 on Tuesday, June 21st, so I'm going to call to order this meeting of the Wendyski Liquor Control Board. We will start with the Pledge of Allegiance. Please join us of what I did there. 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. So we have eight items on. I think we should go through these like business-by-business versus item-by-item. And so we have for Onion City Chicken and Oyster, we have a new first and third class liquor license, an outside consumption permit, and a sidewalk permit. Jenny? Yes. So this is, as you said, it's a new license. They have submitted a diagram. Their application is complete. Their sidewalk permit application is a little bit different. It's continuing two sides. The applicant is here to elaborate on that a little bit more. Staff did have some concerns over a couple items with this right here. One is moving currently a parking kiosk that is currently there. So there would be, that can be done by Public Works. There would be some cost associated with that. This sidewalk permit, and the applicant will explain that further, wants to have a modular deck which will be removed on a seasonal basis and installed just to make it level because there's a step down. One of the other concerns from staff was that it might be close for parking. So when a car is parked there, if there, if the car is over the bumper, the two-foot bumper, that might cause some issues because that would impede the sidewalk permit. And the other concern that the staff had was that there's a risk of hitting the seating area when a car pulls in really close to the curb. So those are the issues. Is that because of the the space being on accommodating or just the proposed use? Do you have any detail? It's the proposed use. Yeah Laura. Do you want to come up for me? Yeah. Do you want me to come up? Yeah, please. Yes, sorry. Thank you. Great. So we also own a Zarela's company, and even though the spaces are slightly different as far as the sidewalk that we'll be using at Onion City, there is a little bit of a space, a step down before cars park in. In our experience, those spots are so deep that cars go much further than they actually need to go. And so in building the platform that we want to build, leveling it off, there'll also be a back to it so that there'll be a visible barrier that cars can see. And actually, in our opinion, will be safer than what exists now. Because right now, if we have picnic tables down at Misery, when cars come in, they can't see where the curb is. And so they often go further and on to the sidewalk. And they'll bump picnic tables. We've had people bump them when there are people sitting there as well. So what we, you know, with the visibility here, it sort of like stops people ahead of time. And actually, hopefully, we'll make it safer. So we're talking about one of the facades on the Gnuski block building and putting a temporary deck in there with the wall that changes the footprint there versus the rest of that block. It does. So it would be between the two trees that are there right now, and it's just, it's directly the frontage of our space there. Right now, folks can, when they park, they can go right up to that kiosk. So that kiosk would need to be moved. But that area would be accessible. Once we've built a deck, it would be accessible much easier by the sidewalk area. So folks in wheelchairs, folks who have mobility issues would actually be able to access our seating area a lot easier than stepping down. Is your build out going to be similar to kind of the build-outs that earned Burlington over the summertime that a lot of businesses do? Like the little parklets that have been, yeah, I mean, I think that's a great idea. I won't actually go out into the parking spaces. But yeah, very similar. I mean, we want to make it modular so we can break it down in the winter. Yeah. The platform is going to be raised up so it's at grade with the sidewalk, because that's what he says. So it's not going to, the steps are part of, or underneath the platform. Exactly. What would be the height of the wall, for both walls? I have to look at our measurements. I know the one that we're building for misery right now, which is just in grade with it, comes up to, it's not incredibly high, probably 40 inches. I can get you the details on that though. Okay. You'd be doing a similar height for this one. I think so. It's when you're sitting at it sort of hits you like right below your shoulder. So it's not above your head. You still can look and see. And there's still a line sight from like the car into onto the sidewalk as well. And I don't know if I caught what the proposed material would be. Most likely like pressure treated wood. That's what we're using for the benches we're doing down at the other one. It's working well. Would that be painted or just plain? You can't pay. I think at like the first season, you can't do anything to the pressure treated. So it just has to kind of be itself, which is not, you know, ideal. But we'll see. Okay. You make sure I'm understanding this. You are proposing to build a platform on the car side where the steps are. Does this also go on to the full width of the sidewalk to the facade of the building? This is just for that stepped area. Just for that stepped area. So I think it's slate or whatever that different material is. And that's sort of mimics on the other side of the rotary what people use for their sidewalks seating, I should say. So it's not on the brick at all. There's like a marble step that goes down. So it would kind of come, you know, there would have to be a little bit of overlap just to create some support there. And I'll have talk to my builder and see this might not happen like right as we open, you know, possibly we'll just have some seating down in that area for loud and then hopefully build that platform. I share staff concerns on this. One, I certainly wouldn't approve having the city move a parking kiosk for this. If your business wanted to contribute to that cost, I would consider it. I also, I don't know. You're equating this just to like apply what you're doing in front of misery. I would like to, has that been there already? I don't feel like I've seen this. It's in progress right now. I would want to see that I'm having a hard time visualizing this and having that disruption to this area when the rest of the block doesn't look that way. Concerns me about how pedestrians will feel going through there. Like making that feel like a 100% private space. And the staff concerns about parking also concerning. And I'm sharing this with all of you because this is not my choice. Do we have an estimate on cost to move the kiosk? This is John. What I can tell you is that kiosk is powered by solar, has a cell phone plan in it. So it's dismantling the top piece from the base and it's four holes to move it, drill four new holes and hook it. So I've had to take a couple hours of labor for public works for two people. Are you there? Yeah, that's, that's correct what John was saying. It is probably a couple hours worth of work. We could track it to determine like man hours, how long that takes. We, so in addition to labor, we don't have any, this is a question, I'm saying as a statement, it's attended as a question. Do we have any policies around such requests to help guide our response? No, there's no policy on relocating infrastructure to accommodate sort of private use. We don't have anything like that in place. I would have concerns about allowing it in this instance and then facing similar requests in the future. This is opening a door to changing like movement of public infrastructure and changing the footprint of like we're already have some issues with what we're considering store frontage sidewalk use area and folks being concerned about having different depths of sidewalk. And so this is, I don't know, I feel like this could be problematic in the future. I guess one, two things that I'm looking at. So if I look at the map here, the parking spots are definitely much deeper than the cars are parking into them. So if the barrier does give somebody that visual cue to not to continue to go forward, I think that the parking concern that staff had would be minimized. And then if I look at like McKee's seating area, that's way larger than what their spot is. So they're made to enable the rest of the businesses to try to give themselves a little more square footage, I think, is evening out what McKee's currently would have. See, that's what I have a problem with is you, Lisa space, there's infrastructure in front of it already. Why do you then argue that you require public space because you have less space than what you picked already? Like we don't many of our businesses have differing store frontages. When I think of we want our the downtown to be attractive and offer a large area for people to sit outside that portion has less space than other portions. It's not the business owners fault that the city didn't build more. So I love that I think this I would I suggest is giving up space or taking away space from cars and give it to people who want to decide this summer and this place will be available nine months out of the year for eight months, six months out of the year for cars and six months out of the year for people who want to set any food. I think we were talking about outdoor seating during the pandemic in this way of like this is something we should be promoting. And I guess the biggest question I have is how this how that visible there is going to work. This is 40 inches at the sidewalk grade is going to be 46 inches almost four feet at the parking grade. And if that crazes just wall effect along that entire block, if you imagine this request being replicated along this section that does like that changes the character of that block. And so I think that's a question I have it, but it's hard to say it's hard to make a decision on that purely on speculation. I'm going to be looking at a wood wall. And so I think that's the problem I'm having is I don't I don't think it's undoable. I think there are places in Berlin that have done exactly this and it has worked to create this civic space on sidewalks. I'd be kind of curious to see an example of what's envisioned like in place. I don't know if that's possible what you have outside and we'll see, but as far as you're looking the infrastructure, I would agree if it was a light pole, but to take out four bolts and put them somewhere else is not. That doesn't feel like a big task and we remove trees all the time for private development purposes, which is also infrastructure. So I think this is doesn't feel like a huge lift as opposed to spending thousands of dollars a taxpayer money to move kiosks on the street. So I definitely share the concerns about what this could look like if replicated along the block, but I I think probably it's just because I can't totally picture what that looks like. Which is why I would rather see it play out at the other location before proving it for this one. Because I also think it's along the same lines like putting a structure here that doesn't fit in with the rest of it. You know we talk about streetscapes all the time and as far as moving I think it's kind of worms to move parking infrastructure upon the quest. I think that's going to keep coming up and those kiosks are located you know supposedly centrally so they're easy to find. They get moved somewhere weird then we were getting more complaints about I didn't know that there was park pay parking there because I couldn't find the kiosk. Could be minor. How do I dispel? I don't know what's represented here. I'm just wondering about what is the actual amount of feet in between this proposed building side seating area and this proposed potential deck. Is that actually 88 and 88 compliance? Because I see numbers for most of the other things. I'm just trying to conceptualize it. There's a picture here. I don't know who's picture this but it shows the exact space that we were proposing to put the, isn't this my spot? Yeah right here. So the brick area which currently has from the previous tenants has these like front facing benches on it which are up against the wall. I think I did not measure from the end of that to the end of the step but it's well over four feet. I'm sure I'm sure of it but I don't have that exact measurement and I can certainly get that for you. I guess if I could ask a question or make a suggestion is that I think first and foremost we'd like to ask permission to use this area as outdoor seating and then if we need to come back and say hey we have this outdoor seating we'd like to make it a little bit more accessible for people who are in you know who have mobility issues or just for our staff or so we're not having to step down to go into the seating area then we can revisit that if that makes more sense. But the initial for me the most important thing is that we're able to access that space for outdoor seating right now. I think you mentioned so building on your question the distance between the benches and where the proposed additional seating is I think that's wider than the space in front of Missouri Woods Company. So I have less concerns about that. To me in agreeing with Thomas it does remind me of some other spaces in Burlington where there's sidewalk between the business in between where the outdoor seating is. So that's not as much of a concern it's honestly kind of happening down here on the west side of the street west side of the circle anyway. I am reluctant to move a kiosk again without having some type of framework or policy just anticipating similar requests of like what's fair or what's you know ends up being not that we can't but just having some guidelines about when we do that and who pays for it. I'm more than happy to pay for the chaos to be moved. Jenny is it possible to approve if we approve the outside consumption permit like is it possible to approve use of the space as is tonight but then come back and revisit this. Would that be a viable path for folks. I'm comfortable with that. One thing that I'm noticing though is further on we have a similar situation so I want to make sure that we're being equitable with whatever decision we make. I mean someone who also moved to approve everything as is tonight. I'll make that motion. Approving everything as is. Do you want you want to make a motion to approve items A, B and C. Correct. If it doesn't get seconded it doesn't go and we can make a different motion. Can I ask a question then on the side where a sidewalk permit application doesn't explicitly talk about building. The only thing that is objectionable to me in that is or that seems objectionable is relocating the parking kiosk. Am I correct in reading this? Like the permit itself only says request to relocate parking kiosk. It doesn't describe building any sort of structure. It just says benches in front of windows which are already there, outdoor seating, lower slate area for tables and chairs. So if we approve this isn't that the path that you are suggesting there. I would say no because it includes this drawing of building materials in the step down space. Isn't it just rope? Yeah. When I submitted this I did not include the decking. Okay. And Jenny and I were sort of talking about it. I was kind of waiting to see how my builder did on the first one before I committed him to the next one. So she said that we could just augment this. But the original plan did not include the decking. So could we approve it without removal of parking kiosk and we can revisit this kiosk and deck discussion later. That was to Jenny and Elaine nodded yes. And I think maybe part of that would be finding out how much it would cost like the actual dollar amount and staff time for that. That might be something to have in hand. And then maybe a little bit of some I really appreciate that you put some exact measurements in here. And I think you're right that there is plenty of space but I'd love just some exact measurements of with the deck there how those things would connect. All right. So would you like to amend the motion to approve items A through C excluding the request to move the kiosk in item C. Sure. Okay. I'll second that. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. And we will see you again. Yes. When should I plan to do that. Well we'll talk staff will reach out. Okay. When are you planning to put up the structure in front of the misery spot. I mean it really depends on my builders. Oh and misery. Yeah. That's being done right now. Okay. Yeah. I know that will be helpful for me to see. And there's a I mean this particular the decking is mostly about that step. And if there's if there's issue with the wall and the backing we could just build essentially a deck with something a little more less intrusive like a roping around it and then have tables and chairs on that decking instead of creating the bench which is kind of what we're doing now. Okay. I just like I get worried about levels and people and I just know at night service falling service falling guests falling pedestrians falling I see people slip off that step all the time anyway. So I I find it hard to visualize and didn't realize until this discussion that that is what was being proposed here. So yeah it did catch me off guard. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for coming in. Thank you. My killer. Okay. Welcome back Jenny for item D item. Item D is Morning Light Bakery. I don't know. Ken if you were here on zoom Ken brought in another diagram moving that their approved space from Council a little bit over more towards East Allen. We had talked about he initially wanted to go down down the hill a little bit but now we're just keeping it at the 15 feet by 5 feet right on East Allen Street. I thought he was going to be. Okay. Okay. Thank you. So that's all it was. It was the same square footage. It's just shifted over towards the circle a little bit more than it was initially. Yeah. I mean it's just he just felt that he wanted it more over. So yeah we had talked a lot about this permit. A lot of different proposed diagrams. But in the end he settled on the space that I have outlined 15.5. So it's just an update. There wasn't really anything I just wanted everybody to be on the same page that that seating has moved. So there's something on the map for the entryway and the post that looks like it's crossed out. Yeah. Because initially he wanted to have seating there at the entranceway. So that is and just confirming that is not part of this. Correct. So I crossed that out. Great. After discussing it with him. It says maybe. So it was confusing. It is. It is confusing. You know like I said we had talked a lot about different spaces but that just wasn't feasible right in front of the entrance to the building. Does the new spot taking into consideration that light post. Yeah. You know we've been getting complaints about the outdoor seating and the light post in front of Mandarin. So I can't tell from this diagram but would want to make sure that that 15 by five box isn't coming up against that and removing you know accessible. I know when we said there was nothing impeding this space but there's this like light light post here. And so I don't know exactly where the like if the goal is to cover up back to this brown corner like that might be right up against it. But I do see the note here about the four to five feet. But again it might not. It's not like it's drawn on the map. Yeah. Can we. Can we. Approve this giving guidance back or like in documenting that to say that we there has to be a path. Is it for four feet. Is it with at least four feet around that light post. For pass through. It's that it looks like they might have taken that to a job. If it doesn't doesn't. Okay. Are there any other concerns with this change request. Would someone like to make a move like to make a motion to approve item D with guidance to keep clearance around the light post. So moved. Motion by Bryn second by Aurora all those in favor please say aye. Motion carries. So now we have items in F for the archives. Yes. So the archives. Had received his permit you had approved their liquor license they're now seeking to have an outside consumption permit. Matt are you on with us. Not see Matt with us this evening. Because there was discussion that I had I reached out to him about his measurements. So he has 80 square feet it's actually a little bit more he has 40 by two but it actually was 48 by two is what he was proposing. So that was a little bit different than the application indicated. But that matches up. He didn't specify that on the outside consumption which I told him he needs to specify a square footage but he was just thinking it was 40 by two because initially he did have it lower and then he changed it to 48. And this diagram that he first brought into me was upside down. So the top the part of the top is where we he sketched the diagram but I was more able I just couldn't picture where he was proposing. I am struggling to understand where this is supposed to go. It looks like it's a crawl it's still on the sidewalk between the trees. Yes. Yeah. So the door across directly across the door and then south of the door. Oh I see. I don't know that this will have says 59 inches between the seating but it's hard to tell if that's the seating in the door or the seating in the wall. That was the seating from the wall I believe. So is this benches not tables right. Right. But he did want to put he was talking about putting some tables there. Looks like this was a error has something to add. Yeah. Sorry. I think it was about a little lary on this. So in the original discussions that I had about the ability to put anything outside here he was originally proposing to put seating on the curbside in front of the building and the clear space against the building's facade which is what the computerized drawing is indicating. After discussions with him we determined and with other state staff we determined that he would probably be safer to have the seating against the facade. So that's what the hand drawn sketch of the top is indicating. But I believe he's still intending to use the same type of a layout that's in the computer drawing. So you'll notice the door is now in the hand drawn portion on the left side with the decking coming off of that then in the clear space and then the tree belt afterwards. So I think he's kind of combining his original proposal with the new proposal to put the seating against the building's facade. And there we're going to be some tables. I know he talked about that. That's mentioned in the outside consumption. Placing tables along the building of the area. Is what's proposed deep enough to still accommodate 4 feet 88 like around the trees and the fire? Fire? Oh my gosh. Hydrant. Fire hydrant. Thank you. He was so it should be that all the street amenities on that side are in the basically the granite tree belt. So the sidewalk space, the actual brick space on that location is I think it's approximately 10 feet deep of brick from the facade of the building to the granite. So at 48 feet you have 5 or 6 feet left over of clear space along that pathway. Okay. So hard to visualize. It is very difficult to visualize using a Google method. I did have another question though about the outside consumption permit it request to go till midnight but I feel like they all ended 11pm usually. He had crested one and I said I don't know just to let you know that you they have not approved till 1am. I thought we did Wicked Wings was 12. Do you think so? I think that's how it is. Yeah. And so I said maybe if you want to so that's my writing. Okay. After talking with them. If we have given others midnight I would go that high here. I would not go higher to one. Yeah. Any other questions on this one? Does someone want to make a motion to approve items E and F? Second. Motion by Thomas, second by Bryn. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. All right. And so on to items G and H for our house. Okay. So our house and the applicants are here. Originally had filed an outside consumption permit that was approved and a sidewalk permit. The original outside the original sidewalk improvement. Pardon me. Had 100 square feet which I know what I had talked to them directly. It was it was more. It's more about 250 square feet. So what they did is they amended their outside consumption to include the frontage of 36 main, which is about 250 feet and then to have outside consumption, not a sidewalk permit for the alleyway that's referred that is 34. That's known as 34 means street. It's a little alleyway and there's an easement that goes through there. But they would not first sidewalk, but they're mending their outside consumption for that particular area. The sidewalk permit, they amended to be 250 square feet as opposed to the approved 100 square feet that we had approved earlier in March, I believe. So is this then I'm sorry, what is the difference? The number difference? The number difference of the sidewalk permit is 150 because they had put 100 on their sidewalk permit. Realizing that that was probably a mistake, the hundred. So it's more around 250. So do you guys want to come up to? Oh, sure, sure. Yeah, sure. So just give you a little more backstory on this. So for a little more backstory on this, I've been having some conversations with the owners and their their attorney on this. The sidewalk issue for this space, both in front of their storefront at 36 Main Street and the alleyway in front of 34 Main Street. In addition to how this all relates to this space that was the sidewalk use space for 30 Main Street. So the three properties are kind of looking at this collectively. So in conversations with the the attorneys for our house, it was it was determined that they were going to be coming forward to amend their outside consumption permit to to utilize this the alley space itself. So that is private property. You would just be looking at the outside consumption for that specific space. In addition, because they were coming in for the outside consumption permit update, I recommended to their attorney that they also come in to amend the sidewalk use permit that you all would issue for outside consumption or for any use of the sidewalk itself. The reason being there were some discrepancies in their original application and what was what was actually authorized through the outside consumption permit. And then also I believe that meeting there was some I think there was there was also some confusion about what was actually being requested. And it appears from the original application that they had in fact requested the space in front of the alleyway at 34 Main Street. There was a diagram included with the original application. But the specific square footage again that on the application and what was included with the outside consumption permit, they weren't all aligning. So I advised their attorney or recommended to their attorney that they should come in to clarify what the actual sidewalk use is being authorized by you all for their use. So we're looking at two separate pieces here, really the outside consumption permit update for the alley space and also kind of reconfirming what sidewalk use space they are granted based off of their original application and then the amended application. So that's a little bit more history or a little bit more backstory on on what's happening here and why some of this is all for you tonight. And I'll let the obviously the applicants are here so they can add any additional detail. But you said the alley space is private not public private. That's correct. Okay. That's correct. But it's a part of their that's their lease. That's a separately address space just happens to be an alley right now. So, okay, well, so we've got we've got our outside consumption the alley and then this adjustment to the sidewalk room. And then I additionally, sorry, I also forwarded you an email that I received, I believe yesterday or Saturday sometime about the space from the orders of 30 minutes. So you should have that information as well. Yeah, do you guys want to come up and introduce yourself and then talk more about that? I'm Maggie Barch with our House Bistro. Welcome. Thank you. So essentially, what we're trying to do is clarify both the outside consumption and the sidewalk permit so that they're accurate for the square footage and for the space that, you know, that the borders are set in the and the size is correct just because the outside consumption permit for the alley. I put the right, almost the right amount of square footage. I didn't measure carefully enough, went back and did that more accurately. But I didn't use the words the alley or 34 because at the time that I submitted the permit, we didn't actually realize that the alley had its own address. So that we just want to clarify that. I did talk to the DLC about that. It isn't specified on our outside consumption permit. And they said it seems like it's a clerical error and that we could continue to serve beverages there while this is pending and just to update them when we have that. And so if I'm understanding this correctly, because you are leasing this alley space now and that address. Well, it's always, we've always, it's always been part of our lease space. We've only started just making use of it recently. Okay. I guess so the question is about where is the border then you're saying the border is extended to where the monkey house has been putting their tables? Well, yeah, for it's been a few years we've been trying to get clarification on how the city decides what sidewalk spaces are allocated. You know, we've gotten different answers over the years. In fact, I think it was the 2019 application that we put in. We had asked for this the parking space because of COVID and because we were, we, we with the restrictions so that you had to be six feet apart and and could only serve outside, we were really at a disadvantage. So at that point, we were told that it was really you could, you could whatever you asked for on your permit was what you were awarded and it didn't really have to do with boundaries. So we had asked for 350 square feet and we're approved for that and we're given the parking space, which was rescinded and taken back in June. So we didn't, we were back down to having limited space. So after that, we found that that or at least it was represented to us that it's based on property lines, which made a whole lot more sense to us. So knowing that we knew that we could also ask for what was in front of that alley space because that is least based by us. And I don't think, you know, to give everyone, I don't think anyone understood exactly where the lines could be drawn or how that they were allocated. So I think we're all a little confused about how that works. I have always thought that it is the store frontage that determines the borders, right? So the this the actual municipal code just says that any business can request sidewalk space adjacent to their business. It doesn't, it doesn't have any detail on where the limitations are. That's true because we let Papa Franks extend beyond their frontage. So it ultimately is is is your decision as as counsel to authorize the use of sidewalk space as city property. And for you know, for us, we have three picnic tables in front of our space and our neighbors all have four or more six or eight on the on the far ends. So what we're looking for is just a fair piece of the sidewalk. And and if if it is delineated by store frontage, that alley space is part of our lease space so that we should have a right to that space. So has monkey house paid the city for that space? That's a good question. I don't know if I have they've obviously paid for space. I believe their application also requested 250 square feet. So I don't know what the dimensions of that actually looks like on the ground. So that I'm not clear on that. Because that would really be my concern is that we're taking away something they've already paid for. If I if I may when when when this permit in 2019 we'd ask for 300 square feet. We did pay for that as well. And when it was rescinded there that wasn't amended or we weren't given a refund or anything like that. So I just like to point that out that that if if we just making a point I guess I follow utilizing the alley space. Would that give you equitable or more space than the