So the first thing is to review and approve the agenda and there was one pretty small change that I wanted to make which was reversing the order of the old country club road plan and the plan for, we're discussing the plan for the MOAT property. So we're going to do the discussion about the MOAT property before the old country club road. We're just switching those last two items. Any other additions, questions? Objections? Okay, so without objection, we have to consider the agenda approved and so on to general business and appearances. So this is a time for any member of the public to come address the council on any topic that is otherwise not on our agenda and if you would try to keep your comments to about two minutes, that would be great. Hi, my name's Sandy Vitztum, 14 Luma Street and I just submitted a letter. I've lived in Montpelier for nearly 50 years and I've watched four generations participate in civic discourse. Many large issues have faced the city over the years. Money's always been scarce with 8,000 residents, a few commercial properties, very little industry and a beautiful state capital. What makes this precious tiny city work is the understanding that we are all in this together and that we all care and that each one of us matters. I've noticed a decline in civic discourse, however. I remember careful and inclusive deliberation and focus on facts. Conflicts used to seem to develop over misunderstanding rather than party lines or special interests and they were usually solved by education. Many of the sessions I've watched over the years and participated in, that really did solve it, that in taking time. Historically Montpelier citizens reach consensus. Somehow the proposed parking garage has become a divisive issue and it's being framed as a support or lack of support of our merchants. I have attended several city meetings about the proposed parking garage and I did sign a petition a couple weeks ago. I totally support our merchants and my questions are about safety, legality and costs. It was kind of shocking last week to read about an interview with Bill in the bridge and I want to say, first of all, I love Bill, I love his family and his kids. He's played music on my porch many years. I have complete admiration for Bill so I don't want my comments to become divisive in any way. But Bill was, I think, representing the city when he was quoted in the bridge is saying, while the petitioners are entitled to challenge the project, he believes the reasons might be more philosophical than procedural. And he said, sorry, Bill, my sense is that they just don't like the project and that they're seeking to impose their will on the will of the voters. That's a pretty serious accusation. I'd like to say publicly that this kind of language is divisive and it's misleading to the readers. Bill did not qualify the statement by saying that they were his personal opinion. I can't speak for the other people who signed the petition, but he's dead wrong about my concerns and my motivation. I can't think of any kind of setting where this comment would actually be constructive. I'm looking to the city council and the city's representatives to be models for civic discourse and to further our common good. I'm therefore asking the city to print an apology in the bridge to at least clarify that those opinions were of an individual and not of the city. Please, let's move forward on the garage and other civic improvements with cooperation. Thank you. Thank you, Sandy. I just want to say thank you for those sentiments and I'd certainly love to follow up on that. We'll talk about it. Would you like to? I can. I'm sorry if you took them that way. I had a very long conversation with the bridge and first of all, I'm sorry we didn't get to talk about this in private. They choose to use what they choose to use in the context that they choose to use it. I believe I was actually asked the question, do you think people are doing this? And I said, they may be. But maybe I didn't. But I ... But we can also clarify. Yeah. So great. Thank you Bill for saying that. Yeah. Thank you. Cool. Any further comments from the public? Okay. Moving on then. So we have the consent agenda. I have a question about item C. So I may just ... we can either pull it or you can come address it right now. I just wanted to know a little bit more about it. Yeah. Go ahead. In the spirit of progress here. So in 2012, the city had signed a pledge security agreement with Merchants Bank. Merchants Bank was subsequently purchased by Community Bank, headquartered out of New York. Because our balances frequently exceed the deposit limits for insurance with FDIC, we need some sort of collateral to secure the money that we're keeping with them. Currently under a pledge security agreement, each month they have to take securities, whether it be bond stocks or otherwise that they own and actually identify those individual securities and place them in joint custody with the Federal Reserve Bank. From their perspective that's extremely labor intensive each month to be doing that because our balances are changing throughout the year. So what they've requested is that we get a line of credit or letter of credit issued from the Federal Home Loan Bank which would guarantee our deposits up to whatever cap we decide. They'd be like a surety bond or guarantee so that in the event the bank were to fail we wouldn't be out any of our deposits in excess of the FDIC limits and we would just have to present that letter of credit to Federal Home Loan Bank and they would cut us a check for the funds. So it's essentially going from collateralizing using specific securities that they have to pledge to essentially having an insurance policy that we can cash in with the Federal Home Loan Bank. Have we had to do this before? We've always had some form of security agreement and in the years past we have had a letter of credit from Federal Home Loan Bank. The Pledge Security Agreement was something that came up in 2012, it was just at the time it was the preferred method of collateralizing large deposit accounts. Great, thank you. That makes sense. Yep. That's helpful. I would just point out and I realize that maybe this is not that important but the letter says gentlemen which I did not notice. I realize that it comes from a bank but. It is a, yes I noticed that as well and that was a sample format so we will. Well that's pretty offensive. We will be providing an updated one and I will pass that commentary along because that is, it is a little bit 1960s. Yes. I just wanted to know, is this a standard approach for other municipals? Absolutely. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. Any one of the, any, essentially any customer that has large balances that are in excess of normal FDIC limits, you need some sort of collateralization agreement because otherwise if a bank were to fail like in the 1990s when we had the savings and loans you could be out significant amounts of money which would be detrimental so. Okay. Great. Thank you. So is there a motion regarding the consent agenda? Move it. Second. Further discussion? On favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Great. So conservation commission appointments. So we have I believe two applicants for one seat to my, I think that's correct, right? So and I don't see either Michael or Katie here so we probably need to go into executive session. Would anybody like to make that motion? So moved. I moved that we go into executive session pursuant to one VSA section 316 I think it is. That was off the 313. Okay. To discuss the appointment of a city committee member. So I have a question. Yeah. Just a suggestion. If neither of them are here. Yep. Do you want to take up other items that people are here for and do that? I don't think this is going to take that long. I think we should just keep moving. Okay. We didn't actually vote yet. There was a second. Was there a second? There was a second. Okay. Further discussion? We'll be right back. Okay. Do we have a motion come out of executive session? So moved. Second. Okay. Great. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Great. Okay. Do we have a motion? I'd like to move to appoint Katie Michels to the conservation commission. Second. Further discussion? All in favor please say aye. That it's for the, not for the, for it's a voting member, I don't know. For the voting member? Okay. Great. Super. And there was a second. And further discussion? Yes. So does this mean that we, this now creates a vacancy in an alternate position that we'll have, we'll be warning for a future meeting? I think that is what that means. Great. Okay. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? And regardless that neither of them are here, I'm just very grateful for both of their service on this committee as they're both, we're serving as alternates. Okay. So the molecular foundations, so they have a request of us, so come on up and tell us about it. Good evening. I'm Ed Flanagan. This is Paul Giuliani. I am the chair of the Monterey Foundation, have been for the past couple years. And I'm the longest serving trustee, 24 years I believe. Founding member, right? Founding member. Founding member. Plankled. So I think you were provided with some information about the, a little bit of the history, a little of the, the plans on us moving forward. I think there's a real excitement on the board now. There's been some new members that have come on the board and some great opportunities to be able to do things in the, in the city of Montpellier. I mean it was originally designed to, to do projects that may not, may not happen otherwise. I mean it, sort of one of the projects that was looked at years ago was you look at Kellogg Hubbard Library and that probably wouldn't happen today under the way things are sort of set up. But there were these groups, these foundations or individuals that would provide this money to be able to make those types of things happen. And so that was sort of the initial impetus of having this foundation of being able to do projects that, that may not be able to get done. Otherwise it would also be a, a source to maybe get it up over the top. They were close to getting everything together, but they needed that, that extra money to get it over the top. And in the packet that was provided for you is a pamphlet that we put together that talks about some of the things that we had, we had done. Whether it was the tennis courts out by the high school, that was a group in Montpellier that wanted to redo those tennis courts. The surfaces of them were just abysmal. You really couldn't play on them and on the courts. And so this was a, by using the, the foundation, monies could be gathered and used towards getting that done. Same with the money was donated to the bike path and other projects throughout the city of Montpellier. Things have changed a little bit and there's other opportunities there that because of the setup of what we are today, it's not possible to be able to get certain monies because they want to donate to a non-profit, a 501C3 non-profit. And we're not that because of the, we're under the auspices of the city. And we feel there's a lot of opportunities out there to be able to do that, but our hands are sort of tied, which sort of stymies opportunities to be able to do projects in Montpellier that are for the community good. And so that's the reason for coming before you and saying it makes a lot of sense now to take this organization and break it off and let it become its own standalone 501C3 so that it can raise more funds to help projects in the city of Montpellier. I'll defer to Paul for the things I missed. No, you did a good job. I think it's worth mentioning that over the years, the foundation has received donations and bequests, gifts, some memorials, some are just outright gifts. The foundation last year received a very generous gift from former councilman Alan Weiss with instructions for the foundation to use it as it sees best in the city of Montpellier. And to pick up on something Ed said about the types of projects. Obviously like to do things that are visible, that people can use. As originally established, the foundation's goal was to fund or help fund capital projects that had a long useful life for the benefit of the community. And that concept is enshrined in the proposed articles of association for the new entity. It's not designed, it never was intended to subsidize any particular city operation or function. It's goal, the foundation's goal is to create visible capital community type projects and we're convinced that with a 501C3 exemption from the Treasury Department, we're going to be able to access funding sources that just weren't available to us as an agency of the city.  So we're kind of forced into that situation. And we're here tonight to request the city council's approval of just shifting from the present format, the present entity to something brand new that we're convinced is going to lead to a new and broader source of funding. Questions? Rosie and Donna. I had one question. I read through this fairly quickly, but I saw that the membership was elected and that the council appointed one member and I saw that the members elected their officers, but I couldn't tell who was doing the electing of the actual members of the board. It's intended to be a self-perpetuating board, open to anyone who expresses an interest in sitting on the board. And you know, has the Montpelier connection. We wanted to keep this as streamlined as simple as possible and, you know, holding elections, that just adds, I won't say distraction, but it's a dimension that I think we'd rather concentrate on the business of the foundation. But that board in turn does elect the officers of the foundation. We tried to be as inclusive as possible. Anyone who's interested in serving as a trustee of the foundation, more than welcome. I guess that makes me a little uncomfortable. Just I would prefer to have it if it's going to be that loose to have the council be appointing the full membership or have different entities appointing members. I just, I don't really understand how a board can appoint itself. It's quite common in foundations. It's a self-perpetuating, a self, I don't know what I'm looking for. It's self-perpetuating, where the only qualification for membership is that it be a natural person who has, you know, the Montpelier connection, Montpelier affinity. And I'm trying to think of another example. But it's not that uncommon. The T.W. Wood Board operates that way. Just as an example. Would there be a concern if it was still appointed by the council, the members?  