Okay so without objection we'll consider the agenda approved so on to general business and appearances and so this is an opportunity for any member of the public to address the council on some topic that is otherwise not on our agenda and if you would say as with all other comments generally speaking tonight if you would say your name where you live and try to keep your comments I'll just say brief for now so any comments from the public I will be brief but I'm going to talk fast because I have a lot of ground cover Steve Whitaker I want to open a discussion that's going to obviously take several meetings and might be even an agenda item to explore further I've titled the document seriously misplaced priorities and I this is a compilation from dozens of Montpelierites that I've been out reaching out and meeting with when we're spending 200,000 for wayfinding signs millions on a bike path and bridge millions on a multimodal transit center with no rail platform and so many dollars I don't know on the downtown master plan with an uncertain gross prospects while we have obvious unmet needs priorities on stopping the sewer gas from arising from the storm grains right around state in Maine East state and Maine it's it's a serious problem that blanket kept one of them blocked for the last three or four days I took it off because the rain is coming but if anybody needs a whiff it's there it's absorbed plenty it's wool paving drainage at the crosswalks I've been bringing to your attention for years and it has not been addressed the paving effort made a few a month ago still does not drain I've got photos of all this and we're heading into winter again so we're gonna have ice in the crosswalks which is a real safety hazard and somebody's gonna get hurt clean and safe streets we got trip hazards the sidewalks are heaving we just grind them off and bevel them so there's still a two or three inch level differences we've got a sinkhole out on St. Paul Street that's big enough for a kid's leg to fall in and break missing and have hazard curb stones the curbs that were removed for the water's main street break East East State Street break have not been put back in the street sweeping has been skipped for three weeks until yesterday morning and even then it left a trail of dirt a mounded trail of dirt which continues to blow around who's supposed to clean up the broken glass that the feces the vomit etc this this stuff has been happening and everybody says not me not me the vacuum cleaner for the sidewalks I've raised as an option is a good alternative no no action no response we need to fundamentally and as soon as possible stop the combined sewer overflow dumping human waste into the river untreated CV PSA CV fiber I have not heard back from my report on that problem we're at risk of losing that multi hundred thousand dollar investment our police chief is in a position to help expedite the records request for those tele tower infrastructure of capital west and he is in effect saying I don't have them while he's writing an RFP with Scott bag who is one of his part time dispatchers we can't have officials public officials on the public dime impeding public records requests and pointing at the other guy last year's Christmas wreath I've mentioned before still sitting right out here outside your window sd Ireland spilling that road based down the river bank into the river got a free pass apparently even though I called it here and the state's attention the missed opportunities the truck I got one more minute the truck access where to keep the tractor trailers from parking in Main Street we're going to miss that opportunity to integrate trucks through the new parking lot into the north branch lot the city our new public works director is now aware of it the city needs to forfeit four spots in the north branch lot in exchange for Abishan moving their propane tank and creating a path exiting by the old pocket park into the we're missing an opportunity to electric vehicle recharging stations in the new lot what better way to bring tourists to Vermont to Montpelier to shop and eat while their cars are charging than to simply put chargers they are available to them we've have been charging people on the 4th of July and on Bennington battle day for meters and unfairly I'd ask the city council to refund everyone who paid by check credit card and it's a missed opportunity for the merchants to have paid for the bags that say free holiday parking in the bags are courtesy of the merchants right it's just a simple good will good advertising but charging people when they shouldn't be charged is not right put the Saturday state and main stoplight into flashing mode we're backing up all the way to the rotary and backing up to Memorial Drive with traffic even because they're making a turn for state street traffic which isn't there during the farmers market so I talked to the part programmers working down at Bailey today a city official with the key can simply put that light into flashing mode from 6 6 a.m. or leave it in flashing mode from 6 a.m. till 2 that would that would solve the problem postpone the downtown master plan until the garage appeals are resolved you I'm told that the cons consultant has been directed to plan as if the garage is going in that is a mistake it's unfair to the people it's unfair to the parents it's it's a waste of money you're close right sure yeah the you could use a heat pump to capture the heat from that computer room that's a noise impediment in here and heat the water for the downstairs bathrooms with that we need a comprehensive traffic study including construction impacts a rail study satellite parking alternatives pit alternatives a visible log of all public records requests to the city and a visible log of all correspondence in and out of the city so that people know that a request has already been logged and don't repeat it thanks thank you and there's some great ideas in there any other comments from the public I'm Sue Allen and for two more days I'm the assistant city manager and I just wanted to take a minute to say highlight two things I've learned in the last two and a half years that I've been here and the first is that you have some of the best city staff working for you I've ever encountered in my years in government they work nights and they work weekends and we do here you know week to week litanies of things that have gone wrong and I want you to know they put it all heart and soul out there for the residents and the businesses of this city and I applaud them and I also want to just take a minute and applaud you all because I have watched you for two and a half years give up your nights and your weekends and answer all your constituents questions and really put yourself out there for the public and I want you to all patch yourself on the back for what a wonderful job you do and I thank you for letting me work for you for the last two and a half years I've loved every minute of it and I wish you well thank you hello my name is Seth Collins I live in Berlin Vermont and at some point I would like this Council and the town of Montpelier to address the shooting deaths of Nate Giffin and Mark Johnson thank you can I ask you a question yes in what format do you envision that and well could you put it on the the agenda for one of these meetings is that how it would go that's a possibility we could okay thank you thanks so much yeah for sure right so thank you all moving on so onto the consent agenda we did and it's sort of a last-minute catch a pretty brief typo in the minutes I don't know if it's appropriate to pull them is it is it that Jack McCaulah voted nay on an item that he did not vote nay on okay there's that okay okay okay okay because I Jack you didn't vote nay on the zoning fix regarding the savings pastor yeah okay okay yeah no worries I think Ashley might have voted nay on that she did yep and so that was recorded but it also said that anyway so regarding the consent agenda is there a motion regarding that with the is it with the absence of item a second further discussion okay all in favor please say aye and we'll look at those minutes at a later time okay and so we all we have a couple of public hearings to do so one of them is regarding the Vermont community development program and so I want to invite Eileen and I think I don't know if Kevin is here for that too whoever so this is a public hearing so I'm going to officially open the public hearing on that we'll hear from these folks and then if there's comments from the public we'll take them afterwards welcome would you like me to explain it really briefly like what are these four sure sure so this is Vermont community development program using the community development block grant for what's called our Green Mountain Home Repair Program this is a program that's been in existence for about 15 years because it's community development block grant it requires a town or city to support it as I think you all know previously we've had the town of Northfield we've had the city of Barry and now we're asking Montpelier to step in at this point this is a consortium agreement a few years back we actually merged our program with the Windham and Windsor housing Trust which serves Windham and Windsor counties and Brattleboro is actually the lead community so lucky for Kevin they do all the paperwork and all that we're really asking the city is to support the application and all you need to do as far as work is really do the public hearing so and I did hand out a little bit of brochure to all of you that explains what it is so essentially it is a program available to low-income residents in Washington Orange in Lemoyle County to do home repairs wonderful this brochure actually answers the questions that I had which were specifically like what kinds of repairs would be eligible for right these kinds of grants and just so everybody's aware it's resolving health and safety issues like mold asbestos and lead paint fixing structural problems like leaking roofs or foundation issues or wall issues older failing electrical plumbing septic modifying the interior exteriors for elderly or disabled occupants and then upgrades for energy efficiency weatherization air sealing etc so I just wanted to make sure that everybody was aware that because I assume that if there's a homeowner in town they should get in touch with the city if we receive these these funds or how would somebody know if they're if they're interested in the program I did leave a brochure over there but they can reach out to Down Street and we can work you through the process so it is for low-income individuals so 80% area median income or below and typically it is funding of last resort so if people are not able to get financing through traditional bank they're able to do it through us and right now and this happens occasionally right now we do actually have the ability to offer part of the money through grant and it is a loan program but many of the loans are actually zero percent deferred so you're not actually making payments on them and that's one thing that's sort of challenging about this problem is people tend not to apply because they think they can't afford debt but if they can't actually afford the debt we still can work with them yeah wonderful how I'm sorry I have one question how how do you get the word out about this kind of program so we do a fair amount of advertising in the paper we have on occasion and we can certainly do this again insert had done it as an insert you know in a tax bill or something like that so we usually do that you know in the larger communities every other year so you can certainly do that I think that would be wonderful just as an aside is that you know I kind of have in contact with Patty at home street pretty frequently so I'm referring people and there's a pipeline so that if people have questions they can come to me and I can direct them to the right person and they would ultimately go to downstream yeah okay wonderful any other questions okay any comments from the public Lauren is this like a first-come-first-serve kind of thing or I mean I'm I was excited to see the energy efficiency knowing that we're doing this whole energy efficiency ordinance conversation and the ability to help lower income folks access money to do the kinds of things that we're hoping more people will do is it just kind of whoever comes in the door and whatever kinds of projects are eligible or are there kind of buckets for different kinds of projects so there aren't buckets all of them are eligible it is first comes first serve but we do actually have a fair amount of capital that's accumulated the idea of this is that so the people who are repaying or refurbishing the capital so it's a revolving loan fund so we haven't reached a point where we've had to say no because there isn't capital more likely what happens with these with this money is you have to income qualify one and when we go into a home we are required to meet what's called housing quality standards so people may want to do energy efficiency work but if the roof is failing it has to be addressed and then sometimes the project gets too large and people feel uncomfortable with that amount of debt you know even if they're not paying on it so sometimes that's a challenge and this money is on the whole divided up amongst different counties so is it there's a certain amount for Washington County okay no so so it's great that you're asking me these questions and we're advertising it so yeah it's first come first serve within the five within the five counties but like I said there is there is a fair amount of capital available well great and if you have a question go ahead Peter Kellman College Street I think the mayor's question about how do people find out about this is a very good question and the answers were not as good as the question the very people who need this money are people who need outreach to them not to come by your office Kevin and get in the quote pipeline there needs to be an affirmative effort to reach people low income and to let them know that there's money to help them do you have any suggestions Peter as to what more could be done well it does relate to my larger concern about communication in town there are people who know things and people who don't and people know where to look and people who don't there needs to be some kind of rethinking of how government communicates to the poor people in town the people who rent the people who have homes that they own but can't afford to fix them up people who are homeless we just need to figure out do I sure I have some ideas but I think and I think that setting up the the task force on homelessness is the kind of thing that I think is a good beginning but there are people who have homes who also need some attention like that so I don't have any answer but I think that we it's something that we need to tackle thank you I Erica rail of my center for independent living we actually have an information line at our center where we've referred people to this program and we work primarily with people that are low income and disabled and is a great program people can call us and we have referred and worked with Downstreet on many many projects so there is actually a place where people can go and get information on this and it's actually our number is statewide so and we also have a database on this so the the information is being disseminated thank you did you have a question Glenn yeah on that can can you give us any sense of how often you get calls on that line is that ringing off the hook once a month off the cuff I'd have to say a weekly on just housing primarily about 25 30 calls for from homeowners we're constantly retrofitting and when I say retrofit we're dealing with old housing stock here in Vermont so we're putting ramps on we go into