 Mr. Brennan Hogan calling to order the February meeting of the Public Worse Commission at 6.33 p.m. our team director unfortunately will not be with us this evening he's out for personal reasons but we have City Engineer Norm Baldwin with us as well and I believe we'll have Assistant Director Jeff Padgett joining later on it as well yep we can evening everyone to the agenda any comments on the the agenda as warrants sure Hogan yes I would I'd like to whole item D off the consent agenda if I could please okay sure is that uh is that a motion yeah sorry yeah I'll move to prove the agenda with polling okay Hogan uh yes I would like to actually pull the four C off of the consent agenda the COVID vaccine part okay um I guess let's take these we take these one at a time um treat this as because we have we have a motion to pull forward D to help you speak if you're trying to speak thank you for that there's one person in the queue and I will promote them over to speak now it's uh you Yoda a lot us thank you okay you hear me yes again okay so as stated my name is Yota a lot us and I own two properties in the city of Burlington and I live in close proximity to Burton's uh proposed hub that you've been discussing um which includes a 1500 person concert venue this hub as you know sits amongst eight densely populated neighborhoods and borders Red Rocks Park the precious natural area and I'm extremely concerned about the impact the hub is going to have for generations to come in particular through the lack of adequately addressing safety traffic parking and congestion issues that urgently need to be addressed prior there are no crosswalks a good one knowing that you're going to have to finesse it as it goes along I have mainly two comments here um one uh I appreciate the fact that again DPW has identified additional bike parking spaces and and where those will be understanding that it may not be the the end all of everything but it serves an immediate purpose my mage my main concern would be along with Commissioner Bars and Vice Chair O'Neill's is the security and safety of that area and um since there are cameras on both the College Street garage and the Lakeview garage in that area is maybe the one on the corner Lakeview could be repurposed maybe toward that bike parking area to ensure that if something should happen in that area it could be covered I don't know what cameras are planned for the backside of people's bank or on the backside of the the old Macy's building as it is for that walkway but I think it might add some you know through COVID and the additional need for bikes I know that we've seen some active bikes disappearing in this city so it might be some added convenience or added safety uh to to think about or ponder the only other item I have um is on Cherry Street and and maybe Phillip can answer this for me because I my your your diagram doesn't print out very well on my printer but on the north side of Cherry you have some drop-off zones but are you still having some parking areas metered spaces yes okay yeah that's correct okay well my my main viewpoint here is that there are choke points there especially in the morning if you ride GMT bus on a regular basis um they now straddle Cherry Street coming up the hill um because of the activity on mainly on both sides and I think at the early onset at least since this is going to be massaged at least through the next couple weeks from March 4th forward at least I initially thought you should just make the north side mirror the south side of Cherry but in the meantime until you get to that point you might want to bag those meters that will be exposed as a as a test to ensure that you have proper clearances because now when a bus going eastbound up Cherry Street typically has a tough time when a vehicle of similar size is coming westbound down Cherry currently and that's something I've observed and I think you might see that I just think stepping off um understanding that this is going to be massaged and and you're it's going to change and understand it's half the students I'm just thinking that it's good to step off the curb properly from the get go and now backpedal and you can you can see really what's going on that's just my only observations and thank you very much for taking my comments right and so just to address um that area in particular so one thing that we had discussed is Cheryl going to ask about some traffic calming elements so for those crosswalks we will be putting in with quick build materials using um bollards temporary curb extensions and as you mentioned Patrick we will be adjusting things as we go so I I'm not sure if that addresses your concern as far as the parking on the north side of Cherry Street I mean we recognize that you know vehicles will most likely be coming in both directions so we want to make sure that that space is available um yeah observation thank you you bet thank you thank you and that should close out public comment for this portion great thank you mr golden all right with that so we'll bring it back to the commissioners seeking a vote on this item make a motion to accept staff's recommendation as presented thank you for that motion commissioner bar second that commissioner bows the second all right thank you is there any discussion around that motion all right seeing none bring it to a vote starting at the top alphabetically the commissioner archon bow hi mr bar hi mr bows hi mr gilman hi vice chair on you hi mr overby hi i for myself motion passes unanimously thank you so much all right thank you so much thank you thank you you thank you marty moving forward item six bsd rates special temporary rate for phs staff and students that make view on college street in here i thought i was done oh yeah welcome back do we have uh mr pageant or anyone from staff that would like to introduce this i am looking to see if he's here i think he's under the dpw communications and the attendees ah he's got a hand hand raise maybe let in dpw communications we are having some tech challenges it is not allowing me to promote uh the dpw communications account over i'll try again jeff if you can hear us you might want to try logging in under uh your account if you have access to a different account you might already be trying that i no longer see him in the attendees yeah zoom is super interesting when i came in i was my dpw engineering account and it never gives me a choice when you're logging in through one of those city accounts that you create meetings under to read to change your name so rob i'm not sure if you can change his name in that list and then maybe he'll let it'll let you out him to come over yeah i did change the name it is still giving me a failure to promote