 Alright, welcome everyone. I'm going to call the meeting to order. So normally the first thing to do would be to review and approve the agenda, but I am going to take a little bit of Mayor's liberty before we get started because I just want to take a moment to mourn together with our Jewish community the abhorrent violence that happened this past weekend in Pittsburgh. I know my heart is heavy about it and I'm sure many of yours are as well. I'm sorry I'm going to try not to cry. So I just want to take a minute to have a moment of silence. Alright, thank you. Moving forward. Sorry team. Right, so we're going to review and approve the agenda. That's the first thing. So one hypothesis is that we're going to do this in the order that was proposed. Another hypothesis is that maybe there's some people here for more here for one thing than another thing. And so we may be able to check some stuff off early rather than making people wait. So as just a show of hands, who is here for the parking garage? Okay. Yeah. As expected. Awesome. Okay. Who is here for the wastewater recovery facility? Okay. Great. Okay. How about the sustainability of the plastics? Okay. Okay. Alright. And non-citizen voting. Okay. Well, there's a number of people for all of them. Let's just go right through. I think we should just go right through it. So I think we're going to take it in the order that is, oh, yes, sorry? Oh, I'm sorry. Well, yeah, it's okay. We're still just figuring out the agenda. So my presentation goes in the order of the ballot. This one has a couple of juxtapose. Yeah. I think we should go in the order of the ballot, which would put the parking garage first. And then the water resource recovery facility. Then the non-citizen voting and then plastics, I think, is the order on the ballot. So we'll take it in that order. Alright. So without objection, we're going to consider the agenda approved. And so the first thing is the parking garage. So we have a brief presentation from City Manager. Yes. Question? General Business and Appearance? General, no, thank you. Just jumping around here. Alright, General Business and Appearances. This is time for anyone from the public to address the Council on any matter that is otherwise not on our agenda. And if you would, and this is true for all of the statements that we make tonight, if when you come up to make a comment, if you would say your name and where you live, and then try to keep your comments to two minutes or less, and we'll try to help you out with that. So, alright, any General Business and Appearances? Okay, we're going to move on. Alright, so, the parking garage. So I'll turn it over to you, Bill, when you're ready. Thank you. And I apologize to the crowd that my back is too weak. Still working on the technology in this room, and we'll get it better. But I want to operate this. Let's see. So this presentation walks through all of the ballot items, but I will stop after the parking garage, and we will do questions and answers, and then resume, turn the lights back on for questions and answers, and then pick it up after that. But this is a special election that is being held. Although it's the state's general election, it's also a city election on November 6th. The law requires us to hold two public hearings. The first one has to be within between 30 and 40 days prior to the election, and that was held on October 3rd. At that time, the council voted to place these four ballot items onto the ballot, or the warning, as it's called. And then the second public hearing for bonds and charter changes must be held within 10 days of the election. So that is scheduled for tonight, October 29th, to meet that requirement. As the mayor said, there are four proposed warning articles. Article one is a $10.5 million bond for a parking garage. Article two is a $16.75 million bond for a water resource recovery facility, also known as the wastewater plant or the sewer treatment plant. Article three is a petition and charter change to allow non-U.S. citizens to vote in local elections. And article four is a proposed charter change to authorize the city council to enact regulations to promote sustainability, and in particular banning plastic bags and straws, et cetera. The purpose of these ballot items, of course, they're already going to be on the ballot, so the purpose of this hearing is for people to become informed, to offer their comments, to ask questions, and to hear from one another. So this is the long version of article one. This is all the legalese about funding the parking garage. It breaks down the parking garage. It also acknowledges that tax increment finance district language is being used. I'm happy to answer questions about that, and we'll comment on that a little bit as we go through. But essentially, this is approving the $10.5 million bonds for a parking structure. So a parking structure will be proposed for this area here. You can see the parking lot behind capital plaza, which I have one of those pointers, but you can see the capital plaza is kind of at the top of the screen and a parking lot behind it. And the railroad tracks in the middle and then the construction of the One Taylor site to the left. There's the river and then the Shaw's building is right in the foreground where the buildings recently torn down is there. The bike path will be going through there, and then the parking structure. So everything that's happening on the main street side of the river is going to be proceeding regardless of the bond vote. Everything to the left of the railroad tracks will be proceeding regardless of the bond vote. And there will be the bike path looping across. What you see is what exists. The proposal shows this is the proposed structure. So the white building is the proposed new hotel. To the right of it behind is the existing capital plaza. To the left of it behind is the One Taylor transit center and 30 units of affordable housing. That is under construction now. So that, as I said, that will happen in the foreground is the proposed 348 unit parking structure and to its right is not only Christchurch, but potential additional 25 affordable housing units that are on the drawing board for two or three years. But we've tried to accommodate them in the planning. You can see the bike path and the bike bridge, bike, ped bridge crossing the river next to the rail tracks. Some of you have seen a rendering that shows the main street in the foreground is all lovely green and trees. And that is not really appropriate for what's there. I think the prior image that we just saw more accurately shows what is in that location now. So I just basically cropped it out so that we would get more of a care. But this is really kind of a current and proposed sites for this location. You can also see in this in the foreground on the the left hand side is a green area near the park. This is known as Confluence Park. So going forward, the questions about the parking garage project, the city is will construct, own, operate and manage the parking facility. We have public facility. The land is being donated with approximately half a million dollar value by the capital plaza, but will be owned by the city. It's already gone through subdivision review. Why is the city doing this? We have an economic development street strategic plan, which specifically called for a new hotel downtown additional parking and for housing. This will provide a 26% increased in managed parking in our downtown area. A new hotel and potentially accommodate the affordable housing at Christ Church. It will also create 80 ADA compliant bike path connections and a park area where none exist now and none will be. Well, the park could be will be happening with the one Taylor project, but the bike path connections would not will generate additional rooms and meals tax revenue. How will this be paid for the project costs? As I said, 10 and a half million. The cost includes construction design permits environmental all in. It's based on our current bond interest rates, a 30 year bond, first four years interest only. We've adjusted cost costs and revenues throughout the life of the project includes tax increment finance revenue, which is basically the new taxes from the new hotel and nothing else. No other TIF revenue and includes $50,000 in reserve funds annually for future needs. The budget. So here's the revenue sources. People will know. And when you hear us say there's no new property taxes, that's correct. Nobody's nobody was paying taxes now will be paying additional taxes for this. The new hotel where it says CP TIF capital Plaza TIF that generates about $150,000 a year that will go into the TIF fund to pay the they are also paying capital Plaza is paying $300,000 a year to purchase 200 permits. I'll emphasize that these are permits and not reserved parking. I think there's been some confusion about that. Other permits are estimated to generate 138,000 and then hourly and flex spaces. Another 136,000 so you can see where the funding comes from to pay for this. What are we going to spend on the key thing? This is based on a 10 year average the first 10 years. The debt service is obviously the main item paying off the bond. The unlabeled item the 103,000 that is the annual operating and maintenance costs to run the garage, clean it, pay the light bills, those kinds of things. And then the capital reserve that's put in and that so that first 10 year average about 730,000 per year compared to about 780,000 per year in average income again, the TIF and all the permits and fees. Again, you see no new property taxes. You'll also notice that the TIF is estimated at the same value as it is in year one. We certainly expect that will grow but we sought to be conservative with that. So this frequently asked questions. There was an article in the September 20 Montpelier Bridge that we have a project link at MontpelierVT.org and I've got a whole bunch of copies out here of updated versions of that article will have questions and answers on that in writing and that updated version will be online probably tomorrow. There are some points of clarification that as this has been out in the public sphere for the last two or three weeks, I've seen a lot of written comments and questions we've received questions and I think there's some points that people aren't 100% clear on. So I just want to walk through these and certainly happen to answer more questions. One of the comments we've heard is we should spend $10.5 million on something