a house we see there's mold they need a new glass new glass we see that there's insulation so we're always working with Downstreet USDA weatherization programs I mean we partner with anybody anybody who will help people with 80 percent because we're working with the poorest the poor out there and we'll again we'll work with anybody and Downstreet has always been a great program to work with 25 or 30 a week a day yeah so people really are accessing that people are accessing these programs okay and yeah so it's great as a great I as a great program great wonderful Steve Whitaker Montpelier I just want to second the comments made by the Peter regarding the awareness this is a no warrant public hearing and we're seeing the here warning of the public hearing for the first time now I wouldn't contrast that to all the publicity that was done around the the very street very in main intersection or the energy efficiency we really made an extended effort to get make people aware of those things that got in the press ahead of time but this I'm concerned that without having time to process and discuss this among folks were barreling down track here that might not be reversible it it says that one application is for 375,000 to be shared among the five counties or so so many counties following item on the agenda is possibly a competing grant to the same program to take care of some three buildings right here in Montpelier so are we gonna have two grants is one going to win out over the other can we get them both but I believe we need a process whereby the priorities for how this money is spent are discussed and established in a more informed process than we've had so far on these grants so Stephen I can actually answer some of those okay I really don't want to see the another way and the other buildings that are housed so Stephen we're applying for the another way and Washington County mental health grant is for a VCDP IG grant and implementation grant this is a scattered site so there's separate things like we could also apply for like an accessibility modification grant in the same round but there's two separate funding pools I guess so it's not going to be competing I'm not gonna separate it's a separate that's it's all the same funds but separate pocket pools that's good to know what my point my point is being made is that there's not been enough discussion or education about these different pockets or pools or what say anybody has what's the point in holding a public hearing if the decisions are already made and people aren't informed about what choices are to be made in public hearing but to be clear we're applying for federal funding this isn't alone we're not borrowing money we're we're applying for federal funding through the Vermont Community Development Program I think my point is that thank you it might merit a second public hearing and some pre-education about what choices or impacts or priorities might the community want to establish for this thank you any further comments I'm sure people are getting up to talk about this okay okay all right so I'm gonna close the public hearing and I think we need a motion regarding regarding this resolution am I correct enough I move that we authorize the department to submit the application for the VCDP scattered scattered site grant second further discussion I just want to also say I'm so grateful for the outreach that's been done in the past and for the opportunities that people do have for accessing this and I am happy to talk through any other ways that we can just get the word out and see about advertising it I mean I wonder if we can be posting something on front porch forum to say like hey that this money exists that might be a great way to get the word out anyway so I'm just thinking out loud but there's been a motion and a second any further discussion okay on favor please say I opposed okay this motion passes thank you so much and on to a second public hearing this one is regarding rant actually I will let you let you explain it this sorry before you do that I'm gonna officially open the public hearing on this oh yeah thank you and Amy Wright is going to join me she's the consultant who's working with another way and Washington County mental health and I can have Amy give some answers so I was approached earlier this summer or actually spring I guess it was that Washington County mental health and another way we're looking to do some renovations in the buildings at 62 90 and 125 Berry Street 60 and 90 are owned by Washington County mental health and 125 is another way so there are a number of health and safety and what's that energy and energy efficiency projects that'll be tackled by these with these funds so we would be sponsored we would be the sponsor for these funds they're applying for $625,000 and we're hoping that they receive it because it's these buildings are in dire need and Berry Street they're really cornerstones of Berry Street great any questions done is there any local match I didn't see it mentioned here did I miss it no not currently we do have access with the VCDP program they can access our revolving loan funds if necessary generally speaking we don't most pro projects can't afford to take on additional debt and our revolving loan funds do require a repayment in some cases but no we don't have a local match we don't have one or we don't need one you it's not required it's always helpful when the city contributes something but I think what we are saying is that the city has given another way tax exempt status which is extremely valuable to the to the property and that and Kevin's time and in administering the grant without you can charge for administering the grant and and we're not asking for funds for that so you know we're grateful for that and other matching funds come from another way has secured a number of smaller grants and saved its money from its fund raising Washington County mental health has a has an organization wide reserve that every penny is needed is counted twice before it gets spent but there's a portion of that that will be going into the grant we may need one more source we're just looking into that as our final costs come in for the questions Jack this isn't a question but it's a comment in my in my day job representing people in in voluntary mental health proceedings I regularly have people who are residents at 62 Barry Street and I'm always arguing with the state that you know the mayor and I have been on this committee hearing from Central Vermont Hospital about the expansion of their psych unit and I'm always saying what we need to do is to support an adequate number of community resources in order to keep people who don't need to be in hospitals out of the hospitals and I think this is the services provided in these facilities are very important thank you further comments or questions comments from the public or questions yes I lean Peltier resident Montpelier I just wanted to speak on behalf of this application I think that you know as consulate McCuller was saying these types of programs are critically important they're serving the most vulnerable people in our community I was just hearing that another way serves over 600 individual people in the past year that's a big number I've been in all of these buildings they need help and managing these budgets and doing the incredible work that these two organizations do every day it's really challenging to do and to find the money to make the capital improvements that are needed and the community development is a block grant is a great resource to do that so I just want to say I support it and hope you do too thank you hi I'm Rick DeAngelis I live in Montpelier I'm also the board chair of another way so I have a bias here but you know another way is an amazing organization it's actually been providing a safe haven for the most vulnerable people in Montpelier for 35 years and and about 15 years ago we bought the property on Barry Street it was a pretty it was a wreck at that time we managed to keep it going and last year with private financing we did phase one we did the most immediate needs of the building but there's more that needs to be done and the work that we're doing in this phase it's all about providing people with the basics to come in and get you know a warm meal to use the bathroom to do your laundry and I think it it's very important to them but it's also important to the city at large that we have that capacity within Montpelier so I hope you'll support the the proposal thank you I'm Zach Hughes Montpelier also prospecting so I support the grant as well as I'm familiar with facilities and to another way I have to say you provide that sanctuary plus you provide another option traditional services that option is important and the other thing I wanted to say is I serve in capacities at Washington County mental health and I also served in one of those committees that Jack just mentioned at the hospital and I took two trips out to two different hospitals one in Minneapolis and Pennsylvania as part of this expansion project and I too would argue for more community supports like pure crisis beds we have one here in Montpelier called Maple House so I just want to say I support these funds at this time thank you so I didn't leave any ambiguity with my prior comments I still like the outreach my outreach plans I do support this wholeheartedly thank you now we need to sign a resolution so we make a motion to adopt it or what do we do now yep so is there any further public comments okay so we're going to close the public hearing on that and then is there a motion regarding this I was gonna make the motion to pass the resolution for the VCDP grant application authority okay further discussion all in favor please say aye aye opposed all right thank you all thank you for your work yeah okay okay so on to the appointments to the homelessness task force and actually as I am trying to access that on the internet it's not working right now that's exciting it's possible in the case there were a number of people whose names and well there's a number of people who expressed interest in serving on this committee and I know a number of them are here and so I would we do have the list here there are some additions to what was there but in any case if there's anyone here who is interested in this task force and is here tonight if you wouldn't mind just introducing yourself and explaining your interest in this participating in this task force and so that that's one thing and then I actually now that I'm saying it I wonder if it makes sense for us to start with them the mission so people sort of know more or less what they're signing up for so actually I think we should start with the what is the the goal of this what is the where the outcomes that we are hoping for from this group and let's I think we should probably have some kind of a motion regarding the task and then we'll go to applicants does that sound okay with everybody okay so we do have some language about what the task would involve to be on this committee any thoughts or comments on that language one in Jamie's email this afternoon she mentioned they was going to be changed from what was on the link and I don't know if the printed one is the changed one or the same as on the link one possibility is that if we don't have that answer should we move on it's evan email some things to Jamie yeah and I did did we get an email from evan about updated language we did you did from Jamie forwarded it to all of us okay yeah oh even here I don't think I have it so okay got you so this is the change language okay so thoughts on the charge of this committee I'm sorry but is it short enough that you could read it I think so I can try to be quick it's not terribly long the so this is as proposed from the head of the community justice committee as well as our Jamie I'm not sure what Jamie's title is administrative assistant to city manager there we go okay so the Montpelier homelessness task force charged with providing the city council with a report in three months that includes a couple bullet points one creative collaboratively developed creative collaboratively developed short-term ideas and or solutions to improve conditions for the homeless to policy recommendations and concrete ideas for longer term structural and systems improvement that the city could implement along with the with the preliminary budget and timeline for duration of work and implementation and then also ideas and recommendations should be supported by data that includes and some more bullets in one information regarding the scope of homelessness in Montpelier and the needs of people experiencing homelessness in Montpelier to the systems currently in place in our region to address homelessness three the range of concerns perceived barriers and potential solutions identified by the community and for existing strategies in other cities or states recognize recognizing that the location of our city requires solutions that are responsive to our changing seasons is that help Glenn thank you thoughts on that Don well I really like the changes thank you Yvonne and I like the clear gold of three months it's a real good target I also like the charge and like that it's become more specific which I think will help keep it focused and have a clear charge with this imply that it only exists for those three months and then we would look at the longer term recommendations and reassess if we need an ongoing task force or should be clear about what the timeline of commitment for people who are expressing interest that's a great question my instinct is to say that we should assume that we would reevaluate that question in three months and that that group can make some kind of a determination as to whether or not they would like to continue or if there's more need which I mean there's going to be more need but in terms of like have they accomplished their task and is there a different task perhaps that they would like to tackle because I can evaluate perhaps at that time it seems like at that point they would need a different charge right yeah yeah which is perfectly perfectly fine Donna do you have something just wouldn't want to set it up to end in five in three months I guess I see it as a broader group and then along the way you evaluate it in three months is the goal to make the gold Connor I think you might like see the 10,000 foot view over these three months and maybe there would be other like people who would sign up for it that could really narrow in on the yeah so more details of it Glenn at the same time I think that one of the parts sort of contrary to your 10,000 foot view I I think that's true that we would get that also I like that the first focus point is short-term ideas and their solutions to improve conditions right now and I think we can find some of those within that three months so I would say that's honestly I think that that's more important to me than the 10,000 foot view for now you know in that in light of that I actually wonder if that first charge you know providing the City Council the report in three months that includes you know creative collaboration collaboratively developed short-term ideas you know that really is a three month part and then in that second bullet you know policies about longer term structural changes that could take more time so I wonder if you know we should be looking for some short-term recommendations in three months and then looking for some longer term recommendations further out any comments about that I guess again I'm backing off and over micromanaging the group that if we set them up I would say like a intention of a year appointment okay if you need it and then the gold is within three months they can report where they are with those two major items and then they'll know what they can do what they might