 Now welcome to the pandemic version of Mount failure civic forum where we're going to talk about the election that's coming up on town meeting day. That would be mainly absentee ballots as we did in the last election but basically it's not in any way shape or form less important than any town meeting day is. In fact because it's a town meeting day in a pandemic being held this way it's more important. It's more important that you engage. It's more important that you vote. And we've got a great series of shows. As always we'll do city budget with Bill. We'll do school budget with Jim Murphy the president of the board. We will have our annual mayor's address of city all the way from the wayside to the baseball field and all the way from the sewage plant to the new thing that's going up on 302 that you'll find out about at that corner of two and 302 and basically that's a great show and we have the city council candidates as well as the school board candidates. So we've got we even have a park board candidate for a five-year term. So this is going to be a great series of shows. Well worth watching them all. They're all on orca media the youtube site as well as the cable channel site and tonight we have Dan Richardson a city council but a sitting city council person running in district three. Yes thank you Richard. Thank you for having me. Dan what is district three? Can you give us the parameters of district three? Sure. District three is made up of the area really south of the Moinowski River in this within the city confines. So it's the neighborhoods along Berlin street Northfield street. It involves the wayside as you mentioned is in district three. Sure would drive. It also includes a section of the downtown main street like where the Savoy is and all the way over to Hubbard street up to main street. So almost to the middle school district three extends into that downtown area. So it's an interesting district in that you know it is divided by the river. It's the only district that does have that that sort of geographic division within it. But it's also a district I think that's full of a lot of for Montpelier residents that you know may not be you know the people that are always on the front page of the Times Argus but are make up the really backbone of our community. It's been called the forgotten district. I've heard that mentioned before you know it's one of those things because the south side of the river you know it we I think we've talked about this before you know it goes back in some way to the historic origins of Montpelier that a lot of that was Berlin and the city of Montpelier seized it. Seized it when? Seized it in the mid 19th century and it's actually very funny my partner Paul Gillis you know detailed some of this but basically City of Montpelier grabbed it and Berlin didn't vote to release it but the legislature approved it and so we basically took the south side of the Winooski River. Now rumor had it that Berlin wasn't necessarily wanting to hold on to that much land they were looking to develop elsewhere but little did they know they would have them all. I was going to say they lost the best part of themselves and we got we got it and it makes up a a section Montpelier but I think the geography of the river has always been at least mentally for a lot of people you know a dividing line because we think of downtown Montpelier on that north side of the Winooski and actually that's one of the things that I thought about that incurred one motivated me to run in the last year for city council and one of the projects that I feel is ongoing and was sort of put aside because of the pandemic is that you know we really need to invest in that south side of the city and that includes parks and that includes certain business opportunities and I think that really involves building other sort of downtown type areas around the district three where a lot of people really don't have the opportunity to walk into downtown like say someone who lives in district two that might go come down College Street to State Street and and go to the farmer's market on foot they don't have to cross major highways they don't have to cross you know busier traffic roads. Now you want a small victory and most people won't even notice it but the wayfaring sign points to the business district on River Street. It does. Which I think is a small victory for for district three. It is it is a small it is a small victory but you know I see if I think about the greatest potential in a lot of ways for Montpilier it's that it's that business district it's you know starting to take control around like the Pioneer Street bridge area and making that more walkable making that more usable as you mentioned the new construction that Tom Malone is putting up across from the formula Ford. You know all right don't keep us in on pins and needles what is that. Well I actually don't know. I know I know it's a commercial building that he's he's erected and I you know but we've seen a lot of activity in that that area Fred Connor and Connor brothers have put up businesses along the that right of way on 302 the old armory area you know we're seeing a lot of commercial development there and what we're not seeing and I think what the role the city can play is really start to tie that in to some sort of infrastructure so that we have an extension of our walkable downtown to this area as well and I think that's how cities develop is that they often have these growth areas that then get incorporated into the mixed residential and commercial uses. Well let's get another couple of victories off that the distillery. Yes. The walking path. Yes. Those are I mean those are big changes and that's in part I think why that Pioneer Street area is becoming as viable as it is because of the walking path you know now recreation opportunities and traffic foot traffic extends down to you know Gallison Hill Road. So the auditorium are the the Civic Center down there. Yes. That might that's near the bicycle path isn't it. It is and I think you know you actually can end up right there at the at the ice ice rink you know you look at other cities that have well-developed walking bike paths like Burlington there's a lot of opportunities and a lot of real