So it is 6.01 on January 10th. I will call to order this meeting of the Winnowsky City Council Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance led by Deputy Mayor Hal Colston. I Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands One nation under God Indivisible with liberty and justice for all Thank you. Thank you So we have an agenda review. Are there any concerns about the order of the agenda? Next up is public comments. So if you are here to address anything that's included in tonight's agenda, please wait for that item This is an opportunity to speak to make public comment about anything not included on tonight's agenda So if there is public comments, please use the raise hand feature or chat the host and let us know who wish to speak Okay. Oh and Jim is there anyone present in chambers? Okay, so we'll move on to our consent agenda We have our council minutes council meeting minutes from last Monday, January 3rd The accounts payable warrant of January 6th. Are there any questions or concerns about the consent agenda? Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Motion by Hal second by Jim all those in favor, please say aye Aye Motion carries. Thank you So we have council reports next Jim, can we start with you? Sure. I have an effort to report this week All right, Bryn, I just have a quick update. We have a couple applicants for the infrastructure commission I believe John Russia will be interviewing them this week. So hopefully we will see Them on the agenda for council review later this month Thank you Al I had no report this time All right, Mike Leaving everybody I have an announcement to make Um, if if I can I'd like to just read the statement I released on front porch forum and Facebook To my fellow Winooski residents, I am announcing I will not seek reelection for my council seat this Come-in town meeting day It's been an honor and privilege to serve you in the city that I hold near and dear to my heart Thank you for all the support you have shown me in the last three years Being appointed to the Kenneth R. Myers Memorial Pool Committee in 2016 through the 19th and Then being elected by you in 2019 to present day to the city council has truly been a great honor and experience for me. I Would like to thank past and present counselors for the dedication and hard work That we have accomplished together Also, a big thank you to to you mayor lot for the work you have put in and I've always had time for a conversation I would also like to thank everyone in city hall and former city manager Jesse Baker a Huge thank you goes to my family for the support that I've given me in my efforts to give back to the great city of Winooski In conclusion if I can offer any advice for anyone running or thinking about running for city council It will be this stay true to yourself Don't be afraid to speak up and offer debate or rebuttal and remember you represent all of Winooski Those who voted for you and those who did it It's about our community and how we make a difference in it So with that said I want to thank everyone again even in terms city manager Wendy It was a very difficult decision for me to make because I really have enjoyed my time being a city counselor in the city that I grew up in and Just wish luck to future future counselors into the present council now and the incoming city manager Thank you so much Thanks Mike So for members of the public that is we have two open seats for council that are coming up on time meeting day And I think Petitions are due January 24 Great You can pick up a petition in city hall. I think you'd like 30 signatures of registered voters to get on the ballot I do not have any council reports either so we'll pass it to Wendy for city updates Okay, thank you mayor. I just had two and one of them was about the local election so you are correct the petitions are due January 24th and We recommend 30 signatures, but that you get a few extra in case some of them are not valid and the all resident registration form is on the Website so folks can download it to actually complete registration for the first time and this would apply to all resident versus citizen residents also or Including citizen residents everyone who's registering for the first time in Winooski needs to do that in person at the clerk's office You can also register same day of the election You're gonna need proof of residency and to take the oath So you can get more information on the website and we're producing a pamphlet that's going to be for the all resident voting Population so that is in draft and we'll be ready soon and then Just want to let you know what's going on at the senior center they're Distributing meals every Wednesday, which they've been doing but there's been a big uptick recently They're doing about 126 meals each Wednesday. It previously was about 110 So that's a barometer of the the need in the community They do have some limited Programs in person, but they're keeping people separated and they're sitting in their pods But it is important that people be able to Congregate safely They're distributing masks with the meals, which is important also to make sure that the whole everyone has masks which we'll talk about more later and Just a heads up the AARP annual tax aid the assistance that they provide which is for seniors But not just for seniors that's going to start in February and go through April 15th And that'll be at the at the senior center last year. They served 500 to 600 people. So that's a that's a good program And we'll talk about COVID later You all are probably aware that it continues to spiral and we are continuing to adapt Thank You Wendy With that we are on to our regular items and first up it's on for discussion. This is a Green Mountain Transit budget presentation So believe we have John Moore general manager joining us Austin Davis our Representative to the GMT board is also here and if there's anyone else, I mean Good evening Welcome John How was everybody? Well, thank you Good. So I am John moron the general manager at Green Mountain Transit and Austin Davis is on the meeting. He is the Commissioner from Winooski So we wanted to provide some information on our FY 23 Assessment and some of the information on how we develop those amounts So I believe in the board packet. There were a few documents related to the assessment number one the actual assessment letter and then number two a Summary memo kind of detailing how those were calculated and then some other background information in regards to ridership and some other details, but essentially GMT has eight member municipalities to help fund our services Winooski is obviously one of those and so the FY 23 assessment was about $237,000 and there's no way to sugarcoat this It was a significant increase over FY 22 of about 16% The vast majority of that increase came from our ADA program which provides Transportation services and is mandated by the federal government For folks that can't take the fixed route service for any number of reasons So this supplemental service provides Transit door-to-door transit service. We contract with SSTA Basically a three-quarters of a mile bubble around our fixed route service Anybody that is traveling to or from any point within that zone and is eligible can take advantage of this door-to-door service And so I'll quickly just go over the fixed route assessment. That was a 4% increase over FY 22 That helps fund the fixed route service in the city Including the Essex Junction and Riverside Winooski routes. We also operate a weekly shopping shuttle connecting Winooski to the market 32 on Shelburne Road In generally speaking the federal government pays for 50% of transit operating funds And to leverage those federal grant dollars, we need to provide a 50% non-federal match GMT provides that through our fare collection But primarily through state operating funds and then our local assessments which typically make up about 22% of our operating revenue In terms of the ADA service, that's where we saw a more of a significant increase year-over-year So for Minooski that was a 32% increase over FY 22 This program does fluctuate on an annual basis because the assessments are based on actual usage I will say this 32% is certainly outside of the normal increase that we would expect And that's about a $29,000 total increase and just for some background the way that this works for the ADA program we project what the The future fiscal year operating costs will be Per our charter all of our member municipalities actually only pay 50% of the total operating costs So in FY 23 We're projecting about a $1.6 million total program cost 50% of that we Assessed to our member municipalities And we allocate those costs based on actual ridership So in FY 21, which was the last completed fiscal year Winooski had about 15.5% of the total ADA ridership So we then apply that to the 50% of the program costs So a few things to mention number one The percentage of Winooski ridership did increase in FY 21 by about 1.5% So there were more rides in Winooski not necessarily total rides, but a higher Share of the overall program So that impacts the assessment The other thing that's really driving the 32% increase in FY 23 Is that the overall program costs of the ADA program have increased by about 20% And that's uh indirectly due to COVID And directly due to the fact that our contractor ssta Has experienced a significant decrease in ridership and their other programs that they provide Most notably the Medicaid transportation contract Under the state of vermont So essentially what has happened The ADA ridership has almost rebounded to pre-pandemic levels where the Medicaid ridership is Very low compared to pre-pandemic levels. So the ADA program Has to pay for More of the overhead of ssta than it normally would As those costs are allocated based on number of service hours for each program So There like I said, there's always fluctuations, but we do think that this is an outlier for FY 23 We are Expecting that the Medicaid ridership will rebound Closer to pre-pandemic levels In FY 24 That will help balance out the overhead costs of ssta and hopefully have a positive impact on the ADA program We're also working with the chitin and county regional planning commission on a call center consolidation study so ssta has a call center to Manage the ADA in their part of the Medicaid program GMT actually has a call center at our broenton location as we provide a Medicaid service in some of our rural areas So we're looking at consolidating those two call centers to try to identify some cost savings We're also exploring the use of smaller more fuel efficient and lower cost vehicles So we think there's potential there to bring down the cost of the program We're also going to be restarting passenger fares in FY 23 specific to the ADA program that can generate upwards of $125,000 which would come off those assessment amounts So that will help lower the costs And then we're also exploring A statewide transit financing study So right now as I mentioned all of the non-federal match for transit in the state of Vermont comes from property taxes through the assessments And then the the transportation fund at the state level Again in cooperation with the CCRPC There's a a new study looking at alternate revenue options to replace the reliance on property tax GMT Sees transit as a regional service Right now it's funded at the local level, which we feel is inappropriate On many levels So our hope is to find a alternate revenue source to replace the property taxes needed for both the ADA and the fixed route program That likely won't be identified or implemented for multiple years But in the meantime, we will be looking at cost-saving measures to make sure This 32% ADA increase is a one-time only situation and we can avoid that in the future So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions on our assessments or any other GMT items Thank you very much John I do want to ask We have ridership data for Winooski I'm going back to FY 12 and even pre-pandemic. It looks like there's been a slowly a downward trend in ridership And I wonder if that is something that you're seeing like system-wide or maybe that is something specific to Winooski No, that's uh system-wide. So the S6 junction route which travels through Winooski is our second busiest route We did peak with ridership back in that 2012 time period when fuel costs were extremely high We have seen a decrease in ridership since then We've had some other scheduled changes that may have impacted ridership But I think the biggest takeaway is fuel prices have been historically low You know before this recent stretch and that certainly impacts transit ridership That's helpful to know I will say I think we support looking at a different funding structure Since there's obviously economic benefit beyond just our our local area to our entire region And we'll be happy to participate in advocacy in the legislature for that Or the state level wherever needed um How I see your hand Thanks, mayor, and thanks john for uh presenting um You know, I've been following transportation since 1996 when I started the good news garage and I've heard over the years, you know, we're exploring this we're exploring that in order to be more flexible But do you have any specific Plans on how that might look? so that this system It's it's a very It's been a very static You know model and and how does on demand really capture our imagination so that we can avoid these really Cost increases that just happen year after year So so great question Um one uh area we're exploring is a new service delivery model called microtransit Um, and so this is a pilot project. We actually have underway in Montpelier. We've been operating this for about a year And what it is it's essentially uh uber like uh service Using public transit funding and public transit vehicles um The hope in a place like when you ski would not to be replaced to fix route service but to Act as feeder like service and provide that first mile last mile connectivity But also try to combine Trip purposes on one vehicle. So now we have the general public service There may be school bus service, uh, you know within a community Then there's also separate vehicles providing the ada and Medicaid transportation with microtransit You know the economies of scale are created where you have all of those trip purposes on one vehicle It's much more convenient for the user And so there's a high potential to increase ridership And all the benefits that come with that so the state is interested in expanding pilot projects throughout the state So gmt is identifying areas in our service delivery Region where those may be appropriate And we do think there are some applications In chitlin county that may increase ridership and potentially lower costs by combining trip purposes on one vehicle So if I get a follow-up question, how might when you ski get involved with this new approach? Well, you know one way is to advocate for this statewide transit financing You know the current funding structure does not allow Uh gmt or any other transit property in the state of ramon to expand service The new study would identify some additional funds to expand microtransit specifically So that's number one Number two If there are additional federal grants available, which will be likely through the infrastructure bill We're always happy to partner with our member municipalities and try to take advantage of those By leveraging any additional non-federal match, you know, that would require some additional funding potentially from the city But there likely will be additional opportunities with the federal infrastructure bill in the short term future Just one more follow-up question if I could mayor So Is it possible that the microtransit model that you're testing out Could that supplant