 I'm going to call the meeting to order, so the first thing is to review and approve the agenda and I don't think there are any additions or changes of order or anything that I am anticipating right now unless others have other information than that. Okay, so that objection will consider the agenda approved and then so general business and appearances. So this is an opportunity for any member of the public to make a comment on any topic that is otherwise not on our agenda for the evening 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 excellent so that everyone gets a chance to speak. So just a couple notes about that as we move forward. I know there are some folks here who probably want to talk about policing and that's fine and welcome and we I just want to make a note that if you want to talk about policing in general basically now would be the time to do that during general business and appearances and if you want to talk specifically about or anything related to the budget then I recommend that you hold that comment until we are talking about the budget update which is item 11. So that I just want to make sure that that is really clear and please don't be offended if I interrupt you to say oh you know make you know save that comment for this other agenda item or or whatnot just trying to help help everybody you know make the comment want to make sense and and direct traffic a little bit. So just a heads up about that so that's that's one thing and for general business and appearances I am actually going to kick us off with a statement because this is Pride Month and so we have a statement about that so I'm just going to jump into that here first. So this is commemorating the 51st anniversary of the Stonewall riots of June 1969. So on June 28th 1969 at the Stonewall Inn in New York City's Greenwich Village members of our lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer intersection and asexual LGBTQIA plus community took an unprecedented move against the political social and legal oppression they faced resulting in the multiple-day Stonewall riots. These community members many of whom identified among the most oppressed and marginalized in our community including transgender people people of color people experiencing homelessness and sex workers summoned the courage and conviction to stand up for their own freedoms and liberation. The LGBTQIA plus community across the United States first commemorated the Stonewall riots with the first Pride marches taking place in New York Los Angeles and San Francisco in June 1970. Each subsequent annual Pride commemoration of the riots has inspired a continued movement towards equality and inclusion. There are Pride festivals and parades celebrated in solidarity across the globe during this time of year. We want to acknowledge the history of this month and its importance to many of our Montpelier community members so thank you and happy Pride 2020. So thanks for indulging me on that and go first here and so yeah beyond that oh when we have Donna now wonderful welcome. So if you have something you would like to say um you can either actually I'm going to let Cameron describe this the blue hand or you can unmute yourself. Cameron do you want to describe this? Sure so everyone involved in meeting if you hit the participant button at the bottom of your screen it should allow you to raise your hand which is how we'd love to be able to see if you would like to participate and have something to say. If you are having an issue with that you can always turn on your camera and wave to the camera and I will note your name and if you're having an issue with that as well feel free to unmute yourself when no one else is talking until we can acknowledge you so we can add you to the queue. But I really would recommend the raising the blue hand which is by clicking the participants button at the bottom of your screen because that allows us to put everyone in a line so that would be really helpful to us. And we already have two folks that uh one two yes we have a couple folks who've raised their hands starting with um Rachel Kempel, Stephanie Gamori, Allison Burns and Lauren Griswold. Sorry can you say that again Rachel Kempel? Stephanie Gamori, Allison Burns, Lauren Griswold and now a Claire Costin. Okay uh all right so and we'll just go right in that order so Rachel you are up first so go ahead and unmute unmute yourself. Hi my name is Rachel um I live on Hubbard Street in Montpelier. I'm here to tell the mayor the city council and the city manager that to create a community that truly respects the dignity of and humanity of all who live, work and visit Montpelier the Montpelier police department must be abolished. Systematic racism means that the outcomes of our system are racist. That means even if all the individuals within that system are not racist or better yet actively anti-racist the outcomes of the system would still be racist. This is true of all policing and our entire justice system. We know abolition won't happen overnight. It's a long process we all must go through together as a community. This includes examining why and how police function to begin with and acknowledging that policing has its roots in white supremacy and racism. We must implement new systems of justice emergency response and conflict resolution. The resolution honoring outgoing chief fakers lists such achievements as starting modern initiatives surrounding policing and leading a compassionate approach to policing. We're glad that the council acknowledges the benefits of relying less on armed individuals to respond to calls for assistance from the community but we will not let the dinging of the guard and the appointment of a new chief distract us from the fact that policing itself is rooted in racism and white supremacy. As such it is harmful to people of color and Montpelier. It's harmful to people affected by poverty, people struggling with mental illness and many other community members. We ask now that you actively work towards the goals of creating structures that will eventually take the place of the police department. In the meantime we'll continue to bring the community together to discuss these issues. At the city council meeting on June 10th we communicated a list of demands that we will now be refining to guide the city's actions towards this goal. We demand the council take them to heart and act upon them in this next fiscal year's budget. Thank you. All right. Oh thank you and you're well timed by the way. Thank you very much Rachel. Um Stephanie are you ready? Yes. Hi everyone. My name is Stephanie Gomery and I am a resident of District 2. I live on Ewing Street and I work in Montpelier as well. I am also here to tell the mayor, the city council and the city manager that to create a community that truly respects the dignity and humanity of all who live, work and visit Montpelier as you wish to do. Montpelier police department must be abolished. Systematic racism means that the outcomes of our systems are racist. It means that even if all the individuals within the system are not racist or even yet are trying to be actively anti-racist, the outcomes of the system would still be racist. This is true of all policing and our entire justice system as well. We know that abolition will not happen overnight. It is a long process we all must and can go through together as a community. This includes examining why and how police function to begin with, whether it's in a large city or a place like Montpelier and acknowledging that policing has its roots in white supremacy and racism. We must implement new systems of justice, emergency response and conflict resolution. The resolution tonight honoring out going fake host list such achievements as starting modern initiatives surrounding policing and leading a compassionate approach to policing. We're really glad that the city council acknowledges the benefits of doing this but we will not let the changing of the guard and the appointment of a new chief distract us from the fact that policing itself is rooted in racism and white supremacy. As such it is harmful to people of color and Montpelier and it is also harmful to people affected by poverty, people struggling with mental illness and so many others. So we ask now that you actively work towards the goals of creating structures that we will eventually make the police obsolete because we just won't need them. In the meantime we will continue to bring the community together to discuss these issues and as many of you know at the city council meeting on June 10th we communicated elicit demands that we will now be refining as a group to guide the city's actions toward this goal. We demand the council take these to heart and act upon them in the next fiscal year of budget. Thank you. Thank you Stephanie. Alison, where are you ready to go? Yeah. Can you hear me? Yep. Hi, my name is Alison Burns and I'm a white system math teacher and I live in East Montpelier. I spoke at city council two weeks ago and again here I'm here to emphasize words are not enough. We must work towards being anti-racist and supporting our black, indigenous and people of color community members through our actions and that starts with defunding our police department. I am here to tell the mayor, the city council and the city manager that to create a community that truly respects the dignity and humanity for all who live, work and visit in Montpelier the Montpelier police department must be abolished. Systemic racism means that the outcomes of our systems are racist. That means even if all the individuals within that system are not racist or better yet actively anti-racist the outcomes of the system would still be racist. This is true of all policing our entire justice system and many more systems. We know abolition won't happen overnight. It's a long process we all must go through together as a community. This includes examining why and how police function to begin with and acknowledging that policing has its roots in white supremacy and racism. We must implement new systems of justice, emergency response and conflict resolution. The resolution honoring our going to fake us lists such achievements as starting modern initiatives surrounding policing and leading a compassionate approach to policing. We are glad that the council acknowledges the benefits of relying less on armed individuals to respond to calls for assistance from the community but it's not enough. We will not let the changing of the guard and the appointment of a new chief distract us from the fact that policing itself is rooted in racism and white supremacy. As such it is harmful to people of color, Montpelier. It is also harmful to people affected by poverty, people struggling with mental illness and many others. I would also again like to highlight the specific requests to immediately remove the school resource officer from Montpelier schools. Armed officers have no place in our schools and the funding would be much better spent on more trained mental health professionals in the schools. We ask that you take action now to work towards those goals of creating structures that will eventually take the place of the police department. In the meantime, we will continue to bring the community together to discuss these issues and we will continue to refine our demands. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Lauren. Hi guys. My name is Lauren Griswold. I live here in Montpelier in district one on the top of the Billy Ave Hill. I'm here to tell you the mayor at the city council and the city manager that to create a community that truly respects the dignity and humanity of all who live work and visit Montpelier, the Montpelier police department must be abolished. If that sounds like strong language to you, I ask that you both take the time to thoroughly educate yourself on the concept and that you consider the civic weight of this moment in history and your responsibility as elected officials when your constituents demand transformation. Racism is systemic such that in all outcomes of our systems are racist. Even if each individual within a system is not racist, the outcomes of the system they function in will still be racist. This is true of all policing in our entire justice system. We know abolition won't happen overnight. It's a long process we almost go through together as a community. This includes examining why and how police function to begin with and acknowledging that policing has its roots in white supremacy and racism. We must implement new systems of justice, emergency response and conflict resolution. The resolution honoring outgoing chief fecos lists such achievements as starting modern initiatives surrounding policing and leading a compassionate approach to policing. We're very glad that the council acknowledges the benefits of relying less on armed individuals to respond to calls for assistance from the community, but we will not let the changing of the guard distract us from the fact that policing itself is rooted in racism and white supremacy. As such, it's harmful to people of color and Montpelier. It's also harmful to people affected by poverty, people struggling with mental illness, and many others. We ask now that you actively begin creating structures that will eventually take the place of the police department. In the meantime, we'll continue to bring the community together to discuss these issues. We previously indicated a list of demands that we will now be refining to guide the city's actions towards this goal. We demand the council take them to heart and act upon them in the next fiscal year budget. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Claire, are you ready to go? Hello. My name is Claire Klosten. I live on Hubbard Street, and I am here to tell the mayor, the city council, and the city manager that to create a community that truly respects the dignity and humanity of all who live, work, and visit Montpelier. The Montpelier police department must be abolished. Systematic racism means that the outcomes of our systems are racist. That means even if all the individuals within that system are not racist, or better yet actively anti-right racist, the outcomes of the systems will still be racist. This is true of all policing in our entire judicial justice system. We know evolution won't happen overnight. It is a long process we all must go through together as a community. This includes examining why and how police function to begin it, and to acknowledge that policing has a truce in white supremacy and racism. We must implement new systems of justice, emergency response, and conflict resolution. The resolution honoring outgoing chief vacos lists such achievements as starting modern initiatives surrounding policing and leading a compassionate approach to policing. We are glad the council acknowledges the benefits of relying less on armed individuals to respond to calls for assistance from the community. But we will not let the changing of the guard distract us from the fact that policing itself is rooted in racism and white supremacy. As such, it is harmful to people of color in Montpellier. It is also harmful to people affected by poverty, people struggling with mental illness, and many others. We ask now that you actively work towards the goal of creating structures that will eventually take the place of the police department. In the meantime, we will continue to bring the community together to discuss these issues. At the city council meeting in 2010, we communicated a list of demands that we will now be refining to guide the city's actions toward this goal. We demand the council to take them to heart and act upon them in the next fiscal year's budget. Thank you. Thank you. That was the initial list. Cameron, is there anyone else? Yes, ma'am. I have David Hershey, Constantinos, Johnny Blood, Colin Keegan, and Isla Bristol. So I only got a couple of those. So David. David Hershey, Constantinos, Johnny Blood, Colin Keegan. Sorry, what was that name? Colin Keegan. And Isla Bristol. Okay. Thank you. And again, we will go in that order. And just before we continue, John, you've got all the information you need from the folks who've already previously gone? Yes. All their little names are conveniently, all the names, not their little names, but all the names are in little boxes on the screen. So I'm good. Here we go. And where they live and stuff, that's information you have as well? That's fine. Yeah. Okay. Great. All right. And again, right. So say your name and where you live. Great. Thanks so much. David Hershey. Hi, my name is David Hershey. I live in East Montpelier. I also spoke two weeks ago at the city council meeting. And I am also here to ask that you guys continue to consider abolition as the ultimate goal when you're talking about budgeting for the police department. Like others have said before me, systemic racism is not something that can be solved through reforms of the systems that currently exist. It involves taking a systemic approach to change, to making change within our city and surrounding towns that are affected. And so I'm going to ask that you, as you consider the budget for next year, take into consideration how much of the police department could be served through roles of the don't involve people with weapons responding to calls. I did, I took a look at the city managers I don't know what to call it, article in the bridge last week. And I do, I'm a middle school teacher and I just wanted to respond specifically to the community policing, which involves the school resource officer. And ask that you really consider removing that. I think that the benefits people tend to see from school resource officers at the schools I've worked at and continue to work at are viewed from the viewpoint of administration, who are almost always white in Vermont. And then also just like from the perspective not of people who are negatively affected. And I think like, it's like the school I work at right now, which is not mobiliar. They used the system preparedness, the Alice training, which is mentioned in here as an excuse to assign our school resource officer. And I mean, thankfully, he's almost completely uninvolved in our school. And so, you know, there's not a person walking around my building with a gun every single day. But I think that the evidence in the research and we'll continue to talk about this at future council meetings, but the evidence shows that having a police officer in the building of a school doesn't actually reduce the likelihood of any sort of disaster, which that training is meant to prepare us teachers for and our students for. And so I think ultimately the only research that exists is that which shows a negative effect of that school resource officer. And so please continue to consider that as you look at your budget for the city. Thank you. Great. Thanks. And I just want to be clear. If your comments mostly pertain to like this, some of the words that we've been hearing previously, they sort of, there are some ties to the budget. That's fine. But if your comments mostly pertain to budget items, I recommend that you wait till we're actually talking about the budget later on. But thank you though. Nonetheless, your point is well taken. Mayor? Yes. If I may, just on behalf of the folks that are testing, most of them talking about next year's budget process. I think the budget we're talking about here at this meeting is just our adjustments for COVID related. At least that's what I understood, that they were talking about a longer term thing. So probably on point. Okay. So it is probably on point then. Okay. Thank you. Nevermind. Fabulous. Donna. I wanted to ask David, if he would share his research with us that you said dealt with the Yeah, I'm kind of trying to compile something that's more organized since school. Yeah. If you could just forward some links, that would be helpful. Yeah, I'd love to. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. Konstantinos, are you ready? I'm Konstantinos DeVar. I'm our president of district two. And I'm also here to tell the mayor city council and city manager that to create a community that truly respects the dignity and humanity of everyone who lives here, works here, visits the city that the police department must be abolished. Systematic racism means that the outcomes of our systems are racist. That means even if all the individuals within that system are not racist or even anti racist, the outcomes of that system will still be racist. And this is true of all policing, our justice system and basically everything else that this country was founded on. So we know that the abolition won't happen overnight. It's going to be a long process. We're all going to have to do it together as a community discussing really what the function of police is and acknowledging that policing does have its roots in white supremacy and racism. So to overcome that, we need to implement new systems of justice, emergency response, and conflict resolution. So the resolution honoring outgoing chief faco's list such achievements as starting modern initiatives surrounding policing and leading a compassionate approach to policing. And we're happy that the council acknowledges that there's benefits to relying less on harmed individuals to respond to calls for assistance from the community. We're not going to let the changing of the guard and the appointment of a new chief distract us from the fact that policing itself is rooted in racism, white supremacy. It's harmful to people of color, Montpelier. It's harmful to people affected by poverty, to people struggling with mental illness, and many other people that end up in contact with the police. We ask that you actively work towards the goals of creating structures that will eventually take the place of the police department. In the meantime, we'll continue to bring the community together and discuss these issues. At the city council meeting on June 10th, we communicate a list of demands and we'll now be refining them and guide the city's actions towards echo. We demand that the council take these to heart and act upon the next fiscal year's budget. Thank you. Thank you. Johnny. Good evening. Yes. Hi. My name is Johnny Flood. I was born and raised in Woodbury, Vermont, and I currently live and work in Montpelier as a preschool teacher. I agree with all the statements made tonight in support of abolishing the Montpelier police department. We have spent generations in this country and in this state divesting from our communities and investing instead in the most authoritarian elements in our society, elements that call for guns and cages as the solutions for poverty, for mental illness, for drug addiction and homelessness. This is not only a political failing, this is a moral and ethical failing of the highest order. As a result, black and indigenous people of color have, as has always been the case in our country, suffered the most, and Vermont and Montpelier are far from innocent of this. We need courage from those in power. We need bold and creative solutions, and I agree wholeheartedly with the list of demands presented to the city council on June 10th, and I sincerely hope that you all take these to heart and actively work to implement them in good faith. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Colin. Hello. My name is Colin Keegan. I currently live in Burlington, but I lived in Montpelier for close to two years until this past December, and I still work in Montpelier. I'm calling in to support the demands to abolish the Montpelier police department. As others have said, we know the work of abolition will take some time, and it's a process we all have to engage in together as a community. This work will require taking an active look at what purposes the police department serve and what they can be replaced with. This call rests on the understanding that policing is part of the criminal justice system rooted in white supremacy and systemic racism. This history is well documented. There are a lot of sources out there. A few that I found valuable are a stamp from the beginning by Ebermex Candy, a book, documentary on Netflix, 13th, and the podcast Seen On Radio, that's S-C-E-N-E. If any of you have not been educating yourselves on how systemic racism has shaped this country and persists in American society today, I really urge you to do so because it affects all of us, and we're all complicit in it. And there is obviously a lot of other sources out there, but besides the few that I mentioned, systemic racism means that our systems lead to racist outcomes, regardless of the individuals within the system. This is true of all policing in our entire criminal justice system. I'm echoing the others on this call and recognizing that bringing in a new police chief won't solve these problems. The structure is the problem. And there's a growing popular awareness right now, really among a lot of white people. Seems like black people have been aware of these issues forever around the insidiousness and pervasiveness of white supremacy in our culture. The question is what we're going to do about it. We have an opportunity to thoroughly re-envision public safety and lead from that vision. I will continue to work with the others on this call and other members of the community to help bring forward this vision. It starts with the demands made at the June 10th council meeting. I ask that you seriously tackle these issues in next year's fiscal budget and all become active participants in the process of developing new systems that are truly rooted in community health, safety, and well-being. Thank you. Thank you. Eila. Hello. My name is Eila Bristol and I live and work in Montpelier. And I, like many others here today, am here to tell the mayor, the city council, and the city manager that to create a community that truly respects the dignity and humanity of all who live, work, and visit Montpelier. The Montpelier Police Department must be abolished. Systematic racism means that the outcomes of our systems are racist. That means that even if all the individuals within that system are not racist or better yet actively anti-racist, the outcomes of the system would still be racist. This is true of all policing and our entire justice system. We know abolition won't happen overnight. It is a long process we all must go through together as a community. This includes examining why and how police function to begin with and acknowledging that policing has its roots in white supremacy and racism. We must implement new systems of justice, emergency response, and conflict resolution. The resolution honoring outgoing chief FACOS lists such achievements as starting modern initiatives surrounding policing and leading a compassionate approach to policing. We are glad that the council acknowledges the benefits of relying less on armed individuals to respond to calls for assistance from the community. But we will not let the changing of the guard and the appointment of a new chief distract us from the fact that policing itself is rooted in racism and white supremacy. As such, it is harmful to people of color and Montpelier. It is also harmful to people affected by poverty, people struggling with mental illness, and many others. We ask now that you actively work towards the goals of creating structures that will eventually take the place of the police department. In the meantime, we will continue to bring the community together to discuss these issues. The city council meeting on June 10th, a list of demands was communicated that we will now be refining to guide the city's actions towards this goal. We demand the council to take them to heart and act upon them in next fiscal year's budget. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Cameron, do we have anyone else? We do. First off, I just want to apologize if I butchered anyone's name. I'm just trying to read them phonetically, so I do apologize. We have an Ira and Shayna Casper. Hey. All right. Ira, you are up. Hi. Good evening, everyone. I will just keep it pretty short and to the point. So I will throw my voice into the chorus of the people who are interested in the abolition of the police. I think that there is a lack of creativity and perhaps a great deal of fear of the unknown, but I think the cost is too high and we need to be bold in our willingness to really examine our own role in structural racism. I mainly also just want to emphasize that there's a problem, I think, in a lot of Vermont communities with relying on a sense of exceptionalism. And I think this can be seen in the narrative around, you know, we might have good cops as opposed to those bad cops over there. And it's an easy fallback, but it doesn't actually address some of the fundamental problems, nor does it actually speak to the lived experience of a number of Black and Indigenous and people of color in this state. And so I would say that I think it's, let me catch myself here. So I just think that really there needs to be some clarity from the leadership in this community about how they stand relating those two ideas, some clear communication about the intent and desire to address structural racism. And there's a number of people on this call who have put forward themselves as leaders willing to share their thoughts and their links with you. And so I just want to see that reciprocated from the city council and the mayor in a more formal way. Yeah. I'll leave it there. Okay. Thank you. And I'm going to save my comments for the end. So thank you. Shaina. Hi, everyone. Yeah, my name is Shaina Casper. I live on Kent Street. And I'm the chair of the Social and Economic Justice Advisory Council. And I joined that committee about a year and a half ago, because I was just sick and tired of people who I loved, who lived in Montpelier, who were Black and Indigenous and people of color move out of town each year that I for the six years I've lived here, because I didn't see feel safe or welcome. And I really want and wanted and want to change that. And so since joining the committee, about half of the issues that have been brought before us were matters related to the Montpelier police. But I don't we haven't like, we're still figuring out what our solutions are and things. And I just want to really share my personal perspective. So not that of CJAC of dealing with the police. And so as I said, I've lived here about six years and I walk and run by myself at night with nothing but my cell phone, I go drink at friends homes and walk home loudly and obnoxiously. And I posted several parties at my house that went later than I told my neighbors they would. So I do a lot of stupid things and not once has the police been called on me. And I've also never dialed 911. I've never had the police come to my home. I've never felt scared or threatened to the point where I considered bringing police into this situation. And I really think that this is how it should be. You know, when when I am out and I feel anxious, I, you know, call up someone or I knock on a door or my neighbors, you know, just text me, you know, this is I really think how we should be, you know, taking care of our communities. And, you know, the police pulled me over for the first time this winter, because I had a tail light out. And that experience, you know, gave me the like sweaty palms and my heart was racing. And I'm actually also a diabetic. So my like, could even tell that my blood sugar like spiked from the adrenaline. And, you know, I didn't even get a ticket. And that was how like fearful I was. And the like the worst that I was scared of was just having to pay something that I very easily could have paid. And I just really realized that if that was the fear that I was coming for for just that like shame of getting a ticket of just what my like black indigenous people of color friends or neighbors must be even more so. And just one of, you know, litany of reasons of why folks are leaving Montpelier, you know, getting stopped in questions while out for a walk or out playing, while doing their jobs, while going to school and seeing Confederate flags, you know, dealing with really significant racism every day in so many extra interactions with Montpelier rights and with people in power as well. And right now, you know, we're dealing with COVID and research has shown that the impacts from COVID are hitting those who are already most marginalized on the hardest. And I know we're going to be seeing really significant budget constraints and cuts. And I want to make sure that those are not taken from places that exist to help and to support those who are already most marginalized, and instead to invest even more in those places during this, you know, time of crisis. And it's right now. Oh, golly. Sorry. I'm just talking my way through. So yeah, as I said, you know, I think the cost is for inaction is too high. You just want to thank everyone for speaking out tonight and that we're really going to need everyone, you know, city counselors, city committees, the police, the public, doing a ton of research on policy and a heck of a lot of listening to get good long term solutions. So I'm sorry, I went to lie. Okay, thank you. Cameron, how are we doing? I think that was everyone who raised their hand. If you were unable to figure out that system, and you would still like to speak, feel free to unmute yourself and or raise your hands so we can see you. Oh, no one else is I'd like to say something just as a citizen. Okay, we also have Kai Kaias. And again, I'm sorry if I'm ruining your names. No, you said it right, man. Thank you. Go for it. Go for it, Kai. So hi, my name is Kai Santana. I live here in Mount Pilia. My family and I, we've lived here for four years now. I do agree with, you know, funneling money to other areas within the police force. I do have a concern with two things, namely one is a, well, both of them kind of pretty much results in safety. One, honestly, I don't feel safe when it comes to crossing in the crosswalks. And if I'm being extremely honest, I would say, especially as a black person here, I have had situations even crossing with my kids where people have just like still just crossed went through the little flashing lights or whatever like that. I do look forward to having a white person present for when I walk because I have noticed that people definitely stop when someone other than a person of color is in the crosswalk. So perhaps, especially by the shores, if they could put stop signs, a three-way stop sign, I think that would be much more efficient instead of me playing, you know, Russian roulette when I'm crossing the street. And I know that sounds extreme, but that's just the honest way that I feel. Also, we're from the city. We're from Brooklyn. And we thought that when we moved here to a much quieter little town that there would be much more friendly police presence. I haven't seen, I don't know any of the cops. I have never seen them walk around besides maybe going to the shores or something like that. But I live right there on Wilders Street. I live like behind the senior center in that area. I haven't seen cops walking around. I see them drive around, but not walking to be able to know the people. I have a 16-year-old son last summer. I call them transients. It seemed like in the summertime there's transient people that come to the city and they, you know, I don't know, they just hang around during the summertime. One of them happened to look pretty much like my son. And we was worried that if anything ever happened, my son may be mistaken for this young man. And I feel like if the cops did do walk around and kind of got to know the people in the neighborhood a little bit more, we can be less concerned with this mistaken identity because we do have transients that seem to just come when their warm amounts come. So I feel like they should have a little bit more familiarity with the residents here in Montpellier. I mean, it's pretty small. So more than just driving around but actually walking around and getting to know people, I would feel much better and safer and knowing that if anything ever happened, at least they know me. And we have more and more friendly tons instead of just them not knowing who I am and thinking I don't belong here because I'm not looking familiar to them. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Over there. Okay. Was there anybody else? Okay, I'm not seeing anyone else. Oh, John, you were going to say something. Yeah, go for it, John. And I'm just saying this as a citizen. I live in District 3 St. Paul Street. Try to make this quick. Look, historically, I have not been the police departments, any police department's favorite person. I came out against tasers here when the police department wanted them. When I was in Green Mountain Daily, we identified a program from the state police collecting prescription information without warrants and we went out with that and it was stopped by the end of the week. Even when I got here, I don't know if Chief Fakos will remember but we started butting heads right away. But right now, I just want to say that since then, not only do I respect Chief Fakos and the work he's done, I consider him a friend. And I just hope, and I don't want to make the folks who spoke mad, one in particular, you know who you are. I just hope as some of these earnest, meaningful, honest and sincere conversations go forward that we can please try to have them without implying that the officers, the current police chief, or the incoming police chief are somehow unwitting dupes of racism. I don't think that's fair. You know, I've gotten to know the new chiefs some. I know Tony well. These are good people and I just hope we can bear that in mind as we go forward. Thanks. Thank you, John. I just want to acknowledge and appreciate that a lot of folks mentioned, you know, this is a long process and I think that's going to be true and that's okay. So, I mean, I certainly, I think this is probably true for the council. I mean, I think we're all interested in making Montpelier work for all of its residents, having Montpelier work well for all of its residents. And that means having hard conversations about racism and about the structures that we have. And so I'm fine with having hard conversations. We've, in fact, I actually feel like we have sort of started having hard conversations and we're sort of, you know, it's interesting that, you know, this topic has come up now as it feels like, yeah, I know this is an appropriate conversation to be having. But it's, but you're right, it isn't going to be short and that's okay. So, we are going to be looking further at this, at the topic of policing and racism moving on into the future. In fact, I think we may have a, well, I think we have a date for that actually. So, but we'll be talking more about that soon. So, yeah, let's continue to be engaged in these conversations. Any other councillors want to say anything? Okay, Lauren, yeah. I just wanted to say a couple things. I really appreciate that people are showing up and, you know, continuing to keep a focus on this conversation. It's easy to show up to one meeting and then kind of move on to another topic or venue. You know, I'm thinking a lot about, you know, for the city, some next steps of, you know, some data. I've seen some really interesting studies of what other city police departments spend their time on. And as we're looking to the future and how funding is spent. And again, I think that is very long-term evolution. But, you know, what are we spending our time on? What expertise does that demand? And that kind of analysis. And I think part of that is the, you know, I'm hearing a vision for the future and, you know, really appreciated the call to be, to be bold and visionary and not just do things the way we're doing them because we've always done them that way. So, you know, I look forward to really robust conversations that could challenge how we think, you know, and rooted in what our community needs and what are the things that are taking time and expertise and that, you know, I do think the disinvestment of many years in social services of federal and state government, you know, we see the outcome of that. You know, and so how can we be as a city and advocating to the state for investment in the places our community needs it. So, just wanted to share those few thoughts and look forward to the ongoing conversation with our police department, with the council, with community members. And I know Shayna from the Social and Economic Justice Advisory Committee mentioned, you know, we do have this contract coming up that is looking at facilitating and convening community conversations. So, that could be a space that with some, you know, real expertise and helping us have hard conversations, too, that that could be a helpful thing that the city has already chosen to invest in for this upcoming months. Thanks. Cameron and, yeah, Cameron and Donna, yeah. I just wanted to let you know we had another resident raise their hands. Julia Chafetz would like to speak. Oh, Julia. Donna, do you want to go first or? I'll go after her. Okay, go ahead, Julia. I just wanted to respond to what John Odom said and just also talk a little bit broadly about my perspective, again, having served on the Social and Economic Justice Advisory Committee for the last two years and just kind of started to wrap my head around how these kinds of conversations and policy discussions play out in Montpelier. I think it's really important that we, that we not focus on individuals and that really this isn't about individual people being good or bad people. I think most of the people that I come across in this town are good people. I recognize that. I heard a really good interview this past week between Brene Brown and shoot, I'm blanking on her name. I'll put it, I'll find a way, can I send it in a chat? Is there a way to chat? I'll put it in the chat once I find this. Austin Channing Brown, it came back. She talked about, it's not about, we're all good people. It's not about good people. We're all good people. It's about being better people and it's about being better as a collective. And so we can look at what we have and we can hear about the way that people are harmed by it and then we can do better. It's not about any, I mean, we're all complicit in the system. I am complicit in the system. We're all part of it. We're all, are also all raised within it and indoctrinated by it. There's no way to be part of this society without being part of it in some way. So it's not about what, it's not about that. It's about going beyond that. It's about looking at the structures that we have in place that we've inherited that we've, that we, that many of us have benefited from and doing better together and keep moving in that direction. So I don't think anybody, I haven't heard anybody slinging individual, individual anything, anything at individuals. It's really about how can we all come together? How can we put our own fragility away and show up together as a community to make sure that everybody who lives here and passes through here is safe and is, and more than safe is, it can thrive. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Donna. Yes. And Julie, thank you very much for bringing that up because I think that's really important. It goes back to assuming best intentions. And I really appreciate everyone took the time to speak tonight. I particularly appreciate those who spoke from their personal experience. That's really helpful. And perhaps if you come to future meetings, think about that personal experience or people you know, because that to me is much more helpful than some of the other more blanket statements. So again, thank you all for being here and hopefully we'll keep processing this and working on it and giving it due attention. Ian. Yes. Can I just ask that one of the group that read the prepared statement, send it to us me so that we have it for the record and you know, as we think about the response they asked for that we have have it to refer to. So I don't care what one of you can decide or all of you. But last week, a few of you sent me your statements, but it would seem like it was all the same statement. So if at least one of you can send it to me helpful. Thanks. Great. Thank you. Well, thank you everyone. Anyone else have any comments they want to make about this? Again, we're going to continue to Cameron. Yes. I love Bristol. Raise your hand again if you want to allow people to go back through. Well, so generally speaking, we try not to have people repeat during this time. Is it something that pertains to anything later in our conversation? No, I just wanted to also echo what Julia said about how it's not about individuals. It's about how we're all affected by the system. And I'm a mixed race woman. So I see both sides of it. And I've experienced pieces of both sides of it. So it's not about individuals. It's about listening to those that are most oppressed, most marginalized, most marginalized. And because those are the voices that needed to be lifted up the most. Thank you. Okay. Well, and I know I'm sure there's a lot more that could be said and will be said. So at this point, I think we're going to move on in the conversation, just acknowledging that. Any other comments, Jack? And I noticed there's someone else on the screen who raised the yellow hand sign identified as iPhone on the screen. I don't know who it is. I think people are using that to react as a support. Was it claps? Yeah. Okay. I couldn't tell. Okay. They're claps versus raising hand. Unless we're wrong, in which case, you know. Okay. All right. Well, thank you, everyone. And we're going to continue on here and, you know, look for for this being on an agenda upcoming. I mean, so we have, we're going to give our the the new chief some time and then we'll be, you know, reengaging in these conversations. All right. So, so the next thing on our agenda is the consent agenda. Is there a motion, Jack? I move the consent agenda. Second. Further discussion? Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. So the consent agenda passes. And we're on to an appointment for the Conservation Commission. I believe there was one vacancy and one applicant that was Phyllis Rubinstein. Is Phyllis, oh, she is great. Phyllis, do you want to just quickly introduce yourself and tell us about your just in continuing on this committee? Yes, I'm Phyllis Rubinstein. I live on College Street. I've been on the Montpelier Conservation Commission for a very fast two years, and I'm looking forward to another two years on the commission. Thank you. Any questions for Phyllis? I'll make a motion, I'll make a motion to appoint, reappoint Phyllis Rubinstein to another term on the Conservation Commission. Second. Okay. All in favor, oh, any further discussion? Okay. Any, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Well, thank you Phyllis for your service, and thanks for your dedication to continue. I appreciate that. You're welcome. Okay. So the next is the Above and Beyond Award for May. So for this, I'm going to turn it over to Bill. We'll turn it over to Cameron. Right. That's fair. So this month for our Above and Beyond Award, we want to recognize Michelle Amaral, who is our, she's technically one of our parking attendants, but she's right now helping keep our facilities cleaned and sanitized while our parking fees are not being collected. So she's been really great about being very flexible in this time of change, and she has gone far above and beyond her call of duty to help us really keep our employees safe. And now that we're opening some of our buildings back up to the public, it will be going a long way in keeping our public safe as well. Michelle had multiple nominations. I do want to highlight that, and they really called out her extremely positive attitude, her work ethic, and her ability to seek out opportunities to assist others. Each of her multiple nominations mentioned specific ways she's gone above and beyond. She has done deep cleaning in buildings that I don't think have seen deep cleaning in 20 years. She painted departments that haven't seen that sort of maintenance in a long time. And it's because, and I think it speaks a lot to how busy our employees are that hasn't gotten done, but Michelle's really gone out of her way to do these things for us. So people said that she has a can do attitude, that they're amazed by her work ethic and attitude towards making sure everything is clean and making sure that everyone is safe. She takes on a job that not a lot of people would have wanted to jump into, and she really stepped up and it's really helped us in a time of need for us. And so we really do want to thank her and recognize her for dedication and commitment to the city and her fellow employees. So thank you, Michelle. I wish she was here to get a round of applause, but I'll embarrass her in the hallway next time I see her, I promise. She really has been fabulous. We're not sure we want to put her back on the parking meter. She's been so good at what she's doing, so. Yeah, please do pass along to Michelle our gratitude. I mean, gosh, so thankful for her stepping up and, you know, taking on this extra work, really. And exactly like going above and beyond. It's really wonderful. So anyone else have comments or thoughts on that? If I could jump in for a minute, I ended up being her new supervisor. And I have to reiterate that she's just has such a positive attitude. She loves working in the parking arena and to change jobs without a lot of personal desire to have the new job that we gave her and to be such a positive influence and creative about what she's doing and to really look out for the safety and to be concerned for how everybody who's been working in the buildings are doing and feeling and making sure that they feel comfortable with everything that she's doing has just been remarkable. I have grown to really appreciate her can do attitude and her support and her very forthright comments that she shares with me every morning. So I'm really excited that she was given this opportunity to be celebrated. Donna, yeah. I might also say when and if she's back out on the street, stop and say hi. Great conversation. And she would appreciate being appreciated on the street. Great. Well, and anyone else? Okay. Well, congratulations to Michelle. Job well done. All right. So the next item is an honoring of our outgoing police chief Tony Fakus. There's a resolution here. We're so I'm pretty excited to have this resolution honoring Chief Fakus. Bill, do you want to talk about this at all? Well, obviously this will be so there he is. This will be his last council meeting unless we have some kind of a special emergency meeting between now and next Tuesday. So and I think he would have preferred to have missed this one too, but I tracked him down and got him to come back. But I do, you know, I've obviously have appreciated working with him as police chief and as sergeant before that for many years his dedication to our community is police department and moving the department forward. And, you know, even in light of the comments we heard from people, I think his heart is is in