Monday, I'm sorry, Tuesday, January 17th. I'm gonna call to order this meeting of the Winnieski City Council. Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance, led by Deputy Mayor Jim Duncan. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Agenda review? Any concerns about the order this evening? No. Okay. Next up is public comment. So, public comment is meant for anything that is not related to an item on the agenda. If you're here for something on tonight's agenda, please hold for that. I'm gonna open it up first to the folks in the room. I know you guys have a topic. Do you wanna come up and introduce yourselves? And then, Paul, can we bring Levi over on Zoom? I believe, first of all, on Thomas' topic, I'm the resident of the Winnieski and Heingold Terrace area. We have a fellow member, I think, might be on Zoom, Levi Bonelle, who would like to also make a comment regarding this, so he has something to read that he wanted to provide. I don't know if he's on there or not. Levi, can you hear us? Yes, I can. Okay, here he is. Can we let Levi read it first? Sure. Levi Bonelle, I'm the vice president of the Pine Grove Paris Homeowners Association. And I'm here this evening with the other boards, as you just met, as well as several other members on our street, attending via Zoom. And thanks for the opportunity to speak. Very briefly, Pine Grove Terrace Homeowners Association is a collective of 22 households in the northwest corner of the city. It was built in around 1988, and the association was created for the sole purpose of managing a sewer pump station that transports waste from one city sewage pipe at the bottom of our neighborhood, the main sewage pipe on North Street. The association has been diligently managing the station for 30 years, making significant financial investments and infrastructure, new pumps, electronic alert systems, et cetera. On June 26th, 2022, a neighbor-alerted art association of a foul group radiating from the pump station on Mount St. Cole in the middle of the cul-de-sac. We immediately contacted Winooski City Hall for guidance. The city officials designated that we were the responsible party for the repairs. Although we disagreed with the city's assessment, we took action to prevent some major environmental incident involving the local waterways recommended by the city and the EPA. The contractor was hired by us to fix the crack pipe in St. Cole, and the updated system after being fixed was deemed acceptable by these entities, resolving any further environmental concerns. Recently, our HOA and the Winooski City Manager reviewed the city deed and land rights recorded by the city clerk's office that found the language and the binding protective covenants for our development dated June 1st, 1988, stated that the HOA is responsible for maintaining the sewer pump station only. The St. Cole was created by a break in the sewer pipe greater than 10 feet from the pump station under a city roadway and city property. In light of this information, the HOA requests a meeting with the city officials to discuss restitution for the repair. The association met with Elaine Wang on August 11th, 22 to discuss the repair and possibilities for rectification. We reposed two options. The city takeover the pump station or the reimbursement for the repair of the expense. In the former instance, the HOA would not seek reimbursement for city related repair expenses. It was almost 10 grand. And the HOA liquid its current reserves to the city. This would allow dissolution of the HOA. On November 3rd, 22 Elaine responded to the HOA that the city would not take over the pump station at its current status and that the city would be open to the idea that it would modernize. We are currently pursuing this avenue having displaced the deposit yesterday for $22,000 worth of work with the contractor. We then requested a meeting to discuss next steps and reimbursements for repairs. This past Friday, Elaine responded to the HOA that the city would not take over the pump station in its current status and that the city would be open to the idea that it would modernize, like I said. So this past Friday, Elaine responded to the association that the city would not recognize the responsibility for the broken pipe but the interpreters prescribing our responsibility much greater than described in the protective coveted and putting our whole community at risk. The city's position is that the pipes that lead the pump station travel hundreds of yards under city roadways and private property are the responsibility of the HOA and we disagree with this. It should be noted that another collapsed pipe for water runoff occurred just up the road on Pine Grove Terrace with a similar root cause in surface dance and this repair was done by the city. Furthermore, if we believe the root cause for these breakages are caused by heavy machinery and vehicles used to maintain and survey service, city property, including attention bond. While it is the association's physical goal to dissolve and handle the pump station to the city, we have a responsibility to maintain and safeguard in doing so we have committed to making significant upgrades in the coming months, modernizing the infrastructure, purchasing a new pump and selling a new cover, et cetera, that's going to cost upwards of 30 grand this winter. We collected a special assessment on our residents to help pay for the upgrades. So tonight we come before the City Council to formally request to be put on the next City Council meeting agenda to discuss the aforementioned issues. Thank you. Thank you, Levi. Did you gentlemen want to add anything additional? Only that, Levi clearly spelt out everything pretty well. We have worked with the City Manager in a positive way. The best we could with the time frames that we both have, City Manager being very new to this community and having a lot of responsibilities. We recognize that, however, it's a timely issue for us but it gave us time to work with Waterway Superintendent who's been very informative and supportive of what we might need to do as an association to better place ourselves with the sewer system or the pump station. Not to mention that when we had the leak, the Waterway gave us advice and consultation and reviewed our construction contract so we were all in agreement how properly to repair that leakage. So whether it's disputed who owns that or who's responsible for that, we felt the guidance from the City was very positive and we worked with that. We also like to thank the City Clerk as the City Manager recommended the night we met with. The City Manager that we moved right into the clerk's office took considerable amount of time to review the deeds and find what we needed and respond to what the City Manager's request were for that information. So we think we resolved that part of it for discovery. So I think we're in a good place. We've just been hoping to maybe sooner than later meet with the City Council because one of the options was the City Manager said, if the City Council voted on this, what her recommendations would be. And we've looked at that and said, well, maybe there's an association, we will try to meet those recommendations in good faith. And that's what we've been doing since. But in other words, early conversation before the meeting suggested that the City Manager was gonna make a recommendation of the City Council to be placed on the agenda when possible. We support that, we hope for that to occur and I appreciate the openness in regards to this issue. Thank you. Thank you. Do you wanna add anything, Elaine? I know all of this time. Okay. Well, you know, since it's public comment, we won't do any decision-making tonight, but I appreciate you guys and Levi coming to give us more details. Elaine and I will chat tomorrow and we'll follow up with you on next step. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for coming in. Yeah, thank you for coming in. Thank you. Okay, we are still in the public comment phase. If you're here for the Just Cause Eviction Charter Change or the Sidewalk Changes, and you can wait until we reach that item in the agenda, please do. Is anyone here for something not on tonight's agenda? Okay, anyone in Zoom? You can use the chat or raise hand feature. Okay. So we will move on to our Consent Agenda. Then we have Council Reports City updates. Should be fairly quick and then we'll get into tonight's actual content. So for Consent Agenda, we have our City Council Minutes from January 3rd and Liquor Control from January 9th and Council. And then the Payroll and Payable Warrants and our Annual Transportation Highway Certification. Any questions about Consent Agenda items? Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Motion by Bryn, second by Thomas. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Council Reports. Aurora, would you like to start? Sure, so on last week, last Thursday, we had a special meeting of the Inclusion and Belonging Commission at that meeting, the primary items that were timely and why we wanted to have a special meeting on an off month was to discuss items related to town meeting day. So first we reviewed how the city budget might be shared with residents kind of how to explain that in a way that would give residents what they need to make an informed vote. And the commission then reviewed a draft information sheet from the city around the Just Cause Eviction Charter Change and provided some input on ways to improve readability and accessibility of the document. We also had on our agenda to discuss the equity audit further, but that was tabled until we could spend a whole meeting on it. The next regular meeting for Inclusion and Belonging is February 9th and at 6 p.m. And also coming up, we have the Safe, Healthy, Connected People Commission and that will be on February 14th. Thank you. I believe there's a CCRPC meeting tomorrow late afternoon. So the Chinn County Regional Planning Commission is seeking project recommendations, something I shared with council, just happened to notice that and a public notice seeking projects. So an opportunity for the community to participate on that public hearing if they choose. We also have a infrastructure meeting on Thursday, the 19th. That'll be at the Winooski Pool Community Room. The agenda items are to go over our work plan and to go over officer roles. So looking forward to that meeting. And then another general announcement, the Green Mountain Transit has appointed their next general manager. So if anybody's interested in that, we can potentially get an update from Austin. He might be coming in. Okay. Great. Nature meeting. I'm invited. We'll see. Okay. Thank you. Two quick updates from me. I joined other Vermont mayors from the mayor's coalition on Friday and released a shared legislative agenda which was informed by the work that we did as council prioritizing actions on housing for the state legislature. And planning commission met last week to continue their discussion about creating incentives for historic preservation. That work continues. Parking is part of that. So parking reductions for historic preservation and affordable housing are under consideration. That's it for me, Jim. So the airport commission meets tomorrow at 4 p.m. This will be the first time I'm joining that body as the appointed member. So I'm looking forward to getting involved in that. And on Thursday, we have a pretty substantial housing commission meeting looking at the housing chapter, and our ordinances and talking about housing quality and minimum housing standards. So it should be a good working meeting on some much needed upgrades to be done there. So I look forward to that. That's at six o'clock on Thursday and it's planned to be a three hour meeting. So it'll be a longer one. And those are all my updates. I will make it quick. I'm meeting with downtown will just get tomorrow. So I don't have anything to update. Okay. Elaine city updates. Yes. As you know, continuing the fiscal year 2024 budget meetings tonight with the overall budget discussion, city council will vote on the final proposed budget on next Monday, the 23rd. After that, we'll have a joint city and school budget presentation and a community dinner is planned on February 9th as part of that presentation. Thanks to a new ski partnership for prevention. There will be another joint city and school budget presentation that would be held virtually to be announced to hopefully increase access for the community to hear about the budget proposed budget that would be voting on a recorded presentation for myself and the mayor should be available on our website after February 10th. And the annual meeting held at the school district on the night before town meeting day. Town meeting day is March 7th and the presentation will be March 6th. So if you have questions, feel free to call or email. The phone number is<PHONE_NUMBER> or you can email us at budget at wanooski-vt.gov. And you can also reach out to any city councilor or staff and you can find the contact information at wanooski-vt.gov slash contact. Speaking of town meeting day, if you're interested in running for local office on town meeting day, note the deadline to file paperwork is 5pm on Monday, January 30. There are two city council seats up for election and three school district seats up for election. The two city council seats are for two-year terms. The school district seats are the treasurer for a three-year term and two school district trustee seats, one for a three-year term and the other for a two-year term. To appear on the ballot, you must be a Wanooski resident and file a consent of candidate form and a petition with a minimum of 30 signatures. These need to be filed with the city clerk's office again by 5pm, January 30. If you have any questions about this, you feel free to contact the city clerk's office. The city clerk is right here if you haven't met Jenny Wellingham before and you can contact them again at 655-64010 or clerk at wanooski-vt.gov where you can come into city hall at 27 West Allen Street. If you need COVID-19 test kits, they're available for free here at city hall, the library and the senior center during regular hours. The city Wanooski was sent a press release today by the Vermont Air National Guard who will be performing night flying from Tuesday, January 17 to Friday, January 20 and from Tuesday, January 24 to Friday, January 27 with two takeoff and laning periods scheduled between 1pm and 8pm. There are no scheduled morning flights, their press release was shared on our city channels if you're looking for those details again. And finally, a blood drive will be held at the Wanooski senior center this Friday from 12 to 5, 12 to 5, 15pm. All blood types are accepted but the American Red Cross Northern New England is in great need of type O donations. To sign up, please see news updates section at our website at wanooski-vt.gov. Thank you. All right, we'll get into our regular items then. So first up is the Just Cause Eviction Charter Change Timeline Issue. Elaine, we'll have you introduce, walk us through the situation. Council will have time for clarifying questions, then I'll open it to public comment and then we'll do our decision making. Thank you. So mostly from my cover sheet, just saying that to council. So in December, the city clerk accepted a voter backed charter change petition that would empower council to pass a Just Cause Eviction Ordinance. After your January 3rd meeting, staff found out that unfortunately, we are inadvertently out of compliance with the state law on the timeline for responding to the petition. By state statute, not only does the first hearing on the voter backed charter change have to be held more than 30 days before the vote, which we were aware of, it must also be warned 30 to 40 days in advance of the hearing date, which is something