 Meeting started it's 601 I have here. And first thing we want to do is changes the agenda. And I will tell you because I understand Karen horn who's with us. Hello Karen is a bit of a time crunch as I understand it so what we're going to do is we're going to move items five and six up. And take the place of two and three so two, three and four will move down after item six. That's okay with everyone hearing no objections or seeing no objections. Any other changes to the agenda. Okay, hearing none I think then we have three folks who want to speak about the UPWP and the UPWP public forum. So we'll open that agenda item. And I would ask folks from the public who want to comment. Please do so you can raise your hand and be recognized and we'll give you two minutes to say your piece. Doug, did you want to go down. Yeah, sure. Hi, I'm not the CCRPC sir just fell out of my radar in the last week or two. I'm a neighbor of Burton the project that is the proposing for to move higher ground into Burton, and I'm one of the petitioners on the act 250. And I received the letter that you folks sent to act 250 and I'm sort of checking in because I was a little uncomfortable with that letter. I guess I don't know if this is necessarily the forum for clarification of that. Because it's about planning your your work plan for the next fiscal year but I was reviewing the last two fiscal years and both of those have things that seem to relate to that project. And it seemed like they weren't really anywhere near fruition. And it seemed like there should be some restraint on what they're proposing, because those things aren't really in place. Is this a forum for that. I would think not this forum, however, comments to the to the RPC are appropriate. Charlie. How do you want to handle that do you want it to reply to Doug offline or wait till public comment and and deal with it then. Yeah, either way, whatever works for you, Doug, if you want to, you know, engage in some email conversation. Happy to do that. Or if you want to have we do have some a general public comment period is item two. We can take a comment there. Okay, I actually wasn't able to find a kind of an agenda on the calendar side. I didn't really know where we're sitting. Yeah, happy to bump it later or whatever. Okay, if you don't mind hanging out for a bit. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Who else would we have from the public that wanted to speak. I saw another couple of names that I didn't recognize. Laurie Smith. Did you have a comment for the UPWP. Yeah, I, I'm kind of in alignment with Doug. And so, so my concerns are actually around what your plans are what your perspective is around all the development along Queen City Park Road. And so I guess I'll wait until item number two also. Okay, thank you. And there was someone named Luke. I'm trying to find the list here. He seems like maybe he's dropped off. Okay. Okay. Anybody else want to speak for public comment on the UPWP or the public forum, public forum. Hearing none. So, I think at this point what we'll do is, let's suspend the item and move to the municipal powers presentation because Karen. Does have a bit of a time crunch and we'll come back to item five after we deal with item six. So, Karen, I'll turn it over to you unless Charlie you want to do any introduction or anything. Yeah, I guess I'll do a little intro just because at our last meeting where we talked about this topic. And, John, I want you to know that we did hear you and was hopeful to get a dissenting opinion. And I tried a couple of the senators that voted against it, but didn't get a response. So, I want you to know I tried but if we can at least listen to what Karen has to say and then you know decide where we want to go from there. That's fine. Thanks for trying Charlie. Yeah, thank you. And Karen, thank you for being willing to talk to us about this. Do you want me, do you want to share what you sent or do you want me to share it on screen or Hi, and thank you for having me. If you could share it, Charlie, because I have to do this on my phone because the internet in more town rats. So, if you could share it that would be very helpful. This and should I just get rolling here. Sure. Okay. You're pitch for internet service statewide. That's a good lead in. Oh yeah, absolutely. I can go on that rant for quite a while. So, we are Dylan's rule state here in Vermont just by way of background. And really what that means for cities, towns, villages, any municipality is that local governments can only do those things that the legislature specifically gives them permission to do. In a lot of the rest of the country, most of the rest of the country municipalities can do those things that they decide are appropriate for their local governance, unless the legislature reserves some of that power to themselves. So a lot of states have self governance authority for cities, for instance, or for communities under so many pop over so many population, except for taxing authority or something like that. So, in taxing authority would only be granted by the legislature. So that's where we sit right now. And for years we've been trying to have a conversation with the legislature about ways that municipalities might be able to act more quickly and decisively on issues that are solely local concern. Without having to go to the legislature for permission. I did want to point out to you that we have two different kinds of cities and towns in Vermont, we have those that that are subject to the general statutes, and then we have charter communities and you'll see the list there of the charter communities in Chittenden County. All together around the state there's 60 cities and towns and 24 incorporated villages that have municipal governance charters and a municipal governance charter will let you deviate from the general state statute in specific instances. The town wants to adopt a charter or a change to a charter is put before the voters and the voters approve that charter amendment and then it is given to the legislature, and the legislature has the authority to approve it to ignore it to amend it if they see fit, and actually the legislature has authority to act to change municipal charters without any vote from the municipal voters. So the authority really is bested all at the legislature. Well, we tried to do in the last session was promote a pilot program that would establish a governance commission outside of the legislative process that would allow for up to 10 municipalities to apply to that commission for self governance authority in specific instances, and they would only be able to apply after their voters had approved the application at the voting booth. And then they would take that application to the governance commission and have a conversation really about what the implications are what's going to work in that community, and eventually hopefully secure permission from the from the governance commission to engage in that pilot project and the legislation had at various points in its life. A 10 year term or a five year term I think it ended up when it passed the Senate, a 10 year term so a local government would have that authority for 10 years, and any ordinances that were passed in those 10 years would remain in the Senate. But at the end of 10 years, unless it was extended by the legislature, the self governance commission and the pilot project would all sunset. In the Senate, we had a very good discussion with the Senate Government Operations Committee, they're very supportive of efforts to try to give local officials duly elected local officials who are elected by the same voters that elect them. There's more authority to address issues that come up under under their purview. And one of the things that's been really interesting because that bill was passed by the Senate in 2019. And in the interim, we've had coven as you all realize because you're all at home on the screen right now. And, and pursuant to coven towns have been asked to do a whole lot of things that they were never asked to do before. They've been putting together economic recovery projects they've been working with town with constituent groups on housing. They've been helping assure that utility arrearages are paid through one of the coronavirus relief funds. They've been addressing all kinds of issues and initially we had towns that were managing groups of volunteers that were sewing masks that were providing meals to people and in a lot of different communities, those kinds of things are still continuing. And we needed permission from the legislature to do a lot of things we needed permission from the legislature to move to remote meetings. We needed permission from the legislature to actually move quasi judicial meetings like planning commission meetings to to remote meetings after the coven. We needed permission from the legislature to post our minutes and our agendas in different physical places. And just recently, we've needed permission to actually mail Australian ballots to registered voters to all registered voters, if the town decides to move to Australian ballot for town meeting. The legislature gave us authority in Act 164 back in the fall to move to all Australian ballot for this town meeting only, but they neglected to give us the authority to mail the Australian ballots out. And that's really what we're asking for sort of under the umbrella of S 106 that legislation in 2019 was passed in the Senate went to the house and it sat on the House government operations wall for the rest of the 2020 session which as you know, ended in September. Another approach has been that taken by both Williston and when new ski now that is a charter change that was approved by the voters and says that any charter change that's been approved for any other municipality in the state may be enacted by either Williston or when new ski without having to go to the General Assembly for approval and that does seem to make a lot of sense that if you've given authority to a municipality to do something that you would then having said the president provide that authority to