 meeting of Tuesday, August 17th, 2021. And we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. And why don't we have our newest member lead us, not youngest, maybe youngest too. Matt. 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. Moving on to item two, the agenda review. Are there any additions, deletions or changes in the order of agenda items? Seeing none. Item three, comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda. Is there anyone who wishes to make a comment? About on the home, I can't, the lights make that really hard. Nancy, right. Okay. And there's a second person too. Okay, so Abigail, I'm sorry, the screen is slanted, so I can't see it very well. So Abigail, please give us your name and, you know, where you live and then your comments. My name is Abigail Berkowitz. I am 19. I'm from Chicago area, but I go to school in Vermont. I am a rising sophomore at the University of Vermont and Honors College, studying environmental science with a concentration in conservation biology and biodiversity in a minor in wildlife biology. Well, welcome. What is your comment? So, first of all, I want to thank you all for the opportunity to speak tonight. I am wanting to speak a little bit about climate action and the following steps to for South Burlington. So, did you know that 30% of the English language is verbs? Well, 70% of the Potawatomi language is verbs. This is largely due to the grammar of animacy. And I know it sounds like I'm about to give you a grammar lesson, but I promise that this is all related to climate action. I'm going to share a very simplified version of what the grammar of animacy is, but I highly encourage you all to read Learning the Grammar of Animacy by Robin Wall Kimmer to get a deeper understanding. So essentially, in most Indigenous languages, the same grammar used to address people is also used to address anything in the living world. So that includes plants and animals and waterways and rocks, anything that's considered part of the living world. In English, you either are a human or a thing. And Robin Wall Kimmer says that our grammar boxes us in the choice of reducing a non-human being to an it, or if it must be gendered, a he or a she inappropriately. So how does this all relate to climate action? The way that we use language places a barrier between us and nature. The way that we speak subconsciously places nature outside of our circle of concern. Itting nature exonerates us of our responsibility to protect nature and allows us to exploit resources without shame. That's what I see happening now and I fear that we won't be able to stop it. So how can we fix that? I'm not asking you to change the way you speak the English language. What I'm asking is for you to remember that we have a responsibility to take care of our planet and use our resources wisely. If we keep consuming the world's resources at current rates, we won't have anything for future generations. If we keep paving over forested land and polluting waterways and the atmosphere, we won't have enough carbon sinks to keep the world from exceeding the two degrees Celsius global warming limit. I encourage you all to think about the future while making decisions that will directly and indirectly impact the environment because we have the power to create a healthier and more sustainable future. It can all start here in South Burlington. Thank you very much. It's Rebecca, right? Abigail, excuse me. Thank you. Do we have someone else who wants to speak? Nancy, right? Okay, Nancy, you have the floor. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I'm the pastor of Ascension Lutheran Church in South Burlington on Allen Road and I'm speaking on behalf of the city caring for the environment, caring for the web of life, caring for natural space and working on climate change. And as we know, people of all faiths are taught to respect the environment and in the Christian tradition, there are several stories in the Jewish tradition as well of Genesis, God creating all everything and the calling it good. And then in a story, the ancient myth of Adam and Eve where they were asked to care for the garden. And for the first time with that, we have seen in our lifetimes the view of our precious and fragile planet Earth from space. It is a garden. But the time that we are in the epic we are in is now been called the Anthropocene, the epic of humans because the fate of a large percentage of species of plants and animals in there, whether they go extinct or not depends on human beings. And this is made even clear with awareness of climate change that we all know that we are hearing from the major scientists of the world that we have 10 years to radically stem our use of fossil fuels in order to avoid climate catastrophe affecting humans and the entire web of life. So we people of faith who are involved in in these great issues see humanity at a crossroads of moral reckoning for the entire human race. The question is what are our deepest values as human beings? Are we able to grow in maturity and compassion and wisdom and knowledge in order to benefit us on the web of life? Or as the previous speaker just spoke about, are we focused on short term grains with the growth of economic metrics such as growth, national product is the only reference that we use seeing land and ecosystems and other creatures only for maximum profit. Do we need to relearn that a prosperous economy depends on clean air and water on healthy food and on healthy people? And further, as we know psychologists have noted that humans are happier when they have access to natural surroundings. Further that children now suffer many children now suffer from a nature deficit disorder. Spoken about in Richard Love's book The Last Child in the Woods. We are now living in a generation where we might be called autistic in relation to all previous generations, autistic in relation to knowledge, care and insight into the glories of nature around us. Were South Burlington declare that a healthy natural environment is essential for our health and well-being by protecting open spaces and working to stem climate change? The Central Lutheran Church and also 50 faith congregations in which I am connected through Vermont interfaith power and light would be very grateful. To conclude at Ascension Lutheran Church, we are blessed with woods, a forest, a mixed forest. We created walking trails and a labyrinth under beautiful white lines. We also that's kitty cat Anna. We also took four years with ropes and pulleys and with students from UVM to pull out the trash that had been dumped in Bartlett Ripp from the farm, you know, many years previously up on Spear Street and we planted seedlings along the Brook. And now people from the neighborhood come and walk folks from Pillsbury Manor across the way come and they're visiting their relatives or the residents there walk across even though it's fairly tricky and I'm really glad that the sidewalk is going in now along Allen Road and then we hope actually for a crosswalk there to protect people coming across to the Woods. So the people who are walking in the Woods now express gratitude to us for being able to walk in peace under majestic white pines, which is a natural cathedral. So please help us and either other faith communities to protect God's creation to protect the garden in which we all live. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Nancy. Is there anyone else who wishes to make a statement? Marriott is unmuted. Who is Loretta Marriott Loretta. Did you want to make a comment? Your mic is unmuted. So if you would like to Loretta, you can either start speaking or turn your video on. If not, we'll move on. Announcements in the city managers report. So Tom, do you have any announcements? I'll just say one. I was attending the Sobu night out this past Thursday. Great event as always and multiple residents came up to me and after those really hot days that we all were suffering through and they asked me why we don't have a pool and I just want to speak for those residents and say that I think the council and that's part of the discussion that we're going to have tonight with the rec center. Just know that the pool is something that has come up multiple times and it is on our minds. So we've not committed to anything, but I just want you to know that there are a lot of self-related residents that would love a place to take a dip and I'm going to reflect some of that commentary tonight during the rec center discussion. Okay, thank you. Megan, any announcements? Just that we had a successful joint meeting with the planning commission on August 3rd. There is a recording Matt and I would conforte it to you unless someone has already, but I thought that the minutes pick it up pretty well. So I wanted to thank the note taker and I think that it was really informative. All of the speakers brought very diverse perspectives. You did an excellent job then. So right because I thought you caught. I thought you really did. Couldn't hear the people who were remote. I could hear perfectly the people who were there live you couldn't hear. Yeah, it was it was difficult. Well, we're learning our way around the new acoustics and you know, mics and so forth in the in the community center. So but thank you. I too attended that meeting. It was great. Matt, do you have anything? I just wanted to report that I just as many others have participated in the BCA appeals of the reassessments and I continue to be impressed with the volunteers that come forward, the justice of the peace, the members of the BCA and all the others that volunteer their time, their nights, their weekends for this very difficult task. So I just want to acknowledge that. Tim, I also attended that joint meeting that Megan referred to. I did not go to the sobo nights out for the last two weeks because I've been so busy attending BCA meetings. But I missed the one before that. So when you folks were there and yeah, I also led a team of two others and myself to do house visits on Saturday, excuse me, Sunday afternoon and everything went very smoothly and I'm glad that we've had two meetings under our belt so far with the appellants and the process is speeding up because we're figuring how it goes. And so we're able to get more people through like we did almost a six last week instead of the three we did the Thursday before that. So it's going to get I think we've got the ball rolling now. Chris is doing a great Chris Shaw is doing a great job as chair. So and I think that the process is is going to be fair for everybody. Great. Okay. And I did one BC and also made a visit a home visit, which I find actually challenging because it's very difficult for me to sort of go into a house that's compared to other houses and I haven't seen those other houses. So it's a little hard but we're doing what we are trying to do or tasks to do and I think it will be a useful and helpful process and successful and if I may we're also doing it under using safety protocols because of the Delta variant. So I would you know we're very mindful of that all the volunteers that are doing the house visits as well. And I want to give a call out to our city clerk because she's helped organize it and it's no small task kind of hurting the cats of the BCA to what times and days of the week and on the month that people are available to do this because it is time consuming and it's it's really important work. So all right. Our city manager your report. Thank you. So a couple of updates to share with you tonight one. We continue to encourage masking of staff in the public in city buildings. Thank you all for being masked tonight here in the room with us. We appreciate it. Over the last two week period we are tracking the data very closely our COVID cases in South Burlington have risen 5.6 percent. We have 36 neighbors test positive for COVID in the last two weeks. So certainly continue to take those safety protocols where masking you can and encourage your loved ones to get vaccinated and we will continue to track the data closely along with the CDC and state guidance. It was asked that I give a quick update on the Dorsett Street Recreation Path. So just by way of update to the community on July 2nd we submitted our preliminary designs are 60 percent designs to V Trans in early August. They provided their required feedback to us. We are now incorporating that feedback into the final plans and right of way set. We will then enter right of way this fall depending on how long that right of way process takes getting both the construction easements and potentially a few permanent easements. It could take between 6 and 12 months depending on how long that takes will either be bidding and under construction next year or bidding next summer for construction in 2023. So we will continue to keep you posted on that. We want to thank the South Burlington delegation the representatives and a few of the senators who joined Andrew and myself for about an hour and a half last week for a great briefing shared meeting setting expectations for moving forward. They gave a lot of their time to us and we really appreciate that. We do have a city attorney who has accepted our offer. We are very excited about that person and we anticipate bringing them to you for approval on September 7th. We also anticipate making the announcement early next week out of respect for that person giving the appropriate notice to employers and clients. We don't approve. I think that's your choice. Right. So it is a hiring choice under me but because that the city attorney can provide staff direction directly to council outside of me. You receive an approved and it's also a charter appointed position. Thank you. It came so we're very excited and we will be making that announcement early next week. We anticipate that they will be starting mid September. Oh great. It had come to our attention that we did not do the reappointments of the sextons during our annual appointment process. So we will be doing that at our hopefully our next meeting and if council has any feedback on interview process for that for those positions for the folks who are currently serving who are seeking reappointment. We would be happy to hear that. I was asking a question at the last meeting about the charging stations here at 180 Market Street. So for public information and to answer the question they are all now fully operational. They are right behind the building here. They are the first two hours are free and then it's a dollar per hour after that. With a charge point account with the charge point. The state has released their COVID-19 arrears assistance program the second round of that this is for folks who may be experiencing financial hardship to pay utility bills including water and wastewater bills. We have reviewed that comprehensively with our water service provider and we have 557 accounts that are past due. Only 87 of those accounts qualify for this arrearage program based on the time they've been in not paid. So we are sending out direct mailings to those 87 customers to ensure that they get the assistance they need if they need it. So notice to the public that they may be receiving that information and to you all if you have neighbors asking for that. Jesse is this is this just for renters the arrearage assistance program. No it is actually now both for renters and homeowners residential and commercial very broad and it's also utilities beyond just water and wastewater where that's the only one we administer obviously. And then finally just for the council we will because we have a big span now between this meeting and the next meeting because of holiday week we will be doing a special warrant on the 27th. So be prepared to see that in your email and we will need somebody to come in and sign off on that more to come on that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Tim. Can I ask one question you certainly may like that. You said V trans gets involved with that. Yeah. We have a V trans grant for that project. Oh it's a grant. Okay. Okay. So they through those grant obligations they review the. And does that in terms of the design. Does it it needs to be macadam right or paved. It can't be crushed stone and impervious. I don't know the answer to that. Someone has yes. Oh I'm sorry I asked it. Oh. Okay. Please speak into your mics. Okay. I think I remember hearing that but I don't know but I just think in light of some of the issues we're dealing with in terms of climate change and you know runoff and trying to mitigate some impervious surfaces. I just wonder if that's an area where we should really consider not having it paved and what the effective that is it may be financially kind of silly because you have to replace it too often but it also may have some environmental positive aspects. Okay. Moving on to the consent agenda. We have five items. Six. Is there one on the other side? Oh yeah. Okay. The disbursements. We have a resolution and certificate to accept the Vermont State revolving fund for the clean city clean water projects for stormwater improvements. Approve the Pune property lease approved settlement and agreement with Black Rock construction LLC and jam golf LLC approved the council rules of procedure. We talked about this last meeting and there were a couple specific changes and additionally review and resolve that there are no inquiries or comments to file with the applicant. Prior notice of an application for certificate of public good for installation of an approximate 500 kilowatt group net metered solar panel array at 600 Spear Street. We had heard that during a presentation for a development. A couple months ago. Yeah. I will move that we will approve but I would like to address item D and F separately. Okay. We can so you want to take those out. Okay. So D and F. We will remove from the consent agenda. So for our first vote, it's I'd like a motion to approve A, B, C, E and F. Right. Just E, A, B, C and E. A, B, C, O and F. And okay. Second. Okay. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Do you have a question? Oh, you had a question on one. I'm sorry. I guess we should. Was that pulled out? Thank you, Megan. No, it wasn't. Okay. Well, then ask your question. But it's just it's really a simple question. Yes. We're paying two dollars. This is for the Poon Trust contract. We're paying two dollars for each spot per day, including weekends. Can those spots be used by those wishing to visit the library on Saturdays? Are there going to be a staff only sign on the on the property? Is there going to be a system where only staff and they have a card or a the decal? I'm just thinking of opportunities for people to visit the library on Saturday and utilize those spaces, which we're paying for. Sure. Yeah, that policy has not been fully drafted out yet. So absolutely can be something a conversation. That's that's like a reasonable request and a good one for live for the library or events. Even, you know, in the evening when the employees aren't aren't working. Yeah. Okay. So just let us know what you come up with would be helpful so we can broadcast that. I don't think we need to approve it necessarily, but I think we'd like to know. So did we vote on this? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. So all in favor of A, B, C, and E. Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. That passes five zero. So let's go to the first one pulled out the settlement agreement with BlackRock Construction. And we have Amanda Lafferty here. So why don't you come up to the mic in case the question is something that you should answer or have the answer to. Thank you. Yes, the question I wanted Amanda to answer was that the city agrees to receive payment in lieu of plantings and I was not in favor of that. I wanted all of the trees to be replaced by BlackRock and really speak in close. So please the I'm trying to remember the analysis. I believe that the number of the caliper the inches caliper that they are planting replaces approximately I believe it was 34 percent. A little louder. I think people are straining in the back to hear you 30 approximately 34% of the trees that were removed and the analysis trying to remember was that of the number and trying to remember how many inches that this dollar amount would replace and I'm sorry. I don't remember that number. It was approximately. I think another 35% or so, but I can confirm that and so the city's understanding was that that that was the somewhat of the tradeoff was that the they would plant a certain number of trees and then pay a total of I believe it's approximately $13,000 to both basically however the city wants to parse it out in terms of reimbursing for staff time and or planting trees anywhere the city wants within the city. They are it's not required to be planted. Just on the golf course. So that that was our understanding was that the the numbers that we had put together that those were the that was an agreement that you know that was my recollection Megan that and one of the suggestions might was that potential this money could replace the emerald or the ash trees that we needed to cut down. So that was that that's what I recall. As our agreement. So I think this reflects that now whether we spend it on replacing the ash or not. I don't know, but we could we could plant trees elsewhere with that money is that we are not the purpose for this agreement in my mind was to underscore the the fact that we will not tolerate the cutting down of our trees and we will not tolerate the violation of of our regulations and I do not see that spelled clearly out in this agreement. I see a payment in lieu of plantings and that's not satisfactory to me. Okay. I I understand the sentiment and I and having been on the DRB at the time I agree that they should be planning these trees but given that the trees will be better in my estimation not on that property. So I think we should take the entire settlement amount money and spend it on trees outside of that rock that is where these these these homes are going to go. So that was my understanding of the settlement which is they should absolutely pay the fine the fee. We should absolutely not let them off the hook but that these trees are better off in other parts of the city of which they can't plant but we can as the city. Tom to clarify you are saying from your DRB perspective the trees are better elsewhere because this is all ledge. This is like all rock surface and that's not where trees thrive. I would rather see them pay this fine and not put more trees on their property but on other other properties that city owns where we can make sure that they thrive. That's my personal opinion. But don't we have to have them plant some trees? Yes, they have to plant 13 trees to make up for the they are planning some right but we're asking them to plant more but rather than them shove them all onto this rock we're asking them we're asking them to give us the money so we can plant them in a more responsible way outside of this little postage stamp of property. And I think the assessment is the fine that's going to pay for the trees is the punishment. I mean it may not be a big enough punishment in your mind and I would kind of agree with that but that was I think this does reflect our conversation and what I believed was the consensus of the council. I'm not sure we actually voted on it but but I think we kind of nodded and asked you to bring it back so but and so now is the time I guess to decide if this is truly what we intended because we still have an opportunity to change it correct or not. So are under the steps understanding of from the the last discussion of this was that the major terms and that's that the replacement of the trees with the specific trees that they identify in figure one of the settlement agreement and the amounts of the payment amounts as well as the you know the process for payment because it's not one lump sum. It's being paid out part of it is being paid out over time that those main terms were approved by the council but that the the understanding was that there would be additional items in the agreement and so the the council was our understanding had approved the main terms subject to putting it on a future consent agenda because you know this document is three and a half pages and so I appreciate the clarification I guess in the future I would I I am not in favor of the wording in lieu of plantings because to my mind we were just simply paying for the city services which is how this the phrase reads in lieu of additional plantings and in reimbursement of city expenses related to the notice of violation black record grease to pay to the city $13,000 and there is no indication that we are accepting those funds in order to replant trees and the spirit of our discussion was that we wanted it to be clear that no one is to cut down trees and I do not see that spirit and in the way this is worded I will not vote no just out of principle but I would like it to be noted really and the concern and if I if I may I am sorry for that misunderstanding there was some analysis provided which I unfortunately I don't have that but I I recall there was some analysis of what the amounts would basically what does that equate to in terms of trees that the city can plant in and I misspoke earlier those weren't to replace necessarily the trees that were removed on the jam golf site the long drive subdivision site they were to replace in anticipation of that the city would have to be removing a large number of trees due to the emerald ash were in the next three to four to five years and so that's