 Paul, can you bring over Colin Sauerdiff, please? Welcome, Colin. Just wanted to invite you to introduce yourself, and if there's anything you want to share about your business. Thanks. Any questions or concerns from counsel? Bryn, I see your hand is raised. You're delivering drivers that we see at the dominoes across the bridge dedicated space for their drivers. So I was curious if you also had a dedicated space for your delivery drivers that was part of your business plan? No, I hope to just kind of, I'd like to get away from the delivery all together. It's just not where it goes to cost effective, but it's keeping me alive right now. So my business partner, I mentioned something about why I think delivery, but it just wasn't why on my list. I don't think it's going to be something I pursue. All right. And Mike, I see your hand is raised. That's your comment, Paul. Hey, I have a question. Is this going to be your second location or are you holding up the one answer? We're moving over to this piece. I will just have one. And Paul, here's a question. Well, we know what it is. Not so many so much. All right. Any other questions, concerns from counsel? Any questions from members of the public? As a reminder, you can use the raise hand feature in Zoom if you are on the phone, star nine. All right. Hearing no concerns, would someone like to make a motion to approve the first, third class, and outside consumption permit for Sarah Hall Foods? Motion by Mike, second by Jim. All those in favor, please say aye. Motion carries. Thank you, Colin. Thank you, sir. All right, thank you. That is the only item on the agenda for liquor control board this evening. We may have a motion to adjourn. Motion by Jim, second by Mike. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Meeting adjourned. With that, at 6.08 PM, I'll call to order the Winooski City Council meeting. We'll start with agenda review. I want to ask if there are any questions or concerns about the order of the agenda this evening. As counsel was made aware, there was a glitch with our website on Friday that wasn't displaying all of the agenda items. So I just wanted to make that known publicly. We did send out a corrected agenda update on Saturday. So just any questions, concerns about agenda items, order? Any concerns from the public? All right, that brings us to public comment. This is an opportunity for public attendees to speak to items not included on tonight's agenda. If you are here for an item on the agenda, please wait until we reach that. I do see a hand raised. Terry, welcome. Can you hear us? Can we hear you is the better question. Terry, are you there? All right, I can now. Welcome. Did the bike lanes be striped in August when I was at the city council meeting? I was told that they would be striped by the end of the month. Today is November 1. The bike lanes are still not striped. So I'm here, again, to talk about that. I recognize that it's probably going to be snowing soon. And it probably doesn't make sense to strike those bike lanes, even though there are many of us in the city that do continue to ride when there's snow. But I am requesting, I read in the last front porch forum, I believe from yesterday, Bryn had posted a liaison update from the municipal infrastructure group commission. And they were talking about their 2022 planning cycle. So I'm here to ask again that this beast is something that is included every year in the planning with the municipal infrastructure that the bike lanes are striped every year. It's dangerous for cyclists to be riding in places where there is a bike lane, but it's not striped. Nobody knows the bike lane. People are in the bike lane. So I'm asking that city-wide, I know there's a lot of other things that the city is focused on. But I'm asking for, I think, a simple request that city-wide that the lanes be striped every spring to make it safe for those of us that want a bike. And also to promote things that the city says that they're trying to promote, such as making it a bikeable and walkable community. Thanks, Terry. John, is there anything that you can share about striping operations? Yeah. So yeah, I appreciate you joining Terry. So we did try to get the contractor back in to do that striping work. And what we found out is materials-wise, there's a run-on pain right now. So V-transit having issues, getting that road striping paint, we could not get a contractor that had access to road striping paint leftovers from the COVID pandemic, unfortunately. I will say one thing that, as we're getting into the FY23 budget, one thing I'm going to be proposing for the council is dedicated contract painting lines. So this is work that we cannot do in-house. We don't have that kind of road striping equipment. But as you know, it's water-based paint. It goes away in one year. So that's something I'm proposing for this year's budget during the council discussion, Terry. So I appreciate the feedback. Thanks, John. All right, thank you, Terry. I hope that information is helpful. And maybe we'll see you during the public works budget presentation as well. Maybe. Thank you. All right, is there any other public comment this evening? OK, so let's move to our consent agenda. We have our city council in liquor control minutes from October 18th. And then the accounts payable warrant of 1029, and then the payroll warrant for 10-3 to 10-16 and subsequent to payout for September. Were we all present for October 18th's meeting? OK, are there any questions or concerns about the consent agenda? Any questions from the public? Can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Move. Did I hear a move by Mike and a second by Jim? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. So we are on to council reports. Bryn, can I start with you? Sure, I don't have anything specific at this time. The infrastructure committee met on September 30th. We're anticipating joining the Finance Commission and Safe, Healthy, and Connected Commission on November 9th to talk about priorities for the coming fiscal year as well. I don't believe the agenda has been finalized yet, but potentially some discussion on ARPA project priorities. So we look forward to joining our sister commissions next week. Thank you. Mike? Sure. I met with the downtown Wynoski board a couple weeks ago. And there's a couple of things on our agenda tonight. So I will not steal Madras thunder on that. A couple just summaries. They had talked about the farmers market being a huge success this year, although it was a smaller market, a smaller turnout, I should say. The people that turned out end up spending more money. The vendors are very happy with the profits they made. And I think that goes to say with the amount of vendors and products that Wynoski's farmers market showcases. They are also hopeful to retain the farmer market manager again for next year. The board had nothing but good things to say about her and her professionalism on this past successful year. They also talked about the holiday pop-up, which is going to happen on December 2nd. It's a Thursday from 5 to 9. And the location is to be announced, I believe, in the coming days. A couple more things. The board is not accepting any new members right now. But they did have some volunteers that were interested in joining the board. So the board is going to find ways to keep those several individuals engaged with downtown somehow. They also discussed that there is going to be a fixed fence around Rotary Park installed soon. It's going to match the current half fence that's there now so they can do away with the orange mesh fence during events. This will promote a little more safety for our visitors and residents when they're visiting Rotary Park. And I want to thank everybody that had everything to do with the Halloween pumpkin display this weekend and all our visitors that visited Winooski and Winooski businesses. I want to thank the Winooski Police Department for being down there and handling the little situation we had down there on I think Saturday night. And again, way to go. I think everyone had a great and wonderful time down there. Thanks, Mike. Well said for the festivities over the weekend. Jim. Thank you. The Housing Commission met on last Monday. We talked about housing quality, life safety, health and safety issues and housing. And there are kind of takeaways from that conversation that said there are properties of significant means for maintenance. And one thing that the city and council should be watching out for is taking care of the housing that we already have. As when we think about housing, we've been talking a lot about the housing is coming in, but there's also need to look at the housing we have, figuring out how to connect landlords to resources and partners that prepared to handle that maintenance, as well as connecting tenants with resources so they feel empowered and no one to speak up and notify folks about an issue and how to do that. So there's kind of some good discussion in the commission about that. And there'll be more work for the commission and others to do as the equity audit wraps up, which will provide a lot of needed guidance for how to make improvements with housing quality. So I want to thank Heather and Chief Audi for attending and facilitating that conversation with the housing commission. I think that was a good start. Housing also approved a memo to the planning commission to identify potential zoning upgrades that could support housing goals from a statewide resource and some some very specific recommendations, not only which sections to consider, but how they would benefit or interact with would use to be in particular. So that was a good discussion there. And finally, there was a discussion on funding sources for the housing trust fund. So we had an initial discussion about some ideas at different places that that funding could come from. There's definitely a strong preference on the commission for finding some ongoing input into the fund, not purely a one-off infusion. So that's something that they're going to keep discussing and working on. Outside of the housing commission, the tree committee met to make species recommendations for placing over placing ash trees in our public right of ways that happened last week. And we'll talk more about that in the future agenda item. And the Winnieski school district multi-stakeholder group on the SRO met last week to review data on SROs and racial disparities in school resource officers, school policing, school discipline, as well as model alternatives to the SRO position. So an introduction to those models. And there's further discussion this week on figuring out which of those models might be appropriate for Winnieski or at least to recommend to the superintendent for a decision. So that ends that group is starting to get towards the end phase of its initial charge, which I think is wrapping up that November. That's all I've got. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. I totally forgot not to touch my zoom. So I have a few updates to share. We had a board of civil authority meeting last week. So the board of civil authority manages our elections. And we're also invited to provide input on the legislatures. The legislature has a committee looking at reapportionment of representative and Senate districts for the state of Vermont based on new census data. So we saw their recommendations for representative, our state representative district potential changes, and we're able to give input on that. So the legislative committee is currently recommending a single two member district that would include only Winnieski. You know, right now we also have a little sliver of Burlington on the other side of the river in our district, but we'd also have two separate representatives split east west instead of right now we have two that are like at large for the whole city. So the VCA had a discussion wanting to give feedback to support the new area, but not the move to having two separate representatives. So that will be submitted for the legislature's consideration. We have not yet been invited to input on potential changes to our Senate representation. The planning commission met last week, starting with a new section of form based code, reviewing our zoning regulations for the gateway districts. The section that they have just started to dive into includes an opportunity to strengthen historic preservation protections in the short term. You know, we saw recommendations from a consultant last year and so there may be changes we can make to existing zoning for now that would strengthen those protections until we are able to dive deeper back into those recommendations. We also had the response from the Vermont Air National Guard. So their leadership were here back in September. There were a lot of community questions raised that they were unable to address during the meeting. Had some back and forth email exchanges with them as they provided written responses to some of those questions. We've since posted those on our website, the questions that were submitted plus their responses. And you can find that on WinooskiVT.gov. There's a tab on there that says how do I then learn about airport sound mitigation. So we have posted those. The airport also launched public access to a portal to access data from the noise monitor that was installed here at our city hall. And they also installed one in South Burlington. The airport operates that portal. It is supposed to share noise data coupled with flight radar data. Personally, I took a look at it and didn't find it very user friendly. So I emailed some suggestions to the interim aviation director to try to help make that easier for members of the public to actually access and understand the data. I'll continue having a conversation with him to see how we can better support residents to make sure that that's actually something folks can use. And that's it for me. I will pass it to Wendy, our new interim city manager for city updates. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. Can folks hear me okay? I think I'm coming through. Just to follow up on the portal, staff is also trying to find ways to make it easier for the public to understand. And sometimes you need another browser. Not all browsers work well on that site. We'll let the public know that the Department of Public Works is initiating the resurfacing, the annual resurfacing of roads. And that's going to be hopefully a two-week period of time to complete them all. If your road is going to be resurfaced, you should have already received a door hanger. And the roads are Hood Street between East Spring Street and Bellevue, Russell Street between La Fountain Street and Bellevue, Hawthorne Street, High Street, and Whitney Street. And the resurfacing is going to happen between Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. So there's no street parking for obvious reasons. And this is not related to the construction that's been in the roadway by City Hall. So sorry for the inconvenience. It's just about completed that project. That was not a city project. An update on the Building Homes Together project or effort, which you've been working on. Heather Carrington and Yasmin Gordon participated in a Building Homes Together focus group in October. They helped set goals for housing construction and affordable units for the next five years. Preliminary targets being discussed, and these are targets for the county as a whole, are 5,000 new homes with 1,250 of them permanently affordable. And winter, I know that's not a pleasant subject, but winter is coming. And the parking ban will go into effect by the end of this month. You can check on the city's website. You can sign up for Nixle. There's lots of signage throughout the town. Updating residents. Front porch form has good information. And the overall structure is that overnight street parking is prohibited in downtown Winooski from 2.30 a.m. to 6.00 a.m. December through March. And then for the rest of the city, winter parking bans are made on a case by case weather dependent basis, which is nicer than just having a straight prohibition as is frequently done in other towns. So it does mean that residents need to be alert and the parking ban does apply to your area. So stay tuned and stay alert. So that is all I have. Thank you. Thanks, Wendy. Brittany, you have a question. I do. Thanks. I'm curious what outreach we give to the condos down on Winooski Falls way. I've had some residents reach out to me earlier this year about parking in Winooski Falls. And just wondering what kind of notices or outreach other than the channels that we tend to do of opting into Nixle or from porch form or opting into the e-newsletters. Are there any additional targeted outreach that we offer to those residents down on Winooski Falls way? I want to answer now. I can get back to you. I'm going to ask the question. I'm going to ask the question. Councilor Bryn. We've done outreach to different apartment buildings and to different landlords before we've done, you know, when we first initiated this program, there was a lot of direct outreach to a lot of those different apartment buildings. And we are certainly happy to send our standard, you know, like eight and a half by 11 flyer to a lot of those. And then we'll be coming out this week, either tomorrow or later this week, and then we'll make sure that we're in that we connect with landlords and property owners. I'll just tag on to the end of that. The code enforcement team for the first two weeks of the parking ban doesn't immediately ticket for the winter parking ban. They give warning notices for that first two week period so that people are aware. The system does only allow us to give a certain number of notifications. And so if somebody continues to violate after receiving a warning, they may receive a ticket in that period. But we do notify cars directly as well that are in violation. Great. Thank you. I also wasn't sure if there was anything that park mobile, that we can program into park mobile for messaging, but I won't take any more of that time out right now. Just try to brainstorm additional outreach channels than we might otherwise use. All right, we will move into our regular items on our agenda. Item A is an introduction to new and recently promoted community services staff. Ray. Yes. You're still here. Okay. Great. I'm here. And I have a few folks that have joined me. I will say it was a little bit of a skeleton crew today after the weekend. At least later in the day, all of us were running pretty ragged by the end of the day Sunday. But I'm going to start with the folks that are here with us. In the zoom flash, if you will, and then can talk, say a few nice words about others. But Kirsten Wilson here, our children engagement specialist in the library has been with us now. Let's see what four months, three months. Yeah, I started in July, early July. So, and has been doing a fabulous job there already has gotten story time started up a Saturday steam program for kiddos. Already some great connections with the thrive program and building a bridge to St. Francis. And getting some of those students to come down physically to the library. So, I don't know, Kirsten, if there's anything you want to share about yourself quickly for counsel, but just face to a name. Yeah. I'm a St. Michael's grad. I've been shooting in County for the last decade. And I first moved to a new ski in 2014. And now unfortunately live in Burlington, but when he skis very dear to my heart, and I'm really happy to be working for the city in this position. Nice. And Zara Muhammad is also here. She recently joined our team as the admin and outreach coordinator. I will say probably wins the award for weirdest first two weeks of work. She has been doing everything from O'Brien center, squirrel eradication to mass amounts of moving pumpkins and picking pumpkins. And she's been doing a lot of work for the last few weeks. I will say has just been completely down for whatever comes our way. So a really awesome addition to our team. Zara and her family are here in Winooski. She has nine siblings is the oldest of 10. Many of her younger siblings are familiar to us too, through programs. So it's been very cool. To have her on board and joining our team. In the last couple of weeks. Yeah. And I don't know Zara, if you have anything you want to say. I don't know. I also know she's home with her child. So. All right. I think she just came off mute. Oh, there we go. I didn't know it was on me. But there it is. Hi, I'm sorry. I guess race at it all. I have nothing. Well, And then as I shared, you know, a bunch of other kind of moving pieces, I don't know as well. So I think for anyone who's been on the team. And then there's the fatigue. Claudine and Francine, all of whom. And Robin as well. All of whom were former staff members in different roles have been promoted to new roles within the city. Um, really excellent that. And nothing, nothing against Jenny, but Claudia and Francine and Robin are all, uh, you know, young people that grew up here in Winooski Lea and Jamie joined our Thrive team this past summer and have stayed on through the school year. And then Maruna, Marisan, and Eliza McClain are both relatively new AmeriCorps state members with our team. So lots of new energy, lots of new eyeballs on things which has been great, tons of new ideas. And the office has been really full. So if you're ever in the neighborhood come visit it's been a real pleasure to go from like COVID isolation in the home office to have our team back around again. So yeah, thank you for taking the time and definitely encourage you to say hello if you see any of these folks around town. Well, thanks Ray for the introduction for putting the org chart in the agenda as there has been a lot of shifts in your department particularly like addressing programming through ESR funding. So I appreciate the chance to like refresh on who we have contributing to the team and knowing that there is an opportunity to pop in and say hello at some point at the OCC. Yep. Are there any questions from council? Any? No, I was just gonna say thanks for joining the team we're excited to have you. Any questions from members of the public? All right. Well, thank you again and we will move on to item B. This is the annual small business Saturday proclamation. Yes, so we've been invited once again to participate in small business Saturday and you have a proclamation in your packet which establishes November 27th as small business Saturday this year. This is one of the signature events that downtown Winooski supports. So last year it was a little bit different than it normally is and I'm not sure what the plans are for this year in terms of being in person and handing out swag bags and all of that luckily I have Meredith Bay-Tiak the executive director of downtown Winooski here to explain a little more about it. Meredith. Thanks Heather. So if you're not familiar this is a campaign that is in collaboration I'm gonna mess it up. It's in collaboration with the of course I lost it the women impacting public policy group and American Express and they basically provide a lot of materials and different ideas for small businesses and organizations like ours to really elevate and really hit out of the park in ahead of the holiday season. Last year we did not do anything in person like Heather said this year we are gathering feedback from our local businesses to see what they wanna do. Essentially in the past we have done in person events and this year we likely will do a bit of a hybrid. I think that the digital assets that Small Business Saturday has developed over the years are quite effective. So a lot of our businesses really utilize them they allow for customization there's a small barrier or sorry a low barrier to using these assets which is great. You don't need to have a graphic design background you don't need to have a lot of social media prowess to be able to use these assets. So I think we'll really push that digital side again but then we will be offering some opportunities for businesses to get some physical stuff from us to be able to attract some visitors through their doors on foot which is something that we're trying to encourage people to do safely. So I think it'll be a bit of both this year which seems to be the theme for 2021. Thank you Meredith. Are there any questions from council? Any question? Oh Bryn. I know that people love the downtown Winooski stickers so I don't know if any businesses that are particularly engaged would have those available to give out but it seems like there's definitely a lot of camaraderie around folks that have those and I haven't seen any in a little while so if there's a possibility to bring those back I think that would be the Small Business Saturday would be a great opportunity. Thank you for that, Bryn. Yeah those are in high demand. Every once in a while if I find a stash of those it is a big deal. We had been selling them at the farmers market and they were shockingly popular. People really love our logo and they love that camaraderie like you said so I will make a note of that. Anything else from council? Any questions or comment from members of the public? Well we are always happy to support Small Business Saturday effort. Is there a motion to approve the proclamation? It's all moved. Second. Motion by Mike, second by Bryn. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Motion carries, thank you. So next up is on for discussion or approval downtown Winnieski again joining us for a local option tax request. I don't know if Meredith or Heather who would like to begin. I'll do a little bit of an introduction to it and then I'll turn it over to Meredith and we also have a couple members of the downtown Winnieski board. We have Seth Leonard and Laura Wade here as well. So over the last several years, many of you will recall that downtown Winnieski has come in with annual requests for general fund reserves in order to make their budget work. So it was I believe $54,000 while they were trying to hire a full time executive director and that is Meredith. And really looking at reevaluating their entire model and moving more toward being a business support organization. We rewrote their memorandum of the memorandum of understanding between the city and downtown Winnieski based on that. And I think they have really up to their game in terms of the services that they're providing. They were planning on moving in the direction of a business based membership model where the members would provide much of the financial support and then COVID-19 hit. So they moved away from that immediately as businesses were struggling and are now seeking ways to create a sustainable funding stream for themselves and their budget moving forward without having to come back for annual reserves asks. And this is a really important organization to the city of Winnieski because it is by having downtown Winnieski that we're able to maintain our downtown designation and that designation gives us access to what has been millions of dollars in funding for various projects that are priorities in the city over the course of the last, I don't know how many years we've had that designation but it's been quite a while. So it's really important to maintain a functioning downtown Winnieski and I think that's what we have right now. Over the last couple of years with the previous city manager, Jesse Baker, we had been recommending, Jesse and I both had been recommending to downtown Winnieski that one approach would be to take a small percentage of the local option tax on an annual basis, much like the way we dedicate all of our sidewalk fees to downtown Winnieski and a portion of on-street parking fees, $12,500 annually and between all of those revenue streams, they could have a more sustainable funding model. So because local option taxes are based on sales and use and rooms, meals and alcohol tax, they're very much tied to the businesses and the success of the businesses that downtown Winnieski supports. So in theory, as downtown Winnieski is more successful in assisting our businesses to grow and expand or new businesses to come in, the revenues that we receive from the local option tax should increase. And so that gives them an incentive to do very well at their job, to increase whatever that amount is. So they continue to get that percentage, which will grow with those revenues. What they're requesting is 5% at least of the local option tax. And so our revenue for the year ending 630-21 in local option tax was $453,644.95. A 5% allocation of that would be roughly $19,250. 