 The following is email correspondence. I have redacted some personal information because some of the people in this email correspondence cannot be here tonight. Hello city councillors. I was at the last city council meeting and I have some additional items to put forward for your decision to reducing the speed limit for the entire length of Berlin Street to 25m. Thank you again for your thoughtful consideration of this important issue. Increased traffic through this area has increased the speeds. Every year the traffic grows and with that the speed of the traffic. Berlin continues to grow and their town has multiple large developments in progress near the Payne Turnpike corridor of the next decade. Speeds off of Payne Turnpike exceed 40 into Montpelier. I live at the top of Berlin Street where Montpelier meets Berlin. I ask that you go and visit these properties during 8 to 9 and 4 to 5 and watch the speeds of people driving through this location, especially from the Berlin Payne Turnpike. There is a very busy intersection of Sherwood Drive Berlin Street where there have been many accidents and near misses over the years. Again people are driving too fast. When the speed limit is 30 or 35 people go 40 or 45 to 50. There are multiple blind entry driveways in this area along the street. Just a short walk off of Berlin Street is the family center and daycare preschool facilities on Sherwood Drive. It's become exceedingly dangerous for families to try and walk their children here from off of Berlin Street. Go take a look and walk from the sidewalk at Berlin Street to the family center off of Sherwood. It can be harrowing during rush hours when families are attempting the trips back and forth or any other day for that matter. Houses are very close to the road along Berlin Street which should alone account for a speed limit of 25 miles an hour. Do you or would you live along a residential village street where heavy traffic routinely exceeds 40 miles per hour inside your bedroom wall? I thought I had 5 minutes. You can always forward these onto us. I'm going to skip ahead and I'm not going to read the email correspondence that I've received from City Council. I'll just read you the email that I received from a neighbor who read John McCullough's email dated July 1st to 1245. He wrote, I think the council's position is really acceptable and the argument I just read from John is really laughable. I suppose he doesn't have any trouble maintaining 25 miles per hour going up or Main Street or North Street which are also both major roads in town. The whole point of having a post of 25 is so you do have to pay attention and not bomb off the road. This council doesn't seem to care about really taking a position that will make our street a better safer neighborhood. We'll probably have to move eventually. I can't see trying to cross the street with kids to catch the bus for 15 years. There's a reason there's fewer accidents on our streets because we're also scared of the traffic. But everyone who lives on the street is incredibly careful. Another email, hey I wanted to thank you for not backing down after the council pretty much has continually tried to squash this topic and put it to bed. I feel like the council doesn't care about its constituents or opinions or safety if someone eventually does get hurt because of the high traffic volumes and speeds. It's on their heads because they didn't put safety first when given a chance. It's beyond belief they can't see that Berlin Street is no different than Upper Main Street, Elm Street, or Northfield Street leaving town of Route 12. That's all the time I have. I'd like to read more but I can't. Thank you. If you would like to forward those on to us, we would certainly be interested in reading them. So thank you. Good evening. I'm Mary Carol Dobbins. I live on Berlin Street and I'd like to echo Nathaniel's comments. I too was at the last meeting and I was very disappointed at the rejection of our request for my 25 mile per hour speed limit. Many residents and others have contacted me as well and expressed how deeply disappointed they are. And most of these people are people who live quietly and they don't ask much of their government. And the fact that they came out or sent you emails or said something, they cared so deeply. And then to have that request rejected, I just, they feel like they were being ignored. And I just, I can't tell you how deeply, he read some emails but I mean they expressed that to me personally. And I just feel and I will repeat what they've told me, Berlin Street residents are paced at the taxes and we should mean as much if not more please than commuters who go through. And our safety of our residents and our visitors and those commuters who would also be safer at slower speeds should be the paramount concern of the council. So I'll leave it at that for today. Thanks. Thank you. First I'm going to take up the two minutes. I'll call to your attention and I'll leave you with a copy of the League of Cities and Towns of which I believe our city manager is on the board. Their lawyer, senior staff attorney in 2015 addressed the issue of how much public comment is allowed under open meeting law. I submit that your two minute arbitrary shutting people down is in violation of open meeting law. And the opinion of the attorney seems to confirm that. That sometimes nobody shows up in which case you can just move along or perhaps just a few do in which case three to five minutes should suffice. Other times if you have a whole bunch of people talking you can limit it to 30 minutes and you don't have to reach everybody with two. So as an example the Berlin speed limit hearing where you had 20 people lined up that might be a circumstance where you limit to two minutes. These types of comments where we're trying to cover a lot of issues should be at least three to five minutes and otherwise you potentially are in violation of open meeting law. It's disrespectful especially Sandy and the architect had prepared extensively and you shut her down the other night. You shut me down the other night and it's erodes faith and trust in government in the process. I'll be brief with a couple of other comments. We're trying to promote people coming to the city and eating outdoors. We're providing spaces for pocket parks near restaurants. Yet we have two drains, one in front of Bethany Church and one in front of La Brioche. Both have been for years emitting sewer gas which is totally making it untenable to enjoy those spaces. Why we can't fix that? Why that can't be made a priority is beyond me. I've already mentioned to Tom the new paving that happened in front of the TD Bank was not graded. I've got photos of the water inch and a half still sitting there block to block after the rain storm. The sand and dust blowing through the farmers market has not been remedied at all. No one rescheduled the street sweeper which normally works on Thursday because of the 4th of July. So we had all the 4th of July litter to also blow through the farmers market. The fancy brochure I like and I applauded Dan for putting it together but yet there are none up at the truck stop. There are none in the visitor's bureau. Little red shit. So I applaud that we're making these efforts but if we're not following through on them, thanks. Thank you. Steve, could you leave us with a copy of that legal opinion from the league? Sure. Thanks. Anyone else? Okay. So moving on to the consideration of the consent agenda. I think there was one, was there a typo in one of the items that had been fixed that I'd saw an email to that effect? Maybe. The tax rate? The tax rate. Yeah. But that had been addressed. Any other comments on the consent agenda? Is there a motion? I move the consent agenda. Second. Further discussion? All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? So the consent agenda passes. And so we have an appointment to make to the conservation commission. There's one person who applied and three vacant seats. So if you know of anyone who is interested in participating in the conservation commission, they're a great group. So do we want to go into executive session? Since there's only one applicant, I suggest we not go into executive session. I move that we appoint Phyllis Rubinstein to the conservation commission. Further discussion? Oh, there's a second. Oh, I'm glad I might have beat you there. Okay. Okay. Further discussion? All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Thank you Phyllis for your willingness to step up. All right. So then we have French Block public hearing. So I want to be sure to open the public hearing. And I think there are, Kevin, did you want to come say anything about this? Hello. Kevin Casey, Community Development. Alison Friedkin, Downstreet Housing Community Development. And the public hearing is the final piece to close out the grant that we received, the CDBG grant that we sub-granted to Downstreet Housing and Community Development in order to complete the French Block project, which is 16 units, 16 one bedroom units and two studios, am I right? And Alison, you can kind of give an update on where that is and we'll ask for public comment and go from there. Great. Thank you. I don't think I have to say too much about the project. I think most folks are familiar with the French Block. The latest news is I'm happy to report that the project is 100% least stuffed. But we're very excited to have lights on in all the windows and reports from folks who live there is just wonderful. How much they're, you know, how pleased they are to be downtown in safe, affordable and beautiful housing. So we just want to again reiterate our thanks to the City Council and all the residents of Montpelier for their support in this project. It has been personally, I can say a wonderful experience and I only wish that all projects were as terrific as this one. So thanks again. Great. Is there any comment from the Council or from the public? Jack. Yeah, I had a question. Other than holding the public hearing is there's a mention of this $500,000. Is there money yet to be dispersed or is it just you need to hold hearing essentially as a pro forma thing? Yes, we have requisitioned all of those funds. We actually will have our closeout report to VCDP at the end of this month. So at this point it is purely just an exercise in closing out the grant. And so will you be asking for action at the end of this which is to say to approve the nothing? No, there's no action necessary. It's just again a final opportunity for the public to weigh in on the project before the books are closed on it really. Great. Thank you. Great. Any other comments from? Oh, Glenn. Just since we have you here, I'm curious. I'm very glad to hear that all of the apartments are now leased. I'm curious if you have anything to share about how quickly that happened, how much further demand it seemed like there might be for apartments like this. My sense is that there's, that we could do many more of these projects and fill them easily. Is that accurate from how many applications you got? So your question was too pronged. So how long it took? So the first folks moved in, I think the first resident moved in, I want to say January 15th. That was a very eager individual because I think we had our certificate of occupancy December 30th. So, and then here we are. I believe those last units were leased up as of June 30th. So it did take some time. Honestly, that is more just our process and us having to, you know, space out the lease up process because our property managers are also, you know, continually leasing up other properties and we are allowed a certain amount of time. So we have a schedule of how many units per month. So that's the more around the current lease up. As for demand, there is certainly more demand. I believe there are people already on the wait list for French blocks should apartments for which they're eligible become available. And as you know, we're doing the Taylor Street project. So we are confident that there's more demand in the city and we've started taking applications for that property and we'll be leasing those up in September. So, yep, we're going to keep plugging away till everybody's house. Thank you. All right. Other comments from the public. I noticed just in the, that I would have had to go to Burlington to review the documents. I think they probably should have been attached. It would be good to know, you know, how many units have locked rents, which how many subsidized. I know those are probably in the documents that are in Burlington, but I don't want to go to Burlington and I'm going to have to do that before tonight's meeting. I heard from some of the tenants that there's a policy now they have to go down and they cannot buzz anybody in that they have to go down and greet people at the door. And when I hear they're safe, maybe that's part of the safety measures, but possibly a camera. I think it'd be a really convenience to be living there to have to go down and manually meet everybody. That's a fear that somebody else is going to sneak in and holding the door. That needs to be addressed. We don't really want to invest in public housing that starts to have such an inconvenience factor to the tenants. Again, I won't claim to be knowledgeable from other than a tenant there telling me that that's the process that they're not even allowed to buzz somebody in the elevator to come up. It's more of a management thing, but it is a city investment and we need to be aware of what kind of... Be careful not to create a fortress mentality out of some of our historic buildings. But I applaud that at least it's a start. But in light of the homelessness discussion here, I think it'll shed some light back on this one. The sound system and the noise in the server room still needs to be soundproofed and it's really barely audible in here, especially with the mics, so that still needs to be addressed. Sir, how are we doing it? Oh, yes, go ahead. I'd just like to respond to your comment. The way the security and the entry system works, that is not my understanding. Folks are able to buzz folks in. I know we've had some bugs in the system as we've worked it out, so folks may have experienced a period in which the electronic system was not working out correctly, but it is certainly our intention that from their units folks are able to let people in who have used the automated system identified themselves and then it unlocks the door, so just want to clarify that. Wonderful, thank you. Okay. And a good reminder too that we need to speak into our mics. It's all good. Okay, so any further comments from the public? Okay, so I'm going to close the public hearing on that. Thank you so much for your work in this. Thank you. Okay, so on to this discussion about loitering. So I want to sort of frame this up a little bit for us. So this issue came to us as a request from a citizen or property owner and I will confess I did not know much about the idea of loitering and so it seemed like it was at least worth having a conversation. So I think David Kelly is not, I don't think he's here, but Candace Moot is here so the way we're going to have this discussion, Candace is going to tell us about what her property or tenants have been experiencing and then I think the police chief is here to address and just give us a little bit more background information and then I would love to hear from the public on this and counsel, if you have comments or questions, if you just make sure they're sort of clarifying and then at the end we'll talk through where we want to go and what we think. Does that sound okay? Okay, welcome. Right, I will. Thank you. How's this? Okay. So first thank you. I truly thank you. This has been a really quick response. I am here in David's behalf and also on behalf of myself as a property owner and for my tenants, see a lot of familiar faces which is nice and it's a very quick response and I first start with David's apologies that he could not be here. He didn't expect such a quick hearing so thank you. So what I'd like to do is I'll just say a couple things and then I have a one page letter signed by David and me I'd like to just read into the record. It's just one page and we do actually even have some suggestions as to what might be helpful. So thinking back on this issue, this is obviously not brand new to Montpelier although it hasn't been a serious problem to my knowledge