Let's go ahead and get going. I want to once again welcome all you brave souls, possibly masochists who are coming back for day two of our conference on state strengthening in Afghanistan. For me personally, this next session is one of the most important ones we're having on understanding the political economy of state building interventions because I think this is one of the areas where we're actually very bad overall, certainly in terms of the U.S. policy in Afghanistan, but also more broadly internationally of overlooking the political economy. And even in yesterday's session, several times the whole issue of incentive structures came out in the discussions, both incentive structures, I think back in Afghanistan, which over time I think we've understood better, although our policies haven't always reflected that. But in some ways, more importantly, the incentive structures back in Washington. And having done quite a bit of research in Afghanistan on political economy related issues and the relationship between aid and security and things like that, I ultimately concluded that the real research project actually needed to be back in this town in terms of incentive structures. And I think it's a daunting challenge because we've fought two international wars, spent hundreds of billions, not trillions of dollars, tremendous cost in terms of blood and treasure and yet not necessarily a lot of evidence that's changed incentive structures and bureaucracies here in Washington. So ultimately, I think that is one of the most important challenges. So we're very fortunate to have Barney Rubin with us today to speak to that issue. And for this audience, Barney needs no introduction. He is one of the handful of U.S. experts on Afghanistan who was an expert before it became a growth industry following 2001, started his career more in academia, or maybe didn't start. He started as a practitioner, then went into academia, but was brave enough to step out of the ivory towers to enter back into government and try to put some of his thoughts into practice. However, he's now escaped back into a more semi-academic role, but still very engaged in the issues. So we're very fortunate to have Barney with us. He's currently the director of Afghanistan Regional Project and a fellow at the Center for International Cooperation at New York University. From 2009 to 2013, he served as a senior advisor to the special representative for Afghanistan Pakistan. He was also an advisor to the UN, SRSG, Lakhdar Brahimi at the bond process. So really involved at many critical junctures in the whole state-building effort in Afghanistan. So with that, I'd like to welcome Barney to talk to the issue of understanding the political economy of state-building intervention. Thank you, Barney. All right. Thanks, Andrew. I really appreciate having this opportunity, but I'm not sure exactly how I will be able to exploit it. But first, I have to say that it's very pleasant and an honor to be a guest here at something organized by some of my very old friends. I guess Michael Keating, I tried to calculate, I've known for 27 years. The other is somewhat less. And an issue that all of us have also discussed over these many years, and that is actually a big challenge for me because last night, Reena Amiri, whom I worked in Yunama, although I wasn't actually employed by Yunama as she was, challenged me to say something that she hadn't heard before. And looking at this audience and thinking how many of you I have already spoken to about these issues, it will be very difficult. So please bear with me to say something that you haven't heard before. Then I talked to Ali Jalali about it this morning, and he said, well, you can be provocative and criticize us. But looking at the audience, I see so many people I've already provoked and criticized. I'm just not sure I have that much that you haven't heard to say that you haven't heard. But I will try my best to say a few things that might be interesting and perhaps a little provocative. So first thing is, I want to say, as I sort of started to say yesterday in questions that in a way, I think we should reframe the question that we're asking in the conference. Is it about how to improve state-building interventions? Because as we discussed, I said this, Nader said this, many people said this. Really the intervention in Afghanistan was not a state-building intervention. And those of us who were involved at the beginning know perfectly well how hard we had to struggle to get state-building on the agenda. And we never succeeded very much, it got on the agenda. But it was never the core. And we have to understand that, not complain about it, but understand it. It was a counter-terrorism operation. And when I say that, I don't just mean that there was a conflict between, I'm sorry, I'm talking about the issue you're supposed to talk about at lunchtime, between counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency and state-building or humanitarian goals. It's not just that there was different goals that had to be reconciled. There was one goal that was the reason the United States was there and the reason that it had so much money allocated to the operation by the Congress and the reason that the troops were there. And the other goal was secondary and was justified within the high levels of government insofar as it helped to achieve the primary goal. And in my experience inside government and observing it outside government, but especially my experience inside government, I found that when there was a conflict between the counter-terrorist agenda and anything else, the counter-terrorist agenda won out. So that is not because of our inadequate understanding of state-building operations, although no doubt our understandings are inadequate. But that's not the main reason. The main reason is that's not what it was about. You don't go to the situation room and say we should do such and such and such because it will help build a stronger Afghan state. And I will give you later the formula that we had to use in policymaking to justify whatever. Well, here it is, right here in front of me. So I might as well read it. Okay. So when I was in the government, there was one criterion that we always had to keep in mind. This is during the Obama administration. I don't know exactly how they phrased it in the Bush administration. They often complained they didn't have a clear goal. But it was so-called a, quote, clear and focused goal to disrupt this mantle and defeat al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That was, that's a quotation. It appears in many government documents. That was the goal. It doesn't say, and to build strong state structures so it will be more difficult for them to return. It says to, they're the 3Ds, disrupt this mantle and defeat and prevent their return. Now, many things follow from that. But let me say something about how that played out in the very formulation of the policy and effect on what we judge to be a success by our goals, which is something different for most of us here from what it says in that formulation. There's a lot of research now on peace building, state building, so on operations that talks about the importance of political settlements. This has been especially supported by DFID, the British Aid Agency. And of course there's a lot of debate naturally about what is a political settlement which I'm not going to go over. But let's say that the bond agreement was a partial political settlement of Afghanistan. It was a political settlement between those groups that were associated with the old regime and part of the former Mujahideen, which also managed to bring back some of the western technocrats, usually under the umbrella of the former monarchist. And something which often isn't recognized. It was also a political settlement between the United States and Iran, because U.S.-Iranian cooperation was actually the very important foundation of the bond agreement, as Jim Dobbins talked about yesterday, and of its continued implementation, if only because what Iran didn't do, namely it didn't do what Pakistan did. Even though it saw U.S. presence as something of a threat, it did not try to disrupt and destabilize Afghanistan, because overall it judged, even during the worst days of Ahmadinejad and Bush, it judged that overall it preferred this government to the alternatives. Now, however, there's research in this political settlements literature about what makes for success, defined generally as the non-recurrence of conflict, which again, that's not the definition of success we used in the U.S. government for this operation. That was what I just said. But if you're defining the goal as peace and stability, then a non-recurrence of conflict in a specific period of time is the metric that you use. And the research showed that one of the strongest predictors of non-recurrence of conflict is the inclusiveness of political settlements, meaning, well, you can understand it kind of intuitively, you know, how to operationalize it. It's a challenge. But that in itself goes a long way to explain why this operation did not succeed in stabilizing Afghanistan, because it was from the very beginning defined as an exclusive political settlement. That is, as President Bush said in his address to Congress, I'm not saying he was wrong. I'm just explaining what he actually said. What he said was, those who harbor the terrorists will meet the same fate as the terrorists themselves. Therefore, even those Taliban leaders who surrendered to General Dostoum or who were talking to President Karzai or who entered into a truce agreement with President Karzai on the day after the bond agreement was signed were not allowed to join in the mechanism that the bond agreement had for including them, which was the emergency Lloyd Jerga. Instead, as someone said yesterday, they were, you know, I guess maybe it was Weiss was talking about it. You know, people said at that time most of the leaders have gone back to their villages and they're waiting to see, well, President Karzai told me this story when I talked to him in November 2008, which is at that time he received a letter from Mullah Baradar saying, I've gone back to my village and I recognize you as President of Afghanistan or something like that.  