else. And while that may be true, the $10.5 million isn't available for anything else. This money is coming from revenues from a new hotel and from parking users and parking permits. If there's no new hotel, if there's no garage, there'll be no new hotel and no parking fees. So that that money will not be generated for we can't use it for anything else. Also heard comments that this property could be better used for something else. The Capital Plaza project property is private property. They're not donating it for other public uses. If there's no garage, my presumption is that they will continue to use that as surface parking to support their hotel. So it will continue to be the asphalt parking lot that it remains, as will the Heaney lot. So what we have now that you saw in the image is what would remain. There's a lot of confusion about tax increment financing that somehow this is a tax break for the hotel owner that is incorrect. The hotel owners and any other property owners in a TIF district pay their full property taxes. What it does is takes those taxes, puts them into a special fund and includes some of the education tax on the new increment. So the new hotel, not the existing hotel, and that we can then use to pay for the garage. We the public. It does so they pay the same amount of taxes that they would pay. Um, one of the other issues been, I've heard the comment that this will block connections to the bike path. In fact, the bike path as is being constructed today runs from Main Street to Taylor Street. And there are no bike path connections from State Street under the current design. And that is in large part due to the fact that there's about a six or seven foot grade difference between the bridge where it will cross and the parking lot down below it. So there are no accessible bike path connections. This project allows for two connections. They may not be ideal, but they are connections that do not exist. So people would be able to get on and off this path from State Street. The project is not an impediment to storm water. In fact, it's an improvement. Currently, the asphalt parking lots have no treatment and just wash off into the storm system or directly into the river. The parking garage, which is also an impervious surface, will have an internal storm treatment system. So water that leaves it will be much improved. So this is not actually degrading storm water, but improving it. I've also heard that, you know, this isn't the best place. There should be other places will be clear that we've studied parking garages throughout the city. And there are no alternative parking garages in active consideration. I'm happy to talk about each of them, about why they are or are not. This is the best location that is available. And finally, this, I've heard, not finally, but on this page, finally, some talk about, well, if the hotel is going to be built anyway, why would we do this? And the answer is no, the hotel will not be built. This is an economic development project that we are gaining public parking as well as a private hotel, which is beneficial to the community in some points of view. A couple of things, other things I've heard is that somehow this prevents rail service. In fact, that's not true. The transit center is designed to have a rail siding. And both of them support both the garage and transit center support rail service and current transit. People now right now do not have any place to park if they wish to take the bus, for example, to go to Boston, Montreal, New York. They're here in front of city hall. They would be able to leave their vehicle. People coming from out of town that want to use public transit to go elsewhere will have a place to leave their vehicle while they go on bus trips rather than driving their cars. If rail should come in the future, that would provide the same service. So those garage is being designed to accommodate solar panels. Bike parking will be available inside the garage. Each corner of the garage has what they call dead space where you can't park cars. Those will all be dedicated for bicycle parking. Not necessarily directly related, but I've heard the comment that somehow one tailor was in jeopardy and that is completely incorrect. One tailor is fully funded. It's designed and is being built as we speak. We can all see the construction out there. Again, not related to the parking garage, but I've heard that somehow a rumor that the transit center and the Taylor street bridge cannot accommodate buses. That's incorrect. They are designed to do so, can handle them, and all the considerations have been given to allow for that to happen. We would not be building a bus center that could not accommodate buses. Finally, there's a lot to talk about traffic. We have had a traffic engineering study, which included a trip generation, traffic counts, intersection impact analysis, and considered the transit center, hotel, and garage together comprehensively, not each individual one. So considered the cumulative effects of all and has reached conclusions that we can handle this work, understanding that 110 parking spaces from the car lot, the Taylor Street, have gone away. So those were previously in traffic counts. So that there is really about an equivalent traffic impact of this. So happy to answer to talk about any of those, but these are all comments I've heard that in the public realm that I think have been inaccurately characterized by some. Just finally, another image of the bike path connections. Again, these do not exist without this project. You can see connection, a deck. There's a ramp going down the side of the garage. You can't really see, but it cuts across the front side and comes up to the heady lot. There's also a connection between the garage and the hotel, which loops around. You can see it coming in and meeting in a deck and then hitting the white bike path, which then continues on past that the transit center connects to the existing bike path, which goes out to Dog River. So that's a final image of this project. And I will leave that here because then I go on to article two. All right. So at this point, we'd love to take some comments from the public, questions, whatever you would like to say. And whether you're forward or against it or still undecided, we're glad that you're here. So a few. I'm sure there are probably lots of folks who would like to speak. So if you would come up and say your name and where you're from and give us your thoughts and we'll try to help you out with the two minutes. Should I live on Liberty Street? I have a few questions after hearing that presentation. One of them, to me, feels rather basic, which is that the bike path was an integral part of the Taylor Street project, etc., etc. Now you're saying, I think I heard you say that there's a grading issue. Well, there's not a new issue. It's always been an issue. So why was that not in the initial design? It's one question I've got and another I've got is I think you said there's no connection for the bike path without this project. Did you say that? Well, what I said was there's no connection from State Street. The bike path is it's currently designed. You can enter from Main Street and go through and connect from Taylor Street. But the grade design drop between the bridge of the Heaney lot was too high to really create an adequate ramping without taking up more land than we were able to acquire. And similar with the looping connection on the Capitol Plaza lot, there were to create Heaney Cap accessible, which we would need to do as a public facility, were required too much space. So those were not in. You could get in on either end and walk, but there was no, and that's been in the design for years. So if you're going from Main Street through what used to be the Redemption Center and all of that across the river, you have to get off your bike at some point and then get back on the bike? No, no, no. The bike path goes consecutively through. You can travel through uninterrupted. Sorry. The question is some people, most of us would like to also be able to come from State Street, walk down through the parking lot and get up onto the bike path. And as it's being constructed today, there's no way to do that. This would enable that to happen. Two others, and then I'll stop because I know a lot of other questions are in that room. You mentioned that there's a 30-year bond. Four years are interest only. What happens after four years? Then the principle begins. Which is what? It's figuring into the financial statements. The principle payment is in there. So the reason for the interest only is to allow revenues from the garage to build up as it's starting up and new users and all that. Then we'd be painful. So at that point, there could be an impact on people's tax. No, that's all they've been fed into the pro forma. Okay. And then I did not understand what's the difference between permitted spaces and reserved. So reserved spaces, this spot reserved for DD brush. No one else can park there. That's yours. A permitted space means you have a permit, but if you're not there, someone else can park in it and you might have a permit to park there some more, but it might not be the same place every day. And it's a flexible to be used anytime you're not there, which is exactly how we're going to permits in all of our parking lots right now. You can have a permit out back here. You're gone. Someone else uses it. Oh, okay. So does that mean that the hotel has a certain number of permitted spaces, but if they're being unused and they're open to the public? They're unused. I can drive in and see. Correct. Okay. And I just like to say that the Taylor Street project, when it was first envisioned, had a hotel as a component, which was, am I not correct? And you're saying that it was a very high priority of the economic strategic plan to have a hotel in 2016. That did not go forward. That was not allowed because of the Capitol Plaza hotel's objections to that. And now we have the Capitol Plaza with a hotel plan and a garage plan. And I find that mysterious. Okay. I'm glad you raised that because it comes up a lot and there's a lot of misinformation about that. So I'd like, so maybe we can get this right out on the table now. The initial plan for one Taylor, the Carlott project, actually called for office space. And for years it was called, in fact, it was going to be one building, transit center in the first form. We talked about the upper floor development as office space. And that's what was in the, the plants filed with the fads and all that, I think. And that is how we proceeded. As we got ready to develop the space, we put out for RFPs for potential developers. One developer proposed a hotel. And in the court and people got excited about it. They also proposed housing, affordable housing as an alternative. Those were, or not, they were going to not create housing, excuse me. So that was a split as far as what a housing or hotel was more desirable. As that unfolded, they began to realize that a hotel use in conjunction with the bus station and the space that was needed for the bus turning was not going to be that feasible. That it wasn't as connected a use as well. It's no secret that the capital plaza at that point opposed a hotel, but the reason that they abandoned that was not because the capital plaza scared them off. It was because they believed that housing was a better use at that site. They then weren't able to make the market rate housing work and that was perfectly feasible. And now it has become affordable housing. So we have a 30 units of affordable housing which is needed downtown. And now a proposed new hotel and parking to support all of those activities. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. My name is Brian Murphy. I live on Harbor Park Drive with my wife and kids. I'm just here to voice my support for the project. In my job, I work for a local company and my job is to manage our company's relationships with external companies. So about once a week or so, I have folks coming in from out of town and they come to the area. And it's always, they often ask me where it should say, I recommend local places, but they always wind up staying at the Fairfield Inn in Waterbury or all the way out in the residence in Wilson because they want those hotel points. And it sounds like a weird thing, but it really does drive hotel buyers decisions. There's business travelers that they wanna be able to collect those points so they can build up more and more and be able to take a vacation with their family when the time comes. So I feel as if by having the parking garage and having the hotel, rather than having those folks go to Waterbury, go to Wilson, we'll be able to have them come to Montpelier and support the downtown. It would be really nice to be able to tell people, oh, we have such and such property here in town and then they stay here and they're able to go out and enjoy the town and it'd be really nice to be able to see it. So that's the reason why I'm supporting the project. Thank you very much. I'm Ron Merkin from Montpelier. Did I correctly understand that you said that without parking garage, there would be no hotel? That's correct. And why is that? The hotel needs sufficient parking to support it and the garage needs the sufficient revenues from the parking permits to make the garage work. So they obviously need one another. The Sharra family has already made that clear that they would abandon their plans to build a hotel if the parking garage is not approved. I think they've been very clear about that for a long period of time. Thank you. And they're here to answer for themselves too. I don't mean to speak for. No. Rachel Desilets, Freedom Drive in Montpelier. And I was wondering if someone could tell me what the present bond debt total is? Our finance for the entire city. Yes. We do have that. We are within the present bond debt total. We are within our bond limit and within our bond policy and this would continue to be. I don't have the exact number but I don't know if you have a thought. I'll have to have my head but wait, sorry. Time for a venture finance director. We did analyze this several weeks ago to look at our total debt policy to make sure it didn't exceed 15% of the total budget revenues for the city and we were below that cap with this project and with the wastewater treatment plant project combined. So I'm comfortable that we're within that limit. I also have a few questions. My understanding is that Montpelier has a population that's becoming more and more, that's becoming more and more of an aging population and also that the median income, the household income is 60,000 which I don't know where that comes from. But I'm concerned about our ability to pay for this bond if we're looking at a more aging population coming into Montpelier and whether or not we can continue to pay for the, because this is not gonna be the end of projects for a while. And so without knowing what else is coming up, you know, coming down the road, I'm really concerned about our ability to continue to pay for these projects. So I would simply answer and Council can weigh in whatever they wish, but that's always our top concern every time we look at these projects and this particular project is not being paid by the property tax payers. It's being funded through the fees and permits for the garage as well as just the single tax revenue from the new hotel. So I can't say that's the case for every project we'll ever propose, but in this particular case, this is not proposed to be added to the property tax burden. The Council has considered other attractions that would bring tours to Montpelier. You know, people come to a city or right when I travel it's because there are certain things that I wanna see. And I'm not saying that I'm for against the hotel, but the hotel is not something that would attract me to come to Montpelier. So I'm wondering if there are other sorts of attractions that the Council or whoever's responsible for the design of the city or new developments, whether or not they've considered what other attractions there might be in Montpelier that would bring tours. So if I can weigh in on that one, for this particular site, I don't think there's, and we haven't considered what else might be on that space because that's not as least written on it right now. I mean, until we are able to build a, potentially build a parking garage, it's not a land to play with. So I think it's a way of thinking about all the other things that bring people to Montpelier and then other adequate places to stay and places to park when people do wanna come here. But it has nothing to do in city politics to plan with other people's land. And this is a proposal that, we're working with the landowner on this, so it's just some perspective to keep in mind when thinking about that question. And to also to follow up on that, we are actually, there's in fact a current study going on about our recreational activities and facilities. We also have spent a lot of time and I realize this may not impact the senior population we're talking about, but looking at additional bike trails, mountain biking is a big attraction and expanding those to bring people to community. But really what we find is the number one thing that brings people to Montpelier right now is the sort of old Queen downtown. And without keeping that vibe running without having places for people to stay and park to enhance the downtown, I agree people aren't gonna come just for a hotel or a parking garage, but they're going to come to Montpelier and need a place to stay and a place to park in order to do the other things that they do. And my understanding is that the capital plaza right now still carries a vacancy rate that it's not at 100% occupied. Is that correct? I suspect that every hotel in the world is not 100% occupied at all the time. I don't know, I'd let them answer the questions about their own vacancy. I don't think everybody anywhere is 100%, except maybe Times Square. I note that there was a question posed on Facebook this morning saying, well, it should be easy to find out what the occupancy rate of the capital plaza is. And my assumption is that, like any other hotel in the world, that's proprietary information that certainly the city government doesn't have access to. And I don't know whether the owners would want to publicize that information, but they're also clearly, orders of the capital plaza consider the hotel to be a good investment for them. So they clearly think that there is a sufficient market to make the new hotel go in concern. And I think that's actually just to follow on that because I hope you'll answer your question as well. They, the owners of Capital Pleasure, are investing upwards of $15 million of their money, their risk that they're putting at risk to build a new hotel. They have proven to be good business people over the years and my suspicion is they would not be doing that unless they felt there was market there to get a return on that investment. And they're putting up non-public money to create potentially a benefit to the downtown. So again, I agree with Jack. That's not necessarily information we're privy to what their vacancy rate is, but it would seem logical. And again, they're here to speak for themselves if they wish that if they're prepared to make this type of personal investment that they believe it's worth doing. Yeah, and I thought that the Hilton was like for a conference center. So it was allegedly to support a large number of people. So to address the question that someone had earlier about business people coming in, it sounds like if the Capital Pleasure isn't at 100% occupied, then it does have some rooms available for some tours and also some business people to come in. Again, I'm not looking at large numbers, but the argument for having a new hotel for business people coming into town, I guess I have a hard time reconciling with that. I would remind you the point that Brian Murphy made earlier about the points. There's a lot of limitations that some business people have when they choose to make arrangements through their business, they can't just stay anywhere. It's franchises give points. So in having a recognizable franchise, I know one of the challenges to the Capital Pleasure and to groups is what I've heard, is that they wanna bring a group in and they want a franchise that people recognize and they want more space. And one last question, if I can find it here. So the land that's being donated, I keep hearing the numbers between three and 500,000. Is the assessed value of that property that's being donated presently being taxed on 500,000? It's part of the whole Capital Plaza property. So yes, and we factored that into the sort of tax benefits, but what we did was take the approximate size of I think it's about a half acre that's being donated and figured out what a range of appraised value for, just a half acre of undevelopment in downtown Montpellier, it was between three and $700,000. So we've been using 500,000 as a midpoint of average. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Robbie Harold. I live up on Town Street. And I used to be the executive director of the Wanooski Community Development Corporation. And if we'd had a live local developer wanting to do a hotel, we would have been writing grants all over the place farm, which you can't do anymore. Three quick, two quick questions, one may be a little longer. The first one is, it's hard to tell from drawings because they're pretty plain and monolithic looking, but I'm wondering if there is some potential for public art projects in connection with the facade of the garage? Yeah, so I can't really see it very well in this image, but there is a whole, this face right here. I was wondering if that's what that is. The plan is to have like a panel of public art that's gonna be pretty significant. And so we just formed a art commission, thank you. And so this might be one of the first things that we asked them to work on. Cool, great. Second question, financial one. And it has to do with whether there's opportunity cost with the TIF bond. If, for example, the city were to decide to, they would like to create a downtown recreation center, which has been talked about, the Splash and whatever. Timber Splash. Is there an issue with bond sealing capacity at the city level? I know that at state level there probably is, but would the presence of the TIF bond on the city's books potentially impair the capacity of the city to bond for a recreation center, for example? That's a complicated question. I mean, the simple answer is to a point, there we have a legal bond limit, which we are well below, then the city's got a self-imposed policy that we're trying to stay within. And we're still believing in that. We haven't quite figured out what to do TIF is new for us. So that creates a more level of a new type of bond. So how are we gonna handle that in our policy? And that's probably not that relevant to this conversation. What is relevant is that these bond payments drop over time and so that frees up in their capacity in the future. So we have planned for the ability to have future growth and it's also a percentage of our total revenue. So as total revenues grow over time, then you have a higher cap to work with. And the third question is as much curiosity as anything and it might be one that the Bouchares would wanna address rather than anyone here, but I'm curious about what a market study would show for the nature of visitation to the hotel and the potential for conferences and what kinds of conferences it might facilitate for having that there as opposed to what we have now for conference capacity within the city. Yeah, I'll leave that to the conference professionals. My name is Barbara Taylor-Plythe and I've lived in Montpelier for 20 years about. I lived over on Greenfield Terrace on that side of town on College Street. And now I live up on Murray Hill. And my husband and I- Barbara, could you get on the microphone? You can't hear me? How about that? I can hear you, but I don't know if the people in the room can hear you. I also have a law firm, we have a closing office over Rite Aid and all I can say is for 20 years we've needed parking. And the other point I guess I wanna make is usually when I wanna come to a meeting like this, well first of all I never wanna come to a meeting like this. When I do it's because I'm really torqued up about something, I'm angry about something. And in this case I feel like I just really think it's a great idea. So I wanna come here tonight just to say I think it's a terrific idea. I'm excited to see a parking garage. I think it's well thought out financially. I don't think it's gonna cost us anything as taxpayers. I'm excited about a new hotel. I'm excited about what that's gonna do for the businesses that exist here. What it might bring to town in terms of new people who will come take advantages of the businesses here and spend money in our town. And for the parking for ourselves, our friends, our clients, whatever, I just am here missing dinner somewhere with my family to say that I think it's a terrific idea and I wanna be hopefully I'm one of the many who don't happen to come down but who really think it's a terrific idea. So that's all I have to say. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Peter Ricker and I live up on Murray Hill Drive. And I first just wanted to say thank you to Bill and his staff for the amount of time that they've put into this. That you've really laid it out well so that most folks can understand what we're looking at here. And you brought up the fact that we are an aging community and I think that is true. And it's nice to hear that you're mentioning the mountain biking and the bike path. And when I talk to folks that are moving to the area or I have friends visiting, the first thing they wanna know is what are there for recreational activities? And the other thing too is jobs. No one's talking about the jobs that the hotel is going to create. And the trickle down from that. I mean, if you remember not 15, 16 years ago, we almost lost Vermont Mutual as an employer and that was directly related to space. They needed more space, wasn't necessary parking, but they couldn't add on more space to their location without taking away parking. And this is certainly gonna help those things. I had an office on State Street for almost myself working there for almost 20 years. And when you have clients that always say to you it's so difficult to get parking to come see you or you're interviewing job applicants that where am I gonna park when I come work for you? We had folks in five different lots all across the town. We have since moved over to Pioneer Street, but I only bring that up because this is much needed project and I hope you'll support it. Thank you. Hi, my name is Eric Anderson, I'm up on State Street. First I wanna say I'm not opposed to more parking in Montpelier. However, I do have some questions and concerns about the current project. One, you had mentioned solar panels briefly in your presentation, although in all of the renderings, I don't see any hazardous study on what the solar panels are. Are you gonna put one solar panel up that's not gonna do anything? Or do you know how much electricity the parking garage and potentially the hotel is gonna use? We are in a process of being that zero in Montpelier and I'm very concerned that this project is not really honoring that. And if it is, I don't think you've done a good job of showing it, as well as the town does have its heating source, is the hotel going to be using it? Did they have the option of using the heating plants here in the city? Will they be using that heating plants or are they gonna do something else? It's gonna cause more pollution in the city. So that's my first question if you could. Do you wanna answer it? Sure. Okay. We're being built to accommodate solar panels. It's, we could draw them out. We're expecting to have them. We just haven't figured out yet whether it's gonna be part of what we construct or using a third party net metering type system. We're told that an array of solar panels, well, it'd be just one. And then solar panels could power the entire garage except for the elevators. So we could run the garage or we could just simply choose to net meter and we've got our energy committee actually sorting out the best way to do that. But we fully expect that there will be solar panels on the top of the garage and you're right, we should draw them on there. We are looking at using the district heat for some form of snow melt with the garage, how to manage snows with our big piles and that kind of thing. And we are in discussions with the hotel about district heat for the hotel. Yeah, so I can't promise, but we're working on it. And just a comment and all fairness to folks that are looking at the project, and if there is a parking garage and a hotel and if there's not a parking garage and hotel, you posted a lovely picture of a winter day with no leaves, two construction sites with all the buildings knocked down. And of course, when you put that up against the picture of the renderings with the hotel and the parking garage, it's gonna look beautiful. It's gonna look so much better than what's there. I think in all fairness, you need to have something that shows, we already know that the bike path is gonna be there. We already know there's gonna be some green spaces on the other side of the river. You know that the transportation center's gonna be there. What will it look like if there isn't that parking garage and the hotel there? And I think it's gonna be a much different picture. What is it gonna look like when you don't have the parking garage there and you don't have the hotel there, but you have the bike path there and you have the transit center there and you have the farmer's market that's busy and hopping downtown. What is that gonna look like? What is it gonna look like when you're standing on State Street looking towards the river? You might actually be able to see it. So if you're in that parking lot, looking towards, do the farmer's market like you are right now. So it's a little deceptive going and throwing an ugly picture up there and saying, look, this is what we're gonna do when that's not really the reality of what it's gonna look like if those two projects don't happen. Thank you, that's important, yes. Fair enough, and I'll fair. So we certainly don't tend to be deceptive. Actually, that picture just came to me today by someone who'd taken the aerial shot and I thought- And I post it all over Facebook. Yeah, and so he gave me permission to use it and I thought it was the best angle. So I wasn't trying to do that, but you are correct. And I would argue that, I'm not arguing, but what it will look like back there is what it looks like now with the exception of a development on the other side and the ability to see the river from State Street will be the same as it is now, which isn't very much. Thank you, Bill. Thank you. Hi, I'm Suzanne Eikenberry. I live on Elm Street and I'm not here to speak for or against the garage, but I'm here to speak about a piece of the planning that I feel isn't complete and it's the bike path linkage. The Montpelier Transportation Infrastructure Committee had prioritized north-south linkages and the east-west linkages in the city for bike paths as a priority or bike routes. The