until relatively recently. I remember and some of you may also remember there was a woman in Montpelier who was from Russia and walked around with an American flag and she was pushing a cart, she was homeless and Scott Skinner called us and because David was very involved with the ACLU and asked, this was probably 30 or 35 years ago, asked if we would take this woman, it was getting really cold, you know, November, would we try to help her get her housing so we tried to get her home with us to our place on East State Street. You know, David's a lawyer, I have a BA in French, we were more than ill-equipped to help someone with those problems. So I really understand, we do, how delicate this problem is and how serious it is. But from the perspective of the store owners, the piece I wanted to add that you wouldn't have any reason to know is that in order to have a successful storefront and be able to pay your rent, you have to have a place that looks clean and upbeat and upscale and welcoming to your customers. And too often, that belies a real struggle. We have had, I've owned the billing where pinkies and AeroMed and Botanica are for about 40 years. And you would be stunned to know how often those storefront tenants cannot pay their rent. We had one tenant for 10 years who paid us weekly. It's a struggle. And you don't see it and you may not know it because the storefronts, just by the nature of trying to attract customers, have to look nice. So I just thought I would share that before I read David's letter. So do you prefer, I hand this out before or after, or do you care, or I can also send it electronically? Is it a copy? Yeah. Just go ahead now. Dear Mayor Watson, thank you for taking the time to speak with David Kelly about our concerns and for putting those concerns on the City Council's July 10th agenda. We are sure that you understand that the health and well-being of businesses and bricks and mortar buildings on State and Main Street and Montpelier and on Main Streets across America today are fragile. Those businesses, like so many other institutions, have been under assault by Internet giants like Amazon. One need only, one need travel no further than Barry or St. John's Berry to fully appreciate just how fragile those businesses are. The businesses on State and Main have managed to hold their own and still provide much of the financial, cultural, and psychic support that helps keep Montpelier healthy and alive. But they need support from those that they support. This summer, a handful of people have chosen to sit or even congregate in front of the buildings on the corner of State and Main and Montpelier. The result has been a steady stream of difficulties for the businesses that support those buildings and that ultimately help pay the property taxes for those buildings. The entrances to the businesses have been blocked. The cigarette smoke has wafted up to the businesses and apartments on the upper floors and the noise from this group of folks has made work difficult for the people in the offices and apartments on the upper floors. We are both ardent advocates of a robust and unfettered First Amendment. But this is not about First Amendment rights. This is about respecting the rights of others, particularly the rights of downtown businesses to be able to conduct their business without unnecessary conflict and harassment from other citizens. Like Will Rogers once said, your right to swing your fists ends just short of my nose. There are plenty of places in downtown Montpelier where people can congregate, smoke cigarettes, talk, sing, play musical instruments, and so on. We simply ask that the city consider this matter and take reasonable steps to help the businesses in the corner address these issues. Attached is a short list of possible solutions. We hope you and the city council will give these and any other substantive ideas your genuine consideration. And then now that I've disclosed our professional background on this issue, we at least wanted to come with some ideas of what might make sense. So they're listed and we've done together, we thought these items could help Montpelier's downtown. And they're six listed. Number one, we want to be sure that people who need help get the help they need. Perhaps we could have posters and brochures that identify all the social services available to those in need, how to access those services, and be sure these things are distributed widely. The same information might also be on the city's website. Let's also, on posters, brochures, and websites, discourage people from making donations that provide no long-term help to people dealing with substance abuse, food insecurity, or homelessness. Number four, prohibit soliciting donations in some specific locations. For example, perhaps some distance downstate and main street from the corner, the main corner on state and main. Number five, require a permit for those that intend to solicit donations. Number six, identify specific locations for soliciting donations and promote those locations. Further questions from you all? Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. And Chief Vegas. What's that? Oh, and we're... Calling our next guest. Next presenter here. Good evening, everyone. And thank you for including us in this conversation. That's what I can say from a police perspective, it's all too often problems of homelessness, sometimes mental illness, a lot of host of challenges when there is, you know, no clear answer of what you call it. You call the police, and that one player is not at all unique in that. So one of the... Now listen to this, I've heard about the suggestions that were offered. And some, you know, we have to be careful about first amendment protections, and that is, for example, telling somebody where they can and cannot ask for money. It is absolutely their right to ask for donations. What we have also been doing, what I just handed out to you is a... It's something that Washington County Mental Health with support of the very city police department, the Montclair police department, has been putting out these for many years now, and it's a survivor's guide, but it's full of resources. It's a host of resources. Our officers carry these with them. If you notice, it's kind of a unique paper. It's on a Tyvek type paper, so it'll last. It can, you know... And it can get in the weather. And on there's a host of numbers and resources. Really with the primary function of the police, what we do provide is enforcement of criminal conduct. So if there's criminal activity, deaths, unlawful trespass, disability conduct, we will take enforcement action as necessary. And then the other part of our job is also from a community health and maintenance standpoint is helping facilitate what was stated earlier. What help can we link that individual up with, whether it's substance abuse treatment, for example, a way of project safe catch, so again, our focus there with addiction and substance abuse disorder is wherever somebody's at. We're there to offer whatever assistance we can get them. Mental health. We have very proud of the work of the statewide that Montpelier PD and the relationship with the Washington County Mental Health Services that really that relationship was the catalyst for the state program called Team 2, which is a joint crisis response model, but that's more of a crisis. What we do not have, and it speaks a lack of resources, we would really love to have a social worker embedded with us in the police department. And there's been, just talking to Sergeant Eric Norencin this evening, and we've offered many times for Washington County, when they have some downtime, for any of the screeners to come out with us. And it's just, they're maxed out as well, but it's something that we're not giving up on. We've attempted several times for grant funding for that. Bless you. So anyway, we've had, there's many success stories. There's a host of programs from the Good Samaritan. Our only shelter right now is in Berry City. Then we have the warming shelter at Bethany Church. And then there's also another way, which is a daytime only location. So we do what we can to respond to calls, even if somebody is drinking, public urinating, on a bike path, which was the case just last night. We'll just move along. We're also in kind of a transition with a city attorney. But we just do what we can to be supportive at the same time, provide and look after the quality of life when there's a criminal violation or ordinance violation. So that's kind of the very complex role of our police officers. And that's kind of where we are at. So again, it's on one side. When there's criminal conduct, yes, we'll deal with that. Otherwise, we are really a facilitator at every opportunity where people are willing to, and we can provide a link to whatever support and resources may be needed. So just one follow-up question. So the city has no loitering or no loitering ordinance. And to your understanding, is there any provision that would allow us to do that under a state statute? No. Okay. Again, the constitutional issues are very clear on that. Okay, great. Thank you. Cool. Glenn. Just to keep that small conversation going, I was poking through the ordinances, and it looks like there was at one point a loitering ordinance and also a begging ordinance that had been repealed, I assume, because of that prohibition. Can you tell us, in general, at least when that went down? I don't. That was, well, when the department stopped enforcing that was sometime it was right after a Supreme Court decision. And essentially I tell our officers this, you know, people do not have the right to block your path of travel if you're walking down the street. If you're in a subway, and that's really what I think with this case origin, it was with the NYPD, if you're in a confined space, then it's prohibited because you have to be able to walk freely. If you choose to make a donation, then absolutely you can do that. But again, if you're asking for donations or doing something, you can't make contact, physical contact with people, you can't block their path of travel. Okay. Any other questions? Yeah. Ashley. I would just piggyback on what Chief said there actually is. I'm speaking into it. I don't know. Usually people don't tell me to be loud or they usually tell me to be quieter. I'm pretty sure that there is also a criminal statute that deals with obstructing pedestrian or vehicular traffic. Disorderly conduct. Yeah, it's going to be disorderly conduct subsection five. And that's literally pretty much the only enforceable thing. And I think the real question is, do we want to be, you know, citing people into court for something along those lines? Or do we want to find better solutions to all work together as a community? And I, for one, feel pretty strongly that the court system is ill-equipped anyway to deal with a lot of the challenges that we're facing. And so I would really urge the council to be mindful that like arresting people, you can't really arrest your way out of the challenges that many of us are dealing with in this community. And I would really encourage people to be incredibly mindful as we venture into this territory that, you know, the language that we use, the way that we talk about the struggles that our friends and neighbors are experiencing here in Montpelier is significant. And I would highlight that using terms like vagrants or bums or things like that, it's appalling to me as someone who lives in Montpelier that I've heard these phrases being thrown around. You know, human beings are looking for connection. And, you know, Montpelier has an awful lot of that to go around. I've been very fortunate myself in terms of needing help in this community and people have come together. And I'm really disappointed to hear so much negative, just so much negativity about the fact that there are people in our community who are visibly struggling. And I really encourage people who are really having a hard time with us to sit back and examine why that is and how we can all work together to actually ameliorate these issues, not further criminalize them or further marginalize members of our community. Jack. Just a quick point at this to... You heard that, huh? Just a quick point to respond to Glenn's question, the panhandling ordinance we just repealed last year. We and a number of other municipalities in the state were contacted by the ACLU saying they'd noticed that we have these panhandling ordinances and they were, in their opinion, they're unconstitutional. And we immediately took action to repeal our ordinance even though we knew that we were in the process of reviewing all the ordinances we wanted to do that right away. More to come on Chapter 11. Connor. Chief, would you mind talking just a little more about the relationship with Washington County Mental Health? I'm interested in the idea of embedding a social worker within the department because I think the range of duties you perform is pretty extensive. Do they actually have someone on the ground who would come and talk to people to identify if it's like an acute mental illness? Are folks transported? Absolutely. Right there, they have crisis screeners 24-7. And in most cases, if we need them to come to a scene with us, they will be able to do that. Sometimes we can help if the person's willing to. Again, our role is safety. And if they're willing to meet at the hospital because many times they're also at the emergency department. So if they can, it's easier. They might already be engaged with one or two other people in a crisis, but it's a very strong relationship. Even as a former negotiator, and it was a more of a tactical environment, it was still always nice knowing that they were there as a backup. And again, we absolutely trust them. They trust us and it takes time. And that Team 2 model that it's been around statewide for several years now, it really is a simple training platform where crisis clinicians and law enforcement and now it's even gone as far as involving emergency department personnel, first responders in terms of EMS as well as dispatchers also to how do we collectively help resolve a call when it's always in crisis. Because again, law enforcement's job, we're really there for security and safety only. And it's very, in some cases, any legal issues. But for the most part, once it's safe, we want to extract ourselves out of that situation. As soon as practical, we might have to stand by, but really, we want to get that person to that next level of care. And also, one of the things we're very proud of compares a lot of like there's the CIT of the crisis intervention model, the Memphis model, where law enforcement picks somebody up this in crisis, they drop them off at a center. Well, we don't have any of those resources. In 2016, Mary Bolton myself and Chris and Chandler from Team 2, we did a presentation to IACP in San Diego, and we're going to be presenting that again in IACP in Chicago. One of the things we learned, and one of the, that we didn't even think about was that we were keeping more people in their homes once we have brought and responded to that way, get them the help that they needed, the support that they needed rather than for the burdening, which right now is going to be our medical community. So we're proud of that fact. So I'm guessing that there are a number of folks here who would like to comment on this topic and would love to hear from you. So I have my own thoughts, but I'm going to save them. Well, I'm curious to hear your thoughts as well. So if you have something you'd like to share, if you would state your name, where you're from, and try to keep it in two minutes. Keep it in two minutes? No. I've been asked if this be put on the agenda since March, and all of a sudden one letter from a building owner gets, you know, 10 minutes a piece? We're going to be taking up homelessness again as a topic at another time. So this isn't even the only opportunity to talk about this. To limit it to two minutes is grossly unfair. I've already called your attention to the... Unless there's a lot of people who would like to comment on it, in which case you said it would be appropriate. So I'm guessing that there's... So I'm going to read a statement from it. But I just see a show of hands that says, who would like to comment on this? Yeah, there's quite a few hands. So if you try to keep it in two minutes, we'll have some