um maybe he should maybe i don't know we can talk let him know but i mean the way i log in is i use the agenda zoom address and log in as my own person and then enter my email look jeff's here good perfect well i've allowed jeff to talk that it's giving me the option to do that he's still not a full panelist so uh jeff your permissions might be a little am i in now yep you can hear me okay sorry guys i you know because i use both the dpw communications zoom account and my own sometimes it it launches me and it chooses so sorry about that yeah anyway i'm here now so thank you rob for fixing that uh jeff i'm just going to add that you're you're promoted over as a speaker right now i still can't get you over as a panelist so i'm going to see if i can that's fine i don't add all the permissions you'll need if you're presenting but uh you still may have some uh you still may be blocking some time no that's fine as long as i can talk that's fine uh all i have is the the memo is all i have to reference and i believe everyone has that the other packet so um all right so thank you for patience to that but so now we're we're moving from the outside of the garage to the inside of the garage and thank you to to laura and phil open the rest of norm's team that have been working hard on the outside of the garage because there are a lot of hurdles there as soon as they get their signage designs all done then my group will come in and put those signs up in the streets so that's just so you understand that's how we uh that's how we update so as far as inside the garage goes we have been working with the schools for the past couple months along in tandem with with tech services on the operations in the garage and specifically the rates and some of the ancillary issues around the rates so what the the request tonight is to approve a special contract with the school for uh parking for they have estimating excuse me 160 staff and 120 students and we have negotiated a rate for the remainder of this fiscal year and next fiscal year so fy 21 22 10 a month per user it will all be billed through the school so we won't have individual contracts with each customer it will all be managed through the school and then for fy 23 it'll be $40 per user so that's about that's a that's a half about a half price it is a exactly half price rate for fiscal 23 so you'll notice you you've learned in the first presentation this is a three to four year project not a two year project so um what we've done is we've committed to these discount rates for the first couple of years because working working with Nate Lavery in their in their finance department because as you go no we are financially challenged and they are financially challenged so we worked hard to find a rate that would be reasonable between the two of us for the short term and then but not over commit us for the full three to four year period so and and included in the agreement which is different so I use the I'm sure you remember we we got a standard agreement approved by the commission for our use we've modified that agreement to put a term a specific term limit on it and we've modified it to include clauses that basically say if we incur additional costs that are due to the presence of the school that we will work with the school to find a way to compensate us appropriately for those additional expenses for example if we need to hire security for you know protracted amount of time we want to find a way we we we can't carry all of those costs so that's that's the overview of the request for tonight we're requesting approval to enter into this contract to extend these rates to the schools now that you know along with this rate conversation came the conversations around security so some of the things and just general logistics inside the garage one of the things we've been assured is that the garage is not a drop off pickup pickup point for the schools we don't want a parade of cars going through cycling through the garage dropping car dropping students off also without having the bike parking in the garage that saves us the worry of having bicycles cruising around in the garage we are putting up new no smoking signs we actually went through had to go through legal to make sure that we were actually legally allowed to this was a space that was allowable to have no smoking signs go up we have new signs going up that notify the public that video surveillance is in action we have scheduled two ambassadors to be on duty when school starts for the first week to monitor what's going on inside the garage so we have a handle on how things are flowing and and because I'm also in charge of parking services now the what used to be called parking enforcement that we actually have extra people outside on those first couple days to in the streets not giving out tickets but making sure people understand not not policing per se but making sure they understand what the signs mean that no parking here to hear means no park here to hear so I'm just rattling off a number of things and you know feel free to cycle back and ask me questions about them they're kind of they're jumbled because that's kind of how we we got with all of this one of the other things we're working on right now is we do have cameras in the garages right now those cameras go straight to bpd and go straight to hard drives so they're recording everything's recording and we're working with Martha Keenan to get a computer set up in the garage that is a streaming monitor so we're not recording what's going on but we can watch what's going on so that'll give our ambassadors an idea you know if we get a rumor that there's some party going on on the fourth floor they can look at a camera and see what's going on and prepare and react appropriately um and I've been in direct coordination with the hotels also explaining to them all the things that we've done to try to accommodate the schools and make sure they understand how to get a hold of ambassadors how to get a hold of me which they they do because we have a good relationship but just so you're aware that the hotels are very you know they have all the similar concerns that everybody else thought about the students coming in and faculty just this bass of new people coming into the garages um and one of the other things sorry back to ambassadors this this demographic is a different demographic than our ambassadors ambassadors are typically used to working with it's usually it's a transient tourist type folks working in the marketplace coming to the marketplace garage or office workers parking in the lake view garage that's the predominance of without split both students and high school staff is a very different demographic and we so we're