The first thing is to review and approve the agenda. And I don't have a lot of changes to the agenda. I will say that I. Well, I don't have any changes to propose for the agenda. I just also want to observe that says potential to be a long meeting. So we'll just keep it. Keep it. Keep it tight. All right. Just with regard to the agenda. It's not a big deal, but we do have two external guests. We have GMT coming to talk about the my ride. Got the folks from capital fire mutual aid system to talk about. Their plans. So I'm just wondering if we want to move those ahead of the COVID-19 update. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. So if it's, I know, Cameron, you're probably going to be here for the duration. So I'm just going to move that to the end if that's okay. Okay. Donna, yeah. I think it's great to move it, but I wish we would think about this when we made the agenda. I know there were people planning and I told them like that. But I'm not going to move it. I'm just going to move it. I'm just going to move it. I'm just going to move it. Some of them were later in the evening. So they weren't planning to come and join us. So the more we could be rational about this setup and think about that when we do it, it would help. Sure. Yeah, the less we have to move things better. All right. So. With moving of the COVID-19 update, we're going to move on to the next agenda approved. So the next item is general business and appearances. This is an opportunity for any member of the public. To address the council on a topic that is otherwise not on our agenda. And if you have. Something you'd like to say, if you would say your name and where you live and try to keep your comments. Two minutes. That would be fabulous. All right. Thank you. Thank you. I want to address the council. So you can unmute yourself and let us know, or you can raise your hand. Either way. It's fine. Cameron, are you seeing anyone? Okay. Okay. Okay. Then. So we're going to move on to. The appointments to. So I know we have at least one. Student here. Who is ready to introduce yourself. Sophia. Would you just introduce yourself a little bit and tell us about your. Interest in the conservation commission. Hi. My name is Sophia Flora. I'm a sophomore at Montpelier high school. I'm very passionate about. Climate justice and everything surrounding that. And. This seemed like a great opportunity to actually. You know, start making a change and. Working towards. You know. A better future in Vermont for sure. And. So I'm really excited for this opportunity and. Yeah. There is another. Student here. Girl from my school who's also interested in doing this. And she just emailed me to let me know that she can't make it because. She couldn't get home in time, but she is also very excited about this as well. Cool. And just for context. I know you would both applied or want to be a part of the conservation commission. So I'm going to ask if, you know, if it would be okay if we appointed you both and that they, they said that would be okay. So just for. Everyone else's information. And then so I'll see is not here. Also a Lorenza Fector. Is applying to be on the public art commission, but I don't see Lorenza here unless I am mistaken. Okay. Any questions for Sophia. Is there a motion. Yes, Jack. Pursuant to one VSA section 313 a three. I move that we go into executive session. To consider the appointment of a public official. Okay. Second. Got a motion and a seconds. All right. Well, we hopefully we'll be right back here. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed. Okay. Well, we will be right back. So you can stay on the line and this call will remain open. So we should come out of executive session. So moved. There's a second. Great. Further discussion. Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. And opposed. Yes. I'd like to make a motion that we appoint Sophia Flora. To the conservation commission. I'll see a Torrance Martin to the conservation commission. And Lorenza. Fetcher to the public art commission. Committee. I'll second. Great. Okay. So there's a motion and a second. And just to be clear, these are student positions. So they're not confused with other regular, regular positions. Yeah. Okay. All right. Motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Oh, Lorenza. Hello. We disappointed you. Thank you. Oh my gosh. It is all good. No worries. And so we just have one other comment for. For Sophia. Just based on your comments about an interest in climate change. We also encourage you to look into the energy committee as well, which deals a lot with climate issues. Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you, Lorenza. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I'll see you for, for your willingness to step up. So grateful that you're going to be participating in our boards. Okay. So we are going to. Keep going then. And I have lost. Agendas. This is going to take me a second. So I think the. Was it the my ride? Next on the agenda. That is what's next. Yes. Okay. So. To, I'm not sure who is, oh, Elizabeth Parker. You do have to unmute yourself though. I know. It's myself. Jamie is here. Sorry, but hang on one second. Go ahead, Bill. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I love to have you hang out and watch our meeting all night long. If you're interested, but there's no reason to hang out. You're all set to go. You have something you'd rather be doing. I could believe, but some people. And Bill, is there anything else you or staff want to say about this before I turn it over to. Not really.  And so we had asked for an update on where this project was and what was going on as it appeared. It was about ready to roll out. So council members, Casey and bait have been our direct representatives. And Elizabeth is here from sustainable. Montpelier and Jamie Smith, I believe is on the call from GMT. I'm here. So I do have just a really brief presentation. If folks are interested in seeing what the app looks like. I know that you're sort of pressed for time. So if you'd prefer that I just kind of go through where we are. That's, that's okay as well. I think it would be great if we could see the app. Let's, if you've created a presentation, let's, let's do it. Perfect. You should be able to share your screen now. Great. Can you see it? Yes. Yep. Perfect. So for those of you who don't know me, my name is Jamie Smith and I'm the director of marketing and planning at green mountain transit. So I'll do that. So I'm going to do that. So for those of you who don't know me, my name is Jamie Smith and I'm the director of marketing and planning at green mountain transit. So along with the my ride community advisory group and sustainable Montpelier coalition and lots of other community partners, we've been working on my ride. So I'll just give a little. Introduction here. So today, this is the welcome screen when folks download the app. This is what they will see. And I'll just share my presentation here in the background. So I'm going to give you a look at the next slide. So we have a director of Montpelier in the background and a GMT vehicle. So for those of you who are not familiar with this service, it's a flexible route, flexible schedule service that will be coming to Montpelier. Launching January 4th. Essentially it's sort of an Uber for public transportation. So this is the center. You can see the schedule of the day. 7 am to 6 pm Saturdays from 8 to 6 pm.  Custom to their schedule and where they want to go. This is the, the my ride service area. You can see the shaded top half of the map is. northern part is CCV all the way down to the airport. So this is about a seven and a half mile radius from downtown Montpelier. And then you can see a tiny little blip over where the Amtrak station is because that is covered in the the MyRide service area. That top shaded half is the fare-free zone. So right now GMT is operating fare-free in our whole system due to COVID. That will continue likely into the launch of this service but when we do re-institute fares that bottom half of the map will be subject to a fare similar to what we have currently on the Montpelier Hospital Hill which will be a dollar for a one-way trip. So folks who are using the MyRide app will input their location or their destination depending on how they want to book their trip. This is the screen that they will see. They can confirm that it's one passenger to however many passengers they're traveling with. So this is similar to what they'll see. The far right hand screen is the actual trip and it will show you you know that there's a short walk from here to the next stop or whatever information that folks need to be able to navigate the system safely. That information will be requested or shown right there and then they can just hit that book this ride trip to schedule it. From there it's similar to like Google transit where it will give you some navigation information. If the bus is not able to serve your immediate front door and you have to walk a little ways it will tell you how to do that here. You'll know all that information prior to actually booking the trip. Similar to Uber down at the bottom you'll see some information about the vehicle that's coming to pick you up including the plate number. We will be using the current fleet that GMT has right now so this will be really helpful for folks to be able to distinguish the MyRide vehicle from regular vehicles traveling through Montpelier. There's a notification center that tells you if you've booked trips for a month, a subscription trip if you're using this to get to and from work every day, this notification center will tell you your subscriptions are about to expire. You need to rebook trips. You have a MyRide pass that's about to expire. Any information, service alerts if there's a disruption in the service or delay in the system. And then credit notifications so if you buy credits on the app it will give you information here about how much credit you have left. So what happens if folks don't have a smartphone? Obviously there are folks in the Montpelier area that will not be able to use the app. So for those folks there are some options. If they have internet access in a computer they'll be able to book their trips right online. They won't need to use the phone. If they don't have a computer the GMT call center will be available for all of the service hours Monday through Saturday to help folks book their trip. They will be able to book their trips through the customer service representatives that are at the Montpelier Transit Center. And then to begin we'll have a tablet station in the Montpelier Transit Center for all of you who know in the midday there's not usually a customer service rep at the kiosk. So we will have a tablet station there for folks to be able to go in and access to book their trips. And we all are also trying to identify other locations in downtown that would be useful for folks to have a tablet station. But to start we'll have it at the Transit Center. Behind the scenes there's a lot happening. The Sustainable Montpelier Coalition recently conducted a week of onboard surveys and phone surveys with current riders. They rode the Montpelier Hospital Hill and the Montpelier circulator buses to talk to folks gain some insights on technology capabilities that folks have and just get some general feedback on this on this type of service and how folks would feel about that. There have been meetings and interviews conducted with community partner organizations. In the recent weeks the the coalition along with the My Ride Community Advisory Group have been meeting regularly. We have three subcommittees a governance committee current riders committee and a metrics committee. So we're really trying to dig deep into the back end of this service so we can make sure that we're not affecting current riders in a in a bad way. We want to make this service better for them. Not worse. So we've been talking about that and what metrics would be important to report out to our partners. So the other things that we've been discussing are the passenger feedback to date. Like I said minimizing past current passenger impacts. We've been talking about outreach and marketing to key groups of riders. We've discussed the service structure area operations. We certainly have been engaging community businesses. I'm hoping that they will act as ambassadors of My Ride to assist passengers who are out in the field. I listed some here. So for example, Shaw's, Hanford, Walmart. So for folks who don't have access to a smartphone. We're hoping that the customer service reps at those locations will be able to assist passengers. And then through the community engagement. We have discovered a cohort of current passengers who might need a little extra assistance, especially at the launch of this service. And so in response to that, the Sustainable Montpelier Coalition has been working pretty closely with the Montpelier Housing Authority. And there will be some training and pre registration sessions for these folks to make sure that they're in the system and they fully understand, you know, come day one when they need to start booking their trips, what they're going to do. And we're even going to try to assist them in booking their first week of trips so they don't have to try to figure it all out on day one. Marketing and outreach. So this is sort of where we are at this point from now until launch. Elizabeth and I will be communicating quite a bit. So we have been working on a pretty robust marketing and outreach plan. There are some restrictions, boarding restrictions that we currently have on GMT vehicles are small buses. We're only allowing nine passengers on board. So we're trying to transition current riders to the new service without actually asking potential new riders to come on at this point, we want to make sure that, you know, folks feel safe, that our boarding maximums can accommodate the additional ridership. We're working on a website that will be launched this week. And sort of behind the scenes, we're working on a toolkit of social media posts, press releases, front porch forum messaging, all the standard things that we will put out on our own but also share with all of the community partners that we're working with. Hopefully, we'll launch the marketing campaign the week of December 14. The app should be available in mid December, but I think we all know how app development goes. It might not be available until closer to the launch of the service, but we're hoping for mid December. So again, time loan, we're working on the marketing now. December 15, 16th and 17th, the GMT staff will be getting training. We'll have a full simulation drivers, dispatchers, customer service reps, using the system in the field, testing it to make sure that come January 4, we've got all the kinks worked out. And we know exactly what we're going to be doing. So beyond that week of training, we'll be working with the MyRide community advisory group to develop the toolkit of materials. We'll do some training with that organization for folks who have stepped up to become ambassadors of the service, training folks how to pre register riders, etc. So then we're on schedule for a launch of January 4. So that's a pretty brief explanation of what's happening. But I'm happy to answer any questions that folks might have. Thank you, Jamie. I have a question that January 4 launch date is that for current riders only or is that available to the public? Or is the service available to the public at that point? That service will be available to the public at that point. Okay, great. Wonderful. I am totally going to use this. Connor? No, I just wanted to see being on the committee with Donna, it's really exciting to see this roll out. You know, I think with COVID, especially, like we push pause on so many of the big ideas. But sustainable Montpelier is so scrappy, they don't get like much of it is like city funding. And they've been like, just great, like a zealots like saying, we're going to keep going. You know, it'll reduce congestion downtown. It's going to help our carbon footprint. And I think the more I talk to people like low income folks in town, it's going to help them get to where they need to go without spending a fortune and maybe even reducing the need for a new car. So I'm really pumped, you know, GMT has been like really responsive on this. And I see Peter Cummins on there, he's been like a Jack Russell terrier on your leg, always advocated for the right thing. So no, I just want to thank everybody involved. This is really exciting. Thank you. Other questions or comments? Yeah. Oh, sorry.  