 Do you approve the agenda? We do not have very much on our agenda, but would anyone like to make any suggested changes? Okay, so with that we'll consider the agenda approved. So on to general business and appearances. This has been an opportunity for any member of the public to address the council on an issue, otherwise not on our agenda. And in this format, I assume if you're here with want to say something, maybe just raise your hand and I'll recognize you. But to start out, I want to check with Bill and Cameron and John. Do you have anyone on the line that would like to or in person that would like to address the council? There are no people here from the general public other than staff and David on the cameras. Cameron is staffing the phone line and she says there's no one on the phone line. Welcome. And what any of you like to say anything? There should be a way up at the top right where there's you can't see them all at once. You have to cruise, you have to stroll. There is a way to do it. Check to gallery view and everyone will be tiled kind of like on the Brady bunch. There's a picture up on the upper right that has like a square with a bunch of little squares inside it. And if you click on that, you'll see everybody. Hopefully that helps. Thank you. Okay. Well done, Jack. Thank you. Generational reference. Okay. So on to the consent agenda. Is there a motion regarding the consent agenda? Before you all do that, can I just do my due diligence here? This is John. I have a couple of small edits I can give John. Hang on one second. John, go ahead. Yeah, just because I don't have it to pass out, the liquor licenses you all would be renewing just for the record as a second class license application from Cumberland Farms and a first class as well as a outside consumption permit from Bear Naked Growler. And they also have a second class as well. And can you just clarify for us how this will work in terms of signatures? Normally we pass around a book. What is the procedure for this format? Well for these, for the liquor license, the only one I can speak to, liquor control from what I understand hasn't caught quite up to the situation. So I'm just going to append a tested copy of the minutes and send them in. So hopefully they'll be all right. And John, do you want to mention any changes to the minutes? Oh, I flipped around the ones you sent me, the participants from the 18th. And it sounded like Donna wanted to get some technical changes to me. That's that's fine if they're non substantive, then you get to send them to it. If to build, do we have the ability to unmute ourselves now? I believe so. Yes. I'm gonna try it. More got muted. Okay. And I've unmuted myself. So I think at this point, because we can unmute ourselves if you would take a minute to mute yourself if you're not otherwise speaking that would be great. And Donna, you have some amendments? Yeah, there in the 11th minutes, it's the central Vermont regional planning commission committee, social and transportation advisory committee. So just some words there that I'll send John. Sorry, I didn't notice. And I had a question, which I think John answered on the 18th. It's not everybody was on the phone. Yeah, I had to understand everything that John said. I had you all flipped as far as the participants. So they're flipped back. Who participated where? Okay, thank you. And I believe we had a motion from Jack. Was that right? And then Connor, did you second? Yep. Yep. Okay. All right. So and you understand that to be as amended by John and Donna, is that correct? Great. So I go ahead and unmute yourself if you're not ready. But all in favor, please say aye. Hi. Okay, so the consent agenda passes. And so we're on to the above and beyond recognition for the month of February. Bill, do you want to talk about this? Sure, we'll just go quickly. We are the recipient is not here. But this month's recipient is Carrie McCool, who is one of our dispatchers was nominated by several people for consistently coming to work with a good attitude and able to juggle many things and has helped improve the work environment. So excuse me. So we were happy that she was our recipient this year for the above and this month for the above and beyond award. Back over to you. You know, I'm wondering if we wanted shouldn't do the downtown master plan first since the folks are all on the call. Objections to that. And yeah, okay, great. Downtown master plan. I see we have these on the line here. Go ahead and introduce yourself and tell us about the updates. Hi, everybody. Mark Kane, SE group. Can you hear me? Yeah. All right. I'm sharing my screen. So hopefully you can start to see that beginning. I'm joined tonight by Patrick Olsen from SE group and Anders Teresa from Watership Consulting. So first off, let me say thank you. I know this is a we're all kind of learning some new technologies and trying to understand how the world works given the circumstances. So I appreciate you taking a few minutes to talk with us about this project tonight. This is our second time to council. So I don't want to spend, you know, I've got to rehash it all entirely, but I know there's a new council member. So we want to be recognized the fact that there's some new folks here who haven't seen this before or haven't had the opportunity to at least understand it in context with the work that was done. And I thought what I would do tonight is kind of highlight for everybody's benefit some of the changes that were made from the earlier draft. Let me preface this discussion by saying thank you for the comments. Again, it was great to give us some great comments. We got a lot of other good feedback from staff. And I think that was really useful in the changes that were made to get to where we are. So thank you for that, very much. Thank you for that. I'm going to kind of give a highlight overview of some of the big things that the new version of the plan does. And Patrick, you can pick up and address any specific council questions if there are any. So the big thing I think that was really, we wanted to highlight in this final version was to clarify for everybody's benefit what the preferred plan was. There was some confusion or perhaps lack of clarity around what the preferred hybrid plan was. And I'm going to skip down to that section. So bear with me for a second. And for those that have the document or have seen the document, it's on page 30. So one of the things that was not as clear in the previous version was the sort of recommendations on open space, infill and bicycle pedestrian improvements recommendations. We wanted to make sure that we added some materials to kind of communicate that. So there's a new plan in the document, a graphic in the document that sort of highlights some of those elements. Patrick, why don't you just walk everybody through kind of the big takeaways for this, if you could? Sure. So I mean, this is basically kind of hybridizing what we had as separate plans in the first version of this report and keeping in all the stuff that we're ultimately recommending. I think the key things for this are that in terms of open space and infill, we had a couple parcels where we showed them as being either open space or infill. And we kind of now gone ahead and made a specific recommendation. But in particular, this parcel here next to where the bike path comes in, we're recommending that as infill. There's a small alley space up here with that open parcel that they're recommending as open space probably in the form of more of like a plaza given the scale of it. That doesn't mean it wouldn't have some green in there as well, but it's a little bit more of an urban sort of location. So I think those are kind of the key things that we hone in on in terms of land use. And then in terms of the bike head component, we clarified that we're recommending the cycle track on Elm Street, which then would connect to a shared use path that would make its way down to the existing bike path. And so we are not recommending the dedicated bike lanes on Main Street in our recommendations. So I think those are kind of the key things that this plan clarifies. Yeah, the other part of that I would just add with that there was some questions and some discussion earlier about the right area zone. And I think this really clarifies that one of the key objectives of the plan was to identify that if a millennium's perspective that the priority would be to establish that buffer riparian buffer really establish that riparian buffer, but also assure that it's connected to the urban fabric so that it's not just sort of sitting by itself. It's got good ability for the public to get down to that riparian area so that it can be both a recreational amenity, also a stormwater amenity, relative to street or stormwater treatment amenity, and a function as a buffer. So that was one of the core things I think we wanted to clarify. And we had added, just for everybody's benefit, this graphic that kind of highlighted that in the sense that this is the riparian zone, some parking, but the idea is to create that buffer between it and then also to make sure that there's a break or an opportunity to get from the streetscape environment to that riparian environment. That was really kind of a core sort of a recommendation that we wanted to make sure came out in the final presentation. I think this is helping to do that. The other one I think I wanted to sort of spend a couple minutes on was just, sorry I was going to flip through here. There was some conversation earlier about the boldness of the plan, if you will. And I think as you can all hopefully appreciate the fact that this is a community planning process and there's always a blending of perspectives. And I think we had a really good steering committee and we had a really good set of engagements to public. We heard a lot of different perspectives. But there was some concern or some thoughts around the fact that, well is this a bold enough vision for Montpellier? I don't have to tell you guys, you guys think big, you guys have always thought big. So that's great. But we wanted to sort of create this infographic to hopefully highlight the fact that there are some big things in here and it may not seem it in terms of sort of the transition of the urban environment, but they are big in terms of how they position the city for the future. So for example, it's six new public places within this study area, six new public spaces within this study area. Four of them are park environments and two of them are plaza environments. That's the Rialto Bridge Plaza and the Town City Hall Plaza. That's a really big improvement over what's there today. That would be very transformational. And I hope you can envision, imagine the Main Street or State Street was now in a plaza environment integrated into it. That's from a visual experience. That's going to be a very different and probably rewarding outcome. The other piece I think that's really important is this graphic that shows the pedestrian zone expansion. So we're going on different street segments. We're going from 38 to 52 percent more pedestrian environment while still balancing the need to maintain cars. And that's something that as we talked about in the plan some length, we heard from a lot of people in the business community that cars are still really important. The good news that I think is sort of relevant is that obviously we're making strides in expanding that pedestrian realm through these ideas. But also we're positioning for that number to go up even higher as the street evolves over time. So the idea of using setting forth the street design that allows you to flexibly get rid of some spaces as the demand wanes is really the kind of core principle here. So it's very conceivable that if you know if these streets are constructed and sort of the approach that's been presented at 52 percent for Main Street, for example, within a few years that could be 60, 70 percent as you have built out other parking facilities, as you create those connections to those parking facilities and as hopefully as the demand for cars lessens as we all get better at micro transit, better at using our bikes and better at walking to where we need to go. So that's a big, I think that's a big thing and I think you guys are positioned really well to sort of make some strides there. The other one I know some people in the community are really excited about this, 80 more new street trees that's in this little study area. It's relatively small. This isn't the entirety or downtown. This is a small portion of your downtown. So that's really huge and I think it comes also with a 15 times increase in the soil volume to help them grow. So that's a huge add, I think, in terms of plan. We wanted to clarify that because the plan actually does document that but it did really sort of speak to that. And then the last one I sort of point out this is 15 percent average per street impermeable pavement. Patrick, why don't you talk about that? That's a big number as an urban environment. Yeah, so, you know, we're recommending the use of permeable pavers. These would be like a traditional clay brick paver that has joint kind of spaces that allow water to pass through it. So that's kind of in this designated tree belt zone where this paver band would occur. And so that's going to be really useful for getting, you know, stormwater or rainwater to the roots of the trees so they can really thrive. It also is just reducing the amount of water that goes straight into the catch basin and can, you know, potentially get some filtration action to improve water quality. So that's kind of a more progressive kind of way of doing things these days. South Burlington installed a street in Burlington did as well in the past year. So yeah, by the way, things are headed. The other part of that that I think is really to go into this idea of how how bold is this plan, how positioned is this plan ultimately to help the community sort of make those next decisions about what's the priorities, what's the design solutions, all of that. I think one of the things, and Andres, you can talk to this, is that we've made in this document and in this process a nexus between stormwater treatment and the development of the urban environment. And we've linked those together through that modeling process. And there was a lot of technical information that was provided the appendix that some of you hopefully took a look at. That's really pretty deep stuff. And I'm not going to speak to it. I think we have something on the call that can actually speak to that. But but really come from our perspective, from the planning perspective, I think the most important thing is it linked, it links, I think in a real tangible way, the idea that you can start to you can start to transition your streetscape to achieve a stormwater treatment regimen and actually understand what you're trying to do in terms of foster reduction, for example. So that's a hugely empowering sort of frame of reference for thinking about urban design and streetscape design. It's not just to solve the human problem of pedestrian mobility or placemaking or economic development activity. It's also to achieve a tangible, demonstrable stormwater treatment outcome. And, you know, Andres, you can speak this when you spend a couple of minutes talking about that, because this really I think does propel you guys forward. Yeah, so I can you guys hear me okay? So yeah, I mean, the plan that we that we proposed was really, as Mark was saying, was really based on a quantified study in it. I mean, it started by meeting with public works and really trying to understand kind of the constraints within the study area and also the really what the what the main water quality issues are within the study area. So, you know, understanding that the soils are generally poor, building foundations are are old, you know, there's concern about infiltrating the water because of the poor soils, because of potential, you know, impacts to the buildings. And then also the fact that a lot of the there, I think all of the surface area within the study area drains to the river doesn't drain to the to the combined sewer, only the rooftops only some select rooftops in the study area drain to the combined sewer. So, you know, starting with that information, you know, what we proposed is really, I think, the best plan to, you know, filter the water, basically remove nutrients as much as possible, delay the discharge of the water to the river, um, and, you know, maximize the amount of the amount of benefit