we had overlooked. So at your January 3rd meeting, I should have advised you to warn the first hearing for between February 2nd and February 12th, but as you recall, the hearings on my advice were set for January 26th and February 4th. So that first meeting is the problem. Staff have consulted with the LCT Municipal Assistance Center Attorneys from the League of Cities and Towns and Towns Across the State about any municipal legal matters and best practice. And we also consulted the city attorney. The city attorney has some more work to do, but does still have a recommendation lined up with the one that I had in your memo, just as a spoiler alert. So there are two types of options essentially on when to hold the vote. To hold the vote on March 7th, 2023 as planned or hold the vote later. So from what I've heard, holding the vote on March 7th is what the Winooski voting public is expecting. You can of course hear from the many folks who are probably here today to comment on that. That would require a validation vote sometime after that election on March 7th. We haven't yet found out that the statute states when validation votes must be held or what would happen if a validation vote were to fail, we will keep you updated on what's advisable. If it's a special date or a special election for that validation vote, we estimate the expense to maybe be around $3,000. It's possible we could have the validation vote in next year's town meeting, in which case it would not be extra cost. It might be confusing to voters if it was that late from that far removed from the original vote. So that's the option pros and cons as we can discover them for a March 7th vote. The other types of options are to hold it later. So there's three ways to do that. Two are noted in your packet for today. So one option is to hold it at next town meeting, that's 2024, which is a long time from now, and or to hold it for a special meeting just for this item sometime this year. The major drawback to this is the likelihood for a low voter turnout. A third option noted by Councillor Oakley for the weekend is that we could delay town meeting day, all the items that we anticipated for that valid item. So we did a little homework on that today and current pros and cons that we can think of include. So as Councillor Oakley noted, council doesn't currently have this authority, but could if House Bill number 42 becomes law and time. So assuming that's fine, don't have to worry about the authority piece. We don't know when and if it would become law. So we would need council to be prepared to vote on the town meeting morning, which includes the date of the election. That would need to be warm between January 26th and February 5th. So you would need to either decide next week at your regular meeting or set a special meeting date before your next schedule one of February 6th, where you can warn that meeting. Apologies for all of the calendar math involved here. So no going with this option would likely mean people currently in office and not running again would need to serve until the vote. And there's also the school votes to consider for positions and budget. It might impact when the school can accept $2 million in federal funds, but it might not. So that's not sure that that's really something to that you would need to be worried about. The main drawback to this option is that it tightens the timeframe that either the city or the school would have to respond if either of our votes failed because we have to have a budget in place by July one. Or we're just extending our current budget year into the next, at least for the city perspective. I actually haven't looked at the school charter about that. So also holding it later this year might pose some staffing challenges. We have some non-negotiable medical allergies that will happen soon after the March 7th date. So again, the two types of options are to hold the vote as planned or hold the vote later. Those options include next year's town meeting as a special meeting this year or with all of the articles delayed to a later time. So given all the pros and cons and a bit of uncertainty, my recommendation is to continue with the March 7th vote. And if you have any questions, I'll take them or you can go on with your plan. Any questions from council? I think I have a question. I think I agree with having it held on March 7th I think another item to consider too is that this is, my understanding is this would be an item that all residents can vote on. And I just wanna make sure that feels like holding it as expected would give the best amount of chance for voters to understand and be able to get the information they need. I don't know how to answer that second part definitively, but I'll just confirm that yes, the city attorney's advice is also that in his opinion, all of our, all Winooski residents would be able to vote on this because it's essentially an advisory to the state. So that's how it's a local matter and not a state matter yet. Right, gotcha. And the on March 5th with that town meeting day doesn't has a state and federal. You mean March 7th? March 5th, 2024. Oh, I'm sorry, that's 25-4. I don't think so. Okay. Jenny's shaking her head. Is the presidential primary that would be held on this? That's right. Yeah, so that was my thought not wanting to, cause that would not, all residents couldn't vote on that or non-citizen residents couldn't vote on that. So that would probably be an extra burden on staff and confusing for our residents to wait until next town meeting day. There certainly was extra process in November this time when the general was held, or the, no, the midterm for held, yeah. But I think that would happen either way cause we'd have a town, we'd have city items and state and federal items. So we will have two ballots no matter what during that March, 24 election. But I still am fully in favor of holding in this town meeting day. Elaine, can you confirm when date we notice the two meetings? We note, let's see. We posted on the fourth, is that right?  You set them on the third. So we notice them probably on the fourth or the fifth. So it's when we notice them in the date of the first hearing that had to be 30 to 40 days. Right. So I was looking into it and I only see it posted on the 10th. So I just want to confirm the actual date that it was posted. Because if, Where did you see it posted? That was on our websites, I believe, and I'm from Portschwarm. So in which case, That could be too. So confirming that, wanting to make sure we confirm that. If it was later than January 4th, then we wouldn't be within the 30 day window for a February 4th meeting either. So the 26th as well as the fourth might be invalid dates, depending on the date that we actually posted those hearings. Oh, are you saying that the fourth could have been the first hearing? Correct. I see, yeah. I mean, if you saw it on the, I don't know, Paul, do you remember when we first posted that? Okay, so that was my. So both dates would be invalid? Yes, the 10th to the fourth does not seem like that would be 30 days. So do we need to set new dates for both the hearings? What, so my, the recommendation that I have from the city attorney is to proceed with the plan, meaning have them on the 26th because then there's one error right at the beginning of that. Everything else would be legal. Okay. As opposed to trying to reset it now, we've already noticed them in anticipation that people were expecting that and that we'd already warned them. So we'd posted on the website and the social media channels and then Jenny and I were debating whether or not to pull the seven days ad because that was, anyway, that was another point where we could have drawn it back, but it was already out. And so by the time we were discussing what to do, it was already out. So that's why it seems more sensible to just keep the same dates. And I don't believe there's a legal way to post at this point because we need to be 30 days before the vote. Right. And 30 days of warning, which would put us at every 16th and not March 7th. So we, there's no real. Well, there is. If we don't have it on March 7th. Right. Yeah. That's right. There's a point in the safety board up. So, Alayna, I'm wondering if we have the vote on March 7th at passes, could we then be subject to somebody who opposes JCE, suing the city and using the fact that we didn't abide by our hearing guidelines? Yes. Let me think about that. The attorney and I talked about it briefly today. So the reason why I'd put in the memo that he advises it is a little risk option to have it on the 7th is because this is an essentially an advisory vote to the state. Because the state sets, for those of you who aren't aware, the state sets all of our charters. So the authority all comes from the state. So we're not actually passing it here. We would just be saying to the state, we all, you know, the city voted this way or that way. So given that his opinion, again, not sure, we could still be sued. We'd still have to go through it, even if there wasn't just found to be a basis. But I think his point is, since it's essentially an advisory vote, you know, there's a loss, it wouldn't have much effect. I think it was his advice, yeah. And as far as the validation vote, for the second vote, do those numbers have to match up with the first vote? I'm understanding that just yes or no. Jenning's nodding, too. Another simple majority. Right, yeah. It would just pass the way anything also passed. Because like the turnout for the validation vote is substantially less. I just want to make sure that that wouldn't affect anything. Assuming as it was a special. Which we need to find out what the timing requirement is to go ahead and decide when we would have that. Right, and I would say in the statute, it does not get to that level of detail, probably because this hasn't happened that many times. Yeah, I'm all four in March 7th though, as long as those two questions I have remain, what we think they are. Yeah, and unfortunately I've. I'm going to just do something that's going to subject us to the legal case. If we could just delay it a couple of weeks later. Yeah, and unfortunately I've put you in this position where as Councilor Oakley put it, you're choosing between not great choices because we're already out of compliance. But of those, I do think March 7th is the least risky. I supported too, I don't support special elections. I don't think anyone turns out for them and it's too hard to tell people that they're happening. Tell me if they want to also went out in the water bills. Yeah, we already started advertising March 7th. Yeah, I also am not generally a fan of moving the date that people expect already. Yeah. Is there any clarifying question? Should we move to public comment? All right, did anyone want to speak on this item today? You want to join us up here at the microphone, please? And then for anyone who does speak, just please state your name and in town of residence. So my name is Tom Proctor. I'm the house and justice organizer for rights and democracy in big part of this. When you see just cause of it and push, I live in Bellington, but I have a lot of activist friends who obviously live in Winooski and have done a great deal to try and get this onto the ballot. My public comment tonight, I'm actually gonna read a letter sent by Senator Tanya Bohovsky, who represents Winooski regarding this issues not able to be present this evening because of scheduling issues. So good evening, Winooski City Council, Mayor Lott and City Manager Wang. I am writing to you today as one of the state senators representing Winooski, a longtime housing advocate and the only tenant to currently sit in the Vermont State Senate. In the past few days, I've been concerned about messages that I've received from my constituents regarding the actions of the city council, mayor and town manager in regards to the just cause of it and charter change proposal. Constituents have reported that Winooski City Council and the mayor of Winooski are considering pushing back the charter change vote. There were successfully petitions weeks ago and to me, this is not good democracy. I'm aware that the city council scheduled the public meetings for this ballot initiative weeks after they could have done so and this has jeopardized this voter driven tenant protection initiative. As a leading advocate for just cause of it in and out of the state house, I urge you to place this charter measure on the 2023 town meeting day ballot without delay. Holding this vote back due to the city's arrow weakens civic engagement and ignores the will of the people in Winooski and their voice demanding adequate tenant protections. I need not remind you that 65% of Winooski residents rent their homes and it was just last year that dozens of new Americans face massive eviction through no cause that was only reversed by a strong response from the citizens of the city. By delaying this vote, you've postponed their right to vote on tenant protections and could potentially put hundreds of more citizens in danger of being evicted in the interim. Citizens that by and large will be statistically more likely to be from marginalized communities. In the last legislative session, we heard from former Winooski resident, a disabled woman that was no cause evicted from their apartment for having the temerity to ask the federally required accommodations from her landlord. We also heard from a sitting legislator that was no cause evicted from her home and spent months being homeless while she tried to secure housing. The longer you wait on this having this vote, the more of these incidents will occur and in the current state of the housing crisis, we need to act quickly to provide any and all protections that we are able. If the Winooski voters approve this message, I will fight for them in the state house to be sure their voices are heard and upheld. And I urge you to fight for them at the municipal level by putting just cause eviction on the 2023 March 7th ballot. Sincerely, Senator Tanya Bihoski should have been central district. So I just echo what Tanya said. She's a fantastic applicant in the state house and it sounds like the recommendation will be March 7th of this year and I encourage you to all vote that way. Thank you very much. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the room who wishes to speak? I'll move to Zoom after we do the in-persons. Come on up. Hello, my name's Megan. I'm a resident of Winooski. I've lived here for about seven years and I am a renter. I just wanted to echo the recommendation of the city manager, which would be to go ahead with the vote on March 7th. I'm one of the people who signed the petition and talked to a lot of my neighbors in town about signing as well and about just cause eviction. And I can tell you that many of us who rent in Winooski are very afraid of losing our secure and stable housing and our ability to continue living in a community that we're all a part of. And this is one really bare minimum protection that helps us feel a little bit more secure and continuing to live and work and contribute to the community here. And I just also want to echo that, you know, on the pro and cons list from the memo that you read, you know, it doesn't include anywhere that one of the biggest cons is going to be that people will have more no cause evictions if this is delayed. And that is a very real fear for like a basic need for many of us in the community. So I just want you to think about that and go through with the vote as planned on March 7th. Thank you. Thank you, Megan. That's a fair point. What was left out of like the cons of delay? I do just want to make sure everyone understands that even if voters say yes to this at town meeting day, it has to go through the state legislature at their timeline. So it wouldn't just take effect, but. Yeah, I do. I just want to make sure everyone knows about that. Yeah, to move it forward. Thank you. Thank you. Did anyone else want to come up? Good evening, everyone. My name's Siegfried Boyd of Citroquatis, resident of Winooski. Not a long time resident, new and I'm glad you guys have such a welcoming format here. I've been to other city council meetings and it's been a little bit more hostile, especially around topics such as the rights of renters. I would like to just speak in favor of going forward with the March 7th date in accordance to the first recommendation by the city attorney. Right. What was that? I'm the city manager. But the recommendation was from the. City attorney. It's from my experiences, just it's very easy to forget things and given how soon this is the canvassing and the petition has happened waiting a year. I think a lot of people would forget about what's going on. A lot of no cause of fictions would happen. It seems like it would be very easy to get lost in noise and just get prolonged or just not pass. I think holding it sooner would improve the democratic process just in our local community. We want to encourage democratic engagement within our community to, for people have to say about their living standards, their rights and their protections. And it seems, even though there's, it appears that there's some mistakes that quite frankly go over my head understanding the legal nature of everything. It seems like the best way to go forward would be to just do the March 7th date. I'll ditto that special elections are bad. Not bad, we shouldn't be doing them. They're just complicated and you don't get the turnout that you would like to see. It sounds like the other option of delaying it to 2024 not only has the complications of people forgetting and a lot of evictions potentially happening in the time between now and then. But also, I believe it was mentioned that's also the 2024 presidential primary, which was echoed that there was concerns for complicated, how the voting might be more complicated given that all residents can vote on this issue, but it has to be citizens to vote in presidential primary, could lead to staffing issues. It just gets complicated and messy. It seems like the best path forward is the March 7th date. Those are my comments. Thank you very much for letting me come up and speak. And I'll see you in my time. First, see the chair. Thank you. Would anyone else in the room like to come up? Hello, I'm Nick Brownell. I use the name pronouns and I'm a resident of Winooski. I'm gonna say pretty much whatever else I said. I think moving forward with the March 7th vote is the best plan. It's the best for supporting democracy in our city. It's the best plan for basically, it's obvious that we're kind of in a tough situation, but that does seem to be the best way forward. I know we've mentioned the urgency, and while this is a city charter change, this will have to go to the state to be approved. I do think that doing this sooner than later will help people from being falsely evicted from discriminatory renting practices. My current apartment likes to rent in cycles, so they like to have everybody renew their leases at a specific time. It's kind of, it's easier for them to do the actual bureaucratic work of signing paper, but also if you need to proceed with evictions, I think it also kind of helps them in that regard as well. And I have seen some of my neighbors, I feel be falsely evicted and not really be given just, well, just cause eviction. Many of them were not evicted, they were not served in eviction notice, but rather they were just not given a lease renewal. And I feel that that's horribly unfair to renters. That's one of the reasons why I support just cause eviction is because we need to make sure that landlords, property owners are following what should be the rules and should be held accountable for injustices against people who are mostly vulnerable. 65% of Winske residents are voters. It's a pretty large majority in such a small city. And I feel that this is something that should be treated with extreme care. So I'm looking forward to hearing the city council vote on this, thank you. Thank you. Excuse me. Is there anyone else that wants to speak? Come on up. Hi, my name is Nora Arons. I use she, her pronouns. I live and rent in Burlington and have her several years now. And as someone who has personally lived through the trauma of a no cause eviction, I strongly encourage moving forward with Lee March 7th, 2023 date. And I do mean trauma when I use that word. I do not use it lightly. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else? I see some hands in Zoom. Paul, would you like to start moving people in? Start with Andy. City council will make plans shed. And I appreciate the time that you all have given of a comment for such an important issue, whether just cause eviction will continue to be on the March ballot for the petition as a whiskey city charter change or the city council will vote to delay that. I'm encouraged to know that city council is leaning towards moving forward this plan. To be clear, I am urging city council to maintain the original March vote. As intended, and here's why. I'm a Winnieski resident and renter and I have been for a number of years. In 2020, I was no cause evicted from my apartment due to the new owner deciding they would prefer their friends to become their downstairs tenants. This displaced myself, a social worker, along with a local therapist and a guy who lives. My roommates were unable to stay in Winnieski due to the last minute no cause eviction compared with the outdoor rental crisis. I have been working with fellow residents to collect signatures over the winter to get just cause eviction on the ballot. My partner and I spent hours in the cold, knocking on doors and found that both homeowners and renters signed the petition and all residents and registered voters. This tells me that voters don't want Winnieski to continue to be gentrified through no cause evictions. We clearly enjoy the community we are currently surrounded by. By delaying this vote, you will be effectively allowed with more no cause evictions to take place before voters can even vote on the issue and get the ball over to the state house. We not only provided the city with more than enough signatures on petition, we exceeded the minimum required and we submitted them on December 13th. Well before the deadline and we noted that it would still be on March ballot for that reason. Since myself and fellow residents were able to do our due diligence to ensure voters who signed the petition would expect to see the chart change on the ballot in March. It is only right that the city follow through on their end. To be extremely clear, the city has indicated that equity and housing are top priorities. This is an opportunity to evolve where the city has gone wrong and honor the work put in by residents to bring this essential housing item to the voters. Please vote to put the just cause eviction chart change item on the March ballot. Thank you. Thank you, Andy. Paul, do we have anyone else signed up or anything? Next up is Amanda Calder. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, welcome. Hi. I'm a new ski adventure. I've been living here for about four years. And I was, I wanted to also speak in support of having the vote on March 7th as we usually planned. I wanted to be able to sign the petition and also ask friends and neighbors to sign. And well, I just wanted to highlight what the people have said. There are a lot of issues happening all the time. My roommates and I in our last apartment left after a little bit of snow that they were gonna convert our apartment to an Airbnb. So we didn't actually get evicted but that was what they wanted to do. And that's a separate issue sort of in terms of converting affordable housing to Airbnbs which is happening. But my also with my downstairs neighbor was just no cause of evicted. Just December 31st with her four kids which was really destructive for them. And I know that a lot of Frenchers in St. Louis neighbor are here to speak out about things like are their neighbor evicted because they don't want to also have the same thing happen to them. And I think there's such a huge power balance between tenants and landlords that having just observations is really important. And I think there's plenty of accountability there if someone is violating their lease. So I think it's really important to work with this especially in the housing crisis that we have and also with the number of Frenchers we have and the vulnerability that a lot of Frenchers have and how hard it is to find another apartment. So I know it may be a huge difference for the security that myself and my roommates would feel and my neighbors to have this and to have it moving forward. Also other terms are voting on it as well in terms of meeting days. So I feel like it helps put us in state with other municipalities and Vermont who are looking at making this change as well. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mida. Do you have anyone else, do you assume? Number of signs of foul or whatever you're aware of? Yes, I am a new ski mentor and I just wanted to echo all of the biggest comments to urge the vote to happen as soon as possible. I don't really have much to add from what I started with. Thank you. Anyone else? No, it looks like it's negative or even very negative, very negative, now we have another. Yeah, she spoke from here. Okay, any last questions? Or does someone want to make a motion to proceed with the schedule we have already? Some moved. Second. Motion by Jim, second by Aurora. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All right, motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Okay, we are on to item B. This is on for discussion only. Introduction of proposed changes to sidewalk use. If anyone doesn't want to stay for the remaining items, feel free to just exit. We'll give it a minute then, yeah. I guess sidewalk use isn't as exciting as I thought it was. Take it away, Eric. Okay, thank you very much. I am here tonight to provide you with an overview of proposed changes to chapter five of the city's municipal code related to sidewalk use. As a bit of background, this is something that staff has been discussing for the past several years. Changes in staffing has kind of slowed this process a bit, but we have been diligently working to get this item before you in hopes of having something in place, any changes in place by this year's upcoming sidewalk season. As a little bit of background, historically, the city has accommodated businesses and allowed them to use part of the city sidewalks in various locations.  Typically this has been a restaurant seating for the warmer months. This has started out initially as a small two-top cafe-style tables and has slowly transitioned into larger picnic tables and other seating arrangements. The pandemic actually created a need for additional outdoor space, and so the city started to relax some of the regulations and accommodate more requests for use of that space. Since then, we have been finding that some of the sidewalk use has started to take up more time than staff had originally anticipated, and it's become a bit more of a process than was originally laid out. So currently there's a basic application process that has provided an applicant will fill out the form with some general information about their business, how they intend to utilize the sidewalk, and that's generally it. There's no diagrams, there's no other information about where the space is, what other structures may be located in the space that they're requesting, and so what we wanted to do was create a new process that provides more consistency for the applicants and will hopefully streamline the process a bit more. Ultimately though, one of the big reasons why we're bringing this up and one of the things that we've looked at as we've been evaluating the existing regulations is that the sidewalk space is ultimately a city property, so by allowing this use, the city's assuming all the liability, and we want to make sure that these areas that were designed for, sorry, that were not designed for use of seating and the outdoor use are being treated in a manner by how they're intentionally designed or how they were initially designed, but also still being mindful to the needs of the business community and trying to support them as much as possible. So what we're proposing are changes that will hopefully accommodate those uses. Also, one other item with the application process, as you may recall, we've had some challenges in the past where two businesses have requested the same space and they've had to come back to you to have that situation rectified, so we're hoping to alleviate some of those issues and having the staff time to take care of those. So this process officially started with outreach to the business community back at the beginning of December. You were all provided some information in advance of it going out to the business community. We provided them with a memo outlining several options, five different options that were considered by the city or at least evaluated, but then ultimately not advanced for one reason or another and those are all outlined in that memo. We also provided a link for the businesses, either the owners, the employees, patrons, whoever could provide feedback directly to us on the proposed changes that were being made. At the time of preparing the agenda, we had 13 responses to that form on the city's website. That information was included in your agenda packet as well. Since then, we officially shut the form down on Friday so businesses had up through Friday to respond. We received about seven more responses. They were all from employees, generally consistent with some of the other responses that we received. So nothing too grand or new in that regard. In addition to that form, I had received several phone calls and emails from businesses directly and also I had one business owner stop in directly to talk with me about this information. So what I was hoping to do tonight is just provide a general overview of some of the higher level changes with the expectation that we would get into a more detailed conversation of the future meeting. In your agenda packet with the cover sheet, I identified February 6th as a potential date for that. I'd actually like to revise that to your next meeting on January 23rd. That will allow us enough time to potentially warn a public hearing for your meeting on February 21st with the idea that this council would potentially see this process the whole way through before town meeting day when potentially new counselors would be seated and then we might have to go through the process again. So if possible, if you're comfortable, that's the timeline that we'd like to proceed with going forward completely your decision in that regard. So any questions at that point before I start to highlight some of the changes that are being proposed? And this might be two in the weeds. I have a question that was proposed back in November when you sent us the original email. One of the concerns it seemed was safety concerns and I had asked what safety concerns we had seen that would warrant the kind of changes that you're proposing to safety. Didn't go back from anybody. Reached up to the businesses and they had not witnessed any safety issues that were done or people tripping or being hit by cars that they had reported to the businesses. So if I could get clarification on that question I asked in November today, that would be great. Sure, so I'm not sure if I can point to any specific examples that have happened but I think that's the point is that we recognize that the areas that are being used for in particular outdoor