However, soon after that, special forces came to Mullah Baradar's home and tried to capture him. And he ran away to Pakistan and engaged in Jihad. So he thinks it's Jihad anyway. Anyway, so it's not that he chose to go to Pakistan. I don't know what would have happened otherwise. I'm not saying it would have come out right or the Taliban all would have joined the bond process. I don't know, but they didn't have that opportunity. So they weren't choosing between the alternative of peacefully joining the democratic process and going away to fight. They didn't have the opportunity to join the peaceful democratic process because of the way that the war on terror defined the limits of the political settlement. And I think if we look at various cases, interventions structured through the war on terror do not bring peace and stability. Maybe they, whether they bring counterterrorism or not, it's a separate question. But they don't bring peace and stability and that is not what they're aimed to do. Okay, so they won't. Now, let me tell you a little story about the political economy of aid. And as Andrew said quite rightly, we have to understand how things work in this town because it's not like we are international actors trying to bring peace and the Afghans have politics. No, we have politics too. Okay, so the, and as I said yesterday, the biggest budget in Afghanistan is the international budget, not the Afghan budget. So the most important or relevant politics for understanding how it works is the politics here. So now, because that's the politics that determines that budget. By the way, that puts very severe limits on how much you can call Afghanistan a democracy because the parliament has absolutely no oversight over the security forces. Okay, the parliament doesn't pass the budget of the security forces. The U.S. Congress passes the budget of the security forces. So, you know, it's a it's a little misleading to refer to it as a democracy, even though people are elected. Now, in when Richard Holbrook was the special representative, and I was his senior advisor, by the way, there are no junior advisors. And also, I still haven't met anyone in the U.S. government whose title is advisee. So it's a kind of ill-defined position. But anyway, I was the I was one of the senior reader. You're also a senior advisor. I'm sure we have many ex senior advisors in the room, so you can all understand what I'm talking about. So he used to invite, for the very reason that I mentioned, members of Congress to come and have breakfast, and I'm sure members of Congress to come and have breakfast with us from time to time, and I'll talk to them and point them with what I was doing, explain to them how Rena was related to the King of Afghanistan and wrote the Constitution, or the bond agreement, I forget which. And on September 16, 2009, we met with Representative Nita Lowy, Democrat of New York, who at that time, this was before the 2010 Congressional elections, was the chair of the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, and also the representative of Secretary Clinton's home district in New York. Now, as chair of this subcommittee, I believe she's now the ranking member on that subcommittee. She was the most important person in the United States Congress for getting us the money to carry out our policies on the civilian side, not the defense and intelligence side, but on the civilian side. And at this meeting, my former boss from the Council on Foreign Relations, Les Gelb, he was in the room, he was writing a profile of Secretary Clinton for Parade Magazine. And therefore, Holbrooke declared that the meeting was on the record, I have that in my notes, so therefore I'm allowed to talk about it. And before, so I'll tell you a little bit about what happened. Before Representative Lowy arrived, Holbrooke told us, according to my notes, this may not be verbatim quote from, she gives us the money. Okay, that's what I wrote in my notes. When she got there, Representative Lowy said, there needs all over the world, and here at home, and at that time, we were still suffering from the worst part of the fiscal crisis and unemployment was still growing at that time. And there are many needs at home. And a rising course of influential members of Congress was questioning why we are spending so much money in Afghanistan. The Women's Caucus and others were up in arms, I'm reading this because it's from my notes, about the lack of progress on women's rights and fighting against corruption. Recall, this was in September 2009, so the delay in settling the presidential election in 2009, the allegations of fraud and so on were very troubling. And Holbrooke responded, according to my notes, transforming Afghan society is not our mission. Girls' education is a big issue in many places. We are in Afghanistan because of our national security interests. Then toward the end of the meeting, Holbrooke would go around the room and introduce the various members of his team and have them talk about what they were doing. And I was engaged in exploratory work about the possibility of negotiations with the Taliban and so on, so I assumed he wasn't going to call on me. However, at the end, he became so pleased with how the meeting was going that he decided to ruin it. And he called on me and asked me to say a little bit about what I was doing. So I said a few words and I said that I noted that reconciliation or a political settlement with the Taliban would be possible only if the Taliban would ultimately agree to separate themselves from al-Qaida and international terrorism. And then Representative Lowy gave me such a look and said, if you're telling me that the Taliban are separate from al-Qaida, you are not going to get a cent from this Congress. That is what she said. And Secretary Clinton, therefore, hastened to add, of course we know that Taliban and al-Qaida are joined at the hip. Now, this means, well, I think you can figure out what it means. It's an inclusive political settlement and inclusive doesn't just mean including liberals. I mean, this is something Shadi Hamid has written about. Inclusive political settlement means including people who don't believe in democracy because they're part of the political system. And that's very tricky and difficult to do. I don't want to underestimate it and I'm not saying it would have worked. But the alternative generally is they go into armed struggle, especially if they have a sanctuary. So we made the decision based on other criteria. Now, the intervention, as we also, we mentioned this yesterday, it began with covert action. I think I'm going to talk, I believe this part is talking about corruption a bit. Yes. Ban with covert action. And if you read the memoirs of the, I forget his name, the guy who had first in. Yeah, no, not Grenier, the other guy. Anyway, Grenier was doing, we're working in the south. This is the guy who went into Panjshir. Anyway, the first thing he did was handed Faheim a knapsack with $500,000 in cash. The second thing he did was he gave Faheim a cardboard box with $1 million in cash and told him there's a lot more coming. Then he had a little office in Panjshir, which the walls were lined with cardboard boxes full of $100 bills, okay, which he was giving away. Now, about the same time I was in a meeting in the State Department, David, I can't remember if you were there on September 24th, I don't know if anyone was there, which was about, you know, should we, we already decided to do the military operation, but they were undecided as to whether whether there would be any political follow-up or not, and Colin Powell and Richard Haas thought there should be, so they convened this meeting to, you know, get some arguments about it. And at that meeting, first they discussed some questions about Zahir Shah's political office in Rome, and one of his representatives was there at the time. For that part of the meeting, then he left, and we had American's only discussion. And during that time, the desk officer from the State Department was hectoring him about the fact that they had not accounted fully for the $800,000 that the U.S. government had given them for the operation of Zahir Shah's political office. Now, this kind of gives us an idea of where the discussion about corruption is and why I think it is misleading. I should mention that, you know, we discussed this with Representative Lowey also, and she talked about money being misused, like the money for Zahir Shah's office, and she and Holbrook talked about the need for oversight of how the money was sent. But in the meeting with Representative Lowey, we did not discuss oversight of covert action funds, or SERP funds, or contracting with private security contractors, or cement providers, and so on and so forth. We talked about operations like giving money to a civilian organization and making sure that the money was not stolen. But in fact, most of the money that went into Afghanistan, and I would remind you that there is one absolutely indispensable ingredient for corruption. And that is money. Okay, so you will find corruption where the money is. If the Taliban weren't corrupt, one of the major reasons is they had no money. Okay, if you gave them money, maybe we could have given them a billion dollars of U.S. ID assistance, and their government would have collapsed. I don't know. But the operation started with a covert action payroll. And that's why President, and it continued with contracting and so on. And just the operations of the military on the ground were a much bigger source of money than our aid programs. And that is why President Karzai used to accuse us of weakening the government and financing his opponents. Now, he was wrong about one big thing. He thought we were doing it intentionally and that we knew what we were doing. But nonetheless, we didn't. Nonetheless, we were doing it. Okay, and that's what they mean when they talk about parallel structures. And I'll just give you an example of how I heard about it. And I like to, in November 2009, no, sorry, 2008, November 2008, before the, after the election, but before the inauguration, President Obama, I was invited to Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina to, for a day of training of the 82nd Airborne Leadership before they were redeployed to Afghanistan. I think they'd been there before. I know they were, because some of them were talking about their previous deployments. And on, by the way, on that trip, I transited through the Charlotte Airport Nuts where I got a phone call from Richard Holbrook asking me to work for him, warning me that it was going to be leaked to the press at any minute. Anyway, so at lunch, I was sitting with some officers and we, and one of them told me he'd been at Balgrom previously. And then he was saying, you know, at Balgrom, the perimeter security, I haven't verified this. This is what this guy told me. I can't remember the perimeter security is assured by a security company that belongs to one of the big local commanders, he said. And we need, we do a lot of construction, Balgrom, we need cement. And his brother owns a cement factory. So we procure the cement from his brother. So basically, he said, this guy is the power in that district, not the district governor. The district governor cannot compete with that guy, because of all the money that he had initially for covert action, and then for, from the contracting. And no number of capacity building programs or rule of law programs is going to make up for the fact that one guy has millions of dollars in cash that he can use however he wants, and the other person is a district governor. So again, when we talk about U.S. programs in the country and what succeeds and out, we cannot just talk about the civilian aid programs as if they are separate from the military