 I'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. So we'll call to order the March 25th meeting of the Montpelier Planning Commission. Mike, do we need to review Zoom procedures? No, I was hoping we'll all play nice. Okay. I haven't shut us down. Okay. I always hope that too. Alrighty. Well, we have to approve the agenda. So if we can get a motion to approve the agenda in a second. I'm on a planning commission meeting, so I'm talking to me. Yeah. I need to approve the agenda. Okay. We have a motion from Ariane. Leave a second. I'll second that. Oh. Oh, I think I heard Gabe first. I'll get Gabe. I'll give it to Gabe. He can have that. All right. Gabe gets a win. So motion to approve the agenda from Ariane, a second from Gabe. Those in favor of approving the agenda, say aye. Aye. Aye. Agenda approved. It says comments from the outgoing chair on the agenda next. Just giving you the table if you wanted it. Right. I didn't plan anything. I think it's wonderful that we've made great progress with zoning changes lately. I would encourage everyone to keep up the good fight because it takes people working together to make progress and sometimes it's incremental, but it happens if we keep pushing. So I would encourage you all to keep that up, to try to make planning better in the city. And that's all I've got. I think I'll just leave it at that and move on to the next item unless anyone else has any comments. Well, do you want to talk a little bit about the responsibilities of the chair? You mean something practical? You need to say something practical. Sure. I mean, we can do that in the next item too before we hold the nominations, but let's just say we move on to the next item and I'll introduce the topic before taking nominations. Well, Kirby, I just want to say thank you. I mean, you've done a great job and I know it's good partnership with Mike and the rest of the planning commission, but thanks for your service and I appreciate having worked with you from the time I onboarded and everything. Yeah. Thank you, Kirby. It's been good. I mean, I feel like I hardly knew you here, but I'm glad you are here for this time. And for my early days on the commission, I've learned a lot. So I do appreciate your work on this, on all of it. Thank you. Thank you. Carlton's... Can you hear me? Can you guys hear me? Okay. So I haven't been on the planning commission long, but I really appreciate you, Kirby, for my own working, our walk around the city. You edifying my mind to the pitched roof and flat roof situation. So thank you, man, for just your true honesty on breaking things down here. Appreciate you. Thank you. Yeah. Well, I'm sure that all of you guys will keep up the work. And it's not glamorous, but it's definitely, I think, high in fulfillment. It's worth doing. Okay. So we'll move on to the next item, election of the new chair. So yeah, I'll start by giving folks a background of... Obviously, like anyone who has like a position like a chair can make it their own. I mean, there's some bare minimum stuff. And that bare minimum stuff is working with Mike and your vice chair during the week to develop what could potentially go on the agenda. We have the benefit of having wonderful staff. And Mike usually has really great ideas for sketching out a framework for an agenda. But the chair has the freedom to add other things for consideration, other things for discussion. You can make of it as much as you want. You can choose the approach that you want to take with setting the agenda. I'd say that I've been patient with things and I've been a consensus type based chair. I don't know if that's... I don't know if I would judge that as the best approach really. I don't know. That's just kind of how things went. A person could definitely push harder for things they care about or try to do more work between meetings to collaborate outside the Planning Commission. But it's whether you want to be a reactive type chair or a proactive chair. There's a spectrum that a person will have to choose. Building consensus among the Planning Commission or being okay with different voices is something that you have to decide. And then trying to lead in the areas that you think are important. Choosing what that is from a policy standpoint can be difficult because we have a lot of different... If you look at all the different chapters of our city plan, for instance, there's a lot of areas that a person can focus on and all those areas have at least some tensions with other areas. So figuring that out and getting to know what you think that the people of the city want and working on the outreach component. I think we've discovered recently that being successful as a Planning Commission I think means not only being aware of what the residents of the city want but taking some steps to make sure that the majority of people speak up. Because being too complacent, which I probably was at times, if I'm being honest, I probably wasn't proactive enough in doing outreach because of a belief that there's a line to how political we should get. We're appointees, we're supposed to be hashing out policy for the sake of the city council. But the balance of how political you are not being an elected official but being just an appointed official is something that I had to think about a lot. And so I probably was too passive at times because I was probably too cautious about not being political or seeing as the Planning Commission is being political because there are risks. If it looks like the Planning Commission is maverick then maybe we don't have as much clout with the city council. But I do believe that we have a leadership role to play. So being a little bit political I think is okay. I think that if we can go out and do outreach and rally the people who want to see some good positive change done I don't think that that's a bad thing and I don't think that's going to hurt our credibility as long as we're smart about it. So I would say for I'm probably going more into philosophical than what Arianna was looking for. She was looking more over the practical stuff. But the practical stuff of course is just setting the agenda, running the meetings, doing some background research on some things that could be coming up and offering potential solutions when a problem is presented before us. I think those things are the things you have to keep in mind. Being aware of the processes in the city and being knowledgeable about at least a little knowledgeable about what the DRB does, what design review does, the other committees like housing and others that feed into what we do. At least being aware of what they do so that you know how they impact what we're doing. So because we don't want the planning commission to be a silo. But from there you can take it whatever direction you want. I think the chair requires having some thought about how efficient you want meetings to go because there's a tension between efficiency and getting a lot done or hoping to get a lot done and letting people speak their minds. That's an area where I've tried to be patient about letting people, it's a value of mind to have people feel like they feel heard. But there is a point at which it's not efficient anymore. So finding that balance is important I think for the chair because it's the chair's