many. I think he would agree with many of the comments and sentiments that people had about best serving and making sure that everyone feels safe and his grace and diplomacy, even in these tough conversations is always evident and has always been. And so I'm not glad the council really wanted to honor and we were planning to draft something and then heard loud and clear from council members that they wanted to do it too. So it was great. So I'm going to turn this right back over to the mayor, but I just want to personally say thanks to Tony and I'm going to miss you. And I'm sure we'll see you walking dogs. Yeah, I would, I would actually love to read this resolution on your behalf, Tony. If that's okay with you. Does he have a say? Yeah. So I'm going to read the resolution and then I have a few just like extra comments to make. And I'm sure some other councils will also want to jump in. So the resolution for honoring the police chief, Tony Fakis, upon his retirement. So whereas Anthony Fakis, police chief for the Montpelier Police Department has retired effective July 1, 2020 after completing 35 outstanding years of service to the city of Montpelier. And whereas Chief Fakis has has been a lifelong resident of Montpelier, a graduate of Montpelier High School and Norwich University with both a bachelor's degree in liberal studies and a master's degree in diplomacy and international studies in 1995 and 2013 respectively. And whereas Chief Fakis began his career with Montpelier Police Department in 1985 at age 20 as a part-time police officer and became a full-time officer with the Montpelier Police Department in 1987. And whereas Chief Fakis was one of Montpelier Police Department's original bike patrol officers in the early 1990s. And it was promoted to position of Sergeant in 1997. And whereas Chief Fakis attended the Babson College Command Training Program, the FBI hostage negotiators training and leadership in police organizations trainings based on national best practices for modern police organizations. And whereas Chief Fakis graduated the FBI's National Academy for Law Enforcement Officers in 2004. And whereas Chief Fakis served as the Montpelier Police or Chief of Police from 2007 to 2020. And whereas Chief Fakis revamped department policies and procedures to reflect evolving trends and modern initiatives surrounding policing while making officer training a priority for Montpelier Police Department. And whereas Chief Fakis established Project Safecatch from Montpelier Police Department in partnership with the Central Vermont Substance Abuse Services and CBH to assist those with substance abuse to find help and connections rather than incarceration. And whereas Chief Fakis was instrumental in developing a partnership with Washington County Mental Health to form the Team 2 approach for ensuring a joint response of police and mental health screeners to address mental health calls for service that later became the statewide best practice model. And whereas Chief Fakis presented at the International Chiefs of Police National Conference along with Washington County Mental Health on the Team 2 approach with a national law enforcement audience. And whereas Chief Fakis fostered and developed relationships with multiple federal agencies including the FBI, DEA and ATF which directly assisted Montpelier and Central Vermont communities in dealing with a wide range of law enforcement issues. And whereas Chief Fakis has been an advocate for treating people like whole individuals working to protect and serve people who are vulnerable in our community. And whereas Chief Fakis has led the department with a compassionate approach to policing and that we appreciate his dedication to the six pillars laid out in the president's report on 21st century policing. And whereas Chief Fakis frequently volunteered to provide testimony and expertise to the Vermont legislature concerning police-related statutory governance and proposed changes. And whereas Chief Fakis has spent a lifetime upholding the safety of Montpelier residents and serving the community by ensuring that the Montpelier Police Department is a servant of the people and is responsive, fair, and thoughtful in its work. And whereas Chief Fakis has been a strong and compassionate voice for 21st century policing practices and has worked to make the Montpelier Police Department a model of such practices. And now therefore be it resolved that the Montpelier City Council does hereby commend and thank Chief Anthony Fakis for many years of dedicated law enforcement service, and especially for his positive and invaluable contributions to the Montpelier Police Department and the Montpelier community at large and wishes him a healthy and enjoyable retirement. Yay. Well, thank you. Thank you so much, Mayor City Council and Bill and, you know, and, you know, and the Montpelier community and the men and women of the Montpelier Police Department. It's been the greatest honor of my life to lead this department and do my part to make this little part of Vermont that much better for everyone. So thank you so much for that. Yeah, absolutely. I just want to add to, you know, I think it's so evident in that resolution. It's come up multiple times in that resolution that you have led with compassion and that you've really led us well and you've led by example and that your compassion and dedication to protecting people, to making Montpelier work for everyone has really, it's truly been evidence in your time. And we're so, I've been personally grateful to work with you and, you know, best wishes for you in your retirements. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Anyone else want to add anything? Connor, go ahead. Yeah, no, Chief. You know, I don't think I knew what to think of the department before I got in council and got the look under the hood. But as we talk about this national conversation, I realize that a lot of the reforms we're talking about shifting to, you've already been a leader on acknowledging that somebody with a badge isn't necessarily the best person to respond to a call. You went up to the legislature and advocated for a social worker. When we saw that homelessness was an issue in Montpelier and we needed to do something to address it. You would your department bring people from the homeless community into the council chambers to tell their story, even if they were criticizing you in some cases. And that's really appreciated. You know, you've lived and worked in Montpelier. I think you have your thumb on the pulse of the town and I'm just grateful to have worked with them to know. Yeah, so thanks very much. Thank you. La Donna. And I would like to add to that, Tony, is that you're just so personable and you come and you educate us. You're willing to take what we don't know and bring us up to an awareness, not only within the police department, but things about our community we don't know. So I just think you just extraordinary. And I'm looking forward, as I said to you earlier yesterday, Bar Hill is going to open. We are going to toast you. Thank you very, very much, Tony. Thank you. Dan. So I'll add to the other councilor's laudations and kudos. But I, you know, I have only been on the council a few months, but I know we've dealt with each other in other circumstances in my professional career. And I'd simply add that, you know, we are very fortunate to have had you here in Montpelier. It is not every town or city in Vermont that has the kind of leadership that you bring that makes a department for a relatively small town, you know, the kind of model of professionalism of progressive thought and policing that you've come to embody. And I have seen a lot of police departments with a lot of problems. And, you know, we heard a lot of people talking earlier. And, you know, those problems are real. And there are a lot of towns that deal with those. And, you know, I think Montpelier has been very fortunate in that, you know, they had leadership that has sought to address these issues. And it's been your leadership. And I think, you know, we, it's often easy to lose focus when you live in the bubble of Montpelier. But having elected other departments, other towns, representing people suing police departments and representing police departments, I can say with a degree of objectivity that you have been a fantastic resource for Montpelier and a great leader. And we're sorry to see you go. We're happy to see Brian, but tonight's your night. Congratulations, Tony. Thank you. Jack. Well, one thing, we haven't moved to pass this resolution yet. So we should, so I'll move that we adopt that resolution. I'll second it. And the other thing I would say is that as we as we look at conflicts between police and communities across the country, a lot of what we see is situations where the it's very adversarial. The police see themselves or are seen as the warrior policemen model and see themselves as being something separate from the community. And the leadership that Tony has brought and the presence of the entire police department shows that they're part of the community. They're working with the community. And that's what I think Tony deserves a lot of credit for that. And it's, it's why we are where lots of other places would love to be where we are with our police department here in Montpelier. So thank you, Tony. Good luck. Condolences, as people know, I always offer condolences to people when they're retiring. But it's been great, haven't it? Thank you, Jack. Jay. I just want to quickly echo what all the other counselors have said, but then also just point out one, one particular thing. Tony, as we've worked together over the years, it's usually been around issues related to the schools and a focus on safety of the children in our school systems. And I just want to acknowledge the community and generational approach that you took to Montpelier. You were proactive in making sure you were, you and your department were supportive of all the people in the community of Montpelier, young and old alike. And I just think that that should be acknowledged as well. Thanks, Tony. Appreciate that, Jay. Thank you. Lauren. I think so much has already been said. I just wanted to echo my appreciation and my time. I always think through when I was working on the resolution just last week in bank police brutality. I worked with Tony on that. He agreed with, you know, he kind of gave his blessing to the language that was in there. So, you know, for everyone really interested in these ongoing conversations about how we are doing better. Just I think that that would embody the vision that he has brought to our police force and the kind of future we want to, you know, continue to do better and better at. And so I just really appreciate the opportunity to work with you and, you know, what a legacy you're leaving for our community. So thank you and all the best in retirement. Thanks a lot. Each time. Speech chief. Don't we need to vote? Oh, right. You better be sure it passes before you say anything. Great. Well, so we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, great. Resolution passes. Thank you, Tony. Would you like to say anything more? I just want to say just addressing everybody again. Thank you. But it's this community that is really helped shape the Montpelier Police Department to how we approach taking care of our community in our role. And, you know, right now we're in a historic period. Do not know what the future holds, but we do know that collaboratively we're going to improve systems at every, everywhere we can. And I don't know what it's going to look like ultimately. And, you know, Brian is going to be the soon to be the new skipper that will lead us through with a lot of all their fresh perspectives and ideas. And I really look forward to seeing that. But I just want to say thank you to the department and to this community. Great. Well, thank you for helping to lead or to lay that really healthy foundation for us to build off of. I'm really grateful. Okay. Well, so I guess we've passed our motion. Any further comments? I'll just follow up on what Donna said. You know, Tony, we have had, we will have our private conversations, but you really do deserve a big public thank you and send off. And it's really unfortunate that we're in this time when those kind of events can't happen. But when they can, we're not going to forget you. So don't don't stray too far because we're going to track you down. And I know right cell number, so you're in trouble. Sticking around. Good. Good. I also look forward to being able to share you properly. So okay. Any further comments? Okay, all right, we're going to move on then. Thank you. Thank you again, Tony. All right. So we have another thanks to the can network volunteer. So for this, I suppose I'm turning things over to, oh, Cameron. Okay, great. I figured we just skip Bill, turning it to me. So thank you. That's good. Elizabeth Parker from Sustainable Montpellier has helped with this. And this is a general thank you to those who have been volunteers during the COVID stay in place order and the general emergency that we find ourselves in. So if it's all right with you, I'd like to read the thank you. So we the city of Montpellier and the Montpellier community would like to honor the countless volunteers who've stepped up during the COVID-19 emergency. Community volunteers have taken shifts at the regional 211 center in the Washington North Orange County Regional Resource Command Center, if you remember, Winock Rock. And volunteers have shopped for vulnerable individuals through Montpellier Mutual Aid. Additionally, volunteers stepped up to coordinate restarting the capital area neighborhoods to develop ongoing communication neighbor to neighbor and develop an ongoing community in the face of the coronavirus and beyond. Volunteers have also worked with Montpellier alive to support our local businesses. And we also want to thank everyone who's been shopping locally online and through other pickup and to go services. Our communities volunteers have also helped feed our community by reinvent reinventing the community church lunches as brown bag meals by helping make deliveries to the senior center feast to go program by organizing lunches for school children, helping organize food boxes at just basics and by setting up neighborhood food shelves. Community volunteers have also helped by making calls to ask folks just how they're doing and by reaching out to neighbors to offer assistance and by going above and beyond to help in numerous ways still yet to be seen. The Montpellier community values volunteering and their efforts have gone a long way in getting Montpellier ready to respond to community needs in the face of COVID-19 and ensuring that residents are healthy safe and cared for. Thank you again to everyone who has volunteered during this time. Your generosity has lifted us all up and continues to do so. Thank you. I want to add my own addition to that. Thank you so much to the those who have volunteered with the can networks and and for your continued volunteering. We look forward to further seeing how that network develops. So I'm really grateful for everyone who stepped up during this time. Anyone else want to add anything? I have Laura Byron, Brooke, sorry, is here and I just thought I'd let her speak for a moment about where can is right now. Okay go ahead Laura. Sure. Hi everybody. Laura Brooke, formally Byron. I'm still getting used to it too. Well I wanted to just share in the appreciation for all of the volunteerism that's happened through all the things that Cameron was talking about. But capitol area neighborhoods and mutual aid network specifically. We had countless hours of time trying to spend figuring out well what is my neighborhood like you know how many households can I cover and getting the flyers out in order to share resources with all of the neighbors and checking in on folks during a challenging time. So it's been really an honor for me to work with everybody and to see such passion and care. And I also look forward to seeing how the network can grow and sustain itself over the months and the years to come. We are working on getting capitol area neighborhood t-shirts that'll be available for coordinators and counselors which will be fun. And other projects we're trying to work on getting some sandwich boards up and around for neighborhoods that think that that could be a cool resource for folks that can post you know notices and events and yeah there's a can do attitude that we've been feeling from a number of neighborhoods. So it's been it's been fun it's been inspiring and I look forward to continuing to help. Thanks. And thank you Laura and Elizabeth for your work in this as well. Connor. I just wanted to say like what you did was real organizing like people were scared anybody can take out an ad in the paper send around the emails. But it meant a lot to people I know in my neighborhood just getting an actual flyer on their door with that list of resources. And I think they felt very supported and it was really thinking outside the box that reinvented of this. So just want to thank you sustainable volunteer everybody who did this so much for your work. Lauren. Yeah I just wanted to echo my appreciation and you know we're still in this crisis which is ongoing and you know the effects we could be feeling for years so having this structure created and all of the groundwork that you all leadership with sustainable Montpelier and then also the community members is so great and you know we know with the climate crisis and other pending things that just having this built and something to continue to grow is just really impactful and so just really appreciate it. And else. Okay. All right so with this item I don't think there was anything that we needed to approve or anything but we are but we're certainly grateful for all the work of sustainable Montpelier coalition as well as all the volunteers who stepped up to help neighbors. Great. So we're going to move on to the flag policy. So for this I'm not sure if I'm turning it over either to Bill or to Dan. Either of you want to pick this up? Well I'm going to slide it to Dan really fast but I'll just say you know at your last meeting we have the conversation or actually our special meeting about putting the flag up and painting the mural we have ordered a flag it's not we're not waiting for this policy to put it up it just hasn't arrived yet and so we at staff had started drafting a policy based on the conversation and then during a regular call with Dan he had told me that he had started working on one so we sent thoughts we had to him and he put it all together so with that I'm going to turn it over to Dan. Thanks Bill. So this came up I think you know when we approved the Black Lives Matter flag to be flown at City Hall I think there was a question and Bill may have raised it but it certainly was in my mind which is you know do we have a policy for how long the flag would fly or you know how we make these decisions as a type of ongoing question and framework and we really didn't and you know if I think if you don't have a policy like this in place then it can feel like a discretion and can cause either hard feelings or difficult choices if you know it's not sort of this is our policy this is our tradition this is what we follow for these kind of things and so the intent of this policy is not really to reinvent the wheel on how to fly a flag it adopts both the federal the US flag code and the Vermont flag protocol both of which are in in statutory language it just says that you know for the city of Montpelier and its buildings this is how we'll do it and we'll follow the flag code and and the state flag laws but then it has under guidance under subsection B it has the display of additional flags indoors or outdoors and so it talks about special flags which would be anything other than say like the United States flag the state of Vermont flag the flag of Montpelier these would be flags that you know we want to fly for a variety of reasons and tries to give some guidance and framework to it what it would say is that you know city hall is the place where this should happen um you know and that's when we talk about flying special flags we're not talking about flying a special flag at every single city building whether it be the police department the water treatment plant or the sewer septic treatment plant let's let's focus it on city hall you know flags and banners may only be displayed upon the issuance of a federal or state proclamation council resolution or mayoral proclamation and by receiving approval from the Montpelier City Council so it just puts it in our hands as to how we would display these type of special flags it then gives examples of special flags or banners including sister city flags heritage flags um you know flags received in recognition of awards flag received from visiting groups flags designating an event or accomplishment um and it says you know that we have to as mayor and city council would make this approval and then and it also goes on to when selecting or approving a request for a special flying a special flag the mayor and council she'll make the she'll consider and make a determination the special flag meets at least one or more of the following criteria and it lays out about um six criteria that it they're just ideas for how we would um fly these flags so for example you know whether the United States or state of Vermont has recognized the flag through statute of proclamation whether the flag represents an organization dedicated to the public good for the citizens of Montpelier whether the flag represents a national state or city interest whether the flag is a historic american flag that continues to have a primary positive message of american history in unity whether the flag promotes unity and community with another city state whether flag represents a positive interest or value worthy of public recognition so it just simply tried to create you know very broad general criteria not intending to handcuff us or to to you know force us into certain categories but to think about that and and think about that process as we're going through um you know and a good example I thought is something like the gas den flag you know which is a historic american flag but it's come to symbolize a very particular political element um with it so it may not carry the same sort of historic message and if somebody came and said i want to fly it for the you know historic purpose we could say well it's not really the same message as before and and even more you know sort of not that this would has ever necessarily happened but you know something you know somebody wants to fly uh you know a confederate flag you know that's a historic flag but it does not carry the positive message that if it ever did um and it would give the council those tools to make those analysis and decisions so it then puts a time limit on we fly it for 30 days unless the council decides we want to do it for longer um but setting 30 is sort of the default for these special flags um some of this is sort of flag code um geekery which is you know you can't have special flags bigger than the united states or state of vermont flag um then um this is one of the things that i added and um you know i it's a small thing but i think it's it's sort of a sign of respect for people that you know dedicate themselves to public service which is you know there is a whole protocol as to when flags are flown at half staff and you know on the federal level it's when the president x president or president elect dies or when the sitting vice president chief justice retired chief justice or speaker of the house you know should die um and then you have the state level and i thought why not add a why not add a city level to this so you know if the mayor x mayor or mayor elect should pass away um we would fly the flag at half staff uh because being mayor you know doesn't come with the big payroll why not get a half flag um you know as a sign of of respect you know current members of city council kind of reflecting both the state and federal level um and then other designated local officials so if somebody important somebody who's who's dedicated a great deal of resources or time or you know talent to the city you know should should pass away it would be a nice way to show respect um on it as an official gesture which you know um i think is is worthwhile um it has a couple of other and then finally i think this is a really important one if nothing else i think this is probably one of the most important ones which is you know any instance where city of montpellier employee is killed in the line of duty or dies as a direct result of injuries incurred by a performance of official duties you know i think we should have it as a policy that that person or persons should be given that sign of respect um and so not that any of these things were not possible before adopting this flag policy but why not have this um as sort of a go to so we don't have to think about it because these are the kind of things that are not really things you necessarily want to or have to think about but that way you have a policy and it falls to that default and it helps shape the decisions but that's that's it and adjust um i'm happy to um you know talk further but that's not much else i can say well i want to thank you so much dan for your work and also for city staff's work on putting this together um and uh that's i think the the additions there are nice you know i mean i'll acknowledge like oh it's