 Everybody hear me? People in the back, okay? I'm Paul Costello, it's an honor to be here. Deeply appreciate all of you being here on the line for this community, on the line for democracy, on the line for the future in the face of climate change and the tremendous destruction that we've seen in our downtown in the last couple of months. Thanks for being here and being dedicated to the future of this place. Can't hear me? I'm gonna hold it closer. Okay, thanks. So, Henry Adams said, unity is vision. It must have been part of the process of learning to see. You think about how a baby puts together color, light, shapes, movement. And over about six months, they turn into real things that move forward. Visions like that too. We've put a lot of ideas out there. There's been a lot of brainstorming in this process. And now we're going to where we gestate perception, unity. The ideas that we stand for as a community that we wanna move forward together and structural ways to begin to do that work. So it's a great honor to be here and be part of this process with all of you this evening. I wanna just summarize. This is the third meeting, the final meeting in this phase of discussion for the future of the city. The first one was really a brainstorming session. It was sharing some of the challenges the trauma, the first ideas we had around the future. The last meeting at the state house about 10, 12 days ago was about bearing down, looking deeper into the issues that a steering committee selected as good foundations for bigger, digging deeper and kind of coming up with concepts that are kind of at the level of priorities that we could look at. We've digested the ideas in the first session and looked at all the priorities that hit the table in the second session. We looked at the padlet information. We looked at the Zoom chat from the first meeting. We looked at emails and messages and so forth that came in on this whole process. And we added up to bring the list that's on the wall and that you should have in your hands of ideas that have come from the community. We didn't make any of it up. I personally neutral to what you end up choosing as priorities, but we do wanna move. Everyone talks about meetings like this and says, the last thing you wanna do is get together and not build action from it. So tonight's the night to gear up, to line up, to build some work towards action and moving this all forward. And I've done this a lot enough to see that the power in this kind of process and the power of the community comes when people build a collective spear point of activity. When we get beyond faction, we line up for the common good and results follow, funding follows and things move and we have real progress. So we're at the end of one phase of a dialogue, beginning of the next and I'm really appreciating y'all being here. We've got a couple of announcements to make and I wanna introduce Ben Doyle from the Montpelier Foundation and Katie Trouts from Montpelier Live. Thank you. I just wanted before we even get started, can we just give a thank you to Paul Costello for all his work? I know you folks have seen it in these meetings, but behind the scenes, the amount of work that this man has put into it, he's done a real service to our community. As Paul said, my name's Ben Doyle. I'm one of the Montpelier Foundation, Katie Trouts with Montpelier Live. We just wanted to give you an update on the fundraising and the granting that the Montpelier Foundation, Montpelier Live did. And we set out with a goal to raise $2 million, which was about 10% of the estimated economic impact to businesses in the downtown. And I'm pleased to say that as of today, we've raised $2,030,000 from all of the help of you people. That's really a testament to you and there's obviously still a lot of work to do, but I think that shows what this community is capable of. And I think we're really just getting started in the good work ahead. And to talk more about that, I want to hand it off to Katie. Thank you. And on behalf of Montpelier Live, I want to thank you for being here with us this whole time. And it's a real example of our community strength. And we see that over and over again as you show up. So thanks for coming tonight. Yes, we've met our goal and we're really excited about that. We have granted one round of around $500,000 already as a direct kind of emergency response. And then we are in the process of granting a second round of around a million dollars to the downtown businesses who are affected by this flood. And we're continuing our fundraising. We have two events coming up that I know about that are fundraising events and that won't be all. We will continue through the fall. So tomorrow night, Friday night at Barry Opera House, capital city concerts is doing a fundraising concert there with a pianist. And then on Saturday, we have the central Vermont recovery benefit, flood recovery benefit that will benefit both Montpelier and Barry. And we have a great lineup of musicians on the state house lawn from three to seven PM on Saturday. I hope you can join us for that for a great community celebration, which we all need, but also to support more efforts in our downtown recovery. So thanks again for being here. We really appreciate it. It's great to see you. And I will hand the mic off to Paul for the next steps. Thank you too so much for all that you're doing for Montpelier. Can we have a round for them? So we've got an incredibly vigorous agenda tonight to move forward that will be decisive and will gear us up and set the next stage for this process moving forward. I wanna make an announcement on behalf of Montpelier Live, the Montpelier Foundation, and with the city and partnership around the structure and movement of this process. From the beginning of this process, we've heard over and over again, people calling for a new leadership structure to take recovery and resilience seriously into the future. That we need to drive from ideas to implementation. We can't leave ideas on the table. We can't look back in 10 years when this happens again and say, what happened to all those ideas? Why wasn't there follow-up? Why didn't things move? Why are we still in the same circumstance? We heard a great desire to give voice and power to the community in the future to look at resilience. The desire to engage the incredible expertise of Montpelier residents, to unite public and private efforts, to build a strong united front, to drive forward resilience in the community, to drive with vision and energy around resilience, around consistent and determined work. I have to flip this around. To link and coordinate public efforts and private sector groups and what downtown's doing and what people are doing and all the ideas that hit the wall in this process and to connect with communities beyond ours to be a convener of the watershed, if necessary, to bring people together to look beyond one project that might bring the water level down at six centimeters to look systemically at the watershed and what can be done regionally together. To convene and coordinate community groups, action teams, give them support as identified by the community over time. So this project is the beginning of that, not the end. So Montpelier Foundation, the city, we've all heard this loud and clear. And together today, we announced a plan that's in process that we'll look for your feedback on to commission a Montpelier commission on recovery and resilience to work together. And we would work together to raise funds to hire a Montpelier recovery and resilience director to carry forward this work with help and support from community groups, the city and others. So as we set priorities tonight, we're gonna look for the engagement of people from Montpelier and all of us, our partners in resilience and recovery to move priorities forward that are established. And we have a one page draft for this process that we'd love to share with you that we'll pass around. And we'll look for people at the end of the evening as you're in your working sessions to sign in that you're interested in working on that priority in the future and we'll be getting back to people to begin to convene priority work in these action teams potentially in the future. This room tonight in that period when we're in breakout will be a larger discussion of the idea of this commission and people can share their ideas for goals and some of the actions that it should be taking early on. We'll also, at the end of the evening, talk about how we're going to begin to take applications to be on the commission and we'll walk through some of the steps that you could take to apply to be a member of the group, okay? So that's where we are with that and we think it's gonna be a good uniting and strong structure and we also think that it's something that's fundable and can be a useful driver for our unity as the work moves forward. So let me just walk through what we're gonna do through the course of the evening here. First, we're gonna review the ideas that have hit the table through these two first meetings that we've got on the wall but that you also should have as a sheet in front of you. We're gonna walk through those really quickly so that we all hear them and we all think about them. We all set aside our predisposition to really listen and think about what are the most doable ones? What are the ones within our power? What are the ones that we can organize around efficiently and get done and drive forward on? And then we're gonna vote on them. Everyone's gonna have eight dots, people on Zoom are gonna have dots, we're gonna do this together and we're going to add up what turns into priorities. We're not gonna limit it for five parties or 15 priorities but we're gonna see how that plays out and all this material, nothing's gonna be lost, no idea is a bad idea to someone. We're gonna keep all these ideas in the stream but we'll bear out for the working groups tonight to think more deeply about five of them and in this room we'll talk about the, as I said, the organization of the new commission. And in those rooms we'll do some action planning with facilitators. Just briefly, we'll only have a half hour or so, we're gonna knock down what are some of the first things that should be done in this area to get organized, to what are some of the low hanging fruit or the things we could be doing this year right now to move this particular area forward. Then we'll come back and we'll have some time to conclude and think where we are, we'll talk about how to apply for the commission, we'll close up shop and we'll then have the opportunity, again, if you weren't in one of those working committees, the things we could be doing, sign in, express your interest in potentially being on a committee like that into the future, okay? So everybody got the idea? All right, so let's start then. We wanna first start by reviewing these action ideas together and I know this is gonna seem slow but it's really important to listen because we all have something we wanna champion maybe but we really wanna pay attention to what everyone else is thinking, okay? Before we go and vote for the thing that we want. So we're gonna actually take the time to read these sheets and John and I, where's John? Oh, he's coming. We're gonna walk the room with these microphones and it's a little bit like a game show, okay? All we want you to do is read the next one. So I'll look for volunteers and we'll start over here. Is there someone who would read the first idea on the list? Sure, thank you. Be happy, I'm gonna get my glasses on, okay? Develop a recovery and resilience leadership structure. Recovery and long-term process for developing resilience will require unity of action, clear public authority. A public private authority should be commission funded and staffed to bring together the city, leading nonprofits and all forces for good in partnership to act on public priorities for and drive implementation toward recovery and resilience. This structure would work to build deep inclusive community engagement, foster key leadership on diverse aspects of recovery and resilience. The commission and its director would convene that from neighborhood towns, neighboring towns for the evaluation and development of resilience efforts that help manage future flooding through the full watershed. Thank you. The next one. Okay, thank you. And maybe just say your name, stand up and say your name so people can get to know you. My name is Chris Piatik. The second one is declare a climate emergency. The city should declare a climate emergency to elevate the dialogue about the climate change era we live in. The declaration can serve as an outreach and education tool and can be used to help identify some key steps the state and city should take to reduce its own carbon footprint. By joining with other communities that have made similar declarations, Montpelier could make significant contributions to climate policy conversations at the state house. The declaration would also serve