 Okay, so why don't we at least I'd like to call to order the special city council meeting of January 8, 2024 and begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay, we're not broadcasting the sound through the room. I don't think it's Andrew. I think it's the mics in here. Oh. Andrew. This isn't my zone. Yeah, I hear Helen. Andrew, can you hear us? Do you hear us? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. So it's fine for right now, but do you want me to say that again or are we on? Okay. So first item is Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Second item is instructions on exiting the building in case of an emergency. Great. Thank you for those who are joining us in the room. If you're joining us in the room, there's an emergency. You can go out the left or right of the rear of the auditorium and then turn left or right to get outside. If you're joining us remotely, if you would like to talk on any item on our agenda, please turn your camera on or you can indicate in the chat that you'd like to talk and I'll have the chair call on you. Other than that, we are not monitoring the chat for content. Thank you. Item three, agenda review. Are there any additions, deletions, or changes in order of agenda items? Seeing none, we'll move on to comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda. I don't see anyone in the audience, physical audience. Anyone online? Okay. Item five, councilor's announcements and reports on committee assignments and the city manager's report. Do you want to start Larry? Thank you. I was looking at the, so here we are, here we are, get this a little closer. So I, since our last meeting, I did attend the natural resources and conservation committee meeting and good long agenda, including some discussion about still needing staff input on the committee's responsibility for the open space plan. That's still under discussion. We didn't get it. Dave Wheeler, our staff liaison gave us a great review of the Heinsberg Road sewer break as well as the water issue. He was up to speed on both of those. So it's good to have a city staff liaison who's really in the know of those in-depth issues. And just before our meeting, the Reckon Park committee is meeting and was able to hear a presentation by Joe Larkin and his landscape architects Wagner Hodgson on the proposed park area as part of the master plan on Shelburne Road. Very interesting. Oh, cool. Where will that be? Good question. Oh, you don't know. You were just talking about the concept. It's part of the master plan of various lots that are on the west side of the railroad tracks and it's a parcel that's been, at this point, identified as with a number of stormwater areas on it that would create a three and a half acre park. And it's probably on the southern end of the, as far as I could tell, it's looking to be on the southern end of the property. It's kind of behind palace nine. Or behind it or beside it, I couldn't quite tell. I would have said both. Paul says both. They presented to that committee to get some ideas. Great. Thank you. Megan? No, no. Announcements. Okay. Tim? Nothing as well. All right. How about Andrew? Hey, Andrew. No? Hmm. This audio is not connected. Okay. You want to send him a message? Thank you. We can come back to him. I just had one meeting, the city school leadership meeting and it was a result of that. We had an additional item added to tonight's agenda. So I think that will be pretty self-explanatory what we talked about and we'll move on from there. Do you report? Yes. Jessica? Jesse? Sorry. Just a few quick things. Sorry. This is a little distracting this noise thing. Andrew, that looks better. Can you hear us? I can hear you. Can you hear me? We can. We can now. Thank you. So do you have any reports from any meetings you went to? Not since last session. No. Thank you, Helen. Okay. The ski report. We've had quite an adventure. Good. The wine report in the back, right? All right. A few quick updates from me. So first of all, we had, this is just a fun update. We had a fantastic first outing of the South Burlington running club at 8am on Saturday morning. This is a brand child of our new parks and recreation director at a math. So he is doing this every Saturday morning at 8am at vet park for the inaugural one. We had 12 folks that showed up to run with him. I think the really special thing about that is that only two of them came together and knew each other. So there were 10 individuals who showed up to get exercise and connect to one another and just huge kudos to Adam for that idea and implementing it and invite all runners of all ability levels out at 8am every Saturday morning. It was a cold, it was a cold, it was a cold windy day. And still they showed up. It was great. I sent her on to the council just a few minutes ago, a recording of live at 525, which is a town meeting TV show with Austin Davis from Lake Champlain chamber and chief Burke. They chief Burke does a really wonderful job in that presentation telling the story of kind of the collision of the housing crisis, the mental health crisis and the public safety crisis. It's about half an hour. I'd really encourage you all to read it. It's really accessible. He does a really good job. He also testified on the retail theft bill in house judiciary on Friday. Is that link on the city website for the public to so the five live at 525 we will be sending out as part of city news this week. Oh, good. The link to house judiciary is on their website. Great. And then just heads up your calendars. Our delegation is planning a public safety legislative forum on February 15th. So it's still about a month away. There'll be 530 in the library. That's why. Okay. Thank you. We'll move on to the consent agenda. We have one item disbursements. Any discussion or move to approve. Second. Any discussion? Questions. Okay. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. So the consent agenda was approved unanimously. What time is it? Time for early. We did warn this for 630 because we thought this meeting would go quickly. So you can start the public hearing if you would like. Okay. Do you. Can I have a motion to open hold a public hearing on the city plan 2024. So moved. In a second. Second. All in favor. Aye. So we are. Aye. Opening the public hearing. Do you have any preliminary comments? Not really except to say this is a continuation of the public hearing that you started last week. So this is technically still your second public hearing overall. And. Yeah, this is you did receive a few additional comments in the last couple of days. This is the opportunity for the public to weigh in and then after you close the public hearing, you can decide what you want to do next. Okay. So are there. Thoughts about. We did get an email with some, some additional word smithing. Do you want to go to public hearing first? Oh yeah, I'm sorry. In the public are there, is there anyone in the public who would wish to comment on. The city plan 2024. Okay. So Dan come up to the mic, make sure the little green dot is bright green. Oh, thank you. Thanks for the record, Dan Albrecht 51 Proctor Avenue. That's the road that goes to rice. So a couple of things, just thanks a lot to the planning commission for all their work to the city staff. And you know, it's a really, it's not just because it has a lot of words. It's a very well researched document and there's a lot of richness to it. It's nice to see that when you do a rewrite like that, a rewrite like that, that you have a, you know, a really good thick description of each of the neighborhoods and stuff. I really like that because it helps build for the future. And if you were a newcomer, you'd like read it like it's like a little mini history. And which is nice because, you know, Burlington gets a lot of attention or the state of Vermont as a whole. And heck, we're over 20,000 people. So, you know, we need this kind of history documented. So perhaps the staff will get a citation in the, in some academic work someday in the future and stuff. So, and I was also very pleased to say I had very minus minor wordsmithing comments and little tweaks here that I had made back in the August one. And as I was working on my testimony for today, and I was kind of going through it, I was like, oh, look, they, they accepted that word or that word. So I really appreciate that. It feels nice to have that input there. So first is just a broader comment. I know you've heard from others about this, but I'll just sort of stated on the record just, you know, speak my piece. I disagree strongly with putting climate resilient as the primary overriding objective of the plant. I disagree for the following reasons. First and foremost, placing climate resilient really, at least for me as somebody who participated in the process of the, the engagement meetings or outreach meetings, whatever those were called, it really sort of directly contradict of the process that we as members of the public were involved in at the time. You know, it was, it was always sort of presented as there's these four, four themes for value statements that was never anything like, oh, and we're going to choose one of them. It's more important than the other. It was, you know, sort of like a package where I go, okay, this kind of makes sense. We sort of how they wanted to organize the plan. And so, and it's really frustrating just, you know, like, so we go through that process and then later on the plan comes out more formal, a thicker draft comes out later in the summer and climate resilient has been placed as paramount that it can outweigh whenever it wants to any of the other justifications or any of the other themes. And that just seemed really inappropriate, especially when you look at, you know, a recap of the nine meetings where they were, you know, again, there were sort of these informal votes of people in the room, you know, that never came out as a top vote gather. People recognize it's important. I think nobody spoke against it, but it was never to be like, oh, this is, this is, this is what the public wants. But third, it just, it's just really frustrating because again, we have parts of the plan that are creative and trying to do things that do support climate resilience and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but other elements of the plan, they're directly contradictory to such strategies. And namely to put it into the, to put it down sort of to brass tacks of the reality on the ground is that so my neighborhood Shelburne Road corridor, the city center, Willis Road corridor, we're, we're dedicated to taking all the growth as we're all primarily where the plan is very clear about that. The city zoning rewrite talks about that. The density bonuses that people remember to do a transfer of development rights. And yet, which, you know, as a planner, as a professional planner, I understand. And all to, and that supports, you know, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and build things were walkable and services located next to people and people located next to services. So you have this whole thing in there about climate resiliency and the city padding itself on the back. And yet the plan excludes or adds elements that are contradictory to such strategy, which is namely the selected preservation continuation of certain areas of the city, namely the southeast quadrant to remain a single family, large lot zoning. And this is what's really wild. Despite their proximity to major travel quarters, whether it's Heinsberg Road, Dorset Street, Spear Street, and a major employment centers, Tilly Drive being pretty much like it's example of like new employment, not old employment centers. But if you look at new employment centers that are still being built out and still have plenty to go. And yet that whole area is just left off limits. There's no creativity shown or retrofit. And when I testified to the planning commission, you know, they buy in large like, yeah, I won't put words in their mouth, but there's like, yeah, were we planning those zoning those neighborhoods now that would have never been done. There would have been more integrated small scale commercial next to the neighborhoods, right? That's the whole principle of good planning. So it's just really frustrating to sort of see that theme and yet whole parts of the city are excluded from having to help out, you know. So it's just, and especially frustrating because there's language in the, in the plan that's discouraging the use of municipal and sewer and water in certain portions of the SEQ, despite the fact that using such infrastructure is the best way to achieve density and mixed use development, which are the best ways to reduce vehicle traffic and emissions through the city. And then, and so related to that, just again, some minor suggested wordsmithing, there's some parts about, again, talking about