costs because what actually happens is the fuel and the materials go down because there's less work order changes reduce of things because of the more skilled workforce that is brought in to the community and these are more career jobs instead of just disposable jobs because you have to think these construction workers only have so long until their body is going to give out on so if you don't pay him if you don't pay him now you're gonna pay for him later and what we're doing now is paying for him now and we're gonna pay for him later so yeah but it's not I wasn't thinking so much it's increasing costs which is how you were using the statistics but more to the point that Peter made of unknown consequences for people who are going or in that gap and who are going to lose benefits but yet the the prevailing wage or whatever we label it isn't quite bringing them up enough so that's all I'm just looking at unintentional consequences if you use David Davis bacon rates in this state then you're not going to do anything the state prevailing wage has done the legwork to see what you need to because there's three separate areas there's the metropolitan area south and then it's called the north which is a you know Montpelier Washington County Northeast Kingdom and there's three separate rates that's what the state has found to be what a good rate for each individual classification will do so instead of a flat rate that everybody nobody's below this the state has put out right your classifications yes if you're a labor you're an electrician if you're a flagger you get paid this but so you'll look at just say a labor in Montpelier I think it would be 1732 an hour right now is what the state prevailing wages plus 42 and a half percent for their friend as benefits of that 1732 the federal Davis bacon rate in Montpelier for all the highway projects which will still say the same I believe because the state pretty much attaches 2,000 bucks from the federal government to everything so they can use the federal Davis bacon wages is only 12 90 cents 12 $12 and 96 cents and I think the fringe is maybe a buck so I mean there's a problem I mean Chittenden County is even worse than that so that's pretty bad to say it's just if these surveys are not done by contractors wages never go up and the only contractors that do them arguing contractors because they know the benefits this 12 dollar a flagger in southern Vermont federal Davis bacon is below Vermont minimum wage right now like what the Davis bacon says they should pay so I mean this is just nothing that you guys would have ever known because why would you you know just like I don't know everything that you guys are talking about tonight there is this aspect again and trying to look at the is that Montpelier does pay a lot that support non Montpelier residents exactly and if you're telling me you can't afford to live here and yet I'm supporting you in a prevailing wage that's money that's going out of town so you're living in a community that's cheaper because they don't do the same thing so that's all no I don't have whether it's the water the sewer the street sidewalks being plowed they just they have a whole different level of their community so as we're putting out you know we just need more people here right and by raising the wages you might be able to get more people attracted to the city cuz I mean Calvin Calvin used to live here but had to move because the wages weren't feasible for him to continue to live here and he would like to live here if he could he travels to New Hampshire every day to work right now because we don't have any work in the state and he has to do that because he wants to have benefits in a retirement so I can't help you with that right now but thank you that's what this is all about is and all these this has been done in other cities and that website should be able to answer some of your questions and I actually have some answers for the other questions from earlier the 17 questions so anything else Jack before you sit down I just want to I think you misspoke you said small cities prevail.org it's smart cities smart you're right smart cities sorry I don't want people to go looking for the wrong place right get a get a I appreciate that did Google help you find that correction no I was already at smart cities Lauren and then I have one more question for Donna. So I was wondering for the issue was raised by the staff about the tracking of information and I was just trying to get a better sense of how on a site like this how is the data tracked typically is what's in the ordinance does that follow kind of best practices and I think there's a question of kind of are we asking for information that's not already collected is one thing and then there's the level of oversight by the city of that is a different question so I just kind of ground true thing from we have experts here that might be able to speak to kind of how is data usually collected and our does this language kind of jive with what's really done on the job sites right now. Hi I'm Tim LaBombard president of IBW Local 300. I know our contractors because they have apprenticeships they have to follow OSHA regulations and they have to follow our constructive bargaining agreement which they're required to send in reports monthly they they do that and then some daily it's part of the business and most contractors should be following all of that stuff OSHA requires you you know who's on your job site that day anytime anywhere so I know one of the questions was like we can't even get the people to sign a timecard it's a hell of a way to run a business you know if something's wrong something's broke and I just while I'm here is Peter brought up this subject I think he was probably talking about the fiscal cliffs where somebody getting more money wouldn't get social welfare while the 42 and a half percent above and beyond that hourly wage should be enough to cover the healthcare that's what it's there for for pensions health care whatever and if the contractors and supplying it and the people are buying it they have to pay them in the check but you know it's it's just a equivalent but all those forms and they're out there and it's a daily business in this day and age you can't do anything whether it's paper trail or or some form I have a question for you so again just referring to Michael's document and the research he did conversations with Burlington who has a sort of similar ordinance so it sounded like they do sort of random audits and so just in terms of the city's enforcement is that something is that something you you would picture us doing with with something like this or is there a different sort of monitoring or enforcement mechanism so I can't I don't want to suggest that we had an in-depth conversation about this aspect of it fair and but what we and so we did talk about definitely maybe monthly basis mixed with random samplings what we were trying to shy away from and probably could be wordsmithed better because this was pulled together today in between other things would be we don't want to have to be on the job site at the end of the day validating the paperwork that was was taken care of during that day by the contractor by the onsite manager by the people who were working we know that happens on a regular basis but we just don't have the staff bandwidth to do that in it and we had seen that in some of the other ordinances or suggested language that we were looking at so we need to move towards what we do want and I and I don't have a definitive answer for that right now that's okay well because for me that comes back to love oh go ahead Ashley sorry that's all good go ahead I think I think the important piece here too is that both they're like a breach of contract so you know there is the company would be assuming the risk of litigation you know because they're in breach of contract so you know I I think you have to have some way and you know I would say like giving notice about you know what an audit is going to take place or whatever it's probably not the way to go about it but you know like you need you subject to an audit of the following items you know you will be subject to an audit you know once every 12 calendar month and you know that will be you know will provide you with extra reviews notices or something along those lines but I don't think it would be wise to put anyone out of that daily you know monitoring in this situation unless you know unless we get a situation that arises where there is significant concern but so that sounds like an area we can continue to to talk about any other comments that at this point so my thought is that we should probably have some further conversation about this look at some of the language see if there's some tweaking that can be done or some just like getting into some of the details and so I imagine there may be a group of people that might want to hammer that out together Connor do you have any thoughts on this yeah I think city staff's recommendations are you know pretty helpful and I don't think we're that far apart except for obviously the you know the question I was raised is the what is the responsible range you know what is that floor look like but I'd be happy to sort of take out the draft maybe talk to people from the city of Portland answer any questions and I guess with that I'd make a motion to schedule the first public hearing for our next meeting September 25th like two weeks is ample time to hammer some of these details up that I'm gonna assume that's a second I will say that sounds a little fast to me I mean I think it's possible I I don't know other thoughts I mean if you want yeah thoughts on that kind of I mean other than the responsible rate I think most of this information is that our fingertips honestly take a few days to hammer out yeah Donna well after you hammered out I'd like more time to read it than I've had to read these so I would appreciate more time but how would you