 Hi, my name is Richard Scheer and this is Montpelier City Forum where we're discussing matters of town meeting day and I've had all of the candidates now coming in and we do have contested races in all three districts which is really good. And Watson is on, I have the school budget coming, those people will be discussing and today we're going to discuss the city budget and it is my distinct honor to have not only John Holler Mayor, but John Holler Friend. John is here to discuss his final city budget. Last time sitting here with you in this capacity at least. Well that is true. Thanks for having me here. Hopefully we'll have you back again. I don't know in what capacity, but hopefully you will be back again. Now every time we do this, we've done it a couple of times now, what we do is we talk about the city budget and the policy of the city. The city budget is not in isolation. It's drafted for reasons and it's drafted for policy reasons. This city budget, how would you describe it in one sentence other than fiscally responsible? I know you'd start with that one. Well I can make it pretty short. I don't know if I can do it in one sentence, but I can make it pretty short. My view of the budget is that this is largely just an exercise of the city council making a determination about what our city can afford in terms of increased spending, that we focus the rest of the year talking about policy initiatives. But overall in terms of the budget, our focus really should be how much we want to spend. My view, and I've been clear about this since I became mayor is that we needed to kind of restrain the trajectory of our spending and keep it within the rate of inflation. We've done that. My goal has been every year for the council to set a target and to do that within the rate of inflation. The staff figure out how to come to us with a budget that meets that target. We haven't always been successful. The council's been split. We were split again this year, but a majority did agree to do that to that approach. And we gave the city manager a target of around 2 percent. I don't know the exact number that we gave him or don't recall. And he gave us a budget and when we've done that it's really worked effectively. We've let the city manager do what he does with his staff and that is to manage within the spending level that the city set. And so we've done that and the manager came back with a budget that is about, I think it was one, we started at 1.9. It crept up a bit with some things. 2.4, I think. 2.4 includes the ballot initiative, so we don't have any control over. So what's under the control of the city council is about 2.1 percent. Okay. Now the minority on council, how did they view it? I think they would rather start, it's a question whether you start with zero-sum budgeting or you start with a cap. And our view is, I think we have a finite amount. Others think, let's build a budget and see how much that is and then if it's too much we'll scale it back. And we've done that and it can work. It can also be a really messy process because what happens is you get constituencies behind a whole range of new spending and then you have to battle it out at city council about how much, you know, which programs go and which ones don't. And I think you end up spending more than people want to because it's very hard to say no in those circumstances. Now when you inherited the city budget as council president, which is kind of an unusual position because you're just, I suppose you're the great, you're still a city councilor in a sense. You're a co-equal with a co-equal vote, but you can break the tie. Well, in a council, you mean presiding officer. Exactly, it's a presiding officer. Yeah, and that doesn't happen all that often. You know, every couple of meetings I'll break a tie, but more, you know, my role is really to sort of set the agenda and be kind of a spokesperson and set the political tone for... And lead the baton march meetings, the three hour meetings. Yeah, I mean, that's been a real challenge. I mean, honestly, chairing meetings and managing meetings is a major task of the mayor and that's not an easy one. We've had a lot on our plates and, you know, my view has been, you know, try and keep our meetings to three hours. That sounds crazy because it's a really long time, but you go longer than that. And I know in the past, councils have, we have, it discourages people from wanting to serve. Who wants to spend, you know, be at city council meetings until 11 o'clock and then have to give it up and go to work the next day. And I don't think people make good decisions when they've been at a four or five hour meeting. So we've been pretty good at holding those meetings to, you know, three or so, three hours or so, sometimes less. When you took over the gavel from Mary, Mary Hooper, what was the budget like then in terms of process? Well, I don't think, you know, honestly, I didn't follow the budget process, so I couldn't tell you. You were following it from the school board. I mean, I watched it a little. Yeah, I was involved working just on the, focused on the school board. I mean, the rate of growth had been more than I was comfortable with. I mean, not by a huge amount, but my bigger concern was that if you do it, our median tax bills, we were highest in the state. And so really my concern was where we sat in terms of other communities. We were the highest, you know, at some measures, if you look at just median tax bills, what people pay, we were the highest in the state, and that's not a good position to be in. So my view, I haven't done that calculation worse. We're definitely lower than that. We're not at the top any longer. So we changed that trajectory a bit, mathematically, but we've held the rate of growth to right around the rate of inflation. What was it like with the school budget? How many years were you school board president? I was on the school board for nine years and chaired the board for eight. And it's a little bit more complicated there because the spending taxes are determined based on per pupil spending. And that per pupil spending is a variable that of course varies as student population changes. And we did experience some decline in student population during that period. You know, overall, I think we were somewhat slightly above inflation. It was not a lot. We had some early years where, because of tax changes in the X-66, we saw a pretty significant reduction in