given the constraints and also understanding that, you know, really there's there's there is a limit to the amount of treatment that can be provided kind of within the streetscape environment. And that's why if you've looked at, you know, the other nine larger scale projects that we proposed, um, I think those are really a pretty important key to the whole to the whole plan. Moving forward is to really get some really big water quality benefits, you know, those bigger projects, which are going to be collecting a lot more area are going to be really important. So, I think the plan kind of balances maximizing the benefit within the streetscape within the public areas, and then also highlighting these kind of high priority, larger projects, which are going to require more public private partnership, and more investment, more cost in the future, but are going to be valuable for, you know, reducing flooding and reducing the transit. Thank you. I think the last thing I wanted to highlight was the, you know, really another kind of kind of core point that we've tried to make some clarification around, and that was the support of the purpose of this document, and obviously the Ask Relatives of Council at this point. And, you know, this document, I think the plan that was sort of presented as recommended plan is still fairly malleable. I mean, it's going to change as the community gets more detailed into the design process, and considers all of the other policies that the community has to consider in the city plan. This, the purpose we saw this document serving was as a frame of reference for as you go forward with some of those physical improvements that the streetscapes might go through, and obviously the Rialto Bridge is a project that's kind of in the forefront of where things are going. But also as you look at amending city policy, as you look at amending the city plan over time, as you sort of have those conversations about stormwater on a city-wide basis, I think this plan provides you with a backstop to say, okay, how would that do, how would we address those issues in this core, but how could this core influence what might go down beyond it? I think that's kind of the way we saw this plan. It wasn't meant to be the designs that or the streetscape, it really wasn't. It wasn't meant to be the entirety of the stormwater strategy, because this again only covered a small relative area of the city. But I think the things that it's introducing in terms of policy framework and strategy framework are useful as a construct within the limits of the study area, but hopefully informative as the council, as the city moves forward and looks at how do you maximize the economic activity in your downtown? How do you address land use policy in the city? If housing has to go in the core, where are those in full opportunities for housing? But maybe the core's priority is less on the housing front, more on the open space front. Maybe that becomes the central tenant. So we wanted to make sure we clarified some of that in this final version, because I think there was again another complete understanding of how this plan influences and serves the community going forward as it continues to evolve. And I don't know if Mike or Kevin, if you want to add anything to that, because I think that was something we talked to you guys about quite a bit. And they're both on mute. Anything you guys want to add? It's not that fun? So yeah, I don't have a lot to add. I think that was that was a pretty good summary about where we're what we're trying to do. We really just want to make sure we get a lot of the big decision, you know, are we going to treat parking or have on-street parking? And those type of questions are answered at this step. There's a lot of stuff that the details will change, but we really needed to kind of get these system decisions down. And I think SE Group and their team did an excellent job of working with the public participation to come up with something that met with the public comment and kind of achieves the goals that we had set out. And now it's up to council to kind of decide whether this is the path we want to go forward on, and then staff can start working on the pieces and start building this out, you know, whether it's Berry Street, whether it's State Street because of the Rialto Bridge, we would start working with staff to put that together. And that's what I, that's about all I would add. So at this point, I'm sure, or Kevin, do you have something you wanted to add? Yeah, I just wanted to add that, you know, I went around and I talked to actually Patrick presented to the MBA and I went around and copied the plans to most of the businesses downtown and there was pretty strong support for the concepts in here. You know, I think people really did like the plot and the concepts. And I was surprised because even the people that have, I talked to Sarah at Bailey Road, and she was like, this is great. Like I, you know, you would think that the parking space right in front of her place. And she was like, now this would be awesome to have this in front of my store. So, you know, the, the initial concerns around parking, I think are laid by the fact that it does require structured parking. And, you know, that that, that, you know, it is that trade-off of saying like, okay, well, if you want that walkability, you know, there's the investment in structured parking. But, you know, I would say that for the most part, everybody was very supportive and most of the business community in downtown, most of the, they understood that this was conceptual and that there will be future opportunities as we get closer and designed to, to, you know, really get in there. But I, I, they liked the trees. There were only a few people who didn't like trees. But, um, it's surprising where it came from. But, um, the, um, for the most part, everybody really liked the idea of the, you know, the increased walkability, really focusing on the pedestrians as, as the primary, because of its small scale. And, um, you know, I thought there was really pretty good support all around for this, for these concepts. Great. So, Mark, did you have anything you wanted to add? No, I obviously would hear if there's questions and comments. Obviously, you're here to help under, you understand what's going on. So, I'm sure there's a lot of comments or questions that, uh, counselors have. I can see you, I can see you all at this point. So if you have a question or comment, if you would just like raise your hand so that I know that it can fashion in order. Okay. Yeah, Connor, go ahead. Yeah, Kevin, when you were talking to businesses, you think they were like supportive with the assumption that a parking garage would be built? Yeah. Or do you think they would be okay with like actually reducing the net number of spaces there? We went through without having that, like clarity? I would say that, you know, I mean, granted, I'm generalizing all those conversations, but I think that, you know, the plan is predicated on the parking structure. And I think that when it comes to the business community, you know, there's a tremendous amount of frustration that the parking structure is not further along, obviously. But they, I think that they could embrace this when they realized that like, okay, alternative, we're, we're looking at the streetscape differently, which looks great. You know, but if this was just an elimination of parking without a parking structure, I think it would be a hard sell. One thing that we heard too is that, or want to remind people is the fact that the loss of parking, obviously, this is not going to be implemented all at once in all likelihood. So there's going to be sort of a transitional piece. So if one segment of the streets sort of done at a time, State Street, for example, you know, no change on Main Street for a while. So, you know, it's going to be, that's an important consideration, I think in some of the conversations we have with people. It's not like it's all happening overnight, all of a sudden the parking changes in the garage is built. So there's some, there's some recognition I think of that. Is anybody hearing this extra thing? Well, there's whole music from the public line. Mark, would you be willing to unshare your screen at this point? So is anybody else hearing this? Like a, like a repeat of... There's somebody on the phone, there's somebody on the phone line. Yeah, okay. All right, well it seems active going away. Great. So other questions that people have, if you would just raise your hand, that'd be good. Other questions? Jack. Hi, can you hear me now? Yes. Okay, great. Sorry. I got a chance to spend some more time with it and I'm looking at the comparison page, page 33. One of the things that we see is that there's a difference in cost between option A and option B. And I recognize we're just kind of conceptual here. Do we have a sense of what that difference would be? I'll answer that. We don't. It is a quick answer. I think it's just generally I think that we're proposing some kind of more involved pavement treatment with those plaza spaces. So if we're proposing pavers, whether they're concrete or even stone, especially across the street, then that's obviously just more of an investment than if you're doing typical asphalt. So I think that's probably mainly where the cost is in those pavement treatments. In Langdon, we're showing that as all pavers, brick pavers or something. And so I think that's mainly where the additional costs would be. Thanks. Should I keep going? Okay. Okay. I was trying to make sense of the traffic flow with the one-way southbound Elm Street and no left turn from Elm Street onto State Street. And I'm wondering if that's going to cause some traffic distortions because if someone is on Elm Street north of downtown and they want to get to one of the businesses on State Street, it might lead them to loop around Court Street to Governor Aiken just so they can turn left onto State Street and get into that block between Elm and Main on State Street for parking. We have traffic engineers on our team with Stantec and they'd be best qualified to answer this question. I just sent Greg Goya to text. And I said that was the kind of arrangement that if we needed them, I was going to let them know. So we'll see if he gets on. He says he did. So I think once he's on, why don't you, if you could just go over that question. I apologize, ask you to go over it one more time. But he's going to be able to give you a better answer than I am. Let's see if he's on yet. I can tell you that Greg tested his connection the other day. So it worked. Yeah. If there's other questions, we can kind of go beyond and come back to that one. Yeah, that might be it for me for right now. Thanks. Yeah, other questions. I'm getting some, I was getting some crazy feedback here. But everybody in city governments used the feedback. So yeah, yeah. Well, it seems a little better now maybe. All right. So I want to thank you all for your work with all this. Thanks for taking all of my feedback. Thanks for addressing some of the specific concerns that I had and for your thoughts on what to do with some of the spaces like next to the drawing board, as well as you know, the riparian buffer that was that was really helpful. And some trying to scroll back up to the top here. Yeah, so you go ahead. Late breaking traffic engineer joined us. So we can address Jack's question. All right. Greg, thanks for joining us. The question I raised was that with the one way southbound traffic on Elm Street and no left turn onto State Street, are we going to cause distortions and problems with people who want to get to the block that they would be able to get to if they turn left from Elm Street to State Street by causing those people to loop around Court Street, then Governor Aiken and then left onto State Street because that's also a tough place to turn left on the State Street problem. Sure. Yeah, I understood. Yeah, it would definitely be a change in traffic pattern. It's not uncommon for a downtown to have traffic patterns similar to that. So that is a trade off in terms of the traffic pattern. But what would happen is with the one way we're prioritizing both pedestrian and bicycle movements on that road and also that intersection as well because it's a tough intersection across from a pedestrian perspective. So, yeah, I mean, there would be some trade offs and there would have to be a little more traffic analysis done to understand the implications of that in terms of what those impacts would be to the circulation patterns and the intersections if that were to be implemented. Greg, would it also be true, though, that the changes on State Street that we're talking about, I'm sorry, Main Street that we're talking about might actually improve the usefulness of that for traffic flow? In terms of what changes, Mark? In terms of like instead of people taking Elm to come down and actually taking Main to come down. Because obviously, though, there's a traffic circle up above, the streets got a little more, I mean, I think there's some benefits now of the streetscape design actually making that a better movement without the bicycle lane there. Right, right. Yeah, there would be some better movement there without the bicycle lane. Yeah, right. Except, I may be wrong, but there are still going to be parking spaces on the south side of State Street between Elm and Main, is that right? That's right. So then you could not get to those spaces from Elm, from Main Street. So if you decide to, do you think, Greg, that with the southbound Elm Street and a right turn only, you, because of the proximity to where the future parking garage would be, it would effectively that southbound Elm Street lane would take you, would feed you towards the parking structure. So if you were going downtown, it would be actually just more convenient to just pull into the parking structure because it's turn right on the state and a quick left into the parking structure and you're in downtown and you're, you know, the block away from the court. Yeah, that's correct. So yeah, coming down Elm Street, you would have straight access into the parking structure and it's true, if you're coming down Elm Street, you wouldn't be able to take that left and use those parking spaces on the south side, but they could still be utilized by folks coming down State Street heading west to east toward Main Street. And I totally agree that that left turn from Elm Street to State Street is terrible much of the time. Yeah, no, that's it is now. