 Call the meeting to order. I believe Councillor Bate will be here shortly. She sent a note to Bill saying she might be a little late. So at this point, it is 6.31. So are there any changes that anyone is proposing to the agenda? Anything that we can pull off? I had a question about the number five, the property tax bill discussion. I think Bill might have some input. I was just going to say, I think that can be taken off. Councilmember Krueger would ask that that be put on. I didn't hear any follow-up. Oh, I thought the clerk had responded. So they've- Are we good? We're good with the property tax. The state's got it. Yeah, I'm sorry, that's coming Friday. OK, then we can take it off. OK, so we can remove it. Item number five. And then we had the add-on items. One, consent agenda item and two, regular items, presumably executive session at the end of the meeting. You could pull off the license discussion again and punt it, although I do think it'd probably be quick for y'all. Happy to do it. I'm happy to do it. Thank you. OK. All right, so do we have a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Second? Second. All those in favor? Aye. All right. So now, general business and appearances, this is a chance for members of the public who are here to address the council about issues that are not on tonight's agenda. Any issues that are on tonight's agenda, we just ask that you save your comments for those agenda items when they come up. Mr. Dworkin? I'm just removing the agenda, but I don't believe the TIF is on there anywhere. It is not on for this week. So my name is Sam Dworkin. I live on Cherry Avenue here in Montpelier. I wanted to comment about the TIF district. I know that at the meeting where the council voted to approve the first phase of it, I had asked a question about the assumption that all growth is because the TIF district, which seemed unreasonable to me, but the response was, that's how we do it. I would just draw the council's attention. There was an article in Seven Days on July 18th called Proof Negative, Auditor Documents Lack of Evidence for Business Accentives. And it's a long article, mostly talking about statements from the auditor, Doug Hoffer, for the state. But one, the general overall point is that a lot of money in the state is spent on things where there's not actually any way to measure what's happening or not a good way to measure it. And a chunk of that article specifically calls out the fact that TIF districts are based on this incorrect assumption that there would be no growth in our city without this magic district. And that surveys from around based on the article and the auditor's comments, it appears that a lot of different effort looking into new TIF districts actually help are never able to prove if that's going on. And so I would ask if the council still believes that there would be no growth in the TIF area of Montpelier without the TIF and if they've considered the position of the auditor of the state on these issues. Thank you, Sam. Thanks, Sam. Any other general business or appearances? Council members, anyone? OK, moving on. The consent agenda. Any? I move that we approve the consent agenda. I'll second. All right. Any further discussion? I'm sorry for doing this so late. But I don't completely understand the EC fiber membership. And so I would ask that we take that up just to have a bit more discussion about it. Certainly. Would you envision that we add it later on in the agenda? Would you like to take it up between the consent agenda and the DRB? Whatever is your pleasure. Let's just do it. We can do it right after the consent agenda. So I move that we approve the consent agenda. Last item, I believe it is G. Connor, I think it's finally amendment. OK, all those in favor? Aye. All right. So let's pull item G, the EC fiber membership withdrawal resolution. So basically, this is pretty simple. We have been members of EC fiber since its inception. It's creating a fiber network down near the upper valley, I guess you'd say, and is not continuous to the city. So it's pretty clear they will never serve us with direct service. We had appointments that were due in the spring. We hadn't appointed somebody. They called us and asked if we were going to appoint members. I brought it to the council's attention. At that point, you opted not to fill the appointments and express the desire that we withdraw from the district. We discussed it. It was, I guess, at the next meeting, Mr. Whitaker objected to us doing that. We took no action and it hasn't been on the agenda since. I recently received a communication from EC fiber just wanting to know where we stood and could we make a formal stand one way or the other. So we drafted this resolution to withdraw since that is the direction which you had seemed that you wanted to go. So I guess I'm looking at Jack because I'm not sure what his questions are. I think we should suss those out. I'm wondering if you have a clear response to what Steve Whitaker's objections were. It might have been my first meeting. Well, is I understanding he's here? I'd be happy to have him. I would never be presumed to speak from Mr. Whitaker, but as I understand his point it's not without some merit is that EC fibers had some success. They've got some fiber running. They've got it going. And they've in that if we are members that we might be able to leverage the fact that we'll never get service by saying, hey, we're your member. At least come and help central Vermont internet get started. Provide some technical expertise. I'm paraphrasing and I'm certainly rather let him speak for himself. But my sense in speaking to the EC fibers that they would be willing to provide that expertise anyway. But it's really up to the council on this. But I defer that. I would see a better opportunity for the record. I would differ with the opinion that we will never get service. The way fiber optics works, their fiber connects to the same fiber that connects at our substation out on River Street. They can connect us to the bigger internet quicker than any other way. We just have to establish the hop from downtown village fiber or heat plant fiber out to this electrical substation out by the Woodstone store. So the fact that we have been a member for years and I've spent untold hours as has Charlie John Block, Rob Chapman. We've spent immense amount of time and energy tracking, participating, involving, and learning from that. And it seems a real shame to throw it under the bus. I can see where maybe some of EC fiber folks would rather not have any obligation to the city. But indeed, we are the capital city and we have been a member and that has definitely played a role in their ability to get tens of millions of dollars in financing. So I don't think we should just step away from that, especially in that we could prevail upon them to help us measure the locations of our poles, map our fiber, get started on a planning process that our new communication union district does not yet know how to do. There's no prohibition on being members of two. I have, I'm a bit puzzled by what I read in the agenda item on the website today that it appeared to read as if EC fiber had already approved at their last meeting last week, Montpelier's approved motion to withdraw, which hasn't occurred to the best of my knowledge and therefore is, I believe that some of this is based upon some assumptions and some off the record communications that are truly the business of the entire council. There is, it has been a pending proposal to investigate use of the fiber on the heat plan to connect the state house. The rest of the state doesn't have the state house. You know, we have the opportunity to provide full motion, high definition video to all of EC fibers customers over that fiber and they don't recognize the value of that yet. But my point is they have engineering and financial expertise and techniques to go out and measure the locations of the poles, pre-engineer and estimate the costs of building. We are not gonna be content with Comcast fiber. Comcast fiber will never meet the state goals for speeds that we're supposed to have achieved by 2024. The statutory policy and goals is a hundred megabits symmetric by 2024. We better get busy writing a plan and if the communications union districts, either of them that we're members of right now fail to do that, I would encourage further involvement by the city council to look at that, look at the statutory goals and policy and look at what needs to happen to get that done. This is the core of our economic growth in the future is our light speed, symmetric communications and fair point and Comcast are not gonna do that for us. And so I think it would be helpful to add some context for the council. I think when this issue came up, it was when we were talking about forming the central Vermont, I think it's central Vermont fiber internet, central Vermont internet. And so I don't recall there being a particularly strong position from council one way or the other. I think it came up because it was time to make an appointment. No one had come forward at that time to continue serving. We didn't want to reappoint someone who hadn't come forward to continue to be the member. We needed to make one because of a time restriction in the bylaws of. So right, I think that the question was put because we found out very quickly before the council meeting that we needed to re-up someone by a certain date. And so we had the proposal was to reappoint the existing reps, but then advertise at least for an interim basis and then advertise for new reps. And the council said, no, I think that was the conclusion. And there's no penalty for having lapsed your rep due to health problems. It's not like it kicked out. I agree. It sends somebody to the meeting. That pales in comparison to having them vote us out before we voted to get out. That's an interesting position to be in. I wasn't aware of that. I guess for me at this point, I don't see the harm in staying on. Excuse me, I'm not sure I see the harm in staying on. Do we know is, I mean, so we can make an interim appointment and then advertise for the position? At this point, we don't have appointments so we could just advertise. Advertise for the position and just make the appointment at the next meeting. Do you want to do the next meeting? Because it's two weeks. Oh, it's not for a month. OK, so I think that might make sense then. I would offer to continue in or take over John Block's role, but because I'm the alternate for Montpelier on the new district and they have their meetings on the same second Tuesday evening of the week of the month, it would not work. OK, so if we advertise. It's one of your council members to jump in. Thank you, Steve. Thank you. OK, great. So we'll take no action on this item and advertise for a new member. Perfect. I mean, I don't know unless that satisfies me, right? Certainly. Is there any opposition to that plan? I like your plan. All right, we have a plan. Thank you. OK, moving on. We are now at the DRB appointment. So I see a number of folks who are here in the audience who I recognize their names from applications. So I think what we'll do is give everyone the two minutes to introduce yourselves and tell us why you'd like to be on the DRB and whatever other relevant information you'd like to share with the council and the public who are watching. Yes. So you just want to give the context that we made the charter change so we've got to fully appoint the whole board. Sure, I'll let Bill. Yeah, no, no, that's fine. Just for general notice, this past year, as the council member crew just referred to you, the city amended its charter with regard to both the Development Review Board and the Planning Commission. The Development Review Board specifically was expanded from five to seven members with two alternates. The Planning Commission was kept the same. But the most substantive change was that the prior charter, a lot of people would be appointed for specific terms but didn't allow, but it was from the date of appointment. So if someone stepped down halfway through a term, someone else took their place, then only then appointed for the fall two or three year term as opposed to just completing this existing term. So the charter got cleaned up to say, OK, fine, you can have an interim term. So what we'll do is going to appoint everybody as of a date certain so that the DOB appointments are all as of May 1 and the Planning Commission's appointments are all as of October 1. And the initial appointments will be for the staggered, some for one, some for two. And then ultimately, it'll just circle around and all be done on the same dates. Because that's new, and of course, because the legislative session didn't end until late June when the statutes passed and signed, this is our first meeting counting advertising to make the May 1 development review appointment. So therefore, the city council will be appointing the entire board tonight and then selecting which ones go into the various lengths of terms and which ones go into the alternate. This will be the only time that happens with DRB in future years. It'll only be the couple of members that come up for reappointment. They'll be doing that again with the Planning Commission for October 1, so in a September meeting. All right, so I suppose I guess everyone wants to stand and wait or come up and in turn, or however, I'm not sure what the typical process is. We don't usually have so many applicants and so many of them here. All right, Dan. We delete off and I'll stand here, set precedent. They can break precedent. My name is Dan Richardson. I'm an attorney in Montpelier. I live in Montpelier. I've lived here for 18 years. I've been on the DRB since 2007. Currently serving as the vice chair. I've asked to be reappointed to this position because I, first of all, enjoy the work greatly. I think there's a lot of good things that have happened in this community over the past couple of years and I think the DRB has been a big part of that. What the DRB is and how it functions is really as an applier and a quasi adjudicative body that functions, that takes the bylaws and the regulations that the Planning Commission has promulgated, as well as state law, and has put them into application. The very specific factual circumstances works with applicants. I think we have a very friendly board for applicants. It's not intimidating. Projects come up. We try and work with the applicant. And it's a board that works really well together to come to consensus decisions, to really vet through a lot of issues with the new bylaws. We've been really going through and trying to wrestle with some new precedents and trying to set things that will make sense going forward. One thing that I've always tried to do is to make sure that if an applicant comes forward and we make a decision that the applicant understands why. And that's really an important part of what this board does is take the abstract and conceptual ideas of zoning and applies them to specific factual circumstances and then explains it to the applicant themselves so that if they know, well, you can't do this because you're in a setback. Why do we have a setback? Or what's this issue? Or what are the alternatives? Or what are the issues underlying them? And that's something I really enjoy. And I think I'm fairly good at. And I would hope that I have the opportunity to do that. So if there's any questions, otherwise I'll sit down because I know there's a line. