 Okay, it's, it's 630. So if we are ready, I will call the meeting to order. And we have one member who's here remotely. So recognize Kerry Brown. Hello, Kerry Brown district three. Okay, thank you. Now. The, I'll mention a couple of comments about logistics. Anyone who's joining us remotely, please. Change your name, name display to your first and last name so that we can know who's addressing us. Anyone who's called on to speak, we'd ask you to state your first and last name and where you live. We have that for the minutes. We ask you to keep your comments for under three minutes. And if you're speaking about a specific agenda item, please keep your comments germane to to that item. Anyone who wishes to speak must be recognized by the mayor. And if you have any questions to ask, please get them all out at one time. So then we'll be able to address them all. And anyone who speaks out of turn goes on to long or speaks on non germane topics. Maybe interrupted and asked to send us your comments privately. I should also say that anyone who has comments that you think are longer than we have time for tonight, we're always happy to accept comments in writing or electronically and we will they will be shared with everyone on the council. The first item now is to approve the agenda. Any changes or comments to the agenda. Okay, we can proceed with the agenda as is first item on next item is 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 the agenda. We ask your comment and keep your comments to three minutes and counselor bait will assist us in keeping time. We'll start with the people in the room. Yes. My name is Nolan Carver. I'm from Ward one here in Montpelier. This is my first meeting here and I'm very glad to be here. I'm also a nominee to be on the board for the conservation commission, which I look forward to. I was reviewing last council's meeting. I was concerned about item F that was an interesting point of, of debate there. Well, I do thank you counselor, Sal Fano, and Kerry Brown as well for bringing up what appears to be a conflict of interest for my personal perspective. Could you remind us what item that was. Yes, I sure will. This was from the toy run. This was brought by Clarence Wheeler president of the United motorists of Vermont. I believe you have our street closure on your agenda is how he started out as you'll recall. Chief Nordenson. Is there a conflict of any sort politically or otherwise. I asked this question again rhetorically to all to consider now. I believe there is a conflict of interest. I want to point on enabling 500 choppers to come storming through our city. Only to share space with the autistic and highly sensitive persons struggling with a neuro divergent perspective, and a society, which tends to marginalize them in a sense they deserve to be seen and heard. We all deserve to be seen and heard certainly, motorcyclists, certainly as well. I was hoping that we could as a society arrived to some certain compromise or, or civility here there seems to be a certain sensitivity that I would simply like to remind you all of let's please reconsider this, this dynamic in this scenario. It's an interesting controversy, and I'm pleased to be a part of this controversy. Thank you very much. All right, thank you. They have, they have. We're doing a different route this year they're not going to be coming through the city is here because of the conflict. They, the motorcycle people realize it was their failure to reserve the state house. So they're good. I don't even know if they're coming into my pillow this year but then they'll be back to, they'll do it more properly so it is resolved, and I think you will understood the conflict. With all due respect, Bill. I do regret to say that I was perfectly abused by the Shriners two years ago on the state house lawn. I do remember that specifically. I had in fact filed a police report with my pillar police and a national report with the state of Vermont. There's no excuse for abuse. I agree. Thank you for your interest. Thank you. Steve liquor. Time Steve would occur my pillar try to be time efficient I predicated this in the transcribe let's start with the website it's gone from bad to worse or from worse to pathetic. Even to find an agenda for tonight's meeting was way more difficult than it used to be. There's no excuse for that. We should have scrapped the software move to a new platform we appropriated I think $50,000. And it got bungled or wasted. I'm surprised. Recent concrete work in front of the TD banks. Highly unprofessional hazardous trip. You know, basically you walk around town you know what you're looking for please do. We should be, we should have somebody inspecting the work that's get done many of the storm grains are off grade for the water. And the water piles up school street, Elm Street, and the cars go by and shower anybody walking down the sidewalk. I've mentioned this again and again, see no action. Piling up in a crosswalk, not even up to the minimal standards of professionalism. It should have been subbed out if we don't if we can't do it right don't do it, because you make the pay public pay. Second, and third time to get it done. The new street furniture, you know, big ego, my M for Montpelier. Those are no substitute for public restrooms. You've been hearing about public restrooms since four years ago when I persuaded the council then to create the Helmless's Task Force, we've made no progress. It's unconscionable to keep the transit center bathrooms locked the city hall bathrooms locked Mother's Day, and after five or six o'clock. It's, and we've got a new influx of people who are on house in town. It's cruel and so. I've already said that I had lived it and covered my. I believe it's an obstinate subversion of the public interest and it's a violation of human rights shopping carts are still in the river after three or four years of telling you about the same carts are still in the river, and the, a bunch of trash from around Shaw's just ended up into the flow today from the high water. That should give you a clue that something's not working this $200,000 a year Miss manager is with his golden parachute, etc is not doing the job of taking addressing these issues that are raised the council and implementing solutions or reporting back to the council why he didn't the automatic door openers handicap door openers on the Taylor Street side of the transit center still are not working the wires are still hanging there the there's still no paddles for handicapped people coming up that ramp on Taylor Street to get into the building. I've described for you trying to follow a person in a wheelchair in who got caught between the doors. We are not living up to the city we're pretending to be. And I think it's up to you to take seriously and take action on this. Green Mountain Transit is violating the lease agreement and getting away with it year after year to keep the bathrooms open from 11 to 230. And they do so so that they don't have to pay benefits to their employees. Thank you Steve that's, that's that's time. Well, the problem with you're not only taking written comments to the council is that the public who needs to kick y'all's rear end doesn't it doesn't get on video and it doesn't get to the public when you manage it through, you know, notes. Thank you. Anything that is sent to us as public record. Anybody else in the room looking to make a comment. And is there anyone online who is looking to address the council. I'm not seeing any hands but I want to make sure. People have a chance. Okay. We can move to the consent agenda. Anyone want to make a motion. I move that we pass the consent agenda. Yes, Lauren. I'm happy to second that, but I did have an amendment to the Juneteenth proclamation. Can we do it within this or is it cleaner to pull that out. Yeah. Why don't we pull it off and that way it's clear. Can I offer a friendly amendment then to pull item see the Juneteenth proclamation from sales motion. Great. Okay. All those in any further discussion of the consent agenda. All those in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed. Okay, we've passed the consent agenda with the exception of item C. Lauren. So, I'm glad we are doing the Juneteenth proclamation again and I had just noticed that the language that we were kind of refreshing from last year that since we'd written it. There's it referenced a desire to pass proposition to a proposal to amend the Vermont Constitution to prohibit slavery and indentured servitude in any form, which Vermont voters did in November. So I am suggesting that we just tweak that one whereas and john for your records I can just forward you language if people agree to it that's, I should have copied you on it sorry. So we just read and whereas in Vermont, the full goal of eradicating slavery was furthered by voters adoption of proposition to in November 2022 a proposal that amended the Vermont Constitution to prohibit slavery and indentured servitude in any form. And then the rest the same as is so. Thanks Lauren. Any discussion. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Anyone opposed. Great. Thank you. Sure. Harry's very loud and I don't know if it's on our end or her in. Could that be adjusted. And try to speak very quietly. I know it's a challenge for some people. Try it now. How's this any better. Is it still allowed seems about the same but okay. That's okay we appreciate everything you have to say so I don't mind hearing. All right. Next up. We have appointment to the conservation. And we have, we have one applicant or we have more than one applicant don't we. I know you're up and you have. You've applied for that right. You want to step up and address the council. I'm from Ward one here in Montpelier. And I'd love to serve on the conservation commission. I have a passion for the environment. I can, I feel very strongly about environmental issues. It would be a way for me to get involved in the community. I look forward to working and interacting with other human beings towards a better. A better world that we can eventually. A hand down to a better generation. Thank you for your consideration. Thanks. Any members of the council have any questions. Okay. Thank you. And Lindsay. Are you either here in person or on the phone? I am here on the zoom call. Great. You want to just. Say a few words about, about your. Desire to be on the committee. Yeah. I did apply for this committee and the historic preservation committee. Sorry if you could hear the thunder. It's pretty bad over here. But basically I'm an, I'm an archeologist. And I kind of have worked in the past on. Combining archeology and studying the environment. That was what my graduate school research was about. Was about actually sub was about tropical societies. In, in the archeological past and how that affected. Essentially the collapse of cities, but. I, I do feel pretty strongly about, about both topics. And I do think I have some knowledge that could help in. Both the conservation committee and the historic preservation committee. Cause I feel like. Archeology is. Can straddle that. Sort of crossover somewhat. So thank you for your consideration. Great. Thank you. Any members of the council have any questions for Lindsay. Okay. And let's. While we're doing talking about appointments. We have. An application from Brian David Jones for the development review board and. Historic preservation. Commission is Brian David Jones present. Why don't you step up? Cause you get right up to the mic. Sorry. There we go. There we go. It's been a while. My name is Brian Jones. I'm an architect. And I practice in Vermont and Philadelphia, New Jersey. I used to live in Montpelier about 10 years ago and recently moved back about two years ago with my wife and my daughter. I'm interested in serving on the. The. Development review board to kind of participate in contributing to the zoning and how to interpret it. I actually ended up. Reading quite a lot of zoning regulations on the day to day. And so that interest combined with just the desire to engage again, and be a good volunteering, you know, citizen. It's kind of what put me here and I've been working on a little home renovation project and so kind of. I've been very busy, but becoming less so. Many years ago, and I'm sure you folks are seeing some of this in the application, but I was a volunteer on the Addison County regional planning commission as well for about two and a half years in the Salisbury planning commission and. You know, just a great introduction to committees and bureaucratic workings and. And. Join the meeting last week and kind of felt at home again, taking it all in and. And so. Yeah, I mean, professionally there's a lot of experience both working locally and being a part of maybe a larger. Planning. And zoning code. You know, stuff that I'm still working with on the day to day. But other than that, it's really just. Interest based and civic volunteer based. Great. Thanks. Thanks. Any questions for any members of the council? I have a question for both Lindsay and Brian. You both applied for two committees. Do you have a preference or do you want to be, do either of you want to be on both? Well, I would like to be on both. I was talking with Meredith earlier in the week in the application process and I said I have a preference for the development review board. So I just think it'd be a better use of my, my skills and expertise, but. Frankly, I do have pretty strong interest in, in historic preservation as well. Had worked on a project recently and had a lot of joy in, in saving an old, an old project in Philadelphia. But I think Meredith actually emailed us earlier in the evening. Both positions may be available in that, in that respect. So anyway. Great. Thanks. And Lindsay. Yes. I do have a preference for the historic preservation committee. However, I am open to serving on both because I do feel passionate about both. However, I feel like my professional background definitely lends itself more to the historic preservation committee. Great. Thank you. Okay. Council. What's your preference? We have the ability to go into executive session. And the chair would entertain a motion to do that. Someone wants to make that motion. I move we go into executive session in accordance with. Title one VSA three 13 executive session. A three. The appointment or employment or evaluation of a public officer or employee. Okay. All those in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. And anyone opposed. Okay. We'll go into executive session and. We'll be back shortly. Thank you. Thank you. And seconded to come out of executive session. I did. Yeah. Thanks. All those in favor indicate by saying aye. Anyone opposed. Okay. And now we do have a motion. I move that we appoint. Nolan Carver. To the conservation commission to the term expiring in 2024. And we appoint. Lindsay Chasinska. To the term expiring in 2025. The development review board. I move that we appoint Brian Jones. To the open term. And to historic preservation. I move that we. Appoint Jones and Chasinska. To the open term. Is there a second. Any discussion. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Anyone opposed. Okay. You are all appointed. Thank you for volunteering to serve. And also thank you too for coming out and. Meeting the council. I think we all appreciate it when. Not applicants for our boards. Come and meet us. So we know who we're appointing. Thanks for coming. All right. We are up to. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I am eight. Session recap from legislators. So again, we have. Most of our. Legislative delegation here and thank you all for being here. So why don't we start with the, with the senators? Do you want to. Come on up together. Or why don't you go all come on up. Connor, you can come on up too. Yeah. Well, welcome everybody. Thank you for being here. And. I'll have you. Introduce yourself so that. People in attendance. You need the microphone. How soon they forget. How are you folks? Connor Casey, state rep. Good to be back. Senator and Watson also good to be back. Senator and coming. It's also good to be back. I have to start my campaign for mayor of Montpelier. I'm Andrew Berksick, state senator. I live in Marshall field on Montpelier, but. It is a good back. I was just a citizen. On the record of representing. We can have a family conflict. I believe our eighth grade graduation was tonight. So she had priorities in the right place. So she did send her regrets. She was texting her from texting me from the dark at Montpelier high school for the graduation. I think they got the power on just before they started. So. What we're here for is just to have an informal conversation about how things went and what our accomplishments were for the year and what. We should be looking forward to. Next year. So. And you're the dean of our delegation. So would you like to start? All right. At this point. We won't know what we've accomplished till we finish the veto session next week, because almost everything has been vetoed. Of major bills. The one that went through was the housing bill. And that. I was disappointed it didn't go farther in allowing some more flexibility in the act to 50 and some more. Power to local communities. But we took a step. And it was a hard fought step to get any movement. To allow the towns to have more control over their development. And to make it harder for. Two or three people in the town. To overturn the will of. The people in the case of Montpelier, it was the voted will of the people. We passed the childcare bill. And. That has been vetoed. I. Pretty confident we will override that veto. It. For it. I think it was 125 million dollars into childcare. That's a lot of money. But it's not. Basic subsidies and increase the payments. The subsidy, the payment to the childcare providers. I just read. I think it was the KC foundation Vermont came in. I think in child welfare, except in the area of affordable and available childcare. And which we were tied for last. That is not someplace we need to be. We need to be affordable. We need to be affordable. They need workers. We have. I'm sure you know, a worker shortage. And. This will allow more workers to either work. Or work full time. And we're hopeful the governor does not like the payroll tax. We put. I think it ended up at being 0.4. Three, maybe four, four percent. Divided between employer and employee. And I think that's a lot of money. I think that's a lot of money. I think that's a lot of money. I think that's a lot of money. 20 percent, which is above my math skills. Goes to the employer. 25 percent of that. Total cost goes to the employee at the lowest level. That's like a nickel a paycheck. And at the lowest level, you will get. Complete subsidy for your childcare. So. It should be a good trade off. I think. The one place we are working out. The, what main difference between our. What we spent and what the governor spent. Is that we increased. Payments to the. Community based social services, basically, home health. And mental health services. I think we all know our schools are in crisis. They need mental health services. Our communities need them. And we're going back and fight that. Fight that. Battle next week. Hopefully we'll come out. We also, I see all the housing advocates are here. I've been. I'd say disappointed. We were assured that there was a plan in place to help deal. With the closing of the motels. It has not materialized. There have been a lot of. Negotiations that hit digger today. We are hopeful to have something. Hopefully we can get. Not vetoed. That will at least allow the most vulnerable. People that are ill disabled or families with children. To be able to stay in motels. So I think that's. That's the big ones. Great. Thank you. Does anyone have any questions? Do you want to wait till they've all spoken? Why don't we do that? Well, when I thought about coming to the meeting, I thought of the priorities that I thought of the, of the city council and was. Disappointed to think that we didn't. Accomplish. The three main ones basically that we. Despite the effort, we didn't get a bathroom. You know, help from the state on the bathroom. We didn't get the project. We didn't. We didn't get the project. We didn't get a base finance that tip. We did get a study of that that way. That. Center Cummings was instrumental in getting in. The local option ability to pass this local option task. That taxes. I know it was also a priority that. That didn't happen. So I'm. I'm sorry that those things did not happen, but there are things that. You know, that we, that we worked on. And I think our difficult things that will come over time. I'm just going to be honest, I just want to go back to the point that you were saying. The meeting housing, we did make good progress statewide. I was just asking fellow senators. About one 10 state street. And if we were able to. The help the city with the first ride or refusal. I don't know if we are available to get that one. Either, but. Uh, hopefully that will work out. For the city. And we could continue to. yes, on that effort. But I mean, those were the priorities that I went through in my head. And, you know, as you know, sorry to report that we didn't meet those, but I want to let you know that we're aware of that, or at least that I am that need to work on that. Thanks. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I was, thank you. I was feeling similarly. And so thank you for saying that. But there were there were some other wins that I think are worth mentioning, you know, lower down on the list of priorities is regarding banning PFAS. And there was a bill this year that banned PFAS in cosmetics and personal care products. So again, that's like another step in the right direction need to follow up on where exactly that one landed. Did that make it across? Okay. And then just as far as like microtransit goes there, I think there was funding for more microtransit programs, not necessarily, I don't know if it was going to necessarily come to Montpelier, but it is an idea that has that has caught on people want places want to try this out based on the success in Montpelier. And so we've got more funding for that. And then one of the other priorities was around expanding the net metering capacity for the city. And there was actually a bill that natural resources looked at that would have limited for their limited net metering. And so we did not move forward with that. So that the issues around net metering are going to be studied over the summer. So so there'll be more to say about that. But coming back to dispatch also one of the priorities, I mean, this is something that both, you know, so the manager and mayor and I have talked about previously, but, you know, in spite of not being able to get the previously awarded money to you all, at least we've gone to a place where the state is going to be studying the issue of dispatch by collecting further data. And and then there is this opportunity for creating more pilot dispatch centers. And so my hope is that Montpelier will be able to be one of those pilot locations. So that's those are a few high level things. There are there are other things that may be worth mentioning. There was a household hazardous waste bill that was signed. That is going to affect how the Central Mont solid waste management district pays for their hazardous waste collection days. And so that should not come from the cities, but it's going to be paid for by the manufacturers of hazardous waste products. So that I think is going to be a good thing for us. And then another one of the bills that I worked a lot on this session was the Affordable Heat Act. So happy to answer any questions you have about that. But really, that is going to design a program. And then there'll be multiple studies that come back that will tell us more about the the cost implications. And then there will need to be another bill in 2025, if we're going to choose to move forward. Thanks, Sam. Yep. Yeah. So yeah, freshman house rep, they got put on the corrections and institutions committee, not always the sexiest committee, you know, a lot of time in prisons and, you know, with the 200 million dollar capital bill, which does have quite a bit of intersection with city government, you know, as you know, like we think about like, you know, lunchtime in Montpelier and how vibrant it used to be with state employees, window shopping and buying sandwiches and sort of, you know, filling up our stores in town. It's been pretty empty the last few years. Since the pandemic, we've gone to teleworking. And we never really went back, right? I took a tour of the Waterbury State Complex a couple months ago. And, you know, it's a massive sprawling building. But I would say one out of every 10 desks was full. And, you know, you talk to managers, you talk to the commissioner of human resources, commissioner of BGS. Productivity hasn't really gone down too much. People sort of like the hybrid model of going in a couple days a week and otherwise working from home. But it's taken a very real and immediate toll on our city as far as, you know, economic issues here. So, you know, one thing on institutions, I've really been trying to reconcile that, you know, if we're not going to get people back to work in state government, you know, in our city, we got to look at the office space, right? And because we got a lot of empty buildings around Montpelier. And I've been taking walks, you know, just at lunchtime and seeing the empty parking lots, you know, behind some of the state buildings and thinking, God, that's a lot of potential, right? We should be building there. We should be building housing or something else, you know, just for the sake of our city. So, I think that's something we really got to stick with. I was like a dog on a bone with 110 state street in the Capitol Bill and got some language from Montpelier to get right at first refusal, as Senator Pertrick said. I think it's an interesting building. I think we could maybe like look at get some apartment buildings in there. If we were interested and we get a few months to think about it, but, you know, like country club's not coming online anytime soon and we're in desperate need of housing. So, we got to be creative, whether that look at like Baldwin Street, you know, some of those buildings for sale. So, we'll keep looking. Public restroom, I introduced those my first bill, you know, as a bathroom guy, you know, in the state house, not the glamorous again. I'm on institutions, went to my committee. I'm sorry, I didn't get it over the finish line. Would you ask for a public restroom from Montpelier? Every other city would like one as well. And I think that was part of the problem kind of watered down a bit. I think there may be some creative ways we can look at tagging it on something, but talking to human service committee folks to see if we can draw it more into a issue for the unhoused, you know, and put it there rather than try to prioritize Montpelier above other communities for that. But, you know, we'll keep on it. Just introduced drafting for a project-based TIF as well. I held off on it because we can only do short form bills this time of year. And we'd like the full one. So, hopefully get that on the wall on houseways and mains. Other than that, like, okay, elephant in the room, Kate and I voted against the budget, right? We did that because $8.5 billion. And, you know, just having been on council here, seeing the effect like homelessness had on our community, and the feeling like we're kind of drinking from a fire hose here. We're not a social service agency with the city. We're ill-equipped to deal with some of the issues facing us with the unhoused. And I think, you know, when I was on council, we always tried our best, right? But it was never enough. It was never enough. And it's a regional or a statewide issue, and the state really needs to have some responsibility here. And so the thought of 3,000, almost 3,000 people being exited within a month or two time frame. Excuse me, Connor, just a second. Yep. Apparently, it's not what you're saying isn't going out over the Zoom at the moment. I'll start from the beginning. Yeah, that was definitely the message. Thanks. What crashed? You're back. Oh, good. Yeah. Gary, you're nodding. You can hear now. Great. Okay. So I think we need to be doing more as a state with the unhoused and, you know, just talk to the providers, folks who were unhoused in our community. I think it's too much having that many people exit the Motel Voucher program at once. And, you know, it becomes sort of a cost shift because the state's not paying for it. Communities are paying for it. And sure enough, we saw Montpelier as $425,000 in the budget for a warming shelter or something similar, you know, to be determined there. I think Montpelier has been doing a lot with the homeless liaison position, the social worker position embedded into the police department, having our own vouchers for adverse weather when people weren't eligible for the state one. But, you know, just the thought of like, you know, the proposal from Barry having like 300 cuts in an ice rink when we just passed an $8.5 billion budget, it's not enough. And we need to do more. And I'm really happy that we are having conversations now as part of the veto override session to possibly have a companion bill that would supplement some of what the budget did. Knowing the reality on the ground here, this administration, we saw them come in, right? We saw the commissioners come in and make some promises to us about how the state was going to step in and make it better. And they didn't fulfill those promises. So I don't trust the state or this administration to do it on their own. And I think the legislature needs to give them a nudge to actually fulfill this responsibility. So I'm hopeful when we get back next week, we can have a bill that looks to reallocate funds in the budget and steps in to have it more a gradual humane transition from this program so that we can accommodate people because good things happen, you know, the hotel situation, it's not ideal. And I think it can exist in perpetuity. But I know like Rebecca's in there is hanging out with some of the good Sam folks up at the hotel. And you saw some real success stories, right? When you have time to work with folks. I remember one woman coming in there, Rebecca was there, and it's like, ah, we'll say her name is Jean. It took three, four weeks, but we found Jean, like some family out in New Mexico, they got an in-law apartment. We can place her there. She's going to be safe. She doesn't need to sleep in a tent next week. And that's, I think, what we need to be looking at doing on an individual basis and take care of people. So I hope we can get there. So I'll wrap up with that. Well, great. Thank you. And I want to express my personal appreciation for everything you've done. I know it seems like you're kind of feeling bad while you did. We didn't get done everything you wanted to get done. But those of us who go in the state house year after year, we know what it takes. And I've spent more hours than I could ever add up trying, fighting for things that never happened. And so I appreciate they continue to do that. Now, any thoughts from members of the council to keep Lauren? Thanks. Grateful you're all here this evening. And for your hard work, it's a very tough job. And really appreciate you all raising your hands to do it for our community. And I'm really grateful for a number of the bills you highlighted. I think the housing bill was huge. The child care bill is massive. The climate action, like all kinds of there's a lot of great work. I did want to speak for a moment on the homelessness issue and really appreciate what you all are bringing up tonight. You know, this has been something that I'm hearing a lot from constituents about, as I'm sure they're your constituents too. And you're I'm sure hearing the same things. And you know, as you've heard from our recent council members, you know, we've been spending a ton of time in this room, working on this. And, you know, I think what I'm hearing is that people really understand the hotel prop, the hotel program was never meant to last forever. But also seeing all the stories that Connor's referencing and, you know, hearing about people who are losing shelter, the people who lost shelter on June 1. People are coming online to lose shelter and really have no place to go. We know that even people with section eight housing vouchers are not able to find housing. And so it just is totally unacceptable that we are putting people out there and just giving them