 agenda. So as I am looking at things here, I'm hoping we can make a couple of changes. One is, Cameron, how'd you feel about moving the COVID update to the end? Okay. Okay. And then I think that I think that might be it actually in terms of the order. So that's any other suggested changes here team? Not for me. Okay. All right. So without objection, we'll consider the agenda approved. And so on to general business and appearances. So this is an opportunity for any member of the public to address the council on a topic that is otherwise not on our agenda. So if you're here to talk about a specific item, please do hold your comments till that item if it's on tights agenda. But if you have something else you'd like to bring up now's the time to do it. And if you would say your name and where you live and try to keep your comments to two minutes or less, that would be fabulous. And that generally speaking goes for other comments for the remainder of the evening. So that I think that's all the preamble I need to do about that is what anyone like to address the council and for this, you know, looking at Cameron to say, Hey, there's somebody or you can, you can wave or you can unmute yourself and Cameron. Yes. Nope. Just going to tell everyone raise your hand feature. If you go to the bottom of your screen, or if you want to throw up a reaction, or if you want to physically wave your hands. So I can see you if you'd like to speak. Okay. Is there anyone who would like to address the council? Okay. And just confirming Cameron, you don't have anybody that you're seeing. Okay. All right, fair enough. Thank you. So we're going to move on. So the first thing here for the next thing is the consent agenda. Is there a motion regarding the consent agenda? I move the consent agenda. Second. Okay, there's a motion and a second. Any further discussion about this? Okay. All in favor please say aye. And opposed. Okay. No opposed. So the consent agenda passes. All right. So moving on, we have street closure slash painting request that looks a little familiar here. And actually for this, so just one thought. I'm sure there's probably some folks who would like to comment on that. That's or actually, is Erica Reddick on the call? I don't see Erica. So for this, just to introduce this, I wonder, Bill, if I can turn this over to you, because it would appear as though last or one of our previous meetings, we created a street painting policy. And so there might be a question about like, why are we considering this now? And so to answer that question, I'm going to turn it over to Bill, if that's okay. Hi. And I tried to provide you some clarification in writing last night, which we had into the meeting documents, which I did send to Ms. Reddick last night. So we've had, you know, this is a new policy in years past. We've for a long time, we've had street closure applications. And this actually came in as a as a prior one came in as an application to close the street for the purpose of street of painting this justice for all of the flag on the street. And that's the way it was heard on July 7 and not, you know, and denied by the city council. We got the identical application for Labor Day. But taking a look at the rules and regulations as well as our policy, because the council has said that, and I think appropriately that any street painting is actually the action of the city, even if somebody else does it for the city, it is the city's choice to do that. It is an application in the same way that somebody might want to put something in a park or build something in a park. And we might say, yes, you may put that in our city park. But it's in you'll do it, but it's still the city accepting the responsibility for that as opposed to someone having some sort of public right to install things in parks without city's permission. So because of that, the city can close the street anytime it wants. I mean, obviously we would want to be good neighbors and provide notice and warning and all that stuff. But we close streets all the time for construction, for water leaks, for emergencies, for any other thing that we see fit. And so there's no reason why the city can't close street for the park, you know, and we close it for street painting, even for line straightening or parking lot spaces, or at least partial street closing. So, you know, I think, I think, so basically the conclusion is we don't need a street closure application for any street painting. If the street painting is better approved by the city, then the city can close the street when it sees fit. And we can decide how much notice is necessary. So the group here applied for street closure, I think in good faith, thinking they were applying for street painting. And so I don't think they should be dismissed on that matter. But I don't think you need to consider the street closure, unless the group or the applicant, I guess just really just come in and money wants to have an event or something that would follow our street closure policy. So they'd be welcome to amend their request. So my advice to you is you don't need to take up the street closure. So then we turn to the street painting. And they did submit this application before the street policy was enacted. And so therefore, you know, I don't think we can just say, well, they didn't do it the right way. But it does mean that they have to follow our policy. I'm going to the end of my demo, but I think it's very clear. There's no vested rights with something like this. This is the ability to do something on city property. This isn't like a right to do something on your own property where you're seeking, you know, you applied under one set of zoning and now it's going to change and you still have rights under the old rule. This is saying, if you want to paint something inside of city hall, this is how you do it. And so we've said that furthermore. I mean, if they were to be considered on, you know, pre policy, they already were this exact same application was considered on July 7 and turned down by the council for its reasons. So I think the fact that it came in early is kind of irrelevant. So then it becomes following the policy. So then as we walk through the policy, the first step in the policies, it must have a council sponsor. Now it can certainly under our charter, it's welcome to be on the agenda. I mean, in a perfect world, we'd have a sponsor ahead of time, but they're welcome to be on the agenda. But before it can go any further, there needs to be at least one council member that sponsors this again, because this is city, a city action of putting paint on its own street. If there's none, then it basically concludes then. That's the end of the item. If there is one, then you would go and have your discussion and decide, does it meet our policy? And I've pointed out three areas that I think there might be conflicts with the policy, but there are several other things in the policy that talk about does this represent community values and those kind of things. And I think those are really at the discretion of the council to determine not staff. But I think the proximity to the intersection, the fact that there's a flag and the fact that it seems to modify an existing statement of painting seem sort of technically clear that those match. You know, I certainly think in certainly in sort of doing things right that we, you know, you may want to hear from people before you reach a decision or decide whether there's a sponsor. If you may want to hear people's points of view on this, that we are a government. I think technically that's how you receive. Okay, so I do not see Erica Reddick on line here. So I think at this point I'm going to ask the council if there is anyone who would like to sponsor this painting. Okay, I'm not seeing anyone. So I'm going to assume that the item then we can basically move on since there's not there's not a sponsor for the for the painting. Now, I'm guessing that there may be a few people who want to comment on that. And so I am going to I'm going to let folks comment if they like, but if you would keep your comments to two minutes or less, that would be great. And yeah, so there, there we are. If you would like to make a comment about this topic, you can either raise your hand or you can do the hand icon or what are my other choices here camera and flagging icon wave. I think that's or okay. Okay, so the name I see here is Jeffrey Flanders. Um, is would you like to speak? I'll I'll give the I'll give it over to Don Marie who will seem to be before me. This is you've heard from me before. Yes. I'm going to pass it over to Alex. Okay, if you will. That is fine. Okay, John Marie, go ahead. This is just and also if you would, if you'd say your your last name where you live. Yes, my name is Don Marie Tomasi. Can you hear me? Okay. Yes. Okay. Alice, thank you very much, darling. I love to see you as usual. Um, I just wanted to say that I was concerned as to when the council decided to make it a point that you needed a sponsor at what date I was interested in that and also, um, who brought forth that ID, ideology, and who I'm assuming you all agreed with it, but I was just curious as to who brought it forth on that date. Also, um, he did mention that, um, you're concerned with the unity message. And I find it hard to believe that, you know, the last line of our oath, you know, liberty and justice for all could possibly can be construed as something other than what it exactly is. Um, that's what we're looking for is unity and, you know, promoting it as as Americans as a whole. And I'm hoping people see that from us and not put something else forth upon us. Um, we want us to get along with our neighbors and our neighbors to get along with us. And that is part of the reason why we thought this was a good idea to bring forth again. So thank you. Oh, Domary Tomasi. And where you did you say were you from? I forget I'm from Berrytown and I'm actually running for Washington County, Tennessee. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Um, Alice, do you want to speak? You're muted though. While we're waiting for it to unmute, I will answer Ms. Tomasi's question. The council passed a policy on August 12. It was duly warned. It was drafted after a discussion with the council. And so it was brought forth as a committee of the whole. And that included the sponsors should be able to note some of the. Go ahead, Alice. Okay, I'm really disappointed that the council as a body decided to change the rules concerning the street painting. Since the first one that was there did not come under those same rules. I'm it reminds me of, to be very honest, and I'm not pulling the race card, but it reminds me of separate but equal from my last speaking to you all, you all know that I was born during the civil rights movement and I was there when Reverend Dr Martin Luther King was assassinated and the whole story. I recall from my father how he was a freedom writer and went into Mississippi with a couple of white men to help people register to vote. I remember how difficult it was for certain people of color, black people to vote across the United States because they came under different rules than did others who were not pigmented in the same way. I'm very, very disappointed that the message that underlies our Constitution, liberty and justice for all is considered hate speech or negative in any kind of way. You would have to convince me that this was not meant to further a political agenda of a group that may not be construed as embracing liberty and justice for all, but perhaps liberty and justice for some. And I'd like to comment that this group Black Lives Matter, even though there are many people of color in it, are also many of them white youths who haven't a clue what civil rights is all about, except what they've gotten through their from their schools. I would like to see liberty and justice for all painted on the streets as a mural in Montpelier, just as Black Lives Matter because all lives matter. You will be held, history will hold us accountable for this moment. I'm going to interrupt you here, Alice, because you're only two minutes or so now, so if you have any final thoughts there. Okay, is there not even one among the Montpelier council who would be willing to at least entertain the thought that Black Lives Matter is legitimate, but so is liberty and justice for all? Is there not one among the Augusta body? And that's what I would have to say. And Alice, what is your last name and where did you live? My last name is Flanders. I'm using Jeff's computer. I'm okay. I'm in White River Junction. I'm actually running for Windsor 4-2. And by the way, yes, Flanders, you know that name, Senator Ralph Flanders from Vermont who stood alone on the Senate floor against Joe McCarthy was my husband's grandfather. Okay, thank you very much. Cameron, do we have anyone else? I just want to note that Erica Ruddick is on the call now, if you'd like. Okay. At this point, I'm just going to go in the order that I see folks. So I saw Lynn Dyke and then Brock Kodir. I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing your names. Lynn, go ahead. Okay, well, first of all, I want to say that I am very proud to be an American. And I like liberty and justice for all. And I like the fact that all lives matter. It is not hate speech to me. And I don't know how it ever became hate speech. I went to the rally to support the police. And that was horrible. And what the impression I get of the Black Lives Matter movement personally is I saw it with my own eyes. And some of the signs that were there and held up were not good ones. But you didn't see that on the news at all. But I did have a conversation with the people, the conversations. And I did have a conversation with a reporter. And what I told her is that we should all be Americans and we need a softer side of this. And just putting that on there, Black Lives Matter, what about us that are not? And what about them who would like to see liberty and justice for all? I mean, I think the Black Lives Matter movement has been hijacked. It's not what it started out to be. And I think we need to get unity back and get some common sense back. Liberty and justice for all, those are not bad words and that is not hate speech. And I am willing to fight to the end to defend that. I'm also running for the House. Addison for I live in Bristol. Sorry, I was muted just now. Thank you, Lynn. Brock, go ahead. Yeah, yeah, I appreciate you actually saying my name properly. You might be the first person then ever. So well done. Brock O'Dare, running for State Representative, the House of Representatives out of Washington, Chittenden, Dettrick, actually out of Waterbury Center. I'm nearly just here to be a fly on the wall and see how things are going and how this meeting will end up. But honestly, I'm just here to say I was kind of alarmed that our local government was capable morally of allowing one group political movement or anything to receive special treatment over anybody else. I understand the message behind it. I truly think it's a noble cause. But at the same time to disallow another group to say something is showing preference, and that's technically not acceptable as far as I'm concerned. And that's honestly, that's all I really have to say. I was just kind of disappointed in my local government. I think that unity is key at this point. I just drove all the way out to Colorado to see my family and everybody had that interviewing just wants things back to the way they were. They want to put that work in and reinstill the faith that people have in their fellow Americans. I think showing them the Constitution, how everybody is protected by that good piece of paper is a great way to do it. And I think that we should try to look for more than one person on the council, maybe half of you folks, yes or no. I don't really, really see any reason why red, white, and blue should be considered offensive these days. And that's all I have to say. Thank you. Sorry, thank you. I'm seeing Sean Stevens on. And then, Erica, if you want to make a comment, you may. Go ahead, Sean. Hi, folks. Thank you. I'll be super short because I actually came to comment on something later in the agenda. I just want to hop on and say I do support the decision you guys have made. Contrary to what the last few people have said, I think putting Black Lives Matter unequivocally and without dilution by other messages is super strong, super powerful, and super right. You did the right thing. And if everybody thought it was super important to vote liberty and justice for all painted on the street, why didn't they want to do that before the Black Lives Matter got painted on the street? It is becoming a big deal for a lot of people right now because they intend to dilute the Black Lives Matter message and to try to draw the spotlight away from that message. I disagree with that and I think you guys did the right thing and I appreciate it. Thank you, Sean. Did you say where you live? Yeah, my apologies. I live right here in Montpelier. Okay, thank you. Erica and then Samantha, did you have your hand raised? Okay. Go ahead. Thank you. I apologize for being late to the meeting. I would just like to say thank you for actually giving us the opportunity to be heard. I was very discouraged by the email that I received from Mr. Frazier saying that you guys could just dismiss us because we've already submitted the same application and it's already been dismissed because John Clark is a racist. So the idea that we still get to come and be heard is very important because while the sentiment of Black Lives Matter is one that everyone can agree with and get behind, as the wife of a Black man, as half my family is Mexican and more of my family is not white than they are white, we can all agree that that message is important and that these conversations need to be had. But as far as diluting the message, I don't think with liberty and justice for all is diluting the message. I think Black Lives Matter is diluting its own message with things like all cops are B words and F the police and abolish the police and a lot of other things that the majority of Americans are not behind. And so I would just say that this is not about just Black Lives Matter and this is not just about painting on the street. It's about a governmental entity believing that it is okay to promote one political party over another. That is not okay. So however you feel about Black Lives Matter and however you feel about the Pledge of Allegiance doesn't really matter when we're talking about policy, public policy and how and in what way it's appropriate for a government to behave with its constituents, with its message and with our money, with our time. So I would just say if it's okay for the government to do things like paint Black Lives Matter on the street and that's okay and that's governments, then I'm not sure why you would have anything against prayer in the school and other things like that. Saying the Pledge of Allegiance and doing other things that other people believe are important and meaningful and thoughtful and bring unity. So again I'm just, I would just ask that the City Council apply its logic to all circumstances rather than just the ones that are convenient for them. Thank you very much. Thank you. Samantha. I'd like to thank you all for again giving us this opportunity to speak. My name is Samantha Philippe and I live in Orange. I'm running for a house position for Orange County District 1 and I have been going off of what people before me have said and how surprised I am that people that are supposed to be representing our capital city can shoot and clearly show that they are choosing one side over the other to be represented. Inside is the wrong word. One portion gets to speak and gets to have their voice put out and then when we asked responsibility to get put out and as a gentleman that said a little bit before why didn't we do this before? Well, why wasn't before there a new policy about no street painting? Why did that have to be put in once there was already one painting? That's why I think we start to see the gap where it's just a harder line being driven and Liberty and Justice for all that is for all and Mr. Pete I know when you put your uniform on you care about all of us. I know when I was an EMT a firefighter it didn't matter to me you know who you were you know what was happening I cared about you and what I could do to help you and Liberty and Justice for all means that we all get to have Justice and Liberty. For me it doesn't matter the color of your skin your education your age where you work it matters who you are and your heart and your character and so now we are being told that we are all racist because we are asking for Liberty and Justice for all to be proudly displayed just as other sayings are being proudly displayed as they should be and I ask each one of you that have made the decision to tell us no to really think at home tonight about what you are saying you all are in the position you are in because of the people around you and I know that you are not representing what I would want my capital to say that they would want one side more than the other or one group over another. Samantha I'm going to interrupt you're over two minutes at this point if you have any final thoughts. Yeah I would like for you guys to think about this a little bit longer thank you. Thank you. Okay I am not seeing anybody else raising a hand camera to anyone okay we I don't think we need to revisit this as a council necessarily anyone want to change the mind we heard this okay all right so we are going to move on in our agenda so the next thing is because we move the COVID-19 update to the end the next thing is a homelessness task force and I actually to be fair just to put a cap on on the previous item I just want to say for myself I think we are representing the values of our community and I'm proud that we painted Black Lives Matter on the street and I'm glad that we are not bookending it with a different message so all for patriotism and you know being American at the same time believing that we can hold ourselves to a higher standard than where we're at right now as Americans so and that to me is a part of what the message is but anyway that's that's sort of where I'm at but we're going to move on so the next thing is the homelessness task force so they have a request for proposal they'd like to put out and I thought I saw Shayna on the meeting it's going to be Ken Russell oh Ken I also saw Ken Ken would you like to speak about this sure thank you Ann so what we have is this street outreach position that we've discussed previously and we've put it in the form of an RFP that'll allow different agencies to apply for the money Cameron worked really hard on the RFP with Will Aberly and other members of the committee and we've gone through the fine tooth comb and it's you know just over 33,000 you know it's the allocation that you so generously gave us and so this will allow an agency to apply to support a street outreach worker a pure street outreach worker they have some they would have some flexibility and how they administer the program I mean they will apply and try to make it most appealing and there will be a small there will be there's a request that they allocate a percentage of the budget for supplies which is an ongoing need for the folks out on the street there was some conversation about the livable wage which of course is a strong value for this council there is a little bit of flexibility in the language because some of the people who tend to go for these positions might be balancing other needs like sometimes they're trying to keep their income and their hours worked under a certain range so I know that technically if it's under $200,000 that that livable wage does not apply but we with the language encourages the use of it but also gives the applying organization some latitude to negotiate if the person applying for the job request it some some flexibility to say keep their income under a certain thing because sometimes that that might affect other services they might be receiving it's I mean I think we've discussed quite a bit about how important this need is for the folks out on the street certainly with the uncertainty about what's happening with the folks in the motels we don't fully understand what the state plans are going to be I'm not sure anybody does you know right and you know and with the impacts of COVID what the impacts of federal money are going to be so there is a certain amount of the population that just doesn't stay indoors and so there's there are always folks outside and you know there's been movements you know in terms of the overflow shelters there's you know we don't have what we used to have so that's that's kind of it I'm in a nutshell happy to answer any questions thanks Ken I have one question to start here is this a second person or is this just I know we had talked about hiring somebody gosh back a while ago now when we had this conversation is this is this that person potentially or is this a second person this is that person is that person okay great thank you any other budget right so this is just the RFP to to find that person really okay any questions comments from council Donna go ahead thank you Ken a very informative draft as far as your program management my question is spending all the money on just this there were other things in the budget you showed us your proposed expenditures so what's going to happen to some of those other needs if we put all the money into this avenue versus trying to get some grants to supplement it or add to it that's a good question Donna I I mean I I think I mean this has always been very much the top of our perceived priorities this is you know what we felt is the most important is somebody out there meeting people have we can get their needs met and you know when we were dealing with a bigger pot of money some of those other things made sense but when it was windowed down and you still were quite generous in what we ended up with it did I think we all felt like it's this we felt like this created the most bang for the buck for lack of a better phrase so yes there are other other needs and I think we're actively looking for how to get looking for other funding sources I mean I think our we've had good generosity from the community with supplies and I think we could I think there's fundraising potential for this population I think there's a lot of goodwill and concern for folks who are out there that's helpful to know I guess I still would tend to go to like 25 30 and have some buffer we seem to have emergencies that show up so it just concerns me to spend all of it yeah I hear you I hear you Donna Jack go ahead thank you thanks Ken I read the the proposal and I'm here I have a couple of questions what is have have there been any organizations so far that have been identified or expressed the interest in in doing this and two which is a related question is would it be consistent with your planning if some organization were to propose to use you know split this work between a couple of people instead of an identified individual which seems to be what the proposal is talking about right well I I think I think it could work well with splitting the time and there's been some conversation around that because it can be very taxing work and you know and if sometimes you're wanting 24 hour coverage so there's definitely this doesn't preclude that as far as organizations yeah I mean and frankly you know we probably I mean