It is 6 o'clock 1 p.m. on Monday, October 2nd, so I'm going to call to order this regular meeting of the Wyniewski City Council. Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance led by Deputy Mayor Thomas Brenner. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. First up is agenda review. Any adjustments to the agenda this evening? No. Okay. Next up is public comment. This is a chance for attendees to make comment. But any items not on tonight's agenda? If you're here for a specific agenda item, we would ask you to wait for that. We do have public comment time for all agenda items. Do you wish to speak for public comment? Okay. I see we have a couple of Zoom attendees. If you would like to make a public comment, please use the chat or raise hand feature. To let us know. We'll move you into a speaking role in Zoom. Okay. Thank you. We will move to the consent agenda. We have our meeting minutes from September 18th. Pay reward for September 3 to 16 accounts payable September 27 and a justice assistance grant application. Any questions about the consent agenda? Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. Second. Motion by Bryn, second by Aurora. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Council reports. Thomas, you want to start? Sure. So our last downtown Winnowski meeting was last week. Essentially it was just an update of the information that Melissa gave to council. She just went over that in detail with everybody on the downtown Winnowski board. We talked about some other upcoming things such as a possible lighting ceremony for the tree and the rotary as well as the holiday pop-up shop that downtown Winnowski hosts every year. In terms of immediate reminders, Blingo is back to a new format. It will be the first Tuesday of every month. So there will be a Blingo tomorrow, monkey house at six o'clock. And downtown Winnowski is also starting to look for volunteers to assist with the pumpkin celebration that we do in the rotary. We need folks to pick up pumpkins, carve pumpkins, and light pumpkins. So if you are interested in that, please go to the downtown Winnowski website. Thank you. I last week hosted an orientation for new commissioners. It was recorded. So anyone who couldn't make it can watch. And anyone who joins in the future can watch. I want to update you all that stemming from the monthly housing roundtable meetings. The Champlain Valley Office of the Economic Opportunity has been working with our Winnowski School District multi-lingual program staff and the Winnowski Housing Authority to deliver tenant education workshops in Winnowski. Over the month of October, they will have these sessions with three different language groups. This is exciting because this is one of the specific recommendations from our equity audit. I attended the Chinden County Regional Planning Commission meeting this month and want to let you all know that the state is setting state-level targets for housing needs. And then the Regional Commission is going to create both regional and municipal targets based on that data anticipating my next fall. So that's data that we will have access to for our own planning. And Deputy Mayor Renner and I met with our state representatives to check in on legislative priorities so we can update those at an upcoming city council meeting based on what's changed since last year. All right, Brynn. Sure. Airport Commission is meeting this Wednesday the 4th. That's both in person and online. Regular items on the agenda are noise exposure map updates and sound insulation updates. So doesn't look like there's anything new or unusual. I'm hoping that they have an update from the public meeting they had this past month. So we'll see how many folks were in attendance and if any of the comments were related to the sound insulation efforts underway. Municipal infrastructure, our next meeting is the 19th. It'll be at the pool also hybrid so folks can attend online. That'll be a joint meeting with the Finance Commission to talk about capital budget priorities coming into FY 25 planning. Our most recent meeting this past month focused on long-term improvements to the La Fountain Dion Street. And a lot of really great conversation there. We anticipate an updated public meeting perhaps later this month or maybe next month. But more to come on that for public input. So really excited to see the progress and participation in that conversation. The bridge committee, there was a public meeting about the Winooski bridge replacement efforts. Kind of a general listening session that was very well attended. I think all combined in person as well as online, there are almost 100 people participating. So it was really nice to see that. The next public meeting for that probably won't happen until January at the earliest. And since the first one was in Winooski, the next one they will be in Burlington. And the committee, the smaller advisory committee will continue meeting monthly. So if there's any questions in the interim that I can bring to that group, just let me know. And you can sign up for web updates, I'm sure, that our city manager will get into that as well. Steal her thunder. So yeah, lots of great conversations on the way. And some really exciting capital projects moving forward. Thank you. All right. So I haven't had any meetings of the commission since we last spoke. However, they are both coming up this next week. So safe, healthy connected people will meet Tuesday the 10th. And that's at 6 30. This is a virtual meeting. So please attend via zoom. And inclusion and belonging will have their meeting on the 12th. So on Thursday and that's at 6 p.m. Also via zoom. So hope people can join for that. So far for the inclusion, belonging commission on the agenda includes thinking about ways to discussing the bullet items listed in that equity audit executive summary, and thinking about other ways that we can engage with folks about the equity audit in a way that's more accessible. Thank you, Charlie. All right. You and uski housing commission met on Tuesday, September 26. We did some housekeeping introducing our new members and getting everybody implemented into their new roles. We had our first discussion and overview over the housing director's work addressing short-term rental restrictions, provisions, and things like that. And we also looked over our changes to our interest rate buy down policy and also talked a little bit more about swapping our investment into down payment support grants versus focusing more on industry buy downs. Our next meeting will be October 24th at 6 p.m. And that's what I got. Okay. We'll move on to city updates. Elaine. Okay. I made a strategic error in selecting where I was going to take this meeting. So apologies for any background noise. So please be aware that the contractor partner with the public works department is tentatively scheduled to begin annual structural maintenance work on the Manuski parking garage located on Cassidy Way on Tuesday, October 10th and will continue through the fall season weather permitting. Work areas throughout the entire garage will be temporarily cordoned with traffic detours as needed, but the garage will remain fully operational and open to the public during the project. So just keep an eye out for the detours. And pass holders unable to park in their assigned space or level due to this work may park in the upper levels at no additional costs. Thank you for your cooperation around this work. And an update on the police department chief search. So we received seven bids for the search contractor, the firm that would help us find recruit and secure police chief. We reviewed them and I should be extending a contract to the finalist in the next week or so. So please do keep an eye out for public input opportunities. We definitely want to hear from everybody in the community what you think our qualities are important in our next week. Thank you, Elaine. Okay, moving into regular items. First up is on for discussion approval appointing a Manuski Memorial Library Committee youth member. Ray, are you? Yeah, and I believe Nate is in there as well as perhaps Jess and I'm going to move Lauren Reed over on the Zoom to a panelist. Would either of you like to make a state introductory statement? I can't see it. There we go. Thanks, Ray. We have Talia Bennett here before us. Talia is a ninth grader at the Manuski School District. And in March 2023, State Council approved a change to the Manuski Library Committee charter to allow for a youth member. And so Talia applied about a month ago with members of the Library Committee. We interviewed Talia. She was great and is here before you now for your approval to the committee. Welcome, Talia. Thank you for applying and for your interest in engaging. I was impressed with some of your existing volunteer experience that I saw in the application. Is there anything that you want to share with us or just general introduction? Well, we're happy to have you. Are there any questions or comments from Council? Thank you. Yeah, I'm excited for your interest. Okay. Well, do I have a motion to approve the appointment of Talia Bennett to the Manuski Memorial Library Committee? Second. Motion by Brynn, second by Aurora. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you very much. And thanks for coming in. Okay. For item B is on for discussion approval appointment of a Finance Commission member. Angela, do you want to say anything? Or Maggie did send an email that she was unfortunately unable to rearrange her schedule to attend tonight, but she's very excited about joining commission. And as the American Attest was very passionate during the interview and will bring a small business voice to the Economic Vitality Commission for the city. Second, what you said, we are missing that sort of business input on the commission right now with someone else's departure. And through Maggie's work, she actually has a lot of engagement with community members. So very excited. Any questions, concerns? Would anyone like to make a motion to approve the Finance Commission appointment? So most. Motion by Thomas, second by Brynn. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you all. Okay. We are on to item C. Public hearing has been called for amendments to the Municipal Code of Ordinances Chapter 17 Public Building Registry.  