e one or two openings. Jesse and I, it feels like weekly we have two or three applicants and we haven't yet two today, two no shows. And we've been doing this for probably about five, six months now regularly. And we haven't had anyone even get to the point of testing. So I feel strongly, yeah, so I feel strongly this is where we need to really focus going forward. And I'm actually in a project management class through UVM right now. And I chose to do it on police recruitment. I just think we have to hit different platforms, be more creative. I know that there have been discussions, I'm not trying to speak out of place, but of maybe offering bonuses that seems to be a common place now, especially if you're a preser which means that someone who wouldn't have to go to the academy who could just come in, do a few weeks of FTO and a bridge and then automatically be a serviceable officer. But this is something that going forward. And again, this is not just a Winooski problem. This is a Vermont slash national issue, but we do have to connect with people who are going to be viable candidates and be the right fit. And it's a little discouraging right now, I guess. This is being polite about it. So that's really all I have for the quick overview is anyone have any questions? Sure. First, I think you sold yourself a little short when you said you have to drive 20 miles away. I think you can be a lot closer and you guys are outperforming those police forces. Your adoption of the 21st century policing model is not something that was adopted nationwide or even Vermont wide. So the fact that this department has gone so wholeheartedly into that is commendable. I have a question about the mental health and the suicide number. The suicide number seemed really high and I didn't know if that was in addition to that mental health number or a part of that mental health number and you just wanted to highlight that for us. Yeah, so it's probably a little bit of both. So when we go into Valkyrie, which is our database for, it's might say suicide attempt, but we might also check that mental health box. So maybe it's duplicating its efforts as far as that, but yes, it is high and it, it is why it's so important for us to identify people in crisis and to get those services to them as quickly as possible. I am hopeful that we have been doing more to address those issues.  Those aren't successful, but it does show that there is a huge need for these full-time mental health clinicians that we need to partner with. We just can't do it alone. Another question, the SRO officer, and I may be remembering this incorrectly. I thought during, I think maybe the budget presentation we had been told that the SRO officer was gonna wear it similar to what you were wearing at the school. I recently heard from a group of students up there that he has frequently been in full police uniform. So I don't know if you could address that. He, or SRO to my knowledge, is supposed to be in a softer uniform, which means no external carrier. Yeah. And when I, I believe that is the uniform that that individual is in most of the time. I can only say or speculate that this individual, if they are going up in what we wear in patrol, which is an exterior carrier, a more tactical look, is maybe because that individual is covering shifts as well, kind of working a dual purpose. There are times when we might have like more in two hours where if I have to run out to do something, can SRO just kind of supplement and work the road? Maybe at that point they would put on more appropriate tire for patrol purposes. That's good to know. I didn't hear anything else. And then just an update if possible on the police dog. So at this point, we're still trying to work through that the individual who has interest. We're just trying to make sure that it's gonna be the right fit for everyone. Life happens. We've had changes in making sure it's gonna be a stable. That is a huge commitment. It's not just like a one or two year commitment. That's like a seven, eight year commitment and you're locked into that. So as far as the canine goes, kind of just on pause right now. Again, I don't wanna overstep my boundaries, but on pause and then we're still looking at the therapy dog as well. And the chief has put out some, some policies to work through that as well. So there is movement on those just at this point. Like I said, it's just kind of on hold the canine until we just make sure that everything is in order. That's a big commitment. Not only with training and equipment, but just the person in their second or third year in their career to say, hey, in the next 10 years, you're gonna be with this dog and that's gonna maybe hamper other things. And just wanna make sure that everyone's on the same page before we fully commit. So. Yeah. That's all I have. Okay. Is there any questions from members of the public? You can use the raise hand feature. I actually remember something as well. Go for it. I don't see a hand. Since our police department has done so many great things with 21st century policing and I know that your hands are definitely full with recruitment, retention, then some. I think as the strategic plan kind of comes to its next evolution, I'd be curious to see if there's opportunities to work with the state's Office of Racial Equity and other opportunities there to just learn and grow and see how we can improve the structures we have in place and community support systems. And it certainly is a longer, larger conversation but it's just something I was thinking about. Yeah, absolutely. And I do hope, I'm hopeful that we get to a point where we are staffed more comfortably to be able to actually think bigger picture. It is about being proactive and staying ahead. And I feel like sometimes we get, unfortunately we have to be more reactive just because of the limitations of staffing. But yes, absolutely. I think these are all dreams we have of moving forward. How many of our officers on Winooski PD live in Winooski? One, to my knowledge. Thank you. Yep. Excuse me too. We have a dispatcher too that lives in Winooski. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Well welcome the chief back up. You're just gonna stay here for a while now. I think someone said this was my meeting, right? Yeah. Yeah. So good evening. Not sure if everyone knows Bruce. Bruce Palmer is Fire Marshal. Obviously want to start to expose him to you folks to these processes, what the future holds. And share the wealth, if we will. Thanks for being here.  It's very different, very unique. Remind folks of the five E's, the enforcement, engineering, education, emergency response and economic incentives through the community risk reduction efforts that you all in this community benefits greatly from. And that's our public billing registry. And just, you know, here we say a lot of getting ahead of the call. And we'd much rather do that. Next slide, Paul. Obviously picking up on the same org chart. We're in the firing code. You can go to the next slide, Paul. So I chose to kind of line this up a little differently for you folks as far as what we do day to day and place the positions for you. And there is some overlap. As fire chief, director of code, I am the city health officer. I could give that up, but that means the mayors, the city health officer. So the 11 o'clock animal bike calls, I think I'll continue to take those. Emergency management coordinator. The city manager is the director and coordinator. We're gonna touch on that on another item here. By default, the E-91 coordinator, every town, every city has to have an E-91 coordinator. Again, if we're not doing it as staff, council would need to do that. And I certainly need to recognize staff for pulling most of that load. Pretty important here in Wynuski with a new development, that sort of thing. It comes a big deal of power numbering or addressing properties. Administrative functions, there's too many to list. We do monthly officers meetings. There's weekly department drills, which admittedly I don't make all of those. They are the second, third, and fourth Wednesday. And there's just not enough time to go around. City council meetings, which are super important I feel for department heads to attend. Again, I think the commitment there serves a lot of value for you folks during your meetings and for us to be here for the public. Self-health and connected people, obviously, and then the housing commission. Emergency response, the chief is part of the emergency response here during the day. But more so, call back. So we do get called back. If there's a first alarm, as I spoke about earlier, or greater, or we're committed in another community, one of the chiefs respond back into the city. We're supporting those under us. There's usually decision points that need to be made that require a chief. I am part of the Monday through Friday emergency response, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. coverage. I don't mind it, but it would be an issue moving forward. In the future, I'm not sure every chief is gonna be in the city by 6 a.m. So I was in the city at 5.30 this morning. It's now 5 a.m. So not complaining to saying moving forward is something that we need to realize the workload. There is some weekend holiday coverage. We're three people trying to cover five days a week, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Bruce is on vacation, much deserved vacation coming up for a week and a half. We will be short coverage. This Friday, I'm the only scheduled person to be in the city, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Unless there's someone else available. And then we're relying on our partners around us. So we are thin, for sure. And then the chief on call Sunday through Friday, again, 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. The dispatchers need someone to call. We don't drive that to our part-time folks. One of the chiefs take it on a rotation basis. So there's three of us that take that. It's just not a count of time. It's not a big lift. But again, it is something that we wanna put on the radar. So what's that mean for this position? March 22 to 23, I've averaged 96 hours for every pay period. Is it sustainable for somebody else or for this community? Is this something we need to put on the radar? You just don't know that that means a lot of times you've worked more than that. Yeah, I mean, I don't record all the time. What I would say is there's a lot of models to follow. The model works, how sustainable it is moving forward. The national trends, you heard it on the PD side, recruitment retention is huge. There's not a lot of folks trying to do this type of work certainly on a part-time basis. A part-time firefighter that comes on with no experience, we're paying 13, 11 minimum wage. And I heard we're paying a parks person 15 bucks an hour. I only say that because some of the applicants have told us there's a discrepancy.  