decide a subgroup can do you know things could be broken up cool yeah thank you Steve I remind you that I asked that this be started back in March now winners approaching and they were kind of under the gun I'd ask you to phrase your motion whatever it is or your purpose I haven't seen that language this is kind of awkward I had offered some language there's been a kind of a crowdsourcing refinement of language but I think what you ought to do right now is leave it to the bare minimum and make the first charge of the task force to refine what they feel they're going to be able to accomplish in a year and come back to you even at the next meeting with a refined scope give them a chance to meet convene assess the strengths and weaknesses of the group and I also want to point out that one of the proposals was that there be a liaison not necessarily a voting member from Barry and Berlin I understand that Sergeant Bassett was willing to serve as a liaison from Berlin but I haven't been in touch with him I think it this needs to happen in a greater area but the primary focus as I see it is is Montpel right now and not at the ten thousand foot level at the six foot level for the next three months until winter hits and see what we can get done but ask that the task force come back with their own recommended scope and I think it may even be as specific as writing a plan so what would you like to do regarding the charge their motion regarding the charge of this group so I'm just wondering so we have the concept in the first bullet about developing short-term ideas and or solutions I'm wondering if there's any I mean not to overly wordsmith because I agree that the committee should figure out exactly how this plays out but I'm just like if we're looking for things that we want to get done for this this winter like is there any just more specificity or timeliness I mean short term can mean different things to different people so we if we're really looking for are there solutions we need to get in place for this winter things like we knew the shelter closed when it was still really cold out this year things things like that that we'd want to get in place sooner rather than later if they're gonna need funding and other things so just does I don't know if we need any clarification or just having this conversation is enough to be like we're looking for implementation and not just short-term ideas maybe it's fun guess I'm hoping within their discussion if there are things they can implement short-term or come to us to help then that's what will come before us I feel very comfortable making a motion that we adopt this as the initial charge to be revisited in three months when we get their report but that this works for me for right now doesn't have to be perfect it just works Glenn Donna more or less took my points all right was that a motion sorry then second okay yeah we can make some copies the first line is creative collaborative developed short-term ideas and or solution to improve condition for the homeless the next gets into policy recommendations and concrete ideas for long-term structural and system improvements that the city could implement along with the preliminary budget and timeline for the duration of work implementation okay and so there's a motion a second is there any further discussion any comments from the I'm sorry Jack and then we'll take any further comments from the public I think this is specific enough to give the task force some guidance while being broad enough to allow them to have the flexibility they need to move forward with take to pursue the effort in the way that they're thinking and discussion leads them so I support this the way it is I just have a question for John in looking at this I was including in the overall the also the section that talks about ideas and recommendation even though I didn't talk about that the memo has both sections and I was including that is that what my second also thought yes your motion was fairly broad okay it was my intention any further comments from the public about the charge of this group my name is Seth Collins I'm from Berlin Vermont and I would suggest that this this task force work in the direction of implementing new construction projects of units that are that would either would be either rented for $400 per month since that's that's a that's a quite reasonable and also perhaps there would be something where you either people could rent to own or they'd be like condominiums where you where you'd buy them outright and then if you were to move out you would then sell it back into the company because in my experience in most individuals it's it's the best way for them to settle down if they have a place they either own themselves or if they're renting that's safe and secure and affordable thank you use the microphone so that people who are viewing at home can can also hear you and also if you would say your name and I live I'm Bobby Cannon I'm a professor at Goddard I have worked at Good Samaritan home and I'll just echo the comments everyone else has offered which is our timeline is not the timeline of the folks on the streets they're in a much shorter much more precarious much more vulnerable timeline so the sooner we can work on this and identify short term measures that will significantly improve the difficult situation so many people are in this fall the better hey so there has been a motion in a second any further discussion all in favor please say I I pose okay great thank you and so now on to appointments to this committee so if there is anyone here who had put their name in to be considered to be officially appointed to this committee though I want to just remind people that they these will be open meetings so regardless of whether or not you're appointed particularly to it then you're everyone is welcome but nonetheless if you are here and want to introduce yourself and tell us about your interest in serving on this committee so my interest I'm Zach Hughes Montpelier prospect neighborhood my interest is because I'm out there every day when I can be besides my other job and I practically live this stuff so I have a lot of resource in connection out there and I have the ability to talk with these with everybody out there at a unique level so I'm you know I feel I'm uniquely suited for this plus I'm not representing any interest at all but the cities and the city councils and so on citizens of Montpelier mostly thank you thank you Erica rail from our Center for Independent Living even though I'm representing an organization I'm actually representing people with disabilities and the death I work I'm actually a person with a disability and I really want to include not only people that have mental health conditions but people with other disabilities mobility cognitive people that are deaf and I'm also been working as an advocate for people with disabilities for 15 years so like everybody else I provide a unique set of skills to this thank you I'm Dawn little I'm a Montpelier resident and for the last four years I've been doing street outreach in Washington County primarily in Montpelier Berlin and Barry I've worked a little bit with Sergeant Besat and with Zach and a number of the agencies in the area I do referrals I do peer counseling I get donations and pass out donations I've been trying to identify some of the gaps in services working primarily with people who have fallen through the gaps in the existing services like people with trauma or mental health issues people with addictions people who are unable to get over most of the hurdles that are out there in accessing the services that are currently available so I would really like to be involved with the task force as Zach said I think I have the ability to communicate with people who are who have perhaps given up on accessing traditional services I have the time to put in and reaching them so I'd really I'd really like to do that and I think it's really was it Peter who was talking about communication between existing services and the people who need them and that's a very serious issue and that's one of my my primary goals so I would love to be part of that thank you could you say your name again dawn little yeah I don't know whether you have my name or not because I just heard about this a short time ago all right thanks thank you actually a resident of Plain oh sorry is that I didn't want to shout is that better is this okay yes run a gable I work in Montpelier and community mental health I'm not here representing any organization I'm here as a concerned citizen I'm interested in identifying and filling gaps in services which are profoundly evident in this area and I think throughout the country but profoundly evident here I do street outreach in my spare time and I would like to do what I can to help resolve this issue in a timely fashion I'm primarily concerned with warming shelters cooling shelters safe access to restrooms is a huge I know that I have difficulty downtown sometimes as someone with money in my wallet finding a restroom safe access to showers laundry and a housing first model I would love to see but in the immediate future I would just like to help do whatever I can in a very solution oriented timely fashion so thank you there are also a lot of people who who's lived experience qualifies them and I am absolutely fine with not being nominated as well because I will continue to do what I do and it's you know I have no attachment when we're together so thank you hi Bob you can back again I live in Marshfield I work in Plainfield I'm just here really as a citizen I've worked at Good Samaritan home and may again I teach at Goddard I think about these issues all the time I echo everything that Rana just said she in particular that there are significant services that we do not have available to folks and also with folks with lived experience want to be on the committee I'm happy to step away from that as well thank you good evening my name is Jonathan Goddard I'm a resident of Berlin I work here in Montpelier I'm interested in first of all thank you all for taking the time to look at my application and to allow me to speak briefly about this but so I'm interested in serving on the task force primarily because what we're really talking about here is human suffering and people that are not that are not able to have basic needs met being shelter so I really want to be part of the conversation part of the dialogue I live very close to Montpelier just outside the town line so I would really appreciate the opportunity to try to work on this issue directly as a member of this task force and thank you for considering all the applications and mine as well thank you since he isn't here this Yvonne bird the community Justice Senate he isn't here but a man named Travis Hill has come to see me twice in the last couple of weeks you might remember I introduced him to you two weeks ago when he was here and he has someone who has experienced homelessness who's utilized the shelter at the Bethany church who has a strong connection with another way and folks on the street and he would really like to be appointed to the committee thank you I think you've already heard from me enough I have expressed some mild concern about in the context that it is inclusive and open meetings how many people are going to really be required to get a quorum and who how many workhorses are going to really get the work done I'm concerned about expanding it to 1415 people from the context of just operational logistics it's up to y'all to decide whether you're going to actually reach out and ask Sergeant Bassett to ask Barry and Bert Barry City and Berlin to join in these processes I think they could learn a lot and begin to form their own task force based on this model I believe I have not I don't know all the people that have applied so I have made my own shortlist as you've received earlier and I welcome participation by you know any number of people and it's more of a logistical thing of effective management of a quorum and minutes and and delegation to get the the requirement of data collection I'm not sure who's got all that data I'm hoping city staff has some of it already but do you have any questions for me hey thank you anyone else here from that list okay so I believe at the last meeting we established that that there were what eight seats or was it nine forget okay so fair enough let's I think we probably need to and also I mean we're creating this from scratch right now so other comments Peter do you have something to add yeah because I hear you I hear you Peter Kalman I hear you talking about the numbers and the point about quorum and minute is very important I was on the social and economic responsibility committee and it's really important first of all to have an odd number I think and are you counting a member of the council in that number because it wasn't clear in our committee whether or not that person was counted so who would be a voting member bills looking skeptical I was a clear whether you meant eight plus a council member to make it nine yes yes yes yes okay and will there be a staff person who will support that's likely yes okay because that's critical okay that's all I would say thank you Peter I should just say in general you know there's there's all these committees of the city has that have council representatives on the committee and the as a general proposition if a member of the council is part of that committee then they're fully part of the committee including have being a voting member yeah very brief I did have a discussion with counselor hurl regarding that I think that especially as I've watched CV PSA I believe that one the availability of the available time of the volunteer council members has been a challenge especially leading up to this appointment I would recommend that you put two counselors on it but in in non-voting positions that way they can come and go as they please and they don't count towards the quorum and but they also don't well I I believe that there's merit to having a tight team of workhorses to get this job done and if counselors have are spread too thin on other projects that would dilute that effort thank you okay so I we would be discussing this in executive session so is there a motion to go before that one other point that I feel like we might want to mention is that in earlier conversations about this we had expected to get a member of this task force recommended from the Montpelier Business Association since as I recall the whole thing came up to some extent from that source has there been any more recent communications so I understand that they are planning to nominate someone I don't know that they have actually selected the person yet we're gonna we're gonna keep going just Jen from rebel heart did offer to participate she wasn't nominated by the business association any further things that we need to discuss okay is there motion pursuant to one VSA section 313 a sub 3 I move that we enter into executive session to discuss the appointment of public officer or officers second further discussion one favor please say aye all right we'll be back hopefully soon okay is there motion to come out of executive session so moved second further discussion all in favor please say aye all right is there a motion regarding the appointments I move that we appoint to the homelessness task force the following people Travis Hill Erica rail Don little Ken Russell Zach Hughes will ever Lee and Stephen Whitaker second so further discussion before we go too much further on this I just want to point out that you know one of the factors in here for us was the residency of people who were applying for it and even though a number of people who were not appointed don't live in Montpelier but have some connection either through work or or whatnot would absolutely