Good evening. Welcome. Would you like to make any introductory statements before we open the hearing? Yeah. So in a large part, this was updates to the existing Chapter 17, the Public Building Registry, previously the landlord registry program. And I would just like to point out there's one small recommendation from our legal counsel to add a very minor part to Section 17.08 issuance of certificates in terms of inspections. It ends on page eight as number nine. Mr. De Palma recommends that we add 10 and it would state for any public building that contains a dwelling unit, as that term is defined in Chapter 9 of the Wenuski Municipal Code is determined to have violated the minimal housing standards of said Chapter 9. It's a roundabout way of connecting the definition of the dwelling unit that is put in the Chapter 9 so that we're not crossing over. So it doesn't put anybody at any, it doesn't substantially change the code. It just brings them to Chapter 9 for that definition. So it's not adding any other regulation or anything like that. It's simply connecting it for a definition. So in my mind, it's in and Bob's, it's a minor change, minor recommendation. So I believe that you can continue with the public hearing if you so wish and possible adoption. Yes. So I will now open up the public hearing to take any public comments. If you're in the room, please raise your hand. If you're on Zoom, please raise your hand. Okay. Hearing no comments, I will now close this public hearing. We can proceed to council discussion. Were there any questions from council? I wanted to thank you for making this a little bit more foolproof between the versions. So thanks for doing the effort on that. It's a team effort, thanks. Okay. Hearing no discussion, I will move us on to item D, which is potential approval to adopt the amendments to Chapter 17. Is that something that staff would advise moving forward with versus waiting for Chapter 9? Yes. The way Bob tied it together with that paragraph, he had no problem with us moving forward with this tonight. Elaine, you agree with that? Okay. Great. Yes. Any concerns from council? Just the clarity of the edition and 17.08. Okay. Would someone like to make a move to make a motion to approve adoption of amendments to municipal code of ordinances, Chapter 17 public building registry with the changes we have seen this evening. So moved. Second. Motion by Aurora, second by Thomas. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for our first drawn up to the housing commission for reviewing those. All right. We are jamming through here. We are on to item E, O'Brien Community Center updates. I see we have Michael here. Ray, would you like to? I'll jump on the virtual from across the hall just because I'm multitasking if that's all right. Certainly. No offense, Michael, hopefully. All right. So Michael, I don't know if you are up for coming up to the microphone. I can do a quick table set. And then I think as the architect of the document, would love to have your kind of wisdom to share it. But as folks know on the council, we've been working with our partners here at CHT for gosh, better part of probably a year and a half now with conversations around the O'Brien Center and a potential future kind of redevelopment of that parcel. I think through that hard work and patience and creativity, we've come to, I think sort of a potential turning point in this project. And so wanted to come to council tonight, lay out a projected game plan and sort of get a head nod from council to say this path seems like a good one, in which case we will work then with CHT to develop more formal agreement documents and bring something back in the very near future for council to approve. But I think before putting that legwork in, wanted to really kind of lay this out for you all, get questions answered. Again, Michael's here with with his experience and wisdom on this and thus far has been a really fantastic partner to work with on this project. So I think in spite of us collectively driving the architect a little bit baddy, it's been a really fantastic partnership thus far. So with that, I'll turn it over to Michael again, who I think has the expertise and skills and knowledge and help put this document together. Thanks. So we're we're welcome. Good evening to all of you. So it's been a great, great collaboration so far. We just want to, we're going to move to the next level here. We're about to hire finally an architect in a real formal way. We've had the availability of Duncan Wisnesky and as a page ago basis. But now we're going to begin to sort of engage that firm in full estimating, hiring subs. You can sort of see in the document a wide range of the things that really need to pay attention to. We know that's the first thing is to really finalize the schematic design. The second thing we have to really do is finalize the budget. The budget I gave you is our best guess after doing this work for, you know, a couple of decades now, but really needs a firmer, fuller, clearer set of conditions and based upon final schematics what the real costs are. The third part of it is that we need to bring in, and we have again discussions of bringing in a fundraising group to help us raise some money for this purpose. A good chunk of this money will come from a combination of sort of federal and state resources, new market tax credits, but there's going to be a gap. We know that the smaller, the more we can raise in that gap, the less, the more affordable the property will be to you all and to the other tenants. Your city team has given us what they're willing to pay. It's pretty inexpensive. I should let you know that. So we're working towards that number as being sort of the driver of everything we're doing here in terms of the process. We've come pretty far, but we've been mostly, I would say it's feasibility and conceptual, and now we really need to start begin to really dig in. I think we have the city and I think the CHCB has airmarks potentially. If that all happens, if that does happen, then I think we have some opportunities to sort of bring in those capital resources. But again, we're about to spend a lot more money and so we want to be able to sort of hear from you all that this is legit on your part. I think what we say is that we'll bring, come back with a development agreement, an operating agreement and a lease agreement. I would say the development agreement probably will come first, but the others will follow fairly quickly. We have those kinds of things typically. We do have some conversations. I think the final, to finish up with CHCB, since they are the principal tenant, they are about 40% of the building more or less. So we have to finalize those things in the next couple of weeks as well. We have set aside, you probably heard, we got some money recently and we've set aside some money for that for this purpose. I think we've had some conversations kind of secure this maybe quiet conversations a week or so ago saying we'll potentially have the money and resource to come sooner to be able to sort of take the debt off of the city's books and in that way help the operating of the property next fiscal year or certainly in the short term and are able and willing to do that sooner than the development activity being completed. So what I will say is that we can be really creative. Often enough staff stops me from hurting ourselves and making sure that we're doing something and everything appropriately and legally. I think that though we have the ability to do that now. So we want to see and figure out if we can. I think that would be a full commitment from us to you then as a result. But as we do that we want to know that we can go forward and redevelop the property and do what we say we want to be able to do. So I think I think I've said pretty much I summarized pretty much what's in here not in terms of details but certainly in terms of broadly what we want to go. So we do this at our board meeting we go yeah it's a good idea keep going. I'd love to be able to get a good head nod. I've done that before with you all but we're getting closer and we're getting more serious and so I'd love to be able to sort of I'm assuming the staff wants to know too. I'm ready to hear from you whether we're on the right we're going in the right direction here or not. Thank you so much Michael. Oh there's one other thing we do have to get a zoning change. So that is a kind of a critical piece. Yeah some of my list of things here as well. Yeah yeah and Eric and I have had conversations about that sort of timing and staging so that's that's on the staff's radar as well but thank you Michael for bringing that up. Congratulations on your financial situation and thank you so much for considering this project for some of that money for the public benefit. You know this project expands community health services in Winooski retains existing tenants adds new space for our library the event hall and community kitchen and retains that community accessible space. I think my read is this this is going to be an improvement to our community center bring it to a higher functioning level that is you know for a space that's really critical to our community. So I'm very excited about this. I will pause though and see if we have questions from council. You answered a couple of the ones that I had. I think the one other that I have is maybe a little bit more for city staff. Thinking about I see that so changes to the library are set is going to kind of be separate cost from the rest of the project and just I was trying to think about would fundraising for those both of those projects kind of compete with each other or confuse each other that was the one concern I had. I could answer that I think. Yeah go ahead while you're panning over I'll just say too neat has been tracking some funding in the Vermont Department of Libraries as well that is sort of being earmarked for more significant capital improvements to libraries so it's you know it's a grant it's not a guarantee but I think we have a pretty competitive and compelling project here so we are looking at that as a potential funding source for you know a portion of it and then I think Michael I'll let you answer sort of the fundraising question. I think our 10th thought was is that everybody's in on us together okay we're doing one capital campaign to raise money in the community but individual organizations like CHCB in the city of Winooski and others have access to different kinds of resources that we will all we will go after with you on your behalf or with you you know and together so earmarks, monies for libraries, monies for community health centers, funds that come from state of Vermont for community centers you know all of those things will all be lined up and we have a group ready to go ahead and be aggressive on getting all of those resources supporting city staff with their expertise is there CHCB with their expertise is for writing those kinds of things you all will identify sources CHCB will identify sources we will do that put it all together we'll bring in a new market tax credit which is about a quarter of the resources and that's our work and then the assumption is that we'll lead the capital campaign to raise money in the community the probably the thing that we haven't really put our head around completely is all of the fit up and mostly is that we we want to have the building to be really really well done for everybody to simply just put in the furnishings CHCB's furnishings are a little different than others you know and libraries furnishings might be a little different than others too so we had to think about that I would love it to be simply together as well still but I think we have to have some discussions about how that's going to work and how that's all going to pan out and CHCB I think feels like it could raise a lot of money I don't know that for sure there's a lot of money here so we're going to be talking to them some more this week and and try to iron and figure that's part out but I think of it councilor as a joint activity with individuals talking to their the people they resource from