 All right, well, it is 6.30 so we should probably get started and we have one, two, three, four, five, six. If I think Jack is here, I'm sure maybe this camera was on earlier, so yeah. So we are, I think we're good to go. Two, three, four, five, six. Okay. Great. There's Jack. Great. Well welcome everybody. It is delightful to be back with you all here for the next session, the next term. And I just want to take a little liberty here as the mayor to welcome. Well, welcome back. Connor and Donna. And also welcome, and welcome back, Jennifer. And also welcome to Carrie, new to the council. And it's just delighted to have you all here. Right. Okay, so, oh, and I actually, as long as I'm welcoming folks, I also want to just thank all of the candidates who did run. Thank you for putting yourselves out there and making our democracy better. And also I want to thank all the voters for coming out and yeah, raising your voice in the city that's great. All right, so just to get to it here so we have, we're going to start, I'm going to call this meeting to order. Let's talk about the agenda. Any changes to the agenda. Yes, Bill. I think we might want to do a swearing in. Oh yeah. Good call. It's funny to think of this as, you know, doing a zoom swearing in but okay. The newly elected, I mean all the people who were elected or reelected should be resworn in. I think we all did it separately because we were here. Okay. I think we all did it separately because we were here. I mean, we all did it separately because we were here. We all did it separately because we were here. Conner didn't, wow, have. Are you on. Do you have opinions about this. Crystal is on. Yeah. Yeah. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. So I have a few that came into the office and did that, collectively? Sure. One. Okay, so you can raise your right hand. From there. Yep. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will be true and faithful to the state of Vermont, and that you will not directly or indirectly do any act or thing injurious to the Constitution or government thereof. So help you God under the pains and penalties of perjury. I do. I do. Okay, there's one more to you solemnly swear or affirm that you will faithfully execute the office of city counselors slash mayor for the city of my pillar and will there and do equal right and justice to all persons to the best of your judgment and ability according to law. So help you God under pains and perjury. I do. I do. Lovely. Thank you. Great. Thank you. That's one. Thank you. And thank you for keeping us on track here, Bill. That's good. So all right, so now any can I go now? Yeah, you're good. Yeah, so any changes to the agenda? Okay, I see no one speaking up about changes to the agenda. So with that, we'll consider the agenda approved and so on to general business and appearances. This is an opportunity for any member of the public or council supposed to make a comment or ask questions about anything that is otherwise not on our agenda. If you do have something that pertains to our agenda, then we will allow time for public comment when those items come up. But oopsies. But if you are, but if you have something that's not related to the agenda, now is the time and just a comment for everybody if you would change your name so that it reflects your first and last name so that we can have a record of who you are and if you would also say where you are from that would be helpful. And try to keep your comments to about two minutes. That'd be great. All right. Thank you. And I saw I saw a hand first from Jodi Pedersen. So we'll go Jodi and then to Sarah Lipton. Okay, go ahead Jodi. Hi, you are still muted. Unmute. Thank you. Yep. I guess I did them both at once. I thought I did it. Thank you. Mayor Watson and city councillors. So and city manager. So my comment, thank you very much for scheduling next week's intervention by Paul Costello. I think that's going to be a great idea. And I also wanted to speak up and say I was hoping to urge our city councillors to consider holding meetings with their districts now and again in order to increase transparency, get to know the people living in your districts and also consider using the can area, the capital area network, email chains to communicate better with all of us so that you know, you can keep us posted about what's going on. Thank you. Great. Thank you for that suggestion. And Sarah Lipton, go ahead. Hi, Council Mayor Watson. Thank you for letting me speak for a moment. I'm the director of the Montpelier Senior Activity Center for the City of Montpelier. And I just wanted to make a brief memo, basically, to let you know that we're doing a really big March for Meals campaign to raise awareness and funds for our Meals on Meals program, which our Feast Senior Meals program runs, is the 50th anniversary of Meals on Meals nationally and the Older Americans Act, which provides a portion of the federal funding that runs our program, but certainly not enough funding to actually run our program. So we've got quite a series of events online. We've got a Meals, a Meal Pickup curbside pickup on March 25th. And I wanted to specifically invite all of you if you're interested to do a guest delivery of a Meals on Meals route during the week of March 21st. I thought it might be really interesting for you to have the opportunity to live to deliver Meals to your constituents. So if you're interested in doing that, please reach out to myself or Kim Myers at the Montpelier Senior Activity Center. And I believe thanks is in order for later in the agenda when a possible proclamation might be accepted. So thank you for that as well. Thanks for letting me speak. Great. Thank you. And Peter, Peter Kelman, go ahead. Okay, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay, I'm Peter Kelman. I live on Mountain View Street in District 3. And I would first like to congratulate our two newly elected District 3 City Council representatives, Jennifer Morton and Kerry Brown. As can coordinator for the Mountain View neighborhood, I look forward to establishing regular communication among both of you and the 30 families who live in that neighborhood, just to underscore what Jody got in and said before I did. The ultimate goal of such communication is to facilitate greater resident engagement and trust in city government. And the proximate goals are one, to establish a more personal, more effective and more timely way for the City Council to keep residents informed about matters on which they, the city manager's office, city departments and the various city committees are working. And two, to assist our City Council representatives to learn about and understand the specific concerns and priorities of the residents of the neighborhoods in the district they are representing. I want all the members of the City Council to note my use of the term representatives because I want to underscore how important it is that elected officials like you listen to, hear, understand and communicate clearly and in a timely manner with those who have elected them. That's what a democracy is all about. And I believe it is the best way to restore faith in government. I'd also like to congratulate Mayor Watson on her re-election and all of you, especially Bill Frazier for the strong support the voters gave in approving the municipal and school budgets as well as the various bond issues, especially the somewhat contentious bond to enable the city to purchase the Elks Club. Now the hard work begins. I'm certain that you are all aware that Montpelier is becoming increasingly gentrified and unaffordable for many, even those who have lived here for many years and or work here. Unfortunately, this is no accident is a trend that has been nurtured by the 2016 Economic Development Strategic Plan, which explicitly called from Montpelier to distinguish itself from Barry with its lower cost of living. It seems to me that the Elks Club provides us with a unique opportunity to set a new community development direction from Montpelier, one that values, welcomes and embraces all kinds of diversity. But this can only happen if the Elks Club project as it seems to be called now is conceived, planned and executed in service to this new vision of inclusiveness. So let's not just talk the talk. Let's walk the walk. Thank you. Thank you, Peter. And thank you all who spoke for those great thoughts and suggestions. Anyone else? Steve Whitaker. Steve, go ahead. First, I'd like to suggest, oh, congratulations to the newly elected members. I'd like to suggest that public comments and issues raised there be a formal process for following up on those that they don't just get to be swept under the rug, a nod and a, oh, thank you, and we'll hear it again, you know, next time that you create a logging system for issues that people raise and so that there's some accountability on whether they got followed up or ignored. Issues that need to be put on the agenda for future discussion are a increasing list of public records that turned up to be missing. I raised them prior. I won't go into them now, but it needs a discussion. We can't have public records disappearing that are necessary for accountability and planning. I had campaign signs stolen and I asked the police department to investigate and they ignored those requests. They didn't get any idea on who brought some and delivered them to the police station. That's a crime to remove campaign signs. I won't delve into that, but it needs to be raised. It's unequal treatment, potential bias by the police department. You heard prior that a person's vehicle was damaged by a snow plow. You were told that the city was fully insured. They would be made whole. It turns out on further investigation that the operator did leave the scene, that the operator did not have his driver's license with him. It turns out that the city's insurance is stiffing this young working couple. Their own insurance covered the damage except for the deductible and the city's claiming sovereign immunity. I'm encouraging that couple to sue or settle because that's gross negligence when you're not watching where you're going driving a grater. That punctures sovereign immunity. You were told that he didn't leave the scene and you were told that they would be taken care of or had been. Neither of those things are true. Transit center restrooms continue to be closed during lunch hour in violation of the lease. I raised that repeatedly. It's unconscionable that the city council has not discussed it and not taken any action to remedy it. The city manager contract. I've learned through a public records request that either the city nor the manager was represented by council while substantial changes were made to that contract to in effect protect the golden parachute provisions. That's a very serious issue. The memo to the council is claimed as exempt as contract negotiations even though those contract negotiations have concluded and the contract has been approved. That may be a violation of law. Secondly, the city manager cannot act as the head of the agency when he's concealing his own record relating to his own contract. I raised that conflict issue and was ignored. It was brushed aside. These are issues that the council needs to take up and deal with. I guess, oh, will I be able to speak during the police review committee about actions related to police purchases and unplanned purchases, massive purchases and grant applications? Or do I need to do that? You need to do that now because that's not pertinent to that particular item. Okay. All right. So I've gotten recent records request responses that detail the city hiring an architect firm to design a new dispatch center or PSAP, none of which has been approved by council, nor was it even in the televate report. So there's absolutely no justification for that expense or action beyond authority of the council. So I'm raising that because there's hundreds of thousands, three or $400,000 in grant applications and additional debt and claims of trade secrets in the deliverables by the architect. Our police chief and apparently thinks he's a new entrepreneur and he needs to operate according to a plan with transparency and council approval of his actions. He's not a loose cannon allowed to be going and spending the public's money in that manner. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. I'm not seeing anyone. So we are going to move on then to the consent agenda is just so folks know I will need to recuse myself from item H. So if if you could if they're in the motion, we could remove item H. That'd be great. Also, I do want to remind folks to to try to keep your comments about two minutes. That would be excellent. All right. Jack. I would ask that we separate item H from the consent agenda and that we also separate item B, the minutes from the consent agenda. I noticed a question in the minutes and I sent an email to the clerk but but he's not here tonight. So I would ask that we take that up at our next meeting so we can get my question resolved. Oh, is that is that a motion for the remainder? And I was just about to say and I move the rest remainder of the consent agenda. I think there was already a second by Donna unless Connor, go ahead. I just had a quick question. I don't think we would need to take it off, but it's for Bill. Read the parking meter piece of the consent agenda. And it said the recommendation was to go with option number four, which I would agree with. I just want to make sure if we approve the parking meter piece of it. The plan is to have coin operated meters. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, that's what option for is our coin operated only and it would actually get rid of the or eliminate the credit card option because of the cost of processing those in the cost of the 5G connection and the cost of the battery. So we would have only coins and the part mobile app. That's all I needed. Hey, all right. Any other comments on the consent agenda? And this includes the public. Okay. So without without anybody raising their hand there. So any further discussion on the consent agenda minus H and B? Okay. All in favor of please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And opposed. Okay. So the consent agenda passes. If we could, I'd like to take up item H right now. I just need to recuse myself from that. So I'm going to turn things over to Jack. Assuming what's that? So yeah, I'm ready to go. Okay. Go ahead, Jack. Item H is is a proposal for to sign a resolution to accept a grant agreement from the Vermont Community Development Program for the city to subgrant to habitat for humanity for a planning and feasibility study. Does anyone want to be heard on that item? It is on the consent agenda. Is there a motion? I'll make a motion that we accept the resolution to fund. I was trying with the whole thing. I think somebody had their hand raised, Jack. Okay. Thank you. Yes. I'll let's get the motion and second in and then I'll recognize the speaker. Yes. My motion would be that we accept the agreement grant agreement resolution. I'll second that. Okay. Dave Delcor. Is there a grant amount? Let me see. Do we have someone here who can answer that question? Zach Watson, I see you've got your hand up. Yes. So that we're the subgrantees, but the grant agreement was for $50,000. Cool. Thanks. Any other discussion? Are we ready to vote on this? Okay. It's been moved and seconded to approve the grant resolution for the Habitat for Humanity Planning and Feasibility Study. All those in favor, indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. You've adopted item H and I'll turn the chair back to the mayor. Okay. Thank you. Excuse me. All right. So we need to do a whole bunch of things that are pretty typical for the beginning of a new year, a new council year. So for this, I'm going to turn it over to Bill with the organizational or the orientation really. Oh, I'm sorry. Carolyn, I'm not sure. Carolyn, what's your last name? Shapiro. Carolyn Shapiro. Carolyn Shapiro. Yes. And I'm sorry. I'm not familiar with the process, but when we were on the consensus agenda for the gate park murals, and does that mean that it all got approved? Yes. Oh, I'm here and I didn't know. Yes, it's all good. So thank you very much. I really appreciate that. No problem. I'll be saying goodbye. Okay. Goodbye. I'm Linda Berger. I see you have a hand up. Yes. I'm sorry. I was here to talk. I had no idea that it was just there was going to be no discussion. It was just the consent agenda. I had some questions about it. And so now I feel stupid and shut out from being able to discuss it. Well, if you'd like to ask your questions now, that's certainly welcome. Okay. I I've seen Carol. I have no doubt that Carolyn will do a wonderful job spearheading this project. My concern is just that she came to the commission with the idea of doing these murals, which is great being initiating something. But I think there's other artists in town that should have an opportunity to possibly receive this stipend, possibly spearhead this. It feels a lot like the signs that were put up around town and people weren't aware of how that happened or how the budget budgeting happened for that. It just feels like a close process. Like an insider process. And I it's not that I have anything against Carolyn's work. She shared a number of photos of the work that she's done. And it's impressive. But I just think to to benefit her as well as the commission, it should be a bit more open and how this is done. Thank you, Linda. I appreciate that. Rob Hitzig is, I believe, a member of the Public Art Commission. Rob, go ahead. Hey, thank you. And thank you, Linda. Yes, I just just a point of clarification with the Public Art Commission. And Carolyn came to us asking for our support in a proposal that she was working through the state for painting the columns at on route to the highway columns. And we supported the project. It hasn't been funded at all yet. There's no funding involved. And she was planning on working with the schools to do this. So it's not anybody in particular that's been selected to paint the columns and there isn't an actual drawing at this point. We're just we'll be reviewing proposals when that time comes. But nothing's been selected. And in addition, the Public Art Commission is supporting the project and that we want to make a gateway murals on those. And that'll be a more public process finding the artists to do the rest of the column. So Carolyn is just going to that just proposed a couple of the columns and the Commission will be looking for artists to do the rest. So that's still it's still being worked on. Nothing's been finalized. Thank you, Rob. That's really that's very interesting. Linda, did you have another question that you wanted to ask or I have a question about when I read the background information on the public art proposal. I guess it doesn't totally in my mind doesn't totally match what was just presented. So I just think it needs to be maybe it's just me reading it and being an outsider and not understanding. Well, so just for clarification, Rob, when does the Public Art Commission meet? Our next meeting, I think is the 24th of this month. I can check here. Okay. And oh, sorry, go ahead. No, it's the 23rd, 23rd from five to six 30. Okay. And that will be posted. The zoom link will be posted. Okay. Meetings are open to the public. Yes. Okay. And great. So I guess I would encourage you, Linda, or anyone who is interested in that process to attend those meetings. And it sounds like there will be a process for the remainder of the. Yeah. Yeah, there's about 12 for, I don't know exactly how many comments, but Carolyn was just planning on working with the high the schools to paint two or three of them. And the rest will be open for public process. Okay, great. Thank you. The three that two or three were approved by the state. Is that what you're saying? And we don't have any say over that, but we would somehow have say over the remainder of them. So I'm going to let you actually know, go ahead and answer the question. And then we're probably going to move on after that. Right. Right. You could come to our meetings. But yes, it was working with the schools to paint a couple of them. And the rest will be open for a public process of selecting artists. Okay. Thank you very much. All right. So we are going to move on to again, it feels like we're going to so we're moving on. Thank you. So I'm going to turn it over to to build for the organizational meeting orientation stuff. Well, so the organizational meeting, I think was really intended to be a heading for all the things that happened underneath it. Oh, okay. A colon for all those next, next things. There's nothing specific about the organizational meeting. We are in the process of updating the the annual handbook. I think Council Member Brown got the first one hot off the press. But we'll have them for all of you. And certainly, I will mention one thing about organizational orientation is we are married from our offices prepare is working on scheduling tours for Council Members Morton and Brown to to see our various sites. And what we will do is let everybody else know when those are happening. So if other people want to join in and also be on the tour of the Council Members and then we'll post those so that we don't have any illegal meetings. So you know, members of the public may join or attend as well. But really, therefore, the two new, newest Council Members, but obviously, they're always valuable, no matter how many times you've been on tour. So that is something that's happening. Other than that, I think it's that that was really a heading meant to have all of these others as subheading. So okay, fair enough, then. All right, well, we need to elect some officers and we I was kind of going off of the before the election assumption that Jack was the president sort of holding over from from last time. But so we need to elect or point president, vice president and parliamentarian. Anyone interested in serving in those roles? Donna, I was going to nominate Jack for Council President, if he would accept the nomination. I would accept the nomination. Thank you. I'll second it. You did a good job filling in the last couple months. Great. Shall we take them up each individually, I suppose? That's fine. Okay, so Donna, that was that was a motion. I mean, I can do a slate if you want. I just don't want to exclude whoever might be interested in other positions. Sure, fair enough. Well, let's let's talk about the other positions anyone interested in vice president. Donna, I'm interested. Okay. I nominate Donna. Okay, president. Okay. And so I think we'll maybe do this all as one package then perhaps. Parliamentarian. It was Jack. Now, to be fair, I mean, it could be Jack again, but it's probably better if we can spread it out. I mean, if that's okay with you, Jack. Oh, yeah, I'm happy to do it, but I'm happy to have someone else do it too. And I think there's value to having, having it spread out. Yeah. Carrie, do you have those skills? Oh, you know, maybe, but maybe not in my very, very first time at City Council. So yeah, I'll do it if you twist my arm, but I'd be more comfortable getting a feel of how things work before I took that on. I mean, there are Robert's rules of order, you know, and I have a cheat cheat and John Odom is the king, so he's always there to help. Go ahead, be bold. Well, either I'm yeah, whatever your preferences, Carrie, or maybe he wants to do it. Maybe he has a hidden desires. Honor Lauren. I'm okay. You know, I just want to like, you know, nurture Carrie as she's starting up here. I think it'd be great if she's let in. Okay. Lauren, any thoughts? Very happy to support Carrie. I mean, if we really, if we really need someone, I could do it as long as Jack could whisper in my ear all the rules when I mess up. But it's a very low, low stakes thing, Carrie. There's a lot of people who have a lot of the expertise on counsel that can, it's a team effort really. All right. I'm willing to take it on. Okay. Thanks. All right. So Jack is president Donna as vice president, Carrie as parliamentarian. Donna, that's, is that just to clarify, that's your motion? Yes. Hunter, that is your your second is okay with that? Okay. Any further discussion about this? Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. And opposed. Okay, great. All right. So rules of procedure, we need to readopt our rules. Bill, is there anything you want to say about this before we do it? I don't not sure it needs. Oh, I mean, we have the rules that, you know, are typically the same from year to year. But you know, obviously, each council can adopt them and adopt them as they see fit. So if there's anything that you don't like that the purpose for having it adopted each year is that this in the same with the ethics policy is that this particular group of seven has said, yes, these are our rules for this year. We're not found by prior councils rules. So the current addition was provided, but we're not operating. So you just got very quiet there at the end, at least in my bubble. So I just said it's your own operating rules and expectations, you know, for yourselves. Right. Okay. I'm going to go up, Jack, first just to give it a start and then we'll go to you, Peter Common. Jack, go ahead. I move that we readopt the council rules of procedure as as they're presented in the packet. Okay, Peter, go ahead. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, Peter, Calvin, Mountain New Street. If I had the latest version, I just want to call your attention to item eight. Any items discuss the agenda under the heading of general appearances should be limited to not more than 10 minutes. Yeah. All right. So I just would like to suggest to you that you make it five as someone who has a lot of trouble saying anything and under into or under most people do, could we compromise and say five? Thank you. Donna, go ahead. I tried to get that to five and was voted down every time. And the fact of it is, as much as we say to most people talk five minutes or more. And so if we say five, I want us to really keep them to five. Okay. Because it makes our meeting so much longer. And, you know, I think people can be condensed. Yeah. Okay, a lot in two minutes. Fair enough. Five minutes. I'm making any other thoughts on that. Yes, Carrie. Can I just clarify? Is this for members of the public who are offering comments on things in the agenda? That's what we're talking about here. Um, well, you know, what's interesting is it says any items should take no more than 10 minutes. That's not necessarily per person. Just the item. Yes, go ahead, Jack. Yeah, it's it's items under general business and appearances. So if, if three people all come and they wanted to talk about the same thing, that would also be subject to that time limit. Right. The way I read it. Yeah, well, then they'd have to we have to vote to extend the time. Okay, well, I'm that's fine with me. I rarely, I mean, I have held people to it, but mostly when there's like a lot of people wanting to speak. But I'm down for that. Peter, have you are you done with your your hand still up? I just wanted to make sure you're done. Linda Berger, go ahead. Yes, I was trying to talk about the Public Arts Commission item. I believe that I was speaking or the discussion was less than the amount listed here. And, and you were not receptive to discussing it. So I'm not understanding these rules, I guess. Yeah, so that's a good, good question. So typically the way that we work is that you have like any member of the public has some amount of time, it has been two minutes, but we could make it five and that's fine. Just say whatever they would like to say. And then there may be a response, there may not be. But we typically don't get into like a back and forth, like we it's not really like a conversation. There's an opportunity to make a statement or ask questions, and then there's opportunity for response. But that's, that's it. And so that's why I interrupted you earlier, because I would like to avoid having back and forth to find that that's often like not very helpful and not easy to, to, to manage actually. So I guess that's, that's, that's exactly so I'm going to, so that's, that's why we are doing what we're doing. And, and that's why I'm going to let you speak one more time. And then we're gonna move on because this is this is kind of that same thing, right? Like, make a statement, and then there's a response. And then that's it. Okay, go ahead, Linda. It's not a statement. It's a question. Then how is a policy or a proposal that's coming before the board going to be discussed where the public can discuss it? Yep. So any item, people can make comments or ask questions. And I'm sorry that you didn't get a chance before the item was voted on about the public art commission recommendation. Yeah, I had kind of wondered if you wanted to say something actually. But anyway, so but that would be the time is when that item comes up. If the item is not on the agenda, then the you would make the comment at the beginning during general business appearances. But if it is on the agenda, then you make that comment when it's when it comes up. And if and anything on the consent agenda is sort of all sort of taken together. So that's that's how that works. Joe, do you Petterson? I see you've got your hand up. Hi, yes, thank you. I was just wondering how do you on the agenda? It says rules of procedure. Where do I find that before a meeting? Where do I find that to to read