 Okay, it is 630 and I will call our meeting to order. I'll mention briefly meeting logistics. We don't have a big crowd tonight, but anyone who does wish to address the council or participate remotely, please. Change your name display to your first and last name. And anyone who wishes to comment. One, please use the electronic raise hand feature on on your computer if you can possibly do that and to. Make sure to start your comments by stating your name and where you live. Anyone who's speaking about a specific agenda item, please keep your comments germane to the topic and no more than 3 minutes. And. Counselor Bate will help us keep track of time. Our first item is to approve the agenda. Are there any. Changes anyone wants to make to the agenda. Okay, the agenda is approved. Next we have general business and appearances. This is an opportunity for any member of the public to address the council on any item that is not on tonight's agenda. I note that in addition to the business to be conducted in public, we have the city manager's review on tonight's agenda. So we would, we will also take comments from the public on on that item. This time, if anyone wishes to be heard. Okay. Not seeing any hands raised. I will move to the consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda. Is there a second. Any discussion. All those in favor signify by saying I. Any opposed. Hey, you've adopted the consent agenda. We're now up to item number six. We do review the fiscal 25 water and sewer budgets and the water line replacement plan. It doesn't seem like that long since we saw your last. Good evening. I'm Kurt Modica, public works director. And tonight we'll be reviewing the budgets for both water and sewer as well as a proposed water replacement schedule for the water system. Topics will cover tonight. We're going to review the water and sewer master plan, which is sort of the basis for rate increases. We're not going to ask council to approve rates tonight. That'll be sometime in May, but their master plan sort of gives a overlay of annual proposed increases. I'll talk about utility projects that we have completed since the master plan was adopted in 2016. And then we've got the FY 25 water budget and some highlights that are included in that budget. As well as FY 25 sewer budget and the highlights in there that are included in that as well. And then finally, the proposed water line replacement schedule. So this is a little difficult to see pretty small, but this is a snapshot of the water system master plan. As I noted, it was originally developed in 2016. We try to do updates to this plan every five years as new regulations come online or changes that impact either of the water or sewer budgets. The basis of the plan is 1% infrastructure increase on the rates annually, as well as an inflationary budget number to cover an increase in costs for salaries and wages and chemical treatment costs and things like that materials. But that 1% in addition to the CPI is proposed to be dedicated for infrastructure improvements. And we also use the water and sewer benefit charges. There's a total of 9 cents on the tax rate that go to water and sewer benefits benefit charges and those are shifted depending on the needs within each fund. So in out years, we maybe move 1 or 2 cents from water to sewer vice versa to balance these budgets. Initially, the water plan was really focused on undersized lines. So if you have a fire hydrant on a water line by the rules, it needs to be a minimum 8 inch diameter. And the regulatory focus from the state was to replace those lines that are that are too small to support hydrants or impact the system pressure negatively when those hydrants are opened. That's changed now with our most our upcoming permit from the state is is really going to be focused on replacement of water lines where we have a high volume of breaks. Which we have public work support that approach. And then on the sewer side. That is really initially focused on CSO abatement so combined sewer overflows where we have storm water entering the sewer system. We have what's called the long term control plan, which outlines a series of projects in order to reduce and eventually eliminate CSO overflows. So that's when there's too much storm water within the sewer system. And it overflows to the river. While we're talking about that. I know that the topic of the storm water utility has has come up. Is that going to be later in the presentation. I was not planning to talk about storm water utility tonight, but we certainly can. I can touch on that now for at the end if you'd like. Yeah, just a little bit because I think people are interested. Are you going to talk about CSOs anymore? Or if I have a question, should I ask that? Yeah, I was going to talk a little bit about some of the projects we've done, but I'll wait to get there. Okay. All right, so this is a sheet of all of the projects that we've completed since the master plan was adopted. On the right hand column is our targets, our goals, as far as the number of footage replaced within each of the two utilities. The streets listed on the left that we've done work and then the total amounts down at the bottom. So projecting with East state is our next really big project. The bonds been passed already that will replace both water and sewer along the entire length of the street. We add those in. We will have completed about two, two and a half miles of sewer system replacement and 3.7 miles of water. As a, as a, compared to the total length of sewer within the system of 44 miles and 52 on and water lines. So we are not right on our targets, but pretty close. And there's been some impacts right the flood. We really did not do a whole lot of water work this year, although we didn't. We were able to complete state street, which was a CSO project as well as Cornell Street, which was a water line replacement project that we did with our own staff. And of course during COVID, the pandemic. We, the construction sites were mandated to be shut down. So we essentially lost a year of construction there as well, but taking, keeping those in mind. We are very close to meeting the targets since we started this plan in 2016 made a lot of progress. So, that's a, that's a good note. We also have some upcoming regulatory compliance work that we need to do or currently in the process of doing a lead service line inventory. There's, you know, we're utilizing the state funding that's available for that, but it's a fairly large contract. So we have a lot of calls going into every single building or resident self reporting on the service line material that comes into their building. And then there'll be subsequent funding available to replace those any lead lines that are are found through the study. We've also been down an engineer for a couple of years now, we're actually in the process of interviewing for that vacancy. So, the construction will, will really be dedicated to advancing these infrastructure project. They're really going to be working solely on water and sewer line upgrades, as well as our sewer pump stations. And we've also had some major improvements at the water resource recovery facility. We did the organics to energy project since 2016. We have a biosolids project that is currently in final design. So the total of those two projects is close to 32 million. So that's a big number to take on. But at the same time, we're also able to advance the utility work. The other major impact is this, this closure of the stump dump potential closure long term, still going to still a lot of work to do and determining whether or not we're going to be able to reopen the stump dump, but we use that for our pipe storage for our earthwork storage. As well as operationally, just for maintenance of storm system. So we have to. I'm not sure exactly where that is going to land. And we have reached out to the state to set up an initial meeting, but it is going to make water line replacement projects more difficult without the use of that facility. On the, on the good side, the opportunities. We've been able to get a lot of grant funding, particularly on the sewer side. State street project that we just completed in summer that we had $650,000 in ARPA money that was really dedicated to combined sewer overflow elimination. So that project, not only separated out a large parking lot behind Vermont mutual, but it also corrected a dip in the sewer line that restricted the capacity. So we've actually seen a pretty significant reduction in the number of overflows. There's a structure at the intersection of state street and tailor that we've seen a major reduction in the frequency of overflows. We also got 1.27 million of that same ARPA grant funding for East State Street. East State Street is we're planning to split that into two contracts this summer will be the outfall work, which is separating the storm out of the sewer and that is going to extend from the intersection of Main Street and State Street out to under the Rialto Bridge out to the river for a new stormwater outfall, which will include a treatment system on that stormwater pipe. And then the following year, we'll do the actual work on East State Street will start that is probably going to be a two year project. It's a lot of infrastructure and streetscape improvements. And we still need to come back to Council and have some final decisions made as far as what we're going