that is the I guess the basis of this agreement. Okay, so now I'm I'm gonna vote no because I don't agree that that is the use of these funds and I understood that as an option that was just raised in the air but to have it spelled out so clearly for me now it's not required in the agreement if I remember correctly but I yeah I don't just mention that that Megan that was but I hear our city attorney you know stating that that was the use that it would be but it was an example of the use so right well yeah you may so I think what attorney Lafferty is saying is that's the logic by which we came to the number how we how the city decides to use those funds is outside of this legal agreement with this individual party. So I think your request is really to staff to come back to the council with either regular annual reporting of how these dollars have been used to increase the tree canopy in appropriate places throughout the city. So that's it. That's a city staff thing not necessarily a legal agreement between those two parties right. Chair. Yes, if I if I may just echo some of what I've heard Councilor Emery say we are one of tree city USA's and we love our trees and so what part of this is is to communicate to developers clearing brush it's really important to honor our regulations. So I echo your sentiment there. I think the agreement is suitable. I'm comfortable with it as is. I don't know if we have options to delay this and take it back some other time and we will open to ideas on how we can move forward on this. I think the way we move forward is is we stay very clearly to staff that we want the funds use this fine that BlackRock is paying for violating the agreement to be used to increase our tree canopy in South Burlington and areas where our city are burst teams that appropriate and not to use it for anything else. I totally agree Tim. So I've walked the property. There's still a lot of trees there were a few trees that were cut down in violation of the permits right this notice of violation and this agreement cements that and gives a fine to the developer okay and it gives us the flexibility with that money to do what we want which is plant trees elsewhere but the more important thing is there are two lessons that we've learned so far with this developer on this project one trees don't cut them down if you're not supposed to two don't chip ledge for three months right you know have a plan for not disturbing a whole neighborhood for a very long time during the summer time during the pandemic okay so I'm hoping that that those two lessons won't be repeated elsewhere in the city and that other developers understand that right and that we don't have any other situations on that project as well. So I support this agreement and I'll sign it okay any other comments. Thank you for the discussion okay. And just I'm sorry look up an email. Just to draw your attention to the confidential memo that I prepared for the council on for their meeting on July 19th 2021 that included the I'm trying to remember the three main terms for approval subject to the sorry the what the what the council ended up doing was saying subject to coming back to on a consent agenda. It's just not in black and white here on the document. No it was just a it was the that they shall plant 13 trees that the that what the final amount was and that the city at least implicitly would then not be able to proceed to court. Okay are you ready for the time. I don't know. Okay we have some comments from the peanut gallery. Yeah come up please Roseanne and then Michael. This is about that whole discussion which I think is superb when you cut a tree down you're talking about 50 years to grow a tree like that so it's not an it I mean as the one of the young woman spoke earlier but if the fine is not significant enough they'll just cut trees down and pay the the you know whatever the dollar value is so I don't know how many trees were involved here. I do know what a tree costs having just bought a bunch and plant them half of the cost is the planting of it and the maintaining of it so I don't know how how many cut down and how $13,000 was the appropriate fine if it's not onerous enough on the developer as we've seen over and over again they'll just pay they were out of it. Cutting a tree down is not like I don't know I don't know. I know something else that can be restored. You can't grow a tree you can't just replace a tree it takes decades and decades. So I would just say make the fine as as significant as possible to deter other developers from simply doing what they want to do and then paying the money which they which may be nothing to them. I agree. Michael did you want to comment or a question. One of my questions was already answered which is the amount of the fine of $13,000. Like I have walked this property and seen the trees that are cut down. That's about a foot and a half. What did you say? Is that what you're measuring? Maybe people can't see you. That's that kind of what do you call a caliper? But I thought that the the issue of which trees may be cut and which may may not were already specified in the court documents associated with this development. Right. That's why we know they violated that agreement. And that's what I wanted to know. Yes, then 30,000 is not enough. It's too late. I guess to change it. But that's my view you need you need to make it make it very difficult for people to reach those kinds of agreements and they are replacing some of the trees and they are to make sure that they maintain them and that they are on the permanent map. So that they cannot be removed in the future. So it's not just 13. That's just the one phrase that I needed to have us discuss. Okay. Are we ready to vote on this? I would make a motion that we approve the settlement agreement with BlackRock Construction LLC. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Are you ready for the vote? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. It passes, but we certainly. Um, I think I concur with maybe we were a little soft on the, um, the amount, but this is what we had discussed and agreed upon. So pardon me. So just developers out there next time we might be harder. So don't okay. Um, the next item that we pulled out was, um, F the certificate of public good for the, um, 500 kilowatt group net metered solar panel array at 600 Spear street. So the reason why I requested for this to be drawn out for discussion was because we had a discussion with Chief Stevens down Stevens on the 3rd of August and he talked about a project in Massachusetts where solar panels were lifted above the ground to the height where you could actually cultivate the ground beneath the solar panel. But that's a brown field, right? That's true. That's true. Thank you. The reason I agreed on pulling that was because I think Mr. von Turkiewicz came before us for an IZ application for that property. Yes. And in that discussion, they talked about putting solar panels on the industrial building to help, uh, you know, power, you know, the site for all of the residential buildings that they would have. So I guess my question is, um, and I don't know if we, I mean, have they pulled that application from, from planning and zoning? Is it still being considered for the residential? I mean, this is on the third of land that's closest to the interstate with the considered to be the brown field, right? So, uh, I was just curious whether that's out of play in terms of where they were going to build anyway. So they're going to have solar field and then residential and then the remaining homes. Does anybody know if, if that application is still pending with the DRB? Um, it was. The planning commission doesn't approve projects though. That's not a role of the planning commission. The solar field discussed, but no, but the, yeah. They liked the idea. They liked the idea. They approved of the project, but they weren't in the approval process. Physician. It was heard at the DRB. I don't remember what the decision was, whether it was continued or approved, but it was heard. If I could recklessly speculate, I would assume that they, they want to, they can do the solar field without the product, without the residential development, but they could run together. You know, I mean, the act two 48 process is no easy matter for the PFC. And I think it was connected and at least their thinking and planning was that, yes, they, they might be able to do solar panels on that big. It's like a big garage, I guess. But the, they anticipated that the solar energy or the energy drive from the array would go to offset the costs of the heating and the electricity for the buildings because it's a rental proposition. And so that was, you know, kind of making money on solar, as well as helping keep the, maybe the rents down or at least more profit from the rent. But I don't, I don't think that was determined that that's exactly what would happen. I'm ready for the vote. Are there any other comments or questions? Okay. All in favor of. The motion to. Okay. Yes. I'm sorry. A motion to approve. Is it E or F? F. I move to approve consent agenda item number F. Second. Ready? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Okay. That passes. Five. Oh, thank you very much. So moving on to item six. This is a report on the citywide reappraisal. Martha Lyons will be providing that our city assessor and tax collector and Andrew Balduk, our deputy city manager. Thank you, Amanda. Is it Balduk or Bullduk? Bullduk. Bullduk. Bullduk. Okay. Maybe I can remember it that way. I've said it so long incorrectly. It's hard to change. At my folks house, there's a bowl shaped like a duck. That's the easiest way to do it. Think of cold duck. Cold duck, yeah. Cold duck time. Wait, wait. We miss you. Okay. So I'm going to try and present this in the go-to meeting. Make it work from beginning. There you go. Okay. Well, tonight I would like to present just a recap of what happened with the reappraisal that we're still in the finishing phases of. Our first graph is historic values of the grand list and the growth over time from like 2015 to 2020. You see we're around about 1% most of the time and then from 2019 to 2020. We had a 1.4% increase. And I would just say the average of these numbers is about 1.1% which you'll see forecasted later in the and councilman chair. Yes, I'm sorry with the presenters like questions as we go or all at the end because I have a question on this slide. What do you prefer? I would say now is good time. Go ahead. So this is an important slide in my understanding in my time on this council is that these numbers really represent development, not necessarily increase from reassessments or reappraisals or adjustments when people do that is a small component of it, but these numbers really represent when new housing projects come in across the town. Is that a fair perspective to have on what driving this growth and new businesses as well. I mean, it's not just housing. This includes commercial as well. So it's the whole shooting match. Thank you. Yes, it's new construction that's added in plus anybody who got a permit to do something that changed their value. That's what those increases reflect and the reappraisals are when we really calibrate the value of those homes to the market, which are slowly adjusted with the CLA's as we go along. Correct. Okay. Thank you. So the last city wide reappraisal was completed in 2006. In 2017, the city accessory identified a low coefficient of dispersion for commercial properties, which he then put out an RFP for reappraisal services for that because the coefficient of dispersion will also affect the CLA, but our overall CLA was still good compared to what the state is looking for. There were zero proposals that came in in 2018 in response for a commercial only reappraisal. In 2019, our CLA dropped because that's when the real estate market started to take off again and then we hit the low threshold for the state, which was the 86.1 percent for a CLA, which triggered the total city wide reappraisal. Then they put out another RFP and Tyler technology was selected and I believe they were the only better for the city. Did my mic just go there we go for the city wide reappraisal and then in September of 2019, that's when they started doing the work on the reappraisal and then in June of 2021, that is when the change of appraisal notices were sent out for both residential and commercials ending that part of the city wide reappraisal. Martha, can you talk a little bit about how covid affected the process impacted the process? Yes. Originally, the for the city wide reappraisal, they were going to do internal and external inspections, but then once covid hit, no more. There were very many internal inspections done. So then it was all done based upon the external inspections. Good question. What was the cost of the Tyler contract and how did state funds help pay for that? Didn't it pay for all of it? Correct. Yeah, my understanding is we had about 400,000 set aside for this reappraisal when it would eventually come due and I believe Tyler technologies was well under that total figure. I don't have that up top of my head and the state gathers that money up how from like health sales. Is there a each year the state sends to each municipality based upon the number of parcels that you have money to maintain, excuse me, maintain the grand list and to also set aside for when a reappraisal needs to happen. Okay, so that's just general fund state general fund or is there some kind of assessment? I'm just curious. I actually don't know where the state gets the money. Tom can find out. I do have some questions on this slide. So I'm also asking these questions to benefit the constituents that have been talking to me and I think that $40 million at the top just I want to highlight that that's really per $100 of assessed value. Our total grand list in South Burlington is worth $4 billion. We're just we do everything based on $100 of value. The thing that I want to highlight are the down at the bottom your last two bullet posts pre appraisal and reappraisal. So that's the revenue neutral component. The question I'm going to come back to later in the open space discussion is we are the penny is applied to every $100 of value and that has not been downgraded at all. So that penny is really going to be now on $4 billion per $100 and when it used to be on $30 billion or $3 billion $3 billion $3 billion $4 billion to $3 billion $3 billion to $4 billion and the penny is not prorated. It's not inconsensitized. It's just a penny on every $100. Yes. On top of that 0.4350. All right. And I will say the per 100 is very confusing. Yep. And I think if you look down at the sixth bullet point there, that is a value that's to be raised. That's the the actual dollar figure. So that's $17 million of $4 billion. I'd also just comment on the second to last bullet point pre-appraisal FY 22 tax rate. That is with the approved budget. So under the old grand list, that is what the tax rate would have been with the 1% increase from the prior year. In the open space penny on top of that 55 cents. Right. Because that's yeah, that's a separate penny along with well, we already taken out the penny for pass. So I think this this slide means a lot more with the next slide with a comparison to the prior grand list and Martha if you want to talk a little bit about some of the changes. Sure. Some of the changes with the residential and condo parcels. We actually ended up with 34 new parcels from. FY 21 to FY 22 commercial. We ended up with 44 new parcels. And with unfortunately with COVID commercial properties took a beating because they were closed and had no income coming in as we are very well aware from the reduction or no local option tax. So we did see a reduction in what the commercial grand list values are because we which is this will be also in another slide out of the 713 commercial parcels 203 of them appealed to Tyler technologies and basically went from where the reappraisal was based upon. Here's what the land in the building is on the commercial side. They can use the income approach and so it made perfect sense for them because they took a beating that they use their income approach and that's what lowered down that grand list value. But we don't allow the income issue to apply to a homeowner correct yet covid could have eliminated all of their income but the value of the House still stays whatever it is. I'm just curious that because when you come out of covid the commercial property can all of a sudden recoup almost immediately because well and that's why the value is still there. Well going forward that will also be based upon the income approach. So as their income in their businesses and we come out of covid those changes will happen. They are not going to stay in this snapshot until we do another reappraisal because that's not fair across the board for everybody else. That's automatic the city will look at those numbers and will adjust yes. And if they don't submit income then they'll get a change of appraisal notice where it goes to here's what the land in the building is worth. Oh OK so that's in their interest to keep that if they so choose they may think what the value comes in on their building right. I guess it's their market value and they just go until it isn't and then I'll go back to let's just tax me on what the building and land is worth. OK. All right so that's always been their option. Yes as a commercial yes that's not something new for this year that has been going on since even before I started working for the city many many moons ago. OK so this slide is a comparison total value from pre and post reappraisal. As we all know the rest of the country realize how great of a place for Montes and there was a lot of people coming in and buying in Vermont which is still driving our real estate market and not just here in South Burlington but across our whole state. So our residential and condos did see a pretty significant increase compared to last year to this year and the total grand list as Andrew mentioned earlier we did see a 31 percent overall increase in our grand list as well as new new construct yes new construct and there will be more new construction coming online because this year there are quite a few as of April 1st because that's when the grand list is set. Construction hadn't started yet so there are still there's a lot of development is going on in the city so there will be more parcels coming on to next year's grand list to add more value than what we have now. Now it's an important point is that these numbers are based on a very specific snapshot in time. These were when we were sitting setting the tax rate. Martha had sort of the final notice of grievance results had been mailed out and she was able to calculate the tax rate based off what the grand list at that time and the grand list as we sit here right now is probably different than what it is. Yes it's different than what it was on July 23rd. So if we look at the grand list growth here 31 percent and you said generally on average 1% of that is just new development so is that applied here as well. Yes. So on that 1% I remember Kevin Dorn some time ago saying that really represents about 60 or so new units coming on about 7000 parcels and we see about 60 new units a year in South Burlington which is about 1% of the 7000 is that right. All right go back to a couple of slides ago. The total increase residential condo parcels old numbers 6982 the new numbers 7000 and commercial also went up I think you said that 48 number. But that's as of like April what's done in April in terms of some of the new building and some of the larger ones. One more question and I promise to be quiet after that. It's all right. So what I'm really trying to understand and help explain to the constituents reaching out to me as to do with the education funding formula that I think three people in the entire state truly understand my understanding is that only 400 the first $400,000 of a property is eligible for income sensitization and tell me if this is incorrect to your understanding but what partly why I'm hearing from residents that are seeing a tax increase even though their house only went up by 27% increase is because their house went from a below the 400,000 with the income sensitization to over the 400,000 and the dollar difference be over the 400,000 to 600 K or so is not income sensitized am I off base here can what can you tell me about how that $400,000 threshold factors into what people are seeing in their tax bills. I actually called the tax department today and spoke to somebody in taxpayer services who actually also went and talked to their supervisor and the explanation that I got is the state legislature enacted in 2018 that houses assessed at 500,000 or more. If there's a household income that is less than $90,000 the assessed value cap is 400,000 if the household income is more than $90,000 but less than the this year it's 138,500 and household income the assessed value cap is 225,000 okay and and that number is reflected on last year's income correct. Yes, the state is a year behind. So we just did our 2021 personal income taxes. So my state payment is based upon my household income from 2021 based upon my education tax from my 2020 2021 tax bill. So next year when they do it it'll be my 2021 income based upon my 2021 2022 tax bill education tax. Not a question but I want to make sure I understand what she just said. So what you what I think I heard you just say is those that were the 70% of property owners in South Burlington that receive some form of income sensitization because of the pre bait and the way we do education funding with the increase in their house property the state is not adjusting how much pre bait they're getting based on the reappraisal they are only getting what was assessed based on the previous value. So that too is why some people even though this is revenue neutral are seeing an increase in taxes because their pre bait is not proportionally keeping up with the new assessed value. Correct. All right. Thank you. That will catch up with them next year just like somebody who has new construction. They they they're a year behind now. I'm done. No more questions. I promise. Yeah, I'll hold you to that. Yeah. Asking good constituent questions that's part of how we make sure everyone has a full set of information. Keep asking the question. I think I'm up for another paper article. So I might write this up a little bit. Counselor corner. So this slide is a comparison of the share of the budget raised through residential and commercial properties in 2020. We can see the larger pie is part of those of us that live here and vote on the budgets. We're paying more than the non or than the commercial properties are and there was a little bit of a bigger shift with this year's budget and also not with the budget but with the assessed values because the residentials went up higher. The next slide I think is a better representation of how it the lion's share is broken up which is the homestead versus non homestead because non homestead properties are not just commercial properties. It's anybody who owns a condo and rents it out or anybody that owns a house and rents it out and it's not their primary residence. That's where the non homestead comes in. So you can see it's still it's about the same. There is a little bit of a shift after the reappraisal but it's not a seismic shift. Isn't it also the acreage over two acres is a non is tax to the non homestead rate if I own you own five acres and three acres is tax to the non homestead rate. Yeah, I think so. Well I'm trying to remember because I did I just looked at somebody's tax bill today where they have 10 acres and I know their homestead is based upon the house and two acres and then the house site is also I believe includes the rest of the acreage. I don't think it gets lopped into the two but I would have to look and get back to you on that rate because we have more than two acres but can I just another question occurred to me in terms of how businesses report their income and I'm curious if they have are required or whatever to report on any of the I don't know PPP money they got the ARPA or I don't even know what all the acronyms you know as as a support to keeping their businesses running and their employees paid. I think I do believe that was part of it. I will have to ask the gentleman that did the commercial side of the reappraisal. He is uploading to a Dropbox all of what he did so that I can look and see that because I do know there is still some value that goes with the building in the land. It's just not solely on somebody coming in and going. Oh look I didn't have any income because there are certain write offs and stuff that people can do. So I need to find out what the mix is on that. I'm just curious. I mean I think it was a wonderful program and businesses really needed it but it also sort of reflect some of their income if you will their earnings or not but the replacement of lost earnings. I just want to say the PPP is to pay people to not lay them off. I understand salaries. It does not pay for the business profits. I'm just sorry. Well but how do you we're paying the PPP to pay people so they're not collecting unemployment that they continue to retain their jobs and their health benefits and it's not income to a business. It's often confused and I'm sorry. Okay. Well then maybe I confused it. Thank you. Tim. So can you back up to the tax rate slide. I'm missing something because if the grand list went up how come the