irst responders they're almost 100% unionized the DWP people so I think they out of the 50 folks you met I would guess they, you know, I think we're about two thirds or three quarter unionized something like that so they probably got a representative. Yeah. Any question for Shayna it was really pertaining to what Lauren alluded to what one of the most reasons why we wanted to pursue this, this report, but one of them was really at the request of the social and economic justice committee, as a place to start their work. And so I just wanted to check in with Shayna to see, you know, how, and maybe Lauren has sort of already spoken to this but anything you want to add to that about how see Jack at this point is, is thinking about this report as a starting place you know are there some good next steps. I mean I certainly wrote down some of the suggestions from the report. Now that I think we could start working on immediately but but there may be more. So yeah I'm curious for your thoughts Shayna. Yeah. So yeah I think our next steps here need to be. So there's a couple of, you know, is, you know, not easy but like easily implementable things that can be done that are being recommended here and I think that those need to be driven forward by the city staff, you know, both through an ongoing investment for consultants to be able to push this work forward not having this be you know run by by volunteers, and through budget items for the actual implementation. See Jack can provide significant support for this work, you know by providing accountability of checking in quarterly to assess progress and to hold council and staff kind of accountable to this implementation, and to continue to participate and to deeply engage in the process and continue proactive engagement. But ultimately this work does need to be integrated kind of throughout all of the different kind of programs and services of the city and so of needing it to be, you know really led and driven by by the city and staff by council and staff. Anything else I'd add on Lauren to. Sorry, that's a call on you now but you know I mean I think that's a great summary I think that the committee seemed this morning at our meeting, you know excited to kind of lay out that plan like there's the short term immediately implementable things that obviously identify issues that we need to dig into more you know, kind of a host of different ways that we can respond and you know some take budget investments, some don't necessarily you know they would take staff time and focus and so I think we were talking about both just making it clear about what what we can do so that you know council is clear so staff are clear of like what are we what are you calling for you know taking these recommendations into like the next level of detail. And then, you know, again, like I said that I think Shayna said it well of like keeping on it of like making sure that this remains, you know, a high priority and something that we're thinking about and doing and all of our work. I think just that had come to mind when Shayna was talking, we had, I know I had mentioned it a while ago but we had this really great meeting because there's their city staff doing all of this work there's Council and then there's we have so many volunteer committees as well. You know, we've heard from the homelessness Task Force tonight the Parks Commission, they're, they're, you know, elected but but we've all of these groups of community members doing work we had a great initial meeting talking about equity issues, and I think that group as well as we've been talking about partnerships with, with those groups and how we're also rolling this out so it's happening, you know, in a lot of different ways that the city is doing work and that community members are doing work. So that was another space that we had identified of bringing bringing this report and recommendations and the next steps to. Any other comments from Council. I have one and it recommendations are wonderful and everything that Lauren and others have said about the next steps. I need just one more thing. And it's, I want to meet with the people you met with. I want us to have a community events that are that are many more than one that we bring people together of all sorts of different groups so that we're getting to know one another so I as a counselor will hear from them, or walking down the street I can talk to them and, and they likewise, I really crave that that interface with the community and all because this is all about the city and I think policies will make a difference, but I think we can grease the wheels much quicker if we also simultaneously start having community gatherings, and that having help from people like yourselves as facilitators. Is there any way that that's part of your recommendations that's just not here, or is that another step that we would have to do like an RFP for. I love your enthusiasm and I think one of the other really important points that came from this, especially from BIPOC respondents is that they're fatigued, they're fatigued with telling their stories they're fatigued with coming to the table, and not seeing action. So our recommendation and see you in case you certainly feel free to add to this or, you know, whatever you think. Our recommendation would be to start to form relationships and go to where people are. So for example, if you know that there is an upcoming arts event where people of color might be, you know, like the showcasing an artist of color. There's a likelihood that we're going to show up there. So to start to get out there and to create those kinds of relationships that will allow you know you to have that access so when something happens, somebody will call you that's really where I think that you know as as as a governing body that can be super helpful for you. You know you could try to host events but oftentimes again people are quite exhausted.  Well, likewise and I wasn't necessarily thinking of intellectual workshops that I may have heard, but you know fun community events where you bring all sorts together and you share a project. But you are very helpful that those are helpful, helpful hints. Thank you. Listen, I'll come down for a fun do night any night. Just let me know when you have it. I will make a trip. Well, you know the high school had a meal a few years back because the students were into some cultural exchanges, but it was wonderful. All right, so I at this point if we have any further comments or questions from the public now would be an okay time for that. Have a year. What's up, John. Oh, oh, oh. Yeah, I'm so sorry. I feel like it's going to take her a minute to yes, for the wifi to catch up. Sorry, Tabitha if you, if you were saying something to us we did not catch it. I'm sorry. Would you that it looks like maybe your internet is more stable now. It still seems frozen. Yeah, and I will read it out. Okay, yes, put it in the chat. That's a great idea. I'm going to go John and then Peter. Thanks and I hope you all bear with me for a moment. I, my office is cited in here, and it's a public meeting so I, and I am elected official so I feel like I should give a response and to to coin a phrase. And I hope you all will appreciate that I need to speak my truth. And it's not a comment on how anyone else is feeling or responding or reacting. Personally, I'm not excited. I'm looking at this, and I'm finding out that one out of four BIPOC people who come into my office, never feel valued. It's extraordinary. Rather than feeling excited by the information. It strikes me as more going to the doctor and finding out that you have a chronic condition. Which racism is a chronic condition. And it's not a chronic condition like eczema, not to put down eczema. It's cancer. It's fatal. It's fatal. It's terminal. There is a terminal illness in my office. And there is no other way I can look at it. There's, there's a lot of explanations I might be able to come up with it for to soften it. But they don't matter, because I have to assume the worst. I think like any terminal illness, you commit to doing whatever it takes to get over it. I don't know what that is. But I'll find out. And whatever it is, I will do it. I may never close that gap, but I'm going to assume that I can, but it's, it's, this is hard to look at. I feel no excitement whatsoever. But anyways, my very sincere apology. And we will see what we can do. If I may, John, first of all, I thought that was really honest and courageous and helpful to the conversation to say that. And not to absolve you of blame in any way, but to broaden out, you know, and recognize that law enforcement actors have had to acknowledge that they are still operating in a system that was built and designed, you know, with some of our original sins as a nation, baked in, you know, bringing back fugitive slaves and keeping people segregated rather than helping to make an inclusive safe community. And law enforcement lives with that legacy and works to dismantle it every day. Clerks offices and any system in government is not immune from, you know, a history of who gets to access land records who owns property, you know, who feels welcome in spaces that were not created or designed for them. So as you work with your team and your processes to, you know, dismantle any of those feelings of being disconnected or devalued. You know, also know that you're battling centuries of policies and systems that were not designed to uplift and enhance the lives of people of color and other marginalized communities. And so, you know, it is a chronic condition and one that, you know, is generational in many ways as well. Well, thank you for saying that and I hear you. I appreciate what you're saying. I don't think it takes one ounce of pressure off. I know, I know Peter's waiting. I actually had a follow on it because, you know, we talked about this when we saw the first thing and I just, again, I'm going to try to take a little feed off you too. I wonder, you know, I noticed. Well, I'm not. Don't take it off. I don't want to make the changes. I think my question and I don't know if you have anybody knowing, you know, there was a city council section and a city clerk section, but nothing about the city manager planning and I'm wondering how much. People are, you know, we understand the distinctions, but I'm wondering how much the city clerk was sort of a stand in for coming to city hall. It wasn't just the clerk's office. It was all of us that people felt like they had trouble with the permit, you know, offices or that they, you know, because frankly, we deal with more sort of controversial issues than the clerk's office doesn't, you know, and so I would that was more surprised by that and it occurred to me that maybe it wasn't simply the clerk and I, you know, so I feel the same way as John, you know, we have to be better. That that's it's more of a stand in for all of us. There's going to be many ways to get more granular with the data. And at the same time holds that, you know, you, you're, you're thinking about it as a sort of user experience, you know, it could be a number of things that they're reacting to that you want to better but they're never going to fully understand all the new ones differences between who they're interacting with and say government, you know, and so it's really worth making a going deeper into, you know, all of it. But it could be the website, you know, we don't know in terms of if they're interacting with a human and feeling that way or not. And back to, you know, Donna's call to action to have some kind of meeting or series of meetings, you know, we love a good summit and the ability for people to say, you know, to go deeper and ask more questions and hear from each other select and, you know, come up with more durable solutions and diagnoses from there but I think it's really good to stay in the in the space of trying to build relationship to better understand what's going on for people than to have, you know, an action plan in mind to build on some idea that like everyone in the clerk's office needs to smile more or something like that, you know, it's, it's going to be, it should, it should enrich the conversation into asking more questions, I think. Thank you. Peter, go ahead. Yeah, Peter Kalman. As a lifelong educator, I feel how I need to observe something which is that almost all of the recommendations are what I would call universal design. They will help everyone, not just people of color, not just people of different sexual orientation, they will, they will improve our town. And so I was very pleased to see that the universal design has proven again and again and again design something for a problem that you see the chances are that the problem is a systemic problem and that it affects everyone. Thank you, Peter. Other comments from public. Okay.  