times the rate of what it is as the state as a whole so secondly um right now there is a large unsheltered population in the county I think I we're we're right behind Burlington in that regard and a great deal of it probably most of it is centered in Montpelier um there's uh by the numbers there's three numbers that I want to share with you one of them is 300 the second is uh 200 and the third is 50 the 300 number is that's how many people who are on the quote master list or the coordinated entry list for Washington County who are homeless that's a very big number it has changed very little or last year and a half and I don't see this changing dramatically so okay 200 what is 200 that's the number of people who are living in motels right now who are receiving state assistance of voucher and guess what um uh and this isn't the 50 but there's about 50 of them living in Montpelier in the Oconelodge every room in the Oconelodge right now is occupied by somebody that has a emergency voucher so this is right in our right in our city uh the other there's another 50 the third 50 and Don probably will probably give something a little bit higher but it's around 50 are the number of unsheltered unhoused people who are on the streets uh and camping outside and Harbor Park and other places so you know I guess for a big city this wouldn't be uh large numbers but we're a rural community essentially these are very very high numbers so with that that's the preamble that's the context I think most of us kind of know that we've got a problem and with that we're going to launch right into our budgetary recommendations I'll kick it back to Ken thank you and over here in the studio um I'm going to go ahead and share if I think I'm allowed to do that am I allowed to share my um screen if if not we can like yes okay theoretically yes um here we go all right okay is that showing up yep okay so the first uh recommendation is pure outreach expansion through Good Samaritan Haven and um you know this this would extend current funding um it would cover half an FTE for a year and Don Don is currently working um let me let me get the right numbers here because um she's a .5 FTE and the city pays three quarters of that and Rick is cobbling together other funding for that um you know there was conversation previously about pure versus street outreach Don considers herself both um this certainly goes in the same direction um as as a previous conversation and Don do you want to talk about the importance of pure outreach hi I'm sure um briefly what I not to repeat what I said earlier I think a huge thing with with street outreach is that it reaches underserved populations who are often the most vulnerable are often chronically expensive in terms of contact with police and emergency services are often mistrustful or unable to sit into traditional services they're also geographically they may not come into the offices we have to go out to them and so the you know the other thing is again a lot of this stuff can be after hours you can't really schedule emergencies or opportunities so um and at the moment pretty much the only people out there after hours as far as I know are the police and the street outreach people so I think I've gone over a lot of this before but um I think it's really vitally important that we do have people who can reach out outside of office hours and outside of office buildings and we often do have the trust of more people but we are really really stretched right now and we do we do definitely need more hours I'm certainly working over the hours that I'm paid and there there are other people out there volunteering who are not being paid who are doing really essential work thank you and Zach did you want to weigh in on peer outreach yes I'll try my internet was cutting out a little earlier um I'll do it as quick as I can just that me and Don have had to work together a few times uh just give you a picture uh we worked with someone for five hours out there um and then we had to uh drop him off at one of the parks just to let you know how that is at 10 o'clock at night having to do that because we weren't able to secure uh resources for this gentleman so I just want to give you a snapshot of what that's like out there I know some of you on the task force are new it's that you'd like to come out sometime and kind of see what that's like I'm just giving a snapshot of what that looks like and we do provide a combination of street outreach and peer support I know earlier that was discussed and street outreach does provide peer support as well thank you thank you and in the same vein we are also asking for um some indoor space from um basically five to eight at night um Monday through Friday and four to eight at night on Sundays this would provide some continuity for folks who um before the for the virus would often go to the churches or the congregations during this time of day another way where I work is open till five the the warming shelter would open at eight so this would allow a continuity of place places for people to go um oftentimes it's getting on 211 the emergency line to try to get accommodations or figure out where folks are going to go for the night there'll also be access to bathrooms we've been in conversation with Green Mountain Transit they're they're very open idea um and it had been you know be discussed that um another way would manage that and I just I'm wearing two hats there I recused myself from this boat um we had we had several instances of that when we went through this package because when it comes down to it the folks who are able willing and able to provide some of these services are also the folks serving on this committee um and so we would um so there would be some combination of street outreach workers some of another way staff um and we're hoping volunteers from the congregations to to um have a good strong presence um and the the money we'd be asking for the city for this would would be that that first staff member for each shift but um but I think the staffing does need to be um you know we we want to make sure everybody that that one staff member is well supported in that um there would you know and there's some you know questions about how there's like the transit center program and this is the after hours program um but you know there are those are all details that can be worked out um moving on to emergency motel rooms and Rick I believe you're going to speak to this yeah I'll speak to this uh folks this is just another tool in the toolbox essentially uh to protect life um a good solution on a cold winter night when you can't house somebody somewhere else is that you get them into a motel room as soon as possible and uh you know we've paid for this our our agency quite a few times and uh with the unprecedented unprecedented numbers that we're seeing this year um we thought that this could be a helpful solution uh and what's nice about the O'Connellage if there's a room open there is that people can walk there um so again um nothing magic about this number other than this could be very helpful for us to protect people that have nowhere else to go and you might say well why isn't the state paying for this two reasons uh one some people are not eligible for state assistance and secondly if it's too late at night you can't you can't line up state assistance yeah and and I'll just point out this is a tool that um we've paid from another way budget we we've put up people in crisis um recently mental health crisis uh escaping domestic abuse you know it's and it would you know and it would be I will just advocate right here it would be really great if the governor would keep funding motel rooms because this is what has kept people out of off the street and we're and we're looking at um in two in less than two weeks we're looking at um an infusion of folks onto the streets as winter approaches um and it's going to be dozens of people and I've I've lost track of the exact number Rick do you know the donor anybody else know what the what that number is looking like at this point people who would be ineligible um well there's over 200 in the motels now um I can't um I think it's a very very significant number uh I'm gonna guesstimate about uh you know a third at least yeah um and and then um um all right let's see we're gonna see emergency and we'll we'll