 I didn't get started with. I motion or conversation around our August two agenda and July 22 minutes. That is as loud as it gets. Wow. We're still working on it. I'll make the motion and we approve the minutes and the agenda with no changes. Second. All right. Any discussion. All in favor. I. Post. Passes unanimously. All right. Let's move on to our topic of why we are all here. And just since I can't see everybody, let me make sure I know who all is in the space. I've got Kasha Dan Lincoln and Stephanie as commissioners. Okay. And then Alec and Cameron, I have listed as staff. And then I've got Stephen Jay and Patrick. As members of the public. Is there anybody else. That I am missing here. I'd be considered a member of the public. Bill Jolly. Bill Jolly is here for the public. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the recap of where we ended things last time. We essentially. Crossed off the list. All of our parks except for. Confluence peace and gateway, which are still potentially on the table. Dan had shared a draft policy. That would. I think that was a good point. I think that was a good point. And I think that was a good point. And then we ended up getting in those three parks and North branch as well. Actually it was how it had been drafted. And we kind of tabled that till this discussion. And since then, I know we've heard a little bit more from the public. I've been in touch with friends of the Winooski Vermont river and the area. We've been talking a little bit about how you can get in touch with them and how you can get along the river and, and have unique and different management concerns because of their location by the river. So I think tonight, what I'd like to do is. Kind of starting with the, the draft that Dan had created. When I attached it to the agenda for this meeting based on our conversation last time, I took the liberty of crossing off North branch. And so I want to talk about those three parks and then also any kind of mitigation or considerations that we would like to pass along to the city if camping is allowed and any of those three parks. Yes, Dan. Yeah, I guess before I begin discussion, it would be nice to hear what the, the friends and the river concerns he said and then I'd also like to hear from Cameron if there's been a new draft of the of the city policy released or if we're still going off of the one that we had been looking at at our last meeting. Yeah, I think that that's great. Why don't I start with friends the new ski and Vermont River Conservancy. Both of them. I think we had already identified their couple of their primary concerns of human waste disposal trash disposal. Friends of the boost new ski also brought up vegetation concerns and that there has been camping at river access sites and parks in the past and when that happens. The vegetation is sometimes, you know, cut down or cleared, you know, if people are like moving it out of the way. And when there's increased impact and and compression of the soils. It can result in and greater likelihood for erosion and things like that that are of course not good for water quality. Rivers are already struggling the, you know, based on simply our sewer systems that we have that are pretty antiquated and the way that we in general have treated our rivers for hundreds of years. You know, the Kola accounts are already quite high. Beyond, you know, State Street, especially down to the confluence of the rivers and into the main branch Lewinowski. So I think the vegetation concern I had. I had not heard so much before. And I think would I think there are a couple of things there one is like the impacts of like people walking on vegetation clearing vegetation, compacting soils. And also, I think I've heard, we've heard from the public a couple of times mentioned a fire and which I think has, you know, obviously like safety risks to the community but also very high vegetation risks says what are you going to burn except what is there. I think that's something that we haven't talked about that I think we may want to bring forward when we talk about like if camping is allowed in these places. There shouldn't be fire and how to how to manage vegetation risks. And then another piece that I think is also to think about is the permanence of the structures. So for example, you know, Cameron has talked about this is not so much camping as sleeping. So, you know what happens with people's things during the day and as we've seen at like Gertin Park. I think people leave belongings there and kind of use it as a hangout space all day long right. So with something like Confluence Park. Are we encouraging people potentially to like set up tents and tarps and kind of semi permanent structures that are there day in and day out all the time and leave things. Or is this a sleeping space where people are, you know, coming and going, which I think might be important to think about. You know, I just like to reiterate that, you know, and I don't think it's the city's intent to encourage any sort of outdoor camping. If this is, this is a response to, you know, a potential emergency condition and that people that have been in hotels are potentially being released and not having any place to go. So, the other these keywords for me that I hear. And yeah, they've been bandied about in the media and they've been bandied about elsewhere but I just don't think it's the case and encouragement is one of those words. I, you know, any vote that I take to allow encampments in the parks is not going to be me saying I encourage you to camp here, or I encourage you to do this it's going to be, you know, in response to an emergency condition. We are we are taking X action. So that I would prefer to not hear the word encourage in regards to what we're doing. Any discussion on that point. I guess I appreciate that but at the same time I can I have a hard time separating allowing from encouraging and I think while it may be semantics of language I think the effectively allowing camping is equal to encouraging camping. I don't I don't see in practice how those two things are separable. When you're a kid that wants to drive your car, and they ask you to drive your car, you can allow them to drive your car but are you encouraging them to drive your car. When you allow them to drive your car, yes, you are encouraging your car. I don't see how you could conflate the two but I, you know, I'm not going to go into semantics here. I just. I'm not really on this and I just don't think that the city is is encouraging people to go out and camp. The city is is being proactive, and we are deciding whether or not we want to, you know, add to the space that, you know, is potentially a part of this sort of non intervention strategy or not. There's no encouragement here that I can see. The other piece of the BRC and friends of the new ski, I think we've also heard from the public which is around simply the safety of the parks themselves and and other users and you know the peace park is we had talked about. You know it's along the rail trail bike path there. It is more hidden and kind of tucked away and I think