If you, when you start to speak, if you would say your name and where you live, that would be great. Try to keep your comments to two minutes or less if you can and Donna over here is going to help us out with timing so that you sort of know where you're at. And so if the item is on the agenda, then you'll have a chance to speak about that item either just before or just after or sometime during that particular topic. If you would wish to speak on a topic that is otherwise not on our agenda, then that can be for general business and appearances. So otherwise, if it's on one of the agenda items, try to keep your comments germane. And yeah, just make sure that if you have multiple questions, try to ask them all together because we don't really do like a back and forth in this setting. Okay, I think that is it. So, we're on to approving the agenda. I don't have any information to change the agenda. And have information to that effect. Okay, so with that, we'll consider the agenda approved. And so we're going to move on to general business and appearances. So this is an opportunity for any member of the public to address the council on any topic that is otherwise not on our agenda. And if you could say your name and where you live, try to keep your comments to two minutes. That would be great. We'll start with people who are with us in person, anyone with us in person wish to make a comment. Okay. All right. And folks with us virtually page. I see you've got your hand up. Go ahead. Hi, thank you. And I, this is Paige. I live in Montpelier. And there is an agenda item on the ballot on the agenda tonight that I just want to focus voice my support for since I can't stay for the whole meeting. But so the homelessness task force and Parker advisors. We'll be making a presentation later about a covered shelter for the homeless in town. And I just want to voice my support for that. Proposal whatever comes out of that. I think it's a necessary item. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Anyone else with us virtually wish to make a comment, you can. Turn your camera on and wave or you can unmute yourself. Let us know you wish to speak. Or you can use the raise hand icon, which is under reactions. Okay. I'm not seeing anyone. So we're going to keep going then. So we're on to the consent agenda. Is there a motion regarding the consent agenda? Okay, there's motion and a second. Further discussion. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. And opposed. Okay. Great. So we are. Actually, you know, I spoke a little bit too soon about it moving about the agenda. We're going to move the winter city council schedule to the end. So we're going to skip over that for now. And. I think we're actually also going to move the communications update until after all of the DPW items. Right. Okay. So that brings us to the historic preservation appointments, as well as the, the homelessness task force appointments. So we're going to do the introductions for those both together. And then I sort of imagine that we may go into executive session to discuss both of those. That's my anticipation, but I could be wrong. But I do know that we have some folks here who are. Interested in these appointments. So we'll start with historic preservation. Paul Karnahan, would you like to come up to the mic and introduce yourself? Tell us about your interest in the committee. Paul Karnahan, I live at 14 Saban street in Montpelier. And I'm interested in serving on the historic preservation commission. I think you have my form that I filled out online. Gives you a little bit of my background. I've done a lot with the history of Montpelier over the years and continue to maintenance, maintain a strong interest in the history of Montpelier. As far as the commission goes, it seems to me that it's got three roles, planning, advocacy and education. The existing commission has already done a lot of work in the planning area. It's my understanding that the rules have been adopted by the planning commission. And then I was able to review their guidelines online booklet, which they've just done and presented to the planning commission last night. Planning commission is in the process of giving some feedback and then it'll come to you eventually. It's a pretty impressive production that I think will help property owners in the city know a lot about how to preserve their buildings. As far as the other two things go, the commission has a great plan. I sat in on the meeting last night. They've got a very extensive plan with many more priorities than they can possibly achieve. But I went through that and pulled out all the high priorities. They've got eight high priorities, and I think that's one of the things that I would like to do. And I think that alone is going to take many years to do, but I would like to be involved with helping them achieve some of those priorities. There was also one there that I saw had a low priority that I'd like to talk to them more about, which was identifying historic. Structures that are perhaps in danger. I don't know if I'll preserve those before they get too far gone. I think if some sort of outreach had been in place when that Davis property out by Agway had been, the people noticed it was deteriorating. There might have been a different outcome to that. So I'd like to see a little pro action as far as reaching out to owners to help them maintain their properties in a historic way so that we can maintain the, the historic structure of our city, which we all love and appreciate. Thank you. Any questions for Paul?  I don't have any questions, but I just want to express my appreciation for. You're giving us this overview of what the commission does, because it's not. We don't always get something like, like this and, you know, usually the appointments are pretty uncontroversial, but I appreciate it hearing it. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, thanks. Yep. Okay. And I just want to check. I didn't think I saw Craig Durham here, but I want to check if Craig is here with us either in person or virtually. Okay. All right. So we're going to move on to the folks who are interested in the homelessness task force. And it's quite a crew there. So we're going to start with folks with us in person. And I know. Not frothing hammers here. Nat, would you like to come introduce yourself? Thank you for the invitation to say a few things. I think that homelessness as a fact. And as a growing reality. Does. Does shake us up a bit. I know it shakes me up a bit. And I'm surprised myself sometimes. I think, I think that I'm at least liberal. In the way I relate to the world. But then I see, I see people in the community. I haven't seen before. And I react with. I surprise myself or by reacting with. Some suspicion. And some apprehension. So. And then I read about. I read about people crossing our border. I read about. People taking. Homeless people and sending them on mass to other states. I remember. In my own life. I was spending the Christmas up. 1961. In a refugee camp. On the other side of Rwanda. And. That was a, that was a, that was a memorable experience. And. There have been a number of instances. Since then in which the notion of homelessness. Has entered my life. I know that some members of my family have been homeless. I know that. Because of the way things shook out of my life. I was once homeless and had to ask friends that they would put me up for winter. And then I came to work for the Vermont center for independent living. And they weren't dealing with people who were homeless. They were dealing with people. Who often found themselves disabled. And. You can as easily find yourself disabled. As you can find yourself homeless. And that was a. I worked with the Vermont center for independent living for a year. And our one of our target. Issues was homelessness. So I look forward. Both to being challenged and shaken up. Once again. And working with a group of people. Who I'm sure are ready to. Join hands and work on a problem that's complex. And try to get it done. And try to open our community. In very creative ways. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for net. Okay. Great. Thank you. All right. So I think that is everyone who is with us. In person who is on this list. But I know we have other folks with us. Virtually. So I'm just going to go in the order that they are. Listed on the. On the agenda. So we'll go next to. Peter Kalman. Peter Kalman, go ahead. Thank you. I just have a clarifying question. I'd like to ask first. I see that. Diane Matthews. Name is on the list. She, as you know, is a police. Officer. And in the. In the former incarnation of the membership. There seemed to be a police position. It was either Diane. Or I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And so when in your deliberations, I hope you'll discuss whether or not. There should be. Such a position or whether people should be considered. Simply as individuals, regardless of where. They're from. And I don't know whether Diane thought she needed to apply. Based on bills. Note that former members. I don't know. I don't know. I'm here so I don't know what her thinking was, but. I'm a little confused by it. Anyway. As for myself. You all know me very well. I think. I mean, I've spoken a lot at city council meetings. And other committee meetings that I've sat in on. I've sat in on. Homelessness task force. I was a member of the. I was a member of the city council. I was a member of the city council. I was a member of the city council. I attend. Frequently. Occasionally a planning commission meeting. Dear B meetings and so forth. I consider myself to be a housing advocate primarily. But homelessness is. Is very important aspect. Of my concern. For housing. I would like you to ask me questions. If you have doubts. Or concerns about my membership. I was. Not surprised, but disappointed. When the housing committee. Appointed people and did not appoint me. Since I've been. One of the prime movers of creating that committee. So there must have been at least four people. For members of the city council who have concerns about me being on that committee. If people have concerns. I'm being on this committee. I think it would be appropriate for you to ask me questions. Now. Anything else you want to share, Peter? I just want to make sure that you're done before we. Jump. No, I. That's all I just would like. People who have concerns about me to ask me. Questions now. Okay. Any, any questions. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. And we are going to go. Next to. Yeah. I'm going to go ahead. Oh, Carolyn. Rid path. I thought I saw on here. Yes. Carolyn. Go ahead. My computer gets confused. I was on the homelessness task force for a couple of years and then I took a break. And I would like to come back on it because. I see that we're going into more areas of change that may be because I have been homeless on several occasions. And I have interestingly housed. Homeless people in my home. On and off for the last 20 years with great success. So I think I'm in a position to actually empathize. With the people in this circumstance and. How effective housing is. And changing. The whole life of the person. I mean, it gives whole new meaning to be housed to be secure to have food. And so I'd like to see that available to everybody. And I'm not an idealist. I mean, I. Realize that there are certain. Problems in implementing that. So at any rate, I would like to rejoin the committee. And. Move forward. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your questions for Carolyn. Okay. I just want to know, I think I might have missed. Mary. So. This is Mary M. Is that Mary messier? Go ahead, Mary.  Still, still can't hear you, Mary. So. Let us know. So we're going to go then to Don Little. Don, go ahead. Maybe Don. Oh, oh, oh. Yeah, I'm here. Sorry. Okay. Yeah. I thank you. I've been on the task force since it was formed a couple of years ago. I have. Over seven years experience locally dealing with. People who are literally. Living outside. I have been working with people that deal directly with homeless people. One good Samaritan Haven, the other one, another way who in fact has another mission. But I have been working with people in the areas, particularly with people who are considered hard, hard to hold house and have. And have multiple barriers toward housing. Who may be classified as chronically homeless. So I do have a lot of experience in the area. I have a lot of experience in the area. I have a lot of experience in my life. Not the way most of the people I work with are, but in very briefly. In Rhode Island in New Hampshire and longer, but mainly couch surfing in. Montpelier. I've been a resident for 13 years. I do. Have experience locally as both a provider and a consumer. I think the challenges are increasing. And I think particularly at this time with winter coming on. And with so many changes still dealing with the. The after effects of or ongoing effects of COVID. I think it's a really important time that we have. Some continuity and people with direct experience who are on the task force. And I feel that people who do. Street outreach are kind of uniquely positioned in that we deal directly with both providers with providers, planners, community, and people who are living outside. So I think that gives us a lot of. Opportunity to see what the gaps are and what the, what the landscape looks like. Thank you. Thank you. All right. And I think we will go next to Paul. Cap carer, go ahead. Hi. My name is Paul. I actually live right around the corner from town hall at 45 and I've been a Montpelier resident for about eight or nine years. We did buy that historic home there. And I would be interested in talking to the gentlemen about historic preservation at some point later. We're working on getting it fixed up and painted and wanted to do that. Right. So yeah, I am. I have spent all of my career working in nonprofits. I spent many years running the family homeless shelter and Brattleboro. And when I was in college, I worked with the inner city homeless with healthcare for the homeless in Baltimore. I'm a nurse. I have a public health background. And my interest in the committee is just helping Montpelier come up with solutions on how we can help support our fellow citizens who are unhoused and get creative with, you know, how we can get them back on the right path. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Any questions? I don't know that I ask if there are any questions for Don, any questions for Don or for Paul. Okay. Okay, great. That is it. Is there anyone I missed that is on our list for either the homelessness task force or the historic preservation committee. Okay. Is there a motion. Jack, go ahead. I move that we enter into executive session to discuss the appointment of a public officer or employee pursuant to one VSA. 313 a three. There a second. Okay. Second. Further discussion. All in favor, please say aye. And opposed. Okay. So we will be right back. Okay. Is there a motion to come out of executive session? Second. Further discussion. All in favor, please say aye. And opposed. Okay. Is there a motion regarding appointments? Go ahead. Okay. I'd like to move for the historic preservation committee. We appoint Paul Carnahan and Craig Durham. And for the homelessness task force. I had a good discussion there and we'll be breaking it down at the end of the session. I think we're going to go back to the terms. Two years and one year there. First of all, we're, I think we're very hardened by the response to this. And there's a lot of people who bring a lot to the table there. So we want to make this as inclusive as possible. Craig. If you're watching, we wish you best of luck on historic preservation. We'd love you to focus your work on that right now. And maybe branch on the future. Paul, I know you're at home. I know you're at home. I know you're at home. And then after that's completed, definitely consider you bring you on here. As far as non-voting members, we thought it's really important to have a police rep to this committee. So we'd like to put. Detective Diane Matthews on that as a non-voting member. That could potentially be self doubt with another officer. Maybe if she can't make it there. I would be a non-voting number as well as the council liaison. So. So that's the end of our discussion. And we'll move to a final discussion. So the next term. Would move to a point. Will ever Lee, Zach Hughes, Don Little Erica rail. Ken Russell. And Rick D. Angeles. And for a one year term point, Mary Messier, natural thing. Peter Kelman, Tory Rodin and Carolyn Redbeth. There's a second. Any further discussion? Okay. All in favor, please say aye. And opposed. