buildings there, so we'll soon they were going to clear the land. There you go. There was no assistance. They were just talking about it. Oh, no. No, it was nothing. It was like nothing had to do with us. Exploitus developed the deal to do that. No, no, we should start. All right. How are you? We're OK. Is this right? Are we ready to go? Sorry. Just to see if we can get the audience up. Just a second. You're going to start. Right. Just be aware of that. Can you check your microphone? Check, check, microphone. Check, check, microphone. Right there. All right, you're ready. OK. So I would, it's 6.32 or 3. So I would like to call the South Burlington Council meeting to order on Monday, May 21st, 2018. And we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. And David, you haven't done this before. I'm not in a long time. Do please lead us. Sure. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. OK, I'd like to move on to item two. We only missed the pledge, so that is a much. She should have to do it. I think so long. So long. Evening, Megan. Oh, good evening. So instructions on exiting building in case of emergency. Case of emergency tonight. Everybody please leave the room by these two doors and gather in the parking lot behind. If for some reason these doors are blocked, please go back out the lobby and out the main doors. We're going to go out to the parking lot back. Tom Hubbard and I will be responsible for clearing the building. So expedite. Our next item is item three, and this is a possible executive session to discuss personnel matters. I would entertain a motion to move into executive session to discuss personnel matters with. You have to be there yet? No? OK. So we'll just be the five counselors. And we need it? We need it. What happens if we skip it? I'm just curious. It's quick. OK, I'll move. Second? Second. OK, all in favor? Aye. Aye. I think we should be back. I mean, I'm sure that the room is there. I think that's empty. We can't go in the one we normally go into. Can you go into the? I think that's empty, yeah. I think it's on. OK, so I'd like to call back into session the South Burlington City Council meeting of, excuse me, Monday, May 21st, 2018. And we will move on to agenda review in 10 minutes. We need to get our solid waste district presentation, but let's keep trucking until we get there. So agenda review, are there any additions, deletions, or changes in the order of agenda items? Are there any comments or questions from the public that are not related to the agenda? Seeing none, we have 10 minutes that we can fit in at least some announcements. So we would like to begin. Tom? So I don't really have anything to say about what I've been to, but I wanted to make an announcement for some things that are coming up. So tomorrow morning, Pathways Vermont, chronic homelessness, I was invited, a South Burlington resident at Trader Dukes. Is anybody else going? I partly wanted to mention it. Pathways Vermont, it's about chronic homelessness. It's an event at Trader's Dukes. So I think she reached out to all counselors. I didn't know if three of us were going to be there, so I thought I'd use this as a time to ask. But school safety event tomorrow night, going to attend that. That looks pretty interesting at the Tuttle Middle School. So they're talking about their school safety strategies. And then I wanted to bring to the attention of the council. I probably should have just forwarded an email. But Vermont League of Cities and Towns on June 14th is hosting an economic development event targeting municipal elected officials. I can't go, it's in Killington, but it just seems really on point for what we've discussed multiple times. So if anybody here has Thursday, June 14th of interest to go down to Killington, I just thought I'd raise it. And then this Friday morning at 8.30 a.m., I'm touring the O'Brien Brothers' new development. Did you say you'll be there as well? I'll be there at 7.30. Okay. And I'm going on Thursday, I think. Okay. Megan? I attended a community forum in the Chamberlain neighborhood, which I'm a neighbor. And with regard to the dog park at JC, and I also attended a task force meeting. I also attended Anacos Lumumba's funeral. I learned that she was the niece to very dear friends of mine. So it was a beautiful funeral and quite a moving service. Thank you. David, did you go to any meetings related to? No, I survived the end of the semester and that was my big accomplishment for a week. I feel good about that. Oh, good. Still standing, Tim. So I attended the SBBA meeting at the U Mall where two representatives, well, a representative of Target spoke to representatives that came to the area. And it was an intriguing set of expectations and goals that they talked about. I think they're gonna be opening in October. I think that's the goal. They try to tailor the stores a little bit to each community that they're in. I asked a lot of questions because I could, which I was glad that they answered them. So I'm really hopeful that that will be a successful operation for them and also for the U Mall. So that's a good thing to bring in that business. And then I hope that we make progress on our adaptive signaling on Dorset Street so that that extra traffic will be handled efficiently. I also went errantly to O'Brien hillside farm last Friday because I got the date mixed up, so I'm going again. But I did drive around and then on Sunday I drove up Old Farm Road and took some pictures just for posterity to see what it's gonna be like now. And I've actually taken pictures in the past there so I have to gather them up. And I had the opportunity to run the Vermont Corporate Cup 5K last Thursday among three or 4,000 people, walkers and runners at 6 p.m. It was, you don't want to look at my time, don't look at my time. I did run, I finished. You ran the whole way? Yes. Oh good, okay. Could I just say something? Because I wanted to add to what he said about Target coming that they really do wish to include local products, which I thought was great. And we'll see about other questions that we had, but yeah, it was good overall. You both went to? Yes, we both went, yeah. Great. I met with the library board chair and a member of the library board to kind of share with them where we are with the library design and some conversations that Kevin had had with David Young and our anticipation of a positive outcome by the school board in dealing with the easement and the land swap. So it was good, they were, they're concerned of course to start their fundraising and we talked about timing and when that might happen. And I also shared with them the opportunity that channel 17 has offered. South Brunswick has a lot of time or space for us to tape things and they would be more than willing to have a panel for the sort of city center and the library when we get closer to that bond vote. They also are willing to and would be interested in having the penny for paths crowd have a panel to really help people understand what we're asking for and why. And if so, people have other topics that they would, you know, you would like to have them film as a panel, please let me know. I mean, maybe the domestic violence might be a outcome of that if, you know, that panel wants to televised their things. I also attended the final PAC meeting. It was bittersweet. I accepted a plaque on our behalf that is awarded to the city of South Burlington or living by the mission of PAC to listen to the voice of the children, teenagers and adults and empower those voices with respect and sincerity through dialogue and action. You honor the PAC vision to build and sustain a community of respect, compassion and equality PAC is immeasurably grateful to you. It was a very significant hang-at-me. Were we all invited to that? We were. I'm, and I'm really glad I went. Oh, last year, we, it was really pretty incredible. There was, people were giving sort of final accolades and they hoped that something will carry on. But what was moving to me was an elderly couple, more elderly than I, I think from New York because they had a pretty strong accent, Marilyn and her husband said, you know, we came to the first PAC meeting. We got this invitation and we were so thrilled to have the opportunity to talk with students and people in the community and they attended a lot of the meetings. So I just thought that was very cool, that that was one of the whole purposes of PAC. And here was an older couple that came to that final event to sort of let people know that they really had gained a lot from that. I also attended a tax abatement course, six hours of learning about tax abatement. I went with... Stay awake? Well, I did for most of it and some of it I actually did learn some stuff that I think I can use because we go through tax abatement and we always have lots of challenges when we sit as a CA on that. So that was informing and Donna went and Peter Taylor. And I spent some time looking for possible dog parks, wandering around our different parks in the city. And then embarrassingly, well, there was a little screw up with, none of us I think got invitations to the police awards dinner. But I know... When was that? Last night. I did get a call from Trevor saying, are you coming? And I went, I don't recall getting an invitation. Well, apparently there was a little bit of a screw up.  I'll be there, I'll be there early and sign all their certificates. And then I went into the garden Sunday afternoon and when I came in the house, this was supposed to start at five. When I came in the house, it was seven and I had totally forgotten. I hardly ever do anything on Sunday night. So I baked some cookies. I took them over to the police department today with a little note that said I was really embarrassed that I had totally forgotten. Because I love those meetings because you hear about these wonderful awards and you get to thank them and were you there? No, I didn't get invited either. So in the Rotary's defense, the Rotary coordinates this, John Wilking stepped back from it this year. So we had new organizational leadership and I think there was an oversight in the invitation. So none of us were invited and my apologies. I'm sure next year we'll have it all under control. Well, I don't have an excuse. I just plum forgot and I was very embarrassed. I was looking forward to the invitation this year because I could go because last year my son graduated from UVM. I couldn't go and it was like, it's two years in a row that I couldn't go. Well, anyway, so I guess the event went on without us. I guess so. They had a nice evening too. Yeah, they did, yeah. So it is now seven, 10, we'll get the manager's report after the Chittin and Solid Waste District presentation on the FY19 budget, Sarah Reeves and, oh, and Paul Stabler. Yes, our, our, and we still need an alternate, don't we? Yes. Yeah, I guess you, okay. So you have a presentation for us. Yes, thank you. Welcome and thank you. Thank you very much. My name is Sarah Reeves. I'm the general manager for the Chittin Solid Waste District and I'm pleased to be joined by Paul Stabler, our esteemed commissioner and our much valued and appreciated chairman of the Board of Commissioners. Chittin Solid Waste District is a municipality created by Act 78 to influence solid waste management mandates legislated by the state of Vermont. We function much like a school district or a water district in that we are a government entity that designs regional solutions to the solid waste challenges faced by our member towns. CSWD does encompass the entire county of Chittin County. Unlike some of the other districts, we happen to be the entire county and we are the largest solid waste district in the state of Vermont. And we represent a population of approximately 156,000 people and over 6,000 businesses. We are governed by a Board of Commissioners who are volunteers appointed by local select boards and city councils. Our mission is to reduce and manage the solid waste generated within Chittin County in an environmentally sound, efficient, effective and economical manner. We currently employ just over 50 employees in five main departments, administration, finance, facilities, unregulated hazardous waste and outreach and communication, excuse me. We also manage or operate five different types of facilities, the drop off centers, environmental depot, the rover, the materials recovery facility and Green Mountain compost. I would like to give a very brief, kind of 30,000 foot level overview of the budget and then leave open for questions from yourselves or from anyone in the public. We are budgeting in our general fund revenues in the amount of 11,131,561 dollars. We are budgeting expenses of 10,597,613 dollars. And we're looking at a very heavy capital year. We're budgeting $1,755,000. The bulk of that capital expenses at our materials recovery facility. And I'm happy to go into that a little bit more as well. Proposed in the, or maybe not proposed in this fiscal 19 budget are there are no proposed increases to the solid waste management fee that will stay at $27 a ton. There are no proposed increases to the trash fees at the drop off centers. And we are also not proposing any municipal assessments or per capita fees again this year. As well, the fees of Green Mountain compost are also going to remain the same. We raised them last year. The tipping fee at Green Mountain compost is $52 a ton. That will remain the same this year. We did just recently raise the tipping fee or the disposal fee at the materials recovery facility. And I'm happy to go into more detail about the reasons why as well. On May 1st, we raised the tipping fee from $21 a ton to $25 a ton for in district. So for Chittenden County member towns and $50 a ton for out of district. We do anticipate that fee going up again. And that is a direct result of what is happening across the world. We are not unaffected by what's happening in China and what they have decided to do. So little Chittenden County Vermont is affected by the Chinese government policies. And again, I'm happy to talk much more about that. The administrative fee for our biosolids program also went up this year doing two parts. One is for the change in how we allocate our expenses across all of our budgets, but also due to an increased attention paid to our capital needs for the biosolids program. So those are the main fees that went up this year. The one little fee that went up is the first time I think we've air charged for this but is for blue bins. Most of our communities are using carts now and very few still use the little small blue bins. We're gonna charge $5 a bin for the blue bins. They cost us about $5.62 or 3 cents. So we'll still be subsidizing a little bit, but we will now be trying to recover the costs of those blue bins. And that is my very high level overview and I'm guessing there may be some questions that you may wanna talk about and have it answer any questions that they have. Tom? I have two. Okay. So Act 148, Organics Collection mandate for haulers. Was that pushed back during this legislative session? Yes, it was. So yet again, there was some activity on 148. So the hauler mandate to offer the service, not to actually collect, but to offer the services for food scraps was pushed back to July 1, 2020. So that puts it at the same deadline as the landfill ban on disposal of food scraps. So I think that kind of makes sense to marry the two. So as soon as there is the demand everywhere for food scrap diversion, that is when the haulers will be at this point required to offer the service. They don't have to actually provide it. They just have to offer it so they can charge what they feel they need to charge. But at that point for right now anyway, that's when it's been pushed back. That will require them to buy special trucks because if they have to offer the service, they