Yeah, can we, is that a, is that a camera? I think it's the microphone. Yeah. So, I love the work that and the vision that was motivated to retain the assistance. I, I like the word that you use diagnosis like common, either that or an assessment, but to reveal or highlight the, these unhealthy divides. I recommend that this, the council consider an ongoing retainer engagement with this kind of work. This is not a one and done situation or gobs of work to do. I'm going to distinguish a couple, but in honor of Mark Johnson, the mentally emotional crisis category versus the, the well adjusted or medicated. There's a divide. It's reasonable to unhoused the dirt poor that I, I deal with many, almost every day versus the indifferent and the well off and the callous indifference to what those people are living every day. The party groggers versus the not ever, you know, that's that's a divide that there's two variations of the truth out there that are still hanging fire. That need to be addressed. Who's misrepresenting the facts of what went on there. They're not listens to fatigue, you hear me complain about that lot I shouldn't have to bring up the same issues five, six years in a row when you're dealing with public works and justice, but you got to divide. Well, the city staff family the inside family of city staff and pensioners versus the paying victims and beneficiaries, which is all the rest of us, you know, that's a that's one of the divides. But the, the flatlanders in the woodchucks. In any case, I would encourage further work on this. As soon as possible, but focus on the, some of the highlight books I've brought to your attention. Thank you. Other comments from the public. Okay. All right. Well, at this point, I think we can probably move on. Thank you so much. This has been wonderful. I agree. It's hard to hear, but really deeply important and a good, a good springboard for action. So thank you again. And sorry for the late hour. To that last point, I think the intent is to continue. Yes, I'll just say that's, you know, certainly our intent as well. We highlighted two of the five goals we had originally enumerated with the city in that in this agreement, acknowledging, you know, the facing of the work. We wish you all the best until we engage with you next and good luck with the rest of your evening is no easy task to do the work of a city or town. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. All right. It is a little after 945. We still have one other presentation for the evening, which is for our net zero 2030 plan. Jack, did you have a comment? Don't we also have a traffic calming president that is, oh, you were not here. We bumped that. Yeah. No dissent here. I just want to note.  And I'm assuming anybody else not. What's that? I'm in it to win it. You all in it. So we're good. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Yes, those should be relatively quick. But I do see Kate Stevenson is here with us virtually, along with Adam Sherman. And I'm not sure who else. Yeah, so I guess for now, just to intro this, I will turn it over to Kate. Anything you want to say to intro this. Hi, everybody. And you'll hear me. Yes, we can hear you. Okay. So I just want to do a very quick introduction to the net zero action plan. This is the culmination of work that the more pillar energy advisory committee, you know, has been working on for 10 years. It's in response to a resolution that the city council passed in 2018. Directing the city staff to put together a 10 year plan to look at how we would reach our net zero goal by 2030. And so we went through a process of putting out an RFP. We engaged to be IC as our consulting partner to work with us on this project. And we've been working with them since January to put together this report that they're going to present to you. And I'm just really, really pleased with how this has all come out. I think we have some very clear path forward that you'll hear about. And look forward to working with the city to put this plan into action over the next eight years. So I will hand it over to Adam and he can introduce his team and walk you through it. Yeah. Thanks, Kate. I'll immediately turn it over to my colleague Kaley Whitehouse who will be leading this show tonight. So I will take myself, put myself on mute and Great. Can everyone hear me okay. Yes, we can hear you. Perfect. And so, thanks for the introduction. My name is Kaley Whitehouse. I'm a consultant with the EIC. My colleagues Adam Sherman and Ben Lake and Damon Lane are also on the call tonight. If we have any specific questions. We appreciate being invited here tonight to present the findings of the Montpelier net zero action plan. This work is a result of collaboration between city staff and the Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee and the EIC. In particular, we'd really like to thank Donna and Kate Stevenson for their continued support and guidance throughout this work. Damon. Are you sharing. Okay, great. Can you switch to the agenda slide please. Perfect. So tonight we're going to try to keep things a little brief recognizing it's late for everyone but happy to answer questions as they come in. So we're going to talk about the background of the project so provide an overview of the action plan document and kind of talk through some pieces of project scope. We're going to talk about some of the results, including the baseline assessment, our business as usual case and kind of what the action analysis entailed. And then finally we'll talk through the net zero action plan as it stands and what recommendations we have for electricity, thermal and sleep priority actions. And then we should have some time for Q&A. So to begin I think it's important to ground this presentation in our objectives. And then we'll talk about the definitions and how the final report is organized. The purpose of this report is to outline a realistic pathway for the city of Montpelier to achieve net zero energy in city buildings and operations by 2030. What we mean by net zero in this context is to eliminate the use of fossil fuels, or to offset the emissions through any continued fossil fuel use. The report has three main sections. So the introduction includes the objectives, the definitions, the methods that were used throughout this analysis. The results section includes the baseline energy use for 2020, including electricity, thermal and transportation. It also includes the business as usual scenario. So basically what happens if the city of Montpelier takes no further actions towards this goal beyond what they're doing today. And then it includes the net zero scenario. So what the outcomes were of our action analysis and economic analysis on potential actions the city could take. The third section is the action plan, which outlines the recommended priority actions for electricity, thermal energy and transportation. And so just to reiterate this plan is not meant to be overly prescriptive as a document, but it's really helped to meant to help inform decision making and strategy to help the city achieve these ambitious goals. So in our work we took a hard look at electricity, thermal energy and fleet and heavy duty vehicles in city operations. So, more specifically for electricity we examined utility data for 66 meters generation data from eight meters. And I will also caveat that electricity is not really the main focus of our analysis, specifically this was not prioritized as expected that green mountain power will reach 100% renewable energy supply within the time frame set out by the city. In the thermal we examined fuel usage in 24 buildings for transportation we looked at fuel usage across five city departments and also included data from school bus, the school bus fleet. And the school bus fleet is currently operate owned and operated by a third party, but we wanted to include that as well. So, into these results, I did want to note that the city has made a number of important investments in the past few years that really helped set the stage and make this goal much more realistic. The progress has been made on the district heat, water resource recovery facility biogas project, the deployment of a few electric vehicles and existing heat pumps on the electricity front around 60% of the electricity in the city uses is from solar energy. Also significantly, data has been compiled and tracked well by the energy advisory committee which really helped inform this report but also will help moving forward and tracking progress towards this goal. So to give you an idea of the starting point, rolled up the energy building these on an annual basis is around 31,000 gigajoules and about 43% of that is renewable. On the transportation side we are seeing around 6,800 gigajoules of electricity used annually with 3% coming from renewable resources. And when you look at these combined, you can see that the largest sources of energy consumption are at the water resource recovery facility by public works and the high school. Specifically, the water resource recovery chart has changed drastically in 2021 and because the biogas project has come online and you can see that the high blue chart there represents the now renewable portion of that piece. And so overall city operations in 2020 where around 36% renewable. Not reflecting that biogas project. Thanks. Next routine looked at what the expectations might be now and in the future if no further actions were taken. As you can see there's an increase in renewables in 2021, which we just talked about reflecting the completion of the phase one biogas project, and the elimination of oil fuel district heat for summertime domestic hot water by public works. This business as usual case also reflects the electricity supply becoming more renewable because of three mount power. Otherwise there are minimal changes between now and 2030 that are expected. And with no further changes and city