Welcome, good evening all. This is Brennan Hogan, Chair of the Public Works Commission calling to order this May meeting of the Public Works Commission at 6.33. Good evening. First item on the agenda is the agenda itself. I understand we may have one amendment to the agenda. And that is that the trade appeal that was warned has been resolved offline. So, right, Director Spencer? That is correct. Yeah, great. Besides that or any other comments or questions around the agenda? I think this isn't the revised version because we also are voting on the minutes from the March meeting. Yes, that's right. This item seven on the minute should cover both the March and April minutes. My apologies, I had the wrong one up this year. There you go. Thank you, Mr. Goulding. Gotcha. All right. Good evening, Commissioner Archambault, Commissioner Barr, welcome. Just getting started on the agenda here. I mentioned that the trades appeal is not needed this evening. But besides from that, we are ready to entertain a motion about the agenda. Motion to approve agenda. Thank you for that motion. I second the motion to approve the agenda. All right. And just to clarify, we're approving the agenda with the trades appeal stricken. Is that correct? Yes. Friendly to the secondary as well? Yes. All right, let's proceed with the votes. Commissioner Archambault? Aye. Commissioner Barr? Aye. Commissioner Bose? Aye. I don't see Commissioner Gilman. That's Commissioner Overby. Yes. And Vice Chair O'Neill-Vargo? Yes. All right, the agenda passes. Thank you. Moving forward to item three in the agenda public forum. Chair Hogan, if it's all right, I'll let the members of the public know how to join for public comment if they're interested. Please do. For members of the public likely only watching us on Zoom or who have dialed in, if you do wanna submit public comment, you can hit the raise your hand feature on the bottom of your Zoom toolbar, which will alert us that you are interested in speaking and we'll put you in queue. If you have or are going to call into this meeting, you can hit star nine and that will also put you in queue and we will call out your last four digits of your phone number when it's your turn to speak. So be mindful of that. And at this time, Chair Hogan, one member of the public is in queue and I'm happy to promote him over when you're ready. Sure. Jason, you should be able to speak any second now. Great. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes, Graham. Okay. Thank you. My name is Jason Van Dreish. I'm a Burlington resident and joining the meeting briefly to follow up on a letter that I sent all of the commissioners last night regarding your annual review of the city engineer, Norm Baldwin. I spoke on this issue at your last meeting and as I promised, I was gonna follow up with more detail. As I said at the last meeting, I'm asking you to not recommend that the city reappoint Norm as city engineer. And I'm not going to reread my letter because I'm sure you all got it and I imagine you all read it. I just want to highlight in my comments that I very much understand that the last year has been quite difficult for public works as it has for all city departments and for many, many organizations and businesses throughout Vermont and the world. And that DPW has kept the lights on as it were, although literally obviously that's Burlington Electrics Department and they've done a fabulous job in that regard. But our streets have been paved, our toilets have flushed and many things that in various other parts of the world have not been something we can take for granted in the difficult times we've had for the last year. That said, what I've seen across the country in many of the cities that Burlington considers to be its pure cities is an inclination to take this pivot point that we find ourselves at, the pandemic as a portal, if you will. And Dati Roy described it as such in an essay early on in the pandemic, really thinking about how we should reprioritize what we're doing, what we're focusing our energies and our time and our resources on in light of the huge crisis that we've been going through. And what this crisis has made clear for me is that Burlington has set ambitious goals for itself over the last decade plus that I've lived in Burlington regarding making streets walkable, bikeable, accessible for all, really transforming how we think about our streets. And as was indicated in the first paragraph of the mayor's introductory letter to the Walk Bike Master Plan, one of those was to make Burlington the best small city for walking and biking on the East Coast. We're four years into that plan now and that I think is not a claim that we can make and not a claim we're on a track to making. And there's many other ways in which we really need our city to move into a modern approach to street design and the role that our streets play. And I don't think we're doing that. And that is why I raised this issue. And I think now is a time for us to shift gears and really move to thinking about our streets in different ways. And I think that requires different technical leadership for our city. And that's why I submitted the letter that I submitted. As I said, at the end of the letter regardless of what you decide with your recommendation tonight when you go into executive session, I would ask that you include in your assessment a reference to the fact that you received feedback from a Burlington resident opposing this reappointment. And whether you choose to include my letter or not is up to you, but I would request that you indicate that that was part of the feedback that you got without any judgment on your part, the A or N regarding that feedback. And then the last thing I'd like to say is that I'm also very, very clear. Norm, you're right there on the screen. So I'll stray it straight to you. I'm very clear that you are extremely dedicated to Burlington and work extremely hard for Burlington. That is not in question. The question here is one of mismatch between Burlington's goals and what I've seen in terms of priorities and focus. So I don't want this to be taken as a knock on Norm's commitment or worth ethic. It's really about alignment. And that's what I'm hoping you'll consider in your evaluation. Thank you so much. And with that, I will sign off. Thank you. Mr. Hogan, do you have any other participants? One phone and listener. Not sure how they would indicate that they're interested in speaking. Yeah, Chair Hogan, I'll repeat what I said for members of the public who just joined us. If you have called into this meeting and wish to speak right now during public comment or in future public comments, if you hit star nine, that will put you in queue and alert us that you want to talk. For other members of the public, please use the raise your hand feature. So right now, the person who has called in under number 2748, last four digits 2748, you are now permitted to speak during public comment. Hello, Public Works Commission. This is Kelly Devine from the BDA. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Welcome. Thank you. I apologize, I tried your Zoom link, it didn't work. So this was sort of my backup plan. I just wanted to talk, I understand you're voting tonight on the parking, removal of parking spaces on Battery Street to accommodate a secure bike lane for bike path, greenway users during the summer construction period for the railroad. We were fortunate to have several members of your team as well as Parks and Rec Department and the contractor come to our Waterfront Action Group meeting last week. And I just wanted to report that I didn't hear any significant concern about this change or loss of parking at 24 spaces except for from some retail businesses that are right in that two block area that don't have a significant amount of their own parking but are in that two blocks where parking will disappear. I think beyond that, our Waterfront businesses do appreciate and understand the value of the bike path as a resource for our community members and for travel and tourism and understand that providing a safe route for detours is important to getting through this summer and coming back from recovery. Just wanted to share that. I'm not calling to voice lack of support for that parking change, but instead say that I'm enthused by the welcome reception we