Okay, well welcome everyone. We're gonna call the meeting to order. So the first thing is to review and approve the agenda and at least relative to what the agenda says online there are a couple of changes. One is that it doesn't list general business and appearances and we're going to definitely add that. And thing number two is that there's a and oh should I should I keep talking how are we doing okay well I could I could just I could use my teacher voice I don't think you want that in the mic okay hey there can you is that any better no not any better I feel like I can hear a little bit of no not yet oh yeah I don't know I'm gonna keep talking as if there's you know something is going to change with the volume yes I I could do that also okay well we're gonna keep moving forward okay so we're adding general business and appearances and the second thing that we're gonna add after that is there's a grant application that we got an email about this afternoon and so we'll take that up immediately after before or after the general business appearances and before the budget and just to explain the budget process team just so you know I mean I guess I could save this for that conversation but I'm thinking about the budget as being in three parts and you could think of it as like the just like the layout that we were given there's sort of the core budget there were the things that are recommended in the budget that was in that green section that are some additions or changes and then there's the the last section that are things that that was the yellow section and we'll take that up last okay so yeah so when we get to that part we'll move to the center table and we're gonna use the whiteboard and I'm really excited about it okay so on so without any objection we'll consider the agenda approved all right so general business appearances this is a time for any member of the public to address the council on any issue that is otherwise not on our agenda and if you would keep your comments to two minutes or so and tell us who you are even though we know who you are I'm Andrea standard thank you madam mayor and members of the council and members of the city staff I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you just for a few minutes tonight I as I said my name is Andrea standard I live on 25 Liberty Street and I'm here this evening to speak on behalf of a group of Montpelier registered voters who continue to have significant concerns about the proposed parking garage in pursuit of those concerns we are availing ourselves of our public democratic process and seeking to place an article on the ballot for March 5th 2019 town meeting election we recognize the concerns of many citizens and especially our downtown merchants and businesses regarding issues with parking in Montpelier our goal is to seek the best possible future for the city and therefore representing the content of our petition to you tonight to facilitate dialogue and encourage a spirit of civic engagement we've begun collecting signatures and we intend to present the requisite number of valid signatures by the deadline of Thursday January 24th 2019 at 5 o'clock and then I if I may I'd like to just read you the contents of the petition we the undersigned legal voters of the city of Montpelier Vermont here by petition the Montpelier City Council to place the following article on the warning for the annual town meeting to be held on the first Tuesday of March Tuesday March 5th 2019 this petition is filed pursuant to the Montpelier City Charter we certify that we are presently voters of the city the article to be placed on the warning to read as follows shall the city council withhold spending of the 10.5 million dollars as authorized in article one of the November 6th 2018 official ballot until the following shall occur number one that for the benefit of the downtown merchants and other businesses there is a written commitment by the city to provide sufficient remote parking spaces and transportation services to the downtown during the construction phase and I have copies of this look at everybody that it is number two that it is clearly shown that there will be safe continuous public sidewalks and bike lanes along the road leading to and from the entrance of the garage from State Street that the comprehensive traffic study required by the development review board in its December 13th 2018 decision is completed immediately not one year later that soil remediation on the site is completed and the findings and cost of this work be made public that the bid process is completed with the costs of the successful bid being within the bond limits that all state and municipal permits and sub permits including water quality permits if required have been issued and any appeals resolved that a public report projecting operating costs and revenues over the expected life of the garage including pay down of the bond is completed by an independent accountant who has experience in public parking garage operations be happy to pass these around so as I said our intention tonight was simply to put this on your radar let you know what we're doing and thank you Andrea yeah go ahead technical question number three with the traffic study that would be done now instead of a year from now the I think the goal of the year from now is to see the before and after I we understand that so I don't know the RV decision but I think they're curious what the rationale was there will be no additional traffic or no change to measure right I'm not the expert to speak to this but I think our concern has to do with inadequate information about the current situation and how things are going to proceed and I would just also love to add that I would love to meet with any of the you know folks in your group who are concerned and in the spirit of like you know what can we what can we be doing you know how can we be addressing these these concerns I mean I appreciate that you've have an itemized list like that this is actually very helpful so thank you I just have a quick procedural question I think this is probably more for Bill so if the requisite number of signatures are secured then the petition comes to the council and is it an automatic addition if the requisite number of signatures are added because that was my understanding I think so although the although the there we'd have to look at what there are certain things the voters kind of can't do so I don't to what if there are those and I don't know I'm not a position to opine on any of these I just saw but if so there were things that were not within the purview of the voters whether I might have to be considered advisory or something like that so we will get my short-term presumption is that what have to go about okay and that would all all of that would be contained in the charter if that provision existed or is that contained elsewhere well for you know for instance but there are certain things that you know voters can appropriate money they can do certain things there are certain specific administrative things that voters can't do and so so you can have them on the ballot but it doesn't mean that the city council has to follow so so okay so I guess maybe either either way it's gonna go on the ballot yeah but the question then becomes how binding is it right okay and to what extent we can find that out my understanding is that it would not be binding and as such it only needs the 300 and some signatures but since it's not a moneyed item it's not gonna be binding and it also there's also the question honestly because it reads as a rescission so it you know it I think I may need to wait wait for what Paul says to see if it's even can be on the ballot but if it can then all that takes it does not take approval from the council at all the way our charter is worded I believe the wording that we've chosen on our petition is not a rescission it's simply a list of things that we feel need to happen but it or the money well the reason I asked Paul to look at is this is it basically says we won't do what we voted on until these other conditions are met and he might consider that a rescission I just need to wait to hear from him regardless of right whether it's binding or whether it's a rescission I I presume it would be on the ballot yeah so but regardless of all that I I would still like to and our our goal that we're using this process because we think it's a good process yes for educating people engaging people in the dialogue and a discussion about these concerns so that's our purpose great thank you for the time yes thank you there were a bunch and to answer the question in addition to what's in the in the charter there is a fair amount of Vermont case law on the ability of the residents to petition for things to be on the ballot and what the effect of those is that I had to work on in a previous ballot initiative 25 or so years ago so there's there's case law we can find this out I also just want to make sure that we are very public about this because I think I mean everybody knows where I stayed on the parking garage anyway but I just want to make sure that that when we get sort of like if we can put together a document that has all of the the legal references for the public to read as well because what I don't want to do is set expectations that the council doesn't intend you know I just want to be fully transparent in what the council is going to do I think everybody knows what I would say but I just want to make sure that everyone has access to the legal authority and what that all means so that people know like what this translates to like pragmatically speaking in their day-to-day life as residents here and you look at these I mean we couldn't start without permits anyway for example number six so that's goes without saying number five the same thing let's so I'm just saying is a lot of these are things that you have to do we have yeah okay fair enough thank you yes no I I hear you I this is actually incredibly helpful fair okay so all right so moving on to the grants application just got sent around this afternoon theoretically this could be a consent agenda item but it's only one item so is any so this is a pollution controlled grant that's we're applying for through the state of Vermont and Department of Environmental Conservation we it's nothing we've been awarded yet this is part of the application process but it does require city council to authorize us to submit the application and to name me as authorized representative for interactions with them in the event that we succeed in that application so this all the money if we're to receive anything under this grant would be used towards the wastewater recovery facility project to reduce the total cost from that sixteen point seven five million dollars yeah that'd be great all right any discussion about this if we approve it fantastic for the discussion all in favor please say aye opposed okay and great all right so on to the budget so let's take a moment to transition ourselves to down at the table and we'll pick it up from there by saying that you mean you want us all to physically move to yes we're all physically going to move down there because we're gonna do a couple of presentations what do you think team should be I think stay I think stay I want to be here okay again and I can come and go as department heads okay okay so first of all can can you all hear us okay there should be three you said oh there's only two I see two here we go okay hello check check right well so I think we wanted to start things out with just hearing a little bit from a couple of department heads so I know Tony is here and I don't see Jeff okay Jeff is coming well we'll at least go with that so can we invite Tony hey Tony are you ready did you want to plug in are you yeah it's so weird we'll make it work oh you're right your own laptop well either that or just can you just add it to this you just put on this flash yeah yeah you just stick it in yes well you and I are signing it together so we don't have to set up another sorry I was gonna say it I recognize you what is this clean shaven yeah wow it's a scary picture so yeah I take it you had a very cool the chief will introduce sergeant cocky he was undercover for five years so I'm not recognizing I'm back so our number one rule is we always make sure our tech works but obviously we didn't follow the rules are like basically made says the prosecutor lately there are more exceptions than let's just say I watched Rosie this really that's a great idea okay let's take let's