conservation areas. And it doesn't mean you're doing whole scale changes and huge amounts of, you know, adding new zoning districts or significant change, but the language I suggested on the last page, my testimony here about when you have, I was talking about conservation areas should only allow extremely limited residential development, et cetera. And we'll, and we'll not have sewer and water and connections are not priorities. But the problem when you do this was I point as, however, the very low residential density in these quote conservation areas means fewer people live within walking distance of each other, including schools and any nearby commercial areas. So I think there's a real opportunity for, you can call it, well, it's not really spot zoning, but it's a tinkering with things so that you can have little pockets of commercial nodes at intersections or in appropriate areas. There's Rye Village sort of has a little, there's one or two where the little, the new doggie daycare is and there's a couple of little commercial buildings there. And I think about all that, that's all so close to employers. It's just a way to, it's like minor retrofits of neighborhoods and stuff would go a long way. You know, I live within walking distance of Price Chopper and the New Bagel Place, which is awesome, and Myers Bagels and stuff. And I just think we need more of that because we have whole sections of our committee that are nothing but a desert of single family zoning. And there's no commercial, which means every, every time, every time huge sections of our city have to do anything, they have to get in their car. They can't even just like, oh, I want to go get, I want to go get a bagel. I want to go get a little bit of this or a little bit of that. They've got to get in their car and there's, there it's not, that's directly, contradictory, ironically to the primary goal of climate resiliency. So, again, it's a, it's, I know I'm picking a little bit, but it just, it just doesn't make sense. I think it's a good idea to have a city that's all, and it would be nice if the city recognized that it doesn't mean their way of life's going to change. They'll always have opens, you know, it's not going to really change things, but I think people in that area of the city would probably like not having to schlep all the way over to Shelburne Road or University Mall or Heinsberg Road to get a few things or to go to the bank or whatever, you know, like if we had several more little cider mills or sprinkled through the city, I think it would ever make, that's what makes a vibrant city as opposed to right now that sort of good section of the city that's a relic of bad planning. So, thanks, I appreciate it. But again, I applaud the staff and the commission for all their work. It's a really great, I won't say it's a novel, but it makes for very informative, because some plans can be kind of lazy. They just do a couple paragraphs and, but this is like, ooh, this is really interesting so I appreciate that. Thanks. Thank you very much. Are there any other comments from the public? Michael? Mitek? No plaids this week. I was just going to make a comment that I thought, no Helen, don't do that. Um, I guess I'll ask a question first and if I get the right answer, I can go home. Are you still considering changing the wording of this issue that Dan raised about the overriding, guiding principle of the plan is to make every policy decision through the lens of climate change, etc. Personally, I know it was a discussion last week, but there may be other people and I may be overvoted so I don't know about the rest of the council. I have some ideas. I have some ideas. Okay. So I guess that's still on the table. Oh, then you're going to stay now. I'm going to stay. Not long. No, first of all, you know, we had a public survey in January 2023 which was very well responded to the community. We held 9 or 11 facilitated public meetings in February and March, which was the basis for the first draft and the planning commission held four public listening sessions in the library at times when people weren't at work so that people who had jobs could participate. And there were 17 planning commission meetings devoted to this plan between February and December. So a lot of time was put into it and seven commissioners approved the text which they submitted to you. It's important that statement is important because since modern humans emerged from Africa about 200,000 years ago humanity has never never suffered an existential catastrophe. But as Vince Bouldock said last week today we do face an unprecedented existential threat. So it's this statement is in context of the situation which we find ourselves in. Mr. Bouldock also voiced his concern that every policy decision would be made through the lens but he distinguished between policy decisions and others. He gave a few examples of should the fire department consider this paragraph when deciding to respond to a fire alarm or the police department when deciding to respond to an emergency. Those are a bit of a stretch. Those are not policy decisions. Those are the kind of decisions that people who work for this city make every day and probably many times a day. Those are not policy decisions. This is talking about policy the things that you do. So I'm making a plea for you not to change it for the reasons I've just outlined and I read off all those all the work and the public outreach that was done because you might have got the wrong impression from my friend Mike at the mic that there wasn't any. He said the right people weren't in the room just the elites. So I'd like to those points that I made at the outset should put your minds at rest. There was huge public outreach and input and the public approved at the public hearing as far as I can tell approved the draft that we sent you. Thank you very much. Okay. Jessica Luisa, the chair of the planning commission would you like to make some comments? Yeah, I guess you know I wasn't going to say anything during the public hearing but I feel like it's important to follow up on what Michael just said I know he may or may not have been speaking for the whole commission but I do think most of his points would speak for the whole commission and specifically to add to them in July we put out a full working draft and got significant public input on that working draft and at that time we had elevated the climate change goal separate from the other three and we did get some feedback that it felt like it would be good to have all four of them as equal goals but with the climate change one having additional language that it's overarching so I mean we did actually get specific public input that kind of drove us to give you the draft that we gave you because it was advertised in July as an overarching goal even though in kind of the winter sessions last winter all four of those goals were given as potential draft goals without any of them being kind of overarching so I think it's important to say that we did do a lot of outreach we did get a lot of feedback on this topic and did make some changes before it came to you and it was unanimous the way that we forwarded on to you the climate change one being overarching but listed as four bullet points grouped together there we go sorry I have a cold so I'm just going to stick to the transportation section something that I think is noticeably absent from actions is adopting design standards we have design standards at the state level for auto centric transportation we don't have those at the state level for pedestrian or bike transportation and the result is that any design standards that have been created for those are completely elective and that's why when you get feedback that you know parts of market street are very unfriendly to people walking or biking it's because we actually use standards that were meant for people who are walking and biking I know Tim had the comment a few meetings back about when people were talking about opening their doors along the curve of the road feeling like cars were going really fast and saying didn't we have engineers look at this we did they were looking at ashtow manuals there are a lot of different manuals that focus on safety for walkers wheelchairs users and there's actually a lot of points in the paragraph sections that are really good points that have been worked in here but there aren't any action points for them the action point to sum it up would be safe design standards for all users Amsterdam used to be a really dirty car city at the end of the 60s and a plan was put forward to do the standard demolition and build highways but unlike America the people really fought back on that and decided that they wanted to see road standards that put people first and they adopted standards and then whenever they redo a road they redo the road to the new design standards that's not something we have here in Vermont certainly on South Farrington and so we just had this project on Dorset Street where we put in new walk signals for example and we dug up a lot of sidewalk and we put it back in the same exact way rather than having design standards in place that have us put it in a better way that's better for people who are walking and biking we do use different standards like pro-wag which has to do with sort of the minimum standard for a wheelchair user to get around and they're pretty detailed they have a lot of minutia to them and they were used for that project but limitedly so not even every aspect of the project followed pro-wag one of the really important pieces is that we keep safe access around a construction site obviously that's been a big issue for the school district on Market Street and you guys have had a lot of discussions about that and there are written documents about how to do this in cities in North America many cities have adopted them but we don't have anything in our language about adopting that for us we do mention the importance of those things but there's no action item for it I have a picture of a guy using a walker walking along Dorset Street near San Remo Drive because replacing the same sidewalk the same exact way left no space for him to get around he had to go into the street slowly with his walker during morning rush hour not a really safe situation right and so I would really like to see an action 79 about adopting design standards that encompass a lot of these points like the first paragraph in multiple user types fantastic paragraph and what we really need to ensure these things is adopt design standards later on when we talk about in the second paragraph including safe passage for pedestrians and bicyclists during construction modifying and upgrading roadways that's when we have design standards that say that explicitly not electively when we talk in the third paragraph about reducing conflicts with motorized vehicles in places like curb cuts these are things that we have to have not as disparate pieces that are elective but in a full design standard and even we don't use the word medians in access management I would encourage adding the word medians somewhere in that paragraph as well we have some information about medians and existing policies in the city but again would we consolidate this into a design standard all of the engineers that we hire have to use that the federal government last year passed a law saying that any city can adopt bike friendly design standards even if their state government forbids it you can assume which states have forbidden it obviously and for the reason that the feds have done this and the feds actually recommend a lot of design standards we do have snow as an issue here we have a 10 foot wide shared use path and a 7 foot wide plows it in the winter so we have in the winter a 7 foot wide shared use path cities like Ottawa and Montreal in their design standards they also have the explanation of how they remove snow so in Ottawa they built this beautiful standard for Dutch style intersections which are incredibly safe for bikers and pedestrians Ottawa is rapidly implementing these and that standard includes the snow removal process right in the design standard these things are really important for doing something effectively and correctly the first time rather than us just trying to always catch up but still being behind the A-ball so that's something that I would recommend I won't go into my new show of other little things that seem kind of off except mentioning the weird paragraph where it talks about possibly making Williston Road two lanes the last traffic count was 28,000 vehicles per day between Dorset and Hinesburg Road along Williston Road when you look at good downtowns in Vermont Montpelier, St. Albin's Main Street, Burlington they all have less than 11,000 vehicles per day even Burlington on Main Street west of south of Nisquia north yeah south of Nisquia Avenue and