 minute online and see any buddy that wants to speak from zoom. So we will move right into the public hearing on the proposed land development code amendments. So we'll call that public hearing to open the public. Okay, so Chris is going to start us off with the presentation and talk through some of the results of the survey and then we can open it up to comments. Great. So welcome everyone. I'm going to do a little overview of what the land development code amendments are. This is something, this is a project that has been ongoing for the over the last year. And it has been, it's stalled for about the last half a year with the change over to the city. But now we are reaching a statutory deadline for either the enactment of the adoption of these bylaw amendments or we'd have to start again. But what's a land development code? Well, the land development code is the city's zoning bylaws which regulate where things can be built and what can be built in different parts of the city. What we have on this map, this slide over here is a map of the, this is a zoning map. Each area, each color represents a zoning district and the rules in each district are slightly different. And really the zoning, the land development code over the years is what has led to what the city is today. You know, the aerial view you see at the five corners, the development that has occurred, the shape, like where it's located, that is all regulated by the land development code. So why did we do this? Why do we have to make these amendments? Well, the LDC is is a document, you know, a legal document and we have to ensure that it is in line with changes to our comprehensive plan and other planning processes such as the five corners design plan that aim to improve infill development and pedestrian connectivity in the village center, zoning district and this area as well as the trunk routes that lead to the village center zoning district. We are also proposing with these LDC amendments some, a response to the current housing shortage, adjusting some requirements and some limitations of what can be built in the R1 and R2 districts, the residential districts as well as the multi-family zoning districts. There are some changes in the LDC amendments about stormwater management as well and this is to make sure the city can be in line, the rules can be in line with the changes in state requirements and as well as, you know, to be in line with current practices, best practices and we also have some changes here to ensure that we are in compliance with new state legislation including the S100 housing bill. There are also a bunch of changes in the LDC amendments that have to do with just the new charter and the city's extension becoming a city and the fact that we've also had some changes in our government structure in terms of the planning commission, the role of the planning commission and the zoning board of adjustment which is now, which is now the development review board in terms of who gets to review your incoming applications. There's also some minor adjustments throughout the document to reduce redundancy between processes and just to make the bylaws work a little bit better. So what are some of the things that, you know, some of the policies that we've been trying to align these, you know, these LAC amendments to. One of them is the design five corners design process which was which aimed to improve pedestrian connectivity in the city center. There are design choices that were made there about ensuring that we can have pocket parts, space for pocket parts on the streets here and in the building setbacks, making sure there are opportunities for public art, covered bus shelters and shade trees. These are some of the design details that we try to incorporate into these LDC amendments. So one of the biggest changes, okay, one of the most substantial changes that are in the LDC amendments is some changes to make sure that we create opportunities to build more housing and allowing up to four dwelling units in the R1 per lots in the R1 in our two districts. That's one of the changes that originally we actually proposed up to three dwelling units per lot. But now with the passage of F100 at the state level, the city is required to allow up to four dwelling units. Whether or not the LDC has changed today or the amendments are adopted today or not, the state rules will come into effect by July 1st. There are some proposals in the LDC amendments for increased housing density, allowable housing density in the multi-family zoning districts. And there's also some changes to simplify and improve the accessory dwelling units approval process. One of those changes is that the owner occupancy requirement is proposed to be updated a little bit so that the owner does not have to necessarily be living in the main, the principal structure. The owner would be allowed to live in the accessory dwelling units, accessory apartment instead if they didn't need the space they wanted to rent out the main structure. And also there are some changes here to address, to add some special standards to maintain the aesthetic characteristics of residential districts. We know that adding, you know, allowing up to four units per lot could really change the look and feel of some of the neighborhoods. Some of these special standards include requirements that parking be limited to no more than 30% of the lot frontage. And there are also some changes to lot coverage requirements, the maximum lot coverage that can be allowed. So just to give you an idea of what duplexes and triplexes and fourplexes they exist throughout Vermont already. In some cases you might not be able to tell that these are duplexes. But this picture over here is an example from Montpelier. There are actually two residential units here. The entrances, one is from the front, one is from the side. And there are two separate doors and they're walled off between each other. These duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes, they can be purpose built that way or they can be converted from existing homes. There are certainly people that do some renovations for unused, potentially attic space to modify that so that it can become living space. People could put up renovates and put up walls within their building to kind of delineate more units. The next example here is from Waterbury. This is a triplex. I mean, you can tell a little bit more that this is more than one unit. But the LDC amendments require that these triplexes and fourplexes be in the style of a traditional frontage home. So where would this be in effect? So this map over here outlines the locations in the city where you're already allowed to build more than four or more units. And you can see along Pearl Street in the five corners area would confirm the whole planned agricultural area. Those are the places and also along Brickyard Road. Those are the places where you're already allowed to build multi-family homes. Which color is that, Chris? So that's purple. And green indicates the areas which are currently zoned residential one, residential two. This is where the policy change would really have an effect. Where currently you're only allowed one dwelling unit per lot and under the new rules you'd be allowed up to four. If you can meet the other requirements such as lot coverage limits and parking rules. So yeah, one of the other, one of the goals here is to strengthen standards for design and historic preservation. We know that what is built today is going to be here for years to come. We want to make sure that what is built is something that that residents can be proud of. So this, you know, we want to be accommodating infill developments while also creating a more pedestrian friendly atmosphere in the Village Center Zoning District and the trunk roots that come into the city. And this was really a part of, this was the decision that was made during the design five corners process. So what this would do, what the specific rules here would be to expand the architectural design and historic preservation review standards that are currently in effect only in the Village Center District out towards the the five trunk roots, Maple, Maine, Lincoln, Pearl and Park Street. The LDC amendments would also clarify the eligibility for historic preservation. And this map you see here, the red, the red outline shows where under the new rules, there would be design review and historic preservation overlay districts. That means anything that is proposed there would have to be reviewed for 4SX and for what it looks like by the design review board. Also, if owners of historically designated or historic or buildings that are eligible for historic preservation would come under some new regulations as well. So the LDC amendments also deal with parking and how that is regulated by the city. Right now, for every different use type, we require a certain amount of parking. That's, you know, it's, you know, it's often based on square footage for commercial developments and based on being a number of units for residential developments. But we also know that parking in urban areas, while it is very important, and we know that's, you know, having insufficient parking, you know, if we don't manage it well that, you know, we could have some issues, we do know that it takes up a lot of space which competes with the space that is available for housing. You might be able to, you might ask why don't we just require developers to build parking structures to build underground? Well, that starts to get incredibly expensive. You're looking at $80,000 or more per parking space and all those costs are ultimately passed to homeowners and renters when they buy it. But the big change here is that, you know, we don't want to, we're proposing that we only require one, a minimum of one parking space per unit instead of two. And that is really a minimum. Developers would still be allowed to build as many as they see fit based on, you know, market conditions. But this is to ensure that we don't see so many situations where, where somebody's paying a mortgage for two, you know, for an apartment with two parking spaces when their household only has one vehicle. So some of the changes also involve improving standards for bicycle parking facilities. There, you will see in the, in the document that there are some provisions for indoor bike parking for developments that are, that are large enough. But for the most part, those regulations, you know, won't kick in for most zoning permits and most smaller developments out there. We're talking about bike racks being placed in proper locations, you know, modern bike racks that's where you can, where you can properly secure your bike instead of just locking up the wheel. For larger developments, there would be a requirement for sheltered or indoor parking spaces. This is really for, you know, we're thinking about for employers, you know, for employees and also for residents with multifamily buildings. There are some changes proposed as well in terms of rules around green infrastructure and low impact developments. This is about, this is really to incorporate the best practices, best environmental practices for managing storm water at the source to, to allow developments to, to slow hold and clean storm water before it's fed into our, our storm water system. These, these kind of treatments tend to tend to actually reduce the cost to municipality in the long run. So there are also changes to the permitting fees that are, that are proposed in the LDC amendments. These fees, these fee increases are meant to, to help us better align with the, the true cost of review and services. And there's also one major change that was, that was added on recently. And that is the new sewer capacity allocation fee. And that's, that's intended to help prepare for future capital needs. So that's new developments coming in, using capacity that's, that, that could be limited at the waste water plants in, in the, in the water pipes. That's, that we build up a capital, capital fund to, to deal with that when, when capital needs come. So what did we do? What have we done so far in terms of public engagement? Well, many, many people have probably already been on sxjunction.org slash LDC 2023. This is our splash page. This is, this is the page dedicated to the LDC amendments and, you know, summarizing what's, what is proposed under that there's a section of housing, there's a section parking section on everything we've talked about so far. You know, there's, there's kind of more readable, more user friendly information available there. We've also engaged the public through, through French Forge Forum and through Facebook, as well as through press releases, you know, to, to get attention from the media and as well as an online survey, which we will talk about a bit. But in terms of our, our media outreach, we've certainly received some media coverage out there. The Essex Reporter has run three stories on this. The WCAX is also, you know, had a, had a story about this just recently. There might have been one earlier as well. We also were on a segment, featured on a segment on, on WVMT talk radio during the Morning Drive show. But in terms of the survey, we had the survey open from May 12th to June 8th and over that period of time, we received 217 responses. Over 200 of those responses were received before the additional S100 related changes were made on May 24th. So, well, the first questions that's, that are in that survey is, you know, where do you live? Do you, do you live, work, study or do business in the city of Essex Junction? I was trying to see, through this question, whether a survey respondents actually lived here, if they just visit, but respondents are allowed to pick multiple answers here. And with 206 of the respondents indicating that they live in Essex Junction, I think it's pretty clear that's that, you know, this is, the responses, you know, are from people who live here. 76, say they work or study in Essex Junction and 135 say they shop or do business here. We also try to see how many of the survey respondents are home owners and how many renters. Only 14 of the respondents were renters, the majority, 200 of the people who answered this question were owners. In terms of demographics, this is the spread that's that's that we received. The majority, you know, we didn't receive that many responses from, from those under 35 majority were from in the age category of 35 to to about 55. And in terms of annual household income survey respondents skewed a little bit higher than than the actual average of what incomes are in the city. So let's take a look at some of the themes that's specific themes that this survey went over. One of the questions we asked was, please rank how strongly you agree or disagree with with the housing related proposals. And how how strongly you agree or disagree with the following statements and that the statements are this the proposals will benefit me and my family. Separately, the proposals benefit benefit my neighborhood. And lastly, the proposals will benefit the city as a whole. We can see here that certainly many of the respondents responded saying that they think the proposals would not benefit that's their themselves or their family. But when you asked them to take a step back and think of the city as a whole is this good policy, you know, this is it's more in the mid 50 50. Now we can take a little bit of a deeper dive into into this chart. Let's take a look at the first question here, whether or not the proposals will benefit me and my family. If we take this this chart turn it sideways, it looks like what's what we have down here. It's the same numbers. We can kind of categorize this a little bit more. If we take a if we filter for only renters, we can see that renters appear to be a little more supportive of the housing changes, but there aren't that many responses, as I said before. So this really should be taken more as a qualitative feedback than quantitative. We also see if we subcategorize by by age that younger residents appear to be a little bit more supportive. And we don't see any obvious or strong patterns based on racer in there were also there was also an open ended question at the end of the housing section. All the responses are separate are available separately in the PDF in the package and also City Council has had had a chance to kind of click through it in the word cloud and through through the survey portal stuff. But I think the the the responses are quite diverse and nuanced. Um, you're just taking a look over here out of the first seven responses. You know, we we certainly see the first the first respond here says, I think the zoning change amendment is based on the false premise that housing needs to be provided within the city of that junction. A city is already mostly built out changes will severely impact the character of neighborhoods. We see comments like that. You know, I worry about that some neighborhoods will be overrun with duplexes. And then we see more also more nuanced responses as well. Like the six responded here says I'm all for this. It's important to have mechanisms to address aesthetics and quality. And, you know, there's another response here saying that's more condos and townhouses need to be built two beds, two baths, they've got to be more affordable for middle class families. Certainly. Yeah, same question over here, you know, you if you take a look at some other responses. Um, some people think that's a four dwelling units per lot in residential area seems no excessive and will change the field of the community. And, you know, there's also a response. It's like, as extension as extension shouldn't be responsible for that for solving the housing crisis for the rest of the county and state. But we also see some responses like I'm strong. I strongly in favor of building up the city as it is economically and environmentally great location for denser house. Yeah, last response here we see support for for for building more mixed uses and and dense housing more density can help cities become more walkable and livable. It could provide a great opportunity for village center to attract more people to its businesses. I don't need to read through all the details of this. There are there are many responses and I believe that city council has has taken a look at all of them. I certainly have read through all of them and seen the themes. So if we take a look at the next question that survey asks about design and historic preservation, please rank how strongly agree or disagree with the following statements about design review and historic preservation proposals. And this question also asks about me and my family, my neighborhood and also the city as a whole. You can certainly see fairly strong support, particularly when you're looking more at the city as a whole. Looking at the more specific responses here. Yeah, some some respondents say that if you insist on building boxes for people to live in, they might as well be aesthetically pleasing boxes. You know, there's some some comments just in general support like much appreciation for this. We only get one chance to get this right. And I believe there's, yeah, and you know, the last response on this page is I don't think that there should be additional burdens placed on property owners who are trying to improve properties. And that is that is certainly a concern. And the related concern over here, number 29, says Burlington has allowed similar ideas to actually cause buildings to fall into disrepair due to the heavy costs, cost burden of full compliance with similar regulations. I think we need to be careful to not repeat similar mistakes. Excellent intention, but details of execution will be critical. So yeah, that's kind of just some examples of the the short answer responses that we had. Survey results related to parking. I think there's many people, many of the respondents have strongly disagreed over here. And that's both at the personal level and it's a whole but it is important to note that the parking the changes in in the rules of parking is something that is required by S 100 state housing, housing bill. Interestingly, if you take a look at the subsets of what these responses look like, younger respondents here to be a little bit more supportive of the changes in parking requirements. But again, no obvious pattern based on on income. People of color do appear to be less supportive of the changes. And yeah, this is just an example of some of the written responses that that's that we received. Two or more people work in these units and need to parking. So stop overcrowding. Number 18 over here. Number 19 says these standards are sensible and should be adopted. Parking adds significant significant costs and the current standards requiring two spaces per unit is more than many households need, particularly as the average household size increase decreases. Most developers will build more than the minimum if they feel that's the market demands. So that's an example of the answers for you. And then when we asked about bicycle parking in the many days and people's general support for that, you see a fairly strong support, especially when you back out to the community, the city as a whole. Looking at specific responses. There's certainly a lot of support, particularly for just simple bike racks, visible conveniently located bike racks. Good idea. Number 55 says very excited about this. And but it's of course, it's not not everyone supportive. Number 60 says this is a joke. Number 61 says showers and lockers should not be mandatory. Although I should be clear that those showers and lockers would only the requirement for that only kick in for very large developments. You know, for example, if one, you know, if if post office square gets redeveloped as a whole, you know, 20 years down the line, survey results for green infrastructure. People generally support the changes here. I will note that the the sewer allocation fees actually, you know, that's that's another that's next question. I won't go over the the written responses about green infrastructure. You know, this is more of a technical change. But generally people are are excited about the the ability to to adopt more environmental environmentally friendly practices. If we take a look at the survey results about the fee schedule, where we asked, do you think the fee increases are fair? The, you know, it's only so 31 people responded no 67 responded maybe 58 responded yes. But I think it's important to note that these results are from prior to the addition of a sewer capacity allocation fee, which is probably the one most significant fee increase that's introduced here. And I think this is the next question. And the final question here is one of the most important questions. When respondents are asked to take a look at think about the changes proposed as a whole, are they a step in the right direction for the community? There are policy making sometimes involves things that aren't that's that are trade offs. And that might not be good for the immediate future, but you know, could be important for the long term or could be important for the community as a whole. And when we asked this question, the response we've got where we're about right in the middle, about half of the respondents were on the fence or agreed or strongly, strongly agreed. Well, the opposite was also true. So that's the summary I have of the public engagement results. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. So do we have any questions from anyone online or anyone in the room about that presentation, the land development code, proposed amendments, wait a minute, seeing any on zoom, not seeing any in the room. Oh, there's a hand. Can't see that here's that. Risa. Thank you. Thank you. I don't anticipate removing the winter parking ban. Is there anyone else? It is. Yes. So if you if you want to say anything or ask a question, that's please do. Sure, you can come up, come right up this table. If you don't mind to give us your name. Have a seat. Mary, do I go three games court? I just want to say that I appreciate all the work that has gone into the LDC being revised. I did try to make it through a lot of it. The discussion at the last meeting, City Council meeting on the 24th of May, there was discussion about the building height. I was a proponent way back when that building was built to keep it at four and I was happy that it was. I would still say that we need to keep the four because now we've got the additional bonus floor for affordable housing and I think five is should be the limit or the village or not the village anymore or the city. One of the reasons I really feel this way is because I feel it should be quality over quantity and somebody expressed that as exjunction should not be responsible for solving the housing crisis for the county or the state and I think that it's possible for us to sacrifice our identity and get consumed by this quantity issue of housing and we'll lose what we you know what the feeling of community and what we treasure living here. I welcome the additional community outreach. I was part of design five corners back in 2012 or 13 whenever it was and I really do think it's important to get this feedback. I will say about the feedback front porch forum I think there was one post on May 13th. I would have liked to see more of that because I'm not on Facebook and I know a bunch of folks who are not on Facebook so any of those other outreaches may not have reached the folks that we were looking for in as far as renters. I don't know how many renters are on front porch forum either. So I do appreciate the discussion in the 24th meeting about the sensitivity for the overlapping districts which I am one of. I'm an MF3 and adjacent to me is the village center right in front of my window of my house the front of my house. There is talk about this 15 foot buffer being eliminated. Well the language in 7083 says specifically any multifamily development in the village center district that's adjacent to a single family use that's also in the village center shall not be required to have the buffer and that is not my case. I am in a MF3 and there is village center right here in front of my house. So you know there's some nuances like that that I think Raj you addressed in the 24th meeting which I really appreciate and I think that's all of my notes. Thank you. Robert Paralline I lived in Essex for about 30 years and we moved to the village 10 years ago to the city now. We love the city we love to be able to commute or to be able to walk to things and I'm looking to develop 132 pearl it's been empty for almost two or three years waiting for development waiting for this to happen. I was trying to rent space from the railroad was right behind me to get more parking and they wouldn't give me the space for a long term. So I drew up another plan so plan two I was coming to pull permit and Chris says hey wait because this could happen. So I'd love to see this happen I'm really in support of one parking spot so I could build more housing. I have so many tenants I have other rentals I have many I have several townhouses for an IBM so I would really appreciate you guys voting on this and making this happen and also I heard maybe there's a city parking garage if you guys ever approve that that would be perfect because my property would feed help feed some of that and also hopefully I get some St. Mike's tenants so I don't need a lot of parking where my location is. So I appreciate this and I just support it thank you. Is there anyone else in the room that wants to have a comment? I want to just give thumbs up. Thank you for all the work and I'm going to look straight. Okay thank you. All right I don't see anyone else I don't see anybody on zoom so I'll close the public hearing on the proposed land development code updates. The board is going to not normally we would talk about this now as a board but since we have quite a few interviews and members of the public that would have to sit through that discussion we're going to move on to a couple other agenda items and come back so that we can not have our guests wait and wait into the meeting. So we'll move on to business item 6a interviews and appointment considerations for the community. So we have I think at least three of our candidates online. We have I'm assuming the rest we're expecting are in the audience but to get us started and sort of on the same page I wanted to read just a brief description of what the cab is and remind folks of what it is not so that we were all starting from a central idea. So the cab is an independent board whose purpose is to facilitate communication between the s-extruction community, the s-extruction and s-extunity and the s-ext police department and provide feedback and support to EPD on strategies and policy especially around issues of equity. Central to this stated purpose is an emphasis on ensuring the voices and needs of systemically marginalized disenfranchised and oppressed members of the community are heard with regard to public safety. The cab is a committee with equal representation from the town of Essex in the city of this s-extruction. So I am going to go from our list and I'm sorry Regina did you have anything for this I didn't even ask I apologize. I did not have anything to add just schedule wise just so folks know we do have more folks than were available to interview tonight. So the the hope is to interview those folks at this point at the end of July and so the I don't anticipate that you folks be ready to make a decision tonight but so just just put that up. And for the board we may still we already have an executive session scheduled and we may take the opportunity to debrief on the interviews tonight since it's such a long period between now and the next opportunity to interview the last two people. I don't think this list is in any in any particular order so we'll start right at the top with sure sorry the interviews being held in public yes and actually we can talk about that obviously in the past we've made the made an offer to interviewees to ask if they would prefer to be interviewed in private. We don't necessarily have a set policy on that and we've done both so I don't know how the board feels about proceeding on that but we want to talk about that. I'm looking back and forth to TV Amber because I'm trying to keep you in this conversation. You can go ahead. I was going to say personally I'd prefer to keep this in open session given one of the main purposes of having this community advisory board is to help with communication and to help make sure voices are heard and I think doing it in secret doesn't help that mission. Elaine did you have anything you wanted to I'm just thinking back to times before yeah you know and it's probably something we should explore more at length but I think I do tend to agree that I think there are a lot of people interested in hearing the interviews certainly the members of us express that I think are online right now watching and I think but certainly if any of the interviewees have a reason that they would prefer to do it we would certainly discuss that with them so I don't want to shut the door on that. All right um Mark Mendes please come to the table thanks for joining us. Hi I'm Mark Mendes. I was going to give you the opportunity to say a few words if you wanted to or we can we can just dive right in. I've just lived here since 2008 I love SXS instruction. I love supporting the police and I also have a passion for inclusion and including voices that aren't always heard so I read it and I said that would be perfect so and I also attend meetings all the time so I'm familiar with meetings. You're meeting Junkie is what you're saying. I'm meeting Junkie yeah. Yeah. Anyone on the board want to take us off? All right good. Well I mean you gotta be quick around here. I'm sorry because my question is not fully warmed just thinking of all of the people who are going to be interviewing these positions. I'm curious Mark if you could talk about your feeling about the current state of the EPD's relationship with our community do you feel like there are things that need to be changed do you feel like the status quo is great like where do you see this body what do you see this body doing in terms of quality of the police in this exchange? Part of my role of the job is to serve on the rotary and I've just we had the interview with the diversity person on the police force which I thought was an incredibly positive move. I think our police officers have a difficult job and so I've had a number of police officers in the organization I serve and I'm aware of some of those difficulties and just living with that on a daily basis but I always think in our world where you know oftentimes voices are not heard and we can always do better in concluding those voices and then standing up for that. I think in any large organization it's easy to just keep going and not be intentional with those issues and so I think intentionality always helps so I don't see any huge you know glare and terrible awful things that I've seen or heard or you know maybe there are but I haven't heard or seen them so does that answer your question? Thank you for applying Mark as Roger talked about one of the main purposes of this group is to have an emphasis on ensuring the voices and needs of systemically marginalized disenfranchised and oppressed members of the community are heard with regards to public safety. Could you in could you provide either an example of a way you've done that in the past and or you'd like to see do that as a part of this this board? Sure in the organization I served we talk a lot about inclusivity issues and and we got to the point of saying how can we put some substance behind that and so you know I'm the minister of the church over there we have one apartment and so at one point we had discussion about how we could use our resources to make an effect and so we decided to rent our apartment to and partner with at then VRRP and have an immigrant family live there and so we partnered with them and had the first Nepali family in town living on our property. Not everyone appreciated that because then you had to have translators and everything at the schools and every place else and so we've continued that policy and it's had you know the Nepali community has grown here because of that and so I think that's an easy small example of that. We're also very supportive of LGBTQ issues and try to do our best to include that in in our organization but just gladly supported the Pride event that just happened so those are a couple areas. Is that enough? Amber or Marcus? I guess I'm curious around and I'm going to make this one up on the fly because the two of them asked better questions. They took up three of my questions in there too so thank you so much for that. This is not an oversight board so and that's been that's been clear I think in the discussions for the past year plus this has been discussed. So I think that I mean do you think that that presents any special challenges in how, see if I can phrase this question, yeah do you think that will present challenges in this board succeeding as an intermediary between the police department and the community? How do you think that might play out in that? For me I think the key of that question would be you know the partnership between the advisory board and the police department and if there's trust and open communication with that then it will work and be an effective partnership and if not it won't be. How might you handle a situation where there is disagreement between the request from the community to the citizen advisory board or perhaps disagreement on the board itself with how the police have responded or are responding to an issue or a topic or a policy? I always think honest communication is better than no communication to keep the avenues of discussion open. I also don't think everyone needs to agree with everything because that's unrealistic and so I work in an organization that 51 percent of the people determine what the outcome is. I personally work for consensus and would rather work harder and longer to try to get the consensus than to vote early and get through it. That's my personal response because people, I have found people to be thoughtful and they're coming from some spot and if we can sort of unpack some of that maybe we can get past it. It's hard to do but I think taking more time to do that serves you know the common good more if that makes sense. Thank you. I do not have any more questions for myself and go around the room one more time. Mark thank you very much for coming tonight. Have a great day. Second on my list Victoria Gregg I believe is online. Yes. Hi there. How are you doing? Good how are you? Anybody else want to? I feel like the questions that we... Yeah I mean we can keep everybody should. Yeah sure. Victoria I'm going to give you the opportunity to say just as I did Mark you know if there's anything you want to start off with you don't have to just give me the opportunity to. Yeah no sure I am a lifelong remark and an extension resident for the last eight years. You know I'm obviously younger than some that may be trying to be on this floor but I have I live in five years and I'm going to college as a D1 athlete. So I see a little bit of different type of living and environment than just for mom would have and I am also a manager of the post office and get to deal with a wide variety of customers and many things. Great. Why don't we go in the same order with them? Sure. Victoria hi. So I'm going to ask the same question. What is your opinion of the relationship of the police department to S extension? Is there something that you feel needs to be addressed in particular and do you have any thoughts in particular about the quality of policing in S extension? I think that the police department has a great relationship with the community however there's always room for improvement. We are better than some of our communities are and but I do think that they make great positive moves to including the community and having that good like open communication with them. Was that a part of the question? I'm sorry. You pretty much answered it in terms of your observations about the quality of policing in S extension. Thank you. Hi Victoria. Thank you for for applying. So my question was central to the stated purpose of this board is that there's an emphasis on ensuring the voices and needs of systemically marginalized, disenfranchised and oppressed members of the community are heard with regards to public safety. Can you talk to us about how you either have done this in the past or how you would like to do this as a part of the board? Yeah I have had some experience with boards in terms of really a lot of different things from other parts of the community. However I'm really open to hearing any of us opinion and really don't I don't I don't know I guess I'll judge by whatever you are over your previous other opinions whatever it may be I think everyone's opinions really weren't and it would be a little bit interesting to see how people would bring things to this board because I'm sure it would need to be coming from different avenues either word of mouth or online or maybe people feel more comfortable just reaching out to certain people on the board but it would be an honor to be a part of that. And as I asked Mark you know this is not an oversight board and there will be inevitably at some point in a time when either the public or the cab itself membership you know is in disagreement with the police department how do you see that being resolved or managed and given given your relationship do you think you can be impartial to that as part of this organization? I certainly think I would have a different perspective however I am always just very open understanding person and more than happy to hear your opinion I would give my opinion but it's not I think just honesty and thoughtfulness you know the community isn't happy with the decision we made and we're able to justify it and give a reason why that's the most important part or on the other hand the police firm isn't happy with the decision you know as a board we're not going to necessarily agree on everything but as long as there is good thought process to any decisions that were made that's the most important part. Amber I can't see you right now but I know you're there um do you have any questions? Well thank you for asking them. Mark you already asked my question thank you. Feel free to jump in ahead of me but next time. It's okay. You have a cover I appreciate it. Anything else from the board? Okay thank you very much for joining us and for applying and I forgot to mention this to Mark but if you aren't selected we gotta we just sometimes do this if you aren't selected for this position would you be open willing to be contacted or consider other committees or boards that the city is trying to position? City's trying to fill. Okay great please uh please apply to others then if you uh if this doesn't work out. Thank you. All right um Michelle Krasny I don't see online so I'm assuming there she's come on up. Hi there. I'm curious is there an opportunity for us to ask questions? You know what absolutely yes absolutely okay. Do you want to start off that way? I'll start by telling you who I am okay and then I'll ask you questions. Hi I'm Michelle Krasny my husband and I bought a house and asked extension two years ago two years and changed. I've lived in Vermont on and off my whole life but I've lived all over the place and for a living I'm basically a professional listener. My background is in qualitative and quantitative design and right now I am a career coach so I talk to people about their business all day every day. Great so my question is sort of about the lived intention of the committee. I understand the mission and the ideas behind it and that it's not an oversight committee but I'm curious what is the intention for what would be discussed and what the role would be between the committee and the police. Well when you first said the intention I went to lived experience so that is something that we're considering. I think this is sort of new but I believe that the group I believe the intention is to address any issues that might arise but more so to foster a really powerful and strong connection between the police department and the community they're serving and that means you know a full understanding of how of the wants and needs of both or both entities and they're not necessarily mutually exclusive and to have an avenue to address any concerns that might arise to have opportunity to discuss policy and an avenue for communication and learning between it's it's bi-directional so I think that's that's most of it and I think you know that that community building