a nice shout out as the mayor right i don't plan on dying anytime soon but you know for for previous mayors i think that'd be you know that that would be very very nice um as well as uh you know for anyone uh you know um people killed in the line of duty people who um uh yeah there's other folks who have dedicated a lot of time so yeah i think that makes i think that's makes a lot of sense um other um uh thoughts ideas comments oh goodness lots of people i saw jay then donna then jack go ahead yep i just have one quick question um dan i appreciate the work and the geekery um and staff work on on putting this putting this all together it's very comprehensive i'm curious about the 30 day time frame um i know that i wonder if we might want to build in a little bit of flexibility that i agree that there should be a time limit um that it shouldn't exceed a certain amount of time um but i wonder if we might want to build in a little bit of flexibility so that um it doesn't have to come up every other meeting if the council does want to keep the flag up um you know i think that you know bill brought up the olympic flag that flew when amanda pelkiu was competing and so that you know that was sort of a real discrete time that made sense to have it flying during the time of the olympics but i wonder what you know something like the black lives matter is that something that does the council wanted to have the discretion to in one vote say maybe up to 90 days as opposed to 30 um it's i don't know what's the best practice i just wanted to just just cherish your thoughts on it well just in quick response to that jay i i think the way the language is shaped we have that authority to do that it says unless otherwise stated by the count by the mayor and approved by the city council you know it would be for 30 days so you know for example if we decided to fly the flag of switzerland because they had been really nice to us uh and we wanted to do it for 60 days um i think we would be able to do that um just by the initial approval or a subsequent approval if we felt you know after 60 days we still really want to have that swiss flag flying um so i think there's there's flexibility here and it's really not intended at least in my mind um to to limit exactly what you're getting at where somebody feels you know 30 days doesn't cut it or 30 days is too much let's okay that sounds good thank you uh done say me yep okay thank you uh thank you very much dan and staff it's great to have such detail i do have a question about the mayor and wondered if some of your examples came from a more mayor driven organization and uh like he says i haven't marked in six places and the first one is under purpose it must be approved by mayor and the form up to your city council does that mean unanimous no i think it's just that the full council would have to go to the council for for a quorum and and you're right you know some of this language did come out of um you know i borrowed from from other cities that had um had some of this phrasing but i also i was conscious about putting the mayor sort of at the center in part bill told a story to me about um a flag issue that had arisen that was an accidental um issue a number of years ago where flags were put up and on on banners that were but there was no date to sort of remove them and the city council you know voted to remove them and caused a public stir and the mayor basically stepped in and said no i'm i'm asserting my authority and i think this is under it was under chuck car passes um and so you know it's america pairs vetoed the vote of the council to take sorry yeah so i mean it was just one of those things i think it was america vetoed the vote of the council well i didn't know that power and yeah better than the charter forever one day you know it just had very modest mayors so i guess i still i don't i sort of object to all of a sudden putting the full in there on that line i'd like to weigh in on that just quickly donna because i actually did suggest to dan in part because um sometimes something might happen where you know that we should do something whether it's put a flag up or take a flag down or something and we may not be able to get the council together and in fact dan had actually suggested the city manager could do this i said you know it really should be the elected official that represents the whole city that this if it's a if it's a policy political statement even if it's just in the interim you know we want to fly this to half mass because some notable resident passed away and mares says you know yeah we got to do this it was just and that actually was what the outcome of that conversation was back i think it was the early 2000s at the beginning of the iraq war and the council then said you know what we're just leaving flag decisions to the mayor we think you know otherwise they get too politicized they get too you know wrapped up in debate that kind of thing so i offered him that example i'm not i just want you know that's where it came from well well i mean i guess i have to go back to understanding more about the veto so if the mayor vetoes it even if the council is unanimous they can't override that veto that's the mayor the council can it's all it's all in the charter the mayor can override any vote of the council can veto any vote of the council and five of the six can override it okay i mean that's okay i understood that you could veto it but i didn't think it was like final of the way i heard it the first time you said it so what happened was in that case the mayor vetoed it and the council was like yeah that was a good solution like that that got us all off the hook but you still have the typical if the enough numbers can override a veto yeah oh yeah just that i guess i feel like it's so much better if it's a group process and like here on number under guidance b it says additional displays of flag it says it can be federal state proclamation council revolution or a matorial proclamation and by approval so the council still approves it it's not just i just feel when one person makes a decision to fly a flag to make a proclamation as such it's not as solid in the community as if it has the support of the city council too i i think that's fine i um so i just to understand that reading you know whether it's this and this a mayor can proclamation does or does not need the city council well if i mean if you want to tie it to that donna we you know i think okay but so what it reads now though i'm reading it right it doesn't tie it to it it stands alone yeah not necessarily um i mean it's you know it's a little bit it's it's a little bit ambiguous because of it says council resolution or mayoral proclamation um but you know at least um the well it could be read as you know any of these would be a triggering event such as a federal state proclamation council resolution or a mayoral proclamation and then by receiving approval from the montpelier city council as to any of those three triggering events but you know we could certainly clarify that language um and just simply have it be um you know by a city council resolution and just simply make it um you know anytime i guess i'd ask i'd throw it to bill bill how often do we get any type of like sort of direct i know jim condo so at the secretary state's office will often say you know fly your fire flags at half mass because you know just the skips and just passed away or you know by proclamation of the governor this that's not something we then have to vote on as a city council no because that's the state flag and the same with the when the if you know the president can declare when federal flags are flown at half massed and so you know part of it is that analogy that the president makes the call from the federal flag the governor makes the call from the state flag so should the mayor make the call for the city flag um that's i think that's different than choosing to put up a special flag um you know the choice to put a flag at half mass to honor somebody is different than we the council as a group is saying we're going to put up the black lives matter flag or any of these other others so those should maybe be differentiated there in terms of the role i'm just putting someone in as a mayor who is like some of the people who recently got elected who i wouldn't want to have the absolute power to do things like this so i mean one thing in the worst case scenario in this language bothers me it's like your policy do what you want yeah yeah i i i think it just should be simple and straightforward and and so um you know i can we can certainly change and i think it's it's b1 that really you know um section 4 subsection b little i really talks about um you know special flags and we could change that language that says flag and banners may only be displayed upon and we could just simply cut out that issuance of federal state proclamation council resolution or mayoral proclamation and we could just simply say um shall only be displayed upon the approval of the Montpelier city council and mayor um well right so then my question was the mayor vote she i mean mayor sometimes does sometimes doesn't so separating the mayor suddenly from the city council it changes a different voting mechanism does it not no the mayor the mayor the charter is pretty really clear about this that the city council consists of the mayor and the city council members oh that's why i thought but all this language separates the two sometimes we refer to as mayor and council and sometimes we just say the city council but it really all means the same thing and you know the the the practice of the mayor not voting is really a practice the the charter doesn't actually prohibit it by tradition and the council's rules of business the mayor votes to make a fourth vote or break a tie but there's no right we can vote any issue if they want it um so i think you know one of the issues again that came up was say we had let's use a man to pelkey just as an example you know in that case we put it up while she was in the olympics but say a former olympian was gonna suddenly we found out that some olympian was gonna come to town and we're only gonna be here for a day and so the mayor might say hey let's fly the olympic flag that day while you know this person's in town you know to honor them and it may be without the ability to have a council vote and so i think part of it was just to have those flexibility kind of things but again it's your policy you can you as a group should just decide what you want to do i don't think there's any yeah i i think changing the languages that i proposed i think might go to donna's question but bill i think it's still that that there's in that subsection um it's uh b i four says the mayor has a discretion to fly an appropriate flag for a single day if a public reserve yeah i saw that but it that to me seemed to be counter to the point that donna was raising so right but i think that would stay there that seems to be like that special occasion where you've got like one you know a one day kind of thing where somebody comes in or you know there is that sort of need where the council's not going to be there so the mayor can make that sort of judgment call for a single day but that normally the normal process is that you know comes before city council for review and approval and we could just simplify it and and don i'm happy to just have be the city council so that we don't get into any confusion as to um you know whether it's the mayor or city council will just simply put you know get rid of that extra extra language and just really focus it on having the city council approve the flying of special flags and then that subsection four carves out that sort of one day exception should a mayor want to that would feel better but that's fine thank you um other comments but jack thank you i was wondering if instead you know we could send this back to dan to work on again or the other thing that occurred to me is to address the point that donna raised in a section four b roman numeral one we might amend amend is just to at the end of the first sentence after the word city hall to say on vote of the city council period and then delete the rest of that delete the next sentence i think that would do what we're getting at i'm i'm comfortable with that language that jack's proposing because i think that's it's basically what i'm proposing is more elegant um so i'm okay donna does that work for you i think you're on mute still uh uh yes i guess i'll see the full draft i had six places that the mayor came up that i just had questions about so it probably will address it okay uh well are there other things you want to um bring up there donna uh i mean do you want me to name i mean there's just six places that the mayor comes up with some authorized by the mayor may editorial proclamation stated by the mayor um so i can send the the points to dan in case he missed them and then at the very end number two at the direction of the president governor or mayor so like you would be deciding who's at half mass who gets half mass outside of those that are listed you thought you the mayor would yeah i mean that that goes back to what i was talking about with bill earlier which is that sometimes that is time sensitive um you know oh i see okay and i think that's different than choosing it wouldn't be choosing a special flag to fly at half mass it would be just choosing when to put flags at half massed which uh you know again it would only be the city flag we can't put the other flags at half mass right right okay thank you so um uh donna does it make more sense to you to send the other like places to donna and then have us revisit this or do you want to um or are there other other thoughts from other folks uh about about all this yes jack one other thing about on the point about uh display of flags at half staff c1 says the flag shall be shown four and a half staff for a period to be prescribed under the following circumstances and then it doesn't say what the period is and i think that there's at the federal level maybe at the state level there's a certain standard practice and so i don't know how we would address that but again since the half staff thing it seems like we're trying to make it the self-indictuating automatic uh indicating what the period of time would be in the resolution or in the policy seems to make sense i can yeah i can i can add sort of a standard just look to see what both the federal and state and just model it off of that um and just add i can add language so i'm i'm happy to take it back and and make these two changes and then bring it back up in july um if those are the only changes that sounds fine to me i mean i understand the time sensitive piece but um beyond that uh i mean generally i think i agree with don it there's not necessarily i have besides facilitating the council um you know i think of myself as part of the council um so um unless there's a but again you know unless there's a reason like you know it's time sensitive and i think that makes sense um so um any other thoughts on this okay all right well and thank you again uh dan for all your work on this um it really is great and i think we'll um yeah so we'll take that up again in july does that sound about right team yeah yeah okay great all right um um okay um so i want to acknowledge that it is 820 right now um would folks like to take a break i suggest yes okay all right um so we're gonna take uh uh just about a is five minutes okay five minutes is all right okay so uh so we'll take a five minute break and be back about 825 and uh we'll go from there all right thank you and um so the next item is uh just uh revisiting the um uh coven 19 budget adjustment and we had taken this up um i think to um hear particularly from up here live or the multi-level development corporation i don't see anyone on here from either of those organizations am i as does anyone have any information to the contrary there no um we did reach out to the folks that were involved popular lives recall did not have reduced funding oh that's right thank you um but we did let the other folks know and they've indicated that they would not have people here at this meeting they said they understood and you know obviously wished it weren't happening but they understand the reasons why and that we're making reductions across the board including to city operations um so we did not as you know just to remind everyone there were no reductions in any of the funds to community service agencies non-profit agencies dealing with mental health those things were um no reductions to mobility or alive so okay um the way i want to sort of organize this time is see if there's any clarifying questions from council um and then if there are folks from the public that want to speak then um we'll we'll hear from them and then we'll uh revisit our our conversation so um any clarifying questions from council uh dana and then lauren dan grover um mentioned last time that the july fourth money or third money that montpellier live was hoping to apply that to another event did he ever give more information on that specifically of what event they were planning they were hoping to do something in the fall um but you know i'm still not sure whether that's going to be feasible and okay there's no reason why we can't look at our budget at that time you know it's $4,500 it's not one of the big reductions um so you know we can take a look at that in september or october if the if they think it's going to be feasible and where are we seeing with revenues okay good good just just just so you understand they were planning on taking that you know in uh october they do the uh moonlight madness event which is you know just promoting a you know sat is typically like it's either friday night or a saturday evening sale and a lot of local businesses are involved they were looking at um making it more of a weekend event you know hoping things were opened up a little bit more and look at some more activities and programming to help make it more of a sort of downtown business promotion throughout the weekend not just a one evening type of thing to rally people to come downtown so that's what they were going to divert those funds thank you um lauren oh and and then uh counter um one question i had um and thank you for all the work going into this this is really impressive to to get where you are so thank you kelly and the finance team and um city manager's office um just knowing that there's been a lot of state conversations around homelessness and money that's been going from like that was one of the areas where some of the cares funding was able to go into and i assume that's kind of part of the analysis here so there is a proposed reduction there have been new services and opportunities available there's also you know we can't use the system that we've used of of shelters um you know likely this year so just any if there's any update or more information on that piece you know could could more of that money potentially be coming from the state to help support our efforts to um support our population experiencing homelessness or is it just too early to know a little too early to tell but i do know i have talked to the homeless advocates and i believe there are some pretty major initiatives afoot they have to move pretty quickly uh one of the downsides they have to have this money sort of rolled you know committed by sort of september used up or you know done by december so there's this thing but um and as far as our funding the the main thing we're retaining with our funding is the outreach work which we all thought was really the key piece of this and um part of the funding is you know involved the sort of extension of the shelter at bethany which you know the congregate shelters like that aren't going to happen at least in the near future so i i do believe the state and local providers are working on trying to be innovative in the alternatives but someone state and more feds are going to have to come up you know this is we're talking about acquiring places and that you know i don't think our 12,000 or whatever is going to make a big difference in terms of that but we obviously remain committed to providing extra attention to the homeless community and particularly to the outreach worker thanks oh oh connor yeah yeah i think uh i think bill you probably explained this last time but uh just looking at that like the cola i know fire is excluded because of the collective bargaining agreement did we not have a cola built into the other two bargaining units sir so we did um i mean we in for budget we estimated cola for everybody um what we've um so what we have done we've agreed with the the public works department has agreed to go basically just extend their one their contract for one year with no change uh other than you know the steps and things but um with the proviso that if someone else gets it gets a cola then they would get it too with the police department we've agreed to hold off on any negotiations until later in the year when we have a clearer picture so um you know we may be that if revenues change and we get to the middle of the year we would be able to do something like you know make a change and do that in which case we would then have to do something with public works and same thing with the non-union people obviously we've we've played it so that savings is in this projected savings but it's also something we can do you know i mean obviously nobody likes to do these things but we've been fortunate that we haven't had to lay anybody off and many people are out of work and as we've heard from a lot of people there are a lot of community needs so um that seemed like sacrifice our folks could make um that okay thanks bill it's uh i think it's uh just worth noting we appreciate the employees stepping up here to an agree into that it's uh and i think it's a compassionate budget with no layoffs yeah agreed dan yeah just as a sort of further clarification i mean looking at some of the numbers of what's being cut it looks like this is a lot of deferred maintenance and vehicle purchases and equipment that it's um but could you or kelly explain just either not remembering or understanding will we talk about this the the 366 000 uh cut in dpw what exactly that breaks out to tell you want to take that one yes i'm happy to um let me just pull up my sheet here and don is also on the call so don i feel free to jump in at any time um so i might actually i've got the wrong sheet up here bear with me um do you mind if i just pull up my notes take your time it's okay thank you but then while she's doing that um i'll fill the bus for a minute we did you know i think i said this last time that if if this were we're looking at this as a you know a crisis budget as a you know we've got these this big revenue hit that hopefully you know one time and so addressing it was really to see you know we did look for large projects and large purchases that could be deferred with the idea that even if revenues came back normal some of them could be done in the spring remember this fiscal year it goes from july all the way to next june right to this time next year so if funding came back maybe some of these projects could be done still in this fiscal year or some of these purchases could be done you know if this were going to be and you know we may learn more over the course of year if this were going to be the new standard um then we probably would have to look more systemically at all of our programs and staffing and what we're offering and those kinds of things i think our our goal here was to keep the city services as people expect them and the needs of people and to slowly plan for our programs coming back uh and and um just hold off on big big dollar purchases so this this is definitely not a sustainable strategy for the long run this is definitely a this is what we're doing covid emergency f y 21 um we'll have to you know and and that's what we want to evaluate a month quarter by quarter and we'll have probably different conversation based on what we know come november december when we're talking about f way 22 but sure sure i just wanted to make sure that i understood and i you know i think that goes to connor's point which is that it is a humane budget um because it does keep the staff you know at the levels currently um it doesn't force you know a family to take this hit in loss of employment um and you know it really focuses i understand it's it's not a long term sustainable budgeting model but it's certainly one that we could take for this year or for you know for the short term and allows us to to build back in um some of these so i that i that i fully get and so and i want to go ahead weigh in on that though a little bit so yes of course we care about our employees very much so and we have great employees and we certainly don't want to disrupt their lives but everyone of those employees represents services that we provide to the residents they pay for through their taxes and that they're having trouble paying for and so um you know we want to make sure we have adequate people to plow the roads come winter and that we to respond to emergency calls and to provide services at the senior center if the revenues come in in the wreck you know so to manage our finances properly and not not lose track of the city's money so i yes we want to be humane as far as employees go but we also you know we have significantly cut back on our services over the last three months to try to balance this budget and we need you know it's getting to the point where