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We look forward. We look forward to.  Historic preservation and homelessness. So thank you so much. Okay. I think we're ready to move on men. To the Kellogg Hubbard library's funding request. I know we have some folks here from the library. So come on up to the table. Or if you'd prefer the standing mic, that's okay too. It's your choice. Yeah, I'm going to have to read my chicken scratching here. This is a little bit earlier than I'm typically used to coming before the, the city council. So I appreciate you all having me. I am Carolyn Brennan. I'm one of two co-directors at the Kellogg Hubbard library. And I have with me tonight, Judy walk. Who is the city council nominee to our board of trustees. So I have a two part request to put before you all, but before I make that request, I would like to tell you that the library has had a banner year this year. We are back to pre pandemic circulation numbers. We circulated over, we had over 350,000 circulations this year, which is the highest I've seen the library circulation in the six years that I've been there. So we have our digital use. We expanded digital access to the library. Over the course of the pandemic, we put more services online through our website so that the library is virtually, virtually never closed. We have streaming video services now. We have downloadable digital, digital magazines. We have downloadable ebooks and audio books and that we've had for a number of years, but we've expanded the size of that collection. So we've had a number of years that have been closed. So we've had a number of years that have been closed. Those numbers increase exponentially every year. And this, this past for the fiscal year that just closed, digital circulation went up by about 9,000. So that is a sling in books is still the number one thing we do with the library. We, you know, we do, do hundreds of thousands of that, but we're seeing digital use rise and rise and rise and rise every single year. We've had a number of issues we've had a lot of, a lot of issues called oceans of possibilities, and we saw, we had most of our programs outdoors. I saw lots and lots and lots of wonderful happy kids cavorting on our lawn. We have outdoor seating now, that gets used every single day. We have out, where and, and visits wise, including we're seeing an increase again in our after school usage. We reopened our, we have an after school hangout space that we open five days a week downstairs in our East Montpelier room. And it is truly just a space for kids who have a gap between when school gets out and when their guardian can pick them up or their guardian is available at home. And so we see kids every single day just kind of crashing down there. We've got a rug and couches and it's supervised and we put out games and it's just a space. It's a space to be loud too. One of the most significant changes I've seen at the library since I've been there and that I've had a hand in for better or worse depending on who you are is converting the library into a conversational space. We really mean to be a community hub. We are a talking library, which is shocking to some. But other than our fiction room is still a silent space for people who are really looking for that kind of traditional library experience. But anywhere else in the library, you can have a conversation, you can have a cup of coffee, you can meet with your friends and neighbors and have civic discussion. And we see that use all the time. We're back to pre-pandemic use of our public computers. We are back to filling all of those little gaps that we see in other types of social services. So we're seeing the return of people who are experiencing homelessness coming into the library as a warm space or as a space with a public bathroom or as a space with a water fountain, as a space to ask a question or connect to a service. We're seeing, I am personally answering questions every day from people coming in who have questions about losing benefits that are maybe wrapping up because we're reaching the end of the pandemic or switching to endemic mode. I had someone in my office today who was concerned about reaching out to the Economic Services Division because there was a typo in their address and they were going to lose their fuel assistance because of one wrong number on their application form. And they have somebody that they work with for that service, but that person is overstretched and not available and their deadline is October 31st and they wouldn't be able to meet with the person that typically helps them until after that date and they were in crunch mode. And so we were able to get that sorted out which was wonderful. But we fill lots, that's just one example of something that we do all day every day between me and my librarians. What else do I wanna tell you? We just completed our strategic plan this year. You all received that as part of your packet. I'm very excited about that initiative. We haven't had a long range plan in a number of years and this one is for the period of 2023 through 2025. And one of the exciting things about it, it shows the library moving into that community hub mode and moving into really being, really like breaking down barriers. And there's an emphasis on outreach to all other community organizations which I'm really excited about. And we recrafted our mission statement, our mission and vision with a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. And diversity, equity and inclusion is something that is embedded in everything that a public library does every day but formalizing it in this way and making a commitment to equitable hiring practices and having a more diverse board of trustees. And oh gosh, and we're working on a diversity audit in our collections right now to further diversify our print collection. And so we're just really taking a hard look at some of the assumptions that we've made as like, oh, well, we're the public library. We do the stuff naturally and we do but we can do it better and we are doing it better which is incredibly exciting work to be moving towards. So that is, I think that's my bit in terms of pitching how I couldn't say enough about how exciting it is to be reframing the work that we do and for breaking down some of these silos in the public library. And there is more if you look at our strategic plan you're welcome to read that it's available on our website and our latest annual report which is also available on our website if anybody else wants to read it and we have print copies in the library. It looks like this and that goes over all of our how the library is funded and the things that we've been doing this year and some statistics with participation in programs and circulation and some of the things that I just told you. So to the asking portion, we are requesting to be added to the town meeting warning for March of 2023 in the amount of $411,774. That's an increase of $16,148 over last year. And I am very humbly requesting that we do not be required that we're not required to petition to be put on the warning. And that's for three reasons. The first reason is that collecting 10% of the voter registry is difficult. It's onerous, it's a lot of names. Our other member towns require 5% and so that's typically much more doable. And of course Montpelier is the largest community that we serve. The second part I have to remind myself of the second part is that we have extremely consistently high voter support in the city of Montpelier and by waiving the requirement for petitioning, you're not depriving the voters the chance to vote on the library budget. You're only getting us onto the warning itself. And I think that our high support shows that were we required to petition, we could do it. But it's going to be a lot of legwork. And that gets me to the third reason which is that we're still feeling the after effects of the pandemic. We're seeing numbers rising again across Vermont. There was a article on WCAX about it last week. We're starting to talk at the library about what our points would be where we do need to scale things back again. And I hope we don't get to that point but we are beginning to have those discussions just so that we're prepared should it happen. We're moving to online programming for the winter months. I know the Vermont Humanities Council is also moving to online programming and moving away from in-person programming for the winter months. And I have also already seen people self-selecting not to come out to events. And so typically we go to local events to collect signatures in addition to the signatures that we do get at the library. And I think that that is still going to be a really tall challenge this year. I think it's going to be more difficult than it would be in a typical year. And that's my piece. And I'm happy to answer questions. And Judy, I don't know if you have anything you wanted to add. Thank you. I'm going to jump in here and say, so we had a similar conversation, we've had our last meeting with Central Vermont Home Health and Hospice who we also waived their signature requirement last year and we waived their requirement again this year with the understanding that we are going to revisit our policy between now and the next vote, but not affecting this March, right? So I'm going to just guess team that we are probably, maybe I'm wrong about this, but I'm going to guess that we are probably also inclined to waive signatures for the library this year. And again, understanding that we are going to have this conversation about our process for next time. Now, if I'm speaking incorrectly, if folks would, if we want to have more of a discussion about this, that's certainly welcome. I'm just thinking, for the sake of expediency, Connor and then Donna. Yeah, I was on the losing end of the vote at last meeting we had there. And I don't think we need to have another discussion about petitioning if we're going to do it in the future. So for the sake of consistency and because this is a very modest increase and thank you for being on the front lines, as we talk about the homelessness issue, which we are, Carolyn's been coming to the meetings and doing some real heavy lifts in that regard. So I would move that we add the requested funding amount on the article, on the ballot. Carrie, and I'll just very quickly register that I also voted against the waiver for home health and hospice. And I think I'm going to vote against this as well, but purely on a technicality. And when we further discuss this and our policy about the library and about the ballot and everything, I'm a huge supporter of the library. My personal preference I think would be that the library is just part of our budget and that you don't have to go through this every single year. However, we do have this policy in place. And so I'm going to just be a real technical sticker and vote, stickler and vote no, but it's not any reflection on the library. Any, oh, Donna, yes. I guess you and I have a lot of contrast going on. I would rather guarantee that you go on the ballot as a separate item than put it in our budget because I feel it goes directly to the voters much more than any petition does. So I think you certainly have my support. Any comments over here? No, okay. All right, so there's any questions or library folks here? Okay. Okay, with any comments from the public, just want to make sure I'm checking. Okay. All right, so there's a motion in second. Any further discussion? Okay, all in favor please say aye. Aye. And opposed? No. Okay, great. So motion passes. Thank you very much and look forward to chatting again after we figure out our policy for next time around. Thank you guys so much. Yes. Yes, go ahead, Donna. I'd just like to thank you for all the material you sent us. It really was great. Getting it ahead was helpful. Yeah, thank you. So grateful for the library, especially during the pandemic. Oh my gosh. Side note. You used the word cavort and I don't know how to spell that. KBORT. Oh, oh, CA. Oh, that's it. Okay, all right, thank you. Okay. It's the spelling bee. All done. All right. So we are up to... Yes, I know. The library did that at one point, I think. I think so. All right, so we are up to a presentation from the homelessness task force on winter issues and the shelter or the parklets. So welcome, Dan. Yeah. Once again, I have an extra copy and handouts for you all. I think in honor of Anne, next time I'm gonna bring a pop quiz for you all. Awesome. So, well, thank you, council. My name is, of course, Dan Tol. I live right on first ad here in Montpelier and am the head of the consulting firm hired by the homelessness task force to do the homeless needs assessment and action plan. First of all, I'd like to acknowledge all the hard work and the good faith effort by the city council, by the city and the task force to address this homeless, this issue. What we are about to present is we know as a big ask and time is limited and we very much appreciate your consideration. So for our presentation and in addition to myself, my co-presenter on Zoom will be Dawn Little who, as you heard, is one of Montpelier's very dedicated outreach workers who has worked with the homeless and has her own lived experience. So for the presentation, I'll start with the recommendation right off the top. I'm gonna give some background information, talk about some of the key issues relating to this and finish off with a discussion of logistics and implementation. So background, as we're all well aware, the housing situation for vulnerable Vermonters, including the homelessness has worsened in the last month or so with the state's abrupt situation, abrupt cessation of housing supports and funding. As such, the need has heightened is heightened by a projected increase in the number of homeless who will be forced to leave their hotels as well as those who are evicted from subsidized housing. Locally here in Montpelier, the task force with the support of our firm, Parker Advisors, has been working with nonprofits, faith communities, state agencies to ensure that households, unhoused individuals and families have a safe place to be during the cold months of this winter. While right now the most urgent and critical issue is getting an emergency overnight shelter up and running, we still have another crucial gap in the safety net and that's the lack of a covered warming gathering space for the unhoused. Recommendation, what we'd like the council to consider is authorizing both the homelessness task force supported by my firm to prepare, we would prepare a plan for this covered gathering space and we'd work with the city on that to implement and at least some of the funding we were proposed to come from the 400,000-ish that's been earmarked for homelessness in the city budget. In addition, the task force would collaborate with the Montpelier Police Department and other first responders to work to try to mitigate some of the concerns that they've