 all the time in fact sometimes it's better to start it make sure it works because then other city staff will be around to help you that's good and then these little mics will get started and you'll pull them over to your city speakers need to speak in a mic this is the city's PC see those little two black round things? those are the microphones I know what the microphones are, this is the city's PC to be to use no, that's not turned on, it's just the microphone this is the city's not yours, the PC that's sitting here oh the PC, I'm sorry, yes, I don't know who that is yeah this is what we have, I don't know if any to the council we'll go over that too and there's a plug down here somewhere okay well I'll bring my stuff in and I'll hopefully I do have just a drive that's able to work but I'll bring everything in this case and I didn't know how strictly the city enforces two-hour strict limit behind the building oh no after 430 after 430 so if somebody sits there but there's three people all those three people coming? he's only going to be one of, I don't know who else is presenting tonight you can help me when I get here I just know that I need that person to have one this person, this person, that's what I'm just spreading them out because I find they all tend to go right as most speakers do and so they often miss their mic as well as I can't hear they usually have people sit here face the council yeah okay great I won't beat this I'm used to standing on that table so we have a portable lectern but I won't need that tonight because I'll be sitting here to speak into the microphone yeah you're really, although we encourage people from our committees to come and hear this you end up having to talk to the city council with people at your back nope that's fine and they tell, well I think Bill knows this already I'll say it in my opening remarks because of our attorney-client relationship with the city we don't answer questions from members of the public but any, you know, board members can certainly ask us any questions committee members, yeah that's interesting you had a public meeting public meeting and actually trainings don't have to occur in public anymore I know, we wanted yeah nope that's fine under the rules of professional conduct for unrepresented people if we know that someone is unrepresented but don't know whether the answer we're providing is going to be pose a conflict to our member then we can't provide them it's the same at the office we can take calls and emails from yourself all the council members other city officials but we direct calls from the public yeah, yeah, very, very conservative yes, right but I'll explain that to the council and good I figure it's always better for the public to get upset at us than at our members I'm sorry, I can't remember the email are you the individual that answered the email to Jack? there was an email delivery yes well, I'm the one who bounced back and said, okay you said this but you also emphasized this and Jack totally ignored what I thought was your secondary point the individual valuation versus just more generic correct and I wanted to get down and I did and I'm making comments about the individuals and we all did eventually it was inevitable and as I mentioned you can go in and out so just because you decide that we're going to start the discussion an open session doesn't mean that you can later on vote to go into it okay, we started so nobody showed up so we just stayed our minutes are very brief but anyway seems to me whether it's people they are not not going to be dealt the same way well and for my perspective I didn't have access to the evaluation I didn't have a full picture all I could do is provide a general response that's right it was very interesting how each how what you said was taken very well it was good to get emails from a long pillar because we don't hear from you guys too often and you run across the street I used to nap Sarah all the time I went to your town fairs three years in a row I loved and family got one Jason family went I think Anne went one this year I actually went but I found them all worse wow very very good and the open meeting was really really good and we'll have are there a number of new city council members I used to live in Montpelier but it happened just once we have our select board institute coming up there are three that have only done one year oh okay so in fact I'm one of my sixth year Anne is on her sixth year everybody else is two years or less yeah I thought there was some turnover I said I live in the kingdom now but I used to live in Montpelier and still work here some of our employees obviously work and live in Montpelier so usually I try to keep tabs on what's going on put that stuff underneath the table if you want okay that's something I didn't see before sorry I'm glad we didn't obey by that you can always do more than what the law requires yeah and certainly if you have been doing that there may be an expectation that you do so yes I guess it certainly led me to expectations where I have gone back to check on things it's a nice meeting so everybody's going to show up in the last minute good to see you no problem let's see I told him to see you about connecting whatever right we should have thought about that let's see here I do have that's perfect this is already set up so at some point at the beginning you may want to explain about you not answering the questions from the public oh I do I'm just explaining to him given our attorney-client relationship we don't answer questions from the public but I will explain that so the council doesn't have to take the fall for that one that way it's the league doing it and not the city council I know there's a certain expectation of participation well that's the only question we have well you can invite the chairs and stuff of our committee well that's fine we can only answer questions from municipal officials so anyone that serves on a council or board is fine hello hi, good to see you again how are you? how are you? I'm good so good to see you again how are you? Shane is there any work on Kimbrough yet? on Kimbrough? yeah surprises staying up there so long yeah well yeah tough post season I don't think he helped himself yeah so there you go here shut's down screen on okay great well John will swear you in really early meetings I heard they were very long they can be Sarah can we just go into the half out kids are still up we'll just start talking about it do you have some fouts to share for half hours Jack you're all trimmed just as of the spring yesterday well overdue looks nice but that may be the spring tradition I was trying to think back baseball so Bill I know this is not a question for you specifically but currently you probably know the answer what are the accounts voted no on getting money because we see 100% that's not pre-extra copies does that have any one side really good if we could share people okay so if they're contributing to our both kids and there's a contributing to our but so we leave somebody me and my granddaughter worry about school breaks but none of this other this way was a while back some towns were saying no so I love kids it's so much fun that kids back on the council I don't have to say that you are allowed to say it thank you I may you feel harassed you know where's the where's the policy to say me too I'm sure that I probably go to be more familiar than some people but I think it's by my son is in Boulder and they're having a snow cyclone is that what it's called a bomb cyclone I don't even know what that is what's that his business closed what's that his business closed because of the bomb cyclone well yes someone I saw on facebook someone I know I don't remember who was talking about being blocked on highway Colorado because of the avalanches oh really? yes some of the video on tv cars just driving along and all of a sudden avalanche comes down the mountain right over the interstate so someone is having a worse winter than we yeah yeah yeah sometime soon we love hearing your kids it's so great to have kids on the road I definitely want to dance to it yes am I doing it oh is it not oh John's up here so I'm sure she can do it too yeah I can is there a script yeah okay alright wouldn't be Sheila if she doesn't want to do it then I'll do it but this is where we are oh these are other people this new sound system is so open is it better for you to technically this is your next oh it wants to meet you thank you for being here did you show up there we haven't turned that on we should actually do it in our building so I just want to make sure it looks it always does but I'm involved so it may not no we're involved you kind of have that effect on technology sometimes good how are you doing sorry about that do you want to swear in the crew do you want to show up do you want to show up it does take a minute for it to take time it does take a minute it takes time it takes time it's really light it's really light it's really light it's really light it's really light I said in action to an article, I don't know what was going on, but here it is. I think that's what it is. I know. I wonder if he brought his mouse. Did it work for a second? All right, come around. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I don't know about you, but who gets the mouse? I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of minutes. Any further discussion? All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Great. All right, now on to electing officers. So we need someone to be president, vice president, and parliamentarian for the city council. One hypothesis is that people are interested in what they were interested in those offices again, that's one possibility. Or if there's other people who are interested in those offices, that's fine too. What are your thoughts? Well, I'm wondering if it might be helpful to just sort of explain. I know that there's a super basic explanation. Sure. So the council president leads the council discussion, if I am absent, and then the vice president leads council procedures and discussions, if both the mayor and the president are absent. And parliamentarian helps us clarify when we have procedural questions. The other role of the president and less frequently the vice president, but in the event that there's a public event or something, and the mayor can't make it, then the council president will step in to represent the city as top elected official. And remind me, Ashley, you were president last year, is that correct? Yes. And I can't remember who was vice president. It was Rosie. Donna. And was Rosie the parliamentarian? Okay. Anybody like one of those positions? Yeah, yes, Jack. I would volunteer to be parliamentarian. Okay. Oh, yes. Nominations? I nominate Jack McCullough to be parliamentarian. Anybody else like to be parliamentarian? Anyone else want to nominate someone else to be parliamentarian? No? I guess we'll just take it one step at a time then. All right. All in favor of Jack being the parliamentarian. Oh, there was not a motion. Wait, did you make this? He nominated. He nominated. Did you accept? A second is not required for nominations. Okay. Oh, he's crushing it already. You're not supposed to start yet. It's a new era now. It's good. Excellent. This odum's not here to contribute. This isn't the only organization I'll be parliamentarian. It's good. And Donnie, you seconded. But we don't need it. But we don't need a second. Second was overruled. Okay. Fair enough. Do you accept? Sorry, I missed that part. Great. Okay. So all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. Thank you. Congratulations. Nominate Ashley for president. Do you accept? I accept. Apparently we don't need a second. Any further discussion or other nominations? Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Great. Thank you. Congratulations. Vice president. Would like to nominate Donna to be vice president? Okay. You're up for the basket. Yeah. I got to do two meetings. Yeah. It was good. Everybody's wiped out. So you're accepting? Sure. Okay. All right. Any other nominations? Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Great. Thank you. Congratulations. Excellent. Okay. So to get us up to speed with open meeting law, we have... Garrett Baxter. Garrett Baxter. Thank you. From Vermont League of Cities and Towns. Welcome. All right. I see we have a... Yeah, he is. We're just gonna get fired up here. Okay. I'll move myself. It didn't work earlier, right? I think we're good whenever you want to go. Oh, I'll set. Okay. Great. Sorry about that. Nope. Can everyone hear me okay? All right. Well, good evening, everyone. My name is Garrett Baxter. I'm senior staff attorney for the Vermont League of Cities and Towns Municipal Assistance Center. If you're not familiar with the league, we're an independent nonprofit corporation. We are not affiliated with the state. We are not a general clearinghouse of legal information. We are a member services organization comprised of all 250 municipalities in Vermont. And the department I work in, which is the Municipal Assistance Center, or MAC, for short, is comprised of six professionals with diverse backgrounds in municipal law, public management, municipal research, and water quality. And collectively, we provide local officials such as yourselves with education, training, and professional assistance that you need to carry out your statutory duties. In addition to conducting day long and on-site training such as this one on various topics of municipal law and governance, we primarily fulfill this role by answering your questions over the phone or via email Monday through Friday, 8.30 to 4 o'clock. The contact information should be on the inside jacket of your packets, which everyone should have in front of you. And we can answer any questions regarding your roles and responsibilities as municipal officials. So, and because the other two attorneys and myself have an attorney-client relationship with our municipal members, we cannot give assistance or advice to those whose interests we do not align with our clients. And as such, we do not answer questions from the general public. Fortunately, there are other entities in the state that provide assistance and information to members of the public about municipal issues. The Secretary of State's office just created an office a couple of years ago, a director of municipal assistance who can be reached at 802-828-1027. And I'm not sure if you're aware of this or not. You might have seen the Secretary of State's op-ed in Vermont Digger, but this week is Sunshine Week, and if you're not familiar, it's a national celebration of access to public information and government transparency. So this is a great time to go over understanding the open meeting law. For those reasons, this presentation is going to be for general education purposes only and does not and should it be construed as constituting legal advice or creating a client-attorney-client relationship with anyone. So with those pleasantries dispensed with, I'm here to talk to you again about Vermont's open meeting law. And in your packets, you'll have a copy of the presentation on the right-hand side. And on the left-hand side, I put some material that is available on our website at vlct.org. The first one is a quick guide to Vermont's open meeting law. It's intended to be just a reference sheet that you can have at a meeting to see if you're complying with the law. This has been great to give to our committees. Very, very helpful. Oh, thank