could catch people by surprise, which they brought up as well. I think those were the main things wildlife trashed vegetation and safety, and the temporal like, you know whether this is a permanent kind of allowance of day in and day out all the time. People can leave their things there or with whether there's some kind of temporal. You know, peace to the permission. And that last part, Kasia, I think that in my mind is like, you know, a question mark like if the city doesn't tend on really monitoring whether or not, you know, tents and sleeping areas can be set up, you know, invisible throughout the day. I mean, it does feel a little bit more like, yeah, encouragement, I guess, versus, you know, the, the allowing and monitoring of an emergency situation where we'd be, you know, making sure kind of people are staying camped in the areas that have been designated and within the times that have been designated so. Yeah, I'm curious to maybe talk more about that when it comes back around or in terms of our draft policy. Well, I'm kind of sharing all this second hand, obviously from BRC and friends of the new ski. And any other questions on that piece or else Dan I think you had a question for Cameron, as well. On the, I think that if the policy had been amended the city's policy had been amended or updated or anything since our last meeting. So, commissioners, thank you. This is camera Neeter Meyer. Dan thanks for the question nothing formal has been put out yet we've been working as staff to make edits based on the feedback we've gotten from y'all and further from the public and what our own responses been in the interim time, where there's no policy so we're working on edits and this was an important meeting for us to listen to before we put any other for any draft forward so I think for the feedback I've gotten just off hand from different members of council is that this probably is because we've sort of put it forward as a two separate issues like where can we create boundaries around emergency sleep camping versus how to staff respond to these things are two separate sort of tracks. And so, if no accord can be sort of come to between y'all and counsel and the Cemetery Commission will probably turn it to them to just say that this is, you know, the staff response versus the political side of it and whatever y'all want to do with the political side of it will be separate than the staff response. Can you just clarify of the of the non park property that you've tentatively identified as sort of a non intervention zone. Are all those properties along a river or waterway. I think most of them, because just the way it plays out most of our property is along waterways outside of the park system. Thank you. Any other questions on that. Thank you Cameron that was really helpful. Thank you. Yeah so camera, when you mean like turn over to the cemetery committee what does that look like. What do you mean, you said, if there's not a consensus between the parks and the city. So, so you're an elected body, the cemetery commission's elected body and city council selected body, which is why we wanted to get feedback from y'all about where parameters are. And so, you know, the cemetery commission didn't formally endorse but was okay with our list as presented to council last time council wanted to hear back from y'all, and whatever y'alls suggestions maybe if you're taking it all off the table. So that's, you know, I don't know what it can't speak for council, but might need to come out at a different angle. Okay. So that makes sense just like as, and by that I don't mean like we have to circumnavigate anything I don't want there to be any misconstrued information here, just that staff still needs a response policy, right. And so that has to be something separate that doesn't involve any new parameters around anything. Okay, thanks. Um, so let's, let's start with the locations again, which I think they're when we closed last meeting there are essentially, and in my mind three locations on the table, confluence gateway and peace. I don't want to still leave those locations on the table, or having her, you know, talked with the community since then or heard any feedback, potentially remove any of those from the conversation. Yeah, it sounded like that peace park might not be the best from, it's probably the most well vegetated of those three sites, and it has no the security concerns that you mentioned. So maybe we start with talking more about that one, based on the input that you got. Yeah. I mean, how, how big of, it's not that big of an area. I think, and if we were to eliminate like gateway for example I feel like that would have a huge impact on what we're talking about. But peace park is a smaller, smaller park and if I don't know if there are a lot of you know stakeholder concerns about including that park in this plan, then I'd be open to revisiting. Whether it's appropriate to allow camping there. That it for me anyway was where I kind of my mind was going when I started to get feedback from others is that maybe peace park should not be on our list and that we should be talking about confluence and gateway. Any thoughts on that, Lincoln or Dan. I mean, if you lean towards removing peace, then I would go along with that but I would also say if we're going to take out peace park, we should probably take out confluence, because it's just as small. And while it's not as you know the vegetation isn't well as as well established. You know, the, the people that redid that wall along the river, did a lot of work to remove invasives and we wouldn't want to see those be a risk of being reestablished or or reestablish themselves. So really leaves this gateway. And I think the other piece for that you didn't mention there Dan for confluence is simply like a attraction of like a, I mean it already is but being a hang out day and day out space where where it's, there's some kind of permanence. Which I think for the long term management of the part that it's not it's hardly even a park yet it's like a little baby it has not had time to like grow into the park that it could be. And I think if we start out by like using it in this way I'm a little worried that like, it will just start the, you know, the pattern from the beginning that it's a, you know, a space specifically for this which I don't. I think that's probably not the intent of that park to begin with. You know, I've, I mean, since the concept of confluence Park came about I've I've had that concern that, you know, regardless of what we do that park is at risk of being a place where, you know, people, whether they're homeless or whether they're just migrant, you know, I think there's always going to be that risk and I don't know how to go about mitigating that. But I wouldn't make my decision. Well, me personally I wouldn't make my decision based on that I, you know, I would try to apply the same logic to all the parks and and I think the fact that it's a small space and it's not well vegetated and you know, in my mind makes it, if we're going to choose to piece park from this. You know, these this list that we're making