There's an incentivized pay plan that if they go get certifications we'll pay them more an hour. But we are not even in a position where we're paying them to go get all those certifications. We have come a long ways. I'm not saying we haven't. We have come a long, long ways. But there's a long ways to go. And that's part of our recruitment and retention problem. So again, I put it out there. I refer to a model, the red ribbon report. The international fire chiefs puts it out. There's a lot of indicators in there across all these functions that you're gonna see. You know, am I thinking strategically for the city of Onitski? No, today I didn't touch anything strategically. Worked on the training plan for the fire department so that we could keep our 11, 12 people trained. So there's a creep factor, right?  The police chief's out doing patrol. Is he doing strategic planning or thinking big picture? No. If I'm on the fire truck, am I thinking big picture? No. And this community's grown enough and will continue to grow where that's huge. And yes, we can rely on our valued partners, but there will be nothing like the value of having someone within your organization making decisions on behalf of Onitski. And I think some of that reflected tonight in our discussion with Vitaing. And it doesn't matter whether it's St. Mike's or Vitaing or Purlington, we intimately know Onitski. I know your strategic vision priorities. So there's that decision making, that representation that's super important. I know it's getting late, so that's Paul, let's go to the next one. So the fire chief's exempt. Again, we're going to the fire marshal's position. This is Bruce for tonight. Again, another exempt position. He is the deputy health officer, one of two, serves on the battalion chief level. So this is the command level. His main focus is community risk reduction. That's the administrative functions of the public building registry or property complaints or commercial inspections. All that boots on the ground kind of really leading those efforts. Again, subject to the monthly officers meetings or sorts of things. He is part of the emergency response. 6 a.m. to 6 p. I covered that, the chief on duty. I'm going to call out the March 22 to 23. Bruce's job description says first alarm or greater respond back into the city. Bruce responded back into the city over 80 times over this period of time. He lives fairly close. But very few of those were first alarms. Probably, I'm going to say less than 20 of those were first alarm or greater. So the creek factor, we didn't have resources during the hours of 6 p. to 6 a. To adequately respond to a call and he took it upon himself to come in and help cover those calls. I haven't heard him complain. I'm just calling it out again as workload and the reality of what's here in Manuski. And he has averaged 90 hours for pay period. On the assistant fire marshals, the third full-time position serves as deputy health officer, serves as rank of captain. Again, the community risk reduction, first alarm or greater back into the city. I know that numbers 12 to 20. You know, always comes back when we have those and more. And currently works a schedule of Sunday to Wednesday. So does the eight hour on Sunday, 10, 10, 12. Ends 12 on Wednesday so they can be here for the training on Wednesday night with our part-time staff. So again, we have a very unique model. Thursday, Friday, it goes to just Bruce and I here unless we have per diem or some other coverage. Next slide, Paul. Our part-time battalion chief has a full-time job elsewhere. Again, as our main response, 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and weekends as available. This is not scheduled. I don't know that he's available all these times. Covers a ton of those calls but there's certainly times that we don't have access to that. Same with the part-time officers, which is a captain and two lieutenants. Again, the main hours are 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. We rely on these part-time folks. They lead a company of four or five part-time firefighters. Everyone's broken the companies just so we can manage them. That's our professional development for these captains and lieutenants. All folks are required to do 72 hours of training. That's our Wednesday nights. What's unique about the part-time officers and the part-time firefighters is duty weekends, which is they do a weekend, full weekend, Saturday and a Sunday, which is 36 hours of coverage. For the officer, they get $120 plus their call. So they have to be available. They're not at the firehouse, but they have to be available. So if you do that math, that's about $3.30 an hour. I will, again, we've come a long ways. It used to be $20 for that same period of time. So you all have supported us and we've come a long ways. The duty weekend split goes for the Saturday, it's 24 hours. And just, again, we've been unable to cover the fourth weekend of the month. We used to have four companies. We got down to like two people. So we've had to go into three companies and then do a split. So they do a full duty weekend of Saturday, Sunday, and then they have to do a Saturday or Sunday additionally. The last part of that bullet is the duty weekend Saturday hours. We heard from a lot of our part-time staff. They wanted to be more engaged, which was very encouraging. They want more. They want to represent Winooski more. They want to be here. So we're doing, we just started this three to four hours each Saturday. So they get their duty weekend, but then they have to be at the firehouse, say eight to 11 on Saturday morning as a company. So they do a truck check. There'll be some public engagement. You'll see them at some of the events. It's a great opportunity for them to get out and be instead of just responding to calls that can be out in the community. We just started it, right? We're three Saturdays in and I shared with Jesse, who I believe is left in maybe a lane, but firetruck's going through one of our neighborhoods. Mom's out in the yard with a little three-year-old and the kid just absolutely rejoices in seeing the firetruck and she had it on video. So I shared it with staff and Jesse. So again, I hope those are the things that they experience, meaning our staff and our residents get to experience. Our part-time firefighters, we're down to eight. Again, we're covering the six P to six A. They're assigned to a company, the same type of thing. They are paid less, if you will, than the officers, less responsibility type. That's why it's structured that way. Next slide, Paul. Our code enforcement officer is mainly parking enforcement, limited municipal code enforcement. Takes care of the general maintenance of the parking equipment. So the kiosks are pieces of equipment. They don't go forever. They're very reliable. And we do the winter maintenance on the kiosks. I mentioned that, again, no one's complaining, right? Our current officer works Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then the next week works Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So it's supposed to be two officers. So they're supposed to not the same person the same day of the week. But through the winter, obviously, if they weren't here one of those three days, I actually traveled in to shovel the kiosks. We don't want some in the fall, that sort of thing. So again, we're sharing, there's a lot of creek factor. Our public safety admin, who holds us all together, does a ton of different things, touches many, many different things a day. The public building registry, all the notices, scheduling, billing, data entry, the parking, the appeals, parking permits, contracts, again, data entry, building permits, and the intake of data entry issuance, public works permits, and supports zoning permits. So again, staff do a lot. That's part of the excitement of being here. Next slide. Just kind of a comparison of what's happening. So I'll start with building permits. Last year was 131. Currently, we're at 154 in the right-hand column. Inspections, you can see we're gonna exceed our inspections on all fronts, except construction. This is a reporting issue with our software that I need to track down. There will be a significant difference between the 251 and eight, because we were at the school two or three times a week for that whole year, and we're no longer there. Time of sale inspections is down. We would expect to see that with the interest rates, that sort of thing. That is a pretty good reflection of, we feel the impacts of what goes on around us. Property complaints are down a little bit. I suspect we will catch up. Usually spring is a big one of the community. Absolutely amazing, brought those in. Chief, can I ask the inspections violations are up like 60%? Do you have any understanding of what's underneath that? It may be the district that we're in, meaning this year we're inspecting a part of the city. Does it switch its quadrants? It does change from quadrant to quadrant. Remember we have the city broken into four quadrants. We travel around the city. So it may be a reflection of that. Bruce, we have a new person doing inspections. So when you go from someone that's been here 20 years doing the same inspections and you introduce new people, you will see a different view on things, which isn't a bad thing. And remember, we're just coming off COVID. So