 Yeah, it seems like we're a minute late, and I think Tyler is joining us virtually. But welcome, and I'd like to call to order the South Wellington City Council meeting will now be recorded. It's okay of Monday, December, excuse me, September 18th. I'm jumping a couple, even though it felt a little cool today. It's not like December. September 18th, 2023, and we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance. Andrew, do you want to start, please? Of course. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Go item two, instructions on exiting the building for those of you in the building. Thank you. So for those in the building, you can go out either side of the rear of the auditorium on the left and right and then turn left and right and get outside in the case of emergency. For those participating online, thank you for joining us. If you would like to make comment, you can either turn your camera on and the chair will call on you or indicate that you would like to speak in the chat and I will call on you. Other than that, we are not monitoring the chat for content. Thank you. Agenda item three is the agenda review. Are there any additions, deletions, or changes in order of agenda? Andrew? I'm wondering, Helen, if we could just spend a few minutes talking about the survey that the Committee on Common Area for Dogs sent around. I did get a couple of emails from folks talking about it and have a question about process and one about substance as well. We can. I was going to provide a little information in my remarks because I went to that meeting, but we may have someone who wants to speak from the public, but yes, we certainly can. And we can do it all. So I have to say, and if it's not enough, we can add to other business the survey. Any other amendments or changes, additions? Okay, seeing none, we'll go to item four, comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda. So Barb's service who missed her opportunity two weeks ago, but we're glad you're here. Oh, no. Is the red light really bright? Touch the green or the green rather? There it says put. How's that? Yeah. Okay. You know who I am. I'm Barb's service. I live in summer woods off Patchin Road and unfortunately life did have other plans for me on September 5th. 65 Girl Scouts requested my presence and that's where I was. Fortunately, thanks to town meeting TV, I was able to watch the recording and Tim, I tell you, I left out loud and Helen, you all sort of looked for me on the screen. And I certainly appreciate that because it was an issue that I have raised for more years than we want to count in terms of the whole issue about water usage, how we measured, how we build it, etc. For me, the usage for the first quarter is usually zero. But I must confess that as I listened to the consultant, I was frustrated and a bit annoyed. Fortunately, I mean, I should have been more patient, but fortunately as the presentation went on, then I listened and I learned more and your discussion was lively and informed. And I am here to say thank you for that and for the issues and questions that you raised. For starters, let me say that I believe I should pay my fair share. I understand the concept of infrastructure and how we bill everybody for that, whether we're here all the time or not. I don't object to paying taxes because I personally believe that you all do a good job and that that continues to happen and I get fair, fair services from my city. So I'm not arguing about that at all. I'm also I'm blessed to be able to pay. However, there are many retirees who struggle and live on a fixed income and no one objects to paying the cost for service, the fixed rate. It's the rest that really starts to bother people. To say I was aghast at the lack of understanding by the consultant of those in the minimum usage group is an understatement. Not only do we exercise those of us in that group, exercise great caution about our usage. We now will have the greatest increase in the bill at a 17.3% increase versus 11.8% for the average user group. That doesn't make sense to me at all. I have to ask why. Where's the incentive for people to use less water? The 1,000 gallon baseline was based on establishing he needed to create it somewhere and I'm like, okay, we have a little data, we have a little more logic applied to that. It was inequitable. Those who use more should pay more and I appreciate the fact that you had good conversation about that particular issue. In all honesty, I looked at the data presented and did not see myself. I spend less than he suggested in literally every category that was up there. So he said $75 a month for internet. I pay $25. He said $50 for electric. I pay $38. He said $100 for cable. I pay $65. I'm trying to do my part and yet it sounded like I was going to be penalized. The council asked really good questions. For example, why not 500 gallons at the minimum and then average from there? Why not an equal percentage increase for average users as well as the minimal group? Then there was the whole issue about sewer, et cetera. I don't need to go into all of that. I need to come here and say thank you. But to reinforce my concerns and support your questions, let me provide some perspective from households other than those with two adults and two or more children or grandchildren living there. When I started bringing my water bill to the city council about probably eight years ago, I represented a group of single retired women living on fixed incomes. Yes, we fortunately in that group had enough money to pay our bills. But we also believed the world should work with equity and fairness. Why should we be subsidizing our neighbors in those larger households? And what's the incentive for us to do our part in terms of conserving water? So I'm single. I'm retired. I cook only enough to sustain myself. My doctor tells me to be careful about how much water and how much shower time I spend because it affects my old dry skin. My environmental commitment reminds me to use less water, use less electric and walk instead of drive when I can. At the same time, you all know that I do travel when I can. However, I'm really here to speak for a number of people in my neighborhood, those who are living on social security. Vermont is not our second home. It is our primary residence where we pay taxes, where we vote, and we care very much about the city. So all of that is to say thank you for considering the 500 gallon minimum category for the thoughtful discussion you had about that and that you're going to continue to have. And whether I can be here or not, I have great faith that you will do that. Whether I can be here in person or not, you know that I will be cheering for you. And for the fact that you're looking at trying to make equitable increases across all of the categories, you are indeed supporting the principles of fairness and equity, and we are all grateful. Thank you. I would note, I think they are going to come back with answers that address our questions in October. Right now it's scheduled for October 2nd, but it might be the second meeting in October. So I think you'll still be here. I'll hope that it's October 2nd. I may be a little tired. I'm going to do the marathon. Oh, that's for sure. But I will either be here or up there whenever that happens. So you can thank you seriously and for letting me know so that I really do pay attention. Thank you. Are there any other comments either online or in the audience? Okay, so we'll move on to counselors announcements and reports on committee assignments followed by the city managers report. So Andrew, do you want to start? Well, I've been gone for two weeks. I'm going to skip this week. Okay, your travel log. Okay. Thank you. So my wife and I attended the art hop down on Pine Street in Burlington right after the rain. I called it Burling Man, right? And, you know, it took pictures of the mud puddles, you know, the fresh construction for the sidewalk on the west side of Pine Street, saying it was a quagmire. Nobody could get in or out. You know, we were fighting for food. But again, really nice time, lots of great art and some installations. And it's always fun to go to that. I also attended the Economic Development Committee meeting and Frank Choffee attended from the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation. We had a nice long discussion with him or they did. And I asked questions to and it was over an hour and he gave a thorough background of GBIC and about the industrial parks that it facilitated opening across different parts of Vermont. And the states of those industrial parks and, you know, just sort of like the econ verse that Vermont has right now to coin a phrase and what we need to do to keep it going. It was a really, really good discussion and I enjoyed it a lot. I also went to the SBBA mixer on Thursday night. What a beautiful night to have some hors d'oeuvres and beverages with people from the business community and hear a short video from Beda from Kyle. That was cool. And what the views were just incredible from that deck of across the airport and it was really nice to be there. I had discussions with some people and heard about some problems. And then I barely made the swearing of the deputy chief police today. I actually walked in just after it was over, but so I apologize I was a little bit late, but at least I was able to get there and congratulate. So that's that's all I have. Thanks. Okay. Megan. Well, I also was downtown over not this last weekend, but the weekend prior for the Pride parade. And I did with my husband March with the FHTMS group and we caught up with Jennifer Murray who we were intending to walk with, but couldn't find a lot of people at that parade. It was really big. Also went to the art hop and really remarked the beautiful office space down in downtown Burlington. And I wanted to ask Jesse about the innovation center that Burlington will again be I guess the home city for there are only 20 in the country from what I understand. And it is something funded through a federal grant. The UVM University of Vermont was very key on getting this grant. But again, this is through second hand information. Apparently it was stated at a business event there that South Burlington was also participating in this innovation center. So getting to the e-converse of Vermont. Could you tell us a little bit about that innovation center and what our role or kind of our footprint might be in that center? Because it looks pretty exciting. Sure. Alana Blanchard and I had one meeting with the vice president UVM about that. So I would, it was a couple of months ago, so I would need more time to put together some details. We provided a letter of support for that innovation center. They are, per our conversation with them, still looking at where they would locate it. But certainly looking to support industry that's already here and supply chain ways and through technology and research based ways. So biotech or green energy are there to focus areas. So even if it's not located in South Burlington, our South Burlington businesses at the airport, at Tilly Drive, at Meadowland, and at Tilly, or at a tech park would certainly benefit. Okay. I thought it was in the old general dynamics building in that they're actually already offices open there. No, I don't know about that. Okay. All right. Well, I'll give you time to look into it. And I'd love to have, you know, what role could, could we play. And I'm happy to think about that too. Because I've been thinking about it for my students. And a lot of them do end up living in South Burlington. So I'd be very happy to think about that with you. Had a lot of conversations with residents about the short term rental and the rental registry ordinance. Also about the water and sewer rates. And I wanted just to share, to go along with what Barb said, had a wonderful exchange with a few members of the affordable housing committee on this topic. And Chris Trombly, the chair of that committee sent some information from Denver, where they have kind of a minimum rate. And then if you use less than a certain quantity of water per month or per day, you don't have to go and pay any usage fees. It's just kind of a, so I thought that would be of interest. And the amount that was cited as the livable rate was 50 liters per day. So not even gallons, we're talking liters per day or 1500 liters per month. And so I will definitely add that to the list. And I can follow up with an email, Jesse, so that Steve, or not Steve, I mean, Tom DiPietro and Wayne can take a look at that. Also went to the SBBA event, which is I think always just like every event that takes me out of my professional circle, is always really enriching and rewarding and to talk with business leaders here in our city. And then joined Helen as well as Paul Connor at the Chamberlain School meeting with Nick Longo and his team to talk about what I consider to be a pretty exciting idea. And I get gathered from the residents of that neighborhood. They agreed that it was an exciting idea to have enhancements in that neighborhood. We have a requirement in our land development regulations whereby when you develop, the developer must set aside and it's in relation to the cost of the development some open space enhancement for that neighborhood. And so their plan to develop a hotel there would lead to the opportunity for some open space enhancement in the Chamberlain neighborhood. So they are going to be working with the city and of course going through the DRB and permitting process to put in a bike path as well as some community gardens and I hope it's plural gardens. After the meeting and it's always interesting meetings are intimidating for some people. They don't want to speak up on the microphone or in front of the camera. I did get feedback and again I'll put this in an email just haven't had time yet where the gardens on Kirby would be really hard for the people near Delaware and Maryland and Elizabeth Street to reach. And there was also feedback from the chair of the natural resources and conservation committee as we drove down Kirby Road that there are a lot of trees in the area that was designated for the community garden and that we certainly don't want any trees to come down so that that garden could be successful. So finding a space without trees and without that shade that's truly exposed to the sunshine would be the optimal place and and so we could certainly think about what other areas would be good for our residents. I also wanted to share with the public and this might be something that our airport commissioner would share too and I again intend to share this with the wider public through from porch forum. I'm specifically talking about my neighborhood because the homes that are within the 65 DNL that's the average day, night, you know, decimal. Is that what you call it? Okay. Where it's 65 that those homes are eligible to be tested for this sound or noise dependence on your perspective installation and so there is I think some lingering concern that the airport by being contracted to do that work in people's homes would therefore be removing any homeowner's right legal right to file a complaint regarding noise and Nick Longo very clearly twice in that meeting made it clear that any kind of noise abatement that homeowners contracted have done in their homes that that would lead to know what is called an aviation easement so no aviation easement so homeowners would retain full rights if they wished to pursue any kind of legal concern with the airport the FAA or any federal or this is the navigation the navigation navigation yeah I think he included because one of the other options is for the homes to be sold to the airport and the airport would install the noise or sound mitigation efforts and even those homes would not have that navigation navigation easement on their property and this was back when we were negotiating all these things um originally we were told that oh it you know the FAA will require those and the city said and we don't want the program and so they found a way to to utilize the money for the different programs and not impose that on the homeowners yeah and and just for any chamberlain folks or when you see folks who happen to be watching this because both cities potentially Williston I'm not sure will have homes that are eligible it does require added insulation in the walls which they are blowing into the walls and if that is not possible the the walls will be expanded on the inside of the homes which does mean removing baseboards or you know any baseboard heating elements that then would be put back on and that was also just explained to be that's just natural protocol and and to ensure that these homes which would then be tested after these treatments that they you know pass the the standard um that the FAA set in place and also that in addition to noise or sound mitigation it would reduce your loss of heat and cooling so it is also an energy saver which I think is an excellent added bonus um and our goal for for reducing our emissions here in the city so I just wanted to say that for the public and feel free to add on because oh I did but you know so thank you that's all okay um Tyler do you have anything to report or share we can't sorry I'm I'm used to there can you hear me now we can okay sorry I'm used to the zoom interface so it takes me a minute to find everything here um I don't have a whole lot to report while I haven't been on vacation I've been deep in the throes of giving three kids back to school I'm trying to juggle and transition to their myriad of fall activities um but I have fielded I have not received a lot of community input or feedback on the issues that we discussed at the last meeting namely uh rental registry um nor uh the the water rates however I did I did receive a um feedback on other unrelated issues specifically on um whether or not the city would be interested in pursuing open space um whether would whether or not the city would be interested in pursuing um using open space funds for specific parcels of land and I don't want to get into the specifics of of the conversations but one thing that I think struck me from those conversations was um and I it was the fact that we don't correct me if I'm wrong but we don't have a firm policy in place regarding the specific um conditions that an entity would have to uh satisfy in order to be eligible for a some level of support from the city um and it feels like we that might be something that we want to address um my concern is that we could while it feels like uh in certain circumstances there where there might be an entity who would make an appeal to the city that we use open space funds um because to support uh their venture because in doing so that would also support the um the aims of what the open space fund is there to do um and I think that's great it please forgive the pun but it kills two birds with one stone um it makes me it makes me apprehensive that we don't have a consistent policy in place for how we would we would measure or apply that and I would hate to envision the the I am I get a little uncomfortable when I start thinking about long term could we ever be in a scenario where we could have exposure um as a city if we didn't um if an if an entity tried to do something like that but again we didn't have a firm policy in place saying we uh the indicating why we would or would not accept it um would that would that be exposure for us directly or indirectly to to future counselors so that's something that um I look I look forward to further discussions on as as as and to reflecting on everyone with as a group okay I would um just note and I don't know how often it's used but I do remember when we had um the initial interim zoning and we tasked one of the committees um I think it was um parks and recreation or maybe natural resources and they came up with a um kind of a checklist of um characteristics of a property that might be eligible for the open space um dollars and they spent quite a bit of time the count the council at the time approved that but I have to say I don't know exactly where that is or if it's um has been used recently but it was a very thoughtful list that I think would address some of those concerns Tyler that it isn't just who you know or whatever but there's a whole list of criteria that would make a piece of property um uh correctly eligible for consideration not a guarantee but consideration for um open space funds so that might be a place to start so can I jump yeah I don't think I've ever seen that oh if there are members of the public who can give me some other ideas of where to search for it I would be like the matrix do you remember is it not the open space IZ committee that formed that a matrix yeah we come if somebody comes to the mic can you come do the mic if you worked I can't remember who worked on it natural resources that's what I thought do you have an idea of a year memory so Betty is for those online Betty is saying it's the natural resources committee who worked on that yeah this you can hear me yeah the natural resources committee worked on it Peter Jones I think was our chair back then so you can go back to that year it was after 2008 it was probably five years after that or so somewhere Peter was the chair but yeah we created uh the matrix or whatever you want to call it that when the city was approached by somebody who wanted to sell land to the city or the city decided something was coming up and they wanted to there's criteria so that you can say here here's the what's in this land here's whether it's acreage of forest or whatever and then look at what the city's looking for you know what the city want to see whether or not it matches up because city's kind of in the past purchased properties just because they were were there wasn't really fit into a really purposeful process I think we applied it to the Nolan farm yes that was the first time we used it um we did it there and then we did it on what was the um not hue it what's the one there on the corner that just got purchased or something you uh one's out on a cheese factory row too real clear um yeah kind of it was on the south west yeah we can find it anyway you used it for no one if I have it in my file well yeah what's now the hubbard yeah oh you got it ewing property ewing oh the ewing property that's right that landmark player also yeah so we were natural resources was involved yeah in consultation with the city you know as if those were properties that we should look into yeah we walked and crawled and saw the big trees and everything we know the ewing property pretty well anyway that's well we should find that and that might address some concerns or be a starting point maybe we need to do more or um adapt it but that might be helpful helpful for people to see planning and zoning you probably would I think the IZ report would also be helpful because I think it applied those factors to many of the city parcels and then prioritize them oh okay so it was I mean Megan would know make Megan would yeah well maybe it was this chart the thing I was the thing that I was most uh that I that I'd like to hone in on and I'll certainly start with uh IZ and with with this report and I'll check with Paul is is there are is there also criteria or a lens through which we're looking at it for if we if there's a benefit to an entity that is uh whether it's a private party or a non-profit um if there is a benefit either direct or indirect to a third party um how is that evaluated and how is you know how is that factored into it as part of the process because I think I that's that's my biggest concern is not