you. Appreciate it. Our next one is the open meeting law FAQs, which this presentation pretty much tracks. So we try to anticipate questions that particularly new members would have about the open meeting law. And it's a deeper dive into the subject. We also have the same materials for the public records law as well available on our website. We have model rules of procedure for municipal boards, committees, and commissions. We also have model response forms if there is an open meeting law complaint waged against City Council or any other public body of the municipality. And I'll just jump in here quickly and say that lead guide is on page 72 of the handbook. That's great. So Vermont's open meeting law requires that all public bodies have agendas, so we're going to do the same. And here's our agenda for the evening. These are all the questions that we're going to hopefully answer tonight for you and discuss in the hopes that you'll have a better understanding of what the open meeting law is and how it works. So before we start, I just wanted to let you know that you can access the open meeting law at the legislature.vermont.gov.statutes. And where you want to look online is in Title I, Chapter 5, Sub-Chapter 2. Law can also be found in your Green Books in Title I, Section 310-314. So really we're only talking about four sections here, but they're very important sections. So the first question we're going to ask is to start off simply, what is the open meeting law? And broadly speaking, it controls and regulates meetings of public bodies. It does this by establishing certain minimum standards for meetings, including keeping meetings open and accessible to the public as a means of ensuring government accountability. And that brings up why we have the open meeting law in the first place. The open meeting law clearly emphasizes the openness and accessibility to governments, and the law is rooted in Chapter I, Article 6 of the Vermont Constitution, which states that all power being originally inherent in and consequently derived from the people, therefore all officers of government, whether legislative or executive, are their trustees and servants, and that all times in a legal way accountable to them. So what that's saying is the goal of the law is accountability, and the tool that we use to achieve accountability is transparency. When government decisions and the processes used to reach them are transparent, that enables the people to hold their public officers accountable. So the law then is meant to empower the public to play an effective role, not only as an active participant in government, but as a check on it as well. So the Vermont Supreme Court has answered the question of why we have the open meeting law this way. It has said that the purpose of the open meeting law is to give public exposure to government decision making. So we have the open meeting law in short to hold you, the government, accountable for the decisions you make, any actions that you take. In order to ensure that the open meeting law is used for the purpose for which it's intended, the Vermont Supreme Court has said that it's entitled to a liberal construction in support of the goal of open access to public meetings for members of the public. Exemptions to these laws must be strictly construed. What this means is that when there's any question as to whether the open meeting law applies or not, or whether its requirements have to be adhered to, the courts will always err on the side of transparency and access to public meetings. So to that point, our office tends to give the most conservative legal advice when it comes to this or other laws because it's our job as attorneys at BLCT not only to give you advice that will help you win in court, but hopefully give you the advice that will help keep you out of court in the first place. So keep that in mind that our advice as we go through this and questions will come up and you're going to ask why can't we do this, we're going to give the cautious conservative approach. Now that we know what the law is and why we have it, the next question is who does it apply to? And it applies to every public body in the municipality. What's a public body? It encompasses all boards, councils, commissions, committees of a political subdivision of a state which is a reference to municipalities and includes all cities, towns, fire districts, and other governmental units. I may use the words public body here and board interchangeably as we go along in the same thing. So the law covers two groups of public bodies. The first consists of any statutory public body. In other words, those that are explicitly mentioned in the green books such as these listed here. And then we also have a second group of public bodies which includes any of those created by any one of those statutory public bodies mentioned in the law. But the city council, for instance, creates a committee to assist it with whatever objective it's trying to carry out. That committee that it creates will be a public body and will have to adhere to the requirements of the open meeting law. Same with the Cemetery Commission or the Board of Civil Authority, the Development Review Board, and the other statutory body. Yes. A question on that last one, public body committee and subcommittee. Can you describe a little bit what constitutes a subcommittee? Yep, and here we're just referencing a public body that's been created by another public body that's been created by a statutory public body. So if the city council creates a committee, that committee creates a subcommittee, that the board also is required to adhere to the open meeting law. And what degree of formality does the subcommittee need to be created with? So for example, say a committee says, okay, Ashley, Jack, and Lauren, we need this specific thing done before our next meeting. Can you three go do that before the next meeting? Is that a subcommittee? What I would do is make it explicit in your minutes whether or not a subcommittee is being created or not. Oftentimes how this happens is that people will come forward, make a proposal, a board may respond by saying, well, it'd be great if you could find that information out and get back to us. So you want to differentiate in your minutes whether or not you're creating a committee or whether you're just asking for assistance from maybe a group of concerned citizens. So I think the more explicit in your minutes, the less confusion there will be as to whether you're creating a public body or not. And especially in a larger municipality like Montpelier, when that happens, it can be easy to lose track of just how many public bodies you have. Yes. Well, likewise, along with what Glenn was asking, does it matter the number, whether it's under a quorum or not? No, so for, there is a law that I'll get into in a second that talks about when joint authority is provided to three or more. So typically boards that are created are three members. So if you're going to create a committee or a subcommittee, you'd want to have at least three members for that board. And in that, what you would want to do is you can do it by motion or resolution and include for the creation of that public body their charge. So what it is, what's, why are we creating you, what we want you to accomplish, and probably also give them material regarding the open meeting law to let them know that they're going to have to comply with it. So I'm thinking of committees themselves who often have working groups. And two or three people may say, we'll work together and come up with this spreadsheet for everyone. And so it's not a specific committee, but they're going to work, and the minute says they're going to work on this issue. And that's fine. So long as, and I see where you're going with your question now, so long as they don't constitute a quorum of the board. So with the city council, you have a board of seven. You don't want to create a subcommittee of four for that purpose. If what you're doing, I'm sorry, is not creating a subcommittee, but just having members work together to bring something for the board at a later meeting. We'll get into quorums in a second. Okay. Thank you. So when does the open meeting law apply? The open meeting applies whenever a public body is holding a meeting. And what is a meeting? A meeting is a gathering of a quorum of the members of the public body for the purpose of discussing the business of the public body or for the purpose of taking action. So there are two conditions, both of which must be met in order to constitute a meeting and to trigger the requirements of the open meeting law. First, there has to be a quorum of the public body present. And second, that quorum of the public body has to be gathered to discuss the business of the public body or to take action. So what exactly constitutes business of the public body? Until this last legislative session, we didn't know. There wasn't a definition in the law. And with the passage of Act 166, we finally got some clarification. So it now means the public body's governmental functions, including any matter over which the public body has supervision, control, jurisdiction, advisory power. How do you know what that is? Well, for statutory public bodies, you're going to mostly find that again in the green books. It's going to spell out in statute what your responsibilities are as a public body. And for appointed bodies, you want to look in the minutes of the resolution from the board that created you in the resolution, as I spoke earlier, to there being a charge for what that subcommittee is going to, what their objective is going to be, that would be the business of that public body. But discussing the business of the public body on its own doesn't trigger the open meeting law. There can be no meeting without a quorum. So what is a quorum? The word isn't defined in the law. So when that happens, we try to figure out just like a court does. And here the Supreme, Vermont Supreme Court tells us what words that aren't defined are given their plain and ordinary meaning, which can be done by looking to the dictionary. So the dictionary defines a quorum as the number of members of a group required to be present to transact business legally, usually a majority. So in our context, a quorum is both the minimal number of members you're going to need to hold a meeting, and also the minimal number of members you're going to need to take any action. It's also the threshold at which the open meeting law is going to be triggered. The law says otherwise, and for some boards it does, this number is going to be a simple majority, 50% plus one of the total membership of the body. So any action taken by less than a quorum will not be valid. Now, excuse me, this definition comports with the definition found in Montpelier's municipal governance charter, which says that a quorum consisting of a majority or four council members is necessary to conduct any business. So what does this all mean? For a seven-member board, it means that at least four members, which constitutes a majority, will be needed to hold the meeting. And this is frequently referred to as a bear quorum because the same number, at least four, will have to agree to take any action as a board. And that's because there's a law that states when joint authorities given to three or more the concurrence of a majority of such number shall be sufficient and shall be required in this exercise. Now, the standard that a majority of the total membership of the board has to agree to take any action will apply regardless of whether there are board members that abstain, whether they recuse themselves or whether there are any vacancies on the board. And that's because what's controlling here with respect to determining what your quorum size is is not the number of members who actually show up, but rather the number of seats at your table. So at your table for the city council, it's a seven-member city council. It's always going to be four. If there were seven vacancies on the city council, quorum mount would always be four. Any questions on that? Is that also true? Are you going to talk later about committees? This applies to committees as well. This applies to all public bodies. So recently, being at one of those committees and there's actually more vacancies. So there are seats, but they're not people filling it. And what's the total membership of the board? It was 11. It was 11. And how many occupied seats does it have now? Nine. Actually eight. Okay. So you have 50% plus one? Of the eight or the 11. Well, of the 11. So that's what I'm saying. You always want to count the seats and you have 11 seats at that table. Okay. Unless the board that creates it alters the membership. So if you do run into a situation where it's getting difficult to fill seats on a particular board, the board that created it could always alter the membership of that board, depending on what it is. It would have to go back to the city council. Depending on what the public body is. The city council that created it so they would have to amend it. Okay. So if you recall from a couple slides back, a meeting is defined under the law as a gathering of quorum of the members of a public body for the purpose of discussing the business of the public body or for the purpose of taking action. But this gathering doesn't have to be a physical one. The open meeting law explicitly permits members of the public body to meet without actually being physically present. So it provides as long as the requirements of the law are met, one or more members of a public body may attend a regular special emergency meeting by electronic or other means without being physically present at the designated location and can fully participate by discussing the business of the body and voting to take action. So the law allows a member of a public body and members to attend meetings by electronic means so long as certain conditions are met. And those conditions are that someone participating remotely has to identify him or herself when the meeting is convened. It must be able to hear the conduct of the meeting and must be able to be heard by the members at the meeting. And additionally, all votes that are not unanimous have to be conducted by roll call. You can even have a quorum or more of a public body participate electronically in a meeting. So say for example, all of you happen to be in Florida for Red Sox spring training this spring, you could all do that, still have a meeting participate electronically. So for that to happen, the same three conditions that we just went over have to be met. But in addition, the agenda for the meeting has to designate at least one physical location where a member of the public can attend and participate in the meeting, which makes sense because if you're all not going to be here, public needs a place to come and listen to you. And at least one member of the public body, a member of the staff or designee of the public body has to be present at that location. That way they can facilitate the meeting, take care of any technical issues that may arise. And just to check on that, I imagine the physical location would have to be somewhere within the city limits. We couldn't say that the meeting was at spring training in Florida. The law doesn't actually state, but that's how I would read it. Because again, what we're trying to, and I'll come back to this point several times during the presentation, but we're trying to facilitate public access from a decision making. Now