 there are many of you here who we might not all know each other. Let's just say commissioners introduce ourselves so you know who we are. My name is Kasia Ranjo. I am the chair of the parks commission. I'm Lincoln Frasca, Andrew Brewer. And then I believe Stephanie is also on the commission. She's unable to make it tonight. And then Dan Dickerson is also on the commission. He will I'm sure be here very shortly. And then Alec here is our parks director I think many of you know because he keeps this place in great shape. I let's get started with calling us to order and let's approve the agenda and six 720 agenda and six 15 minutes. Any discussion? I'm looking at you two on the agenda or minutes. No. Then I need a motion. Motion. Okay. Second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Opposed. Okay. Um and next I'd like to open it up for public comment and be clear that we are discussing the proposed city encampment policies just after this. So if you have comments on that, please hold that. If you are here with any other public comment, I invite you to share. Yes. Briefly, I'd like to call the meeting warning is possibly meeting improvement. I believe all boards and commissions within the city are supposed to post their meeting warnings in city hall on one of the bulletin boards, either the one in John Odom's clerk's office or the one in the main hallway. Okay. I was not aware of that. Um and we'll do a better job of that with maybe some city support on that. Thanks. Um anything else? I just had a question. Yeah. Has the city ended the support for the doggy bags in terms of supplying doggy bags to the different locations here in the park? Alex, he literally just printed that. This is Dan Dickerson. I do not know, but we will ask Dan about that. I mean, Alec. Good question. Um. Anything else before we move on to? I think the main main act tonight. You have one more. Yes. The pocket park. We've tried to get that power washed for weeks upon weeks and, uh, as well as the cleanup and the mowing of the effluent park, uh, that there seems to be confusion talking to public works. They say that y'all handle the parks, but then there's the opposite park, uh, the other side of the pedestrian bridge that's five feet tall now and people are walking their dogs and not picking up after them because they can't find it. And so those are park maintenance issues. And I'm just concerned that, uh, there's ambiguity as to who's responsible. If you say, did you say effluent park? I did call it. What is that for? It's conflicts park is the, uh, but the, the, the can't call it anything. It is the vomit, the feces, the urine in that's occurred in the pocket park. This necessitates power washing. Okay. Even more so when there's it's being used. Um, I, we will make sure that Alex aware of that. I don't know about the day to day maintenance of a park. So we will figure that out. Thank you for letting us know. Um, I'm going to move us along to the city camping memo and policy. Um, and I'll turn things over to Cameron with the city in one second. I just want to open up by saying just like starting with a couple assumptions here. One is that I think every single person here, we can assume we all care about people. And two, I think we all care about our parks. So I just want to set that tone for this evening. Um, and I want to thank you all for coming and for, and for investing in this community and caring about the future of this place. And this kind of participation is really important. So thank you for being here. Um, I also want this is an opportunity for us as a commission, um, to learn and discuss and to ensure that the city policy is mindful of park management needs and existing park policy. And I just so all of you are aware the first that many of us heard of this was an article in the bridge a couple weeks ago, and we had not been involved previously. And so this for us is a learning opportunity for us to hear what the city has in mind to ask questions and and and is a learning opportunity for us as well. So I just want you all to be aware of where we are as a commission and our involvement with the proposed policy. Um, and so tonight I want to turn it over to Cameron, who I think will share a little bit about the need and the why from the city perspective. This is needed an overview of the policy of the what would happen. Um, and the timeline and, um, hopefully also the decision makers and what would happen with this policy. Um, and then we'll have space for the commissioners to ask questions because this is our first space to have this discussion as a commission. And then we'll turn it over, um, to the public for, uh, you know, questions and comments and concerns and things like that. Um, so let's first start with Cameron. Um, take it away. All right. So I'm gonna try to project really loudly so you can't hear me just holler. Hold on one second. I forgot something. I would love to know who all is here. So I'm going to take this little piece of paper and hand it around. Um, if you each of you don't mind. Oh, yeah. Gosh, you want a clipboard? Okay. Oh, and a clipboard. Look how organized. All right, go ahead. Thank you. So I'm Cameron Neeter Meyer. I'm excited to see a lot of folks in person. I moved here to take the assistant city manager job, uh, two years ago now about and right before COVID locked us down. So I haven't been able to meet a lot of folks, so I'm really happy to see you all here and I appreciate it. So, um, I'm gonna walk through the presentation that we plan to give to council tomorrow, um, because I think it answers a lot of questions, um, and addresses some concerns that I've heard from folks and address a lot of the conversation that I've seen publicly happening about this policy and why it even exists. So tonight I'd really like to talk about why we even try to make a policy what the purpose of this policy even is. Um, talk about what outreach and feedback we have received. Talk about what the community impact may be, what questions and answers I may have that have already come up a few times. So maybe it'll answer some of your questions and then talk about what our next steps are for the city. So really talking about why this policy was even written, um, we, uh, well, let me back up a step and say, what is this policy? What is it even trying to do? What are we here to talk about? So the city has drafted something we're calling City of Montpelier Encampment Response Policy, which tries to understand, um, sort of our legal responsibilities as the city, um, and what our responsibilities are to folks who are emergency camping because of homelessness and what our response will be internally as staff dealing with those encampments. So mostly we're trying to balance what our legal responsibilities are and what we should be doing as staff to remain responsive to folks, connect people to services and have a very clear understanding of what staff should be doing so that people can hold us accountable. So that's really why or what the policy even is. So why we needed to write this. A lot of you may know that the state has been hosting a hotel motel program in town and in our surrounding areas that have brought a lot of, uh, folks who did not previously live here to stay in our community house. Now they've ended that program and don't really have an exit plan for folks. And so there are people who don't have a plan for housing. They don't have couches to sleep on. They don't have friends to stay with. They don't have family to stay with. They can't afford the hotels anymore and there's not enough housing or supportive housing for them to go to. And so they turn to emergency camping and, um, those numbers have increased because of the end of the hotel motel program. Um, there was a case out of Boise, Idaho that, um, is called Martin B. Boise. And I'm sorry, I'm getting heat up as we stand here, um, which that's legal precedent. So what the case was was really ruling that enforcement of ordinances, city and municipal ordinances that prohibit sleeping or camping on public property, um, against homeless individuals or those who do not have shelter is unconstitutional if those people do not have a shelter to go to. So we just talked a little bit about how the motel pro motel hotel program has ended and a lot of people don't have shelter. Well, what about the shelters that we have in our community like it's Mariton Haven? Well, they're full and there's no place for people to go. So, um, that court case really shows that there is a constitutional, uh, uh, responsibility of the city, um, there. So people can be offered appropriate available shelter space like if our partner or sheltering partners have space available. But if they don't go there, then they could be cited under this loss under this law. So I have gotten some feedback that said this law doesn't like this ruling doesn't apply to us. It's in a different court district. It doesn't apply to us. I think that that's not a very proactive way to look at this. I think that, um, while this case has not the Supreme Court did not take up this case, that still leaves this law case, the Martin v Boise case as the high law precedent in the country. So if anything was tried, this would be what it was held against, right? So what we're trying to do is make sure that, uh, our policy is, um, responding to the Martin v Boise case in a proactive way and not a reactive way. So, um, I'll sort of go over again sort of where we're at. The hotel motel program is ended. I've been talking to our peer outreach worker and she expects probably she told me last time probably 20 folks that she does not know what plan they have for exiting the hotel motels, right? No other place for them to go. Um, general assistance housing like what you call the state for and get connected to in the state, um, has returned to pre-covid eligibility restrictions, which really severely limits who is eligible for housing. And when I say severely limits, um, usually it's for weather emergencies, for folks who have families and for women and children, which leaves a huge swath of folks out of being eligible for general assistance housing. So that means there will be an increased number of people experiencing homelessness in our community needing a place to go because there is a limited shelter and housing capacity in our area. So, um, I'll sort of make a plug here because I just said that people will be turning to emergency camping. How can we support them? Just know that some of our partner agencies in town like Good Samaritan and another way are doing drives for supplies for folks if you feel like getting involved that way. And our homelessness task force does have an incidental fund to give people, tie people over for emergency supplies if you're at all interested in getting involved that way. So, getting back to the policy. Um, to respond to community need and our legal responsibilities, the proposed policy, which we built off a local model from Hartford, Vermont, was created in partnership with the MPD, our park staff, our cemetery staff, our fire department, our health department, through the fire department, planning, recreation, and my office in the city manager's office. So, we've talked to our legal team, Hartford, Vermont. Our homelessness task force has talked about this at length. The cemetery