tents and wishing them luck. And so that, you know, failure on the administration end to actually help people and get them there. You know, we've heard so many stories of how providing shelter has provided people with the stability to be able to address addiction issues to get out of an abusive relationship, you know, people with children. So there's so many families that are, you know, part of this issue. And, you know, by taking this tack that, you know, originally happened, we know that Montpelier and other communities are really left scrambling. And we've been hearing from our service providers, as you all know, for months and months and months that there is not the staff, there is not the shelter capacity. And so there's, you know, everyone is so stressed out and there's no good solutions. So, you know, it was really disheartening to leave in May and feel like we're choosing to create this huge crisis, you know, which which I think is fundamentally different from, you know, kind of ongoing homelessness when people are already out on the street that feels so they're so multifaceted and challenging this people were it were sheltered and we're choosing to take that away. You know, so I'm first and foremost concerned about the people in the program also, you know, really concerned about, like, local businesses and our community and tourism and all the things, you know, in Vermont as well, you know, and increased emergency room visits, long-term mental health impacts like there's so many things that come along with with doing this, you know, I'm grateful for Representative Casey, it would takes a lot of courage to stand up and fight for something you really believe in. So grateful for that. And heartened to hear that it sounds like people are really at the table now trying to solve this problem. And I just wanted to put in my strong request to all of you to really find a solution and look for how we can, you know, as you said, put the funding in so we can house people and help transition everyone to longer term housing solutions. Thanks for letting me get on the soapbox for a minute. Any other Donna? I'll second what you said, pat yourself in the back. But now I'm going to ask, can you share what's the biggest stumbling block? If the unhoused is not being understood statewide now, when is it going? What's going to take it? And what's going to take the legislative will to overcome the administration? What do we do? The biggest problem is money. The motel program was funded with federal money, and it's gone. And the state does not have, you know, even if we negotiated a better deal, which the administration probably should have in the first place, even if we cut it in half, it's $50 million. And I'm going to turn it to Andrew, who's on appropriations. But I know we tried to find that money. The one place I know we could find it is out of the Housing and Conservation Trust Fund, which wouldn't impact social services. But then we wouldn't have the housing to house people, you know, you get into this, if we don't build houses, then they're in motels forever. And trust me, motels, I mean, these people, they don't have refrigerators or, you know, nothing that you and I get in a motel for the fee. They're paying a lot more than I would choose to pay in most motels. And they're not getting a microwave or a refrigerator, any way to prepare food unless they can find another way to obtain them. It's money. And I haven't done a vote count, but the understanding seems to be that to override a veto in a time of high inflation and an awful lot of people are struggling to pay their rent and buy their groceries. And we have a significant number of remodels on fixed incomes. It would be very hard, probably impossible to override a veto to do any kind of a major tax increase. No one ever lets me do my job and raise taxes, but that's pretty much where it is. It's not the will, it's just coming up with a very large amount of money. So. That's a good question, Donna. And what I would say is that like what Connor said, the money is there, especially we're still coming out of the pandemic with a pretty strong surpluses. But the question I think what held up the legislature for doing it is they were worrying about next year and setting a precedent that we were going to just keep it going for forever. I don't want to see the hotels continue. I'm disappointed that all this time that they haven't taken the money applied it to more long term. Right. So if all this was caused by a Irene storm, what would the state do? Right. And that's like that's a common thing that I hear from constituents like if there was a hurricane, we would house them. And and we the question would we house them for forever or would it you know those. I don't want to house them. I want to it's actually because recent shelter comes first is that all these individuals can start building their lives until they have that shelter. Right. So it's really about and once they have that shelter, then they can have the job. Yeah, can be tax players and they can do all these things. Totally agree. But so it's long term shelter. Yeah. The money going to long term shelter. And so so since this was a money problem that Senator Cummings talks about was the the large amount of money for a for a solution that people want to be a short term solution. And that when you asked about what the hold up was that was the hold up. And I think the legislature was guilty of some or one truck to administration that we shouldn't have of having a plan and being able to not you know, not basically kick the vulnerable people on the streets. We were being told that wouldn't happen. I think we're also just hoping it wouldn't be as bad folks like Brenda that are here. We're telling us it was going to be bad. But I think wanting to fund all the other needs that we have in the state was thinking, well, we're going to trust the administration. And we're going to hope that it's not going to be bad. I think things have changed. I think the thing that we're holding up has changed. So, you know, thanks to the Connor and others that have really stood up on this, it has caused the conversation to change. And also, the the trusted administration is gone that was there before. So, there was there was either hope or trust that no longer exists. So now, the money that is there is going to be found at least to get through next year. But I predict we're going to have the same discussion next year. But in S 100 and in other bills, we are putting a lot of money into our housing. We will buy new motels to turn into, you know, permanent housing or more shelters. But that will take time. And so in the meantime, how long can we keep the hotel program? How long can we like the Connor said, find one at a time permanent housing and stability for these people? That's what we all want to do. And I think what we'll find next week, we'll we'll find some way of at least doing it for one more year. I think, you know, we're now looking at affordable housing. We have put 300 400 million dollars into building affordable housing. And the housing bill required that towns allow density up to quadruplexes. But we're looking at affordable housing. We need we have a housing shortage across the board and the distrust really between people who want to build housing and the environmentalist. There's a real push push on both sides there. I think what we need is a state plan that says, this is where we have transportation. This is where we have services. This is where we build housing. I've heard more than one story about people in Montpelier. They're rent one up $1400. I've got an antique store that is no more. I've lost my business because the rent went up. But the rents are going up. It's ply and demand. And if we aren't building some nicer apartments, then people with money are renting the apartments that people with less money used to rent. And so we've got to attack this on all levels and work together to kind of build up that trust. So we can agree. This is where it's appropriate to put housing and not necessarily, you know, you've got to have some ability to expand density. People with money will always have 10 acres and a McMansion. But there's a long way between an eighth of an acre and 10 acres. And I think we need to find a way to address that and work on it, communities and state together. Yeah. Thank you. I'll just add that, you know, in answer to your question, I think in addition to the bill that we anticipate seeing next week, my guess is that we're going to have a lot more attention and scrutiny on the issue of homelessness going into next session. And so I think that's it's going to be elevated and prioritized by a lot of legislators going into next session. So that that gives me some hope about finding a plan for the future. And maybe it maybe it looks different than the hotel voucher program that we have right now. But it might look similar, especially in that we want housing first for folks. And one of the things that I do appreciate was that the state put out an RFP to communities to say, what are your ideas? Can we fund some project that you want to do? And I appreciate that. I think it came out too late. But I think that has some merit as an approach, because I think communities know what the best solutions for their community might be. And so I'd like to see that particular approach be potentially built up that that could be a way for the state to help fund local projects. So we'll see how that goes. I'm going to be optimistic that we have a really good week next week. Had some good conversations with leadership, very respectful. I think like everybody very well intentioned here, it's just different ways to get where we are. But you know, like the job of state government is to help people. And if we can't help people, we shouldn't hurt them, right? So somebody has a roof over their heads right now. If you take that away, bad things can happen. The one thing we have right now is sort of a captive group of folks in the different hotels where we can get them the services they need if we direct them there. But once we hand them tents and they sort of disappear into the shadows of the bike path, and into like Hubbard Park, you can't find them anymore, and they're gone, right? So it was hard to vote against the budget because I agree. I think there's a lot of really good like mid and long term solutions in that. And I think we do need to invest in that. It's just like how do we get there in the short term? The good news is like the federal money that was coming in, you know, was pretty strict, right? It actually created some barriers with negotiating with the hotels. The state money, we have a lot of flexibility and could do an RFP program there, where you're trying to get those rates down to like 125 or 100 a night, so I mean the bad news with that is as Senator Cummings said, it's state money, like it's not federal money anymore, but we can be a little more nimble with it. So I think it is just, you know, trying to get through the next like year or the next few months here and make sure people have a better landing than they do have at the moment. So thanks. Carrie, I see you've got your hand up. Yeah, thank you. So I just want to thank all of you for the things that you were able to accomplish. I do understand and know how hard it is to get anything done or to feel like you're really meeting the items on your agenda, much less somebody else's agenda. It's hard not to look at our Montpelier agenda and see how many things were not done or not addressed or are not priorities for others. And I think that that's, I'd be interested in having sort of more in-depth conversations on a more regular basis as we kind of prepare for upcoming sessions to talk about what's realistic on our agenda, how we can align with priorities so that we can feel like we're getting our needs met. And I'm very, very grateful that there is this last minute look at the budget and trying to rethink the state's response to that end of the hotel program. I really want to thank Representative Casey for being one of the people who I think gets a lot of credit for forcing this conversation right now. I'm so grateful to you for that. And then I guess I just want to, I want to say that we understand the issue about there not being enough money because we don't have the money here in Montpelier. And so it's, I know it's true, but it is discouraging to hear the state who has more money than we do say, we don't have the money. And just, you know, everyone is just saying, well, we don't have the money. So I would urge you to be creative and brave in finding ways to raise the money and to prioritize it. And I would also urge you to be brave and strong in your dealings with the administration and that you have quite a bit of authority and can make some things happen. And I, and I definitely hear that that is happening now. So I'm very encouraged about that. And just, you know, one last thing I'll say as a state employee, they're not coming back. So we shouldn't be wondering what to, whether or not those state employees are coming back, we're not coming back. So we should go ahead and move as, as aggressively as we, as we want to on reclaiming some of the space downtown. Thanks, Gary. Tim. Thank you for so happy or our representatives at the state level. It's, I'm fairly new here. And Connor's comment about drinking from a fire hose is, I'm sure it's just a small sense of it here versus what you encounter at the state level that there's so many big issues and, and prioritizing and getting something done is clearly you're making great steps forward. One little thing, it's not that little, but it's time sensitive. And we heard about it at a recent meeting and because you're all here, PFAS piece that Ann Watson mentioned. So there's a, apparently an active 50 application in for Cicella and Coventry. And we're the only plant I believe in Vermont that's accepting the leachate from the Coventry landfill. Right now that's flowing into our plant. And then because it is really, fully treated going into the Winooski River and flowing north to all those Vermonters north of us who use Lake Champlain as a water source. So anyway, this application is in play. If you have any ability to check on it or help boost it through act 250 to build this filtration facility in Coventry that will treat this leachate before it comes to our plant, I think it would help a lot of people and it's very time sensitive. I think we gave them about 60 days at our last meeting to get this permit in hand or we won't be in a position to possibly extend the agreement to accept that leachate. We have it on our agenda for next month. Yep. Yeah. Thank you. Good bill. Thank you all. And I know you've all heard from me a lot this year. So I'll try to stick to the main points. Start with some small things. So this is probably more BGS. I think it is a general policy. We've talked about this if the state is disposing of land and a municipality just shouldn't have to take a special, it ought to be the local government should always have for right of first refusal. I just think that just makes good sense and ought to be institutionalized. It shouldn't have to chase this down building by building lot by lot. Secondly, we all agree that housing is a key priority. But again, I think some of the silos we just heard this week about a person who's trying to potentially develop housing on Baldwin Street to buy one of the buildings on Baldwin Street. And one of the problems they're running into is parking. And the state was like we don't lease parking to non state use private uses. So the state's trying to sell them which will create housing and it's a don't exist during a housing crisis and the state won't let them use state parking to develop the housing. So it's kind of like what's going on here. Are we in a crisis or aren't we? And particularly if we're not going to be using the parking. We've talked about we I mean this we'll be using parking for parking but it would be ancillary use to developing housing. And and it just seems to me like a totally missed mark. What was the next one? I think that was that was so that moves on to we have had a lot of local discussion about what to do about housing crisis and the use of state properties in short and long term. You've mentioned that there are these huge unused