community connection and really being intentional which was mentioned earlier about reaching people and groups in our community that just either have historically had bad relationships with law enforcement or public safety or are in a position where they don't feel empowered to be served by police or public safety you know it could be new Americans it could be it just could be people who traditionally had bad experiences and I think building and repairing those relationships even if it those instances weren't perpetrated by people in our department you know I think there's an understanding there that there have been impacts generally and and those relationships need attention and I think there's a belief yeah sort of illustrated by this process that the community and the police department would be better by by doing this and by addressing those issues so I hope that was kind of long-winded but I hope that helps thank you before so I'll ask the same question please because I've forgotten it every time so I'd like to know that you're reasoning behind coming forward to apply for this position is it because you have some concerns about the quality of policing in a six junction is there anything about our current police department and how it operates that either gives you concern or you want to see me too I have no particular concerns about the police department in Essex however I have concerns about policing in America and I love that our community is at such an interesting inflection point and it seems like a wonderful opportunity to be representing the ideals proposed by the cap so I'm excited seems like a good time thank you for applying and before I get into my question I just want to kind of figure back out what we're talking about in terms of the intent on the town's website they have a little bit of a more robust description of the community advisory board and one of the portions that I personally hope that this community advisory board will get to is that the board would focus on contemporary challenges that impact the community and its police department examples that include but not limited to use of force mental health response criminal activity and transparency referrals to community justice center and it goes on to list some others and so my hope is that when these topics are being discussed by the chief in terms of policymaking and so on and so forth but this would be an opportunity to engage a different group in that process help to increase the types of opinions and thoughts that come into that into that policymaking realm especially since we have a bit of a unique role in that we contract for the police services by the town for so in essence we don't really have policymaking role on the police department so there's that so my question though and I hope you're still interested the essential to the purpose of the community advisory board is that there's an emphasis on ensuring the voices and needs as to themically marginalized disenfranchised compressed members of the community are heard with regards to public safety can you describe a time while they're in the past professionally personally that you've either done this work and or would like to do some of this work within or how you'd like to do some of this work within yes sorry stacked question um so I'll answer the end first um I think that the responsibility of privilege and I'm a privileged human being is to lift up the voices of those who don't have that privilege I'm not experiencing trauma because of relationships with the police in my life and that's not something that I have to process or deal with so it can be my role to hold up the voice of somebody who has experienced that in the past right now my work's really one-on-one and I'm fortunate enough to work with folks who are all different types of people and from all different walks of life including some Jedi professionals who are really awesome um because best acronym for that word um in the past I've done more community building work um which included when I was living in Toronto working with new Canadians uh who were Syrian refugees um and we worked with that community to help the women husbands have had significant PTSD we helped the women uh basically make an income they started a kitchen it's called Newcomer Kitchen it's in Toronto if you want to check it out um and they need Syrian food for the community and we're able to get their food handling licenses and get jobs through that great if I'm in trouble now remembering my question but um oversight thank you so I think it's right I think it's it revolves around you know this is obviously not an oversight committee um but there will be times when there is disagreement um between the entities you know and the cab may be in between that um so I'm wondering you know how you might navigate that how that might play out and what where you see opportunity in that what's my understanding based on y'all's answers that our role is just or our role would be um to gather information understand and share that information and make recommendations that the police would then use in creating their own policies so it sounds like there's no nothing really to navigate there through me to me um because it's not our job okay great Amber I'm looking at you nothing okay I do okay great I would like to answer this in your in your application you mentioned about the the research so I just wanted to curious about your experience with research and how you might apply that to this technique I'm really good at reading very dense things um no really I'm uh I'd really love the opportunity to talk to more people in this community about their lived experience and I think having qualitative research experience allows you to do that without bringing in your prejudice or your bias in a way that needs to be trained out of folks I'm certainly in my experience um so I think that that would potentially apply also we are not the only people with a committee like this in America and certainly not in the world and it would be very interesting to look at what else people are doing what's working what isn't looking at their research okay thank you very much I'd be open to other boards thank you thank you that was so much smoother um Leandro is leon great she asked like most of the questions I had uh I don't want to you know you can still ask them you waited yeah is there anything anything you'd like to say um to start you don't have to yeah I guess I my only like the I read through the like the document that we're not like the dislike members for the creation of this my only concern is that like the people who like the police already like the police and is there any concern that like say like like the community like the sexual the community that has issues like maybe doesn't feel either underrepresented or unsafe in seeking representation that they will not they will be like desiring to like get involved in this or like come forward to us if they don't feel there's some like bite to it if it's just like if is there a concern like we might just like come out come off kind of like as a PR thing uh are you asking if there's I am very concerned about that and I that that is my main concern I think that um everyone involved in the creation of this and I would I would include um even folks I I don't want to speak necessarily but my opinion is I think that EPD is also involved in that concern about that I think everybody has been at the table for this discussion by everybody I mean the folks that started this a couple of years ago um leadership at Essex police department management and the community and and board members here and there um so I think I think there's a genuine effort um and a genuine desire to to make this work um and so and that's exciting because I think that that gives it a level of energy and um commitment from a number of different avenues so I think that also brings up a point this isn't necessarily supposed to be a discussion but I think I think that to my question about that disagreement and I'll start this one about you know the stop being an oversight board and there being there aren't going to be opportunities for conflict um yeah we're sort of the right to be upset with that right it's important for it it feels important right to have the caveat independent yeah and I think maybe you could speak to a little bit about why is that important to you and and why uh yeah I mean it's it's important to me that like if it's going to be done it'd be done like meaningfully at all and it seems like it's really as well uh if as we just say like if if it is perceived as not having a bite or like if we uh talk to the community have all these findings pass it over to the police uh department and then the community feels that is not a note that they wouldn't hurt at all um then the next round that we ask around we're just not gonna hear back and then it's just an echo chamber and then we just like waste everybody's time like hours and the police times as well right um so yeah like I that was my my main concern I'm happy to hear that it's also a concern both within the police and within the members form of this I guess the difficult question for you then um as a potential member for this is how would you handle that how would you know so that let's say that scenario played out and you were you were starting to sense that that's where this is going in a in a particular situation that may be played out over four months how would you how would you approach either so caring or making sure that doesn't so the the cab would get to talk to both the police and like community members right um I guess one of the questions that I have in my head not to you but like how like I'm not sure what the plan is for how to reach the community like I there's like online it's already kind of an echo chamber privilege like there's a certain amount of like hey you have a phone like hey you pay for your internet like you you are comfortable putting your name out talking about this right um I would I think I guess my first step would be to try and figure out how to reach the people that would be at the foot for this end of that discussion even if it's going to be you know parallel to the conflict and parallel to the adversarial relationship because we need that to have the whole spectrum of the conversation I guess and then however difficult and traumatizing that experiences then start from there uh like these are the like the most extreme concerns and then bring those to the conversation bring those to like you know the um the the EPD and then be like hey what can we do with this what can we do about targeting these most extreme concerns uh rather than focusing on the like low hanging photo yeah I guess thank you so my question for you is again please yeah and I've heard a little bit about it even what you've been asking already but you know what is your what are your concerns about the current quality of policing in a situation um or is it are there changes you want to make or is there status quo is still in your thinking we should just continue as you know uh yeah so much like my wife mentioned so like I don't have any particular concerns about the EPD like we've fairly recent to uh to SXI as far as I can tell like people like the EPD which is you know great but like I said earlier like we hear from like the people that are like comfortable like expressing their experiences um I I guess I saw I was was very interested in this as an opportunity to like get more involved and find out uh try and find out how like maybe other people feel uh and because I do see a trend in policing not just in America just like in general in the world just getting less liked uh and perhaps like just less a part of the community um I thought this was a great opportunity to be proactive about that as a community um and that's why I um apply this why I was interested to ask you a question I don't think the boy was adjacent right thank you for applying so just to reshape the question so central to the purpose of the community advisory board is an emphasis on ensuring the voices and needs systemically marginalized disenfranchised compressed members of the community are heard with regards to public safety we talked to us about how you have either helped to do this and or would like to do this uh with her as a member of the board uh I don't think I've thought of the past uh at least not intentionally um I I mean I think like the very first thing I would start doing and really just like start looking for like information on how to reach uh people in the community um it's not something that like I've ever like tried to do because I like why would I go around the community asking people how they feel about the police department uh but where I'd be where I'd be part of this community like then it would be certainly of great importance to me uh so it would be you know like just how to uh reach out to like other like uh cities or places where they have similar things where they have similar things whether it be in America or outside like hey how do you find out people like to just walk into like the met then with a questionnaire like is that safe like I don't I just heard about a group of volunteers in Brooklyn that is doing it's answering 911 calls they like they in Brooklyn New York where they get the 911 call they're like oh is the super dangerous no and then they pass this group of volunteers um I assume they are getting really really like immersed in the community really quickly because they're dealing with like the people who would otherwise be dealing with the police department um I don't know that we're doing that here uh but like just immersing myself in information like that like would probably my first priority uh to then be to then discuss within the cap see what was for us um I suppose to you know like questionnaire on facebook I don't think anybody wants to just um not say that was anyone's idea um yeah so I will ask you to follow so um I really do appreciate like the whole council's asking some very good questions um just really covering the basis but I do want to touch on one thing based on again your application um the way you wrote this you have to read it for well because one of the things you said here is I believe lack of oversight transparency are one of the primary issues and police forces across the country so I just want to gut check for a second if I may have with you about now you've heard more from the council you have a little bit better understanding of what this advisory board is doing how do you feel about this particular board and do you believe this is the right direction for us to work with the essence police department in order to try to improve the relationship between us extension and the essence I think even though it is not an oversight um uh like community I think that that emphasis on transparency and and then like being able to reach people like across like being an independent uh group and being able to uh communicate uh back and forth between both groups uh I think it's like pretty important um and I feel like direction-wise it's definitely like a place to start um it's a good direction I think awesome thank you great thanks Amber okay thank you very much thank you and if if there's something else housing in particular housing in particular good making a big deal about housing we we need yeah we need applicants for housing thank you and for anybody in our home really who's interested in you know um James Pfeiffer I think is online no I'm here are you here I'm sorry I couldn't sorry I wanted to watch the chat in case you don't questions okay so I was doing both all right good evening hi sorry okay I've been taking notes um so I'm James hi I think I've met most of you at some point um I moved here COVID plus a week so it's been an interesting transition um I'm I'm still kind of learning how Vermont works and and what it what it's like to to exist in this community because for the first two years I really didn't I hid in my apartment um because I worked there and I lived there and I was paranoid I was gonna get sick and die because my mom told me I would so uh now I'm you know I'm in my 30s but my you know my mom freaks out I still freak out a little bit so um you know I've been I've been trying to plug in a little bit more over the last year so I've chatted with uh with Brown a few times um I know we've spoken once or twice uh I always think I'm gonna say your name wrong Mr Chawla Chawla Chawla okay um and then obviously on the campaign trail I bumped into art recently elected members so um uh you know I'm trying to learn uh I have a an interesting history uh with law enforcement my family uh is there's a lot of cops um I I was with the New Orleans police department for about a year blew my knee out uh before I finished field training which I actually think of is kind of a blessing because uh you know I don't think it was for me in the long run especially in New Orleans uh a little bit of a different environment um and the job was you know you see your parents do it and then you try you know it's different when you're there yourself um so bit of a different vibe um I've gone to some of the the coffee with the chief events good to see good to see a chief uh although I've stopped asking as many questions I think in my first one we spent half an hour talking about just me being weird and a policy guy so um I don't know if you want to ask your questions again if I should just go down my paper um you could submit them in writing I mean I can type them up but it might take me a minute I didn't bring if you're prepared to answer them on your own I don't I think no sure yeah I just you know save some time I'll address the the because I think this is a a big one the lack of this the the fact that this isn't an oversight board um although I do think that you guys have more um uh influence on the department than you think uh just because it's you don't own it anymore um shouldn't give it to him but I don't think uh just you know we could just rezone everything around headquarters right I think that's you know we got some leverage if we need it uh here in the city so um I think it's interesting that it's not an oversight board it's okay to laugh Mr Brown by the way I'm trying to keep this fun I'm really trying here um yeah he's good he's gets all you know what it's because he was in charge of all the separation merger stuff he's had to practice for so long um which was a great introduction to city governance by the way uh as a new resident um yeah I I understand why it's not an oversight board especially since the town would be giving up some of their power to the city then they might not like that and since this is a shared uh ambition let's let's call it um but I do I do think that it's important to recognize that as soon as this body exists even if it's not actually an oversight board people are going to treat it as such to some extent um because that's what it is in other places and that's how they know it and that's what it looks like on you know blue bloods or whatever procedural drama they watch on tv um so we need to act like that's the responsibility we have um and to an extent um the role is going to depend on the access we're given I think um we have no power or we would I say we we would all of this is hypothetical again um assuming uh we would have no no power no no authority um beyond just being regular people uh so uh what access would we have to a summary of citizen complaints uh internal affairs conclusions uh direct access to not just the chief but other senior leaders within the department um I know I personally would like to speak with his supervisors without him present at some point um and not because I don't trust the chief but because you know that's how you get to know people and if we're gonna work with them for an extended period of time that's important um especially if the role is as you say uh to foster a relationship between the police department and the community which I I'm not necessary I don't think that'll be my number one priority simply because I feel like that should be the department's number one priority that you know protect and serve that's included and ours should be to facilitate that when we can but um that larger role uh as as Mr. Brown says central the purpose of the cab uh we have to emphasize uh that uh marginalized and I'm summarizing because I know there's like three or four groups you mentioned voices are heard um that's that's the part that I want to focus on um the transparency issue that was brought up before I don't think that the um department necessarily obfuscates anything but I know my very first chat with the chief that I went to I asked some policy questions um and I asked about um getting updated versions of things uh policies that are on the website and that never happened it's been two years almost um policies that I mean just for example internal affairs dated 2004 has that been reviewed I don't know some of the newer ones have reviewed dates um uh response to resistance has a 2023 date which obviously that's more front of mind um given everything that's happened in the last four to five years um but you know domestic violence the last uh noted update 2020 uh pursuits 2015 what's the cycle that these get reviewed on um who's included that isn't included because they chose select operational policies to make public um and that one that talks about that is not one that I I noticed