other municipalities that come along. The Williston charter change was enacted last year Eric can correct me and it was put into a bill and sent to the House government operations committee where again it just sat on the wall. When new ski approved their charter change that this past November so that will come in the form of a bill this session and we're hoping that the House government operations committee will take it up. So I'll just got a couple more items to point out and then maybe we can have a little conversation about it but if you go down toward the bottom of the memo that I that I sent you. I have a list of some of the kinds of issues that local officials would like to have authority over on street parking and really if you're on a state if you're downtown is on a state highway and there are lots of them on street parking is subject to their approval speed limits many towns again in downtown and village areas would like to lower their speed limits to 25 miles an hour particularly in front of schools. You can't do that without approval from the agency of transportation and engineering studies. So they're those kinds of issues. We've had towns that have put forth charter changes to recall local officials under certain circumstances and those have been adopted in some communities as six is one I believe, and they've been turned down in other communities which sort of makes no sense. So that's really in a nutshell. What we have been working on and a conversation that we would like to pursue this coming legislative session as well. I don't know if people have questions I can't see Charlie. I couldn't see anyway because on the phone. Please stop screen chair. Thanks Karen and so yeah anyone have any questions or comment barred I see your hand go up. Yeah my only question is if we know if the committee ever took testimony on this or did it literally like stay on the wall the whole time that it ever get discussed at any length or any content you know. The Senate Government Operations Committee took quite a bit of testimony from local officials. The House Government Operations Committee never even addressed it we asked them to take it up several times they never did. Other questions. John. If I could ask Karen to give us a little explanation of what a lot of the rub has been. I know I can speak to the parking and speed limit issue where the state owns the roadway doesn't want a lot of conflicting things that can be dangerous. There are a lot of people on their facilities without their permission. Also when it comes to speed limits is not appropriate to lower some of these speed limits the agency has long held a belief that you don't make criminals out of law abiding citizens and try to make them drive at a speed limit that they will never do. I'm not familiar with that one. I'm familiar with that one. But I have to assume that there are a number of similar types of issues with the kinds of things that I'm not overly familiar with. The roadway stuff is a complete non starter and I could talk about it all night but I don't know what any of the other ones were so I have to believe there are similar issues with a lot of those other things. And as much as I agree that our town should have as much control as they can. There has always been a reason that this has been debated now for several legislative sessions and never seems to go anywhere. And using the transportation thing as an example if there are a whole lot of other examples I can understand why a lot of the legislature has hesitant to bring this up. And frankly too local folks select people get a lot of pressure from neighborhoods when the answer really should be no and they can't reach the no and they get a lot of duck and cover if you will from the state where they got to go to the state where the states much it's a much easier place to say no when it's really a bad idea. If Karen could summarize some of these things on the other side for us I'd appreciate that. Well, so so these are examples of provisions that municipalities might be approved for. The way it would work in any given community is that they would provide a list of ordinances or well essentially ordinances that they would like to have approved and implement and they would take those to the self governance commission and at the commission they would have that conversation that you're having right now is it appropriate to lower the speed limit for instance to 25 miles an hour in front of the school. Does it make sense in that community. Some of the other issues are adoption of local option taxes in 16 towns and in in 16 towns there's a sales tax local option tax. In 20 towns there's the meals rooms and alcohol local option tax. And every time that somebody wants to adopt a local options tax, they have to go to the legislature and ask permission and really truth be told get raked over the rules by the Ways and Inks committee about whether that particular local option tax is appropriate for that community. And, and so that's always been a thorn in our sides. We have a lot of communities that are looking now at again transportation oriented things but traffic calming kinds of issues. We've got towns that would like to provide more protection for their town for us that would like to maybe put some different requirements around use of town for us those kinds of issues. And there's a lot of new issues that have come up as result of COVID and also as a result of the climate change that we're focusing on right now. The, the mayor of Burlington put out a message earlier today, saying that you know, in the last four years, as the federal government withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord and as the federal government restricted immigration and a number of other of those kinds of issues, the city has had to step up and make sure that what they're going to do around those issues at the local level. And, and that's been true not only in Burlington, but the mayor put out a statement about it just today so, so it's front of mind but those are some of the kinds of issues that we're looking at. Hello. I've been thinking of something to kind of counter what John was talking about, which is, I'm talking about speed limits on route 17 on the Appalachian Gap and Buells Gore. One resident of the Gore asked the state to drop the speed limit from 50 the state normal of 50 to 40, and the state went ahead and did it without any conversation with anybody living in the Gore. The person at the time who thought he was all powerful as Gore supervisor was never consulted. So there can be a feeling of the state's decisions being really rather capricious and just kind of the flip side of not allowing a town to drop speed limits in front of a school, but the state just deciding okay this is what we want for you people and we're not going to ask whether you want it. So I see this as a real problem. So one of the attributes of something like a commission wouldn't have to be a commission is that you take the conversation out of the state house and you have you would have a group of people who are reviewing these issues on a consistent basis and having those conversations at the local level. Right now what happens if you have a charter change that goes into the legislature eventually 180 legislators get to vote on what's going to happen in your community. And we, we're not presupposing what the outcome of any conversation might be before a commission, but it would be a group of people who will develop some expertise and understanding of what best practices might be and what might work well in communities around the state. And that would be all to the good. If I could, if I could just address Garrett's point for one second. What a lot of people probably don't know is an individual cannot bring a request to lower a speed limit to the state and in a gore instance in an unchartered town and gores. The statute actually the eight the secretary of the agency of transportation acts as the municipal government there, and the secretary would have had to have approved that and brought it. That's not correct. That is correct. They act for as the road commissioner for the unincorporated town, but nothing else as far as government goes. All right, so a little more complicated. My point being is, and Amy can back this up if need be is an individual citizen has to go through their, their municipal government to make a request to lower a speed limit a citizen alone cannot make that request to the state. I'm not done in this case I was the municipal government at that time but please let's let's take this off to the side and move on please barred barred you had something you want to add. I would just say I've been down this road, a few times here in Richmond with route to running through town and we've had mixed results and it has to do with traffic studies as john described there's a traffic study. And there is a member of our select board who's throwing up his hands and discussed and leaving because the traffic study showed people are going faster than the speed limit. And to john's point you don't want to make criminals. So even though there's virtually no shoulder and there's people riding their bicycles and running on the road. The traffic study says there haven't been significant accidents. So it doesn't justify reducing the speed limit. So there is an effort and sort of process and science is what I would describe as I think john alluded to. But it is an awkward moment where, when we discussed it in a couple of meetings there and virtually. There was nobody that opposed it everybody thought it was a good idea to reduce it from 50 to 40, but the transportation committee and the transportation studies say, it's going to stay at 50. So that's for better or worse, I don't know if it's better or worse, somebody gets run over on their bicycle will be worse. Thanks, Bart. Care. Oh, go ahead. I had care. I was going to ask you another question but if you want to address that that's fine. I was going to say that you can go down rabbit holes on a lot of these issues. And I don't know that that's the best use of our time this evening