you had two years of pretty much not a lot getting done. Whether people didn't have the resources or their contractors weren't available, we are still feeling those impacts. On the emergency response side, we're gonna exceed last year's numbers. I won't go word for word through those. In the bottom part, I just want to, again, our daytime staff is covering about 194 of those calls. That's three people across five days, 12 hours a day, trying to keep a minimum of two people here. We're not hitting that, meaning there's periods of time, like I'm here by myself in the morning till Bruce gets in, we leave, and the third person's here by themselves for a couple hours in the afternoon or evening, however it works. I really want to point out our paid-on call folks who aren't scheduled, we'd rely on them when they're available. They're covering a huge percent of the calls still here in Wienewski, which is good, kudos to them. And our duty weekend coverage, although they're not at the station, that is scheduled time. I know people are available during that said weekend duty time, because they're signed up and they're on the schedule. I know that. They're covering 88 of those calls. And then we always want to watch the drop calls. And there's five. Am I gonna say that's bad or good? That should be zero. We really shouldn't be dropping calls, so we want to watch those. Next slide, please. So a little bit of the updates. Transition to a two-truck, that's complete. If folks have questions on that. The feasibility to accommodate 24-hour staffing. It's a future piece that Wienewski's got to deal with. It's recruitment, retention. Our ability to cover shifts here is limited. Can't have people sleep in the firehouse. So we're really looking for people that are within, not even a distance, within a timeframe getting to the firehouse, right? If we say five miles, that puts us over on the showroom road. So you can imagine during, if you have an emergency, if I say within a five-mile radius, you probably don't want to wait for people to come off the showroom road at 4.30 or 5 o'clock at night to get to the firehouse. So it's not feasible, right? So all things lead to us having a larger discussion about what we can do at the firehouse. So those discussions have begun. The discussion to expand our MOU to do plans review is ongoing. We have had a meeting with the director of fire safety. It was a positive meeting. Obviously they're concerned about losing $75 to $80,000 a year in fees. So I suspect in the next week or so, we will know a little bit more on kind of what stance they're gonna take. Clarification here, 75 to 80,000 a year. That's the average, okay. Yep, sorry, actually quite annually. So those are fees. If someone's gonna build a project, they go to the state and that's what the state is collecting for fees to review those plans. And we are trying to bring that local because that is a huge disconnect for us. In the budget, it was noted at 40,000 for revenue. Because there's gonna be some adjustment in the building permits. Are we still gonna charge people a building permit and the plans review? I see. It's gonna get lumped together. And I believe we were very conservative at the $40,000 number. Okay, thank you. That's over a five, that's a five-year average, that's 75 to 80. There was a huge spike with the school, with that project. We won't see $54 million projects. Very often. Next slide, please. Just tracking the replacement they approved in the truck that's ordered. There's some financing timelines to happen with the tracking, the delivery, as far as the supply chains are finally getting caught up and matching that up with the bond bank, that sort of thing. The site visits of the school is complete. Into housing, currently working with the Housing Commission. We've had several meetings. The building chapter's been done. The public building registry chapters is drafted. We didn't have a quorum, so that meeting is rescheduled. And I believe one or two more meetings with the Housing Commission, then I will start to come to council for its review. The public building registry is a little bigger lift than the building, just because we reformatted things and really tried to make as much as we can, make an ordinance more user-friendly, understand the information that's in there, that sort of thing. You know, we're continuing to work with Hawkeen on their sprinkler systems. They've done an excellent job. They're about 75% done. This is installing all new sprinklers in their four buildings. This was due to their sprinkler breaks. Again, kudos to them. This is something that Hawkeen took on themselves. This is not an insurance claim. Insurance said, well, we'll wait for the next break. Hawkeen was not interested in dealing with the first one, 60, almost 70 units displaced for seven months. And the second one being 40 units displaced for six months. I think they're doing the right thing. Housing Association, we continue to watch with some structural issues. I suspect that we'll be hearing a little bit more about that coming up in spring and contractors are available. Three under main, we continue to monitor and try to encourage the owner to do the right things. Like now that the snow's gone, get there and clean your property. And I'm just trying to stay ahead of it a little bit. So it's on the radar. Next slide, please. Save, healthy connective people, regional dispatch. Again, you heard it with PD. I would tell you, this is a dispatch as a whole for fire and EMS or another pinch point for Manuski. Meaning fire and ambulance don't operate on the same channel. We don't have the capacity to. So St. Mike's dispatches themselves. A lot of times the students dispatching the ambulance into the city 1400 times. But more so if I'm at a car accident, I have no idea what's coming for analysis. We're not on the same channel. We don't have that capacity. Operationally, it's an issue that again needs to be a broader conversation for Manuski. It's not an easy fix. It's not like we can just say to PD downstairs, you need to start doing this. They're staffing implications to doing that. But that's why regional dispatch to fire and EMS has been such an important issue. All hazards mitigation plan is complete. That's available. That's on the CCRPC site. Supplemental coverage for St. Mike's College. You know, in our operating budget coming up, there's some concessions made to support them, support that effort through purchase of diesel fuel, allowing them access to diesel fuel. They have a long-standing contractual obligation with the town of Colchester. And it's very difficult. There's a lot of just fingers to it as far as how that all works. St. Mike's is a battalion of Colchester. The town of Colchester funds a lot of their operations. So obviously Colchester is the best in interest in what they're doing. And sometimes that doesn't align with what we want them or need them to do here in Winooski. So we continue to try to have those conversations and assure that that's a resource to the residents here. Recruitment and retention. You heard it from PD.  We are onboarding the first part-time on-call firefighter. It's been eight months since we've interviewed anybody. And this is by chance the St. Mike's student that's gonna stay in the area. So it's an ongoing, you know, Jesse can attest that there's just not a lot going on there as far as people's availability or want to do this work. And it's not just a Winooski problem. We are participating. I'm sure you have a big of a problem it is. It's a grant funded effort statewide. It's called Operation Mayday. Hopefully you've seen it on WCAX. So this is across the state. And we are gonna be one of that. I know of 50 plus fire departments that would be hosting an open house on May 13th from nine to one. And we'll be working with Paul to start pushing that stuff locally. But channel three will run this, they've already started, but they will continue to run this effort. Again, that's a grant funded effort.  Next slide. Then lastly, what are we gonna do? This didn't change from our piece. Obviously, if we're able to do the MOU, which I'm confident we will get there. There may be some other pains in getting there. But how do we implement that? The fee structure, we've already started to have that conversation. The renovation of the current station for 24-hour staffing. We've already started that conversation. That will need to continue. The replacement of the truck. Again, we've talked about the financing. On the housing side, implement the changes and updates to public billing registry. Get it through council, the public hearings, that sort of thing. Do the education, which will just be the start of the education for both tenants and property owners of said updates. It isn't about sneaking up on people with the updates. Continue to support the new development and renovation projects. Renovations here in Manuski are super important to our grand list. As is new development, we play a big role in those projects up front. Again, take delivery February, March of the new truck. I list that again because that could move. But it also has huge impacts on the firehouse as far as training people on a new piece of equipment. Safe, healthy, connected people. Transition, firing, EMS dispatching in a unified entity. Finalize the MOU for supplemental coverage, which would be super important. That means with St. Mike's or others to help make sure that we have people available when calls come in. Would love to get their strategic vision planning for firing EMS delivery. I say EMS delivery because Manuski continues to grow. But we haven't gone to St. Mike's and say, hey, are you able to grow with us as our EMS provider? And their enrollment numbers continue to decline as a school, which means their fire and rescue units continuously less kids. We anticipate this summer that their fire unit will be unrolling blackouts again because there's no one staying for the summer. So we rely on them, but I'll not only be dealing with our part-time folks that aren't available, I'm now gonna be dealing with an entity that we rely on a lot in trying to manage when they're