um when I my question would be why aren't they all why isn't every department policy there why why isn't the little handbook that they give to applicants or new hires the first thing that you see on the website when you go to look for documents if you want to know how the department functions or what we do here's the book here's literally what we teach the people who work for us um so uh again not trying to be mean chief I think you're doing great he seems like a really nice guy we've only chatted for like 10 minutes or so but um like in person I'm gonna jump in here yeah yeah no we're gonna go we're gonna at this point because we've got a few more people out yep we're gonna go to questions sorry I didn't get to all the the stuff I asked your question yeah so you could give me an idea give us an idea of what your concerns are about the the status of what we're seeing in this extension do you feel like if the status quo is sufficient sure changes that need to be made what do you feel I haven't had any direct interactions with um any officers here um in their enforcement capacity so I can't speak to that personally um the few times I've seen traffic incidents or something like that they seem professional um and and I haven't heard anybody complain the the maybe dozen two dozen people I've spoken with about it over the last couple years at some point um so I don't I don't think that we have a specific problem that we're zeroing in on I think it's more of a it's a it's a culture thing we need to we we as a community need to be aware of how the police operate the police need to be aware of shifts in the community especially if our drive is going to be hopefully you know to increase population over the next several years um uh with that could come change be that uh uh the demographic be it racial be it religion be it uh income what have you um it creates or even just the difference between renting and owning I rent we you know there are different concerns and different legal things that might involve the police at various times just because of those so uh I think making sure that that communication is happening um and then the the big part I want to talk about is being loud about it if we do see a problem we won't have the ability to to do anything but I'll be damned if I won't go to every public meeting and make sure it's the thing that I talk about if we've decided that this is a problem and we're not seeing action on it so that's sorry longer than probably you you were hoping I talk a lot that's my bad do you think you answered the question that I was I well yours was specific well yours was specifically about things I've done in the past as well I worked in politics for 10 years um on campaigns with specific offices so I mean I marches for marriage equality um I missed a lot of the recent transgender stuff being up here in Vermont and not back home where that's something that you actually need to like literally take to the streets for um being from Louisiana those those cultural issues were a little more forefront um but I think it's also to point out I come from a city and a police department that was majority minority African-Americans are the majority in New Orleans and and they're I don't know I don't remember the percentages anymore because it's been a few years there they're they also are the majority in the police department and it's interesting to see the culture changes when you encounter um uh departments that are the opposite of that um for me being coming from a law enforcement family and and having that background and going through oh god now I think it's six years of them rewriting and rewriting all of their policies and the consent decree back home I read all of them uh partly because that's my dad's job to rewrite them but because I find it interesting and the evolution of policing and how it it drives or is impacted in the drive to see social change um so I've worked on that for years uh it's important to me um we talk there's the I forgot her name young lady who spoke about privilege uh you know I'm a big fan of Patrick Sir Patrick Stewart uh and he likes to say I'm a rich white guy and that's who people listen to so this is what I'm talking about these things that have nothing to do with me as a rich white guy now I'm not rich but I'm a white guys and I have no problem being loud uh for my friends so or even just my neighbors I feel like you answered sorry yeah I had a bunch I I know it's we gotta be quick not a problem if you have additional questions since we're waiting till July I'm happy to answer them by email or I appreciate that yes sir I think what I heard again I heard an answer to your question but I would like to ask you about conflict resolution sure because while recognizing there might be moments of of conflict between the board community police department necessarily I get being loud believe me I'm a professional for sure being loud is perfectly fine at times but there's also times when you have to recognize the opportunity or do the thing that will help bring those people together so talk to me about how you might do that or an example of where you did that you found that compromise or whatever sure well um I mean I'm not going to draw on a specific one in the past there's been a lot especially when you work in the legislative process it's a real pain but my my hope for a body like this would be that we would we would build a strong foundation a relationship with the department first because the only way that this body can do any kind of actual work of substance is to get access um and and hopefully uh the the chief the select board the other decision makers would recognize that we're trying to act in good faith and hopefully the board at large would be acting in good faith I mean I assume that um but build that relationship the being loud part comes with when we've made a decision if it's not being if I don't feel or if the board as a whole doesn't feel because who knows will elect an officer they'll be in charge of shouting for us or something um that it's being either heard or respected even if they make a different decision that we can respect that but if if we don't feel that it's being heard then it would be at that point our obligation to come here go to select board meetings um if necessary go to the chats with the chief and make sure like hey these are the things that are important these are the things we decided these are the actions that were taken on it and make sure that a summary of those reports go out but no I I I would be always operating in good faith as long as I believe that the people across the table from me were and I would hope that um that that would come across in my demeanor I know I'm a little amped up I don't you guys are the first human beings I've seen in person today work from home is awesome so uh it's you know but yeah that would be my goal is that foundational so I mean the first six months is just going to be deciding how we operate and what the what the what the relationship give and take looks like with the police department then it get go how do we find the people who are aren't already engaged there's decent civic engagement and that's extension but as mentioned excuse a little older um so I'd like to see some younger folks involved we have different priorities and different perspectives um and at least I mean I'm 35 now so I don't know if younger still applies but I don't know when that cutoff is so um but yeah I've talked for way too long if you know I'll let you guys we appreciate you applying thank you very much yes sir if this isn't what we appoint you to please consider other positions yeah I'm I'm open um Mr Browner and I spoke about that to some extent and if you you know have suggestions on where I might fit I'd be happy to great thank you very much thanks for coming yes sir thank you for having me right um Celeste you're the next contestant it's a pleasure to be to be meeting all of you and and um being involved in in this thank you for coming thank you for applying I I think I need to introduce myself just a little because I'm very new to the community I've been here for two years now um I was very active in my in Sutton Vermont which is over on the in the northeast kingdom above Lindenville in St. Johnsbury and um for health reasons I needed to get closer to my daughter's because the hospital on that side of the state is Dartmouth which is a three-hour drive God forbid they needed to get to me from here so decided I needed to move to this side of the state and here I am um I really believe that community involvement is the only way that we're able to keep our state in the in the shape that it's in and in the humor that it's in as well um so I I know that you folks on my application I don't assume that anyone else behind me does but I do have a history with the department of corrections I was involved for for 30 years um on the inside and so as the superintendent not as an in but that is a very important job and it's also the the police force the state police and the local police were absolutely our partners and when I saw an opportunity to work between the community and the force I felt like that was something I needed to get involved in and that's why I'm here and before you today thank you so much so in your time in our community in your observations what are what is your opinion of the quality of policing here and what is there anything you think that needs to be changed or are you interested in maintaining the status quo well I need to know more of the status quo from closer to the inside because there is the public face of any organization and then just like your family when you have company come over you set the table a little differently and make sure the kids wash their hands and faces and the same holds true for an organization like the police department public safety in general whatever so I want to get a little bit of a sense of what else there is but certainly my experience has been very positive I only hear positive things about all of the services in the Essex Junction and Essex communities and I am really pleased with that that it's I mean I left a place where I elected the town constable and made sure that he went to gun safety training as part of our town meeting every year it's very different to be more of an arm's length but it is very it I've only heard good things and I've only seen good things so the next question being that sent into the purpose of the community advisory board being an emphasis on ensuring the voices and needs systemically marginalized disenfranchised and oppressed members of the community are heard with regards to public safety if you talk about either how it happened in the past or how you would like to do this with the advisory board to be corny some of my best friends are former inmates having worked all those years on the inside I started out as a caseworker which meant I was very much involved with the offender side and the offenders family and understood that often they were the weaker link in a very broken system and that's how they ended up in our in our facilities and I try to be as approachable as I can be without without compromising my integrity or my politeness you can't be upset by how people smell or how people talk or how they dress sometimes even the way they move in the gestures they make those things you can't take them to heart necessarily you've got to look deeper than that and I am serious about there have been offenders that have maintained a relationship because they wanted to and there've been friends and family members who ended up on the inside and some of those were really really difficult to deal with because of the well the relationship you know and I had to stay um I had to stay professional at all times and I can do that and how do I handle conflict was that well not so much that but so you have a pretty deep relationship with law enforcement public safety both sides both sides um which I guess puts you in an interesting position but my question was sort of revolving around the fact that there will be times when there's disagreement between the cab and the police force not envisioning massive disagreement but there's going to be disagreement either messaging that cab is picking up from the community or just a conflict of some kind how would you manage that sort of board member and I guess for you you know your history with and your description of law enforcement fine great um how would you manage that on the board as a board member on the board my role would be as a liaison between two very different groups one group includes offenders as well as the community and the other group is our public servants and understanding each other truly listening developing some level of respect that is so critical to resolving any issues that come up you know not every police officer walks on water and not every inmate offender is doomed to help and remembering that we're all human and that we have to be respectful and open-minded and really listen to each other I think is the most important part and the other is knowing how to keep your mouth shut when it's my strong opinion as well as I know something you don't know and being able to safeguard our law enforcement as well as our offenders you don't have to say all that you know and those are some pretty hard lessons to learn sometimes but I had appreciated them with this hammer I'm assuming now thank you very much and if I'm not selected I won't I won't cry myself to sleep I promise but I really I was on the school board for the Sutton school and I helped build the north the kingdom um education supervised reunion the new at 46 stuff I retired after 20 years of that I had had enough school board stuff but I love doing community service I just think it's what we will be in touch with you can tell you I behave well in public welcome to the community Diane does not behave in public Jonathan and I feel bad because we haven't mentioned Guillaume online and I never gave anybody an order and he's being so patient Guillaume you are up next thank you for waiting hi how are you I'm doing good how are you good great so hi my name is uh John Peach Kenworthy I have a I'm a stay-at-home dad I'm a small business owner I do a tech consulting with a few small businesses in the community my motivation to apply for this position was an instant that occurred last august it was my first interaction with the Essex police department I just dropped my daughter off at Hiawatha she's she's in the extended year service program and I was I was pulled over on west street and it it was a very stressful situation uh it it was almost right out of a movie I felt like El Chapo I was pulled over on the street the the officer approached very aggressively he put his his his finger on the like a movie put his finger on the tail light and and came up to me you know we had a little bit of a small some small talk and and and 10 minutes later he he handed me an envelope and and I went on my way and really it I was scared I was really I was I was frightened I didn't really know what to do and uh and and as as kind of an outspoken person I spent the majority of my life very quiet very quiet person in college I never never said a word in college I never rose my hand I never really participated but I always I'd always read the books I did the assignments I I I I did what I needed to do and as I get older I I feel like you know I need to participate more in in in you know in our in our community I've lived in Essex for 10 years I've lived in the city of Essex for six we've we've really fortunate to buy a house in 2017 because I don't think that would have been a viable option today uh but really I I I reached out to the captain and I was you know I asked him about the situation I asked him really what what went down and I was really impressed with the interaction I had with with with with the chief and and really you know that that motivated me to apply for this position because I I feel like you know a lot of people are are scared to kind of speak to authority that to ask questions and and and and you know make this community a better place and and that's really my motivation and especially with with two daughters in Hiawatha we we've had some challenges with the school district and and once again I've had to really kind of you know ask questions and speak up and and ask why you know what were the motivations behind the decisions and and I really want to bridge that gap between between our community and in the police department because it's scary it it's scary I you know I went on vacation in Mexico and I was in an Uber my Uber got pulled over by military police and I was less scared in that situation in Mexico than I was when I was pulled over on west street all right let's um actually I think your your introduction and comments really answered my question that I've been asking everybody I mean we could we can both do better what can we do as a community to do to make that it's policing is a stressful job I I I you know I grew up in Montpelier and like many many young people I left the state I went to Springfield Massachusetts and I went to Western New England College and I I really I I wanted to learn more about you know the you know Vermont as a whole and and and how you know policing worked and I my original major was criminal justice and I you know I went through about a year of criminal justice and and I decided this is not for me and I became a psychology major and I at the end of the day you know I just I think that we we as a community can can foster really positive relationship with police and I'm not sure we're there yet I I see that building off in the distance when uh when when I drive down the street and it's it's ominous it's scary and I you know I just I think that that outreach can be done and I think you know with my conversations I've had with the cat with the with the chief police the stats are there we can see where in Essex is is served and what what could possibly be underserved we can look at the population demographics and induce some outreach uh when this situation happened I I looked online I said you know is there is there anyone I can reach out to is there anyone that's not the police I can reach out to to talk about this incident and there really wasn't anyone and and that's you know I I I took a chance reaching out to the to the chief of police and I was I was really impressed by his response and and I think we can I think a community board can can work to bridge that gap thank you so my question is sent to the purpose of the community advisory board is an emphasis on ensuring the voices and needs systemically marginalized disenfranchised and oppressed members of the community are heard with regards to public safety can you talk about how you've done something like this in the past and or would like to do that yeah we're on this board so my background uh I got a I got a a degree in psychology which really means I'm nothing uh so I I graduated I graduated from college and I really I I moved back I live with my parents for a little bit and you know I was deciding do I want to live out of state do I want to live in state I got a job with enterprise rent a car it was terrible and then I applied for several positions in the state of Vermont and I was very fortunate to get a get a position with the department children and families right off the bat working in the benefit service center for the economic services division they're responsible for three squares for the home heating assistance so I was on the phone talking with these vulnerable populations you know people who you know they're choosing between paying their medications or paying for heat I mean these people are very stressed out so I had a lot of really great conversations with these folks to get them help when I was at the state I I helped to develop an energy assistance program that was enacted by the by the legislation by the legislators in 2012 to give discounts for green mountain power and Vermont gas customers and we worked out a way to to work with those companies to transmit that information and process those applications so I'm super proud of that uh after my experience with that I I worked for Chittanis Supervisory Union doing technology and then in 2019 with the birth of my daughter I I found it very challenging to to manage both and in my wife's schedule and I decided to stay home and kind of do my own thing so that's that's what I've been doing since then and I I dabble a little bit on the side I've done some uber you know uh which I gotta tell you doing uber now that's a use of my college degree because people want to talk I gotta tell you uh but it has been uh I really I love talking with people and I love sharing my experience and and listening thank you um as you've probably heard me talk about this before you know this is in an oversight committee and there might be some some differences in how and how the the board approaches something and a difference in and um the solution between the cab and the police department how would you manage the how would you try to navigate there to help your board mates navigate that so I mean clear communication is is definitely a must uh one of my biggest concerns that I've had recently is just excessive speeding in the community I live on Park Street right near Cascade I've got two young children I've got a two-year-old and a four-year-old and we're right near the road