tax rates are oh okay wait there was another page before that that was so the tax rates are pretty close. That's not the appraisal number. So the previous slide is more relevant to the discussion. Yeah. So this is the comparison with the 2020 2021 grand list and so at that grand list value of three billion we have it at 30 million had the approved budget move forward and the tax rate was based on the prior grand list. That's what that that's what that the tax rate would have been. Okay. Yeah. So the so the difference so that the tax rate now is the point four three five. So a significant and then the CLA if it's close to a hundred then affects the yield and the formula for the education tax so that rate went down as well. So the overall was point one seven six for homestead I think for for the city right for residential yeah the total residential rate is one point seven five nine nine yeah something like that five nine nine three one four five nine two one this is a big summary slide yes. So here's the summary our grand list increased by 31% the average increase in residential property values was twenty seven point three one percent condos average increase with seventeen point six six percent the average residential home value is four hundred and thirty two thousand seven hundred and twenty the median residential home value is three hundred and eighty eight thousand eight hundred and then on the condo side it's two hundred and eighty nine thousand eight sixty five for the average and the median is two hundred and forty six thousand five hundred the average commercial value is two million thirty six thousand I can read four hundred eighty eight dollars and ninety one cents are the municipal tax rate decreased by twenty one point eight six percent which netted out to an average change for residential of sixteen point sixteen dollars and forty nine cents the property change for an average condo was fifty five dollars and fifty eight cents and for commercial it was five thousand eight hundred and twenty five dollars and thirty two cents yes Tom not a question but we're just talking municipal rate here you're not touching the end which is seventy five percent of people's tax bills correct this is municipal only do we think that the school board will use these numbers on their next fact sheet for the next school budget because the average house cost in the average condo cost will be higher so when they they say this you know property this education budget would you know cost in this much you know prefer average so I just pointing these out that they'll probably be showing up in their fact sheets in March really I'd really like to see the same presentation by the school board to see how the reappraisal has affected the ed funding in aggregate across our average I don't know if anybody knows if that's happening soon but I'm very intrigued to see that presentation well we could certainly include that on like a steering committee discussion because that would be helpful because it's all the same pocket that we picked Michael do you have a question oh I'm sorry would you finish the presentation and then we'll open up excuse me so to wrap up the residential and condo change of appraisal notices were mailed on June 4th which then put the grievance deadline for them at I was June 16th the commercial change of appraisal notices were mailed on June 16th and their deadline was June 30th to request and have an appeal or a hearing with Tyler technologies out of our 7,733 or whatever parcels it is that we have 494 residential condo people requested a hearing and 203 commercial grievances unfortunately there was a glitch internally with Tyler technology and they failed on its 100 grievances that people didn't get a result as of today I have heard from 95 people and there were two more that came in today to bring it up to 95 93 people I have already gotten the hearing notes and the results and they have been notified of what their result of that grievance was and they are still being afforded the chance to go to the BCA if they so choose if they do not agree with the result of their first grievance yes Matt. So just so I understand the numbers after attending the meeting last Thursday it was about 60 had received the notice and decided to go to the next stage which is the BCA is that correct is that about 60 I believe the numbers at 85 85 so the numbers at 85 now but that also includes the ones that were notified on the change of appraisal notices were mailed on July 16th or the result of sorry the result of grievance notices were mailed on July 16th just for those that had gotten a result from Tyler so there were 597 of those that went out. So so I guess my question is how much larger could that number grow given the the 95 that are out there we don't we don't you don't I mean you have to make a guesstimate but third well I do know part of that 85 that have already appealed to the BCA I believe less than 10 have come from that 93. So how big of that number is going to grow in terms of what the BCA needs to deal with in order to make sure that these appeals are heard. I would guess if you think of it just from a proportionality we had about 10% of parcels that were appealed to the in a notice of grievance and we're a little over that 10% number of the 700 that did appear approximately 700 that did grieve were at about 85 that have appealed to the BCA so we think about it in those terms. I don't it doesn't appear that there would be that many more going to the BCA from that 100 you just want to know how long they have to be doing this in January. I want to know to and also have to be done by December. And also after the notice of the result of grievance hearing is is received there's 14 days so there is an end date and so Martha's talk spoken with 95 that sort of the clock is running. The clock is actually run out on some of them so far I've sent out three groups of them. The second one I believe today may have been the second deadline and then the ones I just did this past weekend they have until August 30th. I so will you'll on August 30th you will have a firm number of them. Yes. Okay, got it. Thank you. Him. Were you working in the same office roughly in 2006 I was just the tax collector in 2006. I was sharing an office with the previous assessor at that time so yes this complaint or grievance rate is it higher this time than last time. I don't know the number from 2006. But it does. It seems to be less this time. Have you spoken to your your counterpart in Burlington because they also use Tyler and were they satisfied with Tyler's job and was the grievance rate similar there. Do you know they have had more people appeal there at I believe they're close to 20. They're at like 19 point something percent. I think that appeal that are going to their BCA. I don't know the numbers off the top of my head. Do you think the pandemic had a lot to do with the quality of this appraisal and the way it was it was done and the result and then the grievance rate at all. They couldn't go in the houses. True it couldn't. Yeah. But I mean I just get the sense that there are some numbers that just don't make any sense. You know in the BCA is ironing that out as they go along and the question is I mean I I don't know what their black box. I don't know how it works. So I don't know what you know actions they took to eliminate outliers in the in the final run. So I just and I don't have an exposure to this before from an internal process. So I don't know what an appraisal you know company like that goes through to try and assure a high quality for the output and with the least number of grievances because that's really what you want is everybody to say here's my new appraisal. Wow. I mean that that's fair because I know they just sold across the street and down you know blah blah blah and everything's up 100,000. Yeah. Instead of going everybody's pretty much yes but then one person goes are you kidding me. How did they get this number right and then they try to get the we're hearing yeah and they try to get the call with Tyler. Some people had trouble getting through you know and Tyler had problems with 100 grievance notices and just you know you want the process to be as friendly as possible to the customers which are the taxpayers and at the same time be as fair as possible so everybody can say yeah you know we're on the same neighborhood and we have differences and we agree with those differences and we're okay at the same time. We both attended the meeting to you know one and a half weeks ago and our city assessor looks at all of the properties that residents are grieving and she either confirms or adjust and I was I think that's an important point that we need to make people that it's not just it's just left to the void and to arbitrary you know response on the part of the BCA that our city assessor does do the first round when she receives those grievances I think that's an important point and I thank you for it. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you. Good enough. So we'll probably hear from you again when it's all over. So Michael, did you have a comment or a question? All right. 4 billion so Tom this is an important point because I think I know where Michael's coming from. I just want to put a pen in it because it's going to come back later in the discussion. Our grand list went from 3 billion to 4 billion and would Andrew try to not frame this as a question would you confirm that commercial properties pay the penny to our penny for parks our current penny for for parks commercial properties pay it just like residential they pay that penny as well. Yes, they do. Okay, well, thank you very much. It's clear we're a little bit. Oh, I'm sorry. Are there any questions from the people on zoom or go to meeting? Sorry. Okay. Sally how would you like to ask a question? You have the floor Sally. No, I can't tell if bsdg or co have questions because the thing covers it up anyway. Oh, you can. Okay. All right. Well, thank you very much. Clearly this is of great interest to the council as well as the public and moving on to number 7. Oh, I'm sorry. Sally or Karen writer. I would like Karen. I didn't understand the answer to the commercial property. I think the answer was that if they got any pp payment and protection money, it wasn't counted because it was employees salaries. So that means if we had a reappraisal and they were open, they wouldn't have counted the employees salaries as income. Martha responded that she thought she she thought they did, but that she was going to confirm. Well, employee employees salaries are not income. That's part of their expense out. So in previous reappraisals, that would have been the same deal. Right. They wouldn't have counted. I mean, they pay their employees out of their income. We're right. Arpa funds. Are we talking about city employees funds? No, Arpa. I mean, I was talking about the commercial people who received funds commercial properties. Trader Joe's. I mean, they get an income and they pay their employees with it. So I don't know. I want to know if in previous reappraisals, they wouldn't have counted the money that they paid their employees as part of the reappraisal rate or whatever. That didn't make sense to me. Why don't we find that out? I think we need to find that out. I think Matt was trying to clarify maybe a misstatement I had made in terms of the PPP or the ARP money as being income, but it's at some point, you know, you pay your employees out of your income. So and then what's left is profit. Right. The general confusion throughout the United States and particularly in Montpelier is that there are grants for businesses, right, that they can apply for. But the Paycheck Protection Act is not run through the state of Vermont. It's run through the federal government. And when the federal government and the state of Vermont said to businesses stop working, the Paycheck Protection Act allowed those businesses to continue to keep their employees gainfully employed with income with health insurance. That's it's different from a grant that is approved through ARPA or the state of Vermont in order to help a business that have been harmed by the pandemic. PPP is payments directly, money that flows directly to employees to keep them on the job and off the unemployment rolls. Because it's structured as debt that can be converted into a grant and when an organization takes out debt, that's not income that they taxed on. Although they don't have to pay back this debt, right? If they don't fire anybody or lay them off. Okay. I just was curious of how that played out in this because it's a good question. It seems like it's part of the concept that Karen agrees to. Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions? Karen, I think we'll both have to find out the answer and we'll and get back to you. Okay. Moving. Thank you very much, Martha. Okay. Number eight, approving the Charter to receive a recommendation on a policy priorities and strategies process and provide direction to staff. And this is from Jesse Baker. Yes. So in your council packet and linked online is a memo and a template from me recommending a policies, policy priorities and strategies planning process to take place between now and hopefully the end of October as we go into the budget cycle. So this is a process I've used before that I think has been useful in communities to make intentional clear decisions about the policy priorities of a community that's driven by the council and the implementation strategies that we will use to implement those policies that's done at the staff level. We both the council and staff share in the creation of that policy and the creation of that implementation and I think having a very intentional process by which we do that is useful across the board and then we do it regularly every year to ensure that we're staying on the same page. So what I recommend as the basis for this process is we use our two primary policy documents the budget that you approved for operations this year and our comprehensive plan and build out our priorities from there. This process is not meant at all to rehash policy positions. The council is taken it's really meant to collect those and ensure that we're accurately prioritizing them against one another and then we're on the same page about how we are implementing those policy priorities every year. So what the if this is process is approved by the council with the leadership team the department heads of the city would do is work with past policy positions the council is taken the objectives and outcomes outlined in the comprehensive plan the regulatory requirements we know are on the horizon and the feedback from our commission structure. We would develop what we see as the implementation strategies for what you've already approved as your policy priorities and bring that forward to you all for a retreat in October to go through that prioritization setting process. I think this is really important as there is almost an unlimited number of ways staff can implement the policies of the council so we want to be very intentional and very clear about how we are going about that. So on the last page of the memo I've outlined kind of a timeline that I recommend for again going to the committees and getting their feedback leadership teams work to bring all of these past decisions together and then when the council would hear about this again over the next couple of months. So I think I will stop there but for to say a huge thank you to the leadership team the city department heads who have spent some time with me thinking through how this process could best be tailored to the past work the city of South Burlington committees and councils have done and the annual work plans and make this a useful process and document for our community moving forward. Happy to answer any questions. Okay, I'll just start and say I like this process. I think it's very thoughtful and and structured and I think probably the first time around it is kind of challenging and seems like ooh this is a lot of work to put this on a spreadsheet and to get everything all lined up but I think going forward once you kind of figure out how to do it and what it means and how it drives decisions and and we receive the feedback from you about so this is how we have implemented the vision that you identified as the vision for the community. I think we'll find it very useful and I can see it as a wonderful tool for developing our CIP and just the workflow and the conversations about do we have enough staff to do everything that we want or too much or you know whatever. So other comments from the council. Some feedback I agree it looks like a really comprehensive. Yeah template in order for us to hammer out and I think you're really good at it already Jesse and saying this is what we need to do but it's nice to have it on the page too. Tom, I feel like I'm talking too much tonight. I had a lot of coffee today. I will say I love it. It's great. It really is codifying what we already do the one comment I had is really in the prioritization process and timeline that table grid which is great about the role of the council the role of the city manager and leadership team on the role of the city committee. I would put on the table for you to consider that really our committees are both doing this is how our resident committees can help. I might add to that this is how our resident committees can help inform and enact that vision because our committees do inform our vision. I think the council goes to the committees to hear from them we encourage them to pass resolutions and bring them up bike and pad and other ones economic development. So I see the role of our city committees at least historically to be more than just helping the vision but also informing the decision the vision. That was my only comment. Good addition. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's very accurate because we definitely have very active and dedicated residents on on our committees and they come up with lots of good ideas. So we need to hear them. I'm going to hear from the council first. So that's good. Suggest. That was in the original letter or memo. Well, well, Jesse's getting it up on the screen. Matt, you want to. Yeah, I just wanted to say to Jesse I'm a list person. So the strategy really speaks to me and thank you and echo what Thomas was saying. My comment was that this would also I would view be very extremely helpful for the staff that support all the volunteer committees so that they can plan ahead appropriately. Sometimes you're fixated on the issue before you and it's good to step back and see the the long game as well. So thank you. Tim, I think this is great work and in 2016 we produced a very wide Gantt chart. If you remember of long term in short term projects and priorities and we have a new city manager. So I think it's time for, you know, a policy change structure change and this is probably a good thing. So sounds good. So just a question I have and you saw the email exchange between Sukan Lee resident and myself who was hoping for a better outcome of a Senate bill. How do we know I know that you have your your working kind of planner that you send out to us, but how do we know, you know, we've seen the planning commissions work charts that are extensive and minute in detail. Is that the level of detail that we will see because Sue Conley's request of course is just one of many requests that we're working on. So how will that be presented to us? Is that similar to what the planning commission sees? So let me, Michael, I'm sorry. This is a really hard document to share because it's very detailed. So I would encourage people to go on the website and explore it from there. So this is how it would be shared in this template. My in my past experience. It's really shared in bullet points. So for example, I think what you're referring to is the exploration of a housing ordinance that may lead to a rental registry. So that's what would show up on your work plan. Those words and then of course there is a huge amount of work that goes behind all of that, but in terms of the prioritization and coming to shared understanding of is that a priority for you? And then how would staff go about implementing that in the next 12 months? You might you might get a bullet or two of, you know, we would propose an ordinance. We would work with the commission, blah, blah, blah, but it's really very short bullets. So it's trying not to be. It is overwhelming. So it's trying not to be to be as least overwhelming as possible. Okay. And would we need to come up with a policy policy statement or the vision? Do we need to come up with a vision statement for it? Nope. No. So the idea with this spreadsheet is that the policy areas, this is the again, the foundation that I'm working on is are already established in the comprehensive plan. That's the master policy document for the city already. So those policy areas are already set within those. There are related policy actions you've taken. So for example, within the clean, the green and clean policy action of the comp plan, you've also approved a climate change resolution. So that's listed there just so we remember what are the past positions you've taken. So that's all that would be in here for for that line of the council role and then this leadership team would fill in the blue part. So you would know what we are thinking about for implementation steps around that. I mean, for this particular one, you know most of those. So is a registered rental registry already on your list of bullet points or does the council need to now that it's been has not gone through the legislature, the government governor vetoed the bill. Do we need to somehow bring it back to the council level and come up with some kind of direction to provide to the administration? So per this proposed these proposed tasks, the leadership team would do the initial work to pull together the information we know of about what your policy priorities are and what the related implementation strategies are. And then at that retreat, we would essentially bring you a recommended set of policy priorities and strategies and then you could add to that. If you think something is missing from that list or you could say, you know, we don't want to do this this year. We'd rather add read rather prioritize this other thing. We'll keep that on the tickler list for next year. So you can add and subtract as you wish, but we will do the initial work to bring to you a comprehensive list of what we believe you have talked about. That's on staff to bring that forward to you. All right. And is that something that would happen annually? Is there a six months kind of review and adjust? Is there so the idea is that we would do this annually every May and June. The purpose of that is that it's once new counselors are elected to be adopted in time for then in the six months in the budget process. We kind of revisit it, make sure we're funding the right priorities and then it cycles back again in June. Are these the same thing? Continue back at the budget goes from there in a circle. It gets it does get much easier over time. The first time is definitely the hardest. So where does just we have so many active. I'm sorry. We have so many active committees who have been working on different items like the energy committee. For example, they probably have a list of I don't know 25 things that the city could focus on. How do how does that get translated into this for the city manager in the leadership team to kind of include it in or is that something? Yeah, where does it where does that come in? Because I think what Tom or and Matt we're saying is we should really use the committees to help us. But I think it's not just to help us. You know, get people to reduce their energy use or something, but it's I think it's sometimes to come up with ideas about so this is what the city could support as an activity. And then we can decide whether the committee does all the work or if we task the staff to do that. So I'm trying to understand how those different ideas that come kind of from different places get milled together in this. So so that's the work that staff would do with the committees in August and September this year. Okay. And hopefully that that I don't think it's going to easily flow up to considerations for you all. But I think that's this year's attempt to do that. And in future years, we may revisit how ebbs and flows over time. But yes, the idea is that we would start with the committees and the leadership team collect all of that feedback and then bring it to you all for prioritization. Okay, and hopefully some of the committee members may join us for this retreat and have this conversation. Okay, so when we look at the orange slice that says the role of the city committee, this is how our resident committees can help. So that's well, I guess that's inclusive. That can be we can help implement. We can help identify a program or and I think that was Tom suggestion of changing that question or that to be a little broader form and help. Okay. So if I just could chime in the way I see it functioning and I think this is a very useful discussion is that committees when they are enacting the vision and staff are supporting them, everything's moving fine. But every now and then if the committee starts to identify projects that are outside of the budget or outside of the available time resources, that's when usually they inform the vision and they speak out to their counselors and we that's where I love formal