and us supporting with you know information data narrative plans specs all that is necessary to show that in fact we're ready to go if that makes some sense that really does thank you so much that yeah my concern I'm glad you brought that up or because it is like Michael saying it's important that all of us that are interested in this effort that we are telling the joint story this is a community center with community services so the more we can all be on that page and we we can't afford to make it sound like there's a there's competing interest there because it is one project I really thought of this as a community center and we've asked and we'll ask the UVM medical center to participate and we'll ask others to participate and at least sort of the thinking and planning and resourcing of the opportunity to develop this as the O'Brien community center with a range of current and expanded and better equipped and better facility uses including um you know which includes library kitchen vent hall and and CHP and everything else so it's one thing wonderful not several things yeah I was with the old north end community center where we had um ALV sort of having its ability to talk to certain people robins nest have their ability to talk to different folks everybody has their own little constituency shall we say so in that in that case we'll do the same thing here you know with this opportunity wonderful thank you um for me I think they're some nice to haves not new to haves but I mentioned them early just so they're out there um one we you know the bridge um committee just had a public meeting we use the what's the gym space now and event larger event hall space um you know that um had like its own AV audio visual visual limitations sound limitations um we often have a lot of public meetings over there larger events um budget hearings things like that are held over there community dinners um so just really thinking about those spaces and the different uses and I think you're all you already are but to the extent like an AV component I know that that the price tax for that can certainly go up quickly and sometimes the electrical work needs to be integrated so just thinking about that um and then just some public concerns that have come up um you know in the last couple years is about the basketball court in the back and you know how that space will change or um continue to be utilized moving forward and I know there's been some discussion about meeting to remove that but um just want to mention it again that that that's something that I think um maybe some additional um feedback that that you hear moving forward and we haven't even done uh thought about the outside of the building I noticed most of this is not not even talking to that that's good no that's good thank you that's just really excited for the project we're moving forward so thank you charlie you have any questions comments concerns well I think you got the head nod there michael that was a head nod yeah yeah we are aligned here that we this direction is is good and we're excited to see this continue progressing so thank you very much to you and your team and to all of our staff for the work that you all are putting into thanks very much yeah um pristine if you wouldn't mind taking official load it would be yeah an official head nod do I have a motion to approve this o'brien community center update so much second motion by tom a second by brin all those in favor please say aye motion carries thanks so much thank you thank you thank you michael okay next up is item f on for discussion our strategic vision area goal update for self safe healthy connected people and I think I saw a chief audience back there too but perfect and admittedly I'm toggling between screens here so bear with me but we are excited to present our first quarter update I think generally things are moving along about as expected I think where things are slow there are things that we sort of predicted might be um so not any significant red flags to throw here um but happy to answer any questions that folks may have for us I didn't have any questions just was thinking about the the future plan for the senior center and I know it's kind of that item is a little bit in limbo but you know I I don't want us to not do any work while we're waiting and then need to scramble yeah um yeah make a decision and then have it um have the loss opportunity loss of time to be intentional and then just be reactionary have something more expensive something community is less interested so that is the main thing that stood out to me yeah what I can see there burn is like you said we are a little bit in a holding pattern right now waiting for the termination at the e-court um but as we look at the community center redevelopment project we are kind of factoring in the potential for senior programming um you know in some way shape or form to move um centers of location over to the OCC and join the rest of the community services team so we are factoring in some potential space that could be flexible and used for that um there's actually a pretty nice dovetailing with a lot of what the recreation department does programmatically and a lot of what the senior programming does throughout the day obviously rec is mostly after school time a lot of our senior programs happen during the day and we're seeing increasingly an interest in multi-gen programming as well so I think we're we're looking at that you know again in these early iterations of design at the community center how can we incorporate potential parts of the senior center into that and make that functional in the event that that building does end up going away are thoughts about transportation needs to access the facilities yes it's so interestingly I don't think a lot changes there um despite the proximity to the housing authority units you know around the senior center building we don't have a ton of foot traffic from those facilities that's not to say none but we I think already are figuring how do we how do we look at this differently so we've had some conversations with housing authority um we have the new van now which we're starting to figure out how we can put into play in a different way so I think the it's a little bit maybe further distance to drive but I don't think that the fundamental issues are wildly different um because I think we are having a hard time getting folks from housing authority units to the senior center already just because of that walking distance okay but yeah it's a good question it's definitely something worth thinking about yeah and I and I need to add that um you know however strategic a move like that might be we need to be very thoughtful about how we engage your community in that conversation so I wouldn't want to get ahead of a dialogue process before that happens so that that is part of the reason why we haven't done a lot of planning because we don't know what's going to happen with that property we have contingency plans we have strategic plans but I wouldn't make the move without discussing it with the community first it's a it would be a significant change for a population that might feel um slighted if we didn't at least discuss it with them before we made any big moves absolutely and I think that's part of my concern of like the amount of um outreach and and input that that um of itself is usually a pretty dedicated amount of time that's needed so um I think for me that being mindful of needing to work backwards yeah do we know um I have a question about the renovation discussions for the firehouse um and just broad thoughts on timeline if that was something that staff wanted to engineer and then pursue funding for what that might look like so the first step of that is we need to do a study of the facility to see what uh to develop the plans that we would then bid out so I've been holding off on coming to council for what will probably be a fund balance request to fund that study until after we've awarded main street so that was part of that that's helpful to know any other folks have questions okay oh that's right I haven't been checking the zoom I'm so sorry I've been watching okay okay we will move on to um yeah thank you for the update we'll move on to item g this is on for discussion amendments to the unified land use and development regulations right welcome back Eric good evening so I am here tonight to talk with you all about draft amendments to the unified land use and development regulations that impact multiple sections primarily article four is the is the main um the main section of the regulations that are we're proposing changes in uh as you may recall at your meeting on uh July 17th there was some detailed discussion on the draft amendments some concerns were raised at that meeting uh those concerns were discussed um at a follow-up meeting uh that at that meeting as well a public hearing was was set for uh September 5th um during that public hearing some new language was presented to you all that was not included with what was advertised for the hearing so um that new information oh sorry that new language is is what really what I wanted to highlight tonight for additional discussion to to potentially set a a future public hearing to consider uh to consider the changes and and possibly consider adoption of the regulations the the updated language was shared with the planning commission at their regular meeting on uh September 14th not for for any formal input because the process as statute lays out has this really in the hands of council right now it was more for information and for any feedback um both the mayor and uh councilor Oakley were at that meeting so uh they can provide any any input or or follow-up as needed um but so what's included with the packet tonight there's some new language that's highlighted in green that I wanted to to just go over with you all for any additional comments or questions and as I mentioned consideration of setting a uh a public hearing potentially for November 6th to uh to consider this this new language as well um also included with the agenda where the follow-up documents outlining how the the draft regulations specific to parking will impact or could impact development and what changes may need to happen uh based on the approval of act 47 so those are referential documents included for for your information so any questions on that before I start going through the text okay okay great so the first change some of the changes are more just for clarification um so there's a couple of those and the the bulk of the changes really come into the parking primarily related to bicycle parking so the first the first item of change is on document page 21 pdf page 4 just us again some clarification some new couple of words added just to clarify what we're talking about under the under section 4.1 so and I'll just go through these and please stop me if you have any questions or need any additional clarification um the next change the next proposed change is on document page 33 pdf page 16 uh this is under section 4.1 to be uh the last sentence basically striking the language after the the semicolon uh so that it ends with um this will apply to all zoning districts except the downtown core zoning