to do on the streetscape. So a fair amount of work to do on that, but we're getting really close to being ready to bid contract one, which is the CSO work. We also received an additional 120,000 dollars in grant money for State Street through a pollution control grant. So that project ended up being a little over a million dollars, but $770,000 of it was grant money. We received about 300 or 3.5 million for the, for the biosolid project and East State Street combined through USDA. So the council has flexibility and how we appropriate that grant funds between the two projects, as well as between the funds water sewer and general fund. So we'll have to make some decisions on that. We also have a significant amount of revenue generated from the phase one project at the plant. So we're able to take in a lot more septage receiving as well as the high strength waste. And both of those things were able to generate biogas and we heat the buildings with that. So there's a cost reduction and revenue from the upgrades that we've done at the plant. Also, looking into potential emergent contaminant grant funding, been told that there's about $650,000 of grant money available to deal with the PFAS and the biosolids, which is included in this next project. And we also take advantage of the engineering subsidies. So, particularly on the sewer side again, there's just seems to be a lot more funding readily available, but 50% generally on engineering is, is loan forgiveness through the state's clean water state revolving loan fund. Kurt before you move to the next slide. What, could you tell us what the, what, what the treatment is for the storm water runoff from state street to the east state to the Rialto Bridge, what, what's done to that storm runoff. Yeah, so it's a large structure. It's called a vortex separator. Essentially, it takes the first one inch of rain and diverts it through this kind of this big drum that's underground and it spins and separates the particulates that's still out of the water. So it's not treatment of the entire storm water but generally that first one inch is what's considered the most polluted. And then we vacuum that stuff out somehow. Right, we'll use the city's vector truck for maintenance on it. Yeah. No, it uses the pressure of the water. It's, it's going to be underground. Sort of in the traveling of state street. State Street, yeah, near the bridge. Yep. We also should just know on the state that we are planning to do the pipeline out to the river using trench list technologies. So it's, it's a really deep pipe we have to get underneath the old water lines on Main Street, you know, 100 plus years old and the highest pressures. So we really didn't want to open cut, you know, traditionally, you just dig a big hole and it's, I think it's about 12 feet deep, which would require double trench boxes and that, you know, quite an expense. So instead we're looking at a jack and board technology so we essentially are hammering a steel pipe underneath everything. So we'll be a pit on each end, one to, you know, put the hammer in and one to receive it in the outside on the outlet side. But, but also, you know, recognizing that, you know, the businesses have been really impacted from the flooding and we're just trying to minimize, you know, the impacts to them as to the extent we can. Oh, one other thing about, you know, about state street, the, the work that was done last year replacing this sewer line and, and all that stuff and repaving is that all done now. And there is one last piece remaining on that project, which is the final overlay so we plan to the street was relatively recently paved and now there's a lot of patches there. So we did have in the contract to mill and overlay that we pulled it out of the contractor and I'm going to bid that separately, but still, you know, go through the funding with the state. So they're allowing us to do as like a small purchase. So that is just about ready to bid as well. So it'll happen sometime this summer probably. Yeah, early summer. Great. Question about your statement. State and Taylor, you said had been the CSO was better, but that doesn't mean like it's resolved. Is that also going to be the case when you get finished at state, East state in Maine, that it's better but not resolved. That's right. You know, every time we do a separation project. It takes a heavier rain to create an overflow overflow, but it doesn't eliminate them. They're just less frequent. It's going to, you know, we have a lot of projects listed in that plan I mentioned the long term control plan. It's going to take several more years. These are the two big ones. They're the two of the largest combined systems. There's the one other one is on cliff street, but you know, we're not going to tackle that one right away just because of the risk and the stability of the ledge. Yeah. So we're going to look to other projects first before we come back to that one. But that is the only other large combined system that I'm aware of. So we're going to start with a collection from the clay tile pipes aren't don't have gaskets. So when the groundwater comes up, you know, water goes into the into the sewer pipes, and then there's just capacity issues where the main sewer line that goes to the plant is constructed of concrete, which has a high friction. So it, you know, it creates a kind of a back pressure and just can't get to the plant the plant has a lot of capacity, hydraulically, so if we can just get it there. So that's what the issue is the the bottleneck within the collection system. Okay, thank you. Right. So this slide is a comparison of other water sewer rates within Vermont. It's, it's a few years old it was done in 2022. The green and green is where my player was in 2022, and then the yellow is sort of comparable rates. So we are on, you know, on the high end, but not the highest. And then if you look at the combined total column, which also wraps in stormwater fees which, you know, with the utility that my player would would have. It goes in, you know, we're like top third probably it looks like, but there's a lot of other communities that are in a very similar place with rates so just wanted to highlight that we're not the highest. We're not the lowest but you know sort of somewhere in the middle upper for rates. And are these all the municipalities that have municipal water and sewer systems. I'm not 100% sure it looks like the majority of them I can't say for sure that it's everyone but okay. And then, you know, maybe this is the time to talk about the stormwater utility. So, you know with the with the flood. Obviously, public works was stretched pretty thin as we were working through recovery efforts. The project has been put on hold we had one kind of re kickoff meeting with our consultant, but we have not gotten back to it. There, the biggest challenge, I think is, is getting the billing system set up. It doesn't fit well with the tax bill and it doesn't fit well with the water bill. That's kind of somewhere in between those. So that's really where we're struggling we have. We have a lot of kind of the structure of the impervious surface maps completed and looking at parcel datas. But we have not resolved the billing and so we need to work with the finance department to figure out how that's going to work and then the other piece is the credit system. I think the committee wants to have, you know, some sort of credits for people that implement treatment systems within their property. The other piece that we have not worked through yet. So, I don't know. I was hoping for July. I honestly don't know that that's that we're going to be able to hit that at this point. Because of the particularly the billing component is really where we're struggling. Okay, thanks. Thank you. Can you give a quick. Elevated version of what that is. Just for people that might be watching or council members that aren't fully. Um, So. A stormwater utility would create another enterprise fund. So like the water system where you have a dedicated fund to deal with all the infrastructure and staffing and everything that goes along with running a water system. Same for the sewer or it's a sewer bill and that money is dedicated strictly to sewer related items. We are really behind on our stormwater infrastructure is currently in the general fund and you know, there's a lot of competing needs within the general fund paving equipment. You know, and improvement projects, street projects. So, we have a concern that that we are. You know that we have some catch up work to do on on the stormwater side. It also provides an opportunity to improve water quality. So not only do you have the hard infrastructure. Work that we need to do the pipes, the structures, but we also have, you know, a stormwater quality benefit that that could be achieved through the utility. So, so it's based on impervious surface, which is, which is areas that water cannot infiltrate. And the concept is that the more impervious surface a parcel has a property has the more they would pay into this fund because they're contributing more to the runoff. You know, they're using more of the pipe capacity they're contributing more to pollutants within the environment. So it's, it's likely going to be a tiered system where there's sort of brackets of impervious surface where a property would fall into state state properties would be subject to the fees so unlike, you