resolution rather than hearing from one member. But instead having the committee put pen to paper what they think the council should be doing and then enacting that by adjusting our vision. So that's how I think it functions and I think it works but always worth discussing. Okay. Did you want us? I mean you want you got some feedback is that sounds like the council's ready to try this with you. Great. Thank you. So with head nods, I will get started this leadership team and I will get started working on this and I will put this timeline on the council on the consent agenda for your approval at the next meeting just to be formal about it. And we will need to talk about dates for the end of October at some point. We can do that through right. We don't need to do that tonight but calendars do fill up quickly. So, okay, good. All right. Thank you. Any comments or thoughts? Okay. So let's move on to item 8. Approve the charter to create the climate action plan task force. Paul isn't going to be here, right? I believe Paul is here remotely. Oh, remotely. Okay. Hey folks, can you hear me? Yeah, I can. How's your little baby coming? He is doing great. He had his four month check up today, which is he's doing great, but that means he also got lots of shots and things. So with his mom working tonight, we thought it would be best to if Jesse was kind enough to let me do this remotely tonight. Wake up the baby. We want to see the baby right now. Can't just sit him up in one of those little rockers so we can see him. The planning commission got this. He looks like Paul. He looks like Paul. Just imagine Paul as a baby. Paul as a baby. Okay. All right. So I guess just by way of table setting this through your climate change resolution, you tasked us with convening this task force. Paul and I spent some time working on this charter. This is our recommendation of how you could convene this task force and you see the details in front of you. Paul, do you want to walk through those at a high level? Sure. So as Jesse said, the council already established that this was the approach that was broadly going to be taken. And so what you see here is a charter for a task force to implement this. And at the highest levels, we were looking to as was just part of your discussion in the last item, take advantage of the amazing expertise that exists within the community. And so to build a broad and diverse group, but one that could also be nimble and accomplish this very important work in a reasonable timeframe. So that's why it's proposed to be a smallest group of about seven, which is a great size for policymaking and to have representatives from all the committees that have a direct role in developing our climate and our climate work. The energy committee would have two members and all the others would have one, notably because the subject area is rooted ultimately in it's about climate change. The other part of this resolution that I think is I just wanted to highlight is that it is empowering this committee to make requests, make asks of the other city committees to help them with their work in accomplishing this. This really goes back to the conversation that we had last month about how important this is to be rooted throughout the community. And it also asks the various committees to reserve time as they're thinking about their work plan for the next year, year and a half to reserve time to be able to provide supporting information. You know, whether it's something very technical, say from the energy committee that might look at how to best present data, or maybe it's a question of having the economic development committee spend some time and looking through some of the statewide pathways and thinking about how do we engage the business community in a way that can help accomplish these goals. So really sort of taking advantage of the expertise that exists throughout our community. And I think that's my dime tour. I don't, Jesse, did you have anything you wanted to add to that? Two other quick points. You'll see we've set this up as a task specific task force. So the appointments are for the period of time it takes to develop the plan with a thinking that likely in the plan there is going to be some additional committee or tasking of committees that comes out of that plan. So this group is really meant to develop that plan and then we'll make further decisions in the future. It also is indicating that we, it will be co-supported by both a staff liaison and a council liaison really trying to keep that close policy connection to your body and that I think those were the other two points I want to highlight. And the timeframe, I know I think when you sent this out originally I gave you some feedback that I thought it would be nice to have a... So in the objective of this task force it is to recommend to the council within a year of the adoption of a climate action plan. Okay. Thank you. Which will dovetail nicely with the update, the next update of the comprehensive plan for the city which will need to be completed and adopted by early 2024 and there's nothing that stops us from doing it earlier than that. So this will feed directly into that work. Poor planning commission. No rest for the weary. Holy moly. Okay. Other comments or questions? We need to approve this, but... Well, I just, I mean, this is really great. And I just, I mean, I haven't been through this process before and I'm hoping that there are enough other examples out in the world of action plans for communities of a similar size and environmental makeup as South Burlington and that they could be used as the groundwork but then I'd like to see the special sauce added on top that is South Burlington, right? Which would be really nice. So that being said, I hope it doesn't take a year. Right. You know, it doesn't take a year. I mean, if there's enough out there for beginning structure and then we decorate the bones, right, then it shouldn't take a year, I hope. Okay. You're here. Michael. Well, I think we're asking the committees will recommend members and then we'll appoint them. So I guess at the next affordable housing committee, we, if we, I'm assuming we'll pass this, they will identify a member and so forth and then we'll determine which counselor would like to be the liaison. Do we have a timeline for that? It's asking the committees with choosing a member. So tomorrow at our leadership team meeting, I will have each staff liaison put this on their next agenda. It takes a month to get through all committee. So it would likely come back to you on, hopefully September 20th for a final appointment. Okay. So we should also consider who on the council has the time and interest as well. So we can get appointed the same time we appoint these guys. Okay. Roseanne. What Tim said. I mean, one way to do nothing is to do another study group. We have studied this to death. We're at Code Red and to have something on this, it's great, great initiative, but to say we expect something back in a year when we can be doing things right now. So push them more. This is, you know, if you really want to do something, it has to be a shorter timeframe, you know, to say, well, when we do the complaint in 2024, we'll, you know, they say we only have 10 years. So I just encourage you to make this sort of a sense of urgency to get it done. The state is going to be done with theirs in the next two months. So to have ours say, well, a year from now or so, come back with ideas. You're just pushing this down the road and not doing anything. It's the adoption of the plan and within a year. Yeah, but you, we know what to do now. I just don't think you need to study it for another year. I just, I don't, I don't see it as a study group. I see it as an action planning group. Well, your plan, you're going to come up with something in a year to, I assume, then maybe implement after you discuss it. Then maybe it would be vetted that this is what we are going to implement. I mean, we're running out of time. I'm just, I appreciate your passion about that. And I agree with you. We need to get it going. And so we will. So I, if there's, oh, yes, Donna. Is there anyone at home? Well, that would be nice for everyone at home to. Yeah, just regarding the timeline, I've, I've spent the last six months following the Vermont climate council and the work of them. And so the timing is kind of crucial because the reporting and the reporting of the climate council is due in final by December of this year and there will be some legislation required to be enacted. But I think the Vermont climate council is going to have some important program initiatives that do require some state action to implement. And some of that is going to inform what this climate action plan can do within the resources that are available at the state level. And so I think the timeline probably isn't, isn't, isn't bad because it will take some time for the state legislature. And I think that's where a lot of pressure has to be applied, you know, to the state legislators because there's an awful lot of things that have been recommended for a long, long time. And the legislature has done nothing about any of those and then some of those have gotten vetoed by the governor and all of that has, has really set us back a lot. I think if we just kind of keep keep an eye on what the Vermont climate council is doing and what the legislature is doing and try to at the local level because I think a lot of the action is going to have to happen at the local level to make sure that we're in, you know, that we've kind of got people primed in our businesses and our residents primed to know what to do because really the final actions are local. Sure, really? Yes. I would share the elevated concern from Roseanne. If the city had been doing nothing, but I feel pretty good that we've been making a lot of good important strides. And so I really appreciate Donna's comments there. And I think this timeline is sensible and I think it fits well with when the climate council's recommendations are going to come out and when the legislature needs to act next spring. So good work, Paul. I think this looks great. All right. Any, are there any other comments from people online? Not seeing any. Then I'd entertain a motion to approve the charter to create the action climate action plan task force. Oh, moved. Second. Is there any further discussion? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. So the motion carries five. Oh, thank you. And thank you, Paul. Now go take care of your little baby boy. Thank you, we're really excited to get started with this. Number nine, receive a report on a proposed recreation center at Veterans Park and provide guidance to staff. So Alana's going to do this and she's going to be also assisted. Oh, okay. Well, that's good. Good evening for the record. Alana Blanchard, Community Development Director. Alana, you're going to have to get it. Yeah. With the mask and your low voice. It's a it's a deadly combo here. And this is my worst mask for this. It's like the tightest weave. So I apologize and I will just shout into it closer. So there you go. So I'm very pleased to be here today to talk about the Recreation Center. You I'm sure remember that we were almost through the conceptual phase of design for the project back in 2019. And so at the end of 2019, you received a report regarding the schematic design an object, an opinion of cost. And then we got most of the way through an operations plan still very much in draft form. There are some items that need to be vetted by staff. And really, we were in that process when COVID-19 hit and we kept trying to find a time to meet and it was obvious that was not going to happen. So this project was put on hold and we're now working towards moving forward with the project in order to do to finish this phase. Then there's three phases to any construction projects. So the conceptual phase, the design phase and then the construction, the actual construction phase. So to complete this project, we will need to onboard a construction manager. They will provide updated opinion of cost but also a more realistic opinion cost in terms of that they would be working with real subcontractors and tradesmen to put together their cost estimate. We will also need to finish the operational plan. You will need to prove a schematic for the project. So to let us know and provide direction in terms of the overall direction of the design for the project and what services the building would provide and the overall cost. And then you would need to approve a question for the public and what we're working towards and what is achievable at this time would be a question on the March 2022 ballot. So to give you, and I'm not planning on sharing anything, but if you want me to share something, I can. So to give you some context for this project, which is it consists and if for anyone who may be listening who may not have participated in the process, it consists of three hard courts and a third size turf court. That's an indoor turf court. It includes outdoor bathrooms, indoor bathrooms, changing facilities. It also includes offices for recreation staff and a movement studio and a walking track. That's an elevated walking track around three of the courts. And that could also be used for running. Are we still, does a design have as the cover on the court the not plastic, but you know, the this is so the building off cover. Yeah, so yeah, so that's that's a great question. So this project as designed is a long term built. It's a it's a building and it would be a lead qualified building. It's not, you know, brick or granite or anything, but it is high tech materials that are intended to last for a long time and be sustainable over over a long time for this community. So it's not a 20 year solution. It's more of a 50 year solution 50 to 100 years. So it would be, you know, a long lasting building for the community and the space that selected has an area to expand the turf court. So the turf court could become a full size outdoor indoor turf recreation field at some point in the future and include space for us. I want to say a swimming complex, but it's actually an aquatic center. So more technical term, but it would include actually space for both the aquatic center swimming pool or there's fitness pools that like lap pools or something like another. There are rec there are some pools that are warmer for certain populations and then swimmers like colder pools. So a variety of aquatic needs and then also separate changing facilities. Am I missing something because you're raising your finger? He's not asking any more questions. Okay, Tom, yes, you may. So thank you for going to the pool. I am the pool guy. I love that the description says the site includes an expansion site for a swimming pool and larger turf field. One question looming large and I owe this to the constituents that have caught me and Sobu night out. And for those of you that are on SB Community Watch, you saw the recent post about neighboring communities, Winooski, St. Albans that have built pools. I just want to really draw a distinction in the pricing of pools. An indoor aquatic center is $30 million. There's lots of money. An outdoor pool is relatively small money and what will be, I am fully supportive of this. The rec department needs a space and this has been long overdue and this is going to get my full support and I'll campaign for it. But I would love as this goes forward to flesh out what the cost and how much a swimming pool would be lower if it was rolled into this initial, especially an outdoor pool, something like Maple Street pools. This past August, I think you can all relate that I couldn't take my kids to Red Rocks. This, the lake was closed and I want my kids and all our kids and everybody across the entire age spectrum to be able to swim in South Burlington. I don't think I'm alone. And if we need to drum up, if you want residents to start emailing you about pools, we could do that. But I don't think, I think counselors get enough emails and all as you do as well. So I don't know where the council stands on this but I would love to know what the cost implications, that question you have in here on what an outdoor quality pool like Maple Street would cost if it was rolled into this bundle because my estimations from talking to people were talking $2 or $3 million more on a $21 million total. So I don't know how we could give direction to have that question answered but this community, and I hope the other paper reports on this so I make good to my promise to those constituents of Sobu Night Out, this community wants a pool in my humble estimation as I walk the streets and talk to people. Yeah, and I would be in favor of an outdoor pool. I've always said that. Yeah. So would you have to add that pricing or costing piece to this proposal? So I think that would, I don't imagine it would be as you said in the magnitude of the project. I'm thinking that to add that from a design and cost estimating perspective, we're talking in the tens of thousands, not a huge amount to add that in the context of the overall project. Okay. Amen. I'm hoping to ask a new guy question which is we're talking about Veterans Park. I assume during the pre-2019 there was discussions about elsewhere in the city to put a rec center. What in the conclusion was Veterans Park? Why? Can you summarize that? Would you like to answer that? I can. This is Holly Reese. Oh, sorry. So Holly Reese director of recreation and parks. Land that we owned and you know already a hub of a lot of activity and the park is kind of in need of some rehabilitation. The flow needs to be different parking needs to be enhanced. So it seemed like a logical fit. Especially we were trying to time it with the central location of the rink. So as they kind of did their construction project, they went a little bit ahead of us because they were able to go through COVID but that was kind of the conceptual plan. In terms of why we didn't end up on Market Street or somewhere else, you can answer that piece. I think by fit, you know, it's land that we own. It's a fairly large project. So if you take this building and spread it out across the on one level, it's a much larger project than this building was. And so acquiring that land was proving to be difficult. And there seemed to be a lot of there was a lot of there was it was recognized that there is a lot of synergy between the activities at Veterans Memorial Park and the activities inside the building in terms of summer programming and winter programming. That's great. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for that explanation. And I also support studying whether on an outdoor pool is feasible. I'm wondering, I know in some of our conversations, we've also imagined that we could potentially work with the school board in their articulation of what the high school and the middle school need for recreation space as well. And I just wonder, I know it's a difficult conversation and one of the challenges we have right now is we used to be able to use the schools on a regular basis and now we can't. So hence they have rec space and we don't. So I don't necessarily want to build a rec center that then the school gets to use all the time and the public doesn't. But it just seems like there's some there ought to be some synergy with how it's designed some input from them that might allow them to move ahead with a new design or whatever they need to upgrade the middle and high school that would be cost efficient or effective for the taxpayer. They were not going to build it twice in a sense. But understanding that the rec center can't be the athletic center for the high school or the middle school or will be in the same situation. So I just wonder if there's those. Will there be those conversations or I mean if you don't want to do it, that's another or the council doesn't want to go down that road because I think it's a tricky one. I can appreciate that. Yeah, so I mean definitely during the schematic the development of the schematic during the conceptual phase and we did meet with the school district several times and also during the feasibility studies. So I know a lot has changed since then. So I wouldn't want to so I you know I definitely I know what we heard at that time in terms of their needs and what we knew in terms of the the recreation departments needs. And at that time there were there were definitely there were some areas where I think that there were some opportunities going forward at the same time. They definitely have a full schedule. They have a very clear vision or at that time they had a very clear vision for what their needs were which were significantly. And so I think that because of that this building does meet some immediate needs related to sports like basketball and pickleball and then some training in terms of leagues like little leagues and other leagues that use existing recreation fields and so that the city has established relationships with. At the same time I believe that there were some opportunities identified for some of the I'm not sure which schools but some of the schools needs in terms of in terms of court space. I don't know if you want to speak to it. I'm not sure which schools might have been identified as shared users. I mean we currently share the park inventory with the school district so they have overflow middle school soccer that happens and baseball that happens as well as ultimate frisbee and always adding to their inventory so from my perspective those conversations got to the point of these community resources which we call our schools are functioning in a very different way than they did maybe in the 70s 80s and 90s and now are fully immersed and engrossed in in the own use of their facilities so we're doing we're doing plays we're doing after school care we're doing other enrichment activities through the school itself and so court space classroom space is less and less even pre covid because parents and students are fully engaged in other activities which is amazing but then there's this whole other population that then doesn't have any access to the spaces. So we certainly want to work with the school and continue to kind of fine tune a program. I don't think that we're going to come to a consensus on meeting the needs in one space and certainly this is not going to do that but we would obviously be open to assisting in any way we could to make sure that they have access as a second user just as we have access to the schools as a second user. Well I think you're right there their vision was quite grand but it got soundly defeated so I was just thinking there might be some willingness to think a little more creatively have them think a little more creatively about what are some possibilities recognizing that it's not going to meet all of their needs but it could meet some of them on some occasion. I don't know. Yeah and they're an important stakeholder. So I think it would be important to consult with them in any case. So maybe at another steering committee we can we get a little farther along on this work share that vision with the school board to get some feedback or at least have them know this is what we're talking about and can you think about how it possibly works with what their and I don't know what they're thinking about so it this is just all I guess hypothetical. Any other comments or questions. Oh we have from the audience. Okay Donna will go boom boom boom. People can feel free to come up to the mic. Yeah you can line up behind her Bob. Britt couldn't be here tonight and he was the one that kind of put the put the idea. Okay Donna would you just let the public know who you are. You're full name and stuff. Yes we know who you are but they've been and I'm not representing the bike and head committee tonight although I am a member we just we just hadn't really discussed this. But our previous meeting but Bob Britt mentioned he couldn't be here tonight and he made a really good point I think and has to having to do with city priorities and it's very clearly in this and the comprehensive plan that you know that South Burlington wants to be a walkable bikeable you know city and you know that alternative transportation is is a priority and yet we don't really have safe streets for the multitude of bicycles pedestrians and especially e-bikes I don't know if any of you've noticed e-bike sales have taken off and people are starting to really see the difficulty of sharing South Burlington streets many of which do not have fog lines painted on them. There's not adequate shoulder. So we don't have safe streets for alternate transportation in South Burlington and we have been asking for South Burlington bike and head committee has been asking for years or at least another twenty or thirty thousand dollars a year to just paint fog lines on the streets you know so that it's clear that bicycles and e-bikes and even motorized skateboards and all these things that there's a place in our transportation system for those vehicles that and for people using those modes of transportation and they're growing I don't know for sure if a proposed recreation center is in the comprehensive plan in the city's comprehensive plan so I question about you know spending twenty two million dollars on a recreation center when we don't have safe streets you know you know several members of the city staff and bike head committee spent a lot of time and got South Burlington designated as a bicycle friendly community but we only just made it at the lowest level you know we have a long long way to go to be a safe