 on January 2nd 2024. Happy New Year's item is the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice. Second item instructions on exiting the building in case of an emergency. Thank you for those who are joining us in the room. If we have an emergency in the room you can go out to the rear of the auditorium on the left or right and then turn left and right or right and go outside. For those who are joining us remotely thank you also for participating. If you would like to speak on any item on the agenda you can turn your camera on and the chair will call on you or you can indicate that you would like to chat or you would like to comment in the chat box and I will have the chair call on you. Thanks. Okay thank you. Agenda review. Are there any additions deletions or changes in order of agenda items? Seeing none. Any comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda? So please come forward sir and make sure the the yeah green light is nice and bright. It's on. Okay good enough. Helen I probably I knew you about 30 years ago or 40 years ago when I was 30 years ago when I was coaching soccer and ran into your husband at the time. My name is Jerry Spring. I lived in Burlington for probably 25 out of the last 50 years. I'm not young. I mean we moved to South Burlington about a year and a half ago after spending 15 years in Colorado and I must say my initial impression president of South Burlington has been very positive. I think whoever laid out the building plans did a great job especially there's a lot of housing but what caught my eye was the walkability and I think whoever did it deserves a lot of praise. That's not why I'm here. What I want to talk about is in the 16 months I've been here I drive a lot daily. I don't drive very very far but I go into town into Burlington quite a bit and I live in Dorset Street itself and Swiss Street so I go into town and almost daily I come across people running red lights. Who are pardoned? Running red lights. Oh okay. Not so much on Spear Street certainly not downtown the Central District of South Burlington on Marking Street there's probably too much traffic for that but it starts on Spear Street and gets aggregated as you approach Route 7 so Allen Road, Swiss Street, Farrell Street whatever that street by safe way becomes and runs into Route 7 almost every day and I think that you know I don't know what's caused it all and people can speculate it's more people moving here COVID a little disregard for everyone's politics and people you know splitting apart but I think that what you ought to at least study is the feasibility of putting cameras in place for for red lights and also for traffic. I can attest cameras do work I lived in Boulder for a couple years and the only ticket that I came across and my wife getting a speeding ticket from the camera she wasn't happy but it worked and very few people ran red lights there because there were cameras you probably don't need cameras everywhere but I think you should at least look at it because the message that people are getting is when it when light turns yellow you don't hesitate anymore you're just accelerating and I just worry about the 15 and 16 year old kids that are learning to drive and what message are they going to get is this the norm so I think you ought to look at it I mean you could avoid some very serious problems that over the next year or two and you certainly don't want to justify well we we have to spend $50,000 for cameras cameras aren't cheap you've got to monitor it you need a person there but you send the ticket out and so you get some money back to mitigate it with fines but hopefully people are going to recognize that running red lights and speeding is not ideal thing to do at least not as self-proven so I think the the future building you have there's more and more apartments going up as you all know because you've all approved them all uh what what I think you need to at least check out I mean there's going to be a lot of unintended consequences with all the building people are going to be walking from Market Street across across Dorset Street to the malls hopefully not taking their cars how are those people going to get across Dorset Street you're going to tell the car people there's oh there's 22 people walking across what's seven at night why are they doing that I think just the consequences of all the growth just me you'll look at it's going to impact city services I don't know what they are but you've got a lot of experts in the city that should look at it that's it thank you okay thank you very much is there anyone else you don't have anyone joining us oh okay all right knowing I'm in online you know online we don't have anyone okay so then if that's the end of comments and questions Mike were you here to make comments and questions on anything not on the agenda okay all righty um let's move on to counselors announcements and reports on committee assignments and then the city manager's report so Larry do anything to report there we go just quickly that just so I want to try to keep council apprised of the volunteer income tax assistance program the training is starting next week at Champlain College for Champlain and UVM students and community some community members uh want to make sure the public knows that if they'd like an appointment the cvoeo site is in the university mall again this year and in order to have an appointment you will need to call 211 later in the month it's not active yet and I'll keep everybody at price of that as we as we get closer to the start data on February 1st okay thank you yeah well since our last meeting I attended the affordable housing committee meeting and two things I just wanted to bring to your attention there was a proposed idea to merge the affordable housing committee and the housing trust fund committees and I I recommended and people agreed that we wait until you finish your term so that those committees can both discuss that idea prior to to anything moving forward the second was having to do with the new SR 100 act 47 40 is a 42 or 47 47 47 and our and our affordable affordability um the you know the inclusive zoning and so they they weighed in uh so that the planning commission could take into account their ideas regarding what would be an appropriate proportion you know depending on how many units were being built what proportion should be um the different than what's in our difference now so we are I'm assuming increasing that's well percentage or it's actually um there was concern that it was going to be difficult to build housing if we had too high of a percentage because housing costs the the construction costs are going up so I don't know what this will become in the planning commission but what came out of the affordable housing committee discussion was that 10% on 10 units and once you get to 20 units then it goes up to 20% so that is on the rental the rental units and I I don't remember there being any change with regard to the you know the owner occupied yeah yeah that could be wrong on that issue all right thank you great Tim thank you Helen um yes I attended the public art committee meeting a couple weeks ago and they went over the results of the public survey they had about the impending art installation at JC Park and there was a lot of positive feedback and a little bit of critical feedback but mostly positive and I've I've seen pictures of the piece it's very nice and I look forward to progress on that I also um wanted to remind viewers and the city anybody uh because you know I have these famous Tim's tips right you know like your bike with a kryptonite right check you know don't click on email attachments the new one is please everybody check your credit card and debit card statements very carefully this time of year uh scammers will try to deposit or or charge very small amounts to your cards and hope that you don't notice you need to go over everything with a fine-tooth comb if you don't recognize it call your bank call your credit card company if you have to challenge it and find out where it came from because you need to get it removed and if possible you might need to get a new credit card um that has happened in to somebody in our city so be very vigilant about that uh the other reminder is that COVID-19 is resurging right now with hospitalizations up 16 percent around the southern part of the U.S. I don't think Vermont is as bad but I have a lot of friends that have been infected in the last month um I had a very nice Christmas thank you very much my son came up from Boston and um the there was in any where was the snow where was the snow there was no snow I've never seen that much lack of sunshine if it's um you know yeah there was no sun and I looked at my solar input for this year and this was the whole year was worse than any other year although May was outstanding the rest of the months there was so much rain that it it was really awful so anyway so that's that's all I hope everybody else had a night excuse me what you'll find out Andrew do you have anything to report can you hear me okay Helen yes okay so no no committee meetings um since we last met but I did find some snow with him on top of some of the peaks and if you ever want to go hike you with me I can show you where it is okay thank you and I don't have anything to report I just had a wonderful enjoyable Christmas um and New Year's it was quiet and it was nice and I wished we'd had snow for sure so Jesse thank you um so happy new year happy 2024 we're really excited on the leadership team about what is going to come for the city this year um Larry I have a quick question for you on the um CVOEO is that something we can cross-promote is it is it something that they're advertising that that we could put out through city news or is that acceptable I'll try to catch you some information okay that'd be great it is income sensitive yeah right I think we might have some um some participants in our senior center recreation and parks groups that may benefit from that thanks so just a few very quick updates from me um Alana and I had a great meeting with our delegation right before Christmas um specifically around city center um in a TIF district and bringing them up to speed was on the analysis we brought to you all um during the budget process um uh Senator uh Rom Hinsdale and Emily are interested in coming to the council they both sit on the housing committees in the legislature they're interested in coming to the council in February and having um a kind of conversation with you all about housing legislation that's going through this session so look for that on your upcoming count of agenda planners um just a reminder we have a lot um of council activity this month you're meeting every Monday this month or if that's not true you're meeting one Tuesday and most Mondays um so January 8th yeah a lot January 8th next week you'll have um the discussion on the city plan and also and discussion about adoption um the 16th held in public hearing on the budget uh approval of the ballot items and the bond votes as well as a pension update and receipt of the employee handbook um and hopefully the first reading of the rental ordinance the 22nd is your steering committee meeting which will be not only the budgets but your first public hearing on a charter change and then the 29th is the second public hearing on the charter change and your possible action for the ballot so just a reminder we're going to keep you busy this month and thank you very much in advance for your service what did you say snow may as well that's right well without any snow not that much you can't even say i've got a shovel okay moving on to the consent agenda we only have two items disbursements and determined that the charter proposal to increase the number of school board members to seven is too long or unwieldy to set out an amended form and approve the attached public hearings notice including a concise summary of the charter proposal so i'll move that we approve the consent agenda second is there any discussion any questions all right hearing none all those in favor um you know with do we do a roll call it was get confused you only have to do a roll call if the vote's not unanimous oh okay so all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye so that passes unanimously all right is it unwieldy or unwieldy wieldy thank you did i say unwieldy it was written unwieldy so it's my mistake unwieldy i don't know who's going to say it was but unwieldy i would write it right okay item seven um we're a little ahead aren't we i would recommend i think you need to hold seven eight nine and ten until the relevant folks are here okay um and 11 so i would recommend you go to 12 and 13 okay we can fly through this okay discuss the naming of overlook park um so this is um kind of an interesting question as you probably read in in seven days this is just a question for your feedback tonight no action just some direction to myself and the staff um thought in seven days in the other paper a couple of editions ago there was a