7% allocation would be $26,950. Both of those are smaller than the general fund asks that was requested last year. That was a $30,000 ask. So I just wanna put it in that context for you. Staff recommends approving a percentage of at least 5% of the local option tax on an annual basis to downtown Winnieski. And I'm gonna stop talking and turn it over to Meredith and the board to give you a little more information about them and why they're coming forward with the ask. Thanks, Heather. I think you gave a really excellent overview. I don't think that this would come as a shock to anyone who knows that history, like you said, of kind of where the board has been coming from, where this organization has been coming from in the past couple of years. There have been tremendous changes. And I think that we are on an excellent path. That excellent path will only really move forward and will only be able to be aspirational and continue to grow and continue to listen to the needs of the community if we can focus on really sustainable funding streams. We will not stop looking for grants, looking for donations, looking for any other financial opportunities that we can. But we do ask that this minimum of 5% be allocated to us so that we can continue to do all the things that we outlined in our memo and then expand as well because that is ultimately what this organization wants to do. We don't want to be the bare minimum of existing and operating in a way that serves the city but isn't moving forward. We want to be able to listen to the community and then take action based on that feedback and listen to the small business community, listen to the diversity of our community and be able to say, okay, we hear you and here's what we can offer in exchange. And at this point, we are tied by our budget. So we really thank you for listening to us and I would send it over to Seth if you have anything to add and then I would open up to questions. Well, thanks for hearing us out tonight. We really appreciate it and we come forward to and with appreciative acknowledgement of the resources that you've provided in the past to the organization as Heather referenced, the downtown organization was founded in Winooski as a means to get at resources to help with the downtown's redevelopment. And afterwards, what's really exciting is it's morphed into something much more than just an entity that keeps the designation to help with those large tax credit programs. We're achieving what we had always hoped and dreamed which is I'm an outlier on the board meaning I'm a random resident of sorts. I don't work at a Winooski business per se and I don't own a Winooski business and I'm the only person right now on the board that that's the case for. In the past we've had lots of well-intentioned, good-minded civic individuals serve but this has really now become a business organization and that's really exciting. And it's diverse in terms of the types of businesses being represented on the board and that are participating and that's what we always dreamed. And we're appreciative of the fact that this is coming forward so that those folks can focus on vibrancy, vitality and doing the work of the organization versus asking those business owners to turn around and either pull money out of their own pockets or continue to ask other fellow businesses to pull money out of their pockets to financially sustain the organization and that this would allow us to move forward with that agenda and work. So I'm really excited about where we've landed as an organization. There's awesome energy behind it and Laura Wade's a great example of that here as our board chair and a business owner herself. And for the longest time we could get a business owner to be a board chair for downtown Winooski. So I hope we can celebrate that shift too but I'll throw the mic over that way and thanks for your consideration and support. Thanks Seth. Thank you all for hearing us out tonight. And yes, like Seth said, I'm here as a chair of downtown Winooski but also as a business owner I've owned a business in Winooski for nine years now brick and mortar and it's been an honor to be part of this city. I feel nothing but support from the city and from the council but also from downtown Winooski and I'm just really wanna just put my support into this and yeah, thank you. Well, thank you all for coming to attend and as Heather shared downtown Winooski's existence is very important to us. I have seen in the few years that I've been involved in the city leadership arena, quite the pretty exciting growth of your organization and what you all are doing for Winooski. I do wanna come out right away and say I don't feel prepared to make a decision on this this evening. There's some missing information for me. One, in this memo you mentioned businesses paying a nominal fee for the membership structure, the membership structure that was mentioned earlier that has been discussed in the past for part of your funding. I would like to see in more detail what that looks like and what businesses are contributing to this organization. I wanna recognize that while a lot of the local options tax that we collect is obviously generated by local business, there is also a good portion of it that comes from online sales, from people's cell phone bills, like from residents paying sales tax that's not directly tied to what's generated here. So I did just wanna make the ask if you all can follow up and share in greater detail what that looks like and kind of in past requests we have seen like an operating budget and expense plan. So something like that would be great. I also just want to call out that when voters approved the local options tax in 2019, we very explicitly communicated to the public that we would use these funds for capital expenses, for offsetting property tax increases for things like Main Street and the pool. And I just wanna make sure that history is in folks minds and for other counselors as we make a decision here. I think there is a direct connection between downtown Manuski and the revenue we're collecting, but we also need to consider what we said to voters when they made this vote. And needs can change obviously, but it's something that I don't want us to forget. We also had some public comment to that effect which we'll invite later in this discussion. Are there questions from other members of council tonight or things that other folks would like to see as we consider this request? Brynn? I second your comments, Mayor. I think I'd like to see an OPEX plan and anything that gives an idea of what percentage of funding comes from the city versus other sources and how that ties to particular efforts, projects, initiative campaigns for downtown Manuski. And then I'm also curious, what's the, I guess, availability of other revenue sources? It's the success of that. I don't have a lot of familiarity with what would be realistic or feasible for downtown Manuski as it relates to, if we weren't able to commit a certain percentage, how would that impact your goals and performance metrics, I guess? So along the same lines as the mayor said about that is just having a little bit more context. I don't know if there's an annual plan or anything that captures that, but I would be interested in seeing that. Is that something you all would have beyond what's listed in the MOU or be able to kind of outline at a high level? Yeah, we could definitely provide that for you. And just to give you a heads up, we have not launched our membership ask yet. So we would be able to share with you our plans there, but we wouldn't be able to show you a list of businesses that have committed if that kind of thing. But I totally hear what you're saying. To be completely honest, we, the last couple of years, if you're to look at the organization's budget, it has changed considerably. So we have solid plans in place and goals in place and calendar sort of lined up. But we really have sort of an interesting situation to look back on. Certainly we have a lot of plans, but we can't necessarily give you receipts for everything. We can give you receipts for what we have done. And certainly you guys, like you mentioned, have seen the growth and have seen kind of what we've been able to provide, but we will do our best to provide that documentation for you. And to be completely honest, without going into too much detail because I can't at this moment, just to answer Councillor Oakley's question about availability of other revenue sources, essentially, our time would be spent replacing whatever we would expect from this sort of ask with time getting other grants, other donations and other revenue streams to come down and replace those or not. To be completely honest, we would do our best, but it might be a situation where that those plans, those offers to businesses, that technical assistance, those events, whatever it is that we would decide just wouldn't happen because we wouldn't have the capacity to do that. So that's kind of where we're at is that just like any nonprofit, so much of the time is spent maintaining a budget, but there is a line to be crossed about how much time spent chasing revenue versus how much time operationalizing our mission. Go ahead, Seth. Yeah, and just to quickly preview sort of the response on the infrastructure front, which we have talked about and discussed, the designation program to the state of Vermont gives the city priority for infrastructure investments, your primary planning grants and funding available through both the CCRPC Department of Human or Department of Housing and Community Development and ECBDG funding the city receives or pretty much anything from ACCD is prioritized based on the designation program. So the city's core designation of our downtown and the I'll say auxiliary designations, neighborhood designation areas, all those projects from an infrastructure standpoint are supported by our existence and our vibrancy has helped Winooski get prioritization for those sources of funding that help with those big projects. And we think of the built infrastructure for businesses being the buildings. And the other thing that the organization's existence has done what we've helped with is tax credit reallocation programs that have helped with things like the revitalization of the Champlain Mill. Waterworks would not be there if not for a large tax credit program agreement with the state. The downtown organization was mostly responsible for. And the same with improvements to the block building most recently a good example which weren't necessarily physical improvements that a lot of people saw but life and safety issues for building the very could easily been condemned and become a real shout out to four quarters. Also that those upgrades. Yeah. Actually, if I could add as well for lot 70, we received $500,000 in CDBG funds as was $646,000 in sales tax reallocation this past year alone. So due to this designation. Thank you for that myriad of examples. Jim, go ahead. Thank you. And thanks Meredith, Seth and Laura for being here tonight and laying out this idea. I agree with the mayor and council I believe that having some more information would be really helpful but I'm glad to have this opportunity to ask questions and kind of discuss this in the first round. So thanks for committing to but will likely be several appearances here. And I had kind of two unrelated questions. The first is do you envision this kind of green up of your time as providing some additional capacity to our city staff in some ways? So in other words, are you taking some economic development off of Heather's plate, all this call names and say, will you, is this, you see some efficiency in that by investing in this organization the city will also get added staff capacity or do you really see this as all new things and we'll still be funding the same amount of staff work on the city side, does that make sense? I'll let Heather answer the city staff thing but I will just say that in this particular act we were anticipating it being additional support services that we would provide but we obviously worked incredibly closely which we're really grateful for with Heather with her department that can't be said for other downtown organizations. So the fact that we do work so closely together is already an efficiency because we don't double up on our work. So I'll let Heather speak to the other part. Yeah, and Jim, thank you for asking that question. I actually quite some time ago in discussing this that's one of the things that Meredith and I had discussed is there are some things that downtown Winooski can do and frankly can probably do better than a city employee can do that I think could potentially free up some portion of my time if they have the capacity to do that and that time could then be reallocated to other things like I am assuming you are thinking about housing but it could create a situation where I have more capacity to work on other things as opposed to business support. Yes. Thank you. And the other question is unrelated on governance and I know that you, I believe that you were going through a board reorganization before and that is now finalized. I don't quite, I don't remember. I don't recall if we've received an update on that. So I apologize if you've already told me this and I forgot, but if you could say a little bit about governance, how your board structured and what role city staff have, city staff or elected representatives