raised. Before I get into the issues, I just wanted to make the statement that, you know, as you all are probably well aware, the state is struggling right now with this housing issue across the board, top, you know, whether it's houses or rentals, homeless, subsidized, there's not much that we can do. We in this room can do to influence that. What we're proposing here today is something we have control over and that is within the budgetary constraints that we have. So I'd ask you to really think about this as something we can do and a step we can take forward because there's a lot of, I can tell you from being part of meetings with the state and nonprofits, there's a lot of hand-ringing going on right now. And getting even a small win, I think is crucial, not only for the people that we're trying to serve, but for the community to try to build some hope. So if you'll turn to page two, and by the way, this presentation, was it posted at the website, the city website, and where would people find it on the website? It's connected with the agenda. It's connected with agenda, great. So for those of you in Zoomland, if you go to the city website, you can find this presentation right there. So if council, if you could turn to the second page, the outline, what I like to do is start by hitting some of the key highlights of the key issues. So first, centralized accessibility. That's really key for the unhoused and the service providers, particularly those that have mobility issues, including obviously those that are disabled. Centralized location gives proximity to bathrooms and transportation. It gives ease of access for service providers and outreach workers. It also gives the ability of volunteers and the community to drop off water and food, clothes, and other items. Next, in terms of safety, first of all, there's safety in numbers. What the task force is hearing from the folks out in the community is the ability for them to be together to have a common gathering space, create safety as opposed to them spreading out into dangerous isolated places throughout the community. But, and as importantly, it's also safer for providers having a central semi-open, semi-accessible place for them as well. Shelter from the elephants, that's pretty straightforward, particularly obviously as we move into the winter months. In terms of services, it's a place, but having this centralized gathering space, it provides a location for people to seek and receive services, to get referrals, messages from service providers, emergency camping gear, and peer support, something some of you know is near and dear to my heart.  It provides a space for community amongst those that are unhoused. The need for multiple options, particularly in these times of deep service cutbacks, this would provide another option for the times when there's no room in the shelters, no transportation to those sites, nor when the shelter or the warming spaces are open. In addition, in terms of multiple options, it's a place where a nearby place, people can go who are either not suited or don't want to use the indoor shelter alternatives and that could be for any number of reasons, whether it's mental health or trauma or personality issues. Lack of transportation, a centralized location would help mitigate this obstacle which has gotten particularly acute during the COVID during the COVID years and with our declining economy. And then something that kind of surprised me as I got involved in this homeless project is the central gathering space also, it provides an opportunity for the community to have positive interactions with the homelessness and maybe Don, can you give us an example of one of the many positive interactions that the community have had with the homeless? We actually had a lot of people who surprisingly, we had people who delivered food, we had people who in walking by fell into conversation with people and made some real connections. I do know that before, I do know that when we had originally, when we'd moved the original Gerton Park from the original site, just as a similar example of what a central gathering space can do, we did have, I did to my surprise, get a number of comments from local residents who were very disappointed that the park had been moved both out of a degree of empathy for the people who are using it and the lost opportunity to be able to connect with people in a casual, safe way. I also, I did wanna mention that this is, you may look at this and say, well, you're doing just fine without one now, why should you, why are you asking now? And I do wanna say that there are things that are different in the winter. We've been fine this summer because it's been warm out and people have been gathering around the tables at Confluence Park, but when those tables are moved, people will probably return to doorways and bus stops. And with the colder weather, it is much more important to reach people quickly. We don't have the luxury that we do in summer of, well, yes, this can wait a couple of days, because if they don't have adequate clothing, if they don't have a sleeping bag, if they don't have a way to keep dry, this can't really wait a couple of days when it's that cold. And it's also, I've also realized that this is a disability accessibility issue, that there are both provider, well, providers, volunteers and users of the structure who are homeless. A lot of them don't have the ability to go up into Hubbard Park or to go into little corners around town. And they definitely don't have the ability to go back and forth between there and the bathroom and the water and the services. So there are really a number of reasons that we have this need. And Dan will tell you in a minute about another primary reason for this that I wanted to revisit since there seemed to be a perception in the past that people did not receive services in gathering places that this is probably certainly a valid experience with some of the service providers, but I believe that all the street workers would agree and a lot of the people are out there that it's really a primary place for people to receive services from street outreach. And Dan can tell you in more detail what that involves. Great, thank you, Don. So moving along with issues, cost obviously is always one of the important things to consider with an initiative like this. In this case, there's now two categories. There's direct costs, which obviously would include the setup and instruction, as well as ongoing maintenance. In this case, we believe this is a relatively simple project and a relatively low cost option. At the same time, there are indirect costs in particular without this gathering shelter. These indirect costs include excessive time, expense, and the opportunity cost of service providers who don't have the central location to access the unhoused. However, more importantly, the cost of human suffering would be at least partially mitigated by a covered shelter. And finally, other considerations that would be addressed as part of the plan would be bathrooms and trash collection and removal. Don, anything else that I missed in terms of key issues before I move into the last section, logistics and implementation? To point out the obvious, but something that a lot of us overlook is that when you're outside in the winter, if you're outside and you're going shopping or whatever for a walk and your clothes get wet, you just go home and throw them in the dryer. And these people can't do that. So with the change of temperature, it becomes a lot more urgent that people have a covered spot to go into easily because they have no way to dry their clothes. And while we can't always offer them that, at least we can help prevent, you know, the situation in the first place because hypothermia is a real danger. The other thing is just to, for me anyway, is to sort of underline the need that people have when they're conducting their entire lives in private. Most of us, you know, if we want to be alone, we have somewhat over or we go to a, you know, we may go to a restaurant or something and these people don't have the money or the place to go to have any sort of personal interaction with other people. You know, you can stand in a parking lot or on a street corner, but this is really the only place they have to sit down and deal with whatever personal business they have or socialize. It's a major morale issue. And it's, even when we offer warming spaces, they're going into a place that's closely supervised for the most part, or a place where you can't really have a conversation. It may be, you know, it may be a quiet space, a library, a quiet study space, or, you know, something like that. And they really, it's a basic human need, you know, to have relationship. Many people live in motels where they're not allowed to have people visit them in their rooms.   And they don't have that in a room in City Hall. You know, they don't have that at the library. They don't have the privacy, you know, which sounds kind of weird when you're talking about a space that's out in the open, but they don't have anywhere that's not closely scrutinized by members of the public. So just wanted to mention that. Great, great points, Don, thank you. So moving along then, first logistics, probably the first and most important threshold issue for this proposal is where to locate this gathering space. From the subcommittees or the task force perspective, as we've been saying, centrally located is critical, but also setback from the travel public spaces. The ideal place would be downtown for access to shelter spaces, the daytime shelter spaces, like such as the library in another way, getting to the buses, transportation range, also access to providers and of course, emergency services if they run in particularly medical issues. When it comes to location, we've looked at a number of different options and it's sort of in that order of priority of our recommendation. The first would be the grassy knoll that's in back of the parking lot behind the drawing board. I believe it's where the bank used to be. It's between the parking lot and the river. Right now it's just an empty grass space. It's central, it'd be safe for the unhoused and for the service providers, convenient. It would be visible while setback, it would still be visible to the emergency service providers. And by being setback, it would reduce the, the propensity or the situations where there are negative interactions between the public and the unhoused. So that's sort of, that's number one option. Number two, Confluence Park, which I think we're all aware right now is sort of de facto gathering space uncovered, but that is the gathering space. Confluence Park is more isolated. It is harder for providers to access by car and it is close to walkers and bikers who use the bike path. So creates that unfortunate opportunity for those negative interactions that there have been some experience within the past. And then lastly, you know, so other potential locations would include state owned land, NGO or non-government organization properties, parks, or even private property owners might be willing to step up. So that's location in terms of the structure itself. There's really two options. Build the structure, a new shelter that's designed, customized specifically for the needs of the unhoused. And again, we believe that can be done at a very reasonable cost. The second option would be to bring the Gertin Park structure in storage, which would be probably somewhat of a lower cost option, but does have the major drawback of being, it's a, as you all are well aware, it's a reconstituted parklet, not a gathering, a covered gathering space that was specifically designed for this type of population. And then the last issue is really the issue of costs and the task force really is proposing that working with my firm, and of course with Bill and the city, we'd prepare a budget for this project. And that would of course be a based in part on the selected location and obviously the construction option. So lastly, in terms of implementation, and again, the task force working with my consulting firm, we would flesh out the implementation plan and it would include clear communications to the community so that we can work towards building support amongst your constituents. So to conclude, just to reiterate, the ask here is for the city council to authorize the task force working with park advisors and the city to prepare a plan for this covered gathering space and consider using a portion of the $400,000 homeless set aside and again, collaborate and work with the police and other first responders on their concerns. So with that, I'll open the floor to any questions and comments. Thank you, Jennifer. Oh, Don, wait before you do that, Don. I'm sorry about the non-linear nature of this presentation, but I'm having some technical issues and I have to keep paging back and forth. So it's hard for me to follow the order in which this is occurring. So I'm sorry about the fragmented nature of it, but I did wanna say that there are a number of factors this year that are different from previous years that contribute to the need for such a structure. In addition, I don't know if people are aware that the overflow shelter that we've had for years is still a possibility, but it's not guaranteed. It's a little more tenuous this year than it has. So we may have more people outside, but if that question comes up, there are a lot of safety factors for the providers and for the potential users of such a structure. It used to be really safe to go out in the woods by yourself or to go alone. And it really hasn't been this year and maybe the end of last year, the landscape has really changed a lot. So that's another factor. And the other thing is we've had, I think increased interest in people from the community being interested in volunteering and working with this in terms of either maintenance or that sort of thing. So that's all I wanted to say, thanks. Yeah, that's great, Don. Yeah, the volunteer issue is one that will be part of, we'll be looking as part of the plan. There's a meeting next week with the faith community. The focus of that really is the overnight shelter, but one of the issues that I hope to discuss with them is no possibility of using volunteers as part of this, maybe for trash collection or whatever, explore alternatives for using folks in the community. And I guess the last thing I do wanna say as a follow on to what Don was just saying, I have the good fortune to know all, to one degree or another, all the new members that have been appointed. And I applaud the committee for not only bringing all these really great people onto the task force, but also structuring it with the non-voting and a way that we get, we have the stakeholders at the table, but we have a mix of providers, community members and people with lived experience. So my final point is I feel really good about the team we have on the task force and that we working with Paul, Paul who's my, Paul Capcaro who you heard earlier as my partner in the sec, that Paul and I can work with this group of people and make this happen. Super, thank you. Jennifer. Yeah, so my question, wow, this is hot mic, sorry. I did not mean to yell at you.  