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I think the other thing, Mark, I wonder if you should share your screen and pull up that, the plan, like the parking plan, maybe it might just be helpful to take a look at that while we're talking about it. Sure. Sure. We have the technology. Right. Good. I passed it. Right. Oh, it's right there. Let me just do the right view here. So that sort of helps. I think that makes the argument there relative to the access to the parking garage and the idea that, again, with the treatment there and sort of an entry point into the garage established, it sort of actually, it actually may encourage the garage to be used because it's going to funnel people right to it. So that's actually pretty handy. Do you think we're going to need a signal there because of the people, if you want to go right across the street to the parking garage? I think right. It's possible there may need to be one there, depending on how the circulation changes and who ends up using Elm Street. But, you know, my sense is you're going to be removing left turns at that intersection too. So you may, you may in fact have a little less traffic. You know, you won't have any traffic turning left on Elm Street and everybody coming down Elm Street would just have to turn right. So my overall sense is one wouldn't be necessary, but that would need to be studied further. Thanks. Yeah. Great. Any other questions? Well, I do have a question about the maintenance costs of the pavers, maintenance and durability. And is there real life experience that supports that it's not any worse than pavement? I mean, I would say that clay brick pavers are going to be a lot more durable than concrete paving, actually, because concrete paving is susceptible to spalling from salts and the clay pavers are not going to. So I would recommend looking at downtown Winooski. Do you want to see how a clay brick paver can perform? They tell it up incredibly well. I think the permeable pavers are a little bit newer. So that's maybe something that's a little bit less tested. But the brick pavers themselves are going to have the same durability. I think there's just some added maintenance involved with them to keep the joints from getting clogged up with debris over time. So that's something that I guess should just be considered before committing to it to make sure that kind of periodic maintenance can occur. Otherwise, the permeability will just be reduced. I think it would take a while before it went to zero, but it would go down in permeability over time if it wasn't maintained. And Patrick, just to add one quick point on that, Jack, is that by using a unit paver, if you do have to do maintenance repair, the field that you're replacing can be smaller. So in terms of the cost differential, the long-term cost differential, if you only have to tear out five square feet of space to get to an underground utility because you're just picking up pavers, that's a lot cheaper than having to take up 10 or 20 square feet because of its other asphalt or something like that. So there is some benefits of a unit paver that are sort of not necessarily based on the material itself. It's just the fact that you're using a unit paver. One question about that. Let's say somebody does tear up the street for that. I assume you have to destroy the pavers, but you can reuse the same one. That's actually the big benefit of them. That is a big benefit in terms of being able to pick them up effectively in another way, put them back. Territory marketplace, it's been decades of picking up pavers and moving them around, and occasionally have to replace them, but it's a very efficient treatment in terms of being able to access the underground utilities and such. Yeah, and aesthetically, it's better too after it's patched because you can't tell that anything was done, unlike when you saw cuts to pavement or concrete. Yeah, exactly. Great. Yes, Dan. So the question I have actually on the pavers, though, isn't what kind of maintenance as far as frost heaves or not just simply scraping on them, but just how they settle over time. Is there any impact that has a greater cost to those type of pavers? Well, it's actually interesting because one of my co-workers sent a link out recently talking about how the sinking on the base material used under unit pavers is changing. And I think what they're going towards more is an open graded stone, as opposed to something packed really tight with fines, which is kind of more traditional than what's been happening, because that type of treatment is more susceptible to that freeze cost. Just scraping on them, but just how they settle over time. I think the same thing was happening to both Dan and I earlier. If you have the agenda open and it's playing back what we just said, that's probably what that was. Sorry, go ahead. I'll carry on. Anyways, with the permeable paving, it is a very open graded stone that lets the water pass through. And so you have much less susceptibility to that freeze saw action. So I would not be worried about it. So I don't think that's going to be a maintenance concern at all. Yeah, I can add to that a little bit too. When pavers settle, it tends to be a flexible settlement. So they kind of settle together versus a concrete sidewalk. When you have five foot by five foot wide panels are sometimes larger. You'll see one panel settle more than the other. And then you get a lot of lipping that occurs between panels. And those have to be ground down or pavement has to be put in to smooth those over. So I don't see any more maintenance from a paver perspective over a concrete sidewalk and maybe even a little less. Yeah, but we'll go ahead. I was going to say like to great point. Yeah, you see concrete pavement where an expansion joint with one of those panels heaves up, you know, and you've got the exposed edge, then they're going to get caught on the plow. And I think with brick pavers, you know, it's a little more, it is more flexible here, less likely to have that situation where it's popping up, popping up enough to really catch a plow and chip the way concrete can. Yeah, I'm not so concerned about chipping. I mean, I grew up in the Midwest and the city I grew up in had a lot of brick pavers streets. And the thing that I always noticed for years and years was that, you know, they wouldn't necessarily be chipped away or even if they were chipped, it was minor, but they would settle over time and you'd have these big gifts either like Rick was saying across the row of pavers, but it would be a substantial dip where you'd have to almost stop before you got to it or else they'd have these settling almost like a little brick pothole kind of thing where it was a dip below. And my concern at least on Main Street with this is that, you know, has there been any tests with this kind of heavy traffic as well as sort of the frost, the freeze thaw cycle that we go through up here? Greg, I'd be curious to see what you say, but my guess is that the dipping is a result of like inadequate compaction or inadequate base material, something of that realm in the installation, but Greg, maybe you could chime in to see what you have to say. Yeah, I agree. If pavers settle like that, it's usually due to poorly designed sub-base, maybe not enough underneath for the structural support just, you know, poor installation. You know, we've seen in Burlington installations that hold up really well. The installations in Manuski has certainly held up over the test of time and those have a nice base underneath them. They were compacted and, you know, it comes down to the quality of design and the quality of the construction. St. Albans is also holding up really well over six, seven years now. And is this with heavy traffic and all these in both Manuski and St. Albans? Yeah. Yep. It's full on Route 7 traffic on the crossings. Yep. I mean, Manuski, I think the brake pavers are in the pedestrian zone. I don't think there are any in the vehicular zone there, but Church Street, certainly, and, you know, that gets really heavy trucks on it. I mean, there has been some breaking of brakes on Church Street, but, you know, that, yeah, that gets way more... You did have to stop S.D. Ireland from driving their stomach trucks up there for St. Patrick's Day. That was a big party. And then I had one other question about State Street and the parking. Was I correct in seeing that the angle of parking that's right now in front of the post office is going to go away and it'll all be parallel parking along State Street? That's what we are recommending. Yeah, I think part of that was to get into a little more sidewalk space and also from a bike safety standpoint. If anyone's using State Street, you know, it's just not preferred having cars backing out of angle spaces. But I... Yeah. Jay, I know you had a comment or question. Yeah. Hey, yeah. Not favor-related. Mark, going way, way back to the beginning, I'm curious to get a little more detail and your thoughts on the infill off of Main Street right off the new bike path. Were you recommended infill and just want to understand the balance between buffer with the river and the confluence with the North Branch and the Winooski there? Yeah, I'll start. Patrick, you can just jump in there too. I think the idea for that, excuse me, that infill was, you know, it's an environment, obviously Shaw is an example. That's probably the spot you're talking about. And, you know, at some point, that may re-develop. Oops, that may re-develop at some point. We don't know what that's going to be from it. Am I muted? No, you're good. Okay. I'll have this message come up. We don't know what that's going to be. But I think the idea is that whatever infill happens there, I think the policy framework that we're sort of looking at it through is to one, make sure it maintains the right terrain buffer. So make sure there is an adequate buffer on the backside of it, the river side of it. Two, make sure it engages the streetscape in some meaningful way so that whatever is put there is not just kind of like, you know, parking in the rear. Can we do that and do it right? And also that there's an opportunity for people to get through that space to get to the river. That's kind of the basic policy framework we're looking at for all infill. Especially infill that's related to the streetscape edge is that it's got to be permeable enough, porous enough to let people get to the river. So much like the current bike path is sort of achieving that. If something redevelops on that Shaw's lot, for example, the hope we would have is that it would still allow people to get down to the river some meaningful way, that it would not just sort of be a wall that prevents the access to that. Do you want to jump on that, Patrick? I think yeah, just we're really trying to reestablish the more historic development pattern of having those buildings right up at the sidewalk. You know, multi-story, three-story building, kind of following that pattern that's there versus the one-story building set back with a parking lot in front of it. You know, obviously it's not a great gateway to the downtown. So we want to try to make it more in-character with the other part of the downtown. Super. Thanks guys. That's really helpful. Other questions? Jack. Sorry about that. Yeah, I was trying to click the little microphone on the picture of me, not down at the bottom. I did that too. This is new to me. Okay, I'm Greg. I'm glad you're still with us. This is something that I've thought about for a while and I just noticed a comment in front porch forum raising the same question and it's not to do with anything we've talked about or anything that's in the report, but it has to do with addressing the two alleys that or driveways that go off Main Street into the behind building parking, the one next to Obashan and the one next to the vacant lot and whether it would be feasible and desirable to set it up so they're both one way. One is one way going in, one is one way going out so that it would potentially reduce pedestrian conflicts, especially if cars aren't coming out of that very narrow alley next to Obashan and what that would do to the traffic flow on Main Street. I'm going to chime in real quick. Jack, in our plane we actually did address those and we recommended that they become closed to vehicular traffic completely and being just pedestrian only and that was an idea that we kind of came to in talking to Stan Tech. So Greg, you might want to just chime in and explain that idea of how the parking would be accessed and how that can function. Yeah, sure. We would try to focus the access to the parking areas and somewhere the main driveways are located and closing off some of the smaller driveway accesses where if you're walking on the sidewalk, a car pops out. It's a pretty dangerous situation and likewise for a vehicle popping out of those driveways there's no sight distance around the corners of those buildings. So by focusing or condensing some of the driveway locations to fewer spots, that actually may improve traffic mobility on Main Street because you have less traffic popping out in rogue places where they're trying to take a left out of that driveway and cars are stopping and letting them take that left and if they're focused in a few spots versus several spots our our our thought is that is going to improve mobility along Main Street and improve safety for pedestrians and and vehicles. I'm sorry I didn't focus on that. How would the how would people get to that parking in the back of those buildings under this system? Yeah, so so we would still have a few driveway accesses. So Albashon where where the new rec path is coming in toward Berry Street, right? There's left hand turn into that new driveway that was constructed. So there's access back there to get in and out. That's a two-way access. Okay. And that would be the exclusive access to the parking back there probably. That would be if we close the other alleys down, yes. Okay, thanks. Greg, would the other alleys be at least one of them be probably open for I mean I would think emergency vehicles could get in there if they needed to. Yeah, yeah that that could happen, of course, yeah. Great. Any further questions about or comments about the plant? Jack, go ahead. Sorry to keep going through this. One thing that is really more of a question than more than a more of a comment than a question in the streetscape comparison page 33. It you note that option B maintains more convenient on-street parking on State Street, which another way of putting it is that option A provides less convenient on-street parking on State Street. And for people who want to reduce parking and vehicles on State Street and have more bikes and pedestrians that actually would seem to be a plus. Yeah, fair. So I guess what we I think what we thought ultimately in our recommended plan was the kind of the hybrid option which maintain more parking on State Street and you're right Jack for some people that maybe isn't a positive. You know from some of the input we got from some of the business owners they did want to maintain the parking there so I think that was the case of trying to find the balance and we thought that with the hybrid plan you're still enhancing or expanding the pedestrian zone significantly enough that it was you know still quite an improvement over what's there so and we did maintain that kind of more enhanced plaza space of option A. So that was the case of trying to find a little bit of a balance between those competing interests I guess. And as I started this conversation I think there's an opportunity to evolve that over time so as the parking demands change you can start to reclaim some of those spaces and turn them into more pedestrian environments so I think the screenshots could adapt to the need. And in the short term we still have the ability to have those parklit spaces out there to provide outdoor dining and so that's all another kind of flexible approach to that. Great thanks. Sure. Okay so this agenda item didn't at least in the cover sheet that we got it didn't make a mention of recommended like the suggested action was not to approve this plan but I suspect that that might be useful so I'm curious for either any of the staff would some kind of emotion to accept this plan be useful to you and we can see if there's a motion. Yeah I think a motion would be helpful because they're going to have to work to make final edits so they can get a final product. And again as Mark has pointed out this will be a flexible document once it's completed but they do need to have some final guidance so they can move forward to get a final plan per the grant agreement we've got to be wrapping this up so yes. Okay and certainly that could be you know Jack it's your your thoughts there you know you want to talk more about that or amended that the the plan as recommended you know that's something but Donna you had something you want to say. Well again the plan is just a based reference and so I feel it's you know where we need to be to this add on in the future as things change. Great. So I would like to see it pass it as it is. Do you want to make a motion? Okay I thought maybe you okay it doesn't matter. Jack wanted to incorporate changes anyway you'll yes I'll make a motion that we adopt the Montpelier downtown core master plan. Second. Okay we have a motion and a second. Any further thoughts? I think it's important to note too just speaking to Jack's point about the parking east of the Rialto bridge that that's something that we could also revisit later but I think this I agree you know this takes us in that direction and I think it's there's a lot of really wonderful steps in this plan so any other oh Dan yeah go ahead just along those points this is something where is our understanding that where if we approve this that there would be an opportunity to revisit or to tweak some of those more minor points as they as we come along. I'm going to assume so but you know staff either Mike or Bill what do you want to speak to that? Yeah I can just jump in to say that this so this is the conceptual plan we before this can ever move to getting built we're going to be having to go through design and final design and there are multiple steps that will be going in where we'll have to have you know we'll have to have stand tech or somebody do the traffic analysis on those intersections so we can get final final designs and final turning radiuses and everything approved so there's going to be multiple opportunities to make some of these smaller