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. Anyone else that would like to speak to the council? Mr. Kester. Hi, good evening. I'm Tom Kester, resident of Berry Street. I'm an attorney with Martin Associates in Berry City. My practice is primarily focused on real property transactions, disputes, due contractual business and personal injury as well. I've applied for the DRB because I really like real property matters. I really like to help and explain things. That has always been one of my collings with law. It's always been to explain and try to cancel and help people. And I know that the DRB handles a lot of the issues where people come forward. They wanna know, they wanna do something, they wanna understand, they can or they cannot. And the DRB has a responsibility to look at the law, look at the facts, apply the law, apply the facts and come to a conclusion that is very equitable and that is upheld ultimately. I've run the whole gamut of real property matters, zoning variances and the like. I've represented clients in Caledonia, Washington, Orange counties. I've been in practice now for over three years. Primarily my practice has been focused on real property. If I get appointed to the DRB, my goal is to make things, the laws of health, the regulations are upheld and that the decisions are made in a fair, just and time management manner so that the city can grow and some can prosper. So my goal is, if I would be able to do so. Thank you very much. Thank you, Tom. I'm Jack Lindley. It's a pleasure to see so many young faces. I don't think that's working. I don't think it's working either. If there was a switch on it, if there was a DRB meeting, it would be working because it goes home. It's pretty directional. There you go. Yeah, it's working. You don't have control over it? It's on. It's on? It's up all the way up. Let's get close to it. Yeah, it's very directional. Speak into the mic. That's right. I'm Jack Lindley. I have been a resident of Montpelier for 50 years this fall. I've been involved with the DRB in planning for 35 years and the excitement of seeing new regulations to work under is a challenge. I certainly welcome that challenge. Some of the other stuff that we worked with was difficult, but, and this may be difficult also, but essentially, I come from the business community. I am not a lawyer and we have good discussions with the lawyers on the board and I enjoy that. And as long as I can still read the fine print, I'm certainly willing to give my time to the city. Thank you, Jack. Good evening, council. My name's Kevin O'Connell and I've been a resident of Montpelier for 35 plus years now. And most of that time I've been involved with one board or another with the city. It's a way that I enjoy giving back something to the city that I think is the best in the world. I have a planning background and currently I'm the contracts manager with the health department in New Burlington. So I make that 40 mile community direction every day, but I still enjoy putting in the time on the DRB, finding it to be a really great linkage between official living in the city hall and what's happening out there in the neighborhoods. So if you have any particular questions, I'd be happy to answer them. I'm currently a member of the board. I would very much like to continue that tenure. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you. You probably don't know me, but I'm new town. I've been here since October. I love Montpelier. My name's Raul Goodwin. I'm a senior land survey technician at a surveying firm recovered from basically Rutland to the Canadian border. Do not come this far east towards Montpelier, but this is my community. I want to support it with my expertise. I guess with my application to look at it, I feel like the role of a surveyor on the board is certainly beneficial. There's not many of us out here. I'm not yet licensed as a surveyor. I plan to be by the end of the year. It's a long and rigorous process. I like to explain sometimes that we're not just the guys that have a tripod on the side of the road. We actually go to land records and are caught right in the middle of disputes sometimes. But I think one key component of the survey profession that I like to highlight is that in the land development, we're one of the only people that don't work for anyone in particular. We work for the laws and the regulations regardless of whether our client is paying us or not. Sometimes they don't like what we have to say, but we look at how things came to be, whether it's easements or property boundaries, and I think I can do the same to apply that to the zoning and planning regulations in Montreal. Thank you. Thank you, Rob. All right. Is there anyone else who has put their name in for consideration to an appointment to the DRB who would like to address the council that hasn't yet? Okay. I'm not seeing anyone. So do we have a motion to go into executive session? Was that a... I would move that we go into executive session for the purpose of an appointment. What's the... Sorry, I don't know the language in front of me. I think it's usually... Appointment of a municipal official. Yeah. For the purpose of an appointment of several municipal officials. Second. Okay. Jack, second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. So we will go into executive session and we will be back. Do we have a motion to come out of executive session? I move that we come out of executive session. All second. Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. So I have a minor potential conflict of interest with one of the candidates. I disclosed it to council in executive session and I believe and asserted that it did not affect my judgment in this matter. Council agree? So I'd like to take a moment and thank all of our applicants and our incredible number of well qualified candidates tonight for all of the DRB positions. I'm speaking on behalf of the council and the council is proud and heartened by the number of qualified and willing folks who stepped up to serve on the DRB. I know these meetings are long and time consuming and we appreciate all of the work that you do. Given the recent changes to our zoning ordinances coupled with the new committee appointment process the council saw a meaningful opportunity to bring new perspective to this board by bringing in new members while maintaining continuity and institutional knowledge on the DRB. The council would like to extend its sincerest appreciation for all of the work done by those who have been on the DRB for many years as well as to those who had the courage to apply and step up to serve on the DRB. So at this point, do we have a motion? I move that we appoint to the DRB for a term of three years, Dan Richardson, Kate McCarthy and Deb Markowitz for a term of two years, Kevin O'Connell, Ryan Kane and Thomas Kester for a term of one year, Robert Goodwin and to the two alternate positions, Will Sheabaum and Claire Rock. Do we have a second? Second. Is there any, are all those in favor of the motion? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, motion carries. I said to John. Certainly. So our next agenda item is the Emerald Ashboro Management Plan that we have in draft format. Actually, Councillor Krueger had asked that we take a quick break, is that okay? Please. Thank you very much. I'm John Snell, Chair of the Tree Board. I'm John Akylosik on the Tree Board. Jack Byer, Tree Warden. And we're here to talk about the Emerald Ashboro. I wish that there were a more pleasant topic to talk about tonight. The last time we were here, we enjoyed talking to you about trees in general. Unfortunately, two or three weeks after that, the first of the Emerald Ash Bores were discovered up in their national life. And John's got a couple of little samples for you there. And so the insect's just tiny, it fits on a penny. It's almost impossible to find until you see trees dying. These are the two ash trees types that we're dealing with. This is the green ash that's downtown, the big trees downtown. This is a white ash that is mostly the trees that we're finding along streets and roadways and would be on people's property. So they're both very vulnerable to this insect. So in 1913, oh, it's 1913, right? That age is made up there. Oh, come on. In 2013, we were here talking initially about the Emerald Ash Bore. And John developed a preparedness plan at that time, which we presented to you. Since then, it has spread to 35 states and three Canadian provinces. So it's everywhere. And it now is up at National Life, very close by. And will soon be all over the city, no matter what we do, it is here. The quick rundown of the life cycle is that the adult female lays eggs under the bark of the ash tree earlier this year, like in June, July, and then the larva develop over the next nine months. And this time of year, then earlier in the summer, summer would break out in a little tiny hole that's impossible to see. But in the time that that larva has been under the bark, Ashley, you have a piece of it there. They make these galleries under the bark. Is this the larva? That's, yeah. And those galleries basically girdle the tree. They kill the tree slowly, but surely. And so it all happens pretty quickly. A tree that looks great today in three years could be dead. And I really need to reiterate that this is not a problem with ecology or the insect. It's a human problem. So to the extent that we fit into the ecology of life, we're part of the problem. But these insects travel less than a mile a year, typically. And so since it was first found in Detroit, roughly 2,000 until now, it should have only traveled 18 miles. But it's in 35 states. And it got that way because we cut this firewood and Ash is a great firewood and we moved it to 35 states. The same problem exists here in Montpelier. And we'll talk about that later. But we can't stop it, but our goal is to slow it down. So John has been really ambitious about updating our preparedness plan to a management plan. You have a draft of the executive summary of that and we're happy to share the whole plan with you as well. But the essence of that is that we are facing some pretty devastating consequences. If you walk around downtown, you may notice the big beautiful trees in front of Necky, Down Home, Bethany Church, Bear Pond Books, two on private property, one at the corner of city center and the other in front of Capitol Theater. All of those big trees are green ash. If we do nothing, they will be dead within five years. There are 400 street trees, trees in the right of way. One of the problems with ash is that when it dies, it becomes very brittle and dangerous. It will fall down, it'll land on people, cars. So we have 400 potentially hazardous trees. Many of those trees are bigger than 15 inches in diameter. So there's significant trees. We also have over 200 trees along the streets but just outside the right of way that will impact public safety when they die. So we're talking 600 trees that are gonna become hazardous and potentially damaging to people. In the park where there are also a lot of ash trees, John's done a great job of inventorying these and there's some 200 trees along the trails and roadways in Hubbard Park. So again, that's a potential liability. Through our inventory, we looked at a sampling of private property and estimate that there's over 2,700 trees on private property. Some of these trees are immense. Some of the people in this room have trees this big in their yard. Including city manager. You're gonna take it down. I have to talk to Jeff. All this is happening so fast that we can't really even blink. I mean, the beauty of the situation is that we have a lot of precedent and a lot of education from other municipalities throughout the country. We can go to their records and see what they did do or didn't do. And I advised we put an invoice on your place because it is gonna be paid one way or the other. And we're looking at probably three quarters of a million dollars in 10 years time. There's just no way around it. I wish there were, what we think we can do is with concerted effort and an investment, we can slow it down so that it doesn't happen in three years or five years. But we can spread it over probably a 10 year period. And that buys us a lot of time. But that's only gonna happen with planning, which we're doing a really good job of. And then an investment on your part in more personnel and equipment to help us take those trees down as they are dying. What that'll do is rather than $750,000, now we can spread that over time. And I think that it will be much more manageable for all of us in the city. It also gives us as the tree board more time to plant more trees and have them grow. Where our goal is to plant two trees for every tree that comes down. And in large part that's because not everyone that we plan is gonna live. And we didn't have enough trees to begin with. So we're hoping to get ahead of that curve. But we also know that in 10 years time, it's gonna be in a blink that those trees will barely get us back to where we are today. So we've been working hard and so far we've updated the preparedness plan. John's done a great job of doing that. That really shows us what the next 10 years worth of steps are to take. And these are based on a lot of other communities. So they're proven. We were at a meeting this morning down at BTC where we updated some of those ideas. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. This has been done and improved upon over and over again. And in 10 years there could be even more information and help that we can't even envision right now. But from today's point of view, in the next 10 years all ash trees in the city will be dead, period. Untreated. Untreated, thank you. Yeah, we're gonna talk about possible treatment with an insecticide. We've updated our inventory. We did two previous inventories and there were issues with both of them. We wanted to really find out how many ash trees are there that the city's responsible for. And we're very close to finishing that. John again has done a great job of organizing it and we're willing to bet a lot on this one, right? Yeah, we've had some help from citizen volunteers surveying streets throughout the city and we've done estimates on trees that are in the right of way by basically using the right of way tables to determine what trees fall in the right of way and which ones do not. So I think we've got a pretty good handle on the 400 trees that have been mentioned are very close to what we're dealing with now. Maybe a little bit more, still a few streets to go. And what this will allow us to do is not only know where they are, but we can go back and look at them on a regular basis. Now, we don't have to drive all over guessing. We know where they are. We can assess their condition. And if we see that they become infested with its insect, we can take them down before they become dangerous or do something else. But it's really, knowing where we're at is a huge step forward. We have conducted some inspections of suspect trees with branch sampling, cutting branches out of the tree and looking closely. You can't spot this thing from the ground. It's impossible. You have to get up there. We're hoping to have access to the bucket truck on a more regular basis. That's one of the additional costs that we're gonna ask you to consider covering so that we can actually get up right in the tree, do the proper sampling and know whether the thing's there or not. Right now, there's six trees up at National Life. There's probably more that are infested, but we're not gonna know until we get up into them. We're planning to create some trap trees that will next spring draw the insect to these trees, allow us to not only see what's going on, but to take the insects that get in those trees and destroy them before they can spread. We've had meetings with state and national experts, again, including one this morning. So we've done a lot of research the Tree Board has to see what other communities have done. We realized that the Capital District is outside our purview, but that it's pretty darn important to the city. So we caused a meeting to happen with the Capital District personnel and had two commissioners there. We've met twice with them now and they're in the process of developing a 50 year plan that will take the hillside behind the state house and make sure that it isn't full of just dead trees. So that's pretty exciting really, it's very forward thinking. We worked with National Life to try and help them figure out how to slow down the spread up there. Right now that's the only known infestation and they've been very cooperative, willing to talk to us, listen to us, and allow us to stick our big noses in there basically. We were planning meetings with Greenmont Power and Local Arbis to include them in the whole thing because this insect doesn't pay any attention to city boundaries, it just goes where it wants to. And we've begun a pretty substantial effort to educate the public. What we found is that there's a lot of crazy misinformation out there and it doesn't help anybody to have that out there. There are logical steps that people can take that will reduce their costs, reduce hazards, and help us spread out the infestation over time. And so that's a big effort of ours is to get information out regularly and consistently, accurately. That said, we're volunteers, most of us. Some of us are underpaid, right? I'll let you guys hear some sound. And it's very clear to me that we can't keep up with what's going on. We've watched the number of calls coming in, come look at my ashtray, what about this, what about that, go exponentially up over the last couple of months and it's gonna get horrendous soon. So one of the things we're asking for you to do is to consider making this investment. And it really is an investment. I presented you with an invoice but it's actually an investment that we're asking you to make. And it involves a number of different pieces. Top on the list is we gotta get this guy some more personnel and equipment. It is insane to think that the parks can do what they're already doing much less what we're about to add on top of them removing four to 700 trees. Many of them dangerous. Many of them around situations that require great skill and equipment with what they have, one and a half to two people. And broken down equipment. And not just focused on trees. Right. A few parks. Oh yeah, you have Parkster on here. That's great to have. So I don't know what that is gonna take but I'm gonna push it off to Jeff to let you know in the near future because we need more help and it's not something we can put off. We need somebody in here very soon. So it's up to snuff by next spring ready to go at it hard. We're hoping that we can work with the city to establish a web address where when people want information or want to report a tree, it can come right in, get dumped in a bucket and we can access it that way instead of it coming to me or to John or just it's untenable already. We're asking you to consider and approve and fund injection of an insecticide in 15 trees downtown. This is not something I ask lightly. I have always been an organic farmer. I don't use pesticides and yet what I look at is we have an opportunity to save these trees for a 10 year period where we can continue to grow new trees around them and the only way to do that is to inject an insecticide in them. There are other ways but they're really horrific. So the only viable way in my mind is to do this. It's reasonably cost effective about a thousand bucks per year for all 15 trees. It's reasonably safe in terms of the rest of the environment. The pesticide stays in the tree. The leaves when they fall off are not particularly hazardous afterwards for very long if at all. There are other insecticides that can be applied that are pretty substantially dangerous to pollinators and we are not recommending those. There may be a few other trees around city or up in the park that we're gonna ask you to also approve this process for. But it's a pretty important part of us slowing this down. What it will allow us to do is to spend some more money which I'm asking you to come up with. We'd like to put in 12 new trees downtown. It's gonna cost about 2,300 bucks per tree. We have to work with DPW, have the tree well excavated, new sidewalk put in around it, plant the tree, put the grates and guards around it. It's not an insignificant cost. But if we can do that over the next year or two at 2,300 bucks a tree and get those trees growing in 10 years time, it'll be much less noticeable that the ash trees are dying. Your actual paper here, you used a number of 2,100 per tree and here you have a different number. Okay, that may be just for the tree itself. Yeah, sorry. The draft of the plan that we sent you earlier is already outdated, so we will be updating that. Personally, the financial section really needs a little over. Yeah. So we're asking you for advice to treat trees with an insecticide to plant more trees downtown. This is just the downtown area. And we're also asking you to publicly take an advisory stand against using the neonic insecticides that are not, that are very harmful to insect, to pollinators. And I will give you a list of my notes here in just a minute. We're asking you to increase the tree board budget from $2,000 a year back to $5,000 a year where it used to be because we're growing trees that we can plant around the city. So not just looking at downtown, but throughout the city. This last spring we planted about 70 trees. My goal would be to aim for 150 to 200 trees next spring. I don't know how we're gonna do it, but we need some money to do that and a lot more volunteer labor. We think that there will be one of the big problems will be homeowners having an ash tree in their backyard. They don't wanna do anything or can't afford to do anything. So the insect gets in there and then spreads to a whole new area. We'd like to be able to have them through education and perhaps a low interest revolving fund have access to funds to take those trees down in a timely fashion. So we're asking you to set aside whatever it takes, 25 to 50,000 bucks to establish a revolving fund. People can borrow from it if they need to pay it back when they, on a regular basis, but then allows, especially low income people, to take down trees that we think really need to come down. We're looking to establish some sort of a marshaling yard where we can take all of the wood waste. If it's handled properly, it minimizes the further infestation. If it's not, it's gonna spread like crazy as we've seen with firewood. So if we can establish a marshaling yard, we're working with DPW on where that might be a good thing to do, then Jeff's crews can be there to, receive the logs, could even potentially have a portable sawmill there and train somebody to use it. The wood would be usable if we could debark it and in a timely fashion. The rest of it could be chipped, burned. National life is gonna burn the five, six trees that they are chipping up there this week. So that's a possibility too. And finally, we're asking you to really request of the citizens of Montpelier to obey the published protocols for how to handle and dispose of the infested wood. That's gonna be essential to slowing things down. And without that, it's we're looking at three to five years versus 10 or 15. So it's no longer hypothetical. It's here. It's gonna be very fast moving, very fast moving. We can't afford to study it any longer. We've done all of that. And all of our ash trees that are untreated will be dead in 10 years. Those of you who remember Elms, it's far enough back that it's easy to forget what it was like, but the pictures out of the Midwest of these ash flying trees one year and the next year they're all dead, it's sober. So we've learned a lot from these other communities about how to minimize the cost and spread them out over time. And we really believe with your support, we can do that. At this point, I would entertain any other questions that you might have. Why just 15 trees to be downtown? Yes. Well, cause you don't want me to take parking places out. I'd love to plant 500 trees downtown. What about treating 15 trees? Oh, treating. Why just treating 15? That's all that you have downtown. Yes, but why not treat some other trees, I guess. Yeah, we're considering treating other trees in my covered park. For instance, if you're familiar with the old shelter, there's a green ash right next to the old shelter. That's one of the favorite locations for the Emerald Ash Board is a tree in a sunny location that's a green ash. That tree is marked for death. So that was when I would say, yeah, you definitely should be treating it. I mean, the idea is to treat it before they're signed. Yeah, now it's time to treat because they're in the area. So if it weren't a financial matter, would you opt to treat many, many, many more trees or? We don't believe there's a lot of street trees that we will be recommending treating. Is that because of the effectiveness of the treating or? Very effective, but you have to continue treating it. For how? Ever. For ever? Forever. Forever. Can I speak to that just for a moment? So yes, what you're suggesting is that we pick these 15 trees that are the most visible downtown, the largest, most impressive, and treat them for 10 years at least, something like once a year. Yep, no. Every other year. Every other year. And then as soon as we stop treating them, they will die. We'll probably take them down at that point. But you'll have had the other trees grow up in the meantime. And so if we did that for every ash tree in the city, which is good. You know, there will be private property owners, some who are in this room that may want to treat their own ash trees. And what we're hoping to do is to educate them so that they use a treatment that is effective and relatively safe versus one that's not. A real question that I have in the cities. I'm looking at this. And I was like, well, to do 800 trees, you listed a bunch from here. That's $53,000 a year. If we did all the ones you listed, the 200, you know. But is that forever? Or is that any? Is that your wife's ad number? It was only one of the invoices John gave us. He said that there were 400 in the hazardous act. Well, I didn't count the 15 of it. How did you arrive at the 53 being all the street trees? Because it's based on the diameter of the tree. It's not based on the tree itself. Well, that's what I'm