so if you're looking at reducing traffic by 17,000 vehicles per day nothing else in this plan identifies how you're going to get there there's no other bypass but out choking off the airport and all of the businesses heading towards Williston so I really want you guys to think about the realism of Williston Road ever being part of a proper downtown rather than a good access point to better walkable places on either side of it and having very accessible crossing but maintaining good throughput. Jeff Speck's Walkable City is a really excellent book that talks about those principles chapter 10 is pretty much exactly talking about Williston Road it's also the shortest chapter so I would recommend that one for inspiration and I'll say the rest of my comments about that thank you. Are there any other comments? Seeing none I guess we can close the public hearing and have our discussion. I move that we close the public hearing. Move to second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay the public hearing is closed and I guess Councillor Barrett you had some thoughts? Yeah no sorry that was squeaky so first of all last Tuesday right we were here Tuesday it's been so long since we were here last time and it was good discussion and Vince Bouldock came up and talked about that paragraph and I had a gut reaction to it where I thought that I thought was reserved to for a response and maybe I was a little bit too aggressive with that response and if anybody was you know I apologize for that but I thought I made a lot of really good points about how the city has been trying hard to basically you know put that principle in the back seat for for the climate change and so looking at this very short paragraph my suggestion would just be and I don't want to I'm not de-emphasizing I'm just softening it with little wordsmithing so that it doesn't become redundant but I would just say the guiding principle of this plan is to make policy decisions through the lens of climate resilience and reduction greenhouse gas emissions while recognizing other important goals in our diverse diverse communities so I mean it takes the original but it just gets rid of overriding and it says it gets rid of the word every policy decision I mean obviously we have that importance that runs throughout the plan and although I think Vince you know exhibit a little hyperbole where the fire department might say well we're not going to go out and you know run the truck out because we don't want to burn any diesel right so but but just modifying a little bit to understand that there are some policy decisions that you can't really change for a while until we have that ability but there are a lot of bigger ones where we can and the the guiding principle for the city plan is to recognize that we have to make these you know hard choices in the future right so how we manage the city how we manage the things that we that we burn that we build that we buy that we use and all those things so that's just my simple suggestion that the guiding principle this plan is to make policy decisions through the lens of climate resilience dot dot dot I would support that I think that hyper hyperbole is not helpful in a planning document and I understand the urgency of climate change believe me and do not at all question the value of making that you know the guiding principle but I don't think that overriding and every is realistic or it just it seems to contrary to public input and and to weighing in the various factors that we have to we have to do as city leaders and I did like Bob Ritz change from recognizing to factoring in because I think factoring in means that we are balancing and what I would suggest and I suggest this at our retreat for the budget that we do have public votes just like we did for the penny on paths where we have the public actually weigh in we need to be sure that the public is behind the city policy just to make sure it's going to be difficult discussions and honest discussions just like we're having right now but I think that rather than causing strong reactions from people we need to be seeking aggressive but not overly aggressive policy direction in face of a crisis and it is an existential threat I completely agree but without creating just the backlash because that is not helpful this is we're in a political climate now where we we see a lot of flashpoints and I would really really caution people who are leaders in the city and people who look to the leaders of the city to stay away from the flashpoints and to really find ways to come together we all recognize it's a problem and how can we push in the same direction I think that's going to be same with schools we have to push in the same direction and I'm wholeheartedly going to support your budget proposal because it's good for the city and we have to do it and it's hard but we have to do it and we have to do it in a way that is not creating those anger points so I would support Tim's language and I also would replace recognizing with factoring in I think that friendly enough do you want to keep principles and goals or just factoring other important goals in our community principles and goals sounds good to me too mm-hmm I wasn't turned on so yeah I can live with that too other comments Paul are you capturing are you capturing yes okay well let's have the council finish their conversation Uncle first are there any other thoughts or comments hi Helen I'll comment so it's interesting when Jessica spoke she didn't use the word overriding she used the word over arching and I do think we don't mean that climate will override everything else I do think we mean it's really important but not that it overrides everything else and I do understand the objection to the word override because I don't really think that's what we mean I like that Bob Britt uses the source to come up with the word cardinal which I thought was really nice I would suggest adding that in addition to the changes we just discussed so yeah so you're in agreement with the slightly modified language that Tim has suggested yeah I think the word override is too I don't really think we mean that I like Bob suggested replacing that with the word cardinal but I understand and I do agree that overriding is probably not what we need and then you like factoring in other important principles yeah the rest of it look good yeah any other thoughts on this or on something else I think we should take one at a time so let's do it on this could Tim repeat that do you want to repeat that sentence again using cardinal so I don't agree with using cardinal mine was just the guiding principle of this plan is to make every policy decision through the lens of climate resilience and reduction greenhouse gas emissions while then taking Bob Brits factoring in other important principles and goals in our diverse community and you changed every policy decision to policy decisions to make to make policy decisions I'm sorry did I read it incorrectly just now I think I did yeah so the guiding principle of this plan is to make policy decisions through the lens okay so you wanted so that's on the table I guess is there a second to that or do we need to I'll second that so it doesn't use the word cardinal is there further discussion yes Paul Connor director of planning my only suggestion if you choose to go in that direction up on the screen there you see the next section where there's a section heading called guiding principles I would suggest that you then change that to principles because based on councillor Barrett's description the guiding principle of the plan is to make policy decisions you can't have one and then four so I would suggest saying if you say the guiding principle is climate then I would call the others principles are we talking about the same sentence though heading guiding principle you would just adjust that orange guiding principles just to principles and the sentence above it holds high the following principles because if you're going to relate it the suggestion to being a singular guiding principle then it should be singular versus yeah okay I agree with that Larry well that wasn't I mean the original text says the overriding guiding principle and then continues and then we still have this heading guiding principles I'd hate to have us reduce the other three principles in the context of whether we're using the word overriding or not so is cardinal then perhaps attractive I happen to like the word cardinal but I understand there's some reasons not to like that but yeah so I think there's some do you want to say main principles the what I'm sorry main main principles I think Paul's suggestion is a good one if we have one guiding principle the others are principles and it keeps everything in the same really as it was we had one overriding guiding principle it seems to me Paul's suggestion makes this read cohesively I like guiding though I do agree with Larry in the in orange yes I do so I go back to Jessica's use of over arching if you don't like cardinal where it is all embracing and it's forming an arch over something does not override key principles key principles okay so the orange would read key principles does that work for you Paul Tim just to clarify are you describing the sentence that you were using to add the word key or the header to say key principles instead of guiding principles the orange we could use main guiding principle I suggested that but I think key is exact precise student well it gives equal importance to all four but then I'm sorry is the suggestion now to say in the climate the key guiding principle of this plan is to etc and keep everything a guiding principle no no I think what we're suggesting is in the orange where it says guiding principles and then it identifies the four principles we would change that to key principles but then in the sentence I don't know if we're going to embrace cardinal but the guiding principle of the plan is to make every policy to make all policy no every policy decisions take out every to make policy decisions through the lens of climate resilience and reduction in greenhouse gases while factoring in other important principles and goals in our diverse community that's a bit we key in guiding our kind of synonymous yeah but then we're not using the same word so we can embrace another group that says oh yeah okay guiding or key so is that amenable to everyone we're still you still stuck on cardinal or is it okay to just say the guiding principle of this plan okay I would add the main guiding principle something something to it because guiding and key are very synonymous and it really I think changes the intent of this it's different guiding to me is the direction you're moving in it means it's important Michael do you want to say something I speak for myself not for my co-commissioners but I think what Tim proposed and the addition of Bob Britt's wording certainly acceptable to me I can live with that and I'd like to remind you this is not a literary document this is a guidance document so whether we use the word key or guiding in one place or another just pick one yeah probably but I think you've come up with a good solution so where are we yep I think we are we have a motion on the second do we decide on key I think we did decide on key orange key principles and otherwise the guiding principle of this plan is to make policy decisions through the lens factoring in other important principles and goals which are Bob Britt's right we're not using we captured that it's written down okay do you want me to share it so you can look at it okay are you ready to vote on that on just that one thing just that one thing okay all in favor is this going to be unanimous if not I need to do a roll call sure Helen okay it's unanimous alright all in favor signify by saying aye thank you thank you see what a good good day on the slopes does to he's worn down okay now there's some other issues I just wanted to bring forward a residents concern regarding the airport and the language with regard to emissions it's on page 30 of the plan his concern this is just above the buildings and thermal energy sector subsection the second to last paragraph begins emissions generated by Lehi International Airport and he wanted to he suggested that we add after emissions other than from aircraft and reading through that passage as I let this resident know one that I would share his concerns since he couldn't be present but two that I did not find the language misleading I thought that it was a fair statement without implying anything more and I was glad then to also hear from Andrew who was one of the writers of our climate action plan who and you can certainly explain Andrew better than I can that he said when climate plans talk about emissions scope three emissions are almost always excluded emissions from planes are scope three so he agrees with me that the