Check, check, check, check, check, check, check, one, two, check, check, check, check, check. Just to say happy community media day. Happy community media day. It's hard to say. It is. Okay. This is a PSA? Yes. How many takes do we get on this? They're all a little small. We're all a little small. That's, you often aren't told that. No, and Norris, I'm certain. Okay, so I'm ready, whatever you want. Okay. Well, South Burlington City Council meetings, watch them live online or anytime thanks to community media. So community media day is October 20th, so all together. Happy community media day. Okay. Thank you. We even got Pat in there. Yeah, who? Okay. All right. So. It should sell millions of advertising. It should. Or at least get people to watch. Okay, I would like, are you ready to go? Yes. Okay. I would like to call back into session the South Burlington City Council meeting. October 16th, 2017. We're back in City Hall after visiting the light, the new library space at the university mall. So please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. And Tom, would you like to lead up? And I would just remind everyone that Pat Nowak is joining us by phone tonight. Are you streaming also, Pat? What I did is I got the video of the library. It looks beautiful. The audio was not there. I'm not streaming right now. Okay. All right. So the next item is instructions on exiting the building in case of an emergency. In case of an emergency, we have two doors behind the conference room. They're asked to go out the main entrance and out into the front of the building and around to the parking lot to the side. If for some reason we cannot get out of those two doors. There are two doors here and the same entrance to the parking garage or to the garage parking lot behind us. Tom and I will be responsible for making sure that the building is cleared. So proceed right away. Thank you. Next item is the agenda review. Are there any additions, deletions or changes in order of the agenda items? I was hoping to add something to other business. Okay. I'm just really quickly on our incident case management for sewage related problems into residential homes. I just want to bring to this council some concerns I'm hearing from residents. So incident related case management. Case management. Okay. Alrighty. I would also like to add a proposal that I briefly discussed with Kevin about having our meetings start with an executive session. Similar to what the school board does so that and have it at time certain like 45 minutes. And then if something's really pressing and we need to go back into session, we could at the end of the meeting. But if we have action items and get it over quickly and it might help our staff knowing when they need to be here to join us for that. And certainly it might be helpful for the public. Okay. If there are no other suggestions, then we'll move on to item five comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda. Please come forward. Thank you. Yes, right to the mic. Speak into the mic. Give us your name, please. And my name is Denise Olsky. And I'm here tonight because I'm concerned about the amount of building that's going on and the extension to my neighborhood, especially, but also the extension of South Village. And I went to the development review board meeting and I was, I guess really surprised because I didn't feel like there was any kind of representative government going on. They just did whatever magic math they did and acted like they could do whatever they wanted. So I would just like some, I guess, some clarification on what's going on. And if I could get a map of when Cydermill, the first part, was developed and the second part, the map that was then and how it has changed and been approved. I grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and recently went back this summer. And I don't think you're going to like what your town looks like if you let people build on every square inch. And also, I don't think that when they're counting, however they do the math, if it is a wetland, it shouldn't count in their calculations. So if I could get in. Your neighborhood is Cydermill. But you're also concerned about South Village. If it's going to go all the way to Dorset Street, I'm shocked to tell you the truth. The other thing is like they say that our taxes are high because there's so few people in South Burlington, but they keep building and the taxes really don't decrease. So I'm not sure why we need to have three family units there and on a narrow street. I ride my bike a lot around those streets. And I think it's going to be very dangerous, the plan that they have. So if someone could, I tried to talk to him, but he wasn't available. But if someone could get me the first map of Cydermill 2, the proposed map, when Cydermill 1 was built, I would appreciate that because I think it's changed a lot. And without really the public knowing. Well, I think it has changed a lot. We have those maps available. They posted on the website or is that something that is only available if you come into? I'll have to check with Paul and Ray on that. There are some old ones. I'd like to see the first one. Like when I moved in, I want to see what that map looked like because it didn't look anything like it is now, if I recall correctly. Yes, there has been significant changes. Although I mean, I guess I would say that it's been a public process. I'll approve them as I guess the other thing I want to know. Well, I think we have a number of steps in the process. We have the comprehensive plan for the whole community, which has identified areas for future development and areas for open space and recreation. And then the planning commission develops a series of land use regulations which carry out the plan or the design, the vision, whether it's city center or a new development. And then the DRB uses those regulations to apply to a project that comes through the process. Are all the members of the DRB, are they South Burlington residents? Yes, they are. And they're all appointed by the council as are the planning commission members. So they really kind of work for the council, if you will. But they have a body of work and requirements and we work with them, particularly the planning commission about what we expect or hope that they will address going forward. I don't get to everything because there's always stuff going on. I mean, I certainly on our, we call it our work plan or our parking lot, one of the issues that's been raised that hasn't been addressed yet, but I believe it will be potentially something that Paul Conner and the planning commission will work on, is really the cost of development and the cost of open space, which I think addresses some of your concerns. At that meeting, there were quite a few residents from all over South Burlington voicing concerns. And my impression was that they really didn't care. Who, the DRB didn't care? Right. Like they, you know, sort of begrudgingly listened. That was just my impression, but it was rather upsetting. And to whom may I write with these concerns? And I really would like to see the first map that was approved and understand why it keeps getting denser and denser and denser with fewer and fewer amenities, sidewalks, narrower streets, et cetera. Because again, I ride my bike and I just think that's really dangerous with three families. They're going to have a lot of cars parked in the street. And where are you supposed to go? Not to mention it's going to bring in a lot more traffic. Tim has served on the DRB. Do you mind if I comment on? No, please do. So I attended the DRB meeting before our last meeting. Well, they had one just after our last meeting. I attended the one before that. And I think Denise was at the same meeting I was at. And I think that the density for cider mill one and two were kind of approved at the same time back in 2002, three, four, whatever it was. I, you know, I wasn't aware of that back then. I wasn't on the DRB. And since then, right, Bartlett Weaver has sold off cider mill two to Brad Ducevich. And he's now the developer of this, right? So although it was has, it has approval from that old time, he's come back twice the DRB that I know of with changes in density. And the last plan that was shown was an even larger density, right? An increase in density because they bought some more lands so they could then add some more houses. And I think they proposed using some TDRs. So there were a number of residents there from surrounding like cider mill, maybe some of the other dorsal heights road. They were concerned about the density, the apparent apparent lack of bike, pet connectivity to cider mill phase one lack of actual wildlife corridor north south, right? So there are a bunch of issues that were being raised that meeting. And I got the sense that perhaps the planning and zoning staff were not very amenable to hearing that feedback or we're talking with the developer. Now, I think there have been discussions between bike and pet and the developer since then. I don't know when the next agenda item is for this, but there were some real issues that were expressed at that meeting that I thought had merit. But then you have this like balance of what was previously approved. What should you consider as a second approval even though it's phase two and it was pre-approved back a long time ago with a phase one, but it's a totally different development than it was in phase one. How do you develop, how do you assess whether their total units should be, you know, described by the aggregate number of the aggregate phases one and two, or should they be weighed separately? I mean, these are issues for planning and zoning and then probably for the DRB. So that's my perception of what's going on with that project. As far as South Village, I mean, South Village is going to have a connector road with Midland, from Midland over to the little rotary on phase three. And that's all been approved and was approved before I got to DRB. And we just went ahead and approved all their little small things they did, but they weren't significant changes in density at that point. So I guess my question is, A, could I have the first map and B, to whom can I write? Will it do any good? Because as I said, they begrudgingly listened to the people that were there and there were quite a few people there. Well, I'm sorry if their attitude was problematic. I mean, that's why I asked if they were South Burlington, because somebody was just like saying, well, according to this calculation, we can do whatever we like.  As far as the maps are concerned, you can come in. They're public documents. We can track down whatever map it is that you're looking for. Okay. Come in and see the planning and zoning staff. Upstairs. Right here? Upstairs. Okay. And they'll be happy to help you. Okay. DRB meetings are recorded. DRB meetings are recorded. Right. And all the agendas are posted. But I think as a public member, it's always a little hard to come into the DRB with a new concern. But I don't think they are. They changed it, you know, like, and the people that were there, they, you know, were agreeing to the first map. And not to the, I don't know how many maps later it is, but it keeps getting worse and worse and worse. And I appreciate that. I wasn't, I'm just saying, I think it's challenging for the public to know when to intercept with their concerns. Unless you, so is this a done deal or is there, well, I don't think they approved it. Did they? I don't know. It was continued. It was continued. Yeah. That's what, that was my understanding because I had a phone call from a person who attended as well with similar concerns. So I think that the challenge is how does one integrate the committees that have a passion or their, their scope of work focuses on, you know, wildlife corridors. They didn't seem, I didn't mean it didn't seem like the DRB was interested in any of that information. Well, I think we've tried to have them become part of the conversation earlier. We've tried to meet with developers even before, in the early planning stage. Now that is a little different than cider mill because that's been planned and carried out for probably 10 years. They've been working on that. I mean, when I moved in there, they said, this is the map. And obviously I agreed, you know, okay, this looks fine, but it doesn't look fine. I'm from Bucks County, Pennsylvania. And if you go there, you wouldn't like it. And when I grew up there, it looked like this. No, I agree. I live behind it and it looks different than what we had anticipated and been told as well. So I get that it has changed. But we're working on that process and it clearly needs to be more clear to the public on how that, those interactions can. So somebody could tell me where to write, whom to call, what to do. I really appreciate it. I would just go in and walk in. Unless you call ahead and get an appointment. He's very open. Here? Yes. Well, just to clarify, Paul doesn't make the decisions for the DRB. He can get you the maps. If you're looking for the DRB members. So, but I'm just saying that they did not seem to answer to the residents concerns and seem more concerned with the developer. Sorry. What meeting day was that? I know I wasn't at the last one. Two weeks ago tomorrow was one of them. And then it was the previous meeting before that. And there were quite a few people here. So I know I'm not the only one. No, and I've heard it from other people. And I think that's important feedback. And we need to, I guess, get a better understanding of how they interact with the public. That doesn't sound appropriate. I was actually fairly surprised that their reaction. I've never really experienced that, but maybe that meeting was off for some reason. So I'm going to watch the video and get an idea of why you felt that they weren't listening or being receptive to your feedback. My experience has been they usually are. So I would encourage you to go into another DRB next time. I think there is their one tomorrow. I don't know. Is it tomorrow? Yeah. They usually follow the city council meetings. Again, if you all could look into what's gone on there and make sure they just don't rubber stamp whatever the developer is asking for. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dennis. Are there any other comments and questions from the public? All right. We'll move on to announcements in the city manager's report. Pat, you want to start since you're on the phone? No, I can just say that I had a few unexpected days at the Chateau UVM Medical Center. Great care up there. Home need to be apart from the public for a couple more days. We make sure I don't catch any cold from anyone and feeling 180% better. Okay. I'll see you at the meeting. I wish I could have been there tonight. Good. Well, that's a good report. We're sorry you're not here as well. Tim, do you want to? Sure. So I attended the UVM MC community med school Lyme disease lecture and learned more than I want to know about Lyme disease and aplasmosis, babesiosis, polysum disease, heartland disease. And by the way, folks, it's coming. So the deal is check yourself for ticks after you go out on a nature walk. Maybe you should take a shower within two hours and wash your clothes and dry them on high heat if they're not cotton for an extra long amount of time. I also attended the Chittenden County Center's forum on Vermont water quality at Shelburntown Hall, which was really, really interesting. And we were very fortunate to have and be graced by the presence of Secretary Julie Moore of ANC describing all the work that her section is doing, trying to implement clean water plans and the challenges in front of the state in terms of funding. And we talked a little bit about the possibility of Union Municipal Stormwater Districts because they were talking about maybe the governor has a door left open perhaps for having some sort of a charge for land owner to deal with stormwater. So that was a very interesting statement and it was kind of a gray area, so to speak. But I think that if you want to bear the true cost of pollution in the lake, you have to have everybody contribute to that. So it was very informative. And all the senators were there. I also have done my down coat because it's that time of the year, unfortunately. And I spent an hour today taking apart my furnace and vacuuming all the mice bits out of my intake and exhaust tubes. So if you have a high efficiency furnace at home that has exhaust and you haven't started it up yet, you might want to just check it to make sure that the mice haven't built a nest in there. That's all I have. Well, thank you. Megan? Tom? I attended the same water quality session. I didn't see you there. Where were you? I was there for an hour. Okay. It was good. And I also, maybe you saw this in front porch form, I conducted my first Tavern Tuesdays. I was inspired by Mata Townsend and Martin Lalonde to create some scheduling efficiency just to have any community member to come approach me. And I was expecting to just sit there alone for two hours, but about seven people showed up on seven different topics. And I found it to be a great time to connect with residents. I encourage all counselors that they want to consider or take a, or try at some time. It was really eye-opening. And I'm glad I did it because otherwise seven coffees with seven different people would have cost me a lot more time. So this was efficient. We all had some good conversations and they built off each other. Great. Now you also had a, I think, a retreat for... I was going to report on that during the meeting. Oh, that's right. That's far than I guess. Thank you. Okay. And I don't have anything to really report. I've started radiation and it's going really well. So I'm not tired yet. No side effects. So I'm not anticipating any. So that's going well. The community outreach model that we've been working on, the reliefs and managers and our mental health to have four, up to four counselors embedded in our police departments to support mental health outreach is in its final form. And we're now going into funding requests to the state and to others and to the various, the six communities who may be involved in this. And so we're hoping to have the program up and running by the first of the year. With counselors hired, trained and working for us. If not all four, certainly two of them. So it's a big step forward. I want to recognize Trevor Whipple, Chief Whipple's leadership on this. And he's been one of the key drivers of this effort and support is much appreciated. He happens to be sitting in back for those in the camera. Tomorrow afternoon, the airport has its first NCP technical advisory committee meeting, I think at five. The Allard Square demolition has begun. So I'm sure you've heard from some folks, the trees are down and the site work is underway for the 39 units of affordable senior housing. The press conference on the launch is going to be on November 1st right now at two o'clock in the afternoon. Also under construction City Hall Park. An unfortunate event happened. One of our two of our very key employees were out there, got stung by bees. Thanks to Justin Rabbit who for stepping in and. These are wasps. I don't know what were they just came out of the ground. Anyway, we're thrilled that nothing happened to our other staff member because she gave Ashley gave birth. She was one that got stung. She gave birth on for Friday. Anyway, yeah, 5050. No, we know SBBA has its breakfast on Wednesday at the National Guard. If you have an RSVP for that, you need to do it immediately because they check you at the gate and you have to have a photo ID. Those of us who went last year, it was a really, really interesting meeting. The landfill solar is technically running, but the press conference on that to announce it's flipping the switch will probably be next week sometime. Tom and I are working on CIPs with all the managers. It's going well. We'll be talking later about some of those numbers. And then lastly, where Tom and I not here right now, we would be at the Eagles Club celebrating 46 years of service to the community from Captain Gary rounds. So Captain Gary rounds who many of you know has has retired his retirement party hosted by I'm sure firefighters from across the state as ongoing as we speak. And but we want to celebrate 46 46 years. One of the few people who've worked for the city longer than Tom Hubbard. Gary started off at the Department of Public Works as I recall and was a back in the day. My understanding is that everybody was a volunteer when when the alarm went off, half of public works came over to staff the trucks. And of course we have a full time queer firefighter group now and Gary moved on to join them. But I just want to celebrate Gary's service to the community for almost half a century. That's incredible. Yep. That's it. Okay. And just a quick question. We have Gary and so the council can take him. We will do our absolute level best to try to get Gary, Gary to come in here to be recognized. Yes, Pat. We'll try to make that happen. I think we should have a resolution of some sort to honoring him that we can approve and give to him and recognize 46 years. That's a lot. We'll see what we can do. We can adjourn now and go to the party. You can do that as well. Just one quick question about the solar. Is there a website where we can see the the by quarterly hour output of the entire? I don't know. I'll find out. Okay. For the senior management. So solar dashboard. Which includes the sign disbursement considering appointment of Marla Keene development review planner as our assistant zoning administrator and assistant code enforcement officer approving minutes of September 18th approving a grant application for urban nutrient runoff study and approve a grant application for the Hadley proctor neighborhood sewer project. State revolving loan application for planning and design. It's been moved and seconded. Are there any discussion? Is there any discussion? Seeing none. All in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Great. Thank you. Now we get to council's reports from committee assignments. So Tom. Sure. So since last I was here, the GMT had our annual retreat. It was a full day long event downtown Burlington. Two topics that came up that I think would be most useful to report out to this group is we spent a good hour and a half on our current funding model. And in that conversation, I highlighted the inequities possible. It's too strong of a term, but I think it's appropriate to consider. So we have a lot of free riders of our public transit system in the current funding model that we have rural townships and municipalities that don't contribute anything. They contribute when they can. That came up in the context of us considering a charter change through this legislature to alter our official name from Jitton and County Transportation Authority to Green Mountain Transit. So if we're going to go to the legislature to make any charter changes, that's where the funding model adjustment would be made as well. That really got us thinking. And I think where the board was leaning towards is we're interested in performing a budgetary analysis of what it would look like with an alternative model without implementing it so that we could show these regional communities what they're getting and what if this was a more fair and equitable model and mandated through a more consistent funding approach across the region that served by public transit, what it would translate to. So I think we're going to pursue over the next year not an official change in our charter, but again, we're still working on this. These are long conversations, but instead to flesh out what that model might change in both current municipalities that pay into the system, including South Burlington and also what the implications could be for some of the outlying municipalities that benefit from the public transit. Happy to answer more questions on that, but it's still in that same conversation. I raised the question about ADA assessments and whether or not there could be more fairness achieved if we were to consider the trips based on origination and destination. And it would actually be more punitive to communities like South Burlington, slightly more so. So the assurance is I was given is that the current model is more so it's currently based only on origination and not necessarily destination. So that was a, so I don't see much more progress on that funding conversation point. I will say that as much as the ADA ridership was increasing for South Burlington at the beginning of the year, it has leveled off a bit. So I am expecting a slightly larger municipal assessment this year. Last year we had a decrease of about $22,000. I'm expecting it to come. I'm also under the impression Mark Sousa, who I don't believe this council has all had present to us yet since he is new as of February, is ready to come and present to us both on the budget speak as well as all the public transportation conversations that we want to have with him. And that's traditionally been usually in November. So I don't know when Mark Sousa is going to come in, but I know he's ready and I've been keeping him informed as some of the conversations and points you guys have raised. Well, let's make sure he gets on the list. Thank you. The other one and I'll try to be quick is next gen. So the reports, we're analyzing each route, looking for route improvements and they're still trickling in through until late November. Nothing's going to change once the reports are in. That's when we have a summation of all the routes being analyzed from all the different factors that are considered. We as a board are going to spend the next six months as well. Staff, of course, too, really processing the recommendations from these consultants and what those would imply to current service. But those conversations, those meetings, those public forums are occurring. They've also encouraged each board member to submit to their local newspapers and outline or article summarizing what the next gen project looks like, the timeline and how community members can get involved. So I'm planning to reach out to Judy at the other paper to see if, in my CCTA representative hat, might be able to publish something on this next gen topic. Great. Thank you. Anyone else? Pat, did you have a airport commission meeting? No, not in between. I had mentioned, I think to you, that I had been traveling to Boston to Dana-Farber and I was cut off on the interstate on the, as far as being able to tie into the program. Okay. Thank you. And I haven't had one since. I'm sure there was one following up after the noise study piece that will happen this week. Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay, moving on to item nine, this is a discussion with representatives of the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation, GBIC and the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce slash Vermont Convention Bureau, regarding allocation of FY 18 membership dues to alternative programs with possible action on the reallocation, as well as a discussion of requested funding for 2019. Would you really like to come up together and you may present in any order that you wish? We've gotten some information. Since Frank has handouts, he probably should go first. Okay, Frank, if you would identify yourself for the TV land. My name's Frank Coffey. I'm the president of GBIC and South Burlington resident as well. I'd like to be here tonight and greatly appreciate the opportunity to come in and talk with you about GBIC and our work here in the county and in Vermont. As you well know, Vermont has 14 counties, but we have 12 regions for economic development for land use. So we have 12 regional land use planning commissions and we have 12 nonprofit economic development corporations. And the land use planning commissions work with the municipalities to help them do their land use planning and transportation planning and the regional development corporations work with the municipalities helping them in economic development. GBIC was founded in 1954 and we were created by the municipal leaders and community leaders at the time. The textile mills were going out of business in Burlington and Winooski. And the region had, well, the state had one economic development corporation which was in Rutland. And that was in the 1940s. They were experiencing the same thing. So in 1954, Brattleboro created the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation and this region created GBIC. And we were funded by five cents on the property tax in every municipality in Chittinac County. And what we were created to do was to seek to create high value added jobs in the region and assist the municipalities in helping them build industrial parks and working to build the kind of infrastructure that was needed. And at the time it was primarily manufacturing that they were looking at. So there really weren't industrial parks per se but it was our mission to try to work with the municipalities to try to create an industrial base. Over time that's changed. There's actually, I served in the dean administration, Senator Tom. And our labor force during the 90s when I was serving Governor Deem was 25% of the labor force was in manufacturing. Today in Chittinac County it's about 11%. And we still lead the state and the state is ahead of the nation in manufacturing. But our focus is primarily on working with employers that have the profile of being dollar importing goods and services exporting. So if you make a good product or a service and export that good product or service outside of the state of Vermont then you are basically a target employer for us. So Tom runs the Chamber of Commerce. We are not a Chamber of Commerce. We're not a business organization. We're an economic development organization. So we focus on you have a profile of employing about 41,000 Vermonters. Our labor force here in Chittinac County is about 111,000. We emigrate about 27,000 workers. So we net emigrate people in here in Chittinac County. The Regional Planning Commission is probably one of the closest entities that we work with. They work on land use plan and transportation planning. We do the economic development planning portion. So every five years there's a new land use plan, there's a new transportation plan and we work with them to write the new economic plan for the region. Those plans are important because they inform the federal entities that we're compliant with statistical standards and enable municipalities to apply for federal money for transportation infrastructure funding and you have to have an economic plan as well to qualify for that funding. We also created a foreign trade zone at the airport and though it hasn't been utilized because of NAFTA and other governing federal trade policies, smile because you never know what the policies are right now. But we do have that foreign trade zone. It is active and if it is meaningful there's one company right now which is out of Georgia, Vermont that's using it. But that license is there and it is active. We also work on other legislative things that are important to municipalities so we emphasis on stormwater when stormwater really became an issue due to the lake as a receiving body of water and we funded the first three stormwater bills that went through the legislature and then GBSA actually created the first stormwater utility in an industrial park in Milton a number of years ago. Other things that we were influential on is I personally worked with Bill Sorrell and a few others to write the first tax increment financing law in the state