there are some some of the organizations that we're all affiliated with on the task force there's folks who are interested in applying so Rick has mentioned for Good Samaritan Haven um and I I'm going to be I am very likely going to be associated with an organization that may apply so that is a potential conflict and we talked about that at the at the task force meeting on whether it was appropriate for me to present here I can't I can't disclose what organization that would be yet don little who's on our task force is the person who's been doing this work the whole time and would you know I think a lot of people would say she could very well be person hired so one of the things that Rick mentioned was that I mean I and I don't know who he's thinking but he's thinking he wanted he might he would consider applying in in partnership with another organization um and and I know there's some language in there about sort of encouraging partnerships between organizations and I know Washington County mental health is is very interested at least in the conversation on how this is set up and they participated in some of these conversations and in the meeting you know two weeks ago or three weeks ago at this point so you're not going into this worry that you won't have anyone stepping up to do it once you once this is released I don't think so no there's this is I mean I I think everybody I've talked to sees this as a great need and and also and and we've tried to encourage and as you know back to counselor Bates comments back in February looking regionally and making sure we're working with Barry in Berlin and in coordination with all the different agencies with public safety with Washington County so I mean so I think the the need is quite clear the efficacy of this approach everyone agrees about so um and you know and and it's the reality is there's um a lot of people are working on homeless and this is the position that actually gets people out on the street face-to-face with folks in the environment where they spend a lot of their time great thanks yeah so just piggybacking on uh jack's question it made me think of uh well your answer really brought this question to mind which is that if there's a number of folks from within your um from the task force that either may be applying or have um you know some thought about applying or connections to applying who's actually making the decision to award that Cameron yeah sorry I just mean to jump in as staff representative for this committee as we would either take as many committee members as we could who weren't part of the application get them to vote or present that to a couple ad hoc volunteers who would be interested in reviewing these RFP responses but okay people who had been applying or were associated with the groups they were applying would not be reviewing the RFPs great I'll be in Cindy money so you'd have to approve it right right you would get it right okay I just wanted to make sure there was enough folks who would not recuse themselves that decision could be made so that's that's good um other questions for Ken well Lauren hey thanks I think this I'm really excited to see this moving forward I know we've been talking about it for a long time so thank you for all the work that's gone into it it's it's exciting yes my only question is um kind of tied to what Donna was asking like particularly knowing that there's been kind of big changes this year with COVID and how the state has stepped up and knowing that there might be you know unique needs this year with the pandemic still going on like just are are there still resources like is the state still stepping up or there's still like COVID relief funds and things that are helping are you anticipating like that's going to run out and we're going to you know be up against the wall at some point just kind of curious if there's dynamics that we should be aware of um and I guess it gets to that like is there a cushion we should be building in um for you know kind of emergency needs particularly at this really hard time I appreciate the question I mean I I mean and some of it's uh there's definitely some unknown in there and I mean we'll you know we'll ask this question of Will Everly who's you know field director for AAHS and he answers the best he can but obviously there's decisions being made up of the hierarchy and resources are not assured and I mean there's it's so there's a lot of there's a lot of stuff going on upstairs in terms of what actually trickles down so I I think this position and having it just built and sustained locally here is a really fantastic thing and wonderful commitment on the part of all y'all um to quote Cameron and I don't know if I did that right but um but seriously it is there there's an there's unknown in terms of the state level and like back in March during the you know early COVID we were trying to get money for hand washing stations and things like that so um and and the cost of putting folks up in the motels is is quite high um and I'm not sure how sustainable it is I mean the the motel program was already the general assistance program before was already um the subject of financial stresses so part of I think our overall thinking as a task force is is taking some responsibility here locally for this population and what's happening there and looking outside the what you know expecting there to be federal money trickling down um and and um and I've you know somebody just last week was saying you know the squeeze is on you know and so I mean I think yeah you can't count on their band resources but you will count on their being human you know people you know getting pushed out on the streets so um Dan go ahead yeah just to follow up to that Canon maybe a clarification question this position that this RFP would fill really is a someone to basically triage identify connect with people with homeless who are you know encountering homelessness and to assess their needs and to try and connect them to the services so that it's really going to be dependent ultimately the success of this position some respects on what services they can connect them to right right right one you know there's a certain range of services that are that are there but uh housing is what's really needed and affordable housing and you know that's true for a lot of remoders the cost of housing's gone up that you know there's there's a whole issue there right I mean there's there's housing there's food there's mental health issues that are all tied into this but I just wanted to be clear and just so I can understand and maybe also so the audience listening at home that we're clear that this is this is really about trying to come up with a uh someone who can start to do that those assessments which I think are my understanding is that that's the important first step for for these populations to start to get them because it builds first of all it connects them to these populations and then secondly it also would you know effectively build that understanding of what the numbers and needs are so that if there is seeking for funding we at least know what the population looks like and what their needs are I mean obviously the the the big one's not being any hidden secret or particularly complicated okay right no the assessment knowing what's actually out there is important and it's also in connecting people to the degree that you can with existing services as limited as they might be in some ways but in addition there are people out there who are hard to reach and who who just are vulnerable out on the street and need some have some basic needs to be met Donna then taunter yeah um I'd like to ask chief Pete if he would make any comment on this worker since you'll be right your police officers will be right down the front line with them have you read through the report and have a comment um I haven't had a chance to look through the report very in depth in depth way but I do think that as far as what I think the department is goes um is that if we're looking at the totality of everything um that the department will make sure that it uh it does its best to partner with everyone for the benefit of everyone in the community um so so again with with a lot of the talk and discussions of which calls for service police should be responding to um the resources are limited for officers to point people who are in critical situations um our resources are limited on how we can do that so so we're just cognizant of again of mission creep and just to making sure that we don't that that if it's a service that can be handled by somebody who is better prepared um uh and equipped to do it then it's something that we're we're definitely totally all for thank you great um Connor and then Dan we'll come back to you hi Ken first of all thanks so much for all the work you're doing and uh I know we don't give you too much to work with and really trust that you're making the best use of the resources so really grateful for that it'd be anecdotal but um a lot of homeless folks I talked to can seem to split their time quite a bit and even their days and weeks um between Barry and Montpelier um I was just wondering if you found that to be the case you know broader than just folks I spoke into and if so how much of this needs to be a conversation between the two cities just so there's some consistency um you know I can see value in seeing the same faces you know is this worth a discussion with the Barry City Council at some point uh maybe make this more of a full-time position just like we're talking about with the social worker position absolutely no and and it's no it's not just your anecdotal information bears out it's very real that and folks will travel back and forth um between the two cities they're different services they might access in each one or oftentimes it's like people need a ride to a motel down in Barry from Montpelier um so yeah it's definitely part of the same circuit um we the connection with um Barry and Berlin and you know regionally is is is very important and I think most people we work with well understand it and seen a lot of good um you know we we you know we get we've had conversations you know with folks in Barry and with us there's there's good you know there's you know there's good folks working and we do our best to network but yeah any council to council connection on this is great we did Erica rail who's on our council is on our task force is on Barry City Council and so she's she's she's talked to them about this this work um you know they they have Brooke Puglia who's who's on you know on their force and you know we we have meetings together and and sometimes the meetings are just like what's going on out there and that's you know and sometimes just that that basic real-time information is really important sometimes like again like rick de angeles had a good samaritan haven well you know he's running busy trying to keep it all together and sometimes those meetings are good opportunities for him for like say tim bombardier to understand from him what's going on or or now chief peter you know she you know like just trading information every which way makes great sense um and you know and there's there's different approaches and there's different things we can learn from each other too so great dan so i just have a follow-up to don and connor's question chief p so it sounds like this position can be helpful to you as essentially another resource for these type of situations that it's not after a first responder type situation to sort of hand off is the way the position is drawn up um something that will help that you'll be able to work with or were there would there be any sort of the changes or requirements to position that you you'd want to see um that would be helpful in interfacing with your department for us sir i think that um it's it's one of those things that we can plan as best as we possibly can and we won't know what those gaps are until we have something in place but um as far as this department um and how we will uh move forward it it's totally uh community partnerships and goal oriented and it's it's it's we're all on board with the sharing of information and doing everything that we can to um help because that is that's the underscore what what is we're here to do right well it also strikes me that you know this is another resource so that if there is you know if there is an encounter with a homeless person that is in a more remote area or such that you know you would have this uh this person to con you know to essentially bring into the conversation to connect with and that would be you know an item off of your plate to have to deal with that they could they could deal with that and i i would just want that to be something and it sounds like it is and i just wanted to make sure that it was but it sounds like it might be another resource in your your toolbox um or the city's toolbox but yours in particular if if while your first responders does encounter this type of situation and can bring this person in yes sir i would i would definitely agree with that and and with that premise i probably would also uh if we're in regards to um how the the position is currently looked at how it's written i probably have to talk with gary and susan lemire who is our new embedded social worker um they're in on this call as well and and talk with them about how they think that a good fit for it might be um or or how we're going to utilize it but i'm i'm pretty very confident that um it's going to be a total team effort and like you had mentioned it's another resource that all of us can go to um to free up law enforcement so law enforcement can concentrate on law enforcement and social services can concentrate on the things that they do best thanks yes can i respond i i just i i just want to underscore that very much the thinking and i think it will bear out that this really will will do just that will take address some of the issues that need addressing and take pressure off law enforcement and supplement it um and it i've seen it again and again so you know i i i think it i think you'll find that it's a it really will it be a win-win for us so great so um not seeing any anybody raising hands further here so uh is this is something that you all need a motion on is that right uh madame mr. mayor madame i'd like to speak on this oh yes absolutely um uh is that steven it is okay yeah go ahead steven so i mean as much as i applaud the work that don does i think that this is so much talk and really ordering on self delusion don has no resources to work with even if she has a a wage the fact that you know daily i'm i'm calling don three or four times a week to try to find a tent for somebody or a translator who can speak indian or you know or find out why 211 is not helping anybody and all don has is a lot of you know reasons like well that's all we got we don't have anything nothing works so to pretend that a year and a half after we started you know i've been it happening on y'all for a year and a half over this issue and to finally get a paid person to do what we're doing every day anyway is is really absurd when y'all can't even get a bathroom or a shower available to these folks much less uh a place to go and get a sleeping bag or a tent or a designated safe place to camp i mean the people are are pissing in your pocket park crapping behind your churches and we can't do anything about any of that you need a plan to position or federal funds or even for some of these remaining care funds you need a plan more than you need just to pretend that having paying your existing outreach workers is going to change anything you know that the dignity is missing you've got policemen stealing beer from homeless people you've got you know you've just got a a uh you're undermining the dignity in treating folks like they don't deserve a shower don't deserve a place to crap you know but the construction workers get to use the new bus station you know so the hypocrisy or the self delusion of this conversation is really infuriating you know i wish the ecologists would take seriously that you need and that task force should have written a plan by now so they were prepared to ask for funds of what we would do which buildings would be used for which could be ventilated for covid which half grounds could be set up with covid trailers for small issues interrupts you here saying because uh you're at uh you're a little over two minutes here do you have anything of any further like final thoughts okay um all right i saw hands from i thought Cameron and jack but i'll i'm going to go jack first also donna did you have your hand up no okay all right so jack and then camera thank you i'm getting ready to move that we support this but i notice we have the the due date seems to be the only thing that only detail that hasn't been filled in yet and so i'm wondering what date we should put in um so if you don't mind me if i can answer that question yeah go for it yeah um that was left blank because we didn't know if you wanted to have more conversation or what the outcome of this meeting would be and we didn't want to put too close of a deadline the deadline will probably be in consultation at our next homelessness task force meeting so that they can discuss it what they feel is a fair timeline in the time of covid um you know we do have some subject matter experts there um so i'd like to hear from them about that timeline what they think is realistic because it is a pretty robust rfp um you know because if you want to be very careful with public funding um that comes from the city um i did want to sort of address some of the issues about supplies um ken mentioned it earlier but i do want to sort of re-emphasize and i think it gets a little bit to lauren and um donna's uh council member lauren and donna's um comments is that we do ask that a pretty large percentage of the money is spent on supplies so not all of the money is going into uh administration overhead for the organization or service provision but to supplies to get those sleeping bags to get those to that food to get that car ride to get the taxi um because we don't know what's going to come up but we don't know what people will want or need so we did try to write that in or the task force did try to write that into their rfp thank you sorry may may i say something in in the lines of what karen had mentioned okay having a having a dedicated person there to help us summarize and figure out the resources and the allocations that are needed there i think is is is crucial uh and shows a serious step and and what the what what's trying to be accomplished and there are other resources that we can look at to get things like cuts and things like tents and that that are um there are other government websites that you can go to to get these these items for free um and i think that having a dedicated person there that can help identify and validate the things that that are being seen and done on ground and trying to figure out what what the next steps are plays a huge role into into to working towards that dignity and that that respect and that help for for people who are out there and suffering great thank you um i just uh to check is there any other member of the public that would like to speak on this topic and karen you're not seeing anyone okay um jack did you want to make a motion i move that the city issue the request for proposals as has been presented to us tonight with the due date to be determined by the manager or assistant city manager in consultation with the housing task force homelessness okay so it's uh there's been a motion in a second um any further discussion uh okay all in favor please say aye and opposed okay so that passes um thank you uh ken and uh karen and all the members of the homelessness task force thanks for all your work on this and um looking forward to getting their responses back and then actually getting to hire someone uh bill before we go um we'd like to have gary gordon from washington county mental health introduce susan to all of us oh yeah go ahead good afternoon everybody i am gary gordon i'm the coordinator of emergency services for washington county mental health and i have with me susan lamere who is our um police social worker um she comes us from uh greenfield massachusetts she has a long extensive history of of service in our human services and mental health including christmas work i'm working on psychiatric units working with our courts and our correctional facilities and we're excited to have her here she has a huge learning curve of course because we we do things a little differently in the north country but uh she seems up to the task this is her first full job full week on the job last week she says most of the time um most of her time with me trying to give her training up to speed on what how we do things here in vermont um but she seems to be uh adapting pretty quickly um i've only heard good things about her from the people who've encountered us so far um and like i said again we're excited to have her um we've been trying to do this for a long time our chief fakers was our was proponent of this um so was chief bombardier we've had inquiries from the local state police um our friends to the south and hcrs have been doing this for several years now and they actually have seven seven clinicians embedded uh with various police departments down um in their area i mean we're hearing good news about them saying insane augments with the northwestern counseling services they have an embedded work up there we're hearing great things about so we're really hoping that we can make an impact by having an embedded worker here to assist our law enforcement in their interactions with with the populations of both cities hi everyone i'm very very honored and privileged and happy to be here and thanks for having me be part of this meeting tonight absolutely thank you thank you uh thank you so much for being here and we're so delighted that you're here um so looking forward to working with you great yeah um all right great so the next item is uh the design review uh public hearings and so i think we're gonna take this one at a time uh if that makes sense because there's two there's um correct me if i'm wrong but there's supposed to be two public hearings related to this is that right correct one public hearing though there are two topics we can split them it's probably the easiest way to manage them yeah okay so the first one so i'm gonna open the public hearing on the which one which is this one this is the changes to the historic preservation or not historic preservation what am i saying you know what i'm trying to say design review thank you all right so the changes to design review uh districts um so there's the opening that public hearing uh mike do you want to say anything further about this i gave everybody um yes good evening mike miller planning director um so i gave everyone a summary at the last meeting i don't know if you want me to spend the time to go through that presentation again um more than happy to uh if you guys are comfortable um and want to ask questions or get public comments um i'll leave it up to you which way you want me to try to move forward on that i don't necessarily need an additional um presentation um what other thoughts from the council on that or from the public i suppose um jack go ahead because this is the first public hearing i don't think it needs to be extensive but i think it might be useful to get an overview i think that's probably a good idea um yeah so i'll turn it back over to you mike all right um so i don't know if i need to get a share screen to put the presentation up again otherwise i can just run through the the the share screen now mike okay let me see if i need to so it didn't come up on my end is can you guys see that on the screen now no no okay um because i'm not getting the shared screen should be at the bottom it's the group uh okay miss one button there we go all right so um uh just real quick um what we're going to concentrate really uh for this the first two uh looking at the design rules a quick history and review of the proposed rules and um separately and related to this there's also the review of the boundary changes um we the planning commission and drc looked at both of these so this goes back all the way to 2017 uh when the uh the planning commission was working on the zoning and they had put together an entire uh set of zoning to revise the design rules it went to public hearing and uh it didn't receive a lot of um enough positive responses for the planning commission to move those forward so they felt the best action would be to work with the historic preservation commission to develop some new rules um and so those went to historic preservation in 2017 um and they reviewed a number of practices um other regulations in vermont towns um the rehabilitation standards from the national park service uh they hired a consultant and that it it should be noted that a lot of the planning commission historic planning commission members are full-time professionals in the field and so we use a lot of their experience as well to help guide the drafting of these rules and the goals were really these six overall objectives that they picked that identified at the start um one was to improve the predictability and consistency of the applications um and to improve the defense ability of decisions these kind of go hand in hand uh there were some court decisions our design review rules have been in effect since probably 1970s or 80s um and a lot of court decisions have come through and some important ones that really require our rules to have more guidance to it so applicants have more of an understanding or an expectation of whether or not they can be approved and it would help the people reviewing applications to understand um whether whether project meets or doesn't meet a requirement so um those are really the two primary drivers of this was trying to make sure that we had something that was legally defensible um and then they talked about a number of technical pieces like whether we should be a historic review district and not a design review district and they decided to continue to be a design review district and we'll go into all the reasons why but there's some good reasons why we maintained a design review um we also um in order to meet our uh certified local government requirements which Montpelier is one of uh a CLG community in the state uh we had to uh be consistent with at least the National Park Service Rehabilitation Standards so that was what was uh selected we also uh and this was a follow-through from the 2018 zoning we wanted to be more flexible with our rules and have more clear exemptions and opportunities for administrative review this has been a very successful um feature of the current zoning um where rather than really being very specific about things we try to be a little bit more flexible to allow for better better design and better projects and um and and having administrative requirements means simpler straightforward projects don't need to go through a long process so both of these have been very uh successful uh they wanted to continue that here in the drafting and design review um and then they wanted to establish a transparent review guidelines and this is the only thing that hasn't been done yet and the reason why they haven't developed the guideline book is it's going to be a long um you know they're going to get grants um a longer process with a much more detailed guide it'll really help applicants a lot but