available, when they're not matching up our coverage. Yes, we always have B-Tang. Yes, we always have Burlington. But it's just a constant, that strategic, that big picture thinking that we need to make sure we continue to keep our finger on. Possibly getting licensed as a first response, not starting an ambulance, I wanna be very, very clear. This came up with the opiate settlement money. You saw the numbers on the police side, the opiates, the overdoses, suicide attempts. It's weekly now that there's where two, three, four ambulances deep in the city simultaneously. So this effort would be if we're in the firehouse, we can render aid when our primary ambulance is not available, meaning St. Mike's or UBM's not available and South Burlington's coming in or Burlington's coming in, we should be with them. We can probably get there faster, especially when staff is here. The city of Burlington will have staff in the firehouse. They send an ambulance, they send a fire truck into the city of Winooski. That's like, that's craziness. We're taking a resource, an extra resource from another community when we have staff in the firehouse. This is not a big lift as far as training level. This is a very basic first responder level that we can provide access. We can be there with the automatic defibrillator and cardiac arrest, that sort of thing. So at a very basic level, Winooski's grown enough to be thinking this. Recruitment and retention, can't say not. I don't know what the answer is. No one around us knows what the answer is. Next slide, I think it should be questions. Yes, thank you for the opportunity to do the update, for sure. Thank you. I already asked mine, any other questions? I maybe have a simple question. Have we ever done a touch a truck event? So we historically have done a public safety day, which is down Winooski Falls Way. That was pre-COVID. So it's usually done in conjunction with police, fire, that sort of thing. And any, I think there was maybe some of the last budget rounds, there was talks about bringing back like copy of the cop. And I wasn't sure if there are any events planned for this next fiscal year. So they were, I say they, staff was at the school today. The first time we were there at 10 o'clock this morning, we had about 14 students. And then at two o'clock this afternoon, we had another 10 students go through the fire trucks, the police cars, and then we went into the classrooms. So we are trying, and we'd like to get back into the industrial park. We put 350 people through fire extinguishers and that sort of thing the first year we did it. I'm hopeful that Saturday hours, our staff that want to be more engaged can go out and start to do some of this engagement. We've certainly participated in the senior center events. We're going to be there for a few hours and sit with folks. But again, I got to tell you there's not a lot of bandwidth to do it, right? I mean, it's super important stuff, but we only can ask to do so much. It's super important stuff, but what do we prioritize? Sure. And that was just a tag on, given the previous slide talking about doing additional engagement on the weekends. So I wasn't sure if that was something that you'd like. That's the intent of those Saturdays for sure. And I probably have asked this in the past, and I forget if I have asked. So bear with me. When I lived in Washington state, I actually took community emergency response team training. Is there any, does anybody in Vermont do anything like that that you know of? So there isn't a lot of that in Vermont. Yeah. Yeah, I'll leave it at that. There's no real organized effort to do that. Just no effort, no interest, no awareness, all the above. I think all the above. Okay. Any other questions? No, in response to Brenda, I think that there may be some value in exploring some certain type of stuff or like police explorers or like you know, trying to use the human resources that we have in community to figure out like pipeline towards filling some of those gaps for you guys. So that's just where my mind has been at. Yes, so I would welcome that for sure. Any questions from the members of the public? Okay. Thank you all for the presentations. No, thanks guys. So onto item F, our annual approval of the local emergency management plan. That's good. So hopefully- We don't need that much detail. So hopefully you all get to read it. This is an annual thing. I think it ties into some of the discussion earlier with VTANG and what happens in the incident. We exercise this by default almost every day by virtue of the emergency levels we operate at. We do need to do some training with council with even our leadership team as far as how this happens if you know, if there's a larger event and how we can draw in a certain team to operate within you know, a local emergency management plan that sort of thing. So there's always room to do more.  What's sustainable within a plan. Yeah, and I'll stop there. Someone said the word start with C or C or start with something. Team, sir. Assuming the red text is updates, look like no substantial changes? Yes. Sorry, I'm not sure why that came through the red text on this. It's like references to EOC. Yeah. I think Paul was trying to- Yeah. Yeah. So Paul reformatted this some, but yes. It's mostly, we've had quite a change in leadership. So updating information as council changes, updating that, making some references to the all hazard mitigation plan. One thing that I just jumps out at me, there's no page numbers. So it's small, but it's one of those things that when I look at a lot of government documents, it's like, well, what page is it on? I think you can get it all up.  I'm surprised FEMA didn't pick that up. Hmm. Paul, did you hear that? Yeah. Yeah. Any other questions from counseling? I'm very brief one. I noticed that along with Councilor Oakley, Ben, Councilor Judge that all of our members have blacked out, is that purposeful or is that a needed thing that you don't have? So we had asked Councilor, whether, because for different public information, these are their social solvers because the city does not pay for solvers for solvers. So we had asked if you wanted to step redacted and I defaulted, in case you missed the message but why did I redacted the default of action? Because this has helped on the public website. The city staff have access to all the solvers. Okay, that was my thought. I think they're listed on the website. Or they were in the past, but maybe not. Usually with onboarding, that's one of the questions. Yeah. We just tried to be mindful. No, I appreciate it. I just wanted to see like, so it's on the staff side, has it? Yes. They're not on the, the phone number, they're not on the, okay. Any other questions? Any questions from members of the public? Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the local emergency management plan? So moved. Second. Motion by Thomas, second by Charlie. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Item G, request for use of reserves for emergency lockbox program. Yeah, so hopefully some clarifying info. I got it late for some clarification. When we're talking lockboxes, we're talking any public building has a mechanical lockbox on the outside. They are privately owned. We do not provide them for the buildings. What happens is we provide them with the means of getting said lockboxes, but it is a responsibility of them to get and is a requirement of the ordinance for them to provide such. The importance of, so I brought these just to show you, this is our own parking garage, which we don't have a lockbox for. So that's one building. And if you think about 70 to 90 of those, trying to carry those on the fire truck or on animals and manage those keys. Why so many keys? You need a set of keys for every floor. So if we go to Halkine, there's six floors and I'm sending firefighters to those floors. Each team gets a key, set of keys. So we require the building owners to have a master and then the apartments, a lot of times we're getting door codes. So for 30 years, and we're not alone, for 30 years we've used Supra. This is a name brand box who's been bought by Kitty. They've kind of dropped off. We don't, we can't get parks, we can't, people can't order boxes. So time has come to kind of, what do we do next? Knoxbox is an entity. They've been around a long, long time. We know they have availability. Other communities, Burlington, South Burlington, Williston are using such. And our current box is a manual key. So there's several of those keys out. So, I carry one, Bruce carries one, the ambulance is carry one, the fire truck's carry one. So the risk of losing those keys, and I will go no further than the risk of losing those keys is a reality. And the only mechanism when a key is lost is either the hope no one knows what that keys goes to or you rekey all those boxes. So we are clearly trying to leverage technology with the E-keys. Is it more expensive to go this route? Yes, but they come with an apparatus that goes in the fire truck. You need a pin to get it out. So I know which firefighter took it out. Super important when we're allowing St. Mike's to have the keys, you know, it's college kids is a constant change, whether it's fire or rescue. It's a constant change in our building. So it brings a level of accountability to us. And if a key is lost, it dies in a certain amount of time or I can wipe it off and that key's no good. Yes, we have to replace it, but I don't have to go rekey 100 boxes. So that's why we're trying to leverage that new technology. It will mean what's in here is us doing the seven facilities, city facilities and buying the E-keys and the mounts for our apparatus and St. Mike's fire apparatus because rescue builds for their services. I feel they should buy their own, if you will, apparatuses to put in their ambulances. Again, it gives us, it's a web based every time John only pulls that key off. I'm gonna know what time he took it. It just really gives a level of accountability to the property owners. It is giving us access. This is not law enforcement access. There's a lot of reasons you can't do a search warrant and go open that box and