 All right, so I'm going to call the meeting to order. So just some media logistics and some instructions for participants. And we don't have any remote participants tonight. So if you are joining us remotely, if you would change your zoom name to your first and last name so I can refer to you properly. When you speak, if you would start by saying your name and where you live, that'd be great. We are asking folks to keep their comments to two minutes or less and Don over here is going to help us with time there. If you're going to speak on a topic just make sure that it is relevant to the agenda item that you're discussing. And if you wish to speak just make sure that I've acknowledged you first. And because we don't really get into like back and forth situations here so if you if you have multiple questions if you could ask them all together that would be helpful. And I think that is it. All right, so yes, just for those who was watching we are having a little bit of technical difficulty tonight so there is the screen that normally is seen in our room is not functioning. So people in the room can't see faces like they normally can. And so if there's any presentations that won't be up on the big screen the council members can all see them on their computers. But just FYI there is so we're trying to figure that out but something happened with our projector today and it's not fixed. Great. So we're going to look at the agenda so information about changing the agenda. I my understanding is that we are not going to be doing the appointments to the homelessness task force tonight right so that is not on the agenda. We putting that out for another meeting. Any other changes folks would like to see. Okay, I just may wish to I see that the CV HHH folks are here. I told them they'd be near the beginning of the agenda they are there right after the appointments but if you wanted to move them ahead of the appointments, you could do that. Well, that's. It's a good question I think I'm hoping that the appointments go relatively quickly so hopefully we can. Oh, and another change there is no appointment to the housing committee either. Okay, that should not have been on there. There are no vacant seats on the housing committee. Okay. Great super thank you. All right, so we are on to general business and appearances so this is an opportunity for any member of the public to address the council on any topic that is otherwise not on our agenda. So, if folks have something they'd like to say that is not pertinent to something on the agenda now is the time and we'll start with folks in person so if. Yeah, go ahead. My name is Dexter the favor and I'm running for state senate. And I'm here tonight just to introduce myself to the city council. Some of you already know me. And some of you aren't city council sitting around the table so introduce myself to you as well I guess we know each other. So, I live in Middlesex. I've been in Middlesex 05602 since 1986. I've raised four kids at my farm up there and they've been through you 32 professionally I'm a civil engineer. I deal in wet infrastructure so water wastewater and storm water. Engineering for mostly for municipalities but I've done some private work as well over the years. I don't know what you want to tell you about me, you know, I've got a couple of side gigs adjunct professor at Norwich I teach intro to engineering lab and I'm also a professional skier and snowboarder, although I think my retirement is due now. So anyway, I freely that's about all I wanted to do to introduce myself but I'd welcome any questions or interaction with the board. With the council. I did want to mention I've been trying to go to all the city councils I've been 100% the city councils in the district. Thanks to tonight's success and about 60% of the select boards so it's been fun. All right, thank you very much. Steve Whitaker on pillar. I want to start with, you know, a little bit of history just like shame on you for tolerating somebody being arrested for exercising the First Amendment rights, and you all think it's just par for the course. That's that's on you and you need to deal with it each individually and collectively. You know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, the police department, you you need oversight, you need citizen oversight, not advisory when you have lying officers, brutal lying officers who threw me into the wall right there, and then lied about the handcuffs, you're not going to point fact finders for, you know, the arts committee gate, and you're not going to point fact finders to address issues like the police chief violently assaulting somebody in the hallway for exercising the First Amendment rights on direction of the mayor. So, public records requests pending a request was made for all records relating to complaints about the veracity or professionalism of city employees. And I'm told that's too big of an email search to do. That means that your manager or mismanager is not keeping those things in a file for the employees. But when people are, you know, when officials when you're our public employees are called out for lying, especially when they're lying about a violent assault on somebody, and y'all don't put it in a file or keep track of it. But the appeal to the head of the agency was filed a reminder filed weeks later. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I never got the five day response. And then another 10 days has passed. This city needs an attorney that will hold Bill Frazier accountable attorneys are bound by ethical codes as you've learned from, you know, Trump's fiasco. In effect, we've got a city manager who walks up to and across the line regularly, which wouldn't be allowed if you had to consult with a city manager. Public records requests that end up in litigation that end up costing the city money should come out of the city manager's pocket not out of the taxpayers pocket. So garbage in the river, the pile is still down there and we've got an inch of rain coming tomorrow so it could well wash downstream. You know, this is the shopping carts, the picnic tables that were destroyed by the folk conflicts parking users. I mean, what is it about this hypocrisy of environmental stewardship that you don't get or that you don't act on that you refuse to act on. But I went and inspected even today I inspected last Friday when it was supposed to be cleaned up and the Friday before that when it was supposed to be cleaned up. So you don't have. I think you need to change your two minute limit. I've noticed you went from saying about two minutes or, you know, to hard two minutes and it's unconstitutional. Thank you. Anyone else who's with us in person. Yes. Honour, graciously offered me an opportunity to give a very brief update. So I'm here today. For those of you don't know, I am Dan toll. I am the president and founder of park advisors. We are hired by this city and the homelessness task force to conduct a needs assessment. We have a homelessness here in Montpelier and Washington County. The overarching objective on just a level set for everybody is to provide concrete and actionable. Solutions for the homelessness. Homelessness issue here in Montpelier and Washington County. That both the community. And the unhoused can feel good about that sort of. The bottom line. Exhibits to pass around. So, what we'll see when you get the handout there is. This is the, the, the project plan. It's a Gantt chart. And basically the project started last week. It's going to end on February the mid February. It's 20 week project. And there are four major phases. The 1st phase is intelligence gathering and in the intelligent gatherings phase. We'll be looking at the existing service landscape. The physical infrastructure. We're going to be getting input from the unhoused as well as organization stakeholders not only here in Montpelier, but across Washington County. We'll then do, we'll identify needs and gaps, both in services and infrastructure. We'll do an assessment of the Intel and of the gaps and and needs. Then we'll put together a set of recommended approaches for addressing these gaps. And do that in the context of best practices and looking at really high leverage approaches and very cost effective ways to address these issues. And then finally, we'll put together a report that includes not only recommendations, but our best cost estimate as to these different phases. So, that's my presentation. Are there any questions? Yeah, I appreciate that for him the ground running of this project. He's talking to a million people. I've got them on speed dials. Thanks so much. I've been making the circuit for sure. I have a question. Oh, and I always got a question for you. Dan. Likewise. I guess my only question. And so looking at the timeline. Is there going to be information available to help inform the budget knowing it's going to be like just slightly after we're going to have to have approved the budget. It's going to be some kind of scope at least or something for us to. We're going to do our best Connor, who of course, and let's see. Jennifer are on the homelessness test. Not anymore. Okay. Connor is on the homelessness task force. And has has alerted me to the, not only the budget, but also, I think the strategic planning process. So we're going to do our best to. Try to, you know, come up with some preliminary recommendations, preliminary estimates. So that we can hopefully help inform the budgeting and the strategic planning process. And we did set aside a fairly large sum of money in this past years are funds for this process as well. So. I'm wondering if you can just send this to me digitally. Yes, I will do that. Yeah. And there's a few extra copies there. Anybody would would like one. Thank you so much. Great. Any other questions? Thank you. Yeah. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Anyone else with us in person. Okay, we'll go to folks who are with us digitally. So, Peter Kalman, go ahead. Peter Kalman, I live on Mountain Dew street. I'm not sure if you're going to be talking about this later. I saw that under the disruption status sheet mentioned about can. Will you be discussing can later? Or if not, I'll say something now. Not tonight. So if you wanted to say something about that now that would be okay. I've been a can coordinator in two different neighborhoods where both of which I lived in. And my current one on and it's been a very interesting and I think important activity. I'm very disappointed that there are no longer any staff. I don't know if anybody else can be provided by sustainable Montpelier. And in fact, I'm not sure that all the coordinators have been informed of what's going on. I only learned about it accidentally. And when I learned about it, I strongly urge Barbara Connery from the sustainable Montpelier board to get the word out to everybody to let them know. I didn't get a notice. So I don't know if anybody else did. I think we heard you. I think he's working on it. Sorry, Peter, if you could pause the second. If you would hold on a second. We're going to see if we can increase the volume. You know, we'll let you know when when we're ready. Okay. Okay. Sorry. Through these speakers here. If you could. Nope. Nope. No. Thank you. Say again. Stephen, if you could not make any further comments. That would be helpful. Thank you. Without being recognized by me. Thank you. So Stephen, if you're going to make offensive gestures, I'm going to give you a warning. Okay, so that's your first warning right now. And, and so I, I'm going to give you a warning. Second warning. I'm going to ask you to leave. Right. Thank you. All right. So Peter, if you could get another shot here. Okay. I don't know that any other coordinators aside from me know about this because I haven't, I haven't seen anything that's been sent out. The staff that were that left, left apparently sometime in August. We haven't heard anything. From or about can we were used to having at least once a month communications to share with our neighborhoods. I'll tell you quite frankly, that it's very clear to me anyway, it's a sample Montpelier does not have the capacity as an organization to fulfill the MOU that they signed with the city. I gave them a plan that I had come up with it where they could do it without staff using those of us who are a coordinator volunteers to basically run run the operation. I got a very odd response from Ken Jones. He's apparently only interested in using can as a way of dealing with what he calls the BCF a project. I have no idea what that means, but that obviously does not involve. I mean, it mainly involves the two neighborhoods that are up there. Barbara Connery is very interested in ADUs. And, you know, this, that's their interest. They don't have the real interest of what the, the staff was doing, which is to promote community engagement in the political process. We were piloting, we piloted two projects in our district, District 3, which I think were very successful. One was a candidate for them. And the second was a office hours with our two city counselors. We were looking forward to having another one last month, but it didn't happen. And right now we're in limbo. And what happens to organizations that are in limbo, they start going downhill. I urge you to act on this soon. I would be glad to send you the proposal that I sent to Sustainable Montpelier as to how this could be run without a paid staff person, a part-time staff person is worse than no staff person at all, in my opinion. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else who is with us digitally wish to make a comment? You can use the reactions button, the raise hand icon, or you can unmute yourself or turn your video on and wave. I see someone's connecting their audio so I'm going to hold on a second. Okay, all right. Okay, so since we're not seeing anybody else. I'm going to move on to the consent agenda. Is there a motion regarding the consent agenda? Second agenda. Second. Okay, there's a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor, please say aye. And opposed. All right, so the consent agenda passes. So now we are on to some appointments. There are a number of folks who are up for appointments, and some of which I see are with us online, which is great. Let me just check here. Craig Durham. I don't see Kirby Keaton. I do see Kirby. Would you like to introduce yourself and I know you've been on the planning commission, but if you could tell us about why you want to stay on. Hi, sure. Thanks, everyone. Hello, city council. So yeah, this is for a reappointment and just to catch everyone about how this is working for the planning commission right now is we missed some reappointments during cobit. So we, in order to stagger things, we kind of did some reappointments last year and then my every appointment was set for one year just to start the staggering process usually it's two years. That's why I'm back so soon. But I'm the chair of the planning commission right now. We currently have five of seven seats filled so we are actually looking for new members and hoping that you'll see new applicants. And I would say if you know anyone who's interested in doing planning work, especially people with planning backgrounds or law backgrounds are related land use backgrounds. If you would welcome some new blood. It would be helpful for us to get a quorum. If we have all of our seats filled. But yeah so I'm, I'm here again, sticking around for a while. We're working on the city plan as you know, we are well underway. Close to finishing a first draft the city plan we have a few more smallest chapters we also have a large land use chapter to do. We've, you know, contracted with SE group to start a web based plan and that is now underway with the draft chapters that we have so far. Just want to see that process finish. We're also working on some zoning changes, which is an ongoing process that we look at, you know, multiple times a year that I'm excited about moving forward