and other programs. They're both operating in this on the same ground. If we talk about local subnational governments yesterday, the most important part of the subnational government in that part of Kapisa province was Balgrom Air Base. That was the biggest funder of local power holders, not the Afghan government. So that, again, not intentional, but the footprint assures that that is what is going to happen. Now, in order to counter corruption, we, meaning this administration, I had nothing to do with it, the administration started a threat finance cell. And I must say, which was specialist from justice and treasury, they did a superb job. They really investigated what was going on. And their first mandate was to look at drug trafficking money and its relationship to the Taliban, because we hadn't heard it from the previous administration the belief that turned out to be wrong, that the Taliban are mainly funded by drug money. So they started doing this investigation of money laundering and so on, and it led them to, as the New York Times reported, here I have a quote, since otherwise I couldn't talk about it, it led them to the new Ansari Havala. But the more they started looking into the new Ansari Havala, the more the investigation broadened beyond drug trafficking and support for the Taliban. I believe you are sitting next to me at this meeting, yes. And the New York Times reported, the new Ansari Havala is suspected of moving billions of dollars out of the country for Afghan politicians, drug traffickers, and insurgents. Kabul Bank used the firm, whose dealings are nearly impossible to track, to transfer at least 60 billion dollars out of the country, a bank shareholder said. Now, and someone mentioned this yesterday, the first arrest resulting from this investigation was Mohammad Zia Salehi, the chief of administration in the president's office. And as Dexter Filkins wrote in the New York Times, an unclassified open source, Mr. Salehi often acts as a courier of money to other Afghans, according to an Afghan politician, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation. He was soon released under pressure from at least President Karzai, and Salehi, by the way, had been an interpreter for General Dostoum, at the time that General Dostoum was receiving aid from special forces in CIA in the north. And then again, according to Dexter Filkins, Mr. Salehi, quote, was being paid by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to Afghan and American officials. And soon after that, Senator John Kerry went to Kabul, expressed concern about Mr. Salehi's ties to the American government. And it said, Mr. Kerry appeared to allude to the CIA, though he did not mention it. Now, there's no hint that the CIA intervened to get Salehi released. I'm not making that charge. And I'm not saying the CIA was carrying out some separate. They were carrying out the national policy. That was their job. And by the way, intelligence operations are not meant to uphold the rule of law. Intelligence operations, by design, violate the laws of the country where they are carried out. That is why they are covert among other reasons. So if you undertake covert action and then also put your best investigative efforts on uncovering threats to the rule of law in the same country, you are going to have a problem. And you have to decide, de-conflict these things, decide what is the priority.  He said, if you want intelligence in a war zone, you're not going to get it from Mother Teresa or Mary Poppins. That's true. But note, he is defining the area as a war zone, not as a state strengthening or peace building operation. Okay. And different rules apply. So corruption in the sense of carrying out, giving people illegal amounts of cash in order to carry out activities that are illegal in Afghanistan was a very important part of our operation. So this is why President Karzai says, said that the United States brought corruption to Afghanistan. It doesn't mean Afghans never had corruption before, but we brought a lot more money. And part of our operation was based on paying Afghans to do things that were illegal under Afghan law. Now, another aspect. Corruption, however, it doesn't only waste money in a sense, but also certain types of corruption can make it impossible for the government to operate. I'm over at 945. Is that right? Okay. And recently, there's a letter from Sigar, I don't know, Candace, if you wrote this, to several of our military commanders, noting that the customs revenue declined seriously in the past year. Probably because they estimated half of it was stolen for various reasons. Okay. So, and the taxes on international transactions account for about between a quarter and a third of the Afghan budget, and the rest for aid. Now, the Sigar report attributes much of that to the fact that our oversight missions at the customs houses were pulled back. Of course, now President Ghani as former finance minister and author of fixing failed states and so on, will certainly try to clean that up, fix that. But let's just think what that involves. The customs posts under consideration are in Heraton in Balgh, Torkham in Nangarhar, Spinboldak in Kandahar, and Islam Qala in Herat province. Now, as the Taliban go on the offensive, who is it that we're counting on to fight them in Spinboldak, Torkham, Heraton, and Islam Qala? And who's going to take the risk of firing or pissing those people off? Okay, excuse me, excuse the expression. It's a very difficult question, but that is the way we have structured. We didn't choose the heads of the border police in those areas because they were mother poppins or Mary Teresa, to quote the anonymous official, you know. And that's why there's, and so read the human rights watch report and you'll see what I'm talking about, even if even if it contains errors, as I'm sure it does. So that's the final point, which is a dependence in the peace process. So as you all know and as we discussed, Afghan government is basically, it's on, it's one of my Afghan colleagues put it, is on life support in the sense that it can't breathe or operate without a constant flow of external assistance, right? Two-thirds of the government budget is paid for by aid. All of the security forces are paid for by aid. We talked about what that amount of money was. And bear in mind what representative Lowey said. So there's a billion of, billions of dollars per year in a gap. Now, interesting, when Najibullah encountered the same problem or similar problem after 1989, he had a temporary fix, which is he could print money. And he printed money by the container full. That was actually the unit of currency that they used at the time, the container. They didn't even open them. They just, you know, so, and he would give these containers to commanders. The result of course was hyperinflation, okay? Food prices went out of sight. How did he deal with that? He got food from Soviet Union, from what is today Kazakhstan mostly, and he distributed it through a system, a socialist type system of permits and tickets depending on where you worked and so on. Now, we can't do any of those things. The central bank is independent. Central bank law prohibits deficit financing of the government so they can't print money. And we can't give out free food because it violates the precepts of the free market. So, it means we don't have, the government has no wiggle room for trying to finance its operations through deficit financing, even a little bit. It absolutely requires that aid unless they change those regulations. But the reason, and that is because, now I think what we mentioned yesterday that when they're working on the health sector, they had so much money and they were building it up quickly. So once they did get the money, you know, the state building issues are important and it's not just a counter-terrorism, counter insurgency operation, but why did they have so much money? The only reason they had so much money was because it was a counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency operation and therefore, and not just to give an example, and here Carl, I'm sorry to bring up some bad memories. But the generators in Kandahar, you know, there was a, the military commanders in 2010 wanted to electrify Kandahar and they wanted to put in place all these diesel generators for close hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for the fuel. And certain civilian officials said that's not sustainable. I could read you, we're already out of time so I won't read you all of Rajiv Chandrasekharan's excellent reporting on that. But I will just come to the main point. Finally, those generators are there now and now they're having a lot of trouble getting the money to pay for them. But Rajiv interviewed, let's see if I can find this. Okay, yes, he interviewed a military commander and he said, a U.S. military official at NATO headquarters in Kandahar who said, this is not about development. It's about counterinsurgency. Therefore, sustainability was not an issue. The campaign plan was the issue, not sustainability. Now, of course, within our government there was quite a struggle over this. But not surprisingly, it was the counterinsurgency plan that won, not the development, state building, sustainability plan. Then problems with Kajaki security again. So now basically coming to the end, there are two business models for Afghanistan's future. One business model is keep the troops, keep fighting, keep the money coming. And there are some people in Afghanistan whose livelihood depends on this business model. And there are people in the United States whose livelihood depends on this business model. Ultimately, it's not going to be sustainable. But there's no future, there's no choices we can make that have certain outcomes. Someone would criticize reconciliation in some articles saying it's a high risk policy, which I certainly agree with. I just was waiting for him to tell me what the no-risk policy was. So since Afghanistan, so basically what President Ghani is doing, as I understand it, is trying to solve this problem. That's why he has moved so quickly to try to repair relations with Pakistan, prepare the ground for a peace settlement which will make it possible to reduce seriously the cost of the security forces and make possible the economic connectivity of Afghanistan to its neighbors because Afghanistan is a landlocked country and often we do not take that into account sufficiently when we are talking about trying to build a sovereign state because an aid, there's no way U.S. can get aid to Afghanistan except through Pakistan, Iran, or Central Asia and the Central Asian countries are also all landlocked. So then you have to go through Russia. So unless Newt Gingrich becomes president and we get a base on the moon, we are going to have to have decent relations with one of those countries and Afghanistan will have to have decent relations with those countries in order to be connected to the international market. So that is what he is trying to do and he's trying to do it fast. The other day he, I believe he called for holding a conference for the full implementation of TAPI, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India pipeline within four years which is quite challenging because he knows, he believes he has to bring new revenue streams online before the aid money runs out. That's the race against time and it's not just when I say run out I don't mean good to zero. You know, if you're getting six million, if your security forces are dependent on four to six billion dollars a year we can still feel very generous if we give two billion. That's a lot of money. Okay, but it's not enough to keep those forces running. So there is a real danger of a contraction of the economy and of the security forces unless they win this race against time to get a peace settlement which as I mentioned the earlier rationale for the whole operation prevented and economic connectivity that brings new sources of revenue online. And I think just finally that's why this visit that is coming up in the next week is so extremely important both addressing Congress and trying to impress on all of our government the need for and this is almost impossible to do urgent action about middle to long-term problems. Okay, which is not our usual modus operandi but that's what I will be listening for and looking for in the upcoming visit.


