Okay, good evening, everyone. I'm going to call this meeting to order. So we are starting a little bit earlier here because we have some extra business to do tonight. So specifically, well, the first thing we need to do is review and approve the agenda, and we have a few changes to be made to the agenda. So immediately after this, we'll start with the city council appointment for the vacant District 3 seat. Just so, well, I'll talk more about that when we get there. But otherwise, we are, I think, going to not be taking up Item 6, which is the ADA Advisory Committee appointment. I think there was a request for some more time on that. So that's fine. I don't think there's anything urgent for that appointment. So we'll take that up at a later meeting. And then we are going to be moving, actually, I think we're going to move the dog ordinance review up to Item 6. We'll do that right after the consent agenda. And then right after that, we will take up the Water Resource Recovery Facility Phase 2 presentation. And after that, then we'll get to the budget hearing and the items otherwise scheduled after that. So that is the adjusted plan. Any comments, objections, anything else? Okay, great. So that will consider the agenda approved. And so on to the city council appointment. So just to clarify how this part of the meeting will go, we would invite any of the candidates who put their name in for consideration to come up to the table here and probably use one of the mics to introduce yourself and tell us about your interest in being a District 3 city councilor. And then it's an opportunity for us as councilors to ask questions of the candidate. And then we'll go through all those who have put their names in and are interested in being potentially appointed. We'll go through all of those folks. And then we will very likely go into executive session to discuss that. And then we'll come back to make an appointment. And that person will then join us for the remainder of this meeting. I assume after we have them sworn in. Oh, you're right. Right. I better go get that out. Yes. Yes. You don't have time for that. Well, and I imagine that somewhere in there we'll probably take a quick break to get that person settled in. So that is the plan. Does that sound okay? Any other thoughts on that process? Okay. Great. All right. So with no further ado then, I know there's at least a couple of folks here who put their names in who are interested in the seat. So it doesn't matter to me who goes first. Welcome, Zach. There we go. Good evening. My name is Zachary Hughes. I come from Three Prospect Street in Montpullier in District 3. I have put my application and cover letter in front of you with interest to fill the vacancy in District 3. I feel I'm well suited for the role given my many talents over the decades around advocacy and human services with particular interest in human services as I have watched many council meetings in the last few weeks given a homeless task force and has been about a dozen questions about who does what and stuff like that. But my role also would, I would be interested in also looking around the disability community because that's a little known community that I'm part of still. And you know, I'm very much, I have given a lot of service to the city in various ways including the TASER task force in 2011. And I also gave, do a lot of outreach within the city and encourage collaboration. And when I feel the need I come down here and let you guys know when I think about something which is cool. I just think this would be a very unique opportunity for me. Some of my interests are around collaboration. I am been told that I tend to convey a neutral stance on things. I think that's important. It's important quality to have. As you guys, as you all saw from my application, I have plenty of other things. But I also have interest in the city. I have been known to question about, you know, cost and all that. Can we do something different? Can we look outside the box on that type of person? And I've been known to challenge that. In addition, I should mention that I also serve on the Vermont Center for Independent Living Board at this point and president of the Vermont Psychiatric Survivors which is a statewide organization. And so again, I bring a lot of experience and I'm also looking forward to continuing to serve the city in capacities even if I'm not appointed tonight. To be appointed, it would be really cool. Beyond call, it would be a unique opportunity for me because I just have been around. I think I had estimated it had been a resident for about 22 years. It's a little bit more than that but it's what I estimated. And I had the opportunity to live in Burlington and I came back here. Seriously, I don't know what, you know, but I do. It's one of the things I said in my application is that the city is very much like a family. It feels it. I've never been to other cities. It doesn't have that feel to it. This city does. And I just have always enjoyed living here and, you know, so I just, that's me for tonight, for right now. Any questions? Well, I do have a question. Do you plan on running for either of the District 3 seats on Town Meeting Day? Yes, I would. You do? Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Great. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. My name is Dan Richardson. I have also filed an application to be appointed to this seat. And I guess I would start by, you know, just framing this as, you know, this is a limited appointment and I recognize it as such. And I am running for the one-year seat. So I see this appointment as linked to that, which is, you know, I'm not looking to gain any particular leg up. I am looking simply to continue my service to the city. And I see this appointment as really being able to jump into the seat and begin fulfilling the purposes of the City Council and representing Ward 3 right from the start. And that goes to my experience in working with the city. For the past 15 years, I've held at least one at many times two positions with the city, whether it's the Design Review Committee where I started, where I worked with Margo George way back in the day reviewing changes to architecture and learning, I think, on a very basic level, you know, how we care for this city and how we preserve the good parts of the city. And it's really, it's through hard work, collaboration, and reaching out. And the Design Review Committee in particular, you know, we had applicants coming before us who wanted to do all kinds of different plans. And sometimes our job was to say no. Sometimes our job was to say you have 100-year-old wooden windows that you need to replace. We understand that. But replacing them with vinyl windows that's only going to last for 20 years, is that the best investment in this community that you can make? And we had regulations, of course, to back it up. It wasn't a subjective choice. But, you know, learning how to say that and learning how to get buy-in from applicants so that when they left, they weren't angry. I can't have my windows. But they were excited. Like, wow, I'm really part of something bigger. Was a rewarding education. I moved on to the Development Review Board where I've been a member for more years than I care to count. 13, the past two years I've served as chair. The prior two years to that, I served as vice chair. That has been a really wonderful experience in getting to know the city really from a brick foundational level on up. And watching as we've grown, watching the projects that you've sponsored, and looking at those and evaluating them, it's been a really rewarding process. I've also served on the Cemetery Commission and so participated in budget processes with the Cemetery Commission. Again, it's another important part of the city. And again, it's another board where I've served on and been able to show, I think, to the public that I have a collaborative spirit that, you know, there is a job to do. And sometimes it means making hard choices. But if the dialogue is there and the people can participate in a meaningful way, whatever result it comes to at the end of the day is a meaningful answer that people can buy into even if it's not the one they chose. Because they know they've participated, they know they've been heard. So not to belabor, but I've outlined in my letter of interest three areas that I think I bring to this appointment. And the first is the experience that I just went through, which is on the ground experience with the city. I'm familiar with most, if not all, of the major departments in the city having interacted with them. But in the experience level, I also bring an experience in that my practice, my legal practices, has a substantial portion of municipal law. So I sit advising city councils and select boards and planning commissions and every other group. And I've done work all the way from, very simple, how do we enforce a dog ordinance? How do we merge multiple municipalities together? And everything in between. And so I've dealt with a lot of the issues. As I pointed out, some of the issues I think even tonight that we're dealing with the idea of possible generation for the facility with the septic system, the sewer system. I've dealt with that in my private practice. I have a number of questions. I'm excited at the prospect to ask about sewer gas treatment. So the other reason is that I am a known quantity. I know all of you just about on the board, I think Lauren, we've only had probably the minimal interactions, but the rest of you I have had interactions with. I think they've been positive. I think I've shown. And I've had interactions with a lot of the population. The DRB sees like Piccadilly Circus a lot of people come through. And I think it's been generally positive. We've gotten feedback from people about the process that I've run or participated in. And third, I'm excited to bring new perspectives to the table, recognizing that this is somewhat limited in scope and that this appointment is really only for a month and a half. And I recognize that, but I want to make the most of it. And I'm excited for the opportunity. And I certainly look forward and hope to be able to serve with all of you. So if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer. Donna, do you plan to resign from the appointments you now have on the city? Yes, I will. I've actually talked about it with the zoning and planning department. Right now, the only position that I'd have to resign would be the chair of the DRB. And I've talked with the fellow members, you know, we've had a sort of succession plan going all along. Kate McCarthy, who's the vice chair, is certainly willing to step into the chair position. She's an award-winning recognized statewide planner. So it's in probably better hands. This may be the best decision you make. Any other questions for Dan? Thank you all very much. Thank you. Okay, so I just want to check to make sure. I don't see Jean Leon here. I just want to make sure. Or Brent Householder. Or Bruce Sargent. Okay, so those are the other candidates. So at this point, something I did forget in the process was if there was any public comment on any of the candidates, and there doesn't need to be necessarily, but it's welcome. So is there any member of the public who would like to speak on this issue? I'm going to leave that with you. Okay, thank you. We'll see if we can take care of this. The back doors are usually what's open for the meetings, but sometimes the front, yeah. It's not atypical, but thank you for bringing it up, because we do want to make sure it's as accessible as possible. Okay, so with that, we are going to move on then. Is there a motion? Jack? I move pursuant to one VSA section 313A3 that we enter executive session to discuss the appointment of a public officer. For the discussion, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, we will be back. All right, do we have a motion to come out of the executive session? So moved. Second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, do we have a motion? Oh yeah, I didn't see any of the other candidates here. I just want to note that we started early at 6 o'clock. Normally, we started at 6.30, and so it was possible that some of the other candidates who wanted to have their names considered might have come at 6.30, but I don't see any, but Bruce Sargent, Brent Householder, or Gene Leon here. Okay, I just wanted to make sure that, again, I didn't see them, but thank you for reminding me. I just wanted to check about that. Anyway, so do we have a motion? I move that we appoint Dan Richardson to the term vacated by Ashley Hill up until town meeting day. Oh, second. And discussion. So just as a part of the discussion for that, just want to note that the charter of the city does obligate us to make an appointment, as it's written presently. And we want District 3 to have full representation, especially during this, even though the last bit of the budget discussion is tonight, we certainly want District 3 to be represented through that and through the remainder of the meetings up until town meeting day. I just want to note that no one indicated that they were interested in the short appointment. So that was not a factor for us. And then just so excited. Dan worked with us with his depth of experience. He's able to hit the ground running, which is very exciting. But we're also just so very pleased that there was so much interest in this position. And that is going to make just the town meeting day election really interesting and really strong. So hope everybody will turn out to vote for that. I think that is bodes well for us. So anyway, any further discussion? Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Great. Thank you to everyone who ran. And congratulations, Dan. And we're going to take a quick break and we'll reconvene to swear you in and get rolling. Okay. Thank you. So we're going to take a quick break. Okay. So we're going to come back from our break. All right. So the next thing is general business and appearances. So this is an opportunity for any member of the public to make a comment on any topic that is otherwise not on our agenda. If you would come up and say your name, where you live, and then try to keep your comments to two minutes. And I will keep a timer to go off at two minutes. Okay, go ahead. Donna Barlow Casey, director of Public Works for the City of Montpelier. Tonight I just wanted to let the council and anybody here and watching know that Public Works is issuing a winter parking ban this evening solely for the purpose of removing snow banks. So we posted the information on Facebook, front porch forum, but I'd like to take a few minutes to identify the timing and the affected streets for everybody. So these are the following, the following streets are tentatively scheduled for snow removal and our timing may not allow us to get to all of them, but these are the ones we're going to hit tonight. And snow removal will begin at 11 p.m. Thursday, the 23rd, which is tonight. So it's Memorial Drive, Main Street, Berry Street, State Street from Main to Perry's Gas Station, Bailey from Memorial Drive to Baldwin, Governor Akin, Hubbard Park Ave to East State Street, East State Street, Taylor Street, Governor Davis, Court Street, School Street, Elm Street from State Street to Winter Street. It is possible that if we can make our way through that entire list, we would do some spot work on Phelps Street to Pioneer Street, Liberty Street, Main Street to Hubbard, and Loomis Street from School to Liberty. Again, this is a tentative plan. We don't know if we can get through it all. We hope we can. And the staff will make determination as they go through tonight. They're using rented trucks so that we can move snow faster than usual, so we're hoping we'll get through and clean up the area. Thank you. Oh, that was exactly two minutes. Great job. I do have a question. Thank you for this. Should people who are watching assume if they're not on those streets that the winter parking ban is not going to apply to them, or should everybody get off the streets? Yes, that's a good clarification. They should assume if they were not on these streets that it doesn't apply to them. Sorry, I had one question as well. Do each of these streets have physical signs on them? Yes, we put them out this afternoon as far as I know that was our plan. I personally haven't gone around to see that they're there. Right, but the goal was to get it. Yes. Great. Any other questions? Okay, great. Thank you so much. Thanks for that heads up. Okay, anyone else? Zach Hughes from Three Prospect Street. I just rise to offer my congratulations to Dan Richardson and look forward to a very positive election. And I again want to urge others to continue as we do to serve the city in the best interest we can. This is like a family here. And I feel privileged to live here. Thank you very much and congratulations, Dan Richardson. Thank you, Zach. Thank you, Zach. Thank you very much for bringing me forward. And I certainly as well look forward to the opportunity to have you serve as well. Thank you. All right, anyone else? I might add a dysfunctional family, but Steve Whitaker. Three years in a row, ice in the crosswalks. The snow melt is melting. It's freezing in the crosswalks. We've done nothing to shim the improperly done paving from several years ago. And I know y'all just wait for the two minutes to be up, but it's pretty important. We got ice hazards in the crosswalks on state, where it crosses, et cetera. My public records request, I've raised it again and again. They have not been responded to. The memo that the city manager provided was incomplete. And in many cases, he characterized responded as having sent me one email and say, I'll get the rest of it for you later. That doesn't count as responded. That means you've kicked it down. But these have been piling up for months now. They relate to public safety and public interest issues such as our authority or need for legislative action to grant us authority to require warnings before pesticides are applied along our bike path, where people are going to stroll their babies, et cetera. The video in the Taylor Street property, the public restroom permit condition that was applied to city center many years ago. And I've asked for those records and all they do is say, we've got a pile of records, you go search through them. That's not proper records management for a city government. It's the city's obligation to track permit conditions. And I've offered to OCR them if the city scan them. But there's a long list of public records request, including a police shooting. When I got new records about the shooting of Mark Johnson, there was a clearly missing affidavit. I'm meeting the road back and said, where's this affidavit? Where are the videos? No answer. I filed an appeal to the head of the agency. No answer. That is that's flagrant violation of our open meeting and public records law. Y'all don't appear to take it very seriously. At least now we've got a more ethical lawyer on the council to take such things seriously. To the mayor privately about this, but I've heard no response in two weeks. And that's two minutes. We can talk about that later. Happy to know the point is, you should put it on the agenda to talk about in a public forum because I spoke to you two weeks ago. I appealed to y'all a month ago. You're sweeping it under the rug as you're doing the records of the shooting. It's not okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Laura Rose Prospect Street. I had a question about the Montpelier Energy Disclosure Ordinance Working Group. I believe you're on that. I'm just wondering about the open meeting law as it relates to conference calls. What do you mean? Well, you had a conference call meeting on the 22nd. And the line was posted. Oh, okay. So I can join those through the line? Yes. That was my question with that. Yep. Thank you. Yes, you're welcome. And I just have a couple of... Posted where? I actually checked this one. It was posted on the city website. I was actually able to find it on the home page. Typically, whenever we have call-in meetings, we post the number. I've never looked for this particular meeting, but that is our common practice whenever there's a conference call meeting. Sorry. Because this was a conference call, I actually checked to make sure that it was there. Well, so also just for the future, any comments you make should probably be made into the mic for the record. But also, happy to chat about that, too, if you weren't able to find it. Thank you. Hang on. Is there anyone else who has not had a chance to speak for the general business and appearances? Briefly, I want to... But hang on. Okay. I want to clarify that when I download agendas off the website, I've complained about the websites and the domain for a couple of years now. I get a file downloaded with no file extension, and it will not open unless I know that I need to go and rename it .pdf. So requests for agendas cannot be honored for special meetings or emergency meetings per that until you clean up the website. Thank you. Did you have anything further, Laura? That's okay. Thank you. Laura Rose again. Just a question about the legislative agenda proposal. Thank you for taking some action to try to compile issues that you want to bring. I'm just wondering what council is doing to consider the climate emergency. Thank you for bringing that up. I actually... So again, if this is an issue that is on our agenda, then you should be raising that when that item comes up. Oh. Does that make sense? It does. Okay. And it's okay. And because I'm glad you raised that because I'm also interested in that. So we'll be talking about that more in depth. So we're gonna... It's okay. It's on the agenda. Thank you. No problem. Anyone else? Okay. Thank you all. So then on to the consent agenda. So is there a motion regarding the consent agenda? Move the consent agenda. Further discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. So we're gonna take up the dog ordinance next as per the rearranging that we discussed previously. So this is a public hearing. So I'm gonna officially open the public hearing on the dog ordinance. Is there any... Anything the council would like to add regarding the dog ordinance as amended? Donna. I believe all the council received an email from David who lives on Cummings Street and that's to supplement the other emails that we have supporting the change. So I hope you all read that. And they appreciate putting the noise and the dog ordinance in sync with one another. It really simplifies and supports them getting the improvement in communication by being able to use the Community Justice Center. Cool. Any other comments? Ray, any comment from the public? I'm gonna take the opportunity to renew my assertion that you need to deal with the dogs in restaurants. That is an increasing problem that is being overlooked. I don't know whether it's Montpelier Police that's supposed to enforce it or the health department, but the fact that I raised it, there's dogs coming into the restaurants, jumping for food, getting into the coolers, jumping up on the counters, etc. And it's not okay. It's a health problem and it's an enforcement problem and you could potentially amend the ordinance to address that and let maybe just the public awareness, the fact that you are addressing it in city council ordinance modification, would have a beneficial impact. Thank you. Hi. Laura Rose. I was just wondering when we spoke about the dog ordinance, the only thing I'm asking for the only change is to make it an instead of an OR. And you had thought it was excessive and could we make it an AND instead of an OR? You thought it was. I thought it was. I'm sorry. I don't know which sentence you're talking about. The proposed change. Did we publicly read it this time at the hearing? The proposed language change. So I've got it here. This is number 8A. Nuisance shall mean any dog or domestic pet that chronically disturbs the quiet comfort and repose of others by frequent or continued barking, howling, yelping, or screaming. So you're saying that OR should change to an AND? Like a lot of the AND continued barking. So I feel like the first word in that sentence chronically covers it for me. I'm not ready to. Well, I mean, any, any time you, sorry. No, it's okay. Well, I know Jack had, Jack, did you want to say something? And then Dan? Yes, I do not agree with this change. I think that if a dog is chronically disturbing the quiet comfort and repose, either by frequent barking or by continual barking, that we should be able to respond to either one of those circumstances. So I would not support changing the language. I did. Yeah, I would echo Jack's sentiment only because what we're dealing with, you know, if we think about the way dogs bark and when they reach a point of nuisance, it's often the amplitude, how loud they're barking, how frequently are they barking, you know, it may be a short spurt, but it may be a series of short spurts, or it may be a long duration. And I think this gives the flexibility to the officer seeking to enforce that because it does have the term chronically before it. So we're not talking about one time events. We're talking about chronic which would be sort of repeated and the number of multitude, but it gives the flexibility so that it doesn't have to be a certain number that it would fall into. It gives the flexibility that any time it reaches that for any number of those reasons. So I would support it as printed. Okay. Any other thoughts on this? Okay. Any other comments from the public? Okay, I'm going to close the public hearing. And is there a motion or further discussion? Second hearing? No, this was the second hearing. Yes. Oh my goodness, time flies. I know. So this could be it. I would like to make motion that we adopt the proposed language for the dog news ordinance definition. Second? Okay. Further discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Oppose? Okay. All right. And so now we're, we have a presentation about the water resource recovery facility and the upcoming projects in phase two. So I'm very interested to talk about this. So I know there's a number of folks here for this presentation. So if you wouldn't mind coming up to the table or do you want to actually project something? Yeah, we do have a my name is Karp Modica, city engineer for the public works department. To my right is Chris Cox, chief operator of the water resource recovery facility. To my left is Ian Lynch, who is the project engineer for energy systems group who is our consultant working with us on this project. And tonight we're going to talk about, we're going to give you an update briefly where we're at on the current project, which is an aging infrastructure and organics to energy improvement project at the water resource recovery facility, which is formerly known as the wastewater treatment plant for those who aren't familiar with it. We're going to talk a little bit about phase two, what were the objectives and the scope of work associated with it, how much biogas that we're going to be producing once phase one is complete. We're going to go through some options on how we might be able to utilize that biogas that's going to be produced and how we went about screening the different options and evaluating them. And then at the end we're going to do a recommendation on what we feel is the best option moving forward. I'm actually going to ask council to take a formal motion tonight to authorize us to or to select the alternative and then to authorize the city to enter into negotiations with energy systems group to develop a project development agreement to move that project forward. Okay, I'm going to cover the phase one project status. Currently, we are on schedule to complete the phase one project by December 2020. Major components installed today are new primary clarifier internals, which you can see in the middle photo on the left, a septage and high strength waste receiving system, which is the beast, that's the top photo, grit classifier, washer and screw conveyor, new process pumps, which are the bottom, you can see those three, RAS pumps, return activated sludge pumps, and also a new digest or excuse me a new digested sludge storage tank and that's the middle right photo. Next major milestones as we move forward with phase one is installing new thickening watering system. In the spring summer, we'll be working on digest or tank upgrades, cleaning, installing new covers, new mixing systems, and working on electrical instrumentation and controls. Just to note, Chris has been really the boots on the ground for the city. It's really managing the project, you know, actual day-to-day items that pop up in construction, so it's been, and the project's been going very well, so we're really pleased with the work that ESG and I've been really thankful that Chris is down there sort of keeping track of things for the city too. So for phase two, the objective of phase two is to really, how do we best maximize the use of the gas that we're going to have available and minimize the flaring of unused digester gas? So the ESG, Ian, developed a very detailed model of what we're going to be using biogas for under phase one, so that includes heating several of the buildings, all of the buildings except for the chemical building will be heated under phase one with the use of biogas. The reason for the chemical building not being included is that it's a very small heat load and it's quite a distance away from where the boiler is going to be, so it wasn't really cost-effective to run a heating loop after that one particular building. And so we looked at available gas, you'll see in a slide a little bit what we have, it changes seasonally, obviously in the wintertime when we're using a lot of biogas for heating, there's not a lot of excess available. MIAC, Monplayer Energy Advisory Committee, they worked with us on this project and they actually developed a screening tool that we had a workshop with them and went through these options and came to consensus for the recommendation that we'll have in a bit here. We compared the cost, the feasibility, the track record, and the renewable benefits of each option. So this next slide is a graphical representation of the biogas at the facility. So the orange line at the top is how much we will be making, you know, it's arranged by month of the year, and the blue line is what will be utilized for heating. So you can see there's a pretty broad range of available gas in the summer months, whereas you get into the winter months really not a whole lot of biogas available as it mostly being used for heat. So like I mentioned ESG, MIAC, and Public Works all work together to select the best alternative in our opinion. We started with five high-level options back when we were developing phase one of this project. Pretty quickly we determined that distro-keet connection from the plant due to the distance is just not a cost-effective option and you know changing the fleet over to natural gas also is just the economics didn't work out. So we narrowed it down to three more viable options and that included CHP which is combined heat and power, which is really primarily electrical production with heat recovery off the engine. The other options we looked at included biosolids drying, so a byproduct of the treatment process is a lot of solids that we have to landfill dispose of. So we looked at drying those which would reduce trekking costs and fried some stability and bracing. And the last one was renewable gas, natural gas sale. So if you clean up methane to a