and have been in on every other writing of it since then. So those are kind of some of the things that we do. Behind the scenes I'll wrap up in the report I gave you our activity in South Burlington in the past year. We have worked with over 17 key employers. We're working with some others that were under confidential agreements on that I won't disclose but we've given the names of some of the entities that we've worked with. We've brought in $425,000 in Vermont training program money into the region and we've assisted Vita in making $16 million in loans to businesses, agricultural enterprises, and institutions over the past year. In addition we worked with Logic Supply to help them get a $740,000 Vermont Employment Growth Incentive Award. Lastly, our top priority this year is Workforce and GBIC has basically volunteered me and one of our staff people. I'm currently chairing the State Workforce Development Board. Workforce is probably the number one issue if not pretty close to the number one issue in Vermont and we are working, devoting 25% of my time in one of our staff members' time to look at the whole spectrum of workforce education, development, and training which basically starts in high school and goes through life from there. So I'll yield my time now to Tom and be happy to take questions after. Okay, why don't we hear from all three of you and then have a general discussion. Sure, that works. Good evening and thank you all for asking us to come in and do this every now and again. The municipality will ask us to come in. I think it's just a good practice to review what it is that we do and why you support us with your taxpayer dollars and for us to explain really what's in it for the community, what benefits the community. So I'm going to speak for both the Chamber and the Convention Bureau. The Convention Bureau is a division of the Chamber. It's its own organization. It has its own board. It has its own governing principles as does the Chamber, but they kind of roll up into one organization. Both are membership-based organizations. We have two distinct memberships. There is some overlap. We're both nonprofit organizations. The Chamber has a number of C6s and C3 organizations that are part of the Chamber. Both organizations are nonpartisan. We do not get involved in partisan politics. We do involve ourselves in policy matters. The Chamber has approximately 2,000 members, the vast majority of which are in northeast, excuse me, northwestern Vermont, although we do have membership that statewide companies from around Vermont choose to join the Lake Champlain Chamber for any number of reasons. About 10% of the membership is from South Burlington. We represent about 170 to 180 South Burlington businesses. South Burlington City is a member of the Chamber, has been a member of the Chamber for well over 20 years, I believe, and at one point had a seat on the Chamber Board in the person of one of your former city managers. The Chamber's mission is to advocate for a thriving private sector economy that benefits its members, its member employees, and the communities in which the organization lives. South Burlington businesses have traditionally been very, very active with the Chamber across a number of our programs. I just want to touch on those. We've been involved in our charitable activities, our Kicks for a Cure, our Scion Auction that goes to a scholarship program. Our youth programs, we run now a high school program that does internships and mentoring for 150 high school students in the region. South Burlington is not part of that, just to be clear, it's Burlington Colchester and Winnieski at this point. We would love to expand. It's a matter of staffing and frankly financing and money. We used to run a leadership program for youth and that was folded into what we call the TIPS program. The Chamber runs and your members, your 170 plus members are very active in our entrepreneurial programs, LaunchVT, LaunchVT Collegiate, which are business pitch competitions, the Hackathon which just completed on Saturday, a 24-hour Hackathon, and other types of programs, and leadership and talent development. Frank mentioned workforce. We run the Leadership Champlain program, which is in its 27th year, having graduated over 900 graduates, many of whom come from South Burlington businesses, and we're partnering with the Vermont Business Roundtable on the talent pipeline management and have taken responsibility for construction, healthcare and technology in those areas. South Burlington has been very involved in our legislative events. I think that's where you as representatives or folks from the municipality have been to our legislative breakfast series and have also been to the legislative network event, which is coming up in November, which gives an opportunity for local businesses and elected municipal leaders to engage with our elected officials in Montpelier. Probably where we have the biggest impact on the Chamber side, and I'll talk about the Convention Bureau in a second. Let Susan, who knows it a lot more than I do about that, chime in. Where I think we touch you, the city globally, is around our advocacy work in Montpelier. We have two and a half full-time advocates, government affairs, people who are in Montpelier, working on issues of statewide and regional importance. We tend to focus on regional issues, state issues, and to some degree, federal issues. Not as much on the municipal. We don't appear before your council a lot. Just like in Burlington, it's not often we go before the Burlington Council, the Burlington Business Association handles a lot of that, and I think your South Burlington Business Association is handling a lot of municipal issues. But where we do represent your voice and we believe your interest is in Montpelier on housing issues, we were behind the first time home buyer program that went through VHFA that actually came out of a group called the Burlington Young Professionals. We've been very active with GBIC, our collaborative partner in downtown legislation, focusing efforts on creating municipal centers, village centers, and I sit on the state downtown board and part of the awarding of tax credits from municipalities. Every year there is an Act 250 or land use issue that we weigh in on, along with GBIC and others. I don't think there has been a municipality that hasn't come forward for a TIF where we have not weighed in on TIF issues. My municipality in particular seems to have one change per year. Road infrastructure, bridges, roads, rail, we're very active in some rail discussions that are going on now. Independent contractor legislation, which is as important to the emerging technology sector as it is to the construction center. I mentioned TIFs and most recently in the last three years, the Quebec initiative that the chamber has launched began with a small state grant. We have continued that, Vermont Quebec Enterprise Initiative, making Vermont the location of choice for Quebec businesses looking for a U.S. presence. And that has been actually successful. We're starting to see the fruits of that, of the two years of labor that we have put in there. Excuse me. So that's the chamber side of what we do. And again, happy to answer questions about that. And then there's the convention bureau side, which has its own mission, its own staff that work for the chamber but really are guided by the board and by the members. They're a membership organization. Their mission is to promote Vermont and our region as the location of choice for meetings and conventions. They have 127 members, or South Burlington, either businesses or properties in South Burlington. You have been a member, along with two other municipalities in the area, the town of Essex and the city of Burlington are both members of the convention bureau. So why should a municipality be a member of the convention bureau and pay dues when the Sheridan and the limo company and this and that and the other one are all members? And it really comes down to two things, one very tangible and one, if you will, good for the good of the order. The tangible one is, as a member you receive all of the leads that we send out to member properties that designate this area, this region or the city of South Burlington as a location for an event. So there may be a wedding or convention that is going to go to one of your hotel properties without starting to name them all and that's not something that the city would necessarily have an interest in but whether it's the X Games or Amateur Hockey, Comic-Con, Nordic Soccer, those are city-wide events. The great race that we're still negotiating with, bringing to Vermont, the governor's office is really no pun intended, driving that to occur. That's something where it really takes the city saying to other properties, you can't handle this by yourself, why don't we come together, have a local organizing group and put this together. The best example of that was the regional nature when we had the USA Triathlon series here that took Burlington, South Burlington, Williston, Charlotte. It took all of those municipalities together to make that thing happen. The other reason that's in your interest, the city's interest to be a member is that we can promote your individual venues in the town to people who are looking for a place. So, Karn's Arena lives downstream of your membership, all of your fields, any facility that you have that's somehow associated with the city, we promote when someone says, hey, we're looking at doing a soccer tournament or a hockey tournament. Because we're a membership organization, we serve our members. We don't, although there are municipalities who are currently looking at joining, but if you're, for instance, if you're not a member, we would not send any leads out to a municipality that's not a member, nor would we promote the venues within our municipality member for events. It's a benefit of membership. If you're a membership organization and you're promoting what you do to people who are not members, sooner or later no one will be your member. The other reason I said it's purely for the good of the order, and it's very hard to say there's a direct benefit to the City of South Burlington for it. But we bring an enormous amount of economic impact to the region. 91% of the business that the Convention Bureau does, I think that's the right number, is within the greater Lake Cham Plain region. The other 9% is in Woodstock or Southern Vermont, up in the Northeast Kingdom. So, by funding us, you're funding the three people who work for Susan, two in Burlington, one in the Boston office and Susan, so four people bring in about, and any year $12 to $13 million in economic activity to the state, 91% of that is generally in the Lake Cham Plain region. So, you're contributing to the cause. That is really hard to put a number on and say you should do it because. You know, you could say we'll get that business anyway. It's going to go to the sheriff and the double tree or the windjammer and any of the other properties. Why should we have to put in? It's kind of a fair share approach. I can't dress it up any more than that. But you only have three municipalities, correct? In this region or statewide? It goes to this region and you can figure which three communities or hope is going to be soon. It's where those properties are and where we can really promote events perhaps along the lake or in the mountains or in the venues that they have in those particular towns. But for Brattleboro to be a member for the one event they get every so many years, it's it doesn't make sense. That's the concentration is there. The other important piece. Susan, can you please tell me your last name? Oh sure, it's Susan Smith. You're welcome. I'm not. I live in Essex. The other important pieces is that over the years we've been very fortunate to have a lot of large groups to come back to our area. And one large group that I want to point out because of the heavy concentration for the south Burlington hospitality industry is the street rotters. They're in their 27th I think year this year. They have a choice to come to Burlington. They have a choice to come to Vermont. They have a choice to come to south Burlington. The downtown Burlington properties don't get a lot of business from that property. They have garages and those folks want to be able to see their cars. So the south Burlington hospitality industry and hotels as a whole benefits that group alone brings in 1.2 million in that one week alone that they're here. So this area gets a huge concentration of business from just that one event. The important piece to note is that one event works very hard every year to retain that business for this area. And that's true with Nordic Soccer is another example. For the last few years they've been looking at other venues. If it wasn't for the efforts of the convention bureau we would lose 1.2 million dollars in one week time to the street rods and the same almost equal amount with Nordic Soccer. So it's important to realize that we continue to work to manage these groups so that they will continue to choose these areas they can very easily go anywhere else. So we have to come together collectively. We have to come together as a group as a municipality and all supporting each other in order to continue to have these large groups wanting to come to our state. Any other comments? So questions I certainly have one and Tom I was struck with the items that you identified as being really important that you work on and when you got to the transportation you never talked about the airport and yet I know when the F-35 issue and the airport was here you were a strong voice as was G-B-I-C in fact you joined the F-35 lawsuit that he did that we had joined with Winooski to support the F-35 yet that's such a critical least council believes it is such a critical component of economic development workforce development yet it's we have passed a resolution that is requesting a look again at the governance of the airport that years ago I understand you did support a study at least some of you did so yet when we were debating that's talking about it there was a comment from either the chamber G-B-I-C at least to us about the importance or maybe the value of looking at the airport as in a different light just to look at it not necessarily this is a structure but to have that real due diligence and to have what really might work the best in this community so I would appreciate your commenting on that so I think one of the reasons that I left rail out was I just assumed sooner or later someone was going to ask the question so I mean thank you for the entree I'll start with Disney Frank and jump in wherever he wants when there are many issues that come before us where we take positions there are times when those positions are not exactly excuse me aligned with all the membership and we upset people and we lose members because of that whether that's marriage equality healthcare reform stormwater per-parcel fees when you have a membership as diverse as ours sooner or later you're going to find people who are not happy with your position many years ago 7 years ago funded by GBIC and others we were part of a group that looked at governance of the airport and I think it's fair to say that there are many models that you can look at for governance there are municipally owned airports there are state owned airports there are regional entities that govern airports and there is a defensible argument for each one we have a model that has worked here are there other models sure but at this point it seemed to us that despite what we may believe personally any one of us describing a belief anybody at the table that there is a disconnect between municipalities yours perhaps in particular the city of Burlington the airport and how that's governed that seems to