so um i guess so i'm trying to um boil that down into like are you suggesting maybe like changing the beginning the the starting date to something earlier like April 15th or so or um yeah that's what i was thinking but ultimately allowing the flexibility for businesses to be able to pop up and then and then shut down um you know west may say hey no we can't we can't see you know customers out there and serve food um but somebody like a common market could say like hey we just got the shipment of seafood so why don't we we have the space why don't it's 50 degrees out on April 15th why don't we go out here put it out on social media let people come and and sell something you know ultimately it's up to them i don't know i like i said i'm not trying to complicate things although probably i have um but i'm just trying to like ultimately i feel like what i want to do is empower local businesses to do what works for them because every business has their own business model and they interact with their customers in different ways so if we could you know allow some of that creativity and flexibility then i think that that could be a positive yeah um bill go ahead well i i don't think there's anything that prevents them from doing that now other than if they have a physical structure that requires movement the only issue would be what it's going to take you know to sort of be around them to protect to to you know there are standards that vitreans that for safety and so i think a business could certainly pop it out whatever they wanted to if other than the fact that it may not be that easy for them to do to meet all the other standards but there's nothing that says you know free penny wants to put it out for the weekends and then pull it in for the weeks other you know assuming it was easy to do just you know and i know theirs isn't but just you know there's nothing that prevents them from doing that it's just i think for most folks once it's out there they want it out there and using it but you're right some some may not but anyway i'll let three petty talk for themselves go ahead west i gotta unmute hi everybody um i uh just for quick clarity the proposal that you are considering right now has the may 1st start date yes yeah so i will just strongly advocate for any date i mean may 1st is fine um any date before that would be also really really fantastic um you know the nature of our parklet is you know take several hours to put together so um and we have to you know our our carpenter you know our guide does it so there's a cost to just building it so we probably with our parklet specifically wouldn't put it in for a weekend and then yank it for a weekend and do that or something but maybe that works for other peoples and you know i have nothing to say about that sounds great um but um for sure i'd like to advocate the reason i uh you know listen to kurt's whole proposal um and presentation um is because we uh we'd love to have our parklet out as soon as humanly possible um and um you know towards a little bit of what jay was saying uh at least for three penny other places have their own specifics um you know on a day like today or tomorrow it would be fantastic to just like oh it's nice out let's throw some chairs out on the sidewalk and you know obviously we have a like a dlc piece to deal with that's on us that's not on you um but if we had a blanket space from the city where we could do that um um that would be really fantastic um but just most broadly as far as parklets go we we need we need our parklet out there as soon as humanly possible um and tied in with that while you're talking about it while i have the floor um you know last year uh i think it was i don't think it was um october 26 that our parklet was removed i don't know the end date on the current proposal you're looking at um specifically being hopeful looking ahead with vaccinations and everything else like if we had our parklet out on halloween that would be really fantastic and i think that would be really fantastic for the downtown um not just our parklet but everybody i'm a huge parklet proponent i think it's just be all park like i tend to getting rid of the cars and just all parklets everywhere but you know that's not what's that's not what you're considering um but but i would like to advocate for that like i totally am sympathetic and understanding of the public works and snow removal but halloween seems like a fantastic space for us to still have it um and then on the other side you know i can't promise i and i won't commit myself for other places but like if we could put our parklet out on april 15 or even first if a foot of snow comes i will shovel all around our parklet i like our reality which i think i even mentioned this um you know some point of the summer when i was on one of these zooms um you know 50 capacity with six feet distancing we can't achieve 50 capacity with six feet distancing because of our physical space our reality and um you know kudos to both the federal government and the scott administration because we have the aid to do this we've lost a hundred thousand dollars since we took our parklet out um because we can't even i mean we we can't make it with 50 capacity but we don't even have 50 capacity so um we exist because of really tremendous aid that has come our way um but we lose 25 000 a month and um the best way to stop that until the capacity restrictions are lifted are to get outdoor seating and so the soonest you will allow us to put it out there like i said i i will shovel all around it the plow guys can go around us that's fine um but i i i just i i i urge you to consider the earliest date possible that is make sense for you yeah thank you guys wait and is it when you're clear for that just for west's so west you can use the sidewalk as long as there's five of clearance you can put seats out now or or during once the season once they set the dates so um i don't mean to interrupt you bill but we could with the date with the parklet we could then put the outdoor seating on the sidewalk that's right as long as there's a five foot space yeah but but i think even if even if you hadn't got your parklet out it was a nice day and you wanted to put seating out you can do that yeah i think that even has to do with this i think you can do that now if you want okay thank you so um and donna's uh next year i just want to weigh in on that i i know we've heard from um some of us anyway i've heard from other business owners that are like how can you you not not have the end date go out so far and just just so you know where i'm at i'm more sympathetic to having more parklets all the time like that's uh i think that would that's just where where my head is at i think would be delightful to have um parklets uh out during halloween i think that would be great um and i think there's just a question about how we deal with snow on the front end and arguably um in october as well but um but yeah i'm so i'm i'm interested in that but go ahead donna and then uh i actually i think then it's um steven and then jack uh you're muted though don thank you i'm sorry i thought you picked me when you called on donna kasey so when there's two donnas the last name was really really helpful um i actually was out and voted trying to get it to keep parklets on halloween because i think it's a great place for families to crash when they run the street so i'm with you west but i do think that if we allow that flexibility then we're back to something that came up at last discussion which is enforcement what if people do it and they aren't out there helping dpw clear the this the area so i think we have to have some muscle behind that just to make sure everybody understands what that commitment is because i do want to balance the business needs with our staff and safety so i also have a concern about you know school street is a great place i can see common market wanting that school street but that's a terrible traffic corner so it has to be done really safely and that people get used to it that it gets out there and people get used to it the weather forecast people say that the first of april is going to be really hot and that it's not so we'll see if it stays that way but it says lots of rain unfortunately lots of rain in april that sometimes will be snow we did have a discussion about public use and i didn't see any suggested language here just that public use after the the restaurant the store is closed and i would like to have something in there particularly of the parklets that are more substantial i understand that i don't want to require people who have to chain their chairs but if indeed there's a substantial parklet out there if there's a way to have public use it i think that would be good if there's someone we can reward that so i just i'll just mention this again we talked about this last time is that our base our base parklet ordinance the one that we're superseding with this temporary one you know limits the number of spaces and requires a fairly substantial constructed parklet it's good and in fact that's what vitreans and federal highway standards call for those are all being relaxed to allow these for now so many that are out now wouldn't necessarily even if we had more spaces but they would have higher construction and safety standards so so those are built in a more permanent fashion so in the underlying ordinance it does require them to be allowed to be used by the public when they're not being used for the business we did not put that in these because these are not the same kind of substantial structures and in fact in some cases it might just be someone putting chairs and jersey barriers out or something and so the idea was