edits that are going to need to be made along the way this was really to get more of the bigger concepts down and approved so we know what direction we can get DPW working on and the planning department working on. I'm done it with those up sorry go ahead. Sorry Mike are those those opportunities to come back before us or those before the development review board opportunities just to be clear? These these would come back to city council at some point because you know we're going to be whether we're applying for grants or just approving approving in concept I think of this in the same way that we did the transit center it was approved as a conceptual plan in 2000 and then we built on that conceptual plan that said this is where we want to have a transit center and then from there we built on that to go through and say okay well what's it going to look like what are the final details what's the accessory secondary use going to be and these will continue to come back to council you guys ultimately make the decisions on these. That answers my question thanks. Donna anything further? No no Mike covered it. Okay any further questions? Okay there's a motion and a second all in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And a pose okay great well thank you again for all the work on this I think really is going to take us in a really good direction. Thank you guys for all the hard work you're doing for your community I've talked to a lot of people around the state and I know it's it's a tough time but I'm sure your citizens appreciate it so thank you. Okay have a good night. Good night everyone. Pretty exciting step there so looking back to the agenda so coming back to the city's COVID-19 response and at this point I will turn this back over to Bill. Great thank you thank you. We had sort of three areas I would like to go over with you tonight one just just outlined some of the activities that have gone on I sent that out to you one is to include Mobility Development Corporation and Mobility Alive in this conversation at your request and Bill Kaplan just dropped in and joined us welcome Bill and and then Kelly will provide a brief update on where we are with finances I think she'd sent that out as well all of which are our challenges so I'll just launch into this would try not to go too long I think the biggest thing for us today was addressing the governor's last executive order from last night and trying to make sure how that how that jives what we're doing I think the biggest decision we're trying to decide and is whether to actually physically close City Hall on Monday or Tuesday we decided to close the offices but still leave the building open so that people could come in and get warm and use the bathrooms and those kind of things Barry City has confirmed with me that they've actually physically closed their offices since the 18th so we're we're trying to wrestle with that and how that fits we've also gone through we're in the process of going through every employee here in this building and and through our our organization to figure out who fits which category and which ones can work from home and which ones can and should and those kinds of things so those are all have been our top priority we are dealing with any referrals and communication with with people they've been the zoom technology has been great for a lot of our our meetings as per the decision last week the digital parking meters and kiosks were put into sleep mode we've held at least one or two facebook live discussions with the mayor we hope to do more of those I think those have been well received and the most recent one we also got a sign language interpreter to do the to interpret the video after the fact we weren't able to have it done live we met with staff and the mayor met with the mobility mutual aid group I think the most exciting thing that's coming forward is there's a thrive a group called the thrive regional response command center which is teaming up with the state and the washington county homeless task force that was had been formed to basically deal with the human services gaps and the vulnerable population this is being headed up by sue mentor eileen peltier and uh joe meri mesak uh and um they're in full uh incident command mode I had a meeting a phone meeting with them on sunday and essentially some of the concerns that I've been expressing with the city not really having the capacity to deal with some of this is really being taken off our shoulders by this group our ken russell from our and and our homeless task force has been uh linked in with them not to say there aren't going to be problems but uh they've already got up and running along with the state renting out a couple of hotels for people so homeless people are now not in congregate shelters but rather in individual rooms with their own bathrooms I think that's probably a safer more comfortable situation anyway so it's a probably a good outcome in the big picture obviously we're still working through the details we've been meeting with officials with berry city berry town to make sure that we're all backing each other up on critical critical services like water treatment sewer treatment those kinds of things and that everything we've had information from green mountain uh transit about their daily bus disinfecting protocols the sustainable pillar coalition and the mayor have connected to launch the can initiative and the schools and have reached out to us we've had discussions with the schools as well as their partners in education offering assistance again I think that group will really best link up with this vulnerable population task force and who are looking for volunteers we talked a little bit over sheltering um the we the senior center has a van which we are letting the homelessness emergency response team use for transportation um so that's great that's helping getting people to where they need to be um another way has closed for in-person services as I mentioned we have um homeless people now residing in hotels internal communications Kelly's going to talk more about this but we clearly will have a budget gap as a result of this loss of revenue and so we are looking at all options for that I know at your last meeting you are hoping that we could identify significant cuts to reinvest into the community um we're thinking we may need to make significant cuts just to keep the city rolling for the rest of the till the end of the fiscal year um we've we've issued new guidance on sick leave and how to how to use working from home based on the the CDC's guidelines and also this new federal act and as you've been copied on we've been trying to communicate regularly with city employees to know so they get a sense of what's happening and also communicate out to the residents different steps that we're taking I probably will do this again to communicate out to the residents tomorrow after we conclude tonight so those have been the basic things that we've been working on trying to keep ourselves rolling along serving residents but also providing the proper protections and things so I'm happy to answer any questions about any of those yeah Bill just in light of the sheltering in place executive order from the governor what rule does the um until your police department playing in this they are they authorized to sort of give misdemeanors for people out I'm just kind of wondering how that plays out say today uh the chief is here and can answer that but I I might save him a trip up there there was a guidance sent out by the department of public safety today and I believe you may be copied on it although it's probably in one of the many things you've received but it it's basically urging voluntary compliance urging people to to you know clarify what is and isn't okay to do it's certainly okay for people to be out for a walk as long as they're keeping safe distance I think the question is if people are really intentionally violating and there was a whole series of of things I don't I don't think they're going to become the congregation police but certainly we would be looking to keep urge people to to do the right thing but there's a very good guidance written by Colonel Birmingham from the state police to all police departments that you I think you've been copied on anything else you want to add chief okay excuse me oh so the chief is saying he'd like to thank the the public at large for complying that it's been very cooperative a question about a term bill used in his manager's report about the planning department being quarantined it seemed different than the other lock the doors not don't let anybody in so it's a concern yeah there's well there was a potential exposure which proved not to be the case with a family member of one of the planning department staff so they we did take a little bit extra precaution there and closed that office to the public that that's family members since had a negative test so that was the reason for that term versus everything else but they are still given the governor's order they are still primarily working remotely yeah I was just concerned and but it made me think if indeed one of our employees became ill would we be able to know to give them support or is that confidential it's a little bit of both and I think the the term unfortunately that we probably need to be using is when one of our employees becomes sick because it's almost certain that many of us will and it's a question of how many and what impact it has you know there are HIPAA requirements but we also have you know the the impact of others that might be involved hence the reason for people trying to be away from one another and not having the public coming into our offices so I kind of evaded your question because I don't really know how you know if I can tell you you know Bill Fraser is sick today send him thank you any other comments Lawrence Steve thought and apologies that the Lorax is loudly playing in my background and I can't figure out my headphones so hopefully the audio quality is okay so one thought I had was just I talked to to Bill about this a little bit but just really encouraging like as much proactive communication as possible I know I've been seeing stuff on Front Forge Forum and stuff but I think even more just reminding people of all the resources on our website and when we can connect people to this new Thrive group you know today for example there was a post about how we're closing the city offices it didn't you know that could have also included and remember to look for more resources on our website for how you know if you want to volunteer or if you are in need of things where you can find resources to get you what you need just just encouraging as much as we can to be out there every single day with here are here's the resources you know because there's so much good work happening and making sure people know about it and that the city's kind of on top of it I would just love to see that and even stuff like you know it was great to see like Laugh Nation Theater had a fun thing they put out if we could put out fun stuff to everyone you know sheltering at home and how are we just kind of keeping our community connected and together so just encouraging that as much as possible like I love the facebook thing that the mayor and city manager did and just more of that I'm just just encourage that so we can keep people updated I hopefully you're enjoying the Lorax an all-time classic one question I had was yeah I guess it'll be coming up in the coming weeks but like what plan do we have for the city in terms of looking into so you know any time now presumably this big stimulus package from the federal government's going to be passing which has a chunk of money for cities and states and then state stimulus and efforts and just you know who and how can the council help with looking at what kind of opportunities there will be to get that kind of money into our city so we're helping our residents and our local businesses so just curious if the city manager or anyone else has thoughts on kind of how we can track and access and make sure that we're you know doing all we can to bring resources to our community so we're obviously following the bills closely as are the League of Cities and Towns providing us information about how to do those and we'll be taking we're already as we've thought about people's leave we're trying to structure it there's some that's reimbursable through these acts and some that's not so trying to think about how to get people in the reimbursable kind so definitely top of our top of our mind and we may of course be coming to the council to approve grant applications or those kinds of things um just two other quick things um one it could be helpful to to talk through a little bit we we touched on it during last council meeting and I know that the city staff has been doing a lot of thinking about like what's the redundancy in our systems and who can make decisions knowing that you know today the announcement that we're we are on the exponential curve of um the the pandemic um affecting Vermont community so just a plan for how decision-making can happen and just more clarity because um staff has put a lot of work in that yeah so we've developed a sort of authority matrix for every department or are finalizing that we've gone four deep with each department uh and um you know understanding that we could have multiple people sick at once and hopefully that's will be sufficient we will go deeper if if it looks like that's wise we have a general continuity of operations plan which is being um rapidly updated and also sort of um particularized to this type of you know I think most of our continuity of operations plan assume that you know we got flooded out or you know knocked out of operation somehow not necessarily a long-term pandemic like this one big bubble what's that excuse me just all bubbly maybe it's only my reception but what you said the last two minutes I couldn't get everybody else was that the same everybody else is fine okay I I could hear you okay okay so anyway we are working on continuity of operations plans and um yeah it's absolutely a necessity um so we're doing that uh you know you and I took briefly uh under Vermont law right now at least uh the council can't take any action without a majority of the council president a quorum and in fact even then it has to be the majority voting similarly so if only four of you are present all four have to vote yes for something to pass that hasn't changed um so we uh haven't I haven't done more thinking since we talked yesterday Lauren but we might want to think about and maybe talk with our attorneys is there a way that the council can take preliminary action to authorize the manager or someone to act on their behalf if if the necessity should uh enact and I don't even know if that's possible but I think it's someone we might want to look at preventively I know some other communities are doing things like increasing spending limits uh for the staff or the manager so that things don't you know don't get held up by having to go to a council that can't meet so um we haven't you know we don't think we're there yet but those are all possibilities thanks thank you for sharing all that and all the work going into um being prepared I guess it was just one last thing I was thinking about and I don't know is that John Odom there just would this change to for opening up that elections could be done differently just would love and offer myself to to work with the city clerk and whoever else but just thinking about how we can start preparing right away for how our primary election in august might look um and that we're you know being as accessible and getting um getting ballots to everyone who needs it and whatever format if it's mail if it's whatever contingency plans we can come up with um so just want hope that the city's thinking about that as well um and happy to help with that however I can I'll just if you're curious um we've already been gaming out how to uh push the mail option as much as possible for voting by mail and the secretary of state is working on legislation which I think might have gone through today that would also push that at the state level and would provide money to cover the costs to municipalities so so yeah those conversations are underway thank you great um so I would love to talk a little bit more about the budgetary impacts um I know we got an email from Kelly earlier uh but wondering if you could outline that a little bit um and then I'm so glad that Bill Kaplan from