invite you all to continue to pay attention to the notice of the warnings for these meetings and still certainly invite you to come participate in these discussions that's gonna be really important so any further discussion I'm all in favor please say hi hi and post right thank you and oh yes I would like to make a motion to appoint Glenn as a council representative on this committee Glenn how do you feel about that it's great I'd love to serve and I also really appreciate how much interest there's been on this I think it's one of the the largest and fastest group of applicants that I've seen and I I look forward to working hard on this committee if I get voted on all right all in favor actually for the discussion all in favor please say aye aye opposed okay thank you all and thank you for the work that you're gonna do I'm looking forward to that report in three about three months so thank you all and in terms of Yvonne Bird is gonna arrange for the first meeting so she'll be reaching out to people it is 8 o'clock actually let's let's keep going for now and we need to take a break we can okay so the Berry Street Main Street corridor discussion yes welcome so do you want to introduce sort of what what we've been looking at so far today or for this item yeah I just before we started I just wanted to announce that we heard just this morning that we are awarded a grant to construct sidewalk on Granite Street so I know a lot of people were interested in that connection so something to look forward to next summer and actually it's through the same program that funded this study so there's a segue on an April the council received a presentation on the draft scoping study since that time the trans has reviewed and commented on that study on that draft their comments and questions have been addressed we also held two public outreach meetings I want to thank the library and the senior center for hosting those think they're very well attended awesome council members there and mayor did a great job of leading those so if we did a great job presenting you know it really you know we've got a lot of good feedback and I think it really spurred some conversation about alternative transportation accommodations over parking accommodations and people's experience out on the corridor now people's past experiences with roundabouts and signals and different bike facilities so yeah it was very very well attended very very good conversations to have and that's so I guess kind of what we're here this evening to have those conversations now at the council level you know those they were you know those meetings were recorded they were available online you know maybe you saw some things heard some things that you want to talk further about maybe you've heard some things from your constituents outside of those meetings that that you wanted to bring up your staff has presented some recommendations I can just quickly go through those we kind of divided them up into Barry Street recommendations intersection recommendations and in Main Street bike facility recommendations you know for the so for the the Barry Street recommendation staff would recommend to move forward with a short-term implementation of a two-way bicycle bike track I think you call it on the south side of the street working towards a long-term goal of constructing an actual extension of the shared use path on that same side on the south side for the the intersection treatments staff the preferred alternative with staff is the M1 alternative and that would be the the signalization of the corridor with the with the implementation of adaptive technology to adjust the signals in real time as well as the exclusive had phases which all of our existing signals have now stopping all traffic for pedestrians the the other alternative so so the M1 alternative is the signalization of the corridor we do recognize that the roundabout option at school street has doesn't have the constraints that some of the other locations do in terms of constructing roundabouts I think we made the comment of potentially doing some tweaks you know it it does cue through that intersection sometimes it's minimal maybe there's some some tweaks of the existing signal infrastructure at the the state street that can be done to minimize that I don't think it can remove it completely but minimize it the main street bike facility recommendation would be implementing the the unprotected lanes with the buffers and working towards the the protected lanes and again and and and with the the main street bike facility recommendation and the the berry street recommendation we've also noted that you know the parking removal to accommodate those is a separate process and ultimately the council would see that that ordinance change separate from from the scoping study that's all I have super thank you so I'd love to start with some if there's any questions or comments from council and then hear from the public on this the way that I am thinking about it just so you all are aware is it feels like there are at least six different places or items on which we need to make a decision intersection of berry and main street intersection of state and main what are the what should be the bike pen amenities on berry street the school and main street intersection and then the bike pen amenities on main street is that is that a fair summation I mean so the m1 suggestion had multiple parts or intersections as a part of it so I'm sort of breaking those out a little bit the other thing that I want to just make a note of is that this is this isn't a really interesting agenda item I would say because the staff and consultants have recommended one course of action and the emetic has basically recommended a different course of action and so this is it's an interesting conundrum so mostly because there's that conflict I would love to just see where people are at this evening and see if there's general consensus about anything and then it seems like we should probably there there may be items that we just need to talk more about because some of these items it feels like some of these are too big a decision to just move forward you know if there's not substantial agreement I guess I'll just say that or I'd prefer anyway for there to be a substantial agreement I don't know if we're going to get there but at least I'd like to start with just seeing where where people are at so so first thing any questions or comments on any of this Connor then Glenn so the removal of partnering would need to be approved separately but aren't they completely like intertwined at the same time as we did some of these bans yeah we would I think where we what we would do is sort of approve what our vision is for moving forward and then the actual implementation would require ordinance changes regarding where parking was or how parking is is allotted through the town does that make sense so there's there's the but even if we deal with the parking at a later time we can still talk about you know what's what's the vision what's the big picture okay yeah I think that I'm sorry I think that's what we're after is the vision especially when it comes to the parking something that staff can move forward with or committees can move forward with you know maybe that that parking is approved to be removed through this but it just may not be palatable right now so then that would allow staff to move forward with you know programs like the micro micro transit program or you know a garage you know something that takes that demand off the on-street parking so I agree that's what we're looking for is kind of the vision right now I have a few questions and I'm totally willing to be interrupted with other questions but kind of on the the parking question one of the things that I heard come up at the public hearing the one that I managed to get to was a kind of general question about bike paths on streets and whether it was practical to consider seasonal bike paths and replacing parking when fewer people are likely to be biking has DPW talked internally at all about that possibility or do you have any any suggestions in that direction at this point it hasn't been addressed specifically with this scoping study you know I know there's some there's some issues with conflicts of markings and signage and things like that when you when you switch things over but again it hasn't been addressed specifically with this next question one of the uh the idea is that is also potentially a little bit outside the scope of the current study but uh it's something that I'm personally attached to is is changing the the memorial drive in main street intersection to a round about and I'm curious to hear uh so if if we signalize the barrier in main street intersection does that make it harder to in the future turn the memorial drive main street intersection into a roundabout is that something you can speculate on so so that particular option was presented through the M2 alternative that included the roundabouts at every intersection down main street I think it was it was stated in there that because I believe M3 or M4 was kind of what you're talking about kind of a you know mix matching of signals and roundabouts throughout the corridor it was found to be the not impossible but it was found to be the least efficient way to do it with the roundabouts at every intersection being basically the most efficient and second would be the signals that so when you start mixing and matching you're losing efficiency of the corridor basically can I jump in here um when you say efficiency do you mean in terms of moving cars through the intersection right yeah okay thank you and I think that actually answered the next question that I had so thanks and then um on the uh the adaptive signals um or no I guess it's actually on the the exclusive pedestrian phase for for signalized intersections do you have any data comparing the the relative safety of that scenario versus for example roundabouts for pedestrians and the reason I'm curious about this is um the intersection that I use most again is the memorial memorial and main street intersection I walk across it multiple times a day the the exclusive pedestrian phase is good at the same time probably about once a day I get to my phase my pedestrian phase and a car pulls up in the turning lane and does not see the the no turn signal come on and comes fairly close to to running into me as I step out into the street because they're looking for oncoming traffic from the other direction so it yes it's a it's a protected pedestrian phase it never feels perfectly safe to me and I tend to feel safer in roundabouts where uh I'm only crossing one lane at a time and I can always see and everyone seems to be looking in the proper direction to see uh potential conflicts I I think I rambled through that question but is there any data comparing those two safety levels for pedestrians so we actually I mean we had this kind of same conversation not just with the the pedestrian safety but the pedestrian convenience as well kind of bundling that together into roundabouts versus traffic signals and you can read one study that says it really it kind of comes down to personal preference you know you can read one study about one and then another about the other and they contradict each other so I think earlier on when roundabouts were kind of just coming to the area you could make a case for signals being safer but now that they're kind of more prevalent around here and people know how to use them more you know they really even out and the same thing with convenience you know with a roundabout you're going a little bit off your path and then coming back instead of with a traffic signal yes you have to wait for your turn to go and there's some patience involved with that but you have kind of a straight line of where you're going so really I think they kind of cancel each other out and again it's more personal preference than anything yeah just to add to that it cancels itself out unless you're visually impaired then the traffic signals are safer from that perspective because there is a exclusive phase people are obligated to stop whereas in a roundabout it's a yield situation so people slow down yes but not necessarily always stop so in that sense it's that is a another conversation um I guess the other thing with the with the pedestrian safety comes into play is where you start to kind of commingle at the roundabouts if bikes need to kind of commingle with pedestrians to get out of the roundabout and maneuver around it you know that also presents a safety factor for pedestrians was that it okay Donna I know I'm redundant but yes I want roundabouts and you really do need either all roundabouts or all light signals and I understand and know that it was a hard decision even the staff to look at but even beyond that I would like to discuss the shared path that we have now that we're connecting that comes down past the railroad tracks and hits berry at the recreation building comes back out to berry street and to me it's a shared path that bikes and pedestrians are using and so I would like to make sure that it continues with a shared path usage down the south side of berry street and then goes across that intersection of berry and main and joins the other shared path now temporarily you've put here a two-way bike he talked about this temporarily putting something in so the pedestrians would stay up on the sidewalk on berry street but below them would be two lanes for bikes and that's okay temporarily but what I don't see here is saying it's going to go back long-term to a shared path because it's only a small section of berry street and to me it's more confusing when you change it than if you just continue the same shared youth path that pedestrians and bikes use is that the intention it's just not stated here no it was yeah addressed in the recommendations alternative b1 a shared use path as the long-term long-term goal for the for the berry street connection the b2 is the like you mentioned the the short-term two-way bike way and then the b1 alternative take me one section because they're not numbered so i have that staff recommendations right up top you have a b2 but that talks about and then next slide down it started it talks about the b1 alternative this doesn't describe it okay a little confusing to take the report we had before with lots of lanes and diagrams and just have the narrative but thank you and that was also part of it is if indeed we accept this then staff is going to start moving on this it isn't a matter of us accepting the report and then considering policies this becomes policy is that correct um so the way we kind of the way these usually kind of work out is um at the end of the report there is a municipal recommendation or recommendations that is what staff would pursue okay i had a conversation with the trans about potential next steps you know typically you take a report like this and you have a number of alternatives and you narrow down to one and then you would go apply for design and construction funding for that for that alternative so ultimately ideally that's what we're after okay i just want to make sure that we know when we vote for it that's what we're setting a policy right okay so just two more other things um at one of the public hearings seasonal biking came up with the other it didn't and again i feel if we're trying to get bikes out there we could have the past there they should be theirs year-round and that's the way we expand more bikes and less cars and now on school street i really disappointed not to have a roundabout there but i really understand it won't work with the lights will the construction make it narrower right now it's a we talked about it one thing the round about would do at school in main would make the whole intersection smaller so