know, taxes, they would not be exempt so there's an opportunity to get, you know, more revenue to support some of the infrastructure through government properties. State nonprofits actually right nonprofits as well. Yeah. All right. So a quick overview on the water budget. And some notes on this. So about a quarter of the budget goes to water supply and treatment. It's really the plant and the operations that go along with it. About a third is for the distribution system. That's the staffing that maintains the pipes on the ground. And roughly a third is administration engineering and admin functions, and then a small pieces meters and delinquent fee collection. So we're proposing a 3.7 million dollar budget roughly. And that does include the benefit charges that I mentioned earlier. This is based on a 4.2 rate increase. Again, not asking council to do rate setting tonight, but that's inflation is 3.2 plus the 1% for infrastructure. And then the components that make up the water fund have the org chart on the left. We've got myself and for administrative staff like to help out with the system. We have seven within the water sewer division. And currently we actually just added one operator at the water plant. There have been three updated the chart for the fourth that was just hired this month. And just a note on that. So we have a planned retirement in July at the water plant. And because there's only three of them, it's a pretty strict call rotation. So every third week. The staff is on call. And we wanted that allow some transitions and training. So we are temporarily going to for a while. So that's the advantage of the training opportunity with the existing operators. And then we'll go back to three likely in July when that retirement happens. Some of the highlights in the budget. There's a dump truck funded. We have the hybrid engineering vehicle. It's basically our vehicle that we share to do project inspections. We have a radio system upgrade included in the plan. That's actually been proposed a few times. We've had a hard time getting the contractor to do that, but that does the communications between the pump stations and the plant. So that they know we know when to fill the water storage tanks. We have 370,000 in the school street water main project. So it's another project we're planning to advance for the summer. We did sort of half of it on an emergency basis. We're having a lot of breaks in that area in that area. But we need to extend it basically from in front of the library out to main street and make that connection and then back towards Luma Street. As well as transfer the water service line so that we can abandon. Actually, there's two water mains on school street that will be able to abandon once that works complete. We're planning to do that this summer and our in-house project for this summer is Bingham Street. That's on our paving plan. We wanted to get that water main replaced so our staff will be constructing Bingham Street from Marvin up to East State. And then level controls at the plant. Just an upgrade for how the filters are controlled. And as I mentioned, the water plant position as we transition into retirements. And then I just also wanted to know that as we move forward, we have the preliminary engineering report in the water system that we just recently submitted the final version to the state for review. That is really going to sort of guide and I'll show you the proposed schedule, but that's going to guide our projects on the water end of things just like the long-term control plan guides our projects on the sewer side. This engineering report is going to going to lay out how we're going to approach water system improvements. This is the breakdown of the sewer fund. So it's a $5.3 million proposed budget. Again, the breakdown is a little bigger on the treatment side. The water resource recovery facility or the wastewater treatment plant is quite a bit larger, more complex than the water plant. So it makes up two thirds of the budget. Yep. You can hear that. So like I was saying, the stormwater management is currently included within the sewer fund. So when we do develop the stormwater utility, we're proposing to take some of the benefit charge out of the sewer fund and move it into the utility sort of to start that up. So that currently makes up 4.3% of the budget. Again, this is based on a 4.2% rate increase with the 1% going to infrastructure. The work chart here is very similar. You know, the five administrative seven within the collection system and pump station maintenance. And we have four wastewater plant treatment operators. A few notes on this budget did not include any leachate revenue. I was not sure before last meeting where which direction we're going to go in. So that will provide some some buffer. We have the other half of the engineering vehicle. We have $100,000 for a new drivable camera. So we had a lot of a lot of pipe damage from the flood and our camera that we use for inspecting inspecting the interior pipes has just become unreliable. So that's important for us, not just for sewer line inspections, but also for flood recovery for that purchase. We also have money in for engineering. So if the stump dump does not open, we're going to not able to reopen. We're going to need alternatives for disposing of catch basin cleaning debris as well as straight sweeping. So we're looking at proposing a separate screening system where we can pull that material out basically put it in a dumpster to go to landfill. And also, we don't currently have upgrade to the ultraviolet disinfection system within our upcoming project. So we've allocated some funding for that as well to look into alternatives. And then we have $50,000 for sewer lining. So that's another trenchless technology where you put a liner inside a pipe to improve its structural capacity as well as its hydraulic capacity. And again, the long-term control plan is what sort of guides our infrastructure projects in the sewer side. So now the water line replacement schedule is probably the most interesting part of tonight's presentation. So in July, we presented on the preliminary engineering report that consisted of looking at alternatives to sort of reduce the number of water system breaks that we have. And we looked at, you know, dropping the pressures within the downtown and then what it would take for pump stations to boost them back up to the higher elevations. And we looked at a few different alternatives of different ways to do that and then compared that to the benefits and cost of replacing the water lines. And the result of that study did show that that water line replacement is the most cost effective approach to reduce frequency of water breaks. And from that, the state is, well, as part of that process, the state was really putting greater emphasis on reducing water breaks because of the concerns with the frequency of boil water notices and potential health hazards associated with that. So they've asked us to make a plan that really focuses on that rather than the hydraulic issues with lines, you know, too small to support fire hydrants. So this plan will address the failing water mains with over a 10-year period at a cost of approximately $10.5 million. And then the second part of the plan is to address the hydraulic deficiencies, and that is, that's a 20-year plan. So the second phase of the next 10 years will be to address the hydraulic issues within the system. And we're able to accomplish this through the plan rate increases that are identified within the master plan as well as doing in-house construction, which we can do at a much lower cost than contracted work. It also does not anticipate any external funding. You know, if external funding is available, we obviously certainly take advantage of it. And then there's also three proposed bonds in order to stay within the available funding proposed with the 1% annual increase. And those bonds are proposed with a 0% interest rate through the state drinking water state revolving loan fund. But those bonds, the repayment of those bonds will be within the normal funding policy. That's correct. Well, Kurt, this has just been so complicated for people. And so I just want to try to be sure I'm understanding it. Is it reasonable to say that with all this back and forth between the city and the state that what happened was that in the first part of the communications, the state was saying, we really need to address the lack of adequate pressure for hydrants. And, and so that means adding, adding the increasing the size the water mains, then maybe in communication with us they decided well, it's more important to do the water main breaks first, and then do the do the hydraulic capacity and, and so that's part of what's taken so much time for us to get to this point. Yes, that's correct. So it historically it's always been our, our permits have always required us to replace hydraulic issues there was nothing historically within our water permit to, to address pipes that had a high frequency of failure. The boil water notices started becoming required. I think around 2014, where there was a process enacted by the state where we had to, where we do have to, you know, report to them, whenever we have a break that mandates a boil water notice and those are breaks that, that we basically have to turn the system off before we can excavate and make the repair, not required to do a boil