language isn't misleading but I still wanted the concern of the resident to be brought forward just so that was heard okay thank you thanks Megan just to maybe 30 seconds of explanation right scope three emissions are kind of the indirect indirect emissions that the relevant organization can control so missions from planes are kind of the domain of Delta or United or the military and not the airport and very very few climate plans including ours address scope three emissions so I think this is written consistent with how climate plans are generally perceived and written all right any other thoughts on this plan so I did have I wanted to just ask the others about Ryan's comments about in the transportation I don't know the plan well enough to respond be able to respond but it reminds me of last week's meeting with Michael mentioned Michael mid-tag mentioned the growth management plan I mean I think that this is a high level planning tool that further plans come you know take direction from so would Ryan's what a transportation design plan is there enough room in our transportation area to have that as a as a goal I'm just asking that because I want to make sure his points were were addressed yeah I don't know if there is room I don't know what that would entail actually my understanding is that there's a whole quite a few different standards for roads and sidewalks and as a single community I guess you pick one or two maybe we can debate over whether the City of South Burlington has picked the correct ones I'm not sure this plan is the place to do that and and I guess I would after you make comments Tim I guess I would defer to okay to anyone from the administration about what do we use and how into the weeds can we should we get so did you want to make a comment so a couple of comments I know there's a philosophical difference of opinion between the MUTCD standards and the ASTO standards between City staff and Mr. Doyle we do absolutely follow those we also have public work standards that our team is working to develop that our reference in the LDRs so I think this is something we are actively working on and I you can put it as a policy charge in your plan if you would like but it's something that we are doing anyway it's been in your policies and procedures priorities so I think it's covered but do you want to reflect that in your plan Mr. Erminke? I think it's important to understand that the LDRs control a large swath of that and if it's being worked on that's great I know there's already form based codes there are other standards as well when applications go through the DRB I mean they're spelled out by planning and zoning in those applications so I don't think I want to get too detailed in that type of stuff in this document because this is more of a higher level aspirational document and there is work going on on Williston Road to add in some bike paths and there is work on the intersections there is work on the crossing crosswalks that's plan that's going to happen there are medians so anyway I mean that helps me understand that there's room underneath the city plan for this to continue that's fine I'm just not familiar with the various standards that either city manager mentioned or Ryan mentioned I think and those shouldn't be part of the plan those should be internal discussions further well someday you can volunteer for the DRB and learn all about them I could do that thank you I have been there once Ryan can you come to the mic so the folks on like hearing you please thank you so and Jesse says that public works has some level of planning around this it's really not what I'm talking about for a level of design you guys could look these up NACTO has national association of city transportation officials has some really great plans they're not the only ones but they are some of the FHWA approved plans that cities can adopt but some of the projects don't allow them to and anything we're doing at the city level comes nowhere close to that so I want to emphasize the difference between designating space for bikers pedestrians and people with mobility issues versus designing space so you can say that we're going to put a crosswalk here or a sidewalk or a road or high volume usage by people on bike or foot and that's the kind of issue we come up against so people say well look we painted bike lanes here but the type of bike lane you create depends on the volume of traffic the speed of traffic the number of accidents that occur you're supposed to design it based on factors that are present on the ground rather than just designating space those are two very different things and so municipalities that successfully move toward increasing bike transportation like Montreal for example on the plateau now they're getting 22% of people commute by bike to work it's phenomenal right and they've done this by developing infrastructure that makes it safe, comfortable and convenient to do so simply putting a multi-use path in a place that is too dense for a multi-use path doesn't actually do that it designates space but it doesn't design space and so an action item is as simple as saying developing and adopting design standards that focus specifically on bike, ped and alternative mobility or disabled disability users right now we don't do that and I can say for certain that our city does not even optionally choose to follow them when we have the opportunity to I'll go back to Proag Proag has all sorts of things laid out and the city only use the small section of Proag that talks about the placement of the poles for pedestrian buttons it didn't use any of the other information about even the tactile strips and how you're supposed to lay those out at the edge or how far apart they're supposed to be from other things or the cross slope on sidewalks which is probably a term you guys don't think about but all of those design standards exist in the world in North American cities and we don't use them here and if we want to get to where Andrew talks about people actually really commuting by bike or getting to the store on foot we need to actually have design standards that bring us there so that we know what we're doing when we make these decisions rather than digging up a sidewalk and redoing it over and over again well perhaps a good next step would be to really ask the bike and ped committee how deep they have dived into this level of design and influence on the construction of our bike path because I mean I don't know Ryan has made some suggestions that the city hasn't done or looked at X, Y, and Z and I don't know how he has that information I don't so I don't know if I can act upon it from one person saying it just doesn't happen but I would certainly be supportive of the bike and ped committee getting a little more familiar with this because that is probably an equity issue as well yeah we don't specifically no we don't specifically have update design standards but we do have and I don't know this is maybe the paragraph Ryan I don't know but we must continue to encourage all types of roadway users including pedestrians, bicyclists wheelchair and scooter users and transit riders while facilities on or along roadways are needed the city also needs to add off street bike and pedestrian paths so there's nothing about mixed use it's off street bike and pedestrian paths plural separated facilities are inclusive for pedestrians and bicyclists of all ages now maybe that's what's the mixed use there and abilities but also abilities who may be less comfortable using a sidewalk bike line or path adjacent to a road these routes must be clear and unappeated including being well maintained in all seasons and then it goes on the city includes safe passage for pedestrians and bicyclists when constructing modifying and or upgrading roadways clearly nothing is perfect general that you saw I also got an email and we just need to respond to those needs when we aren't proactively addressing them so those goals are there in the plan we can certainly put update design standards I mean if that I don't think design seniors belong in this document I think they belong with the LDR and this for planning and zoning to distinguish and public works as well but thanks to the input well I think the work of the planning commission much of it is from our direction so you've raised the issue if that's something we want them to do that's top of the pile for LDR changes we can always make that assignment I think there is on page six just above the topic sections subheading having a city plan enables the city to dot dot dot and then zoning regulations govern the details including setting design review standards but it is there it is there it's just not an action item but it is okay the only thing that I wanted to I guess ask and have confirmed is that although we don't have necessarily the same density for the certain areas of the city that infill is included for all areas of the city where there is water and sewer that's how I read the documents so just getting back to Dan Dan's comments I saw infill for all areas in the city where there is water and sewer is that correct that's correct so even in the district that is including in the district that is listed as lower scale principally residential which is essentially all of our existing neighborhoods whether they are Mayfair Park or Eastwoods or Butler Farms in there it discusses infill and it talks about supporting activities and uses like civic spaces and small scale commercial the only district where that's left out is the principally conservation district which is largely your natural resource protection district and your habitat blocks the housing that is permitted is at extremely low level of one home per up to 15 acres and largely conservation being the goal thank you for confirming my understanding Paul so I feel comfortable okay can I also comment on Dan's comments so I mean I appreciate his feedback but I mean I got to point out the red barn at the top of Tilly Drive you know has milk and you can buy eggs there and some other things and you know it's not a full grocery store but you can also it's a full deli right and you know the hill farm is going to be built out someday that's going to be a perfect customer set you know for that small business it's hard to get some of those small commercial type things in those farther flung more parts of the city right where there is less density right that can actually make it right so but that's a perfect example of that business being next to Tilly Drive O'Brien hillside O'Brien hillside north you know Ry it's right on 116 so I mean I don't understand some of his comments because that business is filling a niche that is needed you know that kind of like the cider mill or the mill market in deli on you know Dorset streets so there's also a commercial lot in south village that I understand there's a lot of focus to put kind of similar amenity and and just getting back to Linda Bailey's comment from last week here on page 31 under energy where it talks about weatherization and electrification the last sentence of the first full paragraph reads the city must design a system that will not cause economic hardship for people without resources to change over benefit from and then operate new systems so I just wanted to underscore that this plan is not insensitive to people's ability to pay and that was one of her concerns but I received an email following about one of the points we didn't make when she came up and spoke was that people can still go buy air conditioners in the summer if their houses are hot they don't have to buy a heat pump but I mean an air conditioner is a heat pump but it's a one directional heat pump right so we still have that ability okay so have we gone through all the different changes Paul I have if the council it sounds like you are going to be making a couple of small changes so I have one additional one to give you a staff identified a little inconsistency and word usage so on page 80 we have which is the future land use 80 one of the land use categories is called commercial with supporting uses the map associated with it says commercial slash industrial with supporting uses we like to be consistent and use the word commercial slash industrial with supporting uses so just to save a future question mark in five years time and Bob Brick caught a few typos did you see those they are map four and there should be the I in infrastructure should be capitalized under map four and the L in land should be capitalized under map eight that's in the table of contents sorry do you see his email Paul yes he also said you may want to do a search for the word city with a small C as for consistency some need to be changed to city with a capital C so I agree with and we're happy to do all of the changes except the one about city because we did very purposefully city when it's referring to the city of