move to public comment after after we go through this unless there's a is Morgan do you have a fact insert here or Don I can wait okay yeah just just for clarity on on the facts at this point and we'll have I was just getting in line okay thank you sir okay um moving on to emergency transportation support this is a big need um and it's it's difficult um there's insurance issues um but we we need to make a difference and again it's that after hours time sometimes uh police departments are have some downtime and are able to transport people um you know oftentimes and sometimes it's individuals out of the goodness of their heart out there getting people from point A to point B um and again just fast forward to winter time and when folks it's life and death and and and folks needing to get to medical appointments needing to get to housing needing to get to um you know an office somewhere to get their services needing to get you know food for the for the night you know you can imagine the gamut uh getting to work trying to get you know interview for work so so uh we we um we're investigating different options about this would look like we we do have uh somebody we we pay to to drive right now we can expand that um the ideal thing would be to have the taxi service that would show up or my ride to expand what they were they are doing but um there's other efforts on the countywide level to address this but it's frustrating frankly um how challenging it is um and Don I you're faced with this all the time can you mind adding on a little bit to that yeah I mean to to say what would seem obvious there are three really vital components to getting someone housed there is access which has been a huge problem I think the transit center helps to address that there is capacity you need somewhere to put them but if you can't get them there it's useless um we do absolutely need more transportation support there is zero taxi service at night or on the weekends um it's it's just it's essential I mean it's completely pointless and frequently in the past people have lost their potential emergencies south for 30 days or more in the winter because they were not able to physically get to a room that was reserved for them and that's that's seemed so unnecessary and ridiculous um there there there are other transportation needs as well I think you've mentioned a lot of them can but there there is a serious need here and without transportation some of these other things are completely meaningless so you have to have all three legs of that there if you can't access it if you can't get there if you don't have the capacity then having one or two of those legs is pretty much meaningless for it to work we need all three of those items and you make reference to them losing a motel voucher for a month I mean there's often very punitive rules in place around the use of these public benefits um the other you know in terms of access also the the thing about the transit center it would not just be a warming place for people going to the shelter or a bathroom although these are important but people need a place to use the phone to call for emergency shelter they need a place to wait and a phone to get a call back or they don't get the shelter um and and likewise if they don't have transportation then it's useless and they may lose not just shelter for one night but shelter for 30 days because they didn't get to their room you know and we can't address that at the mum bubble we can do is try to make the system more more effective you know what we do have I don't know if we can increase capacity but we can at least make what we do have actually usable for people yeah and I and I think it's important to point out that imagine your you know bad customer service experience waiting on hold in a really frustrating way imagine doing that when that's the difference between being inside or outside when it's 10 below or or being able to go for a job interview the next day um that there is just one of a bunch of hidden barriers that that unhoused population faces um winter overflow shelter support um Rick could you describe this please yeah sure well as you might imagine with the need that's out there we need emergency housing um I our project at the Twin City Motel unfortunately is not going to be ready this winter we're planning we're going to have two other shelters one in Barrie and one in Barrie town and we have an agreement with the Christ Church to lease the their community building to provide up to 12 beds and so my budget for that this is November 15th through April 15th is about $70,000 and the state will pay I'm hoping the state will pay most of that about 65 and I've asked for a 5,000 here to fill the gap and one thing that I want to provide with that money is food because people come in late at night and they often haven't haven't had anything to eat and um uh it'd be really nice to provide some meals when they show up thank you and then moving along um number six is and this this is um basically planning study money um you know there's sort of two pieces of this a planning study to to to look at the needs and we change some of the language from you know originally it's like a long-term study to a responsive holistic study recognizing that we're not solving homelessness with this year right now that there is a huge tragic situation happening on the streets and we have to be responsive there's been conversations about building little shelters you know pallet homes different structures looking at different pieces of property people trying to push the envelope you know you're up against all sorts of things when you're trying to develop something like flood planes um you know legal challenges ownership issues siting is very very difficult um and so what we need to to push on this there were um there was a great set of um designs for day shelters done by students at Vermont um tech um at a Randolph um and a well done study could be could bring down bigger bucks by having a plan and like okay this is what's really needed what are the nuts and bolts um you know if we if we're going to make a real difference here this is what it's going to take so it's a it would be a planning study and and then the the secondary piece of this is in the something that's been discussed at the county wide level is some studies of the like the root causes of of of why people are out on the streets um and in a good um story that indicates how that can be important there was a there was indication that I think it was 80 percent of a population of unhoused individuals had some form of traumatic brain injury and um some of our local folks um had contacted the researchers on those and and it sounds like that does bear that did bear out they had a sample size of like 123 in the population they were studying um and so that you know that right there were led to like understanding how folks are out there what's what's going on um can help you design a better solution on the other hand you can also say we know what's going on the cost of housing is high um and so I mean there's you know there's there's some balance there I mean and and that sort of give and take between what the heck can we do right now we have an emergency get people you know we need to get people off the street and what can we do everybody's impatient to to fix try to fix this problem um it's incredibly frustrating when the state pulls the rug out um it without a real plan and I and I guess I should also qualify I don't know if everybody is I mean everybody in their hearts wants to solve this problem but people don't know what to do um but this this will move move it forward in a in a in a in a good way that provides some specificity and some planning um so that is our you know our package we we we have exceeded the you know the money allocated um we with some understanding there may be extra money um you know you know from on high that could be available um we're we're grateful for the ongoing support of council um um and we recognize that we're not it's it's frustrating because we're dealing with a lot of human tragedy and we're working really hard to to do the best we can um and but this is with a lot of hard work amongst very dedicated people this is what we've come up with so um and anybody else um from our task force want to add thoughts to this yes this is that