asking. The more expensive it is. Well, you had just said it was $1,000 for 15 trees. Based on the ones that are there and their sizes. So I just took 800 divided by 50. The idea being is if you're talking about my question, I don't have, I'm not trying to get an answer. You mentioned 750,000. That's roughly $75,000 a year. If you could treat those trees for that amount of money. But what I'm hearing you say is that they're going to die at the end of it anyway. They will when we stop treating them. There are many municipalities who are treating because it's less expensive to treat than it is to take it down, in many cases. So that may be an option. And actually, I am likely to recommend a variation when I have time to get my head above water. And that if we only treat 15 trees, we may see wholesale loss in a very short period of time, which makes it very expensive and overwhelming. So if we treat 100, 150 trees so that we're not getting having to do 200 trees a year, and we carefully select those trees, we may choose to want to save 50 or 70 of them because they're really significant and really beautiful. And they're delaying the cost as well. So when we treat, we have options in the future. We can stop treating or we can keep treating. The other thing you should know is that after a certain amount of time, after about three years, you only have to treat every other year, is my understanding. And actually, if you stopped in 10 years, you likely wouldn't see any loss for another three years after that. You might change your mind and say, oh, maybe we should treat again. Because we're dealing with a population of insects that goes like this and then it crashes. Right, after 10 years. Is there any kind of state strategy on this? This is the state strategy. But I mean, they're not funding anything. Oh, no. You're on your own now. But we met with them this morning and this is exactly what they're talking about. I just wanted to note that I think that the $75,000 a year, or $750,000 over 10 years, also includes the cost of a lot of other stuff, other than just the trees in the right of way. So I'm not sure that that's a equivalent. I have just sort of a more general policy question. And I so appreciate this is one of my first concerns was what kind of pesticides are we talking about when I heard the state plan sort of talking about pesticide options. And I am so heartened to see that you were paying attention to the pollinator issue. So I'm just curious, as a city, do we already have a policy about pesticides? We don't use pesticides at all, for city stuff. Bill, when I've talked about this, this is a big deal. Right, I want to make sure that if there is ever a need for a city policy, and maybe this is sort of the event that creates the need for a city policy going forward, that that needs to be our clear and consistent policy about how we are going to deal with pesticides and insecticides. Jack? I read this report, and it's really hard for me to speak up. You know, as well, you know, it'll this time will be like the elm tree set by years ago. It's just terrible. The question of looking at the proposal seems like the bulk of the financial investment you're talking about is really removal and replacement of trees, not treatment and maintenance of trees. So one question I have is, does it really bias much of any significance to even treat trees and set up these trap trees, as opposed to just putting all of our resources into removal and replacement? Well, the problem with removing and replacing downtown is it would just look like a wasteland until we could grow new trees. So we're hoping to plant new trees and grow them until we can get sizable trees. Well, and I'm afraid it's slightly more dire in that we've been planting quite a number of trees in Montpelier, and you'll notice that there's only one kind of tree that's flourishing, and that's the tree that's under attack. So there's a chance in 10 years we will have tried planting a bunch of trees, but I'm very doubtful that any will ever get to the size and the majesty of the present ash that are in Montpelier. And if we want to have that kind of size tree that we might need to keep treating. And I just want to, John talked about it some, but I'd like to talk about it in a different way. The size of a tree and its benefits are geometric. The smaller the tree, it's a very small benefit. But a big tree is geometric in the size of the stormwater control. It's air filtering the shade it provides. So it's really a huge value to have a large tree, especially in a downtown heated paved area. The other question I had to do with trees on private property, have you investigated? Does anyone know if the death of a tree due to infestation like this would qualify the homeowner for a claim under their own insurance? The insurance companies are already moving in and requiring removal of trees. So I don't know about a claim, but you're either going to remove a tree or you're going to have your policy canceled. Or increase the rate of trees. Is that a concern of risk of it falling on and creating a delay? Absolutely. The trees can shatter, and branches can fall on your property, all the targets, people. One of the reasons we want to understand where the trees are and be able to monitor their condition is that when they die, they're much harder to take down. A year after they're infected, if you catch them within a year and they're dying, it's not so bad. But if you wait too long, then the costs of a larger tree go up way up. Geometrically? Double trip. Not quite geometrically, but in a scary fashion. You'd love the interest you could get. They're much more dangerous to take down for the workers. And so they charge you for the work. Do they do it a different way? My son, actually, is a tree climber. You shouldn't climb it. You can't climb a dead end. After a certain amount, you're not supposed to climb it. You just have to use a big crane. And then even when you remove branches, they can shatter or cause the tree to shatter because the wood gets that brutal. That's our understanding. I haven't done it myself. We actually have a world champion climber in the room at the moment, back here, she. There, you want to introduce yourself? Sure. Come on up to the mic. She can tell about your climber. My name is Bayla LeVangio. I'm actually a champion tree climber in the world. Currently, I'm ranked 10th in the world. Thank you very much. I actually work for a company called BioForce. And I do a lot of education about emerald ash borer. And I was at this event with the gentleman we're at today, too. It's very important that you consider this. And it will change your community without a doubt. You speak to any other city council across the United States, across Canada. They are having the same problems. And they are all dealing with short-sighted funding because it's always catches people in the rear. Hindsight's always 20-20. So it's best to plan. And it looks like your crew did start planning ahead of time. Unfortunately, the implementation is a little bit delayed. So you're going to start to see a lot of dog back. But you guys are doing a great job. Thanks. So fun. Rosie? So I was going to start to wrap up the discussion unless other people have questions. But maybe. Sorry. And I understand this may be a premature question. But we were talking about extra personnel. We don't have any extra personnel. There's two things. There's the company work. And then we just finished the inventory. And we've been struggling to catch up with what we uncovered in the inventory. And it would be wise of us to be able to catch up and not be behind as this comes on, which is almost impossible. It would be, it's hard to imagine doing it without a full-time position, really, on it. Right now, we have two people one day a week, which is the two-fifths position. I think we'll be doing a miraculous job if we have just a one full-time position and then two-fifths to catch up with what we have and to stay somewhat on top of the position. And sorry, one more. I do appreciate the talk about the pesticides and not using the unit. I can't know why it's, excuse me. I am curious about more details about the pesticides that you are proposing using. For example, do you have a number like a success rate? It's 99.9% successful. And how long it's been in use? That I'm not sure of. But it's been utilized widely. It's the one that the states are recommending now, too. It's a tree injection, so it's very limited exposure to people or animals or whatever. I just did a brief Google search and there's lots of information out there. We did a lot of research. Before the state came out with their recommendations, the tree board actually did research. We parceled out all the different insecticides and we went in there and did a lot of research. And we came up with the same recommendations that they came up with eventually independently. So we're pretty pleased with that outcome. Any further questions? So I wanted to express my appreciation for the tree board because I know that often you get to do warm and fuzzy stuff about tree appreciation. And this is really hard work that you've done on our behalf and I really appreciate that. And the plan is really thorough and I appreciate that you've brought out all these different aspects of the costs and thought of creative solutions for how to deal with that. So I want to know kind of what you need from us tonight. You made some funding requests which I am sort of anticipating would be covered in our budget discussions unless they're immediate funding requests. And then you also wanted some general support. We have to approve the plan, I guess. Well, this plan, though, because I thought this was just a draft and we were waiting from the state to... No, we can... We need to finalize the draft with more details on the financial aspects. But essentially it's 90% there and then the money part is something that I'm not very good at, to be honest with you. That's what we needed to have some help. So potentially it could be just a special meeting to approve it if it's done sometime between now and our next council meeting, because it's not for four weeks. Oh, that's doable. The immediate need is having enough bandwidth with this guy so that we can do some further investigations this summer and fall. The next big hit for funding will be in early spring. So I guess the question to the city manager is, is their funding available from what we've already budgeted or what does it be? Well, it depends what that number is. I mean, I think probably if we were going to spend, you know, 15,000 or whatever that number was to start treating trees, the $1,000 on it, that's certainly something we can do. You would need 2,000, because it's every two years. So 2,000 dollars initially is probably a challenge, but I think we'd have to go through and see, you know, prioritize and talk and it may be providing supplemental personnel or something like that. That's going to be a bigger number, especially if we commit to it over a longer period of time. So, I feel the personnel is like needed now and it's been needed. I've been saying for a long time we need to invest in our parks with personnel. So we need to do our due diligence of where we can find money to support. I mean, the number you put in here, which is reasonable was about 50,000 for halftime staff just to dedicate for your ash management. But we need to look at a solid number for a full-time person between what we need already and then to work into the ash management. So we should come back with a proposal for recommendation, I don't think we should wing it here, but I mean, if they need, you know, I mean, I could approve the couple thousand dollars to start treating, so. And I also want to remind us that when it comes to working on the trees within the park that we should absolutely be including the parks commission in these discussions and working with them closely on that. So. Yes, and I would like to see the getting of the body to help with the work be something that is a priority because I don't, I think we can fund all of this, but if we don't have the bodies to execute it's not going to mean anything. So I think that's something, I think it's pretty safe to say that's a clear commitment from the council to get you the support that you need to make this happen. Thank you. One other question we talked about the parks commission is that cemetery also affected? It will be. Ashtrees there? They do. So again, involving the cemetery commission. Schools also. Great. Thank you. Thank you so much. Oh, it's a commission, so thank you all for your work. I'm going to leave you with one last thing which is the return on our investment because they left you with an invoice initially. And it really is an investment and the returns are going to be substantial. Thanks John. Thank you John. It's great. It's pretty cheeky. I love it. I know. I know. I loved that. That was my favorite part. I am correct. I believe that takes us to the street closure application that was filed by Union Elementary. I didn't bring an invoice. So my name's... What's that? For us. Exactly, a different name. Schoolboy, totally different meaning. So my name's Jay Erickson and I live on Liberty Street here in town and I'm the project manager for the new playground at Union Elementary School. And we're here tonight specifically to talk about street closure application that we've submitted for Park Avenue outside the school. But let me just give you a very, very brief update on where we are with the project just so we know where we are. We went out to build this spring. We had four interested contractors. We ended up receiving three bids on the first part of June. We've been working with the lowest apparent bidder over the last six or so weeks to bring their bid in line with our budget. The bids that did come in were beyond our budget and beyond what was allocated in the bond. And so we've been working on a number of rounds of what we call value engineering where we're tweaking and