be more of a local political issue than an economic development issue I say that understanding that we may honestly disagree about that and knowing full well that just like other issues that have been very contentious people will choose to either stay with us or not we lost a lot of members over marriage equality I don't make any excuses for taking the position that we did on that issue likewise my belief was that this was more akin to a discussion a debate and a resolution that needed to happen between the municipalities one where it lives and two the person who owns it or the city that owns it the airport do I think that the airport is a key economic driver for this area I think we would agree it certainly is that's why we have for years supported the port or air coming down here and the expansion of that service and we have fought for whether it was JetBlue coming in or the other one whose name I now forget yes without the airport we become a very much a backwater region for economic development frankly the airport needs to grow it needs to expand it needs to become a bus we hear often that we need service to Boston we hear often that we need to be able to get to Vermont to Burlington with fewer than two or three stops if you're going to a hub you're fine but if you're coming a guy did a month ago from Montana I took four flights to get home that's not but is it better than what it was yes are their finances better than where they were yes I'm not here in any way to disparage the airport in kind of how it's being managed so we affirmatively chose and I will let Frank speak for himself not to publicly engage in a debate between the municipalities and I don't think I said this before legislative bodies for many years none of us who are in an appointed position and I am as president of the chamber appointed by a board we don't get paid to have personal opinions we get paid to represent the best interests of either the administrations we work for or the body of our membership as embodied by our board and executive committee so that's where I have to come down on that um I'll try to add the F-35 basing process certainly was uncomfortable for us being having a different position than this board did and then it didn't and then it did and the city of Winooski as well I think the issue our primary issue there is and Helen you said it the airport is an unbelievable asset and resource for this region and for the state of Vermont and I'm a member of the EVM Board of Trustees when you look at the the university the hospital that we have here and the airport that we have here those resources we punch way above our weight level having those key resources here in this region for our region and for the state of Vermont the basing of the F-35 to us was an economic case that dealt with jobs and it also dealt with the infrastructure and the support of the airport we have infrastructure at that airport that would not be here if not for the basing of the Army and Air National Guard there are improvements there that would not be here if they weren't there there are jobs there because of their mission that would be very different if their mission was different and they pay for about 2.5 million dollars in operating costs that the airport would have to absorb if they weren't there never mind the capital improvements so if the guard wasn't there the airport would have to build a fire and rescue structure and they'd have to buy that equipment and they'd have to pay the 2.5 million dollars a year to operate EMT fire and rescue so my personal political opinions about defense and everything don't matter here it was economics and it was very uncomfortable for us to have to engage in our issue with the city of South Burlington was not your opinion it was when you registered your opinion in the process and that's why you waited until after the process and then got in it that was your right I'm a voter and taxpayer here in South Burlington that was your right to do whatever you want to do we respect that right we disagree with it that is what it is and we're not going to well let me clarify though the resolution and the governance issue I think is totally separate from the F-35 this council knows they're coming some of us may be happy about that some not so happy but that's a fate of complete unless something happens you're certainly right and what we care about is the same thing you care about the residents that live around the airport and their quality of life so we'd love to work on sound mitigation investments and other things we didn't choose the buyout program or whatever program they're having we'd love to work with the city to try to bring in investments in sound mitigation for all of the residents that live there and in Winooski as well so getting to the airport regionalization topic we were asked along with a couple other parties when the airport was not doing well financially by members of the city of Burlington to look at the exploration of other concepts for airport ownership, governance, whatever we supplied some funding and participated together with the chamber in an analysis and it didn't go anywhere and you've got the template of our report, it's dated it's older, I don't know how much value it has but as Tom said it is not up to us to step in the middle of a potentially inter-municipal disagreement when we work for you and we work for the city of Burlington as well and the city of Burlington owns the airport and until they decide they don't want to own the airport or they want a different governance structure and they invite us to come in and participate then we're going to step back until we're invited into that process and we're going to step back into the airport and all I can say is this I grew up in St. Albans and I served on the select board in St. Albans Town and St. Albans is about a two mile diameter and the city of St. Albans owned the water and the sewer but the town grew so much that the town was paying and they wanted to have a say in the allocations of the sewer and they're still fighting over that for years and years and years so there's no wind for us to get in the middle of this if we can help in communication in any way we want to help that airport is a huge asset and we hear you, we appreciate what you're saying we want to help in a positive way but we can't jump in the middle of an intermunicipal let me just follow up because you did make what I thought was a very generous offer and that is that you really would be interested in working with us on sound mitigation but then two sentences later it was but we'll only step in if we're invited by the city of Burlington the ownership and the governance of the airport they own the airport I realize that so what did you mean about helping us with sound mitigation sound mitigation that we fully believe that we have probably per capita the best congressional delegation in this country and we have the United States Senator who is number one in seniority in the United States Senate and who's vice chair of the appropriations committee the United States Senate we have Senator Sanders who's on the budget committee in the United States Senate and we have Congressman Welch and we don't personally understand why you can't do a sound mitigation program I don't think you understand it either and to us we hear the people the residents of this area we hear this board we hear the city council and Winooski as well and we would like to do whatever we can do to attract the kind of federal resources that are going to improve the quality of life of the people that live around the airport I just wanted to clarify sure the quality of life is certainly an issue but there's also our school board who's been seeking for years information that they have gotten no information received up to now they're waiting to still receive that information they want to know if that school should be closed we've lost up to 200 affordable or workforce houses that is an economic impact not only on our city but on the region we stand to lose more if that noise envelope expands so it's again it's not only a quality of life issue it does hit us economically also we're looking at our expenses and we have $11,000 now because of the PFOA infiltration in our groundwater that we as a city are responsible for even though we don't own the airport so there are economic issues that I think that are important I just also I think we read the EIS a little bit differently economically this base was the least economically viable option and actually the numbers are not positive in that regard so I'm not sure about the F-35 being an economic driver I disagree on that in terms of South Burlington's funding for GBIC South Burlington's funded GBIC since you were chartered and GBIC was very much involved in helping the city charter in fact our former president of GBIC was the first president of this council so most of the municipalities in Chittinac County contribute to GBIC in the same way they contribute to the regional planning commission and that I do wish to acknowledge I think we can acknowledge that Tom as much as I've tried to separate the F-35 conversation from the regionalization and governance issue I really want to just draw from a statement you made GBIC took a position on the F-35 to make the airport stronger the $2.5 million and paying for infrastructure that's needed to really implore you it was retention first it was retention of infrastructure and jobs make it stronger and what I would just say is governance presents an opportunity to strengthen that airport as your report concluded which I do think actually went somewhere it would improve the bond rating by separating it from the city of Burlington which is a triple B minus it would also improve the contracting flexibility more perspectives would also bring in more industry influence and better decision making and they would understand the importance of municipal relations of the host community I would really ask you all to not look at this as a municipal fight this is a valid conversation that I think is of regional importance for our entire economy to consider other ways to reduce friction for that airport with its municipalities so for the same reason that you took a statement on the F-35 look at governance as a way to strengthen and improve that airport's functioning respect your opinion that the seller, the owner doesn't appear to want to sell so what do we do what do we do as I've hopefully made the case in public I would challenge what do we need to do go in and say you're going to sell or change your governance and the other thing is that the city of St. Albans has funded that airport it is federally funded and state funded and it's the same argument that the town of St. Albans has made to the city of St. Albans for 50 years, 70 years saying you used our population to get a grant to expand your sewer system so I believe me I sat on a board just like you I know where you're coming from I respect your opinion but I don't think it's a public good I would understand that it's just not going to go away this issue isn't going to resolve by you not taking a position so I just hope you keep an open mind as we go forward in the decades to come that this really is an opportunity to strengthen this economy in this area I think that airport better don't disagree that we need to maintain an open mind of where this can go but I think between where we were at in the process with the F-35 and where we were at in the process with regionalization with F-35s we stood the real possibility of losing the F-35 and all the things that Frank described that went along with that at least that was how we saw it we may disagree but that's how we saw it with the airport seven years removed from that study that was done and the input that was gathered the airport is doing better than it was it is making improvements even it's bond rating has been improved it's moving up nothing dramatic happens especially in the world of finance and the bonding agencies but it is doing better I guess what I would say and some defense of our position is that we don't see the immediacy of the crisis like we did with the F-35 and that's why I say I think this is a reasonable discussion that reasonable folks can have you are correct in pointing out the state has a large interest in this and the state agency of transportation I think also should be involved in these conversations there are many ways to start a conversation some of them are public and some of them are quiet and my sense is I've always tried and less really push to be more like James Baker and less like Steve Bannon in terms of how I do my diplomacy thank you other comments are you done Tom? sorry I really appreciate the intent that the GBIC has and has since 54 in promoting businesses to expand to come to Vermont to enhance our labor pool but I just got to be honest here it goes back to the airport again and I'm sorry but I just find it ironic that your logo says your slogan is good jobs in a clean environment and part of the problem I have with that is that the airport can conceive of that as a clean environment but clean can also mean noise free so you have all these homes that have been knocked down because of a noise problem at the airport because it's an industrial facility that doesn't have any mitigation and so by knocking down all these houses what have you done I'm not accusing you I'm just saying in general well you took the side of the F-35 as an amicus curia let me finish what the problem is so you knocked down 200 houses you've eliminated all this workforce housing we have the lowest unemployment rate in probably one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country right now we're finding it hard for businesses to get people and retain people we're finding it hard to bring people here because look at the housing costs it is a chicken and egg problem that keeps going around and around so what I'm trying to say is to clean up your environment is not to knock down houses in the vicinity of an airport that's got a ton of noise right how do you do that don't bring the F-35 in it get rid of the fighter jet mission all together bring in the tanker planes the point is that you don't have to knock down homes you have workforce housing you can bring those people in you can grow the businesses because you'll have the jobs because you'll have the housing so I just want to point that out that's all there are other planes but your position that you see the F-35 as a continuing mission for V-Tang and to support the 2.5 million for the airport I understand that but there is another story that goes with that and that is loss of housing loss of lower cost housing that promotes those families moving in there that promotes those people available for those jobs so I guess he had to pick a position and you pick the other one that's fine the other was for Susan so these groups like the Rodders they want to come back anyway they love it here don't they this is the most beautiful spot in the whole country to bring your hot rod or your teenager to play soccer that's true they do love it here and on top of that then what other groups are you soliciting today to try to get them here that haven't come here before but I'll start with the street rods first so as an example with the street rodders other cities throughout the country are funded differently than the Vermont Convention Bureau so they're funded via a state tax or some sort of tax that's levied on hospitality or any kind of city or local taxes so we are membership dues based only so dues are very important to us in order for us to do our job we other cities can court these groups and have them come to their cities by throwing around a lot more things that they can do for the group while they're here the financial? give me examples I'll give you an example of something that we