 to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Okay, Jenny. So we have several items here. We have Hickok and River, formerly Ticks Market, Wicked Wings, Last Stop, Morning Light Bakery, Scouts, and Mule Bar for a conditional approval. These are all existing businesses that we have seen before. Do you have any details or comments to share about any of these? No, no. All right. Are there any concerns or questions from Council? I guess I was just wondering why it's a conditional approval. Because I wasn't sure there were two vendors. Gotcha. I was just waiting to see which one there was. I thought it was gonna be Mule Bar and it ended up being Mule Bar, but. Awesome. Thank you. Any questions from members of the public about any of these tobacco or alcohol endorsements? Restaurant renewals. Okay. I would entertain a motion then to approve all regular items A through F. So moved. Second. Motion by Bryn, second by Aurora. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. One minute. Motion carries, thank you. Thanks. That is the end of the liquor control board agenda. Do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Motion by Bryn, second by Charlie. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. 6.05 p.m., I will call to order the Winnieski City Council meeting. First up is agenda review. Any concerns about the order of this evening's agenda? No. Okay, hearing none, I will move to public comment. So public comment is meant for, comments from members of the public on any item that is not on this evening's agenda. So if you are here for an agenda item such as the public hearing, I would ask you to hold on that. Is there anyone here for public comment on items not on tonight's agenda? Okay. So let's move on to our consent agenda. We have quite a few items. We have our city council and liquor control board minutes from our August meeting. Payroll warrants from July and August and accounts payable. Adjustments related to the code enforcement department change that we approved at the last meeting. Commission appointments for housing and municipal infrastructure. Our Vermont League of Cities and Towns annual meeting building delegates. Establish certificates and amendments of pilot agreement for 25 Winnieski Falls Way. A minor change to the housing trust fund language. The Lot 7D Winnieski Falls East Agreement authorization and the Winnieski Pride Event Permanent application which we would want to make a conditional approval pending their liquor. So with all of that, are there questions on any of the consent agenda items? Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. Second. Motion by Aurora, second by Charlie. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries, thank you. Okay, council reports. Can I start with you, Charlie? If you need a moment. I do. Aurora, let's start on the next. Okay, sounds good. So I have a brief updates for safe, healthy, connected people, the commission chair, three staff liaisons and I met to come up with a plan for commission meetings through March. All these plans are tentative. The goal is to have more structure and that's a better idea on how we should, on if or how we might invite other commissions to join us in discussing a particular item. The commission hopes that maybe a similar work plan structure might be put together for other commissions to work on eliminating some of the feeling of being siloed so we can connect better on items that go across commissions. For inclusion and belonging, the interim commission chair, staff liaison and I held two interviews for our two open commission seats. We hope appointing the commissioners will be on the next agenda. Alternate seats are still open though for anyone interested. The commission also met at a rescheduled meeting on August 24th where the commission was provided an update on the stipend policy, discuss ways to recruit members in the future and ways to share information about the equity audit in more accessible formatting. So airport commission is meeting tomorrow. It's always the first Wednesday of the month hybrid so it's in person at the airport in the right room or online as people can attend. It starts at 4 p.m. Regular items that are always covered include sound insulation progress, noise complaints and there will be an additional item on tomorrow's agenda focusing on the noise exposure map update. So looking at getting a work plan together and reviewed, looking at proposed committee members for that update as well. So it looks like there will be some proposals to include a representative for Wyniewski School District and potentially others beyond the city manager for that committee. So further discussions there. There's a public hearing on September 14th at Chamberlain Elementary School. The bulk of that agenda will go towards reviewing some park improvements around the airport. There may be an agenda item to have some preliminary public feedback on the noise exposure map update but they haven't posted a agenda for that meeting just yet. The bridge committee, the Wyniewski Bridge Committee had a kickoff meeting last week and the first public hearing you would have seen that in Wyniewski social media, front porch forum and city updates. That public hearing is September 19th at the O'Brien Community Center from six to 8 p.m. I'm sure we'll hear more from city staff about that. But it looks like a really awesome group of committee members, representatives from V-Trans, should in TCRPC, should in County Regional Planning Commission. So many acronyms and our city staff were in attendance as well as many other committee members. We look forward to having continued conversation about what that looks like in the coming weeks ahead. The Municipal Infrastructure Commission met on August 17th. We welcomed our new members and the bulk of the meeting was covering the Fountain Dyan Street scoping and improvements. So there's likely to be some short-term improvements as well as longer-term improvements. So there was so much discussion, we actually really only were able to review the short-term improvements recommended by the end of the meeting. Our next meeting is September 21st. We don't have an agenda set for that just yet but look for announcements from the city as that, as that is set before the 21st. That's it. Thank you. Last month's Finance Commission meeting meant to review the proposed sidewalk use changes that we saw from staff earlier this year that is now on tonight's agenda, so I won't go into detail there. We'll talk about that later. The Planning Commission continued discussion of a new design review district and commission, which would add a layer to the project permitting process focused on retaining historic buildings and structures. A district would be established with a minouski where all proposed renovation, demolition, or new construction projects would be reviewed by a new design review commission, and I'm probably getting the actual specific name wrong but essentially a commission, to advise on the design of any changes to historic or culturally significant structures. The commission has been looking where exactly a minouski they would like to implement a district based on locations of known historic structures. A district was not finalized. That discussion is gonna continue at the next meeting, September 13th, Thursday, September 14th at 6.30 p.m. And there was interest in asking staff to explore if there is a legal way to actually apply the process specifically to identified historic structures versus everything within the area. So we should be getting more information on that at the next meeting. Those meetings are primarily held on Zoom, although you can come to City Hall. The deputy mayor and I both attended events at the minouski school district to welcome new teachers and staff to kick off the school year, continuing on our efforts to strengthen partnership with the school and the city. And my housing round table group, including the minouski housing authority, Champlain Housing Trust, Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, the minouski school district, and folks from UVM Health had their monthly meeting in August as well. We're able to hear from our housing initiative director and share insight on priorities as she work plans. So when that work plan is finalized, we'll see the results of that. That's it from me, Charlie. Thanks. So the minouski housing commission met last month and first off, I wanna send out a thanks to Robert Miller for his service. He stepped down as our chair and Jessica Bridge has offered her skills in the role and was voted in unanimously. Jack Como as well will be our new vice chair and Anna Wajling is serving as our secretary. The commission reviewed the director's work plan for 2023 and moved on to beginning work on the first three priorities on the work plan. The commission discussed possibilities of how the minouski home improvement plan and Vermont Housing Improvement Program funds could work together to have the most impact for our residents. The commission requested approval on a language change after the last meeting wherein the down payment assistance program would allow multiplexes beyond two units for qualifying participants. This was approved by council today. The minouski housing initiatives director provided the group with an extensive packet describing the short-term rental market in minouski. The information included various ways other municipalities are working to create better housing stock and stability for their communities. And the commission spent the majority of the end of our last meeting discussing possible solutions and incentives around the various impacts that the STR model has had and potential outcomes of those solutions. The commission continues to work on ideas for funding the minouski housing trust fund as well. Our next meeting is September 26th and we're setting the agenda for that meeting next Tuesday. All right, thank you Charlie. Thomas. Down payment is he has been very busy getting ready for our pride celebration this Saturday. But in other things that they're up to right now there is a window going on. They're going to be doing that every Tuesday. So next week it will be at Grazers at 6 p.m. Tomorrow night, Wednesday in the park I will be starting at five o'clock. So hopefully you can attend that. And then like I said before, our pride will be this Saturday starting at 4 p.m. If you're interested in volunteering please reach out to downtown minouski. And for more information, you can go to downtown minouski.org for all of the events that they're doing for the rest of this summer. All right, thank you. We'll move to city updates, Elaine. Yeah, so I'll tack on to Thomas's update about the pride event. It is family friendly. It's free, open to all includes performances, musical guests, food vendors, and educational story hour and a lot more. The minouski River Bridge replacement project, first