have to be able to collect it. Correct. So it does give them some time to do some more of each to their own customers, give some time for the rest of the infrastructure throughout the state that needs to develop to develop. And they'll be able to, we've been working with our businesses in Chittenden County all along. So there are haulers who are offering the service right now, but more for the larger generators, more of the commercial entities and larger housing complexes. They can get the service if they want it. Second question and my last one. So that ties into where the conversation that we had probably about two months ago, I sat down with Justin Rabadou, Chaven Spencer, as well as Sarah Reeves and another Nancy Plunkett. Nancy Plunkett, thank you. And it was a great conversation. Burlington is interested in looking at how we collect trash. If you look at how the rest of the nation collects trash, I don't think we collect trash. Well, we don't do it as smart as we could. We're out of step with the rest of the nation. That being the case, the conversation resulted in basically a conclusion that Burlington and South Burlington might need to find funding to support the exploration of a new consolidated service pathway. There's many different ways this could, there are many different forms this could take. But that has a price tag to it. It ultimately would save our residents four to $5 million over a 10-year horizon, but it's hard to justify it. So what the follow-up conversation where I wanna put the question to you all if you could maybe better polish my question to frame it to this council and this body to consider going forward. I heard you or I saw in an email that you are considering the possibility of adding a new grant opportunity from municipal members to possibly apply for where anybody in the Chittin and Solid Waste Strict could apply for potentially some grant funding from CSWD with your leadership in professional competency and expertise in trash collection that that might not be until fiscal year 2020, but possibly next summer we could apply for a grant through CSWD to pay for some consulting services to tell South Burlington how we could do trash smart. Is that a question? And could you elaborate on what I just laid out? That's a great synopsis, not much more to add. So the timing of the initial request was after our board had already considered the budget and had been brought to the finance committee and had been approved for the budget to come out to you all. So the next opportunity to add money to the budget for a different type of grant program would be for the 2020 fiscal year, which would be July 1, 2019. So right now what we're helping the two cities do is Nancy helped put together a request for proposals for a consultant to help design what the program might look like and look at parameters. So that proposal, that RFP is out on the street right now. So I believe that's due, actually I've got a copy of it here. So that would be due back on July 11th, 2018 of this year. So that just went out last week and I posted it today on the Vermont Business Registry. So when those proposals come back in then we'll know how much this initial phase may cost. We have some higher estimates, but I don't think it's gonna come in as high as we've been talking about. And it would be a share, proportional share between Burlington and South Burlington. So obviously the population of Burlington is larger than South Burlington. So that share and the cost of the initial phase will be proportional. This is for this body's clarity. Nothing has been committed to. This is to understand what that would look like. That's right, exactly. There's no commitment by either community at this point. And again, even after the response has come back in, there's still no commitment to proceed with the consultant. If you want to continue to work just with us, with the district, we're happy to provide that technical service as well. Can I just follow up with a question? So this RFP is going out so that the two communities as well as CSWD know what the potential cost of studying and coming up with a plan for the two communities might cost. Is that the point? And then you would have that figure in hand or that range. So if you apply... Then the communities would decide. The communities could decide and apply to you for some granting in 2019 or is that something else? Well, I think that might be phase two. That will probably be phase two for going forward with actual program design. I can read the purpose of the feasibility study if that would be helpful. That would be, yes. Okay, so what this RFP is, it is for a feasibility study for residential solid waste collection contracts in Burlington and South of Burlington. So it's a joint project between the two cities. And we are essentially functioning as technical advisors and as the fiscal agent and then for the program. So the purpose and this is online. I can also send you copies of this. It's available again from our business register. Talks about what you would like the site to do. So it says Burlington and South Burlington want or seeking to procure a consultant to conduct a feasibility study on residential, consolidated collection of trash, recycling and organics to provide their councils with the information needed to determine next steps. Okay, so you'll get a price on this. Yep. And then potentially we can, the two communities would decide whether or not to provide if we want to use our own money or to go forward with a feasibility study, right? Yeah, right. Okay, that sounds good. Is that helpful? Yeah, thank you. Other questions? Megan, do you have any questions? I did, but I'm low battery all of a sudden. And I had plugged it in. Let me just gather my thoughts. Yes, Jim. So last year you instituted the $1.50 compost drop-off fee. Nobody pays that. I just want to make you aware that I've witnessed tons of people coming into Burlington, Pine Street. They come around the corner, they dump it, they leave. And I don't say anything because personally, I don't want to get an argument with somebody, but there's a big sign right there. It says if you walk in, it's go pay the $1.50, so. And I knew that your compliance on that wasn't good. Yeah, thank you. The second question was how is Green Mountain Compost doing in terms of the quality of the output and the testing of it to make sure it doesn't contain any herbicides? Yeah, so the quality of the output is excellent and we have not had any hint of anything for several years. And you're still- We are still- We grow something in every output batch, right? We do test, we continue to test. And because there's been nothing detected we're actually looking at, seeing do we have to test every single batch? Because- Do you change the rules about what could be dropped off as well? Absolutely, absolutely. So the quality control continues to be a focus on all of the material. We're also looking right now at making sure that we have the right enough capacity for the 2020 because we're already taking in approximately 5,600, 5,700 tons of food scraps a year here, which is a double. We'll eat a lot here. We'll eat a lot here. That'll be a lot of food, not being eaten. That's another problem. But that's a doubling of what we've been taking in just four or five years ago. So, and we anticipate that that will only grow. So we're looking right now at, is our current site adequate to be able to handle that what we think will be an increased tonnage? And what are the efficiencies that we need to employ? Just do we have the right setup? And if you've been to the mountain compost, you know, kind of snakes a little bit, it's a little bit of an interesting configuration. So we think there will be some efficiencies there. So those efficiencies will be put in place for fiscal 2020 to make sure that we are ready and able to accept whatever's coming. But absolutely the quality is king and we have to continue to pay attention to that. We will. I just also mentioned that we determined it was mostly horse manure that was the problem. So we stopped taking that. Plus we also determined that wood ash when mixed with the compost would actually neutralize the herbicides. We'd lock them up. So we do that too. And as she said, we test both greenhouse and I think you still send out samples to the lab. We do. So we're really very thoroughly testing and being very perfect. That's good, absolutely. I knew it was good news. I just wanted to verify it. Absolutely. One last question. If there were no bottle bill, would you be able to handle that volume of cans and bottles? No. So if there were no bottle bill and everything were to come to either our facility here in Williston or to Rutland, neither facility could handle the increased volume without major retrofitting of their facilities. The issue that we both have is that neither facility has the technology needed and by technology, I mean, not people. People right now are picking out the different bottles and cans and things because we don't have that volume. So if we were to suddenly increase that volume, we would absolutely need to invest in our infrastructure at the recycling facility. We would have to put in optical sorting. There's no other way. That's pretty expensive. It is, but you know. Okay. What are you getting per ton for aluminum? Yeah, we need to look at it anyway. It's a good question. I don't know today's pricing for aluminum. $1,200 like five years ago. It can be, oh gosh, and the price does range and it's also seasonal. It's, I've seen it as low as 500. I've seen it as high as 2,500 a ton. So it tends to be in the eight to 1,200 a ton range. So it is a very valuable material. The water bottles and soda bottles also very valuable. We cannot, as a country, supply the amount of recycled pet that is needed by manufacturers. So we want to grab more of that material out of the waste stream, absolutely.  It's old. It's tired. It's been, again, we sized it for about 20,000 tons of material and we've doubled that. So we really do need to look at our infrastructure just like we did with Green Mountain Compost. We're working on a plan there. We'll be looking at our drop-off center infrastructure as well. We're starting, we're gonna have retreat in a few weeks in the board level so that we can make sure that the docs are doing what they need to do. The Murph will be soon after. So we know that it's time to take a look at how we manage the materials. Five years, 10-year timeline? It won't be 10 for sure. We need to be looking at things now to know when we need to make that next step for the Murph.  They essentially shut the doors to scrap material in January. And they backed off a little bit. And then they, just this month in May, and this is Washington-related political, they said absolutely no importing of any basically scrap material. Now, scrap material is the number one export of the United States. So for China to say, and they were the major consumer of that material, for them to say no more, it is sending shockwaves throughout the country. And again, we're very fortunate in that the only material affected here is paper. We have domestic markets for our other material. Paper was going to China. Everyone's paper was going to China. So that was why we needed to increase our tip fee. Our revenues at the Murph are both tip fee and material sales. Last August, we were getting about $75 a ton for mixed paper. We are now paying $57 a ton for someone to take our mixed paper. So that's a massive swing and loss in revenue. So that's why pushing the Murph question is sooner rather than later so that we can, when things do start to rebound and we think it may be two years, we want to be ready to jump on that and take advantage of the rebound in a couple of years. So we are ramping up our infrastructure conversations. Do you have more? I could ask questions on you, but. We're not going to let you. This just fascinates the heck out of me. I'm not going to come back at any time. It's our trap. The Murph is just amazing. It's a well-constructed Rube Goldberg, you know, something I just, I want to go back. Please come back. Absolutely. David? I have no questions. Most impressed by your report. It gives me confidence in what happens to everything that leaves our houses and our businesses. Thank you. I just have a question and maybe it's the wrong kind of paper, but I noticed at Healthy Living, you can now buy bottled water in a box. So, you know, like a milk carton box. Does that, I mean, that would cut down on plastic. I get that. But does it, given that no one's buying our paper, is that just going to exacerbate? So that's not really the solution. The solution is for people to carry their own bottles around. Yes, ma'am. Or use glass that you can reuse or something. Absolutely. Reusable is the way to go. The, you're talking about milk containers or broth or soup, their tetra packs, those kinds of, correct, soy milk. Those. Maybe recycled? I didn't think so. No. So they, it's yes and no. So there's one company in the Eastern Seaboard that will take them. If we can sort them out there in Pennsylvania or West Virginia, I mean, it's a very long way to get there. And we simply don't make and generate enough in Vermont to create a load that we can get to them in a timely fashion. They were being accepted in summer in the paper in the cardboard. But with the way that China has said, you know, no, your contamination level is basically down to a ban. We can't even consider it, unfortunately. So, sadly, no, it is trash. Okay. Well, thank you very much. This was very informative and the report was good. I just, I did remember. So it got me, I got over my, I skipped over you. I just have a public hearing in a minute. Okay, it would be really fast because you explained a lot when you were responding to Tim. But it was, I'm sure that you gave careful consideration to where to increase the fees. And there's, of course, fee increase linked to the cost increase, but it's also linked to behavior, desired behavior outcomes, right? So that was my question, just to build off of what you were discussing with Tim is, is it more desirable to increase fees when it has to do with waste as opposed to the recycled materials? Right. So one of the things that we, as an industry struggle with is the perception that recycling is free. And for a long time, we wanted to incent the behavior, you know, to have people put more material into the recycling bins and carts less into waste. So you make the fee on trash higher and no fee on recycling, but there is a cost to recycling. It's a manufacturing process. So we are looking at, that was another change that happened this year to 148 was that now facilities will be allowed to charge for recyclables, whereas before we could not. So that will be part of the conversation that we have at the strategic retreat about the drop-off centers. Do we want to start to recover some of the costs of recycling? And that has not been decided yet. Again, that was just passed in this legislature a week ago. So we really haven't even run those numbers. But you're right, you know, that's part of the conversation is how do you incent that desired behavior? And talking more about it is one what big people aware of what their options are and how to reduce really reducing is what we need to put more effort. So I just thought I'd ask that question and I would encourage you to think about behavior. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate the time. Our next item is a public hearing. It's our fourth second here, second reading. And possible adoption of amendments to the city's public's nuisance ordinance. Andrew Bulldoch for the city. Good evening, Andrew Bulldoch, city attorney. So here we are again for the fourth second reading as Helen mentioned in your fifth, third back.  