got from Jeff Padgett as well as Chapin at that meeting to work with us to see if we can provide some private parking resources in the area as an alternative for these businesses when the street parking isn't available. Had a connection with Jeff today. We did this, if folks remember who had been on the commission when we were doing the work on the College Street Garage, we provided some tokens for private parking alternatives and we're really looking forward to being able to come up with that kind of solution for this period of time. I'm really not sure if that is something that Parks and Rec would cover or DPW would cover. So I need to get some clarity on that, but just wanted to say overall, we don't have any opposition to the removal of parking spaces but are very much going to look forward to working with DPW and Parks and Rec on setting up some parking options in addition to what has been offered up as a lot as an alternative to be able to accommodate local downtown businesses during the construction period. And that's the extent of my comments. Thank you. Thank you. Chair Hogan, there's one more person in queue and I will promote over Jason Stuffle to speak during public comment. Thank you. All right. Hi, hopefully you can hear me. Yes, you can. Welcome. Yep. So thank you very much. So I'm just here tonight a little bit to speak in support of the waterfront detour around the area where the rail construction is happening. I think it's a great plan to get people who are uncomfortable with trying to make a left out of there onto Main Street and another left back down onto, you know, whatever they choose to do college or somewhere around there. It's really just not a place where it's conducive to people that use the bike path. And so I'm a hundred percent in support of it. I actually worked with local motion and the walk by council on trying to come up with this plan. My main concern is that it kind of was an afterthought to this process that rail construction started. They ripped everything up. There was kind of a way you could sneak behind local motion and then they actively put concrete barriers across there to block you from coming through. And so when I was biking through there with my daughter with a trailer behind me, I found I couldn't make it through the width that was left between those concrete barriers. I had to go back up, use the sidewalk around and down. And you know, it's really just not a great situation. And so I'm a hundred percent in support of this, but how do we in the future prevent that from being a situation for multiple months that I've been using it like this before we come up with the detour? I feel like this should have been before the construction started. And so I love to hear the proposal and I may speak then, but how do we kind of institutionalize this so that it's part of each project to consider the ramifications of walking off pedestrian and bike facilities? Thank you. Thank you. No one else in queue, Chair Hogan. All right. Thank you, Mr. Hogan. Without a closeout public forum and move forward to the consent agenda. Let me get that up on the screen. There's three items on the consent agenda. Reallocation of Adams Court, two-hour parking, North Avenue and Berry Street, no parking zone and design vehicle manual update. Motion to accept the consent agenda. I have a motion from Commissioner Barr. Thank you. I second the motion to accept the consent agenda. Second from Vice-Chair O'Neill-Valaco. Thank you. Is there any discussion around that motion? All right. Seeing none, we will, yes, Mr. Orbe. I was just going to mention that the design vehicle manual update was the same manual that we talked about last week, but Olivia was kind enough to work with me on getting some language that made it clear that this is actually dealing with intersections that are specifically for stop and or stop lights. And I was concerned that there was no mention of the roundabout as an option. So it's the same document that was on our consent agenda last week with enhanced content in the introduction and the application area that will make it really clear that we, so that people are aware that when there's actually a design, the design vehicle work will actually be guided slightly differently with roundabouts, but they're working on other documents. I think we're going to hear about that in the future that they're working on the specific design vehicle manual for roundabouts. So that's my comment about that, why it's showing up a second time on the consent agenda. Thank you. Yeah, sure. Thank you for that. Sounds like no material change to the motion on the floor that has been seconded. Is there any other discussion around that motion? All right, we're saved to go to a vote. Commissioner Archambault. I'm a cursor, aye. Commissioner Barr. Aye. Commissioner Bose. Aye. All right, Commissioner Overby. Aye. Vice Chair O'Neill-Bavacco. Aye. Aye for myself, consent agenda passes. Thank you. All right, moving forward to item five, bike path detour. So, Jaypen, you want me to introduce this topic? Yeah, it's just searching for, yes, go ahead, City Engineer Baldwin, thanks. Yeah, so we have tonight Sophie Salve who's a part of Parks Direct, I get this always wrong, sorry, Waterfront Parks and Recreation. And Cindy Wright, the director as well. And the department's been working closely with both Parks Direct and VTrans and VTR with the two products kind of hand and glove here with the bike path relocation, but also the development of passenger rail within the waterfront itself. And given that we are now under contract two of four, two through four with VTrans, and construction activities is really starting to wind up. And that construction activity or scope includes both development of the bike path, but also this passenger loading area. And the specific segment that's in front of us now is between college and King, that is under construction or will be under construction soon. What we've done is since this activity has ramped up, we've seen some movement from the private property owners not to have access across their property and it's forcing bikes and pads on the bike path to relocate to the street system. Originally the detour was very limited in scope given the measure of impact. And so the sign package was very limited in its solution. With this closure, we acknowledge that it's important that we accommodate all types of users to that to contain that segment, new segment of road while this construction occurs.  So it will make a connection from lower college street north to, sorry, south to Maple Street itself. And so Sophie's here to explain in more detail that sign package, but Public Works has been working with Parks and Rec to put that together. And I think we have something that works. As was noted by Kelly, there's been significant amount of public outreach to let people know about this proposed plan and also provide some offsetting parking solutions for those businesses that are directly impacted by this change. So with that, I will, I guess I'll hand it over to Sophie and unless Phillip, you have something to add that I've missed.  