Hi. Welcome around district three resident. And I apologize for previous meetings where I forgot to introduce myself. Um, so I have some questions for you, Jamie. Sure. Okay. So um, could you, would it be possible to put that map back up? Yes. Okay, good. So thank you. Um, so my question mostly relates to the portion of the map that's in the blue that goes up to like hospital hill and all that. So you had mentioned that at some point, the fear will kick in for that portion of this new service. And the my right. And you said it was a dollar. However, right now, well, if the fears hadn't been right now, that's a, you know, free rides on a fixed routes and all that. But, but the regular fear is a dollar before, but it was 50 cents for people with disabilities and seniors. And will the, will the portion in blue one of his go, will that be the same? Yes. Okay. The other question I have is so when we head to fears, um, people that live in my pay your housing authority buildings, uh, the two, two, uh, main shops and pioneer apartments, they have a bus pass and they can use that bus pass on hospital hill and, you know, the other fixed routes within the capital district will, will, uh, those persons in main shops and pioneer apartment still be able to use a bus passes for the, uh, my ride in, uh, where, where there'll be the fair. Yes. So we'll set residents up in the system to indicate that they're from lane shops or pioneer. And when they book the trip or when the call center books the trip for them, uh, they will just indicate that they're from those housing, um, locations. And then we'll do the same thing that we do now. We'll bill Montpelier housing authority for those trips. So yeah, it'll work similarly. Okay. So it won't change in that regard. Correct. Okay. Uh, one other kind of technical question regarding this, the, uh, in the past, even though we're using a bus pass, the other authority would ask is, Hey, if you're changing routes and stuff as for a transfer, because, you know, otherwise they could get in charge and, you know, the transfers were available. Uh, this kind of does away with that in a way.  Doesn't have you thought about that? So this will work similarly to the fixed routes now. Um, folks that are on the my ride vehicle will still be able to get a transfer and they'll be able to transfer to a fixed route. Okay. So, so that doesn't change. Great. I'm glad you thought about that. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. Um, Elizabeth, I just wanted to make a short comment. Can you hear me? Yes. Awesome. Oh my god. I haven't, I've my sound card didn't get fixed on Wednesday because Wes had to close. Oh, so I have to find a day to send it in. Anyway, um, it was very powerful, um, doing the onboard survey. And I think that, um, so Hanif Nazarelli, who's on Complete Streets and MTIC, uh, was part of that crew and our AmeriCorps volunteer, Tom Hubrickson, uh, also was one of the interviewers. Um, and we found a real range of, um, interest and ability to, um, to make the transition, uh, easily. Uh, so we identified certain people who are, uh, who really rely on fixed schedule and are very angry that they weren't even considered in this decision making process they feel. Uh, and so we've been really working on building relationships with, uh, those individuals. Uh, there are people who don't have any, um, technology as, as Jamie described. And we're very fortunate that we have, uh, Peter Yankee from BCIL on the group. He has some money, uh, for people to get, to actually, um, be sponsored for, uh, a flip phone or cell phone. Uh, and, uh, and then it ranges up to the people who, uh, are college students who walk 10 minutes down Berry Street in the sweltering heat or the cold with a stroller to get on Hospital Hill to go up to the, to the mall, uh, to shop and have come back with heavy backpacks that they, and they were so delighted that they could be picked up close to their home.  No problem. You know, so, um, we're thinking about, the one thing Jamie didn't talk about was that we're thinking about, um, offering an incentive or a thank you for people's, um, uploading the app of doing a, uh, my right coffee mug and, or Dunkin' Donut, uh, gift certificate. So that's kind of, we're thinking about how to do that. But it's really exciting. There is so much and then, then there are people who are solidly know who, after seeing us on the bus for a while, uh, and talking and understanding it have gone to yes. So, um, it's a relationship building exercise and it's very exciting. And if any of you know of someone who would benefit from, um, uh, a one-on-one, uh, assistance on, uh, adapting, getting registered and adapting to my ride, please let us know with sustainable material, uh, because we're here to help. So thank you very much. Thank you. I so appreciate that you have put obviously a huge emphasis on, um, ensuring that no one is left behind, um, in this transition and, uh, that, that really comes through. I think it's incredibly important and we're so grateful. Uh, any other comments, questions? I'm looking forward to this. I, I'm psyched. This is gonna be how I get to work. All right. Thank you again. And looking forward to it rolling out. Uh, all right. So, um, and Sophia, just in case you weren't here, we did appoint you to the conservation question. Um, you, okay, you heard that. Great. Okay. Um, so moving on, um, I believe we have, uh, so I was in such a rush to get to my ride, not a mere that, um, Eagle Eye Councilmember Richardson noted that we skipped the consent agenda. Oh, we skipped the consent agenda. Let's, let's do that. Since I'm so excited about it, I'll be happy to move the consent agenda. It's a motion and a second. Um, any further discussion? Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. And opposed. Okay. All right. So we are up to, um, getting an update from, uh, Keppel Fowler Mutual Aid, um, and their dispatch projects. And I believe we have Scott bag here from, um, Keppel Fowler as well as, uh, Bob Gowns. So, there's a few other people I think that haven't shown, shown faces, but I see some names that I recognize. So just to tee this up before the folks get on and introduce themselves, I think probably the best way. Um, you know, we've been talking about dispatch systems and all this and it came to our attention that Keppel Fowler was working on a project which sounded interesting. And so the council, I think meeting or two ago, asked if they could come and update us on what was going on. And, um, they very promptly got back to us and said they would be happy to. So we've scheduled them for tonight. And as I said, I think there's, I see Paul Sruity and Scott bag here. I think Sally Dillon is on and probably a few others. So, I'm going to turn it over to Scott or Paul, whoever's going to move this and they can take it from there. And thank you very much for joining us. Well, thank you for inviting us. I'm just making sure everybody can hear me. I apologize for wearing a mask. I am at my, uh, my full-time gig, uh, working here at the hospital in the emergency department and I was lucky enough to, uh, break away. So please excuse the, uh, the gear, but it is necessary as everybody's aware with in this time. Um, I do have, uh, a quick statement to give. I hope it'll only take a couple minutes, um, which outlines the project. If that's all right with the council, go right ahead. Perfect. Well, thank you, um, for the city of Monterey for inviting us as the communications committee to your council meeting tonight. It's my pleasure to introduce the members of the capital fire mutual aid system communications committee. Um, first, I'd like to introduce assistant chief Sally Dillon. She is from Waterbury and is also a, uh, public safety dispatcher for the state police, um, many, many years experience. So she brings, uh, a couple of different roles to our committee. Next, I'd like to introduce chief Paul Saruti from the Woodbury fire department and chief William Schwartz from the Marshfield fire department. Um, both these gentlemen have been instrumental, um, along with all the other members of our communications committee. Um, and just to introduce myself, my name is Scott bag and, um, I am on East Monterey fire, Northfield ambulance and district six and have been a part of, uh, uh, fire and EMS in central Vermont for over 28 years. So thank you for, uh, allowing us to come forward. I want to call out in one last, uh, recognition. I want to thank the Monterey police department leadership and especially supervisor Cummings for helping us with this project and to get to where we are today. So the capital fire mutual aid system was organized many decades ago with a purpose to coordinate services, supplies, and mutual aid responses amongst various fire departments throughout central Vermont. Its members consist of fire departments, public service agencies through our region with their representatives being the fire chiefs of these various agencies, including the city of Monterey. In that spirit of cooperation, many fire departments, ambulance services and fast squads have coordinated and come together as a group to receive dispatch services from the city of Monterey police department known as capital West. This partnership has continued to grow, foster, mature and solidify while it represents the very best of public safety integration throughout central Vermont. Our committee and our departments look forward to continuing this strong cooperative partnership for the long term future for now and for decades to come. To accomplish notification of emergency responses to our various agencies, the capital fire mutual aid system uses a myriad of towers, transmitters, and connections. These include the use of copper lines that have been in place since the 1980s, reliance on the state of Vermont microwave system, and various repeaters to get signals to our towers. These towers are located in various areas of our region, including Mount Irish and Berlin, Waterbury, Woodbury, Walden and Waitfield. 10 to 15 years ago, it was identified that this patchwork of technology was decades old and desperately needed to be upgraded. This fact was then worsened by narrow banding of our frequency, which resulted in the decreased radio coverage of central Vermont. Furthermore, our frequency that we use for dispatching has become significantly overcrowded. We share this primary frequency not only with our agencies, not being dispatched by Montpelier and Berry City, but emergency services out of Grand Isle County in Vermont and a nothing but boisterous Canadian taxi company. I can't make that up. There have been numerous occasions where our local responders could not be heard by our dispatchers due to that interference. This situation has blossomed into a significant safety issue for all public safety personnel throughout our organization. Because central Vermont is within a certain kilometer distance of our international border, any change in our dispatch frequency would resolve has to be taken and will take years to overcome. Our committee has worked with Burlington Communications, which is Vermont's radio specialists, for years to investigate an open frequency that we could use and then apply for with both the United States FCC and in Canada, the Industry Canada, which is the Canadian version of the FCC, to apply for a separate frequency for all of our towers. Finally, our current system only allows transmissions and receipts of signals to each individual tower, meaning that each of our dispatchers have a vast area of coverage that they can only talk to one tower at one time. This means that agencies in our peripheral coverage areas, such as Waterbury or Roxbury, Fasden or Walden, may not hear, know, or be aware of serious incidents that are happening. This creates instances of interference with communication, lessened awareness, and decreased in safety. In May 2014, the Communications Committee of the Capital Fire Mutual Aid System provided a report to all of our members and all of our departments, outlining that our radio technology desperately needed to be upgraded. Six years ago, this report was updated and provided to all these members, both in person and through the distribution of our meeting minutes. It outlined the committee's work to identify the challenges of our technology and then points of failure within our system and recommendations for technical experts at the Burlington Communications on how to fix this problem. The committee was provided a recommendation and a quote for a Motorola system upgrade. That quote was more than 1.4 million dollars. Knowing that this was an exuberant cost that was way too expensive for our communities, our committee changed its focus to make small incremental steps to get closer to our goal while seeking alternative solutions. An example of this work is our continued transition to all e-land circuits throughout our towers via consolidated communications. This past winter, our committee had the opportunity to meet and collaborate with various mutual aid organizations throughout Vermont and New Hampshire. We learned that a similar sized organization with a similar number of towers, departments, and topography had successfully installed a brand new Harris and Tate radio system at a price that was significantly less than what we were quoted. With the help of dispatch supervisor Fred Cummings, the committee was able to work with Burlington Communications to obtain an updated bid for Harris and Tate upgrade project. This bid was significantly less than before at just above $350,000. It was a cost savings of over one million dollars. With this knowledge, the committee continued to work to determine how best to share the information, develop a plan, and create a proposal. The committee presented all of our information at our meetings in September and November and a plan was developed. This plan recommended that all agencies served by capital-fired mutual aid through monthly dispatching and very city dispatching have one equal payment for all services and that this payment would be spread over a period of 10 years which would result in a cost of $2,500 annually. So you may be asking what does this project do for us, the City of Montpellier. The project will replace and update all transmitters currently being used for fire and EMS dispatching by both the Montpellier Police Department and the Berry City Police Department. Furthermore, it will add an additional tower in Montpellier on Hill Street and a tower at the Berry City Auditorium. Finally, it will move the tower from the Waitesfield Fire Station to Mount Lincoln to provide better coverage of the Mad River Valley area. All towers will be linked via an E-Land E-Line system and will be a voted simulcast system. This means that every transmission from a dispatcher will be simultaneously heard and transmitted throughout our coverage area on every tower and that every transmission received from a responder on that system will also be simultaneously transmitted on every tower throughout the system. Responders will not only gain awareness of the system emergencies but gain the capability to communicate vast and wide throughout our organization and region. This impact will greatly improve coordination and cooperation throughout our public safety agencies and most importantly we will be able to move to a new isolated frequency that will no longer have to compete for use and interference. As everyone can see, this will vastly improve fire and EMS communications throughout central Vermont at a very shared minimalized cost. To upgrade each of our towers, it would cost roughly approximately $45,000 each. For a single town or city to accomplish this same increase in coverage, they would need to expend 25 to $30,000 more than what we are proposing tonight to cooperatively do over a 10-year period. In return, fire and EMS services served by Montpier police and very city police will improve coverage, capability, and safety throughout our system. Their responders will be able to coordinate and communicate with either of other responders no matter their location. The service area will have better notification power due to multiple towers simultaneously transmitting and finally will bring our aging technology from the 1980s to the 21st century. Sadly, there are some individuals that claim that our communications committee has developed this project without transparency or behind closed doors. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. The radio project and its projects has been reported, upgraded, and shared with every member of the Capitol Fire Mutual Aid system over a dozen times in the past eight years. The city and towns with the various departments have representation throughout our work. It has taken years upon years to get to where we are today and we are energetic to be near the finish line and see our system that will finally address communication issues, challenges, and failures throughout Central Mott. Our timeline is to complete agency commitments by December 2020. In this coming spring, we would obtain municipal financing through to allow project purchase of equipment and we hope to be shovel ready by July 2021 with a hopeful go live date of Labor Day. To help in this process, again, we are asking each agency in their towns to serve and commit a payment of $2,500 annually for the next 10 years. Again, thank you for the time of listening. Thank you for a time. Let me read the statement. The rest of the committee and I are here at this meeting. We'd be glad to answer any questions you may have and thank you Madam Mayor for giving your moment of your time. Great. Thank you. That was very helpful and very clear. So just so that I am aware, are you all asking us for a commitment of this money tonight? Mike? We recognize that that commitment would not only take through January, but also through approval of town meeting in 2021. So there's no way to expect that fully commitment until the public gets attains the vote, of course. But the intention is to include that budget in the budgets and wait for the various towns and cities approval through the budget process that will have to have them this way. Okay. Thank you. That makes sense. I would love to start by getting comments on this from our from our fire chief. Do you have any thoughts or comments? Sure. Certainly it's an exciting project. I'm hearing a lot of this. I'm getting caught up to speed also just like you are. It would be great, Scott. This is for Scott or Paul. If you could send out a plan, a scope of work, I have seen the quote for the equipment. It would be nice to be at a review of a plan and a scope of work that also includes the expected outcomes. I have not seen that yet. Before I could make a confirmed firm recommendations of the city about the project, I would like to see that and review that. Additionally, I have a question on the funding of the plan. The quotes I have seen are, as you mentioned, $351,000 to do the project. The plan is to divide that over $25,000 for 18 towns. 18 towns would commit $25,000 over 10 years. That comes to $450,000. Is there a thought on the additional $100,000? What is not included in that quote from Burlington Communications is the equipment and setting up the e-land to the individual towers. Capital fire has accomplished four of the eight towers, but an additional four towers would need to be connected via consolidated communications. The cost of that engineering and connection can be up to $10,000 to $15,000. That is some of the small process that we have been over the last eight years to try to take one step further and further. The quote you have from Burlington Communications is a large part but is not the total part of the project. I think it would be helpful, especially for me, as I prepare a recommendation for the City of Montpelier, that all of that is included. We can see the totality of the project and the funding that's going to be involved in it. I've asked for those additional costs from consolidated communications and have yet to receive them, but we'll share as soon as I do. My hope is to get it in the next couple of weeks because I know this is budget time. Okay. Bill, go ahead. Thanks, Scott. I just have two quick questions. One, could you send us the text that you read? Could you just email it to me or something so we have your statement? Be glad to. Thank you. And secondly, just more to Bob's question on cost. I'm just curious, you know, you're spreading this out over 10 years. Do those numbers include financing costs as well, interest rates and that? Yes, it does. And we also are committing that there will not be an increase to those costs over the 10 years. What we're asking for right now is going to be the same at year four, year eight, that will not increase. The 2,500 is the total each year for 10 years. And Scott, on another question, does the vendor, I think it's Harris, does the vendor, do they have any concerns with financing radio equipment over a 10-year period, you know, 10 years is a long time for? In speaking, sure, Chief, in speaking with the Berlin Legion communications and we ran this plan as a committee through them, which would be, they're the technist, the company that is through Harris and Tate, they have no concerns with having a 10-year payment plan and with this financial plan. Todd at Burlington Communications had no concerns. All right, and Mayor, I think it's an exciting project that we should continue to explore and gather more information from the committee on some of our questions on funding. Yeah, absolutely. Chief Pete. Good afternoon or good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the City Council. Hello. I just, if I can also say this, when I got here, we've been, I've been having these conversations, Fred Cummings has been giving me heads up notifications of this. I've seen the emails going back and forth, seeing what the quotes were. I was prepared to, this would not be an additional $2,500 cost that we're going to be asking for in addition to existing budgets. We're going to find it someplace within our budget to pay for. You have approved. Okay, great. That's awful. Any questions from Council? Dan, go ahead. I had one question as far as a commitment goes. You know, we have limited ability to commit and I think actually Chief Pete's comment is kind of an interesting one, which is, you know, if in fact, Montpelier said this is a great idea and signed on to it and started making payments and out of the police budget, but then five years from now the police budget decides to cut back. We're not really using the system or against it. What's to stop us or any other town from leaving this commitment? That's a great question, Dan, and I appreciate you asking it. We are working with Paul Giuliani to come up with a language that could be a partnership between the 18 different agencies and towns to help meet that. But ultimately if a city or town five years from now says we're just not going to do it, I don't think that, well, I'm going to be in my area of, I'm out of my area of expertise and I would actually have to look at you or the city council for recommendation, but I would state that our towns and cities have received dispatching in a partnership for a good 30 years, so I don't prospect that that would happen, but I'm not sure I have a 100 percent recommendation without getting Paul Giuliani as a recommendation from the Capital Fire Mutual Aid example. I'm sorry I can't come up with a better answer than that. That's okay, that's helpful, and you know my concern is really, I think in a lot of these, in a lot of the the partner towns where the budgets come under, line items come under more scrutiny sometimes, my concern is that if there is for some reason a political turnover in one or two or three towns that can really leave, and it wouldn't just leave Montpelier in a situation that would leave you any other partner towns in a situation. I mean we see this with the library for example. Not everyone supports library every year even though it seems like something we all benefit from, and that's certainly a concern in getting into this type of long-term venture where it sounds like you're not proposing to bond for this, it's really just something Burlington Communications is willing to finance essentially, this sort of delayed payment and knowing how political winds change in 10 years, it seems like a question that we may need more information on, or at least I would want more. The second question I have is as far as maintenance of the system, would that be put into the CFM AS budget, or I mean would there be another expectation that we would be putting additional money to maintain this system as a partner? Great question, the answer is no, you would not be asked for additional funds or monies for the maintenance of this, we have included it not only in the building up of the annual, the monthly or the annual payment for e-land circuits have been included in the cost for projection out the 10 years from Consolidate Communications, so there is no expected increase or for maintenance or upkeep of the system that that's all within this project cost. Donna, go ahead. Thank you, and thank you Scott for laying out so much information and all those in attendance. In dealing with the finances, I know Tom Galanca was very concerned both as a Montoya City Council member when he was here, as well as a board member of the Public Safety Authority that financing was the one thing that's very weak about the Capitol Farm Mutual Aid grouping in your bylaws, and so he always felt it was a weak spot of which the Center for Mont public safety authority could support you in and one of the reasons of which in extending Capitol West membership was to help give you that because the authority can bond, and so we were surprised that we didn't know about this until, in fact, I asked Bill to bring this up because I wanted to know what Bill and Brian Pete knew because we didn't know. The Public Safety Authority did not realize how far along you were with your vendor. In fact, under your guidance and members of your organization on the Public Safety Authority Board, as well as Barry and Monpire, we went ahead with a large RFP because that's what we were told people wanted to do, not just fix the equipment now, but actually do a full need assessment, and so we did that. And when you all came to our last meeting, October 29th, members from Capitol West, Brian, members from Barry City, it was very clear that you no longer wanted to do that need assessment. In fact, you asked us to give you our money that we were going to spend on the need assessment to help support your equipment. So I'm just disappointed, I guess, that we couldn't use the resources to help strengthen what you need, but also look ahead, whether or not in 10 years this equipment is going to be where we want it to be, how much of an upgrade it'll need or change. Can you talk at all about that? One is the financing. I mean, who actually signs the dotted line with Harris equipment? And two, looking beyond just the vendor's opinion, you had one vendor, this is their opinion to solve the problems versus doing a true inventory where all the towns are, what they have, what they need, and a bigger picture of where we can go with broadband, cellular, and not just radios. I think you hit on the point at the very final of your question there, in that our focus is on public safety, fire, and EMS communications. We are not attempting to address cellular or broadband technologies, nor which we, that is not within our scope of our public safety, nor in the mission of the Capital Fire Mutual Aid System. We are, as a municipal corporation, able to secure funding for this project, and we have, once we have the intention, I would say, and commitment is the strong word, but the intentions of the 18 towns to move forward, we will secure that funding through different avenues that we're pursuing to make sure that it's most cost-effective for the 18 different towns. I don't think that we, we're anywhere hidden, that this is something we've been working on even before our joining of Capital Fire Mutual, or excuse me, a central public safety authority, and I don't believe that we have ever asked for money from CBPSA. I am a little perplexed on, maybe, and maybe I misunderstood, so if I am, I apologize, but I know we are not asking for money from CBPSA. I think that we do have our members of the Public Safety Authority who are here, who were at the meetings, both in Sally, Dylan, and William Schwartz, who, if they would like to provide feedback of what their input was over the last year or two, I think we'd be benefit to hear from them. Sally, would you like to go first? Sure. Yeah, I don't recall Donna us asking for money for the equipment. I'm sorry, just at this last meeting, October 29th, that it was very clear people felt it was a better use of the money to buy towards the, put this money towards the project ready to go versus doing a need assessment, so it wasn't from you, Sally. Okay. Sally, do you have anything do you want to add or will do you want to add? I don't think I have anything to add. I mean, I feel like I know a couple meetings ago, Donna, you had asked where we were at with our simulcast system, and I think I did say at that time that we did have a quote and we were working on it, and you asked what our future was with CBPSA, and I said we had a meeting coming up, and at that time I didn't know, which was the truth. I did not know what our future was going to be. Will, is there anything you would like to add? Maybe we don't have will. Yeah, I'm not seeing a will. He was on earlier. He may have fallen off. I apologize. Here. Oh, there you go, Will. Go ahead. Yeah. You know, it's important to remember that when Capitol Fire joined CBPSA, the intent was to see if we could get a single site dispatch center to fly, and for whatever reason, that never really gained a lot of traction in Barrie or Montpelier or really anywhere else, but it was a good study. The needs assessment is very broad in scope with the cellular and the broadband and all that stuff. It's important to remember that what Capitol Fire is really trying to do here, folks, is simply to improve radio communications. That's it. Cellular, broadband, all that stuff is and Scott put it perfectly. It's beyond what we do. We need to improve radio communications in our area, and we've been working on this for well over a decade. Okay. Thank you for that. Other thoughts or comments? I had a couple more questions. Sure. Go ahead. Scott, it's again for you, Scott, and I apologize for not getting this to you earlier, but the plan calls for switching radio channels, which would require every radio in the district in the Capitol to be reprogrammed, every portable, everybody's radio. Is there any money in the plans to assist with that, or would individual towns and cities be responsible for that on their own? Yes, we have developed, and I had asked this question by a couple fire departments a couple weeks back, and I sharpened up the pencil to make sure that Burlington Communications maybe could provide a generalized assistance in reprogramming portable and truck radios to help with that. Now, Burlington Communications won't go to every 23 different agencies, but they are willing to and we're willing to set up regionalized areas where if the department would bring them the radios at the cost of Capitol Farm Usually, we would help get their program. There probably is a small amount of expense for individual departments that maybe may not can meet those regional, but those expenses would probably be very minimal, as most of us have either Motorola, Kenwood, or similar radios that could be easily programmed and set up. So yes, we have included some of our funds into helping program the truck radios and the portable radios. Okay, thanks for that. Managing an apartment that has 30 radios, that would be quite an expense there. And then my other question is, if not all 18 towns decide to join, it kind of goes to Dan's question, but if not everyone joins this now, what's the future of your system? That's a great question. The 18 towns, if we have one town or city that decides they just do not want to participate, we could get to the 17 towns and be able to make it work. It would be very tight, but we would be able to make it work. If two towns or cities decided not to participate, we would then have to cut back by a tower and cut costs to make that work for the towns or cities. We are not proposing that there would be an increase in what we're asking for. So we're not going to be coming back into the spring and say, okay, I need another $500. That's not reasonable. So if multiple towns say do they do not want to participate, we are going to circle back and come up with a better plan. But we are hoping that our work has demonstrated that I think this is the best opportunity for all of our communities. Great. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Scott. Anytime, G. Thank you for your questions. Any public? I'm out of my earth, Stephen Whitaker here. Go ahead. So I'd like to tie a couple of threads together here. This council voted a motion some many months back to ask CVPSA to work closely with CV fiber and explore the efficiencies that could be gained there. I have similarly encouraged that that planning be extended to the radio system. So this to be proposing or considering a system that doesn't go out to bid for radios doesn't go out to bid for fiber circuits is questionable to put it mildly, especially when we could potentially provide either primary or fail over diverse routes to these towers. As far as I've seen, and I've done extensive public records requests related to this project and see capital fire, no modeling of failure modes for what if a nice storm or a hurricane takes down 123 or four of the eight proposed towers, who's going to be left with no ability to communicate. That kind of planning needs to be done. The assertion that broadband and cellular have nothing to do with public safety is really not consistent with the national associations, trends and trade press that much of what modern public safety, especially for responding officers, relies upon broadband or locational awareness. If a man goes or a firefighter goes into a burning building and communications is lost, the type of cellular GPS that is used to try to locate that person. Similarly, vehicle location, video, pre arrival, all kinds of stuff is going to require broadband and LTE. That's why the CVPSA needs assessment is is is properly examining the LTE coverage, the public safety LMR coverage, the radio coverage that they're talking about, as well as the broadband capability and fiber for backhaul. But this plan in my review is kind of half-baked in that it ignores several of the technologies that are emerging and necessary and it has not been done transparently. Since 2018, I have been requesting the minutes and agendas and notice of meetings of this communications committee. I was told in 2018 at the end of an extensive public records request where I did get minutes of the Capitol Fire General Membership meetings that they acknowledged they had not been keeping minutes of the communications committee and that they would correct that going forward. Two years have passed. I've done additional requests and there are still no minutes of the communications committee. So this is a it's it's worse than that. I've asked for the financial projections of this expense and the payments. These public records requests are being ignored. I I don't I guess I'd rather like meet privately with Dan and Donna and try to help explain how exhaustive I've got a great paper trail, how exhausted my efforts to shine a light on and try to persuade these folks to do a more integrated and inclusive planning process with CDPSA and this entire radio system was you know done in the dark in this communications committee with no meetings born with no minutes precisely while after the the Capitol Fire Regulate had joined the board of CDPSA. So to me that's bad faith and it has really poisoned the dialogue right now. So we I also need the city council the full council to recognize that Montclair as the beneficiary of the revenues from Capitol Fire members members over 300,000 a year supporting our dispatch facility has a vested interest if not a conflict in really honestly debating what kind of system we need when do it be competitive we did or should we really get serious about a regional system that we might really want control but will be a beneficiary of and they even operate but it can't be a single site it needs to have a failover option and that kind of planning is initiated but not been completed and part of the reason it hasn't been completed is because we've had this effort to sustain the status quo maintain the status quo no matter how efficient its planning or its transparency or accountability has been so I'd be happy to provide more detail I don't think this is the right form for it but you know how thorough and tenacious I am and I have my doctorate role and my paperwork in order well I'll I'll suggest that you continue to ask questions and you possibly um form a subcommittee we almost have one in your delegates to the Capitol Fire I mean the uh I think it's it's uh keep gallons were to sit down with Donna and Dan and really examine what CVPSA is doing and whether or not there's hope hope to collaborate and or get a complete plan before these decisions are made that's probably one strategy to consider I'll stop there before I insult somebody thank you Stephen um uh Jack go ahead and then if anyone would like to respond to those comments that's fine too Jack go ahead thank you I'm glad Steve was here because he uh knows more about this stuff than than I do but I think he uh he put together some of the thoughts that I had which is that this uh this moving forward with this plan doesn't seem to address the issues of uh of fragmentation of services and uh not covering the whole range of uh emergency communications that uh that the Central Vermont Public Safety Authority is is trying to address and so I as a total amateur at this stuff as most of us on the council are I really don't know how to evaluate the what we should be doing um $2,500 a year for 10 years seems like what we can find from the couch cushions if we really needed to and so that's attractive for for the price alone but on the other hand it seems as though we are we're not addressing some of the real needs that we have and so uh I don't know who we should be getting the guidance from I would like to uh have CVPSA as part of this conversation and of course I would rely heavily on the expertise of uh of our uh of our departments in Montpelier as we think about how to go forward but so I don't have an answer it's just questions fair enough thank you um would uh Scott uh Paul uh Sally I'd like to address any of the comments that were made I believe yeah I believe Mr. Whitaker and um our committee have differences of opinion um and some of those comments that Mr. Whitaker has said uh even as recently the Times Argus have uh well they say for themselves I think our focus is not on that our focus is on really trying to improve fire and EMS communications um I'm sorry I'm in a room that my lights just went out there we go um we we are not going to be able to reach broad brand or GPS or those those services we have communities that have no cellular coverage right now and the to accomplish that is a lofty goal something that we're not against and we're not preventing for an evaluation and the RFP to to consider that um we're not recommending against that but what this does do is it focuses on what our members our firefighters our EMTs need now and that is an improvement to our current system in moving it forward and I think that's where we've worked very hard and diligently to come to um and we have been coordinating this with police department leadership dispatcher supervisor um Cummings and our committee have really been focusing on how to improve the radio infrastructure we have now not necessarily what could be there in 10 to 20 years but what we need today to make our community our responders both capable and safe thank you uh bill go ahead I just have a question um and I you know I I'm like jack I don't really understand this stuff at all and and I'm not even sure that it needs or anyone can answer this right now but I'll throw it out for people to think about does let's say we went forward with the plan that that's been presented tonight does that preclude the other opportunities in other words um could could it be improved or enhanced in the future to include the types of things that Steve and others are talking about um or is this is it sort of an either or no we I wouldn't imagine that it would be in either or that it looks at where we are currently in the recommendations of bringing our tele our technology to today I cannot predict what technology will be in five 10 years and how that can vastly improve communications both public safety and public communications throughout but our system will it will be adaptable and able to grow to those new technologies when it is it is not an either or nor are we recommending that this project be in either or to the work that CVPS is doing and the RFP they they have we're not we're not recommending against that matter of fact we see that there could be some strong benefit to that and looking at all the various different capabilities and communications out there so this certainly can be adapted and can be grown upon both as a for our communities and if any of the other communities want to join us as well um yeah I'm gonna let our actually go ahead Paul and then we'll get to it I'll be short just speaking from someone out in the woods one of my problems with Mr. Whitaker's thing is that we have no cell towers the communities we cover have no cell towers we have no LTE, IDE, NET when I walk out my door I no longer have cell coverage so any system that relies on a cellular or anything that requires data simply will not work for us talking to AT&T who's the vendor for FirstNet for the cell service we're not even on the radar for the next 10 years in our areas for cell coverage so so speaking from out in the woods I just don't see that as an option and I and I would reiterate the same thing Scott said as far as governance or who operates this system moving forward in 10 years someone else could drive the system it still would work or could it be connected to some future technology I think yes you know and what I like to say sometimes is sometimes we let the perfect become the enemy of the good and at this point it's like we're driving around in almost a 40 year old car and we're saying well it'd really be nice to get a car that's going to be 10 years away but the car we have now is broken and speaking in our area we have major lapses in coverage there's there's problems for us many times with dispatchers are very busy and having to switch towers and so transmissions are sometimes this is not meant as a bad comment or the dispatchers but if you have to constantly switch between eight towers there's huge gaps for problems and as a fire chief you know I go by the Gordon Graham saying predictable is preventable if you can predict that a disaster is going to happen then we can prevent it happening this does that in our radio communications and it's a really big deal to those of us kind of on the outlying areas where where if they use the wrong tower by accident we simply miss the tone we don't get the call or I have 11 firefighters that don't show up so it's not it's not um what could happen is what does happen sometimes I'll get to the station there's just me and what happened oh wrong tower turn it again and then you're you're seven or eight minutes behind and as we all know fires don't wait for us or EMS calls don't wait for us so so I really would encourage the board to take a look at this in what it's trying to do it's trying to fix our current problem um and I don't think it makes it so we can't morph to something better or alter this in the future I don't know I'm not an expert in this field um and for for relatively low cost and I was quite pleased about the low cost anyway that's all I have and and I'll turn my mic back off again here thank you Paul um and go ahead Chief Pete thank you ma'am it just uh you know there are technical uh aspects to this and you know a few articles reading a few articles here and there about what the locations are doing um their geographic challenges to some of these things and the other part of it is like as far as like broadband and that type of technology it's not something that's necessarily that the municipality can control that's that's entirely up to as far as like how that coverage is going to come into play where if there's a if there's a way right now it's not feasible to look at things like LTE or those types of broadband systems to do this type of radio because of the hilly terrain that we're in um so when and if that technology improves to the way that's going to be extremely reliable to what it is that we're doing uh the other part of it is we have no control over whether AT&T horizon uh any of the rest of those service providers are going to bring that coverage up there's nothing that we can do to control it to manipulate that thank you um okay any further questions about this obviously we're um going to need to talk about it again but um any other questions for right now Madam Chair may I talk for a couple of clarifying comments the this is Steve Whitaker the uh very briefly go ahead Steve the the economy of scope uh there's some clear misunderstandings virtually none of the folks that are speaking and promoting the capital fire radio plan are experts in this technology and they've all admitted so so they're entirely reliant upon consolidated communications as a sole source vendor and growing to communications as a sole source radio vendor and that is reason why CVPSA having an independent engineering firm without any vested interest in selling any equipment who does understand cellular you know the belief that we don't have anything to say about cellular deployment is absurd in fact there is a um CV fiber had already paid an engineering firm to do a broadband wireless broadband plan for central Vermont infill that would include LTE coverage and so it's well within our grasp to fill the dead zones in the cellular canopy and not only that to achieve significant cost savings by aligning the fiber use the backhaul the fiber that's needed to get to these towers for the simulcast system might be the very same fiber likely would be the very same fiber that's needed