it's not necessarily humane to the folks that are still working in some of these departments because they're they're overworked so we need to bring folks back to deliver the good so yes it's great i mean but i don't want tax workers that might be listening to saying you know they didn't cut this because they were being humane yes we're trying to be humane to our employees but we're also trying to make sure that we can deliver the promises that people voted for uh is what as best that we can now that's a that's a good point bill and i i appreciate that so i've got the detail that you were looking for and i can get into the specifics of the dollars associated but you know in whole and in summary you know the the things that are happening so i'll just start there but then the things that you know this is comprised of i'll go to there after that but um based on the priority listing that we got from public works the following projects are proposed to move forward um they are clared in avenue taylor street westwood drive chestnut hill culvert and crack ceiling and then the projects that will be delayed and are included in this um 366 thousand dollar figure um our coming street hubbard street retaining wall berry and loomis spa repair so it was those big ticket items right yep but as you were saying before these are items if the budget projections become rosier can be uh worked back into the budget correct but we should also remind ourselves no one likes to but um there's also a different scenario that we can be looking at at the end of the first quarter where additional sure to be taken from the budget so it's gonna you know we just need to see how this rules out well and along those lines and not to play sort of um you know the doom scenario but you know would there be a point at which you would start to look to cut back some of those services um you know yes I mean and obviously it would be in conjunction with you all making priorities um but you know if if we had another you know just just as we did this spring we have you know we don't have and I nor would I even suggest you know we seek any additional tax taxing authority I don't think raising taxes more than what we already passed is a viable solution for for people so our budget set um we don't have any more money coming in and and if we have less so now we're looking at the revenue side and so we would have to yes I mean we would have to make adjustments and I don't know again it depends on the gravity of the situation you know what where we might look first um but there's no question that our programs and services would have to be on the table because there's no money to pay for them right I think um we um the other part of what's um occurring in the coming fiscal year is we're not bringing back our staff um as early as we would have liked to we're also um handicapped um in terms of the amount of everyday um work that our team can do um we're not filling positions that are vacant in public works and so that will reduce not just the projects that we can handle but these everyday um situations and you know that may include um situations in which are um the members of our general public are um typically looking at street sweeping happening at a certain time and that may be delayed and we're going through that right now in that education experience with our citizens um and um so I think that the expectation for the amount of work that we'll be able to be accomplished that's um typically done regular putting up signs taking things down um or aside from responding to emergencies it will be slower in the coming year and that's not to say that we won't um have a healthy environment for our residents to live and work in but it will be different and um I just want to make that point so that we're not expecting the same level of service even though we're not doing um the um projects that were planned and I think it will also impact the following year because um we have a plan for the following year for the number of projects so we're missing projects this year we're working with reduced efforts because of the lack of staffing um so we'll need to talk about that as we go forward even if everything recovers um because we just can't possibly make up the time um yeah everything's going to get pushed back into the next year so right it's going to be an effect you know it makes me think about um you know that plan that we had to um just keep up with with maintenance um and I'm sort of assuming that that's what you're referring to really like it sets us back a year almost well and and that again it's with the time right like it just puts everything a little bit further out um so thanks for thanks for bringing that up to you because I think that that's important um I'll give you a good all a good example we have um some um problems on Nelson and Ridge Street resulting from last year's um situation in which we had to repair the streets so we typically would have taken care of um the um issues with the pavement there within 24 hours the cones are still up it's been almost a week um and we will be getting to them within the next few days or early next week um but repairing five um you know culverts along that street has taken us far longer to get to because of all the other emergencies and issues and regular work that was in the queue um so that's that's a really different level of service for the community and um and part of the reason I'm mentioning it is because as we move forward um you all may be getting some calls or concerns registered with you from your constituents because it's one thing to have that go on for a month or two months but to go on for six months um may be a different story so um and we're every day we're trying to adapt and decide how to be more proactive um so um we are working on it but that's the reality we're facing with the cuts in the um and the budget that we have thank you yeah um Connor did you have something you wanted to ask no okay I thought I saw I can but I was wrong um anyone else have a council have a clarifying question at this point okay um so um if there are folks that want to um weigh in from the public um now is it okay time to do that feel free to either raise your hand by clicking on the participant button at the bottom of your screen or um just unmute yourself mayor I'm not seeing anyone okay um all right well um there is otherwise no action to be taken on this item as we approved it last time um so um thank you again thanks for um let us have this conversation again and glad we were able to give um some other folks a chance to weigh in on it um so um and thank you again for your good work on this and you know we're gonna hope for the best and um see what happens okay um all right so moving on then um so we're on to discussion about Langdon street um so we have a recommendation from staff here and I know uh Connor you were a big part of that as well um so thanks for for your time and thanks for staff's time figuring this out um either Bill or Connor would you like to I'll start and then turn it over to Donna and Connor um Donna okay yes right so at the last meeting the council directed the staff to look at an option which closed off completely the back section of Langdon street and we did do that and we did draft up a plan for it and discovered a fair amount of uh concerns with it including uh the need to turn on to private property to make turns that you know sort of creating a dead end and and so um but we were in looking at that um Donna and Connor and some folks for our DBW met with folks on Langdon street about what you're trying to understand what they really needed and and what worked with them and understanding that this doesn't necessarily get us to the point of uh you know this vision of wanting to close the street and I we continue to have the same problems um you know the access that that can't be solved in the short term I think so I'm going to turn it over to Donna and Connor and Connor they they spoke with folks and so this proposal basically reflects that conversation which hopefully will allow particularly the restaurants to expand out um and still allow full access to the street for the people that need it so um there you go Connor do you want to go first no I think like you know sort of the genesis of this is the help of businesses on Langdon streets get things up and running get employees back to work make sure we don't have more empty store fronts there and uh you know I think I come in at at it with the with the direction let's just get it done soon let's get these tables out there so they can get back to work um I think there's a lot of logistics to be worked out there's way more when Donna and I went down the street with chief gallons and uh you know we were talking to folks and it's like can we just simplify this as much as possible and the simplest answer is just close that one one line there let them expand out we spoke to other business owners uh like Juliana at J. Langdon and she was like let's just you know it's a team effort on Langdon streets let's just get it done I have uh I'm not gonna lie to you I have fantasies of Langdon streets someday becoming like a mini church street I would love if we had cobblestones on their festivals going every weekend it could be a beautiful thing um but that that's not the purpose of this this is this is an economic development issue so I think uh as it was written up I think it gives us the ability to get done as quick as possible and as the summer goes on you know we could always tweak it or something but like let's not lose focus of where we're actually at let's keep businesses open you know Corey Chyndon from DBW uh other restaurants might want a similar accommodation but if you look at it it's it's not too many and we can take it as it comes so I think this is a very reasonable plan to just get up and running as quick as possible I think um so I think the benefits of this plan are that um it addresses um traffic and creates a safe environment for delivery trucks um the maintenance of um the separation between a public way and private property um it allows um significant room for the restaurants to utilize to their maximum benefit it keeps the people who would be using those restaurants in a safe situation um and as Connor represented it can be um put together in a relatively short amount of time um it still allows some parking on the streets um which was also a situation that was becoming bothersome um it doesn't require any of the off-street parking that were um private citizens and some of the store owners currently park um so we resolved all those um issues by coming up with this solution it and I think it's an interesting opportunity to begin to jump into this um test the waters um create an opportunity to see what else can happen and I think because the conversation we've already had um was very much a team effort by everybody participating in the conversation that we can overcome whatever small hurdles we need to um in quick time in order to keep this going as successfully as possible if the worst case occurs people don't come the restaurants aren't um satisfied financially or otherwise with the program that we've laid out it can also be taken apart very quickly without a lot of infrastructure change or damage to anything surrounding it we can move on to another potential solution um or they something else will happen that allows them to open up um and have more indoor seating um so I think that is the best option we have right now to satisfy um all of the different perspectives that we were trying to deal with and I see that bob gowens is um on this uh zoom meeting and so bob if you want to share any information um I'd invite you to do that because we're an important part of those conversations as well no the only thing I would add is that um this plan allows for a consistent emergency vehicle access right doesn't completely shut the street down so it's a good plan it allows the restaurants to get open and um accommodates emergency vehicle access so I think it's it's probably the best solution we have right now okay well it seems like this would work and meet the needs of some businesses on the streets um uh you know I remember early on we said we were interested in entertaining some alternative ideas and if businesses had ideas for something out of the box that we would certainly be interested in entertaining those ideas and you know we're working with folks as much as we could so it seems like this is um gonna gonna work particularly for a couple restaurants on Landon Street which is excellent um I think that's that's my opinion anyway um I want to just check in with councils first and then I see Elizabeth you've got a comment but anything from council here yes go ahead uh Donna I just would like to thank Donna Casey and Bob and Connor for the time and it looks like a creative way to do something small enough we can do it soon and not disturb too much of what's going on there but add something to enhance for the businesses so I think it's it's good I support it Jack I agree with Donna I think what we're trying to do here and I spent time like all the rest of the council out on the street trying to figure out walking back and forth up and down Landon Street and with the tape measure and everything trying to figure out exactly what we could make work and as much as some people probably myself included like the idea of having Landon Street be a pedestrian mall or something the practicality of doing it raises some challenges that I don't know if we'll ever be able to resolve then certainly we're not able to resolve in the time frames we're talking about here so I think that being able to do something that works quickly is is of great value so I support this also any um what else um one question I have just to just clarify sort of like talking about the flags and how long the flags stay up for with this change as it's a temporary change I assume if we uh this would be for the duration of as long as parking is um free basically uh downtown and that if we wanted to extend it beyond that I assume we'd have to revisit it at that point is that a fair statement I would necessarily link it to the parking because we could be you know we may want to bring that back even without changing this we're not sure about that we're still trying to figure that out I I think our assumption it was it would be through the same period of time that we authorized the parklets the temporary parklets so that was like October oh okay got you um and then you know by then you know the practicality is that the the demand for the outside seating will resolve itself as it gets later into October because people won't want to sit out as much so you know it's just gonna be too cool so um I would think we would do it into October and if the restaurants say hey nobody's sitting there we can we can end it earlier but in the meantime no later than whatever the parklet date is incidentally we've had two applications for parklets already come in great okay that's encouraging um Dan did you have something and then let's go to Elizabeth yeah no no I was just going to echo what what Bill said is that I I envisioned this as tied to the parklets great uh Elizabeth I just wanted to say that um I know that Bill and and Dan Groberg were on the vcrd streets for success uh call number of weeks ago and I you know this is um I just wanted to hear my failure community to realize that this is an initiative um that's being encouraged through the state and I'm so happy that my failure is jumping in and supporting business by looking at different possibilities of what can be done with Langton Street and it is such a complex issue and one of the things that was discussed in streets for success is that trying these very low impact pilot projects give us a sense of how things can work and you know allow us the mobility to you know to try something and potentially try something like it somewhere else so bravo to all of you who put in such just so much time I really applaud your efforts thank you that's fine I didn't hear me so well actually you guys should vote on whether you want to do this temporary thing I was ahead of more of a long term comment Connor go ahead if it's appropriate I know we just had discussion but if it's appropriate to make a motion I would move to uh approve the plan outlined in Danabarlo Casey's memo second second um further discussion um so my only uh the only thing that I want to um raise there is uh so the the barrier between that we're we're picturing was the snow fencing um uh yes uh do we are how are you feeling about having traffic right there with um I know this is like I'm in favor of it I'm going to vote for it what if I if I needed to probably I wouldn't need to but um but uh I'm curious for your thoughts on the safety of having the because even for parklets we're like oh you know it has to be something you know substantial uh and reflective etc um what are your thoughts on having traffic right right there next to folks so there's actually enough room um we measured it out we could go as far as the direct center of the street and set the tables slightly back from the edge of the snow fencing that's held up by orange cones um the approaching um traffic would have sufficient time to identify that and see that in advance we'd bring the um we're bringing the fencing down and then to the right um before um before you get to the restaurant so I think that um that works out really nicely for us um because we're taking the other half of the street and then the parking area so even trucks would have the ability we measured it off and looked at it um so I think that it will work and it will be safe and the people who are sitting in the restaurant at the restaurant tables will also feel safe but if not we can easily modify that um and and we would respond to that pretty quickly so okay great thank you I just wanted to make sure I um just raise that issue um okay so any further conversation on this and uh Cameron anyone that you're seeing has got a hand okay um all right so any further discussion um all in favor please say aye hi hi I have no opposed okay um great well so um when do you suppose this will be able to to go up um we'll have that converse I'll have that conversation with my team tomorrow and we'll see as soon as possible that will be our goal so and fully understanding that you all are quite stretched so thank you um for this we'll make um we'll make a great effort to act quickly um and get it pulled together so great okay well thank you um thanks everyone for your work to figure this out um all right so the next uh thing up was uh the coronavirus COVID-19 response update uh so uh I'm guessing I should be turning it over to Cameron um on this go for it there's a theme um so I sent the memo out earlier and for members of the public the memo will be um on the agenda packet for tonight um first thing in the morning um so I'm gonna go through this real quick um the state update since last time we met um the governor has put forward another economic recovery and relief package I'm asking for 90 uh million dollars for phase two um this plan has gone to the legislature for consideration and um action on June 15th uh the governor updated and extended the state of emergency in Vermont through July 15th so for us that sort of impacts um the fact that we can continue to do zoom meetings um and not have a staff member or a council person um in the room that the public needs to be able to access through July 15th um that goes for our committee meetings as well um he also ties into our mask regulations right yes it does thank you all right can I just clarify that for one second so do so our committee is able to meet after I know we'd had sort of a moratorium on committees but after July 1st it's okay for them to meet but they have to meet remotely yes we're encouraging everyone to continue to meet remotely um staff is slowly returning and so committees were asking them to work with their staff representative to get their schedules back up and running perfect okay thank you um he also put out additional guidance providing that campgrounds and marinas can operate at almost at a thousand 100 capacity on June 17th they have eased restrictions on Vermonters in long-term care facilities hospitals and for those over the age of 65 beginning June 19th outdoor visitation has resumed at long-term care facilities long-term care facilities can allow for up to two visitors per day per residence and those meetings have to be outside only um Vermonters over the age of 65 are no longer required to stay at home but they have asked them to um take special precautions when they are going out they also issued guidance restarting senior centers but I'll touch a little bit on that further down this line June 19th um they did uh have some more as they call it the turn of the spigot uh effective this Friday June 26 restaurants arts culture and entertainment venues can go from 25 percent to 50 capacity the cap for indoor establishments is at 75 people and outdoor operations are capped at 150 people or 50 percent of their total capacity whichever is less and then today the governor held a press conference where he discussed the following he did remind everyone that the census is very important so I do kind of want to take a moment to remind folks to take the census um vermont is currently ranking 47th out of all 50 states and those who have done the census it's very easy it takes a couple minutes at you can get to it at 2020census.gov or calling 844-330-2020 this week vermont state parks are all opening i would day use activities tents RV sites and lean to camping allowed they did also have an online reservation system put up um you can find that at the vermont state parks website there is also a new outbreak that they announced in the fair have been region with about 12 cases connected to a single employer they're still testing employees and the state is offering more testing opportunities in the Rutland area for residents so that's the state updates for our updates we do want to let folks know that we are opening um our pool pavilion now for renters with a packet in packet out policy regarding trash and with understanding there's reduced recreation staff able to maintain it to its full extent um the city phase one reopening plan was approved and we are starting to reopen this city hall facility on tuesdays and thursdays for appointments starting july 2nd the porta john's behind city hall and the senior center will remain until we're able to open city hall full time for bathroom access i'll remind the public that if you are coming to use our restrooms or the facilities we are opening the downstairs bathrooms for the public and ask you would come to the back door of the building because it's easier to access the bathrooms that way um regarding the senior center the governor did announce that senior centers could begin the process of reopening we are still without a lot of our staff that supports that department right now so as they start onboarding we will be creating plans to open we want to make sure that we are compliant with the state guidelines and our state is possible so at this time the earliest date we can expect the senior center to reopen under limited circumstances is august 10th but that is only an estimate at this time and we will keep you updated um every step we take to open that center um you know the folks that go to that center are at our highest risk and we do want to make sure that their safety is our concern um i just want to reiterate that the city council's mask ordinance is now extended to july 15th like bill mentions because of the state of emergency has been extended also to make note that um council member erickson in partnership with the city manager's office and the hunger mount and co-op will be purchasing masks i didn't have an update on that timeline i didn't know if you wanted to give an update um council member but i i just put that in there because i know that that's something that we are working on i i just i just heard from the co-op yesterday and they're still waiting on delivery without a you know they were hoping it would have been last week but um as soon as i get an update i'll let you know um as i've been updating you on our city communications um we had a little bit of a turn we have been trying to um post more about social issues and communicating your information regarding those issues so our um covid 19 related posts have gone down a little bit and now we're averaging this month or since last update over 600 interactions each so we're still doing really well um and we're still reaching quite a few people um i just want to let you know i give you these updates because i just want you to let you know um how our reach is going we are communicating in multiple different ways but that's the easiest one for us to track the metrics for so that's my update for this week if anyone has any questions not seeing any questions necessarily anybody okay um actually i do i do have a question actually um uh this is something that's come up sort of periodically uh over time um with either the covid updates or actually this is a little bit not related but just thinking about um our weekly reports um do we have a listserv that um the general public could be on that would potentially receive uh either the council reports or these kinds of updates i'm assuming we don't but i'm looking at bill i don't believe we don't no we don't have a listserv i mean we obviously we are on the social media we're on our website and those kinds of things and um but no