real quick and I just want to say that we are attempting to address as many concerns as we can um yeah we've heard a variant of them and you know not it isn't a perfect situation but it's a lot better than what we had 20 years ago here in the city certainly has opened up a lot of discussion and thank you for the continued support of the community and the council and I will just say we're we're having people from other parts of the state contacting us asking us what we're doing what they can learn from us um we're meeting some of us are meeting tomorrow from folks from the from White River Junction um we're getting calls from Rutland we're getting calls from LaMoyle and there's folks all over the state you know trying to to respond to this situation and there's just a lack of affordable accessible housing there are folks working on that Caroline you have your hands up yes I want to do a little bit of clarification on that transportation which is as I understand it it's what happens as somebody shows up late at night it's cold outside they spend a couple of hours they get a voucher for a hotel room the hotel room is in Burlington they have to go to Burlington and there's no way to get there what happens is that they haven't shown up and taken advantage of that so that's when they get put on the list so that they can have housing for 30 days or some other length of time because they turned down what was available so this would would alleviate that situation you could get them to Burlington or White River or wherever the vouchers this is going to be used okay and then I'm gonna I'm gonna pull this off the screen and I can put it back up but I think the next step would be clarification questions from council on any of these asks that is that's fair any clarifying questions I feel like I do have some questions but I'm going to hang on to them for the time being because I want to hear from the public okay any other thoughts questions yeah Connor go ahead I just want to thank the task force for all their work we asked for some specificity in the last few weeks and this is a very detailed report it's a group of people they think who know how to sort of duct tape together budgets and make it work and they know exactly what they need here I would point out that spoiler alert three of our goals the top priority is addressing homelessness out of the sex there so I think this is in line with the direction we're going and it's a very real and immediate need I mean it's pretty unconscionable that the Scott administration would consider in a couple weeks letting so many people out on the street just as the weather is getting cold here so this is very much a band-aid I think approach to fixing some of that but it's very necessary and the consultant dollars I think a lot of the time we feel like we're shooting in the dark here just to have some data have some clarity on how to move forward as we look at a bigger maybe infrastructure project is desperately needed for the conversation so we have all the information we need to make an intelligent decision but again I want to thank Cameron for the through the staff work on this and the entire committee for a really really good set of proposals here oh jack go ahead thanks for the report I think it was great one of the questions I have I'm right on top of the microphone um yeah how's this I'm trying now can people hear me no it's not okay um yeah there I am okay thank you for the report I think it was very good and as Connor said provides exactly what we're we've been asking for one of the questions that I have and it's not the precisely the same hours of the day but there is the proposal for funding for for staffing at the transit center and we we've heard a number of times at our meetings that the the Green Mountain Transit is required contractually obligated to provide staffing for the transit center that they're not doing and I wonder if if Bill or anyone can can give us the answer to what what's going on there is the question I'm not sure how you'd want is is is there a contract that requires that there is a lease with the with GMTA that requires bathrooms to be opened pending their budget their budget availability resources so I so to answer the question we have a lease with GMT that that calls for the bathrooms to be open and them to staff at pending their budget resources and their current resource which comes primarily from the state does not include enough funding for resources now so that's that's the situation I think they're their desire to have it open full time uh as much as we do you know that's I think they're what's causing this request here oh thank thank you that's a great explanation whether we like the outcome or not is another question but but thank you for that clarification any other clarifying yes j go ahead it's um I'm curious I'll project us in case you can hear me I'm curious where the cost estimate for the or how the numbers put together for the emergency hotel rooms where the the 80 plus nights is this meant to be sort of a backstop an emergency situation for usage or is that a number a number based on a certain number of nights relative to folks who are in there now is this just something for kind of a worst-case scenario where it's late at night and there's bad weather to help get through through the next few months in the winter thanks it's I did it it was a back of the envelope calculation and it's what you said right at the end there I called up the owners of the O'Connellage and Hilltop they offered me a negotiated rate and uh and then I just picked the number of nights and that's how we got it and it's I think just go on anything they're just going to say that I think this is particularly necessary in light of the fact that in a normal year pre-covid we would have had 45 am I right on that maximum we would have had 35 I'm sorry 35 overflow shelter beds available per night most of which would have been full in light of the fact that at the moment we are looking at 10 to 12 shelter beds plus I hope this motel room that Rick is talking about we will have the same or greater number of people as we did pre-covid but we have only 10 overflow rooms so you know and we have more people also competing for the I believe competing for the motel room so I would say that this this particular item is is more necessary than it's ever been just on that we've asked the very city council to match that number counselor was as act is uh going to bring that to their attention on future maybe just want to note Don I know you had had your hand up a little earlier if you if you had something else you wanted to add now would be an okay time okay um yeah just again what I what I said is that we do as I just said we have less capacity than we've ever than we've had in the past three or four years and we have more need than we've had so I think this is it's not adequate but it's a really necessary step and even in a normal year when we did have that 35 bed capacity we often had people who did not we often needed an emergency room at that time so with greater need and less capacity we will certainly need to use that okay thank you um can I just with my question well certainly not to uh to question the the really under request but I would we're concerned that it was um too small of a request based on on what the anticipated need was so um that if we if we could get more that would be great good job Don okay uh Stephen you have a comment you want to make and then we're going to go to Morgan yeah the uh as you recall I advocated strongly for a long time to get you to form this task force and ask that you dot packet with service providers who are going to drag anchor take the status quo unfortunately four of the current members are working for another way our good Sam right now and in effect having to recuse themselves leaving less than a quorum voting to approve this budget there is no plan here this emperor has no clothes uh I point to the printed today from the city's website uh the homelessness task force is charged with to provide the city with a report in three months that includes concrete ideas for longer term structural systems budget timeline that was a year and a half ago so they have indeed dragged anchor for two years so you didn't get your report and nobody thought to ask for where's the report in three in three months