actually working with BPD to set up a de-escalation sort of conflict management training for our ambassador staff so that they can get some more skills on how to maybe deal with situations that they haven't had to deal with in the past so sorry it's a little bit of shotgun but that's a lot of the types of things we've been dealing with so you know welcome questions but but again what we're basically looking for tonight from you guys specifically is approval it to enter into a special contract with the schools with the modified rates at the modified conditions um relative to the school's um responsibilities around coordinating with us and giving them making sure that they have uh uh contact information with us and make sure they help our team manager and some of these specifics so um Marty I don't know if I forgot anything or give anything else to say but I'm happy to answer answer questions no I think you did a great job Jeff the only thing I will point out um those um really not probably significant uh to the commission is uh we will though we will be charged directly as a district for all the parking spaces we will be um charging some students for some uh vehicle uh parking which is the same $10 rate that they paid when they for parking passes at VHS but no but no teachers will not be passing that that cost on the teachers and we we're providing those bus passes to students for 11th and 12th graders and 12th graders will um obviously have prior priority thanks very yep so uh yeah happy to answer questions if you've got them all right thank you both Jeff and Marty for that uh Vice-Chair O'Neill let's start with you here okay thanks okay this is this is a tough nut here um I know we need to deal with parking but everything is so car centric the single occupancy vehicle I heard from um a couple of residents who are really concerned um and I thought I thought I'd bring it up with the parking issue as the car park issue as opposed to the drop-off issue but I guess this kind of fit if it does fit to both um parents just concerned that the focus is really on single occupancy vehicle prioritizing single occupancy vehicle um and not incentivizing non auto transport um and wanting to move um beyond the single occupancy vehicle um and consider the roles of public transit walking biking etc so this is what I'm hearing from um from folks so as I look at now the fixed parking where people are going to uh leave their cars and store them um downtown um couple couple questions here um so uh the streaming monitor um Jeff that you mentioned will that video still go to bpd yeah yes yeah this will just so the issue with the what the way the system works now is because it's recorded on hard drive the only people it's a privacy issue so that's why the bpd keeps those like so if we know a crime happened and we know what happened at four o'clock they will go and look at the video for us and then share the video with this as they can you know they just basically don't want some sort of violent inventory being recorded that so quote-unquote I could take and put on YouTube or whatever so that's a privacy thing but if it's a streaming video we're at we're allowed to watch the streaming video so that and honestly that is probably not going to come until August September timeframe whether it's a number of financial and technical issues surrounding that um how that will roll out but that's something we're working on and not just because the high school is there but because we we need that in general okay I think is something like that really needs to be communicated to parents faculty staff and students that that parking in that car park is going to be a different you know potentially different interface than what they had you know parking at at BHS on Institute Road and then you mentioned training for your ambassadors I mean Jeff I know you've got kids they're not long out of BHS that that sense that some of your training was going to be PD to deescalate and so while I appreciate that I wonder what role the school district can have in sort of diversity training we have a pretty broad section of students and how authorities interact with our students when they're going to park and you know just hormonal teens it's a it's a whole different interface so I think to compliment any kind of deescalation is also looking at diversity training as well and I don't know what role the school district can have with that but this responsibility of um you know that the city is taking on as we're having minors um utilizing our our system um in mass uh has just has some uncertain uh I don't know how to say it in English in kithy atudes uncertainties about you know how that interaction is going to going to go um and then you know thinking about um our our our students and maybe this is to marty um you were calculating um sorry how many spots 300 spots um some for teachers and some for students do we have a do we have a 911 map a data map of where BHS students live um to kind of assume those numbers or where would you get the data for figuring out kind of what student transportation might look like or the single occupancy vehicle uh so the data for students is strictly driven based on the the number of student parking passes that were issued for the last three years which didn't exceed 100 okay okay um and so and and sorry there's also a process that's going out this week um um notification to all students um for them to to make a request for those parking passes so we'll we'll have that information actually by the end of the week okay as the number of students that are going to make those requests okay and you said priority goes to seniors and then juniors is there that's correct we're right now it's it's it's actually our numbers that we're capping at 100 okay and then what about the students who um actually have a job they need to get to are there are there a kind of that um space in there to allow for like someone who's a just got their license and is a sophomore I don't know yeah I'm unfortunately can't speak to how that determination is going to be made from you know for each student but that's that's part of the messaging that's going to go out to the students this week it was something we discussed at the town hall earlier today however I don't know the the full details about that process okay and so then I guess back to back to Jeff the the or maybe maybe it was Marty I'm sorry that no teachers so the contract is with BSD the school district um and then the school district will capture the funds from the students but not from the teachers so are we asking Burlington taxpayers to subsidize parking for Burlington school district teachers we're about to vote on are the school district tax