job to keep the meetings running and to keep things flowing. There's got to be at least some ability to be okay with being the bad guy sometimes if you need to to keep things going. So those are things I think that are that any chair is going to encounter. I think it's important to not make it all about yourself. And I don't think that there's anybody here that would do that but it's at least possible on a board like this for the chair to make their agenda the only agenda. And I don't think that that's a good approach or just indulging too much in pet projects and things. But it's really for somebody to figure out on their own it's going to be unique in a lot of ways for everyone. Do you guys have any questions before we move on? Kirby let me ask you let me let me ask you if if you could dedicate the dream amount of time for the position how much time would you say you'd need say a week a month what have you? I mean in an ideal world it would be a full-time job it could be a full-time job I mean you know Mike's Mike's well Mike has a lot on his plate because he's not only get like staffing see staffing other committees and he's running all the regulatory aspects of the city. So if there were a policy oriented full-time job that'd be great. But realistically being a volunteer you know it could be an hour or two a week or it could be if you wanted to be more dedicated five six hours I mean there's been times when we were going through the city plan that I'd spend two three hours going over the submitted language and things for the plan and then working on that. That was a skill that I thought I could bring because I do have some background in legal writing so that that was something that I did other people are going to have other backgrounds in which they can contribute between meetings in different ways. But yeah I know you know between one and between one and five hours between meetings I think is is an acceptable norm but again you could disguise the limit with what you could do. How much how much of so you know you mentioned some of the things that you picked up because of the skills that you possess how much of the things that you don't do were delegated out to others and because we're on a volunteer basis with no real you know money what you know what did you delegate out if anything to achieve the goals to push on to the to the board. That's that's a really good question because I'd say that I did not do a lot of delegating but a person could. I think a person with a more extroverted skill set could probably leverage a lot of other people's skills. I just personally wanted to respect people's you know I was I'm thankful for any planning commissioners just just doing the meetings and putting in the effort that they want to put into and so I didn't feel like anybody everyone here's the planning commissioners are all volunteer and I was very careful about trying to force anyone to do anything beyond what they wanted but then again yeah that's probably not my skill set to try to to try to do that kind of thing. So someone could leverage that better than me for sure. No shade. I think that that's true for for all of you to keep in mind like if you're with this transition is that yeah you know there'll be a new chair but that's even for the people who aren't a new chair to do what they can to help that person succeed and I have no idea what you'll do with the vice chair I don't know what Gabe's plan is but you know helping helping both of those roles succeed you know that's for those of you who are maybe not interested in the chair position yeah you could you can think about what you can do for the new chair to help them I think that's great you can it's not all about the chair delegating could be about other people stepping up to to fill roles and voids definitely would encourage you to do that any more questions before we move on to nominations so I have a question for Mike is it is it typical that you like should I resign at the same time Kirby resigns is that typical that you just get a new slate in or what's typical no there's no certainly no requirement for that yeah if you didn't step up to the chair somebody else would just be stepping into the chair and you would remain vice chair to serve out the term till what is it October that we do new elections so typically that's the way that would that would work so my question is if someone wants to leave early what happens do we do an emergency election what what happens there well that's basically the position we're in right now Kirby was elected in October to serve a one-year term as chair his workload has gotten to the point where he doesn't feel like he can dedicate enough time to be chair I understand that but it but the gentleman who spoke up stated he may want to want to leave as well if we have something where both are up for grabs what do we do there we would probably do nominations yeah we would do nominations on both we would nominate a chair and then we would follow that with nominations of the vice chair to fill that role and so we would do that to tonight potentially we could okay thank you yeah and again I was not speaking for Gabe anyway I mean I my statement was I don't I don't know what Gabe's plan is so no Gabe do not feel any pressure that just because I'm doing something we're not we're not a party ticket or anything you're looking for the new chair are you leaving the commission Kirby are you just yeah okay so proceed procedurally procedurally you know Mike and I discuss this and it it's a lot easier to off-board if I hand over the reins for the chair at this meeting and then I can resign from the planning commission after after everyone's set up that way I can actually you know run the nomination otherwise Mike would probably have to do it I think so that's all it's just a procedural thing but yeah this will be my last meeting but I'm not stepping down from planning commission during this meeting I'll do that after any more questions okay well at this point I oh Brian did you have a question before we move on oh no no no question okay I will take nominations for a new chair or anyone can also feel free to just discuss the topic if they don't have a nomination and you can nominate yourself hey everyone I just wanted to say I'm I've appreciated my time on the planning commission for sure I'm I'm still relatively new I think I'm a little over a year in and I don't want to be the guy who says he's too busy to be the chair however I'm going to be that guy I work uh I just about the time I started I jumped in with both feet on all civic engaged things that I started a position as a secretary state's office just about the time I started with the planning commission and that was a brand new role for me I'm still navigating my way through working for a public official an elected official to talk about partisan versus nonpartisan Kirby that's and I'm only about a year into that as well and that sounds like a long time but I still feel like I'm just uh I really want to be I really want to be part of the planning commission because like it would help me learn about I'm relatively I just moved back to Montpelier want to learn about the city it seemed like um since we didn't do discretionary approvals it was a little less tense and it was a way to talk