The only person that looks funny at me the other day was the woman with, well, the only, well, a couple of people, the woman with green hair and pajama pants didn't look as funny as she did, so. I have a friend who had chemo. Oh, I don't need that. I hid that for a client. Let's get out of there. Interesting. Tonight? Yeah, tonight. Yeah. So that was good. I haven't been to the new one yet. I've only been in the old one bashing things down. Oh, wow. Well, I could have said it. Checking them apart. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to work. Okay. I haven't decided yet, but I'm going to do this. Well, it's, and there is a. That's a little piece. I have a thing to report on that for the monitor. Check, check, check. Check. You can hear me back there. Yeah. Test, test, test, test, test. Are we getting checks? Check, check. Can you hear me back there? Paul, can you hear me? I forgot about that. That's kind of a nice little city. Yeah. Big bucks, right? Yeah. Okay. I forgot to. Good evening, Madam Chair. Good evening, Mr. City Manager. Good evening, Councillors. Okay. Mr. Hubbard. So we're a few moments late, but we now have a quorum and the TV is on. On. So I would like to call to order the South Burlington City Council meeting of Monday, December 4th. And we'll begin with the pledge of allegiance. And Tam, do you want to leave that office? 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. The next item is instructions on exiting the building in case of an emergency. In case of an emergency tonight, we ask everybody to leave the conference room out the front doors and gather in the parking lot to the south of the building. If there is a reason we cannot get through these doors, then please use one of these two exits to leave and go out to the parking lot. Tom and I will be Tom Hubbard and I will be responsible for making sure the building is clear. So do not hesitate to pick up and leave. Okay. Thank you. So agenda review, additions, deletions or changes in order of the agenda items. I understand that number nine, paving and water billing update and review of the smart cities conference. Yes. Justin is unable to attend this evening. And so we're going to have to ask council's approval of moving that item to another council meeting. Okay. Okay. This year. Possibly next year. Possibly next year. Yeah. But soon. The meeting on the 18th is looking like it's. Chocolate block full. Justin would otherwise be here. I had an injury and we'll just not be able to attend. We hope he's back to work tomorrow. Okay. I would like to add an item under other business to just have a brief, um, discussion about, um, really the things that you would like me to, um, promote and discuss with mayor Weinberger. Um, when I meet with him with, um, mayor Leonard from Winooski. So just really explore what some of the things I'm thinking and some ideas that the council might have. Did you meet with him before you left? I did. Yeah. So this will be a second one. Okay. And that is our plan. And I can go over what we chatted about at that last meeting and I meet again with him on the 15th. So we won't really have the opportunity to take any action on anything as a council, but I certainly can convey the council council's, um, sentiments on different issues. And that's what I would like to discuss. Are there any other this week? Um, I believe on Friday. Great. The 15th, I think whenever that's not this week. That's next week. Yeah. Um, any other additions, deletions or changes in the order? No. Okay. Thank you. Um, next item is comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda. Are there any? Okay. Seeing none. We'll move on to announcements and the city manager's report. So Tom, would you like to start? Sure. I don't know if I attended anything. Nothing comes to mind, but I will use this time just to promote this coming Sunday, the ugly sweater run for the Rotary. So it's going to be a Veterans Memorial starting at 9 a.m. And if you're looking for a good time to run and walk in some pretty cold air and see a lot of funny looking sweaters. Where do you start from? Veterans Memorial. Veterans Memorial? You can walk. You don't have to run.  It's also to benefit the Humane Society of South Burlington. So how do we donate? You can pay to walk. I think it's $35, but you get a hat and you get... All we can turn around and give somebody else the money for there? Absolutely. Okay. Is it going to be a timed race on a 5k course? I believe so. Okay. I'm going to pant it. Pant it for five? Do you have your sweater to show us tonight? I didn't bring it. Will you take a picture to show us? Thank you. All right. Tim, do you have any? I ate a lot of turkey last week. And I also did work for a couple of hours in the old library, banging apart shelves and stuff. And I know that there's a soft opening with some view by the public and people on Wednesday, right? No. Is it the seventh? It must be Thursday. Thursday. I think it's the seventh. There's a reception. I think Tim's referring to it on Wednesday and I for a certain group. But on the seventh is the real opening. Oh, okay. So that's why I was kind of asking who was going to the meeting tomorrow night? Yes, I am. The whole three of you were going? I'm planning to go. Okay. And Megan is out of town. Right, right. So we'll just ask you to get up and say we've got three people here? Sure. So my services have been requested again to assemble stuff. So I haven't made a decision yet because I kind of would like to go with this meeting as well. Thank you. Tomorrow's meeting, the NCP. Okay. That's all I have. Okay, good. Well, I appreciate your efforts in helping out with the library move. It's pretty exciting. Yeah. Yeah. Pat? Actually, I did not attend, but I wanted to just give you an update that Megan had asked about, she hadn't seen the public notice as far as the meeting for tomorrow. And I think we might be getting some of the meetings mixed up between the noise compatibility program and the ones that's open for, I mean, more for the public, you know, comment. So I thought what I'd like to do is to just review the agenda for tomorrow. Okay. So that everyone would be aware. It's from 5 to 6.30 at the airport. And there's the welcome. Then they're going to review the June 17th open house. There'll be a public forum and comment period that will run in there for about 15 minutes. There will be a review draft of the noise compatibility program, table of contents chapter one, overview purpose guidelines. And then there will be an overview of the existing NCP chapter three overview of the navigation agreements that I think people have been, you know, wanting to know what that involves and all. And then the technical advisory committee will have questions and comments during the period ending at 6.30. Now that is the agenda as it has been sent out. There are, the invitees are obviously the folks that we appointed to attend for us. You, Paul. Carmen and George. Carmen and George. And the other communities have kind of a broad brush. I believe the guards involved and others as well. Kevin would be able to bring us up to date on that one better. And then there are 10 others that are invited. Some are staff at the airport and the airport commission. And I think we attend as observers, but I'm sure they would give an opportunity for comment as we need to. So I'd be happy to forward Nick Longo's piece that came to me, but the broader brush piece. And I did ask, I contacted our aviation director and said, you know, I think it's really important for our public to know every meeting that's being held. You know, because if the FAA, and I understand this is not the public forum type, but nonetheless, there is public comment that people can give. But I think the more our folks can be educated and have an opportunity to attend, be it even the noise compatibility, smaller group, the advisory group, or the larger one, I think it makes them better prepared for it. So I will ask before the next NCP meeting that there be a broader piece on there. Now I know it was put on their site. Well, a broader advertising. It may not be quite the same as what's going to happen with the big public forum type thing when the FAA is present. But I think communication wise, if that's the piece that we've had the problem with, then I think keeping the communication as broad as we can is an advantage to our South Billington residents, you know, on there. So. I think it's really hard to come in for the public meeting on the final draft. And, you know. Well, they're going to have more than that along the way. But it's the interesting piece is that if people stay involved, even with the parts that they're not participating in along the way, I think it gives a broader scope for our folks to understand what's coming up. There was also a piece that did come out. And I won't go through and read the whole thing. But on this, what did get sent out to all of the folks coming, the agenda, the materials, the presentation, draft minutes. And there is a video recording of the last meeting that was held on October 17th. So I think that's important. Tomorrow, by the way, it's in room three. And so I look for... Is that the room where we usually meet? It's one of the... I thought it was... I thought the third was the big room up there. You know, the one at the very end. But it does say room three. Okay. Thank you. Yep. I did not go to any meetings. I was away having a wonderful trip on the Blue Danube. Highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get away and have good food and learn a lot about periods of history in Eastern Europe that I didn't know much about. But I was interviewed today by CAX regarding the sale of the land, the agreement between UVM and... Was it Swift and Spear LLC or something? About the development of that property. So... And basically, I was... Gave them a pitch that we really need affordable housing built in South Burlington. And I hope that they could work creatively with us to accomplish that. Who was the final purchaser of the land? Well, it's the Swift and Spear Associates. And I guess the... Okay. Okay. Yep. And I missed it. Sorry about that. Did you write this? I see it. No, it's the press release. No, I had... I think I had read that before. I got this from a UVM official today this afternoon. And I just made a copy of it for you. Okay. I've been away on vacation too. Let me first recognize my colleague Tom Hubbard for keeping the ship of state sailing very well. Great job. Is there a question? I had a question. Just about the efforts and devours around noise. How is the city coordinating with the school around all of those issues around noise? With the airport or just noise in general? Yeah. How is the city managing that, coordinating with the schools, district, all of those businesses? Well, I can tell you one item, if I might add in here, is that the... And there has been answers that have come back through the FAA and via the airport. And I did report on it at the last meeting that I think was the last meeting or the second last meeting. Can't remember. That mitigation cannot start until after all of those final 39. They're not new houses. These are all under the old buyout. But they have until December 31st to make a decision if they are going to, you know, those last 39 people, the majority of whom are going to be moving. And, pardon me. But the mitigation piece cannot begin until that other part is closed. And that's an FAA piece. So what will happen is, at least my understanding of the timing on this, is this piece ends. There will be some houses that will not be, they'll be eligible to for that buyout. But they have been given a little bit longer time because of their age, the owners of the home. So if you see a house coming down later on, it doesn't mean that they've extended this purchasing. That program will actually come to an end. And then the mitigation begins. Now, there have had the first, and there's been a lot of communication between our superintendent and the airport director. And the FAA, and I can't tell you whether, yes, the school will absolutely get all the mitigation that they need. But none of the mitigation can start for any of the homeowners or any of the public buildings or anything until the program commences. At the closing of one, then the next one starts. And they already had received, the airport had received the money for the consultants for that. They are in place. The program is designed so that the FAA wants to hear from the public, as opposed to just the elected officials in the community as to what they would like. This is what the open forum meetings are for. Noise compatibility piece is a separate type issue. That has to be done. That is required by the FAA to have a noise compatibility program completed so that they can go into the mitigation program. So the item is, while we would like it to happen yesterday, unfortunately timing-wise, with the government being involved, what happens is we have about a six-month period of time, is my understanding, to have our meetings. Then the FAA takes all of that into consideration of what we are asking for, for mitigation, and what they have available under their programs. Then they get about a six-month period of time to make a decision. And this is when things would get started. So unfortunately, while we would like to have it, as I say, done very quickly, we are at the mercy of the government with this, unfortunately. But as it starts, my hope is that it will seem to go quicker than what we are hoping for. But anytime you deal with the feds and whatever, the process is not quite there. The airport in the FAA is very aware of the desire to have mitigation for the school. I mean, that is out there. And where the pecking order comes into play, I don't know how that will happen. But patience, I guess, is one of the items that is probably going to be harder for us to have with this. But I think that's what we're going to have is some patients to see how we can get through this. But once the mitigation program starts, that means that the other program has been finished. And though you may see a couple of houses coming down after that, it's all part of the old program. If there's anything else that I can get through, I'd be glad to. So we can talk after even. Diane, in terms of how the city is coordinating with the school board, Kevin and I meet with the superintendent and Elizabeth every couple of weeks. And that usually is one of the items that we discuss. But I just would note that we try to be careful and recognize that they have the responsibility and interest in their schools. And it's really their issue. It's not something that the city would necessarily move forward on without, I mean, we really need their leadership, I guess, in terms of advocating for requesting the noise mitigation for the school. And they have done that. And they'll share their correspondence with us. So we're kept abreast then. And we also share with them, these are the steps that we are taking in order to make headway with the airport and the FAA. So it's coordinated, but it's kind of, it's really two different governmental entities that need to work kind of together, but separately because the issues are a little bit different. So that's how it gets. And my point in bringing that to you, the attention there is more as your representative to the Airport Commission from South Bowlington and the information that I get from them to share back here. Kevin, do you have anything else to add? Well, David attends the Technical Advisory Committee meetings on behalf of David and sometimes they'll bring another member of the team. But as both Pat and Helen, I talk with David probably a couple of times a week on a list of issues of common interest that's always a big one. So we coordinate quite closely on that. But again, as Helen notes, that's