commission, the recreation advisory board, and here we are at the parks commission looking for feedback because that's what this is about. So, what the policy actually says, right? Since emergency camping is defined as legal on public land, if somebody does not have an alternate shelter option, it's necessary that the city has a policy that outlines what our staff should do in case of an encampment, right? So that we know and the community knows what we plan on doing. It emphasizes a model of non-interference, which I think is why a lot of folks are here, right? So, the policy aims to outline spaces where we don't want to see camping because of a variety of reasons. It could be unsafe for staff, it could be unsafe for campers, it could be considered unsafe for the community in general, right? So, unless the policy states that unless we see people camping in those high sensitivity areas, it's a general non-interference. The policy says so if Alec runs into somebody camping far off in the woods when he's maintaining trees or something, leave them alone and contact the city manager's office who will then put them in touch with the peer support outreach worker, which we pay for through the Good Samaritan Haven. And that person is going to be able to talk to somebody, talk to that person, help them, connect them to services, sort of explain how they can find housing in an emergency situation. So, it really focuses on connecting people to emergency camping support and social service agencies so that they can get the help that they need. What it also does is outlines times where that might not be okay. Like if somebody is causing a public health hazard or a trash hazard or something that we see as unacceptable for the stipulations in the policy, we can ask them to relocate or help them mitigate the issue, right? So, if there's trash, we can help them clean it up. If something else is going on, we can help them find alternatives. And that's outlined in the policy. So, I think what the political side of this and why we're coming to meetings like the Parks Commission and talking to folks is that this policy goes a little beyond what I have the authority to do, right? My office can write policies that tell staff, here's how you over squad. But what this policy is also trying to do is say where in Montpelier we're asking folks not to locate a camp, right? So, we came up with a list. That list was, I'll sort of go into it now. We came up with that list sort of based on city staff expertise. Noticing where people where there's flash floods where things can harm folks. We said like don't camp in the waterways. Don't camp next to schools. Don't camp. I'm gonna actually read this whole list to you so you can hear it. Schools and adjoining grounds, license daycare facilities, including our city-run camps, on our multi-use paths, on walking, biking trails, and paths in all city parks, on wetlands, waters, and waterways so folks aren't at risk of a flash flood. Within 50 feet of a property boundary of a residence or business unless permitted by the owner. Within 50 feet of a property boundary of a playground, soccer field, baseball field, basketball court, tennis court, or golf course. If the encampment includes an individual who's a registered sex offender we've asked them to extend that boundary to 2,000 feet. We've also included the city's water resource recovery facility and the water treatment plant as places we would like people not to camp. And the cemetery commission also added on cemetery plots, paths, or roads. Additional locations that I've heard people bring up wanting council to consider. Adding to the list of banned camping includes the 12th main moat lot that we just put grass on and I know that the conversation has been really heated about Hubbard Park. So I want to sort of go over what the impacts might be of this policy. We believe that having a policy like this in place gives clarity to the city's rules about camping and where we expect it to happen because we have to acknowledge that it will happen and is happening and has been happening. So it protects emergency campers, the community, and the city. It clearly explains what the city's expectations are of those who are camping and what our responses will be and it communicates what property is considered a high sensitivity area that we just went over to sort of tell people where they can't be. And it holds our staff to a standard. So if folks are camping in the airport by staff they know what they'll be getting from that encounter, right? So um let's see. What the policy does is try to respond to our legal responsibility by the Martin v Boise case. Like I just said it communicates our expectations to both the community and folks who are camping and staff and it really does do that political line where it says the city will not accept camping in these areas and here's why. What it doesn't do is allow for camping within those high sensitivity areas. It does not allow for camping for non-emergency reasons so there's no change to the ordinance except understanding that camping has to be able to occur in city property um in emergency uh for emergency reasons when people do not have any other shelter opportunities. It also does not create any permissions for a legal activity. Legal activity still illegal activity. However I say that with a caveat because something I do want to get out into the public and make people aware of and this is a great opportunity to do that is our local state our state attorney Rory Tebow has recently made clarifying statements on how his office will be handling things uh like he this is his words not mine the homeless transient and vulnerable population which limits the amount of infractions that his office is going to prosecute they have told us very clearly they will not be prosecuting major minor property crimes such as unlawful trespass or theft or crimes that are occurring with folks that are individuals struggling with poverty and homelessness so he's going to be taking into account crimes of necessity versus one for personal gain so you can consider that as our trespassing orders for not camping or for camping anywhere it's going to be severely limited if we don't have a policy to fall back on because our state attorney has basically said he will not be prosecuting these low-level offenses for folks who are experiencing homelessness he's also made it very clear that he sees um things like traditional police responses as not good enough in situations like this and we agree which is why this policy really outlines a group effort of how we will be connecting people to services instead of just saying this is not where you can be please leave it's if they're camping somewhere we've already established is not okay for camping it's this is not okay here's where else you can go here's how we can connect you to services and it's not just the police it's the peer support outreach worker that we pay for through Good Samaritan Haven and it's also our social worker that we pay for and partner with Barry and our police officers so we have a and more and many more we have a lot of community partners and agencies that help us with this so we're really not trying to make this a a hammer response it's a no but it's a no and it's a no how can we help you so i know this is a lot so thanks for sticking with me so i'm going to go into a q&a section because i know i've been monitoring a lot of the questions and i would like to open it up for commissioners to have um discussion first and then open up to the public oh no i have some common oh great sorry about that i'm sorry so i just want to address um some questions that have been coming up in a lot of conversation so hopefully this maybe answers some of y'all's questions and um sort of helps make some clarity so does this allow residents to camp wherever they want on public land no it does not it is our city's responsibility to allow emergency camping on public specific public lands that we've outlined if no shelter space is available i have a home here i can't camp here because i have somewhere to go so this doesn't change our no camping ordinance in our parks for those who have shelter available to them um i've heard how will this impact park participation i will say again because i think it bears repeating i think a lot of people aren't aware of this but there has been camping happening in our public land in our public parks for years this is an ongoing systemic issue that this does not purport to solve but i want to make sure that everyone is aware that this has been happening and will continue to happen we're just trying to put some limits on it so people understand what those limits are so um it doesn't really change things and how you day to day interact with the park you know i've asked i've been asked how are people with dogs going to interact with people i will just remind folks that we have laws about keeping your dog within verbal control and if you see a legal activity report it to our police officers so does this uh policy adequately address hygiene concerns no it does not and it does not purport to nor does it solve this issue it does only provide an outline for determining mitigating strategies for any public health concerns concerns at any identified campsite and we know and are aware that cities does not the city does not have public facilities that are not limited in hours and locations and we're looking to our newly formed public restroom committee from the council for recommendations on that uh this policy doesn't do enough to end or address root causes of homelessness we agree with that it does not it only really tries to address what staff will be doing and how we respond to folks who are camping so i already talked about that this is a long presentation i'm very sorry and then why do this at all why have a policy so i said camping's already happening camping will continue to happen we're just hoping to have a policy that puts some parameters around that and explain to staff how they will be responding to those encampments um you know if if uh our elected bodies do not wish to pass this whole thing you know staff will still need to have an internal response policy but it will not have any way to enforce it there won't be any enforcement for where is okay to camp where isn't we legally and i would argue morally need to offer that to folks in our community because this isn't folks who want to camp this is an end of end of options option for a lot of folks right so i would argue that morally and legally we should offer locations for people to camp and so this allows us to build parameters around that um there is a map of what property the city's proposed um policy has considered not in high sensitivity areas uh it is a bad map i'm working on getting um uh consultant to help me with maps um our maps are for tax property boundaries not so much aesthetics so i'll sort of tell you where where this sort of means if you will so we have our rec field um which is where the volleyball net is um across the bridge going into um uh north branch park so north branch park dog river fields um right now it includes hovered park and north branch blanchard and the mill street elm street park green mount cemetery elm street cemetery 12 main and the sump dump our next steps because and the policy doesn't