There's an amendment to C8, which is noise related to trash pickup and removal between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. was the prior. It's been amended to 7 a.m. in residential areas. And also in front of you is an additional exemption in D and new eight, noise from a permitted use in an applicable zoning district of the city's land development regulations provided it complies with the regulations from as the amendment to the signature block. I'd recommend opening to a public hearing. Okay, thank you. Are there any comments? I'll move that we open the public hearing. Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Are there comments from the public? Anyone? It's a noise ordinance, it's very quiet. I know, I know. Okay, if there's no comments, I guess we can close the public hearing. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. So I would entertain a motion for adoption of the brief changes. Four. So moved. Second. Any? Oh. I've got a motion. Oh, you have a specific motion. Yeah, that one has the motion. You have the motion? Yes, yep. I guess the motion I had moved that person. I'm very confused right now. Okay, yes. I'm very confused too. Can I, we were in discussion, so would we retract the motion or? I was gonna have the motion made and then discussion, but if you would like to discuss ahead of time. Is there a special motion that you're proposing? Because what I understood from our last executive session that we were gonna be doing, I wanna ask questions, but I feel like we need to go into executive session before I vote on this. Yeah, my understanding was that the advice from our city attorney was not to pass the ordinance as revised. The second part. Yes, so it had to be warned as it originally was. And so there is, so you may amend the ordinance as it was warned. That makes more sense to me. Okay, thank you. So we'll have a discussion then I guess. So is there a discussion? What is the discussion? I think we need to retract. I'll offer an amendment to the motion. I would move to remove item eight. That's second of three changes and only pass the ordinance with the first change in residential areas in 7 a.m. And the last change of changing it to E. And adding David's. And I'm happy to go into executive session if we wanna touch upon this again. Do we need to discuss it again in executive session? Really briefly? Okay, if that's okay. Do you accept this amendment as a friendly amendment or no? Well, I don't wanna vote until we go into executive. Okay. Yeah, right. Can we go into executive all motions on the floor? I think so. I think so, yeah. Sure. I'll move that we go into executive session inviting Kevin, Doran, Tom, Hubbard and our attorney. Yeah, for the purpose of discussing attorney client communications. For the purpose of discussing attorney client. Second. All in favor? Aye. We will be back. Thank you for being as confused as I was. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Member. I heard you say that too. Briefly. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All back into session the South Wellington City Council meeting of Monday, May 21st, 2018. And we will take up the nuisance ordinance. Is my amendment considered friendly? Repeat that. To eliminate. Is my amendment to remove question eight or item eight, the second change of three and this ordinance to remove it. Yes, I agree. So do we have to vote on that too? No, you can just say it's a friendly amendment. No, you can just say it's a friendly amendment. It's fine. So yeah, I agree with that amendment. Okay. So what we have before us is a motion to approve the nuisance ordinance with just three changes. The language from the changes, the noise related to trash pick up and removal between the hours of 8pm and 7am in residential areas. That's the new language. The letter D, the section, it was D is now E and then the addition of David Kaufman on the signature page. Those are the three changes. And number eight, do we, do we, Yes. Yeah, removing that. Yes. So that's not a change now. So what we will be voting on would not have this new eight language. It would have the three other changes. Okay. Is that clear? Okay. And we had a second on that. Correct? Okay. So any further discussion? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. No opposed. So the ordinance is adopted as voted. Thank you. Thank you very much. I get in there. Yeah. Well, yeah. Thanks for everyone for hanging in. There you go. Okay. Moving on to number nine. And I guess I would go back to eight and just say that my understanding is that the neighbors who have had concerns around the noise, my understanding is that while you may not be communicating actively, there's some efforts being made to reduce the noise and that is being recognized, I guess, by both neighbors. And I appreciate you working to find a compromise with your neighbors. So thank you. Number nine, the official council receipt of petition relating to the JC dog park. Everyone has a copy, a printed copy. Or mine is, but here's the original. So I will accept this. And Donna will then, did she go through and say, yeah, she's already marked. She's already marked it. So there's 30, possibly 32 names on this signature to reopen the consideration of reopening the JC dog park and possibly rescind either through council action or the next meeting for a public vote. The decision to place a temporary dog park at JC park was arbitrary and accomplished without careful planning. A proper public process has not been put into place prior to the decision. And the problems that occurred at JC compelled the council to create the dog park task force, which is now engaged in a public process for determining the appropriate location for future dog parks. Currently, there is a new matrix being considered for approval. It includes criteria to ensure proper placement. The matrix sets the minimum distance from residential properties with adequate buffer at 150 feet. The JC dog park is located less than 150 feet from residential property without proper buffer. We believe the city policy concerning dog parks should be city wide and that areas placed within less than 150 feet of a residential property line for lots of two acres or less should not be considered for the siting of dog parks. So this is accepted and Megan, you wanted to make a comment for a statement? Yeah. Now? Thank you. Yeah. I just wanted to advocate for this petition and I recognize many names here on the petition as people who have been very active in city government. And I believe that some policies should not be decided by trial and error. I learned that with the process to open a dog park at JC park, it was a staff level decision that became a reality with no more input from the council other than a nod of the head following a staff update. There was no vote and no deliberation to determine the appropriate process for developing procedures and policies that would govern these dog parks. Chainlink fencing was simply erected in a children's park. And then the trouble came. At times there were dozens of dogs in the park barking early in the morning over the weekend when neighbors wished to barbecue on their decks and past closing hours. This led to arguments between park users and neighbors and exacerbated relations between neighbors. There was also a dog attack and the injured dog had to be euthanized, which left an owner bereft of a beloved pet. The council didn't even hear of this attack or the death until well afterward. And our written procedures and rules indicate that we should have received a report. We should have learned by now that dog parks are not experiments. Careful consideration needs to be given to necessary policies. Should all dogs have access or only dogs that are registered with the city? Should there be a minimum distance from residential properties? Noise buffers? Safety of both dogs and people must be a priority in the park's design and rules and especially when a dog park is located in a children's play area. Community forums should be held prior to any siting decision to make sure that the location has a good chance of success. These are the draft recommendations the dog park task force made at the May 7th meeting. And in fact, they put them into practice when they held a community forum for another site in Chamberlain neighborhood, which was deemed unworkable. None of this, however, was done prior to the opening of JC Park and it wasn't done prior to the council decision two weeks ago to reopen the park either. Through a legally warned agenda item last November, the council majority intended to cure the initial process failure last spring that led to the opening of the park to begin with. We deemed it necessary to act quickly to close a dysfunctional park in support of the staff proposal that a task force be formed to investigate possibilities elsewhere. Because of the swiftness of our action, users of the park were understandably surprised and upset. Through a private Facebook group they had formed, I encouraged them to look into the task force. As a result and without council knowledge or oversight, the task force became a forum where these upset users advocated for the reopening of JC Park. Staff persevered and a set of recommendations for determining the sighting of proper dog parks was formed, but because of a process based on trial and error, rather than on careful council deliberation around process, the council, again in my view took a misstep, and in April in response to the park's upset users, the council decided to await the task force's recommendations before coming to a final decision on the future of JC Dog Park. This decision, however, was based on a misunderstanding. With two councilors understanding that the council would await the draft recommendations of the task force regarding the proper sighting of dog parks, and others understanding that the council would await the task force's recommendations and whether or not to reopen JC Dog Park. Again, I see an issue of process and a problem, and the problem was this. The task force was not formed to report to the council, but rather as a study group overseen by staff. And at least half of the task force's members were advocates for the reopening of the park. In fact, prior to the May 7th recommendations, these task force members appeared before the council with a petition to reopen the park. And tonight we're receiving another petition in response. So I am appealing to my colleagues on this board that we not go through another round of trial and error. Could we please put a hold on the decision for JC Park until this council has a thorough discussion so that we reach an understanding of what the process missteps were and what better process should look like and then establish thoughtful procedures. One of our main responsibilities as a self-governing body is to preserve the public trust. Effective, efficient self-governance relies on processes that are clear to the elected members of this council and transparent and open to the public. We as a group of five councilors especially need to take time, consider advisement, and give proper thought to developing fair processes when making policy that will have significant impact on the public and on the various committees who support the work we do. I would like to see this done in this case and in many other cases that we are currently tasked. It would preserve the public trust and the trust amongst councilors. The process surrounding the opening-closing reopening of the dog park still needs to be discussed in open session without an action attached and I would like for us to follow the city attorney's recommendation that this be done. I would like for us to do it tonight and if not then before any council action is taken with regard to the reopening of JC Dog Park including the proposed guidelines coming before us tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Item 10, consider and possibly approve guidelines for the reopening of the JC Park dog park and we'll hear from the dog park task force. Barber service, I live in Summer Woods, co-facilitator, informally sort of chosen. I'd like to correct at least one thing in your statement which is half the task force was not from the disputed area. In fact, there were four members of the task force who were not. No, the petitioners. Yes, there were three of them, but there were seven people on the task force. So, nearly half. Nearly half, but not half. Let's see if it's up there. I'm Betty Melitia and I'm one of the members from the dog park task force also. So, we, I have to tell you, I participated in this task force by long distance for much of the time and I have been really impressed with the deliberations, with the speed at which people work and with the thoughtful conversations that went on including people who came in with some distinct biases and were able to sort of set those aside. We were here two weeks ago and you asked us to come back with some recommendations. We held a public forum to discuss those. Okay, Holly, I need some help here. This is not coming up the way I thought. Barbara, can you bring the mic a little bit closer? Sure. Could everyone here, I was having trouble. Okay, as long as you could. The arrows. No, maybe we have to use them. We're trying to use the one that's on the flash drive. That's what you have up. Right, that's what I have up. Oh, no. Huh? It's not there? Okay. Can you go before from the PowerPoint? How much do you do? Slide show. Sorry about this. Wasting your time. No, you're not the first presenter to have technical difficulties. Tom, see right now. Now try to do the arrow. The down. This one. There we go. Okay. There we go. So we did hold a forum. I think there was a general agreement that there was disappointment among all of those present that a large part near the airport was replaced by a smaller park and without neighborhood input, which certainly supports what Councilor Emory said before. Everyone there would like a dog park in Chamberlain. I would say to you that I think that the neighborhood has been decimated by lots of things lately over which you don't necessarily have control, but that's certainly adding, taking away a dog park is just sort of like one more thing to have happen. There were, there were, there was considerable conversation and differing opinions about the impact of the issue. Some people believed it to be divisive. Other people believe that it created cohesion in the community. And so we had some conversation about that. But clearly the challenge is to balance the need for children and families with those of dogs and dog owners. And we saw that. And there was a recommendation that pretty much people agreed that we should consider maybe some revision of the hours of the dog park to deal with some of those. And that we needed to find a new site in the neighborhood before any decision was made about closing or changing JC. There was consensus around that. And that goes back to everybody would like a dog park in Chamberlain. Okay. We talked last time about all dog parks have challenges. I'll just remind you briefly about those things. We did talk about these in the forum and we talked about them in the task force, that there are a number of things that need to happen. And that we definitely do need to have a new dog park committee that can deal with the initial matrix, address these and other issues, education and training, a mechanism for complaints, looking at the existing ordinances, relationships with neighbors. And certainly number one is safety, both for children, adults do, but for children and dogs that are in that particular space. The JC specific park challenges are noise. We talked about improvements to the existing noise barriers. JC is a small replacement for the larger park. The need to balance needs of children and families, as well as those who are