on. And we've also recently done some, you know, outreach about some of the stuff we're up to to let the community know more about what we're doing, which the web based plan I just mentioned is also a big part of our outreach or hopeful outreach. So those are the things we have going on I'd like to see these things through and that's why I'm planning to stick around. Any questions for Kirby. I would also say that I believe that there's an application from Gabe who's also up for reappointment and he's been extremely helpful as vice chair. I know he's been busy with work so if he doesn't end up making it I'd like to put in an endorsement for Gabe sticking around for us. Yeah, thank you. And I just also want to say thank you for, thank you for serving and we're going to move on to other folks I don't see Gabe with us on online or in person. And so we're going to the ADA committee, Mary Alice Bisbee, I don't see Mary Alice online or in person. And Michael Lazercheck. I don't see Michael online. I just want to make sure I'm not missing anybody. Okay, I think that is, that's the list for a variety of committees wondering if we would like to go into executive session because I would, because we have a number of people to appoint I would recommend it but we don't have to. Yeah. Up to you. Go ahead, Jack. What other people think. I think these are all good and non controversial applicants. And so I'm going to do this really quick and move that we appoint Craig Durham to the Montpellier Transportation Infrastructure Committee. Thank you, Kirby Keaton and Gabriel Lajanus to the planning commission. Mary Alice Bisbee to the ADA committee and Michael Lazercheck to the conservation commission. Okay motion and a second. Any further discussion. Okay, all in favor please say aye. Hi. Okay, thank you. And thank you Kirby for being here to just check in with us. Thank you for your past service and for stepping forward again and please pass along our gratitude to Gabriel and look forward to having the master plan done at some point. So thank you so much. And to the other folks, thank you to all the folks who are maybe listening for stepping up and serving. Okay, I think we are ready to move on then to the question about the request for a ballot item from Central Vermont Home Health and Hospice and I know we have some folks from CDHH with us digitally, Sandy Roost and Kim Farnham. So I am going to turn it over to you. Oh, sorry, maybe yes. Hold on one second, maybe Bill first. Let's see, yeah. So last couple of years we have, during the pandemic, we have asked, excuse me, CDHH has asked us to place their ballot request, their funding request item on the ballot without requiring petition. Our normal process requires people to go through our community fund or petition, one or the other. And they have, prior to the pandemic, they had always petitioned successfully and gotten their ballot item passed successfully. Obviously during the pandemic, I think everyone felt it wasn't safe for people to be out approaching people and doing petition work. So they requested from the council and received our approval and the council simply put their ballot item on the ballot and it has passed with a very large majority's last couple of years. So they are here to make that similar request this year. So again, it's our, we haven't changed our policy other than for pandemic exception, which you have, have granted. So this is where we're at. So over to you. Great, thanks Bill and thanks Nara Watson. So good evening everyone. My name is Sandy Bruce. I believe I know pretty much all of you except if we carry your new on the council. So welcome. And I do have a few slides to share. Didn't know if I could share screen in a, in a couple of minutes if that was permissible or not at this point. So the council members can see a share screen. The people at this point are only staff people would not be able to see. Okay. I'd love for the council to see it if that's okay. But first of all, we are, as Bill said, central Vermont home health and hospice is asking for an exemption of Montpelier's petition rule to allow a CDHH funding request, which would be level funded at 23,500 to be a line item on the 2023 ballot. And lots of reasons why certainly, it's certainly resource heavy to collect petitions. We found that through COVID, many of our volunteers who did some of this work certainly have chosen to do other things and or not be as actively involved in that. I think we all know from a resource perspective as an organization as organizations, whether our municipalities or corporations that resources are very, very thin. So I just want to be able to take a few minutes just to tell you a little bit about what we've done in the last year. And then certainly I'm open for questions, et cetera. So I will attempt to share my screen. Okay. Can everyone see our point presentation? Yes. Perfect. Thank you. So I don't think I need to go through, first of all, our mission. I think most of you, if not all of you are aware we are not for profit organization. And we are designated by the state to accept all referrals for three of our major programs for our home health program, which is primarily our skilled care services, the skills of a nurse, physical therapist, all our rehab therapies, social worker, LNAs, et cetera, our hospice program, as well as choices for care. What that means is we get a referral for the most part we have to take in. So certainly talking about care for all of Montpelier residents. So agency wide last year we serve 3100 clients. And that's inclusive of a lot of the work we did for COVID. And last October I was able to present on that. In addition, on any given day, we have about 750 to 800 individuals that are active on service. The key thing to note is in 2022 so far we have served annualized 410 patients. That's actually an increase of 11%. So certainly continue to get out there and add additional patients to our census. And I think everybody knows the cost of doing that in our healthcare world is really related to having traveling clinicians on board due to recruitment and retention efforts. So lots of help on Pylir. Every year we choose a community partner of the year. This year it happened to be the Family Center of Washington County, which I'm sure many of you are familiar with. And we do lots of work with them. And certainly as more Montpelier residents qualify for CDHH services, not only are we able to meet the need just from the resources that we put into it, but also from our collaboration between our partnerships. And certainly Family Center in 2021 was significant. We were able to serve lots of families and children in collaboration and coordination with the Family Center and many other organizations that serve that population. This past year we've seen an increase in essential home health. Once again, those skilled care services, they require the skills of a nurse. We have therapy, social worker, LNAs, etc. Similar to what hospital and primary care offices build services, those same services, as well as our maternal and child health services. So very appropriate to have partnered and continue to partner with the Family Center. And certainly between all of us we're really able to serve more individuals. In that program for us in our maternal and child health program, we serve a pre-birth. So mom, pregnant moms. And also we serve individuals with family counseling with regards to parenting and certainly partnering with our OBs and pediatricians and serving those children up to age two and some up to age five. So certainly wanting to support and maintain important connections to family and community. And a lot of that work is related to wellness initiatives as well from the nursing perspective. Certainly we want these families to thrive and we thought we'd highlight just a few things around this program that have touched your community significantly. We are working on a perinatal collaborative pilot with an OBG practice with our maternal and child health nurses. And primarily what we're doing is outside of seeing these individuals where they qualify for the different programs we serve, we're also partnering with the physicians to do these 30-week home visits at no cost to the client or the provider aka the OBGYN offices. And we're conducting perinatal mood anxiety disorder and social determinant of health screenings. So as a result of doing that we're able to partner with our physician practices, share that information with them, and then make appropriate referrals certainly to all the organizations that we collaborate with in central Vermont. And we do lots of lactation support as well in conjunction with the practices. In addition to that we have our maternal early childhood sustained home visiting program that is a program funded but through the department of health from a grant perspective. And once again we partner with other providers such as the Family Center through this and it's really an evidence-based home visiting program in the maternal and child health population that provides nurses to support families through the transition to parenthood and continuing support until the child reaches that second birthday. So really providing those wraparound services, wellness services, really working with families on how to provide that child a good environment to really begin their trajectory and certainly focused on how do we promote healthy behaviors. Which we now start at childhood and can potentially turn into chronic disease in the future. So really critical program. And just a comment that I think I've made to the city is that our work at Central Vermont Home Health and Hospice when we do the history and go way back actually started in the maternal and child health realm with nurses working with children in school systems. Sandy can I interrupt you? Sure. We want you to assume that most of us do know what you do. Okay and certainly long history of voter support for town funding request for Central Vermont Home Health as Bill Frasier mentioned we've had a significant amount of support. Mom Piliar is about 14% of our visits with the next highest and highest being Berry City. And certainly you know really partnering with community providers and health and wellness initiatives etc. And why we need town funds. Certainly I think you're aware of our primarily Medicare and Medicaid funding. We certainly rely on town funding as well as investment income and fundraising development to support operational losses that we've sustained and that are significant from COVID. Moving forward projected to be as such as well. And that's all I have and I am going to unshare my screen. Great thank you. My apologies for interrupting I wasn't sure. Oh no that's okay. We were told to make it short so I tried to make it short. Thank you so much. Yeah thank you. Super. Donna yes go ahead. Actually ready to take a motion and people can ask questions after that. That Home Health is on hospice is definitely known quality and quantity and I would like to make the motion that we allow them to put their ballot item on without signatures this year. Second. There's motion in a second. Any further discussion? Other folks with thoughts on this? I've worked for the family center for a while and I fully support this gesture. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks Donna. Carrie. I'm a huge supporter of Home Health and Hospice. I'm so grateful for the work that they do and it's absolutely essential. My question is about our process and that we have we made a decision a few years ago that we were going to have this community fund and either you apply to that or you petitioned and it makes sense to me that we made an exception for this during COVID but I'm not seeing the argument right now for making the exception. So I'm very very supportive of Home Health and Hospice. I would happily sign a petition. I would happily vote for them but I would prefer to see this go on the ballot by petition. Before you go Donna, any other folks like Lauren, Connor? Yes, go ahead. Yeah, I think I'm on the same page as Carrie. It's not a question of worthiness. You know, I've had somebody on hospice my own family in recent months and there's no question about the work that's done here. It's sort of the equity issue. If I look at like who the community fund gives to, like Good Samaritan Haven which has more needs than ever, you know, or an organization that I was on the board of until recently Mosaic, you know, there are these questions like how many resources you put in to getting these like ballot signatures and it's these folks are saying it's substantial, you know. So I wonder if the question is maybe not about like picking and choosing who goes on the ballot and who not, who doesn't, but are we at the right level of petition signatures or is it an overwhelming burden for some organizations to get on? Because like let's be serious, it's a pretty generous community, right? You're probably going to get more on the ballot than you are going to get from the community fund. I don't know, but you probably are if you ask for it. So it becomes a strategic thing and I wonder if we could take some of the strategy out of it by maybe a broader conversation about the signature requirements. I ask you a question about that. It's not the signature requirement is not state statute, that is our own. It's in the city charter and our charter required it's 5% for a ballot item or 10% for any money items and so this would be a 10% threshold and that was actually initiated by the council in order to discourage frivolous you know requests. I would also say you could have a discussion about the whole policy about how things go on the ballot for a long time. You may recall we had time when there were a long all sorts of things on the ballot in the council for some period of time had a had a a policy where if you had been approved in prior years they just put you in the budget. You know if you'd already petitioned on had been approved and you weren't asking for a change we just put you in the budget was only new requests or increased requests and then that stopped and then one year the council said nope they didn't require petitions but they put everybody on the ballot and that led to the community fund because there were too many items on the ballot and that's where we've been so I think you can also look at the amount of funding in the community fund if that's sufficient. One of the issues with the community fund and I will say that CDHH did apply one year but their request is really out of out of sort of whack with I don't mean this disrespectfully just the amount of money they've traditionally requested way out of line with what the rest of the community fund people get and so I think the the amount of reward they were given was substantially less than they've been getting on the ballot so they said let's petition again on the ballot and and that's where they were so there's there's a lot of history to all of this and a lot of good rational reasons why we've ended up where we've ended up and to your point we could look at any of those whether it's the ballot requirement which would require a charter change or the policy of how somebody gets on a ballot for example we have always or often our policy with the library is very specific to the library that if they ask for same amount as the prior year they go on the ballot if they ask for an increase they have to petition again we waive that last year when they want an increase because of the pandemic so you know you could always make a policy that if you've gotten over 80 percent for five straight years I don't know I mean I think there's any number of things that you could do it's within your purview to think about how you want to handle it so but for now lest we you do that your policy is either you go to the community fund or you petition or you get a special dispensation with the council and again that was granted the last couple years because of covid do we know what the thresholds