you know a safe city for bicycles and pedestrians and so you know I just think I think the recreation center is a great idea but I think it would be even a greater idea to make sure that we don't have to have you know several hundred cars driving to the recreation center you know every time there's an event there you know the you know the Sobu night out is great there's a lot of people biking there but there's a lot of people that don't find it safe to bike there so I think we need to get our priorities straight and kind of get our streets right and then we can worry about an indoor recreation center thank you thank you very much Michael yes I'd like to pick up on something that will you make sure you introduce yourself to your Michael me take I think so you wish your name it's to turn it on Oh and then there was light how big is this building how many square feet does it cover do you have a quick answer just over 50,000 all right so we are going to pave over create a 50,000 square feet of impervious surface that doesn't really fit with the city's climate action plan creating more impervious surfaces is anathema it's just the opposite of what we want to do and there are other places in the city that this that is already paved over that we could find for this recreation center it doesn't have to be there I've lived in a town in Canada where skating rinks were in one place fields which were used in summer only were in another place and the indoor recreation center was in a third place they weren't all locked together just because we own it doesn't mean we should screw it up and put more impervious surfaces I think it's really it's just not in line with with what you're planning to do in with the climate action plan it's the opposite you really should find a place that doesn't pave over open land grassland in this case fields they're all they're all valuable in in the climate change emergency we should keep them that way thank you very much thanks members of the council Dan Albrecht Proctor Avenue a couple thoughts just first on the issue of location and then ask a lot of questions I know that I know the lands there and so it's like an easy sort of thing oh we own it already but the concept of locating a city facility and attractions you're probably all aware that this location is nowhere near where the city is trying to put the growth and where a lot of the growth already exists as well as a lot of our community that are low income middle income working class and we got crap crappy bus service regionally and locally so it's always a crying shame as someone who lives along the Shelburne Road corridor and when I go to Lowe's because I'm doing some home renovation right now every day I go by when I go to Lowe's I see that I see that empty Antiforce building and look at the mall the mall is changing the whole retail and all these empty buildings what's going to happen what is office space there's probably office buildings that could be turned into rec centers so I know it's kind of water under the bridge and I spoke out these same concerns a couple of years ago when the vote came up on you know the tax increase for the rec center and all that so it's it's frustrating and had we more resources like other cities we would have satellite recreation centers so that you would actually have facilities in the neighborhoods where the people are or better or for worse you know we've developed how we are and the city's trying to play catch up and this location here for the city complex and what it's trying to is an example you're putting the city center proximate to shopping and a fair amount of density and there's new density coming in there are no services like that on the Shelburne Road corridor just saying and then lastly this is more a question for Alana so there was I remember doing survey and going to a meeting over we had the police building or somewhere and after the vote had shot it down and I was like yep we're gonna have a lot of outreach we're gonna have a lot of outreach so I'm just kind of you let me know what whatever what and the community here watching what's the planned outreach if we can give feedback about we don't like the pickleball corridor that's too big or that's too small what's the plan thanks thank you do thank you can you briefly describe outreach or sure so so I know that there was a follow up public meeting with the council on the schematic design and at this point in order to wrap up that process we're envisioning one to two workshops as well as I'm taking advantage of some of the additional remaining recreation activities in the calendar to present on the schematic as it is and obtain comment and if there are other questions and we may put present those also to read to obtain additional feedback okay thank you and there are likely to be continuing focus groups good I didn't understand that could you repeat just the main argument that you said there's feedback time for feedback on no it's not an argument so we are going to be conducting additional workshops we realize it has been a long time so there will be one to two workshops to complete the schematic process and also we will be presenting the schematic as it is at one or two or three or four remaining recreation events this fall this fall okay thank you and if I can I should have said this in the beginning you know part of this conversation tonight is when I was oriented I understood that this was a priority to move forward but before we spent a whole lot of staff time moving it forward in the time we needed to do to get on the March ballot we wanted to make sure you all were on the same page so what Alana is outlining is a high level of what we would put together assuming you are all saying yes let's keep let's invest staff time and resources to move this forward so more to come on that assuming you want us to move it forward thank you can I just ask at this point I mean there is a schematic and I've seen pictures and there's been a lot of thought in terms of you know how many square feet and what would be inside the building is it impossible to expand the option for where this is built to other places that we could redevelop I know we don't own them but that's I mean I think Dan makes a really logical argument about and I keep thinking that those are places also we should be thinking about for affordable housing rather than turning fields into paved over triplexes or multi-level housing or in this case I mean I know it's sort of nice to think about it at Veterans Park because it's really pretty so I'm just curious if that's a possibility or does that really you know changes the number but maybe not everything I mean there might be as you say you know the old hand efforts maybe you can turn it into a pretty interesting indoor recreation center so that it's just a thought is that a possibility or is that water over the dam so to answer that question you know I think this is up to you the implication there are implications Veterans Memorial Park does have a lot of synergy for recreation initially we are looking at city center as a location and co-location with this building mm-hmm there is there are many mentions of the recreation center in the comprehensive plan they're all tied to they're all tied to city center because at that time the belief was is that we would be able to acquire land and be successful in that endeavor in city center and be able to build that project here and so in answer to your question yes we could seek other land there that would involve additional costs I think we're all aware what the cost of land is in this area which is around a million an acre if not more and there are advantages you know there is bus service at this location I think both locations have good bicycle connectivity but there would certainly be additional delays in addition to additional costs so and and there there's a lot to be said for building on land that's owned by the city in terms of in terms of time and just you know overall not just the time but the cost to staff and cost in terms of acquisition and sort of opportunity for other things that could be happening at that time okay Tom really I really appreciate you raising that I am not poo pooing the veterans park I think that would absolutely needs to continue to be evaluated but I do think Dan's idea makes perfect sense and I'd love to know I look at the Sears building then the library was in the mall that was well received I could see a rec center in the Sears building I like to think the University malls like the indoor downtown for the great state of Vermont and if we had city services there's a post office there it's not that far fetched of a notion our neighbors Burlington now have their high school in the old Macy's I'm not saying we want this permanently but I think it's worth exploring again I think veterans park is worth continuing the evaluation but to flesh this out looking at the possibility what the cost would be at this stage this preliminary stage of having a rec center in the Sears building if the you malls even open to having that conversation would be of interest to me and it's Sears I think Sears owns that building okay oh I'm sorry Roseanne Roseanne Greco and I was just up here so you could count heads totally agree with Donna said totally agree with Michael said totally agree with Dan Albrecht just said totally agree with Tom Chittenden I just said which is over there that's great but yes I mean before you build over more impervious surfaces which is counter to what the resolution is you just passed is and just because it's cheaper in the short run doesn't mean it's cheaper in the long run when you destroy the natural environment there are empty buildings everywhere in this city Hanifords the mall is half empty it's right across from Market Street it's on a transportation line so people that don't have to have a car to get to the rec center I think that's a brilliant idea and what owner of an empty property wouldn't want some money you know to either rent or buy from it they're making nothing now and they're paying taxes as we heard so I just wanted to count another head with the three you just heard okay thank you we have someone online who is this Bella you also your mic does connect it you can see and hear you welcome I can't see your name though okay great so please tell us your name oh sure it's have a little gang h a b a l e h gang is g a g and me I'm on the bike pet committee with Donna but I'm not representing any kind of resolution from the bike committee I had just wanted to echo some of the things that have been said and and give my support for them as Donna has mentioned we're lacking in safe streets and it's frequently paint is the problem and it's not just the bikes it's the walkers we don't we don't pay our crosswalks I went out to check them out um Dorset Street from Kennedy Drive to Williston Road and Williston Road from I-89 down to the airport there are almost no crosswalks that have lights that have paint that's a pretty that's problematic and it's not safe and it's hard and I love the idea of a pool but it's hard to um support that when we're not keeping up our basic infrastructure that we already have so I love it and I had concerns that maybe now is not the right time the other thing I wonder about if you remember back in November of 19 we turned down the budget for a new school because it was too expensive this and the need for either expensive upgrades or the school is still there that's still looming in the background and before we invest a lot of money I'm wondering if it's actually our budget I kind of feel like as a household we're going to have to buy a new roof before we put a pool in the backyard um but I do like the idea of maybe if something at Sears or another unoccupied building or honestly I would like a pool too can we just put a pool in and call it a day for a little while that's not that expensive and I think that would get great use and I would love it to be also I want to comment I'd love it to be someplace really central historically by populations have not felt welcome or comfortable at pools and to put it in a place that might be out of reach or less central really just enforces that and I would prefer us to take that into consideration okay thank you very much I don't know if this would address that but JC Park has always thought to me as a great place for an outdoor pool but okay thanks Tom are we do you have the information you need to go for is it clear to you that what you want us to do I don't know so you tell me I think Alana and I are going to have to do some thinking about what it would take to move this forward so to move something forward for March really has us bringing you back final things in December to get on that ballot so I think we're going to have to think about some options to you whether you want to kind of slow down the process and re-examine site or run parallel tracks and what that's going to cost to do that so let us do some thinking and talking about that and okay bring you back something but what I'm generally hearing is excitement to yes explore something that may be located somewhere and may or may not I think that sums it up very well help very much thank you okay I think we're done with this topic sorry oh Alana just to clarify if we move it off this site it will not be in March if okay so so and we don't you don't I don't know if you want to just we'll talk but what is what what is the reason it just will take too much time to schematic that we have is specific to the site we've done borings on the site we know what the foundations will be we know what the structure will be we know where our powers coming from we know if you know we know how much of a parking exemption will need although we don't need an exemption anymore but you know we we understand the site very well it's been studied to death this is we've had like both a feasibility study at this location and we've also had a schematic study with a full architectural landscape structural engineer mechanical engineer and the building orientation you know it relates to the environment it relates to the rink it relates to the site very specifically if we move to a different site word you know it's another turning all again yeah basically we're starting over again and we have to negotiate for the site which it took us a long time to acquire the site for the library so it's it's a process so thank you for that explanation yeah Tim I would like to have the option examined of building a pool first but within design concept if possible if you were going to put a pool on the site and you decided to put the pool in first and defer the construction of the rec center until another year right how would that work is it feasible and could we put that on the ballot in March it's just a question I want to ask you know not supporting one way or the other but I think it's a good thing to ask given the fact that we just built this place right we just had to reappraisal many people saw tax increases I'm just thinking about sensitivity to the ballot in general when you ski past a four billion four million dollar bond for their pool I'm not sure if it costs four million dollars but in terms of outdoor recreation in the summer right that's a quick bang for the book that probably could be constructed fairly quickly but again from a project management point of view I don't know if it makes the best fiscal sense to do it that way in terms of the rest of the building and the infrastructure that's needed so I just want to clarify one thing about the when you ski pool yeah so yes it costs about 3.9 million 3.9 the building already existed the utilities were already on site the holes were already on the graph yeah so we that was a reconstruction of what was already there okay very different than starting from you know something about this I know yeah Greenfield okay I think the concern about that to me would be the you bringing all you the utilities and the changing rooms and the you're already halfway into the building by the time you do that true to me so I think either either Alana and I need to go back and put some plant some concepts in front of you at our an upcoming meeting or I would really love it if the council could fashion some kind of motion to direct us to what you would like to see next because I feel like there's been a lot of ideas tossed around I'm not completely sure what you want us to be working on and now a lot is reading our hands and I apologize Alana so I don't want to confuse anything anymore and you may have all had a chance to look at it but I didn't actually finish the presentation oh I'm sorry which is which is fine because I'm the money is the numbers well I don't know if it would be helpful to go through the model that showed with the current reappraisal what the tax implications would be and it does run through various scenarios at different costs and I I don't know if that's helpful or if that's something that you feel sometimes it's clear as mud and then sometimes it's clear as day so I'm not sure for you stand on that it was pretty clear and I'm used to this from you know seeing the TIF charts but I'm speaking for myself I I think it's a little premature tonight to to go through the numbers right now because it sounds as if we have some additional things that we might want you to consider even if it's at this site we're talking about a pool and that changes the numbers um but that's just me I mean I I guess I appreciate wanting to have this sort of settled in March but I'm I have to say I'm feeling like there's a lot of questions that I would like addressed that that we would need before I I personally I'm just one vote but would support a bond for whatever it is for whatever we build in March you know I think is we really need to have it tight and well thought out and have you know some public a little more public input and um so I I don't know is like could be ready by March but you know if for other people are you got it right when I I think that you know in addition to covid what occurred um you know since the last time we looked at this is is the climate change resolution and I think it does um provide perhaps a way forward for you is to look through that lens does this make sense and and that would be something that would be of interest to me you've heard many residents uh you know raise few of the issues that need to be considered there are probably others um and I think that you know since we've invested that much I don't know in terms of staff time but uh if it makes sense to have the kind of run through that process that would be something that I would like to see Tom? I'm of the same mind uh Chair really I really think you you hit it on the head I just don't know if tonight's the night we're deciding on whether or not there's a March ballot and I I don't want to dampen the enthusiasm for the rec center I fully support the rec center but I I really want to echo what I heard Councilor Barrett say with the reappraisal with the pandemic with the uncertainty and everything I feel like if the city manager opened the door for emotion um I'll I'll do emotion and that way to my constituents I I would move that the Council direct staff to explore to to assess the feasibility in the financial implications for phasing the pool that is spoken to in this plan in first um out of future council meeting for possible consideration at a March vote now I'm not going to push for the March vote but I as much as I want the rec center I don't necessarily I'm agreeing agreeing with Tim that we don't know enough about to where it could go whether or not the you mall sears or so on and the 21 million dollar price tag is a pretty heavy lift I I am sensing from the comments in the council that my motion which I hope Sue got I don't know if anybody's going to second it um is that we just want to better understand the feasibility of a possible pool option this coming March I think coupled with that is the lens that Megan was commenting upon or suggesting but also I think it's a conversation for Jesse and and her leadership team in terms of so what kind of time is this going to take do we have the you know resources to come up with some alternative plans in that speedy timeline and if there's enough other things on the plate that are priorities for us then maybe we have to rethink this or have a different timeline because I love the concept of a rec center and I think we need one and there's a foundation working on it is there not is there not there is a foundation I don't know that they've been given a charge to go ahead with kind of a public campaign yet because we don't have a design to vet but they're at the ready they're at the ready but are they at the ready to um kind of take all of this feedback back based on this feedback I think the foundation is just um you know a fund raising arm so the Recreation Parks Committee we can certainly include in the public process in vetting you made a motion right is there a second second is there further discussion would you mind reading it back I kind of babbled there it was a motion is to direct staff to explore the phasing of the pool in first for a possible vote in March I have to hear what Jesse said and it just it it wouldn't be just a pool I mean it's we need locker rooms right I mean we could just have you know a hole in the ground and the filtration system and a fence but um it doesn't sound like I would like to go back to the proposal a couple sentences ago what we were bringing forward tonight was the assumption that the that the community's priority was still the schematic as it was discussed pre-covid and that that we have certainty that we can move forward to a March ballot if that's no longer the priority interest of the council we need to go back and do some some planning some talking with our architects and engineers about what it would actually take to get to some other kinds of options and bring those back to you so I think what I'm hearing now is a interest in the idea don't want the schematic as it was previously designed let's go back to the drawing board a little bit and figure out what we can move forward I do I do want to just call out from a kind of fiduciary responsibility role we have spent 164,000 already on these plans so just want to acknowledge that we've done that so with regard to that I and I understand the desire to have the center and I know that it was already modular as opposed to the pool which I agree with Jesse I think you can't just put a hole in the ground and put a fence around it and have that be our our proposal could that modular vision be reduced still more are there different modular conceptions that's not a motion that's simply asking this giving you direction and again you know how much staff time they have you have and so I leave that judgment to you but it does I mean I remember the presentation he was very clear about how this was modular and how this could expand so could it shrink is there a way to just get something for our classes but you don't have a space for at least have a space we might not have that jogging track we might not have right all of all of the things that we want but is there something to give you a space I feel like this was derailed because of the pandemic I wonder if there are ARPA funds that could also help support the financial reassessment of this project maybe that's a secondary discussion but we were on track to move forward the rec center until COVID-19 hit the scene so I don't know if that makes it eligible or not for all day other funding but that's definitely from a fiduciary responsibility to your point weighs in on me well I think we were on track before COVID but I also I mean I do buy in that we weren't thinking about global warming and its effects quite as actively as we do now and so that's another lens I think I don't think we can just discount that and say well since we did this study and you know we spent $160,000 or whatever it is um we we can't go back um I I just think priorities can change or the realities can change of what the environment is facing and I mean I'm sure the public would like to have some kind of facility I'm positive that they would like that I'm just thinking maybe we should think more creatively of repurposing something that's already built to just be better for the environment and meet your programming needs and I don't think it sounds like we can get that done by March and I I guess personally I'm okay with that but again I'm just one vote Michael you've spoken a number of times is this the new point this really is our conversation but I don't want what I said before to be interpreted that I'm not in favor of this community center I absolutely love the idea but you that's evident from what you've heard from the public tonight that you need more community input somehow in the next phase of this of the planning for this it's clear that the public the community should have a little more involvement than I've had today thank you so I mean I let us come back you with some well except we have this thing on the do you want to withdraw your your motion or do you want us to I'm still comfortable with it and I mean it just asked you to assess the feasibility there is a huge interest for pools in this community and this August has made it be amended to include this modular approach does it say phase I thought it said a phased approach for the pool at veterans memorial I'm sorry Sue putting you to work tonight and you heard just a phasing and that the motion I have says a phasing for a pool and you know and for a possible vote Mark yeah he said that for just