properties. Waterbury and Immapiliar even in the short term if you think of things like pallet housing which is not certainly not a permanent solution. But there are vast parking lots in in Waterbury in here that could be used to set these things up in the short term and and you know to provide some more relief for people. So I think again we've pushed AHS to talk about use of state even some of these state buildings maybe they can get converted to housing. But we've pushed AHS and they've sort of said well that's BGS and that's ACC. You know so I think I don't know where the singular focus is on we have a housing crisis. So there's that a couple of things with the housing bill. Appreciate what you did. I'm sure you've already heard this from me and others but Montpelier and most of the cities in the state already do everything that you required for the zoning that we have to actually make no changes to our zoning because of S100. So there's nothing in that bill that's going to create any more housing in Montpelier and in Burlington and in Brattleboro and in Berry and in every place else. So yes in the rural countryside it might and then the increase from 10 to 25 units was great. But if we're talking about building affordable housing and talking about having economies of scale we need to be able to build more than 25 units you know without active 50 regulation and all that. So I know you know this I'm just saying it out loud for all to hear. We appreciate what you did do. I would be shocked if there's any housing that's actually built as a result of this bill. Next thing we talked about some of having good vibes going to the next session and that's great. That is not until January and won't be done until next May. So for folks that need a place to be that's a lot of uncertainty for a long period of time. And I think something to really keep in mind when we talk about short term and long term and I'm not trying to be negative I just think it's really important is that for housing needs to be created but it's not going to happen in a year. We all know how long it takes to get a project done it's got it you've got to secure the financing you've got to secure permits you've got to find the land you've got to find that you're willing to do it. We're talking a two to three year period here this is not going to be like suddenly everyone's got housing next January or next May. So when we think about these interim solutions it's got to be not I mean short term has to maybe be a longer term than what has been considered short term. And lastly I think the thing on the local funding yeah Ian you're right the the local funding was great at least from our perspective a lot of that is for short term interim solutions it's not really to create local projects so we've we've convened a team of all the nonprofits and the local governments and we are looking at what these are and they are things like more shelter space maybe more pallets you know those kinds of more more outreach workers dealing with people it's not going to create permanent housing so it's absolutely responding to the need. So that's sorry but I we've really been way into it here preparing and I am glad to hear that maybe it will be delayed because you know I think we've all been gearing up for emergency. And then just lastly we really need project-based TIF. More on that later. Okay any other members of the council before I go to the members of the public okay we've got members of the public why don't you step up? I think our entire delegation should get right up to the microphone. Okay is that working? I think that's work you they really have to be right there on top of it to make it work yeah okay. Barberina Hyerdahl I live here in Montpelier I want to thank our entire delegation for all the work you've done this session and also for being good sports for being in communication with me because I do feel passionately about this housing issue. I have no fancy credentials I just grew up in New York City at the beginning of its epic homelessness crisis my youngest son went to college in New York City I've visited over the past 30 years. When communities don't address homelessness it just becomes unbelievably tragic and I was so heartened to read three stories this morning about a tentative deal that's been brokered to not evict more people starting on July 1st but I'm going to beg of you that you make whole the people who are evicted on June 1st and the people who are about to be evicted tomorrow from the very motels. Thanks to the work of Brenda Siegel as well as many reporters I read a story which was particularly personal for me about a woman in her 70s who had a hip replacement on May 23rd who was evicted on June 1st. I was born handicapped and needed a complete hip replacement at the age of 44. I was very healthy at the time I was comparatively young I had great post-op care I can't imagine what it would have been like to navigate post-hip replacement living on the sidewalk without a bed without a toilet without a place to shower without a place to wash my hands. I talked with a friend of mine who's a nurse this is an absolute recipe for post-op infection and for her to fall and dislocate her hip. I know there was some sort of arcane kind of gilded age metrics of their deserving poor and their undeserving poor and only the undeserving poor were going to be evicted but it didn't work. I heard about an amputee who was evicted a vet with a collapsed lung. They weren't responsible for the housing crisis their big crime is they don't have money to pay rent I'm just begging you make those people whole it just I don't believe this is what Vermont is that we kick people out this vulnerable and say well you didn't fit the 47 different criteria the points didn't quite land up and from you Andy I've heard there is a way to access the money the reserves that have been earmarked for matching funds in 2025. I understand those could be very important projects but these are our fellow Vermonters they're trying to figure out how to live with the most basic things we take for granted. One of my best friends also is an abortion provider at Planned Parenthood and she and I just were talking about last night all of the women I've been hearing about who are in the motel program because they're escaping domestic violence the likelihood that one or more of them needs an abortion and trying to imagine what is it like to navigate a pharmaceutical abortion on the sidewalk without the sanctuary of walls a ceiling a door that locks a toilet a shower a kettle where you can heat water so I'm just begging you you have an 8.5 billion dollar budget please figure out a way to make hold the people that the state is harmed and there are more people in the pipeline they're supposed to be evicted tomorrow. Thanks so much Barbara yeah thank you. Hi there I'm Brenda Siegel I'm from New Fane Vermont. I am grateful to all of you for being here and being willing to face conversation and criticism and Andy I've criticized a lot and in this conversation about homelessness but I want to talk a little bit about what I saw and the 15 witnesses across the state on June 1st who I organized to be at the hotels we heard about the person with a collapsed lung and had an aneurysm I was there at that hotel we heard about a 70 72 year old man who was miscategorized I helped him get shelter and then moved him again the next day and then moved him again two weeks later. I we heard there was a young woman in Colchester who did not meet any of the does not meet any of the archaic JGA qualifications and she is alone right now in a tent in virgins under a bridge and she has never been homeless before. There is the person we just heard about who just had hip surgery there are a number of people who have bipolar there was a woman who was anorexic who was miscategorized and we had to work to get her brought back and I could go on and on about June 1st stories but now I want to tell you about Friday the exits are Friday it was a little confusing from the hotel owners that were willing to renegotiate to have two weeks which they gave without being paid grace period which made it a little easier for service providers and gave these folks a little more time to pack their stuff but I want to tell you a little bit about them 37 of the people that I interviewed across the state that was 70 I interviewed 77 of the 90 that are about to be exited 37 entered some form of recovery while they were in the hotel program and are in it right now for reported struggling but wanted to be connected to services and one reported struggling and did not feel they could be connected to services when they're about to lose their housing 10 were escaping domestic violence and could not jump through the hurdles that the GA program rules require and so several of them were considering going back to their abusive partners medical conditions include people with diabetes recent surgeries needed surgeries liver trance someone needs a liver transplant to active cancers people with brain surgery brain tumors and more conditions several people reported suffering from mental illness including bipolar and the many of these are in this community in this county bipolar agoraphobia multiple personality disorder and I can go on many reported being employed almost 30% reported being employed and another 15% reported actively looking for work and being told over and over again that because of their looming lack of address they were not going to be hired at those jobs others are in the process of applying for SSDI but as many know that sometimes a three-time process many were legally evicted and so can't prove their eviction status 100% of the people I interviewed did not have somewhere to go although we have now found a place for two of the people but that's only two 100% of the people that we interviewed did did not know where they're allowed to camp and several said not where they can find camping but where they're allowed to and several said they would not survive on the street several women reported being okay I'm sorry I don't know who I'm trying to figure out where the sound is okay so the last thing that I want to say is that several women are are afraid of rape actively afraid of rape and I'm asking you to not only make whole the 900 people that will be exited by the end of this week but also keep this program open for the people who are going to be on oxygen and all the people are going to actively need shelter when Vera as the wrap is ending we can't just talk about the people that are currently in the shelter so please please consider that I begged you during the session I begged every one of you during the session please listen to us now thank you thank you so much Brenda right hi I am Rebecca Dupree and you can you step right up to the microphone again yes sorry I am Rebecca Dupree and I am actually in the hotel motel program with my two children I am at the hilltop for the past few months I have been advocating statewide I have been going to all these hotels as well and I have been meeting and speaking with the individuals that are also utilizing this program I have been transcribing the letters I have been sending them out across to all the legislature throughout the session and currently it's it is a difficult it's really a difficult thing to have to take in being that the housing isn't available the affordability it's there's so many barriers in the way of finding the stability and permanent housing I have two children I do 10 15 applications a week to apartments top of the state all the way to the bottom of the state and I haven't found anything I am one I have a house-choising voucher through Vermont State Housing Authority I fight monthly to keep extending that so that I don't lose it if we lose that voucher we are completely we're just in trouble things will be that much worse a lot of people are losing their vouchers because they can't find the housing people are in panic mode there's people they are crying they are begging for help nobody knows where to go nobody knows what to do and I think that's putting a pause on on their progress not alone just from the state kicking people out and of course these being people that have made incredible amounts large strides in progress whether it's their recovery their physical health their mental health or their own personal growth in whatever way with this unsheltering and ending this program everybody that has moved so far forward is being thrown right back to where it is that they had started from being one that does utilize this program and is in one of the hotels I can say that no it is not the grandest plan and it's not like a long-term solution it really isn't but it is something that has kept thousands of people stable for such a long time they have been able to make huge improvements in their lives and it's something that needs to continue until something can be put into place something transitional something that can become permanent putting people out to the streets it's it's not okay it's it's it's inconceivable um to do such a thing and I'm sorry but I it's something that I live so I have I have this connection with all of these people across the state and it's just it's the reality of of the life in these hotels thanks for doing this I appreciate your work thank you thank you Steve Woodaker Montpelier I want to encourage especially the legislators who could really liaise on with the negotiators of that new bill I'd take a look at the regional dispatch bill and that model of having communities identify potential land that could serve as an interim sites with water and sewer for soft housing bill you aptly pointed out that that this is going to take years to get the housing built to solve this problem so we need interim solutions and the current model of the you know whatever the pods are that Burlington did they look and feel like jail cells they're in compounded fence yards where no visitors are allowed it's it's not a my it's a concentration or a internment camp model we need to work on identifying peace park covered park gateway park home uh home farm road elch club property and and figure out what's appropriate scale and capacity of each which ones would require a pump out of water and sewer trailers but this is the failure of planning this is the similar to the bathroom effort that connor put forward it's it's a failure of planning bgs was willing to contribute to finance to keep the bathrooms open in a transit center as they do with the truck stop up at the top of the hill it's the failure of planning on the state level regional planning or multi municipal planning is the scale at which this can be done properly so i would require in this bill you're negotiating for next week require something like the public safety dispatch inventory process for land site water sewer electricity uh bus service you know do that inventory and then we can prioritize where we could quickly put two four six eight ten at a piece and hire managers at twenty five thirty dollars an hour to keep and have one struggle you'll deal with is who has the right to eject someone if it's public property because you can't allow all the heavy alcoholic users to congregate at one and you can't allow the junkies and the dealers to congregate at one you need to have the ability to creatively allow the site managers to collaborate on where the people best fit so thanks Steve there's some good points there rick hi uh rick de angeles uh livenmont pillier and i'm also the director of the goods maritan haven and um you know i didn't come here tonight expecting that i would say something very positive and hopeful but i feel like doing that right now and i you know i've been working in housing my entire career long long time and um i have to say i'm really i've never seen anything quite like the awareness today of uh of a problem of poverty and housing i mean look at it even here tonight i mean the members of the public the legislature the council everybody is aware of this problem is thinking about it and trying to find solutions and um you know uh and in a very practical level uh over the last two months we've been meeting with uh city officials bill has been graded organizing that uh from barry and berlin and mont pillier and brainstorming and coming up with things that we can actually do to make a difference