I'm going to call the meeting to order, but first before we get started I just want to say I think I speak for the council when I say that we are all just so saddened and heartbroken even really over the death of Mark Johnson and I just want to recognize that that is just so painful and you know he knew a lot of people in the community and I just want you also to know that so I was invited to take a by one of the residents of the Pioneer Street Apartments to take a tour of that building and meet some of the residents there and I just want to extend an invitation to the council if you want to come with me on that just let me know love to have you along so I also just want to say that we as a council are not in a position to speculate as to whether or not that was the police action was justified or not but I do want everybody to know that we are as a city committed to a full and rigorous investigations being done currently by the state police I know there are some people here who have a lot of thoughts about and feelings about this and would like to share that so as we go into general business and appearances if there's anybody who specifically who wants to talk about that incident that would let's let's do that first I think and so and just so you know how this is going to go we'd love to hear your thoughts and feelings and questions and then just so you're aware our police chief is not he's not around today so we're going to be collecting your your thoughts and questions and and then probably having an item on the agenda sometime in the future to to talk about those those things so I know you want to go welcome thank you madam mayor and council for having me here my name is Lawrence Tyler I'm a huge advocate my wife and I are huge advocates in the field of special needs with television show called special people I mean sorry Ableton on air which is on Orca media but just to say that I live at pioneer apartments and so does my wife and even though we did not know mr. Johnson completely well he was nice to us and you know timid man he didn't like crowds etc. but what needs to happen in my opinion is that there needs to be more crisis intervention with Montpelio police department and just the thought that if you guys on the council can make it a ruling that all mom or anybody that wants to work for the Montpelio police or the state as far as police should mandatory Lee get training either through Washington County NAMI Vermont or any of those organizations that offer this training this should not have happened there according to some people from Washington County that I have spoken to who've been on my show numerous times de-escalation does not take a court the police have spoken to mr. Johnson to try that he was on the Sprint Street Bridge and then pointed the gun at the police but de-escalation does not take five minutes it takes longer than that counseling somebody takes longer than that so there needs to be more de-escalation techniques thank you particularly I also just want to note that I neglected to do to review and approve the agenda we'll do that after I suppose so any any further comments particularly on this incident Zac Hughes prospect neighborhood so I come here tonight I too struggled with mr. Johnson's death and addition a friend of mine died over the weekend as well so it's been a tough weekend yeah last weekend but it was interesting I was asked by someone on the street he seemed to think I can fix things so they said to me what am I gonna do about this and I said I would give it some thought and come in with some suggestions nothing here tonight but what I will say is that I will be part of the effort to try to learn from this incident and move forward we have the one thing I will do tonight may not give me brownie points and not looking for it as I'm going to say that I am and I continue to have full confidence in the Montpelier police department and their personnel it was not an easy situation on Friday I'm sure and I want to say what we already have in place what I understand we do have crisis intervention we continue to have that in Washington County it's known as team 2 they're working on it and it was just in the newspaper the other day so you said this is not going to be an easy thing and I will continue to educate people and of course come on Lawrence a show which I have done a series of interviews and so I give my condolences to mr. Johnson and his family and I also give my support to the Montpelier police department and all personnel involved that morning thank you I would like to discuss this particular topic good evening I have some thoughts that I wrote if you would say your name for us yes I'm Peter Harris I live on East State Street I'm alarmed by two police homicides in as many years and I'm wondering about the direction of the peaceable backwater that I have called home for three decades I understand mr. Johnson had no history of violence yet was shot with a long gun from a distance it will be particularly cruel if we find out that mr. Johnson was actually trying to get into his own apartment corrective action as to police procedures and protocols should flow from this death even if the policeman is exonerated thank you thank you other thoughts on this particular topic Steven Whitaker Steven Whitaker I second Zach's comments I do have faith in our police department and yet I that leaves room for mistakes to have been made the de-escalation that compressed time period the use of a long gun there's a whole lot of eight questions that arise training and technique and protocol for inviting more experienced mental health counseling in is essential I have told people for decades that I live in Montpelier because we don't have these kinds of shootings here and it's tragic that we're joining the ranks of national without prejudging whether this was this could have been avoided in my informed opinion I've circulated and make available some more copies of the photo of Mark he's one of ten children from Vermont and there's only one left you know but these are available is this your only non-agenda item nope so I was gonna shift so and then if you have other things to say I'll have a separate time for that too so I would encourage I would encourage the city council to take whatever action is possible I filed a public records request I know some media organizations have to release information as soon as possible specifically cruiser cam schematic etc this may be a storm and it may take some time to pass but the sooner we get started the later if if it looks as if we're going to the better I mean if it looks as though we're it's gonna take six months or a year that's gonna not be good Elizabeth Parker hillside Avenue I think one of the reasons I live in Montpelier is because there's a deep sense of caring that we all have for each other and I wanted to say that I was very impressed that on Saturday I saw two police officers who I've never seen knowingly at the market walking through the market I as I remind everybody I'm car liberated so I walk everywhere and as a consequence I know everyone downtown you just it's so small you get to know people and I I love our police department I think that they do so many things so well and my one thing is I encourage them to walk more so that they really get to know everybody because if they had been downtown and they would have known this man who was so vulnerable and so sweet and things would might have gone differently so that's my one suggestion thank you thank you anyone else on this topic okay well thank you all for for your thoughts any any counselors want to comment on this particularly if not that's fine okay any besides this topic any other general business appearances issues now to be an okay time Stephen again Stephen Whitaker I'd like to read into the record there was an incident a few days ago up on the trail between from Memorial Drive and Main Street or Northfield Street headed up two old buddies who went to high school here with Bob Watson etc one now lives in Vietnam the other lives in British Columbia they came here they decided to go have a beer up on the trail and they were accosted by four police officers they were you know flashlights prepared as clubs computer data terminals to run their license etc I asked for the records I got the reports their reports reflected no you know burglar on the loose suspects resembled anything like that this was basically something that needs the attention I'm going to read into the record the response I got from one of those people Steve thank you for your thoughtful email the conduct of the MPD officers was indeed suspect and likely illegal the cops had no probable cause to interrogate Bob and me and to demand that we show identification which they then used to search their database for any excuse to place us in custody they also lied to us they claimed that we were they were asked to inspect the area to investigate quote a loud disturbance and quote they also claimed that we were on private property quote owned by a woman who lives in California and quote who who's requested their help in quote keeping out vagrants and quote on her property we now know as Bob told me before we went there to drink a beer that the property is owned by national life Bob should show up at the meeting tonight if he remains indignant at the cops disruption of our otherwise wonderful reunion I'm off to Vietnam for a few weeks to resume my volunteer teaching duties and have little interest in fighting small-town police misconduct if the recent unwelcome intrusion by the cops somehow affects my pending departure my attitude about this subject will change dramatically I think y'all need to be very engaged with I just want to interject I just got a note that there is no audio on the streaming okay well I'm not gonna repeat myself but I think I'm raising the caution as I do regularly I also discovered from talking to the homeless some of the homeless folks that a former officer who retired last year is making appearances in plain clothes with badge and gun and on one of those appearances he kicked the homeless people's money bucket and I raised this I think Chief Fankos is aware and did ex laudably express concern that someone might be impersonating a Montpelier officer who no longer works here thank you thank you see okay any other general business and appearances otherwise not on our agenda sorry I'm not used to the city council my name is Erica rail I'm representing the Vermont Center for Independent Living as well as people with disabilities as well as myself so many different hats tonight some of you know me so I'm actually here to talk about the homeless task force that's been talked about in the paper so if if the item that you want to talk about is on the agenda then we will get there and you can talk I didn't know if I wouldn't talk tonight this open forum or not okay so I can talk later yes yes thank you and so this time is for any I should have specified I'm sorry this is for talking discussing any items that are otherwise not on our agenda oh yeah no worries at all no worries it's all good okay any other discussion items otherwise not on our agenda all right so just reviewing and approving the agenda don't think there's any changes I think there's going to be an amendment to the consent agenda we'll deal with that next otherwise I don't think anything has been taken off or adjusted am I correct about that team so consider the agenda approved without objection so on to the consent agenda Jack I'd like to take item F off the consent agenda any other items okay is there a motion regarding the consent agenda move it second assuming without item F for the discussion all in favor please say aye opposed okay thank you so the consent agenda is approved and we're going to take up item F right now because Michael is here so I don't know if John you want to take this one or if we should be inviting someone up what do you sure about just mention real quick and I apologize I had put it down as an item for discussion so I would not have tried to slip this one by because it involves a policy issue the policy for vendors has been they have to be gone by 10 o'clock so this is someone who came to me requesting to set up a vendor space to sell food 10 o'clock and later so obviously it means both the spots out front are available and that's where you'd like to be and you know I was like well I don't know it's policy decision so come to the city council so that's that's the genesis any questions from council thoughts I love it I'd like to hear from the vendor to have a little more detail Michael can't a loop on from the law field Michael can't a loop on from the law field hi welcome I like to serve food after 10 o'clock at night for all the patrons coming out of the bar so they can get something to eat instead of driving to McDonald's or anywhere else so over up a little bit my thoughts were from like maybe Wednesday to Saturday nights from 10 30 to maybe 1 1 30 I'm not going to use any generators so won't disturb any of the apartments or people around you know just propane and the thing and alternate food each week so they keep coming by to get something different and do you have yep you have an estimate or any prediction of what kind of noise you would expect to be generating not really I mean it's just running propane conversation between yeah conversation between people maybe them sitting there eating it's no won't be no more than I'm staying outside of Chaleos having cigarettes and talking on the side of the street and charlie's is open until 2 2 I would probably close down around 130 quarter or 2 it depends on me if someone's drunk I wanted to eat I'd serve I do have a question also John these permits are a year well they have to reapply again next year you have to really I mean they're not there for a year period but it's like all the dog licenses it closes up so we'd have to reapply by the end of next April but it would go on yeah and I'm presuming if you all went forward that I just charge him the standard vendor fee different time I'm sorry I just didn't hear you correctly how many nights a week Wednesday to Saturday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday yes my pause is that we just have downhound housing right now that we've increased and so I really want to give people a chance to give us input so would your proposal be that we not I could set up in front of the courthouse where the other guy sets up during the day some problem out in front of the courthouse that's further from housing yeah that's there's no housing what do you think Donna well there's a bar on the side street there's two bars on the side street over there and then you get chaleos you know so there's one two three plus three penny for right in that walking distance you only get that club in the corner right there sweet boys yes if we this is yeah if we said yes tonight are you ready to hit the ground running are you like I was waiting for approval before I got my insurance so maybe like two three weeks would you be maybe try to crack this nut here would you be if you wanted to try it at City Hall and we got a lot of complaints would you be willing to move if we asked absolutely so sure so you're not locked into a location and then we can see how it works yeah I mean I could even get permission to go in front of a chaleo so we're on the side right there that's not really one of our approved vendors oh you mean you go you could break it a permission you have to get permission from the property owner in there yeah they do that and you're all good so that you make it people are there on right but at night as ladies ten any other comments from council questions Jack I I'm with Donna I would feel more comfortable putting this over to our next meeting giving people notice that this is going to be considered so people in the neighborhood who would