we don't have a specific local yeah i don't know if i i i do kind of wonder if um that would be of interest has anybody else heard anything that that would be useful um if not that's fine but you know just always trying to think of like what are ways that we can get the word out to to folks and i'm we can certainly um look for it also sorry i just say it feels a little to me at least like front porch firm is the community listserv yeah that's also you know we could be more proactive about putting the weekly report in full uh either linked or um in full on front porch forum and other means so yeah just to help keep people informed i think i think that would be useful i think a lot of folks don't know the the good work that we're doing and um that would be one uh just an additional way to help highlight um just either what's going on or um just help keep people informed um jack now i'm i think i'm confused i i heard bill and camera and say uh we don't have a listserv but is it possible for anyone to subscribe to the get on the mailing list for the weekly managers report probably i think so i i'd want to check double check that with jasmine i mean i do think we have a list of people that have requested and they do they're on the automatic mailing list yes so maybe those coveted things should go to that list too right uh well of course the coveted updates are in the weekly report each week okay yeah uh the one i the memo i create for y'all on these nights is sort of a uh combination of my weekly reports um plus things that i thought you may be interested in knowing so yeah okay so so people can get that okay good thanks that's what i thought okay all right great thanks for that sort of a brief aside there um any other questions or comments about this okay all right well thank you again um thanks kerman for keeping us all up to date on all this um it's helpful especially as things continue to evolve um all right so we have uh the last item on our agenda and it is not 10 o clock that's fabulous um so uh five home farm way uh so bill okay um i'll start with a little bit of background just uh for all that are watching and also to help frame everything uh five home farm ways you know property out near agway uh in a year ago the city declared it a public nuisance due to its condition it was considered to be dangerous building and the city actually fenced it and boarded it up and then requested a mitigation plan as per our public nuisance ordinance from the owner and while this wasn't news to us at that time it certainly brought a long-standing issue to its head which is that the owner of the property is food works which is a dissolved nonprofit so they're the owner doesn't exist uh there's a mortgage held on it by the vermont community loan fund for approximately a hundred thousand dollars there is a preservation easement on it held on by the preservation trust of vermont particularly pertaining to the house and the front two acres of the property that they will be used technically the house is supposed to be restored to sort of its period uh glory and then the uh and then the grounds are supposed to be used in a historically significant way there's a conservation easement on the back to all the 15 acres which is in the floodway anyway not really particularly developable and it's just supposed to be held in public conservation um and that's held by the vermont conservation board vermont housing and conservation board excuse me um adding to the complexity is the neighboring property connor brothers llc has a right of first refusal to purchase the property that had been granted to them by food works um and that um and again the food works doesn't exist the easement holders dispute the authority of food works to have granted that right of first refusal so uh at the time of the public nuisance ordinance our action to clarity a nuisance uh a consortium of people headed by a gentleman named jamey duggin k fourth and said we'd like to try to save this building we'd like to see if we can put together a fundraising campaign and bring you a plan and including and so the council said yes with the proviso that you give us an update every three months and they have been doing so uh the last couple of updates had said we're engaging an attorney we're trying to sort through these ownership and easement issues uh and uh and the most recent one was due a couple months ago and because of table and we're just getting to it now uh but the report which is in the packet from mr duggin basically said we think the legal issues are insurmountable and we don't have the wherewithal to move forward with this so at its simplest the question back before the council is we've have an enforcement order out there we asked for mitigation plan the the party that we authorized or granted permission to develop one has said that they're not going to do it so you know our options are to move forward and uh schedule it for demolition set a date do nothing uh we have so having said that we've been in conversations with these groups i think there's a little bit of uh waiting to see who's goes first i think some of the groups want to see what the city chooses to do and i think those of us from the city would just as soon see them resolve their differences and come up with a plan um and i certainly don't want to speak for any of those groups but that's been what i've heard we have engaged an attorney the attorney general's office has been engaged uh two things i can tell you since the last meeting that have changed that are of some substance one is that our the attorney general asked the city to look into the issue of declaring it abandoned and what that might mean for the various easements uh he wasn't sure what that would mean so he said you need to look at that and see if that's a way to go the second thing is our attorney uh asked me why he was new to this case asked me why we hadn't sort of put it up for tax sale or taken for taxes and my response was well it's a it's been it's a non it's a nonprofit it's owned by food works so it has been tax exempt and his response which was good advice says well the statute doesn't say who owns it it says is it being used for those public uh purposes for you know for which are tax exempt and the answer right now is no so we've recently listed it as a taxable property uh in hopes that that might also prod some people to taking extent i don't know that i mean it's still there's a period of time when we saw like will we take it for tax sale tomorrow we've got to go through a tax cycle so people i'm not paying and and who knows perhaps the the mortgage holder will pay the taxes so it's not to lose their interest but that is a change so that's happened um so i think the purpose of this conversation really is to ascertain what role the city wants to play in this um we've been trying to be a broker i think the attorney general is probably a better honest not honest but a better neutral broker than we are since we do stand to uh to have i don't know almost any scenario the back 12 to 15 acres would be coming to the city for public use sums for whether recreation park community garden dog park any number of public areas public things that could could benefit the community um i think the preservation trust might want to see the city take the front two acres and understanding that the building might need to come down uh as long as the rest of the property was uh sort of signed and used for public use and made clear that it had had some historic significance and that it would be a fully open park and i think you know i don't i don't know if we have interest in that i i think that um certainly the community loan fund would like to see themselves get paid off under those circumstances and again i think we might have a challenge um from conners that they have a right to first refusal i think from the city's perspective absent a clear directive from the council in that just because we haven't talked about it i have told i have stated regularly that the city is neutral on the house that we we um we'd be happy to see some sort of public use but we'd be equally happy to see additional taxable property additional jobs that both that we see a public benefit to either outcome and so we're not here to push for one or the other and we would support a solution that that that resulted in those and actually our parks director weighed in in favor of that as well so that's the nature of the the conversations i think the key questions is do we have strong feelings about the house property um are we wanting to move forward to address the the nuisance or are we wanting to sit tight and push the negotiations a little bit i i i do think some of the city's actions have prompted conversations that had not happened for four or five years this isn't a new scenario um so we i think we've simulated some discussion i don't know you know what each each group has to do in some regards i you know i can't overstate this the the real controlling factor here on the house portion is the easement the preservation trust easement because as it stands now a person acquire an entity acquiring that property is required to bring the property back to its its full you know former uh condition historically accurate condition and i think that has is what has prevented the um the bank the the community loan from foreclosing and i think it's certainly prevented others from wanting to just buy it from the community you know loan fund or you know and who can even sell it right because whoever at this point you're assuming that liability and i know that the preservation trust has been asked to remove that easement even asked has been offered to have it you know amount of the investment paid back to them um in exchange for removing it and thus far they have not done so the staff simply says it's up to our board we can't make that commitment they don't usually do that i don't know if it's ever been brought to their board um so those are those are the scenarios whereas i think the back portion the vhcb portion there's not much debate that that should ultimately come to the city for public use so we're really talking about the front portion and what our role is and how aggressive we want to be um with regard to the house and the condition of the house and mindful of the fact that we the city has declared it a public nuisance um just as a clarifying question bill could you describe uh a little bit about i mean i don't know that this is the direction we should go but if we were going to be collecting or basically billing for back taxes uh with as a you know and basically come to the point where it was a tax sale um could you just describe that process like what how long would that take i mean do we just say here's a bill for all the you know the back so first of all we can't bill for back taxes because we didn't list it as a taxable property we had listed it as a so it starts now um i am not a hundred percent conversant there maybe actually a couple of attorneys that know more about uh taxes uh tax sales that i do on our board but there's a period of time that has to go by with back taxes and after after that goes i want to say it's a year or two at least um then the city can say we want to redeem our taxes so someone can pay the off the taxes then they then there's a certain period of time where the owner has the right to redeem to pay them back and a lot of people do that for interest because the pay then they collect interest on that that payment if if then the owner never redea pays off the original tax sale then that person becomes the new owner of the property so sometimes and cities and many cities will themselves buy the properties at tax sale because they're on investment and they can either get paid back in the future by the owner or then then own the property um i have no reason to believe that we put this up for tax sale you know it's entirely possible conners would pay the taxes on it or the as i said or the the um bank because they want to protect their investments sir so having it go to a tax sale it doesn't necessarily mean that it would come to the city of just it could but someone else could also it would open the door for someone else to to claim ownership and actually be a real owner and i guess one of the you know the outstanding question that we're looking at is is under those conditions do those easements and restrictions carry forward or they extinguished when the property you know i don't know so it's still i mean the the number one reason no one no one wants to buy the property as is is because you you can't do anything with it without a giant investment of money and i think if someone were to go the route of if there was going to be a a fair and equitable solution where so everyone who's made whole it would seem that you know from a financial perspective i don't know if these groups agree with this but i would think that the bank would need to get paid off that's 100 and somewhat thousand the easement would need to be paid off which is 57 000 and then someone's got to pay for demolishing the building which is going to be at least 50 000 so you're talking 200 plus thousand just to get to a parcel that you know may or may not you know who knows how developable it is we don't know what other issues there are okay thank you um dan oh sorry i was just going to add um you know i i my general understanding at least in tax sales is that easements usually do go with the property leans mortgages they get they get discharged um but something that's an easement that runs with the land goes with the land even in a tax sale and you know the basic rule in a tax sale is you you have this accumulated back taxes that almost never amount to as much as the mortgage uh investment so it's you know it's going to be several hundred it's not going to be several hundred thousand it's going to be ten thousand um by the time it ever gets to a tax sale and it's an auction and then it's a year of redemption and you know it's it's not the fastest process um either um and a lot of stuff can happen within that so i just wanted to offer that yeah it's definitely not a golden solution but it is at least a minor change in status that's occurred since we last talked about this so i thought you all should know about that um um i i still feel like i have some questions like for example dan i'm not necessarily familiar with this process of redemption um can you just what is what does that mean that's okay no it's a wonderful process so what happens is um when you have back taxes and there's there's no real fine line to when you have to other than i think eight years is the limit you can't collect more than eight years back in back taxes so usually when properties accumulate a certain amount um bev hill for the city of montpellier does it um she'll list it for tax sale which means it goes to a public auction um and a lot of people do bid on it and they can bid in excess of what's owed on the taxes um and that money is then held by the city and they take the first amount of that money and they pay off the back taxes and the rest is held in sort of an escrow fund and uh it sits there and the owner has one year in which they still own the property they still control the property it's still theirs in which they can redeem the property by coming up with everything that's owed and that means the taxes that have been paid on their behalf um the interest on those amounts um usually any type of fees that the city has accumulated to a certain amount uh in doing the tax sale but that has a limit it's about 15 percent of the taxes owed um and then usually you have to come up with actually the other amount of money that the person is holding just because you you make the bitter hole to redeem the property so for example if it's 10 000 owed and the person bids 40 000 you're going to have to come up with that 40 000 and how that gets allocated is a little bit complicated but you've got to come up with that whole chunk of money and then you get the property back and you basically buy it back and you have a year and at the end of that year um that's when your right as the owner disappears and it's gone no longer yours it's now owned by whoever put in the winning bid as you can imagine there's all kinds of issues with that and every title insurance company in the state of Vermont despises tax sales because they can complicate title uh you know in unexpected ways and so um it's not a good way to go about transferring property I mean it may be a solution here because it it removes uh some of the loggerhead but um it is a complicated process and it has a number of pitfalls and you have due process and it's especially difficult here because the entity doesn't exist so who you know you could always have somebody come out of the woods at the last minute and go I'm the I'm the owner I've declared myself by you know filing something that I'm the new food works um better than the old and here's my money and give me my property back and there are stories like that um I actually just represented somebody who helped someone who was in a tax sale buy the property out from underneath the person who would want a tax sale so it was um these are you know you think tax sale you think plain vanilla ice cream but it's it's it's really rocky road thank you that's helpful um did I see some other hands uh okay yeah Elizabeth and then Jay um I think I'm going to defer to Jay first and then I'll speak okay fair enough thank you Jay go ahead thanks Elizabeth we might have share some similar thoughts here um I think it's important to point out with uh with with this property that there's a lot of local interest um particularly in the back you know 12 to 15 acres as um uh for public use particularly around agriculture um it is in like Bill said in the in the floodway and so it's got a high quality high quality soil um there's um there's also a great potential uh the the far end of the property is the confluence of the Stevens branch and the Winooski so there's a lot of great river access potential um throughout the property um and so I know that not only has the newly formed food security coalition um spent time there but also and talked about the potential future once you know once there's Gordy and not of the legal issues around the the building are are are unraveled um but they're uh you know there's just it's it's already being farmed on on a small scale so there is a lot of potential to increase the capacity um to the potential to potentially even repurpose the building and see this as something of a peculiar version of an intervail so something at a smaller scale is is very real um and I know that um uh one more thing I'll add and then I'll hand it over to Elizabeth but also is that you know the director of our parks department and other folks in parks have been working there and have a lot of interest in the potential of the property overall thanks go ahead Elizabeth so um so I just wanted to say that I don't know if we've found really made you all aware of the fact that there's a very vital food security coalition that has been needing uh four times they've met now and um there are a number of working groups uh one of which is around um a tourist farm is what we're calling it not five home way but anyway um I you know in in my history I don't know 35 years ago I lived in Marshfield and we took the uh Marshfield Village School and made it into a multi-purpose community center and um and so I was the chairman of the economic development committee in Marshfield you know how small that is but we raised then a half a million dollars to rehab the school and so I look at that building and see so many different components of where funding can come from and I have great hope that it can have a historic preservation part it could possibly have housing on the second floor for you know farmers who are having small plots in the back 40 or 17 or whatever it is and and then have meeting space and some processing and storage space in the in the barn and that there are multiple streams of grant money that can come in to to bring it back to its former glory uh so I know I sound like a dreamer but I have had some background in this and I am starting to look at the options we had a wonderful uh informational interview with Will Rapp about intervail and its its beginnings we've talked with Grow Food Northampton we're just starting to interview a lot of communities that have managed to raise significant amount of money and also have created a lot of jobs you know the goal would be food production job creation housing and energy from our perspective so anyway as more information becomes available from our end we'll definitely share it with you but we're we have yet to we're just starting to talk with the oh my gosh I have to get my nomenclature here I may have to put on my glasses uh Vermont oh yes the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and we haven't talked with the AG's office yet Bill's got a lot more information I was interested in hearing it um but we're just starting to kind of understand the little Gordian knot that we have to deal with here to move forward so um that's my my update just to let you know that that's out there in the Aether's I'd advise you to also talk to preservation trust because even though they're yes they go through VHCB they're the ones who actually hold the easement on the house right it would seem to me that to do what you want to do affordably um they're still gonna have to relax their easement somehow because I don't yet I love your vision for this property um I've also heard for five years or so different people with this similar type vision who have been unable to put together any kind of funding to do it and that's that's not me I know so I'm just saying is that um you know I think from at this point you know the city has really only two two roles in this one is we are the potential owner of the back 15 which I think I need to speak for the council but I don't think anyone's objects to that I think that's a great you know thing and we have a public nuisance that we're dealing with and um other than that how other parties can sort this out is fine and um but someone has someone has to budge somehow there's got to be you know there are a lot of players that have a lot of stake and you know I know you can get things done Elizabeth I also know that I've sat around those tables with many of those same people for a long time and listened to a lot of that you know Paul Bruins of the world and the the folks that have moved a lot of mountains in Vermont and you know here we are the house is going to fall in and won't be of historic value to anybody because nobody will have done anything I appreciate your viewpoint though and I want you to succeed I'm just going to tell you I'm going to give it a go all right um other thoughts from council otherwise I have some trying to outline like what are our choices what are our options so that we can just be clear about potential options moving forward but go ahead Jack when this question of the public nuisance came up and and the the potential rescuers of the property came forward I was very very skeptical I thought it was probably unrealistic and nearly impossible that the the money would be and the ways would be found to bring this property back and and really make their vision happen but I was certainly willing to have the city seal off the property so that it didn't pose an immediate danger to public health and safety and and give the people who at the time seem to be the people in the community and in the area with the greatest degree of interest in making something of this property give it their try to come up with a plan and and come up with the financing to make something happen and it turns out that it was they determined that it wasn't possible for them to do that I don't know that it's not possible for anyone to do that but nothing's made me nothing in the interim has made me any less skeptical of the of the prospects for this property and I've been told at many of these meetings that this house is of great historical significance to the city of Montpelier but and maybe this is the site that it's always stood on as as long as the building's been in existence but it's hard to picture that property being becoming a vital part of the of the life of the community given where that property is and where the center of the community and the and the population of the community is now so I think it's important for the city to protect its interest especially protecting the public health and safety I'm not determined that we should go in and demolish the the house next week now that the people who thought they could save it have thrown in their hand but I don't want to wait forever even it seems though you know waiting forever is what's gotten the building to a place where it's where it's potentially where it's potentially falling down and and so I think we should we should be realistic about what can be done and what who's going to come up with the money what's a realistic timeline and and not wait around forever for it with regard to the you know we know that we have a real estate developer who has a crack record of developing good properties in Montpelier and providing economic benefit to the city who wants to do something with the property and I don't think that's nothing I see the value of a park and you know the mention of a dog park is is a good idea because that's something lacking in the city now also is worth keeping in mind though that the demands of adding parkland to the city aren't just finding the land and declaring it a