 Call the City Council of Estates Junction meeting for September 13, 2023 to order. Do we have any agenda additions or changes from staff or council? I do not. No. Hearing none, Elaine's here. No problem. Just started. Any agenda additions or changes will move on to public to be heard. It's the portion of the meeting where we have conversations with the public on items that are not on the agenda for the evening. Is there anyone in the room that has anything they want to talk about? Diane, come on up. Please. Items that aren't on the agenda. But it does references Diane Clemens. And I'm speaking as my myself, not any of the hats that I wear. So today on my way here after your last discussion when I attended regarding sandwich boards. I was wondering when the sandwich board discussion might be at the council's table. As I noticed that even the community bank had one out at their sidewalk. Okay. And I know that they're closed at the moment. And so no, it does not meet LDC rags. But anyhow. So that was my question is to when that was coming up, because it does seem to be a suggestion and not a regulation. So, okay. So the hope and intent is to start addressing the sandwich board signs. Prior to bringing back a full conversation of code enforcement with the council and just start getting those addressed. We are actively onboarding the new city planner. So still have some few things to work out and some priorities in the way, but. We are intending to address those. I don't have an exact point in time, but that's the hope. Okay. So just my, my curiosity and I'd like to attend to all that discussion was happening. So I wanted to see if I could put it on my schedule. But yes, thank you. Thanks. For anyone else in the room. I see any Cooper online on zoom. Any if you want to unmute. Hello. Hi, can you hear me? Sure can. I just want to reiterate politely and respectfully and with great care for community and yourselves that I am hopeful that your pace and the pace of the growth will feel. I have this analogy I want to make, but it's probably not kind of, but, but, but I had made it once before about the budget. And, and I, and it's not, it's not kind of, but I don't really mean it either, but it's, it's the best. Most succinctly I can get to my point is it, it feels like a startup that's going too fast. And I don't mean to sound like I'm going to start wearing a t-shirt with a train on it. That says whatever the t-shirt said, I don't mean it like that. I appreciate it. You know what I'm talking about here. What I'm saying is just please just keep checking in with each other and with things that are happening as the speed goes. Just keep it in check, keep it slow and make sure that your eyes are on all this stuff so that we don't get that you're not surprised later when you turn around and wonder, that's all I'm saying. And I know I already said it, but I just wanted to say it again. Thanks for listening. All right. Is there anyone else online that had anything they'd like to share with the council this evening? Not seeing any. So we will move on to the first business item discussion and consideration of GOP civil board of authority additions request. And a butcher that's all right. Okay, so we've got Susan here. And we've got a memo in your packet describing this request. So, essentially, the civil board of authority, all of the justice of pieces are Democrats and so there are no Republicans on the civil board of authority. So there is a request from the Republican party to nominate three folks and this is in line with the statute that's referenced in the memo. Our understanding of it is that there's not a opportunity to not appoint these people. The statute clearly says shall appoint. And these folks would be on the civil board of authority for election purposes only not for the other roles that the civil board of authority. Does anyone on the council have anything they'd like to add or any questions? No, Amber. No, anyone in the public have any comments or questions understanding that this is state statute and that this is a largely perfunctory rubber stamp that we're providing here for the state. Yeah, come on up. Thanks. So, my question is, for as an elected JP, I have an elected term limit. And I'll get elected every two years. How long is this appointment for. I don't didn't see that in statute. So I'm good question. Susan, you want to take that. I did have an opinion from the surface state's office director of elections that said it should probably go to the next term of the elected JP's. And that's. Forgive me, two years. So it would be. These terms started February 1st of this. This year. Okay. All right. Is there. Is there anyone online that had any questions or comments on this item? Raise your hand on zoom. Risa. Thank you. Since we have one opening with Bernie's very sad passing will having three temporary appointed JP's for election purposes, put them towards the head of the list with how the governor chooses. To fill the position. Thank you. I don't know if I could answer that, but. I believe the party of the person that they, they hated the position. It nominates names to the governor to replace that person. Whether the governor follows that or not. It's up to up to them and the last time around they did not. When we were pointing for the city. But I don't see any reason in this case why. I think Risa also with the numbers, I'm not sure. Wouldn't have that big an impact. The way the. Word of civil authority is populated right now. Thank you. Sure. Any other questions. And Risa, can you say your last name for the clerk for the person doing the minutes please. Thank you. Anyone else. I don't see anyone else. So if the board. There's no other questions of someone would like to make a motion. Should be in the packet. I'll move the city council appoint Deborah bill ado Catherine and Stevens and George Finley as members of the board of civil authority for election matters, according to the provisions of 17. BSA section 2143. Second. Great. Made the motion of Marcus seconded any questions, comments. We want to specify or need to specify about term limit. So that way this isn't a perpetual appointment. I'd accept that friendly amendment. So say for the current. Term for the current term of. Ending January 31st, 2025. Okay. All right. Great. Thank you. Anything else. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes. Great. Thank you. The next item is discussion and consideration of authorization of. Construction manager reward for two Lincoln renovation. With ARPA funds. Thank you. So let me share my screen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And Harlan are on zoom. So there are here for questions as well. So the two Lincoln renovation. We. Last week talked about this was the end of April. And the next steps were to move forward to get a construction manager hired so that we can. You can look at the budget. The plans and the schedule so we can have a good handle on what that actual. Dollar amount is before we decide whether to move forward or not move forward. So we had a RFP out. that process and ultimately we had two folks bid on it, Stewart Construction and Redloaf. The lowest bidder is Redloaf. They also have done a lot of municipal work. Really, we would be in great position if we went with either company. So that's an excellent position to be in, but Redloaf was the lowest bidder and so that is the recommendation that we've got in front of you. Also the memo just describes that what the sort of next steps are going forward. So we bring this the construction manager on board and then essentially over the next couple of months they take a look at the budget. There'll be three versions of this budget before they get to what's called a guaranteed maximum price. That's the point that we sort of move forward if we are comfortable moving forward with bids for construction. So the hope is to be able to move this forward over the next couple of months and then we'd also have a better handle on exactly what that schedule of construction looks like. In the RFP we put out that are anticipated though completely subject to the construction manager's knowledge and supply chain issues is that we would start construction in January ending in August. Both of the bidders thought that generally