want to be heard would like to would have the opportunity to do that since we're giving opinions I think I am I think I would rather let him go ahead for now and see if we hear from folks I feel like the likelihood of really loud disturbances is slight and feels like a friendly setup and also the bars are as we've already said already open past when he's going to be open and people are already out on the street I'm comfortable with the green light tonight especially with Bill suggesting that you'd be amenable to move enough there are some noise complaints I would move that we approve the permit request and I don't know John are the hours spelled out on other permits under the yeah I know what we've got in the city I think the hours or something like I can't remember when they start I think it's 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. so that's what make this okay so I do want to have like a cutoff I was a bartender when I lived in Italy for a while and you know we were open to like noon from the day before and reopened at one so I just want to make sure that there is like a cutoff time like and I don't I think 6 a.m. wait too long but you know I don't know if 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. no later than 3 a.m. so I wouldn't be on that no late I would say no later than 2 second wait I'm sorry was there a second there was okay for the discussion check how would you I'll move that we do amend the motion to make it for a one-month period or make it subject to to review during the permit period so that we can review it and terminate it or modify it does that already exist though in the authority that we have to issue I would assume that there's got to be a revocation procedure so why would this be any different it's a license licenses can be pulled yeah so I I'm just I'm curious why would why would this be any different than any other vendor permit if issues arose that violated not specific so it's really if it's going to be at your discretion double check that but I don't think there a second so motion or the amendment feels like a second for the discussion on the original motion okay you're open to feedback if you need to move absolutely I just want to the bar community after the restaurants close you know I'm not gonna I'm not gonna have high prices you know it's like five bucks six bucks eight bucks okay for any further discussion right all in favor if you say aye opposed okay great thank you trying to get out of the restaurant business trying to get out of the line cooking yeah thank you again so we are moving on to some appointments so the first one is to the housing trust fund committee I believe we have a number of recommendations for that communities to consist of five people pointed by the council one member of the city council four people from up here two members of the committee should be members of the housing task force and two from the public at large so I think we have it's sorry so we had two people for each two people for each okay so Richard Amor and Amore and Rick D. Agilis for members of the public Mary Huber and Brian Evans is the housing task force reps thank you I think it's caught up there all right so are any of those folks here like to introduce themselves is there a motion oh we're gonna do all of them you want to do all of them at first and then we'll have an executive session okay thank you all for your work right on to the planning commission so there we have one vacancy and Marcella Dent is here do you want to come introduce yourself hi my name is Marcella Dent I've been in Montpelier for about two years now and I work for the state agency of natural resources and I'm also a master student at the University of Vermont and I'm just really excited to for an opportunity to both apply what I've learned in school and what I'm learning in my beginning of my career here and in service of Montpelier so thank you for your consideration I really appreciate it any questions from Marcella okay great thank you shall we do the development you've already done this one why don't we wait yeah all right it's so for the development review board we have two vacancies and I think one applicant Michael as we check and I don't see Michael here is there a motion regarding either or both of these or do you want to go into executive session second for the discussion all in favor please say aye aye post great again thank you for your work okay so now we have an update from the energy advisory committee and I know Kate is here so welcome so I'm Kate Stevenson I'm the chair of the Montpelier energy advisory committee and I was asked to come in and just give an update we're shooting to give updates a couple times a year to the council so I submitted a couple of bullet points just to give some idea of what we have been working on and what is coming up and I'll just run through those and then take any questions from the council if you want to know more we'll see if I can answer them but we've been moving forward on in terms of municipal projects with the revolving loan fund we completed a number of projects over the winter spring including led lights in the city hall theater weather stripping city hall windows which was a big project and then some work at the fire station on the district heat pipes and some controls and so our next project that we're working on for the revolving loan fund is looking at all the overhead doors turns out there are something like 18 different overhead doors if you count up all the buildings and a lot of them don't seal properly so we're have been working with efficiency Vermont to do some lower door testing of those doors and then we'll do insulation and weather stripping and come back in and measure the energy savings and if it's significant enough we'll go ahead and do the same thing on the other doors as well over the next couple months in terms of the wastewater water resource recovery facility we're really trying to work on starting to plan for phase two which is what do we do with the methane once we start producing it now that they're under construction over there on on phase one so just starting to crunch some numbers and look at what the possibilities could be for that energy that will be produced on the school front we were able to meet with Andrew La Rosa who's the new facilities director for the school district and we'll also be going to one of the upcoming school board meetings to talk about kind of how we how we as the energy advisory committee can collaborate with the school district on plans for how do we get our three schools to net zero in the next 10 years so that's underway and have made some connections there with efficiency Vermont we got good news about the there have been some issues with the solar panels at the wastewater treatment facility they haven't been working properly for the last couple years but sounds like they got fixed so they're not it's not a huge energy producer but once they're on the roof they might as well be working so I'm glad to see that that's been repaired we are really looking forward to the hire of the new position facilities director energy what I don't know what exactly it's going to be called but looking forward to it and want to help in whatever way we can with the hiring process and good news from police department was that over the winter you know they installed heat pumps to replace their aging cooling system and we got the bills back electric bills back from May June July and it basically cut the electric bill in half for those months the cooling months so that was exciting and we'll we'll do some more analysis as we get more data back but we weren't really involved with that project but glad to help track the energy savings and then you know last time I was here I think we were talking about the greenhouse gas emissions tracking and and the new program software that we're using to do that we haven't done a whole lot since since that May presentation but the next step is really getting all of our fiscal year 19 data into that software so that we can start doing some of the forecasting features which I'm looking forward to but we just haven't quite gotten to yet so I know one of the topics that was specifically on the agenda for this evening is around policy and the development of an energy efficiency ordinance that was passed through the Charter Change in November and then through the legislature in May so we have a working group that includes a handful of members from the Energy Advisory Committee some folks from Efficiency Vermont Richard Faizie from Energy Futures Group who has basically gotten some some outside funding to help us as a consultant through this process and so you know we've been meeting a number of times with that working group to start the process of developing ordinance not even language yet but kind of concept for what we want to propose to the city we've been looking at precedents from other municipalities we had a meeting with realtors I think there were 15 or so folks that showed up for that to get their input because they're critical part of this process you know what just to reiterate what we're looking at is specifically around disclosure of energy use at time of sale for residential buildings at this point so specifically for single family and small multifamily homes and so the next step is we're going to be having a public meeting next Tuesday starting at six right in here right before prior Richard's prior to the Energy Advisory Committee meeting where we are also going to present some of the same information we did to the realtors take questions talk about kind of the history of how this is this energy labeling has developed over time and get more feedback from the public as we go into actually looking at what an ordinance language could look like yeah can you share a bit about the response from the realtors I can't a little bit I wasn't at the meeting so I can just tell you what I what I heard and Anne was there so she can probably chime in if she wants to but you know I think some skepticism some concern about that this is just one more thing that could slow down a sale or you know and questions about whose responsibility really was it to do the disclosure you know who does that fall towards one of the things I didn't mention is one of the exciting developments that we've just been learning about over the last couple months is is a tool a software tool that will be made available to Montpelier for free that the residents either real tour or resident person who's selling their house can use to plug in information about their home and and create this energy label so that it wouldn't they wouldn't have to have a walkthrough necessarily or they could they could do it at no cost basically so that that was really exciting and we're we're kind of learning more about that and trying to do some beta testing of that that software so that we make sure that it actually works before we try and roll it out but yeah I think the overall the realtors there you know some who are really excited about this idea others that are concerned and skeptical I have just a couple other points if I also I think there might be some community members who have questions or should we do that at the end after let's well yeah let me just go through my both parts and then we could take questions from the council or if they're public folks so just switching to the next topic which is our residential work so been really excited about a pilot program that we're doing with efficiency Vermont this year for the whole year of 2019 we actually have some staffing from efficiency Vermont to provide kind of what I call concierge service but basically like project support for multi owners of multifamily buildings to help them access the incentives of efficiency Vermont low interest financing and kind of project management support just like helping them identify projects that can improve the efficiency of those multifamily buildings and and move them along and so we're kind of halfway through the year I don't have the stats all right in front of me but they've been they've done a couple dozen walk-throughs have a number of projects lined up both with capstone and with three thermal which does the larger multifamily buildings weatherization so we'll continue to report back on that but I think it's a it's an exciting model that hopefully efficiency Vermont can replicate in other places after we show how well it works can I jump in on that I just want to highlight that the number of total projects actually being done in Montpelier is double what it was like the average of the last couple of years in terms of total projects done in multifamily buildings which is very exciting and we still yeah we're still kind of early on and and and they've been Phoebe who is the the woman who's working on it from efficiency Vermont has been reaching out to some of the larger property owners or you know owners of larger properties which we know like if we can work with some of those folks who own hundreds of units within the city we can really have hopefully a bigger impact so and then another new project that we are excited about that is kind of more focused on on individual homeowners but also for renters is called window dressers and this is a project that it's actually a nonprofit organization based in Maine and what they do is they they run community workshops to help people build low-cost interior storm windows so they have someone volunteers come out to your house they measure the size of your windows and then a couple months later they will come it will set up for a whole week and those folks who are interested will come and help build their actual window inserts and take them home at the end of the day and at a low cost so you know average 30 to $40 per window so we're really excited about bringing this to Vermont we're one of a handful of communities in Vermont that will be part of this this year and we have secured using the hub which is this multi-use space at the Berlin Mall so we booked that for a week in January and starting in September we'll be starting to do outreach about how folks can sign up to be part of this project so stay tuned for more on that and as you may have heard the legislature has approved new weatherization funding through the state and so we're you know the details of that have recently been announced and we're hoping to do some more outreach around that to help both low-income and middle-income folks access those new incentives and then the last section is transportation sustainable Montpelier coalition has really been taking the lead on the rollout of this idea of on-demand micro transit and what I've I have not been involved in in much of those meetings but my understanding is they have now decided to use this service called via as the software platform but also have GMT operate the system and pending some federal funding they're hoping to start a pilot next summer so it would be next fiscal year but yeah stay tuned for more on that and there were also been you know continue to work on on bike and pedestrian issues and one of this was a mass bike ride that happened back in July so that's my update and I'm happy to take questions I well I've received multiple comments from a few different people now the sound still isn't working on the streaming I'm not sure it's one of the city employees so I'm not sure where he's well let's see shall we go to if there's other questions but come back just as online oh wait other comments or questions for Kate Jack I don't have a question I just want to say I'm always impressed by the quality of your presentations it's a great group all right well any other questions actually thought I saw a couple hands in the if there's questions from the public about this yeah I don't have a question do you want to introduce yourself first Vicki Lane in my pillow your