it doesn't necessarily have to be the same location. You can change the location in town, but then that would be a special meeting and we'll get into that in a minute. Now, I don't know about you, but I learned best from examples. So I put a couple together, some possible scenarios that you, yourselves may find yourselves in to illustrate what we just went over. So the first deals with a seven member board and three members who are physically present at the meeting and a fourth member who's attending by conference call. And the question is whether or not this is a meeting. What are they talking about? Well, we'll just say for this scenario that they're discussing the business of the public body. It's a great question. Yes, the answer is yes. We have one, both a quorum of the members of public body board gathered and two, they're presumably there to discuss the board business or to take action. And because we only have one member being electronically by conference call, all that's required is that that member identify him or herself at the beginning of the meeting and that he or she can hear the conduct of the meeting and be heard throughout. Now we're going to complicate things a little more. Here we have a seven member board with the same three members physically present in the same meeting room, but instead of the fourth member participating by conference call, he or she sends an email or text message to some members in attendance expressing his or her position about the meeting and how they want to vote. Can they participate that way? No. Great. Well, so the law governing electronic participation requires, and we'll get into that in a second, not only that a member has to identify him or herself, but also that they have to hear and be heard throughout the meeting, but also obviously if they're participating by email or text message. Here's the third one. We'll have fun with this one. Is it assumed that that they're emailing because they can't hear? No, it is not. Okay. But, and just as background, yes, the open meeting law does require compliance with Vermont's Public Accommodations Act. So does that mean if I send an email saying, I can't hear, from that point on, my emails will be recognized as an active participation? No. So unless it's an accommodation for a disability and that gets into kind of a fact specific analysis, you still need to hear and to be heard if you're participating electronically. So my take would be is if we got an email from you saying I can't hear, we would just try to fix the technical issues that we could hear. Yes. Right, exactly. So you would lose the quorum. There's a possibility that when you have say a bare quorum of four and three physically present and one attending say by teleconference, there you have a technical difficulty. Okay. You could lose the quorum. At which case you want to resolve that technical issue until you come back and then restart discussion of municipal business. So it has to be a pre-existing condition already accommodated for. When you're talking about a... To allow an email or text would have to be already set up, but that was needed. Well, there, you can notify someone that you're having technical difficulties because you have no other way to communicate with them. So that would be permissible. So that's, that's fine. I think you're talking about someone has a legitimate hearing disability. That's what I was saying. So if I had a legitimate hearing disability, I'd have to establish that ahead of time and then be allowed. And then we have to address what a reasonable accommodation would be. But I don't think just emailing would be sufficient. I think that there would have to be some way through the relay service or something so that the person who can't hear would be able to see text, you know, see all the comments of all the members converted to text and be able to do the same thing in response so that the absent person somehow gets everything that everyone said. And that's actually addressed and the ADA has a guide for small towns that I would address to your attention. Also, they do have, if such an issue does come up, they do have ADA specialists who assist callers with the ADA as well. So, we're going to have fun with this last one. We have the same seven-member board, three members this time who are walking together on the street, talking about the condition of the sidewalk. One of the three calls a fourth member to fill him or her in on the discussion. The fourth member who's called put on speakerphone, doesn't talk, just listens. Is this a meeting? Well, you added a fact. My answer to scenario three was no, but now that we know that the person's on speakerphone, the answer is yes. Great. That's the answer. And again, because we have a gathering of the members discussing the business of the public body and the open meeting law doesn't demand active participation. So just because a member is silent and isn't not actively participating in the discussion, he or she can still be counted toward the quorum. But if that same scenario happened and when someone called another member, didn't put them on speaker and just said, well, Joe says such and such, we're going to get into that. So, what if this fourth member wasn't on speakerphone? Would it still be a meeting? No. So that brings us back to our last example with the text message or email. The law says a member can only participate electronically if the member doesn't hear what's going on and be heard in turn. So if they can't participate, is there still a meeting? And if there's no meeting, can there be a violation of the open meeting law? Right. I'm going to give you the lawyer response, maybe. That's where I spent all that money at law school for. So these are the questions of first impression, meaning they haven't been definitively answered by the Vermont Supreme Court. There's still many gray areas to the open meeting law and this is one of them. Our advice, which I told you earlier, was admittedly conservative, is to stay away from that type of situation altogether. Why? Because the more you tread in those gray areas, the more you expose yourselves in the city to liability. So in some states, this wouldn't be a question. For example, in Indiana, there's no majority of if there's no majority of public body gathered together physically in one location, then it isn't considered a gathering or a constitutional meeting for the purposes of the open meeting law. In Vermont, however, members can meet without being physically present, but they have to do so in the manner that's prescribed by law. So when questions like these come up, we always go back to the intent behind the law, which is to ensure that conversations and decisions by public bodies are made in public. In our opinion, any communications not contemplated by the law that would permit public bodies to otherwise couldn't, unless in the context of a duly warned open meeting, violate the spirit if also not the letter of the law. So the Vermont Supreme Court has said that the open meeting law protects not only a public's right to know, but also their right to be present, to be heard and to participate, none of which they'd be able to do in that scenario. So remember, the law is entitled to a liberal construction, interpretation, and support of the goal of open access to public meetings for members of the public. So whenever you're faced with this type of situation, ask yourself whether what you're doing will ensure that your discussions and decisions will be made public. If you're going to have a discussion about city business and it involves a quorum, make sure that it's done at a meeting. This might be coming up there and I think I know the answer to it. Councillor Bates posts on Facebook, I want to build a huge water slide, you know, into the Winozki River. It's going to be great, I'm going to put my feet, I chime in. Yeah, now that's a great idea. Glenn says I already have my bathing suit, right? Four of us chime in on Facebook there. Is that an open meeting? So, you have how many members participating? Four of us. Okay, again, that's a situation we would stay away from as well. So the open meeting law doesn't impact the use of social media by individual members. So, if you are all citizens of the United States, you're entitled to exercise your First Amendment rights, certainly be able to communicate with your constituents is a fundamental component of a Democrat society. And so I don't want to take that away from you. Websites or blogs that are not interactive present the least problems. Interactive sites such as front porch form or Facebook, those that can be used to solicit a response from other members and present problems as participation of a quorum, again, can constitute a meeting under the open meeting law. And a meeting, again, is not limited to those situations where you physically gather it in one location. So it can be violated if, in our opinion, a quorum of members of the body is discussing business using email or social media applications such as Facebook or front porch form. So again, our recommendation is that you best to avoid discussions of town business and social media. Again, fairly conservative view and of course has unfortunate consequences since you won't be as accessible as you would like. But again, it's our job to give you the advice that will help keep you out of a lawsuit. I guess I hear what you're saying. Yes. But I'm curious why social media is treated differently than a text message or an email would be. So let's just assume that it is. It's a social media post and it's whatever. But it's just a thread that kind of goes on over a course of 36 hours. What is the difference between a text message, like if I text during a meeting because I can't be at the meeting but I'm watching at home and Ashley doesn't like something. And we would say that there's not a difference if you're involving a quorum of the members of the public body so that four of you shouldn't be involved in a text message or an email discussing the business of a public body except in certain limited circumstances that will go over. I'm just parsing. Okay. So you're saying what your response is is if I text for three other people that's a problem. So are you saying that the so is it the affirmative action step or is it just simply the sheer number of people that the question turns on. It's the two requirements behind the open meeting law which is again the quorum. So yes it is the numbers and then it is what it is that you're discussing. If you're discussing the business of the public body then when you have a quorum of the board discussing the business of the public body then you can take place in the context of a meeting. Now the only way that the law contemplates for you to participate electronically is in a manner that you can be heard and the proceedings can be heard by you and you can't accomplish that through either email or text. So how, I guess why, like what's the difference between that and social media? I'm not trying to be dense. I'm just genuinely trying to say that it's not. We would say that this wouldn't be allowed either. So you could have a situation where a member posts on social media regarding the municipal charter and Jack responds to that and then Glenn and Connor respond to that as well. Now you have a quorum of members of the public body discussing municipal business and it's not within the context of a public meeting. So it hasn't been noticed. It has no agenda. People may have an opportunity to participate, but that's not an opportunity that's open to everyone. Not everyone has access to Facebook. Frontport's forum is even more limited because it's limited to those who live there not to. It's not open to the general public. They're not minutes taken. So we recommend refraining from using social media or email to discuss the business of your public body with other board members entirely. Even if you're having an email correspondence with less than a quorum of membership then that member could engage another member in the same conversation and those serial one to one communications which again our court hasn't addressed those postings on social media or front porch forum those could in the aggregate involve a quorum of the board's membership and constituted a meeting under the law. So while one posting doesn't implicate the open meeting on front porch forum any subsequent postings could if they trigger that quorum requirement. So just to kind of come to an easy rule of thumb for at least our group if any individual member wants to post about their feelings about a particular issue then the practice would be the rest of them and I would believe myself would not comment on that person's post. Correct. Let it play out how it's going to play out. Exactly. And one of the difficulties is that the timing of a member's participation likely is not a factor again that's an issue that the Vermont Supreme Court hasn't addressed. So in other words it's a simultaneous standard which means that there's only a meeting if everyone can discuss municipal business contemporaneously with one another. We don't have that and if they don't if they're not then it's not a meeting and it's not a violation of their open meeting law. So you could have a text message sent to one that's sent to another string of emails or communications that violate their open meeting law. We don't have such explicit standard in our state so we don't know for certain but we do know the intent behind the open meeting law which is to make sure that discussion of municipal business takes place at an open meeting. So taking that intent and viewing those actions in light of the purpose behind the law we recommend not engaging in that conduct. So we'll get into that a little bit as well. And certainly this is a lot that I'm throwing at you and feel free again to email a call if you have any questions beyond tonight. This won't be your only opportunity. Now just coming back to this example for a minute this conversation wouldn't be a violation of the open meeting law if the members were for example conducting a site visit for the purpose of assessing damage as that is an statutory exemption under the open meeting law. So it's not considered within the realm of the requirements. So Bill did we post our site visits? I can't remember. And you can and that's something I want to state as well is that you can always go beyond the minimum that the law requires which is always a best practice. So we know when the open meeting law applies who would actually, what does it actually require you to do? Open meeting law has five primary requirements. Your meetings must be publicly noticed. You have to produce an agenda that has to be posted and made available before your meetings. They have to be open to the public. You have to provide an opportunity for public comment and minutes to be posted. Now one of the key features of the open meeting law is that the business of the public body has to be conducted with few distinct exceptions in the public. The purpose behind the law's public notice requirement is to inform the general public of when and where your meetings will take place so that they can decide whether or not they want to attend. Otherwise people won't have the opportunity to hear what you have to say in comments on issues that are going to take place. So open meetings, regular special and emergency in each has their own requirements. Your regular meetings, those are just that. These are your regularly scheduled meetings which occur at