seating we're not designed for that, for that particular use. They're designed right now to accommodate vehicles for the most part. Where we're talking about the outdoor space is directly adjacent to parking and the angled spaces in and around the downtown core and I guess just to back up a step. Primarily we're talking about in and around the downtown core area because that's where we have sidewalks wide enough to accommodate use. Other sidewalks in the city don't really have the space right now so that's primarily where this occurs. So the spaces that are the angled parking on the west side of the road in particular and along the Winooski block are really intended for vehicles, for the bumper overhang. We have, like I said, we haven't seen any, at least I'm not aware of any reported incidents of vehicles interacting with pedestrians in that regard but I think that's the point here. We wanna make sure that we're getting in front of it so that that doesn't happen. Right now again, the city is assuming full liability of something were to happen in that area so because it is the city space we wanna make sure that we're protecting the city in that regard. Okay, thank you. So just, and we've had outdoor seating for how long now? I mean, a while. That's a good question. Yeah, it's been 10, 15 years at least, I would say. So 15 years of not seeing anything so I just wanna note that, but. Or at least nothing has been reported, I would say. And we've spoken with the city lawyer and there's no way of transferring that liability to the business. They lease that space from us or? I mean, I think ultimately it remains city property so we can be named as an insured but at the end of the day I think any legal action would involve the city because it's still the city's property. Okay. I know that some of the businesses are more than happy to discuss that liability to share about it so I think that answers that question from the members, so thank you. Sure, thank you. Yeah, and that's my apologies for not getting back to you, Timely. Thank you. And I will say that it is the job of staff to look for the worst possible scenario and help the city plan and prepare for those. So I understand the frustration that people might feel that if there hasn't been an issue of why but one issue could be very, very expensive for the city. I had a question before getting into the weeds. There was only one map included. I would have expected the entire downtown area as well as planning for Main Street, so. Yeah, so those are both good questions or good points. I think the map that was included was really more to show an example of what this would look like and I think it's important to note that not every area of the sidewalk, not every location of where sidewalk use is happening is the same, so these changes may not affect businesses at all. It may actually in some cases give businesses more space. It may also make the outdoor seating more accessible for people with mobility impairments. Some of the businesses, some of the buildings are not currently ADA accessible because the doorways are either too narrow or there's thresholds that they can't cross. So by incorporating in some of the changes that are outlined, the businesses may actually get more space and make their space more accessible. So because each area is different, it's hard to really lay out what that's gonna look like so the map that we included was really intended to show a sample of one particular block. And I recall in previous meetings we wanted this to be as predictable as possible so it seems like having maps for all of the potentially least outdoor spaces would be beneficial in the future for predictability. Moving on from that, one thing that stood out to me, I mean there's a lot in here but one thing that stood out to me as an overarching question, I noticed that a newer requirement for or new language I should say to have $2 million liability coverage, what decided 2 million as opposed to 1 million? So quite frankly, that was a number that was put in. What my intent is to get feedback from you all and then get a legal perspective from our attorney which may change some of those numbers but that was really just a starting point at this point. I've seen more traditionally for contractors, for grants, that 1 million seems to be more common of a minimum liability coverage so that's why it stood out to me as like is there something there that I don't know about? Any other? You wanna walk us through? Yep, happy to do that. So I'm just gonna highlight some of the bigger changes for you all and please feel free to ask questions or ask about other items that I'm not highlighting. So the first item I would note is on page three which is a new definition for storefront. Basically trying to clarify what area we are allowing to be utilized for sidewalk use. This carries over onto page four and actually another change that I'll note at the bottom of page four simply because I think it's an important clarification. There's some language being stricken in section 5.03 under general provisions. Part of this is being done because there's been some changes to the licensing through the state's office of liquor and lottery I think they're called now where they're doing it on an anniversary date rather than on an annual basis so some of the timelines that are outlined in that section wouldn't make sense anymore for some of the other aspects that this specific chapter of the municipal code is affecting or impacting so it made sense to remove that language as well. So a new definition for what a storefront actually is then the next big change is gonna come on page nine where we start getting into the actual area of sidewalk use, the timing for when sidewalk use is permitted. We currently don't have any written documentation on what the sidewalk season, as I call it, technically is. If you don't mind, do you wanna ask questions along the way? Yeah, yeah, that's fine. So for the definition, page four just below number three says these regulations are not applicable to temporary seasonal. Can you just give some more details? Yeah, so really the idea being that if it's a, we wanted it to be a brick and mortar storefront, that was the idea there, so that if somebody's putting up a temporary tent or something that that doesn't then give them new space that they can acquire unless it falls under one of the other categories that's been outlined further back under, I believe, under the sidewalk use section in 5.09. And that's helpful because it seems because of the pandemic, operating hours seem to be very more variable than they did pre-pandemic. So I didn't want inadvertently to create some restrictions if that wasn't the intent. Yeah, it's, and I think, so what this would allow is for that space potentially to be used under this permitting process, depending on how it is located and what the surrounding uses are. So it may still be eligible. I can't think of a good example of that, but it could still be eligible space to be utilized. For example, El Cortillo was closed for a chunk of that pandemic. That could have been space under these parameters that have been proposed that could have been used by Scout. Yes, that's correct. That's correct. Yep, and I believe that that type of example, counselor is outlined under section. It's either under 5.09 or a future section, but yes. So we tried to, we tried to build in as much of those accommodations as possible for businesses that are either operating under different hours that could potentially share additional space. So for example, sneakers is mostly a morning and daytime business where monkey house is more of an evening and afternoon business. So potentially, if they were able to work it out, they could share all the space in front of both of those buildings. Or if there's a business that does not want to use outdoor space, they could put an adjacent business that could potentially take over the space in front of their business, the sidewalk space with an agreement from that business. Okay, thank you. So again, we're building in provisions to potentially accommodate more space than some of the businesses currently have if under certain circumstances. So yeah, so section 509 provides more of the specific details on the actual permit use itself, who can apply for it, the time of year that it's usable and then this gets into some of the other allowances like we just talked about for sharing of space. Can I ask you about the timing? Sure. Is there a reason why we wanted to set from April 1st to November 30th instead of just tying it to snow bowls? So the April 1st to November 30th coincides with the, I believe it coincides with the parking band for the city. So that's generally the operational time when we're trying to make sure that we've got more space cleared for maintenance and for those kind of off season events that we might need to go out and clear snow, for example. So generally after April 1st, similar with the overnight parking band, we're generally confident that if we do have a weather event it's gonna be either small enough or warm enough that it can be taken care of. But so before that, it's a little uncertain, a little lesser. Okay, thank you. We also talk about in this section about potential of, I believe it's in this section or maybe it's in 510, about adding in structures. So you may have noticed that Misery Loves Company, they had a big structure built. We are allowing for an accommodation of that, provided it, again, meets the offset from the curb line and in certain circumstances if it needs permitting because either the height or the design of it for any type of building code that that is built in as well, but we're not prohibiting that type of design to be allowed in here. And also in some cases it may, a business may want to build in some sort of a structure because some of the businesses along, again, along the Winooski Block for sure and along the west side of the circle, there is that step down to where they generally are using seating by moving, by accommodating that two foot space, they may need to put in some kind of a structure. I actually had a conversation with one of the business owners that basically said, I'll just shave a little bit off the legs of the table and slide them in and I'll be fine. I won't have to build anything in there. I'll have the same number of tables I had as I did last year, this won't affect me at all. So again, it's gonna impact people differently. A business like Archives on the other side of the circle, they, this probably won't do anything to them because there's no, they've got plenty of space there for sidewalk, there's no step downs, there's no other structures in the way. The other part that comes into play with this section is to identify the fact that we will need to build in some space for existing public, as I'm calling it, public furniture. So bike racks, parking kiosks, things of that nature. So they're still usable. We had some instances this past year where I believe that at the Grazer's location on the southern end there, their tables were right up against the bike racks that were on that corner. So those bike racks were virtually useless and couldn't be utilized because there was tables right in the way. So we had to, we had to work with the business to make sure that they were creating additional space. We've also heard from several residents about the clear space in front of Mandarin with that light pole. So we wanna make sure again that we're, we're taking into account those type of features and structures that are there and our city assets and being utilized for for benefit of the community in some instances and making sure there's appropriate space around those items so that we can, they can be utilized for their intended purpose. And again, this will all come into some of the new application that will include diagrams and other information that will outline all of this information. It's a bit, we can postpone this question. But I can't help but think carpet for the horse. So with Main Street, do we have design plans to know well enough how this will affect that? Or is this something that will change, we see like the potential for amending this once we have design plans? That's a good question. I think, and I may let John Rousher jump in here as well since he's on, but I believe this should accommodate any changes to Main Street as well. I know the design of Main Street is gonna be a bit different. So it's gonna be a bit wider sidewalk, a bit wider tree belt. So we may need to look specifically at where we would allow for use of sidewalk space. But again, that may, we may need to see more of what's happening there. So John, I don't know if you wanna add anything to that. Yeah, nothing really. I mean, so from the Main Street project, I think it's, we have roughly seven very close sidewalks and we have a seven foot street state belt. There's no angle parking, it's all parallel parking so it's not gonna impact somewhere to, around the road or even at those areas. We want to see cafe space because one of the main intentions of the Main Street project is to provide a wider pedestrian route. So typically you wanna see like a seven or eight foot pedestrian pathway in more congested downtown areas. It'll provide better pedestrian access. And as soon as you start putting cafe tables and things like that, you're checking things back down to the sidewalk path that we have up there now. So we'll have to come up with a policy to review where sidewalks, cafe space would be appropriate on Main Street. Okay. Also to that point, one of the changes that was recently made to the Gateway Zoning District allows for a portion of the building, depending on how big it is, to be set back further from the property line, the required building line. And part of the purpose for that setback was to accommodate any type of outdoor space for a ground floor business. So we built some of that accommodation into the zoning component, presuming that a developer would take advantage of it. The other big change that I wanted to highlight for you all and I think the last one is on page 12 for the approval process. What we're outlining here is an initial approval would happen by council, but then you all could delegate future approvals of that sidewalk use to staff. So under certain circumstances. So if there's been no violations to either Department of Liquor and Lottery, to any of their regulations or to any city regulations within two years, if the size of the space has not changed from the previous year and if the ownership of the business has not changed, you all could delegate that approval to staff so that it'll hopefully help streamline the process and have a quicker turnaround time for the businesses. So those I think are the big changes that I wanted to highlight. But again, just more of a higher level overview tonight with the intent of coming back to you at a future meeting to get into more detail, hopefully address any concerns you may have and then hopefully set up public hearing. So this last section about delegation. So it says the business has not been issued a violation or been cited, but I believe we've had complaints without citations this past year. Is that correct? I'm, that I don't know. I wouldn't have received the, at least any type of. So like Mandarin, were they cited? Probably not, because we didn't have parameters. We didn't have these parameters. For encroachment of the, or limiting the sidewalk space. I don't believe that we ever formally cited them. I'm not sure that we had a mechanism to do that, but I believe we did talk to the business on those occasions. So I just wonder a question for council. Would we want to have something come back that has had a complaint, but not a citation? No. That's my opinion. Because there are a lot of, I mean it's, there are a lot