speaking that time frame is somewhat workable, but we'll see how it goes. We really talked about there are some big ticket items that really might dictate when we can expect to get that item. I'll say the elevator as one of those things and then once we sort of know when that is in place then we kind of back up the actual schedule to the starting. So the way that the cost works for the construction manager is complex I will say. What we are absolute guaranteed number amount is how much they've identified this pre-construction work is going to cost us. This is over the next couple of months working to get to that guaranteed maximum price. For the bread loaf proposal that's $5,000. The other three items that you see here the general conditions the construction phase and the cost of the bond that they'll have to get really depends on what that actual construction dollar amount ends up being and how long of a schedule the construction work actually takes. So the recommendation in front of you folks is to move forward with bread loaf and assign so we're using ARPA funds here and as a reminder the ARPA funds need to be assigned by December 2024 used by December 2026. So we're suggesting that we assign the 40 sorry I'm gonna get there 43 729. Yep 43 729 at this time knowing that that might change the $5,000 will be solid but that might change but it at least allows us to put it in the boat of generally speaking this is already spent we're not going to shift it and put it someplace else just so we don't lose track of it. But the assignment is not a solid thing that happens we can return back to that and make sure that it's the right number moving forward. Does all of that make sense? Okay any questions comments? You'll need two things I had one is exciting that we're making progress and so it's great to be at this point and then the other thing I don't need to answer today and I want to take the time for but just as a curiosity when there were seven people or companies invited to bid and ultimately only two ended up submitting a bid and this isn't the first time I've seen this thing within the city happen I'd be curious if there are things within our purchasing policy that might be impeding our capability of getting competition for the bids and so I'd be curious if there would be some kind of reflective exercise later on with those who did not bid us to figure out why. Excellent question. Let's see is there well there's no other comments by council and then I'll open it up to public anyone in the room who I had any questions comments uh how about on zoom is there anyone attending on zoom tonight that has a question or comment on this topic? John I can comment on the last comment there I did hear from several of the perspective bidders that they were simply too busy they may have received additional work during the period between when the RFP went out and they showed interest and when the bids were due and they just simply did not have the capacity to continue to consider this project that's fairly common out there right now it also applies to the subcontractors so I think the fact that you're hiring a CM early in the process to get you drumming up interest amongst subcontractors and get this project kind of out on the street and known to potential subcontracting bidders is a really important part of how you can keep your hands on this project in this construction climate so I feel pretty good about the whole thing at this point great thank you that helps uh Annie Cooper thanks Raj I am a huge fan of John Alden and I'm a huge fan of the fact that we're renovating to Lincoln I feel that on the one hand apparently we had 57 applicants for the city planner job and now we're only looking at two options for it's just confusing to me I feel like maybe we could go back out with it again or it just feels like a little bit of breaks a little bit of wait a second and it it just it's a lot thank you for letting me talk sure thank you all right so once again if there's no other comment let me just double check the council doesn't have anything else there is a recommendation on page seven at the bottom sorry page eight I'll move both I'll go ahead and move to the city council award the construction manager bid to the bread loaf corporation assigns $43,729 in ARPA funds for this project and authorize the city manager to move forward and execute a contract with the bread loaf corporation for construction manager services at the foreign amount not to exceed $43,729 plus a five percent b including legal review we have a second and mark a second it's great any other comments or questions seeing none all those in favor say aye all those opposed nay motion passes great thank you moving right along discussion of engagement goals for the council actually sear actually thank you john sorry so you didn't mean to not thank you earlier thank you bro and harlan thanks for joining hi ashley hi thanks for having me tonight to finish our conversation back in august we had this conversation where we brought up communication engagement for the council and one of the tasks that you tasked me with was to come up with some six month engagement goals for the council during that discussion elaine also brought up a report from the xx planning government project to look at and so that was something that i reviewed over the process or over the month that i took to develop these goals and move forward with this process so i'm going to start tonight kind of with that report within that report was a participation matrix it is a spectrum of public engagement this is an international rubric and the idea of the spectrum is to employ varying levels of engagement for the diverse needs and desires within the community and so that engagement spectrum is included within the packet for you guys to view this spectrum basically goes from an information that's very beginning all the way to empowering our residents to really take the decision and leadership of a project within any good rubric or spectrum this all of what you need to do is consider how this is being used and some of the projects that we have within the city this makes an excellent engagement tool to use and to kind of get us on the right path of level of engagement but within anything we need to make sure that we're asking ourselves obviously a few questions in regard to how much depth of input we are requiring of a project who is the most relevant audience members that we want to include within the project how we ensure and encourage representation within the project and then how much effort we're asking our participants to engage within the process so obviously this is something that I think would be a good tool for the staff to adopt and use on some of our bigger projects and where this makes sense so we can go into that in more detail if we need to but I'm going to keep on shaking ahead and move on into the next section where I feel like is our draft goals and when developing the draft goals this could have gone very large where we really tried to tackle everything or I felt that we had two great opportunities to kind of test these goals or test our engagement strategies on and that is our strategic planning process and our budget process I feel like these are two already kind of projects that we have going on in the next six months and having the council to have engagement goals that support and encourage more feedback and communication on these two different topics I thought was a natural choice for us to move forward in the next six months now that's being said that's the next six months and hope our plan was once we have the strategic planning process done that we will have that action plan and that action elements will be something that the council will take forward and move the staff will take on and move forward with that and it'll be our way to develop our budget and other priorities that we have moving forward so I have those draft goals within the packet for you guys to review today I have and some draft strategies as well with those and then once we really get moving on this I would develop some more tactics to help achieve those goals and ultimately some evaluation methods to support these goals to see if we are actually achieving the goals because within any goal that we create we