 Hey, good evening and welcome to Mount Pylir Civic Forum. We are on the road to town meeting day 2020. And this is going to be a really interesting election because in one district we have both seats up. When Ashley Hill resigned, we have her one-year term. And when Glenn decided that he wasn't going to do it again, Glenn Hutchison, we have a two-year term up. And we have people running for both. And that's an interesting situation. In district two, Connor Casey is running unopposed. And in district one, Donna Bate is running unopposed. And this is going to be a trend that you're going to see over and over tonight. And what we did was we filmed a show with both of them. And it's a really good show. Well worth watching. It went over an hour. We separated it into two pieces. But it's a very good piece of television. And then Anne Watson's running for mayor against no one. So basically, you see the trend. We have the school board. And all of the candidates who are running are going to be in the school board. They're all running essentially unopposed, continuing the trend. And we have Libby coming in to discuss the school board budget. We have Bill coming in to discuss the city budget. And all of these are really good shows and well worth watching. And we hope you will watch them. Tonight, I have an honor of, again, interviewing Anne Watson, who I interviewed in her first time running for city council. And now I'm interviewing her current run to be re-elected for mayor. Anne, when did that interview first take place? The first one. Oh, goodness. That would have been in 2013, I think. Because I was originally appointed in 2012. And then I ran to keep my seats in 2013. Boy, that seems so long. I know. I can't even believe it was that long ago. That it was six, it was, you know, oh, seven. It seems like years of Wednesday nights that you've been booked. What's that? It's years of Wednesday nights that you've been missing. Sometimes it feels like that, but no, it's good. Nobody gets rich on city council. No, yeah, not with this form of government. Yeah. And nobody gets rich being the mayor of Montpelier. No. Now, before we start this discussion, I want to say that you've started something that no mayor has done. You have hours? Oh, yeah. So I started holding office hours. I aspire to be better at announcing them, actually. So I'm glad we're talking about this. So exactly, at the beginning of the show, at the end of the show, I hope to remember to ask you to announce the office hours again. Yeah, I've been meaning to post them in front porch form. I was so inspired by Glenn Coburn Hutchinson, who has been great about posting his office hours and announcing them. Tina Muncie does it as well. I'm sorry? Tina Muncie. Oh, Tina Muncie. Oh, that's great. Yeah, so I've been holding some office hours. When are they? They are Tuesday at City Hall from 3.30 to 4.30. OK, we're in City Hall. So I actually have a little office space, which is great. This is also sort of new for mayors. I don't think any mayor had an office at City Hall. Now, where is your office space in City Hall? So it is just outside of the Assistant City Manager's office. So it's right next to the council chambers. Anyway, so especially as a teacher, in the summertime, when the school closes down, I found a couple years ago that I just had no place to work besides my house. And so I was like, you know, there's nobody in this room. There's a desk and a telephone. Do you think I could use this as an office? And they were like, OK, so it worked out. Just for the record, for those who do not know you, you are a teacher teaching what? Yes, I'm sorry. Thank you. So because being mayor doesn't pay the bills, I have to keep my day job, obviously, which is I'm a teacher at Montpelier High School. I teach physics and engineering and a little bit of math. And I've done that at Montpelier now for this is year 15, which also blows my mind that it's been that long. And for people who still think of you as the ultimate Frisbee coach, you are not the ultimate Frisbee coach. This is true. So I have coached at least one of the ultimate teams at Montpelier High School for the past nine years. And I decided to step away from that after last season. We had a great season. We won the state championships. Woo-hoo. So I coached the boys varsity team, and the girls varsity team also won last season. So it was great to have double wins. But yeah, it was proving to be more time than I could really dedicate, especially also being mayor. Is it ever possible, you see in small towns across America, that when you win state championships, it appears at the sign in the border of the town? Is it possible to adjust the signs on the border of the town to indicate that Montpelier boys and girls have the ultimate, the statewide ultimate Frisbee championship? That is an interesting proposal. I wanted to be noted that I did not think of that, because I would certainly... And it does give our town's quirky image a shot. I