grace for you though. I'm going to read a statement from an expert who will present later. Main problems are a shortage of affordable housing, and the wait period for that housing when it comes available can be 24 to 36 months. The hoops that folks need to jump through to obtain that housing and the lack of interest and concerted outreach to the folks who live outdoors three out of four seasons. Most of these folks have been kicked out of Good Sam, or know that they will be for using substances or alcohol. The model of a bed only, no daytime enrichment activities or available shelter is not a successful model. These folks have nowhere to go during the daytime, nothing constructive to do with their time and few to zero opportunities for advancement in the current support structure. Accepting help from Washington County Mental Health is the fastest path many folks don't want to go this route or don't believe that they have mental health issues. Any anti-loading ordinance criminalizes poverty and lack of opportunity and strives to shield the problem from public view. We should be working to raise the awareness and construct a system that builds opportunities rather than hides the problem. How can you tell folks who have nowhere to go and nothing to do that they need to go do that out of sight? I often hear folks say that the adequate services exist. I disagree, we disagree. Many well-intentioned people are working as hard. Many gaps exist in the system. There's a rigidity around expanding the services. We should be modeling our services around what folks need rather than expecting folks to conform to the existing structure. It's unreasonable to expect folks with significant substance abuse issues will be able to stay clean and stay in the shelter. A couple of comments on what I heard were appealed by the person who instigated or the couple that instigated this tonight's hearing. Health and well-being of businesses, what about the health and well-being of the humans? I mean, a steady stream of difficulties, you know, entrances blocked. I see these folks every day. I ask them to pick up their cigarette butts. I talk with them. I see what they need, whether they had enough income to get their food together. There's 100 to 150 people on the streets between Barry Berlin and Montpelier, and that's not being recognized here. This is an emergency, a humanity emergency, and it's been kicked down the can. The can has been kicked down the road long enough. I ask you to take action tonight to convene a task force. I've spoken to several of you and I've asked you to get together and make a proposal, make a motion, create a task force that's going to invite the three cities together. We sat around it, kept the coffee shop this morning, and a number of people participated with good, constructive ideas. You know, there's people willing to work on this. You need to create the forum and put the momentum to it. The survivor's guide that the chief, I applaud that effort. It's even on Tyvek, so it doesn't get wet when you're sleeping out in the rain. But I took that, those meal schedule and put it into Google Calendar so that people could click on a meal on a particular day of the week, and it would bring up a map of how to find it. But I couldn't get the library or, you know, to even adopt that and maintain it and make the changes. You know, those are simple things we can do to help people find food. The food pantries are not in there yet. But we have a problem where the police, there's no uniformity to round where it's okay to sleep. People are being told that they can't sleep in the state right-of-way, citing a erroneous reference to statute. The state right-of-way is along the state highways. If somebody's being threatened with arrest for sleeping in the shelter out by the pedestrian bridge behind the heat plant, I would say, show me the law. Show me the law they're violating. You know, there's a training problem. You need to direct the PD to have a uniform acknowledgement of where it is okay to sleep. I'll stop there for now. Thank you, Stephen. Just for now. It's all good. Fair enough. Whenever you're ready, come on up. You can speak there or at the mic if you prefer. Either way, it's fine. I guess I'll sit down. My name's Dylan. I'm a construction worker. What's your last name? Ren Flash. Okay, thanks. I didn't have a lot of time to prepare a statement, so bear with me. It's close to you. So many years ago, I was homeless. In a lot of places I visited, treated me less than human and not as a citizen of this country. And a lot of no-lordering ordinances were used to force me to leave places that were open to everyone. I just want to say that the civil rights of the least powerful people in our society are very important, and I would say they're more important than the minor discomfort and annoyance of the most privileged. Panhandling is protected under the First Amendment, and I think it would be shameful for this body to consider infringing on that right. Our city is in no way overrun or threatened by the homeless population, and I think the outrageous rents charged to exist in this community are an infinitely higher priority than figuring out ways to attack the homeless population. I'd just like to add that if occasionally being annoyed on the street is a big problem in your life, then you should consider yourself very blessed. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Welcome. Hi, my name is Valerie, and I live here in Montpelier. What, can I get your last name, please? My last name is Coolidge. I lived here in Montpelier for six years before I had to leave my relationship due to domestic violence, and when I finally, my partner friend left, I became financially unstable and had to, and I was evicted in a very nasty eviction. I couldn't pay the exorbitant amount of rent in Montpelier and ended up homeless with my four children for eight months in Montpelier. I hear people talking about the homeless population in terms of their addiction, their mental health, there's all kinds of justifications for why people are homeless that don't include the fact that it's ridiculously expensive to be living here, to be living in Vermont. I chose Montpelier as a community for my children. I thought it was a community that embraced all generations, all different kinds of families. It was especially welcoming to me, coming from St. Johnsbury, which was a community of no loitering. It's where I grew up and went to high school. We weren't allowed to be on the streets. We weren't allowed to hang out. We all got in cars and we went off into the woods where we drank and we did drugs, and I don't know if anybody's been to St. Johnsbury, but if you see what happened to that town, everybody sort of scattered the people who managed to raise families left St. Johnsbury. Many of my friends ended up in jail or dead and continue to die are caught up in the opiate crisis. I really appreciate that there is not a loitering ordinance in Montpelier. I like that we can see our children, that our teens have a place to be. I like that children can ride their bikes, that we see them at the library. And I stayed in this community for all eight months. Something that I really want to point out, though, is that it's not as easy as a flyer. And in fact, that flyer can just be boiled down to the number 211. You can call that number and it will tell you every single service available, none of which are networked. Nothing is networked. It is the hardest thing I have ever done was to get out of homelessness, and it is near impossible to do. Once you become homeless, you fall off this plane of existence, excuse me. And the first thing that happened when I became homeless was I went to the Department of Economic Services and I said, please help me. And they said, you no longer have a rent, you can't have any food stamps because food stamps are dependent upon rent. So then I had nothing. We had no food, we had no home, we had nothing. I had a small go fund me and people had pulled together for me and we got a motel room for a while. We slept in cars, we slept in a tent, we were sleeping in a car when it was snowing, I was trying to get my kids to school, and it is nearly impossible. You have to do everything yourself. Luckily, I'm an educated person, I'm intelligent, I could get myself networked into different things, but I'm telling you, it is not easy because not a lot of people have the clarity that I had. I was with families, there are a number of families in this community where they are homeless and they are not coming out of that. There are children who are homeless living amongst us and you don't see them because they're not begging, they're not panhandling on the street, they're stuck inside of maybe a motel room or maybe their cars, am I out of time? Yeah, but I'm telling you that these services that are on this piece of paper do not work. It's not a working system and in order, if you guys want to not see this in your community, then you have to network your services and you have to do better as a community and come together and create a system that's going to work and it's going to have to include the difference around in communities as well. Thank you. Hi, my name is Bob Buchanan, I'm a professor at Goddard College but I'm really not here under that capacity. It's been an honor actually for me to spend time and work with Good Samaritan Home. I do that on a part-time basis. I spend the evenings with the men and at times women in the overflow shelters and I guess I just want to say that we can do much better than we are offering now. I think the folks who have spoken before me have indicated there is enough compassion and support and intelligence and empathy in our small communities to do far more than we have been doing. There are encampments out there that are really the fall-back place and I also think we need to think carefully about our own perceptions of who these folks are if we begin by seeing them simply as homeless or seeing necessarily or almost always that they have mental health problems, I think it is really an extraordinary and proper characterization. I'll just close with a learning moment I had with Patrick Hanrahan who is a few hundred yards away from us and earlier this winter the overflow shelter in Barrie was so crowded we didn't have enough cots so I said I'll give up my cot and I'll go sleep on the floor and Patrick absolutely refused to have that happen. He said no, I'm going outside I know how to sleep outside in the winter and he walked out the door so I would be able to have a more comfortable way to spend the evening and be able to be with the other folks. I was just going to sleep on the floor and I think Patrick's integrity, his care, his conviction is not singular. Many folks on the streets do have mental health issues but many have enormous and great gifts and if we take the time to slow and to see them more fully as we want to be seen ourselves it will do us all much good, thank you. Thank you, Tanya McGrath. So last year I was talking to a homeless gentleman and he was just somebody I chatted with I walk on Main Street a lot to go for groceries so I smile and nod a lot and we get to talking and he mentioned one day that some of his friends had guitars one night and the leftover pizza from Positive Pie got handed out and he described a really nice just sitting with his friends listening to music, eating some pizza and I felt good for him and then he said that he felt just like a person and like my heart absolutely broke and I just wanted to be like, obviously you're a person. Sorry, I have public speaking, it's not really my thing. But my point being is that when we discuss loitering and we discuss things that further marginalize the homeless we're telling them that they're not people and that's not something I expect from this community and I really appreciate everybody who's come here to speak out against that because I think it's really important that our community is for everyone and that means that our public spaces are for the public. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to say that I was first told that I was not a person by the pharmaceutical companies of America because they gave me a drug that they said was going to help me and then they found out later, thank you very much that encouraged suicide. I feel special. Does anybody else feel special by the fact that they now apologize? Anyway, alright, so clearly this is a situation where everybody wants based on one property owner to scapegoat the homeless for all of the problems that are everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, okay. So what does any of this even mean? If everybody already admits and understands that none of this is any damn founding anywhere in the world. What the hell is anybody even doing here? Seriously. It's just, it doesn't make sense and I'll tell you why it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to have somebody who thinks that they own a community based on the fact that they own a piece of paper that says that they own some buildings in a community to start calling shots in a community that they don't know about, don't care about, seek to profit off of. I don't know if anybody ever here has ever met a pimp, okay, but they don't really like the girl. They don't really care about you. They don't really think that you're beautiful. If they're here to make a profit, then they're here to make a profit and I'm not going to name anybody past that, but I saw things happen the way that that happened in Burlington and I saw everybody pretend that they gave about affordable housing when they gutted Winooski and I watched everybody pretend in wine about how they pretended to give a damn about affordable housing and you can name the number of times. All right? I'm not impressed by a bunch of posers that want to take pictures and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You can have a good photo spread. That's cool. That's great. That's wonderful. If that's what you're in it for, affordable housing isn't done by Jacobs Corp or whoever the hell else you got running things nowadays and you guys can all fool yourselves however you want to, but that's just the ain't the way it works. Thank you. Can I get your name for the minutes? Casey Jones. Vicki Lane in Montpelier. I had sent in an email this afternoon. I wasn't going to come down for this because I knew I'd get too upset, but I was on my roof a few minutes ago doing some repairs that probably I shouldn't be doing but because I don't have any money to hire anyone, I have to do them regardless of whether I have this on or not. Anyway, I came down. I went inside to Hula for a few minutes and listened to the TV and I only heard the tail end of the suggestions and I thought, how ungodly, clueless can you possibly be? What I heard, I didn't hear the beginning so that wasn't a fair. It's just the way I felt at the time. There's nothing wrong with seeing a lot of the homeless people, the ill people, the whatever on the streets. I don't know what the problem is. Maybe if you got to know some of them you'd get to know that they have stories and I don't know if you even bothered to invite Sergeant Bassett from Berlin PD here but he knows a lot of stories and he does a lot for people in the encampments and to just assume that if you provide a shelter that everybody will be happy. That's not true. There's a lot of people out there that physically cannot, emotionally cannot be within those four walls and just because you don't like interacting with someone who maybe didn't take shower in the last whatever or is asking you for a little bit of money that's no reason to have some kind of, I mean what's loitering? If I stand on the corner, am I loitering? If I'm just enjoying the view, am I loitering? I don't know, what's loitering? I suppose all of us loiter every once in a while I don't believe that it's a crime. I know we went through this years and years ago but I know there's no need for it. I mean just people, they're part of our community. I mean they are part of our community. Maybe they don't have a nice house on Town Hill or whatever or College Street but they still are a part of our very rich and diverse community and we should leave them alone. If we need to find a place for them to sleep outdoors we should do it because if they're sleeping outdoors maybe they cannot sleep inside. Maybe they physically cannot