it's not to look at the semantics of you know what identifies a parcel of land as being as as meeting our criteria it's how do we how do we what role that does or should um the beneficiaries of that play in the in the selection criteria because I just want to make sure that there's a policy behind it and that it's fair and that it's equitable and it's consistently applied besides just the whomever is selling the property I mean that's pretty straightforward they benefit because they get money but you're talking about if it's a third party some other group that will be using it for the benefit of the public that's a different kind of um lens or criteria okay got you okay is that it for you okay I've had a really wicked busy week so last two weeks so I did attend um probably the final meeting that I'll attend but the um purchase of 575 Dorset Street with the school administration and and the city administration to continue that dialogue I think I would report and um Jesse will probably will have the real information but it seems like that's moving forward and there's some good collaboration and understanding about what are some of the challenges and we're looking to the city is looking to find some solutions or options that we can then move forward on but it seems to be going in a good direction I did um attend the committee on common area for dogs we actually met at Wheeler Park the the dog park which was kind of fun to see all the different animals and looking at where we might best put um benches and um additional augmentation for that park um I will tell you that I certainly was aware of the survey and we talked about that and it was worked on I missed a couple meetings but the committee worked very hard on coming up with a survey whose purpose was to try to understand or better understand what were the the needs and thinking of the people who do not leash their dogs it wasn't it wasn't meant to be um a fate of complete and we're looking to um have lots of places where you don't need a leash um but I think the council has discussed in the past how do you monitor or assure or ensure that everyone uses a lease leash what what's who's going to make sure that happens it's one of those ordinances that not everyone follows so the the survey was intended to try to understand so there's a whole group of people who live in this city who have dogs who have um the same interest and need to have a place where they can enjoy the city and their animals and their pets in a way that is um works for all so it's really questions around that to kind of tease out what are we looking at what does the city need and then think about are there any ways we can come up with um solutions to meet a multitude of dog owner interests so that's that was the purpose of the the survey and it really I think it's we've probably gotten interestingly enough um more feedback on that or participants in the survey than any other survey I'm aware of in the last well I've been on the council 10 years how many okay it's over 375 I think but more coming in so it clearly well some people I know thought it was biased I think probably every survey that um we've ever put put out there is the city has some bias to it it's hard to make them perfect you can always wish for a few more questions to give you the full picture um but then they get too long and we you know you you eliminate those um but anyway we're at 407 survey responses 407 so I think well you know it's getting people responding and I think that that was the whole purpose um I also left the dog committee and came to the planning commission and listened to them so um you know every time I sit in on those planning commission meetings I am impressed with the caliber of people that we've appointed to the planning commission it's really a very solid working group and they are really grappling with a lot of issues so I'm impressed with their work I went to the South Burlington Business Association mixer and I followed up with the airport community meeting and I thought that I've been to a number of meetings between that community that neighborhood and the airport and this was probably one of the I don't know more even keeled and um well managed meeting sometimes it can get pretty tense but it was good and nick did a wonderful job and um while there was a lot of talk about the f-35s um the point was really more about this um what to do with that park like property and I think it's just the first of many opportunities to to weigh in um and rightly so I mean yeah I thought nick you know allowed people to express their ongoing concerns about how that noise is impacting oh absolutely it's part of the conversation he didn't cut it off at all um I also attended the town meeting tv um meeting and we went over our budget and um they're getting some money they were successful with the legislature of getting money to support all of the um town meeting kinds of um entities will hours will be getting I think it's 45 000 which helps because our um constant um funding other than communities and um Burlington telecom is related to the cable um the number of cable licenses or tv receipts yeah receipts and that's going down so their support is going down so we're really um the search is on I guess for some more stable funding um to something that I think it serves democracy and open government and transparency very well um and lastly this morning I went to a really fun open house cht's open house for the ho hum motel on this is ho hum two I guess on um uh Williston road and this was one of the recipients of about 300 000 of our ARPA money to build that um there are 20 units so in essence we support 15 000 per unit um each unit cost about 175 000 to build which is about half the price of building new so they just took um the hotel and refurgished it and I think that aligns really well with a lot of the conversations we've had as a community to you know really reuse um the existing developed properties and turn them into something that we need now that maybe we didn't in the past so it was an exciting um moment in time I think and I'm very that the apartments are really quite lovely and I think there's a couple that are more than one bedroom so it's conceivable that there will be children who will walk to Chamberlain or take the bus um and I think you know it's situation as we all know it really is right where it needs to be on all the uh transport lines and there's just everything is within walking distance so it's really wonderful to see the money that we committed as a city um get built and people will be moving in in the next couple weeks so they were most grateful to the work and the leadership of South Burlington so it's always fun to be appreciated though somewhere and have them say thank you I wish I could have gone just to piggyback reusing materials and and um making um changes to our kind of industrial infrastructure to ensure that materials are more locally sourced than outsourced and shipped in from other countries would save 63 percent in emissions globally 63 percent so reusing those buildings is a big part of that yeah for sure yeah okay finally some real news so thank you a couple updates for you tonight um on Friday we had our annual Vermont Economic Progress Council monitoring visit for our TIF district so we're happy to welcome members of their VEPC board to the city to see city center and see the institutional investment in our growing downtown I think it went fairly well also on Friday we had a dozen staff from our police department and fire department participate in the Special Olympics torch run so this happens all over the state where law enforcement and public safety officers run with the Special Olympians the torch to the fields which is really special and we'll be putting out some pictures about that and of course Officer Brie who is I think the most popular city employee um it does wonderful wonderful work with our kiddos spearheads that every year um wanted to continue to provide you an update on Wheeler we are um Colin is in the process of finalizing those agreements we have ordered the consultant has ordered the stakes to stake the properties um we will be putting something out in city news about that because there it will be disruptive in some folks yards so we want to make sure that everyone is aware of what those are um when they go into the ground also wanted to following up on a um recent um public comment comment about South Village Paul and I did meet with the developer of that parcel to talk about how we start the community conversation about re-envisioning what that public space that is required under the permit looks like at South Village so we will be engaging with the HOA um and moving forward with playing for that developer um is very bought into reimagining what that could be um also want to let you know that we receive this uh zoning permit application for lot n which is the develop the city center lot across from city hall kitty corner across from city hall um that consists of three new buildings um interestingly along um market street not market street um so it mirrors what's going in on this side so two buildings on car wrapping the corners the catamount run opposite the catamount run opposite catamount run is a part of it though isn't it but another building that catamount run is part of yep so they're all uvm invested buildings uvm is investor in all of them um so the two will be mirroring uh what's going in on this side of market street on the other side of market street buildings wrapping the corner and then a third building um going down towards trader joes and healthy living on garden street yes um so it's 187 homes and a 27 thousand square feet of commercial space one of the interesting notes about how it's um kind of uh transitioned over the last the last submittal period is that they actually have decreased the number of units in the project but increased the number of bedrooms so they're building bigger apartments to um better meet our community's needs so that's really exciting i think the chair um appropriately covered the Braeburns the cht event today thank you for coming that is very exciting and of course a big um one of the big projects that we are doing to help um our unhoused neighbors in south berlington what other note on that they will have resident services on site to connect our neighbors with services which i think is a great um great asset to that building when is moving for that it's in a couple weeks starting this week i mean they're they're they're ready to go they're ready to go they're all done um previewing an upcoming agenda item we put out a call for people to serve on boards and committees you have one on your two on your list tonight we didn't receive we still don't have applications to bring to you for town meeting tv and the development review board so if folks are interested in serving in either of those or no people who are please continue to send those in and then the only other thing i would add to the chair's comments about dorset street 575 dorset i think those conversations are going incredibly well i really appreciate the partnership with the school i will say there are there are going to be some unbudgeted expenses associated with that project we are starting to track those and at future meetings we will bring that tracking to you that's okay thank you may ask one question what the okay thank you the progress of the signalization on dorset street but we're i mean i see things are changing but i mean do we is it is it on track at this point or completion date do we know um i see tom de petro on the phone or on go to meeting it's not gonna give him a quick second to see hello tom everybody can you hear me yes the question was about the dorset street signals project and status update yeah it is progressing well uh we've found some underground conditions we didn't expect uh some material delivery times were a little longer i guess we anticipated those to be long but they were long um so the contractor has a completion date in march but i expected to be done before then i do know the mast poles and mast arms got delivered to their yard uh two weeks ago uh so they're starting to put everything together on the poles and there'll be an upcoming kind of overnight work uh where you'll see those on wiliston and dorset and then at kennedy and dorset so you'll see things above ground happening very soon good thank you thanks tom okay if there's nothing further um i'll move on to item six the consent agenda there are nine items disbursements uh minutes from july 17 august 7th august 21st and september 5th i'm about to approve okay all nine of them so i don't have to read through the oh i'm sorry i'm jumping the gun no uh there's going f y 23 june and year-end financials and approval of allocating 21 000 to the health care reserve fund um and receipt of the f y 24 august financials approve a traffic impact fee credit request for snider braverman uh designates ditzel page and fletcher pc is the city's attorneys for tax sale collection approve entering into an engineering contract of god knows how many pages um to hoyle tanner and associates for the upgrade of the bartlett bay wastewater treatment facility and that contract had about 15 pages of stuff that was all lined out just to let us know that it wasn't part of the contract that is your city attorney hard at work those are standing standard engineering agreements that collin spent a lot of time yeah okay delete delete um approve a pole attachment lease agreement with green mountain power and eruv committee of burlington in a substantially similar manner from which we have done that before i think in city center and approve a request to establish a new line of credit with sb collins for fire apparatus fueling so councillor emory made a motion to approve those nine items i will second it but i want to have some discussion okay would you like to have the discussion now sure okay question so the first question is why are i mean i know we just had an august 15th property tax uh date why are there so many overpayments of taxes what what's the deal with that i asked that question like two months ago you did yeah i did was an answer so this is moot or no it's different it was answered but martha will answer again because repeat repeat repeat it's the yeah well you know our memories are such yes well in absinthe math alliance i will try my best some people normally would sign up for auto payment and then forget that they had signed up they'll come in and pay tax again yes yeah okay so there's yeah because there are blocks of large amounts and there were blocks of like 50 80 100 i you know i guess everybody has a different story so that's true and also the state tax payment as well and and normally there's overpayments are paid within like one month is that what's that the overpayments are paid back within about a month uh yes we try well they so the report will be run and whenever they get to as we put whatever amount that we can put in for the payment yeah so between now and possibly end of the month or beginning of next month you will probably see a couple in there and it also depends on when the state tax payment are downloaded and then in the while you're here there was a $2,600 $2,650 microphone that was in the financial warrants what was that for that was for i believe this microphones we're getting new microphones i know i think that was to fix this line when they broke we had to pay for that so some of these were broken some they're broken oh okay my mind wouldn't turn off okay and then the last one on that issue is there was a $200 seaway car wash charge who who are we using seaway to wash our car the city no the fire trucks the oh the fire cars more no i'm not kidding the police cruises well was the police cruisers oh all the cruisers okay okay just okay and the last question is since we're pointing to stitzel and page for tax sales from what i remember before if somebody if a if a house goes on it has a tax sale and you and you bid the highest you don't get possession of the building for a year but you pay the full price and it's held on deposit right and if the the owner comes forward and pays the back taxes and interest in penalty then your money is refunded to you but they pay you an interest rate on that deposit that they've kept for a year and i was just curious what is that interest rate still at like five percent or something like that or so i i think that is the case having said that we work very hard to never go to tax sale right i know i understand that so i don't believe it's happened it certainly has not happened here during my time i don't know martin for the time that i've been here it has happened once right but back when interest rates were zero right it just looked at that it was like five percent because it had been said a long time ago i'm just curious since it's never used but is that something that we want to change annually is that would that take a city council motion just just okay for the future no big deal and that's all i have thank you very much i have a question okay yes yeah more um it it would it be possible that it might be helpful i was one of those people who didn't know whether we're on autopay but sometimes it'll say on the bill like do not pay you're on autopay the the property tax bill doesn't say that it would be possible it does because we're on autopay mind on it mind didn't know what we we called and and took a while to figure it out that we were on autopay but um i'm not 100 and the water bill says it the gas bill say it the property tax bill doesn't say i don't think our system is set up that way but i cannot 100 confirm uh-huh the alternative is that if somebody does a night deposit in an envelope let's say and you get a check before you actually deposit the check you could check to see whether i don't know whether that's possible because i don't know when them you actually see the money pulled in an a ch from somebody's checking account uh we well when they come in at the time i'm the only person i can see what what money comes in yeah and the people that actually receive the money in they cannot they cannot tell whether those payments have been processed or not right okay all right so it's just it's too because they have to get the payment in at a certain time otherwise they face a penalty right so right that's why autopay is nice if you remember you have it well and yeah and normally people just panicking that maybe they might be able to get interest rate on their late payments so they're just coming in and paying right away thank you okay thank you mark so we have a motion that's been made and seconded is there any further discussion you ready for the vote all in favor of the nine items on the consent agenda signified by saying aye aye okay that's unanimous okay we'll move on to item seven which is consider appointments to the chintin county communications union district and the manuski valley parks district um so one thank you for going through that consent agenda i know there's a lot on there and some meaty stuff so thank you for that um we are trying to leave room for lots of debate and other agenda items um so for your appointments tonight we have one public application for the winooski valley parks district that's larry cup for min he is actually on an airplane right now so is not able to participate but i believe the council is familiar with him and his work um so he's the only application we received for the winooski valley parks district so you could take action on that tonight we did not receive any public applications for the chintin county communications union district but i believe one of your colleagues may be interested in serving on that role um so i leave that information with you to do with what you will which colleague is that who is the mystery person i really like the slow speed i have to say that there are holes when i drive south yeah we mean sell sell sell holes sell holes yeah yeah between between south prairie and shalber and there's some droplets yeah but it's getting better yeah yeah just go team oval okay well i mean i'm happy to make a motion to appoint larry cuperman um to the winooski valley parks district and counselor um tim barrett to the chintin county communications union district now second do we want to grill tim or what do you plan to do that will bend south brillington mr chintin well i believe there aren't that many households that uh well there are very few that could benefit well there are some that could benefit but the number is very low in terms of coverage right so i have a lot to learn but i think that our presentation then also ends up injecting extra money into that that unit district right so but it'll be great to understand what else goes on in the rest of the of the county um well i think you'd be perfect we're pretty well served you know by Comcast in a lot of places and that's not saying that people are paying a fair value to Comcast at this time but everybody please review your Comcast Xfinity bills and just cut out what you don't need right if you if you have an antenna and you can get over the air signals and hook it up to your tv you can get an over-the-air dvr you can cut your Comcast cable unfortunately that decreases the revenues for town tv right but this is what court cutters have been doing for years now if you can get rid of your tv you could also go to youtube tv it's like 65 bucks a year and has local channels and has a cloud dvr right you can also go direct tv or dish but they you know they got a two-year agreement but the but the second year increases over the first year and you know you got to put a big thing on your anyway so these are these are the kinds of things you wonder how people can save money right people who are used landlines still you can convert your landline over to a voip line and pay five dollars a month instead of 35 dollars a month to consolidate it right so there are all sorts of opportunities but the problem is that the average household doesn't have the time of the patients and sometimes the knowledge on how to implement these things and combine them and buy this but not a special rather but buy their own router so they don't end up renting it from Comcast as well right that's so if you know me and you've seen anybody ask on front porch forum southeast quadrant hey is anybody got any alternatives i'm there hammering on the email author button saying this is what i do in my house here's some suggestions it's not easy but it is doable you can go from a 200 dollars a month down to 80 dollars a month right but it and i see bart services there you go there you go well i'm having coffee with her so you're gonna tell me how or come over to my house and do it yeah the water isn't really a big deal okay the fragmentation of the entertainment industry in its technology is really affecting customers because you've gone from over-the-air broadcasts to cable or satellite into streaming services over the internet there are now so many streaming services and they're not profitable to those companies that have provided them right they're all losing money so an alternative that you go to the library that's true or you can you can take a dvd we spent a bunch of money next to our library unless we don't have a dvd player right anyway thank you yes you may so i've been serving on the cud board which i am happy to step off of because this um clearly a lot of interest but we do need an alternate so i would i'm fine to continue as an alternate with tim's oh okay i'll amend that motion to include jesse baker as our alternate to the chitenden county communications union district second that's friendly