I I just want to make sure that while we're doing this real estate thing that people like me who have worked very hard and I only have I have less than five more years on my mortgage and then it's all mine sort of don't get penalized because we don't have the money to install the latest efficiency stuff in our houses and our houses are old and you're talking about those window insert things being 30 or 40 dollars in a window I believe I have somewhere near 30 windows in my house that's a lot of money for me it's still cheaper to me and I have storm windows it's still cheaper for me to put plastic on the inside of the windows and works better so I just want to make sure while you're writing this ordinance related to residential real estate that you do not penalize those of us that are lower income and do not have the money to update to the to the to the Hilt because it sounds to me as though that's where this going this is going that there's going to be a mandatory energy thing and those houses with all this wonderful energy stuff are going to go at higher prices and we're not going to see any reduction in our taxes for that but our houses will go at lower prices than anyone else's and that's not fair thank you we'll be talking more even particularly about that topic at the hearing on the 20th so well yes yes no it's good other comments or questions Ben Hoffman cliff street and basically while I think this is a well-intended proposition misguided from a practical point of view and I don't know if this is the time to express my reservations and critique of it but if so I'm happy to do that you can if you would like otherwise yes no I understand that but I think the point here is that eventually the council is going to have to approve of it you said you did not go to the last meeting and I'm I'm would like to be sure that the council hears the diversity of points of view so I think with that I'd like to just go ahead and be as brief as I can I got two or three basic reservations the practical one primarily is that the proposition is to create both the new function that is to be part of the real estate transaction that we're all familiar with I think those of us who have bought and sold real estate but more significantly in some regards is it's also creating a new profession and I guess I would just remind people who may not be familiar with buying and selling real estate that we have a half a dozen professions that are involved in every one of those or at least you can be we have real estate people we have lawyers we have appraisers we have building inspectors we have surveyors and we have financiers every one of those professions is licensed by the state and or the federal government which has a well-established body of law and practice for a long time and from as far as I'm concerned I don't see the point in trying to reinvent the wheel and how to create a new profession when when it already exists and I'm not sure that the city is capable of doing what the state regulation and process entails of assuring that people have been trained but are there competent that there is supervision of their practice and there's a judication when problems arise that can get resolved so I just think it's a foolhardy thing that you're doing and if it's something that needs to be done it ought to be done through the state legislature and adding to that process and and furthermore I guess this is another point I would make I say I've got one minute more and this is really quite frustrating because and I just want to say this during the debate about this in the fall the point was made by members of this council and other proponents of the proposition that people had to vote for the request to the legislature to have a charter change before citizens could talk about the proposition in substance and already I witnessed that that's not happened the next meeting that you're going to have on the 28th is not about that it's about how to do it and so I feel like the the council has really not behaved properly in a government sense on this and those are my reasons thank you Ben I have actually one question for you what profession are you imagining that this is creating well it's creating the profession of energy assessment and I'm sorry but there is one other point I want to make which is part and parcel the whole thing every one of those professions is a competitive proposition and you know if you believe at all in competition in the marketplace it's one way the argument is made and I believe it to assure that you get adequate service and the way this has been described thus far is it's all going to be through one organization efficiency remind and I think that is a you know a second mistake of creating essentially a monopoly on something which is going to be required by law and you know there what's to have what's to create the safeguard that things that you don't want to have happen happen there which the existing system that I've alluded to through the licensing regulation of professionals is already set up to do thank you can I just make a clarification so the the model that we are exploring right now and I I do want to say that it is nothing is said in stone we're it's this is a ongoing process you know that we're looking to take a year or two with so we're not trying to rush anything through but but that it is not creating a new profession and that it would be a disclosure of the owner the seller so but I but I just want to just like you do lead lead paint disclosure when you're selling your home this would be similar to that in that the the seller could fill out this form basically with information about their home and make that available at no cost so it would be it wouldn't require hiring a separate professional I also want to clarify that just reiterate that the meeting on the 20th is about just exploring what has been done elsewhere in the country and hearing people's concerns and also what's been done in Vermont Steve Whitaker I want to second the concerns raised by Mr. Huffman while he and I might not agree on anything else you're dating decades back this is something I was trained as an energy auditor of schools and hospitals by the Lawrence Berkeley lab many many decades ago and it is a profession and we might need to approach this in a way that could be rolled out statewide that if we're going to reach our energy goals our net zero goals in Montpelier or statewide or have a meaningful dent in climate disruption we will need a profession of precision energy auditors who can accurately disclose the energy demand of a building before it sold and or find economical ways to do it so I don't think tippy toeing around or evading that point but I think a competitive model of trained professionals this could be a curriculum that started now in Vermont technical college or whatever and I would encourage you to look at it and approach it from that angle that we would need a competitive market we would need trained the skill set for residential buildings that will be different than the skill set for commercial buildings my skills are rusty on that topic by now but I won't pretend to know state-of-the-art but I do think it's an opportunity for us to create economic development and job training which are relevant to today's needs I want to thank them for coming and making comments and Steven that I really see us in a wide spectrum taking comments all the meetings that happen all the comments here to then look at that and then again if indeed we come up with a written policy that'll be talked about again so lots of time we're not trying to do anything too quick the other besides anybody who hasn't spoken on this topic there's someone else good evening my name is Jeff Rubin I run a nonprofit for sustainable heating and I just thought I would quickly add to your knowledge base here about the appraisal Institute which is the National Association that qualifies and educates appraisers and they do have a fairly new addendum called the green addendum and I'm not sure if this is already on your radar but if it's not it should be it is not free in fact to cost more than a regular appraisal but it is also an option rather than a requirement so just wanted to add that to the discussion thank you posted anywhere we like the guidelines that's under a green appraisal something you could send us green agenda do you have something further to I still haven't heard anyone express concern for people and I'm sure there are many in my situation we're living on shrinking for fixed incomes we have we own property that someday might need to be sold and I didn't hear that this was an optional thing I've what I've been reading sounded as though this was going to be a requirement when you sold your house to have this thing done and I do agree with him it needs to be a licensed person not just Joe blow off the street or efficiency Vermont with their own agenda it needs to be a licensed person the same as I had to do for being a licensed CPA or a licensed tax person so I still have not heard any concern for how this is going to affect those of us that can't afford all this stuff unless you're planning on having some grants not loans not low-interest loans but grants for people to put things and do things in their homes otherwise it's not fair thank you Vicki and just so you and everyone is aware there is no evidence in places around the country where this has been tried there's no evidence that it lowers the value of anyone's home even if it's even if it's not you know terribly efficient thank you all right any other comments thank you so much all right so we have an item relating to this zoning near savings pasture the VCFA parcel yes and I'm just gonna say I am going to recuse myself from this item my partner Kate Stevenson is working this working on this not in her volunteer capacity but her professional capacity so I'm gonna leave this item to the rest of you folks I will be back when it's over okay so we are here today to talk about proposal that we have to change the zoning line on the current VCFA parcel so we want to tell you a little bit about this project that is in early conceptual design and then explain the change that we're requesting that would be part of the proposed zoning fixes potentially that would be under council consideration in September so let you kick off hi I'm Casey Ellison I'm here to tell you a little bit about the project and then Kate's gonna get a little more specific about what we're asking for basically we're in contract right now with VCFA on the 18 acre parcel of land that's adjacent to Saban's pasture we are interested in creating two different projects phase one and phase two we're calling it right now phase one includes what we're calling a bath house and this is a what we're calling we're calling it a bath house specifically because you could maybe be more familiar with the word spa but this is more of a community project which includes things that might you might see at a spa saunas steam rooms pools other such facilities for people to use for health reasons and you know happiness and and keeping warm in the winter but it's it's designed more around accessibility for the community and so that's why we're calling it a bath house a lot of people don't aren't familiar with that word so we like to just give a little little blurb on what that is to us so phase one is that that bath house and phase two is going to be or proposed to be some small-scale beautiful sort of housing a small housing development that which we've identified as probably maximum 40 units with some commercial space and some retail space located right down on Berry Street at the bottom of that parcel so the the reason that we're coming to you today is we've started the conceptual site planning process really spending time on the site and looking at how to locate these various buildings and in that process of really doing our due diligence on the permitting requirements this project will go through act 250 so we're looking at all the pieces of that but then specifically relating to the city of Montpelier zoning this parcel is fairly unique in that it encompasses three different zoning types so the top part which is closest to VCFA and you know the college green is mixed use residential currently the middle section is residential 24,000 which is a very low density residential zone and then the area closest to Berry Street is the riverfront district which is high density and allows all kinds of commercial uses and as we started to look at this we had a lot of we've been meeting with the planning department staff had some questions about exactly where does this line between riverfront and residential 24,000 fall because the spot that we're interested in placing the bathhouse is kind of right on that edge and the difference between the line maps that you download from the city and what we were told 450 feet back from Berry Street there's there's a little bit of gray area about exactly where the line is so we want to be super clear about that going forward as we go into the site planning process and looking at how this these zoning areas were developed in the 2018 zoning rewrite what we'd like to propose is that the line the divider line match the adjacent Zorzi parcel which is the Saban's pasture parcel so our proposal is to move the dividing line back so we've got this map for everybody in the audience here so this is the orange is the riverfront district the white is residential 24,000 and mixed-use residential is the the yellow we're not proposing to any change there but basically there's a shaded area of about 0.9 acres that would that we're proposing be added to the riverfront district and you can see this is approximately the site of the bathhouse that we're looking at so it's kind of right on the existing dividing line between the two sections so if we were able to change this line and line it up with the Zorzi side that would give us a little more area to design the kind of the approach the driveway and road that will go up to the bathhouse and you want to talk a little bit about kind of why that spot and when you say housing units do you mean like single family or again it's all very conceptual but we've been hearing a lot that Montpelier needs more housing that's you know friendly and approachable and beautiful and we're interested in community projects so this would be a place that would and again we don't have any details on the design yet but small scale with a lot of thought around how it feels to be there for people the it's it's going to be housing that's approachable for all different kinds of people so we definitely have room for all kinds of discussions around that yes absolutely and yes accessible so yeah small scale beautiful and eco-friendly housing down right near Berry Street so we are interested in maintaining the integrity of this piece of land as well so we are interested in keeping the housing down here and that's actually one of the reasons that we want to request this zoning change through looking at the land in order for us to keep enough space for the housing and the bathhouse if the bathhouse is allowed to be tucked in just a little further here it gives us a little more room to kind of do the housing down closer to Berry versus having to move it up the hill so that's another reason so this this area here it's it's a bit of a complicated site and so any every you know bit of space here matters the topography of this the site is a little bit friendlier just a little higher up down here we're concerned that we might have to do more blasting or more earth moving if we were if we needed to build lower down so one of our interests is keeping this low impact also if we are able to move it up here it gives us less of a likelihood of having to be you know visible and affecting the Saban Street folks which were we're concerned about their