like taxes it helped me square this um why are the teachers not paying for parking from a school district perspective you know we're already asking teachers to to make a very big change from what they're currently used to by working at Burlington high school to work at this downtown site to also ask those teachers to to pay for parking was something that the district did not want to to ask of their of their teachers not to mention and it would probably have to be something that would be negotiated through their contract okay okay so they could get free parking if they parked at Institute Road and took a bus in to the downtown center they got free parking when they parked at Institute Road okay okay um I think uh the term the term on this so the this this contract then you've got these three periods here um FY 21 a five-day permit for ten dollars a month which is just ridiculously cheap um as our city parking is um you know struggling as well um so these timings then you have um Jeff let me see if I scroll down um that this this particular contract would end on the the June 30th of 2020 so I guess I'm wondering what are we 2023 is that a typo I apologize if there's a typo I guess I would just like to kind of reevaluate be able to reevaluate after this year um if then the school district has the opportunity to negotiate with the teachers on um you know an increased parking fee um for next year yeah uh for number four term and early termination or is that just termination March 2021 yeah there's a typo are you looking in the contract or in the yeah yeah page two of six the top of it um let me I'll fix that might have been that might be a clause from the um standard contract that I did not successfully purge that's not relevant I will fix that because their their term is the intent is that the term is FY 21 FY 22 and FY 23 and the reason we did that was we wanted to we wanted to um accommodate their financial challenges of FY 22 because their budget has already been built their budget is done for FY 22 and this is this is this is a load on their budget and and we're trying to help frankly and then we said okay let's give them some predictability for FY 23 which is that $40 and we basically did some rough calculations and we figured on a prorated basis 40 to $50 range is about what it costs excuse me what it costs us to cover our personnel costs so at least we're getting our people covered maybe you know we're not getting all of our supplies paid for we're not getting you know our loans paid for that stuff but at least we're paying for our people at that point and it's no and and it is an increased volume and it's an increased activity which is we see as good for the garage because the garage has been very very quiet so it's good to get anybody in there and yes $10 is ridiculously low but it's $10 higher than what where we started but now but then you talked about like additional security and again you know if we if we need to go a picture you know a 14 year old coming out of bhs after dark going into a car park i like who likes to go into a dark car park and like which level did you park on um and kind of going through there um where who what this what does this security look like and again is it a city or is it a school district how do we reevaluate this and how do we evaluate it before something just before something happens how do we be proactive on getting a sense from students and faculty and staff you know what's the comfort level in the car in the garage so so during the day they have the school resource officer that's there who primarily works inside the school but they all they they basically in our discussions they've said the practical reality is that officer will be out walking in the garage that and that's just that's the reality they will get out there um school staff also i believe like vice principal type staff do do they do patrols through the building and they will extend that patrol out into the garage and we've asked them to wear safety vests and have identification with them so we know who they are because we don't just want any random people walking through the garages um so yes we are all very concerned about the security situation but to to be clear you know we we are the city and they are the school and this is the city's parking garage and we're making as many accommodations as we possibly can but fundamentally if there if there needs to be increased safety infrastructure personnel costs of any kind it's in the contract that we will pass those costs to the school as is reasonable negotiate with them to pass them on i mean there may be some costs we incur because we want to but if it's if it's uh if it's directly school related we'd like to pass it over and i'll just add that we are a closed campus students they don't they will not have the ability to come and go from the building throughout the day um and we have access control at all entry points so if students were to leave the building they'd have to get buzzed back into the building and it's not to say that students won't figure out some sort of loophole to skip school or what not um as as we all have um but but there won't be this coming and going of hanging out in the parking garage i just wanted i just want to go back to the talk around uh de-escalation training we actually approached the school first about doing de-escalation training because they have done it the school has done it themselves in the past but they don't have the materials so i work with our health and safety person uh nicole blow and she reached out to the police department and they have some ready you know sort of off the shelf type of stuff that they're sending over to nicole and then she's going to sort of collate it and post it up on our online training platform so it's not like we're going to the police to get de-escalation training we're just using resources that they have and and going through that but i will also ask about i i guess i would actually probably start by going to school to see if you have any any uh any uh diversity training off the shelf stuff that we could add in there because i i think that would not be inappropriate also i think we could do that yeah we have some resources there we obviously use a consultant as as well um so i don't know if we would be able to make that person available to you or have you participate in some of the trainings that we already do but we can talk about that yeah and just and so you're clear also we have another meeting scheduled for the 25th um on on all of these security issues yeah everything lives are rattled off the night and what we just discussed is we have another meeting to sort of finalize and make sure we're all on the same page we've