sleep inside and that's real. So I mean you guys are all in your little comfort levels. Come out, see what's going on in town. Thanks Vicki. Hi everybody. My name is Lauren Andrews. I was urged by several people to come to this meeting tonight because I have kind of a unique background in that I worked for many years as a psychiatric nurse and I'm also a small business owner here in town. I own ArrowMed, the aromatherapy and CBD shop on State Street and so I see the situation from many different angles and from a place of compassion and caring as I've dedicated most of my professional life advocating for people with mental health issues but then there's the harsh reality of owning a business downtown which most of the time is wonderful. But the reality is during the three years that I've had a business downtown we've had to have a public branch removed from in front of my store because of aggressive hand handling people harassing customers people not stopping to look in my store window because they feel intimidated. We've had people camping out in our storefronts and we'd have to ask people to leave so we could actually open our stores so people can get in. And also just as a psychiatric nurse I know from my experience that it's very common for us to want to give money to people who need it who are less fortunate but I also know from my experience that's not always the most compassionate thing to do. There are ways that we can help certainly lining people up with services from passion like a cup of hot tea or we would bring hot water bottles out to people who are on the street when it's cold out. Things like that. But there are folks that want to give their money to help folks and one thing I brought by was a photo I was up in Burlington today and one effort that they have put into place which I think is fantastic is they have boxes that look a little bit like colorful mailboxes where anybody that feels compelled to give can put money in those boxes and that money goes to cops it actually is money that can go to services that will actually help people and it will help us feel like we're doing something that's meaningful that's getting funds where they can really do some good and I'd really like to suggest looking into that from Montpelier I think it would be very helpful and to continue to educate our community as to how we can best serve people who are less fortunate than we are because they're out there it's not a problem that's going to go away it is our problem but it should not be at the feet of business owners who are trying very hard to serve this community as best we can so I agree there needs to be some sort of a task force of objective, qualified people together to figure out how we might be able to better help folks but in the meantime we have to realize that there are business owners that need to do business so I hope that we can look at it from all perspectives Thank you Thank you Good evening I'm Dan Kelly, this is my wife Jodi Kelly we've recently leased the garage building here in downtown Montpelier turned it into the cultural center upstairs which is Jodi's thing in the vet clinic downstairs and I guess this is a huge concern of ours and probably one of our biggest challenges is opening new businesses in Montpelier right now and I guess I'll start by telling really briefly three stories alright we were in the process of getting this thing going Jodi and I were working late one night we went out to get a bite to eat we walked downtown looking at Jodi and she had to go man you must work hard she's ordering all this food we were at Bluestone she's got like two pizzas she's got all this stuff and I'm going wow what's going on she said I will eat it tomorrow we left there on our way back to clinic to get the car she stopped she hands all the leftovers to somebody that was on the street okay and the reason I tell her story is I mean that's who we are we're not anybody other than that I'll say she's not I'll give her credit for that I'll give her her time about it but so that's who we are but I'll start with it or go to another story that happened literally within the last hour we had a client that came in whose pet needed emergency surgery she came from a distance the dog came in mid-afternoon she was going to wait in the area to take the dog home tonight she went to get a bite to eat and then she sat in our waiting area for Perry Ellis to get out of surgery so we finished up with the surgery I went out to her and I told her Perry Ellis is going to be fine everything went great her first she didn't even let me finish she said you wouldn't believe what I just saw she says I was sitting here in the reception area and she said two drug deals just went out down out in the parking lot that's not a story I mean that's exactly what she said you were there she was more concerned about that than she was about Perry Ellis's surgery and recovery from surgery and she thinks the world of this dog that's what we live with right now with what we're dealing with in our current location the third story I'll tell is we started monitoring a surveillance camera we have up behind that building and what we've seen on that is absolutely unreal and shocking we're not naive people but you run a camera out back there overnight and it's downright scary from the stuff that goes on the drug deals dealing to young kids 4th of July I mean it was a steady stream it looked like a high school kid was coming back there to the picnic table and purchasing things part of my daily routine now honest to God when I go to the clinic in the morning is unlock the doors turn off the alarm and then I go outside and I shovel human feces off the pavement I pick up newspaper that's been soiled by people that's the reality that we live we're extraordinarily sympathetic to this group of people but it's a problem as a business owner and it's a huge problem as a new business owner I feel you're something we never thought we would face we started initially by trying to work with the people we would say you know you guys you can't use this as a bathroom you're okay for hanging out back here but please be respectful but you lose patience after a period of time and we really have you know coming to a critical point the police have been absolutely exceptional trying to balance our needs with the needs of that population but they're up against it I mean I truly sympathize with them so I don't know what the solution is the solution isn't us to call the police every time people start to congregate out there I understand that for me personally I think I would appeal to this group to do exactly what's been suggested earlier is form a task force let's figure this out let's find a place for people to go because as a business owner it is truly untenable and you have been calling the police we have called them they've been very helpful they were there Monday last night I can show you on the video I mean I'll share this video with anybody that wants it's disturbing it's terribly it's terribly disturbing to see a group they usually come in can you just swing the mic towards you thank you they come in around three o'clock in the afternoon and they're pretty straight at that point and within a half an hour of smoking I think something probably a lot harder than marijuana spreading their pills out on the table doing some pretty awful things and within 40 minutes they're scary stoned we have kids riding by on their little scooters because it's a beautiful spot that's I mean part of the reason why we decided to do this you know building because it's a beautiful spot but it's dangerous it's wicked dangerous and it just we have to figure out a way to help these people they're aggressive they're violent they're angry it's not the group of people that are homeless in town that are sitting on the sidewalks that you know I understand that situation this instead is a group of people that I believe have housing they don't live on the streets and they're dangerously involved with drugs and you see these young high school students come through and they're getting drugs from these people and they're not kids these people that are like the main group are older people and it's just it's become such a disturbing thing the reason why we put the cameras up was because I had a rotating sculpture exhibit out there that this group I wanted to try and keep it protected because it's such a beautiful spot but it was getting destroyed so we did remove the sculpture so I thought the camera might deter it but it didn't so it's just there is a severe drug problem thank you I think the other thing we've been made aware that there are I understand I understand that there's two populations there is a homeless population and then there is another population and it seems like that second population of you know people are the people that we're having trouble dealing with so well thank you hi I'm Caro Spongevani I live and work in Montpelier and I 100% agree that the rent here is absurd in comparison to the wages I don't see that changing it's a harsh reality indeed people are homeless and struggling and I don't doubt that we all want those in need to get the help they need I personally helped the family last year get a room at the Econolodge and I'm considered a softie for giving money to panhandlers but it sounds like there are some solid ideas about solutions here I want to second Lauren's point that Burlington has had donation boxes on Church Street Marketplace for years to encourage your money actually going where it needs to go I would encourage the City Council to look into that and try to develop a similar support structure sidewalks are for walking as far as I know not laying every day unless it's raining people are literally blocking the path of travel to my business and it's very intimidating my customers are complaining to me and I'm sure you know that for every one person who complains there are twenty who just don't come back to my business I'm just looking to create a viable solution to this problem that everyone can deal with and that helps everyone thanks great thank you hi everyone hi welcome my name is Rob Farrell and I'm the new Executive Director of the Good Samaritan Haven I want you to know we remain committed to solving the homeless crisis in fact my goal one day is to work myself out of a job I very much appreciate honor and validate everyone's participation and concern for this unique population that clearly needs our help as a community I would welcome being part of any task force and very much appreciate Mayor Watson and the Chief of Police asking me to be here I would also say to everyone in this room if you have any concerns about what's going on at Good Samaritan please reach out to me directly I'd welcome that conversation lastly I'd like to say that we are committed in our outreach program to working with all folks in our community that are experiencing homelessness we are equally committed to meeting folks where they're at not where we think they should be at but where they're at and sometimes that starts with good old fashioned relationship building we cannot skip steps in trying to engage folks in the needed services that will come when they're ready but it's very important to honor their journey and what they've been through thank you thank you okay yeah so I'm not going to speak to any of this the picture that I'm presenting to you is as a business owner this is what I came into my store on Saturday my store was actually closed to the general public on Saturday but I was meeting a family who was making final arrangements and I didn't know what to do I had no idea I have a lease but I didn't know what my rights were and I wanted to respect the rights of the people that were sitting out there as well so my thought was I'll call them up pill your police and ask them for help and I have the nicest officer and said well you're going to ask them to move are you and I'm like I don't know I don't know what are my rights and he said where they're parked which they were totally blocking the entrance to our store he said no you have a right to ask them and I said okay but I want to respect their ability to be out there as well it was the farmers market it was a busy time so I after my discussion with him I went out and I said is it possible I can just have you guys slide over just a little bit so that it was an elderly couple that was coming in and one of them was a bit handicapped so they needed the space to come up the ramp and they were gracious they just said sure no problem and moved right along so I'm not going to speak to any more of that but I just do want you guys to realize too that I have a lot of rent to pay every month and if I can't get customers into my store I can't stand business and so I just want when we're considering this and I totally agree a task force I worked many years with the Bethany church coordinating one of the community lunches every Tuesday or second Tuesday of each month so I have a soft spot for this but I do want you guys just to consider when you're thinking about putting together a task force I think that's just an amazing idea to try to help solve this problem for businesses and for the people that are out there as well so thank you welcome I'm Mary Hooper a resident and one of your reps I cannot imagine a better community to try to figure out how to solve this problem and in fact we have been working hard to try to address not this problem but a myriad of issues that all of us confront on a daily basis so I feel real confident that we're going to come up with good solutions so let me just kind of cut to the chase couple of years ago the Department of Mental Health said to a number of communities we have some grant money that we can make available for street outreach workers that happened up in Burlington happened very successfully our community said yup we would like to try to participate in this but the hospital did not want to step forward at that time don't know their reasons Barry would have needed to step forward it was going to be a regional effort I think that's an area that we can go back to so I think we ought to have a conversation about how do we partner both with the hospital as a very deep interest in the health related issues and providing services as well as Barry I'm not sure that Montpelier has a need exclusively for social health a social worker but probably shared between the two communities we could easily do that so I think that's one concrete thing that let's work on so that when the session starts we have kind of a proposal on the table we have partners who are willing to also step up and say I'm willing to put some money toward helping to solve this problem Tony mentioned the chief mentioned the work that the police department does he doesn't brag it's one of the really outstanding outreach efforts and they need to be supported and resources need to be there to make sure that we can continue to do that so when you're doing your budgeting work you need to be I know you're aware of that but that's one of the ways we step forward I'm really proud of the work that the housing task force has done in trying to solve problems of housing in the community you all have been very good about putting money on the table but there are clearly some areas where there are breaks in service and so I think we need to be churches have been fabulous in terms of the warming at night the community dinners but that's just a stop gap and we need to figure out kind of that transitional housing from people being in shelters if they choose to be in shelters to how you get your first house and we're failing on that so we need to figure that one out and then and then we really have to figure out how to support our community institutions the churches are doing an amazing amount with virtually nothing and they're really struggling to figure this out so I don't think we should be able to say they've got that and we don't as a community need to worry about that I had a conversation with a minister the other day who was just who talked about how that church was struggling and I thought oh my gosh they aren't there to provide food and some of the other work we do we have lost such a pillar in the community so we need to attend to that I don't have an idea for that one on what we can do but it really is kind of all of us pulling together to figure out such a complex issue for easy we would have taken care of it