Who's gonna make sure that there isn't a bunch of people using in there or having interactions that maybe aren't safe and picking up trash, making sure that people aren't sleeping there, et cetera, et cetera. I think some of the things you mentioned are somewhat inevitable in that as long as we don't have adequate rehabilitation programs that are available to people and we don't have adequate support backing it up. And what we have is a lot of people with a lot of disadvantages who are under a huge amount of stress. I can't, I don't think that we're gonna completely, that we're gonna eliminate this behavior. I guess my feeling is that if it's going to happen, I would rather have it happen where people can get help. I would rather have it in a safe space. And it's unfortunate we would like, that's one reason we would like to not have something right on the sidewalk or where the bike path directs you right up to it like it did when we had the Gertin Park over by the river, so that there is no forced interaction or direct having to be right in hearing range of it. Yeah. I do think that, go on. No, go ahead, sorry. No, I do think that it's safer. I've seen a lot of interactions where people being at that structure were protected by other people there, which might not have happened if they had been in a more isolated spot. I do think, one of the issues that we had, and I know we talked to Bill about this before and I'm jumping from topic to topic, but the issue of the trash, I think having increased volunteers, there was as Bill knows, there was an issue with trying to get the trash pickup contractors to go more frequently. It's not just an issue. At the gathering spots, I think it's an issue everywhere, but particularly there where more garbage is being generated. We did have people picking up trash, but it's really hard to keep people motivated when the single trash can is always overflowing. One thing to look at would be maybe adding another trash barrel if we can't get anyone to pick up or maybe arranging for someone else to pick up the trash and drop it off. But we have honestly, I've seen an improvement at one point at least in people picking up the trash, but there's just nowhere to put it. Yeah, and the only reason why I asked this is because everybody knows I've been working with homeless populations for over 20 years in both Oregon and here in Vermont, and I feel like the problems that we're having or the issues that we're having here are beyond what our small communities can do and our state needs to listen and there needs to be more funding available for people to do this work and more mental health services, more drug and alcohol treatment services, more outreach workers. There's only like Dawn and Zach who I see out on the street and I did street outreach and it's hard work and it's depressing work and it burns you out and I just, I worry about the workers, I worry about the people that need these services and it feels like it's so much bigger than this and I know that this is important and it's something and it's better than nothing but I want us also to recognize that the state has a responsibility to all of its citizens and there's only so much that we can do and it's very frustrating because everybody has great ideas and everybody wants to help but there's either no funding or no people to do the work or people are burned out and tired and I just, my heart goes out to everybody on this situation and it just, it feels impossible at this level and I feel like the bigger people need to step in. I think, I mean, obviously there is a need for a lot of large long-term solutions and this is obviously not meant to be a substitute but again, the increased workload on street outreach that has occurred in the past year and a half, the increased danger to being outside has necessitated at times having two of us go out, in order to be safe and it's not totally wasted money because we're often, if two of us approach, we will often have half a dozen people gathered around each person but there are times, I don't know if you, I don't remember what was in the written blurber, whether you read that but there was at least one time when we went out right after we lost the park last year when we ended up driving around for three hours and that's an expense and it's time when we could have been interacting with people directly so this is not nearly an issue of convenience, it's how to access more people more effectively and efficiently at a time when the weather makes it really crucial to do so and it also is safer, it's accessible and again, it's not, I guess nobody, understandably nobody wants to see this but it doesn't have to be in their face but I think it needs to be, it is a temporary solution, I mean, it's a temporary partial solution but I think this is the most effective and safest and most humane thing to do given that we don't really have any other good options right now. Yeah. I'm just voicing my frustration outwards. I appreciate the power of the bee and the newspaper nose. Yeah, thanks Don, that was great and thanks for the question, Jenner. Yeah, the behavior issues will not go away. There's nothing reasonable and humane that we can do to stop that but by creating a centralized space that's set back enough so it's not immediately in everybody's face as they're moving about. We have the opportunity to at least exercise some level of control because, you know, as we all know now, the single biggest evident gathering of homeless is at Confluence Park. So, you know, it's, what's the other thing about the site about the location is the thing that I liked about the lot by Shaw's is that the police, the police drive by there regularly, they would not have to detour out of their way. It's just something you can eyeball on the way by for providers. It's a way for us to on occasion monitor what's going on. You know, and again, the less time we spend wandering around looking for people, the more time we can concentrate on the people who, whether we have a solution or not, we can at least attempt to reach some of the people who may need help the most and may be, you know, may be attracting the most attention. Again, we don't have an easy solution for that, you know, but at least it gives us maybe the time to take a shot at it. Can I jump on that? Because it's bringing up a question that I feel like would come up in public conversations. Anyway, one hypothesis is that the existence of a gathering place means that more conflicts or, you know, difficult behaviors would happen because of the existence of that space. Another hypothesis is that those conflicts and difficult behaviors are happening elsewhere anyway. And so is it fair to say? I mean, my sense from you is that is the latter, right? Is that it's these difficult behaviors are happening elsewhere anyway right now? Exactly. So it's not necessarily... They will. I mean, one way, I'm sorry, one way to reduce it, one way to reduce it, I don't know how to do it at the least possible cost. You may have noticed that there have been people going to the bus stop lately and that's because that's the only covered place and it's the only place to sit down really. Some of them are doing this to get away from Confluence Park. And the reason people started going to Confluence Park in the first place was that some people wanted to sit down and separate themselves. So yes, I mean, in a way, these behaviors will happen. Conflicts will happen. You can dilute them to a degree by providing spaces where people can go to be more alone. And I don't expect the city to be able to invest the money to put up two or three covered shelters. I don't think that's realistic at this point. I would love it if it was. But yes, behaviors certainly are happening anyway. I think having them in a place where they can get help more easily is important. And again, maybe in the future, if there are... I try to point out to people in the summer when it's not such a health issue, where there isn't that cold, go sit on a picnic table here, go there, whatever, and people do. But yeah, I don't think we're causing bad behaviors. I think we're just causing them to happen in a place where it's safer. And again, if we had more places for people to sit down, there would be somewhat fewer conflicts, certainly. There might still be conflicts, but there would be fewer conflicts. But not having any place for people to go to sit down does not reduce the number of conflicts. It just makes people more frustrated and miserable and pissed off, I think. Other questions, Jack. And then Donna. Thanks, I have a bunch of questions, but the one that immediately came to me, because Don, you mentioned it a couple of times, is that you said that there's a increased level of danger this year. And I wonder if you could elaborate on that and why that is. Is there, are there more dangerous or violent people out there that you're encountering, or what is it that makes things more dangerous than they might've been even a year ago? It's hard to say exactly. There's probably a number of factors. I started to see it a little bit last year, but this year, part of it is we have more people coming in from outside that we don't know. We have an increased level of frustration from people who have been outside for a long time. In the past, there were actual motel rooms available for emergency shelter, at least during cold weather. As of last January, I believe it was, suddenly there are almost no motel rooms, so you have fewer people with that option. A number of people have been driven out of their camps by bears this year. There are a lot more bears around than there were. So I've seen more people that are clustered in the middle of town. They don't have the, when you have a camp outside of town, you have a relative peace and quiet, you can have possessions that aren't going to be stolen quite as quickly. You can actually cook, you don't have a constant flow of people. So I think part of it is the lack of as many settled camps. And I don't know, maybe I don't know what it is, honestly, I mean, I think there are a lot of people who are kind of right on the edge. I don't know what it is. I've just seen more frustration and more desperation and more people who are not normally around who are coming here. I don't know if, I don't know why there are more people coming here at this time. It may be just that there are fewer emergency accommodations everywhere and they're moving around, but there are more people that were not known to me. Some of the major incidents we've had or repeat incidents we've had have been people who weren't around a couple of years ago. That doesn't really answer your question. But so do you feel you're actually, when you're interacting with people, you're more likely to have somebody physically assault you or threaten you? Not in town. And I do have to say that with the people that you commonly see in town, I have no fear whatsoever of being assaulted. I have never been threatened by anyone. When I go into the woods now or when I go to camps, because it's not the same people in the same camps, it's unfamiliar. And there have been people passing through, there I am. I'm not comfortable going into the camps alone right now. It's partly the bears. It's partly that you don't know who's gonna be there from one month to the next. And there have been some people out there that I was not familiar with that I was very uncomfortable with. I would say right in town, I think there has been increased violence between the people who are there. I don't see that as any threat to the providers or the public in general at all. I mean, so far I've never seen that. It may be uncomfortable to watch if you're right close up to it, but I've never seen people, they get frustrated with each other, but I haven't seen people threatening me or anyone else. Okay, thanks. Thank you, Tom.  I don't wanna... Okay, well, I'll throw open a couple of big questions that I've thought of about this. One is that it really seems that this is a proposal to do something that is a temporary arrangement for this year or something. And when we appropriated the $400,000, I think we were thinking of creating something that was gonna be a permanent resource. And I'm sort of wondering, well, how do those two things interact? And any thousands or tens of thousands of dollars that we spend for something that's temporary is something that's not gonna be available out of that $400,000 for something permanent when we get to the point of designing and addressing that. And so I wonder if you could talk about that a bit. I think it... Tom, just a sec. Believe it or not, the discussions that are currently being held around the housing issue, the homeless issue right now because of the continued pools of federal money, there's other funding available right now to the extent of $400,000 isn't enough for the more permanent solutions. And I'm glad you asked that question because when Paul and I launched this project on October 1st, the winter shelter and this covered gather were not sort of on the agenda. There are things that have surfaced because of how fast things are moving and how things are deteriorating in terms of housing and the homelessness situation. We are committed, we're trying to address an immediate need with the winter cold months just weeks away. Paul and I are committed to not only putting forth other shorter-term solutions, but most importantly, what are the medium and longer-term permanent solutions? So, yes, this is a temporary step, but I can't emphasize enough the point that I made earlier about how little is being done right now to your point, Jennifer, at the state level and certainly at the federal level. This is something we can do. It's not huge, but... And then we have the issue the winter overflow shelter, as we've said. Right now, that's... We don't have firm commitments for all the different pieces to get that winter shelter up and running. So again, this would just be a small step, but at least it would be a step in the right direction. And then the last question I have for right now is that nobody on the council was happy at the vote we took that I think most of us felt we had to take to remove the Gertin-Parklet last year. And so, I'm sure we'll want to hear from the police and from other people going forward, but what can we do to ensure that we're not really... We're not gonna be in the same situation that we were in last year that led us to... The bad interactions with people, all the stuff that made people think that we could not go on with the way we were going. I'm gonna answer your question with a question. Can you be a little more specific, Jack, about... You said... I heard you say that nobody on the council was happy or satisfied with removing the Gertin-Park shelter. What were the two or three most critical issues that you believe that your colleagues here were not happy about? Well, I think nobody wanted to take away this resource, but on the other hand, people felt and were hearing that there were enough problems that it just wasn't working last year. And are we setting ourselves up for going back into the same circumstance that we were in last year? Because everybody wants to support this. Right, right. Well, Don, go ahead. No, I just... I don't know if there's a simple answer to that. I will say that one thing that absolutely guaranteed failure was to have it right on the sidewalk. I mean, that was not going to work for anyone. And I'm sorry that happened. I mean, I can't say that all the problems are going to go away, but I do know that setting it back away from the sidewalk where people are not forced to walk right by it. And it was not just... I understand the problem. Some of the issues that people had with it being there. I also understand that a lot of homeless people were harassed. I was harassed by people passing by. So it kind of went both ways. But yes, I see what your concern is, and I don't know if we can completely eliminate the chances of that happening. But I do know that putting it back, way back from the sidewalk would help a lot. Dan? Yeah. Yeah, there's no nice, neat package that we can put this in and say, oh yeah, we're not going to have any problems. And everything is going to be hunky-dory. But I believe we have a heightened, right now we have a heightened sense of urgency around this issue. We, as I mentioned towards the end of my presentation, with the new task force composition, we have a larger group and a more diverse