 All right well I would like to call to order the South Burlington Steering Committee meeting which is a joint meeting of the School Board and the City Council on Monday April 22nd. I'd like to welcome everyone. Item 2 the agenda review. Are there any additions, deletions or changes in order of the agenda items that anyone wishes to make at this time? Just a quick question Helen. Do we have the minutes to approve from last meeting? No I don't think we do. No we don't. We'll just have to put that. Yes we will. I'm not sure I've even seen them. I haven't seen any. I wasn't at that meeting. You were by phone. I was by phone yeah. I don't know if we've I've seen those minutes. Has it been sent out? That might be on the clerk's share. Okay so no we are not. All right. Kevin do you or who wants to give directions to leave the building in case of an emergency? Would people please leave by one of these two doors that leads the outside and gather in the parking lot to the south? If for some reason these two doors are blocked proceed back out through the main lobby out the front and over to the same parking lot and I will be responsible for making sure the building is cleared so please go right away. Thank you. Are there any comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda? Seeing none. We'll move on to item five communications and trust between the city and the school district and I want to explain our setup and the role that I'm going to attempt to play at this meeting. As we're all aware the city council asked for this meeting for really two reasons outlined in the agenda. One to improve the communication and collaboration between the school board and the city council and the second exploring the storm stormwater issue at Markhut Central School and the new community center. As separately elected governance groups for South Burlington we each developed policies for specific areas of city services. We're also very busy with enormous concepts that we're working on the council and developing city center and negotiation of three union contracts and the school board with translating their vision for middle and high school education in the 21st century into new or improved schools as well as negotiating a teacher's contract. All of those things take a lot of time and energy and are all equally important. So we have lots on our plate. Missteps, miscommunication or perhaps failed communication and a lack of information has pulled us in different directions and we need to find a way to thoughtfully and successfully to move our city forward in directions that are public request and support. So I'm suggesting that the first hour is dedicated to frankly confronting each other with the problems, discussing possible solutions, evaluate the pros and cons of them and identify a process forward in terms of improved communication and collaboration and cooperation. It's clear to me that in order to be successful we need a neutral facilitator and a process to get to a shared resolution and pathway forward. So I step forward to assume that role. I will not be offering any comments of my own but rather encourage and hopefully enable the other I guess we have eight members to explore the issue. So I'll try to act as a competent facilitator. The second hour we can explore and better understand the stormwater challenges and some potential solutions. So I'll put out front I'm not a trained facilitator but I really will do my best to open the dialogue and give everyone the time they need and the opportunity they need to speak. I'll make sure that the translation is accurate with the proposer and try to keep us on task. I've set up the room this way to help facilitate a conversation. I apologize that our backs are to the public but we'll all need to see the screen. If we identify in our conversation other substantive issues that the scribe which Kevin will act as scribe tonight. I will add them to a parking lot list so that they're not forgotten and potentially another meeting we can take that up or those up. This is a working session open to the public but until we go through our agenda I'll ask the public to withhold their comments and questions. I believe this is the beginning of an important conversation between the council and the school board. So as we begin, what do you need for this conversation to go well? And I propose, you know, David we could start with you and just go around the room. I won't comment but and Kevin can put that up in no form. You want to start with me? Sure. That's fine. Well, and feel free to pass. If you don't have something to say, move along. Just try to keep your comments brief, please. Not having been actively involved for more than a year, you know, I followed the school board and the city council superficially previous to that. But as we look to going forward, I think it's important is just my opinion that we all remember that we're actually all on the same team, the South Burlington team, and that we have to work together and communicate well. And, you know, as a citizen and resident of South Burlington, I don't want speeches. Oh, you just want short snips. What I'm really looking for are brief comments. Oh, fine. What do we need for this conversation to go well? And it sounds like one idea you suggested is that we need to see this as a team approach. A team approach. Yeah. So let's let's say one item to so two items a team approach. And what's happened in the past is in the past and we need to we need to focus on the future as a team and work together. Simple as that. Okay. The rest of the speech will come later. No, we're not doing speeches tonight. I agree. I agree with what David said. I don't have more to add. Okay. The first city council, a city manager I worked with, I liked what he gave to councils when we work through tough problems was assume that we all come with good intentions. I think that's something that we need to first think about when we listen to other people. And also if, you know, things are said that we wish to restate in a way if there's, you know, regret over, you know, the way something was stated, I think we should feel free to go back and revise. Okay. So we come with good intentions and we all have the option to, if we say something tonight that, you know, maybe you've blurted it out in artful language, you can correct that. Okay. You know, I agree with everything that's been said so far. I would say at the start, I have an obligation to say we do have a disagreement on the scope of the agenda today already. So I hope that we can discuss agreement on what our purpose is this evening on the full agenda. Okay. Yeah. So I, I know there are some issues at stake and I just want to say that I think that, you know, this is the forum to have some blood honesty about those issues and, but work on them jointly. And please let us know what you think and everybody be honest about it. All right. Thanks. Okay. You may not have to add anything. The only small thing I'd add is I just like all of us as we're having this discussion to be really clear about what is fact and what is opinion, just so the community is not confused. That's, that's all I would add to the great comments that we have. I agree with everything said so far. I would just say as my personal approach to just about every meeting is I'm very action oriented and I love to identify options. So I want to keep looking for ways to move the conversation forward other than retreading the past. I hope we can get there. Yeah. And I also agree with everything that's been said before. And however, I do have to say with two kids who are Rick Mark got central school graduate and future graduate that the place has a very special place in my heart. And when people like developers come and say, oh, we'll give you 7 million bucks for it. You know, I get a little bit defensive and I don't like it being toyed around with. And so the issue here on the stormwater, you know, makes me think, hey, wait a minute, we want to keep this school. So it's a little sensitive. Maybe I'm a little more sensitive to it about it than others. But that's where I'm coming from. So, you know, and that I think is also the mission of the school board is to keep our elementary schools going strong. Thank you. Okay. So Kevin, part of what I heard Alex say is that he had took a fence with a developer offering money and that markout school is very special. That's not an issue necessarily with better communication, but I think it's an important issue. So I think that could be put on the parking lot to come back. But it does build up to the, you know, many iterations of proposals that have come from the city council and, you know, the, you know, I know that the building is a concept at this point, but and of course that would change. But, you know, the city council has come to the board numerous times with slightly different requests. And each, you know, each time we, you know, we, you know, I think it would be good to have either some consistency or some clarity on that. So I think maybe it is communication. It's consistency and clarity with different activities that we both have or projects that we bring to the table. Yeah. So I think just saying consistency and clarity would be a good way to wrap it up. Thank you, Helen. Okay. Any others that people have come up with? Just, okay. So we will try to think about all of those things as we consider the, you know, certainly the issue. Maybe we should go to just to get clarity from Elizabeth. Is the current conversation about how we can improve communication and trust part of the agenda that you thought we were going to have? Yes. Okay. Absolutely. So we can certainly go through the first hour and then talk about the second. Okay. Good. So now are there any issues about how we're working together that need to be talked about so that we can address specific issues together? So what are the items that we need to talk about or how we work together? What are some of those issues that we can, that either we're doing them inappropriately or we could be doing better or we're doing well? Alex, you want to start? I want to go back around. Oh, sure. Pardon? Elizabeth had her hand raised. Oh, I'm sorry. I was just going to go around so we all have equal chance to speak. But if you want to start, go ahead. No, I was just going to say a reminder as we appreciate the scope and the complexity of the work the City Council does, we just want to reiterate that the district's primary mission is providing a quality K-12 education to the students in our community or children in our community and that really drives primarily how we prioritize our work. I think some of the challenges that we face are really different priorities, different timelines potentially and really a lack of clarity on the impact on both human and financial resources that might be required at any point in time when those priorities conflict. Okay, so when we're working together, the issues that we need to focus on is certainly the economic impact of all the things we do on both sides of the street. That's one thing. That's true, but I really want to just reinforce what our primary mission is. Just as a reminder to both the community and to the Council. Okay, so maybe recognition that we each have very specific policy areas for which we are elected and responsible to respond to and they're not always the same. Sometimes they overlap. They're likely not very often the same. Well, but sometimes they overlap if you talk about economic impacts or land use or something very much can overlap. Okay, so does that capture what you said? Okay. Well, I think if I can go out of turn, there's tremendous and inseparable interdependence between the School Board and the City Council because what happens with our schools impacts everything else in South Burlington and what happens in South Burlington has a tremendous impact on the success of our schools and the appeal of people living here and moving here with families. We've been here a long, long time and rarely do I see the city do something that doesn't have some impact on the schools or vice versa. I think we're kind of joined at the hip here with some very focused specialties. The School Board is focused primarily on the school system, which it has to be because this city is all about the schools and yet the City Council can't put that kind of time into the school system. That's why you folks exist. When you think of most of the other departments, they're all a part of the city government and overseen and to an extent managed by the City Council with the exception of the School Board because that's such an unbelievably critical part of the success of South Burlington. So I think for the most part we're on the same page, we just have to make sure that the communication is maximized every step of the way. So nobody feels either bent out of shape or makes a misstep. Okay, so that got translated into inseparable independence of city and schools. Interdependence. Or interdependence. I don't know if it gets at the question now. How we're working together, David. Well that needs to be a basis for maybe how we work together. Right, is that a goal? How we work together in actual facts or how we work together because it hasn't been working real well. Well, I'm trying to get it. Are there issues about how we work together or don't work together well that need to be talked about so that we can address those specific areas and improve them? So what is it that how we are working together right now isn't working, I guess? Or maybe something that is working? Yeah, I'm happy to go first on what specifically is not working. One thing that's not working is meetings that continually get canceled or people we thought were going to be there aren't there. So just being in the same room at the same time enough is a challenge I think as the two, the council and the board. So I feel like we get together rarely. Our meetings tend to be reporting to one another about projects that each of us have going on. They're not really working sessions. And then we each go to our separate teams. So we go to administration at the district and you guys seem to go to city staff and give what we think are clear directions about what we want them to do. And then somewhere the communication breaks down. So either our separate teams are not hearing what we're saying to them clearly or understanding in the same way that we did. And that's causing conflict. But somewhere there's a breakdown. Once it gets to that level. Those are a lot of specific items that I'd like to make sure we capture all of them. So one is the, is it the format of the meetings when we meet? I think so. I think we've talked about it a couple of times. I know Elizabeth has brought it up in a couple of different steering committee meetings that perhaps we should replace what used to be sort of every other week meetings between the two chairs. Let's not get into specifics because we will get there. I was just trying, let's get the things that we need to work on and then consider what are some solutions. If you want to talk about that 30,000 foot level, I would say how many are structured or maybe not as effective as they could be. I would say then how we communicate between meetings is also not working. So in between meeting communication is not working. Okay? You said some other things though too. I said a lot of things. Sorry. No, no, that's okay. I just want to make sure we capture them. So, yeah. She talked about how we communicate to our staff after. Bert is not getting back correctly to staff. Okay. And Kevin, maybe each of those could be a bullet. So then when we go back to, so what are we going to do about it or how can we solve it? It's really easy to identify. I think it's been a little bit of a breakdown as well about how we communicate with the community or don't, both sides of that point about what's happened in meetings and whether certain items are confidential or not confidential. That's just one specific example. But how we're communicating with the community as two separate entities I think is also opposing some challenges. Okay. And then you said something about there's maybe a difference in a different understanding about what is confidential? Yes. Yes. Okay. For sure. Tom. I agree with a lot of what you just said. I find the steering committee's meetings, as much as I love spending time with all of you, are somewhat polished with their strength when Charlie is here, which we love when Charlie is here. I don't think we speak as freely. I have found the best time to get a handle of how the school board is thinking is when I run into Elizabeth at an SBBA mixer or I see Bridget or Alex at Spring Fair just in those more cordial environments where we can speak freely, as much as the public needs to hear everything. I would entertain a notion where especially on these property conversations, maybe this group could meet in an executive session every now and then so that we don't have as much restraint and we can get a better idea of how everybody is feeling. Again, giving the public all that advanced knowledge and all the information they need to know about how we're communicating things. But