preclude any of this if it passes or not but it's continuing work with our community partners like our peer outreach worker through good samaritan haven we've currently funded that through 2023 we continue to work with the washington county homelessness action team which is trying to bring a bunch of different organizations together to solve their sort of holistically we would receive support and guidance through our homelessness task force and the public restaurant committee that's just getting started we would see clarity from the state on how they will be addressing emergency camping on their land because there is a lot of state-owned land in our community as well we would advocate for more state funding and services to support those experiencing homelessness and um i i have been told that the council would like to hear from someone from the state to come to us and talk to us about what their ongoing plans are for addressing homelessness in our community so we're recommending a staff after all of that to council to look at the policy make amends as needed hear the recommendations from their other elected bodies like the parks commission here and pass the policy as amended as needed so that staff in the community have a clear understanding of how we will be addressing emergency encampments so there's a lot of options there and there's a lot going on and i just want to thank everyone for being here this is a really big deal that you're here to talk about this issue at all um i'm just happy that this conversation i think has led to a lot of folks understanding that this is a true problem in montpelier and doesn't just address surrounding areas so thank you thanks now i'm done all right well thank you cameron i appreciate it i'd like to invite the commissioners here with questions dam i can think of several that i want to ask but um i think at least the most important question in my mind at least right off the bat is where where does our authority lie and where is our authority basically non-existent and and so in my mind and cameron you can correct me if i'm wrong um the ordinance you know for the parks states that nobody shall be in the parks after dusk or before dawn um unless authorized by the parks commission so you know i think you know the policy aside which i don't i mean we could certainly make recommendations i don't think we can outright reject it and then it's rejected i mean that's just the council prerogative but you know we we can basically say um you know either no parks should be on this list every park should be on this list or or we can pick and choose and i think that's really where our decision making authority lies is that about right so that would be um so yes and no yes in that we i want to hear the recommendations of that right to add that or not to add that i think we'd also if we took every park's parcel off of this would no longer be offering reasonable locations alternate locations which is mandated under this law so um i think that you need to really think about what that means for folks taking off all parks um you know Hubbard park was on our initial list of staff because it has facilities they're not adequate but they have facilities and the other parks don't um so uh you know you make any recommendations that you would like to make and i will take those but um in accordance to uh martin b boise the ordinances are moot in in the face of the ninth circuit well i mean the ninth circuit there's mood in some ways in that if we don't provide anything then we're wrong but if we you know i i guess there's an argument who made well if we if we provide space in certain places but not maybe every place on this list and i and i will correct myself and say i wouldn't have recommended that we remove all parks and i think i think we have to be you know malleable just like everybody else does but i will say i don't i don't know that we necessarily have to provide everything and and yet we're still um you know not you know we could we could give some um space and still not run afoul of of the court precedent from a different district right is that okay yes that's true thank you and that's totally your prerogative and i you know i again i do want to recognize that yes it is in another space i certainly don't i think it's a a good law our legal counsel says that you know it's good to be proactive here this is the prevailing highest court holding to this decision and i to be honest don't want to be a test kitchen for that um i think you had some questions about the ninth circuit court as sounded like well yeah i mean i i'm thinking i'm really trying to think that through um i i want to be guided what the law is right here right now and it's not a ninth circuit court decision um i don't i don't want to make a decision based on the fear of a supreme court decision somewhere down the road that we might run afoul of which is what it would take at this point for a ninth circuit court decision to to uh guide what we have to put the law here um that's just you know i'm i'm just follow up with what dan said it's not to say that i'm i think it's it's it's probably is a good law and i i did read it um and it's certainly an aspirational law that we could try to follow and hold up to but my point is that here tonight i'm not guided by that so in terms of in terms of the legal decision that we have to make so from this my understanding is that the ninth circuit court decision is non-binding and montpelier is not obligated nor required that's right to follow that court decision but montpelier is choosing to we are recommending staff is recommending to council that they put uh parameters around this so we know how to respond to it yes okay um may yes we are not going to go against that law that's a that's the law of the land right now so so if even though it happened in the ninth circuit court it's it's it's the law of the land it's the precedent of what's going on right now in the ninth i don't think that i don't know she's that right no it's not yeah i don't think that's right any of the law reviews however law review on that specific case it'll still mention that there's is somewhat bracketed is is is how i'm running my department i'm considering a depressant and when you add that to our conversations with the state's attorney's office this is the only thing we're doing is just giving you the information as to what we can or cannot do or how we limit ourselves and what our operations are okay um because i just want to be clear on that because it seems that that when i read through the purpose of the policy much of the purpose is to meet our obligation under the ninth circuit court's decision and if the ninth circuit court decision is not binding i am not sure that language should be in our policy or the reasoning behind it and i just think that didn't get mentioned is that it was appealed to the supreme court that is supreme court declined to to review it so that has a higher level of precedent okay um and i just wanted to um and other questions from my commissioners yeah i i get asked one more so i in in a scenario you know let's say we have someone camping in a park you know is is generally in you know abiding by the policy that we've set out here assuming it's not amended and then we have another instance where you know let's say there's there's a campsite and it's surrounded by trash if if park staff um i guess could you just walk me through i i think you gave the scenario roughly where you know everything's fine and alex basically walks away but i guess can you just walk through both of those scenarios again exactly you know is alex and report you know in any way you know the presence of of someone or yeah okay so um i'll go through some of the specific language if that's okay so um if a city staff member the way we're writing this is if a staff member identifies a campsite they'll report it to my office in the police department we're going to connect that if that if that location is fine and in a a non-high sensitivity area right we're going to report that to our peer support outreach worker who we pay right now and they'll be able to work with them and connect them to services that way we know the location of where that person is in case there's an emergency and um we can connect them to services through a non-confrontational way right if there is a report of a um non-compliant or camp in a high sensitivity area we're asking staff to um i want to not quote incorrectly so let me go through this so what we'll do is ask staff to contact my office the police department and what we would be doing is calling our partners and going to that location and talking to them really is the first step is making sure that they're offered services available for the state if they're shelter connect them to shelter because i want to make it very clear that this policy is only if there is no other shelter available right so if there is shelter we can send them to that or choose to do any of the things within our power like site them for trespassing etc right it's not really what we want to do but it's something that's one of our power to do so we have a response form that we'd be pulling out that's included in this to say what we did we would base on the above compliance factors that we've outlined in this policy determine if the encampment is in an incorrect area or it's non- compliant and if it is not compliant we will either ask the person to leave voluntarily refer the individuals to our community justice center talk to Rory Tebow use our other policing powers there post the area gets trespassing mitigate the site to remove public health hazards and then if the encampment is actually on private land we'll be working with the landowners as well so and then we'd be doing a after-action meeting to make sure we did a good job and if we didn't why and what can we do to fix it so really it's ask someone to move or facilitate the removal of that location but the concerning park staff in both cases their involvement is very minimal yeah yeah yeah no no no we don't they would never have to you know confront somebody or or talk okay no confrontations as i read it i thought it said staff and defined it as park staff and then said if the encampment is in a high sensitivity area staff meaning park staff would ask the camper to leave would post that they the date that they had asked them to leave so there's clean up the site yeah so they're incorrect yes so there's another policy so this becomes a bigger thing because i squished a bunch of stuff together and i'm sorry i feel like that confused a lot of folks that's my bad i've learned but we have an appendix to this policy if a campsite is abandoned which is a whole another story then yes camp we are allowing staff to go to that location post a notice say hey you gotta you gotta clean this up and if it's not cleaned up we will as the city go and pick that stuff up and hold it for a certain amount of time while posting a letter say here's where your stuff sat which has been in place for years yeah successfully that's an older policy just felt like it for completion needed to be altogether how often do you have to do that very rarely okay i asked how often he does that to very rarely that kind of goes into a question i had which is like what is the current staff park staff response