amendment okay are we ready for the vote can i just ask um what we do what what the miniski valley parks district does and what our role is i've just not heard of that so yeah so the miniski valley parks district um trying to see if paul is still on he is not um is uh one of our chitenden county union municipal district so it's a special government that we have set up in partnership kind of like solid the solid waste district water district um and it manages a significant amount of land conserved access land um in chitenden county in the miniski valley water shed district so we have some parcels here in south berlington um there are other parcels across communities in our region so for example i hiked kohlchester pond this weekend that is all miniski valley park which south berlington parcels do they manage or behind the airport um well and then there's off to um vansip one yeah river cove is i think off river cove is off and between kohlchester and south berlington on lime kiln i can send you a map let's see it yeah i think they are a very interesting park partner for us to consider expanded partnership with here in the future because they actively manage natural areas um and we annually expertise and we fund them we make an annual um contribution that's based on population i think not the amount of park lands you might have because all of the acreage is available to everyone there's no fee except maybe there is a fee um for the homestead right there are services we can oh there are services that we can buy from them i meant that an individual can hike or walk on in any of the parks without having it's not like it's a state park where there might be a a fee okay you ready now okay all in favor signify by saying i i i okay that is unanimous number eight well this is special yeah so shawnd do you want to do both shawnd shawnd and shawnd you spell them differently at least there's c in and then there's shawnd also both have the initials sb just throwing that out there and sb sb yeah dpc sb sb squared pcs we see it happen yeah okay a wild group tonight we like things to match and self-grown too fantastic uh for those online and in the audience that may not know shawnd Burke and i have the privilege of serving as the city's police chief tonight i'm here with our new deputy chief of police shawnd brisco a little bit about the process that led us here first thanks to city management and council for supporting in the f y 24 the budget conversion and bringing the deputy chief position back to the police department as you have seen in the headlines and in our work policy and training related the demands on the police department through modernization have been great and the addition of this additional administrative capacity was much needed so thank you for that in terms of process we did conduct the national search with in conjunction with hr i'd say we put together a process that had decent rigor to it and through that process we were fortunate enough to come and meet now deputy chief brisco and i'll have him say a little bit about his background i will just say before he speaks this is an amazing opportunity for a growing city and our police department and i'm very very excited to have this kind of postures us for the future chief certainly welcome you thank you um i would also like to thank you for bringing the funding to the deputy chief position back into the budget uh but uh kidding aside this is a fantastic opportunity the entire process from uh seeing the job announcement to starting today has been incredibly welcoming and uh i can't imagine working in a better spot the the people that i've met over the past few weeks and and today have really embraced me with open arms and i'm looking forward to being a part of this team um i know that uh city manager sent out a notice that i was being hired with some of my credentials so i won't bore you with some of the things that i've done or in my past career just say that i was 27 years with the ceratoga springs new york police department uh took a year off and decided that it was time to re-enter policing because life in the private sector was just not for me i'm really excited to join this team and just a little bit about me and the way i approach policing and administration and whether it's an internal or an external interaction i always base what i do on empathy trying to put myself in the other person's shoes and see things from their perspective and i think that that's important for police work at any level to to really understand what's going on and try and figure out what the best solution is for the community and and the person that i'm speaking to so um i hope that that's something that you all will embrace about me and i'm i'm looking forward to getting started here with south berlington pd thank you any questions or thoughts i just want to um i forgot to mention but at the um brayburn um opening um michael monte the president of the um cht specifically thanked um our chief of police shawn with a w um for the wonderful work that he that he and the um police department have offered in all of there when the ho hum too was just a place for that was used for covid separation or isolation and he acknowledged that sometimes it's challenging um the new apartments might have some challenges but he was most appreciative of the um the approach that south berlington takes to make that work as best as possible and i think that's something that we all very much appreciate and it sounds like you found a partner in crime so to speak um that will carry that on and i think that's wonderful so welcome both of you thank you thank you wonderful to have you on board thank you very much yeah and i enjoyed reading about it in the local press so before meeting you saw i couldn't come this morning uh but i i have to say that you are in a really good force um i i i think we have a lot to be proud of here in south berlington and our police force is one of them so you are a lucky man indeed excellent i agree thank you you're welcome welcome board deputy chief thank you thank you gentlemen okay item nine is the receiving the charter committee committee's report on governance and then consider providing a direction to the committee staff so we have a couple members um here did you not turn it on oh my screen goes blank like me have a right well peter you have the floor yes is it bright green is it bright green yeah push it again push it push the um push button oh it's brighter yeah yeah yeah thank you very much um i've been uh chair of the charter committee for the last 18 months uh in uh february of 2022 of the council uh requested that the charter committee uh consider governance models and language updates to the city charter uh i directed us to engage in a community feedback process and solicit feedback from south berlington residents on governments models um before i get into the report i just want to take a minute and uh recognize some of the committee members that are here tonight with me is an lawn and an did our first draft of our report and we didn't change much so thank you and right um donna kenville our former city clerk was on the committee and still is and elizabeth oh you're right behind me um yeah i i got wendell he's coming up in a minute um uh chuck hafter i don't think chuck's online but chuck is vice chair of the committee and um the council appointed or allowed the uh uh school board to appoint two members to our committee and that began with dr childs and carter higgins who was a student representative who did a wonderful job with our committee both of those people have moved on carters off to college um and kate bailey and wendell colman have been appointed uh by the school board to continue on in that role and so they finished the project with us um it's a long report you've all received it with attachments i'm hoping you've read read it through but um i might start the meeting by just going over the highlights or the sections of the report and then we can open it up for a discussion and and your thoughts on it um first of all we uh set out a process and a time frame and a time chart which we did pretty well to stick to i think uh the first thing we did was discuss city manager uh versus uh uh the the um chief executive for the city do you have a mayor or city manager approach and um in that process we interviewed a number of mayors and other people about their positions from within the state with similar sized towns if you will to get a flavor for how they view their positions and that helped us in uh determining our recommendation on that topic um let me just uh also during that early discussion there was a suggestion about planning commission size and we took the temperature of the planning commission and the and the uh city council and both of those groups did not uh advocate for a change in the size so we did not spend much time on that at all um part of the process we wanted the public to think about what our questions were about how they wanted the government structured so we tried to come up with some pros and cons or advantages and disadvantages or possible advantages and disadvantages um to having a mayor versus a strong city manager approach um so we put together a list of pros and cons and we also did that with size of government etc and that document is attached um as a as a link to the report um community outreach we we did a survey we did forums and other meetings to reach out to the community the survey jessie helped us tremendously with uh designing a survey the committee had some input into that we put the survey together um and reached out to the community throughout our public forums which we held to and um other meetings with other groups in the city we met with some pta members we met with um um some business groups to try to get feedback and we opened that up we didn't get any other takers who wanted us into their neighborhoods or what have you but we did reach out uh pretty strongly to the community um the results of that um of the forum i on page three of the report we we list a number of topics that seem to come up more or less regularly concern of using legislative districts as wards wards versus that large uh representation possibility of electing planning commission members was uh raised support for nonpartisan system was a consistent theme at the may 10 meeting a straw vote or half the attendees favored wards and half at large we'll get to our recommendations on that in a few minutes uh the chair of the board of civil authority requested expansion of the size of the bca if possible suggesting now that with five four five legislative districts that means another polling location and more need for more involvement does that require a charter change to expand oh i'm sorry turn this off does it does um expanding the bca require a charter change i i believe it does um but according to state statute we're limited at 15 oh okay thank you so we could do a charter change if people wanted to do that to add to the numbers of the bca concept of ranked choice voting came up near form of government was not supported by the majority of the commenters possibly possibility of elections in november for a larger turnout those were some of the feedbacks we got um the survey we received um 175 responses to our survey it was online um actually we had a way of telling whether the survey responses came from the same ip address or not and we didn't get any duplicate ip addresses which was nice um i don't know how you feel about 175 responses out of a city of what 16 000 registered voters or something like that um but i i guess from the people i talked to that was a pretty good response we'll talk about the the specific uh comments made in the survey in a minute uh comments at regular meetings uh many of those who attended their regular meetings of our committee uh advocate in favor of award system they argued that election by awards would lead to broader participation by south billington citizens ensure that the council is more responsive to concerns um also south billington resident dan albright prepared a handout for the committee with demographics information on each of the census tracks and uh the handout showed that the berlington south berlington's legislative districts overlaid with the map of single unit multi housing in the city uh and that map is attached and dan's report is attached to this uh document recommendations of the charter committee um these are our specific thoughts that we come back to you with um the committee unanimously recommends that there be no change to the city's chief executive system so that we stay with the city manager and chair elected by the council um and that was pretty much consistent with the feedback we received throughout the process uh city council with a unanimous vote committee recommends an increase in the number of city counselors um for a number of reasons and and this also was pretty well split between the feedback we got but the committee as a whole unanimously thinks that it might be more helpful to have two three four more counselors uh we left the appropriate number out of our recommendations we didn't want to spend a lot of time on that until we knew whether the council has an interest in going in that direction because when you do that that also impacts on particularly if you go to wards if you're in favor of us pursuing that how we would elect those people so that would be more work for the charter committee if you'd wish uh the committee could not reach a consensus on whether uh councils should be elected by district or by at large so we toss that back to you if you'd like us to do more work on that we're glad to but we couldn't reach a consensus on the committee um let me see here okay uh the paragraphs in the rest of that just give you some background on wards versus legit at large representation uh the school board with a unanimous vote of the committee recommends an increase in the number of school directors uh we also did not give you a specific number on that it will take more dialogue that's probably the school board and the community to figure out how that moves but the committee did vote unanimously to continue electing school board members at large as opposed to using wards for school board members and that I think was pretty consistent with the feedback we got additional items uh that came up the committee discussed uh other means of addressing concerns about underrepresentation uh one option was alternative election methods such as rank choice voting instant runoff uh another creative option was the use of uh two-year term and three-year term having everybody run for those terms and then the top two vote getters fall into those terms as opposed to a separate election for each term that these are just thoughts that that came out we don't have any recommendations on these finally uh the public raised uh several issues in our forums uh with regard to the planning commission being elected and I just highlight that for you um I also want to take one minute and we'll get back to questions and anything that the committee wants to add but if I can find my sheet so I don't forget anybody I'd like to acknowledge uh the support the committee's received uh from uh the city manager and uh the city attorney uh Jesse Baker and Collin McNeil for their excellent council during our process our excellent minute taker Sue Allen accretabulated the many and various comments from our committee meetings and public hearings uh they've been attached so you have access to those also thanks to council and Megan Emery for being the council liaison to our committee and of course thanks to the many residents who participated throughout the process before we go to questions and would you like to add some thoughts I think I think Peter described it all very well um I think as you can tell in this report there were a lot of complicated issues that um uh that we couldn't really foresee you know if you if we split it up into split this up into wards south burlington into wards can we be certain that that would create more diversity in the city council for example um so I do I feel somewhat bad that we didn't sort of recommend here's exactly what we think you should do but I think the we've we've really tried to set out the pros and cons and what what the whole committee was thinking about as we did it can we answer any questions are there any questions for sure there's some did you talk about lawn signs at all we did not thank you would you like us to talk about lawn signs do you prefer or not prefer lawn signs up and down all the roads during the election cycle we could get rid of lawn signs that might be a very positive thing to start with but I'd rather talk about making sure the lawn signs are picked up after the election it's usually done pretty they usually we're picking up our you know I know quite a few candidates in my garage no I I'll wait till the people um well I do have a question just because I I'm and it's probably because I don't totally understand ranked choice voting or instant runoff voting but it's cited as an alternative election method that I believe right after the paragraph that talks about um addressing concerns about under representation of certain areas I don't understand how ranked choice voting creates um under representation or is it just that's a whole nother idea I read that and I was thinking I think it was brought up as part of that and I'm not quite sure personally how that would affect that area but we put it in there because we heard from a number of people that that was a topic that they thought should be brought up but the committee did not spend a great deal of time talking about that issue but not necessarily as a means to getting more diversity on any of these councils or boards because I'm stymied about how that would how that exactly works I don't know it does but I think it came up during that discussion yeah right and we had people talk about this and bring this up in the forums as well and I think that we were more concerned about the sort of the forms of governance rather than the the way to vote way voting would work but we were trying to to figure out a way that that we could somehow be sure that there was more diverse representation and I'm I'm not super clear on rank choice voting but we had we did have several people talk to us about it well I think I was at one of the meetings when they did and I didn't make the connection then either I was just wondering if someone else had that's fine I'll just this is my normal height um I part of the reason we couldn't come to some of these conclusions is more to the fact that you know we could say let's vote by district and let's let's have rank choice voting let's have all these things but that itself doesn't guarantee diversity so that's why we were kind of split it's like we need we know we need to create diversity but we're not sure these methods are going to get us there but they're conversation that we heard during the process okay thank you you also talked about public financing of elections at least it was a community member who brought it to the floor something done in Portland Oregon I believe and I followed up on that and sent you all the link and that's actually something that the University of Illinois Circle campus so in Chicago recommends is public financing to truly encourage diversity and we we've spoken about the high cost of some of the council elections and that was one suggestion is to have public financing or a cap on spending but we did talk to Colin the city attorney and he said it would be difficult to do this on a city level but we didn't really get into it beyond beyond that I mean putting a cap on it would be difficult yes I think the Supreme Court sort of shut that down didn't it in the yeah Vermont state assembly as well as nationally yeah just remind you some of the things we put in as added comments are strictly that members of the public made that feedback but we did not spend time debating or discussing them we didn't fit feel it fit in with our charge and we wanted to get a report back to you in time if you wanted to do something other Andrew and then Tim yeah Peter thank you for a wonderful report thank you for everyone that worked on it was really very readable a lot of terrific information I really appreciate all the hard work I have a question about the recommendation to increase the number of counselors so I read through the there's a page I guess the chart that discusses the pros and cons and I have to say reading through those pros and cons it wasn't it didn't jump out at me that there were kind of overwhelming pros for expansion so the chart talks about you know the disadvantages of a five council structure are too much work to reach counselor more difficult to get a quorum only takes three counselors to dismiss the city manager as far as I know I mean I think the workload's fine we've never dismissed the city manager and we've always had a quorum well at least not very mine but and we've always had a quorum so like I get those I get those points in theory but I don't know that they you know are kind of in fact um things that um are really disadvantages here and here and now um conversely talks about the the cons of expanding more difficult to reach consensus yeah right you know longer longer meetings um deliberations get bogged down yeah they they could um difficulty finding candidates to run it I think that would be a potential real issue honestly and then the the benefit of having more than five councils is yes you'd have more perspectives for sure by definition more voices but I guess in my mind I just it didn't feel reading all those that that would lead to anonymous vote to expand and I was curious more about the thinking behind that I think we had um we talked about uh some more advantages after we wrote our our beloved chart that we spent so much time on but um I think we also we really focused on increasing demographic representation which again would not happen automatically you know I think there'd be have to be work by people going and looking for candidates and trying to make sure that people not in the southeast quadrant were also running um but we were also thinking about uh the fact that it would allow counselors to maybe mentor newer members and if counselors were leaving it wouldn't remove the institutional memory if two counselors out of five left that would be you know could be a lot you know a bigger blow than if you know two out of seven left and um so I mean I think we were thinking about those kind of institutional concerns too um and I don't know that we've yeah that we really that one works and the one at the the podium works too that's a better camera shot if just press the button in the middle so it's breaking and speak and do it you can hear me well I'd like to elaborate a little bit on two issues one size of council and the other ranked choice voting I'm not going to get into all the details of ranked choice voting but on a non-partisan ballot if you have ranked ranked choice voting it tends to give moderate voices an advantage over some extreme position on either end of the political spectrum Alaska we have don't have partisan elections so we've got a non-partisan vote but in Alaska the last election people were listed by parties but it was all one ballot you could vote I could vote for a Republican here and a Democratic here and a native Alaskan here if I wanted to but they got really really good results and I have read articles on it explaining what I said it tends to decrease extremism which I personally think is a good idea the other issue I'd like to briefly touch on is size of council I think