they didn't want to spend the money developing the guide if the city council changed some of the rules so we really kind of need to wait till the rules are adopted and then we will develop the guidelines um the core changes as i mentioned last time were really uh rather than having one set of rules that applies to all projects they divided it into one set of rules that apply to alterations in addition to historic buildings and then another set of rules that apply to projects that go all and so that was one key distinction and then um the application process was adjusted in administrative officer approvals were added you know consistent with what the goals were and they increased exemptions from design review and clarified what are called the statutory exemptions um which are in in state law which which were really unclear in the current rules um so after design review put that together they had some public hearings they gave their public um they gave those documents to the planning commission and the planning commission was tasked with adjusting the boundaries um the current boundary that is in our design overlay district is really arbitrary it doesn't follow any national register district historic district zoning boundaries it's very arbitrary and our goal was to have a boundary which had some justification so some basic rules um that um because of programs everything in the in the designated downtown must be in the um design overlay district that's part of that program's requirements um under state law the capital complex cannot be in the design review uh and the planning commission decided they would match them to neighborhood boundaries to the best that they could and they had to make some exceptions um but the focus was really on the downtown's in the gateways and where we ended up um mostly the same as today we didn't make a lot of drastic changes you'll see changes you'll see changes mostly at the edges we did keep uh the VCF VCFA parcel in but we removed the CCV parcel out on elm street that that property for some reason was just a singular property that was in design review um that one was removed national life stayed in but the boundaries were cleaned up to match the parcel lines um we added the north street of berry out to granite street um that actually helps to clean up an issue we have with the designated downtown boundary uh we added in downing street uh we added in the rest of crossroads neighborhood um now that's kind of gasoline alley so that's um currently if you were at um on burlin on um route two so you've got burlin and uh memorial and main street northfield street some of those properties are in design review but only um a couple of them so cumberland farms and dunkin donuts are not in design review but the gas stations that are closer to the intersection are and what we did was figured um all of those should be in design review um just for consistency sake out at redstone we added in a few properties and three parcels on terrace street will be rezoned as a part of this um they're currently res six thousand they'll be changed to red nine thousand and will be part of the neighborhood out on terrace street um and there's a whole reason for that um but really it comes down to the fact that those are not historic they're not in the historic district and those were the only three properties in the redstone north neighborhood that were not consistent and those property owners have all been notified and they've all agreed that they want to be moved into the terrace street neighborhood um and we'll address the pioneer street when we get there so i will stop sharing for now and uh see if you have any questions or if you were the public any questions from either the public or council uh eric i see you down there i think you're muted that's better huh yeah uh i'm eric ylbertson i am chair of the historic preservation commission and sit on design review and i want to thank the council for taking this up we've been at it for three years and uh i'm here to answer any questions uh that anybody might have uh go ahead jan sure uh first question i had actually eric um if you could address so some of the preservation standards uh mike talked about last time and i just want to make sure that that um i'm understanding them as well as the the public which is that you've adopted sort of the mid-level uh preservation standards so that that's right the standards for rehabilitation i think that uh probably um almost all the projects that designer do sees are that are re that are involved in historic building are rehabilitation and they're they're pretty flexible standards if you go into the standards for restoration uh they're very rigid and we wanted this to be flexible enough that people could do reasonable things with their buildings and how how are these new standards likely to be different than sort of the prior standards that we use that we've used before in the past i i i thought about that i don't think there'll be much difference i mean the good thing about these standards is they're nationally accepted standards there's information and publications that can be used uh so i i think they're probably the easiest thing to do and a very defensible thing to do so we don't have to consult the 1975 version of the cityscape anymore that's correct that was that was very good but my copy was a getting a little shop or yes it's a collector's item now um yeah so i i guess the only other comment i would add is uh i want to thank you and and meredith and mike for these changes i think i think they make sense you know they seem to bring they seem to cure a lot of the inconsistencies that the old design control district had as far as standards go as far as what was in the district and what was out and i guess the only the only third question the final thing i would ask is it you know was was there a push at all to change to separate out the design district from the historic district or was that a general consensus to keep it as a design we had discussions about it but i i don't think there was much interest in doing that because it's really a community that we're looking at not just historic buildings so okay all right well thanks i i think this is great this is a really uh a lot of work and it shows and i think it makes a better system than what we have now we wouldn't have done it without the staff at the city i can see meredith it's just been great i can't remember all the names of people before her but they're all very helpful and mike's been very helpful she's pushed them out of your mind my memory for names is not what it used to be it was never very good uh donna uh but eric your memory for buildings is still strong and you a very important presence to add to our staff i'm so impressed that we can keep protecting the character of our community and yet still be more transparent and clear and rational about what we're requiring people to do so i appreciate the changes and salute all of you that have been involved thank you thanks a lot i think design review has made a tremendous difference in the way montelier looks over the last 40 years and uh we wanted to continue that keep montelier montelier right great uh any further comments from either the council or the public okay um can't read anyone i don't think so okay um all right so i am going to uh close the public hearing and this is an item i think that we need to have a second public hearing on if i'm not mistaken um so do we need a motion to um put this on the future agenda yeah i don't know if we need a second hearing okay this is one of the odd ones um the charter talks about ones that are adopted through um chapter 59 70 full quote 59 60 which is um different than chapter 117 so it's never been clear as to whether or not we follow the first or the other um but typically in the past we've had one but if we want to have a second one just to get more public input i'm more than happy to come back in a couple weeks uh well based on the public outcry here um i think we could probably probably just go with the one is my sense uh dan and don okay i i'd support the one but just to be clear we're bifurcating the design review components and separate from the pioneer yes that's the next thing yeah yeah no i i'm perfectly comfortable having one especially given the fact that you know while this is technically just one hearing we have now given it two opportunities for people to give feedback and um it seems to be largely consensus and i think that's a tribute to the work that the planning department and and eric and others did to um to create this yeah great um donna well i was actually going to make a motion to approve the proposed uh proposed changes to the design review overlay district is that the right terms mike are we in the late title here yes the the overlay district and the map and the map okay okay is there a second second uh okay it's mostly a second i said loren go ahead you're muted you're muted by mute this is super nitpicky i thought we were having a second hearing so i was just going to email it looks like on page um it was page 51 of the packet for tonight or it's um chapter 4 30 um page 4 dash 9 at the very top um 4301 a it says the administrative officer and you crossed out shell refer all and it says review any applications i think it's only to the shell um i can just email that to gamron that's the easiest way but before we approve it it makes no sense with that there's just a missing word but good catch i don't send that over and uh so uh donna and dan uh you're okay with adding that to your um motion okay without understanding yeah don't go ahead donna but i'll mute myself i thought you could always do grammar as long as it didn't change the essence so i'm glad we caught it but yes totally acceptable okay uh so motion in a second um on favor please say aye aye and opposed okay so that passes um thank you very much yeah thank you eric and um marith and mike and everyone who uh i'll make that happen spend um a long time coming so it'll be great all right so we have another um um uh public hearing to do uh around uh zoning changes for uh the river street uh pioneer street area uh so i'm gonna officially open a public hearing on that and for this again since this is our first public hearing on it i think probably makes sense again to um have you do a little overview of it mike if that's okay with you all right so i'm gonna i can share screen again for a quick second i'm just gonna put the map up because i think that'll be the easiest way to talk about this you should have permission to do that now oh god i believe it is this guy let me see if i can so this is probably not the the clearest map for everybody to understand what's going on but this line here is pioneer street this space going through here is the winooski river and this is uh river street that's heading out so uh we've got the laser wash car wash here um flag works is here vfw so um hopefully that gives you a little bit of an idea of uh what part of the city we're talking about and what we have uh this is so the colors this area here is the residential um 1500 no residential 3000 which is residential these are some short little hill neighborhoods up in here this orangey color is the riverfront district this is the rural parts of sapiens pasture um and this is eastern gateway out towards the roundabout so um those are the different zoning districts and the parcel we're really talking about tonight is um a parcel that actually connects across the railroad tracks this small thin line cutting through here is a railroad um and what we have here is the trading post and a vacant parking lot and they also own this larger parcel that kind of goes out here that has a number of self-store units uh the the uh baronica growler um some commercial buildings here um and so hopefully everyone's got a sense of really about the area we're talking about and what the proposal was was they have this vacant land here uh the barrets and they wanted to go and make a proposal and um they didn't realize that in 2018 that the zoning had changed on their property and so they were no longer going to be allowed to have self-store units it becomes a non-conforming use and most of their buildings and most of their uses also became non-conforming so they were kind of caught a little bit by surprise and asked the planning commission if they could go and change their zoning so that they could be eastern gateway the purple that's down here um and in that way uh the most of the uses that are on their property would become conforming the the structures may not be conforming because we now have new design requirements um even outside of the design review district we do have design requirements for new structures um but the the laser wash is non-conforming and the uses in here are non-conforming so they asked if we would um take another look at the planning commission would take another look at rezoning this area to match the eastern gateway um eastern or the yeah eastern gateway in its description the eastern gateway tends to be more auto centric um and um this part part of the argument for this is part of this this side of this street does not have sidewalks it's not really pedestrian accessible as much as as other places as you get into more of these areas um so that was a little bit of the sense was um that could be one one way um as this has been a property that's been owned by the family for a long time one way we could help accommodate that the planning commission looked at three different options um the initial proposal was to also rezone the self-store units that are already built uh the planning commission opted not to they said no we don't want that to be rezone we'll just look at these pieces here um that are on the street um and they chose the option to rezone this to eastern gateway but um not not full-throated endorsement but they felt this was they they wanted to help them out and this was what they kind of settled on um they did review other options such as putting um allowing self-store units into the riverfront district was another option that was explored so um i guess that's probably where i can leave it at this point there were um a number of options i don't know if brook is here to answer questions on behalf of the the barrett's stop sharing um and i can answer any questions that you had um mic can i ask you a question about the eastern gateway district just for clarity is housing allowed in the eastern gateway district uh yes but not to the i was hoping i had that right in front of me and i don't um have the zoning right in front of me there is um i believe single and two family but multifamily is not allowed in eastern gateway um and maybe meredith looks like meredith has the answer to that right um so uh meredith krandall zoning administrator um in eastern gateway actually all residential uses are allowed but they're all conditional so higher tier review requirements thank you um sorry i probably should not have jumped right in there with questions i i do want to give um is that brook uh dingledine and uh is that jim barrett do you would you like to address the council yes thank you very much good evening um my name is brook dingledine can you hear me okay with my mask on yes okay great um i'm with the i'm with the berry law firm and i'm here with jim barrett and also kelly barrett of barrett enterprises and barrett enterprises is a local business in montpelier that's actually a family owned business that's been in um been around for over a hundred years and during that time they've paid a lot of taxes and employed a lot of people and they have made a real success of the pioneer street parcel that they acquired in 1970 at that point in time um just to give you a little background on the history of this parcel long long ago in the eight in the uh early 19th century and before it was a tannery and then there was a dam built on the river and the what is now the barrett parcel was used to generate power through that um through the hydro dam in the area it then turned into a coal fired power plant in the early 19th century and eventually converted over to an oil fired power plant that jam pee owned which um in 1971 the barrett stood over the property it had contamination on it there were concrete bunkers on the property um that had to be dynamited and people were betting whether or not they could actually break them up and remove them from the property uh they've spent massive amounts of money redeveloping this property since the 1970s they paid there was these six concrete bunkers that had to be dynamited took over a hundred thousand dollars in the 1970s to remove there was a massive 80 000 gallon underground storage tank holding oil for all this oil fired plant that existed there to generate the electricity that had to be pumped and filled with concrete um so these folks are are very connected to this land they've spent decades redeveloping it cleaning it up doing environmental assessments and they have always been in the storage business since the 70s and in the 1980s began building self-storage units at this location in other areas around central bramon they run a really nice operation they have many people and businesses in the area that appreciate the location and the convenience including people that come on a daily basis to get their supplies and equipment and material for their plumbing businesses electricians law firms with all sorts of um files um dentists wet washington county mental health um many nursing homes in the area local police personnel restaurants etc this is a really important business and in fact they're at 100 capacity and have a waiting list because of that proximity to people's homes where they don't have garages and that kind of thing so in the 1980s the first mid-1980s the first self-storage unit went up when that became an industry and there are a total of 12 buildings on the barrett property and nine of them are the self-storage unit buildings which are all now out of compliance now what does that really mean well probably nothing because they will continue to maintain them into the future and have plans to do that for the the long term so they would may remain um but they're and the and the barrett's found out about the change in zoning through happenstance they had no idea that their parcel was getting rezoned in 1918 so this was a surprise when they went into the zoning administrator to do the last two buildings in the area that is actually it's the parking lot area that's above the 18 000 gallon storage type that was filled with concrete and they found out well you can't do this anymore you've been zoned out of this is no longer a use so that's how they came upon this information they didn't realize that was going on or would have come to say gee this is an unintended consequence the other the other portion there's another parcel involved in this request as well and that's the laser wash parcel and those folks have expressed concern because for example now that they're a non-compliant structure they can't put vacuum cleaners out in the parking lot area where they wanted to because there's a local need for that but that would be an expansion of a non-conforming use and they wouldn't be allowed to do that so because 10 of the 13 structures on these two parcels are now in non-compliance and the fact that the last portion of the development that the barrett's were planning to now can't be done without them realizing that that was the situation um we we went to the planning commission we worked with mike miller um he was terrific in trying to help fashion some options for the planning commission and um what they ultimately decided on was well the strip in between the railroad trucks and the actual road um if that could read if that could be the eastern gateway just expanded and continue the extension of that from the east into the along the road and then the portion behind the railroad tracks between the railroad tracks and the river could remain riverfront and that would assist the barrett's in completing their plans um laser wash could continue to operate and have a small expansion for their desires as well while still honoring the purpose and the intent of what the change in zoning was designed to um provide for in the future which is um making an area more accessible to uh pedestrian or access to the river that kind of thing yeah the reality of it is if we if the zoning doesn't change it's it's not going to um cause any in any short term time frame there's not going to be a housing unit put up the merits are not in that business and this is a hole in their in their property now um that they have finally been able to business wise um be able to develop and it completes the um you know what they wanted to do with the property now this isn't about them specifically and what I would ask you to think about and if you drive that area and you know it at all if you look at that map that might put up on the thing first of all eastern gateways across the road from at least the eastern portion of the barrett property and if you drive that area it's a guardrail with an enormous amount of um trees shrubbery that kind of thing because there's a real steep drop off and there is no place to walk in that area on route two on that side because of the guardrail and it's a very steep drop off then to the barrett property and that continues for quite some time and the only access to the property is through the entrance where the trading when you get to the trading post actual building um or of course you could enter any other side of railroad tracks from plain ear street and then you would be able to access that eastern portion of the barrett property but there you know it wouldn't change anything in terms of um alteration at the road because there is no access to any of those lands so mr barrett is here and he's um happy to answer any questions about this um is there anything that you want to highlight for them um it just invested a great deal of money time thought and and tlc on this property and now the other thing I should point out is eastern gateway requires them to um go through some uh aesthetic and buffering kinds of issues they're happy to do so um they're not asking for a reversion to the original zoning that they had prior to 2018 um and they're more than happy to comply to make this area look nice and keep this business a thriving business in central gormona right well thank you um so from here I know we had a little bit of conversation about this uh last time and at that point I had said you know I have some hesitation around all this but um I just want to I mean I'm I want to say that uh you know I'm certainly open to this and want to want to think through it um I would like to think through it a little more uh but I want to check with the council if you all are feeling um clear uh you know you want to move forward with this or um clear that you don't that would be good to know uh if if it seems like it's going to be relatively controversial then I I think it's okay to say let's um let's let's talk about this some more let's think about it some more and um put it on a further agenda uh time and in the future if we're not uh if we're not ready to approve it tonight um so anyway I just want to put that out there as an option um thoughts uh Jay go ahead um yeah and thank you and um thank you to the Barrett family and and to all they've put into that land that I think I shared the sentiment that I think that it this deserves a little more time and attention and um conversation and do you think that um given the redevelopment on the other side of the river and the multi-use path that's has been built out there um and the potential for connecting folks to the river and connecting that space to downtown um and uh seeing a different type of future in the development of that space I think it I think it warrants additional conversation so I don't know that I'm ready to move forward with a decision tonight thanks thank you um other thoughts Dan and then Donna um well you know I I I think that the the Barrett's point is is well taken which is um it's you know they've largely developed the area and anytime you make what's developed already in the area a non-conforming use I think that creates problems because you have that inconsistent uh you know you can't expand you can't use the land as as it's really already been been used um I think Jay's point is a good one and I do see I I agree as well that this is in the long term um I think this is one of the areas that we as a city really need to be looking at to think about as Savins is developed as the multi-use uh path is continued to be improved and utilized um you know this is in some ways another sort of downtown hub type center and so today's uses are not necessarily going to be yeah I think there's going to be uh future planning about that but I think that's really long-term thinking I think that's over the long course of you know we the planning commission needs to go back needs to look um and we need to see how these lands develop but at least at this time I don't see um I guess I I don't see necessarily a need to mull it over much more I think um you know I think the Barrett's use of this is is the established use and and something that doesn't allow that use I think creates more problems in the short term um and that what we're really looking at is long-term thinking about this area and it's not just the Barrett's property it's the entire that entire intersection where the pioneer street bridge and route to meet because I I really do think there's a lot of potential there but I think that's that's long term and that's something we need to support and thinking about for the um for the future that's that's just my thought thank you Donna well I'm not sure Dan by the time you've finished I wasn't sure whether you'd vote yes or no but uh part of me agrees with both of you and as much as thanks to Brooke all your statements and background was very helpful to me the difference I guess I perceive is that this section is up on a hill it's not down by the shared use path it's not even immediately except for the backside right against the river and I do respect how much they've maintained and helped this economic growth here but I also feel like going into the east what do you call Eastgate would have them add some beautification that they don't have now and I really would like that I'd like to support how they're using it get them out of being out of compliance and help it to be a more beautiful uh that it might be indeed the exception dealing at the fact that it is up on this sort of steep area right against the roadway so I would be prepared to vote tonight but I can certainly wait till the next meeting also Jack I'm with uh with Donna I at our last meeting we heard this presentation and what I said was well you know I really should get out there and walk the grounds and get a good sense of what it's like and I did not do that before tonight's meeting but I I also thought that that Mike's presentation uh with the map tonight was was really very very informative and helpful and so I don't want to make my fellow counselors rush to a decision if uh if they're not ready but I personally am ready and I would support it great thank you any other thoughts from council um any thoughts from the public and uh Brooke or Jim if you have anything you want to add to it that's okay too um oh uh Bill go ahead yeah I meant to get in and then you guys got started so I just wanted to weigh in from my perspective and again you all can decide what you want to do but uh as I see it as