their school and we try not to get in. Do we have a steering committee coming up? Oh, yeah. When was the last one, October? There was a fall one. There was a fall one. So probably January or February. Well, yeah, I think it was October 17th, was it? Something like that, yeah. Anyway, I just want to thank Tom for filling in for me while I was away. Thank you very much. I'm going to be back. You've talked about the Technical Advisory Committee tomorrow at five o'clock. You have the UVM press release that I copied off for you, just a couple of other things. You should have received an invitation from the O'Brien Brothers for a ribbon cutting at 11 a.m. on Friday for the hillside at O'Brien Farm. It would have been later on. Yeah, I just got it, like for 30 today or something. Check your email on that. And if you didn't get it, let me know because you're all invited to that. The Attorney General has signed off, found the Union Municipal District Agreement to be consistent with state law. He signed off on it, so it has cleared that hurdle. And the next step in the process would be to bring this to you for your consideration to present to the voters in March. And so I will have a packet to you next week, well before you would normally get your big packet and outline some of the rationale behind this and so on. We would hope, Chair, approving that you consider this on the 18th at your meeting. The other potential member communities have it on their agendas this month as well. So we're very pleased with that. CCRPC is having their legislative breakfast on Tuesday. I think you may have gotten an invitation to that. I'm not sure. That may have just gone out to the representatives of the communities. It's a pretty good meeting. Tuesday like tomorrow? No. Or next Tuesday? Tuesday like next Tuesday. Oh, okay. The 12th. The 12th, yeah. What time and where? It's at 7.30 at the DoubleTree. The Trader Dukes? I'm sorry, Trader Dukes. Yes. Thank you for correcting that. Right. A little bit of sad news. Our newest canine police officer, Rumble, has developed some health or some structural issues with his legs. Oh. And after several consultations with veterinarians and a couple of opinions, the belief is that Rumble will not be able to function as a police dog. Oh. So Officer Bella Vance, who is Rumble's trainer, has asked to be able to acquire Rumble. Oh, sure. Yeah, they were pretty close. Her own dog. And she has a fund, what is that? You fund me? You fund me? Go fund me. Go fund me. Go fund me. Page. Yep. Because Rumble will need surgery. Oh. And the surgery will be expensive, so. Sure. Trevor asked if it was okay for her to set up a you fund me. Go fund me. So at some point we'll be back working with Trevor on locating a new canine. Will she be able to access our, I mean, I guess she could go online and get our emails, but is there, I mean, I know you don't share email lists with people. Maybe you could just put it in the other paper so that other people in the community. Yeah. Oh, good. Okay. Okay. Sounds like a major story. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's not a story. It's too bad. Oh, no. But it would be because I certainly would appreciate an invitation. Oh, sure. And I think, I think with the surgery, he'll be able to need a normal life for a dog. Just not for, it's a very high impact job as a police dog. And anyway, how long does it take to acquire and train a new dog? Oh, well over a year. Yeah. Yeah. And she's been working with him for quite a few months. Yeah. He was already in training. Yeah. Is the injury from his work? I don't think it's a, I think it's more of a genetic. They had thought maybe it was just growing pain. So he was going through, but apparently multiple opinions indicate now it's a. Oh, that's too bad. The library. Why is he not putting them down? No, no, no. Tom and I were over at the library today. We had lunch with the staff over there looking at their final plans. They've been through the training on their new software program. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you the sport of all the council. Thank you, Tim, for volunteering to help out that was much appreciated. There's Wednesday night. There's going to be an appreciation. Small or appreciation event for the volunteers who helped out. It's looking great over there. It really is looking great. There's a bunch of stuff around, but they're going to pick that up and vacuum a little bit, but it's looking great. Looking great. So we're looking at a soft opening on Thursday. And then a more formal hard opening in January. After the holiday. And lastly, you may have noticed if you came in the front door, there's some reconstruction, construction going on out front here. We're modifying what is the. It was the assessor's office and is now the tax collector's office. Todd has moved upstairs. And we'll be putting in a window there. That will be a general greeting area. Our hope is to upgrade our. Our customer service. By ensuring that everybody who walks in the door is greeted. Properly. And asks what we can do for them. And directs them either upstairs to. Our staff upstairs or. To the clerk's office. And so. They get a window. What's that? They get a window. They get a window. There's going to be a window there. That's going to be a window there. The water cooler is moved. The water cooler was in bad shape to start. Yeah. Tom, you have any, you were, you were in command here. Just say if any wasn't was in city hall today, that was the noisiest part was trying to get that water cooler out of there. Staff endured a pretty noisy day, but. In a fire. That work is done and. It's exciting. Yeah. Well, greetings like that seems to work for Walmart. They have greeters so we can have greeters. I think that isn't necessarily where we got the idea, but you're right about that. Question. Sure. Is there an update on the Eau Claire farm status? Still in negotiations, but the negotiations are with the. With the team that we're partnering with. With the team that we're partnering with. With the team that we're part of. But still in negotiations. So we present for those negotiations as a team member or. Are we more. Paul is our designated representative on the team. And then Paul keeps Tom and I apprised of. Priced or praised whatever the word is. Apprised of. Probably appraised in Canada, but appraised here. Of what's going on. So. We're hoping for some movement on that shortly. I'm surprised that we hadn't. Had that by now. You know, it just seemed like there was such a rush to, you know, to move this and we. Met to move this and then, you know, to to have things. And while I understand that, I thought that was a little quick. It seemed to be that was their insistence to have that done. Well, I'm just as glad though, because I think it was, it's a complicated. Negotiation and process, so I would rather that they spend. Probably a lot of money on legal advice, but, but negotiating this so that the final. Well, I wasn't sure who was holding up the other side was that. Our team type thing or the other. I don't think we've been. I don't think either side has been holding things up. I think. I think. The issues have changed for the family a little bit. Okay. And are a little bit in flux. And I think that will work itself out. Okay. Fair enough. You know, when you're talking about police dogs, I just want you to know that I was at Heathrow in London. I was selected by the TSA to get a special screening. Oh, really? That was fun. And then when we got to New York, and we were getting our baggage, this cute little Beagle came sniffing around. And I went, Oh no, I have my daughter's bag. I have no idea what has ever been in it. And so this and the, and this little Beagle got real interested in this bag and stuck his nose right in. And the guy said, Do you have any meat products in the bottom of your bag? And I was very relieved that it was meat products he was looking for. And I said, Oh, as a matter of fact, there's a sandwich there. And there's an apple too. And he said, Well, you can't bring those things into the United States. Meat products are apples. Yes. And I said, Well, I have some mustard too. And he said, Oh, no, no, that's okay. Was the meat product, was it a vacuum sealed? No, it was in a sandwich. Oh, okay. It was a sandwich we didn't finish. So then he takes both our passports and leaves. And I'm staying there. I'm thinking, Well, I could recognize the dog, but I am not sure I could recognize the TSA person. And he took our passports, but he did come back. So, they're very careful.  And the Beagle, just like you described. Oh, I know. Green coat. It's a cute little. He loves welch cakes in there. He loves welch cakes. He can't have my welch cake. Right. We gave him treats. That was cute. All right. Moving right along. The consent agenda. It's a sign disbursement approval of the minutes of November 6th and 20th, approve the filing for grant for construction of a new storm water treatment practice near the intersection of Woodcrest Drive and Dean Street, approve a filing for a grant that would cover design and construction costs associated with the retrofit of Kennedy Drive Pond 7 and approve the Heather Field storm water system acceptance and related easements. I would entertain a motion for approval. So moved. And a second. Second. Okay. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? One question I have, and I support this, but could you just maybe inform me, I feel like maybe I should already know this, but maybe the audience at home, what kind of vetting do these storm water system acceptance and related easements go through before it comes to us? So I'm assuming Justin sees it. Do lawyers look over these documents? Or is this just through, how many eyeballs have seen these forms before it comes to us? At least three. So Justin, Tom. They originate with Tom and... D.P.A. Tro. D.P.A. Tro. And Justin. And then Andrew takes a look at them or outside council, depending on what's involved in the, we're acquiring land or something of that nature. So at least three. Andrew is our city attorney. Yes. Right. Okay. Are you ready for the vote? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Great. I'm really glad to see these formal treatments coming along. Yes. They just keep, I mean that list is 157 projects. They're just kind of knocking these off as they get a chance. I think this is, as Justin I think appeared before you, maybe six weeks ago said this is, you just expect to see this coming at you constantly. So we've got a lot of work to do. Right. Well, at least there's some good amount of federal or state dollars that are supporting it. I mean, we have to Andy up as well.  Well, the new culvert that goes underneath, you know, Heinsberg Road, right? Just near Kennedy Drive that cut the road. That, that is a, an Irene approved culvert now, right? So the stream has a, has a regular stream bed, not just a dripping pipe that come dives down, right? And this is adjacent to that, right? Which is just a little bit downstream up to the north, which is one of those, which has all this, you know, impervious surface that drains right into that same gully. So that's, this is good. Which is great. Take care of this piece by piece. It's the only way I can do it. Alrighty. Next item is update on the relocation and process for establishing a dog park. So do we have a little bit of an update? I just thought I wasn't here for that discussion and it wasn't taped. I'm sorry. I could just say that I had a phone call with one resident who was unhappy. I received probably four to six emails from people that were unhappy, dog owners. There was a lot of chatter on Facebook. And so there was, Yes. I read all the chatter. I didn't get. I did. I received an interesting. I received an interesting call and only one.  She felt that there really hadn't been a problem. And, but I had a conversation with someone else who felt they had, but anyway, this one woman, I asked her how many dogs and had she used the airport area one behind Picard circle. And she said she had, but she noticed that this was more in use, the one at the park at JC. And she said, I did leave a couple of times when in the latter part of the afternoon, there were around 12 dogs there. And she said, I talked to the people three were from South Burlington. We have Winooski Essex, whatever other residents were there. And I found it interesting and not that, you know, we limited it and said it had to be South Burlington dogs. But she said, that was the part. And she said, I felt that she said the area was small for the number of dogs that were there. And she said, that's why I left. She said, because when you have too many dogs in an area, that's when you start getting into the problems. But probably what I wanted to say since you weren't here, Helen, was the item is that I thought the discussion that we had that night was interesting. The majority of the counselors had gone and observed over at the park. I certainly had. I probably would have given certain timing may have said, I could have seen an extension because I know Tom was, you know, for, you know, having a little longer period of time to let people know. But I'd like to explain why I came up. I didn't feel that I knew that we're coming into winter weather. If we're going to get anything moved, then it's inappropriate to try to do it when the ground is frozen hard. Other than using the suggestion you had to say, let's do some storm snow fencing and what have you. And that if we had made the decision that it was probably in the best interest that the park not be there, that to delay it was not really serving a whole lot of purpose on the end. And we really, if that had happened that night, it would have been a two, two split. There would have been no action taken. And I felt that we needed to do something to move the piece forward. The other comment that I did get from someone was that they had been a little concerned because the children's playground was very close to the dog park. And that the children seemed to, sometimes with their exuberance, would have gotten the dogs educated or something. But I also look and say I read all the things that came up, as I'm sure you had. And it was sad to see it close. I think some people are not aware of the fact that our two previous dog parks, it was through no fault of our own that we don't have them. That, you know, it was unfortunate that we don't have those. However, that, and I know we had an expender chair that had this done. And I'm sorry that we did that. In retrospect, however, and looking at it, I think what this has told us is that people are very interested in having dog parks. I think more than I even thought of before. But I would hope that it is more for our South Wellington dogs than it is for the neighboring communities. So I thought sharing that piece, I thought, and the women surveyed everyone there. And I thought that was an interesting point to write up. So do you have an, oh, and I have one last item. Okay. My last item on it is we have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep land open in South Wellington. I would hope that we could take a look at all of our open land that we've had. And to find out where we have some opportunities to use land we already own that may not be right in the Chamber of the neighborhood, unfortunately, because that's a pretty tight growth area. No, it has been. And but I'd like to find out the lands that we have available that could be considered in a non-residential neighborhood that we have already purchased and kept open. And if there is a reason because of either conservation or whatever, we can't use it because of a wetland or whatever. But I mean just to kind of rule out the ones that we can't and maybe do that. Is that a possibility? Take a look at our other ones. I think that's what you're doing. Yeah, I think that's what... I'll be doing that now. It needs to be done. I think the only... the step that Maggie's taking is going to lead the effort to form a committee, right, Tom, to evaluate available properties and any restrictions that are on them, looking at proximity to residents and looking at other aspects of it. But right now, she's just assembling the committee. I think that it will take some time. I have strong doubt whether or not we would be able to do anything before the ground freezing. I think that's... Because that recommendation will have to come back to this council and it's just going to take a little while. And I'm not sure if that would work, but your suggestion, if you would share it again, I thought it was great. Well, it's just that if you did have an idea and you wanted to test it, you could use the ground freezing and just make sure you staple it in the ground somehow to so fast as the dogs can't get underneath them.  