dog owners. And that it is a mixed use space. And there was a young man at the community forum who described for us exactly what he thought needed to happen, which is there needed to be some sort of barrier, at least on two sides of the dog park, so that the dogs were not frightened by children running up to the fence. And the children were not frightened by dogs who might bark at them if they ran along the fence. He was a delightful young man who really explained that quite clearly to us in that. One of the challenges at JC is that it is crowded on the weekends. And one of the challenges at JC is that there is only one main entrance. So we talked about these things in the forum and we talked about these things in the task force and came up with some recommendations that we think are a little clearer than the sort of general things we brought to you at the last meeting. We do think that the council needs to consider making JC an on leash park like other parks in South Burlington. It is not very big, and there is a safety issue for children and other dogs in that particular park. To establish an interim friends of JC community dog park group, that would be responsible for opening and locking the dog park after hours. And we talked with staff about that and Maggie seemed to think that that was a reasonable expectation for a way for this to function. And that we are willing to come back with updates about the friends of JC park at the June 4th council meeting, if that is your pleasure, and have things ready for the June 15th interim opening. We talked a lot about hours of operation and there were a number of proposals, everything from 6 a.m. to dark, things like let's open at three hours in the morning and four hours in the afternoon, a number of different options. And finally, there was consensus in the room that maybe we should open it four days a week and that we shouldn't have it open every day, but that we would open it Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7, but on Saturdays let's open it at 8. Let's be a little more cognizant of people might want to sleep in and those who have dogs that want to walk them before 8 o'clock would have to walk them in the neighborhood and not be able to use the dog park. And then if possible to create the visual barrier on the picnic and playground sides as described by the young man who came to the forum. We also suggest that there be a new sign. The current sign says suggestions. We'd like there to be some rules at JC Park. One dog at a time in the entrance area, the tragedy that occurred at that park had to do with dogs coming in and out, dogs not on leash, dogs being too close and so that people would stand five feet from the gate when another dog is entering or exiting so you'd only have one dog in that space at a time. To limit the number of dogs, four in the small dog area suggesting small dog is 25 pounds and eight in the large dog area. The next one is something we feel really strongly about which is nuisance barking and that sounds really strange but in fact people are reported and we haven't seen this. We don't know for sure that this happened or how it happened but that people might be antagonizing their dogs to bark and that simply isn't an acceptable thing to happen in any dog park and that a person would be asked to leave the park if they do not control their dog. Dogs are going to bark but we're talking about dogs who get out of control with barking. Dogs would have to be licensed, people would be expected to clean up after their dog. No children under 12 and who to call is a question that we couldn't answer but we thought there needed to be on the sign if there is a significant problem this is the number that you call to report that. So those are our recommendations for a new rule sign at the dog park. And then we talked about evaluation and notification a sign indicating that the dog park is open for an evaluation period not putting a promise that it's going to be open forever but rather one that says we're going to look at this. Create a suggestion box either on site or online or both. Have an evaluation, a trial period we're suggesting eight weeks starting with the June 15th date that you talked about at your last meeting and going till August 15th that we would use SurveyMonkey as a potential tool we're not stipulating that these things have to happen but these are ideas that we came up with in terms of an evaluation that we would suggest considering requesting comments via a post on front page forum the South Burlington website and in the other paper. And then the Recreation and Parks Department does have a decibel meter we suggest that we do systematic measure of the sound to see if in fact it is at a decibel level that really says that we should make a different decision about the park. So that's where that's where we came in terms of the things that we think you asked us to do at our last meeting and we are here tonight to present that as the Task Force's recommendations. Okay, thank you. Are there any questions or comments? Well, you did a very diligent job with that and I'm no dog part expert but having been appointed to the council I felt a responsibility to at least learn something about dog parks. So Mark invited me over to his place last week I think on Wednesday I went over spent about an hour sitting at a picnic table talking about the challenges. I understand very well his concerns. His back of his house sits basically in the parking lot and on the other side of the parking lot is the dog park. Personally, I don't think JC is a great location for a dog park by any stretch it's not a great big park where the dog park is where our kids used to play pre-little league T-ball I guess that was many years ago and you know I think we've eaten up kids play space possibly unnecessarily but Mark were you participating in this discussion at all this forum? No sir. You're at the Task Force meeting. Tammy was at the forum. Right. And Tammy is? His wife. And so what what's your I'm just curious as to what your take is on what they've suggested I mean it's certainly it's certainly less onerous in that it's closed three days a week and it's a test period and I think you is it Sarah? I'm sorry. I'm sorry that said that you know both proponents and opponents seem to come to meeting of the minds is that how you thought I'm just curious or not? I don't think there was enough people I feel like we went so that our voices were heard I'm going to speak to what my concern is again as this was presented you voted that this could be opened temporarily until a better place was found now what you're seeing is a proposal for this to be a trial evaluation period I'm a teacher I can tell you right now that dog owners can be really really well behaved for eight weeks while we have a trial period and the evaluation period before we decide that this becomes permanent I think that's the agenda and that causes me pause and it causes me concern so a temporary opening is very different than an evaluation in a trial those are very different words I fully support the temporary piece of this I don't see this dog parks staying in this spot forever I just don't I mean this conflict is not going to go away why a survey? can you just let him speak for that being the case just from the beginning I just thought we should leave it open until we move it somewhere else just because we spent the money on it and I have some confidence in what the staff did I understand Maggie and Tom reached out to some individuals in the neighborhood and they looked at different sites and so I'm confident that we did some due diligence there's always ways to improve it and we couldn't have anticipated this problem so I do want to explore somewhere at JC Park that might be out of that 150 foot bubble but I think that's a longer discussion my only point is we could just open it while we put the pressure on while we put the gas on putting up some fencing at Veterans Memorial just so that there's some more options for people to go and take their dogs to nicer places I just see it's $17,000 of the citizens money that has been sitting there idle where they can take their dogs off leash around it that I just think it should be open while it's there but that's just my opinion I tend to agree I definitely agree that JC Park is not the ideal location for a dog park you're not going to find a space in JC Park that you can put a dog park I mean the only spot would be where the basketball courts are and the basketball courts are there is there anything update on the we used to have a park on University of Vermont land in that off of Patchin Road somewhere didn't there any update on that I asked Kevin about that did you get a hold of anybody on that I didn't get a hold of anybody this afternoon but when I talked to a senior official at UVM after we received notice that we had to leave the airport I asked the UVM official if we could go back or if there were any other UVM land that the city could lease for purposes of a dog park and he said no so we don't but we you still could try and contact them and find out if that land if they're planning to do something of that land but not for a few years we could come to agreement where we could use it until they say we can't use it with a few months notice and then not use it right I will go back to the so that's one possibility my understanding is that was a fairly decent location so let's try so my position on this is we and then to be perfectly transparent Helen and I spent an hour at Veterans Memorial Park the other day and we identified two specific areas with the help of the city manager that really are not ever going to be used for anything else and could be used for a dog park and I don't know if we can yeah if we can put it up we can point to those I mean I see I see a couple of options one is the JC park is temporary with restricted days and hours and we put the pedal to the metal and find an alternative location in the Chamberlain area but we could also decide not to do that and move it to Veterans Memorial Park fairly expeditiously and put it there in a pretty good spot and we'll show you that spot while they're doing that I will also add that I don't know whose I don't know whose thought it was or idea it was but there's no reason to enable access to the dog park without some qualifications for example we could we could we could require that people who want to use the dog park pay an annual membership fee to the dog park and in order to do that their dogs would have to be registered because my understanding from the city clerk's office is that we got probably a lot of dogs in South Burlington that are not registered and probably some of those are in the dog parks well if we put a stop to that we generate more revenue from dog registrations which would be great we can decide whether to out of town dogs or not if we do double the registration provided they have a registered dog from a neighboring town and I did a little looking on the internet and it doesn't even have to be a scan card you can actually have it's called VET it's called Vizpin it's an app and you pay your money to the city and you get the app and you can and you put your phone by the gate and it opens up for you and this way we would increase registrations we would generate revenue to support current dog parks pay for future dog parks and we move the darn fencing a couple of times we can pay for that too and not have to put the financial burden on the city so let's take a quick look at the should I just point out where we are may I go back and respond to something I want to make something really clear our intent about the evaluation was to validate we're not but it was not necessarily to keep the part of open board closed but it was to give us factory data to speak to both sides of the issue so it was not designed to be a proponent or an opponent but it was designed to give us the real data that nobody had in the part we pushed to stand thank you very much two things to what Dave just said Dave, like everybody on this council is trying to find an amicable resolution to try to find something and I've heard this council say multiple times that we need more dog parks we have 4,000 dogs, I love dogs we're going to have 1,200 registered so that speaks to the you know I'm just going to say I think everybody on this council is fully supportive of I know committees cost time and energy but dog parks matter and I think we've all been proven and so we're all very supportive of a dog park committee with some authority and autonomy and then the last thing I just want to say on your swipe card thing you're not saying that we would stall the deployment of dog parks no, that would be we take here where we're putting right initially but then over the course of the summer the committee or whoever is going to or city staff figure out how we're going to deal with the membership and the annual fees but I think and again Helen and I talked about this I don't know where this idea kind of originated but it's a great way to generate revenue, control and manage registrations, incentivize registrations going forward control out of town dogs because it will cost a premium just like it does if you don't belong to something you can still get it but you pay more and I think that would really be great for our long-term financial needs so here's the two spots we identified in Vendors Memorial Park, one is this is Dorset Street, Swiss Street this is the turn in, this space behind the bigger baseball field on the left as you drive into the park it's big it's ample, it's got a little roll to it which dogs might enjoy and it's got some shade trees and that space example will never be used for anything else, could put a park there there's no houses in anywhere near reasonable proximity the benefits are if there are families then it's not too far from the playground so you know, mom or dad can watch the dog and the other park could be playing in the playground because there are some I guess some studies that show that dog parks should be in reasonable proximity not right on top of playgrounds I don't know but Dave serves on the board for Cairns Arena so he knows this property very well and also it's in proximity to the restrooms, drinking fountains and the interior of the rinks where there's often refreshments the other possibility is if you follow the road well there's also an existing fence that you could pass on this fence could be one of the fences which means you can use existing fences pretty darn good sized dog park right there okay and as far as you guys know from a parking from a parking perspective you've got all the parking parking for the park and then you have the dirt line across the street from the baseball field as well the other option is straight in and right back here in front of the detention pond to the west of the solar panels and in fact going past the solar panels a little bit we've got a big rectangle right here a little narrow right there but not unworkably so by a long shot put your smaller dogs here your bigger dogs here and the advantage of this is it's well out of the way absolutely anything the only house that's nearby is a house here is that 150 feet? it's at least 150 feet it's probably 350 feet it's probably 300 or more and that land is not going to be used for anything else so from my perspective I don't want to talk forever about this we can either go with JC and leave it on a limited basis a temporary basis with the intent that it's not going to be there forever because I don't think it should be Tom doesn't either I don't think Megan does either I don't know how it doesn't either so none of us feel that it should stay there but if we don't want it there at all right now we can we can probably have that fencing moved and open something here in a matter of a few weeks