the Montpelier Development Corporation was able to join us and so I'd love to um talk a little bit about that uh it'll you know well well it's up to you which sequence you go we you you all had invited Montpelier alive and MDC to this meeting to talk to them about what they were doing on behalf of the local businesses so um they're here now but we can we can do it in whichever order you like well um Bill I don't know if you have a preference since you're here maybe we can talk about the MDC I think we really um just wanted to touch base with you and the MDC in general about what you all are thinking about the current crisis and how the MDC money could be used towards even just helping preserve downtown businesses if I could just share an update before Bill Kaplan does we had been receiving some conflicting information all day including from the governor's press conference and some other things but we had initially seemed like many retail stores would be allowed to stay open if they only did pick up or delivery services um that was the initial guidance we heard from the downtown program and um what the governor and uh secretary Curley said in the press conference earlier today we have just received words that that is not the case um and that it is indeed that um almost essentially all non-essential businesses will need to close um the there are some exceptions which include restaurants food service including food stores and specialty food stores uh automobile supplies pet foods but you know there's certain exceptions where they can keep serving uh folks um but uh retail businesses are only going to be allowed to operate with the proprietor themselves uh so just the one proprietor of the business can still fulfill orders um that can be shipped uh or potentially it seems like if they do zero contact delivery that would probably be acceptable but the pickup is no longer going to be an option so there had been a lot of businesses that were still open downtown um that were doing a curbside pickup um or you know still had staff working and fulfilling deliveries um and that will no longer be the case so unfortunately it's um a worse case scenario than we were anticipating earlier in the day and I'm just that's why I've been in and out and distracted if you've been looking at my video feed um because I've just been getting this information in the last like five minutes so I'm working on communicating that to folks presently um but but that is the that is the update so I think that's important for you to know in the context of the rest of the conversation great thank you um and uh Phil would love to just hear any thoughts you all have on the current situation it's a little hard to hear you there doesn't look like you're muted check his volume better yes oh what happened seems like we have to get your picture or your voice we heard you there for a second okay now yes I apologize for the delay okay some of that has to do with fat fingers and some of it is sick head uh let's see so the uh first thank you all I mean amazing to see everybody in their different places working hard on this and um these are very trying trying times um I think that um um we've had you know MDC has had uh an emergency meeting um a board meeting we've talked uh Dan and I spoke this morning uh I think that you know the first thing I'd like to say is that the out of the conversation this morning with Dan MDC will be funding some help for Dan um with uh a kind of a resource person that would come in uh and I think that one of the pieces here is going to be after the after this of closures and everything else happens um there's going to be a need for people to tend to their businesses and at the same time there are all these resources and and programs and insurances and things that that you know it's going to take a level of expertise and as any of us know even just making an insurance claim takes a lot of time for these government programs whether it's the sba or some of the federal programs or or tax release uh I think there's going to be a need for some assistance and some expertise and someone who's got to open their open up their their business again will need some help and so uh I think Dan has been kind of the front line and and really handling communications and I and I think instead of redundancy we'd like to slip in underneath and fund a support person for Dan who would be specifically kind of a community resource for you know assisting people in their recovery and and accessing their the resources that are available that said you know economic development is this we've talked about the long-term horizon piece this is the whole new way of looking at it and we do have funds um and you mbc is willing to kind of give the funds over to whatever efforts the city believes they should be used for we don't have um you know they're just the team and the and the and the board are geared for projects and long-term things not for this type of crisis that said every one of us is um you know working hard both in the community and and at the jobs everyone at the board meeting was talking about incredibly long hours I mean you know as as we're speaking things are happening it is a it is a uh a trying time and so I think that if there's a way that mbc funds can be put to use in the immediate uh it is it's uh you know that mbc is open to that we just don't have uh as you know we have this project manager um the system so we have that for you know to help uh Dan if there's another way to do it if if it's just a complete relinquishment however it works you know um mbc is is looking for the best path forward and um and you know we're just open to seeing what happens but also if if if there's something that needs more immediate attention then you know you'll just need to let us know okay thank you that's helpful um Dan do you have anything to add um so I'll just talk briefly about what we've been doing um I hope that you've seen our communications around businesses that are open and closed and take out options and all of that we've had thousands of people visit our website to get that information and we've been working hard to keep it up to date um some days we've had as many as 60 updates to make in a single day on that web page um so it's been pretty constant um we've been doing a promotional campaign um I don't know if you've seen the bridge today but the back page of the bridge the front of the Times Argus every day in every single issue from porch forum page facebook page instagram all that uh to try and get out the word about how people can continue to support downtown businesses um pushing the idea of gift cards as a way for businesses to get cash flow we've been um I've been on many many conference calls email chains etc trying to get you know the most recent information out to businesses um you may or may not know that there's a downtown business facebook chat group that's pretty active and has been especially active during this period I've also been sending out email updates both to um members but also to basically every business owner whose email that I have so I want to be clear that we've been offering our services to anyone who I can get in touch with um sending out emails basically every other day um business owners that's on top of the facebook conversations that we've had and individual phone calls I've had many um one-on-one calls video chats etc with business owners talking about their specific needs um help some folks set up online operations which will be able to continue in some limited capacity in this new world so hopefully that will serve them well um you know connecting people with resources like the fba loans there's the initial round of fba loans is available not the broader federal stimulus package that um hasn't approved yet but an early round of fba loans um connecting people with business advisors other resources you know providing suggestions all of that um and that's in addition to the public updates um you know we've been doing the daily email newsletter and the daily facebook live chat if you've been seeing that um and trying to be as active as possible on social media to get out the word you know we've had conversations with various people at various points who have suggested starting some kind of fund you know I that's kind of what bell Kaplan was referring to just now in terms of providing funding to some resource pool um I think uh the challenge that we keep running up again that's that's don't mean to interrupt but that isn't what I was talking about I was talking about the the person that we talked about as a as a okay well there's you know the possibility that some funding being made available from whoever for some kind of pool whether donations private funders foundation mbc montelior live the city whoever it is um but there's a lot of challenges around um how that's administered who is eligible what are the criteria um you know it's complicated um and uh you know there could easily be hundreds of eligible businesses in montelior alone and so you know if we're talking about ten thousand dollars or even a hundred thousand dollars um it's not going to add up to much per business I think um any real support we're looking towards uh state and federal response for businesses um we've been advocating and a lot of other people have been advocating for as many um grant options as opposed to loan options for businesses um I've heard loud and clear from a lot of businesses that's taking on more debt in whatever form that is that including you know as as helpful as things like deferred tax payments and water sewer bills and things like that are um ultimately that's essentially a form of a loan you know it has to be paid back at some point in the future and businesses are operating on pretty slim margins as it is and so taking on this additional debt when they don't know whether they're going to be able to repay it is a concern that people have the uh stimulus package that's you know agreed upon federally um it looks like it does uh include some loan forgiveness type programs um uh loans that can turn into grants if businesses follow certain criteria um I was on a call with Vermont uh businesses for social responsibility and congressman Welch this morning and he said there are not any answers yet on any of the roles of what that ends up looking like so um you know we're trying to get clarity around it seems like if businesses agree to keep their employees on payroll that they will then be eligible for these grants as opposed to loans or a loan forgiveness in some form but it's unclear what that looks like um in terms of does that mean everyone has to stay on payroll can you reduce hours how long do you have to keep people on payroll uh you know etc etc etc um and it's all very unclear when people are going to get access to any fund um I've had a few people who have tried to apply for that first round of SBA loans and said you know the website took an hour to go from one page to the next you know the same kind of thing people are running into with filing unemployment claims all that you know all the systems are just super overloaded um so it seems like a lot of people are think they can eke by their March like payments rent payments are a big one that people are concerned about um but there's a lot of concern about April and obviously we don't know what April looks like at all um but it's hard to imagine a scenario in which we're back to full economic activity in March of April um you know unlike what President Trump might want to say um so you know I there's a lot of I'm hearing a lot of fear I'm hearing a lot of um you know there's just so much uncertainty on every level and not very many answers and so you know trying to support people in the ways that we can um but ultimately we're going to need the Fed or all and state support to well thank you for that any questions or comments uh for either Bill or Dan at this uh Dan and then Jay well I'll just thank both of you for the work you're doing Dan particularly I mean that's uh huge lifting that you're doing especially at that web page um but you know I guess the the question is is that um has anyone reached out to the the landlords for these businesses that you know as to whether there's any need for sort of intervention in in either rent payments or types of forgiveness that's going to create instability in the business right away with the April rent pay yeah so we've encouraged people to reach out to their landlords but I'll remind you that it's not like we have huge corporate landlords in Montpelier um you know it would be one thing if Brookfield's property is owned all the buildings in Montpelier but I'll give the example of my you know where my wife's store is the building is owned by Kelly Sullivan who's another downtown store owner um you know Eric Bigelstone of Capital Stationers owns the building that Walgreens is in so um you know there's a lot of these small landlords and they're grappling with the same problems as anyone else you know they have tenants who are struggling to make payments or need flexibility but they're not you know they need to leave from their lenders or from whoever it is so it you know there's a yeah yeah I know I'm not I'm not that somehow I mean because I think we have a downtown landlord here on the line with Bill um but I mean at the same time has there been that conversation or is there any sense about you know but is this the first big going to face or is there something else you know you you mentioned April but I'm I'm curious and breaking down what part April is here I think that people are having conversations with their individual landlords and it they're trying you know from what I understand landlords are trying to be as flexible as they can be um you know I think if it's a matter of getting the payment at the end of April instead of the beginning of April landlords will probably be flexible about that and you know some people have been talking about payment plans or other things but ultimately the landlord has to make their mortgage payment and their you know XYZ payment so and you know Bill maybe could speak to this Bill Kaplan could probably speak to this from the landlord perspective well I mean it is it's an ongoing conversation I talk to tenants every day um and in Montpellier where it's a startup um you're not necessarily a startup but it's a new new location for Ravel Rouser um you know we're in touch once or twice a day um working out things and and uh I have some resource lists that I have been sharing with all all the tenants um you know it's interesting uh different cities and states have been dealing with this differently and um I think that as things unfold there will be programs and things like that um I did talk to a um a banker today in Montpellier um my my I don't have any you know commercial loans and in in that I was talking to them about but it was it was a um but they are you know when people ask for um relief they are willing oftentimes to put the deferred payments at the end and extend the loan um so that there are there are options for for uh for landlords and then those benefits even if it's just a suspension of uh go to only uh interest interest only or or payments like that some of that there is a little bit of um you know kind of slack in the line that can be moved down to two tenants and I think that's part of what this resource person could could work on with people um you know we're what we're thinking about is you know maybe a retired banker or someone who's embedded in the community already who knows uh you know a lot of the the the players and also understand kind of bureaucracies and pieces like that so that we can in real time and and afterwards um position ourselves I mean there are there's so many conflicting reports of whether you know you you people who are who are kept on the payroll will be reimbursed people who are relieved will have get full 100 um unemployment you know I just think it's so um amorphous right now and there's there are so many pieces that it really does make sense to kind of support and triage at this point and and then really if we can be the best informed downtown about how to make use of the resources available it will give us um a quicker recovery that's that's the theory behind what we'd like to do um not sure that's answering any question you ask but no that that that's actually very helpful and I appreciate both of your responses um you know I think it it makes sense at least to me that that right now we're sort of in a triage state and you know but at the same time we