thank you guys for having this hearing and listening to us thank you further comments like 30 seconds to close sure but actually can we have Mary first either one is fine I wasn't planning Mary Messier I live in Montpelier I wasn't planning on speaking but I think this is really good that everyone came out and I hate seeing no loitering signs I hate seeing that I like to see please loiter don't litter don't litter I really love that and people that don't have a place to sleep need a place to sleep and help and also the businesses and other people need to be respected everyone needs that respect whether you're walking down the street or doing business they need respect too so I don't see why this problem can't be figured out I like the idea of the task force also there's I know there's an organization called Vermont Psychiatric Survivors just I'm mentioning that not to say everyone has mental health issues but I'm mentioning that because they have a program where they're giving a grant they're supplying grants to people who can do the kind of work to help other people and that can give $3,000 to someone who could be helping people so that I recently got a letter from them about their grant program they do that once a year I believe but you could contact them to find out so I would really like to see more places where people could be able to just sit or rest and I was sitting right out front here the other night I was checking to see if there was internet service because I didn't have any at home and I'm like gee it'd be nice to have more benches right out front you know so I think we have the area in town to provide spaces for people to be and to also give the respect to people who are running the businesses and need the customers to come in and I think it's like this I'm hoping Montpelier can really work on this and I don't see why you can I don't see it should be such a divisive issue thank you Hi my name is Sheena Casper I'm in Kent Street and I'm a member of the Economic Justice Advisory Council but I'm here just speaking on behalf of myself I just want to add another voice to the chorus of saying that this loitering violence is criminalizing poverty and homelessness and it's not it's obvious of why expensive cities with low vacancy rates are those places that are where you see more homeless people you know in DC and San Francisco and other places and from a personal perspective my siblings partner is a manager at a social worker in the Golden Triangle in DC and where they don't have one of these policies and gets calls all the time from business owners who are but there's an understanding that this is not a this is not criminal this is this is a real issue that we have to deal with as a full city and we can't put on we can't make it a criminal issue and so in doing so I want to make sure that we prioritize real long-term solutions and I think we've been talking about a lot of those and I think there's a lot more conversation to be had and that people experiencing housing transition are going through enough and let's not add the threat of incarceration and police to that list so thank you thank you I'm Laura Smith Grieva resident here in Montpelier somewhat new to Montpelier but I just want to say that at one point in my life I was a teenage runaway and I was homeless for a long period of time and I think we need to think about our young people that are out there because they are being exploited they're being exposed to all kinds of things some of which folks have talked about and have seen on cameras we already know that people have a right to be in public spaces people have a right to ask for money it's not criminal to do so so we can't criminalize it but there is a line between being in public spaces and congregating and breaking the law and I think enforcement of our laws around crimes that might be committed is one thing but rousing people for no other reason than just being in a public space I think is wrong and I think we need to I agree with whomever made the recommendation for the task force I think we can do it somebody said that we're here in Vermont here in Montpelier we have the capacity to figure this out and I think we need to I'd like to hear the motion to create the task force to figure this problem out and come up with some reasonable solutions thank you thank you would you like to I'm Officer Diane Matthews I'm frequently on at night and I speak with I speak with not only the transient population but anybody who will talk back to me as anybody who knows me knows I frequently have conversations with the very people that you're talking about who are loitering who some businesses have problems with I understand that because we've moved them away from entrances to say you're fine doing what you're doing just don't block traffic let people go by people want to give you whatever that's fine listen to their stories I understand that a good portion of the people who are out there are hard to digest they're doing exactly what they want to be doing at the moment they're looking for a safe place to sleep they make good money on the street they get three meals a day serve to them I can name the restaurants you know they're more than generous it's summertime they like to camp out they want to be outside when the winter and the cold weather rolls around people are still in our area they find people to stay with shelters to stay in they understand the resources that are out there because we do hand out the Washington County Survivors Guide like pieces of paper I tell them it's riff-proof you know you probably can set it on fire if you want but they're all good with that they look at it they kind of toss it aside they're there they're choosing not to reach out to these resources I don't know why we talk all the time it's just what they choose to do so some of the people who are out there you have to realize are doing what they want to be doing at the moment they're happy meeting people talking with people a couple of people say that's their social interaction at night sometimes they get together with other people they get on a bus, they go to Burlington they go to Barrie, they have places to sleep at night that you might not know about and honestly probably a good third or quarter of the population who is asking for donations have housing in Montpelier it's not just a homeless problem I've met quite a few people who say I live with my sister right on Elm Street you know who I am okay you have a sign that says homeless well that's how people donate to me so there's lots of different levels of different types of people who are out there we move them along when there's an issue with entering or exiting a business when people are uncomfortable Casey came along I asked him if he could come in he was probably on his way in here anyway really grateful that he did at night he was sitting having a conversation with a couple of his friends outside of a local restaurant that had closed they called us and said we're scared to leave there's a whole bunch of people outside we simply went and had the conversation they're closing you have to move along two young ladies you're scary they're like okay we got it and they moved on they're enjoying what we have our resources our river all of that you just have to understand that it's not all a homeless problem and the loitering if you ask them to move aside or move a little bit further away from your entrance they'll do that thank you if it's really quick if you're going to have a task force maybe you can invite some of the homeless people to be on your task force and there is as in all both class systems different things that are going on not necessarily I mean drug dealing it's a whole different thing and a lot of drug dealers have homes so I you know that's a whole that's a whole another thing but some of the I mean just hanging on the street it's not what's the big deal and I would encourage you all to come down and have lunch at any of the meal sites and sit down with people and find out what's going on there's one tomorrow at the trinity church at 1130 so come on down and have some lunch and find out what's really going on you could help support the churches in making donations I mean we can always use donations we're just a bunch of poor little church mice every church is just a bunch of poor little church mice so it's not just so I you know I would encourage you to if you have a task force to go out and find someone who might be willing to sit on your task force and advise you or just go out in the evening and walk around town and stop and chat with these people and say hey what would benefit you most if we were to do something what would benefit you the most and you always you know if somebody's panhandling you always have the option to not do it to say no I'm sorry so what's the big deal anything to follow up on very briefly I'd ask you to Steve Whitaker again I want to commend that Connor actually did that very thing came out and sat down on the sidewalk with the folks and asked questions about what needs are there I was with him today and we were doing that try to reach clarity tonight on where it's okay to sleep and where it's not rousing people in the middle of the night because of this ambiguity about what is allowed and not allowed in the public right away is a recurring problem and it's creating mental distress the city needs to take lead and oversee the cities need to take lead and oversee and fill the gaps be prepared to fill the gaps the city should then contract with Good Sam and manage and oversee that service package and fill the gaps and coordinate with the churches but this is a role of government to actually put this support and I agree with Mary Hooper that we are uniquely qualified to solve this and create a model that could be used statewide so please make the motion to get the task force started I'm going to jump in and be in flight tonight there's a number of wonderful sites you can visit National Coalition for the Homeless and one of the best and because the large part the organization has been run by folks who have been on the streets themselves there's a lot to learn just from going online and following all of the wonderful suggestions everyone has offered tonight thanks so much thank you yes very quick again Chief Ficus a couple of people made some kind of negative comments towards rousing and the majority of terms the police department for example it was referenced to what happened on the bike path last night and the issue was actually open container violation of alcohol and public urination again we're not trying to put more people into the system but we have complaints of having them move along so again it would be great if we had if somebody needed a place to stay we offered the good SAM and that we are arbitrarily going around and just moving people out of public spaces is ill-informed thank you okay wow thank you all for your comments this is a tough topic and I'm so grateful for everybody sharing their experience I know that took a lot of courage for everybody to do so thank you so I'm just going to say where I'm at here anyway one of the reasons that I wanted to put this on the agenda and have this conversation is mainly because one this council took panhandling off of our list of ordinances we also I think Lauren you weren't here but besides that this besides Lauren made it clear that we were not interested in a downtown smoking ordinance and I wanted to also have a public and transparent conversation that we could have here in which at least I could say that I'm not interested in a loitering ordinance either so just wanted to sort of close that gap but also to start having this conversation about where do we need to go I think there's been some great suggestions so I'm going to leave my comments there for now I have some thoughts about some suggestions but want to hear from council thoughts oh yeah sure I just want to toss in here too because we as staff have been struggling with this issue and I think it's you know I hear the issue loud and clear we all see it and our hearts go out to everybody dealing with the situation traditionally in Vermont at least the social services like this were the realm of the state and the feds the local governments would have provided the road plowing and police services and public safety and those kind of things and the larger social service net came from the larger governments and as we've seen the pullback and funding at the federal and state level more and more of this has fallen to us and we are not traditionally structured to deal with that so we've been struggling with how best to do it, what services we need we had created the social and justice equity committee and I believe they have already been working on starting with I think someone talked about the networking piece and getting some of the various providers together to talk about how those services can be pulled together and I think that's a great start and certainly having a broader group looking at this I think Steve and everyone else has suggested it's a great idea because we this is unknown territory to us too, this is not what we are all trained to do, this is not what we have our funding to do and what our expertise is in but it's best for the community that we address it so I hope we take some steps thoughts? I agree with the mayor in adopting any sort of loitering ordinance, it strikes me that this issue sort of came up because folks in our community became more visible and that breaks my heart, as someone who has been homeless myself you know it's really easy to fall through those cracks and thankfully there were people along my way who helped me get where I am so that I am now sitting here in this position and to me what this shows is a two-fold a two-fold approach one, I think this is exactly the realm that government needs to be involved in but more than that this also tells me that this is a great moment for Montpelier to really come together and talk about these really hard, really scary really uncomfortable things for a lot of folks who have never experienced homelessness or have experienced interacting with folks with mental illness or any sort of what I would consider to be a basic life necessity in security and it's really challenging it's really uncomfortable to navigate as someone who has lived through it myself with a parent with mental illness and also about a homelessness here in Vermont myself and you know I know the discomfort that those issues create in community conversations and I am so heartened to hear so many people coming to the table with an understanding of how to humanize every single one of us and I too spoke with some folks in town and it just learning someone's name is so important and just connecting with humans is something that we're really good at doing here in Montpelier and I am going to push us as a council and as a city to do that more step outside of the comfort zone loitering isn't the problem here it's never been the problem the problem is that there are unmet needs in our community and there is a lot of discomfort and a lack of security in what the best way to move forward is which is why I'm really grateful to hear our mayor say that that's not really where she's interested in going and I'm with her other thoughts Donna well I don't feel like I have to go through my life history but I do feel prejudged and so that indeed I feel that many of us have gone to the church dinners and participated through service clubs I mean we're here giving community service so I love hearing about getting together and networking but I do cringe a little bit just to have a discussion about loitering or homelessness suddenly there's good guys and bad guys or good gals bad guys and it's not we're all here trying to work on this we've talked about homeless before we want to continue talking on it we want to have a task force something that would help the social justice economic committee should not have to hold this by themselves so I really am interested in a regionalized multi-partnership task force that goes forward but do hear that we are on the same boat okay that's all we're on the same boat thanks Glen and then Lauren there's so much to say about this I'm going to try not to say a lot I am really pleased that we are having the conversation I think that's a great step already it's interesting to hear both from the businesses that are in some ways sometimes filling