and we've got a lot of vehicles that move very quickly and it's it's literally keeps my wife and myself up at night that if one of them gets into the roadway not a good it's not going to be good uh so we've got we've got a barrier there but you know I open lines with with the chief of police he he doesn't know he doesn't know what he doesn't know he doesn't he doesn't know that I've got two small children on Park Street and people are flying by there he doesn't know that there's an electronic sign covering the the flashing slow sign he didn't know that that sign's very faded and those are things that I brought to his attention and I was really impressed with how receptive he was and how respectful he was so you know it's all about open lines of communication there's going to be disagreements and that's why you know I remember in my criminal justice courses them discussing the oversight boards and just how chaotic those get because you know it's it's hard as a civilian to understand the stressors of policing and I remember the first class I think I took was stressors of policing so you know just to try to do some of that outreach to to to make it easier on both of us you know I don't want anyone to go through the situation I went through where you know I felt I was scared it was I had my hands on the dash like it was just a it was a very tense situation and and I you know it uh it just doesn't need to be that way okay great thank you Amber Marcus I'm good thank you all right thank you for your time thank you very much and Guillaume is online hoping we can hear you because I've been seeing it say connecting to audio for some time so he's on there twice he's on there twice okay oh yeah sorry welcome oh now we can't hear you I'm asking to unmute yes now we have you okay welcome thank you did you want to say a few words before it's not not required but if you want to that be anything you wanted to say please feel free I'm from the Democratic Republic of the Congo I was working already in different NGO I work 16 years with IFC International Rescue Committee I was working in logistics and my job over there was to support different departments in IFC because we have administration department of health and water and sanitation and all these departments I need to support them to do same job put and after a few years I work with them six years I change I work with Union European for the first election in DRC I work with them one year and after that I changed and I came here in 2011-2012 when I came here I live I was living in member streets 300 member streets for eight years and after that I start to work through Kyrgyz I want to Kyrgyz 80 years and after 80 years I moved to Charlotte I live to Charlotte almost one and a half and I come to Essex and I see it in September I can say I was happy to move to Essex because I was ready to receive my family my family came last November I have six kids I have kids who take classes in high school here in Essex High School and when I moved here the first time I met my neighbor Paul he was telling me about the police department in Essex is doing a good job he was him who told me about the police department in Essex and everything was telling me about the police it was something positive and I can say a few weeks ago my daughter she was coming to work and she has accident just on the light here in the blocks and the police his name I think it is Roberto Sergio he came home to bring some documents and I didn't understand very well about those documents and after that I said no because he left me his business card and I called him and I said he knew I sent to me about all this document because some documents I understand because some documents say about flying my I don't understand about this and he tried he started to explain to me about the document and that time I feel a good relationship me and him and everything my neighbor Paul was telling me about the police department in Essex is doing a good job so that day I said I think I live in good city excellent that's good to hear I'm glad your family was able to join you yeah so Theo thank you for applying and I'm wondering if you can talk about a little more about what you think the the state of a police in Essex Junction is and if you are a member of the committee the commission what would you want to change or would you want to make things stay the same or what are you happy with the status quo right now uh I can say I don't have more experience with the police department in Essex because I just moved here almost nine months I don't have very good information about them but the little information I have I can say about my experience all my experience I have in logistics I will see I will support different people in village and over there we are meeting some uh mission leader and you need to know how you need to to talk to them and I think my little experience I can bring here in our community to try to bring all this community and police in Essex together because when I was looking to to to carry I was working with different people different people from different countries and most of the time people was afraid to see police stop them and I think for me it is a good time for me to jump to go in to understand the system and I can try to help our community to tell them police is not your uh is someone who need to do something bad to do no it's better to do something good to try to explain to you about or something to you do some wrong or stupid or something just be quiet and respond to to the question and I think uh if I walk with uh the community I will do my best to try to bring uh the police departments community to thank you thank you for applying and I'll preface the question with from what you were just talking about with Elaine a little bit with your introduction as well as with what you wrote about your time in the Democratic Republic of Congo personally I think you've answered the question but I'll ask you anyways in case you want to elaborate any on anything else so the question is central to the purpose of the community advisory board is an emphasis on ensuring the voices and needs of systemically marginalized disenfranchised and oppressed members of the community are hurt with regards to public safety and so would you like to talk more about how you have done that in the past and or how you would like to do that if you were a part of this that me you can meet different military from DFC from Wanda from Uganda and you need to know how to explain yourself about this people because if you don't know how to explain about this people is quick to begin and most of the time because I was looking for this to support this people every 30 minutes I need to call people the and right to go over there to make sure everyone is safe and after that I need to tell them this time you guys we need to come back in the compound at 4pm because we don't need people to be killed with different military in the unit and all these experiments I have in my country I know how I can deal with our community here with the police department to bring this to bring both together and try to build our city of assets a good time thank you I'm just gonna say I think you answered my question as well in the last couple minutes there so I'm not gonna I'm not gonna ask you to answer mine as well I think you I think you went into all of it just then so unless amber or Marcus has any other questions I do have one one question I'd like to ask and I'll ask it in a very broad in a very broad sense but you know speaking specifically about sxpd but what is and I'm sure there's potentially a dozen different ways to do this but can you give an example of one way that the sxpd or any government entity could do a better job of communicating or a way to communicate with new americans can you read this how could how could we or the sx police department communicate with the new americans here in our community okay I think it is simple to the police to do some communication with the new americans I can say by itself when I speak in english I have accent and the police will know I have this accent when I explain in english but I need to be careful I need to be quiet my example everything I do I need to explain to them you guys when the police stop just bring your head no move your head until the police come ask you some question and respond to his question and after that when you respond to his question I know you and him you can take a good conversation but if you become some you do some agitation that you can bring the police to become very strict to you for me my experience to bring all the community and the police together it is to learn I need to learn I need to learn more when I learn I know how I can talk to my community I know how I can explain to them I know how I need to say about everything our police do in essence you know thank you very much appreciate you applying I appreciate you waiting I think that's it for us questions and if if you're not selected for this if you're willing to serve on any other committees we might have that would be wonderful but we'll let you know soon well not soon we'll be letting everybody know we'll be letting everybody know at the end of July early part of August so thank you thank you thank you okay all right so I don't think this is the case but just want to make sure there's no Jessica was last seen here okay so now we have yep business item six feet conversation with uh chipps executive director christy nick or cordomas cordimas excuse me hi thanks for waiting yeah thanks for waiting definitely I didn't have much much of a commute from down well thank you counselors and Regina for inviting me tonight we're so grateful for our partnership with the city of Essex Junction I'm Christina Cordimas I'm the executive director of Essex Chips community health initiatives and programs for students and we're a small community based nonprofit that relies on the support of our community to serve the families and children of Essex Essex Junction in westward and we've been doing that since 1986 I've been with chips just under two years and I'm just working to strengthen the social infrastructure in our community and the supports for our youth uh in the news recently the surgeon general has been talking about the importance of connection in community and the protective factors that come along with uh kids and adults having a place to go and feel a sense of belonging uh particularly as a way to deal with mental health crises in our country and every day we do that upstairs right here at to Lincoln and we provide community connection a place to play and help kids develop healthy relationships um and bring our community together and we're glad to enrich the lives of our youth offline and that's something big we do have a computer lab but we uh really try to focus on all the other aspects of our program uh first off we're a no-cost program to the community and our focus since COVID has been in the after-school program some of you are more familiar with that than others and I invite everyone in the room and online to come visit us and tour our space and learn more about our programs um we serve an average of 140 fourth to eighth graders each week and that's up from 45 youth a week a year and a half ago so we're growing uh by a lot uh we have games healthy snacks stem activities arts and crafts and a place to find belonging um we have more staff we're hosting more events and we're just always trying to help the kids become uh more well-rounded community members and our future leaders um we're a founding member of the Vermont Youth Center Alliance and we participate in that as well as National Youth Thrive which focuses on protective factors um and promotive factors and we use that framework as a guidance to uh how we deliver our programs in the community we're also part of a planning group that will determine the dissemination of prevention funding federal funding for the Chittenden County Grand Isle County Prevention Networks we host a huge array of activities from mental health education consent education financial literacy leaders in equity 4-h robotics partnering with global foundries and uh all sorts of businesses throughout the community and every day our kids have a chance to be with their friends and be in a safe environment have a healthy snack uh and their caregivers don't have to worry about them and you know we're really glad to give families that peace of mind um i'm gonna skip over some things i i find them to be important but uh i know that we're in crunch for time but we do a huge array of activities for adults as well including documentary films that have a special focus on Vermont and we host uh discussions um we have a parent and caregiver support group we're reading uh middle school matters uh while the parents discuss the group and receive supports from each other we're taking care of the kids and providing dinner for the parents and caregivers so we really aren't just focusing on the youth we're focusing on the broader community as well um and uh one of the mothers recently let me know that she was really appreciative that we're providing a space to be vulnerable in our community and for people to be feeling us and when uh being a parent can be a very isolating thing um so we're also support uh committed to supporting the development of future leaders and having youth voices represented on our board currently four out of our nine board members are under the age of 18 so that's really important to us we partner with UVM we have uh masters of social work interns as well as public health interns that work with us and contribute to our team and they're gaining valuable experience while sharing their life experiences with our kids as well um some of you may have noticed we have a little free food pantry next to the pavilion outside the library we have grown that uh immensely uh in 2021 they were distributing 50 items a month we're distributing over 600 items a month um and addressing food insecurity in our community we're the only um distribution site in our community that does not require proof of nationality or citizenship or community residency we don't believe there should be barriers between hungry people and them accessing the food they need um and because we don't collect information on those we serve we're not able to access discounted prices on the food which we end up purchasing most of the food some is donated by the larger community we also are addressing other barriers in the community by distributing back to school supplies and warm coats through our partnership with Rotary every year we break even I'm working on my budget right now where we start our new year on July 1st and last year's bottom line was three hundred and eighty nine dollars we think it'll be close to that again this year every dollar that comes in goes out every can of food that comes in goes out and we're just really um trying to uh make as large of an impact on our community as we can we're super excited about the renovation here at Two Lincoln and there will be an accessible space for um everyone in the community and be inclusive in our programming there are challenges that lie ahead for us um we'll have a reduced size um we won't have space for our food pantry the timeline the um lack of space for programming during the construction and the continued need for renovation on our specific space and a kitchen for our space even after the renovation occurs or things that I worry about but I look forward to working with the council to overcome this and you know help chips to thrive for another 40 years um in our community or more hopefully I recently was curious what the value of our program was to the community and um calculating based on the average cost of after school programs in Chittenden County for the age group we serve and the number of kids we serve the after school program alone saves um the children we serve who are living within the boundary of the s6 westford school district they don't have to they don't have to attend this school but just that's our boundary um we're saving the community over 106 thousand dollars a year just with the after school program um the value of the food pantry to the community is well over 15 thousand dollars a year and increasing monthly and these figures don't count um any of the evening or summer programs that we put on um we know that social connection improves the health and well-being of individuals and is a protective factor for our youth and our community's success depends on the connections individuals have in our community and I think we're so lucky we have so many committed community members who want to be involved it's awesome and uh we're just so glad that we can help launch kids in our world um so I have a lot of brochures schedules um I've got my math if anybody has a question about that and um I really invite everyone who's online every counselor everyone in the audience to come have a tour use our programs because we are part of the community and we really appreciate the support I'm happy to answer questions I know you're running short on time and you can feel free to reach out anytime anybody have any questions I just like to make a comment that two of my kids used chips a lot it was just a really essential program I'm so glad you're still here so thank you for all that you do for that that age group that has nothing else to do with you thank you there's a quick question the food shelf the food pantry amounts that you that people use 600 items a month yes is it all out of the little pantry that's right out on the sidewalk or is there another location we have so we stocked up pantry multiple times throughout the week but we also respond to calls um actually that's something I left out we never say no to anyone so someone will call it doesn't matter where they live we put together bags or boxes of food for them based on their dietary restrictions and preferences and make sure that they get something so it's both the outside box and people calling and we also prepare bags and boxes for many of the youth in our program to take home yeah yes and it is 24 seven and on the bus line so I think that's also why it's quite popular in the community it's also available for anyone who'd like to donate to put a donation directly into the box or you can always let us know if you have a larger amount you'd like to donate we can arrange for a drop off I'll just extend to thank you to someone whose daughter used that it's a really interesting public health projects with chips and some more BS stuff way back in six or eight years ago but great program and we hope the renovation goes smoothly and look forward to that conversation coming up thank you but thank you for waiting through everything oh no problem and and thank you for coming we really value your your service and your presence thank you in the middle of the city thank you I guess I did have one quick question I just have there any been have there you know one right on top of the other an intergenerational work sort of reinforces the health benefits of everything you're doing for youth and the senior center people do for the seniors right so is there any ever been efforts at at you know finding intergenerational opportunity yeah during my tenure we've had conversations about that we had a gentleman come from the senior center and present video presentation to the kids to try to gain some interest in working with the seniors on it was a photo project I also had conversations with some women who use the senior center currently who are in their 80s who came to the teen center space when it was a YMCA for dances when they were teenagers and I I would have loved for them to come up and chat with the kids they had some mobility issues we really believe that the elevator will help with you know overcome some of those obstacles we we gave valentines to the seniors this year and they really appreciated that and it's resulted in a pen pal relationship between one of the seniors and one of the kids and they trade letters and stickers so we do want to continue to build on that relationship that's great really quick again just to echo very similar to what has already been said about appreciation for the services of sx chips and more pointedly for those who might be online and are in the room that don't have the benefit of having the brochure that we have here how could people find out more about sx chips and or possibly help to supplement your capabilities in that food show and other services that sx provides thank you yes so our website is sxchips.org we're also on Facebook and Instagram our social media sites are where we keep our program information most updated certainly anyone can reach me through email office at sxchips.org I have to look up my phone number 802-878-6982 or you know stop by we're currently a locked building but you can always get in touch with us and to donate food items you can donate directly into the pantry or contact our office for a drop off um and we're also looking for people who are young at heart to volunteer with the kids in our after-school program thank you thank you anybody need a break no you don't i'm good okay this is item 6c discussion and consideration of land development code amendments okay so you've got a memo in the packet let me share it here on the screen so I guess I can yeah I'll just intro a little bit um so uh we've been talking about this quite a bit um just so you know