was going to say that would probably require having changeable, like the signs of the edge of town, having interchangeable learning. Right, they've already done that. Yeah, yeah. I don't know, something we could look into. A state championship. Even if it's a state debating championship. Could we honor that? Something we can talk about. Montpelier. Montpelier. When did you move here? I moved here in 2008, right at the height of the housing bubble, actually. That's how I remember it. But I grew up in Essex. I was born in Burlington, lived basically my whole childhood in Essex and then left for college, left Vermont for college and came back and lived in Essex while I was teaching in Montpelier and then eventually bought a condo here in Montpelier in 2008. Did you try to be a page? I was never a page. I didn't think that I didn't realize that I had any political interests at all until I moved here. I mean, I think in college I was like, you know, I could picture me getting into politics, but that's probably never going to happen. And then actually when I was originally appointed, it was right around the time that I had started to pay attention to politics in the city of Montpelier, particularly around streetlights and around the district heat plant that was at the time still being debated. And they must have been discussing parking. I'm sure they were. They've always discussed parking. This is something I've learned is that discussions about parking have gone on forever. Well, for a long time anyway. And so I was starting to be just more conscious of what was going on here and then actually a friend of mine, colleague of mine, wondered if I would be interested in putting my name in for the appointment. And I thought, you know, yeah, I could do that. I'd put myself forward. Were you aware of the time commitment at that point? I did ask. I don't think that I had. I don't know that I really realized how much it would be. I think I probably underestimated it. Everyone does. Yeah. But on the face of it, I knew there were two meetings a month, roughly, and that there would be committees that every counselor is expected to be on some committees. And beyond that, meeting with the city manager to just keep up to date. Now you've been on so many different councils here, with so many different characters. I asked this of city council candidates. I don't ask this of mayoral. You are, in a sense, the super city council. I guess. And I think it's important to note that I can vote on the council and I can break ties. Or I can make a fourth if someone is absent. So in any case, yeah. It is sort of like being a select board chair in that way. But anyway, you were saying? I was saying, is there a city councilor of the past who you look at and say, I really like that person's style. And I really emulated that person when I was on council. I felt that they did it right. Well, I would say that I have a great deal of respect. Well, I should say, I've been grateful to work with all of the city councilors that I've served with. But I was just so impressed by Rosie Krueger. From some pump and now Finch Lane? Yes, yes, exactly. What wasn't about Rosie? She took her job very seriously. She did. She was just incredibly thorough and had really thoughtful questions and was just, she was just really on top of looking at multiple angles of all the policies we would adopt. And I would say, too, I mean, there were times that we disagreed on things. And she was, this is true of many other city councilors as well, but also true of Rosie that she was just also very respectful about the manner in which she disagreed about things. I think that's really an important quality when it comes to city councilors that we're able to have a dialogue where we're really hearing each other and coming from different places potentially and being able to see each other's perspectives and potentially disagree but still be able to walk away and be collegial and not have an impact future relationship. The city manager works for the mayor and for city council. Yes. You've worked with the same city manager. Yes. Other than his vast institutional history, knowledge and history, what are Bill's strengths? I would say that Bill is Bill Fraser. Yes, Bill Fraser, city manager. He's incredibly ethical. He's very professional. I think that he's, I would say that he manages his staff well. And it's clear that he sticks up for them and they generally like working for him. I have not talked to everyone in the city, so I can't say that down to a person, obviously, but I think he leads well. We're in an era of real transition in terms of city staff. Tom McCartle has been replaced by Donna Casey. Tony Fakos is retiring sooner. Police Chief, what are your thoughts on Tom McCartle and Tony? Well, I think. Again, those were significant names during your period on control in the mayor. Oh, absolutely. And gosh, and I've really enjoyed working with them. And I think Donna Barlow Casey is also excellent. And so I'm psyched to have her on as well. And we're going to have a huge job in front of us to find a new police chief, because I think Tony's done a good job. What is your ideal police chief? If you had to put kind of not a person, but just the characteristics that you're looking for, what would that be? Well, so I think the values of the police chief matter a lot, particularly around dealing with vulnerable populations. What would a vulnerable population be? Well, so populations that have seen discrimination typically. Keep going. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. So homelessness, well, right. So those folks experiencing homelessness, but as well, you know, people of color. And I guess those are really the two that I'm thinking of right now, because I mean, we need to be battling discrimination in all its forms. And yeah, go ahead. Didn't we set up a committee on that? We did, yeah. A couple of committees, actually. What are the couple of committees? When were they set up? And what are the goals and objectives? Yeah, so one committee is the Social and Economic Justice Committee that I was really looking at how the goal overall is to see how the city can be addressing issues of. I hope I'm not putting you on the spot. Who's chairing that? I think it has changed over time. And so I'm not sure who's the chair now. I think there might be co-chairs. So I'd have to get back to you about that. When was that established? Gosh, it's probably not more than two years old. I think that was, yeah, I'll say that. What have we turned out? What are the tangible results that that committee has? Well, that's a good question. So they took quite a bit of time to sort of help understand what the council was asking of them, which I think is a reasonable question. But one of the things that we asked them about was thinking about having a minimum wage policy for the city similar to Burlington's. Who on council was championing that? Ashley Hill. Yeah. And so she was the council liaison for a while. And anyway, so one of the members of the Social and Economic Justice Committee, Michael Sherman, really took on doing some research for the council on the type of minimum wage ordinance that the city of Burlington has and found that to be incredibly useful in informing our decision. Are they above the state minimum wage? I believe so, yeah. But to be fair, it's not for the whole city of Burlington. It's just for any municipal contracts. So it's sort of self-imposed. Yes, it is important because otherwise it would have to be a charter permission to do that. But nonetheless, we were thinking, well, so in Vermont, municipalities only have permission to write ordinances about which we are expressly given permission to write ordinances about. So for example, in the city of Montpelier, we couldn't just say, we are going to let non-citizens vote. Right, let non-citizens vote. We would have to get special permission from the legislature to have that, which is actually what we did not that long ago. So we passed that charter amendment at the city level, has to go to the legislature for approval before we can actually enact that as a city. And similar with things around energy efficiency, similar, anyway, that's the local options task at tax. Yes, that's exactly right. So how did we get here, though? We were talking about. We were talking about economic justice. Yes, and if the city was going to have a minimum wage. But so we ended up not pursuing having a minimum wage for all municipal contracts, like Burlington does. But we did establish a responsible employer ordinance, which requires proper classification of construction workers and proper allocation of benefits to those workers for any large city projects. So that was a step in that direction and I think was a good test for us to see how that would work. Because really the barrier there was management. How would we, well, sorry, in terms of enforcement, like how would we know? And that, I mean, we could ask for all kinds of paperwork from the people that we contract with, but to evaluate that would, it would just take a lot of time. And we may go there in the future, but this was our first step. Now that was one committee. You said there were several committees. Yes, well, there were two. So the Social Economic Justice Committee was one and then the other is the Homelessness Task Force. And so that committee is more recent and they were formed because this past summer, as in previous summers, there have been just difficult situations in downtown where there are people hanging out, begging, loitering, or smoking potentially. And what conflict, or that is actually, has been a conflict for business owners in the downtown and understandable, so we formed this committee to see what we could potentially be doing to help alleviate those conflicts. And we're wondering, asking the questions, like what are the gaps in services to the homeless population to see if the city of Montpelier could play a role