so i guess the way that i'm trying to look at this is that maybe this is a point in time we're actually going to turn a corner and begin to really address a very vexing and challenging problem in a very fundamental way so uh that's what i'm hopeful for so i you know i appreciate the tough job our legislators have and and thank you for you know for going at it thanks a lot thanks rick um i don't think i see anyone else in the room seeking to be recognized oh okay come on up no one sorry nolyn carver board one mont pillier um you know after the pandemic and during the pandemic i realized that the value of life here in mont pillier comes back to human beings when main street was empty i acknowledge every passing by human being and we were all equals in that moment well as it turns out throughout history from time to time our society deteriorates corrupts in some way the people suffer and struggle um we are considering political and economic solutions to essentially a humanitarian crisis i simply am here to remind you all as a vermontan as a strong vermontan in a strong tradition um we are after all equals um human beings and if this crisis could educate us in one at least one one way um it would to me point to the fact of a really profound question um do we value each other are we able to care for one another um and are we willing you know to be humane um i look around and i see um this divisiveness and um these controversies play out um where where is the humanity and and if we can if we can you know look there i think if we look there into the heart of things um i think that will be the long term solution uh to our um existential crisis crisis and crises thank you thanks um i'm not seeing anyone else in the room seeking to be recognized um if there's anyone on zoom who's not had a chance to speak and would like to be recognized please flip on your hands up uh button okay i am not seeing anybody um thanks so much for being here it's uh i appreciate coming out you're coming out knowing that you were not everything you're going to be here hearing this would be totally complimentary and i uh totally appreciate that dana us maybe to help gather supporters when you need them at the state house or you need letters written we you know we can help you too okay yeah i i i got a chance to testify on uh on the housing bill and uh i appreciated that opportunity we we want to work with you and i think it's not just us it is also the executive branch um we believe them when they told us they had it all hands on deck plan to deal with this and it has not materialized we can put forth every bill we want next week but if it gets vetoed i don't know where we go we if we do not have a budget by july 1st our understanding and in the first year of this governor's term um his first term we went till june 28th before we got a budget signed if we at that point we were told and there's it's a constitutional interpretation thing but basically if we do not appropriate the money there's no continuation of essential services state government shuts down july 1st so that's kind of the box that we're in um this administration doesn't talk to us a whole lot they just wait till the end and they veto and we're here and it is very difficult and very frustrating so talk to us but also talk to the administration and let them know that this you know they get voted for too um let them know that this is this is really what vermont wants um and turn the conversation around other than state government spending too much money yep great right one of my last comment on the state buildings like 110 state street if you did want to turn it housing the problem is there's no parking so it goes to your point bill like where would the parking be so i think it is something that we need to work with that saying all that parking that's behind there that's not being used because the state workers aren't showing up state should be required to use some of those parkings to go with 110 because right now i think there's two spots that go with 110 state street so it would be difficult yeah yeah right over the whole lot well we have somebody on institution so where else that city does not control and there there is a whole system for setting up the rules so i think we should look into finding out who really does make those decisions is it the legislature or is it what's the cause of the complex capital complex commission i think they make a lot of those rules and we we need to check i know they do love the design yeah our ownership so we'll get to that yeah all right all those lovely things if i can add one thing i just want to say that i heard uh councilor brown on uh having more frequent and in-depth conversations and so um you know if or when you want to schedule another time to to chat certainly open welcome to take great thanks us uh during the session there was a time where um there was somebody from the city there every Tuesday morning at eight o'clock um i was one of them um but that was a time to catch your your representatives before they get so bogged down in committee and and that's helpful because maybe represent Casey just as you but we had 13 14 15 i think we have 16 towns now we represent in the senate that's a lot of local meetings to get to thanks folks this has been great um i think that it's a little bit early for it but i think this will be a time for us to take our 10 minute break and we'll reconvene at 8 20 hi folks i'm over Joyce i'm the chair of the Montpelier public arts commission i have been for nearly two years it's a small commission and so that's why i haven't necessarily been replaced but we are working effectively and so we've just kept our officers in place the the reason that i'm here today is to make sure you understand what we're doing as a commission because you you may not we haven't i haven't come and talk to you so what i'm going to go through is a collection of the work that we've done in the last couple years um and then i'm going to ask you to give us the ability to have a budget that we can spend from without having to come back to you all the time so a limited set of buckets that we can spend money in in in ways that i'll explain down okay so the goals for the meeting is to familiarize you with what we're doing discuss our operating budget show you our recent accomplishments and present our work plan for next year in the process we'd like to seek the council's authorization to spend from four specific budgets um that'll all be within the amount of money that we already have in our coffers we're technically asked to come before you to spend anything and if we can actually get authorization to have four buckets of spending from you then we would be able to spend within those and i think that would be easier so the the categories that we'd like to spend money from is maintenance of pieces installation of signage at existing pieces we want to commission two to four numerals at the gateway park which is opposite the cemetery and we would like to commission a large piece at the transit center which got built about five years ago the front room is an absolutely empty room with two big walls and we'd like to commission an avanaki piece for that this winter and then we'd like to have a fifth budget which is to commission new projects so we're asking for the ability to the pre approval to use 16 000 of the 25 000 that we have in our operating budget i'm not going to read all these but these are my my ability to remember what i came here to talk to you about so um this is the commission's priorities as defined in the city charter and i'm not going to go through all these but it's it's our goal to to commission and maintain public art within the city and to raise funds to do it so we not only have to commission it but we're also responsible for maintaining it which is why one of our budgets that we asked for was for the maintenance of work so the members of the art commission are um recently monica giovanni d giovanni resigned so the rest of the folks on the upper list are still on the commission um josh gerome is shown there but he's a city rep so it's interesting we were founded sorry what it was after the public arts master planning in 2020 and the master plan called for the city to give us 50 000 a year to commission and maintain public art and in the four subsequent years we've been given 20 15 0 and 10 so in four straight years we've received less than one quarter of what we were anticipated so we have 26 000 currently and so we've spent 25 or 20 uh these are the projects we did in 2023 and i'm going to show you some images of them so i'll skip over it um so the largest piece that we did last year was on the side of shaw's and what's significant about this project was we only spent five thousand dollars but we did a twenty thousand dollar piece um both mr um who's the owner of shaw's hammer law thank you very much tim mr hammer gave ten thousand dollars and shaw's contributed money the city put in some money but the art commission we raised ten thousand dollars of private funds so our goal is the art commission is to try to leverage the public in investment and to partner with them so this very big piece 150 feet long was commissioned with only five thousand dollars of public money we had 55 submissions from around the world for this and we chose a very talented artist out of milwaukee who came in and did the piece out at the gateway park which is opposite the cemetery you know if you're driving out to the dairy queen there's like 21 pylons and we got the state's permission to paint as many as we can manage to do over the next five years caroline Shapiro and the cemetery commission collaborated with us on this piece and two were done last year and we're hoping to do two more this summer we um gave a thousand dollars to a berry granite sculptor who donated this piece and brought it to the high school we provided a thousand dollars just for the installation i presume you saw the red oculus which we gave i think 500 dollars and located this year it got public input and is and became then a video um salon last winter this fabulous mural was put on the back of the rec center was done with high school students again very low cost piece and in the art studio at the high school five students painted this piece and then we installed it so again a very inexpensive piece that has replaced a 20 year old mural on the back of the building and it's way prettier than this photograph it's a very strong piece another piece that we supported was a video um presentation on buildings and more painlier live and the art commission together purchased a projector so this is an ongoing project i'm sorry for the um the piece that jumps in the middle of all the photographs but i think you can see around it um we also identified the need to move the challenger memorials from the bottom of the life national life drive and we brought it to the grounds of the high school and we paid for the uh the reinstallation of that or we we took charge of it but i think actually national life contributed the money so we just simply coordinated the project we also commissioned three uh inexpensive murals the two on the right were done on on canvases that we hung and the one on the left was painted on a building these were each about five hundred dollar pieces so one of the things that i hope you're gathering is that we've been using our twenty thousand dollars very judiciously and trying to commission impactful work that wasn't extremely expensive so these are all the two on the right are temporary because they're up on canvases the one on the left is permanent i'm on the side of shipy and then we also gave a commission for what we call the screens which became vandalized and faded and so recently Montpelier high school art students again painted 10 panels that we just reinstalled there so the commissioners not only coordinated it paid for the cost of the projects but then we went out and installed the work and i presume most of you've seen it because the pieces are really quite fun um those we just hung those last week the other piece that we're working on right now is we intend to buy this three um closed pin piece and we're seeking for a place to install it so we're coordinated the installation it's a twenty thousand dollar piece but the money has been raised from the rotary club and Montpelier alive has helped us and we may not have to contribute any public money but we're coordinating what will be a pretty large scale permanent installation um we were hoping to put it next to Shaw's we're still working on that okay i got through that very quickly so in conclusion of the twenty six thousand dollars that we have at our disposal we would we seek your pre-approval to have those five buckets of expenditures so our commission can continue to judiciously commission maintain and put signage on artworks around the city and if i don't have another image you know i don't so that's it so i'd be happy to answer answer any questions about the work we do or about the my request our request to have some spending spending latitude with our budget great thank you first off great job of leveraging our money with the money from other sources it really makes a difference because as you know we have not always been able to appropriate the money that we would like to appropriate um i should point out that the sculpture in front of the high school was done by Montpelier high school graduate Sean Williams and uh last summer and this summer he was and is the sculptor in residence at the st. godin's national historic site over in new hampshire um also i'm hearing a lot of a lot of great comments about the the new uh panels uh next door to Shaw's thank you people are definitely noticing that yeah um now could you talk a little bit about the uh the public participation and how you go about doing that because you know we've we've heard about that in in in times fast in a bad piece particularly in general what do you how do you elicit public participation well it's it's it's our responsibility what every piece comes up to try to reach out and get um broad public participation so we've generally the rfp's we have out right now we're going through the vermont state arts council we're publishing them on seven days and in times argus and we're trying to get multiple um applicants for every piece so we do it that way for Shaw's we we built a commission of some community members and Shaw's and the art commission and Montpelier alive and we did a jury in which we debated and talked about the work on many on many um levels and so not only would do we try to bring people in but also the evaluation of the pieces we try to make by a committee okay thanks any other members of council Donna so do you have any public involvement when you are are having an rfp response do you have public comment actually hear that presentation and share in their opinions or i don't think we've done that as broadly as say the when we did the turntable at the at the center that was a very very public commission with public meetings and i think that would be that would be great the biggest piece we've done so far was Shaw's and we had six or seven people as part of the group that evaluated it so there was some Montpelier alive people so I don't think we've gotten to the place where we've we haven't commissioned anything really significant or permanent except for Shaw's and so if we like for instance the um clothes pin piece um um because that was done out at the um um have uh I want to say taff's corners but the old uh the art center out in in callous it was um what's that called can't museum hence museum yeah it was done for that and the commission just felt it was a strong piece because it related to the clothes pin history and we actually asked the artist whether we could buy it from them and install it so on some things the commission sort of acts out of our in our own judgment about what is good stuff and other times like for the mural park out by under the interstate we've put out an RFP for with a two month period of time and we're hoping people will respond to it from the public um so well it was really I mean I do I'm very impressed with your responses from your RFPs for the projects but when you did the turntable at the transit center those projects that came in when you were making that decision that presented in