then it makes sense to remove conflicts. Do you have thoughts on either of those pieces or complements. Yeah, I think I agree with what's with what's being said and if it's just gateway that we're, you know, sort of, you know agreeing to I'd be just interested in like what it is within our, you know, abilities to gather the resources and the facilities to like, I wouldn't say encouraged but get it established and get it going as an option for people to emergency camp sooner rather than later so it feels like we're, you know, although, you know, we'll down the original proposal to what makes sense for us also thinking about like the next steps and getting getting the ball rolling with with those who need to camp. Thanks Lincoln I think that shifts us to gateway which I think the question is essentially like with what mitigations in place, could this be possible. And so I see Patrick your hand I'm think if it's okay I was just going to kind of get together basically like a, you know the draft mitigations and essentially what could be our proposal as a commission and then open it up for public comment if that's okay. I can save you a lot of work the gateway park is owned by the state of Vermont. Yeah, I'm sorry. Patrick, Patrick is our. He manages the cemetery and his staff and may have some information for you. Oh, great. I'm sorry I should have introduced myself thanks camera. The gateway park is owned by the state of Vermont, except for the portion that the parking lot is on the upper parking lot that has the boulders around. When we, we develop the park, I don't know, maybe early 90s through enhancement grant from transportation. And we call the gateway park only because it was a gateway coming into Montpelier. The, the, so the parking lots owned by the cemetery slash the city of Montpelier, the rest of it is state owned, and then underneath the bridge I believe is a federal right away. So I don't believe you can even, you can go ahead and talk about letting people to camp there but you don't have the right to do that. That's just like saying go ahead and sleep or camp on the state house lawn. That is interesting new information so thank you Patrick you are perhaps saving us trouble. I would like to hear from Dan and I think Alec also on that. Yeah, I guess that that's really useful information and I guess it begs the question of whether it makes sense to even and this might be directed more towards Cameron but whether it makes sense to even have sort of this map of, of areas because there's a lot of and you know if, if a map seems to advocate or puts us at some sort of legal risk of running afoul with the state. Then maybe we should we should just not have identified territories. So that way, you know, the city can make the choice of whether it wants to, you know either encourage people to move if they're, you know, let's say they're next to a school or something. Or, or whether you know if they're trashing a site then whether they're forced to move, because there's a lot of state land. We don't want to appear to encourage people to go to state land, but I also don't want to, you know, I don't want to discourage people. I guess, that's a terrible way of saying it. You know, I mean, if people want to camp on state land, then maybe the city should make the choice of, okay, let's let them camp on state land and the state can deal with it. And I don't know where, you know, if that puts us at any sort of legal risk, you know, people point a camp behind a state house on that hillside in the city doesn't do anything about it. You know, even though the state gives us pilot payments and I don't know what the pilot payments entail for us. There's, there's a whole lot of terrain. And I think it doesn't, you know, if we just sort of leave it vague, is that going to put us at risk of running a foul of, of, you know, some other court in this district saying well, based on what happened in district, so and so you, you haven't done what you should do. I guess, Cameron, do you have any thoughts on that. Well, yes. So, I'm trying to frame up what I'm trying to say. So, I can't advocate one way or the other about state lands or can I make any sort of definitive statements about what is allowed and not allowed on state lands, but you're right, if there isn't any new boundaries drawn. So, it hurts back to the general idea of what we were doing before, but now with some hopefully some staff rules in place to connect people to services. So, and the idea of this was to get ahead and be proactive understanding that this probably is the way of the future, if you will, when it comes to legislation about camping for emergency service like emergency needs. We're trying to be proactive about that. Think about it in sort of a holistic way in the city itself and get feedback from the elected bodies. Again, if that's something you don't want to recommend to council and taking these things off the list, you're right, it does sort of go back to a ad hoc response. I don't know if I mean if you if you have a policy in place without a map of, you know, territory. But it necessarily reverts back to, you know, the status quo I mean at least you would have a policy of, of how staff should intervene and, you know, I mean maybe there are a few, you know, maybe identifying schools and, and within a certain distance of someone's property and maybe there are some that make sense but then identifying parcels of city land or potentially state land and maybe we should just leave that off. And sort of take a first step and then, you know, see what happens. And if people go to state land. I mean, yeah, we're not going to encourage it but you know that's that and the state can, you know, in the state I mean this is an area that the state should really be taking action on anyway so if it bothers the state then maybe they can do something about it. You know, unless someone is obviously is, you know, putting public safety at risk then the city should get involved but you know maybe maybe the good first step is to just enact the policy leave out the the territory and and then see what you know see what happens after three months. Thank you. Alec, I would be curious. I know Patrick shared the ownership of the Gateway Park space. And I'm curious to hear from you about management of this. My understanding was that the US Park staff were essentially managing that space I'm wondering if there's a distinction in your mind between the city gateway park land and the state gateway land or how that is works functionally. I, since I think I've set in Gateway Park, maybe once or twice in my years here, Patrick manages the space and it's on the city website as a part but really is not under our purview at all. I'm not sure if we should remove it from the city website as a park, but maybe that's a conversation for another day. So, we've got ourselves in a little bit of a pickle here. We have crossed every park off our list, which is essentially the status quo, no camping and any parks in the city of Montpelier. So, as Cameron pointed out, there are two tracks here one is just staff response to people camping no matter