really high level it's essentially natural gas and that can be sold in the open market. The reason we looked at this one is there is a transfer station fairly close to the plant for propane and initially they were interested in potentially partnering with the city on this. That company wasn't actually sold during phase one and so that turned out not to be such a viable option but so instead we looked at treating it on site and then trucking it off site as opposed to a direct pipeline connection. So the items we really looked at were cost and renewable savings and the greenhouse gas offsets. So we're really looking at both the environmental and the economics of each of these options. So as I mentioned three primary options we looked at, the biosolids dryer. So the primary benefits of that, me I provided that one pager that I distributed to council has a little more detail on these different options but essentially that's really allowing us to reduce the trucking to landfill. So there's a significant reduction in cost because there's a lot of disposal costs associated with the solids from the plant. So if you take the water out you can get a lot more of the solids on one truck compared to your producer overall disposal costs. And then the renewable gas option as I mentioned when the pipeline option kind of came off the table this one became a lot less attractive. Also through this process which I initially didn't know is that there's a residual gas after you clean the methane that actually has to be burned and you have to use propane or something to burn that. So really the economics when we'll look at that in a little bit just didn't work out when you factor both the trucking of the gas off site and combusting the waste gas. It didn't become a really good economic benefit to the city. And so the final option we looked at was CHP which is as I mentioned includes an engine or generator and the rates we're looking at or the way we'd export the power would be through a power production agreement. So it would be not net metering but rather direct sale to the grid. And then there's an added benefit to CHP where you can take the heat generated from the engine as it burns the methane and bring it back into the heating loop and use it to supplement building heat. So this is really just a high level view of the economical benefits and the environmental benefits for each option. As you can see the CHP costs of five million results in a net positive revenue stream to the city of $80,000 annually. And it also has the highest greenhouse gas reduction in metric tons of $6,700. The other two options are both cash negative and both have a lower greenhouse reduction level. So in all categories we evaluated and really CHP is in our opinion the clear option or best option for the city. This is a graphical representation. There's debt service costs in the red on the right hand side to build the project and then there's also annual operating maintenance costs. But when you compare that to the exported power revenue there's still an $80,000 on the positive for the city. And this is just another graphical of the other two options as you can see. Very small amount of savings and revenue associated with these alternatives as opposed to the project costs which is much greater. So that brings us to what we're recommending to councils that we move forward with developing combined heat and power at the wastewater plant as our phase two alternative. Again it's the most environmentally friendly option. It's the only option that's cash positive. We're able to you know recover the heat off the engine as we're making power. But the economics that were on this just one point to make is that it really relies on a standard offer agreement for the rate of the power sale. And actually going to turn it over to Ian for a minute to talk a little bit more about how that system works. Thanks Kurt. So we've been speaking on the city's behalf. ESG has with VEPI who's the administrator of the standard offer program for the PUC for a few years now. And within the last six to eight months we've picked that conversation back up specifically about this project. And speaking with Caroline Alderman who's the secretary for VEP and in the lead. We're very confident that this project would qualify for their standard offer program not only qualify but be awarded to the standard offer program. So far every project that has been into the standard offer program for the program we're going after the food waste digestion technology bracket has been awarded and that they're proposed pricing. So in discussions with VEP and just following the process this year they're going to keep the pricing from last year the price cap and the same car route. So from a capacity standpoint we should be one of the only projects bidding in and we're confident that the price they awarded last year they're going to keep this year. That RFP should be coming out any week now. I think last year was a little bit late. I think it came out towards the end of January but we're expecting that any week now and then proposals will be due in April. Schedule-wise after proposals are in they're scheduled to review and then award a PPA by August of this year. So just to recap we're very confident in our ability to get that award through this program. Okay ask a quick question just on that point. Sure. So how when you get if you get awarded the standard offer how long does that last for? How long is that agreement? Is it time limited? 20 years. If you should not get it is there a backup plan? Well I think my recommendation would be to reapply the following year. Okay so it's not just a one chance. Okay right. So the design process on if we do if council does want to move forward with CHP we'd be looking at generator sizing but really from what I'm hearing from ESG is that the 400 kilowatt generator which is shown in these economics is really most likely going to be the best size engine for the project. But we'll look at that try to minimize flaring and optimize power production so that would be that's part of the development agreement with ESG something we'd be looking at. This next slide shows under a CHP scenario the utilization of the gas. So the blue is what would be used for heating buildings by month and the yellow is what would be used for power production and the purple is what would need to be flared which we just can't capture potentially with the 400 kilowatt engine. Basically we'd produce a little bit more in the summer times than what would be used under a 400 kilowatt engine. That's part of why I just wanted to mention that we'd be looking at optimizing that but right now we still believe that this is probably going to turn out to be the engine sizing but certainly we'll dig in it to it somewhere. Can I just follow up on that? So theoretically if we had a larger engine than that we would not have to flare as much or any but it would just be far oversized for most of the year. Yeah I mean when you oversize an engine too much it takes more methane to get at the fire so you need more to run it on its lowest end so you actually might be losing a potential to make electricity during some of the lower or colder months. So next steps what we'll be looking at is negotiating a project development agreement which is very similar to how we started is the exact same way we started phase one of this project. ESG right now is estimating a cost of $200,000 to develop the project to a level where we'd be ready to actually sign contracts under a guaranteed maximum price contract which is how we structured phase one. We would work on this after tonight and hopefully hopefully be back here the second meeting in February with the PDA for your approval and on that just a note on the $200,000 we would step that what I've talked with ESG about is developing milestones on the project development so we'd only develop the project enough to submit for the standard offer agreement and then once we received that approval we'd authorize another expenditure to develop the connection agreement with the utility and then once that was approved we'd you know release the remaining amount of work for the full $200,000. So Ian reviewed the schedule you know we're looking at submitting the standard offer to the standard offer program in April we would anticipate an award in August and then we have one year to construct the project from execution of the interconnection agreement with the utility. Yeah and then when we haven't determined the dates when we'd actually come back for the contract approval yet but we'll know more about that in February hopefully. And a little bit on funding I do one point to make here is that we have the grant from USDA and that is that grant award between the USDA grant and the state of Vermont pollution control grant is just over five million and so that allows us to potentially move forward with this project without having to go to bond we have had our our attorney review the language of the phase one bond and we believe that this project fits in with that wording of the bond so we we could do this change this project as a change order or amendment to our existing contract with the ESG and fund it through our existing bond bond availability funds. But I do want to talk to USDA about potentially having them fund this project as well as another benefit to making it a change order offers a lower interest rate so which would help the economics overall. And would that be funding for the entire project through the USDA grant? Yeah yes and because this cash positive we wouldn't have any impact through repairs. All right so question from counsel. Go ahead Donna. And this may be obvious when you're not heating but you have power you all are using that power for air conditioning yes. Oh you mean from if we were to make two CHP. In the summertime when you have AC. AC you talk about. Well not directly because it's an export to the utility grid and it's not a net metering it's not actually necessarily used at the plant but it would go to the grid for use. And that was all the yellow you said was power going to the grid. Right okay. And I forgot to mention also that under a 400 watt kilowatt or kilowatt hour generator we would make more than twice what the plant uses in power annually. So we'd be exporting twice as much or more than what the plant uses for power. Right but the plant would still have its own power bills. Correct. Yeah yes go ahead. Just so I'm clear if this CHP system was adopted would there be any gas that would be used to heat the building directly or would it be simply heat capture off of the chip system? Well the heat is actually from methane which is the wastewater so primarily from trucked waste. Right. Not so much a chip system. Are you using chip like CHP? Oh sorry we have. I do district keys like oh. The chip system at the work. There'll be there's a new boiler being installed to sit beside our old existing boiler that burns methane. Okay so we use currently methane digester gas to to heat buildings so we will be just burning digested gas directly to heat buildings and the excess gas will go to a generator. Right. That will produce power and while that generator is running it produces heat and that heat will be recovered and brought back into the loop to help the boiler produce heat. Okay. For the buildings. In addition and in the summer that heat from the generator will just dissipate into the atmosphere is that I mean it won't be obviously you won't pump it back into the building but but that that would be the plan is that heat would just be released. Except for the digesters that we do have two digesters that get heated year-round. Okay so there'd be some probably some extra but some of it would be used for that. And as I understand it in the summer there will be some that that pink band will is gas that will not be captured basically so we will still be flaring a little bit in the summertime. That's correct. Okay. Future opportunity. So this is the sort of project that just really just gets my heart rate going. It's great. I'm really psyched about this. Yes Jack. This all sounds like a totally great idea and like there's we'd have to be have rocks in our heads to not support it. And so my question is what am I not seeing that's a potential downside? You can tell me there isn't any. Well I mean the risk is if we don't get awarded the standard offer. I mean like Ian said we have a high degree of confidence that we'll get it but we don't have that yet and that really would change the economics if we don't get that forward. So it's a downside only if it doesn't happen. But we'll know before we start building anything. That's correct.  Oh sorry. If yeah if we don't get awarded the standard offer rate for electricity. Yeah go ahead Dan. To that how competitive are the standard offer? Is there history or understanding as to prior municipalities seeking the standard offer? So far in the the carbon that we're qualifying for and that we're going after every every proposal every proposal has been awarded. Last year there were three all three were awarded and they were all private partnerships. There hasn't been a project like this project like the cities that has gone into the program. The ones last year were all straight food waste but we're we've been talking to VEP about this program about this project for months now. So their understanding is that we're really going to be the only ones bidding into it. So right now the the degree of confidence of us winning it is gone out because we think we're the only ones. There was a big slew of food waste digesters that went in for the award last year. This year we don't foresee any. And is there a cap for the amount of offers that they make or is it something where each one is evaluated on its individual merit? There is. There's a capacity cap of 1.17 megawatts. So for RFRKW we're well within that cap. If there were a multitude of projects expected we'd be a little bit more concerned. But last year I think they awarded above the cap above the car val. All the prices that were submitted. So everyone that bid in was awarded the price that they bid in. So that was good news too. Okay and you're not aware of anything that might change that change of policy or anything? No none whatsoever. In fact they're just repeating what they did last year in regards to the price cap itself and the car val overall at 1.17 megawatts. Thank you. Lauren. And because this is standard offer this doesn't have any implications for our net metering cap issues correct? Because they're two totally separate programs. And then just for clarity so you talked about under the biosolids drying and reducing trucking costs. So under this system there's no implications like we just have to keep doing with a sludge what we do now and truck it up to the landfill. Is that correct? Do we not change here? No change there. With phase one though we are improving our dewatering technology the equipment that's being put in so we are going to reduce the amount of solids that we're having to to truck to the landfill just with better equipment that you want in the sludge. Thanks. Any other questions? Lynn. And I know this is probably far off in the planning but it does seem like there could be a possibility to find a use for that gas that we will be flaring for the moment for something like a bit of sludge drying or something like that is I mean maybe not that specifically but but can you imagine uses for that currently flared gas? Heat loops being installed at the moment so we'll be able in the boilers to go along with the heat loop to add all these additional buildings that Kurt had mentioned. So we'll be able to use the gas for we're actually bringing a second digester online so we'll have demand to heat that digester and then the buildings that are involved in that heat loop so we're