all got phone numbers and do the call and all that okay um all right i think that's it for me maybe someone else will take over one of my battle cries thanks thank you commissioner overby i only have a couple questions um and one of them was actually to point out that typo on the top of page two of six uh that should be the year 2023 instead of 2020 but you already found it um the two questions that i had were under the um in the in the uh contract under the timing restrictions there's something that says parking duration is limited to two weeks of continuous parking on all products i i don't know what that means means you can't park your car for more than two weeks so so that's the thing about but students it's but it's a monday through friday thing the permits monday through friday but you're saying that if they like just leave it there for two weeks that's that's from the old that's from a contract that's just the carryover that really doesn't apply to the students well that's a that's the generic contract yeah so the or the ordinance says you cannot park your car there for two weeks got you so that's that's from the generic contract that that answer that question i was like that's yeah i was thinking even in terms of students like what like what does that mean okay right no because we have we have customers that we sell under this same generic contract they buy 10 seven day permits and six five day permits so that clause applies you know whatever your product is whether it's a month product a week product or whatever right right and it doesn't really apply to the school at all and then the uh the options there's options for different kind of permit credentials do you have um what's the mechanism that you're using for the permits are they going to be something that's like a hang tag that can be exchanged by students or or qr qr code just like that so this is one of the things that is very explicit when you get a every person that has a permit in the garage we have their name and their email address we know there are no generic permits in the garage we know every person who went in and when they went out based on their use of their permit their qr code okay so it's so there's they're flashing the the qr code on a card of some sort that's a entry gate at the entry gate there's a scanner right they scan the qr code the gate goes up and then they and then the garage says okay got it joe smith is in the garage and then when they leave they say okay joe smith just left the garage yeah well i i just read the options that were there of the you know card decal hanging whatever so yeah that's again again it's because it's generic yeah no that's okay but i didn't see the qr code thing there so barcode thing is probably it barcode yeah yeah barcode whatever qr code all it is is a code that that that points you to a website that's it so people think it's more than it is um but anyway that's that was those are my questions about the contract i you know i i had some concerns about the ten dollars a month but i i totally think that we have to do it for now and um and i'm a little you know i would be interesting how many students can be actually riding the bus i don't know how many are able to ride the bus to to school i would think that's great sounds like it's being encouraged um but then again the students that do have a job that they need to get to after school um that's that's a constraint and some people can't ride the bus to a job so uh i i support the the project here and um but let's go forward to give some predictability the next three years we sort of know what's going to happen my only thought was that we i know i'm i'm trusting you jeff that you are on top of it as far as the number of permits that that were given um given away i'm not given away but actually committing to because things can change in the next three years and and and we know that's going to happen so i'm trusting that you know we're not going to over over commit so so just yeah so for context there macy's we had a mou a memorandum of understanding with uvm for them to move into macy's i don't know if you remember that or not um but that was i believe for they kept changing but it was somewhere between three and four hundred cars so obviously uvm is not going into macy's the high school is so that's part of the reason why we although they're projecting 120 students and 160 staff well he already said tonight they're going to limit it to 100 so we're down 20 well 120 and 160 only adds to 280 so we bumped it to 300 to be a round number so that's their allocation that just means based in contract that's their limit and that so we're happy to manage within that boundary right i'm not i'm not worried i i i think we're fine thank you i think you're meticulous in your calculations that's why i'm confident well challenge me anytime because clearly i already made a mistake in the contract thank you commissioner archambeau yeah thank i'll just be brief here i mean we are a city vermont's largest city and we effectively don't have a high school right and and this is the plan to make it work uh i'm not here to micromanage this if anything i'm saying jeff and marty you tell us what we need to do to support you because this has got to happen this is not optional right so picking apart details of this to me is like we need this to work so we're looking to you you carry a heavy burden on your shoulders right now and i'm i'm supremely thankful for all the work that's already gone into this and i can only say i myself uh you just tell me what to do and let's make it happen don't thank you thanks thank you all right thank you commissioner bar thanks thanks i i appreciate and and agree with many of the comments made um by my fellow commissioners and by all of those that put a lot of work into this i agree this is a critical and necessary um challenge that needs to be fixed as quickly as possible but i i will also echo um vice chair o'neill vivanko's comments about the free parking for for um for the teachers i i work at uvm i manage the parking there and i gotta say that there's never free parking i don't care who you are i don't care if you're the president university of vice president everybody everybody pays because parking costs and it's just it is a little unsettling to me that um and i get it that there's a teacher's union that needs to be negotiated with i i think that it needs to happen it needs to be negotiated because putting putting their cost for parking on the taxpayers is is challenging it's it's how do we explain that to people who are getting additional costs because there's many needs that we you know we need to fix institute road we need to there's so many different things that we need to