if they've got to chain them up or bring them in it's not the same it's not the same comparison so i think if we're you know if we're going to require well i just think it's a consideration that needs to be thought of what we're asking we're one hand we're saying right but there are two types of parklets but i don't see the language looking at that i don't see the language saying this only applies to new more temporary this applies only to those who have a more substantial so there are because basically what we've done is we've waived all the permit requirements even for the ones that existed before you know they they already built them under the old way so there there's more to them i mean i you know i suppose we could grandfather those and say those that existed before there's only two of them so would we require positive pie do make theirs by jay more the public and not anybody else you jade's the one that was at down home and that's now jay morrigan's i positive yeah positive positive under the prior yeah so right it would be those two and nobody else and they understand that i don't know because we haven't we haven't required it we didn't require it last summer i mean this is a this is your call i'm just you know i was asking for clarification that's all yes i don't know i don't know that they what whether they understand that or not because we haven't had that conversation we just took that requirement out last summer with the temporary rules my turn uh yes uh steven go ahead and then we'll go i think it's jack after that and then west i'm sorry jack you got bumps um okay so uh this is a prime opportunity to get our vacuum cleaners for the sidewalks that we couldn't afford before we can afford them under with the federal money uh we're going to have potentially this entire rest of this year maybe even next year uh dealing with this pandemic and flare ups so we should be really rethinking uh our outdoor ventilation space i'd suggest you suggest that we consider eliminating parking on the bridges uh because the bridges with some of the uh water fillable jersey barriers i don't like the concrete ones but the the water fillable orange plastic ones uh create enough of a safety barrier that those could be kind of sitting common spaces with some tables and benches inside them i think you know think about doing this as a festival like atmosphere around the city i think the mayor spoke to this that you know we've designed our city to be more livable and less traffic and more air you'll get the maximum air circulation ventilation on the bridges because of the cross current so uh we could put we could eliminate the parking spaces on rialto bridge on school street bridge on the rose lucha bridge i guess that's one anyway there's three bridges that we could do that on um i encourage you to make it clear that the when the businesses are closed you remove the obstructions from the sidewalk the steel planters in front of rabble rouser get pushed up against the building uh and that it's all public space um to the degree that the you know chain furniture can tolerate it just the idea of putting like you're on camera don't don't walk on my deck you know is is not is counterproductive to what what we're doing here um so uh i i don't think we've addressed the issue of the antique store getting uh invaded by the oversized more than two spaces uh three penny deck uh if it can move closer to the tree that's fine but so there's some ideas if if we can maintain pay somebody to go around in vacuum but the vacuum is three-wheeler electric rechargeable quiet we can keep our city really clean we're going to redefine what our future looks like so think about some publicly owned furnishing furnishings on the bridges some orange water filled jersey barriers that sit there all season um maybe some umbrellas maybe this public works can pick up the umbrellas in the evening i don't know if you're worried about theft but i i think this could be really uh a pivotal time in how we're uh using our common space uh out of necessity so but definitely don't forget the vacuums okay thank you i'll go ahead jack me yes thank you this is this is a funny thing you know you get into these things uh problems of legislative drafting and you think you've written something and said something clear and then when you look at it in another way it may not be quite as clear and what occurred to me is i've gone through this a number of times is that the uh introductory paragraph says the regular ordinance is suspended from May 1st 2021 to October 25th 2021 but i don't see anything in here that says you're allowed to have apartment a parklet from date a to date b whatever those two dates are and except for the ending date of October 25th and so somewhere what i what i would propose is that we would state a statement put a insert a statement that says a parklet may be in place no sooner than April 1st and must be removed no later than November 2nd and the reason i picked the date of November 2nd is that October 31st is a Sunday this year and so that if we want to have the opportunity to have them out on Halloween gives the businesses a couple of days after that to take them away that makes sense to me um and i i appreciate that maybe we should add that that specificity in there uh go ahead Wes um why did i want to talk um oh uh so that you know the language um non you know COVID um thing about the parklet being available for public space is interesting to me and um those of you who know me might know how much i hate to be the guy who says this um but i'm really curious about like our liability on our parklet becoming a parklet a public space um you know the reason that we chose to put signs out that say this place is being monitored by camera is because we have for our customers chose to put out fairly pricey heaters um and we're concerned it's very impractical for us to bring them in and out every day so we left them outside chained up um and so we're concerned about that we also um know from other businesses who had parklets before us that sometimes in the middle of the night when nobody's looking uh individuals choose to use parklets as um places to defecate and um that and our heater units um and our tables chained up made us feel like we should put a camera on this so that we can cover in case something happens um but all of which ties i'm a huge proponent of public spaces i'm more than glad for people to use our parklet as a public space at night i also have some uh you know like i gotta like put on a weird business owner hat and say like i have some concerns about that um from a like liability perspective as well as a like my staff showing up in the morning and cleaning up feces yeah so that feels like it's worth uh you know addressing further and it feels like it's worth um a deeper like a longer conversation and that so uh tell me what you think about this team it it's some of these things that are coming up i feel like are issues that maybe need to be addressed when we get back to what is what is our permanent um uh parklet ordinance and that some of the this is maybe not going to be resolved uh tonight and maybe not be resolved uh in time for the beginning of this season um but should be addressed when we get back to like post-covid uh times um but the things but unless unless we want to get into it tonight or before at another hearings we're kind of running out of time um and i'm i'm happy to do either that would be a thing that you know having having heard a little bit more about that i feel like i would be willing to like just put that on hold for right now um and not like leave the ordinance as it is um flag it for some further conversation but uh but it's but if we were going to pass something tonight i feel like there's uh well jack has already made a suggestion around the beginning and ending dates i'm trying to think if there's any other issues that like we need to take up tonight um and i don't i don't know but dan i saw your hand go ahead yeah i mean we're also talking about expanding the sort of footprint of the parklet to include elm street and or oh that's right that's right um but i would agree that you know this issue about do parklets constitute public or private spaces or some quasi public space that can have limitations on it i i think is a much deeper conversation for another day to to dive into because i think there are certain certain restrictions i mean this this gets into um what is our control over public streets um and because we're essentially allowing people to put um put these these parklets into public streets under our authority as managing it in conjunction with obviously e-trans um but you know it does create that question of if if it's a public street and we allow this are we creating a semi private space that an owner has a right to restrict some of the access to um you know because we do have the authority to do that as as the control but you know i think what's what's evolved over time are things like the positive pie where you know when when they close for the night people sit there um and there aren't spikes on the seat to stop people from sitting there and like west described where you know they take for preventative steps to sort of protect their investment and i think those are reasonable um and the cameras are you know certainly closed circuit cameras are all around um pointing at public spaces um so i think those are all reasonable but if we want to get into sort of that that depth of discussion i think that's for another day i think the the real question for us at least is is should we renew this park ordinance with the changes that jack proposed and you know expanding the footprint uh both of which i'm comfortable doing and uh lauren and then jack um yeah i'm comfortable moving ahead with the changes that have been suggested tonight and leaving the public space issue for another night um one question i had that came up last time but i think it's for bill so if if in this initial outreach we had kind of raised the question of how much interest would there be in this and it gives you a lot of discretion which i think is fine i'm just like is there if there ends up being you know a huge amount of interest in this do you feel like you have enough guidance for like where is that cut off like it's it's like there's there's access and public safety and some other kind of criteria you could use like is it and and we could do this another night if you think more guidance but like you know it's like the 10th person who applies you're going to be like it's just too much now and like but then how do you let them know that they've they've now hit the threshold of accessibility or whatever like do you have do you feel like you know like more or less like the yeah i mean so i think it's i actually do feel like it's it's pretty clear um you know we don't have a limit per se and i think you know this is based on the assumption that parking demand is going to be still down and we have parking lots and other places you know maybe hopefully not as dead as last summer