our tax rate here, and then it came up. But overall, I think it was pretty constant. We certainly, it was a real focus, and we went through kind of the same exercise. And I think, you know, I think it was a responsible rate of growth. We talked about growth. I just want, for two minutes, to talk about the city's population and its population decline. What can we do to be able to, do you see something on the horizon that will put us back above the 8,000 figure in the next decade? Boy, you know, the number one thing we do is housing, and provide affordable housing for people who want to live here. That's the number one concern that I've heard. It's been a huge priority for both me and the rest of the council. We spent, you know, part of the lengthy meetings that I mentioned before, we're just getting through a new zoning ordinance. I have that on my list. You know, probably 100 hours on that just in a city council meeting. Why did you do that? Well, in part because we needed to update our zoning ordinance to make our city more development friendly. There were just a lot of ways. How was it not development friendly because of the old zoning? I think just the number, the number of ways that there that our zoning made the development more difficult. Housing, the way we structured our housing, the ability to put in infill housing was very difficult. The way the multi-unit density density is a big factor. So, housing is I think a huge factor. Cost of development is in the ability to get the return. I think it's meant that developers just don't invest. And so, we have I think made that easier through the zoning. The other thing we did, this was controversial but repealed our sprinkle ordinance for one and two family units that we were the only or virtually the only city in the state to require that. It added $8,000 or so to the cost of any new construction. So, if you've got an $8,000 cost in Montpelier and you go across the city line and build somewhere else and that's right off the bat. You're going to have lower costs. Not to mention a lot of the other challenges of building in Montpelier. We were creating a disincentive. So, I think those are a couple of things that we've done just in the last couple of months. They're going to create a greater incentive. It's been, you know, a hard thing to do. I focused on it. We talked to a lot of developers worked on a couple of larger with a couple of larger landowners in Montpelier to try and get them to develop their property with not much success. But, you know, that's what, and that's the number one thing that we can do to make sure that we are an economically and culturally vibrant community. Getting back to the master zoning plan that was quintessential Montpelier. It went through committees for months if not over a year. How long did that process take? It was, oh well, it goes back, you know, probably six years on the zoning commission. We had a lot of challenges with our planning and zoning commission in our prior economic development or zoning director, planning director. So when we replaced her we were able to get on track and still it was a two year process for that group to get us a zoning ordinance and then we kind of slogged our way through it. I think there were some on this planning commission who thought we should just adopt it without going through it that I didn't agree with that. I think residents felt like, and I'm sure other counselors felt like that role to really give that a proper vetting. Ultimately it compromised from where the planning commission... There were nights where we made dozens and dozens of decisions of compromises on a million different things and there were a lot of compromises. I think the planning commission had one view of a much higher level of density and I think some of us were concerned that it created a risk of changing the character of some of our neighborhoods. How would that happen? Well in particular, I mean one neighborhood we heard from most loudly was the Town Hill area where we would have had striking new density levels there that made the residents pretty uncomfortable and I think, you know, that's probably not where you want to have infill development where you have to have people driving into town that's not that much different from developing anywhere else on the edge of town but we did make infill development much easier in areas that are more walkable Now was there a robust discussion I know on downtown? How much density and what kinds of... Well not that much on downtown actually I think we sort of took the lead off and I mean there's a height restriction but other than that, I mean we really don't have a density restriction in our downtown areas. Some of the areas where we did have were some of the adjoining neighborhoods that we do and then they stretch along Main Street towards the roundabout from the library to the roundabout there was a lot of discussion about density in that area balancing, you know, the legitimate concern you've got on the one hand this beautiful historic city that we all want to take care of and be responsible for, preserve on the other hand we need to allow for change we need to allow for density and so we really had to balance those two things the rentors and how to improve the housing stock, how to make it cheaper, you know, realizing those are probably push me, pull me as you improve the housing... I think I'd say two things one is that our housing prices are high so landlords have plenty of incentive to invest in their properties because they're making a good return on it we have a shortage of rental properties and that's just again a function of housing generally so if we're able to build more housing I think that's going to alleviate some of that pressure one thing I would support and we just didn't get to it was a rental inspection program here where you assess a fee on landlords to provide for the side of the budget and it's just one we ran at a time at least during my tenure to take up it would have been somewhat controversial because I'm sure there's some landlords who would not support that it's an additional would you think that would be inflationary? I don't know what it would look like over time but it does impose another cost in a market where you're trying to lower costs but at the same time having some assurance that our properties do have sort of minimal basics and meet code requirements I think is probably something we should do. The