do and and i'm all for supporting education but um parking is not a necessity and i'll just say this i i get on a soapbox at my work all the time parking is not a right it's it's a privilege it's with all the the great transportation that we have um and and it can be better but we've got good transportation in the area there's many ways to get to this to this location that do not require a single occupancy vehicle so um and if if i will say this again too and i know i have to deal with both parking and transportation in my my role so sometimes i'm in conflict with myself because i'm trying to get people to take transportation which is actually my revenue uh from parking um but but the biggest challenge is trying to use parking as a TDM measure to try and get people to use transportation and if you make the cost of parking less of an incentive or more of a disincentive then you'll get people riding bikes taking the bus carpooling doing things like that so so i'm i'm just throwing that out i know that this is something we can't decide tonight i'm in support of this right now but i i would like us moving forward since there is the ability within this agreement to do some negotiations and talk about it i i'd just like to keep that in the top of our minds that you know that i agree that teachers have to do a lot and and we are asking a lot from them Marty to move from where they are now to where they you know where they're going to be for the next three years but this is one of those things that's it's challenging i'm conflicted so that's that's it for me but i think that's why we limited the contract to those two years out of the three to four years that they're predicting is because there are a number of so let's say philosophical issues around exactly what you're saying is you know the school is going to need to some time to work with the teachers and or the union and with the students to find the right messaging for you know ride the bus or whatever the alternative is but that you know with i mean the Herculean effort that the school is pulling off to get into Macy's right now i mean this we we just spent the past couple hours dealing with a very small sliver of the mixture that has kind of just so that's part of the reason why we we step the rates to say let's work you into the rates and then let's cut it a little short so we can have these more challenged discussions in you know in a couple years once you got your game a little more figured out right and and just obviously no it would it would not just be a high school discussion it would be a full district discussion for all of our staff mm-hmm i think coming in the future it's something that needs to happen i know that there's i always get people asking me why can't you know how come i have to pay for parking you know i work here well because parking costs money i got to fix i got to enforce i've got to paint the lines i've got to remove the snow i've got to fix the asphalt you know all the things that money has to come from somewhere so somebody has to pay for it and i think that since it's cars that cause that challenge the cars should be paying for it so that's that's me i'll get off my soapbox i just wanted to share that and thanks thank you thank you commissioner bows i don't really have too much to add to this i i'm very much in support of this plan i would say since commissioner bar and vice chair uh o'Neil Vivanco brought up this particular issue i do think that it bears a broader conversation i don't entirely understand the the the kind of the focus on the teachers free parking part of this because i mean that part of the argument especially in like i don't know it seems very selective to say like i don't understand why we would make this more accessible for the teachers in this particular moment while recognizing the kind of the emergency situation that we're talking about more broadly i mean i understand these kinds of broader you know in terms of the broader you know kind of modes of commuting and modes of travel that we're talking about but i'm i'm a little uncomfortable with just fixing a fixating on this particular part of this but again perhaps that's something that we open up for a broader conversation in the longer term as it is right now i i'm certainly satisfied with the plan as as presented thanks thank you commissioner gillman nothing i want to add after all that great discussion so we're all set all right thank you i appreciate the concern on parking but that you know that's not in the the contract here marty's volunteered that information of that's what their that's their business of what they're doing to with the parking permits that they're buying from the city here uh it is crucial to remember that there is a high cost of free parking um on the other hand teaching is one of the professions that has been become incredibly more challenging this year than in past years and i'm not just talking about moving to a temporary facility here just like the nuts and bolts of what teaching looks like this year like it's a it's a tough gig in the best of times and it's a lot tougher now and i i'll leave i'll leave that there i i trust what uh we all are up to here i second the sentiment of my fellow commissioners that we should revisit the incentive structure for staff and how staff gets to work that this may not be the right time and i appreciate that again that's there's maybe it's a whole district wide conversation and see staff triple parked admins gather that there's constraints there and it's worthy of discussion there as well about how people are getting to their point of point of employment we are so grateful for their care and attention in that profession anyways i yeah i'm all good with this i appreciate the work and the comments here quick scan of my notes and i i think everything has been um come up in conversation here all right i'm good this i've already fixed that typo thank you for catching that 2020 should have been 2023 all right we're on it i'm done looking to public comment uh mr goulding is there any anyone from the public who they wish to speak they're hoping there's nobody signed up at this time thank you back to the commission then seeking your vote on this matter i'll move to pass uh staff's proposal here motion from commissioner archer but thank you second second by commissioner bows thank you is there any discussion around that motion all right seeing none we'll go to a votes uh commissioner archer bow hi mr bar hi commissioner bows hi commissioner gillman hi vice chair o'neill hi commissioner over b hi hi for myself motion passes unanimously okay thank you everybody well thank you everybody thank you for your time and your support this evening yeah no