 All right, so I'm going to call the meeting to order. First thing is to review and approve the agenda. I think there was one addendum to the agenda. And I don't recall if that was with the consent agenda. Yeah, I think it is. It is. OK, so that is with the consent agenda. Any other changes to the agenda? OK, so without objection, we'll consider the agenda approved. So the next thing is general business and appearances. This is an opportunity for any member of the public to address the council on an issue that is otherwise not on our agenda. If you would say your name and where you're from and try to keep your comments brief. Thank you. OK, Elizabeth Parker, I live at Eight Hillside Avenue. And I'm a member of a four-person mobility co-op working group. And so we're looking at various mobility options for Montpelier, including potentially bike share, Pebble, which we're going to talk about this evening, and Car Share, figuring out how Car Share might work, looking at scooters again. And hopefully we will be doing a mobility questionnaire over the winter early spring. And so we have, I'm going to introduce Panif Nazarelli, who is a sustainable development expert. And his current moniker is ecological community health. And so he's fallen in love with the Pebble. And we have brought a Pebble to Montpelier. So we're going to talk about that briefly. All right, I've got a few. You need to speak. OK. I'm a Montpelier resident, downtown resident. And I've just been engaged as a citizen. I'm working with the working group to look at a multi-modal transportation system. I'll say a little bit about the Pebble. It's an enclosed electric-assessed pedal trike. I'm going to pull this up. So we have a picture from Montpelier Drive Electric. I'll be Vanna. Sorry, here. I see it. Right here? Yeah, sorry, Donna. And then we have this picture, which is with children. Yeah, it's been, it was up here for the Drive Electric a few weeks ago, Drive Electric events. And it was very popular with. Now, those are two fair-sized individuals. So this is a trike, but it's got a back seat that can accommodate a couple of kids or a teenager and a dog or a pet. And it's enclosed. So it was actually recommended by the V-Bikes consultant down in Brattleboro, who's employed, contracted by the Agency for Transportation. And we were tipped off, went down to South Deerfield, Western Massachusetts, where it's produced by a small startup business, it's family business. It's like four years since the prototype, one or two years at market. And there's probably about 50 or 60 of these scattered around a lot in the West Coast in the US. But only a couple in Boston and none that we know of in Vermont. So we were really looking at this as it was recommended by the V-Bikes consultant as something that would be appropriate for this, for our environment, for our town. Yeah, and I'm just gonna say that it's considered a class two electric bike. So it doesn't go more than 20 miles an hour. And so what we're thinking about doing is letting people, we have it for the month of October. We're gonna be letting people try it out on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday between the hours of two and five. There'll be half hour slots. And some of, some Saturdays, we will also allow people to try it out. We're planning on doing it on the shared use path from Bailey over towards the junction. There'll be a training and before people are allowed loose with it. And we are going to ask that people are very careful because it is motorized of being aware of walkers as they use the, and share the path. So we've talked to Public Safety and if you guys have any questions, we would love to entertain them. And one of the reasons we're here is to invite you to try the pebble. So feel free, we're going to, Sustainable Montpelier is going to host a scheduling page and that should be up tomorrow. So check there, sustainablemontpelier.org. Any questions? Can you just remind me of the date? I caught it and then I lost it again. The date? The date of the testing. Oh yeah, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from two to five p.m. There'll be half hour slots. And then we have, I think three Saturdays. And so we have it now tentatively until November 1st. Okay, so ongoing Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Yeah, we just thought it'd be fun for people to try it out as a different option. And we thought rather than try it out on the road, which got such feedback from the scooter that we would try it out on the shared use path. Any other thoughts? Okay, all right, so moving on to the consent agenda. Oh yes, oh yes, you have an item. Okay. Yes, quickly, just, I was hoping to introduce our new assistant city manager camera, Nita Meyer, tonight. She started on Monday and has promptly gotten herself ill. So she's not feeling well, so I told her best not to be here snuffling all over everyone. So perhaps at the next meeting, but she sends her regards and has been here and is already jumping right into some issues, but. So in case you're wondering where she is, she's home where she should be. Okay, great. But we're glad she's on board. Well, we look forward to meeting her, having her here. Okay, on to the consent agenda. So is there a motion? We move the consent agenda. Second. For the discussion. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. The complete streets update. Yeah, welcome. Gary Holloway with the complete streets committee. Thanks for having me. This is our annual update of what the committee has been up to. Probably been a year and a half, I think, since I've been to council, talked about this. I'll keep this brief. If there's anything in particular that you all would like for me to answer, please jump in. I was just going to spend just a couple of minutes talking about what we've been up to and what our group focuses on. A few years back, the transportation committee kind of broke and we're the kind of the safety, awareness, education piece of the transportation committee. Currently we have six members. We have three vacancies. We're working at trying to fill those vacancies. One of the areas that we work on is safety, both pedestrian and bicycle safety. One of the initiatives we've been working on over the last year and a half now is a night safety initiative by purchasing and handing out reflective arm bands to pedestrians who are not well seen. We've done so through town meeting day as well as other fall opportunities when it starts to get dark, like right about now. And we're getting ready to purchase some bike lights to do the same to try to bring bikes a little bit more seen in the community. We've worked with the Department of Public Works to identify areas of safety needs around the community, sidewalks, areas that need to get plowed. And just, Tom McCartle's been great in their department, Corey Lyons been terrific to work with in terms of helping to identify what they're working on, provide us updates. We look forward to inviting Donna to one of our next meetings so that we can get her up to speed with the conversations we've been having and hopefully be able to continue that relationship. And I'm sure we will be able to. We've done a lot of what we do is provide input to things that are going on around the city. They're from initiatives that the city is working on or with other organizations. For example, when the e-scooter program came out, we provided some input around that program so that if it comes back in one shape or form, we can at least make sure that some of the safety concerns are addressed. We've, that's the other partnerships we've advised on the very main scoping study. We were invited to participate in the hiring of the consultant for the downtown master plan. We've collaborated with the transportation committee on the ordinance update around biking and I'm hopeful to kind of collaborate and have collective suggestions and recommendations around that for the November meeting. We've supported initiatives of others such as moving the pocket park over to the senior center and worked with Norwich students in designing a covered bike parking which hasn't come to fruition but nonetheless that was a good effort that if we decide to move forward we have some nice designs. We've advocated for the use of a request tracker on the city website and we're hopeful that we can get that to be a little bit more prominent on the city website. I think we were waiting for some of the updates to the website to happen before we made that more visual and what that is is a tool that the community can use if they see a trip hazard, if they see a pothole they can take a picture, they can go on, they can upload that picture and some comments and that goes directly to the public works and so they can be a little bit more responsive to some of those immediate needs in the community. We've recently had discussions around rules of the road education and Onion River Outdoors in partnership with the local motion offered a free class to bicyclists and I've aimed towards people who are new to cycling so that's an opportunity to provide further education. There's been a lot of concerns from folks in the community that bicyclists aren't following the rules of the road and we're hoping to be able to possibly partner with Onion River Outdoors and Freeride and others, maybe the police department to be able to provide a little bit of a stipend to the instructors who are offering this free class. I'll just another quick minute. We have worked on a couple different events. We're a small committee so events can be pretty time consuming so we don't organize a lot of them but one of our committee members has been pretty passionate about this pedestrian scramble which brings the community out and looks at different areas around town that you otherwise wouldn't see. Little hidden treasures around our neighborhoods and it's been a fun way to get people out and see our community. We're working on a ribbing cutting event for the expansion of the newly named Siebel-Winnabee path which will be Friday, November 8th at 315 at Bar Hill and we encourage council and the rest of the city to come out and support that. The tremendous efforts have been happening over the last several years on that particular project. In the future, we plan to do more education in classes around bike safety as well as continuing the successful arm band, lighted arm band and bicycle light program. We're hoping to be able to help the city and Green Mountain Transit promote the new transit center which I showed up for the ribbon cutting and was told it'll be in two weeks but got a sneak peek of some of the apartments which turned out really nice so excited to see that transit center open up and then we can promote the use of that and those new routes that they have. So I'll leave it at that. I know you have a full agenda but if council has any questions in particular for the committee. Any questions? Don, I would like you to say that date again for the shared use path. Yeah, and we'll send some press around. It's Friday, November 8th at 315 at Bar Hill and there's gonna be an optional bike ride and walk starting at 215. We're collaborating with Cross from Mont Trail and they're really excited about a future bridge site at the other end of the trail so they're looking to ride bikes out to that future site so they can talk a little bit about that ahead of the ribbon cutting. Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions? Oh yeah, I just wanna say it's a committee I visit once in a while and it's full of positive energy and you always have projects so thank you and thank your committee. Yeah, you're welcome. I would say it sounds like you have been very busy and so grateful for all of the work of your committee so you can pass that on to them for us. That would be great. Someday I do hope that we are ever talking about reverse angle parking and when that day comes, I imagine the complete street script will be very key in terms of outreach and education so. Well I'd like to thank, I just thank the city staff and council and planning commission and other committee members who have supported a lot of initiatives that are really working towards complete streets and Montpelier. I think that the various studies that have been in the past and you're working on now are really helping contribute to the kind of the long-term vision even though we don't realize them all right now as we all hit potholes sometimes or shoulders are too narrow but I know that there's a plan in place the city's working on to quickly rectify some of those immediate needs as well as addressing the long-term needs so thanks for focusing those efforts there. Great. Well thank you so much. Thanks. Okay. So on to discussing the Bethany Warming Shelter extension. So I know there's a few folks here for that. I'm wondering Ken, do you wanna come and address the council on this or should I be directing this to someone else or to Bill? Do you wanna start? Go ahead. Well I can help tee it up while everyone decides which way they wanna go. I believe at the last meeting the city council gave two homework assignments. One was for the city staff to see if we can identify up to $10,000 and we've given you a recommendation of where that might come from and the other was to good Samaritan to figure out when and if they could open and what their operating plan was and I see them here so I'm assuming they're prepared to talk about that half of it and then I think it was a good discussion of whether or not you all wanted to proceed with this. Great. So I know there's some folks here from good Sam as well. If you'd like to come address the council. Hi everyone, Rob Farrell, executive director of Good Samaritan Haven and we do indeed have our homework assignment here. I will send an electronic version to you tomorrow. I first wanna acknowledge that we're fortunate to have four of our board members here that are also Montpelier residents so I very much appreciate their presence as well. As you can see, this is a pretty nuts and bolts budget folks. So I'll let you look at that and then talk about a potential opening date. Last time I was here, I commented on recognizing the sense of urgency to get the shelter open and that there's homeless people out there and that the weather is getting cold. We also further identified that a very ambitious goal would be over the next couple of weeks trying to get this open. We are actively hiring folks right now. Unfortunately, this is taking longer than we anticipated and I think a more realistic date folks of us opening the shelter would be more towards November 1st. And I say that in the spirit of offering a concrete date as opposed to one that is moving target until we can get fully staffed. Any questions, Donna? And that's compared to the date that... Was it November 15th? Yes, it was. Was your plan opening date? Thank you. Jack. Is this budget for starting November 1st? No, it isn't. It would be for the full month. So this would be significantly last, Jack. Okay, thanks. Glenn. Glenn. Hi, thanks for coming. And it sounds to me like you're hiring now. You're trying to get people in earlier than that, so it could possibly happen earlier than November 1st, but it sounds like it's unlikely from your point of view or at least so hard to promise. Correct. Okay. Ashley and then Lauren. So I'm assuming then it would be fair to say that whenever the exact open date is, that would be the $17 per night times however, many beds. Okay, and so it would be prorated from whatever day, open day is forward. Correct. That was it. Okay. So I'm sure there are thoughts from people in the community about this as to, would you like to offer anything, Ken, on behalf of the committee, or if not, that's fine. We appreciate you all moving. Would you mind just so that people can hear you at home? Thank you. Yeah, no, we appreciate your hard work on this and all that you do for the community and thank you for responding to the sense of urgency and we understand that we can't just move heaven and earth with a snap of the fingers. We appreciate your good efforts. Thank you. So, yes. I just wanted to remind Rob, Rob, Rick the Angelist, would you point out the complimentary services issue if we started early with the churches? Yes, that's important. Of course, so this represents many of the pieces that need to fall into place. So traditionally when we've opened on November 15th, it's in sync with the other churches opening up to offer shelter, warming shelters and food as well as we're very fortunate to have another community partner in another way that would also open up at that date as well. And on which date? The 15th. The 15th, yep. We certainly would be moving to the first as well. That would have to be discussions with them as well, Bill. Okay. Comments from the public and then thoughts from the council as to how you'd like to proceed. But if there's comments from the public now is the time. Steve, would it come up here? I was afraid that this is what would happen. The task force has not seen the budget until I just looked at the reporter's copy. I had mentioned earlier on that the council should consider hiring folks that have experienced have done this and get the shelter open earlier. That was rejected out of hand by Bill, I guess, without discussion of the council. Actually, Mr. Whitaker, I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with you there. I think that the council directed our city manager, Mr. Frazier, to see if he could find the funding and I think that was rejected by the council. So I understand that you're using Bill because Bill spoke up about the reasons that we have a contract, but I wanna be clear that the council indicated a clear willingness to proceed with Good Sam as well. Well, as you know, Good Sam refuses to be transparent about the expenses that are currently being expended of state and public money. And that's a problem. I've reviewed the agreement between Bethany, a draft agreement between Bethany and Good Sam and there are search provisions that run afoul of federal court decisions without a warrant. Want to be clear also there, Mr. Whitaker, the warrant requirement applies to agencies acting in their capacity as governments. And so- Can you quit interrupting me? No, Mr. Whitaker, actually, I will not because I have, frankly, become incredibly frustrated with you and I consider you a friend, but the tone and tenor of your commentary and your aggressive approach and behavior is unacceptable, Mr. Whitaker, I will allow you to finish when you can- You're not running the meeting, ma'am. Mr. Whitaker, I'm the president of this council and I am speaking to you about an issue that has been ongoing with you for numerous months and I respect you and I consider you to be an invaluable asset to our community, but your tone and tenor and your profanity in emails, it's unacceptable, Mr. Whitaker, and if you want to talk about facts, you referred to yourself as a credible source the last time, provide factual information to us, please. Not when I'm talked to with that level of disrespect to you. So in any case, there is also a decision which I provided to the police chief today that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that this has to do with the failed effort to get the police to identify where people could camp in the interim. Being that the shelter is not yet open, that court ruled that camping on public property was allowed anywhere on public property and prohibiting or citing or harassing people for camping on public property amounted to an unconstitutional, cruel and unusual punishment. So that decision has been sent to both Bill and Chief Fakos, and that should prevail now in the interim until this shelter gets opened. The way the notice is phrased in, it says for $10,000 up to, I think that should be modified to be strictly on a cost basis. I think you should scrutinize the padding of the budget that's been presented only tonight and look at past history of whether those people actually, that amount of staff time was devoted to supervising these shelters. But if we could squeak six weeks or eight weeks out of that 10,000, including springtime, we should attempt to do that. You shouldn't just say, name your price and we'll agree to it. That would not be responsible use of public money. But the city being that city money and city attaching city oversight should definitely consider asking that that provision for random searches absent a warrant or a probable cause be removed from the MOU. So I don't wanna weigh in here. So just in light of multiple interruptions, what I would like to do is if there are, so what I would like to do is allow people