about it to understand it before you have a meeting? That's a great question. So the City Council publishes they all of the attachments online. So did you my guess is that you joined by clicking on the big green button on the homepage and then came up with the agenda. There's a tab in that document. It automatically comes brings up the agenda. If you go to agenda items and files, then there are all of the links to all of the attachments and agenda items that that the council is going to come discuss. I hope that's helpful. I'll try. Yeah. Okay. If it's not, let us know because they're there. And we want to make sure that you have access to them. Yes, thank you. Okay, Donna. I just wanted to sort of clarify for Linda and others. To me, there's a big difference between general appearances, which are about things not on the agenda. And hence to me, they should be more confined in time. And if they need more time, then we should put them on the agenda for the next meeting. So I feel more comfortable because this number eight says general appearances should be limited to no more than 10 minutes per subject per topic. So that can make general appearances very long. If on each topic, each person spoke of in general appearances went 10 minutes or longer, I feel suddenly you have an agenda item sneaking in here. So I guess I feel more comfortable that if each topic could be more limited and then within that the two minutes and if things if an item needs more discussion, then it should be pushed to an agenda item for the next meeting. OK, thank you. That's that's helpful. Jack, thank you. I just wanted to point out in reference to the question that that Jody raised on the city web page. There's a page for city council and mayor and at the bottom of that page, if you scroll down, the items listed including include the city council manual, the goals and priorities established by the council, the rules of procedure and the voting districts. So the proposed rules of procedure were in the packet for today's meeting, but also you can always find those on the council page. OK, thank you. All right. And so, Donna, did you want to there's been a motion in a second on the rules of procedure? Did you want to? Make any additions or changes? I was offering an amendment of five minutes per subject matter. To number eight, the one that Peter had brought up for discussion, five minutes per subject. I support that as the nature of the motion. OK, any other thoughts on this council? Five minutes per subject. Yes, go ahead, I'm OK leaving it as it is. I think it's difficult to track a subject if we're not speaking consecutive order on a particular topic there. And then, like, OK, so two minutes a speaker, if we do a five, right? Does somebody like to cut off after a minute, then? Like as opposed to two minutes? I think it's fine as it is. It's kind of discretionary, like with the mayor there. Two minutes of pop seems pretty good. You know, you would know if it goes longer to like maybe add it as a gender item next time. But I don't know. Five minutes seems a bit short now. I'm thinking for, like, a whole topic, right? So I'm OK with it as it is. What if wondering if it would make any sense to limit, you know, 10 minutes per topic, five minutes per person. Two minutes per person. Well, two or two. OK, the idea is to bring up a topic that's not on the agenda. Yeah, if it needs more than it should be on the agenda next time and then we can all be exchanged. So so I'm here. I'm hearing 10 minutes for a topic and two two minutes per person. Mayor, may I make a comment? I'll hold on there. Steve, I want to just hear from the council real quick about this. Is other folks on the council haven't spoken yet other other thoughts? Yeah, Lauren, I'm more inclined to leave it as it is. I was also confused that it was a per person thing. I just think I agree with Connor that like tracking topics and, you know, even if a bunch of people wanted to make clear that they were really concerned about something and took 30 seconds each, I don't want us to stifle the ability of the public to weigh in. I think we should be airing towards hearing from people and giving that. And so I would just leave it as is. OK, great. Jack, I just want to recall that a couple of years ago, there is a tremendous amount of fair amount of public interest in the operations of the police department. And we had several meetings where there would be a dozen or 15 or more people coming to speak on general business and appearances. And that discussion would sometimes go for half an hour or 45 minutes. And it I wouldn't want to be in a position where we would say, well, we're never going to we're going to limit an entire topic to 10 minutes because people were coming to us with things that were very important to them to say. Yeah, you know, I kind of wonder if that's the kind of occasion where we would agree to extend the amount of time. We've just done it in the past. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Before I go to Steve, oh, Carrie, go ahead. Yeah, I, you know, I'm not necessarily totally familiar with how these things go, but five minutes seems really short. And 10 minutes seems like it's sort of possibly on the outside that when if it looks like it, we're heading to 10 minutes, then we can we can extend or not. But five minutes could be just a couple of people. And so cutting it off after five minutes, or we're forcing ourselves into a position where now we have to vote to extend for, you know, one more person needs to talk and we need two more minutes. But I feel like 10 minutes probably gives us a little bit more flex time. And although I do agree with Donna, that if it's taking a while, then it needs to be an agenda item. And then, you know, that's our signal to make it an agenda item. But I'm, I'm waiting for it to leave it the way it is. Okay. Donna. Well, but then this could be interpreted. One person could talk 10 minutes on one topic. And then talk another 10 minutes on another topic and general appearances. First is something on the agenda, which we don't limit the time on. Yeah. Thoughts on, so, so team, I have been like treating the two minutes per person as sort of guidelines and whatnot. Are you, how are you feeling about keeping the per person at least guidelines at two minutes? I'm seeing a nod from Carrie, thumbs up from Jennifer, nods from Donna, thumbs up from Lauren. Okay. Do, do we need to have it written in, in this section? I mean, I think of it as like guidelines so that we're not, there's like flexibility. Okay. All right. I just wanted to make sure that we were clear on that before, you know, yeah, if we needed to write it in or if we could just, you know, leave it as a common understanding. Steve, go ahead. I'm encouraged to hear that you're actually considering allowing up to five minutes, but this folds into what I said at the beginning of my public comments is that you don't have a system to recognize that issues are big and need agenda items. And so what, what you've done is you've turned the general businesses and appearances as a way to, just as a, you know, alert or a minimalizing a trivializing. So I've been bringing real substantive issues of lack of oversight or violations. And y'all, you know, say, oh, your two minutes is up and we won't talk about it again until you get fitted into another two minutes. So I think if you're going to formalize transferring issues to the agenda of the following meeting, that's a big step forward. And if you're allowing the latitude to up to five minutes during general business, I think that if somebody has multiple comments to make on different topics, which in a good democracy, more people would do, speak up about multiple issues that are troubling their community, that's going to take more than two minutes. And to arbitrarily cut it off is not, I don't even believe it's consistent with open meeting law. So this is a variable section of the meeting and you might say at 20 minutes, we're going to carry public comments over to the following meeting. But you need to have a process to revisit issues that are more complicated than just a two minute nod and it's swept off the rug again. Thanks. Thank you. Jack. I will point out that our rules of procedure as they're written now rule 12 does provide a mechanism for residents to request an item to be placed on the agenda. Okay, thank you. Okay, any other comments about the rules of procedure? Just so I know where we landed, Jack, were we at five minutes per topic or 10? I think we landed. Sorry, go ahead. The original motion was 10. Donna suggested we do move it to five. There is never a vote on that suggestion. So I think that we're at 10 unless something happens to change that. Okay. Carrie, go ahead. Jack, you accepted that amendment? Yeah, you did. So I think that we didn't have to vote on it because as the maker of the original motion, you accepted it. That's true. Already the parliamentarian. Yeah. We have five on the table. So we could change it again. Five, we could change it again. Donna, you could withdraw your amendment, I believe, or Jack could decide to reject it. Or we could just vote. What do you think, Donna, do you want to, or Jack? Go ahead, Donna, if you have a thought. Under Robert's rules, there's really no such thing as a friendly amendment anyway, but we're being very, very sloppy. Right, but I think it's fine to just go with five and see how things go. We don't have to be stuck with the rules forever. If we find that it's become unwieldy or if we find that it's not giving adequate time, we can amend. Other thoughts? Okay. All right, so the motion on the table is to change it to five instead of 10, if I'm correct. So I think that's what we're voting on here, team. You ready? Okay, any further discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Ooh, we got three. And I thought it was much better. All opposed. No. And now I got to do a roll call. And so I get to vote. Oh my gosh, it's three to three. I'm gonna vote no. And so, that could- You have to do a roll call. Oh, we do have to do a roll call. Okay, you're gonna do it in the order that I see you on my screen. Yes, Jennifer. Wait, I think I didn't vote correctly. Oh my gosh, I am so sorry. It's okay. It's okay. I was agreeing. That's why we do the roll call. Exactly, I was in line with Connor. And then all of a sudden I realized Connor and me didn't vote the same way. So now I'm like, wait, what did I just vote on? Okay, all right. Fair enough, we'll do a roll call. Jack. It made me state the motion again just so everyone's clear. Thank you. Thank you. So the motion is to approve the rules of, I just wanna make sure I'm saying it correctly here, the rules of procedure, changing item eight to say five minutes per subject instead of 10. And so I'm gonna go in order. Well, actually in the order that you appear on my screen, Jack. Connor. Nate. Jennifer. Nine. Nay. Nay. Donna. Yes. Lauren. Nay. Kerry. Nay. Okay, so the motion does not pass. Is there a different motion? To accept the rules of procedures as presented. That's your motion. That's a motion. Yeah, second. Okay, is there a second? Second. Lauren's got a second. Okay, further discussion as is. Okay, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. And opposed. Okay, so that was unanimous. So that motion passes and we have accepted the procedure as presented. All right, so we are on to our ethics policy and this is something that we have to approve every year. Any, actually let's start with is there a motion to approve the ethics policy? I'll move to approve it. And Lauren's a second. Okay, discussion about the ethics policy. I'm not seeing any. Okay, all in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. And opposed. Okay, so our ethics policy passes. All right, on to approving standards and group norms. So I think this is again, something that we have approved in the past. So I just want to check in. Bill, is there anything you wanna say about this? Well, a few years ago the council did a workshop with a facilitator and came up with these sort of rules and standards and group norms. So how to work with one another and the council at that time adopted them. And we've continued to put this on during this meeting every year. If people feel they're no longer necessary, that's fine. If they, you know, again, it's your chance to make these your own. But we've, they have been in the, you know, the council has been adopting them manually. Great, I am fine with these. But I do want to note, I did not see one thing that, a group norm that we have adhered to in the past. Which I don't think is shown up here, but is about council making posts on social media just so that everybody is aware the general practice has been that, you know, we'll certainly like try to get people involved and get out information. But when it comes to a pining about things, it's social media has the risk of becoming a, like a discussion and it's not a source. It's not like, gosh, my words are not right there today. We want to avoid violating open meeting law, basically. And so we don't want to have an online discussion about topics. So I just wanted to remind folks about that. I guess that's, you know, it's maybe not so much subjective as that it's just not violating open meeting law. So, but I wanna make sure that we're all clear about that. Yeah, okay, any other thoughts on the group norms? Yes, Jack. I think I would encourage anyone to read the group norms. The purpose of these norms is really to ensure that the process at the council is open and respectful and productive. And I think we all work hard to hold ourselves to that standard. And I think that when we do, it serves the interests of the public and it makes the process work better. And to the extent that we don't, there's, I think we would all be falling short of what our constituents have a right to expect of us. And so I fully support this. Thank you. Cameron. Yes, Mayor, I am doing the thing I did last time where when Stephen unmutes, I'm going to mute him because he has a lot of background noise but I want him to be recognized. So I'm gonna raise my hand for him. Okay. Steve, I'm gonna keep muting you. So there's not disrupting other people's Zoom experiences but I will raise my hand for you. Great. Okay, Steve, go ahead. Yeah, briefly, I just wanted to raise a flag about the policy that you just discussed, Mayor. The public records retention necessitates that if counselors are posting on public business and public social media forums, my recommendation is that they send a copy of both the posts they're responding to and their own posting to the city hall public records for filing because I just did a request of Bill's request posts on so front porch forum related to the Elks Club property. And I was told that the