other restaurants that are on that road. I don't think that it's fair to consider our least space. What the city allocates to for sidewalk space. So I don't think that we're not comparing the inside space of the monkey house or to the mule bar to the inside of our house Bistro. So I don't think that that necessarily applies. I'm just trying to determine outdoor space because you had mentioned that other people have more tables. So I'm trying to verify on the sidewalk. Yeah. Yeah. On the sidewalk they have more outside space. And that's the folks on the each end. I just have the benefit of having a bump out. So that's why they have more space and yeah. Well I do want to be careful about what we talk about equitable access to sidewalk like that bump out is a bonus to that area. And I don't want us to think we're in a position where we have to take the square footage of this block and then divvy it up by the individual businesses there. Like there should be some correlation to the frontage because as somebody who has served that also will make sense for operations. I know like we gave Papa Frank's additional sidewalk frontage their street. Nobody else was using that at the time either. So there's we don't have a hard and fast rule that said I feel like using the property line is the marker between the two makes sense. But I don't know when we approved the sidewalk use and space for for monkey or when it's up again. If I may. My name is Matt. I know our house as well. And if you look up the permit, Maggie showed it to me online the other day. The monkey house permit clearly states that it's directly in front of their business. It doesn't say anything about extra space. It says directly in front of their space. So directly in front of the space is directly in front of their space. Yeah. Not to the side. Regardless if it's more or less, because there's been more or less over the years for all the businesses and our application set approximately on the square foot. Approximately we've had more in the past. Like I said, this is taken away from us. We've had less and we just I don't want an inch more or an inch less. I just want directly in front of my space. I do want to make clear for the record, though, that the little park let space wasn't like taken away. It was always granted on a temporary basis. My that wasn't made clear. So I was I certainly didn't understand that when I put in my sidewalk permit. I was approved for 350 square feet that that and the way I had applied. I had said we would be open to that 350 square feet being a parking space if the city decided that that was a good use of that space. And at the time the city was talking about walking out that whole street. Yeah. And get a little chaos, but some people objected and that didn't happen. But that would have been nice and an attraction for the city and other businesses. But regardless, that's what we just wanted it to be square, fair table. At the time, they couldn't see the doors and we got to table six feet apart. We went to one tape and then the little bar had that whole other side that wasn't straight out there, but just like the keys. So we just like I said, not an inch more, not a inch less, which I just want what I pay taxes on and to try to run the business. Successful. Yeah. And I mean, as he said, there are different amenities to the streets to escape releases. And so I think that I don't think comparing the bump out is appropriate. I mean, I think the biggest question is we can't have a permit. We can't prove two permits that use the same space and charge both people for that. So if we already have a permit approved for monkey house that shows them using that space, that's a problem. If we don't, then I agree that our ordinance says you can petition for space adjacent to your property. He doesn't say you can petition for space adjacent to someone else's property, someone else's business. So I think when both people would petition for space adjacent to their business, the property lies in the most yeah, unbiased way to make that choice. So I think if that would be my preference for moving forward is if we actually have not already permitted that sidewalk space in front of 34 that that we approve this. Do you know the date Eric? So I don't know offhand. And I know the original application for our house came in at the April 4th meeting. And I believe but I'm not positive that the monkey house application came in the meeting prior. And to the point that Matt had just made yet he is correct and that the outside consumption permit for monkey house does indicate the space directly in front of their storefront similar to the way our house's current permit reads as well. However, I don't know what their sidewalk use application said. So similarly, they may have requested more space, but I don't know what they actually said in their application. But that should be included with the agenda when that meeting like 250 square feet. Are you able to thank you? Our picture of our application had the other way. We submitted a picture for the space we're asking for, which we have copies. We'll see what if Jenny can pull up the existing one. I'm also looking on our website. Prince of copies, you can find Oh, I'm sorry, for what monkey already was approved for. It's a different don't we we just approve it as written in the February agenda. You found the one in the February agenda. Yeah. Yeah, I was pretty sure it came in. It doesn't really say. We weren't getting maps at this point. Oh, yeah. So this I do have the old sidewalk one for our house here, which includes a description of the alleyfront outside. So we did already approve the sidewalk usage space. Did we go? I thought there was an issue. Oh, did we take it back? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. I think that was not the after consumption permit matches the sidewalk permit that we approved for Monkey House 250 square feet, you say directly in front of 30 Main Street. Did you find that one? Yeah, it's right here. So it's roped in area directly in front of storefront at 30 Main Street on the sidewalk area upper and lower approximately 25 by 10. We proved it until 2am unless we adjusted that. It was proposed to take back, but it wasn't taken back in the meeting for the space. And that's why we provided a picture of what was approved. Well, it looks to me like there's not a conflict then because we have given them the Monkey House what's in front of their store frontage. And then you have this address for this alley space. So there's a property line to lineator now. Does that make sense to me? Any other concerns from Jen? OK. So what? Point it out on council. We're going to have a break tomorrow. That will be coming. I can take that. So someone want to make a motion to approve items G and H. Motion by Jim, second by Aurora. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any obscene? Did you say aye? You're obscene. OK. Motion carries. OK. Thank you for coming in. This brings us to the end of our liquor control meeting agenda. Do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. Motion by Jim, second by Thomas. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Meeting adjourned. I'm just going to take a quick five before we start the council meeting. We will start at 7.05pm. 7.04pm. Let's call the this regular meeting of the Muskie City Council to order. Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance, led by Deputy Mayor Jim Buffett. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation, my God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Looks like we're going to need to. Oh, good. Okay. Sorry. I just called the meeting to order. We are on to agenda review. Do we need to remove item B? Yeah. So you can table it. Okay. We will table item B on the traffic calming policy for a future meeting. Thank you. Any other questions, concerns about the agenda tonight? Was there was it the only change? Yes. Okay. Moving on to public comments. This is a chance for members of the public in attendance to speak to items not on tonight's agenda. If you're here for something that is included in the agenda, please wait until we reach that item. If there is anyone here who wishes to speak, please use the raise hand feature in Zoom or the chat to let us know. We have our consent agenda tonight. We have our council minutes from June 6th, payroll warrant 529 to 611, accounts payable warrant of 615 and an event permit application for the High Street Block Party. Any questions or concerns about any consent agenda items? Okay. Sound ordinance. What about it? Just curious. Is that 10 p.m.? I can't remember. I think it's 10 on week night. It's 11 on weekends. Okay. I believe. Okay. Great. The no. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Yes. Second. Motion by Bryn Second by Thomas. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. All right. Council reports. Thomas, can I start with you? You can. Not much to report. Elaine, sorry if you're going to talk about this. But a reminder that tomorrow there's another Winnowsky Wednesday. It will be starting at 5 p.m. Rotary Park, ending at around 8. It's free. Everybody's welcome to attend. Great music in the local market. And then also on Sunday is French Heritage Day in Winnowsky. That's going to be adjacent to the farmer's market. That's 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. And there will be a torturi contest. I hope I pronounced that correctly. And there are instructions if you go to downtownWinnowsky.org in terms of submitting to the contest. Thank you. I have nothing to report. All right. A couple of small things. Thursday Planning Commission public hearing on parody housing incentives. They have one already last month. This is the second hearing. I think some language has been changed. I would encourage members of the public to attend that if you want to weigh in on incentivizing parody housing in our community or zoning and land use regulations. Finance Commission met last week and looked at historic data on city expenses, revenue, population growth and a couple of other items in service of a discussion around TIF planning. They're going to be revisiting that at their probably their July meeting. If not August. I was invited to participate in the search committee for the Burlington Airport Director position. So nice way to look at that. I think it's going to be a great opportunity. We have one meeting so far though. So no, no fresh updates. Okay. And a big thank you to staff downtown Manuski city partners for the second annual Juneteenth event. Sure. The infrastructure commission met on the 16th. We had a last minute change of schedule. We had a meeting. We had a meeting. We had a meeting. Green Mountain Power. You should see Vermont and Vermont Gas to come and speak to the different programs that are available to businesses. To institutions of school and municipal buildings as well as to residents. And it was just a little bit last minute to the meeting until July 21st, which will be the next meeting. We are meeting in person. We've been meeting at the pool. It's a great, the public space there. It's really nice to have that. Everybody is really appreciative of being back in person. So the remainder of the meeting we talked about capital project updates. The work on East Allen. We also talked about the way finding, which should be installed this week or next. Pretty soon. And the work plan and next steps for the work plan following council's priorities. Good discussion about that. And I think there's interest in getting some feedback from the council on what direction we would like them to take for next steps on the energy component. As it's written in the strategic priorities, it's pretty broad and is inclusive of renewable energy and I believe right now we don't have any other work around city goals for energy achieving energy reduction and energy efficiencies. So just looking for some additional guidance on what we would like them to focus on. I recommended thinking about the communities grant because that's available for the next 18 months with efficiency Vermont and focusing on that. And then we have the legislation H518 which was legislation passed for energy resiliency through the state and that will also be in the more immediate near future rather than longer term. But again, wanted to relay that back that they're looking for some additional guidance as well. And our next meeting is July 21st and then I also wanted to mention Chittin and Solid Waste District which I'm the commissioner for. We're having our organizational our annual organizational meeting tomorrow evening available in person in Wilson City Hall I believe or online resume all the public information for that is online and that annual meeting just reelects the chair and all those other officer roles appointments to committees and whatnot. So yeah, that's all I have to share. Thank you. Safe Health people ended up not meeting this month but our next meeting is going to be on July 12th and I believe the plan right now the library committee is going to visit and kind of talk about some of the work they've been doing. So the Inclusion and Belonging Commission are hoping to really get off the ground having, doing some final coordinating around time meeting and getting the new commission members orientation packets in the morning. So hopefully there'll be some additional updates from that soon. All right. Thank you. Elaine, city updates. Yes, thank you. City updates. The city is looking to fill a few paid positions including a new Recreation Operations AmeriCorps member City Treasurer Water Resources Equipment Operator 2 and Code Enforcement Officer to learn more how to apply, go to WinoosPBT.gov or call City Hall at 802 655 6410 City Council is also looking to point volunteers to City Commissions These are the Finance Commission, Planning Commission Development Review Board WinoosPBT Commission for Inclusion and Belonging State's Healthy Connecting People Commission and the Municipal Infrastructure Commission For more information visit WinoosPBT.gov Cover on the Government tab and click on Board's Commissions or Committees or you can call City Hall at 802 655 6410 If you've never served on the Board or Commission before we will support you through this process because we can be encouraged people who have never interacted with the government to apply. A reminder that the COVID-19 Testing Clinic at the Abriene Community Center ends after the Saturday June 25th. You can still get tested this week. You can also pick up free admiral tests at this clinic until this Saturday, or through this Saturday. The remaining hours are Wednesday and Friday, 3pm to 8pm and Thursday and Saturday 9am to 2pm. For those of you who are not aware WinoosPBT's equity director Anthony Gordon resigned this October for June 10th. We are dismayed by her departure, but considered an opportunity to take stock and rethink how we approach equity as New Ski Governments. Winooski has taken some great steps and thanks to Yasmin's dedication over the past year, we have some great tools in which to move forward. For my part, this news and conversations of how Yasmin has tied my own commitment to equity for community. So if you have any questions about the position or what the city is doing feel free to reach out to me 655 6410 or get in touch with the City Council and stay tuned for more updates this year. Thank you. So we are moving on to our regular items and up first item A is on for discussion or approval, the Park and Inventory Analysis and Management Planning. Alright, thank you very much. I believe Jason Charest with the Regional Planning Commission is online, so Paul, if you can bring him over, that would be great. Tonight we are here to bring you back the updated draft of the Parking Inventory Analysis and Management Plan. This was reviewed in detail with you all at your regular meeting on April 18th. So there were several comments that were provided at that meeting specifically related to electric vehicle charging and some additional details on some of the mapping. So that information has been updated in this latest document. The one caveat I would add to that is I believe was mentioned at that meeting as well. The scope of this project did not necessarily include a more detailed look at electric vehicle charging and the options around that. So that section is not as robust as some of the others, but it's definitely something that the City can address and you all can move in if you would like. So the reason we're here before you tonight is to have you all consider approval of this document. The final draft was included or the updated draft was included in your agenda packet along with the appendices. The approval, if you do choose to approve, that doesn't necessarily hold you to any one policy or recommended action here. It's really more of a framework that we would then use to get more detailed information on the policies or the actions that would be going forward. But this at least gives us a place to start and to kind of establish what some of the more potentially either shorter-term or longer-term policies may be. So I will leave it at that and open up any questions or if Jason has anything he would like to add if he's with us. I'm with you. I am all set. I think you summarized it quite well. Oh, sorry. One other thing I wanted to add. The reason why we're bringing it forward to you tonight is also related to close out of the project with the fiscal year coming up. We want to make sure that we're not missing any deadlines for the RPC as they're trying to get their books in order. And we are also trying to get our books in order. So that's obviously not the driving factor, but definitely something we wanted to be cognizant of bringing this to you tonight. Thank you, Eric. The only question I was going to have was just in regards to electric vehicle charging. But it sounds like even if we approve tonight we can continue to explore those options. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that is probably a much bigger discussion because that is, so really what we're looking at in a lot of the information with the study is both the public side of things, which is the on-street space and the private side of things, which is with what's happening with development. So as we think about the public realm of parking, electric vehicle charging could be one of the ways you all choose to manage that space and I think is going to be a much bigger policy discussion from your end because of the I think the ongoing maintenance infrastructure costs and just the capital component to all that. Or it could be something that we try to push more towards the private side as well to encourage more more developments that are more of the redevelopments to include that type of infrastructure so it's being addressed. So it does tend to negate the ability for so when I hear you say that to me it sounds like that development really is private and wouldn't be available to folks that are patrons and for economic vitality reasons. That's a good question and I think that would come down to how it's actually managed on the site. I mean I know there are some with, depending on the actual project, either the generally speaking I believe with the commercial building energy standards and you may know more about this than I know there is a certain threshold that they do need to include EV chargers or at least the infrastructure but I don't know if those need to be made public or not. There's no application. So I know that but they at least need to have the infrastructure in place for the development. My concern is I worry that Winooski is going to miss out on economic vitality opportunities by not offering or preparing to offer that infrastructure. So I appreciate the thought that needs to go into it and I caution us from putting too much on to private developments to address that need. Yeah and I think just because thank you for the comments, I think also to that point, just because we don't get into a deep dive in this document that shouldn't preclude you all from having those conversations from a policy level. It could be that Winooski announced for a private provider to do that we could put that pain off the thing. If we wanted to avoid the cost ourselves of course we could still consider putting them in management than ourselves. And just to reassure everyone there's a whole phenomenon. They're empty and then everything else is full in their ramp up phase that it's no one's part there any part of the part there so it's not it's something else and both of those end up. It's hard to interrupt. Elaine, if you wouldn't mind just moving a couple paces closer to the microphone or vice perfect. I think you can hear you now. All right. Thank you. Should I repeat anything? Jason, did you get most of that? I got some of it. I had to turn up my volume and I really hate that but I got the distance. Can they hear the counselors? Can you hear the counselors? Okay. Yes, loud and clear. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you for the context. I do think there's benefit to having a dedicated conversation and whether or not you want to push that onto a committee or a future study I think there are a number of municipalities that we can look to for experience best practices things to consider but I would hate for us to miss an opportunity to enhance the vibrancy and economic vitality. We do have some unique one-time funds that could be attributed to that to such a project so just want to keep it in the mix. As far as things about the report specifically I did notice it's going to be really picky and I apologize and the appendix C4 there's reference to a document and in parentheses it just says error so I would want that corrected before we finalize the document that's put into the record and then I just also wanted to a question for clarification with the survey I think I was unsure if it was presented as though the data was statistically significant or not? No it is not statistically significant it wasn't statistically significant okay just wanted to make sure that that was clear okay so you're saying in the report it's not clear if it is or is not I think in the appendix and C2 it says as a non-statistical representation I just want to make sure that that is very much apparent in the in maybe the executive summary so that that's that stands out what was the first appendix that you said you had a page C4 and I don't think that's being picky that's just that's something that we missed so thank you for correction sure that's all I had anyone else have any questions, concerns? I just want to have a question on what approval in this case means so you're looking for acceptance of this as the final report with the minor edits? That's correct, yes not endorsement of these as the that's correct that we're just accepting the report not endorsing the implementation that's correct yes similar to the what has been done in with past reports like the parks and open space master plan yes so would it be reasonable for someone to make a motion to approve acceptance of this plan the document link in appendix C4 and a note of the lack of statistical significance of the web survey in section 2.3 so moved second motion by Bryn second by Thomas all those in favor please say aye aye motion carries thank you thank you all very much okay so on to we tabled item B we are on to item C we have a discussion or approval a sales tax reallocation request how's everyone doing good hello welcome thank you so this is a I had I saw John's name on it so I was thinking he was going to introduce it and it was going to save you having to listen to me but I'm happy to introduce it to you quickly this is a request that we're making to file a joint application with the city for sales tax application this is the Vermont downtown program by the agency of commerce and community development they have a July 1 excuse me application deadline where they allow projects that are in designated downtown village centers to seek a number of different grants and tax credits one of which is the opportunity to take sales taxes from and reallocate that to city to be used for infrastructure and support of the project so two years ago I provided a council memo about this so I'm happy to just answer questions about it but for the public's benefit two years ago we applied for and we're successful in receiving a partial award of funding under this program and our intent would be to go back around seeking the amounts that we did not get in the first round because they were short funding and also make an adjustment to the original application to reflect the new higher costs and therefore higher sales tax receipts from the project as a result of COVID related cost escalations and these funds would then be used to assist for the payment of the so-called public improvements the garage sidewalks streets in the same manner as the original application the state has a requires the city to apply for these last time around Heather and I did the application together this time thought processes that I'll updated with John's feedback and we'll be looking to file this for July 1 and a required attachment is some proof or evidence from the municipal body that they have authorized the application so there's no specific resolution required of you other than some evidence by minutes of a meeting that you have authorized the city to apply thank you Bill so a question for you it wasn't clear to me from your memo whether you took into account that the population actually changed and so for you so now you're only eligible for taxes on 200,000 as opposed to 100,000 I have not filled out the application yet Elaine so if that has shifted since the original application we'd obviously have to honor that in terms of how we make the calculation final we're not required to have a dollar amount listed in the authorization so the thought process is that we would get the revised construction cost estimates from due construction next week and then fill out the application with the appropriate amount so if that base allocation has changed obviously it'll impact the amount of the increase that we can ask for but given that we were not able I believe it was something in the vicinity of 160 or 200,000 dollars that wasn't toward the first time and we're expecting the new number to be a few hundred thousand dollars higher so I think sadly if the base is now 200 rather than 100 it would mean that we would have to make that adjustment but I still think there would be a significant benefit in asking for this additional funds just want to make sure you saw that because it does change the math by bits fair enough and I hadn't seen it yet so thank you any other questions on this any public comment alright sorry one more so just for the public's benefit we have not received any other requests for this grant and we haven't heard we're not actually aware of any products that will be eligible so that's why we brought council this funding thank you I have a question I'm not familiar with this particular program so I'm curious if there's any because it's being dedicated to this particular project that removes the excess of those funds to other things that would be that we would need that we would be prioritizing right that's why I made that comment so since it's new y'all it's annual and this one's new July 1 so we hadn't heard of anything if no one's asked us and we went through the possibilities there literally isn't anything else that's eligible so it's not removing eligible okay thank you we've also like the sales tax reallocation has always been under discussion it's part of this project from years before anyone want to make a motion to approve second motion by Jim second by Thomas all those in favor please say aye motion carries thank you excuse me thank you bill thank you alright so item D is on for discussion a lot 70 requests we're going next Vermont community development program grant round obviously we are supportive of this project the city this is the same project they've asked for a council to provide some early indication of support for a Vermont community development program grant for the September round and I'll definitely let Bill make the case unfortunately I've advised council not to express that early support at least now because we did just here today that the Bryant community center project that we are joint applicants with Champlain Health and Trust was not awarded for the spring round and so it would be the staff's recommendation to support that for September because we anticipate being ready by then there were some decision points that we weren't able to confirm for the interview committee during the spring interview which is why they decided not to award us this time they encouraged us to apply in September and they indicated you never know there's no promises but they would probably be favorable if those decision points were taken care of and Champlain Health and Trust thinks that we will have those resolved by then so that's why in my memo I've advised council not to provide this early indication of support to many ask Bill to make the case for himself I'm assuming the only one city project can get the grant Is it highly competitive so that's the challenges we need to be faced with in those results and this is something Bill might get into this is specific what he's asking our support for specifically for the hotel it's not necessarily for the possible housing that we've discussed Bill did you hear that question I did I didn't realize it was directed to me I'm sorry that's correct and meeting with the state there in the staff and reviewing with John and Heather at the time the various ways in which you can seek Vermont Community Development Program funding it was thought that a grant in support of the low and moderate income jobs that would be created by the hotel would be the most competitive application point so I think it goes without saying that it's the city that's placed the highest priority on the hotel in order to proceed so I think one can reasonably say that to the extent one is supporting the hotel getting off the ground one supporting all of it but the thought process was that the highest score would place the highest competitiveness would be to look at this economic development grant rather than a housing grant because it is the housing portion of this funding that is the most competitive because it has the most the highest number of projects that are in need available and for some background I don't know when we looked at this last but there was this project O'Brien Center and some elder care project and we had ranked them and the O'Brien Center one met more of our goals as a community which is why we chose to get behind that one in the first place so I'm not sure I'm not sure when it's appropriate for me to say a few things about the application that's fine just to be clear a couple of things one Madam Mayor you're correct this is not the first time we've raised it obviously this has been part of the thinking about the process for some time you're allowed to ask we're up to a million dollars in support of projects in general and the city received a half a million dollar allocation early in the process in support of the garage and it was always sort of the working contemplation at least in my view that as the project developing got closer to being ready to move forward there might be additional funds that are sought it's not in my professional experience working around the state it's not unusual for us to seek multiple applications for different parts of projects for example I'm in the process of seeking a second $500,000 grant in support of a single building renovation in Springfield that was awarded funds last year often times because things are so complicated there's a desire on the part of the state to not see a lot of million dollar applications all at once so that the funds can be dispersed in a more reasonable way a couple things I want to make super clear one is that I wasn't aware that the the funds for the O'Brien Center were not awarded at the time that we made this request so we obviously still want to try to look at any opportunities in December but to the extent that it does change the calculus that O'Brien wasn't awarded this body made clear that that was your priority before and this wasn't intended to revisit or try to change that decision simply us saying