where that is in the city whether it's in the cemetery or Hubbard or whatnot and that's happening now. And the other pieces that I essentially a map or guidelines that would be more appropriate, I guess. The question is that I think Dan you were kind of suggesting that like, maybe there is not. There are not locations or, you know, X feet from waterways or X distance from trails or all those things that were in the original kind of policy. But just focusing on that city response. I'm wondering like with the non intervention piece, I think there are times when somebody would be camping in an inappropriate location that perhaps without those boundaries drawn would just be clear like this is maybe not a good place for what would the city response then be in terms of steering people to a better location how would the city know what is a better location. Or does that further non intervention in the sense that like well if every saying that nowhere is off limits essentially says everywhere is within that you know is okay. I don't know if that would affect the city response. I don't know if that's an Alec question or not. No, I mean that's a real question I'm trying to figure out like if somebody, you know, right. So, my, my thought was that if tonight as a commission we say well like, you know, all the parks are off the table except for the city response. And you find somebody camping in Hubbard. The city response as I read it was, you know, essentially like hey this might be this isn't a great place to camp there are better places to be. Can I hear some services. Here's some support. Also, could you pick up your things and move down to gateway or could you move down to confluence. What I'm wondering is that in that same scenario if we have an established like gateway or confluence for example as an appropriate place. Then, does that mean that that same conversation and Hubbard you have the conversation and say, well this is not an appropriate place to camp here are some services. But you may as well just keep camping here because we have no other place to guide you to. I think that's something that if we don't put boundaries around we're going to run into a staff and that will be part of that coming back to y'all telling you how it's going. Right, so it also so also all of these things hinge on the biggest issue is is their shelter available right. And so I don't know if I can adequately answer that question for you right now, because that was the that sort of the question we were trying to answer right with this policy. And if we've taken all of these things off the list, what remains is dog river and the outskirts of our cemetery. So that gets that gets to a whole other host of issues where folks who are emergency camping are people who may not want to be around other people the city does not have the resources to provide anything other than support right now. So, where does that leave us and that was the question we were trying to answer and I'm not sure. Other than our ordinances that we have now, which you know we were trying to be proactive about addressing their impending potential irrelevance, we wanted to get ahead of that. And so we still have ordinances on the books, we can still ask people to move based on those ordinances. And I don't I don't know if I can get into a further answer with that. That's the, that's the problem we're facing. Yeah, and I would just say I mean, we have the ordinance that has a parks curfew so if we don't take any action I mean that's, that's the policy and it's just a matter of how does the, you know, how does the city react to that and Cameron has said that, you know, it's really up in the air and it depends on a lot of factors and so, you know, I think we're in a tight place here and that we've we've removed all the parks from consideration. So there's really not a next step. There's already a curfew for all these parks, so the curfew stands. And we hope, you know, in some cases where maybe a waterways at risk or someone's trashing a campsite that, you know, the police department would, or whoever would be charged working with people to either move somewhere else or move off site completely, you know, we would hope that they would work with the park staff to identify that the most at risk places where people might camp because they're going to could I could I weigh in just with, you know, some thoughts based on experience of finding ourselves back at the status quo. We've historically used a light touch, you know, or maybe a humane touch I would say, rather than just say enforcing the ordinances and you know how like people offer being there without curfew we try to connect them to services you know try to find out what's going on try to find out if they have contacts you know that they can utilize to find a better place. And this policy is really an improvement upon that because now it gets the parks in the cemetery and the police and the social worker and Washington County mental health and everybody really on the same page. We have somebody camping in the parks while the ordinance is no camping. Now we have sort of a whole team of people that is working to get these folks to a better solution because you know frankly camping in the park is just not I don't think it's going to be something that somebody is going to like long term. Anyway, anyway, I mean there's people chopping through there all the time and dogs and everyone's up in their business. So, I feel like that approach will sort of help move the vast majority of folks on to a better solution and then we might find ourselves caught in the corner case with people who knows we might not but let's say we do you know that's when we come back and we put our heads together as a team and say, hey there's this person camped at this place and they just are unwilling to move and they don't have another solution. We're at a scale at this point where we could kind of work together with the services that exist to find a solutions for them, rather than just enforce the ordinance in a sort of inhumane way and then find ourselves in trouble with the law or with ACLU. Thank you. So, if that is the approach, I'm wondering if our, you know, if in fact essentially all parks are crossed off the list and we're back to the status quo of no camping, then the only space that the city will would be, you know, thinking through then would be the staff response. And so I'm wondering if as a parks commission it would make sense for us to outline improvements that we could recommend to the staff response piece. That would help to, you know, mitigate mitigate damage to the parks. Is that a helpful space for this conversation. Cameron maybe. Well, I think it depends on what, on what the the ask is. What are you asking my staff to do, or provide. Well, we talked about fire earlier and I'm not sure that's referenced in the policy I mean I think that fire is already. That's an ordinance. Yeah that's very bad. I'm not part of the legal activity but I'll make sure that it highlights and says the word fire in there. Waste management. If I can jump in here is my mind so handing out trials or whack