just started last year for 25 years in other cities the street rodders the local municipalities in the area put on a parade so that the street rods can go around and the businesses can see them and that type of thing they put on dinners for them to come in a night or two in advance of the actual show therefore increasing the occupancy to the hotels people are here spending money a day or two in advance of the actual show we have all we can do to raise $7,000 for a spaghetti dinner for the folks for the night before the the um we were only able to raise like $3,000 this year so the Champlain Valley Expo has to eat that because we're membership dues based every dues dollar is very important to us we don't have the money to woo these people to come to Vermont as beautiful as we are they will hold parades they will hold barbecues they will hold it is not uncommon we're working with a race right now we're just to bring them into the state to look at us as $15,000 there's bid fees bass fishing one of the biggest one of the great citywide we couldn't get them here why they needed $100,000 just to get here bid fees are very common in my world these bid fees so for us our dues is our livelihood and we do the best that we can do with this livelihood and we did start a parade last year was our first parade with thanks to South Burlington and we had it again this year and it's growing every year and we're doing more and more things we're doing things for the lady rotters that wants to encourage them to continue to have that attendance here they can say they're going to come to South Burlington and they can come to South Burlington but they still have to get the attendance here and they have to have things that are going to drive those people to want to come to our area as beautiful as it is this year your points about housing are really good the city was chartered in 1971 so land use planning really started at the end of the 60s and if if you go back in time and look at all the aerial photos of the airport the airport was there before the city actually grew up and we do land use planning much different now Helen in her work in the state in our senate her involvement in the legislature has been very involved and so has her husband in land use planning we have act 250 now in this state to do help with proper land use planning so if you had to do it all over again you would never locate go anywhere else in the country that has land use planning that was carefully planned and what is located around an airport industrial and distribution primarily we don't have that luxury I have family members who lived in the airport neighborhood right around the airport because they were the most affordable homes at the time and now you have people either at the beginning of their real estate life or at the end of their real estate life that are in those residences so their quality of life is very important but the airport isn't going anywhere and they're not going anywhere either we've got to deal with the art what we have the art of reality here so I talked to Tom and he said hypothetically if we were to move the airport what do you think it would cost I said a billion dollars and your grandchildren's grandchildren won't even be alive long enough to see permits anywhere to put an airport anywhere it's there where else are you going to put it it's there so we have to deal with the art of what we have to deal with and that's the present situation and workforce housing and workforce are two of the most huge issues right now in this state we're not growing in population and our taxes are very significant and our services are great the services in this city are fabulous we've got the best school system in the state like in the city so it's tough we want to continue to work with you you've got a great city manager who I've known since he came to Vermont and you've got good leadership and good participation in all your city boards and commissions so we want to try to help in any way that we possibly can we're the economic planning and economic development entity in the region and that's what we do similar to what the regional planning commission does for land use planning and transportation planning Tom, did you have another? really quick one of the things I'd love to hear more conversations about Memorial Auditorium is closed is it going anywhere it's rotting into the ground are we looking originally at some indoor concert event space because that would do a lot more than just hot rods coming to the area are you looking at that on your docket, your agenda, your horizon we must have funded or been part of seven to eight studies going back to the 80s looking at a convention center the region most recently we were funded we received a state grant to study that it is one of the biggest problems that we have in attracting larger events here our sweet spot is that three to five hundred person event for a meeting that would be at the Sheridan or something like that but there are many that we can't go after there are many events in the winter where if we had an indoor facility close to the downtown or in the downtown whether it's USA Archery or AAU basketball gymnastics those things that happen in the winter we can't go after those because we don't have a proper venue we have followed with interest the work that you were doing with UVM as did the city of Burlington and I thought it was going to be an interesting battle to see where it wound up and it wound up back in the university who knows that's not my world but we need one we do need an event center in downtown I started going to concerts in the Memorial Auditorium in 1972 it was decrepit and falling down in 72 the bathrooms didn't work then I doubt they work now so the city has engaged a public process to talk about what's the art of the possible with that building it has some historic features to it that I think many people would like to preserve the corner facade or some of the facade of that building it is historic I think they will do something that involves the parking lot the hotel, Memorial Auditorium that area it's ripe for development but like south Burlington with many things you have on your docket Burlington has a lot of things on its docket tonight they are dealing with Burlington telecom and the three finalists there they think they are past the Burlington town center but that's still a project that's out there we have some other projects in the queue also in Burlington that are contentious it's the redevelopment of the south end or the Cambrian Rise project that's going on right now so they will get Memorial Auditorium but I think you can own any municipality or city can only handle so much at one time but yes yes I have some comments if I might make them I want to thank both Frank and Tom for the room that was in speaking I was curious part of the audio was a little off but I didn't want this evening as a litmus test on the airport and I feel part of it did and well I think the discussion was interesting my initial thought in asking to have these expertise folks come in was to talk about our support of a relatively small amount of funds each year that goes a long way to helping them towards the goals that they set for membership leadership legislative involvement and like and that's what I look to them for you know we are embarking as a community on the largest economic development project that we have seen in 40 years almost that I've lived in South Burlington and while I understand a lot of individual businesses belong to the chamber belong to JBIC and what have you there is nothing more that tells a business supported you are than you see what they support and when our community supports the association with JBIC with the chamber with the convention bureau I think it turns and tells those businesses that we would like to have here that not only is their support in becoming involved with those groups important but that we stand behind them as well you know we sit here without a separate economic development director like the city of Burlington or others might have and I look to those that have been dealing in the business community for far many years than I have as far as drawing resources in and you know I guess I was quite surprised to find out that we had 60 plus percent of the rental units on a daily basis were out of South Burlington it's very important for us then to keep the conventions coming the groups coming sure they like us Kim and I've heard that and people do like to come here that is but it still takes and if you sat and been on national convention committee where you're trying to lure people to your organization or your state it takes some sub warfare to do that and I think that's exactly what the convention bureau does and you know whether the convention itself is held in our fair city whether it's next door we benefit by all of this in a tremendous way the airport piece none of us are all going to agree on that we know that we've had controversy in the council we are looking certainly that yes our position is that we are looking at perhaps a abroad of governance and I get that and I don't I'm not opposed to that as you know but what I do look at is that the conversation that I had hoped we were going to have tonight was on the value of spending in the range of nine thousand dollars a year to continue our good relationship with these organizations and it morphed from there and I'm because we can we can go round and round on the F-35 until heck won't have it but we have a circumstance right now where I'm looking at a broader picture of what we are trying to bring to our community and I think we have organizations here represented tonight with the small amount of money that it takes to maintain our membership with them I think it is a travesty that we would even think we wouldn't continue to support them for all of the knowledge that we can get back from them now I know that if I need something and I need legislative information sure I can go to our city but I can also go to someone who has got three or four people in my and I can get it so my point behind it was that in asking for this and asking for these folks to come in and explain to us what they do and so on is to say I think their value to our city is far greater than what I've been unfortunately what I've heard from some time and I guess I'll end it there with the fact that I would not do anything but support the continuation of our strong relationship with them and hopefully and glad to hear that working together that we will do the best for the greater airport area of course because some of us actually remember when we had F4s I did have something to follow up I guess I don't know that it's clear from what you're saying Pat that this was just a consideration of a one year you know redirection of the funds it was not you know ceasing a relationship so I want to make that clear and I also think it is important and it does behoove us when we have representatives in front of us who do go to Montpelier to advocate for us that they get feedback from us and we are in need of workforce housing in order to bring business to our industrial park our business park on Kimball Avenue we need businesses to locate them you believe it's a one year interim I don't I asked that question at the last meeting and that was what the response was that is not what it was done it was the money was intended to replace to fund another project that we have going on in the city and we're going to have to continue to be paid for more than on a year's basis so this isn't a one year piece to me my understanding was that going ahead it would be included in the budgeting process and so it was just a one year consideration we find money for many many things from 9000 and the size of our budget is very small I just wanted to make one clarification the chamber is a business membership organization the convention bureau is we are not so we're not representing businesses we are around to retain and create high value edit jobs and we were initially funded by a five cents on the property tax by every municipality in Chittenden County over the years that formality has changed but we do get support annually from just about every one of the municipalities so I'm not saying the membership organization is different but sometimes people look at GBC and say you represent business we do not represent business we're an economic development corporation I think Pat we I think it's always important to have into the council I've been on the council for almost 6 years and we've never had any of you here to share with us what you do for south burlington and sort of your business or economic development vision so I don't think this is just airport wine that's I wanted well I wanted to know why you took the positions or lack of which I don't think is a wine but that was an issue for south burlington you we pay you money to help us with different things and I think that's a valid question I don't think that's derailing the conversation and I hope you didn't think that either I think those are you know we we can disagree participated those questions I think we all I think you know we can disagree on on the airport maybe the tonal how it how the conversation proceeds and maybe we can agree on things like clean clean water authority you know enhancing stormwater utilities in the state as a way to reduce the impact on the municipal burden by raising a per parcel fee statewide that would go to a statewide stormwater utility that would augment the work that frankly south burlington began years ago when you started the first stormwater utility in the state I was on the Essex Select Board at the time and we went in a different direction our public works director was very helpful in helping you start yours Dennis Lutz so we may disagree in on one issue but we may agree on other issues and I think if we want to talk stormwater and clean water authority I mean I think that's something where we would be surprised if we didn't find common ground that's in a membership organization different than frankly the four hundred and sixty five dollars a year that are your dues to the chamber you're gonna have we're gonna have that we're gonna disagree on certain issues and we're gonna agree on the others as I started there are times where people feel so strongly about a particular issue that they'll say I'm sorry I feel strongly about it I'm leaving the chamber we pay three hundred and fifty dollars a year to become to be a member of the United States Chamber of Commerce we don't see the world the same at all as the US chamber in fact Senator Sanders have me down to senate leadership meeting a few years ago to have a the other chambers view on healthcare reform from the US chamber but we pay because we get benefits in terms of information what's going on in Washington from them I had members quit the chamber because you pay we pay three hundred fifty dollars to join the state chamber and my feeling is if there is one single issue that you feel that strongly about that I can accept it I might not like it but I can accept it so if if you at the end of the day say you know yes you really didn't represent us on the airport and we feel really strongly about that then I really would accept that you walk away from the chamber I think there's more common ground than that and I think in this world of what we see coming out of our politicians in Washington you're either right or you're wrong you're with me if you're against me if you're against me you're no good that we maybe in Vermont can still find a place where we respectfully disagree on an issue and we work civilly to figure out okay it's no but or it's yes but or it's maybe let's try a different tact so I'd just like to emphasize half of what I heard Pat say I too think we would benefit from more regional lenses on issues in Vermont so