okay we think it may be our turn can we have some indication from you that we're next in line behind them so that we can start thinking about this I think the best path forward at this point would be we weren't looking for a specific vote or decision at this point anyway just to discuss whether it was still the case that we were next in line cities can ask for more than one grant but not for more than a million dollars in any round so I don't know how much funding O'Brien will be seeking in the fall but it's not out of the question that the city could ask for both and if they're not in the same direct lane of request they may or may not be competitive so all we would ask is that we be allowed to continue the discussion so that we can make sure we're maximizing the opportunity to get this move forward we don't want to do anything that would jeopardize your commitment to O'Brien obviously thanks for that Bill Bill I always wanted to know this $500,000 grant if you were to get it is how much closer is that moving you all towards breaking ground to build well I think that I think it's safe to say that we're pursuing a number of avenues to get the project over to O'Brien they don't all have to come through but it would be a blow certainly to not pursue this because I think our likelihood of receiving it was high we check a lot of boxes and the types of jobs that will be created and the types of positions that would likely the ability of these jobs are manager in this case and currently employees folks from 21 different countries highly functionally committed to wanting to see these jobs you know stay in Muroski and support folks who live here so I think all of those things would resonate well needs and goals of this program which are to support low and moderate jobs so I think it's a strong application so I always want to submit applications I think will be well received you know is it possible that we'll be able to find other avenues yes but this is certainly one of the top two or three things we were hoping to use to close some gaps in funding that you know sadly are a few million dollars more than they were a couple years ago and then another question this one may be more to you O'Brien both groups are to apply is what your belief is is that the hotel would get the funding and not the O'Brien Center well I haven't gotten any definitive information on that um it's possible the other way could also happen or if those right then maybe they would both be worse but unfortunately so that's something I was looking to right and just so I'm being clear I don't have any specific insight into how the board would make its decision I'm just saying that I'm not aware that there's a specific prohibition on number of applications as opposed to um as opposed to a dollar amount but there may be many practical reasons why you don't want to do that and you know obviously my point is that if I had known this information last week I would have met with Elaine and discussed it before it was here so you know perhaps best that we if it's the feeling of the room that you remain interested in having us be next in line after them then I think that's plenty of information for us to work with Elaine and staff to see what is possible and come back to you in some ways I think that sounds like a good approach see some head nods from council we had this on for discussion anyhow so yeah fair enough glad I was helpful though I have a different opinion I guess sure I'm a little frustrated here that our application for Bryan Center was not considered thorough enough to be awarded so it feels like a lost opportunity in my opinion whereas if we had put forth two applications then one of them might have been awarded so part of me feels like why don't we put two forward and let the board decide or the committee decide which they see is most viable rather than losing another opportunity you know there's no assurances we'll get the money at all but I don't know to me more shots on gold the more likely it is for you to get a gold rather than just taking one shot so that's just my difference of opinion and that's why I ask that question about if they both submit I do wonder if we submit for what like I said if we submit for one that doesn't get it what the other one possibly can see if they grant and I think an argument can be made a case could be made that they with increased workforce opportunities we need increased housing and increased services and I think the projects could be complementary to each other in a way I don't know that I think that case but it's just again for discussion that's fair I think staff can have that discussion and chat with Bill and the team about it like I said this isn't on here for a vote tonight it's not actually warm for for a vote I guess I just want to maximize the opportunity to get some money duly noted let's move on to item E for discussion approval the aerial fire truck award I think we've done introductions chief Palmer fire marshal I'm not sure I just wanted to make sure that we've done those introductions so appreciate him coming tonight so as outlined in the memo this has been a multi-year kind of process for us this is certainly one of the biggest processes that any department or community will should take it's a big purchase it's big planning as outlined in the memo I feel that we've done our due diligence internally and with external vendors by having internal staff meetings having several demo trucks here in the city setting them up going to Massachusetts for 16 hour day traveling really trying to absorb what's out there and putting out the RFP we targeted three vendors who we spent time with obviously SUPFIN has been here in this community for 30 years very well you know E1 and then Pierce and also directly sent it to Toine through a contact and then posted it through the city's process and procedures on the bid on the bid board Angela would know that name I don't because I don't post those right we did receive two bids back we did not outline that we're not sure why Pierce didn't bid it they do have equipment here in the area in other communities that are close to us with Essex and South Burlington again we spent time with them so we were a bit disappointed that we didn't see a bid from them at the end of the day that's out of our control we got two bids two proposals we met the minimum qualifications and it really came down to you know how we can best plan for the future address our height's need I'm going from 70 feet to 100 and the five points that I listed in the memo as far as the community needs the department needs serviceability and cost obviously so they're pretty close in cost it really came down to the functionality of the truck and that's why the recommendation is to move forward with E1 how we move forward is hopefully get approval to award the contract drafts the contract get it signed and then there will be and I believe Angel is on but future and Elaine future conversations about we don't pay for this until we get it so there will be an opportunity to talk about prepayment there will be those opportunities for you all to have as far as what's what the best avenue for the city is there I guess I'll stop there welcome questions thank you Chi some questions so was this as I was reading through the memo it sounded like bid request was directly sent to companies that you're familiar with that build the technology that build the truck and equipment is that right so we sent it directly to companies yes that we're familiar with obviously we're all suffering here so we've never had E1 here we've never had Pierce so again working with other departments and spending time with those vendors to understand their equipment so it wasn't put out for public bid it was it was posted to the public bid registry the Vermont public bid registry and posted to our website on our bid page okay that was a point of clarification that I wanted okay that's helpful thank you um I I had just other questions I had were as we look at centralizing some of our response services in the region just curious how this purchase might play into that or if there's any anticipation of what that contribution look like if there's any shared funding I guess so I think there's a couple questions there you know certainly um we have the city has and I certainly have the central regional thought process in mind as you know that doesn't come easy emergency services are very territorial if you will I believe a purchase like this positions Manuski better to have those conversations by not just having a very specific like just a ladder truck this is a very multifaceted piece of equipment I mean we refer to it as first do it can respond to any fire call first do and I believe that positions this community very well to have those conversations in the future um and then thinking about I think it was mentioned here about having sufficient staff trained to run the equipment how many how many of your team are needed to operate the truck so through the whole design process I guess to tell you how we operate today is you know it's very truck specific if you will meaning an engine company and a ladder company and we wanted to make sure when I say multifaceted piece of equipment you know instead of needing four or five or six people to get those two pieces of apparatus on the road two to three minimum we would like more obviously but three people can operate this piece of equipment and respond to as initial responders on a regular basis on this truck does it fit it absolutely fits we spent that's you laughing me we looked at a truck that we were very interested in that stuff and mix but it was 12 foot 8 so that's almost a foot taller than our firehouse so I didn't feel that and it happens and I didn't want to be that fire chief that orders a truck that won't fit in his firehouse so you know we are very confident in the size of this truck we know it will fit in the firehouse when it arrives so I don't know if it was in the memo a warranty is that included or is that an add-on yes all the major players have standard warranties on this truck there's 20 year warranties on the frame and the components major components each vendor offers different in the chassis comes engines it's like buying your car the drivetrain has said the engine has said the aerial device will have said warranty so they're similar but they are different in what they offer and again the 20 year minimum the frame and aerial device on this truck 165,000 miles in that range and the truck we just sold that was here for 25 years had 41,000 miles on it so I think we'll be looking at the 20 year warranty pieces so is that sorry is that included in the price it will come standard with the package with the purchase you just mentioned you sold one and then there's a separate trade in here so we were a three truck set so again staffing we were the 1995 pumper that was up for replacement we sold to Marlboro Vermont and I mentioned that because they upgraded 30 years by buying our 25 year old trucks so they're pretty happy we're pretty happy as serving another Vermont community and then upon delivery of this truck the aerial device would be it's a trade in so within 30 days of us getting the new truck getting trained on it our current apparatus would leave I don't have to worry the community doesn't have to worry about trying to resell it I really wanted it to be they're not easy to sell I'm glad there's that overlap there so to be clear we're now a two truck set that's correct and we will now moving forward we'll be a two truck set we're glad to see that your needs were met by the low bidder and you can get service much more closely than the previous situation yes any questions from others I'm assuming I just want to ask E1 is going to come and provide all the training for you and your team yes they'll come and provide three days of training for all set is there given the territorial tendencies of emergency services is there is it worthwhile to open that up to neighboring municipalities to cross train so certainly locally we'll cross train currently with St. Mike's and others and for us like Burlington their whole fleet is E1 so if this is awarded to E1 the interoperability it's not like we're going to drive their trucks they're not going to drive our trucks but how we operate on the scenes set ups are similar that sort of thing so the interoperability piece is that of how the trucks function because they do function a little differently in 18 foot jack spread compared to 11 and just understanding the manufacturers okay so I have a motion to approve the aerial fire truck bid award to E1 second motion by Jim second by Bryn please say aye motion carries thank you if I could I would like to publicly state it is a family owned business again they've served this community for 30 years very strongly and dingy machine company in New Hampshire it's been a very difficult decision for us to understand the process took us to another vendor we still have a supplement engine here for this community and our full intention is to continue to you know foster that relationship with something and just want to show that appreciation for that family thank you onto item F updated Cova's business recovery grant guidelines that's going to be me so the city council had approved in January the use of about $100,000 of the American Rescue Plan Act funding to be used for business recovery efforts and on May 2 you reviewed three applications and awarded $20,000 the discussion at that time was to come back with a slightly revised set of guidelines based on some feedback that we received from downtown Winooski and local businesses to go out for a second round of grant awards so the revised guidelines were included in your packet we have streamlined the purpose section to remove some duplicative language that's found later in the document we have included an exemption for businesses that are ineligible for the economic recovery bridge program through the state that was some feedback that we've received from downtown Winooski under ineligible activities we actually had this guideline reviewed by the Vermont persons of color business network and they recommended the removal of a previous ineligible activity that was other activities as agreed upon later they believed that there was concerns that that could be used in a biased manner meaning we would allow something for one vendor but not for another the evaluation criteria was edited to be more specific and specifically call out items that we had access to there were references to percentages that we didn't have and there was information for a profit and loss statement that not all businesses are able to generate and we added criteria that allows for self-certification and already owned businesses and LGBTQIA plus businesses and gives credit for self-certification in addition to those certified businesses through an independent association the other main adjustments were around the application criteria itself previously the list was pretty extensive included about six or seven items it has been added to two items as most of the requested items are on the application itself so rather than overwhelming applicants with this giant list of things it's already inclusive it's on the application form that they need to fill out also at the recommendation of the Vermont persons of color business network we have removed the requirement for profit and loss statement many businesses that are just starting out don't have the capacity to create one of those and all of the information that we need that would be found on that statement can come from their tax documents that they're also going to submit the proposed time frame in the revised guidelines would allow us to start accepting applications upon your approval of these guidelines through July 24th so approximately a one month application window this would also appoint the finance commission as your evaluation committee to bring back recommendations to council and that was at your request from the previous meeting and I'll just clarify for anyone who isn't familiar the Vermont professionals of color network is several functions but one of them is to serve small and medium sized and micro bypass owned