so the scope of the report was to include the scope of homelessness the needs of people experiencing the perceived barriers the systems currently in place potential solutions and existing strategies in other cities now they're saying we've had two years we didn't do our job now we want to pay somebody 20 000 25 000 and by the way we're not going to spend that 25 000 putting a roof over anybody's uh body this winter it's absolutely absurd it's unconscionable to spend all this money on peer outreach what good is peer outreach if there's no services to point them to you know that it's outrageous that I also take issue with the city manager's characterization it's not pending budget the lease reads that it's pending staff and the staff there has expressed willingness to work more hours they just by working more hours they will trigger benefits so they they got nine million dollars green mountain transit got nine million dollars in federal funding uh for COVID funding so there's no excuse to not honor the terms of the lease and there's no excuse to misrepresent what the lease says to the city council so we set at the first meetings of the homelessness task force toilets showers phone charging lockers designated camping areas and digital privacy of the what I call the the homelessness management information system they refer to it as the continuum of care I call it the continuum of don't care the this plan or lack thereof includes no provision for those who are banned or mistrustful or otherwise uh unwelcome at some of whom I talked to this evening who are unwelcome at another way or good Sam for various reasons and it's like oh they're disposable good Sam our partners who aren't subject to public records law can arbitrarily tell somebody don't come around and they're left outside and there's no appeal route and this council's not going to be an appeal route or maybe you strike put that in your contract you hear appeals from people who are told they can't go to these places since we're paying for it with public city public taxpayer dollars folks that have left some people have left those organizations for because their property was being stolen because they were being sexually exploited or hit on one case by a registered sex offender who wasn't required to register the the christ church proposal for 12 beds during a pandemic is a disaster waiting to happen without adequate ventilation and separation to put people in a congregate shelter was deemed unconscionable last year and it's unconscionable this year the Econolodge uh rick just said that it's full so you might allocate seven thousand dollars or more as jay inquired into and find that we we can't put them in in the rooms that rate and that budget that budget allocation is only for a seventy dollar rate for a hundred nights at Econolodge that doesn't allow you to send somebody up to comfort in or uh capital plaza for in worst case uh so there's no protocol here there's no protocol for do you need to exhaust your appeal with 211 first do you who's making the ultimate decision whether you get a local voucher or not there's no plan here this is made up stuff over the last few weeks and then they shut down public comment in in the last hearing of the task force where we were trying i was trying to comment on troubleshoot some of these budget areas the state rules one of your first priorities would be to remove the state rule that punitive state rule that bans somebody for 30 days from getting a voucher just because they missed a night in a hotel that that's absurd and that can be changed very quickly in the legislature uh he did raise the insurance issues with transport uh that thing could blow up dramatically if somebody gets hurt in a in a car when it's not properly insured fundamentally this entire program lacks the dignity i i always asserted that dignity had to be the foundation of these and to ask people to move every night to constantly worry about where their belongings we proposed soft shelters either conistoga huts or uh pallet shelters located on available land with plumbing and shower trailers and and toilet trailers and they didn't want to do the work even to put that in place for this winter so to keep people disrupted and moving every night throw them out of the shelter at eight o'clock in the morning not let them back into late 30 at night in the hotel transport them it's it's a it's a horrid existence you're wishing upon these people all for lack of your task force having done their job over the last two years so these folks need support they need continuity of a safe place to sleep a safe place to keep their belongings they need hygiene access there's plenty of jobs out there right now but they're not even believing they're capable of applying for one because they don't have that continuity of where their personal possessions and where their sleep is going to happen so this is a gross abuse of public dollars to approach it in this way and say kick it down the road for another year to start putting a plan together why would we pay the transit center water and sewer when we give them that building for a dollar a year it's a it's our it's the city's building we give it to them for a dollar a year and we're proposing to pay them for water and sewer charges i mean that's just absurd uh they've been months and months in violation of the keeping the bathrooms open from 11 to 230 as a penalty for that they should just write off the water and sewer and even the cleaning they are a business they are they have a much bigger budget than our homelessness task force why are we treating the green mountain transit with kid gloves when we're leaving people out on the street without access and then they're crapping on the bike path during our so i also proposed a local answering service so that these callbacks and and they could patch together 211 211 doesn't insist on speaking to the person who's going to be availing of the service but our answering service could make those calls and sit in those hold queue and just patch them together when it's when it's they actually get through all of these things were just tossed aside by your esteemed homelessness task force ineffective homeless homelessness taskless force i would call it that's enough oh one other thing i would ask a question and ask you to get an answer i found this a message from montpellier's homelessness task force that says it was a paid advertorial that appeared in the april 28th issue of the bridge whose money spent whose whose money was spent on that you know a puff piece of all the work they haven't done for two years thank you steven nad to be fair i know you're a critic of the group though i remain very grateful for this group and the work that they've done and just like the homelessness task force sometimes folks i'm not the homeless the police review committee took a little extra time it is i'm grateful to have this report here in front of us now and i think there's some really great suggestions here and i think it does um line up with uh some of the goals that were set out at the outset so um having said that um i uh i do have a couple other questions um for this for the group but um oh i'm sorry morgan yes please go ahead morgan uh yeah morgan looks frozen right now did you have something you wanted to oh yeah please well while we're waiting for more i mean morgan may oh okay go ahead morgan now okay good sorry about that morgan w brown appear as in the district three uh can you hear me all right hold on hold on i can hear you okay so um first i want to address something before i go into what i was gonna say steven woodica uh just asked who was it that paid for the ad in the mapega bridge for the homelessness task force to give a message and i want to go on record to say the anonymous person was myself i used nearly half of the covid-19 stimulus check to do it and i don't regret it and if i could do it again i'd do it i didn't want to come forward but since he's challenged it there it is okay there's your answer so uh for the benefit of the new city council member of my district three jennifer morton who might not know me i want to i want to say that i'm a person who uh had lived almost off and on for quite a bit of my life since i was 17 clean of the use severe abuse and although i you know wasn't always necessarily homeless and sometimes there's