story about the underworld family and their expectations when they transferred ownership of the property to the city this was before the time of many of us on staff during that process they they submitted a public records request to the city and as we went through those records there were some that for for technology reasons didn't get to us so we invited in the underworld family before that article uh went to print to understand what their concern was and have a conversation with them as you all likely know the underwoods were huge contributors to this community mr. Underwood was a um assessor for the city for several many years and they are interested in some acknowledgement of their family given that the council has now named that parcel um Hubbard park which i i don't think you have an interest in undoing um so they expressed an interest in um educational piece at Hubbard park or overlook park was also part of their family history family parcel they had their barn at overlook park for many years they have this really beautiful painting of the barn right at where the parking lot is um so we had a conversation about what they would um a recognition of their family family's contribution through the naming of that parcel the change of the name of that parcel be interesting to them and they expressed that um that would feel good to them and their family so with your consent that's a pretty big change in the city it's interesting to go from overlook which is we did a bit of research is really just a geographical name it's where you overlook the lake it's a little interesting going from over to under one so tall you could really overlook but if you're willing to consider that we'd like to do a little more research bring you some information about uh their family and have you consider that naming yeah that seems appropriate yeah yeah if we call it um the underwood overlook is that your suggestion yeah that's what i was thinking yeah i don't know as it as the the underworld i don't know yeah it's got great logo potential the underwood overlook yes the underwood right would that also include the informational plaque at at hovered um it would likely include an informational plaque at overlook at overlook um because that because they could really centered around the barn that was on that parcel great okay so in some ways though it would be nice to include some recognition at hovered park as well all right i mean to their property in terms of a plaque that has kind of the history that the underwood family sold that property to the city of south burlington right and then you know and we named it in honor of tom but to make that so it's not lost i agree sure um and some kind of map showing their property i think would be nice too because that's a pretty big parcel it was a big parcel right yeah like the way underwood overlook rolls off my tongue yeah so if they could be linked together somehow and maintain that that would be nice if people agreed with me it's okay if you disagree with it reminds me my aunt lived in a um a sub division in monrovia Liberia that was called sunken heights right so underwood overlook reminds me of sunken height military intelligence okay so do you have that's enough marching orders on that okay we'll move forward all right we've got nine more minutes um yes can you come to the yes why don't you come to the mic michael let's see is this working okay i sounds like it is happy new year everybody thank you uh so regarding uh the overlook and i do understand that there may be some conversation about the existing overlook being uh named for under what correct is that what you were just chatting about so i'd like to offer the the thinking that uh on a long term basis who knows maybe even shorter term basis that uh that the former underwood property now hubbard uh would still be uh a much better site for an overlook uh the obvious reason is that the property has a much better view than our existing overlook facility and i don't imagine that house uh that obstructs a good part of the panorama i don't imagine that's going to go anywhere anytime soon there's no obstruction that exists when you get up on the uh the plateau uh at the hubbard park it's it's exceedingly gorgeous uh another good reason to uh continue entertaining uh the overlook uh or perhaps a second overlook being there is uh is that it was uh intended there was a plan that was a develop and on a long term basis people saw it being viable given the view uh so that's another reason and then yet another is that uh it is an overlook that would be accessible via bike uh and pedestrian uh and the access to an overlook at the hubbard park would be far preferable for bikers and pedestrians then it would then would be our existing overlook where you have to get on the spear street and risk your life doing so and uh i don't know that you're going to see spear street widened in our lifetime in order to accommodate bicycle lanes so uh my thinking is that uh the hubbard park is an exceedingly better overlook for our community than will be the other one on a long term basis and uh i don't think that the uh underwood family would have any objection whatsoever to having that under that overlook named after them in fact i know that thank you yes we skipped the other ones michael we skipped everything else yeah because people weren't here and we were early so we were making good use of our time i heard what mike at the mic said um but i'm not necessarily i don't necessarily agree with that i think the city should reconsider the error that it made talk to tom hubbard ask him his opinion about whether this should be the park should be renamed for the underwood family has because they wrote quite a heart-rending piece in the in the other paper and i think the city should take that into account and really try everything to rename hubbard for the underwood family thank you i have a question i i don't recall i don't know if even i don't know how long the overlook um park has been in existence a long long time but i'm just curious if the city bought the property or if it was gifted or if there um if we were to um you know follow up on mike siminoe's thoughts of moving the the overlook part onto hubbard park then what do we do with that property and are there any requirements or restrictions that would be important for me to know before even renaming it potentially i just don't know how the city got hold of it i think we purchased it but well we probably purchased it from somebody but was it 92 or 93 that the free press reporter molly molly right took uh constler the uh architect around south berlington and she wrote a really long article about it with his opinion do you remember that i have a copy of it i'll dig it up and send it to you later it's very interesting okay you had some choice words for overlook park that's all i remember but so at least prior to 92 it's been there okay well i just think we need to know that before we make any changes actually would be good to understand okay well i guess the council would like you to proceed with the conversations and we can go from there see what happens um do we let's see we still have three minutes do is there's something else you want to can do by evaluation the evaluation process sure that shouldn't take too long so let's go to item 13 then that looked fine to me this is the forum we've seen before absolutely and i don't see any reason to change okay in the past i think the council um i think it was it tim and myself who did the yes so you guys um did the contract negotiation with me that's right i must you want to renegotiate my contract this year okay all right avoid that you're right okay then it so this is just uh this is just an annual meeting a special committee one one lesson meeting or two okay can i just give a few sentences you certainly may but i i agree with megan this is familiar and it seems timely and are there any changes there are no changes so the schedule is you'll get online so actually there is one change our hr director has built online forms for you to fill out that will make it much easier to do the actual aggregation of the data we've tested them several times there have been some really fun evaluations of me thus far in the testing of them so you will get those probably this week but no later than um january 8th they're then due back by the 24th um they all the data from both the leadership team members and the council will be shared with all of us um and then on february 5th we will meet in executive session and then at your meeting on february 20th you'll give an update to the community that's good okay thanks any thoughts or questions no concerns excellent so it appears as if we can go back to our um presented schedule to item seven which is um of holding a public hearing on the city plan 2024 and paul connor is at the table so we have to open the public hearing so moved second all those in favor aye so we are in a public hearing paul did you want to preference anything um just briefly to say that uh at your one of your december meetings that you had voted to warn the public hearing on um some adjustments that you had made from the original draft this draft includes those and just a reminder to you that this is a two-part public hearing tonight and next monday that's all i've really got this is the public's time to share their feedback all right are there any comments from the public okay so you would you'd like to begin looks like we have three at the moment four okay is this on sounds like it is okay linda bailey from uh uh larch road and you guys have put a lot of work into this uh city plan and i thank you for it to start off with unfortunately right at the beginning you have a dichotomy of words that are used your very first uh overriding principle is about climate resilience but then you go move into climate mitigation which is a very different type of thing climate mitigation looks to stop adding greenhouse gases and such to our atmosphere while climate resilience is more about how you help your population your city in this case deal with climate changes that are happening and and so forth about the only part i found is uh in stormwater is you're doing a very good job with that but i don't see anything in it on ways to help families oh if we get a two-week stretch of 95 degrees and 80 humidity a lot of people don't have air conditioning or heat pumps in their homes are there any plans to help with those people things like that that are part of climate resilience i'd like to see a lot more of that in the uh comp plan thanks okay thank you um i don't know michael and then we'll go up the line all the red plaid shirts get to speak today michael me tag i'm a 21 year resident of south berlington and so i serve on the planning commission um among the things that are written in this plan is that our city needs to understand what to expect in for the future and how we can sustainably plan for it and further it says it's essential to consider the city's sustainability and ability to provide facilities and services which meet meet residents expectations and maintain our community's quality of life um a few pages later on the action three it says study the population carrying capacity of our city to maintain a high quality of life um i don't think we can do that without some something that we're missing so i'm here to recommend and request that south berlington establish growth targets consistent with the goals of this plan that we're just considering tonight it's a growth management plan in order to implement our plan our minister plan it's necessary to know what our expected growth will be we should have a plan for that we don't have good forward visibility uh of future development i think it's fair to say that currently we sort of react and then plan to build the necessary infrastructure as and when development process proposals come before the drb that's not really planning or it's not a good way to plan a growth management plan would permit us to plan rather than react city plan 2024 has many goals which i think will be quite difficult to reach without a plan or a growth management plan on page three 153 of your package or three of the it says we should consider the use of our resources and the consequences of growth and development on our community well we need a plan for how to use those resources and to know the consequences of the growth and development of our community on on the community we have a specific goal as well to plan development so as to maintain historic settlement patterns of compact village and urban centers separated by rural countryside there are then a couple of other items below that but a growth management plan would allow us to assign development to the community centers and development areas or growth areas where we want it to happen um and without a forward-looking plan we would not know where the expansion of infrastructure would have to be located if we don't know where the plan where development will happen and how much of it will happen um we have a specific goal to maintain