because it's a private fence company that will do the job we could do that and then we could still at the same time concurrently see where UVM is on their land and possibly reopen a park there we'd have to buy more fencing but if we generate revenues in the near future we'll pay that money back to ourselves so that's one way to look at it the other way is to just say JC is not reopening we're moving the fencing right away to here we're going to have a dog well I think that's what I just said there's two ways to look at it we can either leave JC open temporarily we can either leave JC open temporarily and but in your outline it's also important this council I'm sensing we should vote on it wants a committee owned dog parks to find a place in the Chamberlain area to serve the needs of that community if possible there's got to be a place somewhere the airport land was ideal we support the committee to fully explore and find a location let's have the vote I can go either way okay that's good thank you I live in Dorset Park so I'd love personally to see a dog park up there I'm self-educated around this topic because I've wanted a park up there for a decade one of the issues around having it in that area that's behind the baseball field is that there's a lot of traffic very close going in and out of the park and also when people are in the ball field you really need to put up some visual barriers you're talking about the first spot the one that's down by Swift Street area on Swift Street so there's some things that have to do with dogs and their behavior and I think as you said children playing nearby in the visual the dogs running to the fence if they see a child running by so that little boy was quite compelling when he talked about how he was afraid when he ran he was running by a fence and the dog came right at the fence so we'd have to consider I think some of those things how to make it so that it's successful that people and children feel safe in that particular area the area up at the top is like a great spot I would think there's probably not as many issues up there at the north end at the north end I was wondering why is it something couldn't be put in that north east corner on the other side of the solar panels there's ball fields and goals and nets absolutely everywhere in places where they can be used the locations that we're looking at you can't use for anything else which is why we said dog park any place else you put it you're displacing some kids playground just that north of the solar panels that little teeny spot there's a ball field there's bases there's goals dogs as you said dogs don't care if it's a level surface they actually like it better if it's not so I don't know I guess that's just something to think about I think Betty if you look if you walk this and it's proximity to the playground it's actually fairly far away we weren't I mean you could make it go right up to it but you don't need to and you'd still have a pretty significant park area and you know I think having a fence available is helpful when I was out in Salt Lake and why I looked at this was watching my grandson play baseball right next to right next to the field using the same so no one hit a home run over there but they hit it out into the field there wasn't that kind of interaction I don't know about cars driving in but I've also been to lots of cities where dog parks are right against the street because there's no other place and cars go by and again I'm not an expert but I haven't witnessed dogs going nuts when a car goes by now there may very well be some but if we adopt some of your rules about you know you can't have an out of control dog barking at everything that walks by the other thing that I think David didn't mention that I think is helpful with this particular spot and maybe the one closer to the entrance the police driving to the Cairns Arena area Memorial Park regularly throughout the day so for those people who are concerned that there could be an altercation between dog owners or dogs you know there certainly is some legal oversight and I'm in it's part of their work so it's not like we're asking them make sure you add to your whole root of keeping the city safe by driving in and checking this out it may very well be another way to make sure that people have registered dogs that there's not too many in the park and that would be a reason to put the park towards the front because the police don't drive all the way to the back that would be asking extra and I'll point out here we certainly could put a barrier on the back of that baseball fence with no trouble and here is just roadway there's no walking area sidewalks on the other side so that's not going to be a problem with kids either basically it works either place it doesn't really matter to me other than from an oversight perspective as Helen just mentioned this is probably better because it has more police oversight just because that's what they do I mean they're in the arenas area all the time because we've got a lot of kids and people in and out of there so I think we're at a stage where we either go with something temporary in JC and this waits to see what happens or we say we're not opening JC we're moving the fencing within several weeks which probably can be done how fast could we put the fencing there well we would have to have Middlebury fence or a fence company come and do it our guys don't have that in the program for the summer whether or not we could put up a temporary fence with the green steak kind of thing try out the place until the fences can be moved I don't know but it would be dependent on when Middlebury fence who'd put it up originally would work it into their schedule pay them a little premium and they'll do it faster well we work for the taxpayer though so we've got to be careful about the premium no because we're going to get the money back so I'm not worried about that but I think we would have to check with Middlebury fence and find out when they're I don't want to talk about this all night either but I just want to say two last things I love Veterans Park I wish there was a place in Chamberlain neighborhood that would work right now but since this is on JC Park could you bring up JC Park really quick on the maps I just want to ask a question about what I understand about the new road and what the one to four year time horizon looks like for JC Park if there's an opportunity to think about when that road might come along that stretch behind Williston Road I understand this isn't there a Williston Road extension piece that is approved to come back through higher ground and it's going to come along JC Park I would love a park right here that's the piece I pointed out so I understand is that scoped and sited this is I just want to say to the people I love dogs I want dog park in this area I just I think we're looking at the one to four year horizon and I'm just wondering what that road scoping plan might be if you have any update on it Kevin we have our Director of Public Works in the house here who might opine on that that will affect the current structures at JC Park if a road comes in along here although Justin Rabbit Department of Public Works the installation of that or many other infrastructure pieces identified in the official map are almost entirely dependent upon development by the private sector there's been a lot of attention in this area over recent years however nothing remains I don't think an application has ever been submitted formally so for us to be able to put a time frame on it's really outside of our control but is there a road scope there through the planning on the official map scoping which is probably the least amount of work we do is probably overstating the effort to the state on it but it's on the official map of JC to JC Park I just wanted to say that as a neighbor I can walk to cheese traders with my dog very easily and is that land behind higher ground right there yeah I don't know who owns that Megan that's privately owned it might be I'm not sure who owns it but I'm quite sure it's privately owned whoever owns it today is likely not to be the owner if and when the road gets built those other buildings though that's housing is it not those are houses I don't know how many feet away but I mean that's another can of worms that you know a neighbor who can walk to it but there's a bunch of people who don't want to hear dogs my last question I promise and for the dog park task force at JC Park is there your conversations it's here right now or right here is there a is there a spot that you talked about that's outside of the 150 bubble just there's no magical location now we're taking out play area you know for football and baseball I think it's safe to say where the park ended up is the only is the only formerly unspoken it's a real estate on the park in terms of practices and program this is all used for football and t-ball and rugby I mean that's the thing with neighborhood as densely packed as Chamberlain neighborhood is there are a lot of homes yeah if we put a pool there I can project to that okay so we're while you're still sitting there the locations in Veterans Memorial Park as the head of public works do you see a problem with either of those or would those be in your opinion I'm in my 12th minute of being aware of them so it's really too early to give opinions on it can I ask Tom the what are the age groups that use that field and it's for baseball right that would be more the teenage and adult on JC Park what's the likelihood of home runs going over it and going into the dog park on a typical game in the afternoon it's not typical that there'd be a home run but it's possible to practice batting you know just balls are going to go over the fence we probably have to run it through our insurance risk management just to make sure it was far enough away or it's not far away all it's right at the fence there's no far anything I don't know if you have room no David if they said that we need to move it off the fence by 5 feet or 10 feet just uses up more of our own but we certainly could have a look at it and give us their opinion that that's the preferred location but if it presents an insurance problem we go to the other location whichever I think this is a nice location in terms of being an attractive amenity for dog owners versus you're way out back no one sees you it's you know it's kind of narrow it's much it's very long it's about 450 feet so you could have a pretty long spot to throw balls for a dog that likes to chase him but it's sort of narrower and there's no shade this has a lot of shade trees as well but I don't want to spend the whole evening talking about dog parks so here's what I should I say what I think well before you say more Tim do you have any I just had two questions so the signage was the signage going to say SP residents only as well as licensed dogs we had a conversation about that it started since it was temporary we were not going to dig in that muck but that as the if the task force continues or the dog park committee has established that that's something that they would be talking about we have deliberated all of the things that Councillor Kaufman talked about and have differing opinions among the membership but I think there is consensus that it would be that a license would at least be a south Burlington license would be required to use the park and today there is a large and small area side by side with a divider totally separate but there's no screening between the two there's visibility between the two sections so was that something you also considered was eliminating the visibility between the two sections so that large and small couldn't distract each other in some way yes that was something Farrell Park also has big and small I went and sat down there for 15 minutes the other day too that's not a bad spot there's no houses in any proximity whatsoever they do not have a visual barrier between small and large which may be something in the future we want to consider for all of the dog parks we also talked about the fact that there is the dilemma of people who own small dogs that need to run and need a big dog space but they really shouldn't be in the big dog space but that will be the discussion that will happen in the dog park committee if you choose to establish that it is something obviously it's a lot of controversy over the last six months about this so it's not a simple there is no simple answer and so having a dog park committee will really delve into some of these David I've been talking with the committee about having some way that either we have a swipe card or a key or whatever in that most of the country now they're municipalities if you have a smart phone if you have a smart phone well that most people do at this point well we figure something else out figure something out it's not a I don't see that as a big deal or a big barrier there's going to be an initial cost but again if we're charging an annual fee we get that money back and absolutely it will increase registrations absolutely if you're going to use the park your dogs have to be registered and you guys decide the out of town policy but if you want it just double the price you know so what I see and I don't know whether there's going to be a motion or not what I see is just having listened to folks I think the wisest thing is not reopen JC Park move the fencing as quickly as possible to the preferred location in Veterans Memorial Park understanding we need to check out the insurance from a ball perspective because those are hard baseballs and if that's going to be a problem that we can't overcome either by some netting or something then we go to the further location the downside of that is police oversight is not as readily there and that we charge the task force with as expeditially as possible investigating a new location in the Chamberlain area and that would begin with the city management inquiring of the university whether there's any possibility of getting that land back for use if it is we spend the money put up another fence put up another dog park as I said we'll recoup those funds in the not too distant future that's what I think we ought to do now I was going to ask Tom that land where they used to use the informal dog park is that South Burlington land or is that in Burlington on Patchin Road it's actually owned by the University of Vermont right but is it in South Burlington it is in South Burlington just barely and let me say I wouldn't have made this suggestion if I hadn't spent the time talking with Mark and spent the time in the Veterans Memorial Park where it was readily easy to identify a couple of spots and as somebody noted I know that park very well having been a party to building two smashingly successful iceriness with all with all due respect I believe that you only got one side of the story and I would be remiss as a member of the task force if I did not at least say that so and I would also say on behalf of the people in Chamberlain I have no objection I have a preference for the spot in the back I think it's a better idea in terms of dogs but you know I think Chamberlain is yet again going to be now without a dog park and all of the other things that have happened to that neighborhood if you can find a location quickly not for very long and you know and part of my suggestion is I hadn't seen JC Park before the last meeting now I've seen it I don't particularly like it for a dog park that's my own personal preference but I think the rest of the council has generally felt it's not a great spot for a dog park there has to be some place else in that entire area where we can put a dog park away from houses but it's up to you folks to find that and maybe we'll get lucky with the university at least on a basis for several years even if they're going to