of, I can think of a number of occasions where something may not raise to the occasion of a citation, especially knowing how much we try to work with our businesses, but it could potentially warrant another look. I mean, I feel like if there's a complaint and let you go back and the business hasn't rectified it, then a citation would. I'm just thinking procedurally, like. I think a citation is a good baseline level for bringing something back to council. I don't think individual complaints are. Somebody can be complaining about a business who's actually not violating any issues. I don't think that's worth pulling it out of administrative approval. And if they really have a problem, they can speak a public comment, they can reach out to us, we could ask to pull something out of administrative approval, but I wouldn't want to have a standard where any complaint means we're still doing all of these approvals. I hear that. Is this something that would be on a consent agenda? Not if it's going through administration. Right, like the point of this is we talked about this before, we keep having to do these approvals when there's nothing, I don't know what the word I want. Materially, nothing has changed, but we make people come in here and see us so that we can approve their sidewalk permit. Right, and I think. And we wanted to move that to staff. Right, and I'm in agreement with that. I'm thinking about the instances where some of the things might warrant another look that don't rise to a citation. I hear you, I'm saying I don't, I think if it's not a citation, it doesn't warrant another look. And I wonder if with this significantly more structure and definition in this ordinance, if we will, then it'll be clear what is the citation and what is a non, like if there's a complaint that isn't addressed by this, then it's a call for there's a valid complaint or something we want to address and we would reopen this ordinance and make additional changes to fix that. If it's, so I feel like there's that, if there's something broken that the complaint is highlighting that we would fix it. And I would expect staff to raise that or if there's something that's on the line and they can't call whether it's administrative or not, then bring it to us. Like, and I think there's some, I think that discretion should be on staff rather than us major looking at every complaint. That'd be my, but I would expect this to play out if it's put out there. And I think that's some of the intent of why we're adding in so much new language is so that we do have parameters to evaluate any issues or concerns or complaints that come forward to us. We can, we now have, or we potentially would have a regulatory mechanism to point to to say you are in violation of X, Y. So it's right now, we don't have that. So it's harder to enforce the sidewalk use. Yeah, and I'm not thinking that it's going to be often, but for the occasion where something is an issue and then council doesn't have an opportunity to weigh in. So essentially having a procedural whole of some variety. So it's the rare occasion that I'm thinking about, not general. And I think also in previously, these were coming before you all because you were also reviewing the outdoor consumption permitting at the same time. And now that those are being separated because of the anniversary date, you would be seeing or an application for sidewalk use may come in randomly, rather than with an application for outside consumption. So those two are potentially being separated. So hopefully the administrative process would allow staff to address those when they come in outside of that normal timeframe. I have a question about the dimensions in 510. The five foot minimum, that's ADA, right? We already enforced that? So yes, I believe the ADA may only be three feet, but I think because it's the, and John, I'll look to you on that as well. But I think because of the location where a lot of these sidewalks are, they're in the busier areas, we want to provide additional space for pedestrians. Yeah, it's right, three feet of minimum for ADA requirement, but typically it's a five foot space of foot. And also when we build sidewalks, just in general, they're five foot wide sidewalks. So that's a typical dimension of a sidewalk. And then the two foot buffer for parking, where do you get that number from? So that I believe is from, John, I'll look to you again. I believe that is from the ITE, the Institute of Transportation Engineers, their manual for the design of these actual spaces for the angle of the space, being 45 degree angle spaces, I believe it calls for a two foot overhang. Yeah, close, it's urban lines to the dimensions of parking. But there's no parking pass rule for this dimension, but 2B is the reasonable design guide that we found. I've seen a higher one, too, but that seems a little overkill. So we're going to let you go to high standards for that, to the 45 degree parking. And that incorporates the, from the face of the curb. So the actual curb width itself is included in that two foot dimension. I, seeing all the concern about lost space, I wonder if there's any flexibility on that number. I don't see cars overhanging two feet, typically down there, so. Or differentiation between parallel and angled parking. So I think the two feet swing on the door opening makes sense to me, I can see that requirement, but I don't see necessarily a two foot overhang of a vehicle bumper on an angled parking. I also, many of these places have the picnic tables, right? And it sounds like those are going to be not work in this scenario, and we maybe don't want picnic tables. But I feel like the picnic tables has served as that safety buffer. Like, a car could hit the edge of the table, but not the person. It's probably not best practice for liability, but. I mean, and also, I mean, I'm sure you all read the business responses, but like, the picnic table enables the business to serve the customers that go to a business. Very infrequently do you go out to dinner with just a couple of people, like one other person. It's date night maybe, but not generally. So I think the picnic tables are kind of key to what part downtown needs to provide for residents and visitors. And I think, I don't think there's anything in these proposed changes that would prohibit the use of picnic tables. It may require that a business add in a bit more infrastructure to accommodate the table to in some cases where that step down occurs. So, but there's nothing about what we've written or at least there's no intention of what we've written that would require a business to not use a picnic table. It may just require them to do a little bit more. So in the example of the one business owner that reached out to me about just cutting down the legs of the table to accommodate that step, that's a perfectly acceptable solution to do that. The other thing I wanted to mention about that two foot clear space for the angled parking, what it does is it accommodates the bumper overhang, but it would also accommodate a place for the passengers of that vehicle to walk. So that they're not having to walk out into the traveling to get around some of the barriers that are put up around these outdoor seating areas. So if they do need to get from place to place, that would provide some additional space for them to walk. There was a question about before those angled parking, how the space between them before you have the additional barrier of the island, how, what are the requirements, spacing requirements for that? Is that meeting minimum? Is that over minimum? Like what, the space for cars that need to back up? You know what, what more additional information do you have on that? I'm not sure I fully understand your question.  Oh, okay, yes, that's basically the median and the curve. Right. I saw a question come in in the packet about the space between where the car once parked and the space open between that traveling between the car part and then that median. Got it. What those requirements need to be and what they are now. So I believe right now it's a 12 foot clear space according to the diagram that John put together.  Right, between the actual traveling of Main Street and the little drive aisle behind the parking spaces on the other side of that median. Yeah, so according to the diagram John put together, it's just over 12 feet right now. I think probably the bigger issue with that drive aisle is gonna be emergency services. And if for some reason we needed to get a fire truck in there, having enough space that that truck could park safely. I'll look the chief body if he wants to- And same question, what are the minimums? That's a good question. John, I'm not sure if you know- In a hot pan, I don't know. I mean, please remember, this was all pretty intentionally designed by transportation engineers. Not to say we can't question some of these dimensions, but this was designed. So John and Laudia would be a good one to reference you because I think a belief of fire truck access, we always look at 12 feet minimum access to get a fire truck in there as well. There is potential, I guess.  So unless you do something to show up that parking depth, you're really not changing the issue with cars overhang, the curb. That's kind of the issue we're having with these cafe seating spots. Yeah, looking for a response, because I didn't see one in the packet to that effect, so just looking to clear it up. So looking for the minimum travel width for basically that drive aisle. And maybe, I think another piece who would need to have is the minimum depth of the parking stall itself. So right now I think these are quite long parking stalls and question is does the entire parking stall need to move as the parking stall become shorter? I think that, I don't know if that was implied in your question as well. Essentially. Yeah, I believe the dimensions of the parking stalls as they're designed, nine foot by 18 foot is the, for an angled parking of this, is the, is basically the standard size. Do we have any public comment signed up for this topic, Paul? Is there anyone in the Zoom audience that wishes to speak? Let's bring Meredith over. I'll also just mention while Meredith is coming over, counselor Renner mentioned that downtown board is meeting tomorrow night. I'm intending to go to their meeting and talk to them about this as well. So do some additional outreach directly to the board. All right, Meredith, I think you're on. I just wanted to say one thing which is that we have been aware of these changes and have had great conversations with staff. And so I think all the questions are so thoughtful that I really appreciate them. And I just wanted to shout out to the staff because they've been doing a tremendous amount of work on this and we've had a lot of questions and feelings. And so we know that there's a lot involved in this. But I do feel like this process, and hopefully at the next meeting, we're reporting some discussion, I don't know if we can do a great work, discussions and action which I was thinking on this. I'm sure that we'll have some, this is where there's other interested parties, you know, participating. But I just wanted to say thank you to the staff and for you guys for giving your thoughts and for being so thoughtful about this because there is a really difficult thing at play here which is the safety and the life of the young stateside and I understand that we risk the birds but also supporting the businesses. And it took me a long time to kind of get my head around what this actually means and to bring in points like it's different on every street. So that's complicated. But ultimately I do feel that there is actually more positive century. And you know, it's a little bit left here and there are children to talk. So I just wanted to thank you to everyone and that he will definitely be, you know, doing some more formalized statements and bringing some friends to the next meeting but that, you know, there's been a whole and a lot of work done before this point. So I just want to make the opportunity and to thank you there and John and Elaine and Zahadi and Chupiber about everything that's been many, many, many hours before. Thank you, Meredith. Same appreciation goes for Meredith, by the way. Yeah, I would be interested in the future hearing from business owners like these survey responses are very concerned but I don't understand how it translates to like from what you're showing us. There's this like undertone of this means we can't have any outdoor seating or something. So hearing more about this concerns will be useful. One other item I want to highlight is related to this. We are in the early processes of working on a separate arrangement with certain businesses that have city property but they're not really sidewalk. So if you think about the space in front of McKee's where it's a, it's city property but it's not really the travel path of a sidewalk. Similarly, water works their outdoor space. So we're working, again, very initial stages of this but working on specific lease agreements with those businesses. So they would fall kind of outside of this sidewalk use because of the nature of their outdoor space that they have. So in this instance, what we're talking about is really where there's a true pedestrian travel component to the sidewalk use that will be impacted is that's what this piece of the code is intended to address. So we want to be mindful that not all businesses are the same in those regards as well. And so we would, we want to try to create a different arrangement with those entities. Are there additional questions? Is there any other feedback you're looking for? Not at this time, I think I have the, I believe I wrote down all the questions that you all were looking for additional information on and we'll hopefully bring that back to the next meeting. I think the big thing will be just that, yeah, trying to get this scheduled for your next meeting on January 23rd rather than on February 6th as it was indicated in the agenda packet. Okay, thank you. Great, thank you all very much. Thank you. All right, before we get into our next significant item, I'm gonna call a five minute recess. It's a 7.33, so 7.38, reconvene. The FY24 recommended budget from the city manager, that's me, over the last month you have received presentations from the city leadership team. Her state statute, the budget has to be worn 30 to 40 days prior to annual meeting, which you finalized, thank you. So you would need to have the vote warned between January 26th and February 5th. Your last scheduled meeting for that is January 23rd next week, so that's why we've scheduled your vote on the budget and warning for that meeting. Staff have updated the budget proposal in response to recent conversations about equity and trying to find other savings. These as well as items that council are actively debating are highlighted in green in the budget scenario tool clear consideration. It was one item that I neglected to highlight the St. Michael's adjustment, which I'll review in a minute. Items included in the tool are A, possible cuts identified by staff from the overall general fund budget that would not significantly impact current operations. B, stretch budget items to make progress on strategies and party initiatives. Or C, items requested by council for review. So departing from my coverage sheet now. A recommended change that you haven't heard me discuss yet in a public meeting that could reduce the FY24 budget as alluded to earlier, postponing the change to the St. Michael's arrangement to FY25, but budgeting for in-kind fire vehicle diesel fire vehicle diesel fuel for FY24 and a fuel management system so we can accountably track their use. My apologies for missing that highlight in the Friday packet. Another change I mentioned last week that I'm recommending based on feedback from a community stakeholder is the mediated community voice program. And staff also recommend, as I mentioned last week, increasing the budget of revenue to local options tax based on updated numbers from this fiscal year by $47,500 in that next month. You'll notice that the use of ARPA funding in the tool is down to $363,000. If you want to use the original recommended amount of $409,000, which I am at least still comfortable with, that gives you $47,000 to bring back into the budget. I'll say that since we changed the housing initiative director posting to 30 hours from 40 hours, we haven't had a single applicant. I'm not, I can't say for a fact that that's a direct correlation, but you can have your own suspicions about that. If you wanted to bring that back to 40 hours, that would leave $18,588 to spend elsewhere. So we're looking for you to have a discussion and then provide a fraction of staff on any changes you'd like to see before the final vote next week as your perhaps your final recommendation or if you want a clarification before then before even knowing what your final would be. Okay, thank you Elaine. I want to bring some order to this discussion. So start with any questions, outstanding questions that we have. We can take public comment. We can then make statements about what we want to see or propose changes, which I would let everybody do before we start digging into those and debating. So to keep us, to keep things orderly, I do want to make sure that we're not submitting positions right away that we first start with just doing clarifying questions. And before kicking that off, I do want to recognize this is the most challenging budget I've seen in the five years I've been involved in this process. It's our job as leaders in the community to make tough decisions about what we need and what we can resource. I think staff has done a lot of that for us already.  