way that the linkage between the bike path and Elm Street, which is a major thoroughfare, is planned in this drawing, has an inferior linkage that reduces the usability of the bike path overall. So what's inferior about it? You have to, from the bike path, make a sharp U-turn across a public deck where many of the pictures I've seen portray picnic tables being there. So that's challenging. And then you have to have your bike on a sidewalk, which is less than idea for multiple reasons in order to connect back to Elm Street. And I look at this and I see all over again the problem that we have with the current bike path where the connection at Stonecutter's way, you're supposed to go up onto Berry Street through these two things that are supposed to make you go left and then right. Well, you can't navigate it if you have a tag along. You can't navigate it if you have a bike trailer. If you have a baby seat on the back of your bike, you don't want to navigate it because your child could suddenly lean as you're trying to do those tight turns. Thank you. And I see that same situation happening here. Until this last month, I've been a very dedicated one-car family and I've given up, there have been too many missing pieces in the transportation network in Montpelier for me to sustain it. You know, the new bike path on Elm Street's great, but it's too narrow through Cotyville and so it doesn't get me as far as I need to go. It's this linkage at Berry Street and here's another one where I was really excited about it, but it's not there. If I could just add on to that though. I'm quick and if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that without the garage, there is no clear connection from the bike path at this point to the Heaney lot. And you could still engineer something. My plea wasn't for against the garage. It was to fix this linkage. Whether the garage is there or not, that linkage does not function as planned. Thank you. Can I just ask finally, Hey Ron, before you jump in here on it, I'd love to make sure that everyone else has had a turn to speak, okay? It's a very quick question. Nonetheless, nonetheless, everyone needs to get a turn. My name is Roberta Garland and I just wanted some clarification. I remember there was a contest about the downtown and there were lots of drawings that we looked at and lots of designs and the winners got some money and all that. So I'm just wondering about the connection between the winning prize and this plan. If we can get some clarification about that. So I think you're thinking of the yeah, the team bridges net zero Peelier design competition. Yes. Yeah. So they had plans for lots of remote parking sites and that's still a possibility though. I know it's tough to say whether or not those will manifest and we have an opportunity here to build some much needed parking. Whether someone picks up a train just a little bit out of town or in the middle of town to me I think is either way people are taking the train and that is wonderful. So there's lots of other elements to that plan including additional housing and more different uses of space that's currently surface parking. And this may yet allow those visions to manifest. So is that plan something that was not really adopted? No. It was just like a fine exercise. So that was not an endeavor of the city of Montpelier. So that was an independent organization that ran that and we have encouraged our planning commission to consider the team bridges winning design in the formation of the master plan. So that process is ongoing. So that's sort of where we're at with any sort of official adoption of that. I hope that answers that question. Anyone else? Our only question was how many parking spaces were there besides those that were reserved in the parking? Well there are none that are reserved. I thought you said before that there would be some, a couple that would be reserved for people who work there or whatever. I said people would be able to buy permits. But so... Is it 126 that you said? 126 parking spaces altogether? 348 total parking spaces. 348. 348 total parking spaces. They will be permits. Capital Plaza will be purchasing 200 permits but we don't expect them to use them on a daily basis. They would use them maybe whenever they're having a big conference. Potentially other permit users and daily parkers and flex basis. And for example, I think it's important going back to that point because I think it is a little counterintuitive if you come up and you say, gee, there's more parking spaces being counted than there are in the garage and I understand that. But a hotel room, for example, may come in and park overnight and leave in the day but during the day that's a free parking space that somebody else can park in. And so that space is being used two or three times in the course of a day even though the Plaza permit has been used for their guests overnight. So all parking garages function this way. This is very standard. You know, you can't just do it one for one or you'd never taken enough revenue and. Okay, but the official figure is 438. 348 total spaces in the garage. Okay, thanks for the conversation. Hi, I'm Nick Persampieri. I live on North Street. I have just a couple of questions. What are the city's plans for the excess parking spots that are not going to be used by the hotel? Are they going to be available by the hour for whoever wants to use them? Is that the plan or some of them going to be least long-term? So some will be permitted by other users. Some will be available by the hour, by the day, overnight, you know, that kind of thing. We are, yeah, so combination of all but certainly someone coming in visiting for the day can use the spaces. We're also, we haven't made final decisions but one thing we're really considering is we currently have about 60 permits now in our various surface lots and we're thinking those are all-day parkers and we're considering moving them into the garage and having those spots be converted to shorter-term spaces, the surface lots. So fraying those up for shoppers and people that come in for the day that don't necessarily want to park in a garage but have those uses, so yes. Thank you. My other question is, are you planning to have electric vehicle charging infrastructure in the garage and will you be able to increase the amount of charging infrastructure as the number of electric vehicles increases? Yes, so I'm particularly excited about this aspect of it so we are planning on some number of electric vehicle charging stations now. I forget how many, it's like 20 years. Yeah, but my hope is that we can be increasing that over time. I mean my vision for net zero transportation on into the future is that we have multiple solutions. Everybody may not drive electric vehicles or take buses but there is likely going to be a need for a combination of these things and so my hope is that we can increasingly have electric vehicles staying and recharging in this space and one of the things that I think is gonna be really good about that is that there are other parking spaces available in the city that don't lend themselves well to EV charging stations and we can just pack this place with those devices. And it's being designed so that, as the mayor said, to eventually even all of them could become electric charging stations. Thank you for that and thanks for the time that you've put into explaining this for all of us. Thank you. Yes. While other folks are coming up, I just would wanna add to Bill's answer there about who would be parking here. We also have been able to design it, design the finances to work to allow us to offer 30 subsidized parking spaces for a future affordable housing project. So this does build that opportunity and for us in the future. Thank you. Hi, I'm Ricardo Erickson and I am just concerned about the impact that this garage will have on the two rivers nearby, the North Branch and the main stem of the Winooski for the water quality. The addition of 348 spaces and hundreds of cars coming and going and what I guess I would love to hear a little more in-depth response to the remediation efforts that are going to be in place along with a parking garage and I know that there's been a little discrepancy between what will actually be in place with these depictions, the green space that's depicted in these renderings does not seem to be accurate. So I just wanna hear a little bit more about what green spaces there will be and what, if any, kind of stormwater mitigation work will be in the infrastructure of the garage itself. So the main discrepancy in the, the renderings was on the main street side, showed it all as beautiful green so I actually cropped it all out because it was inaccurate and I think you were at the meeting when we were at Christchurch and we talked about that. I'm not technically expert but there is a whole, if our architect were here, our engineer could explain, there's a whole treatment system in the garage which filters out the water coming down through and it's been explained in great detail and I'm sure we can get that information for you but there is intended, there's multi-level systems and internal drains and filters and essentially it will be cleaner than what is coming off the parking lots now because it will have the chance to filter out and like I said, I'm not technically able to answer that better than that. Can I add one? Sure, please. So, well, not about that specifically but one of the opportunities that we're still evaluating and figuring out is on the east side of the north branch. So after, if you're coming from the parking garage across the pedestrian bridge, right now there's intended to be some parking off to the left, if you're going towards main street, if you can picture that, Shaws is on the right. One possibility is that if we build this parking garage then we may be able to eliminate some of the parking over there and dedicate some space on that side to green space but we're still figuring that out and that will also depend on if we have a parking garage. Great, and I would love to be able to see that information that you're referring to, Bill. If I could, I'm just trying to wrap my head around, I want to support this but I also want to know that there are terms in place in addition to it that take into consideration the really serious water quality issue that's occurring right on this site. I mean, the Friends of the Winnowsky River have done water quality sampling on a regular basis and it's not