always a lot of times it was uh you know culture and in such uh i wasn't permanently housed you know the last go around was in the mapega area mostly and that was 12 years until like a house you know where i am now and i have been housed for just over 12 years now thanks to a lot of different people that helped made a difference so what i want to say is oh and by the way i'm a former member of the task force what i want to say is i fully support the additional ask for the $35,883 above the uh $45,000 and i asked that the city council please support this it will help you know sometimes a band aid might not be enough but it's better than nothing and i know and please you know and jay thank you you know hey if you want to buy and allocate more hey you got my support thank you thanks for listening thank you morgan um anyone else either oh yes right go ahead bob it's bob gowns it's for rick rick on concerning the christ church if you could um or somebody in a staff get holy to myself a chrysalumber probably sooner than later so we can get in there and develop a life safety plan for that a couple years ago when when we looked at there were two or three things not big deals but need to be corrected before we can let people sleep in there so if you could just reach out to either myself or chris we'll work with you on that yeah thanks bob yeah i'm sorry i didn't think to to check in with you beforehand it's been moving pretty fast but i will be in touch thank you gotta love a small town uh don't go ahead is my look at planning money i always think of there's maybe places to get grants and you know uh kevin uh kasey in planning who does a lot of community development grants that's the only amount that i really look at twice is when you're looking at a short term emergency fix that this is then i would look elsewhere for planning money i just wondered if you've been able to check into any of those places that might give you money for planning when they won't give you money for operations i i know that we did ask kevin i don't know if cameron's in the room um she was going to touch base with him on planning um it's not i don't know if that's exactly what you're asking but i hear what you're saying and and i would assume that there you know there there is other money out there and i appreciate always looking for that well and i believe it's is it charles brown who's uh families the department of families and i always children on brown yeah sure okay he spoke at rotary a few weeks ago and he certainly gave the impression that there was funds there not only for services but perhaps for some planning money i unfortunately don't know the services i would just rather see us try to go after a grant for planning money if that's possible like can i just say i mean at least from my vantage point is folks are maxed out working 24 seven on this issue um responding to crises on the street so this was i think a way to say okay we need to keep our eye on the bigger systemic solution absolutely yes didn't um did we also word that so that part of the mission of the the people who are working on the survey would be to develop plans practical specific plans that would help us to overcome the barriers and put out proposals that might produce results that we need i mean i know that i know i remember having emphasized that and i thought that we had also put that in there as one of the goals of the consultancy whoever does this uh was not just to determine the causes but to come up with information on how to get through the barriers and put together an actionable plan which as ken said we are incredibly maxed out um okay so it's it's very difficult to get through all that i wasn't saying otherwise totally you need you need to have consultant assistance to get what you need to know absolutely so i can build on that yeah i get staff perspective is we have talked about finding grants for that um finding planning grants there's not a lot available for the planning side especially for infrastructure especially for housing there's a lot of money for creating the housing and housing partnerships and part of their homelessness task forces conversation was to get funding so that they could be ready to apply for those larger grants that could get us an infrastructure sort of project going um you know recognizing that um all of these folks are volunteers community members um who may not have the expertise to create such a plan so um that also does not dissuade us from applying for grants if we find them so if there is any funding opportunities that folks are aware of we will welcome those thank you thank you carolin did you have something to add to that i saw you you had a hand up and i think she basically covered it that what we were looking for was substantiation something to back up a grant application so that it would carry more weight okay thank you i mean if there's anyone out there who wants to come up with a specific plan a specific proposal a grant proposal that would address some of these problems more effectively sooner on a larger scale we would absolutely i think i speak for everyone we would absolutely welcome anyone who has the time the expertise whatever thank you i'd like to have your hand up uh yeah i just um i have a very specific request if the council does take action on these items uh the item about the uh street outreach is called peer outreach um i said some of the guy that's got a higher the person um i i would request that that just be called street outreach um it i understand the value of peer outreach and having a peer worker we have one right now and that's fantastic but um it's going to make it difficult for us to to fill the second position who we already actually have a candidate working in that capacity so so my question was um was really about the same one that don i had a question about the number six the consulted study a day shelter um the i i just uh i guess my question i don't know how to frame this you know a way that's easier somehow but um i mean as far like when i read day shelter i think another way right and so um i i do want to say like this is like one one part of something steven brought up that i did have some concerns about which is that it it does feel a little conflict of interest e um because you know if we study this and then maybe we're creating some competition for another way or maybe it's something that another way expands into and so i i don't necessarily understand the relationship between um what's being proposed and and um another way of services and if i'm off base on this like that is fine i just need to yeah no i appreciate that question i mean i mean from my perspective it's acknowledged it was with the homeless task force hat looking at the need in the community there there is a gear there is a balancing act in terms of mission at another way we there there's some back and forth in our conversations internally about psychiatric survivors versus homeless population um and there's some work we're and i mean we we're not a shelter we have a program and so we and we're not a low barrier shelter i mean right now we have required to be vaccinated and masked to access there are folks who are outside right now who who could come to another way who are not because they want to abide by our rules so that that's a piece of it um i as far as the you know i in terms of the conceptualization of this piece i i frankly had no concept that another way would be part of that it was like what's the need in the community um and but but there is this you know folks in who are my constituents at another way are like the city's always looking to another way to solve the social service problems in in the town and we have a different we have a different mission and so as executive director there i'm trying to always find that balance okay thank you that's that's actually quite helpful um separate question and this is kind of a meta question where that's we're gonna need to talk about i think as a group this proposal is uh you know reading through the cover letter um on the one hand it looks like it's maybe a request that's coming from that $50,000 that we set aside from ARPA money that's one potential pot of money that could go towards this um there were a couple places where it sounded like it was maybe coming from the budget which would make it a a budget request