in filling some of those gaps? But didn't that committee quickly move into the question of how long the shelter in the church would be opened during the early part of the cold season? Yes, so that was one of their, early on in their existence, they came to the council and said, it's gonna get cold before the warming shelter officially opens. Could we not allocate, I think it was $10,000 or $15,000? Yeah, $10,000 to open the shelter early. What is a warming shelter? So it's a space that, well, so the warming shelter in Montpelier specifically, or are you asking about them in general? No, in Montpelier. In Montpelier. Yeah, so it was in the basement of Bethany Church and it was for single men, so no children and no women and it was a place for people to have a bed overnight, but was not open as such during the day. Now, are families staying at the church? To my knowledge, they're not because that's not part of that function there. So they're staying in Berry? I think there's a gap, honestly, for women and families experiencing homelessness. Now, we should say, in a salute to the homeless task force, that this is the hardest working group of volunteers. They meet every week. Yes, they meet every week and so actually, sorry, I wanna back up to the, because yes, there are shelters in Berry that people can go to if they're women or families. But there's not enough. So I wanna just clarify that comment. But yes, no, they are working very hard. They meet during the day and they had been meeting weekly. I'm a little worried that that may not be sustainable, but you know what, all the more power to them because it's an important topic. Well, let's go to another, let's stay on committees. Sure. For the Transportation Committee. Yeah. Because they've been active this year and I'd like to walk you through the calming study on Berry and on Main Street. Yes. I'm going to start heading into town over by the gas station. We're gonna turn towards the bridge. Is there any change in that light that's proposed? Do you mean the one that is at Memorial Drive in Maine? Exactly. Right, we're gonna start in front of the gas station at Memorial Drive in Maine. There's no change there. That's the same. Will that be a time light in the future? Well, so we're getting ahead of ourselves a little bit, but we did actually approve a light to be at Berry Street and Main Street. I haven't hit that part yet. Okay, I was just saying, it's not timed, but there's plans for it to be coordinated with other lights. What is the difference between coordinated and timed? Coordinated means what? Well, so I'd have to get back to you about that. I don't know. Okay. I think it's when there aren't cars, it doesn't automatically go off, you know, in a sense. So we're at Berry and we're at Main Street. Berry and Main. We have a pathway that's coming across with pedestrians and bicycles. Will there still be that flashing light or what will appear there? So there'll be a light at that intersection. A traffic light. A traffic light, yes. A three-way traffic light. Yeah. Because there is no fourth. No, there is a fourth. The fourth is coming out of the back parking lot. Exactly, it's sort of like the driveway to behind the drawing board and old-chance. Right, so it's a four-way stop, a four-way light. And that will actually be squared up, which is in itself exciting. But yeah. Squared up meaning what? Well, so... I'm asking an engineer. No, that's fine. It's just a piece of engineering. Yeah, no, fair enough. So just the prior to the work that's been done, that's already been done, the entry that driveway was on top of the railroad tracks. And so it was actually a little bit askew from Berry Street. But now it'll be directly across from Berry Street. Does that answer your question? Yeah, yeah. Now there's a bike path that we'll be connecting at that point, connecting in what sense? So there's the new pedestrian bridge and that goes to the shared use path and that will actually, before we get to the light, that will be completed and come right up to Main Street, which is very exciting. But yeah, so once the light is put in, then there'll be crossing signals and whatnot, just like at Staten Main. And the plan that was approved, sorry, I'm getting ahead of us again here a little bit, but because the shared use path would otherwise have a gap between Main Street and the rec building on Berry Street. And so there's, we wanna obviously connect it. And so it would stay on the south side of Berry Street and it would connect, so you'd be able to cross at Main and then stay on a shared use path all the way from Main Street along Berry Street to the rec building, where it would then go past the rec building and connect to the remainder of the shared use path. How would that reflect in existing parking on the south side? So there is a loss of, I think it's about 10 parking spaces. So the shared use would be in the street, in that parking area. So it would be replacing some of the sidewalk that's