bags or, you know, pointing people towards the houses that are established to be part of the response. What are along those lines Lincoln, if I'm, you know, showing people where like a map of where there are public restrooms available, not just in the parks but in the city I mean I think that might be a useful resource for people. We have a few of those definitely working on updating that. So thank you. And I think there was already proposed. Like where there are encampments found I think Cameron the policy that, as I remember it had now to do that trash bags or receptacles or something would be provided when possible I think it says something along those lines what would that look like in practice. I've been throwing around a couple different ideas about the cheaper to procure cardboard boxes. We all seen those at events where people pop up to stand up trash cans and trash bags. It's not a lot more we can provide there. I won. I mean this is more of a solution if there were like a more identified location, rather than dispersed camps situation but you know I think bear bins or something like that. Stephanie brought this up last time but like the wildlife concern I think is, I think, a big deal for us. If you think about, you know, trash that's not stored properly or food that's not stored properly. That's a pretty easy wildlife attractant that will result in dead, you know, people will have to kill bears and things like that just once they get into people's food or trash. So I'm trying to think if there's a way to mitigate that because cardboard boxes and trash bags are not I mean you can collect trash but they're not going to. prevent wildlife from getting into trash. We can talk about that a staff figure out. So thank you. Well, I'll take that suggestion back. I mean all of these and not. And then, is there are there any recommendations that we would have around temporal considerations or time you know Dan I think the policy that you had proposed last time, you know was through October 31. I don't want to say or I think October 31. And I'm wondering from a you know management perspective if there are different considerations in the winter months or you know mud season or those types of things that maybe we're not necessarily thinking of in the middle of the summer. Although it feels like fall already so I don't know. It feels like you want to say something. I mean, the city's policy reads like it's, it's a permanent policy and then I drafted our pieces as temporary so that we could, you know, weigh what the impacts to the parks are through October 31, but given that we're not including any park space. You know, I mean I think it's up to the city what they do and I don't, I don't, I wouldn't be in favor of. I mean I would like to say, you know, if you see city land getting trashed and let's review, you know what's going wrong and where we can make a change but I don't, I don't think I would ask the city to say, you know, hey you should, you should review October 31 unless you know it's going great. I think that was, I just drafted that specifically for us. Right our policy would be up for revision staff response part of it anyway would be up for revision anytime the staff says hey this isn't working, what here's why it's not working, and how can we problem solve. And this will not be a one time conversation for sure this isn't the thing that's going to go on a shelf and disappear. This is a thing that we're dealing with on a daily basis, you know, not huge numbers but on a daily basis, and so staff is going to be able to report back how this is going, and we will be able to communicate how this is going to the community. So this is only ends up being a staff response policy does is city council involved with that at all or is that simply a management, you know staff management practice or something. Well, the staff part of it would be internal. However, because this is a big issue I don't think that the first part of that's political in any way is going to go away right. As I said earlier there are schools to be considered on the paths in emergency egress locations that would be very difficult to, to take off a list of high sensitivity areas. So, so those are those are for debate up for public comment, all of this is I want to hear from the public I want to hear what they have to say about the staff policy and how can we make it better. This is very important to us, I wouldn't have thought of bear bids right so now I get to, to bring that back to staff and have a conversation about it right. And how do we, how do we problem solve around these suggestions. So, there's still a big, a big part of this. I guess, I'm following that then if there would still be a list of high sensitivity areas. As I read the list now. So, you know, the, you know, the last version that I saw the high sensitivity areas were pretty much all human concern, you know, like, like you say near schools or bridges or, you know, high, high, basically high use areas, ball fields, things like that. There were very, I think there was one bullet that said, you know, not near waterways and and wetlands. So, what I'm concerned then would be like if there's a list of high sensitivity areas that does not include natural resources. Are we then missing the boat to influence that high sensitivity area and so I guess I'm wondering if we need to go back to say, you know, waterways, the, like, special plant communities. So that's, I would like to add all of the parks to that high sensitivity area list is what I'm hearing from your conversation. Am I understanding that correctly, and that the ordinance applies and y'all's parks would be high sensitivity areas. That's a really interesting interpretation Cameron and I think might be very helpful to the situation. I think, I mean, if, if a place like Gateway Park was sort of ours to, I don't know, dole out for lack of a better way of saying it then, you know, there would be a park on the table but given that we, you know, it's state land and we can't appear to encourage camping on state land then, you know, it appears that we just want all parks to be, you know included in this list of sensitive areas. I worry that what's going to get lost in all of this is that, you know, the Parks Commission is just saying no we don't, you know, we want to hold our parks aside because, you know, there are parks and we have oversight and and there are all these different concerns and I think it would miss the fact that, you know, we've had multiple conversations that I think have been, I mean, I've been frustrated but I, you know, I'm not going to say that they haven't been valuable conversations about, you know, how our parks should be utilized and, and, you know, the, the weighing the balance of, of these sort of very human concerns with these very, you know, non-human natural resource concerns and, and, you know, you go back the past 200 years, we've ignored those and now we're sort of trying to pick those up and say, yeah, we're worried about our waterways and our plant life and in our animal life and how do we, how do we balance that against the very real human