because i think of ARPA money as a separate that's that's a different pot than the budget conversation that we are about to start if it is a part of the $50,000 that we set aside for ARPA there is a question that the like that money is going to come to us over a couple of years and so one question is is this does this $50,000 come out of sort of this year's allocation or next year's allocation or is it split 50-50 or some other way um and i know that we are going to be having further conversation about this very topic um next meeting i think it's next meeting yeah that's fair that's fair yes no it is scheduled for next meeting okay um so i want to recognize that with the ARPA money at least um lauren we had had mentioned you know maybe we could have some kind of public process about getting suggestions for what to do with that 50,000 and uh on the one hand like here's a proposal this this is good but we haven't really talked about the process for how we were going to allocate that 50,000 and if we wanted to have any more robust process around that so i realized that is sort of a meta question um otherwise i'll just speak for myself and say you know thank you for this report i want to i want to support this and i you know whether that's it's easier to do it through the ARPA money but i don't want to jump to that if there hasn't been a process around the 50,000 dollars um and i see some hands starting to go up so um lauren and then jennifer maybe yeah okay i mean in terms of what i was thinking when i proposed that we pull 50,000 out and i was thinking of it as that first kind of set of money that came in um and i was really thinking about it and i think the conversation we had was about emergency needs i was specifically thinking about the homelessness task force and i think we talked about that as a likely venue for it i know i've talked about public process i was thinking more of the 700,000 that's not yet allocated i mean to me this is basically what we asked for was what could we do that's really addressing urgent needs of community members and instead of just putting the full amount into infrastructure that we set some piece aside so to me it's very responsive to that and right in line with our conversation i mean i guess i'm like i don't want to hold up getting things going um i mean it could be that a big chunk of this is the 25,000 for the longer term planning we could move forward the other pots of money if we wanted to that um and have you know that's that's a big chunk of what is being asked for we could have a longer process if we think there's more i i'm not advocating for extra process to me i would be happy to support this proposal today um and i've got some other thoughts on the proposal in general but just in terms of your process question i think that's where i'm at no that's that's helpful um Jennifer thoughts yeah um just just to put it out there i've worked with the homeless populations both on the west coast and here in vermont for 20 years and just looking at this proposal feels very gentle compared to how much work needs to be done and i feel like this isn't a huge i mean and i'm talking you know i worked in very big city so and i currently work with homeless populations here in vermont but um i feel like this is a really nice proposal and i would like to you know just put that out there as somebody who's worked with these communities for a long time yeah great thank you um any other thoughts around the process for that 50 000 yeah good i think this was my recollection of the conversation when we set aside the 50 000 uh the homelessness task force was specifically brought up and we did make them aware that this money could be available for things like this it is a pretty pressing emergency so i think it's reasonable um john i can see you want to say something oh yes right so and not so much just staffing at this level um but if you could take the 25 000 out for now as far as right now taking the 45 that we've already allocated and then add from the 50 to balance it but not yet the 25 without a little more talking i would feel more comfortable but i'm a little confused the 45 what i believe 45 thousand dollars in this year budget that's where the first 45 thousand this year budget got you so they were only asking for 35 000 and 808 out of the possible rescue money i think what donna says take 10 000 883 from the 50 000 of arbor we've set aside along with the 45 give the for tonight and then continue the conversation about the 25 000 along okay yeah that's what i meant okay okay go ahead connor are you you're saying you would use other funds besides the arbor money for that or you would just i don't know i don't know for the discussion on it yes because i'm i'm still i'm concerned about plugging some of that money of the and you guys abbreviate it and you say arfa but i'd never get it right so american rescue money um to more clearly going after the core issue of housing i mean i would much rather work towards having a facility in place and put the staff around that but yeah other any other thoughts on on that possibility i go ahead connor i might just ask tenor rick or somebody from the committee at 10 000 of that i know is set aside i thought that was a bigger piece of the pie for the continuum of care uh that might be just going into a bigger pot so i don't know if there might be a bit more urgency on the 10 000 within that 25 all right 10 000 for what connor do you see the research in the washington county continuum of care right 10 000 within the 25 000 and if that was time sensitive with the bigger group there no i i don't think it is i mean i mean part of it on the the first the research we put the language in there for responsive so the thinking was if somebody can come up with a quick solution not a long-term solution you know that that allows some latitude for time for for being responsive to the to the situation the most urgent piece of that 25 well i i think that 15 000 was to provide the basis do the research to support going after grant money that was my understanding when we were talking with carmen in our meeting and so it's not immediate but it is immediate in the sense that one would want to go after bigger funds at a different in a different location you know from the state or whatever pots are available so we would want to be prepared to support that request this is maybe too much in the weeds but uh so i i you know just as an example i would support the the peer outreach expansion that's the that's 23 000 uh 680 in my mind that is not a one-time cost and so i would prefer that kind of thing to come out of the budget rather than the ARPA money which is one time um but but this is yeah sorry go ahead be a well i again i'd like to i'm not here to defend or argue for against but 45 000 of the 80 000 is coming from our budget right so oh i see so that could be a part okay thank you so there's only 35 000 that's on top of that that they're asking for from ARPA right now um and you recall so so if i can just allow me a second when we when we allowed the 50 000 when we set this 50 000 aside at that point we only were aware that we were getting 380 000 this year that was the only number so we said we were going to allocate 330 000 to capital and equipment which we did and keep 50 000 aside for to be determined but i think you know so yes housing was mentioned as well as homeless services so we never voted on what that last 50 000 was going to be i think we've since learned that we're going to get 1.1 million this year and 1.1 million next year so we we have the 1.1 million in hand now and it's been sent to us so what you have said collectively is that 1.5 million out of the 2.2 will be will go to replacing projects that we cut out of the budget so it still leaves i think this is where lauren said with the 700 000 or maybe 650 if we take the 50 000 out it should be determined what that needs to be used for over and then the just the question is we hold that 650 this year next year do we split that up how does that go and i think that's a conversation we need to have but you have a lot more ARPA money that is not yet called for that could do many of the projects or initiatives that you're talking about or could just go back to do even more capital i mean you've got a lot of choices so i want to make sure that we're putting that