public meeting that Reno's alluding to that has been announced. The project has been announced. It's a partnership between the Vermont Agency of Transportation and the cities of Burlington and minouski which are co-owners of the bridge. We aim to begin reconstruction of that bridge that connects our communities in 2027. Until then, lots of public input opportunities will be available. That first public meeting again is on Tuesday, September 19th at 6 p.m. at the O'Brien Community Center here in minouski. You're invited to come and learn about the project, ask questions and get involved in the process. Interpretation will be provided in Nepali, Somali, Arabic, Swahili, and potentially Mai-Mai, still looking to book that language. A virtual attendance option is also available as well as light refreshments and limited childcare. For more information, you can visit the project page at Burlington minouski bridge.vetransprojects.vermont.gov or you can go to our website at minouskivet.gov slash news. Street sweeping in minouski, Public Works has begun that effort on August 22nd. It's taking place every Tuesday through Friday for the next 30 to 45 days. No parking signs and traffic cones are deployed along curb line, green belts, and sidewalks on the day before Public Works and tends to perform the street sweeping work. Once in place, once those cones in place, street parking is prohibited from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Residents and visitors are asked to keep an eye out for the signs when parking on the street. And thank you for your patience while we work to improve your municipal infrastructure. For more information on this project, you can visit our website at minouskivet.gov slash news. And in related news, the contractor that provides minouski with line striping, everybody's favorite, has begun their scheduled work. And while this is weather dependent, they are aiming to have this completed by the end of the fall. Now hiring, we have some exciting employment opportunities on our jobs page right now, including a pre-certified police officer, a part-time code enforcement officer, and a part-time fire inspector slash firefighter. You can learn more and apply at minouskivet.gov slash jobs or call 802-655-6410. Please join a city commission. The city of minouski is seeking engaged and dedicated residents to serve on our advisory commissions. These opportunities are an excellent way to get involved in the public process. Applicants with related experience, skill sets, and interests are encouraged to apply. Council and staff do welcome diverse voices. If you've never served, we will do our best to support you. Current vacancies can be found on the city's website and minouskivet.gov slash news. 2023, Myers Memorial Pool season has officially ended and I'd like to take a moment to thank our recreation and parks and pool staff, our lifeguards and everyone who has come and enjoyed the pool and enjoyed it responsibly. Over 1,000 kids passed the swim ready test required to get into the pool this year, which was a great accomplishment. Congratulations, all 1,000. And we were delighted to see people of all ages enjoying the facility. And the next blood drive at the senior center is on September 15th, 12 to 5 p.m. You can sign up at minouskivet.gov slash news. Finally done. Thank you. Okay, we're on to regular items. First up is the public hearing for amendments to the unified land use and development regulations. Eric, given how many folks we have here, would you be willing to do a summary again? Sure. Of the changes before we open to comment? Yep, absolutely. And just as a refresher for council at our last discussion of this topic, we said we wanted to hold a hearing to get public input before we had further discussion. So I realize there's a lot of new information here tonight, but we didn't actually warn it for the sort of debate we're moving forward. We'll be basically closing this out by directing staff on do we need another hearing? Do we need more information or do we just want to bring this back and make a decision at the next meeting? Okay. All right. Okay, thank you very much. So yes, as the mayor mentioned, this is an item on for public hearing tonight to review draft amendments to various sections of the unified land use and development regulations. At your last meeting on, sorry, at your meeting on July 17th, we had a detailed discussion about the proposed changes. There were some concerns raised by council. Following that meeting, the chair of the planning commission and myself met with mayor and deputy mayor to talk about those concerns in a bit more detail and to try to find out a little bit more information on what could be provided to help alleviate the concerns. Based on that discussion, there is an additional document that's included with the agenda tonight related to a comparison of what's currently in place for the regulations and what the proposed regulations would do as far as impacts are concerned. Additionally, based on those conversations, there was some additional or some potential changes to the draft language for consideration. Those are included in the full report and are highlighted in green in various sections. And I'm happy to go through those items if you all would like. I can do that now or after you take public comment, whichever you prefer. And then additionally, at the meeting on the 17th, there was a request for information on the impacts of how Act 47, the Homes Act, also known as S100, would impact the proposed changes. So try to highlight some of those items specifically in the third memo that is included with your agenda tonight. So at this point, because the planning commission did hold a public hearing and forwarded on to you all for consideration, this public hearing, if anything were to happen, formal action would need to be taken to either send it back to the planning commission for additional review and discussion or any changes that you make, depending on if they're minor or not, could be included directly and adopted by you all. Or if they're more substantive, what would happen is the planning commission would need to update the report and then that would come back to you. The planning commission wouldn't automatically get to discuss any proposed changes to the regulations that might come from your discussions. So as I mentioned, I'm happy to walk through some of the proposed changes that are included with this attachment or step aside and take comments. Could you do a quick summary of what the initial changes are that are proposed? Sure, yeah, so there's a few changes throughout. Most of the ones that are being proposed are related to parking in particular. So this is gonna start on document page 33, PDF page 15, which is under section 4.12 for parking. The first, I'd say, kind of bigger change is under part B, the applicability. The last sentence or the last part of the sentence in that section, I believe is a carryover from a previous version. So what I'm proposing is that we strike the language so that it basically ends at the sentence would end as the regulations in this section shall apply to all zoning districts except the downtown core zoning district, period. What this additional language does is basically exempts the gateway district as it's written now from section F, which is accessible parking, section G, which is the bicycle parking, which also has implications on some of the proposed reductions with the transportation demand management strategies. It would exempt it from changes of use so there would be more requirements for changes of use in the gateway. It would exempt it from the dimensional standards of how large a parking space can actually be and the surface parking requirements as well or the surface treatments of parking as identified in sections F, G, H, I, and J. So proposing to delete the last part of that sentence. The next change that would have an impact is on document page 37, PDF page 19 under section E, incentives for reduced parking. This would include the option for properties in the central business district to take advantage of the underground parking incentive. Previously it was only being identified for properties in the form-based code. This would expand that to allow more properties in the central business district if they're able to take advantage of the underground parking provision. The next change is on page 38 of the document PDF page 20 under item four for required bicycle parking, sorry, under item G for required bicycle parking. It would add a sub-part four that would allow for an existing short-term bicycle facility to be counted towards the requirement of short-term parking if it met the same requirements that's included for the short-term parking. So if there were, if there was a rack of some kind nearby that could be used with, provided that it could be approved by the Department of Public Works or their designee. Next on document page 39, PDF page 21, there's some amendments to the specific items of bicycle parking, in particular under multi-unit dwellings, a reduction from one space per dwelling unit to one space per two bedrooms. And then a, I guess I'd say an increase in the square footage requirement for the industrial from 10,000 square feet to 20,000 square feet, an increase on a community center cultural facility, a religious facility from 1,000 square feet to 2,000 square feet, and an increase on funeral home from 1,000 square feet to 2,000 square feet. There would also be some renumbering in this section because it's inconsistent with the previous section. And then finally on document page 40, PDF page 22, under what is showing as subsection four, where the location of bicycle parking, a item Roman numeral four would be proposed to be added that would allow for a short-term parking to be located in the city's right-of-way with approval from the Department of Public Works. That way if there's a location that is specifically lacking that could provide the benefit of multiple properties or multiple uses and that ideal location would be in the right-of-way, this would allow for that to happen. Those are the, I'd say the primary changes, actually that's pretty much all the changes that are being proposed with this latest draft. And for the public benefit, would it be fair to say that the proposed parking changes, they do not impact residential, we're not changing the minimums in residential. We are making some new standards and adjusting down in commercial uses. And we are increasing bicycle parking and then adjusting some incentives for priority housing. Yeah, I would say that's right. With the caveat that the residential parking and that's for non-multi-unit dwellings. So for single, two-unit and then basically three and four-unit buildings, Act 47 will require us to make changes to that portion of the parking regulations as well, but that's not being incorporated. That came after all