I think that you presented a budget that prioritizes that direct service delivery, connection building in the community, and safety, which are things that residents feel in their day to day. It is a higher than normal increase you've presented, but we have to find some way to meet inflation and limit adverse impacts to residents, both in the services they receive and in the cost to them. So there are a lot of decisions here, a lot of, it's difficult, it's a difficult balance. And I just want to name that. So let's start first focused on any final questions we have, like outstanding questions or points of clarification. There are more questions about this new suggested mediated community voice program. Do you want to give a high level overview? Yeah, so I don't remember what I said last week. The model that was presented to us as one that has been used by this person in their consultancies for other organizations, I think the term was like a year, where members of the affected community, in this case it would be Windows key residents or business owners or employees or whatever, I'd call them stakeholders probably. Members who are marginalized in particular would be invited into a process where they could meet with one on one with staff people and explain to them us what their experience is, living here, working here, what have you. And then it would be up to us as staff to manage that input and see, well, what could we change in response to that? So in a way I see it as spreading out the what would have been all gathered by the equity director, then it's their job to make it all happen. My sense is that it makes us more of all of our jobs. There isn't necessarily that direct accountability of like, okay, we're gonna, you say this, we're gonna do that, but an equity director wouldn't be able to guarantee that either. The mediated portion of that is I'm sure there's members of the community who don't feel comfortable or even safe potentially talking directly to any of us. Or if they have an issue with how I'm managing things they might not feel comfortable talking to me directly. And so the mediator's role would be to hear that as somebody who's trusted by the community and who understands how city operations work to hear that feedback and then translate it to us. So again, it's sort of, it seems, it feels to me like a more accessible way to get towards that dialogue. I think I called it like porosity between the community and city hall that I think we need in order to get to more understanding of what it's like from many people's perspectives, not just those who already have access to us. I think I had mentioned a higher, I had mentioned a higher figure last time. And I did some back in the napkin nap math on, so say we were compensating the community at $50 per meeting, a community member and then potentially the same amount for the mediator. And I'm not saying that has to be the number, but when communities around Vermont are directly compensating marginalized community members for their time sharing their direct, their lived experience, that's the number that I've always seen. Like I haven't even seen a different number. I don't know where it came from, but it seems to be common. So if we use that, and I divided it into the $47,500 of potential revenue, I got to a number of hours that city staff cannot possibly absorb. Like maybe people could come and talk to us and we would have no time to deal with any of it or do our regular jobs. That's still an optimistic number where we built in, but it seemed like a more, I think a budget is like we have two meetings a week. That's still a lot, I have to tell you, that's a lot to be trying to act on, but at least it gives us some room for say, maybe something that they give us input on would cost some money and then we'd have some money that we could spend on that or translation services or interpretation services. Thank you. Given that we're looking at a potential validation vote we don't know when that needs to happen. Curious about the language access support that we'll need for ballot translation interpretation and if that should be built into this. You mean into this line item? Into this budget. Into this budget. Angela, there is or is not something already in there. So this budget would not take effect until July 1, 2023. So unless your vote or the verification is gonna happen after that date it should not be included in this budget. Right, I said something about maybe having that in the fall. So potentially would be. Is budgeting here for currently one election? The verification vote, I think we are still running numbers to determine what a potential cost for that would be and it could be much smaller than a ballot encoded that has to run through the machine. It could be a hand count ballot but with the existing elections, that line item within the general fund of, I believe it's $3,800 per election that is the minimum to translate into I believe five languages, have encoded ballots and have staff to run. Jenny has a comment if you wanna check it. Yeah, please. So President. Thank you. For the validation cost, I contacted LanguageLink who previously has been our contact for the March of 22 annual meeting and to do nine languages, it was about $775 of the overall cost which I came up with about $2,800. But 775 would cover the language access. Thank you. You have any questions, Jim? Sure. I, we haven't talked, I don't believe, so forgive me if we have, about the interpretation at the polls being a cut or a not funds in the tool that's not included in the budget currently. So previous town meeting day, we did have interpretation at the polls but we wouldn't have it for future for this, for March 24's town meeting in this budget. Is that the intention of that line in that budget tool? There is no current budget for interpretation at the polls that was being pulled from other line items in order to cover that due to the miscommunication of what was available. Got it. So this, that would still need to happen in future years if we don't include that line. We'd have to pull from other funds to make that happen. That's correct. If we're providing interpretation at the polls, it wouldn't need to be covered by a different line item. And if I, if that's okay, Jim, we don't have a language access plan, correct? Not yet, no. Okay. So when the language access plan is finalized, right now there's, there is a translation budget because this 6,000 ad would be a doubling of our translation budget. So there's existing translation budget for that language access plan, but no interpretation budget to support it. Like a cover, though we had some for interpretation somewhere else, but eventually professional services. Not another one. And we have used that existing translation money also for interpretation when needed. The police department records clerk. And this has been a bigger question about regional dispatch. Do you have any updates on where South Burlington plan lies? I don't, unfortunately. All right. So our plan is just to assume that we're going to stay with dispatch, regional dispatch, that something's gonna happen there and we won't need the assistant. That's my recommendation that you assume that something will happen so that you have some money to do it with. Okay. And then if we don't, we just have extra money in the budget. It could be reappropriated for our policy. So if it didn't come to fruition, we could come back to council with a budget amendment to repurpose those funds. That's good. Thank you. Ray, I have some questions about the diagram or whatever. Thank you. And thank you for putting that together. So there's a note about the recreation assistant. If this position was eliminated, we will not be able to support any full week summer camps other than thrive. What does that mean? Yeah, so thrive typically runs depending on the school calendar, six or seven weeks. And that's driven by access to the school building. So usually the first or second week in August, the school says we need a few weeks to clean up, get ready for the school year. So thrive is not able to access the school building. So this past two summers with Essar funding, what we've been able to do is add on both the front and back end of the summer some additional full week, full day camps run through the recreation department, which is not something we had done historically. So really what it's allowed us to do is have more continuous care for kids during the summer. Those camps are typically a little smaller. So thrive was running around 60 kids a week. Those camps were running closer between 20 and 30 just based on where we could be. But still that's 20 or 30 kids a week in those weeks of the summer that we were able to care for full day, full week. Okay. And then you mentioned with the admin role, I think it was the admin role. Not being able to manage rentals in the O'Brien Center. Correct. But we were doing that before this role. So I wonder what changed. Poorly to be clear. Yeah. And I don't think that's something we wanna go back to. I think that with the increase in programming that we've seen, I don't think we could continue to offer programming as we are and do a good job managing that space for folks. I mean, we were quite candidly giving folks a key and saying, we'll see you Monday. Good luck in there. And that's not good service. And it's also not necessarily good for the facility. Yeah, exactly. And we were dealing then with a lot of cleanup and damage and issues, you know, building being left open on the weekend. So we've tried to, I think learn with some of those successes that the previous tenant in renting spaces was exhibiting around how to kind of run a public space and trying to mirror some of that. So. Okay. And then the last one was the ESSER supplies, which I think you told us in the meeting, but I forgot. So yeah, and Angela may have to help me here. So two years ago when ESSER came on, we saw the supply lines grow because we were running more programs. And so we budgeted for additional supplies because we were running more programs. And so looking into this next budget year, we did trim that those supply lines back in anticipation of ESSER going away, but we did maintain some growth in those areas. And so when I'm saying supplies, that's general supplies, which by our terminology is sort of office supplies, anything that could be used sort of portably across departments.  And while those would probably be fun for my friends in public works, not something that they would typically use every day to day.  And so we did propose to keep some of those increased, but scaled those back. I think it was 6,500 that we opted or proposed to cut back from last year's budget. Okay. That was it for me. While we have Ray, did anyone else have questions about? Yeah, I also on the O'Brien Center rentals. So it seems like there is, can you give us a sense of the demand right now? It's high. So Zara has been working pretty much every weekend, one or two days since we started opening that. And we have done no promotion whatsoever. So that's all word of mouth, you know, community folks finding out that it's available. So I think that's a floodgate that if we put a little effort into could really open up. But again, I don't think that's something we can sustain without that position that Zara is in now. And is that also access to kitchen over there? It is, yeah. We've seen a little bit less kitchen use. Again, we haven't promoted it. So it's been a few folks that had been using it when North End Studios was there and then a couple of the folks that are doing the cultural meals that have been coming in. And again, just kind of refinding us without any promotion. And we don't have a timeline for any potential change of use? With that building. Not at this point. No, I know there was an email right before I left. I think there's some looking at plans happening and some budgeting happening, but nothing definitive at this point. Okay. Hopeful. And then a question for some John, I guess somebody else. Cause it changes the infrastructure. I'll let you off the hook, right? So towards the bottom of the tool, line striping contract. So does that mean the funding that was previously allocated for line striping is proposed to be removed? No. Okay. This was her tool that John had sent me, an education to the line striping contract. He used more durable materials and potentially expanded scope. So the existing line is 20,000 in the budget. This would expand that for those more durable so that we don't have to do them as frequently. Yeah, mainly expanding scope. You're going to be going through the light head, master plan work that Eric will be meeting. So I fully expect there's going to be some additional line striping work that comes out of that. So that's a place where we're going to need more, any additional cross-bond work we need to do, the scope that's already approved, that you all approved. And then the bike head, master plan, any priority work there? Point of clarification. So John, you said scope, but is it scope and durability of paint, or is it scope? So the additional funding is will be for contract work and that will be more durable like paint. So it's striping work that we can't do in turn. It's just contract work. So both. Okay. And what's the, I guess, what's the expense for needing to do it again sooner? So pay, you get what you pay for. So if we're paying for a less durable paint, we have to redo the lines sooner. So what's that, what's that expense for having to redo the lines sooner? Would we expect that we would be budgeting the same amount next year for the same lines that we did this year? Is that fair? So the overall program that we're trying to implement is that every year we're gonna be budgeting for the main corridors at least. So depending on what happens, ideally we'd be doing a three-point year, he's down three-point year, now it's the avenue another year and we'll get through your cycle. And then some of the collector's streets. So we have budgeted currently for this coming. 