your options uh available to you tonight um you can adopt these if you feel you are ready to you can adopt them with some minor amendments if uh you are ready to you can um uh advise staff that you would like to make some further amendments and if we do that and they're substantial we will um bring that to you at your next meeting on the 28th and you'll have to warn a second public hearing for the end of July um you also can choose to not act on this at all um and even if you do want to move forward on this with the proposal that's in front of you with minor amendments uh you don't have to do that tonight we can do that next um so that's intro there's a couple of different things in this memo for some other minor amendments um but uh one thing also now that your public hearing is complete is if you've heard anything um that you do want to incorporate in amendments going forward so I'm not sure we can kind of leave it at that if you'd like Chris to walk through the memo um we can do that I'm not sure if that would be helpful or necessary um I think most of what's in the memo is known to us and uh changes in here are minor um so I don't know that we need to go piece by piece through the memo at this point um unless somebody else for someone disagrees I'm more curious at this point on um going through the group and gathering thoughts and where people are I believe Amber had some questions um so if folks are comfortable with that um Amber I'm gonna switch over to the zoom do you want to start us off oh sorry let me step share so you can see sure I had kind of four major questions that I had as I was reviewing mostly the comments that came from the survey um and is opposed to giving all form at the same time or kind of hitting each one and then kind of like press and regime and respond to them if that makes sense um the first one is one of the recurring themes that seems to come up is well the city have issues with capacity of utilities due to the increase in housing would you like me to respond to that uh you've got it open before I do so yeah go for it so so utilities I think there are two parts to two uh the cost of utilities there's the ongoing maintenance and then there's uh what's what's associated with uh increased capacity needs in terms of ongoing maintenance and and just renewal renewal of our existing infrastructure the more the bigger the tax space that we can spread this over the more efficient that becomes and that's that's really the efficiency of cities you have more people sharing infrastructure per square mile than in more rural places um but in terms of uh but there are certainly some parts uh some components of growth that uh that that will trigger additional infrastructure needs um like pump stations you know eventually in the very long run uh the sewer treatment plants would eventually have to have to capacity increases and that the the intention of the uh the capacity allocation fees that that have recently been added on to the proposal is to build up uh the the capital reserves for that does that answer your question yes thanks prince uh the next one was there were numerous comments throughout the uh the survey about enforcement um and hopefully you guys can kind of give us an update on where we were and where we're at in the new position that we had added to the budget for the 2024 yeah yeah right at point 25 right no 24 gosh um so uh as a reminder there are two positions added to the FY 24 budget one is the town planner position and the other is this code enforcement slash rental registry position um the uh town planner position i think we're uh will advertise for that sooner than later um and i think that position will help us um really get our heads around the enforcement issues that folks have been getting to us thank you for those um and understanding what's going on with some of those are some of those a problem because the policy or the ordinance is not there strong enough to help us enforce that do we not have just simply not enough follow through and consistency and trying to enforce the existing rules that are there um and uh figuring out which department those belong to or some police department issues or some community development department issues and how best to go about addressing those um and uh then the other component of it the more specific code enforcement person um because that's tied in with the rental registry person and we've got a lot more thinking that we need to do about how that program works and operates that's probably going to come a little bit later but i'm pretty confident that we're going to get to a better place a better understanding and at least a better place to stay on top of a some of this more um even with the town planner added to the community development department um it seems pretty clear that the department's been fairly understaffed for quite a long time and there's a lot of um uh needs on that department in terms of committees to staff and we're going to have more committees coming online as well so um that's uh the plan that's far thank you oh the next topic was the issue of parking problems in the city seem to be a reoccurring theme that there were comments that there's not enough parking there's not enough parking um and i don't know if you can kind of address that that those comments that we received so i think as the city grows uh the the the perception that there is not enough parking is going to continue that that's that is that that's always how you know the the the ways that growing cities uh tend to go um but there is uh certainly a difference between uh uh perception of a lack of parking and you know the actual lack of parking having an impact on uh on businesses um and uh and and on neighboring residents uh you know there are a lot of issues that are that are at play over here um we've also seen from the survey results issues like uh parking uh your on residential streets uh winter parking uh there are a lot of kind of nuances of uh of policy that's that going forward if you're based on actual impacts that we see we may have to uh you go back and address um but uh you know we we aren't getting the feedback certainly from from uh from businesses that the lack of parking is driving customers uh you to to to not visit at all like lack of parking at their at their own locations is uh making uh customers uh not show up um the the intention of uh about what's uh what the rules are in the village center zoning district where uh you know it's really focused on shared parking and uh and more you know uh more the more more need to walk between uh different locations and just park once or you know come by uh by public transits or cycling all together um i'm sorry that's not a that's not a clear answer there because this is this is a question with uh with uh it's a complicated question and i do think there's something that we have to uh continue to monitor the impacts of if i can actually elaborate on the parking issue back in 2019 we had a study done that helped to analyze the parking uh that existed here within s-extruction thanks to the grants from the ccrpc and the finals uh condition or the final summary of that back in 2019 is that the existing parking supply in the study area which was our village center is more than adequate to meet the overall public and private parking demands so based on having a parking engineer somebody whose job it literally is is to determine whether or not there is enough parking in a community said to us yes you have more than enough for what you did i recall correctly that study divided this the village center into quadrants and then there was one particular quadrant which is i think the one right over there um by for pearl that was the one where there was a bit of a squeeze but throughout the rest of the city the city center there's plenty wonder if we can link that on the in a place that makes sense yes um for semi-permanent or maybe alongside some of these documentation so people can kind of take a look yeah and i'll just add back to the enforcement question um i do think some of the issue where there's too many cars in some of the residential areas is likely more of an enforcement issue that we can um uh work out how to address those issues now and um have just a better mechanism going forward i think there's a nuance in that in those comments and kind of what amber's brought up because it's it's right it's the there's a difference between down here in parking and some of the bigger buildings versus say my house with all grown people now and or other houses and i'm a little dismayed to see a lot of what i what i saw in the comments was basically just plain assuming that renters brought all sorts of negative to the community i can honestly say that we don't have a problem in my neighborhood with renters we have it with homeowners um so i was really disappointed to see how many comments for we're in there making a lot of assumptions but it's the it's the fact that people have more vehicles now and there's more cohabitation um for at older ages and how do we deal how what is our ability to relieve those neighbors of that if at all and many of our homes also have single car driveways and no garages and so you know i think the attitude in the community for a long time was we did away with buffer requirements and other things because people could build garages because it's Vermont could put in wider driveways um but that's expensive um so yeah i don't know what our enforcement mechanism or how much we can write what you can and can't do in those situations but um it's definitely a concern i don't know if it's an issue certainly reflected in the comments um i think we all we all live in neighborhoods where that that has been sorry i'm gonna keep going no it's okay the last one that i had was there were a number of comments um related to the fact that there is a perception that with increased housing comes increased crime and i don't know if that's mean you might be able to speak for that at some level all right i i think i think this is an unjustified fear um it's you know an increase in housing units will likely results in an increase in emergency response needs just because of an increase in population um but we are unaware of any evidence that's uh more housing equals an increase in crime rates um but it's also i think it's important to point out that's uh having insufficient housing uh that is clear that having insufficient housing uh does have uh does lead to some social costs and challenges which is pretty clear right now with the hotel program ending great that's all i know Ross thank you great thanks ever does anybody else have anything I have just one question for Chris um in our R1 periods there are some neighborhoods that have covenants and homeowners and my understanding is always then that those uh supersede any laws and laws upon that and regardings so is it the case that a neighborhood like therapy farms countryside or other neighborhoods like that have covenants are they still subject to the poor plexus and plexus so if so places that already have covenants which uh which prevents a duplex isn't above uh those uh will remain enforceable um through civil law uh but of covenants are not something that we enforce i mean that's that's something that's uh it was worked out contractually through private parties uh going forward though nobody can make new covenants that that prevent um for plexus uh there was a similar similar rule with uh with accessory dwelling accessory apartments accessory dwelling units i think it was two years ago um that was the the the uh limit for how for covenants that prevented that's going forward nobody's allowed to make new ones that prevents it that's really helpful anyone else i was sure so i i guess i just want to put out there kind of some of the thinking that i that i've gone through recently as i consider some of this looking at the comments i was to say that i felt like there was a fair amount of perception versus reality issues within it and you know one of the pieces to the puzzle again and i saw this earlier in the public hearing was that we're doing some of this work to help address the housing crisis and i think that that is guiding some of this thinking but i will acknowledge for myself that i think i'm looking at that but i'm also considering a couple other factors one and you mentioned this earlier chris and the fact that i think look if we want to talk about taxes and how we manage taxes we need to have a bigger tax base um one you know so that's one aspect that i'm thinking about is i think about our housing needs the other aspect to this is more housing diversity in this community how do we create housing opportunities for young families how do we create opportunities for single people to move into this community how do we create housing opportunities for seniors who may have lived in this community for years now occupy a three or four bedroom home have the opportunity or might want might be in a position or want to downsize don't want to leave the community to which they've lived so long how do we create those opportunities so that the community is flexible and mobile so that they can again remain in their community but live in the appropriate housing for their time in life and attract people to come here to live in this community that we love so much the other aspect of that is i think as a community too if we want to continue to attract more businesses and i heard this concern from a public comment before about if we're going to continue to develop the village center that we're going to need a grocery store and i've heard the grocery complaint before um and i get it especially if you're trying to create a very dense downtown area where it's easily bikeable and walkable we're going to want and this is no offense to max but we're going to want a bigger more versatile grocery along with other amenities and services accessible to them and i think in some ways you can't attract those businesses without having the density i think that's why we lost a grocery store in this community because we didn't have that population that density while we had other communities around us who were building up great brand new grocery stores along with other big boxes and other tempting offerings that pulled them elsewhere to the point where they weren't staying here in this community so as i continue to think about our needs and then also thinking about and i know this is going to be because i have heard some very adamant discussion especially right is that we want the the city turned to retain this feeling of what the village was or what and we don't want to go any higher four stories that's it and i'm not denying i i think that there's i i get and i understand but at the same time i try to look at the fact that we're having these discussions limiting it to the village center thinking about the long term not because i know these changes won't happen in the next two five six years this is 50 years from such so i'm thinking about what it would this city look like come that long term and what is really going to change because whether it's us opening up the opportunity for duplexes triplexes four plexus i don't think that's going to diversify our need in the short term i think it's going to come from unfortunately fortunately or unfortunately denser development so i am and i heard andrew bring this up in the last meeting posing throwing out six to eight and i think that's where i'm at at the moment but i wanted to just put this out there about my thinking because if nothing else for our discussion and for the community discussion because i want to hear more thoughts around this um because i want to understand better where people are and i want to ask and i want people to also ask the question why why do you want that beyond an aesthetic over the way things work and i don't know that there's a good answer i don't know that i have the perfect answer about why i feel this way outside of the fact that again i'm thinking about broadening the tax base trying to provide more housing diversity in the city and attract the businesses that will allow people to hopefully live work and play right here and i think there's more work to be done in this community when it comes to allowing for more opportunities for white walk bike along with i saw the parking comments as well and i agree that i study show it's not my my reality is i don't have a problem parking when i need i think that the problem with parking is there's not enough parks there's not a parking spaces right at the front door so that i think that's where the challenge is right um but but i think so again i think there's still work to be done in the city to make it that perception the perception issues to kind of calm themselves a little and then move to what is the best for us reality standpoint um so that's been probably top of mind for me otherwise for or most of the other issues that we've already addressed and discussed i'm on board with right now so they think that that addresses my concern so just give me some time only things that i would say uh i said mostly last time to be back a little bit off of marcus uh one of the things for us to keep in mind when it comes to housing development there's rules and there's resources but we have control over today are the rules side of that in terms of resources we do not have financial resources through a housing trust fund we do not have an excess of land that we could give away or sell to help increase any type of housing density nor do we have the labor to help or some kind of a a mill to help provide the materials so for us all we have at the current moment are the rules which are in our ldc um as i said last time uh by having limited the capability to allow for six-story housing we have essentially taken 116 units of housing outside of the capability to help auger to help with the housing front should be current to feel marcus had talked about in terms of the capability to not only welcome new individuals but to allow for existing residents to sell their home uh their oversized home and move into something smaller we have prevented that from happening in that sense uh so for me personally i'm not going to be approving other land development code as it is currently written um on the only way that i would be willing to uh approve other land development code is if we are willing to increase the uh the height limit within the village center um so that that way we can help to accommodate uh the future community members who we don't currently allow for and would not currently allow for with the plan as it is the other thing i wanted to mention uh last time that we had this conversation we talked a fair amount about the uh the s100 and it's uh basically allowing for one additional story beyond our control i want to remind us that that's a portion of the legislation is only tied to those large developments that have 20 percent of their units being affordable or none of those exist in our village center the only place where we have any development that does meet that standard is within uh within the woodcombe uh within the woodcombe woods development through cathedral square nothing else in our community exists to that state generally those types of developments happen through low-income affordable housing trust or low-income housing tax credits those are uh larger-scale projects and the ones that we have had here have all been done through private development money that have only been capable to happen because of the rules that we have set forward so we want to be able to help to increase the housing stock we need to do more than we're correct amber did you want to add anything else um i'll just say that i am appreciative of everything that's been said um we've talked about this i think before um i don't see anything in here that's changed other than what we've asked for um totally here we were coming from and i've just really restate that i think that i'd like to move this forward and at the same time have the conversation about what we do with building height and let the project that's coming down down the road that fortunate enough to have coming from cc crpc um help us with that and if we could talk about whether we try to push that forward with our planning commission but we haven't we haven't as i said before we haven't really engaged the community hasn't been part of this conversation throughout the process for this land development code it's almost two years now um so i've i'd feel uncomfortable adding in at this point without that engagement and when marcus was talking everybody was talking i was thinking of you know auspicing the change in the system and we haven't had a chance to even have the conversation so while i understand completely the importance i think we need to respect the community's ability to also get there um and help them there um understanding that we may not get them there but at least we we uh put the time in to to do that so if nobody has anything else and if being late i'm going to see if anyone has a motion um if if we're feeling like we want to move this forward tonight or if anybody still has burning questions that um or issues that they want and one thing we haven't done yet because there were interviews and we haven't had an opportunity but is there anyone in attendance or anyone online that has a comment or question on this that wants to offer that now sir come on if you could just say your