But I think to be a standalone, you've got to have that. I don't think you can have someone else saying, oh, well, you're, you know. I don't think the non-profit bylaws will allow for that. Because then we get back by the circular route of being an agency of the city. And we essentially shoot ourselves in the foot, as far as the 501C3 is concerned. We recognize that the city council's concern and interest in what the foundation does, that's why we provided in the articles and in the bylaws, an ex-official member of the council to sit as a trustee and report back to the council on what the foundation is doing. Obviously, the foundation will have to make annual reports, annual filings with the IRS. So as far as activities are concerned, it's an open book. It's totally transparent. It has to be, so we get the exemption. Moving on. Go ahead, Donna. And that wasn't originally one of my questions, but to follow up on Rosie's point of membership. There is something you could add to your bylaws about diversity. And likewise, there is one statement about gender. But I think it has to be broader than he or she these days. So I think that some of that needs to be honed in a little bit more, some editing there. My concern was that if, indeed, you became a non-profit, then would you not be competing with, I was just looking to remind myself for the projects, whether it's the Footbridge or the Tennis Courts, the Wood Gallery, they're going after their own grants. And are you going to be going after the same grants? And are you going to be a silo? Or are you going to be coordinating with those entities, which also are looking for the service of the same population? It really depends on what the project is. Ed mentioned the foundation traditionally and historically has been used, we'll call it one of a better phrase, the last mile, a project, excuse me, has already gone through fundraising to other sources and needs $5,000 to finish the Tennis Courts, something like that. That's when the foundation, excuse me, has acted historically. I don't see competition here. It hasn't occurred so far. And it's really, the projects are to benefit the city of Montpelier. So it's like, you know, we're not in competition to say, oh, it's our dollars, our dollars. It's like, okay, let's get these projects done, whatever they have. Well, as long as you're working as a team and coordinating the efforts, I think that's true. But if you don't, I know you had in the past, but you haven't been a non-profit going out for grants on your own. By virtue of the nonprofit's charter, we have to continue doing that. The foundation can't branch off into some other activity. Whatever resources it has, whatever money it spends, has to be spent for the benefit of the community. And it's, you know, there's another organization, another group focused on the same project. We would welcome that. I don't see competition at all. It hasn't happened so far. In the 25 years it hasn't happened, it's always been. And I don't think it's because it's been a, you know, under the city, has had anything really to do with that. It's just that the projects, people would come to us with projects saying, we need to get this done. And so. Well, the difference I see is you've collected money and rather passively you've collected money. That was one of the things of enlivening the foundation and generating interest was to solicit more money. But you really have been a collector. And then you've seen projects and you have been the last mile. But I see the role change over here as a more nonprofit seeking grants in a different mode. That's, I see them a little bit different roles. That's all. But to be able to access funds from any business now, you need to be a, so when you're sort of stuck in that in between stage where businesses say, hey, if you're not that, we're not gonna be able to support you. Yeah, we've lost support by virtue of being a city agency as opposed to a 501c threat. Collin and then Ashley. So I think I'm gonna kind of pile on on the same kind of narrative, but hypothetical. If in the future I am not on city council and I end up on the board of the foundation and it also happens that a bunch of people on my street are on the board of the foundation. And we say, we think it's gonna be a municipal good to have a nice new park on Prospect Street. Then the board of the foundation is the deciding, you know, body in that case, where currently as a city agency, it eventually comes down to the city council elected by the population at large. Which is not to say that the new independent nonprofit foundation would not be acting in the municipal good, but it's just a question of who is deciding what the municipal good is. Do you see where I'm going? Well, and tell me whether I'm just completely off. That's fine. Yeah. That couldn't occur because the city owns the park. You can control whatever happens, but the other thing to keep in mind is the foundation today and going forward is strictly a funding agency. We're not involved in designing or permitting or constructing anything. We're the recipient of requests. We don't want looking for things to do. Yep. So I think it'd be, I just can't see the foundation going rogue and doing something spinning away from the city and taking on a role that it simply doesn't have the legal authority to do. Yeah, I guess, and I believe that. Like I think that it doesn't seem at all likely that anything like that would happen. And I think that it seems to me that you're probably completely right, that there are more funds to access as an independent nonprofit. It's just a question for me of currently, there is a certain control of the whole city over this foundation. And being an independent nonprofit means being an independent nonprofit. And I want to know exactly how that change plays out. Historically, I say that some members of the foundation board feel like orphans because the city council really hasn't spent a lot of time or had a lot of interest in what the foundation has been doing over the years. I remember coming to the council, I don't know, four or five years ago, and people didn't even know what I was talking about. So if the board is going to become deranged and do something like that, probably put it that way. Again, I mean, and to be clear, I don't think I see almost no possibility that the board would become deranged. It's just a question of exactly whose priorities. They're going to look at it, okay? Whose priorities are the deciding priorities, that's all. And whether it is the city as embodied by the city council or the independent foundation, that's all. Ashley and then Jack. So I am going to echo a similar sentiment, although to sort of directly address Glenn's point, I mean, I'm looking right now at article three, which is the purpose and describes what the foundation is there to do. And if this were to be a 501C3, you would have the authority to buy land and make a park. You could buy things, you could buy property, you could buy objects, you could buy things. And those things might not be things that the city council would want to do, not saying that that would be the case right now, but we have no idea what the board would look like in three years, five years, 10 years, whatever. And so for me, I would rather that we keep it as a city agency. I'm also curious, I know that there was a huge piece, I wanna say it was seven days maybe over the summer about nonprofits in Vermont, and I'm just curious if the plan would be, if the council were to approve this to become a 501C3, if you envisioned hiring an executive director and what that would look like because grant writing and all of those things take a huge amount of time, I've written them for work before, and it just strikes me that, you know, one, will we have a staff? Two, I guess I'm also very concerned about some of the corporate funding sources. You know, I think as a city montpelier tries to be very cognizant of where things come from and what they mean, and I am not comfortable sort of bowing to these two large corporations who have money and want particular things to happen and I appreciate that that's not always the case, but I've lived in many other places where those things have happened and it hasn't turned out to be the sort of public-private partnership that we had envisioned, and I'm incredibly uncomfortable sort of seating that kind of control over an organization that does so much good for our city and in essence sort of creating an entity that can operate into perpetuity, even if the city council does not agree with a particular project or idea or, you know, an organization wants to donate, so I'm wondering if you could respond to those points. I don't believe we've given any thought whatsoever to a staff of executive directors purely volunteers. I don't envision certainly in the short term that changing at all. And your other concern is it's a very diversified board today. I think if there's any concern about the pedigree of a potential donor, I'm sure it would come up at a board meeting and be discussed thoroughly. The mission here is not just to raise money at any cost and we're very sensitive to the source of any funding that's going to go into an asset that's going to be used by the community and hopefully benefit the community. So I mean, I would hope the council would have enough trust in this board to, in one of the better phrase, to do the right thing. There's no, there'd be no percentages, no future for the foundation if it didn't adhere to some kind of an ethical standard as far as from whom are we seeking grants and requests and donations. I guess it's just a question of trust. I don't know how to respond. Certainly, and I, in no way, that was not an intent. My intent there was not to sort of discredit or disregard anyone on the board right now, but going forward, the council wouldn't have any say in that other than an ex-deficio member who can't vote on anything and simply that would be a passive role for the city to play, which- No, I think they would have a voting. I don't think they said they were a non-voting member. I don't believe in- So ex-deficio usually means non-voting. Right, yeah, at least that's how I read that. I thought ex-deficios could vote. No. Certain things, no, okay. And so- Okay. Let me, that wasn't the intent. Okay. Maybe poor choice of words, but that wasn't the intent. No, no, no, the council rep to vote. Absolutely, yeah. But, and again, to me, I appreciate the work that clearly went into this, but for me, it doesn't make sense. I think there are lots of non-profits that already exist here in Montpelier and I think as a city, we can partner with them, which I know the foundation has done over the years and has assisted these other projects in meaningful ways, in incredibly meaningful ways, but to me, it's something that should remain in this under the auspices of the city. Jack. To help me understand how much we should be worrying about a road board running amok with this, how much money are we talking about here? How much does the foundation have? The foundation has about $120,000 that's invested in Maple Capital and they, and we use the proceeds of the income from that money primarily to be able to fund these projects. That's what the goal is. And the purpose is to get this income out. If we can grow that number, then we can, the income would increase and there'd be more money available for other projects. So you haven't been invading the corpus, but what you've been doing is just making these grants out of the income of the fund. Correct. So I'm going to jump in here and then Connor, do you want to go? Cool. So I am so grateful for all the work that you all have done in recent years. It seems like it's really been coming alive lately, which is awesome. And just so you know where I stand in this, I'm very happy to endorse this idea that you all become an independent 501c3. I mean for me it's a math question, right? If there are other pots of money that exist and it seems to me that the Popular Foundation is relatively unique as to what they do, then that is going to be bringing in more resources to the city and that's something that we stand to benefit more from if you all are a 501c3. So that's, I mean I trust that you all would make great choices. So anyway, that's my hope that, but we'll see. So Connor, what's up? Just piggybacking off Jack there. Not on average, like how much money is coming in a year? How much money is going out a year? And I know it fluctuates probably quite a bit. It fluctuates, it's a huge fluctuation. We had money from $35,000 from Allen Weiss as the state that Allen had put aside for the foundation. That was a lot of money for a foundation that didn't have a lot of money. Certainly they sort of cubbed ebbs and flows of the projects, a lot of projects come in and they don't really have a 20 year life. That's what we sort of look at, is that how can I have a 20 year life for the city of Montpelier? And a lot of projects come in that don't fit that bill. So we're not, we don't feel comfortable with those. Others that have been done in the city of Montpelier, we have supported. Certainly there's a very strong cash flow. I'm thinking of the tennis court project at the high school. The warden went out, money came in and money went right back up. That was a big year for the foundation. People could earmark money towards that through the foundation so that was just a pass through so they could take advantage of the tax deductions. I'm gonna add one thing and then Glenn, to a point that Ashley raised. One of the things that we sort of chatted about before, the meeting was about how the foundation's money is invested now and because right now, it's basically managed together with Maple Capital Investments, which also manages the city's money as well. And we're looking to do some kind of a revamp to our investment policy to make it more environmental, socially and governance responsible. And so I am, depending, like if we end up going the direction of saying yes, go ahead be a 5-1 C3, I would encourage you to consider having some kind of an ESG policy of your own because I think that where our money is invested really actually matters so. Great, Glenn. And picking back on Connor and Jack in the how much are we talking about here? Do you have any sense of the general size of the grants that you would now have access to as an independent 5-1 C3 as opposed to? Yes, for sure more. Are we talking like factors of magnitude or? I mean whether it's $1,500 or $2,000, I mean if it's a business that wants to donate, they want it to be a 5-0 1C3. So if you're the Vermont Mutual Foundation of which they have one, that's one of their criteria. That's what they're given their money to is 2-0 5-0 1C3. Sure. Number one on the list. Are they there or not, we're not going any farther. So it's sort of those type, do we know what those are? No, all of them, absolutely not. But there are probably, there's lots of opportunities out there that we have not been able to have been doing. This state is probably fairly modest. You know, $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, maybe $5,000. And was there, did I hear you say that there was an opportunity or a corporation that was interested in donating and did not? No. This hearsay, I mean we've talked about it. Got it, yes. I can't. There isn't one, yeah, okay. Donna. Well, you know this technical language of your bylaws is just that and maybe being sitting with it for a while but also tweaking it to cover some of the concerns of how you all behave now and how you would want future boards to behave. And definitely something in there about your investment policy I think is important. So I would, I support the idea. I just feel we need some more tweaking to ensure that it continues in the vein that you've had it. Does that make sense? So to piggyback off of that, I see three possible roads going forward. Either the answer is no, the answer is yes. Or we would like to see y'all make some tweaks to the document, the bylaws that you have at this point. What is your sense, team? Which direction? Can I just offer a technical point? Yes, please. According to the Google, an ex-officio member, the term means that they're coming from the office and they can in fact vote, debate, or have all rights and obligations of a board member. So in theory, so in the board, so maybe if you go the tweak route, you might want to just write in, the mayor will appoint a voting member or the mayor or city council. An ex-officio voting member. Okay. Connor, you have something then. Rosie, did you have something? Go ahead. No, just for our direction. I think I can get to a place where I would support this, but some tweaks would be helpful. I'm embarrassed, I don't know where the money's coming from right now. It could be like Walmart, Pocket Park, I would never clue. So having some ESG language in there, I think would probably make me feel comfortable. I don't know about the rest of the council. But otherwise, I've been a fundraiser. I know it's tough and you know, whatever