you work under a disadvantage with only five members there Vermont has an excellent open meeting law meetings are supposed to be open etc and I think you understand all that but you're also humans and humans are social animals going into meetings cold is not a good idea but with five member council any given member can talk to one other member about an issue the minute they talk to the second member it is a violation of the open meeting yes it is no oh no I can call Helen and I can talk to Tim and separately separately I can talk to Andrew I can talk to Tyler you can't talk together all at once no no no the law very specifically says you cannot chain these conversations together right in a way that so if Megan talks phone conversation would be hard to chain unless you have a conference call and that would be chain is one after the other no no I can talk to any of my colleagues separately that is something that the meeting law does not prevent me this this is part of why we didn't get into all of this but and you may not want to tonight because if you do want to proceed that we'd be glad to take that on for you and give you a report on it but but we can always rely on our council we did get trained in open meeting law and I think I understood as as Megan but maybe we were led astray but the that's the training we got from the the state we would agree to disagree for right now we can do that Wendell you and I have disagree a few times a few times so other comments or questions Tim you had some yeah so like Andrew said thank you very much for all the hard work and I just the framework of thinking about this is is interesting because I started the bottom the bottom is well what is broken if nothing is broken and what is fair what is unfair right and I started the election process itself right which Don has directed for many years our election process is very well structured and very secure and I don't have any problems with it and and is it it's up to the voter looking at the ballot to pick the you know the candidate that they want that's not a problem the process to get on the ballot is I think is a low barrier right it's like 35 signatures right on a petition it's it's it's very easy thing for anybody to do if they have an interest to be trying to become a member of city council so that's fair and that's not a problem then I started thinking about how much money does it take to actually get on a city council and we have lots of examples where somebody spent 37,000 over two successive campaign cycles to get on city council and then only served one term right so and I'm not judging that I'm just saying that that if you take that in conjunction with past campaigns where the amounts large amounts have been spent and there have also been political action committees there was even a political action committee that benefited megan and myself you know without our knowledge um and that's totally unexpected at times right so that's when to me the so the correct question is what is a fair process to elect people right you have to have a secure election process you have to have a low barrier to become a candidate then it it would be really nice if theoretically if the average voter was able to see the breadth of all the candidates and be able to evaluate them you know at the same time with let's you know like I mean the other paper usually publishes a matrix what are your opinions on all these 12 items and here are the seven candidates you can go yeah I agree you know and then they can make a decision themselves right so so is there a fair process where the the public is given information about all the candidates without 12 postcards arriving at their house that go into the recycling immediately right without you know four you know leaflets laid at the door whatever it might be or radio ads or I mean radio ads for a city council position it's it's been done right so so thinking back to what is the fairest process to try and get somebody elected because the public perceives them to be a valuable person to put on city council right and money just blows that out of the water and so right there whether it's five people or seven people I mean I mean we've been lucky we've had good people on council I'm not saying it ruins it it just it makes it less fair that's what bugs me right is the whole campaign finance spending problem I spent a wonderful Wednesday night with a former Peace Corps volunteer friend of mine that was in library with me who is now a state rep for Maine and I asked her like well what did you spend on your last election she went zero because the state of Maine gave me this block of money like it gave the other candidates and that's what they were limited to and that works for them I don't know all the details but I was like my jaw hit the table I'm like and that's for a state rep right you know why can't we do something similar here and and lawn signs you know I mean the average voter I mean if they see your name 20 times going down Dorset or Spear or Heinsberg Road does that make a difference should we just bar them all ban lawn signs and let people you know decide before they get to the polls because they really should have decided before they get to the polls right and thus they see with the door and they go oh I like I like you best you know whatever it is I you know so five or seven seven I doesn't bother me but it just means it's gonna the meeting is gonna go longer because you're gonna have seven people talking in a row right so the meeting is gonna go till midnight or 1 a.m. Burlington right goes till 2 a.m. sometimes they have 13 people right or is it 12 12 12 and the mayor and the mayor so that just another consideration to think of is that the amount of time people spend preparing and then going to meetings and then committee meetings and then being in twice a month a meeting that goes from 6 30 till midnight that's another consideration but if that's what it takes to make representation more equitable then maybe that's what it takes I don't know Tyler you have a question or a comment or whatever I do I had I had a question and again I'd like to echo everyone's everyone's thanks for this this body of work and it's very it's very comprehensive and as Councillor Chauncey noted it's very easy to read so thank you I had a question in any of the comments that you receive from citizens or I'm curious to know if you got a sense I agree with with what Tim has said about getting to the root cause of the issue with with diversity and I'm curious if you in any of your efforts got any any sense or any sort of a read on on why perhaps folks didn't run or were not running for city council what the pain points might be was it cost was it time did you do in and all your work did you get any sort of a sense as to what might be preventing more people more and from running and what's contributing to the diversity factor I think the answer is no I don't think a lot of people well some people said well some people said money I couldn't spend that much money and they said they did not want to run to 20,000 people versus 5,000 in a in individual districts so they didn't want a sheer volume of some I think there were some 20,000 was more challenging than thinking there's a 5,000 and and that was one of the poser cons as we looked at the the ward versus at large and the argument was if you the ward may produce more people huh but that was a may interestingly though our legislators every single one of them ran unopposed and four were new yep yep so but and I just want to also make sure we don't forget that we've talked about the school board too and I think those are different barriers to running I think the cost didn't seem to be a barrier to running for school board um but I think people are are um maybe daunted by the the difficulty of of so much work on the on the board and that's why the former school board directors sent us a letter saying we strongly advise that the school board should have seven people because they work in committees unlike the council yeah I just want to note I I 100% agree that the time commitment is probably the most daunting um and the reason why I have not at all considered running for school board and I think that the school board should consider ways of um divvying that work perhaps in different ways or to other people um and I would also say that um to what has been said prior um that having late meetings could be definitely dissuasive um I know myself getting home close to 11 11 30 it takes me sometimes two hours to just wind down and get to sleep and then I have a full work day the next day so you you know need to keep in mind and we need to keep in mind that if we truly want diversity you're not going to necessarily be happy with only having people who can have the next day to relax and and and you know make up for that lost sleep um so I think time is truly more valuable than the money question yeah um and that's something that I I've I mentioned in in those meetings and as far as bringing diversity and I I did ask the council to review our charter you know two two weeks ago um because I wanted to really draw attention to the neighborhood forums um and the reason why those neighborhood forums I believe are a really good kind of training ground for potential counselors is because it's been shown we have very successful national candidates who um were neighborhood organizers I'm talking about you know a two-term president um who's still beloved um and he was a neighborhood organizer and I'm talking about Barack Obama and and so those neighborhood organizers learn by organizing their neighborhoods um how to develop you know constituencies how to approach um you know the various mechanisms of government and and do it effectively and and by coaching their neighborhoods on how to do that there of course anytime you teach somebody you learn you learn more deeply I know that as a matter of fact and and so by teaching a neighborhood how to approach the council who to contact um how to work through the various levers and layers of government um because not everything comes directly to the council right oftentimes it goes through committees and then it works its way back and forth between the committees and the staff and eventually it gets up to the council right and so understanding that is really really valuable for people to understand why I talked to the council five times of last five meetings and nothing has happened yet well sometimes it takes years for things to work their way up to that level and and so it's something I would I would really hope that we could you know encourage our committee I too I want to thank you this report is excellent I thought the survey was excellent I thought you came you know handed you are handed this this charge and you did excellent work on you know given um that you know based on what we gave to you I would like us to um learn from this experience and to say you know one of the things I would like you to think about as a committee is what is the value of these neighborhood forums and how could these neighborhood forums you know be supported in a way so that we could develop more diversity um and and that training ground for people you know one of the traditional ways to get to run for council is going through the committee structure and being a committee member right and but if we look at this board right and there are three of us who went through that kind of traditional way and so it's not saying that you have to go through the committee structure um but I and and sometimes people who haven't been through the committee structure they've become chairs and they've been wonderful you know so it's it's a it's still a way for you know people who are looking for that training and saying do I really want to do this you know do I really feel up to it and is it something that you know you don't have to somehow have this magical dust to be able to do which you don't we're just we're just neighbors I think it's a really nice way to break the ice and test it out so that's what I would suggest Dan and then Kate Bailey I just wonder are we going to move to official public testimony park because I don't want to interrupt well this isn't really a public hearing so if you would like to speak it's not a public hearing no go ahead if you would like to um it probably would be helpful to be behind a mic and while Dan's coming up I would just remind you that the school bar did vote that they would like to have their numbers expanded they did not give us a specific number right and and certainly we're going to discuss that we're sort of focused it seems at the moment on the council and I want to assure everyone we're not just um shoving that off the table because it's just about us okay Dan thanks Madam Chair um so first of all thanks I'm Dan Albrecht from Proctor Avenue of 15-year residence something like that um first of all I want to thank the committee they had a lot of meetings I went to a lot of them um and all and participated in the process and I appreciate them including some of the handouts I provided on you know just housing unit distribution and census data and things like that um I kind of wanted to circle back to at least the reasons that I advocated for when I made my comments about just award system and then I think as the survey results show again it's just a survey but it's you know better than nothing um and it's better than a bunch of you know Facebook posts or something was it 60 of the people and wanted some form of geographic representation and I'll just illustrate why I feel some form of geographic representation so some of the arguments that I made and I'll recap them now we're we are a growing city the 20 000 the 2020 census is already out of date the distribution of our population across the census tracts is by the time a new one is done in 2030 that's going to be out of date um we're not a small little Vermont town it's you know we're going to always have our little five person select board or some downside three person select boards so uh so when I just think about that about you guys do you know a lot of proactive planning around climate change or transportation or housing all these kinds of things and yet our system of government is stuck as if we're like you know back we're just a small town that doesn't nothing changes nothing happens so the point about geographic representation and had we had more racial diversity in this town this issue would have come to the fore but it doesn't because we're primarily of one dominant race um that we want to plan for this even think a look at the sheer number of renters is dramatic uh the issues and I will say the issue I get it the idea oh you have five council the issues are different depending on where you live in this town in the city they really are and there's a reason that geographic representation ward system is the norm in most of the rest of America because you have a you have a person who knows your experience comes from that experience and represents you and the moment you start getting bigger and bigger you lose touch with ironically the state legislature which has less direct control over my daily life and the daily life of residents and businesses in this town are more answerable to me than you guys are not to say that you guys don't work hard or whatever and that's not my point the point is about that representation um the only reason that there nobody runs they run unopposed is because the republican party is non-existent in this county let alone this you know to some extent the state even so it's just good planning and good government to my mind to move towards the geographic represent representation however we recognize that you guys are all incumbents uh some of you have been there for many many years that expertise is to be valued and plus you know Vermont does everything in incremental change so when I looked at this I said oh okay well you know like have a blended system of that large that keeps your commonality and somebody who's that broader picture and or maybe a bit experienced has more time you know you could have a five and two you have five five or five census uh or five wards that we use now and then and then two at large and at some point you guys would have to work internally who's going to continue in the realm of staying on the council and work that out yourself but you know I submitted the demographic data because I think it was it was it was really key to showing showcasing the differences between again it's only the four census tract but it kind of works with with things and there's just there's just a big big difference between the perspective we're all informed by the neighbors that we are live around in our lived experience and there's a very very different lived experience from living in a single an area that is exclusively of its own single family by and large but no commercial anywhere around huge tracks of the city nothing but single family homes versus living where I mean I don't live on right on Shelburne road itself but I'm pretty close to it than that experience or in areas the issues of the issues of crime the issues of quality of life the issues of traffic are vastly different than a certain portion of our city putting aside issues of income and median home value but but the data is all there clear to see so that's how I approach it of just like being proactive about it and I know I talked to Donna civil authority and where we draw the lines and it's like city has smart people there's lots of people could help with you know if you had to tweak the lines but I just think it's like so yeah it's change it's scary and you guys are the incumbents so why would you want to give that up I get it but I think you know I and others would thank you on the in the end for having that sort of foresight towards moving to we're you know it's just going to keep getting more and more out of date and on so that's why I think of you know just the we're still a small town I don't think there's going to be any you know corruption or whatever I just think it's going to be the answer and just in closing I'll the reason I'll say these things like as a as a resident of the Shelburne Road corridor broadly speaking I've I've watched where you know the the processes in the cities I it's it's not to say that we're ignored but the issues of growth no it's all going to be on the Shelburne Road and Williston Road corridor but we're not going to increase the bus service we're going to quadruple the density with a perfunctory hearing before the planning commission and put the TDRs all along these corridors the plan the the planning commission work again very comprehensive document great outreach they did but in the end it's really no change or asked to share in the burden of fighting climate change for vast areas of the city that will remain single-family zoning for that's not equity you guys adopted an equity and inclusion statement so I'm asking you guys to live up and yeah I get it you guys are smart you were thinking broadly for the city I mean nobody's aspiring any kind of bad vibes to you or but I just think like like look back if you make that decision to like give up your power and share it with the rest of the city and and move towards this geographic system I think we'll look back and go yeah we made that's that proactive step just like you're doing on many other issues that's my main emphasis for it it's not about is there enough money or why people don't run you know it's a big commitment but it's it's more to me the argument is it's all about demographics demographics is destiny and we have a very diverse city we're not just one single you know we're not charlotte we're two little tiny centers and everything else is you know rural residential or five-acre lots we're not we're a very very diverse and changing and growing city so we need a system of government that is responsive to that so that's it but but the committee was great and I you know appreciate they was very participatory process and it was good engagement and all lots of good food for thought and they put together a comprehensive report I wasn't expecting my materials to be included but I think that so appreciate it thank you I I um I don't want to argue with you but I have a slightly different perspective from experience I represented a part of burlington in the house for 10 years and it was small it's 3,500 people that you represent but I was also state senator all of chitenden county with the exception of um colchester and I found that the work in the senate and the conversations and discussions in the senate were much larger many times than as a state rep because the focus was a little bit more narrow and I see that as a plus with having at large council members um I think I mean I'm not trying to defend my seat on the council um by any stretch of the imagination um but I do think there's real value in having being forced to look at the entire city and not just thinking about well you know I represent the airport and I care about chamberlain and I care about noise and I care about some bus busing along um williston road and maybe some infill and I want more parks or something you know it just I think that the conversations that we tend to have at least my experience in most of my 10 years has been much broader than what you're suggesting Dan I don't think we forgot about renters or I mean hell we've been asking for more bus service for a long time we've recognized a lot of those issues and it is unfortunately you know incremental and it's costly so not everything happens um at the same time and you know some of us worked really hard not to have 200 houses torn down affordable housing near the airport but we lost that argument because of more you know a different group felt it was more important for the overall good of um the city the county and the state and the loss was a particular neighborhood in South Burlington so um I think it's challenging to get people who are not retired like myself to be able to spend this kind of time um that is a challenge um we aren't in a position I don't think to pay enough so that someone could see this is a a real part-time job that you know pays them 30 000 bucks too so they can feel like they can spend the time and have the time um um and I think by and large we've been pretty responsive to anyone and everyone who comes to our council meetings and brings up issues so I I in some ways I don't think this system is broken could we would it be helpful to have um I guess a more racially diverse group sure but I'm not sure award system will address that and you know and I think probably all of us have lived at some point in our lives um as renters and we don't just forget that I think um so I I guess I would just push back at looking at anything as a panacea for change for change sakes and a panacea to address all the challenges we face as a growing community that as you have noted is pretty homogeneous and that can you know change perhaps how you look at things but um I I think we have a we do address that pretty sensitively um Kate Bailey and then Ryan Doyle so Kate's on tv I guess they both are didn't hear me okay we can okay um I'll just start by thanking Peter for for chairing this committee and and thanks to Anne for writing a really spectacular report and capturing a lot of um nuances and a lot of um robust discussion I just wanted to and I'll keep you short and my comment is not specific to the school board but rather to share my observation from the survey results and from public forum and our engagement in committee meetings from the public I do I did not see a resounding embrace of the status quo from the survey