ssta, which is a very expensive program for us at this time It could um, so The way microtransit works is basically within a pre-devot Defined zone you can request a trip anywhere From a point in that zone to another point in that zone Because our ssta a da service area is essentially You know all of chitin county It would have to be a pretty large microtransit zone But by doing that It would take some analysis, but if that created enough economies of scale of combining these trip purposes There is the potential that it could If not replace at least supplement some of the ad a rider ridership that we're providing now In a silo and open that up to more general public Which would improve efficiency Thank you Do other counselors have questions Brian go ahead Sure, uh, thank you mayor and uh, thanks john I Was uh kind of sitting sending over a couple emails earlier today So I appreciate you being responsive to that before the meeting Um, I'd like to learn more about your fair and fee schedules for riders. Um in the In your supporting information earlier said that the fair hasn't the last fair increase was In 2019, um, I I'm interested in what goes into deciding when Fair increases occur and, um By what percentage, uh, you know, we're we're looking at a pretty steep cola increase that's going to impact Um the city budget as it is, uh, and I'm curious how um How inflation influences ridership fees or operate your You know, obviously you're coming to us for operating and spend Expenses, um that you said I think you mentioned they increased about 20 for gmt, but You know, how How is that all decided? So, yeah, the last fair increase we had was uh in july of 2019 previous to that I think it was about 15 years Since the last fair increase We we would go through a public process To increase fares You know, there would be equity considerations You know through that I can say Generally speaking the conversations at our board level have gravitated more recently towards Remaining fair free if we have the ability to do it We don't have that financial ability in our fy 23 budget But I do think There is a desire to Try to seek additional funds to remain fair free If we got into a situation where a fair increase was warranted We would look at some other financial analysis. For example We received bonus funding from the federal transit administration based on ridership Free pandemic at least there's a fair elasticity So if you raise the fairs, you're going to see a decrease in ridership We would want to make sure we weren't Generating less of that Bonus funding then we were receiving in fair revenue So to be honest, we haven't put any thought into a fair increase since 2019 That has not been on the radar of our board But you know, I think if our member municipalities were to Request that it would certainly be under consideration. And I think if we were to Get into fy 24 with a similar Assessment increase that we've seen not only in Winooski this year But all of our communities that would probably move to the front of the table and start considering that seriously I do have a couple of follow-up questions if it's okay mayor. Yeah, sure um How does how do our fairs compare to other? Other public service transit options, um, you know that that would be Comparable, I guess, uh, you know What what would be? You know when we're looking at our Cost per pupil we look at other municipalities that are similar in in size and demographics To see where where we're kind of matching up with that Is there a comparison for ridership for uh fair fees that gmp looks at? Yeah, so we have a peer group that we use For comparing ourselves To that group And so we haven't looked at that Since before the pandemic, but the average Fair was between a dollar and two dollars for kind of a small urban northeast Community like Burlington greater Burlington. So we were Kind of right in the middle of that when we did increase the fairs back in 2019 We did quite a bit of analysis on kind of industry standard And that dollar 50 kind of fell right in the middle I will say industry-wide there there is and again, some of this is pre-pandemic But more of a push again towards that fair free service scenario There may be opportunities with this new federal funding to do that, but the dollar 50 Was was just about the median fair for our peer agencies Do you is there any conversation or thought about connecting transit funding support with the climate action plan that An efforts that the legislature will be considering this coming session and Yes, I think there's certainly opportunity to connect those two You know, I think the climate council is looking at fleet electrification as one of their primary strategies I know through conversations with the agency of transportation that has also included public transit, so It seems that climate council may have more of a focus on The fleet electrification of public transit vehicles in vermont may be more than the actual operating costs To increase frequencies, but we definitely want to be part of that program and help with some climate benefits right one last question for a moment You you're referencing the infrastructure the federal infrastructure funds is that you mentioned that a couple times, right? Um, so wouldn't that be I just have concerns about thinking about that funds other than you know capital investments replacement of uh, of your fleet Versus operating costs. I don't imagine that that's going to be long-term sustained funding Well, that's I think to be determined, but uh, even if it is long-term sustained funding It's certainly going to be eligible for operating costs But uh at the federal level you need that 50% match to draw down those additional funds. So absent You know additional non federal match. We won't be able to take full advantage of those funds so we're not banking on those In terms of balancing our budget because we don't have the local match to draw those down at this time Thanks I'll go ahead Thank you, ma'am So john obviously Ridership is really critical for the sustainability of the system. So What strategies are gmt? uh, considering to to increase ridership How do we get to a different level so that you run out at this place where we're kind of You know, I just felt nickel and dime because We just don't have enough people using the system So there's there's a coveted consideration obviously which we're working through and you know, there's no roadmap on that You know, there is a face mask mandate on our buses You know that help people feel safe I can speak a little bit to what we were doing before the pandemic and we'll incorporate this with the pandemic response But number one, uh, increase in convenience. So that microtransit and Montpelier looking to expand that Number two, we've rolled out a new real-time bus Locating app, which is much more reliable than our previous product. So people can see in real time when their bus will arrive to their stop in number three Just before the pandemic started to be rolled out a mobile ticketing app So in a lot of cases, you know, having a dollar fifty was not the problem in terms of Fiscal availability. It was more physically having a dollar and fifty cents. You know, it's we're living in more in more of a cashless world So we did roll out a mobile ticketing app where you can preload You know money on your phone using a credit card or PayPal and then you just flash that to the driver. So Definitely using technology to try to make our services more convenient and reliable And then also looking at our fleet. We do have two new electric buses in our fleet. We'll be looking to expand that program In general, those provide a more comfortable ride We hope that, you know, for the climate conscious consumer You know, that may be something that would draw them to the system So those are the things that we're looking at and then of course frequency, you know, you know, people want frequency We prioritize that as we can afford it And then looking at earlier weekend service later evening service, for example Trying to capture the ridership on the fringes where people may not be working the traditional nine to five jobs So service delivery is always number one And then using technology to supplement that with some of these new innovations like microtransit Thanks, John in that same vein of thought pre-pandemic When I used to talk to residents about public transit, I often heard I can't rely on the bus to get me to work on time um, and I think part of that Was maybe the bus not being timely But another part is the way you have to make connections and Having like an extremely long sort of layover time downtown or I know personally I've missed a bus and like the next one that comes through doesn't even make the same kind of connection So I wonder how you Sort of evaluate your schedule and routes and how you get user input on potentially changing them So anytime we Propose a schedule change or a service change. We do go out to a robust public policy hearing policy We are looking and working with our marketing department to try to create additional input opportunities outside of just the times we're making service changes You know the connections and the point-to-point Travel is always difficult We did up until about a year ago We had combined routes. So for example the sx junction bus always turned into the shelver and railroad bus And so we tried to create a one-seat connection as much as possible In reality due to some internal operational and scheduling realities that Caused more confusion than it solved. So we've gotten away from that But you know, our general philosophy is to try to operate our services on the main corridors as much as possible In time our connections as best as we can But yes, we are our marketing department is working on a marketing plan Really trying to have a more of a continuous kind of feedback loop of our passengers instead of only soliciting comments when we're going out to a public hearing Whenever that becomes available, we would be happy to help push it out or get the word out Like I'd love to be able to share that with residents who have thoughts about what we've worked better for them And we have recently in the last year started a Jedi committee So that's made up of internal staff, but also a public advisory component of that of four members one of actually Who who lives in Manuski? And so part of that process will involve public meetings So that will be a great opportunity To get some feedback from the public on Service and in other GMT related matters that we can improve on Well, thank you Jim Yes, thank you mayor. Um, and thank you John for this detailed discussion I uh This may be something that others are already aware of or no But I'm curious if there's been any discussion or potential for changing the assessment formula. It seems Unusual to allocate a per rider basis when each community has a very different ability to pay for that rider And that percentage increase has there been any advocacy or work specifically on re doing the assessment formula to be more weighted towards the grand list total or other property tax relevant components of weight those so that you have maybe Cost spread out by ability to pay rather than pure numbers of riders So Yes, we're starting those conversations internally that gets back to the the current Funding structure of funding transit locally for a regional program We are right now looking at our ADA assessments in terms of trying to Smooth out the fluctuations in that program You know, you could literally have one individual move into Wanooski who's using the ADA service You know twice a day and that alone could Have a significant impact on your ADA assessment So one thought we have is that it would operate more like the fixed-route assessment where it wouldn't Impact the total cost of the program, but there would be more predictability It needs communities assessment You know based on just the increase in the in the cost growth of that program On the fixed-route side You know again the statewide transit financing plan would would allow us to incorporate some more equity considerations into how we fund transit But we will be looking at At the GMT board level redistributing the assessment amounts based on some service changes that were implemented Just before the pandemic There is some charter language that we have You know that we need to follow absent legislative change But we will be looking at all sorts of ways that we can Make the funding of transit as fair and equitable as possible Sharon I appreciate the effort to work kind of in the broader fabric of funding, but I guess I'm You know given that this is an ongoing issue that There is some ability of the authority to change its own rules for apportionment Um, it does seem like it would be a really timely one to put that to the front of the line. What are possible? Yeah, that will be a priority Going forward for fy 24. We're actually probably two years behind that process because of cobit But at the end of the day, it is important to remember that you know The federal funding provides 50 of the operating costs And so to maintain our current service levels, we do need to find that 50 percent non federal match Where that comes from as long as we get to the 50 percent That's the key part I know there will be some Good conversations at the gmt board level in terms of the best way to Apportion these amounts Great. Thank you. And then if I could just switch gears to one other question, which is I'm curious how There's only been a handful of sample days, but I'm curious how the Winooski school transit Process is going if you know anything about that as that was mentioned in your letter I'm sure I don't know about ridership. We did meet with wendy and some reps from the school district. That was a You know three or four weeks ago. Maybe It sounded like things were going well wendy. I don't know if you have any other information to share operationally I haven't heard of any issues on our on our end, but I don't know what the exact ridership has been on that trip When do you had your hand raised anyone? Yes What I heard initially it was going well. We had maybe 10 or so students With the school schedule changing. I I don't have a current status Thanks Did you have another comment or question wendy? Yes, I just had a question for john and thank you for being here Is if you could speak to what the city can do to help Your operations, especially ridership, especially access to to transit Other than paying our assessment Well, I think number one is land use planning And the city of when you ski has done a great job in that aspect um, you know, I think we experience a lot of situations where Communities permit and build development, you know two miles from the closest bus stop and expect us to serve it And that just increases our operating costs You know, again, our philosophy is to serve the main corridor. So, um, you know route 15 and main street in when you ski It seems that's where the development's concentrated. So that Alone will be a great help in generating ridership And then getting back to our marketing plan and outreach Um, you know, that's not my world of expertise, but we have a great marketing department And we'll make sure that they connect with the city and we're always looking at increasing ridership. That's why we're here Um, and so we want to make sure that we're providing a good public process To get feedback on our services and make adjustments. So we're serving the most people that we can All right. Thank you. Thank you I want to open it to public comment. I know we have, um Michael Arno leaving some good messages in the chat Uh, yeah, thanks. Uh, and uh, thanks for being here, john Um, so I just wanted to ask you mentioned, um, when you're considering adjusting routes Um, you take into account public comment I just