build something there in the university pipeline I have not seen one indication of any construction in that area so if they're not using it for anything we should be able to put a deal together so I like the second part of your non-motion the first part I stand by it I think we spent the taxpayers dollars and it's just sitting there not being used so I still support reopening that space on a trial basis as we previously decided and see how it works because I just don't think we gave it enough time the first time I think we closed it too prematurely but I like the second part of your non-motion which was what? Well I think what I'm saying is if we can get the fencing moved in a few weeks just move the fencing and be done with it then we're not dealing with a situation we're going to have constant people unhappy etc etc you are still going to have people and we'll still have two dog parks I want 10 dog parks I think we'll still have people that are unhappy but I think if we constitute a new dog task force or a committee and they work very hard, look really hard at finding another area in the Chamberlain neighborhood then you know at some point we'll be able to satisfy that need I just we have our whole community is different developments they're spread out and everyone could make the claim that I'd like a dog park that I can walk to and clearly the many of the users really at J.C. Park drove their cars now I don't know whether they live on Myers Court and they drive over there I know Megan doesn't but maybe a neighbor drives over there to use the park when in effect they probably could walk that I don't know I mean it's sort of an oxymoron to go walk your dog but drive them there but but we have other dog parks where that's how people get there and lots of cities and communities everybody that uses J.C. will now have to drive so but that's you know that's except but I go back to one of the recommendations we made though yes regardless of whatever you all decide I still believe and I haven't asked but we all agreed about it when we talked about it that J.C. needs to be an on leash park uh-huh but there's a dog park there or not it needs to be an on leash park it is not big enough to be an off leash park so how can that's beyond my scope of knowledge and I'm just putting it out there I don't know how that happens either I just didn't want that to get lost the rest of it for however you handle it into your capability so I understand we would need to change an ordinance to do that but it's doable I mean I personally think we should think about a lot of parks I'm concerned at Red Rocks that that all the dogs run I mean you know we should have a dog park if I had my brothers I would have a dog park and that's the only place you could run your dog I don't care whether they're on a leash or not because there's such fragile property there but that's I just didn't want that piece to get lost in all of the rest of it is getting set aside and I didn't want that piece to get lost I don't think we're planning to set aside all of the work you've done by any oh it's terrific well it basically relates to J.C. Park so but I think a lot of it has relation to any dog park so that was excellent let me ask a quick question have we decided the committee structure of this dog committee? no that's next on the agenda why don't we just add the dog committee to the city of south brodington committee vacancies put the dog parks on there make them a committee because you're about the time you put out the vacancy thing and let the existing members say I want to keep serving and let's do it but I think that's item 11 so let's finish item 10 and then that's the next thing we can argue about can I ask one question? yes please kicked out of the airport and then the airport offered this other land right what was wrong with the first park from the airport's perspective too close to the fence line the FAA said we couldn't keep it there wasn't a a number of feet from the fence that was the problem could it have been moved to the to the west a little bit it was a security issue it was close to the fence we talked with Jean and Jean had another spot in mind which is which there was a forum for which is right here I just want to say if south brodington owned the airport we'd have a dog park but again but there was a forum for that they'd sell it for 17 million bucks we own it and the the deal that Jean proposed wasn't really acceptable to us but that was something we talked about there was something proposed in that area only that we talked about it didn't go beyond that because the deal was not up and their homes here and representative to the airport commission how much the neighborhood would appreciate to have a dog park on this land that is amenable to the community the north Henry court where it used to be or wherever Kevin is going to say or Picard circle the area around Picard circle Kirby road extension Picard circle you just have a donut that whole area right there actually the people who came to the forum that the airport held suggested the Picard circle area to us and said that was not available the airport because of the same reason they have other plans for it you can bring it this is ours the Kirby road with right away and then we have like a close to the airport here with the right away Kirby road which is a really long run I think there's a lot of opportunity for a dog task force to work with the airport so we've identified a bunch of options over there so do we need a motion now specifically to do something we do if we want to do anything so I'm going to try I'm going to make a motion I'm going to try and keep it fairly simplistic the motion is going to be that we relocate the current JC dog park to veterans memorial park in the preferred location which is at the entrance to JC park if we don't have any veterans memorial park veterans memorial park if we don't have any insurance or legal issues at that entrance and if we do we move it to the back location and that is and we do not reopen JC park that's the motion beyond that we charge the committee with as expeditiously as possible investigating these options because we can find another location if we generally agree without a motion that we're going to charge annual fees and get more dogs registered as they should be we'll spend the money and we'll pay ourselves back over a couple of years I don't see a problem with that I will happily second that and just say that it was the site that received the highest score on your matrix for discussion I just I'm not going to vote for it but I like the direction it's going in especially if we can get it moved there really quickly I'm just not going to go for it because I do have confidence in what the staff did initially citing this location and I just think it's a waste of our taxpayer dollars to not reopen it until we move the fencing we're not going to waste the dollars because we're going to get them back thank you right we will this way we do there's just 17,000 dollars sitting there unused and it's just fast is that a motion moved and seconded we're having discussion why don't you go first and then Betty if there's a way to be clear that we would like to try temporary fencing first so that would tell us whether or not the configuration is optimal or not so before you go committing money to steel I would prefer you go in with rubber and plastic and green staking to find out because then you can take it down somewhere else if you need to the minute you start committing cement posts and middlebury fencing you've spent another 17,000 dollars well whatever but we already own the fencing I'm just saying that sometimes it's good to do a dry fit before you actually dig a hole I have no idea if that's doable I don't know either but if you have the fencing available and somebody can go hit the stakes and middlebury fencing doesn't have to get involved then we have some okay Betty I appreciate the suggestion Tim and I've thought of oh we could put something temporary to try it out and everything but you want to think about safety while you do that too you have to think about safety with some kind of portable or however you do that you want to make sure it's safe for people, pedestrians people in and out both sides in the park and outside of the dog park you know what I mean so you want to think about that I don't know how a firm or I can't think of the word secure I would go with some temporary fencing if the first dog that ran into it did not get over the concern is as Megan did mention earlier is that for the dog safety there are issues around the in and out part of entering and exiting and that's where the tragedies occurs usually because the dogs are face to face with one another so that's some of the safety you have to consider I hope the taxpayers know we're all very judicious with their dollars but we need more dog parks and we build parks for kids so I'm more if you're going to vote for it I'd encourage you just get the real fencing because dogs matter and I hate for a dog to escape and attack somebody and soon but what more dog parks what that thought is let's just move the darn fencing and be done with it and find another location as quick as we can in the chamber in the area and build another dog park and start generating some revenues I like that part of the motion I think Tim I guess could be a discussed issue and a we could consent or have a separate vote but I feel very strongly that having a registration fee in a process that generates the revenue to support this of course we have to front it but we could have a if you get it up in a month we could have a half year special and for all the currently registered dogs that want to buy a pass and maybe it would encourage some other dogs maybe we could even say this is a special and you're not late you can register your dog to promote it in months and if you pay an extra $50 or $25 you can have the pass and I think I mean I have no idea how many dog owners would pay to use the dog park but we certainly could generate some money to increase the registration fee by $10 that's $12,000 so that will pay for some fencing we don't have to increase the registration fee we just structure the use fee if we structure the use fee say arbitrarily at $50 a year which is not much if you're going to use a dog park regularly you get 200 people you got 10 grand couple of years of that you built another dog park let's not let that stall the progress for a new fence no I don't want it to stall but I just think to address some of the financial concerns that's in our thinking and I think that makes more fiscal sense and is a responsible way to go forward not just say well we're going to find $11,000 or whatever it is $20,000 and hope that this works so that's just it may not generate enough confidence for you I just am not certain that we can find a temporary fence that would actually work a couple of things number one I would encourage you to task the task force with a question about which spot at veterans memorial park that group has spent a whole lot more time talking about it and I'm sure would be happy to go and look at it and make a determination based on Betty has done more research than anybody I know about dog parks and things about that the second thing is that I believe correct me if I'm wrong and other members of the task force that are here I believe that the task force is going to be a very important part of your charge we really want to try to make this accessible to people so that I know but I'm just what we talked about and it was very preliminary but what we talked about was making a modest increase in the registration fee for dogs assuming that more people would register because they would want to use the dog park and that that in and of itself but it would be included in your license so that it wouldn't have as much sting to it and it would encourage more people to register their dogs but we can have more conversation about that so I'm just sort of tossing that out there as another perspective and not right or wrong just part of the preliminary conversations if you have a pass to go to a public pool a municipal pool you pay for that pass but I think that dog parks are similar to that I would agree because I needed to represent the perspective of at least one member of our task force who believes that the dog park should not have another fee attached to it so that it is reasonably accessible to people unlimited so I'm just making sure that all of the discussions are I think that's good so we have a motion that's been made in seconded are you ready for that vote to be clear we're talking about closing JC Park leaving it closed and as exponentially as possible opening a new dog park somewhere in veterans to be vetted by the dog task force right that wasn't part of the motion I don't care how it happens that's going to be dictated to a great extent by the insurance situation the other two I think we can address who might make that selection in the next item talk about a dog task force and what we task them to do to be clear we're resiting the previous vote we said we were reopening in June yes we're just voting over it because we're closing JC Park we're keeping it closed and moving it as expeditiously as we can to Veterans Memorial Park pending and to be clear hopefully that's within several weeks and tasking the committee we haven't gotten to that let's do that next okay okay so are you ready for the vote one favor signify by saying aye opposed okay so four to one thank you very much I know how you feel I just want more dog parks what you all do okay number 11 this is probably going to be a little bit more lengthy so Sue are you ready for a break okay so five minute recess and come back at as close to nine as we can wander in to take up item number 11 so I would like to call back into session the South Bronton City Council for our meeting on Monday May 21st 2018 and we'll pick up with item 11 which is providing clarification on official structure and charge for a new dog park subcommittee and we have in our packet as you notice the first item is a proposal it was not identified as a proposal that Councillor Emory has worked on but because I was a little confused because I knew you were putting one but I didn't have a name and I thought oh I don't know what this is so I'm letting you know that this one is her proposed change for a council point of charge for a council point of subcommittee and then we have a recommendation from Jennifer Cokman who is the chair of the parks and rec committee and then we also have some thoughts and recommendations from Betty Militia who served on the task force so we've got kind of three proposals or thoughts before us all a little bit different and so I would open it up to discussion about what people are thinking we also have before us the what they think is an appropriate structure if it's a little bit from each of them what would it look like so that we come to some conclusion on that and if we need to include in our advertisement for the applications for different committees that we could hopefully include a new or a could be returning members apply but a comprehensively or thoughtfully created committee or task force or subcommittee whatever it is how we define it and what we need so is there someone who would like to you want to start I'm sorry I did this as expeditiously as I could it did certainly be altered what I did is I took the original motion at the May 7th meeting and I don't know why I put a number one to it but that's the number one I think I was going to do some points and instead I chose hyphens and then I went and I looked at the various proposals between Jennifer Cokman's and Betty Melitzia's and also read the minutes from the May 7th meeting in order to just digest that feedback which led to those bullet points there so