 I am calling this meeting to order at 5.03. The first item on the agenda is the agenda. Do I have a motion to approve it? I don't think we have any changes necessary. I'd be glad to include it. Thanks. And a second from President Paul. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And any opposed? And the motion carries unanimously. Do we have anyone? Yes, the camera is off. Thank you. My hands are too fast. Okay. Our camera is now on. Thank you, Town Meeting TV. And do we have any members of the public willing to, wishing to speak in public forum? If so, you can raise your hand. There's no one in the room. And I don't see any of our online participants raising a hand. So I'm going to go ahead and close the public forum. And we will move on to item 3.1, Great Streets and Main Streets. And I'm going to turn it over to our friends in DPW. Great. Thank you so much. Appreciate being here at the special Board of Finance meeting to talk about Great Streets Main Street. I'm joined by Norm Baldwin, City Engineer and Olivia Doris, Public Works Engineer, to talk in as well with Ashley Parker from the Clerk Treasurer's Office. So as you'll see in your packet, there's a very long memo. Thanks for your patience with that. We have worked diligently to work through the issues that related to the construction contract challenge, particularly the contract. The low apparent bidder came in around 50% above the engineer's estimate. And we have spent the last several weeks working with the administration, with the city attorney, with Board of Finance and Council to work through a revised approach that is within the city's financial means. And the overall strategy really is one of narrowing the initial scope of work to doing the ravine sewer work is discussed in this project plus three blocks of the six blocks for the surface improvements along the corridor, basically from Winooski Avenue down to, excuse me, down to Pine Street. So Norm is here and can run through quickly the actions that we are seeking to take, to have you take tonight if you are supportive and we're certainly here to answer any questions. We sent out an update Friday to stakeholders along the corridor so that as soon as we figured out the plan that financially met the city's needs while also meeting the goals that the voters had approved in the two great streets, valid items that we wanted to get the message out as broadly as possible. So Norm, do you wanna summarize the contract asks for tonight? So there are a series of motions in the WordPress, the Board of Finance and it's a series of six different motions starting with the amendment number eight, design contract with BHP that seeks the authorization to assign authorization to what works director for total authorization of $3,221,969 for the design of continued design of Main Street, Great Streets. There in addition, there's a second motion is seeking the authorization of director of public works executed in the number one to move in resident engineering contract which effectively is our representative in the field, inspecting the work bringing the total contract up to with contingency 2,308,871 dollars and zero cents. The third motion is seeking the director of city arts to execute a construction, I'm sorry, a contract amendments with the Great Street Main Street, select their artists for that current expenditures up to $474,628 with a budget of 500,000 authorization, total authorization. There's a series of four different artists. I don't know if it's necessary for you to list all of them, they're listed in the motion. Beyond that, of course, authorizing the director of public works to execute a memorandum of understanding with Pro-Election Department in the amount of $399,039 for lighting the associate of the Main Street, Great Streets project, option number five to authorize and direct to execute a construction contract with SD Ireland, initial construction contract that took seed 20,700,572 dollars and 20 cents. And such further contracting members necessarily care a reduced product scope in addition amounts not to exceed 2,596,250 dollars and 83 cents, contingency funds and $4,261,971 of success in bond premium funds totaling premium contract total to $28,558,798 and nine cents. This is as a result of confirmation that whether or not bond premium funds would be available for application in this project. This won't be determined until later on within the elements of the construction of the project itself in January, February, as believed. And then there are associated amendments, budget adjustment amendments that need to occur seeking the observation of the Chief Administrative Officer to make those amendments and transfer those funds to effectuate everything that's described in your memo application. So that in total is the ask. If there's any more to go further than that. I will say a summary of the budget is on the document page 28 of the document that shows the lion's share of the revenue for this project is coming through the downtown TIF funding. There is a $211,000 contribution from Water Resource to assist with ensuring that the utility work is done fully along the corridor. And then there is a contribution of street capital $395,000, which relates to the associate paving and sidewalk work on this corridor that is needed regardless whether this project happens or not. And we're happy to answer any questions about this. Yeah, I'd go further to explain that the paving between this project and the state paving project that occurred this past summer connects really this project with the route to Waller Street segment that's been paved. So there's kind of a dense spot of asphalt that needs to be intended to. Thank you. A quote. Are there questions from the board? Yes, Councillor Franklin. Yes, thank