take three minutes thank you and good evening everyone first of all I would like to reintroduce detective sergeant Wade Cochran the Montpelier Police Department Wade has been covertly assigned to the Modrug Task Force the past five years today is day one I was in recognized they walked in without the beard and everything else and it's a mother jewelry I think so but as you'll see this is this is a very important calculated plan that we have had for some time as we reintegrate you know the loss of this of having somebody assigned to the Modrug Task Force but the restructuring of our investigative division based on what we are currently facing so it's it's to support patrol to get back to what we also it's made us I think so effective in our community and we want to we want to do it all because the community is asking us to do it all and so this is only this should be we'll go as quickly as you folks wish so so first of all you know we use them you know the additional police officer and quite frankly I'm simply trying to get us back to our original authorized strength that we did have back when I first took over as police chief in 2007 and that was getting us up to 17 officers several years ago there there was some serious budget challenges in the city and there were cuts made to several departments the fire department and police department back then so for the last five years technically Sergeant Cochran has been the 17th officer if you will but he's been off the books because of how we were doing that but nonetheless we are you know more challenged than ever before with the expectations of this community you know the needs and again protest special events most of this you've you've heard me discuss in the past that'll help me the job is just getting more complicated and yet public expectations are essentially you know they expect perfection within reasons so right now we're for a variety of reasons we are a short staff and it's having you know it's having some serious challenges you know we've got matter of fact one of our officers is in the room in the back there we're 500 hours of overtime another sergeant with 400 plus hours over time this is simply too much and and it's coming at a great cost it comes at a cost of the the efficiencies of the officer and their performance as well as their personal lives are greatly impacted and also we're concerned you know with the agency how we connect with the community things that you know when Mike Thurbrook who's here many years ago he said hey let's do coffee with a cop you know great successful program that really allowed us to to have those non-adversarial one-to-one with the public talk about anything very similar to you know coffee and baguitos and a beat is with one of our places that we've done coffee with a cop but bike patrol things that are very effective programs that to help us connect we just haven't been able to do so I think I think it's been noticed that the frequency that whether you see bike patrol for patrol or these coffee with a cop type of ads how important they are to how we feel to us and to the community so and this this all relates to you know to how are we reactive or is it being proactive and right now we are going to be faced with some serious challenges on the reactive side this is the proposed work chart of what 17 officers would look like and as you'll see down below one of the key reorganizations on the left side bottom left is a detective position that's to be determined so one of one of the individuals from the patrol side of the house if you will will will be assigned a position for a period of up to a couple of years maybe three three years I think is where we talking but it's a union but union assignment where that officer would become would be a detective and would gain very valuable experience in in financial crime you know evidence processing more so than what everybody is already able to do so right now and also we thought it was important to have the right now our SRO which is Matt nicely he's also the site of the special investigation so he's doing a lot of the sex crimes the child sexual assault cases and we really felt that that should fall under the you know the umbrella of a detective supervisor as well as having that continuity of making sure that sometimes because because you know children you know youthful offenders as well as victims there are different needs and things that we have to make sure that we have in place so that's that's what 17 officers counting myself look would look like you know with with with that okay so this will that would help with four to five hundred hours of overtime you know per yeah person because right now and the next slide is the schedule and we've got a couple of officers that are out you know on admin leave another one on medical leave and the author of medical leave he's been out since September and we don't expect him back for about three months and the other officers on administrative leave and so whenever we have these these you know the shortages it's hard how do we absorb that so this if you look at so looking above you'll see the schedule with the exception of like the captain and myself I don't even appear on the schedule but we try to work for on three off schedule and so that's high so it's not like even though we say we have 16 officers it doesn't mean that you know you pick up the phone there's 16 officers available to to come to respond whether it's speed enforcement on your street or whether you know we need to process a crime scene of you know low of you know on a property crime so again there's vacation time comp time training all this factors in to how we manage over time and really provide put our best foot forward to keeping the public safe so again the last five years we've assigned Sergeant Cochran to the drug task force and during that time what we did was a unique opportunity because normally you don't send an experienced sergeant to the drug task force Wade had already gone through command school at Roger Williams he'd already gone through the DEA basic training as well as he's one of our instructor and tactics for us and so but with the help of actually building but Bill Jennings was willing to come back and help us out it was no longer forcing with us in the past few weeks ago and an arrangement of the state police we really made a successful this really worked and it paid off huge dividends to Montpelier and I and it's it's it's almost impossible to say how much impact this partnership and having the drug task force resources you know really focused in central Monterey but that great force multiplayer how much it does that play into our three straight years of significant crime reduction you know when we think about you know Sir Robert Peel's nine principles of policing which is pretty much which goes way back before President Obama's task force on 21st century policing but but it's pretty much the same thing but you know the the nine nine principle is effective policing is really one of the reflections of that is going to be is there a crime reduction and crime under control so I think it's been greatly successful by having that this this effort here and again we've had done even more with our federal partners you know here locally this is just an example Wayne was case agent on this this case it's still ongoing it was in western Massachusetts but what you're looking at right there that's 10,000 bags of fentanyl and wait and there was just that night alone you know there was a 15,000 bags were recovered in western Massachusetts that was all fentanyl that was headed to our central Monterey I point this out because yeah I'm a mother yeah we joke about if I'm a mother hand a little bit you know even though he's with a highly capable team of agents and troopers you know I know when he's out of state you know we just want you know it just kind of let me know how's it going when you get back home kind of thing but this is just this is a side debt of of the opiate problem from you know from what law enforcement's response primary responsibility is not as the you know the intervention and interdiction of drugs the only correction is the season mother had a lot of it so well you know it's a hey so the and the other thing that's important as far as how this relates to you know making sure that hopefully we at least get this getting back to 17 officers here in my pillar working out of the police department there's a lot of things that are you know in flux and right now there's still an ongoing debate between the state of Vermont and the Department of Justice regarding the sanctuary jurisdiction if you will of Vermont and even though there was bipartisan support of a bill that Senator Scott signed into law March of 2017 was act 79 there's basically said that Vermont first of all we will comply with 1373 and other federal regulations that's required to and at the same time we're not we're not we have no authority to participate in civil immigration issues that we made that point very clear it's a kind of no-brainer Vermont is one of many states that are in this boat such at least seven states have filed to get the federal government Vermont has not done that but anyway federal funding for FY 18 and 19 is being withheld and that is the funding that would support the Vermont drug task force which is not that big to begin with so and for the past five years we were picking up approximately $130,000 in grant funding to cover all of Sergeant Cochrane's paying benefits so with that shift like Montpelier and Berry City it's now up to us to pick up the slack if you will and for the record Berry City I talked to Chief Bombier a couple weeks ago they are their strength they have 20 full-time police officers so as we compare you know kind of our neighborhood communities and also because of some of that the recent you know shifts and challenges at the local level they've also stood up a street crimes unit something that we're not proposing at all that we would need to do that but we would certainly support and participate with that model as needed as well as all the other still ongoing ops that we may have with our federal partners sorry street crimes are like mugging or it could be yeah primarily it's going to be violence around drug trafficking including drug trafficking you know if you can jump on it quickly with detectives you can do more process evidence processing the you know interviewing individuals that may be going to cooperate with you in the moment to even where there's a certain small-level tactical operation may need to happen very quickly quicker search warrant executions to you and stuff like that so it's not necessarily there's not there's less time between when the warrant is issued and when it's executed which means less time to move and this concept is very much supported by take the journey for a demo so this is what we're up against drug trafficking fentanyl exposure even to our firefighters and police officers dealing with us on a regular basis now illegal firearms you know it's the currency of the drug trade our officers this this past year they've all with several interventions with the plumber of Narcan along with our fire department they're approximately well over 50 over ODs this very much player alone for 2018 many of those have been fatal so again we know the threat we know the problem that you know both in here Vermont as well as nationally but it's not all doom and gloom also because there for example we have as I think this council knows we have capacity for treatment this this year our department through my involvement we are now part of the Washington County so excuse me regional partnership so that is basically all the medical folks in the treatment and prevention folks and chief bombardier is there as well that's something that I will be passing the torch on to now that he's back in the fish to PD here will be Sergeant Cochran's duty because it's important to see like you know one of the things for example what's the impact of what we're doing on the street and and how to what's happening on the treatment and medical side and addiction as we know us also directly related to our burglary and other on the crime here so years ago this organized crime drug enforcement task force concept was pitched by ATF but at a meeting that is actually at Montclair Police Department when it was pitched to Department of Justice officials when organized crime drug enforcement task force does it's to the US Attorney's Office as a you know as a ultimately from the Attorney General its