and enhance recreational opportunities it should not growth should not significant significantly diminish the value or availability of outdoor recreational activities well we would need a plan to make sure that that doesn't happen and that's a growth can be part of a growth management plan the planning commission is required when considering an amendment to the plan to report on the probable impact of surrounding area resulting in an increase of traffic maybe resulting in what impact will have on municipal and school taxes and what are the needs what will be the needs for public facilities a growth management plan would be a very very useful guide for the planning commission on that particular item um our infrastructure including wastewater treatment sewer and water distribution system emergency services transportation infrastructure and schools can absorb only a finite number of new dwellings before the infrastructure services have to be expanded or they become overwhelmed we know from the past we had a lot of reports during interim zoning from several city departments that they were understaffed and overwhelmed a growth management plan would allow us to establish targets for each of the areas where we want residential and or commercial development to happen and a clear forward and the clear forward visibility of a growth management plan will help everyone and will ensure that needed additional public infrastructure and services are made available in a timely fashion when needed it'll help everyone I say because it'll help citizens at large because they'll know what's coming property owners developers planning commissioners staff planners uh it's really a major piece of management that we're missing in South Burlington and I think we would be very well served if the council were to direct the planning commission to work to develop growth management plan post haste any questions could I ask that one quick question yes you certainly may michael do you have some examples some municipalities that have such a plan oh yeah um the nearest one is williston and uh yeah there are others but that's if you want something close by where you can go no no i have no questions i mean i think it's a an important addition to the city i think the school superintendent is didn't we sort of had a conversation with them about sort of understanding that those that growth and its impact on schools um i certainly remember distinctly that once the cht um building was built on market street there was um surprise by the superintendent and the school board that there were 12 new students at uh mark out central school as a result of that building and that was a real issue for them and it seems to me those are the kinds of impacts that would be important to know ahead of time and not have it appears if you know the city is not cognizant of the impacts of growth on the schools which we're now struggling with trying to figure out how big they need to be and how we're going to pay and how we're going to pay for that with and we still you know have lots of housing in the pipeline so looking really long term right well yes and we had you know several proposals that did not get funded or or get accepted by either the school board or the public for um meeting that demands so so i think that kind of growth management plan makes a lot of sense in my mind to as we move forward and i have i have personally mentioned quite a few times that we should really think about staffing for the city as we you know grow and grow you know do we have enough firefighters or um you know police officers or planning staff or road crews or all sorts of um individuals that provide the the services that i think our community is desiring so on this that i was going to speak to in the next agenda item would it make sense to bring that forward a little bit that that point the municipal plan adoption report well we're in a public hearing on the city plan so we probably when we just it went to this growth manager plan question but i could address what we get to the next agenda item what why don't you do that we'll stick to what is in the city plan for public yeah i think that would be a little cleaner given our discussion of michael's idea i just wanted to ask with regard to linda's suggestion is our emergency management plan something that would help us respond to a heat wave that could prove deadly to some of our residents is that something that would be included in that it's much more of an all hazards plan so it's it's at a very high level it does not provide specifics for that type of um perhaps some of the things she may be thinking about it would talk about sheltering which would be a cooling station but they're never um the plan is not in that granular right but could it be could it be used to respond to life threatening circumstances such as high heat and high humidity i think i think we look at as an overall emergency operations and management plan of the city for all hazards so i i think i i think i if i understand where you're asking it certainly would be used as a management tool michael you need to say something else well i just need to remind you that in the country in the in city plan 24 we do say that all city facilities can be used as shelters when necessary so they're available it's in the plan perhaps what's not done is communicating that to the citizens of well there's also the goal of putting more heat pumps into properties which is a way to cool homes as well right is that something she wants to respond to hi linda bailey again i do see in there that you have goals of like electrifying i think it's something like 650 houses a year and things like that in the action part of it i saw things like telling neighbors that it's a good idea to do that saying that there's state and federal type of grants for it but i don't see anything that the city is actually doing to help households put in a heat pump those are very expensive i know through most of my life certainly when i was raising my kids i did not have the thousands of dollars that even after grants it costs so does the city have anything planned to help with that is that something you're going to use some of the arbor money for or something like that well i think it's always hard to um at this point you have a plan and then you have to work on funding for different parts of it so that's that's possibly um a solution a partial solution and i think that can be explored either with grants or just the conversation about do we want to spend general fund dollars to support um homes for to to install um heat pumps but i think it it is um unrealistic i think to have our city plan include you know millions of dollars of of expenditures um well i think that's what we hope the new individual will hire if the budget passes to really focus on that because i i think we've identified that that's a real need that this is a very costly undertaking worldwide country wide statewide community wide and um we'll need to partner and and find some of those resources but the current staffing doesn't have the time to do that really so to make this a real working document we've um decided to to use some money to support that kind of um staffing so we can make some specific proposals and steps tim yeah i mean obviously as um different homes age and their heating system um becomes sold it has to be replaced that's an opportunity to switch to a to a heat pump in which case then you get ac as well where before you if you didn't have it you would have it then with the heat pump you know but but that's a pretty substantial um investment but when your heating system is at the end of its life and it's time to replace it at that point in the future years who knows what the federal state rebates will be and if it will be as competitive as something less but you get you get two for one if you didn't have one at that point if you didn't have two okay vince yeah i'm vince boldock i'm very interested in the concept of planning for growth you know it's hard to be against that but uh let me just say you know while we're talking about and thinking about by far the hardest part of growth to plan for is for population growth you can plan for housing in plan roads uh and uh in the organization but controlling for population is something else because when we try to control for population we're controlling uh we necessarily have to deal with the three components of population growth and that's birth death and migration and i know through housing and zoning we try to control for uh for immigration but we can't do it perfectly you know i just read and dig her as most of you probably did too about the intentions of bringing more refugees into the colchester area which which would mean us and it's it was a federal international you know intention so i mean we can housing you know we can control uh we can control better but if we think about controlling for births and and deaths we we just can't do it um it wasn't until 1969 just a tiny bit of history that the united states came up with a population uh goal commission run by uh by rockerfeller and ask for by president nixon and uh boy was out of can of worms because they knew you know now we're talking about birth deaths and migration right oh gosh it was difficult anyway that's not what i came up to say but i certainly can understand why the plan uh can't focus on that much it's just it's too complicated it's too fraught with so many things i think it's a it's a nice plan that's what i came to say i know people have worked on it hard and i know but uh to that nothing to take away it's a it's a nice job there's only one sentence that i think i've written to about before and i'm so disappointed to see it's still in here i think it's hyperbole it reads like an ideological manifesto and it's a put-off to the whole rest of the plan which is very good and it's this one sentence that if i'm not mistaken came from a planning commission meeting which which i was at um and it's uh the sentence you you may know that it's a real tender point of contention the overriding guiding principle of this plan is to make every policy decision every policy decision through the lens of climate resistance and reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and i think that's hyperbole and of course it's the most important existential threat facing us today and we have to deal with it but is it true that this plan this plan uh makes every policy decision uh through this lens i that's just an overstatement and i anyway maybe it's uh maybe i'm the only one but it sure strikes me as a real put-off to the whole plan which is so rational well for example affordable housing committee i know some of you went to that meeting where we took input from the public we had 30 or 40 people at that meeting excellent points were made and it was all designed for the purpose of in giving input into the city plan and i don't believe one person mentioned this so can we now say that that's what we did i i just don't think so anyway that's that's my only point i i think it compromises the integrity of another otherwise very good document thank you thank you okay and my for mike to distinguish mike at the mic it's great name and uh my compliments to the flannels in the audience uh just another maybe it's humorous to some people but uh mike tyson once said that everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth and uh how does that relate to what we're talking about here well uh we have to be prepared to adapt even if you've got a plan and hopefully uh a plan won't be used as a mechanism to limit what does want to happen what does want to happen organically uh because uh you know if you look around you see what is happening organically in this part of the state uh which has a university a medical center which has large employers which has services and uh there's a reason why people are coming in the jitman county the rest of the state not so much but they are coming here and it and we received uh well the opportunity to be one of 30 of 31 tech hubs in the country with millions and millions of dollars that may flood into the area for the development of new technology and consequently new jobs if they succeed and uh you know that is going to uh encourage some additional growth too so we should plan as best as we can but if you you know if we enjoy the good fortune of finding uh growth that's resilient and sustainable and uh environmentally uh good then I think we should be prepared to adapt for it so likewise this not the key reason why I came here I'd like to uh echo what Vince Bouldock had to say about this statement in the introduction about all or every one of our policy decisions being made through the lens of climate resilience uh we do we don't need a statement like like this in here and I would go even a step further than Vince allowing for this statement to remain in here is a license for people to really get carried away with their decision making and their reliance on on this as an overriding principle I can see this being a foundation for more changes