to create space for new voices, specifically younger Montpelierites looking to engage in climate advocacy tied to their own community. The third one. We're just like therapists here. We can wait, we get paid by the hour. Yeah, no editorial topic please. We should create a community carbon footprint assessment tool that will help us to track our personal and family impacts and help everybody participate and feel engaged in reducing our collective climate pollution. Thank you. The fourth one is Montpelier should reduce its carbon impact by addressing transportation and heating. Working together, Montpelier residents and businesses should address Vermont's two biggest carbon pollution contributors. Transportation by taking steps such as using paint on our streets to make them more bike and pedestrian friendly, increasing the availability of electric vehicle chargers, advocating for additional EV incentives and improving local public transit in Montpelier. Heating buildings by helping people who are rebuilding now to access and afford non-fossil fuel and efficient solutions by promoting and expanding incentives, exploring possible local regulations such as no new fossil fuel heating in new construction and exploring ways to expand the use of the district heat system. Thank you so much. The next one, stand up and say who you are. I'm Judy Walk. Let's see, protect the wastewater system. The city should act now to improve defenses against flooding of the wastewater treatment facility on Dog River Road, which were tested and reached their limits in the July flooding. Immediate actions could include conducting a risk assessment of the facility, building or revising a capital improvement plan, convening state and federal funding agencies to consider financing, financing options and developing updated contingency plans should the facility fail during a future flood event. Thank you so much. The next one, improve Wrightsville Dam. Montpelier either through the city or a community led task force should work collaboratively with the Department of Environmental Conservation to evaluate and improve the operations and infrastructure of the Wrightsville Dam for enhanced flood control. Further work should advance water retention within the whole upstream watershed of the North Branch to slow the flow of water into the reservoir, bring engineers and environmental scientists together to evaluate potential water storage further upstream, evaluate potential pre flood releases at the dam and investigate the limitation on water release based on the current generating system and the pressure from the waters. A restoration of traditional water to yourself. The next one, science of progress. John's already over there too. So, re-envision downtown through a facilitated a public engagement process, re-envision Montpelier's downtown. This effort should include revisiting previous planning including the proposals that emerged from the net zero Montpelier competition. Architects, artists, engineers and citizens in all their diversity can contribute their ideas for downtown improvements and long-term design changes. Implementation will depend on work to raise funding and to build partnerships with and benefits for property owners. Thank you so much. The next one. Hi, I'm Cara. Celebrate and boost Montpelier's downtown in recovery. Downtown cleanup and beautification efforts can start now. Parties and celebrations can accompany each store, restaurant and business that opens its doors. Events and promotions can be organized even now. Residents can bring their heritage downtown to support businesses early and throughout the recovery period. Montpelier should look at the organizational structures in place and add hired staff and volunteers to support organizations like Montpelier Alive to provide leadership and engage the public. Montpelier should leverage the connections of Vermont's dynamic arts community to attract nationally-renowned talent for benefit events. Thanks so much. We have someone here. I'm Paul Carnahan. Invest in an adaptive downtown. With more floods likely in the downtown floodplain, Montpelier should do everything possible to protect public and private property, homes, stores and downtown buildings. Currently, steps toward building hardening, elevating buildings, appliances and inventories, mitigating impacts and adapting in the downtown, and options for moving some businesses and inventory space are being led by individual homeowners, merchants and building owners who often lack access to public funding resources and or the capacity to navigate existing financing options. The task force could gather and share best practices, raise money to help businesses afford transitions and work to leverage resources like those of efficiency Vermont to replace appliances and home and business utilities. Thank you. Emily Seifert, invest in an adaptive downtown. Oops, sorry. Raise state, federal and philanthropic funds for recovery and resilience. Working together, the public needs to advocate for more grant funding for the downtown, from the city, the state, the federal government and philanthropy, both to support recovery and to invest in best practices that will make the downtown more resilient in the face of future flooding events. A task force should be convened to quantify the economic impact on the city, businesses and homeowners. This analysis can be used as a foundation for a capital improvement plan to advocate for state, federal and philanthropic assistance and appropriately reprioritize existing funds for recovery and resilience initiatives. In addition to public or philanthropic funding, the analysis could be used to attract the attention of the private sector and investors interested in green investing. The congressional delegation, governor and legislator, legislatures should be called upon to activate resources and provide maximum flexibility for their rapid deployment. Sarah Norton. A regional commission should be convened to develop a plan for flood prevention. This task force would evaluate and implement ways to reduce flooding. Well, Pillar should act as the convener of a visionary and diverse leadership team of citizens informed by engineers, hydrologists, architects and municipal leaders from towns, from throughout the Upper Winooski watershed to map flood impacts, study potential amelioration projects and design and implement solutions to wetland absorption areas to reduce the speed and flow of water to minimize damages in future flooding events. This team could work together to evaluate and implement steps including slowing the river through watershed management, increasing capacity at Wrightsville-Weservoir and expanding green infrastructure to lessen backflow into the city during future flooding events. Sarah Lisnianski. End hunger. Montpillier should commit itself to being the first state capital in the nation's history to be free from hunger. Working together, the churches should establish a centralized, coordinated charitable meals system in Montpillier by developing a shared kitchen in meals site. This initiative should draw upon the expertise of statewide food security organizations like the Vermont Food Bank and Hunger Free Vermont and could leverage Montpillier's capital status to attract national funding for the nation's first hunger-free state capital. Thank you so much. Someone else? Sir. Thank you. Paul Bofa, address the house crisis. In the short term, Montpillier needs to be nimble and quick in supporting the development of housing for all who need it in the city, including through home share approaches. In the long term, support the rapid development homes in the right places, especially above the flood plain with low-cost options and units that meet the wide spectrum of accessibility needs. The Elks Club property development should be informed by and or accelerated by the immediate need and new partnerships, including with private developers, prepared to accelerate new home construction considered. Thanks so much. Liza Earl Centers, improve mental health in the community. Community mental health must remain a short and long-term priority. In the short term, a team of residents and service providers could organize to promote community education around mental health issues, advance the recognition of current challenge and evaluate and fill gaps in current services. In the long term, the Montpillier community needs to come together to develop third spaces, places that build community and interaction beyond private homes and work spaces, where residents can gather and connect with one another. While the trauma of the recent flooding has impacted all of Montpillier's citizens, particular focus should be placed on supporting the most disadvantaged residents, including the unhoused or those experienced substance misuse disorder. Thank you. Someone else? Thank you. Nancy Scholes, Montpillier should detoxify. The city of Montpillier should institute testing, communications and awareness about how to clean the city and prevent health impacts of toxins, mold and other health hazards associated with the flood. In the long term, the city should set clear goals and expectations for outcomes of what remediation work is done. Working collaboratively with the Central Vermont Solid Waste District and other organizations, both public and private, involved in waste stream management, Montpillier should actively support the hazardous waste mitigation in the region and promote outreach efforts to homeowners, informing them of existing resources for waste disposal. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Support the future of agriculture and advanced food security for all. A team formed to support agriculture and food security in the Montpillier area should liaise on with the farm to plate to incorporate their data and expertise into local planning efforts to advance local agriculture and food security. A team formed to lead food security efforts should vigorously support the FEAST program in the short and long term. It should create a public media campaign to raise awareness of farm and food system vulnerabilities and long term sustainability for Montpillier. Advocating for local purchases and supporting farms could be augmented by starting a grassroots campaign to change the state's agricultural budget with a focus on community based and diversified operations and away from dairy. Thank you. The next issue. Thank you. James Ray. Improve preparedness communications and disaster alert systems. Montpillier should advance the accessibility and preparedness information and disaster notifications. A process should be developed to assess and improve how communications connected with seniors, people with disabilities, unhoused people, and tenants. Notifications and alerts should include more geo targeted information with more specific information about what actions people need to take. Montpillier could also improve broad notification systems for different types of events using a siren local radio and mobilizing a volunteer network for in person communications to the most vulnerable. We should encourage and educate on how to sign up for VT alert regularly. parentheses send out in water bill posters dropped in mailboxes, et cetera and make city preparedness and recovery plans more broadly known and available. Thank you. Hi, I'm a lion morning. Build a Montpillier resiliency volunteer brigade. Establishing a volunteer group or network for preparedness and disaster deployment that is backed by professional support, training and has a budget, potentially with a paid coordinator position. This effort could feature the revival of the capital area neighborhoods and build off a volunteer response from this flood. This volunteer network would be organized ahead of time and connect with existing orcs. A city Montpillier parks, meals on wheels, schools, medical center, et cetera ready to mobilize in future emergencies. This group can support the city and its residents and businesses and help craft and create volunteer tracking systems. So it is clear who is doing what in disaster events. Thank you so much. So that's a lot of information and obviously there's overlap between these. Some of them might be parts of other ones. There are different orientations in terms of starting points. Let's remember before we think about voting that none of this goes away. We're going to consolidate all these ideas into a report so that we don't lose any of this thinking. And as the work moves forward, we can always look back. We also know that people prioritize one thing, start working on it, and six months later they recognize, oh, that other idea is part of this. We need to do that too. So this is democracy. We're not making rules that prevent us from doing other things in the future. And we're not voting anything off the island. We also aren't making legal votes here that are binding on the school board or binding on our elected representatives or the city. We're making votes of... And we also aren't voting for what we want