with a pedestrian still have to walk this long distance so that the light for pedestrians will be longer i think there's some opportunities there either with the roundabout option or the signal option to shorten those create some large even with the signal you'd shorten i think there's some opportunities there okay because that was one of the issues and i didn't see it addressed here but yeah um and i don't think it's not necessarily um at least i'm just speaking for staff staff's position that a roundabout won't work there um you list lights there are less there are less impacts there and i think we we listed that as part of the recommendations is you know it doesn't have the constraints that the other locations have there is some queuing that happens through the intersections but it's minimal compared to some of the other ones okay i'm in the queue a lot way down to the other roundabout thank you um i want to follow up on some of the questions you asked uh so you were in favor of a shared use path on the south side of berry street but also roundabouts and my understanding was that those two things that there was no plan that included both of those things like if we were going to have the shared use path on the south side of berry street that would necessitate signalization at berry in main um unless i'm wrong and i'm having wrong well there was a diagram that wasn't shown at the at the at the two public hearings you attended that was shown at the other public hearings and it allowed for the shared youth path to come down berry on south side but it would make the bikes and pedestrians who are together go across berry street so they'd have one more street crossing and the consultants didn't like that they they didn't present it at the hearings you had wait i'm i'm sorry can you say it would it would cross so wouldn't that be on the north side of berry street so you're on the south side yeah of berry so you're by the dry cleaners when you get there yeah pedestrians and bikes get there together yeah you'd have to cross berry street and then cross main and join the path well then you'd also have to cross the access road to behind right right right so you end up with three one more one more crossing okay yep yeah and that's yeah two more crosses right two more crossings because behind the oberjans and that's what the um that's what the mini roundabout option with the full roundabout option at the intersection you could you could still reduce it to one crossing yeah but because of the location of the railroad tracks you can't have a crossing on railroad tracks so it it creates those extra crosses so so that is possible to do a south side of berry with a full roundabout it is possible to continue along the south side and only have that one crossing only have one oh and only have one crossing but you but we could have the south side of berry street mostly and then cross berry cross main cross the um oberjans I don't want to call it that but next to the railroad but yeah yeah thank you it's helpful um other comments or questions oh connor do you have something to add um jack I do have a couple um I'm uh with this regard to the school street intersection I still think the roundabout is a preferable option to to signals um I'm not really sure I understand why that's not seen as a feasible option we're since it's beyond there are no signals beyond that so it's not going to interfere with outer traffic flow is am I missing something um no I mean I think we we stated that where it's you know the signal but the roundabout option like I said it doesn't present those efficiency constraints it doesn't present those route those right-of-way constraints um so you know we went with the overall m1 alternative which signalizes that intersection but I think it's staff's feeling that if a roundabout were to go in there it would have minimal impacts on those um I also really find the idea of the of having a roundabout intersection at Morial Drive to be very appealing um and I envision this kind of like the I know some people who drive in that intersection find it threatening but I envision it like the the roundabout on the north end of Brattleboro right off exit three from from the interstate and although there's a lot of traffic that goes through I think it moves traffic through very uh quickly and efficiently the one question that has always been in my mind with regard to doing the uh turning that into a roundabout is how do we get there from here given the fact that there's so much traffic that goes through that uh intersection every day I wonder if you have some thoughts about that how do how do we how do we turn that intersection into a roundabout and what what happens to all that traffic um we all go on vacation I guess I'm still a little stumped on the actual on the question um constructability wise or yeah construction what what's happening to the traffic while that while that intersection isn't open to traffic because we're building a roundabout in that spot that was something that was brought up amongst staff as well not just with that intersection but roundabouts in general and even getting past the building of it which is a major major step but just the maintaining of them if if you go to pave it if you go to even just paint markings um if you have a waterline break underneath it the roundabouts do pose some difficulties because you only have that one lane so having adjacent streets to detour traffic to would be an option you can usually work within a roundabout and keep one side open so you don't have to detour both or all approaches it's basically it comes down to just one approach that you have to detour onto a side road or an adjacent street um another issue that isn't addressed that that I've had in my own mind as an issue for the main and state intersection I've had other people heard other people mention it is that northbound traffic that trying who wants to turn left onto Langdon street is often blocked because southbound traffic on main street pull up into the in across Langdon street and block Langdon street and that happens every day and it forces traffic back into into the state street intersection would would we need to if we want to stop that would we need to adopt an ordinance that says you're not allowed to stop in that intersection or could we do pavement markings or something like you see in other places where they've got these crisscross markings to say don't stop here because I think that that no matter what we're doing with the intersections that is going to continue to be a serious problem unless we address it so if you know when it gets light out if you look out the front door we just recently did that type of marking in front of the fire station I just noticed that so it could be something similar to that and I don't believe it is an ordinance in our in our books it's sort of at the discretion of staff to to place that but if someone if a southbound driver pulls up and blocks Langdon street are they violating an ordinance now or do would we need to adopt an ordinance to make it so that can be enforced and people can be ticketed for doing that yep you think they're already violating some ordinance they may be violating state statute if they are and they are cited for it unfortunately that that money doesn't come to the city it goes to the state so adopting a local ordinance to support that would probably make some sense okay I'd be interested in pursuing that I realize this is beyond somewhat beyond the scope but the other terrible intersection that we have downtown is the elm street and state street intersection I noticed one of the comments from the Department of Transportation is how come you're not talking about addressing that at all I think we really should be that might be the next well I think there's some hope that the the the state street streetscape plan master plan could maybe address some some fixes at that intersection it's within the scope of that study and if I'm if I'm being redundant let me know but with regard to the school street roundabout are you saying that even if we adopt the plan the way it is that leaves us open the opportunity to do the state school street roundabout or should we vote to change something in this to make that the option I would vote to change that if you wanted the school street I would pull that out and do a separate okay thanks any further comments just initially here I'd love to come back for more discussion about this but I'd also love to hear from the public on this as well so yeah go ahead good evening Joe Castellano and I have to say I'm in favor of the staff recommendations for the M1 the signalized intersections and I like the idea of the seasonal bike path on the south side of berry street I think that bike usage during the winter is not as robust as during the summer I think it could free up some parking or just provide better sight lines through the winter you know when visibility is not so good and one of the reasons why I'm in favor of the signalized intersections as opposed to the roundabouts is it's challenging as it is right now just getting out of that shaw's parking lot and as winter's coming and approaching and it's dark just trying to turn left out of that lot I think the traffic volume is going to increase or the speeds might increase with the roundabout making it more difficult to get out of the shaw's parking lot and the same reason for the school street the reason why I never park on those diagonal parking spots in front of the library is I'm always afraid if I'm next to a big f-150 pickup I can't see and I might run into somebody so I'm just always just from a safety perspective you know not that's the concern I have because some people can come into a roundabout and just you know although it may be a 25 mile an hour speed limit some people will not adhere to that so that's my concerns just from a safety perspective thank you thank you Steve Whitaker a couple of comments I'm I think we need to be very careful here because one of the key qualities of our experiences in this town our smallest capital city is its walkability and adding signalization to multiple new intersections is going to put a big dent in that perception both locals and tourists that's a magic it's an intangible of how nice our town is I'll note that I'm gonna haphazardly vote for the school street roundabout I'm gonna vote against moving the crosswalk as it did get any mention here but there's talk of moving the crosswalk from the down home to city center over to the Hayeson Place which is basically the back entrance alley between Bethany Church and the AT&T store that doesn't work from a traffic flow from a people's from a pedestrian flow point of view and I think that crosswalk where it is can actually help contribute to the preservation of the blocking the trying to prevent blocking of the Langdon Street it could be part that crosswalk could be one of the boundaries of the crisscross box that protects the left turn lane from northbound traffic onto Langdon I'm not sufficiently schooled in around about options for Memorial Drive but I that is the preferred alternative I do want to make a comment about the crosswalks the we've got one crosswalk there that talks to you and it the flashing lights I'm glad those don't exist at our other crosswalks down at school and and Langdon but the flashing I've had conversations with the folks who speak Hindi or Canada a Hindu dialect we got a whole lot more people than the Spanish I don't know who chose the languages for that crosswalk but maybe we don't need any talking crosswalks I'd also remind you to consider the idea that was put on the table I've reached out to the that architect that blind architect who did the 60 minutes piece as we design our intersections and our sidewalks if we had a sensitivity that could really benefit us going forward as we replace our sidewalks incrementally with navigation supporting the site and pair so just be really careful with this I don't I hope we're not jumping off a cliff tonight with irreversible decisions thank you just in regards to the seasonal no doubt I mentioned it it's okay just hang on one second yeah I'm sorry I'm sorry I'll be very quick but my name is Seth Collins I live in Berlin Vermont and I I walk a lot and it's I find it very difficult to cross or roundabouts directly as if as if they were you know cutting directly through them so I would recommend I mean roundabouts are fine they increase traffic flow but I would recommend the crosswalks we will to be placed between them so say you have us around about here around about here and the crosswalk is there then the traffic because it would average out because instead of the traffic stopping at at the intersections they're now roundabouts and the traffic would then stop between them so thank you more important point the this morning I witnessed and photographed a semi truck a through truck coming down main street is apparently using it's probably illegal using lumus as a shortcut probably to avoid the main street roundabout coming down lumus turning right on school turning left on onto main but we have to be careful if we do have these tractor trailers coming through if they're going to start violating and running on residential streets in order to avoid the roundabouts that has to be taken into the calculation thank you any further comments just in regards to the seasonal do you have anything you want to um the seasonal aspect of it you know it's not mentioned in here but if that is something that the council would like to would like staff to keep in mind as these design alternatives are being going through the process it would just be something I would recommend adding to your recommendation whether you'd like to pursue seasonal or so I'm going to go ahead and just say what I what I'm thinking about all of this and so I'm going to be again a little methodical about this starting with well really with the staff recommendation I I'm in support of of signalizing the the corridor generally and part of that is it's really for a couple of reasons one is that I I agree that our walkability as a town is a high priority and I worry that roundabouts are not as pedestrian friendly as um as you know as we are accustomed to now in terms of getting around town um and that uh there you know there is a real issue there with uh the the site impaired the other um the other reason is well and well so the the sort of the flip side of that too is that it is not necessarily a priority for me to move cars more quickly I mean I know that would be nice but as a as a community that's not my highest priority my highest priority is the walkability of the city the second thing uh the second reason is that um the uh if if we're going to do roundabouts throughout I'm very much I'm speaking for myself here and I could be outvoted but um I'm very much opposed to roundabout at the intersection of state and main um because of the traffic implications for people coming down east state street wanting to turn left there was no way to do that without significant detours and I think that would be very problematic for some of the side streets that would end up seeing much more traffic and that would actually exacerbate the problem on elm street as well because that's actually part of the um one of the solutions was to get people um actually around to to elm street to end up coming back around to main um from east state which is that I think that would be very cumbersome um part of me would like to support some kind of hybrid only maybe that's not terribly efficient but maybe uh maybe efficiency of cars is not my highest priority anyway um but there it is uh and then um the other factor there um I'm forgetting my thought there so I'm gonna I'm gonna keep going um so in terms of uh oh right so in in terms of the the hybrid um sort of model it