respondents and from folks who came and shared their perspective with us um I do see some misalignment with the the status quo of our governance which was established in late 70s if I'm correct and the changing demographics of our city so I just wanted to lift up that observation that I had from the some of the survey results were um they didn't give us a resounding answer or you know ringing endorsement one way or the other with the exception of the mayor city manager question um and I do think that that demonstrates further discussion um and further questions that should that could and potentially should be researched and I if the city council were to go back to the charter committee and ask for for uh redefining or additional questions I would really love for us to have a clearer sense of what we mean when we're talking about diversity and representation because I think if we're looking for racial diversity for example we would do something different than if we were looking for economic diversity or geographic diversity um by just saying diversity and equity I think it's helpful if we have a like shared definitions to um be better execute the goals uh if we were to continue this work as a charter committee that's all thank you okay Ryan Doyle can you hear me we can hear you we can see you too great thank you uh I pre-wret my comment so I'll just read off the paper um bullet five from the charter committee convening resolution states whereas the city council wishes to explore governance structures to ensure that voices are equitably represented at policy making tables ensure is a pretty strong word however I don't see information in this report earnestly investigate that topic while there are some brainstormed thoughts about pros and cons which relate to equitable representation these are neither broken out or highlighted nor was any work done to corrupt excuse me corroborate the brainstorm assertions there was no formal literature review nor was any data looked at regarding the effects of electoral district types on having diverse equitable representation this brings me to two points Elizabeth Fitzgerald's letter on behalf of former school board members displays a straightforward table of comparisons between South Burlington and other local school districts however no such table can be found comparing South Burlington's municipal governance structure to that of other Vermont cities I would consider such a table to be a minimum requirement for the topic to be discussed in earnest do I've mentioned that there had been no formal literature review indeed there's nothing in this report pointing to written resources from noteworthy equity or democracy promotion agencies or peer reviewed lit reviews discussing the ways to increase inclusion through governance structure that said Megan did do an informal lit review which she emailed to the committee members however the merits of this were not directly discussed at any meetings or shared with public which would have allowed for its assessment of thoroughness and bias lacking these two critical pieces I would consider this report to still be unfinished and the work of the charter committee would therefore need to resume for this topic before setting it for rest I'm very pleased to hear that the charter committee is willing to do more research into this particular topic and I hope you will ask them to do so thank you thank you yeah thank you Brian and and now Rich Cassidy would like to make a comment or ask a question thank you I just want to make a brief comment my comment is addressed towards the size of the school board and I just want to suggest that I agree with the current board that the size does need to be increased the workload was heavy in the 12 years that I was on the board and that's become kind of a long time ago now I can only imagine that it's heavier and the committee and the board has traditionally worked through committees and the committees would be more effective if the size was a little larger I want to emphasize the word a little larger I think the example of the city council in the city of Burlington and its late meetings at the size of 13 is something to be concerned about and I think it would be appropriate for the the school board size to be increased by two members but not more and I understand there's no reason my view should rule the day but I wanted to share my view with you thank you are you feeling they should also be at large I think that was the recommendation as well I believe that's what the the letter that Elizabeth sent on behalf of the members said I can't remember now I would I would add to that that ideally I don't think that's the way to do it I think it would be better to have districts but I would be concerned about moving in that direction all in one jump because it's not easy to find candidates for the school board and if we if we narrow it down to districts it may be near impossible so although I'd like to see representation in districts because I think it makes it easier for members to communicate with their constituents I think we should move one step at a time okay thank you you more you're very welcome are there any other comments from council members or so this I would like us to go back to the committee but I think we need to talk about it I I tend to agree with Ryan and I think that it was because the charge we gave to them was not thoughtfully enough thought through and so I I would like us to spend more time thinking about the charge that we gave to them which you know that line is to ensure more equitable representation and that's a that's a mighty charge as as Ryan said and um I I would just recommend that this be put on you know even two or more meetings for us to truly think through what we want the charter oh for us before we go and send them off to do some more we send them off to yeah okay to do more stuff I will just say personally in response to Rich Cassidy and Dan and others in favor of wards I feel that representing the city is what I do if I were to be limited to award my work would just I feel not serve the city well and I'll say that because as big as you think we are I have constituencies across the city I have people who write to me regularly from every part of the city and who thank me regularly from every part of the city and probably you know not writing to me but who aren't happy with me from every part of the city and that that's just part of you know what we do but to be deprived of those relationships and not be able to benefit the city through those relationships would impoverish what I do I just can't say it any more clearly than that if we get to 100,000 people okay clearly how can I truly represent 100 and I'm you know I'm that's just the number it could be you know more much less than 100,000 but right now I you know I invite people to reach out to me if you feel like you know I'd rather not just yell at her when I'm you know talking to my spouse or partner I'd rather actually have a cup of coffee with her yeah me me or why at South Burlington vt.gov give me a jingle I think oh go ahead so I won't be as eloquent as as Megan and it's honestly a little uncomfortable to defend's own one lack of bias but I think we all really do um try and have the city's interests best interests at heart you know during my campaign I knocked on lots of doors in every neighborhood um I should try to avoid my own neighborhoods I want to hear other perspectives and I learned a lot and because of those conversations I know we need to fix the sidewalks in Chamberlain which I've been stressing I know we need a village green you know I've been stressing subsidies for weatherization and heat pumps and aren't going to really benefit folks in my neighborhood so you know and I've heard those same conversations from the rest of the council so I kind of think we're my own perspective and obviously we will differ on this stand is that we're still the size where um we can let good people that represent the entire city and have that um that perspective that hell was talking about to really do good for the entire city that so that that's kind of my perspective um I do also think that the reports I said was thorough was was well documented provides a lot of information I'm personally prepared to make decisions on the back of what was provided to us and you know not not keep keep turning um so that that that's where I stand okay Tyler would like to say something I can wait till uh to to we close uh public comments but just briefly to respond Dan I think it's speaking only for myself like there was one one statement that you made that I again I'm not trying to to start an argument but I think it's it's important to discuss and that is um in this position I have I admittedly I'm very new but um this is not the type of role that one takes to quote stay in power right you do this because you love it and because you really care about our community and because you care about our city um it's it is there there aren't any motivations above and beyond that uh quite simply because there's no reward there's no there's no financial compensation there's no remuneration this is not a job that that folks have it's it's a luxury that um candidly we are lucky enough to be able to to perform uh for our community um and I don't I don't state that as as a matter of opinion so much as I I just I truly have a hard time um and I'm not saying that it's that's not true but I I truly have a hard time seeing the perspective of this being something a position that that one clings to in power um and I think I think perhaps uh level setting that is important as and I think that context is important um as we as we head into further deliberations and discussion thank you I would like to um sort of build on um Megan's um suggestion that we have a broader conversation and one of the things that um when she was talking about the neighborhood forums you know and they have them in in um Burlington that are a little bit different but um I think it's not necessarily um uh you know working the uh your neighborhood and activating I I think we should think about how we could use those to be a training for coming to having good discussions with your neighbors meaningful discussions on issues that are important to that neighborhood and how you learn to come to a consensus or an agreement or a better understanding and that's a lot of the skills I think that are really important for a city council or a counselor how do you communicate with one another when you have different perspectives perhaps on an issue and learning how to do that and being comfortable with that is something that um not too many people just kind of slide into and they have it they learn it um and I think if we are really looking for um that diversity economic or whatever one way to really train people up for both the school board which uses the same kinds of skill sets I think or needs the same kinds of skill sets as well as the city council is maybe to really activate some of those um neighborhood forums so that people you know dip their toe and and I think we should talk about how to do that a little better or a little more fully I mean all these things always take money um but I think it's it's a positive way to um reach out to the community to some extent we do it with our committees and we have a lot of people of very different backgrounds who serve on all sorts of committees and I think and some of them Andrew being one kind of rose up from planning commission and and Tim was on the DRB and you're on the library board and I don't know what else um Megan you're in the charter committee I mean I cut my teeth in the legislature I didn't have a city committee but I did have you know some practice and learning how to do this um and so those are you know how can we do that how can we help if Dan if your neighborhood feels left out then maybe we should help them organize and have those conversations so that we show up Paul shows up you know we do what we can but you know well it's it's and and Paul has run you know so there's two people you know you haven't run but you may not have the time this is you're a full-time yeah but I just I think that's a way to identify additional people who can um be willing to take this on and serve their community in a a little more um that's the right word I don't know exposed way as a leader you know and as a leader as a policymaker but I think the the process that we use as a city really does rely on a lot of input from a lot of people who don't have the time or wherewithal or interest or comfort in sitting up here making the final decision but they'll sit in a committee and do a lot of research and have the conversations and the surveys and um you know public hearings and bring that back to us and have this kind of dialogue so I would like us to think about how we can do that more broadly and not just when there's a crisis in a community or a neighborhood and they feel like they have to get together or their community will be ruined. Barbara you had your hand up did you want to say something come up will you come up to the mic please so the home viewers can hear you stagger up there um barb service um I've been thinking back about and I like the idea about the community forum and I will tell you I was one of the people when I first listened to the dialogue I was in favor of the wards because almost all of you come from the southeast quadrant Megan is my neighbor um so I do but as I listen to the city council and as I listen to what you've said tonight it is not that you ever reflect about some tiny thing in your neighborhood but you each have a passion for some part of the city that spans all of us and so you bring that perspective that doesn't affect just where you live but in fact affects all of us but I as you were talking about the neighborhood forums I really like that idea but you need you need a hook and I'm thinking back to that very painful night in the gym at Chamberlain when the former city council um I think Helen you were the only one there that night Tim I think so yeah I think so um and and I will and I was on and I will tell you that when that was painful when a member of that city council said I don't have to explain my vote I was appalled and that doesn't happen in this group but it was an issue that was big enough to bring people out and you came to the neighborhood and so I think if you can identify those issues that are hooks and come to a neighborhood and talk about that but invite everybody it wasn't that just those of us who lived in Chamberlain and are affected by the f-35 a lot of people came but it was close enough that the people most tightly affiliated with that came and there was a lot of open conversation on the behalf of the public and people really did express their concerns and their whatever and I think if you could create some of those kinds of things I mean I also hear you talking about we didn't have an applicant for this or we have vacancies on this that might be the place where you find the people who will say oh those folks because you are all very approachable but they may not know that if they only read about you in the paper and so if you come to the neighborhood yeah that might open that conversation well we're supposed to go to all the different schools that was part of a regular basis I think it's in the charter and then the PA systems just couldn't couldn't manage it so it became right but but the kind but but we could improve that I mean that's something that you know you can bring mics and stuff to different I think the concept is a really good but I think the same time exactly that thinking about yeah the conversations about how much you already do and so finding the balance between that or even as I know that that in a previous before it became the common area what is it called common area for dogs common area for dogs but that the old dog park committee and that's what I call yeah we we went to a couple of community areas and people came because they were interested in that so I think it's finding that hook yeah and letting them see that all of you are really open to listening and you really do do that and I'm not saying that because I want something I'm saying that because I remember that night and this is a very this is a very different city council and I'm I'm grateful for that so I think this could be the the next iteration and it also could be a recruitment tool for committees and whatever yes absolutely and I'll just go back for my institutional knowledge too when we did go to the school's pet noac was chair after the previous chair that you're referring to and she did tailor our agendas to that neighborhood's issues not that there were a lot of people in the audience so finding even a you know a way to find those hooks I think you know perhaps putting out a survey through front porch forum we're coming in two months what do you want us to talk about right I think yeah that would be and getting a better PA system right yeah other comments yes just so speaking of good governance and how we move conversations forward I I just want to see if I'm hearing the right thing from the five of you you do not need the committee to continue working on anything at this point and you would like us to bring back open conversation for you all to talk about what if any charge we give back to them is that and that could include building education tools that could include mpa-ish things well but the committee but the council will retain decision making for those next steps not the committee so the committee is on hiatus until they hear more from you right you're on hold don't just ban please you're on retainer do we retainer right yeah the same amount you got paid before it continues we're going on strike I can tell you right now we will double it double it it's fine good budget do we still move to accept their report tonight so I will move that we accept the report of the charter committee second any further discussion okay thank you all in favor signify by saying hi hi okay thank thank you very much two quick comments one you appointed you asked the school board to appoint two members to the charter committee do you want that to be a long-term position or was it for our discussions of the school board issues I just raised that so you can think about that I don't know if that I mean just off the top of my head I think it's certainly I would want them to continue as we continue to discuss whether it's wards or at large in the numbers because that certainly impacts them and we need their input I mean after that I they have enough to do don't they I mean well you can you can think about that you can think about it in the future but I think and the other just a recommendation if you didn't have the time I'd encourage you to read comment section of the survey I thought they were very thoughtful and very interesting most people read our pros and cons 80 percent of them which I thought was impressive and then many people comment on every question you might get a flavor for you you may already have that flavor from the people you talk to but you might find it interesting to read those comments thank you very much for your time thank you oh so let's take just a five minute break since it's almost nine o'clock that was just a joke you know we all do it for the money come on the power yes for sure so my name is on this but Martha Machar helped me put together this memo as well so I will ask her to weigh in where I screw this up so there's we're not asking you to make any decisions tonight we just we've we talked about this several months ago as we gear up for the budget process as we gear up tour for other things that are coming before you the climb action implementation plans in the next couple months etc we wanted to give you kind of a reminder of where we were and provide some opportunity for you to give us direction about what you would like to see next we are also about 14 months away from our deadline to allocate funding so while we still have time if there is something you want us to explore and then have time to redirect in the future we do need to start working on that I do like we've collected interest over 200 000 dollars that's very good so our our allocation is increasing with time chunk of change yes so we have 2.15 so there's memo in packet we have 2.15 remaining for you to allocate you can see where the other allocations have gone to date including the interest of 203 000 almost 204 000 um very smart of martha to put it in its own account where it would earn its own interest and stay within yes a reminder of the conversations you've had before we also included both a survey that was conducted with the public in the summer 2022 as well as the the recommendations all the committees provided in the fall of 2002 and the matrix of all of those ideas which are probably about 10 million dollars so you have a quick view of those so we wanted to give you some reflection back on some high level ideas we've heard the committees high level not specific you have the list of the matrix with all the specific recommendations so high level ideas that we've heard talked about obviously the full list from the committees we've heard you counselors talk about setting aside funds for the procurement of a city green mirroring the affordable housing commitment but by issuing an rfp to see how we can support child care expansion we've heard you talk about a concern about the kind of businesses in city center and is there a way we can start some kind of business grant fund that incentivizes the kind of businesses we want to see we've heard you talk about staff support to support the implementation of the climate action plan with our residents obviously we are doing that within our own job descriptions for the government and then support additional capital projects to implement the climate action plan so those are just high level things we've heard and really this is your opportunity to discuss amongst yourselves ask us to provide any additional information you may need or just say we're not ready yet we'll talk about it sometime in the future well one thing I wanted to find out in the budget projections or that conversation you talked about a project for planning that was going to provide online the online ability to get permits or something and um and that's just it's not in the budget we don't have money for it I guess but I was just curious if that's something that would have a demonstrable positive impact on the city's ability to and there's probably other things too that the city could use I think you've mentioned some of them so that you know we pay our bills better we you know we're in the 21st century with some of the um I don't know whether it's software or what all this stuff is but I'm just wondering if that's ARPA money or if that's we still have some money from our we haven't spent all of the money from our fund balance right no and I just was curious where that is because I um I know we talked about let's make this incredible change for the city but that and I know software comes and goes and it may only be good for five years but that could really free up I think people in city government to do some of the things that we want want you to do for the some of the ARPA programs I think so um I think you're making Martha and Steve very happy because this is what they think about a lot so there's two major system updates that are on our work plan this year one is the exploring a modern finance system that will allow us to potentially go paperless with financial processing do much better analysis of our finance system our finance well-being what we're we're paying and