feel about because I know you want to like get moving on it what if we you were saying it for our next meeting what if we said it's just for the meeting after that just give herself like a month I just so I think from staff that would be great and also I think we have a pretty long meeting at the next meeting so that's otherwise I mean I agree with you we're not that far off but it would be but keeping it moving would be good okay fair enough and Ashley that's okay with you if it's about the October what do you say ninth meeting yeah okay great because I think that does keep it keep it moving but gives us a little time to set some meetings and have some conversations so yeah cool thank you all right there's been a motion in a second all in favor please say aye opposed okay great thank you Donna there is one piece that I would like you to look at that it says no independent contractors I really disagree with that because it's not just construction workers and anyway so that to me needs a lot further definition okay well and thank you all for your thoughts and comments on this and I keep the conversation going so the next item was a discussion of the livable wage ordinance which was slightly a slightly different thing fair enough I think that's actually what Michael's comments were more addressed toward not to speak for Mr. Sherman but was more toward the notion of a livable wage ordinance which did go to all of our contractors but I would you like to come up maybe they're maybe they're similar they seem similar but not not quite anyway but yeah go ahead Michael Sherman and I'm here I suppose as a representative of the social and economic justice committee advisory committee advisory and we got this request to do some you know to advise that can give some information to the council on the question of a livable wage and I want to be very clear I don't consider myself an expert on this what I know is what I found in a few weeks of reading and and and that that's pretty much and that's now several months ago and I'm in a veneige when several months ago might as well be a generation ago okay so I haven't heard anything that's inconsistent with what I presented to you through this memo and I also want to say that this this came what the we did not vote on this but we voted to pass the memo along okay so we're not bringing a recommendation we were simply we were simply forwarding this information so I don't see anything that's inconsistent or in what I've heard up to now what what I do think is important in this is to look at the some of the information that talks about what you have to be careful about when you design an ordinance like this and that's the material on pages six and seven that you know some basic real basic questions how far down for example contractors subcontractors subcontractors how far down will the ordinance you know be effective and because that's that's one way to figure out how far the reach is in what you're doing the other there are also questions about are there exemptions and I did look at a few there are there Burlington has an ordinance that it's been going on for several years now and they have they write in they wrote into that ordinance exemptions that would be very important here for example we give money away to a whole bunch of nonprofits in the city and most nonprofits can't really being afford can't afford to be paying the kind of wages that are being offered at contract levels and they're just getting by so do you want to exempt them from the from this kind of ordinance or do you want to somehow protect those workers as well and I think obvious I think actually there are more people working in the nonprofit sector in Montpelier than there are in construction and the for profit center and so that would be this would right so that that would be a really important an important thing to look at how far how far down and how wide and then there are questions about seasonal workers full time workers what constitutes continuity in a job how many seasons before the person is counted is one way you know five in one in one case five seasonal seasonal jobs then makes a person eligible for coverage under the livable wage the little wage ordinance that I've that I've that I read about there were some there were a few other things but I urge you to take a look at pages six and seven as you start to craft what you're going to do with the ordinance the counter as proposed what I what I read confirms what what the folks before were saying that it does not have an adverse effect on the on the cost and what I will add to that is the point that I did include that it actually is to the benefit of the employers because their people stay longer and they are not involved in constantly replacing people and constantly training and I'll give you a personal example on this my son is a paramedic working in a town outside of Chicago that town pays paramedics $11.40 an hour consequently the paramedics are cut in and out and they're constantly understaffed people are leaving my son has to leave he can't afford to live like that they're losing good paramedics they have to start training them all over again and so one one benefit of an ordinance like this is that there is continuity on the job and expertise and it means that everything goes more efficiently and smoothly and you don't have interrupt you don't have work interruptions so I think that's one thing to add to what you've already heard and I didn't put that in the memo because that didn't seem like an appropriate place to put it but it's something to keep in mind there are questions about methodology I think the the fact that there is this this this document which does provide information about what who's getting what is helpful because one of the questions is who who discern determines what's a livable wage and how frequently do you revisit that I think Burlington does it every year they hire a panel of people to or one or two people to do that the other important thing is to think about the costs of monitoring and enforcing and how would that's going to be done Burlington has enforcement monitoring enforcement divided mostly in the attorneys in the city attorney's office but also in the personnel office then but the person I spoke to there said that the actually much of this really can be done by not not a paralegal not it doesn't need to be a lawyer but you do have to have somebody who has expertise watching over this and and figuring out who's in conformance informants and then what do you do about it and and how do you enforce how do you enforce it another point that hasn't wasn't mentioned is how do you start to educate the contractors so that you don't pull this surprise on them all of a sudden and so getting this information out as part of the bid packages is really important and also educating the the workers about their rights in this so I it's really all I can add and everything I know is here but well there's one other thing and that is when I as I was going through this I was I kept trying to find where are the voices of dissent and I didn't find any the only one is the panel that was convened by the state and that raised the question about what happens with the fiscal cliff okay and that was the only voice of dissent that I heard and I was looking through purposely in the literature to find it and I think the absence of it is either negligence on my part or not really good research methodology or that the people that I was reading weren't citing it which is also a possibility or that it's not really there and if I were to take more time to do this and had access to a much larger library you know I would work harder to see if I could find the dissent but I didn't find any and I think that's significant thank you and your comments are making me wonder about one other question I guess it's it's honing a question really for me which is just the sort of the with something like the responsible employers ordinance if we were to look backwards and say you know these are the handful of projects or whatever that this would have applied to I know we don't necessarily have an enforcement mechanism now but once that becomes clear if we were if we were able to somehow estimate what that would cost us because I mean my one place where I was starting as a threshold for that was like is this gonna cost us an extra FTE which it sounds like it's not and it also sounds like it's gonna be relatively minimal you know it might be like you know so many hours of someone's time over the course of a year or or whatever and so my guess is that that number is gonna be relatively small and I don't know if that's an easy thing to estimate but even just having a ballpark number and that I think would be helpful yeah Michael you mentioned it didn't have to be a lawyer but you inferred that it should let be somebody with some parametric paralegal right and I was saying James was that's his suggestion he's the he's the the attorney in the city attorney's office that I spoke with had a long telephone conversation and as I mentioned in the memo I'd sent the questions in advance so that he could at some preparation and what he said was mostly this is stuff that a paralegal can manage there there are very few issues incidents where they really had to call a lawyer and I guess the one thing that I saw in your in your draft was that I could see more opportunities for lawsuits in the in the way you wrote that then then need to be net then then what you would want and so I think it would be some you know important to start looking at and how you can minimize the conflict do you mean the lawsuits against the city or against the employers both ways both ways okay that it could be very valuable information well I mean at this point I don't I'm not sure that there's a whole lot of distance between the one one document and the other and the other question I have for you is you know when I think about the Venn diagram of a living wage livable