did sound to me like a roundabout at school street and main street um would be possible and not have a tons of impact so I would I would support that um in part I I also want to favor a roundabout at memorial and main street that seems somehow intuitive to me and I know that that's you know a place Glen where you cross often and so I don't know how that works but it also feels um slightly further away from downtown so does is that where um you know it'd be okay to to have cars moving more quickly um I don't know um anyway I would I would be interested in that and I wonder if that makes a difference because it's on the end um yeah in terms of uh state and main I guess that I'm being redundant here um you know interested in um um signalizing it I'm one of the highest priorities that I have is keeping the bike uh I'm sorry the the shared use path um on the south side of berry street um regardless of whether it's a roundabout or a signal at berry street main street um having that on the south side of berry street I think makes the most sense um particularly for parking as well as I mean it'd be great if we could have one crossing um across to uh across main street there but again regardless of what happens with the intersection if we could keep that on the south side that'd be wonderful um main the the bike ped facilities are really the bike facilities on main street I feel like I need to dig into that more I feel like I need like we've had almost no conversation about what should be happening with bicyclists on main street and so I I would not feel comfortable making a very clear decision about what we do there I mean I would love to dig into the the report further and ask some some more questions but for whatever reason that particular aspect is in my mind low on the priority list of like what happens with these other intersections so maybe that's just we've just paid less attention to that aspect of it anyway I'd like to revisit that at some point um I do favor uh moving the crosswalk um uh from Langdon street to Hayes in place just to get a little separation there don't have strong feelings about that I'm open to conversation about that anyway and I guess I'll say that generally speaking this is where I'm at right now and I would love to have more dialogue and just hear from others as to where you're at and we I don't anticipate necessarily having a a vote tonight we could but I just want to put it out there that we don't we don't have to because these are big decisions and if there's something that we all feel comfortable with on some aspect of it then great let's do it but otherwise let's like I want to make sure that you all know that I'm in a position where I'm still um willing to talk um you know maybe maybe these aren't the right um solutions I want to be open to discussion other thoughts sorry thank you for entertaining me and letting me first but also Tom you haven't spoken yet would you like to is that okay Donna? Yeah. I just feel like there's been a lot said about roundabouts not being safe for pedestrians and that's just not true and there's just one city in Carmel, Indiana who's called the USA Roundabout City has 100 roundabouts its population is 89,000 and they have right here because of their aesthetics and their ability to make it easier for pedestrian and bicyclists to navigate in they have changed out all their intersections that used to be lights so and I'll get some more data on that but there are other cities who've done this because it is safer it is more attractive it does slow down traffic and anyway so I just thought that was a misnomer fair enough um one of the things that I that would be helpful for me Donna is um well this this idea about you know what's or I think it was brought up by Seth you know what's the possibility of combining roundabouts with some kind of crosswalk yes yeah anyway I don't know and maybe that's a question for you all um what does that possibility look like okay Tom are you commenting as a a resident or well I'm not the public works director and I'm not your boss I'm not a resident either but I still work here if you'd like to hear from me I would certainly be here for you please so the the point about the the roundabout pedestrian safety I agree with you Donna there's a lot of a lot of beneficial attributes we get closer to a roundabout so I think we've shown that at the school and main intersection particularly with the younger kids and younger adults using that intersection frequently that you do only have to look in one direction to me spring in the spring what did I say um so yes so there there are some beneficial parts are attributes to pedestrian safety and as far as the visually impaired um there is a for a two lane roundabout they recommend using what's called a hawks system which is a signalized roundabout crossing so that there's um so there's a pedestrian actuated signal at the at the crossing but even with that for visually impaired there there are systems you can use for locator tones and then there's a lot of training for helping helping visually impaired navigate roundabouts they don't have the audible cues to to locate the corners that's all true but there are other methods and systems to use for that so I think is if you don't mind I just heard some things and I just wanted to clarify or add some some thoughts on all of them one on the just some clarity on the school and main roundabout idea what we believe that is a realistic option potentially a beneficial option the the issue there is kind of though to address some of the queuing some of the issues that might cause a roundabout to fail and when they fail they fail completely when when cues of traffic back up through a roundabout the side streets can't move nothing moves really so how do you how do you address that so that's why the the looking at adaptive signal technology is to is to is to detect when that cue is developing and then try to flush the intersection out but that doesn't really work well when there's a crosswalk stuck in there or there's a truck maneuvering or somebody's backing out of a parking space so you can't totally overcome all of that but I think what we were looking at is maybe looking at it further further study you talk about the obstruction of the Langman street intersection you know we are our conventional solution to a lot of this these issues were to add more lanes you can't you can't enter the right turn lane in front of the TD bank because there's there's angle parking in there we could shorten that cue considerably if you double capacity two lanes side by side a right turn lane and a left and a through and foregoing northbound a separate lane left to turn a holding lane to turn into to Langdon and then a separate through lane but now we have four lanes on main street and we're competing in this small piece of real estate for bike lanes in parking so it's how you really allocate break up this real estate and what what gives and what what sacrifices are we making um state street is a is a conversation we had years ago about how long the right turn lane should be on state where the parklet is today that lane was originally designed to go on the other side of the of the bridge because of that lane not being long enough and Sophie knows about calculating queue lengths and based on your right turn volume and your obstructions of the through lanes can you use that lane while your right turns you can't enter because they're it's so backed by the through traffic obstructed by the through traffic so that's that's really a deeper study that's why we're not eliminating the school main roundabout it's that how do we overcome those constraints so around about can actually work there and then the constructability side of things it's a major transformation to turn a four-way conventional intersection into a roundabout with the splitter lanes the splitter islands and the center island drainage patterns are completely different you wrote slope differently you have a center high point rather than gutters in the side so it's it's a significant cost and there's major constructability issues it's very disruptive roundabouts are an absolute bear to construct as you pointed out jack it's it's doing them maybe in a quarter at a time while lanes are shifted in a lot of night work i think if you were to select a roundabout at main memorial route to 12th intersection you probably i wouldn't see it in my lifetime that's probably 10 years at best you see that because it really doesn't hit those warrants for congestion levels traffic safety pedestrian accidents you really don't have any of those key indicators that says we need to advance this project for federal funding state funding so i just don't see that happening anytime soon even if we could find a way to make it work that that intersection is optimized under the signal control but if you look at the roundabout option the you have the river a ledge and a gas station constricting that so you think about how a truck might service the gas station with the roundabout and the driveway stuck right in there well roundabouts need driveways separated a long ways away from them and need to be flat and need to be so that they are i lost my train of thought the other important thing that i don't know that's fully mentioned in this is that roundabouts need relatively balanced flow to work because to enter one lane there needs to be an obstruction caused by another entering vehicle so when it's balanced somebody's always getting the right of way because somebody's waiting so when you have side streets like school school street i wonder if there's sufficient balanced flow there when one lane can actually dominate and we see that sometimes at route 202 302 intersection where there's it's the morning commute you'll see a long queue back out to bury because there's very little traffic exiting Montpelier they're all moving into Montpelier so one side dominates heavily so that's something that is very important on on roundabout design consideration so roundabouts have become a an option it's something that we need to consider when we're looking at signalized or or any intersection treatment may be a do nothing four-way stop signalization yield signs all of those are all tools that you use and they all look at them individually and what's the best for all of those pieces try to wrap it up so no going on a little bit as far as the lane and street obstruction i'm not sure we left it with that with a completely accurate impression on that i'm not sure gory you may be right that you can make an actual ordinance to enforce an obstructed intersection but i wonder how that works because some people will anticipate the light retaining remaining green and will continue to advance the light turns then cars kind of accordion effect they all arrive at the intersection and suddenly i'm stuck in this dilemma zone and now i'm blocking the intersection it may be something that you can't prevent you'd like to leave a little room and i think a lot of people do attempt to leave a little room there and you'll actually see people back up to let somebody go through so i'm not sure that i've always viewed those as a as an advisory pavement marking and with the sign do not block intersections it's um so i i'd question whether or not you can actually make that an ordinance i think it would be helpful to make it more obvious to people that you are blocking an intersection to try not to do it but i don't know that you can just like a crosswalk you might come to a crosswalk you advance you think you're going to keep going the guy in front of you stops slows for the intersection now suddenly your your vehicles across the crosswalk didn't mean to whoops but can you can you actually be penalized for it so that's what i had to say about the the various options i think there's some some true merit to the to the possibility of a school main intersection that would change that possible to a roundabout but i think about the the width of these intersections too we were aware of of how long that is but we also have to think about the truck turning movement requirements while we tighten it up for other reasons the truck may still need to make a turn there and they need that very generous radius and we frequently see a truck will run a tire up on a sidewalk we know whoops we've got a we've got a radius problem here that the last thing is berry street in main whatever is going to be done there there's a railroad crossing that's becoming more and more active it we know it's going to be a signalized railroad crossing we also know that there will be no gates as as last we heard through the diagnostics review so it with signalization there's a system called preemption when the when the train is arriving the the signal will preempt everything else including pedestrian phase because the train is arriving and it will clear the intersection that that has not been designed we haven't seen how that's going to work whether the memorial in main will be preempted and how that will actually work it's a little complicated but so it's it's entirely it's it's possible that a roundabout would actually have to be signalized in order to accomplish that which kind of defeats what you're looking at but and how do you you can't preempt a roundabout so you have to preempt everything else so it flushes out so it does make a lot of make for a very complicated whether it's signalized around about it's a it's a highly complex intersection what is a signalized roundabout mean in this situation like around about um i've never seen one i've seen um it it would prevent it may only be that the signal is signalization is the is the flashers that you stop you're prevented to move forward um whether or not with the roundabout we propose that they do suggest we put gates that that may come through final design or through through the design work so so i have seen a signalized round okay all right um so back when um when uski first put in their massive roundabout it was actually signalized for pedestrians um and since they took that out because of the conflict because of the I guess the misinformation the unexpectedness of going through a roundabout and seeing a signal so that has since been removed but that house that's how it was originally thank you and then Joe did you have something to add to that I too have seen a signalized roundabout uh when we were living in massachusetts they decided to signalize the drum hill intersection and it became a real challenge because you had traffic lights in all four directions a lot of confusion it was not a good design that's something that's all i will say thank you thank you interesting um one of things that of course uh occurred to me while while you were talking there tom was that um again before we make any decision about the big vision i think we should be considering the costs of of each of these uh you know with you know thinking about like well okay so if if roundabouts cost uh quite a bit you know what are what are we talking about in cost difference um between between these two potential plans or hybrid or whatever um other thoughts is there particularly from counselors we haven't heard from and unless you don't want to speak at this point which is fine too but no you have to speak you have to speak no i just say i've never felt less prepared to vote and give a green light to something like this it's it's so comprehensive it's so many moving pieces on it i mean just to thank that and your reference of mayor it's like you know the bike lanes on main street we live in a city with snow on the ground seven months a year you know if there's seasonal alternatives looking up the cost comparisons of this i think we need to dig in a bit deeper on this and uh i don't feel prepared to vote okay give the okay tonight okay um glad or lord uh lord good i yeah i agree that it