I just don't feel like I always get a sense of what the school board is when we're here at the steering board meetings. So that or we could just, you know, go out to dinner for some time. So is the issue that we don't have a situation where people feel they can speak freely? Is that the issue? I don't feel the steering committee meetings are as helpful as they could be and really get an idea of what the school board is thinking on important topics. So the steering committee doesn't provide that. So there isn't a place to speak freely. And I would characterize that probably the same issue as really the steering committee hasn't been a forum with which one information is shared ahead of time. So people come prepared. There's specificity on what's the ask or what the issue or problem or challenge is. And there's not an orientation to work at the meeting versus to share status of really quite independent projects. So we don't share information in advance that allows you to maybe think about it ahead of time and prepare. Kind of along the lines of time though, it's also because they're so separated, the steering committee meetings are so far apart. It allows us as two separate entities to kind of go down our own channel. Sure. And we come to the meeting often with quite different expectations about what, even though the agenda is, you know, the same that we're looking at, we come with different expectations about what the action is supposed to be, if there's any action or what the discussion is really going to be about. And so because we're preparing in different ways and we're coming at it from such different perspectives because we haven't talked to each other in so long, it makes it very challenging even to start the meeting at the same place. So maybe we need to meet more often. I mean, or we don't meet enough to develop that. And I think that's what the meeting, that was my understanding of what the meeting used to, the intent of the meeting used to be between the two chairs and the two senior administrators. So between the city manager and the superintendent, I thought those were originally meant, and maybe I'm wrong, it was because I've never been in them, I thought they were meant to be more working meetings where we could kind of keep on the same page. And then steering committee meetings were okay to have every quarter where we were just kind of recording out to the public about, you know, what each of us had on the agenda. So the issue is senior leadership meetings don't seem to deliver on what you think is their intent. Yeah, and I think for that reason a lot of them have been cancelled because I think we're not going to get it. I'm trying to make this short so we don't have. Okay. All right. Tim? Yeah, I mean, so we're talking about how we are working, right? And I just want to remind people that it wasn't that long ago in June of 2017 that the school board was under an intense amount of pressure because of a budget problem, right? A budget voting problem. And I know the city council was in 100% support of their, you know, work to get that passed and worked hard to help them get that passed in certain ways. And so I just want to express that we ultimately do support you because you do have a huge responsibility in this community. And I respect that. And I really, I don't think I could walk a mile in your shoes. I just want to say that because you have enormous responsibility in terms of education, right? Even though the two council school board have separate functions, right? They are kind of different. So I really do want to express that respect. So in terms of an issue, perhaps the issue is that the school board doesn't understand that support or see that support in a, I don't know, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but. I think they have in the past. But you know, every once in a while you get stuck on something, right? So I just want to express that in the past. Oh, okay. And even today, still today, right? So there is a lot of good feeling there. I just want to make sure we get that out there. Okay. Alex, I had started with you and then we jumped. So do you want to add something? And then we'll go to the other side of the table. No, nothing in particular. I think everything is being pretty well covered. Okay. So I'm going to, I guess I will reiterate a lot of the points that we've got written down already. Thank you. Okay. Martin? Any thoughts? Any other? Well, I think it seems that the I'm sure that the city council does certainly support what we do in the school board, but often the interaction with the city council is that there is an ask from the city council as far as, and it happens to have been primarily focused on Rick Marcott central school. So that's kind of part of it as well. That just may affect our perspective. But again, I'm sure there's been support for the budget for instance. I understand that. So. Okay. Megan? Yeah. I will just say that since 2008, at least when I've been aware, but even as a parent since 2002, when we moved here, I think I've never witnessed or experienced directly as a city councilor any kind of city school collaboration quite like the one that we're in since 2014, which is the city center project. And so I think that this is a unique moment in our history of two boards, at least over the past almost two decades that I've been, you know, aware. And what I have experienced in that time is that there has been a real strain because, and I think for the reasons that many of the members around the table gave, that we have two different policy areas and two different dynamics and ways of functioning. I also think the word that Tom used restraint is really important. Our dynamic on the city council, we're pretty boisterous. We usually do not sit on our hands. We're very vocal. And I have to say that there was one steering committee meeting when there were counselors who needed to have questions answered. And there was silence. And as a city councilor, I didn't quite know how to interpret that silence on the part of the school board directors. And so I think the word restraint is something that sometimes is really useful, but sometimes when we're vetting ideas and we're really making sure that we're ironing out all the wrinkles, it's not the time for restraint. I think it's really time to speak up and to really speak, you know, if you see issues that need to be ironed out. I've also witnessed over the past four years, yeah, the strains of these two kind of leadership groups that get together and particularly around the city center. But yet again, this is really recent history. This is not a usual situation. I really want to stress that. This is a unique situation. And so those are the two things I see. And I just wanted to add up right, I just wanted to bring back what Tom had said, but I think everything else is there and really underline that these asks that we're making that this is, you know, a really specific time in history. I don't see us, you know, going to Chamberlain or to Orchard or to the middle and high school and saying, okay, what can we do there? It's just, it's not going to happen. I think that this is in your neighborhood. And it's something that required a lot of careful discussion. And I had always thought that careful discussion was being had and then to learn that it wasn't received or experienced that way by others. That was, that came as really surprise. And so when we wanted then to follow through in a meeting to have silence, I just didn't know how we could build anything. Can you be specific about which meeting you're referring to and the questions that you didn't have answered? Yes. It was, I believe in August. So it was the meeting before the MOU was, was agreed upon was signed to. And Councillor Chit and I don't mean to speak for him, but he and I, by particular he had questions with regard to, you know, your position with regard to the benefits that the MOU had outlined and whether or not you saw them as benefits. And it, you can read the minutes. It's truly, there may be three lines. It took a while for members to speak up. And I think it was Alex and Elizabeth and the superintendent, David Young, who spoke. Yeah. Okay. I think that's an example. I don't think we need to finish talking about that example because it, it, it clarifies how we come to these meetings with different perspectives and with different orientations. So the background on that meeting is that the sub committee had worked all summer to negotiate an agreement. And the school board felt like we had done our homework and we were ready to take action on an agreement. And that's why we thought we were there. What we felt like we were asked it, you made it sound like you were asking us for information that we weren't providing. What we were asked was to jump on board and help you frame for the community that the school board was very excited about this project. We weren't. And we felt like we really stretched ourselves to do the work that was necessary to, to make it possible for this project to happen. But we felt like you continued to put us. Okay. I'm not going to speak for the whole board. But I think I was being put on the spot to say that I was really excited about 575 Dorset Street. And I couldn't wait for us to have another building for us to take care of. And therefore community, you should, you know, add to the, when you're voting, you should add to the pro side of your thought process that the school district really wants this to happen. We were trying to be as supportive as we could. So silence was better than what, at least what I was thinking, which was we did our best. We negotiated the terms of this agreement. I had a lot of pressure from parents and community members not to do any kind of agreement about Rick Markutt Central School. And a lot of the concern was that if we did the agreement, there would be a further ask. And so that was a very awkward meeting for all of us. We thought we had done our homework. We had done the legal work. We had to take action. And then we really felt like we were put on the spot in a very uncomfortable way. And so that's just a little bit of the background. And that's if we're going to really share perspective about how we're coming into these meetings, that's completely open and honest perspective about at least where I was coming from in that meeting. I felt like I'd spent an enormous amount of time. And then to be asked that question when the benefits were laid out in the legal agreement, we had talked about them. It was just very awkward for me. And I understand. I certainly didn't expect excitement. I simply saw the page two to three where it was all laid out. And there was a counselor who was expressing, you know, the question of whether or not, you know, this was something that reflected. And this is, you know, past many, you know, I would say kind of discussions that I had had with you and Elizabeth and with Helen where there was a need to work through some issues. And so I really was supporting Tom's request is just kind of, okay, let's just make sure. I just wanted to confirm. And that's the question of vetting that a working meeting, you know, is all about where we can say, you know, it is in the agreement. And I will honestly say that I am not jumping up and down and shouting hooray. But just like Elizabeth said very well, I see this, you know, as a step forward for the whole city of South Burlington. And that would have been sufficient. I think that... Yeah, this goes back to the issue of trust though, because in the past it feels like if I was very concerned that if I spoke freely in that way, that I would somehow be painted as not being supportive. And that's a very uncomfortable position to be in when I just spent months working on a legal document and working to try to make it happen. And so that was very uncomfortable. So that's just, again, that's opinion. That's just where I was in that meeting. Okay, I want to just... Just trying to get in. Wrap this up, because I'd like to not spend the whole hour about what isn't working. But I'd like us to get to, so these are the issues. What are we going to do about it? How can we improve? So Elizabeth? Yeah, I will briefly clarify and use that as a springboard for a suggestion. But in terms of that particular meeting, I do get a little concern that restraint is up there as a characterization of the school board's participation in that meeting when what you really were seeing was sort of a surprise that we had come to that meeting with the intent to really validate or ratify a definitive agreement. And when we realized, I had only realized a day or so before that the city still didn't have the cost nailed down. So I know I sent you a note, Helen, which I don't know if made it to the rest of the council. But I was surprised the meeting actually didn't get canceled and postponed until costs were firmed up. So, you know, the restraint component was really just the expectations around what we thought the purpose of the steering committee meeting was. And then what seemed to come across as, for instance, if specific counselors had questions, getting those ahead of time so we would have understood that there was a desire for some That's one of our issues. And I would offer that as the suggestion as sort of preparedness for meetings so we understand the purpose of being there. Because I would remind this group that we are not a, the steering committee itself is not a voting committee. We quite understand that. Except those were, we were meeting as two separate bodies in that particular meeting and that's why the school board was prepared to take action and we subsequently had warned it on a regular meeting agenda so that would be the formal action that we took on that that's ended up having to be postponed until the early September timeframe. But that would be my suggestion is really around expectations in the meeting and the preparation required whether it's in the form of questions or, you know, any other expectation that individual counselors or board members might have. Okay. I just want to put out there that each person is sharing their perspectives. And I can appreciate that you don't like the word restraint. But that is how another, someone on the council saw that just like I, I'm not sure, you know, I like to hear that you don't trust us but if that's how you feel I'm open to hearing that. We need to identify that as a bona fide concern and how do we get around that or address that. Because everything that we say as an individual in terms of our experience is important and valid. You may not like it. You may not agree. You don't have to agree with everything that everyone has said. But as long as we know that's what people are thinking about or feeling, let's see if we can develop, so go back to this list and come up with what are some actions or steps that could do any one of three things. Improve communication because we have a number of communication issues that have been identified. Improve cooperation and collaboration. That's been brought up and certainly has been identified as an important need now and certainly going forward when you have your vision for 21st education. We need to be, I think, part of that working with you to make that happen whatever the voters decide to do. And also how can we support each other. I think that's really important. I hear up there that you didn't feel quite as supported as you needed. I think there are council members who didn't feel that they were supported as much as they needed. And by support, it doesn't mean you agree. It means that you respond to an inquiry or that there's a give and take. And sort of acknowledge maybe the differences. So what are some ideas that you want to respond to? Do you want to go to the top and just quickly go through it again and ask questions? Of course, I have a couple other points actually and they kind of come with ideas. One thing that's very challenging for me as a board member is when the city goes out to the community and gets the community excited about something that requires cooperation from the school board or requires cooperation from the commission or that discussion even. So an example again is 180 Market Street where there were designs and there was an active visioning process with the community and those designs required school land to make them work. And that was before the ask was really made to us specifically. And then we're in a very awkward position as a board where the community is very excited about a project necessarily because we have master planning visioning going on at the elementary schools as well. Things are still in play with enrollment numbers and noise at Chamberlain. So that's one. And two, I think... Can I just truncate that just a bit and so what I'm hearing you say and then we'll get to your second is that you... I can summarize. Come to us earlier. Come to us earlier in the process. We're really teammates. If you have a problem and you need us... You don't need to explain it anymore. Come to us earlier and that probably works for both sides. So I think that's the key problem. It's a problem and a solution. Come to us