want them to be smart and we want them to be measurable and to know that we have achieved those goals instead of something that we're just constantly doing and we don't know where we're at so tonight it's a lot of information that I've put in a nutshell tonight I'm asking the council to look at the spectrum of participation and to either agree to move forward with it and to see if the council had any concerns with the staff adopting this for certain projects and moving with forward with that and then my second ask today is to review the draft goals and to see if you have any concerns with this direction and then to move forward with that process great Regina can we scroll down so that the video can show the page with the goals on it which I think is after the root work all right there yep I don't know who's controlling the PDF but it's not on other there okay great anyone I'd love to start great go for it I really want to thank you Ashley I'm looking at you on Regina's computer really want to thank you for addressing our concerns about communication very rapidly and I know I just introduced that reintroduced that communications protocol last meeting I think maybe two meetings ago that was recommended in 2015 and it's really makes me happy to see that it's now before us as a decision I think the spectrum that you have in the packet from IAP2 is very very similar and I'm guessing is a little more updated and I think it's a great recommendation I would I will be really excited to hear once assuming the council adopts this that the the staff have started using it and I'd love to hear down the road how that's going and what kinds of decisions and projects and communications it's being applied to and how it is working for you this is very new for us and I'm really excited about it because it is a protocol for everyone to follow so every department can communicate in a similar way using this rubric so really want to thank you for taking this seriously and for helping us accomplish the third out of four goals from the Essex governance group report that came out eight years ago so eight years ago the village trustees accepted that report acknowledged the importance of the recommendations and it's taken us a long time we've already conquered two of them so it's great to get to the third one so I just want to really thank you Ashley for that and say that for one I think that we should absolutely adopt this great thanks anyone else Andrew sure thank you thank you actually this is fantastic happy to see this coming back eight years ago it's great to see with the the protocol the rubric that sounds great love to see staff utilize that with the goals is I might ask that maybe we try to achieve a little bit more of a difficult goal in that we try to reach more than two percent feeling very knowledgeable about the budget it's nice to make achievable goals but I think we can do a little more than inform two percent of our community um or those responding in the survey um the only other thing I just wanted to add as well is with that that third goal of switching to an enhanced town meeting slash Australian ballot hybrid I don't think we actually achieved that my understanding of what that goal actually was is that we have a group of people who come out to a town meeting inform them of the process inform them of the budget that's being presented to them that gets debated and then later on that gets voted on based upon the decisions that happen at that town meeting yeah we haven't done that that that's true at the time it was something we had aspired to but um technically and statutorily it wouldn't work so we but we did move the budget to the ballot which was a community goal just the first name of the first group btb yeah yes b2b b2b yeah and I think to take off on that not to jump in front of you but Marcus with comments but um you know I think we're starting to talk about something where we try to approach that so we we push up into the process more of the community dinner and participatory process where we can actually try to emulate that conversation and take suggestions and so that the board has time to then go back and see how they maybe or may not be incorporated into the final product that then gets presented again and voted on so yeah a much different process not that there wasn't opportunity to participate in the budget process before but this is much more intentional um so that's an idea being floated right now I think anything else did you have anything else um so Ashley I I have to agree with the sentiments that have already been shared very very thankful for the work done here I do know and hearing from some people about our previous conversations on this I was um a little surprised but a little hopeful in the fact that what you provided was not just something to cover the next six months but covered I think which is going to be a long-term strategy for communication and engagement um my concern comes in with the goals and again I want to and I know this gets beyond the strategy to the tactics but I I want to be really clear about like again when we're putting this measurement in place and I agree with Andrew achievable goals great hopefully we can do better than just two percent but I want to be clear about how are we really able to measure this what are we going to use in order to measure this because my fear is we could survey a group that will have be completely disconnected and won't reflect truly the community at large um so that's one of my concerns the other is in looking through this it doesn't really also acknowledge communicating or making sure that we're communicating to those underserved populations or portions of our community we have acknowledged in previous conversations on previous issues talking to a variety of different stakeholders in this community owners renters you know economic status all those levels all those things making sure that we're doing that I'm not seeing that necessarily in this strategy specifically so that is something I would like to see somehow incorporated to what we're doing and then lastly again just acknowledging I'd love to see some of the tactics that are then going to go into play and I'm sure we have to approve this first before we can get to those tactics but I also want to acknowledge too that while I'm really appreciative of the long-term aspects of this strategy I think in the short term we as a council we as a city mean to make sure that we're engaging the community now and in the near term because if we do this and then the next step is to look at tactics and then approve that like where are we going to get to when we finally have this kind of finalize to move forward between now and that point I want to make sure that the city the residents of the city community here feel like they're accessible engaged like what are we doing in the very near term so those are the things that I kind of felt a little disconnect with but I do again I agree I think the rubric is great I think we should we should adopt that and I think generally speaking the goals and the strategies here also are admirable so I will support this but I'd like to see some enhancement here yeah and I'm happy to address some of those concerns that you guys have tonight obviously with the 2% of the in the goal that making it a measurable goal was a little difficult for me because we do not have a baseline and so instead of having something that was 2% of our population or 2% of our 5 or 10 or whatever we don't have those that baseline to really say we're moving on to a no goal so I was keeping that low for that for those purposes just because we don't have a baseline but I'm happy to be more aggressive with that in our goal if we want to if we definitely want to move forward with that in regards to you know the immediate of this is that we have these two projects coming forward and the strategic planning process is kicking off this month actually so I've had a great first meeting talking about the project with future IQ and we'll be starting interviews with future IQ actually on Friday and so we're starting that process and part of that process I feel like we will be discovering who those groups are and engaging with those groups within the strategic process which will also help us when we're