to have two minutes and they can say all the incorrect things that they want in two minutes. And then at the end of those two minutes, we'll correct them. But I'm going to be pretty clear about that. So Steven, you have about one or so minutes left, okay? And then at the end of that, then we'll address anything incorrect, is that okay? Just for clarity and moving forward. Well, I think I've made my points that in effect, we need to make a better Sam and they are resisting acknowledging that the services of 20 beds, 20 cots on a floor, 10 people to a room in Barrie is inhumane. And until we reach that resolution that that is not sufficient, we will not begin using the task force to its full potential to design a new framework. Thank you. Anything to add? The only thing I was gonna add was that I meant to make this clear at the beginning that, and it's in line with the conversation that Council Member Hill had with Mr. Whitaker. The city is not assuming any operational responsibility where we're basically adding funding to the grant that the state gets. And certainly at this point in time, we are not intervening in any agreements between Good Sam and Bethany Church or Good Sam and AHS or any other funding sources. We're not seeking to operate the shelter or manage or control it in any way other than making sure that it's available to residents of the community. If the task force over a longer period of time comes up with ideas that everyone's involved with, great, we'll look at it, but you know, we're trying to get a shelter open early and that's the way to do it. Anyone else? Oh yeah. I'm Travis Hill. I'm one of the homeless. I represent the homeless in Vermont and the public in general. First and foremost, Rob and the people at Good Sam have a lot on their plate and they do what they can do as do another way which I would like to say saved my life and all the resources that are in Montpelier in regards to my dynamic as far as who I am as a person and being homeless and having issues that I have in my life, what they offer me, they gave to me and everything they said they would do, they did. Now that may fluctuate between case by case, sometimes it's different, sometimes it's, and that's the issue I have in regards to that. I just wanna make that publicly known that there needs to be more thought into that but based on all that they do already, I know that they'll come up with something like that in the future as best they can. But as far as the topic at hand, the money that was generated 10,000 I think it was, something about 10,000 in four weeks. I don't know why it costs that much for four weeks, that might be something you wanna look into. I volunteered to help open the shelter early, I've offered to work at the shelter, I've offered to work at another way again, I've offered to volunteer there. Also I'm very respected on the streets and I'm better in my life and I just wanna be that known in this forum that the city of Montpelier is doing what they can do with what they got and how they can but it needs to be fine tuned as do everything. So that's what I have to say, thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? I would also like to chime in and I do apologize Mr. Whitaker for interrupting you but frankly your tone has become quite aggressive lately and I have struggled significantly even to get through emails because you use profanity at times which I respect your right to do so but it certainly doesn't make engaging and frankly helping you any easier and I do believe that the council owes a significant debt of gratitude to Mr. Whitaker. However, this has become a significant point of focus for me and my work and we all live here together. Mr. Whitaker you are my friend and I apologize for interrupting you. It was completely out of line on my behalf but I expect the same in return from you because in this community we are capable of doing the things that you have identified as things that we need to do and addressing the issues that you've identified but your approach has really created a significant divide and that may be in the long term a good thing but in the short term for getting those critical things done I would really encourage a more collaborative approach and whatever your issues are or maybe with myself or anyone else here in city government what I can tell you is this, we are doing our best to address the issues that you raise through partnering with area organizations relying on our volunteers to do this work and we need all of that work to happen so that the council can make informed decisions but what is really troubling to me is that we are subjecting our employee city manager who receives a significant bulk of your communications frankly to what I would define as abusive and I want you to hold us accountable. We need to be held accountable, I completely agree but Mr. Whitaker it is becoming increasingly difficult to listen to you, accuse every single person in a very incendiary way of things that you have not been able to provide factual support for and you're asking important questions and there is a way to ask those questions that we can all get the answers that we all want and need that's not name calling, finger pointing and frankly getting the last word in that doesn't really add anything to our conversation and probably takes a lot more time away from it and I also wanna add that I have worked with Good Sam in my years here in Washington County and in my experience certainly there are struggles and challenges present in any not for profit work particularly when working with populations with significant and unmet needs but in my dealings with Good Sam in my day job life Good Sam has really gone to lengths that I was not expecting to see in order to address unmet housing needs at least where they are able to find some wiggle room they have been more than willing to use that room in ways that I believe benefit our community. Other comments? I think there are a lot of things that could be said there are a lot of things that Mr. Whitaker said that I take issue with and that I don't think correctly represent either the rights and obligations of the parties at Good Samaritan Haven or the state of the law in Montpelier but I think that what's really more productive is to recognize that Good Samaritan is the one entity that is in the position to provide services in what has correctly been identified as an immediate crisis. And so all the other issues that have been discussed that have been brought up are within the charge to the homelessness task force that the council created and for the sake of addressing long-term problems and creating long-term solutions we look to the task force to meet that charge but for what's before us today we have a proposal from Good Samaritan Haven that they could essentially provide homeless services at Bethany Church for $340 a night and likely commencing November 1st. And so I move that we allocate out of sources identified by the manager funding in that amount to commence when Good Samaritan is ready to start providing those services at the rate stated for whatever time they're available to do so up to November 15th when the state funds kick in. So can I offer a friendly? I think it's not a second. Hang up, there's not a second yet, is there a second? Okay. Ashley. I'm wondering if a more succinct, clear way to state the motion would be that I would move that the city of Montpelier allocate no more than $10,000 to Good Samaritan or to the committee to the, I'm not sure who the funds get allocated to. Well, so I may get another suggestion, but allocate no more than $10,000 to be used for the early opening of the Bethany shelter at a rate of $17 per night to be paid from per bed. Yes, $17 per night per bed to be paid when that shelter opens. So my thought here too is that we had asked the task force to come up with some short-term options for us and this is one of them. One possibility is that if we are going to a lot up to $10,000, but either they can't use it, you know, if it's not a whole month early, if it's only two weeks early, then what happens to the extra funding there? It's possible that they may come back and say, you know, we would like to use funds for porta-potties outside, you know, something like that. And so one of my fears was that, you know, would this committee come back every week with a new request? Because this sort of procedure is very unusual. Like this is not normally how we deal with money. And I get that it's an emergency and so that, but there's also, there are a lot of emergencies and there are a lot of nonprofits that could come to us and say, you know, our situation constitutes an emergency and you should give us funds right now as well. So what makes this different? And I would say, well, we formed a task force to address this issue specifically and ask them to come up with options for us. So one possibility is that we say that we would like to give the homelessness task force the discretion to allocate $10,000 on whatever projects they see fit. And that could be the early opening of the shelter, it could be porta-potties, it could be other solutions that we haven't discussed tonight. But just in recognizing that this is not a normal procedure, like I don't wanna go back and say, here's another 3,000 and here's another, you know, whatever it is, I would be willing to, I mean, if there needs to be a fourth, I would be willing to vote for this $10,000 as a one-time thing up until we are having a budget conversation. And so either it's in the budget or really the way that we normally allocate money to nonprofits through the budget is through the Montpelier Community Fund. And if we want to be, you know, funding Good Samaritan Haven at a higher rate than we have been, then that is something that we should be communicating with our community fund folks. So that's sort of where I see this going. And if not, you know, what's your pleasure? I know, Ashley, it's something, and then Jack, but it doesn't matter if you see the word. Jack, go ahead, since you, yeah. I appreciate Ashley's rephrasing of my motion, and I think that's a, it's the same motion as a fine rephrasing for it. I don't agree with your proposal to just allocate the $10,000 for them to do with what they think is most important. What I think is the proposal is to address a crisis and if to the extent that the crisis can be addressed by providing shelter earlier than it would otherwise be available, I would say we do that and anything, any further appropriation would come through either the Montpelier Fund or the budgeting and appropriation process. So you agree that it's $10,000 now and anything further needs to go through the normal channels? No, because I don't think it's gonna be $10,000, I think it's probably gonna be half of that or so depending on what is used up based on the budget. It would literally be just an allocation for whatever up to the $10,000 would be spent and it would go, I would rather get that dollar amount directly from the committee than we can either give the committee the exact dollar amount in funds to pass on or the city can pay directly, but I would not feel comfortable just sort of writing a $10,000 check and not because I don't trust the judgment of the folks who are in the room, but more because I think that this to me is a significant unmet need and it's been a significant unmet need for Montpelier for a long while and I wanna make sure that the city approaches this in a way that is a long-term solution, not just a sort of short-term panacea that's like feel good for the winter and then we kinda go back to the status quo and have the same sense of urgency again and a few thousand dollars when you're talking about getting people connected with folks to help them fill out applications for things or that can be a meaningful amount of money. So. Can I just jump in? If that's the without objection rephrasing, can I get you to fire it at me? If I could help out here, maybe it might be the simplest thing is if you just divide 10,000 by 340 it comes up to about 29 nights. So up to 29 nights of shelter services between now and November 15th. No, that's also, that's way more math than I. Do you wanna- Why use my handy-dandy phone calculator? I'm also fine with that but I basically just wanna make clear that the, what I think Jack's original motion in my shorter version that I've already forgotten was, it's basically like it won't, we won't go over the $10,000 amount and it will in essence be based on the 20, you know the maximum potential of 29 days. But, so that- Jack. The one question I have and Rob, you might have an answer to this is that it amounts to $17 per bed night or $340 per night. But, I suspect that if on some night you have 18 people instead of 20 people it costs you no less money. And even if you have 10 people instead of 18, 20 people it costs the same to keep open. So that's why I'm thinking $340 a night is per, for each night you're open is the way to look at it. That's a big maximum. Yeah. Done. I think I'm gonna be a bit of a mood changer because the very next thing in our agenda is our budget. And we have some really bad news next year. And when I look at all the places this $10,000 came from, I get a little nervous. And likewise, as much as we have the Montpellier Community Fund and I support it, the city is not a social service agency. And I like Bill's point. We're not here to operate it. We're here to help a crisis. And unfortunately, Ashley, it's not a long-term fix. It's a short-term fix. And so, that's what I said. Yes, but I see this as a short-term fix. So I hesitate just throwing $10,000 at it. You know, I'd like to look at it more sensibly as what you're telling us that it's not gonna open till November one. If you think there's a true chance that you're gonna open a week before, then fine. Otherwise, I would allocate exactly what you think you can do, which is half of this sum. And not that it's extra. It's found money that had an allocation and between now and the end of the year could be spent. So anyway, it's not that I don't wanna address the problem. I just wanna do it as most confinely as possible because this is not a solution, people. That's all. Further discussion. I was gonna say just to be clear, the motion that I have down is still jacked. Yes, so that, I apologize, I was writing it out, that the city allocate and authorize expenditures up to but not exceeding $10,000 to Good Samaritan to operate the Bethany Shelter up to and until November 14th because the state funding kicks in the 15th is that. That's correct. Yes. Why don't you just fire that over? Yes, I will do that. Okay, so it's clear what we're voting on. Okay, all right, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Nay. I think that carried, I don't think that carried. No one's abstaining, anyone's abstaining? Okay. All right, so the motion carries. So thank you for your work and everyone getting us these numbers and hopefully it's able to open at least somewhat early. So great, thank you so much. Thank you everyone. All right, so on to the item that Donna alluded to, our preliminary budget discussion and I know Todd is here to talk about that. Todd Proventure, finance director, city of Mount Player. I will not have nearly the fireworks of the last session. My objective tonight is just to share information with you as I'm receiving it. So as you know, personnel costs are typically the biggest driving factor of our budget process. Consumes about 60% of the overall budget. This year we've been hit with a incredibly high health insurance premium renewal of 25%. That has consequences in a lot of different ways, one to the current fiscal year because our health insurance plan operates on a calendar year. During the budget process for the current fiscal year, we used the rates that we knew to be in effect through December 31st and increased those rates by 10% for January to June 30. The 25% increase that will be effective January one will actually impact the current FY20 budget by $103,000. So that's an unbudgeted expense. In addition, going into FY21, it's a little over $300,000 impact in health insurance. Plus we have mandatory, the only contract that is currently in place for collective bargaining is the fire department. Police and DPW are both up for negotiation so we don't know the exact increase of any rate, if any. And personnel plan employees and unclassified individuals would be subject to council's discretion. But if we use that 2% number, it's in excess of $100,000. So my point in the presentation this evening or lack thereof is just to say that we're already looking at in excess of $400,000 in obligatory increases for FY21, which would typically equal the entire budget increase of 4% that we would normally be targeting. So that's before any additional spending, any new programming, any new employees and the like. So I don't have a lot more to add to that at the moment other than we are soliciting quotes from competitive health insurance providers. But our rates are being based on claims experience so I suspect that they will price accordingly. However, we have not received the quotes back yet so this is still early and I still need to go through and refine all the data with current census and expected census data because the number of people that we have in family plans versus single plans will change throughout the year so there's always a little bit of tweaking. So I don't wanna say these are hard numbers but they're very scary numbers in terms of the budget process. So any questions, yeah, Jack? Todd, is the 25% the definite figure from this contractor, is this the estimate? Where I work, we usually don't get the actual figure until like a month before the end of the year. So just speaking past experience, there's typically been a initial rate and then through our relationship with Hickok and Boardman they will work on our behalf to negotiate a further refined rate, typically maybe two or 3% lower than that initial. My understanding in conversations with Hickok and Boardman this year has been that Blue Cross has been unwilling to even start a discussion on moving that rate. And a big part of the reason is that last year we paid approximately $1.2 million in premium and had $2.4 million in claims. So even though it's insurance and you want it for rainy day they're still going to recoup their money. So one way or another. So that's really the strategy. And because we are an employer of greater than 100 employees we're not eligible to participate in any of the health connect exchange programs within the state. So we fall within an isolated group of unserved, small pool employers that don't have a lot of options. Thanks. Connor. Just like briefly go over the process for how you develop the budget or department heads sent like instructions asking them to keep it within a certain range or is it whatever they want. They know there's a budget Congress at some point. Right. So my personal approach is to instruct department heads to ask for what they need, what they anticipate they need and what they would really want to run their department. From there we then cut it down as a group. That way everyone has a chance to present their argument to the rest of the department heads in terms of why this is needed or why it's more important than something else. And I'd rather be in the position of collectively cutting the budget than having things go unbudgeted or I'm going to leave my budget flat for next year but then a whole bunch of emergencies crop up or unexpected expenses. So I think it's a lot better to be honest with folks, see what they can see what they need to fund their operations and then work with them on a plan to get that. And sometimes it's giving up from one department to another department's benefit. And I think we have a pretty cooperative group when it comes to that. And it's really kind of fun to watch how everyone will try to chip in and help. And when we get out of the nitty gritty it's sometimes it's just giving $500 out of a supply line item to make something else happen in another department. I'll add to that too is at some point it differs every year but in various years the city council will weigh in and say we'll give you kind of a not to exceed cap or there are certain things we want to see. And so in those cases of course we make sure we deliver within the goods the last few years, the last couple of years at least has been more of a give us your bottom line and then show us what you remember last year we kind of had that ad alternates. And I think the key point here is we'll be near the top of that range before we do any of the ads. And the two years preceding this year we were looking at renewals that were right in the three to four percent. So it was wonderful coming up. Years back Donna you may remember and as well we had a couple of years where it was 16, 17 percent we thought that was the absolute most terrible scenario we could imagine. And we had a couple of good years we started to get make traction or move forward on some different endeavors. And this year we just can't be kicked. Ashley. This may be a very naive question and if it is I'm totally open to being told that but well I appreciate that health insurance is like literally life saving. I've been there myself more times than I would care to admit lately. But what I'm struggling with and I think this is a bit of maybe I'm just a little jaded does the city have to buy from one of these insurers? Like are we obligated to purchase from Blue Cross or Etna or could we explore a self insurance type option and hire someone to administer that plan so that we could actually better meet our employees needs. And again I don't purport to know like what goes into all of that but I really struggle with the healthcare industry because they don't care about any of us. All they care about is money and I would like to know that our city dollars are actually taking care of our city employees other than just paying some jacked up insurance CEO has 25% bonus for the year while the rest of us are struggling to figure out how we can pay rent. So not a naive question at all something that has been on the forefront of my thinking I think since I've been in city hall we have pursued this from several different angles in terms of developing a self-insured funding model and just this year through the league and Hickok and Boardmen and trying to partner with South Burnley to create a captive insurance for health insurance due to regulatory issues and legal issues. There's a whole laundry list of reasons why we can't get there at least in the near term. It's optimistic that sometime in the future we might be able to but the landscape from a regulatory legal standpoint is chaining so quickly that it's a barring entry for us. We're making an assumption we have a country by then too. Yeah. So not a wonderful suggestion and I think we continue to explore those different angles as much as we could. Can we? I don't mean to interrupt. I just before I lose it, is it possible for Bill to pass on to the council what the list of reasons that we can't are? I just I'm very curious about that. I'll have that out tomorrow. Awesome. Jack, did you have something? Okay. I have a question about that. I mean one of the possible solutions that's not gonna help us this year, in my mind is asking the legislature to up that number. You know how the limit for Vermont Health Connect is 100 employees. We're at what, 119? 