posts that he was responding to are not available to him. And therefore you're lacking the necessary context of the answers that he's giving. So that's my recommendation is that you be very explicit about posting rules for city counselors in social media environments. Thanks. Thank you. Any other thoughts on the group norms? Okay, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And opposed. Okay, so that passes. And I think we are ready to move on to committee assignments. So for this, I'm sure probably a lot of folks maybe want to stay on committees that they're already serving on, but there's also definitely some gaps. So we're just going to take this one at a time and then we'll look to approve the whole thing at the very end. Is that's on the right team? Okay. All right, so we're going to start at the top and work our way down this list. Yes, Jack, go ahead. Just a quick observation. This might be a good thing to have Cameron or someone share the screen so that the members of the public who are in attendance can see what the committee assignments are. Thank you. Great call. Okay. And Cameron, do you have the capacity to edit this as we go? Cameron, are you there? I'm going to send the video. Yes, I'm sorry. I couldn't figure out how to unmute myself when I was sharing my screen. Yes, I can live edit. Fabulous. Okay, the Americans with Disabilities Act committee. Counselor McCullough, you were on this before. Do you want to continue or is there anyone else who is interested? I'm very happy to continue. I think the work of the committee is very important, but I don't want to foreclose anyone else who wants to get on. Anyone else interested? Okay. I can't see everyone. So I'm just going to... Oh, sorry, Jennifer, go ahead. Sorry, I'm using an iPad right now and I have no idea what I'm doing. So I apologize for my clinkiness tonight. How often does that committee meet? It's roughly... We were just talking about that the other day because we had a meeting on Tuesday. It's either every two months or every three months. And I think we already have the date for our next meeting three months out. It's one of the few committees that meets during the work day. It has been at 10 o'clock on Tuesdays. Okay. I would be your backup if you weren't able to... Oh, cool. For that, absolutely. Would you... Jennifer, would you want to be the representative? I mean, kind of. I did do the LEND program with UVM and this would be really awesome. Oh, do it. Take it. Yeah. But if you're really passionate about it, I don't want to take it away. No, I think it's totally fine. Okay, great, super. Thank you. And thank you for speaking up. And because I can't see everybody, counselors, if you will just unmute yourself to jump in the conversation here. All right, Building Code Appeals Committee. It was Councillor Hurl and Morton. I'm happy to continue. Okay. It's for Carrie and, you know, Jennifer's on it, but it meets sporadically. Probably last year it met like three times or something, kind of clumped together. So it's just when like an appeal comes up. And they're usually like 15 minute meetings. So it's a pretty low maintenance, but important committee. Jennifer, what do you think? If you don't want to continue that. Okay. I can stay on it. That's fine. Okay. Anyone else interested? Okay. Sounds like that one is good to go then. Okay, the Capital Improvement Committee. That was myself. Sorry. Oh, I was just going to say I'm very interested. I'm very interested too. Oh, Donna is interested as well. We usually have three. And you do. Does anybody else want, or is anyone else interested? We often have the new folks on this committee to get a sense of, I mean, it's a lot of what the city does has to do with capital improvements. So it's kind of a nice way to be involved in that. But of course, if it's Lauren and Donna and I, then Carrie and Jennifer, we can't have everybody there. Well, it's actually to be fair, good. I would certainly get off if Jennifer and Carrie are in arrested. If you're not, there's no pressure, but if you would like, I want to make sure that you have the opportunity. Yeah, Carrie, go ahead. So I'm just kind of interested in all of it. It all looks interesting. And I don't really know much about any of it. So anything that I'm part of, I'll learn a lot and I'll find it really interesting. So I'm happy to slot in where maybe if there was a spot that Jay Erickson had that somebody else hasn't wanted to take, I'm happy to do that. If you have recommendations and you want to encourage me as a new person to be on a certain committee, I'm happy to do that. But I don't have strong, strong preferences. It all looks fascinating. Okay, that's good to know. Yeah, she can have my spot. It might be good. Are you okay with that, Donna? Yeah, that's what I said. She can have my spot. Okay, great. I think, yeah, I mean, it is good to learn about all the capital things that the city is involved in. So, and Jennifer, are you, how are you feeling? If you, how are you feeling about this committee particularly? If not, you know, it's fine, but yeah, okay. The capital improvement doesn't meet often. I mean, the first couple of meetings are longer because they're educating you so much on the terms and approach. Yeah. Well, I also don't, I also, I feel like if one of you who have been on the council longer really want to do it, I don't want to stand in your way. You've been waiting for a while. So, well, you know what we can do is we could also, we could just warn it as a meeting. That's sort of the way around it if there's four of us. It does meet just the one time or a couple of times, I suppose, can we actually just like flag that one and come back to it if that's okay. All right, thank you. All right, Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission. This is not necessarily a council person. I feel like we, well, no, I guess we, I was gonna say, did we appoint Marcella recently? But I guess it wasn't that recently. Perhaps this is one that we can, unless somebody would like to. Hi, Mike. Yes, go ahead. Hi, good evening, counselors and mayor. This is Mike Miller. I'm the planning director for the city. And I'm also staff for the Planning Commission. And this has historically been a position or a representative from the Planning Commission that sits on this. And so they actually had a meeting last, at their last meeting two weeks ago, they started to have a discussion about who might want to fill the seat. And they're gonna be, they were planning on voting on it next Monday. I know Marcella is interested in staying on it. And rather than having me be the alternate, I believe it may end up being Gabe Lodge and S. But they were gonna vote on it next week. If you're willing to kind of put it in as Planning Commission appointed, then they can take care of that. And we can send you a memo, notifying you as to who got appointed. Great, that's very helpful. Thank you. All right. Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission Transportation Committee or the TAC. Donna, this has been you. Yes, go ahead. Yeah, I've really enjoyed it. But if someone's interested, I can certainly yield. Anybody else interested in that one? It's a monthly meeting on Tuesday, the fourth Tuesday of the month. I'm not hearing any takers. So Donna, if you're willing to continue, that is great. No, I really enjoy it. That's great. Thank you. Okay, good. Central Vermont Public Safety Authority. Donna, you are already... I'm an elected, Doug Hoyt and Justin are currently, you're two appointed. Yeah. And we just appointed Justin recently, right? Right. I feel like we did that. So I feel like we should assume that Justin is still willing to serve, but we should check. He's been very involved, but who would be up? I mean, their terms are actually for two years. Okay. Even though as a city council, you go through it every year. So it's really Doug's term who would be up for reappointment for another two years if no council member wants it. I think I believe Doug is open to being re-appointed. And any other councilors interested? Okay. All right. Central Vermont Solid Waste Management. I suppose it probably could be a counselor, but it has been Donna Barlow Casey. Any counselor interested in that one? Okay. And I assume that we'll leave Donna's name there. And if she does not want it, then she'll get back in touch with us. I think she's pretty engaged with it actually. Okay. Great. All right. The Community Justice Center Citizen Advisory Board. We have to download these, yes. Actually, for some reason, I thought when Dan left, there were several changes on this committee and I got appointed at the last one because Dan left. I think it was Jennifer and then I was Dan and... It was me and then I got a job at the Berry CJC so I couldn't be on this. Right, it was Dan, Jennifer, then me. There you go. And I'm willing to stay on. It's definitely educational. Okay. Once a month. Fair enough. And they would like some stability. So I feel like owed them at least a year if you would allow me to serve another a year. I've only been on in a couple of months. Yeah. The City Hall Art Committee, I feel like we should maybe take off the list. Do you, does anyone feel differently about that? No, some of the things we wanted done got done with them without us. Yes, exactly. The pictures got moved and the art came in. Yeah. Well, and we should let the TW Wood Gallery know that it's a new year and we'd love some new art. Bill, is it okay if we put that on your radar? Okay, great. Thank you. Especially, well, we don't know if we're gonna be in person here soon but we'll have that discussion, I suppose at some point. All right, the Energy Advisory Committee, I would like to stay on. Lauren would like to stay on. There is space for a third if anyone else would like to join. Okay, not hearing anyone, we'll move on. The Harry Sheridan Scholarship, I think it probably makes sense for me to continue as I am also at the school. So unless anyone else would like that, I would like to stay on that. Not hearing anyone, okay. All right, Homelessness Task Force. Do we have a representative on that currently? Oh, we appointed Jennifer. Yes, Jennifer. Thoughts on staying on? That's a yes, okay, anyone else? I've been on that as well for the past year or so. Oh, okay. Great. Oh, I'm sorry. Excellent, excellent. And you're happy to stay on? Yep. Okay, great. Super, Housing Task Force. That's me. Okay, and other people could join as well, I assume, yes. Oh, yeah. All right, so anyone else wanted to jump in on that one? I would be interested in that one. Okay, great. I can say that there's been some discussion at the task force lately about changing the nature and status of the task force since that may be coming to the council at some in the near future. Okay. And the Housing Trust Fund? Again, I'm willing to keep doing it. Okay. And this is not something that can have more than one. Right, there's a designated number of appointees, one of whom is a council member. But anybody else like to do that? The board, it's the Housing Trust Fund advisory board. It meets, tends to meet once or twice a year to review what standards will be applied to applications for grants from the Housing Trust Fund. And it's advisory in nature, so whatever is decided at the Trust Fund advisory board then comes to the council for decision. Okay. All right, unless anyone else wants that one, we're in one. Okay, the investment committee. Connor, are you on that? Do you want to stay on that? Yeah, no, I like it well enough. Some on the pulse of Wall Street. Awesome. Okay, great. Okay, I'm up here live board. Now we no longer have Councillor Erickson. So this person is like a liaison basically between the council and I'm up here alive. I don't know how often they meet. I don't know how often they meet. I don't know how often they meet. I don't know how often they meet. Other thoughts. Anyone up for that? I think it's monthly mayor. Okay. I'm willing to do it. It's not a super area of expertise of mine, but I'm definitely willing to do it. Awesome. Anyone else up for it? Okay. Great. Thank you, Carrie. All right. Thank you. I was vacant. I have a sense that. We have an appointment to that. We get to make an appointment to their board. And I think the last time I checked, we appointed. I am forgetting her name. Koya. A Mosier. Brown, maybe. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. With her to see if she is. Yeah. Yeah, I'll, I'll send you the. I'll send you the, the, her name soon there, Cameron. I should see if, if she's still willing to stay on. Unless someone else would like to be that person. What would like to represent this city. I don't think I don't want to kick someone off. We just, just appointed. I don't know. I don't know if that's fair. Okay. Great. All right. The parks commission. I'm interested. Okay. Others. Maybe also. Any, anyone else interested? I, and to be fair, we could have, I think more than one. But anyone else interested. Okay. Well, thank you, Donna. All right. So social and economic justice advisory committee. Yeah. I'm interested in staying. I think we could definitely have more people if others are interested. The more the merrier. Yeah. This is. An open kind of group. So. Yes, Jennifer. Are you, you're, we should put your name in. Okay. Great. So we'll put you both in. There. Oh, no, wait. So. Yeah. Cameron. Jennifer is in for the social and economic justice committee, which is the next one. Along with. Lauren. Perfect. Okay. Super. Okay. Anyone else. Okay. Transportation infrastructure. Donna. Had been you interested in staying. Oh, this can join me if they like. Yep. This is another open. Group. Any other anyone else interested. Okay. All right. Moving on then. Oh yeah. T. W. Wood board. All right. So we. Don't have anyone. Presently there. This is actually one that I used to serve on. And it's a great group and. Highly recommend them. If anyone wants to, to jump in from them, but I. Or jump into, to serve with them. The. I guess we were looking for someone from the public arts commission to be that person. So. Maybe. Bill, this is something you could potentially follow up on. See if someone from the public arts commission. Be up for that. And unless. Excuse me. Unless there's a counselor who would like to do it. Okay. Excuse me. All right. So to be continued there. The police review committee. It was Lauren and Jack. Do you want to continue? Sure. Yes, Lauren. Well, just so. I believe that one has like. Disbanded. And one of our recommendations. It was to look at reformulating something. So I don't think there is one right now, but we might. Okay. Reconstitute it and could do it at that point. Although if we just want to keep it as a place where we're like, I'm happy to do it again. Or we could get that information