moving forward with the budgeting process of already establishing who those people are because at this point we can say renters and we can say but we don't have those we don't know for sure who those people are and who those contacts are and part of our process within the strategic planning is defining who those people are and getting them to the table and getting them to meetings and so I am hopeful that with the strategic planning and I know that we keep talking about the strategic plan and the strategic plan but a lot of the stuff that you guys are wanting to already do we are going to be doing within the strategic plan and so you guys are going to be within your engagement strategies you are going to be enhancing the strategic plan and giving us opportunities to have more feedback that we might not necessarily be able to do our future IQ might not be able to do on their own they are contracted for you know think tanks and surveys and workshops and having those outreach efforts but you guys will be able to have my goal is to have strategic conversations that are enhancing what we're already doing with a strategic plan so if we're asking the participants a question on the survey we're also asking that in those engagement opportunities that the council is doing within the community and so it's going to be a way for you guys to bring more data and more information and more voices to the table that we might not have reached within us if somebody doesn't want to answer a survey or they don't have an opportunity to come to a workshop or to a focus group so I'm hopeful that these extra strategies and goals that you that we're going to be doing in the next six months will give us kind of a test base as well so that when we have that strategic plan in place we have those long-term strategies already kind of working and we've got a little bit of those kinks worked out as well. Elaine wants to jump into um and goal two just a couple little things and goal two the audience is voting residents of Essex Junction just want to modify that a little bit and say we're really not limiting this to to voters um that is not a big deal for me I understand where you're coming from on this I think it's something we all fall into so it's just that um but but this the next thing is a little bit more nuanced and um sounds a little silly when we're talking about our work to go out and and reach um residents and constituents but this kind of came up at last budget season and I just want to make sure that anything we're putting together for um you know essentially volunteer positions we're taking into account what the barriers are for those that we want to receive our information and we want to engage but we're also keeping in mind how we're doing that in terms of who is stepping forward and our boards and committees to do the work so if the solutions we come up with require more time effort commitment are we really reducing barriers for service in that way so it's it's not something we have to change on this at all but I just it's one of those things that I just want us to keep in mind as we do this work and as people see us doing this work and they ask us to do this work it's not just us it's it's all of the boards and volunteers in the city um and frankly staff workload um that that we're keeping in mind reasonable expectations and managing those um so that people from all of these groups we're trying to reach feel like they can serve in these positions without being overly burdened by time and everything else so it was a long winded way of saying you know I just want to make sure we're when we do come up with these things that we're we're thinking of the people that actually have to do the work um and right now that's us and we're we're all here to do it but you know in the future hopefully there are different people um so anyway that was it um thank you and Elaine I think you wanted to jump in again does Amber have anything to say first I didn't see her hand up yet but I haven't looked at Amber she just shook her head no okay sorry um I just have a thought about establishing one particular baseline that might be helpful um particularly around the fact that we no longer have the opportunity to amend the budget from the floor at town meeting we generally had a certain number of people that attended every every meeting every village meeting and those were the folks that would vote on the budget and make amendments so perhaps if we looked at attendance at village meetings before we separated and before before we went to Australian ballot to get an average number of attendees then that might be a goal to make sure that at least that number of people attends our budget hearings during the budget process because we've had to replace the floor with budget hearings and people are less likely to come to budget hearings in in you know various times over the course of the holidays and you know early January February um then they were to come the day of village meetings so perhaps that number might be a good baseline to start at as in terms of we need to reach at least this many people through budget hearings and just go from there yeah okay anyone else well all right so once again we'll start in the room is anyone in the room have no okay uh and on zoom is anyone on zoom have a comment or question giving my zoom a second to catch uh annie cooper clearly i'm feeling like my old self i'm sorry for participating so much um i love uh andrew suggestion about um having there be some time between when people can discuss the budget and changes that can be made i am all in for that and it's real to hear that elaine brilliant about a number being the number that up to start with at least that we had in the room for that that's great we could have the same party atmosphere we can assign in to colobos to that if we wanted to um and my question is for ashley but i'll say it through raj i guess is the the way to do it ashley you're great this is a great huge channel um is there space inside this rubric for um like some like i'm thinking of the word something locks like it's if there's a component of people who don't want something that they're being engaged about towards like like let's say you're talking about uh you're gonna maybe the sandwich boards maybe there's a whole pile of people that really want the sandwich boards and now you know they want to rise up about the sandwich boards is there space inside the rubric for how that can be and not just have it be oh we heard you but then you guys do it the way you see what i'm saying thanks yeah no problem and raj is it okay for me to jump in go for it okay um so within the rubric um obviously all those different levels um have different um ways that we're communicating within the public and how we're getting the feedback from the public and so some of those are um that we're getting input uh from the community and then we're showing how their direct input um it's has influenced our decision and then there's um with within empower it's more of a direction to where um the um we're putting the full like decision making power in the hands of our residents so that's more like citizen proposals and community run committees um is where that kind of empower uh section goes and so it's kind of the higher tier level um and then more force towards um the residents um taking that on um and kind of coming to us with their proposals um i feel most of our um uh projects it will determine where we lay on that based off of asking those initial questions that i discussed but also um how um basically how much feedback that we need from our residents um so um the involvement collaborate is really where we're going that doing that back and forth um conversations and where we're actually trying to show where their feedback is being enacted in the policies or ordinances or the project that we're doing does that answer your question annie yeah not only does it answer it it sounds really great because it sounds like what you're saying is that you and you're so thorough i already know for fact so it sounds like what you're saying and i'm like teary eyed it sounds like what you're saying is when the feedback comes back it's not just yeah and then everybody just keeps going you're saying that you will gather the feedback and