we're adding demand before this you know so we'll be using the gas that we're producing not all of it and so we want to utilize the rest of it the electrical generation we will be using. Donna. I'd like to make the motion of discussion is done. Well before we do that I want to particularly give Jeff and Carl an opportunity to chat. They're members of the Energy Advisory Committee and if you would like to say anything now would be a great time. Jeff Fitzgerald. Yep I'm here with Carl Johnson who's member of MIAC and we've worked pretty closely with ESG and city staff here on this and we obviously are very supportive of the idea. The one thing I wanted to bring to city council's attention is I'm just going to be optimistic here and assume that this all goes forward we get the standard operating agreement and we're in this really pretty good seat and you guys have to decide what you're going to do with this bonus that is pretty much a cash positive situation where you're generating money from an improvement that you're making and I'd like to suggest that if you're serious about your net zero goals that you start thinking about setting aside any cash positive money that this project generates to really pay for these substantial net zero goals that we have as a city because we really haven't set aside money for that and this is a perfect opportunity for the council to begin to think about that in in light of I mean it's just a natural fit I mean here is an energy producing income producing project that is could help us pay for those goals and the only other thing I mean I I should have talked to Ian before I'm standing here because when we kind of shop this you bring up a very good point about the excess gas and we do have to flare some in the summer and when we shopped it we were talking about not now but you know once we get through and I don't know if it needs to be before a standard offer is application is in but we might want to be thinking about asking ESG to really run the numbers on two engines a smaller engine that can run really efficiently during the winter months when we're using most of the gas to heat the plant and then the 400 so that you would have a total of 600 and then have very little leftover gas for the summer months it's obviously more cost but I for one would like to see the numbers to reduce that flaring and they might not make any sense I haven't I haven't seen them yet and I do know that the 400 seems to make the most sense if you're only going with one one engine thank you I will just like to express for myself that I'm very interested in this possibility of taking any money that the this project earns over and above the debt service or you know to the project be allocated towards a net zero goal either for the city in terms of our internal green revolving loan fund or potentially for projects for the community at large but that's a conversation that we can have at another point I just want you to know that I'm interested in that surprisingly enough something we can is there any any other comments about any I just add yes I wouldn't be able to come to work tomorrow with the guys downstairs if I didn't add that competing with that interest is our aging infrastructure that needs to be updated and this would be able to enable us to accelerate our sewer replacement and water replacement line schedules and or look at the rates that the ratepayers pay pay but certainly net zero is also important all the part of the conversation any other comments from council or the public yeah come on up hello everyone my name is david papiersky and I was wondering what does maintenance costs look like now and in the future for the chp will that cut into the eighty thousand dollars towards the city can you comment on that please so it is the maintenance cost is in the economics evaluation so that's included so the eighty thousand is net profit after maintenance costs are factored in and I'm just checking the number one hundred and seventy thousand dollars annually is what we're estimating on a single engine for on them we might be able to actually reduce that we've chris and I have talked about potentially doing um like oil changes and things like that in house this number projects everything being hired out so maybe some room for improvement on that great any other questions uh yes go ahead I just want uh Courtney and to talk about you know the eighty thousand isn't a fixed figure I mean there's actually a pretty big upside here uh that that this isn't you know so just talk about that a little bit if you would um so well yet the eighty thousand is is conservative number um right now it's a projected so it's not it's not guaranteed we have to work what the guaranteed levels will be with the sg when we develop the project development agreement um but I do feel that that number is fairly conservative um you know sort of looking at like for example the high on m costs if you go to a two engine model we do believe that that will be significantly less just because the cost of the engine is so great that your debt service will go up so much um so it could also go way down depending on which way we go um with you know the number of engines on the system um but for the single engine option it's conservative and I think most likely we'll be able to exceed that revenue number I just wanted to add that the revenue the export revenue through the standard offer program that's a fixed rate so that's that does not change over 20 years but the cost or in the system the maintenance costs um the operational costs those do go up that's what we're projecting so okay the eighty thousands that they average over 20 years that's good to know thank you um Glenn and Donna and I may have just lost my question but but let me try to understand what you said just now Kurt that uh the the cost of adding a second engine to capture more of the gas would would eat into uh that eighty thousand dollars so that we might we would not likely get as much cash out of it the the balance of that would be we'd be using more of the gas produced okay so right now with the single engine we're using 80 percent of all the methane so to capture that last 20 percent um this is a significant capital cost and then and you more or less lose the profit the cash positive aspect of the project Donna so if you start with the small engine what's your option and when is your option to add a large one after you've had some experience is it a never added or can you add it um I think you speak to the scene I think you'd have to go back to the standard offer program to change the amount of power that you were proposing to settle the grid so it's a real commitment for a significant amount of time right thank you for the discussion oh sorry did you I was going to add we so if we decided that the city decided to go with the 400 option and move forward with the the proposal and the SOP the standard offer program and you were awarded for 400 you could always go back the next year and go back in for another 400 if you want it uh or if we we do the evaluation and then the city decides to change that 400 to something else would we just have to decide before we submitted a proposal to SOP in April oh lord um I just wanted to thank me and everyone who worked so hard on this it's not often we get something that's both the cheaper and most environmentally friendly and like every that every column is the most positive so it's great to see and just you know a lot of hard work has gone into this so excited to move forward with it um and unsurprisingly I also am very interested in this idea of trying to capture some or all of that money to put towards our um net zero goals which are always incredibly hard to raise those kinds of dollars but we'll look forward to that discussion in the future okay any further comments on this uh is there a motion go ahead Don I'd like to make the motion to authorize the Department of Public Works to enter into negotiations with energy system groups for a project development agreement to advance the freight phase two of CHP project second and then basically covers selecting CHP as the preferred alternative I think yeah okay uh I guess at least on that motion would you see that as allowing the Department of Public Works to explore an option of two engines I think as as Jeff had suggested as part of that CHP this doesn't limit that that's what I that's why I want to make sure that you didn't see that as a limitation okay great um further there was a second right okay oh yes thank you so all right further discussion okay all in favor please say aye all right and I want to add my thanks as well thank you so much for your hard work on all of this and to to me for your for your work as well it's very exciting looking forward to the next uh phase of the process thank you okay so what's that all right well so we're going to move on unless people want to break um I'm going to assume that we're we're still good okay uh so we're up to the budget public hearing um so I'm going to officially open the public hearing uh on the budget there are a few pieces to this so we're going to have an overview from our city manager um there is a couple of folks here who are here to talk about particular items um that affect the budget one is the CVPSA I know that's a separate budgeted item that is or a separate ballot item but we have some representatives here from the CVPSA to talk about their item and then we had also had a request last meeting last time to discuss the allocation for the molecular development corporation so we'll be taking that up as well and then I think we'll talk about any further adjustments or any other part of the budget after that so that's sort of the order that I had envisioned unless there are any concerns or objections to that okay um good oh yeah no worries shall I begin we're missing Council Member Bate and Council Member Casey this is true let's yeah let's see if they're easily findable okay thank you this is the second public hearing on the city's budget we had work sessions in uh December and early January City Council prepared a preliminary budget that was approved on January 10th I believe and then our eighth excuse me and then we had a public hearing last week on the 15th and this is the second public hearing this presentation is pretty similar to the one I gave last week but it has been updated and has a little bit of extra information so for you council members try not to fall asleep if you can make it through again our budget goals are to implement our strategic plan continue our funding plan deliver services responsible services to our residents and visitors and businesses while dealing with major challenge with our employee health insurance costs that we have a strategic planning framework I'm not going to attempt to read this or ask anyone to try to read it but just to show that we have one and we try to frame our budget and our reporting around it so taking a look at those we have in our community prosperity item we have a hundred thousand dollars in funding for the Montpelier Development Corporation this is the fourth year over five year commitment we have a planning and zoning staff to implement our new zoning and master plan adopted well the new zoning was adopted last year and the master plan is being created this year and we are implementing our new TIF district in our environmental stewardship area we have a five thousand dollars for BEAC a hundred and seventy six thousand five hundred dollars for stormwater projects forty thousand for the GMT circulator bus which could also be converted to on-demand transit and thirty five thousand dollars for an energy plan and that does not include the wastewater project that you just heard about for our inclusive equitable and welcoming community we included a hundred and thirty one thousand dollars for community fund and those funds were just awarded a couple weeks ago we have ten thousand dollars for a contract to provide social equity services training and awareness for our community we spend about a hundred forty five thousand dollars on the feast program which is the meals program at the senior center there is some offsetting revenue to that but that's our net cost and that helps provide meals to many many people in need we have paid thirty two thousand six hundred for Montpelier alive to provide the many services that they provide we have fourteen thousand dollars in other community enhancements this includes things like the July third celebration other celebrations certain events and those kinds of things and then the new a new this year was forty five thousand dollars that the council allocated for the homelessness task force sustainable infrastructure we have had a long term planned increase in what we call our steady state planning for our capital improvements planning equipment plan and we had twenty five thousand dollars to go to hit the the initial target and that was included this year obviously that could continue to go up in future years but it was the the plan for this year and we did that our water and sewer improvement plan is being followed we've converted a couple of DPW expenditures into line staff recognizing that there was a shortage of folks for the snow plowing and some of the other works so we've reallocated some of our funding to provide more frontline staff did I do a double there okay for more housing we uh included a hundred and ten thousand dollars for the housing trust fund that's the second year that has been funded at this level the year before that was sixty thousand or something like that so it's been a much more investment in housing public health and safety we've got a sixteen thousand in for our share of a social worker for the mobility to well it would be uh washington county mental health but it would be aligned with the mobility police department we've anticipated additional public events given that this is an election year and a lot of community activity our paramedic program has continued and our project safe cat just continued those don't have specific line items we don't have numbers for them but they are initiatives that we are trying to continue additionally we have two separate ballot items the central vermont public safety authority has submitted a ballot item for twenty three thousand five hundred and we received today a petition from central vermont home health and hospice for twenty three thousand five hundred dollars so those are in addition to the city's budget responsive and responsible government we've continued our communications efforts uh and hopefully we'll be doing quite a bit this year too we actually expand those our employee wellness program remains funded uh we've tried to keep all our service levels at least level we did try not to reduce them and we've kept fourteen thousand dollars for the mobiliar bridge article on the monthly page uh was included at the strategic plan we laid out certain things that needed that we were hoping to accomplish and again these were goals the council set in april and it's good to check ourselves when we do our budget in the winter again we will be looking at a potential bond in november for for led streetlights the cso projects are in the capital plan the equity consultant is in the budget the downtown master plan is in the process of being completed with some funding for coordinated signals and cip at the last meeting there was a request a question about timing and i believe that information was sent out to all of you is that correct no i don't recall it but oh i got it so maybe i didn't get to you i will check and see if not you'll have it before the meeting's over tonight um emergency management funding was increased we have a plan for alternative fuels including a police hybrid our parking garage operations of course are deferred until the garage is completed the housing trust