the gaps that that exist for example by handing out food by allowing people to you know sit on their stoop or you know having that business viable enough so that it's an attractive place to come I work at the drawing board downtown I've spent the last 10 years here working in retail and customer service jobs and I think that everyone who's had that experience has done a certain amount of social service work that's part of the job it's really worth hearing from those people I think to hear that there is this problem of gaps in services, lack of networking and unmet needs I also want to come back to Ashley's point about the fact that we're having this conversation now because things have become more visible that's what I hear fairly often when I go to another ways community meetings is that one of the things that bothers some people there the most is that Montpelier sometimes feels that it does not have a problem that there's a sense that we're fine here and folks in another way say we're not fine we've been here all along we don't want to be invisible and then I also want to again come back to I really liked hearing from Valerie about the point about networking those services and making it so that it is less impossible to recover from homelessness or from that kind of devastating problem I'm in favor of the idea of a regional task force and I hope we move forward thank you. Just wanted to start as others have thanking everybody who came out to share your stories and your personal experiences from a variety of perspectives it's so helpful and impactful and really appreciate that as Bill mentioned I think there's so much intersectionality of this issue and so many other issues and the austerity budgets and starvation of government for years at the federal level, at the state level and we've had good people like Representative Hooper trying to get strong budgets through but it's a slog and now it's falling more and more on cities and towns to deal with a lot of these challenges so just acknowledging that I'm sure as this task force that it sounds like there's momentum that this is so connected to a number of issues and so looking at the connection of services and the connection of issues that we're dealing with to really try to get at solving the problem so very much in support of a task force I do think the social and economic justice advisory council could play some role in helping support this so thinking about what that could be would be really interested in looking at that I think looking at you know this is not unique to Montpelier so what are other cities doing what are other towns our size bigger smaller you know what are models that are out there would be really helpful to see this is not you know something that we're the only people dealing with so I think that could be you know one of the important things to look at and I think you know looking at what the city can do but then also what should we potentially be advocating at the state house for you know so we're not so that we're able to not only potentially look at existing opportunities such as the mental health grant that was raised but you know other pieces of the budget that have been short drifted in recent years that we should be advocating that these services and be able to come in and make a compelling case because of the experience that we're seeing here in our city and I'm really eager to keep working on this appreciate the people who have been raising these issues like Steven and everyone who came out tonight and who has been working on this you know for many years so thank you sort of piggyback and I'm with Bill said again Lauren as well I think there was you know a very dark period in like the country where we just threw people in institutions and then there was a push to de institutionalize people but we didn't fund community mental health we didn't fund treatment centers and we just shifted into other institutions like prisons or homeless shelters and people fell through the cracks and that's where we are today but that said like you know I'm also very hardened by a lot of what I heard today and you know Officer Matthews came up I know for a fact she went to a lot of the homeless population today and said there's a hearing tonight there's a hearing at 6.30 come like lend your voice and I think that kind of indicates that we are a special community and we're best when we don't vilify each other on issues like this and I'm adamantly opposed to any sort of loitering ban I think it's draconian I think it's probably unconstitutional too so I'm glad we're taking that off the table but you know bringing it down to the human level I was just talking to a fella today he had broken glasses he didn't want to be homeless but he was like born and raised in Montpelier you know he wasn't traveling through he wasn't on like break from Dartmouth or something playing a guitar or something he came from our community and I think we owe it to him to make sure he has a safe place to sleep at night and the services he needs so I don't know the answers but I know there's a lot of brain power in this room coming from a lot of different directions and I think if we if we do get together we can do something bold as a community and it's like you know like parks everything that makes our community great to me is quite secondary to issues like this so I think we bring it down to the human level and like let's let's do something bold let's start with the task force we're obviously I've spent my whole life representing poor people and even at that I the struggles that people go through are almost unimaginable Anatole France wrote many years ago the law in its majestic quality forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges to beg in the streets and to steal bread and we're not passing a law about loitering we should not pass a law that says it's against the law to be poor to be a victim of the society in which you live and that does not meet your needs I think it's very encouraging that people are interested in doing something I think that tonight we can make a start determining the structure the membership and coordination of some task force with all the other groups that are already working on these issues like the continuum of care like the other service agencies like the housing task force takes will take a little more thought than I think we can put in and complete tonight but I think that that is the next step so just a question would it be appropriate at this point to direct city staff to identify the committees that work on these issues and then to reach out to city officials in Barry and Berlin as well to see if they can provide committees that may be working on similar issues and then to sort of figure out if we can get like a list for at least hours and then work with the other municipalities and then at our next meeting which I think is four weeks from now have like a motion that could be made once we just add the hospital to that yes sorry I wanted to interrupt you if you're you're good that's what I was that's my thought Jamie call it a housing homelessness task force but things are being done we just really want to make sure it's productive so that's where we are right now thank you it seems to me that sort of going on what Ashley was saying that it may make some sense to have some kind of a motion to direct city staff to come up with a recommendation for us for the next meeting doing a little homework and finding out sort of following the social economic justice committee as well as other groups and then we'll go from there and that will also help us with the timeline for appointments etc okay well that's my recommendation anyway but other comments or thoughts the other thing that I wanted to say I wanted to just pass along that I appreciate the list of recommendations that you put together for where we could be potentially going I don't think we would end up doing any of the limiting solicitation as far as having better resources for like in terms of brochures or posters you know that's something we can look at in terms of how do we get people information about the services they may want I do want people to be aware that we do list a whole bunch of services on the city's website already yep so that's there and yeah so I guess any further recommendations for addressing the problem I think we'll look for from that task force so in any case that's where I'm at for now other thoughts okay okay did you yeah sure go ahead Steven did you come up to the mic I want to encourage you to take some action tonight the systems that have been in place to rely on the churches which are doing a commendable job and good Sam I think you need to get something rolling we can't afford to waste another month because winter is coming and there is work to do now to identify the folks in the community that are willing to work on this to begin to think of it reframe it I'm not confident that the existing capstone good Sam parameters is going to get us into a new framework I would ask I've spoken to several of the council members about serving on a task force and I don't know whether they're willing to do that but I believe that a task force created tonight by Montpelier should then reach out and try to find comparable people in Berlin but this needs to be a wide net cast and it will clearly soon identify who is going to actually do real meaningful useful work but approaching this in traditional I can't find a word other than bureaucratic right now is not what we need right now this has reached a crisis proportion and it's a real opportunity as you heard from the momentum in this room so please don't just kick it down the road for another month so I don't pretend to speak for the city council they haven't made a motion yet but what I heard them talking about was that we would continue with the actions we are already doing continue convening the groups doing exactly we said identifying the people that could be doing all that and that they would be taking a motion tonight to direct us to do that and at the next meeting it would basically adopting the strategy and appointing the people for committee I didn't hear them say just put it off a month so I took it to mean they're prioritizing this issue and asking us to take action put on a position to formulate exactly what they want to say but it doesn't mean we just stop doing the things we're already trying to do and we're going to have to engage our folks to step up and come up with ideas and step out of their own comfort zones every like I said we don't have you know department of social services we're going to have to ask all of our folks what can you do to contribute to this who do you know who can you you know what can you I would expect nothing less from you Steve yeah come on up if you would if yeah if you would come up and use the mic too thank you and Stephen I just want to say that we did hear from James I Stephen I just want to say that we did hear from Jamie back here who spoke to a lot of the things that you would recommend doing that she's actually already doing it and she came up and she shared that that's that that's happening so not to not to say that more shouldn't be done but I want to acknowledge the work that she's already doing and not just pull over that and do what can you say your name for the record thank you Mary and then I think we probably have a motion yeah sure just want to mention that I don't know if it's still working I can't hear you I don't think it's working is it yeah it is just leaning I think there's two days left for the next gen Green Mountain Transit last public input they're trying to create their new schedules and this is really important it seems like it's not in this round but it is like I'm moving because the bus doesn't go up my hill and I can't go up anymore so people who are having trouble finding housing we need a good bus system we need it to cover the basis so if you have any input on that I think they're still taking people's comments about bus routes and I think that's really important we need good bus routes so people can access services thank you okay is there a motion? so I would move that we direct city staff to compile a list of all stakeholders entity stakeholders in my grad school days and put together a proposal to bring back to the council to implement and continue our existing efforts well that's a given I want to make sure it's in the motion I'm not fond of redundancy I'll second it with the redundancy Lauren clarify is part of that going to be providing a proposal of scope so we have clarity to the point of we want action and we want this to not just become a lumbering study group great excellent okay there's a motion in a second any further discussion okay all in favor please say aye opposed thank you all for your comments and thoughts and time on this topic and I it's absolutely not the last time that we're going to be talking about this so thank you and actually I'm going to move right along if you need to go then I'm going to keep going though I'm going to keep going so on to the ADA adoption plan the committee has since met to review our schedule a plan is not complete without an actual schedule and a list of things that must be done per the recommendations for developing a transition plan to come into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act the barrier must be identified the act of measure specified described and the time period when it will be addressed stated and the responsible party so that I apologize I gave you those spreadsheets for both municipal buildings and outdoor facilities again this is a living document and that I'm trying we are trying to address all of the various needs within a three year time period beginning next fiscal year the majority of items certainly the Recreation Center is a monumental task of itself so that includes a statement about what is being done what the schedule of that is there are other large projects that are identified including the Hubbard Park number of inaccessible areas in the parks that will need to be addressed so there are some budgetary considerations discussing with the city manager this fall but there are funds currently in the capital improvement program about $10,000 a year other side notes on this is the water treatment facility that has been assessed and will be included in the plan it was somehow missed in the first assessment or the overall building facility review that's included and that will be added to this spreadsheet other notably absent currently from the transition plan is the outside right of way the outside right of way is something that we decided to do in-house very costly to have a consultant do that for us so that is in progress and it will depend to the plan when that is ready so with that I'll take any questions that there might be any questions actually I do have a question for you do you need this to be a public hearing technically the transition plan should be a document that the public generally accepts and approves so if there is any public that wishes to comment great well I will absolute rules that it has to be a public hearing per se well I'll open a public hearing none the less sure just in case and any other comments on this document at this point when I was reading this I couldn't help but compare it to the Montpelier in motion it has such wonderful ideals and I've seen Montpelier in motion slowly get pieces implemented so this can happen and I'm glad that you and your group spend a lot of time but you also made your vision broad and we'll make it happen slowly even though you won't be here for some of it I'll be watching you've given a lot of time to this I really appreciate it on my bucket list I haven't presented other comments I guess I'll just say that I love having a set of lists then checking them off and so this is wonderful I also just appreciate the way you all address the recreation center knowing that there may be some significant changes upcoming anyway so we'll just it's sort of a separate topic that's all I have about this kind of keeps us out of hot water fair fair Jack I move we adopt the ADA compliance transition plan second any further comments from the public I'm not sure if I made that really clear but if the public have any comments okay alright for the discussion all in favor please say aye opposed okay so thank you so much thank you for your work on this and I guess we'll close that public