Washington, D.C. some day to do. We're in Montpelier. And when you're voting, you're voting with your mind and also your heart. What would you stand for? What would you support? What might you actually put your back to and be on a committee to drive forward? What might you contribute to to make it happen? So it's not an abstract exercise. It's more than a poll, but it's not a legal vote that's binding on anybody. So with that said, what we want to do is we still have... We're right on time with the meeting tonight. And what we want to do is champion what's most important. So we're... I'd love to give... Oh, wait a minute. We skipped a whole section. We skipped a whole section. That's why we're on time. We may need to come back to that at the end. See, that's how organized this is. But I think we go forward from here and come back. So when you think about these 18 or 20 ideas, which ones are most within our power? Which ones answer the fundamental challenges that are presented to us for recovery and for climate preparedness in the future? Which ones do you think we can get behind and drive forward? So we'll ask people to take a minute or so, or even less, just to say what you're for. Don't say these three are bad ideas and I'm for this one. We just want to know the one that you're for. And this is your opportunity to convince other people to vote for it. So be very quick, but be on point for why it's the priority for you, why it's the thing that needs to be driven forward. Yes, ma'am. Hi. Hi, everyone. My name is Gail Johnson. I live in East Montpelier, Vermont. I was flooded out of my apartment from Winnowsky. I still love the river. It's part of where we are. I see this as, I know I have to be short. There's two things. We're trying to do recovery and resilience on one side, and we're trying to do flood prevention on the other side. They're both important, but if you don't have the flood prevention and have that commission going, what's the use of it? Because it can happen again, right? We need to have that river flow like it should and be able to have access to flood plans, perhaps create new watersheds, get it spread out. So this doesn't happen again. So I would, I would say the commission to me is the most important. Yes, go. Hi, I'm Thomas Weiss. I think a regional commission should be convened to develop a plan for flood prevention again as the most important of these items. The flood that happened in Montpelier began in Cabot and Woodbury in Williamstown. And in order to reduce what happens here in Montpelier to increase our resilience and reduce our need for recovery, I think we need to work together with all of the communities in the watershed upstream of Montpelier. Okay, thanks, Tom. So we're going to ask you to be as short as you can so that we can get as many voices on the table as we possibly can. We also aren't going to let go of the mic. Hi, I'm Zoe Niederland in Montpelier. My six would be the two that relate to slowing down and managing water upstream of Montpelier. The one about continuing to work on Wrightsville. The one about helping people and businesses be more prepared for flood waters in the future. And the two that overlap about having a great volunteer system and notification system in Montpelier. Thank you so much. My name is Phil Dodd. I'm going to use some of my dots on the leadership structure. But I have a question about that. It sounds like there is a question for recovery and resilience being formed in any case. So should I save my dots or something else? That's a question for you. There is going to be this overarching commission. And it may immediately form that separate working group to make sure that happens. But I think for what you think is most important and go for it. I'm going to advocate for reduce our carbon impact by creating assessments. I think this is the kitchen table. I think this is when my grandchildren and my friends and I can sit around and we can talk about exactly what we're doing as individuals to really feel like we're making a difference in this. And it's not, yeah, but, well, China's still building coal plants. It's not, yeah, but somebody's doing something else. It's what we're doing at the kitchen table as our community to help this climate emergency. Thank you. My name is Kirk Gardner. We're an extremely unique position here in Montpellier right now. We can make a big difference around the world and certainly around the country. If we can come up with an idea which is compelling, which is engaging enough and which clearly moves people's context of flooding and national emergencies forward. Right now, people are not taking actions largely because they feel it's too big a problem. It's being on them that can't handle it. If we can find a way to change that context here in Montpellier in our actions so people can see there is something they can do and it will make a difference. We will make a profound change in this. I hope we take that advantage. Thank you so much. I'm Eve Jacobs-Carnehan. I live in Montpellier. I'm going to vote for the Regional Commission to develop a flood plan prevention. But the second thing I'm going to vote for, I think, is super important is protect the wastewater system. As we heard it described at the last meeting, it's founded as if that we were very, very lucky that the wastewater system wasn't overwhelmed. And I think that even though that won't prevent of flood, that if that were to fail, we would be in an incredibly more devastating position than we are right now. Thank you so much. Jessica, let you come out. Hi. I'm Tessa. What are you doing, Tessa? I think people whose houses were in the flood should get their houses fixed first. People whose houses were hurt in the flood should get their houses fixed first, and that should be a cornerstone priority. Thank you so much. I've got someone here. Go for it. Hi. I'm Colin O'Neill, resident of Montpellier. I'm in support of the Commission to prevent future flooding. And I just want to throw out a quick data point. When Montpellier flooded, there was, I'm sorry, 970 cubic feet per second being released from the Wrightsville Reservoir. 24,000 cubic feet per second were entering Montpellier through the main branch of the Winooski. And that didn't overflow upstream. The capacity from the confluence of the north branch and the Winooski downstream is where the issue was, but we weren't off by much as far as the capacity of that river downstream. So looking at from the confluence downstream, using elevation change, embracing, taming the river and embracing it and celebrating the river and finding ways to get closer to it, but reducing the hazard created by the river currently. Great. Thank you so much. I'm Steffi Lehar, and I think it was Thomas. I'm going to save some of my dots, too, for the developing a public-private leadership structure. I think that's so important that we get a good one. I also just wanted to comment on one other. I was listening to the Surgeon General talk about endemic despair, actually, in a really eloquent way the other day. So I'd like to improve mental health in the community in a very broad way, not just about mental health crises, but strengthening mental health for everybody. Thank you. Hi, I'm Larry Gilbert, and I think every cause needs a banner to follow and therefore I think declaring a climate emergency is an essential first step, too. So we all head in the same direction. Thank you. Hi, I'm Joe Romano, and I have two in particular. One was to invest in an adaptive downtown where we can still have a city, make it vibrant, and have businesses there. But we can't do that unless we have this commission that works with the water and embrace the water, celebrate with it, and find ways to support the water in what it needs to do in any moment in time. Thank you. Hi, I'm Vic Guadagno. I just want to emphasize that on the heels of the climate emergency that we're dealing with a flood now, but as was mentioned, the last one, we don't know what will come next in this. So how we go about looking at it, and I'm an advocate for the Regional Commission, but so far Vermont has been informed by engineers, hydrologists, and architects. There needs to be a new appreciation of the ecological system, so I know it's a minutia point, but we really need to emphasize the ecological design and systems thinking. Thank you so much. My name's Carol Rose, and I really think we need to take care of the people in Montpelier when there is a crisis in an emergency, and it was very confusing, and there are a lot of PTSD people that are dealing with trauma because there really wasn't the leadership and there wasn't the direction of what people should do, where they should go, how they could get. I mean, it kicked in really fast after, but the day after the flood, there were people that were just in despair and there was no direction for them. Thank you so much. Hi, I'm Rebecca Copans. Something that hasn't been mentioned tonight, but fits within two of the points that people have been talking about. One is the commission, and the second is the adaptive downtown is our schools. The building you're sitting in tonight flooded. This gentleman on the end of this row said very eloquently at the first meeting about how the rows need to go where they need to go, and they're coming right through here, and I think we need to re-envision how we operate our schools. I'm not operate, but where we have our schools, and I think this is the time to think about combining U32 and Montpelier. Thank you. Hi, Dan Jones. This is an expansion of the idea of better communication and emergency response. I think we need to create an emergency preparedness commission independent that can review and study what is possible in terms of response plans to address failures during the recent flood and creation of a new plan with specific responsibilities assigned, activation triggers, and community engagement. Said plan should also be appropriate to other possible emergencies, such as heat events, fires, and other climate emergencies. So, Dan, are you suggesting that a group that was formed on that should look at that language as well? Or are you making a motion to add? I'm making a motion to add. That communication function would be a subset of this. Okay. Do people understand that motion? It's... Well, if he... No, but he's basically saying he wants to change the language that's in the sheet on that particular item to add language that describes a new commission that would oversee and work with the city, I'm assuming, to drive this... It's a larger version of what is emergency preparedness required in the climate change era, because we are now looking at something where things will be repeating more often. We have to have a better response plan. We didn't see it worked in the last flood, and so we need something that's actually going to be appropriate for the conditions we will be facing. So, Dan, would this work with the city or would it be above the city somehow? An independent voice. Okay, so it is different than the one that's on the wall. I think we should write it on the wall. What's the name that you give it? Emergency response commission. Okay. John, could you write that emergency response commission? And you've been waiting nicely. We have a better response plan. We didn't see it... And I'm glad that Montcalers interested in the regional coordination. Again, would this work with the city or would it be above the city somehow? Tell everyone if they have the opportunity. Okay, so it is different than the one that's on the wall. I think we should write it on the wall. Write it on the wall. What's the name that you give it? It's really important to make that connection between the headwaters and the downstream communities. Emergency response commission. The other thing that I think is important is this preparedness communications. The forecast for the next 10 days has a lot of rain and the groundwater is at max and the rivers are high so everybody pay attention. Yes, thank you. It's ominous to have a forecast like this. Yes, please. Yes, hi. I'm Val and I'm from southern Vermont but I work with Southern for Independent Living and related to different types of alarms, different type of signals, giving emergency response notification. I mean, people have phones but we also need to add access for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. They always have to people who are deaf or hard of hearing always have to ask for interpreters, ask for things, any type of emergency responses to be interpreted, especially if something is going on on the TV so we need to make sure that people who are deaf and hard of hearing have access to sign language or just interpreted messages so they know when there's an emergency. Thank you so much. Okay. Go John. I'm looking at a couple of people who have already spoken. I want to make sure we can get as many as we can before we close voting. Hi, I'm Jared Duvall and so many good and important ideas have been raised. One that I haven't heard that I want