wanted to ask if there's also sort of a transportation planning and you know demographic component to that. Um, so, you know, as you may have known, uh, you know Downtown monewski's population has increased 30 percent over the last 10 years. Um, so are are there any plans to look into Areas of chinden county that may have increased substantial in population where increasing service may actually Uh be profitable for gmt Well, um service would never never be profitable. Um, You know based on our funding structure, we're highly subsidized, but we do a market needs assessment So we look at demographic data. We look at, um, social economic factors, car ownership, uh, rates trip generation, uh, origins and destinations and then from that, um, you know, there's a kind of a Calculation to try to identify either where we're providing too much service potentially or Not enough service and that's what we did back in 2018 We had a next gen service plan which was a cost neutral Uh scenario where we shifted around our resources Uh and tried to maximize ridership by providing more service in areas where the demand was present. Um, so We are undergoing a transit strategic plan Which will be kind of our five to ten year planning horizon document Uh within that two things number one will have an ongoing process to do this planning work With service standards and making sure that the service levels provided for each wow are appropriate based on actual usage And then number two, um kind of an ongoing regular planning process So every, you know, five years will update this plan. We will look at You know, this market needs analysis and try to identify where, you know, expansion would make sense Or, um, you know a shifting of resources would be beneficial to the community Did you have any other questions or comments michael? I think that's it Okay, thank you. Is there any more public comment? Please chat or raise your hand um On that front john another thing that I've just heard forever is why can't the number nine take me to Shaw's Costco bowling alley that area. What has the pollchester border? You don't necessarily have to answer that but I want you to know that that's a question here very So so we hear that as well Just to throw it out there the number 56 does operate Five times a day and that does actually stop uh at shahs that the frequency is not as convenient as the number Um, so the number nine really is just there's not enough time in the schedule The way we operate that route It departs and arrives every hour at the downtown transit center If we were to add, you know, even five minutes To get up to water tower hill that would essentially either Require us to run that bus less frequently or add another bus to the schedule And unfortunately we don't have the funds to do that at this time And we don't think it's worth reducing the service frequency But that is something that we hear often as well And we will continue to try to Connect grocery stores whenever possible, you know, um promoting that weekly grocery Shuttle, which operates from Manuski to price chopper every Wednesday You know that may help folks. That's free even when we're charging a fare It's a little less pressure in terms of boarding and the lighting You know that parts right in front of the store. You're not at a bus stop The drivers help load with the grocery bags. So If we can promote that Within the city, that may be a good first step for the grocery store access Do you know why it goes to price chopper on Shelburne road that far and not to Shoss? I believe it's been going to price chopper on Shelburne road probably since the 1980s. So I think that's just a legacy service design It's probably been operating before Shoss was opened on water tower hill to be honest with you Um, thank you for that. Brian. I see your hand Thank you. Um, I was just curious in addition to some of the other Improvements that you're making For the sustainability of the system to increase ridership um, you know, you mentioned, uh A new app that you released to improve Uh tracking where the bus is are there any other and then um, you know making it easier to Have mobile payments. Um, are there any other best practices or any other emerging technologies or campaign efforts, um That other, um other transit systems outside of Vermont are using that. Um That are worth exploring Um, sure. There's definitely some on bus technology in terms of stop announcements. Um, so per the ADA law every Published time point the driver needs to announce the stop That's good way of finding practice. Anyways For multiple reasons that always doesn't happen. So there's some automated Stop announcements you can install on vehicles and then general kind of passenger information boards, which are digital now We're looking into Installing some of those that's kind of it gets back to that public information campaign And then looking at passenger amenities So, um, you know, if you have to wait at a bus stop and there's no Bench or no shelter and just a pole on the side and it's raining out or you know minus 10 like tomorrow Not the most comfortable environment. So looking at ways to improve our passenger amenities So while you're waiting for the bus, it's a better experience. It's just something that we want to pursue More than we have in the past Um I'm curious. So with your Um automated announcements and passenger information boards. We in particular and monieski have a lot of english language learners Um, will any of your efforts in that area incorporate? Uh, any of the local languages that we have here in monieski Yes, I don't know if that's uh, that's practice or not, but I believe that would be available You know, we can't expect to drive it to translate Uh necessarily, but if you have the technology that is a possibility. So that is uh a potential benefit for that system I think as especially as we're welcoming more new americans, it would be um a valuable improvement, especially if you're doing automated announcements And passenger ride boards, and I'm sure that we can look at Help you look at other transit Uh authorities to help Compile examples of uh things that may work well Have you considered bus stop consolidation? Um standard stop spacing in europe is around 1400 feet, but route two in town is much lower Yeah, so we don't have a existing standard for bus stop spacing. So, um, we are looking into that Number one the fewer bus stops you have the better the on-time performance and then number two The fewer the bus stops you have the more amenities you can Provided each bus stop and then the maintenance is also easier. So for snow removal and things like that It's actually a better experience. So uh, yes, great question. We are looking at creating some bus stop standards for our system Thank you. I do have a question staff. Um Where is the cover sheet here? so In the cover sheet it says the If the additional amount is added to the proposed budget the impact would be a point three one percent to the tax rate um So are we saying I forget what we were at before like 2.8 or something Are we saying we need to add another point three one percent because of this assessment? To what we're already projecting I think angela's unmuting I can we are trying to locate off-setting funds in the existing proposed budget But $18,000 is a lot for us to just find in line items Um, especially given that it does not look that cola is going to be coming in at 3.4 percent as projected Something for council to keep in mind. Um as we work through our budget discussions and get to Our overall discussion There are any more questions on this item Austin, is there anything that you would like to share as our commissioner? No, um, thank you. I think john was really thorough and uh, thank you john for taking the time It certainly was much more informative and productive than if I were trying to feel any of these questions of my own Yeah, we're really happy to have you um Presenting for us and answering some of these questions and Austin. Thank you for your continued work representing the muski in that role With that, I think we can close this item out and move on Wow, thank you very much. Have a good night Thank you. You too So we will move then to item b. These this is our public safety budget presentation Who's going first? Good evening, mayor, uh members of the council. This is rick. Um, pd is going to be going first this year This is going to look a little bit different than last year's uh presentation. Paul, if you can go to the next slide, please Um, lieutenant james stark-allis is going to be assisting me in co-presenting tonight. Um That's for two reasons that I came up with the idea to do that. The first is uh, the lieutenants work the road 40 hours a week or more And supervise a lot of the good work that we do. So I want them to be able to uh speak with you and um Talk in detail about all of the good work that they get to both supervise and partake in Uh, the second reason is I have an anticipated Retirement in early f y 24 So, um, I'd like to take the opportunity between now and then For them to build a relationship with you and also get known by you And also I think it would be a good, um way for them to better themselves With some professional development So with that being said you're looking at the outline, uh, lieutenant stark-allis is going to start us off and he will take us down to uh, the general fund budget Bullet point where I will take over so that being said unless you have any questions. I will pass the screen off to him Thank you All right. Well, thank you chief hebert and uh, thank you to everyone on the council Uh, this is obviously a Big moment for me my first time kind of meeting everyone here and being in front of the uh the council and the community and uh So without further ado, I know we got a long agenda ahead of us. I'll start with the uh the first slide here So it's pretty self-explanatory Um, our organizational chart has not changed For many years. Uh, we still have 16 full-time officers and we still have four full-time dispatchers to include dispatch supervisor The one thing I would like to kind of highlight on this slide in particular For those who have been in the community for a while. Uh, we used to have a in-house CJC or community justice center a rep board. Um, that was in city hall I just want to assure everyone that we still do have uh rep board Capacities in the sense that we partner now with burlington So the services are still the same the same opportunity still exists for people that we come into contact with professionally to still have alternative justice Being offered to them. Um, it just partnered. It's just outsourced to burlington instead of in our backyard And that's also uh, the same for COSA, which is now through Essex but the same opportunities for people who we come into contact with to have alternative means of uh, kind of coming through the criminal justice system. Um, it's still offered and So that's something I want to highlight and not to go into too much in detail, but the uh It's something that either through officer discretion. Um, if you feel like someone to be a good partner for the CJC Through a supervisor's approval. It goes direct or through the SA office the state's attorney's office They can also if they feel that a person or individuals are a good candidate. They can also direct refer from the SA's office So next slide, please All right, so in 2015 former president obama Created a task force which Incorporates some of uh, probably the most some of the respected minds in law enforcement um, it had an eclectic group of people that kind of really reflected the You know, America that we live in. Uh, so it had like civic leaders, uh, you know community stakeholders Uh, you know community members, richer researchers and obviously a lot law enforcement and together through these Uh, this task force through the meetings that came up with these six pillars And this is something that we have tried to apply to our best practices within the pd It's something that we try to uh, we base our like strategic model and vision and plans off of And it's just how we think and uh, how we can best interface with the community. So it's a real community based driven uh policy that these six pillars kind of highlight And uh, it's like I said, it's it's kind of like the fundamental aspect of what we do and how we do And communicate with the community community and the in the pd. So Next slide, please All right, so just to double a little bit more Into the 21st century policing model Uh, there's been a real commitment with the police department, you know, through chief hebert myself and uh, lieutenant hyzenka to Better ourselves through a lot of training And as you can see here, there's a huge emphasis on equity training unconscious bias We've had a lot of new supervisors to include myself over the last couple years and we've invested heavily With getting the new sergeants in particular. Um, some of the finest trainings that are offered in the country The roger williams mid level supervisor schools kind of a hallmark training we have And also on here, there's a lot of de-escalation trainings, which I'll get into more later on in the presentation but there's a huge emphasis I'm within our pd and just policing engine to Uh, apply new approaches to a lot of things that we encounter on a daily basis to get the best outcomes And we have two now. Um, it's called icap, but it's de-escalation training. We have two in-house Instructors and we also have a couple in-house use of force instructors as well So it's just a big emphasis on how we can again interact with the community best practices, uh, community-based models that Allow us to hopefully have the best outcomes for, you know, not only the pd, but the community we serve So next slide, please All right, so this is uh, just kind of highlighting like our most common Instance that we deal with throughout the year Uh, the colster serves that you can see up our left hand corner That's kind of always been around what we deal with so even with the pandemic We're still pretty steady surprisingly It's always in that six seven eight thousand range for for colster service But I would like to just highlight that a lot of the things we do on a daily basis is community care taking driven and based So like your public assistance might not even be like a police matter society, but we're you know, maybe mediating a landlord tenant issue You know, then we have a lot of welfare checks on there So if a loved one or somebody care about they haven't talked to in a while We're you know knocking on doors to make sure that that person's safe and doesn't need any assistance You know, we're still trying to keep up with the director patrols so You know, we get complaints for speeders going down Weaver street, you know, we're putting up the speed car We're being more visible. Obviously now we have that permanent A speed limit sign on Weaver street, but you know, we're trying when someone calls, you know, we're trying to Uh address those issues as best we can we also have obviously the foot patrols downtown We've had some issues with some of the the homeless population So we're trying to be visible down there as well, especially during times of heavy traffic areas You know in the morning commuters and people going to and from like the the woollen mill or excuse me the champlain mill And uh, so we're trying to keep up with everything and like I said, this is highlights Uh, our 10 most I guess common calls for the last year and a lot of it is community care taken driven and based Next slide, please All right, so I saw this it's kind of interesting when I first started So I've been in with the PD for almost 16 years and this is very true and I'm kind of glad this pie chart shows it uh, when you ski is Busy or it's it's equally busy Any day of the week