gain access. That's not what this is for. This is exclusively for fire and EMS emergency access. That's what these are intended for. They're not law enforcement type access. We are asked by property owners, what's the security of the keys that we have now? There is no security on it. It's hanging on my jacket. It's hanging on the key ring. It's sitting up in the fire house for anybody to grab. So when you lose a key, it's a huge problem or could be a huge problem for the property owners. And their access, keeping in mind St. Mike's is in the city 1400 times. We're out the door, it's been 500 times. So their access is a lot. So that's what we're trying to do. The quote, I need to own it. Thank you, Brynne, for bringing up the we are tax exempt. So that should come off. And that will come off. I just have to fill out a form or Angela has to fill out a form. And we have all that because I hadn't gotten there. Why is the quote 21, I asked for 25 not to exceed 25 is I don't anticipate there being an issue us mounting this in our apparatus. But I wanted to make sure I'm covered if, I can mount the box, but if there's a wiring that needs to happen, I want to make sure that I'm covered. There's nothing more other than that. Just trying to make sure I'm covered of getting this rolled out and putting their apparatus. What's the ongoing operation cost? So there's annually, there's a fee for the software. And that's a thousand dollars a year. Yeah, that's okay. So currently, again, we've identified this as a problem, right, as far as this accountability of these keys. So all a one new ski fire trucks have them. I care personally, Bruce carries it personally. St. Mike's fire trucks have it. St. Mike's ambulance has it and UVM ambulance has it. When I became chief, I was like, ooh, that's the liability I don't want. So we bought master lock boxes, household lock boxes. And that's how we've been trying to manage those keys. But you put that in a residential box, the box gets jammed, so now they're out of call. They can't get in anyway. It just, it didn't rise to the level. There's a level of accountability, but it's, I have to like, if I want to download, how many times St. Mike's opened the box, I have to go drive and sit in their parking lot for a set amount of time until it downloads on my, I just don't have time to do that. I don't, and I can't do that for UVM. So we tried, but. The, this just kind of played out in one of the commercial buildings in the city where the super box didn't open. The keys are in the box, but the box physically didn't open. And we had to damage the property door to get in, just to get in. And when, after we made entry into it, the individual was complaining of no injury. So we just damaged a thousand dollar door for somebody not to be injured. So the person that called 911, we couldn't get in the box. So everyone's thinking there's an emergency because we had no contact. They forced the door, it's about a thousand bucks. And, hi guys. It just puts us in a tough spot. Any other questions? I have follow up questions. I was just curious, like what if a land border HOA refuses to get the upgraded box due to the cost? Would that then, it sounds like, it could be an ordinance violation? So they have to provide it by ordinance, but we are proposing to roll this out over four years. So each core quadrant we're in inspecting, we're gonna be telling them they need to upgrade their boxes. So those that don't, I feel like it gives whoever's in my seat, four years cycle to kind of convince people, hey, these are going away. It's in the ordinance, let's deal with this. I would hate to think that I'm gonna be ticketing people because they're not upgrading the boxes. It's really a face-to-face conversation of, I'm able to account for the keys better. There's a level of accountability and access. Let's get another 30 years out of what we're trying to do. Because we've done a pretty good 30 year run with a box. Makes sense. That was one of my other questions, was how is it gonna be communicated? This final follow-up is, or is that safe? Should we push for a quicker implementation?  You know, I think we've talked about it. We can, what happens is we will now take that manual key and attach it to that electric key. So at least it's connected in our box. So there's that level of accountability. We'll no longer carry keys. They will be in that apparatus. I need to enter my pin to get those keys off it. It's locked on that piece of apparatus. Okay. And we'll have the keys fused together. It's not like, it's just a title. It's not gonna be a key ring.  It'll be some sort of mechanical fast now that it can't be. Okay. Okay, that makes sense. Thank you. So it sounds like you've got a transition plan. Yes. So while you have some in place and others aren't, it's not gonna. No, it's a four year cycle. I'm confident that we'll get through that. And we can, I think it's the right thing to do.  And you know, St. Mike's will have those keys. We are not anticipating providing UVM this unless they wanna put it in their amulets. Amulets us. And then thanks for just covering some of the questions I shared earlier. One thing I'm not, I just wanna make sure I'm understanding clearly. Should council anticipate you coming back for another request? No. Okay. Because the seven boxes that the city needs, I've included in this ask. Yep. Because I think the city should take the first step in this and say, hey, we did it. Right? This is not putting, the city has no obligation to put, provide lock boxes on private property. We give them this account. They go on, create an account and order that box. It comes. They can't lock the box. They can't unlock it. They mount it. And then we go and physically put the cover on the box with their keys. Okay. Yeah. When I was reviewing the memo, it appeared as though this was phase one or stage one of potentially future asks. So that's helpful. Thank you. Is there any discount available if we buy more than one year of the software at a time? I don't believe so. We can ask. Okay. We certainly can check. Any questions from members of the public? Reminder, you can use the raise hand or chat feature. Hearing no concerns. Does someone want to make a motion to approve this request for use of reserves? So moved. Second. Motion by Charlie, second by Thomas. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. I appreciate your patience. Thanks for all the information.  I'm done. I'm done because you're seeking goal update. How about as a point, was that in the... Nope. No, because it's weird. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Gene. Welcome Ray for the strategic vision area goal update, item H. Yeah, so per usual, I think fairly straightforward, but have it entertain any questions and we'll do my best to cover for Chief Hebert and John still not here, John as well. Will you walk us through it? I'm just kidding. Well played. Well played. Any questions? I mean, it definitely is intriguing to get an update that there's a pause on the canine. Yeah, and as James said, I think really that has more to do with the individual staff member that had been initially interested having some changes in his circumstances. And so that... No, of course, of course, but that would require a pause. Right, right. Is given that there was such a big push from the Chief for the option, are alternatives being explored, alternative officers? I think that's seen that the staffing challenges downstairs are severe, so until that we get more towards our actual staffing levels, it might be a challenging conversation, but I think even from the old time that it's still of interest. I think it was a big boom that there wasn't an individual that was interested in that, it's a commitment that's really up a lot, so it's just a lot of interest in narrowing costs. Yeah. Continuing in that same vein, is there less of a barrier to, and less feelings of the overwhelming responsibility that goes with it potentially? It's late, I don't necessarily know what goes into all of the training, but it sounds extensive for the intended, initial intended purpose. My question is, is it less of a hurdle to pursue a comfort canine, something similar to what Williston has? I believe so, and I think that's still on the table at this point, as something that they want to move forward with downstairs. And we're probably getting into a lot as we build up the moral of the table. Right, right. Okay, I mean, I'm excited. Yeah. And then, I guess with that, I was gonna say like, if that wasn't happening, I was, I know that there's some budget, restricted budget available that this canine, funding for this canine was going to be used for, knowing that there are additional budget requests for facility updates downstairs, is any of that restricted budget available for those facility updates? Actually, the thing to update on this, we're expecting to not need to make any requests for the updates we're planning out. Okay. Re-ranging current amount of funding. Okay, all right. I have one more question over here. Those are my questions. This might be something to take offline, but I definitely have some questions around regional dispatch, especially the way that it sounds like, the conversations remain on hold, they're possible appropriations from the state level. And just what I have in mind is we made some big sacrifices during our budget process to ensure there were funds for that. So if those funds are not going to be needed or at this point are paused, are there potential to, and this would be a bigger conversation I know, reallocate those funds. There, yes, that is technically possible. I'll just say that that is not a decision I would make quickly and readily. Because you heard from the fire chief, why even put those funds aside? But right, if that initiative has absolutely been in the water, which is not the case just yet, then of course there's a conversation. Do you want to spend some time on that? Okay. We also just heard the big needs, especially on the side of the fire, where if we have an error, definitely other needs as well. With the K-9 funding that was set aside, since the rub that I'm