are for other municipalities the state statute is five percent for money items for any items for any item petitioned on to a town meeting money or not right and so the city this city and I think some others up the money items to the 10 percent it's good to know thank you Warren roughly the difference between 600 signatures and 300 signatures which I'm sure the city clerk would tell us if you're here sick I'm sick kind of bear with me here um was John going to go sorry I will actually John did you want to jump in there at all um I don't think I have anything in particular to add bills numbers are pretty close and they tend to float around there so it would be probably around oh well it's 600 and about 620 to get on the ballot for a moneyed item and about 310 for just an advisory item yeah I'm kind of of mixed minds I mean I I'm inclined to grant the waiver but with an understanding that I do think revisiting the policy could make sense I mean to me the pandemic is not over and I mean we're seeing in other parts of the world a resurgence so this winter could be concerning so I think you know with home health and hospice workers in particular putting them at increased risk by unnecessary contact you know again for an entity that we've given a waiver before that has won public support numerous times so you know meeting certain criteria you know and just knowing what crisis our health care and public health providers are in so adding an extra burden I don't I don't like I am sensitive to the process issue though this seems like if we're going to keep giving waivers how long is the pandemic going to go on is this indefinite so it seems like revisiting either putting more money into the community fund and just driving everyone through that and you know maybe there's some acknowledgement if you've gotten funding similar to the library where you know photos have been proven in amount there's some kind of assurance that that could be in the budget or something and unless something changes but I think for now I would support Donna's motion but I it does seem like a little bit of a messy process so so just to be clear so you would be in favor of it with the understanding that we come back to revisit the the process yes okay thank you very much Mark you know no fair enough well Donna you've been waiting to go ahead and then I have a thought yeah I just wanted to get into the history and I'm glad Bill did I I remember it just a little slightly different whereas the council at last said you're just too big for the fund the fund people came to us the community fund and said wow they're just too big and by and large everyone is around the 10,000 so that's one of the things we could look at is just to make a certain amount anything over that goes to the ballot I find it very strange that on one hand we want public involvement we want people to have more access to vote but we don't trust them for us to put the item on the ballot and that was the biggest thing we're getting the public safety authority select boards to put it on the ballot so this public safety authority didn't have to go around at 23 towns to get signatures I really support us putting we can do a review of who's asking but I support the council of putting organizations on the ballot just like the library they increase it they go on they shouldn't have to get signatures that's where I'm coming from and I just find it really odd to be such of a different mindset and you know okay yeah no I guess right like my concern would be if some other organization came to us and asked for a substantial amount of money and you know I'd like to be on the ballot but they weren't on they weren't approved before I mean we had I feel like we so we had a policy that was mostly just for the the library previously and it's two years it previously was two years you had to get the same amount before you didn't have to petition yeah and then the nonprofits got clever because I was part of it for public transit we put everybody on the same signature ballot so we all had our wording there and we all got on by group collecting signatures because you can do that it's legal so so I I guess you know just in in light of like having a clear policy because you know I if we we had a policy previously and well at least we had something that we could point at and we've sort of amended that for COVID so it seems to me that we ought to revisit that policy um and and to be clear also just you remember it for this one organization and for because of their ballot success I think you were clear that any new agency would not be exempted and the same with the library and their increase so I think you know you if you did not open the door widely um and to Donna's point you know one of the reasons that the then council put in the community fund was also for budgetary reasons because if if you just put every request on the ballot there's no check and balance so I think the council said hey if we if we say here's how much money we'll put into these community activities people can make the choice they can still go out and petition if they want but if they don't want to have to do that then we at least can put some bounds around it and and so I think that was the logic no different different times different policy different decisions but that was part of the issue was to give people were telling them hey we don't want to petition it takes too much especially for some of the people to get five hundred dollars or a thousand dollars and the council said yep we get it here's you know a hundred thousand dollars or whatever here's a group that will vet them and review them and we'll base them based on merit and then we'll we'll give grants instead and so that's how we got to where we go fair enough um any further thoughts yes Carrie yeah I I think that the system that we have now could stand to be re-looked at just because it's always a good idea to review things after you've had them in place for a while but I but I do think the general idea is pretty good that um that we have we have a sense of how much money is in the community fund and so we can budget accordingly and then there may be some extras on top of that but then those are kind of the special circumstances and so asking people to petition to be on the ballot seems like it goes along with that idea of special circumstances um and and I'm I'm I'm thinking about what Connor said about equity and about all the organizations out there that are either going to the community fund now but they would really love more money or could really benefit from a lot of money from the city but don't know that they could come and ask for an exception and so if we grant an exception because this group came and because we're familiar with them and um that that doesn't seem very equitable um and then the the other part about they've demonstrated success in the past is really rewarding the folks who have been financially successful with more money and that doesn't give an opportunity for those who haven't had that financial success to get it um and so the thing about the petition and the community fund is it kind of puts everybody on sort of equal footing it gives people a shot it's clear what the process is you can look it up and you can decide do I want to go to a community fund do I want a petition do I want to try something else this year and so I'm I'm going to vote no because I really want to stick with that process yeah kind of good yeah I mean just along those lines you know not the single rick de angeles now but rick de angeles comes in here and says hey look folks we don't even have like a warming shelter like we are strapped for resources you know we need something from you I I'd have a tough time saying like no you can't go on the ballot too just because you happened to the past here so again like all these are organizations I want to see funded and everything but I'm a little hesitant to put the cart before the horse until we have a process cemented and start picking and choosing because as far as I'm concerned the floodgates are open once you do that um I think organizations will be coming in and they should so I just want to put it out there we could table this until we have decided on a process or discuss the process that's an option um there are thoughts over here uh Jennifer go oh nope okay I mean I have a lot I have a lot of thoughts about this um and I feel like uh the the going around and getting signatures feels very um dated um I feel like you know if you have the bodies to go out and do that and you have that privilege of having that many bodies to go out and get all those signatures that's great I know for me when I was trying to get signatures it was hard because I work I have kids I have other responsibilities and going out and knocking on my neighbor's doors it took a lot of work and I know a lot of these nonprofits are understaffed the staff that they have are overworked and underpaid and then asking them to go out in the weather with COVID still around and strep and God knows what else I just feel like the knocking on the doors thing is I feel like we should sorry you're talking about the process just in general yeah in general yeah I feel like it's it's dated okay or where we are yeah health and just everything in the world privilege and the tension in the world and is it safe knocking on people's doors right now in this political climate you know yeah uh jack this is a very interesting uh conversation between things like the philosophy of how we operate government do we have a policy or we do not do we not have a policy and it is always open if you start a pattern of giving a waiver year after year after year when is it does it look like there's not actually a policy or the waiver is the policy to Donna race is the question of well what is the voice that how do we conduct a democratic election and whether it's more democratic and more open to the to the voice of the people if the council simply puts something on the ballot that we want to or if we encourage public participation by asking organizations to to go door to door and establish that their support in the in the community I think it's I agree with the people who have said that it's really worth revisiting the the policy and coming up with the what we think is a rational policy you know and I appreciate the the history of how the community fund was was developed and I really was was not a supporter of that change when it happened because and it kind of happened without me even noticing it but I wasn't on the council at the time it was years ago but it struck me it seemed to me that it was one of the purposes for creating the community fund was to make our budgeting process less democratic by closing the door on organizations who wanted to come into to ask the voters for money because the the community fund and the increase to 10 percent uh signature requirement I think were part of the same package no okay um thanks for the correction but so um I think it's a tough thing to do but I also think that the home health and hospice is uh is a very valuable organization I agree with Lauren that the that the pandemic is is not over so for this year oh and then one other thing is that I don't think we have time to lay this on the table and adopt something new because they're gonna want to be out there knocking doors before it gets too cold if uh if that's what they're gonna have to do so I'm I'm gonna support this because I think it's a worthy organization but I do think that uh we really need to take a close look at how we're gonna do this in the future you know just a little bit from what you were saying Jack was making me think about what would it ideally look like next year and um I think it it ought to be we ought to have a policy that's clear enough that the folks from ZVHHH would know what to expect um and I don't think we would even if we had a policy I don't think it could it would preclude us I don't think it would be a policy that would um allow them to not be approved by the council I think we'd probably if we were gonna give them a waiver it would still probably have to be approved right by the council right so but it could be on the consent agenda if it was a really clear the council policy is is the one who sets the ballot when you set the warning except for petitioned items and I'd argue and and obviously the folks from from ZVHHH can speak for themselves but I would argue that the policy for them was very clear which is why they came in the last two years and this year said we know we need to petition we're concerned about the pandemic can we be relieved from that that question I don't think it was an unclear policy I think they are very appropriately asking for an exception to the policy due to health circumstances um and and it's you you can choose to grant that or not and the conclusion of that is then they will do you will either put them you're agreeing to put them on the ballot when you set the ballot in january or you're saying to them you need to get this petition um just to dial back a little bit about the the 10 percent is again I think we could spend a lot more time on this but just remember a money item can be any amount and so I think what actually prompted the the increase was there was a very large I want to say $50,000 or something it was might have been for the hockey rink something there was a very significant amount that was able to be brought in at five percent and so and also that was the amount that you could overturn money items that the city had passed was so you get 300 votes and have a revote and so the council reset all that at 10 percent to make it more difficult for people to you know sort of get money easily large sums of money or disrupt council votes so I I don't think that was necessarily connected to the the community fund I think they were different things and if you were to revisit that charter change you might I would recommend at the time that maybe for requests up to x number of dollars is five percent and everything over that is you know a higher amount because uh but obviously you can do what you want uh you don't have to do what I I think but I you know once that that 10 percent is for any sum of money that anybody can petition for including I think there's even a there may be a provision for bonds even in the in the statute of avail now and and just one more thing to to council members Morton's support a point about it being dated I don't know and maybe the city clerk can weigh in on this but at this point in time we don't allow I don't think uh digital petitions are still are acceptable yet however it is very clear in state statute that you know people's ability to petition the government in Vermont for these kinds of things is something we have to allow and I suspect that if we were to seek to remove that altogether from our charter we would not be approved by the legislature it is a pretty strong tradition so while I tend to agree sort of philosophically that it's an outdated or a dated procedure it is a bedrock of sort of Vermont governance so does that mean that it might be useful to put that on like a legislative agenda to allow for digital uh petitions the clerk on this yeah john go ahead um yeah digital uh signatures were discussed for a number of reasons uh a number of reasons that I agreed with they were they were rejected um I would also mention just because otherwise I'll kick myself from a perspective of only being in the meetings um while those two items the community fund I will end up writing the minutes the community fund and the 10 increased were obviously very very different processes but they were often spoke to as part of a combined strategy they were they were sort of part and parcel as presented by the mayor and a few of the counselors at the time in my head that feels that feels correct but I can go back and check the minutes on that too I was one of these different mayors so maybe maybe we should check the record um yeah and then Connor did you have