100? Correct. Okay. So if we could somehow lobby them. I mean we know that healthcare is broken. One possibility is that Vermont Health Connect could be a place that we sort of ideally funnel people into over time and if it was somehow, if that limit were higher and we were able to qualify. I assume that would be joining a larger pool. Or just allowing municipalities to join that pool regardless of their situation. Sure. That would be great. So that may be an option if we can convince the legislature to. Yeah, we could get some traction on opening that pool. I'm not holding my breath but I'm just trying to think about options. Other questions or comments about the budget? I guess I'll just say from my perspective, this is, I mean four and a half percent overall increase is significant for us. We're not in a place right now I don't think where we're gonna go around and say like, this is the percentage I feel comfortable with or you know. We're not having that conversation right now but we will and I guess I'm just gonna say for my part that we're at the upper end of what I'm comfortable with and so I'm probably not gonna be proposing anything new money-wise probably. And I'm certainly open to other suggestions if you do have something but I'm not gonna necessarily be bringing anything new for this year. This feels like could be kind of a maybe weighty year. But anyway, that's. And you know, as numbers get refined you know, I'll be providing you additional information. I guess the thought that I would wanna leave you with is that if there is a proposal for something new that requires spending NFY 21 and then just plan on there being a direct offset cut. So for everything that we had, something's gonna go. And you know, those are gonna be the hard decisions. You know, it's no different than making, you know, changes in employees or eliminating positions or consolidating, you know, certain operations. Those become difficult. So the purpose of tonight's discussion was just to get this information out to you. So you have a chance to digest and kind of get a feel for what we're looking at. One further question. For the $100,000 that is going to impact this year's budget, this current year's budget, are we anticipating that we're going to be taking that out of cost savings perhaps through this budget or from reserves? Or do we not know yet? Yeah, I don't wanna make any commitments at this moment on how we'll actually pull that together. You wanna make sure that I'm noting that I'm asking that question. Ashley, then Dawn. I think, well, I already talked to Dawn. Okay, okay. So I heard you mentioned Hickok and Boardman. Do we have a contract with them or? They provide a health insurance advisory service in conjunction with the league on our behalf to assist in negotiating renewals and insurance services. The legal cities and towns has the contract. We, it's a service we can access through them. I'm just wondering if there are other ways that we could go about getting quotes because I understand, well, I understand in theory how the insurance industry works. I think that in practical reality, I have no clue. It's just some random process by which they either accept or deny a claim. But I wonder if there might be other like different plans that are out there that sort of really focus on this kind of thing that we may be able to use. I'm not comfortable accepting an increase like that. I really feel like that's just far too much. And I think it's great that we have this resource through the league, but I am certain there are other places out there. And I just, I can't accept a 25% increase in premiums with no change in services. And frankly, it sounds a little like they're using past bills to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions to price people out of the market, which I find reprehensible. And to me, there have to be other ways than assuming a 25% increase to healthcare premiums. So we can give you more complete information. I think what we really understand is there's very few health insurers that do business in Vermont. It's basically MVP, Cigna and Blue Cross Blue Shield, period. That's the beginning and the end of the list. We've sought quotes from all three. We've been with Blue Cross. There's a long history here. I'll try to do it as quickly as I can, but I think it is relevant. For many years, the League of Cities and Towns had a pool of essentially all the towns and cities in the state were insured through their pool and they bought insurance as a group. So I don't know, 7,000 employees, whatever they were, whatever the total was. And they typically had been with Blue Cross and then a few years back, they bid out the services and Cigna won the bid. And so the pool switched to Cigna as so most communities did and their employees did. And a year or two into it, Blue Cross, obviously trying to get some business back, started approaching communities individually, particularly the larger communities and the ones with the best claims records and offering them prices lower than what the pool was offering. And obviously that's a tough call, right? You have an obligation to your taxpayers and your community or do you sort of stay loyal with the pools? So many people took the funding and these were in the days of big increases. So people left the pool, which then left the pool with the higher risk communities, higher risk employment pool. And so there, you can imagine, it started the death spiral. And so the pool started shattering. Yeah, we eventually had to break off to go to Blue Cross and then along came, right about that time was when Vermont Health Connect came in and so for communities under 100, they can go into Health Connect. That left us now in a pool of our employees. We're not in with any other town or city, we're not in with any other larger group. So our 110 insurers are well in their families. So maybe 200 and so my people are the pool amongst which our claims are spread. So without, I mean, we had five claims that were the bulk of our overage. And as you say, we don't begrudge any of our employees using any of their insurance. That's what it's here for. People have catastrophic things happen to them. They need it, that's why we provide it. But it doesn't take much when you're in such a small pool. And so I appreciate your concern. I actually agree with every bit of it philosophically. The fact is, Hickok and Abortment is basically just a negotiating agent. They're not the provider. And so they're gonna negotiate with MVP and they're gonna negotiate with Cigna and they're gonna negotiate with Blue Cross and maybe we'll get a better rate for one of them and hopefully the coverage will be the same. We certainly have negotiated levels of coverage in our union contracts. We have to maintain that. I really do believe that the best result in the long run would be if we could just raise the cap and be allowed to go into either to go into the health connect pool or ideally maybe the state of Vermont opens up its employee plan to all municipalities and let's just shares that. I don't know if they will, but they could. I mean, that would give them more insurance too to broaden their pool. But those are really absent national change in the way healthcare is provided. Those are our very limited options. We're not in a state where we're a small state. There's not a huge amount of competition for this business. So we are somewhat captive. And it's October nine for a plan year starting January one. So even, it's just a huge challenge. We will bark up every tree, believe me, but I just wanted to be clear that that's kind of the, we're a small player in a big field. And so we're not, you know, and we're coming off a bad claim year. So we're not a juicy fruit for an insurance company. Well, I totally understand that that's the way the system does work, but I think that's a not working system for us. And so I guess I'm just going to continue to be that, like we need to find other solutions person because I just, I can't fathom just sort of saying that while there's nothing else that we can do other than this, because we have a, this is a loud group of people who can make phone calls and speak up about this. If we're being told that our only option to keep our employees healthy is to pay 25% more, to me, for the exact same thing, that's unacceptable. And to be clear, it impacts employees because their share is also going up 25%. Which is just unconscionable that insurance companies are legally permitted to do this. I would really encourage us to not just sort of accept that as the status quo isn't good enough because all of us deserve better because we are humans. And I'm not going to vote on a tax increase of nearly 4%, well, not an increase of, well, yeah, it would be close to a 4% increase for residents who are already struggling to be here. Anyway, I just, that to me is sort of how we continue to end up in this endless cycle of like, we need more people, but we also need money to keep up the services that we all value. And this is one to me where the money's not staying in Vermont. I feel pretty strongly that when we are going to be talking about an expenditure of that size, we do everything within our power to mitigate those costs because that's just unbelievable. Donna. Well, unfortunately, I was around in 2000 and we had 24% almost every year. It was ridiculous. And we started those HMOs and savings accounts and that shook things up for a while and then up it goes again. And the theater got their increase already. Jack, I don't know why, but we got our notice that ours was going up and it's 16%. And we've had no claims on this, on the group that's actually insured direct. And so I think that, you know, it's great that we can try to do something. I think it's too bad we got this notice after the Vermont League of City and Towns had their town meeting because this is an issue, the towns and the league could really put their teeth into. And I think we need to go forward and join with towns and the league to approach legislators. But the market is what it is. And Vermont has a small market because Vermont says they have to accept pre-existing conditions. And so the other insurance companies left. So I'm glad Vermont did that, but it's a free market, so everybody else left. Well, I think it's time for us to, I agree. I think we have to act. We gotta take that power back because I am done letting them write that narrative of life in our community and frankly every other one out there. I have a question. What would you think about the council writing some kind of a letter to support? I mean, you're raising it with the league. The league board and passing it on to them. Would it be more powerful or helpful if we had some kind of a letter that we all agreed to? I would also ask that we send this to department heads to distribute to employees because I mean, this could be a potential impact on them as well. And so, our employees are literally what keeps us all being here. They keep the lights on for us. They keep our streets safe and clean. And to me, like, we need to let everybody in the community know that. Yeah, so you'd be in favor of having some kind of a letter. I would say a memo to city staff. Yeah, we would do that. And but now rather than because I think city staff have an important voice in this process. Well, and I'm talking about a letter to request that either municipalities be allowed to join Vermont Health Connect or that the cap on 100 employees be raised. Is that what? Yes. Does that sound okay? Is that something? I mean, I don't know, do you need? Okay, great, thank you. Yes, Connor. I mean, I think I would prefer some discussion with the bargaining units just before drafting this just to get their input. Does it make sense to like draft something and circulate it around, get feedback on it? And before we have a vote. So does that sound reasonable? I can't, so I'll let you know. We have already informed the bargaining units and the employees that this is coming. We don't have a final number yet, but this isn't necessarily a shock. They know what's happening. We, so while I think it would be good to inform them that we're doing that, we can't change plans unless it meets certain criteria based on our contract. So we would still be bound by that. So even if we were to go to health, so our contracts don't specify which provider it specifies levels of care. So as long as we were purchasing a similar level of care through HealthConnect at a lower rate, we would be meeting our obligations to our collective bargaining units. Do they have any voice in selecting the provider? I know state employees though. So, we have what we do actually, so they do not necessarily via their contract because actually we have a very good working relationship with them in terms of that. We have a Deploy Health Insurance Committee that has a rep from all the unions and non-unions and these type of issues are wrestled in that group. You know, we're such a small group that it doesn't make sense for, you know, fired have one provider and one set of plan and police. So it's gotta be kind of an all or nothing. So we get everyone together and resolve this that way. And so typically when we switch providers, it is with those groups, we're all doing it together. And so I would argue that having the option to go to Health Connect, or having the option to do something else doesn't necessarily mean we have to do it, but it gives us another set of choices that we don't have right now that the employees and us would consider. And we'd be happy to share. I'm not saying we shouldn't share the letter with them, but I think we ought to, we could move ahead without violating their trust. I don't think they want to pay 25% more either. Absolutely. I would just be a little more comfortable if they got to look at it before we draft anything. Well, if we draft it and then they can provide feedback because that's okay. Okay. All right, so I don't think we need a motion on that, but we'll talk about that at another meeting after people have had a chance to check it out. Any other comments about the budget? If not, that's okay. Thanks for bringing us this good news talk. I'm sorry. So it goes. It's been agonizing. Yeah, but this is very sobering because we're only four months people in this FY year. Just so you realize that. And we've already dug out $10,000 of money from departments. We have a winner to go through, so it's not gonna look better. No, no, and it's, and Ashley, just to address your point before I leave, looking at wholesale plan changes is something that's discussed every year with the Professionals and the Health Insurance Committee, but unfortunately because the bulk of our claims were produced by a very finite group of individuals, those changes don't translate into savings to the insurance providers. Until we're our own insurance provider. Right, and ideally, I mean, there are so many opportunities within the self-insured arena that we could actually take control of some of our health insurance costs, and lots of models to work with. It's very exciting. We're just not quite there. Great, thank you so much. Thank you. All right, moving on to the Responsible Employer Ordinance. So we have a draft attached, and Connor, do you want to say anything about this? Sure, I could go on for hours, I think like I had last time, but I'll try to keep it brief. Just first off, thanks very much to the council for making this a priority in this year. Thanks very much to city staff who offered really helpful comments, which I've incorporated into this draft. A lot of them, again, I think this is an issue of dignity. I think as a city, we've always seen employees as more than just numbers on a spreadsheet and want to get down to the human level on this. It would certainly be preposterous if there was a state project that like the DMV for workers were making one wage and getting a certain level of benefits. And then just down the street, you would have a city project where it was entirely different set of benefits and wages there. So I think this takes that into consideration. It's an approach that we haven't seen many municipalities take in Vermont, but again, I hope we can be a beacon that others will follow in that regard. Just getting right into the draft here. Again, there were several suggestions by the city staff and I do want to pass out the prevailing wage rates set by the state here, have that handy. And this is the one issue I tried to be creative. There was a suggestion, could we do some sort of minimum wage or livable wage? They would take into consideration all these job classifications. And at the end of the day, I don't think it's feasible. You have different sets of jobs, like an electrician, for example, would require 900 hours of classroom time to reach that goal and 8,000 hours just being in the field working on projects. You stack that next to a helper, which is another classification, which is somebody who just shows up at the job without any of these qualifications. I don't think you can get a minimum wage that would accommodate both those jobs. And you can see just by looking for the packet here, there's a good number of jobs here. The prevailing wage, we've also mentioned the AGC, the Association of General Contractors. This was actually established collaboratively between the Vermont Building Trades and the General Contractors in early 19... 