community structures and and infrastructure that can be put in along those paths because you get that foot traffic there so you know imagine for example we already see you know where the bike path ends at Gallison Hill there's a the old shell station has been completely remodeled and there's a convenience store there but if you had other small businesses there or along that way like at the Pioneer Street bridge you know there's lots of opportunities imagine a bike rental place there so somebody could take a rental bike and and go up and down the bike path you know that's what we see in Burlington that's what we see in other cities and the more we can support that as a city I think it really helps take this infrastructure investment that we've made and and boost it up and anybody who lives in that area in District 3 now has that benefit of that you know really wonderful community asset. Taking us back one year when we had this discussion earlier and the other seat was up in District 3 there were two seats in District 3 yes we were talking about a park up there yes and what is there any progress in discussion on that and could you explain what that's about you would know better than I sure so we've actually had a lot of conversations Jay Erickson who's the other city counselor and I have met with Alec Ellsworth who's the head of the park department and we've tried to identify spots along in District 3 where recreation opportunities can be had the way I've always tried to describe it to people is if you think of Hubbard Park as our central park for our city the parks along District 3 I think can become our Emerald Necklace wasn't there one rather sizeable piece there is one in the Stonewall Meadows area now where is the Stonewall Meadows area sure it's it's south of it's it's no it's north of Berlin Street and it's south of 302 and it's off behind Sherwood Drive and that neighborhood it's it's really the the remnant of some of that development that occurred I think in the 90s but it's it's sort of forested land right now that the city does have an interest there's also an opportunity I believe so I'm just not certain of their interest from a legal perspective you know there's also the other opportunity which is the area that was formerly owned by Food Works where would that be that would be the two rivers the Confluence which is just across 302 River Street right and and you know there's that's subject to a fairly thorny and convoluted series of legal issues but you know there is going to be probably an opportunity for the city to take some ownership of you know up to 15 acres in that area so you know there's there are these parks that once you start to identify them and if we can link them together we may not have a hundred acres to to dedicate on the south side you've got picnicking areas you have picnicking areas if you can link them together you have what you have in Boston which is a series of parks that are connected so someone can go along the south side of the river through these parks for various recreational activities and I think what we really have to and what we were starting to have conversations with with um Alec was you know what do these recreation opportunities look like are they picnicking you know one thing that I think is needed on the south side is uh you know playgrounds we don't have uh and there are a lot well we don't have schools call it what it is sure district two you have Union Elementary School you have Main Street Middle School correct right um you you know we even have you know in Hubbard Park you have open fields and and such and so you know I think what we're looking at is to create those type of recreational opportunities for district three um and it's going to take some work and it was you know we were starting to get off the ground and then the pandemic there was a pandemic that got in the way so you know that's one of those pieces of unfinished unfinished business that I really hope we as a city can start to take up as we move beyond the pandemic it's just that the pandemic has proven to be a bit more uh resilient to moving on than we would have hoped have we slowed down the hill uh we were that was coming in a year ago the speed limits going up the hill towards the hospital it has that slowed down on Berlin it has you know obviously a lot of the residents that pushed for that wanted it to 25 wanted it much slower but certainly I've noticed and I travel along that road a fairly frequently um it has slowed down um as a result of those speed limits it doesn't travel quite as fast the problem is always going to be sort of twofold with that road one is it's designed as a faster road so it's as you're driving along your experiences you want to go faster and if you're not paying attention your body you know your experience as a driver may lead you to go faster and the other problem is is that you know we have a dilemma of how we commute to Berlin and some of the commercial centers oh so well if you're in Montpelier and you want to go to the gym the mall the hospital um you really only have you have three options you can get on highway you can go up Berlin street to and it becomes four near to get to the hospital exactly well i'll get to that in a second or you can go 302 on the backside right um you know we've had some I think part of what slowed down the traffic this year has frankly been that breakdown of the culvert at the top of the hill there right before you turn off to head to the mall or to the hospital um which has caused people I think to know that they're going to have to take a securities route um but what's interesting is that you know we need a good way for people in Montpelier to commute or people from Berlin to commute between these two downtown areas that are developing um and I think Berlin street a long time ago was imagined as that street and 302 as a result has gotten a lot more commercial development when I was on the development review board it was certainly something we took seriously and and questioned at times you know whether we wanted more commercial development along 302 because that is a state highway and it's actually a federal highway and whether we wanted more traffic delays that would result from commercial development