something yeah okay and then the only thing that occurred to me that that was is part of this conversation is that uh either the community fund board itself or various members of the community if they thought that the the total pot that we're allocating to the community fund is too too low they could be coming in at budget time and saying or some earlier time and say we don't think this is enough money given the documented need for that for the people that are coming in and and they can say we'll make it higher that is that's the number um Connor and then Terry uh was that was the library the only other organization who kind of exempted last time I would uh just thrown it out there I would add a friendly amendment to extend the same thing to the library just for consistency's sake this year and limited that with Lauren's point that okay I've been knocking out a lot of doors where people open and say I have COVID I can't come out you know it is still a real but while we come up with a process just extend the same to both organizations that have previously been on the ballot so the library do you think these things are simple right our policy of the library has been separate and distinct from from CVHH the library because they're so large and because they are a quasi municipal you know functions so to speak the city has allowed them to place an item on the ballot without petition if it's the same amount as the prior year and the the city council policy has been if you are increasing your amount you need to petition so that again it was kind of a budget control measure as long as you're holding the line will will make it easy for you and if you're increasing you've got a petition last year the library had a fairly significant increase on the budget but they asked that they not have to petition even with the increase because of COVID so it's a little bit different thing so I had the exemption that they were granted last year so I think to Donna's point they haven't asked us yet whether you know so to I while I think that's a good idea to keep in the back of a pocket I I'd suggest we not include that in this most inch because we might be just giving them a blank check yeah so following up a little on what Jack said about people could come to us during budget time and say the community fund should be larger they could also petition for that right and so I think I'm really intrigued by the discussion about what's more or less democratic I feel like the petition process is extremely democratic because it does not rely on coming to a small group of people and making your case it does not rely on you know the seven opinions that are sitting here it relies on community support and so we can say we want the budget to be x and the community could say well we think you're completely wrong and we want to make it y and they have the power to do that which seems like kind of the essence of the democratic process to me so I um so for that reason I uh I am reluctant to deviate from our our set process um I'm I'm open to the idea that COVID is still enough of a factor to make knocking on doors something we don't necessarily want to ask people do to do in that case I think we have to take it off the table as a requirement for everybody and I think particularly special about this one group that shouldn't be exposed to COVID or spreading COVID that's true for everybody and so if if COVID is the concern then we should just remove the petition requirement and I don't know what that would mean in terms of our procedure but if that's the rationale then it applies to everybody because it affects everybody maybe I'm the only one but when I'm gathering signatures whether it's my own or somebody else I say you don't have to vote for me I'm just asking to be on the ballot and that's what every non-profit who petitions for money you don't have to vote for it you I just we just want the opportunity to be in the ballot so I see a signature on a petition much more distant than an actual vote on a ballot item that's why I made that difference I don't know if I'm explaining it well but it just it's a different attitude when you sign a petition that's when you vote for something so that's why I made the difference okay Jack I totally get what you're saying Kerry that why make anyone petition and my feeling is the why we would make someone who hasn't gone on it before is that they they don't have the established support that Home Health and Hospice does so so it's it's a combination of factors it's the established support plus the reluctance to make people go out although really I don't have any problem with collecting signatures. If you appreciate the sentiment that COVID is still a factor in our community to even just these last couple of weeks I feel like I have known more people with COVID in the last two weeks than like the previous two years so that that could be a real thing for sure um other thoughts okay Lauren I guess just kind of along what Jack was just saying I mean to me an exception in this case is this is a group that has gone out in the past gotten signatures demonstrated that there is community support gotten strong votes so just opening it to anyone you know so if we can minimize you know it's it's a step of not asking a group that's going into a lot of vulnerable people's homes to go out and collect signatures I agreed so I mean to me it doesn't seem like inconsistent to allow the same exception that we did last year um and you know again I still think this larger conversation of the process still seems if we have to have these conversations every year something we probably could do better. Yeah I am getting the sense that we need to talk about the process I think we're all agreed about that so fair enough um any further thoughts on this? Yeah Connor go ahead. I think I'm all enough and you know if it is COVID everybody should be afforded the same opportunity needs change from year to year and needs change particularly during a pandemic like this it's okay further discussion okay uh all in favor please say aye. Aye. And opposed. No. Okay so I believe that was four to two so uh the motion passes so um thank you uh Sandy and Kim for being here and um yeah robust discussion and we appreciate one thing I think we were all agreed about is that we very much appreciate the work that you all do um so so thank you and yeah for sure uh and thank you to the council I appreciate it and certainly I understand Carrie and and Connor um you know process and and all of that we we all have to follow it um I you know good Sam is here and and close to my heart I have a homeless brother um so very familiar with the needs out there and um our staff serve those individuals and um you know support DEI and making sure there's equity in health care so um you know we just don't have the resources and everything that's been going on this is a significant dollar amount to our budget um and with Medicare cuts coming down in the the realms of a half a million to seven hundred thousand dollars for our organization and a commitment to try to increase our minimum wage and align with the state um and provide paid leave and and all those things taller employees um these dollars that support that are significant and our ability to grow our census um is there it's not like we're cutting service um so appreciate the process appreciate listening to all the comments and suggestions sending Jim please don't take a no vote for a lack of appreciation for the great work. Yeah. Terrific. Oh no I I'm not I'm just really trying to recognize that I understand what you're trying to do and um it's just a really tough time and these dollars are significant to us we we actually didn't qualify for a lot of the dollars that were given to the health care system so thank you um thank you for your work and um I just want to acknowledge that we I will have the process in general on the agenda for another another time um and just um just thinking about that um and one of the things that just this well actually maybe we can talk about setting that up I think some other time a quick question anyway we can talk about later is do you want to do this for this year's budget cycle are we talking about for the future because if we're going to do it for this year we probably should do it at the next meeting and if we're going to do it for the future then we have some time I sort of assume that we're talking about the future and not this this year right because also just anticipating that nobody else necessarily is going to be in the boat that cbha to the library are so um that's great yeah because we have a lot of models that we've done over the years the outside agencies used to be on our agenda almost every year how to do them they would sometimes change from year to year so it's actually has been a pretty consistent policy for a while it's about time to shake it up right okay super thank you all right so I think we are ready to move on then to the second reading of the parklet ordinance so I'm going to open a public hearing on the second reading of the parklet ordinance I'm going to assume that nobody in person would like to make a comment yes go ahead for the public and for the council that the only changes from last meeting were taking out the requirement that parklets be public during the off hours and we did add the word that we encourage people to make the public but not require them so I I think was consistent with your direction everything else is the same yep I have this um these were the changes that were made um anyone either online or council wish to weigh in on this I did I opened the public hearing yep it's okay magic words were said Lauren I just called you Connor we're easily confused my only so in the amended change um in the public so section 20-7 b I feel like the sentence this does not preclude the owner from storing tables and chairs like if we're saying it may be restricted but and then they can store it I just don't think that's next sentence actually makes sense anymore to be included and sorry I should have sent this change um but kind of noticed it late but I actually struggled with it I think we just I would just strike it because I think it doesn't make sense anymore now that we're saying that you don't have to leave it open to the public but you are encouraged to and of course if it doesn't have to be public you can lock down your tables and chairs yeah go ahead carry yeah I thought the same thing um if if it's going to add a lot of time to our procedure to change it it's not really worth it okay just move it to prove it tonight with that amendment and then we publish it okay then I would move we strike the sentence this does not preclude etc etc and there's a second that whole sentence that yeah that's and so this is not approving the whole policy this is just striking the sentence further discussion about that and he comes from the public okay for the discussion all in favor please say I and opposed okay so taking that sentence out any other comments from folks well anybody online wish to make a comment about this in general okay uh council would anybody like to make a motion actually I'm going to close the public hearing because apparently nobody wants to talk about it so um further discussion okay all in favor please say aye and opposed okay thank you yeah thank planning staff were here they really did a huge amount of work on this so thank you glad they could be here for that that was great improvements all right okay we are up to discussing the um project update for our two or three country club road the the master planning process and I know we've got a steady clerk here uh from uh Whitenberg uh I assume you there's something we you want to say here I'll very briefly tee this up uh Stephanie is here from Whitenberg who's our project manager as well as Josh Jerome and Mike Miller from our planning department uh Josh is our lead staff person on this project uh the last meeting or the meeting before we had presented some thoughts on public process and I think I will own that that it wasn't clear that those were really meant to be on top of what was already happening so understandably there were some some pushback or feedback so we wanted to be clear about what was happening and as you've seen we've already started some processes so you have the memo from Stephanie and our team is here I think Stephanie's prepared to just give you a brief overview and then you answer any questions and hopefully you know we can take any last suggestions or if or not hopefully and move forward and everyone feels more comfortable with where we're at so I'm going to turn it over to Stephanie and I have questions so just to warn you to be on the hot seat um do I oh good I have the ability to screen share is that okay mayor oh yes great so thank you everybody for for having me here tonight um I will pull up uh definitely I'm sorry um just a quick question does everyone in the room believe the projector sets here to actually fix the projector um otherwise the rest of us could see this and I think anyone watching could see this on their screen we can't see it in the room so I wanted to ask if we wanted to take a pause while we fix the projector sorry Stephanie we have a we have a projector problem here in the room not okay that's okay um what possibility is that you you all here in the room it are okay not seeing the presentation or would you you have it you have hard copies um so set is is it reasonable to think that Stephanie can continue to present while you are working to fix things okay so we don't necessarily need to like pause while you're we'll understand that you're doing some work and that's great thank you thank you okay um all right Stephanie I think we're good okay and the council can see you and everybody else has and zoom can see you and so everybody else has hard copies so okay um and I'm pretty sure my cat boombox will not interfere but she did just whine so she does I'll just try to evict her real quick but she has made lots of appearances I think in front of city council actually in the past so here we are back again thanks for having me here tonight and for taking up this this next step of our process and just reviewing it and helping do a little bit of brainstorming here as we make our way through this step I'm going to go through the overall master master timeline which I had we we should have done in our last memo and I would have presented at the last meeting but just to give you a sense of where we are and where we're going and then do a little bit more on recapping what we're going to be doing over the next few months and a little bit more information about those next few steps that I'm calling the phases winter and spring just walking you through some of the process as well as how the public piece dog tails emerges with the land use piece so again I'm Stephanie Clark from white and Burke and our team is comprised of VHB and Black River design they're not heavily involved in this outreach component they're right now running concurrent on the due diligence piece so they're not here tonight but if you have any specific questions for them I'd be happy to bring them back to them so here's our here's our timeline and just to remind everybody this started back in the spring I'm from Rhode Island we consider March the spring that was when I recall and understand there was a robust process there and then over the summers when the city issued the RFP and our firm and our team was hired in August to begin work on October 1st we were asked to jump in a little early we did in September we're in the fall process now to really take up a bigger community input process regarding prioritization of uses and a more extensive outreach to solicit more feedback concurrently there'll be the due diligence and analysis piece that's running kind of behind the scenes to get understanding around the actual site characteristics and then the sprint the this will be working up toward a winter process of the really the