group of people to do the problem solving the brainstorming and putting the plan in place. And also a larger group obviously benefits because the ripple effect of them being able to connect with people in their community within the city. So in terms of building awareness and trying to build support or at least minimize the objections. I feel like there are a number of reasons that we're positioned now to make it work better than it worked before. And Don's point, I think is one of the most key is if we get it in the right location, that will at least mitigate a big part of the behavioral, of the in-your-face behavioral issues that plagued the previous structure. Can I make a suggestion that addressing that question? I think to be called out and highlighted in your final recommendation. Yep. Great. Thanks. Great, thank you. Donna. I wanna thank you for this job and it does put everything together. But on the other hand, I am disappointed. I feel like we're not anywhere. I mean, we were sitting where you're feeling now last year that it was bad and getting worse. And hence we put the money aside, $425,000. Thinking about a structure. I invested time learning about the pallet shelters. And I really wanted a community room and showers and bathrooms, but they wouldn't sell it to us without the individual shelters. And they wouldn't sell that without staffing. So here we are in this loop again. So I was really hoping there would be more solid recommendation because we know location is what's keeping us from doing it. We don't have an easy location of own land. Even to do like a pallet community that is temporary, but really permanent because we were going to get really good insulated shelters. We still needed to know that that was then just a transitional place, a place people could go. They had individual rooms. They had showers. They had a community meeting room. They could have services there. And it was sort of matching the numbers we had then. But what I'm seeing here is like, we're looking at a potential community room, which is great, but back in a parking lot, there'll be lots of conflicts. That's a doorway that more housing. We have problems now with the transit center, having conflicts with the people living above the transit center. There are teenagers who live in that building who don't want to go by themselves anymore because they're accosted. They live in the transit center. Yeah, they live above the transit center because of all that. And I want you, for them, is the people that are now congregating Confluent Park. And if we can all agree on a location, not being Confluent Park. Well, with the location where this is offered, you're still back near the park, near the path, parking, major parking back there, major people going in and out of stores, and people in housing have entrance on that backside. You may or may not be aware of it. So location is number one. And I guess for just thinking of a community room that's not staffed. Well, first of all, it's not a room. It's a shelter. Yeah, I just want to make sure, yeah, that you're not thinking of it in terms of four walls and a roof and a floor. Right, so we have bathrooms here that you also want to have bathrooms. I want to have bathrooms. I want to have... We were talking about maybe a porta potty having found a potential way to mitigate the floodplain issue. I'll tell you, just to do the foundation looking on, I went back and Googled some of the information in the pallet shelters, give me. Just to do a foundation of concrete.  If it has any water to it, it even becomes more expensive. And yet I'd rather do something that will lead to something permanent. I mean, I would rather go and make a deal with Vermont College, really, to use those dorms. I mean, with the dorms, you have space, you have heat, you have bathrooms. You have potential for eating. Now that I can invest in. Right. But this is gonna, I mean, I just think that's a wrong location and I can't find one. I've called realtors, they can't find one that we can do that's accessible. There's some empty buildings I would love to negotiate with the owners open to it. You know, maybe public pressure would make them open to it that are located in a good location downtown. So I feel just frustrated that I don't feel any further than we were when we had this allocation. I feel stumped. I mean, do you have a number? And that's changing, but what number do you think are gonna flow through this shelter? This, there are three dozen people right now outside in Montpelier. Not all of them will be around this winter. Three dozen. Three dozen. In Montpelier, living outside, number of them will leave. Some of them will migrate south. Some of them will find couches to sleep on. Some of them will go to camps. I do think one of the differences we look at now is that we have consultants to help us, which I'm sincerely hoping they will be able to address some of the issues that we have not been able to address in the past. Like what is a viable site? What do we have to do to make this happen? So I think that's one way that we're ahead of where we were last year. I also don't think we had talked to Ward Joyce about the porta potty issue. And my impression, and I may be mistaken, is that it would not cost a whole lot for a foundation that it wouldn't have to be a permanent concrete thing. But you're right about the location, certainly. I don't know what the easy answer is that will be good for everyone. Yeah, well, first of all, Donna, great questions, great issues. Sorry, I mean, don't be negative at all. I'm just very frustrated. Yeah, no, I'm very frustrated too, for a whole lot of reasons. First of all, in terms of this shelter, the task force just in recent weeks raised this issue. And part of this is in response to everything that's been happening since the state announced they were defunding a lot of the housing initiatives. So we don't have a lot of the answers and that's why the proposal is to get, is to get you to, is to have the council approve us to put together that plan and come to you with a budget. And to me, yeah, I won't speculate what the dollar is, although I think 300 is probably way on the high side. But the other issue you raised about pallet shelters and more permanent spaces, as I said, that's all part of the original project that Paul and I were engaged to do. Look at those medium and long-term solutions, including pallets and pods. We all know that Burlington is implementing their putting pod space. St. Johnsbury is doing pallets and we're starting to, we have connections with the people in the Burlington community, in particular, as you all know, the other consultant that didn't get the job is working on the Burlington job and I've reached out to her and we're starting to communicate. So your frustration around when you talk about the more, you know, pallets and pods and work, that is the core, that's the core of what the original project was. This is a stop gap, a stop gap issue that surfaced in the last few weeks and the task force believed this is really important and particularly in light of what's going on right now. But it is just a temporary thing and it's only one step towards the medium and longer-term solution. Does that help at all? Okay. So are you saying that a longer-term plan is still in the works? Absolutely. Yeah, that's exactly what the contract was doing, do a needs assessment of services that are housed and the providers and put together medium, long-term, medium, short and long-term solutions. Okay, yeah. Thank you. Can I, nope. Sorry. Sorry, I want to get to Carrie and then to Connor. Okay, thank you. So thanks for all this clarification. I share other people's concerns about preserving that $400,000 for something longer-term and more permanent and I also hear that we need some kind of a stop-gap measure. So what I'm interested in is hearing more specifically about what the budget would be for different versions of what you're talking about, but in particular, if we take the Gertin structure and we pull it out and we put it down in this spot behind the drawing board, what the cost of that would be. That sort of seems like the bare minimum to provide that place and that's kind of what I want to hear about. And I know that you're continuing to work on longer-term and then I just want to say one more thing about I very, very much appreciate all the attention given to the fundamental human need for a place to go and socialize with other people that's not supervised, that's not monitored, where the kind of thing I do every day in my life, just have a conversation, have a relationship, just be. And so as we're thinking longer-term about things like pods and pallets and we're thinking about staffing that comes up all the time and about there are, I'm hoping that we will keep in mind this need for unsupervised, unstaffed indoor safe space where people can go and just have their lives in addition to places where they can also connect with professionals and get the services and the resources that they need. Yeah, great point. And that's definitely part of the options and alternatives that we're looking at as we develop the longer-range part of this project. I think there are two ways. I mean, there's a spectrum of ways that this could be approached. You could either do it incredibly, inexpensively. I mean, essentially what I'm looking for, what I see as the base need for this is a glorified, obviously not literal, although it would be fine with me, is a glorified set of two-by-fours with a tarp over it and some folding chairs. I mean, people just need to get out of the rain somewhere where they can get to Shaw's or someplace to use a bathroom, get a drink of water. You have that at one end of the spectrum which would be a temporary, very inexpensive response. If you put it toward the back of the lawn, I'm sure we could figure out something for a bathroom. And at the other end of the spectrum, you have something that we would spend money on that would fill this need, but would also be useful in the future as part of a longer-term resource for either unhoused or other community members or both. But it could be placed anywhere on that spectrum and still meet this need. Thank you. Conn. Yeah, so I think first off, probably important to acknowledge this is a difficult conversation to have. This was a fairly emotional and polarizing issue for our community when we had it last time, right? And we all received quite a bit of heat in both directions. And I think there are valid arguments in both directions for moving it or not moving it. I think bringing it back, I really appreciate Paul and Dan coming today. They didn't have to. It's not in the scope of their contract. They started October 1st and the deal was, okay, let's look for the long-term plan and how do we spend that 425,000 bucks? But what they're seeing is, okay, the bloody snow is about to fall in a few weeks here. We don't have a warming shelter. We are in crisis mode. And we got to do something. Is it a band-aid approach? It's definitely a band-aid approach, right? But it could be something that actually saves lives in the interim. And the homelessness task force, every media I bring to, this comes up time and time again. And the providers, they're unified on this. They say, this is something we need. So if we're to have a homeless task force, I think we have to listen to some of the folks on the ground on this and do something, even if it is just a total interim, three walls and a bench to sit on that's covered, that people can get some reprieve from the elements at a time. I spent a lot of time at Gordon Park. Walk my dog, sit there a bit at night and everything. And I'll be honest, I was pretty off-put by some of the behavior there.  But you also saw people congregating in a time when folks were very isolated in a sense of community. And actually towards the end of it, when the complaints started flying, that's when we started seeing improvements. People mobilized, volunteers were picking up after themselves there. You heard cases of folks breaking out fights within their own community. But it was under the eye of the community. It was right on the sidewalk there. So of course we were going to get complaints. But what we did didn't solve any problem besides the level of complaints. It just pushed the problems into the shadows. And when you hear Don talking about going into Hubbard Park and dealing with some of these situations, I think like, are we better with somebody like ODing in the snow in December there or being in a place that's accessible where they can get help? And I think that's what goes through my mind there. It is a place where rather than spending a day trying to find somebody who has needs, you could go to this place and you could find them and get the help that they need. So I think, I really agree with Jennifer. Like I hear the frustration in your voice and I'm almost at the point where like the cavalry is not coming from the States. They do not prioritize this. They don't. They don't. They're very content to let municipal government handle these issues knowing full well that we don't have the resources or the expertise in many cases to do this job here. So I'm losing sleep at night. I'm sure all of you guys are too. I know everybody in the homelessness task forces. I hope they're losing the same level of sleep that we are. You know, and I'd love to get them maybe at the next city council meeting or something, somebody from AHS to say, okay, what's the plan here, right? What's the plan? Tell us because we'd love to be a part of the solution here because right now we're having a discussion about building a bloody bench with a covering on it there and look at the time we're spending on it. And okay, like it could serve a very real and immediate need there, but it's not fixing the problem here. So I think like tonight, what would be good is to send a message to the homelessness task force and say, we're hearing you, right? Like, okay, the elephant in the room, location is down Vegas here, right? We're not going to fix that tonight. We don't have an answer to it. We don't know where the thing's going. But could we send a signal to Dan, to Paul, to city staff, to police and say, okay, this is something we'd like you to work on in artists before like the next meeting there and come with some solutions as far as like cost and location and voted up or down then. But as far as a direction to take, I think it's a modest direction and a really important one. And I worry we're putting people in danger by sending them into the shadows at night to deal with these clients, you know, when they could be right there. We got to find a good spot. We got to figure out a way to pay for it. So I'll go off the spoke soapbox there. Just curious if you were making those. I'd like them, yeah, sure. I'd like to make a motion to explore options for a covered shelter for the winter. For the winter that would be temporary in nature and direct city staff to work with Paul and Dan, police and other interested parties like Don to come in with a more concrete proposal. But endorse the direction that we're taking. I'm sorry, that's a horrific motion. I don't know, I like it, Donner. That's a horrific motion. I'm not happy with it. You know what? I'm going to have to take the tape on this one. It could just be endorsing the direction of the proposed plan. I'd like to make a motion to endorse the direction of Paul and Dan work with city staff. They will impact their future meeting with some solutions. Okay. If there is second. I second it. I want to say that I think that I'm speculating that part of the reason the task force came to the council asking for permission to do this instead of just starting to work on it is that the idea is that you want us to authorize the consultant to spend some of the money out of the contract to do this