hearing is that the officer that was interested in engaging with the K-9 partner couldn't for whatever reason, that's the case, Brynn, is like you have to be willing to sign on to a K-9, like for the K-9's career, which can be eight to 10 years. Could the money that we set aside for that be applied to recruitment of a person that would want that partnership? I'm recalling correctly, we didn't actually need to spend a ton of money on that, because it was coming from like K-9 grants. So, it wouldn't be as before reality. I mean, it's not currently available to us. It's available because through if we had a K-9. Gotcha. There was no change to our budget to add the K-9 unit. Thanks, I didn't have any context around that. You are here. Appreciate it. Thanks for clarifying, guys. No other questions? Good. Any questions from members of the public? Okay. Thank you. No problem. Thank you, Ray. Item I, items for city council strategies and priorities are treated. So, just as we are moving towards that retreat, May 13th, I put together this memo to lift up some new ideas that have been floated over the past year by counselors or residents to us. If there is interest in considering any of these items, wanted to be able to have a discussion now so that staff have advanced time to consider impacts, you know, financially or operationally to advise us during the prioritization session. So, the goal today is to see if there's anything from this list that we are interested in further consideration. We are not committing to saying any of these things is a priority at this discussion. Please sit out to me, especially after our meeting with the chairs and just how for that ended up just being like discussing the issue of housing. So, I noticed like this final bullet point, direct staff to work to investigate one or more housing policies or ordinances. And I don't even know if we wanna get more specific like what came to mind for me, especially after our conversation was kind of that way to better manage or limit short-term rentals such as Burlington and South Burlington I'm doing. I shouldn't have put this bullet on here. Honestly, I was gonna take it off and forgot because our housing initiative director is going to right away start researching policies and then working with the housing commission to figure out what the highlight, whatever. High reward items would be. Good city, go for it, Kim. One item that I have a couple different ideas. I actually don't wanna do that first. I would prefer if we just discuss the ones here and then let's talk about new additional items. Are we eliminating from the list or just talking about what we would like to talk about? If there's something that you wanna move forward. You know what, and I will start and tell you that I actually don't want to add any of these to the prioritization session, but I wanted to transparently have this discussion with you all. If there is something you want to move forward, I think that's the focus we should have first. I agree with you. Okay. Seeing as housing is not supposed to be on here. Yeah, yeah, excluding that bullet. That was like directly from my own person, I know it's really nice to hear.  I don't really know how to contribute at the moment. I think that based on tonight's public comment being that it was the most exciting public comment so far that the addressing chemicals seems pretty important to our constituents by the last bullet not belonging there. Does that just mean that this isn't a place to discuss housing goals or that that's already? It's already gonna be on the private side. That's what I thought. I read that and I was like, that feels kind of dismissive, but then my immediate response to my own thought was it's gotta be somewhere else. Yeah, it's already gonna be there. Because we've talked about it so extensively, there's no way that it was like one thing. So maybe one thing. I may have more reflections on this particular list so far, but given the status of the city and what our departments and council is already focused on, I think that our ducks are pretty well in a row. But I do think if there's a simple solution to PFAS and PFOAs, then maybe looking at that, just because it's been stated via email and public comment that that's really on people's minds, bearing in mind that they're in our homes and everywhere around us, so. Elaine, do you wanna make comments on that? Sure, so one of the people who commented today reached out to me pretty early on and asked the city to consider banning the use of it, of PFAS and PFOAs. And my concern is that it's pretty much in everything. So I absolutely understand the concern, I do. But the challenge is, is there an alternative product that's gonna perform the way we need it to? And doing the research on that, that takes staff time. So there's a couple of areas, the pull-up work material, let's say the types that we use or the assholes that we buy or anything we use in public works, that's a big concern. I mean, we need those things to perform. Then there's office supplies, cleaning supplies. So in general, the cleaning supplies stuff, that is, it's a relatively straightforward task, but it could take some time. Again, if there's this, is there a better alternative? We just don't have a lot of excellent staff that have to do that research. I had intended to have a quick stop to do that, I mean, that was sort of blind up to go and then we lost the staff first and then we're down another staff first and then we're branding for it. So I wanted to have people in that office there really is nobody to do that research. So in terms of a simple answer, if there is not one, because of the, what's the equal one? Banning in a leavey, finding their place in a leavey. Sure, thank you. I'm gonna speak to items four and five on the list list. Having worked in the state's agency of natural resources, Soloway's program and serving on the Chinden Soloway's district, there are a lot of benefits to what's called franchising or basically a municipality contracts with the hauler for services, for collection. There, Chinden Soloway's has also done some studies and some community feedback before the pandemic hit four or five years ago, maybe a little bit longer. So I'm happy to share the information on that. I would say that there are benefits, but it is a very large conversation and I think just by seeing the feedback that Chinden Soloway's got that would inform how council might want to move forward. So I'm not stating a position on it. I'm merely saying that there's information that I'm happy to share with you and whoever else from the community has interest in learning more about it. So there are benefits and it is, it can be a lift to get in place. So just saying that, wanna speak to that since I have some background and experience in that. And obviously I'm gonna be in favor of item five because I recommended it, but for context, so there are some phrases, some sayings that go, the least cost energy is the energy you don't use and that the best efficiency is focus around time of use. So basically reducing the amount of energy during energy peaks. So peaks happen on a monthly basis and then they also happen throughout the year. So you'll often hear it more commonly in the summer, but they happen in the winter as well when there's the highest demand. Everyone's home, everyone has their heat on. Everyone's home, everyone has their AC on. So a time of use management and strategy can save a significant amount of energy. It can also save a significant amount of cost and it can also mitigate a good degree of avoidable pollution by calling on other power plants, dirty or power plants to fulfill that demand during those peaks. So they're the utility providers, Green Mountain Power, Vermont Gas, they have many rate structures that are regulated by the public service department and within those rate structures, there are advantages to basically reducing demand during those peaks so that they can one level out their how much energy needs to be generated during the demand, but also having predictable declines from some of their highest users so that there's more flexibility during those peaks. So this recommendation purely is to honestly, financially, foremost for the city, to look at what rate structures may be more advantageous for our taxpayers and then on a grander scheme, but less motivational, protect the environment, reduce climate change, those things that impact everyone but are less motivators in some ways. So that's my two cents on that. So I think we all, I think we all have been updated on that, we did finally meet with GMP about recent renewing our energy use and the least part of our plan seems like more viable. Possibly, so there, in that plan for that, you can get more details from John Lee because I'm the co-author of this week. And we also have been following the, there's a program that I would use for service soon and there, we definitely want to get audits done on our remaining buildings because for example, we're seeing like no drop off in energy use in the building over the course of the 24 hours which makes no sense and we cannot figure out why. So having an audit, free audit would be great. Yeah, so it's something we're pursuing, frankly, if you want it, I see it as kind of operational but if you wanted it out on the time, we want to do it so that, you know, it wouldn't just change. It wouldn't be added to something but it's the point that it should be added. So we can get more information on that. Great, thank you. New ideas. I'll start with the one that I think is probably the newest. Some of the others I feel like are highlighting stuff that might already be on there but I would like to propose that, you know, using resources from the LCT, maybe ideal as well as exit interview from Yasmin and other feedback to look into doing a rewrite of the equity director position that is more sustainable. So thinking of that position as very much paused are there things that we can do to prepare for that to be uncaused? I think like a very brief suggestion that comes to mind, it would be doing something similar to what we've done with housing and make it