then reveal the feedback to the public and it doesn't to everyone not just the people who i see and then that would then um dictate forward motion i am thrilled thank you for your time and thank you for your professionalism and for answering me no problem you're very welcome comment or question a few more seconds i don't see anyone so we will move on anything else from the council do we need to do an action item for this i believe there is so there aren't there isn't a formal action item on this um that's true there's not because the concept here was just to get some overall feedback um i suppose uh the council could approve the spectrum of public participation if you would like to but i don't know that there's a need for you to do that um and then the goals really are what we're trying to explain here is we're going to use the next two big things we're working on strategic planning and the budget to sort of think through how we do all of this stuff better how do we track it better how do we know what the metrics are and so that we can hit those metrics so we're not asking for any formal approval of where we're at right now we're just sort of checking in and say this is general thinking on where we're moving forward um i do think ultimately engagement i'll say improved engagement will be something that is likely to rise up in the strategic planning process and i think there will be more work around what that looks like when we kind of get to that point if that makes sense it does and i really appreciate how this is sort of being brought in at various levels of everything that's done you know it's being intentionally considered and now it will be intentionally considered in areas where it may have been talked about before but it will be brought up um so i think that's great um and i just sorry to add one more point to that um uh ccrpc uses this spectrum of participation many people do because it's sort of the standard um and i will say it is a it requires a learning process and really thinking it through and trying to figure out how and when you put it into motion because a lot of the things that we do are in that first column um it's really the like real shifts in apology policy change and things that we're talking about that kind of land over on the right side of the column um so just right now oh that's good all right thank you very much ashley thank you thanks for joining us all right moon right along 5d discussion of fy 25 budget goal setting okay that time here uh so let me share my screen here isn't that the official sign that summer is over fun season has begun um so first off um the first part of your memo here is really just um pointing out that this is a tough conversation for you folks to have just right off the bat every year without a whole lot of background this is what we've done this is what your goals were this is what's been achieved and sort of working through a process to then be able to begin this conversation for the first time for fy 25 uh so just know that i recognize that i understand that it's the reason why we're doing the strategic planning process to attempt to start that whole more cyclical well-oiled machine moving forward um so knowing you don't have that what we've got in here is um starting from nothing let's just get that right out is the schedule just so you know over the over the coming months uh we will be sending out the budget packet to department heads tomorrow uh so that we can start building this budget uh with the goal of getting it to you folks prior to thanksgiving um and setting your budget day uh in that first week of december um so jess will reach out to you to try to figure out exactly what day that that is um but the hope is from our end we will get you that budget so you've got a good amount of time not just like the friday before whatever that day ends up being can i ask a quick question on the the packet that you're sending out to the department heads so what is what is included within that packet to the department heads what is the ask is it is this the initial ask of numbers are you asking for their strategic plan for the upcoming year what is what is that ask so the ask to the department hence is essentially they are given their line item budget and asked to fill it in and and identify in the notes column what uh needs they have um so if something is going they've added in a number in four f y 25 that is significantly different than what that number was in f y 24 we're also asking to for them to identify why um and what the what the purpose is um and they submit that to us we take to jess and i we take a look at that compile it and then we meet with the department heads individually and so um we are uh it's probably in the weeds but we are not asking the department heads to adjust the salary line individually because that's comes from a whole other place and it's uh more systematic than that but we would be having conversations with the department heads about whether there is a staffing shift that they need in some way shape or form if some something's happening something's not working for them because they don't have enough staff where they are trying to think about something differently in terms of what staff they have and reshifting that to something different uh so those conversations would happen in those meetings and then we try to get this to a complete and solid package for you folks and so you're aware uh when we get this over to you what's different uh from this current fiscal year and why thank you um okay uh also just wanted to point out here in the schedule we've talked about this already maybe in two items tonight um so uh be a covid and australian ballot we don't have that gathering of people coming together um and having a community dinner so our thinking is this year going forward it probably makes sense to attempt to have that community dinner and bringing people together in february uh because that is the point in the process where we could hear feedback and actually attempt to incorporate it into the budget our statutory deadlines that work backwards from the actual voting day give very little actual real input into the process uh in order for us to have kind of some of that actual more real input um so that's what we're suggesting um the one slight downside is that uh we are going to be putting out a budget asking people to come and talk with us about it and that will not be the same budget that is on that ballot just so folks know there is some iteration and some changing which is the whole intent of us having the conversation that much earlier on um but just so folks are clear on that i do go ahead and i'll come back to that sorry uh also um want to point out that uh uh we have an association um that essentially is uh works much like a union but does not have a union um backing behind it so uh that contract is we are in f y 24 is the last year of the existing contract so uh in november we will start the negotiations for the next the next contract uh at the right now we have a salary study that's getting done that can help um give us some real data into that process and um then um that is really going to be a pretty big piece of the puzzle in terms of what that salary line looks like and i think that is it good point all right well i'm going to jump in with a quick question about something you just talked about um which was the february potential february community dinner so should we decide to mail ballots again that adds 30 to 45 days and so i'm i haven't done i haven't had a chance i keep meaning to try to timeline this out i'm with the pen and paper um we don't have to figure it out tonight i'm just wondering what that does to the february dinner you know again we don't have to figure it out tonight um i'll just say quickly um it doesn't really impact our schedule very much the mailing of the ballots versus not mailing of the ballots um i guess i'm i'm asking in the context of making sure that once somebody gets their ballot the final budget has been both set and explained as opposed to set with the three weeks later the hearing happens you know what i mean like i want to make sure we've done all of the big work we're going to do all the big outreach we're going to do we may still have some one-on-ones or copy things or