Sure, and if it's okay, I'm going to share my screen. Yeah, please. All right, can everybody see the presentation? And I can't see you, so I need someone to say it. I can't see it. Yeah, we're waiting. No, can't see it. Yeah, not yet. Okay, just let me try again. That work? Yes, exactly, yes, got it. Yes. Thank you. Yes, okay, thank you. So as Norm was saying, BPRW and DPW have completed the design of the realignment of the Burlington Greenway to be entirely west of the railroad tracks between Perkins Pier and Waterfront Park. The realignment strongly supported by Burlington voters in 2016 referendum was precipitated by the need to accommodate Amtrak passenger rail service scheduled to start in 2022. Together, these projects represent a multimillion dollar transformative investment in sustainable transportation on the waterfront. But while construction will soon be underway again, the Greenway is displaced and a detour established in the fall of 2020 when initial work was started on the rail project has been met with challenges. As such, we have been reevaluating how to accommodate an alternative for users of the Greenway. The following presentation outlines a proposal for an alternative temporary Greenway detour on Battery Street. Tonight's presentation will give an overview of the project's purpose and need, the project schedules, existing and proposed conditions, and dive into the why of the proposal and the potential impacts and compensations. Due to the displacement of the Greenway in this section during construction, a safety detour is needed for all users. Last fall, the rail began its work on the project by moving the tracks east, displacing the Greenway between Waterfront Park and King Street. As part of that closure of the path, EPRW installed an on-street detour between Waterfront Park, up college, up Lake Street, to Main Street and Battery Street, and then back down to King Street. Since that time, we've received substantial feedback from the public and from pedestrian and cyclist advocacy groups, including local motion, on concerns about the safety of the Greenway users who may be composed of families with small children, as has been mentioned already, and non-confident riders on using this on-street detour on Battery Street, where there are three or more travel lanes and parking on either side, creating an opportunity for many cars to speed and making it challenging for other modes of transportation. Therefore, we're proposing that parking on the west side of Battery Street be temporarily removed for the duration of construction to allow for the installation of a two-way bike lane. In terms of project schedule, contract two, the work between College and King Street, is set to start mobilizing as soon as next week. Contract three, work between King and Maple Street is in the award face and is anticipated to begin in June. The existing Greenway detour between College and King Street is an on-street detour as I just outlined. So starting from Waterfront Park on College Street, along Lake Street to Main Street, Battery Street, and back down to college to connect back with the Greenway. The proposed temporary detour would be a two-way protected bike lane on the west side of Battery Street. To accomplish this alternative detour, it's necessary to remove parking on the west side of Battery Street. This impacts 14 parking spaces from King to Main and 10 parking spaces from King to Maple Street, including two ADA spaces. Two phases of the project are proposed to coincide with the construction project. So as I mentioned, there's C2, which is the section from College, King Street, which is about to begin, and then a second, which is from King to Maple. This is the existing section of Battery Street between Main and King and the proposed changes. As you can see, four-foot bike lanes and a two-foot protected lane. And then the same from Maple to King, the existing situation and the proposed situation. Phase one would be installed as soon as possible. We would remove 14 parking spaces, strike the bike lane and protected buffer, install loopers, which are these longer, higher cones along Battery Street, add green warning, paint other crosswalks of King and Main Streets, bag and remove parking meters for storage, install no parking signs and the detour sign packages seen here. We would also re-sign two parking spaces on the northeast corner of King Street, sorry, over here, so that it's near the existing ADA spaces on either side. They are currently 30-minute parking spaces on King Street. Phase two would be installed ahead of the mobilization of the contract for King to Maple Street, which is just getting underway now. We would remove 10 spaces, strike the bike lane and the protected buffer, install loopers along Battery Street, add green warning, paint other crosswalks of King and Main, sorry, Maple Street, and then bag and remove parking meters for storage and then install no parking signs and the detour sign packages seen here. It's imperative to note that a third part of a detour will be required through Perkins Pier when the fourth phase of the rail project is in motion and the valley lane is shifted west to accommodate changes in the rail yard. That's estimated to happen this summer, just so you know, it won't impact additional parking. Why protected bike lanes on Battery Street? The current detour assumes bicycles will ride with vehicles. This is not accessible to non-confident riders and especially families with young children. Cyclists are seen intermingling with pedestrians on the sidewalk currently while we have the current detour in place, which is not wide enough to accommodate this volume of users that we anticipate coming back to Burlington this summer. Many people avoid the formal detour by cutting through the private parking lot at Manning College or through the construction zone, as we can see in this image. Please note that in 2017, the CCRPC recorded an average of over 75,000 greenway users a month in the waterfront area between May and September. So what's the impact to parking? As I mentioned, it's 14 parking spots are temporarily removed on the west side of Battery between Main and King. 10 parking spots are temporarily moved on the west side of Battery between King and Maple. And then the two above parking spaces are temporarily located to the north side of King at Battery Street. What's the impact to businesses? Parking will be temporarily removed to the west side of Battery Street. It's a clear inconvenience and a challenge especially in a year of recovery from COVID's 2020 impact. And one of the reasons why, when we initially installed the detour, we considered all sorts of alternatives but we're hesitant to go in this direction because of the impact to the businesses. Pedestrians and cyclists that would normally be on the greenway will be passing directly in front of Battery Street businesses in this area. Hopefully that's a potential series of new customers that could be coming to their doors. And one thing that we are always trying to keep in mind is at the end of the project, passenger rail will be dropping potential customers off right at these doors. In terms of public feedback, as was previously mentioned, we've done some outreach. We joined the BBA meeting last week as well to discuss the temporary removal of parking. And then some things that we're working through are the logistics of offering free parking to customers of Battery Street who are affected by the parking removals. And we've considered approaching private parking lots to coordinate additional options for two-hour free parking and offering free, two-hour free parking again, spaces at Perkins Pier, which can be very busy city lot on the waterfront, but we are addressing those challenges by proposing to add signage within Perkins Pier to designate these specific parking spaces for the businesses. So what are the next steps? For this meeting, we'll reconnect with businesses through WAG and CEDO to communicate a timeline on what's going to happen. We'll coordinate the line-striping, sign removals and additions with DPW and the installation of the cones and coordinate with local motion on getting the word out and helping businesses along this corridor identify opportunities for advertising. We'll coordinate with local motion also on the maintenance of the loopers or the cones along the corridor. BPRW staff are working with DPW and CEDO staff on these next steps. So I hope that gives an overview of our proposal and we are open to questions and I'll stop sharing screen, I think. Yeah, that's great. Thanks for the overview. To my commissioners at this point, I'll start with the commissioner Bose. Yes, thank you. Thank you for the presentation. How many businesses roughly are affected and you said you're going to reach back out to them?  