So as you can see here a great example is a saturday and a wednesday is kind of equal as far as our call volume um, and even times of the day is pretty even as well. So when you ski is very Steady and always has been and I think this just kind of shows that We're just a community that has equal services, whether it be a weekend or middle of the week So next slide, please I thought we missed one. Maybe I guess not. So anyway, yes, thank you. Uh No, maybe not. Okay So For I'm not sure how familiar everyone was but the last year in particular there was some Questions on the role of the school resource officer and what that would look like how Going forward whether we'd keep the sRO as is Um, or eliminate that position. Um, there were multiple conversations that were had multiple meetings via zoom With a certain stakeholders in the community. Um, you know, obviously staff, uh, you know students concerned You know citizens or residents Um, the PD itself and just want to let everyone know that after all of those meetings Uh, the program is going to continue as as it has for this fiscal year 23 So the sRO will still be up at the school in a In a soft uniform so they won't be in Like an outer carry like you see a lot of patrol. Um, soft uniform They'll still be armed at the school and they'll have their unmarked police cruisers. So it's just like a Playing black sedan, but there's No changes scheduled for this year coming up and uh, if there is going to be More conversations to be had that will be starting no earlier the fiscal 24 if there are changes to be made But that's that's kind of where we're at with that next slide please okay, so, um This is so the community outreach team, um, this is kind of like just highlights our usage of that with I don't know if it was pandemic driven fully, but we've seen a major increase in mental health calls and I think that's well documented throughout the media and And this just goes to show how much we use them And just for a little background for those who aren't familiar with the community outreach team Community outreach team is a group of individuals who are mental health professionals. They're embedded with each PD So I think there's nine towns now in sheet and county that utilize this this team and The nice thing about utilizing this team is it's twofold one The professionals the mental health deals so they can deal with mental health calls better than Police officers in general because that's what they do and the second thing is is that it allows law enforcement to focus on law enforcement matters and not be I don't want to say burden, but it allows us to be able to do things that Are more appropriate for law enforcement dealing with so um Like I said the calls have gone up considerably. It looks like it's it's almost doubled To 646 calls a year and when new ski is responsible for 23 of those calls. So we're we are a busy town for community outreach and we utilize them I would say almost daily as it's I mean for having 646 calls. It's it's almost daily And uh, it's just been a really good partnership and they are growing and it's something that we're going to continue to to utilize and it's Enhanced our our services to the community. Whether it be through getting people housing Or just provide them with direct services that maybe we don't have the contacts for or the time to deal with Next slide, please Well, Ren has a question. Oh, yeah. Yeah, just on that last slide um I noticed for q4 for when you ski it shows 55. Are we still waiting for data to come in or is that final data Well, that's a good question. I don't know if chief heber can maybe answer that question a little more accurately That is the finished report brin Call volume did go down and it does kind of ebb and flow depending on You know, when you ski is a small community and very often if one or two high need individuals Have their needs met call volume will go down substantially in a quarter Yeah, it seems pretty significant change Thank you Okay, next slide. Yeah, thanks so This is just showing. Um, it's a it's good value for the city of when you ski and its residents. Um, so For 23 of the call volume. Um, we're only responsible for seven percent of the total cost of the program So we are getting a lot Of services for I think a good value of money wise. Um, so that's essentially what that that is showing Next slide, please all right, so These slides I just wanted to take a moment. Um, a lot of times You know, if we put out press release, we're not getting all the the good works that are necessarily done kind of behind the scenes and with these next three slides that have Prepared, um, I just want to kind of highlight some of the good works that have been going on in some of the creative ways that we've dealt with some pretty significant situations Uh, so these first three are kind of just showing our de-escalation Um aspects of what we do. Uh, so In the past, uh Each one of these situations could have resulted in and probably been legally justified to use force um, even maybe even deli force and each time And you'll see uh officers were able to take time patience talking and using outside resources To have a great outcome of basically each person Uh, surrendering without any force needing to be used. So um, we had a suicidal male on a high traffic area Who was despondent was actively cutting themselves was throwing objects out of a second story window We were able to Call in multiple agencies as to set up perimeter to make sure everyone was safe We did have the fire department closed traffic for a while. This was a scene that took several hours Um, we brought in the community outreach team and we also brought in Howard mental health worker who was actually the direct case worker for this person and through the negotiators and the actual Case worker through howard, uh, the individual finally calmed down enough walked down and we're able to get them to the hospital and the No one got hurt and even the subject who was Feeling suicidal only had some superficial wounds to to their arms So that's a success story each one of these is kind of similar where we have this is a smaller scale one the next one Person came into the lobby and looking it's called suicide by cop But they're they're looking to have an officer injure them in some way Uh, so they're in really bad place to start with uh, this person came into our lobby armed with a knife um, and the officer who encountered this individual was able to build a rapport with this person And through the de-escalation tactics that we've been trained Like I said the icat stuff was able to convince the individual to Put down the weapon and we were again able to get this individual to the hospital and no one got hurt Uh, and then like I said the last one similar is as a student involved, but all these instances showed, uh, just I think how we've grown as a pd with our focus on these de-escalation trainings And that now we can I can proudly say that situations that would have been legally justified in using some kind of force we can now Proudly say that through these partnerships We've made with you know, the outreach teams and other professionals and just our in-house trainings of of learning how to kind of talk with people That now we can have a successful outcome with with no one having been injured Next slide, please And then these are just some other examples of of some good works that the individual in this department have done um You know a lot of times we are the first to arrive on a steamer for like a medical call I like I said we're 24 seven and uh in this instance We had a a young male who was joking And uh two officers got there and were able to Successfully apply the hymox maneuver and dislodge the food and and save this individual's life uh the next one And this is just something like I said this is the little stuff that you guys maybe and Everyone in the panel don't know about but we have some frequent flyers. Mental health has been a big issue This person we've dealt with many times and we actually did arrest this person And they were it was on Christmas evening and they were in our detention cell for a while But the officers took the time to offer a home cooked meal that was brought in from one of the officer's parents And uh shared a meal with this person I think it meant a lot to that individual like despite the fact that maybe they screwed up early in the day They were able to have uh this home cooked meal and and uh It meant a lot so And then again outreach team we've used them uh for we've had some You know tragic suicides where you know, maybe loved ones or or people that care have actually witnessed some pretty horrific things And we've been able to provide them The ability to connect with uh crisis workers without them having to to have long waits or just been a good liaison for uh these individuals who have seen some pretty horrific things and Connect them with good services and then the last one on this slide is uh, we had a They may see a dog who is abused. I think maybe see the pictures The aco and one of the officers able to convince the individual um to actually Give up the dog. So we seized the dog and uh made sure it got the proper medical attention And now this dog is thriving. So these are just kind of some feel good community care taking stories I wanted to share with everyone because a lot of stuff doesn't get put out Uh, the good stuff doesn't always get put out and I just want to make sure that people understand what we're doing So next slide, please And again, I think chief Hebron's hit on this in the past But you know, it's not uncommon for us to to pay out of pocket to make sure someone gets to a hotel If it's cold out, you know, certainly we've all given money to people for gas Just to make sure they get from point a to b um, and then You know, just kind of want to hit on Uh, the downtown area. It's been kind of like a hot topic. I am the last year certainly with covid Uh, a lot of um, there's a homeless population That may be a lot of familiar with and we've been trying to actively work with community outreach the state's attorney's office You know gree mountain transit who you heard earlier to try and find ways to Provide these individuals with housing and we've been able to offer them, you know, wet shelters warm shelters You know give them some breaks with some, you know trespassing issues to to allow them to kind of work through things And what we're finding now is that you know, we've had to close the you know bust off a couple times But it's now just trying to get the individuals who Have been offered services just to kind of get them to agree to those services So we're we're getting there. Um, we're definitely aware of it But it's been a a really collaborative effort for everyone involved and it's wanted everyone Oh, that we are aware of some of the issues downtown and we're trying to be as creative as possible to to alleviate that And uh, yeah, I think the rest is just kind of self-explanatory. So next slide please Yeah, so again, um I could tell you from first in experience I'd say maybe not every week, but close to it. We often have someone in our lobby who just wants to say thank you um, and I would like to take this time to Say, you know, thank you to everyone who has been looking out for us the past year I think it's been a difficult year for everyone actually two years now And uh, I just want to let everyone know that we do appreciate Uh, these nice gestures that you know, whether people are bringing in food or gift certificates, you know, thank you letters It's it's not lost on us. So thank you to everyone And next slide please Yeah, so hopefully when this pandemic does eventually and we can start opening up things again These are a lot of things that chief hebert has Uh, established through the community policing agenda that we have which is pretty much runs our our department So hopefully in the next You know six months or so we can start opening things up and when the weather starts warming up and get back to a lot of the things that we do best which is Engaging with the community and and having these little events to let people know we care and and to help us More ingrained with the community. So Thank you very much Thank you. Let's hand shark Alice. All right. I'll take over from here. Paul. Can you go to the next slide, please? All right, we're going to start off with strategic vision f y 22 year to date some of our accomplishments We continued the regional dispatch discussions, which we'll get into a little bit further In the presentation, but we're just going to continue to identify the financial obligations to stand up the center Partner with the ccpsa on implementation when all partners are ready to proceed We also adopted some new statewide use of force policy a body war and camera policy and recently This fall all officers attended a statewide 2021 fair and impartial policing training update As James touched on the school resource officer, everything will remain as is including the school's Financial commitment to the city for that position. So that will remain unchanged for this budget We were successful in diversifying our workforce. We hired three police officers from the bipod community and The pictures are off to the left med alley and The top picture Marcus is in the back On the left hand side there all have been great additions to our team Marcus has been uh was full-time certified and came to us From a sheriff's department and alley and a medical at the police academy. I think in week 13 now. So I believe their Graduation date is the last week of February. So pretty soon people will be out and seeing them hitting the streets We built a collaboration between The sRO and well youth interventionist program. It's unfortunately that that particular position Has been vacant for a while. So and with coveted it hasn't been the collaboration that we hoped for but Looking forward to maybe the the rest of this year As things relax We really want to be good partners with that youth interventionist and tie in the sRO the youth interventionist and school employees Try and serve our youth the best that we can Community outreach team uh, james touched on that as well. We continue to outreach with people in need of services resources and support Recently completed an update of the strategic plan. Uh, those two lieutenants Huzinga and char calis were in charge of that update and we will come to you at a later meeting We literally finished this just as the um budget presentations started So we thought you had enough on your plates in january that this could wait for an update uh in between When these uh budget presentations finish and town meeting day happens So we'll be bringing that to you soon on the updates for that plan And then uh, as he also touched on we're just going to continue the partnerships with the burlington Community justice center and sx community justice center to ensure those services are still offered in winewski and on a local level Next slide please So our fy 23 goals, uh again consolidated dispatch remains at the top of the discussions just because it's such a big project Uh, you know, it's it's a very complicated project So it's going to move at the speed that it moves, but we continue to be an active partner in those discussions We're still continuing to look to diversify our workforce. We have one anticipated opening Coming in fy 23 and we're hoping that we can continue to diversify With that officer position We're going to continue to invest in our employees for both future leadership and management roles Community outreach team. We're hoping that we can continue to support that team and hopefully expand the staff and the hours to make it even more accessible to people on non-traditional hours The school resource officer. I do believe it will look differently in fy 