operations could realistically expect to be 55% renewable by 2030. Great. Knowing that we need to find ways to reduce energy needs electrified thermal loads and transportation or switch to alternative vehicles. Our team identified a range of potential actions that the city takes to reduce this gap. The city needs to assess potential actions for their capital costs, available incentives, operating costs, viable replacement availability. So just the availability of say a replacement electric vehicle for an existing vehicle and the simple payback analysis. For electricity, our team did not really focus on this, but as the city has already made great strides on solar generation, the utility supply is expected to be renewable within the timeframe. For thermal our team assess actions such as weatherization, ground source heat pumps, cold climate air source heat pumps, dry wood chip boilers, bulk wood pellet boilers. And on the fleet side, we looked at EVs electric vehicles, supply equipment. By that I mean electric charging stations and biofuel replacements. Next slide. Oh, and now I think I can hand it over to Damon to talk about which actions our team identified and the recommendations we made around priorities. Thanks Kelly. So the action plan for electricity is quicker because as we said it was in a big focus and it's been great progress there but we kept a few things in here. Could assess the opportunities for additions additional solar generation not because you'd be displacing fossil fuels but because it's a good investment and it could provide some funds for other projects. And could look at an opportunity to place the diesel diesel generators with batteries batteries have become much more cost effective recently but we realize the longer run times needed for some kind of emergency. Buildings would still probably be a challenge but as batteries continue to improve there may be opportunities there. And of course continuing efficiency as buildings are a change or time of replacement. And the only other electricity thing we have noted in the plan is as electrification happens of heating and particularly vehicles to be careful about not increasing demand charges and to. There will be a little bit more about coordinated charging. So for buildings and transportation we broke things into different priorities that represent how good option how good of options are available today and how cost effective they are and those would be priority one things that are a little fuzzier the markets are maybe their marginal cost effectiveness would be priority two and priority three tend to be things that are not cost effective as we see them today or things to kind of monitor. So with the buildings, the clearest opportunities are which hip boilers at the high school and middle school and as we saw earlier those are places where a lot of fossil fuels still used so those projects would make a lot of a lot of progress on the noble percentage as would a pellet boiler at the water plant not the wastewater plant but the water plant. So the priority two projects include a pillar boiler at the recreation center and the DPW garage and the air source heat pump at the maintenance shops. So three actions, get a small amount of remaining fossil fuel in buildings, places that are either small and don't really have a don't use enough energy to have a good payback, or sometimes when sizing what heating systems it's not cost effective to have them cover the highest peaks and fossil fuel is still used to do that, but when you're getting to 100% renewable, you have to address those peaks in a way that's not fossil. So those would be some of the, the priority three action or transportation there's similarly some clear options today and some more difficult things. The high mileage gas powered vehicles are cost effective to electrify now and there's plenty of options for those so picking some of those highest mileage cars and getting them charting stations electrifying them getting them charting stations are good priority one actions to do soon but we also assumed that vehicles would be electrified at their natural replacement time. So this wouldn't really it limits the cost impact and it wouldn't be all immediate and you can see in this case the priority one. We plan that over six years as opposed to just the first few years. Making sites EV ready just make sense anytime you're digging up the area around a building that's a good time to be making it preparing for charging when you'll probably want that in the future. Working with Green Mountain power on these plans to electrify the fleet, because they have great rates and charging incentives for residential. But I would imagine that you know they offer the offer the same kind of thing and a more kind of custom basis for a larger customer but that's how you could work to reduce the impact of demand charges. We do recommend a switch to be 20 biodiesel and a good way to do that is to work with other fleets fleet managers who are who are have already done that and can share their tips and green map power is one example fleet that's doing that. The main DOT is doing it and wrecking amended for their municipalities so could be some things to be learned from them. One other idea here is to consider using used buying used electric vehicles. The electric vehicles used market is relatively cheap because electric vehicles are improving so quickly that even one that's three years old the value may have dropped 50% because the new ones are so much better. However, the market is devaluing them because they have low range and the reason my pillar can't cost effectively replace some of its cars is because some of them don't have enough use and that's a great match for an EV that's cheap it doesn't have a lot of range. If you're not using a vehicle a lot it doesn't justify a new one, but a used one could be a good option. Transportation didn't make it all the way to I forgot what the percentage was but it doesn't end up being very, very renewable because there are not options today for things like street sweepers and dump trucks and sidewalk plows. But that's an area of active research and there's certainly prototypes of those being tested around. And since there aren't, they are available on the market and we can't get pricing we couldn't include them in the plan but we think that's that's what DPW and others should be monitoring throughout this time period. And we think things will be available by 2030 but just not enough to quantify. Additional options and fuels such as renewable diesel, which unlike biodiesel doesn't require any operational changes and we don't know if that's going to cost more or less than regular diesel but it may be an expense that you would compare to the cost of buying carbon offsets to get the last bit of the way there. So this is similar to the graph we saw earlier where we see the same jump in 2021 but we see a more aggressive increase in the renewable percentage and slight decrease in the total energy and that gets to about 8% renewable in total and the number I was looking at before is the vehicles only get to 28% because there's a lot of high diesel consumption very powerful vehicles that don't yet have electric options but the buildings get much further and still have a little bit of leftover fossil fuel that things like the school cafeterias or places we did or the school cooking energy is something we didn't assume an option for a renewable option at this point. So these options, getting the rest of the way that that additional 12% they are limited in some cases by the availability of equipment that can perform the same functions, but sometimes by the simple payback requirement. And so to get there get the rest of the way it's watching for those additional vehicles and potentially having a discussion in the future of do we want to relax that cost effectiveness requirement because we want to achieve this goal and I think the difference is that there is a good comparison between the offsets and whatever the machinery you're talking about but of course the offsets are just money that goes somewhere else whereas equipment that you buy if it's got marginal cost effectiveness it may have other features or benefits that would be that could tip the scales in its direction. It's a little bit lower than we were hoping for but I think we can say this is a little bit conservative and and we know that Montpelier could get to 88% renewable with things that are commercially available today and with things that are cost effective. So that that does feel pretty good and and I think we're fairly confident you can get further than that but we just have to wait and see what happens on the market for particularly large duty vehicles between between now and then. I think that I think that is it yeah so any any for the question then we have Kaylee and myself but also our thermal expert Adam and our transportation expert Ben are also available. Thank you. You go ahead and stop sharing your screen then we can see you would be great questions from Council comments yes Lauren go ahead. Thank you all. I'm really excited by seeing. Yay, actions we can take and I mean I think, given with current technology I'm actually impressed that 88% without presuming like that the large, large fleet vehicles are going to, you know, evolve in the next five years which I hope they do and maybe there's going to be some massive federal investments and technology and things that we wouldn't have anticipated a couple years ago. One thing I'm wondering about is, did anything jump out to you so you know knowing that our state is actively working on a climate action plan we set mandatory greenhouse gas emission reductions as a state. We set aside $250 million for climate action as a state in the legislature this year, there's going to be, you know, unprecedented dollars to put towards these kinds of things. Part of what I'm wondering is, you know, are there are there things that you would be encouraging us to be like pushing for incentive programs like you are assuming that existing incentive programs and not what might be coming with either incentives or like, even bulk purchases if a bunch of towns are doing things or you know some other opportunities that might be more cost saving and change some of those calculations but just curious, you know, any opportunities you see where a city like ours could be partnering with other cities and or advocating to the climate council for certain types of incentives that would help us achieve this in the most kind of cost effective way for our community. Yeah, I found there are opportunities for those and I think as you know they're not. We don't know exactly what what type of funding is going to come and where but the total investment capital cost, not and not include not the incremental but the total investment we think this this plan would come up to somewhere around 5.8 million and a big chunk of that is electric school buses that aren't actually within the capital spending of the city or the school department but are under that but electric school buses are a place that's being heavily grant funded and and that's a place where a lot of funding could probably help in that and that accounts for two and a half million of that 5.8 million. So that would be a big, a big help. Yeah, I don't know if if any of our sector sector folks have any other thoughts