I think it's really important that we have a committee that is formed just like our other city committees where the terms are two to three years that members are selected through an application and interview process that as the task force recommended the members represent a cross-section of the community with at least one expert on canine behavior and as a way to bring the two proposals together I thought that having liaisons that would be full-fledged members of this committee one from or two from recreation parks and one or two from local resources that that would be a nice way for both of those committees to be apprised of what the dog task force the dog committee dog park committee was working on and be able to have input the and these could be reordered but in terms of the reporting I thought it made sense given the need for dog parks to be acted upon fairly quickly that they report directly to the council and that with regard to the two committees that have liaisons they would also go before those committees when requested that their charge would be also to review site selection criteria for future dog parks in the city as proposed by the dog park task force and that's the general adoption by the council and that's the matrix that we saw at the May 7th meeting and then also down below review operational policies, procedures, maintenance including safety, gating, locking, hours of operation, friends groups as appropriate etc before finalizing site selection criteria and throughout their term and or the life of the committee and then hold a community form prior to making a recommendation for the May 7th meeting that those were the recommendations from the task force. So comments or questions of Megan? I love it, I would just tweak one thing since it's going to report directly to the council and I talked to a couple of these and I think it just should be a freestanding committee I think I suggested the subcommittee I only just want to expedite things but I think a freestanding committee is warranted so that would be my one recommendation to tweak this. Can I ask a question? Sure, yes. Chief on the council that that the the work of the committee requires a permanent standing committee of the city freestanding committee for a year or so or can this have a life of some tasks or some number of years I'm just concerned about staffing and all these things that you laid out in here Megan are important things to be considered but at some point they will be established. That's why I put the life of the committee in the first to last bullet point. Do you want to have two and three-year terms staggered terms and stuff like that or do you just want to appoint people for a three-year term and see if they can get their work done I would hope that they could get it done in three years don't you think and then sighting of dog parks at some point you'll have enough of them I would think there's never enough know so is that can we yeah I change it to not be a subcommittee but and so they they would so I guess your your number one the council wouldn't charge the parks and rec committee to establish a subcommittee but we would create a time limited maybe we should continue to call it a task force a dog park task force to be selected you know all the and you know maybe we want to just make it three years or five years or I don't know four years or something and appoint people for the duration okay do yeah I'm perfectly open to that idea do we need a resolution for that I like this so similar to the okay yeah I think all our committees are all the committees are set up just draw the lines okay so this should be so should be resolved that we create this so what I would propose is that we let the standing task force stay at least in you know together until we come I would be the first meeting then in June I could certainly put together based on this input a resolution and we could determine there you know would it be until the park is erected at Veterans Memorial is it until we have our appointees determined you know what that life of the existing task force would be oh so you're saying we would continue with the existing task force to do what well we have J.C. Park that's now being considered I think that they sorry Veterans Memorial Park being now considered and they've put a lot of oh so have them make that decision I get it they've given a lot of thought to the shape of a dog park the layout of a dog park accessibility issues for a dog park they've gone through a lot and I would prefer that that come from a task force those recommendations okay so how does that set with people we'll have a resolution for the next meeting that will create a task force and task them with what Megan said making this move making the decision about where at veterans memorial not going to wait two weeks for that that decision where it's going to go at veterans memorial should be made in the next few days well that's why I think that the task force would be constituted they could we could give that to them now yes and the resolution would not it would just be this with a four year term or a three year term depending on the life of the committee being a freestanding committee or freestanding task force so the resolution we would vote on in two weeks this current task force we would ask them I guess we probably have to have a motion to direct them to select continue their work and select the site for memorial park veterans memorial park dog site we need a motion for that and then in two weeks we can do the formal creation of this new task force that will have a time certain and then that's in time that would be timely enough for us to advertise for people to apply and become part of this four year task force or three year probably sounds better to have it a three year task force four year sounds like and we could always renew or revise the question I have is Maggie Lugers is currently out of town for the next the next force has a meeting scheduled on May the 30th May the 30th so that's next next Wednesday next Thursday yes Jennifer Cogman I'm chair of recreation parks committee and I submitted a statement to you based on what I thought was coming out as from the last meeting but you know things change I just want I just want to remind people of a couple of things our bylaws state in article two that recreation parks committee has review of park and facility related projects and review of department policies and city policies affecting the department and so I like it that you're including two people from our committee on the task force their meeting on May 31st and I would like to have a couple of appointments to that meeting so that when we are thinking or a subsequent meeting so that when we're thinking about setting up a framework or bylaws or whatever is going to state what this committee will be doing our task force or whatever you want to call it that recreation parks is involved in the formation of that framework or bylaws I would like to include that as part of the resolution as part of the resolution which is not what we're voting on tonight in two weeks in setting up the task force that when they meet it will include recreation and parks representatives to help in the formulation of bylaws and setting up the framework for a three year committee do you think bylaws is necessary I was wondering the and I'm trying to remember what I did for the resolution for the economic development committee but the committee should organize themselves just like we do there should be a chair there should be... I guess it boils down to that who's going to be in that organizing meeting and saying you know this is how often we're going to meet you know all the stuff that goes into forming those would be the grownups who would be members of the task force that's how I would see it Jennifer does recreation and parks appoint our two members or no your committee yes I thought you meant the department recreation and parks you're setting it up so that we have two representations one or two we have to decide how you will have representations has two so okay at the organizing meeting then this thing doesn't actually start until the people are appointed that will be we'll have the resolution and that conversation in discussion and then we will have representations and people coming forward and we'll be I think that takes care of it I hope it will be really clear what we want this task force to accomplish could you send drafts of that to Betty and to me so that we can review that with people that would be fine thank you and the current task force that would be great any other thoughts about this just one other thing we have a member from recreation and parks and national resources and they've been functioning wonderfully on the task okay and I just want to I do want to make a shout out because I did I was present at one of your meetings just half of it and I thought that the expertise our committee members such as Betty and Linda but I also think Barb your experience on other boards that you really did just an excellent job it was not easy that first hour I did not know how the second hour was going to go and from your report after the meeting it sounded like and I saw, I witnessed just amazing people skills in making controversy and argument and disagreement at least start taking some direction and be just given the tenor of a civic meeting and I really appreciate the leadership that both of you have provided we need more committees Barb that's right thank you I've already tried all right so we have a discussion before us right so we just well shouldn't we don't have a motion so are people comfortable with tasking the current I mean do you want to vote on that so it's very clear or is the task force clear about what we want you to do okay okay so good so we're done with item 11 thank you very much and thank you for pulling some of that together and Megan and being willing to make those changes to accommodate everyone's perspective item 12 consider and possibly approve bid for paving of South Burlington streets and roads Justin Rabadou I just want to note that you've made one counselor very happy her road is on this list me yeah Myers court you've made my neighbors very happy they've been keeping looking at me because I don't see any of our roads I said no I don't I thought it was on the list five years ago so there you go okay please proceed Justin Rabadou director of public works I have with us as late introduction many of you have seen or heard of his work here but Adam Kate is our deputy director of operations and he's going to kind of ride shotgun on this as well as manage the entire program here once it gets going as you see in front of you we had four bidders engineers construction was the lowest bidder they were very close in price to pike we've worked with all four of these companies we're very happy with ECI's work there is a list here of streets I don't know if you guys have any questions it's very straightforward on the bottom we've included a recommendation are there any questions yes is any milling involved in any of these trees or is it just all shit they're milling and there's actually recycling I don't know for those streets that need it is s so is spear street one of those for milling spear street some sections of spear have milling North Jefferson where they have the gullies that are closer to the top of Allen a lot of that can be established through shimming as well prior to paving but the contract contains since the question was asked three different treatment methods if you want to talk about them in a little bit of detail let me also ask the question are there substantial problems with the road bedding in those areas that are going to just have that problem reemerge itself after a couple of years we pave northern sections of spear and they're they're behaving and aging like we would expect them to and it was they were in similar and if you recall down by oak ledge some people might even say it was in worse condition than the southern sections are today so we've done the same thing recently and everything's aging and deteriorating at the rate that we would expect expected to we don't expect any surprises we want to add on to that as you probably have seen the the crack filling we've done on spear street so that's actually you do that a couple of years after you do the original treatment so it kind of prevents you from having to do that more major stuff underground and market street will be the streetscape that was approved and you know I just simply mentioned market street in here this is not part of our annual paving contract but it's another area because I think a lot of people particularly market school parents would be interested to hear that not only is market street getting paved it's being fully reconstructed from the bottom up with every conceivable amenity that one would want given the amount of money we're spending on it that's badly needed any other questions Tim? you're intending on keeping spear width identical to what it is today yes are there any streets that you're going to narrow in width at all are you just going to keep them all the same width? everything is essentially these are maintenance projects everything is essentially kind of curb to curb so road edge what we might do with some of them is take opportunities to move the paint markings around to introduce bike lanes where for example historically there may have been 16 foot wide lanes just because that's what we did way back when so when we have those opportunities so the pavement width itself will remain the same but the allocation of space and do you have a rough schedule of which streets would go first in a chronological order as opposed to the these are alphabetical although I did like the notion that you thought that spear was our lowest priority one of the first things we do once you presumably authorize the manager to enter into all contracts the first thing a contractor always owns the owner on any project is a schedule as soon as we have that we'll make it available through the manager is part of that it's in their best interest to organize it in such a way that the equipment is moved through the city they're going to come here once and be here for the duration of them so they'll probably have a preferred preferred order in terms of their equipment and stuff like that they'll do similar treatments probably together because that involves a similar equipment I understand I mean you do but I just would encourage you to continue to really let the public know when different streets are going to be worked on so and I know you can't always have a time estimate like it's beginning now and it's going to end in two weeks but the more information that is shared with the public then I think they're happier they're always happy when it's done flyering all the budding properties certainly in a not the day before either great thank you I think that's helpful they ask us and then we have to ask you and then we have to get back to them so okay and I think from porch forum I think we often do that and that's a that is what not everyone's on it I understand but that's a good but neighbors talk too any other comments or questions so I would entertain a motion that we award the FY1819 paving contract to ECI and authorize the city manager to sign all paperwork and return to public works for final processing second I think so moved second okay any further discussion all in favor signify by saying aye thank you are you plugged into that because I'm just spinning this back up again do you want to use this one yeah I can do whatever it's easier for little bugs so we're going to continue with item 13 presentation on concerns related to the and again it's Justin and Adam Kate so yeah while we're figuring out where this goes anywhere wait you need the little connector yeah