special funding sources for dedicated complex you know violent crime and drug trafficking this screenshot was at a private ceremony at the ATF office recognizing the court team members in the summer so as you'll see there you see Montclair PD FBI Mont State Police South Burlington and Berry City PD along with ATF and DEA this was the court team but was also supported by the Board of Protection including aerial assets the helicopter US Marshall service play a significant role and again amazing cooperation from US Attorney Christina Nolan's office to Attorney General Dunham's office and to Roy Tebow's office I mean this is and this is how we've been able to do a lot of things without it impacting what you see every day so this one operation operation Hydra which we can now talk about it's what it is we had two officers two detectives Sergeant Cockton being one of them as well as former detective Steve Nolan who retired back this fall were assigned to operation Hydra as well as most of the department at some point had cycled through with various bases of the operation if you recall in June there was a significant sweep of over I think twenty five twenty six defendants were rounded up and over a couple of you know two days so again we spent a lot of time supporting that to and then the result of this two-year operation 71 illegal firearms and there was some real high-risk raids I mean I cannot you know stress enough the the hazards and dangers that that our teams were up against things that just heavily bothered you know when we didn't have an armored vehicle available things like that and where we even though we had multiple agencies federal mostly and our folks it was just you know it's not the time to be insufficient resources for what we're up against so this is the core team of those in the picture you have three of those are from Montpelier PD this is in Burlington so this is just on the table 71 firearms that over the course of the two-year period of operation Hydra were seized in the very Montpelier area most these firearms are stolen others were involved in straw purchases others had obliterated serial numbers other fire arms were either in possession of somebody that was prohibited offender and but this is this is you know what I don't think people fully understand or appreciate what this department and all of our partners that are involved in some on regular basis too with too much frequency I'm trying to keep our community healthy and with that anything else you'd like to add from the task force for sure just a couple things I had the luxury of going to agency different agencies throughout the state being with the task force I might be in Brattleboro one day and then St. Albans the next day and everybody that I worked with oh you're from Montpelier PD that's a really great agency Montpelier so it was great to hear for one thing so I just wanted to add that the other thing is one of the things that I've been able to do is meet with addicts and work with addicts every day that was kind of my life for five years some of those addicts lived right here in Montpelier one of those car stops that I can talk about that was Intel based we got almost 2000 bags of heroin from this person that was directly being dealt from George Street in Montpelier it's coming in constantly and I'm not just saying it's all drugs because it's not and that's not what the detectives are going to do but with the drugs property crimes but I'm sorry with the drugs there's property crimes and one of the things that I've talked to with some of my helpers or CI's is I'll ask them what's your habit and they'll tell me you know three 200 300 bags of heroin so how do you afford that how do you think we afford that they steal they break into places so if we can combat this issue and or this problem it would I think it would benefit Montpelier I know I think we have an aggressive plan that we can do if we can build this detective agents or the detective section section and I think it'll be yeah I think it would be good for Montpelier we're probably on time so I'm not gonna hear about that but this clip if you look at you know it's Celine MacArthur Channel 3 News did a series called the fix I highly recommend looking at this this one particular episode it's just shy of five minutes but it was it was shot with matter of fact you know Sergeant Cock would supervise with the drug task forces there but many of the shows even somebody an assault that was captured during a drug drug deal with it with an informant where the person is you know I remember spying that call you know we're basically at his head caved in from being kicked and you digitize you see that that was that was at the economy in Montpelier so I mean I just need to press upon you not to scare you because crime still a very safe community and I should have started with that I need to end with that but nonetheless there isn't a magical agency that just handles all this behind the scenes and it is and everybody has a vital role from you know the rookie patrol officer to the seasoned veterans that are our negotiator negotiators police officers you know just we just make it work and so last slide but yeah they consider is that you know and I certainly concerned my players is growing in certain ways and we need to make sure that we have it a police department that is not taxed and that we can pace with the needs of this community and I just had to have a conversation with the state's Attorney Devoe this afternoon told about this presentation he said hey we want to make sure I put the code in so I did said MPD it's a professional professional police department but he certainly again echoed there's real challenges on the horizon we need to be at full strength to deal with that and lastly I think it's important that we have sufficient you know resources so when we prepare at the end of this upcoming fiscal year for my departure and then a few months later Captain Martels I want to make sure that we have our best put forward so you know when that next chief comes in with his or her vision and priorities now that they'll be at full staff they've just hit the ground running so that is I know it's a lot of information I didn't mean to make it too heavy on the old drug side but we can't ignore this and I know this is also something that you know again we had a clear with you know with ATF to show those pictures and talk about it I had a conversation a couple years ago with Christina Nolan our U.S. Attorney she presented Operation Hydra at a conference with U.S. Attorney's because it just shows again and she even acknowledged that this was you know this this concept was pitched and hatched so with that that's kind of an explanation and some background for you folks as to why we are trying to get back to questions so one of the things up there so you had your schedule listed but does that cover like if for an example an officer is depended or you know requested for a deposition or something on their off hours how does that sort of factor into if it's on their day off or if they're an evening officer then it's over time and her contract will rave it's not you know either coming in early on their shift or the tail under their shift it's a four-hour overtime and in terms of so search warrant stuff that happens after shift which is there there's a significant amount of that how does that work like is that there are they compensated for that or are they just taking their own time because it's just easier to do it that way or they are always compensated and it's it's a you know when for example the drug work when these things happen sometimes I'll get a call from either you know certain Cochran or ATF saying this is what we've got we need what you know we need certain people because of whether that's their background there then we have to go we have to manage to who's still on shift to cover you know anything that may happen in my failure and you know Bill I have talked and you know he's not a big fan of it but I have participated in many of these ops directly myself and because it's just of my long history working with these folks and how much control do you as a department have over for example like coming into to get a search warrant signed or how much of that I guess what I'm getting at is like are you telling officers you know you know do it this day at this time or is it sort of are you at the whim of other entities in terms of it both for example if you know if a car sees that someone's incarcerated you know it doesn't have to be done right then and there there's an opportunity but also we cannot just like hold something for you know there's a certain legal requirement where we may have to execute a search warrant if it's something such as you know related to timeliness of evidence potentially being lost or destroyed then you know whatever may be needed has to happen very quickly the other thing along those lines though we've been so frustrating to me is the complete disregard that protesters have and you know I whether you know even the peaceful ones for example the moral Mondays when those things happen they would they they there's an additional burden on Montpelier Police Department to support the Capitol Police that wants they police because they've you know advice versa we never know when they spill onto State Street and but so it's also so it's those protests then you throw in all the parade permits you know and the great things that make Montpelier Montpelier but suddenly you know okay well I just said come on July 3rd now let's do good fast and and you know and that's why the captain and I get stuck a lot of times because you know we're the freebies you know we're south but anyway but there's a lot of unplanned overtime training requirements we do a lot of training at Montpelier Police Department and for example if we do use the force training four times a year for the free job sir we have to offer each one of those sessions twice you know to make sure that we cover the shifts and then get people through on top of other trainings and maybe as a state or I guess my only question was on the performance measures reported the last year was FY 16 and I think you've got more recent data and not necessarily tonight but in general it would be interesting to see. Sure I've got some data now like crime I have done the actual percentage but crime is significantly down again for 2018 from 2017 which was down from 2016. That's reported. Reported offenses to us. Now when I say an offense crime that can be anything from car you know bumped into mine the parking lot broke the mirror and dented my door that's an offense well you know we've got a financial crime worth a couple hundred thousand dollars that's an offense so again we need to be careful what we just talk about with those placeholders I will tell you performance measurements that are really meaningful are very hard for police because it's easy for us to track kind of like these these numbers great on data but what does that really mean when you want to look at workload impact and quality that needs to go into a more complex case. I'm curious if this additional person is because it's they would be reducing overtime if that is a net increase the cost of our reduction. It's going to be an increase though I mean yeah. Well yeah but I think we're but just by the nature of a schedule or two and what you got two officers down on top of that yeah and there's always but that's always you know it's it's always a struggle even when I think you know in my time as police chief I could probably count you know on one hand that were weeks where we had our whatever our full authorized back when we had 17 officers when we had all 17 you know working so. Great any further questions? For the next year you'll ask for the 18. We're still here next year. Well in all honesty in all honesty you know that was certainly discussed you know as the same major knows that initially I was thinking actually 18 officers with one potentially you know putting another officer back on the drug task force at some point you know when the department's out of position where we can do that and when Uncle Sam decides that there's money again to do that I know Commissioner Anderson is you know he's committed to making sure the task force still survives you know hoping that some point from what we think about it. Okay Connor yep. I think it's just important to say like nice to meet you Sergeant Cochran. I think we all owe you a great debt of gratitude for what you've done over the past couple years here. Thank you.  