And it sounds like you've already started to have these conversations about what compensation or what accommodation there might be. So one, how many businesses? And two, is there any kind of estimate that you're hearing from them? How many customers normally do they expect using parking, things like that? Thanks. I'll look to my colleagues on the number, but that has the direct outreach to the businesses has been done with CEDO. So they would have that number so I can get back to you on that. And then also the number of customers. But what we have been trying to figure out is the best way to accommodate them. Is it certain hours that the parking would be impacted and that has shifted due to those conversations through CEDO with the businesses themselves? Thank you. All right, anything else, Mr. Vos? No, other than to say that I'm really glad you're moving forward with this project in trying to negotiate how to get across these last few months. It's, I'm glad to see this is being taken on. Indeed. All right. Commissioner Overbe. I think it's the best plan we can get people safely biking through that section. So I totally understand the loss of the parking but it sounds like it's, maybe some accommodation is going to be done. So I think it's going to be great to have some way for kids and adults to be able to safely make that connection while the construction is happening. So I think we need to do it. So I will support it. Thank you. Vice-Chair O'Neill Lovacco. Hi there. Yeah, thanks for the presentation. I think it's great and much needed. Couple of questions or maybe a statement. You said that 75,000 Greenway users use that space between May and September. And then you went on to say maybe some of them could be potential patrons. I would argue without that data some of those 75,000 users are already customers of those downtown or waterfront businesses. And this is, I think one of the frustrations if we look at reallocating this public right of way which are parking area for access to have safe connection for our residents on the Greenway, they're not two different groups. They are consumers and so forth. So I think communicating that back out to those businesses might be valuable and it probably falls outside the scope of your work to ask the businesses to quantify like who comes in parks and who comes in walks and who comes in bikes because bikers spend a lot of money too. So that was kind of more of a statement. And then I was looking at the state of the system which is a parking study done with BBA and UVM Transportation Research Center. And that area, it's a pretty big area. It's outside the downtown core but generally in the kind of months long study and the most recent data is probably from 2018. So I think it gives a better picture than anything from last year. The parking in that area is definitely underutilized if we look at the optimal rate and I'm sure Director Spencer can speak better to the optimal rate which I think is around 85% of the parking there. So I don't think that we're short on parking spots if we take out the expectation that you're always going to find a parking spot right in front of the business. So I think looking, I hope that you're in communication with the P's lot which is the Parks and Rec lot but also I think they're the private lot. What is the name of the one behind local motion? Is it like the capital plaza or the main street? Steel. Steel. Steel, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That has two cars in it always. So I think then, I guess I'm asking what kind of negotiations are you able to have with some of those private lots? I think to date the conversations with the private lots have been happening through BBA but as was mentioned by Kelly previously, we have had those exchanges previously for other projects. So we're working as fast as we can to reach out to those options but as you noted P's lot is a parks parking lot and that was the thought but it's a bit further removed from this area but Perkins is also a park spot and that's where we thought 10 of the spaces could be there for accommodation. Okay, great. I mean, I encourage you to share that state of the system report with a BBA should have it but also some of the businesses and identify where some of those spots are. And then I guess one other comment, I think this is so great to keep our users safe on this infrastructure and we talk about little kids and we talk about non-confident riders. I'm gonna add into that the overconfident underskilled teens and tweens of which I am a parent and with the chief is laughing but we have downtown BHS right now and so the kids who are able and feel comfortable biking downtown on the bike path are now going to be able to use that kind of jog and detour safely. So I think recognizing that we do have a population of users who again overconfident underskilled. So thank you so much for the consideration of all those users. This is great. Thank you. I'll definitely add that note in my future presentations. All right. Thank you. Commissioner Archibald. Yeah, thanks to this as a user of that section a few times already, I've found it very confusing. So I'm glad that we're working out a plan here to help that traffic. I would echo some of the comments that were shared in the public forum just that it feels a little bit reactive that we're putting this plan together after the fact but hindsight is 20-20 I suppose. So perhaps the anticipation of all the work on the path we could have thought of that I'm unsure or perhaps there would have been a compromise through that lot down closer to the waterfront there. I'm not sure how, I don't have a lot of faith that could have worked out but anyway, I just wanted to express that too that it would be nice to maybe visualize what something might look like in the future to get ahead of it and then keep people well informed. But that's it for me. Thank you again for all your work on this. All right, thank you. Commissioner Barr, anything on your end? I just want to echo the great presentation. This is sorely needed. I think it'll be a great improvement for bike access along this route. And I'm glad that there are accommodations being made for the parking. Just hope that we follow through on that. I also agree with Vice Chair O'Neill that it doesn't necessarily need to be right in front although most businesses feel that if there isn't parking right in front then nobody's going to come to their store. So I know that having been a part of looking for parking five or six or eight years ago when we were trying to create whatever the downtown parking structure was going to look like, the parking scenario with Nate Wildfire, we were driving around and if you'd go one block out or two blocks out there's parking all over the place. So I think that that's something we just need to make sure that there's good wayfinding for those folks to get to that and good communication. But otherwise, awesome, thanks. Thank you. I think that's our phone number to myself. I call the center, really excited to see this moving forward here, even if a bit later than would be ideal. Thank you also for the visual on what a looper was. I was just going to ask, but now I know. Can you remind me what the expected duration of these detours, the two phases of detour? Well, as I mentioned, we will implement the first phase as soon as possible as the construction crew is going to be mobilizing in the next two weeks. So it'd be good to have that in place before that happens. And then the second one would start, I imagine within, sorry, end of June, beginning of July is what I anticipate in terms of timeline. And then it would go probably till December when the construction is meant to be completed in those two sections. Gotcha. Thank you. Question for the public work staff working on maybe Mr. Peterson, was there consideration to going beyond loopers and the protection to perhaps temporary concrete barriers? It's a temporary parking removal. So we think that the loopers will be effective. They were effective on North Avenue last year. And so we feel like that'll be, it will be effective in this situation as well. Okay. I was glad to have this time last year or like last summer on Pine Street, we're doing the same thing down, similar thing down in Pine Street. I was glad to have the cones for sure. And it was good with small children's, but not great. To point that out, I see like, you know, there are places, I know the concrete is obviously more of a deal to be lugging blocks around and so forth and lugging loopers around. But in any case, yeah, got to see, let's see the plans coming together regardless. And I was gonna ask about the width of the travel lanes, but I think my question was the answer when I saw that the existing was 20 feet north pound. That's insane and it's that wide, we'll save that for another time. Anyway, yeah, I'm glad to see this coming together. Thank you for all for the work on this one. Thank you. I have nothing further on my end. We've gone through the commission, let's check and see if there's anyone interested in speaking