you. Thank you for that. This afternoon, we started hearing from businesses along the corridor, several businesses and they referenced a letter, which I've read, I didn't have a chance before just before this meeting, but I mean, I think that I can summarize their concern as being one around potentially being impacted by a project that they are not receiving the full benefits of so that they would lose parking and also have business interruptions because of the construction but not receiving the benefits of the project. I'm supportive of this project in a scaled down form, but I guess my question is around the timing of this action tonight, is it necessary that we do this before we bring some other stakeholders in or assuage their concerns about the rushed nature of them joining out on Friday or I guess it was Friday and us being taking an action tonight. So anything you could do to help address that would be helpful. I think our intent is to communicate with members of businesses and you can see the communication that was an effort to reach out to them on Friday and we're going to be swaying some of that by having a public communication strategy or communication with those businesses to hear their concerns, but absent any sort of action tonight and we probably would not have a project altogether and lose an opportunity of the $30 million that we're talking about with different. So I think we've weighed those concerns and understand their concerns, but I think that if that's just a little broader public, this project should go ahead. The one addition would just be that the bid process gave us the city 60 days to determine whether or not to accept the bid that ran out as of last night, the 19th. Though we have asked the apparent little bidder to extend that to today and they accepted that. So we are bringing this forward today because it's the end of the 60 day window that we had told the bidders that we would give them a yes or no decision. Is there room in the process should we approve this tonight to sort of maybe readdress some of the early engage with some of the businesses to try to understand their concerns and then try to maybe build those into the process in a way that would be at least impact. I think that was our, that's our intent. I think the challenge is that there's limited options available to us in terms of financially what we can or to do in terms of what we can ask of the contractor what the financial consequence would be. And but it's important to understand and hear their concerns and share with them kind of the gives and takes of what we can and can't do. Fortunately with all the ongoing negotiations, much of that information couldn't be shared early on. And so we're arrived at kind of late date decision because of those that negotiations and trying to figure out how this budget would balance. And now we're trying to reach out to them along with just not just Friday, but also beyond that, January when we really start to roll out the details of the project and what could and couldn't happen. And it's my last sort of question or others. So last week in Councilor Jang raised the issue around the connectivity and the bike lanes and the parking reconfiguration that will happen in order to accommodate some of the bike lanes. So that's something that may not be driving costs, but there could be maybe delayed or sequenced in a way that would be helpful to the businesses. So the general plan is to have bike facilities on the street and then at the key intersection find and main of transition to an all street facility. With the hope that in very short order through the truck sequencing, we could potentially find funding solutions that complete the balance of those blocks. So I think it would be a mistake to revert to the current condition parking in the meantime because then we're back to another conversation about that. And our belief is that we'll find a way to make this product work in those balance of street in short order, probably within the sequencing of the construction, but we don't know until we find a funding solution. Thank you for that. Mayor, it looks like you're next in the queue. Great, thanks, Catherine. Chapin, could I, given the, and I have seen some emails on this today too and gotten some questions from other counselors. So could you just reiterate the, it's been my impression that there has been more than impression. To my knowledge, I think we have really worked up until now to takes extra efforts to engage stakeholders along the corridor here. Could you kind of resummarize what those efforts has been as well as the resources that will be available to the project team to stay engaged with stakeholders through the construction? And could you also restate the steps you have taken to address the parking concerns, which are not new today. These are concerns that we have heard. And in some ways, I think the parking impacts are going to be less because of the downsizing of the project, but could you kind of walk us through that? And then after that, I have a statement to make to. Okay, great. Thank you, Mayor. We have through our team led through efforts of Laura Wheelock and Olivia Durie's and also help from other departments, including Business and Workforce Development, engaged stakeholders over the last two to three years along this corridor. There have been a number of public meetings. One of the last one I attended was in this area, a room with businesses talking through the plans we have worked to minimize the parking impact to the greatest extent possible, while still achieving the TIF goals of improving stormwater management. Continuous fight facilities, wider sidewalks activated green belt adjacent to businesses. We have also, so the impact still remains around 67 