I understand the proposal before you uh is is except you know works for the Barrett's the landowners and you know with regard to future use uh if it were to convert to commercial or housing or whatever um you know essentially you heard the testimony I mean the Barrett family is really interested in doing that not not that they don't like the idea but that's not what they do so someone's gonna have to buy it and I think if someone was proposing to buy this property from the Barrett's and propose a major proposal you know for the long run it met our long term you know vision council could certainly consider rezoning it I'd also say that and and if that were the case the addition of a couple more storage units were a couple of um vacuum cleaners isn't going to make it particularly more expensive to redevelop it's you know it's not like you're taking down brand new buildings with water and sewer and all these kind of things and you storage units I think I don't even think you have water and sewer right they're just a little storage with a slab underneath so I I think you're not necessarily defeating your future vision here especially with the hybrid that the planning commission has come up with and um and then and we're not holding up to you know whether you do it now or you want to take more time I certainly would um stand to support and urge you to support uh the planning commission compromise and I think works for the field yeah Ian go ahead yeah I I guess I just add on top of that I just to be clear from Donna's statement I'm fully in her and Jack's camp um you know if you look through the uses it on the chart in the zoning you know the riverfront and the eastern gateway are pretty much the same um with some key exceptions the key one being the the storage units um and so I I don't feel like this is really a real this is opening something drastic and I I would share I think Bill put it more succinctly what I was grasping for in my comments which is that you know I think a lot of our concerns are thinking in this long term but nothing here is going to prevent us from thinking about that in the long term and you know a lot of our long term thinking about this and or that the planning commission's long term thinking is going to depend on on things that haven't happened yet and so limiting the current use or ignoring the current use for um some future prospect I don't think makes sense um given that this can can continue to be used in a manner that's been consistently that it's been consistently used for you know as as Brooke testified to or stated about 40 years so um I just um oh Jack go ahead just very quickly I know that everybody I talk to pretty much hates self-storage units but every time one gets built they get filled up clearly that our society for whatever reason has decided there's a value to doing them and I think this is a sensible place for them any other thoughts Lauren or Connor if not that's okay I think I could vote tonight sorry say again I think I could vote tonight okay you know something that I that I think is helpful for me in thinking about this is that housing continues to be a at least a conditional use for the eastern gateway and so if you know if the hope is that someday there's either housing or something like that in that area that that's this is not preventing that um I'm correct in saying that right Mike yeah okay um so um with that in mind um Lauren anything you want to add if not that's okay no I mean I think I share the general sense you know having heard more tonight it was really helpful um from from Brooke's presentation and the other comments so um I think I'm prepared to vote too also hopeful that you know the longer term vision we keep keep working towards but it sounds like you know we can move forward with this for now and it doesn't seem like a huge change um I guess my only question is it sounds like the planning commission were torn like is there something we're we're some perspective that hasn't been brought up that you know Mike or anyone like what what was making this a hard decision on their part if we're it's being presented to us is pretty straightforward and not really that big a deal well I think from the planning commission's perspective they they were first presented with a larger change um so they had a lot of working around to kind of bring it back to let's just look at the minimum that would be necessary to to remedy the situation the one section next to the river is already built out so we can you know we don't have to rezone that so that was took a lot of conversation to bring that back and then they also you know they're they're you know much more versed on the zoning and took a number of avenues of possible other changes of um changing in Justin and Neighborhood in its zoning district to allow just that use and that would fix it for the Barrett's but they wouldn't fix it for the the car wash and so they they went through on a number of those points and and um the the the exact case that Jay made was one of the the big pieces that they worked and had a lot of question on which was you know we just built the bike path you know the Barrett's property is just on the other side of the river and that was kind of where they drew the line and said no we shouldn't rezone the northern piece that's next to the river we should leave that as riverfront yes everything will be non-conforming but at the same time those are all successful and we don't need to make those changes and so that was that was where they really went around and I think in their case they the planning commission always wanted to make changes to help they just had a couple of meetings where there were a few a few planning commission members short so they had to get four votes and they had three three votes for one and three three votes for the other and then um had to go to another meeting um just because you know three of them preferred uh changing the the zoning uses while three of them felt they would rather change the zoning district so um I think it was just a difference of way the way of getting there and when they had the second meeting we had some people who weren't at the first meeting at the second meeting and they were able to pass and get that approved thank you that's helpful yeah okay well is there anyone who'd like to make a motion uh Dan sure I'll make a motion that we approve the change in zoning districts along 186 um sorry let me call this up um on river street 186 river street uh from riverfront zoning district to eastern gateway district as proposed all second I just want to clarify it's more than just 186 because it's also the property next to it sure the parcels I can amend my my motion to the the parcels um as indicated on the map in proximity to 186 river street and you're you're cool with that right Conner all good okay um okay um further discussion and this includes the public if there's anyone from the public who would like to weigh in about this can I bring anybody okay I'm not seeing you I'm sorry that's okay I can also read your lips okay so any further discussion right all in favor please say aye aye aye and opposed opposed okay so um the motion carries and oh wait because I think we have to go through roll call yeah um right I'm just going to go through the order in which you appear on my screen uh Dan hi Conner hi Donna hi jack hi Lauren hi and jay composed okay uh so the motion carries and um thank you everybody um for your thoughtfulness about this and uh yeah thanks for the to the planning commission and and uh uh broken gym so thank you very much folks okay um so it is 8 30 um I think we might need a quick break um so let's see we've got up next is the uh temporary um uh parking ordinance public hearing and then uh community policing discussion um I reversed the order of those two uh is my guess so well uh how do you feel about do you need five minutes 10 minutes what do you think 10 oh I'm seeing 10 um all right so I'll see you back here at 8 40 and we'll pick it up with the community policing from there right thanks community policing discussion um yeah oh Bill are you sure yeah I was I was gonna say just to ask the other thing but nobody's here for it so that was my question if anybody was here for it then you know it's easy we could just do it but I think it's really fair to do this one um first so um all right so just so everybody knows how this conversation will be structured uh we are gonna first hear from our police chief and about his work and investigation that he's done about the police department and then from there we will go directly to public comment and then and again you know everybody is welcome to participate again say your name and where you live and try to keep your comments in two minutes that'd be great and then um and then the the council will reflect on what they've heard so we'll go from there uh so uh I'm going to turn things over to Chief Pete welcome thank you ma'am good evening mayor good evening uh distinguished members of the council uh city manager assistant city manager um I've had the the privilege um to come here to Montpelier and um to join this this this this community and and I've seen firsthand on what makes it special and uh and I can tell you that um I believe you have and I know you have a department of professionals who are committed to doing the best that they can in serving their community and and and I I've given um eight slides to uh the camera has them I think we're probably going to go with those really quickly but um they're they're based in in part well they're based entirely on the assessment that I did and I looked at it very impartially and I came in in just full disclosure I've been to a lot of police agencies and organizations and you're wondering okay is this just um is this just a show is this or is it really the real thing and and I walked away believing it is the real thing and knowing that it's the real thing I looked for certain indicators I looked for things to to see if there's um there's an exclusion it's just one thing to have the right policies it's one thing to say that we have benchmark policies that we're doing with per for the IACP is telling us to do and it's an entire another thing to have a culture that believes in those policies and implements those policies and I can tell you that the Montpelier Police Department has that culture it's not just a well this is what we're supposed to do um this is what we do and this is what we expect from each other um so culture is what enforces and makes policies work not just in Montpelier but I think in any organization um out there that that human bodies are part of I've looked for early warning indicators things that would lead to or suggest that there is a detached culture um that would rob from community policing practices from models and that would contribute to an us versus the mindset I can tell you I did not see that um it was not over um so if I may ask if Cameron could put those slides on the screen or thank you ma'am so the the initial findings um a review of and statistical data uh that's you know the state police just released out what they were seeing with their traffic stops so if you um if law enforcement stops someone here in the state you can either give them a warning you can give them a ticket you could even look at uh if there's an arrest system from that interaction or even if you search the vehicle all those data points um we're we're available here in Montpelier and we're working to put those on the on the website uh to to bring more transparency and accountability um but in the reviewing of that initial data uh shows that there's no I have no impression there's no indications of targeting um to people especially uh disadvantaged populations people of color socioeconomic status anything um the current policies and practices that the department has had for a long time it's not like a hey we better get our act together uh the led two years ago we started doing everything correct no there's a consistency of policies and practices that are rooted in in best practice models uh as I mentioned before about the culture that is strong and professional and that um community concerns primarily revolved around anything of like the criminal nexus you go to certain places and people say that I'm concerned about drugs I'm concerned about um uh the opioid epidemic I'm concerned about a lot of robberies happening around schools I didn't get any of that the the criminal compliance base thing that I heard the most was people are speeding too much and we need to do something about it um so uh so that was positive to me as well um that this community to my my hats off to the community for that um because the community can only allow itself to be policed please have to have that legitimacy to do that so that's that's a that's a reflection uh of the culture of the community and then there were those community concerns that related to the institutional culture of law enforcement which I think everyone agrees needs work um but so so those conversations kind of tilted towards what does MPD do to hold itself accountable and transparent to the community that it serves and if I may ask for the thank you ma'am so um of the the community discussion topics the most prevalent were um there is an overwhelming uh desire to see officers in the best of times and not just in the worst of times so for high visibility foot patrols positive interactions more positive interactions that officers are having not just you know we only see you when there's a call for service or um when we do see you in your car you don't have that much time to stop and talk to us and and there there are those efforts officers are taking those efforts but their administrative functions that are keeping them from being able to be more proactive in their community uh in police immersion efforts um there is of course there was concern about the increase in the homeless population and MPD's role and how we're going to help to address that situation I think the Vermont Digger had a recent article that said uh I think like 13 or 14 percent of the state's homeless population is here in Washington County so that's a big concern of the community as well the school resource officer is also a big concern a lot of folks saying that because of national models they think that police officers are are are traumatizing towards children um but um I what what the peculiar police department is doing it's doing right and it's doing and what it does do it's it doesn't do what other departments do it has accomplished and succeed and excel at what other departments want to be so I'll say that with the SRO program again then that we've had the national conversations of racial systemic violence police brutality the roles of policing um questions were are there others are there service other services or other organizations that can can do those various calls of service um better than than police officers and I wholeheartedly agree to that um and then there's a mental health uh component with related calls to for police services and again um I'm grateful that Gary Gordon and Susan are on the line and they're going to go probably more into depth uh and then can answer some other questions as it regards to um a crisis intervention so the six pillars of 21st century policing are what what I went at and looked through this is the benchmark this is widely um this is what's accepted is the golden standard um what police departments should be doing and this stems back from um uh panels of experts of and who discuss what makes a department successful and again I'm not sure if most people know this but Tony Fakas played a part in that Tony Fakas was down there at the White House talking about what policing should look like which also lends itself to the fact that the Montpelier police department has been recognized as a department that's doing it correctly and what are you doing that you can broadcast out to other departments and agencies so they can mirror the relationship that you have with your community so I think that's a hats off to the men and women and to the city um for that accomplishment so um one of the the first gentleman I met with Ari he it was a great conversation and um he it stuck with me he said I want you to drink bigger what do you think about how these things work so he introduced me to the first paradigm here on the left uh that talks about um and I hope I'm doing it justice and I'm recalling it correctly but talked about like the personal the cultural and structural influences that that can affect organizations that can affect beliefs and that brought me over to um Dr. Joseph Neuase belief transformation cycle so this is he's part of this group uh well they founded the group with the systemic diversity and inclusion group and it's talking about how do you transform belief systems because we're all all of our experiences whether they're taught or whether they're experienced um this is how we come into that fold so how do we disrupt that cycle so policing to me is nothing but symptomatic of of society at large um what happens in the society happens in microorganisms to include teaching policing um health care politics you name it it's all there so what can the Montpelier police department do that's what we have control over to disrupt this cycle to make sure that as we're policing we're aware of anything internally that will that will not allow us or that would reduce the amount of service that we're giving to anyone within our community and we want to make sure that we have that emotional intelligence about ourselves to to realize this and to make sure that we see everybody the same way and and we in our services based in on that and again I want to emphasize that I have not seen that within the within the department but I think this is we don't want to say stagnant we want to move forward so this is so with these paradigms in mind we want to base um strategic goals that are that are founded in how do we make sure that we we emphasize ways to to remind each other that we're all human and we all have the same things the same goals wants desires thoughts in common so that's what the strategic plans will be based in so again officers should not be doing the work of of other places we're not claiming to be social workers we're not claiming to be doctors but yet we it's incumbent upon us to do everything we can to provide the best possible service out there so we need to be trained in things like first aid we need to be trained in crisis de-escalation um because we're looking towards uh peaceful ways to resolve conflicts but we have to be conscious of mission creep so we can't that's one of the things that's gotten us into this problem in the first place that officers can't be expected to be uh school counselors they have another intricate role to play in the school system for example but um so we have to be cognizant of that mission mission creep thing which happens everywhere um but every responsibility every organizational structure out there is essential and it plays a vital role and it neither should be competing with one another all of us should be working with each other for a common goal the department has been doing that and as i'm here we will continue to do that and we will ramp it up to the highest level we possibly can this slide talks about the the strategic goals that came out of the 17 uh page assessment um and i'm based because of the urgency of the situation i think that we need to seize on this moment and we need to act on this moment and those who are serious about um uh making institutional change to our to our profession are going to be involved in those conversations and their input's going to be heard and it's going to be valued um so we've uh i've put in strategic goals based on those uh six pillars of 21st century policing the first of which i think um is the most important would be to implement a body worn camera program now that comes with a lot of other things uh but the primarily among them being a funding and i'm extremely cognizant of um budget limitations prior to coven and especially with because what we're dealing with now so we're going to this is something that we want to make sure that we're responsible stewards so i'm going to go out there and look for those resources to bring these here um uh for this department and if i can uh we've also there was also a bj grant that i just applied for that just closed out last week for um if we get it it would allow us to have a four-year um to pay for four years worth of having a body worn camera program system here so and looking at uh that so that the philosophy that the paradigms that i spoke of before this is where um where i think that it would come into play so one of uh the pillars calls for a robust interaction with policing now um oversight is done uh by there's already civilian oversight there's my boss there's both of my bosses and there are elected officials who are tasked and how accountable to um to oversight for this department so i think that it's it's better to have um a strategic advisory board of community members who are selected by a community that can provide our department with advice input and and help us to generate ideas on how we can meet our community police and strategic goals a lot of times you can't see the forest when you're inside the trees i can look at things from a police standpoint all day i've got a mental health background as well but i don't do this every day so i i gotta make sure i'm catching everything that's being that's this that we're seeing and what we're supposed to be doing so that we do this with a partnership so this group i think would just brainstorm ways to help us improve systemic diversity um make sure that we're maintaining socioeconomic equality uh inclusion exposure and um with the goal of true impartiality for policing so these would be things like um we want to talk about implicit bias training well how do we go out into the community are there experts within Montpelier that can help us do this or do we go to the anti-defamation league to get this training how do we bring it back are there volunteers in the community that can help us do this all the way to things like we understand that um it's a male dominated career field how do you attract women to come into this profession how do you attract people of color to come into this profession um if we have uh if we have partnerships with group like the rainbow coalition and NAACP and women in law enforcement we can can tap into those resources to say hey come to our awesome city come to our great department and be part of something that's bigger than yourself and and we can brainstorm those ways and have those resources and that that that access that we otherwise don't have because of the population uh breakup of the state of Vermont so I think that a group like that to help us um set the vector on where we want to go and give us ideas that we might not otherwise know or have would be crucial in helping us meet that community partnership goal and then the last slide I believe so talking about um again one of the key elements that was brought up throughout the the conversations with the community is um I would look at I am working right now towards developing a CIT program and that CIT programs not just going to be for officers here and staff and dispatchers here in Montpelier police department but we're going to open it up to the entire state and we're going to everybody's got lack of resources right now we're going to do it in a way that we're not going to charge people hundreds of dollars to do it's just going to if you can make it come and we'll cover it and we'll find creative ways to make sure we can cover things like supplies and um to print out workbooks and USP ports too to send people home with the information but we want to make sure that we we bring this type of training to as many people as possible because it saves officers lives and it saves the lives of our our public in our in our community so we want to bring this out as much as possible chief if I can interrupt you for one second could you just spell what is the CIT acronym stand for yes ma'am I apologize so the CIT is crisis intervention training and that's based off of uh it's just it's a 40 hour very robust training system that officers so we have a team two model here in Vermont that's a day's training and it gives officers familiar with the resources and Gary Gordon again is on this call he can speak to it um probably more specifically that I can but CIT uh CIT wraps it up a notch and and it talks about just like team two does bringing in peers and people who have lived experiences to share with with with officers but it has other components like that it has components that talks about officer safety and wellness it has um there's even exercises in which we have a um a headphone system that gives for disassociate personality disorder so you know schizophrenia when you're hearing voices so we do exercise like hey put these headphones on and now we're going to try to do this exercise and now you tell me how easy was that for you and now you know what that person is going through that you come into contact now here are some good ways to reach people who are in crisis to de-escalate the situation one of the things that we've learned for example is and I'm sorry I could talk all day on this stuff um one of the things that we've learned is um one of the first thing police officers want to do is what can hurt you the most its hands so the tactical thing is let me see your hands please keep your hands out of your pocket please keep your hands out of your shirt and that brings me I'll digress for a second but talking about seminars to the public that explains to the public where our tactics are what their rights are when they're stopped and pulled over we're not trying to play get you with anybody we want people to know their rights because we we abide by their rights and so if we can provide information out there to let people know why we do what we do and if that's going to decrease conflicts that's going to decrease arguments that's going to decrease um uh knee jerk reactions on both parts that we're going to do everything we possibly can to elude from that but going back to CIT it's one of those things that you're trained all the time show me your hands don't have anything in your hands if but a lot of people who have are in crisis one of the first things that they're doing is they're smoking because the nicotine helps them bring them down from that it helps them relax and what are we doing as police officers when we come to sing I need you to put that cigarette out no if I know you're in mental crisis I want you to sit down and drag on that thing as much as possible when you're calm let's talk how can how can we help you and so those are like those little things are our pivot points that can make the difference between literally life and death in certain situations so it's incumbent upon us to provide that knowledge and that information that training um to our people and as many possible our officers as possible so um so we have partnered with as you all know with the Washington County mental health services Barry police department to have a co-responder model with Montpelier and that's also best practice model and it's being done in a lot of places and it's being done well and as Gary I think alluded to earlier in the call that is something that our neighbors to the south are have been doing successfully so with that if Gary if you and Susan are still on the line would you