some time, date, and place at regular interviews, intervals. Special meetings are not special because any of the business you're going to conduct or discuss, but because they're held at some time they're not necessarily necessary to respond to some unforeseen occurrence or condition requiring your immediate attention. So regular meetings don't have to be individually noticed. The date, time, and place for these meetings is typically set by resolution at your first meeting following town meeting, your organizational meeting. It can also be set by charter ordinance or bylaw. And this meeting schedule must also be given upon request and we would recommend posting it some prominent location in the city if not more locations. Your special meetings, the time, place, and purpose of them has to be publicly announced at least 24 hours prior to the meeting by posting notices in or near the clerks office and at least two other designated locations giving oral or written notice to members of the public body unless previously waived. So sometimes before the meeting one of the items on the agenda will be for members to opt out of receiving that notification providing notice to any person who had requested written notification of your special meetings and written request of special meetings will only apply in the calendar year in which they're requested unless they're requested in December in which case they'll apply to that month in the following year, following calendar and also notifying any press, any editor publisher, news director of a newspaper radio station that serves your area. Emergency meetings can be held without public announcement, without posting notices, and without 24 notice to members provided that some notice is given prior to the meeting as soon as possible. So situation I had with the town was that they had lost their road foreman the night of a blizzard and they needed to plow the roads the next day and they had no one. Can we hold an emergency meeting? Well it's an unforeseen occurrence certainly this person just up and quit and it requires their immediate attention so I said yeah I think that meets the standard of emergency meeting they said what notice should we provide? Fortunately it was snowing at that time fortunately the person lived relatively close to the town hall said just write emergency meeting of the select board, the date, the time just tape it on the door. Law says some notice has to be given before the meeting. That was certainly some notice. Emergency meetings are unlike regular and special meetings in that they're topical so by law they can only again be held when necessary to respond to an unforeseen occurrence or condition requiring immediate attention. The standard here should be if it can wait 24 hours then call a special meeting instead. It's important to quickly note that there are different notice requirements for different types of meetings and hearings. So all hearings are meetings but not all meetings are hearings. That's because when you're holding a hearing you have a quorum of members of your public body gathered to discuss the business of the public body say for DRB their hearing applications that's the business of the DRB for development review. And so that meets the definition of a meeting. And because they're more specific, these are the notice requirements that are going to oh sorry I think I went too far these are the notice requirements that are going to control. So for development review board hearing for conditional use review variances, ZA appeals, there's date, place and purpose of the hearing has to be provided at least 15 days prior by publication and newspaper posting in three more places, written notification to the applicant and to all adjoining property owners. So in this example the DRB wouldn't also have to notice a regular special meeting unless it was conducting some non-hearing business. So that's where I mean the more specific notice requirement is going to control. Now in addition to publicly noticing your meetings, the open meeting requires that you also have an agenda which is great to see that you have. The word agenda isn't defined in the law so again we did just what we did with the word quorum we looked at the dictionary for guidance because the law does not say what an agenda is supposed to include. And the dictionary says that an agenda is a list or outline of things to be done, subjects to be discussed or business to be transacted. It has to be posted at least 48 hours prior to a regular meeting 24 hours prior to a special meeting, in or near the city office and at least two other designated public places in the city to a website if one exists that it maintains or designates as the official website and it has to be made available to anyone upon request. There's no agenda required for an emergency meeting which makes sense as you typically don't know you're going to have an emergency meeting until the last minute. Even if the law didn't require you to have an agenda, which again it does, having one is just a basic courtesy not only to your fellow board members but also to members of the public so that they can adequately prepare and decide whether or not they should take time out of their lives to attend the meeting. In addition to informing the public and your fellow board members what exactly it is you're going to be discussing and what business you're going to be transacting, agendas serve as a helpful roadmap by providing direction to your meetings. Now, the law not only explicitly requires that the public bodies compose and post an agenda, but it also limits how they may be altered. Any additions or deletions to an agenda have to be made as the first order business of your meeting, which is why we would recommend having that as the first item on your agenda after you convene. Other adjustments such as postponing an agenda item or rearranging the order can be made at any time during the meeting. We would recommend using the same standard for adding business to your agenda that we would recommend for holding an emergency meeting, which is to ask yourself, is this something that is an unforeseen occurrence of condition that requires our immediate attention? If the answer is no and it can win to the next regular special meeting then add it to that meeting's agenda instead. And why this standard? Because the law doesn't give you carte blanche authority to make any and every addition to the agenda as long as it was done as the first order of business. If this was the case then a public body could just have a blank agenda and add whatever it wanted to at the beginning of the meeting and the law would have no meeting at all. Remember the legislature's intent behind this law is to ensure that your meetings are open and transparent to the public. To that end you have to give them some adequate notice to decide whether or not to attend your meetings and to express your opinions on matters that you consider. So for organizations that are public bodies that are inter-municipal or super-municipal we have to post agendas and mourn them so I'm thinking of like super-lawful safety authority or other things that the city might be a member of or even like regional planning commission that kind of thing do all municipalities have to post the agendas for They meet the definition of unminicipality yes. I can't speak to each of those organizations because they're not actual members of the leagues so we only can advise our membership organization so advise you to the secretary of state's office but if they meet the definition of unminicipality then yes. Well I think of two like the cemetery or some howling so they would have to The cemetery? Is it a private organization or cemetery commission? Yes. Cemetery commission. It's a public body and they would have to post an agenda for their meetings. Sorry I left it. Dylan, Jake, slander. Oh so I was just asking so I was asking about the requirements for noticing meetings in bodies that are that the city might be a member of or organizations that are strictly just cities like for example the cemetery so like how does it apply across for other bodies that are not strictly cities or towns central public safety authority regional planning commission That's a charter quasi municipal. Yes they all do follow up the open meeting on solid waste districts So they do have to but they don't have to necessarily post in all their member towns Oh correct. Yes. I do not believe so but I believe that some of those also has specific needs provisions that would override the laws of general applicability to all municipalities. Because they're more specific. Exactly. And again that's general rule of thumb more specific law controls over the more general. So of course the law wouldn't as the name suggests all meetings of public body are open to the public unless specifically exempted. That means of course that the public can't be excluded from your meetings unless the law explicitly explicitly allows. And again the law clearly emphasizes the values openness and accessibility. And as stated before Supreme Court has warned us that when any question exists as to whether the law applies or not or whether your meeting is open or not they're going to err on the side of transparency and access. Now the Vermont Supreme Court has also said that the open meeting law protects not only the public's right to know as I mentioned before but also the right to be present, heard, and participate. And that brings us to public comments. To these ends the law establishes a public right to comment at your meetings but that right is not absolute. It is not without its limits. So first the public is only entitled to a reasonable opportunity to express its opinion. And that reasonable opportunity can be limited in scope to matters considered by the public body during the meeting and only so long as order is maintained. So why legally you could potentially limit public comments to only those items listed on your agenda. It's not in my opinion very political viable one. As it's not responsive to the needs and concerns of your community as it otherwise could prevent them from raising issues of importance to them. Which is why it's great that at the beginning of your meeting you had an open comment provision. So as a best practice we recommend that in addition to allowing public comment on each agenda item after it's discussed but before it takes action because that will help you make more informed decisions and also impress upon the public that their comments will actually be given consideration that you also provide a more open ended opportunity for public comment that falls under the heading of other business either towards the beginning or end of your meeting. Now the open meeting law also recognizes the importance of order by limiting public comment to the imposition of reasonable rules. This represents a compromise between the need for public comment and the need for you to do the work of your public body in the time allowed. So your meetings after all are meetings in the public. They're not meetings for the public. What's the difference? Your meetings are what are called limited public forms and that their space is created for a very specific purpose for you to discuss and do the work of your board and while in the space you don't have to allow members of the public to engage in every type of speech whenever they want. Now that doesn't mean that you can discriminate against anyone based on what they have to say but it does mean that your board may impose restrictions in light of the purpose served by your meeting so long again as they're reasonable content neutral so you don't limit what someone is saying based on because of the message they're conveying and they're applied equally to everyone. So rules of procedure in this picture no way represents the fine citizens of Montpellier. Rules of procedure can be used to help you strike a balance between encouraging public comment and allowing for the efficient operation of meetings. For example, you connect rules to preserve civility in the core needed to conduct to your business requiring members of the public to raise their hands in order to be recognized by the chair before speaking. We had a municipality years ago that was having a horrible time conducting its select board meetings and one of the rules we recommended to them in posing was having people just raise their hands to be recognized. Otherwise everyone was just shouting at the chair. Directing all comments to the chair, you see this when you watch C-Stand and you see the house of representatives. Comments aren't directed to individual members they're all addressed to the chair. Not to any individual member or of the public body or of the public. Refrain from personal attacks, establishing a rule that if someone has already spoken that others have the force to be given an opportunity before they can speak again. So all of those are included in our moral rules of procedure which I've included in your packet. These rules are different when it comes to quasi-judicial hearings. These are instances when you're acting like a court and as city council members that will happen. The requirement that all meetings of a public body have to be open at all times not extend to these instances. So unlike your other meetings the public does not have the right to comment during the course of these proceedings. All the public has the right to do is attend and to listen. So a hearing of the development review board of the Board of Civil Authority if you were to hear a vicious dog hearing case. These are all quasi-judicial hearings and there is no right to public comments. Get into that a little more when we hit deliberations. And the last requirement of the open meeting law is that you make a record of minutes of your meetings. They have to be kept by the cleric or secretary of the public body which doesn't have to but could be the city cleric. They have to give a true indication of the meeting what transpired and include at a minimum all topics that are raised all members of the public body present all other active participants all motions proposals resolutions made in the result and results of any votes with a record of individual votes if roll call is taken. Now in most instances what is minimally required listed here will be sufficient to give a true indication of the business of the meeting. However in other instances information beyond what is minimally required may be needed to supplement the record to show what transpired. It's always a good idea to provide more detail on a discussion on an important a controversial issue so that you the public and if need be your attorney will have an accurate historical detailed record of what happens. Your minutes have to be made available for public inspection and copying by any person upon request after five calendar days from the date of the meeting. And in addition they must be posted to a website if one exists that you maintain as the official website of the body within that same time frame. So with the exception of draft minutes that have been replaced and updated posted minutes have to stay on your website for at least one year from the date of the meeting from which they were taken. Again you can leave them on longer if you'd like. Any questions there we're going to have the final portion here is going to be exemptions which I'm sure there's a lot of questions on so any questions before we get into that. Yeah I think before we get to exemptions the big question of my mind is