spaces, a reduction over this project corridor. That said, we've also worked during the construction time to reduce the impact. We had thought that the contractor may want to use for lay down the surface parking lot at Main Nipunewski that the apparent low bidder as the Ireland does not need to use that facility during the construction phase, which will allow additional cruxment parking while the construction work is happening. In addition, we are working with the Courthouse Plaza to accommodate additional public parking adjacent to this project at subsidized rates. So for the construction phase, we are working as hard as we can to keep parking adjacent to the corridor. Once the project is built, we will have fewer spaces on the corridor, but we are exploring ways that we can maximize parking off the corridor. As you've noticed on South Champlain Street, we've added parking on both sides of the street, both to the north and south of Main Street to provide additional construction mitigation parking. But if the community wanted to keep that longterm, that is something we're open to discussing. So there's a number of strategies that we have to continue working with the business community. And there are two public meetings that Olivia referenced in the memo that are upcoming where these conversations can continue. We are absolutely wanting to maintain the dialogue and continue it as we move forward. Chief, can I add something? Yeah, please. Over the last year, so we met one-on-one with over 30 business owners along the corridor, had that one-on-one engagement with them to be at first hand their concerns, where those concerns address those concerns through about the design. And as part of the Resident Engineering Contract in front of you today, or the amendment in front of you today, we have plans to keep those parties engaged throughout construction. This was one full-time average specialist as part of the Resident Engineering Team that will be on the front lines of her contact information was also a political letter, receiving any concerns during construction in combination with the city team and really be that person dedicated to being there for the businesses throughout construction. On top of that, SD Ireland has specified a full-time person on the contractor's side, a safety specialist, I believe they call them, to be on the field to hear concerns from businesses and members of the public regarding any construction conditions out on site and be able to address those firsthand. So we really do have a pretty cool team of people who are just really dedicated to that outreach and public engagement. And we've also been engaged with the marketplace, the business development, workforce development, Cara has spent a lot of time as well to engage through this one. Thank you. So one important piece of the traffic control that I think raises concern during construction and construction is it's a four to eight-week period proposing to do two block segments, one intersection and still allow pedestrian access, business access along those core original work is undergoing. So the idea is that if you can allow the contractor to have full control of the space, it's a safer condition for the public. It also means that the work will rest significantly faster if we're there other than if we're to maintain circulation. So there's a significant benefit that I hope people understand and know. Certainly I think in our public engagement in January, our goal is to have people better understand the details of that and work with them to kind of take all the sharp points off of any sort of disruption to make home with construction. Excellent. I'm noting that, excuse me, Councillor Chen has joined us via the phone number down below. It is 524, so we don't have endless time, but are there any further questions on this big project? Are we ready for a motion? Yes, President Blum. I'm having to make the motion. I just had a comment after the second one. Great. Okay, Councillor Vargas. I'm in the same boat. I imagine everybody's in the same boat. We all got a couple of them today. We got them at like an hour before this meeting. And I didn't get just one. I got a number of them. And I didn't even have enough time to read this letter. It is unsettling to hear this from businesses. At a time when we're all sitting here trying to figure out ways to encourage and promote and support businesses, it's a setback for them in their way of thinking. So I just hope that every possible effort is made because we don't, none of us want to do anything to make things like any more difficult that we have to. So as I'll say, I mean, I know you are, but it was unsettling to get this. And especially literally within an hour or two this meeting. Yes, I agree. I think, you know, people have expectations of those accomplishing six blocks. Like it's in this round of bidding. And we've had time to kind of process that, consume that and go through kind of the shock of it. So we know and understand and can appreciate where people are coming from, but I think we think we're limited choices to allow us to move ahead. You know, my word will do everything we can to minimize the impact, there will be impacts given the size and scope of this project. Ali is actually asking if we can hear him. He probably, he's just un-muted. Yes, we cannot hear you. I'm clicking the ask to unmute button. I don't know if he can hear us. I think he probably can hear us. So maybe we can just give him a second so that he can unmute. There we go. You should, we should be able to hear you now, Councillor Jang. I saw the unmute button go off at the same time as this thing or unrelated. So thank you. Yes, yes. Okay. I'm muted, but we still can't hear him. Can you hear me? Is it better? Yes. Now we can. Yes. In