plan. And I don't know if you think. Yeah, go ahead. Several things to offer this and I will do them as quickly as I possibly can. One, just want to for everyone's benefit council and everyone else review how we got here. So we issued a contract for the consultants to work on the long-term proposal. That's that's Dan and Paul. We hired them started October 1st. So here we are October 26th. I don't think they're, you know, they're not ready to prepare a long term plan yet. At every they've been attending all the homelessness task force meetings. At the very last meeting last week or today, the homeless task force made a motion have this be added to this week's agenda, which means they had to have it in by Friday. So this was turned around between Wednesday's you know meeting and Friday. And then I think we sent out some additional stuff on Monday. So this is very much a work in progress. You know, as as the staff to the task force, I think it's important that we we explore what they'd like them to do as the city manager and knowing the issue. You know, we have not consulted with our public safety staff and they had a lot of issues. So I think we need to vet all that and get the data on what's happening and all those things. And so that what they're asking is give us a chance to do this and we'll come back and report back what we found to your question. I think one of the reasons in addition to authorizing thing and to be all fair, I had to leave the meeting early, so I wasn't here when this motion was made. But in prior meetings, the question was, you know, the city council voted to remove the structure. So before we spend a lot of time on bringing a structure back, we want to see that you're at least open to it. If the answer was no structure, no way, then we'll do something else. Last thing I will say, and you've heard it already, but I want to make sure everyone gets this in, you know, last year and the year before we had an overflow shelter at Christ Church. They're willing to host it. There's no one to run it. And it's not a money issue. There's just no people. And it's a terrible job. And, you know, good Sam opened a new shelter. That's great. They're maxed. They're very clear. We can't run this without putting our other three shelters at risk. Another way is trying to figure out how to do it, but it would require a consortium of people that are trained and know what they're doing. We may not have an overnight shelter and overflow shelter this year. So there would be no place for people to go. So, yeah, so this isn't great, but it might be literally better than nothing. So I think we owe it to the community, at least look at it. And like I said, as City Manager, I'm going to reserve my judgment until we've actually talked about it, but certainly represent homeless task force, give them a shot to solve it. One point, Claire, thanks for all of that, Bill. That was really helpful that, you know, put it in context. But I just want to add Washington County Mental Health is also, you know, there's a number of players. Washington County also, Mary Malton and her team are trying to see how they can contribute to staffing and managing this winter overflow shelter. Yeah. No, no, no. I just need to clear that there's just no one to do it, and it's not for lack of interest. Yeah. Thanks, Bill. Lauren, go ahead. Yeah, thanks. And I appreciate the quick work and, you know, share the frustration everyone is expressing of the state and federal abdication and all of that. And, you know, knowing we need the long term and medium term solutions. I guess I would hope that what we can see next time would be kind of a spectrum of options, as people have talked about from, like, the very cheap, I mean, if it was the Gertin structure, I would hope it could at least be retrofitted because it's not a closed shelter. You know, I think we'd be better off building something really on the cheap that is actually fitting the need.  Like if it's something that's an investment that's just not lost, that there's opportunity to do it better now if we see it as like a long-term asset for the community. So I guess I would want to kind of see that spectrum of options potentially so that, you know, either super cheap that we know is like one winter or something that could be an asset for the community.  I mean, it's a horrifying reality. But like, yeah, I guess I just want to see some like options of how we can structure something that could be, could meet multiple needs given just where we are, which is really atrocious. Yeah, which is exactly what we intend to do. And as you were talking, Lauren, and this was not discussed, this just popped into my head, but as we start working on the plan for this, we'll do it in the context, you know, as I think you're alluding to, of the medium and longer-term solutions. So the thought bubble that popped into my head is, the first step, we identify the location. We build a congress center, the covered gathering shelter for this winter. And potentially that location could be the location where we build pallets or pods.  Step two is a more permanent solution. And it could be the same, sorry, could be the same location. And again, that's just top of my head, but that's the kind of dialogue, particularly now that we have the enhanced task force with the new members. We'll be able to roll up our sleeves and come back to you with those kinds of ideas and recommendations. Yeah, go ahead. Just one other, I would just second the idea of inviting the state in. I mean, maybe they could help us pay for this so we could do a better structure in the short-term and not be eating into our longer-term funding. To that point, the winter shelter, Rick, Rick DeAngeles, of course, who runs Good Samaritan, most of it, most of his funding, as I understand, comes from the state. And his primary contact is a woman, Sarah Phillips, from the Office of Economic Opportunity. And Rick, I don't know if Rick's on the call here, I guess he's not, but Rick has said funding is not the issue this year, if in terms of the winter shelter, there are funds available. So, yeah. Running some of them from the state, we're starting to digress from the core thing here. So I don't want to blame it, so I think funding to run a shelter is not a problem, whether there's funding to construct a shelter might be something different. So we need to do that. And I just want to keep in mind that we've got a motion on the table. Yes, go ahead. The question about the motion and maybe the direction is that at one point, Don was talking about people coming in and getting warm and drying their clothes. So I'm thinking four walls, people. And the community room you can buy from the pilot people. Actually, that's the one thing. It's basically an empty room with heat or AC. That's all it has, but it does have heat. It does have AC, which to me, if you're going to have a shelter, you'd like to have some warmth or reliefs from the heat. So I want to send you those numbers anyway. Yeah, that would be great, Donna. So I just want to be sure I get mixed messages. Is it coming in from the cold and the wet, or is it just stepping out of the rain over a roof? So come back with letting me and others maybe see a clearer vision of... I just want to give people a sense. Literally, this started with saying, and I think it was Don, just saying, we need to put the Gertin Park structure back. That was it. I understand that, but I'm just saying that that's where this came from. So how far we want to expand it will be up to us when we get the proposal. But when we took Gruten Park, we talked about putting a temporary shelter that was more appropriately seated, but we wanted to hear back from the task force. So that was, to me, has already been out there. Thank you. All right, I just want to check with the public. Any comments from the public? Feel free to come make a comment up here. As I listen carefully, I'm not hearing... It doesn't seem to me that in the real world, we're going to get a plan. We're going to cost it out. We're going to deal with the various parties, the business, the police, the mental health. I don't see... It strikes me that we need a plan A for December 15th, when for sure winter strikes in all of its fury here. And then we need a much more deliberate set of dates that would take us to something that's constructed. I don't see construction happening that quickly. I've never seen it in my life happening that quickly. The offer from Christ's Church strikes me as plan A. It's much easier to find a talented person to be in charge of a space that's already created than to cost out and get the contractors and get the agreement from this council, the task force, the players in town. So I think we need an emergency plan A, and Bill has described it. All we need is a great person. And a plan B is probably something that can be constructed. So I think, again, we're now getting into the details of our recommendation. And we would certainly take this up at the task force. I think the initial plan for this was to put up something that was literally a cover, something to keep people out of cover while we looked at the emergency shelter. And if there's some inexpensive way to put up something, that is a shelter. The problem with the shelter at Christ's Church, and I don't want to speak for Christ's Church, but I don't believe that they would permit an unsupervised shelter. And so there needs to be a responsible party. And if they're going to be funded by the state, there's certain standards they need. And that requires 24-hour supervision, not just a responsible person, but a whole team of them. And that means dealing with someone who's ODing, that means dealing with someone who's fighting, that means dealing with someone who's misbehaving and being trained for that. It's not a volunteer operation. And so it isn't just as easy to say, put everybody in Christ's Church and get one person. We've been trying to do this for months, and that group is not emerging. And on Monday we had Capstone, Washington Mental Health, another way, Good Sam, Dan, City, others, trying to figure out who can do this. I'm not sure that Christ's Church is plan A, unless we can find a qualified provider. But you're right, we won't be, I think to your point, the more permanent solution that won't happen in three weeks is what Dan's working on for the longer term. Mary, go ahead. Yes. Yeah, I think one thing that helps too, which I know people don't think of it as benefit probably, sorry, is that this did happen the other year, and there were a lot of good and bad. And the fact that there were all those problems gives people a chance to reflect on those problems and find the solutions that help mitigate those issues. When you see problems, it got thrown up, things happened, but now you can say, okay, there's those things that happen, what can we do? So that's something. I see what the, I'm not sure I heard Donna quite correctly on something about a lot of money for, was it foundation under a porta potty or something? A foundation for a structure. Or you have to put concrete down, you have to put something down. Yeah, it may not have to be concrete. Yeah, I have some building experience, but I don't think it needs to be concrete. And you got a piece of ground and you put a building on it, you can block it up, you can level up and put the building on it. I don't see that as a big deal. And same thing with the porta potties. I don't always see that you have to do a concrete base. Just from my knowledge. So I think there's possibilities of that not being a huge expense. And I'm also in a further view too, well, a simpler view, but one thing I'd like to see with a structure is even Gertin Park. You could make it a little bit longer, but I think having some plexiglass windows in there, plexi isn't that expensive probably and making it a little light, correcting the bench situations. There's a lot to be said for how a building is built and how people feel in that building and how people act. And it's really important. I think the structure itself could be improved pretty easily. And I think we could recruit people to help do that. I think we could recruit community members to work on it. I would work on it. I got a saw. I'll do it. Just don't make me pick up the heavy lumber. I will measure and cut. No problem. I'm even, for just an interesting thing, I was thinking about, and this is just a bigger thing, but I just want to say that I was thinking, as far as warmth goes, I was thinking about something. I was talking to my son who has a degree in mechanical, electrical engineering, thinking about heat sources. And those oil-filled heaters, if one was enclosed so nobody could mess with it and on a timer at a lower temperature, that could really help people too. I mean, I think there's a lot of things that could play into this and make it something good. And if we could work together and on the homeless task force and with Dan's help, and I pull it together a little tighter on what we're thinking on the actual thoughts of it, that would help. And I think people are really enthused about doing that and creating something. So I just wanted to throw that out. Thank you, Mary. Thank you. Great. All right. I'm going to go to Peter Kilman. Go ahead. I would just like to try to clarify some points. We're talking about three different things. Dan is proposing a band-aid that needs to be done before December 15th. Period. Let Bill and my housing task force work on that and come back very quickly, maybe not even come back for approval. Bill authorizes it. Very quickly, we need that band-aid. Number two, on the other extreme, Dan and Paul are working on a long-range plan which will be to spend that $400,000 on a more permanent solution. They need to have the time to work on that and not be distracted by this. Let them work on that plan and don't expect that Don is bringing up with pallet shelters. Of course, some of the rest of us brought up for pallet shelters about a year and a half ago, but that might be part of Dan and Paul's overall plan. That is not going to address the issue for this winter. So let's, and the third one is, and that got confused, the Christ Church is an overnight shelter. Christ Church is not offering a 24-7 shelter. They're offering an overnight. And that's all it is. It's an overnight for 10 to 12 beds, three different things that are getting confused. So I think that Connor made a completely reasonable motion, which is to turn it to Bill and the Housing Task Force to figure out how to deal with getting something in place no later than December 15th, whether it's de-minimous, de-minimous, just the Gorton Shelter fixed up a little bit. But the real key, as Dan said, is the location to figure out whether the grassy knoll would be the best place to put it. And if so, how can we mitigate things like the people wanting to go into their apartment, over overshadowed, et cetera. But that should not be being discussed here. That is just way down. Please, can we move on? Thank you. Okay, thank you. Anyone else from the public wish to make a comment? Okay, just checking in with the council. Oh, David Delcourt. Go ahead. Yeah, I just had a question. More as a time saver. I don't know where the task force will go with it, but I suspect that there are probably some places it might go that would require permitting. And that obviously pushes you past December 15th or potentially pushes you past December 15th. So it's up to come back with a proposal that you can't do. I'm just throwing that out there. Yeah, fair enough. Thank you. We'll put that into consideration. Yeah. Mark, you have to evaluate. It's part of the whole picture. Okay. Any other comments from council? Okay. There's been a motion and a second is to basically approve the proposed plan that you all becoming the plan. Anyways, for you all to come back to us with some recommendations. Any further discussion? Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. And opposed. Okay. Thank you so much. And thank you. It is particularly impressive knowing that you were able to turn this around between Friday, like Wednesday and a Friday. And it's above and beyond really what we were asking. So thank you. It was really a subcommittee task force that included some non-members, including Mary and others. So yeah, it was a team effort. Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. City council. Jack, take a break. Yes. Well, we're going to take a break. It is 844. We'll be back at 854. Okay. Good evening. My name is Kurt Modica, interim director of Public Works. Tonight, I'm going to give you an update of where we're at with the phase two water resource recovery facility project. That project involves solids drying and odor control as well as a secondary clarifier upgrade. And also on the topic of wastewater treatment, we'll also give you an update on leachate receiving where we're at with that. Seemed like a good time to update councils. We just finished our order sampling in summer months and been a lot of movement on the leachate front. And we're about to execute the final design contract with our engineer for this project. So I mentioned the topics covered tonight is the biosolids dryer, the work we've done on odor control at the facility, where we're looking at with funding for the phase two project. What's up next? And then sort of separate from the project is the leachate receiving update. So now just to recap, we started the phase two project at the plant to utilize the methane generated from food waste that we're now receiving. That was going to be a combined heat and power project back at the start, which is essentially power generation. After doing that evaluation, we decided that that was not the best path forward. So then we moved to looking at a biosolids dryer. So I think when the last presentation or maybe the one before, we talked about doing just a straight dryer. It was called the belt dryer is what we're leaning towards. Since that time, we've done the analysis with our consultant engineer Brown and Caldwell to really take a deeper dive into what the options were for solid drying and management. And what we landed on after the conclusion of the report is that really the better option for a variety of reasons is to combine a dryer unit, in this case a drum dryer, with gasification, which is really high temperature drying. It's like a secondary drying process at very high temperatures of the solids. Some of the advantages with this process is that you don't have to use the methane for the drying process. It actually uses the energy within the solids to power the unit. You need methane or another source of energy to start the process, but once it's fueled up and cooking, you can actually turn off the methane and use that for other purposes. A relatively low maintenance equipment. One thing we need to consider is the staffing levels at the plant. We're actually understaffed at the moment according to the state guidelines for the existing facilities we have. This is really adding really another whole process. And so we do have initial staff budgeted in this current fiscal year starting in April. We're still determining when exactly we'll go through. We're actually advertised for that position, but we do anticipate the need for right now we only have four operators to go to five operators at the plant. Another major advantage of this process is of the gasification is that it actually has the ability to break apart the carbon chains that make up the PFAS, the PFOA. And so you can get to levels below two parts per billion, which is really the industry standard for non-detection. There's a lot of studies currently in the works with air emissions. One thing that's one possibility is to put carbon filtration in the stack from the emissions of this to capture those particles and then you can put it back through the gasification process. The other major benefit is that after drying, running it through the gasification really really reduces the amount of solids that will need to be managed. And currently we're somewhere around two 40-yard dumpsters a week that we're disposing that go to Coventry. After if this process, once this process is in place, we will be down to two of those a year. So major, major reduction in solids is fossil management. And just a side note that I'll also just to note the the byproduct, the small amount of byproduct that we would produce would be renewable products. So you take care of the PFAS, we take care of the pharmaceuticals and the biosolids so that you have a true renewable, renewable product. So a note on order control, this unit would come with a prepackaged order control unit. So it would be self-contained. 99% remover. So on the topic of odor. So again, we just completed the engineering report this summer in June. We did some initial sampling, odor sampling in conjunction with that report. But really what we wanted to do is take sampling during peak loadings at the plant. So in the summer months is when we get the most septage, the most high strength organic waste. And in order to write size equipment, we really needed to do almost a supplemental report and study to get a handle on what those peak loadings were. We also had a violation from the state of Vermont, the air quality division. So we're actually the city is under mandate to address the odors at the plant. That's one of the many drivers of this project. And so that technical memo that I mentioned that included the additional sampling that was received just this month, which also tied in as a good time to provide the update. And I'll get into what the results of that study included. And then one note that we learned from this study is that one of the or the largest contributor to odors is what's called the blend tank. And that's where the first tank where waste is received and mixed. This is the high strength organic waste, which the city never took before the phase one project. You know, high, high magnitudes of increased odor from this location compared to other locations at the facility. And ESG was the consultant we worked with on the phase one project, continue to be a partner with us. They have engaged their engineering team to look at solutions for the specifically for that blend tank. You know, and there's a good indication that they are going to contribute to the cost of resolving that issue. So we're kind of taking this from a couple different angles with a couple different engineering teams. This is a summary of the odor analysis. It took a lot of different types of samples. There, there were continuous monitoring samples that were left in place and stored for download, you know, for weeks at a time. And then there were bag samples taken when anticipated peak odors were occurring. So the breakdown, you know, it's pretty clear that the blend tank I mentioned is, you know, an order of magnitude of 10 times the loadings at peak compared to all the other facilities or all the other locations within the plant. But at the same time, we're taking a holistic approach. So we're going to address, you know, all the areas that are contributing, you know, the primary contributors to odor at the facility. Excuse me, Kurt, while you're talking about this, I don't think any of us are used to thinking about odor in terms of 155 or 580,000 or any number like that. How does this transfer into add odor? Yeah, so it's measured. Well, the units they have here are parts per million, which is equivalent to milligrams per liter per volume.  But, but like we hire Brown and Caldwell to really do the full, you know, full gamut of testing, the D over T is detection limits. That's the furthest column to the right. You know, I'm not, other than the parts per million per volume. And then that's actually a concentration based measurement. So how concentrated other particulates of this particular gas within a certain volume? So is there a way to say most people will start to smell it when it hits this number, and most people will find it to be intolerable when it hits this number? Yeah, I don't have all those answers at the moment. You know, I certainly can get some of that. I'm not an odor expert for today, but thanks. Yeah. Unfortunately, I'm happy to get those answers and bring them back to council. Thanks. All right. So, um, light layout, just a kind of an overview of where these odor control units would be placed. We're looking at two odor control units. The first area one is basically what we call the headworks, all the receiving areas. And so that will be the septage and leachate tanks, the headworks where the high strength waste and septages discharge from the trucks. And the blend tank, that's really high like I mentioned. And all those will be piped together and then run into, you know, the area in red there by the settling tanks, and all treated in that one single location. The area two is basically where the dewatering takes place. All the dewatering equipment in the garage building will be handled by a second treatment unit. So we're proposing two units to address the odors. So area one, which is, you know, really handling the bulk of the odor issues at the facility. That'll, like I mentioned, include the headworks, leachate, septage, the grit chamber, and the blend tank. This unit will be a two-stage filtration process. So on the bottom will be what we call a biofilter. So organic media, bark mulch, and soil, and incorporated in with an irrigation system and actually a biological filtration. So they'll actually be bacteria living within the media that will eat the constituents of the particles within the odors to break them down. That's the stage one process. And then air will flow up through the unit and go through a second what they call a polishing stage of carbon filtration. So this will result in 99% removal of all the odors. Very robust system. The equipment only costs is about 500,000, but of course you'll have electrical and site work associated with that. And then just a second area, which is really the dewatering garage building area. That will be strictly carbon, which is really good for low levels of hydrogen sulfide, which is what the testing showed in that area. Generally average loadings of two parts per million is what we found at the dewatering building. Less maintenance and lower costs. This is about 150,000 for equipment only. We did anticipate or plan for potential odors within the dewatering building. And so all of the equipment we installed in the phase one project has manifolds. So basically you can just bolt on a pipe and then run it to this unit and be all set up for odor control. Some good news on the funding front. So the original, the bond for the project is 16.4 million. We do anticipate some increases with the high inflation we've been experiencing. However, we do, we did recently receive a confirmation that the city was awarded the USDA grant of a little over 3.5 million. That's for both the east state and this water resource recovery facility project. That also means that we get the low interest loan rate for the remainder of the project. Again, that's the combined number. Well, that's the additional funding number after the other grant anticipated grants come in. That 5.15.9. And we're also expecting potential additional grant funding for this project through the state's intended use plan and their pollution control grant. So when USDA sort of gave us their anticipated funding breakdown, they were estimating another 1.5 million of grants through the state on this project. So potentially up to about 5 million dollars in grant funding. It's pretty significant project. The city, I've been working with our communications coordinator Evelyn Prim on pressure release. Hope to get that out tomorrow. So good news on the funding front. We're pretty excited about that. And then next steps on this project and the schedule. So as I mentioned, we're very nearly ready to execute the final design contract that will be coming back to council, likely on consent for approval. It does need to go through review from USDA and DEC. So hopefully, and within the next month, we'll be able to get that on the consent agenda. I also wanted to talk a little bit about the heating opportunities with this project. So the city passed a bond for appellate boiler at the DPW garage. And I've been sort of advising that we work on this final design before moving ahead with that project. So I think there's a really good opportunity potentially for utilizing heat from this phase two project along with the methane generated under the phase one project to heat one or both of the buildings at the garage. So because this this biosolids dryer uses energy from the solids to run it and not the methane will be freeing up the methane we have been using for heating at the wastewater plant. And additionally being able to capture heat recovery off the gasification unit to all put in a hot water loop that we could potentially run all the way to the garage and heat those buildings. We also will be able to reduce the load at the plant in the in the dewatering building, the garage building, because by piping or connecting the equipment in that building and running it the control system, we can reduce the number of times we have to exchange the air inside the building. And so that's going to reduce the heating load as well. So a lot of opportunities for efficiencies and heating existing buildings and opportunities for heating other city facilities through this project. So all that will be really evaluated as part of the final design to see exactly how much capacity we're going to have. One other point is we're going to try to pre-purchase some of the equipment. There's long lead times on just about everything these days, these days. So we've been in, I've had some talks with USDA about this and they generally on board as long as we have a selection matrix set up for approving equipment purchases. So that will hopefully speed up the timeline to construction. So over on the schedule, you know, November, we hope to have the final design contract and get going on that. In April, we're hoping to have the equipment RFP or request for proposals out. Wrap up design towards the end of January 2024 and then bid the project in the spring of 24 and then basically start construction in the summer of 2024. So it is, it is a little ways out still this project. It's a very complicated design that is going to take about a year to get through that process. There's a lot of work that's going to have to go into making sure we get it right. So I could stop there and take questions on the plant project if you'd like or get into the leachate. I'll pause there, open up questions. Okay, want me to keep going? Okay. I'll just very quickly go through where we're at with leachate receiving. So just a reminder, refresher. Council set a deadline of July 1st, 2023 for PFAS treatment in order for, of the leachate and if the city is going to start receiving or let me rephrase that. Council has set a deadline until July 1st that the leachate has to be treated in order for the city to receive leachate after that date. So I did reach out to Casella, asked them for an update where they're at. They feel they can hit that deadline if the permitting process goes, you know, smoothly and they, but they do have concerns that there may be some delays related to permitting. They would like to come in the spring and, and, you know, talk to council about where they're at and just kind of provide an update directly from them. Also, the city has not, we've, we stopped receiving leachate this April, not related to the PFAS issue, but related to E. Coli, a violation we had on our state discharge permit because our ultraviolet disinfection system was getting, you know, partially blocked from something in the leachate. I believe it's an acid. So as we've been working through, we have not taken leachate at all from April this year. We are expecting an ammonia limit in our next discharge permit, which will be in the middle of 2023. And ammonia is influenced by leachate. So it's just another factor we're looking at a lot of different things happening in the, in the world of leachate and how it pertains to treatment and meeting our, our permits. And then, and I'm taking all these things into account. We really need to look at what it costs us once these new limits are put in place, once we have to do, you know, some sort of treatment for the, for the UV system to work properly. So those are some of the challenges, challenges we're looking at. And then this is the, some of the progress we've made. So we did it with the city DPW with approval from council, co-applied for a treatment grant with news of remunerations council for up to 1 million in funding. We'll find out in December if they get that. They have a, like I said, they have a technology system, but it's just dependent on permits if they're going to hit that July 1st deadline. The city has engaged Brown and Caldwell to do a full study on the ammonia and, you know, how meeting our permit levels will be impacted with leachate receiving and what sort of upgrades would be required if we were to continually receiving leachate. And we have submitted to the state a plan on how to mitigate the impacts leachates been having on the ultraviolet disinfection system. It's under currently under review of the state. It involves mixing in the septage tank and flow pacing leachate dosing into the influence or the pipe coming in to how much volume is entering the plant that time, as well as some programming to give us sort of an early warning noticed if there are impacts on how much light can transmit through to the liquid. And then lastly, just sort of an update, you know, a lot of a few of the things we talked about pertain to PFAS and just thought it would be helpful to have an overview of where we're heading on a regulatory basis for PFAS.  