hearing so there we go yes oh it's probably worth mentioning we did actually we actually Tom McCartle and I together with a fellow who does have some disabilities in town we took a walking tour of the city and went along the sidewalks to just see what that was like and what his concerns were and I thought it was a really productive it wasn't very long I guess it was about an hour but it was a productive time there are challenges out there if we put ourselves in that situation we talk about homelessness tonight but also those who have physical disabilities ADA awareness we did that a few years ago went to the farmers market event where wheelchairs, city council members police chief tried out what it's like to be in a wheelchair glasses, goggles that simulate different visual impairments so from severe to less known eye issues and so it's really really helps you become aware of the challenges that we need to do and address I anticipate that that walking tour will be available on Orca soon and it's probably also worth mentioning that Donna and I were both on an Orca show Abled Abled and on air so anyway so that was great experience alright thank you I just want to check in do you want to take a break now team I'm happy to keep going go yeah just keep going alright we're going to keep moving alright the five home farm way mitigation plan I know a couple of you are here for that if you want to come on up that would be great so to answer a question I was asked at the beginning of the meeting although I don't see the asker of the question any longer the last time we discussed this the council directed me to present a plan for how the city could continue mitigating the nuisance after having temporarily boarded up the building at five home farm way it was our conclusion of the staff that the only ways we would mitigate the nuisance is to either leave it as is or to go ahead and demolish it so we sought to find out what the cost of a demolition would be and we just passed it out to you now for anywhere from 70 to 100,000 dollars at the same time we felt that the time between meetings would give the group that was interested in preserving the place more opportunity to put together a plan which we've received which certainly is much more detailed than what we had received before so I think this is your opportunity to hear more about it and decide how you'd like to proceed given the options that you had I think my own recommendation would be given the cost of demolition and the fact that it is a step you can't come back from we might be wiser to provide perhaps some more time to flush out the options as long as the site remains secure but give a deadline for that but I'll turn that over to you okay, so I'm going to assume that we've all read the proposed plan from Jamie Duggan and I'm forgetting the name of the organization now Two Rivers Park did you say? Partnership two rivers partnership so I think well actually I'll let you say is there anything further you wanted to tell us about that plan or clarify anything for us? Not necessarily unless there are any specific questions about components of it but I'm happy to walk through and just give you an update on some of the steps that we've taken to get to this point I think that would be helpful and then I guess I would also just add for just a structure the conversation a little bit I think what we as a council need to determine is is this a sufficient plan for now and what do we want to see as next steps so with that context yeah, tell us what you've done so far Jamie Duggan, Terrace Street resident Montpelier and in the time since the last meeting in May we've taken a couple of steps to move this idea forward as far as we could at the moment have incorporated or at least registered with the Secretary of State's office as an entity and had some success obtaining some grant funds that will help with this transition I've invested some finances myself in seeking legal council and in the registration process and I've also reached out to the Vermont Attorney General's office who was involved in the dissolution of the former owner's organization have not received any calls back yet one of the challenges is that the assistant AG who worked on this project in 2014 is no longer with the Attorney General's office and it seems like a hot potato that no one is willing to pick up and run with at the moment in addition I've spoken to I have spoken to some legal counsel who've all advised that this is a pretty complex situation and solving this ownership issue could take up to a year before as it works this way through the process and of course any challenge to that could extend that sorry just in case you have any more detail on that as someone who hasn't gone through very many legal proceedings at all I wonder if you can share anything further about why it might take that long so there are one of the issues is what is sort of the status of the organization as it dissolved and dispersing of any assets that was not completed so the title to this property sort of still hangs in the balance if you will in that it's owned by an entity that no longer exists so that in and of itself presents a challenge that there are I've been made aware of a few different pathways that that might work its way through I would prefer not to go into any detail about that at the moment but I would be happy to as you know I am asking for a little more time to help develop this so if that's granted I would be happy to come back and really everything hinges on that if that cannot be achieved then everything else is sort of new at least from the perspective that we are looking at this as a potential project so as far as for my perspective that's the largest obstacle to overcome I've I guess to continue past that if that satisfies at least for the moment you know have met with some potential funders who have supported this property in the past as well as some new funding opportunities and there's potential there there's interest there so that's achievable I've come to put together this proposed budget or plan which is really just a baseline look at what would be needed to stabilize that front main block section the idea being that the back section the L and the barn actually are have been reinforced and are more structurally sound those areas could be used as a workshop area as the front block is rehabilitated and then depending on what comes at that point there's a lot of potential for how that backspace could be used and even additional structures built but that's way down the road in the proposal the stabilization plan that I've come up with you'll note at the bottom I think I've given a number here of $225,000 that's sort of the minimum investment that would need for I think achieving a level of stabilization that would perhaps change the determination of the structure being a public nuisance that would include dealing with the foundation of that front block I think it is in the flood plain things have been elevated through previous campaigns to be above the base flood elevation but the open seller is an issue so that's a large void to fill with the material that has a good price and then stabilizing the structure the timber frame and dealing with some of the other structural issues I think is the minimum that would need to happen to the building and then there are also some utilities and other related components that would be needed to be able to work in the building and provide it as a functioning construction site so that's sort of the minimum that would be needed to get to that point I think it's probably a little bit could be done for less but I think that's a great place to start looking at what needs to happen so well thank you any further questions for Jamie I was just gonna and this is for book you and for Bill if you could I'm certainly not advocating for the city to take the demolition right at all I think it makes absolute sense to give you more time these things take time lawyers make everything take longer so but am I correct in that since the owner of the property has now dissolved what the city ordinarily would do if the city were to go forward with demolition the city would then seek basically repayment from the property owner but now that the property owner no longer exists are they individually liable well right normally we put a lien on the property for the demolition cost and then as it were sold we would seek to recover that way you know in this case it's not certain we probably still put a lien on the property and wait until the ownership was resolved at some point I don't know whether we'd ever how that would be I guess I just I feel like demolition is far too permanent and it just this is an important piece of property that I would like to see the city work with and work with you and that's sort of how I envision the city working right now and I'm hoping that there are there's a path forward for you that the city can then like be engaged in that process as well because I think it is a public good and it has potential so I don't you know by sharing my opinion I don't mean to cut any conversation short but as far as as far as I'm concerned the two rivers partnership put forward at least in my mind is a sufficient plan for the time being and would love to check in either at six months or in a year you know seeing as that it may take that long to resolve issues of ownership it's got it has at least enough of a timeline for me as well as some outlined specific costs some estimates as to what may need to be done and I think you're absolutely right everything depends on the question of ownership so I think the question is if we are going to accept this proposal as a plan for moving forward Donna I'm not finding the timeline I'm looking at a July 2nd budget and a July 5th memo is there time the timeline that I'm referring to is basically saying resolving the issue the question of property ownership in the next 6 to 12 months and that's sort of the first step I would just like to hear from you saying 3 months where is it like every 3 months like a check in I'd be happy to do that that's fine Jack the biggest concern I have right now is the building right now in a condition where it is safe and does not pose safety and health hazard to the public I can answer that the city actually we boarded it up so our folks does mitigation action to at least keep it safe from access so I mean obviously if it deteriorates or something changes we'll report that and we'll have to deal with that but at this point I think the council is charged with mitigating the new sense or accepting a remediation plan and as I said the only choices really as I can see is mitigating is either leaving it boarded the way it is or moving forward with demolition if you choose to accept the plan then you'd leave it boarded up in parameters that that's for the ordinance I think that what we're presented with essentially is probably a two year timeline assuming that it might be a year to get the ownership resolved and then maybe another year beyond that to do whatever fundraising and construction work is needed to get this building into usable maybe even more than that I agree with Donna I think at a minimum we should be hearing back from you every three months to six months if it comes to the point where it looks like you're not going to get the ownership resolved you're not going to get the funds raised and we're just thinking well maybe it's not going to be two years or three years maybe it's going to be ten years there's going to be a point where my view is going to be we can't sustain this anymore we gave it a good try but time to find another use for the property but for now I'm fine with accepting this proposal knowing that it has to have a solid showing that it's going to bear fruit I think that's fair yes and then Steve and I seem I'm Eric Gilbertson I chair the historic preservation commission also I work for the preservation trust of Vermont which co-holds and easement on the property with the Vermont Housing Conservation Board who invested some money in it earlier I will say that I want to thank the City Council for its attitude that I've heard it will significantly shorten my testimony and to say thank you it's time I think Jamie really has a plan to turn this into an asset for the city rather than a liability and I think it presents no current public issue it's isolated from other buildings it's not like any buildings in the community and so thank you I appreciate your considering all of this thank you it occurs to me that the nuisance has been abated that the boarding up secured the property against the intrusion that was the basis for the nuisance so this property might not need to remain in receivership with this axe hanging over its head pseudo receivership the idea I'm offended by this move on the agenda tonight to the council authorizes to city manager entered into a contract for the demolition that is so far out of line from what has transpired so far it's aggressive and it doesn't even respect the fact that efforts were made by Jamie and others to secure the property and eliminate the nuisance if the nuisance was the basis for the finding of it being a public nuisance has been secured against intrusion then why so it's too bad that you weren't in the room at the beginning of this agenda item you would have heard me say that I recommended that we take more time and that what I'm asking is why has this not been removed once the building has been secured its envelope has been secured against whatever the fear was vagrants or broken glass it's still in disrepair and could continue to get worse but so is Jacobs buildings all over town I mean we is there a process by which this is removed from the nuisance rolls or is it going to hang it would be the abatement as presented by the man and so it's either the approval of that abatement plan or the city's action and so but could the abatement plan be as much as shoring up the beams and closing off the windows but there are other nuisance issues that are tied into this it's not just entrance into so it's much more complicated so there's vermin and there's other things that can factor into all of this and so the way the ordinance is written there is a requirement that the landowner or you know a friendly face come up with an abatement plan which is exactly what Jamie has presented to us in much more detail because of happenstance and circumstance that's a perfectly reasonable action for the city to take under the ordinance the way it's written I guess what I'm asking is should it be offered as an option that abatement to remove the building from the nuisance rolls might be a different plan than the overall five-year million dollar restoration plan at some point there may be a point where it's been renovated to a point where it is no longer a nuisance plan because this threat of the language that's in this motion tonight is that motion is not being made that's not the motion being made you know I had to alright you got my point anyway thanks I don't even try to be a diplomat it's okay are you against something that no one's going to propose tonight yeah welcome my name is Eric Esselston I live in north Montpelier I've spent a number of decades working with towns to create parks working with great land trusts helping farmers put land in easement excuse me I'm going to say to you what you've been saying to everybody all night you need to get right on top of the microphone people can't hear you don't turn your head I hope it's licorice flavored that's fine can you hear me yeah okay I just want to say thank you thank you to everybody the tone that's come forward in extending time okay it's a good lesson because I can't hear a thing back there the things that I mentioned all turn into a 10 cup operation and it's so damn hard to get your funds on hands on funds to restore an historic building to recreate possible farm land and I just want to say again say thank you for providing the time for a volunteer group to come forward obviously not being paid to do it to create a real landmark for the city of Montpelier and particularly having land to grow food we don't realize it yet but someday the trailer trucks will stop and I just think that the more and more work that the state of Vermont and cities like Montpelier do to be able to create food is you guys are building the future and I just think it's a wise wise choice to have that wonderful building