south Burlington as a corporate entity as capital C and when it says people who live in the city like to that's a small C our city planner was very meticulous about that so it's intentional that it's large and small the end of steep on page 35 of the environmental section and a U is missing in contiguous on the same page page 35 we can make the rest of those changes pardon me we can make the rest of those changes with your concurrence steep so yeah well we were thinking of Russia at the time oh well someone maybe it wasn't changed when he saw alright so can we bundle all of those together would you like a motion yes I would and we need to move those changes and then warn a third public hearing so January 29th so I would like to move to make the changes that we discussed tonight to the draft city plan as presented and to warn a public hearing on the modified plan for Monday January 29th at 7 p.m. second so any further discussion okay all in favor signify by saying aye aye so that carries thank you so we'll be back at it on the 29th already and remember that's your second public hearing on the first one on the charter change two public hearings okay so let's see we're down thank you Paul we're down to number nine don't move the Vermont Land Trust bread and butter farm conservation project at Eau Claire farm we're going to review and approve a non-development agreement and the city right of first refusal for area excluded from conservation on parcel B parcel B of the former Eau Claire farm property in line with prior city council decision to release pre-approved funds on conditions of city council approval of the NDA which is the non-development agreement and the ROFER city is right of first refusal hi folks Paul Conner director of planning and zoning Colin McNeil city attorney so we are getting towards the finish line with this Eau Claire property the document in front of you has essentially two components if you recall the Eau Claire lot B which is the west side of Heinsberg Road north of cheese factory road the big property the largest of the properties this has been the main focus of the city's investment with that the city and its partners land trust the natural resource conservation service and others are pursuing a permanent third party conservation through the natural resource conservation service for about 110, 115 of the acres of the total leaving approximately 10 at the very northern end to be able to be used for non-conservation purposes so that's where the work has been going here the city asked last year went just about the same time the city requested that in enumerating all the different ways that the city's investment are being benefiting the community that for that most northern piece that there be that the city have a right of first refusal in the instance that it goes to some party that doesn't have the same vision so that is incorporated in this document that the city would have a right of first refusal on the northern most piece the other piece of this is the owners of the full parcel today are looking to split their ownership for essentially financial purposes to Montland Trust has agreed to carry the and own the large parcel that would be permanently conserved which will save substantial money because it is currently owned by an investment company that collects a return on it each year Montland Trust did not however want to be the owner of the remaining 10 acres of the northern end because that's not their mission so we worked closely with them to identify a portion of our land development regulations that allows for just essentially this scenario where a piece of land can be divided without being officially subdivided through the DRB so effectively what it means is that functionally for all planning and zoning purposes it remains one parcel no development activity can take place on either portion of it without going to the DRB for a full subdivision review but in the meantime they can have two different owners of that land and not have to go through the expense of a whole DRB process to do it so it is enabling and facilitating the conservation and that's that's what's in here anything to add I called miss state anything no I think Paul I think you got it all I think I would just highlight that as part of this agreement and Paul did on and hit on this that the a major component of it is that the the wild turkey divide has agreed that this property would not be developed would not be they've waived their development rights on this property both the excluded parcel and the conserved parcel until a subdivision review takes place and that's at this point that the property can only be used for agricultural forestry purposes until that review does take place so there's two major components to this that this agreement ensures questions yeah can I so I remember the 605 that we allocated and that was spent right we have not dispersed either the 605 or the 300 yes 304 I think this and that the other sending this at tonight's action the other 309 was was that to facilitate a USDA grant if I remember it was to take full advantage of a natural NRCS matching grant of them putting nine ten nine hundred and ten thousand dollars to match the city's nine hundred and ten thousand and is that still on the table and yes that's that's the purpose that's one of the purposes of this agreement is to move into that next step the anticipated closing is in the next couple of months if not sooner I didn't realize that money had not been spent yet for some reason this while turkey is new to me too when did they enter the scene and did I just while turkey device the corporate name of the entity that is capital dirt capital yes oh yeah it's the same company it's essentially the same company there's a small component that bread and butter has in it but it is effectively dirt capital just a new LLC out of that which has been the principal owner for a few years now that's not new it's just a different name for the same group oh I'm sorry go ahead Andrew just because I'm not that familiar with history so the 600 and the 300 that we were just referring to has it though been set aside or is that going to come out of future open space funds like do we already have it available to spend or are we looking to take it out of future open space revenue Martha can you answer that where in the finance drive is it Martha I think it's in your accounting I think it's accounted for within our tracking the open space so it's the open space so right who's speaking hi I don't think I've got your question for the is that in the open space fund tracking for property acquisition we've been accounting for the money to purchase the or to fund the conservation I don't think the open space for the acquisition is assigned with specific property but as we have been accumulating and we are tracking that amount so we have that amount we have the amount which is what your question was we're not just tracking it we got it in the bank somewhere it's already there and we're not using future funds to fund this it's already there correct okay when we've been discussing with the council at any point what your balance is it is assuming that this has been spent so it's not available for anything else because the council's already voted to spend it so it's put in the is that correct yes it's being tracked 2017 right we still have the money but yes it's been tracking that it is a scientific for this project Paul when I look at the map that little northern nub that sort of is half of the barn that's fallen down and it says future farm hub for bread and butter is that where the USDA was talking about potentially having farm housing that's correct so the lower part of it this is a rough map but the lower part of it is the conservation area and the northern portion of it that looks a little bit like a sports finger foam finger is that's the excluded portion so that would be potentially for a farm hub potentially for farm worker housing and if ever the entities wild turkey divide or anyone else goes to sell it for a purpose that is not consistent with that where the city has a right of first refusal so that's the portion that you would have the right of first refusal on the remainder is anticipated in the coming weeks to be permanently conserved and these parcels haven't yet been subdivided is that what you're saying that's correct so this is still all one property including our property perhaps north of the 13 acres the portion north of the 13 acres was subdivided several years ago but the two yellow portions are one property this agreement that you're looking at tonight talks about a division to allow for two different owners of this yellow area but it would not be a formal subdivision any development in the future of any way shape or kind on either of those would require DRB review as a subdivision and so when I was walking this weekend the part the field to that's west of that that is part of the Cytermill 3 correct I mean it looks like they're putting a road in so I assume and so that's where potentially water and sewer could get to the farm housing that's correct so this where my hand is showing on the screen there that is Cytermill 2 slash now they call it Edgewood and then over further to the left here on this light brown that's the city on Scott property here and to the south of that is the permanently conserved Laduke properties slash bread and butter and then very most recently just last year Sarah donated a permanent conservation easement to her property right here so these are all coming together a large continuous area conservation thank you I have another question yes so is a survey required for this at all not at this point not this point so both parties would I mean they're agreeing on an imaginary line but it's a well established imaginary line so they understand it the way it's worded is we've required that once it's divided we're not going to approve how future waivers of development or land development regulation requirements so it has to be a line my understanding would be it would be a line that essentially they choose but it has to be well thought out and there has to be a background and a reasons for why they choose that line but as it's not you know it's not officially recognized by the city as a division until subdivision review occurs okay it's up to them at this point to make that division is there any risk that this imaginary line could move like substantially you know north or south and expand one area I mean are the two acreages pretty much can I interrupt that Britt Hazleton from the Vermont Land Trust is on the video call if you'd like to have him answer this question I think he can for you oh okay hi there can can everyone hear me yes very well thank you good thank you thanks for having this discussion so the parcel B which is comprised of the 104 acres to be conserved and the 13.41 acres that the exclusion future farm hub those are already surveyed we have a survey plat depicting both with the dividing line we designed that exclusion that 13.41 to hopefully accommodate you know a future farm related development plan that meets the LDRs but we're just known in a position to actually go through that entire planning process at this point but the boundaries are set they can't change we have a survey we're gonna have a as Paul mentioned an NRCS and Vermont Housing and Conservation Board funded easement along with the city funds that won't they can't really be changed so the 13.41 acre exclusion those lines are defined and won't be changed in the future thank you any other questions could I just quickly this this agreement is really a great outcome it'll allow as Paul said Vermont Land Trust to purchase the 104 acres after it's conserved and hold on to it and you know at a very low cost of capital and then the ultimate goal is we are establishing helping establish along with some farm businesses and local folks a new nonprofit called the AgriHood Collective ultimately that new nonprofit will be the long-term owner of these pieces and so you know perhaps at a future date we can come back and discuss that but it's all very exciting great thank you thank you are we ready you have a question sure would you come up to the mic please Jimmy push the button in the middle where it says push yeah it is green okay here we go okay alright I'm going to try not to rant I've never been a fan of this deal and I know a lot of other people who were not a fan of it when this property when the city entered into this agreement we invested over $900,000 of our city's money our taxpayer money and what are we getting out of this more conserved land this property the zoning previously could have allowed hundreds of housing units on this property and people talk about the proximity of water and sewer well we know that water and sewer is not that far away now there's some extraordinary cost to take care of the