name for the word uh steven willy petnos um i think andy you mentioned a study a parking study in 2019 out of curiosity did that take into account winter versus summer parking because the rules are different i want to see if it flows out of the document tonight okay okay and it occurred to me that um daytime parking is good for business but overnight parking is good for residents so you know we if we don't have overnight parking you know it's the winter rules that matter because that's the most constrained thank you thank you racy you have your hand up and changing line hi thank you okay it sort of applies but sort of doesn't i'm curious if there is a deadline timeline whatever on building and construction permits once they're approved did that approve the losses for perpetuity or is there some sort of if it wasn't done within a time frame they're looked at again so the zoning permits themselves uh typically they have a one-year expiry although if construction is ongoing uh renewals are are possible extensions are possible um a lot of uh you know we have we have projects which seem to take forever out there where where uh the approvals are given one year and several years down the line it looks like nothing's happening uh sometimes what's happening is uh is act 250 um and environmental remediation uh that can take years um in some cases um but we do follow but yeah in terms of uh permit expiries there are there are certainly um expiries that are um that's uh that are applicable uh they're in the land development code thank you okay i don't see anyone else online or in the room so what are people feeling no Andrew's already expressed his opinion okay Marcus are you ready for that because the option was to i i think i was prepared to wait until the next week for what i i think i think because of the fact that i think there's some of this discussion needs to be gooseed up a bit to be honest i don't understand this like i want to hear more from the community on this while we got feedback on the survey i have not heard a lot of community and i know that this is probably your experience typically is to not hear from more than about a dozen people there are issues like the height which have have in the casual discussions that i've had with residents seems to really get them fired up but i don't know that we've put a focal light on some of these things publicly i know that and i mean that from up i don't maybe i need to put a facebook post out there and go i'm looking at putting 10 stories in the middle of the village center in order to try to get some more thoughtful public discussion i'm just also trying to find that middle ground from what i think you were saying earlier about on a topic like that trying to again use the planning commission to through our strategic planning to help guide us into that place um to the middle ground about making a call tonight and i'm you know can i just ask the question yeah go ahead i don't understand yeah this if we improve this package as is now today it makes the building tonight's in the village center the same it just stays at four nothing changes so and like andrew pointed out that there aren't any buildings in the village center that would be impacted by that automatic bonus for extra so we're we're talking about approving all of the changes that we're not touching building night at all right now is that correct correct okay so i think it's correct so yeah the bonus height is in but it's it's it's basic it's based on the uh if you meet the state requirements so it's definitely not applicable to us right now it could be a new applicant could take advantage of that okay right but we but again we've been told that's what we will do right so that really isn't a question so it's sort of a move right and and well the difference there is it's a matter of time we could that doesn't have to kick in until December of 24 we're choosing in this right now if we did this tonight to make that now um but again a project would have to come forward to qualify right so i just want to i i completely understand what you're saying about wanting to have robust community conversation around the building but i'm not seeing making the connection between approving this approving this package and not having a conversation because if we approve the package the heights just is status quo and then we can proceed to have a robust conversation with the community as part of our strategic planning process about building and so i'm not sure why um we would want to hold this up because there are timing issues with it and we could also still have that conversation it's just not this time i think for me right now because of how i'm feeling and i'm thinking about this i would like to see it changed in this current ldc i mean i would say i will i want to accept this ldc but with the add-on that it's six stories not forced like i'm right now how i feel that's where that's modification i'm going to change um and again that's why i'm slightly hesitant to insist on that in this particular moment versus putting that out there saying that and then seeing if there's any feedback and i don't know and amber i don't want to put you on the spot but you know i think i know where two of us sit and i know we're the other i well let's hold on for that maybe i'm wrong but um you know the response i would have to that is it's all the respect that's written um and i actually go where you're coming from you're asking about more public input but you want to put it in without and skip the two the one we're spending money on um this this fall summer and fall that process plus one we're getting a grant to engage community and the public and the administration to explore more specifically in the city where a lot of that would be appropriate and how it would look um so we've got opportunities that we both got grants for and those are paying for to drive that engagement and get that thoughtful purposeful intentional conversation going with potentially you know examples and mock-ups um versus you know this and if if the board had intended the pc to to look at building height two years ago or two and a half years ago we would have said please include this and that i can guarantee would have brought people to the pc which they probably would have appreciated that's not my recollection of what happened and my understanding is that they didn't do it because they thought we would say no or something like that i'll speak for that but it didn't come up it didn't come it didn't come up in the sense that we don't see it i guess that's the only thing it's um so i understand what you're saying you know there's a builder that's asking us to to pass this but they're not eligible in that project for that extra story because they're outside the center district um that's actually that's for the extra if you don't have an extra story from not for affordable housing right but for just just the general extra extra space yeah it wouldn't impact that project i suppose it could impact the one that's coming on napal but i would actually have a problem with putting an extra story on that based on what's right around it but so you know and so with a lot of the community i think based on where that's being tucked in so you know this is where it's not so simple to say just do it because we've got a lot of these little tiny piano key lots and is that what we want nobody's had that conversation it wasn't part of the sort of it wasn't part of the average street dog so get it doing this tonight we have another set of weeks we can put it off it doesn't preclude us from ramping that conversation and prepping the community for engagement or asking the pc to to add it to their list you know for their meetings to kind of say here's what we would have said if we knew it was a priority for you um so we had that background and then finish it that's my that's my input on it i don't know amber what are you thinking i don't know i guess confused and you all know could be that it's not a very good night too could be could be i guess my question would be what is the downsides to not approving it tonight are there any and leading to that next hearing and trying to have some public some additional public comment on the right um the downside is just that there are when we're in a position of two um ldc's the actual one and the warned one it's just more work on the community development office to um work people through those two different um two different ldc's um and just more uh time and effort on your agendas for this topic what we've got other topics but outside of that um no major downside and i guess i'll mention it's it's effort but it's also there is a you know there is a slight implication on on applications going through uh and during this period between uh the the final approval like between the proposal and final proposal approval we have to evaluate everything on the tougher of the two standards uh the more restrictive of the two standards so um yeah you get none of the benefits but uh but uh all of the additional costs um as an applicant going through right now yes if you had the if you had a preference if we were to approve this tonight but then have a discussion at a later time a month from now two months not from now whatever to revise the height um what would be your position being would it be that it makes more sense to just wait a month and have that discussion and then adopt it or adopt it now and then have a other discussion and adopt and amend again in six months or three months or whatever happens to me well i can tell you the whole amendment process if you start from the beginning does take uh yeah it takes a long time and uh there are many layers to it um you know an an additional public hearing at this point isn't isn't all that onerous in terms of like a staff time and and uh evaluating um yeah these existing proposals based on the tougher to i think it does change uh you know the position uh the the uh the the conversation going forward like for example if if the if we're talking about six stories and if this uh you know the village center and this goes forward the TOD study is still going to be uh you know helpful um in that we're talking about how how you know how density can be laid out through uh you know out in the uh five main corridors and uh how the how policy can be further refined to shape what's uh what is built in terms of uh uh what are zone future zoning bylaws and perhaps form based code might might allow um i mean i i i'm not in a position to really give an opinion here but and yeah i'm i i think we can work with either options as staff can i jump in for a second member yeah i think chris touched on something that has come up in a couple conversations um and that is it's well for me it's becoming increasingly concerned that we don't have a lot of say over how and we saw a lot of that in the comments we don't have in our even in this lbc rewrite all of the i'll call it control but that's not quite the right word that we may want in terms of how these buildings look and how they go together and where they're placed and they look like you know and i think i worry that if we put this in there without having some guardrails and some of that ability to say yes please build six or seven stories and please have it fit into our community this we still want to make sure the developers can do it and and do it in a way that might actually make sense but we also as a community have i think a right to say that we want this is how we want to take a look and there's given take there but right now i'm not confident that we have all of that and i think i read a lot of that in the comments you know first mentioned a couple you know but if you're going to put people in boxes you might as well make them look good we don't have a lot of ability right now to make them look good even with this rewrite we don't have a lot of ability to do that and if we say go put six stories up without also taking the opportunity to say and please make them fit into our community this way or layer them from the boundary into the middle and then layer them back down again the next boundary then i think we're going to probably be sorry and we can wait on this i don't think that anybody in this room in June and July where the holiday in the middle is going to really have time to do any significant engagement this issue i tell you i will have enough at this point to do that kind of engagement so i'm not trying to convince people against the story thing i'm just not sure what the i'm not sure i just don't agree with putting it in this particular situation i'm completely welcome to conversation jen real quick though the drb has designed overlay authority with the build center correct they already do this right so we have the capability to tell developers and to have some say on the design that's our drb right but we don't have it to the point i think that we could and that's the level of my knowledge on it so i will stop but the way it's been explained to me is there's a difference between what we have and i'll stop there maybe maybe you want to kind of try to explain a little better so design review we have in the village center and it has worked well it is what we are expanding out to the trunk routes but it is incredibly subjective there really are not a lot of standards in there and it's difficult for new staff and a new drb to figure out how to really use that subjectivity in a good good way um form-based codes as examples in other communities um really bring uh can sort of get some of that subjectivity out of there and you can much better define what you actually want to see um and those kinds of tools can really help um think about the impact that you might have when you start to go taller so i think it's a better tool that we will have it is through the chitin and county regional planning commission transit oriented development project it is uh two years out for sure and that is a lot of time so it's tricky this is a this is a tough this is a tough situation um because we will we won't have that quickly and it'll be two years of time um and the unfortunate thing is our survey no offense how the survey was done it's not well intended only reached or only had seven percent of respondents being renters yeah wouldn't we have a community that is 41 percent rental renters yeah and i'll mention that too yeah well uh the TOD study the completion of that being being probably two years out uh means that if there are policy changes uh that come out of that it will take even longer in the space of time that we have to wait for that study to be initiated initiated and completed and we still have community conversations and stress and focus groups you know whatever it is we decide to do just to talk about this this question we can still do this yeah and i think the first whole year of the project art is that that's the real engagement and visioning and then this second part of the year is creating that into whatever code you want to see it implemented so that work is then presented to the pc and they can either accept it modified a little bit and we know yes that process takes a while but we managed to deal with the cannabis and too much so if they produce a mostly ready made template it needs not going to speak for the PC they're careful review it's not going to probably be a whole year especially if they're engaged on it we don't want to be rid of repostulating i mean no idea so um i think i'm really great now to it going fast yeah if so i'd like very much like to i you know it's it's getting of course close to ten and we're halfway through the night so why don't we who wants to we'll either table it or i'll take a motion we'll see how it goes um i'm not gonna worry too much about um we can do a straw ball marcus i think i would like to wait until the next week all right a lane uh i'm happy voting on it tonight okay my decision to change other way amber i'm happy to leave oh goodness all right so just a just a nobody gets candy so just to point out on this direction um waiting with the intention of an edit we need staff direction tonight um if we get direction next meeting about what amendment you want we are uh hitting up against the time frame where this kicks all back to the planning commission i'm not sure if the benefit of waiting is to be we're we're not we're not asking staff to do something right i don't know we're gonna wait for that's fine all right well why don't we call the question anybody has a motion i'll move that the city council approve the full package of land development code amendments including the additional minor changes described in this memo and us any seconds i'll second it okay thanks amber um without further discussion we'll do this by roll up as amber's online um andrew name uh marcus name elaine hi hi amber hi and roge is hi so that carries three to two the motion is passed um great so it looks like we've approved the amendments um it sounds like what we want to do is to keep a conversation going find a structure for that conversation around our options on on increasing building height again we talked about a lot of them tonight and i think we should come back to it sooner than later to see if the board wants to wait or find another avenue to to get that moving i don't think that's settled i think we should keep talking about it yes i would just also request that staff as you hear from developers and potential developers about the the build center if you would please let them know about this kind of conversation that we just had about the transit oriented development grant that's coming down the line and ask that as the pressing connector comes through if they'd be willing to wait and to see how this process plays out on those buildings coming up they're going to last 70 plus years so it's when it comes in it should be done right and if they want to not just add to that if they want to engage in any way um that i think that would be welcome um i think and that goes for any of them you know there are questions or concerns i think we should hear them um and talk about them all right um 60 discussion and consideration of park ordinance amendments all right we got brad here let me share what i've marked up version of the difference between what was evident you know it's completely different so it wasn't even possible we didn't even build off from the old ones they were kind of built off from the town ones so as you could see if you if you read the current ordinances they're um very much out of date they still reference the superintendent of schools and that's junction school district and so we really need to update them as you may recall there's been a few things going on with rec over the past few years there was a draft uh the the ones that are submitted before you today with some very minor changes were submitted to the joint um municipal administration in 20 it's either september of 2018 or 2019 and for a variety of reasons they never became they never came before the board but but our department and sx parks and recreation and the sx police department developed these back in 18 or 19 they were submitted um in the fall of one of those years we resubmitted them to the administration again in the fall of the next year and that's was fine the administration at the time was just prioritizing and there was a lot going on and they chose not to try and focus on shared parks ordinances so the village at the time kind of got left in the dust on that because with our change from school governance of parks and recreation to back to municipal management um we really didn't update ours so there was the town updated there's um their ordinances back in in 2019 so just it went through that whole process prior to these ones being updated we did inform greg and the police and sx parks and recreation that these were going to be coming before you obviously there's great advantage to pd to having ordinances that that blur the lines of the two municipalities because it's difficult for their officers to remember that certain parks you can do this and in certain ones you can't do that and so um so we informed them that these were coming forward greg said that he appreciated it that sx parks and recreation pd we're going to review the towns ordinances i also sent them this version um we haven't heard back from them so i don't know where they're at in this process i looked at their last few agendas i haven't seen anything that's come up um so all of that is um part of your conversation and decision as to how to move forward so elaine just to your point if it's okay raj so i think the big things as i look through i highlighted you know maybe four or five significant things um that i think would be noteworthy number one 301 defines the actual parks so before they weren't enumerated now they are 303 10 animals there's now an exception for dogs currently dogs are not permitted in city parks this proposal is to allow them to be in city parks it gives some discretion to the parks and rec department in part f in 310 to post signage around certain areas where we don't want dogs so for example we would put those around playground areas we would put them on enclosed baseball field areas we would put them at the pool so there would be certain areas where yes you're coming to maple street to watch a little league game a football game you can walk on the path to get there you can sit in the bleachers to get there but you can't actually go into the