1916, 2016. It's very old, it's very old. It's quite a bit of precedent here, that's all. So it was developed collaboratively to reach a state right there. And I think our best approach is just to mirror that. So that was the first concern. You can see it, section 6.4. There was some confusing language in my initial draft, which references collective bargaining agreements. We scrapped that and just said the Vermont prevailing wage, which is on the Department of Labor website. It's easily available, I think it's easy to understand. If you look at the last sentence in 6.4, responsible wages shall only apply to construction trade workers working directly on the specified construction projects. There was a really good point made that, okay, does this refer to office personnels who might be working in some of these bigger corporations here? We want to be specific that it's only the specified construction project there. So generally they're on the work site, but we tried to word that in a way that if something's being manufactured off-site, it would still apply in that case. Workers' Compensation, 6.5, bit clearer than Industrial Accident Insurance. Go to 6.11. Yeah, the thought of stopping a construction project automatically, that is a bit scary too, if you have them there. So just change it to after a reasonable period of time, you could provide an opportunity to correct or cease work on a project until compliance is obtained. So then it's in control of the city. You have the mechanism to stop a project, but that doesn't necessarily need to be where you need to go on that. So it's at the discretion of the city there. So I think that encompasses most of the city points. We had a previous memo by Sue Allen. I think we went through a one by one last meeting there. So I don't know if anybody has any questions for me. There's much more qualified people in the crowd who can answer some of those. But again, I think this is big. This is Montpelier really spearheading something that we haven't seen in the state. It's sending a message that if you build this city, Danielle's in the crowd. She said, we built this town. We should be able to afford to live here as well. So I would hope that would keep some of the folks from the city, from the state, actually working on these projects. And not necessarily having people from New Hampshire coming in and keeping Vermonters on it. So I'll stop there. Again, I can talk for hours on this. And I think there's probably gonna be some comments from the crowd. I know, Ashley, you have a comment, but I'd also love to hear from Donna. You had some comments last time and I just want to follow up with you about that as well. But Ashley, in the meanwhile. I just, looking at section 64 in the proposed draft, I want to make clear though that with in, so that first sentence, the bidder or proposer and subcontractors under the bidder or proposer must comply with the minimum obligation. So I don't want this to be a situation where in some strange world an employer says, oh, all I have to pay is that. But, you know, so I'm gonna cut a wage to match that because it pays, I just favor clear drafting. And so as long as we say that they will pay, comply with the minimum obligation. So at least, so it can be nothing, like at least not the top end. So that doesn't make it like the top end of this spectrum. It starts, I just want to reframe it as that's where you must start. So you'd propose that. Minimum obligations. That you'd insert the word minimum before obligations. Must comply with at least the minimum obligations. That seems reasonable. Do you agree there? Yeah. And so that way nobody can say, well, I didn't have to pay more. Right, right, right. Or I wanted to pay more, but I couldn't because this was. Mike Glenn. Only just because we're talking about the language U6-4. It feels to me like that first long sentence may still have some language in it that to me it feels redundant. And I guess my question is whether we need to refer to the Vermont prevailing wage law twice. So I think you'll hear it if I read it out quickly. Let's say the bidder must comply with the obligations established by the city for payment of a responsible wage which shall effectively incorporate the rate set under the Vermont prevailing wage law applicable to the regional rates for the Montpelier area as calculated in accordance with Vermont's prevailing wage law, including the appropriate apprentice. So that first reference feels to me like it doesn't, we could say instead, which shall effectively incorporate the regional rates for the Montpelier area as calculated in accordance with Vermont's prevailing wage law, including the appropriate apprentice classification. Does that make sense? Yes, sir. Okay, I don't want to cut something out that needs to be there, but I just didn't understand it. The way it was written. I'm sure we'll hear from this one. Okay. So can I just weigh in on a technical point here? We have not yet had this vetted by our attorneys. We're going to make sure we were going to, we still have to do a first and second reading for an ordinance adoption. I think since we'll see where the council is comfortable if they want to move ahead, what the substance was going to be. So I think those are good points. We don't necessarily have to draft the wording right now other than if there are key policy points you want to make sure to get in. And then whenever we set this for, assuming you want to go ahead, if we set it for first reading, we will have it legally reviewed. And if there's major concerns, we'll, of course, let that know. But I don't think there will be, but nonetheless. Which attorney would be pointing on this? I haven't decided yet. We're in the process of changing some of them. Check. You got a recommendation? And then I want to check in with Donna after. Yeah, good. Just based on what's on the agenda. Did we open the public hearing? It's not actually a public hearing. It's a discussion. It does say hold public hearing. And recommended action says hold public hearing. So it's fine with me to have this not be the public hearing. If it is, we should. The agenda itself actually just says preliminary discussion. I believe we voted to have a public hearing though at the 9-11 meeting. I think we did. I know you said to bring it back. If we did, that was all right at my ear. I think that really just means that we're allowing the public to speak on it. So it doesn't hurt. But I think we also probably should still, you know, award it as a formal first reading. And with the same ordinance process that we would normally go through once we've got it reviewed by a lawyer. So, yeah, is that okay? So we would have a first public hearing in two weeks. Yes. And then a second in another two weeks. Right. And then it would be approved. Yes. Okay. Donna, if you don't mind. Just quickly, I think the language got revised according to what was discussed the last time. There's some numbering changes that could be made to make it more succinct. But I assume that would happen once the lawyers took a look at it. But you are comfortable with the intent and general way the mechanisms here work. Yes. Okay. Great. Thank you. Excellent. Well, that's important to me. Yeah. Go ahead, Donna. I have a question of how this relates to a livable wage ordinance. We, is the council assuming we're doing a separate, totally isolated this and then that? I thought they were going to maybe be more integrated. I, my understanding from the last meeting, because I had that same wondering where I landed and I, you know, just one person here. So, you know, other thoughts was really welcome. But my thought had, or what I thought I understood coming out of the last meeting was that we were going to try this and give it a go, give it some time, and then see how it might be expanded or framed into something larger once this was in place. Because this was so ready to go that we didn't want to delay it to, you know, try to expand it all in one shot. But if I'm misunderstanding that, then I'm open to being wrong. It bothers me that it's just construction because it's also predominantly a male profession. So it just seems rather isolating. That's all. Well, and I, I don't want to give up the, you know, the, the idea that we're, might be pursuing something larger, even so. I would argue this prevents gender discrimination in this workplace. So maybe it won't be as male dominated if we pass it. Thank you. Okay. So I'm going to officially open public hearing on this. Any comments from the public on this topic? Good evening, everyone. My name is Tom Abdel Noor. I am a proud resident as always of the Montpelier Fight and Third Council district. And I wanted to come out tonight to speak very much in favor of this ordinance. One of the reasons I am proud to live in Montpelier is it's a place that values, taking care of our own. It's a place that values workers' rights. And I really feel that the city of Montpelier should operate as the gold standard when it comes to labor issues among municipalities in the state. And I think that those reviews that are shared by the members of this council, which is why I'm sure you'll all be so supportive of this ordinance. But the purpose of regulations like these is in the God forbid situation that should come in the future that the people on this council do not have those values so deeply ingrained that we're simply codifying what we would hope that our elected officials would always do, which would be to operate in a responsible and ethical manner when it came to the people that were building the projects that the city was undertaking. And I heard the budget debates before, and I know people are concerned about the cost of various proposals, but I guess I would argue that any proposal, any project that the city would undertake of a construction nature for which it did not feel it had the resources to contract with people who were going to be performing that in a responsible way in a way that cares about the labor issues at stake is a project that the city really can't afford in the first place. So I really think it's important moving forward that any major undertaking that the city would go forward with would keep these values in mind. And I think this ordinance is a good way of making sure that happens. So I think there are a lot of other people who want to speak. I'll keep it short. Thanks so much. Hello again. This is my third time here. Danielle Bombardier from Colchester. And thanks again for having us here speaking. I understand now it's not the first public hearing, but I'll speak anyway. I've often, when I've been here the last two times, I've compared a responsible contractor ordinance to a union contract and I'm a union electrician. The only reason I compare those two is because they are in fact both a contract. So responsible contractor ordinance in no way guarantees that a union contractor would get a job on one of those jobs. All it does is level the playing field so that a contractor bidding those projects is actually providing a real livable wage to their employees on that job. And as a point of clarification when you look through this packet, it does show you a wage associated with a classification of worker. On top of that wage is 42.5% added in for a benefit calculation. So if the contractor is not paying a benefit, health insurance or retirement, PTO, that goes into the wage. So someone who is listed at $21 an hour is actually making something about $30 an hour. So it's above and beyond a livable wage. It's an actual livable wage so they can get off of social welfare health insurance and actually afford what they need to have a modest way of life. I mean, it's not above modest in any instance. So I strongly support this ordinance. I think it raises the standard for contractors who often are underpaying their employees and you're spending your own money, your taxpayer money. And I think that Montpelier can really make an example by ensuring that when your money is spent, it's supporting the workers in your city as well. To address a question from the city last meeting, there have been at least 39 reports by major colleges, academics, and other reputable institutes and researchers. And they've shown that while prevailing wage laws increase the hourly labor cost, which has a real impact on the worker's life, they do not have a real impact on the total project cost. So typically if the workers are getting more money, the workers are getting more money, but the total cost of the project is not significantly higher. What happens without a responsible contractor ordinance is that the owner of that company is just making more money themselves. So I believe also that having this ordinance, you will get a higher quality product because your workers on your city projects will be more satisfied. So I support it and I'll be back in two weeks and four weeks. Thank you. Thank you, Dea. It is three weeks. I guess I just want to make clear for me, that what we're doing on this is so much, it's about helping Montpelier, but it's because it's who we are as Montpelier, and I want to send that message that we're not going to undercut what our people are worth, like what human beings are worth, what their work is worth, what their time is worth, the time that they don't get to spend with their families. And I'm super excited that we are starting with something like this. I think the framework existed for this. And so I really want to thank you, Conor, for not only thinking about who the people are that we will be hopefully positively impacting with this, but also that it reflects really, I believe, who we all are as people in our community and the value that labor unions have brought to Montpelier over the years and frankly the value that they continue to bring to all of us here. Hi, everyone. My name is Mike Smith. I am the iron workers local seven business agent covering Vermont. And I want to applaud the council for taking up this cause. I've been to a lot of hearings in a lot of cities and towns with responsible employer language. I think it's very important for us as an industry to have these kinds of protections. Many times in the construction industry, the best way to get cheaper on your price is to gouge your employees. And we find that over and over. There's a saying in the industry that if you don't cheat, you can't compete. And it's a sad reality for a lot of the brother and sister iron workers on the field. And there are a lot of sister iron workers. Local seven is proud that we have more women iron workers than any other local in the country. And we're always through active outreach, getting better and better. I think that that wall that used to exist does not exist anymore. What's your percentage? We're actually just over 7%. Okay. I'm sorry. Well, I mean, it's... Good. Well, we're trying to turn the corner, but to tell you the truth, we've never denied a woman applicant. They've always been accepted. I didn't say it was anybody's fault. No, I know. But, you know, I wanted to explain that, that we always have better work to do. We know that. But we're improving every year. But this kind of language and these responsible, these projects have like economic multipliers, that 1.6 times to two times the project price will end up back in the community. And that money changes hands many times in the local community. So if I make money from that project, I'll spend it in the local community. And the local community businesses will make money from that project, and they'll spend it in the local community. And it stays in the local community. This ensures that we don't have to cut corners on workers' comp and safety and worker training to get these projects. We want to be competitive in this space, in this industry. We, hands down, we have the best trained workforce in the industry. We're the safest. Our safety record is second to none. But we can't compete with a lot of the contractors on a lot of these big projects, because we just can't get low enough on the cost. So, you know, it's responsible for a community to take up this cause. Because we make sure that our members aren't going to be going to the cities and towns and the states to get their health insurance. When they retire, they will have a modest retirement income. That they won't have to go and get on some sort of welfare program or ask for handouts. And they retire with dignity. And, you know, I can't ask enough that you guys look at this and you just stay on the course and vote this into law. Thanks. Hello again. Larry Mokwin, Swan, Vermont. I'm an organizer with the Laborers Union. I represent a couple hundred people between Vermont and New Hampshire. I'm here to support this ordinance. The state supported this for a reason, because not many of you may know, but if you guys want to look into federal Davis Bacon wages in this state, a flagger, for example, who a couple have been, you know, sadly killed in the line of duty, makes 1111 an hour with no fringe benefits in this state. A labor in Chittenden County by federal Davis Bacon laws makes less per hour than a labor in the Northeast Kingdom. It's just problems that nobody was educated on and we're trying to do our best to. I think it'd be great to do this. To tell you the truth, it's probably not going to help my members because our collective bargaining agreement is way above this because we take care of our people. But I think it'll be great for all the people that don't know what they have an opportunity to receive by being a little organized. And another thing, last time you guys asked me to get some non-union construction workers to come in here. I tried. They saw it on the news last time. Said they would not be seen here speaking against their employer because simply they are afraid to do that here and that's a problem. So once again, please support this. You'll, you'll be doing good for many more Vermonters than you guys really realized. Thank you. Thank you. Oh yeah. Peter Kalman, Montpelier. I've written to city council members and to Connor about my concerns and they are related to the question that Donna asked. But let me be clear at the outset that I'm definitely in favor of Montpelier adopting a carefully considered, data-driven, appropriately designed, and clearly worded responsible employer ordinance. So my question is, what is the hurry to do it now? This is very important and since it's important, it should be done well. We should be very sure that the wording is correct, legal, et cetera, and it will be looked at by, by lawyers for that reason. But we should also make sure that there are no unintended outcomes and that it is data-driven. A lot of people are talking about city projects. What city projects are we talking about? Are we talking about the road work that's being done? Are we talking about the garage that might be built? Are we talking about projects where there is city money in it but it's not a city project, like Taylor Place? So some of these issues need to be very carefully addressed and worded properly. So my real question is, like Donna brought up, why only construction contractors and their employees, why not include all or most contractors with the city or the city itself as an employer? Why are we picking this one thing? Is it a test run? If it's a test run, let's be clear that it's a test run and let's be really very careful that it's a good test. Where is the data? References to, for example, money being recirculated in the community. Would that in fact happen in Montpelier? Where are the workers on the Montpelier worksites from? Do they live in Montpelier? Well, no, they can't afford to. Well, okay, but how is that recirculating of the money that multiplier effect actually going to happen? I had suggested that the city manager's office develop a list of what projects might be appropriate, how many employees might be affected by this, how many would just take a look back at the last five years or look forward to things that we know are going to happen. Let's take the time to do this right. I am for it, but I'm not for rushing through it because of some sense of urgency that I don't quite get. Thank you. Thank you. I wasn't going to speak, but to rebut to that is this is not in a hurry. I've worked on that. If you would mind introducing yourself. Vermont State for Failing Wage Rates, which you have to get the 42.5% for 26 years. Introduction. Sorry. That's okay. Hello, Bumbard, IBW Local 300. I work with Danielle and Jasmine, which is there's 50% of Scots here too. He's one of us, so 50% male, female. Thank you. And it's just it's very near and dear to my heart and our contractors, as Larry said, repay more, but we want to bring up all, you know, tides, raise the rates for everybody, but it's just wrong when there's people out there with no benefits going, working 10,000 hours in the trade, 1,080 hours apprenticeship nights, two nights a week, going to class, working 12 hours a day, and getting $16 or $18 an hour and not being able to afford and gets wrong. And this was vetted by more attorneys than we can think about with the state of Vermont, okayed by the AGC, which is Associated General Contractors and the Vermont Construction