on an opportunity those types of opportunities. Or what Ben told me to say earlier so sorry that 5.8 million that is an estimate for the cost of just the transportation aspect or of the whole of all of these change I'm imagining that all of these changes would be much more than that but You would think but actually it was it was a lower number than I thought to but the 5.9 is for the total including buildings buildings are a small 1.5 million. Jack. First off, I should say that I read this report, and I thought it was great. You know I as someone who was doing public utility work. I was literally present at the creation of efficiency Vermont and worked on making that happen. And I think that this just illustrates again the high quality of the work that we always see from from the I see. And so that's one one stand out thing for me and other stand out. Message from this is how great it was that the mental advocates were to to push for renewable portfolio standards so that we could get so much out of Green Mountain Power just because of what we have made Green Mountain Power do over the years and providing energy electricity from renewable energy. It certainly makes it a lot easier for the city to to get where we want to go. I the question I have got a couple of questions, maybe the easy. I don't know which one is easier but I, and I maybe sort of exposing my ignorance here. But I know, right, assume there's a difference distinction between using between reducing and eventually eliminating fossil fuels and getting to the point where we're not adding carbon load to the atmosphere. And so, you know, is it a win if we're replacing combustion of carbon fossil fuels with combustion of wood pellets or wood chips, or are they both bad in terms of carbon impacts. That's a great question. Can I take a stab at answering that advocates there. So the wood chips wood pellets are all a part of the short carbon cycle. So as long as they are renewably produced, so theoretically, as some trees are being harvested more trees are growing up to take their place, then that is neutral. Now, did carbon neutral does that make sense. That to be fair, that process is never quite fully neutral, but it's, but it's better. And I think more trees than we're burning in order to get right where we really want to be. So the sustainability of that wood is important for to answer that question, but and again it's never quite exactly neutral, but but especially with the climate as it is where we're saving it as a matter of degrees, doing what we can. Does that makes anything else that you would add to that team online. And I think if you answered it really, really well in Vermont, we harvest about half of what we grow annually. So we have about four or five million acres of sustainable managed forest land, and we take half as much as we grow annually. So that's a big piece of that equilibrium and maintaining that carbon balance. The other question has to do with transportation and I know at this stage we're talking about municipal energy, but we also have a city goal for non municipal energy for told total community energy. And just thinking in terms of car chargers, is there a an analysis of how many car chargers chargers we could profitably add to to the city, not only for the municipal vehicles but also for privately owned vehicles. Thanks for that question. With that, let's see the, the community side of the inventory work and the planning was, was beyond the scope of what we were asked to do with this work. But I guess we did, we did address the municipal side of things and made some recommendations about specific locations for chargers that would be used by the city fleet. I would, I would suggest, you know, the, another counselor had previously mentioned all of the state and federal programs that are going on currently that are putting a lot of resources behind ways to potentially transition our, our energy system and our address climate concerns and I think public charging is actually one of the areas in addition to school buses as Damon mentioned that may see a big influx in additional resources and planning behind it so I guess my suggestion would be to stay tuned on that and also drive electric Vermont, which is a program that VIC administers is another good resource for more community wide charging guidance. Thanks. Connor, go ahead. Great presentation folks really enjoyed that. Yeah, I don't know, even though I'm asking but what level of engagement has the school board and district had on this, since they're a pretty big part of the equation with some of these items here. What level have they passed like a resolution committed to 2030 at this point do we know I can speak to that last part of the question. We did. So I was a part of a group of folks that asked them to make a net zero 2030 resolution. I said that sounds great but we don't want we want to work it out with our committee. And so they, they have a, I guess like a policy committee that was going that they asked to take that up but I, they have not passed such a resolution yet. And do you want to speak to the interaction with the board or staff at the school. I'll just say something quickly so you know I think you can see from the plan that that the school district is a key part of this action plan between the high school the middle school and the school bus fleet. And so you just today in preparation for this presentation and I did send the action plan to the school board members and the superintendent. And Andrew La Rosa is the facilities director for the school district and he was in our main point of contact through this planning process so he was definitely involved in. We've been talking about the recommendation for the schools but I think we could certainly use the city council and the public support in kind of helping to connect with the school district and encourage them to sign on to both the 2030 goal and and the overall plan. Other other questions. So, I also just want to thank you all again for this I mean this is one of the issues that I'm very passionate about and so you know I read through this and I am so grateful for the concrete suggestions, things that we need to be pursuing and looking at what is already in next steps. And one. One next step I could see it would be to ask Donna, or staff in general to come up with an estimate for engineering studies for say a pellet system for the water treatment plant. Cold climate heat pumps for the mechanical spaces, as well as for the for the pellet boiler for the garage. I mean these are all very concrete things and having a clear directions really helpful. So, and I think to have estimates. I mean my understanding of the process would be we need an engineering study and then we would either build things into the budget or we go for a bond, particularly if this is going to be cost effective and pay for itself over time. So, one, so one path forward I could see would be like let's get let's get that ball rolling, let's get some engineering studies let's see how much we think they'd cost and start thinking about them, like how maybe we can't put all the engineering into the next budget but we could pick whatever ones make sense for us to move forward with. I'm also tempted in all honesty with this estimate of the 5.8 million for the whole thing which is sort of shocking to me is to just say you know all of the 5.8 million dollars worth of projects that are cost effective that are going to save the city and the school district money over time. What if we just had a bond for 1.8 million to implement all of these projects and just just start using that as a place to to to get running. I could see that pot of money also potentially being accessible I don't know how we would I'm making this up right now, but so you can tell me if this is not realistic. But like, if we had 1.8 million to implement this, you know this report. Obviously the school district is a part of that, perhaps some of that money could be accessible to this school district for the projects identified here, I think, having that money available would be would go a long way for them. I think not to be fair I did not actually see the 5.8 million dollar number in the report maybe I am mistaken about that but I just wanted to observe. Observe that maybe there maybe there's a some in here somewhere that I could do but I did not find it. Anyway, those are my thoughts, moving forward. Yes. I, I was also pleasantly surprised by the price tag. I mean one one thought though just knowing there is this state money and possibly infrastructure money coming into which you know a lot of it is exactly it's like electric it's it's this kind of stuff that it's like, you know, line item pieces, you know, if infrastructure moves forward, but some of those were even identified in the state. You know, American Rescue Plan Act dollars. I'm wondering about getting this into a tangible enough form like having a conversation was with some lawmakers of like what, like one idea I know that they were throwing around was, could they try to do some like local match opportunities using this for some of the climate dollars for instance where, you know, let's do a really favorable like if the city would put in X amount then we can, you know, triple it with the state. ARPA dollars. So I just want to certainly explore whatever opportunities to take advantage of those pots of money as well but I think it's like what what's the work that needs to be done anyway of the engineering and the next phase is to just know what we're talking about and have those solid estimates and like maybe getting a sense in the short term from some state partners or lawmakers of like what level of detail would you need to be able to pursue this is this kind of thing. The kind of thing that might be eligible just to ground treat that a little bit. I would also picture just to build on that if that's okay. I could picture having a large bond, you know 5.8 million or whatever, and then not necessarily needing to use all of it right like if it needs a 10 or 20% match, then it's available. You know when when federal dollars become clear. Other thoughts. No. Well, I would simply start by saying first of all, thank you. This is a great report and for someone who's not, you know, more of a generalist and an energy. This is what I've been looking for and our teams been looking for for a long time and get really clearly laid out goals and timeframes and specific actions that we can take. I think especially on the city and obviously I thought the way the vehicles were addressed was very realistic. You know, and we really I think appreciated that. You know our team is just getting this to and we'll look at that I mean I, I love the idea. I don't know what it would take to design yet my suggestion would be for now is that you know you sort of accept or approve the report you're going to be doing strategic planning in a couple of weeks my hunches this would end up as a top priority in your plan which gives us really quick clear direction and then we're coming into budget and we'd have in the meantime looking for these other alternatives but then we'd be out just to put some real numbers together I you know 5.8 million you're right is actually pretty pretty reasonable we have to take a look you know some of its water and sewer infrastructure so that comes from those fees some as tax and I think that you know it'd be great to engage the schools to just remind everyone that they're funded differently than we are and school funding brings with it state funding so you know it actually costs our tax payers less a dollar for the school is less than a dollar for the city from the taxpayer so if they're going to put their kind of investments in school buildings it would really be better for the resident the taxpayer to have it be in the school budget not for us to raise it for them. So, you know, hopefully we wouldn't have to sort of him the money I mean I just, but absolutely hope that they would be engaged with us. But then the interesting thing is if you start parsing that out right it's like how much of this is school and they're going to do that on their time you know their priorities. And then how much is water and sewer and now you're talking about really manageable amounts in our funds for bonding.  