Good to see you. Thanks so much for everything. Thank you. All right thank you. Thank you. Okay so next up Jeff I think right. Want to come tell us about your thoughts and plans. Yes. Is this just presentations from the department? I think there's only these two unless Bob you're going to help. I'm here to answer some questions from the council room. Okay so I think we just have these two and then we're going to start talking about the budget. We're going to take it in three sections. And we'll probably have some time for a public comment after each of the sections. Does that make sense? I was able to sidebar with the chief before the meeting so I think I've had all my questions answered. Unless other people have questions. I think the clerk was raising his hand. Yes I had to do some research to respond to some stuff that Rosie was asking. Oh yeah at some point I'd like to respond to some concerns that Councillor Krueger had. I've done some research and I figured it all out. And just before Jeff starts I'll note that we're actually not going to allow the chief to retire. You're okay. I'm sorry yes. Before we start we have Jeff start I want to raise a question under our ethics policy. I think because I have a family member who's employed by the parts department. There's a possibility for at least an appearance of conflict of interest. My analysis of the situation is that I don't believe that I have an actual conflict of interest because whatever happens with the budget council members don't have the ability to make personnel decisions in any of the departments. But I wanted to and I know that one of the proposals is to add staffing potentially a full time employee and so I just wanted to raise up the council and give anyone an opportunity to suggest that I recuse myself if anyone believes that that's necessary. Thank you for raising it. I think your consideration is there that we're not really in charge of staff. It's a fair assessment. That's fine. Thank you. Great. I'm afraid I don't have a PowerPoint for you but I would like to bring up the highlights of the changes for what is a record request on my part from the council and the residents. In short, I'm looking for two full time positions. One for the parks department and that one is to do several things. One is to provide the resources needed to support a growing parks department and to catch up on a huge deficit in hours that are spent. I'm not sure if I've said this to a few people lately and part of what I've not done. I don't think as well as I should have in advocating for myself over the time is about the real cost in hours that it takes to do the job. Right now, as I sit here, I have about a thousand hours of work time before I retire and I have nine hundred and sixty hours of comp time on my paycheck. I don't get time and a half as department and I don't get those hours, the time and a half hours. Those are real hours. The job has demanded a lot of time. As you all probably can feel yourselves working on the council, it's one thing if you're expected to work three committees and you do it. And then if you do four or five committees and you feel like you're a hero, that's one thing. But if you're expected to do that seventh or eighth committee, then that can be a bit stressful. So there's one thing doing it and feeling like a hero and then there's another thing that's expected of you. The way it is now, it just, things don't go well unless you work way more hours than should be expected of someone. And I do not want to pass that on to whoever takes my place, whether it's Alec or anybody else. So that's, I feel strongly that just to keep even, there's, I mean, a half time person probably wouldn't even do it really. I mean, till a couple of years ago I was doing regularly 70 hours every week averaging. So Jeff, do you have some quotes? Yeah. So you now have two people, you and Alex. Right. And this is just the parks on the trees. So in the parks. Right. And you're asking for two more or are you taking yourself out of the equation and asking for three? Well, what I'm looking for, and just to be clear, it's not two people for the parks right now. It's two, four-fifths position for the parks right now. Two-four-fifths. Two-four-fifths position for the parks because we have two full time positions that run the entire park system and run the entire tree management system. And how that's divided out is one day a week each of us is just trees and four days a week for each of us is just parks. So I hope that's a little bit confusing, but I hope I've made that clear. So two at one-fifths do trees. Right. Two at four-fifths do more. And just to make sure it's clear but a little bit more complicated, the new person helping in trees that you've awarded through June is two days a week and that's temporary unless you award any more budget money for that. Any questions about that? Is that clear enough? So then you're adding, and back to, are you adding a full park? So I am suggesting adding, I'm suggesting adding a full time parks position. Yes. So just to make sure that's not in the manager's budget. That's the additional add-on that we're discussing tonight. That's the additional add-on. Yeah. Right. I should make that distinction. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that. So right now that's not added at all. However, in the tree position, I believe the extra tree person has been added. Now, that would be very helpful for the work that we do as well because the tree work without the ash borer, just to be clear, the tree work without the ash borer has been something that we haven't been able to keep up with the hazards much less with the preventative pruning. So with this extra help, we hope, I expect to catch up with the hazard work, although we may actually catch up with the hazard work with the too intense person today because I expect to catch up with the hazard work this winter and then start to be able to get into a preventative treatment program for the street trees for the first time, for the first real time, since I've been tree warden in seven years. So, I mean, we've done some minor neighborhood prunings, but... I guess I'm confused about that because the part-time position, or the temporary position was intended to work on emerald ash borer work, but it sounds like that's being pulled to use for pruning instead. No, I thought I had made clear that we were really behind in hazard tree work and that I thought it was crucial that we not go into an increased demand load with the ash borer with a backlog of hazard tree work and that we were going to do that in the fall and the winter and then the spring, it would shift more to the ash preventative work, the treatment of trees and the preparations, the setting up of the staging and doing that more clear ash-related work. Because the spring is also in the cycle of the war, too. That's correct. That's correct. Can I ask you to put a financial number to the add-on positions? To the add-on positions. Yeah. Let's see. 55. For each position, I believe it's right in the 55 range. Yes. Right. Now, one of the positions, and I would suggest it would be considered the tree position, is that there's potential savings in my retiring next year and that that would save 10,000 of what otherwise would be that in the difference that the person coming in would be at the low end and I'm leaving at the higher end. Are you planning to do that at the end of 2019 or June? The end of June. The 55k is inclusive of benefits, is it? Yes, I believe so. Yeah. Other questions? I know this is too far out, probably, but imagining for the moment that we aren't going to add any more park acreage over the next 10 years or so, which is I think the expected window of the ash borer, do you think that we will still need the full staff that you're requesting now after all the ashes get taken care of? After all the ashes get taken care of. That's a good question. I would suggest to do a quality tree program. You would need at least a half position, if not a full position, to do a quality preventative maintenance and a planting program. But there's a chance if you want to dial it back to more of the tree services than before that you could dial it back to half time position.  What I heard of you arguing is that you already have been understaffed and your position has been understaffed for some time. That's right. We've been doing the tree program with two days a week, right? And that is clearly not enough to me, right? And again, Burlington for comparison, I think they have four full time folks compared to two days a week, not even a half time position, right? Well, Burlington is hard to compare ourselves to in terms of population and areas. Yeah. And miles of roads. We have a clear, and right of way it's fairly clear. So there's a number of ways to look at that and be happy to look at that sometime. The short story is what we're able to do and not able to do. And right now, we haven't been able to keep up with the hazard trees, which I believe in the city councils for liability in the city council's interest, we want to at least be able to take care of the hazards. And that's a minimum. And then the other question is what kind of quality of trees do you want in your downtown and along your streetscapes? What value is that to the city? And I would suggest that that is a value that is worth pursuing. One about capital. Yes, good. Now, in the budget, there's 20,000 that's called the CIP plan. Yes. But then there's another one, equipment parks plan. Yes. 21. Yes. 21. And what is in that budget for this next year? And that's of note because there's an increase in each of those two categories. Yes. So the staffing and increase, those represents virtually all the increases, the changes in the budget. And then the capital, and then you were asking about the equipment. The capital, those two got in. And so I know that in one, I saw trucks, but I didn't understand what was inclusive in the equipment plan. The trucks. And the equipment is, there's, for 2020 is the tractor. That's in the CIP, right? That's in the equipment. I was looking at the one that wasn't CIP, maybe. The one that's, that's, I have in the parks equipment that in 2020, the tractor is up, a brush hog and a trail groomer for, for cross country skiing. Those are the three things that I have listed in our equipment request. Under the 21. Under the 2020. Okay. And the 20, that's in the CIP. 20, yeah. Then that, in the CIP or still in the equipment? There's, there's two items. That's why when I was at the parks commission the other night and you were talking about them and maybe Bill can help me understand the difference in the equipment that's listed in the CIP under the 20. I thought that was the tractor and another vehicle. So tractor is equipment. That's in the, so there's the equipment budget and then there's the capital improvements. And the equipment, we try not to ever put equipment in the capital improvements. So capital improvements is. We lump them together. We owe them in the same community. Okay. I see there. That's why I saw them in the same list, but you don't consider those part of the CIP report. Got it. Capital improvements in the equipment. Yup. Right. Okay. They were all part of the spreadsheet. So I just couldn't keep them separate. That's good. Is that into your questions? They're in there. That's what you wanted. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Great. Any questions about that? I guess so we'll use pagers. We don't. Okay. Obviously. I was like, what was the question? It's listed as cell phone and pager. That's one of the line items. And I, it just caught my attention. No. Pagers. They're cross allocations. I'm going to use cell phones. I'd like to up it a little bit if we can get rid of pagers and use like actual technology. Yeah. Current technology. We do actually use some of the pagers in some departments for automated alarm systems. It's like sewer pump stations that go into alarm trip over to the pagers because they're actually pretty reliable. Yup. They're like faxes. They have their use. Okay. Further questions for Jeff? Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. Okay. So we have no other questions for Jeff. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. Okay. So we have no other further presentations. So I guess at this point, we can go over the questions. Oh, yeah. Did you want to jump in, Jeff? Yeah. Just really quickly. Councilor Krueger saw a couple spikes. And at my FY 18 budget and was concerned that Ratch basically level funding my budget for next year. The spikes might show up again. They might not be adequate. I didn't know what she was talking about. And I dug around there and now I do. There were two spikes. And the short answer is no, they're not going to be repeated again. Because one of them was a permission I got from Bill to help me out with some of his budget for a professional development project at the University of Minnesota, which was great. I love this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. back down to normal. So, no, there shouldn't be any need to continue that spike over to fiscal 2020. Great. Thank you. And just to, I wouldn't begrudge you expense. Like, I trust that they're legitimate expenses. I just want to make sure that we don't need to plan for there to be less if you need it. Interestingly enough, this whole non-citizen voting thing, if it weren't for the classes I was taking through the University of Minnesota, I wouldn't have known it was even a possibility. I've been telling people for years, what are you talking about when they come and talk to me? And that's how I found out that it's done all over the place. Okay. Any further questions? So we don't have other city staff if there aren't questions in the other part, conceivable. You didn't ask for them, but if they come up. I hope what I was conceiving of earlier made sense to people, where there's sort of the, what I was calling the core budget, it's really the recommended part of the budget that is basically the same as last year. So I would love to talk about that first. So if there are any things that people object to, or would like to change, or yes. Since we delivered the budget to you, we realized that we made an error. So I just wanted to... Talking an error. I wasn't going to say that. Bill is always good about that. So I'll just highlight up here. The community fund should actually be 133.5 instead of actually 133.250 instead of 124.5. I actually have it wrong on this as well, but the 250. But anyway, so I've adjusted that on this sheet and would have been recommended that way. The idea was to recommend what they were recommending. They're coming in next week. So this number is the right one? The one out there is the right one. The one I gave you and was on the worksheet you had was $9,000 too low. So the 133.5 is the right number? Well, actually it's 133.250 a bit. Oh, okay. But that's... Anyway, so that is... And you know, they gave us the correct number. I want to be clear.  Our intent was to fund what they had. And that's what we would have recommended. We had it right and it makes a minor difference in them. Yeah, well it was just... Actually a subtotal in the spreadsheet that they sent. Yeah, and we picked the subtotal up and not the total in that as well. I left out the hardest part. So since that's on the table for a second, I just wanted to talk about the timing of that process for how that decision making process happens because we had an issue last year where the timing didn't really work out. And we had in our, you know, the previous year we had funded a certain level and there was sort of an assumption that we would continue. And then the committee met and awarded funds at a higher level because they felt that these were really worthwhile items. And came to us and said, okay, here's your number. And then we had the decision to either yank... I mean, not yank back because they hadn't been awarded, but to say, no, actually we don't want to yank or these, or to allocate the higher level. And it feels like that may have happened again this year, that they have made funding decisions and we are now deciding how much to fund that at. And I think we need to revisit where their grant process falls in our budget timeline. Because while we have delegated the responsibility to them to decide which items to fund, I don't think that we intended to delegate the responsibility to decide how much total to put towards this particular area of the budget. And it feels like that's really what we've ended up doing with the current timing. So I know Anne, you had mentioned wanting to revisit this whole process this summer a little bit. Well, I agree with that. And I think they're actually going to be here next week to go over that. So I think it would be a good time to talk with them about that. The, you know, sort of how it came about. So first I'll say for this year is actually if they took last year's funding and what had been approved by the voters, they're still below that total. So I think I believe they believe that's what they were working with, whether we said that to the monod of that. So I don't think they were just spending money. We just picked up the wrong number in this case. However, that said, the timing has always been because this is the time of year when people would be going to town meeting votes. And the thought was if these are going to be awarded, we want these decisions made soon enough so that they can be listed in the annual report so people can see where the money is going. But we also, it also kind of runs right up against our budget cycle. For a couple of years, we actually tried to give them a number early, but that also meant that basically the council has picked that one budget and out of all the rest, and then it became unchangeable, which was, you know, fine too, but it was whatever. So I think you're right, there's- Well, they get their applications done in August or deadline is in August, so we could get this in the fall. But the question I think that Rosie's raising is how much money, since it's, it's not like they're starting and going, it's not like we're giving them this much money for next year and then they're saying, okay, this is how much we have to award, they get the applications, they come in, but then- They don't know what total they have to work with. I know, but after the application come in, they can come in and have a dialogue with us and we can decide on a total. That's what I'm saying, because they get them in August, whether they need a full month in September. Right. So you can talk to them and you can really decide then what you want it to do. Then they'd have a number to review them. And I think there's a lot of ways we could do that and you're right, and we, you know, we're not going to decide that tonight, but they are coming in next week or at the next meeting, so yeah, this next week. Make the case that we should not necessarily have that conversation next week. We can talk about it as being a problem, but let's set it aside as its own item to figure that out. We're not going to solve it. Is that okay? Sure. Okay. And then- Thank you for reading that. One additional option potentially is to pre-fund the following year to each year, say next year, we're going to set up the fund amount at this amount. I think that would just require double funding one year. One year you need to be extra. Yeah, right. One year you need to take that hit. So we can move on from that, but it just- We'll just take a few miles and just- Okay. So other items that are in, was effectively last year's budget. I got some more that normally I would have just sent to Bill as questions and I didn't get together to do that. So these are just random. I don't actually know what the veteran's tax credit is. It's in with a sprinkler tax credit and I'm- I don't know what that means and what we do with that. Yeah. So there's an exemption given to veterans that own property in the city of Montpelier for the first $10,000.  So your assessed value becomes 190. And essentially because we're giving as a community that exemption to veterans, the rest of the population picks up the difference that would be cut, is lost by that. And how do we communicate that to the public, or to potential beneficiaries that's available? That is a good question is not exactly my area. I'd have to reach out to the assessor's office to find out what the process is from application to- I believe veterans associations let veterans know that they can do that. It's a pretty standard practice across the state, but the intricacies of that, I can get to those answers. It is an application they put in. I believe so, yes. And it was just voter approved. So I would just want to make sure that we make it very apparent to everybody who's eligible that, you know, we have a benefit that everyone knows about. Absolutely. I- let's see. Oh, I wanted to ask about pilot. There's an assumption that pilot will be the same as this current year, which was higher than past years, and I wanted to know how confident we are of that. Like, was this a one-time increase, or do we know? It's been steadily going up. What our practice has been to budget the actual from the year before, and historically, we actually ended up getting a windfall. We've got- we've actually collected more. So that's been a pretty reliable practice. The reason I say that, I mean, there will come a time, you know, if we were to hit 100%, then it wouldn't go up any further, but we're about 80, some 100% right now. But because it's tied to the local options taxes, as more communities join the system or take that on, then more revenues go into that fund. And as sales increase and those kinds of things, you know, as those revenues increased, all the pilot towns see increases. So it's been- it's been slowly creeping up year to year, but we've always tried to not guess that it will go up. We've tried to stay for the prior year as a base. Okay, great. So we're pretty confident on that. But we don't feel like it's- like- No, I'm confident it'll be that number at least. Okay. I wanted to talk for a minute about the sprinkler tax credit, noting that we give it for every building that has it, and now that we've amended our ordinance, we- for new buildings are only requiring it kind of at the- generally at the state- buildings that we required by the state to have it already. So I just want to throw that on the table as maybe we want to think about, is there a way to take that away for public buildings? What would the policy impact be? Because when we think about- Actually, I know that you're always very concerned about giving, you know, the largest property owners in town a break. This is a significant one, and so do we want to put our money there? Just- I don't have strong opinions, but I wanted to put it on the table as something I think- So I'd counter that a little bit, and I know we have some firefighters here that might want to comment on it in the Chief. First of all, I think we'd believe that anything that creates an incentive for people to have and maintain a sprinkler is a good thing, and obviously some are required. But we- you know, we had a fire on State Street not very long ago that was put out by a sprinkler in a wooden building with residents in there, and it was happening at night when we got no call in support, and yet we were able to take care of it. Instead of the cost of fighting that fire with firefighters, you know, had it been a full blaze, it would have been astronomical compared to what the credit that that building got. And so part of the theory is that the people that have buildings, sprinkled buildings are putting less risk and demand on our fire department than my house is, than because if I have a fire, I don't have a sprinkler system, and so it could be a worse situation. So I think the theory when it went in was, you know, those that are reducing their own impact on firefighting services, you know, that's sort of being picked up by the rest of us who haven't reduced that risk. And I agree with that. The only thing I'm thinking about is the buildings that would have been required under state law anyway to get a sprinkler. We're also, they're benefiting as well, and is there a way, and I'm not sure there is, to separate out those buildings and not give the credit for those buildings, and this is not a decision we can probably make in this year's budget process, but... And it would be a charter change, too. Well, actually, well, no, I don't know. The charter allows us to give the credit. We could change it, right? Okay. The another one I wanted to just think about for a second is there were a number of small line items that go towards kind of general downtown promotions, such as the Holiday Lights, the Winter Festival, those sorts of things. And I wanted to kind of toy with the idea of maybe, because the function of those things is to promote downtown and the downtown businesses, would we want to think about taking those items and putting them under Montpelier Alive? And then if Montpelier