wage ordinance and the responsible employer ordinance that we just discussed that Venn diagram is significantly overlapping for me and I'm not sure and that's I'm not sure that I could articulate how they might be different because have we have we effectively talked about the you know a living wage by having talked about the responsible employer ordinance yeah one distinction I would make is the wage is one thing but the responsible contractor or employer directly we probably should get a uniform on it definition of that it goes well beyond just wages the responsible contractor ordinance okay the the ordinance that Burlington has in the and typically livable wage ordinances make a distinction between those contractors that offer health benefits and those that don't so the livable wage number is higher for those contractors that don't offer health insurance to make up the difference thank you that's very helpful Jack thank you for all this work I think it's great one of the things that I would suggest is that we're hearing about the danger of a benefits cliff and how does a per how do we confront that and I know that there are people where I work in my day job at Vermont legal aid Vermont legal aid is a member of the Vermont living wage coalition and I know that there are people at Vermont legal aid who are experts in public benefits and probably could help us address that question and I'm pretty sure that living wage coalition is as already addressed that in in advocating for an increase in the state minimum wage so maybe afterwards we could talk about connecting with someone at legal aid who you know I haven't done benefits work in years but I know there are people who do it thank you that's great Jack but again minimum wage is different than livable wage is different than prevailing wage and so you got to analyze those things very carefully minimum wage the evidence is probably pretty clear well I'm not even gonna say but you got to look at each of those and and the diff the one other big difference between responsible besides what Connor said which is it deals with what much much more the wages but also this is a contractor this is construction work these guys are talking about dangerous work outside blah blah blah blah the livable wage for for in Burlington covers all subcontracting and that's why Michael is concerned about some of the nonprofits that that that we give money to so that's where that's where the Venn diagram really diverges thank you that brings up a follow-up question for me so you know I think about our contract that we have with just basics would that fall under the well I know we sort of broadening yes yes that's that's one thing because I know we brought in under our house basically a lot of their services but we still we still contract for services right right so depending where we set thresholds they could conceivably fall under this sorry yeah so it's you know as I'm thinking out loud here this isn't a serious policy proposal sure at this point but you know as we think about what's the difference the distinction between the two maybe there's you know a big number that Connors proposed and DPW that is this full contracting ordinance and after that it just it goes to the lesser livable wage ordinance and then below that it's just what it is now so that I mean we you know we're not gonna hit everybody but at least we're trying to hit where we put our bigger dollars because one regulation versus to that is that something that we you know y'all can incorporate into your conversations about tweaking this potentially or do you want to deal that separately I mean I really do believe they are two separate animals there but I know I think it's worth a broader conversation talking about that again as Peter said there's a distinction between somebody hanging out on a beam all day you know and some other nature of work well and it also may make some sense if this if this part of it is the responsible employer part of it is somehow easier to enforce or to think about as a first step that it may be maybe we do that first and see how it works and and then look into you know the potential for broadening it or having other thresholds I'm open to that too yeah I mean I mean a couple places it says procuring construction services but in other places it just talks about employer and contracts so if you get more explicit about it that might be a good place to start but that's what you really mean is construction yeah fair that would narrow it certainly yeah thank you other comments or thoughts on this topic okay thank you and thank you again Michael for your work on this this was fabulously thorough and easy to fall and anyway it was very helpful so thank you so much yeah okay all right moving along here we I think I said we were gonna do chapter 9 licenses and then we were gonna move on to event fees and then the appointment to the legal season towns just to clarify are we keeping anyone here for the event fees that would otherwise be taking off okay just checking before okay great so moving on to chapter 9 of the ordinances licenses thoughts comments on this Lauren two things kind of popped out at me one is on page or section 9 11 which is dealing with licenses for in hotels motels and so on it just raised for me the question of how are we dealing with things like Airbnb at this point because the way it's described I would think they would actually fall under that I don't imagine most are getting a license and I just us having clarity on do we think they should or not I think we would have to provide some clarity in this language to address it one way or the other pretty question I had that same question myself I think what what's occurred with Airbnb's is that the state worked with Airbnb so now they are collecting their you know meals rooms meals tax from them and so we are because we collect a local option we get our share so I think that's that's been the biggest thing I don't know that I don't know what's happened with licensing I don't think we're licensing them now I had a similar question actually but regarding taxis you know are we doing something similar with Ubers or a lift that was a later section go ahead learn and and on the taxi question I was also looking at the definition of taxi cab and I think the new microtransit might actually fall under that definition inadvertently because it says vehicles operating on a regularly scheduled route and time do not have to follow this but if we're doing this new on-demand service just I would think we do not want to have to they're gonna have their own whole process and things so we don't want to call them taxi cabs necessarily or we should just be clear that that is what we intend yeah other comments Donna well and I would like to see us do a definition of Airbnb because there's some that really operate as a self-standing apartment and are not really and the intention so I think we have to work on that aspect there is some information available there's a report that was that the state did and Kevin Casey has discussed that information with the housing task force and so we can or might be worth just talking to Kevin to see well I think it's possible to even know exactly how many property owners were involved in short-term rentals in Montpelier during the course of a year and so there's data I like the idea of licensure I think that there was a state there is a proposal to require registration or lays licensure at the state level it did not it was not adopted but I definitely think it's worth looking at I agree I have a whole bunch of questions so unless others have something to okay as long as we're looking at it section 9201 about transient auction years part I know this was a definition and it has a later section as well I was a little bit baffled as to like how why do we have this section this feels very archaic just like imagining like a traveling auctioneer I wonder if we need to keep it and even if somebody did come through who was a traveling auctioneer like what do I care why should I care why should we be licensing that person or like which is really like why did that exist in the first place I don't know probably scam artists those kind of things yeah selling somebody honorable and do what they were doing yeah selling snake oil yeah it feels what's that yeah yeah exactly I it seems me like that's the kind of thing we could potentially take out yeah Jack I think auctioneers are licensed at the state level so I think there's a lot of things like this that we might compare what we have in this with what is already also already regulated at the state level we'll see well do we need to do anything that the state is already yep fair that sounds good to me section 9202 about use of the public streets I was a little worried that we had somehow inadvertently prohibited parklets or like commercially related parklets because of 9202 or the farmers market yeah fair so just want to flag say unless with permission yeah yep some kind of modification there to make sure that it's like been checked by somebody also I think it says something about we're in public space and that would also include you know the vending of anything in front of City Hall I think and so again you know we don't want to prohibit that and we do have places for how those are dealt with in another place yep okay in section 9902 this just seems like just super particular I mean I know that we don't have any bowling alleys or I mean I guess we do have a shooting gallery I don't think we have any skating rinks but even so gambling at those places it just seems highly particular I mean are those places prone to gambling or like if we were worried about gambling happening would we pick these places I I don't know it just seems kind of random well you may be betting on the outcomes of games well right but if that's what we're worried about like then it shouldn't be happening at the ball field or you know any anyway it just I just wanted to flag that