here was incredible to experience yeah it was a whole different understanding of the project as far as I was concerned and maybe I've missed it maybe it's posted with your minutes online that you're coming up and you're having people come in to be interviewed but I I would like some of that to be more public yeah I mean you're still making your decision but maybe sometimes just it educates all of us yeah make it more important for everybody yep a little support group call yeah now bring it back bring it back to the group is a way of um it is it's public engagement it actually extends the value of what we do yes appreciation and praise you know we're um yeah we're um um yeah we're yes I don't say it to be a weighted responsibility I say it to to have your own cheering group right no no I agree I think that's a great great point Donna thank you uh Tim think one of course Tim exciting I think so the transit center piece was one that is probably a good example of the maintenance in this budget you're proposing because that one I'd love to see it moved out and be more accessible I think it gets hidden and lost where it was installed and people are not using it or enjoying it it's it's actually I tried turning it you can't even turn it right no I you're like a gorilla yeah with that man so that that piece other one's like a couple other pieces as the arts commission involved in like the mural on the parking lot at 60 state interestingly that's a mobiliar alive piece okay mobiliar life as a design committee and Katie's here I think she's where she was here um and mobiliar alive has taken a new liking for public art so we're actually finding that we're both working on that but that's really a Rob Hitzig piece the the um parking lot parking lot isn't it yeah so I mean I'd like to think I'd it's the city it's yours the 15 least you know I'd like to think that we're creating a bit of a movement you know I mean I spent some time doing parklets and we got a parklet program and Rob painted a parking lot and so our goal is to ride the kind of momentum that we've developed as a city and in in art and so we're trying sensitively to find the best buildings find the best places painting a parking lot is really just as good as a building except it wears down quicker and so we're we're sampling and we're trying to learn and we're trying to adjust like I can the piece at the at the transit center I think there's plenty of room to talk about ways that it might have been different and we're going to learn from that I don't think we would do that again so every everyone is perhaps a learning experience yeah thanks and if we don't spend sorry about my throat if we don't spend a lot of money on each one then we can learn from it without having invested too much if you want to talk they should go ahead go ahead if anyone want to talk watch talk they can still talk I want to make a motion that we approve the $16,000 as listed here in the five pockets okay um any member of the public who wishes to address this and and Kerry you're you're still here I don't know if you have any comment you'd like to make all right if we're ready to vote all those in favor signify by saying aye aye and is anyone opposed okay it's it's approved thanks for coming in yeah for sure you're done I got it I know I enjoy coming here please get 10 more thousand spent thanks okay we're up now to item number 10 the budget for the downtown improvement district and the perfect segue in yes mine says number 10 on one version and 11 on another version so so welcome Katie hello everybody you can hear me fine yep um so this is my first time at this so feel free to ask questions or if I forgot to include something that you need to know about let me know um I also included I believe you have a copy of uh the budgets from 20 to and 23 um and how they compare so I'm going to give a short presentation so you know what to expect for this upcoming year and you can see some reflections on previous years and for anyone who doesn't know you could you mention your name my name Katie Trouts and I'm the new executive director for Montpelier alive um and I just wanted to point out that there are no major changes in the budget from fiscal year 2022 to 2023 but there are just there's just a little bit of shifting of funds as I'll point out in the presentation in part because we finished a huge project that much of 2020 2022's funds went towards which was our new website um I believe last year there was 14 000 allocated for that and now it is complete so I've moved that money around a little bit in the budget for this coming year um here we have just a general idea of the types of things that Montpelier alive does for our community um supporting businesses as they grow and change this is the new partner Maddie at Splash um and they are expanding into Guitar Sam's space in downtown um we support our businesses in many different ways um to make for a vibrant downtown and here we have the flowers this year three of our volunteers who have been doing this for a very long time uh beautifying our downtown um it's really stunning every time those flowers come out it's a major indication of change of season whoops I meant not to do that but that was all species day at the bottom we support events and that's what some of this DID funding goes towards as well and all species day is one of those events that really defines our identity here in Montpelier and um we love supporting uh events like that um bringing community together and and strengthening our community and bringing visitors to downtown um here I'm just demonstrating the marketing in 2022 we moved 35,000 into marketing and here I'm moving a little bit more in the direction towards beautification and that's the change that you see here and that's in part because we completed that website that major project but in marketing um you'll also notice that just at the beginning of this year we launched a new adventure website I hope that you visit both of these websites the montpelieralive.com and then the new one which you can link to from montpelieralive.com but you can also find it here adventure.montpelieralive.com and um it demonstrates our our deep connection with the outdoors and outdoor rec and how that growing industry is affecting downtowns across Vermont and we are jumping on board with that by having this new website and pushing a lot of traffic there visual traffic there to find out about our wonderful resources here including the new mountain bike trails so um we we have finished that but the new website and the adventure site do need some improvements so we will be funding that a little bit much less than last year and our tourism brochure which is a really nice brochure that was put together a couple of years ago we will need to reprint and restock those and those go across Vermont in welcome centers and visitor centers in strategic locations including the burlington airport and then one of the goals that I've had is to increase our reach beyond the border so I think there's a lot of opportunity to connect with Canada and Quebec so our out of state marketing I put a little bit more into that category than than last year in hopes of making that connection and specifically Vermont public we're collaborating with them and they do reach into Quebec quite a lot so we're talking with them about how we can do that more as well as Boston which is something we usually try to do is bring people up from Boston oops we did that I'm going backwards how do I go forwards down here oh okay I have a Mac this is a PC there we go um this I I believe you've seen before but this is what guides our marketing we did a market research study a couple of years ago and this is what really informed our outdoor site as well what people enjoy doing here seasonal activities outdoor activities and we also take many moments to celebrate our culinary scene which is a part of our marketing across the board and we see that we draw a lot of visitors and and people relocating here who are 61 plus range in terms of age and I believe that shows us that we need to be marketing towards that but also complimenting that with some outreach towards younger audiences so that's been a focus as well all the long it has and we want to continue that these are a few accolades we've received number one best small town for shopping and best north eastern small town to visit largely a part of of the efforts that we've put into our marketing for Montpelier and this is by USA Today 10 best competition which is a national vote no I don't want to sign out I don't think I pressed that sign out okay that's the zoom isn't it okay thank you moving on to some of our beautification efforts um previously and going forward uh last year's uh DID I put 20 000 into beautification efforts and this year again I I moved some of the marketing into the beautification efforts um the downtown flowers program is something we all should be supporting all the time it's so beautiful um and it takes a lot of effort uh and a lot of maintenance so we pay somebody to water those flowers all summer and I tell you it's been very dry and it's hard to stay on top of so uh we want to make sure that if we're investing in putting the flowers out that we can continue to maintain them um and then there's some new plantings to recognize in front of city hall city hall plaza we had two volunteers replant much of those gardens and they have a hope that they can be better maintained so that we don't have to keep replanting them so they added some fencing and and got our the water to continue to water those and then there's hope that if there's more funding there and that that grows then we can um hire people to maintain these beautiful gardens that we're trying to start um and I also downtown seasonal decorations and illumination we have always done garlands on the lamp posts that you might have seen and wrap them in lights and I've been comparing our city with many other cities and noticing that um there's a lot more potential for more illumination projects and in downtown and um just beautifying the natural cityscape that we have and so we will be purchasing more lights and we've been talking with a lighting designer about providing more decorative lighting during the darker times of year um so that's one of our bigger projects that we're working on and we'll continue to support the efforts in public art as word outlined this was a collaborative piece um on the Shaw's wall and I can't I now I can't even imagine that wall white I mean it's become such an essential part of our every day and I think a lot of the art and in town is like that we're also um helping with the public engagement piece a little bit I wanted to mention um we have somebody on the design committee who has a professional background in public engagement around art she worked at the hood museum um and she will be helping us and the public arts commission um to I to do the signage that they're talking about and she'll be consulting um with them a little bit on on that piece and trying to get the public more involved with art that is already downtown um I mentioned many of these projects from 2022 um specifically you can see 900 feet of fresh garland 60 wreaths on 60 light poles and then the plans for some new seasonal lights plus continuing doing all of those things you may have noticed the new m benches around town that were just installed this week um their color is so vibrant and just brings to life and also accentuates the flowers and the plantings um and and they provide a space for people to sit and talk or even play games on one of the m benches by the school school street and main street intersection the top of the m bench has game boards just so you know so you can go and play a game of tic-tac-toe or checkers with a random person who's sitting across from you so really trying to help people engage with one another in downtown um and then this upcoming year our plans in the public art category is repainting the louis parking lot mural and in fact i'll disclose that that painting that's planned is also going to be very interactive um trying to get people to explore the painting more and um i can tell you more about these specific projects if you want um that one will be done by sabrina fedial um new flags across the river and projections across town we have this projector we want to use with this downtown illumination and seasonal lighting project we want to use it more um we take inspiration from places like kebec city uh in montreal where illumination is such an important part of their winters i mentioned the new city hall by the planting and the maintenance going forward and here's some examples of what we have done um i talk about projection this is what i'm talking about fun projections uh across town during the winter months um and here's one of the m benches and this one has the game boards as you can see and then this is kind of an example of how uh plantings and flowers can bring a street to life and make it just look so much more attractive so i believe that the more that we invest in in that uh the more beautiful our streets are going to be and more welcoming oops wrong button yeah here we are event grants um is another area uh you know we do a lot of events in downtown montpelier um and we have an event grant round that has been uh there's been funding there from the d id as well five thousand dollars uh in previous years and hopefully five thousand going forward um and this grant round if you aren't already aware of it um we put like a an application out there for community members to do their own events and with a panel um with montpelier live and uh other representatives we decide on a small number to fund and support because we believe that these events are are very important to our downtown as well as i stated thousands of visitors coming downtown to not only watch the event but to eat and to shop um to stay and it's really important to our local economy um and these events strengthen our community we have july third coming up um which is something that people really count on every summer and a place where we can connect downtown and other communities come and connect with us downtown um and they create so much vibrancy uh you can see we have uh a few of examples from previous uh grant rounds that we've had here um we always try to integrate uh events that have youth that are diverse um that have youth engagement that are diverse and um and really fun to watch and and listen to this is the honeybee steel band they will be in our parade this year they also played for a halloween event this is animal dance uh there's going to be a huge dance performance on the state house lawn um and this is scrag mountain music's performance um which we we really like the events that they do and try to fund them each year and this is july third um just an example of what it means to bring people together and um i i love seeing these photos with 10 000 people on the state house lawn um enjoying our downtown enjoying the celebration um the show whether it's a concert or fireworks um and i hope that you will all be joining us on july third coming right up so that's the summary of what we've done and what we plan to do um and no great changes uh and i hope that you will continue to support our efforts thanks katie this is great to feel good agenda items in a row to what to feel good items in around with that yeah thank you don by one of your volunteers that we as a council don't do very well thanking monthly you're live volunteers and she really had a good point we probably could do better with all of our committees but since you're here i i said to her my response i said i'm trying to really make sure when we hear from monthly you're live which we usually do a couple times a year that i express this and i really want to go a step beyond and ask the city council to write a letter of appreciation and have all of us sign it i've got a little draft here uh city staff probably can do a better job at something along the lines of thanking to all of monthly you're live volunteers who graciously give their time energies and skills to the beautification i like your word of our downtown there your service services are steady consistent and improve to make our city more attractive and more lively with events something along that line so i make a motion