swimmable. And if we want to encourage recreation and tourism then I think that's something we really need to consider. Can, you know, what are we going to do to mitigate those effects of adding impervious surfaces and more parking along our rivers? So I just, not to belabor this but to point out that the Carl lot, the Wintailer lot and these two parking lots were all already impervious services and draining as is with no nothing. The Wintailer lot has already put in quite a bit of greens, whales and names of them. But the rain gardens, thank you. And a lot of stormwater mitigation. This is going to be an improvement. I mean, we're taking this very seriously. Obviously stormwater is a big deal. So we feel we're actually overall in that area reducing the amount of impervious and for the areas that we have it creating more systems to clean up. So we get it. I hear that. I appreciate that. And I guess I'm just trying to, I want to make sure we all understand that adding all those cars cannot, does not seem like it could actually improve it. So that's what I just want to, I want to be able to see that and really understand that. And cars don't cause stormwater. What's that? Cars don't cause stormwater and they would be covered as opposed to being out in the open. Sure, I think there's a lot of really great innovative examples of cities throughout the country who have parking garages that have stormwater treatment on the side. And I just would like to see that. And I'd like to have the numbers. So I'll get you the info. This is also something that I'm very interested in. So let's keep talking about this because yeah, I want to connect with you about that. Let's make it good. Cool. There's a lot of information on the city's webpage about all the plans and there's architectural drawings and stuff. We had a presentation from the architects about exactly what this stormwater treatment system is going to be like. It involves a series of, I think, three tanks where the particulate matter and petroleum runoff and a lot of stuff gets filtered out. I don't know at a higher level, at a finer level of detail than that. And I don't know if that particular information is on the city's webpage, but I encourage everyone to look at the city's webpage because there's a lot of information there. Bill, do you want to mention the one Taylor surface spaces that we're able to eliminate if we do the, gosh. Sure. And certainly that will help a little bit with stormwater but also just with the general green space if while this is a major thing, one Taylor had planned up 36 parking spaces if the garage is successful we could reduce that to 30 so that would create about 1,800 square feet more on the end toward the river of open green space. Thank you. Good evening, Joe Castellano, Sabin Street. Had a couple of quick questions. On your economic projections for the garage, have you factored in if, say for example, what happens in an event of say like a 2008 financial downturn? What happens to the revenue projections and are the taxpayers on the hook for that? And the second question I had is there's been a number of things on front porch form as far as the one Taylor street not being able to accommodate buses. Could you address whether that driveway will accommodate buses? Thank you. Sure, you may have missed my early remarks. Absolutely, we can handle buses. I don't know where that came from. The, yep, no, I saw that too which is why I addressed and even though it's not really related to the parking structure but I think the theories of confusion one is the bridge itself and the other is that some of the smaller buses circle around one Taylor and the larger buses are on the side which has always been the case. And some people I think have concluded somehow they can't fit. Well, they were never supposed to fit. It's always been designed. So that is consistent with the way it's always been. With regard to the financial projections, certainly anything can happen and I think we've been trying to be completely clear that if everything went bottom up, that the taxpayers are backing the bond at the end of the day. There's no illusion there. However, all the projections were based usually they was conservative vacancy or occupancy rates using Joe increase in two-for-in-and-over-time using one of our cut to sort of- Neal's rooms and alcohol. Yeah, we did. No Neal's rooms and alcohol for example. There's no additional information from other projects in the area. So no guarantees, but we've tried to hedge that bet as best we could and be responsible. Thank you, I appreciate that. Hi, I'm Meredith Kittfield. I live on Berry Street and I'm concerned about lighting. Sometimes when I go by cities and towns, these big hotels are all lit up and the garages look like they're docking stations for some kind of extraterrestrial place. So I'm really concerned that this isn't going to become like the Domino's sign, this big flashing place of light. So I was wondering if there was any thought as to how to engineer light so that it's not so light polluting. Lighting is a required element of the design review process and development review process and there is a lighting plan. Again, I'm getting in over my technical level but certainly there's a major consideration and in fact, there's a design review meeting on this tomorrow night here in this room at 5.30 and the following minute is a development review meeting on this project at 7, I believe. So those criteria, I will say, so that is absolutely right, that the contract is one of the pieces of feedback we've received over the course of this project is the desire to have the inside of the garage well lit for safety. So it's a balancing act to manage that. Thank you for bringing that up though. That's a great question. I'm Anthony Minona, I live on Colonial Drive. There's a question about if the bond is approved for the parking garage. Are the renderings and the plans for the garage, especially the bike path connection or multi-use path connection, are they final at that moment? Or is there a room for improvement to that connection? I'm on the Transportation Infrastructure Committee and I don't believe that that connection for the multi-use path has come to the committee for any kind of review or feedback and I just would be interested in having that opportunity to do so. I think there's room for some review. It's limited to some extent with the space that's available and also has one zoning regulations as to how close to the rivers we can get and setbacks and those sorts of things. So I think the architect has been trying to meet the needs. We heard that and cleared the need for the connection. In fact, this council articulated that early on is a must-have and we've also heard a need for a pedestrian connection between Christchurch and the garage, going crossways to the Heaney lot to the front of the hotel and that's being built in and that would be sloped. We focused a lot on the more work going on the outside of the hotel and there's also a 10-foot wide sloped connection between the hotel and the garage going up to connect to the path. So it's not just the one thing. I understand there's not any degree angles and I understand it's not perfect but it's better than the man connection that exists under the current situation that I realize it's not ideal. So I would suggest there's some opportunity for improvement within the geometry and the regulation of the site. The permit will be, I think, considered on Monday and if it's approved on Monday then that becomes the final site plan but it can be amended so till we get it under construction. Welcome feedback. If you have suggestions, sooner the better. It would be great. Thank you. One other additional question was when this building, the garage, if it is built, is there any way that the city council could make sure that at the moment that it becomes an operation that some on-street parking could be taken away for some multi-use path whether it's on Berry Street to make that connection happen. There obviously are places in town that multi-use paths could be put in place if there was less on-street parking and so if there's any way that city council could mandate that, that once the structure gets built there's additional off-street parking that some on-street parking could be removed to make room for those. You know, I guess I would say I wouldn't want to mandate that right now because I would only want to be really specific about that. So having said that, I mean, I think it is incredibly likely that we'll need to remove some of the parking on Berry Street to make a connection for the bike path but we are waiting for the results of the study that's being done as to how we might connect the bike path from the rec building to Main Street. So, you know, out of respect for that study I wouldn't want to make that, at least for that, I wouldn't want to make that claim for that area though that's something I'm anticipating. Yes, go ahead. All along we've been looking at taking spaces away as soon as we can that's within what we already know and study, not to create more problems but definitely with the parking garage allowing us to remove some on-street parking. I mean, this might even just mean more parklets. Right now we've got, I forget what our limit was something like six or seven, six so we might be able to consider expanding that. Yeah. Thank you. Laura Rose, I live on Deerfield Drive. I just wanted to point. If you could get up to the microphone. Sure, sorry. Laura Rose, I live on Deerfield. I just wanted to clarify that with the garage having 348 spaces, most of the traffic studies and other things are based on half occupancy of the new hotel and the old hotel, possibly. But if we look at the 348 spaces if 200 were ever occupied by the Capitol Plaza 30 by the Christ Church and we take into consideration the 80 spaces we lost in the car lot by my calculations that means we're spending about $20 million by the time we do debt service and maintenance for 38 parking spaces being created at this time. So I just wanted to point that out. And then I was looking at the article one regarding itself and I see point two there. It has the district sidewalks, street capes, lighting, water, storm water and all of that. Estimated at $1.3 million. This is for improvements in the UC-1 zoning district. How much of that $1.3 million would be related to the State Street lot with the Crown Plaza donation? The distinction between the two is the building itself and then all everything that's around it including surface and all that kind of stuff. Yes, but how much of the sidewalks and public maintenance are associated with the garage? So the sidewalks are these things like the big pads that we're talking about and those sorts of things. There aren't really sidewalks. It's only on the land that the city would be owning. It's not of any of the other hotel construction. So that cost would be entirely for sidewalks and water improvements for the garage project? Correct. So that's not anywhere out on the main streets or State Street, correct. And this is the first time that we're pleading our projected tax debt, is that correct? It's the first time we're using our tax debt. This is the first time we've ever used the tax increment financing. Our district was only approved in September. So yes. And that 20% school revenue is what we were looking at for that? It's actually 70% of the school revenue. Yes. 70% of the school revenue, for how many years? For 20. 