is like confusing and perhaps overly specific that's a lot of gambling do we I mean do we have to be allowed yeah yeah it's not already prohibited is that not a thing I don't know yeah go ahead I was in listening to a trial in court many years ago and the police officer was talking about how you could tell if a pool table had been used for gambling what and and the answer is you could tell because the felt would be nicked up because when they're using it for gambling what that really means is that they're throwing dice on it and so you can see the marks from where dice well right I mean in that case like are we if we're really worried about this would we not include pool tables I'm not advocating for that I just I think what you're getting at and I don't want to cut you off no no go for it kind of on a roll but yeah I think the whole part of the purpose of this whole exercise is to go through and find what is in our ordinances that doesn't need to be in our ordinances and and there's there things like prohibition of gambling that is probably also already covered by state law and if it's already covered by state law I would just assume not bother having it in our ordinances there is like and there's a whole lot of other things that or a number of other things I thought of that also hard to see why we need to be licensing bowling alleys shoe shine operations movie theaters I'm not sure what public safety health or safety or other benefit the people of Montpelier derived by having those license and regulated at the city level agreed so I didn't come in and with a lot of more deletions but I think it's worth looking considering doing that well the one blacksmith I know doesn't have his his Smithy here in my the city of Montpelier did you open the public hearing I don't think it for this yeah thank you I don't think I did I'm gonna officially open the public hearing on chapter nine sorry thank you you're so good there are a couple of what I think might be typos so I'm gonna just email somebody about that there were a couple places where we're listing the costs of I think it was either the licenses or the fees and wondered why those were still in there I think we had taken out most of those so just thinking about consistency who's gonna sneeze but apparently not oh we're apparently we're banning rendering like bone boiling that was I mean the only context I have for that is like the 1800s or like of things I've seen in movies what's that that needs to stay yeah yeah definitely maybe that was a huge problem at one point I feel like we could take that out I'm just gonna put that out there and I think I think my only other was that bone broth is a thing it's fine yeah I also had a comment about the shoe-shining thing I just wrote in capital letters the question why in my notes why are we doing that and that's okay and that is it for me thank you sorry lots of detail there other thoughts meeting without me bring up something about toxic chemicals under dry cleaners it lists some if you carry on the business of dry cleaning using gasoline nap the benzene or other combustible or explosive gases or fumes you need to be licensed that's crazy that that was what was used but now we still use things like perk and other toxic chemicals that do cause problems for communities when they contaminate ground water and things so maybe we want to add in just a phrase about or other harmful chemicals like this seems to limit to explosives or combustibles maybe just add in the word toxic or something we would have to probably define that but yeah yeah I think we get to come up with a phrase that I if we're gonna keep some yeah stuff like this well I remember having this conversation gosh years ago when we were talking about what kinds of things might we want to keep licenses for and dry cleaners definitely came up and I think gas stations also came up and in part it was because even if so if there was a problem sure maybe the state is keeping track of that but you know from the city's perspective would we have any city level repercussions or ways to hold people accountable as well and for for those two things I could imagine we we might want it those I know kind of industries to be like the dry cleaners it was more of a record that they were in that location in terms of what might happen in the future but certainly I'm wondering if for the use of the specific chemicals if there is a state regulation I put a note to check I don't know but I would assume today's day and age there is and the dry cleaners that we have here in my billiard just you know take off so we don't actually have dry cleaning right earlier it's just pick up and drop off so well and it also makes you wonder about I mean for the same purpose I mean there are other industries that use chemicals that end up in the soils and that can be that might be hard to like enumerate you know I mean like it's this industry and that industry or whatever and if we wanted to call those out specifically but I mean I would be open to or interested in thinking through what what that might look like you know I think of like the you know Teflon industry in southern Vermont and obviously I mean that might be a little reactionary but try to think through the case of what what type of industry was doing that and how would we have a record for ourselves if anything similar were to come up here yeah I mean I know a couple ways and that I've seen in state laws dealing with stuff I mean either some laws just have you know if you use more than pick a number a thousand gallons of chemicals on a certain list that the state maintains then you would need to get a license it could be that simple or they have like standard industrial classifications that would cover a range of industries and you could just put the codes and they're kind of maintained but if we're trying to get at the users of chemicals that might cause problems for the community might just be as simple as saying you know users and pick the level that feels appropriate that we feel like might have a kind of public that's really concerned down the road that feels like the kind of thing that as a policy discussion I wouldn't necessarily expect staff to come up with that unless you feel like you could but but that maybe that's a conversation that you know if there's interested counselors that we can have that like I mean like I'm happy to have that conversation with you and see if we can figure out some proposed language unless I mean I just hate to push that off to city staff unless you thought that was clear enough direction I don't know what what what do you think Donna says yes so you can you all can work that out okay you'll work it out fabulous excellent thank you cool further thoughts okay all right so I'm gonna close the public hearing unless there's any public comment okay on to event fees oh thank you yep yep you're right schedule a second public hearing is there a second I move that we schedule a second public hearing this ordinance probably not the next meeting because we told it's a long meeting anyway and doing some of this work could be a while so I would say for the October 9th October there's a second second okay further discussion all in favor please say aye opposed October 9th yep okay thank you just yes you keep referring to the next meeting being long do we need to start earlier I mean how long is it's not crazy long it's just because we've had other stuff that's gotten pushed back so I look at you didn't give us that nice printout well it's see every time I print it out you show up with one so I didn't print it out to have for a reference tonight speaking of which could we actually get the board going again if it's doable yeah save the paper I prefer the board but that's just so we can and they it is also in your weekly memo every Friday so people yes yeah I like the board okay okay okay all right so on to oh right the event fees so you know we we've kicked this around as you recall we had this discussion after Senator Sanders event about whether to charge or not and what under what circumstances and we in that case we you know they voluntarily paid which was nice as staff we discussed this and I think obviously we're interested where you're at we we realized there's there's a few distinctions one is when the city itself's or through mobility or life throws an event like July 3rd or something it seems kind of strange we pay ourselves for an event that we are doing so those ought to be exempted we talked a little bit about political events like Senator Sanders and I think you know presidential campaign kind of thing was clear we don't really get big state campaigns rallies I mean maybe a gubernatorial maybe but then where is something like the women's March fall where it is some of these other things fall are those those protests are they rallies are they political events what what are they some of them cost a lot of money so I think that's a consideration I mean our proposal was certainly for entertainment type it well and so and to that at what point do charging the fees push someone into just doing the protests without getting the permits it's better for us it's better to be prepared and know it's coming and have adequate staff then it is to get caught by surprise so I think those are just things to think about for it for entertainment events our proposal was simply if it's not city sponsored we would charge the actual costs and I'll put in a provision where and this is again up to you where the group could come to the Council seeking a waiver on that and make the case that there's it's in the public interest to to have that to have that event and you know a variation of that might be costs above a certain dollar amount so that you know we're not chasing them around for a couple hundred dollars every event but if it's above $500 then they've got a pig so those were you know as far as we got we really couldn't come up with a better system because it's we have so many different