district uh after reviewing the the text this is actually some carryover language from the previous version uh if this if this sentence stays in it would basically mean that projects in the gateway zoning district would be would not have to abide by the accessible parking standards the bicycle parking standards uh any of the standards for changes of use the dimensional standards for for the size of parking spaces and drive aisles and things of that nature and also surface parking treatments so wanted to just make sure that that was clarified that the gateway will need to abide by by the standards in those sections as well um the next change is on document page 35 pdf page 18 again just a couple of added words for clarification uh the next change is on page document page 37 pdf page 20 under part e incentives um we drafted an incentive for underground parking to be able to reduce the number of parking spaces this change adds in uh so that right now as it's as it was drafted and advertised for the public hearing that would only apply to the gateway zoning district however the central business district also has the ability for underground parking because it is one of our more intense uh zoning districts so wanted to extend that provision to the central business district as well for an incentive to reduce parking uh the next change then is on document page 38 pdf page 21 this gets into the the location of bicycle parking specifically the new language that's being proposed here would state that if there is existing short-term bicycle parking um that would meet the same design and and location standards that we're requiring that could be used to satisfy the short-term parking needs of a potential project so if if parking exists that again meets the standards that we've outlined being the uh distance to the to the uh to the entrance to the building the design in consistent with the association of bicycle and pedestrian professionals um and the uh the style and everything else if that if that existing short-term bicycle parking meets those standards it can apply towards what's required on the site uh the next change is on page 39 of the document pdf page 22 this is where we get into some of the what's actually being required for the minimum uh short-term and long-term bicycle parking i will say there wasn't this is one of the areas the planning commission did have some discussion on and didn't really reach much of a consensus i'll say uh related to the first one under multi-unit dwellings uh the proposed language would change it to one space per two bedrooms versus per dwelling unit it really is going to depend on the project for how that is how that impacts the the total number of spaces um if there's more bedrooms in the project obviously it'll it would require more spaces than not i will say there is a the local motion the statewide bicycle and pedestrian advocacy group just recently put out some draft bicycle parking standards and um some model standards and what they are proposing is what was originally drafted the one space per dwelling unit so um one of the items to consider for for potential change or to leave it as it is um the other two changes here are related to short-term parking for the industrial uses for community centers cultural facilities and religious facilities and for funeral homes just increasing those numbers um specifically the industrial is actually more in line with what was what the model regs are from local motion the other two are what was originally proposed are consistent with the model regs um i think there was generally i i don't want to speak for the planning commission but in general i think they were uh they preferred to see them stay as they were for for those two uses the funeral home sorry for the three uses for the multi-unit for the funeral homes and the community centers but it was those were the three areas where i thought maybe we could increase the square footage uh potentially to um to reduce how much short-term parking might be needed again in in response to the to the comments that were made at the july 17th meeting any questions on any of that information at this point and then the last change that was proposed or the last additional language is on document page 40 pdf page 23 to basically say that again short-term bicycle parking only if the most appropriate location would be in a city right of way then they the the applicant would would need to get approval from the department of public works basically to get an encumbrance permit there would also need to be as part of that an agreement for the long-term maintenance and upkeep of of that facility and it would need to be installed consistent with the with the design and installation standards that are outlined in the regulations um and then finally the the bicycle sorry the long-term bicycle parking is going to be available free of charge so those are the changes since the last time you saw this one thing i would just note um as we're discussing all of these i don't know if i've mentioned this previously but since a public hearing was advertised on the draft language not the new language in green that draft language is what we are regulating what we're using to regulate projects that come in based on statute once a public hearing is advertised municipality can use the draft language or i think is basically uses the draft language for i believe it's 150 days so just as a point of reference this is what we are using currently to to regulate projects against thank you for the walkthrough eric um i think what you shared about planning commission put reflects what i recall as well are there questions comments from counselors um for the bicycle parking at a restaurant bar or barupa would where would the business be required to put that parking so the the locations would apply on page 40 pdf page 23 um for the are you talking the short term or the long term i guess so the short term would need to be and this would apply to any any project it would need to be on site within 50 feet of the publicly accessible entrance or on site in a covered location if it's more than 50 feet away um and then it would need to be signed as well the long term is basically just anywhere uh anywhere that uh on under item eight c basically in a completely enclosed secure on site facility so that could be within the building itself um depending on on where it's located or some other structure that is basically only accessed by the the business did the plan commission discuss that particular part i'm just trying to as i look at this i'm trying to think of where the businesses are going to put this required part in we i mean we they discussed it in the context of the drafted language originally so um and yeah i think it's really up to the business for example so um just thinking next door here four quarters they've got their their brewery in the back in essence so that could satisfy the long-term market more about like the businesses around the circle yep sure um so pretty much anywhere they would have a space inside the building could could meet that requirement for the long-term parking so the basement facility or um just somewhere on site that they would be able to accommodate it i will mention that for those businesses there are already existing uses um there is a provision that we've added in for if a use changes uh thinking about those those those spaces in particular they would not need to meet the the current standards for for parking unless they're adding residential space or expanding the square footage of the building so i think of like three bikes sitting inside monkey house might get a whole dangerous yeah so right now there is no standard for long-term parking so if if monkey house were to leave and another business move in there as long as they don't change the the footprint of the building they would not need to to meet the standards they renovated that one that one they would not that's correct okay cool as long as they're not increasing the amount of square footage okay and i believe let's i might be able to tell you where that language is located quickly uh it's actually on page document page 41 pdf page 24 under item h for changes of use yeah we wanted to be mindful of those those particular spaces and other spaces around the city that really have no ability for to to add parking so yeah yeah yeah it's like four quarters could build something pretty easily yeah exactly the store pretty easily yep perfect thank you i was wondering just briefly going back to what was on document page or 38 pdf page 21 um am i understanding that the this added in green text would mean that is this just for required but not for um but not to get the incentive so is it just for required or that's correct yeah it would just be for the required piece but not count towards the incentive that's correct okay yeah in order to be eligible for at least for the the transportation demand management reduction you need to exceed these these minimums so um the the new text on page 38 would would allow an existing rack to be used however if they did not have enough spaces on that rack they would need to add additional parking to to get the incentives or to meet the minimum standards that are required gotcha all right that makes sense thank you any data looked at of like what existing developments have for bike parking versus need uh yeah so um the well i guess in particular the the one document that outlines the the comparison of the regulations the example that i provided on page eight of that document is for 211 Main Street which they do have both long-term and short-term bicycle parking on site um there i think let's see for their short-term parking i think they're i think they're they have more than what they would be required to have or write about what they would be required to have for the long-term parking they do have some on site as well but it's they're not quite at the numbers that we would be required i have seen some projects where they have specific storage rooms in the in the building for each unit which could um which could provide the space necessary for the long-term pretty much with every project that gets permitted we do require them to put in some amount of bicycle parking um there is a provision now in our regulations for bicycle parking um at least for a short term so this would basically enhance what we already require and and formalize it a bit more so we're getting the bicycle parking already at least the short term um and some projects are putting in either like i said storage space or dedicated rooms or dedicated areas for bicycle parking have you heard though about uptake on that uh i have not not specifically and i haven't received any pushback um when when asked or when when when it's being discussed i think i think for some of the projects that are are proposing and this is just an anecdotal um some of the projects we're seeing that are studio apartments i think the the amount of space that's available in the actual unit is is obviously smaller so those buildings are typically putting in some sort of storage to address things like bicycle parking or just storage in general so the tenants have a place to put things okay and not muddy up the muddy up the