to hang small cells for LTE coverage so this is where we can afford to you know add everything as a change order to a capital fire half-baked design in order to get this rest of the system built out we need to design it and build the efficiencies in from the start and I'll leave it there okay thank you Stephen um any other final comments from folks just thank you man mayor for us and asking a lot of good questions we certainly are going to continue to work with chief Pete and chief gallons to finalize and come up with more information and uh chief gallons i plan to reach out uh tomorrow and uh see if we can uh answer all the questions as best i can great uh jack go ahead one last thing i i appreciate the presentation that we heard and uh when we get this in writing uh i suspect i'm not the only person who would find it helpful to have uh have it accompanied by a glossary that tells us what all the initialisms and other uh technical terms mean i think it's important so that you understand what what the money is going for and not be covered by technical uh wizardry or whatever the words may be to really to bring it to uh the knowledge that everybody can understand so that you can make a sound decision that's certainly reasonable yeah and don't get me wrong i'm not saying that this is being done at all to uh to snow us or or just put something through it's just that when you're dealing with a field and every every technical field has its own vocabulary and people who want in the field don't don't know it know the vocabulary and so that'd be helpful thanks sure thank you all right well and thanks again um that was that was very helpful um all right well um so we're gonna move on um by the way i'm anticipating taking a break at 8 30 uh hope that is soon enough for folks um so for this next uh item sorry i know it's kind of a hard gear shift uh switching topics um but uh yeah so for this for this next topic um the confluence park grant application i think i'm turning it over to um kevin kasey unless bill you have anything you want to add first uh yeah i'd like to turn this over to kevin kasey so good evening everyone um we uh we are um asking tonight to actually for sponsorship for an application to the land water conservation fund to fund the next phase of the confluence part as you recall ricarda um erickson did a presentation for you i think it was last year with the conceptual designs and council uh like one that was called concept and i actually have that here if you want to refresh your memory um but you know we recognize that you know with with all of the budget constraints of what's going on now committing to another project um even though you already have committed to it in the past um and its priority project that um that you know there might be some trepidation however one of the good things about this grant application is that there's plenty of flexibility in identifying a match um we met again this morning and um went through uh the potential funding sources and we're making contact with the letters of support and i actually don't think that it's going to be too uh big of a stretch to get a good portion if not all of the money from multiple partners um from small to large um so this is uh one of the things that we discussed with bill and kelly was that um this is it's it's a it's right to to apply for this right now for a number of reasons is that one you know it's we're applying for three hundred thousand dollars which the city would have to match um and uh you know that's where the other partners come in is that we can come up with the money um to move the project forward uh there's a fair amount of excitement and a fair amount of um of support from uh the folks who administer the the grant um and vrc is uh has done a lot of the heavy lifting steve liby and ricarda have um really done a great job um getting everything together so we're just looking for kind of continued support to move this project forward um i'm excited about it because after i go through all of the potential grant funding sources for this uh i like i like what i'm seeing we've got the the conceptual plan which is a great start uh the the l w c f funding will help phase will help fund the second phase you know i'm sure you hear from mike all the time you know plan prepare implement and so we've done the planning on the conceptual side so this is the preparing side so this will help fund things like the engineering um final design cost estimates that type thing um and then we get into implementation and you know i'm looking at some of the funding sources and you know i think we can get there as well so um yeah it's it's exciting um and if you have any questions uh feel free we just need the resolution sign uh i don't know how that works now with zoom but um i attached to tonight uh with the the application is due on the 14th of december um and we're we're well on our way so um you have any questions um i just want to start off by saying thank you for that explanation um because i certainly had a little sticker shock when i saw that um but that it's not necessarily coming out of our general fund is yeah um oh sorry um i was just going to say there's the recognition that this is a you know we're probably three to five years out from um from you know that actually shovels on the ground i mean even when we look at it is that even if we were to get the funding and um approved you know we'd be in the planning stages next year um and you know procuring a uh the next phase of engineering and design so there would be some money spent next year with the 50-50 match but we're not talking about the you know 602 a million dollars that we would need to commit for implementation you know next year so we're a few years away and that's one of the things that we kind of thought was look a lot of communities are holding back for this very reason but we know that like this is a priority project COVID isn't going to last forever and if we can get our foot in the door and get uh get a good head start on the the planning and the preparing stages you know we're we're going to be in good shape when and if and hopefully this ends so um yeah i think we're i'm excited about this one cool um donna go ahead uh haven't you answered part of the question you said four or five years out for shovel ready is it indeed when the grant comes it would arrive when would we know when would it when do we have to start it's like how long is it alive you know how do you you have how much time do you spend it all that kind of timeline do you have any that's part of the that'll be a part of the application process what our timeline is but because this grant helps to fund the um like design and engineering phases it's pretty well recognized that you know you're looking at for something like this along the river you know you're a year to 18 months from procurement of a contract you know from a procurement of a of an engineer to to completing a final report to you know reviewing the um the the cap and making sure that we have everything in place so it fits within time for you know three to five years i'd like it to be on the three side um you know and i think that's reasonable considering um the energy behind the projects uh and um you know i think the only thing that's going to come up is that railroad um but we're not even the minutes is guaranteeing no general fund money okay uh but well yeah actually no when would you know if you got it or not steve is it january that they yeah i think they make the the the review process is during january either late january or early february i'd have to go back and look but it's a pretty quick notification timeline i mean to be fair and not to be cynical but i'm going to be is that just the length of time it's taking this date right now to get our grant agreements processed uh just to give an example uh we had uh the accessibility modification grant at um the kelly pubard library that took almost a year just to get the grant agreement and it's just just waiting and you know covid was a big part of that but there was also just um you know the shorter staff and i think that that's just where we are so i'm not particularly concerned that you know we get an award letter and then we will get a grant agreement within a week i i've never seen it so um just need to be cynical again um fair enough yeah well and uh if if it really came down to it and we were awarded the grant but we really couldn't find the money anywhere we don't have to accept the grant that i mean yeah that would be the other option too and i and i i think steve were you telling me was it what was the other community was it randolph or somebody else that actually got lcwf funding and could not come up with it next returning grant back was it you or it wasn't me kevin i um you know we've had we've had a couple other projects smaller ones in smaller towns where we worked with the municipality on lwcf funding and both of those were successful so i um but i don't know about you know i'm sure there's procedures for if you just can't meet the match which again i agree i think this is a very attractive project from a whole bunch of different funding perspectives and to be fair is that like i think that i could um i could rattle some doors to get the planning and engineering funds um from the other partners i i think that there's enough um interest and uh energy around this that um if we had to come up with additional monies on the front side i think we could find those matches um so like if we're you know we need to come up with 50 000 dollars pretty quickly i don't see that as too much of a challenge um i think it's i think it's out there um thank you uh jay and then lauren sorry um obviously i think it's important for me to to mention that as if you haven't figured out ricarda who's been mentioned is my wife um in terms of just you know full disclosure here um obviously i'm very familiar with the steps of this project um and at this point i feel comfortable um being part of the conversation and part of the vote in terms of sort of moving it forward certainly is is nothing that we stand to gain any sort of financial gain from or is not it's um you know her work with vrc this is just a part of her work with vrc um but i just wanted to make sure that um you know i wanted to put that out there if others are uncomfortable with it um then i'm i'm happy to hear that conversation or your thoughts but just um just want to make sure that you know sharing that and um this this project and this type of project i think is very important for the future of Montpelier um so i'm comfortable being part of the conversation right now but just wanted to um uh if there was a a thought in terms of uh recusing myself for any vote that might happen tonight i'm happy to hear those thoughts too well jay i was not thinking it i'm uncomfortable let's other folks have um comments questions or concerns about that and i think this project can proceed with your time on the council meeting the city already committed the oh definitely yeah yeah far far proceeded for sure yeah thanks kavin yeah but thank you for bringing it up um nonetheless uh lauren go ahead yeah um i mean first of all i i'm really excited i feel like having like positive and optimistic things to look forward to for the city right now is is great and i'm so excited it's not just being put on hold but moving forward so thanks for the work and keeping it going um my only question was um do you know if if like we do this lwcf grant now um is there opportunity for implementation lwcf dollars or would this kind of be is it like a one-shot and you're you probably can't get future funding just knowing like they just you know expanded like the great american outdoors act and obviously the trump administration has not move forward with it but the new administration might um so there if there could be more funding in the future like would love to make sure we're maximizing whatever opportunities there might be for both planning and implementation so just curious if you know anything about that well i think that if i'm correct me if i'm wrong but these funds are going to kind of crossover from planning to implementation potentially like you know depending on where all the other funding sources come from and how that all all works out and what the actual costs estimates are that this can that one of the advantages of this is that it can be used for the final design and engineering that's the one thing that we always run into is that there's plenty of planning money for the front end of doing conceptual planning but that middle stage of we need to find money for engineering and um final design and where you start spending money um isn't there for a lot of projects um and um so this is that's one of the reasons this is attractive is to kind of carry through that um you know we met today and we identified some other opportunities so that i'm following up on things like access about accessibility modification grants through cdbg um which we just did one at the library this this would would fit the bill it's a city owned facility um and it is uh um you know this will make this will modify it and give river access to uh people with disabilities so um you know that would be one opportunity then we have opportunities for um you know recreation grants and then small grants for boat access and um you know we identified that probably in excess of 10 or 12 funding sources different priorities you know that we where we think we'll get money but um um i'm encouraged and you know i i'm not always one to to think that the money's there or that that it can be so quickly done but i'm i feel pretty confident on this one any further comments on this team or is there a motion oh lauren go ahead one question do you do have a good sense of how likely we would be to get it and is anything like a letter to our congressional delegation who has a lot of appropriations way and loves lwcf deeply um it you know is anything beyond from us to encourage or provide i'll let you know i you know we in the past what we might do is ask you know and to write a letter we'll prepare one and and and so that we can you know kind of demonstrate that the city is um uh supporting this i mean there's a resolution which says that you're supporting it but even that letter of support is is great um we'll always take those um but yeah i don't i don't uh alex has had conversations with jesson savage manager the grant and there has been pretty good energy around it um so he's done pretty pretty confident going into it that that's it's well received steve do you have anything to add on that one no i i think they're um to congratulate the law's initial question these are really our implementation grants and they allow for the pre the you know the planning and engineering as a as a allowable cost so it really is the assumption is that you're coming in to to build a project um and the magnitude of the grants um you know reflect that so i think as kevin said this is really a kind of you know an unusual funding situation where the implementation grant actually will pay for some of the front end work um so i i think that's fair fair way to represent it is really is an implementation program jack and then i can add something to uh after jack and i okay sounds good a wise person told me one time and it might have been bill it might have been mike miller that one of the things that one of the things we look at in in this job is to going forward think about what ribbon cutting and uh groundbreaking you want to be at in five years because we have to start on that path now if we want to be there and i think that the the ribbon cutting um to something that will be such a great benefit to the city center when it happens is is going to be tremendous and i think we want to be moving in that direction now well and thanks to uh