or whether we wanted to make sure that road state somewhat clear so that people but aren't we a minor player in commercial development on 302 I mean Berlin is the major player it is very is a minor player sure but we get the tail end of it but think about how you travel from you know if you say you take a start at the bridge by sarduchies and you want to get to the mall or the hospital you know you're going to have to go one of those two routes you're either gonna have to go up Berlin street or you're gonna have to go around uh the 302 and if 302 becomes so packed commercially because that commercial development extends from Berlin that exists that I agree completely but you know beyond the light coming closer past the wayside where we have the the tractor supply company or Cody Chevrolet you know the more that becomes commercially developed then obviously the the quicker the slow traffic starts when you get on to 302 unless it becomes more unless it becomes a parkway or commuting road and so I think we always will have that problem well when you talk about inadvertent consequence how do the people in sure would feel about being a cut through has there been a discussion of speed bumps there has been you know speed bumps come with certain requirements and uh you know certainly on certain level certain levels of service roads you can't have speed bumps um just it's it goes against the sort of standard uh transportation the transportation standards um but you know I think there that is in part what we're seeing is the is the pressure wow how do we deal with this if you have people that want to go from one point to the other and there's only so many ways to get there you know you can create these speed bumps you can lower the speed limit but it's not going to stop the traffic but it certainly might make it more habitable on that street oh sure particularly if you have children sure and I think that's something we have to continually look at and understand you know and that's part of I think a function of planning is you know if we can create a parkway so that's where my point about 302 comes in which is the more we can keep 302 as a clear option for traffic to flow through the more people are just going to go 302 and they're not going to use that cut through they're just going to go straight around um and you know I think that's something we have to give serious consideration because you know if we don't have a good route to that area in Berlin and and I'll add that commercial district in Berlin then we're going to have people cutting through these neighborhoods you know another option that we may do is is to stop making it a cut through create a you know end it as a as a as a through way I think those are options you can put on to the table but it's a it's a it's a process that you know it's going to require some work and discussion and certainly public works has been you know considerate of of those issues the neighbors still talk about it I imagine yeah I haven't had many you know obviously the pandemic has shifted everyone's focus away from the normal set of problems so I haven't heard much from my constituents on on Sherwood as to issues um you know and but you know it is it remains a problem for that neighborhood of what does its neighborhood identity look like and and it goes back to my sort of first point which is I think the more we can create sort of downtown areas that it can you know that would encourage walking clear walking patterns then we can plan around those walking patterns so that we can make sure traffic doesn't come right through the middle of that there's an old saying that Bruce Springsteen had and they said when this band was playing for $500 a night we had $500 problems now we're playing for $500,000 a night we have $500,000 problems sure in my section of of district two we live in a house that's about 150 years old and we've got 150 year old house problems what's the average house on the other side of the river when was that built so a lot of the housing on this on particularly in the Berlin street neighborhood and northfield street neighborhood those are well there's there's a mixture as there are some older houses the 150 year old houses but there's a lot of pre and post world war two housing and you can you can see it are those starting to have pre and post world war two housing problems sure I mean it's that aging housing stock starts to have issues that are specific to that era of home so for example you know electrical wiring you know if you have a 150 year old home you probably have knob and tube or at least had knob and I was gonna say what updated it exactly and in some ways knob and tube is great you know I have known a old home that has some knob and tube still in it because the electrician has said it's okay you know it's a limited circuit and the knob and tube is in great condition so I can either break through this wall because it's a private residence you're okay to keep your chandelier on this old system but a lot of the aluminum flex tube that was used in the 50s has corroded much faster and so you know they start to have issues or they have lead pipes so a town with a lot of focus on historic preservation is facing a district that that concerns aren't historic preservation but are different in terms of housing and how housing needs to be rehabbed well you know I think we're facing a larger issue about habitability in Vermont and not just in District 3 but you know there's a real question in the post-COVID world of what does ventilation and circulation look like in older buildings and what does you know what does habit ability start to look like as we inhabit these buildings on a far heavier use than we have previously so some of these issues start to come to the forefront and you know it is we're going to need money and resources to deal with this because you know if you own a house the idea of replacing your plumbing is daunting I remember when I was a kid my father replaced a lot of the plumbing in our house and he just happened to be able to to sweat pipe so you know watching him do that but thinking about the costs that went into that not just in materials but then if time and labor had been charged it would have been outside and part of