And then you could move it again if you needed to. It's an idea. My understanding from Maggie, because I met her on the street somewhere, and she has done a lot of research with other communities and has amassed sort of the guidelines that other communities are using. And my understanding is that that's what we've directed the team to do, is to come up with standards that other communities have adopted for our review. So potentially we would have guidelines and standards, I guess. So when we go to site another dog park or dog parks, because I think we need more than one more personally, there will be a process that's clear to the public as well as the requirements that we feel are important. And you know, to the point of the woman who said only three people from South Burlington were there, I mean we could have signs like, you know, for registered South Burlington dogs and sort of encourage that, the registration of animals, because they're not all registered, they won't help the cats, but it would work on the dogs. And I hope that while they're at it, they would look at the fact of the registered piece because there have been circumstances, not necessarily in ours, but in others where one dog has been hurt by another dog and then if somebody leaves, you're not sure if they've had rabies shots or what have you, and so forth. And where does the liability fall on to us, you know, if something comes up or the little kids go up and put their fingers on the fence like this and some friendly dog decides instead of licking them to... Right, we electrify the fence and that happens once. Right, keep them away. Keep them away. I have a lot of good ideas for dog parks. Yes, me too. There was one extra comment by the person that talked to me, and she lives I think next to Mr. Dickinson or in one of those houses, and she expressed a concern that there were taxi drivers or Uber or Lyft operators parking in that area in lieu of being at the airport at very early hours, like at 4.30 in the morning perhaps, which the park is supposed to be closed, I would assume. So maybe if you could ask Chief Whipple to maybe have some people drive by there 4.30 in the morning and just, if they see somebody in the park in the idling, tell them to go away because they shouldn't be there. I've seen tabs there during the day. During the day as well? But not, obviously not when the park is closed. Right, and I heard that complaint from her and I took that seriously because I wouldn't want cars, you know, parking outside my residence in a public park when it's supposed to be closed. Well, that sounds like an issue we should raise with the airport as well. Well, Uber and Lyft... There's a sell parking lot, why can't they park there? I know, I know. But Uber and Lyft and Greencap, they have a contract with the airport. They are not part of like medallion type that get in the queue. They come on call. And so that is the airport. Actually, it is the taxi commission that you would want to deal with in the city. Point to bring up with the mayor. But this is something that that resident can call the non-emergency police number about. Make a complaint about that. Okay, so 8464111.  Now Uber, interesting, I haven't seen that as much as the Greencap. The Greencap, I've seen a number of those that would be drawn in. So Maggie has... I'm sorry. Well, I just got closed out by saying Maggie has been doing quite a bit of research on other jurisdictions, on ordinances, pertinent ordinances. There are books written on this that she is researching. And she's listed four or five different communities looked at their ordinances. So she is doing that. That's great. Great. We need to reinvent this wheel. Tom, you wanted to... Yeah, just a couple things. And I love the open space idea. I would love to make sure everybody knows about our open spaces and that they're dog friendly. And I completely agree that we need more dog parks. And I think that could help address the conversation issue that we had with this one. In my conversations with residents, I just wanted to highlight one thing that I think is important for this whole body to hear since I said it to other residents, precedent matters. And I would say that overturning a decision is a bad precedent. So as to... We were asked to reconsider this notion and the council starts going back and forth on things. It can be very problematic, because then when do you really count on what the council takes action on? But for that same reason that precedent matters, I just... I told them I would make this statement and close a park so quickly. And I would just say in the future, when Baycrest comes online, when we have issues with fireworks, when city center park comes online, when residents have issues, I would just be hesitant to want to act so quickly without collecting more feedback and opinion from residents as well as city staff. I just think we need to make sure the staff are heard because we're not running the city. We're just setting policy and being responsive to the constituents. So I just want to make that statement to the city staff. And I appreciate that. And if I had been here, I probably would not have voted to close it for that very reason. It seemed a little quick. And I get concerned about setting precedence with just a very few vocal people raising concerns and then having a pretty strong response, immediate response. But I think we learned a lot from this.  And we can learn and use this with other decisions that we make that potentially can cause concern for our residents. When I made the motion that night, it was actually I was leaning towards siding with Tom on the waiting on that. But I said I wanted, in deference to what we were going through, I wanted to have a date certain when we would have it. And I think I mentioned a February or March date and I didn't seem to get support for that. So I thought otherwise this will die tonight if we did not have it. So decision while I appreciate the fact of not giving notice, I think we were all pretty much in agreement that it should be moved so that it was only going to delay the inevitable. Okay. Well, thank you. Here we are. Our next item and we're five minutes late. I apologize. It's a public hearing and potential approval of the council amendment for the capital improvement plan was warned for 715. So Alana. Oh, no, Tom, I think I'll just reiterate that Alana sent a very thoughtful memo to you. There's little change in what you originally received other than some of the information regarding city center and that base, the changes that were made in just that piece of it, which is not related to the general fund because city centers in the special fund is because we've moved the vote from March till November. So that that's changed what some of those projections were. But other than that, it's the document pretty much as you received it back the first time and certainly welcome any public comment or questions tonight about the CIP and Alana has the entire package with her that's well over a hundred pages. Apologize to any members of the public that tried to access that this past weekend because the file was so large that you needed to copy and paste the link. It just couldn't be a direct connection. I can't explain IT stuff. I don't know how that works. But anyway, it was a huge document and you were still able to access it. It was one extra step I think you had to do to be able to pull the whole thing out. Alana has it with her and maybe once the public hearing is open you're happy to respond to any questions on that or questions from council as well. So are there any questions? Oh, I'm sorry. So I would entertain a motion to open the public hearing for the potential approval of the council amendments for the capital improvement plan. So moved. All in favor? Aye. Okay. So we are in a public hearing mode. Are there any comments from the public or questions? No? Good job I guess. Okay. Are there any questions from the council? After looking through. No? Okay, seeing none. Then we need to approve the resolution. Oh, I'm sorry. Let's close the public hearing. I move that we close the public hearing. Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay. So we're out of public hearing and we now can adopt a resolution amending the capital improvement program for fiscal years 2019 through 2028. So moved. And the resolution was in, I don't want to read the whole thing, but it's in our, was in the packet. Do you want it read? No, I don't think it needs to be read. Maybe just a resolve so that we have that on record. Okay. So the resolve is that the city council hereby amends the capital improvement program by striking the 2017 FY 27 amendment in its entirety fiscal year 2019 through 2028 capital improvement plan, exhibit A attached here too. And that's what I said as moved. That's what I was talking about. Okay. So moved. Second. Okay. And just to clarify for the public, we put into process, I mean, I think there was a time when they, the city council would adopt a CIP for a score of years and then not really updated, just used it as a guideline. And we chose several years ago to make sure that it was updated annually. So we go through this process of 10 years, although we're really, frankly, focused on the upcoming year. And I'd just also offer, as much as this was a too big to email document, we're all familiar with it. We saw it last year. We also saw a presentation on it at the last meeting. So we had a lot of healthy discussions. That's why we're so quick to vote on it now. We've already discussed it and seen it many times. Right. Okay. Any further discussion? Okay. All in favor of approving the resolution signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Great. Thanks for your support on that. I'd just like to again thank Solana and Marcia for their work and all the department managers for all the work and putting that together and their presentations to you. I think they did a good job. They do. The summary was great. It's very helpful. And I hope it's helpful in the governance of the city to have a document that has so much review and thought and updating. So it really keeps us managing to the right and realistic numbers for capital improvement. I feel more confident in that because it does, we do change it and it's an active document. We're going to skip as we noted earlier, we'll move on to item nine and move on to item 10. Consider and approve the errors and omissions report from the grand list and Todd LeBlanc. Hi, Tom. I have to say these documents sort of puzzle me a little bit. I don't sort of get them. I think it's more of a technicality than anything that happened after I logged in July. I need to be approved. Would you identify yourself for the record? I'm sorry. Todd LeBlanc, city assessor. So they need to be approved by December 30th to make grand list valid. These are changes that had been aware of prior to lodging the grand list that I've made. Sometimes you missed a few things. Just one person out there doing the job. So it happens every time it goes through this and it just needs to be pretty much signed off on. There's more to this document than actually needs to be in here because I like to keep all the changes for the grand list in one document because this goes to the clerk and it gets lodged with the grand list for talk. So there's more to this than you actually need to see. A lot of it is related to homestead declarations and the effect on the grand list. Do you have more presentation or other questions? I have a question. Yes. So the inactivation of the parcels for Lily Lane, what does that mean? What happens is when these parcels change hands, went from property owners to the city of Burlington, the taxation process changes so that the valuation that's on these parcels no longer ends up in the grand list. They don't get a tax bill on it and those values are recouped through a pilot payment. Even though they haven't been demolished yet? Yes. As soon as they buy them. Did anybody else know that? Well, I guess I knew that we had an agreement when the city of Burlington bought property that the valuation changed and it was a different formula and it went into the pilot. But this after demo, this property hasn't changed its value at all at this point. Right. The value hasn't changed. The taxation has changed. But it hasn't. There's a difference. I understand that. But where is it written that the house does not have to be demolished only purchased by the airport in order to change its active state? I think that was in the agreement. In the negotiated tax agreement? In the negotiated agreement. They just have to buy it. They don't have to demolish it. I think that was the interpretation of the laws that are there growing to the side of the argument. And that's what came out of the lawsuit was that this is what happened. That explicitly states in the agreement that they just have to own it. Yeah. It's in all that is covered in the agreement how this is supposed to take place. But they also have an obligation to demolish it from the FAA. Right. Or move. Or move. Helen, that would be another good thing to have on the... But these are occupied dwellings at this point, right? No. Once they're sold, they're not occupied. Oh, I thought you said that they were occupied. I thought they were occupied. Yes, they are. They're sold by the mayor by last meeting that there are people living in all of them. Okay, so if these are occupied dwellings that are not to be imminently demolished, I cannot support them being inactivated because they're still residential properties. Whether they're rentals or they're... I mean, I know this is contrary to whatever agreement's been signed, but let me just voice my extreme displeasure that this is crazy. If these are houses being lived in that were purchased by another entity, they still owe property taxes on them until they're uninhabitable. Well, I can agree that I think it's crazy that an acre of land is valued at $840,000... $280,000. $280,000 once the airport buys it, and everything else is going for a million bucks an acre in this community. So... In that neighborhood. Well, not in that neighborhood. Well, it depends what it's zoned for, I suppose. Well, that's true. It depends on the zoning. You're right. So, but that was the agreement, Tim, and that was a long-drawn-out, half-million-dollar project. I understand. But who's losing out is really the Ed Fund because we're still getting the municipal tax. Yes. Ed Fund. There's both of the grand list are being affected, the education grand list and the municipal grand list. The difference being the municipality recoups about 75% of it, I think, back in a pilot payment. So by going from the assessed value of the land only because that's all we can tax anyway to the $280,000 an acre, we're only losing about 25% on the municipal side. The Ed Fund is definitely taking that. So they could, theoretically, just take all the next 39 homes and just rent them out. Is that true? No, they can't. They're supposedly not renting these little lanes. They're being used by people. And my understanding of the other piece is that it is also for the protection so that they are not inhabited by the problems that we had with the uninhabitable homes that they were not allowed to demolish before and how they were taken over by Bagrin's homeless destroyed, basically. And I believe that it would be good to find out if there is any action being moved forward by Michael Monti and any of the others from Burlington on whether they are interested or are going to move forward on those homes for the purchase and movement of those. The only question was Shelburne Shipyard. Well, let's finish the last question. I moved on to Santa. You have. They're inactivated so that they no longer get a tax bill and the grand list value doesn't show up again in the grand list. Because if it showed up in the grand list, you set your tax rate, you're not going to collect on it. So we need those not in there. In order to get those properties, when the value changes in the grand list, I have to notify the owner. That happens. The change of appraisal notice doesn't go out. People grieve. We finalize the grand list. We send out the tax bills. Between those two periods of time, I neglected to make them inactive so they wouldn't get a tax bill and they wouldn't want a grand list. So this was fixing that problem. Let me ask a separate question. For the future 39 homes that will be purchased and probably demolished, can you tell me what, just for the city point of view, right, what total grand list appraised value do we need to add to replace that? Without looking at the actual houses and the values on the grand list, it'd be a shot in the dark for me. I want to say the houses typically that have been taken down are anywhere from $250 to $350,000 in value. 