about policy and the vision of the city without six hour city council meetings for example um so I really respect Carlton for jumping in on the mayor or race for sure respect for that because that is like that's like varsity team stuff I but I I would really look for someone who's been on the commission longer to to step up and I hate to be that guy but I'm happy to nominate anyone I just don't think I'm in a position to give this role even though it's not a huge amount of commitment as Kirby says I I want to give it it's fair do and I'm just I just don't feel like I'm in a position to do that and I totally respect gave you I hope you'll stay on as vice chair but I totally understand from your comments before how being chair is just in light of your work and your your existence outside of this commission how it would be a challenge for you we'd love to have you as chair but um I totally respect your position on that so I don't know if that's helpful or not but I just want to make sure people know I I feel bad about it but I just don't want to give it short shrift there's Tommy in here if I if I if I may say the same thing I I second the emotion this is all drinking from a fire hose anyway the mayoral race is something to drink draw attention to a lot of issues that you know pretty much keeping it simple we all know about um I want to stay on the planning commission and also continue to look for a job if this was paying money definitely I'd consider it but at this point you know the bee keeps going so Kirby again I appreciate everything that you do and whoever is nominated you know if you know they're willing to go ahead and work with everyone you know and I'm not like I said passing judgment on anyone when I state that I'm just stating that I'm new to the bunch and would like to you know foster more of a wider frequency of dialogue within the community so if we can continue doing that the person has my vote that's it so no I'm not interested okay anyone else have any comment or nomination well I guess if nobody else wants to do it I'm willing to be like but I'd like to be co-chair with someone I wonder if that's possible because I don't I don't I just don't feel like I can do as much as you've been doing Kirby but I could facilitate the meeting certainly and do some of that work but I don't I don't think I have the capacity to do all that you are doing so I'm wondering about having a co-chair but if somebody wants to be chair that would be preferable and Ariane I I'm happy to stay on as the vice and I'm happy to step up a little bit more if you find that you need some help but if there's somebody else that feels like they would be a good fit with Ariane to do that to just step up a little bit I'm also happy to resign I really like serving here and and plan to be here for as long as I can be appointed next several years but I can either help back you up or step down let somebody else do that I'm willing to I would own the co-chair with Ariane only because it's a it would require more people and I'm like I said I'm a rookie so someone who's been on a little bit longer and understand things I'm certainly going to step up if there isn't one single resident available so I'll say that as an addendum so Mike let me ask you is there is there a problem with having co-chairs I've seen a number of committees that have done it I don't know I think technically you would probably have one person appointed chair one person is vice chair and just have them operate closely just so that way in case there's any question not that it makes that much of a difference but if there's ever any question when it comes to a certain vote or certain something that we would have a technical difference but in reality co-chairs can work pretty comfortably together I've seen it in the number of committees and we don't have a lot of discretionary decisions to make we're not we're not hearing applications and those types of things so I don't think don't think of a big issue the way you see it the way you see it though would be a chair and a vice chair sharing the chair duties or so like like having two co-chairs and a vice chair is probably not the norm no probably not I mean not for not for a committee of seven we'd have three people as chairs out of and four people who are not chairs so we'd probably just have the two yeah I was just gonna I was just gonna echo that I just I think that there's more benefit to just having a titular head of the committee to the commission and then having a vice chair and you know we can structure that however you want and I think between the chair and the vice chair they can divvy up those those job you know the job role or whatever they want to do but I think it is helpful to just have somebody who is on paper you know the chair because at some point you know there's a pecking order that I think we need to be able to rely on and co-chairs can be a little bit messy that being said is I fully support Arianne as being chair I understand I get the time limitations and whatnot but I think you'd be a very good chair and I think Gabe also I think you Arianne and Gabe could be very effective together and I think between the two of you I think it makes a lot of sense so that would be my my I'm support that arrangement having Arianne as chair and Gabe as vice yeah I would compare and I thought you were gonna be the chair what happened you got I think you're the most next senior person here I I mean okay I mean I just I I mean I'll just say I'm happy to serve in whatever capacity you know the commission thinks is uh you know most beneficial I mean I will say I've been a similar boat as Arianne I've I've got a small child and I'm trying to you know and unfortunately for better or for worse Mondays or Karate is in the afternoon so I barely get here on time as it is for most of our meetings but you know I like I said I'm happy to support the commission anyway I can I just think you know Arianne's experience on the commission is she's been here just as long as not I think a little bit longer than I have she's up to speed on all the issues and Gabe I think you're really effective at you know helping steer the group and asking good probing questions and really giving us focus when we need to so I think between the two of you I think it makes a lot of sense but you know that's that's very kind and karate is a priority too Maria I think everybody else has spoke of it yeah I think we should hear from what your thoughts are well I was going to volunteer to be co-chair with Arianne too since I don't like doing that upfront stuff I don't like running meetings because I can get too bogged down on the issues and I think if someone's running a meeting they need to be able to you know to be able to step back and kind of see like a longer view but I'm very happy to do you know that one to five hours a week that Kirby was talking about I think I can find the time somewhere my schedule to like do all of the prep work and then help Arianne run the meeting but I you know I don't have that skill set that I think she has but then I don't want to take over Gabe's role I kind of wish we could be co-chairs I think we could be a good team the thing is I feel like we're so collaborative and Maria you you know I think you have so many good points that you