in public comment on this item. There's a couple of hands in the air. Hey, Chair Hogan, I will promote over Jonathan Weber. All right. Hi everyone, Jonathan Weber here from Local Motion. I'm glad to see the city moving forward, making this detour safe. Local Motion is certainly ready to support the city if needed with maintenance of the detour as we did last summer. I do really wanna echo the sentiment expressed by Jason Stuffle and some of the commissioners here that we need to address the impacts of construction projects on bike pad access during the planning phase, not when construction is well underway. We brought this issue to the attention of parks months, if not over a year ago, and there was basically no progress until mid-April as far as I can tell. The problem here may have been that the bike path is managed by BPRW and considered a recreational piece of infrastructure while the road space needed for the detour is obviously managed by DPW. It seemed that parks really wanted DPW to take authority because the detour would be on DPW space while DPW wanted parks to lead on the detour because it's their construction project. So there was a bit of a gap there. I think it shows that there's a strong sense that the bike path is a recreational facility when in reality, we know it's used year round for both recreation and transportation purposes. So we're happy to assist with the maintenance, but again, the fact that the city is relying on advocates to speak up that first this is needed and then on volunteers to maintain it, I think shows that we're really not taking walking and biking seriously and that runs against our stated visions and goals. To Chair Hogan's question, those loopers, they really only work because there's volunteer maintenance happening and we really should be using permanent objects and not relying on flimsy temporary cones and volunteers to fix them every day. So as Jason said, let's think about how we can ensure in the future that safe passage for people in walking and biking, it's not treated as an extra that needs to be advocated for but rather just something that the city does as a necessity in order to keep conditions safe for all users. So thanks for your work on this and locomotion looks forward to continuing to assist. All right, thank you. Jason Stuffle, you are now promoted over to speak. Thank you. I just echo all of Jonathan's comments. I think they're very relevant. I heard a lot of talk about the expectation of parking right in front of businesses to keep the businesses going but if you provide biking infrastructure, people will use it. We've proven that many times with our Burlington waterfront bike path and other places where we have it and connectivity is the real key issue. And when there's those little breaks in connectivity, people don't use it. And so people revert back to their cars and we said, oh, I want to park in front. Well, when I take my bike, I park in front of any business I want to basically. I don't have to worry about that. I take up very little space. And so that's a mentality that I wish would be proliferated a little more that instead of the, where does the car get the park in front? Where does the bike get to park in front? And where do people walk, get to go safely? Because I spend just as much money as stores as anyone else who drives or whatever else. But when I do it, when I walk or bike, I'm not taking up so much space and I'm not polluting so much. So I'm just very glad that it seems like everyone is on board for this detour. And I would just open the future that these things are built in as Jonathan said. So thank you very much. All right, thank you. No one else is signed up for public comment. All right, great. Next, bringing it back to the commission then. A vote is requested to authorize these temporary changes. Motion to accept staff's recommendation. There was one, I think Director White is. Yeah, I just wanted to make, thank you, Chair Hogan. I just wanted to make a quick note and just thank DBW staff for their great support with this project. The two teams work really well together. But without their technical support, we wouldn't be able to pull this off. So I just want to take the moment to thank DBW for their strong support of our project. All right, thank you. Thanks. So now we'll make a motion to accept staff's recommendation. Motion from Commissioner Barr. I'll second. Seconded from Commissioner Archambault, thank you. Is there any discussion around that motion? All right, let's go to a vote. Commissioner Archambault. Aye. Commissioner Barr. Aye. Commissioner Beaus. Aye. Commissioner Oberbe. Aye. Vice Chair O'Neill-Vanco. Aye. Aye for myself. The motion passes. Thank you very much. Thank you. All rights. Thank you. Yeah, thanks all. Moving forward, there is no trades appeal. So we were on to the approval of draft minutes from our March and April meetings. We take them one at a time. I think we had a difference in attendance and thus eligibility to vote here between those two. Chair Hogan, I can share the minutes if you'd like for March or April, whatever you're choosing first. Yeah, that would be great. Let's go with March first, Mr. Hogan. Okay, if you can all see those, I've landed on the first comment from the March minutes that was submitted by Commissioner Oberbe. Thank you. Thanks for making it bigger. And just check my notes. It looks like everyone we have here is eligible to vote on the March minutes. Was that the only edit there? Or was there one more edit further down? I'll scroll down. There were three edits. I believe the second one was the one that was under deliberation mostly, which is here. All right, so it's fair enough. Thank you. Sure, I'm concerned. I suspect my counsel no longer appeals process and ask for clarity. Can I ask for some clarification too on the first one? Does that, I thought I read that Commissioner Oberbe was not, or was in support. She supports the concept. So are we saying that it was unanimous or that it was six to one? Can you weigh in on that Commissioner Oberbe? You're muted. You're muted. Commissioner Oberbe, you're muted. Sorry. I guess the space bar wasn't working. No, I just wanted to mention that I supported the concept but I did not vote for the way that it was ordered because I wanted it actually, those other items dealt with as part of the plan. All right. And that's why I stated it that way. It appears that I just, period just wasn't interested and it was more nuanced. So that's why I would have preferred to have it clarified. Okay, all right. Thank you for clarifying. Commissioner Oberbe, sorry to interrupt. As we go through these, did I include the right comment? I know you and I had some back and forth on that second one and I just want to make sure that that met. As I review it, I'm wondering if I somehow have the original one up that you didn't. You don't exactly have the one that I suggested but I think you mostly got it. The second one, the point was that more than 1B2 and 5B are going to be available. So it's pretty much open to discussion. So that isn't the exact wording but I think we went back and forth and this is not the one that I had last proposed but I was willing to accept that you got it mostly right. Yeah, I think their apologies for the back and forth and somehow I've pulled up. It's okay. The idea was that it was not clear in the memo to me and that's why I wanted it clarified that we're going to be looking at alternatives besides the 1B2 and 5B that were the original narrowed down. I think it gets suggested if somebody is looking at this in the future they could understand it and this will be discussed obviously in future discussions of the Rail Yard Enterprise project. So I think it's okay. So don't worry about it. Thank you for all of your efforts on this. I appreciate that. We'll come up with a better system for making it so that's easy for people to make a proposed changes to the minutes and get them all circulated to people. Thank you so much for the effort you made. You're welcome. Sorry about this one. It's minor. Any other discussion around the March minutes or ready to entertain a motion? Can I make a motion to accept the March minutes with the edits as stated? Thank you for that motion. Commissioner Barr, thank you. I'll be glad to second that. Thank you, Commissioner Archibald. Any discussion