I fully support staying here in the GBIC and the Lake Chamber of Commerce and the Convention Bureau I think if you want to see what an organization what an organization cares about see where they put their dollars and I think this is very important for all the reasons you articulated that we stay in it but I also agree I would disagree a little bit with you Pat there that the airport it consumes a ton of our attention it is it is what we what we stress about what I stress about I've lost a lot of nights of sleep on the airport and what I'm saying is that there's a better way that could achieve regional harmony that could improve the economy of this state and that governance model that's come up over 40 years we can look at what's going on in the 80s and what was recommended then I just don't think it's going to go away and what I would say on the agree to disagree I'm with you there but just because we agree to disagree doesn't mean we need to stop talking about it and I think it's going to keep coming up and it's a conversation I think worth having. We members of ours contribute to a sponsorship of a bi-weekly radio show with a show that philosophically we probably we're on opposite ends of the political spectrum on I'll be on Thursday Bill Sayer and I will probably really disagree on issues but we continue with dialogue and frankly the members who come because the businesses who sponsor come and then we talk about issues we continue the dialogue and even you know I joke that I'm going to make Bill Sayer a liberal and he jokes that he's going to make me a conservative and what we do is we find that there is common ground because we continue to talk we need to talk about the airport we need to talk about F-35s we need to talk about stormwater we need to talk about housing we need to talk about how we stop the out migration of youth and keep people in Vermont and I think we have good stories to tell about that but those stories don't become stories unless people kind of look to the middle I mean solutions are forged in the middle but you all you stay on one side and you have the dysfunction that we have in Washington and effective councils that you serve on that I've served on that Frank has served on you see them in Montpelier when people come to the middle that's where the solutions are and to get there you got to keep talking so I could not agree with you more I just wanted to know more about the businesses but we do need okay I will I'm happy to come back and talk about the Quebec initiative Frank is the economic development arm what we were asked to do two years ago by the state that we have kept up is marketing and outreach so we are very clear that our job is to make Vermont that location of choice because to the councillor's point why doesn't everybody want to have their convention in Vermont because if you don't continue to fertilize the ground other people will beat you and for years I was sick and tired of hearing Platsburg eat our lunch in terms of all the businesses that were in Quebec that were looking for a US presence they were going to Platsburg and they even branded themselves Platsburg Montreal's southern most suburb and we had if you go back to the 80s Frank remembers these days Quebec companies came to Vermont we thought well they'll all come here they love Vermont, Vermont's beautiful well someone once said to me the view of the Green Mountains from Platsburg is just as pretty as the view of the Adirondacks from Burlington and you know the light went on so what we're trying to do over the last two years and this is a statewide initiative this is where the chamber is both a regional and a statewide entity we have three statewide subsidiaries as part of the chamber it doesn't matter if they want to be in St. John'sbury Lindenville, Newport Burlington, South Burlington Brattleboro we want those companies to choose Vermont because once they choose Vermont and they start building a workforce once we start training people for the jobs that they have it will tell the story of Vermont so and that's what Frank does and supporting those businesses and getting the Vermont training partnership grants and getting them the veggie applications you know not to be glib about it but I'm a fly fisherman so it's one thing to put the fly on the water and make it attractive it's another thing to hook them and reel them in so we're putting those nice casts out there positioning Vermont as the place they should be not Platsburg and Frank's job is to hook them again and you know we have a number of small companies that have chosen this region we have two large companies that have larger companies everything's with a federal delegation on the fence is able to stay here both provincial and federal government and Quebec to and that's the benefit of having a delegation that we have because the completion of the A35 is correct just saying with a quick data point that explains why we're working so much on Workforce there are 11,000 Vermonters between the ages of 19 and 25 years old that have fallen out of the employment statistics they're not employment, they're not in unemployment they're out the opiate crisis and other things are part of the cause so we're trying to get into correcting the symptom we graduate 7,400 young people from our high schools in Vermont 2600 of them go on to nothing when they graduate from high school and then the next three semesters we lose another 450 so out of 7,400 students graduating from the high schools in Vermont 3,000 of them go on to nothing and 20% of them have had any meaningful career vocational or technical experience and what do they do they stay here they're not the ones that leave so why are we devoting like 25 to 40% of our staff time on this because we've got to turn this around as a state pretty quickly because if you don't that number scales within a 6 to 10 year period to 30,000 between the ages of 19 and 30 years old and then that's 10% of the state's workforce so we do have low unemployment which is around 3% but the actual unemployment is another 6% to the 3% because of the U6 when you get into the data and there's 6% that are chronically unemployed or underemployed so the unemployed rate is in this country you have to add another 6% to it so we've devoted 18 months to this this past summer 50% of our time has been devoted to this so we've got some challenges ahead of us is there anything we can do as a council in South Burlington to help in your efforts? well we already are doing some stuff with our mental health with the community the regional planning commission has taken a leadership we're focusing on basically middle school through high school and the initiative of trying to get career vocational and technical education opened up to 9th through 12th graders and today it's only open to 11th and 12th graders so that's one of the initiatives and the other is basically more programs for seniors who are going to be retiring from one career but are going to have to continue to work or want to continue to work and then career opportunities Megan works at UVM and UVM has created a very good career development program over the past five years it's located right in the Davis Center in the heart of our student center Champlain College runs the best program in the state universities are different our mission is different we're a liberal arts school and not a business school but we have a very good business school and they're becoming more and more and a great med school but the focus is we need to try to retain more of the 40,000 young people who graduate from the institutions of higher education and keep them here in Vermont so that's the other area of opportunity so that's one of the policy areas one last little question because this is what we want wish to do with the FY18 funding but I was also curious what can we anticipate or would we anticipate for FY19 is it the same it's $465 and $5000 $3600 hasn't changed forever I don't think our request has changed I think it's static it's probably gone down and you know counselors anytime you would like us to come in and talk about Quebec programs the programs we're doing with high school students around mentorships and internships the work we're doing trying to get young people involved in coding this past weekend we had the hackathon we had two high school teams young they look 12 years old 16 years old with their teachers doing that kind of coding work and building apps staying up 24 hours it was great to watch high school kids do that happy to come back just informationally not take an hour or two of your time or anybody individually who wants to reach out come on in we'll introduce you to the staff we have two staff working on workforce and talent we have our fourth year that we fund an AmeriCorps student to work with high school kids I think sometimes it's the best kept secret around so anytime folks want to come in even if we're going to disagree on something let's have a conversation it's going to help thank you thank you so we have the before us Pat has to sign off at 9.15 of regiment she has to go through so she thought would be through more of the agenda so what is the pleasure Tom you said you were not interested in reallocating membership dues I wouldn't support it this time I just think they do a lot of good value it's important for economic development I like us to discuss where it would come from then what would come from I would like to support the sustainability officers work this year and that's the question it's not just to take money away from these organizations it was for a specific purpose that I think is also of interest and deserves I think funding I propose right off the bat front porch forum I have questions and concerns with and we're spending $4,000 a year on that organization I'd love to have the organizers talk about their editorial privileges and if we're really going to talk about money savings see click fix I'm also hearing we're not really using to its full potential so I've heard Justin tell me in a meeting which Kevin knew about that if he was going to cut anything from his budget that's $5,000 so I'm not necessarily saying we should start scrapping the budget but I'm just saying I think these are important regional organizations that focus on economic development opportunities for the city and the entire county is that we have a reserve fund the council are those funds dedicated part of it is about 60 for this last year so beyond that it's the council's prerogative how that money gets spent I think if you'd like let us go back and look sit with Paul figure out what can be funded this year through the resource that we'll look for and what can be deferred what we can get done at no cost and just bring a plan back rather than trying to figure out what is the timing that we're looking at we'll come back to you by the second meeting in November with an idea around how to do that that'll leave us better than half the fiscal year then and the impact and then we'll work on the budget proposal for FY19 I think that's one of the things that I had asked if there were alternative sources that we could look at for something that we were trying to do rather than to consider to be a valuable connection for us so I appreciate that Kevin I think they made a good case in terms of what they can do for us or do do for us and I also think that these kinds of conversations while they're sometimes difficult are really important and I suspect that Tom and Susan and I'm blanking Frank I'm sorry it's age have come we'll leave with a better understanding of some of the goals and concerns that we hold very dear and passionately and I think those kinds of conversations are an exchange of differences of opinion are really important so workforce housing and our business park I hope you take out the door I think we can influence them more by staying as part of their organizations so we can continue to voice our interests okay so let's move on I want to move one item up if I may to respond to number 12 interviewing applicants because is it Frank yes needs to leave right needed to leave I was told to come in 7 30 right although you were on the well I'm sorry you were on the 8 30 is it okay if we move him up yes so why don't we move then to item 12 which is interviewing Frank Davis for so would you come forward Frank please as I understand it you're interested in either the affordable housing committee or recreation and parks or both I am interested in both wherever I can best serve and you have stated them in order if there is to be a priority you tell us maybe a little bit more about yourself you've been here 3 plus years yes I moved my family up from Florida July 1st 2014 I've been an educator for over 30 years education means everything to me particularly in light of the fact that I married late and I have as we speak now a 14 year old daughter and the Florida public school system is pretty bad ranks 47th out of 49 I know there's 50 states but the bottom two are fighting fighting for last place yeah and by most metrics and this is how I found myself moving my family to Vermont by most metrics Vermont comes out on top for public schools and and what made the determination where we were going to land and I have no family or friends and I had never been in Vermont before just through my head over the fence but what determined where we were going to land was which municipality had the best school district and it was kind of an even coin flip between Essex and South Burlington and so the least expensive housing that we could find that would accept a little doggy was here in South Burlington and so here we are for three plus years and I wouldn't do it any differently my daughter's thriving she is now a freshman at South Burlington High have you attended any of the meetings do you know when they attend and their frequency the affordable housing or recon parks no and I'm very open to learning every little tittle as quickly as possible I really do want to participate fully and make a contribution where possible week night evening meetings that doesn't pose a problem for you usually starting at 6 p.m. or so I don't imagine it's going to be three or four nights a week so yeah I can certainly make arrangements absolutely in terms of the affordable housing what attracts you to that interests you well because it doesn't seem that there is any good answer look I was just listening to the two gentlemen and the lady that were sitting here and talking about how important workforce is and I'm hearing Tim talking about you know we've got these we don't want to lose talent in all this I was a professor for 10 years I've got a doctorate I'm a produce clerk at Shaw's right now I can't get an adult job up here to save my life in the first two and a half years and I stopped counting after this but in the first two and a half years that I was living here in south Burlington I put out over 700 applications I can't even get an interview I've been a conference presenter I'm widely published both academically literature etc the ideal kind of a candidate that most any college or university would want but it's apparently who you know and I just got here I don't know anybody so guess what it's okay and things aren't as dire as they may seem I was interviewed today at Shaw's for a lower management position and so we'll see you know I'm willing to pay my dues it's amazing the things that one does for one's kid and so again I don't regret it and I absolutely am totally in love with Vermont I just it's completely heaven in every way shape and form except for the economy I think we ought to re-brand the state's motto is please feel free to enjoy us but don't even think about moving here unless you have a ton of money questions or oh by the way the doctorate's in business you said you don't know anybody at the university so I worked at the university and