opportunities we can take advantage of, I think it's worth exploring here, so. Rosie? So I would be supportive with some changes. So I understand why you want to do this, but I would appreciate it if you could do a little bit more work to see if it really would be prohibitive of being a 501C3 if you had more members appointed by the council, perhaps a majority of members or a significant number of members would be appointed by the council if you really feel that it couldn't be all the membership. And that would make me feel much more comfortable with it. I don't have a problem with it being a 501C3 for incoming contributions going forward, but I do feel that the council has a responsibility to the people who have contributed in the past to make sure that their funds aren't managed in a way that is different from how they envisioned. And so that's why I'm concerned about giving up so much of that authority over it. Ashley? Why wasn't it just formed as a 501C3 in 1993 for? For you, Paul. The sense of the council at that time was, if I remember correctly, it was started out as a sort of an experiment with the foundation remaining as an agency of the city. I think it was on Bill Cole who was on the council and there were a couple of these. Chuck Apparesas. Chuck Apparesas. He was the mayor at the time. They wanted to avoid at that time having to go through the hassle of creating a brand new standalone entity. It was discussed at the time, but the reason the 501C3 wasn't created in 93 or 94 was to keep it simple, just to bring it into the city and not have to go through the rigmarole of setting up a separate standalone. It was more convenient than anything else. It wasn't, there was no other reason for it. We could have done a 501C3, but nobody really had the heart to do it. Jack. I'm actually pretty comfortable with this, the way it is. I think that the suggestion of having the council named a point more than one member to the Board of Trustees, probably a good one, I'll point out that I'm not that scared about the idea that sometime in the future, Glenn and his neighbors will get this entity to fund the Glenn Hutchison Memorial Park on Prospect Street. And part of the reason for that is that sure, this foundation by the bylaws has the power to spend money and buy property, but it's not a park until the city of Montpelier accepts it and creates the park. And so whether it's the Glenn Hutchison Memorial Park or the Walmart Pocket Park or the Koch Brothers Pocket Park or whoever you're thinking about, I don't think that that kind of thing would be free of city government input before it's made. But given the fact that I'm reasonably comfortable now, if there were tweaks, I'm sure I'd be happy with them. One of the other thoughts I have is that I agree with Rosie that as a council we have a responsibility to protect the investment that contributors so far have made in the fund. If things go the way you expect, the fund is going to get bigger and maybe it won't, maybe not even a majority of that fund will be funds that were donated while it was a city entity. And it will be subject to the fiduciary duties of the Board of Trustees. So what I am hearing is that maybe two tweaks to be at least looked into, one being around membership and the other around some kind of an investment policy. Do those seem like things that you all could tackle or look into? I don't know how the, I'm not sure how we can, but there are people we can talk to in a straight and a way. Personally me, no, but there are others. Sure, there you go. Yes, Ashley. I just want to point out there that even if they present an ESG policy to us right now, the Board would have the sole authority to change that and there's no way for the city to do anything about that. We would have one voting member the way that it's written. So I just, yep, that's fair point. Okay, so I think we're going to move on from, unless anybody wants to make a motion. Okay, all right, thank you. Great, thank you. And we'll hopefully have you back sometime whenever you're ready. Perfect. Okay, sounds good, thank you. Okay, Housing Trust Fund. Guidelines update, welcome. I'm Polly Nicholl, I'm co-chair of the, Can't hear you. Thought I was, sorry. Polly Nicholl, I'm co-chair of the Housing Task Force and I'm also a long-time member of the Housing Trust Fund Advisory Committee. And I'm Mary Hooper and I'm a member of the Housing Task Force also. And the Trust Fund Advisory Committee. And the Trust Fund Advisory Committee, that's true. So the Advisory Committee met last summer to make recommendations to the City Council about spending money in the Trust Fund. And we discussed the fact that the guidelines for making such awards haven't been updated since 2010 when the Trust Fund was established and the City Council adopted the guidelines. And since that time, the mission of the Trust Fund has expanded. When it was created, it was just for home ownership to help first-time homebuyers buy homes in Montpelier, but it's been used for a lot of rental apartment projects that have been really important to the city. And the way the City Council has dealt with that has been by waiving the guidelines as things have come up. So the Advisory Committee decided it's time to make the guidelines conform with the actual practice. And they asked the Housing Task Force to take a look at them and recommend changes. And so the Task Force created a subcommittee. It was myself, Mary Jotriano from the Montpelier Housing Authority and Jim Libby. And then at the November meeting, the Task Force voted to recommend the changes that are before you to the City Council. So you should have a copy of the existing guidelines, drafted the proposed guidelines, and then a summary of the recommended changes. And I apologize for all the paper. It was just because we reorganized them a little bit, it was such a mess with track changes that I didn't want to subject anyone to that. I'm happy to go through it section by section, but in the interest of time, I thought maybe I could start by summarizing the major changes for you and then if you want more, we can talk in more detail. And again, this really is kind of memorializing existing practice and things that the council or previous councils have already agreed on. So I'm actually gonna interrupt you to say, a team, I assume, is it safe to assume that you have read through this? Okay, so I don't think you need to go through all of the pieces unless there's anything else you want to add. Okay, do you want me to just sort of review the major changes or not even do that? You pulled them out in your first page. Yeah, I mean, it's actually quite easy to read, which is wonderful, so you've, you... You get an A-class. Yeah, right, it's great. So I would just jump straight to questions from the council if that's all right. Yeah, go ahead, Rosie. So my big concern with this, and I couldn't quite tell if this was something that was in there already or if this was something that was added, but there was a prioritization for home ownership awards shall be made for the purchase of housing by a household that is living or working in Montpelier at the time of application or has other connections to the city. And I'm sure this wasn't the intention of the committee, but it, that felt to me a little bit too much like we're protecting this homogenous community that we've got, we don't want to welcome folks from outside and especially in light of Vermont's history with trying to attract just the right kind of incoming residents and excluding others over the past 100 years. I'm really uncomfortable with that. And frankly, if somebody meets all our other criteria, I don't know why we would particularly care that they already have a connection to the city or not. And that just makes me feel very uncomfortable. I mean, at the time that was important to the council, we actually made sure that it only applied to homeowners and not renters because of all the federal, you know, fair housing and discrimination policies, but it wasn't there from before. And for, you know, it was important in previous discussions. Do you have any suggestion, Rosie, as to how we could change it? I would just strike that one completely. All of priority number six, five, I think it is. I think it was number five. When the council adopted this way back when, I think the notion was these are funds that are coming from Montpelier taxpayer pockets. And so we want them to go back to Montpelier taxpayer pockets. I think our committee had a conversation about it and we're pretty ambivalent about it. We could have gone either way, but left it in principally because it had been important to the council over the past. Fair enough, thank you. Other comments, questions?  Just on that, and maybe I'm not understanding it perfectly, but if we were to strike it that number five, the money would come from taxpayer pockets and go to new taxpayer pockets. Yes. Fair. Other comments, questions? Does anyone have a motion that I'd like to make? I move that we approve the policies with the exclusion of section 106, subsection five. I'll second. Further discussion? I'm just gonna note that in general, I'm still somewhat uncomfortable. As we know with the first time home buyer credit, however, I really appreciate us making our laws and regulations and rules fit what we actually do. So I'm gonna go ahead and support this because that's really critical to me to have that line up. I just wanted to check in with Ashley. How are you doing? Do you have any thoughts you would like to? If not, that's fine. No, I'm gonna put you on the spot. I do. I have thoughts and I support this whole plan. I think that's been one of my key issues in the last few years on the council. I guess what I'm struggling with is priority number five. I agree that Vermont has a really ugly history of discrimination and selective welcoming. And I guess for me, what I would rather see is some sort of commitment rather than removing it entirely, sort of, I don't know what this would look like because I'm sort of shooting from the hip on this, but something about what sort of other criteria we are going to look at. I know that housing will be affordable to persons with incomes below 80% of county median as determined by HUD. And I just don't know that that does enough to sort of diversify the population that this would reach. And I don't know what that would look like and I don't purport to say that I should be the one to write that because I know that you folks are the one sort of doing all of this work. But I don't think that striking five completely is what would be the best thing to do. I think that there has to be some like, I don't know. I don't know what it would look like. Jack, go ahead. I have a thought and I've not been involved in administering these things, but HUD has a requirement to HUD grantees to that they will agree to affirmatively further fair housing. And that includes all kinds of things from not discriminating up to doing some affirmative measures to do attract diverse residents. And it might take some tweaking of the language to see exactly how it should go in there, but I don't know what you think about that as a possible additional criterion. Much closer to what I was thinking than anything I said. I mean, my proposal at this point would be that if we vote on this measure now and then just ask the committee to chew on this sentiment and see if they can come back with a reformulated priority number five. Does that sound reasonable? Okay, great. Okay, so we have a motion and a second. Further discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. What? Yeah, no, Donna seconded it. And anybody opposed? Great, okay, thank you so much. Yep. Okay, pavement condition index. Oh, I'm sorry. We're gonna take just a really quick break. Okay, okay, we're gonna come back from our recess. And welcome. I'm surprisingly excited to talk about this. So I will turn it over to you. We are glad to see you guys. I'm just excited. We love to talk about things like that. We love to talk about things like that. When you get to do it, right? We have some money. You have some money to do it. Oh, I'm sorry. Before we dive into it, there is, I do wanna just make one quick announcement, which is that I think we're gonna rearrange the schedule again here, which is to say that we're gonna bring the discussion about the former Moab property and the old country club road up to the next item, because there I think are probably a number of people who are here for that. And so to accommodate you all who are here, we'll do that next after this item. Okay, take it away. Good evening. And we'll try to plow through this and leave plenty of time for the questions. All right. So my name's Tom McCartle, Director of Public Works. Can you move the mic closer to you? Yeah, I remember better than others. Tom McCartle, Director of Public Works. This is Zach Blodgett, staff engineers. This is Zach's presentation tonight, so I'm here in a supporting role. So Zach, take it away. All right, so as we go through this presentation, if you guys have questions, feel free to stop me. It can be more interactive. We don't need to wait for questions till the end. It's probably a little bit easier to keep track of anyways. So first let's start with the PCI and the definition of PCI. What is it? It is, it stands for Payment Condition Index and it is a number between zero and 100, which is used to indicate the general condition of the payment. It's calculated by quantifying distresses on the pavement. I will quickly jump ahead and do a slide just to show you different types of distresses. So these are the type of distresses that we're looking for when we do our payment inspections. What you see in red, alligator cracking, block cracking, bumps and sags, patching and rutting, L&T cracking, those are all some of the most common distresses that we find in the city of Montpelier. L&T. Long to zero and transverse. So cracks that are either perpendicular to the center line or parallel. So back to PCI. When we look at, first of all, we just wanted to talk about the history of our payment management system. From 2004 to 2011, we used a system called RSMS. It's a road surface management system that was used. It was actually, some kids from UNH would come in. I'm not sure how frequent they'd updated their... We did it with a volunteer annually with that program. So they would come in, they would update their, the payment conditions. And then after 2011, we noticed some odd problems with the RSMS. They were using straight decays. So we'll go over how a payment actually performs over life cycle. But their assumptions were that in year one through year 20, it was the same percent that it was dropping. And what we were finding is that it wasn't really true for Montpelier and for our type of roads. So between 2011 and 2014, I worked with GIS to integrate kind of something that was more customizable for the city of Montpelier. And then in 2015, we kind of took it a step further, took that GIS and actually put it into a software called Paver, which is what we use now. Our Paver system, we inspect our roads every three years. So in 2015 was the first inspection and then we updated our payment condition this year in 2018. Any questions before I move on the right? This is a climate-related structural subsurface. Distractions, a lot of reasons why pavements fail over time, but particularly the North country and our freeze thaw, thermal cracking, a lot of these. Is this scale something like a standard thing within the public works world or is something that was developed, okay? Yeah, it's fairly standard. Some systems categorize their conditions and but in general, below a 40 is a failed road or approaching a very high maintenance cost in terms of either reconstruction or to rehab it. It is an industry standard, but techniques and responses vary by region. Okay. So as I told you, these are the different types of distresses. So I will move on from here. Just so you know that some of these distresses, they all affect the condition differently. So when we look at distresses on the pavement, if we have 1,000 feet of roadway, we're gonna take probably two samples of 100 feet. So it's gonna be 100 feet in length by whatever the width of the road is. That's your sample section. So we're trying to get about 20% of your road that you're actually taking an inventory on. Each of these categories will all affect the PCI much differently. Alligator cracking, if you have 100 square feet of alligator cracking, it's gonna take a very hard hit to your PCI, whereas if you had 100 square feet of patching or trench patching, it's only gonna deduct a very few points. These distress types are also very indicative of what's happening underneath. So alligator cracking is probably in shoving and rutting is indicative of poor sub-base. So those are really indicative of the top. The surface, the pavement we all ride on, three to five, six inches. That's just for our riding comfort. Really, what's important, it's what's underneath. So on the next slide, here you see a curve from, this is actually from the paving software. They come out of the box with about 10 different curves. This is the curve that most closely resembles what Montpelier is doing. So this is the one that our data is going into. With more time, our data will actually be able to change these curves and be more true for solely for Montpelier. Right now, we still need some fine tuning, some more numbers to really give an accurate depiction of that. So the upper red line is like the upper limit, right? So when you do, when you rehab a street, whether it's overlaying or mailing and filling or reclaiming, you could expect to see anywhere within the range of the red. So the upper limit, so at year four, if you reclaim a street, you could have 100 PCI or you also could have a street with a 77 PCI. The green line represents kind of the average curve that you would see. Everything below a 40, we really want to kind of get everything above a 40. 