around that motion? All right, who a votes please? Commissioner Archibald. Aye. Commissioner Barr. Aye. Commissioner Bows. Aye. Commissioner Overby. Commissioner Overby if you're there, you're muted. Aye. Gotcha, thank you. All right. Vice Chair O'Neill-Vavaco. Aye. Aye for myself. All right, the March minutes have passed. Thank you. April, Mr. Fielding, if you have those handy, be happy to take a quick look. I don't know if anyone has. Were there similar edits proposed in April or was there working with these as originally posted? No changes submitted this way, Chair Hogan. So just the original minutes that were included. Okay. We'll move to approve the April minutes, please. Thank you. Second. Motion from Commissioner Archibald. Second from Commissioner Barr. Thank you. Any discussion around the motion? Just real briefly, for some reason, I enjoyed these minutes in particular. So I'm just putting out there. Thank you. Well, you fell down to the note. You enjoyed them. Okay. All right. All right. We're ready to proceed to a vote here. Commissioner Archibald. Aye. Aye, and we're glad that you enjoyed them. All right, thank you. Commissioner Barr. Aye. Commissioner Beaus. Abstain. Abstain, thank you. Good catch. Commissioner Overby. Aye. Vice-Chair O'Neill-Bavacco. Aye. All right. Aye for myself. The minutes pass, five, four, one abstained. Due to an absence. All right, thank you. Looking forward to Director's Report. Thank you. It's nice to get to the Director's Report so early in the evening and have a short deliberative agenda. So thank you. I wanted to touch on a couple of items. I'll start off with the city engineer performance. We heard a comment public forum last month and this month. And I felt compelled to provide a memo to you all that was uploaded today and is available on the commission webpage. It just highlights my unique impression getting to work day in and day out with city engineer that we have an excellent staff member who goes above and beyond routinely. And I outlined specific examples where that is the case from project management of some of the most complex projects in the city, even managing for other departments. We just heard from Parks Tonight City Hall Park Project that was managed by Public Works and delivered under budget. We're also managing a lot of the most complex interfaces between public and private projects. That comes in with City Place Burlington, Cambrian Rise and we need to figure out where the interface is between the public and private and resolve a whole host of media issues. And I say very clearly that I have seen the city engineer stand up for the city's interest and get into heated, if necessary, conversations about defending the public's interests. He's developed a number of systems for our team as we've tripled the size of our capital budget and has made sure that we meet audit and that we are complying with all the rules and regulations with the funding that we get from state and federal partners. I think fundamentally this is one of the toughest jobs in the city. Having seen it, I think at times it's even more difficult than mine, which I don't say easily, but the grace and the extra effort that is taken, one of the stories I relate is that a vehicle ran into a private residence two weeks ago at night and the city engineer came down to assess the building's structural integrity when the trades inspection, building inspector was unable to be reached. And that kind of after hours responsiveness, slope stability issues, et cetera, really demonstrate his commitment to the city. I will acknowledge that on some design issues, you know, there may be a difference of opinion between me and the city engineer and between other staff, but that is normal and that's to be worked out. The city engineer really relies on data and standards, standards of practice to guide our directions. And that said, we have stretched. The curb radii we set in on St. Paul Street created an uproar that we were too aggressive and had to relax the curb lines on that intersection. This year we're planning to install Burlington's first two-way protected bike lane on North Champlain Street. You know, we take ambitious steps, but we do it smartly and consciously. And I'm really pleased with the partnership that I have with the city engineer and urge you all to recommend his reappointment and appreciate the opportunity to share those words. My full remarks are on the commission webpage. In addition, I'll just quickly say next month's meeting is probably not gonna be as short as this one. We have two big items coming up. One is a report on the Colchester Avenue Scoping Study. We were hoping to get to it this month, but the CCRPC head staff member out and they did not finish the study in time, but we'll be ready for next month. Substantively as well, we'll be delving into consolidated collection next month and seeking your guidance on whether we should implement consolidated collection and if so, whether you recommend a public or a private franchise model of operation. In addition to that, just for your awareness, the water resources rate restructuring effort that you all reviewed and supported at a previous meeting is going to the council this coming Monday on the 24th and the Board of Finance. So you're welcome to plug in there. And last but not least, as you review my and the city engineer's performance, I attached again the goals and objectives for the department on my director's report. And they, I think, well describe how much this department has achieved during very trying times over the last year. Thank you. All right, thank you. I said we'll go to Commissioner, communication, let's start with Commissioner Barr. Mr. Endurance. Thanks, and thanks for letting me go first. I just wanted to say, as usual, I'm very happy with the city's work and keeping the streets clean. And the street sweeping has made my bike lanes for where I'm going really enjoyable to ride. And I appreciate that. I think that there's quite a bit of work going on in the city and I appreciate everybody's efforts at this. So no other comments from my neighborhood here that I was aware of. So thanks. All right, thank you. And I'll, thanks. Thank you. All right, Commissioner Bose. Just a brief comment I had brought to DPW leadership and staff, a couple of concerns raised regarding crosswalks and crossings near Champlain Elementary. And I just wanted to report back some satisfied responses from some of the concerned residents. They really appreciated the attention that was paid to the concerns that were raised. So I just wanted to bring that back. Thanks, that's it for me. All right, thank you. Commissioner Overby. First, I'll just comment on how nice many of the sections of sidewalk pavement that are being replaced in various places that I walk. And I think I've been very impressed with the fact that you're doing that incremental segment sections of pavement replacement instead of the long runs, which used to be the philosophy. I think it's making a big difference. And you see it everywhere. And I'm very impressed with that. So I thank you. And I think people appreciate seeing that happen as well. I had some questions about the mid-year report from your, the executive, your mid-year review. And I had gotten those, yes, last month, but I didn't get to you. And if you don't mind, I just have a quick couple of questions, if that's okay, to ask just a couple of comments. Chair Hogan, do you want me to do that at a separate time? Or is this okay to do a quick, I can do it later after everybody else has had their comments or I can just answer the ask these questions now? Yeah, that's fine. I'll try to be quick. On the mid-year review, on number seven on your item about improving the capital project accounting under the FY21 status, it pretty much says that the new chart of accounts and procedures have been implemented. Are you now able to do a life to date, revenue and expenses, capital project balance on all of the capital projects from the new chart of accounts? I'll ask the city engineer, Norm Baldwin to answer that one. So part of the process was to reconcile all the bond, bonds for the capital work, particularly for the last five years. And so that was reconciled in order to have a starting point to those reports. And then from there forward, we're using these new chart of