businesses in Vermont thank you for the thorough update Angela to my recollection I believe you have covered everything we raised before and it has been addressed in here but counselors is there anything that is missing for you just one thing on the application you can only indicate whether you're certified or not like that application form doesn't appear to have a radio for cell certification I wasn't sure if that would update once we update these guidelines that is correct I'm going to work with Paul tomorrow perfect thank you I had well would you like to go first I just had a couple clarifying questions one of the things that I know we talked about and I just want to make sure I don't know if it could be highlighted in some way is the exceptions for businesses not eligible for the bridge program I don't know there's just like a way to bold it or something so this will not be the public version of these guidelines at the recommendation of Vermont professionals of color we are going to be putting forward facing public guidelines that are at a sixth grade reading level and so are much shorter and much more straightforward okay awesome that sounds great the next question I had was about the evaluation criteria the second to last I know one of the things that came up with the last or issue that downtown Manuski had was not having I don't know the data capacity to make some of the judgments so I was just wondering so it says we currently underrepresented or lacking businesses in the city and I assume we have that data we do have that data we have an economic development report that was generated which includes the list of businesses that are desired in the community perfect and and finance commission will have access to that awesome my next question I think those were the main things that I had I think the one other thing that I highlighted in a couple areas was just I know the confidentiality seemed to be a concern as well so the let's see so they will be the applications themselves will only really be shown to the members of the finance commission only redacted applications will be shown to members of the finance commission only myself and the city manager would have access to the full application we do have the full application submitted to people at a minimum to make sure that you can't have somebody just fall up application and throw it away that somebody is aware that an application has been received awesome and then when that comes to council are we getting just a report on the finance commission so we aren't gonna see those we will have the same redacted applications that the finance commission will have received and staff will have full data if you have more specific questions okay and will that be part of public record or are we going to do that in an executive session if you want more information we would do that in an executive session but the redacted applications don't contain any identifying information so those would be included in the public packet thank you thank you Angela I have I think in the similar section that Arora mentioned, section 2B that last sentence just reads I guess I'm feeling comfortable with the will be there and would prefer maybe but maybe it's just the way it reads. Exemptions for businesses not eligible for the bridge program will be granted and I just I don't know I feel like maybe will fits better I disagree because if we're saying will be is saying if you're not eligible for that program and you provide to us why then you're exempted from being required to have applied for it I feel like maybe is making it open to our judgment that's got to be good enough reason like if the bridge program said you're ineligible and you can show us that then you're maybe I can articulate why I'm reading it the way I'm reading it so to me the way it reads is like not a focus on eligibility it's a focus on like yes you will be approved regardless of what the bridge program decides you will be approved for grant funding that's how I'm reading it I see the if statement that follows that is clearly qualifying like that's the condition you have to meet to obtain that to me it seems clear and defensible that if someone challenged our application of that it would be pretty easy to say that that guideline was being followed yeah to me it wasn't it was less on eligibility it was more on like does this by saying will be does that presume or does that more or less indicate that we will go ahead and grant that application regardless of other qualifying that's just an exemption from that eligibility requirement but I'm just telling you the way I think it seems to me clear that we're saying you can give an exemption if the reason for ineligibility is provided if this isn't the final wording then that's something that Angela can keep in mind when if you think it would be clearer if I clean that up but the intent of that sentence is not that you would be receiving the grant it's the exemption would be granted not that you would get the grant yeah that's fine fine the only one that's fine I can accept it well I I'd say that if one of five it's possible others so we can make it clear in the public facing for sure section four B I didn't see anything around the timing of when reports would be due it is in the grant agreement that they signed with us and it is within a one year period and it is actually under section D the possible to repeat that timing in section B or at least in the application just ensure that that's clear I can add that right to that first sentence businesses will be required to document grant funds were spent on the purpose designated in their application within 12 months of order okay thank you um I and then Angel you might have mentioned this already was there any advice around like if the money isn't spent or it isn't spent within our guidelines how we would recover those funds if need be worst case scenario so we have such broad eligibility and use of funds criteria I doubt that we'll have that issue because commercial lease payments are an eligible use that everybody has elected so even if they are unable to complete other projects just paying their rent is an eligible use of these funds if we needed to pursue receiving the funds back that would definitely need to involve attorneys because of the grant agreement that they had when we gave them the funding okay I come up from previous work and contingency planning so that's why I ask the question thank you that's it any other questions alright I assume somebody who wants to make a motion to approve these updated guidelines second motion by Thomas second by Brynn all those in favor please say aye motion carries wait did you say aye everyone say aye thank you we are on to item G this is on for approval bank signatory updates this is also me and this is pretty straight forward the signatories for the city of Winooski bank accounts have historically been the city treasurer the assistant treasurer and the city manager now that we have a new city manager we hope to stay here a very long time we would like to add her as a signatory to our bank accounts I hope to so we currently have bank accounts at TD bank people's united bank and opportunities credit union they have various means to have signatories added to their accounts both people's and TD require approval of resolutions which were included in your packet and opportunities credit union just requires a copy of the city council minutes to make the change to our account we would be retaining the city clerk and assistant treasurer Jenny Willingham and our current treasurer Alexander Anastasi Hill as signatories at this time in addition to adding a landing any questions or concerns would someone like to make a motion to approve the bank to signatory updates motion by Thomas second by Bryn all those in favor please say aye motion carries thank you up next item H the FY23 ESSER contract update welcome Ray and guest thank you yeah I'm single single parenting tonight so I have an assistant with me but yeah excited to bring this forward to you all again for another year of funding through the school district's ESSER dollars our amount then was allocated last year but in line with what our actuals ended up being for this year and what we expect as actual revenue that we can pull in realistically within the next 12 months so yeah happy to answer any questions one thing I did want to specify is that the appendix that's included is likely subject to change that sort of our initial estimate of what programs we'd like to run but that's something we're going to work on as a staff and certainly with some feedback from the school about which programs they think are you know working well for their kiddos and certainly any things they're hearing or seeing that they'd like to see added to the mix so I fully expect that list of programs will adjust a bit but it's a pretty good framework I think for more or less what you'll see from us through ESSER over the next 12 months awesome any questions concerns from council no but I wanted to definitely shout out since the diversity the amazing diversity of different programs being offered and it looks like a bunch of the library and a bunch of the pools so just kind of want to give a shout out to that because that's really exciting to see yeah thank you for that great do I have a motion to approve the FY23 ESSER contract second motion by Jim second by Thomas all those in favor please say aye aye thank you onto item I the goal update for a safe healthy connected people I think I'm not going to see John in the back of the room but I assume he's still there as well but he and Rick and I put this together and yeah I think by and large like these usually do I think it more or less speaks for itself but happy to answer any questions you all have about any specific items on there but overall I think a pretty good final report for this fiscal year you know I think overall feeling pretty solid about the outcome thank you Ray and I know there's some highlights on here for new information questions from council I'll just say that I appreciated the update I think the way that you sort of tracked into providing this is a really helpful way to scamper changes and understand our progress in those schools so I just I want to say like like silence is just it's really useful so thank you for taking the time to put it together yeah no problem yes I did not feel surprised by any information on here which is always good I don't know this probably doesn't completely apply but I was just wondering if you know we can recruit some of those St. Mike's kids are the folks from St. Mike's that are helping out do they want full-time jobs which one is that for with the of the fire emergency I noticed the note about still looking for more staff it sounds like yeah so just to clarify a little bit we have our own part-time on-call staff you know it is a challenge to recruit in one square mile to fulfill that role so we've always worked close with St. Mike's and we are working even closer with them you know they are responding pretty much 24-7 here into the city you know to supplement you know our the community needs so we can do it safely and they are critical role in what we do so we have recruited them you know their board their organization is very committed to Winnowski and they're also very committed to the town of Colchester so therein lies some future discussions and work that needs to be done of how they are able to help both communities and again I can't say enough they are a critical part of what happens here daytime we can do it by virtue of having full-time staff here but the 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. is our challenge and they are able to help fill that void thank you for that contact hearing new concerns or additional questions we will move on thank you Ray and Chief Odie item J this is on for approval Board and Commission re-appointments with Elaine introducing with Eric we've got several of these will not have quorum without re-appointments which is why you're seeing them as re-appointments even though we still have open calls out so those would be housing, finance safe, healthy and connected people planning and zoning and derby and then we do have just the chair for an municipal infrastructure they would have quorum without that but it's just the one and he's willing so put that in there for your consideration you have questions about the memos and who we have in there I haven't gotten an update from the ones that have not indicated in the memo or not shown as expressing willingness to be re-appointed so we did get updates over the weekend on housing so all three of the commissioners Jessica and Leslie also that they were willing to continue serving I will say we make these appointments in two-year terms typically they're not like lifelong appointments right we ask people if they're willing to continue serving and then we do typically re-appoint them if we had a huge pool of candidates and these folks terms weren't expiring next week like I would want to do more diligence on evaluating who we are appointing but in lack of that I think keeping these folks who are already engaged and willing and informed we should do this any questions or concerns is there any since DRB is probably one of the more essential elements because of permitting and quorum needs are we needing to do some more aggressive recruitment to ensure we have alternatives for that yes and I mean the challenges we just started outreach recently like we've been behind on many things so would someone like to make a motion to approve this slate of re-appointments second motion by Thomas second by Bryn all those in favor please say aye motion carries thank you this is an update on prioritization of ARPA and TIF funds right so obviously this is a high priority for the city we have these unusual one-time funds from ARPA which is about 1.9 million and I don't know if I want to be public but somewhere around 390,000 from TIF after ongoing expenses are taken into account estimated yes thank you this is not taking into account conversations and let's say informal commitments made on especially the TIF money but including the equity director position but so that's the those funds are not officially spoken for so clearly we need to be spending this one-time money strategically so I'm updating you all on a draft plan looking for your input on this on this skeleton so the plan on how to determine how to use these unusual funds it's really basically straightforward so staff and council are completing or continuing getting public input there will be language interpreted listening sessions this summer Paul I don't know if you have an update on those our first confirmed one is next Saturday interpreter availability has been part of the challenge we have one other one committed that I'm aware of Paul do you have any others just the two commitments for now so we're looking at a Arabic and possibly Pashto on Saturday the 25th and then potentially July 2nd July 2nd July 2nd you said yes so then staff will be analyzing that data between the summer and early fall council would select initial investments for a portion of the funding in the fall staff would then build initial investments and continued outreach expenses into the FY 24 budget in the fall and then again these are all recommendations so then the recommendation would be that council would implement your public engagement strategy which is next in your agenda to identify further investments and that would be in spring 2023 and beyond does this sound like enough of a plan do you have input on it what comments do you have what's just not captured in this larger this is so high level right is the I don't there's some part of here where you have like staff analyze data and then council select initial investments there's some part there about us reviewing there's the survey data about ARPA but then the current state of TIF and commitments and the projections on that because that is ongoing fund like it shouldn't be treated like a one-time investment and that tie in with our FY 24 budget and future debt obligations like we know we're going to have to pay for this fire truck we know we have main street payments coming