40 times. So are we looking at about 25% of the value of each of those homes could technically be what we're looking at in the lost column? We would have to increase our grand list. We need like 16 half million dollar homes or something like that, probably. The value loss is on the structure. We recoup on the land. So we do lose the structure. But if you wanted to recoup, so let's say that we didn't get any reimbursement, no pilot at all, right? And we had to add grand list by building new homes or commercial property, whatever it is. I was just curious what that ballpark number was that we had. Through the impact of that. I think... In assessed value by being new construction would be sale value. They can develop that number. She did, okay. It would be if... Worksheets. Definitely you get theory. Yeah. If you built houses that were saying values on being torn down would be if one for one. Well, no. You're not... No one's building houses that were $200,000 anymore. Right. But they're building them at Rye for $300,000, $400,000, $500,000, right? And the same at Sadie Lane and the same at across the street of Dorset Street, right? Right. So if they were $400,000 houses, you need one and a half times the number. If they were $600,000, you'd need half the number. I was just curious. It's all...  There's too much up there. Yes. It stays up at night. Wait, so one more... Yeah. I'm sorry. Do you want to... On this same point... Let's do this point. Is this the first year that Montpelier is going to see the effect of our tax agreement, which I understand to be about a half a million less dollars going into the Ed fund from airport properties because they're now deemed state-owned? No, I believe this is the third year. Third year, okay. Because we've had two years... And is a half a million dollars about right in your mind how much less the state's getting because of our agreement to the Ed fund? I don't know. That's what I heard at one point. Well, I think it's north of that. So as Montpelier is looking to grimp this shortage, they should be aware that they're getting north of half a million dollars less from the airport because of our tax agreement. Well, don't send him a letter, but... No, it's a complex agreement. They're getting more than half a million dollars less a year. Yeah. Do you want to say something? No. Don't ask questions you don't want answers to. So are we done with that? Okay, now back to the Shelburne Shipyard. Yeah, how come Shelburne Shipyard owns... What do they own? Some land out behind the airport. Oh. Down along the river. The Shelburne Shipyard is a... Is it a company or something? Oh, I didn't know that. I thought the same thing. So as an corporation, they own this? Yes, as a corporation. And they finally put it in current use. So current use is so far behind at the state level. It came in late. So in order to get it to the Grand List, it just goes in. So does that cost us a substantial amount of... We lost Grand List value, but we recoup it in... Hold harmless agreement. Okay. And then the other sheets are the Homestead status. So some are on now and were off last year and vice versa. So that's just... That's all the stuff that technically doesn't even need approval. It's just, I like to keep it neat in one document. Okay. So if it's not on the front sheet, the impact of some of this stuff in the front sheet is in the following pages, but this front sheet summarizes what the Arizona missions were. Okay. What does that mean on now, off last year? I mean... Filed Homestead this year? Filed Homestead last year. Did they file or... Yeah. Okay. Well, because if they didn't file Homestead, then there isn't going to be any property tax adjustment, right? There's a different tax rate. And if you don't follow Homestead, you can't get it. Right. Right. Okay. Adjustment. So... Todd, I'm sorry. Do you have another question? Mine is just, it's just your opinion. Okay. That, you know, we've been struggling with this. How much information should we be able to get out, you know, to the taxpayers to make sure that they are filing their Homestead pieces and what have you and so on? Do you feel the council should be getting more information out to the public to make sure that we don't wind up with the, you know, where we've had the reverse on the amount of what residential versus commercial, you know, we've had kind of the switch on what the amount was that we were being taxed at the rate, but do you feel that we should have Peter in to talk with us and then do everything we can to let the public know that these are things that they should be applying for and that, you know, they're going to be paying late taxes. And I understand you're not the tax collector, but, you know, dealing with the problems that come up when people say, hey, how come I have this? Up until recently, I sat three feet from the tax collector. So I've seen it all. I know. It's a struggle for municipalities and for the state to get people to understand, to file the Homesteads. One is the law. The actual penalty for fraudulently not filing a Homestead is 100% of the Ed fund taxes. So it's steep. I don't think it's ever been applied. It's in the law. The state wants the Homesteads declared early so that they can get any adjustment on the tax bill in July, which is the earliest ones that go out. That's why there's a penalty for a late declaration. Getting people to understand that without filing that Homestead, you will not get a state payment is a difficult one. And everybody's had that challenge. It couldn't hurt to try to emphasize that in some way. I don't know how much actual dollars you want to throw at it because it doesn't seem to be a good solution out there. Tom? Just to not pile on, but to add on to that, I didn't hear in your question, Pat, maybe you did say it. But Peter, Taylor, the chair of the BCA is very focused on new residents, so welcome packages are somehow communicating to, and every time we know a change of ownership occurs, that's when we might send out a specific packet of information about ordinances. Do you see value in that population of taxpayers being better apprised of the declaration of Homestead due to deadlines and so on? Did that make any sense? Yes and no. Yeah, it did. Yes and no. We have a standing issue with people claiming they don't get the tax bills now. Exactly. Generally stuff like this, especially in this day and age, the mail is becoming less and less of an important part of people's lives. I don't know if wasting the postage and paper on it would do it. Sending it to the actual new owners would be a challenge because I have to stop my grand list on April 1st. So from April 1st until middle end of June, sometimes end of August, our working grand list doesn't get updated. I've got all these other things that have to happen when I get time to actually change the, do the updates, we're into August. So the new owners, that whole segment we wouldn't even have on record to be able to send out in any type of document that would come from my office. The clerk, because they do the actual recording, may have a database that would show the new owners in real time because they do stuff that's pretty close to real time. You may be able to get a database out of them to send out stuff. How effective would it be? I don't know. I mean, the question is, when a person goes to do their taxes prior to April 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, whichever day Patriot State falls on, you know, they're presented with several signals that this is a required document, right? If they get a printed form from the state, if they take the time, it says you must fill out this form and you must return it. If you do turbo, the interview process tells you. If you do H&R, it says the interview process, I mean, that's the stopping point is when a person goes to do their taxes, either the person helping them says, let's do your homestead, or the software says it, or the booklet says it, I don't know who they're not listening to. That's the question. In my experience in the BCA, tell me if you disagree with this, these issues have been focused around new homeowners. So when they buy it in August or October or November, they just, they're not aware. They don't know what the Vermont Homestead Act is. And so I understand from conversations with Donna, we used to send welcome packets or somebody used to send welcome packets. And that would have a little more information about these important things that we might better reach those people. But I agree with you, they should be responsible for this when they do their taxes, but I've seen in the BCA many unaware citizens that are new to the city. But does that matter when you, let's say you buy a home in September, right? You haven't lived there a full year yet. What's the rule about the homestead filing in the following tax year? If you're there on April 1st. Well, April 1st, right. So anybody who's a home, okay, an owner of record as of April 1st, needs to file the homestead. Right. Okay, must file the homestead, okay. And you get people who are moving from Vermont to Vermont. And which house do you declare it on? It's a big confusion. We'll get multiple declarations. Every homestead declaration that happens in South Brooklyn comes to me. I get to the president of looking through every one of them, which is where some of these reports come from. And I have to see and let the state know, this person is not the owner of record on April 1st. This person sold the house on such and such a date. This person's name's not even on the record. Well, they do ask you on the form. Do you intend to sell by April 1st? Yeah. Right? And Turbo asked you the same question. Yeah. Have you lived here this X number of time? Well, Kevin just whispered to me, closing documents when you buy the house. Exactly. They're part of the closing. It's not as if it's like, oh, I've never heard of this. Unless maybe you pay cash and it's a private sale or something. But I mean, that must be a minority.  It was a very confusing time. And we had it for several years that we were higher on the non-residential rate, I mean, the residential rate than the non-residential. Right. I'd say that backwards are for us. I think you're using that. A lot of people were gaming the system. They were waiting to see, I'm not going to get a state payment anyway. Right. I'll wait to see which of the tax rates is higher and I'll either file or not. That's where the penalty came in, the late file penalty. The state recognized this was happening and said, OK, you can play the game. If you end up filing late, you're going to pay for it. Or if you undeclare, you're going to pay for it. Now that used to be a 3% and an 8% penalty depending on which side of the game you're playing. We've changed it since to just a straight 3%. Right. That's what that's for. So it's taken some of the fun out of the game, if you will. A lot of people are. For whom? Not for you. Not for me. No, that adds a lot of work for me. But a lot of people who declare Homesteads out of state where they have a better deal. Florida has a better deal. Well, the state also changed and they had the different filing dates of when, even with a penalty, you could file by. And they had, I think, three different years. They had three different dates. One automatically had to have been by the April date. And then they changed it. No, and they got to one point where we finally had them. It was off. Where you declare your Homestead, and it stays that way until you undeclare it. Yes. And it lasted exactly one year, because I don't know why. It just did. And then the next year, nobody filed their Homesteads because, well, you told us last year we wouldn't have to do it again. And then there was all these late penalties. It was awful. The state is adapting just like you have to adapt when something pops up. They're extremely short. I don't want to sound like I'm backing a state here. But they're extremely short-handed down there. And I wouldn't want to work for the state if I had to. But they literally have to deal with this stuff day in, day out. I work with them. That's how I work with them. They deal with a lot down there, and they're very short staffed. Their budgets are definitely hurting down there. So that's the result of this. And I don't know if there's a good answer to any of it. Well, we can have this conversation again, because I would like Peter to come in and make the case. But I also am starting to think that there may not be enough money in Fort Knox to make sure that everyone gets the information they need and acts upon it. So at some point, we have to just say, you know what? It stayed the same for a while. These are the dates. And sorry if you missed it. There are a lot of billboards that say, there's water over here. Horses, water here, right? Every three feet down the road, water. And they don't necessarily drink, yeah. So but what I am glad about is that since the last BCA meeting, listening to Martha talk about how she deals with particular residents who are having issues, it seems like the attitude within the city structure is that if you tell us what's going on, we will try to help you. And that's what I wanted to hear most of all, right? Apart from, I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know on the part of the residents, right? When you do contact the city and they say, well, we have some answers for you, but you're going to have to work with us because that's the only way it's going to happen. That's what I like to hear. So I was pleased to hear that. Yeah, I think it does too. And so I was happy about that. It's very meaningful. They might be the answer they want, but it's very meaningful that Peter, the chair of the BCA that's been on there for many years wants to bring this forward, though. So we're going to hear him out. Right. OK. Then moving on, then, if there's no more comments, do we have to approve these? Oh, OK. So I need a motion to approve the errors