that we do this letter that we all sign it and and forward it to monterey live forward and they can share it with their volunteers so my suggestion would be why don't we get a draft of it put it on the consent agenda next week and then after you prove it you can both circulate and have it signed my next meeting after i should have made a motion i should have said is it is it a general idea that people approve of so you could email it yeah i think i just wanted to mention we recently put a report out that and counted each of our volunteers in the course of a single year we have over 70 volunteers um in many of the these areas that i've identified but mostly in the beautification um but 70 volunteers who actually make it work we're only one and a half staff members officially hired a couple contracted employees but um mostly volunteer so it's greatly appreciated the recognition people love the flowers love the uh all the stuff you do to decorate downtown the events the parade everything so hey that's a great idea Donna anything else from the members of the council okay so i want you to make a motion to approve the budget yep second okay any discussion all those in favor signify by saying aye aye anyone oppose okay i'll just say that since kate George has been a delight to work with and so if any of them are really alive and people are listening to that um we've really appreciated working with you and getting stuff down in really great communication between all of us so thanks oh and before you sit down could you or Evelyn could you unshare doing a lot of coordination you said uh with the public arts are you also doing it with the parks um yes for the marketing well for the whole outside adventure destination and good absolutely that's um completely a collaborative experience and in fact i believe that there's a whole other phase of that collaboration and um it's going to affect the build out of that adventure site over the next couple years yeah thanks fun okay thank you now we are on to item 11 or 12 depending on which version of the agenda you're looking at the public second reading on the proposed ordinance for public intoxication and i'll start by opening the public hearing and so as you know this is our second meeting of this ordinance chief i don't know if you want to do the quick highlights of what we're proposing i can yeah my name's eric norton son of police chief and i'm hoping for three in a row so for three good things that broke um the the primary objective of this ordinance was to decriminalize a lot of behaviors that we're seeing in town and offer a restorative option and also uh an opportunity for treatment so when we're looking at two in a row i think this is three that the options that we are presenting are very good for the end user and the person that we deal with um i think you have the ordinance and the rewrite the revisions in front of you um i've also shared the policy and made the correction that you noticed uh last time on there um there's simple typos sometimes get me um but yeah i think you know it's been supported by turning point it's been supported by the police review committee i think uh it's been supported by the community justice center and i think we'll see some benefits if we can help one person that's suffering from any issues and get restorative justice and turning point we've done a pretty good job so great any any members of the public who'd like to address this issue either in the building or on zoom seeing none oh uh tim very carefully and thoroughly done just didn't understand for example it says it several times but first defense in 12 months period shall be punished by fine of $50 and then it says the waiver fee shall be $25 what's the waiver fee so so what happens when you issue a civil ticket is they have two separate fines and if you accept the fine and just pay it that's the waiver fee otherwise if you go to court we would be the prosecutor the court the fee could go up to that number so there's there's usually two fines so if you just say hey i'm gonna go pay this the waiver fee is what you can pay thanks comment on this i mean it would happen at this meeting wouldn't yeah yeah we've had two opportunities plus the time we presented it and um and then just met with stakeholders that seemed pretty supportive on all of it yeah good okay um um i will pose the public hearing and we would entertain a motion as presented any discussion yes lauren is there like i saw and what's in the um in the packet that like one of the sentences cuts off is that what you said there was a typo that got there was uh i had a typo in our draft policy okay and i don't know if this is the exact language we're adopting that's in the cover letter or just because i see the like the last um right before effective date on the final page it says as pair i think it's city charter but it doesn't say that just just we'll just add that just get that wording right it's not a dangling pair um so i mean friendly amend or just fix that believe it yeah um and i just well i have the microphone just wanted to thank the chief this is again just reiterating appreciation for continuing with um you know the important work that the police review committee did and it's great to see this move um in this direction i think it's a great upgrade to our policy um and definitely saw some chatter on some thread for the police review committee folks who are still really interested in just um overall appreciation there too so just thank you all right are you ready to vote all those in favor signify by saying aye hi any opposed all right we've adopted it thank you thank you next up east state street reconstruction project cart while you're getting set up i'll just mention yep i i appreciate the quick response to the request for the speed limit sign on on town street my neighbors were asking for it and just like that it was up there so i i know i know people in the neighborhood really appreciated that some issues are easy to fix yeah i noticed that too so kurt you're up okay can you hear me yep all right i'm kurt modica director public works so uh here to talk about the east state street reconstruction project um just a brief overview of that project we are separating the storm water out of the sewer system to reduce combined sewer overflows from the river and reconstructing east state street including all the utility work which is a water sewer storm as well as streetscape and as part of our funding approval for this project we need to hold a public hearing um on the environmental impacts of the project we did in our environmental review so i will open the public hearing yes great thank you yeah uh so we did an environmental review and really the only impact noted was work within the floodplain so as a part of the project is along state street to bring a new stormwater outfall to the river and that work is in the floodplain so like i said as part of the funding clearance this is in a public hearing to address comments or concerns on potential other environmental impacts on the project if if the public has any open it to thank you the the chair will recognize any member of the public who wishes to be heard on this item seeing none we'll close the public hearing you'd need any further action from us or just the fact that we did it okay all right next up uh 2023 project update this is our first big major presentation uh has just done a great job on this you may recall at uh when we did the orientation we did a quick list of all the projects and is in a sort of an attempt to help our new members become more familiar as well as the public and remind ongoing council members of exactly uh at least the big things that are on our table we just want to run through so this is basically run through just an update of what's on the plate and obviously happy to answer any questions about any of them but it's really an informational piece and i'll turn it over to our communications coordinator Evelyn Primm timed intro bill um so as everybody uh are most of the people in this room know i uh i'm Evelyn Primm and the communications coordinator for the city um and so i'm going to give a uh a very high level overview of the projects um that are i'm sorry interrupt i don't think you're sharing that thank you let's see it's so hard to tell when it's shared and no okay yes all right take two so yes all right i think they'll hide down there okay uh so yeah just again to reiterate so i'm going to give a very high level overview of these projects um they're in uh some level of progression um one way or the other i am involved in some of these to varying degrees but i'm not going to get into the details uh here um and i'll ask that you direct all project specific questions to the appropriate department leader um as they'll be able to give you a much better uh detailed answers that are here yeah all right why are we not moving oh my gosh right yes my screen is frozen there we go all right so uh starting right off with the crowd favorite country club road uh this project is a joint effort between the planning and community development department and the city manager's office um and as you all know this project is transitioning from the planning stage to the preparation phase uh the budget for this master planning uh phase one is 400 000 and as we all know this is a long-term project so the timeline spans several years um the next action item um for the project team is to propose the actionable master plan um and that'll happen at the next city council meeting on june 28th um and the proposal will outline the specific steps needed to move from concept to implementation um also the city will continue master planning activities with the recreation department uh to develop the proposal for the recreation community zone that has been designated on the on the project site uh moving right along the water resource recovery facility uh is uh this is one of several dpw projects um on deck tonight this project is underway and it involves the odor control a secondary settling tank uh the rehab of a biosolids drying um station and the evaluation of heating alternatives for dpw facilities uh the design is expected to be completed by the end of the month and the construction is anticipated to start in december of next year uh the current action is uh the final design contract uh next up is the berry and main street intersection uh so this is continuing right along with dpw's uh projects um and uh this is a complex project because it involves many overlapping uh state and local jurisdictions the the budget for this project is 550 000 and construction is projected to begin next summer and the current next action is to execute the final design contract right next up is east state street um as kurt just mentioned um another down uh downtown dpw project this project is currently in the final design phase and preparing to go out to bid this summer for contract one uh the project is uh has two contracts each covering a portion of the work and the total budget for this project is uh anticipated at 7.2 million and the next action is to prepare the process for bidding right we have the city plan next um and this is another multi-year effort that has been underway since 2018 only a review of the earlier approved um or only a review of the earlier approved drafts uh of the homelessness section and housing components are left the planning department is expecting to have a draft of this plan completed by october of this year and the next step is to finish the chapter and the um the is development and prepare for rollout um and public input and i will be assisting the planning department on putting together the storyboard for this project which align with the public input process uh the reappraisal is currently underway as um city assessor barney logger said mentioned um back at the beginning of may uh it's currently underway and um so marty will be a guest on the very first episode of our new podcast a minute in montpelier um so be sure to tune in to that on uh spotify on june 29th uh to listen to our first show and he's going to go into all the details next is the stormwater utility back again to dpw um this project was underway but is currently on hold due to staffing um a quick reminder for those who may not be familiar with this the stormwater utility is a fund to help replace aging infrastructure and maintenance uh and fund maintenance operations uh and water quality projects the water sewer rates are also being reviewed in conjunction with the stormwater utility um so in a nutshell the utility will be funded through a fee based on area that on areas that contribute to stormwater runoff um and dpw anticipates uh this will be implemented um in the summer uh next next summer in july right um we've got confluence park coming up um so this is another project that you've had uh several excellent presentations on so i'm not going to rehash much of the details tonight um but at this point the contractor is currently finishing up the design contract and the scope of the services include the final design uh plans uh c8 the cap amendment construction costs estimates final technical specifications final operations and maintenance plan and securing permits um and the design is expected to be completed by this summer um at which time the vermont river conservancy will continue uh fundraising for construction um and that is what i just said um the proposed u32 trail uh jumps over to the parks department um and this is on the the horizon the parks department is currently working on uh are currently working with property owners to secure the location of the trail and gain permission um from them to construct it and the current budget is anticipated at uh 980 um thousand and the uh yeah the next the next action item is uh to to move forward with land homer landowner permission and permits some other parks projects on the horizon um is improving the downtown tree wells to accommodate larger older growth trees removing four dams in the city and creating a trail connecting the downtown hubbard park and the west park neighborhood um in the north branch park and the pool on rec fields um going back over to dpw the uh converting the dpw garage and equipment barn to net zero the plan is to convert the buildings to a combination of biogas and wood pellet heat sources um they are currently awaiting design and budget for the contractors and engineers the project is contingent on the water resource recovery recovery facility phase two design um and the next action is to be determined lots of other dpw projects this is one of two slides um so there's a long list here that you can that you can review um continuing on down there right the cemetery commission is working to renovate the vault building at green mount cemetery to meet their growing needs the project would be a total rehabilitation of the historic structure into a modernized building with a heating chapel uh bathrooms and office space um i'll be speaking with uh cemetery commissioner pat haley and members of the commission in september on our podcast um so i'm sure we'll get a chance to talk about all those details so tune in there as well the public restroom um our legislative delegation uh commented on this quite a bit but montpelier's newest committee has been tasked with evaluating the needs for a public restroom in the downtown um the results of their work thus far has been a map and a list of current public restroom locations um in ours which is available on the city's website and we are working with uh the committee to get this in a handout form that we can distribute to montpelier alive and businesses and any uh any public entities that would like a copy as well um and they have also placed uh portalets behind the uh behind city hall in the blanchard lot and at the senior activity center to provide a restroom option during the underserved um overnight hours and their next action is is in the works at this point as well installation of ev chargers um so this is to support the city's fleet transition to electric vehicles to meet net zero goals the project is in development and we are in currently awaiting the design and budget from electrical contractors for chargers at uh mpd and city hall um again the homelessness uh facility that the legislative delegation spoke on extensively so this is another project um that is a um a