up so there's some like bigger picture of being able to see all of those commitments and I think you kind of described that as just not captured in the five points okay is it almost the TIF really comes into play here more down in steps four and five yeah I mean I think that's when we're we're just making decisions but like I think it's going to take more than one agenda item for us to get to that can I ask about kind of the steps actually there's kind of a lot that happens between step two and three in terms of ideation right like what are the investments that we could select from when you say select initial investments are you envisioning that we're giving guidance on general areas we want focus on and staff come up with like programs associated dollar amounts to respond to that general like I want you to focus on housing I want you to focus on business support whatever comes out of those like I said some questions like is investment like specific like levels of expenditure for certain actions or outcomes are we looking more like addressing certain issues is that question make sense yes and I haven't looked at the data so that's why it's so broad because I can imagine that there could be potentially one idea in there where all of us are in agreement staff and council that we should absolutely spend on this the example that I mean this would be tiff not ARPA but like the equity director that's an example where that's not a programmatic outcome it's just we need to be funding that so I wouldn't it's possible it could be either of those things because I think that's the question in looking at the for me and looking at the data is like okay so I see that these are things that our community is prioritizing feels are really big important pain points challenges but that's not a an idea to address them it's just a pain point or challenge and how do we get that I how do we select an idea to address that right so part of what I'm considering with the data analysis is qualitative data analysis which means that we would be looking for themes and if there's examples and specific ideas and that staff is supportive of them we would pull those out but I'm anticipating it will be we'd be pulling out themes from that so you have both to look at and so I think the question is one we we as council generating ideas and actual investments with dollar figures to make not necessarily but like identify an actual investment like new things to do or is that because I've looked at the survey data kind of that qualitative like picking out themes how many have been mentioned housing how new financial recovery and if we're just given a list of problems how do we select investments like to me it's like select areas to focus on so I think that if we're going to select investments there's going to need to be like this interim step of like here are the problems and here are some investments you could do to address those which of those investments do you want to do and it sounds like we would be trying to do that at step 3 not the problem selection at step 3 because it could be like do you want to expand funding to the housing trust fund that's an ongoing solution for housing or do you want to create a new temporary grant subsidy for ADUs because that's another way to address short term needs and so like how do we have that discussion right as opposed to housing supply is a problem we want to focus on housing supply bring us back investments yeah that is my question I feel like my question is yeah I think essentially proposed programs are proposed avenues to address the overarching problems is what I'm hearing like at what point to do are those proposed programs for life another word where does that come in yeah that's clear enough so the reason why I said initial investments is because I'm anticipating some of it will be there some of the ideas are already you've already discussed at the commission level or you've heard about or staff have talked about it but we're not claiming that we are going to have all the answers based on what we know so far and the survey results so pick some initial thing programs that we can work on but then if there's a lot still like yes housing is a problem we don't know what to do then you know we'll have that housing position that needs to be working on policy options to allocate more of that money as we go forward if that's helpful it's going to be potentially an interim step of like these are our top three problems or whatever we want to spend the most in this area you know we allocated $100,000 to support small businesses already it can be a direction of like do we want to do more of that or do we want to put half of this into housing in a quarter here I don't know I do feel like your strategy retreat was for that so if you feel like moving from that then we could discuss a different process but I feel like the priorities came out of that I think the priorities did but we're not going to fund every priority right like that's what the voting was for and I do in my mind I think these are different pools of money where I would not think about TIFF as ongoing operational funding and the ARPA money while we can do whatever we want with it as a one-time investment into something and so for me I don't know they're treated different and yeah I gather I treated the priority setting as what are we going to do within the budget that we've already proposed and had voters passed so it's kind of set on that budget we weren't we just set a budget and set priorities based on those additional funds I mean ideally we would have we just couldn't because of the timing I think when we were talking about this a year ago the idea is by the next budget the next priority session will know how we're going to spend our ARPA and TIFF money we'll be able to make these kind of strategic like short-term, medium-term and then long-term solutions like plans for how to spend that whether it's property tax buy down or whether it's investment in the infrastructure that we don't have to raise taxes for I think there's all sorts of ways that we could like yeah do these like long-term structure operational changes but then also one-off investments in the ARPA and we didn't have full information from these listening sessions to inform that priority setting like I think there are a good list of priorities but I would want to be able to look at that fresh because I see all this money is not going to really be spent in this budget cycle it's not going to be spent during this 22-23 priorities window okay yeah is that a process then my selection for priorities for work plan were not inclusive of the one-time funds because I wonder also are there short-term investments that staff would recommend like hey we know this state program is available this year in response to ARPA we think it's a good idea or like for matching funds yeah like things that wouldn't have been on our radar yet or that are only temporary okay super process then and I do want to kind of remind her I want to be reminded of everything that I thought we could commit to money to in the last few years of being on council because I know we've had like nice charts of debt service and when TIF starts phasing in and when that service from tax increases start phasing out so I think it'll be helpful to be reminded of those that we can choose to do to proceed however we want but it's also good to remember maybe when we make commitments and not commitments but like he said informal commitments it's debt that's coming up that has to be paid no matter what and we modeled it and accepted it on the idea that we can pay with TIF funds in the end and not that everybody would jump on this idea but it could warrant a retreat just to have some dedicated time to review the data have some focus discussion and I don't know like stand up and walk around and write on boards and I don't know just I'm I think we need more than just a council meeting and consecutive council meetings for me I think it would be beneficial but yeah I think we will need a dedicated session where we just talk about the individual fund we could fit that into one council meeting I mean if there's nothing else we could I think one thing that I can I definitely feel with this with how I mean has phrased the third part is thinking about Taku of I don't want us to get into a place where we're standing in a way in a way that's almost creating harm because we're so like wrapped in a circle if there are things like the line saying like the equity director position where it's like we need this we all know we need this we have reports like the equity reports saying we need this I want to make sure that we have room for that because I do think it is really important that we take the time and think about how we use these funds and we're taking into account all the different sources that were getting us but I also do want to want to be cognizant of some kind of urgent things that feels like we need to act on sooner rather than later I mean that's the crux of the issue with the budget discussion yeah I mean all the staff roles can happen at that time like that role is funded for now for this fiscal year but if there is longer term stuff that we want to talk about we want to hang up the budget process conversation because of that yeah or if there is an urgent I mean staff brought these covid business recovery grants to us as an urgent need to address outside of this process and so if there is another urgent address or urgent issue to address that could be dealt with one off as well is that clear enough feedback for you is there? yeah so I heard you'd like well you need something between two and three which is essentially another meeting to discuss how to select those initial investments whether they be programmatic or thematic yeah yeah and then as things develop can figure out what that looks like, what the timing is right and leading up to or having available at that meeting is having a visual of all the existing informal commitments or ideas and I'm not sure if someone's captured those from council I would bet that Angelo knows where we have I think it's been in a council packet too in the past where it listed everything that we've already said we would send yes and I also have an ongoing list so I can help with this too and this also kind of aligns with what finance commission is looking at like they were asking to see at their next meeting the future debt service and like made certain stuff so some of that will already be put together anything else on item K? okay so let's move on to item L the city council engagement procedure so this is just on for discussion tonight not approval Jim and I worked on essentially we looked or we looked back at processes council has used in the past to do community engagement and you know and where we've been successful like with charter change committee the charter change committee's outreach and ongoing engagement through liaisons or the program at the housing authority buildings and kind of formalized in an outline here what that could look like in service of creating regular ongoing listening and engagement and access to counselors and then a targeted approach like when we're specifically trying to get feedback on a major initiative like ARPA funding for example this also lists kind of some of the barriers that we need to think about on an ongoing basis you know we've tried to address some of them here but something you have to keep looking at right and then modeled also what it could look like in practice with a list of groups we already know about so wanted to get feedback from you all today on this we need to actually reach out to these groups and see like do you want to you know does this approach make sense to you and then consider starting to implement this slowly starting in the fall in the full six month example model we're hosting three events a month but we're not going to be able to do that right away we'd build our way up to something like that the goal is really like we have had successful engagement strategies in the past and then they've fallen off and so can we put something on paper that we can hold ourselves to also that as future folks come up here they don't have to start from scratch anything you would add I think that captures it well so it is a bit to digest I want to lose space for questions and additional ideas go ahead over you said already I was thinking a little bit more about the identifying other barriers to access one thing I was thinking about is choose if we can choose places that are accessible to public transit and also thinking about time so there is no bus in Winiski on Sundays so that might limit where people are able to go to make things easily accessible and then I was also thinking kind of about more ADA accessibility making sure spaces are physically accessible as well as making sure materials are accessible so one thing I noticed is we have scans of PDFs and that's not accessible a screen reader cannot access a PDF of a picture or a scan it needs to be a document where you can check by highlighting so a screen reader could actually pick up the words on it like that of making sure materials are accessible not just in languages but also in being able to read them those are two things that a couple things that came up one other thing was thinking too and I guess this is less of a specific barrier but thinking about the intersectionality and overlap of different communities like when we talk about seniors we have seniors all our communities so making sure that those kind of things are considered and how are we making sure we reach people who are in multiple overlapping communities and not let them slip through the cracks because they can't access those yes I think one question I have is I think we all know that things don't always work for people after the work hours people are tuned to their kids and have other stuff to do is there availability for staff or for us to be able to do these more on the weekend I feel like not everybody, obviously some people work on the weekend but I feel like that's where you would be able to get the most engagement with these types of events but I don't know if that would stress staff too much I before you have to commit to anything one, when I think about the ongoing accessing existing groups and asking to meet them I think we would ask them what they want what works for them and then try to work around that and I think for initiative folks and that effort is a this isn't for staff this is for us to own and lead for ongoing engagement I think we can invite staff they are welcome to come I think for initiative engagement that would have staff focus included we have seen them commit to weekend things before I think when we consider initiative focus engagement and how heavily we want to go in my mind we have like two initiatives a year that require this level of outreach we can't be constantly going into the community focus on this focus on this just to set a stage this is what the frequency I think is we are talking about to that too speaking from the experience of having done these in the WHA buildings with like four or five of the language groups at the school all of those were done without staff presence and some of them were done on the weekend some were done in the after school hours some were done during the work day and they were pretty well attended some was pre-COVID some was during COVID so I think that there is I think we can do this type of work and it is productive and appreciated by communities that we have gone out to even when it is just city councillors but I think this is a commitment for us this is what we want to progress this is us doing this I think that is important to remember we are the ones that are going to develop the talking points what are we talking about this month we are going to report back to each other and the community about what we hear and I think that is a significant amount of effort on our part I don't want to sugarcoat that it takes a lot of work but I think a lot of the time that you and I spent building these sessions was working with trying to figure out how to do it where do we hold it, how do we get interpretation we have this formalized and we