sight line and their you know happiness as well so you know just examining this site very specifically we feel that this makes a really big difference being able to move it up a little bit also considering that it's a community project this profit this project is not driven by profit this is driven by the desire to create community space for the people in our community that we love and care about we would like to save costs if we can you know but if we have to build in a different spot we're looking at a lot more a lot higher engineering costs basically is what it comes down to so so anything that I should clarify with with that sure well you guys have the same map but if you're just looking at it yeah put the orange on the bottom and yeah so basically just in like Kate said our first you know thought was just consistency kind of keeping the zoning line consistent with Zorzi we had heard that it was a bit arbitrary so when we looked at the site without knowing where the zoning line was in actuality we just placed the building in a way that felt like it would be the most natural to the land the least obtrusive the least destructive and then when we went and did the actual GPS points we realized that we were kind of straddling the line so we decided that we should try to ask for a modification there and we would like to keep the housing down near Berry Street because it's kind of a little bit more of a lively like we want it to be approachable we want it to be like you're coming to it from the street whereas the bathhouse we would like to be tucked in a little bit more so which would kind of maintain the character of this land here we'd like to keep this all pretty much like how it is tucked in just for privacy for the people that live here basically if you're getting out into this field you're you know we're not interested in really developing this field so if it's kind of tucked into these trees here it's just a little less obtrusive and also for the character of the building and being inside the building it's supposed to be kind of like a natural space where you're kind of encountering the trees around you and you know in a kind of a calmer atmosphere so keeping that kind of tucked in here and this all down here sort of interacting with what's going on on Berry Street is our intention so if we have to move this guy the bathhouse down it really affects what we're able to fit and how we're able to fit it down here because we're not really interested in cramming anything in we really want to make it nice so that's that's most of it and we've you know the questions that we've heard or the concerns that we've heard are more you know around of course we like we have the the Saban Street folks in mind we've spoken with with some of them already with we've met with the group the Saban Street neighbors and there was concerns about well if we change this zoning doesn't that mean that there's the ability to put much more housing here in fact for us it's not that's not really even on the table you know we're just concerned with building this one building here and this is actually zoned for housing this res 24 but that's not what we're doing with it so in the interest of actually keeping that the character of this land we believe that this change will actually be really helpful so did I miss anything okay we'd like to be we're again we're still very conceptual we're also still in feasibility so it will be helpful to know the outcome of this kind of thing for us to make sure that we can achieve what we'd like to but our feasibility period with VCFA ends in the end of September so we're you know the the purchase will happen in the end of September if everything's you know all systems go and it's a big project so we'll be designing for quite a while we we hope to be just starting to possibly possibly do some site work next fall but the construction won't likely begin until spring of 2021 the purchase of the land me yeah so the way I'm imagining the structure of this conversation if there's any questions that the council has at this point and then I'd like to take comments or questions from the public and then we'll come back to the council for further thoughts on what you want to do yeah maybe like a catting corner yeah that's great super that works any questions that counselors yes I remember this was one of the parcels that we had extensive discussion about yes I would like to well I mean I guess the request is that we revisit a decision that a prior council made about this and so I think it's important that the council take some time to reflect on why those changes were made in the map was shaped the way it was other questions if not then that's fine comments or questions from the public whoever hi I'm Paige Gertin I'm speaking as a private citizen not a conservation commission member I have a couple of questions and the first one is would you consider swapping phase one and phase two and building the housing first I'm wondering if that is a possibility since that's really what the community needs and I'd like to learn a little bit more about the bathhouse and what its purpose is I guess I would caution the council to be very careful about making changes at the request of an individual who wants to do something with the property that it wasn't intended to use for in the first place and that's you know it's not it was basically that whole parcel seems to have been zoned or the intent of the zoning was for housing and while I would love to see part of the parcel kept open I think housing is what we need and is the best use of the whole parcel so thank you hi Joe Castellano Sabin Street I'm one of the butters I have handouts okay Casey has been very kind and has already met with the number of the neighbors gotten some of our input based on the meeting that we had a planning commission the other night I used our GS GIS mappings program to kind of at least delineate how many acres of the parcel it's an 18 acre parcel and the riverfront is a little less than five acres plus or minus I mean I was kind of just roughly scaling it based on the handout that Kate provided us at the meeting and it looks like what is being considered for the zoning alignment I know Kate said it was point nine I came up with one point one seven it's doesn't matter to me but that's roughly about like five percent of the parcel then the rest to 24,000 is five acres and then the mixed use is seven point two four acres if you look at what I've delineated to the right of the one point one seven acres that's the proposed zoning change area so that's essentially what we're talking about now my house actually that's the riverfront but it's my neighbors who's probably going to be impacted more than Dan Clark and Aaron Brande by the rezoning I guess some of the concerns of the neighbors are that you know their parcels would be if the development were or the zoning alignment were not to change then they would be less severely impacted than if it were to change the riverfront because riverfront allows for a much greater density much greater differentiation in use the other thing that has a concern of ours is the 40 I also calculate what the slopes were and basically about where they're proposing to cite the bath house is between there's a 40% slope followed by a 30% slope and that's going to be very costly to engineer and also costly develop and that was also provided some in I had some input from Michael Hoffman who's an active 50 permit specialist when talking about this our concern is just the increased density if it is if the zoning alignment is allowed and I know that a number of us are concerned about the financial feasibility of the spa proposal and a number of us are concerned that if this doesn't move forward or financially doesn't work out that it gets sold to another developer and then it we end up with a development that it adversely impacts the neighborhood so that's just my concern that's pretty much it. Thank you. I'm Jeff Rubin and I am the adjacent property owner to the West on Barry Street and first of all thank you Councilperson Hill for saying that there is some history here as I understand it that the zoning line as it's drawn now was not arbitrary that the way it was originally contemplated was that commendably the idea was to move housing down near Barry Street and to leave more open space up the hill. The original line was 300 feet from the center line of Barry Street and then the person at VCFA made their arguments at the time of the zoning and had that line move from 300 feet to 450 feet and of course that adds to an increase in total density. The contemplated change in the zoning line would add another I think 34 units to the available units to be placed in on the riverfront section. So that creeping increase in density is of some concern and it is a complicated site. I think prior to the change in the slope ordinances just a couple of months ago it wouldn't have been permitted on a 40% slope anyway. So there's a lot of land there seems to me there's a lot of ways to skin the cat and to put a building of that size on a site of that size. It's a little difficult because there's no actual proposal in front of us at this time so if the zoning line change were to be adopted I would request that the council consider some language that at least keeps the density at the current level and so that's my comment I also have a question because I've heard a lot that the community needs additional housing and I've also heard some counter arguments that were actually losing population and I'm wondering if the council can guide me to any studies or documents where that provide data on the need for additional housing in the community. I think the vacancy rate at least in terms of rental the need for rental units I mean the vacancy rate is less than one percent I think and I think I'm the only renter on the council right now and trying to find an apartment here every time I've had to try has been I mean like a months long endeavor you know just trying to like make it all work. I think too the other piece is I would I would actually drill your question down a little further which is a question about market rate housing versus you know mixed income housing developments where there might be community development block grants CDBG money available versus like you know either housing with landlords or developers that would accept section eight which we have a significant demand for in Montpelier I mean the lists alone I mean if you're on a list to wait for a voucher you're waiting I think the last time I checked it was six to eight months to actually get into your permanent so yeah I mean so the fact that you've got people in transitional housing for two years in this area I mean says pretty clearly there's a huge demand at least for rental housing you know I'm certainly never gonna be in the single family home market because I bought an education which was foolish but you know a mortgage on my brain that I'll never live long enough to pay off and they can't even foreclose on it you know and so I would actually drill down further is it really a need for single family homes or is it a need for different approaches to housing so that's the first time I've heard that so thank you it's it's pretty hard trying to find places to live in this town thank you thank you I'm this is the first I'm getting acquainted with this proposal so I am not as well prepared but I'd point out that moving a zoning line is not an approval of a project this would have still have full act 250 vetting review etc so I don't see the harm in allowing for the possibility of exploring and designing something which would be very thoroughly scrutinized I question whether that's the best location for a bathhouse for accessibility by the whole town but time will tell and I would encourage you to at least not foreclose the opportunity to explore this in full detail thank you you mean I have to yell I have to echo what Ashley said what we need in not in my pillow is not more housing we need more affordable housing and I'm talking about really affordable housing if I had not been fortunate enough 25 years ago to be able to get my house at the price I got it there is not a chance in the world I could live in Montpelier because the rents for the rents are practically higher than what I receive every month to live on and so I I think you know we need to get right down to it and say we need affordable housing I cannot imagine paying the rents I don't know how a student or someone coming out of college I mean I was fortunate enough to get my degrees before it got so expensive to get degrees but it just I mean we're making it impossible for someone to get a rental and maybe also save to maybe get that first home that they might dream about getting so I think we need to remember that it's not just housing we need we need affordable housing and I'd like to trade a bathhouse bathhouse people my age don't think positively when we hear that unless there's a swimming pool involved for housing affordable housing again my name is Lawrence Tyler and I have to incline to agree with I don't know the ladies name back there but we need more affordable housing especially for people with disabilities people special needs I would kind of if I was able to I would decline the bathhouse because I just looked up definitions of a bathhouse and historically bathhouses have not been good so if there is a bathhouse sanitation you know it needs to be senatorly good and as well as police because years ago in bathhouses there used to be like prostitution and this is something you don't want in the city of Montpelier so being a private citizen as well as an advocate for people with special needs I would have to decline the bathhouse but more affordable housing thank you comments from Council Jack I think that the most pressing need for the city of Montpelier is more housing more affordable at all levels I think it is vital to be able to enable people to develop housing particularly on on the savings pasture because that's one of the few large undeveloped parcels in the city I think that the increase in density is is not a bad thing but a good thing and density enables us to not only provide more housing for the people who need housing who would live here if they could find housing they could afford or they could find housing period density also enables us to move towards our energy efficiency goals density is more efficient than acre lots with single family housing I would certainly assume I'd certainly like to see take this up in more detail as I know we will I'm inclined to be very supportive of this though I'm sure the developer does not is not planning to establish a facility where prostitution and anonymous sexual encounters will be practiced but I think this could be the beneficial addition to the community but it's not my project I'm not building it and I'm not putting my money into it so I'm not the position to tell her what to do with it I I don't think that a change in zoning of approximately five percent of this parcel and approximately one percent of the entirety of savings pasture is is something that would have a major impact on the character of the parcel or on the character of the neighborhood and I think that the time where people should people anywhere should expect that they can prevent housing development from savings pasture now and forever into the future I also like diversified housing and I think you better pick another name and bathhouse I think it has old-time connotation water therapy underneath I was interested in hot but I think it sounds exciting and a new possibility and I was here in the council and went through all the zoning and it may have not been arbitrary but I don't remember solid reasons exactly why that line was where it was at and I also feel like we have to be willing to have more density if we