Alive feels that these are things that really are helping downtown businesses, they could continue to make those expenditures. If they think the money would be better spent somewhere else, they could do that instead. Again, I don't feel strongly about it. I just wanted to, it's an idea, and I wanted to put it on the table and think it out. It would be, again, us delegating some decision-making about... They essentially handled that for us anyway, Natalie. Yeah, but some of those events, they decided not to do and wouldn't get done if they weren't in the city budget. Well, it's going to be an interesting question, because what I, create me if I'm wrong, but I'm understanding you is saying that not necessarily changing the dollar amounts, but just where it's, like, how it's allocated. So, like, Winter Carnival, or Winter Festival. Celebration. I had to think back and think, what is it? Because I honestly have never been to it. Like, it's not an event that's made a big impression on me. Maybe it's made a big impression on other people. So, if Montpelier alive in the downtown businesses felt like that was really, that helps us out a lot, they could continue to do it. If they felt like it didn't, then it would, you know, they could take that money and do some other promotion event. Just, in the short time I was on their board as a Visitor, they had some staff. They don't yet have a full-time director. I mean, it's still part-time. Dan's full-time. Well, he's about 30 hours, I think, the increase of 10,000 were put into that. Anyway, I think he's full-time. And so they always had a staff pinch with some of them, and hence they didn't want to do them. Not that they didn't think they were worthy. They just had to calculate what was their priorities with their staff needs. So, I have a little hesitation, but it's a good discussion. I agree. I would also want to get Dan's input on that before we made that kind of change, but that feels like the kind of thing that, you know, we could, well, I guess if we approve this budget, then... We can allocate it however we want. Okay, well, fair enough then. So, that's still a possibility. What's this in line? Right, if we approve it as, this is $3,000 for a winter festival. But we can change that. This is really, essentially the appropriation you're approving is the Community Enhancements Line, which is showing you how we calculate that so people can see it, so we try to show all those sorts of things. I mean, actually, to be completely honest here, the Council is actually just approving the bottom line. No, but I mean, really, and then it's managed. So, but obviously... Further questions? I just wanted to comment that I thought the DPW performance measures were excellent. I noticed there's a number of new ones on there, and I just really applaud them for that work and hope that some of the other agencies can follow suit. We're trying. Say that louder. Other than that, I think that was everything I had to say about the stuff. You single-handedly dispelled me. Nobody reads them. Somebody reads them. I love them. They were such, you know, for each area, they were three or four. They were really measurable, and they really get at that, what are we doing, and how well are we doing it? So, that's great. Thomas, I have a poster to have. That's all. And he's not even here. Jeff. I just got a Facebook message from someone. Saying that the person is viewing the city council meeting at the moment. There is video, but no audio. I think we have a computer assistant. They're trying to fix it. Okay. So my understanding is it's being recorded and there will be audio in the post-production. Okay. Further comments about this portion of the budget? Jack and then Glenn. I had a couple of things that I noticed. One, in going over the line items, I noticed a number of points where it seemed like there were big reductions in health insurance expenses. And maybe not an overall reduction, but, you know, in a certain department, all of a sudden we're spending $13,000 or something less. Is that simply because of personnel? The finance director won an argument with the city news. So for years, we've always allocated health insurance costs based on a blended cost for single, two-person family based on FTEs, or full-time equivalent employees. This year, I tried to push our software system to the next level so that it would calculate a lot of these benefits and costs related to the budget automatically. In doing that, it's not so much in love with an FTE cost versus an actual health insurance cost. So in some departments, if you, you know, if every one was $14,000 a year as an FTE, this year when we actually look at family plans versus single plans, that may have driven up or down the individual line item. But overall costs, they have shifted very little across the budget as a whole. It's just, it's picking up more of the actual costs in each of the departments based on the, who's subscribed to what level of service. Okay, let me say. Yeah, and the reason we don't like it from a budget perspective is that it's not, you know, we provide a plan for employees regardless of what, you know, what their dependents are.  But so, you know, we thought if everyone counts exactly the same in health insurance, then there's no winning and losing in a particular department as far as, you know, there's no budget advantage. And so we're still working at keeping it that way, that, you know, it's because we want people to hire the best people on what their health insurance cost is. But for this year's budget, at least we did it this way because of the software. Also avoids... We don't know if we go up or down this way. Depends on when's the argument next year. That also protects us against discriminating against people with family status and stuff. Yeah, but I think it's just really, I think it gives a more accurate cost of the delivering the service. You know, if you have 17 police officers, let's say, and it all costs the same per unit, and that's what it really costs us to deliver the service. Not if you happen to have 17 that are all single or 17 that all have kids, you know, it's just, it's a better way of looking. I mean, as long as that information is not a part of the hiring process, then... Oh no, it wouldn't be necessarily. A more accuracy, more precision feels... Well, in the challenge on the budgetary side, I agree with Bill's concept, 100 percent. And I would love to know, but I would love to... And we may come back to the FDE allocation from my perspective, when we start making changes, even minor changes in salary and benefit line items, it has a ripple effect throughout the budget that is pretty monumental. So it's not just if you reduce someone's wages by $1,000, it's reducing their retirement, it's reducing their fight, it's reducing their unemployment, it's reducing where workers come. So all those things, and then if they're an allocated employee that works in more than one department or fund, for instance, you could have that split. So I'm trying to eliminate the amount of manual labor that goes into making what appears to be minor administrative changes. I would highlight there is an option to support universal health care for everyone. We were big supporters of things. I know. Anything for the change? Yes. First off, while we're still on insurance, I know that there are some employers who offer financial incentives to employees to opt out of their insurance. That's my employer does that. Have we looked at doing that? We do offer currently an incentive or a buy-on provision. It's $31.20 per year or whatever that works out to over 26 pay periods of flat number, where if they have evidence of coverage through a spouse or other means, and we would offer that in lieu of health insurance. Great. And that is included in the health insurance line, I know. I also had a question about unemployment because I noticed lines about unemployment compensation. Are we a reimbursable employer or a taxable employer? We are a, you're going to catch me on the side, believe it's a reimbursable definition. Yes. We only pay out when we have someone who has claims. Correct. Okay, that's reimbursable. Our total premium has continued to decline since the financial issues of 2008 or whatever. So I think our total premium for this year is right around $4,000 for the entire city. So it's pretty minor. Okay. Thanks. First, I want to say that this was really hard for me to read because a lot of it is beyond me. And I did try and I got some help from Kate and one of the things that she noted, I should follow up with the rest of them later, is under the sewer fund. I'm curious about the, it looks like from the revenues in fiscal year 18, actually we got something like twice what we budgeted in tipping revenue, 670 to 1.1. Should we be expecting that again? Should we be changing that? So that in FY 18, we budgeted about 650 or $675,000 in septage and leachate revenue in actuality that exceeded a million dollars in FY 18. But the reason we had budgeted a lower amount was we were anticipating work to have begun on the aging infrastructure project. When we did the budget at this time last year, so we were anticipating construction starting during some period of the year, which was going to diminish our capacity to accept that material, coupled with cleaning of the digester clarifiers because you have to put those out of commission doing that work. So there was a hesitation to budget at the same level that we had been receiving revenue because we thought we would not hit that mark in hindsight. We exceeded it, but we're looking at a similar reduction in revenue anticipated for FY 20. Because of the work being done. Okay. Any further questions about the, basically? Yeah, one more, but I don't want to. So I did notice on the council breakdown and the managers breakdown, both have line items for advertising that seemed high to me. I don't have a good sense of what, but I know that we advertise our agendas and committee vacancies and stuff. But I was not sure why it was listed in both places and how all that. Just the numbers intrigued me there. Sure. I asked the guy about his own budget. They didn't know. Jamie really manages that part of it. But they, so basically, as I understand it, the council portion is for meeting advertisements, legal notices, the things related to council advertising for committees. The managers one is when we're for job ads or anything else that we, you know, any other kind of notices or ads or if we put something in about fall pickup or those different types of other publications. So that's how she divides them out. Okay. There's no real, I mean, I think it's really all one in the same, but it's the way we always done it. So that's not a good answer. That's why I said it. Funny. Thank you. Just, this is a public record since it's a text on official business. But on Rosie's point there, until you're alive through Dane Groveburg is no problem with funds being allocated to be used at their discretion versus specific items. Example, the line fall, Winter Festival was used for moonlight madness this year. Oh. Just the cleft notes of what he might say if he comes in here. He says the sound's working fine, so. I was going to say, he must have heard the sound if he gave you the answer. Okay. Are we ready to move on to the next section? To you. Is this where public comment time is going to be? Yep, I was going to, because if we are, then I'll, I guess I would just put on the table that the $1,000 USS Montpelier line item, my understanding is that that's Montpelier's contribution towards the hotel rooms for the members of the, for the sailors on the USS Montpelier to come be in our parade. I don't love the idea that we're charging Montpelier citizens extra money to pay for the U.S. military to put their members in a parade. I feel like that should come from the U.S. military, but I understand that that's a touchy subject and that some other people may feel very strongly about it, but I wanted to put it out there. I know it's just $1,000, but. And I had mentioned this to Rosie earlier. I have some similar concerns about it, but one of the things that I do particularly like is that it's an opportunity for the sailors to come and see Montpelier, the community for which they're on. But I also wonder if it might be a better or maybe a more community accessible thing to turn it into some sort of like party that the city goes to. I know that there's like a barbecue. I think that happens. You know, if something like that would make, it would make me certainly feel more comfortable using taxpayer money for that, but I'm also assuming that they probably stay at the capital plaza, which I think might raise some. Room to Meals Tax. Questions. Well, I think, but I think also, you know, given the project that's ongoing and I realize that, you know, there are business in the community, but I just, I think it's important and I wasn't picking up what you were. But yes, I had raised these concerns to you and I know that there's a committee, I guess that addresses this, but I just, I can think of ways to sort of bring the community into this that benefits everyone and not just sort of going to help defray the cost of. I'll just weigh in that, you know, I think that is in practicality how it's been used. The initial funding was simply to aid in actually even the museum upstairs and the whole U.S.