24 Sean McMahon and I and Jason Zeider the SRO have had a few discussions We're talking about what those possible changes could make You know that we could make to to strengthen the program and also serve everybody And give everybody, you know, public safety looks a lot different to different people And we want to keep that in mind as we build that program out And then managing staffing shortages and pending retirements Efficiently to fill open positions while not overworking our current employees We've kind of had a little bit of a perfect storm here where we've we have two new hires But there are no use to us to fill shifts until about May So we've been about a year into this now being down those two people We have one person who's out on military orders until f y late f y 24 And then we have another officer who's Been out with some long-term medical issues So we've been down for people in the patrol schedule for about a year So I'd like to just take a quick moment to thank all of my employees for stepping up and Really, you know just embracing Not not only the work that we do but Doing it, you know more than 40 hours a week and keeping a good attitude and continuing to be friendly And approachable to people it means a lot. So I'd like to recognize them for that Next slide, please And now on to the general fund what you're going to see here in this proposal is contractually required increase in both full-time salaries and the benefits line items, which as you know The contract is negotiated and agreed to and then the benefits line items is really just a guessing game until Angela gets the numbers And we really have no control over those particular increases Next slide, please So what you're looking at The f y 22 budget the overall budget was 2.6 million. I'm not going to get down for the last dollars. You all can see that and what we've proposed with those increases is 2.7 million We did try and make some modest cuts in other line items to try and offset The salaries and benefits so nothing else went up in this budget And and a few line items went down to try and offset the costs the best that we could Next slide, please So emerging issues. This is not A problem that is specific to when you see this is I would dare say nationwide, but surely statewide Everybody is having trouble recruiting and retaining employees policing is a very demanding profession and people, you know as as policing changes people decide it may not be for them or they're close enough retirement that they decide that they want to move on So I just did want to touch because the mayor had mentioned this in one of our previous meetings I had done a presentation That was going to allow us to go to 17 officers temporarily One of our minority Candidates who was living in florida was not able to take that position We would still like to try and recruit for that position and we have somebody actually another minority candidate Going to the academy for testing entrance testing tomorrow. So hopefully If he can pass everything, I'll be coming back to you to make sure that that is still A workable solution To go to 17 temporarily and I do believe that with vacancy savings The military leave we will be able to carry that position without having to ask for any additional money There's also a potential Our detective is still leaving Retiring sometime in f-way 23. I don't have a specific date, but it will be sometime during this fiscal year Between now and then we would like to identify His replacement and begin sending that person to the basic trainings that they'll need to succeed in that position And it's just not feasible when we have so many patrol schedule openings And we cannot remove an officer from the patrol schedule. So we're constantly trying to balance the overtime for openings and also Taking into consideration that we can't just continue to operate In emergency mode for years on end. We at some point have to continue to just push through invest in these employees And prepare, you know, not only the next leaders, but also the next people in specialized positions in the police department and next likewise So chief the the thing about having the temporary 17 officers That So it's temporarily 17 then back to 16, which is the goal if this last final candidate does make it through And we have those the other two folks that are currently in academy. Does this then put us back at where you have The patrol coverage you need to train the detective successor It would be uh, we I don't know I can't make the commitment that we would because it's just going to depend on These are all brand new people Coming into profession and we're not going to rush their field training I would tell you yes at some point in fy 23 It would allow us to backfill that detective position and not have our detective in patrol, which we've done for the past 18 months Uh, so it is important. I don't know how the timing of it all will work out of when he actually retires Compared to uh, when this third person, you know, realistically if everything goes perfectly This this new person would go to the march academy and wouldn't be uh usable for us and on the road until fall Which I think is about when we anticipate that our detective leaving so it may be good time It just it really it keeps us from I think I've told you before in the past It's not necessarily us being at 17. It's just that when we're at 17 It keeps us from being you know, it allows us to be at 15 rather than 14 As these openings happen and that is where it makes the big difference Once we hit three positions is where we really start the struggle That's helpful. Thank you And we I'll be expecting for this to be coming up again in a couple months Sure And then the next thing I just wanted to bring up for food for thought. This is uh in no way You know a complaint in any way, but as I talked to you know, one of my One of the greatest things about my position at this point is you know We have such a talented team of people and I want them all to succeed and continue to to move forward in their careers And if if they're interested in leadership positions to be able to attain that And to promote from within and hopefully my replacement would be from within You know with that being said um pay compression between union and exempt staff is is a concern looking forward filling leadership positions Uh, traditionally, uh the union Um has negotiated raises that may be higher than the exempt employees and that In in itself creates some compression over the years And then uh one of the biggest things that My current pop employees mention is that they currently enjoy a substantial longevity bonus That an employee forfeits when accepting an exempt leadership position Uh for no other reason than I have the years and experience. I'll use me as an example You know, I will have 29 years in the police department when I retire And won't be eligible for that um Longevity bonus where a sergeant or corporal would so it's Since our our retirement system, which is a very good system Um is based on your high two years. It's a one-time cost to the city that longevity bonus as somebody Um who's been a long-term employee goes out the door that will benefit them for the rest of their lives So just something we would like to to try and figure out Whether you know that that longevity bonus would stop when you exited The union and so if you leave at year 18, that's where it would be frozen But at least you would still be uh accessible to it, you know, we're open to all ideas to try and entice um Our talented individuals to continue not only to be sergeants, but to be lieutenants and possible chiefs down the road And then the last uh as I said the I don't know if uh, we're gonna get into this Right now or or later because I think john's gonna touch on it in his uh fire department um Presentation as well, but so it's my understanding from reading the minutes now I have not been at these meetings, but um, I followed it pretty closely Five of the seven towns on the ccps a board voted to have a two or more year timeline to stand up the center and From what I understood from Several months of minutes It was based primarily on a unexpected 1.1 million dollar capital shortfall where they were hoping some federal funding was going to come in To cover the cost of standing up the center and a lot of the technology in it um The board's going to continue to meet and investigate that grant funding to try and close that gap in the meantime and also recently Something that I think is important to mention is I've sat in on uh three three different uh statewide um zoom calls zoom meetings about the state is is really uh struggling to handle their current dispatch workload And they're they're having the same staffing issues as everybody else. So what uh, the director of public safety michael shirling has done is he included Um a 10 million dollar request in the statewide budget to the governor. He has no idea if it's going to be included cut um supported But they want to uh in effect stand up 10 total regional dispatch centers throughout the state Two would just be for state police and state police alone the other eight would be A combination of different entities to take on all these different towns Uh that they currently dispatch for both police fire and rescue And partnerships would be made so we're a little bit ahead of the the curve on that one because they did mention the chitinham project Which would be a center that they supported uh some of this 10 million to to close some of that capital cost to stand up They don't want to be in the dispatch business. What they want to do is get statewide regional dispatch centers up and running And then they will just run there too for state police So that's all I have. Uh, I'm glad to take any questions Yeah, thanks for that update and I I do think chief adi is also Talking regional dispatch. So we're gonna hold questions on that but anything else council Mike Yes, I don't really have a question. I just want to thank chief heber and his department um once again for the outstanding work you do to protect our Our community and for the outreach you do to the residents Day in and day out. I see your officers out there talking To residents people on the street whether they're young or a little older And I think that is that says That speaks miles of how your department handles itself and I for me on and I know there's others out there We respect that and we thank you Thank you, mike. I appreciate that Are there any other questions? right, um I feel like this is uh pretty similar to last year's presentation, right? persistent challenges No huge new changes Definitely something to keep an eye on with staffing and regional dispatch state funding um To echo a little bit of what mike said, I do get emails from time to time from residents Complimenting their interactions with rpd um Which is always really You know, so I was really great to hear those stories considering sort of the national narrative um So I want you all to know that folks reach out to me and and I've heard specific stories from members of like marginalized communities talking about having Better interactions here than they do in other locations. So I think all those photos of all the food deliveries you received are also um indicative of that um Oh, and also thank you for uh Uh Your efforts, you know trying to offset some of those staffing costs. Um I appreciate that work with your team and Thank you Okay before we Give it to Fire and code. I would like to call a five minute recess. It's 7 30. So let's reconvene at 7 35 meeting and have Chief oddie present on the fire and code budget Good evening mayor and council Thanks for the opportunity to yet again present another budget Wanted to take the opportunity for this really the first time I've been able to have a chance to introduce chief Palmer We hired as a fire marshal it's a Very much intended to be a very different position than we previous had Allow me to do some succession planning not unlike chief Hebert and you know Kind of create some depth in the leadership and the knowledge And the the public base of the fire department. So I'd like to welcome chief Palmer and You had any questions for him? I'm hoping you do Wait, I There he is. Hello. Welcome. Hello. Thank you When when actually did you start in the role? On November It has okay. Time is flying And where do you come to us from? Uh, so I live in colchester and I previously worked for the Cedarmont division of fire safety fire marshal's office. Oh, okay. Awesome. Bring some good uh, good knowledge and skill then to us Yep, bring some good experience Um, is there anything else that you would like us to know about you or introduction? No, most of that All right. Well, thank you very much Welcome aboard He's not a man of many words, but um, you know bruce bruce comes to us with a ton of experience Has served the fire service in this area in the winewski colchester area for many many years. So Really looking forward to to what he brings to winewski On a little bit more somber. No, I just it's with the predicted temps I wanted to take the opportunity to remind those listening and and those any of us know You know, it's predicted to be 25 30 below With the horrific events that happened in new york You know a fire that injured 68 people Took the lives of 17 including eight children You appears to have started with a malfunctioning space here. So that's that's why I bring that up You know, it appears a family was it was struggling You know Probably using a heating device In lieu of the main heating source in the house all good intentions We know that happens in winewski So just remind people to be safe. Don't use open fuel fired units within your homes You know, don't plug them into extension cords if you're using them And by all means if there's a question, please reach out. Um, you know through the non-emergency number to pd and You know, if it's after hours or during the daytime hours and um, we'll certainly You know get to get to some resources and make sure that your family's safe drains and extremely predicted Hold snap that's happening Into the budget, um, you know this first slide is the outline All of you can go to the next um You know our organizational Chart changed obviously with the hire for fire marshals. So You know, we continue to use the public safety admin The full-time fire marshal the assistant fire marshal straight down and then the code enforcement and I call those out specifically because they do Um, we do community risk reduction Every day that we're here Not that others don't but those we really concentrate on our inspections You know again those a lot of those community risk reduction focused peace And then our long line of part-time folks Not a lot of people realize that a bulk of the fire work that happens here the responses here are done by part-time Part-time employees that pull a huge load and we'll see some more of that in the A couple of staffing graphs Next slide, please Um, one thing that hasn't changed This year is we continue to build upon our community risk reduction model. Um, it's super important to me I super Lucky to have a community Mayor and council manager that that support this model And it truly, you know, we are seeing year after year with the data. We're pulling that we are getting ahead of the call By doing education engineering enforcement emergency response and economic incentives You know We do this day in day out And it's paying dividends for runuski and it will continue for many years to come Next slide, please is just the definition of the five e's. I'm not going to read those word for word But we visit this as staff a lot I certainly visit this a lot as the fire chief and director of code enforcement As I build our work plans. Certainly I look at this and Again, it's a document for the future