but it won't be you know the full thriving scene that we've seen so we're we're changing parking for these kind of uses um you know it's got to be within two parking spaces of their own business it's you know we have the right to sort of say no if there's you know like someone mentioned a turn you know bad turn dangerous turn site distances you know i think we have to put public safety first so the the whole process and i think you know les can tell you from his experience and if he disagrees i'd be interested in you know someone expresses interest and we our folks go out with them and talk it over and look and say what are your issues you know what what's going to work here what isn't going to work here where's the best place for this what's and then we try to work with them to come up with a successful project and um you know some people just you know you can't some people that just won't have the space in front of them whether the streets are too narrow or whatever you know and i think even when we talked about Langdon the reason the reason we took out a lane of parking on Langdon was that we allowed the parklets to go out into the street and i think what we decided last time was we weren't going to do that this year people got a parklets on Langdon they could use the same two parking spaces as anybody else which means on the street should be able to function as a normal street and and i believe that was the conversation that was held with the Langdon street business people and they understood that more fine with that so i think i think it's okay i think changing the dates to whatever you want is great i i'd suggest you know jack had talked about the language rather than expanding the footprint that we we just live that we bring anything outside of the designated or to the council on a case-by-case basis because that allows us to really work even harder with somebody to make sure of safety and quirky things so rather than blanketly adding elm street or other streets just leave it the way it is with the opportunity for someone to propose something and we'll look how do folks feel about about that or would you prefer to just add elm from you the whole thing or just a section go ahead dan yeah i mean i i'm i'm comfortable adding elm um you know basically from school street to state street um but um you know if it if it didn't pass i think it would just make more work for us um is all it it just strikes me that the for the same reasons that a parklet works on state street or on langton street it would work on elm street um others j well i wonder um if we did expand the range is are these things that have to be council decisions could we empower bill and dana dpw to you know make assessments on what is you know appropriate and safe to be able to make a decision quicker than what could potentially up to two weeks or longer um as far as making a decision i'm with dan i'm comfortable with expanding that that stretch from elm down the state um from or on elm from school down the street but i wonder about the expediency of being able to make these decisions do they have to um specifically come to council so the thought was that for things outside of the designated zone yes because because people neighbors and other stakeholders may not you know aren't really put on notice if it's not in the regular zone that this is a potential so they might want to weigh in you know we've seen places uh cases in the past when neighboring businesses weren't happy that parklets went in and felt that they didn't get a chance to you know offer their opinions and so you know we want to make sure we're hearing from people um but however you want to handle it is fine i elm street you know we haven't vetted well elm street in terms of traffic and it is it's got a slightly different character than state and main so i you know i don't know and i don't know if we'd want it you know if you say straight from state street with that first block uh near the post office and the courthouse i mean is that really i don't know i think we want to take a look and see do we we're talking about both side you know i don't know i'd have to look where there's even parking there so uh donna beat and then jack i feel if we add elm we need to add school and then i hear bill talk and i think that we need to do a better assessment of elm and school and bring in the neighbors and that it can come before the council either our next meeting or our first meeting in april they might not get the first one but they could have it if it moves ahead then they could have a chance to have it pretty soon i also think realistically um you know who are we really talking about right we're talking about possibly two or three businesses on school none except for uncommon market right and unless you go down to the other end of school of mangs or somebody wanted to put out a park which case it's nice and wide there so you know i think the case by case might not be that big a deal um and maybe maybe we could figure out a way to expedite that or you know so that doesn't have to wait for the council but um you know it takes it takes a little bit i mean just because someone wants to do it then they've got to figure it out they've got to you know i think we could move it right along pretty quickly if i could just send in on that and mention to everyone that we did stop in every food service and restaurant that was open there are only a few that weren't and there aren't there are a number of um entities that do not want to do a parklet they were very clear they're fine with what they have and so there's only a handful connor you can jump in on this too but i think we only heard a handful of people saying that they would be interested who hadn't been um thinking about it um last summer so i don't think it's going to overwhelm um i don't think that the number of entities that will come forward will overwhelm the council or um us to have preliminary conversations with them yeah i i would guess you're probably talking about three more than last year um now some other places that might be a case by case basis is done and i didn't wander down like barry straight right i could see bohemian bakery maybe kismet one and something and that's exactly where you put that in it was those kinds of places that we were sure like further down elm street like birch grove you know maybe they would want some so i'd actually i'd be comfortable with the case by case basis language so like you you were not able to talk with um hippie chickpea or royal orchid um you know um royal like and you know like some restaurants have an advantage over others like royal orchid can put three or four tables out on a deck they've got some parking spaces on the side by the like dry cleaner you know um so they have some options but if you're talking like oaks and eveline they got no options they got to go bro so just for example none of the three more that you're talking about are in that stretch on elm street right now um but not that we know okay well so it just seems to me like as far as elm street goes maybe that's one that like perhaps staff can like look into elm street see if it makes sense and if if there's time to check in with with that crew to see if it um if there is interest in that stretch then maybe we can revisit it otherwise you know we're trying to create an opportunity where there's not a need um potentially right now um i saw a bunch of hands um i think it was jack and then dan i'll be quick a couple of things uh yeah i think elm street is a little strange because on the west side of the street on that first block there's no parking so right where royal orchid is there's no parking so it's not really doesn't seem that practical for them to do a park park with there i i like the idea of doing uh doing a case by case approval by council and to make things productive for the members of the council and the clerk i drafted language for both of these proposals and i sent it to cameron and so you all have in your inboxes the language for these two proposals of amendment awesome um make a motion jack make a motion and so i i move well do we need to close the public hearing before i make the motion um i don't know that we technically need to but i just as a matter of process anyone have further comments on this before we get to a motion well actually i so i know i know i'm sorry for being a pain in extending the conversation but i i do want to revisit one thing um the language that you had jack was about april first is that right yes um i want to be supportive of that but i do want to just talk about what happens if there's a snowstorm right that which i feel like is is likely to happen i don't necessarily want to be depending on folks uh to need to go out and shovel i think the thing i'm concerned about is snow plows are out uh i guess this is a question for donna bar lucacy um what is a reasonable expectation around um um snow plow parklet interactions i think that's the bigger concern and i'll let donna get into detail that to me that's the bigger concern than actually the shoveling out because you know west's committee is going to shovel out all the parklets in town um uh but it is you know it's night it's dark it's late and there's an obstruction in the street that didn't used to be there and a plow takes it out and um you know there's i think the possibility of that happening is not none you know it definitely could happen so i think so i think there's definitely a risk there i think we have a variety of different types of parklets so for the pre-made um larger more permanent sturdy parklets um plows can maneuver around i think the real issue is where there is you know a temporary fencing with some tables and chairs that are all linked into those and then that creates a different um challenge for the owners of those parklets and some challenge for public works um we might end up you know depending on how much snow there is we may end up um skirting around that and then requiring some hand shoveling by the owners of the those entities in order to to move the fencing clear it away and take care of it so i don't think it's the ideal situation but i think that we would typically also have some for warning that there's likely snow coming and in that regard i would suggest that anybody who has a parklet that has the movable um option move that before they close up for the evening um we get those reflective flags that stick up right that something's there yep um so just thinking about just recapping that so you're comfortable with the more sturdy structures that the plows will give them a wide berth because they're obviously there yep and understanding that there's going to be probably a gap that will be snowy in between the the road and and that uh structure i mean you could you could put in that you know if you are putting in a parklet you're that you do accept the responsibility for clearing the snow around your parklet uh and you know maybe within a couple parking spaces you know all the your parklet and the two adjoining parking spaces and if you