pull out I you know again I could wait until October I could do it now I mean I'm happy to support Arianne and Maria and to resign as the vice-chair and just support I mean I think that that could be really great if you've got the capacity Maria I mean I I don't know how other people feel about that I appreciate people saying nice things about you know me but I think everybody on here has been very collaborative and we've really worked through we all have our own strengths we have different things that we bring and so it's it's great so I can can I nominate both of them can I say we have a ticket of Arianne and Maria is that can I do a nomination like that or how does that work I think you have to I think he does a step down technically for me I resigned I officially Arianne is chair and Maria is vice I see you right that was my that was the resolution but I don't know if that's in order or not Mike would have to tell me about more that would that would be we would need a nomination to approve this like but I know Carlton's trying to get in yes I am so I just want to again go back and say I'd like to remove myself I always at 21 years of living here I love one of the things that I ran for mayor for was to spark the interest and a lot of things so like Arianne had stated there are other people here that probably do a better job and those strapped with time may offer a window of opportunity for bigger causes within the community that I simply want to pay more attention to from a non-volunteer standpoint so I say that long windedly to say I remove myself and continue to look forward to learning from the standpoint I am so can I make a resolution that we that we vote on Arianne for chair and Maria for co-chair yeah well I'll look to Mike where Mike would it would it be better to take them one at a time whereas two at a time acceptable I don't think there's any I'd usually lean on the secretary of state over here and see but I don't think there's any rules to prohibit such a thing I think usually what you do is nominate you know Gabe would just nominate a slate and then we would look for a second of this on the slate and then we would have a discussion and then a vote or you know take any other nominations I think the question is if it was a can if there was any contested it was if we thought that the chair was going to be a contested seat then we should obviously do them separately it doesn't sound like it's a contested seat and it doesn't sound like the vice chair would be contested either so it makes sense that it would be okay to nominate the slate take any other nominations closed and nominations and then vote well I'll I'll do that formally then are there are there any nominations besides Arianne for the chair position at this time would anyone like to nominate anyone different for the chair position okay and we've had Gabe verbally resign I don't think I officially verbally resigned except for the whole reason why we're even doing this is that that's heavily inferred I formally resign in case that needs to be on the record as chair of the planning vision okay do we have any nomination we've heard a nomination for Maria for vice chair is there anyone else who would also be interested in serving as vice chair and work with Arianne if nominated and elected anyone okay so we have a motion then from Gabe to nominate Arianne as chair and Maria as vice chair at the same time do we have a second a second I heard Brian slightly sooner so well so we have a motion from Gabe and a second from Brian to nominate Arianne as chair of the planning commission and Maria as vice chair any discussion before we proceed with a vote but anybody else have any thoughts okay in that case those in favor say aye yes whatever aye aye any opposed any abstaining okay so it looks like it's unanimous Mike congratulations congrats thanks you guys for stepping up congratulations we'll help you we'll step up we'll all help you and Arianne I feel like I should draft like an agreement between us that I need to see it on her face she's like you know it's like a personal kind of like I vow that I will like feel like a co-chair you know well thank you so I'm handing it over to you for Arianne you're running the rest of the meeting okay all right we'll we'll see how it goes can be sorry let me get the agenda up I think the next thing was comments from incoming chair I don't have any comments other than yes I'm going to need a lot of help so thank you for all of your offers of help um oh general business do we have any members of the public here don't know if Sean has any comments for general business if not I guess we can move on okay um oh yeah update on the council public hearing on zoning amendment so I think there was another city council meeting since our last planning commission meeting and it sounded like it was more just reading the little blurb in the bridge it sounded like it was a little more negative so I'd love I wasn't I didn't attend it so if anyone attended it it'd be great to hear more about it yeah so the we had a hearing uh the third hearing now uh and that was on the 13th and we made one minor change to the solar provisions because there was written text in the solar section that was referring to a diagram that we had removed and the diagram had really been designed for December 21st light and now the sun is different so that diagram really wasn't working so I removed the diagram but I forgot to remove the the two sentences we went through and removed the sentences and the council said that they want to be able to see those changes before approving so we have made those changes posted them online um it been online for since the day after the hearing uh we contacted let the counselors know they were there if they want copies we said we would make them copies no one has contacted us for copies so we are hopefully ready to go for the third so there is a council meeting in two days on Wednesday this Wednesday but uh that is a meeting that's dedicated to the public works department so we didn't want to go and have a planning thing kind of jump in the middle and push them because usually they have a lot of stuff to talk about the meeting on the third which is nine days from now that Wednesday week from this Wednesday is when I was already going to be the the the main event uh we've got a whole bunch of items on the agenda so we just added the zoning hearing to that one so that will be the the third April 3rd so if anyone wants to be there for April 3rd uh you're welcome to be there either in person or on the zoom but I um I watched the I didn't watch it live I watched it on orca after the fact but it didn't seem to me to your comment Ariane um it didn't seem negative they got bogged down in the solar shading issue quite a bit but I think that it seemed to me the council was still on board with I mean they wanted to pass everything they were trying to make motions to pass everything else but the solar I think and then the decision was made to keep it all together I think Mike is that's how I read it when I watched the hearing it seemed like they were there were some concerns about the urban about the zoning designation for that you had created for country club but that wasn't it didn't seem like a deal breaker on moving ahead with they seemed