in zoning that would reduce housing unless it happens to be located around market street or or route seven uh Shelburne road or or Williston road I can change it I can see it being a reason where applications for housing development are denied I can see it and this may sound like a stretch but we have events in the city and you you know how do you get to an event you get in a car I can see it I can see the rationalization being made where we want to discourage events or you know social activity that is going to attract crowds because of this so there's not a good reason for this to be in here our South Burlington business association submitted a letter uh Tuesday January 2nd that uh uh basically was a nice way of saying that this statement shouldn't be in here it's already in your possession I don't need to burden you with reading it it's a good-sized paragraph uh but uh uh you know it's a nice way of saying please don't put this in here um the climate action plan that has made reference around that this matter and I forget if it's actually the plan uh but a couple of months ago uh there was a meeting and something was going to be adopted was that the climate action plan or or it adopted climate action plan okay is this something that was pretty recent though I mean I know there was a plan developed but was it only adopted in October okay so close enough 22 oh that was a while ago yeah so uh a couple months so uh I think the plan is great I think all the work the time and effort that went into developing the plan uh I thought the report was impressive so a lot lots of good work uh but South Burlington seems to be pursuing their agenda and their efforts really without uh inviting more collaboration from our uh partners from our community partners in the area that plan uh I offered a couple of comments uh one being that uh why weren't our fellow communities solicited or invited to provide feedback on the development of our own plan it would seem reasonable because any action that we take uh is really going to have minimal impact unless it's leveraged with the impacts of others uh that are around us and and that plan the folks uh you know who were responsible for its development there was a notable absence in the room of those who were participating in that process and it's the normal absence that occurs uh there weren't renters there weren't folks of low economic uh reach uh the same folks who were always outside of the room in the decision-making processes were outside of the room and again I think that there was a lot of good effort and a lot of good outcomes with that but it just seems to me why why wasn't that stakeholder group part uh invited to participate in this process because if you talk about lenses they would see things through a very different lens than lots of the other folks who represent the establishment status quo seeing what's going on there so uh you know this has kind of come and gone but I would really encourage that as we develop initiatives uh and strategies to address uh global warming and any other significant matter that we really commit ourselves to collaborating attempting to collaborate more with our our partners and and make sure that everybody's in the room when these conversations are occurring not just you know the the folks that represent the status quo thank you thank you I go ahead you may go go oh I was just going to say that the affordable housing um committee sponsored meeting was was a meeting mic where a lot of the people in attendance were from the cht building and many of them spoke up about our environment in fact and were very concerned that the trees that were outside of their windows were going down um that they were very concerned about the the natural resources in this part of the city that were not being um preserved and protected um so I I think that um and they were they were quite vocal about that um so you know I think we just need to be careful when we we think about what they might say because they were quite eloquent about it um and I just wanted to say in response to the email that we received from the svba except for that one line everything else that was in that email is in this plan exactly so I think that that's something important to say too I just want to say a couple words so I I I appreciate your feedback but I just have to say that change is hard and we have to accept that we have to change our behavior how do we do that what's the problem how do we keep it in scope so that future decisions that we make will try to make things well if not better if at least not worse that's the important thing don't make things worse and so if you're worried about these changes just look at what we've accomplished so far we pass LDRs that protect wide swaths of the southeast southeast quadrant to preserve those natural areas which are important for climate change resiliency important for keeping water supplies pure when they run into lake champagne and we also passed some ordinances about commercial uh heating and cooling so what happened I mean this is even before that tom gets into summit properties those two buildings are completely electric for heating and cooling oh bryan hillside farm it's all electric there's no natural gas there this is the future this is where we're going these are the decisions we have to make and this is how we do it is by that one sentence and I grant you that it can be difficult at times and we're not going to make every goal that we that we wrote down in that plan but you got to have a goal and you got to start somewhere at least if you point towards it you might actually get to some you know success so and just like makin said all the other sentences in math code is letter are still in the plan right beta built the 640 000 square foot factory right they've got solar panels covering that entire roof you know kyle's trying to make that thing as carbon neutral as he possibly can he he sees the future and it's in the electric airplane itself so don't talk to us that you know oh it's too strict you know oh that lens is too tightly focused because everything that we have to do should be through that lens and you're going to be upset about some things and some things aren't going to be a problem at all but like when we talk about buying a new police car well it should at least be a hybrid police car because like the chief said earlier you know if they have to leave it running it'll shut off and then with the battery right you know get slow it'll turn back on again because it's a hybrid but the bottom line is that that police car uses at least 20 25 less gas when it's running or when it's idling that's success that's an improvement and someday we'll have an electric police car that meets their department's needs right and it won't create any carbon dioxide and bit by bit a lawnmower for public works right we want to put money out you know from arpa to buy a lawnmower that's all electric it's just little things like that right how can we burn fewer fossil fuels how can we do that i'm done thank you was was that passionate can i can i make a quick comment not to belabor this but um look i agree obviously with everything that's been said and to me the the real um important to the statement is for our kids i read a report recently that i think 71 of kids across the united states are scared for their future and anxious because of climate change and how can we not do this for our children and do everything that we can to give them some sense of hope and to me that's what that sentence is about pointing it showing it to the kids and showing what we're trying what we're really trying the best we can and and to their point our kids want to have jobs our kids don't want to be unemployed right so i think you know we have to we have to hit both goals and it's not going to be perfect in either case vince you wanted to have a response and then is there anyone else who wants to make a comment from the public is there and no one is joined us online so okay there are people online oh oh indicating they want to oh okay go ahead yeah um i just don't want to be misunderstood on this i mean i agree completely on the steps that we're taking to do this and the importance of climate change and little steps and and change is difficult and we've got to do all of those things and the implication of some of the disagreement andrew and tim is that i'm or maybe you may might too are insensitive to that and we want to burn more fossil fuel we want to destroy the world that's ridiculous no i know you don't mean that because we're on the same side it's just the phrasing of the sentence everything has to be done that way and that's just wrong we should do as many things as we possibly can and you know where we have anything that is related to it we should do the right thing for the environment for our kids and i mean no one's disagreeing but vince that's how i think the lens works it does it isn't a tunnel vision it is um another factor yeah and just like we have a budget and and so sure um you look at things on what you can afford what you can't you you make those decisions but we're asking that one of the considerations be through this lens of climate change and resilience and if it's possible if i mean you know we could we're not saying the next fire truck we buy has to be electric because it's not there yet yeah well i yeah i agree with all of that and i see that uh to use the police car example yes that's what we should do with the police car is exactly as you're doing and the fire engines you know everything we possibly can't we've really got to do it and i you know i agree completely but not whether or not the fire department has to go out to a fire right you know not whether or not the police should go out and you know and uh and visit a alleged crime scene this is every decision has to be about climate change if the decision were every decision then the fire department wouldn't go out the police wouldn't go out it says while am i am i misunderstanding this it says while recognizing other important goals in our diverse community so that's in the same sentence it makes that seem secondary and the primary goal is to preserve uh preserve the climate it's not an ordinance it's an aspirational city plan right and if you didn't remember we struck the first paragraph that was in red that's gone right okay yes and if you remember that paragraph then i would tend to agree with what you're saying yeah that was where we retain is that sentence and that was acceptable okay yeah this is this is better this is better okay well we both made our points okay thank you this is a reminder this isn't public hearing yes this isn't a dialogue okay is there any additional um suggestions different or is it just an elongation of the conversation michael six words that doesn't answer my question does it okay well but it's already been said correct yeah well you two can have a conversation out in the hall okay are there any other comments people would like to make um on the um the plan the city plan okay any other concerns or comments from the city council i did i did want to refer to the the guiding principles i i see the sentences in the introductory paragraph but i think what what really is the focus of the entire plan is the four guiding principles and i think without having a clear understanding of climate work the other principles aren't gonna it's not gonna matter so i i'm for my own sake and i appreciate what you're saying pence but i think that we could look at it as the whole as opposed to that particular focus and i take i take your point and so the reason why i am having a dialogue is i'm i'm searching a way to to to reach some kind of consensus and i think you know i take your point with every policy decision um could there be the word focus the overriding guiding principle of this plan is um to to focus on climate resilience and reduction in greenhouse gas emissions while recognizing other important goals in our diverse community because it it's there when you focus on it it is there and it's it's another i think it's a synonym for to look through the lens of um but it might be less offensive if if it could be less offensive i guess that would be a good outcome of any kind of change paul you sat through all the planning commission conversations what do you think about using the word focus as a consensus i just want to know oh sorry jessica louise saw the planning commission dress with also online oh okay does she want to speak she hasn't indicated so but well if she would like to chair yes the chair i just didn't know if she was on there she is okay so do you want to respond to that jessica i know this was wordsmithed um and discussed it was in great depth and you know can you hear me yes we can thank you yes yeah so it was a big discussion um we did land on the language that you see there um and you know i think you've all made a lot of really good points and you know including the audience members you know i think that there are some decisions that may or may not need the lens of climate change