fund again funded the infrastructure was funded personnel plan funds are in the social worker the wi-fi was not included it was a approximately 80 000 dollar cost and did not make the recommended budget and to date has not been put back in at last week the council made a decision to hold to consider a bond in november for the recreation center confluence park a design has been approved and 20 000 is in the budget toward getting more information on that design and savings pasture does not have a firm plan in place but i can report there is one in negotiation so also included besides that list were the homelessness task force for 45 000 and funds for the emerald ash borer to combat the emerald ash borer 14 000 and the two valid items that i just mentioned not included are the citizen survey the public wi-fi and the state land repayment of 134 000 again we got some more information on that as well which i know was shared so where does that leave us the city tax rate for the city budget itself would go up uh 4.7 cents or about 4.3 percent when you add the ballot items to that it becomes 5.3 cents or 4.7 percent uh and that all of those combined would be about a hundred twenty one dollars additional on a 228 000 home that is the median home price as our our last reappraisal the school residential rate is rising our proposed to be rising 8.4 cents or 5.2 percent we've totaled those together along with our water and sewer benefit charges it would be a 14 cent increase about 5 percent or a 313 dollar impact on the average on the median residential home so just looking at that mathematically you can kind of see how this breaks out so that is the impact of the city's budget and the school's budget we the school just finalized their budget last night i believe and have submitted the numbers to us so that's it this is our final public hearing because we do not have a bond at least as of right now we don't have a bond proposed for uh march we would not be holding any additional bond public hearings obviously there are a couple more council meetings where any of these items can be discussed uh election day is march 3rd from 7 a.m to 7 p.m with early early voting to start in mid-february as soon as the printed ballots arrive turned over to the council we obviously have to finalize the budget tonight to put a number on the ballot sure okay um is there anything uh immediately that folks would like to talk about um related to anything there we're discussing at dc separately yes yeah we're going to discuss on these separately yeah okay um uh so uh kim jane i know you are here to talk about cbpsa would you like to come tell us about that ballot item well i just want to tell you what we're trying to do and what we hope to accomplish you make sure to pull that mic pretty close to thank you great what we're doing we've solicited an rfp to examine our communications architecture in the region that would include the dispatch function our transmitters towers coverage area gaps obsolescence of equipment future development for the public safety communication and bearing mob failure in the cap west towns and these systems are all connected to one another bearing and mob failure both use the towers that serve the cap west towns some more some some others use it more than others but they are all used collectively i think the plan would require that bearing and mob failure would each maintain a dispatch center so that there would be a failover as we have now if we have an emergency the other center could uh could pick it up we've received three responses for to our rfp for approximate cost of $80,000 we have about $35,000 on hand which is savings because our executive director retired halfway through his contract so that's why our ballot item is for $50,000 we have not selected any provider yet there's three of them major engineering firms uh interisle televate and federal engineering we're expecting reviews of those bids from police and fire of the two cities and the cap west people we have a meeting coming up next month when i expect we will narrow our choices of who we would like to get and then we'll see whether we get the money um why are we doing this i think don has given you a letter from one of our members uh for cap west will shores shores as he points out the system we're now using has been patchworked in his own unneeded basis equipment is obsolete some of the transmitters are 20 to 30 years old interference occurs from local vermont public safety organizations in franklin county in a montreal taxi cab there's inability of users to get their messages through there's congestion and interference on the line and that is obviously an increased safety problem both barry and montreal have dead zones and some lack communications in buildings cap west both the cities have interference from other users the barry police uh fire chief tells me sometimes he can't even call his office um the hospital is concerned about transmitting devices interfering in medical equipment and has lack of service in some buildings and it runs its own dispatching service for ambulances they've asked to be part of the study and we've consulted our bidders they've all said they'll include the hospital at no extra cost so we now have four major entities that are going to be involved in this study all of whom are vital to the central mont region there's a very uncertain future communications in central the public safety commissioners proposing a complete reorganization of state public safety communications he wants to create an agency of public safety and it would be responsible for all public safety communications interestingly public safety has hired one of the people bidding on our project televate to assist in air planning what public safety wants to do is eliminate giving free dispatching services in the state right now berlin and northfield get free dispatching the state provides it at least in part i mean the state does police for berlin and we dispatch for their fire but the point is if the state gets out of subsidizing some those people are going to have to come and get new dispatching service and hopefully that will provide part of the mix to consolidate and we can have a real regional plan which anybody that looked at this match up is says that you couldn't design one more inefficiently unless you let it grow over 30 years bit by bit also the e-91 board may be organized that's the organization that plans for public safety answering i think you all know this but i always repeat it if somebody makes a call for 911 it goes to williston or maybe some other part of the state and then it's called back to either my pewter barrier wherever the emergency is and the equipment is in uh dispatched jitman county is estimated that they could save over 90 seconds if you had a single system where the call comes to the people that are going to dispatch the equipment and 90 seconds can be critical if it's a medical emergency this is having local communities run a peace app is kind of the third rail of communication planning it's very controversial and there's many different points of view of the best way to do it but if things at the state level materializes i think they will i don't think it's going to be immediate but in the next couple of years or so there's going to be a lot of pressures to local areas to pick up their public safety communications also there's a community uh central mod fiber uh municipality which is looking to provide for uh improved broadband in the area they have retained one of the people that a bid on or gave us a bid in or i'll to do their work the third thing that's happening is first net which is a federally funded program is proposing at and t to develop a whole cell communication system so there's all new players in different organizations that are beginning to impact what we do in central rome and unless we know what we have what it's going to cost how fast it will obsolete and how inefficient it is we won't be in we by we i mean the whole region i don't mean my appeal here will not be in a position to capture the the uh the planning and the effort and the money that's necessary to get us up into a full running system what we hope to accomplish we're not proposing just another study to collect office dust somewhere what we're planning to do is identify for all the potential users all the systems they have how much of it is obsolete when all to be upgraded and what is needed to go into the future for example we need to plan for backup power for all electric dependent components if a transmitter goes out where's the power that's going to uh get it going and we are going to to check circuit diversity to protect all communications lights see what kind of different circuits we can get we can use fire fiber optics on some routes more efficiently and we can perhaps partner with cv fiber to come up with the most efficient system maybe microwave transmissions will be a way to reach dead or other zones we will act accurately map coverage gaps and remedies for the best use of uh radios project i am really excited about who will study the capacity of consoles and the record system to support a community computer aided dispatch the computer aided dispatch the dispatcher has on the computer picture that will show exactly where the unit you you want to send has to go and provide directions to the unit with equipment in the vehicle will take you right there no longer go down the dirt road 100 yards take it right at the old dead tree you know you really have a computer that'll tell you how to get there and it should speed up service what we will have when we're done with it is an assessment that will provide a document for all the users and planners for our system and it will provide a critical tool for having a voice in the major future changes that are coming at the state level it's also likely that once we do this study and we take a look at the cost it's going to require a complete review of the agency that i'm now in the chairman of if if the funding for improvements is ever to come about we need to move to the chitin and model we need to replace the people that are on our board with people who are actively operating in the field they have we get bill frazier and tony fecos on our board and people like don and i who have an idea but not the training or skill to pull it off will be replaced that's my view and we have to figure out a way for the cap west towns to be an active financial partner because they're going to be a major benefit of this all of that is going to require a complete review of the funding system between the cities and and the towns so i'm looking forward to this year first of all to do a planning and as that year winds down in the next year a restructuring of of cbpsa because it's either going to be a vehicle for moving forward collectively or or it isn't it's as simple as that and i think it is the only system that can move collectively the experience i've had on the on the authority over the last three years it's like herding cats it's really hard to get people who have desperate needs of their own to look around and say okay i want to listen to a plan that a lot of other people have to try to make my plan work better and i i'm not critical of that that's their job to make their own systems work but unless we can get people to think collectively anybody that's looked at communications will tell you the system we've got today is nuts or the non-system we have so i'm looking i think this can be a very exciting project but maybe not sitting around here telling you how you're going to make money with your sewage which seems to be like a wonderful idea but there may be a possibility of first rate directed collective communication system it'll be a great thing for the region we all need each other in this business and this is the best chance to work together so thank you i just want to add a couple things kim we have a great overview and details is that when he talks about herding cats the sneak study is going to go in and look at marshfield cabin all our 23 plus towns and what that does and not only gives us a tool for legislators but we can go to each town select board and say this is what you have this is how it works and doesn't work these are the problems in the field with your emergency responders and this would be your allocation to solve this problem so the the assessment is really important to get real clear facts locally that people don't have as well as a vision where to go and i just want to back up to some real life-threatening problems when the responders were in the sauna that went on fire i'm very much bigger road the chief lost contact with the the firefighters in the building the radio system failed completely and it happens often when the respondents are inside a certain structure they can't talk to the people outside the structure in fact they can't even talk to one another in it so i mean we're talking about some really weak systems here with radios and then we want to broaden that to look at cellular look at fiber the basis of all the communication so i mean it's it's good to go faster and get there quicker and we have long ways to go on some of our trips but that the fact that the respondents themselves are vulnerable because they lose communication scares me and so it's real-life problems we're trying to solve here thank you whipped us into with the bill Fraser one afternoon and our former executive director and we were all beating our gums about what's needed and we all said we need a study not really a study but an assessment i want to use the correct word that resulted in coming to this council which urged its members to go to cvpsa and try to get an assessment which led us to go to barry etc so there's been there's a leadership here and we look forward to the leadership continuing so thank you thank you now this is not an item that is in our budget it but it is on the ballot so that in mind so any other questions or comments all right thank you so much thank you for listening yeah okay sure i just feel the need to clarify i think i uh spoke up at the joint meeting you had with the barry city council and i quite severely critiqued the partial plan that had been put forward and i believe that they're on the right track now i think that the single site model was flawed and a cost-saving approach and i believe that a resilient this this will this assessment will lead to an architecture which will be a foundation for a plan which will attract funding and new members so i i think they're on the right track i want i need to clarify that my concerns are addressed by the way they've proceeded so far a resilient failover system will grow out of this but i would ask y'all to support it because it's necessary barry's fire chief the island and the silos the self-interest silos of our public safety community um are really holding us back towards safety and economy and they have real needs there to address the risks to human life and that tana just elaborated on but the only way to go forward is to get a plan that's coherent enough for all the towns to have no question about buying into it and i think they're on the right track for that thank you anyone else okay all right so the the next part of this we have i think some folks from the popular development corporation and that is a part of our budget so i'd like to invite you all to the table here and give us an update team's here he's a board member as well he's he's not he's gonna be all right i haven't been the earpiece so the um my name is uh bill kaplan i'm the chair of the ampere development corporation and um i got your email this afternoon i'm here um i have a i have a report but i could go through it you know line by line and all that i'm but i would love to know what you'd like and try and tailor my responses my presentation whatever you'd like to that