have in decision making on the board? Is it purely ex officio and listening or is there any sort of advisory voting capacity for city representation? I, we do not have a voting member of city staff on our board. We have Heather Carrington is currently our ex officio city liaison. And then we also have counselor Mike Myers as a non voting member as well liaison. I can take it over to Seth, who is our governance chair, a governance leader about kind of how we are structured and it's very deliberate in how we structure our organization so that we are truly an independent organization and a nonprofit in the city. Yeah, the board this year, we wrote the bylaws and the membership outlines in terms of participation. So we refined and restructured those a bit. The question came up really about membership. Membership to the organization is right now staked, needs to be approved to be a public meeting that'll take place next month actually at $25. So our idea was to create a nominal membership entrance portal sort of to get participation and buy in an nominal rate. That $25 is also waivable for both individuals, businesses and entities or organizations that do business primarily in the city of Winooski so that could also include nonprofit organizations, non governmental entities. That membership base every year certifies a board, a board that is intended to be nine people. And we've set a target for ourselves of seven of those representatives on the board of commissioners or importance, board of directors is what it's called in the bylaws being business related. So business either employees or owners or operators in terms of who comprises the board. Cause there have been times in the city where we've gotten the point where it's mostly representatives from the community itself. And we think having it be a business focused group would be good. We've set up formalized committees that includes a treasurer position right now held by the director of the beverage warehouse, George. But we're also working with a professional accounting firm to support our executive director. So we've brought in a professional accounting firm that is helping with books, doing taxes for us each year providing financial consultation as well. So I'll just say, I think with the new bylaw and restructuring with additional committees we've put some additional controls in place that I won't say we're lacking in previous years but we're best refined and defined nicely in bylaws which we took the time to do and make sure that that's upfront. So if you're curious to see updates of those we're happy to provide them as well. Thank you. There are other questions from council or things that you might want to see ahead of a second discussion in a future meeting. Brynn? Yeah, I noticed that this is proposed as though it would be an ongoing and potentially expand from 5% beyond to 7% or 8%. I'm also curious to the extent like more, how does that, how would that align with, I guess, the goals of downtown Winooski and whether or not it would be more appropriate to have a request that says 5% or up to X amount of dollars or not to exceed X amount of dollars. Since we're looking at supply chain challenges, inflation, anticipation for this coming calendar year doesn't necessarily directly align with our fiscal year but seeing how that will impact the city's cost of living and other expenses and wanting to just be mindful of being diligent with taxpayer money and as well as the revenues gained from the local options tax. So I guess the question is the ability to whether or not it makes sense to have something up to a certain amount, 5% or a percentage up to a certain amount as well as, I guess the long-term, sure long-term vision of like is this something that will be coming back to the council annually? How does this really get built into a larger visioning plan, I guess, a three-year, five-year visioning plan? For clarification, would it make more sense to council if we made this an annual ask for a percentage as part of the budget process, which is why we're bringing it forward now so that then that could be a discussion that is had on an annual basis as opposed to just approving a percentage ongoing. If that might be an easier way of framing this, we could potentially look at bringing it back that way. And also not to exceed would then make sense on an annual basis. One of the things that we're trying to build in with that up to 7% or 8% is that there, our hope is that we're going to have a massive expansion of businesses as Main Street is built out. So there will be more need in the city. And so being able to grow that over time would make sense. But if we were to take it year by year with the ask, then that could be accommodated year by year. Also, just to clarify, this wouldn't necessarily be an automatic re-upping. We still review our memorandum of understanding with this city on a yearly basis. So for example, the funding that we already received from the city is technically in the budget as a line item that is just there. But we have to re-approve it through council approving the memorandum of understanding yearly. Yeah, on that note, I think you do show us in the MOU kind of high level what your plans are. I think should we move forward with something like this, it would make sense to include like outputs. Like here's what we did, you know, we're coming back for funding again or to like keep the funding going. If we move forward with this, I would be comfortable with an assumed, like we assume we're gonna do this annually. But if there was an ask to increase their percentage that that would not be assumed. That would be an actual discussion before happening. Mike, your hand was up. Yeah, I'm kind of caught on this because we have, I don't know if Mr. Cross wants to say anything if we're gonna give him time. I don't wanna speak for him. But originally this was to offset some capital projects. But the other hand too is because we had that downtown designation, this is what got my brain thinking about this. I think it's an okay ask to keep, to cap it at 5% to get back to the downtown because they do generate money for our city. They bring in a lot of people into our city because we have such a vibrant downtown. And not just the downtown but the Winooski businesses as a whole. There's a lot of unique businesses in Winooski that I just, I think it's okay in my opinion. I know we're not voting or we're not ready to move forward but I wouldn't be okay by increasing that anymore because of what the voters, what we, how we brought this local option tax to the voters. If we wanna reverse this or reword this somehow I think it should be up to maybe the taxpayers to say how we should spend this money and not just put it on our shoulders. Maybe we need to rework that if this is gonna be an annual ask or if it's gonna go any higher in the future. I think we'd have to keep the taxpayers in mind on this. Thanks, Mike. I'll use that. Okay, Jim. You can start first if you want mayor. Oh, I was gonna move to public comment but if you have something to add. I just kind of wanna reinforce. I mean, I see this as a, linked and very similar in the way we operated with our MOU at the school. We need the MOU in place in order to add the assumptions from it into budgeting and that this would presumably follow a similar schedule and process that in some ways that decision on the annual review of the MOU is our budget decision to then include it in our budget. And I think that's one of our two jobs as city council is to the budget and to supervise the city manager. So I think that I don't think we can, we have to shy away from this. And I think the return on investment has been verbally outlined here. I think it's clear. I mean, we're putting in 5% and we get back the ability to apply for millions of dollars of grants and get priority. So I think that that is a pretty good return on investment if we think about that writ large for infrastructure. So I'm not, I don't see a big problem but I do want it to be kind of an ongoing review. And that's why I was asking about governance is that we don't have, we're putting this taxpayer money into a different place and making sure that it's meeting the needs and the goals of the city should be part of that. And I think that the way that downtown when you see has operated and plans operate will continue to do that. So I don't see an issue with that right now but having that be a part of that annual review would be good. I also think keeping it capped at a certain percentage and that's the incentive to grow the business space and grow the LOT grows the budget. So rather than using a fixed dollar amount using a percentage base, I think it's a virtuous cycle and that more revenue coming in needs more revenue for downtown when you scan the city. So I'm not, I guess I'm just pontificating at this point, but I think there's some, I think we have to figure like looking in the bigger context of what's the investment that we're putting in and how is it being controlled and do we have sufficient review as we go forward with it? So I'll be looking for that next time we talk to you. So let's move to public comment and see if we have any public comment. You can use the raise hand feature in Zoom. I think you can chat Paul as well to a little room if you wish to speak. Okay, I'm not seeing any, but I will just say that one of our public attendees today, George Cross had emailed the full council ahead of the meeting with public comment, stating to the effect of the local options tax having been created to, what is the right wording here? I don't have his email open in front of me, but as like another way to diversify local revenue to take pressure off of the local property tax. So something I was getting out earlier and then we've had some more discussion here about how downtown Manuski supports revenue for infrastructure upgrades in addition to other, the direct business services and things like that. So it sounds like we've made a lot of asks for you. I've taken some notes and can follow up Heather and Meredith, but I think it's like more detail on the business membership model on the general operating budget. I think we can pretty easily outline what the accountability and touch point would be via that MOU renewal each year. And making sure that that is like a goal's accountability, you know, accountability that we did what we said last year we would do, you know, continue our funding. Are there any, I don't know, are there any questions you all have for us or anything else you wanted to raise as part of this preliminary discussion? I just wanna say thank you for thinking, you know, through this so thoughtfully, I mean, this is really important for our organization that's important to make sure that we're aligned with the city and the residents. And so we definitely want to make sure that we're providing enough background information and enough accountability that it makes sense for you to feel comfortable moving forward with a vote. I will say it does also sound like there's a question and maybe this is for offline between the mayor and Heather and myself and others. But I would like to also, you know, sort of bail down what would be discussed in terms of if there's a maximum percentage, if there's a maximum dollar amount, I would, you know, suggest we also have a minimum in there as well, which would be the whole reason for having this be considered a sustainable or a youthful revenue stream for us. And then, you know, just making sure that we are clear on what the renewals would be and whether it would be a loop in with our MOU or whether we would be coming at this time again next year with this similar ask straight up. So those are the questions that I have and maybe like I said, that would be best discussed offline. But I think that we can definitely come up with the information that you're requesting. So counselors, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe what I heard was a preference for, if we move this forward, we would commit to annual 5%, but we wouldn't raise that amount without having another conversation. Like that would be a new ask, but through the annual MOU process, that would be our chance to look at accountability if there was for some reason we wanted to not provide the 5%, but it would be generally assumed a flat rate going forward. Does that sound right to what folks are, Brynne? I just feel like flat raise a little bit of a misnomer because 5% is not going to be flat. It will be dependent upon what the revenues are of the local options tax. So to me, that doesn't really clearly capture what the ask is. So that's a percentage rate, not flat amount, steady percentage rate. Right. Okay, I thought I saw George raise his hand in the attendees. Paul, do you wanna try to bring him over? Welcome, George. George, are you able to unmute? Trying to find it here. Got it, we can hear you. Okay. First of all, let me congratulate the council on the discussion and the downtown business group for bringing forth the idea. I just wanna hit three things historically and you've done it somewhat already. Lot or local option taxes were created during the X-60 educational finance situation and not some other time in the legislation. The downtown board was created by the Community Development Corporation under Liam Murphy and Billy Niquette at the time of the downtown redevelopment. I don't believe that at any point that any of those discussions mirrored the quality of the discussion has taken place here this evening. Lastly, Christina's right, the mayor's right, that when the local people voted on this, they basically were told that money raised through the lot would be used for capital expenditures and therefore offset the tax rate. I think it's important to remember all three of those things as the discussion takes place. On the other hand, it's also imperative to understand that many things in the city do take place because of the downtown association and the work that the downtown association puts into it. And this is the first