the work was done on these regulations. So we'll also need to make changes in other areas of the regulations based on Act 47. So it's intended that a second set of amendments to address Act 47 specifically would come to you all as a package. Okay. In general, in the second document, the comparison document, basically there is either gonna be no change to the existing standard or a net reduction in the required parking for some specific uses. Okay. With that sort of summary table setting in place. So a public hearing has been noticed for the consideration of amendments to the unified land use and development regulations. At this time, I'd like to open the public hearing. So we'll take comment from everyone who's here to make comment or online. We'll start in the room. And then when comment is over, we'll close the hearing and then we'll have that input to use moving forward. Do we have anyone sign up in advance for in-person? Paul, do you know? Nobody signed up in advance, but we can certainly do, as you said, take the comments in the room and then head over to the attendees list here on Zoom. I'm sorry, I didn't hear in the end of that. Nobody signed up, but we can do as you outlined with people in the room and then switch over to attendees on Zoom. Okay. Who would like to go first? Welcome. Oh, and then please state your name for the record. Russell Sheet and on the planning commission. And I'm here just to speak briefly about the effort that's gone into writing the regulations that have been placed in front of you. Much of my tenure here on the commission has been on perking. That's a total time stack and a lot of energy and effort, including bi-monthly meetings, have been conducted in order to get the best standard we think to put forth. And I want to just highlight that in the many considerations and public meetings we had throughout that process to get public input that were incorporated into the job that you see. I will also say that throughout that entire process, the one lever that we were told that we could use to get the type of development we want in Winooski is through incentives for parking reductions. So throughout the document you're looking at and the previously approved document that you're looking at, the way that we have incorporated the, what's in our master plan, right? Family size housing, three plus bedroom housing, which is not being built, affordable housing, which is not being built, underground parking, getting charging stations, having transportation demand management, so actually viable ways for people to get around outside of a single occupancy vehicle. All of these have been incorporated into these documents through incentives. And if we don't have parking to reduce, then they're meaningless. So I would say that we had so much back and forth and everything that's put in front of you is either as is or reduction. There's no increase in parking and meaningful decreases in parking and very meaningful incentives to get three plus bedroom housing, affordable housing, underground parking, transportation, demand management programs in Winooski that allow people to be outside of single occupancy vehicles. All of that is gone if we reduce them further and we are very aware of the act that came out and how will impact future regulations here in Winooski and across the city. And I ask you all to consider giving us the time and space to go through all of the other pieces that reducing the parking minimums so that we don't have, so that we have further incentives that are meaningful and not meaningless. And we have until December 2024, I don't think we'll need that much time to get up to the standards, but I do think that it needs to be looked at holistically. And I was disappointed to watch when you guys originally looked at this and were sort of calling into question the process, the folks involved, the intention. I know that everybody on the planning commission loves Winooski and is looking to create and continue creating vibrant places for Winooski and future residents to be and we're constantly being pressured by people who don't live here but have developments here or want to develop here to do stuff that's profitable to them but is not necessarily in the interests of Winooski long-term. So what I will finish is saying that a hugely long two-plus year public process of five monthly meetings with lots of participation. So please don't change it lightly based on anecdotes. I will speak for myself. I know others have expertise in the planning commission, but I have a master's in urban planning and policy. My entire 15 years of my career has been devoted to getting people out of vehicles and into walking and biking and busing as primary modes. And I come at the parking thing really wanting to not have parking but to do it in a meaningful way and not to give public spaces the right of way, our streets over to private vehicle parking for developer gain and actually put in bike facilities and complete sidewalks and do it right and do it in an order that actually benefits the residents and not only the developers. So thank you. Thanks, Abby. I do want to share the follow-up conversation that Eric mentioned with the chair and the deputy mayor and I did bring to light what you just brought up about the incentives. And I think that was missing in our initial discussion and it's easier for us to see that in the documents that have been shared this evening too. So I want to recognize that. Next, you want to come up? Sure. We'll just go in order. My name is Ryan Smith. I do have some properties in Winooski. I was a resident of Winooski for 12 years, recently moved in 2018 and own a business in Winooski. I agree with most of what Abby just said. The one thing that I would say is that we need more housing and my personal opinion is it doesn't matter what size the housing is, that the more housing we have, that will help us solve the housing problem. And one of the burdens to adding units to the properties, especially in the size that I do, which is much different than I think what Abby's alluding to with the developments, is that I mostly do like one to four unit buildings and some of the properties that I have in Winooski, I would want to add additional units too. And specifically the standards for adding units in that size, the one to four unit space, it's very hard to meet the parking requirements with the size lots that we have now. And so I'm pretty excited for the opportunities that are gonna be offered to Winooski through the new act that was passed. So I would encourage at a minimum if Winooski does want more units to reduce the need for the number of parking spots for adding units in that space at a minimum. I don't know as much about the larger development stuff, it's not what I do. But I do think that Winooski needs more housing. And I think that it doesn't matter what size, the more units we add, the more people will be serviced. And the more likely it is that the inflation that we're seeing in the housing space will be at least mitigated some, though not likely reduced. And that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Would you like to join us? Just here to watch. No problem. Joe, you wanna come up? Just here. In the back? No comment? Anyone in the corner? Yeah, I'll come and have a comment. Okay. My name is Kristin Lawson, I'm a Winooski resident. And I just wanna say that I do support this document with these, I'm sorry, it's been a very long day. Where there are requirements to include bike parking and incentives to build larger units for families. I think that's really important. There are a lot of families in Winooski who need larger housing. And I think that tying these incentives to the parking is a way to help our community meet some of these goals. And I think that we really need to consider everybody and not just anybody. Like there are lots of people who want to live in Winooski, who don't have places to live, who need these larger units to live. And I think from a, certainly there's a need for all different size units, but there are more new small sew studio and one bedroom units that are built that don't accommodate families that have kids and want to be a part of this community. The other thing is, I just think it's really important to consider that the equity that comes with everyone who, not everyone can own a car or drive a car. There are folks too young. There are folks who are older and can't drive. There are folks who can't afford a car. And so thinking about our community holistically and our transportation options and incentives and having safe places to park bikes, I think is a big part of that. If you live in an apartment building and you don't know where to keep your bike or you have to keep it outside and it gets stolen, then you don't have a right to move or understudy the same way as somebody who has a place to park their car. So I think that's important. Thank you so much. Anyone else in the room? Can I just add one more thing? Yeah, sure. Will you do the microphone now, please? The other thing that I would encourage city council to think about is that when you tie the parking to the unit, you're gonna increase the cost of the units to be built. So you're gonna get more expensive units built. So if we can decouple the parking a little bit from the units, it's gonna reduce the cost to the builders and it should reduce the cost of the rents as well. People who don't have a parking spot, guaranteed, are not gonna pay as much for rent. And so the units that are built that don't have parking are gonna be less desirable to the higher end market. So you will have more affordable housing just by default. If it doesn't have a parking spot, it's designated. That was it. Thank you. Sure. Last one, and then I should move to the Zoom folks. Just saying again that if you build affordable, you get reduction in parking. If you build three plus bedroom, you get reduction in parking. If you do TDM strategies, like provide bus passes, provide a car share car, help fund a bus shelter, all of those result in reduction in parking. So again, there's many levers to reduce this parking standard by developing in the way that the community has spoken up is important and in line with our master plan. And I'll also say that when you skis the Denses City in Northern New England, so we are doing our fair share when it comes to housing and affordable housing. And we have this beautiful new school and not enough kids to live in it, or to have started to go to it because there's not enough family size housing in our city and everything new being built is very small. Thank you. Okay. We will move on to our virtual attendees and Paul will direct that traffic for us. Anybody like to provide public comment? Just use the raise hand function and we'll start with zoom attendees. If that was hard to hear, use the raise hand feature or the chat to let us know to bring you over. All