or else what right like does this law have any teeth to it is it a school board meeting like a few weeks ago somebody stood up for public comment they said ah should we let her speak and they voted it down right? Yeah. So what's the remedy I don't think the Secretary of State has any enforcement powers right other fines other? There is an enforcement provision and it's the last section of law it's 1BSA 314 and there if there is a knowing and intentional violation of the law then you can be subject to a misdemeanor and a $500 fine there can also be a potential civil action brought against the city council and it could be that whatever actions you took at your meeting are determined not to be binding. So there is criminal liability exposure for individual members and I have not heard of anyone having a criminal action brought against them for this reason know that the standard here is knowingly the person knew what they were doing was wrong and intentionally they did it anyways so it's a relatively high bar and prosecution would have to provide proof to be on a reasonable doubt so that's for your kind of individual exposure and that applies to someone who violates the law someone who violates the law on behalf of someone else or at the behest of someone at the direction of the body or participates in a wrongful exclusion of someone from the meeting a complaint would have to be brought against the city for violating the open meeting law one year after the meeting at which the alleged violation took place and someone would have to notify the board in writing the specific violation and request the specific cure. There is then a time frame for responding which we have included in your packet I won't get into right now but it's basically that the board can either acknowledge the violation and take specific steps to cure it within I believe it's a 14 day time frame after they address the allegation or they can state that no violation actually occurred at that point what can happen is that anyone who is aggrieved by the act of the board or the non-action of the board can bring an action in the superior court or the attorney general's office can do so as well and then we get to a point where the city would be defending itself in a court action so kind of the violations and enforcement mechanism. You said something about minutes and I've been involved in another public body where this question came up and the issue is although there's this requirement to post the minutes within five days of the meeting technically they're not the minutes until they've been approved by the body. Well there is no requirement in the open meeting law that minutes of a public body actually be approved. Now it's certainly a best practice because everyone can agree on what the record was but there is no explicit requirement. What most boards do in order to meet that five day requirement is that they'll and it's a five calendar day requirement I think there was a move at the legislature to increase it and it didn't get anywhere last session is to have mark your if you do approve minutes to mark the ones you're putting up within that five day timeframe as draft or subject to approval and then replacing them with the approved minutes which may be a week or so after the fact. Okay thanks. We do have more questions and answers regarding minutes as well and are frequently asked questions. So our last session here is on exemptions so that was what the open meeting law requires of you but not everything you do as a public body is covered by the open meeting law. There's going to be a time when a quorum of you can actually interact and the law has no application and a lot of these provisions were added this last legislative session with Act 166 so and a lot of them are very common sense solutions as well so the passage of Act 166 last session they added to the list of activities that are excluded from the definition of a meeting so if something doesn't qualify as a meeting it doesn't fall under the auspices of the open meeting law. So these are the things that you can do that you don't have to comply with everything we just went over and that includes meeting no longer includes in its definitions and occasions where a quorum of you attend social gatherings, conventions, conferences, training programs, press conferences, media events or otherwise gathers so it's pretty broad provided that the public body that's attending does not discuss specific business of the body that at the time you expect to be business at a later date. So what was this change in the law intended to cover? Well for example my organization conducts day long seminars such as our select board institute and often times we'll have small select boards of a three-member select board two members come to the meeting and they would ask us are we supposed to warn this as a meeting? Should we warn our car ride here? And we would tell them well you are discussing business of the public body so conservatively maybe you should and certainly on the car ride though how is the public supposed to attend? They're not going to be able to unless maybe it was victory and they got a school bus so but we didn't know so this was one of the one of the impetus for putting this law in place because we the legislature recognize that you need to work within the context of this law and there needs to be practical realities that you can deal with so now if we have a core members come to our training they can discuss business of the body so long as it's not something that they're going to take action on in the future so they can use an example in order to help further a question along for example. Yes. I think I know the answer but I'm going to ask it anyway what about attending a meeting of another public body whether it's in your own city or a neighboring town select board meeting or city council? That's going to be our next one. Yep. So and again the most cautious approach would be whenever there's a quorum of you you don't discuss the business of the public body but again this allows you to so long as it's business that you're expected to take later on. So we also have a meeting after last session no longer includes a gathering of a quorum of a public body at a duly worn meeting of another public body which Bill just brought up provided that the attending public body doesn't take action on its business so this change came about again as a very common sense solution to an issue that kept coming up I would get a call from a member say of a planning commission who wanted to attend a meeting of their select board but they knew that so many other members of the planning commission were going to attend the same meeting that they decided they couldn't because they're going to trigger a quorum and they would have to warn it as a meeting with this change in law we avoid the complication of members of one public body having to stay away from meetings of another public body. Another follow up question on this occasionally say the city council will ask a board to attend the planning commission or somebody just to get an update of what they're doing and sometimes there might be a quorum of them here although we're really maybe only invited the chair or the staff person but the others there asking how they're doing on the zoning rewrite or something like that right does the planning commission have to warn that they're going to be there? Nope and that's what this law addresses even though they are talking about their own business even though they're talking about business because as you notice it says so long as they don't take action on any board business so they can discuss board business and this makes sense because otherwise you're having two public bodies notice the same hearing providing another for the same hearing take minutes for the same hearing it was just implicit so it didn't make sense that was a great move from them again this is another refinement to the definition of what a meeting is the open meeting law also allows a quorum of you to interact without triggering the requirements when you're scheduling a meeting organizing an agenda or distributing materials to discuss at a meeting because this falls outside the range of the open meeting law it is not considered a meeting you can do this by whatever means you'd like you can do this as an email you can do it as a text message you can do it over the phone you can do it in person over the telephone however you'd like to but you can't do any of these things and also discuss other business of the body any documents that result say you did send an email schedule a meeting with your fellow members those would be subject to disclosure disclosure under Vermont's Public Records Act so distributing materials here so we have scheduling a meeting organizing agenda, distributing information distributing does not mean discussion so think of this as being akin to the physical act of handing over documents to another person it's acceptable to hand those documents over but it's not acceptable to have a discussion about those documents as well what is acceptable here is this one way communication once there's a response to distribution that communication turns into a discussion and that discussion as we spoke of earlier if it involves a quorum of the members could constitute a meeting so inadvertence and say violations of the open meeting law especially those that arise through the use of electronic communication can be reduced to email and text messages are principally employed to transmit information to a body's information concerning these purposes you're transmitting information you're scheduling a meeting you're organizing agenda so in other words the Vermont legislature has said that these are acceptable means of communicating as a quorum without triggering the requirements of the open meeting law again email similar communication should be used for distribution passive receipt of information not for the active exchange of ideas discussion of substantive matter should be reserved for public proceedings as we see here the open meeting law has a very narrow allowance for communications between a quorum when those communications involve municipal business any communications not on that list should occur in the context of a meeting just strike what I know so can I pull that last piece into a rule of thumb that says I could send an email to everyone on city council but if I receive an email that's also to everyone on the rest of the city excuse me city council I can't reply all I should not hit reply all right and group messages I've had that on occasion happen with communications sent to our office because people are interested in receiving what the answer is and some will send the communication include everyone else you hit reply all then others start responding to that and all of a sudden you have a discussion about town business again common sense solutions from the legislature because before how could you schedule a meeting it's a chicken egg situation right it would have to be one person saying we're having a meeting this day and everyone would show up or a quorum would show up but you couldn't have a back and forth of well I can make it I can't can we do another day now you're violating the open meeting law that's no longer a problem there so the open meeting our charges is our meetings are at the call of the mayor I saw that yes and I have that note made just in case it came up the open meeting law also doesn't apply to site inspections for purposes we've talked about this before a little assessing damage or making tax assessments or abatements to clerical work or work assignments of staff routine day to day administrative matters that don't require action of the public body some refer to this last exception as the work session exemption however there is no work session exemption to the open meeting law our understanding of this last exemption is that it includes certain municipal activities of municipal officers such as listers and auditors such as stating the list of cards examining the treasurer's books what wouldn't fit into this exemption are any actions taken by the board of listers or auditors that are required by law such as lodging the grand list or making the decision of what goes into the annual report those are matters that are required by law to be taken so if they're in here you're required by law to be to take them then they wouldn't fit into that routine day to day administrative matters exemption those actions have to be taken in the context of an open meeting then of course we come to everyone's favorite exemptions deliberative and executive sessions they also just happen to be most frequently confused we'll start with deliberative and the night on executive session the open meeting law says it doesn't extend to deliberations of any public body in connection with the quasi-judicial proceeding deliberations here means weighing, examining, discussing the reasons for or against the decision or act so does this mean that you're in deliberative session whenever you have to make a decision as a public body no, it doesn't as the law states deliberative session only applies in conjunction with quasi-judicial proceedings those are proceedings as we talked about earlier where you're acting like a court DRB land use hearings city council hearings on laying out public highways in each of these situations it's the legal rights of specific individuals and that are at stake rather than the rights of the community at large once a hearing is closed the public body is automatically in deliberative session by operation of law and the session is exempt from all the requirements of the open meeting law so this allows you as a public body to deliberate and private without public scrutiny and pressure just like a jury does in order to come to a well-reasoned decision and because the requirements of the open meeting law don't apply deliberative sessions don't need to be noticed they don't need an agenda they don't need to allow for public comment or to be open to the public and don't require the taking of minutes discussions can occur with as few or as many members of your board without triggering the quorum requirements of the open meeting law as well and you can deliberate by whatever means or whatever setting you want you can also use email the written decision will speak for the board so you can send drafts back and forth to one another those drafts, those email communications will not be considered their exempt from public disclosure under Vermont's Public Records Act so in contrast to most every instance of executive session you can also vote behind closed doors without the formality of having to publicly announce your vote and again that's because the law explicitly provides that written decisions don't need to be adopted in the context of an open meeting if they're going to be a public record finally your board doesn't have to use deliberative session if it doesn't want to it's more than free to deliberate in public now in contrast to deliberative session, executive session is a closed meeting within a public meeting that makes any sense the law permits public bodies to exclude the public from a portion of an open meeting in order to discuss certain topics specifically allowed for under the law so as with deliberative session there's nothing in the law that requires the use of it although it's certainly recommended in certain circumstances it's another exception to the general rule that all meetings of a public body have to