that we can pull up every year and years Next slide, please Kind of a year in review, you know, what do we do? You know Once you start to look at this as a whole we start to understand again that community risk reduction You know, obviously our public building inspections 1487 We issue building permits and kind of working to the left if you will Building permits, you know, we issue the building permits. We do those inspections Obviously the emergency response Time of sale inspections And I just want to clarify on that that's units So each time we do if we go to a duplex for a time of sale, that's two inspections. So Just for clarity, I did not pull out the the number of properties That's the number of units for the time of sales But we certainly this last last couple of years have seen a huge increase In the time of sale inspections A property complaints is up a little bit Which we we expect will continue to go up And as we've spoken about those are becoming more and more complex for us And then the new inspections is up To 127 so the new inspections are the big projects that you see Renovations that you see that we go and and we're doing those inspections sometimes We definitely on a weekly basis for the big projects sometimes several times So that's mainly what Bruce it's a lot of what Bruce spends his time on and Again doing those inspections on the on the new stuff assures us that a building that's going to be here for 30 40 50 years You know, it's our opportunity to make sure You know the the small things that the builders are doing fire blocking and fire cocking and All those things that that will matter over the long term if there's an event in that building Next slide, please So public building inspections again every year I try to call out for folks on the top five categories You know on the additional violations on the top on the orange part of the pie Additional violations we continue to try to narrow those down Our inspections are really on what the state code what the state adopts for code, which is NFPA Some in the international building code and then the vermont life The vermont department of health Rental health code Which covers rental properties And the additional violations are times when we see something The inspector seeing something and it doesn't quite fit into a code But it matters So as authority having jurisdiction we're we're writing that As as something we want the they typically the property owner to fix So an example will be they had a water leak and haven't repaired the ceiling yet There's still a hole in the ceiling we would write that as an additional violation to fix that hole in the ceiling This is and something to put to that You know because it's not it is it met the five top violations at 170 71 The other four pretty self-explanatory carbon monoxide requirements. That's a lot of that is The units have expired. They have a shelf life on them. They're not forever when you put them on your ceilings You know those are typically five to seven years life span Closed dryers is a fairly a new one for us. Um, so You know every year, um NFPA puts out Some of the biggest hazards and you know not cleaning dryer vents Using vinyl Exhaust hoses that sort of thing. Um, those are those what encompassed in that closed dryer Violations fire extinguisher service. That's pretty self-explanatory and then periodic inspection of heating units which year after year continues to be You know right up there in our in the number of violations we're writing And that's a two-year cycle in which the property owners have to Service those units a technically qualified person has to go clean those units what I would say is this Knowing the codes a lot of this is maintenance driven. So you know our program is switched from from for you education of Components that need to be in the buildings and I feel we're seeing a big switch on maintaining those components that Years past the program has required people to put in so that's a good. That's actually a good evolution to see Any other question? new thanks with these violations are they typically um, are they typically Given as warnings or are there fines that are associated with any of these? John I can take the hook okay So when we do an inspection And we know a violation there the occupant is generally given A time frame usually 30 days to correct the violations And once it gets over to the 30 days, we do a follow-up inspection and we verify or if the The violation has been corrected or not And most of the times the violations have been corrected But there are times that they have not been And so when those when they have not been corrected, then you Have some type of matrix for penalties We we do have the capability of issuing fines, but We try not to only in the worst-case scenarios. We will issue a fine Okay, and the reason why I'm curious is if there was some like for the inspection of the heating units if there was some um ability to provide additional assistance reminders would have you to to those unit owners If it would like If we rely on how much we rely on penalties to offset costs. So that's that's essentially what I'm Curious about if if that was something that was built into the budget was But it doesn't sound like it is which is great No, I don't believe we're relying on penalties in our budget We rather educate educate a landowner on what is required of them Awesome. Thank you Bryn, what I would say is in the community risk reduction model, you know, that may be something Um As we as we review kind of a four-year cycle If that and I know that one will really stand out Community risk reduction does exactly what you mentioned is how do we educate? And the measurement would be we would expect if we did those efforts whether it's reminders mailings Whatever it may be a reduction in the violations that we have to write Um as that reminder So it's a it's a kind of a it would be a good community risk reduction effort to do Um, and then I just wanted to call out You know a lot of this is seen as negatives And read on the right hand side, you know, we did know 579 times that while someone was going through in the checklist meaning our inspector We were we were able to check off no violation meaning the landlord property owner has had Proactively before we got there presumably done done what they needed to do So I want to give credit to to those who do those do that effort Take that time to to stay ahead of it 50 percent of our inspections took more than one hour in the field. That's not desk time Excuse me. It's not desk time doing the software the reporting That's being out in the field and then You know on the public building residential piece we have Um over 90 97 percent Compliance on our fees meaning when we mail do our annual mailing and invoicing um Passively we get 97 to 98 percent collection. And again, that's that's a Huge compliment to the property owners here in Manuski.  They support the program. Um, we're not fighting the people to pay these Um, you know the rental registry fees And I think that's a that's a good thing and and again another compliment to the property owners I think many of them feel the benefit see the benefits of the program Next slide emergency responses, you know again, um, you know, this is Average for us meaning the 372. Um, we're typically between 370 and 400 fire calls And what you see around this pie is um, you know through the national database Things are grouped. Um, you know, we had nine confirmed building fires 28 cooking fires 11 elevator emergency and 26 motor vehicles motor vehicle crashes So again, you know, it's It's busy in this one square mile as I look at um our overall fire calls in Like number of fires if you will if you look at this pie the light blue 52 fires today I was able to look at a neighboring community's um data From last year and they cover a much bigger geographical area And we're doing the same. They are across a much larger area right here in our one square mile You know, they had 51 building fires. They're fires and we had 52. Um, so We're not ahead of others. We're not behind others. We're we're kind of We're running kind of with the others in the pack if you will Next slide please service demands As I mentioned earlier, we would see, you know, just how much we rely on on You know, a valued part-time folks, um You know a huge call out to our small full-time staff You know in the blue In the top the first bullet monday through friday 6 a 6 a.m. The 6p If you look at the right graph towards the bottom fault hole by time of day The blue in the center From 6 a.m. And the the time of day is on the left hand side of that slide So 6 a.m. To 6 p.m. Um, we try to cover most of those hours as much as we can as full-time staff So i'm in the city at 6 a.m. Um, because I know the part-time folks are leaving to go to work And this is just a great illustration of of the blocks that we cover so In the orange is is our part-time folks Again, we rely heavily on part-time staff And then the green 6 a.m. There's excuse me saturday 6 a.m. To sunday 6 p.m. That's what we refer to as duty weekends And I called that out on the left hand slide on the bottom Not unlike the pd art hall total by day of the week. Um, there's it's There's no one day that really really sticks out You know, it's not flat, but it's not you know It's not like tuesday's way off the chart. Um, it's pretty close But the saturday sunday calls that we're representing there again That's that's duty weekends where your part-time staff commit to that weekend and They're not right at the station, but they're available. So again You know, I can't say it enough the part-time staff really covers a lot Having said that I in red, you know as a concern wanted to call out that in 2021 You know during 48 weekday 6 p.m. To 6 a.m. And this is no fault to part-time staff. This is a national trend You know, we responded with less than four firefighters 48 times And over to the right of that I listed, you know, three times We left the station with one responder nine times. We left with two and 17 times. We left with three This model serves manuski very well, but it's very unpredictable. So we have a staff of 14 You know, we used to have a staff of 26 But you can see at times we're still only able to get one two three responders out of that whole group Because they respond as they can So that's something we constantly watch And as you'll see further into this This is where when we talk about st. Mike's Fire coverage and our other valued partners That's where that really really fills that gap and really levels that that out questions on that slide strategic vision areas areas for 22 It's the next slide Paul. Sorry Um, you know accomplishes the date we did submit a assistance to firefighter grant through FEMA To do an airpack replacement We weren't granted We weren't awarded that It's not unusual to not be awarded the first time that you apply So we will likely apply again They're extremely competitive We completed a iso reevaluation so Several years ago. We went from a six to a four And once you go down to a lower number an improved number Excuse me one being the best ten being the worst. So we went from six to four we improved They do a reevaluation And we continue to work through that reevaluation And it's likely we end up in between of four and a six likely a five And that has to do with with a whole host of things whether staffing Whether it's the length of our ladder truck Dispatching a whole host of different things all add into into your scores So five is not bad in the model we run And again the iso Is used to help set commercial mainly commercial insurance rates across communities And then we finalized the non-bordered additional on-street parking kind of the fire world And this is around the peak and duck area with the redevelopment of peaking duck we finalized and Added that that on-street parking back to back to our inventory On the municipal infrastructure we updated Two huge projects Right rank leaves we updated the the parking management software We hadn't done that for many years So it's a web-based program which people can go online and appeal tickets and it's the customer services Much more enhanced engaging if you will A lot easier for our staff to to manage permits Efficiency and effectiveness of the program Um There's a highlight there and then um on-bordered eso, which is a record management system um for the council Folks that have been here firehouse software something that we did many years ago Um an eso essentially bought firehouse. Um Again a lot of improvements going web-based But it did it did require us to rebuild our inspection data Not data, but our inspection reports or checklist that sort of thing. So there's just a lot a lot of work by staff um But it also efficiencies You know allowed us to go paperless with a bunch of our inventory checks So instead of on a daily basis using the piece of paper to check each truck We're doing that with the ipad now and it's it's keeping track of all that in the back office Kind of behind the scenes through this through the software. So As time goes on i'll be able to better report You know the cost of operating said pieces of equipment that sort of thing So i'm pretty excited about that as it goes as time goes on Um housing we're engaged with the housing commission. We've met with them a couple times um about housing quality issues and Getting their input on the rewrite for the ordinance. Um, that's impending Restarted all residential inspections that were affected by covid We hired bruce We're currently engaged in the all hazard mitigation Plan update that's being done through ccrpc. It's a it's pretty much a county-wide effort So they hired a firm. Um, they got grant funding. We're paying a small portion of that And there's a firm doing the the big this is the big undertaking of the of the all hazard for the county-wide, but it also gets into each community So that's that's taken quite a bit of time Continue the covid-19 mitigation efforts And then, you know, we onboarded six new employees. Um, call firefighters Um, and we've retained five of those Currently three of those are in firefighter one firefighter two. So Again, those are those are big undertakings for us as full-time staff trying to do everything we do and then onboard folks and Make sure that they can they can be on the trucks and out serving the community Next slide please Strategic vision goals and priorities for 23 um, you know, we have the Vermont division of fire safety inspection mo you We that's the mo you that we've had for many many years allows us to do the inspection program um You know, we plan to propose and finalize We have to make a formal request to the division of fire safety to conduct plans review internally So these big construction projects that you see there's plans review that they pay fees to the state We're evaluating And we feel it'd be a huge customer service improvement To bring that into the city We're doing a lot of that work Meaning the inspection work once those permits are issued You know bruce's on site sometimes several times a week in some of these projects Yes, we've issued a building permit, but You know there the state is still collecting A lot of fees for that and we feel bringing that locally Would help improve our staffing levels and Be really in line more importantly in line with our community risk reduction efforts and streamlines all of our permitting so And we look forward to to working that piece through Like you have a question I do uh John this the the permitting for the fire safety Are you expecting to do the whole range of permits electrical plumbing? And building code or is this just building code? So that's what we're we're currently trying to figure out. Um, you know, obviously Um Using the two around us that that do plans review in in their cities