a possible vote if anything I see the March timeline slipping but just I think the motion is reasonable for the phasing to address your modular problem but you guys know me and pools and I I love pools and well you may and Matt second it's important to learn how to swim I completely agree with you okay it's a graduation requirement at some colleges and universities it's a life saving skill so we have a motion that's been made and seconded or is there further discussion on this I just say that you heard the sweet spot of four million I'm I'm assuming that that's like how can we do it for four but 20 just can there seems to right but 20 seems to be a little bit of sticker shock here so just keep that in mind is my only that and and I I would like us to see this through the environmental lens like I said before are you ready for the vote yeah I I'll just this is vote well I was going to say I mean a lot has got some great point I mean and we we can go look at other commercial vacant vacancies in the city or a spot to do something right but the problem is we won't own it right unless we buy it and then if you buy it we have to modify it's going to end up costing just as much as is going to build it fresh on fresh ground fresh grass at veterans Memorial Park right where there already are two rings and a playground and a big field and tons of soccer fields right the point is is that we own the land and by this design we get exactly what we think satisfies that percentage of the community for all the interest that they have that they want to do indoors and maybe outdoors if there's a pool involved as well right and there will be parking and if you're concerned about impervious surface my my response to that is that you know we we have methods that we we shunt the water underground like we do right here with the school parking lot right so it's not going to be dumped into Potashbrook there will be energy spent to build the buildings which which could clash with our climate action plan which we don't have yet but we in general we feel that way right so so there are you know pluses and minuses to looking for vacant commercial space to do something there but we're not going to get exactly what we want and part of this integrates you know the parks and recs desire for programming space so that it you know it's perfectly intertwined with the space that they get so I mean they put a lot of work into that design and I think the design is good we're just you know it's been on the back shelf and back burner for quite a while now it's come to the to the front burner we're trying to figure out how what heat we want to put on it right so and that's the question right now yeah right is there do we want to put enough heat for a March vote on this now or do you want to back off a little bit look at it a little better and then wait you know for another election cycle because it's you know 221 211 so can I just ask Tom is your intention I know you've read this amendment a couple of times to have this ready for a potential March ballot the language says March but next year we have August and November too so if you want to drop the can we drop the March for a possible future vote well then I might be able to support it but I am not comfortable with having them go through this work and what it would cost just for a pool from a strategy perspective asking this in August next summer would be by by March and be comfortable with it but keep keep in mind a lot of stated the bottom of that sheet right that that bond prices right bonding is and the feds are not going to play that game for a whole lot longer so just just keep that in mind I mean because it's probably the sooner we act the cheaper it is to finance it but it's always there's always going to be one plus or minus disadvantage that way if you wait and with regard to the consultant is he still in the picture is this is this like a retainer like we have for an attorney is this going to know going to be more money going to be more money right going to be a redesign for I don't know 60,000 bucks or whatever I mean that that we have to know I mean that's that's what we'll bring back to you okay okay all right so you're ready for the vote okay all in favor signified by saying aye aye aye all opposed nay so it passes for one okay is that the first nay vote you've ever had oh it's not the first nay vote I think we had one one other one just curious that's right no it's not I'm smiling well well I told you why it's not like I don't like the idea okay thank you thanks Lana thank you um it is 917 can we take a five minute break so okay so we will break for five minutes I'm sorry we're running late but we've had a lot of I don't know major policy discussions tonight so something I'll get better of August 17th we are on item 10 it's a follow up discussion on the South Burlington Land Trust request their request to warn a special city meeting to vote on a short term tax increase to be used by the city for the future preservation of open space and Sarah Dopp and I guess are we going to hear from you again Sarah or I think okay do you want to do it after because what we have can I do it table setting pardon me can I do a little bit of table setting oh yes sure thank you so what what we've included in your packet for today is the information that was previously provided by the Land Trust as well as an additional document that they requested we attach we've also provided a staff report on our summary of existing city-owned spaces parcel our acreage and locations and a map and then we've also provided the summary of where we are with the current open space conservation fund for acquisition and then the financial analysis that you requested the last meeting so that is what is before you and staff are Andrews here to talk about finances Ashley Parker is on go to meeting to talk about the staff memo on open space and of course Sarah is here as well okay and I would also just note that I have gotten quite a number of letters that I have forwarded to all of the council they were addressed to me and I was asked to forward them the ones that the only ones I got were in favor of this four for four what I failed to forward to you and I apologize I just was really distracted this last week was a letter from the natural resources and conservation committee that had made discussed this four for four proposal and just simple you know very quickly it's has a unanimous support of the seven members present at the last natural resources conservation meeting they mentioned the positive effects of land conservation on the climate and environment including canopy conservation carbon sequestration and reduction of the island effect and wetland conservation reduction of water runoff and floods water purification and wildlife habitat conservation and grassland conservation the pollinators and bird habitat maintenance and reduction of erosions and they just wanted us to know that they unanimously decided to align their annual work plan in active support of this new policy on global warming and energy efficiency and so forth so I just share that with you I will forward it to you I can't right now because we don't have internet but you will get a copy I just wanted to make sure I don't believe I had any other statements that were just sent to me I think I shared the rest of them you know I think Sarah I know you want to speak but I think it would be well why don't you just take like two or three minutes is that enough and then we'll get to the questions that we asked to have prepared in terms of the real nuts and bolts of the cost and stuff so why don't you come up to the table please and actually Andrew you can sit next door if you want and be ready to well I think that I don't know I think the table is fine and is the red is the green light on yes it is thank you thank you just before you take up the discussion of the SBLT's 4 for 4 proposal I briefly want to clarify a key point and that's why I wanted to speak before you deliberate part of our proposal as you know pertains to the temporary tax increase for open space we strongly feel that saving open space is one local response we can make to mitigate climate change now that we have identified the key environmentally important parcels of land we should have an action plan in place to save them if opportunity presents the other part of the proposal relates to the timing of a city vote we did hope for a special vote in October and we understand you have mixed feelings about that there was no undemocratic in quotes intent behind this the idea was simply to highlight the climate crisis for the emergency that it is by focusing on the single issue furthermore we were seeking voter response prior to the end of IZ in order to be ready to create a plan using what had been learned during IZ there have been some accusations circulating on social media about the intent behind our proposal first we were called racist later elitist and now undemocratic I just want you to know that our proposal does not emanate from any of those places name calling has the effect of distracting people from the true purpose of the proposal we ask you members of the council to consider the matter on its own merits and not be swayed by discrediting statements in fact our mission for 18 years has been to save open space working lands in the environmental features of our city for the good of all these goals have been elevated by the urgency of climate change this week's UN climate report makes the situation crystal clear though we realize the city has many worthy goals and needs it seems to us that they paled behind the immediacy of climate change Wilmington Vermont had to redirect all its energy to restoration and rebuilding after hurricane Irene other goals were set aside Paradise California undoubtedly had many important priorities but now they have no town we want to ensure the future of our special piece of the world that's all Madeline Cuenan recently wrote we must leave our children with a livable planet immediacy of action is the key people all over the world and here in South Burlington feel powerless to do something concrete about climate change saving our natural environment locally gives them a concrete way to respond many have already contacted us and you Helen to voice support of the proposed tax increase please give everyone a chance to vote beyond this other citizens have told us that if the proposal passes that will be their signal to know that there's a real commitment from the citizens and they would in turn add considerable personal funds to the open space fund thank you for your attention we await your discussion and decision thank you very much good evening again I believe my marching orders were to prepare a Tom Hubbard spreadsheet and those exact words no and Andrew Bullduck no, Balduck oh, Balduck Balduck we'll get it right that image is going to be in my mind I'm going to give myself till March to get it right okay so I believe Jesse sent out a revised spreadsheet and I just want to make sure that's projected for the public's benefits so let me just share screen oh, I believe I may not be a presenter now great work thank you for putting this together it's very useful yep but it could be helpful and it shows you had your math right too that's what it shows it the proportions were right I think the per 100 threw things off a little bit but so here is the revenue projections so that's the current grand list value in this column right here and as you saw presented that's the result of our reappraisal I projected based on the past five years of grand list growth a 1.1% increase that's just a forecasting number and you will see that out to the year 2042 I thought it would be helpful to sort of have a general sense of what two cents four cents one cent a half cent we're really just talking about proportions within that and the second slide this is sort of a to show the difference between what one cent raises now in comparison with a year ago and just how significant those changes are and then finally this slide has not changed at all impacts to average tax payer by property type the one difference is average commercial is two million not 20 million and therefore that's impacted also and the the impacts the average commercial property okay Tom I just want to highlight what you glossed over in two slides because it was revealing to me in the last meeting I'm glad that it proves out that doing nothing us doing nothing we have already this year because of the reappraisal increased our our open space fund contribution next year by $95,000 close to 33% so the taxpayers because of the reappraisal are now going to have 33% more money going into this fund this open space fund for the city to acquire parcels going forward so I just that was very revealing and important for me to recognize as a council member I'll jump in here and I'll repeat the phrase you just used Tom doing nothing we will be spending a lot more in the decades to come not only in money and treasure national treasure and local treasure but also in our health in our safety and security I think this is a national security threat and I think that money spent now is an investment in our future peace and prosperity and to my mind doing nothing is not an option we have seen I hope we've received emails if we haven't looked or heard it you know just by turning on the radio or looking at the news the predictions and the the very short window of opportunity it is an opportunity and we are opportunity oriented that is one of our four the holes of our of our comprehensive plan and we need to seize this opportunity we have political will here on this board we have political will in the community and this is time and doing nothing is not an option and I hope that this board follows through on what citizens have asked us to do and citizens of all ages but I think we need to particularly pay attention to those who are younger than we are who are very much aware of the sacrifices that need to be made and that they will be paying them much more than we have in our lifetimes and if they are willing to do this we need to be willing to do this we have had all of the advantages of an industrialized society and our time is running out and we need to make sure that they have a society and that they have a world and I just doing nothing is not an option okay other comments or questions about these numbers is the discussion just about whether to have the vote in October and or March or is it about if we about the vote and the number of pennies or is it about pennies at all and no vote or or different or different a way to achieve the same goals so is it an open discussion about the the whole proposal I think it can be I think that's what the the spreadsheet prepares yeah yeah so I'm not prepared to vote for an October vote at all all right I don't support that period so I just want to say that now so we don't discuss it for another hour okay but another question is if we put it on a March ballot how many pennies so I don't support for but I would support less right so if I just want to narrow down the discussion now because I'm not going to go to four so if we want to talk one or two we can talk one or two I'm not going to go to four the question is the one or the two for how many years that's the other question as well there are so many unknowns in this we don't know what lands we could possibly buy we don't know what price they might ask we don't know there's and we want to put money in the bank and you have a graph there that says that we will be putting on the bank we don't know what we would buy and we know what the parcels are that we're interested in because the open space you know you have identified them for us yeah but there's a lot of other things at play here such as the planning commission's work that come up with a conservation PUD to dictate how we best implement residential and mixed use on some of these open spaces that might actually end up happening where we have to put people on houses that don't have houses today or don't have you know you know places to live today so there's a lot of stuff that's colliding here which is the climate problem and people's need for housing and open space and wild areas that we want to maintain as much as possible depending upon how they're zoned and whether or not those owners are going to want to sell to you know a land trust or to the city or whoever but the important thing is that we generate money for the open space fund which we're doing today but I think it's a little bit low so I'll agree with that that we're not putting enough money in there four for four seems it seems like we should make it more like two and one or two and extend the number of years because the that money will keep coming in and we'll be able to spend it on other stuff you know as it becomes available so so no to October no to four but I would support something less than four two for ten two well maybe that's what it is you know this is a long term proposal here I know that you know there are alarms going off about what we need to do but we also need to understand what the reality is of how much we could accomplish and I think what's important to know is that we're not putting this into the budget that this is something that would go to a vote so I think that us debating here is something that I would expect if we were going to put it in the budget I think that we have here a proposal and we should let the people speak you can say you're wise but I think the ultimate speak happens at the ballot time that's correct right and that line item comes up on your tax bill not within the city budget as a separate line item right so we have to tell people at the you know for the March budget that you know the taxes are based upon this budget and this number of pennies for this and this number of pennies for that right so it's all listed out so they understand exactly what they're paying for because it's really important to tell people what you're paying taxes for so I just want to make that clear but I'm not talking about the budget I'm just talking about the fact that you're adding another line item on to people's tax bills no we're adding to you're adding to but it's a set increasing that line item I understand but you're increasing and there's four many many years right I mean I don't know how many but I can't remember but a lot 20 yeah so it's people don't even know what's there probably but they're not cognizant so I mean I think the question is do you want to for one question might be and you sound like you're not willing to give the public the opportunity to say okay for four years I'll pay four cents extra and that would be you can bring it to a vote we'll vote on it I mean you know see how it goes that's all but I can't support the October okay Tom yes so I have similar sentiments and I I can't support the four cents I just don't think it makes sense for the same points I made at the last discussion I don't want to go over them again as I said before and I hope you didn't interpret my do nothing point as I want to do nothing I'm absolutely for doing something as I've said previously I support another penny asking the voters for another penny one caveat I just want to make clear I want it to be as flexible as the current penny for parks I want it to go to recreation and parks that's that's where I am that's you can I see Michael that you disagree but I want to continue to acquire spaces that can be used by the public future generations my great-grandkids my great-great-great-grandkids I want them to be able to use it for a soccer field or otherwise so that's where I am and I think we're trying to get to a place there that's just what I want to put on the table all right well here here we come down to if we were going to put this in our budget I would be in favor of having this debate this is a request to have the people of South Burlington decide that's many more people than five counselors here at this table and I do not hear an argument against that that's worthy of its weight and salt I'll make the argument against what's the argument against giving the people the vote so the argument against the force sense is the following one I think it will create market distortions two I think it sets a bad precedent I've only heard from the South Burlington Land Trust I have not heard well what I have heard from other committees the Affordable Housing Committee are some serious concerns so there was a person trying to advocate for the marijuana question at the last March ballot we as a council we as the rebel debate proved we have the responsibility and the power to decide what we put before the voters using our good judgment my good judgment tells me this force sense for four years is disproportionately putting the tax burden on four years of people for a benefit that's going to pay off over the next hopefully 50 years I also last point I think it will create a slush fund for this council to acquire parcels that could benefit their specific inappropriate interests so I'll just say that so I don't support force and appropriate that's the concern raised so if we have $6 million we whoever the council is five years from now and without gasping the voters without going through a process of bonding we that that council whoever that is can just buy the property to benefit who knows the southeast quadrant which already has a disproportionate amount of open space as I think Dan Albrecht and the audience here will attest to so I like bonding it's where the voters can weigh in and take on debt for specific acquisition so those are my counterpoints to the force sense I don't know if you agree or disagree my counterpoints to those are that 16 out of 25 parcels are outside of the southeast quadrant so that and the acreage is well outside of the southeast quadrant that most of the parcels that are in the southeast quadrant are already protected by natural resource protection and I would also argue that after the four years we're going to be taking on many more costs and this is the sacrifice that we once we have an action plan we are as a city going to be asking our citizens to take on many sacrifices this cannot be done business as usual we have a small window of opportunity and we need to be ready to give we need we have taken we have taken we have taken and we now need to be ready to give and this is this is you know where we have to change we have to change a lot and we've I mean I don't sit here to preach but how we what kind of leisure activities we do whether or not we go on vacation what kind of vacations that will be so we are going to perhaps be seeing that we do in fact change our lifestyles because we have to and number two that in order for us to be able to maintain life for our future generations that those changes will be at the same time that we give sacrifices that we need to have jobs that's a clear point that we need to have but the sacrifices come through the cost the cost of investing in all of the things that we need to do to bring down our co2 emissions that's going to be a mighty mighty lift and for those first four years I think that beyond the first four years we're going to be replacing those four cents with costs Madam Chair and so I do not see that there is an imbalance I see it is preparing for what these next 10 years are going to be and that this is we already have an action plan we just talked about what was invested in in terms of the recreation center we have already invested with regard to what open spaces are critical in the city to preserve and it's it's not just for the pretty trees and it's for life it's for health it's for our water filtration it's for biodiversity so that's not just you know to have a view Tim so in lieu of the fact that I don't support an October vote right and then we're looking at a March vote so can we table this for another because we it's almost 10 o'clock and we have four more large items here we can discuss this at a future meeting and people and continue the discussion I mean it's a great discussion to have we don't have to settle this tonight to me with the only question was you know we're going to try to put something on the ballot in in October so what's your argument against October because we don't need to we don't need to put about in the ballot we have a normal budget election in March where we put lots of things and we can put that there too we don't have to have a special election in October for this but it sounds like well there's an argument that that would give people an understanding that this is an option for them that there's going to be some more money in that open space so that when there's pressures to develop they know that there will be funds there but the funds don't go in we don't actually have the funds until we start to collect them in July of next year so the reality is we won't have more money but the intention will be there and sometimes that is valuable yes and that's what the natural resources committee said that it is important for us to show the city's commitment to protect the natural environment and to address the climate emergency now that timing matters it does matter I disagree well I mean I would agree that I think March is an okay time you and I might disagree on the penny we'll get to that but I would like to give the public that option any other council members want to weigh in before I go to the public just to be clear do we need a formal vote to not have an October ballot again if there's a motion no we could just have a motion that will consider this or add it to the ballot in March well we I don't I