earlier and let us help work. And the second one is... Okay, I'm just going to address the elephant. It's social media and talking to the community on social media about issues that need to work out as the two bodies I feel is inappropriate. I really do. Social media is not the place to work out issues that are as important as the ones that we're working on as two bodies. And it's why the board has a very clear communications policy about what we post and do not post on social media and I think as two bodies working together we need to be clear about what our expectations are around that. Okay. Social media. Alrighty. So I don't want to belabor this anymore. Is there that we got it all? We can always come back. I don't think this is just the only come to Jesus meeting where we're going to have. This is just the first one, the beginning of this conversation. So let's go on to thinking about what are some actions or steps that could help address the issues or the problems that have been identified. I think Elizabeth, you had one on the steering committee. I mean, I would say either it could be in two bullet points, either more frequent steering committees with a working agenda and adequate preparation or it might be a designation of subcommittees that report back to the council and the board in a uniform fashion. Okay. Good. How often do the two Kevin and David get together to discuss city school board? Every two weeks. Is it frequent at this point or scheduled? Mostly over the phone. Yeah. Does that need to be more structured? What would you say? You know, historically, Dave, we have had meetings that we started out twice a month where the four of us and Pat before Helen would get together and those were the meetings off of which I could go back and report to the board sort of a, you know, an early indicator of something the city is working on that might impact schools. The frequency with which those have occurred has gone down and just people's availability has changed. So those I would say it was except the magnitude of more recent issues, not only did those meetings stop but at the same time issues that impacted both the council and the board were ramping up. So it was the double effect of not having the benefit of the meeting and then not being able to translate that. So if a meeting said continue and even perhaps more regularly as things got more complicated we might not have gotten into the various quiet mires that we've been in because communication would have continued to be facilitated better. It's possible but I can also give you examples where I walked out of a meeting thinking one thing and reported back to the board and within two weeks the meeting had changed. So it's a mixed bag. So is there a way to address that that you can think of? My own feeling is I think based on people's availability that that particular leadership meeting may not be the right venue anymore but I do think really directing our city manager and superintendent our leadership teams to inform our mutual bodies kind of in a timely manner as to what's about might impact. I agree with that but if they don't get together and you and Helen aren't involved we're kind of making it more challenging to do that so I would suggest that we probably especially as things have gotten more complicated and the city center project is one of the more complicated issues I've seen in the past decade that maybe we just have the school board what the school had said earlier what happens with the schools and what happens with the city are so intertwined that they deserve to get the time that they need so everybody is on the same page at least 90% of the time going on the premise that you're never going to you're always going to forget something hopefully nothing serious but my suggestion would be that Kevin and David meet with you and Helen back to that structure and that you then bring back to your respective bodies and then if there's anything we need to pay attention to that right now then we bring more people in either the subcommittees or we have another meeting the steering committee but somehow it seems to me that earlier communication has diminished while the stuff on our plates has increased and that's counterproductive so I just in this process let's not eliminate anything I think the superintendent and city manager could probably come back to us and say more frequent meetings aren't going to work or this is how they could work and that's just might be part of the solution that we should keep up on the board we can ask them for a minute right now what they think we don't need to analyze it right now I'd like to go through the board and then we can go back and say what are the really highest priorities because some of them may come together so what are some other ways Alex I'm sorry I want to echo a couple things I heard one I am going to send emails to the school board before the steering board meetings with questions that I have and I'll do that in advance because I love getting questions in advance so that nobody feels blindsided as for subcommittees so is that a suggestion that the board members and or school board members send each other questions ahead of time don't need to answer them which means we need the agenda ahead of time and then simultaneously something else I would just love to put out there as we are talking about subcommittees and this is not a short term fix but I think there are too few counselors and school board directors if you look at Burlington they have 12 we could do better with more subcommittees lightning the load having better representation with our community members if we had 7 counselors and or whatever many as well as more directors too so I would just put that out there I think that would make sense to explore further other communities we've talked about that at the school board level a few different times and it's traded off against the challenge of finding people who are willing to do it so much work maybe maybe it would be better if it's not working so another solution might be to consider other ways to engage the public to assist in some of this work without being elected that makes it challenging but the city has lots of working committees and they come to us with lots of good ideas that we often act on that drives our policy or informs our policy and I don't know what the school board has and I shouldn't be doing this I'm sorry one thing we had raised I think in another meeting was whether we wanted to have a representative of each body at the other ones regular meetings it's hard time wise again with the 5 of each of us but it doesn't necessarily need to be the same person every time but you just catch things that are on the other's agenda better if you're actually in the room as opposed to just trying to watch it RETN or would that also include I'm thinking my role on the airport commission they have we have an agenda item every meeting for south burlington to make comments or share information tell them what we're doing or what we're concerned on is that that might be another suggestion that we do have a city school collaboration agenda on all of our item on all of our agendas so that might be something the council maybe someone on the council should be part of that conversation but like with if you had a standing agenda item on your agenda the other way would potentially be helpful too city school collaboration it's kind of a reminder it's not only a reminder but it holds our superintendent accountable to report out to the board on what's going on okay that's another suggestion what else can we work on not at this point I'm thinking about the social media usage because I think the others have gotten to what I would suggest I think that both among councilors and just in the public forum itself I have I guess encountered some just confusion that something that seemed to be decided policy it received over 72-74% of the vote is now being debated on councilors Facebook pages getting members of the public on board or on a public Facebook page and as someone who cares very deeply about the city I see that as dangerous and I use that word very thoughtfully and I'm also concerned that people use proxies if they don't feel comfortable going on a public Facebook page someone related to them and will go on that public Facebook page and say something that is false and that is not supportive in the vetting way but is sabotage and again I use that term with thoughtfulness can you be specific please yes I can I find that the Eau Claire purchase was decided in a very proper way very public way I felt comfortable about how it was done and a fellow counselor I felt and I'm going to be very honest in written word published a very libelous charge that we were helping out a private business after we have a public vote and it is something that the MOU supports and again we can discuss the MOU if there's some misunderstanding around it for again a counselor to write well we could throw all that away and just start from scratch which it's not helpful to the city it's dangerous we're looking towards the vote in November and a community member speaks up questions the numbers and how this is going to be paid for I meet with the community member the community member meets with our financial team here at the city and then goes on the public facebook page and states untruths about the finances for city center project and this community member is someone who's very close to a school board member I took great offense great offense at that especially after 2017 when I did as much as I could to support the schools I'm a parent I had two boys who were locked in those rooms I perfectly know what people were going through on the public facebook page the people were attacking the schools attacking the superintendent I got on there and I said hey guys they're doing their jobs this is a professional team this is a professional staff when people were going after students I wrote letters to the other paper I went to your meetings I spoke up about the professionalism of our teachers I have in every way possible someone by proxy close to the school board member really distribute untruths on a public facebook page it was it was a blow to the gut so how is the issue then or what is the solution to kind of freedom of speech and the facebook presence as a methodology of getting information to the public it's ubiquitous we certainly see the tweeting you just look at the national level and it's kind of like scary I'd like to speak here the unclear deal was really out of context but I'd be glad to clarify this we made a decision at 11.20pm there was no public here to distribute cash so I just want to address it directly so the public hadn't heard anything about this so I do use social media to communicate I have mentioned this many times I would welcome a council social media policy I love that the school board has it we have yet to adopt it I've raised that formally multiple times but absent that there is a lot of different applications of standard protocol I don't know what you're talking about with proxies but with the unclear deal with the current discussions I'd be happy to talk about the unclear deal if anybody would like to know my concerns partly why I put it on to social media is that's what I see my role is I'm representing your interests and I want to communicate that to you as best I can and there was no camera running that night it was just a decision being made and I disagreed with it I disagreed with it all along and I still disagree with it so I think I fairly use social media but I welcome adopting a policy there's disagreement and there's dangerous propagation of falsehoods and libelism I don't think this meeting is going to resolve that what's the school board's policy on social media we can provide that to you but we bottom line is we only put information we're having a meeting here's the time, here's the date here's the agenda and if you need further information we have a website we can point you to the correct documents and that way we can make sure that what is on the school district website is actual documented fact because I think so do you do that when you read in social media I'm just curious some erroneous things do you then go on and say if you want the facts we do not engage on social media that wouldn't be debating it would because certain people put things on social media as fact that are simply not fact and it starts a debate and so our choice is either to engage or to wait until we're in a public forum and engage in an appropriate channel that's a reminder that as elected officials we only act as the body not as individual members even when we publish information there there's often a clearing if it's an informational piece that one or two board members might author for instance that goes through the entire board for approval on that the debate component of it the policy clearly states we'd love to have a copy I don't know that that would work for us because we don't operate as a whole but we are individuals and we each have our own constituencies we could look at it we can certainly look at it and discuss it and decide if it were are there any other concepts that you think would or solutions to you want to scroll back and go over some of the before we go off of social media we could just make it a policy that with regard to city school issues we could post about them that we wait until we're in a working meeting together to talk about them that certainly is a suggestion it's up there good let's not debate it I think that's what we're here to talk about though this is important I am open to that I would just love to put that into a policy that we agree to because absent that we just have differing behaviors with them that's my role that's why it's up there Tom so we can discuss whether that I'm open to that but I would really want it to be formalized and upheld by all parties can we go back to the list of issues that were identified to see if there's some solutions that are on the tips of someone's tongue that's too fast the theme that comes out of that is communication from that perspective is ambushing over and over again the feeling I'm getting from the school board is that they feel like when they reach a certain point there's another request that's made it moves the goal post again they have to start all over again I totally get that that's a problem because if you really are working together there shouldn't be surprises like that so if the problem is ambushing what are some solutions I think we came up with some certainly come to us earlier so how do we come right how do we each come to each other earlier on issues without impugning your your your responsibilities as you see them you certainly don't want the city council to get involved in all of your issues nor do we want you to weigh in on all of our issues so there is that fine line it's kind of where it right no I mean enough going on on each side of the street here so how do we come to each get to each other earlier identify when we looked at that the screen above that the word that's most frequent in there is communication who was it that said what we have here is a failure to communicate I did cool and Luke that we're okay but that's why I go back to I'd like to hear from Kevin and David as to how they feel as the two full-time paid administrators of the city and the schools how they feel we might improve communication because it seems we come down with the term ambush or whatever it's a failure to communicate we need to communicate better so I'd like to start with the guys who are getting paid what do you think guys we talk a lot most time by phone a lot of times we meet and it's generally around something's come up to talk about neither one of us is reluctant to call the other and sometimes that's once a week sometimes it's three or four times a week sometimes it's not at all but we talk a lot there's no hesitation between the two of us to talk at all I think the key here are the leadership meetings to make sure and maybe we add another person to the leadership meetings but some way the word's not getting back to the board I mean the leadership meetings to me well and Elizabeth just said that has gone down in recent time it's on the agenda for Friday I don't have anything on my calendar for Friday every fourth Friday of course is what we said but not people can always meet that did we change it a little I don't have it on my calendar and Helen's not here so why but did we change the date I have no idea well it's every fourth Friday at 1130 normally and we may have changed the date but if people can't be there we'll find another date I think that's the very best way to have regular communication between the leadership of the two boards and then to have that provided then to the members of both boards I tend to agree with you when I think of that I think that's only 13 meetings a year with all the moving parts that we've got going on I just got a feeling that's not enough to then collect all that information discuss it and disseminate it so everybody understands everything that's going on all the time I think those meetings may need to be