So it's best to look at these with everything else and see where we place them. So I'd like to just like, I'd like to just say thank you to the whole team. It was wonderful to work with be I see we learned an awful lot. I don't want to forget Kate, Kate you've been remarkable you've taught me a lot. I look forward to continuing to work with you on these issues and and so congratulations for all that good work and this afternoon I had a meeting with Bill and was saying that number of my special projects that I tackle are coming off my plate soon so now I know exactly what my next plate full of activity is going to be and I think it's very exciting opportunity for us. So. Thank you all really appreciate that and people that I work with that I never thought at the garage for instance who would be very excited by this already have have been talking about what we can do and what they would like to do and so I think that will have been a good input that unexpectedly from my crew. And I know we can be successful with it so really appreciate it. I have one further follow up question, just in terms of. You know that these next steps. I mean my understanding is that VAC your your part in this is basically more or less done right, you know so as we're thinking about like, Oh, do we parse out the school bits do we think about how to how to proceed with the individual projects. You know just even looking through the report. I have my guess is that we could probably do that on our own. If, if we look through it you know I'm looking at the page 29 has estimated capital expenses for each of the projects. That are listed in table seven my isn't safe to assume that if I if I summed all of those estimated capital expenses that we'd get to roughly 5.8. Maybe not just from table seven but from the whole thing. I should but we should double check that because we actually only came up with the, the total total because we anticipated that might be a question. So that's a kind of new number for us to have the total but we'll, we can add that and I think we're we're also planning on having slides or pages by kind of by department, and that might be a place to parse out the to put the capital cost by department that might be a useful way to to show it. Yeah, that would be helpful. And I'm also wondering about when you have estimated capital expenses. I'm guessing that's just for the equipment that's not like the engineering study that would necessarily go with it for you know the pellet burners or the wood chip burners etc. Okay, and they are, these are kind of planning estimates. They're, they're used mainly to determine whether it's cost effective or not. And it's not as yeah not as detailed as those you're, you're going to need to get for the actual implementation. Okay. It's also important to note that a lot of projects have very site specific requirements so like in general putting in a wood chip system. Sometimes you can shoehorn it into an existing boiler room sometimes you have to build a whole new, you know boiler room to house the boilers and the fuel. So that's a highly site specific cost that weren't baked into there so I just want to make sure that those price tags that people don't think of them as like, oh, well this is what it costs and they're planning purposes they're not in a design engineering site specific costs. Okay. Those costs and analysis that we did are within the spreadsheet that we got from me act and where the energy data is tracked and we just added on to that so we'll be giving that back. And so even if there's tables we're going to try to, you know, give you a few more useful tables but if there's tables that aren't made that data is all going to be in there when we shape or form and you can ask us, you know we can tell you what tab or what cell it's on. But you'll have it have all the in all the scoring detail. Awesome. Great. All right, well thank you. Any other comments, questions, thoughts from council or the public. Not that there's a ton of folks left here but Do you need a motion to accept the report. Sure. I'll make it. And there's a second. Okay, further discussion. Okay. So if you say aye. Opposed. Okay, thank you again for this. It's great work. Really looking forward to taking some next steps with us. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. All right so 1037. Okay, I'll get two more items that I think we can. We can do relatively quickly here. COVID mask wearing in cities facilities. I will confess this is an item that I had asked to put on the agenda because we are in a county that the CDC recommends that we wear masks indoors. And so while we don't have the jurisdiction to ask the whole city to do that because that was contingent upon the state of emergency and the governor's provision along with that. It nonetheless seemed like a good idea. We should at least talk about it. For city hall. For city. Maybe not just city hall for city. Services. Just as backup to that. We've already issued as a policy for staff. With regard to inside buildings. We've already issued as a policy for city hall. We've already issued as a policy for city hall. And then to basically, you know, if you're in your own office, that's fine. But if somebody comes in, if you're more than six feet away, if you're both vaccinated. But if you're not vaccinated, you have to wear a mask all the time. Otherwise the rest of us are supposed to be wearing masks. Probably right now. And. You know, in the hallways and that's kind of things. So that, that's art. So I think that anything you would be doing would be deal. Yeah, go ahead. Well, I'm. I'm in favor of people being as safe as they possibly could be. I. I thought I read a disconnect between. The rationale. That's stated in the policy and the, and the action. Since the evidence and support of the rationale seems to be. Limited to. The need to have people who are not vaccinated wear masks. And this obviously would apply to everybody. That is true. Other thoughts. Donna's got her hand up. Yeah, go ahead. I feel that the data shows that vaccinated people are just as susceptible to picking up. The Delta when they're in a group in inside buildings. So I feel more comfortable with just saying inside our city buildings. That we require masks. And that would include city committees. Connor. No, I'm good with it. The hypocrite. But I will tomorrow, you know, when I come in. Now, yeah, I think we'll be having tonight some pretty tough decisions of this keeps getting out of control. So maybe a good incremental approach here. Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, one thing I was wondering, like, I support this. I think reading it actually is. It conveys both because it says it helps prevent people who may unknowingly have the virus from transmitting to others. I think that would cover vaccinated. Unvaccinated. I don't think we need to build trust with the public. If we're ever to go into a lockdown situation again here. So this seems like a logical first step. A learn. I agree with that. I mean, one thing I was wondering, like, I support this. I think reading it actually is. Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. And I'm vaccinated. So. I think it reads fine. I mean, I am wondering, you know, when we've talked about this over the past year and a half, we've talked a lot about, you know, we're trying to follow the science and public health experts. And the CDC now is saying that counties like ours should be having requiring masks and doors. And I know that there's limitations on what we can do. But I think that's one of the, the most important things is. We have a lot of specific statements like we encourage. You know, everyone in the community.  So when we are hitting that threshold or. I was almost wondering, like, if we should revisit. Like, not pillow your alive. Like, you know, how our business is feeling about things. Are they, you know, part of. We'd been spurred to put the mask mandate before the state. In part. how they're feeling right now, you know, as we get towards fall and winter, I agree that we might be forced into more hard things. So maybe, maybe this phasing of tonight, but just, it seems like some good information. And when we do, if you prove I'm asking inside city buildings, I think that's what you're talking about. We could simply announce that that's in place and that we encourage all, you know, businesses and other organizations to consider taking the same action given something like that. Because it's really all we can do. Yeah. You know, the only amendment that I could see is that, I mean, my thinking around this was because the CDC is recommending this for our county, right? That we were above the threshold to have that be recommended by the CDC. And so the very last paragraph about effective period, I could see this saying the sort of shall remain in effect until the Montpelier City Council or City Manager amends suspends this order or until the CDC recommendations no longer recommend this. It's just a standard. Yeah. Cross the standard it's on. Right. Yeah. So, and that way, you know, if tomorrow we're in a better place, then it goes away. But it just keeps us in line with the CDC and we don't have to keep revisiting it necessarily. So, yeah, that's the thought. Yeah. No, I agree. And I think it's a good first step. I think it's an example. But I do think it, and how we communicate this, that it is important that we're encouraging people to wear, to, you know, not requiring, we can't require, but encouraging people to wear mask indoors. And I think part of that too, and my conversations with Montpelier are live, but I think is communicating to business owners that they are fully, you know, within their rights to require masks similar to what, you know, the co-op just did. I think they did a good job communicating and they gave, you know, a warning. They gave folks, hey, starting next Monday, this is what's going to happen. And I do think that that to know for business owners to know that they're supported by the city, I think is going to be really important because, yeah, we may have a little bit of lull in the tourist season for a week or two. But, you know, the number of folks coming from out of state is only going to increase as we know. So I do think that that is an important part of the outreach of this order. Great, sir. I'll make a motion. Yep. Go ahead, Donna. Now, you amended one section or did you not want to amend it? I would recommend amending it. It's the