40 is really failing. It's in pretty poor condition. Everyone's lives are kind of. So that usually is in the reconstruction range when you're down in that 40 range. It's a much more aggressive, more expensive treatment. So the idea is to try to catch everything in the upper line and then push those lines out. So resurface at the right time, preventative maintenance work at the right time and extend those curves out to extend the life of that investment in the asset. All right, so here are some of our goals. Our goals also kind of closely aligned with the state schools. So one of our goals is to have an average PCI above a 70. That's something that we set back, I don't know, in 2011, 13 type area. Donna, do you remember? Somewhere in there. And so our target has always been a 70. The other one, which is, it's kind of a new target. We had talked about it with the committee, but we have a goal to keep 25% of our roads less than a 40 PCI. No more than ever reaching 25% of our roads. So ideally we're much less than that, but that would be the upper range. And I think over time, we will maybe adjust that percentage down as our PCI starts to go up and it already has, so. So that funding level on the study state is a funding, not a funding that achieves these goals, so that it's, we have, if you think of water in a hole in a jug, water draining out, where what we're putting in, which represents dollars, water going in, is at least equal to the water draining out. Water draining out is deterioration. So it's the equivalent of that. So that's what we view as a study state condition. We're always making that proper investment. We estimate it to be in the $600,000 range. We've achieved that now with the CIP. Somewhere in that range, prices vary with asphalt. $600,000 a year. Yes, approximately. Yep. So here's a breakdown of our roadways. Our roadways are defined as class ones, twos, threes, and then there's fours and some others. Predominantly, Piliers made up of class three roadways, which are your residential neighborhoods. Your class twos are your major and minor collectors, such as Townhill Road, Terrace Street, and your class ones are your state highway routes, Norfield Street, Route 12, Route 2. So about 50% of our roads are residential. Class ones are funded primarily 100% through the state. Yes, we have some things that we need to do in conjunction with those projects, but they pay for the payment and the life cycle of the payment is really on their dollar. The class twos, they are our responsibility as well. However, there are funds that we can apply for for grants that we would get on average between seven and 10 years for about 175,000. So class two town highway structures grant. I know this is a non sequitur, but just putting it back on the radar, I think I've said this before, as much as we can be finding roads to unpave, I'm very interested in that. Just putting that out there. That is something we looked at a few years ago. We did convert some to gravel. They have to be the right candidate for that to make a match with. So one of those is that it's an uncurbed street with a driveway culvert, so an open drainage system, relatively flat, less than 5% grade because of the amount of rutting that takes place, raveling, traffic volumes are fairly low. And keep in mind that it isn't a popular method, so. Yeah, I hear that. But the other thing, along with that point, is divesting the width of the road. We have a lot of roads that are 32, 34, even 36 feet wide in the residential area, allowing, we did this complete street study and in the report you're gonna see a lot of them are shrink them down to 22, 24, which may be unpopular, but it's also something that needs to be weighed out because it's a third of the cost to do something at 20 feet than it is 30 feet. I would imagine too that that would be some natural traffic coming. If the road is not as wide. A little bit. It's your standard lane is generally 10 to 11 feet. I also look at it on the storm water side, I think less impervious areas too, so that's a good thing. We don't need to talk about this. Realize this is not the issue at hand. No, they're relevant topics. Yep. All right, so here's a history of, from 2016 to 2018 with our class twos and threes, our ones and then a aggregate PCI. In 2016, we had a, it was a 66 when you averaged our class ones and our class twos and threes together. At that point in time, state street was not done, nothing on Elm Street was done, nothing on Main Street was done, nothing on Northfield Street was done. In 2017, you'll see that our class ones went way up and that's because we did Elm Street, Main Street, State Street, which were funded through state. In 2018, we finished paving those streets like Northfield, but in addition, we also put in a little bit of funds towards maintaining our class ones. So you may have noticed that we did an overlay by the roundabout between Granite Street and the roundabout. And then we also did some wheel rut patching in between Pioneer and Granite. So the city is responsible for the routine maintenance between those major projects, which are on about a 14 year cycle, the class one projects that are 100%. So we're responsible for, it's like bottles, plowing, crack sealing, wheel rut paving. So we need to carry that cost and there is a state aid for that based on those lane miles that we receive for doing that work in between the paving cycles. Here's just another type of graph that compares actually 2015 to 2018 when the two inspections were done. So you can see how the percentages have changed. This graph is representative of twos and threes. So when the other chart, this one, the class ones are added in and combined at the very end. These numbers that you see are twos and threes only, the percentages, because that's what we're inspecting the state. I rely on what the states condition that they post online. And then, so I use that information in combination with the information from our software, which is what you see here. The low categories that failed in the serious are you see the same amount of failed decrease in serious, poor, a slight decrease, but then you see good gains in the good section and the satisfactory. So it's really what you wanna see when you're looking at your PCI. What's our failed, I hope it's just one street? Yeah, so we can get that. Well, truly, I don't know if it's technically failed considering we can still pass on it. I mean, you can get to and from everywhere. So if you look at a definition of failed, in my mind that is you cannot get there, you cannot. Yeah, we call it unserviceable, it's difficult, it's so costly to maintain. We have a 10 on parts of coming street, so there's a pretty bad one that is in the plan. And then in the serious section, you would see stuff like Blanchard, Pick and Core. Scribner's a pretty low one as well. All right, so this graph, a little hectic, but it shows the state trend, the Montpelier trend, and then both of our goals. So the dotted line that you see up top is a 70 PCI and that is our goal, that's the state's goal. We wanna be above that line all the time. Down here, this is the 25%. We wanna have all of our roads with less than a 40 PCI. Right now we're at 18%. It'd be nice to get that down even 10% or lower. And I think that's achievable over time, but we also, it's not something that you can speed up too fast because we have other problems as well that need to be considered. Infrastructure, utilities. Any questions here? Yeah. One thing I wanted to mention about the bad roads was at the CPI meetings, you really make it clear we have to make choices. Do we put money to band aid, a road that's really bad when we don't have enough resources to do the utilities and everything underneath of it? Or do we go over here and try to maintain the ones we've got in good conditions? Because if we don't maintain them, they'll become poor and more expensive. Is that part of the ones that are still under that 25%? Well, we're linked pretty closely with the Water Sewer Master Plan. As you recall, part of that discussion we involved around Berry Street. And that was really bad. And we have a 100 year old water main under there. How long do we wait? So we decided to move forward with the paving of that. We've been able to keep the water main together pretty well. But East State Streets, another one of those. Oh, it's a mess. We have Water Main that's broke again just recently. So that is a tough choice to make. I use the word unserviceable. And that is a point where the rutting becomes difficult to even to navigate with your vehicle. We can't plow the street properly because of that rutting. And so we end up putting a lot of salt on these streets that we can't scrape off. So those are the choices that we have to make. And sometimes we have to move forward with some sort of a surface treatment. Right. But it's a band aid that never makes the road really good until you get the funding together to go all the way down and redo it. That's correct. That's a tough choice to make. I'll give you an example. Walker Terrace is a street that half the street is in around a 40. And the second, the last portion of the street is very, very bad. So the aggregate PCI is still OK. It's probably around a 37 somewhere in there. But the last section is very poor. So moving forward, we're trying to have a little different approach and towards specific preventative maintenance. So we buy a little bit more time by doing this 100 foot section on Walker Terrace until we get the funding for the water main, which is one to two years out. That way, the residents of that street, they have something that's passable or more passable until we have the time to do the correct treatment. Walker Terrace is a 25. So it needs a water main and a sewer as well? No, just water. OK, so here is our PCI. And then funding on the right, it's a little hard to see over there. But this is our PCI annually. And then the amount of dollars that we've spent on the right-hand side. You'll see that in 2017, there was a spike down.  That's actually because with Norfield Street that came up, we had to take some funding and move, shift some funds around so that we could do Northfield Street but keep everything on track. So we actually allocated about $120,000 from normally where we'd just spend towards straight 2s and 3s to make Northfield Street happen. As a result, we didn't get the same gains that we did in previous years on our PCI. But I think it was well worth it. The improvement is on your class ones. Good news on that is we delayed Barrie Street to connect it, to link it up with a bike path project. And we have a grant on that, and that will go this summer. So that will make a pretty significant change on the 2s. Everything balances out over time. Just as long as you all more or less have what you need to adequately maintain. I believe we do. Yeah, OK. All right, so some of the issues that we're having now, a lot of the low hanging fruit have already been done. So areas where we don't have poor water mains or don't really have utility issues, we've already done the reclaimed projects on those streets. So now juggling the infrastructure needs with the pavement needs, it gets a little bit trickier. But it's your question. Exactly. So we'll get more into that when we talk about the CIP and each of the different projects and how they overlap and what is interconnected with each other. Another thing is that, well, as we're talking about right now, the underlying infrastructure can cause accelerated decay. So you have a street. We've done some streets where Liberty Street between next to college, between Heaton College. We've had, I think that was done in 2012 or 13, and we've had, I think, three leaks, four leaks there since. So those type of things are really actually affecting your PCI quite significantly. We have a short history with the paving software. We just need to have some more time to do some more cycles to really develop specific curves for decay curves for Montpelier. Right now, we're on a three-year inspection schedule. It's actually quite lengthy. I think that we're going to end up doing annual inspections, but splitting out the city into thirds. So one year we'll do this third of the city. One year we'll do this third. It's a little too much data crunching at the end right now to do kind of all three years, or wait three years to do your inspections. The other thing that we're looking into is possibly having a vehicle come out and drive all of our roads and just give us an automated report to save some time. I assume that costs money, though. It does cost money, but time is money as well. Sure. It likes it because the state has ones. Oh, well. It's reliable. It's not arbitrary. There's no human perception involved. It's taking points every so often and aggregating your data that way rather than having a human interpret. So our approach moving forward. DPW this year supported our paving program very significantly. We had about $100,000 that we would have had additional cost if we had done structure adjustments on both college and Liberty Street. In return, that ended up allowing us to go further on college, do some of that wheel running over on route two. So utilizing our crews for support is a really big item that we will continue to move forward with. Some of the other things are preventative maintenance and interim maintenance is a very high priority. So crack sealing, crack sealing, crack sealing. We did $14,000 of crack sealing this year. We put $5,000 towards class one roads that were crack sealed, which not a lot of other communities are doing, but it's very important because they only come around every 15 to 17 years depending on the state