here and there but we've done the we won't even have done the statutory one yet right because that's just going to be one we're not we do the dinner and we do another thing we're not going to go to cater the last one so anyway it just that it's a wrench a bit of a wrench in the works um so i didn't mean to interrupt necessarily but it's that it's that silly piece i received the budget and i've had the opportunity to know what i'm about to go i'm just not gonna you know um yep it's the it's the timing of when the ballot when your ballot's going to arrive in the mail versus when that newsletter is going to arrive in the mail and we um we'll take a look at that again to see if we can adjust or do anything different to that how that is happening yeah because that's that's the real challenge and the um we're getting three different things printed we're getting the ballot printed the newsletter printed and the newsletter printed annual reporting um annual report yeah sorry i don't know what even i just said um but uh the and those are just i think there's some room of the logistics that we can help get that straight i think but i'm not going to make any promises because we've got to look at that a little bit better but i know that is definitely the goal that we don't want the ballot to arrive before the newsletter i just want to say that we don't have to get into it too far tonight yeah um i mean i think you know in terms of we can go around the room i think in terms of budget goals for me i i started to make a list for myself but i really i i do want to wait and sort of hold my mental capacity on that until we see the salary study and start getting an idea of really how much wiggle room we have so i have a number in mind that's not very high in terms of how any increase that this budget experiences and i think that i don't i'm guessing that the salary study is going to mean we need to raise salaries a bit just based on the climate we're in and i don't know how much of that's going to eat away my personal comfort zone um so i think i'm i my my comments right now would be more around process and um what that process through the development looks like i don't think that's what we're talking about tonight so i'm gonna i'm still trying to figure it out for myself and i don't know if that's sound incredibly helpful i guess the one thing i would say that i really do want to see um is perhaps some investment in um trying to think of the right word training municipal team building in the in the staff within the staff um and i could get much more specific around that but i'd like to make sure that we have room for some fairly specific kinds of training um and and opportunities to to build cohesion and efficiency within the within the staff and and really because we have a lot of new people there's been a lot of change and there's been a lot of upheaval for the years leading up to this um the current staff of them of um dealt with and i think it would you know we it would do do us all well do especially them to to invest in bringing them together and um and certainly help in retaining employees right now just so that's that's all i have right now anybody else want to go do you have any thoughts no go you maybe do this last time i know really mark it's your up all right i'm um i kind of felt the same way that you did raj in the fact that i started to write a list and i think i get too much into the minutiae of it all um i really kind of i kind of feel like at the moment um very high level um and i've had these conversations before i i think what i would like to feel like coming out of conversations around the budget is the fact that we are being more proactive i think a lot of times we i think we're still in some ways digging ourselves out of a hole because of covid because uh the transition from the you know government we once had to the government we are now i would like to feel as though we're being more proactive i think as a community member i always felt like observing what was happening in the city that um why haven't we fixed that pothole why haven't we done that and you know you stand back as a as a resident and you start to question whether or not are people paying attention to this or we what are we waiting for we're just waiting for the truck to fall in that hole those kinds of things right so i think i want to feel like and i i don't think we're necessarily going to hit that in a budget but i'm just saying as a as a feeling overall i want to feel like we're being proactive the other is again i want to make sure that we have the right tools in place whether it's potentially software personnel whatever it may be to get make sure that we have accessibility from our constituents our residents the business community to this government so that whether they're observing us here in a meeting that they can hear us they can understand us they can feel like it's easy to jump in and participate all those kinds of things i want to make sure that we're doing those i think some of these things will be solved with some of the projects where we've already been talking about renovation on to Lincoln and things like that but generally speaking i think that's my 60 000 foot level view of it at the moment yeah i'll leave it at that for now i think i would like to see i can't wait to see the numbers so that i can start feel better about where the feedback that i want to get back okay i'm just i'm just looking inquisitively not assigning if you don't want to know andrew is doing it too i do want to acknowledge that marcus is the newest member of our group and so we do have the privilege of knowing how this budget works and have years of experience on it so i just want to thank marcus for being so game as to jump in and all of your questions are important so please don't hesitate to make us come back to the beginning to help you understand how we do this so want to make sure you don't feel like you're we're like leaving you behind thank you can you just please include me on that too after four years you could all hold somebody's hand like raj i am curious about the salary study and the other thing i'm waiting for is the health care percentage increase um in general i've noticed over the years that 80 85 percent of the budget is completely beyond our control and the rest of it is what we can play with and so that's very limiting and that was true when i was a library trustee like it sort of starts with the departments and goes up to the city like you know the 80 percent it's like hard to touch a lot of that um so i don't have specific like i want us to do this or do that i do have some two things i want to propose to ask the voters for fy 26 and i have two just kind of policy things um i want to make sure that we do do that sidewalk line item in the capital plan i just think that is a very smart way for us to go and i'll make sure that we separate that out um i know that we're starting this conversation but i want to make sure there is a policy and a process for how we allocate the lot so the local option tax revenue is starting to add up and our neighbors in wilson recently share that they have a nine million dollar pool of lot funds and we certainly won't approach that anytime soon because they've got lots of other retail but it adds up and i want us to make sure we have a policy in place for what we do with that money that's super transparent and that is not like a christmas list like we're going to do this with it and this with it um i i'm hoping that it is strictly used for capital because that is what we told the voters we would do with it and economic development and then that there are specifics around what economic development means you know does it mean banners that hang from the light posts does it mean flower gardens does it mean um revolving loan fund for storefront improvement like there's lots of ways that that can be used i just want us to be super specific and have parameters for that um the two things i want to ask the voters in fy 26 and this is up to us to decide whether to do this or not when we were residents of the town of sx they had voters in the 80s did this wonderful thing where they specified that they wanted one percent of their tax dollars to go towards nonprofits that serve residents and the town