here. Sorry. Yeah, no, I mean, I completely do believe that extensive amount of public outreach have been done about this project for months or let's even say a year. You know, REIB, the focus groups, all of it. And I think it's very clear as part of the memo that you shared with us. But at the same time, I mean, when the project changed, what type of community engagement have you done with the businesses that will be affected? That's what I wanna understand. Since the scope of the project has changed, what type of community engagement was done? Thank you, Councillor Jang. If I understand correctly, when you're talking about the scope reducing from six blocks to three blocks, is that correct? Correct, yes. Great. We were working with the Board of Finances Council with the City Administration and the NSDIR in the low bidder to figure out how to make this project pencil out up until the end of last week. And as soon as we had a solution, we sent out the update on Friday to all the stakeholders along the corridor. I am aware and acknowledged that that is a very compressed timeline. And that now we're pushed up against the corner of having to accept this construction contract or face potential refitting. That this is not an optimal timeline, but we have, as soon as we had a proposed plan, we circulated as broadly as we could. Thank you. And I mean, from my perspective, that needs to be done before we vote. And I don't know about any other elements, but if we can move this until next Monday, I think it would be great. And I understand a little bit the issues around the TIF, all of it, and also the contracts are already in place, but it will be imperative for us to try to be very good neighbors and also engage those people that will be affected. And from my perspective, four to eight weeks of closing the street for construction and some of those businesses will not be, will not see the fruits of this project because it has been reduced. I think it will be great for the city to hold on to this vote today and try to accommodate, engage them. I think it will be imperative and we need to do it. Yes, that's what I wanted to add. Thank you. Would you like to respond? Perhaps Councillor Jen did not, it wasn't on earlier when we talked about why we can't postpone. Yeah, as Chapitain noted, this bid was put out to bid with 60-day period of decision-making for the contractor to hold a price till November 19th. Today is the 20th. We've had significant conversations with the contractor and they're willing to hold their pricing until closing business today. So unfortunately, if we elect to extend the decision, then we likely will, I can't speak for the contractor, we're running the risk of the contractor rejecting the bid and we would have to rebid. Yes, President Paul. Yes. Go ahead, Councillor John-Vin, President Paul. Yes, I just don't understand why we have to board it tonight in order for this to move forward. I mean, the only issue is just we have to accept it today or lose it, the contract that you already have in place. I just cannot understand that. And I don't have a lot of time, you don't have a lot of time and I don't feel really comfortable voting in support of this without adequate public engagement because of the scope of this project has changed. Thank you. President Paul, I think we're all sort of feeling probably very similar. You know, we want to move this forward as we, this is a wonderful project. It is really disappointing to get calls like this an hour before the people. I mean, again, I don't know, but it says here that we'd like to know which merchants were contacted and are agreeing to this. I mean, did these merchants know that there was going to be this substantial a change? I mean, if they're saying that, why would they say that? I mean, I guess I'm just sort of at a loss to understand. We're sort of, you know, it's a tough thing to do and we want to move something forward, but you know, we've got businesses that are already challenged. We don't want to create more challenges for them when in fact they're not going to benefit from, you know, they will over time, but they won't now. Right now, businesses are more concerned about now and they are about long-term. Yes, thank you, Councillor Paul. I think the reference about talking to businesses was around the manner in which the construction would occur and whether the streets would remain open for vehicular traffic or be closed for vehicular traffic. Our team that met one-on-one with businesses a year and two years ago found that there was a range of opinions from business owners about whether the best approach was to close the street but do the project more quickly or to keep the street open and elongate it. That's, I think, the reference that's showing up in the communication. We have not spent time since Friday going door-to-door to talk to businesses about this new three-block approach. We sent out the email update and I personally met with one business owner, but that was the extent to it. Yes. I'll just say I'm supportive of the project as it is proposed tonight. I think this is, it's crucial for the future of the downtown for the gateway block that we start this work as soon as possible. And I think, you know, if the bid is rejected by the contractor, there's no guarantee that a future bid isn't even further outside of our budget than it is now. I think if we do phase one and potential for the city to borrow future funds could be a little bit clearer. The high school project progressing. I think, you know, this is a smaller project than the one that was initially proposed. So I think I understand that businesses are feeling like this was a last-minute change, but it is a last-minute change in reducing the scope and not expanding it. So I