plan to an encampment that might be in park property low sensitive area as defined here and discreet you know what are we doing now already i don't know well there isn't a policy there isn't a policy is the answer to the question as far as what we do now you know we have a policy for unattended campsites but when people are there you know our best practice is to refer it to PD it happens so rarely that it's not something that we've ever sought to have a really like really written formal policy on i actually can't even remember one single instance where i came upon a campsite that was not already abandoned um i so i have a question about that it seems like the purpose of the policy is to decriminalize which i get is the part where the attorney has said we're not going to prosecute people for being homeless etc etc and legitimize which i believe is essentially to say parks are open for camping except in high sensitivity areas for folks who are homeless who do not have an alternative shelter so that's the key point like if good sam is open and they're being disruptive and we find them that allows us under the law to to ask them to leave how are you determining which encampment is a homeless person and which encampment is not homeless person it's a good question what is the plan for disposal of human waste i've been in contact with hartford remont which i said has been doing this and they've connected me to contractors who do that for work for living if that is a problem that we've identified and our public health officer identifies that as a problem we can get someone to clean that up i can assure you that if people are dispersed camping where there is no human waste disposal that will be a problem we're not arguing with that okay um and i um in terms of the high sensitivity areas um there's only one mention in the list of natural resources which is wetlands waters and waterways and as hi heard it described now the concern is that in fact it is not damaged to the resource but in fact risk to the person and in my my frame of mind when i think of high sensitive areas i think of ecological communities sensitive plant communities those types of things and i'm wondering how those have been taken into consideration that's why we're here um you know our staff definitely put the people first in the conversation so that's why we're here to hear any recommendations that y'all may have and then how would a camper know where high sensitive areas are located so we have a communication plan i've been talking with with our peer outreach worker and especially on the homelessness task force and our washington county action team for um addressing homelessness about getting this message out where we'd post it where would it be do we get maps out how do we how do we communicate this if it if it does go into effect so we have been talking about that are you are you or i guess good Samaritan or the or the state is someone aware of you know the at-risk population and sort of in touch with them in some way or you know is there are there some people that could just show up and not know anything about what the city has in place yes that's true they could but i would i would say that right now our peer our our partner agencies who do social services are aware of who would be impacted by this yes so i i understand you're working on a on a communication plan for identifying these highly sensitive areas can you at least give us an idea of you know what you think that might look like i mean you start with a big chunk of property so i'm i'm i feel like no that's not what i was saying i have a communication plan for explaining to folks when we've reached what the high-sensitivity areas are this is my outreach to understand what high sensitivity areas are right now they were staff and now i've been i've been contacted the the various boards and committees that deal with the affected properties to talk to you about it um i i seems to me that the city is ready to move forward with this policy and that our space as a commission is to maybe help them define the high sensitive areas and ask for services like human waste disposal and those types of things to mitigate the effects of the park does that sound right um so what can we do as a commission to help them understand what a high sensitivity area well i think that's maybe that's where i was going on my question i mean it's it's uh like i said you start with a big chunk of property but if you go every time you go down one of these bullet points that property gets smaller smaller smaller smaller and then having a hard time under you know it's going to be a map because they're going to be yes there will be a map okay yes um well but even if there's a map if we if we shrink it down and say well this slope here and this little wetland air is off limits i mean you know do we really expect our homeless population to be savvy to like i'm not i'm not gonna yeah and so it's it's a tough you know it's a tough cookie to have or the same probable crap i'll add kasha though that you're a question earlier is um something that speaks to me and something when we talk about high sensitivity areas and yes you know karen's approach was around people but understanding proximity to waterways and issues that we have with ecoli in our rivers um and it's something i've already reached out to karen about so i wouldn't be so quick to say that it's a foregone conclusion but i think it's you know there's still a lot of conversation to have around what you know how we're defining these boundaries and obviously yes enforcement it becomes a whole another level of how do we manage that but i think that that's still on the table in part of the conversation and i don't want to go side of that um and then would you were you gonna ask something oh i just had a thought just about like multiple uses in the park regardless and how timing you know if you come to hover park at five or six a.m it's much different experience than if you come at high noon on a saturday then could like there be a temporal limit on camping in certain high sensitive areas that maybe other are sensitive because the community is out there and maybe the tent or encampment is allowed from dust to dawn our legal counsel said we could put time on the clinic and then who would be responsible for enforcing those i guess would be the next question that's it yeah i mean that that would be i think something that could potentially my mind work out better than just open open country so to speak i think i'm most concerned about damage to the resource which is the natural communities of the parks off trail you know like people walking off trail and creating social paths that then become long-term paths because they're established and that's we our parks have a history of social trails turning into paths and human waste disposal what's going to happen there that is a big problem for our parks and my concern i guess with dispersing use is that we have no way of providing so we have if we have no way of providing human waste disposal i'm afraid of legitimizing camping anywhere in the park and i guess my question is early in the proposal documents it says the city does not recommend establishing a centralized camping location we do not and in my mind that's a way to meet the those kind of resource needs and mitigate their the resource it opens up a whole host of other issues and so i am i'm wondering if i can get a better understanding and clarity around why a centralized place where we could provide human waste disposal services um would not be on the table yeah fine it's a fair question it's an honest question so there's a lot of issues with having a established campsite for a whole host of reasons number one that opens everybody in those campsites up for a whole host of that's an identified space where people are that could be anything could happen to those people this is a vulnerable population it is not a big population either i want to make it very clear i'm not talking about 200 people coming into this park and sleeping here so um we do not have as the city any social services we have not we don't have anyone who's trained to deal with this population this population needs services hired by the city we we need people we need to connect people to services we don't have a location that is accessible for folks it's we need it to be an accessible space we need to be a police space we need it to be um a whole lot of things that we don't have resources for to support it all and it only ghettoizes an entire community that is looking to camp for emergency reasons you know one of the things that the state did um when folks were kicked out of the hotel motel program is gave them a check for $2,000 and so now everyone knows that this population has cash sitting around i'm very worried about that and i would like chief to sort of talk a little bit more about why this isn't an idea we support but in in general i will say we don't have a good accessible location we do not have money for the services we do not have trained staff to provide any services to these folks and it puts people at risk it puts the people who are camping at risk and that worries me very much so as a staff and as a person um i will just sort of say again i do not think that this population is going to rapidly increase we just needed a policy to address it because we don't have one people are doing this anyway people are camping anyway and chief do you mind talking a little bit about why we don't support one location as this camera mentioned it just brings again a host of other issues you know again in lack of resources and then then there are the other legal bound issues in regarding to what the responsibilities of the city what would you know are going to be what responsibilities you know that it's just it's one of those things that if you look at and you study other areas and other communities and talking to some of my peers in other areas you know even looking at burlington and some of the struggles and the challenges that they're having when they have single spaces that have been identified it's you know in in essence you're pretty much saying here's your home and so so outside of any political concerns any concerns from the public um and again the lack of resources i think uh that that the councils uh that that we as city staff want to focus on more long-term solutions rather than implementing something that's going to be short term and then having to deal with all the problems that are going to come associated with it to distract us from what the end goal was going to be which is state-supported services and i will put this out there so it's sort of petty of me but i was asked by the state if we could host a campsite an established campsite and we said yes to that if they provided us staffing and money and that they didn't have that so so you know that's at this point to me it it's a it's a hard sell for both the folks who who don't want or camping because they do not can't either go to shelters for whatever various reasons they have for themselves or um you know are forced to do that i think that puts them in a disadvantage and we don't we don't condone that i have one last question unless you guys um how um you said that the centralized location was problematic because it is not accessible it is not policeable