just adjusted, increased maybe include another person so that if Helen's out of town or Elizabeth's out of town or one of you guys is out of town we've got I have people that can certainly somehow, some way I see that as the starting point to improving the communication and probably more than 13 meetings a year given all the moving parts that we've got going on a continuing basis I mean it's pretty substantial these days and the population has grown and the schools need work it's never ending I just don't think you're going to accomplish that and keep the necessary lines of communication open in 13 meetings a year I think a starting point is somehow adjusting that and then it does come down to then the leaders sharing that information promptly with the members and say is there anything that pops out that we need to get together and discuss sooner rather than later I don't see it as terribly complicated communication is just something that too often gets put on the back burner in order to get along well and if the chairs can't make it can the vice chairs be the we don't have a vice chair we're not structured that way or someone so named certainly for the leadership certainly talk about a delegate however I would say it's not just about the frequency of meetings I think it's really an understanding of the context of what was discussed and the impact on both parties but I would add to that I think scope creep has been an issue too over with the most recent particular project and I think at some point when we get to the point of a definitive agreement there needs to be a pin stuck in things because that work a certain number of amount of time and resources are deployed against projects and the scope is defined up front or at least in the context of getting to a definitive agreement and it is not something that's an ongoing iterative process at that point so I'll leave it at that but understanding the scope of a project and agreeing that there's limitations we are sort of have done this for about an hour and I promise that I think that's probably a long enough time obviously we're not done I think there's a couple ways we can potentially move forward all of the items that Kevin typed up will be the minutes and can be sent out to everyone and there's a couple suggestions I have we can ask each of you to look through those suggestions and select the top three or four that you think let's start with these let's work on improving the steering committee if that's one that you feel is important whatever whatever your three are or four and then we can I don't care who it gets sent to it could be collated we can have a little committee that collates it we can ask Kevin to do it or I would be willing to do that so we send out this seems to be the consensus of the council and school board that these are the big issues or we could create a small committee to look at these and come up with that information or if someone else has another idea but I think I don't want this just be okay we came up with some communication and we came up with a bunch of suggestions and then that's done because it's not so how do you want to move on and then we can get to the next agenda item it makes sense from my perspective for council members and board members to kind of weigh in on the top priorities and we can take it from there and charge our leaders to kind of come back to the respective bodies that we would get back to the two of you as the school board and the city council then you get together with Kevin and David and put it together into something more specific and disseminate either way it can come from each of them and or we can get the right I mean I don't think it's you know intricate analysis I think it would be fairly easy to take three people's I mean three suggestions from ten people and get a sense of which they're the top ones and order them so is that something David and Kevin you guys can do together yeah you send them to us okay create a master list okay and then if people have other ideas I guess you could feel free to include them it's or we can discuss them at a later date so is that seem a reasonable and then at our next during committee meeting when we set that up we could continue to address this why would our next steering committee well we're going to identify that at the end of the meeting all right so let's move on to 180 market street agenda talks about an update and discussion of pending issues I saw that as the pending issue stormwater and trying to find a resolution but Elizabeth you have some challenges with that yeah I mean we we have we believe that the council sort of narrowly defining the problem as one of stormwater and we believe the scope of the ask is a renegotiation of the definitive agreement that was signed by in September by both parties and approved by the voters in November we also believe that any use of additional land on school property would ultimately require voter approval and would be a permanent loss to the school so that is what frames the what brings us to the table today we we know that the school boards been called out on the carpet by at least one council member that we would not be honoring MOU or the will of the voters and first off we've gone past the stage of MOU we have a definitive agreement in place which is a contract and we are specifically saying that we are honoring the contract that was voted on by the community in November Kevin has some thoughts on how we are honoring that so we've been talking to our engineers about our stormwater obligations for the easement I think it's important that we all recognize that there are fundamentally four components of stormwater challenges at the combined site both sites one is the city's building that stormwater will be taken care of by a new stormwater pond to be built behind the pier one the second is the stormwater obligations on the easement third is a stormwater issues related to the schools parking lot and the fourth is the stormwater issues related to the school building so at this point in time the council having talked to its engineers agrees that we will handle all of our stormwater treatment for the easement on our site so we are 100% compliant with the MOU there are no amendments needed to the MOU and we're ready to move forward with that that's consistent with the MOU for us to treat our stormwater it will end up costing the project the tax payers anywhere between 100 and $120,000 additional to do it underground but we can do that and be totally consistent with the MOU so we're ready to there's no need to renegotiate an MOU a contract the voters have voted on it from our perspective we're ready to move forward the city council or the school board has the authority under the MOU to design your parking lot approve the final design which includes your stormwater treatment and then it's the obligation of the city to build that for you we hope that that clears away any concern about compliance with the MOU and we would only ask where to go from here I don't believe that does clear up what we have I'm in the MOU the exhibit B has a clear map that shows school parking stormwater indicated the definitive agreement on the easement the definitive agreement has the exchange of rights and interest in land that includes but not limited to G enhancing treatment and management of stormwater associated with the parking areas on the municipal building and the Margot school parcels and the ballot language refers to the easement as providing access limited parking and stormwater treatment facilities for the new municipal building which I think you're probably referring to but in all of our prior conversations one of the specific benefits to the school district as we started having these conversations was that there would be stormwater treatment on the easement and that was highlighted in a number of communications notably in the in the vote that was taken on September 5th as well so I think there is some confusion the MOU says this contract contains the entire agreement between the parties and supersedes any and all prior agreements written in oral furthermore the actual article states first being a 0.7 acre easement over upon and through the southwestern corner of the property to provide access limited parking and stormwater treatment facilities for a new municipal building to be built by the city of south Burlington the MOU is clear on this matter the city is responsible for taking care of its stormwater on the easement it is not obligated under the MOU the clear reading of the MOU to design the stormwater treatment for the school district we are obligated under the MOU to pay for that construction and carry that construction out but in the MOU does not specifically it does in fact specifically state that the easement is to be used for the stormwater treatment for the municipal building I guess my fundamental question Helen is why are we here tonight with a agenda item that talks about stormwater mitigation well I guess we're at the point where we wanted to communicate clearly with you that we agreed with you Elizabeth stick to the MOU you said in here definitive agreement stick a pin in it we'll go back to that we're sticking a pin in it and saying we're ready to at the additional cost of the taxpayer project cost we're ready to move forward by placing our treatment in our storage on the easement so we'll clear that issue completely away and go and be consistent with it and I'm not in a position to specifically argue the legal ease but the board's understanding is that stormwater treatment for the schools parking at a minimum is covered in the easement that is not correct and that's a point of where in the agreement does it state that she just read it to you the benefits of the treatment and management of stormwater rather than read it you gave us a multi-page handout so can you direct us to where you will read page 3 page 3 because there's a couple pages 3s aren't there on the definitive agreement first page 3 let me get there third whereas clause speaks to the stormwater on the municipal property for the municipal building item 2 talks about the easement shall only be used for the utility easements water electric gas stormwater sewer access to the municipal building parcel no mention of the school I'm sorry where are you I'm under the MOU no page 4 H4 item 2 H5 still on item 2 city shall pay all costs and expenses for construction operation maintenance repair and replacement and further that's our obligation to pay for then more appropriate for tonight upon completion of final design plans for improvements to be located at the municipal building access easement and so on consent should not be unreasonably have held or delayed that's under item 3 on the MOU item item 4 B talks about us sharing the cost or paying the cost for these projects which again we agree to and before that the school district has the final say on the design we spent a lot of time David's team and our staff and the engineers talking about traffic flow which is appropriate particularly as it relates to buses and so and in redesigning and reconstructing said parking lots under D there shall be no net loss of parking spaces that exclusively served the Markbott Central School so that has been an ongoing goal as well but I think the voters voted on and overwhelmingly supported was article one the school districts article one what page is that? that's the last page in our packet school districts article one shall the school south burlington school board be authorized to convey to the city of south burlington three easements of the rick markott central school property the first being a 0.7 acre easement over and upon through the southwestern corner of the property to provide access limited parking and storm water treatment facilities for a municipal building to be built by the city of south burlington so that's what the MOU says I'm confused by your understanding of the MOU and I truly if you feel that I over stepped I truly felt I was speaking the MOU this is the this is the council's understanding of the MOU and it is not the school boards in terms of the conversations that have gone on for 18 months in terms of the benefits to the school and what I am triggering what's triggering it's strange to me because what's triggering the need for storm water is the fact that if you look at the maps in front of you the school has to redeploy to maintain the parking spaces it has to redeploy land up until up to the chain which becomes additional impervious surface for us granted it doesn't put us over the three acre mark with the potential new regs but you're already over three you're already over three acres but my point is we're creating more impervious surface that at a minimum was intended to be treated on the easement that was granted and that was clear from the conversations that started back in June and went through the before the MOU through the summer I would point out written by our two attorneys yours and ours the contract contains the entire agreement between parties and supersedes any and all prior agreements written or oral so if it's not in the MOU it doesn't exist and how would you address then Kevin G on page three what is the council's interpretation or your interpretation on that your page three I would answer it by the other references to include the to include the actual ballot that the voters voted on they voted on the school districts item specifically a higher authority than the board and the city council in this case that the water treatment facilities for a new municipal to be built by the city of south on the easement presented by the school that's the highest authority that we have here for the legislatures we found out that's the highest local authority and that's what the article said and that's pretty clear it doesn't say to provide stormwater treatment for the easement and for the school districts needs it says for the easement but we would be managing that stormwaters I understood the MOU to say we're going to be covering the cost and also it would be a city managed stormwater facility on the school property that's certainly would be managing stormwater on the school's property I think what Megan's referring to these facilities have to be periodically maintained mowing and sometimes other ways to clean them out which we're perfectly happy to do we're perfectly happy to do that we just leave it as an open question but that's part of the MOU so we seem to have a difference of an interpretation mhm this is a dispute process dispute resolution MOU is pretty clear and so is the vote but we want to be collaborative on this but we need to but as you said Elizabeth put a pin in it my pin in it referred to not it's any project and it's I'm struggling to understand why would the council have directed a stormwater engineer to even either direct or allow the that original approach that came at the February or the January 29th meeting that had the use of .4 acres that put the school board on notice that there was a request for additional land that was from the recall that the school board and the city council jointly pay for the engineers for the parking project part of the parking project is the stormwater treatment you can't have the parking lot without stormwater treatment therefore the engineers included that as part of the design but none of it was on the easement it was the most cost effective at that time we were we had obviously incorrectly advanced the notion that treatment from the easement could go on to the schools treatment area as a savings to the taxpayer school district express concern about that and staying with the MOU we sent our engineers back and said can our stormwater treatment which is a relatively small amount underneath the easement they said yes you can it will cost you more but you can do it so we're ready to do that we're ready to move forward consistent with the you and we're ready to work with you on whatever design you want for stormwater treatment for the school and for the parking well we do have a disagreement as to what the definitive agreement covers relative to stormwater treatment so I would suggest that the board will take it up at its next regularly scheduled meeting which David do we have that first we have some we have legal counsel so we will need input from that standpoint on the interpretation and from what I understand your legal counsel is fully aware of the MOU meaning and supports the board's interpretation of what we just shared that was not communicated to this board you should talk to him again and I know you will that being said after talking about collaboration and cooperation for the first hour here's an opportunity I think to honor what is stated in the MOU and work together on this because at the end of the day both city and school who both have impervious that are polluting four impaired waterways in south Burlington and ultimately the lake should be doing our very best to work together to clean those waterways up to do it under statute and under regulation it's the right thing to do for the environment and the city is offering to build this and pay for it so we're certainly ready to move