the reason he did it is because we couldn't afford it otherwise so he taught himself how to to plum a house you know those kind of issues are going to continue to crop up for people and we're just going to see that on private residences I think what's what's bigger is we're going to see it in public buildings as well did the zoning overlay it affect District 3 and and or does that need to be revisited by the planning commission to benefit District 3 are there a separate set of issues I know they spent a lot of time talking about zoning overlay of savings pasture I know they spent a lot of time downtown right you know a lot of the zoning overlay you know if you think about zoning it's really the exterior of the building and so that's not as big of a concern I think in District 3 you know because the character of the the neighborhoods may not be quite as the the historic districts maybe that you see in sometimes in District 2 I mean that said you know mid-century post-World War 2 does fit is coming into the category of historic preservation it's 75 years when we talk about historic preservation of of buildings you were speaking of post 1950s and pre-war being historic now well they're coming into cusp if if something was built in 1950 it's about five years from qualifying as a potentially historic building because it's 75 years it's the marker you know and so that that's simply to say that a lot of the post-war construction that we see in District 3 it's not that far from actually qualifying for some of the historic preservation but you know I it feels less like I think and I think a lot of people would would agree with this that the idea that historic preservation is a is a key concern or component maybe less so than the questions of habitability and functionality you know one of the big changes that I think really improved District 3 was when in 2018 when they changed the zoning code to change the setbacks because when I was on the zoning board District 3 was continuously homeowners were coming continuously before a zoning board to get waivers or you know variances for decks because everybody wanted a deck and and you know decks have become integral to how we use our homes now but a lot of these lots that were designed before zoning was implemented were too shallow or too narrow and so they had all these problems where they'd have to seek these variances and we'd tie ourselves in knots to grant these decks so by simply changing that zoning to reflect how the character of this neighborhood was we we got rid of a lot of problems for people in the district as well as the city to have to you know wrestle with a non-issue. Is District 3 the last affordable housing in this town? I think that's an argument that can certainly be made it's certainly the area where there's the most potential for affordable housing in the sense that I think you know there's if any housing is affordable in this town exactly exactly you know I mean I think that's the real you know one of the real challenges we have as a city is finding places where people can build or buy homes that they can move into on you know an early salary in their career as opposed to you know these big mansions that you know are beyond most people's salary no matter how far they get in their career to have homes where you can as a 30 or four you know 35 year old move into with your family you know that's the type of housing we really want to encourage for a city. Again staying on District 3 you've got to get your kids to school the new economic model for our transportation our new transit system where you can call them up on the app or whatever and set an appointment has that had any impact on folks who aren't in that core and can't walk downtown from the meadows or walk downtown? Well I think the my ride program that you're referring to you know is still sort of in its trial phase and you know I've heard some people say great things about it I mean the mayor for example takes it to work every day and she she has great things to say about it I've heard other people who have had success with it but I've also heard criticism of it from from other corners you know that's been much more about a question of of access where people don't have the smartphone or smartphone app but assuming you've had access to it assuming that you do I think it's a really well it's a smart way to allocate transportation so rather than having a bus route that runs no matter who comes or doesn't come you have this on-demand system and it does make it more flexible you know I have I have two children and my daughter used to ride the bus regularly she teaches gymnastics up on the hill and so you know the bus for her was an essential part of how she got from Montpelier if I was at work and my wife was at school to to get to her gymnastics practice or now she coaches and those you know those services on demand make it more flexible and easier because she can pick her destination and she can pick her time as opposed to having to work with some sort of fixed schedule. Got a question downtown yes we talked about this a year we talked about this I've been doing this for five six years every year we sit and talk about downtown with everyone sure what are the changes you see well I mean other than the fact that retail is frozen right now in amber it is you know I think a lot of the things that we did as a city council that have we've tried to help have been have been interesting you know for example we loosened up the park lit ordinance and we did it as a trial last year but we were just discussing at last night city council that we're going to probably extend it this year because a lot of the retail businesses are saying particularly the restaurants as soon as the snow plows are put away we want to get tables back on the street to serve people because in a lot of ways that's how they stayed alive and it was very successful in part because the parking issue had been relaxed people weren't there weren't as many people coming downtown with the state workers so it sort of took it made a blessing out of what could have been a curse and so being responsive and being able to handle that I think was a real triumph and was you know help these businesses stay alive and also change the