apartment or you know damage the hallways as they're walking a bike down the down the corridors things of that nature and do you have thoughts on timeline to start reviewing and potentially revising incentives based on the December 24 changes yeah so um the let's see the planning commission i'm hoping week we will start looking at at uh revisions related to act 47 um at their second meeting in august uh sorry october so later this month is my hope um i think the on our on our next agenda we'll be talking about some um preservation regulations and i believe that we probably should wrap that up at this next meeting and be able to set a hearing on that so our second meeting in october we should be able to start getting into the the details on on act 47 okay um are you don't have any questions so i i you're like maybe you can confirm but i've been given um a ratio of 10 bikes can fit into one parking space i would say that's accurate or or potentially more um the document that i provided uh the september 5 additional uh information on the regulations that has the examples does include some vertical some use yeah and some other some other options so um yeah roughly about 10 bikes or so could fit in a parking space probably more yeah so 10 or more bikes for one parking space and in the chart we're arguing about one space per two bedrooms or not um so i certainly especially for multi-unit dwellings and in favor with staking with the planning commissions and the locomotion recommendation one space per unit of one space per unit i think the changes for g um 412 g 4 um i think those additions help alleviate a lot of my concerns over who's responsible for um the off-site uh bike parking and maintenance um i think that put a lot of onus on the city and on taxpayers um which really is a developer's requirement um that they are taking advantage of um so i think that addition is helpful um i don't know that it completely meets the mark but i i think it heads in the right direction at least as far as um what how the parking should be designed and maintained um and having a process for how that's approved so i think that was those were good additions um unrelated to that just throwing in a curveball here um section 4 10 um cc 7 so that's page pdf page 15 um document page 32 yep uh item number seven yep i would love to just change the reference from maximum 100 watt incandescent bulb to 1600 um lumens for an led equivalent so to just have that say 1600 lumen max yep again just trying to move away from incandescent inefficient lighting to more efficient less energy intensive lighting especially letting that will be um on for extended periods of time so um my preference would be to have the city require any um lighting converted to leds um that we reference in our ordinances other than that um i think those were the two primary things that i um wanted to make sure we're included and and again just advocate for the um proposals brought by the planning commissioners and by local motion so just to to summarize if i may so then the chart the table on page document page 39 pdf 22 um leaving the original language in with the exception of the industrial for the short term to change that to consistent or more consistent i'll say with the guidance correct that is what i'm advocating and if if um the other counselors are willing to um negotiate then i would say reverting to the locomotion original language for multi-dwelling units what i love to feel about these options it's fine with me yeah i'm comfortable with um those changes i lean towards the suggested updates in green um i think the majority of our development i don't know if it's the majority maybe two large of a word but we have a lot of one bedroom and studio being developed there are a lot of small households so i lean towards doing it by bedroom there's also been previous discussion at the planning commission about concern when we were talking about parking and reducing parking requirements for larger bedroom units there was concern that that created an equity of access to parking like that a larger family would potentially need more than one vehicle or more than someone in a one bedroom um and i think that applies thinking about bicycles too like a studio one bedroom may just have one person one user a three four bedroom may have a family in there with multiple users so i feel like the green text is more aligned with actual use i i just counter and say i would defer to locomotions recommendations i guess kind of thinking about both of those is when you ski different enough that maybe locomotions looking statewide i guess that that would be the one thing i could see kind of comparing what the mayor you're bringing up and bring your point because i can definitely see both but now i am wondering about yeah when you ski specific data or when you ski specific needs yeah and i only just reiterate the um ratio of 10 bicycles or more per parking space ray do you want to bring over our public commenter yep should be here in just a second all right abby you should be good to go um i just wanted to bring in some of what happened at the planning commission's conversation around this topic just so that there's full clarity the reason that um well i guess i'll start by saying the original language was taken from burlington so it wasn't taken from a rural part or a part unlike vermont and um since the planning commission put it forward locomotion came out with their standards which just happened to be in line with what our standards were because i think burlington is sort of a city of best practices when it comes to bike parking um and then i'll note that the conversation that the planning commission was having around the three-plus bedroom or i should say the two bedroom versus the um dwelling unit language was actually opposite of what it sounds like is being discussed which was there was concern that since we want larger units that we would be distance incentivizing developers to build larger units if we say when you're building these larger units you have to have more bike parking so that was sort of the the discussion like we're trying to do everything in our power to get larger homes and larger units built and if we're putting more standard on those like if we're not giving relief to vehicle parking and bike parking and all these other things like it's just that much less enticing for them to build it they're obviously not eager to build it already so i just wanted to frame that with the discussion if we are thinking about units we're agnostic to the size but if we're talking to bedroom we're potentially saying okay if we build what you we want what we're lacking in the city we're going to make you do more so i just wanted to give that context to that discussion any other public comments um thank you abby for clarifying the discussion around bicycle parking was concerned about disincentivizing larger units i was referring to a previous discussion around car parking where there was concern about not providing enough car parking to larger units many ways to look at it so in this example um um if it was to stay one space per two bedrooms then three bedrooms would require two bicycle spaces correct yes so the way it's written it's one parking bicycle parking space per two bedrooms if it's three bedrooms then it's two bicycle spaces so it wouldn't be one of the four bedrooms require two but bike spaces how would you calculate that it's an overall typically it's rounded up any any percentages are rounded up but is it per unit if there are like two three bedroom units would you count across those six bedrooms yes yeah we would look at the total number of bedrooms in the whole project to to do the calculation um but if it was just one unit then yeah then yeah so abby's just saying it might disincentivize a three bedroom home with saying fine you need two bicycle parking spaces for a three bedroom home yeah so there was a project that was 10 units all with three bedrooms if we were doing it on a per bedroom uh basis that would require 15 long-term spaces versus a per unit basis which would just be 10 so so yes it's there is a potential disincentive to do the larger units or have more bedrooms in the units um so one unit it does seem that uh doing it by the dwelling does like directly disincentivize building the type of housing that our constituents have said over and over that we need so would we like to move forward with calling a new public public hearing uh well actually okay we talked about multi dwelling how do folks feel about the changes to industrial funeral and community center cultural facility i also support those changes are the hotel recommendations of those from local motion as well i believe they're consistent with what local motion has let me just double check here yes they're the they're the same as what what's been recommended okay over or charlie feelings about the square footage changes uh they look practical to me so to confirm the industrial in green lines up with local motions recommendation and the new uh the community center and funeral home original so not in green the lines that's correct okay yes yeah for local motion for the industrial it is 25,000 one space per 25,000 gross square feet so this is a little less than what they're what they've included but closer than the 10,000 originally it's complicated things but i think going back to the original for the community center makes sense to me so going back to the 1,000 because i do see right that would end up having more spaces overall and i do see the bikes or bike racks at the o' brian center being used a lot but the funeral home i i don't see that as i mean maybe i'm making assumptions but i don't necessarily see that as needing as much bike parking so the 2,000 makes more sense to me sorry to throw that wedge in there but the yeah i think we it's good to have more bikes for the community center and i'm willing to come to the middle and say like if we can adjust the multi-dwelling unit back to the from two-bedroom to dwelling units and revert back from 2,000 suggested by council to 1,000 for the community center then i think i'm fine with the industrial funeral home as proposed for moving forward to public hearing okay so i am looking for a motion to set another public hearing on november 6th including all of the changes in this document except for the multi-dwelling unit and community center cultural facility religious facility use so moved sorry if i may uh also including the change under section and bren's suggestion about the lumens yes yes thank you did you just move this i did motion by bren second second by rora all those in favor please say i i i motion carries thank you great thank you all very much thank you for your work on this absolutely thank you okay yeah uh it is 714 i'm going to call a six-minute break we will read so it is 720 i'll reconvene us on item h this is on for discussion fiscal year 2025 budget goal setting who will kick us off i'll take that for now so council lasts to set goals for the fiscal year i'm just reading from the cover date so if you've already read you can tune out for a little bit here for fiscal year 2024 2025 that budget the budget for that fiscal year to inform how staff develops that proposed