it doesn't so thank you by also again by way of introduction Craig Lambert is the department's city arborist and then so I think he is also the city's city arborist and I want to thank Adam and Craig for their leadership on this they brought this issue to our attention to the management's attention and we thought we just wanted to get out ahead of this for a bunch of reasons one there might be some money involved two there's starting to be a little undercurrent of discussion Digger had an article recently seven days did and I think the public has become a little bit more aware of the presence of emerald ash borer here in Vermont so we want to this is not an action item this is just kind of so when we do come back in some period of time you'll at least have this in the back of your memory so I'll we PR had a program also it should plug into that it's plugged in ash borer so is it a power point Justin yes go ahead and hit the and then start your power point side from the beginning is that an emerald ash borer I'm not familiar with all these computers that's what they're dreaming aqua borer can you get to the original destroying the coral reef he's trying to get close to the lava flowing now unbelievable I'm amazed that he just stays so close to it that's I should read the article it's not like they can stop it yeah you should build a wall anti-level wall just had this in here it's sort of sad have you ever been to Hawaii I mean you've only been once and you I can remember I don't know where we were driving there'd been an eruption years ago and so everything was just black lava on this road I mean you look like you're on the moon okay we have two that's pretty incredible there we go we have the right one beautiful blood I can read Animal Drive okay it's a ridge though do you realize the hours we'll try to move along I can certainly read this out loud do you but I think everybody kind of knows at this point kind of the overview of what this bug presents certainly Craig can give you some of the more details I think you've probably all heard by now that emerald ash borer has been found in Vermont I was quite frankly expecting it earlier it was found in Central Vermont North Central Vermont so this is kind of an overview of what it is and how it's going to impact something in the future Blame it on Michigan yeah it did first get established in Michigan in 2002 and is now in 32 states and three provinces in Canada it is estimated that it is cost almost $11 billion so far in treatments, removals and replacements of ash trees can you just go back to that picture and at the bottom it says the ash mortality due to EAB, the photo taken in August I looked at the picture and is it just the grey stuff is those the ash trees those are all dead ash trees there's a much more striking photo later than that's the adult emerald ash borer so it's very small which is part of the reason that it's been difficult to detect that's what's decimating Yellowstone or is that some other beetle no that's a pine bark beetle pine bark beetle that's it Craig had mentioned the Vermont heat map as of two weeks ago it's been found in Barry Grotton, Marshfield Orange I believe so the orange center is where it's actually been found the yellow is high risk area so it's within 45 miles or so of here the state's been the state is really proactive with the information and here's a couple of things in which they've initiated right now they're trying to delineate exactly where where this is the way ash borer moves is on firewood and logs because it can only fly about two miles a year so if people were spreading it around here it would be nowhere near here so lagers take trees down and move them around so one of the states you notice their action verb is slow not stop the spread but they're starting to create these areas where wood cannot be shipped in and out of Vermont's joined a national quarantine to stop the interstate it can still be shipped within the quarantine area only at certain times of the year when it's less act to be spread from a forestry point of view ash is valuable for what? for firewood or pulp or it's used for furniture baseball bats hockey sticks so it's some high end products not just firewood this is on swiss street extension we have a map we have a map on a bench showing the concentrated areas so we were planting them as we developed areas that looks like a planted the areas there are three main neighborhoods so to me this is one of the pictures that worries me in terms of how some of these neighborhoods will show you in a minute are planted because this could very conceivably happen to us and we want to get out ahead of it and probably start letting our residents know that we probably want to take down some of these currently healthy looking trees and replant and Craig can get more into that my biggest concern is having dealt with all sorts of stuff in Burlington and stuff that people generally don't like to cut down what they perceive as a healthy tree but we're going to probably want to do that because it's going to the bigger picture is going to be either we have no trees or we're going to have to take down and start cycling out this is the fact that they're touching that it spreads from tree to tree so you try to diversify well it's mainly just the species they'll fly to the species so once they're in an area they're going to go to the ash trees you're not going to stop when you see one ant in your basement you have more than one ant the diversification that is something that we are trying to do is when I first started here 20 years ago we did a tree inventory and I pretty much put a halt to planting ash because I realized we had too many of them every development project that comes through Craig provides input on species selection he's very mindful about what works next to each other certain areas in South Burlington, certain soils but also not, as you'll see in a second not overly relying on any one species in any one area because this could always happen I didn't know this until Craig told me it's actually not the adult it's the larvae that create the cause of damage to trees this is the typical life cycle you see the adult and they are just emerging right about now the adult they come out of the tree and it's the green beetle they fly and they feed on the foliage then they lay eggs and the bark crevices and the larvae when the eggs hatch the larvae bore into the tree and the serpentine that's them feeding on the cambium of the tree so essentially what they do is girdle the tree so are you not recommending that any developer put in ash? correct Craig said you stopped 20 years ago allowing ash in the city oh really? 20 years ago? we're recommending 15 anyway well that sounds logical to me these are some of the typical symptoms you'll see of ash that are affected they're never coming back they're dead you can chop them down woodpeckers did you see woodpeckers pecking on ash trees there's a good chance that there may be there are also some native whores that affect ash trees but they generally tend to affect the only trees that are in poor health they're kind of a calling agent currently in south burlington we have 760 ash trees out of a total of what? 5800 or so so it's about 13% of the street tree population but like I said the main problem is about 80% of those are in three neighborhoods and those are the neighborhoods brand farm, the golf course neighborhoods and dorset farms some insider mill there are a few insider mill there are other ones that are scattered around but the concentrations are in those three neighborhoods so they're not found in some of the forests this is just in our right of way I have no idea what we've got on private property because they are a native tree correct they make up about 5% of Vermont you're not going to touch anything in the forest it's really the right of way ones that you're taking and chopping down and diversifying as much as you could and have been doing Craig is I've started in some of the areas where there are some spaces I've planted some trees from our tree nursery in between existing ash trees mainly to get them established ash has come down it won't be as dramatic there will at least be something there that's not really a viable solution not enough room I have done it in a few areas on that's Brand Farm I've done some on Midland Avenue in Dorset Farms and a little bit on Nolan Farms where we've got long long areas where it's just a stretch of trees without a lot of curb cuts and light holds and infrastructure that doesn't really allow you to put those things in between this is kind of what Adam was referring to is we'd like to start doing some proactive removal of trees in neighborhoods and replant that's something I think we can do if we start doing it proactively we can do that in-house with public works crews slowly over time probably mainly in the winter between snowstorms we have winter where it snows every day anyway you're prepping us so that when people get to us about taking trees down we know and then certainly any type of action would be back before you to raise awareness and you can burn it as far as it would after it's been infected you can burn it but you can't move it so when you take down these trees what are you going to do with it probably Chippelman and Sunderman drop them off to 1600 I'll take it Craig wanted to mention this because it came up I heard the VPR thing too people think you can cure and prevent all you're doing is delaying so these type various types of injections it's not again we're trying to slow slow the spread slowly inevitable we don't really recommend doing this type of knowing what the endgame is we don't recommend doing any but we thought we'd at least throw it out there because the only thing I would think about maybe doing injections probably soil injections just to give us a bigger window to start moving trees out of them is that expensive the soil injection is not terribly expensive the direct injection is mainly because it's so time consuming you can treat one tree and the materials aren't cheap either time to plant Dutch Sheldon again are we sending little critters over other parts of the world that we don't know about they're already there right back at you so what kind of tree are we going to get I mean in the end because the elms were out I mean I've been planting a fair number of elms they're coming back now they aren't native elms the ones I'm planting they're hybrid Asiatic elms which actually evolved with Dutch Elm disease so they have some resistance I've been planting some River Birch London Plain Tree these are what we've been growing in the nursery Freeman Maples although we should probably slow down our use of Maples because we have a lot of them swamp white oats those are what I've been growing in the nursery so as you can see we're proposing to having Craig continue to interplant probably this coming winter we'll start seeing some selective removal Craig thinks that the rate of spread right we don't really know so if we think about selective injections if it starts getting closer to us before we have the half a million dollars or if we choose to even go that route to replacing kinds but you'll probably hear a little bit more from us at the budget season maybe we want to establish a tree fund that gets accrued annually it's a $20,000 set aside or something that just accrues annually until such time we can't really predict other than we know it's coming to be continued discussion and certainly Craig do you need more nursery space because of this coming at us the nursery isn't really something that we can use for a large scale planting it's mainly done with volunteers we've actually got some pretty decent trees out of the nursery but I've always viewed it more as kind of an outreach education type of a project right now we plant 20 or 30 trees a year out of the nursery and that's really about as much as we can maintain Craig didn't the dollar figure is predicated on roughly $600 a tree which includes contracted labor to kind of remove and replant stuff like that that's a replanting cost hope to get them down in advance that's all any other comments thoughts well I'm pleased that you're being proactive about this and I appreciate your efforts I think that's really smart of us as a community because it would be devastating to have I don't know a housing development that's been around for 30 years and how trees are all grown up and then you're back in a open field this is in the budget I'm sure this is in the budget you can't stop this stuff is this in the budget no it's not we would be looking to program possibly next budget cycle so you're just waiting you're just planting the seed with us worried enough to say oh yes you don't think that this thing is going to be contained in Central Vermont it's a matter of time it's been it's been surrounding Vermont for about 10 years why it's surprising that it was only this year that it was found yeah it could be closer it just hasn't been found closer thank you all okay moving on to item 14 council discussion and possible approval proposal to hire in-house council we have Andrew Balgu back we already have in-house council we already have in-house council he's been doing it for free though he finally decided he wants to get paid you don't know lawyers well enough what if we say no Andrew Balduck city attorney I don't know Andrew Balduck city attorney I don't have too much to add from the materials I handed in your packet the memorandum and the kind of mock or draft job description I kind of want to reiterate though that this is talking about what I kind of consider as overflow work not necessarily specialized work that's nothing against the quality of outside council that we've had this is just work that I could see being brought in-house the long-term legal needs of the city would probably be with the opportunity now I think would be a good time for this so okay questions not at all for the public we've already discussed this and it makes a lot of sense financially and comparatively to other municipalities so I support this so this would begin exactly when we start the search process right away and hope July 1st so start next fiscal year and so the offset is that what we would save in spending so much on outside council would fund this person it would be a reallocation of funds okay is there any other discussion does everyone I guess I'll just say it maybe of benefit to have several attorneys work with the city and I think that every attorney brings something that is unique so I just think that that is something that we would lose can we still have opportunities where we have to use outside council for those types of nuanced skills we will still be using those right I understand okay well do you have any special wording for the motion nope we approve the hiring of additional in house council to handle our legal issues and save us money second any further discussion it is a paralegal because we had discussed last time an attorney attorney I think was the thought you just described a paralegal as a comparison okay but this will be an attorney public burlington has six attorneys does that scale with us twice our size okay no further discussion all in favor please signify by saying aye thank you it is a paralegal they're looking to hire it's a paralegal yeah it's a well trained paralegal with experience okay thank you moving on to item 15 consider and adopt process for application and appointment to the volunteer committees and everyone we have a sheet in front of us that outlines all of our committees we just created a new one tonight or we will I'm sorry in two weeks and that will get added to this we don't maybe in your resolution Megan when you work on that we should think about a good number for the seven I think is a good number seven I think and that's the n