character of the downtown having all these cafe like settings out on the street was I think you know generally seen as by a lot of people is positive you know I think the future of Montpelier downtown we have two well we have one challenge and I think we have one really important quality that's going to push us through the challenges with this pandemic I don't think once it's over we're going to see a return to what was in 2019 or the beginning of 2020 you know state workers aren't necessarily going to come back in the same numbers as much as we want them to and that's going to change the character of Montpelier because we have had a long time reliance on people coming to the city every day not just visitors but regular workers who come to the restaurants and the stores and you know purchase things and pay our parking fees and that's part of what we've had as challenges of budget and I think we have a challenge now how do we revitalize that or how do we start to explore new options and I think one of the real benefits to Montpelier downtown are businesses like yours or the businesses on Langdon Street or a lot of the ones that have opened up this year that really focus on a unique retail experience you know you go to the store not because they're sell you and bulk the lowest price possible they're not Amazon on a main street but what they offer is an incredible experience and a really unique one and a personal level of relationship that I think a lot of people post pandemic are going to be craving because they're not going to want to sit and click on Amazon they're going to want to interact with people anyone who has any extroverted tendencies has been sitting on their hands for a year now waiting to get back out and I think you know if we can encourage retail that's unique we're going to get a lot of people to come to Montpelier and that's going to help support the downtown businesses when people can come visit Vermont again when they can and it will but I mean that's really a bright hope we should be encouraging you know businesses like the corky pet or book spoiler records that you know one that's there's a great example of a business you know that could have really suffered but what they did was they started going online they started creating curated record lists you know so you go in there and you don't just get a shelf of records you get an interaction with people that are knowledgeable that are friendly that have a relationship that you build with them and in some cases they they've even created curated packets so they say if you want music let us know we'll send you sort of a package of what we think you might like and that's that's something you won't get on an online retailer that's a value added service or you know take the get-up or J. Langdon or you know Rome or any of these businesses Minneken or Bailey Road these are really person-to-person businesses that create this experience create these relationships that are really powerful and if we can promote that and get people to come either online or in person you know we have a real shot at keeping our retail strong downtown so I imagine that you support Dan Groberg and his efforts at Montpelier live yeah I think so I think that's he's an important part of the solution because I think he he gives a voice to this and gives some some unity to these businesses you know as we try and reach out beyond our the four corners of the business what about the economic development corporation that seemed to have fallen to the wayside well you know that's had a series of unfortunate events happen to it you know they've struggled within getting executive directors they've tried to reinvent themselves you know we zeroed them out for the budget this year but in part you know I think they have a role to play you know they've done a lot of behind-the-scenes foundational work in getting businesses to come such as the Caledonia spirits that we talk about you know they've done a lot of important hand you know helping to have these become a reality and there's probably a role for them to play I think they're going to have to spend this year figuring out what that role is going to look like because we do need more businesses to come to Montpelier and we do need more economic opportunities as the state may contract or that can help us you know in public-private partnerships you know they have they were created in part to give us that private public flexibility so that they could act as a private entity in in furtherance of the public good the school board said no to the school resource officer yes half of it belongs to the city half of it belongs to the schools you now have that half back you know again you've got the the full officer back is there any discussion as to how the police will use that halftime position no one of the things we did with this year's budget was to basically we gave the instruction to to the city staff was to you know we want level funded we want to keep we don't want to put a tax burden on the taxpayers this is not the year for people to have to because they're going to be struggling with other things in the second year of the pandemic let's level funded so one of the things that happened was the police position was kept open so the SRO position has really it isn't as if we now have a position back that we've kept one position that's going to be purposely unfilled the officer who was providing student resource officer staffing is now gone by basically back to the full-time police department but is fulfilling a full-time role there and you know I think we're going to be looking down the road there's there's two things you know I think the school board they they chose not to fund the student resource officer but they have the challenge in front of them of now really sort of identifying well what services did the SRO provide to the school district and beyond being the point person for school shooters exactly because I think that wasn't just there I mean in some ways that was probably the the the most discreet part of their job the bigger parts of their job were much more being involved in the student community being a liaison being a sort of person that could head off incidents before they they arose because they were in the