forward under the MOU and we have I don't know what to tell you we have a difference of opinion that's been shared with our counsel within the agreement there is a process to come to resolution mediate that difference if that's what we need to do if I could interject I'm not clear on what the difference of opinion is the way I follow it the engineers initially thought that point four acres additional was going to be necessary to handle all the effect of storm water then in further examination they said no you could go underground correct me if I get this wrong Kevin because I'm hardly an engineer get this underground at a cost of another 100 to $120,000 and that would that would make that point four acres not necessary no it's still necessary for the school district not necessary for the city I should have said not necessary from a city perspective not well we need it for the building to be built parking well building can I ask about the parking how much parking is necessary because I think that is part of where the discussion went off the rails because the MOU and we keep using unclear language there was an MOU that was signed in June and then there was a definitive agreement that was signed in September the MOU had attached to it a map that clearly showed nine parking spaces for the municipal building and it showed a little section that is marked school parking storm water all of our discussions leading up to these agreements and you can if you want to fall back on well it didn't get captured and so too bad the discussion and the understanding from the board's perspective was this can't cost the district a lot of money this is not something we have budget for this cannot take away a lot of land because we have all these potential issues at all of our elementary schools and so let's work together we want to be supportive if we can find a way that it doesn't cost the district a lot of money we wanted to pay for some of the engineering in terms of how the buses were going to come in and what the new parking was going to look like because we wanted a binding say in how that worked out when we developed it but we very clearly saw maps that had nine parking spaces plus school storm water on that easement and Elizabeth was the parking person and kept asking the question this doesn't seem like enough parking where is the parking going to be for this building we were told multiple multiple times in multiple public meetings we're working it out there will be parking off site we will work with other people and city center to have parking the map that was handed to David at a meeting in july suddenly showed I counted 30 parking spaces and suddenly no room for school storm water now I understand that that map that was attached to the MOU did not get attached to the definitive agreement the one that was actually signed was just the clarification of where the easement lines were and it didn't go into the details of how the design was done but that's where we're coming from we were coming from multiple discussions over last summer where we were concerned about parking we were concerned about storm water and we were told it's going to be okay we can pipe storm water and that's where I take a little bit frustrated when I hear it's going to cost the taxpayer more because our understanding is that was always the intent was to pipe storm water from that easement somewhere else so to now come back and say it's costing the taxpayer more my understanding is that was the original plan and maybe things have happened as the design gets finalized for the building because those things do happen but to put that back on the school district and to come and say we now need something that's clearly outside of the MOU or the definitive agreement I'm not being clear now and it needs to be on the school's land is simply unfair and not how you work with a collaborator and I expressed that at our last during committee meeting to put the pressure on us and to go on social media and say that we were blocking the development of the library by being uncooperative so what we need to do is uphold our understanding of the definitive agreement it's just not how you build trust and how you move forward together so yeah I guess that was a lot of different things kind of all packaged together it was issues of understanding a different way the definitive agreement understanding a different way of how this project was going to play out and feeling really attacked publicly for doing what we thought was the responsible thing to do which was to uphold the agreement that we thought we had and protect Rick Marquardt Central School I'd like to respond first of all I think you're putting words in my mouth I'm assuming that I'm the one that was on social media I never said the words that you said but what I will say is I think this illustrates how the two boards operate very differently I wasn't aware of what had I hadn't seen what had been signed in June to the degree that you had we were still under I was under the understanding that this was still being worked through and when it was presented to us this is the final MOU I went through it with a fine tooth comb and I think that I understand what hard workers you all are to go through all of those steps that Elizabeth and Helen and the staff members are going through but I for one did not go through all that steps with Helen and the staff I waited for meetings where we were consulted and we were told about the progress but I waited until the definitive MOU came out and that's why when Tom said I have a question I was like well let's ask I'm happy for us to ask the school board about this it was a very different process on our end so the MOU that I agreed to I had read it because that's what I was told was the definitive this is the final unless something at the steering committee was going to happen right where we had to go and think again whereas what I understood is you did a lot of work up front as school board members that we didn't do as counselors we let that leadership committee really do that and especially with our legal counsel and therefore we didn't have to do all these reiterations all five of us we were shown here's what the leadership committee came up with here let's now read it and let's prepare for the steering committee meeting and it's not to detract from all the work that you have done it's to say that if we look at ways to ensure that the process runs more smoothly perhaps we can learn things from one another perhaps the council can learn from the school board about social media but I would hold up to you that perhaps the process that the council was in fact more effective I'll just hold that up to you you can disagree with me and please feel free to but I think that delegating authority is something that helps a process go smoothly when it becomes time for us to decide then I jump in as my role and get my little my little bankers cap on and turn the light on with my glasses and really read that what's on the page now that they're asking us to agree to and I think I just I hear that I never saw that document in June I never saw Elizabeth's notes from March because we weren't involved in that step-by-step process we really let that leadership committee do that work and really do that vetting before something came back to the full buy if I could clarify on September 5th among other reciprocal benefits that you voted on you voted to enhance stormwater treatment for both the school and municipal building as summarized in the meeting minutes yes I think we are and we're going to be taking care of it Kevin can you respond to what Bridget said a few minutes ago because I'd like to hear so the agreement between the school board and the city and the MOU is 131 parking spaces the idea was no net loss of parking for the school we could calculate early on what our stormwater impacts were going to be because virtually our entire 0.7 acre is pavement virtually all impervious it's impossible to calculate what the stormwater treatment and storage would need to be for the schools parking lot because it has to be designed we had no idea how many square feet of impervious was going to be until the design was reasonably competed for your last meeting that's when it appeared in your meeting from the engineers you cannot calculate stormwater treatment until you know the square footage of the impervious surface that became known in whenever the last meeting was going to be but the 131 spaces are included in the design and that's how many parking spaces that the school district has and now we know because of the impervious surface how much stormwater treatment and storage is needed so what's the difference between what Bridget said and what yours say I think all I think is Bridget and Elizabeth were really focusing on this June agreement that we didn't see and I think what Kevin is saying is that it was still being designed by engineers so that what had been drawn on the page in June was in no way going to be what we were going to see coming out of the final design and that's why I mean anybody who's involved in any kind of building project knows that you go through all of these iterative processes and it's something it's not just a concept anymore Alex this building has truly become a definitive design now the concept was back last spring over a year ago so these things go through a process and I think that it's hard sometimes for people just to follow that process which is why as an individual I choose to I'm going to just kind of grab the essential and then when we're getting down to the hard brass tacks now I want to see what's going on by this language and I truly do believe that point 7 acre was for the new municipal building which is stated more than once in this document it's stated clearly more than once and it's stated clearly that the city will pay for the school stormwater it says that we will manage it meaning that we will service it as needed so this is what we're doing on the school board this is state law that is requiring this throughout the state impervious surfaces of 3 acres and more they're identifying this so this is not something that came out of this project even it's something that you have to do regardless so the question I would ask is if you have to do this regardless why not work with us and I know you laughed at the word collaborate but let us work together it is more palatable to you and to the school members of central school I think that would be in everybody's interest I think sitting here you know with the trench between us we're not getting very far and I think we really have to see if there is a way and I will say to honor this MOU and to make it palatable to you do you agree Megan that the proposed solution of four tenths of an acre would ultimately result in the need for voter approval and the city's acquisition of that piece of property from central school I do not because it's state law requiring it of you you have to do it regardless of our building not whether it gets done it would be where ownership of the land ultimately would reside no we are in charge of many stormwater ponds and wetlands throughout the city that we do not own we simply manage them and make sure that they operate correctly so it would not be a requirement of the city to eventually own property in the event that the school district made a decision to sell the rickmark property it would become a negotiation with a new owner of the property that's right in all kinds of it's not our understanding I think the goalposts moved again honestly between our last the last ask we had and this meeting which is because now Kevin's saying that you don't need any of the four tenths of an acre the ask we had last time was not we're going to build this four tenths of an acre for you it was we need some of it for city stormwater at least temporarily and so our understanding legally is that if the city has to have use for that in order for the building to go forward it does then create something where the voters either have to vote now or if that land is ever transferred then they have to vote at that time and so we don't need to do that now because we're going to comply with the MOU and we're fine we don't need to own it as Megan and Helen said we manage properties stormwater properties all over the city so all that is consistent with the MOU so let me ask a clarifying question that four tenths of an acre it does not necessarily need to be four tenths of an acre and there are other ways potentially of managing stormwater that would reflect just the district's needs and so the four tenths of an acre was the last ask which is why we keep talking about it I think that's off the table now so we don't need that and if that's not part of the discussion and you and you say there are multiple ways to take care of your stormwater then I'm lost on where the problem is other than perhaps some hurt feelings which to my mind in moving this project forward have no place at this point in time there's not hurt feelings there's really an understanding of what was intended by the stormwater language that's in the definitive agreement from the school's perspective if we don't need the four tenths of an acre we can manage the stormwater and you're going to take care of your own stormwater the school the expectations we're going to pay for the construction of that is that correct Kevin yes I don't understand where the problem is I'm sorry I'm being sick on this the expectation that the district has through the definitive agreement is that at a minimum the impervious surface that was triggered by the city center project requesting the easement was that stormwater from the municipal from the school would be treated on the easement as well that would be impossible for us to commit to Elizabeth because there would be no way for us to calculate your interpretation of this would be impossible for us to do because there's no way that we could calculate what the stormwater treatment would need to be on a parking lot yet to be designed but the MOU shows that and I understand what you're saying Kevin I'm just saying the expectation that the working subcommittee of the school board had in that parking school what was the language for the school parking stormwater was that that would be included in the easement and we believe the language is also in the definitive agreement that would address that if we were to do that going back to this .4 acre thing that would have taken up three-fifths of the easement it couldn't possibly do that we couldn't possibly have committed to that then I'm not sure why it would have been drawn on the MOU agreement because that was a clear advantage to the district I hear what you're saying the MOU agreement that nobody on the council except for Helen maybe has seen so let's just be clear from June she's talking about the June agreement I think the control of the issue here is what the voters voted on I think the valid item is quite clear if this parking lot is expanded on the Rick Markott taking those trees down that would still need to be mitigated is that correct or incorrect if this parking lot is expanded on the Rick Markott property as per the MOU that needs to be mitigated so that is still on the school board to continue going forward along with the stormwater off the other impervious services on the property the building basketball court or whatever because we are at something like 3.1 acres of impervious surface before we start doing anything to accommodate the city's project within four years we would need to have some stormwater mitigation plan in place for the whole property so what's the I don't understand what the problem with that is if you've got four years to figure it out is that something that's engineerable well the square footage goes down dramatically with the parking lot being mitigated okay if that's the direction we go so if stormwater for the parking lot is accommodated and this is the city parking lot ours is all set we're going to do it underground and our building is all set it's going someplace else the new facility there's parking for the new facility and there's the 131 spaces for the school district so the new parking on the rick markup property not the point 7 acres are we counting on any of that parking for the new city hall not at all 131 are committed to the school which was determined to be their need that's what we started we didn't come up with a number about improving or expanding the school parking lot because you're taking up this amount of turnaround space and parking spaces that we have down here right now so the point was we need those spaces you've been there you know how much parking is tight there to begin with the whole agreement started on the premise that we would not lose parking spaces at rick markup so in order to give this point 7 acre easement we had to sort of move everything up and over a little bit and that's triggering the additional stormwater need and that's why it was our understanding that because this was as a result of this project that that stormwater would be mitigated on the easement that there was not going to be a requirement for additional land to