definitely seems like there's a lot of questions raised and maybe some further information on some of the um i mean we might be able to check off a few like keeping the signal at state in main for example i don't know if there is agreement on the berry street to a bikeway moving to the shared use path of the goal if we might be able to go through and say are there some that we can take off the list and that we do agree on whether or not we vote tonight but just for the further questions we might have for our staff and and others i mean it seems like there's a lot of interest in the school in main still considering a roundabout which i'm interested in learning more at one point and this might be a question that i thought i had heard that there was the possibility of like a temporary so you don't do the full you know you could maybe try it out and look at some of the issues like tom raised of is this actually um going to work at that particular intersection with the traffic flows so and when you know looking at the costs and stuff if something like that could be part of the discussion as well it'd be interested in in thinking about that um so yeah maybe there's a couple we could check off find some general areas where we agree and where we have further questions and sure and narrow the list at least yeah i i think that would be great i'd also love to i mean even if it's not strictly a vote just do like a little straw poll just see where we're at and then regardless of the outcomes of that straw poll to say okay so you know it seems like most of us are favoring x or whatever um can we just get a little reminder or further information about the potential costs of that and then ask folks to come back with with that information at least but i i think that's probably fair to just to do your suggestion and learn glenn anything to add i feel semi-prepared at least to give my opinion on a bunch of these things i think i've been clear i like roundabouts in general i am pretty persuaded by the the uh arguments about the the train crossing at the barry street intersection and the the traffic diversion at the state street intersection uh to um to think that we should move ahead for now and signalize barry street intersection also i think anything will be better than what it is now and uh and uh you know basically i think i would bet that we could get behind signalizing barry street intersection for now um the other things that i'm reasonably satisfied with uh as lauren said i think i would be down with uh the recommendations as stated for the shared use path down barry street on the south side moving toward permanent um i like the idea of cross hatching the the langdon street entrance uh i'd rather do it without an ordinance if we can get away with it and um see if that works we just cross hatch it um i'm like the mayor i'm okay with shifting the crosswalk from langdon street to haze in place um and i would be in favor of a roundabout at the school and main street intersection uh preferably by doing it as a as a painted temporary version at first if we can get away with that there and see what happens okay um so i would love to go through these sort of one at a time unless there's further comments so i have i have actually seven things on my list to to go through and if i'm missing anything please you know let me know um uh so again this is just a straw pool um it's not an official you know voter of anything um but just sort of uh where where people are at um uh thumbs up i suppose if you're up for a roundabout at school and main i favor exploring it anyway i i've gone from saying i would do it tomorrow to say if you're thinking that we should explore it we should explore it okay so there's there's a lot of yes okay so a lot of favor for or interest anyway um in that um uh interest in uh i'm gosh i could frame it as like uh would you rather have a roundabout or a signal at state main wow how should we frame it i'm gonna frame it in cleansed terms signal signal at signal at state main okay oh no okay no no okay no okay um that's fair okay um so so again potentially looking into that uh interest in uh the uh shared use path uh or bicycle facilities some flavor um of being on the south side of berry street if if not you can you can be and i don't know that's okay um okay so but okay interest in that uh moving the crosswalk from well actually i'm gonna do this in a different order um exploring uh possibilities of trying to prevent blocking of Langdon street that's that seems like something we could just do with paint like we did in front of the fire station and maybe we don't put a you know a sign there i don't i'm definitely interested in that uh so i guess if that's a separate one then now i have eight items um so next one moving the crosswalk from Langdon street to haze in place i'm only a maybe on that okay um i i think it's a really attractive idea because of uh have the potential for clearing traffic at the main street intersection but i remember reading about a college campus where they built all the buildings and then for a year or two they didn't put any sidewalks until they watched where the grass got beaten down and figured well that's where the sidewalks need to be because that's where people are going to walk and i just question i think that Langdon street is where the people want to cross and moving the crosswalk won't necessarily change behavior grass on all the sidewalks other than we have j walkers just further down by the church and maybe this will bring the j walkers to a middle crosswalk fair great question um okay uh roundabout at memorial and main street i'm gonna go a solid i'm not sure i know i said that i was interested in that before but i'm i'm not sure that i'm there only a maybe okay so we got like three three maybes and three s's you give us cost and we're probably gonna get really really practical okay um it's interesting i mean i was i was super to that before and then tom maybe talked me out of it okay uh okay uh i'm saving the exciting ones for last uh i feel like i've heard multiple things about barry street and main street so in favor of uh a roundabout at barry and main i'm going to frame it that way i don't see that working okay okay interesting um okay thank you for that feedback um and the last one uh i don't know how to frame it i putting in the bike lanes on main street yeah on main street right i'm i'm solidly like i need to i've been thinking about other things and i need to yeah okay yeah i'm not mentioning anything we so well well right so i i mean i could have framed it as do you want to would you like a roundabout and people were you know voted so okay so fair enough so a signal okay i hear you there um so interest in signal thank you interest in signalizing barry and main okay all right fair enough um i think that is everything am i missing anything at this point yes jack we haven't talked about this on main street although we have talked about it on this uh streetscaping for state street and that is whether in considering what we're doing with main street should we also be looking at uh one of the mayor's ideas which is reverse angle parking oh yeah oh that's mine too yes and i think it's an intriguing idea i don't know if i'm not sure that it's better or worse but since we're talking about main street we should at least throw it out and i'm someone who backs into parking spaces i it's clearly safer so much safer um i would i don't know how you feel about this but i could picture that being potentially incorporated into our downtown master plan especially you know as they're looking at uh the elm street intersection potentially they could well if you do a roundabout at school it may maybe those spots in front of the library it would be better to be have yes yes oh yeah yeah that's fair but i thank you for bringing that up um it would take some education but i think it's worth it uh when we feel like we have that capacity but let's i'm glad that we're like let's bring that into the conversation too donna when you come back is there a way to get information if you do the signalization one of my concerns is we end up with turn lanes and so where do the bike lanes go so if you look down main street and you have signals i would like to see your rendition of where the bike lanes would go um so they're actually in there um what happened that's why the the signalization option removes more parking from the streets than the roundabout option so those parking lanes become the bike the bike lanes so you look at the parking impacts the signalization has the most impacts because of because of that yeah so when this comes as a final i guess i need all of it not just okay thank you so i guess that's kind of what i wanted to ask before we end here is you know ultimately we're looking for some sort of recommendation to to proceed with design and construction it sounds like there's some some comfort with some things and maybe not with others and is there some specific information out there that could be provided to help that comfort level i mean i'm trying to you know we're trying to get us to a point where we have a complete study and we can move on so anything that can be provided to us to help us get there would be great if you have i heard some i heard some comments about cost yeah i thought after the last public hearing i thought we were going to get cost with this so that would be really really helpful so with the the draft study that was included there's some costs associated with the preferred alternatives and that's typically how these are done they usually don't cost out every option okay so we should just use those numbers right but but they're only listed for the preferred alternatives yeah you know i think if we can and i think we've kind of done that a little bit i hate to kind of price out every option if there are things that we know are off the table we can kind of take that off the table and just cost what we think are possible options you know what else might help with this too is that i mean with this whole vision i mean there's a lot of changes that we're talking about potentially with this and so one possibility is if i i'm you know recalling the the old the draft that we did look at that had some short term recommendations and longer term recommendations i wonder if there would be any recommendations about this is something we should tackle first you know based on either the consensus or the urgency you know the you know maybe the very main street intersection is such a problem that that's what we should tackle first even though it's the most expensive of the things that we're looking at or or should we and maybe i don't know if you would feel comfortable doing that because maybe that's too much policy you know would you rather spend more money first or less money first but but if if you had any recommendations about you know the order of which to take this that that would be helpful you know having just seen the thumb scales of people at this point it might it might be useful to me to see like just a like a one or maybe two page just sort of summary of like this is this is what this would well maybe that's already exists maybe that's what we already have basically i'm trying to think if there's any further information that we need you just to have everything sort of in one spot so so we considered including an implementation strategy with staff recommendations but that's it's difficult to it's it's a lot more helpful if we have the you know the preferred alternatives and then go from it instead of trying to you know make an implementation strategy based on the entire all of the options so to me implementation and prioritization would come after we have guidance on on the alternatives maybe we just need another one more meeting with all this to to discuss this yeah Donna well i think we're sort of disavoying it i mean the vote to me once you put a signal on barry street and state you're going to do a keep memorial i mean tom's right as far as time wise and resources we see the cost so you've got three traffic lights that have a strong support and we have an interest in school at least trying out a roundabout and that gives you a direction i mean that's what i hear so why not just face what we're saying folks and move on should we just should we just vote then we could just vote yes i could i'm listening to you that's what i heard are you are we comfortable voting on some of these items then the only one i'm not sure that i'm comfortable voting on is memorial and main and and the bike head amenities on main street is that is that fair if we leave those two out you want to see the cost of the memorial roundabout come on in but i also like i just want it to work but it won't work with the other traffic lights you've done yourself in yeah i'm sorry it's one or the other it just doesn't do anything team should we just maybe we should just vote how do you how do you feel about this i'm willing to try to make a motion and then see uh lauren i'm just wondering so obviously we have some m-tick membership here that you all representing like our complete streets committee like are there other voices that might have an interesting perspective that aren't here tonight like with one more meeting is there anything that that we feel like is missing or it's the same stuff well we have your resolutions for m-tick and i don't know what role complete streets plays yeah it's a good question um complete streets is is more of a an education and outreach focus committee um when the m-tick is more of an infrastructure so it's kind of applies to them more than it than it would complete streets i think if if you know something that complete streets could um help with is um you know if we talked about temporary implementation they could take a role in that but they're not necessarily a policy group yeah i was wondering if they're advocating for a certain perspective which sounds like a lot of us share around pedestrian friendliness and other kind of shared some values i've heard come out from other counselors like is that perspective being heard from people who think about these issues i did attend the last meeting of complete streets and and there was a not a vote but a general consensus of concern of pedestrians dealing that traffic lights were safer particularly for anyone with a disability or visual because they didn't but anyway uh journey thing further i just had one quick question for the consultants now on the main street bike path is that going to be eliminate parking on both sides of main street it depends on the facility in most cases we're trying to retain it on one or the other side and it alternates depending on the width of the street but it's not eliminating it all the way through the corridor it's just reducing it and and i guess my way in is i know that during the summer we get a big tourist business and also the merchants depend on people being able to park fairly near their businesses if you eliminate the parking that's going to be a challenge for an already challenging parking situation downtown that's just my way all right i would just again with the with the bike facilities again like we said in the beginning kind of just after a vision here um you know if if it is the the council's um i guess vision to accommodate those type of facilities and accommodate the less confident users the less confident risers um you know and that would be the vision some you know bike lanes on main street would would be the final vision without necessarily and maybe it's not time to implement it yet but that's what we'd be working towards fair enough um i'll just say for myself even so i would like to look at that at a different time i need some more time with that particular part of it um but that's just me um glenn you wanted to make some motion do you want to take it in the whole