opportunities and constraints plan which is a kind of high highs and lows of the site the pros and cons of the site and talk about some of the type the characteristics of the site and then layered with uses and public input and that will be the time when we go and do a bigger deep dive with a public component I'll get into some of this a little bit more in a few slides on this winter and spring piece but then the spring piece will follow once we have feedback on those on the you know in direction from the community and from city council on to the concept planning and scenarios so here in fall a big focus on community input will be going I'll be going back in going into depth on that in a minute here in another slide but we also plan to come back to city council what we heard at the last meeting was really trying to keep this very top of mind and we hear that that's important because so often there's a lot of process and then things go dark and there's not a lot of communication so we want to come back to the council once we have input and kind of summarize that and then meanwhile we're doing this due diligence that includes natural resources inventorying land characteristics such as topography and the primary ag soils archaeology and that will be part of what we present in the winter so as you know in the spring there was a a lot of public input that came through to city hall and they put together and compiled folders full of feedback both from the live zoom session as well as everything that was sent in so we've reviewed all of that and there are some themes that rise to the top of course housing and recreation which is what it was put out to the voters for but also suggestions around environmental conservation and agriculture educational uses and some and even retail now the feedback ranged and some of it was diametrically opposed so you've got people saying no recreation only housing some housing no recreation and everything in between which represents of course the diversity of opinion and interest and stakeholders in the community for this land and so it will be we will continue right now this process of trying to hear all of that and find where the a lot of the energy is going among those buckets and try to see if we can find common themes and try to distill that feedback as much as we can this process though that we're taking on now is not just listening sessions which we had you know started that had been started in the spring but also really trying to get at what what would you like most I mean it is a finite piece of property it can't be everything for everybody so what would have people want to see most and are there some points of consensus already that are emerging and the point of this stage and the outreach plan that we're talking about here is really to provide to seek input and really seek out not just provide opportunities but seek out input from various sources and from all residents in the community so again hearing what we heard in September from feedback from the council and from the public this outreach plan now includes live feedback sessions these have been very well advertised the city has done a great job of getting out to different different ways of getting the message out and offering the sessions in different formats so that people can access at different times of the day that might work with their schedule in different places that might work for accessibility those sessions are going to be again listening sessions and a bit of education about what the site is and then there's going to be more targeted outreach so small stakeholder groups working with the housing committee working with the equity committee reaching out to sustainable Montpelier coalition Montpelier alive and really doing an outreach to different groups to see how else we can get to the community at large and so it's a targeted and widespread effort having open access josh's email address is going to be blasted everywhere we already have it on the flyer that went out for the live sessions it'll be on the flyer we distribute at these meetings doing tabling that'll be again a piece of time for outreach but also a time to offer opportunities for input tabling at farmers market and on election day those were two suggestions I think out of the last meeting that were good ones that we've lined up and having the communication flow Evelyn has put together a really solid communications plan with both social media and front porch forum but also updates to the website itself and so we're working on those website updates this week currently and those should there should be a more easily navigable part of the site soon so that people can get to it from from the homepage and then that it'll be a comprehensive page within the website and and then the bridge articles as well doing updates regularly in the bridge there's also a sign up to a newsletter that will go out so people can offer their email and Evelyn will be at the live sessions to take people's names when they're at the session if they haven't signed up for the newsletter already and that those signups can be at the tables as well I'm going to pause and I'm going to ask the council for two questions and if you have ideas that's great if you want to think about it and come back to it at the end that's fine too but I'm curious if there are any other suggestions about where to be present who to contact ways to inform you know your neighborhoods much better than I do and so I'd be curious those thoughts and the other question I have is around the name of the site um I had heard some uh background that the Elks club it's no longer the Elks club is that a a suitable title for it it's 203 country club road is that the right name for it that's a mouthful so does anyone have any opinions about those things because the time for the change is maybe quickly going back so I'd be curious if the council has any opinions on those things oh I can't hear anything I don't know if anyone else can I can't I don't hear anything I don't know okay can you can you say something you can hear me in or no we can hear you yay yes okay wonderful if we can hear you you can hear us sorry it looks like you were gonna say something and no I was just gonna refer to Donna's excitement she had ideas I saw that Donna was very excited to answer those questions that's all I was gonna say that was great and then I'll put my slideshow back up when I get going again cool um Donna do you have ideas that you'd like to share I was thinking along the same lines and so I just sort of went around the room and a gentleman that actually belongs to I'm sorry I don't know your first name Josh mentioned I was thinking Falcon Road but he mentioned deer run road and I thought wow we have deer we have run for action I thought that would be a great name for this road and then we could think of other streets within the complex that also could be animals and then Jennifer mentioned that and indeed we could look at abernackey words but maybe if we could start with something naming the project even if we didn't say the word road or just say deer run project and then make a decision about the road specifically later it's much better than what we have now as an address yeah very you can call site you know you can call the deer run site or you know something um legacy site you know so you know fill in the blank there yeah yeah no I I would just also say I'm I'm interested in you know some potential um and abernackey name um I think that would be I think that'd be great other thoughts yes Carrie nice to see you um thank you so much for all the work that you've done on this and I don't have any thoughts at all about what to call this place whatever I don't know but um one thought about how to reach some various people maybe their connections through the schools through the parent the association I forget what they're called um and they're maybe through the after school programs there may be through some of the the preschool programs in town those are are ways that you might reach some people who are not necessarily uh subscribing to newsletters from the city and that sort of thing yeah yeah that's great yeah thank you um board yeah thanks um on the outreach point um so we I mentioned that previous city council um which you probably saw but the social and economic justice advisory committee of the city um has been doing some thinking really looking at work that we did through the community equity assessment to do really um targeted outreach to reach people that are often left out of these types of processes though there's some thinking that they're putting together that they're um we're gonna I think we meet next week so we can look at kind of how far we've gotten with that but hope to connect with you soon a lot of that was like affinity groups and other things and kind of build on that work and outreach that was already done to try to um reach additional folks and so and that's cjack right cjack yeah okay yeah josh has that on his list um i don't know if he yeah um not sure if he probably don't need to provide a full update right now but yes absolutely on the list maybe just like um are you thinking along the same lines as lauren but uh maybe different we have so many standing committees in city government here would it make sense to have like a zoom meeting or something with all the chairs of them just to kick this off say okay this progress process is going through you know you'll have an opportunity to discuss this with your committee and by a certain deadline get back to us with any ideas you have because i could see you like uh cjack you know i mean jennifer is always talked about like a multicultural center or something maybe they want to throw something like that on the table definitely housing committee is going to want to homeless this committee maybe so i i think we have a wealth of like you know uh knowledge and ideas in these committees and we just have to make sure to tap them in sort of a formal manner sure yeah could be done in a in a bigger group setting versus what we've been doing which is tapping individual chairs yep other thoughts jack go ahead um this isn't uh a group that that i'm really connected to but uh there's a whole bunch of churches in montpellier and and i suspect that most of them have some kind of uh newsletters and so that might be a way to reach out to people who may not be paying attention to uh who are meetings every thing um just like back to the city to find out if anyone does have um some connections i know we i fell and i worked closely with christ church when we were working on the downtown project four but you know i'm trying to find who the leaders of those organizations would be that to connect with um i don't know if this is a reasonable idea but you know just try to think about the population of folks that may not be able to participate otherwise and i think about like the meals on wheels program that the city has you know folks that maybe aren't mobile enough to come out to a meeting and may not be very tech savvy um so just wondering if we can uh put something together that would be a you know like a like a survey or you know some way to just gather some pretty straightforward feedback um yeah we do have that meal um right it's going to be delivered uh to somebody's house yeah we do have that polling capability um and we could put that together with um we we're going to have a flyer that kind of is an educational two-sided flyer that you know can go out at all the tabling and all those live sessions possibly in um you know just lots of different venues having the committees having um mobility or live distributed you know to its members you know just trying to find people to distribute it as far as they can and that could refer back to a survey but yeah putting it so it's hard when yeah when there's uh if there's a print component to that that could be really challenging um so to see like how many people are we talking about I don't know yeah um other thoughts about either the name or ways to connect I'm sure you might have other questions too and I can get through the rest of my slides and then you know be open for questions after that you know Connor and then uh Peter Kelly so if there are any like sort of canvassing component on that you know hire in a group just uh I don't think anything beats knocking on doors you know and uh it did actually seem like something that maybe can could do the update we got earlier they can't um but yeah just just a thought I mean one if it's just leaf living one person could do 100 doors a day I want to pin that because I'm not sure that is as um useful in this particular stage again because we don't have substantive concepts for people to respond to I'm thinking that is a very important tool when you have two or three scenarios with different very different options that give people with different possible price tags where people really can weigh out the various you know again pros and cons there um that that can help guide then city council's decision um to give the direction that the master plan will take and so you know at this stage where we're just collecting all all the feedback and and you know really in the sponge phase as we call it you know just kind of absorbing all the ideas and trying to understand what those themes are um you know it it's not like we're going out for a vote right now or anything to get to even prioritize on a list of one to ten it's still kind of filtering in all of those ideas so I would argue can't say and getting out more of that kind of that particular survey to like a poll I think will come in really useful in the next winter and spring phases thank you um Peter come on go ahead uh I would just like to underscore what Connor's mentioned twice once in a previous meeting just now hand would be an ideal way to reach into the neighborhoods all over the city at every stage to let them know for example about the three meetings in case people and I've got people in my neighborhood I'm sure we don't know about the three meetings but I could let them know but you guys need to act on can can do a lot here but not if it doesn't exist thank you thank you um just as it was a question the the parent group for the schools is the Montpelio Roxbury public schools partners in education or PI yeah other other thoughts okay so back to the name for a second um in terms of does the city council have a direction for what we should use in the meantime because we've we've got Elks and we've got to do a three country club until further notice um should we just stick with one or the other um I want to make it so people know what we're talking about because everyone knows it by Elks probably the most so I want to be consistent with my nomenclature and our outreach plan we don't have a group uh determination I don't think I like this to call it just country club road for now um during the break one of the things we were talking about was well is there an abanaki word and uh and so I quickly looked up the abanaki word for deer and it's nolka n-o-l-k-a which is not a hard word to pronounce unlike some words so that's that's good but but I would suggest we just call it country club road I don't think we need to use the number and that's you know because obviously there'll be different roads when when we in there when we get there but that that's what we can do that that's fine country club road works um feelings otherwise and then just you know pinning it as an idea for maybe a public process of naming at some point in the future for the council that's not within my scope so I I do I do like the idea of uh using like I said an um abanaki word but I would want to check um with uh some in indigenous abanaki yeah yes with an elder before we did that and you know in part it feels like whatever we start to call it now might just stick and be harder to change later but I also I think there's some process there if we're going to go with a abanaki word so I would say bro that um those of you