but I think more importantly for us is the is the question of where you have those conversations and is the playing field level to bit between the locally and officials and the people who right now are making all those decisions at the at the state level and really have to don't have to pay any attention to some of the preferences of at the local level. So before one of the other items is health safety and rental housing codes. If a municipality wants to put those in place right now they have to comply with a an enormous uniform code book. As a result, there's only a few six or seven towns in the entire state that have ventured down that path. So, you know, there might be different ways to address those kinds of issues that would be very helpful. In terms of making housing affordable and providing additional housing. That's just another example. So Karen, it's 630. Are you do you need to sign off or do you have a few more minutes. I do have a few more minutes, although I have to go to my planning Commission meeting, which is tonight, but I told them I would be late. I just have one, one, hopefully a quick question. You, you cited Winnowski and Williston as having passed charter amendments or changes that have to go to the legislature, but you list, I think it's 13. Are there any changes or villages in Chittenden County that you say have adopted governance charters. Yeah, yeah, a governance charter is a document that that establishes where a municipality can deviate from the general statutes. So these governance charters, South Burlington's governance charters probably 200 pages long. Some of the other ones, Jericho Westford maybe are just a couple of pages long a lot of smaller towns adopted charters not so long ago so that they could move from electing the clerk to appointing the town clerk you had to get approval from the legislature for that. They, those towns charters address all manners of issues. And the two provisions that Winnowski and Williston passed if they were approved by the legislature would be added to the charters that they already have. So those are the only two towns in the state that have passed such a such an item. That I know of and we don't necessarily get told everything. Great. Okay. Anyone else have a question or comment for Karen. Like I don't if you can see Jeff he does. I can't see him but go ahead Jeff. Thank you. I'm the only the alternate tonight but I, I would say that for as long as I've been involved in state government which is over 30 years. There's always been an issue and with a particular interest on local option taxes. And that's probably why it's never gone anywhere in the house because I'm not aware of very much support on the House Ways and Means Committee to have this local option taxes be a part of this. Having been through it some with some municipalities it's the current system is pretty good. It's not that bad the state's not been unreasonable. There's only a very few cities I know that have local option taxes that are their own that's outside of the state system, and having the state system for implementing meals and rooms tax or sales and use tax which like the state the state's constitution is the state's purview has some ease and administration for the local for the people in the locality that participate in it. I can tell you if local option taxes as part of this, it's going to run into the same resistance it's run into the house for the last 30 years it's been tried. So take that for what it's worth doesn't mean you don't try just means going to be extraordinarily heavy lift, if you include them. So I would just say that I've been on the other side of that conversation with Jeff for those entire 30 years. Okay, and the another good idea. I don't have any comments or questions, just to thank Karen very much for taking the time to join us tonight. Thank you, Karen. Yeah, thanks Karen. Thank you. Okay. All right, so we'll move back to item five, which is the UPWP public forum and ask if anyone new has joined us from the public that would like to make a comment. Richard, I see your hand up. How are you tonight. Can you go. I don't know if you have a list. I'm. Yes, I'm here to comment on that. Is there anybody else in front of me I don't want to know. Okay, well thank you Mr chairman and honorable esteemed commissioners. I do have a comment on the UPWP if I may. My name is Richard Watts. I'm a resident of Heinsberg. And I have just three interrelated questions if I may, and then a very short comment. And my questions have to do with the fiscal year 21 draft mid year UPWP, which I saw as sort of part of the, there's the agenda and then that was attached to the this meeting notice. So, and my question is about the Chittenden County, I 89 250 study, which is seems to appear on lines 84 and 85 on pages 13 and 14. My understanding this was originally approved for about $526,000. So my question just is, if possible, how much of that 526,000 has been spent. How much is the CCRPC and V trans allocating to spend in this document. My mass suggests it's about 435,000 but I'd love to have that confirmed. And is this project expected to cost more than was originally proposed and if so, how much is that cost overrun. So, Charlie, let me ask you because we're going to be talking about the mid year adjustments later on, do you want to take it then or address it now, or Alana or whoever. Yeah, either one is fine. And Lanny may be able to give me a more precise answer. Richard I think the answer to I'm not sure if I got every single question. More. Yes, I do think we're probably approaching. If I was going to guess what it might ultimately be it's going to be 800,000 maybe. And I think it's a big number it's hard for me to put a number like that out there. And we're sharing that cost V trans is paying a portion of it, I think close to a third. It's a real issue. If I can answer a question you didn't ask, which is why. And is that really we're finding ourselves in a situation where there are a lot more questions and analysis that needs to be done to be able to come up with good answers for the public for this body for South Burlington City Council for V trans. And so, I think we're trying to do a little bit more deeper dive to better answer questions and resolve issues and not hand over a study to V trans that kind of creates more problems and it solves. So, it is definitely bigger, a bigger budget. For sure. I hope it's also more effective at resolving issues by the time we get done with it. And I know we can have a debate about the, the why and how outside of that but that is what's in this UPWP update and I can't remember the exact number. I think, and I'm trying to blow up that screen but is it like 380,000 in this fiscal year Lane. I think so I'm just trying to find the number. What I know is that we are asking for approximately $160,000 in peel funds in fiscal year 21. So that will take us to the end of June. And Eleni you said 100, your audio cut out an additional 160,000 additional 160,000 I'm sorry my microphone is not working very well. Yes, and this is, as Charlie said this is mainly because we are doing a lot more evaluation based on questions from the public personal based on questions from our advisory committee especially on the interchange task for this study. And we're going to be coming out soon with some results of that on those interchange evaluations. So, again, I'm not going to take up too much of your time I have a short comment but the I my math is it's about $435,000 so in what Mr Baker suggesting that the cost overrun here is over a quarter. It's 526 to something like 800,000 so that would be 260,000 or so. Yeah, and I'm speculating a little bit about where we might end up in the next fiscal year is to Richard. The study will go until probably the beginning of 2022. So we still have another year of this study so we're going to move into the next fiscal year. And I think that's what Charlie was talking about. Not just for this fiscal year so Richard I can just give you specific numbers outside this forum if you would like I'd be happy to. I don't have them in front of me right now. So, okay, and then just if I made Mr Chairman just a short statement you can see where I'm headed clearly but I think that given what has happened in this country, since this project was first developed that the commissioner should really think about a pause. And we've just heard that it's over $250,000 already over what was anticipated spending. So let's just take the time to think about it. According to the documents description, the planning project is going to study things like new and expanded interchanges and develop an implementation plan for making those investments. So the CPC at RPCs metropolitan transportation plan 2017-2050, a short list of just four of those improvements. If any of those were recommended for implementation are over $100 million. And that's, you know, in dollars that are going to change. So probably everybody on this call is here remotely. The pandemic has brought an enormous change in teleworking and how we travel and how we think about travel. And I just think it might make more sense, rather than tacking that on to a study that started with a different mission to pause the study and really rethink where we're headed. Look at what's happening around us and think about what types of investments we want to make. I don't know about this before, but I think the study is framed in a certain way and that's the biggest concern I have. It, it's framed in a way that we have to fix the interstate if we're going to solve this problem of moving people around in the solutions are all car centered. And I think at this moment in time, I think it would make sense to pause the study and to see if there are actual TDM solutions, solutions that invest and enable people to drive less like we see is happening all around us. And I do think it's at odds with the really far thinking ecos plan that talks about other types of investments. And just lastly, and thank you for this time planning planning is meant to be the guidance of future action. That's what planning