anxious to move ahead with all the changes they just got a bit bogged down and wanted to see the final language on I think in terms I know you're not going to give us political commentary on this but it seemed it seemed that they were ready to move on everything else and they just wanted to wait kind of thank you for that well there was this I thought there was a sentence in the bridge that said something like counselor he didn't support moving ahead or some there was something in there that made me think oh this doesn't sound good but now I can't remember what it was yeah I think I think if I were to characterize things there was everybody had kind of a reason not everybody I think there was a motion to approve it it didn't get a second I think Carrie was the one who wanted to see the final writing Adrienne that was her first meeting I think she was just a little hesitant about you know this was really something everybody else had worked on and she was generally in support of and again I'm trying not to put words in counselors mouths I'm trying to interpret what I saw we were missing a counselor hurl which may have made a difference she had a lot of opinions I don't remember Palin was there but Tim Tim wanted to have more conversation about country club road so he's you know so each one kind of had something that was like I'm I'm you know I'm not ready to approve this we'll see what comes out on at the next meeting and I think if I think if I think if we get a motion in a second then at least we'll get a vote and then we'll once we've got a vote then we can see where everybody's at and if the vote is then there isn't enough votes to pass then then we can start to ask the question okay what what is it do we have to amend but right now we haven't had any votes no votes that approved no votes that denied so we were kind of left in the position of we've got to wait till we get a motion get a second and then get a vote and see if we get three four two and then once we've got that then it's up to the mayor to decide what types of changes have to be made in order to get this across the finish line so um well we will wait and see great um I'll try to attend the meeting is it are more people coming in person or are still most people coming on zoom to city health meetings most are on zoom uh the council chambers has been cut in half so we don't have the big chamber anymore uh the back half the memorial room is now an office for cjc so it is a little little more cramped a little tighter but um there's there were plenty of seats at the last meeting so it wasn't it wasn't crowded or anything but there's a lot of people on zoom so it's not like weird if you're on zoom okay that's that's what I was wondering okay great does anyone have any other questions or comments on the city council hearing okay I guess the next thing was I'll look input plan for the city plan all right so we have finally started to reach the point where we are going to start rolling this uh city plan out I've been working with uh se group they've been really busy wrapping up a few other contracts that they're on they do have a bunch of work uh that they have done and they are getting things to me so what we the two of us um se group who is our consultant and me have been working on is really getting four chapters or if you want we can adjust the number our thought was to start with four chapters get all those storyboards done and ready to go and you've seen drafts of those storyboards we'll we'll polish them up finish them up uh I have another meeting tomorrow with evalyn about putting together the implementation strategy so you remember we did these in two pieces we kind of have what used to be the the chapter the written text have now been converted into storyboards and we also have uh the implementation strategies what are our goals what are our aspirations what are our strategies so I so we can accomplish them that's in kind of another document so we have a housing chapter which is a storyboard and then we have a housing implementation strategy which are all those evalyn is working on how to make that graphically how do we show that how do we communicate that plan uh to the public because it's a you know it's a lot of good information in there but it's also can be a little bit confusing and you know some things repeat themselves like uh growth center designation may come up multiple times so you know how do we how do we show this how do we communicate this without confusing the public and so she's working with me on how to put that together s e group is working with me on those four chapters so the thought would be probably not in april because I think we're gonna have some stuff keeping us busy through the month of april but I'm looking at uh early may or late may depending on how things go what are we looking at for we would usually meet may 13th and actually may 27th is actually Memorial Day so that could be a problem but the idea is that in May we would be able to start having public input and then the question is going to be what's the best way to do this when I was envisioning this I was always thinking this was going to be in person we were going to find a space and maybe that's the best way to do it is that we encourage people to come in we want to see people in person maybe we get the lower part of the senior center they've got a large room where we could go in we can show these storyboards maybe have a couple of computers set up where people can see the storyboards we can review them they can look at them and then we can have posters of the implementation strategies and we can talk through each one of them so that was kind of my thought was that we could have people be able to go station to station and then we could go through and have planning commissioners and staff who would be able to be there to answer questions take comments and then we can come back and have some group discussions on these and that that's my thought is to start to feel out the public on the chapters I think we that we thought were the farthest along were arts and culture historic resources housing and I'm going to draw a blank on the fourth one I can't remember what the fourth one is but we would have four chapters there's 11 chapters total so the thought is we would be able to do this three times throughout the summer maybe May and June we'll do the same meeting over twice so we'll do it once in May and once in June let's say and we'll talk about these four chapters and then we we as a commission can sit down and say what did we hear how did we do you know we didn't hear much on this chapter we heard a lot of good things about this chapter people thought we weren't doing a good job on that chapter and then we can start working on that while at the same time bringing out the next four chapters and we can go and have the chapters on whatever they are natural resource energy transportation utilities and facilities we would have four more chapters and while we're taking public input on those we're also working at our other meeting on on making revisions to the plan that we need to make and then we would finally get to the last three chapters and we still have one chapter left to develop which is the land use chapter and I've been holding off on putting the draft together