thing or do you want to do it in pieces uh why don't i stumble through it and people can helpfully second as often happens and we'll see how it goes um but i i think i would move that we approve the final draft report uh with the um suggested uh alternative to look at around about at the school and main street intersections is there a second second so everything else just adopted as is i suppose that does include the the main street um bike uh stuff too but fair enough again my sense following cori is that right now we're just going for the vision and yes my vision is okay um fair enough there was a second right okay further discussion kind of i i'm just a bit uncomfortable even like considering eliminating one parking spot with you know asking people to continue exploring this um if ultimately i feel like they would vote against it at the end so i like comfortable going on that bike path at this point on which bike path which which part the the main street on main street would you like to amend to amend the motion to remove that part um no you can still make the motion you can still amend move to amend if you want yeah move to amend is there a second second okay so we're going to vote on the amendment to take this part out of the motion um this part being the main street bicycle this is the main street bicycle amenities um okay um further discussion on that part uh lauren i i seconded but just want to be clear i love the idea of bike lanes i just feel like i need more information before adopting anything specific uh don't i i just want to remind and i don't remember exactly maybe courier tom does but this council a council a city council adopted the complete streets which said our vision was including more real estate for bicycles and pedestrians this vision statement is just saying not tomorrow we're going to eliminate parking that just says our vision is to support the complete streets resolution that we've already made to go towards bike lanes that's all thank you yeah what was that did we do complete streets a year ago two years uh okay so we have a motion to second on this amendment um further discussion uh all in favor please say aye the motion of the amendment fails because we do not have four um so back to glenn's motion to approve this uh the this staff recommendation with the route about at school in main um is that an accurate representation okay so we um i'll have a motion in a second any further discussion on this so uh yes glenn um it's occurred to me that i do appreciate the emtick uh resolutions here and i i'd be curious if there's any more detail that you can offer from emtick about how uh emtick might envision the barry and main street intersection turning into a roundabout with the rail line going through there i because that's really my sticking point is i can't see how that would work well but if emtick has information that i haven't heard or an idea of how that would work better than i can imagine it no other than some of us have driven through roundabouts with with the rail roads but whatever their deal was was their deal and that the stop is like anywhere else it's outside the roundabout you stop i guess i'm going to say i am going to vote for glenn's resolution and it's not because i don't think in the experience roundabouts and we'll still more in the day but if we introduce one traffic light to me it fails so we have to do all of them and so i support moving forward let's do it don i so appreciate you okay uh further discussion uh okay all in favor please say i i oppose okay well thank you um yes lauren there were other items on your list that weren't part just like that oh that's right do uh curious if we wanted to act on any of them or if there are things that don't need a motion and we just want to the other items on the list included um looking into some way to prevent blocking on langen street um and i think that was in the not blocking landed i mean i remember they're like moving the crosswalk it's in the bigger report i don't know if it's mentioned here i don't know if it's in the report at all uh it was on your presentation yeah you presented it okay so it's in one of the drawings it's not necessarily part of the recommendation or is it part of the m1 if it's part of the m1 then yes it's okay and if not let's you know bring that come back to us if you want okay great awesome before tom disappears yes that far station used to have crisscrosses in front of it and a sign saying do not block and then they went away do you know what happened to them okay i don't remember the crisscross and we were wondering about the sign it said it said do not block it was right over top of where that flash flashing lights okay we're going to add it back i don't know i've been here too long the process really just wondering if it was removed with it oh i would bet you maybe even 10 15 years ago we got removed but it used to be there and you were not supposed to stop in front of the far station driveway it was always supposed to be open yeah you're right okay well thank you all and thank you for your work on this and i also want to thank all the folks who came out to the public hearings on on these topics that was very informative it was very helpful to hear from people um so we have but yeah yeah fair enough about half an hour before i would love to be done um don't go go ahead next well actually i would love to ask uh what thing would you like to oh so maybe we should come on do that first i just have to stand i just can't my knee can't you know fair enough and and seth were you waiting around for anything in particular well just if anyone needed clarification on what i was what i was uh wanting to propose a discussion topic for a future meeting i'm willing to talk about that oh fair enough well why don't you and i connect about that um afterwards is that okay um okay because i have some further thoughts on that as well um and would love to chat with you and joe is there anything further you were sticking around for or steve um okay all right so um entertainment pure entertainment do other people need a break or we okay okay so we're gonna take a we're gonna take a two minute break and then we'll take the animal ordinance up first we're gonna uh bring it back together here team 937 okay so uh we are going to examine um the uh chapter eight ordinances uh which is about animals fowl i think it's this is the first reading yes so yeah i'm going to open a public hearing um for the first uh reading of these changes um since you're here uh would you like to go first i'm happy yes yes let's come sure we'll focus on your part yeah i'll try to keep this somewhat brief i can go on on this subject um i'm kevin fink i live on fenthrough um five years ago my wife and i purchased a piece of land that had been intended for subdivision out the northern edge of the city um we were intending to build a home in a small farm on it um i was originally pretty hesitant to purchase something within montpelier city limits um with that plan in mind cities even vermont have a reputation for being kind of hostile to people engaged in farming and those types of activities um but i we thought about it a lot and after a while and spending a lot of time at the farmer's market and on all our wonderful community gardens and stuff decided that montpelier is clearly a town that cares about local food and understands the joy of watching living things grow under your care i i still love walking around this town especially this time if you're seeing all the backyard tomatoes the flocks of chickens there's herds of sheep and so many pollinator friendly flowers that feed bees we keep um when we were doing that i we were also looking at the existing ordinances governing livestock in the city um and at the time they were somewhat clunky and antiquated but in general weren't so restrictive as to preclude those types of activities and when i heard the council was going to go through kind of a general ordinance revision process i thought that was great because it would be an opportunity to kind of tweak and adapt those things to maybe remove some unnecessary or sort of restrictions that no longer made sense um unfortunately the revisions that are in front of you do exactly the opposite of that they impose a new bunch of new particularly new implementation that's a concern for me personally as someone who has raised pigs for silver readers on our property and they also miss an opportunity to get rid of a bunch of unnecessary i think provisions that create limitations for people wanting to you know basically have undergo farming activities in city limits um i i specifically wanted to talk about pigs for a minute um because i i feel like pigs um have a really undeserved reputation um pigs have a reputation as being filthy and dirty um but the the truth is that pigs are intelligent vibrant creatures who are far tighter tidier than their reputation um the lies it it's certainly true that pigs can be raised in a manner that creates smell and mess and the like but that's true of any livestock that is cruelly confined held in pens without adequate um bedding that's not changed frequently enough um or other improperly otherwise improperly cared for the pigs we keep are not like that we um rotationally graze our pigs they feed on excess product for local food businesses and provide them a way to dispose of the ingredients they would always otherwise have to dump or find someone to haul out of there um and they um moving them onto a new pasture is one of my and their weekly joys they they're literally frolic when you open up the gates and let them into the new places they run around and look for slugs and grubs and clover and all the wonderful things so i i really just want to urge you to take the opportunity to not only not make things more restrictive but also think about whether some of the things there's some language prohibiting um on farm well prohibiting this this commercial slaughter of poultry within city premises which is a often a real economic lifesaver for small farms poultry or some of usually some of the few things that can be raised a small scale that often also provide another pathway for excess product and provide side income for a lot of small farms and so basically what i'm asking is that a agriculture is admittedly a thing that is sometimes messy and smelly and pretty much always dirty but i think this is a town that can understand that and can recognize the value of it and i would just ask you to not move my pillar in a direction where people can't grow food for themselves or their neighbors easily so thank you i'll just jump right in on this because i think kevin rees is an excellent point um we had an issue you know three or four years ago with a person with a people had a pig in a very small lot in a very congested neighborhood and we got a lot of complaints from the neighbors about smell and other things and found that you know the terms in a manner is to be offensive and violent you know some of those were not particularly effective and i i'll be honest with you when we were drafting and going through this that's what we're thinking of and i think we probably didn't think about the larger tracks in town and the places where it's perfectly appropriate and desirable to have these things and so i i don't know if i have a specific language to suggest right here but unless we just go back to you know i think the old one had some limitations on how enforceable it was but maybe it's just you know over lots of a certain size or something like that i don't know because i i agree i think we shouldn't be supporting this type of thing so i just tossed that right out there was no there was no underlying desire to be in this from the whole city Donna do you do you have any specific language i guess i i kind of agree with bill um that probably the old language could be massaged a little bit to make it a little more clear but i think that's kind of the right the right framework um i do still feel like it's a little unfair to single out pigs because if you keep five cattle in your tiny backyard lot you're gonna have a hell of a nasty problem too but i'm with you but i think that's that's the right framework is you know that and it's hard to say you know i'd hesitate to suggest a size framework because you know you don't necessarily need that much space if you do it right and i think the threshold is really whether you're creating problems for other people other comments i i agree with all with all of that seems like a good point that any livestock that is kept in a small enough space is it's going to be unduly smelly and it can be done poorly and actually i don't know if this is the right connection to be made but it also seems somehow cruel to keep an animal of relative size in a very small space and so i know they're we we're going to take out the cruelty to animals section but you know in that spirit i wonder if there's a and i and i think some of those were taken out only because they were covered by state staff okay it wasn't that we were supporting cruelty to the animals but it was addressed in other places so i i'm certainly up for reframing particularly section eight three it's about keeping swine and either taking it out entirely or if we want to go down the road of saying you know that you can't keep too many animals in too small a space then you know there there may be some opportunity there yeah jack i don't know much about keeping swine or slaughtering fells but it might make sense to consult with the someone at the agency of agriculture for for guidance on how to phrase it so that it adequately protects the public interest and yet doesn't work doesn't preclude these uses the other thing that occurred to me is is there a potential tie-in with the zoning ordinance for because that talks about lot sizes or density levels just the thought yeah interesting yeah yeah as a permitted use that's an interesting thought other thoughts lauren um just want to appreciate you coming out it's great to get that perspective we could have moved ahead with us without thinking of those implications so uh appreciate that and agree looking at language on eight three and so like a couple different ways to think about it um i was curious about the poultry um that's the slaughter in the city i mean is that something now i know it's it's a topic every single year at the legislature at the state house like is that something that's also just being now regulated at the state level that um does a city ordinance around it makes sense anymore um is it similar to some of the cruelty to animals and stuff that now is regulated that we would feel maybe we'd want to look at what the state statue is and see if we feel comfortable with that or maybe you have some information about that i'm happy i don't know of a perfect command of it but i can give you a brief i mean there are definitely fairly extensive agency of agriculture regulation regulations on on farm slaughter there are um numerical caps in terms of how many you can do a year which you know keeps eyes down pretty significantly um and um there's all sorts of requirements about facilities and you know that sort of thing as well and limitations actually on what you can even sell i mean basically generally you have to sell whole animals um which um really cuts down on volume for most sellers because most people want to buy butcher animals other thoughts uh jack i'll just observe of all the things we talk about at the city council who knew that this was going to be the issue that would bring rose it's just wonderful to see you i promise to come back and help with the ordinance rewrite and this one hit very close to home yes one suggestion that i have is that um you know you do have a public health officer so you could think about writing the ordinance in such a way where you leave it to the