water mindful of this kind of stuff but we spent over $900,000 of the city's money and in exchange we have secured permission to use the property for some walking trails the object of this deal according to most of the literature that's out there was for conservation and much of that purpose to be directed for agricultural use well the literature that was published when this property was offered for sale whether it was the state's soil map or other literature that came from I forget what reputable source but it basically indicated that this property was not good agricultural property it was not really suitable for agricultural purposes but we went out we saw the value in this property to invest over $900,000 of the city's money so that we could have permission to walk on a part of it and I just want to assert for the record in my opinion the city spent that money so that this property would not be developed that is what the city's goal and objective was and they succeeded in doing that I would also like to just kind of offer a thought of the all or nothing approach that we seem to take with regard to real estate when we've identified property being suitable for conservation purposes it's like conserve it we don't want to see a house on it let's forget about it the 200 acre parcel on the east side of the road that has already been acquired could you spot it two or three or a handful of housing sites on that property and still maintain the integrity of that property as a conserved parcel I say yeah of course you could have and in this location those parcels in today's economic value would probably have $300,000 a pot for those building lots what could the city do with an extra $1.5 what could the open space fund do with an extra $1.5 well I know what they could do they could acquire the long property and they could go out and acquire the long property and entertain the idea of putting a handful of houses on a property that could accommodate dozens of home sites like an all or nothing exercise when the majority of the long property will never be used for development it can't but we should be leveraging our city's resources when we take a look at a transaction where we're going to be acquiring property and if we can achieve two objectives objectives being to create some housing and to conserve property that's important and at the same time be getting the lion's share of our money back out of a transaction that can be used over and over and over again the concept of leverage I'm sure everybody understands what it is why wasn't it employed when we got involved with the Eau Claire property why won't it be employed with the long property in any event I just wanted to make sure that somebody refreshed the public a little bit on what occurred when this transaction for the Eau Claire property went down and I hope that we can employ a little more common sense with how we approach the use of the long property thank you Mike can I suggest that you stay for the next hour presentation because I think there's we'll be understanding some of the consequences of the amount of population growth and housing growth that's occurred in this community I think it would be really helpful for you to put that into the mix of let's build a whole bunch more houses well I don't think the next hour staying here for the next hour is going to provide me with knowledge that I might possess already okay I'm pretty familiar with what happens when there's a population increase and there's no free lunch well I don't think you understand what's before the city in terms of the CLA and act 147 127 well it's been getting a lot of publicity and I know we're confronting well we're going to hear about it in terms of its direct impact to our community so you may know it all and oh come on now Helen that's an uncalled for remark you know I may only sound like I know it all but I don't so I apologize if I sound that way sometimes well I'm just encouraging you to maybe thank you get my point listen to this because it may help you understand what we'll be dealing with I just wanted to remind the public that the parcels that we were just discussing with our city planner and city attorney that they are part of the Shelburne pond wildlife corridor which is really seen as one of the most important wildlife corridors and we need to ensure that we live amongst and with our natural environment we just need to and it's also a place where there is a working farm and we also are I think rightly concerned with having a broad portfolio where we have places where people can live and places where we can do food in addition to the wildlife corridors and our commercial and our energy regeneration and all the other things that we do in the city so there's a place I think in this city where this made sense to me and there was no ulterior motive than that in my mind can I say one thing too? I just want to remind Mr. Siminoe that the logs came forward with a plan during interim zoning that was rejected by city council because of the principles of interim zoning and then they turned around and they sold the property to another entity the city does not own that entity and if the city chooses to go into contract with them and actually build some housing it's going to be in a negotiation that has to come to the agreement with the seller so if there's housing built there are going to be constraints on that and it's not going to be sold at willy nilly market for whatever is buildable probably so my point is that I'm just saying that in the pursuit of preservation of open space for which the voters voted to fund the open space fund for which these lands are mostly open space all clear and right now long except for a couple houses one that's dilapidated and one that's habitable that's what the principle is is to try to preserve open space and then you go back to the whole interim zoning event and all the actions that came out of that where we placed great value on habitat blocks, forest blocks wildlife corridors all that stuff this is right in line with all the things that we've talked about for the last four years of the pandemic so but I understand you're angst but this is what the voters said when they agreed to fund the open space fund originally yes it is probably taking away some prime developable property for you know $800,000 homes or whatever you decide to put there but that's the point that was the point of the open space fund we're not trying to acquire all the open space we're still I mean edgewood is being built now hill farm is going to be built there are other areas that they're going to break around on then probably going to be LDR change is to enable other types of housing so the question is where where will that be and how quickly how quickly will the city grow and then what's the impact going to be on these two representatives here okay so we need to take action on this correct yes we have to approve this is it a simple motion I don't see a motion seems like I'll move that we approve the non-development agreement and city right of first refusal for the area excluded from conservation on parcel B of the former Eau Claire farm property in line with the prior city council decision to release pre-approved funds on condition of city council approval of NDA and ROFR second okay is there any further discussion all in favor signify by saying aye aye aye aye it's unanimous thank you very much thank you this is been a long haul and we're still not really quite done early good okay thank you we'll move on to I'm sorry okay we'll take a five minute break sorry it's a dollar COD which is the yep the coefficient of disbursement which takes all of those sales and plots them on a standard deviation graph and then looks at what are outside of the regular standard deviation and so our coefficient of dispersion is 13 this year down from 10 or up from 10 last year which means it's getting a little farther away but a reappraisal actually isn't ordered until that gets to 20 so yes we can see that spread across sales as well so the actual hard number of sales doesn't matter but that's spread across sales so a town that has virtually you know a handful of new houses built or condos and has sales is impacted similarly to a community like South Burlington which has built a lot of condos and homes and has had a lot of sales right the number of sales doesn't matter it's the sales against the assessed value and it's also the new construction also doesn't really matter because when the new construction happens it's assessed at a new property value so O'Brien Farm builds a new house we assess it at completion we know how much it costs they then sell the house and that ratio is the CLA ratio it's not that we're assessing new house to vacant land but in three years if that house sells again that's when it sells for a much higher price than the CLA and I think that's happened but that still reflects the attractiveness of this community I understand that but that's driving it and if we can't afford the schools then at some point those values will probably go down or people won't be competing to move into South Burlington for their excellent schools so they'll be running away because of the high taxes I want to add a historical point that the CLA when you get an appraisal actually speaking over time the closer you are to the appraisal year for us in 2021 it should hover around 100 and we've had two years in a row where it's dropped significantly when we are now at 82 instead of being at 100 so when the formula was designed it did not have this drastic impact that it has in this year that the mechanism of getting reappraised is really off the table because there are some communities who have needed to get an appraisal and are on a wait list for years and we have such a shortage so it's really a system's problem with the formula and us chipping away at the volume equation or the appraisal really doesn't get to the fact that the way that the formula is working is not working in our favor in South Burlington I'll also just say that I don't think that are people need homes we have no vacancy rates in Vermont so a lot of folks that I know who are buying houses really don't get to choose which town they're making in they're choosing literally any house they can afford or any place they can rent so there's not the same sort of having flexibility that we may have had a decade ago or so going back to Megan's question here and looping in Larry's we anticipate continued prosperity in South Burlington and homes selling for more and more money and this will lead to reduced CLA's every year we get further from reappraisal there's a critical shortage of appraisers some communities are a decade plus and waiting for one so the further we get from a reappraisal the lower the CLA the higher the school budget and Larry this has been the central part of the conversation that Kate and I have been having with our legislators and I feel really grateful for our Chinman County legislators who I've had a lot of communication with and discussion and you know through that conversation the CLA has been a factor that's really isolated here as a lever for potential change Act 127 is an extremely complicated formula and it took over a year to develop and the agency of education hired numerous staff members to craft it we're not expecting any overnight shift on any of these factors for fiscal year 25 and I'm hopeful that there could be a CLA cap for fiscal year 26 absolutely would that have serious positive impacts on our schools and our ability to maintain programming yes you know as we work together to think about the next step and I'm going to bring this back to our conversation with the city school meeting on Friday is you know would the council and the school board like to have discussion about shared communication with our legislators to say hey we know that we have a booming town so many great things happening here excellent schools we want to maintain that we need assistance and we believe one lever could be discussion of a CLA cap and I think that's a communication that I've shared you all have seen my letter that I shared with legislators and the school board will be sharing shared communication from the board as a body to be sent I spoke with Jeff Francis this morning executive director of the Vermont super and tenants association who's providing testimony tomorrow and he as well as our legislators said to me violet times of the essence right so these conversations are happening literally testimony is occurring tomorrow so the board will likely send a letter off the back of action tomorrow night Wednesday night I'm just skipping ahead but so that's communication that we're going to be having and that's part of the reason that we chose to have this conversation with you all this evening because it is time sensitive our ability to advocate as a team have you have you I notice