funding. So making sure that your payment is good until you get the state funds is really important. In the local streets too. Correct. As I said, shortening the PCI inspection cycles, continue to apply for our class two grants and supporting our class ones with running and leveling as needed to kind of preserve them. Are there any other questions? That little paver you see in this picture is when we bought a few years ago. It was a great investment. Paved six feet wide. It's a sidewalk paver. But we run it on the street frequently. So it's first avenue this year and we reconstructed one full side. So it was a great little investment. Does take a full crew to run it with truck drivers and screeds and everything. But we also did some paving of the sidewalks on Northfield Street. So it's come in really, really nice with that, where there are pavement. OK, Ashley. I live on East State streets. I know how rough it is. Just a couple of quick things. One, I assume that the amount of snow removal in any given year would have a pretty significant impact on the road conditions in other seasons. Like, I mean, we've had a lot of early snow this year. So clouds have already been out. So do you anticipate that being an increase to maintenance in the upcoming years given the significant amount of snow we've had already? It's more to do with moisture freeze-thaw cycles. Last year was an awful year. We had very wet season. And we had a number of freeze-thaw cycles. So that frozen surfaces, the water is entering the pavement. And then it freezes, expands, pops it out. And it's a vicious cycle. So crack sealing is important. What's that? Science strokes. Science strokes, yes. Love them. And then the only other, this is just more. It's a standard. This is maybe more of a bit of an observation. I know we had a few early storms that actually produced a surprising amount of snow. But I was in town. I'd gone to a yoga class early in the morning. And the snow banks from the sidewalk to the parking on State Street were really high. And there was actually no way other than walking in the travel portion of the lane to safely get to the car. So I just went through the snow banks. But there were a number of folks who were not as able-bodied as I, who had to walk in traffic to get into their car. And so I know you guys have so much on your plates. And it was a lot of snow that happened quickly. But I meant to send an email. And I didn't. But I just wanted to share that experience. Because I mean, things could have gone really wrong, like slipping in traffic, falling in a snow bank. But we are not even out of November. And you're asking about snow bank removal. I know. Well, the absurdity, right? But it struck me as a potential significant hazard. It is at a point now that we do need to plan a couple of nights that there's cruise work along. There's usually a two or three day lag between the snow operations, active operations, and a planned night. Snow removal, because it begins at about one in the morning. And it's the only time we can do the downtown area. So in the meantime, we start to poke some holes around the meters for people to walk in between. We have drainage issues as well. All that water sitting along the gutters blocking our drainage to the catch basins. It's flatter than a pancake downtown, so it doesn't take much to create fun. So a lot of reasons to remove the snow in November. Further questions? Great. Well, I'm sure I mean, I've said this before, but I just love graphs. And so this presentation would be very happy. I think there's a proportional relationship there. The more graphs, the happier I am. And this is wonderful. We could graph that. I think you could graph that. Comment over there? Well, I realized I had one other question. And that was in all the graphs about the percentage of different classes of road. Are those based on miles of road? It's based on area. It's the most accurate way to put it into the system. So it's true area that the percentages are being based off of. So a mile on a narrower road is less than a mile on a wide road. Yeah, so it's all about, yeah. Exactly. I just want to add, I'm really excited to have some of those graphs go up on the city website once we are ready to do, what are we calling it? Performance measures, something like that. OK, great. This is wonderful. So thank you so much. OK, so we are skipping a couple of items here. And jumping to the discussion around the former Moab property and the future plans of what we want to do with that space.  Really, this is the beginning, I think, of a discussion. We've had some issues and questions come up about, are there possibilities to do more things around the river bank and open up more spaces? And what could we do with this former lot? It's actually, I call it the Moab Lot, and Jay from Moab Trust is here. But it's really a combination of the Moab Vermont Association for the Blind and TKS property. So three lots that the city now owns. And I think my answer to everybody when they've asked is that we have a plan and that's what's been bid and that's what's being constructed. And the bike path goes through there. It's going to create a roadway through. It's going to create parking, about 28 parking spaces, and leave a space for a new building. And absent any change of direction, that's what we are going to continue to do. So we're at a point where we probably have a couple month window at the most, where before we, if you back into when the work might start and if there were any permit change requirements and those kind of things to consider other choices. So it's come up from council members. It's come up from the council. And it seemed appropriate to put this on the agenda and see what people, at least on big picture level, wanted to do for direction. And I think the questions we have are do you want to stay with the current plan? Do you want to change the current plan? If the current plan changes, do you still want to include a private building or not? Do you use people want more green space? Do we still want to include parking? How much parking? Those are the kinds of things we need to work through as we were going through. So that prompted this agenda item. So just to add onto that a little bit, I think the biggest thing that we need to figure out, I would like to be figuring this out tonight, is, right. So as you said, just to highlight, do we want to keep, like option one, is keep the same basic plan, move forward with the construction of a building on that property. Option two is, do we want to try to keep the building? But there may be some possibilities for just what's behind that property. In terms of, it's planned to be parking now, but maybe we can rejigger that now since we have this parking garage that will be very near that. And that's a technical term rejiggering, yeah. Okay, and option three is maybe we don't want a building on that site and that's sort of up, what we do with that space is up for more options as well. So, and then from there, whatever we decide, if we don't want to go with plan A of continuing to move forward, then we may try to talk a little bit about a process moving forward from whatever we decide we want to do. Does that make sense, team? Is that, any questions about that? Okay, so the way I pictured this conversation going is I know there's a lot of folks here who have thoughts about this issue and so I would, I think I would like to, unless you all have things that you want to say right now, I guess I would start with the public. Wow, what are the, what are the thoughts for people who would like to weigh in on this and then we can continue to have a conversation up here. Yes, so if you have, yes, question, if you would come up to the mic here. Would it be possible to put a image on the screen of what is proposed at the moment? The current plan? I bet you can figure that out. It's on, it's attached on the, It's attached to the agenda. It's on the agenda, so you could have. Not the agenda, if you have access to the internet and go to the agenda on the website. See who or anyone else from staff here that can. I have faith, I have faith that you can figure it out. Yes, Donna? Just before people come up, I did distribute a map that had one option of more green space and I put new copies over there, but I think both Connor and Glenn got them last week at the meeting we had, the special council meeting. So I just wanted to have that vision in front of you when we're talking. There is a proposal about making it green. Sheila, did you have a question? There's a comment. I was just wondering if you could repeat your name for the record. I'm sorry, DB Brush. Thank you. Okay, go ahead, John. John Snill, thank you very much and thanks for bumping this up on the agenda a little bit. I think that the first thing that I would ask of the council is to not keep going with the current plan until you look at other options and then if you decide that this is really the plan that needs to happen, go for it. I don't think it is, but I think we have a real opportunity now that sort of the scene has changed and that it's very important to stick the stick in the spokes and stop it. That's harsh. Stick in the spokes. Well, we've got an opportunity. Two months, you think? Yeah, I mean, right. So we've, I mean, that's roughly, I'm just trying to, we issued a contract based on the initial plan and at the time that design was done, parking garage wasn't really part of the program. So they're proceeding along and so if we're gonna give a change order and a new design, we need to do that before they start work and there would be permit changes and it would have to be designed and engineered and all those kinds of things. So, you know, that's the window we're talking about and I will note that from the council's perspective that, and I'm not saying we shouldn't do this, but just so people are clear, that's budget time and holiday time. And this is an opportunity that only comes once in a great while. That's right. I had been on the original car lot committee and then the Taylor Street committee. I followed this now for not quite as long as Bill has, but a long time and I would love to see something different than is proposed currently. I was really disappointed with it when it came out. I think that we need to look at what kinds of parking we need and if it's appropriate to put parking there, then let's supply that kind of parking. Is it 10 minutes to go into the drawing board?  Is he just gonna warehouse his car there all day long? I don't know, but I think that's an important question. What kind of parking is needed? And I would advocate that almost any kind of parking can be provided elsewhere or already is. And that then would suggest that we minimize or eliminate parking altogether on this three lot parcel and the associated roadways going in and out. It's a lot of pavement the way it's planned right now. I of course would advocate for more green space. I know that that doesn't come freely. We need to as a city support that, but I think if you look at that key entrance way, across the river and into this new development, the impact is huge if we have more green space there. And under the current plan, there's precious little green space. I know because I've reviewed the existing plan for trees and shrubbery and it is painful, painful. I'm fine with a building if that's what, you know, the council thinks needs to happen and the citizens of Montpelier, I think a well-designed building could go a long way towards spreading some of the costs of providing more green space. And I think also you're going to be hearing more and more about the Confluence Park on the other side of the North Branch that these two could tie together beautifully. So please do stick that stick in there. Let's talk about all kinds of options. Thank you. And before we have more comments, Bill, do you want to just explain the location? Right, I thought it might help everyone unless people really disagree or if I just explain how we got to where we are and what everything is. I'm not going to have a mic. Can people hear me? Okay. This is Shaw's. This is where Montpelier Beverage used to be, the Association for the Blind used to be, this is the drawing board building. So the proposal, initially what was really in the works was the city took the three lots, is recreated to two lots and one of them is sort of like this and the other is the remainder. This was all going to be sold and the owner was going to build a new building and this parking was going to be associated with the building. This is before the garage over here was contemplated. At the near the end of the deal, the owner opted not to do that and we simply purchased the property. So now the city owns all three but this design was intended to incorporate the access to the back lot. This is the bike path coming over with the bridge, the new building and associated parking. So questions that could be, and all of this is bed permitted. This project has a local permit. We're not currently, you just get it. It wasn't me, because I didn't touch a computer. I didn't touch a computer. Sometimes you just have to be in the world with that. It's the magnetic. So we're not currently marketing this but the thought was if we did it would all be, it's a permitted project, so it would be of interest. So what does this mean? And as we have this conversation, I think issues to think about are how much parking is needed to support a building if we chose to have one there and how much could be accommodated. Not really part of this, but as we talk about a potential bike path connection, some of the options include taking out parking on Berry Street and would approximate parking be of importance. And so we want to think a little bit holistically but could a road be re-curved and create more space? Would you, the proposal Adonis just showed shows no building, the road and a whole lot of green space, not much parking, and I think those are the kinds of decisions. So I hope that helps orient everybody. So and to be clear, this is what the bid specs, this is the project that's being built right now unless we tell, along with this. Unless we tell them otherwise. Just a quick question, Bill. That parcel is in the designated downtown district, right? Which has no parking requirement for dwellings. Correct. In fact, I'm not sure about the, what the zoning requirement is. The biggest issue we've discovered and there are private real estate people here can speak to this more eloquently than I but we've discovered with trying to do the housing at one Taylor, we're trying to do this project is that the financing of projects regardless of our zoning depends on the parking. So people can't get loans to build buildings unless they can demonstrate that they have sufficient parking for their customers or residents, et cetera. So new developments come with that. So I think one really important thing for me in understanding this was understanding that we can keep this lot for public use or if we sell the lot as we're, we've kind of planned through this, the money goes back to the state and to the feds. So if we were to sell the lot, we will lose, we will gain some potential tax revenue for whatever is built on that private piece of property but we won't actually gain the value of the lot and so that's a different kind of math than we would normally be doing in this situation. And I wanna explain that for people just to understand that these properties were purchased with federal and state money as part of a grant project and so they were purchased by basically the federal government on our, I mean by us with money from the federal for public purposes. So as long as we use them for public purposes, that's fine. If we sell them to convert them solely to private purposes, those portions of the lots that are now in a private interest need to be refunded and we've known that all along that that was the case. So it's not like we can sell these and just pocket the value of the lot and put into the cities. Before we go with further public comment, are there any other clarifying questions from the council? No, okay, back to the public. I'm trying to put a visual up on the board if I can.  