that have been around for a while for three years we talked about the car lot project and it was really everyone's the car lot and then once the city purchased it we changed the name to one taylor street and then and then it just became known as you know took a little while but then people just started calling it one taylor street so at some point once you say this is but the new name I particularly since and I would not that I vote but I think using an abanaki term that that those here an elder here would say was appropriate for that property would make sense but it's so if you were to stick with country club road that's what everyone already that's not a change you're only just calling it that instead of taking the number out so you should probably still have one more change left okay okay I mean that's just my opinion that's not a determinative dispositive opinion yeah yeah carry yeah I agree with bill except that um I think I still call the car lot I'm really sorry but um what about the country one bill yeah what about the country club road site um that sounds people because people are already calling it the something the elks club the you know and so calling it country club road sound just it's subtle but to me that sounds more like a name than the country club road site sounds kind of temporary sounds like this is just what we're calling it now and then we can have a process where we decide what to actually call it we can't figure that out right now but that's what I would advocate for or in the meantime yeah that makes sense to me does that answer your questions sufficient yes it does thank you yeah just I keep doing elks on everything with clothes and it's awkward so I much prefer this that sounds great um again it does it's temporary until you know a better process can come forward I think great thank you okay all right um I'm gonna finish up here um not too many more slides but um let's see we're gonna go into this if you can see my screen so um yes so thank you for that so the last um you know a few pieces here are what to expect after the this current phase of kind of gathering and seeking out input from folks from all over Montpelier is then to digest that data and digest those that input and layer that along with what we find from the due diligence as I mentioned in the memo that there's a nice coinciding with the holiday season that's not the time to then start a public process so we anticipate a January start for this kind of series of workshops and opportunities and constraints plan that includes very high level kind of cost comparisons for the public components possible configurations and uses and so those things can be seen in context and again not promising exact costs but more like order of magnitude comparisons so that people can understand what some of the implications would be if you do x versus y and then you know really taking that out into the community and really shopping that around and doing public workshops identifying those um those different areas of sensitivity areas of opportunity and really this part of the process we some of which will be shaped by the public process itself some of which will be shaped by what comes out of the due diligence if there's a we're having an archaeological resources assessment done if there's a lot of sensitive areas that could very much impact what the vision might be so we can't prescribe without making giant assumptions that none of us are wanting to do at this stage so at that point it will also potentially lead us to more research that is needed based on the public input and based based on some ideas and workshopping but we will be again taking that to various groups um having input received in various multiple ways it may be that people want to submit feedback or verbally some people want to do a survey so forth and then really all that feedback being captured and relayed back and I put this in the memo I'm parking it here it's not something we have to discuss tonight but I think something for the council to be thinking about is how will the council make the decision to identify pathways forward for the for the planning team to pursue um it's it's not up to the planning team to prioritize how the different scenarios are built um we intend to hold hold all of that up and create the right process to hear everything and um create and view the consensus but it'll be up to the council to have its own process for prioritizing the use and design direction within that public process as was basically stated in the RFP you know it was expected that from this concept these early concept ideas to concept plans for the master plan um there would need to be some direction so I'm just putting that there and then the last phase is um the last phase of the first phase is to prepare two or three scenarios of development pathways and this is um where we start to put some more precise or more um clear costs and show the pros and cons more clearly and talk about what those next steps might be for each of the scenarios and then have more of those public sessions and opportunities for input that then get set back to the council and the council can then select the direction for the team to refine and then put into this actionable master plan now this is light on the details because that's many many sub phases until then and we want to make sure that we're being responsive to the kind of direction we're being given by council the feedback we're getting from the community and what attributes this the site actually has things we right now I don't know about you know I don't know what I don't know yet because we haven't done all of the natural resources inventorying and all of that so this is the direction with more clarity to be filled in as we go through the process of the next several months and that um I think it's everything I had just to give you that overview again we'll be at um uh I'll just stop sharing this uh we are going to be at the site on Saturday for the first of the live sessions Saturday one to three to do a walk and talk in around the site as well as um doing a little bit of education and bringing everyone up to speed I meant to mention that the input that we've gotten up to September is all if it's not already on the website it will be on the website in the next few days as a document so people can see what others have said over the last six months and that will also be we will also have that in paper form at the meeting on Saturday great and it's supposed to be good weather yeah um thank you um this is um very helpful and any questions for Stephanie at this point okay all right well thank you so much Stephanie I appreciate this this update and looking forward to getting into the process absolutely sounds great okay thank you all hopefully this weekend yes hopefully okay thank you I'm gonna be there being you okay okay all right uh so I think we are oh any any other comments about that no okay public council okay great uh all right so we are going to move on to the strategic plan and for this I assume I'm gonna turn things over to you Bill sure I was not unless you would like to I wasn't planning to go back into full discussion mode in the center or to go through it all we basically took your comments at the last meeting got some feedback from staff and updated a draft strategic plan with edits and also gave you the summary of the areas that were stalled so happy to answer any questions about any of those one issue that did come up and I want to be sure to call it out we did get a request from a resident at the last meeting to include our odor control measures at the water resource recovery facility we didn't put in the strategic plan and the reason for that is not because it's not important it's because we're under order to do it and it's a function that we are going to do and are already in the process of doing it's it's we're certainly happy to include it if the council would like that in there but in the same way that we don't put in the strategic plan that we're going to file roads in the winter it's just something we're going to do we we view you know we're mandated to do that we're getting the funds to do that and we've got a plan and we're we're doing it but I want to emphasize that that's not that it's not important or that we're not intending at it but it's just not kind of a policy decision but if and I think Linda's on the line and I'm happy to answer that question and if the council just because you do wants it added we'll be happy to add it okay um Jack go ahead yeah a quick question I have those do you know what the timeline for that is I don't know exactly about that our next meeting where Kurt will be here to actually do an update on on that the the drying project in general issues related to that so it's a whole agenda item at the next meeting we're going over so I'd rather I'd rather he answer that question when he's prepared than me when I'm not yeah fair enough um any other thoughts from council uh I I just wanted to clarify so in this strategic um plan document so there are parts that have been struck out um if it's if so some are struck out that were done like the Murray Hill water system for example yeah and then we added in the very main street intersection which we actually funded but hadn't wasn't in that list a couple were struck out either because we've had better wording there was one that we do have a question on actually I'm glad and I'll get back to that um and others that you know I think once we looked at these I think the we we are recommending that they be taken out either because we don't have the capacity to do them or for other or in some got moved to other more appropriate places right so well if you have specifics are we happy that yeah I was particularly looking at uh I guess it's under improved community prosperity that's sort of the yellow section um strategy 1.4 it's the last or that section just just thinking about the expand slash formalize peer support outreach worker um because I yeah so so in general we had this whole strategy of sort of talking about what level the city social services could the city provide and our recommendation is that we haven't really figured out a way to take that on um we're really kind of dealing it specifically on the homeless population the I think the peer support outreach worker is in there somewhere else I believe it's under um the public safety I'm gonna just double two yes so if you go to initiative 6.11 it's there okay and I was very cognizant of the very good comment that we got also at the last meeting that some of these were duplicative and so to try to if I there things were showing up in multiple places to try to make it easier to read okay yep no that makes sense um so the other one I did want to call out actually I'm glad you mentioned this is under the housing goal um we have under 3.11 we have we talk about actively working with housing developers to accomplish successful housing projects um consider you know all this kind of and then we specifically called out support advancement of the Christchurch affordable housing project now we have nothing against that project I think the question is at some point we may be asked to support grant application for multiple projects so there could be competing projects so um and so the question would be are we calling this out as the highest priority one that we would sort of because lacking any other direction from the council that would be the way to interpret that from our perspective so we have three groups that all want us to apply for cdbg grant we've got a quick one because you can only do one per round this is one of them absent any other guidance I would say well this is the one that's been called out so if that's great that's great if it's more but you also just have work with housing developers to accomplish successful housing projects which is more general so I just wanted to raise that because we did put that in last year and it's a perfectly good goal to have but I wanted to make sure we were thoughtful about whether we kept that or not because hopefully you know if we're doing our job well we'll have all these people that want to do it and we'll have to choose from amongst thoughts on that and you know we can always amend this later too so but I wanted to call that out thoughts on that but my husband works for an affordable housing organization so I'm gonna not comment that's actually one that we were yeah I'm thinking of that could be I feel like maybe I should just recuse myself maybe for yeah because actually that was one that we thought we might be asked I'm gonna step out real quick while you talk about that that's jack you're up yeah so so the habitat for humanity was wine christ church I mean excuse me country club road site could be one that you know it could be any number of other places all good projects no no and so are we we saying in writing that this is our highest priority housing project and and you know one could argue it's in the center of downtown it's been on the list the longest there's good reasons why it could be but that's not my call to make Jennifer somebody refresh my memory of what the christ church affordable housing project is so christ church would like christ church in the center town would like to expand right now they have a like a community center and if someone here could explain it better I don't be great but they have a community center and they want to convert that to housing and expand it back toward the parking lot where capital pauses parking lot is and they were actually actively working on that before we started the parking garage project and we had to actually do a lot of negotiating with them to figure out how to make them both work and the city has regularly expressed support for the idea that we would put affordable housing right in the center of town and they're interested in doing it and we have I think we maybe even help fund a feasibility study it's important in the past so it's been an ongoing project for a specific community or is it just for just low income housing yeah it's qualified it's not for a specific it's for qualified yes not just for it's at their site but it wouldn't be just for christ church members it's for downstream would probably be the partner okay so so but they're they're the ones that want to do it you know they like many churches they've got lower memberships so they're trying to figure out how to reuse their property in a way that's meaningful for the community and also reduces their costs and their death so I think we're seeing a lot of our churches doing that now I was kind of laughing when someone mentioned using the churches I think they probably all get together and put their one church at the Elks Club and just share costs anyway uh so that yes that's what that project is you're welcome anyone else have uh uh yes Lauren I mean one thought having I mean it does seem like that specific project like we had named it because it was like kind of ready to go and then got put on holds and um I mean one it's a wording tweak but maybe just gives more flexibility of not feeling like you're locking into it would be um I mean you've added in here actively pursue creating housing at 203 Country Club Road which I think is great to add in there to call that out what if we had actively work with housing developers to accomplish successful housing projects such as the Christchurch affordable housing project like to me when I read housing developers I think of like private developers so I actually like giving an example of the kind of projects that we mean or we could say just support advancement of affordable housing projects um and you know you're right I do think you know if you talk to Downstreet they talk about themselves as a housing developer and um and they have been probably the most prolific developer in our community over the last few years I mean the most successful so but yes so when when I'm writing these things that's who I'm thinking of but you're right I