park and you know do do does the parks department have the personnel to manage another 15 acres of parkland and I think that's another question that we would want to look into before we decided to turn into a park so I'm happy to give Elizabeth or anyone else who thinks they have a reasonable shot at doing a reasonable chance to try but I'm not interested in waiting forever for that to happen thank you um any other thoughts so I I've so I feel like I have three options um in front of us and if there are more if I've missed any please you know chime in but I mean option one is do nothing right now um which is I'm not sure I feel about that um option two is um move forward to initiate um collecting taxes on that do we need but would we even need to vote on that that's done that's done okay but that's still going to be years away before that really right all makes a difference right and so so then the third option and maybe there's a fourth option here but the the one third option anyway uh or I guess it's really a second since um we've already initiated um you know collecting taxes on it um is to pick a day um that we would choose to demolish well but then actually let me back up on that would we I guess in the absence of any other plan any other mitigation plan would we have the authority to go demolish it I think we would um we do we do under our ordinance and um we would then attach the cost of demolition to the the property now you know I don't know if the house is gone what that then means you know how how restrictive the easements are because now no one has to restore the house to its former condition um so I don't know how that plays out I'm not recommending this we necessarily do that but um but yes the city can this we're allowed to abate a public hazard yeah one thing we went good well I was gonna say I mean another potential choice we could make and this is not necessarily even precluding other you know that option um it feels like there could be an opportunity to do to have a group of people come together to do some visioning for the property even if it's just for the back part if the part of the you know vision collecting for that property includes something for the for the building then you know great uh but I actually kind of wonder if we shouldn't start thinking about that anyway knowing that seems likely that we would come like but that at least the back part of the property may come to us anyway um so thinking about you know do we want a dog park do you like how much of it should be ag how much of it should be park or and what are the implications for all of those things like that's not a question I feel like we here are going to resolve um but somebody should be having those conversations um Cameron well I just Alec isn't here so I do want to sort of um uh don't want to put words in his mouth but that is a space that he's um interested in a space that earlier is developing and working on um in an agricultural way right now so I would just advocate sorry I just don't want to be in the dark um I would just advocate for including them in that in that visioning and and let them lead that because they do have some really big ideas for that space in its entirety and they would be able to tell us that they do have the capacity um because it's in the floodplain I don't know how much it's um able like walking paths there's a whole host of environmental issues with that so it might need to be just a concert like an honest conservation space that is open to public the public um if I remember my conversations about that plot of land correctly but there is some visioning work already happening and I would urge you to um allow them to be the sort of lead that you asked to for that for that work so so Alec is um sort of and already sort of initiated the the visioning process around that property yeah he's part he's partnering with a lot of folks to make that that agricultural space a reality I'm sorry Bill I interrupt all I was going to say is I think the one thing as far as the back part that the council could do would be to affirmatively express an interest in in having that property come to the city you know we've talked about it and I've said yeah I think we are and I know the parks are but I don't think the city council has ever said yeah you know the back part we're happy to take on we don't that easement doesn't bother us we're you know and I think they're playing I think they're planning to give it to the city I think it's going to cost us money maybe more about that but um and we can do well let's hear from Elizabeth I know you had another comment here but then I want to kind of revisit um particularly just that question that feels like a discrete thing that we can talk about and maybe collectively have an opinion about um Elizabeth go ahead yeah so I like the idea of the visioning process um I actually just spent like a week writing a document about parties who might be interested in doing a visioning process for that property um and there are you know the food coalition they're now probably about 16 different entities that are part of the food network within the greater not clear area uh and John although we haven't had Alex on the committee we've had Jacqueline actively participating as the vote of as his voice uh so there's a pretty active group of people who were really excited about this right now so I'm excited to hear that you're thinking about including them thank you um I do not know this person you're referring to Jacqueline Jacqueline is our Vista and she will um be moving in with us full time for the parks department starting after we start bringing folks back from furlough um she's been an excellent member of our team for a while now and we're really excited to have her full time so okay great okay thanks um particularly about this question of um are we interested in being the owners of the back part of the property how many acres is it the back part we don't know okay somewhere in that range okay um any thoughts on that from the council uh jack I think the answer is maybe uh when I when I saw this on the agenda actually what I was thinking was very much like uh like your idea and have some kind of uh public process for people to uh come and bring whatever ideas they have in mind and come up with it with a plan and see if it's workable um and so I that's what I would suggest we do set some time for it for it to start and uh some time for them to have a product and proceed from there so are you suggesting that like we don't set effectively like an execution date um until this visioning process is over is that well like what you're thinking or is that not no that's that's totally what I'm thinking assuming that it's a reasonable timeline which I'm thinking is probably three to six months I don't know what uh how long it takes to do something like that but that just is what feels feels right to me seems that seems fair um any thoughts on either that or the idea of the count of the city uh owning the back part I'll just speak for myself and say that I'm I'm interested in having the city um own the back part whether that's for a park or any of the other ideas that have come up I think it has a lot of potential and particularly since it is um the floodway that there's there is limited um possibilities for it um but even the possibilities that exist I think are purposes that might serve the city so one suggestion we could do I see you know Bob still on the call is we could re-inspect the building we haven't been there I don't think since last year um and so uh and maybe I'm wrong about that but we could assess its condition you know has it worsened is it more dangerous um and that might also inform our decision making if it stayed relatively stable then that might say okay you know we can we can allow for longer it's it's because our again our issue is the public nuisance and making sure it's secure and making sure if someone you know homeless people who ever were to get in there uh that they're or just kids breaking in for the heck of it um that they're safe uh that there wouldn't be a calamity uh or disaster um so that might be one step we could take in terms of figuring out how how imminent the demolition ought to be and then maybe set a period of time whether it's for a visioning uh or just simply we'll accept proposals we'll give you you know set a date in the fall or something for people to come in and say here's our ideas for the the property and maybe you know maybe Elizabeth and her group will have organized a group and they've it will be a single proposal or maybe it'll be you know people with proposals for private loose but I think part of those proposals has to be how do we address these outstanding issues it can't just be we think this is what should happen to the property it needs to be here's how we're dealing with the easements here's how we're dealing with the mortgage holder here's how we're dealing with all of these other complications because if those if those aren't addressed I mean that's what's prevented all the other good ideas from going forward over the last several years it's not okay um I saw Jay then Donna I'll defer to Donna go ahead well it just this has been a long process and I got really excited with proposals and the reports that kept coming back and kept hoping something would happen I would like to see two groups one start dealing with legality and what really is the ownership and all of that and another group that does the visioning and just take three months and see what we can do in that period of time and then we may have to just cut bait and take the house down but I'd like to see it approach two separate ways I think they're different mindsets so I think two different groups are needed um Jay do you want to talk well you know I just um I agree uh with the mayor that I do think the property itself is would be a great asset to the city um you know particularly um with the extension of the bike path that leads to just about right across the street from it it could be a real community resource I do think that absolutely we need to go through an appropriate um visioning process to uh to determine what's the best use of you know of the land and what's feasible the fact that that you know we have to remember that it was in 2011 that the the two floods that happened in that year is ultimately what was the dissolved the nonprofit that was operating on the land so we you know we have to be very conscious about all the implications of um of what managing that property would look like but I don't enough I don't I'm not necessarily going to make a recommendation on substantive steps that we can take as a council right now but I do think Donna is right we need to approach this from you know from from two sides and it seems to me like the the the visioning could sort of move on its own making certain assumptions because like Bill said there is a good chance no matter what happens legally with the building that um even if it were to go to the Connors that the city would end up with the back the back acreage so I think that that you know can move forward with that assumption but having somebody having a group a working group that was focused on you know engaging with the AG's office and all the different players you know and I know that Bill you know has started that process and brought people together but that could be proactive and try to get some you know the board definitive course forward would be would be great um I do also want to express some support for re-inspecting the building um one of my concerns in all of this is that in all honestly my concern is that the building has bad bones so to speak right and so if that's the case like how much of it is is actually salvage salvageable um and I mean because I mean one possibility is that um it would literally be cheaper to tear it down and like build a new building that was on a solid foundation uh and maybe elevated even you know so it doesn't you know was not quite as flooded like that I don't I don't know if that would be cheaper than trying to repair the building that exists but it might um and Lena that's all that is a part of the question anyway and also if it's if it's about to fall down like if it really if it's so bad that um it is gonna be falling down you know eminently like any any you know day now then then that would that would just be really important to know because because then that's a different public health threat and that is sort of that is our responsibility um uh so you know knowing how close we are to structural failure I think is probably important um Dan go ahead sure and I want to disclose my my firm represents the preservation trust of Vermont we haven't been representing them in this particular case so far to my knowledge um but I do want to be careful about um that potential conflict but I I agree um with the with your comments about um the public not just the public nuisance but the public danger um you know because that is a uh structure you know the liability to the owner but also the danger presented by it may be enhanced and and if it hasn't been inspected in a year I think it's important to just understand are we dealing with a an immediate emergency and I think that would be regardless of who has what interest in this um you know that's something that's important to know and I think that's that's a critical first step to figure out what the public health above the immediate public danger posed by this building is or might be um and whether it could be used for some of the additional information I don't know and I'm I'm not going to necessarily comment on it but um you know it strikes me that that beyond that um Bill did you get a sense of whether the parties were kind of at the table or whether they had sort of uh reached a stalemate as far as the various interest groups in this case I think there was some discussion um they were at the table I'm not sure all the cards have been played um and um and I think there are you know there are some solutions that are more sticky than others and so I you know it's hard to say um I think there seemed to be some desire to find out what the city was going to do uh and you know I've pushed back and said well there's a whole host of options here some of which you are all participants um but I think they want to know if we're just going to tear the building down or if we're going to set a date because I'm not that creates a different set of contingencies for them it sets you know a decision from us you know I think things the city can do in terms of decisions one is just set a date to take the building down two is to say we prefer it be private development or we prefer to be publicly held or we prefer to have time for a group like Elizabeth's to see if if the the spirit of these easements can be uh you know maintained so but even some preference from us right now I've just said any of it sounds great we don't prioritize one over the other we are interested in the back in theory um but we we don't want to continue a public hazard of the building but that's been my statement something I think the pushback to us has been well then what are you guys going to do well I mean it seems like a couple of different things I mean I think there's the immediate threat whether this is a you know a danger the the stick house that's about to fall over which is something that's just slowly decaying um but something you said earlier is that the city's not likely to get its money back that it invests in tearing out and tearing it down in other words if we just if we if well I I say that I mean right if we I could be wrong about this but we're we're we're third on the line of creditors right you know right um and so so we would be doing that as a mitigation method it would be a cost of enforcing it would be the cost of mitigating public danger it wouldn't be part of a project cost right which I think makes sense if there's an imminent danger as opposed to simply saying you know I mean in some ways tearing it down makes it an easier first for everyone and saves a couple of costs so um you know I guess that's that's the one thing I guess I would question sure and you know Bob has been in that building so he you know last year he's probably the most knowledgeable to tell us you know obviously it's years we're old but you know how imminent at least whatever his take of the condition of the building is yeah the last time we were in it um that the entire building was not in imminent danger of falling down the porches there's a two-story porches on the front of the building that are in bad shape they could collapse um food works has done it did a lot a lot of work in that building including putting a new foundation under about half of it so the foundation the cement foundation under about half of it is not that old what we will do those um we'll get back in there we can get back in there in the next week or so and take another look at it and we'll I'll also bring um division of fire safety has a structural engineer who we have access to so we'll um I'll reach out to him or have Chris Lumber reach out to him tomorrow and we'll get Chris now get back up there with the structural engineer and take another look that would be great um that's relevant going forward is knowing exactly what what the state of the building is that we're dealing with because it's one thing to have a wonderful vision and it's another I'm I'm a pragmatist of the highest order so I look forward to your report Bob you know so we could maybe conclude that you know at least theoretically it's not going to fall down tomorrow the porches might but the rest of it won't Lauren I was just going to I think that's great to get a reassessment of the state of the house um and then I was just going to go back to Donna's idea which I liked of having you know one group that's really focused on the legal questions and one group on the vision um for the property and the back property and maybe writ large um so I and like with this a real timeline thinking to Jack's comment of you know not dragging things out forever so maybe the three months was a good you know give us some time to really put something down on paper for the visioning and and answer some of the legal questions or if they're still just as much of a morass is there right now then that would be good to know too and um so I'm just going to relift that up and see if there was interest in that approach sounds like there there is some interest in that I there I have a few questions about that but I just want to make sure I we revisit this one topic does anybody particularly not interested in the back uh acreage yeah because maybe everyone else is like I'm taking your your silence is like the oh yeah straw pole like do you do you want the back acreage this could be like maybe or I don't know okay okay so okay so we have like two maybes and I think we had more yeses um I don't think we need a vote on that I just wanted to see where we're at yeah um okay so that's that's one thing um in terms of you know having these two groups um do visioning at least in terms of like visioning for the property whether that's the back or it's the whole thing um I mean it sounds like Elizabeth's group is meeting and it has some representation from the parks department um there um through Jacqueline um but I've been involved with those meetings as well sorry oh you have been okay okay well so I mean just zooming out for a second like one of my concerns there is that if that is a desire of this council that we have a visioning group that um I mean one possibility is that those meetings should be open to the public um if it's like a council group um like so so one question is like is that a council group or could it be a private group and then you know y'all are just doing your own thing and really under the auspices of a different organization and so that's fine um I just think that that it would be good to be clear about that um and or are are we sort of letting the you know are we endorsing the work of this group or you know or even like you know delay things for the sake of a private group or is it our own group um that's really my question before you go Elizabeth any thoughts from council on that yeah Jack I said that I thought it was should be a private process or public process the more I think of it the more I think maybe it doesn't have to be because you know we know of a group of people that is already thinking about or working on ideas for what could happen to the real estate but there could be other people who also have ideas who who might if if we say okay we want to have somebody come to the council by whatever date October 15 or whatever date it is um it could be that someone else could could take that as a signal to put together their own idea and also present to the council and so and that's fine if they do yeah um Lauren I think I generally agree with that the the only thing I am I am feeling cautious about with that approach is just knowing how challenging this property is and there's so much context like I would hate for someone to waste their time doing a vision without you know necessarily having the opportunity to speak to all the players and understand all the complexities of it and and maybe a more formal process that ensures that all the right you know voices and legal entanglements and everything are known understood and that something's being put forward that would actually be feasible um and work that's just one consideration um thing is also too if it's a city group then I think we actually probably have to make an appointment to it as like a working group which would take a lot of time potentially it's almost just easier to have it be a private group but um Elizabeth go ahead so I just wanted to say that on you know this visiting that's happening is not under the auspices of any one group this is a coalition of people and and I I'm you know kind of in the my thing as an organizer is to involve people and I certainly would be happy to make the process more public and you know basically I don't know have some design stress or you know whatever it is that would be part of the visioning in order to make it very public and get as many people in to walk the property and you know I do think it'd be great to put together some sort of um uh written description of the of the legal conundrum uh so that people could know that um in general uh and I don't know whether the city can take you know Donna's idea of having the legal avenue figured out or or someone going down that road um but yeah go ahead Donna I'm just putting my hand up for my turn after you don't let me interrupt okay well I thought you had a brilliant idea I was going to do absolutely that's always but um yeah so I just think that you know some of these things do need to be put together and I'm just happy to help facilitate that in whatever way I can uh Donna go ahead well I was really feeling they don't need to know all the legal entanglement they should just vision the property I mean again and I think vision the property particularly without the house and even maybe a real light drawing of something totally different on stilts whatever but that they just deal with the property and a vision and then that's why I separated them because the legal stuff we know this other group has gone on what five years trying to untangle it um so I wanted that to be separate purposefully I don't think you need to know the legal stuff to look at the land and decide what you'd like to do with it that's all yeah Bill um so a couple things about the legal thing one um right we certainly understand the legal situation I think the question is how do you move forward past it and to some extent you know one of the reasons there's been a legal stalemate is that each I think each group that's been involved uh today excluding the city well we've been involved from the public safety aspect but in terms of the use of the property has been involved from the point of view of asserting their legal rights for the outcome that they would like to see so to some extent us you know if we're interested in a particular outcome then we would probably pursue how do you get that legally does that mean uh you know so let's just say for the sake argument that we really wanted this to be developed privately whether it was a con or somebody else you know we might be then looking at how do we extinguish these easements what what you know do it does what is the role the city can play taking it by having a domain or whatever you know or declaring an abandon to somehow take these restrictions away to open it up for other things if our goal is that we want the whole thing to be in the public's you know we want whether we own it or it's open to the public then our role might be hey preservation trust how can we work out something you know maybe you pay for the building to come down but we keep it you know we'll help we'll you know so I think I think there's right now there's just a lot of people have competing visions for the property and our we've said we just want it to be safe um so if we want to become a player then then you know we're that's a different role than we've had I think we can you know I could picture a group like Elizabeth's uh partnering with VHCB in the preservation trust and saying this is what we want to further our interests with this easement and then that party would have to figure out okay what does that mean for the bank getting paid off what does that mean for for Connors right first refusal and then they'll have to negotiate those out somehow so so a lot of the legal is um