effective period section, which is like the last part. I guess I'd like us to act on it officially. I like the way it is because we act officially to remove it versus some vaguely notice in the mail. I mean, the news that CDC is doing such and such. Would you mind if we keep that in so we remove it? But I understand where you're going from. That's our guideline. Yeah, I guess I don't have super strong feelings about it. Do others? No, I prefer having the amendment in there because I think ultimately these type of mandates rise and fall on, you know, the connection to the CDC and, you know, while we're driving it and enacting it on the CDC recommendation for these particular counties, you know, I think it should it should lapse not necessarily. I mean, we had that same sort of hesitation when we ended the last mass mandate and I think tying it to the CDC, you know, and making it a function, you know, I think we would acknowledge, regardless of how it happened, we would acknowledge it at the city council or you all would acknowledge it at the city council that it happened. We tied the last one to the governor and we didn't wait. Well, that was, you know, I understand that, Donna, but what I'm saying is that that was our authority to act upon it in the first place. We didn't say, we would said it would end if the governor suspended it and it would be one of those similar situations which is if the CDC said we no longer recommend masks for these type of counties and we met that criteria, it'd be the same thing as if the governor had rescinded the emergency order and we hadn't acted. We just, we also maintained the independence to act. So CDC may say, no, we still recommend masks, but we may say, we no longer think that's really realistic for a number of other different reasons. I think it gives us two ways to get out of this and so it doesn't tie us to simply our own whims and that's what I guess I like about the amendment to add to that. Okay. I'll make the motion with the amendment. Okay. What's the wording of the amendment? I think it's what do you think about this order shall remain in effect while the CDC recommends mask wearing indoors for our county or until the city council until the city molecular city council or city manager amends sins or suspends this order. I'm good with that. Is that okay? Okay. If you want to propose a little check, it's okay. Well, I'm a bit skeptical because the ore there, it's it's a little big, but I'm not gonna come up with something that captures what you're talking about any better. Fair enough. It's a policy you can amend at any time. Yep. That's true. So Donna, that's your motion. That's fine. Okay. And there's a second with Dan and so any further discussion? Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Okay. And oppose. All right. So that passes. And then the last item to the district three seat. Dan, I feel like I should turn over to you first. I don't have anything particular to say. I mean, I obviously I'm given my I gave my letter of resignation. So the timeline I think was basically this, which is last Monday, I was confirmed by the Burlington City Council for the city attorney position, which as I think I've discussed with with many of you, you know, would prevent me from sitting continuing to sit as the city councilors just it's it's not necessarily a conflict of interest, but there's certainly a strong appearance of a conflict of interest. And I think there's a logistical issue as well, in that we all have only so many stomachs for late night, municipal meetings, even those of us who might be considered gluttons. But nevertheless, so I gave my, you know, so immediately the next day after that, I sent my notice to you and, you know, city council that my intent to resign. My goal has always been to make sure that there's sort of a seamless transition between my sitting here and my successor so that, you know, District three does not have a lapse in representation. You know, as the bridge pointed out, it's been a number of city counselors from District three over the years, we seem to be the hot seat. This seat in particular will because of this now have had somebody stand for election in for consecutive years, so it may be a meaningful record of opportunities to vote. So, you know, whoever ends up in this seat will have been thoroughly vetted by the voters. So my goal and I think the city's already given the notification that, you know, at the 25 signatures to turn in their letter of intent in the 25 signature petition by I think the 20th, which would be Friday of this week with the idea that next week you as a council would make a decision and presumably let them make their public plea for said physician as I did. Oh, not so long ago. And make the appointment with that person to take office then in September, the beginning of the September meetings, which would be a strategic planning. I'd of course, my resignation is as effective the end of the August 25th meeting so that there was a crossover and I certainly wouldn't be offended if you wanted me to step down at the end of that meeting swear the new person in and go from there. But at the same time, man, is it comfortable up here? And I think that's pretty much it other than, you know, I'll save my goodbyes for next week. I don't want to do it too many times or too early either because who knows. So can I just weigh in on that? Sure, yeah. You know, Dan and I had been talking about this possibility and knowing that the confirmation was going to happen for between our council dates and that I was going to be away. We actually, we were proud for the announcement in the end just held off until the Burlington City Council made their confirmation and it was basically that was the plan to give people two weeks. So the deadline of this Friday so that you could make an appointment and actually I was assuming if the person stayed they could actually be sworn in at the end of the meeting, you know, after the adjourned. If not, they could come in the next day and get sworn in so that they would be available and that would give us a couple of weeks to work with them about orientation and just what's going on in time for strategic planning. But and in we I went and I did consult with the mayor, but really I made the call that in the last few times you've all required the signatures. So I just said, well, they probably will again. So we went with that. Obviously, you could wave that if you like, you could extend the time if you like, but we tried to set this up so that we weren't dependent on a decision to make. Yeah, so thank you. We so this is our first I think our first meeting since that decision was made right since that from your intensity council meeting. So I certainly wanted to have a discussion with all of you about the process moving forward. And I know that the position is already posted. So theoretically, people could already have put their names in though I haven't checked with you, John, if anyone has yet. I think it's going to go. Yeah, I mean, I'll check the signatures. Yeah. Okay, okay. Okay, fair enough. Jack. I think the process is fine. I think that it's it's it's completely logical. And I think the manager did a great thing to get it rolling. I do think that that we should ratify it because there's nothing in the chart of it makes it automatic that this is the process that's going to be so so I move that we ratified the process or maybe it should be phrase that I move that to fill the district three vacancy. We require applicants to submit an application supported by 25 signatures of voters in that in that district by close of business on August 20, and that we would expect to make the appointment at the following council meeting. So that is the that. Oh, sorry, is there a second? Second. Okay, there's a second. The timing is the question that I have. Because starting today, like, let's say somebody hadn't heard that this position was going to be open. And today, being the first time we're talking about it publicly, doesn't give folks a whole lot of time between now and the 20th to to get the well, to get the signatures, but also to make the decision that they might want to run. And I realized that this might create a bit of a potential gap, I guess, but one alternative would be to say, because it would be really great to have somebody in place by the September 8 meeting, that strategic planning. But it would also be it would be nice to have two weeks for folks to make the decision and get the signatures. And so one start starting today. And so one possibility is that we don't have a meeting scheduled for September 1. But we could have a special meeting where that is the sole or roughly the sole agenda item. So that that gives people more time to get their names in to make the decision, get the signatures and get them reported and and then still have somebody in place by the time we get to strategic planning for September 8. Totally works for me. Okay.  Also, I mean, I just wanted to get something out to. Yeah, that's that's fair. Other thoughts. And I'm happy to be wrong about this. Also, if people would like to go faster, that's fine. But yeah, Connor, and then Donna, did you have Yeah, so Connor, fine. No, that I think that works for me too. And I like the idea of having a special meeting for it. I remember when we were appointed in Jack's seat, it actually took us two meetings to do it. So it's going to take all the oxygen and if it's competitive, it's going to take the oxygen and have a meeting. So I think having the time to do it. The other like trying to keep in mind the presentation we just heard, it might be good to run it by the social economic justice committee to see how we could get this out to underrepresented communities to make sure there's an awareness and if folks do want to jump in for us, you know, not a terribly diverse council if you're looking around the room. So that might be a good way to go. Donna, my question was whether and you were saying that the applications for June next Wednesday, and then the next Wednesday we make a decision. Or you're doing it all on the first. To just to clarify the timeline, because applications are always do what like the Thursday? Are they? Well, so Jack's proposal was a Friday. I think our thought was just we picked a Friday just so you could have the names in advance. Obviously, John would need a day or two to check the signatures. And if somebody didn't have them, we'd have to let you know. But, you know, usually 25, it's not, you know, yeah. So instead of the council day to be Friday the 27th. Yes. Okay. That's what I would suggest. Okay. Okay. That sounds good. Great. Other council thoughts or questions? So just so we're clear, so we just prefer to be having a special meeting on September 1 solely for. And Jack, you amended your motion. I moved to amend the motion to set the dates as the 27th and the first. And I'll second my second is amended. Okay. Peter, I see you've got your hand up. Yeah, I'm glad that you made that decision. And I think you should take seriously what Connor just said and make an effort, an affirmative effort to try to get to as many people as possible to get the word out. I think most people aren't even aware of this at this moment.  