because there's a number of state laws that have been kicking around that are going impact land use and how we frame land use a lot of the act 50 legislation is saying you've got to have these types of designations in these types so I really want to wait see what comes out of those bills to make sure that we can very carefully or I can very carefully draft a good land use plan that we can all then consider as a planning commission before going to public hearing on but as we said we've got 10 of the 11 chapters done if we did four four and three I think that would be a good way of doing it we could also do six and five we just wanted to break it into two chunks but the idea is we would be able to spend some time and everybody in the public would get a couple of bites at the apple Evelyn does a lot of work with surveys she's been doing a lot of the is different survey type things so we would work with her to do more surveys and if we need more public input we do more public input as as I've said there's no there's no maximum it's not like well you can't do you know you can only do up to six public hearings we can do as many as we want and we can do them as long as we want until we feel comfortable that we're in a good place with the document and then can I ask you a question like yep so you mentioned the the act 250 some of the things that you're waiting on are some of the piles of the changes in act 250 are there any you know opportunities to move forward in a in a quicker manner because of the home act and any you know in any leeway um you know with the land use uh in that given that is uh coming online or online yeah so most of the home act really was targeted towards the zoning side of things and less towards the the city plan side of things so um the city plan thing is in what chapter 117 is in the four four thousand three hundreds the forty three hundreds and the zoning is all in the forty four hundreds most of the home act was in that forty four hundreds you're required to have these in those uses or densities in your zoning and we already meet all of those requirements the few changes that have to be made are the things that are in this zoning amendment that is before city council right now we have a couple of small changes we have to make and we've got those in in that proposal so as soon as that's passed we will be compliant with the home act um but the act 250 the the unique thing about act 250 is that it requires in title in um criteria 10 conformance with the city plan um and the second piece that act 250 has is a whole bunch of requirements that come in that say or not requirements but exemptions that come in and say if you're in uh this certain designation you can be a tier one a this is the current proposal the current proposal that's going kicking around the state house right now talks about tier one a tier one b um so you can have a part of your downtown or part of your community that gets a tier one a designation which is what we generally call the designated downtown in the growth centers um and so those can get exemptions so if you're a tier one a you don't have to go through act 250 at all um as it's currently written um and then there's a tier one b where some projects are exempt and some projects aren't and then there's so anyway it gets very very complicated very very fast but how this relates back to me how it relates back to the city plan is um those designations we usually have to put into our city plan or our town plan if we were a town and to go through and say we would like our you know this area to be we believe this area would be appropriate for a tier tier one a so that way it can end tier one b so that way it can go to the regional planning commission for approval and the regional planning commission can add those to their map because the regional planning commission has to have a future land use map and then if it gets approved by whatever the committee is the nrb or the downtown board or whatever that designation is that there's a lot of pieces that are moving right now but however that process gets approved but it really starts with the municipality saying here's our master plan here's our city plan and here's where we think is the most appropriate place for that urban or that village area um and so i'm kind of waiting to see as i said there's so many moving parts on this bill if i knew what the end product was on the bill i could write it right now but there's no sense getting ahead of myself um we'll wait see what the legislature comes out with and then make sure we write a bill that or write a land use plan that dovetails well with where they want their future maps to look like all right so i gotta go to the state house and start yelling if it's okay i can chime in on this uh since i work in the state house every day now and and i've worked on some of these bills um i can tell you we have no idea how things are going to end up um there's there's a there's a major housing bill coming out of the house that i've been working on and we have no idea what the senate's going to do to it so you know the dust isn't going to settle until may probably so as mike was saying uh we're just we're just not going to know and uh i would also add that the past two legislative sessions before this one there was a lot of federal money because of covid relief uh that money is basically evaporated at this point so belts are much tighter and spending on housing is much tighter even though housing i would say probably is right up there with top priorities uh there's still a question of how much money um is going to be spent i would also probably just add that uh a lot of the money that probably will end up being available i think is going to probably run through the vhcb um and they have a like a something like a 10-year plan uh for housing in vermont um and the legislature seems to be taking that approach from from everything i've seen so if you are interested in having some glimpse of maybe what will happen in the future i would probably look at what whatever materials are out there for what vhcb would like to do over the next 10 years um because it seems like they're gonna probably be in charge of housing development at least thank you for that yeah go ahead brian oh sorry i don't know i'm trying to stick with protocol but just in the uh just in terms of the public input sessions these aren't public hearings right this is these are like informational sessions or open houses for the public to for us to interact with the public in some way to get feedback before this is not the formal public hearing process technically yes yeah they would okay i may occasionally throw out the word saying it's a hearing but we won't have the hearing until we have a product that all of the commission has sat down and said we've heard from the public and our public input sessions um and we're all comfortable with this and we're going to make a motion to warn the public hearing and then we would have your one or two formal public hearings on the final product right okay hopefully next fall or winter marina you want to jump in i was gonna say i'd like the idea of is it three three and four four three four and four rather than five and six i think just from our own experience going through these you know once you get