budget over the next weeks and months months so council's asked to do something a little bit unusual but not compared to in you know a few years ago perhaps councils asked to choose one of the options that i'll uh describe here so one two and uh one two three and four so the first option is minimal tax rate increase budget the goal of this would be to minimize the projected tax rate increase but would also mean cuts to existing services and possibly staff i'm not trying to be dramatic here but uh minimal tax rate increase will result in one of these things if council chooses option members are asked to identify potential master plan vision areas for service reductions so again to remind everyone that's economic mentality you know infrastructure housing or safe healthy connected people a second option is level services budget this would allow for costs for existing services to be updated for estimated inflation or cost of building increases but does not increase investment in any area to catch up on deficiencies again first option is minimal tax rate increase second option is level services the third option would be a catch-up budget this would allow for costs for existing services to be updated and for some increases to catch up on some deficiencies and know that you have a very practical staff we're not interested in increasing the budget to the point of unsustainability for our residents but we do recognize that the reality is we've under invested in the services that this community deserves and so we'd like to uh this option would allow us to to try to make some strategic investments in this in this budget so again if council does choose this option the catch-up budget option members of council are asked to identify priority master plan and vision areas to fund again economic mentality municipal infrastructure housing or safe healthy connected people and then the fourth option is mix of service cuts and catch-up investments if council chooses this option members are asked to identify which master plan vision areas to reduce and which to fund so again the four options that we've uh that i've just that i'm described are minimal tax rate increase budget level services budget a catch-up budget or a mix of service cuts and catch-up investments i recognize this is a hard question to be asking council to be deciding right now um but this is the reality of the types of budget that staff have to go through and so i want to make this a very transparent process we're asking them to discuss this in public thank you thank you laine um angela would you be able to walk through the data memo please um i can there is quite a bit of information that has been included in here um the contextual information that we started with is the tax rate history um showing what our increases have been historically to the municipal tax rate in comparison to the consumer price index which is what we do for our cost of living increases for staff um i also include the percentage of voter approval for the people who turned out in an election to support our budget to show how much of the community is being supportive of the city's financial uh work uh we've also included a 10-year tax rate increase for the municipal versus the education side to show that the city has been extremely conservative in the amount that we have increased our taxes over the last 10 years um at this point we have increased from between fiscal year 2014 to fiscal year 2024 25 percent um in that time the school has increased their tax rate 75 percent we are just now this fiscal year at the same rate that the school was at in 2014 um one of the new pieces of information that was included in this budget this year was the grand list growth history the grand list growth is one of the things that can offset our tax rate increase because the city of wanowski is landlocked and almost completely built out we don't have a lot of opportunity for our grand list to grow outside of um projects that are redeveloped on existing lots usually increasing the density of the city um over the last five years we have roughly been in the one percent range from a low of a half a percent this current fiscal year up to a high of 1.6 percent in 2021 um the breakdown on our taxes that have increased year to year is shown in the next graph and i've broken it out in between the amount of new tax dollars that we raised between the amount of new tax dollars that was associated with the grand list growth and the amount that was associated with the tax rate increase so you can see in that year where we had that larger grand list growth how much of that bar was taken up um and we were able to keep that tax rate impact to a minimum there unfortunately that is not something that we can directly impact we can incentivize people to redevelop here but not something that we can force so one of our obviously major costs to the city is wages and benefits over 62 percent of the general fund budget is our staff and their related costs with health insurance like a medi all of the the benefits that we provide to staff wage and benefit increases annually have way ranged um around six percent low of 2.2 in 2020 and a high of 10.6 in 2023 which was obviously the high rate of inflation at that time um one of the things that the finance commission raised was to try and figure out how much staff is being supported by these dollars um when i put that information in this chart originally it was a little misleading because we have a 24-7 police station seeing the number of employees compared to the number of employees in community services was a little disproportionate so i converted it instead of number of people to number of hours that those those dollars buy um we in the general fund uh have approximately 116,700 hours of staff time that is devoted across all of the service areas with over 41,000 being police service hours and another 33,000 being community service hours those are most highly um funded areas in terms of staff time so uh the other new piece of information that was included this year was prior fiscal year backgrounds for items where the city had invested in those years where tax increases were really targeted um we went back five years in 2020 the big increase that year was increasing the capital budget for anticipating main street and the pool that was a little um bit offset by the local options tax increase that year so only a portion of this was funded by tax dollars much of it was local options tax revenue in 2021 we had to add in pool operations so community services was increased by over 140,000 and then fire department staffing costs went up slightly just over 16,000 to add per diem coverage which allows us to schedule shift workers um to cover some of the time when our full-time staff is not here in 2022 that represented the year where the working communities challenge grant came on board which was not tax funded but did represent a bottom line increase and then community services we shifted the thrive child care program from a standalone program into the general fund because it was unable to support itself with its fees this represented an impact to taxes of just over 26,000 dollars 2023 it was a variety of things administration it was mostly our general services partners our regional partners with green mountain transit um needing an increase of 35,000 for their fees and then we included the 22,500 dollar increase for the local option tax percentage that's being paid to downtown Wanooski community services saw an increase in that year of about 212,000 dollars for ESSA related staff in that year um it was offset by funding coming from the school um those positions have mostly been retained in the current fiscal year but are no longer supported by that contract also in fiscal year 23 we increased staffing costs by about uh 30,000 dollars which was related to a promotion uh for one of the assistant fire marshal positions that is uh bruce palmers position now which has taken on a lot more of the administrative managerial capacity in that department and then finally for the current fiscal year we invested additional money into software services um and the supplies cost um and legal services to reflect the increases and prices that we've seen over time community services shifted the senior center into the general fund at a cost of around 24,000 dollars um because that program no longer has a constant revenue stream from bingo we are no longer running bingo at that center so that is being supplemented by general fund taxes fire department increased salary and benefits to um increase weekend coverage um and included 7,000 dollars for diesel fuel to support st michaels college for mutual aid coverage the additional funding that had been budgeted for the fire department as you know has been reallocated to a diesel fuel tracking system um to also support that effort um in the police department we increased about 76,000 for administrative support that would be needed here on site should regional dispatch be implemented that funding is currently on hold in that budget and then finally this fiscal year public works had increases to their vehicle and equipment maintenance lines of just over 40,000 and line striping contract increased about 8,000 dollars both of those items were due to inflation and rising costs okay moving forward we've done some initial looks at what is going to be coming in f y 25 this is all very preliminary because we're looking ahead quite a bit of time um the current estimate for the cost of living increase is 4 percent the july cost of living was 3.2 and august was 3.7 so we're trending around a more average number than what we had seen last year we've looked at several agencies that do forecasts of what the consumer price index is going to do in the future we are using the october to october cost of living and they are estimating that to between uh three percent and 4.88 percent so we went right down the middle with a slight edge towards the high side um that impact would be about 142,000 city wide with about 116,000 in um general fund alone now that is representative only of a cost of living increase that does not include any increases related to step increases for existing staff second item that is new um the remont house and senate overrode phil scott's veto for h 217 for the child care payroll tax this is a 0.44 percent um tax for employers to remit to the state of remont um based on the existing wages this would be about 23 000 of additional expense to the city in the general fund alone we are estimating again about a 0.8 percent increase in the grand list that would offset some of these increases um this would be only about 12 500 dollars worth of new revenue into the city from that growth uh the next big cost to the city is health insurance um we generally provide our insurance through the vermont health connect we offer blue cross blue shield plans the um rate that is estimated by our benefits advisor for the next year is 13.175 percent um applied to our existing staff and their existing benefit makeup um that would be about 144 000 increase over the existing year and then this is included here um but is not included in the estimated impact because it's not a ton of money the tax increment financing