right, so we got Terry is up first. Hi, can you hear me? Yeah, welcome Terry. Hi, thank you. I also like Kristen had a very long day and so I'm not very articulate, but I would like to just reiterate some of the things that Abby said about the incentives that are included with the parking reductions and just ask the council to please recognize that there was a lot of thought by a lot of people who do have a lot of experience with parking and with planning who said on the planning commission. And so I would just ask you to do that. Also, I also recognize that we have a lovely school that just got renovated and there isn't enough housing for people who have children to live in. Studio apartments, one bedroom apartments are not attracting people with children to go to our beautiful school. Studio in one bedroom apartments also tend to be more for people that are transient that don't stay in our community and don't put down roots in our community. And I think that that's something that I think that we want as a community. So that's all that I have for tonight, but I thank you for your time and I appreciate your consideration and hope that the council can consider what the community is saying and also think about the napter plan and how any master plan does talk about housing with a larger number of bedrooms. Thank you, Terry. Thank you. Small handful of people still in the attendees, unless if anyone else wants to provide public comment, just use that raise hand function. Any, would anyone else like to speak? You could use the chat or raise hand feature. Okay, seeing no additional comments, I will now close the public hearing. So I would ask the council then if there is any additional information that we want staff to provide. Do we feel like we need any more an additional public hearing or that we should put this on our next agenda for consideration? I would be comfortable putting it on the next agenda. I feel like this process is lack transparency since the meeting in July. There was a private meeting where other counselors were not invited. There have been changes that have been made since then that are being brought forward now that I don't know if the planning commission has reviewed themselves. It sounds like that these changes are reflective of the meeting that the mayor, deputy mayor, zoning administrator and the planning commission chair had together and you can let me know if that, if these changes have in fact been reviewed by the planning commission. But otherwise it feels like this subverts the planning commission and the great deal of time and thought that they put into this. I am not a urban planning or policy expert and I would put faith in the participants in the planning commission that do have that expertise. I have additional concerns about how this may further reduce the actual goals of attaining the three bedroom housing, of subverting that effort, family housing that's mentioned in the master plan. I also have great concerns about the equity and equitability of sacrificing public right of way in place of obligations of developers for zoning and for protected bike storage. There's a great deal of bike theft in and around Burlington. It's actually even made the New York Times, I believed. And there are a number of groups online that are trying desperately to mitigate the amount of bike theft and there's not enough enforcement to be able to mitigate that. And it's a region wide problem. But certainly when we're looking at increasing bike ped access, I think requiring bike parking and limiting bike parking to public spaces rather than allowing for protected, secured bike storage that further exacerbates the opportunity for bike theft that we're already seeing, which puts greater demand on public transportation, which we know in Wadooski is not meeting current demand. And I do think that the ultimate goal is to reduce parking. And I feel that what the Planning Commission has proposed has thoughtfully brought us towards that end. So to be clear, the deputy mayor and I met with the commission chair and zoning administrator following the last meeting to discuss what information the council would need to see because of all the debate last time. So the result of that is the additional documents that you see tonight. Eric, can you speak to the green, the proposed changes you brought tonight? Sure. Yeah, so the additional language that's incorporated that's highlighted in green in the draft tonight has not been reviewed by the Planning Commission, that's correct. The way that the statutory process is outlined, however, is that once the Planning Commission has their hearing and forwards the documents on to council, they're no longer a part of the process. So any changes that you all make can be made independently of any further review of the Planning Commission. The only time the Planning Commission would see any of the changes or have time to discuss any of the changes would be in the context of updating the statutory report. They would not be reviewing changes for consistency or for input on those proposed changes. So that's part of this is a statutory process and what's included in the green highlights are potential changes for you all to consider if you so desire for some options to alleviate some of the concerns that were raised at the meeting on July 17th. I will say it is my intent to, the Planning Commission hasn't met since we've brought this forward to you all. They're meeting next week, as the Mayor mentioned and I do intend to share this document with them to make them aware. And based on a legal review, I've also provided this to our city attorney. If he determines that the changes are substantive then we would have a discussion with the Planning Commission at updating the report at that meeting as well. So as a follow up, just because it's allowed to me doesn't mean it's right. There's a lot of institutionalized policy that subverts public voices. And I feel like that while this may be a case where it is allowed, I don't necessarily agree that it's right. Is there more information you're looking for on any of these items? I don't feel like there's more information that I need. I don't support the changes that are proposed. So that's the discussion we would have at the next meeting when we bring this back. I don't feel that it's right to bring this back to council without having Planning Commission review. Okay, thank you. Thomas, Charlie, do you want to put this on for discussion in our next meeting as the next step? Yeah, I think discussion would be good. Yeah. That makes sense. Okay. So I am not hearing a need for further public hearing. We'll bring this back for a discussion on our next meeting and then decide if we wanna move something forward or not. It also doesn't sound like we need more detail information, Eric. I think the side-by-sides you provided in the memo around the Act 47 impacts was very useful following the last round of chat. There was, I believe councilor Hurd provided some comments, some questions on section 515. Happy to go over those tonight as well, if you all would like on the incentives for the adaptive reuse. Sure, yeah. Yeah, so just as a point of clarification and I believe I left my other notes on this back at the chair. But there was, and councilor Hurd correct me if I'm wrong on this, but there was some concern about the possibility that any incentives that were identified under the adaptive reuse may not take into account ADA accessibility with any type of redevelopment of these particular projects. So to address that concern, first of all, these would be included or this section is intended solely as an incentive-based approach. There would be no requirement for any property to take advantage of this or to adhere to these requirements. Any changes that would be made to a property or to a structure would, that took advantage of these incentives would need to follow current building code for both ADA accessibility and for that matter as well, energy efficiency. So this would not exempt those properties from incorporating those provisions into any new construction that's being proposed. I believe there was another concern about with the buildings and the properties in the gateway zoning district and being set back from the required building line or something to that effect. Yeah, the question before was how would it impact density? Right, yeah. I would say it may not impact density that much, quite honestly, there's about 85 properties that are listed in the state or national register in Winooski. Of those, there's maybe only five that are located both in a gateway zoning district and also set back from the road any significant distance. Most of the properties in the gateways that being Mallets Bay Avenue Main Street and East Allen Street are all built fairly close to the road. So there would probably be limited impact on the density in those locations. The building that exists could still remain and could be added on to per our regulations. That's really helpful context to have, thank you. Absolutely. Thomas, you had your hand up, sorry, I missed it. No, that's fine. My, I wonder, and I don't know if we need it for our discussion, but recognizing what S-100 is going to do, whether we approve this as is or not, it's going to change. I would like to know if the incentives that the commission worked on will still be incentives once S-100 goes into effect. Yeah, that's a good question. And that's something that I've been trying to figure out quite honestly. And I don't know if it's, if we really know the answer to that yet, based on what changes may be, may both one be required and may also be recommended for how we change the regulations. And by that, I mean, there may be some cases where, and I've mentioned this to the Planning Commission before, it's possible that we may have a reduction in the total number of zoning districts and the total component of those zoning districts just because of some of the parity that's happening because of S-100 that we are going to be required to have where we have water and wastewater service, which is in the entire city, we're going to be required to have buildings that allow or properties, our zoning districts will be required to allow dwellings up to four units total. So when we do that and also require at least a minimum density of five units per acre. So when we look at those changes, it may result in the fact that our three residential zoning districts kind of merge into one district, which then creates a process that all the incentives that we have and other aspects of the regulations would need to be reviewed and evaluated as well. So it's, I don't have a good answer for what that impact would look like without really knowing what some of the other changes will be based on S-100. Thank you, Eric. Okay. So direction to staff, we will just discuss this at the next agenda. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Thank you all for coming in to speak or participate and to those online. So we will move on to item B. This is on for discussion approval, the personal policy manual, police longevity bonus addendum. There's Jesse on Zoom. I am here. Welcome. How was everybody tonight? Splendid. Splendid, all right, we like that. Okay, so I'll try and keep this brief, but we are looking to adopt a policy similar to that of the Fraternal Order of Police Union for those who are full-time non-union members of the Wunewski Police Department. The policy is being proposed to help address the pay compression issue within the department without adding an annual tax burden to taxpayers. Pay compression happens when roles with management responsibilities are not unionized, get paid a similar amount than what can be expected by long-tenured roles with less or no management responsibilities. Essentially, currently, there's no incentive for uniformed officers in the police department to come out of the union to take on more manager responsibilities because they wind up losing this because it's already in the FOB, but if they come out of the union, they don't have that ability anymore to keep that incentive. All right. Any questions from council? Yeah, so you said it's not intended to affect the taxpayers. Can I ask kind of where this money is coming from? So a lot of it's going to be from salary savings because we have so many vacancies in the department and it's not also going to be a very constant type of payout. It's going to be based upon leaving or retirement age, things like that. Angela, did you want to chime in here for that? No, that's absolutely where it's intended to come from is generally the salary savings. It would be extremely intermittent. There are only three members of our police staff that are non-union that are management level. This would apply to the chief and the two lieutenants of those that we currently have on staff only two would be eligible to receive this anytime soon. All right, that's helpful to know. So it's not going to be a new budget line. It's going to be part of salary. Okay. Correct. Thank you. So this is coming from vacancy savings, but what about when we don't have vacancies? Fund balance. So this would come from general fund. Yes. Are there any questions from members of the public? You can use the chat or raise hand feature on Zoom. I do have a question. I'm not following why the increases in $10,000 increments year over year. That mirrors the existing FOP language. So is there a current longevity bonus now or is this new? Not for non-union. Not for non-union. It's only in for the FOP union members who get it. I see. What are the additional benefits that exempt non-union members get that union members do not get it? In my understanding, it's really just a way for them to step up in level. And if they want to promote themselves, there's only so far they can go while being in the union. So there's no additional health insurance benefit. There's no additional, well, I'm not sure how the lease shakes out. Angela? They move from having vacation time to CTO, which is slightly different, is a little more flexible, slightly different holidays. Police receive town meeting day versus battle of Bennington. They do not receive battle of Bennington. And then in addition, there's not really a ton of incentives to come out of the union, especially with the pay compression issues. Because they also lose their ability for overtime. The cost of moving change is different for union and non-union. Which could hurt or help? It is the problem, like there's really no reason to become a supervisor or come out of the union. And are we currently finding it trouble? We're having challenges filling supervisory positions? Well, so yeah, it's the two lieutenants in the chief. So the two lieutenants, they've been here a bit and they really care and they are doing it. If we lost them, I don't know what we would do. Like if they decided to retire, I'm not sure if anyone would want to come out of the union. So then we might be hiring from outside, but it would be the same problem. We're trying to, basically the police chief is trying to head off a problem for us and recognize our current staff as well. And a question I think I know the answer to. Some of the funds from, I'm not going to use the right words, the enforcement. You know, the about a $100,000 budget we were going to use for the K-9. Oh, asset forfeiture? Asset forfeiture. Can't be used for salary, right, Angel? Yeah, you can only supplement, you can't supplant existing funding sources. So if this is going to be a benefit that you offer, that's not an eligible use. It would have to be like a one-time thing. Yeah, that's kind of what I thought I wanted to confirm. What's the likelihood of this moving to general fund? A general fund light item? It would never be created as a line item in a budgetary year because it is so infrequent in nature. And with regard to the statement earlier about what if there are no vacancies, like then with the city for 18 years, we have never not had a single vacancy within the general fund in an entire fiscal year. Angela, do you mean by that any vacancies or specifically police vacancies? So any vacancies, although it is generally more often in PD, there was a historical habit of budgeting with vacancy savings included in the budget. We no longer do that since you can't count on those. And it was always held within the police department because it was the most usual place for a vacancy to occur. Okay. Does someone want to make a motion to approve this? I've got a motion by Thomas. Does anyone want a second? I'll second. Motion by Thomas, second by Aurora. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? All right. Motion carries. Thank you, Jessie. Thank you. Okay. Moving on to item C, proposed changes to sidewalk use. Good evening. Thank you. I'm here tonight to talk with you about the draft changes to chapter five of the city's municipal code related to sidewalk use. This was last reviewed by council back in February of this year. The intent of the updates were to really kind of more formalize the process and provide a little bit more detail for the application process, how the whole system worked out, et cetera. At that time, there was some work done with downtown of Nuske to do some business outreach. However, it was determined at that time that there may not have been enough time in advance for the businesses to really prepare for the changes that were being proposed. So we decided to bring this back later in the year. So that's why we're here tonight. So included with the agenda is the draft of chapter five as presented at that February meeting. There's also a second optional draft that would shift the permitting process for the sidewalk use from city council to the department of public works. Additionally, there is a memo included from the director of public works kind of discussing that process. The reason why we decided to propose an alternative to city council's approval is because right now, the department of public works approves and reviews any type of sidewalk encumbrance. Generally, those are very short term for somebody that needs to block the sidewalk to do maintenance on their property, put up a banner, for example, in downtown Linooski on Spinner Place, things like that. It's usually a one day to a week type of process, whereas this would be a similar encumbrance, but for a seasonal type use. So this would also allow for a mechanism to be in place that's already in place that would do the review for accessibility, for compliance with other regulations, for impacts to the existing infrastructure in the city, things of that nature, and also provide a mechanism for that enforcement as well. So we wanted to bring this forward to you tonight to get initial feedback, to see if that is something you're interested in pursuing, the option that would allow for the sidewalk use piece to be reviewed by the department of public works. Council as the liquor control board would still review any outside consumption as you currently do. This would just be for the use of that outdoor space. So really what you'll see in the two drafts is the original draft, as I mentioned, as is the alternate draft includes a new section 512, which would outline that process for the department of public works review. So I've had an initial conversation with Melissa, the executive director of downtown Linooski about this process. I don't know if she's on tonight or not. And John Rauscher, director of public works is here as well to talk about his site. I should also mention there is a memo from our finance director about comments from the finance commission on sidewalk use in general. They did not review the public works version of this process. As I mentioned, this is coming to you tonight for initial feedback on which direction you may want to pursue going forward. Thank you, Eric. Looking at the new proposal, the memo for, is John on? Yes. Okay. John, there's a diagram in here. Is this in cafe permitted spaces? When I read through this initially, it read to me like we would essentially not be having any cafe seating in that stretch of the west side of the rotary. Could you give us some clarity on what would be allowed? Sure. So evening everyone. So that's for the west side. And there's really kind of two locations there. There's one where it's sort of flush up by the post office, that bay of parking. And really we're talking about the locations where you have the issue of the perpendicular angled parking and substantial conflict with cafe seating that's there now. We're not necessarily like, we're not talking about the bump out locations on either end. It's just these spaces that are directly in front of the perpendicular parking. So there's the locations that are flush with the brick paver sidewalk and there's the large granite paver. And then there's the locations further down sort of in between that block of mule bar and grazers where there is sort of a step down portion there to the granite pavers. So if Public Works was reviewing this and permitting it, we would go by the American parking associations guidelines of having sort of a minimum two-foot overhang for that curb line section, which would reduce the area allowed to about five feet in that granite paver zone. So the lower portion. So it'd be a significantly smaller sort of cafe patio table. But we'll say the other option we've floated because obviously this is, I'm sure it wouldn't be welcome news of businesses is revisiting, looking at taking over, looking at taking the parking spots over. So that's more of a policy question. If you all were interested in reviewing that, but that would eliminate the issue entirely if the businesses were interested in utilizing some of the parking for cafe spaces. And that would be a good idea for cafe spaces and then they would have way much