is continuing to do that it is an excellent thing it's a really great way to spend a lot in a in a lined way with our values and to ensure that our residents are being cared for by the services they need so i would love to ask the voters at this upcoming town meeting whether next budget in fy 26 we could start allocating one percent which i know has budget impacts because we would need to raise to meet that so it's a conversation that we need to have as a community but i think it's our values and we've done it before so just when we were part of a different municipality it's very important to me that we at least have that conversation um those services are not going to pay for themselves so and the last thing i want to ask is um this is something that i have toyed around with some of you have heard me talk about this before i would love us to talk to the voters about participatory budgeting i would like to us to set aside a pilot test amount of i don't know ten thousand dollars whatever and put some some very small parameters around it and then let the public decide what the public wants to do with that money and i think that if we pilot it and we test it out and we work out the kinks that it can become a significant way that the public can be involved in the budget it's really engaging really meaningful and impactful and is not up to the council is up to the voters so that is my wish list for FY 24 i think there are some communities doing some of that with ARPA funds yes ccrpc is trying to do that and it was interesting to me to think about lot funds a portion of lot funds yeah yeah and i think the one percent is great i was thinking of phasing it in um depending on how things went but yes i think it's absolutely worthwhile thanks andrew amber amber go for it well for andrew and raj you are you hear this every single year so here we go we always focus on the expenditure piece of of the budget and not so much the revenue piece and so i always try to try to encourage us to look a little bit more specifically at like com deputies and stuff um i think we've had some of that discussion internally um about you know things like if an after-the-fact permit costs you only $50 what's the downside of you know what what's the the implication of doing that and and i'm not looking to to make you know significant amounts of money but i do think we need to look at those in relation to inflation and what we're what we've got in for um costs for employees and stuff to be their time um so and i hear you elaine on the lot policy the capital committee is looking at that and um we didn't have a meeting this month um because we're still waiting for some sidewalk numbers from the um engineers in order to be able to look at those numbers intelligently and say if we have five hundred thousand dollars each year how much can we allot for sidewalks because it costs x amount for sidewalks to be built so we are working on that and i think that's one of my goals as well is that i'd like to see i'd like to see that drafted sooner rather than later so we can hopefully use it to draft the budget this year. Andrew before i'll say my comment um the uh i'm thrilled first off to see the uh proposed February dinner conversation um Regina i know you and i and actually agonized over that last year so i'm thrilled to see that that's um that's coming um one of the things i would love to see uh with the budgets on budget day is also just a identification from departments as to how they would or how they measure and find success so that we can start to have that conversation in terms of how the budget does help to drive success and what that looks like for each department um is this the year when the penny on the tax needs to be revoted yes so then that that conversation as to whether to continue that or not um overwhelmingly the only things that i i have are i think more of that strategic conversations things for the strategic planning around i'd love to see the process broadly just be different but that's another time um great i did yeah marcus i can't remember who reminded me to say this but i did actually have something um that has been on my mind since we made the it transition this year and we didn't do it this current year for budget reasons but i feel strongly that we should consider it and that is ensuring that our volunteer committee employees and i'll call them auxiliary employees anybody that does city work has a city account to use because they are exposed to requirements around record keeping and FOIA and all of the fun things that come with doing this work and i think it's important that they're not using personal accounts that can be pulled through uh one reason but i think it's also professionalism um that we are reflecting the actual cost of the work we're doing um and that way we're transparent about how much it costs to do the work so i realize we're a subscribed contracted ith situation every every head we add adds cost so it's i think it's worth considering um how we do that but one one thing i was thinking was maybe it is committee chairs but they're still communicating with with private citizen volunteers and those communications are still open um so yeah that was that was the one thing that i can't remember we said something that reminds me but other than that there's there's a lot of things that i'm considering and right now most of them have to do with process and presentation in terms of how we engage and everything we talked about so can i add on to a comment just man sure and again going back to my earlier statement about accessibility the public one of those things is i would like to see that all the committees are easily accessible and viewable and because right now the city council the drb they could be viewed on youtube they could be viewed by participating in the zoom meeting but you can't do that with every single committee meeting and i think if we're going to again create an environment that is more open more inclusive and for people to witness the work that's being done it should be as accessible as any other meeting we have so i would like to see that kind of standardized across all of our committees as well is there anything else one thing sure um i know i've talked with you about this but starting that governance committee and ensuring that they have funds oh yeah yes yes yes yep sorry looking at you ross but virginia it's like a mirror just yeah that's deflected just there's a lot of clarity against so that people understand we have by our own the charter we have to have this discussion in regards to our city governance by the end of next by the end of june 30 of 25 so with that we have the stand-up committee we have to do the work that's necessary in order for a community to be engaged with participants so that a decision a vote and decision to be had on this not by that date but but the work needs to be completed and a report i'll call it a report produced identifying the community's desire or ranking of the governance model among other things for the city of sx junction right now we have a manager council council manager form of government where the manager is the administrator and the day-to-day chief operating officer for the community we employ the manager the manager employs everyone else that's by design it's by state statute there are many other we could that committee would also consider wards neighborhood assemblies all sorts of manner of existing or other creative solutions and then the community would then we would get the report discuss it figure out how to move forward or not on what and we don't necessarily have to wait until f y 25 to start that um but i think with everything going on it's likely to end up waiting until until though it feels like after we do our strategic planning process that's like the next thing and i think it's an important enough conversation that we may want to hire a consultant to help us with it yeah and so that's kind of where the funds are going to have to come in from your stipends for participants and there were likely to be legal counsel uh definitely legal counsel that is not as extensive as it was during merger separation charter creation but not insignificant so i guess we probably need to get an estimate we definitely have numbers from what we spent on