is about. And I think we should plan the future we want. And that future might be different types of investments as we look at what's happening around us and this might be a time just to take a pause before spending, you know, almost half a million dollars here in the next fiscal year, and really think about what we want to do with the study. So, thanks for the time I know many of you happy inauguration day. And thanks, Mr. Jerry. Thanks, Richard. Anyone else in the public that wants to make a comment about the UPWP Charlie let me know if you see anyone I can't see anyone else. Jeff, hang on for just a second. I know you're the alternate tonight. I guess there's no one from the public so Jeff go ahead. We want to take issue with Mr. Watts is characterization that the study is going over budget. The only reason that we're allocating more money to it is to address many of the concerns, like the ones that Mr. Watts has raised to make sure that they're fully considered when we plan what's something that is an absolutely critical piece of infrastructure to the whole planning region. I just want to make sure that it doesn't come across that the money that we're spending is wasteful or something that we were guilty of not planning well for. But when we get input in and requires further analysis, we would be foolish not to undertake the further analysis so we come out with a high quality product and I just want to make sure that the record didn't reflect it was just the cost over on. It's the cost of doing additional analysis for a good plan. So anyone else on the commission wish to make a comment. Mr. Chair for my I think this is an action item under number eight so we'll be able to discuss it there as a as a board. Okay, so then we will close the public forum at this point and move on and move back to public comment that we skipped over before. So I'd ask if anyone from the public has a comment on anything not on tonight's agenda. Doug. Okay, so I, as I started say earlier I'm here because I'm of the letter that was sent out regarding the development of the burden project with higher ground. And I was curious about how that letter was sent out was it solicited or is that something that you just sort of send out in a pro forma way. And because I had some, there are a couple of things that didn't seem like they related to the product it seemed like there are certain things, some comments that CCRPC made that didn't really relate to the situation here. And the two things that I wanted to bring up were in your previous fiscal years 2020 and 2021 2021 work plans. You spoke about sidewalks and about wastewater, and neither of those issues seem to be addressed and they're pretty big issues with that project. Is this the time to bring this up. I think so to answer your, your first question. And Charlie or Regina can jump in and correct me if I misstate here but we are asked to comment on Act 250. This type of thing. And that's what we're responding to. Okay. And in terms of, of what's in the letter. You know this this goes through the executive committee, and we had a discussion of it and the focus of our comments is really transportation. And so that's what we comment on we recognize as a group that there are are likely other issues that come up, but we did not comment on those and again I'm looking for Regina or Charlie. Or anyone on the executive committee who'd like to jump in and correct anything I misstated but but that's where we were from the executive committee standpoint. Could I elaborate on my concerns then. Sure. Okay, so in in your point number two, that the proposed project to service by municipal water and sewer which it is. It's also located on bus lines as within walking distance to many services and jobs. The bus service is only until 640pm. And it's a concert venue so many of the concerts aren't going to be getting out until 2am. So it really doesn't have us access. So in terms of walking distance to service and jobs in your work plan for 2020 and 2021 you commented specifically on that neighborhood in terms of sidewalks, and that you're in the process of doing a sidewalk scoping, Queen City Park Road sidewalk scoping and acknowledge that there's a 700 and 700 foot gap missing along that section to connect sidewalks so there's no way to get from the Burton property to the minimal sidewalk that crosses the one lane railroad bridge. The, what's surprising is that I don't know how many millions of dollars Burton spent to repay Queen City Park Road this year, but there was nothing done with sidewalks. And so that that sort of been kicked down the road and I'm just wondering because you've been working on the scoping and finding a preferred sidewalk alternative for two years of work plans and it seems like that should come up in suggesting that this is a good place for a concert venue, especially with Burton talking about wanting to have pedestrian bicycle and mass transit access. Regina do you want to jump in I see you unmuted yourself. So, just to confirm Mike you are correct we are a statutory party to active 50 so we are notified of all applications and we participate in those that go to hearing. So, we have two specific things that we tend to look at when we're looking at active 50 projects. One is does the project fall in line with our future land use areas. That's a pretty broad scope. It is an area planned for growth. So that's really what that first part of the letter is about. And then we do look more specifically at the trend traffic impact assessment. And it's really what the other part of the letter is about in terms of whether we think from from a vehicle traffic perspective, whether there's going to be any impacts beyond what the traffic impact study is calling for and for mitigation of those impacts. The sidewalk and the bus service are to good points. And we can. We probably actually have time to relook at those two issues if if the executive committee would like to when we get back to that point in time, because the hearing has not yet been scheduled yet I don't believe or if it has it's we probably still have time to participate in that. Yeah, so I think that's good. So one more point to the to the traffic study. There's pretty active community group that's been trying to participate in this. And it's we've had, we've not had a lot of success, but I think it would be worth a visit for the for your committee to take a look at just the road access because they do have a pretty elaborate traffic study but the reality is there. Major pinch points adjacent to the site there's a one lane railroad bridge that's supposed to take half of the traffic and home avenues supposed to take the other half and there's a railroad crossing on home avenue that they're frequent trains at night. So I think that it would bear further investigation and also the impact on the neighboring community which when you look at the vision statement for the CCRPC. You talk about quality of life. You talk about quality of life brother. So I appreciate your time and I appreciate your consideration on these points. Thank you Doug. Any other comments from the public. I'd like to make a comment and I can't get my video to work tonight this is Laura waters I'm on Laurie Smith's computer. Okay, yeah. Hello. I'm sorry. Or Laura. Should I go ahead. Yes, please. So I'm sorry. Yeah. So I just I just wanted to kind of build a little bit on what what Doug was saying tonight because if you look at all the Chittenden County Ecos plan sections that could apply to this project. And a lot of the the sections were ignored in the active 50 application and also in any of the review that that was done by whoever written this letter. But I thought it was really interesting that one of the things that somebody brought up tonight was that apparently. The governor of the city of Hamburg was talking about climate change in the Paris climate accord and all of that. But the whole aspect of shoving between five and 600 cars to this venue. The only way that people have to get there that nobody's taking into account in the greenhouse gas emissions the environmental impact of the lack of transportation alternative transportation infrastructure for this venue. I mean, everything talks about wanting to have bicycling and wanting to have people walk there but there's absolutely no infrastructure whatsoever that's safe for anyone to do that. The active transportation plan page 41 of your report. You look at that and the impact of of accidents from pedestrians and bicyclists along route seven and that and that spreads out into a long pine street and down the avenue, which is where people will be trying to access this venue. It's, it's, it's very, very high. If you I don't know the crash frequency. In some cases are at the very maximum of the crash frequency along this road which is where people get across. So the fact that that the entire kind of ecosystem of the transportation aspect of trying to get people to walk trying to get people to ride bicycles, trying to figure out any other kind of transportation aspects of getting people back through the small secondary neighborhood roads to a venue that has been approved by the city of Burlington for 1500 people. They are, they've estimated that three people per car will travel and we all know that people don't carpool like that, and their own public works one of their public works engineers said that he would have estimated at 2.5 people which makes 600 cars for a maximum concert. It's, it's just it's an untenable situation for those of us who live back here, and I would urge you to look at the transportation aspects of this. The fact that it is, it is completely ill. It's a completely ill conceived project that also if you look at the other criteria that would apply to this, that there were many criteria that were ignored. The infrastructure of the energy, public safety, etc. that all apply under the ECOS plan that all of these areas should be addressed in another letter to act 250. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else from the public want to make a comment. Charlie, since I can't see anyone, let me know if there is someone. Sure. I saw Michael's iPad. Michael or are you ready to make a comment. You're good. Or you're muted. Michael, I think you're talking about you're muted. Thanks. Okay. Yes, I live in central on Central Avenue in Queen City Park. And I've reached out to the South Burlington Police Department to, to get records for accident frequency up at root seven and Queen City Park Road, as well as down around home Avenue. Well, that's Burlington, but so we'll have that information soon for the last four or five years, which would be interesting to share, which I am happy to do. Okay, thank you. I don't think it's been really looked at carefully. Turner. Thank you. Anyone else from the public. I guess not. Okay. I'll close public comment and move on to the consent agenda. We have a couple of items there. I'm looking for a motion. Jim Donovan. Is there a second second. Okay. All in favor, please raise your hand or say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed. Any abstentions. The eyes have it. Okay. Next, we have approved the minutes of November 18, 2020 meeting. Maybe you can approve. This is Jim. Jim. Darren, I'll second. Are there any comments or corrections to the minutes? Okay. Technically, this probably should come from Essex, but. What I did notice is under the attendance. We had Elaine as the alternate and then Jeff was the member, but in the minutes, the written part of the minutes, Jeff mentioned that he was the alternate and then Elaine was the member. So should the. Members of the meeting be the members of the meeting? Or should the members of the meeting be the members of the meeting that correspond to the actual voting then of the members. I'm the appointed member Catherine, but that's why I said and volunteered that even though they, I'm the appointed member. And Elaine is the alternate. I was serving as the alternate. At that meeting. And I did so again tonight just to make that clear. Good. Cause I just, you know, wanted to, you know, confirm that that's what it was. I just let the minute show what they were. I didn't know the, you know, because you don't want to have things confusing. Well, it's just so that when Elaine votes and makes motions, even though she's the alternate, she's recognized as being the representative for the community that night. I was prevented from making the motion to approve the audit. As I've done the last 19 years. Right. Because I was the alternate list. Sorry, Jeff. You're the finance guru. Any other comments or corrections to the minutes? I was good. Other than that, I just wasn't sure. Okay. Hearing none that I will ask those in favor of the motion again, to either raise your hand or say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed. Any abstentions. Garrett abstains. Okay. Motion passes. All right. Next we have got to get back to my agenda here. We are on, let me see minutes. 2021 policy participation review. Charlie, is this you? Okay. Until Regina, you know, seizes it. But, um, so, but actually, just to give credit to Regina for putting this together. Um, you have a, a document in your packet. That describes or lists about. Um, so I'm going to the second page, 13 different items, policy issues. Uh, that, uh, from a staff perspective, we think we should be tracking. Um, if you remember. I don't know, going back six, 12, maybe 18 months ago, um, the last six months or so. So this is kind of our beginning of the session list. Um, so if there's things on here that you feel like, um, We should stop tracking. Happy to hear that. But probably more on the side of if there are things that you're aware of, percolating in the legislature that we should be paying more attention to. Um, so, uh, without happy to take any questions or comments on the list or. Or things that should be added or deleted. Jim. Um, we have, uh, in the past. We were helping with the, uh, opiod crisis and some of the health related issues with that. Um, and I think that's, um, I don't know if we're still involved in the legislature right now. Or if we are still involved in any of those things. But that's something I saw that was not on here. And. If. Either we're still involved or the legislature might be thinking about it. I think that's something that might be added to our list. Thank you. That's, that's good. Yeah. The, um, the opioid alliance that we were staffing a few years ago is kind of, um, a little bit more of a particular staffed effort. And has evolved into more of a chicken and county public health. Alliance. Um, so maybe that's something I should add just so we can kind of update you on that. Um, and that's still a little bit in the. Storming to forming stage. So, uh, but I'll add that to the list. Thank you. Any other. Thoughts or questions. We'll see any. Good. Yeah. I was wondering about the, um, the RPC bill in the chat, the 117 changes, the climate response plan. Legislation. Yeah, there's, um, I don't, I don't know what bill number that is this year, Sharon, but I don't know if you do. Um, there is a small bill that, um, that asks us to work a little bit with the health department on climate response and also, uh, talks a little bit about, um, being a resource to hospitals. Uh, when they do their club, uh, community health needs assessments. Um, yeah. So I don't know. It did. I think it passed the Senate last year. Um, but did not. Yeah. Well. Yeah. I think that, I think that was in early 2020. I think it passed the Senate early in the session, but didn't COVID hit. Didn't go anywhere in the house. Um, and I, I really am not expecting expecting any action on it this year because, um, the same, what happened in the house was it was not related to COVID. Response or recovery. Um, and so they, uh, pushed it off. Um, I'm kind of, I think that's Sharon, what was going through my mind. I'm not expecting that to really move forward, but, uh, we'll put it on the back burner to see if it does. Okay. Cause it was reintroduced again this session. Yeah. Thank you. And I think it's us 19. Thank you. Anything else. Okay. Bring none. Let's move on to UPWP. So, um, I am not going to open that document and torture you all with the, the very small type size. Um, I'm, and I apologize for the lateness in which you've got the document. Completely my oversight. I told the staff everything was in the packet and, uh, except for that little detail of the work program and the budget. Um, so totally my fault, um, even though I think Amy probably, you know, it looks like it's her fault cause she sends email, but it's not. Um, so, um, in the, uh, let me talk about the budget first. Um, this is for those of you who haven't been on the board too long. In the mid point of the year, we try to right size our budget. Um, now that we have more accurate information through six months of the year. And we also typically have, um, a number of things that have come up since last spring. Uh, that, that, uh, have been added to our work program. Um, so if you look at the budget, there's things like the, um, the EDA planning grant for the West central seds, um, is a new contract that we're doing with, uh, adjoining regions, uh, to do a comprehensive economic development strategy. You'll see, uh, a project called MTI green ride bike share. Uh, V trans made some additional funding available to work on TDM projects. We got another grant there to work on, um, bike sharing and expanding that. And then, um, you'll see some other things that came, uh, that were COVID response items under emergency management and health down near the bottom. Um, so there's some changes in, uh, revenue stream reflected there. Um, I think it's about a $300,000 increase on the revenue side. And then on the expense side, you know, we're able to tighten things up, uh, a little bit more, particularly on salary and benefits. Um, you know, one of the big questions that we have going through to the mid year is always, um, how much will health health insurance go up? Um, and you'll see a big savings. Well, you know, uh, about 5% savings on the benefits, uh, really because, uh, we kind of adjusted our healthcare plan in a way to make it flat. Might even be a couple of dollars less, uh, which never happens, but that's the situation we're in right now. Uh, so we're going to thank, be thankful for that. Um, and in the end, um, and there's one other thing that I'll note is changed and it's down near the bottom. Um, and I know, um, you all appreciate when I start talking about indirect rates, um, but down here at the bottom, you'll see a little cell highlighted in FY 21, um, that has an indirect rate of 81.5. We, and this is mostly a force that I kind of looking at, um, our indirect expenses and feeling like we're, might be over collecting a little bit on our indirect rate. And so, uh, we got approved for 83% at the beginning of the year. We're proposing to notch it down to 80% for the second half of the year for an effective 81.5% indirect rate for the whole year. Um, and that, and I mentioned that because I was about to go to the bottom line and you'll see the bottom line is down about 12,000. That is not because our revenues are down or expenses are up. It's really because we're adjusting the indirect rate down a little bit so that we don't over collect. And we're trying to reduce those swings in indirect rate that cause our budget to go, you know, high, high negative or high positive. Um, so any questions on the budget? Um, and then, um, Charlie. Yes, sir. I'm just thinking, as you said that for folks who are new, I'm not sure if everyone understands what you're talking about with the swings. If maybe you can, you can in a, in a 30 second explanation, if that's possible. All right. So 10 minutes later. Yeah. Here's my 30 second explanation. And you can kind of see in the table down at the bottom of the budget. Um, where like the last or FY 18, FY 19, we were minus 20 and minus 50, 50, 2000. You see in FY 17, we are plus 85, 86,000 plus 40, 2000 in FY 16. If you go back two more fiscal years, the swings are even bigger. Um, and so we're really, um, trying to reduce the swings. Um, and it's a, it's in a two year cycle. So