water notice. If you can excavate and expose the pipe to make sure there's no contamination before you cut it or turn the pressure off. So as long as there's positive pressure and you can expose it, then you don't have to do the boil water. So, I think the change was really from the change in the policy on boil water requirements where the state was collecting the data from us reporting our boil waters. And then I think there's also some public comment to the state likely where they were sort of pushing them to require the city to make a change. So it was their approach in this permit cycle really started with, with addressing the public health hazard is what they were concerned about, but that was a shift from historical purpose. The process was, you know, they initially felt that reducing pressure was the most customer the best way to go about reducing the number of breaks. The change was that, you know, we, we hired a consultant to do the evaluation and there's a formal process for evaluating alternatives on a life cycle basis and and our engineer, you know, pointed out that that not only are pipes will be on their design life, but when you when they're sized appropriately you can reduce the speed, which with which the water goes through and with that also sort of the pressure spikes that are associated with those high velocities within the mains. So appropriately sized water mains and newer materials that, you know, have not reached the end of their design life. I'm looking at the cost of that as opposed to, you know, pump station installation and the maintenance and the electrical use and all that that goes along with it. But through the evaluation, it was really determined that type replacement is is the better approach. So just to go through this plan. So the the red on the left are are the streets that that are proposed replacement and this is basically the rough order of which we would we would address these projects. The red are represents just a little under half of all of our boil water notices. And so I came right from our engineering report. So this plan, this slide shows the first 10 years. I do have a couple of projects sort of put in the middle there and one of them is to abandon a very long section of four inch main that has very little use on it. So that's an in house project. It wasn't identified doesn't break a lot now, but but it's a good project for us to do in house, where it's just running a few services and we can reduce the assets that we have. And then the other one is North Street, which really needs to be paved. So, just to point those two projects out that that there's a reason why those are in there I know they're not read and they don't break as much as some of the other ones but there's also other needs that we need to consider the green the green cells are our in house projects. So those are projects that our water sewer staff would construct in house, and we'll also do the engineering on those in house. So, to walk through the columns here and what this means. So the first is the length of the project and then the second column is the estimated cost of that project. So the cost was those are initially provided from our consultant. I went through and made some adjustments based on site conditions, you know, increase those. And then the next column is estimated project costs so that includes a contingency within the constructed projects did not add a contingency on the in house projects because essentially those are material costs only. And so those are more predictable, whereas bid projects there's a higher level of uncertainty. So the estimated project cost is a 15% adder plus another inflator for engineering services so we do anticipate some support on final design plan development for the bid projects. The next column is the construction schedule the proposed year. And, and then the next line is the cumulative cash outlay so adds up the project, the total project cost annually. So how much money we've put out from your zero out to your 10. fiscal year, and then how much money we have available as proposed within the water master plan is the gray column. So that does change as debt drops off we have the water plant bond dropped off in 2026 so we start accumulating. You know, we have more money available and if I 26 has that that is is dropped off the books. So that's the annual money that goes into the fund. And then the next column is the accumulated available funding from the master plan so that's adding up those annual numbers. And then the final column is adjustments for bonds. So the yellow cells are bond bond years, and then the blue is the estimated bond payment for the bond amount identified. And then those bond payments are included in the cash outlay and how much money we're spending so bonds are are added into how much we have to pay annually to make this plan work. So, basically in summary, the project costs are paid 100% fully through proposed rate increases, which is the 1% annual on the master plan, as well as the proposed bond debt service is also paid for through those 1% annual increases. So you can see at the bottom the cumulative cash outlay is 10.5 million would get rid of address 50% of all of our boil water notices so these are all the most frequently lines that break. And yeah, and three bonds. We have the first bond as he states already been approved. The $1.6 million bond as proposed. I'm proposing $200,000 of the USDA money. I'll go to support that project, which is a fairly small amount of the three and a half million. And then down in FY 33, we have another $3 million bond and FY 36, the final bond. So those all of this is and it's in the report subject to change slightly. So we are good. We are obligated within our more will be within our permit to, you know, maintain a log of where our breaks are and make adjustments to the plan if for some reason a line suddenly becomes really problematic. It'll move up the list. But this is the rough outlay of how we're going to what order will do the improvements and how we're going to pay for them. Kurt, it's a little hard for my eyes to read all of this tiny print, but looking at the third row down. School Street, St. Paul Street to Loomis Street in the constructions. Schedule a column. I think it says water pump plant bond and 2024 does that is that a typo because he just said it was 2026. Yeah, it should be FY fiscal year 26. Okay. And then another thing just thinking in terms of things that we've heard from residents here in this in this room. Your plan is to replace the four inch water main with an eight inch water main on North Street in fiscal 2030 2028. Is that am I reading that right construction schedule 2028. Yeah. So that means that the people who are not happy with the quality of the road are waiting till 2028 for that. That's right. I mean, so I'm open to council suggestions on modifying this plan. You know, I think it would be good for council to endorse some version of this. You know, as we are working with the state to finalize our permit and this preliminary engineering report. You know, I think that would be beneficial for the state to know that the city council supports this, but I'm open to changes if you don't like the way I've laid this out. Oh yeah, I'm not saying I don't like the way I'm just saying that it's. Things that you'd like to see done sooner or later. And is is point with regard to both of these four inch mains that there's not that much load out there so it should be higher but it's not a serious problem that it's not bigger at this point. Right. I mean, most most mains are eight inch unless they're really high demand areas. That's generally what you put in. Yeah. Okay. I know you've already given me the price. If we were to advise or ask if you could mill, I think it's the right word and reach to a top surfacing of school street. If it were to wait this long. You could give us an estimate if we wanted to to consider that. So school street or North Street. I was looking here. School Street. I thought it's the one that you that you were joined in. This all school street is proposed for this summer. Yeah, I think we are going to have to do the issue on school street. As there's other infrastructure problems there. There's a storm pipe that runs under the sidewalk that has failed and and the sidewalk is also tipped and these there's curbing that needs to be reset so I see and all that will be done this summer. Well, no, the storm would the storm work is not funded at this point. Part of the reason earlier like I mentioned. There's just a lot of competition within the capital improvement plan for infrastructure improvements, which is, you know, part of the reason we really think a storm water utility is needed. So, again, in some of those roads that have partial work done, and you're going to come back the expense to do a mill and coding to have a more smooth surface is not financially viable. It's not reasonable to spend that money when you're going to go back in and dig it up in a couple years. Yeah, I mean that's a policy decision but but generally we're trying to avoid paving streets that have very poor underground infrastructure because inevitably you're going to have holes that we got to dig and you know the condition of the pavement will go down pretty quickly when we have to dig them up to make repairs. So I was just curious about why North Street is where it is but I think it probably has