cost of the license or the cost of the inspection itself is just the beginning of that process I mean everything will ultimately be focused on not complying then they're going to have to invest and bring an apartment up to code and those costs may or may not I mean I think our market is tight enough where landlords are already getting enough return to be able to provide habitable and units that meet code requirements they don't always do that most do most are great but there are some that don't and I think we probably should create I might as well let you patch your own back and say that renters were benefitted by getting rid of the winter parking ban yeah that's one that we did early on and you're right I hadn't thought about that for a while but I think that is a quality life change it's helped people a lot who don't have access to driveways or garages and are able to park now especially with the winter we don't have a need to just for anybody who's watching years ago we used to have a requirement where November to April you couldn't park on the streets at any time and so regardless of weather so it's hard to imagine that now because we really have the winter parking ban you know once a week or so and but that really has changed for rent improved the quality life for renters and others who don't have access to park I know at this point that people are sitting and saying to themselves at least some people are asking about savings pasture savings we're talking about housing let's get into savings well it's one that I've supported development there for a long time some have wanted to develop the entire parcel my view is that there was a plan when we back up there was a plan that was a group the savings pasture working group that considered this issue a dozen years or so and it was comprised of housing advocates the property owner, the conservationist with a plan that I've supported which would allow for dense development along Berry Street with the preservation of the property of the upper pasture that's the way ultimately the property is zoned under the new zoning there's an incentive to retain the open space in the upper parcel with high density at the lower level which is what the land owner asked for we weren't successful haven't been successful in persuading the landowner to develop that for housing but you know that's also sure a function of the market so I'm hoping that happens at some point I think that's a perfect place for development now the Vermont College of Fine Arts is a player now yeah and I think they are probably further along we also did the similar zoning with density along Berry Street to encourage that and I think they do have some plans that are in the works I think there's a real potential to see that area of town change with the bike path that now is going to go into construction this summer the new Caledonia Spirits project across the street there'll be some river access there so I think it's going to be an attractive area where we're going to see more happening in that area of town now at the same time you'll be working under the streets in that area to expand our utilities and the like and working on utilities extending those towards the Caledonia Spirits that's going if you drive out there now you can see that work has been gone going through the fall and into the winter as well so that's a hop a skip and a jump away from across the street which potentially could be housing yeah right exactly so there's a synergy between those I think so yeah and I've we know we've told the landowner at Savings Pasture that at least well I'm not going to be part of this of course but that the city I would hope would be partner with them and provide some infrastructure support for housing development on that one what is a TIF? everybody talks about the TIF they'll say it's complicated maybe this is my simple mind I don't see it as that complicated TIF just basically says TIF is Tax Incremental Financing and basically it says that if a private developer develops in an area that's designated for a TIF district we take the tax revenue from that development and we put it back into paying for public infrastructure it's really that simple so if somebody builds a hotel for example we'd take the tax money that we would otherwise get from that for a period of time I think up to 20 years and put that money into the infrastructure to support that development assuming that it's going to provide for public benefits so in the case of the of the hotel there's been a proposal for a garage and there'll be other infrastructure needs I think that would support that if they can show that there's a public benefit and that they wouldn't have built this project without the support without that TIF district and without those public investments then the state will approve this TIF district you take that additional revenue that you get from the hotel that we'd otherwise see and you plow that back into paying for the bonds for the pay for the infrastructure whether that's a parking garage or road improvements so it's very very specific just that hotel the application I think that we're submitting is much bigger so I'm using that just as an example because that's one that's on the table we have a very specific proposal for development there but I believe that our TIF application will be for all the way down Berry Street and encompass Sabin's pasture as well so the same thing could be in Sabin's pasture where if we had a housing development there the needs would be for road and water sewerage infrastructure we'd take the revenue we'd get from the development of that site and put that into paying for those infrastructure improvements that we needed to support the housing and there I think it's very clear that without that kind of public investment and infrastructure you're not going to see those kinds of projects right so the tax rolls wouldn't reflect that anyway yeah right because they're not going to happen and that's the so-called but for standard and it's controversial because not everybody believes it I think here the argument the proof is in the pudding we've had so little development here that I think we can say it's not going to happen unless we can provide new tools we've got Caledonia Spirits we created essentially a mini TIF and we created just so you got two pots of tax revenue one's educational education property tax the other's municipal we control the municipal tax we took all of our