to make sure attention to is one that I think undergirds our ability to do a lot of the others which is the one around raised state, federal and philanthropic funds for recovery and resilience. I think a couple of key lines in this description really stood out to me convening a task force to quantify the economic impact on the city businesses and homeowners and using that analysis as a foundation for a capital improvement plan to advocate for state, federal and philanthropic so much good work has already been done including by the Montpelier Foundation and Montpelier Live and others but we know that there will be additional need going forward in that quantification and task force exercise. I think really is a key kind of systemic undergirding of everything else. Terrific. Thank you so much, sir. Good evening. My name is Peter Walk. I appreciate everybody being here today. I appreciate all your work putting all of these together. I do want to give some room for the groups they're going to meet tonight to sort of be expansive in their thinking along these while these are one paragraph summaries they may not be the precise route we need to go down. I can think of other ways beyond a regional commission to think about how waters flow and how they come together and to pull in the various points of view from engineers and architects to the natural systems that flow and I just want to make sure that we're not confined that we are thinking more broadly so that we can get to the solutions that we need and not just where we've gotten to on them. Great. Thank you so much. Are there things that you would like to champion? Hi. Liza and it's I think not a very glamorous or glitzy one but just I really feel the importance of building the resiliency volunteer brigade. I worked six years at the Unitarian Church here in town and as a paid staff person I could accomplish really very little but with the 60 volunteers helping out we could accomplish so much so I think there's a lot of people in town who want to help. I know in my neighborhood we thought oh we should check the sewer great and keep that clear you know but how many neighborhoods didn't have someone thinking about that but if every neighborhood had people thinking of those things we could do so much collectively. Thank you so much. Hi. I'm Elena Guadagnio. People were talking a lot at the last meeting about Montpelier being used as a role model for the rest of the country or possibly the rest of the world and I think that public transportation and heating systems could play a key role in that which would be really cool because it takes down carbon emissions a lot if the heating system was made differently or if there was more public transportation available. Thank you so much. Hi. My name is Jester Pinn. A fact-based data-driven plan. And there are other existing institutions that may limit the need for all of these new groups and so forth not the least of which is the legislature. When's the special session? When are we floating the Vermont Recovery Funds to issue the meaningful money that these downtowns are going to require? So I think let's focus as well on the existing structure of democracy and governance at the same time as we're soliciting new voices. Thank you so much. We have some comments from people on the Zoom. Lauren. Yes, so Lauren Hurl and there have been around a hundred people consistently online also. One comment from Ellen was we have a huge investment in the wastewater recovery facility. We need to protect it. This is the most compelling immediate thing we need to do and just acknowledging people are having some audio issues online. So thank you for bearing with us. We're working on it. Okay. Thank you. Others, I think we have time for just a few more. We want to probably close this by 7.30 or so, sir. Chris Piatik again. Thank you. Thank you. I've spoken the first couple of meetings about the importance of letting our rivers be rivers. That is still the nearest and dearest issue to my heart. Creating that commission working with existing like the existing commissions or organizations that are already doing this work. What I've spoken much about right now is the housing crisis. I need to put in a plug for that because that is an absolute critical crisis, especially as we go into the colder months. Thank you so much. Other comments? Hi, I'm Peter Lux. I think it's important to say what's at stake but this happens a couple more times in a short period of time, there will be no mumpiliar. So we must prevent, we must improve our response, we must reduce the impact. That's critically important. It's wonderful to see all these faces here tonight and the community engagement but it's also important that we know what the people who have the power to make a change are doing. So we need to know what are you doing if we have another event five years from now that we do not have the same catastrophe we have today. Okay, thank you so much. So I just took a quick look through this list of 18 really important ideas. Seven, explicitly mention the need for creating either a commission, a task force, a team or a process of existing community organizations. To me, this means we must all step up every day from now on and be the leaders and the workers we've been waiting for. I'm ready to do that. Thank you so much. Okay, one or two last comments. I'm Nancy Schulls an immediate thing we can do as a city that is almost cost less would be to add paint to our roads so that people who are pedestrians and want to actually have a visible crosswalk and people who bicycle but won't do it if they're fearful but if there's a white fog line that they can bike to the right of small changes that cost almost nothing we have the paint I'm sure at DPW we increase the feeling of safety that pedestrians and bicyclists would have and if more people biked and walked our collective carbon footprint would be reduced. Thank you so much so you'd advocate for voting for that one we really should stick to the wall because there's a lot of ideas beyond the wall that will come into this process as we go right but tonight we're setting priorities so I'd be glad of a last suggestion on a priority from the wall I call him O'Neill again I just want to comment that perhaps Montpelier isn't leading here and we should be open to looking outside of the state for examples in Europe, in this country maybe we are leading but I'm sure we can learn from a lot of other communities around the world great thank you so much someone want to make a last comment about one of the priorities that you would advocate for oh yes Lauren go for it all right so we had a number more come in in the chat on zoom several people prioritize regional watershed collaboration for flood mitigation somebody suggested investing in adaptive downtown needs to include a dynamic hazard mitigation and adaptation including moving some businesses out of the current downtown center there was a request to look at a car free street in Montpelier another request to allow the river access to access to the main in safe areas such as looking at merging U32 and Montpelier high school and a couple people voted for restarting the CAN network and again some of these are in the descriptions or would fit under some of the categories and pedestrian friendly city and learning to work with the ecosystem instead of against it thank you so much Ben just real quick I just want to say that I think there's two things that are essential to any of the ideas and there's so many good ones but one is the leadership structure to make it happen which is probably number one and number two is that the squeaky wheel gets the grease we need to be able to be loud and advocate to the congressional delegation to state and federal funders to get the money to do these ideas thanks so much I'm going to let this one fellow share his word here if he's going to talk about one of the potential priorities okay you can hold the mic I think these are all fantastic ideas I respect everyone who's commenting on them I really appreciate the youth who are here today sharing their comments and I hope the commission gives them a place on that and encourages the USP a larger part of this so thank you all who are here thank you so much okay so here's what we're going to do we want to do this efficiently to help pass out dots everyone gets eight dots the colors don't make any difference at all you can tell I did this at my kitchen table but Ben could you hand some of these out Katie you want to do some and basically once you get your dots go up to the wall you have the opportunity to put all your dots in one place if you want to you can spread them out through the list of them whichever ones are your core eight priorities people online who are voting don't have the option to lump their votes they will have to choose eight different issues and unfortunately just the the polling options are different but they'll still weigh in we're going to do this really quickly so you can start walking now if you've got your dots place your dots then step way back from the wall so that everybody knows that you're done we'll see when it's done we'll take five to ten minutes to do this thanks so much are they saying water? yeah yeah how you doing? good I know your house I spent a lot of time in the house next door I went into your house at one point to offer the help the day or so after I had so many people there the community was so wonderful so many people came to help good good morning I heard my neighbor and Kenny had a whole group of people once you voted move away from the wall and if you haven't voted yet you want to do it now you want to do it now because thank you Sarah have you voted? I got her to say it did you vote yet? yes I did how do you guys decide what you want to do? why you vote? why you vote? and then the commission will look at all that I mean some people seem to meet it we've got those there gots here well I think this is a good night to make the change I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I just wanted to make sure where I was supposed to be because I missed the first five minutes I still want to be in the wrong place I'll just sing out and let you know where I'm going so do you have a squad? yes I don't know is everyone over here done voting? you done? go go go go go go is you done? all set? you guys all done voting? yes you all done? right now when we're ready Sarah not yet hey Paul how are you? sorry I was going to be saying you're interested in working on one of those groups if I can't stay for that part it would be an opportunity to thank you hey if you haven't voted now's the time guys we gotta move you gotta move John you're going to help count votes? yes yeah and you're going to have two votes you're going to have to vote I'm going to again explore and we're going to transmit those terms we gotta wait until everybody's done that's a natural you guys done voting? we're done you guys all done? I am all done how are you? I'm all done are you guys all done? yes move away you're done are you guys done? oh no sorry I have two more okay are you guys all done? okay yeah vote and then we write numbers and then we'll put a top big number and then we'll get a number from the computer should I start telling the numbers no you have to wait until everybody should wait through the wall hey you guys have to finish up we have one minute I only have we need to move away we need to move away we need to move away everybody here's done everybody here's done you can help channel the votes and then we're going to add we're going to add them online okay you need to make sure everybody's done I know alright I think I've been killing them is everybody done? are you guys done? you guys we gotta move away vote vote vote vote vote vote finish up we gotta move I'm done quick quick we gotta go okay start quick poll poll poll yes the one about water pad and and the one about the water's pad and it can all collaborate This is not for flood prevention. It's the group that would look into watershed management up and down. But I don't think you need a new level of governance. I thought there was a second one that was standing without a flood. I'm sorry. Don't need the big ones. Okay, John, let's hold them in order. Put them in order. Yeah, let's put them in order. Most cops are up top? Yeah, 192 here. Okay, but there may be another... Is that the highest one down there? No, that's this one. What's your grade? 