want more density down by very street you know and the whole bicycle path a whole connection and that whole community is very dense for people to come and use services what you put there because we did talk about having also local shops so people could shop in their neighborhood because you're part of the savings pasture neighborhood but not savings pasture walk right and so we're hoping to have more housing over there so I like seeing this kind of ideas and I would support and I agree with Ashley I think you're busy growing or you're busy dying here and we're kind of at a crisis mode where we're gonna have to look at like rent stabilization or something if keeps going this way so adding some density makes sense to me we've already been prostitution in our ordinances so I'm not too worried about that either so I'd be comfortable with this just a lot of hopes you go through for you I I'm still I am looking at zoning maps and okay my old notes so I'm gonna pass I'd also like to point out that the proposal before the council tonight you're not finally approving this this is really to give a signal the Planning Commission is preparing the final draft for your public hearings and so this really just be saying you could include that in that draft you could still then take it out if you chose to during you have to go through the two public hearings to adopt with all the other zoning changes so there's at least two more bites at the apple on this issue for the public and for yourselves in terms of the process ahead of you we need a motion then to encourage to include it in the draft that comes back to yes in the zoning fixes that is gonna be warned for September I forget what the date is 11th I don't think I don't he runs not I'll make a motion that we include this request to draw to redraw the zoning line for the density in the drafts that we're gonna be getting from the planning department for our considerations in the future second for the discussion all in favor to say aye opposed nay and so I'm gonna vote aye to make a fourth and so the motion passes so this will be a part of that package on then the September zoning changes thank you thank you before we move to the next item I'm hearing people still saying they can't write a video on the screen it's through the city website that it's not working okay all right it is eight o'clock do you want to take a break now do you want to keep moving forward what do you want to do short break five minutes okay we're gonna take a five-minute break and then we will dive into this topic up to an item related to the creation of a task force to address homelessness in what failure basically a continuation of a conversation that Oh I'm sorry it's all right so this should be really quick because we met on June 26th to discuss the draft fixes and I was asked to review some section including 3103 and community facilities I did a review that with our city attorneys the next section after it is accessory dwelling units and they also reviewed that one and made some recommendations I don't know if you guys really care how we get into that what what they recommended but the recommendation was we'll follow state law and reference to state law and hear the the one so we're not going to restate state law we're just going to say these community facilities that are identified under state law by state law we only have a limited number of things we can review and we will respect the limitations as established under state law but we're not going to restate the rule because the rule could change over time so that was a recommendation of our city attorney and I think that was a recommendation of maybe Lauren or somebody else that made that so we did follow through with that the brief changes were made to accessory dwelling units just to clarify because we had some unique rules that we had made about if you've got a single family home you can have a duplex well they started to kind of collide with the accessory dwelling unit rules and so our attorneys made a few minor changes to clarify to make sure that was good there was a change there was a court decision on the Oxford comma so they now honor the Oxford comma so if you don't have it in they will read it as if it's that's what you intended and so we went through and did a technical review for Oxford commas and added those in so just if you see changes in there that weren't there before that's that's where that we didn't Oxford comma and the last one was we had found us some places where land development we had done some search for places in developing this draft where we had always said land development and we said we're just saying things we don't need to we can just say development and for some reason we didn't complete that search because we found a whole chunk of them that we're still in there so those are the four sets of changes that are currently in the draft you just approved a fifth change with the zoning change for VCFA so I just wanted to give you guys a quick update and let you know I will in court I will take all these are actually already on the website under the zoning fixes tab we'll put the map on tomorrow so that will be on and I will prepare this to get warned including we because of the zoning change we will have to amend the required report under state law which is just a legal thing and I will work with Kirby the Planning Commission chair to get that done and so we will be ready for the public hearings on the 4 on the 11th September 11th and September 25th so yes further discussion he comes from the public okay none all in favor please say aye I oppose thank you thank you okay apparently have been one item ahead of myself so now we are on to the homelessness task force and so I'm gonna turn it over to Bill I supposed to sort of explain where we're at at our last meeting we had a long discussion about the needs of homeless people the needs of the downtown and related issues and how how the city could best weigh in and at the end of it the Council opted to form a task force to look at some of the ways and asked staff to sort of put together the outline of what that might what a task force might take up and what it might look so so in doing so we are our staff group met and kind of and thought through some of the issues and sort of the why what how etc what would be the purpose of these sort of things and then who might be included and so we had a little bit of an outline and then we invited some of the providers just to get a sense of what they felt were gaps and what they felt might be needs and could be helped we weren't intending to include them as members of the task force was simply to get their input as we thought about that so it all ended up in a relatively short outline that you have we recommended a certain makeup of the task force that was not based on any science we were trying to make sure it was manageable size and people that we thought we've since received several suggestions from community other community members about the makeup some of whom are here and I think those are all very well thought of suggestions as well so it's I leave that to the Council of how you want this task force composed on it and the one thing I think that we did conclude in terms of of this issue as moving forward is that to be effective we have to look at what's before us here in our community and it's very easy to to think about all the root causes of homelessness and to go down those paths but I think we have to stay away from that you know not that those are important but this group can't focus on alcoholism or substance abuse or domestic violence or you know housing costs and those kind of things it's really got to be about the people who are in this situation and what they need and how they connect to services and how they can best be served and and how we can meet their needs whether it's to transition them into housing or just provide them shelter or get you know better ways to get them services and it might even might be things as you know are there public bathrooms or accessibility showers or laundry or whatever those needs are in because it would you know the city of Montpelier is not going to solve the root causes of homelessness this is you know national international issue and but this is one thing we can do is to help the people in need in our community those are our scope so to speak and we'll leave it up to you where you want to go with it so again I'd love to take comments or ideas from councillors here from the public and then revisit where we go so yeah just quick thought I agree with your bill it's not the city alone that can fix this issue I'm wondering if there's any thought to inviting a member of our delegation Mary Hopper comes to mind just to have that link with the state legislature and any resources we can draw down from that yeah just a thought to invite somebody into the folder so you know again we could have we didn't think of that so it wasn't thought of and rejected I think there's you know you could have a really long list of people and that's great I think there are certain sizes of groups that work well and certain sizes that don't so I don't want to exclude people but I also think if you're gonna be functional you've got to have a functional size obviously everyone can participate so like I said the size and compositions really up to you we were we really were thinking hey if you have five people can really work together and dig in but we also recognize it's a lot of people being left out so first thanks very much bill for setting this up and thanks all the community members for coming last time and this time to talk it over I think my basic question is around the schedule when we might expect this task force first to meet and and get down to work it seems to me related to that that we're likely to start faster with a smaller group only because we can coordinate fewer schedules together and bill I don't know if you have an idea about how quickly we could we could convene I think the group can meet as soon as it's identified so I would say your goal for tonight would be to decide either specific people that you want to put on or a process for putting specific people on or the size the representation that kind of thing and you know we can move that you know we're now back out on every two week schedule so possibly even appoint people at the next meeting and then it's just a question of how soon they can be convened in meeting I mean there's no there's no reason for any delay and that's actually one of the reasons why we we had the meeting with the the providers was to not have to wait before we got some base information small size but I think you need more than one homeless person there and I like the idea of having your resources separated like Mary Cooper and others that you listed but they're available they could be copied when your meetings are but that you keep your core functioning separately and we also got some emails suggesting places who are already working with this and how grants that they got so I hope we're looking into that too yeah so again I have no pride of ownership of who's on this you know this was our stab at what a group might look like if you all want to change the makeup of it entirely okay other comments Jack I really appreciate the work that's been done my inclination is to think that a bigger group is probably not a huge move but I think more in the seven or eight people range than five people range to make sure we have enough chance for everyone who should participate to be participating keeping in mind that I know once we set up a group any member of the public we all will become participating. Neither comments, not that's fine and I'm sure Stephen you are here because you want to say something. Yep. Okay. Am I able to be heard? I applaud the work that went into setting up that meeting and getting that memo out. I want to ask the council vigorously and sincerely want to ask the council to consider a different structure for the the committee. I've been working on this as you know I've been asking you to deal with this since before the Bethany Church warming shelter closed. It has gone from bad to worse and I don't think the recognition of the immediacy of these impacts is well is is felt by the general public or even the council members. Some of the homeless folks charge their phones at a pedestal out in front of Labrios. Recently a padlock appeared on that electrical outlet. I mean the someone might not be able to call for help if they need it because their phone is dead just because of these little simple things. So what I've done is I've been doing my own kind of inventory of folks both providers and passionate citizen advocates as well as a count in Barry and Montpelier Berlin. And I've sent a memo to bill recommending some folks that are willing. Is that been circulated? Yes. Okay. I want to point out that I met Rana Gable because she was taking care of in her off time private time was taking care of Alex the big Negro gentleman who couldn't walk very well had diabetes, etc. And she and I looked out for him for a while. She works for Washington County Mental Health. She's expert, but she would participate in such an action offered to participate not in her official role, but as her citizen, she's got husband and kids and stuff and she still cares so much. This is the kind of people you need to be working on this. Tyler strange staffed one of the overflow shelters during the last winter, and he has been actively engaged in trying to create a workforce project where homeless folks could get a leg up and some job skills doing job site cleanup or demolition, possibly even in concert with the Home Farm Road project. He's what open and engaged and willing to serve on this. Morgan Brown, you know, I won't speak for he's not here tonight because he's recovering from his neighbors recent demise. Will is formerly homeless himself and now he's the regional supervisor for both LaMoyle and Washington County for the Office of Economic Opportunity, which funds good sound. He offered to participate in this, not in his official role, but in his citizen advocate role. I think that's invaluable. So this team and Zach can speak for himself expert, knowledgeable, passionate, dedicated. So the fact that here are and myself as you know, I care a lot about this issue. So I have proposed early when I first recommended this task force that a that it be a three town task force. I right now realize that scope would be too dilute. Each of these towns needs its own task force. And my hope is that Montpelier moving first and forming such a task force will see the creation of one in Barry and or Berlin. But I've put in my little memo to build that a possible liaison from Barry and Berlin could participate here. But my recommendation is that we not put counselors, I've tried for months to get a couple of counselors to meet with the former director of another way. It's it's not the type of effective spontaneity passion. And we've got to write a plan that deals with this week and the one week horizon, the four week horizon, the six week, the eight week, the 12 week, we need to write a two year plan that's going to eventually end up with micro houses, you know, and shelters and social service liaison, etc. So I know it's a lot of information, but I believe that I've done my homework here and identified a team of six, which you feel free and it's at your discretion to add to. But I would ask you not to delay if you want to advertise for some more and vet and consider. But I'd ask you to do that as an add on later, but you get the project started winters coming on. There are immediate needs now. And you've got some really qualified people here ready to do the work. Thanks. Yes. So hello again. My name is Erica rail. I work for the Vermont Center for Independent Living. We're a cross disability organization. When I was looking at this just list, I realized that you had all mental health advocates, and nobody for other disabilities on the list. We have people on staff that have autism developmental disabilities, people that are blind death. And these people are also homeless. And so I'm wondering if you would also consider a member of our staff, myself or somebody on our staff on this task force, because not only are there people with mental health and recovery issues that are homeless. There's also people that are wheelchair users, people with developmental disabilities, people that are deaf that are also homeless and need services as well. We know resources that are out there. We know how to get things to alter the formats. We also know that services are other services that are available. Thanks. Is are though. I apologize. Hi. No, that's fine. Would it be possible for you to send an email to maybe Bill Frazier? Already did. He did. She sent this one today. Oh, I might I might not have checked my counsel. And I just refold I know you've got it. I just refolded Steve's email to I know, but I just the one from Steve earlier to send it just now again. So you should be talking to your list right now. Sorry. I have a wealth of knowledge in this area. And I and I recognize that we need to target one section of the issue. Yeah, and not be all over the place because we can't do that.  