types of events and so we were wondering you know again we kind of seize this on the on the heels of the senator Sanders events the presidential campaign event and wondering what the thinking still was about that and they would be happy to work on more based on what you tell us I kind of like the way it worked with Senator Sanders campaign and in a way given that we get lots of different sorts of organizations and events given that we as I understand we have not charged for any past events and the first one we asked for any money was the campaign rally and given for example that there some of the larger events might also sometimes be the less organized ones the ones that you know a small disorganized group calls it and then tons of people show up and then if we're billing the small disorganized group I don't know how well that would work so I wonder if if it makes sense to say something like I mean I like your the idea in the memo about the threshold I wonder if we said something like the city will cover up to threshold pass that because it does cost us money we will send an accounting of what it cost and request or you know suggest that that we be reimbursed but but not an invoice I don't know does that make sense so that I would guess that we probably would get very little success with that yes we have some events like for example the corporate cup is a good example that's a big event closes down a lot of streets costs a lot of money I think it's four or five thousand dollars it costs us and this year they did make a contribution to it it's also for you know a charitable event so but it is definitely an impact on the city not just our own direct cost but residents drop you know it's has a huge impact you know Burlington uses and I think there's an example on your desk they actually sign you know people sign contracts if they want to help public events you know how we have it's we would picture if we were going to have a fee for people particularly requesting a street closure and those kinds of things and it becomes part of their fee so you're gonna have this you need you're gonna need you know I think in Burlington the threshold is anything that requires an officer to come in on overtime other than what we would normally have on duty so if we have to bring extra people in then they sign a contract that they're gonna pay for for those additional costs and that could be police we fire you know we mean people don't think about you know public works ends up coming in to set up barricades and clean up trash and you know I mean there's there's a lot of costs that people don't always think about for big events we might add an extra EMT on that day or two I know Burlington told us that they even with nonprofits that have them they you know they balk but they they push them and they do it and eventually they sign and they do pay because that's what it costs to run the event it's just you know we just talked about fair labor and I realized that in this case are the people that the workers are getting paid but it's a cost of running an event that someone is asking that other people pay for the rest of us pay for and you know maybe so will there be times when someone marches and didn't get a permit yes that's gonna happen and we just have you know we are the capital city that's gonna happen but if someone's planning event that's gonna take over our streets or cause costs maybe we ought to say to them it's gonna cost $749 to the city for doing it. What happens with like something like the do good festival build it's like a massive event they saw we had a bunch of city mm-hmm so we of course it's not on a public space I don't know I know we did keep track of the cost and I can't remember if they paid it I can find that I just don't know the answer to that but I know we did keep yes they did yeah do you remember what it was so so I think if we had a regulation that said it was actual cost then I don't think it would be an issue. I like the consistency of a regular cost and that we're really upfront about it and if necessary we'll negotiate after the fact if it's more than the organization can handle but I prefer to set a fee or a contract that infers some fee and then perhaps they could request a waiver for that fee. Jack? I'm a little torn about this for one thing obviously the city is incurring costs and it it's an attractive idea to recoup those costs on the other hand there is a lot of things even though whether we agree or disagree with the political entity that's having a political event I think it's a good thing that these events are happening in the in the capital city and by the same token you know it seems as though almost every month we have at least one request on the consent agenda for a street closing for some kind of event and I think that's a great thing because it's it really contributes to the vitality of the city and you know I'm I wouldn't want to do anything that discourages that or makes it makes it not happen so and to be clear not every event requires us to add people on you know a street closure for block party in the neighborhood we don't put extra people on for that unless they tell us they're expecting you know a thousand people or something in which case it's a whole different event you know many you know the walks for causes you know we give permits for those but we don't there's no extra cost to deliver that service and even if someone's doing a quick march up the street and we help them up state through regional but extra people on it's it's I think the idea is the ones where you have to to call people in and you know it's as you heard Captain Martell describe a couple of meetings ago it's it's just hard enough to get the people much less you know done deal with the costs and all of that so I mean it's it's really your decision I think it comes up each year budget time too when we look at our costs we say well this is one of those things that we're we're paying for and it's perfectly appropriate for the city council to say these are things that we welcome in our community we understand it's the cost of being the capital city and and we'll bear those but it's just it we should do that wide open and we did make the decision to ask at least in that presidential campaign for the payment of our costs and we received them voluntarily and and you asked that this come back so where this is this you know where this is a sticky issue that's why the staff was we thought we'd be able to come back here's our recommendation and it's it's hard so I don't know Steven did you have a comment or question the quick question on the the parking charge for the Sanders event it was I believe it was on a Saturday so I wondered why there's a charge for parking $274 I'd have to go I don't know unless they did some pre they may have done staging the day before okay so they shut off a meter yeah okay probably did set up the day before I would imagine the other question I had that you know given that this is the state capital where a lot of people come to speak whether there isn't you know even a sort of a constitutional question about you know the right of assembly first of all secondly you know the right of free speech you know whether you know you should be charging so again I don't think there's any so we did think about that and and I don't think we're not charging anyone to speak and we're not preventing anyone from having their event and certainly you know well July 3rd is already our event but say it wasn't you know we incur a lot of costs on that day the corporate cup that's not you know that's an event that's tying up our streets and using our resources and it's just saying hey the tax payers of the city are paying for this but people are coming from all over and it's it's a you know it's not something we would normally pay for and you know and I think when protests happen there they're often they don't get permits and so we do end up bearing that cost and I don't know that there would be any real way to build them after the fact and we're talking about big things so but I but you're right I mean that is the conundrum right we are we are the host of that kind of conversation statewide and what's our role in it just to respond to what you said about protests and I wonder you know especially we're going to have a big protest of some sort on the 20th I think most of us going to be happening in Burlington you know concerning climate change but I just wonder you know if you you're going to have difficulty drawing a line between you know a really important protests like something you know concerning climate change versus other causes that might be you know I can't speak for the city council my professional opinion would be that we would not want to get into the business of deciding which which political issue is more important than in which other one or which side we wanted to be on or which candidate we thought was more important than another I think it's got to be what it is and we you know people have a freedom of speech and assembly they should be free to to articulate whatever concerns are on their mind it could be an anti-climate change that would be absolutely unconstitutional to impose content-based discrimination who gets charged the new doesn't learn anything further yeah yeah I mean I I think I definitely erred towards the feeling of this is part of what makes our city vibrant or the city capital it's a cost that we bear but it's also brings people into the city who hopefully are using our great restaurants and shopping and doing other things while they're in town and I think it does become hard to then you know for granting waivers then we are kind of getting into the business of deciding who we think is a worthy public cause so it seems like that could become challenging to say who who would we are wouldn't we even the case with Senator Sanders I was thinking about that after we made that decision and I was imagining that some other presidential candidates would