don't want to have to move to put this on the ballot in March at all tonight I want to discuss this some more to figure out what number of pennies we have to have the exact plan of what we're going to do as long as if we if we all agree that more that that it's going to be March then let's have it be March and at a future meeting we'll discuss with them what the number of pennies is okay and can you let people know what more information you would need I mean do you said you want to know what it would be used for are you let no I just wanted to we're going to discuss it again if we table it Tim yeah what additional information would assist the decision making for the council is it the exact language that would be the proposal does the language need to be more specific or let I mean I don't know what it is you need we have the number so we know what each scent raises right saying that if we're not going to go to this whole March if we're going to put on the March ballot there is there's no reason to rush through this right we have time to talk about it and come up with exactly what it is we want to do for the number of pennies I mean their proposal is four for four we don't have to do for where we can do less we can do nothing they're not putting it but if we put something on the ballot I want to have it number that we agree on or at least vote for and we don't have to discuss that we don't have to settle that tonight again I would say that this kind of conversation would be appropriate if we're putting it in the budget I see no reason not to have it be four for four I really don't if I respect that but I don't we don't have to vote on this tonight I'm just saying it's not a requirement if we're gonna wait for March later in the fall and then come up with a number and then why are we coming up with the number we have a public proposal we are simply a proposal and you want to vote on for March right now I'll vote no on four for four that's that's all it is then you're there you go so you're against the democratic process we're having the process now but we don't have to settle this tonight if you don't want to we've ten o'clock we've got four more things to talk about so let's determine what our priorities are for tonight and move on and do something else right we can do this another time it doesn't have to be tonight especially once if we understand that October is off the table do you want to vote right now on whether October is on or off the table because I'm willing to do that at least I moved that we do not have a vote on the four for four in October we can have discussion about this we have a motion that's been made in seconded I'd like to table that motion please I'd like to table the motion I don't know if you can table that motion but we have a motion on the take on the table it's still on the table we've got a few people that wanted to comment Dan's been sending up their wave in his arm for a while so why don't you be first the council was done didn't want to interject via the web to again Dan all break just a couple comments and this kind of relates to the discussion and I don't know if staff can bring it up there's a item in the packet called South Burlington Open Space Conservation Fund acquisitions so putting aside the whole money issue to your sense one sense the length of it I just like to bring up some concerns that I've had for quite a while and some of you have heard this before so what's my there's gonna be some number it'll get on the ballot some point here there's obviously a lot of concern the committee's done a lot of good work you know diving deep on the parcels which wasn't done years ago before we spent a couple million dollars here and this chart in part the first time I saw this I don't know if it was triggered by my request but you know two years ago I sent an email to Paul and said like hey what parcels do we have and what are the amenities and all that and a couple things that jump out of me is you know no parking spaces at any of these and the trail amenities the signage there's a lot of things that aren't done there so as a member of the public and as a member speaking in my own personally but I think people want accountability in a sense of fairness and how public funds are spent all these parcels were acquired in secret by and large nobody knew what going on until they were announced that was troubling we don't know why some of these parcels were acquired I mean they have value in and of themselves but we don't know what the details on it were they about to be developed were they developable what happened on it and so I just want to be sure that that same the good thing is we prioritize the parcels through the good work of the folks here and you know real discreet not discretionary but you know good good good analysis there and so what's frustrating is I see okay so now we're gonna raise some more money but we're not changing our policy for things we're gonna have a process where again it'll be done in secret it'll be done by three out of five council members and I'll say this in large caps in the absence of award system for this city which is large and growing but we do not have a ward system that represents a large proportion of the population here I'm speaking about my high density corridor that provide services and facilities for all the people to meet the global warming targets that we want met as well as the Williston Road corridor we're about to start off another act raising more money and we're still going to keep the old acquisition style done in secret three out of five council members done we don't know anything one of the things I learned and my natural resource planning degree was you got acquisition that's good we got a maintenance item in there you know the 5% that's good we don't really have anything for set aside for construction and capital and we don't have dedicated funds for planning we're still waiting for management plans to be done for some of these parcels I think some of the parcels don't even have any work I'm really curious about the Scott property like that's the landlocked one I'm thinking of so you've got a couple of months here there's obviously concerned to get this on the ballot and it's really just coming down with an agreeable numbers that you guys can agree to put on the ballot one cent two cents but there's also time to get a right in terms of what who's going to decide how this money spent how and why would there be any public engagement would there be participation from committee members committees involved in deciding what parcel to purchase because there's lots of goals that that there needs to be visibility on these decisions and there also needs to be sure that we're we're carrying out not just acquisition and maintenance but we've got to have facilities I served on the Underwood planning committee many years ago and I go there and it's still it still really isn't parking I know about these places of open space because I'm a policy nerd and it's my job to think about this stuff but the public still doesn't know there's still no parking yes you can go on it the word slowly getting out about that parcel and it's a great parcel but there's still no parking there you like well am I allowed to park here I don't know I'm kind of pulling on to the curb and I don't know about this what about the neighbor is this a dedicated so that's what I'm just asking for is as you work here these couple months think about some of these issues I've raised think about equity think about greater public visibility and how you purchase and why things are purchased and mostly these are yes walking trail on a parking space is not going to harm the intrinsic value of this property to fight global warming so let's be sure we're planning for using public dollars for low-level public uses thanks can I just respond to Dan because I don't think you saw us at the open space IZ committees they lasted 18 months they were fully open meetings there were public hearings and those parcels there is a whole matrix that describes why they were selected as I said earlier 16 out of 25 lie outside of the southeast quadrant including in your neighborhood and that it's important for you to become informed about all of that public process that has already occurred oh even the identification of parcels I'm talking about when when the actual check gets written to some landowner and why that's all but the why is already in the open space IZ committee report there's details in the line so anyway I'm just looking at the looking at the part the past process for acquisition and the lack of progress of any public amenities parking spaces trails signage anything that this is public property that people got easements and benefits for certain parcels in this town and we and the public doesn't know whether or not can I walk on it can I recreate it can I do what on it that's what I'm asking for is improved visibility that's all it's on our our city website though I think that's important to go to just look at the chart you got zero parking zero of trails on many that's all I'm saying no I think you raise some good issues and I think we've all known that's why we did dedicate half a cent to do some of the work on some of the parks Dan and so that's not a whole lot of money and we pulled it together and borrowed it and are doing some of those things but not all again it's a and I think that you made some good comments and we always can get better I do think there are times when people are not interested in having the public conversation about you know gifting or selling land publicly but you may feel that that's inappropriate I think there's bequests bequeaths like that that we don't hear about and it's all just cash on the counter it's a different can be a different relationship or process we do have two people on okay two people on Linda Bailey on go to meeting Linda you have the floor can't hear you Linda you might be muted don't can't hear you Linda and then Karen Ryder she's on okay is can you guys in the back turn on the view so we can see everyone thank you so if Karen's ready to speak when we go to her and then Linda Bailey since we won't so Karen you're on okay I am concerned number one about the conversation around delaying this March because you know we don't need that time but why can't we deliberate more and more and more I heard Martha Lyons say there are several people waiting as soon as IZ is over to develop for further development I don't know who those developers are I don't know what the plans are but this is my fear as soon as IZ is over there goes the land I don't know what land that is as James saying I don't know who's selling their land I don't know who's building developments all over the rest of the the territory here but I am deeply concerned that that will happen before we ever have a vote on whether it's one cent two cents three cents four cents in March it's just delaying landowners ability to plan for their future even further and to further denigrate our goals around climate mitigation that's all I want to say I'm I'm very upset about the fact that Martha's saying how many developments are waiting in line already thank you Karen Linda is on now okay and we okay let's hear from thank you thank you Karen next is Linda Bailey hi everyone thank you for being patient I push the wrong way to do anyway it is I think that the question here that yours theoretically going to vote on is whether to put a special ballot out for this pop four for four or put it on March ballot am I correct in that well I don't think there's support enough support to put the item on a special ballot in October so I think the conversation is in March and there's a sense that people want more some people want more time about crafting exactly how many pennies and what it would be used for and other things good good because I agree that October would not be a good time to have this I would like to say that I hear what people are saying and I definitely agree that we need to be looking to our environment that that is a desperate need of our planet the piece of that that I think some people aren't recognizing is South Burlington does not act in a vacuum we are part of our region our state our planet we have to look at the needs of the planet as a whole and how can we best support them and personally I find that pushing South Burlington we are in the center of the densest most employment area of the state UVM the Medical Center those are some of our biggest employers in the state we need housing for people to live here if we push everybody outside of our city and make the drive rather you're adding much more to pollution than it would be to put some houses on a current field I believe that the mods carbon footprint something over 40% of it is from transportation to be cutting to be able to cut down the distance that people who have to come here to work would be a bigger benefit in my view there's also the fact that a lot of the employers in the area can't find people to work this goes back to pre covid people that I know that can't find housing in this area would love to work at some of these businesses but they can't stand to have an hour community twig it just isn't something that's realistic to say nothing of the gas and all of the other pieces that go with living so far away so in other words I don't think this even belongs on about thank you thank you very much for your comments I I hear that there's a lot of confusion about the parcels that are being discussed right now so Linda Bailey this is directed to you and to others the parcels that are being discussed and that were selected by the open space IZ committee do not represent all the remaining parcels left in the city on which to develop and not even all the open parcels in the city on which there is to develop or redevelop and there are areas in the city that are key to what is called our natural infrastructure that are our natural wetlands and our our brooks and and waterways as that are connected to forests those are the areas if there is just a swath of land that runs up the center of our city up through to the northwest corner and down to the lake and it is not the entire city that would be purchased for no use for housing as we heard at our land use and equity joint meeting on August 3rd that there is the opportunity to do both so let's do both that's what this option for four for four is about if it becomes two over ten years I can guarantee you that it's quickly going to be come onerous when we get to year five because that is when the cost that we are going to need to do in order to transfer from gas and diesel and and bio fuels over into renewable energy sources that is when the cost is going to hit that is why I'm in favor of putting this up front because I know that those major costs are coming and they're gonna they're gonna be something that should not be compete competing with protecting that natural infrastructure that is saving us over 200 million dollars over 20 years okay have all down here wants to speak again he's next we lost her there's someone else no so right now we have a motion to not have a special election in October oh we've got two members of the orange okay I'm sorry Roseanne Greco I just wanted to know what Tim needs you said you want more information before you can decide whether you'll ask the voters to say yes or no what specifically do you want we put the proposal together you know you have the numbers at the city prepared so you see how much it will raise over in the four cents the two cents the one set over the period of years you see how much it would cost the average house owner and condo owner you know the 25 parcels that were identified through the open space committee you know the acreage of that what else what do you need I mean we're happy to provide you with the information but we don't know what you need what more these are all privately owned no one that I know of has gone to the landowner and said are you interested in selling to the city so we don't know how many of the thousand acres you know a landowner may be willing to sell I don't know if that's what you need you know you I don't know Tim I just want to know what can we provide you to satisfy your desire for more information since we're gonna try to vote here whether or not to have the vote yeah I'm not okay so yeah I'm what I'm saying is that is that it's not that I need more information it's that we we're gonna I think there's some support here for four for four and some support for less than four for four so everything's a negotiation right everything's a negotiation and the question is if you if you can't get exactly what you want the question is what do you get and I'm saying it's it's Alan's 1015 we have four other items we're not gonna vote on this in October we don't have to finish this discussion tonight we can discuss it another night and come up with what number of pennies is okay I thought I heard you say you wanted more information was that you know there it's a black box in the future about what parcels we may or may not have the opportunity to purchase and how much the city may or may not be willing or have money to contribute to towards that purchase and what that price might be you'll never have that the future that's what I'm saying is that that's the whole point whether it's four for or one for 20 or two for 10 you know we have reserve funds and if something comes up that we want to buy in the past we've had the ability to to take on some some self-service debt and pay back with those pennies that that could if it was fewer pennies would be more into the you know for a longer period of time so it's all a negotiation about how much we want to end up spending over so many years to put into a coffer we're doing the spending I mean this is a this is a point of order yeah the discussion relevant to the motion at hand I'm sorry all right I just I thought you wanted more information we can propose only what's more time is what to negotiate something thank you okay thank you um Michael the question about October is relevant because if this vote is taken in October landowners will have the information before the end of IZ that there are options other than developing their land they'll know that the city is going to have funds that they can access if a particular landowner is ambivalent about developing or he has an opportunity to sell it to the city it's a much better time to do it in October before the end of IZ if it happens if we delay it those landowners will not have that sense that there's funding available and now if they were thinking about developing or conserving they'll develop because the city is not going to buy anything from them because there's nothing on the books that we're nothing on the books that we're talking about tonight well we do October is relevant yes I concur a bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush and I would could I add that you know there's some people of saying that we can't we can't increase taxes to those who say that I say that surviving the climate emergency cannot be had for free that's right it's gonna cost money it's gonna cost a shitload of money excuse the term it's gonna cost a lot of money and that means taxes some of it will be federal and some of it will be local but you can't do it for free the you know climate the climate emergency cannot be fixed for free it's going to cost taxes okay let's not talk about taxes because we're gonna have to pay them to live on this planet and I also think with regard to the bird in the hand the Vermont Climate Council is having grants become available to communities in order to purchase the the working lands for farming just like we heard our speakers say at our land equity our land use and equity meeting that there are prime opportunities that are going to be opening up in December is that what you said Donna not that soon okay well soon next year I would assume well year after but we will continue to have one cent collected yeah we will continue to have one cent collected so there will be money when people wish to to sell their property we've had the program for 20 years so I mean I think there doesn't seem to be consensus to do it sooner than March and that's well yes well but we probably won't the question on the table right now is are we willing to have a special election in October that's the question as I understand the motion so are you ready it's been made in second so you're ready for that vote so what is the question I think the question was a negative right we will not have a vote is that right not have a vote in October okay that would be better so the motion would then be that I move that we that we hold an election special election in October for a proposal for some pennies okay is that seconded okay so the proposal you got that now this isn't the affirmative so if you don't support an October election you vote nay okay so all in favor of that motion signify by saying aye aye all opposed nay okay so that that motion fails three to two so at this point we will move on to the next item and we will continue to discuss I hope a proposal for March and we have one on the table I mean I'm assuming you'll the Land Trust is willing to try four for four in March and we will debate that in the future we have a little bit of time thank you very much okay now it's item 11 this is the Wheeler Nature Park Conservation there's a memorandum of understanding Andrew is bold duck is looking for possible feedback regarding the memorandum that he shared with us we don't have to vote on it we're just giving feedback correct correct yep no no action on this this is primarily by way of update as you recall the council passed a resolution four months ago indicating to commence and move forward with a permanent conservation easement explore what that would look like with the Vermont Land Trust within five months we're coming up on that deadline at the end of September so I want to give you this we just got this from our contact with the Vermont Land Trust I went out with Ashley Parker myself and Holly Baker with Bob Heiser who I believe has been in front of this council before from the Vermont Land Trust and we did a just a site site visit on the property he delivered us this proposed MOU as sort of the next step he's indicating a process from here if the council would sign the MOU of to finish some of the the closing work that needs to be done by June of 2022 he's indicated a total cost of at the closing of forty one thousand two hundred dollars the lion's share of that twenty five thousand is going to be put towards the sort of the conservation easement stewardship endowment of the management of the conservation easement included within that is working with the city to try and conclude what should be included in a management plan and the development of a management plan any updates that need to be made for the consistency with VLT's easement other than that there are certainly some legal legal legwork that needs to be conducted Vermont Land Trust is going to do their own title search and review which will save us considerable staff time as well as yeah there's a good amount of additional sort of delineation that needs to occur on the parcel before we're ready for clothing that is the general outline of the of their proposal one thing I think it's important to note is in our conversations with VLT they would look to exclude the homestead area from their easement area that is a type of property that they are not used to managing their recommendation would be to only apply this to the more passive recreation area okay so what is your reaction my reaction is positive and I have two questions one and we've exchanged some emails in the past and so so Land Trust and the city is comfortable with the legal implications of having conservation easement that that goes around some act 250 previously created easements correct okay so there's no problem there and is this does the state are they on board with that as well and have been consulted the state has not been consulted it would sort of I mean I would say that those mitigation areas would be a pride you know primary and the easement itself would be subject to those I do not foresee an issue with the state second question refers to the panel discussion that we had a couple weeks ago right where we had two representatives of the Abenaki tribes right and Chief Don Stevens expressed an interest in in future conservation easements containing clauses that would allow Abenaki people to harvest certain foods or practice certain religions you know on those types of properties has that been is that something that is studied by the Land Trust at all and would be possibly included in one of these easements I I knew that we were the council was going to be in the planning commission we're gonna be having that discussion initially raised it and BLT does have those type of connections with both tribes as well as the I forget forget the name of the organization but the all you know the towns project in each town in the state so they do have partnerships with those organization okay man is the thank you Andrew is the construction and permitting of the dog park at all affected by this transfer no there's a win for us okay any other comments or questions I'm I'm very positive about this as well it's nice to get it moving forward this has been a long time coming so do so that's just an update okay thank you thank you so keep up the good work item 12 direct staff or provide a direction to the staff on their recommendation on speed changes on my road route 116 and Justin Rabadou