20 is in the base budget for FY24. I'm just looking at what we have spent just for paint from Franklin Paint Company per fiscal year. It runs roughly six to $8,000 just for the paint, including any tips for other pieces that you need for the equipment. Yeah, and that's just the water-based paint material that we would need to generally on some of the more traffic crosswalks. Does council have any more questions for clarification? Okay. Before opening public comment, I do want to just make sure you've all seen. Additionally, in the agenda, there is a memo on unfunded needs. So these are like capital items that we already know about. For the general fund portion, that is over $3 million plus 12 items that aren't yet estimated and 15 million in water and wastewater needs coming in the near term. I also want to share, I did with the workbook here, if we were to implement everything in here. So all these stretch items and all these additional known needs, that is, I can't remember what the total is, but it would result in a $1,000 increase, a 37% increase to the tax rate. It was about 2.3 million for all of that too. And I want to say this so that we and residents understand like we can't do everything all at once and this is why there is this balancing of what are the most important things. And decisions we make this year impact our capacity to take on more next year in the years following. Are there any public comments or questions from the public? I see a hand. Welcome, yes. You know, I'm here and I'm looking to the packet. We just really appreciate the work that everybody did putting this together and I'm looking through many of the program funds that the program is including where they can tell the impact of certain decisions that could be made and just want to say how eliminated it is to the impact that these programs have and I know it as a constituent and participate in any of these programs including the library and the community center and just want to say thanks to the program directors who are there in the room how much I appreciate the services and the work that they put into pulling budget together. Thank you. More staff coos. Okay, so we have the information we need. Now would be the chance if anyone wants to propose an ad or removal or any type of change to what's been presented to us. Do you have anything, Thomas? I have a lot of things, but none that I believe makes sense for us to fund right now. So I'm just gonna leave those out, but they, yeah. Jim, is there anything you wanna suggest? Sure, you can always make suggestions. So it's just kind of dialing exactly what they were again to make sure I have it right. Maybe I'll reshape that. Yeah, we can come back to you too. We can go back and forth. I just wanna make sure everyone has a chance to share before we start debating. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'll start by saying that the attempt to keep the tax rate to 5% with buy down by ARPA is imprecomitting or kicking hard decisions down the road is uncomfortable to me and I wanna put that out there in the open that whatever, even if we just accept the level services budget that that's what we're doing. And I think that's also important to Square. I do think it is somewhat in keeping with the charge of the TIF and keeping tax rate increases low in the future. That's what this would do, but it is kind of a pre, we are assuming that that decision will be kept into the future and that's not clear. I've been thinking a lot about the significant expansion of community services that this would represent. This is an institutionalization of a bunch of services that we were not providing before and that were expected to be temporary once as per, once as or expired, they would go away. And that the equity director was modeled as a a permanent position that would persist beyond grant funds. And as I've reflected on that and the things that I'm gonna propose keeping I'm really interested in moving from not from a statement to action. And I think that the ESSER funded positions have done that. And I think that there is some, as I've kind of tried to find a way to get to something different, I've come back to those community services and recreational program that we provided is doing some of that work, like looking at the access that we've created and the growth in participation by people who did not participate in these programs before has been impressive. And I, in some ways, we tried something and it worked. And I don't think that we can keep all of it but I think that there's some wisdom in keeping some of it. So while I'm uncomfortable to some extent with changing that expectation, I do see the wisdom in it. Likewise, I think the having dedicated funding for language access and for some form of community engagement around equity is critical. I don't know that the Mediated Community Voices Program is the right tool. I think that city tours, which has been fleshed out and discussed and proposed before would also be another way to do something similar. But I think that that bringing on an equity director without those resources to affect some of the work that they wanna do would also recreate a failure that we've already had in that program or in that position or an obstacle that that position encountered of having a lot of mandate and very few resources at their disposal. So I think that if we're going to find a way to keep the equity director position, that has to come with resources. I think it's telling that we haven't gotten a single application for a housing direct initiative director has the equity audit identified. Housing is probably the most critical lever we can pull at the city solely on our own. I think that we need to get that one right. And if we don't, then we're failing at a thing that our community has told us to do that our equity audit has told us to do and that we hear regularly from residents today and before that we need to do is get on our housing work. And it's been, we're keeping it together and Heather was really great at doing that work on a limited amount of time. And I think we could really do more with that if we're not gonna get a candidate at 30 hours we need to rethink that decision. My proposal is to move the housing director back to 40 hours a week to cut the second circulation assistant first drive, sorry for the library and to add in interpretation at the polls and at quarterly meetings as budget items. That would take us to a 5.15% tax rate increase which is above our 5.0. We could buy that back down or sorry to remove the community media voices program. That bring us to 5.15 we could allocate additional our funds or we could just accept that a 5.15% increase in a 7% to 8% inflation world is not that crazy. I'll stop talking now. Thank you. Thanks for letting me ramble on. Erin? I agree with Jim on a number of things. I have concerns about returning to an equity director position when the tools are not in place and the issues that were raised by Yasmine have not been addressed. Don't want to recruit somebody that also is not in set up in a place for success. I want to note that the housing manager position has also just been posted in Burlington. So we would like to have some competition of interest from that municipality. I really do see a need to retain the youth interventionist from our listening sessions, multiple times, it's been indicated how essential that is to ensuring supports for our youth are stable and in place. So I think it looks like in this tool it's pausing altogether. I think maintaining at least, I think it was the reduced 12 hours from 28, is that so maintaining a reduced 12 hours at a minimum rather than pausing in a position entirely. I haven't done enough, so I apologize. Given that we just heard this last meeting about the desperate need to have more feelings of connection in the community and the increased interest of utilizing the O'Brien Center, I think there is value to ensuring that we have a mechanism, we have the supports to allowing rentals for that space. Again, we have no sense of when any turnover in that property may or may not happen. And so ensuring access to that space in the interim feels like it's worthwhile to maintain a role that will ensure access to that position. I think I'll leave it at that. Okay. Aurora? I would be in agreement with Councillor Oakley that the youth interventionist position in maintaining that might be our most critical. And I would argue at the 28 hours and if we do have this additional 74K, that might help build that or to use if we're gonna put for, if you put 40, or bring the housing director back up to 40, that still, like I said, leaves about 18, almost 19K, that could help be rolled into that. So maybe not back up to, I believe it was 20, but to kind of even that out. The other item that I will continue to state is of utmost importance, is the equity director position. And I would like to address some of the concerns that have been brought up both by staff and by council. One of the items though I do wanna start with is the budget as presented has told our community that as soon as money gets short when times are tough, that we will cut equity and community services. So I wanna say that that is concerning to me, that that is kind of our first choice. As for the equity director position specifically, I think it is short-sighted to cut that position when instead we could think about ways to make it sustainable. For example, Elaine brought up, have the equity director could meet with constituents. I don't necessarily agree with that if we re-looked at that job description and made it more internal facing like our housing initiatives director, say an equity initiatives director position. We could find a way to make it sustainable. I also wanna point out that the situation Yaz was in is not the situation we have now where Yaz was working without having a city manager and then part without having an HR director. So that is some very specific staffing increases. Another item is that Elaine and leadership have been doing work since Yaz has left that position. And I think it would, I think I don't want our city manager to kind of discount their effort that they have put towards making things better. I also am concerned with this idea of not having that expertise. It feels short-sighted in that like it would be blinding us like if we didn't have Angela to tell us about financial goals, if we didn't have someone kind of, yes, each of our directors and leadership level are doing budget work that is key to their jobs. But Angela is there as a expert, a content expert. So thinking about that director position as a content expert is key. I agree that it needs additional support and that the youth interventionist is one of those supports having that community outreach that the other leadership is doing would be a support and would take some of that pressure off. Some other items that are currently in place, we have the inclusion and belonging commission now much like with the housing position having that is both a support to that position and that position is a support to the work of that commission. So I see that as key. Really being able to keep an eye on the big picture, I think dismissing the fact that we can't make a position that is equitable and sustainable and take all of the concerns that Yaz has brought up and put that into use to making a more equitable position. This is a discredit to all the work that she did in making the city more equitable and also all the work that has been done since to make the city more equitable. I also don't like what has come up of like we're now is not the time for an equity director that the city is ready. What is that telling our staff of color and our residents of color and other residents who face discrimination that we're saying we're not ready for equity? That's what they're hearing, even if that's not the intention. So having that position and again, making sure that it has the supports that whoever's in that position can say no and has the supports and resources to do other work. But if they were there to be that guidance of Elaine brought our, let's see, Christine asked us after, or asked the council members for areas they would prioritize after we had our equity training. And my argument to that is where can't we prioritize equity? There's equity in where we plant trees. There's equity in where we are plowing. There's equity in the books that we have in our library. Equity is a key part of every single one of our positions that is clear and we need to support that. But we also need an equity director to have that content expertise to say, help our housing initiatives tractor to be that person who can advise council on areas of policy that can be worked on and improved to limit harm. Cause that's the other thing is this work is going to be done anyway, right? It's being done by Elaine and it's not, and it's being done by other people in the city. That is key. We still need that. But it's also like the equity director level work is often also being done, but it's not being compensated. So I think as council, we need to think about what is sustainable for our city manager and for our city staff when we take away having that content expertise. And so I think, I just want to reiterate that I think it is very short-sighted to eliminate a position that we had once and not try and do better. Not taking that as a learning experience and not say, actually we're going to take a pause on this work because as someone who's worked in organizations that run on very short budgets, if you pause the position, it's gone. And I want to ask our council if we want to vote on to pause this position and see that never come back. Cause I think there's always going to be arguments of why we can't afford equity or why equity is the first thing that falls off. Equity is a key service. It's just as key service as every other work the city is doing. And I think if we think that it's something that can just be held on its own, we aren't going to progress forward. So I know that this is something that I have been kind of pushing it back since the beginning. But, and I have, I have 11 points here. So I'm going to, you know, I'm not going to get into all of them because I think we should keep this position and then return to it and discuss as we did with the housing position, exactly how this position could best work in our city makes it sustainable for the person in that position and also ensures that we still have that content expertise. So I think we should find a way to have the equity director in our budget. I number one think that. I think if we can't do that, I think we should set aside money from ARPA to fund the position or to fund a department for three to five years, either looking at sustainable funding source or have the position look for grants. Or otherwise I kind of my third option, I think we should write, I think we should have this in the budget or find another way to fund it. And I think if this council can't agree on those items, we should put it to our residents and add this position as a separate ballot item and have Winooski residents vote on if they will have that additional funds to fund that equity director as part of the ballot.  