now if we want, but just to. Okay. Seems like. Yeah, thank you Cameron for, for making that note. And. You know, the row is not going away. So if we need to fill it back in, we can. All right. The my ride committee had been Donna and Connor. Is that group still meeting? Yeah. Miss the last one or two, but I'd like to continue serving. If I could. Yeah. This Friday. Okay. And I assume we could have a third if we wanted to. Yeah. Yeah. And remind everybody, you can always attend and listen. To a meeting without being the appointed person, just to learn about the committee. Okay. Great. The public restroom committee. Connor and Lauren. I wonder if that like warrants a bit of council discussion in the future. It's something that Dan Richardson suggested, which I thought was a good idea. There's so much overlap with the homelessness task force, you know, it feels, you know, I wonder if having parallel discussions. Make sense on that. Or if there's another mechanism. Obviously there's other populations that would serve. But we haven't gotten it off the ground. We've got some criticism for that, which I think is warranted, but. I just wonder if it makes sense. Jack, go ahead. Okay. Have I put it on our agenda for our next meeting. To make a decision on that. Sure. Bill, I don't have in my head what is on the next agenda. I think it's probably either zoning on the next agenda actually, right? Yeah. Next, first public hearing on zoning. Presumably the second reading on the part, it's the second meeting. So I think that's good. I don't know if that's the case. I think the river conservancy is going to provide an update on Confluence Park. Or refirming the strap plan. A couple other. Smaller items, maybe even consent items. So. Well, so having a discussion on it doesn't also preclude the agendas, next meetings agenda. And then if we run out of time, then, you know, we can see what deserves priority at that point. But I would also be interested in hearing about the Homelessness Task Force opinion on just, you know, what their thought is on being the only group discussing it. Does that make sense? Yeah. And I think there's a lot of movement pieces. We have a lobbyist now who's like looking at the House Institutions Committee for a mechanism to get like some more money. We've also got like the 425k built into the budget for like ARPA funds for next year. Yeah. So, yeah, like I could go either way on it, but I think it warrants a bigger discussion than just tonight. Okay. I have some thoughts on how to proceed with that potentially. So maybe you and I can be in touch about that. So, okay, great. And I think that is the end. Phew, made it. All right. Did everybody get on enough committees? All right. Okay. So is there a motion regarding appointing the folks as discussed to these committees? Jack? I move that we appoint the slate that we just filled in. Okay. Is there a second? Oh, okay. I'll second. Okay. There's a second. Good question. Okay. Oh, yes. Donna, go ahead. Did I miss it? Did you do storm water? You know, it's not on here, actually. We had a meeting last Friday and Jay attended and he's expressed an interest even though he's not on a council anymore. He still would like to serve if no other council member wants to. Okay. But you were there. Well, but I wasn't there for the council. I was there from MTIC. Oh, okay. And at one point I thought Lauren expressed an interest. Yeah. Yeah. I'm on the email list. I had a work conflict, so I couldn't go, but I'm planning to participate. Okay. Although if someone else is eager to, but I'm happy to do it. It's helpful. Okay. Great. Well, I'll be eager to hear about how it goes. Anyone else interested in serving on that committee? Okay. Thank you. And thank you, Donna, for bringing that up. That's great. So within the motion are we adding Lauren and Jay to the storm water, the SRO committee? So, sorry, the SRO committee is no longer, that's something else. That's school resource officer. Oh, no. Is that no school resource? Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So Mary, I jumped back off mute to remind y'all that you wanted to circle back to the capital improvement plan. Oh, yes. Thank you very much. Okay. I guess it comes down to Jennifer. Would you like to be on this committee? I mean, sure. It feels like it would be very important. Okay. So I will take myself off of that list, though I will just give you a heads up now that I'm still interested in attending. And so I may cause there to be the need for a warrant meeting for that. But we'll cross that bridge when we get there. But for now, I think that's great. Okay, Donna, did you have a thought? I'll likewise attend the capital improvement. And I don't know, I really think it should be the whole council because we end up they're going to be bringing all of it back to the whole council and going through the same steps of explaining. Yeah, it's a really central discussion. Yeah, I think especially Donna, if you and I both also want to be there, we'll, you know, we can just warn it and see who can make it. So for now, Bill, I realized that that's probably inconvenient for you all, but just we'll deal with that when we got there. All right. Okay, so Jack, you had a motion prior to clarifications. Yes, go ahead, Jack. So I would just move to amend my motion to include the changes we just made. All right. Is there a second? This is the amendment to include this stuff. To include the ones that we just just discussed. Is there a second? Second. Okay, this is the amendment, including the new things. Any further discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay, and opposed. All right. So now we're voting on the whole thing. Right. And so there was a motion and a second for this as well, right? Yes. Okay, so voting on everybody now. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. And opposed. Okay, great. So thank you, everybody, for stepping up to these positions. This is great. All right. So all right. And I see Kate Stevenson has already turned your camera on. Super. Thank you. We are moving on to our next agenda item, which is the Metrics Summary Report from the Energy Advisory Committee. Kate, go ahead. Thanks, Mayor Watson. So I'm here as a member of the Mobile Energy Advisory Committee on my annual visit to tell you about the energy use for the city of Montpelier's municipal buildings and operations. So before I launch into the slides, just to give a little context for those of you who are new to the council, Miak is a group of volunteers that is here. I know our mission is to support the council and advise you on energy related issues for the city. And what we have been doing for now 10 years, so since fiscal year 2011, we have been tracking the city's annual energy use, which includes electricity use, thermal heating, and vehicle emissions, yeah, energy and emissions. And so it's really exciting in a lot of ways to know that we now have 10 years worth of data. And, you know, every year when I add more to the graphs in the charts, you know, we start to see some interesting trends. And of course, you know, last year's data was kind of wonky because we basically had a quarter of like all the buildings being closed and people not going into work in some departments and then other departments were just kind of doing business as usual in some way. And I think I can say overall FY 21 also had some unusual trends, you know, that may not really reflect changes that we expect on an ongoing basis. So just say that to dive in. And I also mentioned that in back in April in August, we completed the 2030 net zero action plan where we had hired some support from the Vermont Energy Investment Corporation. And that plan is really designed to both create kind of our base look to reinforce our baseline calculations and then look at what are the steps that the city would need to take between now and 2030 to meet our goal for municipal operations to be net zero. So we'll kind of look at where we are as of this past fiscal year, and then kind of revisit that just to look at kind of where we're headed on that trajectory. So let me, Cameron, can you let me share my screen, please? There you go. Okay. So one of the sort of big picture first things that we always are trying to track, because this relates directly to our net zero goal is what's the percentage of renewable energy versus fossil fuel energy. So this year we came in at 43% renewable energy, which is an increase over previous year. So trend is going in the right direction. And I will say one of the things that came out of the VEC report and the action plan is we did broaden our circle a little bit in terms of what we're counting. We dug a little deeper into the schools, and we are now including the school buses, even though they're at least by the city, we're including the school buses in kind of our overall calculations. So, you know, they're, and also just the way that we're grouping some of these things changed a little bit as we, as we went through and dug into all of that. Okay. So this gives you the 10 year picture, just looking at where are we going? The green bar on the bottom is total renewable renewable energy, and the blue section on top is fossil fuels. So you can see, you know, the trend line increasing. You also look at the last two years, you'll see overall energy use has gone down pretty significantly over the last two years. And renewable energy is up. And so therefore, you know, the percentage renewable is increasing. And then when you also kind of look at it, like not just renewable fossil fuel, but we break it down by type, just to kind of understand what the chunks are. So here we've got on the top layer that kind of dark brown section is all electricity. The big blue layer on the bottom, the other biggest chunk is fuel oil. And then in between we've got a mix of propane, diesel, very small. I don't think you can see the pellets line because it's so small compared to everything else. But we have a very small amount of pellets. We have gasoline, biogas, that's from the water resource recovery facility. So those are kind of all the different fuels that add up into this mix. And then we also kind of look at it by department. And so probably should have kept the colors the same and use my blue and green. But in this, in this graph, we're just kind of showing by department, the orange is fossil fuel use, the blue is renewable energy. So generally you can see here, you know, City Hall is on district heat so that it's primarily all renewable. And also I'll say our electricity mix is mostly renewable. So you'll see that in these as well. The elementary school also on district heat. The police station is on district heat, but they do have quite a higher amount of vehicle fuels. So you'll see they have more orange. But the bigger, the biggest users you can say, and the biggest opportunities in terms of fossil fuel reduction are the high school, the middle school, public works, and the water resource recovery facility. So again, I don't think this is probably a huge surprise to any of you, but it's interesting to just kind of look at the variation between departments and it helps us understand kind of where to put our personal energy as we go forward. The other thing I will say just on this is one of the tweaks that we made before we kind of held the district heat utility as a separate department. And now we've folded that into public works. So the energy required to run the district heat loop is under that public works bar in the graph. And it will be going forward. This is just a different way of looking at it. But again, like looking at our total energy use, where are the big chunks? The fuel oil is really the place that we want to focus a lot of our attention going forward. There will also be work to do on diesel and gasoline. But for now, I would say our focus is really narrowing it on fuel switching on some of those buildings that are still running on fuel oil. And this is just looking at it in a different way. Again, my department has a piece of the pie. So these probably won't change significantly. It's ideally just the type of fuel within each of these sectors that will change over time. And you'll see the school bus contractor we got added in here. So overall trends, we actually had a 3.5% reduction from the previous fiscal year. But again, last year was really low partly because of COVID. But it's interesting to look like compared to fiscal year 19, we were down 16%, which is a lot for a two year reduction. And our renewable energy percentage went up from 39% to 43% last year. And the biggest change that happened was the reduction in heating fuel use to run the district heat utility in the summer. So that went down from, I think, around 10,000 gallons to less than around 1,000 gallons. So that was a huge win, something we've been looking forward to for a long time. And so that that is reflected in here. And I just want to give us like the quick snapshot of the 2030 net zero action plan. Again, we worked with VEC. It lays out a path to zero over the next eight years to eliminate or offset all fossil fuel use by 2030. In the plan, we're projecting that we can get to 88% renewable fuel use if we take all the actions that they lay out. And that basically the remaining 12% would need to be covered with offsets. And that's primarily for vehicles, mostly DPW vehicles that we don't anticipate can be electric in the next eight years. The things like the snow plows and excavators and some of the heavy equipment, just not projecting that we're going to be able to get those completely off of gasoline and diesel. So our priorities in terms of just bringing us back to the plan are looking at fuel switching for heating at the high school, the middle school, the water plant, and the DPW garage and office. So those are kind of the four focus areas. And this is just a graph from that plan that shows how we can get there over the next eight years. And you'll see, yeah, kind of a big jump in 2021. And so that is the district heat combined with the upgrades to the wastewater recovery facility. What we didn't quite see in FY21 was that much change at the WERF, but the wastewater plant. Because if you might remember, they're in the process of finishing phase one of the improvements. And those didn't really come into effect until like January. So they still had half of a heating season when they were using oil this past fiscal year. And then they switched to basically running on 100% biogas for heating. So I think that's like looking forward, that's where we're going to see the next big chunk is in FY22. We should see the fuel oil at the wastewater recovery facility dropped pretty close to zero. So just a few footnotes, I guess. We did, we do have an issue with the solar production at the wastewater