and that report was sent out to them in advance oh yeah this this report was sent uh last week so i think it's fair to assume that we've at least had the time to review it um i i'll speak for myself and say there is a lot of detail in some of those at least at least one of those documents has some really interesting statistics in it which i look forward to digging into further because those are the kinds of indicators community indicators that i've been very interested in for the city just in general just as a mirror to like know how we're doing to know if we're healthy and it's certainly not a complete picture you know of health but it is but there's a lot of pieces there that i think are really important so that that was that was very interesting i also just want to um express you know with the um moving on of uh lisa maxwell just that that's a bummer and so but in any case but moving forward um so uh one question that i have for you all is in terms of the funding for this um for this year is um just tell us about what that funding is going to go towards sure um so in that when we sent this out we also talked about restructuring um i think that some of our um you know i think we should back up and talk a little bit about our directors because i think that what we've what we've attempted to do in this is is find one person to do a big job and uh with a small budget that allows for one person um partially and and then um have a business uh an operating budget that um kind of supports that and can can support the efforts of that one staff member um in having people relocate and come and and and get integrated into the community we've had some really great successes and at the same time i think um we realize that there's some vulnerability in having all our eggs in one basket so we've restructured uh our our operating our operations to have to reflect more of what's happening we have a very engaged in working board we have eight members of the community who um i you know i've gotten to know we've all gotten to know each other and have a great deal of respect and and have been functioning uh really well together as a working board so our new structure kind of operates as a working board and then as opposed to having um one executive director that basically takes all of our funding we will have um project managers that are already people embedded in the community doing this kind of work so we'll have specialists that'll come in and for instance we know savings pastures coming up so we'll have someone who will be the project manager for savings pasture who's knowledgeable in land conservation housing development urban planning traffic whatever the issues are and if it takes one or more we can you know kind of taper that up and down and make that work and be much more um kind of customized to the needs of what the what the calls of the various projects that arise are so um we've been fortunate and had great people in these positions um and and i but i think that the idea of going and trying to find another great person um it just consumes the board in an off-mission task so we realize that there are people in the community and there are people we can hire as these project managers on a part-time basis so that's where the the funding will go yeah uh Connor and then Lauren Bill thanks so much for the information you sent me i think that answered a lot of my questions and i totally agree the project manager model yeah i think it's the best approach on this oh it's good to hear um the only question is um you know when we approved a hundred thousand dollars last fiscal year i think there was the assumption that there would be you know sort of a full-time staffer so nobody's fault you know just the volunteer board the iron processes a bit slow you know and i was gutted to see Lisa leave because i thought she had some great ideas you know just sitting down with her um so i was just hoping to get a sense of you know if it was like from may to november that we had a vacancy in that executive director position were there a lot of like vacancy savings banked just with the salary and benefits yeah that's a great question what we did what you know it's interesting when we had our first meetings early on and we looked at the budget and we said oh we want to hire someone who's qualified we want to hire someone and be able to give them health care we want to be able to do all these pieces we realize that leaves you with about eight dollars you know do when you figure fringe you figure operating yeah you figure in office you figure you know telephone you figure some support you figure a few meetings and some facilitated events and you really don't have much so what this what we've done with that money is we've taken that and created that reserve because we're there to be a project even if we had someone like Lisa or Laura or you know we would we would then not have money to actually let them hire in a in a specialty where they didn't have the excellence and so our our model now you know says okay it works we'll we've kind of used that as our I don't want to say rainy day because it's in inevitable I guess rain is inevitable too but the you know it's it's it's the idea that when there's a savings pasture or the pit or one of those project comes up and there's a need for some some expertise or some resources that you know a rendering or a rfb creation or something like that this organization now has the ability to do that whereas prior to that it we just didn't have that you know we were kind of moving along saying okay let's see maybe we'll do some fundraising maybe we'll do some other things if something were to come up that was beyond our you know budgetary abilities yeah yeah thank you for the information it was really helpful to see one question I had so moving to this model when you know my previous understanding of what MDC did it also involved kind of cultivating and brainstorming with local folks on like what opportunities there might be so this sounds like it'll be a lot more reactive as opposed to proactive like when a project comes up then MDC could step in and offer some services is that fair or is that no no I guess use those as examples I think that you know for these conversations around the community and things we would have a person for that so there are you know in our priorities around kind of business retention and and and climate surveys those are things where we would also hire a project manager I apologize I wasn't I wasn't able to kind of give the full spectrum but it really does allow this this model really does allow us to have kind of the right person for the right task whereas you know you think about a one person kind of heading up the the project to create awareness around the hotel on the garage who also could do climate surveys who also and we've had people like this but in order to do it retain them and actually be stable this kind of spreads our our our reliance is out into the community that's already existing here and thank you that that's really helpful and I guess just one follow-up so some of what you're describing I'm a little fuzzy on the line between like what a developer would do anyway or would pay for like what do you see as the city obligation slash benefit where it makes sense to be paying taxpayer dollars for this kind of facilitation versus what maybe is more appropriate to be paid by by the developer themselves yeah I think a great example is that we have a a city that has a large portion of its of its riverfront are our parking lots and they're parking lots that are controlled by the state one of the one of our priorities and one of our endeavors has been to engage with the state about what those could be because they're they're greatly underutilized they're it's not the right fit for the right place that said there's a need those needs have to be addressed there's some realities but I think that's that's a place where you know there is a developer isn't going to come in and do that you know it's it's the the difference between I think development and economic development you know like real estate development is about timing and and kind of a it sometimes at the paces seems long but it's about making it happen as quickly as as possible there's a economic driver personal private and normal the economic development is about a long-term plan that looks at some of the areas that may be underutilized but because of that time frame and because of the ability of private developers to find other projects maybe there's some and and not kind of be able to advance with between a conversation between the city and the state and and do all that that's what this is you know at the economic development aspect of our kind of planning can be that does yeah thank you Donna I'm comparing you to the housing trust fund and we give them money so that they can have some sitting there when a project comes up and so I'm hearing you say that's sort of what you're looking to use proportions of your funds with is that when a project comes up you'll have funds to assign someone to that project and nurture it that's interesting I don't know enough about how they operate well no I'm just saying you understand that that comparison I'll just sorry just jump in here and say I thought of the same thing actually just in terms of like like with the housing trust fund we have an allocation for them but they don't necessarily spend it that year they sort of anticipate that projects are coming down the road and and so similarly you know you have you might have some in reserve but that could be used for for projects that are coming up that we know are coming similar to the housing trust fund if that's well I mean if that's not a fair analogy that's okay that's that's what it just reminded me of that it reminded me of that yes so I don't mean to confuse you with the orientation of maybe the council yeah so but and you sent us a lot of data about the area but I didn't see any financial statement like even close to what your fund balance is so or what you think each project or an average project might take and that would be just helpful and maybe it's not doable but it's interesting because you know you think about some of our projects are for instance it was an organization here that was looking and trying to decide whether to relocate to Barry or be here and they were you know a public not or not for profit that that serves you know a segment of the community and we worked with them we offered them you know kind of advice on why this area might be better we we basically were it was I don't want to say sales but it was about the attributes and the pros and cons and we were and we tried to work with them to go through a good process about how to do that um if there were a need there to then come up with a little extra you know help or some legal advice or something like that we would have that ability to do that you know that's a small kind of you know kind of um I don't want to say non-budgeted because it is this reserve that we have will be there I think the the framing that we've looked at it is we started off kind of faking it till we made it because we didn't have a budget enough to hire someone and actually fund a project at the same time because with a hundred thousand dollars you end up with a staff member fringe benefits we've gone through that you know and and there's a little bit at the end yes it's not insignificant but it's not enough to actually enable someone to take on a project like the pit or something like that where you may need to do some architectural drawings you might need to do some other uh coordinating and and and research and due diligence so those are the pieces that um you know are there I I don't the reactive part some of it's reactive and some of it is planning when someone says we're leaving the community we're reactive when you know we talk and listen to what the city would like and what the council wants you know on savings pasture or other things like that we're at the ready you know so Jack yeah thanks for coming um I don't want to come across as being negative or hostile but can you tell us how much cash on hand you have and you know just as a as a baseline piece of information how much cash on hand the development corporation has and what you anticipate spending on project managers in the coming year um the answer is I don't know um and that's not I I mean I just I'm not prepared I got this at I look 236 this afternoon I got an email to come in which I'm happy to and I and I and I can get you some information um I think that we're you know we're a private not-for-profit and it's an interesting question that I'll need to discuss with the board about how we present things and how we do that but I can certainly give you a projection of of kind of our what we're looking at as far as project managers and and kind of or even if a um you know if a if an example might be helpful we could kind of project you know kind of budget out a project which I think we'd be doing anywhere anyway and we will share that but where this is a new structure for us it would I don't know that it would make sense for me to guess at those things okay thank you yeah and I want to apologize for the last many emails I was like this seems like this would be good yeah I agree I'd much rather be here than not be here contact you last week and I mean just anyway you said you you did let me know that this the MDC was discussed as I wanted to be at the meeting just fine but anyway I'm glad you followed up uh Glenn I do appreciate you coming in and all of the conversation we're having I was sorry to see Lisa Maxwell go as well and I guess one concern I'm curious about with the project manager structure as opposed to executive director structure is that it it seems to me that it may put significantly more work on the table of the board and I'm curious if you see that in a similar light and if you anticipate any any problems with that or if you think there's capacity you mentioned it earlier a little bit I just like to dig in yeah that's a good question so far the answer is yes it's been a lot more work I think that the long-term stability though I think it will end up being work that our board enjoys doing is engaged in doing and would like to do I think that we're you know we'll have it's not necessarily a project manager but we we're going to have kind of an air traffic controller kind of part-time position to web to excuse me to monitor our web kind of activity and emails and kind of route communications to the appropriate product manager board member committee whatever that is and I think it will be more work and has been until we really kind of get it all sussed out but I also think there's another benefit here in that you know if you look at some of the there is some overlap in in organizations within the city and I and I remember when I first heard of MDC I said what what is that going to do you know there's already my failure alive there's there's a lot of you know there's a downtown business group and other things but I think that there is a function that's served by this group and I also think that this group as opposed to having a generalist in the place we can actually look at an organization like Montpellier alive and and actually ask them to be one of these you know I'm using this term very loosely project managers but but to coordinate efforts with groups so that you reduce redundancy and that the dollars are much more efficiently utilized any further questions I'll go ahead Dan I'm sorry just to make it complete to hit all of us it's good to get to know you all I guess I would echo some of Jack's concern and I understand that this sounds like it's a transitional period for the MDC but it would be helpful to know and I didn't have an opportunity to read the submission just received it but to the