be open to the public at all times use of this exemption will be strictly construed by the courts which means that any reasonable doubt will be resolved in favor of not using it you can't just enter executive session there are certain conditions that have to be met first one, there has to be a motion that indicates the reason for entering an executive session that reason has to be one of the ones permitted in law there has to be an affirmative vote of the majority of the members present so this is a different standard than the rule of general applicability that you can only take action with the majority of the total of your membership here it's a majority of the members present which is going to be a quorum and the result of the vote has to be recorded in the meeting minutes as stated you can only enter for those reasons permitted by law these are those reasons, there are others but these are ones that pertain to municipalities and these particular reasons only require one motion and a majority vote of those presents so we have negotiating securing real estate purchases or lease options, the appointment or employment or evaluation of a public officer or employee important thing to note here is that if you make a decision to a point that has to be made in open session and you have to explain your reasons for that decision what I would recommend is that you give the reasons why you are appointing someone and not why you're not appointing someone else disciplinary or dismissal action against a public officer or employee but that person has a right to a hearing you have a clear and eminent peril to the public safety discussion of records that are exempt from the public records law and emergency response measures for the municipality a question on the last one about you're required to state your reasons for appointing someone you're required every time you appoint someone to explicitly state why if you're going into executive session for that purpose and then coming out then you have to make your decision in open session explain the reasons why now you could decide just to appoint an open session in which case you don't have to give reasons for yeah but this is a condition of utilizing executive session I'm imagining playing that out because often it feels like we appoint people because there's a vacancy and it needs to be filled and I don't know that's a reason we might not go into executive session for that sometimes we don't do that if there's one person for one slot it doesn't have to be a lot said we should say something about why just once you say something exactly, some reason for entering executive session for these reasons again is one motion has to indicate the nature of the business of the executive session and should but doesn't have to it's not required to cite the specific statutory citation for doing so so the proposed motion should include as much detail as possible without undermining why you're actually going to executive session in the first place so for example if you're going into executive session to conduct an employee performance appraisal you could say something to the effect of because it's time for the zoning administrators annual performance evaluation I move that we enter executive session to discuss the evaluation of a public officer employee pursuant to title one section 31383 of Vermont statutes simple enough for the following reasons for entering the following reasons for entering executive session require a finding by you that utilizing it that sorry utilizing them that premature general public knowledge would place the public body of person involved at a substantial disadvantage so you have to find for going into executive session for this reason that premature general public knowledge would place the public body of person involved at a substantial disadvantage this was a legislative change a couple of years ago but it was actually required of you in 1993 in the trombly place by the Vermont Supreme Court and the legislature just recently explicitly put it in the law so that you know to follow it so to enter executive session for any of these reasons and you can see for contracts labor relation agreements arbitration mediation grievances probable civil litigation which the public body is a party confidential attorney client communications to enter into executive session for any of these reasons we recommend that you make two separate motions because of that requirement and the reason is it's not enough to just want to go in executive session for these reasons discuss these issues you have to demonstrate a need to do so the cleanest way of demonstrating compliance with this requirement is to make two separate motions the first one would be to find that premature public discussion of the subject would cause the city or some other person to suffer a substantial disadvantage so for example in the case of a contract under negotiation the motion may be I move to find that premature general public knowledge of the pending contract with this company will clearly place the city at a substantial disadvantage by say for example disclosing our negotiation strategy in this hypothetical the substantial disadvantage would be the risk the city has of losing its competitive edge in negotiations by talking about specific contract terms in open session so if the company here were to hear that the public body talked about the maximum price they can afford to pay then the company is not going to take anything less than that amount now the second motion follows from the first and should cite the specific legal authority again for entering executive session so for example I move that we enter executive session to discuss the city's contract under provision title one section 313 it's important that the minutes there is a careful analysis of the needs entering the executive session before the first motion is made to demonstrate compliance now I just want to give you some final thoughts on the use of executive session it's not explicitly required by law to be listed on a meeting agenda something is poor form to put executive session on agenda because doing so presupposes that one's going to be held others say that the purpose of agendas provide notice of what is likely to expire and putting it on the agenda serves that purpose we follow the second camp we think it's a best practice to listen executive session on the agenda but only when you know in advance that you're likely to raise the motion we do not recommend always putting on possible executive session as a placeholder in case something comes up listing it as a possible executive session signifies nothing more than you're going to take up the possibility of executive session it also serves as a reminder to you that you're going to have to vote before you go into executive session and also it provides a courtesy to any anticipated attendees informing them that there may be a portion of the meeting that's going to be closed off to them for a period of time because it's a closed portion of an open meeting motion again has to take place in the context of duly worn meeting you therefore always have to have being an open meeting first before you enter executive session it is not open to the public the only people that have a right to attend are members of the public body regardless of how they voted and anyone else that in their discretion they decide can enter the law says attendance and executive session is limited to members of the public body and in their discretion it's staff clinical assistants and legal counsel and persons who are subjects of discussion or whose information is needed finally while you're in executive session no other matter can be discussed no formal or binding action can be taken except securing real estate options so to take action you have to agree to come out of executive session and take action during the course of a meeting minutes don't have to be taken but if they are taken they're not subject to disclosure under Vermont public records act some people say that you can't take action in public in executive session other again than for the the real estate securing real estate options but you're going to have to come to some agreement to agree to come out of executive session or else you're going to be in this twilight zone executive session that you can never get out of so yes you mentioned the motion yes you might have other people there besides excuse me thank you you mentioned the motion and on the second slide you mentioned the people who should be it could be in executive session we tend to ask people in our motion we invite the city manager to join the council is that necessary no that's fine to ask them because again it's in your discretion so it's it's ultimately up to the city council who enters executive session but you say you worded in the actual motion usually we usually just say we move to go into executive session for exit and to the manager the assistant manager finance so long as and that's a thing about voting so long as everyone knows what they're voting for and there's a record of it that's fine it could be if someone has an issue with that how it stated they could state I potentially want to go in executive session but I don't know that we should have the city manager invited can we break out those motions but it is best to have it in the discussion I guess that's my question that the the board agree yes because otherwise you could say it's just quiet acquiescence but there should be some consensus of who's going to attend executive session with the public body yes I just want to start that I feel like a while ago we had an assumption that the city manager was invited had it been stated explicitly but it might be better to do that and you can follow you can follow customary practice again it's so long as everyone on the council knows that they're going to executive session what it's for and who's being invited and my last slide here is just a link to our resource again everything included in your packet is available on our website includes links to the FAQs the quick guide and moral rules of procedure and if you have any questions please feel free to call us at the number provided or email us Monday through Friday and thank you for hanging in there thanks this has been great great material and he says he doesn't get enough calls from Montpilier mayor so we should all call him more okay it's no we're right across the street too so feel free to do your pop in I was happy to speak with you any further questions okay well thank you so much for being here and it's been very helpful okay how are y'all feeling do you want to break do you want to okay let's take just about a five minute break yep sounds good say time will be 15 I almost want to like print out just this and this one okay so we are coming back from our break the next item is committee assignments so every year we have council reps who are appointed to to various committees and boards throughout the city so how shall we take this we have attached the agenda last year's appointment set so I think it probably just makes sense to take this all linearly and then perhaps have a motion at the end you know with all the aforementioned appointments so Americans with disabilities committee there's actually an error in there I actually am the council representative to that committee and I'm willing to stay on it okay thank you anybody that's interested in that one okay we move on this committee Glenn you were on it before it used to be a different name to that committee I believe but I recognize it I'm told that we actually do need someone because there may be an appeal coming up do you mean well it looks like there was Glenn was on it and then there's a vacant it was rosy so we we do in fact need two people from the council on that okay so Glenn are you willing to be one of those two people again anybody else interested okay capital complex committee there's no council rep but we have had Paul Carnahan is this an appointment that we would make tonight not necessarily because we probably need to warn that and I mean I don't know that that's been we looked into that last year it was a certain term but we'll check that out okay so we'll assume that we're not making that appointment tonight capital improvement planning committee so the CIP so last year I was on this Donna and Glenn what do you think or if anybody else Glenn likewise I'd like to stay on it so in the past we've also had new council members on this committee so Lauren if you are interested that's fine I'm also interested in it but I would step down if you wanted to do it okay I'm happy to continue on that that committee anybody else interested okay central Vermont public safety authority so this one so Donna you were on that last year and so Tom is as I know he was not city councilor no but he was our rep and his term expired this year so one hypothesis and I guess I'm just looking for a bit of advice here one hypothesis is that another council person should take that spot another hypothesis is that it could just be another appointment of the council so I guess one question is is there any council member interested I would I guess I'm happy to do it but I'm a little unclear sort of where the CVPSA is at and we don't have to get into that right now I'm happy to be the second council rep but I'm available anytime you want to talk about it I love it have been I'll find you so deep would you like that appointment then I will take it okay okay okay center Vermont regional planning commission there's no council rep again this is one of these that should we be making this appointment tonight Donna isn't on that center Vermont I want to tack the actual regional planning commission has asked for somebody from our planning commission and that's why Kurt is there but it doesn't mean there can't be a city council member also we get one rep you only get one rep that has a vote so that's why it says NA NA for us right so we've appointed Kirby from the planning commission trying to become the planning commission and is that an appointment that we need to make tonight no we usually don't do one because we have one from the planning commission alright great and I'm on their tack their transportation advisory group and I really really enjoy that okay great so we're going to move on from the regional planning commission the tack Donna you're interested was anyone else interested in the tack okay thank you awesome central Vermont solid waste management I would love to open this up to someone else no one took it last year okay anyone else interested in it we have the appointment we also have an appointment this is the alternate right yes yes I would say alternate although it doesn't have to be okay so that was Lauren that was Lauren alright the community justice center citizen advisory board so that had been me but the meeting times have not really lined up with my work schedule because they're usually between five and five thirty not able to get out of work consistently okay thank you Connor anyone else interested okay alright City Hall art committee I know we weren't terribly active last year well I yes I would like to change the art out so and the hallway there's a lot City Hall could do for us I was waiting for the call last year but we are waiting for you we should make him change I agree I think that's a great idea there you go okay so happy to serve great anybody else interested he'll make our meetings Thursday morning Donna are you still interested in that yes I am okay I'm