recovery facility. It's a pretty small array, but it dropped by 90%. It sounds like there's a repair that's needed. And they have someone lined up to do those repairs, but I don't know if that's been completed at this point. Solar production from all of our arrays. So we have a one megawatt array that we lease through our purchase agreement. And that is half of it's in Montpelier and half of it's in Sharon. But the production of our from our big solar array was down 12% overall. And that literally is because it was like not as sunny as the previous year. It was still good. And it was like actually, I think 2020 was just an extremely sunny year. So it looks like a reduction, but it's actually kind of pretty much on par for what we expected. Again, the district heat oil use went down from averaging around 15,000 gallons a year to under a thousand gallons. So that was huge win. We already talked about phase one improvements and we talked about adding the school bus contractor. And I think that's all I got. So I'd be happy to take questions from the council or the public. Thank you, Kate. Jack, go ahead. Thanks. Thanks, Kate. As always, great presentation and the information is really great to have. I have two, I guess, yes, a question and observation. And the observation is that since we've added the school bus contract into the picture, what that means is that 43% is not only a bigger percentage of our total use, but it's a bigger percentage of a bigger number. So it's a bigger advance than that percentage increase would suggest. And so, yes. A small question about the vehicles. I assume that if the difference between, there's no difference in greenhouse gas and climate impact between diesel and gasoline. There is a slight difference in the emissions profile. I'd have to pull up all my conversion tables, but yeah. So does that suggest that we should, to the extent that we could, we should be looking to move from gas to diesel or is it the other way? Oh, I don't think you should think about either of those. I think you should think about how to get off both. And yeah, the incremental difference is not significant. So I don't think it would be worth saying, okay, we go through the process of switching from a diesel snow cloud to a gas snow cloud. Yeah, let's focus on other things. Yeah, people, whenever we're buying vehicles, people are used to hearing me say, would that have been available in an electric version? Thanks. Any other questions or comments? Yeah, Lauren, go ahead. No questions, because as always, Kate did such a great job explaining everything, but just wanted to, first of all, thank you. I know it's such a huge amount of work to actually gather and collate all of that data and appreciate how you put it in such compelling and easy to understand format for all of us and all the different breakdowns are really helpful to see. And I think it's just really exciting to see the steady progress that we now have the 2030 action plan that we funded last year and that the community just voted in the budget to invest in energy coordinator position, as well as some of these upgrades and fuel switching investments and things. So keeping moving on it. So just love keeping an eye on it and keeping on track to make those. And I think it's just worth noting, I know like the schools came up a lot and there are conversations between MEAC and a school facilities committee. So just noting that for folks that that there's obviously that needs to be a big part of the attention over the next couple of years and conversations are at least happening and hopefully. Yes, I guess they're meeting tomorrow. I'm not going to be able to be there, but yes, the school district facilities committee has been a guest talking about restarting. So that's a good sign. And we're going to try to have MEAC representation or at least like try to have someone come and attend those meetings going forward. And I'll say, Lauren, I look forward to handing off my spreadsheet to the new energy coordinator or whoever is hired because I don't need to do it anymore. And also a shout out to Todd Provencher who was back in City Hall temporarily and help was the one that chased down all the data for us. So couldn't have done it without him. Thank you. Yeah, Jennifer. Hi. Yeah. I just wanted to also kind of piggyback on what Lauren said about the presentation. And I really truly appreciate as a new council person using plain language. It's super helpful. And I know that a lot of people in the community really like it when the presentations are presented this way and in a way that everybody can wrap their head around what is being shared. So thank you again for that. Thank you. Yeah, Donna. Well, also wonderful presentation, Kate, but we also owe you appreciation for how much information you shared during the budget time trying to explain the energy coordinator position. So we're all looking forward to that one. So thank you. Yeah, I guess I also just want to say how satisfying it is to set goals and then see us make progress towards them. I find that incredibly gratifying and is one of the reasons why well, first of all, why I always appreciate this presentation, but it's also motivational like that idea of making progress towards goals. It does just apply to energy. It applies to like all the things in city government. And I really appreciate when we can see that progress. It's wonderful. Other thoughts or comments and this includes the public. I know it's too bad. Most of the other things that we work on aren't as easily graphed. Doesn't mean that is important, but this is something that's a very tangible metric. Yeah, yeah. Great. Anyone else? Okay. All right. Thank you, Kate, for your presentation and all your energy and work on this again. And we're going to move on to... Is it time for a break? Oh my gosh, I almost forgot. I can hear Peter. He knows. He knows. Peter does know. He does know. He's here hanging out with us. Oh, Peter. Anyway, so let's take 10 minutes and we'll be back 8.31. Oh, Peter's waving. Bye. We'll see you in 10 minutes. 8.31. Okay, bye-bye. Okay. I think we are all here. That's great. Okay, so thank you for that reminder to take that 10-minute break. That's great. Okay, so we are up to the mask mandate extension and the... I love that the recommended action here is just discuss and decide what you want to do. That's great. So, Bill, is there anything you want to say in context for this? If not, that's fine. Well, I guess, you know, as you know, the city was given the authority by the state to enact mask mandates on a local level. And with the proviso that they be renewed every third, you know, first after 40 to five days and then 35 days, 30 days, excuse me, so you last enacted this on February 9. So it would expire this week if you take no action. And so it's on the agenda to see whether you wish to continue. Obviously, things have changed since the last time we enacted this. The state is moving to an optional... Nationally, things are changing. I think Cameron may... Are you raising your hand to add data, Cameron? Yeah, okay. So I'll turn it over to her. Thank you. Since I wrote the memo and submitted it to y'all for this cover sheet, the state has announced that they will be stepping back their masking requirements on the 14th, and that wasn't included. So what Bill just alluded to, I wanted to make sure you were aware of. Thank you. I also got an email from Tan Groberg this week saying that the downtown majority of the businesses downtown are hoping that we do not renew the mask mandate. So with that in mind, thoughts folks have on extending or not? Carrie, go ahead. Oh, and then Lauren, yeah. Thanks. I just also wanted to add that I've checked on the CDC website and they have Washington County as a medium transmission county rather than a high transmission county. And so we're not falling under the CDC recommendations for indoor masking currently. Okay, Lauren. And then Connor. Yeah, I had looked at the same data point because it was something that we had really relied on. Really, I think throughout this we've been trying to follow the CDC and scientific guidance as best we can. So my inclination at this point is to let it lapse. I think it could be a tool we might need to use again. So if this is where CDC federal guidance and state guidance is coming down from our public health experts, that is my inclination right now. And again, if it sounds like the businesses and others are having trouble enforcing it, I'd like to keep it in the toolbox for times if we see, you know, hopefully not, but if we see, you know, other times when we need to use it, that it goes back into effect and is effective as a tool because we're using it being driven by the science. To that point, Council Member Harrell and others, the authorization from the state for cities and towns to adopt these only ran to a time certain. I want to say April 1st, it might have been April 30, but so it isn't necessarily a tool we'll have in our toolbox for a whole lot longer. So just to be clear, unless the state reenacts the local government authorization. Yeah, I'm thinking more long term that that like, who knows what's going to happen over the next year or so, you know, a couple of years, whatever. So, but yes, true, like even if we did want to reauthorize, we only have a few more weeks or till the end of April to do it. But yeah, so that's that's my current thinking. All right, honor. Yeah, I'm on the same page. I think like masks are like the fullest extent of our powers as municipal officials. And I think like any like budgetary item any item on the agenda tonight doesn't really hold a candle to like requiring like residents wear masks. And I think like we've stepped up where like the state has really sharped their responsibility. They've taken like a negligent patchwork approach, letting municipalities decide when really like a statewide mandate would have been necessary. So I like agree with Lauren. I think like COVID is like good chance it's going to continue being part of our reality for the next few months, maybe the next few years, it may necessitate like future mandates here. But as cases go down, I also think we should follow the science, you know, with the reports that came out. I think we need to listen to the community with Montpelier alive there. And we need residents to trust us in case there's a future need for a mandate. Currently, I'm just going to say like it's not being enforced. Some businesses are being openly defiant. Cullen City Hall saying we're not going to do it anymore. So we're on an island and we're making like life really difficult from like retail workers I've spoken to, food service workers. It's like monopolize in their day just telling people you got to wear the mask. So I think it's time to take a pause. Make sure we retain the trust of the community. Brattleboro note just like removed their mandates and they were one of the leaders on this issue going against the states. So like tonight I would vote like not to renew it. Not because I don't believe in mask mandates, but because I really do believe in mask mandates and I think we need to do it sparingly and make sure we retain the trust there. Other thoughts. Donna. Well, if we decide not to renew it, we just let it lapse. We don't have we need a vote. We just we don't do anything. It'll expire on Friday the 11th, right? Yeah, I think that's accurate. We I think we could vote to repeal it early if we wanted to, but we could just let it lapse. That's a sense and easier thing to do, I suppose. But any other thoughts from folks? Okay, anyone want to just oh yeah, go ahead. Go ahead, Jack. Thanks. I came into this really thinking the other way. I think that the way we the way Washington County got to from high down to medium was in part by doing prudent things like getting people vaccinated and wearing masks. We've only been at the medium level for for two weeks. And so my inclination was to say that we should extend it one more time just to see, but I am I don't like wearing a mask out any more than anyone else. And so I I see that that's what the majority sense is on the council and I don't have a problem with that. Okay, thank you Cameron. Hello, I am just letting you know that Stephen Whitaker is in the queue for public comments. Okay, Steve, go ahead. I guess she can mute me, but she can't unmute me. I want to point out that it's as far as Cameron's comment about trust. It's too late for that. You've already lost it. And you know, the I warned you when you were doing this that there's no enforcement mechanism. And what you did is you shamed a lot of folks like at Shaw's. And yet you ignored, you know, three penny with people five, six deep yelling in each other's face, you know, one foot apart without all without masks. So you've made a real farcical embarrassment out of the whole thing. And now you're trying to pretend that you're in a safe place here. So no pun intended there. But it's time to be wise to vote it ends tonight. Thank you. All right. And any other comments from council? Otherwise, we're from the public. Okay. All right. So I don't think that we need to have a motion. But anyone like to make one? Yes, Jack. I move we terminate the mask order effective immediately. Oh, second. Okay. It's been a motion and a second. Further discussion. Okay, not seeing any of the public is welcome to comment as well. Okay, I just want to pause in here to make sure no one wants to say anything. Okay. Terminating it immediately. All in a favor, please say aye. Aye. And opposed. Okay. Sounds like it is unanimous. So we are terminating that immediately. Jack. Thank you. It raises the question of what the status is of the requirement in city of my failure buildings. Yes, I agree. Now, yes, build thoughts. Well, I was actually just scratching my head, but I mean, our, you know, we've been trying to follow the mandate. So, you know, we're some of the requirements that employers were able to have are also being relaxed. So we're just following those same guidelines. So my sense is those would be relaxed, you know, are off as of now, since you just voted. Yeah. Okay. If you have the sense, well, did anybody interested in keeping the mask? We could, I mean, you could keep something imposed in city buildings. That is your authority as agents of the owners. Any thoughts on that team? Okay. I'm not seeing any comments on keeping the mask requirement for city buildings. I just want to make a note, Bill, if you know that there's a desire to have that for city buildings, please let us know when we can take it back up. Okay. All right. So we're going to move on then. So the next item is the proclamation for Meals on Wheels. This being a Meals on Wheels, I'm sorry, March for Meals Month. So, yeah, March for Meals. All right. So there