123. Oops, yeah, that one's got a whatever. Then you got 101 coming. Folks, folks, could I ask folks to come back together? Wouldn't it have been great to have refreshments? But we don't. Could everyone gather in your seats again? We'll get back to business. If you guys could just do that the full way to do like it in priority order. So, thank you, Ben. So we've done this voting exercise. We're right at 755 reviewing what was prioritized. You know, there's a lot of people here. There's at least 100 people online as well. They're contributing their ideas. We're all kind of dedicated to move these ideas forward. There's nothing on this wall that we can't do. And we've got some that are clear top priorities and some that are lesser. And it doesn't mean they're not important. I'm not sure how much votes ending hunger got. But if it didn't get a lot, it's not because it's not important to us as a community. I think we're sort of focusing in on the climate emergency and recovery. As we look at this, this idea, a regional commission should be convened to plan for flood prevention and do all the different things that are possible to ameliorate the level of rise of water in the future. Secondly, as a priority, investing in an adaptive downtown. And isn't that an interesting mixture? Someone described that we're talking about recovery and we're talking about resilience. And when we look at adaptive downtown, we're getting prepared for the next flood, but it's also a major recovery effort to help people do that. And then protecting the wastewater system, a lot of priority around that. Because that's an immediate and objective practical need. Raise state, federal, and philanthropic funds for recovery and resilience. And this is one that whatever we choose and wherever we're going with this work, it's an essential part of the work that we want to be doing. Develop recovery and resilience leadership structure. Some people were asking, should we vote for this one or not if it's already going to happen? So mixed votes, but it's still within the top five priorities. Improve preparedness communication and disaster alert systems. This one was given a very high mark of 101. There was the other one that Dan Jones raised. I think that they may have taken votes from each other. I think the intent of a lot of it is similar. And people do want to take a hard look at the emergency preparedness disaster alert systems and what we can do to make sure that they're completely on the ball and also that they meet the needs of all of our citizens. Then addressing the housing crisis, re-envisioning downtown, reducing carbon impact, building a resiliency brigade, improving the rights-filled dam. People may think, well, if we're doing this watershed evaluation, we're probably going to look at the dam as part of that. Declaring a climate emergency. This is something that could be done. It's something that people didn't put at the front of the line because there's so much else that's important, but it can still be coming up. Supporting the future of agriculture and food security for all. None of these go away. Celebrate and boost downtown recovery. People know that this is going to be happening and that it needs to happen and that we have one of the greatest downtown organizations in the state with Montpelier Live that can lead that work. Emergency Response Commission improve the mental health in the community. And again, people are dedicated to this, but it's a step from the immediate climate and recovery issue. Ending hunger is fundamental. Reducing our carbon impact with an assessment tool and this idea of detoxifying. So none of them go away, but clearly we have some very big cornerstone issues at the top. We know that we will have a commission and people who want to talk about the idea of this structured commission that can potentially support and oversee this work and provide some staff leadership on it should stay here. But we're going to break out into three rooms. Five rooms in just a minute with facilitators to look at the regional commission idea, investing in an adaptive downtown, protecting the wastewater system, raising state, federal philanthropic dollars for recovery. This one will stay here and then improving preparedness, communications, disaster alert systems. So I just mentioned that Montpelier Live may be already planning to do some of this work around celebrating and boosting downtown recovery. Does anyone want to talk about any of these in terms of their roles and responsibilities? I think we should recognize that the city and its really hardworking staff and the city council are all paying attention to this process. They also are leading on a lot of this work. In some ways we're outside and in some ways we're amateurs in looking at the different features of work that's at the table for city government. And regional commission and other work that's going on already. And we want to be integrating with that work and supporting that work and celebrating that work as well. But I'm wondering if anyone wants to talk about any of these from the city's point of view or from Montpelier Lives or from another organization that may be doing good work on an existing commission for just a minute before we break up. That one thing hard enough. Yeah, I mean this is what we do all the time. We set out to celebrate Montpelier and a part of the recovery is bringing people back downtown and we're doing a lot of those efforts currently that doesn't mean you can't be involved. So I would love to see people involved with those efforts and we're starting to form committees and I've got some leaders who are doing specific projects to bring attention to the downtown and celebrate and continue our recovery process. Please talk to me. I'm open to having more help. Thanks. Any other comments? Sir? Hey everybody, I'm Connor Casey. I'm one of your state reps here and I just want to talk about the state perspective a bit. Gentlemen down there said like why aren't you in session right now? Like why aren't you right in checks? I think we should be, right? It's Montpelier Alive Heroes. The city of Montpelier all our public employees heroes. But you know like 20 million dollars for aid coming up with a license plate program it's not enough. We're state government. We pay taxes. We deserve to like expect a bit more from state government than what we've gotten so far. And I think we can expect like businesses $186,000 in the hole right now. People waiting on employment checks. 18 units about to be demolished unless we raise them. The state needs to do more. So as I'm looking at that thing I'd love to get back to work in January. January is way too long right now. We need to get back to work right now and do more. And it's reasonable for Montpelier to expect more from the state. So I really think we need to lean on it as I'm looking at all this. It's City of Montpelier's budget $15 million, $16 million. State budget $8.5 billion, right? We've got to come together for our capital. If I look on that Human Services Committee, Appropriations Committee, Natural Resources Committee, you can go on Institutions Committee. I think we need to form a legislative committee ourselves under this commission and get in those rooms and raise your hand every time this comes up because the clock's ticking. We're back in four months and people got re-election in their minds. We're going to be out of there in May. So we got to do as much work in as short time as possible. So the state needs to play a bigger role and we're not playing enough of a role right now. So I just want to weigh in. Thank you very much. Okay. Other comments from existing committees or other folks that want to just share a little bit about what they're doing really briefly before we break into separate rooms? Yes. Very briefly. Yep. Hi, I'm Shayna Casper. I just really want to make sure that even as kind of you said, even when ending hunger gets pushed down, even with housing at the front, even though there's space on the table for a diversity seat and for a youth seat, that's not really enough and we need to prioritize and to make sure that we're embedding racial, economic, social, language, equity and justice really throughout all of these different processes and all of these different spaces. Thank you so much. That said, one last voice and then we will break. Hi, Joe Romano. I think that tonight we also need to go that the group who wants to work on legislature right now needs to convene in a place, in a room. And so where can we meet? Because it's not any one of these to get the conversation going to approach the legislature. Yeah, I think you can. I think the commission will take on all of the work that's on the wall and looking for state and federal money is one of those things. But if Connor wants to have a group sit and talk with him, you can go down this hall here and people can go meet with him. We have these rooms. Could John help me with this? We have rooms set up. So in the auditorium here, we've got goals for the commission. Room 101, what's that first priority there? The regional commission to look at the water shed. The second one, adaptive downtown, John. I'll tell you in a sec. Protect the wastewater system. The next one is actually raised state, federal and philanthropic funds. So maybe Connor should be in that room. And we'd all have that conversation about the state, but we want to push the feds as well. And we're going to need philanthropic dollars as well. We've raised two million, but now we're in another phase, the phase of resilience planning. And it's worthy of investment. And then improve preparedness, communication, and the alert systems, John. Okay. So here's the rooms. The top is the overarching commission that's going to provide leadership and coordination to this effort. This one here is the group that would look at water issues and upstream and downstream and presumably right spill. So this would be meeting in room 101. Okay. Room 102 is adaptive downtown. Room 103 is the wastewater treatment plan. Room 104 raised state, federal money. So room 104 for that. I'm going to put this poster on the outside so you walk by it as you're going. And then room 105 improved preparedness and alert system. Okay. So we're going to meet now. It's 8.05. We'll come back at about 8.40. Instead of 8.45, your facilitators will bring you back. And then if we have the energy, we'll do a quick visioning session where we'll say one sentence that could be part of a vision statement for the future of this project. It's going to be about state, federal money, and that will be room 104. I'm going to put this on the door so that we'll have it there as you leave the room. Okay. Hold on. Hold on one second. All these rooms 101 to 105 are straight that way on the left. Okay. So why doesn't everyone gather right in a circle down here at the front? Let's not have a conversation across a football field on this. And we also should recognize that we have a Zoom participants who are, they can't leave the room and go to all the different rooms. So they're with us. Yeah. So anyone else who wants to participate in the conversation about the overarching commission and the one pager that was distributed, we'd love to think with you informally about the goals of this process, about how it coordinates. We're fairly confident that we can raise money for a staff person, but everything will depend on our ability to do that. We can't promise in advance. The commissioners would be appointed by a committee of Montpelier Live, the Montpelier Foundation, and the city for efficiency. On the bottom of that sheet, it describes some of the roles and responsibilities that we're looking at, the kinds of expertise that to be involved in connecting and coordinating and convening all different groups to answer some of these core priorities, the commission will need architectural expertise, hydrology, engineering, environmental science, downtown development, fundraising, land use planning, connecting to property owners, renters, low income individuals, nonprofit management, financing clean energy, development, housing, public health, resilience planning, experience, and other pertinent skills. And of course, we're very dedicated to involving young people and looking through the lens of diversity to make sure that we're connecting to the whole of the community and giving voice to people. So you need all of that diversity, expertise, skilled professionals, leadership, and people with life experience that needs to be at the same table. So that's the outline, and we'd be glad to hear your thoughts about and would it be useful if I went through the application process now or we'll do so at the end? So be glad to hear your thoughts on the way this can work. I just think that it should be taken under consideration that a member of the commission be someone with lived experience of this flood. So that whatever other qualifications they might have, that it's very important to have someone on the commission who actually had, was impacted by the flood, experienced it in some substantial way. Some degree, but I think someone who actually lived what needs to be there. Thank you so much, sir. I was just curious how, when the commission was conceived when I thought this whole forum was to actually decide and figure out what the commission was and how it was going. Yeah, I think that as a group the sponsoring organizations were hearing the same things over and over about the absence of leadership, the fact that leadership was just co-eight in the community that everyone was saying, yeah, right, have another meeting and it's just going to stick the things on the wall and who's going to follow up and is there going to be any staff leadership to do this. There was also a strong sense that this shouldn't be owned by the city. There were some who thought this should be entirely separate from the city and it would be an advisory group or a political group to push against the city. And as we thought about it, we thought you want to add up the skills and strength. There's a hundred city employees, a lot of them are working on a lot of these issues now. You don't want to disconnect from their knowledge experience and the hard work that they're already doing and as outsiders, try to duplicate all that. You want to add to it with vision, with connections, with leadership from the community and engagement of community residents to move things forward. So all that was involved, but we also thought we couldn't wait that this process has been really fast. To put this together has been very, very intense to do all of this in a month in a couple of days. And we didn't want to let it just slide. We felt like we should start getting organized and start putting this in. So we've already started looking for resources to make this happen because we feel like there's a great urgency to follow up on the public feelings. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. Cassandra, thank you for being here. And we've got to thank the bridge for your absolutely sterling coverage of all of this work. It's been wonderful because you've been the cornerstone of knowledge around what's going on. And it's just so important. Thank you. Dan. Yeah, Paul. The state is kind of the largest. Oh, Dan Jones. Hi. The state is the largest sort of landowner, et cetera, and participant. Are they going to be involved in this and how, or has that been considered yet? It seems to me like in terms of forming this, they should be a critical component. Yeah, it's important to know that this has happened so fast. But we did put in a call to the state to buildings in general services. They're the biggest landowner in downtown Montpelier. They've got a lot of business buildings that are flood impacted and parking lots that could absorb water potentially. So, yeah, they're on the radar we have a call in to them today. We're setting up an appointment to think about their connection to this. It's possible the state could be a funding partner as well as an instrumental partner in moving things forward. Yes, ma'am. My name is Lawrence Webster. This is a small procedural suggestion idea throughout this whole process, the past month and a half. I've been wondering where's the regional planning commission and why are they not here and why is their voice not loud? They know this stuff already. A lot of it I think or should and some of it's in their comp plan. I think the city manager, executive director of Montpelier alive and president of the Montpelier Foundation are given as founding members add a representative of the regional planning commission. Please. Thank you so much for that. We've connected with them the executive director of the regional planning commission is here tonight probably in that conversation about the watershed management. This is what they do plans right? We need plan political muscle and dollars that actually changes the field and changes the watershed and so it's not just a planner but we do have planner on the list as someone and it could be the executive director of the regional planning commission or it could be someone else that connects directly to them but the point is very well made. Sir. My name is Mark. I have a concern about the creation of this thing being so closely tied to the existing the city government and to Montpelier alive. Will this body have the ability to say you're the bureaucratic the bureaucratic roadblock to the course of action that we see as needed is not overly sympathized within this and say sorry we're going somewhere else because you you can't provide the solution. I feel like it's very important that the council itself not be beholden to the city to say we have to manage up to the city's expectations or to in the interest of continuing to have a voice and be part of that to please the city manager or Montpelier alive or any government entity. I feel like it's very important that this group be able to function outside of and independently of any government by. That is a great observation and it's absolutely the intent of this. The city would be part of the committee that would select individuals to be on this. There might be one city employee on this. There's not going to be people who have city votes versus people who have Montpelier alive. I don't expect Montpelier foundation or Montpelier alive. They may have a one person on this commission but most people are going to be people through the throughout the community that apply to be part of it. So there there will always be a voting majority of people who are completely independent and that this group will be independent of the city in terms of its decision making and the chair and so forth. The the challenge is that you need to also build unity so you're not just a protest group and that you are using money effectively to drive things forward and connecting to existing resources to move things. So we've tried to find the right balance point and I really appreciate the question because I think that this isn't a done deal yet. It's a deal in process. What we have on paper is our best estimate of what the plan is but we do want to already we don't want to wait. We want to start asking people to apply immediately to participate in this process. Yes, state your name please. Certainly. Hi, I'm Kate McCarthy mark. Thanks for your point. Everybody thanks for your points. I like the idea of the independence of this group as well as those connections for sure for I like the idea of the independence of the group as well as connections for collaboration purposes. What authority does this group have? It does not. Yeah, it does not have authority over the state or over you know state funds or over the city. It's a partnership that has the ability to raise big ideas in a way that because of the situation of it following from all this public engagement and because it's got support from Montpelier alive in the Montpelier Foundation and the city it's going to have a loud voice as an advocate beyond Montpelier. It's going to have the ability to coordinate and invite people together and any any number of these groups on the wall could turn into working parts of the commission immediately. So it could engage a lot of residents. There's probably a hundred people ready to be involved in this work. Right. And so it's goal is to be an active facilitator of public process to drive this and everything we hear from the city is that they want that that it's it's you know trying to convene leadership across the watershed is beyond their scope of work and their imagination their sense of what they can do. And so this is going to pick up a lot of things that are beyond on the other hand there are existing committees of the the city that are doing great work and are going to be probably looking at some of these issues and saying yeah we're already doing that or we're we could be doing that with more volunteers and we'd like to use this as a way to add to the strength and volunteers that are working in those processes already. I'm going to come to you and first. Okay. Don't touch the mic. Okay. I think what people are talking about is the tricky part. It's what is the what is the relationship to the city and the state and where does this group get to have a voice and because there's not you know necessarily a lot of authority here but if you can define early on where the group and how the group gets to have a voice with the city and the the city council and and maybe with state committees that would be really helpful. I also just wanted to put a plug in not to try to have so broadly representative of a group that it becomes another advocacy group of many legislature. I really like small smaller committees like this with the idea that people are thinking strategically and not just representing something. I mean I appreciate Andrea's point about having people with lived experience on it but I wouldn't want it to appoint people in a way that it became an advocacy. We know and we don't want to build a 28 or 30 person commission and and there may be many people who can serve multiple roles who have resilience expertise and they're an architect and their house was flooded. So there's going to be ways to look at this in aggregate but we don't know who's going to want to be engaged in it. So we'll see but I think all these points around its governance and how it has voice. I think right now there's a sort of seamless interconnection between this process in the city. Everyone in the city government is listening. They're they're dedicated to hearing from citizens right now and this is really a strong step and this is a structure that can continue that. Does it does an external authority established by the three of us have any power over our elected officials? No. You know we elect officials who represent us legally. This is an entity that doesn't have power to tell city council what to do. On the other hand city council is looking for advice and guidance to think big about the future and this would be a tremendously valuable foil to set some of those directions and build big ideas like you were describing that can have transformational impact. You notice that things like closing this school didn't end up being prioritized at the state house or or moving the downtown up the hill didn't get prioritized in the last sessions and I don't think it was because people were saying none of that is useful. I think it was because people were saying let's establish structural ways to move the ball that will be in a situation to evaluate those big opportunities and be a driver for them rather than just have a big plan that doesn't go anywhere. And this is all about at least to my mind and I think to the organizers it's about driving. It's not it's not just an advisory group. It's a group to drive. Dan. Okay. I think my worry was too big and too cumbersome echoing what Stephanie said. And I don't know if you've got any models in mind of places that have done this. The thing that came to my mind and I don't know if it's relevant but there was a whole group put together in the medical establishment during COVID and they had a tripartite leadership and they had links to all these various institutions and so on. And I think of a sort of hub and spoke idea with this so that you could get expertise but you didn't have to have a commission of 40 people. I think that would be I think that's very wise and I think as we think about these groups the potential for the formation of leadership teams and different aspects of this. Do you have a recommendation for the number of commissioners between 12 and 18. Lower. We've been thinking maybe 15 but that may and some people think that's high so one one of the things I've noticed from a number of friends who live in surrounding towns is this sense that Montpelier is the downtown for central Vermont that we don't have the regional planning commission is one focus but it is kind of diffuse and bureaucratic and I don't have a specific proposal here but rather I think there has to be a way of having the voice of our surrounding communities involved in this because I think they are part of our decision system they're going to be part of our support system and they're going to be part of what's influenced by the whole thing. I think that's a wise I mean just I'm a facilitator so I shouldn't say that's a wise thing to say but I think you know usually when we've done community processes anyone who cares about that community who goes to school there who's a teacher there or who is in the next town and that's their downtown anyone who has a psychological identification that wants to help why would you turn them away from being on a committee to support resilience in this community so I think it's inclusive that way and then we'll go to I know this is an official city committee but I'm wondering we implemented something in the last year or so that provides stipends to folks who serve on committees in case they need to pay for child care and it's just a wondering if that could be extended to this commission just as an equity thing that would help encourage folks to apply that might otherwise be able to afford it it's a great idea and it's one that we're thinking about that people have brought to the table and right now we don't have a dollar every dollar that was raised by Montpelier foundation Montpelier alive has been pledged that we wouldn't we're going to keep anything for our own expenses and doing this work we're going to pour it all out through so it will require us to raise a fair amount of money that and as we do it you'll see in the sheet we're thinking you know we don't want to