Building Trades, which are non-union union sides, and a good contractor, which most of them are, want to pay their help. Livable wages, which is these wages, Burlington's livable wages, it's just a high minimum wage. But if you have this, it keeps everybody honest and the good contractors are paying this and it's just, it's not a rush by any means. It's too late for some people. Thank you. I'm Sheila Healy. Most of you know that because I used to work here. I just wanted to say I've been working at a town for a little bit, but I came home tonight because I'm so excited that y'all are talking about this. I think it's a really beautiful thing about our town. I moved here a few years ago and I've never found a place where people treat each other with such kindness and dignity and respect and it's just something so unique about this place that I've never found anywhere else. And I just couldn't think of a better way to live our values than to codify that everybody gets treated with dignity and respect and kindness beyond this wonderful city council who I love. So thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, so the path forward as it seems to me is to perhaps have a motion to ask city manager to have this reviewed by a lawyer with the changes suggested tonight and then set the first public hearing for this at our next meeting. Okay, is there a second? There is, okay. Further discussion? All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, thank you all. Thank you for coming out tonight. Thank you for all of your work on this and I'm looking forward to the next meeting where we get to have our first official public hearing with this as the ordinance. Ready to go. And again, I'll just say if I mess that up on the first hearing that was on me, so I apologize. I'm going to officially close the public hearing on that. Can we have a break? Yeah, particular issue to potentially revise. So actually there's an issue here about whether this is a third public hearing or what. So Jack, do you have a thought on that? Yeah, go ahead. I do have a thought on that and I talked to the mayor about it the other night. It's listed on the agenda as third public hearing for chapter eight. However, a reference to our minutes from last time will show that we actually adopted the ordinance at the last time. So there's nothing to hold a public hearing on. So what I think we should do is schedule a public hearing for an amendment of this ordinance because the background for anyone listening, we adopted an ordinance limiting farm animals to parcels of 10 acres. We got a very well-reasoned communication from Rosie Kruger pointing out why we were wrong to do it the way we did. Yep, sorry. And I think they've identified a real problem with the action we took and we should address it. And so I move that we schedule a public hearing on a proposed amendment to chapter eight. So can I just offer a suggestion that you could still discuss the content of what you wanted to put in it even if you're enacting it tonight so that we could, if you choose, and then when we warned the hearing, it would be the way that you wanted it and it could be dealt with. So I think just focus here that want to talk about it and we could get it right. Yeah. With that understanding, second. So just to be clear, your motion is to schedule basically another first public hearing for the amendment. For the amendment. And you don't need to do two necessarily for every amendment. Oh, okay. You could amend it. It could just be the next. Because you've already, yeah. Okay, okay. Okay, great. So there's a motion and a second. One possibility is that we could approve this and then talk about it or we can talk about it and then approve it. Talk about it first. Talk about it first. I think that's a good idea. So anyway, there's a motion and a second. Thoughts on the language change? Donna. I mean, when we foolishly passed it, we had concern about the 10 acres. But we wanted to at least put it out there. Maybe next time we won't do that. Yeah, fair. Fair. Swift and learned. Yeah. Other comments? Or from the public? I'm going to officially, I don't think it was listed as a public hearing, so I'm going to officially open the public hearing. Even though it's literally. Thoughts on this language? Lauren. I would just express my appreciation for the suggestions, which seemed very thoughtful and like a good step forward in addressing the issue without creating arbitrary lines that seem to potentially problematic. Thanks for that. And happy to move forward with this new iteration. Agreed. Any other comments? Glenn? I want to just mention that Laura Smith-Riva, who's in the audience there, has a fantastic parcel of land up on Berlin Street with some sheep on it. And I had a very useful conversation with her in the development of this whole process, let's say, to be generous. It's still a process. And got a lot of good advice on how we should think about this. And I'm really glad that you all showed up and I'm sorry that it looks like you may have to come back again, but you're great. So see you again then, too. Feel free to talk while you're here. I'm Laura Smith-Riva. I live up on Berlin Street. I do have some livestock up there and 10 sheep right now. My lot is 9.65 acres, according to the deed. And so when I heard about this, I was like, okay, you know, and we checked the ordinance before we bought the place. We were very careful about this. And when we built our chicken coop, we checked the ordinance related to the size of that structure to make sure we would be in compliance. So I felt that it was a little bit maybe tone deaf for the council to have voted on something like that without. You know, I really appreciated that Glenn reached out and approached me and actually took the time to walk up that hill, which... Donna pushed me to do it. Who did? Yeah, that's right. He mentioned that. I appreciated that the council was like, maybe we should talk to some of the people who actually are farming. I think that was a good idea because I do think that the 10-acre minimum doesn't really speak to the issues and achieves an objective of potentially stymying reasonable farming operations, agricultural operations that could happen within the city limits. And I think that when... And I'm sure Glenn could share more about it when we talked about what we're doing. I took him down and showed him our operation and talked a lot about what we do. And I did this work on much larger pieces of land and smaller pieces of land. And I grew up on a farm in Vermont and I have farmed here in Vermont for the last, I guess the last 13 years or so. And I know what we can do with that piece of land. And so my hope is that if the city is looking at revising ordinances that, you know, I sort of feel like if it ain't broke, don't fix it a little bit. You know, I understand the intent. I also am aware that I don't think there's been any kind of formal complaints about farming activities and maybe I'm wrong about that. I think that sounded like to be the case. So I'm in favor of, you know... We did have one issue with a pig in a downtown area in a small lot and... Recently? Within the last two or three years. And there was neighbor complaints. And that led to one of the concerns, honestly, because it just said if it's offensive or something and it was very vague and so the question is what triggers enforcement. We're just seeking clarity not to really change the rules of the road, per se, and maybe say, okay, in the small little postage lots, you know, downtown lots, we shouldn't have this stuff, but otherwise. So we appreciate any feedback. Yeah, so... Yeah, carry on. Yeah, I would argue a pig isn't offensive. But the manner in which one keeps it could be. The manner in which one is kept... I mean, one of the things that Glenn and I talked about was animal welfare. We had a third-party certification for years with our farm. We were one of the first. We got several of the facilities in the state of Vermont certified animal welfare approved. And so for me, that's always a big concern. We don't address it. But there are a lot of really, really good standards out there that probably would address some of the issues about stalking density and things like that that might be of concern. So I guess I'm in favor of less restrictive language that allows people to engage in agricultural operations. We are an agricultural state. We have a... I got the sense that the city council was not intent upon trying to limit agricultural operations in the city limits. It was more about cleaning up the ordinance, I guess. And the effect was that a vote was taken that did provide a restriction. When I spoke to Glenn, I said, I know if I need to make a formal request to revisit this ordinance, I did understand that it had been voted on. I was told that that probably wasn't necessary, but I indicated I'm going to come to the meeting because I want to be sure that I have an opportunity to be heard. I guess I don't want to propose any specific language. There is some on the table. I offered to sit on any committee that might discuss it. I'll have a question for you. Have you got a chance to look at the proposed language? Do you have any thoughts on how functional that would be? I mean, for me, it would be totally functional. I don't have a problem with anything that's in there. I mean, one thing I said to Kevin was like, what do you mean by other wild pasts? The fox who comes to take your chicken is at a wild past. So I didn't quite know what that part meant. Felt a little bit vague. I'm trying to remember the rest of the language, which I do have it here. I have it right here on my phone. No livestock or other domestic animals shall be kept in a manner that one causes the discharge of waterways, discharge, I guess I don't have the exact language here. The discharge of manure or other agricultural waste into public waterways roads or onto neighboring properties creates a persistent offensive odor resulting in the discomfort of neighboring residences or causes infestation of road and splice or other wild pasts. It's not a problem for me where I live. I can't speak for others, but I don't have a problem with any of this language. Again, I like to see stuff related to the welfare of the animals and something to consider and think about because that actually will have the effect of achieving other objectives once you begin to look at how animals are kept and cared for. Do you think that the city should add language to that effect or is your opinion that there's adequate oversight, for example, at the state level of things like that? I don't know what the state regulations are off the top of my head. I haven't looked at it, but I know from getting the certification Animal Welfare approved that if they're following anything that the USDA's got, it's probably not very good. We know what happens with a lot of farming operations, which Vermont doesn't have as much of that kind of stuff because we're a small state. We don't have massive pork farms and cattle feedlots and things like that. Fair enough. I appreciate your thoughts on this and agree other wild pests might be a little vague, but one of the ways that we got here was trying to think of what was the original intent of that section of language and does this, the original language had to do just with pigs and so it's morphed into this, but hopefully this still gets at the original issue, which was a nuisance in town that was bothering neighbors. I guess the one other thing that is maybe, when I think about pigs, we kept pigs for years and it's all about keeping them contained and if they have enough room, your stocking density isn't high, the odor is not an issue, it's not a problem, but there's nothing in here that talks about keeping your livestock corralled and I think with what happened down in Orange with the pig farmer Sugar Mountain, Walter Jeffries of Sugar Mountain, whose pigs got loose and were loose for weeks running havoc through the town, that that was something that, and he took off for a conference or something and just left them because they can be hard to catch, but we had pigs get out a couple of times over the years and we raised them in Huntington and in Danville, we don't have any now, though we'd like to raise a couple, but you have to, as a farmer, it's about making sure you're taking care of those animals, you can't just like, oh, they got out, because they can be a danger to others. Now accidents happen, but I remember there was a farm in Vermont where the cattle kept getting out and then finally somebody hit one with a car and somebody died, so there are, or was badly injured, I don't remember, I tend to exaggerate, so maybe, I don't know, but it maybe didn't die, but I feel like he might have, it's like not a good situation. Right, not good for the animal or for the people in the vehicle who struck the animal, so that feels like it's important and we also have to recognize that despite our best efforts, sometimes animals do escape, you have to get them back right away, you don't, that's like your first priority if it happens. So do you need to say something like good faith effort to keep animals contained? That's good. Just for clarity, I want to say, we do have the running at large section. Yeah, I wondered if it was covered elsewhere in the ordinance, in the ordinances. I think we're good, we talked about it last time and put in the accept cats part. Well, you know, the state also does have a law relating to working farm dogs and those dogs, if they are registered as such with the towns, can be considered at large. We had a working farm dog that we registered with the town of Danville when we were there. We've not registered him as such here because we're not using him in that way, that's something that does exist. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So I think Laura, so Rosie Krueger, Finch Road, I think Laura has provided a really eloquent example that there are real farmers in Montpelier and it's just something that I really encourage the council to remember in all of your work. Downtown is a wonderful place and it's foremost in our minds, but there are rural parts of the city and there are not so rural parts of the city where people are engaged in farming practices and I know you all want to encourage that, so I just want to remind you to remember it. Thank you. Okay, further discussion. So just to remind yourselves, it's just set first public hearing for this new language. All right, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion passes. Thank you. Thank you for coming out and we'll have it on the agenda for the next, next time. Oh, yep, okay, I'm going to officially close the public hearing. Thank you. Awesome. All right, so on to Chapter 9. Ordinance. Reading. Thanks, folks. And so I'm going to open the public hearing on Chapter 9. Okay, are there... I know, Jack, you have a lot of comments on Chapter 9. I also have some thoughts, questions, but you go ahead first. Okay, I mentioned at our last meeting that I was interested in the whole idea and concept of licensing and I had a meeting last week with Lauren Hibbert, who's the head of professional licensing at the Secretary of State's office. And it was a very useful conversation and the way Vermont law looks at licensing is that it's an infringement on the ability to carry out a trade or to do some kind of work and so it really, by statute, has to be justified by some threat to the public's health or safety or some reason that trades or occupations need to be licensed. And there's a whole process when the legislature is trying to... there is considering licensing where they study the issue, they come up, they generate a report called the Sunrise Report to look at the issues and consider whether licensing should be created and sometimes right now they're in the process of looking at contractors and it's really pretty controversial whether it's going to happen or not. And so I looked at that in the context of some of the things that we have in the chapter and so I don't know if we... we could just go through chapter by chapter or section by section and then I could... article by article I should say and then I could just jump up when we come to one that I have an issue with. And some of the proposals I have are in the packet but not everything. So whatever your pleasure is. That is fine with me. Any other thoughts? Taking it sort of... I am interpreting that as section by section. Article by article. Article by article. So, yeah, fair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so it sounds like we should probably do that anyway. Does that sound okay? All right, do you have any comments on article one? Nope. Any other comments on article one? Lauren. I just have a question that comes up later. So in here it says there's a fee schedule and then there's still embedded in here several fees that maybe are flagged later like the shoeshine $5 fee and taxicabs have a $35 fee. So I'm wondering if we just want to consistently as we find them strike those out and keep those in the fee schedule? I would assume so. Yes. Okay, so we'll just flag those if I see any. Okay. All right, so having looked through article one, any other comments? Okay, article two, auctioneers and transient auctioneers. The proposal is to just delete the requirement for licensure. Auctioneers are licensed by state law and I think that's why city staff did that. That makes sense to me. All right, then it skips to article four. Should we be renaming that article? Some new article or does that? We can really rename them all. Okay. Okay, far enough. So nonetheless the blacksmith shop. The question I have and the clerk may know the answer to this but it occurred to me if we're going to be licensing blacksmith shops should we establish standards criteria for doing it and do we have a form that someone could come in and say I want to get a license for a blacksmith shop? Just a standard form. And yeah, I mean I think that was talked about being left there before or taken out before and for whatever reason I was, I was the one suggesting not to because I imagined this future where rustic blacksmith shops become trendy and one moves downtown and burns the block down. It may or may not happen. I don't know. I'm sort of agnostic about all this. But no, they just have the same form that everybody else does. As long as I got the mic though, the only thing I'll plant in your minds about licensing even if it seems redundant with the state you might want to consider and this might not come up at all that there might be a bad actor who you want to be licensed by the city for the purposes of moving quickly and independently to revoke that license should there be a threat to public safety which I think is what licensing, municipal licensing is really about. Is this somebody who could, you know, like a restaurant? They start serving fried rat, you know, tartare or something. You might want to just yank that license right away and not wait for the state process. So it's just something to bear in mind. Fair enough. And I'm not proposing to get rid of article 4 on blacksmith shops because this is clearly something that could affect the public safety but we might want to think about, well, what standards should there be? And I have a friend who's a blacksmith who's not in the city of Montpelier but his blacksmith shop actually burned down about a year or two ago and so it was, it can happen. I feel vindicated. Oh yeah, I volunteer to talk to him about it to see what he might propose for safety standards but for now I think we should just leave it where it is. Well, part of me, you know, coming to Bill's point about it seems obvious that we should be requiring sprinklers in blacksmith shops. One thought I had was does that belong in the zoning because that's sort of a use question but if we have a license that we're requiring of blacksmiths should, it seems obvious to me that we should at least be asking for that. You can do what they are in the building section, the building code section, which is coming up. Okay, can we, that may make more sense because that's a building requirement. This is really more about the operation of the business rather than the standards for the building. Can we just make a note of that for the building code that we are requiring sprinklers in blacksmith shops? Yes, Donna. Did he rebuild Jack? Yes. He's out in Marshfield on Route 2. Very good guy, Stephen Bronstein. He just had his, he participates in the open studio weekend which was just last weekend. He's received national acclaim for his work. Does he have any peers? There are other blacksmiths besides Stephen Bronstein