if you see it go up one year, two years later, it'll go down. Um, and we're just trying to close in closer to get closer to zero. Over time. And sorry, Mike, the, the indirect rate is just the federal rate is what V trans reimburses us for our over reasonable overhead expenses to execute our mission on transportation. And not just V trans, V trans improving agency, but we use the same rate for all of our contract. And it's really we're following a federal rule. Uh, so, uh, the federal government set up this system so that we can appropriately bill our, as Jeff said, kind of kind of our overhead, although technically we'll call indirect rate, but, um, so that we take all those costs that can't be attributed directly to a program and spread them across all programs. And it's a reasonfulness, um, of those estimates standard. And so it's a cooperative agreement that we have with our state and federal funders. Yeah. So we're trying to levelize it because we're allowed to present an analysis that allows us to collect a certain percentage. And if we're off by only a few percentage points, it can be several thousand dollars. And so what happens is, is we can't over collect. So if we overestimate, then the next year we underestimate, and we get whips on around and V trans has been, and our state funders have been very helpful in working with us on this to try to make it so we can have better budget predictability and our reimbursement rates. So we've been trying a whole bunch of things because we always seem to be a little bit under or a little bit over, sometimes a lot over sometimes a little. A lot under. And we're just trying to make it so we don't go into a year where we're sitting there fighting our nails, because we have to wait another year to get our, what our two costs are, because we over collected a couple of years before. Yeah. This is the team of the finance committee. Working with the staff and working with our, our state and federal funders. And I would just add any of new commissioners who, who want to get a further explanation, why don't you do it offline? Either Charlie or forest, I will throw you under the bus to explain that to folks. But yeah, feel free to call anytime you're having trouble sleeping. We'd be happy to open up the indirect rate proposal and walk you through it. Thanks, Charlie. Sorry to interrupt. Not at all. No, but seriously, are there any questions? Cause there's a little bit of a circular on indirect rates for those of you that have trouble sleeping. Okay. No more questions on the budget. Turn it to the work program. Richard did put his finger on, you know, kind of the most significant thing happening in the work program, which is. Yes, the budget for the 89 study is definitely increasing as we're digging in deeper and trying to accomplish all of our goals. The, so the flip side of that is there are a number of projects and we've had quite a, I say we, I really mean a Laney. Had a lot of conversations with a lot of municipal staff to really right size the program and make sure that every project is, it could be accomplished this year. And there were a number of them that, you know, either the municipality wasn't ready to start or it was taking longer. So we're deferring a handful of projects. I don't even know if it's five, but a few projects into next fiscal year. And which was really okay with the municipalities. So there, there is quite a bit of change. I think it's a big, not to swallow, but we do want to dig into that 89 study and make sure we're doing everything we can to address racial equity issues and make sure at the end it is multimodal and addressing our climate and energy goals and safety goals and all those other goals that we have. And I always feel like I need to apologize for to Richard for the fact that some of our descriptions are maybe a little too road centric, but I can assure him and all of you that it will be a multimodal effort that addresses all of our Ecos plans at the end, all of our Ecos goals, excuse me, at the end. And so, but it is, it is a big project. And we appreciate the partnership with V trans. Amy, there's some part of me that would like to blame V trans, but for some of the growth in the budget, but I won't do that. But I do think we are working collaboratively together to really try to figure out the best solutions for all the users of that and not just the interstate, but of course at the interchange and exit 14 is a problem spot in our county. And that's really where we spend a lot of time trying to figure out what can be done at exit 14 to make everything work better. So I'll leave it at that. And that's probably a little bit more 89 study than you wanted, but that's the big picture of what's going on in the work program in addition to all those new projects being added. Okay. Any more questions on that? Let me let me open it first to members of the public. If they have any comments or questions at this point that we haven't addressed previously. Richard. Thank you, commissioner. Do you, do we have a cap on this? Charlie, do you have a sense of how much? I mean, the overrun now is a 250,000 for the reasons you explained, but that brings us to an $800,000 project. Do you have a sense of some endpoint here? Is that going to be it at 800,000 or do you see this continuing to grow? I'm going to allow a lady answer this because I think she'll have a more fun answer than I will. I'm not quite sure about fun answer. Richard, we don't know yet. I mean, that is the truth. We are going to try to answer and evaluate all, all the kind of, I'm sorry. My, my puppy is getting a little frisky here. So I'm just trying to get her down so I can just talk, but she's just like not allowing me to do that. So we are hoping that we're not going to have a lot more of an overruns, but you know, so we are very confident of how much we need to basically finish this fiscal year. And then once we move from the evaluation of the interchange alternatives for the three, you know, 14, 13 and 12 B, and then we move forward into the bundles, which are going to be multimodal bundles. And then we're going to see how that process goes. And we're hopeful that the interchange evaluation was the big lift. And we are almost there. We're almost there. We are meeting with the advisory committee. We're meeting, we have a lot of meetings now with the technical committee. We're going to meet with the city council. We're going to have public meetings. We're going to meet with the BIPOC populations and underserved populations. And then in March or April, we're going to meet with the city council. We're going to meet with the city council. We're going to meet with the BIPOC community. And we're going to make a final decision about interchanges. As they move into the bundles. So I'm sorry. I mean, it's a long answer to your question, but it's like we are hoping that we're not going to have a lot, a lot of overruns, but we don't know yet. Is there an amended scope of work? Will there be an amended scope of work? Yes, absolutely. I'm just going to move forward with the scope of work. And then if there is going to be another amendment, you can see all that documents. We're going to put everything on the website. And I'm happy to share everything with you too. So you're asking people to vote for an additional $250,000 in this scope of work is not yet. No, no, we are asking for people to vote for $160,000. In addition, and the reasons that we can tell you the reasons, I mean, the reasons is that we have done a lot more evaluations on the interchanges. The possible interchanges. We are looking at a new interchange at 12 B. We're looking at some improvements at 14. And also we're looking at. Improvements at 13. So those are the interchanges that move forward into phase two or round two. And then so based on a lot of questions from our partners. Not just us and also V trends. In addition to the advisory committee, we needed to do a lot more evaluation. And analyze and create a very complex evaluation matrices. That is going to take us to, you know, try to answer those questions to take us to the, to the place that we can actually lead the advisory committee can make a decision. I'm sorry. It's a long window. Kind of like, you know, answer. I'm happy to talk offline with you about the 89 anytime. But. And I guess I want to throw out there that I can't guarantee that it won't be more as we work with the advisory committee and the technical committee. And we look at different bundles. And also. One key thing that we have in here that's a little different than most studies is this notion of triggering. Like what would have to happen in the world to trigger a particular investment. That is probably going to take some more analytical work, you know, to think more about sequencing and or timing. And or what. What it is that would trigger it. And I don't know that that may take a little bit more money than we have in the budget for next year as well. But, you know, I think we'll have that conversation again in the spring. When we talk about the FY 22 work program. As to. And that will be, I think, at least our intent is to close up the study in FY 22. And get it done. But I think we will have a little bit more budget conversation. There. And at that point, Richard, we should have a better sense of what the final dollar figure looks like. Barring any issues that come up. That I can't. Know about now. So. We'll have to see how it goes and keep monitoring it. Thank you. Okay. Any other comments from anyone in the public? How about folks on the commission? Jim. Just wanted to verify that. All of the. Changes that we're looking at are the ones that are highlighted in red text. Thanks for bringing that up, Jim. There are a few different kinds of changes in that work program document. Ones that you see some might see green highlighted cells. Oh yeah. Okay. I see. I see. Yeah. Those are usually indicating. Like, I think we tried to highlight the green project name. And if you scroll to the right. Sorry. I'm having to look at this in a two page side by side view. Yeah, me too. I realize that the legend has