time, by the way, that the downtown association in my time in one of those skittlies has involved itself in a whole variety of things so that it's clear that it's moving in the direction that it was designed to move in when it was first created. There has been years preceding all of you on the council when, in fact, the downtown association spent money and then came back to the city council and asked for that money, particularly around the fireworks display that used to be, which by the way was very good. But it isn't important to have a clear understanding both through the city and the downtown association as to what the connection is going to be between the two and not knowing how much money is now taken in through the sidewalks, not knowing how much money is now taken in through the parking deal, means that you can't really make a decision based on additional money. This has all been complicated by the pandemic and certainly the downtown association deserves a certain amount of money to help them out during that pandemic season. So having said all that, I basically have done nothing but cloud up the issue, probably, but I think that it's, we're headed in the right direction. There needs to be considerable thought given to it, that's all. Thank you, George. Thanks for sharing the history that certainly precedes me. And that does remind me for staff for Angela, I would hope for our next discussion if you could pull together the historic funding that we have supplied. I have pulled those numbers together. If you want, I can include them in the packet next time or I can give them to you now. Next time when we look at the other follow up stuff we've asked for. Well, thank you all for, as George mentioned, I think this has been a really good detailed discussion to help us get to a really good decision-making place. And we will invite you back probably November 15th. I will defer to staff to help coordinate that. All right. Thank you all. Thanks for having us. Thank you for your time. Thank you. So we're gonna move on now to item D. This is also on for discussion approval. That's a historic roadside marker approval request for 10 Manso Street. And I think we have our favorite local historian, Berditan joining us. Hi, everyone. Welcome. Nice to see you all. Thank you. Heather, did you want to do any, or no, John, this is a John issue. Yeah, I can do a quick intro, but I'll pass over to Berditan. So this is a request to review the text for a historic marker in the vicinity of 10 Manso Street. That's the new Park Terrace developer that just became occupied. So we work with Berditan on a location. And when I say historic marker, I think of like Richard Park, the one near the armory, that kind of historic marker. But as part of the historic review process, the council does need to review and approve the text. So I've included the documentation that Berditan provided with the text and the proposed location. But I will pass along to Berditan for any more details. Okay, thanks, John. So this is a standard state issued historic site marker. And it sounds like some of you are familiar with what they look like. There is an application that needs to be filled out and the narrative created. And it can only be 767 characters, which is really challenging to squeeze a lot of information into that small amount of room. So it's pretty short that explains why I'm cramming a lot of information in a very, very brief narrative. But this is part of the mitigation for the loss of the historic brick building that was located at 223 East Allen Street where Park Terrace is now located. There are multiple components to this mitigation, including a report that I had prepared with documentation of the historic building and an interpretive panel that's gonna go in the building about the history of it. So when I talked to the division for historic preservation, created the mitigation, we talked about how this marker would sort of talk a little bit about the neighborhood and the evolution of the neighborhood from a rural area into a much more populated, busy corridor with a lot of housing development west and I guess north, sorry, of East Allen Street. So it just, you know, tries to capture a lot of different things. It doesn't have like this one very narrow specific theme like some of the site markers have. So what I will say is that this text will be presented to the division for historic preservation for their review. They typically have a lot of edits just because they like to put their mark on it as well. So what we are looking at right now is the first draft. This might change a bit, it might change the structure of it, some of the wording. And so I imagine, you know, for the application we need you to have reviewed this and have okayed it before I send it on, but I imagine we'll bring it back at some point in front of you to give final approval once it's gone through a round of edits assuming that will happen. So I'll answer questions. I think this is the first time one of these has gone through while I've been there. So I appreciate hearing more about the process. Are there any questions from council? Mike. Great question. What's, John, this is probably a John question. What is the actual size of the sign? Oh, that is not a question for me. Well, the reason I'm asking is because that intersection, I don't know if you guys have, if you guys drive through that intersection it's just a bunch of chaos. And I'm wondering what the visibility, what, is it gonna deny people's visibility of bikes, motorcycles or cars coming down? Because trying to get out of that corner at certain points of the day because the lineage isn't there and trying to get into that traffic. And I know this is a little ways off, but I just wanna make sure we have thought about everything before we put a sign on that really crazy intersection. Yeah, we looked at it. So Brita met with Joe Schaar, deputy director to cite it for site distance issues and just general maintenance. So, you know, when we cited it, we were looking at vehicle site distance issues. And I mean, we'll chat with Brita more on that. But I think for tonight, we'll cite it so it's not an issue vehicle-wise, but tonight it's more about the text and just making sure you guys are okay with that. But I appreciate that, Mike. Okay, I just wanna make sure that- We did talk about that quite a bit. We met on site there and kind of looked to see where would, how far do we have to get it away from the intersection to have it not be an issue anymore and be in the site line. So that's why I picked an area originally we thought maybe it should be closer to the corner because there's that little, almost like a little parklet right there. And then we decided, no, that's actually a really bad idea. Let's move it like up the street more. So I think, but you know, could always take a walk there and see, you know, you have the GPS location is pretty approximate, but yeah, you raise a really good point. Any other questions or concerns? All right, so it seems like we are good with this text and with you proceeding with the application. Can I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Motion by Mike, second by Bryn. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you, John and Brynna. Thank you. Thank you so much, y'all. I'll keep you posted on how it goes. Thanks, bye. So it's 726. I would like to call a four minute recess and reconvene us at 730. So we are on item E. This is on for approval. It is Vermont Urban and Community Forestry 2022 growing urban forests in the face of Emerald Ash bore grant application that Ray is here to introduce. Yeah, thank you very much. I will start by saying that Councilor Duncan wearing the tree committee Duncan hat deserves a ton of credit for doing a ton of the heavy lifting along with the tree committee to help develop the kind of bones of this application that was submitted. Definitely an exciting opportunity for us to, if we're funded, replace eight ash trees in the downtown area around Moonee Ski Falls Way and Cascade Way, and also to support the purchase of our centennial tree, which we're hoping to plant at Richards Park. Do I have to answer any specific questions? Just to give you an update, this was kind of a late identified grant and we were working on it kind of up to the wire in the midst of pumpkins. So the actual grant amount that we requested ended up being $4,050, not the full $5,000 that we had put into the cover sheet, but just to give you that update from the actual submitted grant, but otherwise happy to answer any questions. And yeah. Thank you. You know, we just heard about the potential tree planting as part of the centennial celebration. So nice to see that moving forward. Any questions from Council on this one? All right. We also no longer have members of the public. So hearing no concerns, does someone want to move to approve this grant application? Second. Motion by Bryn, second by Jim. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Ray. No problem. All right. We are moving on to item F. This is on for discussion approval. The city manager search firm recommendation and Phoebe has joined us. Welcome. Thank you. Hi, everyone. So I have written this memo just to follow up on some of our previous discussions around hiring a search firm and restarting the city manager search. So I included all of the proposals. They're very long. So I tried to summarize them in the memo for you. And this can be either discussion or approval. So hopefully everyone got a chance to at least read the memo. And I am happy to take any questions you have about these proposals. Thank you, Phoebe. Yeah, I think it would be good to, if counselors have questions about any of the specific firms, we can address those first and then maybe discuss our preferences if we have them. Brynn. I guess I, first of all, I want to say thank you, Phoebe for putting a summary together. I think that was really helpful to have something to offer a little bit of a comparison where otherwise would have had to try to do that on my own. So thank you so much for that. I am also curious if you have a sense for, I guess the differences in the timelines. I know you started to capture that a little bit in some of the summaries. And there wasn't necessarily, so one timeline that seemed to differ between the proposals. And then I guess another one was, whether or not there was any expectation for them to attend any meetings in person. I don't think we had any expectations around that, but I wanted to revisit that as well. So that will inevitably impact the amount of the contract as well as the timeline that we're considering. Sure, so the timeline, I think some of the proposals, and I think that I'm pretty sure there was a couple of the ones that I marked as traditional, which means they have very prescribed steps already in their process. And so the timelines that they are giving in these proposals are probably based on just average time to fill executive searches that they've done in the past, but there were also a number of customizable options in a number of the proposals that may extend the timeline. And obviously I think it could, there's always a possibility that a search would last be a shorter time period than they laid out. But I think, yeah. So I think that that's the difference. And then there was one proposal that didn't include a timeline just because they take a more customized approach. And in all of these proposals, there are options that the council could choose to engage with or not. So a lot of these proposals included things like writing the job description, which we in theory already have a job description. So I think it's always subject to a little bit of fluctuation, but yeah, most of the timelines are just based on their average time to fill for some of these roles. And then can you remind me what your next question was? Can you remind me what your next question was? Yeah, my second question was a follow-up question. A couple of the proposals mentioned travel. Oh yeah. It's really just for the candidate. And I guess I had made an assumption that that wouldn't be necessary for the recruitment firm, but wanted to just ensure we were all on the same page on that. Yeah, so the travel, a couple of the firms had like options for community meetings and attending meetings in person and like doing in focus groups with community members before, as part of the process to sort of design their approach to the hire. So I think they all would be, I think each of these firms would be, would engage in a national search. And so I don't know that all of their interviews would be, all interviews would be via Zoom, but that's generally the impression I get at this point, I think just because of the pandemic and because candidates would be coming from all over the country. So the firms in the proposals, they detail what their expectations are in terms of like reimbursing for travel, whether it's reimbursing the search firm professionals themselves for coming to the city or reimbursing the candidates, if we do want the candidates to come and do in person. But I think that is one of the options that we could customize and say, like we would prefer to do virtual interviews and an in-person, obviously an in-person interview, but the number of the firms will come to city council meetings and meet the public. And so there's just a bunch of options like that that they offer. PVA your question. Did you just say that we reimbursed the candidates? Or from what I read, it was, I thought the firms themselves, not the employees, not the candidates. So it would be either. So typically, if we ask, one of the firms, I think, I don't remember which one it was, but if this stated clearly that if we ask a candidate to travel to an in-person interview, they expect us to reimburse the candidate for travel expenses. And then the other firms have the option of, coming to in-person meetings at which we would reimburse the firm for. But typically for executive searches at this level, travel candidates can request reimbursement