mind talking a little bit more about mental health price intervention in the partnership okay well as I said alluded to earlier um this is something that we've been having conversations about for quite some time um and it's finally reached fruition um I think a lot of it has to do with particular with the towns with that we're in um and also with the fact that in our particular community I haven't done a crisis clinician for the last 28 years and haven't been working very closely with these two departments as well as the state police and also the Washington County Sheriff's they receive a large volume of calls that have a mental health component so part of the thinking is this is that um and we've also had as as as you're all aware we've had instances that have had tragic consequences um and we've had instances where there have been question marks about the ability of police to respond and also the ability of mental health to respond so part of the the um response to that was forced to was the development of the team two model that we developed uh shortly after drop was on Irene when Mary Moten was temporarily the uh commissioner of mental health um and the idea behind the team two model was to foster closer collaboration between law enforcement and mental health crisis clinician because we are often in the field together responding to these types of calls um in Washington County in particular we have been a mobile team since 1974 when Dr. George Brooks who was at the state hospital at the time wrote the first grant for a mobile response team which he called the world screeners so we have a history of being mobile uh since that time period um but what we found um and what law enforcement had been saying frequently to us is that the volume of calls with the mental health component was so high that um we needed more that we needed an expansion of the ability for um mental health clinicians to assist officers in the field um because for example Washington County we have two crisis workers on um at a time so we have two crisis workers on we work 12 hours shifts and they're two of us on and we're busy enough that a lot of times when the police agencies call us we cannot respond immediately we may be in the emergency room uh we may be out with another law enforcement officer we may be somewhere else in the community and this was put in the precarious position a lot of times because we weren't able to respond in a timely fashion um so the idea was was having somebody embedded with the department somebody who could be with the officers to respond to these calls um and so that's how we arrived at the we finally were able to get um the department of mental health and the two agencies to come together and and to uh provide the funding for this and we've seen the results um in Southern Vermont in um in in Rattleboro and Springfield in these areas that HRS covers we're seeing the results in St. Albans the impact that is having the feedback that they're getting of of the um efficacy of having a mental health crisis worker on the scene with officers because even even some of the calls that aren't necessarily identified as mental health calls um as we all know a lot of times when when the blue lights show up in the uniforms show up there's a heightened response um people have reactions to police officers particularly people in the population that we that we frequently have to encounter the homeless population um the people who are on the peripheral of of you know in and out of criminal behavior and in the criminal justice system um the so-called underbelly of society these are people that we often you know frequently have to deal with and a lot of them do have underlying mental health issues and although the officers have a certain degree of training um that's still not as as as uh Chief Pete said you know that's not their primary focus but we do have people such as myself crisis conditions that that this is our primary focus and we when and when we are on the scene we I believe we make a difference and I've done multiple scenes myself at officers when we've made a difference by being there enabled to in um we're able to help de-escalate the situation we're able to do an assessment of mental health assessment of the person and and connect them with the resources that they need um so that's the whole thinking behind part of the thinking at least behind having an embedded clinician so part of part of Susan's role will be to respond with the officers if de-escalation is needed she can do that if comfort is needed she will provide comfort um if she needs to do a mental health assessment she'll do a mental health assessment and make the appropriate referrals um she will be in contact with all of the other resources that are available to individuals because one thing that we recognize is that a lot of times people just aren't aware of the resources that are available which contributes to their crisis um so she will over time become familiar with those those resources um and as she is more comfortable with them she'll be making referrals to all of the partners that we work with um and um and hopefully that will we will see um an impact on the community in terms of of how we're able to better serve the population that we work with I don't know what to add to uh to those comments I wanted to reiterate what Chief Pete said about on what an amazing community that there is here um I've been so impressed already with the degree to which different organizations are working together and um with law enforcement here and the way that they interact with the public um today I was out and about in the community with one of the officers who introduced many people um that that officer has gotten to know just from walking around and building relationships and um that's so impressive and quite honestly different from many of the places that I have lived before um I think that mental health is a very specific skill set and law enforcement is a very specific skill set and there's a definitely an overlap between the two but I think working in collaboration like this is such an outstanding model because it really allows for each person to focus on what they do best um and have the most tools available at one time to try to provide assistance in whatever form that it seems most helpful in any given situation to that individual so I am thrilled to be here in this role and really looking forward to um growing it with all of you so thank you for having me here tonight and and thank you both for your time I know it's it's pretty late and uh even just this morning this afternoon there was a gentleman outside and I saw uh Susan she was already at work talking uh with this with this gentleman uh who was out front so um so the department is making continuous strides to meet the the the high expectations and the rightfully so high expectations of the people of our community and with that again I thank you for the opportunity to be here I thank you for the chance to provide you with the assessment and I stand ready to answer any questions of the council or the public great thank you so much chief um so at this point we're going to take comments from the public um I just want to make a comment too that last time we had a discussion about policing there was a number of comments that uh repeated the same script and I just want to say just from a purely personal perspective that I would encourage if anyone is is planning on doing something similar I would encourage you to speak from your heart and um not necessarily from a script it just it actually just helps me and I'm sure it probably is true for others it helps me engage with what people are saying when it's not repeated um if you want to do that perfectly fine you certainly can um I just you know wanted to give that little editorial um about that um for whatever it's worth um but having having said that um if there are folks who would like to comment now it's time so again don't forget to say your name um and where you uh live um so who got everything um yeah so yeah we have a list of folks right now so okay so yeah Cameron do you have a um a list already going yeah it would be really great if people could use the raise hand function so far I have Morgan Brown and I just heard Steve Whitaker's phone so you guys are in the queue if anyone else would like to speak if you could uh wave or raise a hand or do an emoji or something so I could see you um Morgan you're first on our list thank you um and I see Sean um Steven as well um anyone else um want to give a wave as to what's that Cameron I have a so I have Morgan Steven Sean and Lauren Allison Byron's or Burns I'm sorry if I mispronounce your name Carolyn Wesley and Isla or Isla I I gotta love I love apologize and then we'll go from there okay yep so Ariza Morgan you are up first go ahead Morgan yes um my name is Morgan Brown I live in district three um I just wanted to say that um first off I want to give a little correction uh with apologies to Chief Pete CIT actually stands for crisis intervention team training emphasis on team and um that can be found online very easily um it it's very easy to get confused and call it crisis intervention training but it's actually team is an important uh term and uh that's that's the uh third that's a third letter to T anyway I want to uh really thank Chief Pete for uh um being willing to bring CIT crisis intervention team training to uh Mopaya and elsewhere in Vermont where it already doesn't exist um there is one community uh uh in Vermont that has implemented it and um I'm trying to remember the name I think it might be Harvard or something like that in the White River Junction area anyway um uh for a long time I've been advocating for CIT training you know to come to Mopaya and elsewhere in Vermont and I'm really grateful to the Chief for uh being willing to do this I think it's essential I think it'll save lives thank you thank you unless you're not done I just like to finish if I can uh I I support Chief Pete in this endeavor and uh I think it's very important thank you thank you Morgan uh Steven you're up next uh yeah I hope you can cut me a little slack over two minutes this has been uh I was on the Landed Street walk around on the night the first night that the Chief joined us and I made specific overture there and said I I've got to speak with you about a 30-year history here and a deep experience with the department uh I was not afforded an opportunity in fact I was uh uh you know around the uh toilet uh public toilet signs and the planters the ladies who destroyed the art project uh were let off scot-free and he put his resources around accusing me so and we've got an officer our school re-altern source officer who actually put two false statements in those papers and and then we've got your detective who refused to inquire even invent to invent I'm sorry interview the perpetrator who made off with some thousand dollar speakers of mine to assess his motive you know when you talk about building trust in the community the homeless folks are not don't I mean I would I actually watch folks passing counterfeit bill I'm not I don't trust the department enough to call them either do the folks who have their beers their unopened beers stolen by the officers you know Billy is not a sloppy drunk he doesn't go out and create a problem make a lot of noise and the officers come and confiscate his beers and I told you this you've got a long way to go to build trust you know this department has a three million dollar budget and we're strapping for thirty thousand for homeless services I mean we need to put this in perspective we've got way too many officers chasing speeding cars not enough crime to warrant a three million dollar department maybe we ought to take about half of that budget and put it into mental health and homeless services you know to address this but when you've got a chronic history of crime and corruption where I've taken internal payers complaints and had the officer sweep it under the rug and say I'm about to retire why should I make waves you know I've had officers stealing my own property from M&M beverage that had been in same possession as 90 percent of the law you've got you've got a and now you've got people who are working alongside officer Matthews who are helping her cover it up and that's where it creates corruption when you turn complicity in in unfair prosecutions and unfair confiscations and you know unport detective work when you turn the blind eye to that and you create this little wall I warned Susan today that you know you're going to be asked to to you know fall into the blue wall and keep the secrets but that that's why this model may not work but we've we've got a long way to go to build trust and it's not about using you know fantasy buzzwords but the fact that these forms happened and over the cheek didn't even seek it to hear from me even though I reached out first and said I got stuff you need to know about the public records accountability it's been a year since I've been trying to get the records of the Mark Johnson shooting no one has come up with the transcript of the video the diagrams the measure distances the I'm going to interrupt you here you're talking you know all right thank you so much Stephen um all right um Sean hi well you guys put in long hours so thank you for your work um so I'm Sean Stevens I live in Montpelier I'm in I think district two and um I will be super brief because it's late and I know there's other people that are part of the group that I'm part of who would also like to speak and they have young children so this is hard for them it goes on this late so um I um I've been putting in a lot of reading and soul searching about the issues of racial justice and policing over the last several months like I'm sure that everybody is and really I've come down firmly in favor of trying to defund the police I'm putting a full stop after that period I think it's important um we know that the safest communities in America are the ones that don't center the police um I have a list of demands that was put forward by the group that I'm part of and I got nominated to read it so I'm going to read it in just a minute um I want to also point out that there was an interesting LA Times article a while ago that analyzed more than a million calls that came into the LA police department and found that 92 of those calls did not require a response by an officer authorized and armed to use force so in other words um this is basically the mission creep that Chief Pete was just talking about and I think what we are proposing here is a mission rollback that we move funding away from the police and towards true community safety so there are 11 demands I emailed them recently so in fear you you probably have received them number one and I'm going to read this but then nobody else is going to have to reread it so there won't be the repetition that you were commenting on and I thank you that that will make everybody a little less crazy number one um we do I was a redemand the following number one support efforts to remove the SR over the school resource officer from our schools number two enact the fair and impartial policing policy that was brought forward by migrant justice and allies to stop collaboration with ICE joint errors and task forces and other surveillance structures number three enact a moratorium on police raises for three years including not hiring for vacancies and create a study committee to research defunding oversight bargaining and other issues number four prioritize shifting funding from next year's city budget from police to social services including but not limited to affordable housing healthcare including mental health food security and economic empowerment number five enact and enforce a residency requirements requirement for all officers with no exceptions or grandfathering in number six have traffic and parking enforcement conducted by unarmed traffic agents number seven ban the use of all prison labor by the city and end all contracts with the department of corrections number eight ban the use of surveillance technology such as body cameras facial recognition etc and bar procurement of military style equipment and chemical weapons number nine have the police department report directly to the city council on any lobbying efforts number 10 open police contract negotiations to the public scrutiny participation and approval and the last one number 11 as part of your ongoing process to review city ordinances change them to limit police power such as to decriminalize public order and survival based offenses that's it thank you thank you Sean um Lauren oh um I just tried to find your email and I couldn't um yeah but if you if you would mind resending it to me at your convenience so we have it fully written thank you um okay um Lauren hi guys oh I'm sorry oh sorry hang on what was I can learn Connor do you have something I just hope to ask Sean a couple of questions first of all Sean really appreciated your comments earlier on the pain thing um I'm just trying to clarity my own mind so would this be a formal group with a name who all shares the same set of recommendations um or is it just is it a bit looser with uh I just wondered like that you know as far as having meetings outside council is there a point person to contact that type of thing it's it is an informal group many of us are also members of surge standing up for racial justice or black lives matter or various other organizations but no this is a an ad hoc organization that got put together by a group of us um I declined to say that there's a point person although some of the people who come after me may may disagree with me and give themselves as a point person that would be their prerogative great great and can I just have to clarify when you say lobbying efforts by the police become directly to council and that's where I know what that means yeah well that's the problem that I have with I have I gave this list but I personally didn't compose every item but my understanding is that sometimes the police chief or some other representative from the police department will lobby the state legislature and that we would like to know when that happens I believe that's what that refers to and I can get back to you with details about that thanks so much yeah great thank you and Lauren I'm sorry for interrupting you thank you you you are on no bro um so I just want to thank you guys for continuing to engage public discourse on this important topic um my name is Lauren Griswold and I live here in town in district one um so I envisioned a month earlier where the needs of our marginalized communities are met just as well as those of our most privileged communities um I'm concerned about the NPD's past conduct and by the fact that many by-part the Montpelier don't feel safe and are not safe around the police changing policing is a critical piece of a larger mission to make Montpelier a more equitable just and welcoming place that's why I'm calling on the city council to heed the demands that Sean just stated um I mean as an overwhelmingly white city and city council we can keep our heads under the sand considering systemic racism in the police force a Minneapolis problem a Buffalo problem a Seattle problem a Philadelphia problem a Kenosha problem um and in so doing continue to ignore the needs and demands of our by-part Montpelier residents and visitors I wanted to share just a little anecdote um from the large Montpelier protests that was organized in response to George Floyd's murder when I was leaving I passed two Montpelier police officers standing watched by the state house in passing I said I hope you guys are taking a serious look at your department you know in a neutral tone I don't know I was dressed professionally um one of the officers basically rolled his eyes at me I mean I don't care if the Montpelier police department is the cleanest performing police department in the state or the country I think in this time with police brutality filmed night after night across the country every single department needs to be looking at itself seriously and respecting when the public bring that up um we've heard a lot of accounts about how pristine the culture at the MPD is but how can the culture of one part of the system be immune from a systemic trait that's proved itself present across the system there's simply no disclaimer exempting any police department from institutionalized racism the easy path here is to put on these rosy Vermont exceptionalism lenses I compelled the council to take the harder paths to do everything we're empowered to listen when by by speak when by pod organizers in this state on the steps of our city's Capitol building demand a much more serious conversation about our state's police departments well I really appreciate that the council and chief beat have accepted public comment on this great matter I want to push the council to listen deeper to be open to equitable and just public safety might look like this is why I'm asking the council to be curious about the state of demands to consider their implications and fall to educate yourselves on the full breadth of these topics thank you for your time I'm looking forward to working together with you in this and I request to make Montpelier a safe welcoming city girl thank you so much thank you Lauren um Alison Burns you are up next hi I'm Alison Burns and I live in east Montpelier I'm a parent to a toddler who attends a daycare center in Montpelier and I'm also a teacher at U32 I'm here again tonight to con city council to take concrete actions that move us towards abolishing the police we have heard again and again from people of color who stand up at protests and rallies the state house to share their stories about how they do not feel safe or welcome in Vermont they have demanded that we abolish the police and I'm here again to ask you to listen to those demands to think the changes we are making is enough is to ignore the lived experience of so many people of color in our community city council must defund the police and instead demonstrate a serious commitment to defunding the police and using that money to fund social services including but not limited to affordable housing and childcare healthcare and food security I'd like to draw a comparison between our demands of policing and the abolition of schools we know that our country is built on white supremacy and so our schools are entrenched in white's premised ideas and values we can see this in standardized tests discipline policies access to technology hiring policies and on and on when the pandemic first caused schools to close around the country in March we suddenly took actions as a nation that worked towards abolishing schools as we know them today suddenly all students were given computers to take home when previously not all schools provided that technology we have known that providing access to technology at home is essential around all students to see this school and yet we were told that was impossible for years and then in an instant it was suddenly standardized tests were eliminated we have known for decades that standardized tests are based in white supremacy and racist and yet we continue to be told how crucial they are to the success of schools but in an instant they were gone the pandemic made it so clear that there were no reasons for those racist policies other than to further perpetuate white supremacy we were told those demands were impossible and yet we all saw that they were possible in an instant I'd also like to comment on the SRL in the report on page 12 it said the SRL program is absolutely critical in meeting this pillar SRLs will facilitate conversations to continue exposure and building bridges with the very conscious and active youth in the community they can be vital leaders in guiding restorative justice programs and SRL cannot be part of a true restorative justice program U32 is a great model of how school can successfully implement a restorative justice program that transforms the school in the school community they do not have an SRL and have been able to successfully eliminate detention traditional school discipline consequences that are all based on white supremacy which would only be possible without an SRL presence the demands we are making may seem like impossible asks after all with a country built in white supremacy we must actively work very hard to imagine our world without those racist values and ideals we have seen as with schools in the spring that it is possible to make swift and sweeping changes quickly that's why I'm calling on the city council to defund the police and reallocate those funds to community based programs I look forward to and I'm committed to continuing to work with you all to defund the police thanks for your time thank you uh carolyn hi my name is carolyn westley I'm a resident of montpelier I'm guessing that one area of common ground I have with those attending the meeting who have dedicated their lives to law enforcement is that I value the idea of public safety we all share a basic human desire to feel safe and protected and I want that to be true for every resident of montpelier unfortunately as events of the last week months and 200 plus years continue to make clear for some communities particularly black communities police don't contribute to their sense of safety in fact they make them feel less safe even frightened for their lives and this is just as true here in vermont and montpelier as it is anywhere in our nation I've never personally felt threatened by the presence of a montpelier police police officer the continuation of policing in this community as it has been wouldn't harm me in fact it would likely benefit me but I can't support a system that promotes safety for some at the expense of people of color immigrants those in mental health crisis the homeless and others who feel less safe as a result of our current system of policing given this fundamental flaw in our current structure for promoting public safety we are called to restructure and think about different ways to be in community with one another I appreciate the recognition that we need to dream bigger I echo the demands and actions shared with you via email by a multi racial group from montpelier residents as a good place to start more broadly a foundational aspect of building a safe community for all is ensuring that needs are met and that funding goes to things like affordable housing food security health and education the items discussed earlier this evening including resources for the homeless population and a new social worker position could also be steps in the right direction and I recognize the work that the council is already undertaking I thank you for your time consideration and action and I remind you that the daily deliberation of bodies like this one are how structural racism is either maintained or dismantled over time and I thank you for taking steps in the direction of justice thank you um Ila hi thank you for having me my name is Ila Bristol and I'm a preschool teacher and a woman of color who lives in Montpelier Montpelier has been a major landmark in my life since I was seven years old a place that I visited almost daily growing up and where I've chosen in my adulthood to reside it is a city of great merit and beauty that I love dearly but it is also in an imperfect city with undeniable room for growth and development so many may condense themselves otherwise changes must be made in order to create a comfortable environment for all to live here and all