appreciate the uh appreciate the input in the conversation here mary thank you thank you yeah thanks right moving forward item seven approval draft minutes from our january meeting is there any discussion around the minutes entertain a motion there i'd make a motion to accept the minutes oh second that sure we have a motion from commissioner bar second from commissioner archer bow is there any discussion around that motion all right bring it to a vote uh commissioner archer bow hi right commissioner bar hi commissioner bows hi commissioner gillman hi vice chair o'neill hi commissioner over b hi hi for myself the minutes passing unanimously thank you uh directors reports uh city engineer baldman is there anything you'd like to state on the director's report we have a nice synopsis in our in our packet no i think chappan did a good job at communicating in advance of the meeting uh long list of things that are ongoing um certainly willing to answer any questions you might have as a result of those communications all right thank you if there are questions let's take them in our commissioner communications and for that close out the director's board thank you city engineer baldwin moving to item nine commissioner communications let's start with commissioner overby i just wanted to relay a direct communication i had from somebody who lives on elmwood avenue and was concerned about the enforcement process of the two hour section of uh parking on the sort of the end of elmwood that's that's just right before you reach north um street and his concern was that uh the the the mechanism of enforcement of how does the parking enforcement know that somebody has been there for two hour over two hours when people could come and go uh let's say they work and they came home for lunch and then they you know went back to work and so i had a quite an extensive communication with this person and also linked in john king um and i had asked the person to come and speak if he wanted to because he was concerned also about the price of seventy five dollars for a ticket for parking over two hours in a two hour uh limited parking place uh so i gave him the statue he was concerned that there was some discrimination potentially um in that area and was that the same everywhere in the city which it is um so i i gave him a lot of information but i also wanted to just share with other people that that the methodology that's used by the person who checks on vehicles that are in a two hour location is the checking of the the location of the tire stem so it's pretty i mean i was wondering if in the old days used to be they chalked the tire and then you know write the time on or something but just for other people to know it it it's pretty much that the system is pretty much you can't go home for lunch and and and i mean it's there's probably it's as accurate as you could get so um i did he was concerned also that it you know maybe other communities have ways for people that are lower income to uh have you know not pay as pricey a ticket and that there's mechanisms for that but i think we we just we realize that it is sort of one of those things if you get the ticket you've got to deal with the city attorney and that's the system we have and that they did the best they can to be you know not putting a ticket on somebody's car who has who has actually um not been there for two hours because they just came back from you know for lunch and they were there and it looked like they were i just wanted to relay that that information for other people so that if there is other questions about that or concerns i'm more than willing to share all the information that i learned through this communication with this um resident of elmwood avenue thanks all right thank you mr archibald no communications for me please all right mr bar thanks um so i as you can probably see for many minutes especially during the winter months i i always give a lot a lot of jury comments to the snow removal i think that they're doing a fantastic job out there sidewalks roads um safety i think that they've done a phenomenal job and and i'll just give a plug to the entire dpw for the sidewalks and the the roads that have been maintained and a lot of things i really want to give you guys props for how great things have been going i will just add to based on our conversation and and i supported the the the the parking uh in all that stuff but i i i want to say this about about the burlington school district i guess as a whole that that's a place where students come to learn and they're seeing how everybody reacts and performs and does things and if if we don't try and start educating them there about tdm and using alternative forms of of commuting and mobility um they're they're just going to graduate from there and expect to go somewhere and be able to park drive a car single occupancy so if there's one thing and it's not for us to say but i'm just saying it now so that it's in the communications you know maybe the burlington school district needs to have a sustainable transportation coordinator or a tdm person there to help educate and try and conform them i have that at uvm i know that there's a lot of different places that have those i'm just throwing out that plug that it's it's very important and and we're trying to mold young adults into uh older adults i guess so that would be a good place to to start so that that's it for me thank you mr boz thank you uh i just actually also following on that point i wanted to clarify that you know when i you know my comments uh at the end of the parking discussion i don't disagree with anything that commissioner bar or vice chair o'neill have said to this sort sort of broader issue um you know i'm somebody who doesn't actually park it at uvm i uh you know i commute by bike or by bus to get up there um my comments were more about feeling to some degree that we were fixating on one part of what seemed to be a broader issue and i didn't really quite understand why we would we would sort of single out the teacher part of this where it is a broader issue anyway i'll leave it at that in terms of my communications what i um wanted to relay is a question that was posed to me by a number of um neighbors in the pine street and flin av neighborhoods um and so they asked me to raise this particular question so this is the way they phrased it pine street southbound vehicles at the intersection of pine street and flin av turned left onto flin when the light is green even when the pedestrians crosswalk light is on for crossing this is hazardous for pedestrians including school children and people walking to from work there should be a red arrow for left turn when the crosswalk is lit for crossing