municipal revenue put that into infrastructure support for Caledonia Spirits even then we were just barely able to make it work what happens to the school revenues that will go to the state so the state certainly will benefit from Caledonia Spirits development because they're not part of the TIF district so while we waived or reinvested the municipal tax dollars they'll pay the normal education tax bill just like anybody else we talk about development in the city again I'll let you congratulate yourself when I spoke with you before you became mayor you came on my show and talked about what you wanted to do when you were mayor you talked about building street infrastructure working on streets could you talk about that? it was one of the top three that was maybe the highest our roads were in pretty dismal shape when I became mayor and I was very concerned at the level of spending we were I think there was one year where we spent $60,000 on our street maintenance clearly it was inadequate overall so the first step was to say how much should we be spending how much are we spending the result of that analysis was about a million dollar gap so we came up with a six year plan to get to that million dollar a year additional spending we're about there I think this year gets us $900,000 more than we were when we started is that $900,000 a year? a year so we're at that point now where in FY19 we'll be spending about $900,000 more than we were six years ago when we came here there's the good news bad news to that I mean the good news is that we're spending almost a million dollars more the bad news is that it's our roads are still not in great shape and you can see it now of course just the way the weather conditions are with the potholes and so on so it's you know it's not good but it would be a lot worse if we hadn't ramped up our spending I'm hoping that million dollars actually our latest budget proposal the staff realizes now they underestimated the amount to which we were really under spending and so we've ramped that up to maybe 1.1 million so this increase is going to continue the challenge with that of course is that you've got to get that money from somewhere we had a pretty significant shift of resources over time from other city programs what would that shift entail what's a city program that would we wanted to talk about police force we reduced our police force by one fire department by one planning department by one I mean a lot of it was and then a lot of things just on the margins by holding different programs in chak or you know small reductions here and there to cobble it together the other piece of it the way we funded it was by increasing the local option tax that was about a hundred and some thousand dollars a year now we talk about the streets that's one thing under the streets the waters and sewer right you know I think you and I had a lot of conversations about this and about you know what it's obvious when you look at the above ground what's deteriorating but what about what are we ignoring and so we did an in-depth analysis of what we need to do to make sure that our underground infrastructure is in reasonably good shape over time and we came up with a 50 year plan to replace all those pipes sewage and water pipes so it's and our infrastructure our water sewer bills are going to go up I think it's about two and a half percent a year to pay for that but there is a long-term capital plan to ensure that we we ultimately replace all those underground pipes Public Works came in with a request for a new software package to help with that inventorying our pipes I had heard that our system was in such disrepair that we didn't even know where pipes were under the ground in some areas well that may be I mean these are you know more than a hundred year well over a hundred years some are probably closer to two hundred years and I'm sure that a lot of that infrastructure is in pretty bad shape how do you leave the infrastructure of downtown now that you're leaving your mayorship there's been a lot of downtown infrastructure construction over the years is that pretty much over well I think so I think our downtown is in great shape I mean we had a lot of disruption with the construction of the district heat plant but now most of the downtown buildings are heated with renewable energy which I think is good for the environment and good for just as a community we've paved all the downtown roads and replaced most of the sidewalks and we've invested in just improving the appearance of our downtown through the downtown improvement district so we have funding that I think is about $60,000 a year a lot of that goes into marketing and events but a lot of it goes into you know flowers and benches and the amenities that just make a downtown attractive make people want to be there visit tourists to come come back to the friends and people who live here to want to be downtown we've also have this our parklet program where we have encouraged merchants to create or seed we only still have one and I not aware of I've heard others thinking about it so I'm not aware of any that are imminent and then you have wards parklet wards pocket park on main street right which is sort of an outgrowth of that parklet project so I think all that is created more our downtown looks better it's in better shape and I think we've got more activity so you know I do feel good about that we've put a lot of resources and effort into that the other thing I'd say about that is that we've increased or strengthen the relationship between the city and Montpelier alive the real key to making our downtown work is having a vibrant downtown organization and Montpelier alive fills that role they're great but they need the support of the city that hasn't always been the case but we provide try to provide and I think have provided the city level support increased it with the downtown improvement district and just through regular communication with them any idea what we're going to pick up a new director I think that I would understand they have made a decision on a new director so that should be that announcement would be imminent what about the economic development board would you explain that to people it's funding and what it sure so one of the other aspects one of the other priorities that we took on was promoting economic development so we funded an economic development strategic plan we used to so he's very good out of