Those are my main items. Thanks, Aurora. I'll share my thoughts and then I'll summarize what is on the table for us. I've already thought some thoughts. Go for it, Thomas. Okay, cool. I think I'm seconded in thirding, Councilor Oakley from Councilor Duncan with the youth interventionist and recreation assistant position. I do agree, especially from what I've heard from residents as what Ray wrote up for us, the severe impact that they have had. So I would like to include those. Position that hasn't been spoken about tonight is the senior center director being moved to full time. We've all attended meetings at the senior center where our seniors feel like they're extremely not listened to and I think as we talk about equity, that includes our seniors as well and I think they're often forgotten between all the great programs that we provide for children and we provide for other groups. I know that the seniors feel like they are not listened to and they have a lot of asks from the city in terms of funding, but one that they seem to all kind of stand behind is funding the senior center director to go from a part-time position to a full-time position. So I would advocate for that as well. And then kind of my original just, it's too much to talk about to fund, feel like I'd like to, especially because you brought it up, Christine, the unfunded documents page. I think we really need to think about our water lines. That's a huge amount of money that we're gonna have to pay at some point. I don't know, again, I'm not a city budget expert, but I don't know if that's something we can start setting money aside for with incremental raises, even starting within this budget. And then going back to our last presentation, again, probably not for this budget, but the two of the things that the chiefs presented, I think I've already stuck around quite alarming, but the sleeping quarters that the fire chief requested, I think will enable him to provide much better service to the city as well as attracting people to come and work for the fire service. And then the police chief spoke about, I don't even think he actually asked for, but their number ratios in terms of responses needing two people to respond to emergencies and the need for a third person. I've heard from residents, I've experienced myself. The wait times of not having enough police on staff, again, it's probably not something we discussed for this budget, but I do think we need to think about those requirements as well. And then to second what Aurora was saying, I would be quite favorable to supporting the equity director through ARPA. They were originally grant funded, so I feel like ARPA is at the end of the day at the grant that we received from the government. Two to three years, not using all of ARPA towards it or a huge amount, but I think giving that equity director, which isn't uncommon in many positions, the time to find other grants to fund their position, I think if we funded it for a few years, it would give them the opportunity. Thank you, Thomas. Yeah, thank you. Okay, so we have three to $5 million in looming costs coming up, what you just pointed out, real staffing issues and public safety, which I think we're gonna be dealing with next year. It sounds to me like those are hitting ahead. We've been hearing about that for several years now. I think we have less control over emergencies that we need to respond to as a city than supporting programs that we create. So I am concerned about how much we increase this year and how much we are pre-committing for next year when there's going to be increasing inflation and these new needs. I similarly feel, I think the budget that's been proposed actually puts a ton of investment in both equity and community services. We are nearly doubling the community services department resourcing in this proposal. I agree that the foundational work of some type of community engagement program to be that mediated city tour is something. That and then the direct access and service being provided by staff in our community services department creates a foundation that would be useful when we rehire for an ED role in the future. We can't do everything all at once, as I said earlier. And I think we are putting a lot of investment in the area of equity right now and starting at this ground level items helps us build up for more capacity in the future. I think for me, from the expansion of community services and ESSER, what's really stood out is the childcare access and what that does for community members. Also looking at what Ray put together for us about how these positions support whatever, how removal of anyone would change things. I see a lot of value in the registration support and access side of the work. So I'm supportive of retaining the eight additional hours for the children and family program manager and the admin and outreach coordinator. I would also pause on the circulation assistant and potentially the rec assistant. With the sort of like new revenue that you have illuminated us to this evening, I would support bringing the housing initiative director back to 40. I think this is a scenario where we don't have any other expertise on staff. Like no one else is doing housing which is what makes it feel to me like this position is more urgent. Also because of the equity audit directives. So- Christine, do you mind if I do an asterisk there? We do have staff working on housing quality, not the type of initiatives that are- Sorry, thank you very much. Housing quality is happening, yes. Your Honor, I think the planning and zoning feeds into the housing work as well. But there's no one who's focused on it from an initiative or policy area like at the broad scale, I agree. So we've all set our piece. Let's find a way to see this. Could I push back on- Could we not debate yet? No, it's not debate. I'm just concerned about, so yes, we are leadership but ultimately what we vote on is going to go to the community to have their final say. So we could, you know, put forward an increase. Like acknowledge the fact that we have kept taxes so low for so long and that has created a buildup in addition to inflation. So we could come to them with a higher than 5%, not saying that I want to, but then they can tell us what they think, right? So I don't want to be like paternalistic, maternalistic of being like, this is, we are your high and mighty authority, this is what is best for you. So I want to keep that in mind too of like, yes, we're here for the community but also they get another chance to say. I mean that, but as our job. Yes. It's what we have to do is propose a budget and they get the vote on it. I think that is, yes, that is true. And I think like doubling the community services, general fund commitment is our message. Like this is where we have chosen to focus our equity work and investing in a housing initiative directors where we've chosen to focus our equity work. And I really don't, I'm not going to debate, but I think we got to separate equity director from equity work. There's a program of work we're doing in this community that is broader than one person and should be and has to be and currently is and has been progressing without that position, could be progressing better probably with that position but doesn't mean that we're not doing it. And I think that to tell that message is not to say that without the equity director we are not doing equity work is disingenuous to all the hard work that is currently happening that explicitly directs, addresses equity. I think we just, I would like to see this debate distinguish between those two things that director and the work. And then we really got to recognize this is a dub like this is a huge investment in community services, this budget. After it's been underfunded for many, many years. So I think there's that too of like, is it a big investment or are we finally meeting a need that has been there before then? That's true, but we also have some of the highest tax rates in the county. And that's, that is a narrative, it is the truth. And we have a high tax rate already. So it's not that we have low taxes and we're trying to get up there. It's like we already have high taxes because of our peculiar arrangement and geography. And we are a full service city that provides full police, full fire, no EMS, and full community services and a combined school district. Like we do it all in our little 1.6 square miles and we don't have $300,000 for depending on the tax rate, we get 50. And I think we gotta, like, so I don't think it's a question of underinvestment and low tax rates. I think it's that we've already are high tax. We're trying to keep increases low. This increase is already higher than what we're seeing in neighboring communities, percentage wise as well. So I mean, we're really stuck. And I think we've got to be honest about what we're investing in. And we are making a trade off, it's a choice. But, and we can put that to the voters and they go inside this budget is two community services having needs to go more to equity director. Like that could be a decision that voters make, but I think that should be made as part of the budget decision. Thanks, Jim. Angela, would you be willing to bring up the tool for us, please? Absolutely. Could it be able to see the tool now? Is that correct? Yes. This is currently set up with the 5% tax increase that we can set out in the packet. Any changes you wanna see, we can make those. Yeah, let me tell you all the ads that were voiced. And so we can see that total. So the first one would be, say no to reducing the housing director and no to pausing the equity director. No to pausing youth interventionist. Maybe yes to the reduce youth interventionist. No to eliminate, okay. No to that. What are other additions? Well, the mediated voices program, can you add that in? So mediated voices is true online from Jim. Yeah, for the polls. And quarterly meetings. And quarterly meetings. Did I capture all the ads that were raised? Oh, the senior center. So this is, the ARPA money's still in there. Is the LOT, the increased local options tax included? The increased local options taxes included in the case of ARPA is currently set at 363,000. Put it to 409. Okay. So this is what we're looking at. If we took everybody's ads, right? We took the staff proposal and added everything in. This is a 7% increase, 184. An average house tax for a $300,000 value. And we'll have to raise taxes again next year for that $409,000 of ARPA on top of any increasing costs and inflation and any new needs. Only if you don't consider the influx of TIF. Oh, right, right, right. Well, yeah, it's offsetting the TIF. That's right. It's offsetting here in this potential fund balance use. Oh, thank you. Can we talk about the regional dispatch? Yeah. So I wanted to revisit it specifically because Mayor, you brought up last time that you would not support removing this item because it was backed by the voters. I want to bring up my feeling that I don't believe regional dispatch as it currently exists is what our voters, what they voted on because there's no Shelburne. They voted it down. There's no Milton or Colchester who both dropped out and there's no Williston police. So that is no longer regional. It's pretty much, you know, if we were part of it, a three and a half local town. I know that there are other things like involved in kind of considerations of the regional dispatch, but I'm worried that I don't want to go down the route to of, you know, like the sunk cost fallacy of like, I know we've been doing this for since 2015, but it is no longer what we, like as it was originally presented and it seems to continuously cost Winooski more than it was proposed to save. So we're no longer kind of getting that regional, that aspect, that benefit of being tied in with the other cities and towns in the region and it's continuing to cost us more. So I would be in favor of removing that as well as then removing the police admin position.  We might be able to come back to it if others also come back to it. So I don't know, it just feels like Winooski is spending a lot of money on a service that is no longer what our voters agreed to. I'm gonna disagree with that because the vote never said all those communities would be included. It was always known that each community voted in on their own. So that's what people understood going into it. It's also, it was not voted on for cost savings. It was voted on to reduce response times improving public safety and to improve the situation of dispatch staff. Could I, so until Colchester pulled out, we were still projecting savings as well, eventually. So, and then the expectation of refunds for any cost that the initial communities that involved in standing it up would incur until it was ready for prime time, so to speak. So my feeling is that if there came to be a time when it was gonna cost Winooski more, I would come back to you or the voters or both and say maybe we shouldn't continue. But, you know, there's other considerations obviously if there's service quality, I'm not saying that the cost is the only thing. But again, I don't know the answer to that question or whether or not it will cost Winooski more. We don't know that. Unfortunately, the timing isn't great. You're looking at a bad budget decision without that knowledge, but we don't actually know whether it will or not cost Winooski more. As part of the issue with next fiscal year in terms of affordability is that it was not projected to stand up until October and the costs were still estimated to be 300.1 with the annual cost. So we were still going to have some costs for the dispatchers for the first four months of the year, which we would not have in future years. Staying on some of that topic for a second. So who would do the work of the records clerk if we are not keeping that position? If we go to regional dispatch and there's no records clerk, the police officers would have to do it. And that is, that's a lot. What's the likelihood of regional dispatch being stood up in FY24? Well, I'll say that Burlington has to do something and South Burlington wants to do something. I mean, it's not different from what I told you before. My feeling is that kind of what Councilor Herd was alluding to, those are the two dogs wagging the collective tail, you know? Right. So my guess is something will happen. Whether or not that something will then be charged us at a rate that we're expecting, I have no idea. And is it actually going to give us that faster response time? That's... I mean, potentially. And, you know, given that we have some challenges now, I wouldn't want you to close that door until we knew for a fact it wasn't going to be delivered on. It also increases the depth of the bench for dispatchers during emergencies that you can still take calls during a major event, which we currently, there's one dispatcher sitting in the chair, there's a major event and they're trying to build other informational calls at the same time. It could be a very stressful and potentially dangerous situation. So one thing I asked and didn't get a response on, I'm just recalling, is what if Winooski went in just for fire, did something similar to Williston? So Angela and John or Rick, feel free to jump in. But my sense is that it would be more expensive because we'll be covering what you currently have in the police department and more service. Okay. Is there, are there, because it sounds like regional dispatch, it's just going to be whatever South Burlington puts together. Do we have to do that full amount? It's huge. I, again, I don't know what the estimates are going to be. So I couldn't tell you. Somebody who has had a better background in estimating staffing costs and this kind of hard cost might be able to estimate, but I'm afraid I don't have that. Fair enough. It seems just a lot of uncertain, it's a lot of money for a lot of uncertainty when there's so much need for other areas. So I don't know, it feels like a big question mark where we're like, we directly know where other money would go to that would directly benefit our residents and or our staff capacity. So from what all was proposed from folks, it sounds like there's some general agreement on the housing initiative director to 40, youth interventionist, retaining most of the community services roles, pote