would be a multi-purpose facility to support the under housed people in our community um so a feasibility study and asbestos testing are underway at the rec center building on berry street um as this is being considered as a possible location for the facility the budget for the restoration work needed is approximately uh 50 000 to rehab the country club road building and possibly uh several million to make improvements to the rec center um and the next actions are in the works based on those assessments um and the future of berry uh the berry rec center is uh basically in line exactly with um the assessment on the uh the asbestos facility um and again that next action is to bd um and the timeline will depend on that study and that is all i have thank you so much this is really great thanks everyone any comments or questions from members of the council is very comprehensive yeah kerry i see you've got your hand up so your hand yes thank you um i have a question about the public restroom topic um so i noticed there's a budget listed there of 180 000 for an attendant for the city hall restrooms and i would like to know a little bit more detail about where that number came from so the the so there is no budget i think um just to be clear it was estimate of what it would cost i think at some point there'd been a request to possibly have city hall restrooms open uh 24 hours and so we did an estimate of what it would cost to have an attendant here full time you know over the nights um but there's no there's no budget for that it's just that was uh i believe chris lumber put that together i would love to know more detail about where the where 180 000 came from so uh yes we'd be happy to provide that i think you know 24 hour coverage you're talking about three shifts uh of you know not during the day but weekends and so yes i i we can tell you where it came from okay great well i i guess i just want to suggest that 24 hour coverage might be excessive for um um you know restrooms that are currently open during the day to the public and are without 24 hour coverage so i also want to be clear we're not necessarily proposing that that be a solution that was a solution that was suggested to us and so we costed it out it was not something that i don't believe the public restroom committee has endorsed or the city is recommending so it was just to estimate if if we were to do that that's what it would cost it's not it's not a recommendation from me or our staff to that we do that i understand thank you kim just along the same line of that conversation so it seems like a lot of these are a little more i'm sorry a lot of these are dreams or goals or aspirations but not necessarily all approved budget items yet so we'll still be able to review them when they come up correct final all of them are projects that have been identified one way or another as something that's in our pipeline that we're working on as you can see some are you know very well detailed already approved budgets by voters and others and the whole point of this was sort of show which ones are where things are at and some are very conceptual and preliminary and others are fixed so yes that's exactly right but they're all there i think the point of this just to be clear is that they're all active things that city staff are working on in addition to you know the stuff that we all talk about here so you know there's plenty happening at different different stages you had a question actually you asked me during the break i'll be happy to answer it because other people may have the same question about confluence park whether that was or were not approved and for the for the new council members benefit and maybe one of the prior counselors can jump in here we did get a presentation in you know january february about confluence park and the potential costs and efforts and the city council at that point said you know basically we're not putting any more city money into this than what we've already allocated and they gave them 18 months i believe to sort of complete the design the designers from the grant that we have to complete the design and and seek funding from other sources so they didn't council didn't please correct me if i'm saying this around council didn't kill the project but also said we don't come to us for any more money than what we've already allocated that that's my recollection of it too you know there was a lot of discussion because that was in the lead up to city meeting and the budget vote and what are we doing with all the the bonds because we were amending the terms of that the bond that incorporated the funding for confluence park and we wanted to make clear to the voters that we nobody on council was supporting going spending any money any city money beyond the roughly 600 000 that had been voted by the voters in march of 2022 and no matter how i think it pays to keep repeating that to people that nobody here is supporting spending any more money on this project other than the money that was already been approved in a bond and the supporters of the project really were quite optimistic about their ability to raise the money which would get us up to two or three million dollars and so we said well okay you're you're entitled to we'll give you the shot because some of the money like that design contract is already committed and if we didn't go forward with that contract we would have to give the money back to the the funder that they gave it to us because it wasn't city funds and so they it's they have the opportunity to to show us that the money's there before 18 months before we go forward um with anything more donna back on what you and bill said we did give them 18 months but the idea was that then we could reassess whether we still wanted to hold that money as defined or as applying to with the confluence park or not but until then we're holding it to give them a chance to make up the money difference yeah there were some people who wanted to on council wanted to reprogram that money immediately others have said well let's let's give them the chance and and see where we come out okay any other questions before we thank everyone okay thanks okay i i don't think we have any other business so city council reports start at this end of the table tonight miss hurrell uh couple quick things um just for the record during the ledge update i just remembered the p-fast bill which so this is a bill that would ban p-fast for more products so less is going into the landfill and ultimately leachate um that passed the senate but it is sitting in the house so that will probably be on our agenda again next year to finish the job just uh because the legislators couldn't remember the feds aren't doing that they aren't banning it no i mean there's things happening but the epa it's like in 15 years they'll probably get around to banning it and the states in the meantime can act the e-u is moving ahead with like a full scale ban potentially though it's our way ahead of us but um the only other updates um the popular energy committee is having a strategic planning session next week so if anyone has ideas it's a time when we're going to really be looking at ideas and priorities so we'd welcome if people have thoughts um you know feel free to shoot a message or pop in for the public comment at the beginning or or anything but you know it's a time um you know and welcome the public to offer ideas too because that's when we can really think creatively about you know how we're meeting our net zero goals um and you know we've got the specific city goals but also um you know it's a moment there's so many new federal incentives and things so are there ways that we can be you know letting our community members know about opportunities to be taking advantage of that kind of stuff so um just wanted to so that's Tuesday evening 6 30 to 9 in city council chambers um or the room the room here and um I guess my only last question was I couldn't exactly tell from how the retreat conversation ended it looked like it was inconclusive from the meeting that I apologize I missed the end of okay yeah it's not inconclusive if we we decided that do it it's a matter of finding a date we're finding a date too busy everybody's so busy okay is there a doodle pole going and some summer is tough because people go away yeah okay uh tim just just because we received I think y'all received a piece from resilient my player an email today maybe I turn my side um just thinking it might be appropriate because it was addressed to all of us in the city manager that maybe to request that city staff assistant preparing a response to this there's several points in here cost of water system repairs and grand list and a couple of other pieces um just to make sure we get accurate information back to them if that's okay oh I don't know if I saw that but uh I kind of wrote all over my mind but I can get you think I did not see that I got it in my city email yeah that's right yeah okay I have to mention that okay I'll forward it to you just to be sure forward it to all of us yeah thanks and we are happy to provide great so no I was going to mention the the energy committee um planning meeting um so any ideas you've got Lauren and I will both be there so send it our way great uh Carrie I have no report tonight thanks Donna no thank you all right well it's very rare for you Donna I will know Mayor's report just a couple of items uh one I'll let all members of the council know that I did fill in the application for the mayor and council to march in the in the parade and um so those of us who've done it before know it's a lot of fun so I encourage all the members of the council to to be there and do it um more information to come I think news from the board of the wood art gallery we've we're going through a process of hiring a new executive director and the hiring committee has identified someone who will be uh is going to be identified interviewed by the board next week and I just was very surprised and gratified that we were able to get applicants so quickly because I know from my professional experience lately it's been very hard to get people to apply for anything so I think this is good news we get we seems like we had more than one uh very qualified applicant and so that's that's going to be coming um and all right I guess I'm going to stop at that because the next thing whatever is there is something that I can't read my handwriting on so I will I'm I'm sure I will siphon use mail yeah um up to the um work the lct training thing okay just mention that those if you're curious just the way it's going to play out after talking to the assessor's offices will probably start those actual bca hearings in late august when they'll begin and I'm just going to like grab thursdays and just rather than try to plan a new one every week just say every I think thursday at like six o'clock we're going to have it and just you know block off as many of those as you can because it's going to be a long haul do we know uh from the outcome of grievance day do you have any kind of estimate of how many people you know it's very hard to tell because we have we don't have the formal grievance process yet that comes up soon so there's been this sort of informal pre grievance um if you had you made me guess I would think it'd be around what it was last time which I think was around 60 um I think that's probably where we're headed yeah and within a few years before that we had 80 and so yeah so and I recall it started on august 21st that year yeah I could really jinx this by just saying 60 it definitely could be more but that's that's where I'm thinking we're going well I'm working on ideas to make the process go in a more streamlined fashion so hopefully that will get get us through the process faster so 80 will seem like 60 yeah city managers report sure uh it's worth it I don't have no information on the number but we certainly aren't hearing the kind of um outcry that we've heard in prior re-appraisals so I don't know whether that translates to less people grieving or going through the process but I you know and just haven't gotten that kind of feedback I only have a couple things um very brief and they touch on stuff we've already talked about so we have had been holding summits every week uh this week being the exception on Wednesdays with the cities cities of Mont Blu and Barrie in the town of Berlin and a large swath of the non-profit service providers in central Vermont and a couple representatives from the agency of human services and some interested residents that have been attending we've just been calling them summits on waiting to prepare for the exodus from the hotel and while we've talked some about the policy of extending the hotels we've really focused on what's just a summits going to happen and how do we prepare for what we're going to do but as part of that we discussed the funding that the states asked us to submit applications for and we went through a long list of things that might be helpful in the region and then divided those up by the appropriate sort of the logical group to apply for them so obviously good Sam's going to apply for shelter etc so the suggestion was that the city would apply for public restrooms because we need them and whether and and we've been trying to get the state public restrooms anyways but um so that was where it fell to us but I did not want to proceed with that uh we don't you know we're probably being attributed a term in location and you know we have to come up with some sort of budget but I wanted to at least just get a head nod around the table that that was where we were at I mean there was a lot of other things being applied for from central Vermont by all the various agencies um but that's where we're headed so if you hear that we've applied and you've been told that's yes okay here oh it's my mic yeah here you go okay um just just knowing that we're looking at like rec center possible upgrades or something for emergency shelter space is that part of the conversation so yeah um so I don't think the the amount of funding the state has for what would be even close to what would come to the rec and and you know we'll be getting that engineering report later this year one of the options that we're talking about and might tie into that will be those bathrooms so to figure out what it will take to can sort of upgrade on those bathrooms and showers and put a direct access in so you don't have to make the whole building accessible but people could go so those that is one of the options on the table um and then you know a couple others so I think we'll probably just apply for a sum of money with a couple of potential locations and I will sort of defer to the you know get the public bathroom meeting involved and uh and see what they'll think about it but we also also have some other money set aside so that you know the table could maybe do something like that so that's that's the thinking that we do not want to get out ahead of the council and or the public restroom committee as far as looking a location but if we can get some funding uh and you know in terms of in terms of information we received tonight uh that the state was willing to pay to keep the transit center bathrooms open uh all play that that was new information that we had not heard from any official source prior to today um yeah bill I did want to just I'm glad you mentioned about involving the public restroom committee with that proposal and um if you could get any thoughts to the committee before we meet next time or before you submit applications or something I think that would be really helpful um so that there's coordination so you can get that input and so because that committee's been talking about a lot of different approaches to public restrooms and and I think it doesn't meet again for another couple weeks so it's right and I've been coordinating with Chris to try to get you know him to translate what the idea is that the committee's been uh you know talking about and again I don't think I would send in any money with a specific proposal that this is what we want it would probably be we'd like x number of dollars here's some potential locations that this could go um so that we're not tied into anything I just because I agree there's a lot of items okay all set great we will be in adjournment at 941 p.m