upstate New York Peter Fairweather created a very accessible and sort of common sense thoughtful plan that really has provided a blueprint for us and there are a number of components we talk about one of them was to create an economic development corporation that is basically an entity with a board and a staff member just focusing on economic development in Montpelier so we did that we created sort of a star-studded board in Montpelier some real all stars who within the business community mostly in Montpelier but a really talented group and they've hired an executive they hired an executive director whose sole purpose is going to be to promote economic development and unfortunately he didn't stay long we lost him after about six months and you know that just happened so you know it's there in the interviewing process right now I understand that they've had some great applications applicants so I think they'll replace that hopefully get somebody that's going to be around for a while and those I think that position and that board can make a difference but we're just they're going to be a little funded so that's funded I mentioned the local option tax the local option tax we divided up really two parts one economic development a hundred thousand dollars and then the remainder I believe which was for infrastructure and twenty for infrastructure now what does that tax that local options tax rooms meals alcoholic beverages there's another local options tax that people are using and that's just on general purpose sales sales tax is that in the cards is there well not not in the cards for me of course but you know I've always thought that that well I had a couple thoughts one is that that's a little more complicated because downtown merchants merchants who pay that anywhere Montpelier face a tremendous competition from internet sales and that would not I don't believe that would be assessed for on internet sales so just that discrepancy and the challenges from internet competition that you don't have for rooms meals and alcohol so that creates a little bit of a different analysis I would have considered it if we could have if we had a project that where you take that money and use it and invest it in something that is going to increase the vitality of Montpelier where you create more than a skating rink they lift all boats right so that's an investment that merchants could say yeah I see that and I'm going to get a return of that because we're going to have more people coming here we never really had that and so I did not support having the local option tax just to deal with our property taxes because my concern is that we just spend just take that money and spend it and I don't think we needed we didn't need that tax revenue to do what we need to do if we have something new you know maybe but that didn't come along while I was mayor farmers markets coming to State Street you and Bill Fraser had worked on that for seemingly for a long time yeah many years it's uh well it was a great improvement last year and I think that was obviously true for both the downtown merchants and the farmers market they saw a pretty significant increase in their sales so you know what they always heard people love having outdoor events on State Street I know they're not always popular with merchants but you know if they're done right I think they can work and that clearly does seem to be there seems to be a synergy between having the farmers market there and having support for other merchants this show is going to get boring with congratulations but you've got downtown you're being awfully nice to me today Richard you've got downtown housing coming the upper floors downtown street housing started construction on the what used to be called the Dickey block the French block you know we had one of my city council says let's stop talking about the French block because it's never going to happen but behind the scenes we just kept working down street was diligent and continued to work they got the funding and stayed with it and I think it's going to be a great project 16 or 18 units maybe 16 affordable and 2 market rate the irony with this housing development is that they can't afford to do market rate housing because of the subsidies that are important that are really essential to making these projects work you've got to put that into affordable housing which is good we need more market rate housing as well and that's going to be a longer term challenge you know the same I'll just continue on here you know down street is so important for our community without them we have had virtually all the housing starts here in the last 15 or 20 years they did all the new housing on Berry street the condos and the affordable housing units there well more than 20 some years ago the Elm street housing was all down street and now the French block and then Taylor street we lost the private developer on Taylor street they stepped in we're waiting for a couple of final funding components but hopefully those will be in place for construction this fall our beverage store what's happening to it the city has bought that through the federal grants and that building will come down to make room for the recreation path as well as the driving entrance that will go to a parking area closer to the river there'll be a new commercial property has been permitted that would be located in between the drawing board and my pillar beverage so be a new three-story building there and then the new recreation path will run adjacent to that along with the drive that will support some parking and then across and then be a new pedestrian bridge across the north branch of the Wyniewski now you'll be able to bicycle all the way out east how far be able to go the full length of the railroad station to Gallison Hill and then Cross Vermont Trails Association is working on getting funding to complete a bridge that would go across the Wyniewski and then the Cross Vermont Trail would go all the way to Grotton State Park so a lot of good exciting plans in the works there is one segment that we I think the city is going to have to deal with and that is the berry street between the rec department and the main street the bike path doesn't go all the way to the main street my goal had been to create a bike lane and I hope the future city council will do that it's going to be parking challenges but to replace some of this parking spaces on Berry Street between main street