past three it just you know it's just hard to hold your attention for that long um so anyway i just wanted to throw it out there that has i'd support three or even more sessions um or maybe pairing up topics that aren't as heavy with topics that you know are going to have a lot of public comment so that um you know we can try to um just use our time and resources efficiently um like we know housing or polyv something that draws people in um anyway that's just my my input oh and then i was also going to you said the senior center we could possibly use a senior center um but i could i could volunteer our arts studio downtown as a place to hold the meetings too um it's ADA accessible and we are used to holding events there so you know starting it out there yeah this certainly could be nice uh thank you as certainly if we're doing um the arts and culture chapter with something else it would might even be appropriate to kind of fit it into that that venue that would be good and as maria said we can certainly break it down into smaller groups if you know if we were thinking you know we've got two meetings a month maybe we do two chapters a month you know you know the first meeting is two chapters and then we can talk about it and then we can do two chapters and it would take us six six months to do the entire plan but then we're focusing on fewer chapters smaller chapters uh as opposed to trying to have people digest four chapters they don't only have to digest two it just draws that window out a little bit longer um so we can certainly do um fewer fewer chapters with each one and but that might mean we only have one so let's say we do art and housing for the may meeting uh we might end up with just having one meeting on that and maybe the public wants more than one but then you start doubling that and you start doing wants to do two meetings then this is taking more than a year to get through the the discussion process and i i think we would want to be not taking a year i think taking six months is is more than fine for having a lot of discussion but i think getting getting at more than a year would be more of a problem but just ideas this this is officially your process so i was just gonna say i mean can we because i feel like may 13th isn't as far away as i think it is um i mean can we start reserving a space or deciding on a space i don't know exactly what the process would be for that but i feel like uh yeah if and i assume se group will do the storyboards for us the displays yeah i'm thinking we'll probably try to do some computers maybe they're just laptops you know be great if you know if we had some setup where there was you know something with slightly bigger monitors i might work with our it folks to see if we can either wi-fi connect or cable connect laptops up to bigger computer screens so we can actually go through them and and there can be multiple people viewing them um but i'll have to talk to them about that process but yeah i think that was the idea is we could theoretically print out the storyboards but i think the point is for people to try to see them digitally because that's what the product is supposed to be i definitely would like to i mean i don't want to rush things but i would like to plan on having that you know hearing on may 13th um then i guess might just let us know what we need to do in order to make that happen um but i don't i don't know what the senior center space looks like um i know maria because i pick up my daughter there that the wilder art studio can be i i don't want you guys to feel like you have to clean up because i presume we're gonna have it we would have it at like 5 30 out of monday so that could be a tight turnaround from any after school spots but we would we would clean up for you guys it's not our problem because we have classes going every evening now so we have to flip the studio around anyway so it's fine um but i was going to add that i think having maybe having two is a bit too few for one session i think the three is like a really good number i don't know what other people think um i mean having this go for a half year just seems so long to me but i'm curious to hear what other people think apparently where we've been with this six months is nothing so yeah that would really look at a four four groups of public hearing so we'd have three on you know three three three and then two for the last one and we could take it by ear play it by ear if we have a hearing on transportation energy and utilities and facilities those three actually kind of go together um maybe we take public comment we don't hear a lot and we don't need to have a second meeting on that one um maybe housing we get a lot of input and people decide you the commission decide we'll have a second meeting on that one or we'll get through all all of them and go through and say you know what we've heard from everybody in the input we've gotten everybody's input now we're going to have the public hearing and we expect that we're now going to you know those same issues that came up we've tried to address them and now we're in the public hearing and then in the public hearing that'll just go until whenever we'll we'll we'll be having a hearing with all 11 displays out at once and having people make comments and we will continue to have hearings until we feel like we've got a product that you're willing to say I make a motion to pass this to the city council for consideration and then it goes off to them kind of similar to how we do the zoning you'll you'll reach a point where you're like I think I think this is you know we don't want to let perfect be the enemy of the good so we're going to move this to council and let them have their their shot at it and hopefully we get that up to them in a good window of time that either it's just before or just after the election next year and it's difficult if it crosses over an election because you could get new people so usually you want to hopefully get it in so they're adopting it before or they're getting it and they're going to hold it till after but we'll see for their hearings but that sounds like a good approach I will target three boards for May 13th and we'll make sure one of them is art this and I think the next one is going to be housing and I'm going to say it's going to be art housing and historic just because I think those are very straightforward their housing is very important and I think we can get good good input and we'll get a sense of how the process is going to go and maybe the process turns into a big train wreck and we've got to reconsider how we do this or maybe it all goes perfectly fine I never know how this goes until you're in the middle of a you know in the middle of a big meeting but hopefully like I said we'll do a lot of outreach on those start letting people know that's when we're going to start having public input on the city plan and I will get you guys at then one of our next meetings in April I'll bring the final storyboard so you guys can get a chance to look at what's going out there again when I say final everything is draft they can change at any point all we need is a motion from someone to say change that and it gets changed so we'll get those up to you guys for one of your next meetings coming up so I think that's about