not have voluntarily paid and so then are we penalizing good actors and bad actors are getting away with it for free so I was kind of feeling like that wasn't a great great approach potentially so I kind of aired more towards the I mean I think maybe keeping tracking I keep thinking about it but I'd rather keep it as part of the what we do as the city of Montpelier is where I'm leaning Bill could you remind us I believe you gathered some cost of what we were paying and how much overtime we have in the past I don't know if we haven't we we have attracted and we can't get it for you we have done in the past and for a while we were in the weekly memo we were whenever there was an event we would put it was a couple of councils ago that were really concerned about all the overtime and we got looking at all these gatherings so I'd rather not ask after the fact I'd rather have it just plain and simple this is one of the cost of doing this and they spend money on other aspects and we clean up after them and it's just I think it's a burden that they need to share the event that wants to come needs to share it hardly covers the whole city cost but I think it can help cover the cost go ahead Ashley did you have something on I would I would just like Amazon I mean you know federal presidential United they have campaign funds and I think it's perfectly reasonable for them to pay their fair share if we have to bring in additional like public safety folks and VPW folks and emergency you know personnel I for a specific event I guess you know it's not a you know a cause issue it's more you know this is a candidate who's using our resources and basically requiring that resources be utilized for an event by size and that's just hard I mean they pay these fees all over the place so I just and if you're running for for president while you know I appreciate that it shouldn't cost what it costs I mean the fact for me is that if the candidates themselves don't pay for it or you know the organization that demands that we respond doesn't pay for it that means that our residents are going to be seen that and then we're going to be faced with you know another budget season where the question you know has been and will be once again at some point you know what we're going to have to try to help thank you Connor and then Stephen yeah just the more I think about this like it seems almost impossible to define some of this stuff so if it's a political event is it a candidate is that a political action committee is it a political party that features candidates on that your uniform but like protests what's that the Women's March was a protest right it was a protest against like the president so yeah going going into it in detail I just I don't know how to define it I think I changed my mind over the course of the discussion I probably more of Lauren Stephen just one more question I don't know whether the the state itself you know charges anybody for the use of facilities you know on the in the capital complex for these these kinds of events that might be worth looking at I don't know if you've done that that to me feels like a precedent I end up I think leaning more towards Ashley and Donna on this in the sense that I'd rather be upfront with a cost and let them ask for a waiver you know if they if they can't pay it you know especially if they're a non-profit you know for something like the corporate cup yes there's cost incurred but you know it's for this cause and would we consider waiving it and and allowing that to happen but and I could actually even picture on the form you know that people fill out to close the street you know is this event estimated to cost more than $500 in city staff or overtime and most of the time the answer will be no but sometimes it'll be yes and I think if we had more events that were I mean like the example that's given in this you know the document that we received is for the Discover Jazz Festival you know if we had more entertainment related events like do good fest or whatever it might be clearer that like no this is a you know this is a company that's making a profit or this is you know this is not necessarily I mean clearly political events are are much more tied to issues of speech but they're awesome sometimes fundraising sure sure yeah so it's anyway I it if we were somehow I feel like if we weren't talking about political issues then it would somehow be clearer anyway so and I agree with Connor in that you know it's tough to differentiate or define what the content is so anyway but that's what that's why I'm at and I'm happy to be you know I'll vote it or whatever so it's all good but yeah I'm really glad we're having this conversation it's kind of fun I think I am I think the way I'm seeing it is we can choose what kind of host we want to be we can't necessarily choose our guests where we are the capital city and people come here and they will and honestly to me the more I think about it the more I think I think of it in kind of in terms of a potluck that you know when when someone comes to your house you ask them to bring enough to feed the party but if they come and you know they don't have that food or a drink or whatever it's not like you kick them out you're still hosting so to me not invite them again you might not invite them again but but we don't get to do the invitations the analogy doesn't hold all the way I agree thank you but I think I guess I continue to feel that since so far a hundred percent of our requested donations to reimburse have been fulfilled that feels like a good model so far and one but but I think we could as in there said on the application for a street closure say if your event is going to bring more than X number of people we think we're gonna have to pay some overtime in that case we're going to be asking you to cover that and so they know that we're going to be asking them but again it's not requirement and it's not something that where we are picking groups that that we waive the requirement for or charge because I am a little uncomfortable with that as Lauren pointed out I think it's better to figure out what kind of host we want to be and then let the guests behave as they might go to Ashley oh yeah yeah go ahead it's a it becomes a seriously considering like the let's just cast and keep hoping they say I mean I guess I hope President Trump didn't hear that because you know that he like has never paid any of the bills ever you know and so I guess like having a policy like that like quite all of us that it does advantage when the degree of altruism that we are willing to assume in political candidates isn't followed through on and then you know that the burden of that is borne by all of us and I just if the council can get the council meeting or it's like oh let's just keep acting policy I'm not super interested in spending any of my time on that because that's not an effective like that's not an effective use of a policy decision but if that's clear everyone else is that I totally respect that and you know you know keep doing what we're doing until somebody says no and then we'll regain that effective so I think unless there's more comments I think the question is is there an appetite to develop a more formal policy Jack just observing the conversation I think that it's close enough we don't know for sure if we had a vote what would happen tonight yeah it would happen but I think it's there's enough interest to make it worth make make me think it's worthwhile to go further have a draft policy have an actual hearing where we're inviting people to come and talk about it once we have a draft policy and at least continue the discussion so if that's the case and again I really don't you know I understand all the issues I guess there's certain categories of events so I so I'm just gonna ask you questions you can not these are kind of the policy questions so so city sponsored events would be exempt yes there's one thing yep all right entertainment type events to the point that I guess Glenn was saying what I would envision is we would actually when we fill out or you know street closures or event permits the police fire and public works have to sign off on these anyway I think they would just put you know we'll need extra officers estimated cost acts and then the the person can see in advance what the potential cost is going to be it doesn't you know they're not caught with a bill after the fact and then they can decide if they want to alter their event or that kind of thing so that's a that's an administrative matter but might help so entered you know street closures entertainment you know those types of events they would be consider those for fee okay can campaign events for a candidate for any office I guess I'm not gonna say just president could be governor it could be I mean who knows could be mayor could close down the streets and charge charge your that's right closing out the street campaign events for candidates yes yes and then I don't know what the right word is events for causes or marches those kinds of things that's when I have more pause about because they are so hard to they can be so spontaneous and we do want them to register with us sure and some of them right and and I'm not arguing just reminding and some like the women's March were extremely well-planned in advance with date and publicity and you know there was no question it was gonna cost us a bunch of money but who would you bill right well in the corporate cup has been mentioned a couple times and it seems to me that's a very well-sponsored and businesses get a lot of publicity out of it but the city doesn't get publicity out of what we've given and so I feel it's fair to put our tin cup out there and say we we feel that you should help us and they did provide some funds last year just again voluntarily but I think yeah I don't I think it's the events still gonna go on because they're I mean we have a lot of charitable groups nonprofits and some of them