So I'm just going to say that I'm willing to serve in any capacity that the city council would desire. I was in Washington, DC, when this first came up. So I was unable to be down here. I issued a couple statements on it. I run outreach efforts out there. Basically by talking with people seeing how they're doing. And just, you know, if they don't want to talk and move along. So anyway, thank you. And I'll serve in any capacity. Thanks. Thank you. Okay, other comments like to just conclude sorry. Let's see if there's anybody else who hasn't spoken yet. Yeah. First of all, I think it needs to be said that and I know that I've heard it said several times. I've heard many, many people come up to me and say, you know, at, at soup kitchens or at the bank or, you know, any number of other things that people have basically said, thank you for actually showing up and thank you for actually showing an active interest because I understand that there's a lot of people that are more interested in doing other things. And I care about this town and I care about the way that things are done here. Perhaps and I, I hesitate to say this, but perhaps on a level that other people, you know, they're, they're, they're stuck in there, you know, they're in their lives, they're doing whatever it is they're trying to do.  And I just like to echo what a number of other people have said. On this microphone, I'd be willing to serve in any capacity necessary. Can you introduce yourself, Casey? My name is Casey Walsh. Thank you. Anyone else who hasn't spoken yet on this topic? In summary, I believe I've recognized, and this is something that stood out in Bill's memo, that a single site to drop in services, the range of need is so great, and the receptivity to assistance is so great. I've been touched by the folks that basically are surprised that anybody's even thinking about a way to provide services in a way that they can accept the, the ability for very folks of very temperaments. And we need to create a lot of avenues for people to reach out to get the help that can be available. So this is a cross interdisciplinary cross. It's a very challenging design process. And I believe it's beyond a traditional government approach. There may be recommendations that come out of this task force that don't sit well with traditional ways of thinking about it. But I think you should welcome that. I think that's what it's going to take to really create opportunity and hope in these folks. People are checking out for lack of hope. And we need to do all we can. And it's going to impact and overlap with affordable housing for these folks to step into. So in a nutshell, I've done my best to serve you up. Thank you. I do have one question. I didn't understand in your memo, Bill. The bathroom thing was that I don't understand the cost in the back. Is that a renting thing? Yeah. So one of the comments that we heard at the last meeting when people talked about having to clean up these things in a public place. And we so even just in our group was like, Well, where are their public bathrooms? And there's some here in city hall. But really, the only 24 hour one is in the police station. Yeah. And, you know, for whatever reason, not everyone's comfortable going in there. So we thought, Well, is that something the city could do at least seasonally?  And so are the things we could do? Or could we then plan to put a real bathroom? You know, can we think about where we could construct a bathroom? But it was just we were thinking about how what are the kind of things we could do tomorrow that could help and then think about a better long term. Right. So it was just that was a suggestion. Okay, because I read it like the person would have to pay to No, no, no, no, that was we went in after the meeting, we said, Well, I wonder what it would cost to put something, you know, portable bathrooms in and that was the cost to the to the city with showers. Thank you. That could be the next thing. Okay. So I see this as having three parts. One part being how many people or how many seats do we want to create? Do we want to reserve seats for particular organizations or say, you know, we'd prefer to have at least, you know, one or two or however many people who have experienced homelessness on the committee. And then the third thing would be just a quick outline of the the mission or the task that we're asking them to perform. So thoughts about any of those things. Oh, Jack, I would suggest And this is what I would make as emotional. Just to keep sure you can. I know that we created a task force up to eight people that the city manager be directed to send out the requests for applications from all the groups listed in in his memo and to all the people who either the list of Steve Whitaker's memo to us or who otherwise already contacted the city to express their interest, including people who are here present and that we get the application so that the appointments will be made at the next meeting. I second. For the discussion. Any thoughts on on this? If not, we can just vote. Okay. Going once going twice. Okay. All right. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed. Okay. Thank you all. For all of your attention thought, you know, going into this topic. So it seems that that is a relatively quick turnaround to have it be on the agenda for next meeting. So just fine. I just want to recognize that. And yeah, it's actually slightly less than that. Yeah, because we have to have it done for the but if you've already spoken to your people and I think these, you know, the organizations I think have been expressed the willingness that probably I bet we could get responses pretty quickly. Great. And is there any do we feel like there's pretty that the task of this group is clear enough? Based on this memo or do you want to discuss that at all? Discuss that I would ask to be heard again on it. Or just ask you to read me refined scope at the bottom of my I don't like the idea of the group starting from here. And then as they meet, they can redefine their mission and ask other thoughts on that. So we'll assume that that this memo is the starting place that does outline some broad scope tasks to look into and they can go from there. Okay, so fair enough. We are going to move on at this point unless there's any further discussion. Okay, so on to discussion of Central Vermont Internet and the CBPSA, Central Vermont Public Safety Authority. I think that's that's you, Steve, if you are ready to come talk through the memo you discussed. Okay, this is something again, I've been asking for six months or more, 10 for y'all to take up that I believe that the both the CV fiber, which it voted to be called not Central Vermont Internet and Central Vermont Public Safety Authority have a sufficient need for direction and engagement from the city council to achieve results. I spoke at your hearing in November, December. And I shared a transcript of that. The planning that CVPSA arrived at was obviously not sufficiently detailed to create the buy-in from either Barrie City or Montpelier City Councils. That has left the organization CVPSA in somewhat of a holding pattern or almost rudderless at this point, lacking direction of what to do in order to some of that is not the fault of CVPSA, but the result of certain actions needing to be clarified in the legislature, specifically related to the governance of the 901 system, the number of public safety answering points and dispatch single stage versus two stage dispatching. The overlap, the technology overlap between what CV fiber is aiming to do, which is build fiber to unserved areas and what CVPSA will need in the way of fiber to transmitters. There are currently gaps. I'm told that the fire trucks lose radio contact as they go up Berlin Hill and can't receive transmissions. That's downright dangerous. So we need a needs assessment of three technologies. There's the fiber that serves as backhaul to small cell for telephone coverage, the fiber that serves as backhaul to radio transmitters, and the land mobile radio transmission that is the radios that police and fire and ambulances use today. So the needs assessment is a logical step. I did convene a meeting at Bill convene allowed me to convene a meeting, including him a week or two ago, where Paco and representative from CV your this city's alternate rep for CV fiber Ken Jones, very capable analyst and knows a lot about telecommunications now as well. Bill and Kim Cheney joined that meeting. And it became clear in the course of that meeting that the logical next step is a needs assessment, which could serve as a foundation of a ineffective telecom plan for central Vermont or for the served areas. So I'm proposing that you direct your your representatives to the Central Vermont Public Safety Authority and to the Central Vermont CV fiber to request that they collaborate on getting CV fiber is less for farther less along than CV PSA CV PSA does have some remaining money in the budget that belongs to both Barry and Montpelier that you direct your delegates which is Donna and Ashley to represent to CV PSA the need or the direction to get that needs assessment done but include all those technologies because they all affect public safety and they all will excel similarly accelerate the success of CV fiber and broadband. Is that clear enough? Questions. Wow, I did a good job. A little different perspective. Can you hear me talk sort of this way in? Strange. But just so the group knows that regional planning safety authority was had put out the idea to do an RFI request for information to do a huge scope of communication like Stephen is talking. And there was a communication committee made up for people from the Public Safety Authority and Capital West. They came back and on the recommendation of that committee and chief focus Vegas that we not do an RFI but face the reality that we have radios and that a radio simocast system doing an RFP for that would go in and assess all the existing far stations and offices and need and tell you what you need and make proposals. And because there's only two vendors that are applicable to our equipment, it's a rather narrow RFP but they would do that as part of their response to addressing our system. Other than to spend money on a separate person. So that's where we're at right now. Capital West has their communication committee looking at this. Tony is part of that. I would. So much to my chagrin. I'll give you that Mr. Whitaker. I actually agree with you about this in its entirety. I actually had an opportunity to sit and talk with Stephen about this for quite some while over a few days. And while his delivery may be rough, he is definitely right about this in terms of radio communications, you know, as a prosecutor, I'm on call and when I get very town calls, for example, it has to get routed through someone else to get to me and then trying to get back in touch with officers who are out in the field who may not have cell coverage or you know their computers might not even work out there. Even though they have satellite, I don't report to understand, but they seem to work in lots of places where there is no other service available, but there are still places where there is no service of any sort. And this is by far I think some of the most thoughtful partnership proposals that I've seen. And I know that CVPSA went in one direction. I think I was pretty vocal about my disappointment with where that went, but I have been following emails back and forth. And I do I think this is a very sensical approach to take I mean, the fact that I can't drive from Montpelier to Burlington and even have cell coverage the entire way is like unconscionable to me because I've driven across the country and, you know, had better service in like the middle of nowhere. And so I just I would encourage the council to really pay attention to this because there are some changes coming in the legislature also some changes coming in terms of federal regulation about communication access and things like that. So I would really encourage CVPSA I know Kim is here and CV fiber to really think strongly about how to make this work because I really do think that that this is one of the only ways that we'll ever get the right people in the right room at the right time working on the same thing. So I know it's it's a deviation and a departure. But I feel pretty strongly that this really is the way to get the information that we need to then be able to figure out if you know, okay, fine, so we only really invest in emergency communication infrastructure for now. But at least we know how other pieces would dovetail into that. And it also may be something that can be used as a bigger plan elsewhere because other areas in the state are talking about this which may actually attract vendors who may be willing to work in different ways than they currently do. So I just I think we should be very mindful that this really does bring in all of the stakeholders to this conversation about communication and emergency response. But it will assuming that everything comes together in works, which I know is a large assumption assumption. But I think there's a lot of opportunity here to get other people to come in who may be able to do part of the work that CVPSA or other individual entities may not. But there's a lot of opportunity for collaboration. And may I respond to Donis? Sure. Yeah. The and I've tried to avoid getting into any of the dirty laundry of and I will continue to try to avoid that tonight. But the idea to jump from where we are now to a proposal to purchase a million one to $2 million system that only serves part of the need is frankly absurd that to go to there was even talk of going with the monopoly vendor a Motorola simulcast system. Now it's true that Motorola would design a fiber network to serve their simulcast towers. We would be missing the opportunity to also plan how that might most efficiently overlap and synergize with CV fiber and cellular coverage. So what I'm talking about is having a disinterested comprehensive foundation for a plan that once we get that plan then we're ready to in fact the art the scope of this could include an assessment of Motorola's technology versus alternatives. So let me just caution that we in my view CVPSA Capital West are in no place form or status to be bonding $1 to $2 million for a simulcast system until these plan this planning is done. Jack and then Kim. Since much part of what Don had to say was that putting going your route would involve the needless spending money on this RFI and the planning process. Do you or does anyone have an estimate on what the cost would be buying this? Well, I just want to make sure. So my understanding of CVPSA and Donna please correct me if I'm wrong is that's that was that was sort of where we had been was that that there was a communications committee who was figuring out who the potential vendors were. But I guess I didn't read that as a disqualifier from from not staying the core. I can't my words are gone. But we were going to do the same thing. Microtransit did microtransit went out and did an RFI and got all these proposals to make service work without us spending a dime on a consultant. Right. RFI in a broad communication was what we were going to do. We were working on that for about four months when both chiefs said no, we don't want to do that. All of capital West said no, we don't want to do that. Right. Back to the simulcast, something they could actually have. And so I just I and this is maybe a clarification question then. So so I'm going to stop lying ahead because I'm not sure that I'm quite comprehending what you're saying. Okay, well, can I respond to your were you not coming? What Jack was saying? Or my confusion is so everyone agreed that that approach wasn't the approach. So it's so my what the impression I was left with on TV PSA is we're sort of figuring out what is next is that and so right now we're sort of, well, I don't think we do. I mean, the answer either nothing is next if we don't have agreement about anything. Or it's the RFI from Motorola because they're the only ones who provide what we would need for this simulcast or something different. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. RFI was the broad one that he's talking about. It was including cellular, it was including first, it's about first alert, first net, I'm sorry, first net, first net. It was looking at anything and everything. But and so but that would be for vendors to send to us, right? That was just going out there. So vendors would come back with ideas without any cost. Sure. And so I guess blew it down and so did capital. Well, and so what I see this as is an opportunity to figure out exactly what it is that we already have so that I'm going to say let's pause her a second unless there's anything further you want to. Well, I guess it's just I don't I didn't see it as like, and you spend this money or do this other thing. I mean, the only other thing that I'm aware of as an option is is buying the simulcast framework that we would need to upgrade it. But that wouldn't really need all of the needs, right? Okay, so I guess, I guess that's what I was getting at is that framing it in terms of well, this is spending money right now. And the other alternative isn't, I guess, I just I just want to clarify that it's not about like if we spend this, then we can't do that. But rather this I see as a precursor to getting to a place where we could even contemplate spending additional funds on infrastructure upgrade. I want to hear from Kim and then I'm Kim Cheney, I'm chair of the CVPSA. This is a very complex subject. The ask of you tonight is to direct CVPSA to do something very simply. We have three members. And we have one elephant. And everybody has a different piece of it. And they all are very passionate about their piece of it. When we were here in December, we recommended a study and I've got the the item here and I'll just I've got three copies and I'll just pass them around if anybody wants to read it. In December, nothing that I'm aware of has really changed from December. Candidly, I think I learned more about it meeting with Bill Fraser a couple of weeks ago when he told me that he'd met with the public safety people and they were all in disagreement about what they wanted and what they wanted to do. Unfortunately, that's not new. That's been going on for the two or three years I've been on the commission. My response to this is to call a meeting for next week. And I hope I'm going to get all the all our members, which essentially are the people that we're going to have to come together with an idea and see if we can't cut the Gordy and not at least talk about where they want to go. As I say, everybody has their own solution and everybody has very different needs and there's different funding sources, which are very complex. CVPSA, when Paco resigned halfway through his contract, he left some money on the table. And we have approximately 50,000 in funds. And we can either give it back whatever it is, 53% to Barry and 47 to my appeal here. Or we can do something to further the mission of CVPSA. I'm a strong believer that, and oddly enough, all the public safety chiefs will tell you that they are strong believers in regional communication. When you ask them how they're going to do it, they all say they can't. It's a long battle. And what I would suggest at the moment, before I give a suggestion, I'm happy to have this come before the council. Because as far as I can tell, when we had the meeting in December, almost nobody had read the report that we sent or had even an inkling of what was in it. And I want both city councils to decide what they're going to do with what was a very potent and exciting idea until Barrytown and Berlin dropped out of it. And probably that made it a plan that wasn't going to go forward. I do think, though, that there is room to bring people together if we had a thorough study that would show all the various technological and other solutions that are available. And that we have some competent person that would do that. Paco told me that he was willing to come back to find a person and recommend somebody that he thought was competent to do that. He gave an estimate that the planning cost was within the parameters of the money we have on hand.  So the first steps are to meet with the people, see where they're at. They've kicked it around here now for the last three or four months, I think with no clear idea where to go. And all we can do here is say we're ready to help. I want to talk to the chief. I know he's been on vacation and I'm sure quite busy. I did talk to chief bombardier. So I have some idea of where this is going and I'll know a lot better after our meeting. So where I would like to leave it is I'm delighted it's in front of you. I thank Steve for doing that because it's at least opened up the door again to think about this. Barry's a whole different subject and I think when we've had our meeting I'll be in a position to talk to Barry. I've talked to the mayor. He says well tell me what my pillar is going to do and we'll see what happens after that. So it's it's pulling teeth. The end story here is that it is absolutely vital for public safety that we agree on what to do and get doing it. There's possibilities of serious harm to our populations with the type of patched up communication system we have. And I think we all have an obligation to the people that we're all serving to plan ahead vigorously and lean on people to reach an agreement so somebody doesn't get badly hurt. Thank you. So Stephen is this what you're proposing here with the needs assessment is that more or less the same thing as the RFI that was sort of discussing you know doing a broad scale sort of well look at what's out there. The current debate as I understand it is each separate each of our members is an easy way to say it. Barry Montpelier and Cap West have suppliers that they think vendors will tell them how to meet their needs. Montpelier getting communications with a fire truck which they don't have or if they get in the pavilion office building they can't talk with anybody. They're probably not terribly complex solutions to take care of those relay towers or whatever. I think the and Barry has exactly the same problem. Their fire chief can't even call the office because of the chatter on the on the on the web and there are solutions for Barry to solve that problem. So let me just clarify so I'm wondering Stephen if this is I haven't seen the draft RFI. I will note that the so-called communications committee has not responded with minutes of their prior meetings nor notice of any meetings since I requested months ago. So apparently that's dormant too. I haven't seen and so my point is that I wouldn't characterize this as an RFI but Paco's description of it as a needs assessment. And I'm specifying that the needs assessment be conducted in a manner that could serve as a foundation for a full on plan. It's not partial or preferential to any of capital West's preferences or agenda nor Montpelier's nor Barry's. It's a uniform and what the important piece to add is that if this is done right and soon it could serve as the the sweetener the carrot that could bring bring to the fore the value of Berlin and Barry town joining this thing. I think in the long run capital West will fade away as a member and the individual towns will join and begin contributing to this. In effect what I'm proposing is you take action immediately. It's not doing anything. It's not binding any money that you got discretion over right now. It's giving direction which then I believe Barry city will follow suit and do the same and capital West will produce a product which will lay a foundation to CV PSA becoming not a multi town police or fire agency. Nobody's ready to see their authority but it would be a communications dispatch public safety dispatch authority that could enable. I believe capital West will sell the two or three towers that they own and a system will will grow to serve all the needs. I think it'll keep it alive and it will most importantly protect the hundreds of thousands of dollars that have been invested by Barry city and Montpelier and otherwise I believe I fear we'll lose that. Donna did they or actually the chiefs didn't explain why they didn't want to go with why they wanted to go directly to an RP. What they said was it was just too expensive. There was no money and they reason right before that they had two fires where the chiefs lost communication with the farm and people in the farm. They had to go inside the building to find out where their crew was. That's how bad the communication system is and so they were going to be more practical. No no I mean it's no so there are two separate communication systems for fire and police. Police is far much further along than fire. That made them think they really needed to get realistic because a sima pass would help them now and they can build on that to go the next step. Jack your question. I'm just a little confused on how to proceed because this council has resided its trust in two very able and perspicacious representatives who are taking different views and both seem to make very good points and so I'm kind of confused about where to go. Why it sounds like you're saying Donna that what the chiefs are asking for now is the only realistic and practical way to proceed. Can I talk about this on there? No if you want an RFI then get a big scope fine but don't spend the last pennies we have on a consultant to then do a need assessment when you can do an RFI and get it done within a proposal or the RFP but that's my thing I don't want to spend money on a consultant. Let me just say I disagree with that. I know you do. And can I uh I believe that oh yeah go ahead and Kim why? Because the conflict in ideas and technology and understanding of it is pretty widespread and I think if you get one person that people have to buy into it but if you get one person or firm or whoever that takes a look at the whole thing and makes recommendations I think it'll pull people together and frankly we had some off-the-wall price discussions in December figuring simulcast would run a million dollars or some number like that. Simulcast isn't going to solve everybody's problems but I'm not interested and I doubt anybody in this room wants to run a large bond issue simply with no bid and some manufacturer comes in and says they'll build it. I would think you would want to have the recommendation of a trusted person to say this is what'll work for everybody and these are the various costs and this is who it'll serve. And at that point we can figure out do we want to do it or no. I think that an RFI in response issued by police agencies is not going to gain you your efficiency your economy of synthesizing the small cell the neutral host small cell to fill the gaps where the cell towers don't get with the potential to accelerate community broadband that's that's beyond the scope that CVPSA of its own accord will put out an RFI for. So this is basically asking the city who's a member of both Capital West and CVFiber and CVPSA to say we want to you to explore and demonstrate the economy of that that efficiency of that approach. So Steve said in a far more technical way what I was about to say which is I think the the piece that's missing and we we haven't really talked about is the opportunity or the idea of bringing CV fiber into this too because you get a separate group that wants to raise money to bring fiber all through central Vermont for cable and that kind of thing and and rather than looking at and which can also be used for public safety communications and so how do you coordinate those efforts so maybe you know we don't want to build two fiber lines and you know pay for it twice and get the synergy and I think you know I have to say and I'm no expert in this and I'm somewhat late to the conversation but as I've tried to learn more about it you know I think that right a public safety consultant is going to look at the public safety needs and I do believe it's even more complex even the fix for fire as I'm understanding isn't as easy as I thought it even might be but you know police run digital radios fire doesn't and you've got you know in and they rely on the mutual aid for all around so unless all these small towns switch to digital which you know I mean there's a lot more to it than I think we understand a week from Friday I'm I and all the public safety people and Barry I'm up here in the other the city manager I could have our follow-up conversation and I certainly I I got mixed reactions on the simulcast whether that was really what people wanted from the people in that room so and was it was that a real benefit to the cities or was that more of a benefit to the smaller towns so I you know I'm I'm still there so I don't know whether it's an RFI I don't know if it's you know I don't know the mechanism but I think the the I support the sentiment here which is at least urge our representatives on these boards to find the best way to integrate the services so that we're we're you know it so happens we're going to be building them both out at the same time just by luck of timing so let's not blow it that's you know let's maximize the benefit I mean central Vermont fiber I mean part of that RFI I mean I was so impressed with the microtransit how many vendors they came out and then they came and visited I mean we learned so much it was just amazing and then you make that decision and then you hire somebody to implement and make it happen but well I guess so much different I mean RFI is so much different than an RFP it's just amazing I was so impressed I think you need a plan before you can put fair enough um other thoughts of what Bill I could I just I I can't hear you very well your microphone is a little yours is a low frequency it's really inaudible nearly but what was the bottom line that you support a plan yes my suggestion was that you know I like I said I don't know the best mechanism you know all things being equal I tend to lean toward a consultant but that's without having studied all the alternatives I hear the merit in the RFI but I think the proposal before you is urge our representatives on CV fiber and our representatives