because they're you know i think vince's point about like you're going to respond to an emergency call but i think what we wound up coming down to is that um you know when you're doing decision making about new equipment or like it seemed reasonable to have the language as written um you know all many different parts of the plan are aspirational um and it felt like an important point to put out there um you know as kind of a guiding principle right out front so okay i mean you can you can change the wording if you feel like it's really important because i i think what megan's saying is like it's a synonym but um probably won't change the meaning of the plan all that much if you change one word or the other paul do you want to add anything paul connor i don't know that i have anything to add other than to say that you do have a few days to chew on this if you want because your hearing will be continued to next monday so decisions should be made at that time for you so you can chew on it and if you want us to chew on it a little bit also and think about that we're happy to happy to do that well does someone on the council want to chew and come up with um a new sentence or are we um um um do we find the planning commission's recommendations um acceptable i'm willing to change to focus if that's a consensus builder if it's if it's not then it's i'll remove my my suggestion where would you put the principle to focus is that what it is so the the overwriting guiding principle of this plan is to focus on climate resilience and reduction in greenhouse gas emissions while recognizing other important goals in our diverse community my oh sorry as michael comes up can i just make a process suggestion so as just underline what paul just said you should not vote on any changes tonight right you should continue your hearing close your hearing and then if you want to make changes you can do that after the hearing on the eighth and then you'll need to warn another public hearing okay uh mike let me take it again um i'd like to remind everybody that this is policy guidance it doesn't lay down the law that you have to do this with every single decision it's uh aspirational and um i'm sorry to say councilor emory that your wording waters are done and changes the meaning completely because there's a lot of focus on climate change throughout this plan that statement is in there to send a message to everybody to alert everybody that this is as vince said climate change is an existential threat to us but to repeat what andry chelik said it's also something more so for our children and to give them hope and to indicate to the world that we are doing something so watering it down is a really bad idea i think we should stick with what we have it doesn't mean that as um mike at the mike said you have to do every single thing with that in mind but it is a mindset well that you need to that people need to have when they are thinking about policy and uh changes keep that in the back of your mind i didn't see it as why don't change it i understand but i think the every that is sticking and i can i can live with this i just want us to come to some kind of agreement i guess this so this this is a recommendation we take it in under advisement we'll have another public hearing we may get some additional feedback yeah that will um help us make the decision whether to make any changes recommend any changes or stay with what we have are there any other comments from the public seeing or hearing none i would entertain a motion to close this public hearing oh continue to continue this public hearing to what's the date is it eight yeah no it's the eighth so i'll move that we continue this public hearing to january eighth second at seven p.m. oh it's at seven pardon at the public hearing at seven yeah the public hearing at seven no problem thank you okay there's a second i had a second yeah okay can you just yes i'm pausing for one climate focused moment uh the public hearing we have currently warned the public hearing for january eighth at six thirty p.m. okay so i withdraw my motion i move that we continue the public hearing on january eighth at six thirty p.m. second any discussion all those in favor signify by saying aye aye so we'll continue this discussion on the eighth thank you very much appreciate your comments thank you yeah um so now we move on to eight uh item eight discuss the planning commission's municipal plan adoption report and this was a request by councillor shallnick it was related to some of the conversation that we just just had yeah thank you howlin yeah it just struck me that we received this report i don't know a few months ago and didn't really discuss it and i was i was or maybe i missed it i'm sorry if i did um as i was rereading it there are a couple of points that i think merit some discussion um so let me start with one and relates to the earlier discussion we had so i think it could be um short so the state of vermont the statute says that the plan in our adoption report needs to consider um weather and does the rate of growth exceed the ability of the community and the area to provide facilities and services including schools and it's not really clear to me um how the adoption report you know addresses that consideration there's some cross references i don't i don't really see how it does i don't really see how the plan does i'm not really suggesting changes to the plan but i think the fact that the statute requires us to you know consider our rate of growth really makes it incumbent upon us um and we might go michael and echoing you howlin to consider some kind of growth management plan maybe taking inspiration from wilson and um if there's anyone from the school or school board online listening um i'd love some feedback from the school board um as to whether you know the school thinks that our rate of growth is consistent with an orderly plan for providing educational services because it strikes me that it's really hard to you know plan for infrastructure without knowing right how many units are going to be coming online and if it's just you know sporadic and um and uh you know you don't know what's coming how can you really plan so i'd really love us to leverage that direction from the state to give some serious consideration to um you know a growth management plan so that's kind of point one um point two there's a statement in the report which is um in response to another statutory instruction that we consider resulting increase in traffic from changes in land use and the report says that the proposed patterns of development are not in most cases anticipated or are anticipated in most cases to reduce vehicle traffic so it says proposed patterns of development are in most cases anticipated to reduce vehicle vehicular traffic um i don't and this may be just words but i don't understand that statement it's just not really clear to me how um if you have new you know residents in the city who are going to drive some and take some trips by car how having new you know new development is going to reduce traffic i could see having new development in the right places may proportionately reduce how much new traffic you have compared to how much you would have otherwise had but i just don't see how we can say like as an absolute matter that proposed patterns are in most cases anticipated to reduce vehicular traffic i don't really understand that Jessica maybe you could speak to that what maybe what the report meant to say that was with the other strategies contemplated by the plan like transportation demand management build out a bike pad increase managed transit etc etc etc that overall traffic in the city is expected to you know be reduced but again i don't see how you can say you know adding new residents is anticipate to reduce vehicular traffic so yeah those are my two points Jessica or paul do you want to respond yeah sure um and i think paul might be i was just like making sure i could see the spot so i think one of the big points um of that particular section that's talking about traffic is that it's comparing um basically the the currently adopted land use map to the proposed land use map that's in the plan so it's um i think a statement that's kind of focused on like how are we changing the proposed patterns of what are currently our current future land use map to our changed future land use map so it's it's actually um it's not necessarily saying what is the exact existing amount of development and how might the future land use plan change it so it's it's kind of a nuanced discussion um because like our existing future land use map already contemplates um certain levels of or intensities of development in different areas of the city um so it's almost assuming that that's the baseline and the change in traffic is talking about like how um you know the change between those two maps might work so you know and when we were evaluating um the the changes you know we're actually taking into consideration not only um traffic but also like how all of our other goals are going to be affecting um transportation like you know increasing um the walkability um bike paths and therefore reducing traffic and also working um with to and to implement some of the other strategies in the plan about overall reductions of um vehicle miles traveled so it's not only looking at what's on the map but also kind of combining in some of those other goals that we're going to be working on in tandem so it's you know I think you're right Andrew it's a little bit of like a nuanced like statement um to just kind of take out of the context of all of that and I don't know Paul if you have some more things to add to that um as well um I think you've pretty much covered it all Jessica I guess I would just highlight that the report does speak about what the changes between the 2016 and the 2024 map are and so there's areas that have been added to the low uh very low uh scale principally conservation areas so that's areas that will likely see no development like the habitat blocks it talks about the addition of support services in some of the commercial industrial areas with the intent being that um the supporting services to businesses whether it's people being able to stay overnight or uh food um will likely result in people having to drive last to get to and from those places and so as a comparison there is um between the 2016 and 2024 map um that that was some of the commission's discussion and then as you said uh more globally yes I think um you know what what Councillor Chalmick identified of there is many strategies in this plan including from the climate action plan the very specific target of reducing overall vehicle miles traveled two and a half percent annually citywide across the city including accounting for new developments so that that's sort of incorporated into the big picture of all of the development strategies whether it's the private sector developing or the public sector developing things like the bike pad bridge over the interstate and um seeing changed land use patterns of having neighborhoods doors and neighborhood parks and things like that okay does that address well I mean I don't know if it's worth it to or if we even can um adjust some of his words I I hear both Paul what you're saying what Jessica you're saying I I don't read the statutory mandate that way and I don't read our answer in the doctor report addressing all those different points it just kind of reads like a flat statement that development's going to reduce traffic so um hey to me it was confusing but I I hear your explanation I just don't think it's those explanations are really contained in the report in um in a clear way okay well we've accepted the letter or so the the the report is the responsibility of the planning commission under statute so if the council wanted the commission to take a second look at it they could but the council does not have the authority to change the report okay does anyone want them to look at that the planning commission to address this again in their letter I I think I would rather ask them to work on a growth management plan if time is of is of importance and to me that's more important than you know this letter that doesn't affect any policy it's the plan that drives the policy so the fact that the letter maybe overstates or suggests something that may not be 100 accurate but it's as as Jessica suggested it's rather nuanced I don't think I want to ask the planning commission to spend time on that but I appreciate you bringing it up Andrew okay okay thanks you're welcome um let's move on to item nine then hold a necessity hearing to consider the construction of an additional water tower on Dorset street and it yes wasn't going to um okay let's hear one and then it's never just one with you is it the question is whether adding uh relative to population would satisfy um councilor Chanick's concern with this statement that you were just discussing um my question on the report is um on page 180 or page 10 of the report which is specific goal number 14 where