and it does not have funds to support i'm wondering how inviting people to participate in dispersed camping makes that dispersed location accessible policeable and funded so what you're doing right now is so i guess i'm trying to say is like if we create a space the city owns that space that's our space now right this is our space we can take care of it the best we can i'm trying this policy is really trying to just put up boundaries around what is already happening so this is already happening and right now we have no response to it we have no limits on it and that's what the policy is aiming to do i don't think it's the city it's not the city justifying that this is something that we're advocating we're advocating that you know we have designated spots i think it's just that us just saying that outside of not having anything we have nothing and we have no ability to even respond in the first place yeah it's definitely not an open invitation i i i hate that that's the the message that's getting out this is a response to things that are already happening um i'm gonna go ahead and open it up for public comment there is apparently a giant storm that's coming so that will come to the end of public comment i think um and as we head into public comment um i'm gonna call on people please address your um you know questions um suggestions recommended mandations to myself for the full commission and not other um members of the public all right do we want to proactively i uh i want to first note that you mentioned in the beginning that you were you learned about this in an article i think for the future the good it would be good to approach the entity that's going to be responsible for selecting or deciding what the sensitive area and every that way you can narrow down the scope of the map of this area we don't disagree and so i think that in that sense i don't think that people are saying those who advocate for a smaller area that we should have some sort of ghetto or that the chief you know what the chief is saying which puts the city in some sort of legal liability or you at least view it that way i think that just having a smaller area that is more accessible you know would have been would be i mean it's still up in the air what's going to happen right so maybe maybe there's a way to narrow down this area if that's what you're going to do you know the other thing i think is that that you insist on this court case and i'm wondering whether uh the city has actually talked to Boise because i looked into what they did and you know it was resolved then the thing continued in court that basically they addressed some of these issues so uh you know if we're going to be pointing out a case why don't we just talk to them see how they how they handle it thank you has the city talked to Boise not directly okay sir hi hello madam chair i forgot your name harsha hey i'm dave bellini everybody how are you 42 years with the state i just retired and i've never dipped my tone to city politics so watch out so people love me and hate me because i like to point out certain things look if you're going to communicate this that's a specious argument to point to martin v boise i read the 35 pages i'm not a lawyer or a paralegal but those are a different set of facts the city council wants to do this and you should just say so the city wants to do this they want this policy because they think it's the right thing to do i could accept that more than somebody coming out that probably doesn't have a law degree saying we are compelled to do this by the cuckoo ninth circuit which has a lot of crazy decisions and we're in the second circuit which is much more conservative so i could spend an hour on that i could spend two hours on telling you things about this population which i've dealt with for over 40 years directly uh i think you're a little you're sort of putting a cart before the horse i would say to the parks commission at least for now know whatever your no means i don't know how city government is structured i would say no it's not ready for prime time you can always revisit it i made a few comments that waste disposal i understand what you're saying about congregate housing uh i have one of the work crews that used to clean up burlington's problem so to speak you know we used to take our corrections crew in and they they were well intended but the other thing is i don't have any information about this i don't know if you're talking about three people 300 people 30 people that wasn't explained anywhere also what are their backgrounds i mean i'm work for the agency human services if you want to start dipping your toe in this you need social workers we agree well you agree but you're not doing it and so but you're saying you're going to plug ahead anyway because it feels right i'm thank you so much for your comments i just we're short on time sorry thank you go ahead thanks i'm carry brown um i want to thank the city for developing this policy i have read every single thing i can find about it i think it's incredibly well thought out um we can get into a lot of nitpicky arguments about what the ninth circuit says and what the law says but i do think that primarily this is coming from a place of we have people right now right at this moment as we speak who have nowhere to be and they are some of them camping probably right near us and some of them are sleeping behind dumpsters and they're hiding and they have nowhere else to go and this is a way for the city to recognize that this is happening these are our neighbors these are our community members and that we're going to respond in a way that is compassionate that is welcoming that says we care about our community and we care about what happens to folks is this a response to is this an answer to homelessness absolutely not honestly when i first heard about people soliciting donations for sleeping bags and tents when the when the end of the motel program was coming up i i was so appalled i could hardly stand it that this is our response that we're going to tell people they should camp in the woods it's appalling and yet it's what we live with here in vermont this is the situation facing actual people and so if they're going to be doing that then the city has a responsibility to have a response you need a policy to in order to to figure out how to handle this and then the longer term questions about what do we do about our community members and our neighbors who don't have a place to sleep that's another big question that we really have to keep answering this isn't the answer to that that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it so thank you thank you how have you the people who are homeless have you pulled any of them about how many want to sleep in hubbard park that specific question has not been answered but to answer the earlier question our peer support outreach workers have probably around 20 folks have communicated to her that they don't have any other options what do they want to sleep in hubbard park i don't know the answer to that question i think if you would ask them they would probably want to stay in the hotel yeah i don't i don't think anyone knows do they want to be in hubbard park because it's not really close to a store to any resources you're not wrong you're not they're not it's not close to what they're to what they would prefer which is a bathroom at Bethany church uh to nami to you know you say we don't have resources we do have resources well another way they have there are resources within they have a place to go during the day there there are not sufficient resources but there are resources true i want to connect with this population for a long time thank you i saw a question right here in the back yeah and then Alex Chernovaza some years ago i've done travels and i've interacted a lot with people who were on the line with being homeless and uh what i've heard from quite a few of them is there are facebook forums where people discuss places where you can go to countrywide where you can just go and spend time without anybody bothering you so while i fully agree that we may help people who currently need help in our community we may have unintended consequences where we suddenly may have 50-100 extra visitors coming to here just because it's possible and if there is a policy that we're not approaching we wouldn't know that those are the newcomers who came here because they can and i'm not saying this to in the sense to deny people who need help but at the same time how do we do it without putting ourselves in a situation where we uh and find ourselves there's like 150 200 more people suddenly around the park thank you appreciate it two two questions the curious what the hover deed says when they donated the land to the city whether camping was allowable use of what they wanted to have happen and the second thing is following up the last comment is that you've got to expect that i mean the issue of homeless is really significant and we all need to be working on a bigger program and a more comprehensive approach in the city in the state and no question about that but you've got to believe that the homeless population of burlington on pine street will say wait a minute we can go to hubbard park and hang out in hubbard park it's a lot nicer than boilers living in pine street and there's nothing to say they won't which is an issue with terms of number my concern over hubbard park is the health issue here there's two outhouses three maybe i don't know three outhouses no public water supply and you're going to have people living here crapping in the woods is already a tent set up last night over there that's going on for two nights so here they come oh and that's fine but i think you want to look at the areas that you picked and not just broadly say hubbard park ought to work in you know you look at dog river fields next to the sewage treatment plant that has bathrooms that has water that has access to them if the city will allow it and there are other options in the city that you could place in proximity to wastewater but to have people up here clearly not going to the outhouses because they're camped on top of the hill or the back and they're not going to go the outhouses they're going to just go in the woods and that's going to happen to a great degree and that's a health issue a serious health issue that the city can't just say well we'll get people to come and shovel it up occasionally that's not going to work so i guess my pitch to the park commission who i think does have authority to say what can or cannot happen in the city parks is look at it differently at hubbard park especially and try to find these other areas in the city which you've identified and see if you can disperse in a way that's released close to and access to public facilities um i i agree with these comments thank you um i think that the storm is about to come um and i am um am i correct that the city council is voting on this proposal tomorrow well they're taking it up taking it up okay there's a motion then yes but it's a starting the conversation so there's no guarantee that there's going to be a vote tomorrow night so i just sort of want to frame the conversation that we're we're sort of asking council to do is is this high sensitivity area side not so much the staff response