extent that there's priorities you know you're describing a lot of very different projects from retention to development to you know studies to sort of that speculative development of can we get the state to back off the river to understand what the priorities are of the MDC that I can answer okay because that is that we we have three right now we have three standing priorities in projects well and it'd be helpful not only to understand the priorities but then also you know sort of are you thinking of waiting how those would be weighted because essentially instead of one person may be balancing those you're really sort of setting them loose into these individual project managers so what do you mean loose well just to the extent that there isn't going to be a sort of centralized executive director right it's it's going to be the board that assigns these projects and how it how does the board maybe I'll clarify a question of how does the board expect to have sort of a balance imposed between these various priorities I think budget waiting right if if we have a if we have a higher priority more of our you know will allow for more hours or more consultants or more project managers in a certain area than than another but and at the same time but I mean it's very specifically about the priorities I think that right now we look to support I think I think that however you feel about it a hotel in a downtown is not a common development these days in a small town of 8,000 people to have a hotel in the downtown when I look at the the you know the priorities that were set the year before we were formed you know a lot of that is they're about meals and rooms taxes and receipts and kind of creating that I think that as we see our downtown you know the meals are going down I have some of those statistics but it was a an 8.3 percent decrease we've experienced in downtown meals I think that when you get a hotel you have people who don't have a kitchen you have people who are in from out of town it's an infusion of cash I think that most hotels and especially kind of flagged hotels are currently being built on off-ramps you know for that quick in and out and they don't and maybe there's a pizza hut or something else out there but it's not it's not a downtown that gets supported and and and enmeshed in the in the commerce that's created by a hotel so I think that there's a really incredible opportunity to to kind of boost the the economics of the downtown so that's one of our priorities that's you know to to continue on that we helped earlier we continue to to work on that I think that the coordination between the city and the state and looking at you know a project that can be public and private in the area of along court street and the known and I don't like this name so I hesitate to say it this one but the pit you know that area I think is is a place that answers your question about you know kind of thoughtful economic development about how that can happen and then the third is you know we're looking at at what's happening in Sabin's pasture and saying you know there may be a role to play and to support there um you know so those are our three top priorities um the the reactive part that don't know what's talking about when we hear about and we are constantly networking and and listening and and keeping track of organizations that are thinking about leaving or coming or whatever that is we kind of assign those to individuals on the on the board or now I think we probably have you know some an individual in the town excuse me we'll do that any further questions yeah do you want to come up use the mic on Stephen Mills for the Times August um I first of all you know like somebody to explain where Lisa went please where she gone what happened yeah so I think the public would like to know you know what happened to her please I think that she um well the best way I can explain it is that she was here she had a house and and uh had moved her car up here and enrolled her child in um in daycare and she went back to collect her family and experienced a family tragedy which has precluded her from being able to come back and fulfill her position okay there's a letter I sent to the Times August that's from Lisa okay and I didn't see that okay yeah no that so I think that's the if you want her own words and okay how she did that there's also a letter that I sent to the Times Argus um that also went to the board um about the board's reaction and restructuring okay yeah I just wonder you know if there isn't by now some concern you know amongst the council though I think we're in year three now at the MDC going into year four I'm correct you know we spend close to $300,000 on I'm not really sure what you know I'm not sure how you quantify you know what you what you're getting for your money or whether it is a good idea to keep spending taxpayer money on a program that really doesn't seem to have worked very well up to now um and you know whether you know whether going for you know so it doesn't work based on what analysis you're doing because like we could talk about that I have a bunch of statistics here on what's happening what's going on I think that these conversations are really constructive yeah well you know I think you know you're you're talking about three things that you know the hotel which is still in in flux but you know the pit and savings pasture which have been you know the pit has been has been dismissed you know forever you know trying to get the state to give up its state parking without a net loss of parking has been a no go you know savings pasture has always been you know um a big question mark you know I just wonder if you have a strategy you know I'm given what hasn't worked you know where we are right now and whether you know the taxpayer should be spending another hundred thousand dollars going forward you know that those are the questions I think people should be asking yeah I agree with you they should and that's why I think we have these if you want we can go through a few things that we've done um well I don't want to you know take up your time or the council's time at this point we can do that afterwards and I can write about it you know perhaps we could share it with the people in that way but okay if you want to if you want to go ahead and do that that's up to you but you know we can reconvene you know yeah I mean I think um you said a lot there and I don't know that it's based in fact so I'd like to give you some facts well I'm just telling you what I what I what I have seen you know you know covering this council you know for this length of time you know um I'm not really sure we've had three people jump ship you know oh please you know what sir I'd like you to stop making judgments about well that's well that's a personal opinion but that's what it looks like from where I'm standing okay thank you thank you thank you uh Stephen uh Stephen Whitaker I want to just call to your attention there's a bill that I the senate gov ops chair mentioned today uh nonprofits private nonprofits uh carry on with public money without the transparency and accountability that is necessary I've earlier called Good Samaritan to your attention we need more accountability and transparency and I'm encouraged I'm heartened to hear that they're considering focusing on the pit which should be our fallback plan in case the garage hotel does not prevail um but fundamentally I think you need to structure this such that there is transparency unless there's a real estate option or something that should be exempt this should not be a nonprofit that's out of reach of the public records law so I'm just raising that as a caution our Vermont information technology leaders it took me years in court and 15,000 bucks to get the court to rule that they are a non-profit but they're still subject to public records law so especially if this is three years running with dollars and ambiguities we might want to assert or condition any funding on a level of transparency that keeps the public fully uh accessible to the what's really going on thanks thank you yeah I mean I just to respond to that I I think that there is a level of responsibility I just as as one member of a board I'm not able to do that and not having had time but I think that we should prepare something and and like I said I'll give you what I can promise is an example budget but I'd like to provide more so we'll go back we'll talk about it because there's no um there's nothing that can't be seen here thanks sure thank you any other questions okay oh lord like it's just following up on that so knowing that the staffing has been short this year so is it gettable like the balance or is that a number that's not shareable for some reason like I understand that you don't have time today to to get it but is that something that is unable to be shared because so it's not I think that I think that what we just heard and I think that it's a we're a we're a private not for profit um so there's no private in Norman that's happening nobody's using that money or getting that money yet there isn't an obligation to be public about that I think we have to talk about our highest paid and we file a 990 which is public um but those pieces I think need to um be discussed with the board and and as chair I'll I'll commit to you that we'll have a good conversation and I see the vet value of doing that because I think everybody here believes that the work is good and you know we might as well show it um yeah I mean even it seems like the the hundred thousand the city invests being able to account for how is that money spent so taxpayers can see that it's a good investment even if that's not the totality of the budget and the activities but just I think that would give a lot more comfort to yeah I'm I there are some numbers I know and I just don't know without my board I I'm I'm hesitant to just spew out numbers but you know it's not all that dramatic what we do and and where the money goes but I think it so it doesn't behoove us to do anything but disclose but that's my opinion not my boards or the organizations uh Dan I mean I appreciate the difference between say a public records disclosure and transparency to understand I mean in some ways I'm viewing this and coming to it new as um almost like grant funding um to the MTC that the city gives and like any grant funder we want to know what happened to our money yeah and how it was spent and how it was yeah using to reach these these purposes which you know understand fully from your explanation and you know how how they're how they're balanced and that all comes out like you say through a weighted budget or an explanation but I think that's important at least for me coming into this to understand going forward you know if money is given to this organization what benefit is rendered unto the city well I think if you do I mean some of the benefit versus the I can talk a lot about the benefit and and we've documented it and have filed reports each year about benefits and and the work we've done the only piece that I'm not necessarily prepared to talk about although it would be nice to I don't disagree um is is the actual you know the dollars um you know I was about to tell you salaries and things and I don't even know the legal I just don't know so I need to just kind of regroup the board and get back to you but I mean if you think about it we've hired the um we've hired people who are you know professionals uh and and we've paid them and and we've had either some have chosen allowance for healthcare and some have chosen healthcare so you know there's there's not much left after that um when you when you do this and and then we oh and we have an office and phone and wi-fi and blah blah but not much you know it's it's it's a it's just going to be like an eight or nine line budget so I'd like to get that to you Donna the problem being and I'm sorry that our query to you wasn't more direct I would love to see your 990 and I went to your website and I it's not posted here um that would that would even help just to even have last year's 990 because I don't see any financial information and so just about I understand the element of how indirect you've influenced things and your action plan and your improvement of what where you're going forward sounds really good but I still have no idea what's your fund balance you know and so and we have to vote tonight to finalize the budget so that's the real pinch of why we I think always keep pushing trying to find some answer here because so I can I can tell you that um it's going to be very hard for me to yep to give you those without my board so um regardless of how any any vote goes tonight um I think it would be probably um wise to just anticipate for next year um I'm just thinking about um like the kinds of uh I mean I really appreciate the information about like the community statistics um I think that's great but but um let's plan for that for another year um especially given that we have to vote tonight um something so um yeah just um making note of that for sure noted okay clearly yeah great um questions comments okay all right thank you so much all right thank you um Connor well before you mean on the whole budget no this particular on this particular thing um um yeah sure okay I don't want this motion to be seen as a criticism of the good work that the MDC does do because I I see a lot of value and I see eight people who are working very hard I think it's really important to know that um the board and all the people who've worked with and for MDC have relied on the city council's commitment for five years um I think that even you know I think that part of um you know if you I think that why this project manager model will work better is because we're down to two years and it would be very hard to hire someone um for a position that's so tenuous at the same time I think that everyone on this committee are on the board and working in this organization relies on that and as you know we we certainly um discussed when Lisa um was unable to come back uh whether we should just fold it up you know and say hey you know what it's been too hard to actually find somebody and everybody around the table um said that this is good work it's needed work and um you know there's a but for clause here but but for the work that's happening in this organization you know it wouldn't happen um or it would happen maybe differently or you know it it fall on the city or whatever it is um so these people have worked hard and and and invested in and committed a lot and based on the commitment of the city to to continue so please don't cut or or put in jeopardy our our funding um because it doesn't send a good message you know we're making a lot of progress we've brought we've brought groups into the city we've brought I mean you're looking at uh you know there's a lot that's happened here that is as a result of this it's kind of a quiet undercurrent that keeps um some stability and and and helps around and one of the things we don't spend money on is is actually promoting our work or what we do or our achievements so and I think that's somewhat the personality of the people on the board and somewhat based on the fact that it wouldn't but for in this arena it doesn't it doesn't it isn't really productive so thank you thank you okay so uh you know I'm actually optimistic with the direction and DC is going with the project management I think I'm still a bit uncomfortable given the question marks that we have and I see this more as a pilot over the next year where we could get some real data back really see what successes we have out of this project management so I think to that end I'd like to make a motion to shift $25,000 from MDC to CIP as I believe some of these capital improvements um go hand in hand with development in the city here