is the proclamation there. And Sarah Lipton was here, but I don't see her here with us now. Bill or Cameron, anything you want to say about this? Yes, I'd love to. So Sarah, since her apologies for not being able to be here, she has two small young children. So it is definitely their bedtime. So just so you're aware, we have had a very successful year so far since we've transitioned to taking our Meals for Wheels program in-house with our own chef in our own kitchen, providing those meals. I will have data for you shortly, but we have had exponential growth in our references and people being referred and wanting to be part of our Meals on Wheels program. It's been a really important part of the city for many years. We were trying to dig into the history of it, and it's passed through hands for a long time. Over the last 25 years, I think it's been out of the city in some capacity. So I probably am not speaking entirely accurately on the history there, but it goes to show that this program has been important to our community for a long time. I really recommend to everyone, please look out for our announcement on the events we have for March for Meals. We have some really excellent fun events that include a concert, a whole host of other activities, and amazing food. We have a wonderful chef. Shalonda is incredibly gifted and the food is amazing no matter what stage of life you're in. So I just want to say thank you for continuing support of this really, really vital project and program for a lot of people in our community. And I hope to see you all at some of our March for Meals events. So thank you for reading this proclamation. Yeah, thank you. All right. Donna, yes. We need a motion. I make a motion that we set off this proclamation March 2022 as the March for Meal months. Okay. And is there a second? A second. Okay. The motion and a second. Any further discussion? Okay. Before we do, though, I just want to remind folks of Sarah's invitation to deliver a meal during the week of March 21st. Sign up to help participate. So any further discussion? Okay. All in favor, please say aye. And opposed. Okay. Super. Thank you. It's great. All right. And we are ready to move on to the first reading of the temporary public parklet ordinance. Bill, anything you want to say about this? Yeah, we talked about this, I think, at the last meeting about how to proceed with the parklet program and the conclusion of the then sitting council was that you wanted to renew the temporary ordinance that we've had for the last couple of years while we worked on a more permanent ordinance. So this, as you know, the temporary ordinance has a begin and end date. So it has already expired from last year. So this would be reupping it for this next season. So it requires a first and second reading. So this is the first reading next meeting would be next reading would be at the next meeting. And at some point, hopefully this spring, and I shouldn't even say hopefully we will have it by this spring, we'll have a permanent version for you. That would take effect, you know, after this temporary one expires for so that people going forward know what the rules are and how many more spaces can be used and all those kinds of things. Okay. So just to make sure we're clear on this, this is just the temporary one will be looking at a more permanent one later on. So I'm going to officially open the public hearing on this. Thoughts comments. Lauren and then Connor. Is that a hand? Okay. Go ahead, Lauren. Yeah, I mean, I fully support doing this. I think it's been great for the community and for businesses. My only questions were the dates. I thought last year we had done it earlier than May 1. So I was wondering if we might want to look at an earlier date like April 15. I can't remember if we had done April 1 last year. I feel like we did it ambitiously early and extended it longer. That's right. West Hamilton promised to plow parking spaces. He was going to get out there on the show and do it. So I might propose, oh, it looks like Cameron might have an answer to what we had done last year or thinking. I think she's raising her hand for Steve. Okay. So I might propose like April 15. And then my only question had to do with, so like it looks like the last line says there's no fees, but people can be kind of grandfathered in like at this point, nobody's paying fees anymore. Just want to make sure it's in the fair playing field. Okay. Those were my only thoughts. Okay. Great. Connor. And Lauren stole my thunder there. I totally, you know, I'd support April 15th. And just thanks to the city staff here. It's, I think it's been a real game changer for some businesses in town. Like one restaurant in particular was saying, not last year, but the year before, 80% of their business was done in a park list. So it could very well mean the difference between some businesses surviving or not in this climate. So definitely support it. Super. Any other councilor want to make a comment on this? Okay. All right. So Cameron, I assume you are raising your hand because Steve would like to speak. Yes. Okay, Steve, go ahead. Can you hear me? Yes. So I have raised these issues and concerns repeatedly and they've never been addressed. The issue with, well one, this first public hearing is not warned properly 48 hours in advance. It was warned. I downloaded an agenda today and it said second reading. If this is the first reading, you haven't warned it properly. Secondly, the issue has to do with grandfather's grandfathering because you left too much discretion or you, yeah, you allow blanket discretion to the city manager who allowed building in a fire lane. And that's a fire lane is not a parking spot. So you've, I've raised this prior and it's not been discussed or addressed or resolved. So I want to make damn sure that you're not blocking fire lanes with, you know, grandfather discretion here. And secondly, you still haven't addressed the issue of a taking of public property for private use when the store is not open. Those properties are, that those public properties are supposed to be available to the public. And you've repeatedly had folks stacking chairs and tables and blocking access and chaining across walkways, et cetera. And that's just not okay. You cannot allow, you know, the public property be taken for private purposes just to sloppy management. So those are two very important issues that need to get discussed probably before your first reading, which might necessarily and legally need to happen at the next meeting. Thanks. Thank you. Yes, Bill, go ahead. Sure. A couple of things. First of all, we don't actually require two readings for ordinances. We do it as a, as a courtesy. So there's no legal requirement for that and ordinance can be adopted at a meeting and a single public hearing. The current agenda that I have says first reading, I'd have to go back and look and see why an early one may have said second, but it's irrelevant. I mean, other than doesn't look good. Secondly, this isn't the first time this person has raised the issue of a fire lane. And after, after the last time we had the fire chief go out and inspect and look, and there are no blocked fire lanes at all by Parklets. I don't know what he's talking about, but we are certainly very conscious we would not allow one in a fire line. Great. Thank you. All right. Any other comments or questions? Okay. So I am going to close public hearing on this and is there a, actually, I guess we, we probably for the next reading, we could use a motion for a second reading camera. I just wanted to acknowledge that Steve was continuing to try to talk and I did mute him. So if you want to recognize again, that is obviously your prerogative. I think we're going to move on. But thank you. Yes, Bill. Well, only if you want to amend the date, you could, we could pass first reading. I will leave that to you, council. What do you want to do? Donna? No, no, I was just following Bill and Lauren's suggestion of passing the first reading with the insertion of April 15th for May 1. Okay. Motion and a second. Any further discussion? Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And opposed. Okay. Great. All right. So police review committee scheduling recommendation. So there's a number of items that we have yet to take up from the police review committee. And so we've got a potential way they could, we've laid them out, or it's been proposed that we lay them out for the next few months. Either just to check in. Bill or Cameron, would you like to say anything about this or Jack or Lauren, since you're on the police review committee? So we'll just weigh in very briefly that, you know, at the last time the, we had an update with the police chief and with Melissa Sharon, who had been the chair of the committee, was, I think in February, mayor, when you were still out and just gave an update on all the things that had been done and those that hadn't been done, it was clear there were four or five issues, five or six issues that really required the council to take on more so than staff to do. And so the council said, you know, we would like to schedule these just so we don't, we have them on the list. So we took a crack at it and laid out a potential schedule with the idea of, you know, moving them along so that we can get on to other things, you know, decide what we're going to do. And if there's, you know, follow up action from those and, you know, try to wrap it up before the summer vacation period hits. But we did not consult with Alyssa or anyone else. And I know, I know Lauren didn't send out some potential changes. We have no problem with those. It was just really, we were looking at which ones to group together, the ones we thought might be more challenging and really needed their own night versus the ones that might not and, you know, lay them all out. But really, however you counsel want to tackle it, we're ready to go. Great. Thoughts? Lauren, go ahead. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, so I had wanted to check in with Alyssa, knowing in particular as chair of that and as a conduit to like the way we had done our work, different people had really dove into different issue areas. So wanting to make sure that those folks could participate. So I had just working with her. So like she's not what isn't available that first April date. So I'm going to email you, but I'll read it out. So people who are not there had worked on a schedule that would work for her. It's very similar to what the staff put together. It just space it out just a little bit because I think the conversations, you know, I think they will take a little time. And the dates, this just kind of puts them one per meeting. I know that some of these would probably take multiple meetings. And so I think at some point we might want to decide do we want to work simultaneously or just work through one issue at a time and close it down. But so this would propose just kind of keeping on pace to be bringing up different issues, but not overloading us because it's mostly would be I think different people and different expertise speaking to the different issues. So this so what I proposing for a slight change is the first conversation or agenda items to be changing the minimum standards for officer recruitment and public drinking on April 27. Then sex work recommendations on May 11. Then fair and impartial policing on May 25. And finally the internal affairs citizen complaints conversation. And do we want to create a civilian Montpelier police advisory committee June 8. And then I just put on there that it would be great to also build in a check in on all of the ongoing great work that the department's doing on the whole suite of other recommendations we got an update on in February because there were a lot of kind of ongoing work there. So it'd be great to see progress you know this summer. So that's my proposal. Great. So it sounds like all of the well so switches around a couple but mostly pushes them back. Is that sort of a fair way to start back a little bit. And then there were a couple that were lumped together that it has one at a time that I think in and of themselves could be pretty robust conversations and knowing every meeting we have lots of topics besides police review committee recommendations. So yeah was just trying to be cognizant of what I thought could bring in a lot of kind of public comment and stuff. Any thoughts on that on what Lauren is saying there either Bill or Cameron. That's fine with you. Okay great. I mean my biggest thing I'm just hoping to avoid conflicts and and actually Lauren you had two on the same day. Can you say what those two were again. But there's two that are have two at the first one changing many minimum stands for officer recruitment. I think that would likely be a pretty brief discussion and then public drinking. I think will be an interesting one although I think actually could be less controversial than some of the other ones. So I thought we could those two we could probably have time to do on the same night. And then the final one was internal affairs and and then that was just do we want to create a new like reconstitute the police review committee or a new police advisory committee which seemed appropriate at whatever our last one is is like because there were a lot of issues that we had flagged as that we didn't get to and I know the chief had noted like whatever legislation passes this year there's often then like work that communities have to do to actually implement those new laws and of course there's a lot of kind of criminal justice reform laws in action at the state house this year. So those are the two that are the two dates that have things lumped together. Well and it makes sense to me that you know if if that's the last one and it just on the court by the course of discussion it becomes clear that like we we don't have time to do both we could probably separate them out if we needed to. Okay other thoughts on this? Jack. I'll just mention as the other council representative on the committee that Lauren I talked earlier about her idea and I think it it makes total sense and still the residents of Montpelier will see that we're making a concrete process progress on the on the tasks that we had set out for ourselves and so I think it's a perfectly responsible way to approach it. Okay other thoughts on this? Okay oh getting some thumbs up that's great oh more thumbs up yeah I you know I think especially if you know there's no objection from staff I don't see any reason to not go with what Lauren's laid out so let's see do you know it doesn't hurt to have a motion on this we probably don't need one necessarily but it doesn't hurt would anyone like to make a motion? Go ahead Lauren go ahead. So I move that we adopt the