steven ricardo we're already a year into that by your path towards the ribbon cutting so we're we're in uh we're in good shape so jack was that a motion i can second yes i moved and we uh approved this i second it fabulous um uh alec uh i was just going to add to the question of how likely we are to get it the city has not gotten any l wcf funds in a long time and i know sometimes the state has a hard time giving money to not peel air for these things but um i think the last time we might have gotten those funds was maybe for the rec fields which was a long time ago in the 90s maybe um and we they actually turned us down a couple years ago for a separate project so maybe they're feeling bad about that too so just based on that the history i think that improves our chances okay well we have a motion and a second is there any further discussion can you take it one more can you take a question sure go ahead steven yeah uh see what occurred me are we are we defining the scope are we constrained by the scope uh it's been when the garage project falls apart uh can that that confluence park was almost a token gesture and i think that we have a bigger opportunity here that we may be looking at now and i'm hoping that this application won't constrain our opportunity or imagination to expand the scope of this in the next year or two so i just want to make sure that we're not locking in something uh that was at a different agenda when that the size of that confluence park was crafted um thank you steven and just to clarify uh to my recollection the confluence park project predates the hotel project um any other comments or questions on that okay um thank you um any further discussion okay um all in favor please say aye hi hi and opposed okay super thank you so much for your continued work on this um i look forward to being at that ribbon cutting maybe reminder for the council that this is a resolution that needs to be signed it's not only electronically so we'll probably be pestering you to figure that out yeah i sent it along um i sent it along with the with the paperwork to mary so it might be okay mary will be badger you but this one will actually require i'd probably visit just close we'd have to you know so yeah getting okay oh my good happen all right thanks thanks everyone have a great night thank you um it is 8 23 um i think it's probably time to take a break um so i'll see you all in about 10 minutes awesome um so like 8 33 ballpark see you soon a discussion of 12 main street possible acquisition of bill go ahead yeah sure hopefully this won't be too terribly complicated we've talked about this a few times um we're trying to refer to the property as 12 main as opposed to you know moat or tks or something they are those are the former owners as you know the city purchased uh the three properties from from the vermont association from blind and visually impaired moat and tks as part of the one tailor project to for the bike path and the road access into the back parking lot at the time of the purchase we had negotiated a buy in cells so we would be buying the moat property and moat would be buying the tks property which we had purchased previously and all this money had been purchased with federal funds through our our grant project for transportation purposes um in order to to execute the sale with moat uh vtrans had to declare that portion of the property as non-essential to the project we were on board with that because we wanted to execute the sale we were looking forward to a private development building there and it was our way to move the project forward literally it was either at the closing of the day before the closing very close to finishing it moat trust said you know what we think we'll just sell you our property at your praise value and not do not do this double you know buy and sell so that was fine that allowed us to still purchase their property still stay on on track however um that meant that the property the i can't really call the former tks property because we've since reconfigured them there were three lots now there were two um but it was always clear that any sale would require a repayment to the state for the the federal share that had been put in for 134 000 um some of you may recall that and then there was a discussion ensued about what to do with this property since now we didn't have to build the building should it be open space should it be something else we convened a group to talk about and that ultimately got folded into the downtown master plan and at all times it was clear that the repayment needed to be made that even if it were going to be built into a park and in fact it was even considered as sort of a a confluence park on this side of the river as well to complement the one where we just talked about and it was always clear that if that were to happen you had to you know put this extra money into the project to pay off the state and so as some of you may recall around late january right at the end we just finished our budget process unfortunately it might have been the last night the state said you know it's been enough time we could use the money back to to match you know federal funds and understandable they're not you know they're acting in good faith here too so they had given us a deadline of actually yesterday december 1st to pay our share in full or make some other decision and as you recall the decisions where the city could could pay what's owed in full and then we would own all interests in the property going forward whatever we would have full control of open views if we chose to sell it privately there would be no strings attached we would keep any profit or loss for the sale of that property another choice was to sell it in conjunction with the state so they would put it out to a bid through a public process and any proceeds over the 134 would be kept by the state any sale that was under 134 the city would bear that have to pay the difference you know for any loss to the state to make sure they stayed whole so in that case we had the risk of the loss but no benefit of the gain and then the third possibility was to just let it lapse to the state and they could do whatever they saw fit with it sell it themselves or or put in a state facility or do whatever they might see fit to do with it presumably something transportation related since it was purchased was safe transportation so you the council we talked this i think in june and you expressed the preference for us to buy it and to see if we could figure out a way to do so as you recall it was also in the middle of the covid and you know the thought of us coming up with 134 thousand dollars to do this was daunting but at the same time it seemed like a good opportunity to own and control the process so we've been back and forth through the state about this they you know i think work we work cooperatively with us and ultimately they they said to us that they would allow us to split the payment over two years and rather than it being due the first one installment being due yesterday it would not be due until June 30 as long as it was within this fiscal year so at some point in this fiscal year we would open the first half they would not charge interest and the second half would be due during the next fiscal year so sometime before June 30 2022 so there's two payments of 67 000 so we've built the second payment into the proposed budget for next year um and the first payment we would have to find under our current funds and wondering that so um but we think we can do that uh us particularly since we would be purchasing an asset so it's our you know that's the base the background those are the issues it's my recommendation that we move forward with this arrangement that the state has provided and that you authorized me to make the final negotiations and make that happen of course certainly have to answer any questions uh and any comments but again i think i know we've talked about this uh connor go ahead i i just say i i think it was a good idea back then i think it's still a good idea you know we're skint but there's like that expression define or be defined i'd rather uh define what that spot looks like right in our downtown than let somebody else do it um so i think we gotta we gotta suck it up and and do it other comments uh dian go ahead yeah i just one one question i think last time we talked about this and i'm just not recalling um do we have a valuation for this lot um so we did um the it was well and excessive of this amount so so one of the things that's unusual is that so the state's actually being very like i said they've been great they we purchased the the tks lot for 160 something um i'd have to go do the mouth but to the point of which the 134 was the federal share so whatever the difference was our share and um we have since taken that lot and combined it like i said it's not the same lot that it was that we purchased though at one point we looked at that lot it would have an encumbrance of a road across it so but it also could potentially come with parking on the other side of the road and i believe that the price that we had come up with for moat to buy it at which also had to be at fair market value was like 334 or something in that range um so i mean i i think it's a you know it's a good risk i mean selling it would mean obviously we'd be giving up the property right on um main street and it would the chances are high that someone buying it would want to buy the parking with it although perhaps we could sell them without the parking with some sort of longer term parking arrangement and if the garage we're going to come in maybe that's close enough that we just move right over the bridge parking garage so you know we'd have to see um but i think just as a as a financial move it makes sense uh and for controlling our own destiny it makes sense no i i share those thoughts i mean my my concern and the question is is that um it's always good to control your own destiny but at what price um but what this says to me is that the even if we weren't all that concerned about the destiny if it was um you know a less um prominent lot um this is still a good investment for the city to make um and given all these other factors it really makes sense i mean it's almost foolish not to not to invest in that not to be able to control that lot and how it's developed and purchasing it as i understand it doesn't limit any of those resources so if for example tomorrow uh or you know and after we purchase this a developer comes in and says i've got this great idea for a lot and we you know a building there and we we agree as a city then we have that option to do that because i know the moat proposal was a good proposal it just wasn't necessarily one that was going to work but it wasn't a perfect proposal there were certainly issues with it that were still needing to be worked out i remember i'm reviewing it on the drv um so this is this is really important um and given it's a prominent place in the entrance to our downtown um you know this seems like a no-brainer in some ways so and it was identified i think in the downtown master plan as um you know a good location for commercial development it wasn't necessarily flagged as open space but this slide is we can make in the future uh donna go ahead i'd like to make a motion and i know sometimes you'd like everyone to talk first but they can talk after me uh so i'd like to make the motion to authorize the city manager to finalize and execute the 12 main street former tks moat property a reimbursement with the state of vermont agency of transportation as per the terms described below second okay motion to second any further discussion uh jack go ahead uh i agree with what's been said i think the we've seen the proposal that looked pretty good i'm not sold on the idea that it has to be open space i think but uh you know there's not that many opportunities to get public control of a site like this right in the center of town and to have a great a great degree of control over what happens to it and so i think it is a great opportunity for the city um a question i have about the uh about the money you know i i appreciate that that you're thinking that we can uh come up with the 67 000 between now and the end of june is this the kind of purchase where if we conclude we do not have the cash on hand that we can take out a mortgage to uh to do that um so normally yes um if the if the landowner was willing to um basically like take back the mortgages themselves and have the land be the the collateral is it in other words we can't borrow against the full faith and credit of the city unless we have a vote of the public okay but if it was a you know if it was secured by the the real estate it's possible we could do that i mean i think we would be paying off the second half of it next year anyway presumably it stays in the budget and we think we think we can do it but um this year but you know so we we could look at financing it but i think it's cleaner for us the sooner we can get it done the better oh yeah i totally agree i'm just thinking is that an alternative if you're faced with the necessity thank you maybe i want to i want to work that one through an attorney more closely i think okay um all right any further discussion uh may i may i have a question go for it uh the when will the actual uh ability to change potentially change the lot lines take effect will that be 2022 after the second payment is made to the state because that problem we created a problem of truck access to that rear lot and i know that our public works director has you know prior to covid been trying to help resolve it but the problem is that the way that lot is configured and that parking lot granted curb the trucks cannot get in through there uh they could go in through that way and exit through the uh alley by jacob's property but we still have this problem of semis parking in the travel lanes of main street that needs to be resolved and this is an opportunity to resolve it if we have control in the discussion to change the lot lines and or uh designate some of that rear uh parking radius to uh essential uh commercial truck traffic i just asked is that we if we try to be aware that that needs to be done whatever we have the control over that property to do so thanks those aren't really related issues because the city technically owned all three properties when the access was designed and built because it was built for transportation purposes but it was designed with the idea that that a building could go in in the front part and parking in the back so design construction of that access isn't related i mean the the property line with the neighboring property isn't going to change the jacob's property beyond so um so they're they're kind of two separate issues good to know though so thank you um any further comments okay there's uh been a motion in a second um all in favor please say aye and opposed okay all right so we are moving on um i just want to recognize that it is approaching nine o'clock and we have two uh important items yet to go um so hoping that we can um um uh well the conversation will we'll do what it needs to do um but i'm guessing we may not be done by ten uh tonight uh donna go ahead we actually have three remember the cova update that we buy that that's right that's right well that's still at the end so we got we've got three um all right ten o'clock may not be realistic but i just wanted to remind us of that uh so uh uh towards the um the item of the girdin pocket park so um i would love to start this conversation uh by uh inviting if there's any members of the public who would like to comment on it um we'll start there and and then we'll we'll have a discussion about what to do um so any members of the public who would like to comment this is this is that cues how do you hear me we can