-S. Montpelier effort in our relations with the hotel and to bring people up. And so, excuse me, did I say hotel? I meant the sub, I'm sorry, the sub. I'm sorry, the submarine. I'm sorry, it was a slip. And, you know, they were people, there are other sources of funding obviously for us, so the city contributed $1,000 for them to participate. I think as a matter of practice, the committee that steers it just uses, that's what they use, it's fours room, but it could have been for, you know, food or any number of other things. The idea was to build a connection. I'm going to crop in and see the city. And the VFW, the FW opposed to the American Legion are the primary sponsors of these activities and the visits and they're the ones that provide, you know, coordination of schedules and meals and all the other things that go along with, you know, hotel stays. And it, you know, it is a community connection that I think is held strongly, especially within the veteran community. And I'm not advocating one way or another. And if I may, I believe you were able to experience some time with the sailors as well, when they were in the community. So there's a lot of different elements to it. Yeah. In fact, several years ago before security was as tight as it is now, the former mayor and police chief spent a week on this. I guess I would say to me, it feels a little bit like a recruiting activity. And I feel like if the US government wanted to pay for it, great, we would be happy to have them. But I'm not really sure why we would pay for it. But it's a thousand dollars. So I would love to keep it. I would love to also maybe talk about how it's spent, but that's also, I think, a discussion for that committee. I hear you on the recruitment aspect of it, but I think it's equally as much for the sailors themselves. It's just a nice thing for them to have a connection to the place where they're sensibly representing. So anyway, people have further thoughts on that. Is this the kind of thing that other places do also? Is this unique to Montpelier to other places where there's a connection with... I don't know how many ships are named after others. Yeah, I don't know. I know there's a new USS Vermont, because they were also here this year. It was their first time. It's not your commission. It's not your commission. Right, and the plan for them is to rotate them around different places. In Vermont, they wanted to start in the capital. But I don't know about others. You know, I come from a shipbuilding town, so we had to sell it to them. Do you want to make a motion about that? Can we direct the committee? So they can in essence reallocate the funds so that those funds aren't being used to pay? I think you want to have that conversation with them. I wouldn't want to make a motion without including them in that dialogue. They've been serving that committee for a long time, and they deserve the nod of conversation. I don't need to make a motion on that tonight. I'm not getting the sense that anyone else feels strongly about this, so... I have to say I haven't thought about it much until you pulled it up, but I see your point and I think that it's definitely worth thinking about it at least. I mean, how much is the U.S. military budget at the moment? I think it's large, and I don't know that we need to help that personally as a city. I think the city has its own things to do, so I also don't feel ready to move anything, but I think it's... I want to say thanks for bringing it up at least. So maybe somebody can mention to the committee that we're... We can go. And Bill, would you communicate? Oh, we certainly will. Absolutely. There's some question about it, and maybe they can speak to us at one of the hearings. Sure. Any other potential changes to the core budget? Okay, comments from the public on the core budget? Okay. I'm going to take it as though we're running to move on. I'm just giving my budget. This section is the additions to the base budget in meeting the strategic goals. This includes things like additional CIP funding, the new police officer increase to housing trust funds, new full-time tree management, ashore staff, facility director starting in April 2020 with their associated budget amounts. So we have a finite number of things to talk about in this section relative to what's proposed here. Would anybody like to make any changes or have questions or et cetera? Yeah. I'd like to put something on the table. I was talking to a number of people the last couple weeks here, and the idea came up, and I think it's been discussed in previous councils, which may have been the catalyst for raising the salary. I think you worked on that, Rosie, a bit. Just the idea that, you know, you want any citizen of Montpelier to be able to come up here and sit in our meetings and weigh in. I think that's tremendously important.  And I've noticed other municipalities do have a program like this where there would be childcare provided at certain meetings. I don't think we could flesh out a whole program in the time we have, but I'd like to get the ball rolling, and I was just doing some math on the back of a napkin. To get, like, you know, I think a licensed childcare provider, you could probably do it for about $20 an hour if you're figured in about 24 meetings a year. It would come out to about $2,000. What I'm struggling with, things that I think would be on the table, where would you put everybody, you know? Can we put them in a conference room? If there was just, like, one kid or something, would that be worth doing for the meeting? And then what about the other boards, like the DRB, some of these other ones who have been doing some real heavy lifting recently? I think I'd still like to put some money aside to try it out with a cap of $2,000 on it to maybe put together a process in the next couple weeks where if somebody did need childcare, whether it be someone serving on a committee or someone in attendance, there would be a threshold, maybe, you know, two or three applications for this where we would provide childcare for them. I think it fits into civic engagement. I think it fits into the values of the city. And I don't think we want to be exclusionary. It was a step in the right direction by raising the council salaries to take that into consideration. But I think asking for $2,000 is modest enough to just make sure we send the message that, you know, we are open to everybody, you know, not just folks who have the luxury of having a time here for four hours a night here. So I'd like to put that on the table. I want to talk about that. I happen to support this idea. I also would love to talk about that in the next section. Is that okay? That's where I just put it. So I'll put it on. It's line 64 there, childcare at meetings. Just got added. Okay. So let's take that up in a little bit here. But for now, in just that green section, additions to the base budget, anything outside of that, I guess we throw in that yellow section still again. So any proposed changes to anything in this section? The only thing I wanted to mention in this section is I think we may, I may ask this at the last meeting or maybe we talked about it after, but I want to acknowledge that, you know, starting a facility director in April 2020 was then obligated for that full-time position in the following year. And so do we have any better numbers about what that... Well, we've estimated a full-time would be about $100,000 with benefits and everything. That's why the remainder of it is in the next section at 75. So we would be adding 75,000 to the following year's budget. So I don't know. It's making a future commitment. Not for it. I just want to... This is a nice thing that happened to the budget this year, but it doesn't happen next year. Right. You know, we were cognizant of that and that was... But it was just a way of trying to get it in and still keep a base budget at cost a little bit. So just you know how I'm thinking about that. For the green section here, this is... I'm thinking of this as at least starting them in April where we can talk about any sooner or anything additional in the next section. So is it at least this much? Doesn't that make sense? Yes, I'm just pointing out that it's also committing us for the following year to be a full-time. Well, that's really true of a number of the things in here. Like adding a police officer. We're not going to hire someone for one year. Right. But I think the point is that the police officer is going to be approximately the same amount next year whereas this one will be starting with a new increase. To be fair, it doesn't necessarily obligate us because the next council could do what they want but at least we can say that's the intent. It's in the base. I would actually make a proposal to change something here which is up in the first line there, additional CIP funding. We have proposed to increase the amount we're spending there by $50,000. This is the last step that we are taking towards fully funding infrastructure and I would actually propose that we break that up in two years and that we spend an additional $25,000 instead of $50,000 this year and then we'll have to add that remaining $25,000 to spread it out a little bit. And when you think about that, is there anything that we would be foregoing doing in the coming year? Probably. Anything can be done. But I would trust them to find whatever the right project was that could be put up. And so many of the things one year may not make or break it. If it is, then it's high priority and they're going to be doing it. I am intrigued but I'm also very cautious about doing that because the reason that we're doing this is we put off stuff for a long time. I hear you and the reason I'm feeling okay about it is it's still an increase. We're still making progress towards it. It's just, it's an 11-year, where it's like it's one year longer than... But the thing is, in my mind, it frees up money into the next section. Because I mean, I would like to not break the bank. I'm receptive to that suggestion. Oh, I'm getting some... I would like to hear some staff feedback. I mean, I guess my concern with this is like the improvements in the lights and the sidewalks and all of those. Those are like directly noticeable things along with the addition of staff and things like that. But I mean, these are things like from porch forum was lit for a while. And I think it's also like those are things that are what attract people to Montpelier so with all of the development that we have coming and I'm wary of cutting it now with the expectation that hopefully next year the council, whatever that body, whatever we look like next year will feel similarly that allocating that 25,000 is still a priority. Question on the process. Yes, we have the reserve fund, right? Do we set out more clearly like state budgets, right? There's a waterfall that does a certain amount in the reserve budget. Do you have priorities set out that you fund it if you have this much left over? Do we have any such waterfalls in the budget? No. I mean, we don't not establish that way. We do occasionally fund things out of one time money, out of reserve. For example, the money that Jeff was referring to that the council allocated this year that came from the reserve when we purchased the property on Country Club Road, that was a reserve type thing. So we do use that for those purposes but actually the general policies that we don't use the reserve to fund the operating budget will target to one time type purchases. I think we could just adjust that's there actually.  