looking at changes to the design and the construction process to bring the budget in line with where we are. Painfully aware of that process. Painfully aware. I know, I don't need to explain it to you exactly. So I guess it was two weeks ago that the school board approved and empowered us by us. I mean, the district and Andrew Lewis of the new director of facilities for the district too, to negotiate with the bidder who's ECI out of Williston at a number of $1.3 million. So we've been working with them over the past few weeks to bring the design and the contract in line so those numbers match up and so we can move forward with the project. We are very close by that. I mean, we should have final numbers. We're optimistically hoping that we'll find final numbers from them this week and we'll be able to ideally enter into contract with them next week. Once we've entered into a contract with ECI, we will then be able to establish the construction timeline when we'll start and how it will phase in and happen over the coming little over the 13 or 14 months. Ultimately, it's the contractor's expertise that we rely on for what that work process looks like but what we're working on as a solid deadline is having the playground done and open again by the start of school next fall. So end of August, beginning of September of 2019. So that's where we are in terms of the bid process, okay? We know that there is some variability and we've been talking with the contractor for a long time about what that schedule might look like. We know there's some variability on their end but what we're doing is preparing to, we wanna make sure that we are prepared and that the screw is prepared if the contractor says we're gonna start digging tomorrow then we're prepared for that because there's a lot of steps that have to happen to make sure that the screw is ready to manage the closure of the playground for a year and this is something we've been working on for the project itself over four years but it's the logistics really over the last year to make sure we have everything in place. So that's the request. The request in front of you tonight is around the closure of Park Avenue which is the one way street that goes along the main entrance of the school. We are anticipating that the playground, the entire playground meaning the upper playground and if you're familiar with the school also what we call the lower playground which is the courtyard that's sort of inside the footprint of the school will be closed all year. So it's our intention to use Park Avenue which is that one way street as our playground and spot for outdoor recess throughout the school year. Now there's a possibility we may not need it on the first day of school but it could happen a little bit later in the fall, could happen a little bit later in the winter, could even happen in the spring but we want to be prepared so that if when the contract is ready when we know the construction process is going to start that we're ready. The school obviously has to do a lot of planning around recess, certainly around safety procedures, fire drills and all of that. So it's our intention and we will have all of those things in place by the beginning of the school year. So the map that you all have received is in the application is the plan that we, I say we collectively have put together to sort of be able to use Park Avenue as that playground and minimize the impact on the surrounding neighborhood. And by we I mean, I've been working on it. Andrew, the new director has been working on it. We've had a lot of excellent conversations with Bill, with Bob and with Tom, with Fire, with police, with Tony from police and with Tom Public Works as well as Chris, the building inspector to make sure everything we're doing is focusing on minimizing the impact to the neighborhood and also certainly making sure that what we're doing is as safe as possible for all the kids. We're talking about 450 kids a day that use this outside space. At any one time, you could have between 75 and 125 of them outside at one time. So assuming that the playground is completely closed and off limits, being able to utilize Park Avenue as that outdoor space, which is actually fairly significant square footage and pretty nice, will really help us be able to make sure that the kids are having adequate time outside and having outdoor space that they can learn and that it's safe. So I'm happy to take any questions, but I guess what I can do is sort of run through the map as to what we're thinking or you can let me know where you'd like me to start. In the application, you said you've had community meetings. We have. I didn't hear, I didn't read what the neighbors were saying. How are they going to get to their house if the street is closed off? Well, fortunately, as the closure works, ultimately, we would be restricting access to three off-street parking spots and that's all. So what we're talking- Driveways, access to their homes. Not even that, we're not limiting access to driveways. And I'll go through the details of how that works. But there are three off-street parking spots that are associated with the gray apartment building that's on the corner of Park and Loomis. And so access to those would be restricted, but that's all. And let me explain to you that I can kind of run through some of the details. So what we're proposing is that we put a fence, a chain link fence at the end of Park Ave, where it meets Loomis, okay? And then also about just a touch over halfway up Park Avenue just below where the kind of driveway access to the school is kind of where the bike racks are if you're familiar with the school, okay? So to your point, Donna, fortunately, there are three residential properties, all of which would have access to the driveways above that upper fence. I'll call it the upper fence. It's right at the point where it starts to climb is where we would stop it. So 12, 10, and then also eight Park Avenue would also have access. Eight Park Avenue has a horseshoe driveway, so they would have access to one side, but not the other, but they would still- So would the whole company deliver, so would FedEx, so UPS, it would still be access there. Just to clarify in that, the thinking we talked about was that that top section of the street would become two-way during the interim period just so people could get in and out because the opposite street would be closed. So for the residents to access the driveways and then also would provide an opportunity for the construction to be able to access the upper part of the playground there, where the existing fire lane. No, I'm sorry about that. Yeah, yeah, and the other significant piece of that is that, I called it the driveway, but that access point on the corner where the bike racks are is the ADA accessible point for the school. So the bus that brings kids who need that service can still come down there, drop off, turn around and go back up, and we would also be providing a handicap parking spot on Park Avenue there. So yeah, but the fact that that would then become two-way is significant, yeah. So I noticed that Jack has a question, but I also wanted to, I see some members of the community here, and I just, I also wanted to open it up for any community comments if there are any folks here who want to be heard on this matter too. Seeing anyone jump in the hot seat, so. But absolutely, yeah. But so then it's the two-park Avenue, that's two or three parking spaces there, and those are gonna be eliminated for the duration. So those would be, and I once spoke to the property owner, John Baker, and he occupies one of those spots and then one of his tenants has the other two. And I spoke to them, part, and they were very flexible and positive in terms of the conversation and how could we make it work together. And I greatly appreciate that. What part of the proposal, if you look at number five there, which is basically the green line along Loomis Avenue, is that we would take the three spots that are on Loomis at the end of that building and designate them specifically for those two tenants. And we're so, we need clarification from the police department on whether we would do a permit or how exactly we would enforce that. But those three spots that are cornered to park up to the driveway of that building, where you see the green line and the number five there, would those three spots would be for those two tenants. And so which would provide them access. That sidewalk will remain open. So they would still, that would never be blocked. So they'd still be able to walk. But one piece of information that I'm still trying to finalize is providing one off-street parking spot for John's tenant. John, thankfully, spends the winter in Florida and he was actually relieved that he wouldn't actually have to pay somebody to par those spots over the winter. He would just leave his car there. But we would do it to make sure that we have off-street parking for when there's parking bans in effect. And so I'm working with a couple other property owners in the immediate vicinity to find one or two lease spots that the school would lease for them to use if they needed overnight parking or if there was a parking ban in effect. Yep. Any comments? Hi, I'm Jeff Prescott. I live at Tin Park Avenue. Andrew Shuford and I own Tin Park Avenue and Lake Park Avenue. And we have had meetings with representatives from the school. They have anchored on our feedback about access to the properties. And I just wanted to let you know that we're here. We actually had our own executive session when you were gone for an hour. I got confirmation on a lot of things. We were happy to provide that service. So, you know, we appreciate the school working with us and, you know, it's going to be disruptive, but, you know, our feedback has been considered and what's being proposed to you tonight. Thank you so much. So I have a couple of questions. I am willing to support this with, I just have a few questions about whether or not the traffic flow disruption, so I happen to live on that portion of East State Street where this is my sort of workaround to avoiding downtown traffic. And, you know, that's totally fine. But obviously there's going to be a disruption to the other parts of that neighborhood because you're going to have to go further down and then, you know, go further up. And I know that right now, I know it's road construction season. It's like a special season here in Montpelier. And so there are just a lot of cones out and things like that. I want to make sure that that is going to be all taken care of so that you actually can get two vehicles on Liberty Street to be able to pass. Because the last time I drove it, which was late last week, that was not doable. So that's one of my questions. Has the traffic disruption and earth traffic flow disruption been sort of spoken about with Liberty Street and other surrounding streets? Yemi, will the construction be completed? Yeah. Well, it's going to impact other streets. And so I just want to make sure that those residents were sort of made aware that they're street that's usually not as... So any of our work plans within a school zone, we try to wrap up before school opens. So that's also true for Liberty Street. Okay. So any of that work, paving's actually scheduled. We've got some sidewalk work to do on Liberty, but we'll be done and out of there before school is open and before the disclosure plan goes in place. Liberty Street will be done by the late college. And will the folks out there, other than this meeting, like have they sort of, has anything gone out to them that, hey, this is coming. You can, it's likely to, that you could anticipate more traffic because that's a pretty well used shortcut. We've provided a mailing list for, for a blanket at that neighbor. Okay. That was a while ago, I'm not sure. Yeah, we've done a couple of community forums. This is why we're developing this plan. So, I mean, now that we're getting close to finalizing, then there will be some small, as we finalize some of these smaller details, we'll then go back out to, to the folks in that immediate vicinity, but to, to say this is sort of what's, where we're at and what we'll decide it. And I think the other piece is, I know that some of the parking spots right now are sort of all day parking. The proposal is to make them two hour parking. I'm curious about the impact to the library. So I'm assuming that the library's been part of the discussion, just because that whole sort of area is used for parking for library patrons. And then that sort of disruption from the all day parking to two hour parking. So what, yeah, what we were proposing is that typically where the, where the buses have traditionally dropped off and picked up right in front of the school has been a two hour parking during the school day. So that folks who are coming to meet with teachers or administrators or whatever it might be could come visit the school and then leave. So yes, what we're proposing is that the two spots basically at the junction of School Street and Lume, it's four total spots of the junction of School Street and Lume's will become that two hour parking so that parents could come there, be able to park and then leave. So honestly, we have not been in touch with the library because of the distance down School Street to how that would impact. I think that from personal experience and anecdotally as we put the plan together, we find that folks that use those spots tend to be more folks who are there parking there all day because they're working in town as opposed to just visiting the library. So yeah, there certainly will be an impact. There's no doubt because it's pushing those spots off of park, they're a bit more into the neighborhood, we realize that, but it is also critical that parents and other folks within the district who are coming to meet with the administration or to meet with teachers have a place that they can on a temporary basis park during the day. So that would just