if you will burlington They have a lot more resources. They have their own electrical plumbing You know, they they do all that in-house We're south burlington who who does plans review Um, I believe does electrical, but the state still does plumbing bruce that correct That is correct. They have a uh electrical inspector that may rely on The state plumbing inspector do plumbing So that's what we need to figure out mic is is exactly what that relationship ends up being And you know, what's best for for winewski as far as the electrical and plumbing correct and I'm wondering Will you go back and I mean years past we had city winewski had all those resources and I guess I it's a research going to go back to see how viable it was considering of um fee structure and If it's going to offset just from the fees from the permits or is it going to be general fund? property tax kind of backed That's exactly the homework that we we are doing and I'm trying to understand Okay, thank you john the yeah the intent would be to obviously to fully understand that but We would we would want the to understand that Doing it is a benefit not a not a Future burden Correct, and I you know and it made sense when you said that bruce is going to all these inspections because I I see your trucks on job sites a lot and it does make sense that winewski does need to get some If we're on that inspection in the states collecting that permit fee then To me there's got to be a partnership with the state On maybe allocating some funds to the city for our time. I mean Right, it's not can't be just all based on his salary. It's got to come through another source as well in my opinion Yeah, and there's reasons why the state doesn't want to lose that revenue So again, those are the discussions with you know, the director of division of fire safety and and obviously the manager in the future and just As we as we try to understand that Thank you And then under continuing under economic fatality is continue to work with our partners whether regional dispatching emergency planning with You know cc rpc in You know response emergency response In certainly training opportunities. We continue to to really reach out to partners and work on that front You know municipal infrastructure, we're going to talk further about the replacement of the ladder truck and that's a big Um, that's a big purchase for this community. Um, we get it. It's critical to supporting our current ISO rating You know reflective of our our staffing trends Going to a two truck set which we can discuss further And then really being safe efficient and effective in our in our capabilities In really dealing with our our the growth that has happened and our in our continued growth projected growth Um on the housing continue to work with the housing commission Understanding and integrate the equity audit You know Part of the deeper dive that the equity audit folks are doing is in housing Which i'm super excited about because I think it it will It is an area that we know there's inequities And i'm i'm excited to see what what their work brings forward and and how we can You know how we can look at what we do quite frankly or how our ordinance are written or You know what our follow-ups are All those pieces that they're really diving into And Look forward to that work for sure. Um, continue to build upon the community risk reduction efforts Safe healthy connected people You know the sustainability of our model, um, you know, again, we we rely a lot on part-time people um and it's getting harder and harder to To get people to want to do this work that have the time to commit to this work You know a great conversation with one of our new air folks last week. Um, and just understanding um You know, I certainly have done it for many years. It's just a volunteer But sometimes when you when you go away from just being a volunteer if you will to hear currently In today's world with cove it and work and how everyone's had to adjust their Their their lives and and how someone is fitting in what they do in onuski um, was pretty powerful for me as as chief and I kudos to the to the staff member who was able to come in and have that type of conversation because a lot of people aren't comfortable having that but certainly opened my eyes to a lot of their struggles and Of trying to they really want to do it. They enjoy doing it But we're competing with a lot of parts of their lives to for them to meet the minimum qualifications Recruitment and retention again, whether it's whether it's wages, whether it's the the time commitments You know It's it's super hard. That's a national struggle Not just across um fire. It's across all emergency services. You heard pd and mentioned that it's across You know ems. It's it's across the board Proposing and finalizing an mo u at st. Mike's fire This is um, something that's developed Through the merger through colchester the town of colchester who merged a couple fire departments. They merged um Two independent fire companies into the town fire department And You know as i've highlighted some of our struggles with our staffing st. Mike's fire This is separate from st. Mike's ems or the m ones that provides our ems and talking about their fire trucks who Historically have run kind of side by side under the umbrella of colchester fire through the merger has Raised some concerns on the availability for that equipment to come and come into the city Meaning a city of winewski You know and and how they're funded how st. Mike's is funded operationally Is likely to change as colchester continues to to review You know what their merger is and and how What they're going to support So that's evolving and you'll see that under My emerging issues And then obviously the the st. Mike's rescue the ambulance piece the ems it was Renew that and continue to to do the mo u the You know for them to provide services to winewski You know that's just again, that's a kind of a regular a regular thing for us to review and update the mo u Um, you know and and through that process. I would like to say we talk a lot about police and fire here You don't hear a lot about ems And that is one of the vulnerabilities that I That I will continue to highlight and and understand myself is you An example is winewski has grown a lot over the last few years, right? It's changed a lot since I've been here and what we've failed as a city to do is go see that valued partner meaning st. Mike's ambulance rescue and and Work with them about sustaining that service You know, we've essentially grown exponentially The demands and we will continue to as we approve approved building projects But we've never as a city really worked with them all that closely to understand what their capacity is you know, um And you know for me understanding how covet is affecting the college and affecting those students and You know, those students are not doing the ems or firework because it's part of their degree They're here for business degrees. They're here for a whole mother reason These are students that are Are going way above and beyond and taking on this role. They're not playing sports They they want to give back to a community And they're doing this on their own free will and they're getting nothing for their degree They're not getting a break on housing So when we hear colleges go home for the summer we hear they go on spring break There's a group of extremely dedicated students That stay with those fire trucks and stay with that that ambulance And there's some that don't go home for Christmas and be with their family so that they can serve the residents of a new school And and I think that we need to do a better job and understanding and helping them sustain that service It is a huge We do not want to try to start an ambulance here in Winooski. You know, they do a tremendous service But we need to Be a better partner And assure that we are talking with them about sustainability and doing our part to continue that that value to to our residents Next slide, please what's included in the fyi is Um You know, there's substantial changes in the full-time salary and benefits and and that's reflective of hiring a full-time fire marshal Um, and that's how the cost sharing happens And thank god angel is here tonight. Um, if you have questions on that that cost sharing happens And then our part-time line items, um, you know, again, we constantly are trying to support our part-time staff You know, how can we continue to have them? respond and do things as as they can and But support them during times that we know that they're struggling to Get in for fire calls You know, the the times that we responded with one responder or two responders or three Responders if I can apply that to a time of day and I can see a pattern I know that our part-time staff are struggling to get back and meet those calls We'll apply that this extra money towards Paid hours and try to continue to supplement them. We don't want them to feel like they're failing, right? It's they can't answer a call and they don't call those numbers out to point out a failure It's it's just part of our model that we need we need to understand and monitor And we want to we want them to continue to feel like they're Which they are but continue to Assure that they continue to feel valued and not failing A small bump in the employee benefits due to the turnover. We have pretty high turnover Support us with the uniforms and then the training and travel and again, that's that's just due to extra people coming and going and and how we have to meet those on certifications the rental registry Again was affected due to the cost sharing with the with the full-time fire marshal outside of that there is Other than the normal Increases in the benefits and that the rental registry There's not significant changes as far as line item Is the rental registry budget still anticipating added revenue from There's an effort that was talked about the last couple years about Bring more equity into the system. Um, and it got delayed by covid, right? Is that revenue still included here Yep, if you wait two slides, I think we'll be able to answer your question. Okay Yep, good question and we plan on trying to cover that Uh next slide paul Um firing code again expenditures And again, that's reflective in the Switch in the full-time in in the bump in the part-time hours for the most part Next slide to the rental registry um You know as the mayor was calling out if we go to total revenues Which from the top it's I think about a third of the way down the slide um You know fy 22 We um projected 250,000 this year. We're projecting 315,000 and it is exactly what the mayor started to call out of You know us restarting um commercial inspections um In in assuring that we're doing as many of those as we can we bill for those inspections um, and then billing um for the inequities in the um in some of the agreements that we have with Some of the larger properties where we haven't billed for all their units um, so we plan on trying to get a notice out to those property owners um Soon like in the next couple weeks, um, correct me if i'm wrong Certainly wendy and Angela because we spoke about this earlier, but getting that notice out to those impacted properties Um, there's never been a written agreement with those folks Not not to charge them for those units um You know the ordinance says we will bill them per unit per rental unit So we plan on doing a notice to those property owners now That july 1 of 22 the the next billing cycle they will be billed for all their units um, that will allow them to Have the discussions with us with their concerns if we need to go to council whatever whatever that process needs to be But it gives us from You know February to july um to have that conversation with them And how much money is that? Angela hopefully So it's directly tied to the number of units. Um I think I pulled this together for wendy um Or one of the taxable properties that is currently not being billed at all. It's uh about $10,000 And then I believe for the other three properties. It's an additional $30,000 for the ones that are being billed on a prorated basis So we're talking about like $40,000 in revenue For those particular ones and then um additional properties that are not part of the registry right now Are in discussion Okay Just want to keep that in mind if this doesn't you know, this has been delayed for a couple of years If it doesn't happen, that's a pretty sizable gap in funding Um Bryony your hand is raised Yeah, I you actually asked the question. I was gonna ask but as a follow-up Um, Angela Do we have an estimate of how many? Units are not on the registry That Should be I'm gonna have to look to the chief. Um on that. I don't have rental information in my purview We're and I would have to pull the actual numbers. I mean, we've done quite a bit of this work You know with Couple different pools if you will You know the the housing authority when you ski housing authority is part of this discussion And then we have private entities that that have several units so You know It will vary property to property, but I certainly can can get you that those numbers Yeah, it'd be good to have an estimate for that. Um You know how How do you go about gathering that information? Is that something that's available through? Information sharing with the state as far as who's claiming homestead or Is there what what what tools do you use to help identify units that should be on the registry? so You know if you're asking about how do we know with the properties that the big Closing this big gap. These are properties that we know that I'm just using the example. There's 120 units in that building and we only bill per floor that we go So we may only do 60 of those units a year That's the type of agreement that Whatever that understanding has been um That's what we're going to unravel with those folks as far as Knowing and finding out rental units throughout the year Our annual billing a lot of times either confirms or denies that they're Rental properties and then a lot of times we through property transfers We understand if you know Depending on where their address is You know angela and the clerks do a great job We I believe we have a very high percentage of known Units and most of the time if they're not on the registry and when we contact folks They had no idea You know, it's an educational piece I believe I believe that the units where we are only billing one quarter of a large property Is a holdover from when we only build Um units when they were inspected That changed in ordinance to be billed every year and it was not updated for those properties for them to be billed for all of their units at once So this is just truing up to what we have done for all other properties in the city I'm sure that um council Duncan has may have housing related questions. Um as far as whether or not Just the the impact that might be to the residents within those units For the cost That will be applied. So I just Obviously we we always want to be um Thinking about making sure there's equity in terms of uh, Every everyone is paying the rental fees that should be paying them but also what that What the ripple effect might have as well And Part of part of the reason You know, Bryn, I don't want you or anyone else to think that this is all about the fees We we know there's known issues in some of these buildings that we don't inspect Um, you know as health officers were we're in some of those properties um, so Again as we talk about and we've seen the data start to show us that the units that are regularly inspected by us And that the level at which we inspect them Although it's not a hundred percent. Certainly. I'm not sure it will ever be Um, but we've made marked improvements um with the quality of life um In in those properties and