is here hey Justin all right so so do you want to I think we all read it it was pretty simple to read are you you're just looking for our reaction because I have some yes so I think yeah all we're looking to do for the recommendation is to get the council's feedback as to what you would like staff to say at the hearing that is referenced in the memo okay Matt we're just bringing you back nation for your consumption maybe I'm just don't get it but why are we doing five mile an hour increments why not 30 40 50 what's the advantage of dropping it 50 45 40 35 so generally and chief Burke's not here but generally if you think about it from the perspective of a driver a gradual speed limit decrease does one does a couple things one it's going to slow you down at a more metered way as you're entering into the slower part of town to it eliminates the quote kind of gotcha speed traps where we have the larger reductions in speed limit so when you're going 49 and a 40 and then that drops to a 30 you're suddenly going 49 and a 30 and from a law enforcement interaction that's a little more punitive to drivers but they're there that's not to say it could be some other way but I think the primary reason is to gradually slow people down as they're entering into town in those five mile an hour increments my only other comment was I know there was a there was a talking about the pedestrian crossways from Kennedy to Williston what about possible future pedestrian crossways going into Butler farms from from across the street as as as the letter indicates we've seen development on 116 and as people go from that side of 116 to Butler farms to access the Dorset Meadows or excuse me Dorset Park Veterans Park is there an opportunity for us to do that do we have to coordinate that with the state so I guess the global answer is yes anything we want to do whether it's as wrote as putting in a new crosswalk or changing the speed limit on a state-owned road requires their permission so in much in the same way that we just received permission to install three new crosswalks on on 116 between route two and Kennedy we would need their permission to do the same thing further we need to ask me trans because I've heard some concerns from members of the community who moved their kids bike from one neighborhood to the other cross 116 wanting wanting some access thank you well I have a real gripe with this and I'm you know if you look at the southern part where it's 50 miles an hour they have about a quarter of an inch on the map where it's 45 and south of that is where the new access from Cytermill to is dumping into route 116 it's a hill going down to 116 and if you look to the right it's 50 miles an hour and it's a bit of a curve and you go up a hill and for the life of me I can't understand why we would want or they would want that to be 50 miles an hour I don't know why we can't just ask them to make it you know 40 going the whole way south and sicklin and down to cheese factory I mean because that's where I mean maybe write a cheese factory you don't need 50 but because that's all conserved land so there aren't going to be little kiddos walking across the street there might be animals but you know but the rest of it you know we're developing yeah and it just I drop it right by look at the site but they didn't know that there was a road going through there with a bike path yeah I'm just incredulous really yeah completely agree with you and I don't live on that road but I know that road well and I think it should just be 40 all the way from just past cheese factory I just I didn't hear you say in your argument chair really is the Vansiclan that is a very dangerous turn I'm under the impression there's a lot of accidents there so there are and I for consistency I'm not persuaded that incremental drops is as powerful as just it's 40 it's 40 it's 40 through that entire stretch I would agree and you know I live in the cider mill and that's a major high traffic intersection on Dorset Street and it's 40 miles an hour there and then just down the road is Dorset Farms and they I think it's still the same speed 40 miles an hour and they have a right hand turn exit lane you know which which works so I mean if people go 40 that's a pretty good speed at those intersections 50 is not a good speed I've had people pass me when I was going 41 on Dorset and they were doing 65 and they passed me on a double yellow line for no good reason you know because I guess I was going to slow yeah but this doesn't make any I mean they have their own criteria we have ours you're gonna have a 170 units and in and in that amount of traffic flow coming out of cider mill to wanting to turn left and cross a lane of traffic is you don't want people go on 50 because they're going to be going 60 so I would recommend that we I mean I kind of get the five mile increment but I certainly I think from where they have it go to 40 and again that's right near well just before where you can turn into go to all the medical places I mean I don't know why we don't make that the 35 go all the way down cover the pink and then from that line make it I'm okay I guess with 45 it still seems I mean maybe you make it 40 all the way to to where this new road is coming in from cider mill and then you can make it 45 to cheese factor and then they can go back to 50 when they're in Williston I mean sure Heinzberger or Shelvern which I can't remember which town that is but I just yeah it's it's and I drive it I mean my driveways on it I pull out and you know you got a scoot out and then whoever's coming behind me has been going 50 miles an hour and they come right up on your rear you know you almost can't get your car going fast enough to get into the stream and then there's people stopped at Bansaklin and we're gonna have so that would be my recommendation that they expand the 30 a little longer and then the 35 even longer and the 40 longer just a little scooch of 45 if they need to make it five mile increments but and it's a 25 in the how do they decide the traffic committee is meeting and then further below it says we could ask for a limit that started at 25 at the northern end of Heinzberg Road why was that not on our graphic was that a decision or is this just an option I was just providing you with a possible so the graphic was meant to show what's existing and what the state proposed I could have included one to 15 other different ways to slice it up so I merely presented okay this conversation well I'm just really really concerned about 50 miles an hour going uphill around a corner you need a motion Justin what do you need from us to go move forward um well I I there I know half a little my high school classmates would like to speak but I have a sense of what Helen was indicating but I don't know if you know if whether there's a motion or just a general consensus that what Helen was indicating is the pleasure of the council if before I provide you some feedback so whatever you want to go to indicate pleasure with Helen what Helen said same that's an odd way to say it wait a minute yeah we just quickly or have all just I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't try to set expectations having done this before the state gives great deference to the 85th percentile speed so I'm just we will certainly argue and plead the case but there's a reason why they follow this process and so I just want you to know when we leave this meeting tonight staff will do our best at the hearing but the state gives great deference to not to some development that might be built in three years but to the actual conditions as observed thank you well well that's for 30 40 yeah I mean I would push for as slow as you can and I really think you have a case I don't care what the 85th percentile is they're driving too fast on that part of the road but I mean I don't know maybe we should get some of those signs up and let people know how fast they're going but they just come zooming out of Heinsberg and they are whoo what a speed trap yeah I mean that's what they said hey there's an open space fund they recommended it right I mean there's a town in southern Vermont that pays their entire you know city or town budget on their speed trap so you're not supposed to do there is a bike yes please all right thank you for can you hear me okay okay thank you for I just get my comments very brief I I like the direction that your conversation is going in I don't know what the state will allow but I wanted to highlight the section the last section between Kennedy Drive and route to Williston Road the proposal is for three new crosswalks in that area that's already heavily populated heavily built mixed generations of people that live there and we're also looking to develop a greenway so it would be a route to school for kids that could walk or bike rather than drive or ride the bus all the time and part of that plan is to have a good safe crosswalk for them I also and so with that in mind I would prefer a 25 mile an hour limit here and the reason is when I look at the data from VTrans people are routinely driving 10 miles an hour over the speed limit and so if we ask for 25 I think people will drive 35 and I also want to let you know that there is published data about fatalities between pedestrians and cars and it's about 25 to 50 fatality if cars are going 40 miles an hour if they're going 30 miles an hour it's a 7 to 14 fatality and so I feel strongly in that section in particular I would personally prefer to be 25 for heavy population heavy use in that section the other pieces the council will do as they wish that's my comment thank you for taking it let me thank you have and I totally agree and I think it would help too with people turning left out of market street onto Heinzburg road to have slower traffic I agree as well absolutely we are in our comp plan it says we want to be bikeable and walkable so I hope you use that in your arguments Justin to make the case for 25 in that stretch and 30 or 35 in the rest whatever Helen said well and yeah and going down market street there's the school there right you know so I'd love to have it 25 or 30 and maybe 35 and 40 and then when they get past cheese factory they can rev it up great not my problem understood thank you very much Justin okay moving on to 13 appointments to the committee on the common area for dogs so you approved a resolution on July 6th our interpretation is transitioning the dog cart park committee to the committee on common area for dogs staff interpreted this resolution as meaning the five current members of the dog park committee would become the members of this new committee and then have an appointee from natural resources an appointee from recreation and parks so natural resources has met and recommend lisa to serve on this committee parks and rec has our recreation and parks have not met yet they will meet on august 30th but I know there was interest in getting this committee officially renamed and moving so we suggest you appoint these members and then at year september 20th meeting we will come back with the recreation and parks committee and the terms for the members but at least this would get them renamed and moving I'll move that we do just as you said jesse second right is there any further discussion sounds like a plan all in favor hi hi oh that's past five zero thank you very much item 14 I think that's you Rosanne receive a request from a resident to review the city's policies around management of the emerald ash trees and the emerald ash borers and provide direction to staff sure yeah you send us all a letter I believe yeah yeah um last fall I start talking with the city arborist and and just in a bit uh when I um learned about the emerald ash borer and I wanted to know what the city policy was about the ash trees because I saw um Williston cut down their whole row of ash trees a few years ago and so I was told that the city had decided they're going to cut down all the ash trees as a sort of a preventative measure because of the emerald ash borer was definitely coming our way right and I know craig said at the time and this may not have been the only factor that it was a cheaper option because there there are ways of injecting the trees with you know some sort of pesticides but they don't know what other effects that might have but you have to do it repeatedly and so cutting them down is is uh thought was the best option um and then I went to the the joint session with the city council and the planning commission and heard chief Dan Steven talk about why are we cutting the ash trees down we're doing the job of the emerald ash borer you know uh and so it caught me to think about well gosh is there another option because I sort of thought that was the only way to go about it then a few days ago uh we've been planting trees um on our property and um and also in the the um the green space uh and um a woman I know who's a botanist who's telling me trees are um very different than mammals in how they adapt to diseases and insects and stuff and so um it's it's more complicated and so some trees could survive and so and she was saying she's in in Mount Pilgrim and they have a tree board in Mount Pilgrim and she asked what our tree board said we don't have a tree board and she said they did a lot of research and they decided in Mount Pilgrim not to cut the ash trees down so now I heard the chief the chief say don't cut them down and then this botanist says we're not cutting them down in Mount Pilgrim Mount Pilgrim and so all I thought was if you had a discussion about this I missed it uh not that I need to be there you know for stuff but um you know another city has decided something different so maybe just take a time out and ask what did they learn or what does chief Stevens know that we could benefit from because I tonight I walked my block has 45 street trees 31 of them are ash meaning in the next few years according to Craig we'll only have 14 trees out of 45 trees left on my street alone and they are mature I mean they're huge you know we're talking about cutting black rock it takes a hundred years to grow a tree so it's not like let's cut it and and so anyway so I was just hoping the council would um if you haven't already signed the contract because I know there's blue ribbons around every other ash tree on on my street and up in Nolan Farm Road as well if they the contract hasn't been let could we have a discussion first just to see are there any other options better I'll move that we stop cutting all ash trees until we have the discussion so I want a moratorium on cutting ash trees down the city oh thank you ten unless there's a contractual issue yeah that's we've already paid somebody but is that good enough for you jesse oh yeah are you okay with that I would like Justin came on for a quick second I I have done zero research on what we've done today on this so I would like time to figure out what yeah that's all I'm asking but just here he's the expert I just I don't want to cut anymore if we don't have until we can have the discussion that's sure so Justin what do you know well I would so a little bit of history and some points of clarity every tree remover replacing so the statement that in three years only 14 trees on Fort Sisters Road is a fault statement um and I and I believe people know that I don't and well they're going to replace all the trees oh yeah I yeah I I really replace like you know numerous times about the process um as to when this was discussed staff first brought this to the council's attention in May 2019 and has been voted on and approved with all of the other various management options discussed and debated at varying degrees each subsequent budget process so this is we've been eyes wide open um getting us to this point but if we want to pause so we can come back hopefully as soon as possible because we're about to you know if we wait much longer we'll lose um the planting season and we do have contracts that are awaiting signature oh okay so I have misinformation I was told they would come and cut the trees first then they would let another contract contractor come and grind up the stumps and then the third phase which could be a year or so then they would put this tree replacements in and I planted we you know I work with Justin and Craig and we planted on our street some supplemental trees but they're teeny tiny little trees you know it's going to be 40 years before they even approximate what we're cutting down so I'm sorry I missed the discussion but if there's new information out there and what does Montpelier know why is Montpelier not cutting their ash down and why did Chief Stevens advise us not to so well I remember some of the discussions but I don't remember options their options I don't either I mean oh well no what I remember is being told the options are expensive and there's no guarantee which you know I mean when we had Dutch Elm same thing they saved some of them but not very many and then I think it really came down to money it was cheaper to cut them down and replant even though that was sounds pretty drastic so I don't know what Montpelier's doing and and maybe Justin you do if you don't maybe you can find out and we can have that discussion at the next meeting and not hold this up too much because fall is for planting and that's the best time to put in a tree maybe I assume we'd have the city arborist explain the situation with the emerald ash bore at a higher level that'd be great so is that acceptable councilor really I just had one one quick point so the city does have a tree board it's by default the natural resources committee at this phase unless the council otherwise appoints a tree board establishment of the city's tree ordinance also so the natural resources and conservation committee is our tree board correct oh I bet they didn't know that please no they just can't be oh yeah yeah they speak for the trees okay so are we willing to put this on hold until we get a little more information can we get that at for our next meeting can I ask one other thing too sure is that if it's possible reverse the process start planting now I just know my street and I Craig Lambert our arborist walked the street with me and he said there's room between this ash for a tree there's room for two trees between these ash trees so you could be planting trees now even if you don't take the ash down now you have more trees because there's space but the way it was explained to me is the trees are going and then the planting starts you can have some growth I think there is a plan and a schedule for replanting for cutting and replanting yeah because we couldn't do it all at once right right yeah just Justin we we are doing that we are trying to do a little bit every street so each street doesn't become deforested so to speak in one year so other places in the city and again we have 780 of these other places we're planting and then remove it's just a little bit of this a little bit of that here and there but make no mistake you know insecticide or not it's here and the trees will be infected okay so we'll bring us back on so is there any more cutting plan until we can talk about this some more well did you was there a vote on the motion is there is there is there a contractor that's planning on cutting more trees in the next two weeks or three weeks we have two contracts one to remove and one to grind stumps as well as one to plant new trees and we're sitting on them in anticipation of this meeting this evening so what is sitting on them mean does sitting on them cost the city more money we haven't signed we haven't executed the contract ship so if we put it off for two weeks or three weeks that's possible they may not like that but we could right so okay sure so we have a motion to put off any additional cutting and planting I guess well no I mean once they plan you should still go ahead if you if you if you need so just the cutting okay cutting that's of any of the ash trees until we get we make a decision at the first meeting in September September 7th September 7th so is that yeah it was first okay second okay so all in favor I any opposed okay so that motion carries thank you okay reports from counselors on committee assignments I'll say that I have officially declined reappointment to the sexton so I uh just lightening the apple card a little bit so that's going to be an open position if anybody wants it sounds like a band any other committees airport meets tomorrow yeah just briefly that fairs are still free at GMT yes there's the strike authorization but that wouldn't happen hopefully it doesn't happen but if it does happen it wouldn't happen until September the teamsters voted to strike but okay authorize the strike but they haven't called the strike until after more mediations happen and we're hopeful that it all works out okay I just have a an announcement I've been I have been remiss and I apologize the other paper is very interested in having us continue the counselor corner Matt has agreed to do the first one because he's never written one and I think it's really was his term turn but I would like people to they're willing to have it more than once a month I mean we could do it twice a month if people have that interest they also asked um and Jesse agreed that she would be willing to do uh right a once a month once a month yeah or once every other month but but they're at this point that they've changed their mind and they really are looking for our input so I think we should take them up on it so um Matt's what are you doing yours for next week uh no be not this Thursday but the next Thursday okay so that takes care of August right is there anyone who would like to do it on in September I'll go whenever you want you talked about it okay I think you're you're in line okay so Tom and you can write more words now too you can yeah 600 500 607 no it's between 6 and 900 they're very flexible yeah yeah so Tom's going to do September who wants to do October Tim okay Tim October please remind me okay Megan can do November I'll do December Mary Mary oh and then yeah and then who we'll have to figure out him and I are running yeah you and Tim but I don't know if they're holding us to that I don't know okay probably ethically best practice right sure oh yeah right campaign expense okay well that will take us through um this year thank you very much have a long still on the go to meeting thanks have a long thank you thank you and I also just want can I add sorry can I add one thing um if anyone we're we're super flexible so if anyone also wants to you know double up or write on a month that they're not assigned we are we are welcoming everything okay so we have dueling counselor corners all four corners take your corner okay um Tim you had well I had a question the first about a committee assignment is there any news about Jean Richards at all no we have a meeting tomorrow okay I'm expecting an update and I have no idea what it is all right and the last two questions I had for the city manager were was the progress of paving I noticed that grand farm was had been braided and was being repaved today probably I don't know so that that's one section that's going to be done Spear Street was done from like Corey Hill approximately all the way down on the downhill before you go underneath the interstate was it going to go extend further beyond that and go back up the hill these are not details I have at the top okay but I would be happy to send you have Justin send you and I was just I was just curious but I mean it's good to know paving is going on yeah there's nobody in the audience here but but yeah paving is happening and Spear that Spear Street section is really nice and how about the restriping because yeah route two I mean I just haven't seen the restriping yeah this summer I don't know run your problem every year I know I know like one striping company in the state or something yes but when are we scheduled I mean at least we should know when we're scheduled now that's something that municipalities could all kick in yeah and have the truck and then make a fortune selling the services to other communities yeah we have I thought we had a line painting device yes we do but it was difficult to operate I think is what yeah a couple years ago we need a slick one you can just cruise along but anyway okay the last question oh another one what you know so far how is the new city hall performing for in terms of whatever I mean is it meeting expectations exceeding are there have you developed any problems yet I mean it's just small stuff working out kinks if you have nothing to report that's okay I can wait till another time too well I mean it's a beautiful facility yeah so that unto itself being co-located with the library is really fun for the staff team you know I think for the first time feeling more like a team with the library is really lovely we are still very much in punch list yeah so it's hard to say what's working and what's not because there are a lot of things that are still you know under finalization by the contractor okay but generally speaking I love working here so for me okay good good thank you so it was a good investment even for those who didn't support it I might add I just want to double back to the striping thing since I came on council that's been a perennial thing and if there's something Jesse from your new perspective that can come in and see how we can get striping done earlier in the season it would make a lot of residents happier and our streets safer okay uh motion to adjourn all in favor hi thank you thank you to the public who might still be here