community and aware of these things so for example if you know there was a party planned or something for underage drinking they might be able to intervene beforehand you know and I think part of what the school district has to do is to look and identify those type of roles either formal or informal that they're playing and and come to a decision as to how they want to staff that and that may involve some type of modified SRO or it might involve you know a social worker or something else but you know we're certainly as a city there to partner with them and and support and work with them there are those in the community who speak of defunding the place and speak of of a different model for for brian brian peter a place chief sir how does that play on console well you know I think the first of all you know we've had a lot of people come and speak and anytime you have anyone come speak at council I give them a lot of credit because it's public speaking and for some it comes naturally for some it's a challenge and you can see you know this is a passionate issue for these individuals who come and speak you know I think by and large there's no one on council that is unsympathetic to the idea of the or the question can we do things better absolutely but I think at least for I'll speak for myself you know my concern has always been and not rushing into something simply because it has the the momentum of the zeitgeist and that really what we need to be especially with when we talk about public safety is thoughtful and so you know we created this police review committee in part to answer some of these questions because all of the topics that when you talk about defund the police none of them are new none of them are unique to Montpelier or to Vermont all of them are shared across communities and all of them arose you know over decades and just take for example the example I like to give is is is mental health you know at some point in time in the 70s a lot of state run or regional run mental health facilities started to shut down for good reason these involved horror stories of mistreatment and and abuse and so it was a really good thing that these these institutions shut down but they didn't shut down and then have an alternate they shut down and and people were just simply put on their own people who needed help or assistance and so in those situations you know what evolved over time was that police started to be the first respond as first responders the people who dealt with these populations once they hit crisis and so you know what we're really talking about when we talk about defund the police in this respect and I don't think you'd have anyone disagree is starting to rebuild and refund uh some of the mental health but wasn't that something that an initiative that Tony had Tony Fakos our former police chief hadn't he tackled that years ago well what he he tack what he did was he brought in a greater sensitivity to that issue but you know when we talk about and and in some ways this is these are the different threads that you start to unravel when you take on these questions you know if you know if you look at Montpelier if you look at our statistics alone we have a really good um you know the data really does show that we do it differently in Montpelier differently in what sense well if you look at our um from a racial uh bias point of view you know our statistics show that we don't pull over or ticket um more people of of color or minorities um than the then bill will say that we do ticket more men than women that may be true um but I mean if you look at those statistics I mean it does show now that Montpelier and that there may be many reasons for that um and Tony when he was chief and I think Brian has continued it you know have brought in a sensitivity in a training to um mental health case responses and we do a a much better job uh of dealing with it but you know if the core issue of of defund the police is the police shouldn't be the ones on the mental health frontline I think the police would agree with that well they have a card that they carry with them uh laminated card that has the numbers for social services and they're like no and and they have training about how to recognize and how to identify and you know we have funded a social worker for the police department that's embedded you know that's intended to be that that type of alternative uh liaison to you know bringing bringing individuals in need to social services um you know but the problem is is you know and if if if we give credit to the defund the police arguments it's that you know at the end of the day the police are a particular tool they are first responders they are public safety officers they have certain duties to the public that they that they owe under Vermont law and you know they can't be social workers and they shouldn't be um and so if we think about you know how do we envision the responses that the police department feels um and is there a better way to to segregate out some of these away from you know the police to other avenues you know I think that's worth studying but it's not something that's going to be easily answered and there's no easy solution to it and it's thoughtful I mean you know what we've seen in cities like Burlington or or Minneapolis where there's been sort of a quick reaction to these these calls for you know defund the police is a lot of them had had to be walked back or they create an adversarial situation um where you know you stop listening to you know uh the the various stakeholders which include the police to a certain extent and you know in Montpelier we've been lucky in that you know both with both Tony's leadership and Brian's you know they're there saying yes we'd love to have more social workers so we'd love to have you know better training or more diversion and that's exactly what we want we want those stakeholders to want to want to be part of it and so bringing them along and bringing the people that are concerned about you know these issues of behind defund the police you know is a is a difficult conversation but it's it's a good one to have well we talked about level funding in the place this is another issue that comes year every year that I've done this I've talked