collecting the other is streamlining streamlining permitting software that would be for all of our permit systems and license systems throughout the city now we that is all paper based and quite cumbersome and not very transparent to the community so those are two systems changes that we are thinking about quite frankly they are right now on hold until we have an IT director again he starts October 2nd they will have budget implications both in one time startup costs as well as likely ongoing maintenance costs we we do not know what those are right now and we do have as you say we do have the ARPA money we do have our savings account certainly a portion of this could be set aside for a system modernization into FY 24 or into calendar year 24 into FY 25 but we do not have cost estimates for that yet well I mean I would like to put that on the table as that's probably a new thing that I would like to I don't know what the price tag is right she's what she doesn't know so it's you know I don't know where to put it or how much it would cost but those are some things that I think make sense for long term for the city since you know we're sort of in the you know I'd hold 150 for one year first time at one time expense for 150,000 for both yeah I think we I think we yes oh okay and then obviously reoccurring the annual maintenance on top of that uh-huh the one time so just because Tyler's online Steve can you come up so Tyler and everybody else also is online I don't mean to particularly call out the city council are online no yeah I hard 150 yeah just just some preliminary work we've done I think in looking what I just every says broader borough has implemented a new a new finance system so I'm looking at those numbers on my guesses will we would be in that ballpark for permitting and for finance combined I'll probably be wrong but I but I'm not too far off and I can add that in with a 1 to 3 budget the permitting software of $50,000 was approved out of ARPA fund that money's not been spent yet okay so it is permitted ARPA would allow us to buy that correct okay well I don't know if it's it's ARPA or if it's the interest we've earned on ARPA or if it's some of our fund balance but I I do think as we move forward with all sorts of new programming and you know we have to think about supporting I think the staff and being able to do their job effectively and I think they'll save money in the long run time is money when you're talking about people right so as long as it's IT secure within the the realm of the city's IT systems that oh for sure it doesn't add any vulnerability or whatever I'm sure right I wouldn't think they'd advocate for that you know we'll be more efficient except we'll be really vulnerable yeah so so I would I would just add that to the list I apologize but I just think it's it caught my eye when I was reading the stuff and it seems common sense and we seem to I mean I I also asked Jesse and Martha about possibly diverting some of the money to either pay down the pension loan debt right or contribute to the pension fund but there restrictions and it doesn't really make financial sense to do either oh if possible so no no problem but thank you for responding to that so okay other thoughts about ARPA I'm sure so I'd be prepared to you know give Bob Britt the 200 for the path it seems like yeah you know matching 800,000 you know and we spend two is is a pretty good deal return on more bike infrastructure so I'd kind of be prepared to say let's let's do that um I still would like to reserve some money for the Village Green I think I'd like to put some money toward a climate action person at least so we can move forward I know we may have an executive session to talk about something happen to do with childcare we should probably reserve some money for that session okay um and if there's anything left over honestly looking forward to the next agenda item I probably think about you know helping taxpayers so that's that's my perspective on the funds yeah all right I think every every committee deserves like something right so to me it's like what is the most shovel ready or thing that can help them right now that can get the money spent before the end of 2026 right so if it's too long range you might not make the goal right but if it's something that we can allocate by the end of 24 and get it spent by 20 to me to like by 25 or early 26 then that would you know I mean there are some some of these projects probably just can't get done in in two and a quarter years so we need to look at the short range ability to get them completed so but I you know public arts there there's a small amount and I think that's a well-spent money that's a planning uh yeah I think it was for a cultural plan yep I also think this money's draining quickly um this money is going quickly but I do think one of the um large investments that this community have is and important is in its parks and recreation spaces including the open spaces and um I think there's a request for a long-term plan 150 000 for parks master plan and then there's a 25 000 open space plan so yeah um and at this point I'm not positive I we would need to spend money on an open space plan because we had an open space committee that I thought came up with some good identification of properties and they seem to come to us as people are interested in selling Andrew explained it as it being different from that open space IC report and that it was a required plan so they would have to do it regardless with the ARPA funds or without the ARPA funds they have to do it for what to what end I'm trying to remember what Andrew said so sorry so two things one Tyler we're getting some feedback on your mic so I'm just muting you until you want to talk when you want to talk by all means unmute um I'm sorry Megan I lost you what what were you what are you I'm just recalling that that was a suggestion uh Helen's suggestion that the open space IZ plan would replace the need for the NRCC to do an open space plan but that was when Andrew was here and Andrew said no it's not the same thing and I cannot recall exactly what he said I have to dig into those minutes but it was separate and that they were required to do it regardless so regardless of what we should well yeah we should find out yeah regardless of the open space IZ committee having done their work or not so we should dig into that and find out because I can't recall but I think the long range parks plan is important just because those are assets and you know when it would be good you have a plan I yeah go ahead I wholeheartedly agree with you Helen um I'm and I echo Tim's comments about um moving forward with plans that are going to have a measurable impact on what we can do now um but particularly around parks and rec um having seen our having seen the challenges that our kids are having using any of our parks and rec facilities right now to participate in and uh school sports at every single level um it's really disheartening uh for particularly um for a community like ours with the with the resources that we have um and you know as as we've we've talked at length about making ensuring that uh kids have enough places to recreate and that they have the opportunities to be able to go outside and to enjoy green and open space and recreational activities close to them uh in the places that where they're at um if we can't sufficiently maintain them more if it feels as though um I'd rather see us allocate our a that's that's that's something I think is important that we've all agreed and identified as something that's that's important to us us all into the community and b um before we go on signing ourselves up for uh additional checks in the future I'd like to make sure that we're using these ARPA funds to uh to deliver on the promises that we've already made um and that this seems like a piece of low-hanging fruit uh for us to achieve those aims not the park's plan but actually do something for with the parks or do you have a I take both but the irrigation the irrigation around uh our fields across the board um it's it's it's really challenging um and we if we have all of these resources but the kids can never use them um it it it causes frustration for everyone and it so at times can beg the question what's the point um so yeah I'd like to see I'd like to see uh us ensure that that uh the resources like those are given the full attention that they need um with these ARPA funds and I'd like to see us prior um and that we also have a long-term plan for how we're going to care for and um care for maintain and deliver on the promises of these resources to future generations so if part of that were a uh comprehensive plan I'd support that as well um and and candidly I'm a much greater favor of uh supporting those projects not only for yes parks and rec is is a personal passion um and I feel strongly about it and based on what I've heard I think we all do um but I'd I'd advocate that we look at it through the lens of performing that task across um all of the things that we've asked various committee members to deliver for us are there areas where we're falling down right now or perhaps not delivering on the promises as well as we could shore up those areas first and then if there are other things left over uh go about exploring uh incremental asks um I I am nervous about hiring for a specific position such as the uh and in right now I would not support uh hiring for a specific position such as the uh climate zone someone for the for the um the director of climate initiatives simply because I don't know what happens when those ARPA funds run out well then we then have to budget for those and it may pass it may not um it would seem short-sighted to make to spend those funds for a position that could only be around temporarily um when we also when we already have so many other things that have that we promises that we've made to our community that uh that need our attention right now okay okay so the way those ARPA funds could be used for a new um position is what we've been doing uh so far with the fire and the police Tyler is that year after year those funds would come down and so would smooth out the annual increases for a new salary that's how that I would rather see them go to fire police than I would to to climate to that climate director position well you got that again those are those are those are promises that we've made to our community and I I feel their margin yeah and they're they've got it they've got it year after year after year um so just to um I I would agree then with the modern finance system for 150 um I would agree uh with the um questions uh and and some of the items on the um parks and recs so the 100k for irrigation 50k for the basketball court bass baseball dugouts I would hope that would include softball just so it goes both ways okay so then there's 25 for the um catcher and then 105k for the dugout so all together that's 280k for park improvements public art committee cultural plan 50k the open space plan that's an outstanding question that we should dig into but I have that down for 25k the energy committee has a climate action plan implementation for 100k which is not a new position I don't know if we could the the direction I would give is let's really dig into what's their recommendation versus um you know when the rubber hits the road in in um you know upstairs how that would work do we need an extra person to put those hundred thousand dollars you know into into work or not um the 200k for the bike and ped to make sure the heinsberg road can can occur um I would also look at the library's electric van but I'm really curious if there's any federal dollars to that with all that is being offered right now through federal grants right um and thank you for mentioning those grants for small businesses for a city center I remember saying that so many years ago I can't even recall when we're talking about city center and I'm so glad you jogged my memory so I wrote that down yes and that could include childcare could we use a chunk of change for grants to bring in some businesses that just need a little bit of help just like our affordable housing to get their foot in the door and to you know that that they have to pitch you know they have to pitch um and we have an economic development coordinator or I don't know a lot as official title but um you know that potentially I mean I don't know how that would work you know who would vet that request and who would select uh amongst the different um candidates I am also still in favor of the village green um and that would be sort of a large I mean it is a big supported too but that's not a $200,000 thing no it's not a million but I added up what I put down here except for the van and it comes to 830k so that would leave that would leave 1.3 plus k uh 1.3 plus million but you haven't included anything for um the climate plan the $100,000 from the energy committee oh for the person no is that the implementation implementation okay yeah find it here so can I jump in oh please um to me I think this conversation is pretty useful I think what I might suggest is next steps I don't I don't want to squash the conversation if you all want to add more things but we can put together some scenarios for you um either going into the budget season or in advance of the budget season maybe in advance might be a little more helpful um yes and come back to you with okay the kind of a slate of things and you all can comment on that yeah it's a consulting firm it's hiring a consulting firm that's how they recommend and is it specifically for building in thermal because the other two we've done and subsequent implementation plan to create a fully fledged budgeted program this would include identifying funding sources methods and time timelines to obtain funding this plan would be to the level of detail of administrative and overhead cost budget for the city and the salaries of the program management unit and they generally just like all of our committees they do their homework I mean I would assume there are numbers to back this up yeah I do think that so next meeting or the next meeting you'll hear the um the transportation implementation plan the climate action plan that has some of that data in it so I think a hundred thousand I think that was generated you know now almost a year ago and we've gone through working our way to the government ops one and we've gone through the transportation one so that might be really effective funds for the building in thermal sector which we have not six things right now that we all agree on and then subtract that from the total and then and then look at the subtotal after that and then as in future meetings like start whittling them down can we do that now I mean do we only withdraw when they're ready to be spent because that's it's every month gathering change we all support the 1.345 million for the hindsburg bike path and it's 200 now that our share is 200 they got a grant they got a grant well they wanted to submit it as a request oh but but we then they got 800 oh okay well that should take 200 thousand then because I'm already 1.95 million with the 1.345 million so there is more room I can't keep up with yeah but the matrix this is good I think we talked about the matrix months ago and I like the matrix you had the I know we had the matrix but this is the good matrix so I think we should just pick the things we like out of the matrix and then total it up no yes please come to the mic though I think you included the 50 000 for an art did yeah yeah so did you yeah is your is the light on bright yeah push it needs to be bright for me okay uh penny topkins uh chair of the public art committee my only comment was um I think if you could move forward on a couple of things you all agree upon those of us in committees who have work we really can't do without some of this help from your decisions we you know we we can't do some of the things we would like to do right now okay so that's all thank you I think that's yeah that was the point so so 200 000 to pull down 800 000 for the bike path that's this spear street let's go for it oh sacred road okay Tyler you agree you agree okay I agree I think it's a great it's a great GM ROI and uh I think it'd be an amazing addition to the okay 50 000 for arts check is that yes is that okay with you tower well it seems like we have a majority but I mean I don't want to bully over because you're sitting there and not here let's check into federal bucks before the electric vehicle we missed a couple of uh of deadlines already but there might be others um are we copacetic with a million bucks for the village green I mean I don't know where the what that million means in terms of it's a start see my and then it will be collecting collecting uh uh interest rather spend that money on daycare I'm for the village green I'm I'm supportive of the village green because I think that's one of those things that um is transformative and it will also protect people from heat islands effect I really I am in favor we have with the village green do we have do we have any plan beyond and I and I apologize that I I'm truly I'm not saying this to come across as as I don't even know what the word is right now I'm so tired but do we have a plan like is there a plot of land that we've identified is there uh is there or is it just that in is it just to be prepared for the possibility that a plot of land in the city center might come become available that we could jump on to transform into a public green so the action you've taken so far is to allocate funding for us to do to hire a landscape architect urban planner to identify uh parcels that would be good for this purpose in city center we hope to have that work done over the winter um and then I think this money would be the that um procurement money of whatever right we were able to identify and negotiate from there so this is sort of saving it for that eventuality yeah purpose for that purpose and you know if they can't identify a spot I guess you don't have you don't have to spend I guess well what happens what happens if we come if if we I guess I don't forgive me because I don't understand the mechanics of the ARPA dollars but if we say if we allocate one million for that purpose and we get the report back over the winter time and it says you know we estimate that it's going to be uh you know at least 1.2 to actually acquire the land said land and then it's going to be another 800 grand to actually execute on on a uh something that would be of use to the community or becomes it becomes unfeasible what are there any restrictions on what we can then do with that oh I'm just suggesting that we set it aside that we earmark it but just like we did with the housing money we did three different projects but we promised that we were gonna use a million bucks on housing and so we're slowly we've only done two projects so far we got the third one in the works but the money is um I promise to that for that purpose if it doesn't work out we'll find another housing and that's what I see this million is like we're we're setting it aside but we don't know exactly if it's enough but it's a start and even if it's not feasible then we spend it on something else right and the mechanics of the ARPA program allow for that so by December 2020 2024 you have to allocate the dollars so you have to say what how you're going to spend the dollars and then you have to spend them by December 2026 so I I think if we got to the point if you decided to put a million dollars aside for a village green we would ask you sometime next fall to take a very broad vote about how those dollars could be used for village green i.e land acquisition construction amenities you know the the acquisition costs are only a piece of what that project would be so we'd ask you to take a very large very expansive vote on what that could be used for so we could carry those funds through expending them in by 2026 by the end of 2026 that was I am getting not articulated at this point yep that's that's what I meant to say so is Bob not yeah there's still money left yep yes oh well I have an express by view on Farrell Park yet so which is give you the money for Farrell Park well we have the money there's 300,000 left in my calculation how much is left 300 well based on my list based on my list so we got 280 for parks is that right that includes a plan in doing it doesn't include the plan no it's just doing some irrigation basketball court and then the baseball improvements the dugouts and the shortstop enough shortstop the catcher I don't pardon me we have some the peanut gallery who wants to talk is the mic on oh there it is okay just like to I mean I know I came in with an exorbitant proposal based on staff recommendations when you were doing the ARPA asking the committees for ARPA funds but I think that that while that may have seemed a bit outrageous I think when we get through with what may not be a totally perfect survey I can tell you that we're we're going to need to solve having a place for more dogs and that will mean more dog parks and and as well as possibly some other options so as you said Helen 407 in less than a week that's how many responses we got we have three more weeks okay and if you keep in mind the population of dogs in this community there's definitely an unmet need seriously and that's why there's conflict between the people who feel victimized and people who feel they're demonized because they have their dogs off leash so to solve that problem just like all these other problems it's going to take some money and I think it's going to be a modest amount compared to many of these things you're talking about but I think that we do need to think about how we're going to address this we have about 4,000 dogs in this city you know and half of our homes are in multi unit buildings so all the dogs that live in those multi unit buildings have no yards and we have one one acre park and yes we have some places where there's off leash under control but people are actually been wanting to yeah make our parks off on leash requirements everywhere and so anyway I would just ask that you don't spend every penny save some of it let's get through our imperfect survey which is going to give us a lot of great information I think I don't know if Jesse's gone and scanned through comments and everything but I think you'd be surprised to know that um that a lot of dog people with dogs don't want off leash everywhere but they want places to go off leash in dog parks dog parks aren't safe for every dog so we are going to need to be thinking about all of this and it's going to take money and it'd be nice if we didn't have to come back here and look like a nuisance group of people looking for some money to help us solve a problem that to me compared to all of these other things is not an expensive investment and it will go a long way to to basically demonstrating the community that um you know a half of our city is people who have dogs half of our citizens have dogs so yes yes anyway that I won't I won't go on but please just think about putting aside some to solve some of the problems that go on around that are associated with it instead of people feeling bad and being demonized and other people feeling victimized by the fact that um we don't have a solution for for off leash dogs the reason why I hadn't yet come down because I need to have some questions answered so for instance um has more work been done at Farrell Park or not I mean is that Farrell Park those requests are still needed needed that's right there's money set aside but nothing the planning has gone on the design and a