be used by the school district if you look at the maps you have in front of you I mean so the yellow really represents what the easement was that's what was voted on that was what was agreed the red is this 4 tenths of an acre that showed up on a map in January and then this blue is you know additional school land that we sort of lost the use of for anything other than parking because we were because we granted the easement so it's this it's this blue section that our understanding was supposed to be originally this had nine little parking spaces and it was designed differently and there was a little area here called school stormwater school parking stormwater specifically on that map but that is not the agreement that these two boards signed and we have to state that again in September we did not sign the June agreement we did not the land has value and if you all have to use 0.4 acres to make the solution move forward the school district would be paying as well for this project to move forward and this is an unexpected cost that you hadn't been aware of when we went into this arrangement what's the unexpected cost of the solution land required the 0.4 acres but my understanding is that this has been since 2017 this is Act 64 this is the protecting the lake legislation that the governor signed in 2017 they're just coming up with the rules right now so this is not new this is not new and so I and we have a legislator on the school board to understand how this was a surprise 0.4 was new because that was an attempt to meet that Act 74 as well as the other the new parking area that was 64 excuse me but they chose not to accept that so we have come up with another plan this one is off the table they may find in the future to deal with the straight pipe that's going from their school underneath market street and into the wetlands when that gets cut off that they need to do something about that that's water coming from their roof and their existing parking lots and probably other businesses in the area will be true of all our facilities around the city the five facilities all the options moving forward can the city go forward with the 0.7 acre plan and then the school district just not address not expand their parking lot will you all be able to make do with just those parking spots well our understanding is that again two things one is that this this contribution to the project is what is triggering a stormwater in which again we can I understand what you're saying understand what you're saying Kevin we have a different understanding of the definitive agreement and the intent of it and the other question is really the the implications of any kind of a licensure might start as a licensure agreement for any incremental land used for stormwater treatment by both entities and ultimate ownership of that and basically what would be required to go to the voters but I don't think we need the incremental we don't need that Elizabeth I know you're saying that right now but it doesn't address the triggering event with additional impervious surface here what to I believe and correct me if I'm wrong Kevin that all you need to do you don't even need to build it for us to move forward it's simply getting a permit that you're going to build a stormwater mitigation facility is that you need to build it as component of the of the overall project to get the permits for the project we need to build the stormwater treatment so it has to be built before we get permits to build our well yeah I think we have to go to the stormwater division of A&R and get permits from them based upon the plan that's going to take us about 90 day well it'll take us 90 days at least that's the pretty much the standard for A&R stormwater review let me ask a question because I'm listening to this back and forth and I get the impression that there could be winners and losers and a good agreement doesn't have winners and losers is that all winners and so that's how we've got to come down to this so let me ask the community has to win the stakeholders have to win the kids have to win everybody's got to win or it's a lousy deal and I'm trying to get it through my head what would make this a lousy deal so Kevin let me just ask you if if we abide by the MOU we're going to build our new building and we're going to mitigate our stormwater and then ultimately the school district has to take care of some additional stormwater requirements and what's the cost to them going to be or David well the design splitting the design we're paying for the construction so the cost isn't going to be terribly significant over I don't know what we've got into it so far but we jointly hired an engineering firm to do the engineering ventures but then we take up the construction and this city pays for that portion so I mean how much typically does the design of something like that cost $10,000 $20,000 $80,000 including parking the whole project parking stormwater about $80,000 for the city and the school parking lots this would be the shared for the school only okay but then our stormwater would be a different on the everything on the school and the easement area so what yours not the city stormwater so am I hearing that once we move forward with our project the idea could cost the city and the school district each $40,000 more to design and more land so where's the extra cost there is none the land we're not going to own but it consumes the land taking away from other utility what's the land being used for it's not at the moment I stood there for an hour and a half with a class the other day that's absolutely correct every almost every child in the fourth grade plays soccer exactly where that stormwater would go right now every day I know for a fact I have a fourth grader and they are out there constantly and those play fields are used off school hours by other community groups no I understand that my understanding was that .4 acres starts immediately self of that last soccer goal the soccer goal is on this map in front of you you can see it's right at the fence line this is the this is the proposal that the city so helpfully provided to us in January when it came to us to propose the four tents of an acre you brought us a map redesigning the playground and the soccer fields and the ones that are on the picture which is sort of in the background of this overlay are where the play fields are now right now there's a baseball field that starts in the little diagonal corner over here and there are soccer fields and the other issue that we run into is it's not necessarily just play fields for the long term one of the big concerns for the school district is that if something were to happen at Chamberlain with regard to noise when the F-35 gets here there is the potential that we could have to have a very quick turnaround on developing some kind of project to completely redo the HVAC in that building or we could potentially have to move if we find out that noise really is going to be a more significant issue than we were led to believe we basically have two properties to do that on we have central school and we have orchard school we would not be able to have those kids on site for months and so this is it and once this is gone, once this is used up for other purposes there's no going back so we're trying to be protective of the assets that we're using to educate the kids in this community so we're just trying to be very cautious so the concern isn't cost it's actual location of that four tents location and it's it is cost because the other thing is this is one of the district's assets it's our job as school board members to protect the assets of the district to just sort of you know it's been a little bit frustrating to process to hear oh it's just an acre you know that's what we heard a couple of times in meetings as we were developing this in the first place well the school district doesn't have a whole lot of acres and we have a growing student population now so that's that's the concern so the location of it and the amount of it that is valuable property that can't be used for something else once we built it's an asset I get that it's an improved asset if you think about your stewardship on the land and right now you're straight piping stormwater runoff into an impaired brook into an impaired lake so if you it seems as if there's a certain amount of responsibility for our environment and when you know that this is happening to find a way to deal with that if it impacts a part of a playground or a playing field that's potentially is the reality and it's unfortunate I mean the kids miss the trees but we didn't own the property you didn't own the property the owner the way to mitigate it might have been to use the original 0.7 acres so they just now they're concerned they're giving up another 0.4 acres and that's 10% but we already know the 0.7 acres wouldn't have been enough we didn't know at the time because the designs weren't done we still don't know what the requirement will be for the new parking lot because that isn't fully designed so let me ask this question because there's not an engineer sitting here so the owner that knows a fair amount about that stuff is unfortunately you Kevin or fortunately you and is there a way to resolve their stormwater needs without that without that 0.4 acres going forward over the next several years in other words could what's happening by Pier 1 be slightly bigger and that would ultimately be their needs and we pay for additional construction there rather than pay for construction on 4.10 acre or what? We can't get into Pier 1 that's exclusively for the South Burlington Realty what's flowing onto the South Burlington land and they're constructing that so what are their other options? Moving the location to another place on the property potentially recognizing that the water does flow that kind of in a south easterly direction also the option to say this is just demanding too much parking and storm mitigation to move forward and we don't support the MOU or at least pursue a dispute we're talking about trying to collaborate and work together but I don't think that addresses that I think the reality is the voters have voted on this as you know I'm just looking for other options to resolve what I understand now I mean I didn't understand that concern until you just explained it could potentially be moved someplace else on the site what's immediately south when I was out there the other day immediately south of the red line but a bunch of scrub where there used to be trees it's all Snyder-Braveman property and they're building on it and where is their storm water going to go from that from that it's going into the same pond that ours is going into behind pier 1 and behind healthy living that's not enough to absorb the schools needs as well okay where is the problem where the pipe is today it can't be relocated easily pipe today goes into the brook where is the pipe today on the map but it goes under market street we build market street we got to do something with that pipe and then you're going to have backup and flooding if yesterday there was flooding at the entrance to the school after the big rain but that's happened several times now that's not a flooding so immediately there's no immediately identifiable alternative for the schools other than that four tenths of an acre to within a specified period of time which I've heard to be four years to resolve their storm water issue that's immediately available I mean could they do something underground could something be done underground let me correct something there three acre requirement is coming along the rules are almost written but the more current issue is when you disturb 5,000 square feet or more of space as this does you're compelled to do the storm water so the three acre thing is coming along for everybody who has three acres or more regardless of whether or not they have a project here we have a project increasing in perfect service by more than 5,000 square feet you have to do the storm water the three acre thing is irrelevant to this I understand that when you handle the storm water the only evident solution is that extra piece of an acre or is there something else you guys got an engineering report can parking on the easement be modified to accommodate the incremental impervious surface at the school I mean not have any parking for us on the easement and just use it all for again the original had a very limited amount and all of our documents refer to a limited amount on the easement and what's in by our I've never seen those documents so let's just be clear that you saw those I haven't seen those documents we have an obligation under the permits to have X number of parking spaces per thousand square feet and I think in the end that's up where around totally it's around 80 spaces plus or minus we get some credit for bicycle parking somewhere between 60 and 80 spaces we have to have to meet the code so again not I mean I know we don't belabor this MOU drawing but why would that have only had nine spaces identified on seven tenths of an acre well I think we always knew we would have to do some offsite parking that's my understanding from the very beginning we had talked about and we couldn't definitively describe that because we didn't have an agreement we were working on the agreement we now have an agreement with the poon properties I don't know what the family trust poon family trust so we have that a possibility to reduce the on the easement parking because that agreement is in place but I think I'm hearing that that I don't know and I don't and I don't and it may very well be you know it seems to me maybe it would be helpful to have you go over this with your lawyer in the context of this I guess it's a new proposal that takes the point four acres off the discussion well no I think I don't know if it's point four point three whatever that is it's whatever is required to treat and store stormwater for the school parking building ours is out of that now so it's not so our need for that our need is gone but I mean that in essence is the new proposal you're saying now is the new proposals the old proposal which is right is the MOU well again not our understanding but the new proposal but understand is the four maybe you need to meet with your lawyer to get his take on our read on that and what the the real MOU is or says or requires within that is a process if we disagree we can discuss that through mediation I mean we can go around and around this table and so you hold your feelings and we have our perspective and we're not going to meet until or find a conclusion a solution that is acceptable to everyone until we do a little bit more and it may require that you go back to your the engineers and say alright so what's another option can you put it underground can you do can you use 0.2 acres and where on the property would that be the least so you know Helen we weren't asking the engineers to find a solution to central stormwater issue we were validating the current acreage yes I understand just to be clear on that so that's sort of another stage of work we didn't anticipate at this stage of the game but I also want to say this goes to one of our collaboration issues I am surprised yet again tonight this is the first I've heard of the pipe stormwater that we have right now being shut off soon I mean that's the first that I've heard of it that would be a discussion if you're trying to collaborate with someone that should have come up before a vote or before the agreement was even signed these are things that are new to us and I'm well I think in fairness when we were discussing the MOU and the agreement my belief and I think I stated it one of the things that I thought was one of the most important parts of this whole collaboration is the fact that we were going to find a way to take care of the stormwater from the school that have been running into Potash Brook for as long as the school was built so what 19 I don't know when it was built so to me that was an enormous win for the environment and for this piece of property now we learned once we had the structure designed exactly what it would require for stormwater mitigation and we've been trying to work through that to figure out how to address that and where to build that to assist with and maybe you don't like to be assisted and maybe that's the wrong word it is offensive but to help find the solution to this pollution because it's a city responsibility and you're part of the city so I gotta ask the question if we weren't building a new community center and the schools got a pipe that runs into Potash Brook and the water's coming off all the impervious surfaces including the roof you were still going to have to at some point find a solution and build if we weren't doing anything you were still going to have to pay for that and figure it out but if we weren't doing anything then the schools might have to figure out how to pay for it rather than the city and now we're going to pay for it it would be accurate that we would ultimately have to pay for all of that yeah the taxpayers ultimately pay for all of it it's just with pocket