around. Oh yeah, no, I know at least one other one. And the shop is still there as of now, as far as I know. Okay, no, fair enough. Alright, so any other comments on Article 4? Okay, moving on to Article 5, formally known as Bowling Alley Shooting Gallery as an indoor skating rinks. I support the staff proposal to not require licenses for bowling alleys or skating rinks. Shooting galleries seems like something to have licensed. Agreed. Okay, fabulous, moving on. Article 6, Circuses, Carnivals and Shows. Not a lot of proposed changes here. Yeah. Any other comments about Article 6? Okay, great. Moving on to Article 7, Dance Halls, Night Clubs or Dance Clubs? I don't have a proposal but I do raise a question that I haven't gotten and figured out yet which is what's the public safety, public health or safety concern with licensing these? I think typically it's noise and neighborhood disruption and so it is one way to deal with... Other places I've worked that was the main purpose for having it. Would they not also fall under the building as far as how many people they're allowed to have inside? They would have to still meet capacity, you know, fire codes and they probably have to meet decibel things and zoning. But I think the issue is if somebody is really causing... It's a faster way to get to it than some of those other ways they're just not behaving well and they can have their license yanked and then enforce the other stuff. When these appear in different places, is there a reference to them? Like Dance Halls, let's say. They're required to license but they also have other permits in a different section. They would come different ways. You know, when you have a club, the capacity is going to be the same regardless of whether you're dancing or not. So a public place of assembly is just going to have a capacity. And then a sound ordinance, they wouldn't do prospectively, it would only be if they were exceeding it and people were complaining. Whereas here they'd come in and say, I'm going to have this type of entertainment. I don't know if this implies also live music or not. It's a nightclub, I don't know. So it's just one way that you could stop the activity if there were bad things going on. So is it as if they're going to be required to have a certain condition of sound? Installation to reduce sound. Well that might ultimately be a solution to get their license back. But that's up to them. It's just the measurement of the sound and the impact of the neighbors. The crowds that are assembling or other bad behavior. Glenn, any further thoughts? I'm not sure this is going to be articulated well yet but my sense is that when one is applying to get one of these licenses probably not much more is required than a bit of cash and no obvious gigantic red flags. Insurance. Insurance. So a lot of it, again, you're not going to have to prove that you have sound barriers and so on and all that ahead of time. But then it's the enforcement mechanism. Does that make sense? Is that true? Sounds right. I don't know if anyone else remembers this but I remember many years ago there was a big controversy up on Berlin Street with the music at the Brown Derby and neighbors complaining about the music and Steve MacArthur was on the council at the time and he had experience playing in bands and so he got involved in trying to figure out a solution and it took up a lot of council time for a while. It was really pretty wild. All right. Well, I'm feeling pretty ready to move on from this. Is there any other comments on this one? Quick. On to Article 8. Drive in theaters. Taking it out. Fair enough. Any comments on this? Okay, moving on. Article 9. Dry cleaners. Lauren. Given the chemicals and other things they use I think we should know where they are and we should have a city. I mean, there's the potential health risk that they can pose if we have one. And then there's all this history with contamination of being able to trace that back and having our own city records. So I agree. I know we don't have any true dry cleaners in town operating but should we ever have one I would want this record as well and especially if they're bad actors being able to pull their license would be important I think. So I would, I mean, it sounds like you're proposing that we unstrike at least that first section there. The required license. Yeah, although I'm wondering, I don't know if people still use gasoline and stuff for dry cleaning so I wonder if we need to be that specific or carry on the business of dry cleaning unless licensed. Seems fair. Maybe need some further clarification. Okay. All right. General nodding to that one. Yeah, we'll try to figure out some language there. I mean, I think, you know, if we just said carry on the business of dry cleaning. Well, even what we have now could be called the business of dry cleaning even though they're not cleaning on premise. So we just have to make sure we're talking about actual cleaning on premise and not a dry cleaning business that's taking stuff away. Yep. Okay. Article 10 gas stations. Similarly argue they use potential public health risk that we might want our own licensing. Oh, sorry. I might similarly say knowing that there are public health risks with gasoline stations or contamination issues. We'd want to keep our own track of those, although I don't know what Jack's question. Yeah, I didn't, this didn't come from me. I assume it came from staff because they're all already regulated by the state. Right. Thoughts? Go to the strike management. I guess I'd be curious to entertain a hypothetical if we did have licensure for gas stations when might we want to revoke a license here before the state acted? In the potential of numerous spills, you know, they're mostly all down by the river and, you know, if they're, you know, leaks that are not being fixed or I can imagine all kinds of things of bad behavior on the part of gas stations. So I feel like it wouldn't hurt to have city licensure. Any other thoughts? On the other hand, I'm inclined to think this is an area that the state is going to be on top of if there are complaints. I don't know that for certain, but that's my belief. Do you have any opinion? Have you been licensing them? I sent them out. This was one of those that was never, since before I got here, it had been sort of understood to be off and I was sort of mystified by that. But I did send it out for the first time then this last year. Not everyone was compliant. So this next year I was going to start going medieval on people. But yeah, I did, I sent out the first way. I've also figured, you know, give them a little time to breathe to get used to it because some of them were clearly confused. But yeah, my plan was phase it in, phase it back in over two years and get hardcore this coming year. I also would not mind asking the gas stations in Montpelier to disclose how much gas they're selling. I know that's kind of a big thing. Is that part of licensing? I'm just saying that out loud. Yeah. Maybe I shouldn't be saying that out loud yet. But I'm saying it because this is a part of knowing our carbon emissions coming from Montpelier. In any case, if we were to ever want to go down that path, having a license would be helpful. So are the emissions actually happening in Montpelier? Or is someone just filling up and heading down the... It's a part of our... Part of our footprint. I'd be... Well, that's a great idea. I'd be shocked if we had the authority to do it. I'm sure we don't. But it's an interesting... I think it's an important piece of data. I bet that information is available. Well, it's not available by gas station. It's available by distributor. And they have regions, and those regions are not coterminous with municipalities or even counties. And what I was thinking was, and maybe it's not, but it might be possible to derive the answer based on information and the possession of the tax department. So I think the issue there is that the taxes, as the mayor said, is assessed at the distribution level. So the distributor pays a bulk tax. So they pay it to the state, and then it goes to the stations, and they add it on because they've bought it from the distributor. So the station buys it from the distributor, pays the tax to them, so then they charge you the tax. So the tax department doesn't necessarily know what each individual station is selling. They only know what the distributor is selling. So perhaps I should not have muddied the waters with that spitballing, but nonetheless, I'm still open to further comments on this. Any other thoughts? I know Lauren, you had your hand up. Yeah. Maybe we could send a signal on this by requiring licensure of gasoline stations, but not of electric vehicle charging stations. But we don't require a license. We could put that in there. Yeah, put a second. Yeah, right. Just be explicit. We do not require a license for it. Yeah, you're right. Exemptions. We might want to know where those are, too, and how many we have of those. Yeah. Well, it seems like something that... I'm already hearing people say, make enough comments that we're not going to pass this as final today, most likely. So it might be something to look into before next time. Fair enough. And actually, on that point, so we would warn potentially another public hearing on this, and we can probably... We can talk more about gas stations later on. We have to have a second reading anyway. Oh, this is only the first reading. Oh, gosh. Okay. Any other comments on the section? Okay. The agenda says it's the second public hearing. Yeah, I think we talked about it a month or two ago. I feel like this is the second time we've talked about this. I'm really off of my hearings. As long as we don't vote on it tonight, everyone remember, don't vote on it. Okay. Don't vote. Okay. We're at another meeting. We're at another hearing. Okay. Okay, so moving on from there. Article 11. Go ahead. There's a proposal of amendment that would include short-term rentals defined by statute in required licenses for hotels, motels, tourist houses, and so forth. And the short-term rental term includes essentially Airbnb, VRBO. I think you have to have at least 14 nights of rental to qualify and the other standards, but I figured if we're going to be licensing these places, we know that, or we have good reason to believe that short-term rentals are affecting the rental housing market they should be licensed to. Just so you all know, this topic came up a couple of times in the last couple of years, and I did do a little playing around with the Airbnb database to see if I could collect the list to send bills to. And I'm pretty confident that I could get 90, 95% of them with a letter. Okay. That's great. Donna. Is there a way to put, you refer to this state statute, is there a way to put more in there instead of making me go look for it? You said as defined in the statute. Yeah. But you didn't include it. I didn't include it. I don't have it in front of me, but I could get it to you. I would just prefer to have it here, but I know we don't always do that. Yeah, so it's really up to the council, of course, but one of the logic of just referring to the statutes is that if the state statute changes, we don't have to redo our ordinance if we want to. Now the other side is if it changes, then we can still have what we want even if the state changes. So if it changes, you're saying it'll still keep the same numbers so the reference wouldn't have to be changed? Usually, well, I'll let the lawyers decide, but even if they change their numbers, it usually the implication is it follows the new number, right? That's what I would assume. That's always, because we have several references. I know, and I just don't like them. I like it to be here. I go to this place. I should be able to get all the information here. Well, I'll get it to you before the next hearing, and then we can decide what to do about it. No, thank you. Maybe it's really short. You're welcome. It's not super short, but it's not super long. Maybe this is, so your proposal there, as used in this chapter, the term includes short-term rental as defined in VSA, blah, blah, blah. Should it? It's only just a little confusing to me that it's defined there. Maybe you were saying this too down of it. Maybe not. Should it be referenced up in the beginning section? No person shall keep an in-hotel, a motel, tourist house, tourist cabin, or camps, beds, or breakfast establishment, or similar facility providing transient accommodation? I feel like it should be up in that section as well. Include or short-term rental. Exactly. Okay, yeah. Yeah, right. It should be in that list. Okay. And then we can say, and we're defining that as per this other language, whether we reference it state statute or just write it out. Okay. So hopefully that makes sense. Okay. Any other comments on this? Yes. When you talked about the short-term rental, I heard over 14 days, is there a max? If it's over six months, then it's not a short-term, over one month? Um, I don't think so. My recollection is, you know, because it could be 14 months, 14 days rented out to 14 different people, or... Oh. Because that's the way these things work, or 14 days rented out to seven different people for each, for a weekend. Okay, so people who rent out rooms to legislators. They would be included in this. Could be covered by this, yeah. Okay. How does... Wait, I'm sorry. Coming back to that point, how does that not then just apply to any rental apartment? That's month to month. It doesn't have a... It doesn't have a max, or a confinement of this short of this song. Yeah. Like if it applies... I mean, I... Because I tend to think of... Like when the legislators come here, they're just renting a space. They're just renting a room, potentially. And that's just... That's a regular... It can be a regular month to month kind of lease, but that's not what we're talking about here, right? Right. I'm looking it up. Could somebody read me the... the statutory site? I found it. Okay. Lauren. So short-term rental means a furnished house, condominium, or other dwelling room, or self-contained dwelling unit rented to the transient traveling or vacationing public for a period of fewer than 30 consecutive days and for more than 14 days per calendar year. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So that... Legislators would not... Right. And the month to month would then not qualify. Okay. Great. I can email that to everyone since I have it here. Super. Thank you. All right. Any further comments on this section? Okay. Moving on. Section 13, junkyards. I have a proposal for that that I did not get into the packet because I was getting it out to Jamie kind of late, but I have copies for everyone. Okay. And while I... checking on this, I checked with Mike Miller and Meredith Crandall, and they agreed that the way the current zoning ordinance is written, there is no place in Montpelier that you would be allowed to have a junkyard or salvage yard. And so the proposal of amendment is to, one, change junkyard to salvage yard because that's a statutory term, and then the second section, a person shall not operate, establish, or maintain a salvage yard in the city of Montpelier. Period. Period. And everything else is just... Sounds okay to me. Yeah, it's Lauren. I guess my only question is, does it belong in the licensure ordinance then if we're prohibiting? Is that normal? Yeah. That's a valid question. I think we should also check and see whether we are allowed to blanketly prohibit them. There may be, I think there's been... Is that it? There have been wars fought over that in other places. It's just a quick call to the Municipal Association to the link, but there are certain things that are difficult to be constitutional in the union. You can't say you can zone them and you can put them in certain places. You can have certain requirements or screening that you can't necessarily say you can't have mobile homes or another example of that. People used to try to ban them and put certain regulations around them. I want to check this. So you'll do that? Yep. Thanks. Okay. Excuse me. Because it's a little odd to put something in here, you're not licensing. I think you'd want to put it somewhere else if you're disallowing something. Okay. Everything else is what we're licensing, right? I mean, if they're just blanketly not permitted in the zoning, does that cover it? Should. Maybe. I don't know. In that case, maybe we just delete this article rather than something else. But we can determine that next time. Yeah. Open to suggestions. Okay. Moving on. 14 vendors. Comments on this? Staff suggestions seem good to me. John, have you had any particular problems? Because this is a very active one that you would want to share with us? And people are pretty good about it even when I have to tell them no. It's gone very smoothly. I have, you know, good relationships with the folks who are out there. So it's all good. They're a limited number of vending licenses available? Administratively, there's a limited number of spots that have been approved. But, you know, there's wiggle room in there to find more if appropriate and that kind of thing under the rules. And that hasn't ever happened. I mean, we sort of experimented with that once and sort of didn't work out. So we just generally just been the spots that are sort of administratively approved. This came up. There was a little history to this. A few years ago now, I can't remember the exact year, there was a proliferation of downtown vendors and they were sort of here and there and everywhere. And, you know, obstructing sidewalks and we started getting some pushback from the local business and saying, hey, you know, we've got to pay rent, we have a building, you know, this is a competition. And so we had, I think, a pretty extensive process that we included merchants and vendors and we came up with this plan, which said, all right, let's find places where there's room on the sidewalk where people can do these things and we identified locations and said basically we'll issue permits in those locations with these criteria. It's really worked, I think, pretty successfully, since we haven't had any complaints from any vendors or the regular year-round businesses since then. And the number dropped after that anyway, so it sort of stopped becoming an issue and it just became who gets which space and John kindly took it over for the manager's office once he came on board and it's just really worked slick since then. They've done a great job with it. Great. Glenn and Lauren? And forgive me if this is somewhere in here that I haven't managed to find it, but how does this interact with the farmers market? Is that under the special event license? Is that just a blanket? You know, that sort of thing has come up or it's come up, you know, possible conflict with like Independence Day. I've always really dug in and there was a bit of a discussion in one of the councils a few years ago this seemed to stand of, you know, these folks in good faith have paid for this spot. So when the farmers market was talking about being moved, you know, I spoke up and said, okay, but remember there are people here who've paid for their spots and that has to be respected. And that always, that seems to work and it seems to have been fine. There are a couple potential spots that get used off and on, one of them is in use now, on the non-food spots, on the Rialto Bridge there. Those are the ones that might come close enough to conflicting, but I've never heard about a problem there. You know, there's the, oh, what's her name? Down there on the corner, who's always there? Sign the bowls. Darla Morrison? Yes, yes, thank you. And, you know, so she's always there and it's just never been conflict. She's not part of that, she's a vendor. Yeah, so I always dig in on their behalf and so far I've won, so it works for me. And we have a lease with the farmers market for the, for the lay-in, so we, I don't think we've charged them a vendor license too. I'm not sure if we do. Farmers, farmers market? Yeah, do they pay one vendor license for the whole thing? That's all done through there. Through their lease. That's not my department. Right, but it's, yeah, because we have a lease with them. That was kind of my question because it seems reading the language like you could read it to mean that every individual farmers market booth needs a license like this. And I don't think that that's the intent and I don't, I'm not sure that it makes sense. No, and I think, I remember we've had this discussion before and I think, if anything, we just charged one license to the entire farmers market but we also leased them the space