the school of business how do you know somebody we'll do thank you in fact I just designed a course for the business school but it's meeting with no funding it was intended for Eric Munson and it was a marriage between what business can learn from the arts and what the arts can learn from business that's my specific field of expertise if I had a business card I'd give it to you I'm in the French so here we are but Eric doesn't have any funding so anyway I didn't mean to get off topic but I thought mentioning that might bear some weight in I mean yes I know how to read contracts I have no issue going through dense literature whatever is necessary I'm going to probably be calling this home for the rest of my life so time to jump in and see where I can help well thank you I'm sorry and listen to us for almost two hours no I'm glad to be here I've been to one other city council meeting I again with an eye towards my daughter I've chosen not to have a television and so I don't get to see this and I haven't really do you folks meet on a regular basis yes twice a month the first and third Mondays right here usually sometimes it's a police station but pretty much here do you have a computer and internet there's a lot to be found on that too I'm sorry we have all of our meetings okay well it's hard to read you could stream us on YouTube there we have it alright did you have I'm sorry we're very highly rated in the CC yeah I'm sure and commercial free did any folks have any questions of me well I want to thank you for your time the process will be we will vote on two committees to fill tonight and we will vote on those and then is it Celine does she usually make the phone call she does Kevin's administrative assistant will call and let you know thank you very much have a wonderful evening an affordable housing we have a few extra applicants for bike and pad but well so the likelihood of that is perhaps lesser than affordable housing let's let's keep the focus where my priority was the priority was great affordable housing so I thank you thank you very much for your interest cheers yes could I just leave a comment for the part with Trevor it's just my thoughts so you can pass it through to him I have my concern is twofold three for those that choose to stand in the middle of a island type this is on panhandling so you know the context of this and unfortunately I'm going to have to get off and I think you're probably going to take a break for a minute right now for us too but that piece and then it was brought to my attention that there was some concern that the businesses to locate into our downtown area form based code and what have you could be interfered with so I think that I read over everything we had from our legal piece and I would hope that we would consider taking some type of positive action to preserve safety not only for presidents but also for those that are doing solicitation thank you thank you all and I'm sorry I will be there in two weeks okay thank you we're going to take a very brief recess break for stretching and bathroom then we'll go back to the police department Trevor will drop down oh we'll do bike and ped first so we'll go to 11 and then okay thank you you have a standing policy to take a break after 9 p.m. about the suit break she likes to stretch her legs but I like it too she's on the top right too you can bite your pants that's what it is you wandered around okay I like that we can call the city council back to order to item 11 we're skipping item 10 for the moment and we're moving on to 11 a report on recent activities and issues from the bike and pedestrian committee thank you so much for hanging around every time I think the meeting's really going to be short we're going to try to aid in that because we sent out our materials ahead of time so we won't read them to you we're going to do a quick overview just so that everybody who hasn't had a chance to see them will kind of know a little bit about who we are we're going to go into some action items and some questions that we've already let you know what they will be and first I'll start by presenting the committee this is thank you so much for this is the south Ellington bike and ped committee yay and that's Dana Farr Kathy Frank our fearless leader Kathy Ann Larose Bob what's your last name Bob Britt we have James a good one who's not here Donna Laban Roy Neuer Jim Grossman and Amanda let's see some recent accomplishments but it works off of what we said we were planning to do last year so that dovetails nicely we developed end of trip facilities guidelines we also saw a lot of community input so we could figure out what the community thought were the needs and the weaknesses and the things that were good about the existing system we also increased and improved our coordination with council and also with other city departments what do we want to do the next year what is our current work plan we want to create a city-wide map we also want to review new development projects for integration of bicycle and pedestrian improvements we want to work with the planning commission on coordinating street typologies and especially two things that I want to highlight here we want to explore and advocate for funding options for bicycle and pedestrian projects and we want to coordinate bicycle and pedestrian improvements with energy transportation initiatives including working closely with the energy committee on shared goals and with Paul Conner and his sustainability plan from here we're going to go right into our power point presentation to give you an idea of what we're seeing so what we'd like to talk about tonight are issues that we think require imminent action rather than way off in the future and there are three issues one is to improve the safety on our pedestrian path the other is to improve the maintenance and then maintain the path on a regular basis and the last is to close the gaps that exist and I'm going to go through these one at a time but hopefully efficiently there are several safety issues and one is we have these wonderful RRFPS and in case you wonder what that stands for they are rectangular rapid flashing beacons I'm not sure how they came up with that name but we were early adopters of these and at the time they came with just operating in one direction and so if you were driving down the street you would see on your right the yellow guy and the light flashing if somebody had pushed the button but on the left side of the street because there's nothing there in Burlington they have functioning ones on both sides and it's much easier for drivers to see that and it's not so easy for our drivers to see it and I think our rate of compliance is not what it should be you never really know whether someone's going to stop for you and sometimes someone will stop in one direction and not the other and then you don't know what to do so we think if these could be expanded and on both sides it would improve safety enormously another safety issue involves having right on red for cars where pedestrians and cyclists have to cross on the bike path there's always someone who can turn right on red even though in their direction it's a green light for them to go and it's a tradeoff here between the efficiency of getting cars to go along, go through and not back up and the safety of people trying to cross as pedestrians and that's Dorset and Swiss street and that's our park on that side so there's a lot of traffic there and it's a tough one it's not the only intersection that has that problem but it's an example of it another problem we see is the lines the fog lines, the crosswalk lines the lines that say stop fade over time and they fade rapidly on roads that have a lot of traffic and those fog lines the ones on the side are crucial to identifying bike lanes when they're just lanes in no path and so if they don't, you can't see those it just makes it a little more dangerous for the people using those so we think that those lines that particularly in heavy traffic areas need to be repainted in a more timely fashion not everywhere but where there's heavy traffic how often are they painted? they're painted when they fade and when we can get to them we have the new striping machine but we I'm just curious this year half of the days of the summer was raining and then when it came up to school going back in session they put an emphasis on crosswalks around the school it was a tough year to paint this is a road, this is Farrell street and both Farrell and Eastwood have been done for two years and it's quite a cut through especially commuters so those are three examples of safety issues so our top five safety policy recommendations involve number one the dangerous intersection of Swift and Spear streets it's bad enough for cars it's even worse for pedestrians and cyclists and that has to deal with again the right on red and on Swift street there's that little light that tells you you can't go right on red when it's lit so that the cars that are going to Swift can make that left hand turn but it's only the cars that can see that little light that says no left hand turn that no to stop there and if you're really interested in turning right on red you have to pull ahead to see the cars coming down Spear street from the north and then you no longer can see the little thing that says don't turn right on red right now also if you know after you turn right on red whether it's at the green or red light then you immediately are confronted with the pedestrian crossing which has one of those flashing lights on it but your line of vision isn't drawn to it until you make that turn for the most part so it's very dangerous for people that are trying to cross on the bike path or the bike pedestrian path to get across there the one on Swift street further east has more of a line of vision and it's usually not quite as bad but this whole intersection is just crying for a better design and it's probably being expensive repair but I think we have to think in terms of both long and short term solutions to the problem so the second one is the RRFP poles we really think if they could be augmented so they flash on both sides it would improve the functioning or the way people perceive them and stop for them and lane markings that numbering system is not very good I apologize lane markings and I thought they were all the top right well no lane markings the handout is correct yeah I probably hit one too many enters started re-numbering I apologize so lane markings again are important they go a long way to improve the safety of pedestrians and cyclists and cars also on my dad and then the right turn on reds not every intersection needs to not have them and there are ways to allow a little time for pedestrians and cyclists to get across but I think we really need to look at that and judiciously figure out how we can make it safer by maybe allowing a time when just pedestrians and cyclists can cross without backing up traffic for miles do you know if there are any different requirements on state roads that would override what a municipality want? I don't know if there is I don't know in regard to that there are some requirements in regards to other things you can do like putting in crosswalks the state has some requirements that municipalities can do with the work that the committee did on Shelburne Road Roy headed that up he got them to at least have advanced light and that's a state road so so far they've been pretty cooperative and Hinesburg Road is the other difficult one where there could be some tie-in which the city is working on and the last number one is the C-click fix program and I heard some rumblings before of saving money by eliminating that it is a good outlet for people who observe something to report it and it gets transmitted quickly so I think it's advantageous to have a way for everyday citizens to report there's a problem here there's a big pothole in the middle of the sidewalk or whatever would you agree that we could be using it better yes in the sense that if it's cleared before it the work is done other people don't know it's an issue and they report it as well so it could be a potential issue I mean I wish that the city's new website had a page that listed all the C-click fixes and what their priority was how long they think it'll be till it's fixed why it can't be fixed how many people report the same darn thing so that they know that it's well represented but I've submitted things they get cleared and then they're not done and it's frustrating and I sympathize with people that use it and feel like it doesn't have an effect other times it has been used the state responds very quickly and they know it's the best job but they give it a try at least so you know and then it's a tool nobody has more eyes on the road than the people that are on it every single day I reported that there was a piece of wood debris at the corner right at the airport mobile station blocking the pedestrian access on the little cement ramp that goes down to cross the road it's still there for all I know I reported that a week ago it's just pick up the debris and throw it away it's blocking a sidewalk it probably fell off of a truck but these are the kinds of issues that we need to address and I agree don't clear a C-click fix unless it doesn't exist or it's just not done or have another alternative on the website it's a really great resource because it's been well adopted metrics matter if we're clearing before they're resolved then we're not getting good metrics we should leave them open we don't have time, we don't have resource we don't have paint, we don't have whatever it is and then we could look at that once a month and go we should have them I'd love to see it I don't even know how much we're using it how many residents report to it I'd love to get an idea of how much value you see clicks fix does offer South Burlington which stats it all but I know we have lots of things on our plan we've been viewing it lately I'd say we get around 30 issues that are reported a month around that but they're usually everything on C-click fix it seems like they're about 30 for 05403 you can see that look at that open, unresolved we okay so moving on to maintenance the path I don't think the budget is very large for maintaining the path and yet it like the rest of our infrastructure needs repairs from time to time their roots that have pushed up the path and make ridges in it and you know sometimes they're hard to see the path has to be cleared on a regular basis or your head hits a tree branch as you go along the picture with the red stop sign on it is up by the golf course and it says stop you are entering a hazardous area due to flying golf balls but you can't read it as you go by it and most people don't stop to read it because it looks like a faded sign and I'm sure the developer was asked to put that up and that was a long time ago so it's not really cautioning people to watch out for flying golf balls there's another picture of a pothole these are just samples of things you find as you go along parts of the path are wonderful but then there are these little things you come upon when you're at least expecting it we had to tear up part of it on the north end of the golf course as it swings around and down towards Dorset street and I don't know whether that was done last fall or very early this spring Donna maybe you know that last fall so there's a sign warning about it and it's gravel but it hasn't been repaved yet so and that's kind of a bad spot without having to counter gravel around the corner so those are just examples we really don't know how much money is available in the regular budget to allocate for maintenance so then moving on I'm sorry to interrupt I heard that our paving or maintenance budget has been static at 500,000 for the past four years and I'm just wondering if it's