to do with the state, which is really going to what's going to start this summer and then the major part going up to college will be the next two years. So that's 26. So it so North Street's then would start two years after that. And that's a complete redo likes like he state right I mean it's it's it isn't. No, I mean this is just water fund. So we would, if we want to do a complete reconstruction that you know you need to pull in the other funds, the general fund for paving the water will pay for, you know, a portion. That's what we have to repay for patch. So it's so that it's not designed to coordinate with a complete redo like like he state. No, no, this is all just strictly water work with with your intervention. It's the sewer line on that street. Okay shape. As far as we know. I think there are. We've replaced a portion of that since I've been here. There are portions that that probably do need to be upsized I think there's still a section of six inch. That's certainly something we can, we can look at I mean North Street is not as extensive as the key state because you don't have, you know the concrete sidewalks on the granite curve. We can look at, you know, incorporating that into the capital improvements plan. There is there storm water is there still going to deal with it. No, no. And are you in a situation now not that you obviously you don't have state approval yet because he's just submitted the preliminary engineering report but because of negotiation with the state. That's the point where you've done what they told you we needed to do in that letter last year right. Right so it's, you know, shortly before the flood they provided review comments and one of the things they asked for was this schedule. What's our plan. And you know is it a reasonable plan. You know to replace the areas that have a lot of breaks. Yeah. And with that, we've addressed with this plan we've addressed that. And that was the main there are other things smaller items but this was the main item that we're missing initially. My voice is a little funny tonight sorry. So just a couple of questions trying to just make sure I'm understanding this right. So, like, when we had talked a while ago, there was a lot of conversation about just the really high system pressure and am I understanding right that you're saying like the way that we're dealing with it there's multiple ways you could deal with it but we're saying like upsized pipes and better materials will just withstand the pressure so we're not reducing the pressure but we're having a better system that can handle the pressure. Is that am I understanding. Yeah, he's right. Okay, that's correct. Just my two questions. So, it felt like there was options early on that like had big scary price tags that were big systemic overhauls and then kind of like smaller chunks that working away at it. And like, this is the most cost effective. Is this the most cost effective over a short time frame but like if we looked at 75 years we might this might actually end up costing more because we're going to keep chipping away and maybe having more damage because we're not getting at the pressure and this just feels realistic given all the other budget pressures or is this a good long term solution from your good engineering mind for like getting us long term to a really good system that we can maintain. So in the preliminary engineering report they look at the life cycle of the assets so that could be, you know, pressure reducing valves to drop the pressure and then pump stations to boost them back up. And that was one of the alternatives that we looked at. They also look at the, you know, how long these pipes are going to last, which is, you know, at least 50 years, 50 to 100 years. So all of the length of the life of the asset is incorporated into, you know, the benefit analysis for developing the best alternative. Does that make sense or answer your question is that. So when you are saying cost effective you're saying like, you think this is looking at lifetime and it's comparing lifetime to other systemic approaches as well so like because I've just heard a lot of people be like this feels like a bandaid or we're not really getting at like if we're not dealing with the pressure then we're going to keep having problems that keep going back and fixing things and having more water main breaks like so. Just trying to understand like so your assessment is this is not that this is getting at this is developing a better system that can we're not addressing. We're not reducing the pressure but we're building a system that can operate within a high pressure environment. Yes, that's correct. Can I jump in on that too because yeah, you know, there was no science behind there were there were people that felt that the pressure was the issue when looked at by the engineers include in the state thought that might be the case and the conclusion was actually right sizing the lines and putting the proper material and it's not because we're have some of our line breaks are in places where the pressure isn't bad. So it's it's not necessarily pressure causing the brakes and the pressure might make the brakes worse when they happen, but the idea was to have better, better lines and that was ultimately the conclusion where the state ended up and I think you know just to jump on because we've talked a lot about the first 10 years as as you should I mean this is this is great we're really hitting the worst prices within the plan that we set out that we set out. The next 10 years is then addressing the hydraulic lines and at the end of the 20 year period, if we were to continue the, you know, we're actually in a pretty good financial position to continue making investments in the system. I mean obviously who knows 20 years out what costs are going to be and those kind of things which is why, but it projects out to be now we've hit all the hydraulic issues we've had all the bad and now we're in a, we would be in a position so maybe the council could stop doing the 1% or could reinvest that money into other or do more work on a given year those kind of things so it's actually it's a very sustainable program and I think you know credits to the team back in 2016 for saying this is, you know, this is our plan to stick to it and get there and then his current and his team for putting together this package of saying look we can do all this and stay with the exact same funding plan we've been on. Yeah, and just one little follow up from just my experience and doing water line work so on Northfield Street I'm not sure folks remember but we were having water leaks all the time I mean it was like every single winner two or three and it was really impacting our staff to the point where, you know, we're starting to lose people. That was a small diameter line, it was, it was old, it was, you know, maybe not 100 years but probably 60 70 years old. It went from it went from six inch and four inch was existing and replaced it with a 16 inch up to Derby Drive and then a 12 up to the end for freedom and West View Meadows is a high volume customer up on the hill and and since we've done that work we've had zero. You know, we didn't change the pressures at all but you know the speed of the water now has dispersed through, you know, a 16 inch pipe instead of a four and so you've really slowed it down, as well as the properly designed materials so I've just seen it work. I mean from experience, but but I also do support the approach I think it is the best long term approach if the city wants to reassess pressure, pressure reduction in the future. We can do that and like Bill said, you know, there's an opportunity for funding at the end of this, this plan. But I think in order to make a real drastic improvement in the shortest amount of time on the frequency of breaks this is the best way to go. Last, this is super helpful. Thank you. And it's kind of feels like too good to be true that we could do this on our. It's very exciting. If we were in a few years to decide we did want to go after some kind of pressure reduction is, is this work that we would want to be doing anyway it seems like this is like investments that we need to make either way like we would need to be replacing these pipe replacing these most. So it kind of feels like this is work that should be done either way it doesn't preclude us from in the future assessing different hydraulic options is that accurate or is that. Yeah, it is I mean if you look at the, the red column there a lot of these lines are smaller four and six inch so to address the hydraulic issues we'd have to upsize them anyway. So, yeah. And of course of information it's hard not to ask you questions. So, I have three things one is. I thought I understood that some of the lines that failed a couple winners ago were the newer lines that they didn't last their projected life cycle was that correct. And if so do we know if they're more like that made up the same material. Right. Yeah, so the newer lines meeting installed in the 90s generally. So those were ductile iron pipe, and, and Montpelier has clay soils which are acidic, as well as, you know, historically people grounded their electrical to their water service. And basically you created, you know, a battery underground that's in an acid in the small current and that just really accelerated the corrosion of the ductile iron. So if you moved away from ductile iron, you can