and so I think it wasn't included in the lease was there one license. Oh, and Lauren? Just a minor thing in section nine of this, so it's page six of this article. This is one where you've got a specific fee listed, the last sentence. I don't know if we want to remove that. The weekend only license? Under weekend only license, it has a license fee of $100 specified. Yep, thank you. I may have not read it all the way through once sitting but the renewal is marked out. I don't understand that. Is it somewhere else that I just not connect the dots? Nine, one, four, oh, nine. Renewals, it's all marked out. Yeah, I mean it's, there's not a big crowd and it's never been an issue. People will, you know, will renew well in advance of that because they're traditionally sort of given dibs on the next spot, so that just is a very narrow time to insist on payment. Do you not want anything about renewals in here? I understand it might be why this language didn't work. I don't see why. I don't think it's necessary. So if I want to renew something, how do I know? You just come to me and say I want to do it again? Okay. Yeah. You just go back to what you did to do an initial. Yeah, I make them fill out a new form every year. Okay. So that's about it. Well, except following up on that, if there's no provision for renewal, then does that mean that the license exists in perpetuity or until it's terminated by some action? There's a period. I'm not sure if this is written out in the ordinances or in the administrative, but it's a period of a year. Yeah. So all the way up at 9.2, duration of licenses, which I think covers all of them, first day of April. Yeah, there you go. So maybe it's taken out because that Article 2 covers everything. I think that's right. Any further comments on this one, this section? Okay. All right. Article 16, rendering plant. I think we had asked about this last time. Well, maybe we didn't. I wasn't sure why this existed. I'm not sure what all is involved in the rendering plant. Really bad smells, I think. Oh, really? Yeah. I'm sorry. Really bad smells. Okay. Yeah, I would just keep it. Maybe we should keep it. Lauren? And after we find out the information about salvage yards, to say we could mirror this language, no license shall be granted to a salvage yard, and then it would, apparently we do prohibit things in here. Well, there are some things you can prohibit. I'm just not sure about salvage yards. Yeah, yeah. So if we find that answer in the slide, we want to move forward. I've already sent the questions. Okay. Great. Further comments? Okay, moving on to 17. Restaurants, lunchrooms, snack shops, other food establishments. Jack? I had a proposal. I put together a proposal to just delete this entire thing. John says, well, there's a reason to keep it. I don't know what other people think. I guess I'm not going to push it if people think that it makes sense to keep it. What's your logic there? It's a policy question. I can just imagine an immediate health need or concern that the city might want to have an emergency meeting and put the brakes on them. A lot goes on in restaurants, but it's a policy question. It's the serving rat example. Right, the serving rat example. Yeah, I mean the mind boggles, the sort of train wreck of weird restaurant things that could happen and it just may be something the city might want to be able to move more nimbly on. Or not. Donna, where are you? I was just thinking, I think it would be useful to know where all the restaurants pop up. Sometimes they're pretty small and so it puts the city on alert, I guess, to me. And it does give us a more instantaneous response to any situation. So I sort of like it, but maybe it's just a comfort level. Are people complying with this presently? Yeah, I have to track some of them down if there's a new one. But they do. Yeah, yeah, general licenses. Connor. Just a question, is there a state exempt from these licenses? If there's a canteen in a state office building, the Abbey Group cafeteria in the state house? You know, there was one time I thought I should go and send them a license request and there was some reason I talked myself out of it. And I can't remember what that could have been. I'm going to respond with a big blank look. Never track one thing. Having worked in a couple of restaurants, I think I am with Jack on this. I remember the health inspectors coming and checking pretty thoroughly on a pretty regular basis. I don't think I would mind having city licenses, but I don't feel that it's terribly necessary. You can make a lot of people very happy if you got rid of it. I will tell you that, that a lot of people see it as a new thing. Well, I still then will propose deleting this article in its entirety. Other thoughts? Can I erase it? I don't have strong feelings about it. It's gone, sure. It always put it back. Fair enough. Okay. With another public hearing. Okay, shoe shining. My proposal is to get rid of it. You're here. Is there a reason why we would need it? I cannot imagine a public health or safety reason for doing this. And I can certainly imagine that it might have been established at a time where it was intended to discriminate against certain racial or ethnic groups who are more likely to engage in this profession. I guess I was thinking, first of all, I don't have any issues getting rid of it. I think, so you went to a darker place than I did. I was thinking that it just may be to make sure someone's not in the middle of a sidewalk obstructing. Do you have permission to be here? Do you have a license? Are you in a proper location to do such a thing? Would they be a vendor then? A vendor, yeah. If they're setting up a place for people to sit and et cetera, it's a vendor going to a vendor license. That makes sense to me, but I wonder if I just want to go back and check to see, because a vendor might be selling a product and this would be a service. But actually it does say, vendor shall be any person, including someone who sells or offers et cetera, et cetera, personal services. And I think that could be considered personal services. Okay, so getting rid of it then. All right. Okay, great. Okay, on to 19, taxi cabs. You've got my proposal of amendment. It's basically parallel to the Airbnb issue, and that is a proposal to treat app dispatched vehicles like Lyft and Uber the same way other taxi cabs are treated. Just to give you all some background on that, that was the issue. It was very entertaining. I shouldn't go into too much detail, but it was a little bit of a surprise to me when it was announced that Uber was here in this room. So this was an attempt to craft an ordinance that could be inclusive of Uber and Lyft. I don't think Lyft is here yet, but Uber is theoretically. So since you can't get them to give us all your drivers and stuff like that to just license the service itself. Now, having said that, I've sent them a couple of letters that have gone into oblivion looking for my $35, so I'm not sure how to enforce it, but that was the idea to sort of accommodate those services under this. And in fact, it was a much longer taxi cab ordinance, licensing with all sorts of requirements, and it was including requiring criminal screening of cab drivers and all that stuff, and it was all taken out with the attempt to create parity between cab companies and Uber. So anything that further does that would be great. Oh, Lauren. The other one I was not... I don't think this yet addresses was the... Like, we're doing this trial of microtransit. So this would require that to get a license, which I don't think it should need to... I mean, maybe we do think it is. I just don't think it's like a taxi cab, or let's just be explicit if that's the policy decision we want, is that that service, even if it's run by GMTA or something, that they have to come in and get a city license to do that. But the definition says, and not by direct communication, they will have some direct communication with the operator. I mean, in theory, the buses now are vehicles that are used for transporting people. To say that GMTA should fall under this, according to this definition. That probably would be the simplest way. Right, so if we exempt public transport or public options, that would probably... I think that would make sense. Okay. Does that work? Maybe this is... I don't want to muddy this too much, but does it make sense to license the vehicle or to license the company that provides the vehicles? Again, with that conversation, it was felt that it was just unrealistic to license Uber vehicles since they can come and go. I mean, the drivers can opt in and opt out at any given time, and there was just no practical way to track that, which is why it shifted to one fee for per company, essentially. The only question that is... How does that reflect, then, in that first sentence, no person, firm or corporation shall operate a taxicab until a license has been obtained? So, since we identify, like, no person shall do that, does that muddy it? Like, what if we just said, no firm or corporation shall operate the taxicab? That's what Section 1 says. Right. Okay. Yeah. This is no person, firm. Yeah, no person. So, I'm suggesting that we take out the word person so that it's not confusing that, like, we're charging Uber where we're charging... So, I just... Yeah. Right now, I'm just playing devil's advocate. Okay. I just put a little cab license of, you know, a thing on my car. I start riding around, and I'm a single person. I'm not a firm or a corporation. And I just start... Hmm. Yeah. Well, maybe it makes sense to keep it. Maybe we don't need to regulate them at all. Because, you know, we used to regulate rates and everything, and now we don't. So, I mean... You know, I would just, again, just sort of guy who has his deals with this sort of thing. You know, there was that issue with not too long ago with a problem in Barrie, with one of their drivers. And that was a concern when we changed this, was backing off from the individual drivers, which was sort of... All right, maybe that's sketchy. Maybe that could be a problem. But at the very least, if there's a problem with the driver, it seems like we should be able to, you know, revoke a license of a company until they get their act together and get more responsible drivers. I would strongly advocate for keeping some type of taxi license. Even if it's at the person level. I mean, I would lean towards that. Yeah. That's fine. That works. Don't feel strongly about that. Just the existence of a license at all, I think, is probably important. I do also want to note there's a license fee in here. I wonder if we should edit that to reference the schedule. Cool. Donna. I'm a little confused because... Are we saying company or person? Or just person? It seems like you need company in there if you're going to be. Licensing Uber. It says no person, firm or corporation. Okay, so you're keeping all of it. So we're just keeping all of it. Good. Unless there's any objections to that. Any further comments on this section? Isn't there a non-discrimination language we can reference in statute like we did before? Because that's sort of always changing as well. Well, we have just... You saw that we have non-discrimination language in the audience already. I thought there was a statutory reference that we viewed in other places. You'd like to reference like the Vermont State. Why don't I look it up in the meantime? Okay. It could be in the Fair Housing and Public Conditions Act. Okay. Would you name these and then add the reference to the statute? Maybe because I think we'd want to be consistent with the state law of that. Yeah, fair. Any other comments? Okay, moving on to 20 theaters and stage shows. On this, I actually emailed some labor and industry, I think, fire safety to see if they have any thoughts about what their standards are, if they have standards for capacity, egress, and that kind of thing. And I didn't hear back. So I'm not proposing anything, but I suspect that theaters have those requirements because I know upstairs we hear Kathleen say at the beginning of every show tell us where the exits are because they are the entrances. But so I don't know whether we need it, but I'm not proposing, without knowing more, I'm not proposing to change it. Other thoughts? Moving on. So we have this deleted or proposed deleted section 21 trailer parks. Thoughts on that? Sorry? As deleted. Sounds good. And I think that is the end. Jack. No, I should just point out that this is, there's a difference between a trailer park as defined here and what many of us would characterize as a trailer park, which is defined in the Vermont Statutes in Title X as a mobile home park. And this is really, and I don't think you can, a town can prohibit a mobile home park, but this is a place where people tow their trailer for vacation and drag it away with them when they leave. But we're not outlawing mobile home parks. We're not that they exist in Montreal. Fair enough. Okay, yes. I move that we schedule another public hearing number to be determined, but I think it's third to incorporating all the amendments that we've made tonight. Is there a second? Second. Any public comment? I'd like to make the comments. Steve. Steve. Any public comments? No, okay, great. All right, so I'm going to officially close the public hearing, by the way. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Wonderful. Thank you for your indulgence. Yes. I'm so glad you all are doing that. Yeah. Well, I also just want to note that chapters 10 and 11 are relatively, I mean, chapter nine was the longest, but 10 and 11 are also relatively long, and we may just want to pace ourselves. Yeah, with that. Is that? Well, and especially because we're reviewing other stuff. So maybe we just don't take on 10 and 11 until we're done with 8 and 9. Yes. I'll let you know, both Complete Streets and the Transportation and Instructure Committee have a lot of comments, and they have taken the broad stroke of putting together all mobile devices, whether it's e-scooters, bikes, skateboards, I mean, very comprehensive, so you're going to need some time. And it may make sense to just even spend one meeting on just that section. Yeah, and they would appreciate knowing when we think we'll get to it. Okay. So why don't we do, next meeting we've got the amendment on 8 and then this last meeting on 9. So we'll just do those, and then just do 10, and then when 10 is done we'll complete 11. Yes. Yep. That sounds great. Great. Okey-dokey. All right, so we are done with 9 for now. We did just vote, right? Just now. Okay, we did just vote. All right, on to the last topic for the night, and we've got 20 minutes, if we're going to get out of here by 10, tax stabilization policy. Or we could take it up another time, because nobody's otherwise hanging out here. But we could do it now. That'd be okay, too. So I will say before we, well, if, first of all, sign with me. Do you, should we do it now? Are you feeling okay? I'm, in deciding that I'm curious, Bill, has Ashley had any comments on the, she, so as, as you know, we sent, I sent out twice to the committee, and I heard from people that she did not, she did not comment. I did say, you know, you don't have to comment if you're okay with it, so. But I have not heard from her. What I was going to say is if we do it, I want to be clear, this is not to be adopted tonight. We have three definitions we need to talk about and some of the things, but I think so all, at least I was looking for us. Are we close? Like are we going in the right direction? Is this, we're headed policy wise before we, you know, I don't know whether we want to reconvene our committee for those definitions or other people want to work on those. And then there is still the open question on TIF which I can report a little bit on although it's not definitive. I'm done. I think Ashley has made this really clear she does not support any tax stabilization. So it isn't a matter of her editing this. I think she's been really clear this is not an option that I've ever heard her support. So I don't think she'll miss our discussion. I think she'll come in very firm where she's been that this is not a tool she likes. Well, knowing that we're not voting on it tonight, do you feel okay about having a discussion or? Ten minutes worth? Yeah. Ten minutes worth. Okay. All right. So in light of that, do, I assume people have read it. So we don't necessarily need to go through it or introduce it section by section. Any comments or questions about it? I have a couple suggestions. So in the, I actually got to get to it in this, because the most current is the fall draft. Fall. Right. Okay. So the fall draft. There's the yellow highlighted sections about energy efficiency standards that need to be defined. One possibility is that that could, skipping around to too many things here. It could be if the building meets lead certification, if it meets passive house certification, a third would be something called a net zero certification as defined by living, the living building institute. And so all, all of those came to me through, person who does construction work. Yes. I didn't have a color copy section. Oh, I'm sorry. So, yep. So we are talking about, it is on page five at the very top. So it's the last page. It's this section. Numbers five, six and seven at the very top. Yep. Criteria for additional years. Yep. Five, six and seven. It says need to define. So that's, those are three suggestions. There may be a fourth. When you say lead, do you mean any lead, not necessarily like lead platinum or? Right. I think any lead certification. So where they can lead? So lead passive house certification or net zero as defined by the living buildings, living building institute. That's one place to start. And then another suggestion I have regarding seven. So with environmental improvements, stormwater, solar, et cetera. I, you know, especially in that this section pertains to private development. There's a lot of suggestions that we have in the stormwater master plan for private property. So, which I'm sure while our zoning would require some stormwater development, it may not particularly identify projects from the stormwater master plan. And so if we could reference here, completion of stormwater master plan identified projects. I think that would be a good place to start. Yeah. So those are all my suggestions. Any other comments? And I think, so on the environmental, that's a great suggestion. I mean, I think that was the thought was, I mean, we had the discussion with one of the applicants about where they got to put solar panels and they said, well, you know, we'll make it solar ready. And the thought was, if we're going to grant it, if this was a criteria for an additional year, then it's for something above and beyond what they might normally do. And so it could be, you know, right. It could be something that they don't have to do for their site, but maybe it means putting in a retention pond or a rain garden or something, you know, a green roof or something that they're not required, but they're doing extra. And so we want to reward them for that or create the center for that. And so I just, I don't know that we need to define all of these tonight, but they need to be fleshed out. That's all I suppose. We're not ready to adopt this policy because we don't have those all in there. And I, historic preservation, it was actually raised by former council member Kruger, was if somebody went to an exceptional, you know, something beyond what they did that, you know, that could also be source of a reward. And one thing actually we forgot and put in here, but we had talked about also was if they, if there was some accommodation for public art, even if they didn't add it, but if it was just provided, you know, a place for it. So maybe that could be historic preservation or public art. It's a brand new building. That would make sense. Wasn't there also something about public access? I came up at the timber homes, public access to the river, having a path. I think that may already be in... Is it there? I missed it. Under one, it's one of the choices under item one. The number in here. Yeah, can you tell me a page number? So just the page four, right below. So there's one A, one B, and one C. You can do one of those three to get an additional year. And one of them is, so deed the city's certain rights in real property, including easements for riverfront walkways, parks, so that's one way you can do this. And actually the... I thought, I was surprised when you said that you had forgotten the public art element because I think that that is in there. Oh, arts master plan. There it