for travel expenses. I think that's typically an expectation. Any other questions? Guys, I did it again. Are there any other questions about the firm's proposals or things that we want to run by Phoebe before we talk about preferences? Brynn? Love a little bit more perspective from Phoebe on your experience or any other guidance you've seen or heard from VLCT about using and leveraging recruiting firms, any best practices or lessons learned in some cases, I guess, of like, it's always like, well, some of it is really ensuring that we are very clear about what our expectations are. And I guess I wonder like, what do we need to make sure that we're clear about in some of those instances as well? Yeah, I mean, I think, I think for the expense of these types of searches, I think we should be able to really to customize the search and work with them to design something. It shouldn't be a relationship where they, we're depending on them for their expertise in executive search and recruitment, but we should still be able to sort of influence the process and have input in the process. And I think that that's a really important thing to remember going into it because, whereas, we know the community really well. So, and I think that that's, for something like this, for as unique a community as we can see, like I think that's critical for us to be able to say, like, this is how we want to go about this. These are some elements that we'd like to include in the process. So I think, yeah, that would be, I think what I think is the most important thing to remember going into it because this is a significant expense. You know, we would be, you know, it's, and it's, I think all of these proposals, all of these firms are very experienced, but not all of them will be, I think great for Winooski. So, and VLCT did refer me to one of the firms that is the most local and has a lot of experience in, you know, regionally in New England. But the other resource that we have is ICMA, the International City Managers Association. And they have a lot of, you know, they have a handbook on running a city manager search. And I found that that's really, that's been really helpful for us when we were on the search committee and just with this process in general. So I would definitely, we can find some best practices to share from ICMA with engaging with an external search firm. And they have, you know, they have pros and cons in there of working with them and sort of those things about, you know, what to watch out for. And yeah, I mean, I think that it's really, it is, I mean, you know, my, my preference is for a more, you know, when in any recruitment process, like the more customized approach, there are a lot of things that are tried and true in recruitment and executive recruitment. But I think, you know, being able to, you know, use those best practices, but also just, as I said, like be able to customize it for Winooski's needs specifically, I think is really critical. So, you know, a lot of these firms and the proposals are very detailed with very, you know, really, really clear steps. And I think, you know, part of this process should be having that conversation of, you know, and going into the process with sort of eyes open with a clear indication of how we want to influence the process. Because, yeah, as I said, there are a ton of best practices and these are all really experienced firms, but, you know, for this amount of money like we should be able to, you know, to sort of work with them in the partnership as opposed to just, but that said, like it's, there are parts of it that are great that the firm does, you know, that sort of candidate sourcing and the basic back and forth communication, like that's very valuable. That's a really valuable service too. So, you know, it is different though because this is a, you know, the candidates are basically their clients too. So, you know, they're sort of, these firms are all communicating and sort of taking care of the candidates at the same time. And they want it to be a good experience for the candidate as well. And I think that that's the other thing that we can really look for because it's about, you know, their brand as a recruitment firm too. So, yeah, hopefully that answers your question. Does, thank you. I, and if you'll entertain another one. I think it's obvious, but also something we're stating is that I think at least my expectation is that the candidate would be moving locally. So while these are national search firms like would anticipate that the offer would have with it the expectation that the candidate accepting the position would relocate to at least the Chittenden County area. If not, you know, preferred Wadowski itself. So I would want to make sure that that is clear with the recruitment firm as well. Yeah, definitely. And that's something that we would, as you know, as they're designing their advertisements and their sort of, I think it was included in a proposal, so one of them had a really good example of like the packet that's the job posting but also information about the community. And I think we can make sure to make that really clear that that's a deal breaker if someone is not willing to move to this area. Thank you. So I don't know about you all. I have some thoughts about pros and cons of the different options, but maybe would ask if anybody had a strong opinion about a first choice. Okay, so then let's just talk about, if no one has like a strong front runner. I will say, starting with Alliance was the first one. They were the priciest. They were modern and traditional minority female-owned and shortest potential timeline. Also talked about recruitment of non-job seekers. So, you know, finding professionals that might not be on the hunt already. The one thing that I didn't love about them was that they're California based and appear to have done all of their placements in that region. So I didn't feel like they were as experienced with our area. We had Polly Hire Next. They were less detailed about their process and their record of placements, you know, which they were speaking to being boutique sized and I think to what Phoebe was speaking to earlier being able to be like really custom and hands-on. They also had a strong focus on like DEI and recruitment of black and indigenous folks, which I thought was really interesting, but I also had some concern. I believe it specifically called out recruitment of black and indigenous candidates. And I think our community also has a very strong Asian demographic that wasn't mentioned. Neither was like Latinx. I don't know, there was something odd about it to me, the use of inclusion language. The Gov HR sort of middle-priced, traditional. They had a lot of placements and actually a number that were in the Northeast. They also spoke about a limited scope option that didn't include background check or question development which are things that we may not need because we already did part of this work. And then finally there was the MRI which was the VLCT recommended traditional approach. They were lower cost. I really liked their focus on understanding the community and place in creating the job profile to help the candidates. They did not have any real focus on equity or minority recruitment called out though, which I know is something that we've discussed. So those are some of the like pros and cons that I saw across these options. Did folks have other pro-cons that they wanted to discuss or like your general reaction to some of the options? Jim. Thank you. I had a similar assessment of alliance in that they seemed like they had a great, I think they had a good process outlined. I wish they had some experience in the Northeast. It's like the context does matter. And being the priciest was a little bit made that a second concern for me. The GovHR definitely out like it's clear that they've done this a number of times and they have kind of a pretty standard approach that seems like what I would expect. And as far as Polly Hyer, I what drew me to them was the experience of the people who were, who would be on the project team and having served both as administration members but also having before and after been in recruitment and done recruitment within local, within government organizations. I think there's some benefit to people who have had that experience. And I saw that also in alliance as well, the folks who run that firm have also worked in city management. So I think there's some benefit to those two firms in my mind having that local government management experience. I think any of the three could do it. I'm, I guess I feel a little bit lost to define what we would expect out of Polly Hyer. And so it makes me feel less comfortable. But I don't know that that's a reason to say no to them. I do appreciate the VP approach. And I clearly have done placement of people based on the work experience that they outlined for their leads. And just one other note. And I think in terms of costs, getting a customized approach for an additional $1,500 or even less, or even getting one of the cheapest options if we don't go for the full scope of HR, I think certainly it's intriguing to consider. Thanks, Jim. Bernard Mike. Any observations you want to call out? Yeah, I'll go. I'm similar as you, Mayor. I didn't really care for Alliance just because of their West Coast ties. They didn't really show any work in the Northeast. And I don't think, I don't want to get into that. What I, the two I liked was the Gov HR and the MRI. The MRI read through. And part of it is because it was the least, the less expensive out of the four. And if we're talking about having to reimburse candidates from flying here or driving here and ousting them, this is going to get real costly. And what I liked about the MRI is, if you read their public sector recruitment, everything that Winnieski's community is, they are going to seek out and they're going to work closely with, not just the council, but with the city staffers as they stated in their form. And I think that's what we need to realize. And they also were referred by the front leagues of cities and towns. It's going to be what's best for Winnieski, for the whole Winnieski, not just pockets of Winnieski. It's got to be a thoughtful process. But we got to realize too, we're using taxpayers' money to fund this. And most of these recruitment firms are using the same exact areas of, like the Hispanic, I can't think of the word, the same recruitment tools that our search community use, and they're stated in there, like the governor, GOVHR are stated in the same exact search areas that our search community already did. So we have to pay attention to the taxpayers that are going to flip the bill for this. And my choice will be the MRI first and the GOVHR second, and that's it. Brain, your thoughts? Sorry, once again, I'm trying to, I'm not working on, I'm working on a smaller screen, so it makes it a little harder to shift between, I, there are different things that stand out to me, depending on level of support. I think fixed V versus cost plus timeline, experience, success with placement. And then I think some of the additional things that might be, I guess, bonus elements, like sticking with the city until a candidate's found or providing additional support for the tenure of the candidate after they've been placed, some things that feel like additional elements that are more nice to haves or just kind of bonus services. That stood out to me. I think Alliance had a very strong proposal. I liked how they articulated their plan well. I do have concerns as everyone stated about the California firm without any examples of New England placements. We don't have strong county government here in Vermont and that can be a factor in terms of candidate experience and expectations and being able to just articulate that themselves. And so the offset of that is GovHR showed a lot of strength with placement, nationally, small community as well as large. I think Pullhire or Pollyhire, I felt like I was left with a lot of questions as to what their approach and plan would be. And so I think it was hard in that way for me to get a feel for that. How much time would we need to spend? How much time would our staff need to spend articulating what our needs and expectations are? Sometimes it's nice to have that share, have a framework share with us and say, no, actually we want these things changed as opposed to... So I mean, it's just a different approach, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we can't benefit from that. MRI, I definitely hear Councillor Meyers concerns about expense. Their timeline seems to be within what we're looking for. I guess I'm not... I don't think Alliance is on the table for me. And I think if I had to rank them, I would say GovHR would be first for me, Pollyhire would be second and MRI would be third. Thank you. Thank you for that clear ranking, Bryn. Oh, there is something else I wanted to say about MRI that you mentioned. So I did appreciate the lower cost options there, but so I like that they're New England focused, like in theory, but I feel like we did a New England focused search already and were essentially what we decided to do was expand beyond that. And so maybe they're not the best choice for that either. I am hearing if this were like a ranked choice voting situation that we might be meeting on GovHR as like top two for most of us. Would anyone have a problem with that if that's how we move forward here? Okay. It might be worth discussing at this moment as well before we engage them how we feel about potential in-person interviews and if that's something that we do want to consider. I am happy to start by sharing. I don't think it's necessary at the initial stages of interview, especially since two years into a pandemic, we're all pretty versed in virtual. I think we would want to consider it maybe for like the final two or whatever, the finalists, not only for us to get a sense of them in-person, but for them to get a sense of our community before they