Yeah, he can talk. Okay, go ahead, Dan. Yeah, can we stop? Thank you, dear. Hi, Dan Jones, Northfield Street Executive Director of the Sustainable Montpelier Coalition. Six weeks ago, we held a round table of various interests in what we'll call the Lower North Branch neighborhood. Bill was there, Rosie was there. It was a discussion of how to begin to think about tying together the various, we'll call them silos of projects that were going on. It was the Taylor Street project, the parking garage, the bike bridge, which seemed to be the possibility of having a once in a generation opportunity to rethink that whole area into something that was a hallmark or a gem of the city, not just a place to pass through. I guess Donna had passed out a preliminary drawing that Elizabeth Courtney had done. I was going to have Elizabeth up here too. She's being demure back there. Idea was that by opening up what you call the Moat property, at least a portion of it into public space at the end of the bike bridge so it becomes more of a park. Now that you're developing, we're seeing a neighborhood develop both with the French block, with Taylor Street, hopefully with the Christchurch development. We're having a place where we're actually having people and their quantity living there. And so some kind of public space for them to occupy along with the other people who'd be coming through on the bike bridge, et cetera, is a, we think a crucial way of thinking about it. Every smart city in the country basically opens up some portion of its waterfront, even more than the Confluence Park. But the idea where people want to get to the water is John experienced back when we were having the discussions on the Taylor Street development. There's a great yearning in Montpelier to have access to the water and more of it the better. So what we're trying to suggest to you is this is a great time to change your priority, move away from having to sell that because there's actually no economic benefit, and start making a gem that is a central feature of the city. Thank you, Dan. Great. Meanwhile, I'm getting there. Okay. Let us know when you're ready. For some reason, they have. Do you wanna unplug the projector so we don't read all your emails? That's all right. We're gonna get there very quickly. Probably better. I don't know how to un-print it. It's not that hard. Sue, do you wanna help me with that? Thank you. It's just my personal drive. What can I say? Except it's up, down. Elizabeth, go ahead. I just wanna say a couple of things real quick. Can you get closer to the mic, Elizabeth? Yes. Thanks. Do I have to swallow it too? Could you identify yourself, please? What? Could you identify yourself for a little here? Yes, I'm Elizabeth Courtney. I live on Clarendon Avenue. And I am a consultant to not-for-profits. MS, SMC being one of them. So I just want to say that what you're contemplating is a difficult thing here. We're very good at building stuff. We love to build stuff from the day we're born almost. And it's really hard to give that up in order to not build on a piece of land. To keep space open is not something that really comes natural to us somehow. And it's important to do this because open space, they're not making it anymore. And if we don't seize the moment and use the space that presents itself when it presents itself, of course, we won't probably have another chance because once it's developed, it's hard to let go. Yeah, there we go. So this is part of a drawing. Is that the right angle? Yeah, it's an axonometric projection, which can flip easily. But this sketch is just to show that Confluence Park doesn't need to be a postage stamp. Down by the water. We can start at State Street and bring some symbol of access through the narrow spaces around the parking garage onto the south side of the parking garage and have public space there, have public space along the bike path as it crosses the bridge and into the area. I'm sorry, I don't have the little red flashy thing, but you can see just across the railroad tracks from Shaw's is the so-called Moet property shown as an open space. Look, look here. There you go. All right. So that's all I have to say. Thank you. Connor, go ahead. Sorry, Elizabeth. Is it still a bit of a road that would have an exit there by the drawing board? Yeah, do you see these little cars here? Right along there. When our group met at the open space meeting that Dan referred to, I think Tim Heaney was in our small breakout group, and so was Bill and others in the room. And Bill took the blue magic marker and swooped a road in that is that road that little arrow is on. Thank you, Madam Mayor, that leads into the Abishan and Jacob's parking lots. And there's incredible opportunity to expand the park up the north branch to the backside of the Rialto. There are opportunities, perhaps, with willing landowners to access the stream up there. And the River Conservancy is exploring those options. And we wish them well. We wish them success. Great, thank you. While we're pointing out things on the drawing, I just want to bring attention to the person in that park flying a kite. Because I like that drawing. I think that's an important part of it. We have our theme song, you know, let's go fly it. Sue, can we get the lights again? Thank you. All right, further comments. Can I ask a question? Yes. Bill, do we need to continue to maintain an access to that parking lot? Does the city need to maintain that? Or does that parking lot have, it does have two other access points? Yeah, we believe we do. We think just for public access, circulation, there's a couple of narrow access. The only other one is the one out here, and that's traffic. There are some delivery trucks that come in. Is the alleyway permanently closed at this point, or is that coming back? That was closed for construction. It's not a good. Yeah, it's not. We would just as soon keep it permanently closed. It's not good for vehicles. No, we think access, and this is pretty minor, but just to be clear too, one thing that can't change in the design is the actual layout of the bike path itself. That's been finally approved by Vitria. So just so we're clear of that, that we're talking about other than the bike path. Okay, further comments? Dee Dee Brush again. I have a question about, I had heard that there was some concept drawing about a building that would be market price housing with parking underneath, where I think in the drawing it showed nothing but parking. And I wonder whether that's still even being discussed. And then whether that would allow for additional green space where I think the drawing showed a building next to the drawing board. So rather than a building there, could there be housing adjacent to the river with parking underneath for that and then increase the green space? Rather than an either or of all green space or all parking and building? I think there's a lot of options. So that we did get that concept design. There was no, I mean it was an idea. There wasn't really anyone ready to do it. The actual agreement that didn't end up happening with the people that were going to buy the property included the city's right to build above the parking lot for housing or to then sell that right to somebody else. So the council did preserve the right to build that concept that you're talking about in those agreements as it turns out we now own the property. So we can do that if we wish. So that would be a possibility. And I guess another question is just how is this, I feel like we're sort of hopscotching with many of our decisions rather than there being any kind of, I could be wrong because I'm not at all the meetings but doesn't feel like we're following any kind of master plan or design. Rather we are making a decision by parcel. And I just wonder if this does fit into anything that has been thought through as a larger design for the city. I'm not aware of it. I'd love to hear from you. Do you want to? Yeah. So the original concept again prior to the hotel and parking garage proposal was there was a desire for additional commercial space on Main Street. The bike path has been a long design and that was where it needs to come out in the real lining of that intersection as well as access to the parking behind as far as, and we did have some concepts for that new building in some of the master planning. And they also became this particular design came about as a result of a negotiation with the people that owned Montpelier beverage as part of our land sale. So and then we just changed the terms of that sale at the end. But at that point, this was the construction design. So again, that's I think that's where we're having the conversation. And if I can add to that, I would say that, you know, as far as the city's master plan, I don't think it calls for a park in this space. Nonetheless, we have this opportunity. So, you know, it's an opportunity worth considering and so, but the one of the other pieces of context is that we have actually set as a council goal the desire to have more parks in the city in general. So it's not necessary. So, I mean, your observation is well taken. But, you know, it does fit with the kind of thing that we have been looking to do. And having said that, I mean, we have this opportunity now to slow down a little bit. Not terribly long, but I think we have the opportunity to slow down long enough to consider the greater picture and see how does this space fit into the larger picture of what we want for Montpelier.  I mean, we even have more rivers than that. But particularly right in our downtown, that's pretty interesting and special. So, in any case, you raise a good point. And I would, as a part of the process, moving forward, love to take into consideration what is the greater, like how does this fit into the greater plan? So thank you. And only one other point and that is, I know there's development for a number of new housing units. In town. I think, am I right in saying that the French block is, is it all affordable housing? I believe so. Mostly, yeah. No, it's mostly. And then Taylor Street is that some market and most, and also affordable? Yes. So if it, oops. I didn't count their time. If there's an opportunity to have both some green space and some market housing for people who might want to be near the river and can afford some housing, that might be worth considering. Thank you. Thank you. Further comments? I'm Richard and I live on my senior Crosby. Wasn't going to say anything. I don't really have any questions. I just have a comment. I'm a remote worker. I work online. Just moved here a couple of weeks ago. And I bought my first car four months ago and I just turned 30. And that's been pretty awesome for me and there's going to be a lot more people in my generation hopefully moving to places like Montpelier. And so the need for more parking lots to me just sounds kind of ridiculous. I would encourage that we look at degrowth instead. I know that's already something you're interested in as a council having more parks. That sounds wonderful to me. I've actually been wanting to go swimming in the river in the past couple of weeks. I need to buy a wetsuit. But I don't know where to do that at the moment. Park would be great. So, thank you. Thank you. Sorry, Richard, could you say your last name, please? Yeah, Lit Tower. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. So my name is Laura Gephart. I'm the executive director of the Montpelier Development Corporation. So I submitted some comments to you all. But I just wanted to make some additional comments that while it's a city council goal to increase parks, which I think is awesome, I do want to remind you that within the master plan and state code for planning is the goal to channel growth into our growth areas and our designated downtowns. And I think this slot is a key opportunity for that. So I just want you to keep that in mind that this is an opportunity to grow the Grand List if we put development on this site. I think there's an opportunity to do that in a meaningful way that incorporates green space and the shared use path and other amenities nearby. So I think there's an opportunity to do some great things with it. But I think there needs to be input from a whole lot of other people that aren't in this room who are affected by this. So I would encourage the council to reach out or have a platform for people to express some of those ideas in different settings because I think there's a lot of people that weren't able to make it here tonight that have some really important input. Thanks. Thank you. Further comments? Can I address the council? Please do. Come on up. Sure. My name is Jay White and I'm a trustee of the Moab troughs that formerly owned 12 Main Street. And for some of their new faces, I think when Bill and I first started this project, we both had brown hair so you can see how long it was working on it. I'm going to try to be as brief as I can. I want to explain a little bit how we got to where we got. And I think for some of you, on May 15th of this year, a transaction was supposed to happen between the city of Montpere and the Moab Trust that owned 12 Main Street. And the plan that we had worked out, which we spent years doing, was a plan where the city would acquire 12 Main and had acquired the property immediately behind this, had required the property on the side of it. A newly configured lot would be created. And on the day that we sold the property to the city, the city would sell back the Moab Trust, this newly configured lot, 16. We had worked extremely hard to meet a deadline of May 15th, which is very important for the city to move forward with this plan. And even though an issue came up which was concerning for us, we made the decision to move forward and sell the property to the city so that they could move forward with a bike path plan. The issue, in the only issue that I feel that we didn't move forward with the purchase of 16 Main, was the fact that there was an unspecified amount of time that it was going to take for the city to do what they needed to do on this property. And in a nutshell, the simplest thing I can say to each and one of you, think about if you're asked to buy something and then be told you will not be able to do anything for a period of time. In that period of time, nobody knew. Now Bill and I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out a plan. But as May 15th came closer and closer, we hadn't determined exactly what that plan would be. So we did move forward with the sale of the property to the city. And I've been asked many times, why didn't you ask for some type of option? Well, in order to negotiate the option, it would have probably been more weeks of delay. And we didn't want the project delayed any more than it had been. So the decision was made to do what we did. Our interest in the project as proposed still exists. Now, most of you probably do read a local paper. And to my annoyance, twice I've read in this paper that the issue of the reason we didn't move forward was because of funding for the project. Never made that statement. I believe that statement to be untrue. So for any of you that read that, maybe that's why you thought why we didn't move forward. So you are now in a position because of what we didn't do in May to make this decision of what maybe you would want to do. But I'm here tonight to make it very clear to all of you that we still have an interest in the project. And that the decision we made was simply to allow you to move