been set at 575 do we look to usually incrementally adjust that with the cost it will actually address that later you tried to you are grateful that they did pour sidewalk on Park Road to link up the bike path to the sidewalk finally at the intersection of Golf Course Road and Park Road continue to thank you it was a requirement of the developer to have done that a long time ago but they didn't but then something triggered it it's been a missing link for a long time and I've been harping on it for years starting back in the DRB so as I move to the cider mill you're welcome but I don't know what application triggered it because I don't think there was one out there that needed it right away but anyway okay so next is closing the gaps most of the development on the bike path bike pedestrian path has been done when we require developers on their property to put the path through what will be a normal extension of the current path but that's created that's created some segments of bike path that aren't connected and there are these these areas that it really someone maybe isn't going to develop it or you have a developer creating something on the left hand side of the road when the main path goes on the right hand side of the road and you have to figure out you don't really want to build a path on both sides of the road how do you get them across so their gap development we think of gaps as intersections or crossings of roads that are almost impossible to do safely so there are lots of these and we're not going to we're not talking about all of them we just want to give you a little bit of a sampling the one that you're probably familiar with is on dorset street that goes between old crossroad and the picture on the right the blue is bike path and the red is where there isn't one you just have to use the shoulder so between old crossroad and Sadie lane which is on the south end of cider mill there is no multi-use path and there's a very nice place in the middle that sells maple creamies and cider donuts and there are a lot of developments with kids in them and adults who want to get there safely to indulge I just have to jump in I know this area and I just see kids which has the strollers on this stretch which is so treacherous even bicyclists there's just no shoulder I know I'm glad that this is a priority because it's just the mill is a magnet for pedestrian traffic from Nolan farms, from the golf course area as well as dorset farms I always say the most dangerous thing I do with my kids is walk along dorset to get to the mill so it's just really treacherous especially along this area for transportation it's a commuting corridor to get to city center to get to UVM and people that are commuting are not going to go around through the cider mill development they're going to get on the road and it's dangerous right now so that said this has been scoped I believe by Susan County Regional Planning and it's been identified as a priority but we don't know how long that will take and it's a timing sample of how we could make a big difference to finish that one off let me just give you a few more examples this is Spear Street on the left and Dorset Street on the right again the blue is the multi-use path and the red is where we are lacking it and there may be planes on the road but they are inconsistent in width and inconsistence and just being marked at all and there are three major intersections that are difficult these are both major transportation routes from the south to the north and for anybody working at UVM or at the medical center or in that part of town I went to a conference once and there was a couple sitting at my table where we were talking about Spear Street but they would go on Swift all the way over to Dorset to get down to Williston Road to go across into Burlington because Spear Street is because of its inconsistency and its lack of shoulders in that red area is really dangerous for cyclists and the problem is even if you make it through the red area you want to be able to then cross over the path but there's no safe way to cross that street and there have been a couple bad accidents there Spear Street is a hard problem because we have the interstate bridges but that is a major gap that needs help we talked about the Swift Swift Spear crossing that's part of that gap it's just hard for everybody to get across there likewise at Dorset Swift with people going into the park especially kids the same problem with the crossing it's not really safe and then we have Songbird which very nicely has the multi-use path going across it but once you get to the Dorset Street people want to be able to get across and then get onto the path and go north and they can't do it because there's no crossing well, like I said they do do it but there is not a crossing there are some people feel that there shouldn't be a crossing there because of the line of sight lines particularly to the north because you're going up a hill and so the cars wouldn't necessarily see you but it's a real problem because people cut across there and then they just scoot across when they can so that's another example of gaps and then the last one I want to point out is there's a very nice recreation path on the north side of Kennedy Drive we have a sidewalk coming down from West Twin Oaks and the fitness center we have a bus stop on the south side but you get there and you have unless you want to take the bus which is great you have no way of getting across to the recreation path because there's not a crosswalk there and again what you see is people trying to get across halfway and likewise if you walk down the recreation path you want to get to the bus stop you can't cross over there safely another example of a gap in the path which isn't really long but it's kind of like the bike ferry had to overcome on the causeway you know it's 200 feet but you can't bike across it without some sort of boat and that smaller picture just shows where if they in fact go to the nearest crosswalk you can see how far they'd have to go to get to the other side of the street so those are just three examples of some of the many things that need to be done to kind of bring us our path together and it's been a long time so we kind of have two questions and suggestions one is that as the path ages it needs increased maintenance and we urge that the council perhaps would consider increasing the funding for both the human resources and the material needs to adequately maintain the bike pedestrian path system as part of our transportation infrastructure as part of their budget process for that area and the other suggestion we would like to make or urge you to consider is that aside from developers being required to build the recreation path through the area they are developing the network that ties neighborhoods to one another to schools, parks, shopping areas has not been expanded in at least over 10 to 15 years and how do we get the funds to do that and we would we would ask you to consider a valid item for such as a pennies for paths that would raise money to actually help build out that path and that's all I'm saying on the pennies for paths we're not looking for the council to react to it or anything tonight but we would like to work with you and talk to the members of the council and just get your input on would this be something that could work and how would it work and what would it be allowed to pay for and that type of thing in the hand out there we just gave you a sizing of the impact on property tax taxpayers and think that it could be used for potentially a revenue bond so that we could fill some of these gaps right away maybe by floating a revenue bond that would be funded by this kind of a tax or it could be used as matching funds for some of the grants that the city is working on but so we just like to any questions but no requirement to react to that tonight by the way we have almost the whole rest of our committee here I was just curious if you had priced out how much you could do with $300,000 for you no I mean the short answer is no brown but literally those are next steps if we if the council feels we have the scoping from the RPC and we have ideas on how much it would cost and there's some of these studies are pretty inflated and we think working with the DPW and the city we could figure out a way to close a lot of the gaps much more efficiently than what's shown in some of these studies but that Tom might have a reaction of how much of a bond we could size of a bond that would be about eight times the $300 or something yeah I think one of the things you were looking for is more consistent funding the bond would be similar to what we did with the open space really and we got a lot accomplished in a short period of time but we have a longer payoff for that one and it doesn't have to be done that way that's just one way of doing it it could be where it's used for matching funds and combined with the recreation impact fees well I think it's really smart to think about this long term thinking I don't know what the numbers are but I know the city of Burlington did not maintain their bike path along the lake and had to close it for was it two years or a year and spent a lot of money to reconstruct that because they didn't maintain it so it's kind of like not repairing the hole in your roof eventually you have some damage it just doesn't make sense so I appreciate your thinking about this I think it would be really important to scope out some of the estimated costs so that if we agreed to put it on the ballot first I think the council would need to know so what are we going to get for this and then the public clearly would need to be convinced so just for some clarion scoping four sections are scoped they're fully scoped with price tags that was funded through the UPWP program last year there's four more sections that were identified as the next top priorities that will be scoped starting probably next week so by this time next year we'll have eight sections my guess based on what we saw in the first section that that funding will exceed ten years worth of revenue here so there's more than enough that would be ready to go the other piece to consider is that the funding for fees several of them are listed in the CIP but not all of them I don't know how up to date you are on the work that's happening with the wreck impact fees in the CIP some of the projects get properly aligned between the CIP and the wreck impact fees until we fix some of the language there that's something that Paul, he's not here right now and Justin are working on maybe Tom knows a little bit more if it's something you want more information on but we are working to align those projects with the CIP with wreck impact fees so all of that hopefully within the next year we'll be ready to go I have another issue that's not on your list that's because it isn't being built yet but it was just a I guess it heads up of one of those company identifications and then reality and this is along Pinesburg Road the Nadu Road which eventually will be built to connect the mill to Pinesburg Road is supposed to have a wreck path and the design is for it to go across Pinesburg Road because the path will be on the east side of the road and then it goes down and then it has to cross back I mean it's one of these situations where you're kind of building it on the wrong side of the road because you want it to connect with buffer farms but so it'll be on the east side and I live on the road and I travel it every day and so the west side of Pinesburg Road all the houses are set a lot farther back there's a bigger space to build a path or you know pave the road a little further and the logic not having your kid come down the hill on Nadu Road into Pinesburg Road where it's 50 miles an hour right there and cross the road and then cross the road again where it's 45 miles an hour I mean it's sort of one of those planning that I don't know someone's good idea but they didn't live there and so you know you'll just keep that in your list of when you meet with the planning commission or somebody to sort of say do you think you want to change this or reconsider to make it really safe I just spelled that really Nato N-A-D-E-A-U Tom's Uncle Uncle Leo Leo Nato Road Chief to you Is that north of Sider Mill 2 and 3 or is it part of that I think it's South of Sider Mill 1 right Yes, if Sider Mill 1 and Sider Mill 2 can manage to take it it's sort of south of the band signal Any one of those connectors but the developer the developer the developer was in couldn't get him to change it they wanted a bike path to go across Heinsberg Road right there So the developer was in to our meeting last Wednesday to discuss some of their plans but I believe it's on probably the official city map that the bike path or pedestrian path will be on the east side of Heinsberg Road or those several blocks So we're doing looking at the city map with the proposed path on it but we also have to do it in conjunction with the city getting the mapping capacity so that we can put what we see or what we suggest on the map so we have all the coordinates and layers that you need to make it functional so it's something we're working on but we're a little bit delayed because of that I think the city map is a great idea I mean I think once it's laid out and printed it's a wonderful economic piece people can come and bike and know how to get around and there's so many beautiful spots you might be able to get to safely I would also just like to share with you and the council an invitation from local motion they're organizing a ribbon cutting at the Earl's Sacklery and it's opening all the Williston Road expansion in Williston but they've invited our city council and anyone who's interested it's from 9.30 to 11 on Saturday October 21st that's this Saturday yeah so unfortunately I can't make a family coming up when we're going to be gone that day but I would encourage even though it isn't how a bike have a good example and I think they're looking for some inner community support for those kinds of projects a new piece and it's really nice if you ride here, watch out for the orange barrels the orange cones, the bumps, the cracks the holes but they're getting close it's a very smooth ride now they're from PJ's all the way down to the industrial last split and they did a ton of them there's close to a mile of it that's in South Burlington there's close to a mile that is in South Burlington I really appreciate the amount of effort that's going on as night work too night paper on the swallow any other questions or comments? it's very well done I like your chart the three charts that you sent the priorities yes, I thought that was very helpful and I could piece it through in my head and sort of figure out where they were so I think that's great I like the penny for pads I think it makes a lot of sense it really connects the community all the different quarters of the community I think it's definitely worth exploring I think it's definitely worth exploring I would agree I just think a little more specifics would be helpful in connecting the dots for both the council to say yes because there's a lot of pennies out there for all sorts of new pennies portable housing wants some pennies too for that question is what do you get for your 300,000 right? yes or however you want whether you bond and do all of it in a short period of time or you say these are our top priorities and 300,000 bucks the first year is going to do this and then year two we do this yeah I think that helps the council as well as if we agree then the valid item the voters have to say yes we're asking them for lots of things and they came in and asked us for this as well it was eye awakening no eye opening our eyes woke up my god thank you for your time thank you very much would we get to go now yes hey we nee