and emissions report from the grand list. So moved. In a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you, Todd. Now, don't move. The next item is a general discussion regarding consideration and timing for a commercial reappraisal. Yes. I know we asked you to think about this and come back to us with. Here comes the chichin. I thought about it for a while. Chichin, chichin. How expensive. This is a document to this thing that showed how much it'll cost. Oh, thank you. So try to explain to you what happens. Oh, OK. I've got an exercise for people who are going to want them. I can have them pass it around. I think it's great. Oh, honey, well, it's good, but I'm not that good. Sale value. Oh, good. OK. Here's the sale. A reappraisal. The way things work now, the state of Vermont keeps track of the ratio between our sale prices and our assessed values. That's called the common level of assessment. More the common level of appraisal, depending on who you talk to. When that number drops below 80%, the state mandates that we do a reappraisal, unless we can convince them otherwise. Below 80 that can mandate a reappraisal? Yes. OK. Unless we can convince them otherwise, it's pretty much set in stone that we have to do it. We might be able to do a partial reappraisal because that CLA citywide is composed of the CLA of, I believe there's 13 groups. On this paper I gave you, I showed you the commercial, the residential, the condominiums, and the citywide number. They go by the citywide number. If one category is extremely low or extremely high, we can adjust that one category and avoid a citywide reappraisal. We did a reappraisal in 2006. And if you look at this paper that says CLA in the front, in 2005, the citywide CLA was 65%, 65.98%. And in 2006 it was 106. That shows we did a reappraisal. That was satisfying the city. The state, if you look at the numbers, it was back to 2002 was the last year where we skated through, we were getting to that point. The next year we were down to 76% as a city. What year did we go to 100% appraisal? Was it 97? I don't even remember. Were you here? I've only been here 15 years. Is that Tom? What year did we go to 100%? We were at 66 and 2 thirds appraisal as of 92 when I bought my house. And then they switched to 100% appraisal. Was it like 97? I think late 90s, I don't know the exact year. So that was a major, probably a reappraisal went with that too? 98 was a reappraisal year. Okay, so maybe 98. Maybe that was one. So this indicates it needed to be, the state says you need to fix it. In reality, by looking at a single category, I knew by doing the transfers, transferring them across my desk, this house sold for $200,000. It's assessed for $100,000. That's a 50% ratio. That's where we were in 2006. So most houses, most condos doubled in value. We got on the even keel. Most commercial properties only went up 70% versus 100%. Are these CLAs averaged by each of those sale price differences or ratios? Or is it weighted by price? They're combined, all the sales, and there's a three year aggregate. Oh, okay. So, and the reason they do that is to smooth out the curve. Smaller towns that don't have a lot of sales, one sale could change your sale drastically. So we did a reappraisal in 2006. Things have worked out pretty well since, even weathering the market. That immediately started to drop. We couldn't have done our reappraisal at any more of a apex than we did. We had a dead center right on top. It was just bad luck on our part because people accused us of doing it at the height of the market. Well, they were right, but it wasn't on purpose. So now that things have gone down, every category has gone down. Categories have come back up. Our sales for houses, condos, living units have gone up and have surpassed 2006. Our commercials, on the other hand, have not. Commercials have, typically, and if you look at this chart, lagged behind at least since the reappraisal. Prior to the reappraisal, they seemed to be okay. After the reappraisal, they're definitely lagging behind. So right now, our citywide CLA is roughly 96%. Commercials are around 94%, which seems good. Last year, it was a different story. If you look at the difference between the residential and the commercial, going back a couple years, there's a big disparity, okay? The CLA is indicating accuracy of our grand list. Our grand list says it's worth $100,000. It's actually worth $100,000 in the market. That's good, that would be a one. On the second side of this paper is the COD. This is a coefficient of dispersion. This measures equity, okay? You can have a CLA of 100% and have absolutely no equity in your grand list. If half the properties are selling for twice what they're worth, and half are selling for 50% of what they're worth, our CLA would still be one. Our coefficient of dispersion will be drastic, okay? There's no equity. It's not fair for you to be paying half of your value and you'd be paying twice of your value. That's the COD part, okay? Our commercial COD right now is 18, almost 19%. So example, that would be when we're comparing that to the residential, obviously, this is. The equity, that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna compare it between the people living in their houses and the people not living in their houses. There's less equity in the commercial portions. The CLA is also lower, which means they're worth more than they're assessed for. So combining those two facts together, it's been something that we need to keep an eye on. And we have this last year, things got a little better on the CLA side of things for the commercial, but the COD is still going down. How do we compare to other municipalities in the area when the COD? Citywide, we're pretty close. When it breaks down into your components, that's where the issues, and I haven't compared to the cities, so I don't know. But I know we always talk about, oh, what'd you get, what'd you get? Like looking for a test. And that's public information, so you can check out other communities. So it's something we need to do. Then there's a couple of problems. One, reappraisal companies right now are few and far between, and they are booked out years. So getting a company to actually bid on a reappraisal, and then actually getting them here to do it is gonna be a challenge. It takes time. It takes time. Our last one, we were told, it took us two years to get a company in here. Well, what's the special magic in doing these appraisals? I mean, is there, they have special sauce and little mystic sparkles that they put into disturbing this?  It's the work involved. They site visit everything? Site visit everything. Internal reviews, external reviews, measuring the building, taking pictures, getting it all into database, and then analyzing the sales to make sure we get to where we are, make sure it's all right, having hearings where the people come in and see what they're getting before they actually get it, getting the notices, having the appeals.  It all depends on what you have in the contract. Okay. I'm just the new day. That sounds, it's very time consuming. It is very time consuming. The last reappraisal took us almost two years. So it's a long process. And there was difficulty. I know that we were doing some of the hotels because they're just not that many to make comparisons with. And I remember the deal that we had with the Sheridan and their suits coming in and it was a long drawn out process. Right, right. Every property owner out there in that case had the chance to come in and say, hey, I don't agree with this. And that's a big process in itself because you've got to explain to them, I'm not just pulling this out of thin air. We're looking at the sales of properties and your house is on your street in your neighborhood.  Your house is probably worth that amount of money. That's as difficult as this gets. So there's no rocket sciences. It's tight. Making them understand that process. And a lot of people will come into my office and this is when you were talking about earlier about telling people about there's a state payment out there. You have to pause for a home set. We go through this religiously and explain to people, when you come into my office, you may not like the answer, but you're gonna get an answer and you're gonna understand it. So we hold the people's hand. They understand it. They may not like it, but at least they understand why it's the way it is. Do you have a sense that the COD spreads when we look at different areas of the city like to Shelburne Road? Is that falling more on the half of the assessed value versus Woolston Road, which is twice the assessed value? Is there any geographic disbursement that's worth noting on this COD within the city? On commercial, I wouldn't think so. We could do an assessment on a focused area too, right? We could do a neighborhood. We could do a specific class of properties. And we did condos one year. I know that we did. Any time that I see something an anomaly in the grand list, such as a condo location, where, geez, these condos are all selling for a lot more than they're assessed for compared to the rest of the city. I can do a neighborhood. I could do all the condos. I could do all flats. I could do all townhouses. It all depends on where the numbers are telling me that there's anomaly. We're not interested, sorry. We're not interested in residences right now. You're most concerned about the commercial, right? Residents are pretty darn good. A lot of towns would love to have our numbers. The commercials, on the other hand, trying to find out which part of it, we've only got around 650 parcels. So determining what actual faction of the commercial is the problem. I'd love to see that raw data in a spreadsheet. If there's only 650, just look at the transactions and then get an idea of where the unders and the overs are, and if there's some geographic the problem that comes to light is there's not a lot of sales. And back to the town that only has two or three sales to begin with can throw off their equalization study drastically, not having a lot of sales is why some of these numbers can move, like the commercials move like two points in the COD in one year. With a three-year average to move two points, there's not a lot there. That could be one or two sales that really threw things up. So I don't know if we can identify, it certainly makes sense. Yes, that's a good question. I don't know if we have a good answer for it. Can I ask you a question just so I understand this? Because math isn't my strength. So we look at the commercial and it's 18.87. Which one are you on? On the COD. I think I understand the CLA, but the COD, I don't really quite understand what you mean by 18.87. There's a formula, it's a long... That's the percentage of commercial properties that are... The bigger the number... Give it the bigger the number, the smaller the number, I mean, that definition. The bigger the number, the worse it is. There's a formula that's involved. It's not a simple answer. Oh, okay. Whereas the CLA is, the COD is not... But mentally, it's the distance between what is actual on both sides of the bell curve, right? Yeah. If the bell curve's real narrow, that means that... That's good. That the appraisals are dead on. It widens out, a bigger number widens the bell curve out and the distance from what is an accurate number gets greater. It's a qualification of the number of the deltas and their disparities between the assessed and the purchase price or sale price. Standard deviations from the mean. So the higher the number, the worse it is. The worse it is. In fact, when that number, citywide, gets to 20%, another state jumps in and says... But when we look at that number, when we look at that commercial number and you take a look over the years, there's always been the discrepancy between that and let's say residential. We'll just pick on that one for the next one over. And it's been, I'm trying to look at the ratio between the two, between seven and 18 versus the prior year between six and 16. And it seems like we had some years that they were in closer proximity, but it's always been, at least in looking at this, it appears to always have been, I don't want to say out of whack, but consistently much broader than our residential. There's more volatility in a commercial property than there is a residential. Some of that, all of it relates to available money, available stock, demands for jobs, everything that right now, the market is really high. The reason being, there's no inventory. Not a lot of people are selling their houses. So the people who are buying them have to pay long dollar to get them. Commercial properties are a little different. That comes down to a monetary decision.  Which is what it comes down to. Which begs the next question I have, which is in 2006, my sense was that when that reassessment was done city-wide, it dumped a slightly disproportionate amount of cost onto residential from commercial. Would that happen here again, if we reassessed just commercial? No, we'll do the opposite. Yeah, you should do the opposite. I mean, it says the COD doesn't tell you which way it goes. It just says there's this much dispersion, right? So the question is, once you reassessed, right, would the average of all that reassessment be lower than it was before or a little bit higher or about the same? You should just be more equitable. We're talking about equity here. Equity, yeah. So the commercial, the equity between the commercial properties would get better. So it might be equitable, but then? The point is, is that residential tax rates would go up, right, after the last city-wide reappraisal because commercial property values went down, right? And that was maddening for the average residential owners. No, it was your CLA question that you're asking. So if you re-appraise commercial only again, do you think that this would happen again? Because of our CLA with commercial in the last few years being significantly lower than the CLA for residential, that indicates that their selling prices are higher than their assessed values. And it's a greater gap than residential. If I understand this, we are kind of concerned that there are commercial property owners in South Burlington that are either grossly underpaying their taxes or grossly overpaying their taxes relative to what they should be paying if we had less dispersion. And OK, my other question is, I heard you say 650 commercial properties. Don't we have 6,000 residential properties? Almost 8,000 total properties. Does that change how expensive a reassessment is? If it's 650 properties, are these things much more? It would definitely be less. Cost per parcel would go up. And do you see value in trying to identify a geographic area within the city to even narrow it down even more to make this less expensive and a more manageable project? I can certainly look at it. Seeing if there's enough sales to even do that would be the issue. I'd love to see the data if that's possible. And are there state funds available for this? We get funds from the state every year for maintenance as a grand list and re-appraisal. Does that get stored? Yeah, you store it up so when we have to do an appraisal, we have enough money. So that's the theory. We have enough to completely pay for that at any point, especially for just doing a commercial. But even if we leveled it out to get a much more reasonable dispersion, that's not necessarily going to increase the amount of taxes we collect or affect the residential tax rate at all. It's just going to be more equitable. The effect on the grand list would be up to you people because based on the CLA, the indications of the common level assessment indicate that those values are worth more than they're assessed for. So the commercial property values would probably go up. Would that gain in grand list dollars, how