think the the general perception of a developer is you know the the big deal from out of town with lots of money. I'm so quick to narrow it because some of the more successful housing developed our partnerships with private developers and employers that's what's going on in Wyndham County you know 260 new units but it's nine employers working with a non-profit so it's private dollars so I'd rather leave it more broad. I think the real issue that you're called out from our staff was wasn't so much the type of project it was that this was a very specific project in a very specific location and given other projects that we are aware of that will need grant funding the potential could exist that we would have to make a decision which normally would come to the council for you to choose however an argument could be made that if this was called out that this is the top priority project and again I'm nothing against this project we've been working actively with them and would love to see it happen so. I think I would name it by itself the only one I would name is the one we own the property on the rest is general yeah. Yeah this might be what Lauren already said I'm not sure but something along the lines of support advancement of affordable housing projects such as the Christchurch project for example is that kind of what you were saying yeah. Does anyone know where things stand with the people at Christchurch and this project now? Only in general terms they are continuing to work with it I think they are at this point they need an affordable housing partner both I think Housing Vermont and Down Street I've expressed interest but you know they're stretched thin and I think Down Street has been pretty clear they've done a number of projects in my pillar in recent years so they need to spread their work throughout the county but they are very interested in so I think they are simply looking for someone to work with to to have this get this done and they don't have that yet so they're they're interested in pursuing if it don't have the engine yet. One thing that I want to be clear I like the idea of saying support affordable housing projects such as the idea proposed by the plan proposed by Christchurch or whatever language we use but I want to be absolutely clear if any of the Christchurch group are working here that this is in no sense stepping back from our support for for their efforts over the years because if they're there with the project that's ready to go I think we would support it and the only time this really becomes an issue it's it's not really an issue unless we have competing requests for grant applications you know we have to prioritize and you know if I were if I were either in my seat or if I were in Christchurch seat I would come and say look you you you stated this this was you this was a council priority this was your strategic plan you called us out by name and I probably agree with them and come to the council and say here's three projects you've said this is the top priority um you know if there if if there's no competition in a given grant cycle then this is a non-issue but we are aware of um multiple projects yeah cone of silence so okay is everybody having with making that change you're not really happy you better be with it I just would name them like we know I mean I just wouldn't name them that song but that's okay I'm objecting I just um and is there anyone attending the meeting by zoom that wants to be heard on this question Peter and you're there we go uh check you're you're on the housing committee I would think this would have been a question to ask the housing committee to weigh in on we definitely can do that and we don't I don't think we need to make a decision on this tonight yeah I mean even if you approve the strategic plan tonight that's you know there are something like that could be amended at a future meeting this is your policy document it's not an ordinance it's not a I think just to the extent that we are saying this piece is wrapped up I wanted to make sure we call this out and intentional conversation and later on it didn't come up and oh we didn't really think about that we didn't really talk about it so and you know and I say that because that happened to me it was you know called out by our appropriately by our planning staff that said hey wait a minute we're working with all these people does this mean they're at the head of the class and I see a good question I don't know so well but now we've now we know that that's out there and we've got potentially altered language and if the housing committee recommends something different we can always change it this isn't this is one of the easier documents to amend in the course of a year Josh isn't here so we can't ask him to put it on the agenda but we can ask we have ways to get to Josh we can ask the chair to put it on our agenda is that are we good on that okay all right go on back there to be fair I couldn't totally hear so I'm not quite sure what we decided we're talking about this again maybe is that what I know so well we've just we have some revised workings that support advancement of affordable housing projects like the Christchurch project or such as the Christchurch project and then the suggestion was made that this language we brought to the housing committee and so we're going to ask that it be done and if if they suggest an amendment we'll just amend amend it at a future meeting but otherwise we're good with this language okay I didn't revise language for you okay super um we all didn't have a motion though y'all didn't vote on that but I assume it'll be when we vote on the final someone will oh I see you don't want it I don't want to be a part of that vote okay so we'll move go around that I'll second you can just stand at the side of the room for the most who moved I thought I thought we heard Bill moving in I said who was someone here so he doesn't get to move it okay okay any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed all right the motion carries beautiful thank you okay oh no that's okay um all right so I think we are any other questions or thoughts or comments about the revised strategic plan uh Connor and then Don might but I missed it but one thing we talked about a little bit I'd like an explicit message to either the housing committee and to us uh to look at that reducing evictions in town either through a just cause ordinance charter change probably uh or some sort of rent stabilization policy so I love just the line in there just because it's come up more recently I think um sorry I missed that I I do remember you saying that and I I think in my head I was thinking that was a legislative agenda but you're right um you didn't talk about that in here so that would be in the housing section um I think that's where it fits best even though technically it's not creating more housing but yeah that's where I put it though probably maybe it's maybe a statement about stabilizing existing housing including rental and then make a statement that's right okay well I'll find a right place if you just will if you if you give us license and just add that in we'll put that in so reduce evictions through legal means available um Donna the jack sorry yeah okay jack go ahead it could also could see if we go in the homelessness section reduce or prevent homelessness by reducing evictions something like that yeah it stuck it into the meat emergency housing needs section so um Peter is that on this topic yeah I'm gonna is that okay okay so I'm going to go to Peter Kelman and then we'll go to Donna again uh why not ask the housing committee to weigh in on the housing recommendations in the strategic plan why not ask the homeless this task force to weigh in on some of these things you've got committees like those and these are probably not the only ones if the the transportation committee or have you asked them to weigh in on these I'll just answer uh in my mind that would be a way of saying okay this is a priority please come come with some ideas to us because I think they do need to be the ones that flesh it out sorry I was a little distracted so nice reverb really so we are going to ask them about your name yeah I think by stating it explicitly in the strategic plan it would be a message to the housing committee homelessness task force maybe whatever one stuff like come to the table with ideas maybe just conservation ordinance or charter change isn't the best way to go you know but but we got to get a handle on this and we got to get it soon I think you know I I'm hoping that the housing task force housing committee will um have some thoughts suggestions around all of that so yeah uh Donna yeah I just sort of wanted to bring it back that we've had this discussion on this council strategic plan this is our third meeting maybe more we've talked about this well second this year then yeah last year so I mean I feel like we are in touch with committees and so I I you know would hope as we move along if things come up within the committees all of us attend that we would then go back say oh this came up on this point and we would change it so I don't feel we have to to wait to go to any committee right now and get their words on it that many of us have already talked to people in groups and and have general consensus and any additions we get will integrate in it's perfectly appropriate for the city council is the governing body the city to say this is a priority we're referring it to this committee to flesh out sure what we'd like done because that's what I was sort of talking about thank you okay create other thoughts or suggestions uh and we just want to check in with folks with us online any other thoughts or suggestions okay all right uh is there a motion regarding the updated strategic plan so move move the strategic plan with the amendments adopted at the evening and there is yes they approved so with the with connor's eviction right second okay there's motion in a second further discussion um okay um all in favor please say aye okay and opposed all right so very helpful I mean I you know staff really appreciates you doing that and I know we can then tell the public this year this will work too and then next year we can look forward to a more robust process and here comes a member browns stored up ideas I'm just okay so we are at the end of our regular business so we're going to jump to council reports uh because I have no creativity Donna you're going to go first well I could go to Burlington yesterday to see the initial put up of the pilots of shelters and they it's really amazing they had a team of like six people who just two at a time carry different pieces stack it together like it was big Legos and put it together I was just so amazed it was one gentleman who actually could put the roof panels on without a ladder or even another one only used a short footstool I mean it was very slick very well done I took a bunch of pictures the shelters are putting up are the more insulated ones they're single they're much more roomy inside I've lived in rooms smaller so it was really good and unfortunately the community room and the the toilets etc. aren't going to come in until November and one of their biggest issues is you know in your fuse not fuse box what do you call it it's the old time circuits they don't they can't they can't find enough circuits to start it so they're way late into the next year it's just amazing things that we can't get supplies on but anyway it was just wonderful everybody was very friendly and helpful and Ben was there from the company itself who I and Bill had a remote meeting with in February and so it was really good because I'm really glad I went and the other thing was the Vermont League city and towns their town fair was wonderful and I just had to commend Bill and the other city managers city select board members just general people who go to these meetings the administrative meeting went from one to five and people were focused and these are rules and efforts to reduce our cost and to make sure that we have the right insurance for our municipals I was just so impressed with the whole group bill it was every year but it was just very much even more so this year it was very well well done Councilmember Green got the bill as well the city manager and blurry for the whole dinner and the mayor of Burlington right okay Jennifer okay Jack I'm glad to see that the Department of Public Works has finished up the paving job on Main Street the first first round of work was done right around the beginning of school year and just the last couple of days they seem to have the entire second code on all the way from from the bottom up to just below Town Hill Road where the work was needed to be done it is great to drive on I will also remind the members of the city council that as members of the board of abatement we have a board of abatement meeting tomorrow at I think it's 5 15 and it is it should be a pretty quick meeting but we should all try to be there so so that we have a quorum because last time we didn't yeah yes you can all attend remotely okay I just want to recognize that this past Monday of Rot League of Cities and Towns hosted a basically a congratulatory thank you event for Senator Patrick Leahy for his service he's done a lot for downtowns in Vermont as well as he's just done a lot for Vermont I learned things about the senator that I didn't know before apparently was very instrumental in getting a nationwide bulletproof vest program which has saved thousands of lives so there that's just one example that but there were many other things that were just really remarkable and so I had the honor of speaking at that event since Patrick Senator Leahy his hometown is Montpelier so I was delighted and honored to be able to speak at that event and then just want to remind folks the tour of the country club road site is this Saturday 1pm on location so if you're able to make it out to that that will I think it should be a good opportunity check out the land and see the what opportunities may be there so that is it for me um John hey uh I should just mention that the um collection is going it's very busy in my office right now we've got a lot of volunteers coming in to make it work which is great I would also mention that I don't know I think most of you all know that uh uh Crystal is no longer the deputy city clerk she's moved across the hall to work for finance and uh I have offered the job to someone and they have accepted but uh she won't be on board until later in November but if you are curious it is Sarah McMillan and she is currently what is she currently she's currently the um city clerk in oh shoot I cannot remember for the life of me ah in Duval Washington um and she has been a city clerk and or treasurer for about five other towns in Washington and Idaho area she's a certified municipal clerk uh like I am through the international clerks association she's got a ton of skills she wanted to move to Vermont um so she's on her way um anybody knows of a nice apartment in town let me know I'll pass it on uh but anyways I expect to learn at least as much from her as she's going to learn from me um and I'm pretty excited we're gonna have the real power team at the clerk's office I think yeah very cool oh wow great uh bill yeah I actually have a few things uh if you'll bear with me um let's see which way would I want to start oh okay well I'll go with the easy ones first one quick question in my period of housing task force applications that we postponed the question is pretty simple the question is would you prefer that people fill out the full form or is just an email indication one of the reasons we only got email is because there's some confusion I think last week about whether they needed to apply and so actually the reason why we asked to have it delayed so uh I've got a couple questions saying well if you delay it do we have to fill out the full thing or just as our email okay and I said you know that I'm not