be essentially during the school hours. Going a little bit beyond to five o'clock to help accommodate the pickup that happens for the preschool and afterschool programs that run three to five. So that's why that the timing of that extends a little bit beyond the typical 250 end of the school day. And I totally, I just want to make sure, because there's people who are listening who haven't had a chance to read all of these. So I just want everyone to sort of be in the know that that change is likely going to happen. And I will say that we've reached out to the folks at the corner of both those corners about the plan. So they're aware of the changes that are coming. Yeah. I think that was all I had. I had one more, but I forgot what it was. So. I want to make a point. The plan is beyond just a street closure, but there are other aspects of it involving the importance and the need to enforce it. And I'm not real clear. It also involves some parking restrictions at the corner of Liberty and Loomis. I'm not sure which note that is, but it regards the ability of buses to maneuver that tight corner. And so that they can go to revised, a temporary bus location land for Hubbard Street. So they can maneuver up there. So all of those, including altering one section of the street from a one way to two way, which is currently under ordinance, you bag or remove the sign. All of those would need to be enforced and would need the authority of the city council to do that. Typically ordinance changes require two public hearings and then a 30 day warning appeal period. I'm really not clear how it works for temporary closures and whether we have clarity on what authority the city council can do under street closure for a short term period. By the time we go through that hearing process we'll be into the fall, typically. And so there's any leeway in how that works. But the two hour permits, the tenant parking, whether that's permit passes or what, you've got to put signs out there and they need to be enforced and legally stand up so they would need to resolve. Okay, and so I guess that's my sort of, did you have a question? I just wanted to go away. Okay, I was going to say, so it sounds like we are not at a point where council can approve this yet because there's ordinance stuff that needs to be addressed. My suggestion would be that you approve the street closure and you approve the plan and direct staff to sort of take all the steps to put whatever is in place to follow up because the school needs to be able to plan on this, that this is what's going to happen and we will get, the police department does have some leeway with emergency actions they can take to just block parking and do things for short periods of time. And I know when we talked about that they felt pretty comfortable with that. But for a period of time, we can have stuff for the next meeting, for first reading. So I think. If there's an expedited process that would be the preferred way to go to approve the closure. I mean, obviously if you don't favor it, that's one thing, but if you're on board with the general direction, the school needs to know as soon as possible tonight that this plan is okay, subject to follow us, sort of following the lead off of them various steps because they've got to communicate with parents, schools, you know, next August 22nd is going to be, you know, a week before school starts. Hubbard Street is a problem. Teachers park their cars there, you add snow and it's very bad. So I was wanting Tom's opinion, but you can work it out in the staff. That really needs to be considered, whether or not those people can still park there. It's a tight squeeze to come around and increasing the two way from the neighborhood. I think it may be need to consider removing the parking. I think that's actually one of the, I had that very same question and it caught my eye somewhere. It was one of the requests. I think it's number three, no parking for 150 feet above the crosswalk on the school side of Hubbard Street. The upper part, they don't have the lower part next to Loomis. It's that when you pull off of Liberty on Hubbard, it's a squeeze, right? That's really, I have to back up several times and let people to come through. So it is a squeeze all the way through. And I think one of the things that you struggle with is you're already displacing a bunch of parkers. And if we restrict, you know, it's been the same squeeze that people have had. It's not just adding to the squeeze and the only traffic that's going to be coming in and out is going to be from those homes. I mean, it's no longer going to be a through street. So you're actually probably reducing a lot of the traffic coming off of park that has been coming there. You're really only talking about three driveways and the construction people. We talked about putting a bus stop at the top of Hubbard. But yeah, I mean, sure, from width and snow, it would be ideal to ban the parking and the length of Hubbard there. But then you've, where do you put them? From this exercise of reviewing all of the options and a number of things were considered, we've always find it seems in our ordinances that there's some housekeeping done. But what we noticed is that the south or west of the side of Hubbard Street between Liberty and Park Avenue, there's no restrictions. So you can park on both sides. Even as narrow as it can be. With a car parked on one side, there's not enough room here. And then sort of their names, but they pointed out that we are missing a stop sign, which is odd for the one-way section of Park Avenue for summary. That's been that way for years. I just thought it was like, you were just going. Yeah, it's a go hill. So I think it's because of snow, I presume, but. Yeah, it is a go hill. So we've stopped traffic going eastbound, but there's no stop sign nor westbound. But I think that the snow removal is an issue always anyway. That is one of our priority areas for snow removal. It's one of the first areas. The downtown and the schools had snow removals first. But you can forward the snow removal. Right, just because it's a very narrow street. But I think we can respond to that. You probably have noticed throughout the winter, we'll post no parking signs February, no parking that's done under police authority. So we'll do that until we get the snow backs removed. Jack? I, if it's an appropriate time, I will Google this plan as the manager said, direction to staff to take the implementation steps necessary to bring it back to the council as necessary. Do we have a second for that? Second. Any further discussion, Connor? Yeah, this may be overboard, but I might recuse myself from this in my professional capacity. I represent the teachers and education support professionals in Montpelier. Parking would be a working condition. I think it's best to stay clear. I think I know where this is going. All right, any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Abstentions? I assume it would be an abstention. Hey, all right, motion carries. I just want to do a check-in. Does council feel like they want a two-minute break to handle anything, or we're good? We voted. No, she does. There's four. Just fluid. Does anybody need a bio break or anything? OK, let's take like two minutes, and then we'll come back. Next, a parklet ordinance discussion. So I was going to say, all right, so this is not a first reading. This is for council discussion. Exactly. So, right, we had discussion about the parklet ordinance with the one time we used it. In the spring, people expressed opinions. Jack had drafted up some ideas. And so the thought here was simply write out an example of what we heard from you and get some sense of what you want to do, what you like, what you don't like, and take it from there. And work on it, or refer to a committee or do whatever. And if I can say one thing, in the ordinance is drafted, and I can change the emails with Bill about this, there's one change that I would have incorporated that isn't in here, which is under section 20-4. The second sentence says applications will be handed up, handed on a first-come basis. Right. And I would delete that because my purpose for this whole thing was to give us the opportunity to evaluate all the applications at one time and say yes or no to those that we, in our judgment, meet our standards. I would agree with that, Jack. Well, and I think we're changing the way that it works. So it's less of a rolling process and more of a, you may apply during this period. So as long as you get your application in, it will be. I think we should still look at that, right? Because if we get a whole bunch of applications that we agree with, and the ones that whatever, people who got their applications in first, in considering all of the other factors should be looked at. But there was one thing, so it's in section 20-7. And what I am struggling with, it talks about how the city council is the only body with the authority to terminate. But what does that procedure look like? Does that look like a hearing that we've done for eminent domain, or does that look like a hearing like we did to determine the land disputes? I just want to make sure that the expectations are clear for everyone in that. And I understand we want to have the ability to have these termination hearings. I just want to make sure that everyone understands what the procedural due process there looks like. So I attempted to write that in, but certainly could be improved if the council wishes. We talked about it may terminate based on violation of your ordinances or improper use or negative impact. It could only occur after following a public hearing at a regularly worn council meeting. Council provide a 15-day notice of the hearing to the applicant, and the notice will include the potential reasons for terminations. But in terms of what they can expect here, are they able to introduce evidence? So how will we conduct it? Exactly. That's what I really want. And I think it should be the same process that we would have for similar things. So I guess the question is, do we wanted to say that this would be a quasi-judicial? Was it judicial or is it simply, you come to your council, we're going to conduct a public hearing. And we'll listen to your reasons. And my other question in that is, so I think that's one thing to chew on. The other question is, they're required to pay for those parking spaces in advance. And I think if we terminate, OK. But that's not spelled out in there. And then the only other question that I would have, and I think that I know the answer, but I don't like to assume things, because we all know that nothing good happens with that. So assuming that for some reason, we have a termination proceeding and we terminate. And then the parklet owner or whomever is responsible for it does not abate during the period. My assumption is that that would then turn into a nuisance action. But I'm not clear that our ordinance allows for that. So I would like to, I think we need to specify what additional remedial actions will occur if these are not complied with. Right. So the existing ordinance, not the proposed new, says the city reserves the right to take legal action to recover costs if applicant fails to remove and the city must handle removal. I think up above, it talked about if there's an emergency, the city reserves the right to remove on its own. But what I mean what I'm saying is it just seems like we could tighten that up by basically utilizing the same process by which we would approach a nuisance claim. And if the goal is to sort of streamline all of these things and make them all work together. The other, I apologize for monopolizing, but I didn't realize that this stuff could be fun. This is like the stuff you learned in law school, and you're like, who does this? The other question that I had was about, oh, it's gone. OK, that was a lot of buildup. Button. I have a couple, so maybe you can get it back. I like the way this is going generally. I have one small correction here. Sorry. Oh, excuse me. Thank you. Didn't catch that. One small correction between sections 20-4 and 20-5. There's a discrepancy of dates. And it looks to me like we probably want the applications to be due February 1st. And so in section 20-5, between November 8th and February 1st, not March 1st. That's March. And I'd like to speak to that. I mean, this is so that's a good catch on the dates. But Jack had suggested, and there was a lot of logic to it, that you have applications due by March 1. Staff reviews by April 1. Council makes a decision by May 1, and then May 1 is when you can put. I think our concern was that if there were a number of applications, we had sufficient time to review them all, and also making sure we built in sufficient notice. One of the things that we heard about was, so this is nothing. It's your comment. This is just in general about the sequence of time, was that we built in enough time to make sure those adequate notice for people to come to comment about these things. And so that's why we backed it up to February 1 to try to allow a little bit more time. But you're right, those sections should be. But I want to point out, in case people had different feelings about that sequence of time. I think it should be February. I remembered my thing. I don't want to monopolize so far. Go ahead. OK. Restorative justice is one of the things that we, as the city policy, have said means to become part of our ordinances. And so I'm wondering if pre-termination hearing that we would require attempts at remediation through our community justice center as a means to try to address the ordinance issues or whatever that might be. That's what I'm like. Great idea. So I am really happy with a lot of these changes. I had significant concerns about the original ordinance and the rest of the council worked with me to address a lot of those. But I really appreciate Jack kind of taking this a step further and making this better. One thing I wanted to raise is that I've had some concerns