it's coming out on all our properties so the way I see it is honestly that the MOU is what the MOU is and what's been approved and you're actually better off because you were going to have to solve that problem anyway and now the city is going to pay for the construction of it how's that a bad deal well we understood I think that's pretty darn good well we understood that well we understood that it was going to be on the easement at least the parking lots and we were going to and we've talked about in fact the fact that we were going to have to treat storm water that's been in front of us for the last two years and we've understood that and we were going to deal with central school as well as the other four properties but our understanding in this short term was that the parking lot storm water was going to be treated on the easement so there's a misunderstanding about that we do need to go back and look at the MOU with our attorney and circle back around but that's where we were with that but I see the solution is going to be basically the same solution and the money is indeed the taxpayer's money whichever pocket it's coming out of well I think they need to circle back and talk that over yeah I don't disagree at all share these I could recommend the council really dig into the land ownership issue associated with the proposal that came to us in February you don't need any land Elizabeth we have nothing to consider not right now but I'm just saying that that you're saying that that would not have required ultimately going to the voters and we believe it would have we ask a hypothetical question when it's no longer of pertinence because David is just suggesting that why wouldn't we do this deal well he's talking about the MOU deal I'm talking about the MOU deal and whatever's going to be necessary to treat the storm water from the school system because it's a package and if we can figure that out and honestly in my mind I'm paying my taxes I don't really care who pays for it it's the same money to me the taxpayer it's the same money and I don't care you know really whose pocket it's coming out of that ultimately that school water has to be taken care of the bills got to be paid so we figure it out we ask the engineers to do the best job they can impacting as little of the schools they can because ultimately that was going to have to be done anyway and let's go forward with the darn thing and I'm saying this partly in frustration because for 40 years we've been talking about a city center and if we don't get this community center in the ground this summer quite honestly the costs are going to go up inevitably by a couple million dollars next year we might screw the whole deal up and that's that I honestly don't want to see that happen and so I think we need to meet as often as possible and as diligently as possible to get this resolved in the next couple of weeks or we're facing a delay that may dump the whole deal that's how I see it am I closer or not well can I clarify based on based on what Kevin is saying with what we heard tonight there's nothing standing in the way of this project moving forward just your signatures yes your signatures on the permit the design of the parking lot which means it's the point four acres right now not right now not necessarily Tom no what it requires is the school to come up with a plan that they are satisfied with that takes care of their storm water and to continue to say four acres is misleading it takes money or land to solve it and we've offered the money and they have the land and it's a question of where do you put it on your property and how do you do that I don't know how creative they can be I would suggest I mean we have the engineers work for both the city and the school on this project I'm assuming you'd go to them where's all this storm water going from Barnes and Noble and Delta and Anchorage and Judges property and Blue Mall it's going into the wetlands it's a design for city center it's gone for the last 50 years it's just flowed south so what's the new design for that with city center it's going to continue to do the same thing well we can't make them do anything different with storm water until they opt to do a construction that was the problem with K Martin it's a lot of efforts off Shelburne road that was a mess they are polluting big time now that they're rebuilding they have to deal with it but I don't know the laws were such that you can't go back and say oh we came up with some new laws and now you need to comply until the three acre well until the three acres that changed that but for the longest time was the state statute if you were sort of grand and lucky you but poor us because time frame is into compliance it's not to begin the process it's compliance at x point so you have to have a plan and just to be clear for the community that might be watching and who's behind me very awkward but one of the things that we've cited with this four year window is that we will be among many school districts that and potentially other municipalities that will be faced with these regs and there's been no discussion of funding or any kind of time frame in light of other projects that might be going on in we're fortunate we're not entirely dealing with crumbling infrastructure which is a phrase you hear often but we you know we have a pretty robust master planning and visioning project going on right now that much of the community is aware of and this has to get embedded into all of them so whether there might be some options based on those recommendations or some funding that might be made available in concert with the state we don't know that right now I think Tom DiPietro typically if there is funding it's usually at 50% but there's always you know several million dollars or whatever that the legislature identifies and you have to apply to it it's for everyone but this is one of those impaired waterways that has been identified by the state is really important so it may pop into the top for some funding and wouldn't that be great David? Young? I can check with Tom I don't know but the Chamberlain school storm water issues may have been addressed by the storm water treatment facility that we built behind Kmartre I mean Orcher Orcher? No Chamberlain Chamberlain behind Price Chopper so there's a big treatment facility behind Price Chopper that pretty much captures the storm water from that quadrant that the voters passed in 2000 why can't we use that one? 16 we can't get there from where we are and it's... get there from here Tim you can put a point anywhere and can I clarify? I'll check into that can I give him an option everyone else is shattered on the storm? three things three great things going on so we collaborate in the recreation facilities and I think that's really critically important from my perspective we have a lot of great things going on two, on the Rick Markoff property about ten years ago we put an expansion parking lot some of you know it was even smaller than what we have today we mitigated storm water under those rules so I don't want people to think that we have not complied with storm water or we haven't been somewhat familiar with when we added that again we and I say we myself and my staff included are not storm water experts three, when the project was laid out again I'm going to put it on myself and not effectively communicating to the board any sort of indication of additional property that was needed so if you're a homeowner and you wanted to build the project all of a sudden in the final hour what was getting on I did not provide that clearly to the board and I think if you're a homeowner and you had something pop up like that obviously you would say effective space so that really is the crux of it that when some of that space became identified I had not communicated that before and again I recognize that based on the construction size of the site I probably though should have at least figured out that some storm water I should have asked that question I should have asked that question we did not and so the board of course never was that really part of the conversation and so I put it back to communication that in the future as we go forward with likely new spaces we've got to ask all kinds of questions around what's best for students safety and transportation we've got to also ask hey what about our environment and again I think there was a misstep here and I take some of that responsibility that we didn't ask about yeah what about storm water where are we going to put it I kind of felt like it was going to flow somewhere but it wasn't so smart of me so again I think those are three points that I offer a lot of great things going on we have paid attention to storm water and some of this is just about communicating and really being upfront about spaces that we need again we're on 11 acres of land we have 400 plus 50, 5 staff there there's a lot going on there and so we really do need to be sensitive to space but at the same time we also want to be sensitive to all of the good things that are going to happen and are currently happening in our city thank you dude and I do want to say I appreciate and then I want to see if we can wrap this up I just want to clarify because it does sound like new information the pipe issue that Bridget brought up can we clarify exactly what is happening with there's a discussion about a pipe that's going is it going directly into potash we'll get information for you on that Elizabeth and the question is also when it will be closed because implied tonight is that as market street is redeveloped that that's going to be closed very soon our understanding was that we were working within that four-year time frame to have some kind of mitigation for that school property if you're saying that it's going to be closed market street is reopened that is a completely different time frame and a completely different situation that we find ourselves in I was curious if I had two questions that I just want to put out there I don't know if there's going to be an answer to them tonight but one can stormwater ponds or in this case it would be a gravel wetland can it be moved at a certain point in time once you build it right okay okay and the second question for the school board is has it ever been seriously discussed or studied whether or not a second floor can be put on central on rick marcot central school we never we never studied it that way and at the elementary level it's not something that's highly it's not a suggested architecture you get students young students traveling stairs elevators handicap accessibility we have not looked into it for rick marcot we're obviously involved in that currently with master planning visioning at the high school middle school and again it was nice to see a lot of you folks there the other night it's good to look at all the possible options and I just want to say that that's why I have put out there on social media very sensitive tonight to think about when those things are out there and I'd love to adopt that policy but there are other options that I have put out there and I still support which would be to scale back to not require as much parking and also give us another option so not trying to sabotage this thing it's just an opinion that I have that I think we're trying to put too much on too small of a lot and I think another option that if the school board still doesn't come to a happy place so with the stormwater mitigation that I would love for this entire board collective two boards to consider which would be to just put a library on that property with an underground parking garage and not require all this space I knew you were going to say that at some point one more thing and I would like us to find a date for another meeting and then if we still have the energy of the public would like to make some comments I'd like to hear them I think in the interest of collaboration and everybody winning and understanding that good things usually take some compromise Elizabeth you made the statement a few minutes ago that we really have nothing else to do because the MOU is what it is and we can move forward with the city with the community center project but we do need signatures and and speaking from a personal level I want to see this project move forward this this year before we before we lose the opportunity through cost escalation and understanding that ultimately within several years the school is going to have to address its storm water needs and that engineers are pretty smart and that may not at all be that four acres point four acres and maybe another way to do it or half and half or something and that the city is going to pay for that in any case I would encourage the school board to meet at your next meeting and talk about with your engineers and maybe in between meet with your engineers and get some preliminary thoughts on what options are but the bottom line is I'm asking that within a few weeks we get this figured out and we all sign what has to be signed and we get this project moving that's what I would hope and that was my that was the last statement I wanted to make and I think as I've listened I think it's a pretty good package it's a darn good package and reasonable compromise and okay thank you so what is a good date for another meeting hey administrators are you talking about a date for another meeting we're just throwing that out is that an option it works I'm not here that day can we have a storm water engineer come to that meeting Kevin and David can we have a storm water engineer come to that meeting well I'm hoping we can move this along a little bit in advance of the next meeting that's a month better than a month away right so at our next meeting oh I hear what Kevin's saying you want it resolved well it's kind of like the clock's ticking here and as David said costs are going up if does it need a steering committee meeting to resolve it the issue is for the school building potentially not I just would like one of the comments was we need to meet more often there's other things going on as well I suggest a small subcommittee meet with Kevin and David and the appropriate engineers in the next week or so to get some ideas as to how this might get resolved because I'm 100% with Kevin we can't afford to let days and days go by we've got to get some work done well I see it as something that the school board needs to take the leadership on because it's your storm water I mean again I want to be sensitive I don't want to come barging in and there again there's a city saying what we should do I want to find out give you the opportunity to figure out what you think you should do and what's feasible but if you want a subcommittee to help with that I think that's doable or you toss it to the experts or administrators to work together and come back to you with here are three options I was part of the working committee so I have availability anytime before May 9 we need to talk to the lawyer first okay I think how we need the board we don't have all five here tonight we need to meet talk and communicate back okay do we still want to come up with another steering committee not knowing at this moment in time what the agenda might be and continuing with parsing out how best to communicate and collaborate better I would secure a date because it takes a while okay do we have hearings scheduled at night tight tight tight until six o'clock I won't be back in town until six o'clock at the earliest make it convenient before school board meeting coming up that's our executive session it's just hard for the folks who work to get there much before our executive session on those names first and 15th school board meeting of May I might suggest that the week of the 20th we find the time there okay it started an hour earlier on our board meeting days we can flush it out the 8th it's a Wednesday it's an off well can we notice your new commissioner or board member isn't here so he ought to weigh in too but that looks tentatively as a possibility May 8th May 8th is 6 a good time is 6 30 is 6 30 better for people 6 30 to 8 30 make it a two hour whatever okay and that's to continue this discussion but hopefully with some input prior to that so maybe we can make some final decisions at that meeting okay great so I would certainly appreciate if there's comments from the public that really focus on you know not weighing in I think on whether we should have storm water mitigation done anywhere but rather do you have any concrete or thoughtful ideas about how we might be able to better collaborate and communicate when you really think about some of the ways that we could improve that I think that would be really helpful yes I will have them so you want to come up we'll go 1 2 3 oh did you have anything oh I'm sorry it's free and maybe we can add it Kevin maybe add some of the the public input to ways we could improve how we work together in their eyes might be worth considering I'm Jennifer Cokman and I live on Hadley Road I was interested in Elizabeth's comment long time ago when we were going through the list that you seem to come out with things with different understandings of what