what are people interested in and what do we want to come out from so as you know there's no there's no specific legal outcome here until we figure out the path so you know it's like how do we want to where are we going and how do we get there so so perhaps the legal questions almost have to wait until we know what what we want right and what maybe what other people you know it may be what we the city want or it may be what the easement holders want I mean they invested money to to have an outcome on these properties so they have a lot of say so you know maybe it's they say fine if if you can raise the money to build this you know we'll let you tear it down if you're going to rebuild it in this new way you got to pay off the bank and we'll go to court with you if Conor tries to force us right to first refusal you know who knows I mean there's any number of outcomes that could happen and we can't speak for any of those agencies but you know Elizabeth and her pals should certainly reach out and see where you know what they're open to and doing I think what we could communicate to folks is we're interested in seeing something happen we certainly would be interested in the back property and we're going to inspect the property you know we're just going to sit tight and keep assuring that the property is safe and let the rest of you sort it out yeah yeah that's an option um you know that so that that makes sense to me just in terms of um as a as a process you know giving kind of as Jack was suggesting perhaps like three to six months somewhere in there um for some visioning to happen and then you know hopefully with some public aspects to the process hopefully in partnership with BHCB and the Preservation Trust and and hopefully with those partnerships and some maybe some public design charrette opportunities that we can have these to have a vision for what might be good for that property and particularly like you know with that building um you know because gosh like it could it could be it could be very expensive and but the thing is like if there's a clear articulated vision then it's something that people can rally around or even if it's something like well we got to tear the building down to rebuild something or you know or we say you know we're going to hold this building in our hearts on this sign and you know evaluate it for what it was and have a historic marker and that's you know all that we can really accomplish and then like that's fine but um just so that we have um a clear picture of what where we'd like to go and I guess I'd like just wait quickly yeah I think that's I think that's right and I think given all that the city has going I'm not sure we should be the leader of that process um I think we can help we can stimulate things our our role right now is is protecting you know dealing with the public in a new sense we can help facilitate but you know VHCB at least their money comes from the public I know Preservation Trust comes from donations I mean there's no reason that there couldn't be a public process whether it's you know Elizabeth's group and those they're the easement holders they're the ones that acquired an easement for desired outcome why can't they you know are they just going to sit passively and wait for someone else to figure it out while the building deteriorates or are they going to take or at least partner with someone who's going to take a more active role in addressing these problems I mean that's been the frustration is that everyone's dug in and said well these are my rights but nobody's doing anything to actually address the problem and so I I like this I'd say you know here's a period of time come back to us in six months with what the rest of you have come up with as long as the we're satisfied the building's safe we won't do anything in the meantime yeah how about Donna did you have something just feel the previous partnership tried to do that and people and the groups didn't come forward with ideas and I'd like to see the land looked out without the house the house and the historic preservation is a huge price tag and I really like to see about what the land is how do we want to use the land which doesn't have this huge price tag so anyway that's all it's fair Jack I was just thinking about the timeline a little bit I threw out three to six months as an idea now that I think about that if people come back to us in six months that's right as we're getting into budget season and this is not going to be an uncomplicated thing so maybe something more in the four to five months than six months line would be more practical Donna's saying three and I'm certainly fine with three if people think that that's enough time and I don't know I'm looking at Elizabeth here yeah Elizabeth doesn't seem like very much time especially when people are not voting you're not meeting a person yeah I mean it's it's complicated isn't it um you know that when I did the project 35 years ago in Marshfield and brought a half a million dollars to rehab an old school it was a kind of a miracle and people say to me now what how did that happen and the way it happened was because there was a lot of public involvement because we got a lot of people really asking the question of what should be done and there were all sorts of possibilities in the beginning and then we just kept moving forward and and as one possibility dropped out people rallied around the you know the possibility that that went forward it's it's hard to organize in the summer I'm going to say that I appreciate your budget concerns it's hard to organize during COVID-19 you all know that from the work we've done we can however it's not impossible however much as I understand Donna's pragmatic three months I would ask for the the four to five month option um you know I'm I'm pretty much of a straight shooter and if things you know are I think there should be two visionings I think there should be visioning for the back property I think there should be visioning for the house and the property and um if nothing is coming forward then I would be the first to tell you that I don't need to wait until the last minute if it's not working uh done I guess again thinking of everything else if you think four months I'm thinking like October November but once you miss November then you get into December in January and you know so then you're into spring so I think it's either November which maybe it happens but doesn't but I think it'd be good to have a goal like November and that doesn't happen then you move it to the spring of next year here's an idea how about this again I'm trying to try to put keep us in our lane so the city is maybe the city takes a position that the building's not in imminent collapse but it needs to be monitored so we're going to inspect we'll inspect it again in four to five months we'll inspect it now we'll expect it again and we're willing to allow an indeterminate period of time for people to work on this as long as the building can still stand and in the meantime if the solution involves taking the back of the property we're willing to entertain that you know we're generally favorable rule to that and we'd like to see what that use might be and then they can come back with their plan whenever they want understanding that if the building gets dangerous we're going to get down and we're going to deal with the hazard so then there's no real I mean their timing coming to us is really going to matter if they're looking for money from the city then it's going to tie in with budget anyway and if they're not looking for money from the city they're just looking for the city say yeah we'll sign off on this plan or we'll take this property they can do that anytime keeps us the enforcer rule yeah that makes sense to me Dan just gonna say I think that makes sense and keeps us in our lane as a city um because we don't want to put ourselves too deep into the middle of this gordy and not um so I'm I'm supportive of that Connor's giving us a thumbs up oh more thumbs up okay nope more thumbs up great uh jack I'll just remind people you know Jay mentioned the gordy unraveling the gordy and not eventually and I'll just remind people that what happened to the gordy and not it did not get unraveled Alexander the great slashed through with his sword uh more reason not to be at the middle of that not remade demolish the building I always say the word yet okay there are a bunch of thumbs up on that building you need a motion to that effect I'm not sure that we do no because we're not taking any real action other than continuing to monitor the property yeah and I can report this to that group okay continue to work with them great uh okay well I actually feel like we made so a few decisions around this topic which is helpful um you know in terms of continuing to re-inspect the building you know looking forward to this visioning process that's not that's not a city process necessarily um and uh just not to say we won't participate and be active are cracks people and everyone else will be you know yeah and and sounds like most folks serve feeling thumbs up or at least middle about the back property so um so that that feels like some decisions which is good I'm also conscious of the time we're better I didn't want to cut off that conversation because I felt like we were actually making some progress so but I think we're I think we're relatively done any other comments on on this topic okay awesome thank you all for hanging in there this topic uh okay so I think we're basically just about at the end here um so gosh uh council reports we'll start with Donna we'll go around as if we were in person yeah okay well I'm sorry that Donna Casey is gone but I wanted to thank DPW oops I cut myself off I wanted to thank DPW for coming and we had a water break each out here in my neighborhood that took them all day they did it um didn't even have a water uh boil order so very appreciative but also just to wish everybody a half each July 4th and sorry we're not having a third parade but get outside but be smart be safe that's all um great Connor I've got a couple things actually um first off the legislative subcommittee met yesterday it was uh Bill, Lauren, Dan and myself only lasts about 45 minutes I think it was a good meeting we were saying Mike if we could shed the other four of you we could take this out every day like record time but I think we're on the same page you know we wanted to start uh slow and um the thought was we've got a legislative agenda a lot of it's like kind of a mood point at this point uh the big fish to fry are you know we'd love to shake some trees see where the money is as far as this covid stuff is uh see if there are any opportunities to pull down grants from the state so you know Dan was saying like maybe merge our legislative agenda with that we still have an obligation to get our charter changes over the finish line and uh we still have our non-citizen us non-us citizen voting uh charter change in the senate they have a lot of downtime so is there maybe a possibility that we could get that over the finish line um in the next few weeks here it's worth looking at but uh bill bill give really good historical perspective on this and um there was a time when the delegation would come in and meet with the council and have a good conversation where maybe sometimes they'd say ah you're not going after this you know or yeah that's a good idea I can like I can look at that and then I think where we came out was sort of revamped the legislative agenda with the uh you know sort of covid items there and invite the uh five members of our delegation to the July meeting to go over with them and just have a bit of a conversation there so you know as we get into the future um I think we could look at expanding the committee we have a lot of lobbyists in town we have people who like you know work in state government would be able to see these opportunities give us a heads up uh but for the moment it seems very practical just to invite the the gang in in July go over this with them uh keep monitoring the committee hearings as they go on and uh I think that's a great first step so if the council was okay with it I think bill was going to draft a letter tomorrow morning uh just giving that formal invite so I don't know if we need a vote or just like a nod in the heads that'd be great there awesome um the other thing I just wanted to say was a week ago Saturday I thought was a beautiful day um you know I know it was messy again there I know we probably colored outside the lines which is a bad analogy for a painting thing uh at times but it was really good to see between two and three hundred members of our community and all over the state of Vermont come and uh I think we thought this would take like hours and hours but it could have been done in half an hour for everything but new Americans came and I think as we're entering really difficult conversations it was really nice just to have like an affirmation of the most basic values that like okay Black Lives Matter and within 24 hours I think we saw sort of the best and worst of humanity you know the best in everybody just coming together and doing this and a good celebratory feeling uh the worst obviously with the vandalism um but then again like the next night I went down at nine o'clock at night and I'll tell this really briefly there was a group of teenagers right and they were kind of sizing me up and they came up to me and I was wondering what they were doing and they were wondering what I was doing and we looked at each other and uh I said wait a minute are you guys standing guard and they nodded there was a young woman probably like five feet tall and she goes yeah we're gonna mess them up if they try that again and I thought what a beautiful thing in our town you know like okay this horrible thing happened but that's like stepping up to the place um so I really just want to thank everybody on council who made this happen I want to thank the city employees and especially like the part of public works and the fire department that were out there I want to thank the community who we had like five people at the next day just on their hands and knees scraping the pavement getting every bit out of there um and I most of all want to thank Noel who's you know uh raised in our community went through our school system was a champion with the Black Lives Matter flag and my god did she get this over the finish line in record time and she's just an inspiration and I think somebody we can all look up to there so uh again thanks a lot that was that was a beautiful day and um you know even the even the graffiti on the sidewalk I think sends an important message that there is racism and hate in our community and in Vermont uh but we're up to the task of having these hard conversations and trying to address it so that's great thanks a lot thank you um Jay all I'll say is is uh thank you Connor for for all of your efforts with this um and it was it was incredible it was an incredible day was an incredible uh event to be a part of um and to to not only from a government a governance but also the way the city rallied and how the community rallied to make it happen uh I like you said it just spoke to to the um to who are what our community stands for um and how we face challenges so that's all thanks I could just like Jay flew a drone and took that picture of the Black Lives Matter thing on the streets and that was so cool it's like we have people calling saying they saw it on CNN so thanks a lot for that Jay awesome uh Dan um the uh rather than plow already furred ground um I've got a call from a constituent asking about graffiti on the bike path apparently there's uh you know new canvas spawns new creative endeavors but uh I know that there was uh some profanity out there um that's causing some concern uh at least one constituent so I know Department of Public Works really does that a great job of covering that up but uh I'll simply raise it I got the call today someone fairly concerned so I think we have to just be be careful about that um did she did sorry did they tell you uh where it was specifically so we can note that I think it was in the new section um out towards um uh uh Gallison Hill but um I didn't ask them for the specific location um okay thank you I know I know there was a new piece down by at the end of the um parking lot by the uh behind the garage where the the bridge abutment there for the uh bridge over the river but you know we we still um you know that's the beauty of local government is that um there are no republicans democrats progressives there are members of the community um and just as we celebrate these really big moments of coming together we always have these little small moments too of trying to keep our community livable and and pleasant for everyone so it's plowing the streets as well as painting the streets yeah uh jack uh just one very quick thing and maybe bill was planning on mentioning this too but uh a couple of years ago it seems we set up a committee for a working group to revise the tax stabilization policy and bill and I just met the other day to put the finishing touches on it and so probably in our july meeting we will be coming back to council with the with our proposed changes to the tax stabilization policy and then we will be able to check one more item off our to-do list fair enough um Lauren yeah just a couple quick things um one I also wanted to acknowledge the great juneteenth celebration that we had I don't know who was able to make it out for that but on really short notice and you know jack has taken the initiative the last couple years to put forward a resolution and for the city but there was great speeches music poetry really great turnout and it was just a beautiful event for our community and again noelle was a leader in that and just edge early walsh former city councilor and so just some acknowledgement there for a great event on pretty short notice and and that was really wonderful to see and you know we're not having our july third celebration so having that freedom day celebrated was was pretty great um just wanted to mention it came up a little bit before in the meeting um but just for you all the social and environment and economic justice advisory committee um is continuing to meet and thank you to cameron for um keeping those meetings going because we are trying to get um the contract out that we've been talking about for a while um and do some of these uh our equity work that we've been committed to so that is moving on and when we have um progress to report I'll do that but just letting you know that we're going to be touching base with the people who'd put in proposals earlier in the year that we put on hold and seeing if we can can get that process going um and then the last thing I just wanted to mention I brought it up a few weeks ago but um with elections so when john speaks I don't know if we need to it might be good to put on the agenda um just a quick check-in on what's happening knowing there's different procedures this year we might want to do you know I know that volunteers in in our community like many communities are a lot of older people we might want to do a call out for a volunteer pool for the in-person voting and get some young people and um so just wanted to to get some attention on on that and what the city might need to do especially if it's going to take some time to recruit people for um for the in-person I know we're going to encourage lots of people to vote by mail um request your absentee ballot but um anyway just just wanted to raise that again to see how we can help support that and raise the profile of any any changes that are happening due to covid that's it thanks great um so thank you all for um for your comments already I mean you we've covered uh gosh it's been an intense few weeks right like um beyond even just the national news I was thinking about um uh gosh all the emails that we have been getting about police reform about racial issues uh and uh you know from uh you know navigating the the Black Lives Matter to then the vandalism um and then the great effort of people afterwards to to clean it up as well as a standing watch that's just amazing and the Juneteenth celebration was I was fabulous people I thought did a really great job staying socially distanced to that and also it felt like a festival without also feeling dangerous somehow which was great and I just wanted to note about that particularly so it came up to me you know could we make Juneteenth a bigger deal in future years perhaps somehow more on par with um with the July 3rd celebration and I think that um is is worth talking about now to be fair that's really mob healer lives domain but uh but I did talk with Dan Groberg about that and I just want to make you all aware that they have grants for for events and so you thought that might be potentially like you know making Juneteenth a bigger event in the future it could be a good candidate for a grant of theirs but of course that would have to be led by someone else so anyway I just wanted to say that out loud but not just necessarily for Juneteenth if there are other events that people are interested in in fostering in Montpelier there's potentially some money to do that um and you know even besides that I I'm just I'm so grateful for for you all um and for the city staff to particularly in in holding um tension between you know having a deep respect for our police department and also believing that we um can be better um and that is um you know sometimes a tough place to be but I'm I'm thankful for all of the deep breathing that you all are doing and um and working through all of this and I know it uh it's uh it's been it's been some intense times um and I'm I'm grateful to have you all to um be thinking critically and um and honestly about all these these tough issues in a way that honors all all the folks in our community so um and at the same time you know so thankful for our for our staff working hard on on these topics and and also just doing a great job so um anyway that's uh so that's all I've got for now um and so I guess I will turn it over to uh John look I got the crazy hair here um nothing to report it well no what am I saying ballots are pretty are in I'm just waiting for envelopes so overseas um ballots will be going out start going out Friday and that should also be when I start sending out the requests the early voting requests we've got so it's going to be a little more complicated with the office closed there's a big push from the secretary of state they're mailing to everybody um everybody everywhere to encourage them to vote early um I expect it to impact my workflow dramatically we'll have scaled down election day we I don't think it's practical for us to do outside or drive up voting so we'll just work on a really managed traffic process of one side of the front of city hall and down the other with social distancing so I mean we'll make that work I think I think we're pretty uniquely set up to be able to manage that pretty well so that's what I'm thinking with all that I just the Lauren was asking I do have a very deep well of volunteers I usually get 50 to 60 folks you know of all age groups out there and I know there's potentially more so but if you you know touch base with me about that if you want um I've got a lot more potentially I could pull from too that I don't have emails for so good crowd mobiliar folks oh my god did they turn out for the elections for for volunteering it's it's crazy I'm so fortunate to be doing this work here um bill uh first of all I think um this may have been the first time that alexander the great was cited in a council meeting so I just like to recognize that as a momentous occasion uh I forgot to note earlier um when we were honoring chief fakers that yesterday he was presented with the Vermont police officer of the year by the American Legion and honored in front of the police station and a small gathering but kind words said and again well deserved can't can't say enough about them um we're you know as we mentioned we're in this weird time where things that you would normally want to have big big huge events we have to be cautious but that said I'd also like to note that next Wednesday July 1st at 9 a.m. we will be swearing in chief p who I see is lurking in the background here in front of city hall and well of course be assuming the weather's good I'll be opening to the open to the public but we urge people to be distant I'm hoping that the mayor will say a few words and um it won't be a lengthy thing but it will definitely be important it's a big change for our community so we thank Tony for his great work and our department and I'd also note I know I see Konstantinos is still on and for the group that uh that has expressed opinions and perhaps feeling frustrated they haven't heard responses the mayor and I are meeting with chief Pete on the second to start talking about the processes by which we would evaluate these questions and the public outreach and so this is being taken seriously and we have tentatively allocating some time I think for the second meeting in August to be on our agenda so hopefully have had some community outreach before that so all interesting challenges and I think that's all I've got for tonight unless do I have more Cameron are my good great okay then so that is it so without objection all right so late everybody um here we are so I'm gonna um without objection declare the meeting adjourned thanks everyone have an excellent rest of your night thanks everyone thanks