it's spent, that's up to you guys. But would we also find that if we have, through appeals of what have you, that we have properties that are overpaying at this point in time? You see any adjustment on those? Typically not as many properties overpay. And that's commercial, residential, any property. People are more than willing to come see me when they think they're paying too many taxes. OK. Very rarely. And I can't say never because I've actually had people come in and say they are under assessed. But we actually, at least from what I'm hearing from you, from this, that we do have some that are paying more than what their value may be, quote, and others that aren't paying, quote, they're a fair share. Yeah. That happens in every case. But there is no quid pro quo that one would balance the other. In other words, that we would reduce one and raise the other. Right. Yeah. So in terms of encouraging businesses to locate in South Burlington, do you want it to be as equitable as possible? Fair. You want it to be as fair as possible. George, don't they care? I mean, do they look at this stuff? Well, I have a great question. They do. They look at the bottom line. They look at their tax bills. Sure. Your best bet would be to promote the fact that the commercial properties in South Burlington are as equitable as they can be due to our due diligence of doing a reappraisal, and couple out with the fact that Burlington assesses their commercial properties at 120% of value. Oh, that's easy. That's in their chart. For business, 20% are well-rounded. Yeah. 20% off, right? It's exactly what it is. 20% off. So the end of the year. Right. Black Friday, right here. So we can put a positive spin on that to, you know, doing that. Yeah. There you go. Are you concerned if we were to approach a commercial reassessment? We're going to tap too many of our reassessment dollars, and that will not position us well enough from the years to come? I'm not too alarmed right now with these numbers. Our overall CLA and COD are excellent. They would be even better if we did the commercial. The question comes down to how concerned are you as the decision makers about the inequity and the possibility that those commercial residential neighborhoods, the CLA is, you know, this is an average, is high enough that you might be interested in doing those neighborhoods? I don't pull like a CLA on every neighborhood. But I watch the sales, and I notice, you know, grand view over here is selling for $160,000. They're assessed at $140,000. OK, now we have that ratio. And yet over here, you know, these houses are selling for $465,000, and they're assessed for $475,000. You pay attention. And that's what clues me into paying attention to this one versus that one. Generates the sales. When we did the reappraisal, I know, I think it was economy farms over here, there was no sales prior to the reappraisal. So we picked another set of data based on condominiums on the golf course and assessed them appropriately. After the sale, it was after the reappraisal, there was three sales, and it's like, whoa, these guys aren't anywhere near where they need to be. So we redid all of our condominium farm. Pinnacle of spear, Pinnacle of drive after the reappraisal. The sales indicated, I think there's only 60 houses in there. Like 15 of them sold, a lot of it was panicked from the reappraisal. But the value was not what it indicated prior to the reappraisal. So they got adjusted down. When there's glaring evidence that something's wrong. Yeah, that's what I do, that's my job. I'm guessing in years past, you would come to the council. I don't know how long you've been here, I'm sorry, Todd. But you would come and recommend if we do. You've recommended to the council in years past that we do a reappraisal. Are you recommending to us to reappraise the commercial properties? I can't do it alone. And that's the key. If this were a neighborhood of condos, I've done it alone. If this was a neighborhood of houses, I've done it alone. I can't do 650 properties alone. But are you asking us to give you some help? Do you think we should reappraise this? I would do it. Should we reappraise the commercial? Yes? You want us to physically go out and do the marriage? If we could get you to do it, especially as a council member, you do it for free, people will love that. I got a big hammer. There you go. Tape measure is all you need. Oh no, we get paid. He doesn't work for free for this thing. Should we ask? What I would recommend is that we, because of the time period and the length of time that this is going to take to actually happen, and we don't know what it's going to cost. We can throw an RFP out there and find out that, geez, this is going to cost us a whole lot more money than we thought to do just commercial properties. We're not in that bad of shape. Or that seems pretty economical. Maybe we'll do it and get it out of the way. If we can correct these problems with different classifications of properties within the grand list, and it keeps us out of a full blown city wide re-appraisal, not even saving money. Well, it sounds like we ought to go and at least put out an RFP. I know that takes a little bit of time and time is money, but it sounds like you think that this might be a good time to do this, and then we'll have the information that says what it will cost, and then we can discuss whether that's the value. Do we have to vote on an RFP like that, or is that just something? No, you can direct us to put out an RFP for appraisal services for commercial re-appraisal. We'll put the RFP out. Okay, so we should have a motion. If we were small enough that I could do it myself, I wouldn't ask you at all. Okay, you just do it. But this you need. So I would entertain a motion to direct the city manager to develop an RFP for a commercial re-appraisal. I can move, I just want to make a comment during discussion. So I'll move that in second. Okay, in second, all right, further discussion. I'm just wondering, does the council feel open? And I'm happy to, I'm not part of this group, but I know maybe city manager might feel a good reason to reach out, but the SBBA, I feel like they might want to weigh in or at least hear about why this could be of value, at least to market the attractiveness of South Burlington to have greater equity. So do you see Merit in reaching out to them on this notion of dispersion? So all I'm asking is if we would also. Reach out to them to get their reaction, or I mean, what are we asking them? Does this look good to you, or should it be gooder? I think they care to know about this dispersion piece, and if they had an opinion on the merits, or if we should do this reassessment of commercial properties, I'd love to hear their thoughts. We can certainly reach out to them and let them know about this action tonight and what that would, could lead to. And then when we actually get the figures back and vote to, because that would be an expenditure the council would make that decision, correct? Correct. Then we can have a hearing. And I think perhaps a little of the rationale why we would be looking to do this in order to have equity amongst fairness. Okay, fair and equitable. Further discussion? Are you ready to vote? Sure. Are you all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you very much. Thank you. It's always fascinating to talk about. I always thought Codd was as fit as. I'm the fascinating guy. You're the fascinating guy. The parcel of appraisal and management is what? Thanks, Todd. Exciting thing is everybody should do it. Thank you very much. Okay. It's almost as fascinating as stormwater. A little more. Almost. For a new ordinance. Okay, we are on to item 12 and this is the ordinance codification project. We're gonna have the first reading for council review and potentially schedule a public hearing for a second reading for possible update, amendment, and or repeal of the following ordinances. One prohibiting smoking in places of public access. Ordinance relating to procedure for levying special assessments. An ordinance regulating the construction of sidewalks, sidewalk and storm drain on White Street between Williston Road and Airport Parkway, establishing a local improvement district and levying special assessments according to benefits conferred upon the property and said district. And the, finally the ordinance regulating the construction of sidewalk and storm drain on Dorset Street between the north boundary line of the municipal lot and the south side of Williston Road. So Andrew Balduc. Oh, well. Andrew Balduc, city attorney. Hope it's just as interesting to talk to that city attorney. So I have another four ordinances this week as part of the ongoing ordinance codification project. It provided a memo and kind of outlining my thoughts on them. I'll just briefly talk about the ordinance prohibiting smoking in places of public access. So the 2004 ordinance that mirrored the state statute and essentially provides for an extra enforcement mechanism that the state doesn't provide which is issuing a municipal tickets. There hasn't been an enforcement issue in the city as far as we're aware and certainly not within the last 10 or 15 years. So the thought, even though that hasn't been an issue to maintain it, in case it does, allows our police officers an extra enforcement mechanism. And it also, I updated the language to include the state statutory language on this regulation which now includes tobacco substitutes. So that is what's presented and I provided a copy of the amended document and the second group, and I kind of batched them together and the memo is these ordinance related to levying special assessments. These were 1962, 1963 and under a statutory scheme that I don't believe exists any longer, there's a new state statute that allows us to levy special assessments which is what the city's used in the recent past. So recommending repeal of these. Well, full disclosure, I will let you know that the smoking legislation was something that I worked on and was a strong proponent of in the legislature. Great. Thank you. Yes. For a number of years, we kept strengthening it, but this was legislation or a topic for which I was dedicated. Recall was more of some very small conference rooms at IBM in the early 80s that were smoke filled. Oh, yes. And it could not wait to get out of. Yeah, yeah. Speaking of that point, there was in our original ordinance an exception that mirrored the state law for designated employee smoking places and businesses and that was later repealed by the state. Will marijuana be considered a tobacco substitute should this state legalize the recreational use of it? That is up to the legislature. They would certainly make it easy for municipalities like us that have adopted an ordinance that's mirrored, mirrored the state statute, but I'm assuming that they probably won't, they'll probably make it a separate thing. But again, that's up to the legislature to decide, but as it's currently written, that wouldn't fall under. What about those, what do they call them? Leaping. Oh, the electronic vaping thing. That's included. They updated that to include it, so ours would by definition. It's on there too. Yep. Chew, is that a substitute? Chew, yeah. I believe it's a tobacco product actually. Snuff, yeah, included it all. Chew and Shaw. Nothing anyone probably uses snuff anymore, but who knows? All right, so I would entertain a motion that's on the recommendation sheet. So I move that the council amend the ordinance prohibiting smoking in places of public access and repeal the three ordinances as warrant for tonight's meeting relating to special assessments and cause a short and concise one paragraph description of the effects to be published in the other paper together with notice of a second reading in public hearing to consider the same for final passage at 7.15 p.m. at the first regular city council meeting in January, which is currently scheduled for January 2nd, 2018. By the second. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Thank you. Thanks, Andrew. All right. The next item is council's report from committee assignments. So has anyone met, channel 17 hasn't met? Oh, the airport, okay, and CC, no, GMT. We had an operation. We had breakfast coming up. Pardon? Breakfast coming up. CC there, is that it? Oh, that's CCRPC. Oh, no, that's CCRPC. Oh, CCRPC. Oh, I forgot, now you call something different. And actually, there was a hearing tonight, right? We're going before the legislature to ask just to change the name. And yes, next gen is holding meetings all across the region. It's like five to seven. Did you get to go there? I did not. I was in class. But I had an operations committee meeting this morning and we toured the Berlin facility, which we're debating on whether or not we want to support continued use of, and that has a conversation with e-trans. They're currently leasing it to us for a dollar. It's been funded with federal dollars, so it can only be used for public transportation purposes, but it's in a floodplain. It was ruined in Hurricane Irene. So we're just debating on Berlin. Yeah, yeah. So we're just debating. I think we're going to continue using it because it's financially attractive, but it's in felon quite disrepair. So we're looking at whether or not it's worth asking for a million bucks from e-trans to upgrade the facility in a floodplain. You know, if I could just bring up one item. OK. When your new boss, the new boss was there, he was very good, by the way, in the information he gave us. But at some point in time, I would like to have a little bit better explanation from some of the communities that have access to service, but don't seem to be paying their fair share. The two, right? In the minutes? Well, I think Colchester is paying some now. A lot of small towns in the rural areas. There's a little. You know, there seems to be a lot of service that's provided, you know, because we pay a pretty hefty price. And I mean, yes, we have great service that's going through. But it just seems like if the Nuske Valley Park District has payments that we have to pay and we have for this, that it just seems fair that those communities that are receiving the services should be paying as well. I would agree. I mean, not that it would reduce hours necessarily, but because we're asking for more things like Tilly Drive and other routes and items that had come up. But it just kind of grates on me. Finance subcommittee at our board retreat or annual retreat in September presented this. And the board gave the nod, head nod, to continue to explore what a budget model would look if it was fairly assessed on all municipalities that receive service. Because I think if a community can keep getting very cheap to no cost, they wouldn't necessarily be willing to pay. Many of these communities do pay, but they're not obligated to. And some would argue they might. Maybe they should. OK. All right. So seeing no other committee assignments, we'll move on to item 14. Council discussion of the survey data regarding the noise compatibility programs for residents living in proximity to the airport. Who's going to lead that conversation? You have, actually, I wasn't at the last meeting, so I was not part of the discussion on the development of this. But from what Coralie has related to me, she had worked with Megan to put together some potential survey questions. The council was asked for input to Megan on that. Those comments were incorporated then into this survey tool that was then proved by Megan and Coralie pushed it out in every possible conceivable direction she possibly could. I think there may have been something in the other paper, certainly on our website and on all of our social media in an effort to make sure that people had an opportunity to respond. As of today, there are a little over 100 responses. The site is still open. You have the results of the survey questions here, as well as the comments that are included on the back pages. And we can leave the site open or close it. I think there was an intent to bring this data to the technical advisory committee meeting, possibly, tomorrow when they meet. So that's Tom. You got more on that? If you want the posting of the results, whether or not you want to continue to keep this open for responses, or at least just looking for direction in terms of how to manage the page? My thought is to keep it open to generate more comments. I think we should submit this or share this with the NCP and then update them with additional information. I think the more input we have, the better. So that would be my thought.  