lot of work has gone on there but no shovel in the ground is is that because of do is that due to lack of funds that no shovel I would see the I need I need some questions answered but the other question I have is like for instance the O'Brien hillside development they have a dog park right and we have so in a few years they'll have a dog park I have a few years it'll be a half an acre we've got a one one and people don't want to bring their dogs there to the one we have because of the safety issues for the dogs so we need dog parks and we need to I mean I've asked and suggested through planning that we put in some things and possibly start looking at how we could integrate some things in LDRs pu whatever to kind of require things like that but I'm not going to I don't want to go on with all of that but I think dogs even as simple as putting in dog bag stations that's been on the city council's do it list for a couple of years but there is funding for that there's funding there's funding it hits the bottom of the list there is already funding right they just don't happen because they're not on the the work plan they don't work it up high enough and some of them are so innings I mean those dog bag stations yeah the money is there there's enough money to cover contracting out the work if it's something that staff don't feel like they have the capacity right so so something small like that I think we want to request I think some of that Betty we can work through in a different format if it's not okay I'm sorry money if there's money already in the budget to do some of these things there's a question of do we contract out and use some of that money to get it done or do we just keep waiting for DPW to get it up on the list while we continue to add some more stuff to the list so so sorry in the interest of moving as far as we do still have to talk about the FY 25 budget I I guess I would challenge the council to think about there are there are a universe of operations conversations we could have and where our staff is always ready and able to have those conversations these funds are really meant to be transformational for our community so what are the things that you want to do over the next four years and I'm not I ask I'm not asking you to make decisions about that tonight what are those things that the transformational things that you would like us to work on and bring you back recommendations for okay but we should make some decisions because we've been talking about it and I just would question on the parks you know that I was looking at the budget and the revenue and I didn't see any revenue that came in for use of the baseball diamonds and I don't know if the reason nobody pays to use them is because they're in disrepair but I they're they're what they are used a lot say I just drive by a lot and I never see anyone on there except some weekends yeah well no I go down doors at a lot too well it's just okay so but it seems as if maybe we don't have to be so specific with $280,000 for parks and know what it means but can we say tonight that we want to set aside a million bucks for the village green we want to spend $200,000 on the bike and ped thing to match $800,000 we would like to spend $280,000 on parks I'm in favor of that I think we we have to give to our children okay somehow and then 50,000 for the plan for arts and 150,000 for the modern finance system and how about climate action plan implementation okay you consultant the consultant hiring someone as Jesse has been articulating so we can yes so get things done that we talk about than $100,000 yeah I know so what yeah I understand I just why do we do we have we have a climate action plan right so do we have to hire somebody to tell us how to implement it I'm just asking that rhetorically hire somebody to implement it because we don't have staff time right because you have a huge budget to implement core government operations please fire public works why not for those things in the climate action plan that we are doing like converting our fleet to ev we can do that within our job descriptions well we have zeros there's nobody on staff for whose its job description is to go look for federal funding to bring in for people to use in their own homes to improve their building and thermal coverage or to buy electric bikes or to the van for the library for the population or plug in things you know so I mean these funds will will kind of leverage themselves right we hire a person for whatever costs and the hope is they bring in 10x in grants right 10x and yeah so that's a lot of money out there no okay there's a lot no that's I mean it depends how you want to step it down the staff at that level is probably benefits all in is probably about 125,000 for one year so if it's that you want to pick it up for one year and then build it into the FY 25 or build up for six pick up for six months a bill into the FY 25 budget build it for two years a bill into the FY 26 budget that's two years okay this is why I want to bring you a slate right yeah so can you bring us a slate with what we have on this list yes okay I want the electric ride on lawnmower for DPW but there are all kinds of grants to get that if we could just have the employee put in that grant request it's only 35 stick it in there if we don't end up spending it we'll spend it somewhere else in fact I'd like to add two of those lawn mowers so the speed that they need well we have it with these six things two fours we haven't spent all of the money that's right so we can keep near the top of the list those electric mowers if that's how much did you put in for the climate action plan Jesse 125 125 times two and a half years two and a half years yeah oops sorry so does that is that 125 times 2.5 that's how you put it okay oh okay so come back with the grid that shows us the the specifics but this seems to be we copacetic here you look a little worried Tyler are you voting do you agree on all of these things or are we going to put them into a matrix we're going to put them into a matrix but this is what we're saying there seems to be consensus about or support we can always change it because it's not a hard and fast okay I agree with everything I'd like more detail on the climate action plan implementation yeah we need more detail on a number of things yeah Lisa do you have a question please come to the mic please come to the mic we'll get more bites at this apple so but say your piece please so I'm questioning why we want to maybe allocate a hundred thousand dollars for a climate action consultant I mean you've already got staff person it's not a consultant a staff person uh-huh but there's going to be a lot of private companies out there that businesses and developers can hire I don't understand what I would be paying for that and a landscape architect how much are you looking at to develop a town square I mean doesn't kind of such a park that now well the council has at least many on the council not or the majority on the council not all feel that one of the things that we heard very strongly when we were planning for the new city center was the concept of a green where you could have events that would draw people there and not closing off the street to have an event and that it's it's different than the beautiful goose park or duck park they're geese right the goose park because that you wouldn't have an event there I mean you know you wander around it's gorgeous and it's a wonderful asset but it also was a stormwater retention pond retention pond too so it has a use so that's what this village concept of this village square is or village green and the consultant or the is I mean they're not on staff they would come back with a plan yeah how much are they gonna be charging but it's like you have red rex park right right behind your house whereas the people who live in this part of town they don't have that amenity right outside their house I understand that it's the cost of some of these consultants gets a little ridiculous but is that it could with what they charge I mean can't we go out here and pick out a nice plot wasn't a lot though was 35,000 I don't know that's why I was curious yeah I don't know the consultants that we just hired to do I don't know one of the things in I can't remember which one it was the engineering contract I mean they had a price list and you know some of the people paid 380 bucks an hour I mean that's a lot of money but that's that's a lot of going that's the going rate I wish I made that kind of money well I don't either but anyway that's but it seems like you know we've got a lot of smart people in the city it seems like we could go out and pick a spot here in city center I mean how much is left that could be used for a park with all these apartment buildings that are going in right now you know yeah you know that way it's not free well just had to bring that's okay I appreciate your perspective so are we ready to move on bringing you asleep okay thank you and I appreciate all the comments I don't mean to sound snippy I'm sorry if I did um so now we're on to item 11 the FY 25 budget projections and setting our budget goals last item guys I want to talk a long time about the dog survey can you spend a few minutes on that yeah that's what we have said right few minutes yeah we can Martha I think you better talk yeah I think before we talked about the budget presentation there was a question about microphone while we did recently replace this the microphone's expense cost that is in the war and it's not for this it is for a fire department and Steve would like to explain that this is your question about microphones on the board way back let's rewind a few hours they are remember back that far question on on it is on yeah there was a question about microphone expense I think it was $2,500 to $2,600 and so it was for five speaker microphones so on our face piece that we wear when we breathe out of our scba mask mask there's a speaker mic that's on the side of it that projects your voice then allows you to hear better or so the other person can hear you speak when you have your face piece on and we bought five of those for they break occasionally and then obviously we had some new people as well if you speak into the mic you don't need them okay yep just wanted to correct that so moving on to FY 25 projection same far away but really close so in the memo provided we so as we prepared to put together the FY 25 budget last last council meeting you approve the budget schedule and the leadership team is now starting to put the budget together that will be coming to you shortly and in the as we are thinking about the numbers that will be going into the budget itself three main things not really the only one but there could be few one other just how do we keep up with the gross in the city and the and be able to invest in the car municipal services the other thing that came to mind was how do we bridge the gap between maintaining cities facilities and the tax rate itself and the other thing as related to a lot of the conversation that just happened how do we bridge the gap between or how do we prioritize other priorities that you have approved as council and and that may come up for the city and in order to do that we provided you with where we are currently in FY 24 budget and where the tax rate has been in the past and what the past budgets have been in the increases in the past five years so there are chats in there for FY 24 budgets and also chats for FY 19 through 24 for tax rate and budget itself so meet that is how so how did we come up with some of the fixed causes that we are considering as we put the budget together some of the things that has to be paid or have to be budgeted in order to maintain and provide services as a city and looking at those are including what what what are our revenue sources and the main revenue source for this are the profiteer taxes so the options provided are normally we budget estimate one percent increase in the grant list and what it would mean to increase the current tax rate by one percent to three percent and five percent those numbers are provided in the memo and for the expenses the main things are the salaries and wages those are fixed costs and the rates are fixed rate as well as agreed to part the CBS and the two of the current cities unions settled FY 25 budgets when the last contracts was signed in 2022 and there was a bracket into what the increases would be for FY 25 and they were also settled based on what the CPI rates would be and the CPI rate for the month of august 12 month came up was published this month and it is at 2.8 so two of the cities uh CBS said how public works and police departments are currently projected at 2.8 which is what the CPI is of fire departments uh negotiations are currently underway we don't know what those rates would be settled at that is the projection in the salaries and also in the salaries last year the city council you guys considered approving a two-year plan and that two-year plan is also affected into our current projections and that two-year plan includes standing up second emblem and the second emblem was budgeted to be starting half year this year so we've included a hundred percent fifty percent that was not budgeted in 2014 is included in the current projections and the approved uh diptychip that was just one in today was is now fully embedded into the budget and other uh staff that were considered last year uh with the operating budget we are uh just for the budget purposes assuming that we everything will be level level funded except for a few items that are contract based some of those are insured and we took what the insurance assume or just assume what the insurance increases would be and increased our current rates and for the CIP capital projects we are taking the amount that was approved last year because it was amended by the city council and it was a 10-year plan so second year of last year's CIP is what is currently in our projection and in the CIP too so in FY 23 uh the council approved using alpha fund and also approved last year with FY 24 a step down approach to avoid uh full uh be clipped into the general fund budget so we are also proposing that 50 percent of what was approved in FY 23 to be funded with alpha fund so that is also added out and included in the projection can i ask a question on that just to understand the um the the graph or whatever you call this thing um so in FY 25 we're using $361,000 of alpha funds which is 50 percent of the offset why oh if you add that with 180,000 you get the yeah so that 541 so why is it when you just spend 25 percent of alpha and FY 26 the the general fund impact is only 180,000 because it's already built into the budget yeah it's building to tax capacity building back up the oh so you're using tax capacity to okay to offset the difference yes thank you sometimes i have to think out loud so that is where our expenses are in the projection and the revenues based on the general fund and given that to at the end we also so the current impact based on those that is without the leadership team request right now and also some of the expenses that might come up that will actually be put into the budget we are projecting a 5.85 percent increase on the current tax rate to just implement or for the current projection that we currently have and that's not just the actual it might change as the budget is put together and brought to you in December and so we also highlight the current investment that were made last year by the city council with the FY 24 budget in there and those involved investing in the fire and EMS services fire ship and the police ship as well could attach to that those have have proven positive impact within those departments the amount of over time that we saw last year and in the past is currently down a lot down in the current payrolls and that is because of the investment that has been made in the last two years and the other investment that is not filled is the policy and data analysis GIS GIS is a position that is really important i think we've all talked about data driven decisions and we are waiting that position would be filled once filled it would prove to be it will help the leadership team the citywide be able to make decisions and bring you data that you've been asking for so as we go in the final questions that you might need to be thinking about or include some or any new initiative that you would like us to consider as we go talk to the leadership team when they're putting the budget together and also if you can also advise us on your current or tax rate goal for FY 25 we've given you scenarios and you like to get your guidelines on what we should be working with as we put the budget together and the last one is the climate action plan i know we've talked about it a lot and i don't think we need more guidelines or can just add to what you've talked about so just to underline a few points that martha made these are really early projections you know we are only two months into the fiscal year so some of these numbers are solid as martha said the wage wage numbers some are not solid and the leadership team hasn't submitted yet um there are also room where we will make some changes in projection so for example testing the water with you guys for a minute traditionally we can we budget revenues very conservatively so we budget for example one percent on the grand list per growth um that results in an increased revenue increased tax capacity um we have been averaging 1.2 percent a year for the last 12 years so we could up that that projection so there are places like that where we may be able to counterbalance other expenses so i think as martha said the key questions for you are your reaction to this your tax rate goals are there new things you want us to consider as we're building this budget um or flip side of that is also always are there things you want us to cut to fund other things or keep going andrew so jesse we've talked about this before um in every organization inefficiencies develop and i'm not saying our organization is inefficient i have no idea what i do know is i go through the list of items and expenses and i personally have no clue whether or not those amounts are the right amounts whether we're overpaying underpaying whether we're being efficient not efficient and the way big organizations typically address that lack of transparency is by saying to each civilization you need to do more with less right deliver the same service but find three percent five percent of things and challenge yourself to figure out where you can cut expenses three or five percent to deliver the same service you know dive in and figure out where your inefficiencies are because every organization has them i guarantee we have some and so i would challenge you to do that to figure out where our inefficiencies are and to see if we could um you know skinny down a bit the expense side of this ledger but deliver the same services i think that's a good challenge i know that they've been challenged to do that in the past so i'll just give credit to try staff but we obviously need to make that a challenge every budget year um and i in addition to what andrew said um clearly as we face as the city the challenges that are going to be coming with the coming years um expenses are going to go up all the way around and so how can we as a city make sure that there isn't a disparity growing between those who can afford them and those they're fewer and fewer on the other end hanging on until they can't hang on anymore and looking for ways to keep their house or keep their whatever so in addition to looking for ways to decrease inefficiencies how can we look at the utility rate how can we look at various rate structures that ensure that those costs of living here are more equitably distributed and so we did go through that exercise with utilities um we're still going to go through that exercise with utilities are there other things that we should be looking at so that people like barb explained who live on a fixed income as they get closer and closer and closer to the zero in their bank account you know where they say the city's looking out for me because okay this is increasing but this is decreasing and so i'm going to be able to make it again for you know however long um we have to be mindful of that so that's where and and you know i am all for capitalism the capitalism that takes into account um that the society has benefited um all of us um some have been a little bit more privileged or perhaps a lot more privileged than others um but in that regard that doesn't mean that only those who've been privileged have helped the privileged those who are less privileged have also helped the privileged so we have services in place um that a lot of people contribute to they don't earn necessarily a lot of money um and so we just have to all be in it together and i i i really want to you know there's a there's a way to do capitalism that is just humane and i really want to look for for that sweet spot in capitalism so um in past years we set targets of the two to three percent increase right and that went on for a few years right before the pandemic um interest rates were low inflation was low right relatively and then bang pandemic happened and so now we're looking at five percent type you know in that range five to six percent which is what this is right because of i think um the effects of inflation on requests for colas and you know in new contracts for you know fire and public safety and and other unions so um i i would say that between this 25 percent of the budget of the total tax bill to the taxpayer the other 70 percent and 75 is education right on top of what we're perceiving as some really severe utility rate increases right we i i want to target in the low five if possible as much and and do what we can and if there are things that there were aiming for that are not going to be able to be you know acquired or done uh we're going to have to put them off and those might be some more aspirational things as opposed to you know concrete things that we need right now so sorry just a number of years ago when i was first on the council um the council asked the city to cut three percent and that's the budget that we voted on in the following year because of the impact of those cuts we had to go back up like eight percent to just get to ground zero so i think i mean i appreciate that there's always um you know inefficiencies that may or may not relate to dollars some of it maybe that some people work more efficiently than others or take a longer amount of time or a shorter amount of time and that's and there's a a cost associated with that it takes you twice as long to do what you know your neighbor takes then the city doesn't get done as much or that department you know so um i just i think we have to be careful in setting goals percentage goals that are really unrealistic i don't think it's a bad um process to ask every department to say state government does it all the time what would your budget look like what would the services look like if you reduced your expenditures by x amount and then you have then you can look at it and say oh it's worth it or it's not so i don't know what kind of work that would require for so maybe not until you get your new uh finance system then you could just push a button right so i think steven i both want to respond to this i also know we haven't heard from tyler yet so i just want to give him tyler do you do you want him to come before i mean it's up to you helen i tyler would you like to speak sure go i would i'd i'd kind of i'd like to