accounts, which breaks it out that much further in terms of an expense and an offsetting revenue. And a whole host or a broader series of expense and revenue accounts that we haven't used in the past. So it's our belief that so provide a higher degree of reporting, but also hopefully have a more of a timely real-time accounting of where we are financially. As it stands, different departments have different sophistications. My team really has kind of led the process of how that should be done. And we've traditionally used transaction by transaction spreadsheets that account for every expense for every project. And it's been used in the audits in the past, but we wanna have a broader base of, I guess, or easier means to, readily means to review those accounts. And so I think this is going to achieve that for our accounting group in CT office. The other piece of the puzzle, and I think I may have explained in the past, was we're also trying to work more closely with CT office about cash flow and what products will need, what amount of money when. And so to limit the amount of borrowing only on a timely need basis, this is where we're trying to go with some of this work. And we're moving towards a, moving from a fiscal year accounting to a life cycle accounting, which makes it much better in terms of more efficient in our work. Because at the end of the fiscal year, we're dealing with closeouts of purchase orders. And there's a transitional period between one fiscal year to the next. This will make it that much more efficient. And staff won't be spending so much time pushing paper, but doing projects. So you're transitioning to using the new world accounting system so that you're gonna be able to, because I know one of the annual criticisms of Burlington finance is the lack of ability to have a life to date balance. Your budget and this amount on a project and you're spending it down and we've been nipped every year for that. And it sounds like you are going there and I'm just wondering if you, so it feels like you're on the way to that. You're still dependent on the spreadsheets at this point, but you're moving into using the accounting system. I guess I would try to explain to you that we have always been able to give the information when asked to the auditors and they have been satisfied with those answers for public work, my team. There are other teams that don't have that same level of sophistication and don't have the degree of financial support that my team has developed. And so they've had challenges with some of those projects that are not managed by my team. But in order to kind of get to the next level, we need to bring everybody up to the same level of capabilities. And so we're moving towards this goal of having more real time information in New World that everyone is following the same standard of practice. Do you feel like you're confident that the New World software and the guidance you're getting on how to configure that is gonna work for you to do this as well as the spreadsheets or better? I have confidence that we are improving those systems. I have confidence that we are improving the broader base of knowledge and skills within the various teams who advance capital projects. But I have great confidence and then from financial information we have and how we manage projects, even before this change. But yeah, well, I know, this is a general issue around city capital projects, but this is one of the items about in an improved capital project accounting. And that's why I was wondering how that's going. So that you've answered my question on that that. Yep, I think we've finally planed off and we've got everything in place. And now we're beginning to work through how we deal with products that are coming to an end and closing out and how do we close it out and how do we send money back when we no longer have use for those funds? Yeah, it's very challenging and your spreadsheets must be very, very complicated, but hopefully the accounting system will help and not make it more complicated. You'd be surprised how simple it is and how basic it is, but it provides so much level of detail to answer any question that people put in front of us. Great, thank you on that one. The second question that I had was on item number eight about the goal of providing effective coordination with private projects. Do you guys assign a primary leadership responsibility for each of those objectives when you're doing a private project, coordinating with a private project? It's like one person in your office assigned to, but to be the leadership role and doing that coordination? Yeah, so it depends on the project, but typically it's a project manager, typically a senior project manager within my team, whether it be Nicole, Laura, or previously Susan or Martha, and also if it's a super complicated project and involve both Chapin and myself to keep kind of a handle on where we are and where we're going with it. BT is an example, BTC is an example, or BCP is an example, the Downtown Development Project, Chapin, Laura, and myself have been on a weekly basis deeply involved with that project and working closely with CEO's representative, Jeff Glasberg. I understand, but somebody is actually ultimately the one who is supposed to be showing the initiative to keep everybody on track and managing meetings and deadlines and stuff like that. So if there's something that starts slipping, it's somebody who has been, somebody is responsible and you can actually address those kind of challenges. Yes, typically it's a project manager, lead project manager, and with a support about myself and Chapin, in some cases, I am the lead project manager. Okay, great. An example, passenger rail is mine. Oh, the fun one. We give Norm the fun ones. The fun one. Well, you're gonna get all the credit when it works. Yeah, so that's what I'm anticipating. Look forward to that. Hang in there for that. Okay, one more, another, I've just got two more real quick. Number nine is the expanded preventive maintenance program. And I know you've listed as your metrics, the number of potholes and sewer plugs and all that. Is that posted somewhere? Is that on your GIS mapping somewhere? Like, those are metrics that you said, how many potholes have you done? I know, I don't know where you've provided those to us in the past, I think, but maybe it's on a GIS map somewhere and somebody could look around and go, show that layer, potholes, before and after, red ones and red ones. Is there something like that for that metric, those metrics? For far too long, it has been a manual effort to get that data. We do have, with Brian Lowe's leadership, the CIO who's now transitioning out, there are some data points and I'll need to check that are publicly accessible, but as we transition with our asset management software, which we are gonna be launching later this year, then not only will it be available to us at a click of a button, but then we can make sure that it's available to the public as well. So the answer is it's in progress, but with the asset management system, we will have a much better capability of sharing that information in real time. Well, I was gonna give you some kudos for the way that you did the flushing of the water, the hydrants, the fire hydrants, because you had a GIS map that had red ones and green ones. Which ones have been flushed and which one heaven? And it was very easy for people to look and see which ones near me are not done yet and when's it gonna happen? Which was really a great use of the GIS application. So water's been a little ahead of the curve with other divisions in the city and they are helping lead the way with asset management. So more of that to come. So kudos to Maura and Megan Morrow. Yeah. I would just add one more piece to that puzzle, Chapin, and that is that the CMMS consultants have been interviewing teams for various assets and infrastructure to capture how we do that work, but also to plan ahead as to how we would do better in providing that same piece of information you're looking for. So there is work underway right now to transition to a whole different system and they're just fact-gathering right now. And ultimately to make that useful to the public it's gonna require somebody to actually maybe do a CCTV. How do you access the GIS data about what's going on in