So I, giving us more time is great, but also figure out how to get the word out in district three. And I think Dan and Jay, you guys have some responsibility to get that word out. Well, Peter, I'm going to push back on that because I did put the word out several times. It also went out on the state news of WCAX with the initial announcement by the mayor of Burlington. So, you know, I mean, other than putting a semaphore tower up in my backyard, you know, I feel like we've made an, I've made an effort to do so and to communicate that. I post on front porch forum, I post on a Facebook, you know, I'm certainly supportive of what the council is doing, but, and I certainly support what Connor's proposing as well. But I guess I do want to push back a little bit on that idea that somehow this was a silent message, but out in the middle of the night, which it wasn't. I didn't say that, Dan. I'm going back to what I said earlier. So, Peter, this is where we're not really, you know, having to back and forth. Okay. Okay. But he just made an allegation. I didn't say anything but silent in the middle of the night. I'm talking about an affirmative effort to get the word out in the district. You can use, we have canned groups, get the word out in the district. Yep, Peter. Thank you. All right. So, and just to just in general, we usually don't have a, it's not usually a dialogue. It's not, you know, a back and forth. So, but having said that, we will try to get the word out that is a goal for sure. We still need to vote. We still need to vote. We need to vote twice. So, because there was an amendment. So, a job will allow us a friendly amendment, won't we? Both parties agree. Okay. So, front of me, we're going to have to vote twice. All right. Okay. So, there's a better motion in a second. So, the plan is the deadline for applications of 27th and then a special meeting on the 1st, which I assume would be at 6.30 regular time, regular place. Okay, all in favor, anyone for the discussion? I don't like that. Okay. All in favor please say aye. Aye. And opposed. Okay. So, that passes. Great. All right. Other business? Oh gosh we made team. It is 1103. My gosh, okay. Council reports. Donna, can I start with you? I certainly may. I just wanted to bring note that being someone who is at remote meetings at last two council meetings, it would really be helpful if all the council members had their own device so that they could appear on the screen with everyone else. Otherwise, you're not seen and heard necessarily when you talk. It's very difficult. I mentioned to Bill, and thank you Bill, and whoever you arranged it with to get the shared screen. Last meeting in July, when the presentation was done, you couldn't see it at all in the remote screen. It was a little teeny tiny box, so it really helped to have the presentation on the shared screen. We're just all working out the hybrid, so I'm just passing that on. Thank you. Thank you. Just if I can, worth mentioning, as someone who's been struggling, as Jack knows with trying to get the sound, everybody having their own laptop is going to introduce so many opportunities for echoes and feedback and stuff. You all need to be very conscious of that. You've got to mute and turn it off. I mean, I would advise, frankly, earbuds, stuff like that. I had mine on the whole time with you. As long as it's muted, everybody just has to mute it. There'll always be someone who doesn't. And we'll come after them. Okay, Connor. I'll pass. I think we can save maybe the accolades and roasting for Dan next May day. Because he's moving down to the minor leagues in Burlington. Jay. I'm going to pass, too. Okay. Dan. I'll stop a good pattern. I'll pass for tonight. Jack. I don't have anything that has to be said tonight. Okay. Lauren.  One thing. So just because the police review committee is we is taking longer, we want to make sure we get good feedback on the draft report. So we're hoping to present to counsel instead of like early September, like early October, and wanted to make sure that that was not a problem with the rest of the council. That's fine. Great. I will pass. Okay. I will also pass. John. I just want to say if anybody's still listening and was hoping to come to the square dance this weekend that Nick, Cherik and I have called time of death on it because of COVID, there will be no square dancing. Sorry. Another time. Good to know. All right, Bill. I'm going to mostly pass, except I want to acknowledge that the one and only Mary Smith is at our first council meeting in person. Certainly picked a good one to be here joining us. We got the full council experience tonight. So thank you, Mayor. Jack. One thing I should say before we leave is that we've had chat open tonight in the in the meeting, which we don't usually do. And before whoever terminates the chat, the zoom connection does, we should get all the contents of the chat out of it because that's part of the record of the meeting. Yep. And I don't know how to do that. Well, and I wanted some of those websites and they were hard to, I couldn't get them all up. So it'd be good to send out websites from the consultant on the diverse justified report. Okay. All right. Well then, I think that is it. So without objection, we will consider this meeting adjourned. Thanks, everybody. Have a good night.


Item number SCP-697, Object Class, Euclid. Special Containment Procedures. All instances of SCP-697 are kept in storage section V of Site-18. The area is 40 feet below ground level and lined with steel, ensuring only authorized personnel may enter. All unauthorized persons attempting to gain access are terminated on site. Each instance of SCP-697 is sealed in a depressurized 4-inch-thick titanium container to avoid accidental activation. Removal from the containers is restricted to three instances at a time for level 4 access-approved experiments only. Under no circumstances are any instances of SCP-697 to leave Site-18. Should accidental spills occur at any point, Site-18 is to be evacuated and the area affected incinerated. Large-scale spills shall lead to total abandonment of the site and a quarantine of the surrounding area for 8 square kilometers. Further information pertaining to spilling of SCP-697 outside of Site-18 is located in Document 697 Theta. Description. SCP-697 consists of the contents of 100 toxic chemical containment drums, consistent with those used by Dozlo AS for waste disposal. All are in either perfect or near-perfect condition and three have yet to be breached by the foundation or other persons. Each drum is filled to the brim with an as-yet unidentified chemical. When exposed to any substance other than the drums, SCP-697 triggers a highly complex chemical process that converts most forms of solid matter around it into fully formed plant-like organisms within seconds of contact, effectively terraforming the area immediately surrounding it. Existing multicellular life is quickly broken down into individual cells, which are then converted into further instances of the plant-like organism. It is currently unknown precisely how non-living matter is altered, but the process appears to involve initial conversion into single-celled life forms, which then agglomerate with anomalous speed into the plants, tissues, and organs. The plants created by SCP-697 bear no significant biological resemblance to any known species, though their physical appearance has been described as normal. They possess a physiology unlike any other known organism. They do not undergo photosynthesis, nor do they rely on nitrogen or carbon dioxide. Their primary waste product is an argon and cobalt-based gas. The source of these elements, neither of which is present in sufficient quantities in any common earth environment, is unknown, as is the chemical basis for the plant's metabolism, which runs at approximately six times the speed of an Eteran plant. As of this writing, the only viable method of destruction is combined incineration and neon gas saturation. Though initial contact with the plants is not fatal, long-term exposure has proven extremely hazardous to terrestrial animals. Inhalation of the waste gases gradually inhibits cardiopulmonary function, while contact with the neurotoxic leaves or flowers results in sudden-spreading extreme numbness, with nervous system and respiratory failure occurring soon after. The average time from initial exposure to death is 13 hours. No treatment for either effect has been developed. In addition to creating new life forms, SCP-697 is apparently capable of self-replication. The effects of a spill invariably spread far beyond the initial area coated in the substance. Prior to the ban on offsite testing, the observed range extended out to six kilometers. Incineration plus neon flooding, as detailed above, are also effective in halting the spread of the chemicals. Addendum 697-001. Six instances of SCP-697 were initially discovered off the coast of California in the spring of 2001. Fortunately, no spills had occurred at the time, though the incident prompted mass investigation of Duzlo AS's waste disposal practices, drawing foundation attention. Over a period of six months, 50 of the drums currently in containment were discovered, with arrest gradually located over an extended period of time. The current average discovery rate of drums containing SCP-697 is one every three weeks. Lesson complete. If you missed the previous orientation, go watch SCP-696, Abyssal Typewriter, right now. Or for the complete course, watch this playlist.


If my hair is wet, welcome to the vlog. I'm running late as per usual because this morning, lucky for me, one of my nails popped off and that actually has never happened since I moved LA and got my nails done except for this one nail salon that like all my gel polish peeled off that night, but like my actual like gel X like tip nail thing just popped right off. So I'm actually on my way to the nail salon right now to get that fixed and then at 1130, so it's currently like 10 right now and I really like need to be quick in there. At 1130, I am getting my hair done. So that's why I just wanted to like, I don't know, I feel insecure going into the salon with dirty hair. I remember one time a hairstylist was like, oh my client's coming with dirty hair and I was like, ooh, I'm definitely one of them. So now I try to wash my hair and hopefully it'll be dry by the time my appointment arises and I am doing something a little different today. I think I'm going a little bit darker, doing one more kind of round of dark hair before I probably eventually go back to blonde for like spring and summer. Maybe in time for like my Japan trip or something. I'm not entirely sure, but yeah, that's the plan. That's the agenda. Rushing over to the nail salon really quick. Oh, detour alert. And then I'm actually meeting a friend for dinner tonight. So yeah, it's gonna be a busy day. Come along, let's do it. All right, just made it to the salon and honestly, my hair actually is mostly dry. It really just blew in the wind for the last 20 minutes. So I'm gonna head inside and we'll see what this ends up looking like. Here is a little bit of a before. This lighting is terrible. I think we might go just a little bit darker, a little bit richer. I'm gonna cover up these money pieces and we're gonna have some fun with it. So we'll see you in like an hour and a half. Wish me luck. Right, here we have it. It is definitely brown. Like my hair is brown and I kinda like it.  So it's just a toner. Just wanted to freshen it up a little bit. So now I am feeling fresh. It is about 1.15.  