is. Right, in one C. So I didn't forget it. I'm forgetting everything tonight. There you go. Cool. Okay. Okay. So what are your next steps with this? So I think that... So our next steps would be, I think, someone. And I don't know whether, again, whether our committee wants to take a stab at this or maybe we'll just write something up and send it around. Those three things need to be defined. I think if people are generally happy with the structure and the policy layout, I think that we'd like to know that. And I think the other issue, and I don't know what we can do about it tonight necessarily, but it does have to do with TIF. So I can report what I've known. I've actually heard from four different, what I would consider well-informed sources, four different opinions of what you can do in the tax stabilization at TIF district. So the most conservative is what I drafted, which is if it's in the TIF district, you can't have tax stabilization period because we want increment to go into the TIF fund. Then a second version, which I heard from... all from different people was, well, you can do it, but the city has to make up the difference. So you give this one property and the rest has to make up that difference into the TIF fund. The third was you can do it if they are not using any TIF money. So somebody is not getting a public improvement. They're just building, you know, they're downtown. They have all the water and sewer they need. There's a billion new building. They need tax stabilization. They're not taking from the TIF fund so they can do it. And a fourth is, which I think is what the city of Barrie has, which is they just allow it and do it, and there's no other requirement. So I talked with Megan Sullivan, who's the director of VEPSI, about this, and she said there is no... there's nothing in statute that says you can't do it. There's no reference to tax stabilization in the TIF statute so there's no interaction. So she kind of said, well, you could do really any of these. However, she did raise the caution that, given the scrutiny that the auditor is under, that it's not unlikely that the auditor could conclude that the city was supposed to have put 100% of its revenue into the TIF district. And by foregoing some of it, you know, they failed to meet their obligations. Again, there's nothing that says you can't do that, but it could be one of those things that when we have an audit in five years, they could say, well, you know, you exempted this money so the city has to pay that back into the fund. But she didn't... she was going to try to get me something more definitive, talk to their agencies, attorneys by tonight, I've heard of them, so I would say that's an open question. The interesting thing about it is our prior policy for tax stabilization encouraged, you know, we gave points or whatever for development in the designated downtown in the growth center. That's where we wanted development to happen so we're trying to create incentives. If we exempt the TIF district, which is essentially the designated downtown of the growth center, we're only providing incentives for those areas outside of that. So, and, you know, I think there's certainly a strong argument that could be projects that need both, you know, Caledonia Spirit is a great example. We had to do some... we didn't have a formal TIF, but we basically did it like a TIF. We provided public infrastructure to be repaid through their tax payments, as well as giving them tax stabilization. And I don't think... I'm certain having worked with them, they could not have done their project without both of those things. But now it's here, it's a benefit, and I think most people consider it a good addition to the community. So, I just leave it at that. It's to be determined, it's a policy question. Well, hopefully by the time we have an actual proposal we'll have more clarity on this, but I wanted to make sure that you were all thinking about this. I feel a little torn about that. Just so you all know, I mean, on the one hand, I don't want to do anything to upset the auditor. On the other hand, TIF is specifically for... to go towards public infrastructure to enable private development. And this is about the taxation of private development. So it feels to me like two different things. And for that reason I feel torn. And who knows? It's been the same auditor five years, right? You know, it does seem like it probably will, but who knows? It's kind of a political hot potato with this issue right now, because an auditor, it's not based in statute. So anyway, those are the issues. If people are generally okay with the structure, we'll work on those definitions and try to get some more TIF clarification and bring it back for, you know, actual adoption. Okay, further questions? Oh, yes, sir. Steven, those times I was... I just want to ask, is there not other examples, other towns or cities that have this dilemma that you're looking at now, you know, this potential conflict between TIF and tax stabilization? Well, so we... Well, Barrie City has both the TIF District and tax stabilization. They're the most local, but their TIF was approved under the old TIF rules, and there's just a new set of new TIF rules that are coming in. We were one of the first to be approved under the new set of TIF rules, so it's not clear whether it's different criteria. So we're trying to get clarification. I would like to get some kind of okay or at least clear message from the state about how they want to handle this. And, you know, as I said, their answer was there is no regulation about it. There's no statute, there's nothing... In one hand, you could do what you want, but their expressed concern was in five... We have to get an audit every five years on the TIF District. So in five years, when you have your first audit, it's possible that the state auditor, who does not actually make the TIF rules, they could offer an opinion that you owe the money, but it's ultimately up to Vepsi to determine whether or not you actually do. So it's just... I think the concern is just there's a lot of political attention on this issue right now, and we want to just throw out the baby with the bathwater. So... For the comments? We don't need a motion... Oh, Lauren. I generally like the idea of the criteria for additional years. I think that's an improvement. I mean, to be frank, I'm not a huge fan of this tool in general, but if we're going to have a policy, I think this is better than what we have on books right now. I know that it's a struggle to try to figure out... You have found it extremely difficult to have people demonstrate that they couldn't build the project without it, and so I understand that impetus for pulling that out, even just having to go through that exercise, trying to stay with a straight face that you couldn't do it, I'm like, the idea of giving this to a wealthy developer that is going to develop there anyway and has plenty of money does not seem like a good use of taxpayer dollars, and there's nothing in here that would even get at them having to try to make a case to us that they need this in order to do the development. So I don't know if there's any nod to that that we could add of, at least have that be part of your pitch to us that we have to believe you enough that we want to spend limited taxpayer dollars on it. I understood that it was a hard thing. Right, it can be a relatively small sum of money in the scheme of a major project, but I think maybe just some demonstration of how the financial need for this project... I do think we have to be careful because the developer is wealthy, doesn't necessarily mean... Each project is going to pencil out on its own. Typically they're not putting their own money into these projects, they're getting financing, it's based on lease revenues and those kinds of things, they might be putting their 10% in or whatever risk they're assuming. So I think the question is, how does maybe that's what we could ask is sort of how does this tax benefit make this project work? And what we've heard from most of the larger projects is it actually helps the most with what they're able to charge in leases at the back end because the leases typically have tax in it, so it makes it more attractive to lease up, which then makes the investment more secure for the banks and everything else. You think about it, if someone's saving $10,000 a year in property taxes, let's say, over $100,000 in their building, a couple of million dollar building, it's kind of a rounding error almost in terms of the cost of the project, but that $10,000 on the lease for the tenant could make a big difference. Another thing worth pointing out, and I didn't support a previous tax stabilization application because the applicant said, well, we're going to do this even if we don't get it and so I thought they just didn't meet the standard, but one consideration is that the way it's structured and been structured, you have to apply for tax stabilization after you have your permits. So by that time, the person's pretty much into it and it's not like they're going to have spent thousands of dollars in getting permits and then back out because they don't get this, so I don't think they can make the argument with a straight face and that's one of the reasons the committee decided that it didn't make sense to keep that requirement in there. Further comments on that? Great, thank you, and I appreciate the timing of it and it makes sense to me as well. All right, and you don't need a motion. Great, so moving on then. Council reports. Donna, you have for starting? Some of you may be interested to know that there is a dam safety workshop and this is about dams that hold water, not a dam workshop, okay? Not another dam. And it's November 5th and I'm on the email through my Clean Water Committee but I'm going just to talk about dams, not what their purpose is, but it also talks about looking at removal of dams because we do have other dams besides this one and I don't understand what the whole impact would be of taking that one away or what the other ones do. So if you're interested, let me know and I can sign you up too. The town meeting of the league was very good. There was a huge discussion about self-governance and so it's really on town's mind to create somewhat interfering with base things that they feel are town rights and that towns should deal with and whether that's zoning or other elements, but anyway it was a good one and I'm going to go back and I missed part of that so that I'm going to get someone else's notes but I think it was a good discussion and from that we also had a workshop on marijuana and there's a lot more detailed now of the state having to decide whether towns get to opt in or opt out of having marijuana retail in your town but it's also the aspect of manufacturing, growing, all of it. It's very complicated. And taxation. And taxation and whether that tax goes to the town or what percentage the town gets from the state. I mean it's a lot of details. Carl Etner from East Montpelier would like to have a regional committee and I volunteer to be on it and others may be but to talk about it for all of us to deal with this more collectively than just each individual town deciding. So that's going on if you have any interest let me know. And then we've had a complaint in district one about barking dog and this barking dog does not meet the criteria of the ordinance that says it has to bark for a continuous period of 20 minutes before it's considered a nuisance. And they've timed this dog again and again but what this dog is an example of is chronic persistent behavior throughout the day, day after day after day. So I'm going to be bringing forth a potential amendment that hopefully may appear maybe at our next council meeting at the end of the month but heads up it's just to help the neighbors deal with something that doesn't meet the criteria and without it meeting the criteria the offending dog owners do not have to participate in mediation. They've invited them but there's no way to force them without it truly being classified as a nuisance. So Bill may have more to say about that but I just wanted to give you a heads up. Sorry it's about dogs. All right. I promised the commissioner of fish and wildlife that would publicize his potluck game dinner on October 16th. And it's 5.30 to 8.30 in the garage space and I'm a vegetarian so beating the deer, bear, squirrels the servant there but yeah probably worth checking out. Personal note I've been on medical leave so I apologize if it's tough to get a hold of me lately just been had a commission a couple days there. Good news is if you have a seizure they take away your driver's license for three months so I've gotten really accustomed to cycling around and my Schwinn I apologize to Glenn for voting against the bike lane study couple meetings ago so it's helped my perspective around that that's it for me. Yeah life without a car is great. I have to admit I prefer walking too but so as may be apparent the homelessness task force is energetic and high tempered and the meetings are going really well I think I hope that they continue to go well and I'm trying to think of the right adjective it's not exactly that I'm pleased to be serving the city but I am I'm with it I'm trying to get there every time I missed one because I was sick on Monday the homelessness task force did ask me to bring to the council tonight their urgent request that we try to figure out how to get the city hall bathrooms open 24 hours a day didn't seem like something to throw into the previous conversation about the warming shelter but I do need to fulfill that obligation so that was one of many many things that we talked about on Monday and my sense is that Bill and Ken have already Bill and Ken Russell may have already talked about this a little bit so I think whatever conversation we had may have been overrated I did talk to Ken and basically what I said was sure number one we have right across the alleyway the police opened 24-7 and so that's available we could publish that number two obviously it's not it's the public's bathrooms we don't have an objection per se other than security and these double doors we have are fine but they're not really high security locked doors so we would have to figure out a way to block off the rest of the building security for employees coming in if there's people sleeping in here video cameras we have some cameras in the building should there be some specifically there the offices are right in that area so we'd want to think about that so there are some obstacles so that was the conversation how we can we can do it or we can't do it it's that I personally wouldn't support it which doesn't mean anything if you all do but for me it would be all about the security of the folks that work here and visit here and also we have expensive equipment in here or damaged or anything like that speaking for myself there's a perfectly good bathroom across the street I know that's not going to be appealing to everyone because it's in a police station but that's what we have and I cannot justify spending a lot of money or resources to open this space if there is a bathroom that is already available 24-7 I will take that back to the task force I think we're going to try to do better at teeing things up a little bit more normally for agenda items and with as much specificity as we can we're also we are working on the long-term presentation of the perhaps lower priority but broader longer-term goals the task force would like to move on sorry I do think we could do a better job of making people aware that that bathroom is available 24-7 anyway, sorry, please continue yes, I agree with that and I think that's it for me except that I'll be at baggy dose tomorrow morning at 8.30 a little sleepy Jack or Lauren? I think I've talked enough tonight already so I'll pass yes I really appreciate it Lauren? I can be really brief too just sharing that the social and economic justice advisory committee has been speaking with a number of people who professionally work with cities and non-profits and other entities of how you allow and implement the kind of vision that we gave this broad and laudable charge to the group and then as they've been kind of figuring out how do we kind of operationalize that and what's the scope and where do we start with these big issues so there's a lot of ideas that that has sparked and I know they're talking about you know what would the next steps of that be is there some kind of contract with someone to help us do something we can do in house so just stay tuned for what that group comes out with but just wanted you to know that those conversations are happening and if anyone wants to engage in that or learn more let me know, I'm happy to share some of the kind of summaries of the conversations with the people who do this for a living and some good advice we've gotten of kind of where we go from here to make that a really productive opportunity so I just want to acknowledge that last week in this room we had a regional transportation meeting and it was very well attended and was very grateful to all the folks who organized that and all the organizations that came out to talk about their work really interesting good conversation that happens that was great and just want to point out that the Taylor streets opening is going to be on October 25th I believe the sort of talking the ceremony or whatever will be at 4 o'clock on the 25th so there may be some tours and such happening after that and originally we had, I just want to acknowledge that we had scheduled that for today but it is Yom Kippur so grateful to everyone who helped shift the day and also apologize that we had scheduled that and also I acknowledge that we're having this meeting on Yom Kippur and just acknowledge that that's problematic for a lot of folks so just wanted to point that out apologize for that but looking at I know Gary Terry right Terry's wife Gary Holloway was mentioning earlier that there's an opening for the shared use path Sybuina B I think I said it right I'll say it a lot because there was a different emphasis Sybuina B was someone said earlier I thought it was Sybuina B hopefully we'll have that clear by November 8th because that is when the opening is 315 at Bar Hill so anyway that's going to be very exciting and that is it for me I just wanted to mention that I won't be at the next meeting I'm going to be away from the 29th and be back on the 11th I will be cloistered off in my monastery there oh and sorry there weren't any minutes to approve this time for last meeting I was going to finish them up last week and I got very very sick so I just have a couple minor things interesting that you mentioned DM removal one of the items on our goals list is to begin work on a river master plan so in that light I met with from our river conservancy folks yesterday busy week yes yesterday and we're going to be getting a proposal from them to do a river plan and some of it would be to assess what would take for actually we have three DMs in our river corridor is it possible what it would take what kind of hydraulic studies would it take all those things so we should learn more you know you can talk to them about our budget restrictions but the ideas that we would get some sense of what what this might take for our budget process so that is underway it's exciting and along with that is I think they're going to start working with Bar Hill or Caledonia spirits on the river axis there looking for grants and figuring out what it's technically the city's easement but having people that actually know what they're doing would be a good idea so there was that I attended the CVR the regional planning meeting last night of the board of directors our newest rep Marcella Dent was there and they had invited me to come to talk about sort of development in Montpelier and what our thoughts were so I outlined the strategic plan and some of the elements and talked about TIFF and some of the projects underway the public projects the shared use paths and all those things as well as the potential hotel and other so it went really well they seemed to react to it and it has been a delight having Cameron here on Monday at least three of you have met her know that she really does exist but she was really hurt by today and so I did insist that she not spend it with us I meant to mention she was also at the homelessness task force meeting on her first day on her first day was a great presence there so I'm really pleased that she's here yeah okay great so I think that is all of our business so without objection I'm going to consider the meeting adjourned