in contact that you know this 50 000 isn't the last bit of rescue money you have and that 45 000 of this request is from the budget is from our approved budget that's a good call fair enough so what is your desire to do team yes go ahead jack as i think about this am i being heard okay as i think about this i think i share where donna's thought that we may need to give some more thought to the planning component the item six of this and and i also think you know what wanting to support what what the task force is is asking for the other thought i have is that we may very well find that the the amounts they're asking for and items particularly items one three four and five are not enough and those seem like those would be valid ARPA funding requests if if we if we need to go that way so i think my inclination is to uh take out the item six from their their request for now to hold that for further thought and and also keep in mind that and and approve the remainder but also keep in mind that i would be open to further funding requests out of the fiscal 2022 ARPA or the first tranche of the ARPA money if if there are needs that can't be met from any other source or emergency shelter and i don't know if ken or rick have any thoughts about how consistent that is with your assessment on me or is that sorry i i i like what you just said because you're being very supportive in your comments and you're leaving the door open and this is it you know it's um as you're trying to plan solutions um yeah everybody wants to think big but we're trying to make things happen and respond i thought that morgan's comments were right on target nobody wants to do a band-aid but um it's something and it's responding to the the human suffering immediately so i i i don't i can't speak for the whole committee but i like what you said and i frankly i'm i'm in accord with you on number six i think it needs more discussion and planning myself so here's here's a possibility team um uh it's getting late and we're gonna be talking about this like the how we apportion this $50,000 next time um i think i you know i hate to do this to to the homelessist task force but i think it might make some sense to take this up next time in conjunction with that conversation so that we can make a decision all at the same time unless you want to vote on it now which would be okay too um okay that's great i think we just need to like do we need to do something i love listening to everybody you know because i always have these shifts it's wonderful i really think that i i'm gonna make a motion okay okay so my motion is that we award this request as asked for we apply the 45,000 that's in this year's budget and the remaining 35 whatever from the are for money but we leave 20 the 25,000 a little more open to be refined but we still dedicate that much money towards some sort of planning and i do know i mean just recently with the public safety authority having the consultant come in you think you all know everything but it just pulls things together that expertise that focus that time so i want us to do it now okay one i'm not going to be here next meeting too oh okay that's where i mean sweeten and i have a different time zone but uh all right so yeah that's my motion okay i'll second that i just emphasize the point i think we we can sit on the consultant a bit but as donna's saying you know the homelessness task force can't do a ton unless we have an idea of where you could build something who could run it how much it's going to cost and what the population is and i think we still have a lot of question marks in those meetings so this would go towards that purpose so thanks donna um lauren go ahead one clarifying question um and then a couple thoughts just on the restroom piece like i know at various points we've talked about you know getting a trailer with showers like is that just it's just not available or why is that not an option anymore and so we're paying instead for a few hours of gmt per day yeah we were working with the baptist church on the trailer but as more information came out it turned out a couple things the laundry didn't would it would only be towels right so that was a bit limiting the second and biggest is it won't withstand the cold um okay so once i went below freezing it would be gone anyways and that would only get us a month so we're seeing this as a better year-round access yeah so okay thank you that's really helpful um yeah i mean i i am going to support this motion i think we need to get things moving show the clear support for this i mean i'm frankly sickened that the state is not doing this i don't think this should be falling on communities i think this is absurd and egregious and um you know but here we are and we have to help people in our community and so this these are some steps we can take as we look at longer-term solutions you know i'm glad to see the consultant doing you know it looks like if we can refine that further that could be really good work um to to move this forward and looking at root causes um you know i i think we could also simultaneously just hearing some of the barriers that these are addressing it sounds like you know are is there an opportunity to maybe advocate for some state community grants where we don't have these strings that seem to be really making it hard for people to access services um are there policy changes we should be advocating for as came up a couple times tonight um that you know it sounds like there's some really well known problematic criteria like you don't show up and then you're you know out of luck for 30 days like so i think trying to also catalog those as either you know part of the task force or part of the the study but i mean some of that it would be great to also be trying to address some of those issues too so that more state resources are actually available to more people thank you all right uh okay there's been a motion a second any further discussion not it okay all right um all in favor please say aye and opposed okay um great so thank you uh again yeah and and thank you and i just sincerely appreciate um all y'all and and and the collective wisdom trying to crack some really tough problems and you know any the thought the feedback adds adds wisdom to to this and it's really is true it's like it's like freaking frustrating try you know and you know and so i appreciated like that time when we all had Sean Brown come in and Sarah Phillips sort of set the stage and sometimes you don't think big enough you know and so i appreciate you know do this do we're doing the best we can and sometimes it's like we're don't see what's in front of us so thank you thank you all right so i just want to check in it is getting late here team we could we have at least two other items yeah i've already communicated with the finance director we'll okay the only question i think was whether you wanted to go ahead with the community survey and the council survey you will get to work on those that was part of her presentation okay about the budget the the budget present we're going to do the overview of the budget and kind of how the process was going to go and all that stuff but that can wait till the next meeting okay as long as we don't stack that one up yep and then we have the strat plan uh camera just have a presentation but it's really up to you whether you want to do that um i know i will receive it better if we do it another time i'm really sorry um we can send out the slides and things that we were going to do yeah i think that the key part of that was your straw poll votes on ranking the uh priorities you know the initiatives and we were i think what we were really looking was for you to officially adopt those and we should so because and then the idea was if you did that tonight then we were going to present have the full strategic plan for your approval at the next meeting so that was the only but we'll we'll see what we can figure out okay all right um and we did not take up uh the appointments to the vacancies left by councillor Richardson uh that's well no there's no there's nothing urgent about it i as i understand it at the moment is that pretty accurate i think i mean the biggest issue probably a cvpsa but did we did we replace him on cvpsa no okay that's the only one that i know that's okay it's right now Montpey is the only one