side so the high sensitivity area conversation informs the staff response but regardless of high sensitivity area policy we as staff still need to come up with a way to address camping has there ever been a analysis of public park in terms of sensitivity i mean i worked with a lot of wildlife biologists and it takes hours and hours for someone to go around this park and identify rare plant species habitat steery yards that's not going to happen in five minutes that's going to take a suitable amount of time before you're going to get any kind of detailed analysis of what's going on inside of this park maybe i like already knows a lot of that but i think i'm going just with the storm coming i think it makes sense for us to come figure out what and we are over the time here a little bit to think about what we need to do telling as a commission in knowing that the city councils we're doing hearing tomorrow and maybe focus on the high sensitivity issue um are there suggestions that we have to amend or modify i think that's what we're being asked i did you mind if i sit down no please just part of like so what's what's the council expecting tomorrow from us well i think that there's you know this is just over discussion with the council tomorrow night so just like the homeless is task force excuse me we're still meeting we i'm having trouble here and over here sorry just like the homeless is task force met last week and they they moved it forward they approved what was is my understanding is they approved what was presented to them to bring to the council but they are also meeting again tomorrow correct yeah so there could be changes so i think at this point the parks commission is in a is in a place where you could make a recommendation to to provide input to the council for the conversation so it's not that it's a foregone conclusion that there will be a vote tomorrow night but this is our first public discussion around this policy right like we're not precluding if you all want to say we'd like to take hovered we'd like to add hovered to the high sensitivity area that's what we're here to to hear from y'all that's exactly right like you whatever recommendation um that is would come from you just like it came from homeless is task force the cemetery commission who has had all had feedback on this that it's our job as the council to then take all of that and then you know decide if we're ready to move forward or if we need to go back and revise before ready to approve one thing i just say is on any policy we propose sorry counter case council okay now do you know who any policy we pass i believe would be more restrictive than the status quo of how we practice now right now based in the heart of the chief based on what he says you want to set up this tent that tent at hovered you can you know there's no guidelines there's nothing 50 feet from a trail or anything this policy can be pretty nimble you know nobody's saying that okay god we don't need these resources we do we can't refine these as time goes on but it says we're dealing with a crisis right now we got 70 people in washington county their hotel vouchers drying up there and we want staff to have some direction of where they can go you know and i i would also like i'm on the board of mosaic they would just say you know some of these folks are victims of sexual and domestic assault who have nowhere to go and we're definitely not going to tell the police department to either arrest them and tell them to move on so clarity would be helpful around the proposal but again the proposal is more restrictive than what we're doing now thank you um so what kind of specific recommendations might we have for the council in that case i'm um asking my other commissioners what specific recommendations we might suggest for the council to consider reject the whole thing and write it properly i'm i'm asking the commissioners thank you uh i i mean i you know again the first time we heard about this was on it was on the 29th on the article in period in vicky digger that was the first inkling dogman as far as i know nobody else on the commission at any any communication whatsoever that doesn't even be considered it was drafted and then and then submitted um and so my immediate thought as well you know homelessness is a is a issue that has to be tackled by the community all we have to all do it together with resources together and then the question is will do is in under under the under those resources is one of those bullet points public property probably should be considered you know do we use public property as a resource uh for that um i keep going i said okay uh our our responsibility as commissioners um is to is to protect the assets of our parks of our city parks um and you know our i want everybody to realize that our questions and concerns do not come from any place of being biased against homeless people i think i speak for all the commissioners that that you know we if there's a way that that we can help and be a part of that that we want to be able to do that but i i again and then Cameron has said uh that we're we're not going to solve the problem of homelessness sitting here at this table um so you know i i but i still have i have a lot of questions and concerns that i that i don't i don't know if they've been adequately addressed here tonight um i am i i connor i know i i understand it's happening on you're saying that it's happening now and that you're right any any policy a one-sentence policy would be more restrictive than what we have now but this is an invitation it is an invitation um and so we're that's we have to to so to the best of our abilities we are trying to anticipate those unintended consequences that's what we're trying to do here tonight um i don't you know we could probably sit here until the rain starts and and and and pick apart the different parks and saying this area might be okay and this area might not be okay i'm not sure how we go about that i mean i would respect that for their fiduciary responsibility for the parks somebody should at least you know i i think that in the time you can't just put it on and say decide now hi i'm inclined to to let us chew on this for probably what's the soonest we can meet again without running a fallow oh it's gonna be tomorrow like no oh yeah we have to work on this 75 hours we have a 24 hour or you have a 24 hour notice for a 24 hour emergency 48 hours regularly thank you can we can you guys squeeze that yeah yep that is that tomorrow well i know i love it to be thursday i can speak from my own vote i'm cancel i'm happy to not have this go through the vote tomorrow night for sure if you need more time to chew on this i would i would ask that that you discuss it and not take action until we can at least weigh in on on the spaces i i think you know i don't know that we have authority over what goes into the policy i think it's really you know the city manager's office right but but i think as far as what parks end up you know in this on this map i would like to have the parks commission be able to weigh in before you vote on on yes or no well my sense is that this is something that needs to be dealt with as soon as possible but i don't see how we can how we could do that tomorrow night meaning i think that there there needs to be conversation that can't be can't be pushed off and pushed to a committee i think that need you know folk we need to hear from from you all you know from ken i know you guys are meeting again tomorrow i think there's a lot of important voices that need to be heard before we you know are making a decision on this so i agree with connor that and if we need to if that means that you know the council we can do that as quickly as possible and then have a special meeting to be able to move forward then then that's fine as opposed to weigh into the next one because this is really an emergency just like connor says to so yeah i think it's important that you all are heard and others and i you know i mean at least me i'm i'm prepared to have a special meeting so that we can you know give this some more discussion probably a better setting um you know as soon as possible so that way you can you know take your action as soon as possible i don't i don't want to leave you guys hanging but i do i feel like we you know we should be able to weigh in before something's decided um so special meeting on thursday thursday special meeting makes the 48 hour emergency meeting takes 24 well but it's it's eight o'clock now or whatever what time is it sorry seven seven i'm going to have a preschooler with me on thursday just to add to the mix like what's the soon as we can warn it do you want me who knows it who wants what's the soonest we can warn it like mary does the city managers yeah eight a.m tomorrow morning that's the soonest okay so it has to be thursday okay emergency meeting thursday yeah yeah that's really eight a.m thursday no tell tell that go through this month you know are those no they're already done it's done so it was until july yeah yeah there was a two week extension for folks with disabilities gotcha okay so i six o'clock thursday is that what we're saying yeah and indoors do people meet indoors i would i would do people meet indoors anymore i don't i would like to just pitch this again it's an advocacy issue that i'd really like to talk to every commission about really like for folks to meet in accessible buildings inside so folks with disabilities or the elderly can come to these meetings sure so it'd be pretty cool yeah so what room is that the police in the community room now you can do the community room you could do the council chambers council chambers do the council chambers is this not an accessible location not particularly okay i thought that this what sorry i don't think it is because it has to be there's a whole thing it has to be gravel and action it's functionally accessible but not legally okay so where are the council chambers so i will double check the booking and help you all notice that asap in the morning okay go in the front that'd be great actually um yeah all right i'll uh i'll move that we table discussion on this draft policy until our emergency meeting on thursday july 20 whatever okay 20 something you know the fire department and i will okay all right have that be a leading conversation in my presentation to the council tomorrow and um as also in your motion dan and you recommend that the council not take action and till then is that i think that's i mean the council could take action if they want to i don't i don't think we can recommend that that's fine yeah so i i move that we we table discussion on this draft um response policy until our emergency meeting on july 22nd and i ask that the city council refrain from taking action on on this policy until after we've made a final vote on you please don't say that you jinxed it okay um motion i need a second second okay um all in favor i opposed okay passes unanimously yay everybody come to all of our meetings please we need more of an audience every time our parts which are also very positive i encourage you all to come other times third thursday of the month six p.m all right blanchard survey lincoln can you give a quick update on where we are it's gonna get exciting now man we are in the we're in the um digital