having also been a driver in the situation driving north northbound and taking a left on flin it is admittedly very difficult to react to a pedestrian in the crosswalk if you've already begun to take the left turn drivers are looking ahead and up at the light beginning to turn and then encounter a pedestrian midway through crossing this is known to many people in the neighborhood to be an incredibly dangerous and scary intersection there are many near misses with pedestrians in the crosswalk they have a walk sign the remedy for this would be modifying the traffic light so there is a clear red left arrow or a no turn light similar to the one indicating no right terms from flin onto pine at that intersection so everyone can cross safely without any traffic movement again there are many neighbors aware of this hazard and if it would help to have others write in or come speak at the meeting please let me know there are multiple requests on C click C click fix from over the past year but no action has been taken so I agreed to bring this forward to the commission and hopefully I can communicate with staff following this meeting I'll follow up with staff to to you know see what's been kind of done to to either address or respond to this the concern so chair hogan do you want me to respond to that concern please yeah so we're well aware of the concern that the public's expressed there's been some communications from our signal technician over I think some period of time and I don't know precisely how long it's been in conversation he I think he attempted to communicate that to make significant change would require some significant capital investment we did meet last week as a city team to look at the issue and have are trying to assemble some solutions and were I actually this was raised to uh see click fix through um counselor mason and uh I am due to respond back to him I am the point person on that issue so I will uh certainly copy members of the commission and himself when we are prepared to kind of give a more formalized response but effectively we have uh two signal projects that are in queue that are related to school safety already and we're looking to figure out how this project could potentially fit within either time or resource and uh we have some ideas so we're we're working on it it's not I guess being discounted or ignored it's it's really just comes down to what can we do to kind of change people's behaviors I think it is going to require a significant capital investment because frankly people are are really not simply not yielding to pedestrians even when they don't have that protected movement having gone through that intersection I recognize that but this is really good to hear if you wouldn't mind either copying me on just just so I can update them that clearly there's work being done on this yeah that's great thank you that's all for me thank you all right Commissioner Gilman nothing uh nothing from me tonight thanks all right thank you Vice Chair O'Neill um so the parking the parking thing at KHS yeah we really I do want to revisit this you know it feels like the school district is this you know municipality within the municipality that doesn't have to have a transportation management plan that doesn't have to promote active transportation that doesn't have to comply with the walk bike master plan and or a net zero energy plan so it just feels like you know let's get the conversation going that said as the parent of a high schooler we need the high school open so if we have to subsidize the teacher's parking and no one's subsidizing anybody else's parking at UVM um but if we have to subsidize the teacher's parking to get the school open then then so be it but I do hope that we can have conversations um more about transportation at the school district and then to echo what uh Commissioner Overby mentioned uh I was gonna bring up something similar on on Overlake a a neighbor came to me because we have four hour parking between eight and four and he had a contractor uh at the house and the contractor contractors apparently can park on the street if they have a uh they can go beyond the four hours if they have like a decal um but this is uh you know small like one guy shop operation he does he doesn't have a decal um so he parked and then he left and then came back and he got a warning but my neighbor wanted me to like push this forward again how does the the parking attendant really qualify that the person has been there a full four hours and this isn't the first time this has come up um I was victim once too um because if you're if you happen to be parking and and I don't think they look at the they don't look at the stems of I think it's just your car was here in this general area at eight o'clock in the morning and then it was um here later on the afternoon and then you were there the whole day so I wonder if there are better systems um to to to track time um and maybe it's maybe there maybe there aren't but at least to figure out what kind of explanation we can give people to say well you can only have contractors who have decals on their car um to park on the street or you have to have some kind of timestamp I don't I don't know I I would suspect that they probably take a timestamp picture of the vehicle in position and use that for enforcement but I think Jeff could confirm that given he's now managing the the enforcement team okay because it's not it's I mean it's not a perfect um you know it's it's not a perfect science so when I got when I got um you know the warning I had moved my car out to let a contractor in and then come came home the contractor was still there and just left the car at the end of the driveway which is probably around the same spot um and she was about to give me a ticket I'm like I just got here so yeah I don't know I don't I don't know if there's a if there's a better system um with these sort of like weird time frames I will um let Jeff I guess I'll share with Jeff the concerned members of the commission have expressed and hopefully can communicate back to you how they approach that okay thanks that's it yeah thank you I have nothing further on my end and with that I'll close commissioner communications bringing us to gen item 10 adjournment and next meeting date March 17 motion to adjourn second oh is that uh commissioner archer bow with the motion pick your pick chair hogan you can have it commissioner archer bow with archer bow all right here we go via nose okay um any discussion around that motion and we'll bring it to a floor open vote here all those in favor please say hi any opposed all right we are adjourned 937 excellent good evening all we'll see you uh March 17 thanks everyone good night everyone