think while I understand that, this is a decision that impacts many decades of our future in the downtown. So taking that into consideration, I'd like to support this tonight. I just wanted to just mention one thing that has nothing to do with this and that is that we really must start our council meeting at 5.45. You agree to a half an hour. I said 45 minutes and it just now almost 45. So we have another agenda item. Just wanted to mention that. Right. I think the other one is quick, but yes. Thank you. How would the board like to proceed? We do have a first and a second. Yes, mayor. Thanks, Catherine. And I appreciate the discussion tonight. And I'm sympathetic to the concern. I think what we are faced with here is one of those challenging moments we face in governance where we have to decide whether or not to act with imperfect circumstances. The team has been working very hard to bring us a viable route forward that delivers the great majority of the benefits that we sought to achieve with this project that uses this unique funding source, gets it invested in the ground in a time when we really have few other options for public investment, gets $30 million investment in the over the next couple of years, unlocks the housing potential of four sites that will really increase the likelihood that we see hundreds of homes built on those four sites because of the expense that has taken off those projects that we put into this economic development source. So, I know we all see that. I know we all know there's major benefits from here. It's, the team has worked hard to put us in position to make this decision tonight and that work, the reason that communications, I think everyone understands, but just in case someone's watching who doesn't, it was work through the last week to put us in position where we have I think a viable route forward negotiated tonight. It is not ideal that we have not had a chance to talk about this in depth with all of the impacted stakeholders. I think Councilor McGee, I appreciate Councilor McGee's point. In general, there will be less impacts with this project than the one that was talked about for a long length of time. And I think the other point that leaves me feeling like it's responsible to move forward is the extensive effort that DPW has made to communicate about this project, leading up until now, as well as the resources that they have budgeted to make sure that we are doing everything we can to be a good partner going forward. DPW has recent history of being a good partner on kind of a comparable project with the Rotary. They're doing, we're getting high marks for how they're managing the Champlain Parkway with respect to a butters. I do worry if we don't act tonight that we could be putting at serious risk this project many years in the making. So I will be supporting it and committing on behalf of the team that we will follow up the vote tonight with extensive communications with the affected stakeholders and work to hear them out. This is a long process. This is something we're gonna be working on for years. We will bounce back from this communication and be good partners with them going forward. And with that at 5.39, I would like to ask for a vote unless there's any one second comments. Great, all those in favor? I, hello? Yes, Councilor Jag. Yes, I would like to put up motion before we vote this to postpone action until DPW engages the neighborhood, the businesses that will be impacted and to postpone action until that's done. Is there a second? Is there a second for that motion? Is there a second for that motion? There is not a second. So I'm going to call a roll on the original motion. I'm like, what is the word? Thank you, thank you so much, Jared. All right, President Paul. Yes. Councilor Farlow. Yes. Councilor McGee. Yes. Councilor Jay. No. And Mayor Weinberger. Yes. And the motion passes. And thank you so much, Team DPW. With four minutes to go, so we have one minute to get upstairs. Item 3.2 is not one that should take long. This is a franchise fee agreement. It is one small piece of the district energy project. Big thing that we will consider upstairs. This small piece is the franchise fee portion, which usually comes to board of finance and that's why it is here. In the memo, you'll see, this is really to be easy, our ordinance states that utilities of this nature should pay 2.5% of their gross revenues as a franchise fee. That is what we are proposing here. There is a slightly updated memo, which you may or may not have seen. The only update is a section on finances. Councilor Bergman asked what we expected the annual revenue to be. And the BED expects that over 20 years to get to $5.3 million annually. It will be uneven in practice, but that gives us a starting point. And so that would lead to about $132,500 per year of additional revenue to the general fund. Are there any questions? Could I have a motion? Recommended motion on silverboard. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, President Paul. All those in favor, please say aye. If we could just sort that. Of course. Yes, sorry. Questions, comments, they are allowed. Well, I am still on the fence at this late hour as to whether or not to support the broader project. I do agree that utilities should pay a franchise fee to the city. If we can support this motion, I understand that we'll be listening to a lot of comments tonight, making the final decision later. Great, very helpful. Councilor Jai. No, no, no comment. Okay, great. Any other comments? All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And the motion carries unanimously and we are adjourning at 543. Please do not be laid upstairs or I will get in trouble, President Paul. Thank you, everyone. Thanks. Thanks, Catherine, for leading.