and fertile land to go with it and do it again thank you okay Jack I just called you Jack I wish I could grow a beard like that just one just one small question since we're talking about it I can imagine that it's difficult to raise money for a project when you may not even get ownership do you feel like you have enough resources for the time being to follow through that legal that initial legal process I have a good start I feel confident that it'll get us a little further down the road and be able to provide some answers and perhaps a little more clarity for a timeline but I think like this there will always be a need for more but I think at the moment we have access to some funding and it'll be that's what we have to start with thanks Lauren just wanted to thank Jamie and the partners he's working with so that we have this option of going down this road and really appreciate the good work that's gone into it I would echo every three months that Donna suggested to keep us on track I know I work best with deadlines and I know that I imagine you're very busy and so just knowing that there's deadlines coming up to be able to ensure that progress is being made on a regular timeline I think would be helpful to all of us to stay on track and if issues are arising that maybe we can figure out so I'm very much in support of that thanks what anybody likes to make a motion sorry I don't want to cut things off I think we're both doing this thinking of it at the same time I move that the city in reliance on the council's determination that this property is a public nuisance that the city forbear on any action to demolish or otherwise affect the physical structure temporarily conditioned on the efforts of Two Rivers partnership to as they've outlined in their communications with us and conditioned on them reporting back to us every three months for a period of two years I'll second that yes thank you there's a constituency does it assume within that two years there can be a reassessment as information comes up okay great question further questions or comments okay all in favor please say aye opposed thank you very much thank all of you for your support of this project I mean it's a lot looking forward to checking in okay thank you awesome I'm so glad they exist I'm just gonna say that out loud thank you thank you for all of your work this okay alright so we are on to the second public hearing on the chapter five in our document of ordinances which pertains to the fire department so I'm gonna officially open the public hearing on that or public reading any comments on chapter five I'm happy with it the way it is any comments from the public okay no comments from council I mean we did have some discussion about it last time but I think we were it was well it was very short so I'm gonna close the public hearing on that if there's no one who wants to speak on that and do we need a motion on that I think we do yes so is there a motion? I move we adopt the proposed amendments to chapter five second for the discussion all in favor please say aye opposed okay and on to chapter seven so this is health and sanitation so I'm gonna open the public hearing on on the first reading changes to chapter seven and I have one small comment which is if I can go back to my notes so in seven dash 402 pertains to fees that are listed I had thought that we had taken out the fees and listed them separately right not a big deal I mean I can note that what's the difference between garbage and trash well the definition section though section seven dash 401 it says well undertaking to transport garbage but garbage is defined as any refuse consisting of animal and vegetable matters only but I think it should say trash in that section no it says trash is next all waste material that's not garbage whatever's not garbage is trash so garbage that is decomposable stuff well so I think if you read that it's sort of food waste is garbage and trash paper wastes and plastics and those kinds of things I don't know why that's defined in that way but that's what that's we can come back to that Jack then Lauren yeah I sent Jamie an email with a couple of questions about the sections around here which I think Jamie sent her answers to all of them back to the rest of the council and I'm happy with the answers that we got Lauren in that section I think in section seven 401 I think it should say transport garbage and trash that's one of the changes one thing that I'm flagging though is we're defining garbage as animal and vegetable matters we do have a state law that's going into effect in 2020 saying there's mandatory composting so I don't know if we want to consider updating this to reflect state law around that because it will actually have to be dealt with separately you won't be able to put garbage and trash in the same bin and so there might be a little work to do in there to make it reflect the law that's or we could just flag it for something to deal with another time another time but 2020 is coming soon well that's an interesting question because then I mean do you consider dog waste compostable or not I mean that's right like that's we probably have to define that look at what because compost I think too I don't know it probably isn't defined exactly like this so we might just want to look and see if we could consistently define I think either way we want if you're transporting compost garbage trash that you want to cover it and secure so that might still be okay but just flagging that the way these are defined might seem a little outdated given current waste management laws that makes sense to me yeah well I think you'll still need the two terms because they're handled differently one way or another whether you're putting them into because you may find it not put in some place and then you still have to deal with that garbage so right we might think it can be changed once the ball gets settled yes but I also just made a note I don't know why we didn't think of this when we were going through these but given the changes in law and the creation of solid waste management districts they may have regulations they may be the regular or authority here so we may want I'll check on that yeah that's fair Ashley I guess I'm and maybe I'm just misunderstanding but so I would like to read the sentence in its entirety any person who operates which one is it section 7-401 any person who operates or causes to be operated a vehicle upon any street in the city of Montpelier while undertaking to transport garbage shall properly cover and secure waste materialist who prevents such material from falling from or being blown from said vehicle but that literally only means you have to cover animal and vegetable waste so my point was add the word trash Lauren just said that yeah but I guess I'm confused why when I said it it was like that's already there in the second sentence every time we agreed with you I was raising a separate additional issue that we might want to just look at the other way where the state's defining compost or something might be an additional condition that we might want to consider I would be sure that it was supposed to be garbage and trash trash would have to be covered yes yes sorry no it's all good as you're exploring the compost it's a lot more than just animal and vegetable matter what we have to put into our compost so as you explore that it's going to be more detailed not less and you know if that's so one possibility is that it is something that we can that's easily easy to define by the next meeting I mean we do have like a month between now and the next meeting but but if it's not for any reason you know that's fine and we can take it up again later because good enough further comments I love and I appreciate Jamie making it much shorter yeah yeah she's done a lot of work on all of these yes she did it's really impressive yeah is she working with the team I want to thank the team yeah yeah she led the effort that's great further comments Lauren in seven dashed the new three and four deposit of volatile fluids and drains or sewers and water contamination we have a whole other section in chapter three which is something I'm working on and apologies I've held that one for moving forward to try to get that updated to current law about what we're allowed to throw in our sewers just does it need to be here again is it redundant it might be fine but we're changing kind of how we're referencing this in another section so can we flag that to revisit once you're done with that other section yeah and that's supposed to be for the next meeting anyway when this will be looking at this so oh great yes just flagging thanks for the heads up further comments I think from the public okay so I'm gonna close the public hearing that unless you okay all right and I think we need to vote on the next hearing date is there a motion regarding the next the second public hearing I move we schedule second public hearing for August 14 second further discussion all in favor if you say aye okay and that is the end of our regular business so we are on to council reports so for now start with Donna and we'll just go yeah I would like us to actually put on the agenda in the future a follow up discussion about Berlin's speed limit so we don't we talked about you send us information about Main Street but we've not really talked about those documents and I'd like to have that discussion so you might want to you know not to get wrapped up into bureaucracy yep but you did pass an ordinance yep properly and we've already ordered the signs and those kind of things so if you were reconsidered so it would take a motion by someone who passed on the prevailing so to reconsider that vote and I think it probably you're I don't who's parliamentarian yes yes I think this meeting I can reconsider it because I voted for it you voted in favor of it oh no you have to vote in the side that someone someone on the winning side has to vote but the thing was I believe we stated I think it may have been you Bill that you would get the main street material and we would have that available so all I'm saying is from a procedural standpoint yes someone who voted on the side to vote to reconsider and I think we might want to check our rules of order it may have to be done tonight yeah I think it does so which is not to say we couldn't take it up again and go through another hearing process or you know maybe talk about other things can be done with the street and I'm not trying to squelch it from doing it I just think you know there is a process and that's what we're at no I forgot about that aspect so then to be clear one of the people who voted for the ordinance as it passed has to bring it up tonight and I believe it's tonight and move that we bring it back to a future agenda for reconsideration would that it meanwhile stall for example getting signs and everything else well the signs have been ordered but I mean I'm going to be a pain and say that that is not correct because the logic would to repeal the ordinance yes but under that logic then you could never change an ordinance it could be brought up as a brand new or that's true yes but isn't there a more direct as far as what was the term I forgot it to reconsider reconsider yes you can do that but I'm just saying that's not your only option yes that's right you could bring it up it's some future date to move to amend it if we want to reconsider it has to be done the meeting following yes but by someone who voted for it does that hold in abeyance the like when it goes into effect and I think the answer is yes that also might be in the motion if there was a motion to reconsider maybe say in the meantime we're holding abeyance the I'm going to try to be difficult I just don't want to have a challenge to the ordinance and I think you know John's right I so I am no expert at this two of you have more expertise than I do but I think it is true that we can always come and amend something in the future but I also think that is I understand it the reconsideration provision is to prevent somebody just continually bringing up a topic that's been voted and decided upon now I think you know one could argue that we have new information and that you know it's you know I might be up to the chair whether to rule whether it's an order or not and I again trying to get too far down the line but this is an ordinance that someone could challenge and we just want to make sure everything was on properly Lauren and Jack one thought a lot of the conversation at the hearing was about some of the like slowing techniques and road design I'm wondering if it could be a conversation to explore what those options are and what that could look like for the street and include it could include and is there information that's been brought to light that might make us look at a new ordinance to make it a 25 like it could be a broader conversation though because it seemed like that was part of the thinking too of some of the people that supported it was with the understanding that with current road design but we could try to look at ways to slow traffic in other ways simultaneously but all the traffic coming has to be built into your capital road so it's major money so you're not going to do it tomorrow understood information we got from what happened main street and the more I read about it and the court law I felt we could very clearly justify a council decision to go below 30 so to me that's why that information was important Jack I apologize that I did not bring my copy of Roberts rules with me tonight but on a quick and so one of these drawers has a like an old abridged version but I believe that the rule on reconsideration is that a motion to reconsider can only be made during the same meeting at which the measure has been adopted you know there are specialized cases like in congress where they do have a rule where someone on the winning side can vote later to change it I would so if I'm correct then we're already out of time to do that if I'm not correct then we also don't need to do it tonight but when it came up before in council it was it was the next meeting was used but could be wrong but either way I as one of the people who voted in favor of reducing the speed limit to 30 I would not be inclined to make or support such a motion because I think where we came out is is a reasonable resolution even though there's still some people in town who aren't satisfied with it so I found the answer in Roberts rules so a motion to reconsider can be made by a member when he or she wishes to ask the entire board to revisit a previous motion made at the same meeting then it goes through that and then there is the where did it go a motion to reconsider and there's one other maybe done practical standpoint carried out of the undone let's see the board decision can be changed the two motions made the same meeting a motion to reconsider it would be a motion to rescind because it was a decision made at a prior meeting and so a motion to reconsider would be done in the same meeting the if it were a motion to reconsider the debate would resume right where where we left off prior to the original vote and that can only be made by the individual by someone who voted on the prevailing side and Jack is right it has to be the same meeting and so it would be a motion to rescind sorry is that restricted as to who can make that motion to reconsider we have to really be careful what we say because we inferred we were going to go back to main street information and we didn't so I just I had public comment about that and they were right but the more fun part of my council's report is being the very observant person I occasionally can be last council meeting I notice a very clear beautiful ring on Anne's finger she has been engaged for some time now and I'm making it very public I did get her permission to embarrass it I did get engaged so we're aiming for next summer just so everyone's aware where we have not been up on you promise you're not leaving yeah and yeah we were just talking about we should make a social media post about it it's not official yet it hasn't really happened yet yeah it's great cool thank you and actually we're going to interrupt our council reports because I got a message that someone thought that other business was like general business appearances and have been waiting patiently this whole time for other business so now's a good time so come on up