use it if you basically wrap it in plastic. And that is really if you're running through petroleum contaminated soils, then that is the best material to use still so we do use it in certain cases, and we do soil testing before we install water mains and there's also state mapping available to, you know, see where contaminated soils are but we do, we do soil testing for PCBs. So is any of that type of piping already in the ground that hasn't failed but we are going to be doing, are they part of the ones being replaced. Generally the ductile iron are not undersized. There are not any ductile iron pipes on this list currently. Okay. And then I want to ask a what if question going back to North Street, you know, in Northfield, you were just superb, you did the funding combination you did the utilities and the paving. If we could do North Street like that, what would it take to get North Street done so the utilities and the underneath and the paving on top was a coordinated project. Yeah, I mean it's just an allocation of the funding and resources to that project. You know, we would take some funding, you know, likely from the general fund so Northfield Street was unique and it's a it's a class one highway and the state was doing the paving. We were able to take advantage of their paving dollars to offset, you know, the city's expense on the general fund side. So in order to do that, you know, we would just have to make a decision to dedicate CIP funding to reconstruct. So that's a major shifting on our list of product. I mean that's essentially what's being done in East state. All everything underneath is being replaced and then that is the full $7 million. I think what Kurt's telling us here is that North Street really needs to be paid its water service wouldn't normally in and of itself be a high replacement. It needs to be replaced at some point because it's undersized, but it's not breaking. It's not, it's not a high priority for water line itself. It's on the list because we need to pave it. So we want to fix the water line in order to pave it. So I think the question is, are there sections of sewer we can do at the same time. And we sort of have to figure that out in four years. If we were going to do that in 2028 or if you wanted to move it up. So the base under North Street is okay. You can pave right on top of what's there. It doesn't need to be replaced. I thought it had to be rebuilt. I mean, I'm a little worried about North Street because I was under the impression that in previous discussions we talked about, you know, a complete rebuild like East state not necessarily replacing all the sewer lines as well as water lines, but replacing the slow ways so that the road was more stable. And now it sounds like I was, I misunderstood and my email will probably fill up tonight with other people who misunderstood so I'm just curious about that. So I, I think it's best practice not to do utility work and final paving in the same year, even with a best efforts on compaction, so that you're going to have to settle, you're going to have settlement. Yeah. So, so I, you know, I think the paving and you're right the soils underneath North Street are not ideal, and the pavement condition is not good enough to do just an overlay. So this is work, more extensive work needed it's either going to be what we call a reclaim where you sort of rototill up the existing asphalt and turn it into gravel base, or it's going to be digging out and putting in maybe even a geogrid like a plastic grid in order to stabilize the road. We haven't, you know, we haven't dove into that because it's four years out but but yeah there will be a more extensive treatment needed for the road surface, but I don't think we should do it the same year we do the waterline. We shouldn't do vinyl bathing anyway. Yeah, no I think that that part makes sense. So what, what would it take to to get all the information we needed so that we could make a decision on whether we wanted to move funds and scheduling around for to do the project all at once the way Donna described. Yeah, I mean we can, we have a, you know, pretty, like a cheat sheet on how much it costs per square yard to rebuild roads with different methods. So we could pull an estimate, pretty quickly. From that, you know, basically the next number of dollars, you know, per mile. Well, for, you know, for obvious reasons, I would really like to take a look at that. And Northfield we did in two years, and that would give the time for settlement and other things as well as to share staffing time and vendor time and all that so I'd like it to be considered. And it's not in my district but it's in my town. Yeah, I mean, are you within the plan that's laid out here are the same, like, are you asking to change the priority of the waterline replacement. That's what it takes to move it, I'd like it to be considered. We're going to say something. No, no, I just trying to replace it. That would be one of the, you can't, you can't expand it on your computer. That'd be one of the inputs would be what what would it do to the schedule if in fact we wanted to combine rebuilding the road surface with the water pipe work over a period of two years to allow a season for settling and so on. So that I mean that'd be that'd be the part of the input. So we're going to have the whole picture. I don't know that it would necessarily move this project up. It might move in the other direction but would at least it would, the whole thing would be done. More or less at once. I'm not a concern. Just looking at this table. Moving it up to any appreciative appreciable degree. Means moving it moving down one of the areas that we're seeing water main breaks. Right. North screen is not on the, on the brake list. Well, I don't think we're talking about moving it up. We're just, we're talking about rearrange, you know, re re examining the scope of the. Yeah, I mean, I think that's something we do in the CIP process, if you know we want to tie in paving funds. When we do the water line or shortly or the next year. I mean, I think that's, that's completely doable within the CIP process. And we can approve this plan tonight and still as we get closer to those years allocating paving dollars for the future. Right. What sewer line dollars you're just saying this is you're approving this concept of this water line plan to some, you know, to the state now as you've endorsed it. Yeah. My last for now question was in giving some of the query from residents. If indeed we were to say, oh, let's move this up and make it a 10 year gold instead of 20 the next 20, the hardest we do in the 20 next 20 years. What if we moved it up to 10. Is that a matter of not only increasing the money every year. But is it also a problem that then everything has more of the same lifeline, you know, when it's going to be living its full life expectancy. So, I mean, why have a 50 year plan I guess is what people are asking me. And part of it seems to be just incremental financing incremental management of staff, but also that pipes have this lifeline. If everything has a 50 year life, then you make a 50 year plan more or less. Yes. So, help help me understand why we don't do it in 10 years. I mean, the main reason is is staffing, even if we hire out engineering, there's still municipal staff input that has to happen to make these projects go. And we just, there's only so much we can do because it's not just, you know, it's not just water lines. We're doing a lot of other things. So the paving plan, you know, sewer replacement. So that's the main reason is we can only manage so much work every year. And some of these projects are done by city staff. Yeah, totally get it. I just want to make sure I was in the right mindset. I mean, it is good to stagger design lives on assets, right? So in 50 years, we don't have to do all the pipes at the same time. I mean, I think there is. It's roving. Yes, thank you. Is there also, would there also be an issue with if we were to contract out, like say we, we have all the money we could possibly want and we hire the municipal staff that we need. Is there the capability out there in with vendors to do, to do it, you know, in the next few years. Yeah, probably not. No, I mean, you would be getting out of state contractors at that point for higher prices and yeah, that would be difficult. Any other questions for many members of the council. And I want to open it up to the public. There's not that many members of the public or not met many people logged on to the meeting that are not Peter Kelman. Um, Kurt, can you hear me? Yes. Yep. Kurt, I have a question related to the wastewater utility. Um, you mentioned, I think something about some, maybe. Well, let me just say this. If there are people who have land and have the capacity to create. Water gardens or other ways of handling. Wastewater or is it, is there some kind of an attempt to sort of educate the public about what they, they can do. Besides, you know, what public works can do in terms of reducing impervious surfaces in terms of planting trees, etc. Getting getting getting citizens to do some of this work for themselves. Yes. So, I think you're, you're referring to the stormwater utility and now that's going to be rolled out. So, there's, like I mentioned earlier, there's going to be an opportunity for credits on the utility fee for residents and there's also a large public outreach component planned