build something that has to be perpetuated forever it has to demonstrate its value to be perpetuated and so we're going to do an evaluation after two years and we would be looking to find funding for it for two years but I think it's very much on the table and probably we need to decide that early rather than late yeah good good thought so I just wanted to share some of the conversations that's happened from the zoom so one person said we need to regain our confidence in Montpelier leadership another said we need to have a way for community members to invest in the resilience effort like bonds many of us are retired and can't give away our money but might be willing to lend it someone noted this group sounds like an advisory group someone noted folks from Waterbury spoke at the last meeting they had a very effective track record and moving forward an ambitious agenda over a 10-year period based on community commitment to preventing another Irene disaster this seems similar someone asked how does a committee like this drive when it doesn't have the oomph to do it and another one where will the force come from to move our thoughts forward many times ideas go to the city and die how do we prevent this and someone called for new council members and somebody else said major changes require state and or federal money um which people agreed with and there was a call for student youth members of the commission well some great great thoughts and great contributions to this dialogue thank you um you sir and then so what I what I think I would like to see out of this is of course coordination and cooperation with the city also the ability to say once the city's ability has been exhausted to be able to go to the state or the federal or any number of these ideas it seems is a subset of this committee right whether it's raising funds at the federal or or um philanthropic level whether it is coordinating efforts I've I've poked my head into maybe a half a dozen or more small groups that are trying to do something and they all have one thing in common which is everyone has heard of some other small group trying to do something and it's a diluted sort of energy of a lot of people who have a lot of willingness and a lot of intelligence and passion about it but it's uncoordinated but forgot my other point so yeah it's a great perspective that as a convening center for the future of Montpelier it can convene and support any number of these groups I mean one thing that someone said Montpelier's the place where good ideas go to die you know it's because we we we organized in opposition to each other around ideas and we start to split them off and this is a way to have a convening entity that pays attention and provides mutual support between different groups that are working on this long-term recovery and the resilience agenda and and drives for results pushes the city pushes pushes its committees and and also raises funds to have some resources to help move pieces of it for it Kate did you have your hand up and then I'll go to learn and then you sir Thanks Paul Kate McCarthy I'm curious Paul what do you think wrote it down what do you think is the best way for a group like this to maintain its focus and avoid mission creep by definition a convener is going to be broad it's going to be plugged into a lot of different topics and people and ideas and help to bring those together the risk of the flip side of that can be inaction or mission creep so based on what you've seen what do you think you know when I've built like 15 policy councils and I've run processes like that this in communities all across the state the first answer is it's all about leadership and it's the same question about how do you drive the agenda in a consistent way it's like you need to have a really vigorous clear chair that facilitates and pulls people together with very different ideas but finds the common ground in common direction and helps them be effective and that's going to be essential and then a really strong membership of strong will sharp people who want to drive change and every seat's going to be super important on this on this working group but beyond that I think you have to convene and pay attention to the needs of people and you have to keep a laser like focus that you're just as this ending hunger which is really crucial to us and we care about that we we keep to the parts that are going to drive recovery and resilience in a consistent way and I think people understand that and I think you can test ideas and go back to the people to renew yourself regularly this is more of an ask Andrea alluded to it earlier that this is a huge lift and nobody can do it by himself so before everybody goes ask for a show of hands who's willing to put time and and help with this right now we are we we're putting out to put in an application so you know to be members of the commission yeah we're we're going to have this process I think that we're going to need volunteers for all of this stuff my problem is I'm like I'm a volunteer and I'm not going to do it I know I'm not going to continue to coordinate this there needs to be an executive director that drives this work and there needs to be a commission right now I'm making a lot too many decisions about what's the next agenda how does this work it's got to be led by a determined group of people who are thinking together in a diligent way regularly it can't be done by an individual and so this takes it to that other level and a level where you hire an executive director and that should happen very very quickly you know we're we're really interested in that that makes it more important to me that the make-up of the commission be more focused on representing the community I know there's a need for expertise and all that stuff but somehow people have to be vetted based on their ability to provide a perspective for different parts of the community because we know that the experiences of the flood have been really different sorry I thought it was loud enough no that that we need just like I said it needs to be someone who's lived got lived experience with this flood we also need people who have lived experience with the different aspects of the community if the expectation is to come up with something that the community's going to get behind thank you I think that goes from the commission to the committees and task forces that may form around all of this so yeah Jackie Dagger yeah I I completely agree with that being able to represent lived experience I think when I'm reading about this group and listening to all of the great comments here I'm thinking about the value of bringing together a group like this with these different experiences and what that could lend to the city and other decision makers and in my mind like having these different perspectives together in this group is an opportunity to think about where things might be where timelines might be conflicting where prioritization is important because this is a like the things we were talking about here they're all going to have competing timelines and with experience like this from these different experts that's really valuable in helping prioritize certain actions or even convening groups to educate this commission about you know the issues and it seems that one of the outcomes of something like that could be recommendations on how to approach some of these larger projects and that could be a great way for this group to work with the city and other decision makers thank you yes I'm definitely oh you I'm definitely want to be sure that that the feelings and experiences of the city are represented but I see this group as a steering committee when I think of a commission I think of a lot of people sitting and listening but not necessarily being in a position to start implementing and to me people in this group we're going to need to have some ability to either do it or influence it getting done and and and recruiting people to flesh out whatever is starting to emerge as important priorities and and not just make recommendations to who you know those recommendations need to be things that they begin to say yeah this could work how do we how do we test the waters so that we're not missing something that's important to some part of the city I totally get with that but I you know this idea that they're alone going to sit on the mountaintop and try to figure this all out themselves or something I think we we need to think of them as as active doers and coordinators and schedulers and kind of a little less lofty yeah thank you yeah oh we'll go to we'll go online and then we'll just I'm going to speak to that opportunity yeah so a couple additional online comments one person noted this group needs to be driven with a passion of an effort to preserve our town in the midst of climate change it can't get lost in process and when there are roadblocks that needs to be able to re-raise the critical goal it isn't about official authority to get things done it's about the collective commitment to achieve important things someone's already asking how to apply which I think you're going to talk about at the end and that's exciting yes I can you should post it and it will show them how to apply it fine great they'll also be pressed for these going up today or tomorrow night or tomorrow perfect so it'll be posted and press release decisions will be made by individual commercial property owners business owners and home owners decisions are being made now underscoring the urgency and I was just going to note too I mean we've talked a lot about kind of limitations of the city or hope how does this group push the city and I just want to note like I hope this group is thinking beyond the city the city government the certain things the state does some things nonprofits in our community do something so I would hope it would come in with a much more broad vision which I think is what's reflected on the wall and look at what what does the city do well and then what needs to not be the city or needs to be a partnership of the city and other actors thank you so if if I'd like to tag on to the idea of the doers and to share a little bit about how management works at where I work all of our so-called middle management is volunteer is volunteer force no one is paid for those positions no one really has bosses but what we do have is a regional leader and then below that person there are leaders that cover specific areas in the case of business it's things like growth and performance diversity equity inclusion etc and then each of those leaders is free to form their own team to make sure that many voices is heard and then that leader comes back to the group so it keeps the main group somewhat lean and small I think they're about five or six of us but the entire leadership team is somewhat large there are maybe 30 or 40 people but it doesn't get bogged down and then each one of those leaders is tasked with either their task for the for that week month whatever it is or delegating that task to someone else on their team whether that be the the watershed person or the raising money person or the shouting upstream at the state and federal government person etc they have deliverables that is their responsibility to deliver we we have to close up and hey Ben Ben can you run down and tell everyone to come back thanks not two minutes 30 seconds as you could anticipate I'm a little disappointed about the results you could have anticipated those five two weeks ago even before you wrote them coming up there's nothing exciting here there's nothing that's going to engage anybody not because it's becoming out out there because there's no room in this process for those kinds of ideas we need to find a way to get those ideas into this process I suspect that people will bring these ideas into these committees and things will be driven forward so I'm optimistic but thanks so much Sarah is everybody coming back in oh okay we're gonna shift in just a second here and start talking about points of vision but we also want to hear from our facilitators so we got to move fast any volunteers to help rally people down the hall I can do it sure thank you so much any any other things online or we all set there's a question online does the city have a capital needs assessment and the answer is yes they do and I think obviously all of this is going to enter the capital needs assessment as work goes forward okay well we're taking a short break just start could I ask let's let's just do a rapid fire from facilitators and I'm gonna ask the facilitators to just be ready share one or two things from your group could I ask people to quietly move their way in and facilitators to get ready to just say one or two things in 30 seconds I'm gonna call on Ben Doyle to start and tell us what group you were in and what some of the discussion was Ben great thanks everybody we had a really lively and I think productive conversation on advocating for state federal and philanthropic funds there are a couple of specific action