as much information as I needed to get from you guys so I could start to work with Evelyn and work with SE Group to move this forward um good ideas and um I'll be in touch the next meeting and start going over things so is that a good segue to should we meet on Eclipse Day would be the next so I'll be bringing this to the next meeting the question is is the next meeting the eighth or is the next meeting the 22nd I mean it's a national holiday the Eclipse Day Eclipse Day might as well be it really depends I don't know what the weather is going to be like and that's going to be the the the big ringer for everything um I have a bunch of family who want to come up my family's from Connecticut and so they're all driving up to stay for the Eclipse which is from like two to four on that Monday so I'm probably I'm definitely not going to be available if they're up for the eighth but if the weather's rainy then it's just going to be a cloudy day with rain that gets dark and then gets light again and then gets dark in which case they're not coming up all that way even if it's even if it's cloudy even if it's completely overcast it's still really cool it's still a big event yeah it's still it's still spooky so you're like you said you wouldn't be available the night of eight if my family comes up I definitely would not be but I don't know how many other people I know schools have been canceled um and I don't know if a lot of other people are like hey I I'm going to be busy partying it up and enjoying the eclipse and I'm going to be I'm going to be partying I'm going to be partying it up and enjoying the eclipse so I will not be there on the oh okay wow I was going to say I think we should meet because the eclipse will be over but I guess I'm not I'm not having enough fun on today I know I feel like I'm going to be homebound there's no school there's no work like I will be there saying stay off the roads I know yeah but uh fair and well I'm just noticing that the other Monday meeting in April is like school vacation which I don't know if anyone's traveling for that but can we reschedule for another day that in April or is April 22nd going to be enough will there be enough of us and is that enough time to like get ready for the May 13th meeting so I won't be there on the 22nd either okay see um I mean we can push stuff to the night I mean rather than meeting when there are holidays for people who haven't been here for a long time like Memorial Day we'll have that conversation but usually there's a lot of people taking long holidays when it comes to Memorial Day but some holidays President Stale come up Bump Planning Commission will push it to a Tuesday instead of a Monday and we'll just meet on Tuesday instead we could certainly do that for the eclipse day and just say we're going to meet on the 9th um I think that would be an RPC board meeting which I was going to mention because oh yes I don't feel the RPC anymore that was the other one I was going to mention um that Ariane's also it's very unusual to have the the Planning Commission chair also be on the RPC board of directors so we'll probably have to look for a replacement there I am the alternate so for now it's not a big deal if Ariane resigns um we'll just have to start having a conversation about who would like to be it's typically a Planning Commission member that sits on the board so folks can think about if they want to meet it's about once a month they do try to drag you into being on another committee um because they do have a lot of subcommittees so you usually end up as a board member once a month 10 meetings a year um second Tuesday and then usually they get you on one of the sub committees as well um so I'm on the Regional Planning Commission Regional Plan rewrite committee but there are a number of other committees that they usually try to get you on too so that's just an idea um think about it and we could talk about it we'll put it on the next agenda for um getting somebody on as a replacement to Ariane but that also puts us on back on to the um whether we want to meet on the night um I mean I guess I would say we're meeting on the night but does that mean someone has to miss it to go to the RPC meeting or can we all skip the RPC meeting for April well I'll just let them know that we're going to have to skip it because we're going to be appointing a new person okay just because you won't be available because you're not going to be you're going to now be chair and I won't be able to because I'm staffing the meeting so until May we'll have to they'll have to wait and whoever we pick we will have to go to city council to appoint so there's going to be a little bit of a process that's going to go along with this and does everyone feel okay about meeting on Monday yeah that sounds good okay good I'm okay with it I may not be able to attend but I'm not gonna let don't let me hold it up sounds like I've got a you've got a quorum for that day okay it's good so the idea is we're going to be meeting on the night okay excellent all right that question answered okay um okay so great I think the last thing we have is considering the minutes of March 11th and I don't see the meeting minutes for January 22nd but maybe those were in a previous email they were probably in a previous email and I didn't send them okay well we can I don't know if somebody wants to make a motion to approve the minutes of March 11th once we've had a chance to look at them we could at least start with that I'll move that we approve the minutes since I haven't gotten to do something like that in a long time all right okay is there a second for Kirby's motion maybe they need more time nope oh yeah maybe well I'll second it for sure to approve the minutes okay all those in favor of passing the March 11th minutes say aye hi hi and then do I say any opposed any opposed okay all right um and then uh should be do you want to resend those January minutes or I'll put them on the next I'll put them on the next agenda and I'll make sure to to attach them we were kind of rushing to get the agenda assembled last week and uh that one didn't get attached great so I think we just need a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn okay does somebody need to second that the Carlton second that I second that okay so just just so you get and get in the habit of um and the Kirby does it and other folks have done it just for the audio tape usually what we'll do is just restate who who it was that was Aaron made the motion or Brian made the motion and Carlton seconded that helps um Tam who does our minutes because sometimes she can't see who it is okay so Aaron made the motion and Carlton seconded to adjourn all those in favor say aye hi hi hi everyone I I sent my resignation letter in so thanks Kirby see you Kirby thanks Kirby yeah hey go out there and recruit my replacement okay yeah that's an important that's my that's my last tip as I exit it'll get so we'll get it posted I'll work with Mary she will get it posted in the paper um and that may take a couple of weeks to for it to get the council and then council will appoint a replacement for the remaining portion of Kirby's seat which I will have to find out whether that is six months or 18 months but I will figure that out all right have a great solar day