potentially agree to move here. Wendy. Do you mind if I jump in? Oh yeah, you've been hired as a city manager before. Please weigh in. Oh, you don't need to unmute that. Don't unmute that. Okay, am I good? Yeah, the microphone will be ready. Okay, and I don't mean to, it's saying I'm still muted, but I guess I'm okay, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, just from the perspective of having been hired, but also thinking about your, just this is a really important decision obviously the whole city manager's important decision and the firm is a really important decision. And I don't want you to feel hurried by this. So I'm basically here. So to the extent that I can help you not feel hurried, I want to do that. And then one possibility you have is to interview the firms. Cause I just think it's important that you feel good about the firm that you're choosing and that it not be just like ordering pizza or something and compromising. I just think this process will involve or should involve in my opinion, a lot of trust and openness and maybe some discovery on the part of the city of what you bring to the table to because it really is a partnership or it should be. So I just think this is a really important decision. And if I can help you not have to hurry, I'm happy to do that. And you may want to even interview the search firms. I mean, they'll do that at no charge. It's that the cost of that is basically your time. Which I appreciate that, Wendy and having you here to help us to buy time on that. If that is something that council is interested in doing, I am open to it. I do think that time cost is real for me these days. If folks want to interview potential firms, I would be willing to do so. I personally don't feel the need to do it after reviewing the proposals. Brynne? I actually hadn't even thought about potentially interviewing, but that feels like a logical suggestion to me. I would say that I don't need to participate in that. I would feel, I think I would be open to having Phoebe interview, say the top two firms, we can provide some questions, summary questions, or we can provide them with questions to follow up on potentially with a virtual conversation with Phoebe. I think I don't want to leave Polyhire off consideration, just because their proposal alone didn't have as much detail as I would have liked. I think understanding a little bit more about their philosophy approach would be beneficial to me. So I like the recommendation and I also hear the, our goal is really to have a candidate in place for town meeting day. And I want to thank Wendy for offering to give us the room and buffer and comfort we need so that we don't feel rushed. And I also acknowledge that we need to have leadership in that role before too much longer so we can move up and free up time on this effort. Well, I do want to say at this point, I don't believe town meeting day is a feasible deadline to have someone in place. Jim? I can see value in conducting an interview. I would feel uncomfortable selecting Polyhire based solely on what they provided. I think a conversation to see how well they understand and have an experience in a type of small Northeastern context would be helpful. And then I, and I think it's mentioned to Phoebe that BEIC was one of their clients. So I think I would feel uncomfortable selecting them based on the information we have. I would feel uncomfortable disregarding them because of the information we have similar to what Council Oakley just suggested. I'm happy to take recommendation from staff. I'm happy to participate if that's helpful. I believe that there's very targeted questions that we could ask of each firm. I don't think we have to ask set questions like this formal interview. That's the nice thing is that there's no HR laws you have to not violate. So I think we could just ask pretty simple targeted questions to get a sense for how well they would fit this context with a little bit of prompting, a little bit of background research. And I think that's, that could be particularly useful. So if that's something that Council wants to have done, I don't know if it's possible to do by our next meeting, but I'm happy to support that. So what if we interview Polyhire and HR Gov? What was it called? Gov HR. Gov HR. I knew I was wrong. Phoebe and myself can do that. We can take questions from counselors. We can invite Yasamine if you would like. We could invite Wendy if you would like. What would you like to do? I'm in favor of that. I'm in favor of those two top two proposals. I think I don't want to create a scheduling conflict by trying to have too many folks participate in that call. I'd be open to having Wendy and Phoebe do it. I'd be open to having, to ensuring Yas is there to accept we can free up her time to be available. You know, I of course would value your time mayor to be there, but know that you have a separate day job as well. And that scheduling can be challenging. So I have faith, that is all to say. I have faith in Phoebe and the team to ask questions and bring back further information for the next council meeting. So obviously Phoebe should participate in this interviewing of the recruiting firms. You know, having, as council owns the hiring process, I would participate as, you know, having taken a lead in this process so far. I think we could invite Yas and Wendy optional, not knowing what Yas's time commitments are beyond this. And then Wendy also, you know, you are in a certain, you have a certain set of things that you are responsible for too. If you could be available, I think you would add value as a city manager who has been through the process, but I support like what Brynn said, like if we couldn't make all the scheduling work out that it doesn't necessarily have to be the full group. Does this sound like a good path forward? Yes. So we're not doing any, an approval here of any firm. I will coordinate with Steph, Mike, go ahead. Sorry, can I ask a question? Yeah. So this is on for discussion approval and all three of us, all four of us just agreed that GOV HR would be a good firm for us to hire. Why can't we just move forward and get this process going? I mean, we have four recommendations in front of us and we all agreed that GOV HR would be a firm that we would like to see hired. Why delay this? I mean, I can speak to my reasoning was that they're two very different approaches. And I think that's kind of called out in Stevie's summary. We have the modern, more of a consultative approach versus a more traditional approach. And there's information that in my mind, I think probably hire could be a very good search firm for this community, but it's not evident to me from the proposal. And so to make a decision on a lack of information is there's a risk there. It's not that I don't, I mean, I could be conveyed, I could be convinced just like go forward and do this. But I think that there's potentially some value in taking two weeks to really know that we're getting the firm that we want by getting some perspective on it from multiple angles. I think Stevie's done a great job summarizing a lot of information into a single page. And I appreciate that. And I think that there could be some more, so that's why I would say like taking two weeks to make sure that we're gonna pay the right firm $20,000 instead of saving two weeks and just selecting one when they're all this close in cost to me seems worthwhile. But this was their chance to be hired though. This was their booklet to say, hey, this is what we're about. And I guess I'm, I just don't see it. Bryn? I guess another thought that in addition to having a better feel for the teams that we would be working with and would be to be able to have the full council be able to voice their opinion on this. And I don't know if Councilor Colson has provided any feedback on the matter, but I do see value in having the full council weigh in on the recruitment firm. So those are some additional thoughts that I had. And for future reference for all of you, if you're gonna miss a meeting and you know it, you can always submit any comments or opinions you have in writing in advance. But anyhow, based on what I am hearing, I don't think that we are going, I don't think that we are gonna have a motion to move forward with approving a firm tonight. And have that carry. Is there any, we do have a member with the public attending? Is there any public comment or question on this discussion? You can use the raise hand feature in Zoom. Okay. So I will coordinate with staff on recruiting firm interviews and with the target of having an update for our next meeting, if possible. Thank you, Phoebe. Thank you. Are you excited not to be running the meeting? Yes. Anyhow, this is the human resources director position description update. So this is, as I said in the cover sheet, this is just an update to the HR manager job title. So the charter changes added the city managers right to appoint an HR director in the section that lists the officers that the city manager is responsible to appoint and also repealed it and be in section 19, 603, which is designating the city manager as the personal director. So that is a summary of basically what this is asking and the only thing that's changing is the title. There's no change in funding and there are no other changes to the job description at this time. I think the job description will eventually need to be updated, but these are the only changes that are being requested right now. Does anybody have any questions? Well, I'll just add to that for if there's public viewing that this was included in the charter changes that we sent to the legislature. It was a recommendation from our former city manager acknowledging that the HR manager, which I think is the title we had had, did not, that title doesn't reflect the actual work of the role and hadn't for some time, that it was hard to retain staff without having access to a director role and that she didn't feel it made sense for the city manager to act as personnel director when we have an HR person. So just wanted to add that additional background here. This is something that we probably should have done right after the charter was approved, but sort of fell on the back burner. So sorry about that. Are there any questions from council? Any questions from the public? So hearing no concern, I imagine somebody wants to motion to approve the position description for human resources director. So moved. Motion by Bryn, second by Jim. All those in favor, please say aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. So we are on our last item H. These are financial assistant policy updates that Angela will introduce. Absolutely do that. These are the last three of the financial policies that are gonna be brought to council that make up the finance manual for the city of Winooski. We are calling this our financial assistant section of our policy manual. The first policy that I'm presenting is the grants policy. This is very much the same as the policy that exists today with one change. And that is increasing the threshold for grants that need to come to council. Previously, that amount was $2,500. And there was some comments given during our strategies and priority session that that dollar amount is a little low. And we were having a lot of lower dollar amounts come to the council that council didn't feel needed to come to them. So we've increased that to the same level of our fixed asset limit. So it's $5,000 now. That is the only change to that policy other than clarifying language. The second policy is the scholarship. Sorry, Angela, let's go one by one. We can do that. And I'll just add that during the finance commission review of this, there was like no discussion about the grants policy change. So are there any questions on that policy from council? Bryn? I don't have a question. I just want to thank Angela and the finance commission for raising that minimum threshold to $5,000. I do think that there are some efficient, a good number of efficiencies that will be found and with that change. Any questions from the public on grants policy? Okay, next one, Angela. The next policy I'm presenting is the scholarship policy. So this policy has changed dramatically from the last time that council saw it. The previous version of this policy was very focused on the community services department. What I've done is really broaden the scope of this policy so that it can be applied to any area of the city where we could potentially create a scholarship program. The details for individual sections of the city where scholarships will be offered will be outlined within the procedure so that we can have different requirements for each scholarship type if we're able to create them. The community services scholarship procedures are already in existence. They were approved by council and they outlined everything that was previously included in this policy around community services scholarships. Thank you. And this actual policy was discussed not only by the finance commission but also involved the safe, healthy and connected people commission as well. Yeah, and to my recollection, there was some healthy discussion about the ability to expand scholarships beyond community service programs and that they landed in support of having more open language and not so specific to each individual program. Are there questions from council on this one? Any questions from the public? All right, so let's do the next one, Angela. And the last policy being presented is a fundraising policy. This is an entirely new policy to the city that before she left, Jessie had directed us to come up with something that could go to council. This policy is intended to provide guidance surrounding what types of fundraising can be done by the city and to also provide guidance to third party groups that want to fundraise on behalf of the city. It requires any fundraising to come to the council for approval so that we can add legitimacy to fundraising efforts that are being done by third parties to