about our crummy streets and John Holler was mayor when I first started these and John would sit and say in the early years I'm going to put a fund aside so that we can level fund these streets and so that we can keep our streets up so that they don't fall to disrepair and become more expensive and John kept this word and we set up a fund and then the pandemic came yep what happened to the fund well the fund's still there um you know we're just uh and and we're we're by and large on on track this year's budget is the exception in that um and you know I was very clear in asking Bill about this you know and he was very clear in answering this is not a sustainable budget we can't keep the budget that we put for fiscal year 2022 that the voters are going to be voting on why is this not a sustainable budget because it involves putting off certain pieces of capital improvement whether it be personnel equipment some of the maintenance and some of the street projects that we've tried to you know we've we've delayed where there's hopefully the most minimal impact but it's intended to be a level funded budget in part because we wanted to make sure that the taxpayers didn't have this burden on them and recognizing too that you know this was a year where revenue was going to be down so it wasn't the year to take on new big projects it was the year just to see if we can get on the other side now the way the project the way the budget is built if we get state money or federal money we can backfill backfill bring back some projects in and so you know what we tried to do was keep the services that we have provided as a city and that residents have come to rely upon and add as close to an even level as possible um and some of that has meant you know so we might pave one less street this year than we had previously planned it's not that we've depleted the these budgets for road maintenance it's just that with the other costs associated with it you know we need to keep that level down so that we can then keep the same level of dpw workers um and you know maybe but maybe not hire the additional one that we need last year we spent a lot of time on these shows talking about the downtown plan sure that was then under discussion having all kinds of hearings around is has that been relegated to a fantasy status or has that been pushed off no i you know we approved the downtown plan um early on in the year but you know you know to to a large extent this year's council has been a reactive council in the sense that we've had new challenges come up on an almost weekly basis you know uh for example like i said with the parklet thing where we had businesses that were you know really pleading to to have that opportunity um and so we're trying to react in real time or retail businesses that were struggling and working with the economic development corporation and others to see if there was any form of rent relief that we could um you know midwife into into reality which we did um you know these type of you know mask mandates suddenly became an issue we we never thought we'd have to you know um create a rule about people wearing masks but the pandemic has made that a reality and how how do we deal with that and so you know to a certain extent the planning has has taken a backseat but i don't think it's disappeared but i also think this is an opportunity you know where we need to check back in once we start to get on the other side of this pandemic because as i indicated before you know we're headed into new territory the world is going to look very different in 2022 and 2023 than it did in 2019 so we might revisit that plan that had us widening the sidewalks a massive plan big plans like that might be revisited would that include the recreation center um i would i would assume that i would put that on the table um you know because i think we have a big question with the recreation center and what function does it use that we didn't have a year ago because you know one thing that we have to think about with the recreation center is ventilation and spacing you know before we could gather all we wanted we could have a spring steam concert in there um and it wouldn't we wouldn't have had the same type of public health concerns that we do today i mean just imagining even a small folk concert in there probably is cause for concern in this covid world one more question i'll let you go are you zoomed out some days it's definitely that's one thing that i have really uh has been difficult and i was talking with someone about this the other day i missed the city council meetings where we could be there live because to interact with people to have someone stand up at the microphone and and you know bring their concern forward or tell their story was really powerful that you just don't get that translated to on um a flat screen and you know i think every now and then about the ridiculousness of my situation sitting in a room um you know talking into a box um as if that was real connection um but at the same time you know zoom has been great in allowing greater distribution of access you know if you're homebound you no longer have the issue of can i attend the city council meeting in a meaningful way as long as you can get on to a computer you can be a participant um and so in that ways it's been really democratizing and i think that's been a really good thing on democratizing that brings us to the end of this one but do do pay attention to town meeting and and make sure you get out and vote and make sure you vote intelligently watch all of these shows they're really good we have a great slate of candidates as we always do and bill sex bill's particular presentation on the city budget is good uh jim on the school budget is well taken and one is extremely good on on the city and her view from the mayor's seat and again we've got the schools we've got the city council people even have a person running for a five-year term on the park commission you can see the shows on or comedia's youtube channel you can watch them on cable television but do get out and vote i it it's even easier cast an absentee ballot you don't even have to go there on town meeting day but do make sure that your vote and your voice are heard thank you very much