have to be looking to position ourselves to take advantage of these recovery instruments as they as they come out but you know first and foremost right now it strikes me that a lot of these businesses you know they have to have the conversations like your tenants are having with you Bill or you know and understanding that that as Dan pointed out you know it's not a bunch of faceless corporate landlords these are their neighbors and other downtown businesses so I think that's really helpful and obviously anything that the city can do I I think we can make it take out Tuesday and we can call it fill up the freezer on Friday and get people getting you know pre-made pizzas and and all that putting them in the freezer don't buy the ones in the supermarket buy them from positive pie buy them from from you know you can now you can now order a really nice piping hot pizza and it will come with beer to your house so all of things are unfortunately restaurants are not actually allowed to deliver only liquor stores only if you have a class two license some folks are not maybe following that rule but I don't think anyone here is going to complain too much but the official official date I think in Montreal you can you can order you can make such orders a class of one is not that's delivered class two licenses right um Jay did you have a question um yeah just real quick I'll echo Dan Richardson's uh sentiment about uh Bill and and Dan Groberg the work you're doing it's uh it's really appreciated um and I just want to um you know in Israel you're trying times and Dan Groberg I just want to I think uh support your instincts in that around the idea that Montpelier lies even with the support of the MDC could actually be some sort of fun to support businesses you know we as an organization that the pockets just aren't deep enough there's too many businesses in Montpelier to really make an impact um you know financially you know and spread it equally there's so many deserving businesses in town that that need the support so I think steering people steering customers towards businesses and then also supporting those businesses in in connecting with resources that the state and federal government make make available really will have the most long-term impact and to that point um Bill I love the idea of the MDC supporting Montpelier lives who you're right is more sort of on the ground with on a day-to-day basis with local businesses and you know supporting some human resources to be able to consult and work with um those businesses to navigate these times it seems to me it seems to me like you're actually talking about two different things and I don't know maybe there's that person that can cover all this ground but on one hand yes you you've got like you said you're looking for somebody who can be there and be a resource and help navigate the financial challenges that the businesses are having meaning all right how do they approach different loans and or grants and how do they you know are they are they moving on to a something that's an interest only or negotiating with their you know with their landlords etc but then there's also this very immediate piece it seems to me that you've both alluded to that is trying to wrap their heads around what the state and federal government are offering and what's available to businesses like if it's changing hour by hour right so I don't know if that person exists that can bridge the gap between sort of managing you know what their what what businesses are doing with employees how they're managing unemployment how they're you know what they're eligible for what should they be applying for an sba loan what are what are things that are existing but then also trying to wrap their head around what is available to them immediately um the local lending institutions you know the secu you know announced that you know two thousand dollar emergency loan zero percent type you know things uh that's available right now to individuals and businesses uh because you know not not available and also what's what's the what's the best approach I think I just worry that it's the kick convoluted and I appreciate yeah so we've been playing that immediate role mom tell your life has been playing that immediate role um in terms of telling people what's available um that specific dsc seal loan it's for individuals only I'm afraid not businesses but um so we yeah we've been telling people what's available you know like north country federal credit union has a loan that's available to businesses um you know the sba loans that are available right now we're anticipating that the vita loans will be available relatively soon as soon as the legislature can get it act together um as a state uh you know they can't even figure out whether they need a quorum or not so I don't um but uh you know we're we've been providing that information to people I we don't there's no comprehensive database of every single business in mom failure um I have been attempting to you know I've been telling people share every communication I send out share this far and wide but um I'm sure there are people that I'm missing um so you know anything that can be done you know I think city has been doing some level of sharing the information that that we get out but um mostly the things we've been sending to business owners have not been sort of public facing documents that could be shared um because we we don't want to confuse the customer you know with information that's relevant to businesses and maybe not to them so um you know it's a balancing act Lauren thank you both for all the work that's going into this I mean what a incredibly challenging time um I guess my question is you know I hear you loud and clear that like the real game changer kinds of things or whatever the federal and state government could do to support our local businesses through this time um and I think the idea of having people there to help navigate that makes a lot of sense to me so that's a great idea thanks for bringing that forward um I guess I'm also wondering kind of um what Dan mentioned of you know it sounds like it's not game changer kind of stuff the things that the city has done or could do but are there ideas of what the city can be doing specifically I mean knowing we're going to be facing a really challenging budget situation but are there things that you know keep money in people's pockets for enough time as they're working through the you know loan application process are there things that you think the city should be looking into that would be helpful that you know you're seeing in other cities or any other ideas that you hope would be on our on our list to look into um certainly clarifying I know when the guidance came out about the property taxes there was a statement that said like the city would also look into the water sewer bills which are actually due before the property taxes if I have my timeline straight so clarifying if it is indeed the fact that people can delay the water sewer payment um if there's any other you know there's not much that's really within the city's control um parking permits are maybe something but they're usually paid annually or every six months or something like that um you know a lot of businesses have downtown parking permits um ultimately there's not a time and I and I certainly recognize and respect that the city doesn't you know that the city has these financial challenges coming forward also um you know I Burlington you know just put a million dollars towards this resource pool part of which is going to go to businesses through um their community economic development office but they had at Burlington telecom proceeds special one-time proceeds that they applied towards it um you know we're not in that position um the one thing that I will say that might be helpful is um and this goes beyond the business community is that um some kind of task force at the city level coordinating you know I I don't know that there's necessarily communication between like the schools and the city and the business community and that you know like just at the city level um so smaller than what a bill had mentioned in terms of that um regional effort that I can't remember the name um but uh you know something at the city level to get have everyone thrive thank you and to have everyone uh talking to each other uh Donna oh sorry sorry go ahead Bill you know because I think that the city could look towards some non-monetary um pieces and I and I have seen uh some other towns and cities establishing kind of new norms uh at least new temporary norms and uh and that idea like the city tonight voting on takeout Tuesday and refresh your freezer Friday you know and and with local foods I think that you can you can do things like that it just gets people back into some of their um reestablishing some patterns and some habits and and that little bit helps a lot I have um elsewhere I have a I have a pizza shop and they're down to uh you know half of their business but they're doing it only in pizzas and only in frozen and takeout and and it does it does help it lets them keep stay employed lets them you know kind of normalize and get through um and I think that there is some of that that can happen um in Montpelier even with these restrictions that Dan was talking about you know people are um people are there and trying and I think the city can do some things just by getting it in the paper that they've declared this or other pieces like that that that I don't know I'm trying to be hopeful about that interesting idea of non-monetary supports or encouragement well certainly um and I emailed they may already be on it but I emailed Bill Prazier and Seth this morning about it but linking directly from the city web page to our Montpelier live business update page that's pretty simple you know sharing that kind of stuff on Facebook as often as possible making sure that anytime you're doing an update about city operations that you're also reminding people about that kind of thing um yeah uh Donna did you have something uh yeah I was just taking a little different picture but since you you have these businesses involved I'd like to get a better idea of a long-term need such as what's the minimum it would take to keep businesses open and start gathering information on that so that we can look at our resources not just for today but more long term because I see several months ahead and I'd like to have what that would take so then we can start looking at resources differently that's all okay yeah and I'll just say you know so much of this ultimately depends on how long we're talking about um I think that most although not all businesses could probably weather two months um but then you know the further down the road we start getting you know even the businesses that we think of as the strongest anchor businesses in Montpelier might start feeling it so um yeah I but I I'm not going to sugarcoat it I think even even this you know even three weeks I think we'll probably see some businesses that they can't make it through um you know I think there are resources going to be made available but whether they come soon enough whether that you know as many resources and opportunities as we provide you know ultimately it's dependent on the business to access them um so you know there may be some people who just don't you know who can't make it work um you know who are able to apply for the SBA loan even with handholding or whatever the case may be so um or have such fundamental underlying business challenges you know who may already be on the bank for instance um who uh you know who don't make it through this so um I mean but I'll also say that ultimately um though the businesses themselves are not you know making it rich our commercial real estate market is quite strong um you know we see pretty low vacancy rates downtown um I think there will probably be some I know there's some people who have previously expressed interest in opening that haven't been able to find a space downtown you know so there may be some new opportunities the labor market may be a little bit more open for people that's been a huge challenge for downtown businesses is accessing labor especially for the restaurant um you know if there is a client I do think I think of Jay used the term triage or maybe with Dan but I think at some point we have to step back and maybe be a little more pessimistic just as the hospitals are doing as saying who's going to be first served and making some tough choices as to what businesses can hold on because it's going to be more than it's going to be probably more than three four um and have an idea of where to put the best attention of what we have now I think we may have to do some of that assessment and so we can't do that without people being willing to at least they share some information of what their reality is if they can go two three six months I mean I I think I hear Donna's point about um you know obviously if there's a business it's about to go under we don't want to put resources into it that that's not going to stop the inevitable but at the same time I think we have to be very careful about picking winners and losers in this kind of situation um I mean I'm not saying that you're suggesting that but I think we just have to be really really careful because you know this is one of the situations where it's going to be um a lot of businesses that may not make a decision until the end um but I but you can't do it without information though no I agree I mean I agree but the doctors take a patient in and they get information and they try to make some assessment that's all I'm just saying we shouldn't keep our head in the ground and avoid absolutely I've been asking businesses to be as transparent as they can be um you know historically businesses are not typically eager to share their sales information even when we're trying to be helpful to them and promise confidentiality um I I think you know we're we're doing our best to tell people that but I I certainly don't I appreciate what you're saying about triaging and and I appreciate and you know on some level agree Dan with what you're saying about we don't want to be putting money into businesses that are already failing but um I don't think anyone wants to be in the position of having to choose choose winners and losers um you know that's been an impossible task as the city council figures every year when they try and set their budget you know you just only winner except with the city council so well and it it may um you know in in terms of like you know winners and losers uh that may depend on whether or not we have funds to actually for the city you know to be able to leverage and you know based on the conversation I think we're going to have I'm not sure that we do have a lot of excess funds um anyway so but anyway I'm getting ahead of myself here any further questions for either Dan or Bill okay well thank you for uh taking a little time um and we certainly are interested to know if there's anything further that you think the city can be doing I'm intrigued by this idea of take out Tuesdays and and freezer Fridays or whatever or any other you know non-monetary supports that we can offer I am still interested in figuring out if there's ways that we can um uh if we do have funds um what might be the best use of those um but thank you Bill for your openness about you know being willing to take suggestions um you know I I agree with the the council as well you know being able to offer uh the support of um you know someone who knows how to navigate um other funds I think will be uh will be useful so um if no one had no one else can I just add one thing on this um yes Bill go ahead I just since we're all here in public and everyone's here I just want to say I've been stopped uh in the last week by two different downtown business men just they both happen to be men um to compliment Dan Groberg yeah I think Bebe not understanding the the relationship the work relationship thinking that's the most connected with the city but to go out of the way to talk about what an extraordinary job he is doing and I think we should recognize that I've seen it certainly seen it and make sure he gets the credit uh while he's here in front of us all of us uh but these run solicited people pulled me aside to tell me that yeah well and I'll pass a lot of that credit on to my employee Ashley which thanks to your increased support in this year's budget I we were able to hire that person and she's been in charge of most of the website updates