hear you that that would you like to go first yes i would um i'm just going to try to be in that two minute uh area for you madam mayor and uh ten o'clock doesn't sound realistic but that was uh happy thinking i think um yeah so uh good evening i um just won't be very brief it's been kind of an emotional day for me today on different fronts but um i do want to say that uh this issue is about more than uh for some of us is about more than the park and i um do recognize everyone's um arguments on it and um no i i do want to um start by something my dad said um and um i and i have to say i do like the new signs downtown um but he did mention to me to be fair with Thanksgiving as we're driving through he said this wouldn't it be nice if we could uh do something for the less fortunate since he signs so i kind of just nodded that off and i do like the signs but it was something interesting um yesterday i took a little field trip on the bike path i normally take my moral drive as a shortcut uh over to the state street side and uh you know on my way over the air i noticed and i'm sure it's because winter is coming and all that but notice the picnic tables were were gone or stored um and then i got over to Gershwin the gentleman i was supposed to meet to do a banking transaction um that i do every week with him uh for my services um he he met me over there and he um just wanted to go to his banking transaction but i said i wanted to look around the park for a minute and um and then i talked to him because he he was hanging out that park and uh he's on the verge of homelessness and he uh like to hang out over there so he i asked him about it he said well he was bothered by the fact that the place was always crashed and he tried to talk to the other people he always tries to tell them they need to keep it clean and because he's afraid though that you guys will relocate it and and um so i um because i asked him about his impressions of the park and he just um his take of it was it'd be nice if it could be cleaner if there could be larger garbage cans over there perhaps but that that should not be taken away from you know that situation so i thought that was useful um and to me it's just a very um i don't even know why it's emotional for me i mean it's a park um i but i do think that i just want to point out that it's more than just the park it's really about are we continuing to do enough and we are doing the best we can i get that um but i just want to keep that in mind i'll keep my statement at that point thank you very much thank you Zach great others uh page yes go ahead page you are muted no i'm not well now we can hear you now okay you must have unmuted me sorry okay um i'm not sure where to start i've i've talked with uh a number of you we met in the pouring rain the other night at the park and talked about it um i was not a fan of moving it um more because i feel that the people who are using it need to use it then um and also i i feel that it truly beautified a pretty ugly spot along the bike path um but i do think i i do see that it's not necessarily serving the purpose that it was supposed to serve i so i could i could see moving it if it were moved to a good location um probably not right away because i think that something needs to take its place as a shelter for the people who need shelter before it goes anywhere um i think that's really important we can't be heartless about this um the flip side of that is that i've been out there a couple of times when the odor was just so bad you couldn't really go near it and that was really disturbing um and it's it it is a mess it's in a very difficult place to keep clean and i alex guys have been out there a couple of times a week but you need water it needs to be hosed down a lot and it's a hard place to keep clean so that's my two cents i think we need to provide something for people before we move it thank you um also i i see uh can you've turned your video on um and morgan but either of you like to to speak i'd like can go first yeah um yeah i mean it's it certainly clearly serves an unmet need for the homeless population and we certainly need structures like this um um we've we've explored doing something similar behind another way and are open if you ever wanted to move the parklet there that could work um i understand there may be some complications being because it's a private business over there but it was certainly um my dream would be to yeah i had war choice out there the architect of the park come out and look can you build another one here and steve ribellini is open to having something on his land there which is where our garden is we've talked about it at the county wide level it'd be great to have i mean this sort of fits in the continuum of care there's a certain segment of the population the homeless population who just doesn't cut it in the motels doesn't cut it in the shelters folks you know there have to be rules in these places and there's folks who just don't like to be indoors so there is a need for sort of a durable shelter and so it's good from my perspective that the community's focused on this population and their needs um it's tough with winter coming on you know this the ground is freezing up but certainly i it does seem like and one more thing is is people need a place to go gather it's a public gathering place whether and these are members of the public um it's sort of sort of suggests there needs to be there are more of these tight places there's a there's a demand for it it's the the mess and the odor and the it's it's difficult and i've been out with crews trying to Christmas day last year cleaning the park and just like cleaning the teenagers room you know and trying to help encourage folks to keep things clean um but i understand why this is a difficult issue i understand why it's difficult to come around that corner off the bike bridge and and that feels very cornering and intimidating so um anyway those are those are some of my thoughts thank you um peter i see you're you're here i i'm just guessing but did you want to weigh in peter oh that's okay oh you're muted though okay did you mean peter tell me i did mean you yes okay sorry uh yeah i the only thing i would like to add is that i just hope we will be very careful very clear that our objections are not to the people who use it no matter how much it might smell or be unruly this is not an anti-homeless sentiment being um heard i have heard anti-homeless sentiment by people discussing this park and i just hope and i trust that the city council will not um be swayed by that kind of attitude thanks yeah thank you um just uh guessing here but steven what did you want to weigh in at all and also morgan's back oh and morgan thank you i wish i lost more morgan did you want to weigh in at all yes i did okay please go ahead uh sorry i um something happened i had to call back in but no worries now is a now's a good time okay so morgan brown uh district three um um all right so some people have kind of already covered some of the ground i was kind of cover so anyway i hadn't uh known where gerton park was and i had to find it and then i was able to come across it and then uh oh within the last week or so uh dan can correct me if i'm wrong but he reached out with me uh to me and uh he had some discussion points and he wanted to talk and so we turned it into a a walking discussion and we made it over to gerton park and stuff him uh we spoke for almost four and a half hours you know uh discussed a lot of different things but the conversation kept going back to gerton park and you know that's i understand dan's and jay's and other people's concerns i do um what i kept stressing was um you know what people are concerned about are symptoms you know and we need to address what the real um root unmet needs and circumstances are and if we just you know go move an apocalypse doesn't other people point it out including today at the task force meeting you know that some people could you know still camp out there you know you're not gonna you're just moving the problem and maybe not because some people could you know there's a spot there they they could put their tents up there there's nothing stopping them or or you know uh you know poncho or whatever and what what myself and many others that you know have tried to suggest is let's try to address the real unmet need that's there that this is a symptom you know and maybe you know that will be beneficial certainly for those people and and the community at large you know uh um if it wasn't for what people did with me working with me and stuff i'd still be out there you know i was out there for 12 years you know and i tell you it's real hard uh nobody gets to where they are whether for better worse on their own and certainly uh if people are and you know stuck in in dire straits you know it's hard to move on like on your own and we all need you know other people uh sometimes to be involved as long as we're comfortable with that and that's why the the oh uh you know having a pale worker could be very very beneficial because that person you know is going out and has relationships with people and i tell you that's a key ingredient to helping a person get house and maintain housing is the those safer relationships i know because that's why i'm housed right now i've been housed for you know about 11 years and before that it was 12 years out there the last go around and if we want to make a difference we gotta and we can we can do it okay it is possible to do but we have to find a well and make it a high priority and realize that Montpellier does have a role to play we have a role to play and we need to do better and more and we can we can make the difference so i'd rather us be talking about that kind of stuff rather than apocalypse structure okay that the poclet structure is a symptom you know it's a symptom you know and the thing is as ken said the people we're talking about and then this is the public too you know and anyway i think i've said my piece but if you've got questions feel free to feel them thank you thank you morgan um page something to add uh Steve Whitaker i i mentioned uh at the last at the last can you hear me go ahead Stephen uh i mentioned at the last meeting that this is a multifaceted very complex problem and the if we do it right we will uh accomplish a lot of necessary uh each respection and uh we'll be changing the rudder of how we deal with the less fortunate in our community so this is a uh an issue i think it i'm pretty sure it was just disbranded ice that uh popularized the concept of proportional impact and assessment of the proportional impact you know it's it's easy to say it's an inconvenience it's a tight corner the bicyclist or somebody you didn't want to smell the body odor you know or we can't conversely we can't get our public works department to go out there and power wash the thing every two weeks you know but the impact on the folks that utilize that um is much greater and needs to be respected here that that we should leave the status quo in place while we make sure a real plan is done it's done by the homelessness task force or you pay a contractor i uh i know that a plan would include a number of such structures where people who can hang out have a little privacy maintenance is maybe uh you need to arrange for access to the transit center bathrooms for people who use that so that they won't have to uh soil the place or climb over the bridge and you know uh crap on the riverbank um my point is that to make this decision absent a framework of alternatives that uh offer you know compassionate respect to those folks that aren't heard as well in the community and who aren't valued as well in the community needs to be guiding this decision this this should not be something that we're doing a knee jerk especially when you recognize that the charge you gave the task force has not been completed and you might want to add to that charge uh and you know revise the composition of that task force in order to get the job done but it needs to address restrooms and lockers and in day hangout spaces and and bathroom facilities and and dignified camping i mean you're you're going to have people who are going to use these facilities and there should even be showers we want to be welcoming you know uh long trail people to come into town not everybody can afford hotel rooms so i'm just asking if we do this right and we do it with a long range vision that this is part of our um awakening as a community to uh the small things we can do to reintegrate incorporate respect and dignify those in our community who are less fortunate thank you thank you and page go ahead sorry i wasn't unmuted before um i want to thank morgan for reminding me that when we had that conversation um at the park the other night connor suggested that we get the peer advocate um that works for the task force um and ask that person to talk to the people out there and see what it is they do need and i thought that was an excellent suggestion and hope that's gonna get followed up on um because i agree i we need to provide something and um and i think that this little shelter should stay where it is until something is something else is provided um okay so thank you um is anyone anyone else from the public who would like to comment on this right can i just uh respond to page's comment which i appreciate um so don little who right now works for good samaritan um and did apply is what you know is the peer worker um does talk to those folks and does ask what they need and provides a lot of what they need like the short term you know but those dialogue that that dialogue happens quite a bit um folks want housing that's suitable um folks have a lot of you know immediate needs um and and there are some folks that are just out there partying so you know but that's maybe a surface behavior and they're they're they have deeper needs and and but just just i wanted to reassure you that those one-on-one contacts with folks happen quite a bit so but it's a it's a good thought so um i just want to uh start here by saying that i i you know appreciate all of the thoughts that you all have shared and it does it feels like there is a uh a need to go uh to go deeper on the issue of homelessness to um sort of bring that back to the front and maybe maybe this means um re just touching base with the homelessness task force um you know it's been a little while since uh since we yeah i mean i know we got a report from you all on on well it's sort of a report i suppose or an update anyway on this particular topic but uh it it could be great to hear um either what you all are up to or what you need or what um sort of what is on the edge um of your work um and i so i i'm also so i'm hearing i just want to reflect that i am hearing a lot of um a need to address the deeper issues also hearing that um and i think morgan sort of said said this um somewhat but that uh you know it's it does feel like you know that in a sense that's more worth talking about than just the structure um but that these two things don't have to um like if we can if we can go deep on the issue of homelessness um and we can provide uh for needs or whatever functions that structure is providing um that that might create a window for um relocating it for other reasons that have also been identified as why it's problematic there um so in any case i just wanted to open with that thought and um see what who uh what else has thoughts or comments um jack go ahead thank you um this is an issue that i've been struggling with probably more than a lot of the things we address here on the council and it's really helped me to crystallize my thinking about homelessness in general in the city's role in addressing it and i'm not going to get into that too much tonight i feel i need to start by saying that but i don't think that