about how we, after we've awarded a parklet, if it's not being used particularly well, how do we have any way of dealing with that? Because once we award it, it's for a period of time. And I think that part of that's addressed in all this pre-process, so the action of awarding a parklet is a lot more deliberate. But I think another piece of that is in the business owner's business plan, if they need to pay for the parklet, then they're going to ensure that this is something that will be utilized. And I'm speaking here particularly about private parklets that are limited to a business as use rather than public parklets that are available for everyone. And so the previous council did not have any appetite for setting a higher rate for private parklets. But I just wanted to raise that as another thing we could consider in terms of incentivizing private parklet owners to really ensure that the space is well used is charging a little bit more. And then people wouldn't kind of go through this process lightly and would make sure that they had a plan to make it utilized. So wanted to throw that out there. There wasn't support last time round, so if there's not support this time, then I won't push it. But just a thought. I'd like to respond just in brief. Mayor Watson had mentioned something about how parklets are paid for or something about that. I cannot remember what she had mentioned to me. It was sort of in a big conversation about lots of issues. I remember that there was a conversation about it. So more for Bill, what is the process by which if there is some sort of suggestion like that, I know this is slated for a first public hearing at our next meeting. Slated for whenever you want to set it. I just want to make sure. There's no time frame. Anne had some really thoughtful ideas about ways that we could sort of work on this ordinance a little bit. And I want to make sure that we get some input from her other than anything that she may have chatted with you about already. Now, there's no schedule to this. I mean, this is, I would say, you know, perfect goal. We want this approved by November 1 when it's time to start. But there's no major about this. We just seem like a good time to have this conversation. So currently, it's what the parking rate is per parking spot. So if you have two or three, you pay that rate for the amount of time. So they're supposed to be paid prior to the construction installation or operation. So presumably they couldn't put them out. Or I suppose if somebody was in a rears, we could not allow it to go out the next, you know, we could pull their permit. That could be a reason for termination, I guess, because it says any violation of the ordinance. But I think the question Council Member Krueger is raising is that enough? Is that enough? Could somebody put it out there and just not have anybody use them? Is that OK? Or if the whole idea of a private parklet is to have more business, make sure they're getting enough business. Now, we did also put in here the explicit, and I think it was implied before, but I tried to write in the explicit requirement that these had to be available to the public during any non-business hours, just to be clear about that. Yeah, and to that point, if I can another one, my suggestions, because I like the idea of the private parklets being open to the public, as they are, outside of business hours. And I think that we could make a little bit more of that. For example, requiring simple signage on the parklet saying, city of Montpelier and this business welcoming to this parklet, restricted to business use during business hours, and open for public use outside business hours. Part of that is because I, at least in public, I will not sit down in a place that I think might be private, and I think there are other people like me, and I don't want to encourage them. Sit down. One other point I want to suggest we look at in here is under, I've lost the section, but there is a point that requires, here we are, at the bottom of section 20-6, parklets may be used as an accessory space for nearby businesses, but they may not be used as a standalone place of business. I'd like to revisit that if only for discussion. I think that especially, for example, if we boost the cost for private parklets, a one- or two-space parklet might be kind of a neat thing for one of the pop-ups that happen occasionally in town, like, for example, tremolo coffee that popped up in the front gallery where I am involved. I understand that there are almost certainly going to be issues of competition with existing storefront businesses and so on, and I would not want to, for example, block a coffee shop with a coffee pop-up, but I think that there's some amount of process built into this that we could keep an eye on that and allow short-term independent business pop-ups into this possibility. I'd be happy to hear arguments about that. I'll weigh in. I feel that we have a license process for vendors, and that's an appropriate place, but a parklet is a capital investment that we want to see used. I don't think it should be competing from people who are paying property tax, and it's a whole different establishment versus a vendor, and I'd like to keep them separate. Any coward? Yeah, I'm not. I wasn't here when it was originally drafted, but I wasn't quite sure how the three years number was arrived at. I know it's a substantial investment for a business or anybody else set up a parklet, but personally, I'd be a little more comfortable with maybe bumping it down to two years, so I would just throw that out there for a think. Three years seems like an eternity. Yeah, so to both of those points, when this was originally crafted, the conflict between vendor and regular was the reason why the no, it was intended to not compete with existing businesses, but the supplement, and the three years, I think really was just a recognition that if somebody's gonna spend $10,000 to build a parklet that if they're only gonna have one or two summers, it might not be, the council wanted to encourage these to happen, and they were concerned that if they didn't make it attractive enough, that people wouldn't do it. Now, I think perhaps, the pendulum may have swung a little, people wanna do them, and it might be less of a disincentive, I don't know. And I don't know if, certainly the one we had before the positive pie parklet was a very substantial structure, it could be picked up and moved, and it's, I think I don't know if the down home one is built the same way and cost, I don't know how much it costs to build that one. I'm wondering if we did up to three years, so if there were folks who only wanted, if they wanted to try it as a first time thing, and they could check a box on the application, how many years are you seeking, and for the, maybe the two, I think this would limit them at two spots. Anyway. Right, but maybe for those, they might want the three year, but if someone just wants to try a one spot thing, and they wanna see how it goes, maybe that might address. I'd be a little more comfortable with that, especially if we're picking and choosing, you know. Sure. So up to three years. Jack? Since I'm kind of the moving party here, I'd be happy to sit down with the mayor and catch up with the conversation you had with her to see what her ideas are, what we might change, or what I was proposing. She had some really good thoughts about it, so. Treats? So, it sounds like we're all generally wanting to move forward with some of these changes. So I think that's kind of what you needed from us tonight, Bill. So I would move that we set a first read, we direct city staff to continue crafting amendments to the Parkland Ordinance and set the first reading for August 22nd. Wait a second. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? And I just think as a practical process, no matter what part of the setup of meeting with Jack and the mayor and I and we'll, since we're the prime drafters and go through this and just so everyone's clear that we're not working by anyone's back, so. I just want to make sure, were there any abstentions? No? Okay. And just, I've got the, yeah, I think I've got the notes here. We talked about the up to three years, the changing the date. We talked about the pre-termination restorative process in general, what's the hearing process, a refund if terminated, how is removal handled, and a signage noticing public use? Great. So we are on to the second public hearing on the revision to article nine of the city ordinances for business licenses. So this is a public hearing, so I will open up the public hearing. I want me to fly through here really quick, just going back to it again, this involves the repealing of a couple licenses that were mistakenly left there that should have been repealed a long time ago. And the other repeals listed in the individual sections as opposed to the article are all repeals of individual references of license fees hardwired into the ordinance. And that's then coupled with an amendment, a change to section nine two, which is a strike on replacing with a license fee schedule shall be approved annually by the city council to get a schedule out to you all. I'm sorry, I didn't until today, I apologize. It's the one that's on the website right now. A couple other things I might suggest in a final product or I would suggest as long as we're cleaning up is under article nine dry cleaners. It still contains the provision demanding that folks who live outside town who want to bring their dry cleaners into town have to get a license from me. So that would be section nine, nine oh two out of town businesses. Like their clothes? It says no non resident person or corporation shall enter the city limits to deliver or pick up clothes or other items to be dry cleaned until he shall first have obtained a license therefore as required. So I'm, I think that means the people that pick up and take out not the individuals but the way it's written. So there's that one. There's also the section nine two which has the strike all with the license fee. Part of the intention when councilor Galanca brought that up is he wanted to get rid of this business of a half, which you know, makes sense. I'm gonna charge people $17 and 50 cents if they do something after September and nobody starts a vendor after September. But just to make it all make sense to strike out the fraction of from the title of that section. So instead of fee for fraction of license here would just say fee for license here. And the last thing I would suggest adding in and this one you may or may not want to do. The practice I inherited went for anyone setting up a vendor type thing like they do it over at the church a lot, you know, next to the farmer's market is that if it's private property, it's private business. This has a, what is it? Section nine 1403 designated locations has a provision that if the areas involves private property written approval from the owner has to be presented in details with the spaces clearly defined. So I mean, I would suggest we strike in the sentence. So instead of saying if the area involves private property written approval from the property owner shall be submitted for use of the location for vending with space limitations clearly defined to if the area involves private property approval from the property owner shall be required. So I have a procedural question though. Can we, since those weren't part of what was included for the second public hearing can we still do those? I would read that as a separate. You can make amendments at second reading. We definitely know that before. And they were rather last minute. It was when I was putting together that fee schedule that I didn't get to you. I'm like, oh, look at this. Okay. And I think the reason for the fee schedule was we wanted to make sure we adopted that fee schedule at the same time so that we have continuity. Right. Great. So I would move that we, I guess we need to close the hearing. Is that how, is that how we do it? Close the hearing first. So I will now close the public hearing absent objection. Okay. We have a motion. I would move that we adopt the changes, the amendments suggested by the clerk as well as the amendments included in the agenda. And simultaneously adopt the fee schedule, which John, you said is posted on the website. Yeah. The fee schedule proposed by the city clerk. Do we have a second? Okay. Any further discussion? All right. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. All right. Thank you. So let's see here. The driving me crazy. We are now at the ice rink. I left on your desks some, a copy of photos of what I'm about to talk about. So does everybody have that? And I'll be quick. Cause I think most of you know the background of what's going on here. But generally for the past two winners, we've had a pilot rink that's been run by a private group called put a rink on it. Montpelier Live is assisted with that and the city's assisted with that. More as a personnel, we've just sort of assisted with personnel. The private fundraising cannot continue, won't continue, it's pretty difficult. And the state has asked us to come up with a better proposal for, a better design for a rink. I call it a permanent rink, but it's actually just a seasonal rink. It's just that we would keep it and it's, would be owned by the city. It would be run by the rec department. The key to what is happening here is, the city is taking on the ice rink basically. It's not going to be a privately run fund, you know, through private fundraising, the city will take it on. The big expenses are upfront, just in purchasing the material and getting it built. That would be a little under $60,000. We've applied for a $25,000 grant and tonight I'm asking you all to sign the letter in support of that grant, if this is a direction that you want to go in. And I'm also just sort of looking for a nod that we should continue to move in this direction. And this fundamentally you really don't see this as something that the city rec department should take on. We did have an ice rink before me at the pool. It was somewhat dangerous. So it's not completely new for the rec department to take on an ice skating rink. The design is cleaner. It's more professional. It has, the old rink was a, you know, a wooden fence. The old rink was shaped like this so that the water had to be very deep at one end and it would never freeze, took forever to freeze. This rink will have a flat four inch water level so it'll stay frozen longer. That's more skatable days. We'd open it before the holidays, so be open during the holidays and we close it earlier. It stayed open too long this year through too many warm days. So I'm here that with two asks. Do you want to continue to pursue this? This involves some private fundraising as well. And if so, would you be willing to sign the letter for the grant, supporting the grant? And I'll take your questions. So I've got a question about added insurance costs. It shouldn't be. This has been covered under our liability policy and we've never had any problem with the old rink. This would be, we have covered the volunteer rink so we would continue to cover this rink. And size-wise, is it a similar size or is it larger? At this moment in this year, it would be the same size. This would be a plexiglass siding and you can buy it in sheets so that if a couple of years down the road we want to make it bigger, we can do that. They chose not to this year because the liner's very expensive so it'll mean buying a new liner to go bigger. The state's also looking at doing something permanent in front of the Supreme Court building but that's at least five years out and probably longer so we don't want to make too many changes. If we were to, if they are to do that I assume that the rink would have some kind of value and we could sell it at the remaining pieces after five years. Yes, well they probably used pieces of it that they would purchase from us. Donald? I admit I'm a little foggy having been in the car all day but you mentioned it didn't seem appropriate for the recreation department. Oh no. So this would go under the recreation department. It would go under the recreation department and what I was saying was it would be appropriate. They'd actually run an ice skating rink at the pool. No, no, I just, that one verb I got wrong. Okay, and they would work in conjunction and the FAR department helps them fill it, does it not? They do. I love it. Yes, I agree. I think it's great. So what do you need from us? That's probably it and I'll circulate a letter to support the grant. At some point I'm gonna be optimistic that we're gonna get the full grant, we're gonna find full funding. The city, the rec departments has a special fund. It's got close to $400,000 in it. It's for one time purchases and that's where the match would come from. At some point I might have to come back to you all and talk a little bit about how much should come from that fund but at this point we're optimistic we're gonna try to wheel that number down as low as we can. So I think the action requested is approval of the letter of support and general approval to move forward with the planning. I would with one condition that my name gets added to it. Do you want to sign test to your test? No, it's a letter. Oh, I'm sorry. The name is on the letter here. Yes, we'll add you. I'm gonna lie back for you. We don't need this sign. A version of it. I'll have a final version to get you to sign. I know I put him on mine the day he got us the motion. Jack, did you actually make the motion? I'll second it. I'll second it. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right. Thank you. Great, thank you, Sue. All right, any other business? We have the... Council reports and all that. Well, in the executive session at the end. Bill, were you gonna do some of the parking garage in public again? Yeah. So that could be by Council, the manager's report. Why don't we... Sure. Why don't we just get the... I think we started there last time, so Donna will start with you. Council reports done first. I just like to remind everybody the contest to name our shared youth path is happening. It'll run through September 3rd. And the form is a printed form, or you can go right online and get it. And you can submit it at the city clerks or little box in there, or you can do it directly online. But please get creative and name our path. Donna. All right, just I was able to attend my first Montpelier Alive meeting as the council liaison. Fantastic group of volunteers and a big thank you to both them and all the city employees for a third of July celebration that I think went off without a hitch. It was a huge success. Having tomatoes thrown at the council float was a bit hurtful, but all of that great stuff, so thanks. I also got to attend a first meeting for me. I went to the TW Wood Gallery board meeting last week and it was great. I would encourage everyone to go and visit the gallery. It is a little notice treasure, I think, in Montpelier and I really look forward to their continued success. I was glad to be there. And again, as always, I'll be at Baguitos tomorrow morning, Thursday mornings, 8.30 to 9.30, if anyone wants to come and talk. It's been a pleasure and it continues to be. I have my own slot. Oh, okay, okay. So I would love to thank the senior center for the senior prom. I don't think we've had a council meeting since then. It is my favorite night in Montpelier and city staff did an amazing job putting that all together. Mayor Watson and I were there and it was really, it was a really great evening. Again, I'd like to echo what Connor said about the third of July celebration and also this past weekend, there were a bunch of things that went on here in town. I saw lots of pictures online on the city website and Montpelier Alive had some great photos too and I really, I commend the city for all that it's doing especially the extra stuff like that that's really what it's all about. I'll pass this weekend. I'll pass as well. Great, Bill. John first. Just really quick, the second public meeting of the informal group talking about non-citizen voting happened just yesterday, excuse me. And there was some model language that the working group had put together and then had been run by Dan Richardson who's gotten involved and is involved. And there was general support in the room, little bit of concern about a couple of issues but general support. We're not planning any more public meetings, certainly I'm not, so it's just a matter of whether there was enough energy in that room to pick it up and go with it and take it to petition. So we'll see, there was some interest from the working group to maybe do some of that but now it's all sort of wait and see. Only other thing I'd mention is that with Crystal still out and she's been out for several months now and will probably continue to be out for at least another month or two. I have temporarily hired Cindy Larson who used to work in the office ways back. She's working about 20 hours a week and Lee Youngman who is the co-owner of the yarn store down here is in eight hours a week helping as a recording clerk, so. Yeah, I've just got a couple of things. One, we were going to have written copies of the strategic plan for you tonight and unfortunately our ace Jamie had a migraine today so those didn't happen but we'll get them for you. I don't know if you want to wait to log us who may have them so you can pick up but they were going to be on your desks tonight. I'm sorry that that didn't happen. It was clearly above the rest of us to be able to figure out how to do it. So there you go, she's gone, we're all shut down. Tomorrow we have the second round of meetings with Debsi concerning the TIF application so we'll talk a little bit about that but so far so good. One Taylor just briefly, we have some, looks like August 2nd, the work is going to begin. August 3rd, the housing Vermont is closing thanks to your approval of this tonight so they'll be closing on their financing for the housing project. We have, we today signed all the deeds, all the railroad transfers so all of that's done. All the, there's no other land transfers or anything to happen and the asbestos removal will begin shortly within the week at the two businesses and as soon as that's done those buildings will come down. So things are gonna next week or two could be a lot happening on that front seeing that project actually starting and then I think the bike path is right behind it so I don't know the exact schedule for that but it's coming soon. So those are my three. Great, all right. So I believe we have a few manners to take up an executive session. I don't believe we're gonna be coming back out other than to come out of executive session and adjourn the meeting. So I did wanna start the parking garage discussion. Obviously I think the details of a contract proposal would be an executive session but Steven's here and we did announce a lot of information this past week about it based on prior conversations but we are talking about 350 probably actually a 348 unit garage. We'll be talking with the neighboring properties, the one neighboring property for whom we do have a 49 year lease on and I think that's gonna work out just fine potentially expanding. Obviously a lot of details about costs and those things being worked through and the issues being negotiated that we'll talk about in detail obviously include parking rates, land acquisition costs, management of the system, that kind of thing but the current thought is that the city would own and operate and lease sell permits to the tenants including the capital plaza Hampton Inn and probably forgetting something but those are the basic structures. It would be helpful I think one of the questions that Vepsi Board had was whether the council, our initial TIF application was done not knowing details, this project was unfolding and it mentioned a 250 unit garage is one of the questions they had for us is the council okay with the general direction of a larger garage and where we're going so they'll get asked us that tomorrow so any thoughts that people have about that would be helpful, you don't need to take a formal vote because obviously nothing's final but that is something that they're gonna wanna know and otherwise we'll, oh sure. I have one question but if I could. Yeah. Given the increase in the number of cars that you're looking to park in this garage, does the traffic study that was done for the original application still apply or are you going to have it? We'd have to have an amendment application and another traffic study. So it would probably be an up, you'd use the same one to get the same people to do an update with the additional information, it wouldn't be a full do, because yeah. Okay, thank you very much. So I'm not sure, I guess I'm unclear how much. Well, we can't talk about the details of negotiations but I think in general the you know we've gotta, I'm gonna have to say something to public meeting tomorrow about the direction of the garage and so it would be helpful to get some sense of where we're at. To do a bit of a round robin, everybody just. I'm in favor that we try to max out our city need beyond the hotel with this parking garage and that we built this structure and let's hope we only have to build one. At the same place? Yeah, if we have to build a parking garage, we should make sure it's enough and so yes, it seems like. Generally the same place, I do have some concerns about what's left of the HiniLot and making sure that we utilize that in a way that makes sense if this new garage eats into that from the rendering that I've seen, I'm not really, I don't want it to be just an unusable undesirable space, so that's my one concern there. Oh well, you didn't tell. Well, I'm alone to center I suppose. I think I've voiced my concerns in the past. Again, adding another hundred spaces is a significant cost increase with the steel prices sort of fluctuating as they are and other raw materials costs as they are. There's a lot of uncertainty and I'm not saying that we balance our entire existence here in Montpelier on that uncertainty but that is a significant dollar amount of increase and I am not comfortable saying that that's the direction that we should be going at all right now, so. Fair enough. Okay, well I mean, and I'm happy to answer anybody's questions or Stevens or anybody else's while we're in public session to the extent that we can, I didn't want to. But other, sure. Do you know what that garage might cost at full power? But, well I'd say nine and a half million is the number we're working with now, maybe 10, 10, we put 10 in the report and it looks like it might be a little bit less but that ballpark hasn't really changed. And that's at the, with the 350 spaces? Yes, yes. I have a question, I wasn't not sure if this is appropriate for public session or executive session, so you can come in the way there. The cost for space seems lower in the latest financials we've got. So we should, that's probably, that's a negotiating. But in general, part of it was because we got a more firm price, so the cost came down a little. So that was, we were able to put some more in there. Right, so given that we have concluded agenda business, do we have a motion to go into executive session? So moved. And would you go in for both items? You have two separate items, rather than going in and coming out? Yes, I think we should just do both at once. I'll second. For the reasons provided. In the. So the other item is a potential real estate purchase and for actually that one, I think you have to have the finding that potential advanced disclosure could put us at a disadvantage has to do with the bike path. Honored to be met, like we stated. Yeah, sure. I move to go into executive session to address the parking garage and the real estate acquisition. It's due into 1BSA section 313, A2. Yes. Yeah, what he said. Right. That's one I seconded. All right. All those in favor? Aye. Thank you.