more room than they have currently. And that would sort of solve the issue of the issue we have with cars conflicting with the tables. I don't entirely follow. I understand in the original proposal, there's this two-foot buffer that we were debating, that that's the recommendation for the bumper overhang. And that still is included in the DPW review, but it's like this memo says DPW would also not approve an encumbrance in the six and a half foot wide brick pavers sidewalk corridor. So is that saying we're bumping in the slate two feet and then we're also not allowing any on the brick area? Yeah, ideally. So we would recommend keeping that brick portion open given that we do have a lot of pedestrians that come through that area. And the recommendation is to keep those higher pedestrian use corridors seven to 10 feet so that you do allow people are able to pass comfortably. If you do have folks that have vision impairments, they can walk down the corridors or if you'd have folks that have to use sign language and they're walking with someone next to them that they have enough space. So that's why we would recommend keeping that space as open pedestrian corridor space. And really, if we're looking at the cafe space, it's just that granite belt that could be utilized. I would also just add, as John mentioned, a potential policy question for you all would be to seasonally allow for the businesses to utilize the parking spaces that are there for business purposes. So basically eliminating the parking in most likely that lower the block of the southern most block of parking. We've done some analysis based on parking data that we have available to us. Not a very scientific analysis, but we have done some analysis. And of the spaces, there's about eight spaces that are there in that lower block. Around half of those spaces are generally occupied by long-term partners for one who are associated or affiliated with the businesses that are there. So we're not seeing the turnover that we might expect from a standard meter space. Part of that is, I think, as not to go too far off track, but part of that I think is because of some of the fee structure that we have in place. Right now we charge the same amount for our on-street meters as we do for the garage. So there's no real incentive to have the long-term parkers not in those spaces. So like I said, it wasn't a very scientific analysis, but we do have data that shows approximately half of the vehicles that are parking those spaces are not customers that are not turning over those spaces. They're people that are affiliated with the businesses that are there all day basically. So eliminating that parking would allow the businesses to take over more of that space. Probably at least an additional 10 feet of that area, we could do it as a seasonal basis. And that would also be a mechanism that could be reviewed by Department of Public Works, Public Safety as well to make sure there's clear spaces and clear zones, but that would be a potential option to give more space back to the businesses while still maintaining the brick walkway for pedestrian access through that corridor. I should also mention that is the eliminating that parking is something that we have discussed with downtown Winnieski as well with Melissa. So she's aware that was going to speak with her board about it. I don't know if she's had a chance to do that yet, but she was going to start taking the temperature of some of the businesses in downtown. So my recollection is that conversation happened during pandemic as well in businesses, the general sentiment was that they did not want to lose all of that parking. I think it's worth having the conversation again, but I just wanted to have that historically out there. Yeah, and I think some of that was also due to the turnover of a lot more takeout business. So they wanted to have more space available in front of their businesses to accommodate the takeout because they weren't able to do the in-person during the pandemic. So, but yes, that would be a component that we would explore as well as eliminating the parking and potentially even re-signing some of the other parking around the area so that it's either for 30 minute or we could reduce the time duration for some of those spaces so we don't have vehicles parking five, six, seven hours a day in the same spot. Right, because those two components I don't believe were previously discussed together, which should change the feeling about how feasible this. I will say I like the idea of this being a DPW process, but what I see here feels significantly different from what was discussed before and I would want to get business input on that as well before moving forward. Another challenge was seasonal and something that I've also noticed in the news outside of Vermont that was a carryover from COVID was having outdoor stalls and having permits revoked for having year-round stalls and making them seasonal and the impact that is, the economic impact that has on businesses as well to, and we've heard from our own, some of our own businesses here of building a platform and then having to deconstruct a platform seasonally. So that has impacts as well and should be considered. Yeah, I can personally answer your question, Eric. Melissa hasn't brought this up with the board yet, so I really don't have a good take on what the businesses think about this. I could be hearing and reading all of this wrong, but I feel like this is a step back from where I think we landed on last time and where this was seemed to not have been impacting the businesses as much. Maybe I'm not logging that correctly, but that's just how it seems at the moment. I know there were some questions that I think I had posed and it sounds like you weren't really able to do just because of timing and everything else, a walkthrough with each business to kind of show them what the impact would look like. I do really think that's very important because this will impact some businesses very drastically different than others. And then Elaine, I don't know if we ever got an answer from the city lawyer about the businesses incurring, there was a way for us to get the businesses to take on the potential liability of a car passing through and hitting somebody. I'm gonna double check that. I did get an answer. I wanna make sure I have it right before I answer. Okay, thank you. And yeah, I mean, I think the memo from the Finance Commission kind of highlights, I think a lot of the things that we first spoke about in terms of our concerns about downtown vibrancy and how much people can take access of our different restaurants. So I'd really like to make sure that we've got full business input and that each business really knows what this is gonna look like before we really start taking on more discussions about this. So to answer Thomas' question, it was originally posed to the attorney as, is it possible to create an agreement that would shift all liability for an injury to a restaurant where they have a customer using outside seating caused by, I feel like there's some disorder here, caused by a vehicle to the restaurant. Should they decline to follow city guidelines for a two-foot buffer between curb faith and seating? The city attorney responded yes, we can include indemnification language as part of the permit. And I think that would be great. Oh, sorry, Elaine, you're so... Well, to your point about wanting more business input, I'm not sure what their insurers would make of that. So it might not be cost-effective for them, but I don't know that for a fact. Right, and I think if we're just able to provide that, I forget which business it was, but like one business will essentially lose all of their outdoor seating. So it may be worth it to them to take on more insurance in order to continue to get that revenue from all the seats outside. I think really what we were looking for tonight anyway was whether or not the process with Department of Public Works reviewing the sidewalk use permit, if that's something you're interested in us gathering more information on or moving forward with the process as it's currently drafted and what you reviewed previously. Can I ask about staff capacity for the Department of Public Works to do this additional review? John? I was gonna say, I'll defer to John on that. Yeah, I mean, this is not to say that it's pretty quick work, but I mean, there's not a lot here to review. This is, with all the other projects going on, this is definitely the least complicated thing that we'd have to review. So I don't have any concerns. So I'd be myself, our city engineer and our operations manager, Joe Shaw, kind of looking through these. Just for being completely clear why is it proposed to move to DPW? I think for consistency with our other permitting processes and mostly for, because there's already a process in place, there's also the enforcement mechanism and there's also the, I'd say, more structured review of the applications. So we could build that all in for you all as well, I think. It'll require some additional time and resource, but I think having it with the Department of Public Works will consistently allow them to review applications for sidewalk and conference, basically, whether it be a longer term for sidewalk use or a short term like they do now for other purposes. Can you just remind me how they're doing that for other purposes now? Joan. Other purposes as far as sidewalk and conferences, is that the question? Yes. Yeah, so this is pretty typical. I mean, Burlington does the same thing as well. They take a first crack at any of the cafe permits to make sure that they're in compliance with standards and any requirements, and then it goes on to the council for sort of a final sign off. So it would be, yeah, basically this would be, we would be doing all the right away permitting like we do now. We just wrap in the cafe permits. For me, I am interested in kind of hearing more about the Department of Public Works. I do like that it feels consistent and that there is that additional consideration or the extra consideration around ADA compliance, which you have experience in. I do worry though that it does seem stricter than the council and the businesses weren't necessarily happy with the council review. So that's kind of where I'm tripping up. I think I personally think that it sounds like the Department of Public Works would be overall safer for when you ski residents and visitors. But I'm also not sure with the pushback last time. Quite what to think of that. Yeah, I also feel like the process is more appropriate for DPW, but this seems like a drastic reduction in seating space from what we have now. Which not just businesses are concerned about, but community members who want to go there and the impact on our town are like thriving field. Like people come here for the rotary. Yeah, just to follow up on that. So I mean, and that is