But keep it open and get more people to comment. I thought the questions were good, and I'm glad that we reached out. I'm going to have read through all the comments. And another thought I have is I noticed that there was just one comment that talks about Winooski, or I live in Winooski or something. And I'm wondering if, and I know there aren't the updated noise maps for Winooski, but we know for darn sure that the F-35s are going to have an effect on them. We just don't know what it is. And so they're sort of part of the discussion. But my appreciation for their position to not really be able to complain. Well, they might be able to do a survey as well. But I'm wondering if they would like to have a copy of this and would be interested in maybe making it more of a Winooski focus. But I don't know. I thought these questions were pretty good. They're pretty broad. Yeah, they're pretty broad. And it doesn't seem like they're South Burlington's specificness is strong. But that would be another way to generate some potential data that would help the NCP and the airport director. I'll share this with Jesse Baker, the Winooski manager, if you'd like. Well, does that make sense to anyone? I mean, I think. Well, this is going to get chaired also at the advisory meeting too. And she would normally be there. Yeah, yeah. Great. And I think this can be labeled South Burlington Responses. Sure. And then we could have Winooski once. And they actually may even have some additional questions they would like to ask. But it seems like it is truly a joint problem for both our communities, as well as I think I'm reading someone on East Avenue. Well, I was actually talking to Sharon Bouchard, who's one of the city council counselors in Burlington. And she lives on East Avenue. And we were talking about the airport. And she said, well, when the weather is a certain way, they come in right over my house, all the commercial and fighter jets. And she said, and I hear them. So she sort of was under. Yeah, I know that. But I'm just saying there is a portion of Burlington at different times that understands there really is an airport that makes some noise. Well, I'll give this to Jesse tomorrow. And if it's the council's interest, we'll make copies to hand out to members of the Technical Advisory Committee. Is that your wish for this? Yes. OK. And then I think we can let them know that we're going to continue to gather data. And we'll update it and make it more current for the next meeting whenever we get some more responses. Good. So we'll keep it open. I want to hold off on publishing the results until it's closed so that we can make sense that it's not trickling out. Yeah, I think the concern there was just that it may skew it. Except we are going to submit this to the NCP tomorrow. So I think I would make these results public and just make it clear that we continue to gather data. So if someone reads this and says, oh, I'd like to put my two cents in, they might go and fill it out. We'll post it with a date. So if we just have a date and say South Burlington residents, I think it should say South Burlington on it as well, particularly if we're going to encourage Winooski to do something similar. And could we also at some point put out on our agenda to have our energy committee come in and talk a little bit about what collaborative work that they are trying to pull together. And I was only reminded that of the third or fourth last page here where we talked about the energy efficiency and how they have met, I believe, with the consultants to talk about how we can have a higher level of energy efficiency. Along with the noise mitigation efforts. Right, exactly. In the housing, yeah, while you're at it. I think that was an effort that came forth from, what's the same, just a lot of my head. Epstein? I can't think of his first name. Keith. Keith Epstein, right, right. And I think he's got his two brains on one. Get both names. But we haven't heard anything back from him in a while, and I think that would be good to find out. Are they able to move anything forward that looks like we might have some collaboration with them since we're strong on energy? Great. Yeah, well, I think it seems to me when the NCP, looking through sort of, we got that email from, I think of her name, but she was outlining the format and the purposes of all the different committees and how they work together, one meeting I recall was going to focus on or one of the topics would be what are the sound mitigation activities that are possible and would be recommended. And it seems to me, prior to that conclusion or report, that it would be good for them to have Keith and the Energy Committee come in with some ideas while you're at it. Here are a couple other things that you might want to see if you can have funded and included that are energy efficient. But to make sure that they get in at an early enough time, which is kind of my point earlier. It's really hard to have the whole thing sort of laid out. They've been working on it for six months. And then have someone come in. Have you thought about the 11th hour? And so it doesn't get responded to. You really need to have it. And the education for the public for that. Yeah. So that would be good to remind them and also the airport. That might be a good time to make sure they invite them. OK, I'm going to talk to you. Exactly. So I thank you for reminding us, Pat. You're welcome. OK, Tom's getting tired. We've got to keep moving along. You know, I was hoping we could go till 2.30 this morning. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much, sir. I mean, you've got to keep up with Burlington, right? Right, yeah. OK, item 15 then. Discussion regarding restricting access to several roads, including Peacard Circle and Kirby Road extension, along with the Council discussion regarding ways to influence planning recommendations with the city of Burlington regarding decisions that directly affect our community. I had missed that on that. I'd put that on other business so we can just include it. And so we have a letter that. Yeah, this is what started this particular discussion. On the Peacard Circle piece, yeah. Gene Richards to Helen dated August 28th of this year. And what also goes along with this is the map, the Google map, I think that I'll refer to in a minute. So Gene in his letter suggested that they have discovered needles and vagrants in the area of the Kirby Road extension and Peacard Circle. And for that reason, are asking that the Council block access. So they let us put dog fencing up on this parcel of land. We could let them just put fencing up on our roadways, right? So if they want to block access, they could put some fencing up. Well, interestingly, that's what they're doing. So Tom and I went over there today. If you look on the map, you'll see a red line that is on the site of the old parking lot for the old dog park. That red line is, in fact, jersey barriers that the airport has brought there to close off the parking lot from the ability to park there. So they're spaced with maybe a foot between them. And it gives appearance that they're going to continue that, at least to the end of the parking lot. So there, I think Council also received, or Helen at least, received an email from Nick Longo this past week, maybe that had some photographs of some people who'd gotten out in the old dog park in their cars and had kind of spun around a little bit out there. Well, certainly that jersey barrier that they're putting up would block that. I received a call. And it was kind of disturbing. I looked when the dog park was closed and all. I was very disappointed to find out that there were other activities apparently going on. And apparently, according to this person that called me, they've seen it several times later in the evening, cars out there. They feel it's drug deals going on. I have no way of knowing if it is or not. But there is some, what you would say, suspicious activity. If this alone would take care of it, I would feel great. I don't know if it will. But I mean, it's at least a step I would presume. But with the needles being found out there and other items, and then this particular call about, and this person looked at this place several different times later in the evening and are concerned about that, I don't know where our what's going to happen. And I know we've talked about land swap for streets and what have you and so forth. And we've done some of those things. And I'm not saying we're at that point right now. Do we feel that this is a sufficient for now? I will say, Jean, I'm not questioning what Jean's saying. I will say this. Since I got this letter, I have been to the site more than a dozen times. Tom and I were over there this afternoon. And I have looked extremely closely around on the grounds. And I've never, in over a dozen times there, I've never found a needle there. Now, there are places I can take you to right this moment. Market Street. And we will find needles. But I have yet to find a needle there. As far as vagrants, there are no vagrants living in that ravine. I did, however, after getting this from Jean, asked Trevor to step up surveillance of the area with our patrol officers. And after about three weeks, I asked Trevor what he is finding. And he said, we're not finding anything unusual going on there. So our direct observation is not matching up with what we're being told. Are they cleaning? Is the airport cleaning up needles? I mean, if they said they were there, they were there. It would seem to be the case, but I gotta tell you, Pat, I've gone over there so many times. It's so many different times of the day. Before work, after work, in the middle of the day, and I have never yet found a needle there. Okay. Now, I'm not saying it's not happening, but I just have not found any. And we pay pretty close attention to this stuff because this is hazardous. Didn't they put the barriers on the street or on their property? I think it's probably on their property. It's, I'm gonna say 18 inches off the paved area. Do we have an interest in keeping that as a public city highway? We may have a public, we may have a statutory obligation to keep it. Do we plow it in the winter? Yeah. And Picard Circle too? I think Picard Circle too. I can't remember last year, but I think Kirby Road extension, we do. Partly because, you know, the dog park was there, are they asking for us to pay to do any of this? Or are they just asking for the right to put up a fence and block road access and put a curb line in? It's unclear to me in the wording of this. Yeah, Justin has given us an estimate that the cost of putting Jersey Barriers up would be surprisingly high in the thousands of dollars. They could do it, I mean, if we would care. But we may really, but more importantly, we may have an obligation under statute to keep it open. There's a statute that says that when, well, Paul's here, Paul knows it's better than I do. I think that if there is a property, a recognized property, the city cannot unilaterally just restrict access to the property by closing down a road. So we would have to vote on that. Is that reasonably close to what the statute says? Yeah. The city council had to vote to make what used to be Feral Street one way where Joy Drive comes in at the end of Hadley. Oh, and all of this, anything that we would do to actually shut down the road is steeped in legal proceeding. Yeah. So you could just do nothing. You could take no action based upon this letter, this request. You could, this is a request from Jean. Right. From the director of aviation. I would do nothing. The city do that. That's my vote. It's not clear what he's asking for. So I would be in the same boat as Tim was. Well, I think he's trying to solve the unperceived problem with the Jersey Barriers. And I am perfectly okay with that. Because that is this airport's property. And it looks as if they are on their property. I think they are. I'm less willing to have them put a chain-link fence across the roads because that restricts. If they were to do that on their own, that would be a problem. They can't do that. They can't do that. Yeah, they can't walk over there. And at this point in time, I'm not interested in just seeding over this property to the airport. If we do that, there's something we need to get. In exchange. In exchange. I mean, and we've talked about it in swap before, but we're not ready on anything like that now. And Megan wanted me to recommend, you know, have us consider a new dog park around the Picard circle area. In our roadway? Not in the roadway, but you know, have an agreement, have a lease or something with long-term lease with the airport. Or maybe that's an exchange.  Can we get a roadway? I don't know. Can we get a Picard or something? Yeah. I mean, well, it's a long, he could really. Is it a drier patch of land than? But I think one of the problems that happened. I don't know. She just raised that as an opportunity for a dog park near this community that is, I know it's close to the runway, but it's not as close as the old one. One of the items I think if we go back and recall is that when we had the lease for the rental, however we put it, that we had it for that dog park back there. And it was brought up by a resident that he felt that it was not part of what the FAA would approve for the land that had been purchased. And that's one of the reasons we got thrown out. Because when it was checked with the FAA, the FAA said absolutely no, that is not an airport use. So that I think the only way we could probably get around that is if we did some type of a swastika. And that might be a possibility, but I think that's why we got thrown out of the form. I mean, we were going to be limited into a number of years anyway. And it was, I thought it was a pretty good place, but. Well, it seems it was really wet, I guess. I mean, I don't think my dogs did go through. Yeah, it was wet in a certain area, so it wasn't usable. The airport has security as well. So if they're concerned about the people misusing this property, they can patrol it and they can walk it. They have a giant spotlight up on a tower. They could just. I don't think so. Shine at the airport problem. I don't think so. Yeah. But that is not to say that needles weren't found there.  