survey phase of writing a draft management plan for blanchard park that is live out on front porch forum um there's already been like 40 responses it's been great 40 yeah wow that's awesome wow that was just today that is incredible yeah that's fantastic i mean i did 38 i did 38 of them myself but yeah actually i had to get rid of the multiple responses so um that that's good and i think by early fall there could be like a draft plan that we can then bring to like public comment um to move forward with like a final draft and you know the ramon master naturalist project team that i'm on is meeting to tomorrow at blanchard to work on a survey of the natural resources and we're connecting with erin marcus who's the neighbor of blanchard and botanist and then um richard and blanchard's last name but we're getting some help from the surrounding folks to do the surveying and some of that stuff sort of been done shan back at senta from north ranch nature center sent us like a plant survey that was done like i think a decade ago but there is stuff that we're building off of which is interesting and probably good to think about going forward with these you know surveys and plans have been done before and we just can draw on that for for the current one so it's kind of a wrap it's just great yeah yeah good good work um thank you he has taken the lead not me no you did no we know that acknowledged um i what i do have as a list of the names and email addresses of the people who attended our field site is blanchard and i will email it to that list great um okay excellent we are on to the staff update um hey alec alec alec staff update right staff update um including update on progress with the community survey since he just talked about the blanchard survey you want to start with sure yeah um first of all um just to apologize for not getting you my regular staff update it's been a really busy month so um it's on my mind i just didn't do it um but the community survey has almost a thousand responses now which is really awesome that's i think we set down 3,500 postcards so i'm really pleased with the response so far we have a last we have one more mailing going out to everyone uh residents with the water bill there'll be like a little stuff for in the water bill at the end of july so i expect to get another little bump there um and we'll continue to throw it but i guess we'll tell it like this so just run through what's the deadline for that again august 10th i think thanks and i i yeah there's there's a lot of good info in there it's going to be a lot of process so we should definitely uh put that on our agenda for the fall okay there's some written responses yeah we have been mostly preoccupied with uh the Montpelier youth conservation corps which has been amazing we had our first cohort um um 16 uh finish up their first three weeks and we're just starting the second week of our second cohort of 20 so we're running three crews four days a week for the whole day um three different locations around the city were these people down by the high school cutting out all that by the high school yeah yeah cutting the that was impressive so they're letting us dry is it what it is no they're chipping it oh okay we only chip it a couple times in all right so they managed to avoid getting poison ivy they're um we're just like suiting up and and pulling the poison ivy proactively wow yeah that's commitment yeah yeah that's not necessarily like a positive introduction to come you know it's weird kids are loving it that's great we've had a couple kids get poison ivy um but for the most part they seem to thrive on the hardest tasks we rebuilt this bridge here which you can check out later in the meeting that's great we've been working on stone wall up in the park we rebuilt another um bridge up in the north branch park we've done a lot of amazing work with these crews so it's been so great i've seen them out several times it's good yeah um probably the most exciting thing to happen was um bernie sanders actually visited um the feast farm project and met with our whole first cohort of youth conservation court um that project hits a lot of his interest areas you know that youth um development and seniors and food insecurity and and sustainable agriculture so we were having an event there you know a tour for the public and and one of his representatives was going to be there and i guess he was around and he just asked if he could come so he came and we kept you know he wanted to keep it somewhat low profile so he could meet with us but he met with the my cc kids and just i love q and a and talked about what he does that was really that's great that's awesome for those kids so you said another crew just came in yeah we had two three week sessions so we're at the second we're in the second session now isn't it so we'll run all the way to the end of july great um anything else great any questions or anything i think in an email i might have sent to the two of you had asked and i got this out of a i think it was another digger article about the the vorac grants and how there was a ton of money that got appropriated for that and i'm wondering i look back i think at your most recent or i don't know it was one of the past two staff updates and i think it said something like you know we're considering projects but i didn't know if you'd got any further on on whether we wanted to put something forward for one of those grants yeah we definitely will put something forward uh their letter of interest is august 27th so kind of like on the back burner until the end of july but they're looking for big projects you know with 50 000 minimum with no maximum and they want to give out uh five point one million dollars to 25 communities so it could be potentially a large project we have a lot of you know we have multiple projects that could be easily over fifty thousand dollars um you know that are basically ready to go um it's just a matter of sort of like doing the work to sort through what's what the best fit is and talking to partners i know another one of their like scoring criteria is like regional partnerships so right spill or across from my trail or another community uh river conservancy we have a lot of projects that have partnerships so just gotta figure out which one is the best fit and then submit a letter of interest they actually have two grant programs they they took the six million dollars and they split it into five million and one million so the five million is like uh economic development you know outdoor recreation oh thank you um grant round and then the one million is for like shovel ready trail projects that like couldn't happen because of covid or not delayed and so you can send that to the house um i would for i just noticed the other day that there's a parking lot now by the the pump track which i was surprised about because i think when they proposed it we asked if there would be parking and we were told there would not be parking there and i was i don't know if you remember that but i remember um i was surprised to see that there i was wondering what's going on there um there is parking there is part of the site plan uh that was presented i think it was presented to the commission um but i don't know for sure i can't remember what the presentation was certainly it was in the site plan that was approved by the planning department so yeah there's there's parking there smaller than i thought it would be yeah it needs a little bit of tweaking the parking or the pump track the pump track i thought it would take up more of that space yeah it's really kind of tiny my daughter asks when we get walked by like what is that get her on it it doesn't i mean it looks kind of like a weed vest and dirt pile yeah a lot of people use it but it'll turn into that i mean you know it's it'll you know where where the where you do the pumping part will stay dirt yeah and then and then grass will grow up everywhere else so we actually seeded the outer banks over as part of the work part of you so that's coming in really nicely yeah it needs to be weed whacked you know we're really stretched in the summer so that's a good example of a place that doesn't get attention that it needs but yeah i i thought the parking was part of the plan for that i think it's a good idea um i think it needs a little tweaking as it is it's kind of tight in there how it's arranged but um yeah i don't may well i'll look at that i i don't remember it being part of the site plan when we looked at because i remember us asking about it and we were told that there was no parking and people would just go on the street there so maybe it's a need but i wasn't i'm not sure well the whole thing was not approved by the commission but parking specifically i don't think was part of the plan that we reviewed so we carried out you know the our department carried out like executing the plan i guess it must have been the planning commission that approved this plan but it like had parking and then it had the 50 foot buffer we planted over 60 trees in that site we created like a you know a 10-foot lane around the outside of it for access and then create you know protected by other parts of stone so there was like a pretty detailed site plan that i think a lot got lost in translation with that project between the various commissions and boards that it was presented to so sorry about that is that whole space and you know you go down Cummings it sort of ends there's this driveway that goes left and then you can start on the bike path is that whole space where the pump track is up to that little driveway park parkland do you know yep yep all the way to the paved road that accesses the water okay you know pumping station i would be curious to see a site plan if it exists because i think when we voted on it we said we support the concept contingent upon a site plan being developed and then never came back to the commission to actually approve construction of the pump track and then it was just constructed and so if there is a site plan i would like to see it at least and the commission never approved that project which i think is a problem we ever approved the pump track no we approved the concept of the pump track so that they could move forward with permitting and we asked for a site them to come back with a site plan a site plan was never developed and that so we never actually approved the project it wasn't part of the north branch mou no okay um and it's there i mean and when it was shared with us it was presented as it's just dirt so if you don't want it you can move it which i don't think is a very feasible socially acceptable solution um but it is there it's constructed but it just you know i would like i would just be curious to see the site plan if there is one since we had asked for one sure anything else that's why i mean he's looking at your agenda any updates on the um on trails you know new trail proposals and or the heaney property um so we need to go on to have to be executive session but um trail proposal um have had a number of communications with mariah from simulosity um i know that she's working on that trail design project but um i met with her before the last meeting and haven't met with her again so i think she's just working on okay okay yeah i think that's the only public trail