concerns that aren't going away and, and I think it would, you know, just saying we want the parks to be, you know, lumped into this category of restricted spaces, it misses that. I don't know how to get around it, I guess. There's probably not a good way but that's what I'm concerned about and I'm concerned that that's what, you know, City Council would pick up and that's what other folks would pick up. Is it enough to just say that, you know, park ordinances apply and not specifically called them out as a high sensitivity area? That might be a little softer of an approach and I mean there's no way we can say, you know, sensitive plant communities, how are we going to, I tend to let people know where those are. So I don't know if we can get much more granular than they already have gotten in the policy. So you're saying rather than adding parks to the list, you would just leave it sort of unset but the, Well have a line in there just that, you know, current park ordinances apply. I think, and that's where we were last time we met, right, is like how do how do you ever convey and communicate you can't be like 50 feet from water and 25 feet from a trail and 100 feet from here and, you know, it's you just, there's no way to communicate that and the difference between public and private and state boundaries. But I think that the crux of this conversation, like when we talk about things that as managers of our parks that we are concerned about comes back to the sensitivity of the areas. You know, like where we're basically like what we've said is that our parks are sensitive areas. They have elements that we are afraid that this would damage. And so I, I, I, I kind of think that listing all the parks as high sensitivity areas calls it what it is, which is, these are areas that are highly sensitive, that would be, you know, reduced, you know, diminished by the, you know, allowing camping in these places. So, to me it seems like the listing our parks is like a pretty, you know, it clear in some ways clarifies the situation like we've talked about it and said are these sensitive or not and it seems like what we keep circling back to is yes they are sensitive. And so that's the list. Can we say something along the lines of, you know, we consider all of the parks, you know, sensitive areas where local park ordinances should be followed, particularly, you know, North Branch Park and Hubbard Park, and not list all of the parks so that we are leaving some, I guess a little leeway. What are your thoughts. Yeah, I guess I'm thinking like I think this just begs the question of like what, what would the policy or the enforcement, you know, for city staff look like that would be much different than now, I guess, and I'm thinking about yeah Alex comment about kind of trying to get on the same page with the city and, you know, local services like that sounds good to me and I'm just trying to like think about how, you know, we can focus on that instead of sort of like going around in circles because I mean it does feel like we're that, you know, commission, you know, we don't really feel like the parks are the best place, but then if we can somehow like, see the conversation towards the. Yeah the response and what we can do, doing that realm because the camping is happening, you know it's going to continue to happen. So, yeah, I guess I'm more interested in like, yeah, type the park resources and how do we get the folks who are out there connected with the resources that they need to stay safe out there and then also to, you know, move, move along from an emergency camping situation so you know what the, what is said about camping in or out of the parks and the sensitive areas to me I feel like we're that right now it's just a stumbling block that. Yeah maybe we can like move move forward with like we know what we we don't want right is camping the park so maybe we can leave it that and look at the other other things we do want to be moving forward with. So the question of how much, how much goes on said and how much is explicitly stated is just saying that, you know, be your following current park ordinances enough. Where do we need to explicitly call out our parks as places that are not suitable for camping. So, where do we find ourselves. We have as far as I can tell right now no parks commission generated policy. We have a few recommendations that the staff as you know part of the staff management or the staff response would provide information to clarify that fires are banned education about human waste management. And there's no restrictions to address address trash pops, possibly bear boxes. And no temporal restrictions aside from, you know, staff monitoring and bringing things up. And that the high sensitivity areas would be. You know that all already ordinances currently apply and that there's no. The fact that there's no camping in the parks without listing all of the parks. Did I miss anything are there other you know that. One of the, you know the issue about vegetation I don't know if there's a way that we can really address that other than like the no fire thing. I would be happy to, you know, if there's another member of the commission that wants to. Work with me remotely because I'm not in town, but I'm happy to write a letter to the city council to sort of lay out our, our thought process on this and then sort of, you know, create this bold list of things that we are concerned about as the city moves forward. The policy, but then to ultimately say, you know, at this time, we don't wish to add any parks to this list of sort of non-intervention places and, you know, maybe list our rationale. I'm happy to, you know, take a first stab at that. I would like for somebody else to look at it. You know, I think even given that I have strong feelings on this, you know, I think I can say it in a way that would reflect. Hopefully what we're thinking. And so if there's one other person. Or if we want to look at it as a commission, I mean, that's, that's fine too. And maybe would be better. To allow for public input. I do know when is the city council. I think the city council meets just after our next scheduled meetings. So there might be a chance to look at this. In our next meeting. And I'm happy to work on it before then. Yeah. Our next scheduled meeting would be August 17th, which is the Tuesday before city council meets to discuss on August 18th. So I think that would be great, Dan, if you want to draft that. And then we can just review it. On the 17th. I see Cameron. You've raised your hand. Yeah. So just for timing purposes. Would that letter include anything that you didn't just talk about just so that I know. How to edit the document. That I, because I, you know, it'd be very difficult to turn around something. And I can't turn around something in 24 hours for them to look at. I don't think it would be my intent at this time to add anything new. I mean, if something came up at our meeting that. You know, if some member of the public or if a parks commission, or let's say somebody from BRC said, Hey, we have this concern as well. And then we debated it and