to visit I envision a Montpelier that sets the standards for the rest of the United States by prioritizing social services over policing and I envision a Montpelier that models safety and consideration for communities of color I'm concerned about our city's reliance on the police and how this affects feelings of peace for people of color in Vermont I have attended multiple black lives matter protests and rallies in the past few months and one message rang clear throughout people of color do not feel safe around the police and too many have firsthand accounts of when police in Vermont have not only failed them but made them feel in danger for others in order to make our state's capital a safer more hospitable more just place we must fund the police and reallocate the funds to causes and services that directly support communities such as affordable housing and health care quality education and economic empowerment for working people that is why I am calling on the city council to meet the demands outlined by a group of Montpelier residents and others which Sean Stevens enumerated in which council members have received this city rests upon a nation that has been plagued by systemic racism and oppression since its conception and as such while the disenfranchised fight for the art of American morals to bend towards righteousness this city also lies in the midst of a national movement that is calling for justice and action in the name of the countless black people and people of color who have suffered at the hands of the police and the white supremacy upon which policing is built after all the first u.s. city police department was slave patrol and the racism in this origin story has only evolved over time rather than being eradicated as a mixed-race woman i live in fear of the day where i may be racially targeted by the police just as so many of my friends of color have been as a preschool teacher i know the constant desperation and stress that stems from working in a severely underfunded field and i grapple daily with the knowledge of how much our children would thrive if budgeting was redirected towards education as an ally in the black lives matter movement i cannot sit idly by knowing that black men and boys in this country are two and a half times more likely than white men and boys to die during an encounter with police the american public health association has declared police violence a public health issue so this is not a new problem the institution of policing is rooted in toxicity leading to cancerous effects on this nation's people that is why i'm calling on the city council to meet the demands that residents of montelior and surrounding counts compiled by meeting these demands you will be communicating that communities of color are truly welcome here bringing montelior ever closure to true greatness for all thank you for your time we shall continue to push montelior towards authentic racial justice and i encourage you all to join us thank you cameron how are we doing on a list of folks i thought um david hershey cosentinos and stephanie okay um david uh hershey you are up hi i'm david hershey i live in east montelior i am a middle school social studies teacher at weights river valley school which is in texan and uh my son goes to daycare in montelior and i'm here to echo the the voice of the people who've spoken before me um and the demands of those people as well i just wanted to add um and looking at the new data that just came out showing the racial disparities in vermont traffic stops and how they haven't improved and in some cases have gotten much worse chief pete did point out um that montelior does not disproportionately stop or charge people of color but just because black people aren't ticketed or arrested more in montelior doesn't necessarily show that stops are unbiased other reasons for stops like equipment issues also contribute to the feeling of being unsafe within our city and that's all i have to add thank you thank you uh cosentinos cosentinos are you uh oh they're there okay put the baby away no worries okay um hi everyone um my name's cosentinos and i'm a resident of district two i'd like to thank chief pete for his thoughtful presentation i clearly took into account what what he's been hearing from from a lot of people in the community uh but we disagree with some of his proposed solutions specifically like body cameras or in-effect trainings for me i'm professionally i'm a performance otter specializing in government operations i also work as a professional pit miss uh excuse me police misconduct investigator and receive many of the same use of forest and bias trainings alongside in my pd members i even underwent a month long police policy and procedures training as well as investigation training conducted by the new york police department's internal affairs bureau i even graduated from one of the civillian civillian police academy is that the chief is supporting um but for me the funding towards the gold abolition is not new i've been involved with these issues for over a decade for me this isn't about just the recent public outcry we're at a unique point in history when the public policy with public and policymakers like you are especially receptive except excuse me uh we're shaking up in the baby before uh to imagining a future that doesn't look uh that doesn't have to look like today uh to a future society where we abolish the police and prisons and other violence institutions and live in communities that are actually safe because our needs are met uh because funding goes to things like affordable housing health services education and food security and you know this is going to be a long road that's a really intersectional issue but i really believe that we can do this together as community and the model for other communities going forward and that's why i'm calling for the city council to take steps to the funding from the police department as per the demands i've emailed to you unless i've shown earlier uh as a police misconduct investor i spoke with hundreds possibly thousands of victims and witnesses of police violence many of whom had violence such as hair ripped from their scalp or being slammed on a police car hard enough to almost cause a miscarriage be deemed as justified use of force when clearly that kind of violence was excessive and malicious even if it was allowed by the patrol guide or other law we shouldn't have to parade out stories of trauma caused by police i get asked this to in order to convince you that preserving the life and dignity of another human being is a worthwhile goal we've made comments previously in this venue and others and i'm concerned that we're being heard but not necessarily listened to we're again demanding that no additional municipal funds be put towards the police department and if the police department be gradually defunded with the goal of eventual abolition we demand funding and resources be diverted away from the police department so we can invest in things that actually make our community safer for example one of our demands is to ban the use of prison labor and contracts with dc and notice i didn't say grants because i know grants fund a lot of the community justice center so doing this watching sure that the municipality is not complicit in the prison industrial complex and supporting other violent and oppressive institutions that policing is part of so i'm looking forward to engaging with you and more substantive discussions on this during the new budget process beginning next month and you know that's what i had prepared but you know new developments over the past couple days i'm kind of going on script here and you know last night in wisconsin there were armed fascists and they were given water by law enforcement and thank for their service for showing up to that protest shortly afterwards one of them Kyle Rittenhouse shot indiscriminately into a crowd of anti-racists while the police just stood behind did nothing resulting in the murder of at least two protesters just a few weeks ago here in one pillar armed white supremacists were at the state house saying black lives don't matter pageant front stickers are showing up in our downtown black lives matter signs are being defaced and vandalized yeah Kyle Rittenhouse is not a lone wolf and there are people just like him right here in Vermont we've seen them their supporters even spoke earlier at this very meeting given chief pete's emphasis on office from around the mental health and his use of blue lives matter languages in the report over the prioritization of the safety of our community i kind of have little confidence in police department keeping us safe from these violent fascists in our midst at some point i'd like to hear from chief pete how he expects his officers respond when armed vigilantes are threatening and intimidating people in our community thank you thank you um Stephanie i am here and before i forget well okay before i forget i just want to say that there is someone on the phone alicia glover who wants to speak and i i'm not sure if she was able to raise her hand thanks for the heads up okay cool so first of all i give you guys credit for having to listen first to people who are denying the meaning of black lives matter and then to hear from us who are ultimately seeking to abolish policing so you guys are all patient souls and i do appreciate that um my name is Stephanie Omri and i live in Montpelier i'm working town as well and i'm also the parent of a toddler i also am calling us to defend the Montpelier police and you can find that full list of demands in the email that we referenced look i get why chief pete isn't for defining the police it's his job to lead a police department and chief pete is doing his job while i take issue with some of the things in his new report i know he stepped up and that he's listening here's what i can't wrap my head around though it's a hesitation on part of the city council to take these steps to get the money to invest in housing food security economic empowerment and other social programs to make Montpelier better why would you hesitate to start in the department that the public is insisting is not ultimately good for all the community now is our chance to examine what the police department is using all of its funding for every last cent and to figure out how we can divert funding away to start the critical work needed to make all of our systems worth better for everyone and i just wanted to backtrack a bit because our ultimate goal here is to address society-wide inequities to improve people's lives in Montpelier and problems of policing are just a symptom of a much wider problem which is systemic racism but there's a reason we're focused on the police in particular i was thinking a lot about this think about why all of our systems are racist they're racist because they deprive people of positive things the education system is racist because communities of color are deprived of well-researched schools the healthcare system is racist because people of color are routinely denied out of good care the housing system is racist because generations of land theft followed by decades of redlining have deprived black people in particular of affordable homes and of the opportunity to build equity and wealth education healthcare and housing are good things that all people deserve the way these systems are racist is through depriving certain people of these good things and yet policing policing is different it policing in america was decided to keep black people in their place policing is generally not kind of poor people to women to trans people into so many others i'm not saying that cops never help anyone from these groups i'm saying that the system of policing is not inherently good the way education healthcare housing and other social services are or at least can be education healthcare and housing are human rights policing is not a human right in fact it's so often violates human rights so logically wouldn't policing be something we want to scrutinize first as we work on fixing the inequities in our other systems obviously none of this is going to happen overnight and that is okay i just want a commitment from you the city council that it will happen i don't want to raise my child in a place that is brave enough to emblazon black lives matter on its main thoroughfare yet is not committed to doing anything more substantial to reduce the effects of systemic racism on the people in this city and that includes white people by the way thank you for listening thank you um Cameron i just want to note if you are on a phone and you are dialing in only you hit star six to unmute or star nine to raise your hand so i want to make sure that the folks in the phone know how to to speak up thank you and with the heads up that alisha glover i wanted to speak alisha do you want to um if you're on do you would you like to say something hi this is alicia glover i'm just checking in that i'm effectively unmuted yes we can hear you okay super so thank you thank you for that feedback and i haven't had the opportunity to see anything that's been put up on the screen for this call but i've i've been listening to um you know everything everything that's been brought forward um and uh i'm jumping in at this point because this is this is the point that i was invited to do so um for this meeting um i uh i again i'm incredibly fascinated i'm very new to the montpelier community as of as of about a year and uh also just as a bit of an introduction i have uh family members that have served on city council for many years and been very involved in previous communities that i've been a part of um i recently ended up in a situation with the montpelier police and have actually been in contact with the police department as as well as uh you know the mayor regarding this and just just trying to understand um what policing policy is in montpelier and and what our rights are as as civilians because um well i like to think of myself as representing many colors i would primarily be identified as as a white person um so again not not necessarily racial issues here um the department represented to me that perhaps being a woman may have have had an undercurrent in my interaction with the police department um but i do have a little a little bit of a concern as as just the citizen of the montpelier community and in an interaction that i within the last couple of weeks had with the police department and uh had some questions that i reached out to the community about um to understand because you know i felt that i was attempting to cooperate with the police department and um in good faith that i don't feel like that good faith was returned by the police department so um again i'm jumping in into this and listening to what the community has to say and everyone has to say regarding this and have certainly found myself in a different place because again i have a tremendous amount of respect for for police departments in general and have many many friends that have have served in that way um so understanding what their roles have been and yet found myself in a situation where what their roles were were not appropriate for the situation that i was in so so um my jumping into this conversation is just to encourage i i really appreciate hearing all of the testimonies and and being from from the community and uh certainly suggest having a deep look at this and making appropriate transitions over time um towards towards some better things and it sounds like there's certainly some areas that that the police department has had oversight of that might be better delegated to some other organizations with a different skill set there's also probably some things that uh it's time to go ahead and update training procedures to make more appropriate and or hand off those responsibilities to once again organizations that are better able to deal with that um because again my situation ended up creating some some difficulty for me personally um in relationship to the police department and uh my trust of the police department in general um yeah so again this is this is me shooting from the heart without without very much specifically prepared but wanted to go ahead and add that from the perspective of a new person in the community who's really super open to listening to what the community has to say in the direction that it wants to take but just going ahead and sharing a quite recent experience that that i had right thank you alisha for alicia yeah thank you yep um uh karen where are we at um i've got shana casper and if anyone else is interested in speaking raise your hands on the zoom function or in person so we have um your name on there is erwin erwin after shana okay um all right shana you're up all right thanks um thanks so much for having me yeah my name is shana casper i live on ken street montpelier um i just want to speak directly to the question that connor asked about having the police directly report to the city council on the new lobbying efforts um i had to be on a call another call for work um from about 650 to about 915 so i'm sorry that i missed all of really the important presentation and a lot of the discussion but you know glad that i could rejoin for this vital conversation here at the end um i also just happen to be a member of the chair of the social and economic justice advisory committee but i am here in my personal capacity um and i but i am on this committee and i want to speak about policing today because i recognize the historic and ongoing systems and structures of our our nation our state our community and how they perpetuate racist sexes heterosexist classes ableists and other forms of injustice and oppression and i want to reshape the systems and policies and practices that perpetuate these barriers to equity and justice in our community and can do policing is just one piece of of this larger puzzle to make Montpelier a more equitable just and welcoming place um and that's when you know calling on the city council to you know heed the demands that sean seated specifically wanting to speak to having the police department directly report their lobby of any lobbying or or um a state house efforts to the city council this you know would really give the city council an opportunity to ask questions directly about this activity um and as you all know you know being this the state's um capital city or government officials are often called on to speak to the legislature on their perspectives and um to all these actions maybe you know indirectly reported to the city council in an effort of transparency i think that direct and detailed reporting of any and all lobbying and state house activity by Montpelier police should be you know reported directly to the city council particularly important in this moment in the response to you know local and state and national conversations around policing that are happening as you all know you know organizations including the aclu migrant uh migrant justice justice for all outright vermont pride center rights and democracy and double acp vbsr from vc i l um criminal justice reform human rights commission legally v perg um and for women's justice and freedom initiative have brought forward a police reform agenda um which if you haven't seen i can i can circulate to the committee afterwards if that'd be helpful and the state will likely you know take action that will affect our policing here in Montpelier in the coming months and so i anticipate that the Montpelier police will be called on to share their perspectives and i think that the city council and the public has a right to know uh more about what this what and why this is and this is you know i think just a really easy and necessary first step um to hold our place to you know a higher level of transparency um and accountability to to the public um so thank you so much for your time and for your work on this important issue and i look forward to continue to work together on this and the other um things that shon noted before thank you all right um urban and or hi my name's my name's rebecca dalgan sorry you can't see the rest of the name on there um i live in montpelier and district one um i um wasn't planning to speak but i felt um compelled to um just uh i was really impressed to hear the students that um fallen out that that group came with and not part of that group but um they seemed to address um a lot of a lot of the things that uh i've been hearing work over the past few months you know i know it was an expensive dinner for a long time um and then just um you know over the past few months we um have had biboc on our house lawn at the state house demanding demanding these things and i'm not sure how we can stop and really really listen and do the work that needs to be done and really take a deep look and bold action um to to change our system um i i think that um as is other for cementing that that bleeding is rooted in a fashion and slavery and i'm not sure how you can take that and try to um you know just perform it without more more um bold changes um just something that's really going to um be something where everyone in our community feels safe um and where um you know all of our needs as a team and individual are being met um so i think um i think i'll leave it that i just would urge the state council um and i would say um i'd really like to see you move on um on those um demands for for real real change um i think you all for your for your work and time and um being here thank you um rebecca you were kind of breaking up there a little bit and um i think i heard most of what you said but i would invite you to submit some written comments as well just so that we can be sure that we've we've heard you um donna did you was that what you were going to say i didn't get her last name too i couldn't hear her and i didn't get your last name rebecca could i have it please yes uh dal again okay thank you i'll change it on the name so you can see okay thank you uh cameron checking in with you i don't have anyone else raising their hand um now is the time if you'd like to if i may say something in response oh absolutely go ahead chief um i'm extremely appreciative of of everyone for making their concerns made uh noted and and that's one of the things that i admire most about being part of this community my hope is to have these conversations these dialogues because this is not a simple issue my the things that are going on within policing are rooted just like you know you can say policing is rooted in racism this country is rooted in racism so you abolish the country for it so there's this is a very very complex topic and i think that very fact means that rush decisions can't be made for something like this they're complex and what i've heard consecutively what's happening in kenosha what's happening in in chicago what's happening in new york i haven't heard what's happening in mcchillier um so i don't know the full story of what happened in other places i can't speak to those things i can tell you that i understand the problems with policing so stepping away from being a police person and moving into the shoes of the qualifier saying i'm a black or person of color i grew up on the south side of chicago i've been there to see good things happen in policing and schooling and any other institution we want to name as well as you know the good and the bad and everything and i can tell you without a doubt if i saw something in the mcchillier police department that gave me concern i would be the first one to say so and i'd be the first one to break it up and do everything in my power to break that up so in the educating oneself about uh of those fundamental things the fact that everyone has had different lived experiences in relation to this further emphasizes the fact of how complex this is and to have we have to have these conversations we have to talk about responsible next steps in doing these things and that means i i've put myself out there i will continue to put myself out there i've asked for people to talk to me to reach me i've met with people on front porches i've met with people at the state house lawn i've met with people on zoom so so folks that have complaints or comments or anything that negative experiences i need to know about those so i can deal with those and handle those so with these multiple sides with the understanding that this is a complex problem um and in response to one of the questions that was posed directly to me how could i deal with armed vigilantes i can't deal with them if i don't have a police force because it's been abolished so with things that have happened in places in in like schools with sRO programs i understand that there are apprehensions and that uh that police stress people out i get stressed out when i get pulled over it's just the nature of what happens but the what we have to do is make sure that we that that we control what we can control here in Montpellier so there are i'm not advocating that police officers are counselors school counselors that they're disciplinarians i'm advocating quite against it part of this is also an educational campaign with the public how many calls of services are we getting from people who are complaining about loud noises from the neighbors that officers with large guns have to show up to deal with the situation so so there's an educational part on both sides which is why this conversation is extremely crucial i'm ready to have those tough conversations i'm ready to be honest and blunt in those conversations and accept that criticism that comes back to me so within schools yes this is Montpellier yes it is a safe community but drugs still happen domestic violence unfortunately still happens sexual assault still happens and we don't tell people about those things because they're personal to the people that they happen to especially when they happen in the schools especially when you're talking about human trafficking especially when you're talking about addiction problems they're there they exist and somebody has to respond to them so i am yes advocating that police officers should not be drug counselors but they should be they should understand what they're responding to so they can be empathetic and help people who need who need our services and need our help for a multi-prong response to these crises so again i want to acknowledge and thank i'm not belittling anybody's points of perspectives but i'm amplifying that the fact that there are so many of them means that this is a complex problem and a simple solution will not handle it because there are going to be unintended consequences that are going to jeopardize every institution that we have and so i'm staying ready to have these conversations with folks i implore people to come talk to me i will come to you let's talk about it let's figure out the best ways we can all do this great thank you chief so i actually wrote out some thoughts about this and so i i don't normally like read comments but i i wrote out some thoughts about this so i'm going to take the privilege to jump in here first and by the way i just want to acknowledge the time thank you all for hanging in there i'm sorry it's late um are you your counsel are you okay for a little bit are you you're okay okay just i mean yeah thanks for hanging in there um okay so uh first of all uh i want to thank chief pete for taking a significant amount of time to talk with our community in a variety of venues over multiple days about policing and Montpelier his report and analysis of the department was insightful and reflective of