different parts of the city? Cause I think it's really important that people don't know how to do that, but I would say very few yet would even know how to use it even if you spent all your effort to make it work, you wouldn't have a lot of population looking at it yet. So they have to go together, training people to use it and then you guys putting in all the work to put the data in. So the last- Work in progress. Work in progress. Yeah, well, yeah, it's great. I get GIS magazines, ArcGIS, and so I'm always looking at what other cities are doing and so to me I'm like comparing and looking for things we could do. And so my last question is on item number 15 about the integrated parkmobile. Is the, I had a question about the parking, the private lot at 194 St. Paul under the Champlain College property. Is that using the same payment kiosk system as the main street surface lot now? It is, yes, they are Calais pay stations. It is the city's infrastructure payment systems that are installed in Champlain College's structure. So it's that same like kiosk thing that's in the main street parking lot there. What was the name of the company? They're Calais Paystations, C-A-L-E. C-A-L-E. All right, that's my questions. Thank you for humoring me, Chair Hogan and other commissioners. Thank you very much. Sure, thank you. All right, Vice-Chair O'Neill-Vanco. Okay. Just a couple things, really just a couple things. So I just wanna just refer to the letter. I think it came to, it may have come to all of us about the bike lanes to the downtown Burlington High School. And I think it fits into some of the goals and plans in particular, which was at number 11, advancing high priority capital projects, including plan BTV walk bike. Just wondering when we will have any information on how we can connect Pine Street and what, some of the rollout on the bike lanes around the high school slash downtown will look like, in case you haven't heard, the elevated PCB levels at Institute Road mean that it looks like a rebuild instead of renovation. The students are gonna be at Macy's for at least three years, if not longer. So I think it's really important for the infrastructure to match those users, which are not all car drivers, the downtown transit station is great. And then hopefully as we can increase the capacity with GMT buses, that will alleviate some of the pressure. But also, and maybe this fits into kind of bigger questions is where's the portal that says, this is next in plan BTV for some of the rollout. Right. Yeah. So the two, yes. So last year, obviously the South Winooski bike lanes were installed through the heart of downtown. We did the Pearl Street bike lanes a couple of years before that. Then obviously the high school located downtown, which obviously was not on anyone's radar screen prior to that. That said, the two projects this year, one I think does have a good connection to the high school, which is looking at the two-way protected bike lane on North Champlain Street, which would connect the Old North End straight down to one block from the high school. And the other project is looking at carrying out shared use path construction on Mansfield Avenue, connecting to the Colchester Ave shared use path. And so it would run the full length of Mansfield on the east side of Mansfield. If there are other improvements kind of in and around the downtown that you'd like to propose were all ears and can explore, I think part of what we're trying to figure out is ultimately the plan BTV recommendations for dedicated bike lanes did not identify Cherry Street or Bank Street as dedicated facilities. So that doesn't mean that we can't pivot from a plan as on the ground conditions change, as you know. Right, right. I guess I'm thinking more of Pine Street, that access to connect North South. And then I wasn't gonna say this, when CCRPC was at last month, they came to us and they put out the survey. So anyone who was a kid in the Burlington School District as you get the survey and they were asking for the high school, can you tell us how you would or did May in the future get to Institute Road? And I think I asked specifically like don't include Institute Road. This was before the school closed down. So now we're getting kind of crappy data on moving around the high school that they're not gonna move around for an entire cohort of four years. So I would love to get information from the students who are getting to and from Macy's to better identify, it's downtown. So they're just like some choke points. And I had one parent tell me that her kid does not had to cross the street with all the trucks. And I did suggest using the crosswalk not to be flippant but because I know that kids go the shortest distance between two points, which isn't always a crosswalk. So what I don't want to happen is there's a lot of truck traffic on cherry, right? Because of the construction and to then people are starting to freak out and we have more car traffic down there. I don't think that's a great option. So I know that DPW is working with CCRPC on this. So I think if you can kind of push a little bit on communication with what do we need to do with downtown VHS, like in the short term would be great. Okay, I will personally follow up on that. Thanks. And then I guess another thing is figuring out another thing is figuring out, I don't know where this goes but the process to make adjustments in the minutes. I feel like we've spent a lot of time making adjustments in the minutes. So I think I want to know are the minutes kind of bullet points and then how to make sure that everyone's voice feels like they're heard. And it seems like Commissioner Overby did a great job working with Rob Goulding on the wording. But I wonder if it could be more streamlined or what our expectations should be of that process. Great. And then just thanks both to you, Chief and Norm. This has been a challenging year and I'm grateful as a resident and as a commissioner. Thank you. Thank you. And to your second to last point, Mr. Goulding is developing a written protocol after our little bit of bumpy approvals over the last month or two. So we're going to have that written document out for our staff as well as for you all. We'll make sure to get that to you and you can tweak that policy however you'd like but we want to make it smooth as well. Great, that's all. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Archibald. I have nothing. Thank you. All right. Yeah, I guess just as me I would say again and thank you to Director Spencer and City Engineer Baldwin and all of your teams for the great work this year. We are as residents as a place chair on New Ivanka was saying we're grateful that you all for all you're doing behind the scenes to keep things humming along in a job that is crucial to so much of the functions in our city. We appreciate the effort from you and your staff. I know speaking myself, it's been a slog personally and professionally this past year. I'm sure it's been a number of added challenges and excitement for you all as well. And we appreciate the good effort here. We have a passion for the city and as you do all do as well and keeps us going even when the going gets tough. Yeah. It's crucial and needed along the way. All right. Thank you all. So with that, I will close out item nine, the commissioner communications and next on the agenda is executive session for the director and city engineer annual reviews. I think by the books here we should entertain a motion to go into executive session and just like it's Chad to make sure I've got the controls for the meeting and so forth to administer things from here. Make a motion to move into executive session. I'll second that motion. All right. So we have a motion from Mr. Bose seconded by vice chair, O'Neill Lovato. Thank you. Is there any discussion around that motion? All right. And then Mr. Goulding anything else you should know and of course we'll note the time we're going into executive session and the timing comes out and so forth and get you that for the minutes and then we'll come out and just formally adjourn. We will note that. We'll note that for the minute as well. That sounds great, Chair Hogan. I think at this time Holly Lane who has helpfully taken minutes today and myself will step out.


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