20 years of 70% of the school revenue. So to be clear, that is not 70% of revenues coming to our school district. That is revenues that go to the State Education Fund and the remaining 30%. So 70% that would normally go to the States Education Fund come locally to be used for local projects. The remaining 30% goes to the State Education Fund. We'll still be refunded the same amount of money from the State Ed fund that we would get based on our current, so we're not forgoing any local education money. Thank you. For a five page basic risk evaluation document to be filed and stamped received when it's completely blank. How common is that in your experience? Not very common, I'm not sure what you're referring to. There's a five page document that I photographed in the planning department stamped on each page received, but no words are written on it. It's never been filled out. I'm not sure what you're referring to there. What's the name of it? It's the basic risk evaluation. It's a required document for such project but it's completely blank. This is page one. It's not very common. I have to ask. I'm hoping that's not very common. How common is it for documents to be altered or have signatures and dates changed or amended once they're filed with the planning department? How common is that? Depends if they've been updated or back down. What if they've been replaced? Is that common? Sometimes there were documents there that I saw last week that are no longer there. How common is that? I don't know. And so I believe that the UC1 zoning was created in 2016, is that correct? That sounds right. And when I spoke to the mayor this weekend at the farmer's market a couple times, she was unaware that the planning department is currently amending the zoning that was just adopted in January. Actually, I think I said that my understanding is that the updates that we're looking at for the zoning are actually in regard to Sabin's pasture and not for this site. So I was not aware of anything happening for this site. I spoke to Mike, he did say that the screening and landscaping requirements would directly affect the garage and they've reduced it from a perimeter requirement of how big the building is to determine how much planting is required. They're now capping it at 5% of the project cost and eliminating a lot of the plantings. For example, when I went to the planning meeting in this garage parking lot project, street trees were required if you had project, you know, property on the street. And if you were in the parking lot, you were required to have shade trees. Those were two different trees, but now the same tree could be considered both. So the trees, if they're by the street could it be double counted? So I think we were very aware that we adopted a comprehensive overhaul of the zoning ordinance and that the planning commission is looking at revisions to that based on problems that have arisen. I would say that we are, this project is being reviewed under the ordinance as it sits today and none of these amendments would affect it because it would, that would, they will happen at some point in the future. Mike did say that it would affect the garage. I don't know why he would say that because it would have to be, we don't look at things retroactively. And I should just point out that if there is, we understand that the planning commission and the planning department and then the planning commission is likely to be coming forward with the proposed amendments to the zoning ordinance. Any of those changes before they become law, let me finish what I'm saying. If there are any changes to the ordinance, the only way they could become law is if they come before the council and we adopt them after a public hearing process. I'd like to move on to the traffic study. It was all based on 50% occupancy. And just a heads up about the time. Yeah. At the time that the hotel in the 220 garage was approved, it was recommended that a traffic circle or a stoplight be put in at Taylor Street because of the extra traffic expected. Could the council speak to that, please? I'm not sure it was. It was in the traffic study. And then when they updated it, there was a need to update it because it was years old. They did one observation on one day. It was in February. I printed out the temperatures of that day. It was when we had the huge thaw and it was in the 50s and the next day it was in the 70s. They did their observations for about an hour that day when most people had gone home early. Thank you so much. Thank you. Any further comments? Hello. My name is James Quinn. I'm a resident of Dunn-Patrick Circle. I'd like to thank the council for taking on this project. I think it's gonna be a great asset to the city. I'd like to thank the Besheras for, again, taking on this project. They're not a dog and pony show who's gonna be in town for a couple of years, make a quick buck and pull out. So I think it's a great investment. I'd like to speak a little bit about Montpelier being an aging community. My son's an eighth grader and there's over a hundred kids in his class right now. When he was in the fourth grade, his class was so large that they actually had to move the fifth grade from Union to Main Street School. And like my neighborhood alone, probably six families have moved in over the past couple of years. So I think the perception that we are an aging community isn't probably accurate. Where a growing community and projects like this are really gonna help us kind of take that next step and make Montpelier just a very vibrant and a very accessible community. So thank you all. Thank you. Further comments? Okay, with that, I'm gonna close the public hearing on the parking garage. Great. And I think we're gonna move on to... Wastewater. Wastewater treatment plant. So unless people wanna take a quick break, what's your, do you wanna just keep going? At some point, whether it's now or after the sewer plant? At some point, yeah. Let's take a break, especially as people are transitioning. Okay. Thanks. Yes. We're moving on to the next item. Thank you all. Okay, so the next item is the upgrades to the Water Resource Recovery Facility, otherwise known as Organics to Energy. So I'm gonna turn this back over to Bill to give us the overview. Thank you. I'll do a quick overview. We also have Kurt Modica, our Assistant Director of Public Works here and City Engineer. Whoops. What happened? Hello. Kano. There we go. Who can actually answer the technical questions much better than I can. But I will try to go through this. So this is the language of Article Two. And this is also a bond for 16.75 million. Also a 30 year bond, this would be paid for out of sewer fees as opposed to general taxes. And it's pretty straightforward to replace aging infrastructure and improve the ability to process high strength waste. That said, this is not a typical facility improvement project for us. The wastewater facility or Water Resource Recovery Facility or Organics to Energy project has its basis in that we have a plant that was built in 1962. Some of the equipment is original and over 45 years old. In drastic need of infrastructure repair, this is one of the most important pieces of infrastructure we have in the city. This is the last place where wastewater goes before it empties into the river. And we all have, of course, a huge interest in having clean water. So a very important need. Looking at what the facility needs to just fix it up in the sort of traditional way would cost about $13 million over the next 10 years. So that was our baseline of evaluating projects. What we've had is the opportunity to enhance the facility to what's called an Organics to Energy facility where we would take in organic waste at a fee and also improve some energy efficiencies, those types of things working with a firm that basically does this for their living and provides guarantees for certain energy savings, for certain revenues and performance standards. So to reduce the city's risks. It also provides some environmental benefits in addition to cleaning the water that goes into the river because it's helping take wastes that are being disposed of elsewhere and processing them through a more efficient means. I'm gonna talk a little bit about the finances of it. People that wanna know more about the technical aspects of it can ask the experts. Basically what we're looking at is the three arrows, you see this as operating costs, energy costs and revenues. So the green bars are what we project. If you're just using good solid projections for savings, compared to the base project. So everything is being compared to the base if we just spent the 13 million and upgraded our plant. The blue bars are what is guaranteed by the ESG, the company we're working with and the red bars what we actually need to break even compared to the project. So you can see our guarantees exceed the break even in all three categories and our actual projections considerably exceed our break even. So having looked at this and spent a lot of time scrubbing a lot of numbers and doing a lot of technical analysis, we concluded that even though the organic energy project costs more going out, it's actually cut it cost the rate payer less net over the next life of the project. So the financial guarantee again is a $516,000 annual revenue and savings that would average about $92,000 per year positive cash flow versus the base project. The energy savings are stipulated for the contract term. We've included operational savings and a tipping