And the concern of the person that called me who saw the cars there several times late in the evening. There was teenagers making out. Well, it could be. I used to go there. You. Oh, see, yeah. Here we have a grown up teenager that used to do that. Tom, maybe that's the winter area. Tom, I don't want to leave it open for the kids, but. Tom, maybe that's the winter area for the area down by the backside of the airport. You know. Well, I'm wondering can Picard Circle be a place for the the Ubers, the green cabs to wait? Oh, I've seen green cabs sitting there. I'm Picard. There's one here today. There's one today when we went over. They also sit on Maryland Street because they do not participate, as I said. Yes, no, I understand that. But that would be probably a better place than JC Park because that. Well, there aren't houses around here and there are. But anyway. I dive. That probably wouldn't. So I guess our response to Jean would be where the airport is to. For right now. We have. On any more closure. On any closure. Your Jersey barriers, as long as they stay on airport property. Okay. And it would be opposed to closing the two roads with any type of barrier at this point. Do we even need to respond? Well, I think that would be nice. We're nice. We respond. All right. Fair enough. I can write him back on behalf of the council if you'd wish. Can we include Trevor's information as well? And what you have observed over there. Yeah, okay. Okay. Good. The other piece is sort of what? What kinds of conversations or ideas do those the council support in terms of conversations with the trio of Winooski, Burlington and South Burlington leaders meeting? I mean, you mentioned, and I did ask last time and I will continue to keep getting updates on the status of moving the Lily Lane homes. And I certainly will raise the issue for the Taxi Commission. Taxing Commission. No, Taxi. It's a Taxi Commission. Taxi Commission. To at least share with them that, you know, they sit idling, which is illegal anyway, right? You're not supposed to sit in a car and let it idle. I was supposed to turn it off at JC Park. So that's an issue for the airport. You're raising this with the mayor. That's an issue for the Taxi Commission because they actually, the airport commission does not control the Taxi thing. They have their separate. Now it happens to be two people, two commissioners are on the Taxi Commission, Bill Keough and Jeff Munger. So are we pulling the other business items into this topic conversation? Well, I had forgotten. I raised it and then I, I... One other thing that comes to mind, if you have Miro's mirror. I mean, the governance thing is the other piece. How do we get to have more of a say with, you know, without going the full boat of changing the governance, knowing full well that we're gonna have a bill introduced. So the conversation is gonna occur. So do you wanna... So definitely the governance. And I would love if Miro could spearhead a conversation or change his opinion on just having that committee formed, but related to that. And I just, I have to raise this. If you have the Miro's, the mayor's ear. I don't know if I have his ear, but I need his ear. No, he's meeting here next time. The Director of Aviation has said in multiple forums that I had been untruthful, but he has not substantiated that claim with any specific, any specific fact whatsoever. So if any of our South Burlington City employees were going around in public forums saying that other counselors and other districts were being untruthful, I would want them to be held somewhat accountable. So I have expressed this to two airport commissioners. I have relayed this directly to Gene, asking him for specifics on where I've been untruthful. I have heard nothing. So if you have the mayor's ear and felt like raising something, I would agree is somewhat petty, but I have pride and my integrity I feel has been impugned. I would like to know what Director of Aviation feels, how he feels that I have been untruthful because I have not. Have you met with him? He reached out and I sent him my schedule and he said he would get back to me and I haven't heard again. Well, and I'm not, I'm not here to defend him because I'm on your side with this thing. The item is, you know that this is the time of the year that they have traveled to all the different areas to promote more flights and stuff. So I make no excuse. If we want better communication, it's gonna be too sudden. I agree with you. Well, but in terms of, yeah, I'm sorry, go ahead.  And it was like, you know, for God's sakes, just make a direct request if you want something, right? I mean, if they make an application to the planning and zoning part of the city to say the BIA would like to consider having the city consider doing these actions on this land, right? Rather than having just a balloon that floats up over here but doesn't float up over there. That was one, that was one commissioner that brought that up and said, have you as a council considered rezoning to help, and this was to replace revenues lost by the housing? And I said, we as a council did not have a full blown conversation on rezoning. I said, we're not going to rezone just for rezoning's sake. It's going to be done on a per issue basis. So I think I was pretty direct with them. We butt heads with BIA on a lot of issues, right? There has to be an opportunity to cooperate on other issues. Yes, yeah. So, and I think you're probably trying to seek those. We are. That path now. This isn't really supposed to be confrontational. It's something where they have to be forthright. What are your plans in the future for the properties that you've purchased and how can our city somehow work with you to understand the best way forward on that? For everybody. For everybody. All right, whatever that might be. And there might be a lot of angst about that, but at least if we get it on the table, we can start talking about it, right? That's true. So what, and I would agree. So what is the consensus? I mean, I think I know, but, you know, in terms of going as we, as the NCP moves forward with gathering their information, a couple times, both I think the mayor as well as Jean has said, well, it's really the FAA only. In fact, you've conveyed this in conversations. The FAA really only wants to hear from the people who live there, not the political. Well, the strongest ways to come from the people are not the elected. So how do we, I mean, what's our approach? Or what is our bottom line in terms of having what we feel are really important needs of this community articulated and influenced what gets built into that plan and then is the basis for an application for money to do X, Y, and Z. I mean, they did respond the last meeting, they, I said to, with Moreau, I said, we haven't heard back from you on the MOU and you got it in June. No, it was earlier. Yeah, June. It was. Can you let us know? We don't know what your response is. So we can't move ahead. And then the next week, miraculously, they got their lawyer to look at it. But again, I mean, I think that letter from her was not as clear as it could have been. I mean, they kind of punted it and said, well, the FAA sort of won't let us, but they didn't really say it's an absolute rule. I wanted to share with you that I got. But so I'm asking you, what do Seth Leonard and I propose? Do we come up with governance light kind of thing that says, okay, on these issues that affect our residents, we wanna have the final say, not have the airport sort of listen and take all this in and then do what they wanna do. And it is exactly the FAA that's gonna make the decision. Well, yes, I know, but it's the recommendation. We want the recommendations from us. Yes. What we like. We do. We want the recommendations coming from, and Winooski would like the same thing when it's their turn to have their houses torn down to be able to say, no, this is what we think, not an individual resident necessarily be the spokesperson who's looking at a $50,000 equity bump. So what are they gonna say? So the Chamberlain School, is that being represented by the superintendent's office within this NCP process? Yes. Yes, they are. So they have a firm stake in that process because they own the property and the kids attend that school. But the BIA would prefer that we, as the city part, not, they feel like we don't have the ability to participate because we're not the residents per se. Right? That's what they were telling us. They want the residents to be part of this process. So now it's residents plus the school system. Well, it's, if you look late this afternoon, I forwarded the response that Kat and Megan got from the consultant about what is the role of the technical advisory committee. And they, from what I gleaned from that letter was they view the technical advisory committee as our conduit as a city to comment. And they look at the public hearings, the open house, and then the public hearings to come as an opportunity for the residents to comment. And I think that was the basis by which they more or less stated they don't do a broad public notice about the technical advisory committee because it has a different role. And so I forwarded that to you all so you could see that. But I think that the city's perspective is representative through the technical advisory committee. And how, what percentage of the people on that board do we have representatives? Well, we have four. Four out of 20. Justin Wienewski or Wilson having showed up that we're not participating. You know, I don't know how they would ever vote on something, the weight of a vote. But we're there to advise. I don't know, Carmen and Paul are on it as well. I don't know that. 15-ish. 15 people, roughly. But in one of the presentations, it said this body does not make the decisions. The airport management makes the decisions. That's very clear. That was made crystal clear at two meetings. Right. I'm not expecting this week to have a, that's not how it's been laid out at this time. But that board will be conveying an opinion to the FAA. Yes. Well, no, the airport commissioner conveys. So the airport commissioner. The M.C. This is all input into a decision that the director of aviation will make about what recommendations go for, bless you. Go forward to the FAA and the N.C. So he's the final filter. He's the final. So asked in that meeting if the airport commission would bless or approve it. And I think the answer from Jeff Munger was that they didn't the last time. So it's just the airport director. But maybe the airport commission might want to have. Well, you know, and I think that's a good piece to bring up that, you know, I mean, if we've got this advisory committee, which is very different than what they've had in the past, I think the role of that was designed to bring forth the recommendations from the committee. But I believed it was all going to the FAA from your group. Oh, direct? Oh, that I believed that that was going to be all inclusive in the report to the FAA. Now, I, the, what we were told was that this all is informed informs the director of aviation that actually said the airport staff and the airport staff make the decision as to what goes to the FAA. So that, maybe there's a record that's created. But I'd like to see a broader version of that one. Yeah. Well, we can certainly make that at the meeting tomorrow, but I can push it with the, because so it sounds, so if I were to say to the mayor that the city council feels very strongly that the, I'd start with the commission having a pretty stronger say in this topic of interest. I didn't mean to cut you off here, your thought there, Helen. Well, I mean, I think our bottom line is we would like to have as a community, real input as well as the power of saying, yes, this is what we feel would be the best recommendations for our citizens, whatever aspect of the report or applying for money to do any activities like sound mitigation. This is what our community feels would be in the best interest of our residents. Which might be. That's an important difference to make, different. Yes, that doesn't take over the governance, it's just.  That's true. And that's good. Yeah, which is. Who's acting in the community's overall interest? Right. It should be us as best we can, right? So our recommendations may be not exactly the same as an individual resident's request for, I want insulation, I want, you know. But when you say, well, did you know that if we did X and Y, it might make it easier, better for everybody, you know. Didn't we ask for this? And Eileen Blackwood's letter basically said, no, the airport is responsible to make these decisions. Yes. I would just say, it might be a nice starting point to empower the airport commission as it was intended in the 1985 resolution to have more of a say over these things. Before everything was taken away. Yeah. And maybe, in that same conversation, you get one excuse to say. Mayor of Burlington made it very clear that he's not about to recast the commission system of government in his fair city. And I think that's probably from the city council because they control more of the things. Because as I say, it goes advisory to the finance committee. The finance committee goes to the city council and the city council has the biggest say. You're not even asking to change the commission structure. You're just asking or suggesting or stating that the airport commission should really sign off on this NCP program because they are more representative than just Gene. Well, but in deference to the one member from South Burlington, they're four from Burlington and are appointed by the mayor with this support of the council. We can make a lobbying effort. We can lobby those commissioners. They're all good people. They're all great people. And I think we could have more influence on them. Well, but I think the bottom line is that we want to have the concerns of the South Burlington residents and particularly that area of our community have some, what would be the right word, kind of general influence on the programs. We want to have more input. We really do. And to what happens? So that we really direct that. We can't make the FAA fund anything, just like Gene can't either. He puts in whatever we... No, but we can make the appeal. But the appeal should be the program outline and requests need to reflect what this community and in the future, what Winooski feels works best for them. And those two might be different things. But the other piece with that we have to remember is that we have to know what all of our options are to have available. I mean, I know that there was a listing here of some, but we have to know what the options are and what are the ones that are not pecking order, but that we understand what all of those are. And when we have a piece that comes out regrettably that when asking how many people would be able to go to a meeting and there are very few, and I know Tamara's meeting is not the important one for people to attend. The general public should be at the larger public meetings. But I think we've gotta do everything we can to get as many people there so they understand what each of these, what does the burn represent? What does the insulation mean? What do the windows mean? What does the whatever mean? So that it's not just their own self-interest piece, but that they are looking for a broader scope for the city. And I think getting knowledge is everything in this process. So that means that do we have the responsibility to do extra public education? We might. Well, that occurs to me because the public isn't, and I think it's intimidating and, you know. So. No, but just to show up to find out. I mean, I've had people call and ask when could this mitigation start? I said, well, don't get excited. You gotta be patient with this thing. But I do, I just want the people to understand what could be done and what might be able to happen for this, the different types of mitigation pieces in there. Well, I think it would be good for the city of South Burlington to collect some of that response. So if you get a list of, these are the 10 things that they said that could possibly happen and clear definitions for that. And we share that with the public and we ask them for their input. And then we pull it together. So this is sort of the majority of South Burlington residents feel they want, you know, a berm or whatever. Carmen, did you have a comment? I just think that looking back to the Chamberlain Neighborhood Committee, I think that the meetings that we held at Chamberlain School were very well attended. People were very interested. I think that the personal touch is much better than trying to do e