has been said and I thought you could add to your list of things of how to process better by saying what we're going to do at the end of a meeting is say explicitly 1 2 3 4 what has come out of the meeting where have you actually agreed and then you would have it in a list in writing and I feel this kind of sort of like minutes in a way but I think that it just seems as if that is necessary to state again other than minutes that you say 1 2 3 this is what we agreed on or here's our understanding of and I very much want to see city center go through I have my heart in that for a lot of reasons thank you Monica I would echo what Jennifer said and it occurred to me earlier and the agendas are very sparse in general you could benefit each of you by putting a lot more into it perhaps even some questions and I know that takes advance planning the minutes are also these meetings are very difficult to create minutes for but adding to that the net take ways and the net disagreements and then putting them in a place where the public can find them because this information is not easily found you guys have two different sets of minutes from the August 15th meeting you know there should be a way for the public and it would also then help in social media when people are asking questions to be able to refer to documents that are easily found so they're not easily found right now and the second on the actual issue just if it sounds like there's a new alternative for the city to send their wetlands under or whatever thank you stormwater under a pipe that would immediately decrease the amount of wetlands that was needed and perhaps the engineers can find a smaller space in the point seven to accommodate only the school and let the cities go elsewhere you know would take less space there no cities has to has to be treated on I thought it was going through a pipe treated underground on site on the easement this first of all I wanted to thank everybody for all their input and this is really just sort of coming out of what I heard and I didn't hear clarity or an action plan on the sort of the perception on the part of the school board that perhaps the city would need to buy any land that was necessary for the schools stormwater treatment and the statement on the other side that we wouldn't and so it just seems like there ought to be a plan to clarify if as I heard under the current law there's not a requirement for the city to own the property that they manage but what would the school board need to be convinced that that's the case it was with the point four acre proposal that we our understanding is that ultimately the city would require ownership of that property and it would have to go to the voters so that's off the table but there's still a misunderstanding about the treatment of the impervious surface created on the school property by the municipal building so you don't have any question or doubt about the city statement that whatever land might be necessary they wouldn't need to own not with the current proposal but I'm talking about if the school board decided to go ahead and address its stormwater issues what I thought you were saying it was your understanding that the school would have to own it our understanding is that the definitive agreement requires the city to deal with the schools stormwater issues generated by the new impervious surface so if the solution requires any additional land on school property our understanding is that ownership would ultimately be required by the city right now okay so I'm just suggesting that that's unresolved maybe it's unnecessary but for just clarity for the future it seems like that needs to be resolved and I think you had included also if the land ever changed hands if you chose to sell the Northcott Central School property then there would need to be an understanding if we didn't own the land but the city would need the responsibility to clean it and drain it how that would get resolved in a sale correct? nobody's talking about selling Rick Markott though no but that's just one of those future issues that's nice to have clarified ahead of time my name is Shannon I live in South Burlington I have two kids my thing is with voting on this and I think talking to many of the parents at Rick Markott Central School if it was put into the mo and what is the MOU that this was a parcel that would end up needing to be used at all at any point for this treatment over stormwater I'm not sure that it would have passed if you had said we need the 0.7 plus the school board is going to need this 0.4 to mitigate its stormwater equaling 1.1 acres of the school property which would have been much more clear to all the taxpayers that then voted for this the 70% that you keep citing of the few people that actually did vote it would have but that's out of 18,000 voters I saw register voters I looked up register voters on your website it says 18% okay well I don't think that people would have voted for something had they known that they were going to lose that much property for the Rick Markott Central School kids this is this new blue area when I actually I know you are saying that you never saw the original drawing with the 9 I did so if I could find it on the city website then it was there it was on the website for the city minutes that showed the aerial and it actually showed the 9 and also there's also a video that is yet to be taken down that shows the original diagram of where this city this thing was supposed to be that was not in front of the school was actually across the road adjacent to the park that is many people in Rick Markott Central School and other schools requested that this would be taken down it was still there today so to confuse voters you left up something that many people later told us I can't believe this is where it's going because that's not what the video looks like and it isn't it was very confusing and if it was not meant to confuse voters it was there it was meant originally as just a visualization of a real what could it be I mean not unlike what the school board is doing with you know we have 8 issues and or 8 options one is rebuilding 2 brand new schools but you can't leave something up before a vote you could say no that was our idea but that's off the table that's not what we're voting on so I think also I think it's also again I agree with the last person that it's very difficult to find any information of like the minutes when making things very visible to the voters so that's certainly something we can do thank you very much hi I'm Candace I kind of want to pick you back up her I think there needs to be far more transparency moving forward I went to the meeting that you and Kevin held to get our votes and at that meeting was definitely stressed and you said parking was 100% handled stormwater you said you had it dialed that we were going to be all set up for stormwater and I feel a little bit like we put our trust in you and I feel like you've kind of played on that good nature of us you said you had all these things figured out and now here we are fighting amongst ourselves and moving forward the kids at central school 100% need to be addressed I would like for everybody to please do the research on what outside environment how it impacts the learning of the children inside speaking to Tim I know that the children have not been even a thought in your head in this process how it could impact them in 2017 central schools testing scores they went from number 9 in the state to number 28 in one year so to say this isn't impacting them I think you're kidding yourself so I just ask moving forward you know we're trying to build a library for these children who can't read your books just saying we've got third graders reading at a barely at a first grade level you know you suggested they read Harry Potter well that was offensive for these kids who would love to but who can't you'll still have that quality then please I would love to get into your head a little that's the unfortunate thing about social media because I think we're both on the same page it just wasn't going there so in moving forward I think we need to cut out the we need to be transparent with each other we need to be more clear on how we word our things and you know my daughter's school is dropping and I'm paying out of pocket for tutoring and I think that is unacceptable for a community who likes to brag and boast at having the very top schools in the state so let's all work together go team okay so I really appreciate it sorry my name is Fritz Burkart and and I would I've got kids at Rick Markott Central School and I really appreciated that at the beginning of this meeting we started with a discussion of trust and cooperation and particularly David Kaufman I really appreciate that you're looking for what are the potential solutions that we can do and that's one of the things which I hear out of your mouth quite a bit in a previous meeting you had said and I'm paraphrasing this point pushing back the ground baking back a few months or so on a hundred year building doesn't matter a bit we darn well got to get it right and Candice I was with you at that meeting in October and Helen Kevin Jennifer you came and you presented to parents at Rick Markott Central School to explain the virtues of the project to the parents and the community and in that presentation you explained that the primary benefits to the school were the renting of the city hall for the additional office space and that the city would take care of the storm water for both the school and the city and in fact what was said was that the city was paying for the storm water to be piped to if I'm not mistaken to behind Pier 1 which we were told that the city would build it and pay for it now what we're hearing tonight is it's here that Pier 1 is now off the table because it's full well ours is still going there right no I understand that but if I'm not mistaken it's full in terms of it can take the city storm water but you're saying that it's not sufficient to take the schools it's not permitted to take the schools it's not permitted so then this is really confusing for me why did you tell us that in that meeting that I don't know that I did we knew at the time where the storm water was going for the city's building correct but you said that you were doing this for the school we are taking care of the school storm water I'm not going to argue about what was said 8 months ago well the point is is that this is sort of how you're also selling it to the community is that this is what you were saying this was dialed we've got it all set we're taking care of it so it's done and there's not additional land being taken and so I don't know if we ever said there was additional that was never at this point well sorry the point 4 acres I'm sorry I'm sorry about that I miss speaking about the point 4 acres but then so that's one thing which I'm confused about because in terms of how it was sold at least to the parents at Marca is that you were taking care of our storm water that's what we heard and we heard that you were piping it to a different location and additional land was not needed as we heard like this is taking care of it and so it's a bit of a surprise to hear that hey there's more land which needs to be used and the children's soccer field and now one of the other things which I'm confused about from this evening is that what I'm hearing is the city is willing to pay for which part of the school storm water because I've heard the word it used and I'm not sure what the city's paying for and what the school board's paying for school board if you want me to answer what the thought is the school district and the city are paying for the design of the parking lot and the school's storm water treatment and retention the city under the MOU clear in the MOU pays to build that infrastructure school district storm water for the project and the parking lot for the project and the parking lot for the project and the parking lot so could the school district pick another piece of land pipe it there and pay for it you'd pay for it would we buy the land if that needs to be so if that's one could the school district pick another piece of land pipe it there so they're not losing field space so we're not losing things for the recreation department we're not losing baseball field soccer fields where the kids and where the programs that are run here if there were a viable alternative offsite and the regulations allowed it I think we would consider that if that's what the school district wanted we'd take a hard look at that that's your point so the point is what David is saying this is an issue if it's just money it feels like that's a solution and it sounds like perhaps what it is is that perhaps purchasing additional land where it's possible to pipe it would be a potential solution how much did the land this project thing built on how much of the land from South Burlington realty cost per acre that's roughly a million all land so roughly a million an acre sure no I understand what I'm curious about because if we're talking about then also the impact on the school like this is going for a million an acre the additional cost that we're looking at at .4 acres is an additional $400,000 which is affecting the schools which is a significant sum that's roughly the market rate and so it seems that another possibility rather than saying let's use up this field let's go and let's figure out if we can buy something which is abutting this property and with that then perhaps the city will pay for it and manage it and perhaps something of that could help and be a potential solution now I understand that a lot of people want to build on that but it sounds like that's what it is an option my concern is it's going to keep raising the price of this project up and up and I do care about the pockets this money's coming out of and that's why I'd say we could also scale back the project and not require as much parking no I appreciate that I I guess the important thing and I appreciate you looking at this I would try to make sure that in the future when we're out talking to the public to make sure that we're accurate and we're telling people what's actually happening so that when people are voting that they're actually voting on what they think they're voting on rather than it being something else and then people having unpleasant surprises afterwards and feeling that that's a form of buyer's remorse okay thank you for your attention I think that's very good advice and it certainly will be something the school board will have to deal with too when you get to whatever you're building if it's not absolutely set you won't know all the court costs so I think we have to be careful with using the term bait and switch I think when we did present to the public the best of our knowledge we did not have the schematics of the building because we didn't have a price tag that the voters had agreed to and all the things that you try to put in you like building a house oh yeah I want this house to look like this and I want it to have this and then you go to the get the design and then you go to a builder well that kind of roof costs twice what you budgeted so you have to change or you can't do that many square feet so that's the reality for any community in my opinion who goes out to design something to build and has to go and the process is you go to the voters to find out what the budget is and this is your best shot at what it's going to deliver and then you start in with the real design elements with the builders and the architects and you find out that you can't build the underground garage as deep as you want where you have ledge and you didn't know that I mean O'Brien has found that on hillside at O'Brien they did not estimate how much ledge they would be blowing up to build all those houses so I think it's good advice well taken but I think you have to be careful when you characterize the people's best intention as you go out and talk about your school options that you have to be careful I'd like to make a point that because you know throughout the conversation there have been occasional indications of folks thinking that everybody hasn't been as transparent as they should and I have a significant amount of faith in our counselors and our school board members that this is a complicated project and a lot of what we talk about in the city has complications to it and that everybody is as transparent as they can possibly be based on their knowledge at the time and that as Helen just said sometimes things change and that I don't think Kevin and work with Kevin often on for years and I don't think he or David or anybody else would intentionally misdirect anybody or misinform anybody it's just that it's hard to cover every single base every single time you speak and that I have confidence that everybody is doing the best they can and we just re-up that as we go forward and I just think that needs to be clear well thank you very much it's difficult to some of the conversations where I think we made some progress and we'll continue to move forward and see where we can we can get to so thank you