we say that encourage flood resilient communities and areas should be of I mean encourage flood resilient communities new development in an identified flood hazard fluvial erosion or river corridor protection area should be avoided um in the text of the plan on page 61 and 62 we say the city has restricted development within wetlands habitat blocks river and stream corridor buffers and setbacks and mapped flood plains personally knowing what we know if you can remember what happened in Houston a few years ago the death and destruction because people built in flood plains I would have preferred prohibited but since we have restricted in the language elsewhere I think that's what we should do under goal 14 areas should be restricted if in that goal that's all okay thank you I would just note just um for for the audience that effectively our regulations do prohibit the the use of the word restricted is because there are development is a very wide word including things like storm water management so to we do allow for flood resiliency work to take place in our in our flood plains but otherwise we are essentially do not allow for any expanded or new development in our hundred year flood plains okay thank you all right so now we are at nine the necessity hearing do a resolution excuse me does there need to be a motion for a necessity hearing there's a motion at the end yeah to begin so I move that we begin the necessity hearing you consider the construction of an additional water tower on Dorset street and an anticipated bond vote on town meeting day second all in favor hi hi tom de pietro all right good evening everybody uh tom de pietro director of public works it's good to see you all in the new year not at the table with me tonight but behind me we have a couple folks I want to make you aware of in case you have questions we have two folks from Aldridge and Elliott who are the design engineers for this project we also have our water superintendent Jane Adow and the general manager for the Champlain water district Joe Duncan is here so I've got a variety of folks behind me to help out if we have questions later but we are here tonight to have the necessity hearing that's a required step in the process to have a bond vote on town meeting day in this year and if you go to the next slide Jesse the there are basically three things in a resolution that we'll talk about the end that kind of within that resolution it must be determine the project in the public interest and necessity demands the improvements the cost of the improvements will be too great to be paid for out of ordinary annual income and orders in submission of the proposition to incur bonded debt to pay for the public improvements to the voters on town meeting day and this particular document which again we'll talk about the specifics of the the legal documents at the end but this does include reimbursement for some project costs we've incurred to date and those are all statutory part of the statutory requirements that I've provided that there so what I was planning to do is give a brief overview of the project I just wanted to note for folks that this may sound familiar to some we had a more extensive discussion about the project and the project history back in April if people were interested in that there's a link right there they can go and check that out or the engineer presented a lot more information about sort of how we got here over time so I'm just going to present in general kind of what the project is at the moment but by way of some overview so how does our water system work so we were get our water our drinking water from the Champlain water district they pull it from the lake from Shelburne Bay water is treated down by Queen City Park Road at their facility it's pumped up to our storage facilities throughout the city water tanks water towers and then through a city-owned distribution pipe network distribution system it's pumped around the city and it reaches everybody's house and so what we're talking about today is construction of a second tank on Dorset Street and why what does a water tank do generally it serves two basic purposes the first is just to provide water storage typically in a millions of gallons range of water stored in these towers ensures that water is available even in emergency situations and that we have sufficient flow for things like when there's a large demand on the system for firefighting activities for example the tanks also provide water pressure so the height of the tanks really determines the amount of pressure in the system and there's a minimum pressure requirement for our system and if the pressure is too high because the tower is somewhere higher up and somebody's in a lower area we can modify that with some pressure reducing valves and the like next so again very brief site history so the original tank that you see on Dorset Street today also known as the South Burlington East tank was constructed in 1971 it was a one and a half million gallon tank in 2003 the voters proved a bond to add storage to the existing tank so it was raised by 35 feet and the volume was increased from 1.5 million gallons to 2.1 and so we're operating pressure range we're also increased because again it's the height of the tower that determines the pressure if available and so that work was done in 2004 which is sort of the represents the tank we have there today that you see and so we have actually two different water tanks east tanks in the west tanks the east tank serves the majority of the city so I know this map is hard to read but it's the bluer area of the city I tried to call out some landmarks there for points of reference but it's basically everything east of Spear Street is where you receive water from the existing tank on Dorset Street and everything west is another tank which is called the main service area and the high service area you can remember that by kind of the higher elevations of the city is the high service area that green part of Shelburne that we're also servicing so that is fed off of our tanks and so they have an allocation which I'll show you in the coming up slide here can you tell us what happened Christmas day I can do let me do that in the middle of this or do you want to do that at the end and the end okay I was saving that for the end so I knew it was going to come out I want to know what happened sure and I may have Joe explain in better detail I'm on a well it didn't affect me at all next slide please Jesse so this should look familiar this was our current capacity we calculated this a little while back it just shows why we're talking about a water tank or a water tower at all between what we use on the average day about 1.4 million gallons what we allocated to newer projects the allocation the portion of it that goes to Shelburne so they have up to 81,000 the excess storage and then some fire flow requirements we've used up basically 98 percent capacity in that existing tank so the state has a rule that we need to start looking at this at a certain point and then construct so we have enough water to meet our demands one note here is that tanks will typically turn over every three to ten days our tanks turning over about every day so as water gets pumped up the hill it trains down we have that continuous squall from Champlain water district that fills the tank and the peach color allocated capacity where does that go so as developments get approved they get an allocation and so that allocation is basically measured against the volume in the tower so if you have you know a two bedroom house or five bedroom house you need this much water or a restaurant there's a chart we use and we issue those allocations that we have to track it so this is all that's permitted get permitted not built or under construction um it's every year we go through a process to update that um and so it being the second we're going to do that very soon we go back through and update this information so when you're when the water in the tank is turning over on a daily basis when normally it's two to three that's an indication of needing greater capacity that's part of yeah so we have a good continuous flow of water right that comes up right from the water district which we'll talk about at the end a little bit here what happened um but generally the water could sit in the tank for three to ten days that's the design of it but we're kind of pulling that down if you go through about every day we're pulling all the water in putting it in and pulling it back out of that tank right now in the high service area does that mean that we use more water than most municipalities or no not necessarily not abusing that resource i wouldn't say so no um and we could talk about kind of water conservation at the end i'm sure if folks were interested jagged thank you if i had some info on that um so moving forward to the project as proposed so again we've got the existing tank we are attempting or we are planning to construct a tank very similar to the one that's there already it's 53 foot diameter about 127 feet high same capacity um the site we've chosen is well situated um it's at a high point in the city uh there's some existing piping there um so that looks some cost savings for us uh the site was originally purchased with the ability to expand in mind it's already city-owned uh so it's got a lot of things going for it um in the site already and so uh impact on the landscapes or the aesthetics of this is something that always comes up so i want to make sure to have a slide on it so i've just got a photo of the existing tank that was taken recently um and then you may recall from previous presentation on this just we put together a simple rendering here in photoshop or whatever programs you can see kind of what the idea would be uh we're doing some additional work on kind of the aesthetics and the visual impacts of this as we go through the permitting process um and so that kind of information will be available soon as we get to act 250 and other permitting processes clearly you did this last year because there's snow in the ground so i wanted to talk a little bit about project costs uh so our project costs have not changed our estimates at this point even though we've been through some initial engineering uh pretty well on track with what you have seen before i would say the big difference is since that time we received a half million dollar grant from the community recovery recovery and revitalization grant or the CREP CRP we've completed the grant paperwork i guess at this point i made this before the vacation break there so we have that as well to reduce but you'll see a lot of the math i've done is based on the full amount i wanted to give you kind of a worst-case scenario type analysis here as we go through but if you go to the next slide so this is a bit of updated information since the last time i was here speaking with you all we've talked more about the type of loan we could get so previously we were talking about going through the SRF program which had about 2 interest rate uh the funds are not sufficient in the drinking water SRF program to allow them to give us a loan so we're going to go get a loan from the bank uh the rates are a little different there uh so um martha mature and i have looked at that and it looks like the best option is a 30-year loan at about a 4.4 interest rate is what we were at and we did the math a week or two ago um and so that would make our annual payment about $350,000 i've got the calculation there for what that would do to the rates uh would bring our rates up by about four dollars to 82 cents per 1,000 cubic feet which would be about an annual increase of $38.66 for the average residential average residential user and again just the asterisk there just to say this represents a worst-case scenario if we don't need the full construction contingency it'll be less we do have the half million dollar grant which will further reduce this now overall costs um so this is information from uh last fiscal year uh and again i've shown this before but uh just wanted to note that right now our rates are some of the lowest in the region certainly with our neighbors uh that hasn't changed i'm looking forward to doing a new survey here in kind of the new year to figure out where we're at because i know some other communities are having some fairly large increases in their rates so basically you can see kind of how this change is going forward and kind of where we land a little bit about project schedule um so i think this is generally in line with we've talked about before uh we are currently doing our permitting design work um and in we're going to finish all that up uh in march and then we're hoping to advertise for bids in summer of this year and maybe begin construction as early as fall of this year and finish up kind of within 16 18 month time period we may decide to bid a little bit later in the spring for finance related reasons so we only have to make one loan payment in the fiscal year that's something martha and i are also considering