as part of the roll out for the utility. So there absolutely will be, you know, educating educational materials being provided of what people can do. We don't have. DPW right now doesn't have the capacity to like do designs for folks, but, but certainly providing resources of what what options are will be distributed. Yes. Great. That's terrific. Thank you. Thanks, Peter. Any other comments or questions from members of the public? Any more comments from members of the council? So, at the tail end of the PR back in July, there was a section where the state was was offering to help with funding and so on. Have we explored that? Is that offered still on the table and is the money still there? Right. So, currently the only funding that I'm aware of is through the revolving loan fund on the drinking side, drinking water side. So that, that did pay for the engineering report. So there's that's in the form of loan forgiveness. So that was a, I think a $35,000 contract or so with the amendments to do this study fully funded. And also the bonds I am proposing to utilize that loan fund for the bonds, which is 0% interest, which is substantial savings, but right now there is not grant funding available within that fund. That could change, but currently I have not seen that. Is there as the federal money not been distributed yet or? Right. Well, it has in some form. So the lead and copper service line study that is federal money and it's distributed through that same fund. And we are utilizing that. You know, it's a 50% subsidy on that on that contract. But as far as waterline infrastructure money has not become available. Is it, is it in our future or not? Or is it, is it not part of the, of the package. The federal package. It was just an announcement today about more waterline infrastructure money, but until we actually see what. What it means, you know, we have asked, we've gone to the congressional folks and raised this and you may recall, we had our folks from VLCT who tracked this for us and, you know, basically. They're, they're alone funds are typically with a small state like us. That money all goes to the state. It doesn't go to individual municipalities. And then the state decides how it's going to do it. And what the state has typically done is taken federal grant money, turn it into resolving loan funds, which, you know, it's not a grant. So that's that, but on the other hand, you know, if you're the state, it, it then lasts longer, you know, the money comes back so they can then reinvest it in another community in the future. So, you know, it's not, it's not terrible policy. It just, you know, it's terrible for us when we want them to give it to us as a grant. And it's not terrible if 10 years from now on the community that's now looking to use this money and gee, we have my pillars money back so we can reinvest it with you so. So that has been the state's plan. They have given us favorable interest rates and even I think one project that we get a negative interest rate on so it was a little bit of a subsidized project or at least they were talking about it. And they, you know, they do use it to support engineering and those kinds of things but in Vermont there are not big. There's a million dollars to build a water line kind of thing it's it's here's a million dollar loan to get an interest free to build your water line. But we're always looking and you know, we like we said we just heard we got the announcement today like everybody else with the state the feds were announcing new money coming out so we will dog that and see what what's involved with that. Linda burger we're about to unmute you. Hi, I'm Linda burger from district one. I have a question about the expenses at the wastewater treatment plant. I'm wondering what the OTR purchase services are. I'm not sure what OTR can you clarify that. It's on your budget detail sheet. It's on page three. Maybe I wrote it down wrong. It's 326,000 I think. We're looking, we're looking through the pages now to see what where it is Linda so. Linda do you happen to know the number number. Sorry, I'm terrible on things I apologize. Well, I guess what would be the purchase services at the wastewater treatment plant. Okay. Yeah, I know what you're referring to other purchaser. Sorry. Yeah. Oh, yeah, but it's abbreviated. Okay, so that's, that's the solid disposal so that's the solids that go to the landfill those are tipping fees for sludge disposal. And in terms of in-house utilities. Yep. Water use. Water use. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Linda. So. Kurt, what you're looking for now is a vote from the council to. Say we support going forward with the plan. Yes, I think that would be helpful. I'll make that motion. Is there a second. Any discussion. This was just simply the water line plan, right? Okay. The water line replacement schedule. Thank you. All right. Are we ready to vote? All those in favor signify by saying I. Any opposed. Okay. Thanks, Kurt. This has been. Very enlightening as usual. Great presentation. We learned a lot more coming in when you came in. And just with regard to the budgets, just the answer, maybe the question that's floating out there is you will be setting the rates later until we'll come in with any updates to the budget at that time. Like if there's changes of information, but the idea was because we're in budget season to review where these are at. So you get a chance to see that. Like I said, normally it would have been last week, which was the first meeting after the general fund budget concluded. So that was the idea was to review these now, knowing that you're going to get another bite at the apple because you're setting the rates later on. So you don't need to prove those budgets now. So the next item on the agenda is the city manager's review. Do you think we should do all the other stuff first and then we can adjourn without coming back. Do we need, will we need to come back? I don't think we will. We have to come back just to adjourn. Just to adjourn. Yeah. Okay. Council reports. Sorry, you're in. Nothing. Nothing. Briefly, one question that's come up just around the state funding for like aggregate homeless shelter. I know there's a big water barrier proposal. There's like, lots of circulating like, is that going to happen? Is it not like, it's, is my failure, like looking at any options or like a way to participate in shelter capacity for the state if either if that falls through or there are other things and I mean, it could go on a future agenda, but just. I know it's been like obviously a topic we spent so much time on so I don't know if there's a short answer. I mean, the short answer is really good. And it's the shelter provider and they're keeping their nose to the ground and they've been in touch with the state about possible locations here. But we certainly need potentially we could extend the time at the Elks Club if, you know, for a number if that works. We're going to talk about all sorts of different things, but there is nothing from right now, but they are, we're all sort of an active conversation with them. Okay, thank you. And just wanted to thank Chief Nordenson. I know there was a very challenging situation that was handled very professionally and safely and so just kudos to you and your department. And just wanted to thank everyone for coming to the commission on flood recovery and resilience the other night. It was a great event. And really excellent feedback from the community and it was great to just kind of share what the commission's been up to and get a lot of great input on where we will go from here. So thanks everyone. Thanks. Chief I should have asked you to come up under other business could you just come up and tell us a little bit about what happened Sunday because I think it was a real success story for for Montpelier police. Just in case. Thank you, Eric Nordenson from the police department. Thank you for the kind words I really appreciate it and I know my staff really appreciates it. You know, we've been actively training quite a bit for emergency response risk management plans. And you always know these days are going to come so you have to prepare for them and I think I've pushed for people and processes and for training so anyways on Sunday at about 730 in the morning. Well, I think everybody enjoys their cup of coffee. I get a phone call that things aren't really good in town and that you know we had an aggravated domestic assault and involved the firearm and involved a strangulation. And, you know, we had that building basically covered, which was pretty good for us. We were lucky we had three people on so we had good eyes on the building front and back. And one of our officers decided to get a warrant and start getting some staff in there. So, first thing I thought of was a boy that's going to cost a lot of money. Hope everybody's okay. So the good news is it did cost a lot of money and everybody was okay. But anyways, you know, to get to the long story short is, you know, we put together our team, the person in charge of our tactical response came up with an incredible plan. We recognized our limitations and started the ball rolling to communicate with the state to have their tactical support with their tools ready to go if our efforts, you know, didn't go as we thought they would go. But anyways, you know, one person was holed up and barricaded in bedroom at about 1130 the suspect