echo your comments helen i'd you know i admittedly i'm not um i don't have nearly the uh experience in in public service that you do but i have i have managed a pnl or two and i have managed some humbly managed some some large budgets before and um i with all due respect to councilor chalek that's when budgets are cut it's not a question of it's it's i've never been privy to a budget cut that has said find it find the same way to do the exact same amount with that you're doing now with four percent less there's always been trade-offs and um and it's i think it's unrealistic to assume that and i would not be comfortable giving the direction to just say find a way to do the exact same provide the exact same services that you provide now with just four percent less or an x percent less what i think is would be better direction and i'd be more comfortable doing is something closer to what helen has said which is a let's provide specific guidance of the areas where we would feel feel comfortable cutting or uh and if we don't if we lack that guidance let's get a better sense as to what that might look like because uh if we because we lack those insights let's again a better sense as to what that would look like by um asking departments to give us um within the city to give us a sense as to how that might play out um my gut is that with uh soaring inflation costs and the cost the price of everything increasing that even a very modest haircut um would yield um would would would would surprise us with with what the responses would be um but i i don't i don't think anyone responds well um let alone public servants to figure it out and i i wouldn't be comfortable giving that kind of guidance okay thank you so steve or i would just offer as someone who's had to do that exercise quite frequently in my former occupation that we take our business is very much people centered almost all of our departments 90 plus percent of each of our budgets are people centric we can't reduce those numbers without cutting people and that's okay if that's what you want us to do um if you want an exercise to be reduce your operational expenses by x dollars what does that look like that's a little bit easier to do because anything else is you just in order to get that because so much of the budget is people and their their expenses you have to look at cutting people so i would just encourage you if you want us to do that exercise to look at it just on the um non-personnel expense side but i of the front of the manager i agree with everything steve say i would just take it one step further to say i don't think it's a we can do the exercise if you would like but i'm not sure it's an effective exercise because we are so people centered to do that department by department um because what does it mean to reduce you know 30 40 police officers to 39 police officers that's that's what you're going to get and you're going to whittle away services and road services i think if you really want to cut the budget five percent tell us what to eliminate let's eliminate a book of business and that will get us there much more quickly than cut then by um peeling it away what are the things hangnails ripping out the hangnail so i think if that's what you want us to explore we can come back to you and say to reduce the budget five percent here's the service area we would cut to me that's a much more effective way to lower our budget if we really want to lower our budget oh and no sorry one other thing unrelated to the staffing costs because i've heard several people say that's about utility rates i think we really missed an opportunity and tom and i have talked about it and we will re reframe this when we come back to you with utility rates when we presented that to you all to talk about that you were hearing that not necessarily just as the city council but also the water and sewer board of the city i.e. how we make up the revenue we need to run a system the the revenue we the operations cost as we do the utility rate study the operations cost of the utilities isn't changing how the costs how those costs are spread around the users is it is changing potentially so while while it's true that some users may pay more other users will pay less it's kind of like a reappraisal right like the number utility rates aren't increasing we're not collecting additional revenue we're collecting the same amount of revenue we're just figuring out how to equitably divide it got it so i just want to i know there was the the headline in the other paper about utility rates going up and it's not it might have that impact for some but it will have the opposite impact for others as we more equitably divide up the costs i don't understand i don't follow because they have a huge amount of money to raise the bond issue is a different okay okay yeah so and i didn't say cut by five percent i was just saying i was wanting to target yeah the five percent increase no five percent increase right because worst case between our budget right and the perceived utility budgets and then whatever the school comes out with the voters could just say no and that's their prerogative if they say no then we go back to them you know to the drawing board and then you start cutting because you you have to put a number in front of them that is is that they don't like and the vote for us so maybe you reallocate the arsenal of money so it's like it's it's our responsibility to put the best budget out there that we think that they'll pass right yeah that meets all the requirements for staffing and capital but also here any new initiatives or programs so clearly we talked about the climate action plan implementation um i mean that's right new initiative um but can i get back your point a second because you were specifically talking about the the financial warrants page and all the little items you know and if you sort it from lowest to highest right you see a lot of books in there from the ingram book services and you see um you know chemicals for for the wastewater treatment plant and you know you see the police department's uh you know Comcast bill and and green mountain powers charges for the uh you know the street lights and so so i i mean i look at those really closely and i'm looking for ones that surprise me and then you hear me ask about them right but the the little if you when i look at them when i i'm looking for you know outliers that don't make any sense you know because i think a lot of eyes on but those expenditures that you see there don't include all the salaries that's the other big number and that you know those those numbers except for the really big numbers that that are the highest ones that represent blocks of money to was it the blue you know the medical you know pension fund or whatever those so to me those numbers they're not that they're trivial but they're they're not really that item that you would worry about too much it's just to make my point again um with all due respect tyler when i was in business i was asked regularly to do the same with us cut your budget five percent my manager does not know what my budget numbers are like i can't tell what these numbers are i know what the numbers are and i i i know how to do it um and it may well be that you know all these numbers are great and there's nothing to cut but i guess i would empower the staff to look at their numbers and determine whether maybe these are maybe that maybe at the end of the day all these are add up to not much because salaries is the biggest thing but to me it's a good exercise to look at these numbers to figure out are we doing it efficiently are the things that don't make sense or things we should do different things we don't need to buy any more can we buy them can we source them differently right challenge people to look at their numbers to see if we can do things more efficiently there's nothing wrong with that and i agree and and i i also hear tyler because i work in a world where we do the same job with many fewer people so i totally understand where tyler's coming from on that and where steve and jesse are coming from that some point something's going to give and if it's morale then the whole ship goes down so you have to really really watch it and i i do think it's a good point andrew and i do think it's um it is it gives us some ammunition to go back to the department heads and have those conversations so i think it's a good guidance um and also good guidance to say we want to not erode services we want to keep providing quality services and we want a budget that will pass um right and we want to think about investing in well we're not i think aiming for um staff reduction i mean we're adding staff right we have scrimped and saved to get more police and more fire right you know i don't think we want to go backward right with that so so it is those other pieces so does that give you i mean is everyone is everyone copacetic with the five percent i mean i'd love to target target slightly less honestly three or four but let's see how it comes out i don't think we'll ever get to three i i think that's i think we'll never get to five next year five like 10 over two years it's it's a lot it's a lot right well when we figure out a way for everybody to pay their fair share on taxes maybe municipalities will see three percent again i don't know well i guess i just philosophically i have a really hard time with asking a look it'll pay out it'll it'll play out in the voting booth but i've philosophically have a really hard time asking if it's an exploratory exercise okay that's fine but giving giving guidance that we should be cutting our budget five percent um and we're not talking about cutting it we're talking about limiting the increase to five percent that's the guidance we're giving um and andrew was saying could you get it closer to only a four percent increase okay okay it's not a cut but so we're doing we're talking about doing that in the in the face of of the uh the greatest inflation increase in inflation that we've seen in the last 40 years um so it's still why it still winds up being a budget haircut um when you net it out i guess i i struggle with we're doing that but then we're also going to be burdening taxpayers we're committing to burdening taxpayers with um funding the climate action plan and i it's not that i don't support the climate action plan but i don't support it at the expense of city services that we've promised our citizens and i just want to be very real about that and i want to be really really very clear about that um and i think we should be prepared to answer for that as well that if that is the guidance that we're given giving that's that's the message that we're sending and i i don't know that that's i don't i don't entirely feel comfortable with that and i don't know that that the constituents that i've spoken with i don't know that they will either well i think that's always the ultimate question when you put together a budget and if the um council believes that investing in the climate action plan because of the really important dividends down the line like an earth that's you know still has is livable um that's a question and this budget increase of whatever it is five percent incorporates those expenditures then we are asking the public is that a value you share do you want to is it worth it to you and they can very well say no right and then we'll have to rethink that but at this point in time i'm feeling that um spending some money on um dealing with climate change and change you know changing the metric so life is a you know our city and the state and the country is in the world is a easier place to live in or more um is is important enough to include in your budget the money we think that's needed and then let the public um decide and i think the public has in the last i think even just the last year has it seems you know unless maybe you live in texas um have embraced climate change as a reality and that we can't just ignore it so this is a personal step but i also want to be very practical i want to be very practical and realistic about what we what we what we can realistically change and number one as as a as a city in the grand scheme of things and number two particularly when we're talking about doing those at the expense of potentially at the expense of city services and number three also when we're looking at very large bills that are going to be coming due over the course of the next seven to ten years bills involving schooling bills involving uh safety security and policing um and and bills bills regarding infrastructure so um i just i just want to make sure that we as a council are i just want to make sure that we as a council are are communicating to the public and that we and not just communicating because it's not optics but that we are taking all those things into account as we're uh giving this guidance um because i i i i don't want us to come across and it's not for optics sake but i it's it's it's because i you know i want our community to believe in us i don't want us to come across as tone deaf and um for all the good that is happening in our community there are some people who are apprehensive to megan's point earlier that they are struggling to make ends meet um and i've very recently been one of them and uh you know as passionate as i am about the environment not to the same degree that andre is um admittedly i worry first about whether or not we have a lot enough police in the streets i worry first about whether or not i'm going to be able to afford my tax bill and i worry first about whether or not my kids are going to have the same educational experience or better that i had growing up in this community and those those are the things that come across my plate first and i um when there's very little money to go around i just i just want to make sure that we're not coming across as tone deaf and um for all of our sakes okay well let's see how the numbers come out um something to keep in mind tyler i know is someone who's eaten potatoes for months and seen my bank account go nearly to zero when i was paying the first year of college for my older son with my husband um you have to plan for those long-term expenses right um that are going to come in the future and we know it's been said by economists throughout the world that we have to start incrementally increasing in terms of our investment in climate mitigation now because if we don't the the price tag later on is going to be colossal so those will be your kids paying that price tag right so we have to think about yes we want to take care of our kids today but we also want to take care of our kids 20 years from now 30 years from now and as soon as 2035 to be quite honest so i i just i really you know i i think that while we invest in that future for our kids looking for how we can bring costs in line with people's ability to pay through other you know other levers looking at utility rates looking at other fees looking at and keeping i agree with you keeping that sense of security i've heard that from people in our community as well that we are so grateful the police is there but our sense of security is rattled right now right and so i don't see anybody on this board saying we need to reduce the number of police officers whatsoever but i think we also should be very happy that the braver and apartments for instance and that our city police chief and city manager have been really keen on when we have people who are in need of social services that we put them in a housing situation where they have access to those social services and that's what the braver and apartments does right so we have to think we have to think in that way that those investments truly lead to success and and i i feel confident that people know that and climate mitigation is just one of those things where i walk the hair fall planning will lead to down the road believe me it will lead to a much smoother landing and we're going to land it's not avoidable now but a smoother landing right just 30 seconds the way i think about it it's the environmental debt that we're incurring yeah and it's hard to see it right because it's not right as um tangible as other debts but it's there and growing and we need to start paying down that debt or it's going to grow to a point where our kids can't afford it that's right that's the way i think about it yeah that's right okay so we've given you the guidance you need this was super helpful conversation thank you okay thank you all right other business very short business some questions about the um dog survey you addressed um i thought well i tried to so here's a question about substance and process let me do substance first um when the survey said that it said that um south burlington's orbit urns is a prohibit um dogs off leash are impossible to enforce i don't read our ordinance as prohibiting dogs being off leash our ordinance says that the dog has to be in control either by leash core chain or otherwise so am i am i wrong about that because i'm in hubbard park right it says your dog has to be in voice control or on leash so i guess i have a question about the substance of the survey the foundation for it whether it's a correct predicate or not that that dogs have to be on leash in our city i don't read the ordinance is saying that it does it has been our parks well it says either by leash core chain or otherwise within control that's what it says well that's attached to their owners no that's all it says holly has said before that each park right had its own rules was either by leash or by leash or right and so harvard says by voice explicitly um red rock says by leash and so i assumed that this means both or the harvard wouldn't be able to say that and someone's making decision park by park you know whether it's a more stringent rule or less stringent rule but but in any but if i'm right about all that the survey is kind of misplaced because it's really trying to be a predicate well i think it was just trying to elicit some data because when the dog committee and we talked about dog parks there was a lot of vocal comments and written comments about dogs need to be leash because i'm afraid i don't want to have my dog attacked i don't want my kid attacked if they're under voice control that's one thing but then all of a sudden they aren't and they're an animal so there was there is an expectation that everyone's going to control their dog um and that's what you expect so i think the the dog committee was trying to understand if that's sort of the world's expectation but you don't go along with it because you think your dog can run free and be under your voice control and no problem um we wanted they you know we wanted to try to understand that and so how do you protect everyone but also provide maybe the most um generous way to have people utilize the parks with their dogs the way they want and maybe we can't and then the flip side was well people were saying why do we have this ordinance that says this is the requirement and then when it's not followed it's not enforced well we have a lot of ordinances like that right so i think that the dog committee is really trying to find so can we find some way to make it safe for everyone and maybe that might mean one dog park on tuesdays or something allows dogs to run free and if you're afraid of dogs you don't go there because you know that you might run into a dog off leash or whatever you know the requirements are or how they work it out or maybe you know they'll say what we need is a dog park that allows dogs to run free it's an area i don't i don't know but they're just looking for information so i get all that again i just i i personally don't know the state of law i think the way this was presented is wrong and so because people wrong impression about what our law is i'd like to understand that honestly myself what our law is um because it seems to be different park by park um and then just about process i do think that because this went out city why this signs all over the city it's probably something we should have talked about as a council before it went out well did we talk about the charter committee did yeah we did talk about the questions we looked at the we didn't look at the thing but you knew that it was coming out i reported to you all well then that's my fault because i knew this was coming out and i didn't report back but i personally i'm not interested in looking at every single survey that someone puts out to generate information because they're never going to be perfect because we're not survey creators and even when we had professionals do it you come back with oh darn why didn't we ask this question because it would have been really helpful and then all of a sudden you have a 35 minute survey i would have asked this basic question about what our law is because that kind of then feeds into a question we should be asking so anyways and so they learned that i mean i think to some degree you know we we rely on our volunteers and they are there to gather information and we are here to vet it and so we're vetting it right now this is initial vetting and you know let them gather the information i i tend to agree with helen that we cannot micromanage our committees and they wouldn't want to be micromanaged but i i think um you know there could have been something at the top of the survey um this survey is intended for for for um dog owners who walk their dogs off leash something because for me i was like this is for the whole city and there's no there's no choice for me there there's just absolutely no choice and and so if they had kind of said you know it's not just self selection it's actually we are pinpointing those those dog owners but yeah people didn't answer it that way though they didn't restrict themselves well but yes i mean we can you can always make it better for sure i think that's where the sense of anger came from from some of the you know and some of the feedback they received yeah but that's okay i mean i'm not here to to browbeat anybody we're we're this is not a perfect system this is called communication and nothing is perfect about communication so if we want to spend hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars on communications you know consultants we'll still get so who becoming sb nine years later if i could just add a few cents it's one i think i think we all need to be a little gentle with ourselves i didn't know this was coming out either but also we don't have a parks and rec director right now so i think there are just some we we're trying not to i am trying not to stop progress and let things go even though we are down a key staff in this area in this area um and we do really rely on our committees to do a lot you know i'm thinking like you guys haven't heard anything about the energy fair that's happening and we're putting a ton of staff time and resources for December 30 so like what if we don't tell us if there's a structural problem with how the committees are are working like how the information flow between committees is working between the council and staff and the committees let's have that structural conversation i don't think we should be too hard on ourselves about council liaison staff liaison or committee volunteers right now yeah the data you'll get to decide what you want to do right yeah exactly i don't know i am happy to have holly call you talk to you right right okay so is there any other business tyler you did you want to weigh in or are you ready for bed okay so i went entertain motion to adjourn so moved and a second second all in favor all right thank you thank you thank you we did get a lot done tonight