but this represents i think the most aggressive schedule that we've been working on so far that we think is still achievable so that's what i've presented here tonight very quickly just i threw a couple of the project benefits up there just to remind everybody so this will set us up well and provide the city with water well into the foreseeable future the volume of water if we build the second tower will supply us what we need for the next 50 years it allows us to meet some of our regulatory requirements whether it is capacity for fighting fires just having water on hand for our residents and for future development um and provides more water storage and effective emergency like a cwd pump or pipe failure or large water usage for firefighting if something were to happen i can talk more about that in a minute um it provides us with some redundancy and ability to complete maintenance so we would have the ability to take one tank offline clean it paint it address whatever maintenance needs need to happen if we have the second tank right next to it so that's a really big benefit operationally i just wanted to note the project um because it's not going higher can't go higher uh we're not going to be increasing the pressure beyond what is provided today but it'll provide some greater operational flexibility so we can keep the water in the tank right because it's 127 foot tank higher longer so it'll be the higher end of the operating tower pressure range uh so that's also another benefit so it won't increase the top end but it'll keep us we have the ability to be more flexible if we keep that water and pressure coming out of the tank so is it used kind of evenly it would be in this case yeah and that's an important benefit having the same tank side by side we wouldn't want it to preferentially pull from one so the water's different age so it would get designed so that comes down the same elevation um there'd be some mixing perhaps that happens in there too to ensure it's mixed well and the water's not aging in the tank so the the tanks will be joined by a common pipe before it flows out to the customers is that weird but you have a valve on each and you could control yeah so if the exact design of it i can i have jeff or later just to come down but um generally yes you did have some nods that's good yeah i can feel the nods a nod yes yeah um actually let me just i'll get through uh this last piece and then we can do um lots of q and a with the folks behind me as well um so uh what you had included in your packet today aside from this presentation was three documents uh the first is a resolution of necessity for this capital improvement project um that's what you would need to pass tonight uh then there's the declaration of intent that we talked about earlier uh and then some example of the ballot language that will be used on town meeting day uh and so the uh recommended actions and the order of those actions are listed below i should note colin's not here with me but this was reviewed with the city attorney he is online okay well this was reviewed with colin the city attorney um and also with outside legal counsel helped us pull this information together so uh we've had a number of attorneys looking at it to prepare this for you this evening as well and that's the end of my my presentation so happy to do some q and a and bring up some guest speakers as as as you'd like i'm sure councillor barrett has a few questions well so christmas night like okay i don't use my dishwasher very often because i like to wash my dishes and so i plugged it in set it up because we had a lot of people there and before i even started up my kids came in and accused me dad what did you do to the water pressure why did you decrease the water why did because you know like i turned on the thermostat things like that and i was like i didn't do anything so i called the the lake champagne water district office at eight o'clock it said do you know that there's a little problem with the pressure they went yeah something happened and they were working out so anyway so i i saw pictures of big pipes being manipulated in sx so it was actually sx yeah so i'm gonna um ask uh joe if you don't mind you wanted to give the update on what happened on christmas day but yeah the the issue is actually people had well i don't want to spoil the story so if some people had no water and some people just had low pressure that's right in two different zones um yeah different sub zones within this zone would have lost pressure at different times make sure push the middle button there we go uh joe duncan general manager sampling water district good evening happy new year everyone yeah i was as surprised as you i was playing games at home with my kids when all of a sudden i got a call to come in because we uh would drop pressure at the plant um so the the i'll jump to the end and then i can fill you in on the in between um so water leaves our plant in two large mains going into our high service zone one is high service one it works its way over uh through tech park and over to muddy brook area into williston that is the main route to sort of feed the the sx uh area uh we have another main that goes out through um along 89 uh past the public works building uh long airport park across the lime kiln bridge and then over to sx by wood side uh and so basically the way everything works in south berlington is uh everything within south berlington until it goes out a meter uh is basically part of south berlington so technically our meter vault for going out of south berlington is the wood side meter vault turns out that the line just before the wood side meter vault broke uh we had instability in soils out there that due to the wet weather and everything else i think it just ultimately kind of shifted enough where we basically came apart the whole uh it was a it was a coupling that came apart and we were losing about five thousand gallons a minute out of that uh it was it was a uh incredible washout of a ravine as a result of of that and so basically what that did is created the giant sucking sound in south berlington so water you know our plant was trying to keep up with that what complicated things for south berlington is that so at seven at seven seventeen on christmas day the break must have occurred because that's when we when we dug back into it a little bit we found that's when um the wood side meter vault lost pressure um for some reason at seven twenty nine one of our we have different pumps we have five high service pumps that pump out of the plant and typically we're running two this time of year so we're running two that night for some reason high service one pump cut out and we still are trying to figure out why they're usually we get a fault to tell us why with the holiday we haven't been able to bring anybody in to figure out why it cut out but for some reason that cut out and when it did all the water that was keeping the system sort of stable dropped out and when it did what we have is we have a bunch of measures within south berlington that if we ever do lose a pump um not necessarily during a large break at the same time we have valves that open up throughout the city to try and stabilize the city so unfortunately when that when that reaction mode went in because of the pump going down we were losing so much water out of there by time we got everything back on to complicate things as we were looking for the break all the lot of calls were coming from gregory drive coming from the uh dorsus street area so we were we were and also too there was no water going to uh willistan at that time so the indication seemed to be that there was something in our transmission main high service one out to south berlington we ultimately identified the uh the break as being on wood side and when we did we isolated that and that when everything came back to uh to regular pressures we were able to then there's nobody on that line we were able to isolate it behind same mics to where the break was um so we were able to get the repair done without impacting anybody else so the break actually did occur in the town of essix particularly it's the high service two main that gets there and what happens is at the meter of all the wood side there's a check valve in there and so what that means it's it's intended to be a one-way flow direction so water can only flow from south berlington into essix and not back the other way and so what happened was is there's other ways that water moves throughout the think of it as you know we can drive to we can drive to waterbury by going root two or we can drive to water by going i89 and so you've got water that moves throughout the county in different ways so the essix area was unaffected because the water couldn't flow back into the giant sucking sound that was just on the other side of that line and so uh so that's that's what happened as to why uh why there was a loss of water for south berlington i i believe that if we didn't have the high service one pump go down we wouldn't be talking about i mean we'd be talking about a break um but we wouldn't be talking about a loss of pressure throughout south berlington it was a very odd coincidence one that we're trying to get to the bottom of sorry it was on christmas day was our wastewater break five thousand gallons a minute or whatever no okay good that's good oh i just have one other one other comment um the water tank is a great hygrometer in the summertime you drive by if you can judge the humidity by the amount of sweating in the tank and you can also see what the water level is because you can see how much of it's covered in in moisture so that's cool really studied it oh yeah thank you um and uh are there any other grants you're going to apply for besides what you got yeah we're certainly keeping an eye out we did apply for some others um but at the moment i don't have any applications out but we're always always looking and is the construction going to be any different than the other tank that the method or the materials or the coatings or anything like that i'm just curious same materials uh as far as construction methods and how they're going to erect the tower i could um have jason or jeff join explain that but it's going to be the same materials and and joe you know yeah to be the same uh it'll be the same materials the same metal there is a slight difference in that uh and so we we own the south berlin the champlain water district owns the south berlington east tank the process is that if you need additional if a municipality needs additional storage they construct it they construct it the champlain water district standard champlain water district district um takes it over and then maintains it for the life of the tank um there's a change in the in the regulations for the type of interior coating that needs to go on there's a there's a higher standard for for carcinogens and other things that are in in paint that they've eliminated a lot of that so you have to go to a epoxy based paint so the interior will be an epoxy based paint that it probably i think we're in like three or four years we're going to be doing that to the to the existing tank oh so you'll repaint the existing one yes with the the newer that's good yep when that time is due so uh because you just worked on the other tank in 2017 right after the tower yes yep yeah we did the exterior on that one so it'll be a twin do you have a question no any other questions to andrew okay tim i don't know you had a question on the uh the hydraulics of the tank well i was you've got these two tanks and and they're going to get filled and they're going to drain are they going to drain into the same pipe and then the pipe goes to whatever the yes network is correct yes so what will happen is the same it'll have it'll have one feed line that comes up off of uh off of dorset street um that will then split into two lines going into each separate tank there'll be valving on that so you can isolate one tank over another but generally they'll both be wide open uh same thing with the outlet pipes there'll be an individual outlet pipe for each tank yeah they will come together and both go over to well they have check valves against each other so they can't flow back into each other yes okay yeah correct so they could maintain different heights at any time they wanted to no they'll because they'll wouldn't flow they'll they'll flow together on the they'll flow together on the inlet okay together okay so this is really analogous to electricity at grematt and powers you know power to work and their sources of power it's really it's really interesting it's very similar the only difference is your your when things are open things are closed things are closed things are open other than that water and electricity you know and sources and then you know consumption and drains and resistors vines you know condensations and be able to call and say you know one of them loves a little more you're blowing my mind hopefully they'll be exactly equal at their base so tim won't be calling