while I've been dealing with the business owners and the bigger picture stuff so uh she's been like sick of me forwarding her emails with the website so um thank you thank her for us great well um I think all that leads into um conversation about the city's situation okay can we have a break take care of the wall we have a break it's like you know 8 30 8 40 uh other folks you want to break sure okay yeah let's take take five minutes we'll how about let's reconvene back at um 8 45 that's like four minutes is that okay okay we'll take about five minutes thank you she's and just so you know um she's sitting where she is so that you all can see her face while she's talking about her back is to the screen so she gets at your faces it's just going to look awkward so she can yeah that's why I was trying to sit on the side but thank you they'll be able to see you fine great all right good that that works for me just as long as it works for everybody else um so I did send um talking points earlier tonight just because I wanted to get um those out before the meeting um we have been working quite a bit on the budget since the last meeting and so I kind of wanted to put out there you know some of the questions that you had asked us um which were you know looking at FY 20 and 21 with an eye towards freeing up money for community assistance um and then number two was a review of the property tax structure as it relates to first floor retail to consider abatement that might be offered for delinquency um and so we have looked into things I mean and so the long story short just kind of getting into it is this will be a problem in 20 and it will be a problem in 21 and we're just trying to figure out what that means um you know during the budget development cycle we hold things pretty tight so the margins are pretty thin um we have evaluated sort of the budget to actual line items and we've also looked at capital expenditures by way of projects but then also looking at equipment and so um there's not a whole lot to free up especially when we're trying to kind of assess where we're going to come down in all of this um so right now it is looking like we're going to have a revenue shortfall and you know that's attributable to uh parking and also to local options taxes and so that's the tune of about $210,000 um that we've got to try to figure out how we're going to make that up um and so we're looking at everything the department heads um have reviewed their budgets we do have information that we're vetting right now to see what we can come up with um you know there are some viable you know things on the table and so we're scraping by but um you know there'd be more to come on that plan it's just in terms of being able to free up money that then doesn't go towards you know dealing with the deficit that that we'll be facing with the revenues um is going to be tricky um so I can't see you all right now so I'm going to do a quick look and back at me and see how it's going looks good okay so far so good um you know actually can I can I interrupt you I'm sorry you said that there's a revenue um shortfall and that before or I'm sorry is that uh is that after um we've looked for you know delaying equipment purchases or projects so some of the the things that we have on the table right now will go towards offsetting that um and so we're trying to figure out well right now based on what we know how bad is it um but then we're also in unprecedented times and we just don't know how long this thing will go I mean we're projecting out to the end of the fiscal year but even then you know the implications could be far reaching and so we're trying to be really conservative and making sure that we have enough to get by in 20 but then into 21 so we can focus on core operations um and you know keep the city running for our residents because that's kind of probably not the answer you were hoping for but I also want to get it out there I'm just going to jump in here to kind of try to distill that down we've got you know the budget was already tight we were probably have going to have to tighten the belt just to to make it anyway before this all happened and with um so we're definitely you know you know by our choice and appropriately we are a foregoing parking revenue we're also probably foregoing or going to lose the almost all of our rooms meals and alcohol tax we haven't even we don't have a hard number yet on what our like rec and senior center fees that we would have brought in yet that we're we're still calculating those numbers so you know if you have we're going to be slightly spending over budget and we've got this shortfall you know just to just to make that gap work and keep our core city functions going um that will include canceling some of the projects and delaying equipment and those kinds of things that you've you've talked about and we're trying to get handle on that that part of the problem we have is we're we're already you know into March almost into April a lot of that stuff's been bought in in our current fiscal year so we have more flexibility for the following fiscal year but we don't know yet whether by July 1 everything will be back up and running and we'll just be back business as usual or we'll be still in the midst of um what you know I think this is going to be longer not shorter but I don't know that any better than anybody else so you know as as time goes by we'll be able to figure out what what our choices going into the next fiscal year are but um right now we're trying to just see how we can bring the ship home in our current year and not not have too deep a deficit to carry forward into another year so that's where we're at um we're finalizing numbers like I said we actually have a team meeting tomorrow morning to go over this in more detail and our plan is to have a much more detailed plan for you for the next meeting but is the first weather report that's where we're at you know with that you know some of the things that we also did want a little bit of guidance on well actually before I jump into that I kind of wanted to give you sort of a rundown of what we can anticipate in property taxes and you know a normal cycle in the fourth quarter we would be expecting about 2.5 million dollars to be coming in um thankfully looking at the um delinquencies in the past we um our residents pay their property taxes which is awesome um but then we've also had comments from you know auditors and the like that have said wow you know you really get your property taxes and so that's great I did take a look back to the Great Recession to see if maybe we saw a blip there you know and revenue was coming in and we didn't um but this is also different so there's that caveat um but I did sort of track to see you know what we have coming in automatically in payments so that's about 1.1 million dollars um and so there's about 1.4 that then you know comes in through you know taxpayer initiated payments um so that's where some of I think the risk is um and then that being said you also did ask me to look into the um downtown you know business district and sort of what that looks like and so this is a higher level level figure in terms of being representative of commercial spaces but then also um you know apartments and the like and so that's about 760k so it's just good to I think think about that in terms of um thinking about you know who's impacted most by this pandemic and what we would be looking at um you know in terms of exposure um and you know where people might come in and so just a a thing to note um just based on what you had asked um and then you know additionally uh moving on to the next thing that I wanted to mention is that we do have some other budgeted or non-budgeted things that are coming up that we should really talk about that may play into this and you know um we've you know got an elevator that we need to service um and I can you know list off the the price tax associated but um you know we we have a property that we need to figure out what we're going to do with um and then we've got the reappraisal which is kind of a big ticket item that we'll have to figure out and so these things would be happening anyway um so it's just kind of weighing them against our current situation and so that's also some food for thought in terms of thinking about what we have for resources and what we have to pay for coming up it's just a a reality um so then that sort of leads into you know finally thinking about you know when we think about what we're doing and how we can best support the community what that looks like and you know is it core services or are there other additional items that are maybe not necessarily traditional base budget items um that you know may need to come off the table if you know we want to remain whole and to keep doing what we're doing in terms of providing city residents with the support that they need um and so some of those items just to kind of lay them out would be you know they'd be hard to to think about but I'm just going to go ahead and say it um the homelessness tax force um the ash borer fund multiplayer development corporation which I know we just heard from them and that was a really good discussion um the social justice grant and then the arts fund so it's just some those are some of the things and that's about a hundred and ninety thousand dollars of discretionary items but you know thinking about you know what do we really need to fund and what are we funding and it's all good um but it might be in terms of prioritizing where our resources are going you know what things stay and what things go or what things come back online once we have you know a better revenue picture um it's just some things to consider and so that's kind of what I'm hoping will resonate but then we'll have more of a plan um for sure as we get on here because we would already be looking into the closing out of this fiscal year and then with this crisis we just really need to be careful so I can't see you so I'm going to turn around Dan yeah I had a question about the reappraisal is is the reappraisal have we reached a threshold where it has to happen or is this just um you know is that it do we have any options as far as the timing of that um so it does need to happen but I'm going to turn over to Bill so we are about to hit the threshold um and I think what's we've been trying to preview this in the weekly memo for a while um the state recently changed the threshold from people at 80 percent of common level of appraisal to 85 percent so it's a high you know you hit it faster because of that many more communities are hitting it and so the demand for reappraisal firms is sort of at all time high so most of them are booking three years out so our strategy had been to put out an RFP book a firm for like 23 or 24 and start setting money aside because it's a big ticket item and we're gonna have to do it we're gonna be ordered to do it but the time being what it is you know up until this crisis we were thinking time was on our side for this and it still may be but it's just something to consider when we think about hitting the future is that's out there and we you know we know we have this 134 thousand dollar property liability in December um and you know maybe we'll choose to sell the property after what we just heard from the the downtown plan but we don't we don't know that yet and um and we have an elevator that is you know on its last legs and we just recently got a cost estimate saying really what you need to do is overhaul the whole thing for a hundred thousand dollars and that's unexpected but we for us to have an accessible building we have to have a functional elevator so you know and those are normal budget challenges but when you add those considerations into a budget shortfall and trying to you know and support you know we're really looking at everything what what functions you know are we not doing right now with other cuts that we can make there so it's it's not an easy discussion no I just especially with the reappraisal it it struck me as something that if they're because it is a such a big ticket item and be you know something that either the state could waive or that you know depending on the circumstances where we were at and I also wonder even if you know we are going to see any type of downturn taking a hit on property values which may change our numbers uh so we stopped being closer to the edge um but anyway I just wanted more clarification I appreciate that Bill thanks other questions uh Lauren um I guess just one thing picking up on the reappraisal I mean I don't know if that's something that plct or other communities will maybe be asking for a delay I mean the kinds of things that in this kind of emergency maybe the state could give a five-year window or something if people are rebuilding to not be putting money towards that right now so maybe we could think about something like that um we could help advocate for um imagine a lot of communities are in the same boat um and then I guess is there any like learning from 2008 like when the era money came out um or you know are there any expectations I mean obviously it's just so unknown right now but you know would you have any gas still having you know been through up turns and down turns of the economy of what kind of um you know federal help might possibly help cover any of this or is that just not too unknown at this point um in in 2008 it all went really went to infrastructure um and we were able to use some of that uh for fixing up a few projects I mean the biggest we got the biggest energy era grant in the country for the district heat project that was I think our biggest uh sort of turnaround out of that but there were there were other funds that went to various infrastructure this is and that was in part because it was designed to put people back to work you know create construction projects you know so that people will have jobs I don't know how this will be targeted it sounds like you know I mean hopefully local governments will will have some opportunities in that but it's I would suspect appropriately most of this is going to be targeted to businesses landlords employees maybe even financial institutions who who you know take a hit on mortgages or those kinds of things I don't know yet what this is all going to look like but certainly if there were an infrastructure component then maybe some of the projects that we delay out of our own budget might be able to be picked up from that jack go ahead thanks can you hear me okay okay good thanks thinking about the elevator am I I think that's something we talked about in the ADA committee and am I right in thinking that that's an expenditure that we may be able to get a grant for um yes you are um and so that's something that has come up in that we are working on looking into and exploring um still um we you know in terms of trying to figure out the sort of the how much is this going to cost us that's sort of where we've been focused and now that we have a a pretty good gauge on that you know the next step is looking into the grant and seeing what that would mean for us potentially okay thanks hi I was just going to say following up on Dan and Lauren if there is consensus that we should try to get a waiver on the reappraisals we might want to consider taking a position on that tonight and communicating that just because it's all moving so fast at the state house I think that's really interesting um other thoughts on that uh Dan go ahead I'll just you know I think we have to be careful because the reappraisal has some constitutional and court imposed conditions on it you know the fair market value there's a lot of case law um and ink that's been spilled on that but you know obviously it would it might make sense to even look at our own numbers first and just see you know exactly what our timelines are um and then you know Bill can find out if other towns are in the same boat you know from the VLCT or otherwise um but you know ultimately yeah I think if we're all in the same boat it's it's one of those things that if everybody has this problem they'll find a solution for it how do you feel about that Bill can you look into that oh yeah dad that makes sense and I you know I want to be clear we want to just put those out there I mean some of these are normal things that you deal with when you're dealing with a budget you know you you're adjusting I think our only point was we have these big ticket items in light of A now what's going to be a significant revenue shortfall an uncertain FY 21 and you know