and the rec department with a two-lane bike path any chance for a traffic circle by the drawing board I know that the public works department did get grant funding to do a study that intersection that's been they call a failed intersection F intersection for a long time it's not one unfortunately that we've gotten to while I've been mayor but I know that that's at the top of the priority list the challenges there's not enough space right there so you'd have to get some cooperation from some of the adjoining property owners to make that work but you know perhaps we could do that intersection clearly needs to be addressed there was also some discussion of a traffic circle at state main there was some discussion about that it didn't get a lot of support publicly I think there are concerns about pedestrian access and the size of it and you know I think that was a pretty brief conversation I remember all the concerns there was a bright we had a grant that looked at a whole variety of different improvements for downtown and that one just that one didn't get a lot of traction what should we look forward to in terms of construction of the actual multimodal terminal and how that will affect downtown traffic well there are a number of components to that the biggest challenge that I think my successor is going to face and the city council and staff is going to be parking so we've got the new 16 or 18 parking spaces that are going to be used to support this new housing on block losing I don't know how many now I think 120 spaces on Taylor street because we've had that for rent and not a whole lot of people are renting those spaces well the state now leases it so those are being used now this winter for state employees you know the demand of course for parking is really just the winter months so there was no demand in the summer and fall for that people would have parked it if it was free but there is demand in the winter and the state has leased it those spaces are going to be gone so that's 130 or 140 spaces right there that are going to be gone next year so that's going to be a huge challenge that's kind of on the challenging side on the upside you know we have a brand new beautiful transit center on Taylor street also we've got funding in place to pretty significantly increase just the streetscape so you have new sidewalks new street lighting new vegetation along Taylor street so it's going to be a much more inviting area entrance into town and then with the transit center we also just agreed selected new artwork to go outside sculpture work from an NEA grant the bike path and a little bit of green space so that area this has been one of my greatest frustrations is the time it took to get there it does look like that's in place we have sculpture coming in on Taylor street someone asked me to ask you about sculpture where the Econolodge is that big rock sculpture what is that going to be the rubble next to the Econolodge that we took down that's for privately owned spot that was one of the things I hadn't should have mentioned that as I talked about accomplishments and that's one that I'm pleased to have just sort of persistence to get us to the city to adopt an ordinance to deal with this that lot as well as some other blighted properties and then to enforce it but the good and I have to give a lot of credit to the people who live around there they were very patient they were unhappy but patient and kind of gently pushed us to do the right thing enforce that property to get cleaned up so that lot I haven't been there recently that's really been I think was used as a staging area for the construction of Northfield street and I think that's probably what it'll be used for as they finish that work next year and then hopefully they develop the owner of that property the Econolodge property will develop that lot into something useful but it won't be a big mountain of rubble no it won't be a big mountain of rubble I don't think it's consistent with the ordinance so they would have to clean up the parcel let's stay up on the other side of river street the water plant and the methane project that came in during during your time could you explain that briefly sure we have unfortunately millions of dollars of deterred maintenance requirements for our wastewater treatment plant so there have been a couple of things ways that we've had a good group of people both the city staff as well as our energy committee in ways that we could both invest in the wastewater plant but find sources of revenue one of them would be to invest in a way that would allow us to better handle solids from disposal companies so we've looked at that the other potential would be to create a combined heat and power facility so you take the methane and produce electric power and put that into the grid so we have a lot of sources of revenue the city staff have pursued both of those and neither of them have gotten to the point where they're really adequately vetted for council consideration so I think that's going to be a very significant challenge for my successor like I say we don't have the funding in place to pay for those upgrades if we can't find a way to make create some revenue from those I think it's going to be a real challenge for the city for the plant and operation it's got some maintenance needs that can't be deferred a lot longer so it's future bonding it's going to be some future bonding and the question is how do you pay for those and can we find a revenue source to offset some of those costs what would that be? well through either greater capacity for solids disposal of solids or the electric power production or housing that's true too let's go up the road a piece to Berlin Pond council has gone around and around and around on Berlin Pond could you succinctly explain that issue and where we are right now well we just frankly ran out of options legal options I think my pillar was united in wanting to preserve the pond and our water source under state law we don't have the ability to regulate it we didn't get the support of the legislature to give us that authority we haven't had the support of either the prior governor or the current governor to give us that kind of support so frankly we just ran out of options so I think there is likely to be some kind of non motorized boat access on the pond and we'll keep an eye on it and hope for the best that there's not any kind of contamination that either threatens our