decided, Hey, we should add it. You know, that might come up, but at this time, the way I would draft it would be, would be to reflect, you know, what we sort of have gone over the past three meetings. Perfect. Thank you. Any other thoughts from commissioners or else then I was thought I would open out up to the public to see what other folks here have. J, I see your hand just one second. Anybody, Lincoln, Stephanie, Dan. Okay, Jay, go ahead. Yeah, thanks. Thanks everyone. And I've mostly been just kind of listening to hear about, you know, you're thinking about how to approach. You know, the, the parks commission's recommendation to the council about what to do around this ordinance. I do want to remind you that you don't need to remind it because you know this, but you are elected. And that carries a bit of that carries authority with you. And so the council will, you know, you haven't just been appointed. The council will hear you as elected officials in terms of recommendations that you make around, you know, For our parks and how those, how those recommendations might, you know, impact the decision on how we move forward with this ordinance. So I, you know, I'm listening, mostly listening tonight, but also hearing just sort of maybe like what's the best, best way to move forward. And I just want. I hear you, the council will hear you. You're elected officials. And we, you know, we, we, you know, that carries some authority in terms of how we make decisions around Mark, you know, we manage the parks in the city. So I just. Appreciate the conversation that I've heard so far. And I'm trying to, the fact that you've all taken, I feel like a really broader view around this issue. I mean, certainly homelessness is a significant issue that we need to deal with. In the city. And, but, you know, how the parks fit in and how this camping policy fits in is only one piece of that. And I think that, you know, I think it's important that we make decisions around Mark, you know, we manage the parks in the city. So I just. Appreciate the conversation that I've heard so far. And. You know, I think that the policy fits in is only one piece of that very complicated equation. So I just. Appreciate the conversation. And like I said, want to remind you that we. Really hear you and respect the. You know, the, the opinion that you, you know, and your recommendations that you would bring to us moving forward. So I'm happy to answer any questions, but I just wanted to, you know, kind of make that point because I think it's significant. Yeah. I guess I'm, I'm curious as a city councilor. And your mind, how you hear, I think this. Last kind of point or nuance of where this. Landed is the question of like, do we list all of our parks. And the high sensitivity areas, or do we say like. You know, the no camping ordinance applies. You know, which is kind of like a. Effectively it's the same thing, but it's worded differently. Like does one or the other. I mean, I mean, I mean, I think obviously one of our biggest challenges with this whole process is enforcement. Right. So parks commission can say like, all right, we'll allow camping in the parks, but it can't be in wetlands. It can't be within 200 feet of a river. It can't be in these certain sensitive areas. And how, how are we going to enforce that? So to me, that's sort of, you know, that's kind of the rub or like that, that's our challenge here. Like, do you decide to just say, Hey, like, you know what, we, because this can't be enforced, we need to just say, it just can't happen in parks. Or is there some nuance that. Could be written into it. I don't have an answer for that, but to me, that feels like a, a huge challenge. So anyways, it's not necessarily a specific answer, but I think that that, you know, I feel like that, that's going to be a conversation that the council is going to have to have. If you came to us with a recommendation that had a lot of really nuanced specific recommendations or restrictions, rather than the question will be able to, well, how are we going to enforce that? How is the parks department going to enforce it? It can be the police department. How do we make that work? Thanks. Any other comments or, or, or feedback or thoughts from the public based on kind of where we are right now as, as a commission. Yes. I'm sort of disappointed because I thought it prior to meetings that y'all were going to be on a creative track. As I said, I worked to get the homelessness task force created a couple of years ago. They failed miserably in two years to wrestle with any of the issues of storage blockers camping. Facilities for showers and toilets. So when y'all were talking about. A acknowledging that you. Have under the. You don't really have. The authority to enforce an ordinance, even a curfew ordinance or a camping on public land ordinance. That y'all were going to get creative and say, well, bargain with the city. You provide some toilets and trailers for showers and we'll work with making these folks not feel like they're. Not going anywhere. But I also want to point out that you're, you're really lacking. You've undermined your own credibility by not addressing the ongoing problem of defecation, urination and trash. In the confluence park and Gerton park. Over the last, you know, years. So I've been, you know, trying to get the city and public works and parks to address that and to, for not, it's, it's gone. I think that's what I'm talking about. I think the city has been very, very under-watched. The feces, the urine, the vomit, et cetera. Month after month. And that was something that was in your control. While you can sit there and watch these folks cut through the gap in the fence and shit right on the river bank. And you do nothing about it. So. I think the solution is some designated camping. further away, but that they're still walking distance to facilities. And rigorous litter pickup. And basically, you want to worry about sensitive, you know, plants. And what about worried about sensitive people, you know, they weren't just released from the hotels, they were kicked out of the hotels. They're not inmates, you know, we're, we're dealing with humans here, we're dealing with the eviction moratorium ending, you know, last night or the night before, you know, so either you're part of the solution or you're part of the problem. And I, I regret to think that you've, you've landed on the latter side here. I don't think you'll be able to enforce normal at horrible up in court that people can't camp in the parks or in on the river banks, etc. But the problem is, it's not as simple as saying, we'll get you some services. There is no shelter space. There's no shelter in Montpelier. The shelter in Barry is about to cram 16 more beds in a bedroom. You know, I've just talked to somebody who's staying there this morning. So that during a pandemic is absolute insanity. So if they're going to try to say, Oh, there's a bed 16th of a room, you know, and that's not going to hold up in court either if somebody wants to go have the fireplaces as their campsite. So I'm warning you, I'm inviting you to be part of the