district is expiring this may we will be paying off our debt service um and so next fiscal year the increment dollars that have been going to repay that debt will flow into the general fund that was estimated to be about one and a half million dollars of that one and a half million dollars four hundred forty five thousand is expenses that will continue like legal services the general fund transfer that we've been receiving and then um the support of our community and economic development fund um council had earmarked about 623 000 for the main street debt service that will come from the usda loans to construct the project and last year council assigned 409 000 that was used from arpa for um expenses that were not included in the tax rate increase those were stated that they would come from tiff dollars when the tiff expired this leaves about 23 000 available for allocation just those items without increasing anything else or the the um step increases for staff represent about a 2.2 percent increase just to the tax rate there's a still some unknowns um while we have some more concrete details about the school resource officer we are still working out how that is going to look financially I have the memo from the superintendent that I'm working through and Elaine and I are are working on what the funding structure would look like for that position moving forward um so the amount of compensation that we will ultimately receive is still undetermined at this point we are still experiencing staffing shortages um we have had long-term vacancies in the police department public works and fire um some of these have been vacant for months and um this also includes our code enforcement position we are seeing applications come in but we are seeing a lack of response to requests for interviews or people who receive offer letters that um do not accept the position um another emerging issue that is going to be confusing is our reappraisal um the assessors have told us that our reappraisal will be in on April 1st of this year um this will change the grand list so the denominator that goes into all of the calculation of our tax rate um so the tax rate that we are calculating now will look very different from the tax rate that people will see on their bill the percentage increase should still apply to the amount that they pay in total but we are going to try and be as transparent and clear about this as possible it is a very confusing thing and we are going to try and demonstrate it as easily as we can to the general public um Elaine does have more information on this next topic and that is the regional dispatch it is still in a holding pattern uh as far as I know um so we had funding that was set aside for that transition that is still on hold but this project is not dead yet and could still move forward and lastly the Winooski River bridge replacement um has received grant funding through the state as you are aware and the city of Winooski would be responsible for a portion of the grant match for that project which is currently estimated to be about three million dollars we are unlikely to be able to fund that directly from our coffers and would likely need to bond um John Rauscher has recommended that we go to a bond vote whether that is at town meeting or not would be at the discretion of council but it is currently staff's recommendation and then the final section is a comparison year over year of how the tax bill breaks down between all of our different departments it's a lot of information and then the second memo is a list of unfunded things that we identified last year to show a picture of many outstanding needs not all of which have dollars identified correct and there are some items and underlying that are new since last year not necessarily to staff but you have not you didn't see them in a list like this last year excellent thank you Elaine okay before we get into discussion um about the the goals ask let's take a moment to ask any clarifying questions um for Elaine or Angela or other staff on the data we've been presented thank you for all of the work that you put into this I just not really a question I just want to kind of make clear that when we say voter approval of the budget that doesn't necessarily mean voter approval of the budget people may vote yes because they believe in what we're doing but they may not approve of the amount of money that we're asking them to pay which I think is what a lot of us are hearing from our voters that our taxes here are extremely high and keep getting higher so I just don't want to correlate people improving it because they think that we're doing our best to give them a budget and them actually being okay with paying that much money it's interesting Thomas I had a note down here that's very much the opposite we have this high approval of our budgets and I worry that you know we're here to represent all residents and not just those who might have the best access to us um so thinking about who are the residents who we're not hearing from to I want to make sure that something that we're holding especially when we think about our equity assessment worksheet and how that might apply to our budget process well so this is the reason why I had included in the cover sheet um the results of the ARPA memo and then um the equity assessment and then our oh did I miss the I forgot to ask for the engage community engagement link right I don't see it here um so I would think back to all of the community engagement sessions we've been doing as well um and the what we heard from the ARPA outreach Angela I don't know if you can answer this um I am curious why in FY 23 and 24 homestead education tax rate is actually higher than non-residential for the state I don't know the the statistics behind that at the state the state is definitely the source of that calculation thank you um Angela are you accounting for um let's see you've got Kula are you accounting for any anticipated other than uh health benefits any other rate increases utility rate increases or a partner program cost increases so we do do that during the building of the budget we have not started building the budget yet but we do anticipate those things okay yeah that's a good point because we every year we see those rate those requests increase and some of them can be more significant don't know there's um I know there's um and for just discussion I know there's a lot of like things are influx on the O'Brien Center like is that going to be an FY 25 consideration um as well as um Memorial Park and potential transfer of ownership for that um so just also there are in addition to the unknowns that are provided there are some other kind of significant potentially significant unknowns to call out Elaine would you want to speak to either of those will be do you want me to repeat I'm sorry could you repeat I had a big crowd walk by no worries um so I was just talking there were a number of unknowns called out um for us to reflect on and I also wanted to mention there are some things that are still to be determined such as um ownership of the and and maintenance of Memorial Park um O'Brien Center transition and then the transition of um management ownership of the O'Brien Center so there are just two examples of things that are still unknowns that may influence FY 25 are you asking me to come on another possible unknowns I didn't hear the question I think it's do you expect those to impact the FY will those costs come up in FY 25 budget yes I'm anticipating there will be some um so again like that's why we're we've asked counsel for more general direction based on the visionaries as opposed to very specific cuts because it's not that's not um appropriate levels um like you don't have enough information right in terms of the specifics yeah so the general area would be helpful and then we would be developing more detail as we develop the budget for you to consider more specifically and in terms of the O'Brien Community Center during his presentation Michael mentioned that the city has told him how much we are able to pay and rent that is equivalent to the amount of the burden on the taxpayers right now um so there should be no impact to the tax rate for the city beginning to pay rent at that space instead of being the owner so we can raise the money that's needed to keep the level there so thank you Angela for that clarification I think that's very helpful to capture and frame neither data background questions okay so we've been asked by staff to provide direction on one of these budget options and prioritize strategic vision areas this is very different from the process we used last year where because of the terminating grant dollars we were very specific about positions and programs and and what to keep and what to remove I think this approach that Elaine has presented could allow us to better align on direction for staff as they draft a budget and then defer to their expertise on well assuming assuming we don't use level services or any if it's any other option um relying on their expertise about priority additions deficiencies etc um and what comes back to us um so I think if that is the approach we take then we wouldn't be saying like I want to see x amount of dollars for x program in this conversation um and we could get more in the details on those specifics through each budget presentation um I would like us to try to start there yeah though yeah that's what's been asked we'll see what happens and I will say that I'm actually pretty pleased to see level services at 2.21 percent with a 4 cpi although I you know considering what we've heard step increases on included partner fees etc I suspect it will actually be it would actually be even a little bit higher but I would support I would support some catch up um in deficiencies not to go too wild um and my my personal priority would be in the realm of municipal infrastructure and um yes who would like to share thoughts next are you saying option three or option I I am supporting option three um with my focus being in municipal infrastructure um I think I would have to agree with that others um um yeah uh just based on my experience with the community my email inbox um I hear the most from constituents about lacking infrastructure um that might be because we've invested so heartily in programmatic stuff um but I think that it would be negligent to ignore everything that we've heard from so many different areas of the community regarding striping sidewalks safety walkability um that's sort of where my eyes are set currently in the conversation all right um I am also in favor of option three if I had to choose one area I would do community services um I mean safe healthy connected people specifically community services and fire and code which we're not getting into but those are consistent uh I see that there's still consistent underfunding that I worry is just going to snowball um but municipal infrastructure would be my second choice um I will be the outlier as usual and say I'm in favor of number four um make some service cuts and catch up that was my first thought that way I think um reasoning I think there were some grant funds that ended um that we opted to fund for FY 24 um with the direction that we wanted