more things in it. Yeah. So green ones. You'll see budget increases. You'll see some pink cells that are budget decreases. And then you'll see red text. If a description or deliverable change. And then you'll see the, you know, the budget increases and then you'll see red text. If a description or deliverable changed. Great. All right. Thank you for the clarification. Yeah. And then there's a, there's some cells that are yellow, which are still some pending things. So there's a couple of grant possibilities that we know are out there that we don't know if they'll land or not. Jeff. I just wanted the commissioners to know that the finance committee reviewed all these mid course corrections with the executive committee. And thought that they were thoughtfully done and appropriate based on the explanations and the, and the specifics associated with each one of the project. Thanks, Jeff. Anyone else. John. Just a little tidbit of information. I was looking over the documents. I did finally access them, Charlie. And one of the options, I guess, is the decommission one. Decommission I one 89. And to the best of my knowledge, which is a few years old now and roads get built all the time. I one 89 is the shortest. Interstate in the nation. So if we decommission it, we will lose our, our status for whatever that is worth. I just thought people may find that. An enjoyable piece of fun information. Thank you for that job. I heard it once at least one laugh, John. Anyone else. Charlie mentioned a fun answer. I was trying to comply. There you go. Anyone else. Okay. Guess not. So this is an action item, I believe. So it's an MPO or RPC vote. This is the way our bylaws are written is actually both. So we need to actually do two votes. One is an MPO action and one is an RPC action. So we need two motions. Charlie. Yeah, yeah, just a motion. Okay. So I'll be looking for a motion first for the transportation side, the MPO side. So moved. Thank you. Andy second. Any further discussion. Hearing none. We don't need to do a roll call, right, Charlie? Just. I don't think so now in this virtual environment. Right. Yeah. Make sure if you do object. Mr. Chair, if it's not unanimous, you need to call the roll. Okay. So all those in favor, please raise your hand or say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed. Anyone want to abstain. Looks like it was a unanimous yes. So next we need a motion. So move. Okay. Garrett. And Catherine. Any further discussion. Just be clear. This is for the RPC side. So all those in favor of the. Hello. Am I off? Mike, we lost your audio for a moment. Oh, sorry about that. All in favor of please say aye or raise your hand. Yeah. Aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed. Any abstentions? Can you still hear me? Yes. Okay. Sorry. I was wondering what was going on when no one moved. So we were all on suspense wondering how that sentence was going to finish. Yeah, really. So that was again unanimous. Okay. So thank you very much everyone. Next item we have is the racial equity. Yeah, so just wanted to update the board. The executive committee has continued this conversation and with the consultant, if you remember back to the November timeframe, we had an RFP out there looking for a partner to help us with the racial equity work at the, I think the December executive committee, we kind of honed in on the partner creative discourse. January, they came to the executive committee meeting with very, I guess an early draft of a scope of work. We had some discussion there, gave them some feedback. They are updating the scope of work. Hopefully it will be at the February executive committee for approval. And just if I was gonna try to characterize the scope of work, really, it's very focused. It's a little different than what we were talking about, I think in meetings during 2020, in that I think we were very focused on like we're gonna have a lot of training events. And this team is really coming back and say, well, it really, we should do some learning. They wanna spend a few months understanding us. So that'll probably take up the end of FY21 here. And then moving into FY22, I think they're very hopeful that we can have in-person meetings at that time, sometime in the fall and knocking on wood that that is a real possibility. And that we're able to bring you all, the staff together and bring in BIPOC community members and partner organizations to have more conversations through the fall and then do more implementation work in the spring. And I'm trying to give you a quick summary. It doesn't mean that we won't have some training events over the next few months, but they felt that it would be much more effective for us to actually build relationships with more diverse residents in our community than just be kind of trained and told what to do. And I think doing a little bit more research that they shared with us or looking at research that they shared with us, I think is a pretty good argument that yeah, we really need to work on those relationship building as opposed to just learning what we should be doing or should not be doing. So I don't know if any members of the executive committee wanna update or improve my summary or add to it, but please do. I think it was a pretty good summary, Charlie. Anyone have any questions for Charlie? Just not. Yeah, so the importance of that issue is not lost, but I do think it is a longer, more deliberate track that will be on over the next 18 months or so. Great. Okay, thanks. Next item is executive director report. So I think John was referencing a little bit of the memo that was in the packet. So there was a packet, I don't usually have attachments to my update, but we did wanna, it's been a few months now since we've talked about the 89 studying in detail with you and wanted to give you a little bit of an update on what's going on with this interchange analysis rabbit hole that we've gone down. So happy to take any questions on that memo if you have any, but that was just a quick update and we are planning to come to the board next month with a fuller presentation as to what's going on. We're also gonna be Chris heads up. If I haven't given you a heads up, we'll be at the South Burlington city council both on February 1st and February 15th, I think. Thank you. And as you read that memo, you can tell, the three interchanges that we're doing a deeper dive into are all in South Burlington, hence our, why they're getting so much more attention. I guess I have to wonder if 89, the interstate is completely within South Burlington if that's also a rarity. Well, yeah, those three interchanges anyway, right? Yeah, for sure. And 180, 99, you mean? Yeah, 180, 99, did I misspeak? Yes. Okay, no, if there are no questions on that. So all hazards mitigation plan, you may remember us talking about this when we did this original UPWP last spring that we thought we might get a contract to work for the state and update all the hazard mitigation plans in Chittenden County. As that went through the procurement process, they ended up selecting an out-of-state national consulting firm to do that work. So we won't be the primary contractor on that. And so they valued some technical expertise which we appreciate over the relationships with our municipalities, but we expect to be assisting them in some role yet to be defined. And one other side note on that, there is a advisory committee on that, that Chris Shaw was the board representative on in the last cycle. We'd like to get a new board rep on that committee and that work will happen mostly through the course of this calendar year. We don't need that rep tonight, but that'll be an action item for your next meeting to appoint a rep to that committee. Chris, were you gonna say something? I was just gonna mention, I wasn't stepping off because I had a fear of pandemics which I don't think are entirely the focus, but it's more often the flood and the storm events that we have. But it was an interesting exercise and it's certainly needed as our contingency plans. So it is a good committee that does good planning work. So I do recommend it for folks. Yes, thanks, Chris. Yeah, please think about that for the next meeting. If you're interested or email me or Dana Albrecht if you're interested in that draft rail plan. VTrans has a rail plan that's out there for public review. I think I don't know that I've seen the actual draft. It's probably coming any day now and that'll be in front of the tack to provide comments back. So that's really just to let you know it's out there. If you wanna get involved with it, please let us know or talk to your tack representative. Yes, Jim. We definitely get involved because we share a lot has had a big issue for a long time, the railroads. And so I do wanna maintain contact with that and would be very interested in being involved. Thank you. And that's another item that would come under hazard mitigation there, Jim, obviously. So if anybody wanted to help out, I just find my plate is full. I think we're doing reappraisals this year in South Burlington. I think your house probably just shot up another $100,000 there, Charlie, the one he sold below. I shouldn't have sold it last summer, huh? That's all those New Yorkers coming in by now. Hi. Last item for me is to let you know, and this is just more of a heads up, the draft rules for the Clean Water Service Provider are out there for public review. That'll get reviewed at the quack at their February meeting and it'll be on your February agenda to look at providing formal comments back to the state on that draft rule. And that's all I have, Mr. Chair. Great. Can I add one, Charlie? Yeah, sir. Yeah, sure. We are curious here at staff, if folks would be comfortable with the change and how we put our minutes in the board packet. So right now your board packet gets big, big, big, big, big because all the committee minutes are there at the end of it. We could, as an alternative on the agenda itself, put hyperlinks directly to the website pages where those minutes exist. It would help us cut down on data, grant scheme of things. The more times we were