the conversations uh he's had with the department and outside of it i'm thankful that our chief also took a position of listening upon taking over leadership of the department i know our community and our department will both be better for his thoughtfulness i'm excited about the many ideas and suggestions that the chief has presented in his analysis which if you haven't had a chance to check out i would highly recommend there's a lot of really interesting proposals in there many of those i think will position Montpelier as a leader for good policing practices i love the idea of like a citizens academy in which community members can get to know at a deeper level what's involved in policing i love the idea of a strategic planning board for the department this puts the department in alignment with the parks department and the senior center which both have their own boards that help advise the department the the reality is that the city council is not well structured to dive deeply into complex talk topics like policing um and anytime a deep dive or protracted conversation is necessary about it any topic we often end up creating a working group or a committee so that they can spend the necessary time to get into the details and come back to us the council with um any recommendations so a strategic planning group will be uh will be able to go deep on policing issues look at data look at best practices and make recommendations that take all this into account and reflect the values of our community so in a time when so many police departments data demonstrates racial disparities the fact that our race related data shows that we're not stopping black people any more often than they are present in the population that is remarkable uh that's clearly the work of years of training and dedication to preventing racist outcomes i i don't want to let that go without mention that so yeah my my hat is off to the police department thank you for your dedication and commitment to serving our community i would go i would go so far as to say that this kind of data is so unusual that it is worth examining how we got to this point i know we already thanked chief fakers for his years of service when he retired a couple months ago but it bears repeating kudos to our former chief fakers who led the department for so many years and built this professional police culture now having said that i think the suggestions from chief pete are spot on and will make us even better um i look forward to working further with the chief and with the community to implement um this vision for the department so that's uh at least what i wanted to say about all this and and even to with you know the suggestions from the community that we got this evening you know happy to talk like let's let's dig in um so uh unfortunately at 10 o'clock it's um you know to have to do that deeply now but um but the future is a big place and let's talk about it um so that's that's it for me other thoughts or comments uh jack hi i wasn't sure i was going to be first but i do have some thoughts i uh appreciate the fact that we're at the really at the very beginning of of a process of thinking about what we want police to be like in montpelier um my overall thought about this i really appreciate the chief's report and recommendations i think it is uh it's a great uh snapshot of how the city police or department is working and and where we can be going um it helps to inform my overview of where we are now which is that i do not think the city of montpelier is overpoliced i do not think it's realistic to uh think we're going to abolish uh the montpelier police department um i found it very uh a lot provoking when uh congresswoman alexandria ficozio cortez was asked well what does it mean how can you imagine what it what happens when we defund the police department and her response was well it's already out there look at what the police departments in uh suburban towns do now and i think that if we uh compare her model of what those towns do and what uh in responding to police type issues it's really very close to what the montpelier city police is already doing and and places that have problems with with police and there are plenty of them would would love to have the the police uh force and philosophy that we have here um i do think there are a number of issues that that we should be uh working on a lot of these are really covered very well with uh in the chief's report first we need to know what we're doing now right and wrong the traffic stopped at it was really very encouraging you know i i read the reports about what's happening or the news coverage of the report about what's happening statewide and it's great to see how well uh our force our police force is doing in terms of uh racial bias i think we should be collecting in terms of figuring out what we're doing now i think we should you collect the same kind of of data for other interactions between the police and members of the compute community maybe we already do but i think that is something that we should be looking at i support the idea of uh body cameras i recognize that there's a risk of misuse of the information that comes from them but i think it also helps to to document what is being done wrong and right by the police and is in the public debate about body cameras and the state legislation about body cameras one of the things that i think we should be advocating for is having mandatory body cams all across police departments in vermont and have had the storage of body cam data be be a state function rather than imposing that on all the little police departments all across the state and the third or last in this topic i think we should do use of force reporting second we need to be to beef up our efforts to protect people's rights including review of all uses of force and not only a citizen citizen advisory board which i think we should have but also a civilian review board of complaints of police misconduct i appreciate the chief's confidence in the city council when he says that we already have civilian oversight of the police department but we don't and we can't effectively work as a as a city council to review individual complaints as they're brought to brought up for police interaction so i think a civilian review board with subpoena power is something we should be looking at i think we should be police policies we should be there we've made progress i'm not sure if all the policies are on the webpage yet but i know they're on the way if they're not and i think we should probably have a public and stated interval for reviewing all of our policies i support the chief's ideas about recruiting and training i've been attending a series of seminars that i think i was probably invited to by the chief carried out by dr nooye and the last one which was last week i think was all about training and i was really struck by the other police officials who were in this call and it's all all across the country even outside the country i think about the receptiveness of other police officials to get training away from the military style training that we've seen for years i thought that was that was great to hear i i've taught at the police academy and it's it's just weird it's not normal and so we that that is an important thing that needs to to be addressed i think we should be looking at police liability for misconduct i think qualified immunity is a big problem and there are different ideas about to address that i know i'm a city official this is potentially opening the city up for for liability but if if the people who work for us do do violence without justification we should be liable for for what they do i do think we should be exploring the the role of the school resource officer i i've never had even though i've had two sons who went through the entire public school system in Montpelier i've never had any contact through that with the school resource officers who who've been in the schools so i don't have a great understanding of what the school resource officer does i do think i understand that a lot of people think there's they've gotten a lot of value from the school resource officers and i i don't doubt that's true i do think it's worth exploring the question of whether the services provided by a school resource officer need to be provided by a police officer and that is part of the bigger question of what should the police be doing and what can be done by other entities good to see gary gordon here gary and i go back 25 or 30 years and in our work lives and so obviously well i have had a lot more my clients had a lot more contact with washington canning mental health and the screeners than with with the police but i think having the having the social work associate worker associated with the with the police is going to be is going to be a great step forward and i think that's a good start i think there's a lot there's a lot to do but i think that Montpelier and the Montpelier police are are a good good place to start from thanks thank you other thoughts or comments uh dan and donna then lauren thanks um i'll try and keep my thoughts somewhat succinct there's but there's a few of them i guess i'd start with one of the points that i think a number of speakers have made and i think it fundamentally affects the way we view this process and i think one of the speakers actually put it quite quite well um which was about the historic origins of policing um i would push back in the research that i've done and my understanding is that yes policing has an element of racism particularly from the south um and the fugitive slave uh laws the the posse's that were assembled but there's another strain of policing history that deals with the night watch and the new england tradition of policing um that was very much based around the idea of community service and protecting the community not from any particular group or class but just simply as a function of the way in which the world works that there are a need to make sure that there's peace and tranquility in in the village and that is not necessarily that is not in a racist history um it is certainly one of how civil society has evolved uh that's not to say um that we can stand here in vermont and say we're free from uh racism uh but it is to say that there are other strains and there are other sources to that and i think it's important to think about that because you know some of those issues do hold for us today um you know the idea of a police department as a first responder to ensure peace and tranquility to serve and protect those are important values and those are important needs um that we as a community have long held um and how we do that is important and how we ensure that in doing that we do not um fall into some of the issues that have been raised tonight but the idea that it is a blanket um one source origin i think is is incorrect and i think it's more nuance than that and i would encourage us as we talk about this to consider that you know and consider the english constable the constable history that has informed that that this these are members of our community uh and i think that's reflected also in some of the thinking um you know that that some of the books uh my grandmother's hands that talks about um the role of of community policing which goes back to that night watch because of course the night watch were members of the community that were volunteers um they may not have been the best night watchmen falling asleep or perhaps in delging in mead or cider um but at the same time they it was this idea that the community um served itself protected itself ensured its peace and tranquility and those kind of elements that i think we have to we have to think about because i think they are important as touchstones um to how we see community policing coming around because that's really coming back to that idea that we have members of the community that we have uh that are our members of the police force that are serving and protecting all of us um you know whether we're mob pillar residents regardless of whatever our color race gender identity um or and visitors as well um and i think that um you know there is a legitimate purpose for that the second point is that i think we have to engage with each and every one of these issues in a thoughtful process which is to say we could take an example and i'll just take the corrections contracts that i think bill or the only is the only correction contract we've used for cemetery uh mowing that's correct yeah uh you know i mean i think that's that's actually it's that's one of those interesting things that you know we haven't used it this year and i was a cemetery commissioner for years and you know it's certainly it's actually not a policing issue it's it's more of a do we do we um promote that particular type of of labor and there's certainly unfairness in it there's you know the uh rise of the questioning of the 13th amendment um issues within that but at the at the same time you know it was seen as a cost savings for the city and for the residents and um but here we are in the summer without mowing our cemetery and people are talking about how great it is and you know is there is there a way that it's we rethink that i i think absolutely but it's looking through you know why do we have this decision in a first place to use this what are the effects of change um and what are the values and balancing those things and not just simply saying well it's a no-brainer we can simply adopt this i i don't think that any of these and i'm echoing some of the other speakers i don't think any of these changes are necessarily that easy that straightforward that no-brainer um but they require at least some vetting some reviews some thought process to go through and i think that's a lot of what chief pete has started tonight um in his report and i think that's what we continue um i want to the the next i want to respond in a little bit to the idea of um our place as being different and this is a little bit of what the mayor talked upon uh one of the speakers talked about the rosy rosy vermont exceptionalism which i thought was a great phrase um but you know the fact is is that we are different and this is a different community with different issues with different strengths different weaknesses different um challenges um and if we do ignore um our local needs to um to tie into some of these national issues i think we do ourselves a disservice one of the great pleasures of serving on a city council or serving at the local level is the ability to focus on these local issues these uh these issues that sit within our boundaries and and to adopt and to develop practices and to develop um you know protocols or or systems that really serve our community um and help us to be better than we are and to become closer to the best to bend our arcs towards justice and the other values that we hold and so i think you know we can't ignore the fact that we have these differences and that some of our challenges may be and are different guys um and so i think we it's not necessarily vermont exceptionalism because i i i don't think you know like i i i grew up catholic so i don't think anything's that great over all we're all sinners um but you know this is and we have to continue to work and we have to continue to strive and so that's you know i i think but but by we strive in different ways the the next thing i want to talk about is in response is some of some of the concepts that are being thrown forward i think we have to think in concrete terms and there's a lot of abstract concepts that are floating around and you know like the student resource officer in some ways becomes a very abstract concept and i think some of the commentators have have really done some of the city counselors have responded in in thoughtful ways and i think a lot of the commentators have provided a lot of details and i think chief pete has provided some some counter points to that as well which are that is a student resource officer is not just simply a person in a school with a badge and a gun uh but they serve multiple functions and you know they do do good work for some people and the question is always that goes back to my first point what role are they playing what role have they played what role can they play and do those things get outweighed by other concerns and issues and i think we just have to continue to look at that in very concrete terms as opposed to sort of abstract ideas um the fifth thing i want to point out is that a lot of the reason why we have uh six had successes as a department and why we have um you know some of the statistics that we look at is the fact that we have put resources into the police and like anything you know any department whether it be fire police public works these are expensive propositions and if we underfund them i've really come to believe in looking at some of this information um that we we put at risk things that we do well by not supporting the uh the department as it exists um and my brother is a teacher and he he will tell me forever and ever how if you have less you just simply do less and these witness at first hand i think we have to be careful regardless of the department whether it's police education anything when we make cuts we're asking people to do more with less and we can only expect them to do less with less and some of the professionalism that we expect out of our department some of the thoughtfulness and uh ideas that they that they do provide come from the fact that we give them the resources they have the ability to um to grow in in certain ways and i think chief fees to report touches upon areas where they feel constrained um and the idea is not necessarily throw more or less money at it but to be thoughtful about it and give the opportunity for our department to be the thoughtful and um best department that it can be and to improve and that may not be a money issue that may be um either a different type of training issue or it may be just simply how we as a community respond to either overseas support change uh improved policies um or as i think one of the suggestions were tonight look at our statutes if we take away statutes that they have to enforce ordinances that they have to enforce that may make their job easier that's a that's a zero dollar proposition um but it can have a big improvement and i think those things are all worth looking at um which i guess brings me to sort of my final point which is you know i think all these ideas are welcome all these ideas are worth considering and vetting but again it has to be through this process in which we do so in a thoughtful manner which is always a slow manner and it's tough because you know everybody wants me to stop talking now but i want to make sure i make my point clearly um and so it's the same way here we we all want change we want change tomorrow but we have to understand that the best way to effectuate change change that doesn't have unintended consequences change that's helps uh our city continue to function as it has and improve is change that we take slowly so that's all i have to say not really but for now at least thank you Dan Donna okay well i'll be briefer than Dan but i won't want to start i wasn't around for night watch Dan but i am one of the few attending right now that old enough to be participated in the 1960 protest and we protest the war the climate the business police women rights gay rights and they are continuously being protest but i want to salute those who are here tonight protesting status quo and worse than status quo is actually bad action and we need those protests and we need that energy but asking pleading for everyone to work with us and as Dan pointed out and many others to make the steps to make it happen and it's a whole community and that's part of why we funded to our social justice committee to bring in an expert and help community get involved do a real assessment of what's going on for people in their personal lives as well as in their interface with all the city services is so we can all get better and that we can help our police but help all of us and all of our services so that's my plea is please work with us because it's good energy and i want to draw from it thank you thank you uh lauren yeah thanks um yeah i keep coming back to uh where the chief started saying like dream bigger i love that um and really grateful really on all sides i thought that um you know the chief's report had a lot of great stuff and have really appreciated how much um he has been out there in the community i know i've been able to participate in a couple um various zoom community dialogues like a panel conversation that he convened with some experts that seemed like international experts like a whole bunch of different ways to to learn from and listen and i think it's been great to you know i think sharing perspectives that might not be popular with some of the people on the call and just being really honest and sharing perspectives from um his experience and expertise and i really appreciate the community members being out here tonight and sharing their perspectives and thoughts and ideas um you know so i think you know i'm just really grateful for having the conversation and and taking a hard look at our whole society and all these systems including our police department and as donna mentioned you know we've got this process that's going to be starting with our social and economic justice advisory committee convening conversations looking you know broadly at racial economic justice issues um in our community so you know there's going to be even more kind of holistic conversations as well you know i'm really hoping that we can you know as a council you know commit tonight to a process that you know i think the chief laid out an idea of the strategic planning committee i think the idea of having community members having police officials you know figuring out what's the right makeup of a group that could really look at that what's what's that bigger dream that we can come up with together and then what are the steps we can be taking to get there and the chief has a bunch of ideas and his plan there's a bunch of ideas we were sent tonight um you know i think there's it seems like there's a lot of things that we could make progress on you know i do you know totally agree we need to be thoughtful we need to be you know i want to be based in data and what will work um but i think there's a lot of things that i've heard from both the chiefs and from community members that i think you know some would be easier to do as that would be harder you know public access to lobbying those are all public documents that seems like a really easy thing to ask that we just make those easily accessible so people can see you know what are what what we're lobbying on those are already public documents um and then there's a lot more complicated ones that are out there and there's both policy questions um that we could look at you know how fair and impartial policing i think the idea that was brought up of reviewing city ordinances and you know where you know the chief mentioned mission creep like where are we as city council putting things in ordinances and putting things on the plate of the police that don't need to be there and could be handled in different ways you know i think things like that are um really interesting ideas as well you know and then there's a bunch of requests with budget implications so you know my hope is that we could have this process you know i think we need to to figure out what is the right structure of community group but maybe some you know the way we've handled it sometimes i'm thinking of the homelessness task force where we knew we needed to address an issue we set up a group with both a short term i think we gave them like a three months come back to us with some short term ideas and then let us know if this group should continue meeting or if we should set up a different structure for a group and i'm wondering if a model like that might might work for us so that we could have ideas that might be in time for budget season to consider to make progress on but i think this is kind of similar to where an started but i'm hoping that you know we could like figure out okay how do we how do we start putting in place you know there's a whole bunch of great ideas out there and i think there's a lot of passion and interest and so how do we work together as a community to have those dialogues we need to you know really do the hard work of figuring out okay how do we actually make this work and what will work for our community and then you know bring them bring them forward so that we can start making progress so that's my thought thank you lord thanks Connor all right i don't think i'm going to sound like sister oh because it's like 10 30 at night and i only have bullet points here but uh i'll just read through them um reason i'm asking so many questions i think about the structure of the group is i don't necessarily think a venue like this is the best one to actually get all the information you need to make intelligent decisions with like two minutes of people speaking each so having other conversations in the community is really important and to see if there's some consensus in the group i think is also important you know i think you hear terms like reimagining the police which i would see like a lot of the recommendations in this report um be fun the police you know shifting money to other areas of the budget um or abolish the police which um i would see is very aspirational to get to a point doing that so i think just getting some clarity of where everybody's coming from whether that's a unified position or if that's you know people sort of moving in the same direction or otherwise um that'd be really helpful uh but i do want to say like first off chief pete obviously you're you know the best guy for the job if we wanted anybody who's going to listen to the community um you've already demonstrated that you're willing to go out and uh actually put your thumb on the pulse of my failure so that you know whether you agree or disagree i think you're doing the work of um going out there and soliciting the information there and on the same and you know the activists who came today uh the criticism of a lot of activists is you know some people would go to a rally and hold a sign that says be fun the police or something um and then there's other people who would sit through two design review hearings you know to get to the point where you can actually have this conversation here so uh hats off to you as well it's uh you know city council is a lot about potholes and not just the big headline issues there so thanks to everybody um it'd be helpful for me as we look at the uh recommendations to just identify what are in the council's jurisdiction and which recommendations are not coming from people who testify there uh an example is like the SRO position obviously that's going to be uh we need to have a chat about that does that fall uh under the school board does that fall under us is that a joint hearing or something so just kind of sussing that out I think would be helpful to me um something I'm going to disagree with right up the bat is collective bargaining and uh you know I've worked in unions all my life there and I think it's a really slippery slope um if you say some groups of people have a right to organize and other people don't um I don't think it's even legal to draw that line in the sand to say okay we're not going to give raises for the next three