I'm actually meeting up with Allison from the fitness martial. I'm so excited. We've actually, well, we haven't seen each other since like 2019, we met at a YouTube event and we haven't like gotten to actually like meet up since we've been in LA yet, like at the same time.  But yeah, I love my hair. I need to focus on driving now. So we will check in in a bit. Brutate era. I can't wait to see what it's gonna look like when I'm like fully ready. All right, I've gotten myself ready and I'm like, now I'm questioning this outfit. But in my mind, it's really cute. This is actually a nightgown that I thrifted from the Rose Bowl flea market. And then I threw on these red boots with it cause I thought it would look really cute. But now I'm questioning myself and maybe I'll put on the long blazer with it. Drew said it looks cute and I should go out like this. But let's just try one more thing. My Uber is in fact two minutes away. So I'm gonna need to make this snappy. Okay, let's see if this looks any better. I have a feeling I'm gonna like this more. Big more of a mess in the background. I think this might be it. This is better for nighttime too. Okay, yeah, you know what? I think I'm feeling this more. So this leather blazer is thrifted. This dress is thrifted. It is a nightgown. And then these boots are from Journey Collection. And I thought a little pop of red might be fun. I'm loving this dark hair. It's really, really fun. I feel like it's gonna be a fun era for sure. But I need to pee really quick and then head out and meet up with Allison. I can't wait. Next day, Allison and I had such a good time last night catching up, chatting, having a couple drinks, having pizza. I got home around like 9.30 ideal night. Layla and I had a little photo shoot when I took her out to poop. Drew was laughing at me very much. And now it is Friday. I just got to Laguna Beach, my favorite place in the entire world.  I get to see Grace for the first time in like a year. And I'm so excited to see them. So I just stopped into Earth Cafe to pee a little bit. And now we're just gonna walk along the beach and have a quintessential, what I imagined my California life would be morning. I'm excited. And look who I found. Excavator. Number two. Oh, you like her charm on her camera? That's really amazing. See ya, that's mighty. I have done a terrible job at vlogging today, but we just had a nice, yeah, that is true. That's the sign of a good time. And that's why this vlog is just me saying I'm doing something and then catching up hours later.  And now we're at a place called The Stand in Laguna Beach. So it's a vegan place. We're gonna get like a couple sandwiches, maybe do some more walking. We're having a great day. Just saw this little thing on the table that said if they've had a 100% vegan menu for 45 years, it's crazy. Like that's a really long time, especially like 45 years ago. When I was in high school, when I worked at Whole Foods, it was Wild Oats back then. And vegan was this like new thing that like only a few people were doing. Right? I feel like all these places are popping up now. Yeah. But 45 years. They're an OG, clearly. We got our delicious food, got a little taco bowl. I think it has like beans and rice, mostly. And then like some salsa, guac, and jicama. We got some chips. Sierra got some kind of Chipotle ranch that I might steal some of. Please, let's see how it is. Oh, we also got some habanero sauce. Looks pretty good. Mmm. She says you need to eat one more.   Right, we just finished up some fun play time at the park. We swung. We actually went over to like where the hike is, the lookout, and just did a little bit of gazing at the beautiful view. And now we're gonna head back. Well, we had the best day. It was so much fun. And now we've decided that it's gonna be like a monthly thing. Yes, we're gonna alternate months. We're gonna see each other once a month at a midway point between LA and San Diego. And I think we're gonna alternate between Laguna Beach and Disney days. That's what we have to. All right, bye. In March. Well, no, we're gonna, we gotta go to February. Disney day. Disney day. I love you. Have a safe drive. Goodbye, all. Bye. We will head home now. And we will reunite very soon. Yes. I did. Yay. Next day, I finished up with Sierra and it took me two and a half hours to drive home. That was unexpected. Just a lot of traffic and stuff. And Drew actually sat on the phone with me the entire time we talked on the phone. Like hands-free, the entire drive. Honestly. What a sweetheart. It was like two hours and 20 minutes. Yeah, you should look. Do you have your phone? I don't have my phone on me. I don't either. Just trust me. It was over, it was almost two and a half hours. I know that. But, and then we rushed home, went out for a cute little dinner date last night. It was really nice. We went to just this like random spot that we saw. And it was so cute. We really enjoyed it. It was a nice wholesome date night and we were asleep by frickin' 9.30. I had two glasses of wine and I was like. It's the wine, it does it to you. But now, it is Saturday morning and we are going to head out. Well, first we have to get like a notary thing. We have to get something notarized for our health insurance. And then after that, I think we might get some brunch.  I have the cutest sweater on right now. I'm gonna show you. Layla is, you know, she looks dead behind me but she's not. I am so obsessed with her. So we'll just try to go around her. But this sweater I actually picked up at the Rose Bowl flea market the last time I was there which was like a couple weeks ago. And I love it. The tag on the inside, I can't tell what brand it is but it said handmade in Korea, which is amazing. And it's just so cute. The sleeves are like a little bit too short for me but I kind of tried to stretch them out a little bit when I was hanging it up to dry. And it just has these cute little flowers all over it. And I just buttoned it on the top. I just have like a white T underneath. And then I have these good 90s, good American jeans. These are the darker wash. So I don't know, thought I would try something fun. I don't typically wear darker jeans but this was like a gift card purchase. I had a gift card to use. And then I actually have just my UGG slippers on. I don't know if I'm gonna wear these out. I might change into some sneakers but yeah, that's my outfit of the day. Still getting used to the darker hair but it's really fun. I did some cute little front braided bangs this morning. I think I might get extensions soon. I don't know. I'm kind of having fun with my look at the moment. Just sort of playing around with it, seeing what I like, trying new things. I almost impossibly got bangs when I was at the salon the other day. Listen, I'm just kind of like feeling, playing around with my look.  We are in the car heading to go and hike. It's like just before three p.m. It's like 2.30. We haven't done any kind of like movement besides like walking to get brunch. Our brunch was pretty good. Then we walked home and just kind of like hung out for a bit. We actually, I'll show you when we get home but we actually made a beef stew this morning in the crock pot. So that'll be ready by the time we get home. It's been like slow cooking for the last six hours or so. By the time we get back, it'll be ready so that'll be really good. But we're trying out an area that we've never been to before and it's like near Will Rogers Park. I think it's cold. So I think this is like closer to the Palisades, the Pacific Palisades, this little kind of hike trail thing. So I think it'll be really fun. We're gonna get in some movement, get some sunshine. Yesterday in Laguna was so nice. I like need as much outdoor time as possible. Plus for the first half of this month it rained. So for the second half, I've just like desperately needed sunshine. So that's what we're gonna do. So we're almost done with our hike. Drew and I have actually never done this hike before and both Drew and I have imposter syndrome to like the point where sort of hinders us from doing stuff. Cause we're like, where do you park? How do you get there?  So it like kind of prevents us from doing stuff sometimes. It's like definitely been a hindrance. And we did it. We had no idea where we're going. We faded out and I would highly recommend. Oh, he's helping me now. I'm the accident prone one. Anyways, we're back on flat ground. I don't know, like if you were considering stepping outside your comfort zone and trying something new, I would recommend it. Cause we both said that we really enjoyed coming. It was so fun. Yeah. Very cute and very pretty here. I would recommend coming. If you're in the LA area and you're like visiting or if you have family in town or whatever. This is called the inspiration loop, I think at Will Rogers State Park. What a lovely afternoon. We made it just in time, like before sunset, sort of ish. Now we're going to go home and eat our beasts too. All right, we made it home. We got into our cozy clothes, aka our pajamas. And if you can hear our neighbors orange tree being cut down. We do apologize, it's been happening all day. But anyways, we made a beef stew for dinner and we found this recipe on Pinterest and it's by the cozy cook. I think it's called, ooh, this looks really good. I'll show you what it looks like. Here she is. It looks phenomenal. We're going to finish it off with a little bit of sea salt. There's like finishing maldon salt and then maybe some more pepper. We were going to get some crusty bread on the way home to eat this with, but honestly we're hungry and we're just going to eat it and cozy up on the couch and watch some shows. I'm also calling myself out because I've become re-addicted to Diet Coke. I don't want to talk about it.  And caffeine free Diet Coke isn't like super widely available everywhere.  And I've always preferred fountain, but like I caved recently. I was like, let me just like get a couple cans. This is my second 12 pack. So. You put it in a little baby ice? Wait, okay. So I think this is going to go out of order, but I did recently get an Opal ice maker and I will be reviewing it in a main channel video but Drew just had the most genius idea. God, I love you. I'm pretty smart. I'm pretty smart. My Stanley, all the girlies on TikTok are doing that. Okay. I'm doing it. Oh God, this is full. Oh my God, I'm so excited. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. This is a monumental occasion. If you're on TikTok, you understand. I'm going to make my credit. Ooh. Cheers. It's so good.  We should try to do what the Utah girlies, the Utah mums and they put like half and half or something like that or like coffee cream or anything. Have you all heard of that by the way? There's like, and I mean, if you're from Utah, you already know this, but there are like. You're like soda shops. Yeah, soda shops in Utah because they don't drink alcohol, but I also thought they don't drink caffeine, but I guess some people do. But there's like these drink items on the menu that are like Dr. Pepper with milk in it. And I'm like, at first I was like, ew, that's disgusting and feels like sacrilegious. But now I'm like, I kind of want to try it. So maybe we'll have to try that in the future. But anyways, okay. It's beef stew and diet coke time. I love being trash.