on the public safety authority board that doesn't have both positions filled okay well maybe we can talk about that during council reports too because we have to talk about cvpsa anyway um you can check in with folks and if it's not apparent what we want to do then we can i mean even if you just you can advertise it doesn't have to be a council member it's nice when it is we have Doug Hoyt right now as the one representative from Montpey okay uh okay then um so we're so we're pushing off those couple of items or three items really generally um thank you so we're on to council reports and i'm going to start with Donov yeah i brought up that i emailed you all the dates for the central Vermont public safety authority along with our consultant is presenting to the joint councils on the 19th uh berry city had that change from the 20th and they are doing it in their chamber so they are doing the zoom link they're the host bill has informed us that we all need to post an agenda but when you post that agenda it should have berry city link in it uh and my question to an was were city council members planning to go to berry in person or were people planning to come here i reserved this room in case you wanted to do that i'm not sure i mean i think you could we're looking into that whether we actually have to have a physical i think you can also just go remote so you could either go to berry we could choose to meet here or you can just remote in i think the consultants are doing it by remote no they are yes well they are but i i was going because i'm also presenting and right sort of facilitating it so i'm going to be there correct but we will have somebody here for public safety authority because especially people who belong to capital farm mutual aid a lot of them have weak wi-fi at home and so they want a place to come that they can get stronger wi-fi so we have this space so there'll be somebody here from public safety authority right now we should be sure to make sure we have our tech yeah and well and well we haven't used that but um camera is going to show me after the meeting tonight how to connect it yeah okay okay i just yeah that's news so that's good to know okay and it is this whole zooming who links et cetera is confusing but i just thought perhaps the council wanted to discuss whether they had a preference to be as a group in live it is somewhat dynamic to meet another council and their council has changed quite a bit over the last couple years so i don't know if you're making that decision now or not but that was one of my questions the other we're also meeting and using this space on the 20th as the core host an in-person meeting for the consultants to meet with capital farm mutual aid and hopefully several of their select town board members will be connected this will be the in-person place and then everybody else will be remote for whatever it's worth i'm planning on going to berry to be there for that meeting but i i don't yeah others are welcome to do what makes sense for them um um any other thoughts on that i was planning on just go just going remote just using zoom but if you know if the group thinks that there's an advantage to all being here in one place then that then that's fine too but that was my original intention i don't think it matters doing it remotely i my recollection from the uh from the last time we did one of those joint meetings it was just all crammed together yeah that's it was it was suboptimal that's so sure in a workshop format it's just very not as interfacing as you think it would be yeah no okay well that helps me just to know who may be here and and help the space will be used okay and um are we okay with either not appointing someone to is anybody interested in the the cvpsa position um that's vacant right now if not that's fine so we need to advertise okay all right thank you um great anything else uh no that's all other than i will be in sweden and because i'm going because of a severe family illness i don't really plan to be available i actually arrived there on the 27th and will be in my own little chime zone six hour difference so i don't know how fit i'll be even to try to do remote in the evening but i'm trying to make no obligations to uh interface while i'm gone anyway so don't do anything i don't approve of that's council meeting all right okay i'm good too oh wow okay sorry we're all talked out no just one really quick thing so i talked to bill about this but there is a an open comment period right now on the PFAS treatment of leachate i am going to be working on a potential letter for us or for the city because i think we should be weighing in on it because we're such a big offtaker and i saw that it was a priority of council on our list um which i was excited to see so anyway just if you see a letter um going out i just want to give you the heads up of it's it's a kind of wonky permit process that's ongoing but because it has ties into like monitoring and stuff that will happen here um i thought it would be good for us to weigh in with some thoughts is that the thing at a and r that uh connor and i just got an email about probably okay from connor and i got an email from shana casper saying she'd like to talk to us about it and so i figured that was yeah yeah i regularly rely on your expertise on PFAS issues spend more time on it than anyone should thanks you and john oliver i know so is this online online we can make an opinion yeah i mean it's an it's an agency of natural resources comment period so we'll just we can like submit a letter yeah i'm sorry i don't want to cut you off i'm done thanks yep um just to reiterate i know we kind of blew past this um a few minutes ago but uh because we are approaching budget season i just want to give you a heads up that just like last year i'll be sending out a uh survey about what your priorities might be around um budget and i hope to get that out ballpark late october so just keep that in mind and look for that um yeah that'll be helpful that's it um stop okay bill so a few things um on budget because we were going to do a presentation tonight i'd certainly ask you to read through the material that kelly sent which gives a lot of background information um and i would say with regard to a budget survey which i think is great but i really do appreciate um you're filling out that straw pool and we approve that you know this is between the goals you've set and those initiatives this is probably the most clear policy direction we've ever gotten from a city council going into budget you've really laid out not only what your top priorities are in order um so it was very it's helpful for us as we go through that but you know obviously those when we're preparing the budget we'll be thinking about that and as you as you'll see from kelly's material you know we've got a lot there's a lot of budget pressure this year and we'll be probably talking about even more um so the next meeting we will be talking about the budget um and our our schedule um we're just taking a look so we've pushed that off we'll be trying to do all the strategic planning the initiatives and then the final i think unless we change our mind on that but we'd like to have that done prior to budget um we'll be getting a presentation for vote and approval on the downtown improvement district i'm just trying to have everybody visualize how we're going to spend our time at the next meeting we think ahead um we were we were going to talk about the arpa funds uh the big funds not just the 50 000 but the five or six or seven hundred thousand dollars we um i'll push the i don't have anything on 12 and 16 main street anyway we had tentatively scheduled legislative agenda that could probably push and then we haven't really even talked with our committee either uh so that would and then of course we've just added the three things from tonight so right so there's that i was going to remind everybody um about the next Tuesday's meeting but we've already covered that and i just want to say a very sincere thank you to all of you and to all of our staff i've had a lot of professional and personal things going on last month or so and everyone's been super supportive and we need a lot to thank you very much um all right so uh i think that is that's it so without uh objection we will adjourn this meeting 1050 thanks everybody