fee. Again, that is the revenue we would receive from outside sources, actual dollars over the current baseline and that is guaranteed. So if we don't get the customers, that amount is still guaranteed. So it's on the company to get us the customers. Oops, sorry. So that's the basic financial analysis of it. I'm going to go back. I've gone on to the next one, excuse me. I'm going to go back to the, basically that's it. We're happy to answer any questions about the technical aspects or the financial aspects with the help of the folks that know more than I do. So we're going to. See here. Here did you want to add more just right now or do you just want to answer questions? Well, I'm here primarily answer questions but just to clarify the differences of this project as opposed to a standard facility upgrade. This is a design build contract where the firm we're working with is energy systems group. They do performance contracts where what Bill talked about where there's guarantees built into the structure of the contract and they're also going to a maximum price. So on a typical upgrade to a plant would be a design by an independent engineering firm. You bid that out with a set of drawings and then another separate contractor would be responsible to construct it. In this case, energy systems groups really carries the whole project through. They're responsible for the design and managing the construction and they also guarantee a price. So the exposure for the city is limited and the risk of change orders overruns to the project cost. I'll open it up from there for any questions people have. Yep. So I'm going to officially open the public hearing. No, it's okay. It's all good. What the heck? I'll be the guinea pig again. Joe Castellana Saban Street. Just had a question regarding as far as what you project as far as are there going to be any increases to any sewer rates for taxpayers or homeowners here in the city as a result of this? Yeah, so as Bill noted, we have a $13 million need at the plant just to sort of keep the facility running as it is now over the next 10 years. If we don't get any grant funding, which we're at this point pretty confident that we are going to get some grants to help pay for this project, but we don't have them in place yet. We have a little bit of an official announcement. There will be some impact to ratepayers. We had estimated an annual increase through the Water Sewer Master Plan of 3.5% on both the water and sewer funds anyway. Is that an annual 3% increase or is that over the life? Yeah, 3.5% annually. Yep. It was actually 1% over inflation in order to catch up on the infrastructure needs. So, and then assume a 2.5 in inflation. There may be, just to be completely clear, there is potentially an increase beyond that 3.5% projected if we don't get any grant funding. But again, I think there's a very good probability of getting some outside funding. And also to be clear, the increase would have been higher with the base project versus the organics. So without base funding, we're looking at maybe 4.5% to 5% certainly in the early years and that could even out over time. And I had a question is, assuming that this gets improved, what's your timeline as far as when you're actually going to start construction, when you, when's the contract as far as completion date, when all the improvements will be completed? Right. So we plan to start in the spring, probably around April, and it'll be a two year construction project. Colonial drive. I just wanted to voice my support for this project. Recently it took a tour of the wastewater facility plant and it was just amazed at what they accomplished there and how minimally staffed they are to run such a plant that they have and how it runs efficiently. And so I thank you for the presentation and for making this project happen. Thank you. Hi, I'm Meredith Kittfield. I live on Berry Street and I also took a tour. And I must say that was the most informative tour I've ever taken of anything. It's our biggest asset they told me of our city. So that was amazing. And I was amazed at the clear water that comes out after what I saw at the beginning. Not that I would want to drink it, but anyway. So I'm all for this project because of that tour and how informative the young man was about it. And but I was, I am curious, and I just want to clarification around the methane that perhaps is this part of this project is methane generation and possible use of that methane in helping pay for this? Right, so a portion of the savings through the contract will be through additional building heat from methane. So we are going to be generating more methane from taking in additional high strength waste. And we'll be utilizing a portion of that methane to heat more buildings at the plant in the wintertime. The council decided and public works recommended to really split up a full beneficial use of the methane into two projects. So once we get through this, it's a two year contract. We're going to look at expanding use, alternate uses for the methane outside of just heating the buildings. So yes, it is. We don't have a phase two specifically identified at this point, but I believe it is the goal of the council and of staff to use it in the future under a second phase project once we get the first one complete. So that would add to the cost later on, or is this going to, this amount of money is going to actually, what is that methane generation? It would be a separate contract. So a separate amount of money. That's right, but potentially one that would be revenue neutral. We don't know yet without exploring. Now, the methane generation, would that be available for homeowners to use in there? Well, one of the three options we're going to look at is the wholesale of compressed natural gas. So if you scrub the methane, compress it, you can actually sell it to the market. So it wouldn't be directly usable by the public, but it would be going out for public use as a natural gas product. All right, thanks. You're welcome. Further questions or comments? Going once? Going twice? OK, all right, well then. Is the tourist attraction. Most interesting tour, or informative tour. It really is great. We're not being sarcastic. It's a good thing. All the members of the council. Tell me, you were just asking what we were doing to bring people to town, right? So I should operate. No, there we go. We'll bring people to town and park them. I also would like to give a shout out to Kate and the Energy Committee. Kate is the chair. Several of them are here. They actually brought this project to us and have pushed us along. And our staff really spent a lot of time and work on this. So thank you to Kate and your team. Yeah, so grateful for all the work that's gone into this. It's very exciting. OK, I guess with that, we're going to close the public hearing. Great, thank you. Moving on to. These are really short. I think the next one is non-citizen voting. I also apologize. I was stuck at work for a work emergency. We're glad you're here now. So I don't even know if we necessarily need to. Well, we'll just shut it for a second. So I definitely have no expertise on these next two other than to read them to you. Article 3 is the ballot will be worded, as you see in front of you, shall the city amend the city charter by adding chapter 15, supplemental voting registry to section 2, allowing non-citizen legal residents to vote on mobiliar city ballot items. And then the body of the supplemental voting registry section are these two. I'm not going to read all of these, but they are available on the city clerk's office. They'll be available on voting day. And essentially, the thrust behind this is that people that are living in mobiliar legally, that are non-US citizens, would be able to vote on mobiliar city ballot items under the theory that their residents in town, perhaps taxpayers, and they use our roads and they use our parking or whatever the issues might be, and that they ought to be able to vote on those, even though they can't vote, say, for governor or president or something like that. That's all I've got on this one. OK, so we're going to open the public hearing on this item or article. So any comments or questions on this item? Yeah. Because it's been raised before, I'll just point out that this relates only to mobiliar city items. Mobiliar is in a union school district with Roxbury schools. So this would not pertain to school, board, or school budget elections. Just probably worth mentioning that that's also true of votes for the Central Vermont Public Safety Authority. Thank you. Coms or questions on this item? OK, then. All right. Going once, going twice? OK, so we're going to close the public hearing on that item. Moving on. Plastics. So Article 4 was put on by the city council. And it says, shall the city amend Section 5301, 2B of the city charter to allow the city regular issues and activities within the city that relate to community and environmental sustainability. And then the actual language amendment is proposed here. Again, that will be available. And actually, I still have taxes. I need to take that out. So what's up here is slightly incorrect, because it still says collect taxes, and that was removed. My bad. But it's specifically, actually, is this the old one? Is this the old one? Ah! Spent too much time on the parking garage. So does somebody have the new language I can read? My apologies. The newer language takes out taxes and also limits the authority to talk about specifically single-use plastics, such as straws, plastic bags, et cetera. So I apologize for not having the correct information, but we probably can have it read shortly. That is definitely. Are you going to be able to see that? In the meantime, while we're looking for the correct language, I'll just point out people that want to know. So this is the second public hearing on the ballot items. Tomorrow night is the design review committee regarding the parking garage. Monday night is the development review board meeting regarding the parking garage. In November 6th is the city elections, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and early voting is underway now. Why don't we take like a two-minute break? Well, John sends you that language. Oh, okay. Does that sound all right? Beautiful. I'm not sure I'll be able to get it on this, though. Because this isn't mine. It's my stuff's on a flash drive. Oh, there you go. There you go. Perfect. All right, we're going to take a two-minute break.