years that's a process of give and take between an employee and employer and I think if we were to say that to the police uh what's to stop any employer from saying you know okay somebody pushing a mop in city government isn't going to get a raise this year uh or somebody working in public works or the fire department isn't going to get a raise this year um I think like the bargaining is sacred and I you know I I think it's uh beyond our jurisdiction uh to weigh in on anything like that similarly to like enact a hiring freeze I think it's fair to say okay maybe we need less positions uh but I don't think that's really the argument you want to make I think if you're coming in you probably want to say okay I've looked at like the staffing ratios compared to the police logs and I don't think we need this many police on the night shift um on this level because otherwise it's just you know cost-shifting to overtime or something like that um so I think it's kind of a false construct to have the conversation um prison labor just like Dan I'd like to learn more about that I think it's pretty limited of what we use but um yeah I could I could see that being an issue to delve into and I'd be interested to hear more about that even if it is like you know a cemetery contract or something strategic advisory um and somebody who I think has evolved over the past year into you know I thought the social worker should be under the police department I thought maybe the homelessness liaison position should be under the police department but uh over a year of talking to people in the community um I think I've come to the point where you know the best person to be that frontline isn't necessarily wearing a badge and the experiences that people have had really um sort of color whether that person would be seen as an ally or an adversary to a certain group of people um similarly like when we look at an oversight um board or an advisory board I guess the nature of them could be different um I don't see them necessarily being housed under the MPD I think you know that might uh you know just just just from the public's point of view that might be seen as like the you know fox garden the hen house there or something uh so I think we could talk about where that's actually housed is it is it better in the community justice center um somewhere else I don't know right now the city council whether we like it or not is the entity that oversees the police department and I agree with the mayor uh we don't have the capacity to get in the weeds um to the degree we should I think it's very important that we call out bad behavior I also think it's very important that um we push back against things we disagree with I like Diane Matthews who's called out by name right tonight um I know Diane Matthews as the person who mobilized the homeless in our community uh to come to city council meetings to advocate for themselves that they actually needed some of these resources and a homelessness task force that was uh above and beyond the call of duty for officer Matthews there so I think she needs to be commended for also like uh officer Matthews saved somebody's life a few months ago uh when they were held at night point and that's not something we necessarily send a press release out about um but maybe we showed in the future you know so I think it goes both ways um overall I think this is the beginning of a good conversation um I I absolutely believe in getting people more plugged into the department I think it was a shame you know with budgetary restrictions that we suspended the copy with cop program um you know which gave an opportunity for people in the community to interact with frontline officers you know not just the head of the department and everything so I'd love to bring that back I'd love to plug people in for ride-alongs um again just so people have all the information they need to make an intelligent decision on this and this can be a good public discourse that we have um and not just a back and forth I think everybody has good intentions on this um so let's just work together to look at the best outcome there and uh I guess typical politician you ask more questions and you have positions there to get out of stating one but that's all I have for now it's a 1040 at night thanks very much thank you quickly just calling for just general um we didn't actually end the coffee with a cop for budgetary reasons it was because of covid and the ability to actually the coffee shop for clothes for a while uh and being distanced so it is something um similarly um under just getting facts out there um make sure people understand that the cemetery is not hierarchically underneath the city of Montpelier's jurisdiction um they're not really our domain um but anyway um any other thoughts um so at this point um one of the things that we could do is uh moved sorry I'm like losing my words it's starting to get late um actually before we do that Jay do you want to jump in if you if not it's okay but I just want to make sure I okay all right um so uh one of the things that we could do is uh authorize uh the city manager to start implementing the action plan um as laid out by the chief's report that's not necessarily preclude exploring other things moving on into the future but I'm certainly interested in at least starting to move forward including forming the strategic advisory strategic planning advisory board not sure how just looking at the timeline that that you had posted their chief um it looked like it looked like it was going to be for next year um what lord was saying sounded like you know you're hoping for it to be sooner um you know I'm all certainly open to you know whatever whatever people think works uh but um having said all that is there a motion uh well I'll make a motion on the I think what the easier of the two and and it might make sense to buy for catered I'll make a motion to uh direct the city manager and the to direct the the chief to implement the recommendations of the chief's report um for strategic planning just for strategic right sorry that's yeah that they're using strategic playing as a umbrella for the so strategic goal implementation okay thank you is there any second okay um just a second any further discussion uh jack what I heard you say that uh the question occurred to me that uh I'm going to raise which is does the chief require uh direction a mandate from the council to move forward or is this something that's inherently within his authority as the Montpelier chief of police which is what I would question so I'll I'll weigh on this um you know the chief obviously has administrative authority over the police department I have administrative authority over all departments including the police department um given all the discussion the chief's laid out a vision which is a policy vision for the future of the community I think a vote of support for that uh establishes that this is sort of where the council is at for now I mean not precluding anything else we're moving forward it doesn't mean that every single that you've approved passively every item on that list if there's no budget funds for or anything like that but it says we've seen the plan we're behind you to go forward and do that so um yeah you know chief and I could probably do it all on our own but I think it's better done in the open with the support of people particularly given all the all the issues that have been raised and uh and having kind of actually want to weigh in this is this is government nerd 101 while I'm while I've got the mic just to be clear again we talked about this council as the citizens oversight warden and that is true but you remember our former government actually you have one employee who is your your oversight for all city departments and that's me um so it is my job to provide that oversight to every department professional oversight and report to you and if you are not happy with that then obviously you take that up with me and and do that so your role is overseeing a full-time professional person who's uh who's doing that so there is that's very clear in our charter and statute how that works and so any other structure we create would have to sort of work within that I think to be consistent with the law toss that out there but that's digress from the motion that's at hand okay from there I saw Donna Dan and Lauren well I support seeing this as a vision because it is a strategic plan and so moving forward and I see Bill you as his boss and us as yours but we also normally the council appoints committees and and that's not clear here who appoints this committee and so I might want to insert that the city council appoints members of this committee I think that was our our expectation okay okay I misread it then okay right and and I go sorry great basically saying let's go ahead and start that process yeah yeah okay good great uh go ahead Dan yeah no I I just share with that I mean I I think it's important that as you know one of our functions as city council is to express um our our direction on policy um so I see this really as a policy uh vision and so I think it's proper for us to to vote on it in addition to what what Bill described and I I I think the second thing that we should take up and why I didn't want and I didn't want to shoehorn it into this particular motion is you know if we want to talk about any type of of advisory committee um or strategic planning committee whatever we would necessarily call it I think that actually would require its own and I hate to say this a committee to decide on the committee um but but it should be I mean it's it's almost like the parking the um the options that we're going to discuss for meeting in person which is I think there has to be some some options to make sure that we're acting consistent with our structured and form of government uh as well as what's going to be most effective in in facilitating what we've started here with both the policy and the conversation um Lauren and then Donna again yeah um yeah I guess I'm I think like voting to you know affirm this vision even though in my mind I think it raises a lot of like discussions that the community needs to have so I just hope it's like clear that this is this like voting to affirm this is affirming processes that will continue discussions and there are things in this report that I could see a committee and the council maybe going in a different direction than what's in the report so I don't want it to be viewed as like that you know like speaking for myself like my vote for it which I will do but I also am very interested in you know there might be things where we land differently and like specific pieces of it and so just to be clear on where I'm coming from and I do think it bears more conversation not tonight of you know knowing that the the committees we create like being really thoughtful about what the charge is and what the so that there's you know we've had instances before of like lack of clarity of what exactly is is are the goals and the mission of a specific group and who are who was the right membership and all of that so I think the idea that we could you know work with city staff maybe to come up with a list of ideas on and with the chiefs and you know who what's a good membership but what's a good charge of this group and I I do think we need this committee to think about the longer term kind of citizen oversight committee because I think there's a lot of ideas there's a lot of different ways to structure that so I hate to say a committee for committee to create a committee but I think in this case and actually that could be part of the this initial charge and then that this group could go away and a different like longer term entity could be um take its place but thank you uh go ahead Bill and then sorry no I don't know yeah maybe Bill's gonna say and we treat the same way we treated the homeless task force I mean we asked staff to come and Bill can work with his staff and come with a recommendation of duties roles charge for that committee and then we advertise for members I think it's just it becomes a standard committee with the different charge you know so yeah I think the only difference would be probably you'd want to approve all that before we advertise to make sure said exactly what we want to say but I don't think you need to make a committee to form a committee I think we can refer what you had to say we've heard what the residents have to say um you know I think we have some thoughts about the role and the layout of what we're recommending and then you can you and the public will fix it or amend it however you see fit and then we'll go ahead Lauren just to clarify so there's I don't think we need a committee to form this committee but I think there's been an idea raised of a citizen oversight committee or some somebody who would take like complaints from the community about interactions with a police or things like that so I think there have been ideas put forward like that that I think a strategic visioning group or a group looking at policy could could look so that's what I meant I did not just just to be clear and like that could be one of the things they could look at and I would think one of the charges to that point one of the charges would be how to have you know a long-standing transparency or you know some meaningful public input into the police department and then that group could weigh out the best way to do that and come back with a recommendation yeah okay any further comments okay there's a motion in a second so all in favor please say aye and opposed okay so the motion passes and again this is just the beginning so thank you again chief for all of your work on this and thanks to the the department and thank you all you know to the public and the council who have stuck out the meeting so far okay so we're gonna we're gonna move on thank you and I think there's at least one item that we need to take up which is the street closure item and then if we want to punt on the meeting in person thing that's fine with me but we can make that decision together so in terms of street closure very briefly yeah so very briefly you recall at a prior meeting we approved the plan for the schools to walk off park avenue and for the use of you know the schools for this year for their intake process inherent in that plan was the creation of two reserve parking spaces and we did this two years ago as well for the playground project for the the property owner who is blocked by this and we actually did do an ordinance last time to create those and they'll meet you know we'll get them signed and everything in time for the beginning of school even though you may not have had second reading but this is just to formalize that for you know when we'll undo it again like we did last time but really this I think this is a must-do it's the otherwise the whole school plan doesn't work and we've done it before and it worked so please hold for I want to make a motion to pass it open the public hearing first yeah okay right sorry missed that okay so I'm gonna officially open a public hearing on this temporary parking ordinance is there anybody left well that's it but anybody likes to comment uh jack well I just raised a question I raised last time which is we've we've had all the communication we need with the with the neighbors and and they're on board with this and the one impacted neighbor is this individual and you know their occupants of their building and that was their roll-in request is can I you know can we have the parking spaces on the street like we had last time and of course we said I mean that's how it has to work otherwise they completely can't access their property yeah with a vehicle great great um other comments Cameron we don't have anybody just to check okay all right Donna go ahead can I make that motion to approve the temporary parking ordinance as stated in the august 18th memo second okay motion a second any further discussion okay all in favor please say aye hi and opposed okay so the motion passes i'm going to close the public hearing and uh bill is this this is one that we need to have a second reading on um do we do we traditionally do our ordinance the charter really only says we have to have one and just always do have two it's up to you you just voted to pass it i think personally i think it's a temporary thing i don't think you need two readings so agreed i think that's probably fair yeah um okay great um how are y'all feeling do you want to put off the meeting in person discussion or do you would you like to have that discussion for this evening i'm all for like just saying i'll put it off we'll have that conversation next time yeah yeah yeah okay all right you know this is something where i think it would be useful i know people get the agendas on the city's web page and the and facebook page and stuff like that it might be useful to do a special thing out to the public saying hey the city council is looking at going back to in person meetings let us know what you think about it because there's still a whole lot of the strong feelings on both sides about being in person with other people and uh and i just want to get it out there to the public in a way that they don't miss that that we're talking about it seems like a good call yeah that's something that we can put out in like the facebook page or something awesome yeah thank you for the detail do you shared with us the pros and cons yeah well it would be up to y'all if you'd like me to like if you just want opinions if you want to hear i mean i think um y'alls pros and cons are a little different because if you choose to come in and set for council people can still choose to come or not you know the same way they did before where y'all would have less of a choice so it's more maybe an opinion-based thing but i'll you know whatever information um thinking about moving on here we actually did not yet do the covid update um it's a written report so we could read it camera yeah i guess one question i know i have in general is you know we haven't had as much changing do you want to continue having i mean obviously we'll keep the written updates if you want to continue having this on the agenda only if there's news to report yes i yeah yes yeah i think when there's time it's it's a helpful part of the meeting uh but it's something i think we can take under advisement tonight well when there's some major change i think that we need to talk about it for tonight though we're going to skip it then it's sort of what i'm hearing and i'm assuming that we've read it unless there's any big highlights that you think are worth pointing out cameron i have one i mean if folks want to watch this again um or if they're watching now um the governor um will the press conference a couple um dmvs will be reopening including the one in montpelier for in-person appointments so that i think changes a lot for a residence here um so that will be opening it opened uh i'm sorry it will be opening tomorrow and appointments can be made online or if you give them a call they'll also be opening in south barlington and rutherland and then um the department of agriculture and working lands assistants have put out some grants they have 8.5 million available for farmers um they listed a whole bunch of different types of farms that qualify but i think most um you know farmers qualify for that so there is a quite a bit of money out there for folks if they need it for income like um relief um we do have uh morgan is here with his hand raised um that really includes my updates so okay thank you um morning we are about to jump into council reports but did you have something really quick you want to share yes um just going back to the previous conversation about uh meeting in person as far as like posting i would also recommend uh front porch form not everybody is on facebook fair enough you got to remember about that so keep that in mind so front porch form is actually um a real good means to keep in mind thank you very much okay um council reports all right we're gonna start with donna okay i don't want to meet in person yet but along those lines i do feel a need for us to have some intentional social time as counselors without the public whether we come early with our sandwiches or we stay late with uh liquid toss i would like us to really try to have some intentional social time together so please think about that for next week okay thank you honor that's just not the same without donna kicking me under the desk if i say something stupid so i'd like to list the in person meetings but uh i'll pass otherwise thanks okay jay uh okay a couple things one um on a personal note and and along the themes of our a lot of our conversation tonight around the good work that our uh city does for us in the support uh they provide for us um two nights ago two of my boys were out um uh on a bike ride after dinner and one of them my 12 year old tried to decide it was a good idea to ride down a couple steps and took a really bad fall um went over the handlebars um and uh broke his arm pretty bad but i just wanted to to to call out a couple things one is the uh the neighbor uh who i have no idea who they are they i saw them walking away as i got there who called 911 um which is uh really important and then i also wanted to specifically call out the paramedics and firefighters who showed up lieutenant jasmine firefighter redmond and firefighter and paramedic peterson who uh were professional and calm and stabilized um uh on my son and got him to the hospital um and uh i just uh made a pretty traumatic experience so manageable all things considered so i just wanted to call them out specifically and thank them for further service and and all they did um and then the other the other piece on uh i can continue on some somewhat of a somber note um is i do think that uh you know being the the council rep on the monculator live board and being communication with mbc um i just think it's important to acknowledge the ongoing and continued struggles that our downtown businesses are having um and that the pandemic is you know continue continuing to have the you know long-term consequences and i think we um two things one is we we need to be prepared to um for a lot of uh downtown vacancies and empty storefronts showing up particularly from businesses who have who have been around for a long time who may not be able to stick it out and make it through and also um i think we need to as a council boy not there's any action to do tonight but be thinking about steps proactive steps that we might be able to to take as a city to provide some support um because so much of the downtown vibrancy and local businesses you know is built on momentum and a strong sense of place um and economic vitality and the more empty storefronts we see the the bigger of a challenge it's going to be for us to um to to uh you know to to outlast that and outlast the the pandemic so i just wanted to um bring that to everybody's attention that's it thanks thank you uh dim um two things real quick one to build on on what jay is saying because i i share those concerns um and have had a lot of similar conversations is we may want to think about um you know larger than than the retail and the business but how we plan for the next year um i had i was working with an out-of-state council who advises a lot of hotel businesses large corporations um and she said that they are thinking about a return to normalcy in 2023 um and so you know we may as a city council want to have um some type of uh process or committee or you know task force whatever we call it that is looking at deeply at at how we're going to survive um going forward if and as they're anticipating you know normal doesn't necessarily snap back in the place and if we do have a fall where we do have these things happen and businesses that are enjoying somewhat of a reprieve by putting things outside now have to go back inside to limited capacity um the second thing that i'll uh i'll say is that you know i really appreciate this council uh and the staff um chief and and bill um for helping us do a very democratic process through a lot of difficult conversations and i enjoy serving with all of you on this council and i think it's really important that you know as someone pointed out we went from i think one extreme to the other um in a matter of a few hours and it's really a testament to how we conduct ourselves as a civil board um in a civil society to have these conversations where people can speak out and can express these very strong opinions um and are hard um you know whether whether we follow through or agree that's another thing all together but the fact is is that i i'm very glad to be part of a board that's as welcoming as ours so that's all great thank you uh jack thank you i'll just briefly mention something that not as usually the person to mention on this uh council and that is that i had a a meeting the other day with that with kin cheney who's the board chair or president of the central vermont public safety authority and Montpelier is entitled to appoint two members to that board and we've advertised a couple of times for uh volunteers to do that and we haven't gotten uh Montpelier residents uh to do it and um i i do think it's something that um deserves some of our attention and i'm not sure i'm not saying that we should put it on our agenda at the next meeting and ask kin cheney to come talk to us again because he has done that more than once but i do think that uh it's something that there are opportunities for this body which is a regional municipality to improve the public safety of the region by rationalizing public safety dispatch and i think there are likely to be some resources available to to move forward on some ideas with uh with covid money and so it deserves more attention than i've given it and uh i think we should be thinking about what we can do and that's all i've got fair enough uh all right lauren um i would just really briefly echo what dan said i just have been sitting here really appreciative both for our very engaged community and having you know staff the chief and counselors that are really thoughtful open-minded and you know really bringing i think strong values um and trying to reflect our community so appreciate working with you all through these really challenging and important issues um i am going to pass and all right on to john odum c clerk hey you caught me off guard there i didn't know you were gonna pass surprise you haven't been doing this to my hair sticking up uh all i would say is please please at least one more person go and sign my uh liquor licenses that are waiting over there because i'm a little worried about a couple of our struggling businesses suddenly not being able to sell alcohol next week i'm also concerned about my own vacation which starts next week so if you all can get around to that other than that i guess i should mention that we're going into the vote by mail election here so everybody in town's gonna be sent about whether you ask for it or not yeah i'm at the end of the month so i'll have a little more details on how that'll work soon for next year great bill i'm gonna pass i'll spare you all whatever remember we had to say we'll put it in a memo fair enough um okay again thanks for hanging in there everybody um sorry that it is so late um but there we are right so without um objection i'm going to declare being adjourned have a good evening everybody 11-09 all right bye for now i have time jack to get home catch the end of the rnc yeah not one minute