prevent potential fraud being executed in the city's name. And then it will also give guidelines about what types of contributions we will accept. So there's no undue influence from donations. There's no, we can decline any contributions that we feel violate city values under this policy. That was really where we went with that. And that was also reviewed by the Finance Commission. Mike, go ahead. Angela, would this be under current ongoing fundraising? For example, for the Kenneth R. Myers Memorial Pool. If we already have, if not we, if the Myers Foundation already has ongoing efforts to fundraise under the foundation or the pool, for example. So it's really so that the city is aware of fundraising efforts that are going on in the name of the city so that we know that that funding is going to be coming and that we can plan for the use of that funding in the future. I think technically the city council did approve that activity, right? When it started? Yeah, we approved it with the goal of $300,000, but that didn't limit you to only get $300,000. That was the minimum. Right, so just to be in compliance, I hate to have the foundation offer the city money and have them decline it, which I don't think that would ever happen. But just to be, to put all the cards on the table, would this be an annual ask of the foundation to go to the city and say this is, we're continuing to fundraise for the pool and blah, blah, blah. Don't believe that's a requirement of the policy? Okay, I was just... I didn't interpret it that way either. It's kind of like, I don't know. I felt like it was like the initial, like whatever. Would this be for anything new? Yeah, for new. I just want to make sure that it's all up and up and so doesn't the Myers Foundation, that's all. It does say general authorizations will be renewed annually. So, but that's okay. Jim. I think I have some, I think the goals of this are worthwhile and I think it's going to be good in a lot of ways, but I do see it as creating a whole new round of approvals and reducing flexibility in a small community to kind of take advantage of opportunities. And the example I'm thinking of, and I don't even know if this would happen, but the Windows GPTO is only the big sale and they decide to add on to that, like, hey, let's get some, we're going to the basketball game. We know when is he's going to have a basketball program for rec? Let's try and get some of these big, good sales to go towards scholarships for basketball signups that people can sign up to play basketball in the winter. And it doesn't happen at the end, like a month, like they couldn't fundraise for scholarships to provide funding for scholarships for when you see kids play basketball. And I'm not like, you know, if they get their ducks in a row a month and a half at a time, like that could come to council for approval and then be part of it. But in more like short-term ones, how do we deal with that flexibility and how do we not end up forcing staff into a lot of very minute authorization requests? No, this was really intended more for targeted solicitation donations. So something like a bake sale that can be made as a donation that's unsolicited to the city because that's a voluntary basis where you're acquiring something in exchange for your money. This is more calling up businesses and saying we would like you to sponsor something. So we want to make sure that anybody who's doing that and naming the city is a beneficiary that the city is aware that that is going on and that we have authorized that type of outreach. But in that instance, it's the PTO put up a sign that says support when you see basketball signups. But you're still getting something in exchange when somebody just calls and solicits and says, sponsor this. You're not necessarily, there's no exchange transaction. What if there was just a donation jar on the table? There's allowance in the policy for unsolicited donations up to $5,000 to not have to go to council. And Jim, was that just an example because it would be Winnowsky school district anyway, it wouldn't have to go through the city, correct? Well, the recreation program, so that is the city basketball has been a city program at a school program in the past. I can maybe make that fact clear that unsolicited donations are allowed up to $5,000 without council approval. I guess I'm just more like, how would you define a solicited versus an unsolicited? Like if I said, please donate to support scholarships for Winnowsky basketball signups. I'm sorry, I keep harping this example, but it's easy. Like if I am soliciting people to give money to the jar so that I can donate that to the city for this particular use, is that still seems like a solicitation? Yeah, and is that something we want to encourage people to do on behalf of the city? So that's a question to council. And if we want to be enable that, we can go back to the drawing board a little bit on the policy. I guess I would like to have something similar with grants where we have the ability to provide administrative approval with a potential like post hoc discussion of council and we can always return the funds later. But I do worry about the impact it has on small seed of the pants efforts that might actually be like a community responding to its own need and trying to rally together. But for some, like you could do for any other organization except if it was the city. Like the city is the only one that can't be a beneficiary. It could be a business. It could be a family. It could be the school district through the heart of a new ski. Like there's other ways that like it would be harder for folks to kind of rapidly respond to an issue. So I guess if there is some way to remove the barrier of a warrants item on a council meeting that you could still have that oversight met but have some administrative process, I think that would be. Yeah, we were just trying to put some bumpers on the rail from people going out and saying, hey, give me money on behalf of a scholarship for Winooski basketball. And then the city never gets the funds, which is why we wanted there to be an endorsement of people who are soliciting on behalf of the city. For sure, but that could happen either way. You just might have a better chance of knowing about it. Let's just say there's no obligation for that person to give you the funds that's got put in the jar. They're that person and more people know about it to do it, but that's, this doesn't provide any enforcement mechanism while we're aware of it. And I think that's good. But it might open a door a little like bottle drives. You're gonna, you know, there's a whole lot of stuff that it might get tied up. So I do want to point out that we have like very, very little fundraising done on behalf of the city right now. Bryn. Do any other municipalities in Vermont have similar policies in place that we might be able to reference? Not that I was able to find. The ones that I was able to take information from mostly came from New York or were from colleges. Got it. I'm curious. So to the discussion point that Jim was making, like does 5,000 just feel like too low of a threshold? Do you think there could be ad hoc things like the example you described that would go over that? Like that doesn't feel like enough. The only donation we've received over $5,000 in my memory is the Myers-Bowl donation. Like, I don't know. Maybe it's clarity in language and like Jim you were saying solicited, unsolicited. We can definitely go back. These feel like two very different scenarios and like a PTO bake sale fundraiser or like Vermont Patriots is selling baked goods at their event to donate for scholarships. That to me feels very different than the Myers Foundation. Maybe there's something about like a foundation or a professional organization versus like a community, like a PTO or something. I don't know. Okay. No, we can definitely rework this policy. I think also back to Mike's point when I was thinking back to the finance commission discussion and like the annual check-in, like maybe that needs fleshed out. Like we know that we already know that the Myers Foundation is ongoing soliciting donations. Do we want a checkpoint for that? If we do, perhaps that is just something that comes through a consent agenda to remind us that that is happening or and this is a question for council or do we want to make this a thing where we like re-invite somebody from the foundation once a year to talk about the relationship and what's been going on and like that is the point for us to be like, yeah, we'd like to continue working with you. Like what level feels on one hand good for us and our processes but on the other for the fundraiser? And Mike, I see your hand. I think maybe if that entity had a specific, I don't know, donation to come, maybe they do come to a meeting in warrant that way, just to make it knowledgeable. If the entity's soul sees to, it'd be just like the, and Jim, the reason I got confused with the basketball because you said PTO, what's the school district entity, right? And I thought you meant the high school sports not the youth sports. So I don't know if those entities would want to come every time and Annalie to tell this is what we're doing. I think people just raise money and when that entity needs money, they make a phone call saying, hey, we need some new lawn chairs around the pool or hey, we need new basketball uniforms. What can we do? And I do think there's some value in an annual reminder like at some point, this council is gonna turn over and what if we forget that this entity is out there doing this for the city? Good point. Now, this policy had actually started out as guidance for staff fundraising, but at the commission level, they were the ones who really expanded it and said, no, this should be all fundraising. If this was a policy that was specifically surrounding city employee fundraising, would that make more sense rather than restricting other entities or do we want to include other entities still within this policy? It's not restrict any entity that's trying to raise money for a function, especially if it's a nonprofit. I don't think we should restrict any entity from raising money for a need. So I think I can probably revise this policy by having it govern staff because that is something that we should control through policy, any staff solicitations and then cover reporting to council of any donations that are received from outside entities that have done fundraising on behalf of the city. And I think that that might get to the... I would be on board with that because to Jim's point, there's no enforcement mechanism here. So while there is this aspect of preventing fraud, we can't really do it. Yeah. Does that... I think we should put bumpers on the rails in terms of the fundraising that we want staff to do and we can still put in our fundraising policy that we do reserve the right to decline donations where we feel the values are not in line with those of the city, but remove that hurdle to have to come to council in order to do fundraising. We don't want to discourage kids who want to get involved start up their own bottle drive to fundraise for their friend to get a scholarship. Definitely don't want to discourage that kind of activity. I think that's how I'm seeing head nods. I think that's good. I think that there is benefit, I think there would be benefit to having language to say that it's not okay to use the Winnieski to use the name Winnieski to fundraise for and not actually donate the money. Like, I guess, I don't know if there's still need to say that. I assume that's kind of implied in other fraud laws, but if that feels like something that needs to be stated, I think you can state that, but then also encourage like anyone, the city also encourages anyone who's interested in fundraising for a city programmer function to contact staff to see if it's aligned. Like, I think you can make that encouragement without being making it a requirement. I think we'll name that as something we want because we do want these things to be coordinated and while it's great to have people fundraising, if you're trying to all go over here and someone all of a sudden takes the right turn and wants to fundraise down a different avenue that's not really supporting the direction of the city, that's also challenging. It's not something we can stop them from doing but we might want to say, hey, at least tell us that you're going to do it. So we can make it a recommendation. Yeah. Brynn? Yeah, I'm mainly raising my hand to confer that. I agree with the direction that this is headed. I also wanted to include a suggestion that any donations over a certain threshold, I don't feel strongly about what that is, 10,000, 15, 20, that we should say, and I don't know if it needs to be in poly but the policy, but basically encouraging the council to invite the fundraiser or the donor to come to council to want and get a thank you and appreciate but also for us to get to, for the council to get and the public to have some opportunity to get familiar with those efforts and through the priorities and values that brought that forward. So yeah, I don't know if that needs to live in policy but just a suggestion. No, we can codify in policy that donors who are willing, that way if somebody wants to remain anonymous they don't have to come to council but will be provided the opportunity to come to council for acknowledgement of their gift to the city. I would love a reminder of that. Is this enough direction, Angela? Do you have any other specific questions for us? Nope, I think I'm good on rewriting the fundraising policy that shouldn't take too long. We can have a draft for you at your next meeting. Cool, and I think it sounds like we could put scholarships and grants into consent agenda at the next meeting. All right. Well, this brings us to the end of our agenda. Can I have a motion to adjourn? Almost. I can. Motion by Mike, second by Jim. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you, everyone. Night. Good night.