typical. So we do review a lot of right away permits and unfortunately we have to say no a lot, but typically that ends up in some sort of compromise. So it's very rare that we don't get to a point where the property owner, whoever isn't able to do what they need to do, it usually ends up being a compromise somehow. So in this instance, maybe the parklet type permitting is the compromise if downtown Manuski would be willing to review that. And we would have to do some on street parking modifications, as Eric mentioned. So yeah, unfortunately sometimes we have to be the quote unquote bad guys, which we really don't like being. We don't want to be a web blanket to the businesses. We frequent them too. So it's not something we enjoy doing, but ultimately our main goal is making sure the public stays safe and that we're meeting the requirements of ADA guidelines and any other design guidelines and we're doing what's appropriate for the public. I think I would be happy to move this to DPW once we have a better grasp on what we're gonna be allowing for businesses to do. I think until we've got these rules and regulations straightened out, I should stay with council just based on, I think what is our charge to really focus on economic vitality. Yeah, I mean, I echo some other counselors. I struggle with the lack of predictability and lack of transparency from one decision to the next. It won't be clear how the records are kept on the decision, what went into the decision, consistency between DPW directors. So all of that makes me pretty uneasy. You have any questions? Well, I mean, to echo Thomas, I think that it would benefit me personally to see exactly how each business would be impacted. If I'm picturing in my mind, I'm seeing a lot of upfront incurred costs on the business's parts, trying to adjust to this. And as a resident and a rotary rat, I would really like to see in front of me what that would look like before I make a decision. As far as moving to the Department of Public Works, I don't know that this is a public works thing. But I'm open to more discussion about it as well. So it sounds like we need some clearer diagrams to visualize what these two things look like and current, like current, the proposal through council and then this potential DPW process. Or even a field trip. I would go see with Eric and John or the person with the most expertise. It's not a bad idea to offer a site visit if other council members would like that. We can arrange that and if we have to, we can warn it if there's more than two of you. Yeah, just to be clear, I think it might be a little simpler than what folks are thinking it is. So if you're familiar with the, I mean, we're only talking about five, I think five in front of five businesses or so. It's the brick, so there's the brick pavers section that's right along the buildings. That's roughly six and a half foot wide. And then there's a granite curb and then there's a five foot tree belt or green belt where a lot of the signs and lights and things like that are. So currently a lot of the businesses are just using that granite paver area, the five foot granite paver area. We're saying that, hey, there's a safety issue here. Like there's cafe users and cars kind of looking utilized same space on that curb line. So what we would require if the businesses did still want to use that granite curb space or that granite paver space, they'd only be allowed a three-foot sort of ban, which would be like a small cafe table, which I believe they used to have when Eric showed me some historic Google Earth photos, Street View photos. So it would be going back to that. So that's really all we're talking about is just that granite paver area, they'd have a three-foot swath unless they went to eliminate the parking to eliminate that potential conflict. So I don't know if it's worth, I'm more than happy to do sort of a look down there with everyone, but I think it is a pretty simple review that we're looking at. It's just that we would limit it to a three-foot linear space there. Yeah, I'm picturing two people sitting at a three-foot space next to each other and that's like what significant reduction in outdoor seating for those businesses, which that's a big draw in summer for those folks. Yeah, yeah, no. I think they're having to replace materials, like I see the safety issue. I walked in here with that being the forefront for me. And I also think like this could have a really, really significant impact on like cornerstone businesses in our community. Yep, no, I understood. There's definitely an economic vitality component to it, but we have to look at it from a safety standpoint. So that's where we come from. So that's where we have to review it, but then if Council still maintains reviewing these, then that's totally your purview. So that is an option. All right, and just to connect the dot, Charlie, that's why it's a public works thing because there's a significant safety component to this public infrastructure. So that's why they would be involved. I think also we need to engage downtime with New Ski before any decision-making like we had a public hearing for these previous proposals. That is what these folks think is coming down the pike potentially, and this feels significantly different. And I think we'd be pretty shocking to suddenly see us considering this without having done any engagement there. Yeah, agreed. And that's why staff brought you, can we continue to pursue this as opposed to please decide now? We agree with that. Yeah, and I think too, looking at this diagram, I do worry that it doesn't, like that some businesses might feel targeted because some have that bump out and some where they could have tables on the brick, and some do not. So have some concerns with that. Right, and I think that is related to Thomas's point, right, like the individual visits. And the thing is the downtown is not equal. So whether you feel targeted or not, your space is not the same as another business space. So that is gonna be inevitable. I would be really interested to hear what the impacted businesses think about potentially expanding their seating into the parking spaces seasonally by choice, not requiring them at all. But it does seem like a decent compromise. It mitigates the safety issue. It gives them more seating, even more than what they have. So it doesn't seem like a bad talking point. Yeah, I mean, as the mayor mentioned, that conversation was proposed with the initial round of changes. And there was, there was no consensus. It kind of depends on the business. Some businesses that have more limited storefront when this is permitted for direct, for table space, eating space directly in front of your storefront, it's going to be advantageous for some and just advantageous for others. So there's also the issue of seasonality and meeting to again, remove structures that take time and labor to build as well. And that came up previously. So I think it's an issue of like, I don't know that anybody's going to be satisfied, honestly. Truth. Would staff be willing to attend a downtown Mieski board meeting and with these, like floating these two options and the parklet, seasonal parklet use? I think we would defer to the executive director on how to handle it, but we're open to that. Correct me if I'm wrong all, but I feel like what I'm hearing is, yes, you can explore this addition, this, we're up to sort of three options now, but this additional option, but that we need more engagement with the impacted parties before we want to take it up further. That's what I heard. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't hurt to get feedback. I could be pleasantly surprised. Yeah, you never know. It sounds like they've already given their, the businesses have already given their feedback. Some, on the first proposal, not this DPW situation, they haven't seen this yet. And we've had- We didn't change their feelings a little bit. This is, like you said, very different. Sorry to make us speak over you, Brad. You're fine, you're fine. But this is different, so. And we've, I think there's been a ton of conversation over the last two years or more on this. And I think initially there was a lot of demand for it because there, people weren't allowed to convene indoors because of COVID restrictions. You know, two years later, year later, we're not even necessarily too much more than a year out. And yeah, I think perhaps there would be a different conversation now, given some of those restrictions and concerns have decreased for at least the larger health emergency status. Are there any questions or comments from members of the public? Is there more specific feedback that would be useful to you all? I think at this point, just whether or not you want us to get more data on the permitting process going through Department of Public Works, that's really the direction that I'm looking for so we can continue to have those conversations and engage with the businesses. Didn't want to go down that road and start stirring things up if this wasn't going to be a reality or a possibility. So that's, I think the direction that you provided is sufficient for us to move forward. Would the timelines remain the same? I think that would be the intent, yes, is that we would work to have everything finalized and to be in place by next April for the summer season. Yep, sorry, I was not specific. Would the timelines for submitting a permit for the season be the same? I believe it would still be, yes. I don't think that's changed except for where the application goes. I believe is how it was drafted. And I'm just thinking about workload at that time of year for DPW, around the time applications would be coming in versus the current process. John? Yeah, no concerns. We turn these around really quickly. So usually same day, then it only takes us a few minutes to review these. Okay. Okay, this was on for discussion only. Thank you all. Great, thank you very much. Okay, let's move on to strategic vision goal area updates. Eric, you want to come back? We should have the floor sat down. So for those who aren't familiar, the city, nobody here, but maybe someone watching from home later. For those who aren't familiar, the city of Winooski has a master plan with four goals, municipal infrastructure, economic vitality, safe, healthy connected people and housing. Annually council sets policy priorities and strategies for each area and for activities that touch on more than one area. We call that all. Staff also sets our own operational priorities around the same time. I'll report against these four goals and these priorities quarterly. In today's packet is the first all update and the first economic vitality update for the fiscal year based on council's fiscal year 2024 policy, parties and strategies. For all, I'd just like to highlight three of those, A1, A3 and A5. For A1, that one is integrating equity considerations. As