an equity initiatives director and have that much more focused internal look at policy and kind of how we can do things in the city instead of having three positions in one which sounds like one of the biggest issues with the position previously. So I think that would be really valuable as well as show commitment to the residents that we are taking this as a pause and we do want to do, and for the reason stated that there needs to be some work done for that position to be sustainable and fair to whoever occupies it. I would be interested in something a step back from that and like a gap analysis of what is the need that we're trying to fill with this role that I think would better inform a future rewrite. Any questions for Aurora? I could list all the goals from the end that I think this would touch on but it very much falls under all. So I also made a commitment that I perceived it to be a pause. So I support an effort to explore what a restructuring of the position would look like so that it's sustainable, has a manageable workload and furthers our commitment to returning that role to the city. That's three. We'll add this to get a little more staff input on. You have more? And this might be, one of the things that I have on here as a thought is something that has come up a lot which is like running civic classes or similar events especially like potentially partnering with school or other partners. But then I was thinking in your update today if there is going to be kind of more things similar like what happened on the weekend is that a way to start doing that? So does this feel like it's already working and done? I think partially and the Secretary of State's office is working on civics curriculum at a state level. So I would decline adding that. This I think is definitely on here but I guess raking the awareness of thinking about the kind of talked around it like the hiring process and then onboarding of a new police chief. I think that's out of scope. Like hiring, we hire Elaine. Elaine hires police chief. I think it would be beneficial though if you could share with us at some point like what does the leadership level hiring process look like as an FYI. So I think having civic classes per se I personally believe there's all kinds of ways to do that and I had no idea he was doing anything like that. It could have came off this term like yeah I wish I could work on that, right? But I will say like we're nibbling at other like if that's one means to the end there's other ways that we're trying to make progress for the same day. So for example all the engagement that the department is trying to do the engagement police strike department is trying to do. We have been talking with HR director about getting it even at the elementary school level with the principal like what does that look like? It's that exposure but more or more we're invited to receive students whether it's with the college or with our school or with the parents. Like yes, they're organizing that as well as with the principal. So we're trying to know what we had that with the current resources. I mean I partially feel like I pursued a career in policy because of some civics classes in high school. So it makes a difference. Yeah I mean I didn't even know I was going to move my dog. Like it for us. Did you have more of her? The one other I have on here is just the highlighting thinking about like the language access report followed by a plan. So maybe the specific language of that looks like a report to get anything similar to what you bring up with the equity director where are gaps and then follow up make a plan to bridge those gaps. This is already included right? I mean it's similar to my comments like I would be shocked, I mean I don't even know how to say it. It's like go ahead and add it because we shouldn't be doing that so yeah. It's fine with me if you want to ask me to. I support that as well. The only other thing I would want to add which I think is already happening so maybe not an ad per se but continuing to look at the fee, ordinance, and I don't know with some of the budget decisions we made in January that were approved. My impression was that budget for FY24 would continue some free services and zero cost services for programming and that during that timeframe there would be some exploration of what some type of fee structure might be for those programs and maybe not entirely self-sustaining but so that there's at least not 100% subsidy again just aligned with all of our other needs and considerations. Right, that's correct and so the way you know our capacity to continue at some time would be dependent on scholarship and the level of coverage for the college. Okay. To fill that. Okay. But that's back to what you were talking about. The issue with the fee structure, I just lost access to our sure drive so I can't tell you but it's on the Angela Crystal Larry 17 agenda. Okay, I saw it coming up but I just. Yeah, we were targeting the introduction at the May 1st agenda so you can have everything adopted for the new fiscal year with the buffer time for policy going into place. Thank you. I think and I had a preliminary discussion with Elaine about this but there is some sort of like financial outlook component of the prioritization discussion which is where like that sort of conversation can fit in. Okay, great. I'm pretty sure of the things I would like to talk about are already something that we are on there but infrastructure both below the ground and sidewalks. I don't know if those are specifically called out but I know that it's been a community concern recently so if we could have that as a conversation I would. Okay. Sorry about that. I'm not concerned. Yeah, I mean it's been an ongoing concern but just recently very much raised because the sidewalks are raised. I think actually moving forward.  Like having, I think something like that. I don't know what, I mean you could just be like saying that right. You need to be prioritizing. Prioritizing, yeah. To go off on that budget because that might be. Right. And that may be. It's not going to be doing any more than it is. Right, like I know there's a plan, I know there's but just maybe as a body for us to discuss it and prioritize it I think would be noted something that we should do. And then the second thing is just thinking ahead of the budget discussions that we will have later in many, many months. Possibly paying our fire department more. Again, it's a budget discussion but if we can put that up as a prior prioritization that would make me very happy. Thank you. Under safe public connected retention. Yeah, yeah and again like I said both of those items that I want to talk about I know we're going to talk about but I'd like to call them out if possible. And then I agree with everything you mentioned earlier as well Aurora and Bren after rereading the energy savings I didn't mean to veto that so quickly. It's okay context is open. Charlie you may not have anything but maybe you do. I do not. I do wanna I think that across the city there's not a lot of money, right? For all the stuff not for the stuff that we need let alone the stuff that we want. I think that to Brent's comment like if we can find ways to like the best money the best money that you could spend is money saved so to speak like on the terms of energy, right? If we could figure out how to bring our costs down in any reasonable and sustainable way. I think that's a really good idea. That's the first thing we say to poor folks, right? It's budget better so we already have a budget. I think that finding ways outside of our budget to make a bigger budget might be advantageous to all of us. I think that it's just gonna get more and more expensive to run Winooski as Winooski gets more and more residents. And yeah this particular reading has been really eye opening for me. So yeah. All right so it sounds like we're adding the utility savings for further consideration, this equity director restructure consideration. And then I feel like all the other pieces fit into like a thing that's, it's not like a new thing we're asking them to look for. Okay, anything else? We slightly improve the process every year. Okay, that was the end of the regular agenda. We added an executive session pursuant to one VSA section 3133, the appointment or employment or evaluation of a public officer or employee provided that the public body shall make a final decision to hire or appoint a public officer or employee in an open meeting and shall explain the reasons for its final decision during the open meeting. We have a personnel matter to discuss. So I am looking for a motion to find that we should have this discussion in executive session under the statute that I just read. So moved. Second. Motion by Thomas. Second by Charlie. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. I'm looking for a motion to enter into executive session, inviting city manager, Elaine Wong.


Alright so we're flying water bucket missions out of Redding, California in support of the car wildfire. So Cal Fire we have an agreement where we're contracted out and per the agreement they request you know so many type 1 aircraft which is what we are and so we'll go ahead and use our 660 gallon bucket which will cinch to 70% and we'll go ahead and get a target assignment, take water out of ponds, lakes, what have you, any dip available and then we'll go ahead and get an assignment and drop the water on the fire. Assisting hand crews to go ahead and tame that so that they can either get a dozer in there, a hand line, pretty much just assisting any ground elements in what they need or it will go ahead and be structure support so if a fire is coming up on a house we'll go ahead and try to keep it away from the house long enough for a fire truck to get there and so that way they can go ahead and ultimately hopefully save the structure. This mission when we're stateside it's pretty rewarding. I mean you're there, you're seeing all the stuff unfortunately the burnt homes and everything which is sad and unfortunate but when you have the opportunity to potentially save one of the homes it's pretty rewarding.