in CVPS we can't tell either of those boards what to do all we can say is we urge you to find the best way to work together and decide yourselves whether it's an RFI or a consultant or whatever it might be we you know I think if we start dictating the means and methods we're going to get way out over our skis but I think just saying going on record saying we'd like to see a holistic approach between the two of you I think would be a good statement from the city it's my take that makes sense to me you know leave it to the two creeps to figure out how to coordinate but just recognizing that there's this really unique opportunity to collaborate and and to think broadly about the needs before the before the CVPSA and it has three-month reporting thresholds in the language they for you to get reports back from both CV fiber and CVPSA in three months is there a motion that could be made to that effect or unless an interview is not there and that's okay too but I just don't know if it's appropriate for me to move it if I'm the council member it just feels wrong but I'd be happy to do it I don't think I don't know that it violates any rules it just feels weird because you could move that instead of directing the reps to do that you could say that city kinds of supports supports this a cooperative effort between CV fiber and CV PSA and urges the two boards yeah yeah do we even need a motion like that I I really am struggling with the way these meetings are scheduled because I don't have the bandwidth to keep up with 30 emails a day about timing and I'm I think I sent an email to everybody requesting doodle polls because like I have a full-time day job and I'm on call and I and calling in in every other context is at least an option on occasion and so I totally appreciate that I haven't been there but I have to work I have medical providers I have to see and I can't I can't read 30 emails a day to figure out when a meeting is going to be I think probably we should probably have a motion if we're going to do sure what was your word in there bill I've already come out of my brain I can't think twice I think the all right I would say that the city council of Montpelier wants to go on record is supporting a cooperative effort between CV fiber and CV PSA to look at a regional wide communications network that that you know uses the fiber structure and its most efficient means and urges the two groups to work together cooperatively to accomplish that goal. Can I have said it better myself Bill? Yes you can. I'm sorry but I think that's a little narrow there is first net CV fiber is only one player there's first net. So I would say and other fiber providers. Another communications providers. So Connor is that is that okay with you? That's great. Okay okay making it sort of broad like that. Okay. Kind of broad be it. So what I understand is that Connor just made that motion. Yes. I'm seconding it. Okay great. Is there further discussion? Okay all in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed. Thank you and thank you for bringing this to our attention. I think this is a great opportunity. Yep for sure. Okay all right I am hopeful still that we're going to get out of here at 10. I'm just going to say that. Chapter seven the ordinances. So you're opening the public hearing. Oh yes so we're going to open is this this is the second public hearing? Yes. Okay yes. I don't know where I was for the first one. Okay so we're going to open the second public hearing on chapter seven. It is that we're all happy with it on July 10th that I am still happy with it. So as soon as we close the public hearing I'll make it. Donna. It's just so refreshing to see it reduced and getting concentrated. It's just great. Thanks staff. Jamie whoever did it. Okay I'm going to be a pain and say that I have some comments. I know I'm sorry.  Let's see if I can their their definitions are basically the same um and then it becomes relevant again in seven four one um the title says vehicles carrying garbage or trash but I but we just took out the definition for trash show perhaps that should say garbage or recyclables um and yes oh just the definition of recyclable that's not right yeah I that felt a little funny I was like that's the definition of garbage which may well be in practice what is happening because no one overseas is buying our recyclables anymore but yeah right exactly practically speaking that practically speaking that maybe what's happening but I would assume that we as a city don't want to define recyclables the same as we do trash I apologize that I did not catch these things the first time through there's also going to be you know as noted in the um cover sheet there's going to be some changes coming based on state law and composting and amendments to chapter three regarding toxic chemicals so we may need to come back to this chapter at some point anyway fair enough I'm happy to make these changes now with the flag that maybe we can revisit it um I have one other thing which is I just didn't okay in seven dash two that's kind of going backwards a bit but um they use the word swell and I'm just unfamiliar with that as a garbage related term like awful well awful and but then at least that's like um near it in that sentence I think but I didn't know what a swell was seven dash two you said yes seven seven any swell house uh yeah the new seven dash two surface deposits of offensive or unhealthful materials it's right in that first sentence uh uh yeah it is in the first sentence any swell could it could it be meant to be swill not that that's all that much to become larger and rounder than usual to cause to increase in size which is looked up the like all the differences well I none of them made sense okay so in any case that's um I just want to I think that might be appropriate there like if stuff like spreads outside I mean it's not how I would use it but I'm based on all of the the older sure context why don't we take a look at it before we have to revisit this again yeah okay um again I'm happy to to approve this with the changes for now and knowing that we're gonna come back to it just checking in do you do you have a suggestion for how to change the definition of recyclable nope I think we should revisit it then we you think we should send it back and before we approve it yes so maybe we're not necessarily like approving it into that's good that it certainly seems like a good thing to have a definition of and so having a another hearing on chapter seven then um okay um for that for that matter then I in seven dash one I was a little worried that we were banning the possibility of worm casting boxes you know sometimes people compost inside their homes I just wanted to make sure that we weren't preventing that from happening our worm casting boxes government sanctioned is that covered under that last I don't know Jamie tells me that she has the definition of recyclables by the way but in any case sounds like maybe we're gonna have another hearing on this and that's fine okay um so any comments on from the public on this chapter okay so I'm gonna close the public hearing and I think we're probably setting another public hearing for this one next week at the next meeting oh actually I think we need a motion to that effect though so moved great for the discussion all in favor please say aye opposed okay thank you all all right so we have an update on protests from Captain Martell I'll get your title right so recently myself and some of the department had specifically from public works and Bob Gallant's and the fire department got together on the suit from city manager's office to discuss yeah better to discuss the ongoing concerns that being expressed with the recent protests we've had two this summer that have been disruptive to different parts of the downtown area specifically back in july at state entailer and near the state house and then a week or so ago right at state in Maine better okay so we've received lots of different feedback from citizens business owners and people that frequent Montpelier some of it has gone both ways to be quite honest we've seen a significant amount of frustration from people that are trying to travel through the city that were upset by these protests and disruptions my thought was to get other department heads on board with trying to understand what our ability to respond and what our assets and resources are at the police department on any given day there's not more than three maybe four officers working these protests the most recent one probably had in upwards of 30 youth in various ages from maybe as young as 13 up to probably early 20s the earlier july protest had active protesters in the street somewhere in a neighborhood of probably 15 to 20 so when you do the simple math there it's not a good number of officers to protesters i'm not saying that these protesters are violent or have a propensity to become violent but they are committing some active civil disobedience by blocking the roadway so if i have this past friday for instance it was myself i was fortunate i had three other officers and a detective available we met with that group tried to understand what their intent was the duration not really negotiating but there is a negotiation it has to occur with these people to understand what they're trying to accomplish and for us to express what we have to do as you know the police and to keep sure it's open it's give and take i'll be honest with you you have to assess the situation from our standpoint of what we can feasibly do with three to four police officers and somewhere between any given time 15 to we've seen protests that have probably up to a hundred people um what it comes down to from the police perspective is what assets what officers can i quickly bring to the area to facilitate removal we can ask for compliance we can order for compliance if they refuse to comply then we have to basically it's riders refusing to leave when they're blocking the street it constitutes what is disorderly conduct by state statutes when you impede vehicular pedestrian access thoroughfare to be clear these are misdemeanor crimes that you yes you arrest in vermont but you cite and release for misdemeanor crimes unless there's other applicable rules under rule three which continuation of offense could be one of those but typically these people would be asked to leave and then escorted from the roadway issued a citation to appear court and or go through a restorative process if that's deemed the most appropriate action and you know it moves forward from there typically we don't physically drag people away but we have had instances of protests where we have had to and that even a passive resistance changes things from a law enforcement perspective if if a person is compliant usually it's a one-on-one situation if a person becomes passively non-compliant it then for the safety of the officers and the safety of the protester or the disobedient person it requires no less than three suggested four officers if they have to physically drag for lack of a more carry drag yeah remove that person so you've now you know taken what might have been you know three or four officers handling several people to now three or four officers dealing with one person in particular so what i asked for the other department heads was to be at the ready to the best of their abilities understanding each of those the fire and and dpw have other core tasks but to be at the ready if i call specifically with public works to provide barricades cones roadblocks and personnel to detour traffic which we have been dedicating law enforcement officers to which if we're going to have to arrest these people takes the few officers that i have working they're now stuck directing traffic around the scene so i could free them up with use of other city department people understanding fire department is not part of their core mission but if they they have officers or firefighters available i've reached out to other assets the chief is speaking or will be speaking with area chiefs in washington county about being able to provide assets the reality is every situation is different but most departments are in the same situation if i call for barry i'm going to get maybe one officer maybe two i called state police at the last protest they had three three troopers including the sergeant and two troopers covering all of washington county on a friday so the reality is there's not this magic pool of officers working in any given community in central mont with planning and if we know that these protests are coming we can ramp up our staffing we can reach out to other area agencies beyond washington county and and other agencies can plan and and have resources available the last two i gotta be quite honest we had very little warning actually friday the last one not at state main and no warning we had no intel at all that they were going to take to the street they just did it so that that is tough to plan for obviously when you don't know this we do know the group has made it known to us and through their social media sites that they are planning to ramp up this process of protests specifically september 20th through the 27th has been targeted as a worldwide time period for protests that you know i'm sure most of you have probably seen or heard but it it centers around fossil fuels and climate change and all those concerns that they have what makes it a little more complicated is this is a youth-based movement and it's not complicated that it's youth per se but if it comes time to have to cite or arrest these youth it's a little bit of a game changer from our perspective of how we handle any one that's considered a youthful offender which is now any one of the age of 18 it's going to mean that it's going to tie up more resources for us under statutory law we're required if we take one of those youthful offenders in a custody that we turn them over to a guardian if this is a destination location for people all over the state mom and dad aren't going to be working down at dmv they're going to be at all corners of the state which is going to tie up additional resources kind of for lack of a a better term holding on or babysitting these kids until we can turn them over to a guardian or parent so something to be aware that this action plan coming together is youth-based i anticipate that it'll be youth from all over the state and perhaps beyond so we we are starting to plan for the september time period knowing that they've identified september 20th through the 27th as a key national and worldwide time to call to action they've also indicated that there'll be more frequent pop-up events anytime between then and now so my understanding is that you are sort of looking for some kind of clarity from the council about you know what happened the generally speaking the approach like should we be arresting people or not or um do you want to i'll turn it back over to you yeah yeah i mean i think i think we have to make a decision based on the totality of the circumstances and what we have for resources at the time and and and the general public says get these people out of the street now and the reality is we may not disagree with that but we have to do it with the with enough resources so it can be safely done and that takes time unfortunately the city certainly can offer a position on what the council or the city fields is appropriate do we want as a community or as a city endorse this type of behavior or or protest or do we want to take a position that the streets have intentions for thoroughfare travel and not protest well i guess i'll just speak for myself and say that i um trust the judgment of the department to evaluate um you know on a situation by situation basis what is most needed um you know i think it was the the way the last most most recent protest was handled