noted in the separate equity memo, our activities fall into the following areas, accessibility, voice, welcoming and or belonging, miscellaneous and awareness. We have the most activity in the accessibility area. There's several that fall under voice, miscellaneous and welcoming and belonging and there's the least number of activities under the awareness category. The activities range in permanence from one time mid range to longer lasting. Less of our activities are one time, I'm pleased to report. Those would be things like trainings or events. The most we have is ongoing practices. We do also have a fair number of activities related to procedures or policies that require ongoing action or even programs that do have their own budget or are an identified part of a bigger budget. Many of our activities with equity impacts are ongoing, like paying for interpretation and translation services for city outreach events, making scholarships easier to apply for access to access recreation programs or peer learning topics as a standing team meeting agenda item. Activities new since our last update in January on equity, January of this year, relate to language access to information on the Winooski Bridge project and inclusive engagement approaches to get input for the bicycle and pedestrian plan, which is why I asked Eric to stay because he's got some interesting updates to share on that. Yeah, so talking about some of the outreach that we've done on the walk bike master plan that is being done through some funding, some federal funding through the regional planning commission. One of the approaches we've tried to do with this project was kind of switching up our outreach efforts in particular, instead of having the model of holding a public meeting and hoping people show up, we've tried to do much more targeted engagement to where people are. And when I say we, I really am talking about the regional planning commission and the consultants that they've brought on board, they've done pretty much all of the outreach related to this. So they've been doing a lot of work. Since the project began earlier this year, we've had 22 individual events that they've attended so far. Those include things like the Winooski Partnership for Prevention Dinner Pickup at the O'Brien Center, Intervail Food Hub Distribution Event at the O'Brien Center. There's been news stories on WCAX, the Veggie Van Go Food Distribution at the school, as well as tabling at the school district and the school store, some outreach at the senior center, outreach at the farmers market on multiple days. We were just recently at the back to school barbecue trying to collect feedback. So really doing a lot of work to get out into the community where people are already going and where they're already meeting in an effort to try to engage at those locations. In addition, we had some lawn signs made up that we distributed throughout the city that had a QR code for access to a survey that those signs were done in nine different languages so that targeting multiple groups. The survey is still up and available to be utilized on the project website that is being maintained by the Regional Planning Commission and we've done a slew of other just general social media updates, flyers being passed out to businesses and other sites in the community. So far to date with our survey and with our targeted outreach, we've received approximately 500 responses to the survey and we've received over 300 comments from our tabling activities on people's concerns, people's opinions, just a slew of different information on walking and biking around the city of Winooski. So I think this has been a very successful effort compared to what we've seen in the past where again, what will the public meeting, three or four people show up and we've checked the box to say we've had our public meeting. We've actually, through this process we decided to forego having some of those public meetings in order to spend more time on these targeted outreach efforts. So I think so far it's been very successful and hopefully will be a model for projects in the future as well. Thanks, Eric. Thank you. So that's a one for eight. Sorry, if I may have one more thing. Related but not a project that we are doing is the Vermont Department of Health is hosting a walk on it. It'll be conducted in September in conjunction with the school I believe is they're partnering with them on that. So that's going to help feed into the work that we're doing as well. So other efforts gonna provide assistance. So thank you. Thank you. On A3 again, back to the old all goal update, the memo. That's the language access project. I know a process and a lot of folks are very anxious to get that done right and as soon as possible. So reading from my memo, staff have developed a project scope for an outside expert to help us develop A, a language needs and resource assessment, B, a language access policy informed by that assessment and C, a related best practices and procedures document. City staff would then build on these documents to develop a language access plan. The Vermont Office of Racial Equity did inform us last week that they would support this effort no charge. So the next step is determine what they can do to see if we still need a consultant to do the rest. A5 community engagement effort to tackle the joint school city equity audit findings. This morning received three bids for a consultant to help organize the community to take action on the findings and recommendations from the Manuski equity audit that the city and or school district cannot resolve on our own. And the next step is reviewing the proposals. So that's it for the all goal memo before I just have one sentence. We'll just tackle that. So for economic fatality, there's just two items for this fiscal year and both are recommended versus must do. So the updates are there in the memo. Are there any questions about any of the goal updates that I provide? I want to thank you for including the RFP link. Thank you. Very exciting about the outreach efforts and the support from ideal. And so thank you and to Councilor Hurd for your participation in that. Yes, and Parker. Oh, that's great. Yes. It's our third teammate, yes. Yeah, I feel like that's really big news. So that's wonderful. Yes. I choose the Luzana that she made by day. Any questions? Seems like everything's proceeding. Do you anticipate any blockers? Yeah, I'm a little concerned about the amount of the bids for the equity audit consultant. The cost, the price amount? Yes. Or the number of bids? No, the price. The cost of the bids that came in. Yeah, so we'll see what happens with that. But I'm not, I don't have a specific ask yet. They just came in this morning. Okay. Thank you for the update. I do bludge. We will move on to item E, a city council equity update. Somewhat related to, fairly related to what you were just discussing. So I put one of these together last year and then wanted to do it again for the public good to document here, the various ways that we are addressing findings from the equity audit report that we received. Councillor Hurd helped me with this. Thank you. I actually didn't thoughtfully prepare like which things to highlight, like Elaine did. But wanted to take a moment to ask you all what you think might be the most useful to highlight for the public. And if you do have any questions about anything in here, there's something I missed or got wrong. My intention would be to share some of these highlights in my mayor's post on Friday, summarizing today's meeting. I think updates, and I'm not, I'm not sure specifically which bullets, but on the affordable housing, educating landlords and renters, and on recommendation eight, recommendation nine, and also on recommendation five, the strengthening school district and city collaboration. I think those are all areas that I feel like we hear the most about. Thank you for that. If I may. Yes. We're in recommendation 11, strategies increase civic participation among BIPOC residents that first bullet, I think is a very important investment in time that council has made. And I'd want the community to understand it and also feel welcome to contribute to that. Thank you. Do we feel like there's good awareness of all resident voting? Or is it still relatively? Yeah. So the voter rolls are not for non-citizens to be very clear about it are not, don't reflect the population. Yep. And so is it awareness or discomfort or unease? Not, it's probably a range of issues. Awareness is also probably still lacking. I think it's good to continue to highlight that. You know what, that's a good note too, for as we're meeting with groups. Yeah, there has been that feedback about like what am I voting on, right? So that's a whole different process outside of just knowing how to vote as a technical step versus what am I doing actually when I vote, right? Which relates back to the engagement piece. It's all connected. It is. This is a discussion item. Are there any other comments or questions, thoughts? Subditions. Hi, I just appreciate you putting this all on one document. Though, you know, we've been doing a lot and city staff has been doing a lot. So it's good to see everything that's being done. Thank you. Yeah, and I'll be bringing that, you know, we're having our joint meeting with the school district in October. Elaine and I will meet with the superintendent in the school board chair to do some agenda planning there. And so I intend to share this with them, see if there's anything, obviously there's some like shared priorities here. So like, if there's anything we wanna collaborate on that way, but. Is it, for recommendation seven, is it a stretch to for you to include the school blessing? I know that that has been a stress point. And obviously it's not on the city council to resolve that and to sustain that. But, you know, since folks kind of see the city and the school as one rather than two distinct entities all the time. Yeah, I just pulled in this article when I've talked to Steph over there, I think it's fairly resolved. No, I meant like highlighting that it has been resolved. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, no, I think that's a great idea. And like whether or not, like, it's kind of the school district news, but does it make sense for us? I think you have a cheers, a shout out. Yeah, because I think that has, that's been a stress point for many and being able to celebrate that, I think would be nice. Yeah, that's great, thank you. It's time we two with school restarting. That's, yep. Clever. Awesome. Okay. Well, thank you all very much. That brings us to the night, the end of this evening's agenda. Do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. Motion by Bryn, second by Aurora. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries and meeting adjourned. Thank you so much, councilor. Much earlier than I thought.