the appointing authority so I will ask you know any quick uh okay so when someone applies for a community appointment we have a form that you you go online and fill out the form and that's what you all usually see some of the existing members have simply sent an email saying I wish to be reappointed and some of that was because of the time they some of them won't think they well and I don't want to get it some people felt they only only really became aware of this like last Thursday or Friday at least they thought that was the case and so just send in the quick email to make sure they got their name in thinking that it was for tonight so the question is now that we're extending it for a couple of weeks do we want them to fill out the full form I mean I think that's reasonable but I just wanted to have a clear answer okay fair enough thank you that's one um um Councilmember McCullough mentioned the main street paving up to Town Hill just for people that are in that area there was also construction work on a culvert you just approved the road closure under the consent agenda tonight is it appearing in next Tuesday the 18th that road will be closed um to traffic which will create huge um detour situation because a lot of through traffic comes through there in both directions particularly in the mornings so for those of us that live in that neighborhood and others that are normally come Town Hill to Main Street on Tuesday the 18th seek alternate route uh and when that project is done that road will then be paved up to Dover um because it's in such bad shape so rather than just doing this project area we're going to do so a lot of a lot of advancements in paving been done this year so we've heard a lot about bad road conditions and hats off to DPW there's really been a lot of work done if you've noticed College Berry Street over on Wheelock and Phelps there's also going to be getting finished paving pretty soon so no will Evelyn or someone be putting together like a graphic about like hey for this day heads up okay great so we can circulate that okay great okay but just mentioning it now in case you hear about um Donna mentioned VLCT Town Fair and we do they did adopt the municipal policies all of them without change but I also wanted to mention because it's come up here a couple times and I want to make sure the council was where it we as staff were very excited to learn they have now created a new local funding assistance program so they had one person on board that was simply doing ARPA funding but now with all these federal monies they actually brought a second person they have two in fact it was Bonnie Wanninger from our I've been the head of the Regional Planning Commission so she and Katie Buckley now of some of you may know Katie who's worked in administration positions the two of them are specifically funded to assist all municipalities with finding out what grants are available what funding what projects what they need and help us apply for them so even their proximity to us we expect us be spending quality time with them for our various projects so that resources obviously not just for my appealing but it does exist and it's available to us so that's great on to more important things council photo we need a time for council to you know I was hoping we could do it Saturday but if some of you won't be able to make it so there's always the comma early we take the picture in this room that's a hardy perennial that we try to get outside sometimes when we can last year as you recall we did at the Mears baby shower because we happen to be standing outside and Cameron's husband took the picture but you just never know so I don't know if people if you would like us to send something out sometimes you know finding the dates is the hardest part so the council meeting dates are the best things so if anyone has an idea of a location I mean in some ways I think the country club site is such a we're certainly going to put it on the front page of the on the front of the annual report this year but okay well if it's right out yeah I think it should be 635 30 something like that like end of end of October yeah it'll still be before day line savings but yeah beginning before day line savings that'll help no I wish it was I don't think so and there was a talk about it but I don't think it actually happened okay moving on so we'll we will aim perhaps for the the next meeting maybe a 530 meeting it out there then we'll get pictures does that work 530 on the 20 well our meetings is six I'm thinking of the light yeah okay I mean it's already past you know I'll just bring some dinner okay yeah there we go thanks we shouldn't take we all we could do it even earlier take the picture then you have an more time we could have five take the picture and then you have an hour and a half before the meeting or we can do it here at 615 in this room so what's that don't do it here you can do it in stairwell we can do it outside 530 what's that clock talent somewhere there exists a picture of me up way up I had a newspaper article many many years ago up from that the very top of the clock tower okay so so now onto more substantive things stuff that came up during the meeting today first of all the river cleanup was mentioned and is correct it hasn't happened yet it's actually been scheduled for four consecutive Fridays and because of rain conditions and water height it wasn't safe to do it so it is technically it is scheduled for this Friday but we are also expecting heavy rain tomorrow so if it is safe to put people in there and do the work we will do it it is correct that hasn't been done but it's not for lack of scheduling and trying and coordinating it's been a safety issue so that's on the way also mentioned the can situation did me Mr. Kelman is correct that that there has been staffing changes and I do think it's an open question whether sustainable popular coalition can meet its terms of its contract we met with them yesterday to talk about it to hear what their thoughts are I don't want to get into too much detail I would say that that their ideas do stretch beyond more than just from our college of fine arts but we're evaluating we staff will make a recommendation to you well how we think we should go certainly no question it's a valuable resource I do think one of the things that struck me however is that out of what they've identified about 45 43 neighborhood groups 15 of them have coordinators and the rest don't so it's funk it's works well in the neighborhoods that have coordinators it does you know the others aren't getting served so we have to think about as we're trying to get the word out it's great that we can get the word out in those neighbors but then other people aren't so one of the things that they were supposed to be doing was developing those networks in all the neighborhoods and they were pretty clear they can't do that you know we now have Evelyn on which we've got to evaluate whether there's a better way to deliver the services they'll keep their neighborhood connection so that is clearly something that will be coming to you lastly there was a reference made to public earliest means of public records request that was being neglected and I just wanted to provide a little bit of background on that the request was for all records dating back to chief Pete's hiring that are that referred to as integrity I believe the word correct words were used as integrity or professionalism and so I asked if they were records that I had received or anybody at first it was me and I told the requester that the only records I had received that called that into question were from the requester and that therefore he had them all already that I had not received any from anybody else he then asked for any such request to any city official in our system so I ran we ran a search and it turned up so what do you search for right in professionalism whatever it was integrity on its veracity so doesn't include things like lying or anything like that and Brian Pete and we got 64,000 records so I informed individual that we would be happy to if he was willing to pay the fee for beyond a half an hour to sort through 64,000 records that we would do so or he could narrow it down and he has declined to indicate either of his preferences and is instead inferred that because I don't have them in a file that I'm not doing my job and as I told him the the request we have received that I've received all came from him so he has them all so I am aware of those has the chief received them that I don't know about I don't know have any of you I don't know and so that's where that is so it has not really been neglected he is right that at one point I did tell him oh sorry I forgot about it because what I had told him was I would try to scan through and see if it was easy to pick through the 64,000 to try to save him the hassle and I did tell him that I forgot to do that and I would try and then you know that was unacceptable so I reiterated would you rather pay the fee or narrow the request and that's where it stands so just for you and anyone who's watching all of the records requests are taken seriously and so from where I sit that's the process that is yeah thank you for that update I appreciate it um so having recently been through the public records request in my my day job as a state employee a couple of different times I'm I'm learning a lot about how it works but one of the things that I've um it is true at the state level is that there's a database and a record that's online of all of the public records requests that come in and so anybody from the public can go and see what they are and I don't want to add work to city staff's plates but I but I just want to kind of put out the idea that I think it would be pretty informative and and educational for the community as a whole if um if we had such a such a record of that so that because I don't I don't think that people understand just how much time is being spent um how much of staff time is being spent even when you don't end up turning over the records the time that it took you to identify those 64,000 and all of the you know the time processing it it's quite significant um and so I just think it might be a good transparency of government kind of thing to think about if you could think of doing it in a way that doesn't add a lot to your so thank you and we have thought about that and we still may do that I would say that the vast majority of our public records requests really the overwhelming majority are I'd like a you know the the accident report from the police department or I'm you know I've someone's got a tenant can you give me all you know I've got a problem with a tenant can you give me all police calls that relating to this individual or the other way around I've got a problem with my landlord you know and they're return them around in a day and they're they're pretty straightforward they're what you know somebody would expect and and then really so that we most of the large ones come from one person we do have a very large one coming from vt digger right now that wants I think back for five years every email anything having to do with a water break or sewer line break or any discussion at all of water pressures seems like overkill but again it was tens of thousands of records and actually Shannon who was our temporary person Marys back by the way we've retained Shannon because and she's all she's doing is sorting through those emails to try to figure out the response and we've told them we're going to charge them because it's so voluminous and you know again they were not willing to sort of pare it down so fine they'll get with answer but that is very rare from most even news agencies or really the the ones like I just described really all come from the same person every but everything else is pretty manageable I mean there there's a lot of them but they're what you would expect and reasonable and if some usually if somebody needs something bigger they're very apologetic and like take your time that kind of thing it's so we actually yeah don't want to discourage people from asking for public records if they because they're entitled to them just do we have a address or something that if public records requests for happening were funneled into so there should be a record we do have to do that I mean we could do that yeah I think the other simple question and so part of obviously somebody made a public request for all of the public requests we would provide them one of one of their I think the flip side of that and I'm awful public transparency but you know somebody's seeking information on a ex-spouse or you know there's some privacy like you know they're doing maybe didn't expect to be on a list of on the city's website of this was information asked for so I don't know I mean if that is important we certainly can do it we've sort of said hey 99% of these people are doing what you would expect and playing by the rules and you know doing nothing out of the ordinary and you know I think if anything maybe at some point I could provide a report on them the heavier users and how frequently that's occurred and the types of requests they've asked and that could become public but great I just wanted to address because one one particular request was brought up and they were partial accuracy in that but not complete so that's all I have okay I don't even no matter how many different ones or same ones I think would be helpful information to have in perspective and particularly like even with the league within their legislative agenda there were two amendments they wanted to the open meeting law and one was about you know requesting records repeatedly within a calendar year so I would think it'd be helpful if towns kept records just minimally at least of what's coming in or how many for information to the legislators of how the open meeting law is or isn't record request is or isn't functioning that's all not to make it onerous but Jack well I'm curious as you talk about what record requests come in has there been anything have you seen any significant number of body cam video requests the police have cameras not only from one individual well thanks also I just want to know I probably should have said this along with my update but I just want to recognize that this evening the professionalism of the police was attacked the your professionalism as as the manager was attacked and I just want to let both the police department and you know that I think the police department's doing a great job and you're doing a great job and I'm very grateful for all of the work that that you do that the police department does and yeah so just because it came up I wanted to make sure it was addressed thank you and so are you mayor oh thank you I appreciate that staff in general appreciates the support of the city council and feels that um you're respectful of them I you know I Kelly and I had this experience at the ICMA conference you know a couple weeks ago listen talking to our peers and hearing them talk about their city councils and people would say well how's your city council and I you know I said and I'm not I said that there she heard me I said it's how you would want a city council to be you know they don't always agree they don't always agree with us but they disagree respectfully they ask questions they're respectful of staff defensive of staff they're interested in working in the best interests of the community if they have a split vote they just move on there's no lingering resentment and I said it's as high functioning as you could possibly hope for and as respectful I said I'm just you know knock on wood so just so without I mean don't vote for any of them to go to other offices oh dear well and on that note oh gosh okay well thank you um and uh we are done no other comments right we're we're good okay so um with that we will consider um the meeting or without objections excuse me we'll consider the meeting adjourned 9 27 thanks everybody yep