fired in the fire right now yep and at the very beginning of the meeting somebody had shared that there was um issues with maintenance at the by the pocket park that need by the um confluence park that needs to be power wash just so you know because i think you had stepped away our wash mode what do you own do you have jurisdiction over the one on the east side of the bridge the new pedestrian bridge so the background on gyrton park um so just so we're all clear about what what we're talking about here gyrton park is the constructed shelter that's right across from the whole pedestrian bridge on the but and then on the bike path yeah and then confluence park is like the green space that has a couple picnic tables on it that's you know adjacent to the transit center so there will be confluence park yes future location of confluence park and what's the new one right across behind savoy the green space behind 12 so that's just an empty lot right 12 12 main i think no behind it behind the park up against the river it's five foot tall weeds now it's nothing it's nothing it's just a empty green space yeah it's nothing so um let's see where do i start the gyrton park the structure we um we were cleaning it last year and twice a week one and once often twice a week you know i think everyone has seen that it has been trashed pretty frequently and our staff just had a lot of like really tough interactions down there um felt like it was kind of a system of tasks you know they were both like having really challenging interactions with people and also feeling like cleaning this place was completely futile in addition to like dealing with human waste and a lot of things that were like you know not really equipped to deal with so there was a plan to move that you know to 12 main and we have applied for a number of different grants to move that that we haven't gotten um and so it kind of fell into this limbo place where it was like oh the winter was happening and we had this plan to move in but but that never happened now the summer has started again and we're back to kind of like square one with gyrton park which is like how do we deal with this you know it's obviously a really challenging spot so we have a proposal in to Cameron and the homelessness task force and Don the outreach worker to power wash the park every Friday morning um and hopefully get assistance from people who hang out there to clean it up thinking that like if we can chip in a little as a city and they can chip in a little bit as we get to the park we can come up so that's in the works you know it hasn't it's just my recollection of gyrton is that it was a volunteer group that got together to to put up this shelter and that I don't know that the the city ever actually sanctioned that space as a park are you aware one way or the other because if it's not a park I mean you know part of me thinks why should our our staff be spending their time yeah you know dealing with it constantly my understanding is that it was declared a park okay council we have to go back in the records to before my time yeah I don't know the answer to that for sure but I think that's what okay and then complements park the future site of complements park is part of like a bigger issue which we've talked about before which is like we have this amazing bike path with nobody delegated to take care of it and so the parks department has kind of like been pulled in over time to do things and you know we we've done some great things like down there now we got a grant to have a crew you know the high school crew had a crew leader that's like all paid for with grant money because it's in the riparian area and we're able to manage it but we really need a sustainable solution to that which is like some money every year to like have people that can actually maintain that you know be happy to have a VR department if we have the resources to do it so that's like you know the whole bike path east to west including you know the future complements park site the molat lot and and beyond so it's it's definitely a really big maintenance issue and we just don't have the resources to deal with it and we do the best we can but it's you know it's not great and again that's another place it's like there's human waste there there's you know drug paraphernalia there there's often people there who you know abusive and belligerent people yeah lots of challenging interactions in that stretch for sure for our staff so it's it's a tough time can i ask what plan b is because can can you just say no we're not and let public works take it on but it's not okay to leave it in limbo it's it's a health hazard right now yeah i don't know if there's plan b i don't think public works is equipped to take that on either i think it needs it needs a solid plan that's not just like the health officer fire chief told me he that he had talked with y'all and public works and that it was going to get power washed last week and then i saw your public works chief out there he's making plans to move it but in the meantime that's not until somebody votes where to put it um do you want to connect on that i just hear the storm coming i know i don't have any authority to set his priorities you y'all do so it i'm just raising that as a thing that can't be neglected any longer yeah yeah i'm happy no that's helpful um but i'm not sure we're gonna solve it tonight um so i just want to maybe move as long as there anything else in staff update space do we need an executive session today i don't think we really do how do i have any significant updates um then um i am going to propose that we adjourn by unanimous consent oh not unanimous just a couple one or two minutes um just so everybody's aware of what's going on so i i was a part of this um discussion that happened last week with the group that came to our last meeting requesting a dog park um and you know there was a lot of time spent sort of introducing talking about experiences people saying oh my gosh i can't believe montclair doesn't have a dog park we're this great capital city is a lot of that um but you know i think the next meeting is probably and then they we sort of you know set up this very high level framework for like you know if we um we being this group and i'm just sort of there more monitoring because i i don't know that i have really a dog in this fight but didn't even mean to do that um but sort of setting up a framework for right if we if we identify places that could be good how do we judge them you know what are the criteria and so i think some of those criteria at a very high level were were set out and although i don't know who we would ultimately fall to to say all right does it meet this you know is it sufficient space wise does it have you know this amenity this amenity um i don't know who that'll be but that was sort of what we got through and then at the very end we sort of talked about different areas that would be good and and i one thing that you know i i don't really wanted to be in Hubbard park and i think i you know i made that clear at our meeting and i made that clear at this meeting um but rather than saying not Hubbard park i sort of started pushing for gateway park um and ultimately i i also made everybody aware that the park submission would decide this but in my eyes gateway park doesn't get any use maybe maybe i'm wrong um it's a nice relatively flat open space it doesn't have water i think that's the one draw back um but i think it's a site that potentially yeah um you know i think it's a site that merits some consideration for at least setting part of the side for the record can you just point out where gateway park is not that we don't know i just just for the record gateway park if you drive out route to you can see the if you're going towards the middle sex you see the cemetery on the right green mount cemetery on the left right before you go under the interstate bridge oh that oh yeah okay there's actually really good parking yeah it's it's a nice spot and it's it's big enough that i think you could set aside part of it fence it in for dogs and you still have some space for people to you know picnic or do whatever they do down there but i don't know i don't really ever see anybody use it i don't go by there that often and maybe people do a car they ever wanted a great while but um fish down there yeah yeah so i think that's you know i'm hoping to make this an easy because i don't want to attend tons of these you know dog group meetings i'm hoping that you know we can sort of settle on this and and then we can bring it to the park station and think it through logistics or at least they can think through the logistics and then we can come to a plan uh come to the park summation with a plan i'm also this is nothing about nothing but i'm conscious of the timing here that we're i don't mean the rain i mean we're you know we're considering whether or not we're gonna let people in the park on the same breath yeah are we gonna you're right we're gonna set aside something special for dogs but not for for homeless people to camp i'm just conscious of that that's all specific area was that we treat them like well that's right i'm just conscious of that well and i like also just shared concerns of Gorton park which is the population yeah sharing that we are not equipped to deal with the population that we are inviting here yeah i assume that their preference is to be in Howard Park this group i don't know that's their preference um i mean it's certainly a central location as opposed to you know gateway which is a little bit further out i have to drive to get there um but i don't i mean you know a lot of people use Hubbard and a lot of people don't know where other parks are you know other than maybe north branch but a lot of people yeah so that might be a communications issue yeah um you know i just i think i just learned gateway park existed you know maybe a year ago and i've been on the parks commission for several years now so i knew it was there and i we just learned the name and i also want to point out that Dan did really fantastic research on green print funding which is like the key thing that we need to like achieving our vision i wish that were tonight's topic would be like that's what we need to focus on as priority wise i feel like um so we'll talk about that next time but um i can i can add more detail i i think there's more out there you know i sort of limited my scope to vermont but i you know i'll look at other states and see where we can go but hopefully in august we can talk about it i thought of one more important step up table is that parkapool is that has started or we did the first one last week which was actually the second one because the first one was rained out uh and we have one on thursday which means i won't make it to the special meeting um but uh it's going great first one probably two or three hundred people came oh wow great turn out great awesome show slip and sliders run in it everything's great how do two people get up there and just we park them at the dog field and then they walk down that's what we do okay where is it here it's at the stage by the old children yeah um well that's awesome great turnout yeah it's great um i am going to adjourn us now because i'm no longer walking i'm running um you know what i think