happy to stick around on that committee too but Glenn you're in charge okay Glenn and Jamie you're in charge there you go Glenn and Jamie okay energy advisory committee I have been that person I'm happy to do it again unless somebody else is interested no that's all you we can have two people can we have two people we can have two I don't think there's any reason not to so let's have a supposed to be there great super awesome alright Harry shared in scholarship I'm at the high school I'm happy to continue to do that unless anybody else is interested tell me what it is just because I don't know it was a scholarship set up for students not peculiar that is as part of the will the executive trustee main trustee I think that's the right word of that scholarship is someone from the city council does that help and it's in it you helped decide who gets it probably the person at the high school would be the best person it does help to know some of the humans beforehand okay so housing task force yeah okay great and the trust fund I think yes but I as I recall we also adopted a new rules of procedure so there may be some some changes in in the makeup but for now why don't we keep me on it okay anybody else interested in that one okay great thank you alright investment committee I am actually I'm willing to step down from that it's been very interesting very educational yeah anyone else interested okay okay okay Montpelier live board has been Connor okay anybody else okay alright the Montpelier foundation I wonder if we should take that's we had some changes in their bylaws this year right so it's the mayor or there still the ex officio discussion alright so oh that's right because what's that did they file yet I don't know so I would just point out that nothing has changed if they haven't filed that fair nonetheless we still get an appointment so anyone interested in that thank you Glenn awesome anybody else interested yes well so if there are two people interested if we only get one I would defer I suspect we only get one when are the meetings well if I'm happy to do it and if the meetings are at such a time that I just there's no feasible way to make it work then I'll take it I'll find you let us know when we revisit it okay parking task force this well this one it was sort of done it was a task force well it did with the demand management strategy but it was also interested in replacement parking for all the construction and I know for myself I seem to phone off the email on that and I have no idea where that is you haven't fallen off the email I think that was when Ken was sort of organizing right yeah we haven't met for ages well and we were going to there was going to be working on some of the ideas there was going to be a strategy for demand management and remember Kevin was like out for a while yeah there were all kinds of reasons but also we did hear that GMT was looking at the demand management on demand management we were excited about that we have found you know one of the issues was finding a place for a couple of plots and we found that but we're still I'm trying to get someone who said they would lease parking and now won't respond to me so well so one question is like do we still need this task force not as a formal group I don't we can always reform it later as demand I'm just really concerned that we can we're not further along with facing what we need during the construction season if everything we're planning happens we're going to need some really coordinated parking instructions to that's fair I mean I wonder if there's also some reason to follow up just on the demand management side I already reached out actually this week to the head of GMT asked him for an update and I'm going back this really seems like something that can be an administrative function rather than a public policy function like committee just really needs to happen the micro transit is meeting and fits into this kind of demand management and demand transit but it's not going to happen in time for any construction in 2019 or probably 2020 I guess my can we hear different things about that okay so I'm inclined to agree with you actually Donna but we hear from some other sources that it could be this summer and so I've actually like I said I just reached out yesterday to Mark Souza from GMT and said what's the story I keep hearing these different you know well why don't we keep it as a group and so just so that you know if or when there's a need for to discuss there's you know people who are involved I'm happy to stay on it you too yes anyone else interested in that committee okay so should it be needed we're around what you know to review any of that okay social and economic justice advisory committee so I had been and I think the meetings are Tuesdays some somewhere on Mondays which I cannot do and some are on Tuesdays so I haven't been able to make all of the meetings I am interested cool change or yeah I can show up when I can show up but I don't feel as though like it's reasonable for me to represent that anyone could depend on me religiously making it to every meeting when that's sort of when the time that works for everybody else's I don't think there's any a harm in you know if it's Lauren and you still want to show up it's a public meeting okay okay so we'll assume it's Lauren on point there transportation infrastructure committee I'm still interested in it I can invite other people to come and join us others I'm kind of interested in that too yeah well it is our committee we can have more people oh our own transportation committee so we can have three people when does the committee meet it meets on the first Tuesday of the month except for town meeting day and there's a couple other holidays hit on the first Tuesday first Tuesday in the month at 6 p.m. 6 to 7 30 oh okay so yeah because the ADA committee meets during the work day on the first Tuesday but that's fine okay so I heard three people for that one A okay did we get that so it's Donna Glennon Jack great alright excuse me the T.W. Wood board I think according to their bylaws I you know I'm on the committee but I generally can't go I've been going it's good I'm happy to continue great anyone else okay super thank you water rate study committee is this still a thing Connor how's it going nope it's not a thing let's just take it off let's just take that off the list okay okay so is there a motion to approve the appointments as discussed so moved second for the discussion okay all in favor please say aye aye opposed okay I do have one thing one of the things that I think at least in my experience some of the newer committees have struggled with this sort of like a purpose you know when when there's not already an established directive and I'm wondering if we could just maybe try to pencil in for the next county or sort of when committees there are various groups that that council members are part of could provide like either just a written update to the council or just just in some ways people know in advance like hey this is the month when the council wants to hear from you like what is happening or you know just just kind of doing that like check in with with some degree of like expectation like this is the month or this is the meeting that we'll be presenting at and you know here's here's a written summary because you know we only do something every two years and you know this is maybe not here or whatever it might be it just so that so that the council is kept abreast of what's ongoing because not all of us I mean there it's not conceivable that we all know what's going to be asked of us later and that might help to keep the public engaged this actually reminds me yes I ask that we're there doing our evaluation that it's really important that we have regular check in with our community so one possibility is that I mean we've all I'm sorry did we just vote we did just vote we did just vote okay we've all just been appointed to these committees one possibilities that either during our either as a separate agenda item or during our council reports that you know that we're hearing from you during that time as to what's happening on that committee you know what's like the two you know two sentence update as to what you what that committee's been working on and John do you have something more to add? I'm probably looking sour I just found that I do that I use my council report I don't think it's very effective because everybody wants to leave it's the last thing you want to hear the last thing you seem to absorb so it's a beginning but I just don't think it's really effective way and particularly as Ashley was talking about it's a give and take it's sharing but it's also hearing where the council is on certain things that our committee is talking about well I think you can do both you know I way back when we established having council reps in all these committees part of the goal was that the council members could keep the other council folks updated so probably we could do that at the council reports but also scheduled times when the committee comes in we have a more focused conversation so in the meantime as as things are happening you say well you know we're talking about this especially if it's something that might be coming up in the future it's like well you know just so you know this committee might have something in a couple months so just you know it's coming that is a chance for the council to wait a minute what's that about maybe we want that so I'm feeling the both there right like let's try to have updates during our council reports from the committees but also let's have some intentional time to have updates from committees okay super further thoughts on that okay so we have an appointment to make this is to the Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District I think we have one applicant Ellen and one seat though you were the alternate but it this is a little confusing to me because you were we also just appointed you the council as the alternate okay as the alternate I mean Ellen's very good actually doesn't mind being the alternate the thing is you get all the mailings you can get on the list for the Solid Waste District Lauren you get all the mailings and then and probably get about two or three times you can actually go and have a vote but you can always go some of the discussions are really very meaningful to be there and be present so I would make the motion that we appoint Alan Cheney as the rep on the Central Vermont Solid Waste Management and Lauren as the alternate second further discussion Alan favorite oh yeah Ellen works with me and I can just tell you that Ellen is very enthusiastic about this stuff she's very committed to this to this area and I think she's she's really good for this awesome great further discussion are you all in favor please say aye opposed super thank you Lauren and we'll pass on our thanks to Ellen so and when you let the Solid Waste District know make sure they get contact information for Lauren if you would is your city do you have your city email okay we have one more appointment to make Kate McCann was the only applicant for two vacant seats on the Transportation Infrastructure Committee I'd like to move to appoint Kate McCann to the Montpelier Transportation Infrastructure Committee second further discussion all in favor please say aye opposed so there was one vacant seat you are appointed three council members one so you could leave the other one vacant actually three vacant seats just fill two of the three okay so we don't actually need to oh I'm sorry thank you for that clarification that was not clear I don't think they all got reported that was the organization I was asking Garrett about when it okay perfect it's we have no other regular this is so council reports so just so you know Lauren's time for councilors to share pretty much anything really so we'll start with Donna we'll go around this way okay so the Infrastructure Committee has just approved funding of $5200 towards a covered bike rack that will go out here where the current bike rack is in front of City Hall or the side of the front of City Hall and the Complete Streets Committee really has been the one taking the initiative and work with Northfield University to get a design at one point Norwich is going to do the labor but they're not now so we may have to make some collaborative to make this bike rack work at $5200 but it's in the works and they'll probably you'll be hearing more about it likewise the parks has a new member of us who got elected I'm not remembering her name right now is it it's Cassie but she's from North Wilderness Adventures and has a lot of experience so it will really enhance our parks commission a lot very good so lots of good things happening there and within the Regional Planning Commission TAC Montpellier Bridges are the top three of the four and that's due to Tom Castle really working with me and working with the Regional Planning Commission of Give and Take because it's all the regional bridges competing for this very small amount of money so if Montpellier does any lobbying that they should increase this small fund of money for bridges and roads for towns it's really important it hasn't changed for dozens of years among the highest priorities on the lead I mean if you can imagine the Regional Planning Commission is dealing with that's it all 23 towns are fighting over this and they do it very well very politely but it's just not enough funds thank you alright thank you for your confidence in appointing me to the investment committee as you remember back in January we made a motion to engage ESG experts to look at divesting from different groups that would violate labor rights, human rights or good citizenship or also run afoul of environmental justice so I do have a group of experts who would be willing to come in and talk to us so they would certainly bring Todd in the mix but if anybody else wants to join us that would be great set that up in the next couple weeks here also some things coming down the pike I have a socially responsible contractor ordinance I started looking at it so we would bring that up at a future meeting just to run some of the ideas by you and the scooter survey is back working with Sue now to develop a robust public input process going forward talk about the future of scooters as you may know Burlington is looking at this state a whole process that I think we can borrow from a bit but it looks like they are going with a company called Acha which also does electric bikes and I think golf carts so just a few things in the pipeline there thanks very much I'm going to report from my committee the Wood Board and Donna I want to say it's true that sometimes I want to leave at the end when we're in council reports but sometimes I want to leave at the beginning so I think there's no terrible difference yeah but no thank you so reporting from the T.W. Wood Gallery they are in the middle of a search for a new executive director after a couple of years Ginny Callan is stepping down and I would well I'm really looking forward to that process applications are due on Friday I think that's the 15th and it's an exciting time for the Wood they're also working on an elevator for the building the Center for Arts and Learning it's a I think it's a four-storey building and the elevator is going to have five stops and it's not going to stop on the top floor because two buildings tack together so it's surprisingly expensive for a short elevator but they are working