But I checked out their astral chart, this one is a work- Watch, watch, watch, watch. What's up guys, it's Josh and we're back again with another video. Today I will not only be sharing with you guys the next saga in the Costa Rica magic trip I went on, but I'm also going to be sharing a little personal story about why magic and magic performance is just so important in my life, and why I feel that it has this ability to just change the lives of others. So I've been doing magic for nine years at this point. Nine years of my life I've spent studying the craft, studying the performance art, and just trying to develop myself into the best entertainer, best presenter I could possibly be. But a lot of those years, at least the first eight of them, were spent almost completely alone. I wasn't in the presence of any other magicians to kind of help me out. Everything I did was completely self-taught, and it was very difficult. I didn't really see what the scope of magic was. It was just something that I kind of did on my own time, and something that I found could be very entertaining to others, and could really just bring a smile to anyone's face. But I didn't realize the true power of magic till I went on this trip to Costa Rica. As you'll see in this next video, while I was there, we spent five days in San Jose, I was working with a group of very, very inspiring young kids who were in a pretty bad part of San Jose, and they'd had a lot of struggles growing up and everything. But they found magic, and specifically this organization called Magicians Without Borders that kind of gave them stability in this rough time, and gave them something that they could always go back to, and a group of people they could lean on. While I was there, I got to work with these kids. I became very close with one of them specifically. Actually, my Sponge Ball routine that I perform every once in a while, I actually passed that on down to him, taught him all the moves throughout the week. We practiced, and we practiced, and we practiced, and eventually he ended up performing it at the end of the week, which was just really, really amazing. It was great to see somebody learn from me, and they just perform it so well, especially since it was one of the kids from Magicians Without Borders. Well, this is enough of me rambling. I just wanted to say that I was able to go visit a foreign country, meet a group of kids that didn't even speak the same language as me, and through sharing magic, we were able to entertain hundreds, if not thousands of people throughout this entire tour in Costa Rica, and it really made me realize the true power of magic, not only as just something that I do for fun, but as an art form. It's so powerful, and I hope you guys enjoy the video. Let's see. Oh, it's candy! Yeah, we have half of it. Yeah, we have five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten curls. Okay, so that's exactly what you're doing. So, look at my proposal. So, this is my proposal. Who wrote that again? Who is... Oh, that's beautiful. That's really nice. That's beautiful. How do you say push it in? What does it say? Gross. Grossness of the mouth. I'm not going to say it. It's only Diego. Okay, big boy. Big boy. Big boy. Big boy. Daddy. Daddy. Dos tres. Watch. Watch. Watch. Watch. Watch. Watch. Watch. Watch. Watch. Watch. Watch. What?


Robert for $550 chat, this is T-Pain's shoes, right? Yes, Gucci loafers. T-Pain's Gucci loafers, how much are they originally worth? I have no idea. I have no idea. We have Robert's gold. We just got T-Pain, check out T-Pain, check out T-Pain, check out T-Pain. Niggas got money now. Yeah, niggas can hit for real in the heels. Niggas gonna hit in the heels for real. Perfect.  Alright, hit me with it. Alright, that was DJ Mustard. DJ Mustard. This would be pretty funny. This is for T-Pain's. Oh my God. T-Pan's. T-Pain's.  Gucci flip-flops. 12, oh dude. We got three. No, Gucci loafers. Gucci loafers, what? We're at $4,000 here for days. $4,000. No way. Gucci loafers, Jim Masters, J Masters, $4,100. Defying logic, $4,269. They shoes are too grand when I got them. Loafers, imagine you walk up to a girl and you say, yo, these are T-Pain's loafers. What? I'm so excited.  No way these are real. $5,000. We have Brandon's design.  Number two, $4,369 right now. We have number two, Brandon. Defying logic to find the odds at $5,269. We have $5,269.  We have $7,000. No, that's not. How? $7,000 from Hero for Days. Hero, you're absolutely nuts. Do we have flamingos? The trolls just came back. The trolls came back.   Do we have anyone to defy this? No. We do. We are at $74,209. No, well, T-Pain. Look. Come on. Wait, slow-mode? Am I getting slow-moded? $8,000. We're here at $8,500. That's not a real thing. That's not a real thing. If they did sell the bubble wrap that said mid-kip only for $5,000, I kind of believe it.  Whoa! Oh, wait.  Wait, what the?  Hero for Days.   Hero for Days for $12,000.  His bitcoin's flying off the shelves. $2,000. $10,000. $10,000.  It looks like it could be a bubble wrap.  He merged before. $12,000 in the current time. Clean, defying logic. Oh, they got him. They actually got him. Look at these bad boys. T-Pain. I've only worn them once. Gucci loafers. Gucci loafers. I've only worn those once. And they smell mint. Dude, I kind of want to run it up just to, did you donate $12,000 for a good call? Well, here's the thing. So, I'm buying a house. You have to remember, there's weird stuff with, like, I can't, like, Miz got in a lot of trouble because the- I don't know if I'm having beef with Miz. Miz got in trouble. It's a beautiful thing. Yeah, damn it. So, for the biggest auction item to date, $12,121 for T-Pain's loafers. More than your armor. Wait, T-Pain shoes are worth more than an entire suit of armor that Miz gave bought. Finish the house story. Okay, if you're buying a house.  For the- They're setting up. Let me explain. You need to talk to a lender, right? To be able to get loans and this and that. And they look at your purchase history. They look at, like, your bank statements and how much money is in, how much money is out.  Does that make sense? Yeah, your credit score goes down.   Dressed with the $5,000. We're talking about $5,000. We're here at $5,000 to one, $5,000. Carl Jacobs! Carl! $5,000, Carl, right now. $10,000. Wait, that thing's actually going for that much? Espen! TV! $10,000! Oh, Frank.  Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. I think it back. Hold on. Cardboard down the street. Wrong one. I take it back. Wrong one. Wrong one. Wrong one. Wrong one. Wrong one. Wrong one. Wrong one. I wasn't thinking. Wrong one. I wasn't thinking. Wrong one. I take it back. Hold on. This isn't fair. Hold on. Hold on. Let Driz go for $6,000. No! He wants the $11,000! So, Drizzy, $11,000. Drizzy? What? What? We're not getting the shovel chat. Easy. Guys, chat. I look. I'm farming the charity. Watch some guy go for $11,000. It works. No, they were going to give it to him for $6,000. He said he wanted it for $11,000 and buy it now. He clicked buy it now on the freaking auction house. That's what he did. Man. $11,000 for cardboard? Talking. LaMalle? Let it focus. You guys there? I put a really nice message. It's for charity. Let's see how much this goes for. I'll just put 10K again. BJP. BJP. Ryan, you're going to pay. Oh, God. Anatomic chef for $5,000. $5,000. U.S.A. Dirt. Ken Kona. Ken Kona, U.S.A. Dirt. I'm just spending $5,000. Carl Jacobs for the $5,000. I get it. I get it. Thank you. It's Twitch Legacy. $5,000. $5,000. $5,000. $5,000. $5,000. $5,000. $5,000. $5,000. $5,000. It's like it's legacy. $5,002. Chance, buying back his own dirt. quickly The concept. It is now between the 0-34. Cat's dirt. $5,000. $5,000. It's still the total talking dirt.


Good afternoon. I'm Jim Hoglund and we are now in the process of mounting a challenge to the the general lack of attention that is paid to Latin America My distinguished predecessor as a columnist James Reston once said that the people of the United States Would do anything for the people of Latin America except read about them And I'm afraid that mr. Reston had a point but today With the crisis in Venezuela and the political situation in Brazil driving a lot of new interest coverage and Somewhat some fears about the course that Latin America is on We have a lot of attention being paid more and more We have four very distinguished panelists to take us through the mysteries of Latin America and to Bring us out at the end of this conversation With some questions from you to guide us into the future