on the one chart you had that Chittenden County towns had numerous minuses maybe one town had a plus is there similar reactions going on in those towns absolutely and because of the mechanics of act 127 that is impacting us all differently the CLA has commonly crushed school districts around the state so an estimated 90% of us have lost with the CLA modification you know the CLA if it's kept the state will have to contend with the question like where does the ed funding come from right there's only so many levers and the CLA is currently one of them but superintendents all over Chittenden County have been communicating about the impacts and they're having very similar percentages you're referencing the CLA that came in which dipped dramatically in Chittenden County where home values are increasing so you'll be seeing from our neighbors very similar percentages to what we have here so you're looking for us to join you in your request for a cap to the CLA is that is that the request that's one potential we'll be having our own discussion about action steps on Wednesday and felt like bringing you the information now since it's pretty complicated would take a lot of time if we were to just present it at our steering committee on January 22nd so that's our plan moving forward is talking together as a school board proposing an action on Wednesday and then sharing with you and we could discuss together as two bodies of the 22nd or ideally even earlier we could do a joint letter after your Wednesday meeting when you come up with maybe your initial proposals to the legislature and then I assume a lot of communities will be thinking about that and working on other proposals but our ask right now is the cap on the CLA okay or I mean more broadly sharing concern I understand I do not expect anyone in this room to be an expert on the funding formula and certainly I've had a lot of learning to do with the new mechanics here but I think in general this is me coming to you saying this is a crisis and I do think the city council speaking to a level of concern would be very meaningful to the legislators and even if you don't suggest a CLA cap if that's not something you're comfortable I think begging the question of examining the education funding formula and sharing the impact on our community is appropriate and I don't feel like that would be overstepping as far as a suggestion but again making clear the impact to our community and asking for another look at this is something that would I think be really important in making any kind of change and just passing on the timeline this is the week where those discussions are happening and decisions are being made so the legislator I spoke to this morning representing the five legislators who met on Saturday after my communication with them said Violet if there's going to be advocacy it needs to be this week so just passing that along what form of advocacy could we take for me it was a letter for two bodies you could choose to reach out to legislators on your own or as one body as two bodies it could be oral communication whatever you all feel comfortable doing but I want to make sure that you know that that is a really important next step for us one that we're taking and I also have to really just shout out to our legislators who've been incredibly supportive and have committed a significant amount of time understanding what information I've shared with them and to really thinking about how to work together to make changes so I'm really appreciative of that partnership and I'm feeling encouraged that we can make some changes through working together well I think it would be important to have the council unanimously support your efforts and essentially the letter that you sent them we could just cosign if you want I mean I don't have a I'm certainly not an expert so I'm not going to say well I'm not really sure about the cap on the CLA if that's what you think could be one step I'm in and so I think I don't know how other people feel Megan has said she supported it Andrew you've been trying to jump in I certainly support that letter I do have a question though and first thank you Violet and Kate for this presentation I can't imagine how stressful it is dealing with these changes that seem to have been forced upon us so thank you it's just really mechanical question Violet you mentioned that for the budget this year it doesn't really matter whether we spend 64 million on low end or 71 on the high end because of the 5% cap I'm confused how it works when we get to 2030 when we get to 2030 does it matter what we spent this year is there a catch up or does it only matter what we spend in 2013 yeah great question and thank you so there is no there is no catch up it doesn't matter what we spend this year so we've heard from a lot of folks so you know some folks are saying cut back to 64 million others have said mostly those in the school community go to the 71.3 that's where I was going like it's meant to kind of go to the 71 and harbor your resources in effect and you know because if it doesn't matter like there's no catch up in 2030 and you just have to deal with what your level is then why wouldn't we go to the 71 this year yeah good question so another number of factors here one districts like ours who are on the giver end of this could quite literally if we took that approach bankrupt the yield so because the money has to come from somewhere so that was one factor and we have to think about what are we committing ourselves to year in and year out so if we were to increase staff then we're committing to staff for every year going forward so the idea of bringing on new staff in this budget and not pairing down and in any way would in fact be yeah I wasn't thinking sure I wasn't thinking that but could you bank it you know increase capital reserve is there a way to use the money faster there's definitely the this is brand new legislation this is the first year it's rolling out so there's a ton of unknowns but by design it is exponentially harder to increase our budget at fiscal year 30 and beyond which is particularly terrible timing for south Burlington because we can't even entertain a conversation about renovations or new schools or places to put the kids that are coming with the development because we have no because the impact of any increased budget after this 5% cap goes away is going to be completely unattainable I mean then that 20% tax rate that we're looking at with a budget that doesn't include any renovations or any real substantial increases of any kind yeah we would be looking at that as a regular without any protections 28% tax rate increase so the outlook is not good so it's not feasible to pay off some things ahead of time with a larger budget until 30 so that you know if your debt load has gone away that would be a saving that would not require you know people I mean I agree with Andrew if we merely go on to 71 million and hire I don't know however many people you could that's a problem unless you're just counting on we're just going to hire you for 5 years and then those programs are going to be cut but are there ways to pay for things ahead of time that would generate savings in the future I don't know your budget well enough is your payment on the ZEMs a million a year and I can't remember so the ZEMs is a $6 million bond so we are in fiscal year 25 going to be paying the first principle and interest payments on that we are though receiving the offsetting revenue which increases the budget via impact fees which are estimated to pay for 91% of the ZEMs of that $6 million that's not I do really appreciate the logic behind that suggestion but any revenues that we have coming in increase expenditures so they're offset in the ed funding formula but when we discussed strategy with the board and other districts have done this as well the general feeling statewide and certainly with the guidance from our school board has not been to max out up to that 9.99% net ed spending and if that's exceeded there's a board review to determine whether a school district's spending was irresponsible or not there are one time sort of funds that I think go to the spirit of what you're naming in there was a safety audit done we have pretty outdated intercom systems a lot of gaps in where there could be security cameras and one time investments that we could make that are included in the budget which is which does identify some of the spirit of what you're getting at but I do think that the board is also trying to be sensitive to having a budget that the community will support can I ask about Act 127 are there it's okay go ahead but you do that all the time it's been on my mind sorry about that the educators are here so Act 127 and the changes is there reactions to that that need legislative assistance as well yeah certainly and I I think this is where Chittenden County is more split I spoke to the superintendent and his business manager in Burlington this morning they're not advocating for changes to the Act 127 formula because they're on the receiving end right so districts like Colchester, Essex-Westford Milton, Montpelier-Roxbury Winooski we're all on CVSD we're all on the giving side of that right so Act 127 is impacting every district really differently and for us negative financial impact and the CLA is the common source of pain on top of Act 127 changes in the what used to be the equalized pupil this now long term waiting so yes modifications to Act 127 would benefit our community very much and you know I want to just be clear I mean the board, the district and I certainly support increased quality of education statewide and I very much believe in what the essence of Act 127 is trying to do which is trying to increase equity statewide which I believe supports our community and all communities however without modification it'll have a crippling effect on ours if CLA's continue to drop but but you also said that that's probably a really trickier and longer term process to get that change so perhaps it could get some a push but this is a longer term process too all the communities that you cited at least in Chittenden County where you know you probably really know them organizing in some way to make that case and actually divvying up the senate probably helps us because it used to be from Chittenden County and Burlington often held sway but that's not the case anymore so that's sort of a longer term process but although you need to sort of get it done sooner what we've done is superintendents are reaching out to legislators in all of our respective areas and school boards are doing the same VASBO, the financial organization of business officials is organizing the Vermont school board association is organizing and the Vermont superintendents association so there's a lot of advocacy and some of our legislators are getting mixed messages right so someone who received a letter from me will also likely receive one from Burlington and my letter says act 127 is impacting us in addition to CLA Tom calls me and says I can't join on the act 127 component however I'm with you in the CLA so most of the other districts in Chittenden County are experiencing what we are with act 127 as well so advocacy is certainly important and there's a lot of it happening Kate and I have just reviewed a draft that she prepared which is something that she'll bring to the school board on Wednesday night for consideration perhaps the next step is that she share that with Helen and Jesse and maybe for distribution to you all should that be something that you all want to modify or add on to or would be willing to send I think the combination would be powerful if it was letter from me letter from school board and then the joint letter school board city council and Jesse and I could sign that as well I think would be really powerful and all of these letters focus on this factual information when I was we've done a lot of advocacy so far as regional groups but I got the specific feedback from legislators saying well this letter was really impactful because you put specific figures and we could not have imagined the impact without them and I had that same visceral response when I received the CLA right just total shock and devastation was my reaction and you know now moving to a point where it's important we have to communicate and advocate about this so again I appreciate the opportunity for that conversation to occur tonight and to share with those in the community it's a lot of information to convey and it's dense and it's really hard news to share so now now yes so this forum is an excellent place to disseminate the information that you brought tonight I'm hoping that the other paper if they're online is listening very closely to all the facts and details so that they can publish a very accurate portrayal of the budget crisis that the school system in South Burlington