don't do it we can always revoke your park parklet permission which is sort of a also a an understanding that we're going to leave a gap yeah but yeah so that that that it would be up to the parklet owner and that would weigh into their decision whether to push it out on april first or wait you know that mean that might be somebody doesn't feel like shoveling might say i'm just going to wait a couple more weeks because it's warmer if you if you're west and you're just like i want you know i don't mean to pick on us but because i get it you really need the business and you're like i'll do it and i get it we'll have to have people out here shoveling i'll do it but it's worth it to us to do it that's part of your calculation so i think um maybe that's the way we go right so just to be just to be clear um if the um if if a snow plow hit a car let's say right like we the snow plow would be liable for that right and i mean we we hope that that doesn't happen if the car was in a if the car was in a proper parking space in a proper parking spot the plow and it wasn't a parking being right um but i i assume sort of like something similar would be the case yeah with with a parklet right like it's on us and not to make sure to not hit it okay i i thank you for indulging me in this conversation i just wanted to make sure that we're really clear about that because especially if we move it up to april first like that these are all real possibilities um okay uh so where where are we at jack did did you uh again any other comments questions uh dan go ahead yeah i guess um you know and i don't have a i'm not necessarily wedded to the um idea of um expanding the footprint to go back to that but i i guess i would like to see um you know and it sounds i mean donna and connor have already done a lot of this but that you know other businesses that might want these parklets are encouraged to know about them um if they fall outside of the footprint that we've we've created and kept in place so you know the uncommon market or you know whatever business wants to do that knows about it can i make a proposal go back um hold on there's steven go ahead donna barla casey i i just want to i will make an effort to go back to the businesses that we were not that we didn't get to um because of timing um and i'll also i think given all these um can sort of um ideas that we've been talking about whose responsibility things are i think that i'll develop a draft sheet run by bill um for all the conditions and what the responsibilities are for the different parklets as they develop their their project um and that way they'll understand from the beginning that they have to if we have snow they have to clear and they have to do whatever they need to do to um preserve um their opportunity um okay yeah thank you um steven do you have any um final thought there i did yeah i've got a uh a suggestion a proposal this is a big enough thing and you're going to have enough stuff with the money decisions uh over the next few months to where you don't really want to have a lot of these open-ended discussions for parklet exceptions on your city council agenda i suggest that you schedule a special meeting for two hours well publicized ahead of time soon and get the papers to pick it up early and put forth the proposals of what y'all are thinking about and what the implications are it can even be one of bill's full page you know bridge things or and do your front porch form or whatever but also ask public works to price out the the orange fillable barriers the idea that if this works there's going to be so many people downtown that people are going to be waiting in line for outdoor seat tables versus if they can go grab some to go food and go sit in some of these kind of common spaces on the bridges you know at tables um we we may have a a better flow management with that so i'm i i realized it's not far enough evolved as an idea but you could price out what those costs and how useful and reusable and portable they are and you could uh invite folks to the meeting so everybody's aware of what the implications these are far-reaching implications you could sort out the liability issue if you're in a public street you're benefiting from the city immunity if you block it and don't let people use it at night maybe you lose your city immunity you know so there's enough of this stuff to merit a special meeting not a four-hour city council meeting but maybe a two-hour city council meeting and get the public to really come and weigh in you know and that will alleviate a lot that will save more than that amount of time over the next few months in exception discussion and i rate neighbors and everybody else that's that's all and don't forget the vacuum cleaners thank you okay um any any comments okay jack um i would i had started to draft language that said says what we've been talking about that the parklet owner shall be responsible for snow removal for the parklet and the two parking two adjacent parking spaces and failure to remove snow can be grounds for revocation of the parklet permit but i don't i was thinking well that makes things maybe worse for the city administration because every time someone does this uh public works are is going to be saying well you didn't get your parking spaces uh shoveled out and the owner says it was only half an inch it was gone by 11 o'clock in the morning i didn't it didn't need to be shoveled out so i think it might be better not to uh put something like that in the ordinance and so you won't be public works it will be neighboring businesses yeah yes they didn't get it done it won't be us telling them to do it it's going to be so-and-so's get a parklet and they haven't shoveled yet and people can't come to mind you know i'm losing a parking space that's who we'll deal with yeah which is worse but that's why they need to get cleaned out too okay snowstorms above two inches have to have to so let's make it as a in a permit condition when we get to issue the permit there we go so i move the two amendments that that i asked Cameron to circulate i am not actually oh never mind maybe i could get this it's from Cameron not from from you right i'm happy to read him out loud for everybody if you'd like sure let's just make it really clear what it is first insert uh paragraph b a parklet may be in place no sooner than april first and must be removed no later than november second and re-number the following paragraphs and then the second one is insert by the council after the word considered in what is now paragraph b a second okay so there's motion and a second i'm going to close the public hearing at this point um just to be clear jack this is just a motion to amend uh is that correct yes okay um so there's been a motion and a second any further discussion okay all in favor please say aye hi hi and opposed right so uh the amendment passes and so now i think we have to vote on the uh temporary ordinance itself is their motion i move we adopt the event the ordinance as amended second okay we have a motion and a second uh further discussion okay all in favor please say aye hi and opposed okay awesome thank you um and uh yeah thank you particularly west for sticking through uh through this to i i'm embarrassed to admit how much i enjoyed the legislator updating and then kurt's proposal and i i thank you that's great that's a year of covid but this is a fun night out right yes donna do we have to get a consensus on the staff following up on the snow thing we'll take care of it okay we'll let you know so i it's 10 19 here team i just want to recognize that we have not done committee assignments which is probably not super urgent but maybe i don't know donna go ahead well the list is really incomplete and then cameron sent us another one but that's the city committees that don't necessarily have all the council committees on it so i think we should do this next week none of us are dying about this we're all everybody stay on the same committee until then yeah if we if we still remember i propose we push this until next meeting that's fine with me and i don't think we need a motion about that um okay and so i think that is the end of our regular business uh right so council reports i'm gonna go in the same order unless unless folks object i could go in the reverse order which would shake everything up so far okay i'm gonna go i know i know i'm gonna go in reverse order and start with lauren is that okay mind blown um i know all i was gonna say tonight is thank you to the voters really appreciative of having the chance to serve again and thanks to there was incredible amount of volunteers and to everyone who stepped up to run for office and um just so grateful to have such an active community that we're part of um and to be back serving that's it for tonight thanks great uh jack very short thank you for the voters for coming out and voting for uh to reelect me dan and lauren and support all our budget items and uh i would have also want to observe that i thought it was great that we had uh someone come join us for our meeting steven or edward cremo come and join us and as a potential resident of the city and i i googled him and i'm gonna reach out out to him and just say hey if you want to talk about what it's like to live in the best place in vermont to live i'm sure we can uh any of us would be happy to talk to you um and he really stuck it out for a good long time i think he stuck it out all the way through the end of the uh water resource recovery facility discussion which was really pretty impressive yeah yeah i agree uh all right um dan i'll add to the others um thank you to the voters of district three for returning me for another uh tour of duty and uh thank you to the voters of montpellier for passing the um our various ballot initiatives and that we put on for the budget um and i'll note that our budget passed by 84 percent uh bill is that right that's statistic 84 percent yeah which i i think speaks to the good work that we we put in here um i'm really excited for the next coming term and um uh i'm actually going to start j and i are going to start doing uh weekend zoom meetings uh with constituents we did this during the reelection and it was really effective it completely stole it from alarm but um and so i'll credit due to her but it was so effective we're going to continue to do that so we just need to set up a sort of regular time and schedule but we're excited about doing that in lieu of um in lieu of face-to-face contact for the time being um and i guess i just end with one quick there was on election night i was driving around collecting my signs i was driving on uh pleasant street and uh it really is a very beautiful street and staring out at the city we just have a an amazing city on either side of the windowsky river um and in these these quiet nights before it starts to get back to summer and leaf out it's worth driving on a quiet street and just stepping out and looking out over the the night sky and cityscape to really appreciate the city that we live in and how lucky