I believe that will be the case as some of these Agreements are unraveled And that's more of the drive for me than it is the fees Great, I appreciate that chief. Thank you so much I'm just getting my slides caught up Any other questions Emerging issues, um, you know year to year you hear me talk about and we already did a little bit recruitment and retention You know the part-time employees again, we are We are competing for People's time. I'm not sure how people do it today You know, we require 72 hours once somebody is onboarded and has their You know certifications. So, you know, that's three Wednesday evenings a month For a couple hours Plus you have to make a certain percentage of calls And that's done so that we know that they're retaining their skills and that they're proving the skills And that doesn't account for their initial trainings that they have to go do I mentioned there's three or four staff in the firefighter one firefighter two That that's almost 300 hours of training That they're going to get those certifications And granted they're doing it on their own because they're doing it You know above and beyond what we require But that's the level at which these folks want to operate, but they're going You know, they're not only here on a Wednesday evening. They're there on a Saturday in a In a Tuesday for almost eight months that they're traveling to You know, wherever that site is to get those certifications. Um, so huge kudos to them but it's just it's a huge draw and You know, it is extremely hard for me to recruit people from within That want to do this Do this work and that can respond From home to the firehouse You know We start hitting the eight minute response times Um, that's pushing it. You know, that's we that's part of the model that we we want to monitor I can get people from South Burlington Burlington Williston that want to do this work, but You know during the overnight hours when we're requiring people to respond from their house Come get a fire truck and then go to your emergency We have to watch how long that takes And and it is extremely hard We've we've put a lot of effort and we've invested quite a bit you have invested quite a bit of money I'm through recruitment video And I I believe that's help But um, you know the sustainability of that we really want to keep an eye on um I touch briefly on the st. Mike's mo you You know, I What I'll say is you know this We we are kind of second to the discussions that the town of colchester Continues is and continues to have with st. Mike's fire and rescue as an independent organization um I am not part of that those conversations nor should that should I be? Um at the level of which they're having them as organizations Where where I am Really keeping an eye on this and have for almost a year and a half now Um the the merger happened a year and a half ago Um, I believe it's almost a year and a half Bruce correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it's about a year and a half Um, and we are still trying to understand As I believe the town of colchester and st. Mike's fire rescue are trying to fully understand what that merger um What the impacts of that are and what the future of that looks like Um, so in the future, you know in the near future, I expect to be able to come to you with an mo you Um, not unlike what we do for ems Um to secure the fire services to make sure that st. Mike's engine With a crew staff, um can come into the city of onoski Um, that will come with a cost. I don't know what that cost is Um, you know st. Mike's has operational cost Um, you know, you see my budget. Um, they're putting the same diesel in that truck. They're keeping the same You know posed on that truck. They're they're have the same overhead capital expenses that we do And i'm granted they don't have the staff overhead But their equipment still costs them and This still needs just some time for those two entities to have those The finalize their conversations so that we realize kind of where we need to go Um, so please know I I spend a lot of time a lot of thought a lot of bandwidth on that trying to keep my My thumb on that if you will it's extremely critical to onoski that that st. Mike's truck keeps rolling into the city And we will um They want to continue to You know, this isn't just a conversation I'm having with the students.  They need to have um, they have when you ski in mind they want to continue to to You know provide services to when you ski and I believe at the end of the day that will continue to happen And and I'm please don't take it any of you or the public that pollchester doesn't want that to happen either um, you know, it's it's You know, pollchester's trying to figure out as as you do every year what public safety costs them and You know what what their future looks like and you know the growth in their community So with all due respect to them, they're they're making some very um tough Decisions also I I expect that it will be executive level conversations that we have as the mo you As I understand and then can get you some more of the details So I don't know if there's questions specific to that Yeah, chief like Going down that same path and thinking about how all of these departments are struggling with coverage with part-time staffing Have we looked at? Just paying one of these partners to be our coverage for nights and weekends and these harder to staff and cover Ships so, I mean so all of our partners whether it's a full-time agency or Part-time like pollchester is doing They're all experiencing the same challenges. We are You know the city of burlington, you know Their staffing levels depending on their it's it's not like they have a huge reserve that they can say We're going to cover vanuski for these hours um their staffing is is What they refer to as minimal staffing to cover the city of burlington um Sorry, well what I'm saying is like We're we're all at that level, right? What if we take our the money that we spend? On the the per diem or part-time coverage Give that to one of our neighboring partners You know whether st. Mike's cultures are burned whoever Then they have more funding like maybe that is a way To have more full-time coverage in those off hours All contributing in and then that's who covers us instead of us trying to Instead of everybody trying to do like part-time coverage overnight I I don't know obviously if that works in it, but like has that conversation ever happened So, I mean you're you're touching based on regional you know regionalization and You know for all intents and purposes with what i'm talking about with st. Mike's is is a mini regionalization you know we You know and having experienced conversations with regional Whether it's regional dispatch or regional public safety Whatever you want to call it. Um, that isn't always a cost savings There would have to be some substantial Investments to make that type of model work across even a couple communities In your geographical areas start to spread out, you know, st Colchester's 39 square miles. They're not one square mile So you can't just put staff in one firehouse and expect them to cover 39 square miles So a lot of different pieces go into those discussions I'm always all ears to those types of discussions You know as many of you know, I support the regional dispatching I believe that that would be a huge first step for Chittenden county as a whole as far as regionalization any regionalization efforts so I guess to answer you specifically. I have not had those specific conversations about fire coverage You know Again, I think the level of conversations with Colchester You know or they continue to to try to run a part-time model at night as we do Um, you know, we respond together certain parts of the communities together In an effort to make sure we're getting officers. We're getting experienced people there Equipment there in a timely manner through our automatic heat agreements And I see your hand Um, so it sounds like with so many of our partner and sister municipalities having Similar situation like what actually is needed is a training program and to fund a training program to draw in more um more personnel and uh and basically to Ensure that there is sufficient interest in in joining Joining this line of work. I think You know, it's it's we're seeing it across all work courses. You know, there's it's Especially in the trades as well Just the need for ensuring that there's ample amount of interest and I think part of that is like well With interest we need training. So Perhaps there's opportunity to work with our system municipalities to create training programs To to draw in high school students to draw in more college students To have a pipeline or pathway To this career and and to show that it is a career You can be It can be successful and satisfying. There's career ladders that come with it So I don't know if that's been discussed. I know in here you mentioned internships But I feel like it really does need something that's more robust so that we're not necessarily competing with other municipalities, but we're working in tandem together to pool resources to Um to ensure that as we as we go up for recruitment. They're they're our trained personnel out there that want to join The public safety workforce Yeah, so the Vermont career chiefs, um, you know, we meet on a regular basis and again your big players Burlington any of your full time departments they're They're going out of state to hire people. Um, Maine is a big feeder to many of the career departments But Maine has a live-in program and that's why I mentioned that here is You know College kids are able to go stay at a firehouse. It's free housing. But while they're there, they're responding on fire calls It's a huge program.  There there's nothing so they the Vermont career and actually the new england career chiefs are trying to get one of the Whether it's New Hampshire or Maine who have very robust programs feeder programs like what you're talking about friend of trying to get one of them to do a satellite office or campus here in Vermont You know vtc has set up. They have the labs. They have the live burn towers. They they have everything there um, it's just it's in randoff. So it's very hard for Um for those kids to do class and randoff and do live-in programs in Burlington Or I would heavily advocate for wnuski to do it if we could have two interns Um and and offer them housing and and have them ride the fire trucks at night. We're solving Tons of issues and we talk about sustainability there. Um, but So to the extent that I can say that at the state level, um, you know, the Vermont career chiefs have recognized it And I believe chief Collette out of willis then Is leading some of those efforts and in furthering those conversations So I I know you're not at your end of your presentation. So maybe I'll just let you finish off before I start asking more questions Sure The last emerging issue is the tower replacement. Um, you And I know there's another kind of agenda item obviously tied to this But I wanted to explain a little bit of why this is is here. Um, You know, the current apparatus is 20 20 years old um 23 years old and and a lot has changed since they purchased that piece of equipment And from day one You know, one could say it was undersized as far as the Um redevelopment downtown And I say that with the reach Um, you know, it's capacity to reach a lot of times when we we talk about You How you know, how do you spec a piece of equipment? A lot of it is what's your highest building? Certainly when you're talking about aerial apparatus and that sort of thing um You know, so the majority of the building's downtown. Um, if you were to build nothing new, um, you know Spinner place we can reach the top of the fourth floor and that's a seven-story building.  Um, we can't call Burlington every day because we need roof access We can call Burlington every day if we have a fire That sort of thing. So, um You know being being respectful of of what we're expecting other communities to provide for us Especially as we continue to build you continue to build Munozki out. Um, it's not just downtown. It's the buildings on the gateway Um in In the age of the truck, I mean we this has been in the capital The capital improvement plan for replacement. Um for several years Projected out at year 24 Um You know, we we've spent a year and a half now Evaluating what our current truck does Um, and it does a lot of things well Um We can't change its reach You know, we can't change its age um And through that evolution and since I became chief is really looking at the mission of fire and and what we need to Provide this for services here in Winooski to be safe Provide efficient fire response and emergency response and and be effective in doing that And staff has done a tremendous job over the last year and a half of Seeing several demo trucks and and understanding What's out there for new technology? Obviously ours is 23 years old So there's a lot of new technology There's a lot of different things that the new trucks will do And for us understanding what a longer A Truck with more um capabilities to reach further does um the pros and cons of that You know a bigger truck does it continue to get around the city the way we do with the smaller truck Just how our staff have to operate around it. So they've spent a lot of time and and really understanding that And through that process You know part of our efficiencies is you know, we currently have three fire trucks sitting in the firehouse And we believe we are moving in the direction staffing tells us and What we feel We need to efficiently and effectively safely provide fire service here in Winooski is to go to a two truck set We maintain for the most part our iso rating We meet the the national standards and certainly our staffing levels um You know, we fully leverage our staffing, you know an average response of four or five people Um, I can't run three fire trucks not safely These are not vehicles that you just put a driver in and you head to the scene You need a crew to operate in these vehicles So going to a two truck set and and having a new piece be kind of our first do if you will Meaning it responds on all fire calls first Um would allow that three four five person crew to have the option to put the aerial up to fight fire to Unlock the elevator to do vehicle rescue It becomes our first kind of big toolbox that we put out there And and give the you know three four five person crew The the most resources that they can have at their fingertips to mitigate whatever that call us As the first do kind of the first responders so um I don't know if you have specific questions. I listed some of the things as far as you know There's there's literally hundreds of pages of specs So i'm trying to stay as simple as I can But certainly willing and able capable to answer any specific question Yeah, my kiss your hand Yeah, hey john uh chief um This is a question that i'm sure has already been answered but have to ask it Since if this truck does get uh purchase Will it fit in the firehouse? So that is one thing as we spec trucks and um You know bruce and I had the tape measure out today. We understand the limitations of of what the firehouse is We're not going to be one of the fire departments that order a 1.3 million dollar fire truck when it's delivered not be able to back it in the firehouse That will not happen under my watch Okay, well the reason I was asking because if the ladder's 30 feet longer it must be Is the truck taller? It must be taller, isn't it? So it's all depends on how the ladder's made there's there's actually a hundred foot truck is is Could be as little as five feet longer than what we have Um, so it definitely fits length wise in the firehouse But we're under a 12 foot restriction under the ove