water supply or our water treatment facility I'm going to take you through a couple of issues that took consul time the regional authority oh sure yeah I know you were going to ask me about that you know that's one where I got out voted I would have pulled the plug this year I don't to the extent we could now I guess this will unravel that a little bit we created this public safety authority that now has its own ability to put items I regret having done that I think we've created something that really wasn't it wasn't fully developed and still isn't but yet it has this ability to go to the voters and ask for money and I think we probably got ahead of ourselves I got out voted on that our council supported it I've been over the last three years had sort of escalating level of concern about whether we're getting our money's worth out of this authority do they have a product yet? no and that's why I didn't support funding this year we spent over $100,000 pursuing this and you know the goal of this public safety authority is save money we have outstanding public safety resources in Montpelier through our dispatch, our police and our fire and so I didn't enter into this thinking we needed to improve the quality of our our public safety services but rather that we could do them more efficiently by creating better economy of scale with our neighbors well unfortunately our neighbors didn't want to join us to some extent but Berlin and Berrytown did not and that really hobbled the ability to come up with a more efficient kind of public safety authority so the authority now has kind of changed direction focused just on dispatch they're saying they're going to have a plan by November and if not they'll pull the plug themselves so we'll see I had just run out of my view we put good money after bad for a couple of years and it was time to just call the question but others I think have more optimism that something's going to come out of this I just don't think we're likely to see that kind of critical mass we need in order to provide public safety services that provide that high quality we expect but at a lower cost I just don't I don't see that I got this question again from the public when we solicited on our survey monkey do we have enough police? We're down a few police people and I think one from when I took office and that was the result of a review of a staffing report that the city had consulted for right before I took office and read that report seemed pretty clear that we had the we had some surplus capacity the police chief hasn't come to us and asked for more although he's indicated that that may be coming in the future I would really push hard and ask my successor future city councils to look hard at our public safety numbers I think we talk a little bit about this before I'm reading a fascinating book The Better Angels of Our Nature by Stephen Pinker a Harvard professor who's charting the decline of violence worldwide over the last couple of millennia and the upshot of it is that we are living in the safest time ever in history and are in one of the safest places in the world so I think it's easy and he talks about this easy to feel like we're living in a violent time whether it's school shootings or terrorism but if you plot those out and look at it in an overall societal violence what we experience now is a fraction, a tiny fraction of what our forefathers our predecessors experienced in society and in my period that's even more true so we don't have a lot of violent crime the high profile exceptions now is standing and we do have those but I would argue we can't staff our police department based on incidents that occur once every 10 years or every 20 years excuse me, let's look at what kind of crime we experience what kind of capacity we have to solve them but I really would push hard because I think that as a society we are becoming safer not less safe and let's think about where we want to put scarce public resources to improve the quality of life for people who live here and I would argue that having more police officers is going to create infinitesimally more safe community but at a cost I don't think that's the best place where we can put our resources How do we adjust to legal marijuana in July? Is that a problem? It's going to create some changes certainly just in how we deal with marijuana I don't know it certainly is going to create changes but it's not going to be something we're going to see on the streets necessarily we're not going to have recreational marijuana available for purchase not anytime soon so I'm not sure we're going to see dramatic changes in the near future I think we're probably going to see more like Colorado and Washington State where you do have retail purchases but that's not going to happen What about paint bills? Opioids? Yeah that's certainly a problem under the surface I don't think it's a police issue we are fortunate here not to see the kind of crime that results from high opiate use and then commensure addiction and the cost of addiction and other communities but it clearly is a problem in our community I think our police department deals with it well by focusing on it as a health problem it's really not a public safety issue and they have it's called Project Safe Catch it's something that was developed by our police chief I think community in Massachusetts had created it but basically the idea is our police department when they get a call from somebody who has had an overdose and wants to seek rehab they'll drop them off they'll pick them up and take them directly to a rehab facility and there is capacity as I understand it in our community or central Vermont to provide rehab it's a problem and I think it's one that evolves as I've heard it's not just opiates but now I'm reading that we're starting to see recurrence of meth recurrence of of illegal substance but I think focusing on that as a public health problem and not a police problem is probably the best way something called call force was eliminated what is call force I think there was a volunteer aspect to our fire department I think it's a remnant that maybe existed for a while but hadn't been utilized much one of the ballot initiatives deals with the central Vermont internet membership what is the central Vermont internet membership what are we being asked to vote on I don't know much about that and I have I do represent a client doing our consolidated communications so I