you to say there's something wrong at least in the summer water is self leveling so you'll you'll see the same any other questions more information you have to share with us or can we move on so just a couple of actions on that last slide for council to adopt the resolution and then adopt the declaration of intent okay do you want the motions yes i'm ready for them if everyone else is yeah so i would move that we adopt the resolution of necessity for capital improvement project for the extra tank being built on dorset street a second all in favor and so now i will move to adopt the declaration of official intent of the city of south burlington to reimburse certain expenditures from proceeds of indebtedness second all in favor hi that was unanimous that passes that's it right and then we do see the warning we just we're gonna pass that though in january i think we are january but you can approve the warning language tonight it will also be on the warning that we bring you on the 16th the 16th yeah call it is that you want to is that okay yeah i mean the the uh we just wanted to include the warning language for this ballot item uh with the necessity resolution you will see the the full warning later on okay okay and you've already you've already approved it with adopting the necessity resolution okay good all right well thank you very much thank you all you've been busy tom with different breaks right you've been pretty busy yeah we had a holiday not a um yeah vacation break okay um item 10 oh that's what we just did excuse me item 11 first reading of a complete update of the municipal code of ordinances for form and consider setting a public hearing for february 5th 2024 at 7 p.m so colin i think is going to mostly do this one but i just want to acknowledge that our city clerk holly is here as well as is our city attorney and colin this is an effort that has been underway for a decade and it is a huge modernization improvement and all so much credit to colin and holly and donna for getting this across the finish line yeah i can remember when we first talked about this so thank you all this this has been a project that's uh that's been a long time undertaking and talking to donna kinville about it i think she was trying to get the money to support this project from char caffner uh and the city council at that time probably in the in the 2009-2008 range and then ultimately we were able to enter into a contract with mini uni code back in 2013 and since then through the work of donna and jim bar the city attorney jim barlow city attorney andrew boldock and now current staff we have we have a project that's that's resulted in this code of ordinances that's before you so the goal here was really to kind of modernize the collection of our ordinances so for public access and for ease of updating you'll you'll what we know is that most municipalities in the united states have their ordinances online and we have them online to a degree but not organized like what we will have if if you're uh successful in approving this codification this city code currently we have three books in our land records full of city ordinances so when a new one passes it just goes to the front of the book and it's very difficult to tell exactly what are the current ordinances from old ordinances because the old ordinances are all in the book as well so here will be a resource where people can look at and see our current ordinances and we will also be able to routinely update those ordinances whenever you pass something new or make an amendment to an ordinance so it'll really be a helpful tool to to just make sure that the public is aware of our current ordinances and allow the public to see what our ordinances actually are so it's it's taking a lot of work to get here but but here we are there's a just a couple different you know very small things that we've noticed since we received this for instance I think we'll have to replace when this was put together Tyler Barnes was a city councillor he's obviously no longer a city council and there he is so we'll have to replace a name there we also have to update the charter the charter that was used when this was put together the state of the state legislature actually updated our charter for us kind of unbeknownst to unbeknownst to us and just corrected it for genders and so we have to make sure that the current the current charter is included in this and we will make sure both of these are in place for the public hearing but essentially what we're asking you to do is if you have any comments make essentially consider this a first reading of this it's set up for a public hearing and in the meantime we'll we'll publish it as required in the in the in the other paper and have it ready to go for for the public hearing okay are there any questions he answered one of mine the other one was the reserved are the reserves for future ordinances is that why we have yeah I think I think that's exactly what they tried to do is just have room in not necessarily the online version that we're going to have but we have four hard copy books with different folders separating different categories of ordinances out and they just wanted to leave some room in there for when we pass some new ordinances Colin will you be able to show the show us and the public how to access the ordinance online will you have a way to show that sure we will we don't have it right now I think what will happen is as soon as you passed this enacting ordinance which is it which is included in your packet here it's a two-page ordinance that it basically essentially says that you adopt this as your city code and ordinances not included in this are are repealed essentially once that's passed and the city code becomes our city code we we contact mini code and say we're good to go into the two or three days of that it'll be online and there'll be a way to access it from our website okay can I can I add a statement to that agree with everything Colin just said as Colin mentioned this is a company that does this nationwide so the city of Burlington for example uses this system so if you want to go on and look at what the technology looks like you can look at the Burlington code obviously our code is different but the organizational structure and how you search the code you could get a sense of there and so this company helped to restructure and then make it available on the web and yeah so go ahead yeah so they did a lot of work helping us and what what they did is we supplied them with our ordinances and they really helped us organize them they put them in the sections that were more easy to follow in categories that they made the code alphabetical and in ways that were but like ordinances would like ordinances they also you know helped us delete duplicate language and really clean and without making substantive changes clean up the ordinance so they can appear easier and more user friendly one of the things they did that you'll look you'll notice if you if you look at an ordinance and then compare it to what's in this code is the penalty provisions of ordinances we now just have a penalty section for the whole code instead of each ordinance having its own penalty section most ordinances retain like a waiver penalty but the actual penalty section is now referred to in one place other questions can you hear me we can barely hear you use your big boy voice hold on is that better that's much better yes hold on hold on okay we can we can hear you you can hear us yeah oh you can hear me now yeah oh yeah oh wonderful okay good i'm just curious Kyle thank you for all the hard work actually skimmed slash read most of it it's actually an impressive set of ordinances but i was wondering as you went through with a careful eye whether there's anything you saw that's kind of you know it's odd or unusual or relic like you know not really policy but things that you saw that like oh that's that's something we should look at and maybe fix i think there's several that are in the works i think tom could talk to like our stormwater and our water ordinances that are about to be updated anyway we're working on products for those we've been working for a long time on updating our sign ordinances sign or sign ordinance there's been some change in law there and so what we essentially did is didn't make any substance didn't make any modifications to that ordinance this time but that's going to need a pretty significant rewrite and we're working on that right now i noticed that about half the code related to signs which was there's a lot there about signs yeah and i think i think now that we have in front of us mean there were some ordinances that that i don't think i've looked at for quite some time that now well now that we have them in front of us we'll have the opportunity kind of kind of take a look at what we do have and see if they do need updating did they also as i understand it they went through the three books some of which had been changed but the they were still in the books old ordinances or old language did that that old language get um saved somewhere and is it online so one could um if they want i don't know who would i'm i'm not interested but someone might be to go back over the history of um i don't know noise ordinances in south berlington and how they've changed is that possible yeah at this point we have no intention of of getting rid of the ordinance books books that we do have for historical perspective and i think we'll have to figure out a way to keep uh keep ordinances when they do change so we can maintain that historical perspective so we can tell what how we got from point a to point b i think that is often helpful um and i think one thing we did do is you know we had to go through these ordinances and see okay what is in effect and what isn't so some things we thought were in effect that the city council had repealed back in 1973 and so we had to review review minutes and think oh wait the council did uh did repeal that ordinance we don't need to include that one um so yeah yeah it sounds like a real lot of work huge improvement that's great well i thought it seemed pretty well organized too yeah i went i mean i didn't read it word for word i skimmed oh yeah but but i was interested in the organizational pieces and i liked how they were um identifying where the different information came with those little codes and stuff it just looks like it really was very usable for someone who really wanted to dig into and understand an ordinance yeah and search and do searches on yeah yeah well kudos thank you so if you are willing to move it for we do need a motion i have motion language here him is good at that i try have our little rolls so this is the motion here so i would move to approve the included enacting ordinance and the proposed city code instead of second reading in public hearing for february 5th 2024 at 7 p.m in accordance with requirements of the city charter second any further discussion all in favor signify by saying aye aye okay that passes larry was out of the room yeah oh here he is here that's okay do you want to um cast your vote on this um do you code so code for a second uh for a second public hearing so it's unanimous okay thank you very much get feel better soon callin oh collins under the weather thank you all yeah you know i know i was like i thought you'd be in your jammies or something maybe you did maybe you didn't see me before the meetings that's a cardboard thing right in front okay we'll feel better soon all right so moving on to item 14 we want we need to convene as the south brownton liquor control commission i move that we enter the south brownton liquor control commission second all in favor aye it's unanimous okay we have 802 cocktails um apple bees the commercial kitchen oh oh that that's a different okay the commercial caterer in third class commercial kitchen um apple bees um cheese and wine traders copper uh copper at dorset and target store yeah i'm sorry i misspoke it that it was 802 cocktails had the first class and third class commercial okay so it's just yeah they go again i'm sorry all ready so so i'll move that we approve all of these licenses second any discussion well in favor signified by saying aye aye so they all are approved thank you that we come out of the south brilington liquor control commission second and i realized we never came out of the necessity um oh there's a hearing was that a hearing oh okay that's what it said necessity hearing i thought we did no okay maybe we didn't yeah we did we did but came out of the city plan do we need to officially come out of it all right okay i'll move that we come out of the necessity hearing um to consider the construction of an additional water tower on dorset street sex all in favor hi hi so sue you can put that in the right order okay we're out of we're out of everything except for a regular session we're just here okay is there any other business seeing none i would entertain in germany all in favor hi and good night everyone have a great trip thank you andrew thank you