have a structure of working I think that that gets easier so I think I feel optimistic that we actually know this works or has worked in the past I think it could work again I also should I think it says it in here I don't know if it does but the intent would be to ideally have two council members for every event to one avoid a quorum or two to have more than one voice there and building those connections so it is spreading the load of potential night's weekends or day 10 commitments across people I think we have very new schedule availability and that was going to lead to a question of basically accounting for the inability for a councilor to make it for any variety of reasons you know, sick vacation whatever so like in any event that happens how backup would be managed so having two councilors would help address that yeah, yeah, that's it cancel or reschedule yeah, so at least one can be there I think this is kind of analogous to our commission commitments to where if one of us can't make our scheduled commission time we ask it's a hey I can't go can you liaise for me at this meeting that has worked for me I have a question about community events and just in terms of making a quorum are those able to be announced as the potential of a quorum being there because I feel like for things like Juneteenth there were three of us there and I definitely think it was very beneficial but for multiple people to be there I know that as we darted around different people asked us questions for a charity stage coming up I don't know who's planning on going but again there's a possibility for a quorum I don't think we a quorum doesn't matter if we don't discuss city business or decision-making like I don't think it matters at community events when we speak as small and we're likely to but we shouldn't the three of us any three of us shouldn't be like talking to a resident and then like saying well we should probably do this or you know it's avoiding that like decision-making debate right it's inevitable that you will be discussing city business but as long as not three of you are together at the same time discussing it it will be okay I'm not sure that the public fully understands that so like I just think of one particular resident who spoke to me at Juneteenth she did know that there were other councillors that were there and kind of wanted to speak to all of us about the issue they were near me so I said I'd let them know that I had spoken to her but I think like when somebody asks something like that well for one like making it clear I don't speak on behalf of the council like the decision would be made by the full council I can make that decision whatever but if that resident was like trying to organize the three of you it would be fine to listen to them I think just somebody would need to say you know we're happy to hear this but we can't talk to you about we can't have a discussion about how to proceed we can listen but not discuss yeah I can bring it back to the full council for consideration or to city staff depending on what it is because it's a little bit challenging so for a question I am skimming this so some details might be in here that I'm missing so with the proposed rotation schedule is that accounting for the initiative focus events or is that separate this is so it's separate like this is ongoing if we happen to be meeting with a group while we're doing initiative outreach it could be combined or there could be separate targeted outreach I think it just kind of depends how things pan out sure for the initiative focus engagement portion of it is it possible to set up like a web form or a request online request form that we could like inviting something where it's like open, rolling, recurring ideally like a fillable form so it's not hand-writing but the option for both of course but just thinking of look another way to receive requests so I think the idea was to capture that with the community surveys like anytime we would be doing an initiative we could have a survey that has virtual and on paper access on an ongoing basis though the public comment form is always available on the website it's not really the same thing because you're yeah and I'm realizing that the way I was reading this is not the way you intended it so when you said initiative focus you mean like that's really one thing and I was thinking like as another way I was thinking as like ongoing availability so for ongoing we could leverage the contact form that's on the website it's putting that out there email, here's the different channels to reach us and I tried to outline the existing methods that we maintain for engaging with residents and I may not capture I don't think that the the public comment form isn't included there so that might be something to add I can add that in like if anybody wanted to invite us to their blog party one thing I wonder just more about some more maybe informal gatherings senior center coffee hour like maybe a coffee hour not associated with a group because when I look at the rotation I kind of look at the section on their opportunities in city for engagement like I think of a group that I don't see represented tell me every group that you can think of well no I don't mean it that way I'm just saying like 20 to 30 something year olds aren't represented in any of these groups they want to meet like one of their city counselors well I mean this is actually specifically a section that I wanted to ask you all for input is like what are other like these are groups we have connected with in the past what are places where we've missed so far that we should add to this basketball groups in my age range well no I mean like your city counselors gonna be at four quarters this like evening or something like that I don't know if we can partner with businesses like that but you know if we're gonna go to the senior center that's where seniors are people my age are not at the senior center generally except when I'm going to be there doing my coffee hour next month well you know that's another thing that I don't think is captured here that has been drawn around before but never formally adopted is like should there be every Friday afternoon which is probably the worst time I can pick a member of council will have open office hours in city hall or in a public area that's not something I've included here if that's something that you all would be interested in committing to we could think about what that might look like as well I would be open to something like that one thing I wonder about and I've heard this come up in different context too is trying to figure out how this quite fits but almost beyond the political part of just people seeing us as people too like I'm showing yeah and I again not a fully formed thought but like how do we kind of have that and I feel like when it's like coffee hours might be like a less feel like a less formless place because I think you know thinking of us as entities of civic engagement versus your fellow neighbors in Winooski kind of like if you're where they are as opposed to them coming to city hall to have like first half an office hour so I definitely think like there's a really active bike ped group on Wednesdays I have not had the ability to attend which has been very frustrating because I would love to join that group but I think honestly as maybe when we get the agenda planner we could also get a reminder of what person rec events like the frequency when they meet when they happen so like I think Thursdays is like the pickleball instruction day just a reminder of like what days things happen when they happen where they meet time frame is that along the city website calendar? we can do drop-ins I mean it's on the rec calendar but it does take a little assembly I think so I can look at what's already available and if it's not then what if we in this document embedded how to identify those community activities like which calendars because I think there's the library calendar and the rec calendar and so we can have those links like actually here and again just thinking about how to make this incumbent on us as counselors to maintain that we could like we know where to go oh yeah are there any events coming up this week I want to be social and not political just be like be a person playing pickleball and you can go find out where those opportunities are and give them week almost like are there like this is all about trying to get out where people are like to tell them things but also just to get out where people are to be with them Christina I could just make a quick just make a quick pitch here too really for the website I'm just going to share my screen a little quickly so if you're on the city's website of course if you're looking for rec opportunities you can go to bbt.gov.com and that embedded calendar will be on the rec page it's loading slowly because my Wi-Fi is terrible same thing for library and then yeah so these act kind of like the front page calendar we have for publicly known meetings it's a widget it opens up and then if you like on the home page specifically for community services if you're looking for all of those kind of family friendly events there's the community services calendar button right here and so all of the community services programs except for the senior center feed into this one calendar so if you're looking for a day with less things going on in community services or more things you can click on that too Thanks Paul one one other add to the list is the school calendar was that a hand raise do any of you play basketball more late apparently the lot behind the Bryan center is quite active with teens so drop in there I don't know how that would go but you can write it I break my shoulder again again sometimes add one other Christine if you know where this is at with the school just out of the school board I know I did yes yes okay so I share this with the board chair as well they we wanted to talk about be more collaborative and we know when we're on the community or when we have event listing events we get asked for things that are in their purview residents don't need to care who does what and so I think I put this in here I'll double check though but as we organize events we would just extend an invitation to the school board as well so that they can send someone to attend alongside us and I did have a conversation with the board chair and she was pretty supportive of this strategy of this engagement strategy and I feel like she was wanting to get notified when this is on her agenda she wanted to come speak to it oh shoot but I think she thought this seemed like a great structure to set up for the city this inside the CS doing it and there's a way to strengthen that tie with the school would be great one group that we have already made a commitment to on roughly quarterly baseless is the Congolese community mm-hmm so I don't know if that was captured in this I want to make sure we remember that I don't think so I think that came together after I drafted this but I'll make sure they get out of I also want to reformat it so it's more user friendly I think you guys did a great job anything else it's all been very useful input so it was nice to have food with these events but I know that's a lot to ask for so I'm just going to just place it there and say it's nice to look at I think that could be possible for initiative events I think making that commitment for ongoing events that we organize on location would be challenging unless they would like to do that okay I'm going to update this with the input you all shared today and then bring it back I think then you need to do some outreach to you want to help me do some outreach to groups on this see if like WHA wants to engage and stuff sure thank you all for that discussion could I comment oh yeah yeah so to follow up on Thomas's question I've been contemplating a parallel staff effort which should probably coordinate so once we're ready for that I'll be in touch through Christine so I'm very excited to see you all embracing this this is what we need to do all of us alright we are on to item M our pride month resolution thank you many counselors for contributing here I don't know if we've done a resolution in the past I don't recall I'm kind of surprised but maybe we haven't I felt like I have to look back anyhow whether or not we did one last year which I kind of think we did yeah for the flag raising so June is pride month in Vermont right and we have this resolution recognizing that um it resolves that the mayor and city council of the city of Wenuski recognize June as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning intersex, asexual and more LGBTQIA plus pride month in the city of Wenuski to inspire equity, create alliances for diversity and establish safe environments in our schools and communities throughout the city to further resolve that the mayor and city council in the city of Wenuski fully supports the rights, freedoms and equal treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer questioning intersex and asexual people and to unequivocally show the support will continue to fly the pride flag in the Wenuski river are there any questions or comments on this resolution glad we're doing it here do I have a motion to approve the pride month resolution so moved motion by Aurora, second by Bryn all those in favor please say aye motion carries happy pride month could we have on the record the statistic about our council the gayest council in Wenuski, Vermont that is amazing it's very exciting for Wenuski well I haven't seen that documented in data from my statewide interactions I believe it to be true I believe it's correct the best council in Wenuski some people have said maybe the second gayest in the country but we're not sure we're very proud of it yes so I have this resolution has a no it's fine, okay I have another resolution here the World Refugee Day it was yesterday on June 20th this is a resolution we have done in the past as well resolving that the City of Wenuski declare support for welcoming refugees to our community regardless of their nationality place of origin, religion or race and the City of Wenuski does hereby proclaim June 20th as World Refugee Day as we stand united to commemorate the strength, courage and resilience of the millions of refugees around the world including refugees who have come to call Wenuski home alongside this resolution World Refugee is being celebrated by the U.S. Committee of Refugees in Immigration in an event at Oakledge Park in Burlington next Sunday the 26th from 10 to 4 I believe A2 VT or I don't know how local they are but they have a song about us we'll be playing there among others any questions, comments about this one I had a very great like swapping out two words you want to recommend it for next year I get this from the World Refugee Day but you can tell me what it is right now it's first page it's going to be up from the bottom might be easiest I was wondering about changing Sparks' curiosity to encourage learning let me know that for the future I should say this came from an organization initially but we've been redoing the same one in Wenuski so I'm sure it could be edited in the future okay do I have a motion to approve the World Refugee Day resolution second motion by Thomas, second by Jim all those in favor please say aye motion carries, thank you this brings us to the end of our regular agenda we have worn an executive session pursuant to Vermont State statute section 3131B in regards to labor relations agreements and our AFSCME employees I am looking for a motion to find that we should have this discussion in executive session per state statute that a public discussion would put us at a disadvantage second motion by Thomas, second by Aurora all those in favor please say aye and now I am seeking a motion to enter into executive session inviting city manager Elaine Wong anyone else no second motion by Jim, second by Bryn all those in favor please say aye motion carries so we're going to enter into executive session only to discuss the labor relations agreement we will not discuss any other topics of business we will come out of executive session so we'll be to adjourn the meeting on it