we are thank you yeah thank you uh jane um two quick things one is um i know you uh you probably i'll well very quickly you saw an email from matt mclean and from my wife ricarta that's some presentations around some research projects that some high school students did this past fall um if you're looking to you know kill a little bit of time um uh i encourage you to take a look at those videos there are um some really unique and creative ideas in there um around how that we as a city uh connect with and and relate to the rivers that that that are that are part of our city and so i if you haven't yet um i would encourage you to you know take a little bit of time and go through and watch those presentations because there are some great ideas um the other thing is um uh i realized that this uh with this meeting which was theoretically our organizational meeting for the council year now marks um one full year on zoom um the last time we were in chambers was this meeting a year ago um my only meeting you know dan had a few months on me because he got appointed a little bit early but my only meeting in chambers and it was from here on out that we've seen each other and connected with each other um through these screens so um uh hopefully there's a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel here we're starting to see a little bit more so i just want to make sure that while i think that there's a lot of value to this uh this allows for conversations of people to be part of conversations that will probably be part of how council runs meetings into the future um as we as vaccines are more available um and we can think about being able to be closer i know we've tried throughout the year and it hasn't really logistically worked um but i just want to make sure as we're you know as things get a little bit safer i just want to make sure that we're keeping it always thinking about how we can sort of set the tone and lead the way for um being back in person together safely um so anyway i was just realizing that that boy there you go it's been a year on zoom huh wow thank you for pointing that out i hadn't realized that and i was it is a weird milestone and gosh yeah worth noting though um thank you yeah uh connor all right a few very quick things um again thanks to the voters and it's great to have our three colleagues back here and see their faces this meeting one thing that i think it's worth mentioning is the voters were receptive to having a cannabis retail dispensary on the ballot there that was also pretty overwhelming and again i think the reason that we had to vote early was so we could become engaged in some of the conversations around this at the state level senator cummings mentioned today that we have s 94 which is pending right now had a hearing today and that very well could determine whether we have a new revenue source coming in if that's the way we ultimately decided to go and there's many community conversations i think to follow on this one so just something worth keeping an eye on i've got a couple emails about graffitian town and um you know i was doing some research into it and it's definitely not a problem that's unique to montpellier you probably ran seven days a few weeks ago uh burlington's had a huge problem with that and i think much of the stems from people being pent up like frustrated uh not a ton to do um so you know i don't think we should just be blaming angry teams or something on it but there is a possible remedy to this cameron sent around an email um to everybody so i just wanted to give a plug for her on friday march 12th three o'clock outside city hall uh there'll be folks volunteering to clean up some of this graffiti that's a great initiative the the city's taken there and would encourage folks to come out for that that'd be great um and last thing i uh we don't meet too often but i was at the uh investment committee meeting um yesterday and just a couple things first we're so grateful to have kelly murphy here she just slid right into it um she's so intelligent and the question she asks which probably makes up for me stern blankly at some of these pie charts but long story short uh you know we're doing okay considering like everything that's happened in the last year um investments are holding strong one thing i felt was interesting and i sent the mayor a note about that is we chose to divest from fossil fuels um but maple capital has actually taken fossil fuels out of just about all their portfolios there because they've just not seen the return on that and don't anticipate it being a big moneymaker in the future so uh we did the right thing there but we also did the uh smart thing financially so that's it for me uh thanks so much great thank you donna i can't believe it connor you didn't mention my ride so i get to talk about it the ridership is really doing well despite the frigid cold a slight increase and even more so they've been more shared rides so that's really good and we keep looking at more and more people downloading the app so that shows for future riders i would like to share personal experience in that we had wider water breaks here to monday evening that went through until today we finally got a safe don't have to boil our water anymore but what was amazing my condom on the second floor i took all these pictures of this incredible crew and all their noisy noisy equipment from 6 30 in the evening to 1 am i mean they were out there and it wasn't as cold as it has been but at 18 degrees or so that long it had to be cold and they had the kind of problems with equipment anybody with a vacuum at home could have their big vacuum tubes kept plugging up and you see these guys with a flashlight with their head in the hose trying to get stuff unjumped but um and they also had a crane out there lifted and maybe one of you bill probably knows the name a big concrete fixture that goes down in the hole once they had dug it all out that protects the workers when they're down in the pit and they lifted it up over all the street signs it was just way up in the air and back down and then they set it and then they did their work and then they brought it back up and put it in a trailer it was just amazing but it also made me think and i sent Donna Casey and Ann a lot of pictures i don't know bill if i send to you too probably but there were pictures that i think they should do more of that when they're working they should take pictures and put it on social media people have no idea why six guys are out there but if you watch you can see what they're doing and how they interface i think it's a missed opportunity so i'm advocating for a lot more bragging from dpw in the future when they're doing these projects it was very impressive very impressive thank you i got water yeah i like that advice more bragging we're doing great work how can we celebrate it more yeah so i guess for me i also want to add my voice to others in thanking voters for coming out to support the budget and and actually i mean to be fair all of the items i'm i'm pleased that all of the items passed and also i know i said at the beginning but i'm still very grateful for the folks who came out to to vote and and congratulations to to the folks who were just reluctant born and dan and jack it's awesome and second thing oh uh on the 24th we have the home energy information ordinance coming up i think you all received an email from me that has a link to a website for meac so it's worth spending some time just to get familiar with that to get educated about how that works what it is and the rationale behind it and we'll we'll have obviously more conversation about that next time but just want to make sure that i flag that for folks and then a third thing i just want to go on the record here as noting that since the governor has opened up vaccine opportunities to teachers i am on the schedule i'm i'm going to get my vaccine next tuesday i'm very excited about it so yeah yeah i'm i'm old enough i've got mine oh nice oh excellent nice job i don't know what kind they're gonna give me but i'm okay with whatever um whatever they want to give me i'm i'm i'm happy um so anyway hopefully get some social media posts about that so um anyway just a note there john anything from you uh do we need to sign anything there we go yeah well uh kevin kasey emailed me today apparently there's a real immediate need for something to be signed it was in the consent agenda so um that got looped around with uh with mary so i'm in sort of semi-quarantine because zane is one of the uh close contacts in the uh the high school outbreak and i've been around zane a lot so i'm uh sort of careful i'm sort of not around but until i'm sure but um yeah so there'll be that and i'll just make sure remotely that that's over there um and mary told me a reminder in mary your camera one of them said to be sure to tell you that there is something at the police station already it's already there for you to sign assuming you pass it well so are you go over there to sign that would be great well and i you know i also want to thank the voters for three more years you didn't have a lot of choice um but in a way that makes it that much better because you didn't have to bother so i appreciate that very much i want to thank um all the volunteers who came out i just each of these crazy elections over the last year i have completely misread early on and this one especially because i had no idea that so many volunteers would show up i completely all my plans were for naught they totally covered everything it was great um so you all rock only other thing i would say is as con as the discussions about the possibility of a special uh city meeting for a bond vote develop to please keep me in the loop because i actually there's a lot of ways that could roll out and i actually have some thoughts on how we might roll that out um to fit in with some other things and and to to you know maximize efficiencies but that's uh that's all i got thank you uh bill well welcome back everybody exciting for work with you all for another year um also thank the voters for their support of the budget it's always grateful after all the the work that we do um to jay's point an interesting thing on town meeting night um you know i was good out to see how the vote turned out and we actually had five city counselors and me all in the same location the effort you know somewhere there could voting somewhere there to see how they had done and it was like oh my gosh like look we can actually see one another in person was like we didn't for the press we didn't talk any business we were just so stunned that we were all in the same place in in person that we didn't quite know what to do but i was fun i hopefully we'll get back to that um for meetings soon other than that um i don't have anything else great uh all right well i think that is the end of our our business then this evening so um thanks everybody and have an excellent rest of your night and we'll see you in a couple weeks great good to see you all right we'll see you all night