there, expanding that out and then removing the parking on that side of the street, which was less than removing the parking on the other side of the street, on the north side of Berry Street. So that of the two choices that was better. But the north side is proximate to the church that really sees proximate parking. Well, and also the laundromat. Right, and the laundromat as well. Yeah, so. Now, I'm at that light. Okay. And that means that it's going to be easier to turn south from Berry Street onto Main Street, which is right now is a real challenge getting to Memorial from Berry Street. I mean, it's challenging in multiple directions, I would say, yeah, it can be challenging to, so sorry, were you thinking you were on Main Street turning onto there? No, I'm on Berry Street in front of the laundromat. I'm trying to turn onto Memorial. I'm trying to turn south to get to Memorial. Yes, yes. So there'll be a light that will allow that traffic to do. And so the wait times at that intersection should be less. Because that's right now, well, so we grade intersections based on the wait time and they have letter grades and that's an F grade intersection. So we're traveling through, right now, what is the current speed limit on Main Street? I believe it's 25. I believe it's 25. Will it remain 25 or will it go down to 20 with mixed use traffic along with bicycles? So as we've talked, we've not talked about changing the speed limit. So the plan I think would be to keep it at 25, yeah. But we could have that conversation too, if there's interest. We're going down towards State and Main, I presume that that light will remain the same. Yes. Except for it might be timed and coordinated. Exactly, might be coordinated with the other two lights. To keep traffic flowing in a more smooth, intelligent manner. Right, right. So we're heading north on Main Street. Is there a crosswalk at Langdon or does the crosswalk move to Shippey North? It does, yes. So that was another piece that was approved. So it was a, there was a fair bit of discussion about how close that crosswalk was to the intersection of State and Main and how sometimes it holds up traffic. You know, it's a green light but you're waiting for a pedestrian to cross. Or people might just not wait at the intersection of State and Main and just bypass it by using the crosswalks. I've done it, it's pretty normal. But just putting it a little bit further beyond Langdon Street. Where Shippey is, yeah. So it's not a huge shift but should give people at least a little bit more of a buffer before there's a backup into the intersection. Now we're continuing north and we do hit something that's quite new. Yes, so we approved a roundabout for the intersection of School Street and Main. The library. The library, yes, right there. And which made sense to us because that's a relatively large intersection. So it can handle a roundabout. So you can actually get off of School Street going south now on Main Street. Yes, right, you can turn left there. Yeah, so and then it's also quite a wide intersection as a pedestrian. And so that can be a little daunting. And so having a roundabout there actually helps break that up a little bit. Having a little some islands of safety potentially and it should flow together with the roundabout that's further down the road on Main Street. Right over Spring Street. Yeah, exactly. When does this happen? Well, that's a great question. So we anticipate that that whole plan isn't gonna happen all at once. That would be a significant amount of money. But we do have a capital budget and we don't know which part yet of that will be implemented, but it'll be one piece of that. And I think it's likely to be the light at Berry Street and Main Street. But I don't wanna say that 100% for certain yet. Well, the flashing lights at Berry Street and Main Street that you can press now and that speak to you in Spanish instead of French. Yeah. Will those lights be moved over to the Crosswalk of Chippy? Well, if they're no longer needed at Berry and Main because we have a light with pedestrian signals there as well, we will certainly repurpose it elsewhere, where it's most needed. And I don't know where that will be, but it's a great asset and it needs to be, there are other places that certainly need it. Those were put out because people are getting hit over at Berry, did those work? Well, so I'm trying to think of like when the last accident was. I'm not sure, because the most recent accident was pretty recent there. Were they in the Crosswalk though? They were not in the Crosswalk. Because other people who've been hit in there are not in the Crosswalk. They were not in the Crosswalk. I think any. Can't blame the flashing lights if you're not in the Crosswalk. So anything we can do to make that intersection safer is a high priority, for sure. So this we can see bit by bit over the next several years? Yes, yes. It's gonna, just by virtue of it being expensive it will have to be incremental.