and I think that's a place where we still have a lot of need and could put it the real and immediate use there so I'm throwing that motion maybe to be a bit provocative but generate some conversation is there a second I'll second okay uh discussion oh lord so there's still the outstanding 134,000 that might not be the exact right number um 136 for the TKS property correct um it would that be CIP money that would go to that or would that be potentially a standalone it would depend how we you know structure we have till December so I think you know whether if we were to do a future bond project or something like that we could build that in um you know depending we had the discussion last week and never reached any conclusions this week so yes there's any number of ways we could do that but from reading that um information it looked like we do we probably do want to move forward on funding that um so just to flag that as a kind of pressing and last minute need that came up that seems like if we're shifting money um I would hope it would maybe go towards offsetting some of that Donna although I certainly want to see numbers I do feel the five-year commitment was made I was on the council then and I feel that I'm glad that you reminded me that I need to stay there but I do want them to understand how much we need to know that we don't know other comments jack yeah um when we were discussing this last year I was it was my first time on the council to be addressing the budget I was pretty uncomfortable sort of in general with having made the five-year commitment but I also recognized that the nature of the economic development work that we do is that it's the kind of thing that can take some time to uh to develop and actually show any any results um and uh and so I'm not at all interested in uh in cutting our investments in this organization out on the other hand just thinking that uh during the three years that this uh organization has been getting funds from the city it's probably had a year's worth of uh of vacancy savings which I would like to see accounted for and as we think about going forward in investing more money in the corporation and we're fiscal year 2021 is like a year four of our five-year commitment and um I'm wondering and if we had more money more information we would know but I'm wondering if uh if the corporation has enough funds on hand to uh to proceed for a year and so we like give them this year to get get their feedback under them and then have fiscal year 2022 be year four and 23 be year five and we put the hundred thousand dollars we would have spent on the development corporation to uh to something else and I'm kind of thinking off the top of my head here and I'll be interested in letting letting the corporation respond to the suggestions that we're making but I don't see the natural connection between uh putting 25 thousand dollars into the capital improvement plan and where we're going with with Montpelier Development Corporation. Other comments if you if you'd like to were you hoping for a response Jack? So I think that um that would be very hard to to do we certainly don't have a hundred thousand dollars um and I think that if in the perfect world this were funded there would have been enough for a salary and then some project work on top of that and I think that what this what these the vacancy savings that you're talking about are real and you know and they exist and um but they are what would have been kind of the proper funding so that we could have staff and have some um uh you know expense money so that's what we've done with it I mean it's been a very tight kind of budget and all the money has not been spent on anything but you know these little mission the mission and and the salaries so in that sense I I mean I don't think anybody on the board doesn't regret or everybody on the board regrets the fact that we've invested in staff and staff you know has has there's been turnover you know so that's I mean there's unfortunate parts of it I've worked elsewhere and hired other people and I think that bringing people into Vermont and and getting you know talent to come to Vermont is is always a um it's a risky proposition and and we've chosen to take that and not again you know so and try to do the lemon yeah please just thank you you know neither Bill or I are the treasurer and um embarrassing I can't tell you the balance and we don't want to give you a run balance and there's nowhere near a year in reserves there and and the and the interim between people it hasn't just gone flat at different times we hired Peter Fairweather who was actually the architect of the ESP and providing consultants and people knowledgeable about our process and my players needs to help us keep going so um we we spent money for those different phases to keep the operation going and I think well and responsibly so um when we get our treasurer's report that we can share I think you'll find it's it's very well run oh and understand I'm not saying that any money has been misspent or uh taken taken from some used dishonestly or anything like that I'm just trying to figure out what the financial picture is and where are we going yeah so I think that you know if you look at if we if we want to talk about some results you know we can talk about you know caledonia spirits where I mean I went to some very early meetings on that and and helped out and and our executive director at that time helped out a lot um worked in conjunction with the city and with Montpelier alive you know I think that the the tiff district is another place where uh we were an active participant and we hired you know when our when our executive director got sick in that case you know we ended up hiring a um you know peter fairweather who's a professional planner who with who the city had hired to do the original ESP so that we wouldn't skip a beat I think that it actually the momentum you know um and I don't even there was a comment about us getting our feet under ourselves again I don't even think that's necessary I don't think we're actually dead in the water or or have lost momentum we you know have continued as I said it's a working board and we've continued to to communicate and continue to do our work you know through all of this in various capacities whether it's board members stepping up or whether it's hiring individuals to do that work and I know that MDC was also effective in helping to support the effort at uh doing the hotel and parking garage which yeah I'm still very enthusiastic about wanting to see happening thank you and it is a time Montpelier I think we all know where there's more going on than you know you see just certain periods of time every couple decades where there's this incredible surge of activity and good things happen and we're in one of those right now and we're very aware of it and trying to help take advantage of of the situation and create help good things to happen here and and that's part of our role thank you any other questions or comments or discussion on this particular um motion yes uh only to say thanks again and and um to me one way to see it is is that despite staff retention difficulties since its inception uh the the development corporation has had uh an impact and an effect and despite the fact that I wasn't on the council at the time I do feel bound by the five-year um commitment um I would love to continue looking at all of the information that we can and and making that decision uh well maybe not me but uh I think it is worth re-examining uh at the five-year period I thought Jack's idea was creative uh uh and would be kind of interesting if it if it were practicable but it sounds like unlikely from your perspective anyway and in any case I just wanted to say I um I think we should continue funding the development corporation for the next few years Dan um I'll just add a perspective coming from the DRB thank you Stephen um I'll just add a perspective coming from the development review board we haven't had an application since the beginning of November 2019 and they do not have another application on their agenda likely in throughout the month of February there's been a bit of a vol so to the extent that we have in uh a corporation that serves to promote development it would seem that at this time there is a growing need I had been on the board for 13 years I'd never seen that big of a gulf and gap in any type of development I'm talking no nothing big nothing small um and you know I think that we have to take into consideration that the one thing about a pause is this may not be the right time to take a pause in this type of work that really at this point in time is now to to keep seating the bed for these future developments or encouraging these type of development projects so you know it's certainly that that augurs to me then tying in with the observations of O'Donan Glenn made about the five-year commitment you know does seem that the timing is right to continue if they have any momentum encouraging them to do so one to me I think Conor's motion of 75 000 for this year seems to fulfill the commitment given that there was a commitment on their end of an expectation that the budget was primarily going to staff and then the staff there's been laws and I understand that everybody's been I mean the understanding of what MDC was doing and when that money was committed I don't I don't feel like that's a big rollback I don't think it would really stop momentum significantly um I sounds like there was some reserve carryover it's you know frustrating not to have any numbers behind any of this and just say let's just keep funding without any data behind what we're actually funding um and I understand the challenges on your end so it's just it just makes it tough given that we're you know struggling with other pieces of the budget if this was just a flush year but after the 25 percent hit from health care costs it's made the rest of the budget extremely challenging so just understanding that dynamic of you know the bigger situation we're in and wanting to fund important priorities so I don't see that as a massive abdication of our commitment and responsibility and maybe that's easier for me to say not having been on it five years ago and I don't know that I would have necessarily supported that amendment to begin with or that uh proposal but that's just my perspective so if I could just um be clearer in that when I said that the 100,000 went mostly towards that isn't you know if I think if the kind of to counter what you're saying and not to be in a back and forth but if this were fully funded it would have been funded at a higher level so that there was staff and expenses and what's happened is is that there's been some staff vacancy so we've been able to take that and create a fund balance I think but for those that turnover we would have no fund balance you know which which I understand you've said that several times and I get that I'm saying what we felt like we were committing to was a certain thing and from your perspective it was underfunded from the beginning because there should have been money for staffing and and more so I I hear that I'm just staying from you know what we thought we were funding that was primarily staffing and then not a lot of project funding that's Stephen I think it's not only frustrating it's it's really unconscionable to have this little data and it's really reinforcing my urging for you to restructure the transparency of this there's obviously staff savings that would have accumulated and I'm not denigrating the work that's been done but as I understand it it's pretty much a volunteer board so where's the money going and when you're not funding wi-fi which is a business development thing when you're not funding homeless services properly when you're not funding you know public works street vacuum etc it's it's really unconscionable to be throwing money in a blind pit and any board I sit on I'm doing a lot of good work too anybody want to throw me a hundred thousand you know uh any board I sit on I would keep track of what's the available balance thank you so we do keep track of it it's just no one here no one was available who has that information I also um I don't I I totally disagree I mean I totally agree with what he just said I mean I think that if you were to give us a conditioned piece that we have to disclose that'd be great you know um I don't think that that would be different but I would ask you keep it at the at the at the same level but I think that it's a I don't I don't think that well I know there's nothing we can do it would be a choice right if if the money comes with the condition that we have to disclose I think that's in everybody's best interest but I but but sitting here I I'm not you know I just didn't have I didn't know what the topic was I didn't know what exactly we were going to be doing and and not everybody was available to come tonight so I really I feel awful about not having this and and it appearing like it's this you know big dark organization it's really I don't know maybe that's just a perspective okay any further comments okay so we have a motion and a second oh sorry jack go ahead I hope you're not thinking that any of us are saying I'm not taking no no no I understand the people on this board are our neighbors and our friends that we know all of us everyone of us collectively knows everyone on the board although I don't necessarily owe every person on the board but yeah well I then I probably should apologize I shouldn't have jumped but I mean it's it's I what I want is the same thing you want you know and and so we want the transparency if you give it to us with that caveat I you know we'll have a board conversation and you know be grateful okay okay any further comments okay there was a motion in a second all right so any further discussion all in favor please say aye opposed no I'm staining oh did you I didn't hear you all right okay so there were two eyes okay so the motion fails um and so at this point if we don't make a motion then it remains anybody else like to make a different motion uh lauren would it go in the budget or is this a separate agreement to add this these transparency provisions we've been so that would so yeah the funding's in the budget so no unless there's a vote to change the budget that wouldn't change I think you could pass a motion attaching a contingency to that line in the budget that would that's that would take a separate action I move we add a contingency to this line item in the budget for the montpellier development corporation to ensure full transparency of where the funding goes for past tense present tense where it has gone or it will go the allocation in this budget where that money is spent at the end of the year uh jack you can amend that actually before you have a comment anything in that much in that motion anything that we have would be from the line item that's why i'm trying to get it yeah we're gonna just tell us we need to show you what provide a financial statement in the budget is a financial statement and a budget sufficient yes okay is there a second second okay um I saw jack and then Donna I I'm not sure if this is an amendment or a motion to amend the motion or just a suggestion that I don't know what we've gotten in terms of accounting for expenditures in previous years but I would expect to see that too not not only current year uh budget but also year zero and to the present uh receipts and expenditure uh statements any vacancy savings that are have been accumulated well you'll see that in the financial so are you um is is is that a formal amendment to the motion or is that like a is that a friendly enough amendment that you can you're just incorporating that into yours seems like a friendly amendment who's who's the second person oh is that okay yeah oka