anybody on the council is motivated by any invidious responses to the people uh who use this place or who uh or any anything other than a sincere desire to serve the best interests of of the city of montpelier i i truly believe that with regard to all of us on the council um as i've been thinking about what do we do one of the things that has uh been in my mind has been the one of the things it's a watchword of the uh disability rights movement which is nothing about us without us and i'm not a person in the i'm not a disabled person but i certainly work with people who are diagnosed as having disabilities every day and i realize i hadn't been out there to talk to the people at the park and so i did go out there and and talk to some folks there yesterday and uh although they are people who didn't initially want to talk to me um i'm kind of used to that anyway and um so i had but i thought it was a good conversation yeah i agree with zack that uh this is more about more than the park um is about what we're saying to to the people what the city of vermont is saying to the people and who we value and how we value them um this park and this parklet and the other parklets in the city all are characterized in urban planning uh urban studies literature as a third place you know you have your home you have your work and you have a third place where you go out and you congregate with other people and and it provides a real value to have that kind of place um when i was growing up one of my brothers had a friend who lived all the way on the other side of town it was only 12 000 person town but they figured out what was the midpoint and so they would go and get together and hang out on this guy's front yard uh halfway between our house and their house and and they that's just where they would hang out and talk and when one of my sons and a bunch of his friends were in high school they had one summer where they would uh go over and uh you know that uh railroad car behind the the feed store every day they would go over and climb up and hang out on top of the railroad car and and just hang out and talk to each other and they had friends like i had my son had a cousin from out of town who came to visit and he thought it was the coolest thing if they could just do that and nobody uh nobody raised the slightest objection to them doing that um so i talked to the folks at the gyrton park and they said well what's going on here and maybe more importantly where would you be if this wasn't here if this structure wasn't here and they said well they need it because they need someplace to be out of the elements and if the structure removed i was talking to page uh by email the other day and it's not clear to me whether we consider gyrton park to be that structure alone or that structure in that location what is it that defines that as gyrton park um but what they said told me was that if that structure removed they would probably still be there because they need to have someplace to be and so does that mean we would just have people sitting hanging out on the ground bringing folding chairs or whatever possibly possibly it would and you know if if the city wanted to make things hard for people we could decide okay we're even after we move the structure we're not going to plow that section of it so that uh they just have to be have to be sitting in the snow i don't think we want to be be like that i don't think we want to be the city that does that kind of thing um what they did say was that uh one of the guys i talked to said it was he was really unhappy about how messy the place gets and now they have a garbage can and a recycling can there and that that has helped and they thought it would really be helpful if there were also one of those uh ash trays one of those uh but whatever they call them that uh that the smoking group puts around the city and that would provide an opportunity to not throw their cigarette butts on the ground um i observed that it would be good if uh you know there's there's ac right there i think it would be good if uh there could be an ac outlet that uh they could use for for charging their phones while they're there um and i assume that that ac is because it's a because it's a like a street light or equivalent to a street light so it's probably paid for but on the uh green mountain power street light rate but i don't think it would be that difficult to also create the charging opportunity for the folks there and and then the other thing i thought of just this afternoon is uh maybe we could provide an opportunity for the people who spend time there some of the people who spend time there to uh have some responsibility for keeping the place clean i i know that washington county mental health has uh has some occupational has an occupational program as part of the services they do maybe we could bring washington county mental health into the conversation and i know not everybody likes to be involved with the with the establishment mental health agencies but that might be an opportunity to give the the users of that park some uh stake in in the maintenance of the place that would be that would improve the park and make it better for for the whole city and so those are that's a lot of thoughts that all come down to me thinking that that i uh do not think that we should we should be moving at this point and i would not be supportive of of moving it and i think that there are things that we can do to improve the situation okay thank you other donna go ahead i agree i've all along not thought the movement was the solution to whatever you wanted to find the problem here of shared spaces but i do think deeping diver into the whole issue of what anyone who's homeless faces and i think of all the comments steven has made about running water and i got a conversation with steven rubabilini who kevin russ ken russell put me on too because he was talking with another way about putting a shelter behind them like a 10 by 10 that war joyce was going to work on but steve mentioned mobile classrooms that come with bathrooms and you could put a shower in there you could like maybe put it behind the wreck building so you connect to electricity maybe plug in running water that we really look a little more broadly and try to bring in a lot of regional organizations i left a message with capstone but didn't get to talk to susan but i think that we need to look at that really really broadly and even steven rubilini mentioned berry street rec as maybe that's a place we could use while it's under limited use by recreation people and see if there's a way to take advantage of the showers there with some regulated opportunities to get clean i just think we have some resources we're not using right now and just between now and march would make a huge impact while we look at something that's more substantial by the other players that have deeper pockets in us and have the staff and expertise but i think it's good if we could be a catalyst maybe kick that kind of thinking off so that's where i would like to put our time is looking forward to what we can create instead of still mauling over the structure that i actually like where it's at i like it slows down the bicycles at the corner as a pedestrian i don't have so many surprises um i just yeah i really think we should deal on the big issue the big picture of what we need to do to help those that are homeless so i just want to reiterate i think we can we can do that um you know um take a hard look at what needs to be done um but also acknowledge that there are issues with with it where it is but in any case other thoughts uh connor go ahead i think it's a good conversation um because it does generate discussion about the deeper issues it's a chat that we might not be having now if not for the park it's at the same time kind of a bad discussion because it becomes like a symbol right and it's dictated like whatever you decide might dictate what direction the city's going and it becomes like a microcosm of the bigger issues there um and i i'll agree with jack i don't think anybody's coming in here this is a council that voted against a smoking ban downtown we didn't entertain any ordinances to ban like loitering in town or something um you know i'm not approving like a park like this so people can like sip lattes like um i think anybody wants to hang on that when we talk about the sense of community um it's some of the folks who are there now uh but it's have it accessible to as many people as possible so yeah we had a good discussion i think the rain for like about an hour the other day and uh over the course of that i was convinced that maybe it wasn't the best place right i was convinced that it might not be the best place because it's congested um you know it's like riddle with urine it's trashed a lot of the time and like war joice was saying a lot of people in town just don't know what exists where it is frankly um you know if you look at and you know i'll bring it up it's it is a memorial when you make something a memorial um i think you do have an obligation um to listen to like page there who's saying you know it would be nice if it was on the water it would be nice if it was central enough in town like don't exile it out somewhere else so i i think there are some alternatives that it could still be on the bike path maybe who knows about 12 main street facing the water or something that could still be accessible to people that might just be a different location um but when we build something because it like fits a need you know i i think if i was envisioning this fitting the need for this particular group of folks who's um staying there i would envision something that like has four walls that has like water that has this kind of stuff and not just something that covers them from being like stuck in the rain so um i i think that's like it's awesome to hear like dawns on the ground like talking to people i think that's exactly what we mean like when we like funded a social worker position and a homeless liaison position i think the next like few months can be an opportunity to treat this sort of as a test case to say um and i i've been there like jack i've spoken to people it's not too many people um can we really just do a full court press with this group of people and see what needs they have and bring that up to the council just as sort of a case study to see what we need to be doing for them which radiates out to other people in the community to help them um but i i don't think this needs to be a purist discussion i think it has the ability to turn into that um i think we need to do it's right for the structure it's right for everybody else um i think we can make a determination that this might not be the best place uh but continue the discussion going forward here so um i'd be okay moving the thing but yeah i i i agree we need to get to the heart of the deeper issues here other thoughts dan so um i've also spent that hour in the rain uh with with everyone and i spent the substantial amount of time last week with morgan talking through some of these issues in part because um when i initially approached this issue and i should say i i didn't approach it it more or less approached me i had constituents um contacting me with complaints and you know one of our jobs as city counselors is to articulate when a constituent says i'm bothered by this and these are the issues um you you have a job as a city counselor to bring those issues forward um and i left our last iteration of this discussion which was really more of a meta discussion about whether we were going to have a discussion wondering why this was such a difficult issue and uh listening and hearing people's emotionally charged responses to these issues um and i think it's been articulated tonight so i won't say too much more but we've we've layered on to this we're intertwined with this these bigger issues of homelessness and so let me say i i support you know what the mayor is proposing and what i think ken is willing to do which is let's let's have a discussion with the homelessness task force about some of these issues and about their charge and about um you know the work that they're doing and the work that can be done um and the needs and understanding the needs and that's that's really you know when i say i had a conversation with morgan um i did less of the talking and i'm glad about that um to hear some of the issues um but i think it is important that we have this conversation you know there's a report out this week from the national low income housing coalition that says in the coming six months nationally there's going to be about six point seven million evictions because they've all been stored up and saved and there's been a moratorium that's going to be lifted and when that six point seven evictions start to move we're talking about 19 million people nationwide that could be losing their homes um or their stable housing and how many of those are going to be in vermont how many of those are going to be a mob failure i don't know what are their needs going to be how is that going to affect that we don't know but i think we have an opportunity here to talk about those deeper issues and to address those and um i think using the the parklet may have been the catalyst for this conversation um but i i think keeping the two topics together has a potential for a toxic result um and that really what we need to do is focus on these homelessness issues um as they are as everybody wants to um as you know address them full on don't use proxies of a parklet or other things let's see what we can understand and what our role can be as a as a municipality fitting within a larger series of municipalities in a region so i i fully agree and support with that um and i think you know what what i'm taking away from what i'm hearing from people is that moving the parklet right now is is fraught with um issues not the least of which is that we really haven't identified its its role within this series of problems we know that there's a use that's being made of it but we don't know how many people are using it we don't know what the alternatives are um or what the alternatives could be uh so you know i agree given that we have these uh you know we have these needs in our community um we can certainly listen to them um but at the same time i i never saw this issue initially as a homelessness issue this was an issue that the parklet for a number of reasons just isn't a good fit in its present location that if we address the homelessness issues it doesn't address the fact that it i don't think it serves when we talked with ward you know he agreed it really wasn't serving the initial purpose that it was intended for which was you know a shelter um a momentary shelter on the bike path um it was really intended to be a way station um and it's not really serving that because in some ways it's too close to the city for people using the light path and too far from the takeout places to be sort of that community gathering spot that for example the parklet outside of uh charliots used to serve or the parklet outside of the Episcopal church serves um and so you know again you know with the concerns about distancing in a in a covid era i think that this parklet you know is not um the right spot there because people who feel uncomfortable or feel crowded don't have the opportunity to move apart and i'm not talking about feeling intimidated by people living that i'm not living sorry sitting there or it's just it's a crowded and a bottleneck and i think those those concerns continue um and you know there is been there has been misuse of that and we've all discussed these issues trash alcohol drugs um you know uh urination we've had reports of nudity um and other activities there um and i don't know who's doing that um or what populations are doing that but t