We got those monitoring that monitoring done got sort of a baseline of how much PFAS is in our solids and then our liquid stream. In 2022, they've been developing some guidelines on various categories of industry and and then they've started basically studies on levels of PFAS and fish tissue. So that's sort of the standard they use in an acceptable levels for discharges in the waterways is how those impact fish and then how would that fish impact the health on humans if they were consumed. So next year we expect those advisory advisories to be issued, you know, and then in 2024 final recommended health criteria for PFAS. So that's really when we'll get our discharge limits. So we don't know right now there is no limit on what how much PFAS is discharged from the wastewater plant that we're looking at 2024. So it's coming relatively soon. And then we'll really sort of help guide us on, you know, what is the best treatment practice, what is our limit, we can so we have something to sort of design do. All that I'll answer to open up to questions. I have a few questions. Lauren has questions. Lauren, do you want to go first? Thank you, Kurt. I don't actually have many questions on leachate, which is but thanks for the update and it's good to see the progress. I mean, I think the decision to continue working with Cassella and the pretreatment being relatively on schedules encouraging. So that's great, great to hear. And I think, you know, just continuing to assess if it seems worth all the work that it seems like is involved to actually continue accepting leachate. So I just hope it's an open question of is it worth not just trying to find solutions to every problem it raises, but like keeping in mind, do we want to do it? And I understand that some community somewhere has to take it. And so I don't, you know, if there are solutions and we don't feel like it's creating, you know, serious contamination issues for our community, you know, I think that's fine. But just hope that question is also on the table and not just kind of technological solutions to the issues. My question, though, is more on the gasification and just like a couple of thoughts. I'll just like put it all out. So could you just speak to like, is this and one of the slides, it's kind of implied this is like an emerging technology. And could you just speak to like, I mean, how much do we know? Like to me, the fact that the air emissions is kind of an unknown seems like a big red flag before committing to moving forward. I mean, especially with PFAS, which we know are mobile, like, are we going to create even with the destruction that we think could happen? But again, it's unproven. And like, there's a lot of issues with other technologies that have not borne out as much destruction of PFAS as we thought, like, we're not going to create some contamination zone around our plant, you know, air emissions have been a huge source of kind of contaminated sites around the country. So I just committing to something before having those answers seems really challenging. So I just curious kind of like timing of when we would know about the air emissions in particular, and just, you know, committing to this type of project with big, if there are unknowns around the PFAS, just like with that last slide you had of all the like, upcoming regulations, and I could see, you know, the state going above and beyond what the EPA is doing on some of that. And so, you know, are we going to have a technology that we spend a lot of money on that then is it going to become, you know, hard to actually comply with state and federal regulations over the long term? So I just don't want us to commit to something like if there's flags in its ability to keep us, you know, safe from these chemicals. And I think just on the like biochar and, you know, again, like I think we're moving towards like limiting or banning land application of things and stuff. So I don't know what the biochar could be used for. But hopefully the plan, if we move forward would have like the disposal costs. And like maybe if we do realize like it's actually like a beneficial use opportunity, but that we're not planning on being able to use it as a product necessarily in case there are contamination issues. That was a lot. I know you expect nothing. All right. I should have been taking notes. So first on the air emissions. So, well, first emerging technology. So this is a relatively new technology. There was a pilot done in Pennsylvania. They ran for about a year, did lots and lots of air testing. And it was, you know, permitted in Pennsylvania as the pilot project. So there's a lot of data already and it looks good as far as and, you know, what they'll be putting out from this equipment. There are two other communities ahead of us using this technology. There's a permanent installation going in Pennsylvania. And they're actually purchasing the pilot equipment. And then there's a one out to bed in Washington state. But there's really just two in the country like it's, you know, it isn't hasn't been around a long time. But it really looks to us and to our engineers that this is where the future is in solid management. And I recognize your concerns. And, you know, that'll be one of the first things that we really look at closely is what it would mean, what would it take to permit the air? Because we will need an air permit as part of the project, just based on how much BTUs are being combusted. So we're going to be crossing that threshold for permitting. We don't currently have an air permit at the plant. We also would have needed one for CHP and we actually got that permit and then revoked it. But anyway, so yeah, we're looking at that closely, we're looking at that early in the design process before we get too far down. As far as biochar, you know, I do think biochar will be available for beneficial use. I will be likely exempt from the land application restrictions. That's primarily for unclassified sludge or class A, which is basically dried, but not superheated through this process. So that is what we've been hearing is land app will go away for any lower level of solids that it's not brought to this biochar level. If it's brought to the biochar level, like I said, the pharmaceuticals PFAS is destroyed out of it and you could, you know, put it in topsoil, mix it in as like a fertilizer. Or you can even, the nice thing about this equipment too is that you can adjust the settings so that you could basically just straight carbon with this. But we did not anticipate any revenue from this material. So we're not banking on that to help fund the project. We're just looking at the reduction in disposal. Did I miss one? Was there more? I want to say I'm ridiculously excited about that, about the gasification and recognizing that I have a little bit more research to do myself about that. But I am very excited about the possibility of locking carbon into biochar in breaking down PFAS in breaking down pharmaceuticals like there's just so many really exciting outcomes from that. And so as far as you can tell right now, I just want to clarify some of the it's looking financially viable to do both the drying and the gasification. Yeah, so that's close to what the original dryer price is, what that we're looking at, the belt dryer standalone. This is like a pre-packaged unit, kind of all from the same potentially the same vendor. So yes, it does look economically viable that the solids disposal savings anticipated because the market price is going to go up with the ending of land application. So the volume of sludge going to the landfills is going to go up exponentially because there's going to be nowhere else to put it. So yeah, looking at the long-term projections, it's essentially break even on doing this project, the solids component of the project. The debt service is essentially the same as what we'll pay for disposal if we don't do it. I have a couple other questions. Just on the odor sampling piece that we were talking about previously. I don't know what an HSOW blend tank is, but I assume that is not something that people actually go into. No, but so that was the component that was installed in the phase one project. So HSOW is high strength organic waste. So that's the food waste. It comes into that tank and gets mixed. The problem is it's not connected to any gas stream, it just vents right outside. And of course, that's bringing odor every time it vents. Well, that's where really what we've identified as the biggest culprit for the odors of the plant. Okay. And so that's what's going to be addressed in the area one and the area two. That'll be an area one. Area one. Okay. Great. And so I just want to make sure that I am clear. So huge congratulations on the grants and the USDA loan. Very exciting. And potentially we'll get some additional money. Is it too early to say that we'll need to bond additionally for this phase two? No, I don't anticipate any additional money. We have a buffer now with the grant money. So we think that'll between all of this and the money that we have that that will cover it. Yes. Okay. Wow. That is amazing. Okay. And you're not asking us to approve anything tonight. This is just an update. So I sort of assumed that at some point you're going to come back to ask us. Yeah. The next ask will be for approval of the final design contract, which will that'll be a significant expenditure. Yeah. And that won't be for a while and November hopefully. Probably won't do discussion unless you want to. I was going to put it on consent. Okay. Fair enough. Wow. November. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I may have questions at, you know, as a part of that, but I will wait to see it, I suppose. And as far as the PFAS rules coming down from the EPA, having a gasification plant, I assume will help us. Well, I guess this is kind of to Lauren's question like, I mean, this is a big commitment to do this. And I would guess that building a gasification plant would give us some insulation because we'd be breaking down the PFAS. Would you say that that is more or less accurate? What's the risk in that? Yeah. Yeah. So I think it puts us the city in a very good position for the solid stream component of the treatment process. So there's, you know, we separate the solids and the liquids at the plant. And they're disposed of completely different. So it really doesn't address, which is really the larger issue of the liquid stream PFAS discharge. But it does, you know, really set us up well for solids management as it relates to PFAS and just market rate. Okay. I also just want to flag in a good way that if we are generating a lot of biochar that there is, because biochar doesn't decompose in the same way that regular organics do, that there may be some, I'm not sure what to call it, some kind of carbon benefit there. And I think that's worth talking about. But I guess that's really only true as long as we're in some way committing to not burning it because it's effectively charcoal. Right. And so if we, I would not want us to turn around and become sellers of charcoal that people could just then burn, like let's recognize the advantage of like, we've just locked in this, this carbon in a form that doesn't, doesn't aerate, you know, it doesn't decompose back into the atmosphere. And so spreading it on fields, shore, as long as, you know, there's nothing that we're worried about in it. But if there's any kind of commitment that, you know, we're not going to, we're, we don't anticipate that it will be burned most production. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's right. We would, you know, I wouldn't anticipate that would be a use for it. Right now we're, we're planning on all landfill disposal. But, you know, certainly it is in, in the works to explore options for renewable use. And so that will be vetted out, you know, sort of further down the road for a couple years out from having a product. Okay. Great. Thank you. Wow. I, yeah, I'm very excited about this. Yeah. Thank you. Any other questions? Cool. Well, we'll look for that update in November. Cool. I think we're ready to move on. Yeah. More GBW. Okay. Oh, actually I have one more question for her. Sorry, you mentioned that there are places in Pennsylvania that are already doing this. There's one going up in Washington state. I just want to put out there that I am, if there's any studies that they have available, like I would be interested in checking out those studies about the air quality and the chemical composition of the byproducts. Because I haven't heard, I like that kind of thing. Yep. There is an air study available. Certainly happy to pass it on. That'd be great. Thank you so much. Sure. I'll send all of us. I'm sure we'll all digest it. It would be fair for just the mayor. Yeah, that's fair. I might move again. Good evening. My name is Zach Blodgett, and I am here tonight to talk about winter operations and for this upcoming winter. I will give you a little bit of an overview of last winter, our successes and some issues that we encountered. We'll give you the preparation work that we've done for the 2022-23 season, and then we will talk about the upcoming challenges that we may be facing. Then we'll open it up for any open discussion that you all may have. So first of all, I wanted to start out with last winter was a very moderate severity winter. We received about 37 inches of snow, 16 inches of wet precipitation during the winter months, the average temperature last winter was around 11 degrees Fahrenheit. That equated to us using about 2700 tons of salt, which is a pretty normal amount of usage. In the last 10 years, we've gone as low as about 2000 on a really less severe winter a