solution. Thanks. Thank you. Jeff, I saw that you joined us and Patrick, it's it's been a little while since you've shared. I didn't know if either of you had additional public comments since I can't see you. No, I don't have any more public comment. I just wanted to let you know about Gateway Park. Thank you, I appreciate it. We had no idea. Good to see you. Let's see. I have a lot of thoughts, but I think I'll only make two brief comments. And one thing that I know if I miss because I'm afraid to make the whole conversation was is that I'm aware of my years in the parks that there's a lot of people who depend on the parks for their mental health that they come there and feel safe. And I think doing what it takes to protect that park being a safe place for all people is really important. And I know I know a large percent of homeless folks are safe. It's just when they're when when doubt is raised, there's a certain percentage that are struggling and have such serious issues that it brings safety and the question so that it's a slippery slope. But on the other hand, I think working with the city to find a new place that could be used could be used as a camping place that after the crisis is over, could be then be turned into a park could be a win win situation. That's that's the short story. And and I have a couple places in mind that that might work and be happy to talk with a group that's looking into that. And actually, I've been meeting with a group with another way about kind of generating those kind of ideas and and trying to yeah, trying to find a resource in one failure. In other words, there's a whole group of people are meeting like well, tomorrow night, Tuesday night to work on that kind of an effort. So that's the short story. Yeah. My pleasure. Good luck. It's a tough issue. I know you all know both things are important. I'll just in the saying that yeah, challenging place. All right. Well, let's turn back to commissioners in light of the hearing from Jay and Steven and Jeff. Is there anything about where we have just been prior to the public comment that we want to address or respond to or shift it all in light of public comment? That was my pause for introverts and hear anything. Okay. Oh, here comes Dan. I have food in my mouth. So I'll try to but I think in response to introverts Dan. I talk with you guys. I think in response to what Steve said about, you know, the the waste along the river. You know, if that's an issue. And I mean, I run through there, but I don't spend a whole lot of time. And I don't know if, you know, park staff is able to spend a whole lot of time. But if that's an issue, I think it's something we should discuss. You know, apart from the encampment thing, you know, especially we have heard about Gert and Park in the past. I had concerns about whether we actually had jurisdiction over that space. And it sounds like we do. So I mean, I think we should have a conversation, you know, as soon as possible about, you know, how do we how do we reduce the amount of human waste that's left on those parcels, whether you put Port Apodis somewhere nearby where it's not, you know, so close to the river that you're running a foul of upstate policies, but you know, a place where people could realize to use them, or if there are other things we can do. I love that that conversation. Just want to jump in, because at the last city council meeting, they voted to move Gert and Park structure from its current location to the 16 or 12 Main Street location, which is currently the grassy lot there next to the bike path beside the drawing board. That's not correct. Yeah, just a clarification for the record here. So you remember, I think Alec had talked about it with all the parks grant that we had tried to get for the 12 Main lot to make that more of a downtown park. Yeah, so council to prove that grant twice. And part of that grant application was to move this just the structure of the Gert and Park is Evo to 12 Main and add a bunch of other park facilities there. And we didn't get either grants, but because council had approved through that grant process, the movement, we're going to go ahead and do that. So that should be moved on the night, right? Yeah, next week is the plan to move it. And it's part of a, yeah, like Cameron said, part of an effort to make that 12. Is it 12 or 16? We keep changing it. The 12, 16 Main to make it a better space for public use. I guess that, you know, that begs the question for me of if we move it, does the same crowd follow the same issues follow? And I don't know, you know, maybe none of us knows, but you know, are there are there actions that we can take to maybe mitigate some of the risk of, you know, a takeover by a certain number of people or waste or any number of sort of negative outcomes or not, I don't know, adverse outcomes? So, you know, to me, it's a useful conversation of how do we have opportunities with this space near the river near the bike path? How do we utilize that space properly without? I actually, I was biking by there this morning, you know, past draws and down Main Street and kind of thinking about this issue. And I actually think that the best mitigation is almost exactly what Cameron just talked about, which is further developing the site for to meet its full potential. I mean, not just 12 Main, but right beyond there, like between the, you know, the parking lot and the river and the footbridge, there are all these, you know, just plants and invasives and weeds kind of growing up, like, that could be a beautiful garden where you can look across the garden and see the Capitol Dome as you enters the town. And it could actually be a quote unquote gateway park for, you know, people welcoming people to the city. And I think that if we can go through with proactive things of whether it's children's play structures or, you know, garden things that would actually make more people want to use and stay and be in that space, the increased use for I think its intended purpose would actually result in decreased use for unintended purposes. And so I think that's a kind of proactive investment that we can make in the future of these places that I think would have make a big difference. But I think all of that is a conversation for perhaps another day. Are we at this point, as I understand it, there's not necessarily any action or motion or vote that we all need to take. We have, you know, shared our conversation and concerns and suggestions with Cameron. She's taken notes. Dan is going to draft a letter to city council to kind of outlining our conversation and how we got to where we are and what our concerns are and recommendations. And then city council would move forward. Does that sound right? Am I missing anything? Okay. Well, with that, I will let's go ahead and get a motion to adjourn. All right. Do we have a second? I'll second. Any discussion? On favor? I post. All right, we are adjourned at 17, 718. Thank you everyone. Our next meeting is our regular scheduled meeting, which is the third Tuesday of every month at 6pm. So that would put us on Tuesday, August 17 at 6pm. See y'all then.