repeating things on the website, the bigger it gets. But we just thought that might be more convenient and more helpful. Excellent. Couple of thumbs up. So is a compromise? I must be the only one that reads the minutes then. I don't wanna go ahead and packet all over God's creation for minutes. Well, let me, Regina, are you talking about the minutes from the committees or even from our minutes? The minutes for the board would certainly still be included in the packet, because that's an action item on your agenda. We thought it also would probably make sense to still include the executive committee minutes right there, just because that's a direct committee of the board. But we were thinking about TAC, QUAC, PAC. Yeah, so if you remember a few years ago. Go ahead, Charlie. So this is electronic copy, Regina. I mean, it's not, it's not anybody's skin. Just don't print them out, folks. I gotta tell you, that's the only way I know what's going on in this organization is by reading the minutes of all the committees. And I don't wanna have to go on and beckon for them everywhere. But I'm a dinosaur, I realize that. Charlie, did you wanna add something? No, well, I just was, I was trying to remember, I think this was a change in practice a number of years ago as we were trying to become more transparent and to Jeff's point, make sure you had the opportunity, at least, to be aware of what was going on in the rest of the organization, particularly at those committees. And so I think it just came up as a question and maybe I'll own the question was, I was feeling a little bit guilty at how long some of these packets were getting. But I do think electronically, if you don't have to scroll to the end, it's really up to you. So, yeah, I guess we can leave it as is. We can just do the exact committee minutes or we could make them all links. But just give us two documents, one with minutes and then people can ignore it, okay? But I don't wanna have to go clicking on hyperlinks all over the place to get minutes to committees that sometimes I don't even know where the hell they are unless they're attached to the board minutes. And I will tell you, my reaction is visceral and negative, as you can tell. Jim. I can definitely understand Jeff's reaction. I can feel it. I guess I feel, I don't mind the hyperlinks at all. I think it would make things shorter. But to Jeff's point, it is electronic. You don't have to scroll down to the end. So, given the two options and given that it's not unanimous, I would go with Jeff and say, fine, leave them in. We'll be fine to do it the other way. To add to that, I'm a dinosaur along with Jeff. I may not have as visceral a reaction, but I read things when they're in front of me that's easy simply because there's a lot of things in my life going on and when they're there, I'll read them. If I have to go hunting and pecking for them, there's a good chance I won't. So, with that in mind, I'd prefer that they be there because I will also stay better informed if it's placed in front of me like that. That's just how I personally function. So, let me ask this. Is everyone okay with keeping it the way it is? Sure. I still think it's easier to click on a length than to scroll down 35 pages, but. Well, I agree with John and Jeff though because I read all the minutes because that's how I know what goes on in the other committees and I don't always, the links don't always work for me. Okay, well, I think Jackie. Well, I also read all the minutes and I find it a challenge to read it in one sitting and I find the 71 pages to be tough to negotiate. So maybe the compromise of that Jeff suggested of two different documents that are attached would just make it easier to find out, unless there's some trick I don't know about marking the pages. I still would strongly advocate for having the executive committee minutes in and our minutes in, but make another document with the other minutes and other people can read them at their leisure. I'm fine with that. I just don't want, the solution can't be that the commissioners can do more work to do what they have to do. I just, we already are overworked as it is and I'll tell you, I'll stop doing it and then I'll quit because I won't be effective as a commissioner. Jim. Instead of having two documents, what you could also do is in your agenda, as you list all those minutes, just put the hyperlink right there in the agenda. If someone wants to go to the hyperlink, they can use it or they can scroll down to the document, but that saves the staff creating two separate documents. But it solves the problem so that you can have it both ways. I'll give you either option. You can either link or scroll. That's fair. Thank you. Apologies. Didn't mean to raise any emotions there. It was just a little honest question of what is most helpful for you all. And apologies for any trouble that you had tonight. It happens to be this week that our website host entity has decided to change where our website is hosted. And we were sure there wouldn't be any issues, but I think there might have been a couple little blips that you all had. So apologies for that. And hopefully it was a very momentary thing while we were switching over to a different provider. So thank you for your patience with us. And we hardly heard any negative comments, which I think there were probably more than we heard. So thank you. Okay. All right. Now I think there was a good question to bring up. Great issue to raise. So at least we know where we are. Committee and liaison activities and reports, those reports are in the packet. Does anyone have any questions or comments about any of those? Jim Donovan. Sorry to be talking so much tonight. Under the Act 250 reviews, we've already had discussions on the Barton proposal. I also had a question for the one that since Charlotte, you had mentioned that you're looking for more information on that. How does that work? And do you get that back from the applicant, from the board? How do you proceed once you've sent a letter like that? Because I haven't seen one that asks for so much information like that, at least in my memory. So I'm wondering how do you proceed once you've sent a letter like that? I did the really stupid thing of shutting the packet down. But I believe that this was... Is the solar field. Yeah, and I'm just trying to think of the phase that that project is in. I think that was a 45-day notice. I'm sorry, I can't tell you. Yeah, I can try to find it. But so essentially what we're doing is we're identifying and flagging issues in the letter. And then when we see them move forward to the next phase. So 45-day notice, typically they're just saying we will submit an application. Let us know if you have any comments. Then when they do submit the application, that's when we're looking to see if they've provided that information or addressed it in some way. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Any other questions or comments on the committee reports? Jeff, see, I read them too. Okay, feature agenda topics. Charlie, do you wanna go through those? Sure, I already mentioned the ones for February, the 89 study update and the Clean Water Service Provider rule. And I think let us know this is your opportunity also to let us know if there's something that we should put on the agenda. And then in March, we have a few things warning the public hearing for the work program, starting on the slate of officers for FY22 and starting the review of the potential FY, I think they're FY23 transportation projects. This year is gonna be a little bit different in terms of reviewing transportation projects from VTRANS and thanks to VTRANS for all the work they're doing. If you've heard us use the acronym VPSP2, they're really opening up the process in terms of how they prioritize but also how they select projects to go in the program. This will be kind of our first look at potential projects to go into the program and then it'll come back I think probably in May for action after we hear from the TAC to make a recommendation to VTRANS about priorities for projects to go into the work program. So and what they're really doing is they're looking at how much capacity in different programs, financial capacity they have and they're gonna give us a list of projects 150% of that capacity in the capital program. So if there were enough money for 10 projects, they're gonna give us 15 projects to prioritize. So that'll be a different process and it's part of this new prioritization system that we're really working on figuring out how it works and making it work better with VTRANS. So thanks to VTRANS and also thanks to Christine who has been a partner with VTRANS in developing all of this. So heads up. Okay, anyone have any topics that they wanna throw out there for future meetings? Jim, again, Jim, again. Sorry, just to verify legislative updates and how we're doing on all those policy things that we talked about, we'll be coming under the executive director reports on a monthly basis. Yeah, yeah. And please if in between meetings, don't feel like you have to wait for the meeting to ask me like, you know, shoot me an email or give me a quick call if you have a question or you feel like there's something I should be paying attention to I'm definitely not paying attention to everything. Sharon maybe doing some of that herself, but yeah, let me know if there's anything you want me to pay attention to. Okay, anything else? Okay, hearing none. Members items, other business. Any members items or other business tonight? I see none. I will ask for a motion to adjourn. And before I do that, I thank everyone for showing up tonight and contributing. It was a good meeting. I see that Jeff has not unmuted. So I'll make a motion to adjourn. I can't make a motion on the alternate tonight. Oh, all right. I'll make a motion for Jim. I'll second the motion. Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. I'll raise your hand. All right. Anyone who wants to stick around? No. Okay, thanks, everyone. Oh, next meeting is what February 17th. Okay, see you all then. And others at the executive committee.