really haven't been involved in that discussion much but my understanding is that this would be an entity that could tap into the city's bonding authority without creating liability for the city so I think that at its core it has the ability to bring communities together bond with a new entity called this municipal communication district but that it wouldn't create any liability for taxpayers so the idea is to create through economies of scale the ability to attract investors to invest in new broadband infrastructure the personal property the tax at $10,000 could you explain that that was an initiative that was brought to us by the city clerk who felt that the cost and the just the fraction of collecting that tax for small small amounts of personal property wasn't worth it so he created a hold harmless or a threshold so below that there wouldn't be a requirement to I think it's only $11,000 and he felt that that would come from other revenues it's a small revenue loss and avoids sort of a big irritant for small businesses the development review board procedures and membership and the like that's another article could you explain that one to us I think that's just a matter of aligning our current DRB memberships with state law I think the way our terms have lined up didn't comport with state law either than the number of DRB positions I think it was that I think we didn't we had either too many or I should know this but the number of positions on our DRB wasn't consistent with state law so we needed to sync those we have two taxing articles from the city side one that will go to water and sewer and one that will go to sidewalks and the like and some to Taylor street if needed could you explain both of those briefly yeah those are both just basically in our capital plan so we have a group that meets I'm a couple of city counselors a public works commissioner and the city manager a few others and we vet the spending on capital improvements over a period of time and that's part of our long term budgeting we talked about the increase the million dollar increase that we're spending so all that money is part of our capital spending plan and so the bonding money that's in that is part of that plan our budget forecast so it's nothing so we've got bonding increments over a period of time for larger scale investments a recreation center is that in the future bonding and how much bonding can the city afford I don't think the city would have in my view the tax capacity to support bonding for that kind of a program that is one where I would have in the future a local option tax if I'd sort of caveat that I would consider supporting a local option tax to support a project like that that's kind of what I in mind something that would have because I think a recreational facility in Montpelier could be a huge draw for young people we talk about wanting to draw young families here if we had a recreation facility where people could bring their kids older people could recreate all ages it's a tough climate and I think socially it's difficult having a rec center can transform a community and I think it's one that we should think about I'm glad we have a group that's looking at it it's a challenging I think they've set some high parameters apart because they want to be downtown and developing having a multimillionaire facility downtown is going to be really difficult but I hope they continue to look at it and I think just find some other ways to fund it is going to be important looking back before you became mayor what didn't you accomplish that you thought maybe you was within your grasp well the biggest challenge you're not the only person on a console sure I think we've ticked off a lot of them the biggest was not making more progress on these projects that I had the bike path on Taylor street those would be hard to overstate the frustration and the savings and yes savings faster to a lesser degree that's a little out of our control so I can say on that one I think I've pushed as hard and worked as hard as I could to make that happen really not much we can do that's a private landowner's decision about whether he's going to develop his parcel the others were really city projects and I is a great source of frustration that we weren't able to have those finished or at least start construction on either of those during my tenure I wouldn't have couldn't have contemplated that six years ago that we would not have had shovels on the ground on either of those but we're going to get there so that would be I'd say the one so that one I think is going to be checked off hopefully next year I had one final question when are you going to take the long vacation with your wife Jen to make up for all those meetings at the school board and city council she lost you we got a few trips planned so we got a few trips planned I just wanted to say on behalf of ORCA I wanted to say thank you for all the years that you've been on ORCA I've been a star in those meetings we appreciate it here well ORCA is a yeah let me just say thank you for all your work Richard I know you've been one who pays attention to what goes on in the city and communicates that through ORCA which is a huge community service and then the work that ORCA does just in the tedium of filming our meetings and making our process publicly accessible is a great public service so thank you for that and I also wanted to say on behalf of all people in Montpelier thank you for the years not only at city council as mayor but also at the school board as president and I'd like now to speak to you and say that what's important is to watch these shows to watch all the candidates we have contested races in all three districts excellent candidates and has her show to speak to what she would do as mayor so she'll be stepping the way that John did six years ago and basically we have the city budget we have the school budget coming up presented and get yourself accommodated to we also have John Odom who spoke on the city clerk and get yourself ready to get out and vote because that's really important and make sure that your family votes and your friends vote because that's the vitality of our town and as John will say there's a lot of boards and commissions in this town and they are all populated with the volunteers and it's important that we all step forward at least to make our opinions known on town meeting day and keep Montpelier the town that you want it to be thank you