forward with a bike path plan. If there's any other questions I can answer for you. I do have one question. Your plan for the building there would also require on-site parking or would parking at the parking garage be sufficient? We believe in order to make this project possible, and this city commissioned a report that said it's not, that the parking is imperative that it be behind this building. Okay, thank you. Without the parking, you probably will never see a building. Okay, thank you. Yes. I would just like to flag this parking issue. I think I raised this issue when we were doing the original zoning. So the fact that basically every project that's contemplating putting in housing in these development areas that we've designated has to have parking, but yet the council last year removed the parking requirement from those areas, particularly the ones closest to downtown where I also live. The sort of answer was, well, that's too bad, but now if we can't do development because there's no parking requirement for these new proposed housing projects, I think that's something as a council we need to address through the zoning and not sort of make exceptions for particular projects because that's going to advantage those folks who can move into those new buildings and continue to disadvantage those who have other choice but to remain in the lesser rent areas of those districts. We should talk more about that. We can do that offline though. Okay, thank you. Any other further questions for Jay? Okay, thank you. Other comments from the public? Yeah. I'm Tim Haney. I live on Main Street. And just kind of watching this evolve, I do think having, it is a great opportunity that's before us or before you now. And thanks to a lot of energy and a lot of public funds that have gone into creating where you're at today, my reaction at this point would be to pursue the plan you have and at least build the building. I think there are very few opportunities downtown where this will happen in a foreseeable future. One thing to remember about this site elevation-wise is it's fairly high. It's roughly 10 feet higher in elevation than the intersection of Main and State. And with the new zoning regs and the new floodplain regs that go with it, a new building needs to be two feet above the 100-year floodplain, which we haven't seen one of those built here yet. But if you were to try to build one maybe on the lot where Joyce has his park, I think you'd find the building would have to start about two and a half feet above the sidewalk. And on a narrow limited site like that, it's really, really difficult to get the ramping and the access. It's virtually impossible. Whereas this site, you've already designed and permitted a building that will meet that code. And I think that code is going to be a big challenge for the future of what might happen in this downtown. And this is at least one opportunity where something positive can. Thank you. All right, further comments from the public? Okay, go ahead, Jack. Under this plan that the city has now is the idea that the city would sell the lot to someone who would then build the building according to these specifications. And do we have, is there a market for it? And do we have people want to do it? So the plan was somewhat as is Jane White just described. Initially the buyer was going to be the Moat trust and I believe they may have had a development partner and they were going to buy the building and the lot. So we've actually done the subdivision already and taken the through lots and created them into two and there's a permitted building and the building permit shows these parking spaces. Once the decision was made not to go forward with that sale and simply have it, we haven't marketed it. Now for us to do this now, because it was federal funds and we need to go through a public process to solicit proposals for these sites, we were allowed to sell it directly because it was part of the real estate transaction and I know that Jane knows this, this isn't a surprise and we would have to put it out to proposals but we've got at least one developer or person here saying that they're willing to pursue it and we've heard informally from others that they're interested. So there could be interest but I don't know. I don't know yet. I think depending on what we choose to do, what the interest would be. If say we said all right, we'll do it but there's going to be less parking on site. You're going to have to use the garage instead. I don't know how that plays into the financing and those kinds of things. It may be fine. It may not be. I don't know. Okay, thanks. So what I anticipate we should probably do at this point is just go around and say where we're at and then from that I think it'll become clear what, if any, motion needs to happen. At that point, does that sound okay team? And I'm going to take Mayor's privilege and go first which is to say that this is really strictly a really pure sort of sense of policy decision. What would you prefer here on this site? Would we prefer a building with parking behind it, a building with no parking, green space potentially behind it, or no building at all? And I would say my inclination here is to actually opt to not build a building at this point because we could always change our minds later. If we want to build a building there, it's much easier to go in that direction, to wait, have some green space and then should we decide later that we would like to build a building, we can always do that but it's I think going to be basically impossible to go in the other direction. And I also, from Jay's testimony earlier as well as other conversations I've had, I don't anticipate that it would be very realistic to have a building there without parking directly behind it unfortunately. So I don't really see option B as it were, as a legitimate option with a building but no parking behind it. And so it's either we're going the direction we're going or there's no building there and that's what I would prefer. I think it's going to be great to have space on the east side of the north branch there for people to access the river. I mean it is a pretty unique spot and I think it would stand to benefit all of downtown to have as a part of our entryway into the city to have space that is green and welcoming to folks and a place that's going to be pretty obvious for like that'll be attractive for people to come visit. And I think it also, for people who live right downtown, it'll be a park that is within walking distance which is important. So that's it for me. Who else would like to go? Should we start over there and just work our way around? Okay. I think you all know where I stand but before I want to thank Elizabeth and Sustainable Montpellier Coalition for this drawing because I think it helps to visualize. It doesn't mean it has to be this but I think we should go for the green and we should go to expand it as much as we can up and down the river. All right. I wouldn't say I'm sold on this particular plan at the moment but I'm curious enough that I think I'd like to see Plan B here understanding the staffs under a tremendous amount of pressure the next two months. Part of my rationale for as a part of the parking garage was we would increase the quality of life I think around the city by maybe eliminating some spaces and honestly I'm not interested in more parklets at this point like I'd like something that's real. Seeing that on paper there that's a little more real to me than building a building at this point so I'd be in the category of worth exploring. I see the good of having a building there I see the good of having parking there I would say my priority is open space for sure. I think that I'm trying to think about it as if suddenly I had more land than I did by my house and do I build an ADU and rent it out and get really good rental income or do I make it into a parking space and have another spot to park or do I build raised beds or have a garden or a place for my dog to play in and in that situation I would pick that ladder direction open space. I think that that's the best, highest use of this space that I can see in the future and I hope to see it happen. I also favor the green space option every city that I've been to and enjoyed actually and I don't appreciate being outside that much since I got Lyme disease because ticks are everywhere but every major city that I've gone to I've actually spent most of my time looking at stuff and things walking through green spaces I think it's the Greenway in Boston in New York you've got Central Park and even in Oakland there are beautiful parks on the water and to me you know I don't love being outside but I appreciate having a place to go have lunch and also just sort of having a place to let go and take in the sunshine that seems to only live here three months a year lately but to me I'm not all that interested in another building I think that I'm not sold on the fact that the only option that we have is a building I think it is certainly an option but with all of the development projects in the works I don't want to lose sight of the importance that public open spaces that really focus on all of the attributes that we have and we all love can really bring when people are trying to decide where they want to go and hang out for 36 hours I think we're presented with a choice of a couple of options that are both have the possibility of being significant public goods I'm new to this discussion I don't know what the potential use of the building would be attractive market rate housing downtown seems like a great thing some commercial development potentially seems like a great thing and I love this picture of the park and the green space too I think I'm concerned that we really don't have that much public input at this point and so I think the most important thing for me is to get more public input before we make a decision I have a lot of different thoughts so I'm going to try and make them cohesive overall I think there are enough intriguing possibilities with this that I would take John Snell's advice and put a wheel in the spokes for a month or two to kind of take that public input spend some time brainstorming and figure out what do we really want here and maybe after all that it does end up being a building but I do think that there are some really interesting possibilities including a few that haven't been brought up so far one that Bill alluded to a little bit that I'm really intrigued by is we're still missing a link on this recreation path and that link is between the rec center on Berry Street where the recreation path technically ends and the edge of this property when it hits Main Street and so in order for us to make that to complete that link we're likely going to need to take some parking spaces off Berry Street so we got I got some numbers from the city staff and it looks like it would be I'm missing it 16? 17 I think is what I had 17 spaces if we took parking off one side of Berry Street or 32 if we took it off both sides of Berry Street I'm cautious about taking it off both sides of Berry Street in there knowing that there are residents and businesses along Berry Street who do need that immediate parking space but I'm really intrigued by the idea of taking it off one side of Berry Street if we're going to do that the parking garage may be a little far to replace that parking but this lot might be just close enough to do it so I'd really like to explore that further and that maybe gives us the ability to do a protected multi-use lane along that one side of the street and really complete that link and so yes that would mean parking on this spot but it would also give us more of that pedestrian and bike friendly infrastructure that we've been really looking for so that's one option I would love to explore other potentials are potential if we did this is a green space a potential home for the farmers market a permanent home for the farmers market there or potentially if you took the whole lot and think about putting I'm not 100% supporting the idea of building a new rec center but maybe if we did end up going that route this is the spot for it it is central, walkable and a city owned property that needs to be used for the public good otherwise we forgo the revenue from the sale of the spot so those are some interesting ideas another thing I've been thinking about is the fact that we because we have to send the money back to the feds we don't need to make this if we were to sell the lot for a building we don't need to maximize our return on it we don't need to make this a primo building lot because we're never going to see that return so maybe we take the public good stuff from it maybe we put some restrictions on the deed and say we want to see it used for housing or whatever and we get less money back on the sale but it means that the piece of property serves our public interest better going forward maybe we try putting it out to bid without those parking spaces and see what happens to see if there's interest out there in buying it without parking I'm intrigued by this I'm intrigued by this I'm intrigued by this I'm really disconcerted by the idea of putting parking right up against the street and when I think about other cities particularly Barrie where I work one of the things that really rubbed me the wrong way about all those parking lots right up against the street and not buildings up against the street and so I would personally think of building up against the street or green space up against the street I do not want to put parking right up against the street if we can help it now of course there might be other decisions such as making that trade off in order to put that bike lane on Barrie street that would make me change my mind on that but my strong preference would be to either face the street with a building or with a green space and not with a parking lot design competition and how folks had hoped to maybe someday in a far away future have the shahs move to the front of the lot there it would be kind of sad if we ever got there to still have this be a parking lot so those are some thoughts I want to make sure that I got everything I think I did so generally my opinion is that let's take a month or two to think about our options make sure that we've looked at everything thoroughly as much as we can in a couple months and then decide where to go from there thank you for bringing up all of the other options I think that important to keep in mind that there are actually a lot of things that we could do with that space so one hypothesis is that we could have some kind of emotion that would indefinitely postpone the sale and which you know could be taken up at some later point yes Rosie sorry I can remember one more thing which is that I was thinking about how over the next year we are going to have a real lack of parking downtown as we do this work on the parking garage and you know what a potential advantage is that can we maybe do a temporary parking lot here to alleviate some of that pain while we decide what to do and then once that garage is built and we've eased that issue that we then are able to move on to do something more exciting with the space that's a great question okay so I would I mean I can't make a motion but one hypothesis is that we might indefinitely postpone the sale of that property so that we can pursue further public input and take a holistic view of the needs in that space um yes Donna did you have something well uh so one of the other things that I would just put out there is that I mean I've had lots of conversations about this site and um I know that there are a lot of interested parties in what happens there and so I would actually I think one path forward would actually be to ask bill or city staff to be in a group of stakeholders including the public to