and other Chittenden County schools are facing right now because of the witches brew stirred up by Montpelier with their changes act 27 that being said why don't we make a change to our property assessment laws where when a house is sold for more than it's assessed at it snaps up to the value of the sale is that legal so that all future sales the CLA would be one you buy a house for 20,000 more you pay your assessed value is now that sale because new construction every assessed value new construction is equal to the value that it was sold at so why aren't homes when they're sold at a much larger percentage of price why doesn't the assessed value snap up to the sale price I'm just asking that question I don't know the answer I've heard that in Florida there was a similar case where seniors in their homes felt like their property tax their property assessments were going up too quickly so if you've been in your home for more than 20 years then it could not exceed a property appraisal increase of more than 3% or something like that it was like you've been there for so long you're going to be there for a lot longer and you shouldn't be overcharged a property appraisal when there was more appraisal going other properties were going up faster this is kind of the opposite of that what's the fair assessed value of a home it's whatever the sale price is period and so when you go to sell your house if your house is now worth another $100,000 then that's what the sale price will be for the appraisal price tax abatement easier I certainly think that there's no real incentive in this formula for new construction is a flaw and I think generally from a statewide legislative perspective South Burlington is doing a lot of things right right like we are trying to address the housing crisis we are trying to be developing and being climate conscious and yet there's very little incentive built into what we're seeing here it's like we're only getting the stick and not the carrot but we on the school side of things don't have any expertise in how all of these different property taxes play out and property sales and so that could be another conversation that we have or perhaps you have with the legislators who are on those committees to think through ways that the good work that we're doing in South Burlington could play out to our benefit in our education and our funding model I think Tim you hit something because I was thinking not along those lines because that's a brilliant thought but the CLA wherever the basis of the CLA is did not take into account this situation where there's a housing crisis and so that might be a fix there I don't know but something has to be reflected in that it might have been an unintended consequence of some far reaching thought about statewide property tax and other play but it's not just here in Chittenden County where people are experiencing the people who are selling their homes are moving away so they're not they're not benefitting they're cashing out and they're not they're not going to be affected by the new tax rate that the new owners have to pay so there's something in this situation that's acting against the intention of the legislation because it's forcing property taxes to take on much more of a burden than they should right but I think that's a great idea Tim you wanted to respond so or say some several comments it's illegal understate statue right now to do what you're suggesting but there is another bill in front of the legislature that started last session that's continuing on looking at the statewide assessment system writ large does it stay with municipalities does it go to the state we have a statewide education grand list should properties be assessed at the state level should they be assessed locally that's a hugely divisive topic at the at the VLCT table there's a conversation about doing assessments regionally so requiring reassessments every six years blah blah blah so this might actually be a really good time for south brillington to advocate for a re-look at that appraisal system or assessment system I do think it's also an interesting question the reason it's illegal now is that the CLA has historically been used in the education funding formula as the way to equalize property values across communities in Vermont now that that is not being taken into consideration in terms of ordering reappraisals it does seem to be a mismatch in the system I think that's a real good argument for the CLA cap or getting the CLA out of the education funding formula all together is it's not being used to require reappraisals can I switch topics for just a minute while I have them open Mike? Yes and then I think Andrew you want to ask a question but let Jesse just going to second Kim's comment I think it's brilliant and I think we should push for a legislative change to allow us to do that so yeah happy to maybe we would work on a paragraph in the letter saying something reflecting that I do I haven't seen your letter yet so forgive me if I'm overstepping into something you all have already written you know I do think putting up front and center in that letter that we support equity as you have very articulately said Violet is really important I also think one of our huge challenges right now in this weak conversation is that we don't have good data on how these state level policy decisions are impacting communities on either the act 127 basis or the CLA basis and I think part of our advocacy should be not only changing CLA changing appraisal rates changing you know redoing the funding formula but also having the state be transparent about what the impacts of 127 are on each community and what the impacts of the CLA are on each community I think if we understood that better how those we as Vermonters understood that better how those levers were pulling against one another we may come up with different kinds of solutions but we're trying to come up with solutions that are based solely on us not seeing how those solutions are spread over the state and very unpopular position at the State House to have these huge impacts on Chittenden County communities that are the economic engine of the state if we start having those impacts continue from now until FY 30 and beyond and erode that economic engine and the vibrancy of our communities that's going to have a much larger impact on the statewide and I think so that to me that's why really we really need to understand how these like community how these what the impact is not just on us so I think putting a request in the letter also for that kind of transparency on both sides would be super helpful I wonder if so Jesse you have just brought forward a number of points that I'm now wondering you know does the school board send a letter and the draft go to you all and then from that you add those pieces and it's a separate communication with your audience I think knowing the different audiences and the different interests represented almost would make it more effective if there were two different letters we can knowing how good Kate is I imagine she already shared it with Jesse and Helen but that might be a better next step given what you've just shared could be added to the communication you know I guess I sort of disagree I think a joint letter and it can be as simple or as complicated as what the school board comes up with with the council saying we are right behind you we agree with what they're saying this is a crisis I think then we can write our own letter with from a municipal perspective here are some things that you know you might want to think about or change or do to help solve this I guess that sounds great to us people disagree that's fine we can do two separate letters if you want no I think that saying we're right behind you I think that's a nice helpful for that messaging because you'll have to write it well I'm I'm thinking on the fly here I think you know I'm coming back to the timeliness and how specific can we get in our as to the legislature with the information we know right now this week and we can't I mean the reality is I don't know what the municipal arguments for itself Burlington this week so part of me almost thinks that we need the joint letter now that's high level values based this is having a huge impact we believe in equity we need data we need you to make structural change to the CLA and funding formula and then as more conversation happens at the legislature then maybe we start sending our own more detailed policy statements saying here are some ideas about how you could do that but I I almost think the values based commentary now with what we know should be joint I think it's more powerful that's what I think that sounds like a great next step and we you know really appreciate that communication I think you know I can go to bed tonight thinking we've done right by our community which is a small victory and a string of really really difficult acknowledgments and difficult conversations so I appreciate the partnership from this team and the opportunity to discuss this candidly and for us to work together and I will leave here hopeful and you know standing by on how we can get these letters sent out so happy to take any more questions or comments but really wanted to pass that gratitude along so thank you yeah I think what will I'll do is if there are a number of people are online and I will just ask them or tell them if anyone wants to make a comment please turn your picture on or at least your microphone and and just I ask that people make them kind of brief because we're running a little bit later than I had thought but this is a really important conversation the first of what I hope will be several so is there anyone online who wants to say anything no one's indicated that they want to talk Elizabeth Fitzgerald says excellent discussion on joint communication and potential solutions to CLA Act 125 and Ed funding issues okay well then I guess we'll leave it for now we've got lots more to do and I would encourage the other paper or Vermont Digger to dig deep and really have some good conversations with you Violet and Kate to really understand this because I think it's pretty complex and it's one of those things where it's pretty easy to say oh look at all these percentages and kind of miss some of the important concepts behind this so I would encourage our listeners to do that too okay could I just one last yes you may so getting back to that disparity between the low and the high amount in terms of the same it's a really hard thing to convey to people yes did me saying it six times this evening help support that open to feedback on how to communicate that effectively I don't know how you do that but the obvious thing is we'll go for the money if that's what we're going to need but there's mitigating things not to do that so communicate that's a hard thing to convey to folks well I don't quite understand why that I mean that's to me is the largest question is like you can cut the budget nine million dollars and it does nothing that doesn't make sense well cutting it nine million would get us to below a 10% homestead tax increase that was just the example there but if we cut it we'd have to cut it more than 4.4 million to have any reduction below 18.27% and it is it's really difficult to understand that Tim Jarvis our senior director of finance and ops who's on the call we spent a lot of time discussing all of the ins and outs in this and it's it's something that is extremely complicated so boiling it down to some quick facts is something that our team is working on of just how to make this information easily understandable to the average community member I mean the material you the material you've already provided is excellent and I could see it on a big page of people but it's just it causes a lot of questions it's like why don't we go for this if we're raising this much money because it's going somewhere else one other piece that I think is not we're not explicitly saying is that generally if a budget is voted down and there are spending cuts made then your tax rate goes down but what we're presenting is a scenario where the budget could not pass and we could make dramatic cuts and the tax rate would stay exactly the same and that's really hard for schools and for our students and for us as taxpayers oh yeah that's a tough decision for a voter I mean I'm kind of like so we've got to support it and then try to look at some longer term thank you thank you for having us the sooner term solutions but thank you very much thank you your conversations make ours seem like not too hard this is not sustainable Andrew did you have a final comment or just no I just want to say thank you to Violet and Kate for a wonderful presentation so is there any other business seeing none I entertain a motion to adjourn all in favor aye thank you Andrew for to me now go have discussion