that did the strangulation came out of the apartment so we were able to grab that person called the court they held them on $5,000 bail. So that was good but then we had the process of getting the other person who had a firearm out of the out of his residence. And he also had a federal warrant so you know, you've been holed up since May and the best we could to try and get him out of there. So, you know, we started to make sure that the neighborhood was okay that if you know the coming street neighborhood it's, you know, a lot of stacks of apartment houses. So we felt like if the state had to come we needed to, you know, evacuate a certain stack just because they use some tools that, you know, would make certain neighbors potentially vulnerable so we safely removed everybody there and then we, you know, we put out notifications from the other place for the other neighbors. I know that kind of got away from us a little bit we did the best we could, you know, there's there's a handful of us and we're trying to do BT alerts from our cell phones while standing outside so there's a lot of tricky things that take place. Anyways, we got those people out safely got them out of there. You know, we made our best efforts to get the person to come out. They had no interest in coming out made that abundantly clear throughout the process. So, the tactical support unit from the Vermont State Police came. They were incredible. They told us our basic our training had paid off and that the communication from our supervisor unseen that an incredible job and they didn't have very many questions. At the end of the end of the day as we got the person out using federal custody, there's potential for more charges for the people that housed, housed him. And there was no injuries and at the end of the day I've been done. I can't tell you how many search warrants and seen a lot of damage and seen a lot of injuries. I think the total damage was $1,000, which I'll take that every day and no injuries so a big win I think for us and it showed the relationships that we had with the state police which was incredible. Deb Munson was the leader of their team who was incredible. I've talked to the majors and told them that, you know, I'm thankful for them. And I think, you know, just it shows how important that training is. So, you know, that that's pretty much sums it up. That's great. I just thanks for doing this. Please convey to the whole department are appreciation to come up with, you know, a volatile situation where someone's hold up barricaded with a gun and still no injuries, no loss of life. Great job. Yeah, we actually talk about domestic violence and you see it on every chief's board now is that our most volatile call. And if you looked and saw the news in the same day in Minnesota, you know, two officers were killed a firefighter was killed. Another another officer was injured and basically a very similar call to ours. So, you know, and I think I sent Bill and Kelly a message that says our margins are really thin. You know, I rely heavily on training, but sometimes a little luck and I think we had both of those on Sunday. So I'm pretty thankful and the staff was incredible. So. Did you see, I, I, you know, we've already talked, I mean, you guys did an awesome job. Did you see we also had help from partner agencies. We did very city. So, you know, we're in the preliminary stages still of putting together an emergency response team. It's made up mostly of my players. I'm okay with that because I want to be prepared. But Berlin PD was excellent. They sent a couple of people over a very city sent a person over. It just helped us make sure the scene was secure and it really helped comfort the people as they left. I know it's an uneasy feeling. The people that were watching out of the windows, it was probably like a movie. You know, it started at seven, you know, 730 in the morning and I think I got in the house around 11pm and you know, we still have people driving the swan to drop somebody off at the facility up there so it's a long day for everybody. But yeah, I'll take a long day with no injuries every day. It's funny, you know, you say that because, you know, I keep getting these kudos how good I was doing on overtime and I'm like just careful. It takes one incident, you know, I'm probably at a seven or $10,000 incident so I'll take it out of that 33,000 that just took from us, if you don't mind. That's next fiscal year. Yeah, this year money in the background. So, we're making up for it since since since currently organized, we had zero overtime right zero snow too, but that's but he's taken for credit. As you should. Yeah, it's right. Exactly. Ultimately our fault. So yeah. Yeah. But thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Mayor's report the only thing I want to also mention the resiliency commission forum last Thursday night it was. It was a funny thing because the building wasn't full and and we're walking around saying well you know there aren't that many people here in fact there were 90 people between in person and and online and I think for For a weeknight event in the middle of the winter. That's a pretty good turnout and so there was a lot of good discussion that I was in. Two of the different rooms and I think a lot of feedback people were pleased with how things are going and I understand they're in the process of interviewing. Executive director candidates and so things are moving forward as we wanted them to. Yeah, I that you know I had the same reaction I think and you know that room is just so big at the high school that you put 100 people in there and it still feels empty, you know, and I think that's really. Same thing you know I started to do an exact count but I just sort of started going on like you know there's close to 100 people here like this is not it's not empty it just feels it because it's how many can sit in there but it's a big room. Yeah, they I thought they did a great job hats off to the commission. Yep. City clerks report reminder about tomorrow. Tomorrow evening 630 at the senior center this should be this will be our last abatement meeting until the 28th and I'm just going to play it by ear between now and then to see how many come in, but March 28 excuse me. Yes, oh Lord. Yeah, so it's been a real long, long strange trip and we're just about done with it. Thank you for participating so so well and so consistently. And we do need that majority of the council back for one more meeting tomorrow so. So managers. Thank you. I was a minor. Well, I'm not minor, but one thing I just call the council. Well, I'm sure have all seen it and digested it fully but for the count for the further public's benefit in last Friday's weekly report. We put in a summary of grant funding that we've been involved in over the last year or so and it was a pretty impressive list. I've seen what all the departments have done. So for those of you haven't checked out and for the members of the public that sometimes last as the city seek funding. It's a, it's a, I think there's about $9 million or so on that list. And, you know, in a lot of different areas. So how, you know, much of it generated by our department staff. You know, a lot of it DPW but and police were really the big but really parks all the way across the board. So just call people's attention to that because, you know, I don't think we do promote that a lot. We just get it. We might tell you we move on and we do the project. But when you look at it all is good. The legislature don't have a lot of specific information. I know that there is conference committee on the, the, the budget. The budget adjustment act is happening and that funding for municipalities that were impacted by the flood is very much on the table. And according to our advocate looking positive. But I don't have any, any details what that means. I actually have been texting with her and supposed to talk to her at noon, but I had a more important meeting at noon. And, and then ran into her quickly in the parking lot and she just said it's looking good. You know, so they're still working at it sounds like our, our representative particularly Senator Perch look has really been very strong advocate for us. Not him, but really everybody's doing a good job and it sounds like they're figuring out a way to address the barrier my period needs, but also look at some other communities in the state. So I think which is part of the, the wrinkle was how do we spread the wealth so to speak so hopefully we'll learn more soon. I'm not the only two things I have for tonight. Cool. Okay, now the other thing we have on the agenda is city managers. So I'll make the motion that we go into executive session to discuss the city manager's evaluation and due to the pursuant of one VSA 113 the appointment of employment or evaluation of a public officer or employee. But the public body must make a decision to hire for a point in an open meeting but it must explain the reasons for its final decision. Okay. Is that the right one? Is there a second? Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Well, everyone who's out there online that we do not anticipate taking any action after we come out of executive session will just come back and, and adjourn. So you don't need to stay on the line unless you want to watch someone move to a chair. Yeah, shut this down. Yeah. Okay. And we can take a break before we go into executive session.