hard and it should be great and there are a couple of great shows up at the Wood right now including a show of paintings by local Ray Brown and not this Thursday but the following Thursday there will be a film premiere of a movie by Nat Winthrop on Ray Brown's painting in his life at the Wood you should all go I think it's five to seven Thursday next week at the Wood I was really pleased to see in the report this past Friday that there's a really cool snow plow tracker online that DPW is setting up and I'm not sure if it's officially fully launched yet but you can find it and I think that's great and I will be at Bagheados as usual tomorrow morning 8.30 to 9.30 if anyone has anything they would like to talk about I would just like to thank all District 3 who came out to vote on town meeting day and I am very aware of some of the significant concerns that people have raised about the energy efficiency ballot item and I have had lots of conversations with folks about this and did my best to explain what I envision as being the path forward from that and so I just want to put out there that I would like to start those conversations as soon as possible just in terms of even what the council was thinking with this because I think with community collaboration and input I think stakeholders together a lot earlier on in the process I would even say we should probably do that before it even comes up to go to the legislature next session I think those conversations are really worthwhile I have a lot of friends who have been looking for places to live here and there's very few options in terms of rentals and so I just want everybody to know that the margin was small but that with the council support and with community support and just really bringing everybody together up front to talk about concerns and figure out a path forward together we could do some really meaningful work it wasn't on the agenda tonight but I will can report on what's going on with the ADA committee the committee has been going through a process of evaluating all of the municipal properties in the city and retained a consultant to review all the properties in the city and come up with a plan for what needs to be done to bring everything into compliance with the ADA and it's everything from city hall to the public works garage to Hubbard Park and the and the swimming pool literally everything and so we've got a table working on setting priorities for all the upgrades some of the upgrades are are cheap to free and some of them are very expensive so it's we're developing a plan within the next probably in April or May we'll be coming to the council to make a presentation with the plan being that we would have a plan in place by June 1st I believe and so there's a lot of good work that's been done already and keep your eye open for it. Well I'm really excited to be here and appreciative of the voters in district one and really have a lot to learn so please anyone contact me anytime I info's up on the city council website and would love to just learn about issues that you all care about and that we might be working on so look forward to just kind of rolling up my sleeves and getting to work and you know I bring a background in environmental issues and really interested in racial justice economic inequality issues also bringing the perspective of having young children as you saw at the beginning my loud and rambunctious children so you know how we're making the city a great place for young families so really look forward to working with you all and excited to be here. Great so I would just add congratulations again on your re-election and welcome Lauren I know I said that at the beginning but it's worth repeating so glad to have you all here again or for the first time so just to update a little bit about the energy committee that I've been on we're working on lots of different things so I won't get into a lot of it I mean it's everything from like projects that are potentials for the Green Revolving Loan Fund to continuing to be in touch with people from the water resource recovery facility project to help make sure that that's going smoothly or staying updated on that there's a lot of talk about biodiesel right now as a potential for fleet vehicles as well as for heating buildings and there's a lot of logistic questions around both of those those things that we think may be able to be worked out so we're excited about biodiesel as a potential so more about that hopefully soon we're super excited that we've got a facilities slash energy person coming on board during this next fiscal year or I guess that's yeah right now it is the next fiscal year and I guess that's I'll leave it at that for now lots of work going on around weatherization like window dressers to like help make those more energy efficient anyway so there's lots of great things happening and I also want to quickly address the Article 14 again the energy efficiency article that was on the ballot so I also want to thank everybody who came out to vote on that and I was actually very grateful for the dialogue that happened around that as well and I'm actually really excited to start having these public conversations about where we go from here and so I agree with Councillor Hill as to getting started with those dialogues with those conversations and the fellow who is here Richard Faizie from a group called the energy futures group may be interested in helping to facilitate some public meetings around that so just like we have a partnership with the Vermont River Conservancy to conduct public meetings around visioning for the river a specific part of the river this may be a useful partnership in helping to just start hosting meetings and framing meetings and bringing people together stakeholders and they're also a group that has some expertise in energy efficiency policy so that's this is one possibility and so anyway regardless I'm looking forward to having some specific public forums about just that so separate from a council meeting separate from you know not relegating it to the committee but having some evenings that are just dedicated to talking about that and we'll frame that up take that feedback and then hopefully come up with some ideas and come back to the public and vet it again and you know just go through some iterative process there you know knowing that we have values of both energy efficiency and keeping Montpelier affordable you know we want to see how we can be addressing both of those things so I guess I'll leave it there for now do you have a question I'm just saying okay great okay we'll look for your story on that tomorrow excellent thank you so yeah straight about that and times are I guess coming out tomorrow okay super hi everybody so we had a very successful town meeting day last week on Tuesday everything went very smoothly the voter participation that we saw in November was historic and I think everywhere in Vermont despite you know the fact that things like automatic voter registration and same day voter registration are really increasing turnout for bigger elections like general elections in November all of us are struggling a little bit with you know just ways to keep up participation and meeting days in general on an annual basis so I encourage any and all of you if you have any ideas about how to keep up voter participation and not even keep it up but encourage it in future elections to bring it to the clerk's office please also on the two charter changes that were voted for by the citizens of Montpelier in November they passed their first two hurdles in the legislature recently the legislative council did not vote them on unconstitutional so we are moving forward thank you so much great I've got a couple things one talk to the mayor talk to our consultant about the strategic planning sessions on April 15th and 16th and I think they will be very similar to last year the evening times on Monday and Tuesday nights the first night would be just the council would be somewhat similar to what we did last year although you call last year with three new council members and two people that only been on one year so we spent a lot of time sort of get to know you and all that I think we'll do that because we do have a new member but we'll probably be a little shorter review the strategic plan we did last year see how we want to update it or if we want to start from scratch those kinds of things and maybe start putting more of the meat on the bones that first Monday night and then that gives the staff the chance on Tuesday day to react to that and offer comments or suggestions those kind of things and then Tuesday night might have to find a better room than the last year but it would be all of you with the department and we're going to invite the chairs of some of the key committees so that they can be part of it because we're all planning the same way and particularly since we're doing a new city plan our master plan this year so that's how that's shaping up this is sort of informational but somewhat of a question some of you are aware that the school has put out RFP for after-school programs and our REC department has been preparing one and we've been working soon and I've been working with them to do that and it occurred to us as we were talking about it today that we had never actually run that up the flagpole past you folks so it's two Friday so basically this is A informing you that we intend to do that and B please tell us if we shouldn't so I think it's good you know we have the facilities they have a licensed state care program now we would plan to use a lot of the same community connections people and have been in touch with them so we thought it would be good to have a local city organization that's making a proposal to give the school board that option I would just say knowing with young children that there's a shortage of child care available at the school and for after-school care that seems like a great thing and I know there's changes happening at the school itself two thumbs up Bill can you go back to the retreat Monday and Tuesday at one point you said leave it the 17th to we will not be using the evening of the 17th so are we going to try to get together with the park commission through this facilitator I think the parks commission would be at the or at least a representative of the parks commission would be at the night of the 16th I would felt that we had promised a real get together with the whole council and the whole park commission when we talked with them earlier we can do that I don't know we just don't I think she's flying out on the 17th so I just don't know if we would be able to do it that evening unless we can do a daytime one which I doubt but we can schedule another one we could get a different facilitator meeting facilitator I would propose that we do something the whole commission and the whole council so if it's not then we should start to schedule something right are the only one remembering that no we don't talk about doing that I have one more thing just quickly we're not pushing any panic buttons but we would say that it's supposed to warm up on Friday and have rain get into the 50s there is a lot of snow ice is still pretty thick on the river USGS tells us about one and a half feet thick which can break up into big chunks so we did have an emergency team meeting today call with the national weather service we're doing it again Friday we'll be sending out notices probably from on alert just reminding people that if you have a basement that floods maybe get your stuff out this is the time of year that these things happen of course we never know we don't think conditions will this weekend but you never know so we're just so you know we're in active planning mode in active sort of alert and assigning people to have duty and monitoring everything that's going on like I said we're not pushing the panic button yet but people should be aware that there is a lot of snow a lot of things that could melt the river and that there's thick ice so we need either the snow to drop or the ice to get thinner or both our channels to open up so the ice has a place to go so hope for good sugaring whether warm during the day then night to slow things up and then melt some more gradually I have a tech question I really appreciated Jamie posting on front porch form about Vermont Alert because some people don't realize that but within Vermont Alert you have to mark flooding to get some flooding announcements and alerts do you know for sure that when you put yours out it doesn't go in that category we have several so I'd have to defer to the experts there are several categories that we can choose from including like everybody so we because as a user you hit transportation storms, thunder, flooding and I didn't know if people had to know that in order to get it so that's all I had so we did have an anticipated executive session tonight which I believe requires two motions correct I move that the council find that there's an issue relating to litigation that premature general public knowledge would place the public body at a substantial disadvantage further discussion all in favor please say aye opposed if you have further comments if you have any details of fine time it's okay it's okay one of them is the serious situation that the D&W construction has created the drawing board the people continuing to park next to the drawing board and that narrow drive and I've had to pull in there meet an oncoming car have to back out into traffic and I've seen a lot of people do that some people parking where they're not supposed to blocking the drive the D&W is using way more than they need of that M&M property for snow storage and culvert pipe storage I think it would be within our reasonable to request they make that a two lane constrain it in so that there's two lanes also the potholes are so deep a wagon and horses couldn't get through there right now is that sorry to interrupt you I don't know who the plan is I don't know whose responsibility to level that are we on the land is the drive immediately adjacent to the drawing board yeah that's all it needs some attention secondly the ability to feed meters when you have to climb up on a snow bank and I did get one ticket for giving but I challenged it I wanted that to go on record but it should be an incentive that we need a clear policy on what whether meters are enforceable when you can't get into them in street shoes in the ADA category that Jack mentioned our sidewalks are extremely unlevel and unsafe right now in a lot of places some of it's due to frost teams some of it's due to age and nearby state I just saw somebody got a personal half a million dollar judgment on sidewalks but I'd also encourage you to look up the 60 minutes episode a month or two back where one town an architect lost his sight and maintained his architectural practice in designing sidewalks that have the grooves so that we could become a blind friendly town to an nth degree just with textures and grooves that help people find their way around both the smart and constructive way to reclaim art both of those are quality life issues thank you thank you cool yeah thank you Jack I move we go into executive session pursuant to one VSA section 313A1 for the purpose of discussing pending civil litigation to which the city is a party second before we vote I just want everybody to know that we will not be coming out to take any further action so okay all in favor please say aye pose okay great thank you everybody