playground area with the dog or you can't go into the baseball field that has gates that you can close and treat as a dog park and those kinds of things so i think if any you know there are certainly pros and cons to this and we can have that conversation if you want i think the reality that we see at maple street park is people do bring their dogs so we have two choices we can we can put our foot down and say this is really where we stand as a community which is fine you all have the right to do that and that would just change our mindset over there as to how we have to enforce that of course there's not staff on all hours of the day or every weekend and so inevitably there are days and times that people come with dogs and and there's nobody there to enforce that other than calling the police so this is our proposal and obviously we stand behind number 314 smoking prohibited if you actually look back at the current regs there's nothing about smoking in there surprisingly yes let's just talk because we're going to try to move through this a little bit let's talk about if anybody has any questions about anything so far yep i'm earlier well the list of parks right at the top the city city of xx junction and ejrp and we've got tree farm in there without a delineation boundaries and tree farm yeah parking so i don't know how they're going to feel about that because we don't i mean are we going to do we need to pull tree farm out and say it's jointly owned or are they going to well that i think that's part of your conversation my recommendation certainly is that it should be listed as a public park it's municipally no i mean as the public park but it seems to be listed under the city only well i don't think we have the right to list a town park um so i listed you own 50 acres of property on the on the tree farm recreational facility and your choice i think is to name it as a public park and therefore let it be governed by these the the rules that you imagine for all parks or to exclude it from listed as a public park i think then it poses a question as to what does govern it yeah i mean i'm not i'm not i that agree completely i'm just curious how well i want to pull it out as it's as it's a as a section a and say this this is also a public park but it's jointly owned so who knows we'll see how that goes sure and you know again just when these were originally drafted they were drafted with the three parties pd or epr any jrp we all agreed that it should be treated like a public park we all drafted the same ordinances so that when pd was on that property they wouldn't need to figure out where the boundary line yeah and the public park is isn't like you know absolutely it's for park well there's a finer point on the same question is so it says um it's all facilities the many parking lots and grounds within park boundaries except the boundary of the tree apartment there's is that including the parking lot even though that's in the town uh part of the parking lot is in the town and part of it is in is in the city oh okay thank you yeah this is not tree farm related um 301 a rh talks about trails and open spaces do you really want the open spaces i'm thinking about right near my neighbor right in my neighborhood on brickyard road there's a defined open space that's trails that have been put through there by people in the neighborhood that's i'm going to be on edrp to maintain there are the trails over by the widcom neighborhood um that's uh then you would be responsible need your responsible for maintaining i'm happy to take it out to be honest that that was a town added thing they they have lots more trails and open spaces and that was a an update that that they wanted to make um i if we don't want to cite that in the city i'm more than open to that well especially since it's not defined in the past um there had been a discussion at this table about the trails behind the widcom neighborhood and now the dunbar neighborhood and it was fairly contentious and it ended with the village wanted nothing to do with maintaining those trails so i think if that stays in here then there might be some assumptions in that neighborhood that oh these trails are going to be careful who wants to land yeah it's not an area for the comments i mean if we own it the majority of the ones that i've seen so far are not owned by the city they are owned by the in common by whatever development it was associated with it's it may be worth going back to that discussion from 2014 i'll say there was a there was a conversation about an easement and about whether ricky and pw should take care of should take care of that so there might be some documents somewhere but that then leads to the so who then does make sure that the trails and the open spaces are habitable and are what they are we don't even have a conversation today maybe somebody else could yeah i mean i think it's two different issues right the maintenance of them and then um the ordinances that govern them so those are probably some legal questions it's whether or not we can even impose those ordinances on property we don't own um and certainly not to answer the former part them we have no interest in yeah maintaining trails on somebody else's property um another question on 303 301 actually i have one last thing on 301 so again the west street dog park again talking about perceptions about whose land is what and who maintains what i can say as a person who used to dog park all the time i would like to see some updates some things that could really improve that space but as i understand it it's not owned by us therefore we don't we can't easily do much so i don't know if it's appropriate here or if that needs some other language that expresses yeah i mean is there is there an agreement with the does the state on that land we just have a park on it and we we have an agreement i'm assuming yeah we lease it um and we maintain it um so i think the the dog park itself um is a public park in my view we maintain it we lease the space and therefore the rules here would be enforceable and something that i would govern the property um but the parking at least definitely the parking lot's not so i mean i get that but again i guess it comes back to the point about is our exception reading this document about who has the controlling interest or stake or response for profit i think we should not just in the dog park but in the parking and that okay so with uh 303 we're going to move on from that is the the desire that a permit would be necessary for private uh the word use is in here in a fair environment that is so on the second line that any group six or more persons including organizations and teams who desire to use the various areas that they would then need a permit is it that they would use it or just to have private use and i'm only thinking of that can be home school their child we brought a group of students and met or met a group of other people that was much larger than six would have thought we would try to get a permit because we were going to then go and use this all together at the time not for our private doing sure yeah it you know it's a a bit of a tricky balance so if you if you guarantee if you want to guarantee your access to space then you are best served by reserving it in advance and we see this all the time you know so-and-so is going to have a birthday party in the small pavilion on saturday at one o'clock another family was also going to have a birthday party at 12 o'clock they got there before them they didn't reserve it the one o'clock people did reserve it it creates conflict and so we always you know when people call to inquire we always encourage them to to make the reserve the paid reservation to ensure that they have a document that says that they can access that it's the same for groups that are using fields and those kinds of spaces i think the tricky piece comes in is and i don't think we see this a ton per se but when groups are figuring out when certain spaces are available and avoiding those rental fees and utilizing space potentially utilizing resources whether it's chewing up grass or creating extra waste and garbage or whatever and you know intentionally basically using athletic fields and facilities without paying for them um so that's i think the intention of trying to catch this uh as to whether an immerse should be six or undefined um i think it's a valid question but it's more so for the physical structure if you want to use one of the pavilions if you want to use the baseball field for your use that's correct that's not necessarily if you and a group of eight people want to go play in the playground together they didn't need to call the crowd to get a permit i thought i just wanted to make sure that no yeah another question till 313 uh i'm after that i could go all right i in 313 for c and e if we could just use uh non-binary pronouns so just follow there these are written in 2019 314 um we could just prohibit all tobacco products instead of you know and i'm thinking of tipping coaches in the little league field um for instance um if there's going to be a tobacco ban or a cannabis or an alcohol ban just outright vape chew all product from the it's a i think it's the the the use of the smoking of you've included them all in in there but it's the use it's the smoking is the it's the the method uh needs to be adjusted a little bit um so that's all semantic adjustment i think that was it for me did you want to point out any other seconds brad i think the only other ones i was going to highlight as we were going i think i stopped at 314 315 give some leeway to permit beer and wine related events which was strictly prohibited previously 322 addresses drones were which weren't thought of previously and 323 addresses metal detectors which weren't addressed previously i don't think anything else is um will release significant what would be an instance where you would say no to a drone request uh it's just asking for permission i'd like to say no if there's somebody's absolutely yeah yeah um but like pd recently asked if anybody was flying drones in the parade uh as a safety kind of concern issue so not relevant per se to the public parks but just as an example you know if there are large events pd wants to know if something's supposed to be flying up above in the air or not um also no it's just they it's obviously we want to know yeah and we've had it at the park in the summer too like a parent comes in and says hey there's a drone flying you know at least we can say yes we're aware of it we have the person's information and this is what they're doing with it and all that stuff really appreciate the thoroughness of this yeah so your options are i'm just rolling back right but i was from the sea if if we've made my question first was we've made significant enough but asks that we need to revisit this um or it sounds like we're also waiting still on review from the sound ed and you know others so well we do need legal review um but we can incorporate that on the 28th uh brads already asked claudine for review about these um i think if we could still have it come back at another point in time where it's not 10 10 at night yeah but that might be beneficial why don't we do that yeah um i think the next meeting is the next meeting is um 28 if there's room that's fast um yes i think that's fine um if anybody in the room or online that has any comments about this item change again the park ordinances yes but sir one quick sure um you have to go to 314 yes um and regina which reminds me that just hours ago i said i would send what ubm had written up for their tobacco free campus policy which covered the and i did not send it so i'll send it to regina tomorrow um that included that thank you i do not see anyone with the hand raised online so we'll see this again when we can yes so well the timeline with legal and everything else work out sure the staff are comfortable with that with what we've suggested and the timeline works for you yeah i don't think anything was too complicated to edit i don't think so perfect if that's the case when i want to make a motion it's on page 101 of the agenda of the packet it's the second one but i can do it so i've got in front of me so i move that we want a public hearing for june 28 for the public parks ordinances uh rather on one i move that the city council warrant a public hearing on june 28 2023 is 6 30 p.m to receive comment on the following changes to the sx junction minister ordinances update chapter three regulation of public parks in its entirety with proposed chapter three regulation of public parts as described with the uh with the amendments tonight and these overview right with that it's from this evening and pending labor any discussion seeing none all those in favor say hi hi hi very number that passes unanimously great thank you brad bro 60 60 discussion and consideration of local option tax policy so um the sorry i'm scrolling here so essentially the capital program review committee met in the beginning of june's the first time they met in two years since you know we've had a lot of things going on and one thing that came up with that group is just a policy around how the local option tax funds could be used going forward um and um also just to let folks know um Jess did send me there is a 2010 village policy on local option tax uh spending so there is a starting place there it's about two paragraphs right we have one we had no idea yeah um and it essentially says that the um that the it should be used for capital um so um basically what this memo is suggesting is that if the council would like to ask seek input from the capital program review committee on what that policy uh could look like um this is there's a motion in here for you to do that um it is with as time allows so the capital program review committee again they haven't met in a while they've got a lot of things on their plate um a lot of different inventories that that will be pulled together to try to help um with the capital plan going forward um so um that hope is that if it can get to it and give you some guidance to prepare for the FY 25 budget that would be great um but just know that that may not work out timing wise but Amber anything you want to add no I think you captured it all I think it's just really just a shot across to say what's the council's position on a policy do you want one if you want one do you want the capital committee to take a stab at doing one to bring it back to the council for review approval just throwing it out there to Regina's point you're not meeting in July because of the holiday so August would be the first time we need again and we do have a couple projects except on the agenda for August so it might not even get picked up until September and you would need it for FY 25 September October to consider it really or maybe maybe November um fold it in I mean the the building of the budget depends on the needs that we have in the capital program those needs aren't going to change so it's it's really a little bit less about the development of the budget and more about how we allocate the use of those of that revenue um a little further on the back end um I first think we absolutely should have a policy on how to spend those funds and I'd be curious to look back to the discussion amongst the village trustees at the time of the approval of the lot as to what the goals were at that time and I know that there had been discussion about using a portion of those funds for economic development purposes what does that mean what would they be so I do think that this group needs to have a conversation about what we want to do with that because we keep saying oh it's for capital and that can mean so many things so I do think we have to and I don't think that asking capital to do this prohibits or prevents us from exploring other ways to oh no not at all be great if they could start the ball rolling and then we can edit a set an example that would be terrific totally agreed the only thing that I would just add to that is and I think I mentioned it's either the last meeting or the meeting before if it could also just be inclusive of a sidewalk replacement fund proportion of that to replace the sidewalks yeah great so do you need a motion Regina I've got one for you up there okay I'm just going to do it I move the city council asked the capital program committee to recommend a lot local option tax policy for the council for council consideration as time allows second second is any discussion no all those in favor say aye aye aye all those post I all the posts I know great passes the next item is executive session so we'll move on to the consent agenda I have a motion to approve the consent agenda I'll move the consent agenda second great any discussion no all those in favor say aye aye aye great passes real file um anyone have any comments I'd like to reset a five page poem awesome make it comfy I have a lot of updates but I can get very fast there's a community fair at the library this Saturday from one to four Juneteenth is happening on Sunday the 18th from one to three at the last meeting we talked about Champlain Water District and our seat and membership on it and what the process will be we talked about having a town wide vote it city wide vote in 24 to get the seat and then in 25 having the member because we're not an expansion of the boundary we were all we are only going to have to have a member up for election in 25 so we don't have to do that city wide vote which is helpful um we have a I think some people know about the Super Sucker 5000 yes we now have a replacement Super Sucker 7000 we do skip six skip six seven it does say 900 on it so don't be confused if you actually see it out and out and about uh it still needs to be registered um but it's pretty fantastic so you shouldn't see it out about yeah let me see incorporated yeah Ricky has a plan that of like yeah well big enough because there's a knob space yeah I have pictures but we don't have time um very good good news uh on the Crescent Connector project there was some discussion about how much cost share we would have to have on the soils contamination um and VTrans and VHWA have come to the conclusion that they will be covering 100% of those costs which is super awesome um in the reading file there's the governor's executive order on um housing and so just so folks know um I'm sure you are aware the hotel programs are coming to an end um a lot of that is changing rapidly as the state's trying to figure out how to add some more time to the various different eligible groups um and for the last four Tuesdays I've been meeting with other um Chittenden County municipalities with Sarah Russell who is the chair of the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance um and I'm spacing right now I'm very sorry Carrie uh at AHS um and talking about just trying to keep each other posted trying to figure out what um issues are happening in the community and what could potentially be done um there has been some asks about the communities outside of Burlington thinking about potential spaces for congregate shelters um that's pretty tough and challenging because all the resources are in Burlington but these conversations are happening also more immediately um Bridget and Lori have updated that tri-fold community resources document and Ashley is helping finalize that and get it printed and out and about so I think that that will be a big help um also EJRP had a very successful Essex Pride Festival and the Memorial Day Parade as everybody just faded thank you um ADL PE classes and elementary school groups have been swimming at the Maple Street pool sometimes nice days sometimes not I guess so far um and EJRP has hired nearly a hundred employees for the summer day camps pool and maintenance this summer so that's it could you just very briefly explain the community fair yes the community fair um the library is hosting this and a number of organizations in the community will have a table that describes what it is that they do um so people could come and find out different organizations that they might want to get involved in um so yeah should be great all right um so I close my laptop which was silly we need an executive session motion two motions in front of me excellent I move that the city council make the specific finding that general public knowledge of pending or probable civil litigation or a prosecution to which the public body is or maybe a party would place the city at a substantial disadvantage I move that the city council enter into executive session to discuss pending or probable civil litigation or a prosecution to which the public body is or maybe a party pursuant to one vsa 313 a1e to include the city council city manager and parks and recreation director and you also have another um that's one executive session we've got two executive sessions um you're looking for page 67 yep okay uh I move that the city council enter into executive executive session to discuss appointment but public officials pursuant to one vsa 313 a3 to include the city manager I'll second all that great Andrew second this mark has made the motion stop any discussion all those in favor say aye hi great both pass um we will not be reporting out after correct correct so we will be this is it been a meeting um thank you all for coming appreciate it you stayed late this is impressive thank you all have a good night we're seeing you I think we'll