steps that could be moved forward I think it begins with quantifying the economic loss for businesses homes the municipality understanding what the ask actually is another idea that came up was do you have a lobbyist does the city have a lobbyist that's in the state house and another idea that came up was like there needs to be a special session and we should be advocating for that thank you very much please Alyssa Sharon and Alyssa what group were you with I had the wastewater group and we talked about community engagement and education around the state of the state of the wastewater facility we talked about doing a risk assessment and using past reports and information that had been filed and analyses and then we talked about natural solutions so increasing flood plain doing buyouts doing plantings and we also talked about engineering solutions so using the road there and the raising of the road as a levy doing floodgates more stormwater and drains and then we also talked about looking in other models we're not the first city who's probably dealt with this and so what have other folks done either in state or out of state thank you so much Gary Holloway chair what your group came to so I was with the group talking about resiliency planning and a few few ideas that came out of that was really looking at who's already doing this work there's a lot of nonprofit groups the cities involved with doing some of this work there's a lot of professionals who are doing studies at universities who are already doing some of this work so let's try to glean some of those ideas and talk to the experts and talk to groups so we're making sure that they're a part of the conversation but b we're not reinventing the wheel and we're taking ideas that have already been being studied and we can start to look to implement them as it relates to Montpelier there's some work being done around pictures of the watershed so we can kind of understand kind of the greater picture that Montpelier plays in that watershed so learning more from that and then we talked a lot about resources I'm probably running out of time aren't I so just collect you know collect lists of you know technical resources people who are already doing this work contact information so we know like what what skills that they bring and then big part of this I'm just going to leave it on this is two things quickly technology using technology to kind of communicate so that people who can't participate in these types of meetings can participate in the conversations and then finally Paul that we we make sure that we don't have you know there's going to be burnout and people who join a commission and step off how can we keep the conversation going and keeping constantly keeping people involved particularly of you know youth and of all ages thank you so much Gary John Popans thank you we had a a group talking about investing in an adaptive downtown and I would say it's a little hard to synthesize but really a lot of it was developing a common set of practices for utilizing for flood proofing the existing spaces maybe that's installing shelving upstairs are up up high in the in the space maybe it's using inventory upstairs maybe it's filling basements what is that common set of practices but also very much thinking about short and longer term solutions and we define short term probably as like within the end of this year versus long term really thinking about what do we need to do in a more aggressive way with downtown including climate mitigation as really embedded in in those strategies and in terms of resources building a public fund that that building owners and businesses can draw upon and that public fund isn't just neutral it actually defines what it wants to invest in such that those practices are being deployed and supported and then of course expertise and the state of Vermont is going to be critical given both the resources but also the amount of land and particularly the amount of parking that is in our in our downtown thank you john who are we missing sorry oh peter we had a wonderful conversation about improving preparedness communication and disaster alert systems I really want to give the city a lot of credit for showing up in force to to listen to the community there I think we see a role for the commission to form some small subgroup advisory panel to support the city and updating the emergency response plan and really focusing on those members of our community who aren't going to be on emergency or vt alert or aren't going to be looking at the facebook page and we're going to need some additional supports beyond our traditional modes of communication and really to think about what those traditional modes are and to continuously be updating those and it starts with a survey about how how do you want to be notified right how if you don't have power how would you get information if you don't you know have internet how do you want to get this and sort of basic questions so we can make sure that are are sort of mass broadcast system is getting as many people as possible and then the sort of hand to hand you know person to person outreach can help fill the remaining gap with the necessary expertise to deal with those members of the community who who might have different needs so it was a great conversation and I really look forward to that but if it gets a an opportunity for to align with the overall commission work but not necessarily be within the direct scope but more of a sort of task group that provides input to the city's sort of reworking of the communications plan thank you so I guess I would say that the discussion in this room of the commission was really thoughtful it was spark sparky there was lots of good ideas around ways to improve the concept the diversity of the group how we manage that how it has expertise but it also represents the community whether we need to think about stipends for the group especially you know as needed to to be able to allow any participant to be successful in participating so you know really good conversation I think we have done a lot of work tonight we've done a lot really fast I really appreciate your patience with me and the way that this is pushed I don't think we should go back and work on that vision statement right now I think we want to be fresh when we do that I do think that there's going to be more of these facilitated sessions some of them very small in potentially forming some working groups around these different topics if you if you signed up in your room to express your interest that's great we have some signed sheets here that I'm hoping maybe Sarah and Ben could put out on the table and allow you to sign into one of these priority areas to express your interest so that you can be called upon but we'll also put this out electronically so nothing has to be finished tonight I just want to quickly describe where we are today in terms of thinking about starting to build this commission we want to do this quickly we want to continue momentum we don't want to wait two months to pull this off we're going to be looking for a balance of life experiences skills expertise and experience in everything from architecture to engineering to environmental science downtown development fundraising land use planning property ownership business low income issues non-profit management financing clean energy development housing and we're also going to try to keep this a small committee so it's going to be tight and it's going to have a lot of energetic personalities no doubt to apply for yourself or to nominate someone else send contact information in a one paragraph description so this is on the sheet that we gave out earlier we can put some of these on the table out there a one paragraph description of why you want to participate and what some of the skills are that you would bring what could you represent on that commission and and you'll you'll see there's directions to send it to m smith in the city who's going to gather these for the review committee and title put a byline on it Montpelier commission for recovery and resilience so today we're going to together these organizations the overarching funders of this are going to review these applications and and weigh them and try to find a great balanced group but there will be plenty of other opportunities for volunteers to drive the agenda in all of these different areas as work goes forward I want to close by thanking Montpelier school district for hosting us tonight for superintendent bone steel who's been here all evening principal Jason Dingle who's been a very generous host with us thank you and prim our Evelyn prim from the city for all the legwork and communications work she's done front porch forum the bridge especially the bridge and where is Cassandra unbelievable the coverage you guys have given what a tremendous community institution and and not to this and not to not to anyone in person but to really flesh out the story and bring us together to understand where we are so unbelievably powerful the Times Argus too and Christopher and his great crew at orca we really appreciate everything you've done everyone who's worked tonight from from Lauren Megan everyone who's manned the the technology and made the online voting work when none of us had ever done this before to the facilitation team I want to thank the city it's not easy to you know when you're working so hard you're really in it and you're fighting to do the best job you can every day and there's a lot to listen to when you're in the city government you know and mostly people come to you when they want to complain to you so let's appreciate these great people who are doing good work let's give them a round of applause where would we be without them so also obviously our friends at Montpelier alive Katie and her team tremendous work the Montpelier Foundation the fact that they were able together to raise $2,330,000 already and more coming to the businesses and to follow up and support this brilliant resiliency effort but but mainly thanks to all of you in person people online who are dedicated to this place you wouldn't be here if you're unless you're here to stand up for your community for democracy for the collective power we have to drive our future and we all feel the tragedy of this moment we all you know that issue of mental health wasn't just for those people this is fundamental to where we are we're we're dealing with trauma we all but we especially care for people at the front line who bore the great brunt of this the low income folks the business people the people's whose homes were were so terribly damaged and they are still facing loss uncertainty and exhaustion and they need our support and we're all with them I think but we also know that climate change is real and that our collective future our well-being and especially the future of our children in upcoming generations depends on us we understand together the need for a resilient future in this place that we love but we wouldn't be here so I want to thank you for being online for your neighbors for this city for a resilient future for our place and beyond let's take courage in each other and build on the unity it's going to take to succeed now I'd like to introduce Mayor Makala to say my closing thank you Paul I want to start out by with some thanks I want to thank everyone here and all the members of the community who've come out tonight and the two previous workshops here and online to to help move this work forward I want to thank the city mayor the city manager all the department's heads all the city employees and people at Montpelier alive who organized and conducted these forums and I especially want to thank Paul Costello I know he's going to growl at this but for for his expertise and his tireless work as a volunteer to guide us through this process it's been a long process the first chapter of our response to the flood to address the immediate crisis began even before the rain started falling when our city employees from the department of public works the department of recreation who staffed the tents and tables at the hub and all of our public employees mobilized with thousands of volunteers and donors to meet the immediate crisis without them we would be nowhere near where we are now the second chapter about this effort began at our first meeting up at Vermont College on coincidentally another rainy night when hundreds of members of the community came out to share their experiences ideas and visions for the future the breadth of ideas that we heard that we have heard and the level of participation has been more than we see in a whole year's worth of council meetings and I thank all of you for your input tonight we embark on the third chapter of our response deciding on our priorities and working to achieve them this will be a long haul bringing together community members and leaders and I call on everyone in our community to stay involved as we move forward the job begins tonight and I thank you all for your hard work