legal form from those uh governance subcommittee days that i enjoyed George um i can't imagine we would need that's level that many hours of an attorney but they're going to need to well and probably a lot of the answers they could get from BLCT and secretaries it's so it's probably not going to be us so that's that's what that is for you all right virginia do you is there anything else you're looking for no this is super helpful anything you wanted to add to that at all or not at this point okay thank you sure all right diana i'm looking at you again starting with it in the room tonight nothing okay uh just to change it up risa maren on zoom did you have some comments or questions thank you i do if you could think back to the beginning of this conversation when it was about mailing the newsletter and the budget and uh the ballots and everything else i still live in an area of s exemption where we're barely getting mail i feel i'm reminded regularly of how it felt when i was checking to see if i was accepted to a college if i received my license and when there's actually mail there once every two weeks i jump up and down um so please i know we can't predict what will be happening with the mail however many months from now but if you can try and schedule that in that you know we may never get it and i strongly believe in mailing the ballots no question about that but it's a little scary right now with mail thank you any thanks um the the tax on the depending on the dollar great the other two things that elena's suggesting are basically asking residents to pay a higher tax and then whatever that money's going to be maybe not higher but whatever that money's going to be and then pull it and hand it over to a certain group of residents who can then choose how to grow the city forward without voting on it and i think that that's really i get the i get the energy behind the wide-eyed innocence of the joyfulness of it but we already had the weirdest situation where heart and soul was registered as its own non-profit at the rec department and had john alton and brad luck on bank account like that's bizarre again all done in good faith and whatever but we can't just keep you have to have there have to be rules about money there has to be voting about how budgets work and you can't ask voters to pay their taxes and then take a pile of money from that and then hand it back to a group of residents and say okay you're a committee you guys go do what you think is best with this money that money has to stay working get voted on penny on the dollar at least lives at your table where you vote for it thank you all right so there's no action item on this great all right so the next thing on our business item is an executive session so i will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda move that the city council entered an executive session discussion we're doing the other thing first oh the other thing consent agenda yeah comes out of order it's okay but you can still move to approve the consent agenda if you like uh hashtag newbie that just happened amber i hope you saw that i totally saw it i'm going to approve the consent agenda oh second great uh see no discussion all those in favor say aye all those in a motion passes reading files don't have anything necessarily to add in the reading file okay a few things if you want me to go before sure go for it um okay um so on the HR side of things we are in a really good place with even though we've incredibly low unemployment rate here we're actually doing okay the exception um continues to be child care workers for ejrp and you know this is a massive problem all around and actually as i was coming in today there was a episode on on point about it as well um so um just know that that's out there um and we've got a library some position that we're trying to fill but otherwise we are actually um all of our positions are filled right i mean in place do we have none in the spot right 60 ish i have 55 still in my mind but that's probably not the right number um but i'll get back to you just curious from ejrp uh the summer ended on august 26 with 200 dogs hanging out in the maple street park which is so fun dog day it's summer event um and then the school year began on uh wednesday august 30th so each day we have 31 preschoolers in two classrooms at the ejrp preschool and then we have uh 350 plus k through fifth graders in the rec kids after school program um at the schools elementary schools and maple street park so lots of kids um two more movie nights coming up on fridays at maple street park super mario brothers on me on this friday the 15th and then et on the 22nd um then this is exciting i mean all these things are exciting but from september 14th to october 24th um ejrp is going to be hosting local motions e-bike library essentially um so you can rent out an e-bike um i think it's typically for like a week at a time uh they're fairly large investments so it's a really awesome opportunity to be able to just test one out for a good week and like give it a run see if it's something that can work in your commute um and so that is great um we have our green mountain transit representative position is open because uh andrew is stepping down from that so just letting you folks know that we're going to have it on as an agenda item at the next council meeting but just wanted to give folks a heads up on that um then also uh seems like long ago but cbe had about 100 000 people come through the gates for the fair so really really um super successful and thanks to all of the many folks who put that together um and uh we continue with our monthly uh junction city news and the last one was on the fire department and how what our model looks like uh and just some other good information about folks who are interested in um joining the fire department um it's a great opportunity and if you want to check out more of that information we've got that up on the junction city news can i just say i did watch that episode and i learned a great deal from it i thought i knew a great deal about it and then i found some new stuff in that interview so i encourage people to watch it it was very good right that is all i have great anyone else i just want to point out um second the first meeting in october i will not be present i'll be out of town okay schedule some fun stuff well can we get the date pulled for budget day like sooner rather than later yes that'd be really helpful and we're going to do a whole day huh yeah okay it works all right okay anybody yeah um oh uh so this is usually uh the time of year where people are wondering about who's running who's not running what are the open seats going to be um after 11 years of being on the trustees and council um life changes are happening personally and i'm not going to have the time to continue to do this and i want to make sure that for those in the community who are considering doing it you don't have to worry or wait i should say until you know two months before the petition is due about whether or not there's going to be an incoming running um so i am not going to be seeking re-election for this upcoming term um i'll save more to say later it's been a blast it's been a full host fun um and i will miss this come 2024 i'm very sorry to hear that um very happy though for what you've got coming up and what you're doing now and um we'll save all the massive appreciations for for later on but um yeah thank you for everything and thank you for helping me through this um and being one of those to introduce me to all of this fun and games um yeah and it's going to be different anybody need to shoot get it get there yeah we can't make it no it's good no that's later okay that's later i i will say thank you great yeah all right yeah if you have that uh executive session about uh motion you know what i don't know you lost it no i am all right i moved that the city council entered into executive session to discuss a personal evaluation pursuant to one vsa 313 a3 to include the city council second great motion second any without any discussion all those in favor say aye aye i suppose no motion passes we will not be coming back um there are no decisions being made so we will record the time of adjournment and i'll email you i've got the sheet you got