potential demand for reallocating funds somewhere else so you know you can't make decisions without seeing the whole picture um and knowing what what you're up against well at least for my part I mean I feel like I've had my questions answered I mean uh you know one I certainly was hopeful that we would have some funds to have some flexibility with to put towards some kind of relief but um sounds like we're going to be just trying to make make our own ends meet um and uh I know we don't have to make any decisions about that tonight but um it's good to have the sort of early warning um and uh yeah I mean you know what so at some point you may be coming to us I assume you may be coming to us to say you know we have to make some tough decisions uh in reallocating funds um and I don't know what that timeline looks like or what that decision making process looks like because I think sometimes I mean you all administratively would just reallocate allocate funds internally um sometimes that is that correct that that's correct and um it depends on the nature of the decision but certainly depending on when we come out on this we'd want everyone to be on board I mean you know I mean obviously if we had to take an emergency action we would but we'll certainly keep you in the loop all the way and it would be good to make you know we don't want to some of it involves it may would involve making priority decisions so uh even if it's taking from one project to another you know you should probably weigh in on that um so it's you know we will we will work as in sync with you as we can okay and you'll keep us informed of course yeah yeah of course okay any other um thoughts or comments about yes jay yeah sorry it's just a really rudimentary question I'm just wondering where that 150k number comes relative to parking how many months does that that does that assume that we the meters are off etc you know in in trying to balance out priorities things sure so um it's about three months uh parking is about $50,000 per month lost based on our projections at this point um so that's the kind of long and short estimate of it we um you know because that's what you pay us to do we're trying to be cautious so we took the assumption that um this wasn't gonna I'll just be over in three weeks and so we projected basically assuming till the end of the fiscal year till June 30 that we wouldn't see any really substantial parking revenue um because it's also possible that even if things open up we might choose to not charge for parking to try to get people coming back downtown and all that sort of thing um but also similarly we assumed essentially no more rooms meals and alcohol tax during that time frame um I mean we might get some small little bit but nothing like if all the restaurants are robustly open and the hotels are full and those kinds of things so um and and as I said we also haven't even got into our our other program revenue yet so we think this is a pretty conservative estimate you know hopefully we're back at business sooner and it's not as dire but we can't afford to you know to be optimistic and really end up in a hole at the end of the year that all makes sense thank you uh Lauren and then Donna it just on that point was there any success when we did the holiday like donate if you can I'm just thinking like is there something could we have little signs like they're not feeling alive or it goes to something like if you like I know we turned them off like do you if you physically put quarters in does that is that I think that's right I don't know if they even take money right now um but we didn't get a lot I mean it was a fun thing to do it was a small sum of money that came in and that was also with a lot of people downtown you know parking and shopping and doing those things and people are being asked not to come downtown and there aren't really any stores open for them to come downtown so Donna go ahead I'm not sure if this question can be done in general session but it has to do with the parking garage and where we are but also where a bechero is with hotels being what they are and where what's going on uh just how vulnerable does that make the garage project I don't have specific information on that but it's certainly a great question we do have for the next regularly scheduled meeting an update on the garage project planned be a similar presentation those kind of things so we will have hopefully real answers to those kind of questions okay thank you um I realize this is uh only sort of related but uh as far as we are aware it has this affected our credit rating at all no um it has not um not yet because you know we've been able to make all our payments again we remind people we we borrow our bonds the city doesn't really have a specific individual credit rating like you know the state does or maybe the city of burlington does we borrow our bonds through the vermont municipal bond banks we're pooled with all the other municipalities in the state so the the bond bank has a has a bond rating but the city doesn't have its own bond rating our other local borrowing for tax anticipation notes bond anticipation notes is really with local banks and they look at our history of payment and our our I mean one of the things that's been good for us has been our strong tax collection um and you know this this could change those relationships in the future but right now it hasn't okay thank you uh just a couple things I want to flag um sort of separate from this as well is um I just want to recognize that Dan Groberg brought up this idea of a task force um you know linking uh different organizations and I know there's a lot of groups already um that have sort of popped up or are um emerging and um anyway I'm that's something that you know I would love to talk with some staff about offline at some point uh just about taking a um some kind of uh coordinating or um you know what kind of leadership role makes sense for the city and especially connecting with thrive so I realize that's a separate topic but uh so just just briefly I said that so we are connected with thrive um we were in with their organizational call and they are we're on their phone calls and on their tree and um they're just picking up a lot of the work on the human services but still in communication with us you know the idea of having a connection maybe with the school or a couple of the key organizations you know maybe we could arrange one of these zoom calls you know a couple times a week just to touch base with everyone so I think you know I think there's a good opportunity there okay um any further comments on um this on this topic can I make a further comment just really really quickly um related to the consent agenda and the bond's anticipation note um that uh was voted in favor of earlier um I need you to come down to city hall tomorrow and sign that if that's possible or I can also um come around and collect signatures and so I just wanted to kind of get a sense from folks how they wanted to do that just so we can make that happen um and as remote away as possible and I can also take the liquor licenses too so or or we can you know um so I just wanted to um mention that and I'm flexible I may have some helpers with Donna just saying we used to pick up or sign things at the police department could they pass it through us their window we have that distance between us I didn't think they were open we'll figure that out get back to what they'd be do we access it for us to sign they can I mean technically that yes you'll have to buzz in but we can work that out yeah that's a great suggestion so that's what you'd like to do I can make sure that the documents are available there tomorrow so just let us know when that's set up yeah and then I can just um I'll send you an email um first thing tomorrow and just kind of let you know that they're there and then um I'll pick them up at the end of the day and scan them in and give them get them over to the bank so everybody bring hands sanitizer before you sign it um okay all right so um yeah and everybody bring their own pen yeah okay so uh count reports um I just I'm gonna intuitively go with the order that we normally go in um so I'm gonna start with Donna I have nothing to say but thank you all for all your attentiveness of staff and council members thank you great uh Connor uh just just one quick thing I think it's falling through the cracks but the Red Cross is just at like crisis level as far as blood donations uh just what the schools close and we had to cancel ours at city hall angle a couple weeks ago uh but there is going to be one for people interested on the 30th at the Episcopal church uh and there's still spots available so if you want to call 1-800 Red Cross you can get an appointment for that and that's uh that can be really important the next few weeks that's it thanks thank you thank you Connor Jay um yeah certainly thanks to all of you and staff and for everybody's hard work I guess um just one thing that I wanted to add is I thought it'd be important to acknowledge um the leadership that we're seeing from Libby Bone Steel the superintendent of schools um as well as the principals the teachers and the staff and everybody in the school district um it's been an incredible transition for all of them um and I thought as a parent with three kids in the district I've just been incredibly impressed by their hard work and their compassion in managing this transition um and so I just wanted to to acknowledge all the all of their work which I think is important and then also um acknowledge also all the parents out there that are uh trying to not only be teachers and and homeschool their kids but figure out a way to to make a living and work from home as well that's all thanks thank you uh Dan so I want to give a thanks out to um the groups that have been meeting for the capital area neighborhoods I connected with Dan Jones and gave him a whole list of names of people that were really willing to step forward and uh I wasn't able to be a part of the conversation I think they have today um and maybe you were in and you'll talk about that but I was just really impressed you know one it's really easy to get a hold of people when nobody has meetings or appointments to go to um but two there's a number of people out there that are willing to step up and step forward in this in this time and it really great thank you um Jackie uh just a couple of things again it's all appreciation for what people are doing um everyone who's working on getting services to uh people without permanent housing and you know I'm probably talking to Ken Russell just about every day and uh everything they're doing and the creativity which with their which they're approaching it is really uh really tremendous um and but we're also seeing just great things from from our local residents you know all over people are doing great stuff I was at Shaw's yesterday shopping for the next two or three weeks or whatever and I ran into someone I know who said that he's just been devoting his time pretty much full time to volunteering to go shopping for people and I was there at lunchtime and he was on his fifth Shaw's run of the day and he said he's usually been doing about uh 10 trips to Shaw's every day to pick up groceries for people who need them and don't think they can get out the city is doing a lot of great stuff the parks department is uh collecting and distributing firewood to people who are running out of firewood because they're home all day so they're heating their houses all day and so the city arborist has been cutting up wood and coming to my house and picking up firewood for people and so this really has uh it's it's the beginning of a disaster but it really has uh brought out the best in a lot of people one um just a couple things um I did want to mention uh I'd seen that if people don't have health insurance right now you can sign up right now there's a window um through now through April 17th where you can sign up at Vermont health connect um so urge people who might need health insurance just to know that that is open and available to you um and if you have a change in job situation that is normally open anyway but it's open to everyone right now so hopefully you know as many people as possible can get um the health coverage they need um I also just wanted to echo like thank you to everyone for staying home for following the advice we're getting from our medical professionals and public health experts um and you know Chiefs Baker brought it up earlier that we're seeing great compliance and so thank you for following it so we can do our best to keep as many in our community as healthy as possible um and just like so many others just so appreciative of all the volunteer efforts and ways that people are stepping up to help each other and make sure that we're taking care of all of our community members in so many ways and the city website has a bunch of links of digital aid networks where you can both sign up to volunteer if you're able to or flag if you have needs um and that's somebody could help you with and um you know and even some of the fun things the city's doing is like a scavenger hunt to bring out for your kids maybe I don't know if that's still cool today but um you know just different ways we're trying to take care of each other while we're all in this situation so so appreciative of um the volunteers and the city staff that have been working so hard to respond to this emergency and figure out how to do their important work in different and new ways and really challenging times so really appreciative so uh I also just want to uh add to that as well I was able to be on the call with the capitol area neighborhood uh leaders today um it was good to just connect with everybody to see everyone's face and and know who some of our leaders are and know that more resources are going to be available to them to get to their neighborhoods more specifically in the near future and also just so grateful for for all of them and all the other volunteers in the city who have really stepped up to be willing to help out in whatever way they can also just again also thankful for city staff for navigating all the challenges um with these times and also just a reminder to folks to uh to as as they need to you know stay active stay grounded um and uh certainly reach out if there is anything that they need um there's a lot of networks who are ready to to help folks so you know we're here and ready in what way and in the ways that we can um and uh yeah I guess that's it for me John did you have anything oh I should probably mention that uh we've added a little bit more restriction on the clerk's office uh some things that were available by uh appointment such as marriage licenses uh notary services and hands-on work in the vault we're currently cutting off completely uh except under extraordinary circumstances in which case someone couldn't speak to me directly and we'll work something out um you know I also wanted to mention that you know we get a lot of calls and I'm starting to get calls from people who are scared to various degrees and you know I'm not in a position to do much good but I wanted to encourage people to keep calling and we'll do what we can even if that just means listening yeah thanks um Bill um obviously I'd like to thank all the work our city staff is doing they're scrambling to try to make this all work I really appreciate it I'd like to especially call out Cameron and Seth from our staff and and David from Orca for getting all this tech together and making it work I think it went pretty well tonight sound as we can hear you all perfectly in the room and so they they you're all up on the big screen it's pretty cool and uh I think we're gonna actually offer this option for our our staff meeting tomorrow morning when we try to sort through some of these challenges but uh yeah it's been it's been hard for people actually and uh but I really think for the most part our folks have kept the the people in need and the people in the community first and foremost and I really appreciate that I agree all right uh so I think that is uh everything so thank you all for um making this work online this evening and we'll see you again we have another meeting right right now your next meeting isn't scheduled for two weeks uh April 8th April 8th yes yeah okay obviously if we have a need an emergency for any reason we'll let you know now that we know how easy it is to do this yeah okay great all right well thanks everyone and I'm gonna call this meeting adjourned