work through the questions of what we should be doing on this site and I mean that in my mind that includes the Montpelier Development Corporation the the Parks Commission the Conservation Commission I mean if a council person wants to be involved in that a sustainable Montpelier coalition the Vermont River Conservancy is it's a dew boys and king that's doing this the Berry Main no it was D.W. thank you oh no the people doing the Berry Main study yeah that's different D.W. is a construction yes yeah right so the people who are basically looking at the connection what should be done on Berry Main as well as the connection of the bike path I think that's a concern that we should be including in this discussion as well having said all that can I just add one comment to that just to be clear as far as what's driving this there is no active sale right now so we're not I mean we're not postponing something that we're in the midst of doing I think the timing driver just said once clear is we've got a we've got a construction contract and right now they're on this side of the river but at some point they're going to come over to the other side of the river and start building what they've been told to build and so we need to give them different marching orders before they do that or else we're going to be undoing something that we do so and and then so I'm just backing up from that and then if we're going to have to change because what's there is what's permitted and I'm sorry to interrupt if you have different language suggestions so I would I think what you're saying if that's what you folks want to do is fine I think just to be clear that there's no sale that needs to be stopped if any it would just be to try to to make whatever decisions we're going to make in time to you know in a timely manner to inform our contractor of any potential changes you know we're guessing about two months and I say that because you know we're in November maybe you know at the outset three months but you have to back up we think they probably will be starting over there about May so if we're going to have to change permits you've got to allow for that and something new unless we you know I'd have to talk to our DPW folks about what a temporary parking would look like but if there's going to be a new road of some you know you have to have designs you have to make sure that the turning radius matches and that the right surface underneath is all designed in the drainage and all those kind of things they've all that's all been reviewed by the state and by the DRB and everything else so we have to allow the time to prep for an application for a change in a design to give the you know we can't just tell them okay do this there's a lot of lead time because we don't want to pay for them to sit around and wait for us to make up our mind either I think it would be I like the idea of having a couple of months of discussion I don't mostly because I like to do things right like I don't want to drag it out very long but have enough time for a good public process but in my mind December is already gone and to be fair a lot of the public may not be available in December anyway and so if we can have January and February if we could at least that would be my goal I know that might push it out a little bit but if we can have something by the end of February I think that would be reasonable yes just looking at the agenda format here I guess I'm leaning towards a motion directing the city manager to establish a process with a lot of stakeholders involved as you named and scheduling for addressing the questions and making recommendations so that we could spend the next month setting everything up and have some real thorough discussions in January and February is that a clear enough motion are you good are you good with that maybe a little clear it's right there in the format of the thing is direct city manager to establish a process and a schedule for addressing questions and making any recommendations great thank you and that is a motion second okay further discussion so I understand that we have a few months but I mean supplies need to be purchased labor needs to be scheduled all of that and so that is not something that they do like the day before or the week before I mean those orders have to be placed well in advance prices need to be locked in subcontractor all of those things so I'm just not sure how practical it is to sort of say like well we're just going to take a little time right now well I think that's why the motion said to establish the schedule because we need to tie all those dates down okay that will drive a lot of it because we don't want to pay for something we're not going to do so we need to talk to experts about you know what our options are okay further discussion okay all in favor please say aye opposed great thank you all I'm very excited about this process I think it's going to be very interesting and I'm going to go right from here into the discussion of old country club road that property Bill do you want to take a minute sure for those interested in riverfront development don't leave because this is actually bigger the city recently purchased a property the last remaining I'm going to get up and if people can hear see me just recently purchased the last remaining residential property on old country club road which if you're not familiar where that is if you cross the pioneer street bridge you come left you're going down Barry street into town you take a right and it's the dirt road it comes down and eventually gets to a dead end city's bike path is coming down this road actually yeah this was a residential property now there's with no other residents there we no longer have to maintain this as a public road which is actually one of the reasons we purchased the property because of the cost of maintaining the road but we are also the property owner of all the riverfront property there over the years is right of waste with old country club road so it will already have a bike path it's already got access there's a few parking areas already established so one of the ideas is this is a huge open undeveloped area for river access which is not competing with downtown interests and I think tonight's conversation was simply how do we kick off a process to look at what can happen there because this is a chance where there's no preconceived plan there's no there's nothing competing with it so what would people like to see what works best what doesn't work best we're on a time frame we're way ahead of this what will be happening there in the next year is the bike path will be constructed and quite possibly that residential lot will be used as a staging area construction company but that gives us time to say what happens when that's all done so I think the council has been excited about this prospect we just closed on the property a month and a half ago and wanted to discuss how we would move this forward so again I know there's a lot of folks here that talked about river access and this is really a great opportunity this at the risk of short changing some discussion this seems pretty obvious to me that we would roll this into the previous conversation in that Bill's going to be convening a group of stakeholders to figure out how to move forward and I think that's really what we should be doing here as well I mean what do we do with this site how do we want to design it it's very exciting full of possibilities and we're going to need a lot of input on that and so I think as we're setting up the previous schedule and process we can do the same with this and just to have her getting everybody all excited our expectations just a little bit I would point out that this is any floodplain and so anything we cannot raise the level of land up at all it's been actually looked at very carefully with the bike path project it's got Act 250 permit so anything that's done would require Act 250 amendment I think as part of our project we have to remove invasive species so there's a lot of opportunity but it isn't necessarily a blank slate but none the less it's still open river land Rosie it's probably a similar process but I would keep it separate from the other process because there's not a time limit on this and it's a somewhat different group of stakeholders and I think we'd be interested in those who are interested in working on this is it some of the same people or not righto feels like it might be a similar motion though to the previous one establish a we want to take some public comment I was ready to jump right to emotion public comment come on up I don't really need to come up because I just want to say this is wonderful news if you would introduce yourself I'm Tino O'Brien I live up on Clarendon this is great news I'm delighted to hear this and I just want to support the work that went into making this happen and I'm sure you can figure out exactly how it pans out in the long run I would caution that I'm still looking for a canoe that I lost right about that spot so it's not great canoeing right there it's still flowing down the river somewhere I think this is a great idea and I support it Hi, Ricardo Erickson I also think this is a great idea I'm really excited about it and I would actually love to see a similar group as you mentioned working on the moat lot visioning as with this and primarily to encourage a level of continuity with projects along the river and maybe even this is a group that works on other projects but so that there's a little more transparency from point A to point B and as somebody mentioned tonight not so much hopscotching and piecing together parts but to have a real flow no pun intended along the river of space for people to use and so when they're on the multi-use path they're really seeing some consistency in design language all along the river Super, thank you Okay I think we, Ashley? I was just going to say there may be a need for some ski trails and so I mean I know we've already sort of opened ski season quite early this year but I think that should be part of the conversation given the it's going to be right on the bike path there which could be great I'm not sure how it connects to other okay, look I'm looking for a motion to direct the city manager to establish a process and a schedule for addressing the questions you're making a recommendation using the old country club road property second further discussion alright, all in favor please say aye opposed, great super, thank you okay, moving on how are you doing team, do we need a break I think we should keep moving okay my guess is that we're not going to be done by 10 you think that would be a great goal just putting that out there to the staff for the upcoming items would love to be done by 10 okay number one the I think we're up to the master plan and zoning fixes oh, Mike will be quick good evening Mike Miller, planning director so this should be relatively quick because I'm here to kind of give some updates on two on your agenda but I'll actually just touch on a third issue which is supposed to come up next in two weeks so tonight some updates on the zoning fixes, the city plan and the official map so the planning commission had two major projects for 2018 we were going to do the zoning fixes we adopted the new zoning in January and shortly thereafter a couple of issues came up that we found and the more we used it the more we'd find little things many just little corrections that needed to be made and a couple of larger ones the two bigger ones were issues that we have are very difficult and prohibit a lot of development that otherwise shouldn't be an issue so we needed some fixes for that and landscaping rules were overly burdensome and so those two sections really needed to get fixed staff put together a set of proposals they've gone to the planning commission and they've been working through that list and we're hoping on Monday to have wrapped up the critical list and they have one more piece left so I do not have that list for you and I will hopefully get that to you after their meeting on the 10th so they've been reviewing those lists of about 100 changes they broke them into two sets the critical changes that need to get adopted quickly which they'll get to you and I will at that time explain to you interim zoning and get those passed into effect relatively quickly what's your time on that we're hoping to get that to you for January and they'll be in effect by the end of January because they're relatively quick to adopt the second set of clarifications would go through the full adoption and just because the full adoption takes long that probably won't get to you until April with the required hearings and notifications that go out so I just wanted to kind of get to you right now just to give you an update that's where the zoning fixes are you should expect a quick fix document to address slopes and landscaping in December and the full set of changes would go through the warrant hearings and get to you in April but while that's getting adopted the zoning is getting adopted they can start working on the next set which is not only what you all have been very interested in and the public has been very interested in but the planning commission has also been very interested in what is this city plan update that was started this year as well they had a well attended kickoff meeting in August followed by a lot of behind the scenes work on the google drive and setting up a bunch of things since that time the planning commission for a million and one little reasons just missed a lot of meetings along so they had one in August one in September one in October one in November because there's snow and they'll only have one in December because of where Christmas falls so they've just had a bad run of luck setting up their meetings and so they really haven't worked on the city plan but that's really where they want to start in January and so that is their goal is to really put a lot of effort they have nothing else scheduled for being on their plate next year sorry can I go back a topic and thinking about the changes that we might be seeing in January I just want you to know that I have some worries about trying to make changes to the steep slopes zoning and I'm not opposed to considering that but I want to make sure that whatever changes we make do have some kind of environmental protections built into them I mean in my head it's something like you can build on a steep slope if it meets certain criteria that show that the detriment is minimized and or having some kind of environmental engineer sign off on it that kind of thing so the requirement right now says that if you have slopes more than 30% you cannot develop on them period there is no exception there are no waivers and what we have are people who come in and have I need to put a culvert in to put in a driveway the culvert ditches on the sides of the roads are 3 to 1 slopes which are 30% slopes I can't put a culvert in to build my driveway that's it and so we have no way of working around it the rules are crystal clear black and white you can't do it and so what the rules now would say is any impact to slopes over 30% require engineering and will require hearing and so we're not just letting people go it really is the changes are just minor to the effect of taking out prohibition and saying you need an engineer and you need a hearing if you're going to impact 30% slopes great thank you we can talk more about that then I just wanted to get the early warning on that one thanks so the really quick for the city plan is to what you should expect is to hear a lot more in 2019 about the plan in the outreach you will be getting a lot more because they plan to have that as their primary focus there will be the adoption of this these owning fixes but that really is going to probably be a minor piece it's something th