are really large so I don't just don't say automatically a non-profit can't afford my own feeling this would be up to you my own feeling would be the criteria for waiving a fee if you wanted to include a waiver option wouldn't necessarily be how big the organization is or whether they can afford it it would be is the is this event in the public interest you know is this is there a public benefit that's the criteria used from stairs as opposed to you know we're gonna throw this party and we're gonna we're gonna close the street we're gonna have this party we're gonna make money from the sales or everything that happened and you have to put extra policemen on I mean the public might enjoy it but it's not necessarily for the public interest you know whereas I think so I because once we get down an affordability road I think everyone's gonna come in here either they can't afford it back to your question just to differentiate these two things if it's a like a registered political candidate then that seems like one way to find it and just a protest or rally maybe we leave that off for now thoughts about that yeah Lauren I just think that could be a little hard to sometimes define where the line is or does somebody is it kind of a private event but it's like I put it out on front porch forum so it's a public rally or I don't know maybe it's not as hard I'm trying to think I mean one thing just to flag on that front like I've been involved in a lot of events and rallies and often there's like 30 sponsoring organizations so to Bill's point like who do you bill and who's the bottom line like and often it's pretty amorphous and things are changing and people are jumping in and throwing their name on stuff who might not realize there's any fiscal responsibility around it so I I do think for those kinds of events it would be I'm saying both sides of it I think it's like but I think it could be hard to figure out like who to even hold accountable like somebody presumably might put the application in and then they alone are on the hook for these expenses and they would have to figure that out but I'm just I'm just going back to like not wanting to discourage this kind of civic engagement and I just fear that if you're like well I might as an organization be the one am I willing to put my name in when it might be a huge expense because like 30 other groups sign on and all of a sudden it becomes as much bigger thing I didn't plan on and I have to hold the bag for that like as a small nonprofit or something so But I guess like if you're a political candidate running for like president I feel like you should probably be able to hire someone who cannot easily believe the rules but you know and to me like I don't think that I have any interest in like pouring into the you know this is a non-profit unless they opt for a waiver but to me like I even think that I'm not sure I haven't taken a look if there have been any revisions to the Vermont community. But I'm pretty sure that the way that our laws are written is that like if any organization or something or entity has to expend funds on something related to a political like candidate event or like an event put on by a path like that has to get recorded as an in time contribution. So you know whether whether or not you know anyone is combined with that reading of the state law I mean I still I just I you know I don't think there needs to be like burdensome things to put together like a rally for example around a cause or something but if you're talking about like Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump or you know Elizabeth Warren or whoever it may be who's running for you know president or frankly even congressional I believe they have dollars and they are campaign funds that they for these kinds of things. And if you know like rent is already out of control and again like yes I want to be you know part of the political process and I think we are at the political hotbed of Vermont but I also want to be mindful that you know we can't we can't expect residents to shoulder that entire burden you know because you know we want to support political candidates you know yes that's great we want to support political candidates so we want to put food on our table too. So Ashley I think I don't know whether you weren't able to hear properly but I think the council said for political candidate campaigns they would impose the fees we were debating was the extra rallies protests not directly associated with a specific political candidate. Well I think you have to be careful though because sometimes a pact can come in and this is perfectly permissible in certain ways where it wouldn't happen to be an event that's on behalf of a particular candidate but as long as they meet certain requirements you know the pact can do it and so I guess I'm just sort of saying like why would you want to give them a pass on that you know when they're utilizing other you know we have to prevent the political process like why aren't we just transparent in what our process is and we ask the questions and have fire you know chief of police and chief of fire weigh in on whether or not additional personnel is needed for the events of any kind you know and then we go from there. I suggest because there are constitutional implications here I suggest we a consult with the city attorney on this point and to invite the ACLU when we're having our next discussion to come in and comment either in advance or at the meeting. If I can add a C and a D on that it's probably worth inviting somebody from the Secretary of State's office to Ashley's point on the campaign finance rules that have I think recently been amended. And it also might be worth like talking to like Manchester or Concord, New Hampshire who sees a lot of this type of activity and see if they have any draft policies that we could maybe take a look at. Because honestly if I was Bernie Sanders and I went to like skirt the rules on this and just get like 501C3 or four like our revolution or something. So you put it on and invite me you know same differences. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Lord. And this is where like I just keep coming back to the squishiness. So you know so there's this climate rally in a couple weeks. So like David Zuckerman speaking he's always running for something like what is that a campaign event for him. Like I don't think it's always as clear cut like there's like the rally that Bernie organized is one thing that was clearly but then there's a lot of events that are like I think to your point Ashley like could it be way of skirting it. So I think Donna's point of clarity and consistency if we are going to go down this road even if I don't support it I think consistency would be a really good approach without trying to come up with squishy categories. Bill is going to draft a form that's going to make this all consistent. You're going to nail it Bill. You're going to nail it. Yeah. The folks in Burlington you know they were saying we cover it all. If you're having an event that you know you're having a ton of people a certain amount of people and you're going to need you know extra security making sure people are safe. You are employing off duty officers and so if you look at this agreement you know they say you know how much it would be per hour. But it also has other things in here you know holding us harmless for or the police harmless for things that go on in that event. So I think they specifically went for all events to to sort of not have to deal with this sort of thing. Thank you. Glenn. Yeah I think if we're going to charge then we should just charge everyone. That is everyone past a certain threshold of people maybe. Yeah and anyone who applies for a street closure I mean you can't protest or protest. They're going to happen but if you are seeking out our streets to close that you know that's a service. But there is a difference and I you know what I mean to contradict you but there is a like a little side street for a neighborhood block party. Right. You know yeah I mean someone has to put the barricades out and usually what happens is DPW drops them off on Friday afternoon picks them up on Monday morning and then the people themselves put them out at the you know the time they've agreed to. And that doesn't really that's not really any extra cost to us and it's a nice thing. I think the issue is if if there is an event that is going to cause a direct cost then we put that on the form. You know there could be a street closure on XYZ Street. They don't have the main but if it's main state and it's going to be a closure and it's going to be public safety people and directing traffic and barricades and trash then there's cost. And maybe it's just for police and not public works you know the thing that's going to cost the most. I mean we just come up with a flat public works fee and say if you haven't you know but I mean just you know then instead of having to worry about it's a barricade package it's a hundred bucks or something. They charge interest. Yeah I saw that. They charge interest. Okay thank you. So do we need a motion? Sorry go ahead. I wasn't going to make a motion but I was hoping when Bill comes back with his drafts with Jamie's drafts that you would also bring us the data on how much money we end up spending in the past. I know at one point you told us I just can't remember. Did you dig that up for budget time? Yes. Do we need a motion regarding this or do you feel like you have clear enough direction at this point? I guess the only question is do you care when you get it back? Whether it's getting colder? I would love to be talking about this again sometime before the end of the year. Okay. Does that seem reasonable? Maybe in conjunction with the budget. Yeah yeah fair. Then you'll all be for it. Yeah exactly. Guys we need more events in town so we can charge it. No okay all right thank you. All right and an appointment to the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. I was interested in being appointed but as a concern might happen at least one of those days I have a hearing in court in Burlington so I really can't volunteer to do it this time around. It's the first day that you actually have to vote and attend the business meeting. The second day is just fun and workshops. Well I actually could do that. Okay. I actually could do October 2nd or whatever that Wednesday. I think it's a Wednesday and Thursday. And Wednesday it's the afternoon session that's the actual meeting. And I will say that this year is different. Which I hadn't completely... You're correct. That's when the business... No that's when the business meeting is but... And I'd forgotten this when we talked about it last time but last year the League voted to do their policy discussions every other year. So the policies are now two-year policies. So there is some business to take care of this year but it's not the full debate about municipal policies. I had pitched it as that and it's not. So I just didn't want to disappoint anybody. I'm less interested then. Thank you. I've already signed up to go. If nobody else is going then fine. It's really wonderful workshops. I'm sorry you all miss it but maybe sometime. I wish I could go. So Donna you're interested? Or Lauren. Somebody nominate Donna. I nominate Donna. Nobody else wants it. Okay for the discussion. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Thank you. Yes thank you. Thank you for doing it. Okay so we are down to council reports. Who would like to start? Donna go ahead. I just want to remind you of a write up actually in Bill and Jamie's newsletter. The park of Paloosa is one more Saturday. And if you haven't been there it's a really fun time in Hubbard Park. The kids have water slide games, overnight camping and September 21st. Three to nine Hubbard Park. This is the last chance for this year. Great. Thank you. Donna. I just want to welcome Rabbo Rouser to town. Got the chance to stop by the other day. And I was talking to Jacqueline the owner of Nutty Stiff's there. And she did want to come in and introduce herself. Public comment tonight but got very sick. But she's looking forward to doing it the next time. But I think it's a great spot. Just sort of as an incubator for small businesses. It brings a bit more life into our downtown. So very welcome to have them. That's it for me. Let's see. Not a real report yet from the homelessness task force because as we noted earlier in the meeting, it has not yet met but we are on our way. And there are at least already side conversations about this of course as there have been. I'm looking forward to that with some trepidation but looking forward. I continue to visit another way down on Barry Street every month. And I think this month I will try to go. I'm inviting myself there so I should check with them first. But I'm just going to say it anyway that since the first homelessness task force meeting is on Monday the 23rd. Typically I go on Monday afternoon once a month to another way. I'll just make it the 23rd. So if anyone wants to meet me at another way. Monday the 23rd from 2 to 3. I'll be there talking with those folks. And then homelessness task force later that afternoon for 30 here I believe. I've also been enjoying representing the city on the Wood Gallery board. There's a lot of good activity going on there. I think the mayor got to cut a ribbon on an elevator recently. I sure did. I missed that event but I've been watching the progress and it's great there. There's a fantastic show in the contemporary gallery right now. Tessa O'Brien and Galen Chi painting and collage. Everyone should go see it. And I'm working out the details but I believe I will be teaching a drawing class at the Wood Gallery on Tuesday evenings for a month starting the second week of October. So that's going to be tons of fun for me and possibly fun for my students. I don't know yet. We'll see. Who would be interested to contact the wood. It's not up on the website yet but I think it will be. I'm going to be away next week so I'm not going to Baguitos next Thursday but I will be there tomorrow morning as usual 8 30 to 9 30. Thank you. Jack. I also I think there's a lot of good stuff happening in Montpelier. Are you going to talk about drive electric? I was going to but you can do it too. No go ahead because you're going to be able to be there and I won't be able to be there. Oh fair enough. Well I'll do that in mind. Yeah. But I was at the art walk on Friday night. There's I stopped by the front but counselor Hutchison wasn't there. But I was working. But I also stopped by some of the other venues. There's there's good work out there and it's going to be up for like a couple of months so people should go out and see it. And it's one of those things that when I say well things are happening in Montpelier. This is that's one of those things that's happening in Montpelier. And the other thing I went to the opening reception for rabble rouser. And I thought I was very impressed because I wasn't there for very long but I stopped in and there were probably 50 or 100 people in there. And I didn't know a single person. And if we're bringing businesses to the city that are attracting people that I've never met in my 36 years of living here. I think that's that that's a great thing. So get out and check the place out. Thanks. Good. Yeah. Not much to report. I just want to note that the social and economic justice advisory committee continues to meet. We met this morning. And I think in the next month or so we will be coming forward with a proposal for kind of next steps for the committee. So I'll just leave you in suspense but look forward to some really good conversations about kind of the next phase for that committee. And I will let Ann talk about the drive electric but I'm going to drive my electric car there. Yeah. It's great. Everyone should get one for the best. Ashley do you have anything you want to update us on. No. No. Okay. So I have three events I want to talk about. So the first one as people have mentioned is the drive electric event that is this Saturday the 14th. It's going to be at the state house lawn speaking of street closures where they're going to close down Baldwin Street and I think that's governor. Anyway so they're going to have something like 30 more than 30 electric vehicles there for two different types of electric vehicles. Multiple Teslas if you want to go check those out. There will be a couple of dealers there who can offer test rides just sort of around the around you know the the block so to speak. So you can feel how they drive. You can ask all your hard questions of people who are actually living with electric vehicles. Besides that there's going to be other types of electric things there electric lawnmowers and bicycles. You can test drive electric bike there if you if you would like. There's also going to be music and food. So it should be a great event. It goes till 2 so it will roughly overlap the farmers market as well. So I would highly encourage everybody to come out to that. It's going to be pretty interesting I think. Electric music. And electric music. Well amplified anyway. This is true. No electric guitars as far as I know. I could be wrong though. So that's going to be a great event. Second thing is next week a week from tonight. There's the 18th of September at 6 30 here in this room is going to be the transportation meeting. We have people from agency of transportation sustainable mobility coalition Green Mountain Transit. All Earth Rail. I'm sure I'm probably missing someone. And the on demand transit people. On demand transit people. We've also reached out to MTIC. See if they want to present as well. The idea is to have an update from all these different groups to give us a picture of what the future of transportation might look like. Things that they're working on and it's an opportunity for us to sort of ask questions about the feasibility of things. Or just whatever probing questions we have about that the future of transportation in Montpelier. So that's coming up. And actually this is the thing I hadn't planned on saying but there's going to be an additional transportation meeting on October 2nd also in this room. But it's the regional planning commission. So the regional planning commission is planning on a transportation themed evening in this space again but having a regional perspective. And I think that will actually be very interesting just because of the nature of transportation. Of course we should be coordinating those plans with people outside of Montpelier. So I just wanted to put in a plug for that. And then of that I have on my calendar for six o'clock here in this room. October 2nd that's another Wednesday. Okay and a fourth event is September 24th. That's a Tuesday. Day before our next council meeting is the big reveal so to speak for the Confluence Park design. So they've been taking in all this feedback for months about what that space could or should look like. Taking public comment and they've got a product to show us. And so I had asked that they not be sort of revealing that at a council meeting. And so we're giving it its own sort of night. So that's on the 24th. That's 730. I think it's here but I should double check the space. I'm pretty. The 24th Tuesday the 24th. What's that? That's the regional transportation. Oh I'm sorry. Anyway 730. I think it's, I'm sure it's going to be somewhere in this building as probably in this room. So in any case just wanted to put that on people's radars as well. Okay that's it for me. Crystal. I'll just remind people that if your sewer bills are due on the 15th. Thank you. I don't have much except to say that we are very very close on assistant manager and DBW just working out a few details. Hope to have an announcement soon. Great. Okie dokie. Alright so I think that is it. So without objection we'll consider meeting adjourned 917.