to have um staff look at um reducing um from full subsidy to partial subsidy um or um progressively moving with the intent of um perhaps progressively moving towards self funding um and using their own expertise to explore ways to to get to that best with the um by towards um equity and access needs um the uh that was just something that that sticks with me from the last um budget conversation um for catch up I I think we absolutely need to allocate funds towards infrastructure needs um I would like to see some uh just a year over year line item for line striping um uh and traffic calming especially I think it would be wise to start saving um and setting some funds aside for the bridge project and perhaps putting what we can into um interest bearing um escrow or whatever Angela recommends um but however we can to just um decrease the the longer term impact and just prepare ourselves um judiciously for that for that brand oh maybe I should look I was just gonna say I I got some information from Ray earlier that addresses your um the issue with the like subsidized programs and self funding so I think he's actually working on that already to put him on the spot yeah yeah and I think you know to be clear we are you know not even we're just a quarter into the first you know first year where we're bouncing back and Esther just finished on September 30th so we're just sort of now moving into fee based programming so you will see as part of this upcoming budget you know a look at what does a shift from fully subsidized fully free programming to a more mixed model look like I think candidly that's going to be built on some speculation right because we're not going to have a ton of trend data to build that from um and so but we are going to be considering that certainly as part of our approach um I think we recognize coming out of us or there's got to be some revenue stream coming in and I think that the art in this is going to be how do we do that how do we turn that knob and not see participation and enrollments fall off and that's where the equity lens is really going to come in for us so I think certainly we're just starting the budget building process so more to come but I just want to acknowledge we are looking at that and you will see that addressed as part of the fiscal year 25 budget um hard to say at this point how those revenue numbers will look different but I think that they will likely look different for 25 and I and I think with that um it's not necessarily a cut in the formal sense but a more of a just a gradual reduction in full subsidy to partial gradations of partial subsidy and then there I know regional dispatch is on hold but that is obviously a rather large chunk of money so wanting to have some assurance that in FY 25 or sooner that we'll see some movement there um otherwise I'd love to see that go to other infrastructure projects or um I don't know Elaine how you're thinking about a if regional dispatch doesn't move forward addressing some of the problems that it is supposed to address yeah in our final post sorry you were going to say something I think no just I in terms of like option four like I recognize a need to try to not raise taxes as much as we can but I would not want to suggest service cuts if that meant a loss of staff um because I think that would also create great detriment to the city so like I like what Bryn was saying if there are other ways to raise money donation boxes at the parks etc yeah I I do want to say one thing when I don't think we can talk about reduction to our community service and like you can't reduce community services and continue the equitable work that they're doing so I do want to say that like I don't like we are currently not meeting all of our communities needs through that and again I'll point out that it is one of our least funded but highest hour um departments so that something to keep in mind too that is because a number of those positions are seasonal positions without benefits so they do a lot of hours for lower costs because they do not have the cost for health insurance life insurance dental vision all the other incidentals I think also what I was just hearing from from what Bryn was describing wouldn't actually impact any services it's not a reduction in services or what Ray is saying is just looking at funding structure so folks who can pay and are willing to do for some programs and helps with subsidy I feel like we're we have some fairly aligned guidance to offer here yeah I heard option three some catch up don't go crazy definitely consensus on municipal infrastructure if you we might staff might make some other strategic recommendations but understand that that was the direction from council is really municipal infrastructure does that reflect what you all were saying I believe so you have one vote vote for safe healthy connected people thank you and um you might have noticed I sent an email out earlier I've been hearing questions through through the last couple weeks that relate to budget I shared those with staff we have some responses back which I shared via email there's more to come and so I think that detailed information can help inform the next step in this process and continue to raise questions that you have in the meantime I have a clarifying question on the memo to the really should do yeah I know most of these are carryovers from this past year like the first bullet on the second page is ash tree removal I'm probably confusing that with the allocation of funds for the tree or mainstream yeah no oh the other um what was the grand there was a budget the one that we did uh yeah like recently yeah so the that is the different thing so the trees that we took down through that allocation were um hazard trees in landry and cassavan um so not necessarily ash trees this is looking more strategically at the recommendation right now that ash trees proactively come down sort of in anticipation of emerald ash borer coming through so that that it was a different thing but um it is something we're starting to look at at least on the park side um I have not circled around with with john on that john rousher a need to but um something we're starting to look at one thing that was mentioned in the memo is like at least some of these might be eligible for grant um projects it I know it might be hard but is it possible to flag the ones or are they the ones that are underlined um what could be grant eligible versus what would be fully subsidized by the city underlines are new from last year I was guessing so part of the policy priorities and strategies for council from council for the fiscal years to look at what um what we what was it it was something related to what we'd be missing without grant funding so that will be part of the analysis okay I also had that question I wonder if we can and if this is not possible feel free to ignore or let me know um but thinking about I think there sometimes is a difference between like the amount of money slash how hard it like what am I trying to say I think that in some areas say police have a lot more access to like funds um outside of taxes and those seem a little easier to get versus community service which there are a lot of grants but they're for a little bit of money so it's a lot of work for a little money I'm wondering if that can be taken into account um because I do feel like municipal infrastructure actually is an area that can bring in a lot of state and federal money but say fire is also another example where I'm not seeing a whole lot of big grants for that so it feels like if there's grant money that we can bring to some of our um departments that would be like kind of a good to know in in general versus that then makes more sense for us to then pay into the ones that have less access to um grant state and federal funds if that made sense it was a little rambling one thing that I do want to flag in terms of grants for the police department is that oftentimes they come with a supplement not supplant clause so we cannot use police grants to do things that we have previously budgeted for so we could not cut our budget and then backfill it with grant money that would mean I'm not saying that I'm saying like when we're considering adding items items that aren't like within these should do list especially the one time yeah return on investment or return on effort for grant work is certainly part of the calculus yeah that that would just be kind of helpful to know I would also say as a general observation if a capital project to create something new can get some grant funded but we never all of it right yeah um but anything operational or like ongoing staffing often does not yeah yeah and we ran into the issue with the main street project in terms of the grant funding that we received initially we were unable to utilize at least three of those grants due to terms in the grant conditions that would have required us to do buy American or buy American steel that would have increased the cost of the project beyond the amount of grants that we were going to receive but I think that's something that we can keep in mind um later in this process is what our services that we alone can deliver versus where we can get support from from outside yeah um do we still have any public attendees no comments you do have one oh welcome up welcome up I'm sorry I just got used to no comment no you're fine you're fine um I was encouraged by the discussion that just happened that you're encouraging a catch-up budget I think we've I would interpret our vote as approval that is actual you know people putting marks on paper to approve the budget that people are that the city is putting forward and I think that we have a community that is really excited about what the future holds for us but the only way that we can do that is by investing in that community um and so without actually putting money towards things that we're building and then being able to sustain it we're going to be in trouble um and so I think there's a lot of really cool projects on the horizon I just really want to encourage council to encourage those projects and then also look for more than one year at a time but think about that long term sustainability thank you so much can you state your name for the record please yes just wignall um and I'm so sorry I should have invited public comment before we made the final decision but yeah sounds very aligned with what we're discussing yes I was encouraged to hear it I was going to say something about thank you so much for coming in thank you appreciate it okay um are you good anything else useful for staff this is going to be an evolving conversation so uh bear with us as we go through that and lead you through that as best we can and thank you for your work today thank you so much and yeah Angela I appreciate that you got all of that background information to us while you were doing audit and all the other things you do um and John and Ray for responding to messages they received just today um and everyone all staff for your your work this evening that's the end of tonight's agenda so have a motion to adjourn so moved second motion by Thomas second by Aurora all those in favor please say aye aye motion carries good night everyone