schedule laid out as described and Crystal I can forward that to you or if Miller Cameron can make sure you get that it was all written out so you don't have to transcribe that. Does that give you enough for minutes? Yeah that's great. Okay great. Okay there's motion and second further discussion. Okay all in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. And opposed. Thank you Lauren. Yes yes and thank you for keeping the police review committee in touch with all of us to make sure that they could stay involved that's great. All right so that is the end of our regular business for the day for today that is excellent. Okay so now we just need to go through some council reports so just for new folks some context about this this is an opportunity for counselors to bring up anything that you just want us to know if there's upcoming events or if you or past events that you want us to know happened or if you were appointed to a committee and they have met and you want to let us know what they are discussing this is a time that you can do that or or really anything else honestly it's it all it all goes so and I am going to go in the order in which you would be sitting I think if we were in person just because I can't think about it in any other way. Donna you good for going first? Okay I have two things one is to let you know as a council that the next meeting you're going to have a short presentation from a joint subgroup that's been working on implementing what was recommended in a main street berry street corridor study and within that study we have a traffic light which is one of the bond issues going in between berry and main street also there's a two lane bike lane that's going to go into two-way bike lane so I don't know about six foot bike lane is shared by going both directions on berry street it starts at where it junctions with main street it goes down berry street on the south side down to the rec department because then the rec department has a little alleyway where you go and you connect with the shared use paths and that's going to happen this summer thanks to working with local motion in Burlington and Cory has connected with DPW and they feel they have the staffing to help with aligning but you'll hear all about this in detail we want to make sure to remind the public that the study happened and decisions were made how to do this and get people's heads up before it's actually intimate implemented so that'll be happening on the 23rd and also to let you know some staff members are already aware central Vermont public safety authority is now unfortunately one member less capital far and mutual aid system has decided to withdraw from the public safety authority so we now have just the membership of berry and Montpelier and this group at the board of the public safety authority meets tomorrow night and is looking how it still wants to advance the RFP to to outline the equipment needed to get the whole region updated for its radio system so good news bad news thank you can I ask you a question Donna yes about the shared use path that's going in on berry street I assume we're going to need to have some public hearings on ordinance changes for parking no no it's it's it's what it's doing is it's taking up parking spaces yep cover the parking meters okay parking we'll put in cones and painting but no it's just a short term demo okay okay stop gap measure to try it out before we actually implement the actual implementation would be a shared use path instead of the sidewalk will be broadened this temporary stop gap is down on the level of cars vehicles right okay we'll have to put a protection barrier lining okay but it's a good comment we did look into it but okay no that's that's helpful and the do you have anticipate you know when that will start well we're hoping June 15th but but we'll know more about that when we talk to you on the 23rd okay and we'll also have our price things priced out some of our equipment that we need to do it like the cones okay great thank you Connor all right let's talk wacky tobacco for a minute you may see an article coming out on the bridge about the future of retail cannabis Montpelier as you know not last town meeting day but the one before Montpelier overwhelmingly supported the idea of allowing retail cannabis within within the municipality at the moment patients alliance which is on river street over by bear naked grounder as far as I know is the only one like really looking to like set up in city limits there's potential for them to actually flip the switch on May 1st which would allow folks who have provided medical cannabis before to switch to that integrated license I think that's unlikely just talking to them because we're waiting for the labs to set up in Vermont and get tested and I don't think that's going to be online before May 1st so it's probably a later date but what you might see is in the legislation currently pending in the state house it does allow for municipalities to set up a local cannabis commission it's kind of unclear what the authority would be for the municipality in that case because you do have the state cannabis board who would be able to like sort of override anything like that so gonna like pay attention the more details of that coming up I haven't heard it being terribly controversial about like patients alliance like switching to the retail shop there I think like you know the culture of the town won't change too much it'll still be the same location there might be more traffic there but we've had a good relationship with that business like up until now see you might not see too much change but it might be worth like taking the temperature of the community in the meantime to see if we want any sort of like local control over this so we'll just keep you posted I was going to ask around on folks who had like concerns on front porch forum there to see what they thought but I think we have to see how it plays out in the legislature so that's it for me great thank you all right Carrie go ahead well um I don't have any big reports to make other than I'm really glad to be here and I just kind of wanted to thank all the people who voted and thank people for the opportunity to be here and part of this group and thank all of you for the warm welcome super all right Jennifer hi did I unmute myself yes oh my goodness I'm so sorry I don't know why I can't figure out this iPad anyways um I don't have anything to report other than thank you to all the voters who went out and voted and I really look forward to chatting with the can folks Peter and all them and getting to know my neighborhood and my constituents great super thank you jack thank you just a couple of things one I appreciate the very informative post by the manager about the voter turnout and the historical trends and I think it's been helpful to understand what what the phenomena are about the voter turnout in Montpelier I suspect we would have had a higher turnout if as we discussed this leading up to the election if Roxbury select board had voted to allow mail-in balloting for the Montpelier Roxbury public school vote then we would have had mail-in voting universally in our town and I think our turnout would have been higher but it was a reasonably good turnout by by our standards and certainly better than many other communities um also connected to the election I'm very pleased to see the dialogue starting right away about what to do with the country club club road property and I hope everybody who is interested in the future of that property and the community will will participate so we can get a plan that will best serve the interests and needs of the community for generations into the future and finally I was approached by by two different people in in the last couple of weeks who wanted to tell me how great they think the the services from the department of public works have been and they there are people who uh both people who live on uh in in difficult locations who've had communications with the department and or just observed where they live that that the snow removal and the work that the DPW crews have done has been great and so I encourage them to tell to contact the the department but I also want to say you know we hear a lot about uh what's negative when when things go wrong and so I'm happy to say that the their good work is being recognized and that's what I've got but I've got yeah cool thank you uh Lauren yeah thank you um just two quick things um first just I missed the last meeting I imagine this came up but just I know a lot of my thoughts are with the people of Ukraine and um just encouraging people there've been a lot of good posts of places you can donate and support and I think you know to our earlier conversation on energy watching gas prices skyrocket and trying to get off fossil fuels and stop being beholden to global markets that the whims of um auto crafts around the globe can impact our energy prices is putting us in a perilous situation that's harming the most vulnerable in our community so just another reason to make the transition to clean energy and um and you know again just thinking of the people in Ukraine and what we can do from here to support them um and then just wanted to like everyone thank the voters for turning out overwhelmingly supporting the budget um the support for the bond items I'm a big fan of mail and voting but it was really fun to see lots of people at the polls um and thanks to the volunteers that showed up um to work at the polls um I got a lot of great input on the can candidate forum um so that was a great service and hope that those continue in the future um and really excited for the elks club public hearing um coming up right away as a starting point for lots of really exciting conversations about the opportunities there thanks thank you yeah um I I agree um my heart is just broken over um what we're seeing coming out of Ukraine but also want to acknowledge that there are a lot of uh wars other wars around the world that are um that are also happening and are also terrible um and um you know I'm glad that we uh have a history of hosting refugees in Montpelier and I know that we would uh continue to welcome refugees um from Ukraine or any country um here in Montpelier as we have uh capacity um so uh uh beyond that I also want to thank uh the voters for um their confidence in re-electing me um for another two years and uh also grateful that um all the items uh passed and uh I want to let folks know that I'm going to continue to hold office hours uh available on Sunday afternoons at 2 p.m. uh and if anyone is interested in joining me for those office hours just email me and I will send you a link um and uh so yeah I'm just avoiding posting the link generally publicly but if you're interested email me and we'll we'll connect um Sundays at 2 uh also um a couple people have mentioned the upcoming forum on uh the Elks Club property uh I'm gonna have a hard time switching uh what we call it for some reason like I don't know just calling it the Elks Club properties I don't know maybe I just like the image of Elks but anyway um uh that I just want to make sure that people know that uh there's a forum for uh brainstorming and input uh we want to hear from the public about what they would like to see happen on that property and that is going to be next Tuesday at 6 30 uh it is just a virtual meeting so um not in person we'll uh we'll be doing this uh sort of format again for that and uh yeah that's um I think that is it for me all right so I think next we are going to Crystal um I just wanted to again thank you for thanks to all the volunteers that came out and helped on election day it was you know such important work and they are just so great and I also want to remind everybody that the water and sewer bills are due next Tuesday on the 15th great thank you uh that's it um just quickly uh I was mentioned earlier today um just to mention that we do typically do a follow up um four items that come up under general business in the weekly memo each each week uh so stuff that's raised we we try to keep a status of what's happened with that uh so it's there for all to see and the only other thing I have is um you had tentatively planned or had voted to hold the next meeting also remote but with the change in the mask ordinance I just want to make sure or the mask mandate to see what your your desires were for our next meeting that is a good question um thoughts team I I could see it going either way well I guess my number one concern Ann as a young mother with a young baby how comfortable you are with in-person meetings um I will I would be okay it will be okay and and Jennifer was the other one uh who had a lot of difficulties I mean because you can still wear a mask but you had a lot of difficulties with masks so yeah I I I I will be okay um yeah because one thought is that I so one reason to stay remote is that we had voted to to go remote and um so it's consistent with that that decision uh but I think it is probably better to like for the sake of democracy to be back in person and yeah so I I think that is probably more um important um and I'm gonna think about whether or not I might ask the people on either side of me to wear masks I don't know we'll see um I'll I'll talk about that with my family see what what we think about that um but we'll go carry and then uh Vicki and Lynn yeah I just have a question whether people would have the ability to attend by zoom if they needed to for whatever reason it's a great question uh yes so we when we were in personal a while ago we also kept the uh virtual option and I imagine we're gonna continue that on into the future because it does expand the capacity of people's ability to participate so that's our plan as long as the council wants to have it okay uh Vicki go ahead um I just wanted to say that I really think you should be in person that's all all right thank you uh okay so I because we had a vote to be remote for the month of March uh seems like we could use a vote to undo that Donna well since I made the other motion I'll make this one that I'll make a motion that we meet in person on March 23rd I miss you Donna I'll second that one side by side you just like sitting next to short people I know he's been you and me Donna hey all right um okay so there's a motion and there was a second right okay um all right to all in favor please say aye aye aye and opposed okay so we'll see you in person on the 23rd very exciting I mean that'll be different okay I think that is it then um uh jack thanks I just since John's not here I'll just remind the council that there are going to be items to be signed over at the police department fair enough thank you um okay anything else okay so without objection uh we will adjourn the meeting 9 24