The LEDs aren't in there anymore. Right. Yeah, let's finish here. But yeah, I don't know if we could... I was hoping to have a vote on the budget tonight but we could get more feedback on if there are people that are interested in this idea we could find out what that would look like.  Oh yeah. Well, it's not... Technically, if we're really following the rules which are made to be broken you would vote to adopt the council's proposed budget and we would have two public hearings on that proposed budget and then you vote to finally adopt the budget that goes on the ballot. So if you said this is our draft budget our proposed budget and then we could come back and say well here's what we would change for $25,000 this is what we would adjust recommend to you or all God you can't do that then you have two public hearings. So you're not committing yourself necessarily you're saying here's what we're moving forward with. Would people generally in a straw boat sort of way feel comfortable moving forward with that assumption or not so much? The assumption that we will cut it unless we hear from staff that it's $25 instead of $50. It goes into $25 tonight with the possibility of change. That we could increase it later. Yeah, I would. You'd rather keep it at $50 now and then hear from staff. Because it's hard to... If we cut it and then say oh great we've got all this money to do this other stuff and then staff come back and say no we really can't then it's going to be harder to give up the other stuff. I mean true. I guess I would add that my priorities are with some of the other things. Ashley do you have something? Well I'm just looking and maybe I am misreading this it's entirely possible rules are not my best thing. But just in terms of like looking where the increases seem to be the street maintenance and construction there seems to be an increase there. As someone who lives on the State streets you know this has been like an ongoing thing with the water main there but I know that there are other streets that are in dire need as well and I know it's only $50,000 which is like the substantial sum of money but sort of compared to the grand scheme of the entire city budget it's not that large these are the kinds of things that you really get a lot out of your investment in terms of like visible, tangible things like people are complaining about there's a pothole can you fix this and instead of saying well it's on our list hopefully we'll get the funding to address this next year those are things that we can respond to we can take care of obviously understanding that emergencies would be taken care of you know either way but it just seems like to me the $50,000 puts us in a place where those things can be addressed they can not be sort of deferred any longer which I can't believe I'm the one saying like don't procrastinate because that's like my best thing but it just strikes me that those are immediate things that people actually see and can appreciate immediately and I think you know to me I think there's a lot of benefit in that when we see all of the feedback that we see on front porch forum or facebook or twitter or you know it's generally about things that you can see right now I just want to be mindful that sometimes addressing those now rather than deferring even though you know we may be able to allocate that money differently right now doesn't sort of generate the same kind of return on investment the only thing about the road compares and actually it's like with east state can't be done even with the $50,000 because it's a major utility street and so the streets that are the worst are the worst because they're going to be so expensive they've got to be dug down to the baseline utilities replaced and so then you're tying in with grants and all sorts of federal state local dollars so it's not the $50 isn't going to unfortunately help the worst problems right and the priorities in fixing the roads is much more complicated than the $50 can handle I know I told and I totally appreciate that I think that was just that happened to be my sort of like every street that's been put off has a reason so within the CIP there's all sorts of measurements of why this street is being left to get really bad because it's got to be totally invested in this street even though it was just done it's now being redone because we want to maintain the goodness so it's more complicated that's all I just I just want to give you it's a much more complicated picture I'm going to move on unless one of you indicates to me that you are changing amount of time move on with what assumption? that it's 25 instead of 50 I would, no I would I guess I would like to keep it at 50 I think she was counting nods I thought you were looking right at me no I'm looking at you I'm with the mayor you have to change your mind keeping an open mind we can take it away we can take it away that's true any further changes to this green section? okay comments from the public on this section let's give it a little longer than that that's fair I think it's the adults okay fair enough alright we're going to move on how are you all doing? Do you need a break? another break okay we're going to take a break and we'll be back and talk about the last section where'd he go? so I don't know where Bill went I don't get it Bill Marco hello I hate people that I'm not looking for that want to answer me in this talk because I'm like oh you're not my person okay so we're going to come back from our we want it all through the fire station fire pole? that's what I told them we'll give you the extra firefighter but you have to do the daycare and they were all for it so we have a deal before we get into the chart that we just developed I would like to observe just a starting point for discussion who came up with that idea of the chart? the teacher amongst us silly person alright so I would actually love to start with public comments if there are things that people would like to weigh in on or questions people would like to ask we're going to start there do you remember the public? hi my name is Kate Stevenson I'm the chair of the energy advisory committee and I have questions about facilities director position which I'm really excited about something we've been talking about for years and just want to get a little bit of clarity around what the rationale was behind the idea of starting it in 2020 I'll just give my a couple of different questions and then maybe Bill or other staff can respond so the rationale behind this starting it only later what the position actually involves and whether it has an energy component at all or if it's only facilities and just what you envision it to include and then the other question was whether this budget that we had funded last this year 0.25 FTE for Steve Twombly and whether that stays consistent or that goes away with the addition of the new facilities director so those are a couple of my questions okay I can answer I think all three of them the first one was why the April 2020 start I mean the most direct answer just financial we were trying to stay within keep the overall budget within the 2.5% and so that was a way to get the position in the door and but not increase it that much this year but this the second thought behind it is that we've also proposed to we're seeking a planning grant and some matching funds to actually do an energy plan with you folks and thinking that well that might not be done immediately so there could be some time you know it's not optimal but that was sort of the rationale second part you asked about the duties of the position I mean we definitely think it has an energy component we see and we spent a long time as a team talking about this obviously we've got a lot of facilities ourselves that need to be taken care of and energy is one of the biggest things and we I think a lot of successes is thanks to you folks and we'd like to continue doing that and we're going to be adding a presumably a parking structure we're going to be adding potentially a new rec facility down the road you know it's not like we're going to have less facilities to be managed and we also have our district heat system which is being sort of operated by DPW but not really being managed and we see this is a person that could really help run that in the way it should be so those all have energy aspects we don't necessarily see this as a person that's going to know how to develop a strategic plan on energy but it might be a person that can help put it into place which is why we're suggesting the separate energy plan versus you know well we were hoping we were looking for a grant to get a planning grant to hire an energy consultant to work with your group but it would not be you folks doing it it would be drafted but obviously you'd be on top of that but then this person would be a key person to help implement that again I haven't thought it through and finally detail is you know at what point what we're doing out in the community is a person who's really good at making sure buildings run but of course everybody will get there and finally we do still have Steve in there in part because we had only recommended part-time funding at this point but also just because he has he's a huge asset and knows a lot about our buildings and those kinds of things so we we'd love that I think I answered your question so I just make a couple comments you know one in a recommendation to accelerate this and you know seems like there is potentially some interest in the part to push this forward to the start of FY 2020 but I just want to remind the council of the net zero 20 30 goal that you all adopted or that the council adopted back in 2014 and that was reinforced in the resolution this fall which you know just as a reminder that 20 30 is getting closer every day and so what the resolution called for was putting together this 10 year plan and so my concern about pushing this out till April of 2020 is just that it you know we lose that whole other year of starting to implement projects we haven't discussed it as a committee but my personal feeling is that I feel like whoever is in this role should be very involved in the development of the energy plan it shouldn't be something that is just like written by a consultant and then handed off to someone that has hired because as we have learned in the last year or two of implementing projects and getting the revolving loan fund off the ground like these projects are very detailed they require a lot of conversations with the city staff there is a lot of work that has to happen to kind of get them shovel ready and my concern about having a consultant come in and kind of doing this high level analysis is that they really have to have someone who can get down in the weeds and get into the details because the 10 year plan needs to have a lot more details for it to really have a chance of succeeding so you know energy planning grant great having a consultant to help wouldn't it be great to have the facilities director on board to work hand in hand with that consultant to really make a plan that's effective and something that we can really get going more quickly so those are just a few thoughts for me great thank you more comments yeah I'm Polly Nicol I'm co-chair of the housing task force not surprisingly I'm here to talk about the funding for the housing trust fund and first I wanted to express appreciation for the $75,000 recommendation that's the highest that's ever been recommended so not to be unbreakable but I also wanted to advocate for the additional funding for enough money to fund both Taylor street and the first time home buyers program and also to remind you that a month or so ago when you adopted the new policy governing the housing trust fund the process is that applications come in the advisory committee meets and makes recommendations to the council so it was a little taken aback to see recommendations targeted to specific projects or programs but anyway that's sort of on the side I'm sorry Polly do you mean the fact that we listed first home owners and the Christchurch separate they shouldn't be separate well the policy that you adopted says you get recommendations from the committee and then the decision is made about what it goes for not that it kind of works so I'll just take the blame for that I understood that was the basis for the funding request so I just tried to make sure when we were recommending breaking funding it made logical sense to go with what had been requested so if that was not right then certainly the council could put whatever number they wanted there and whatever we approved should not necessarily be a mandate to fund a particular project or not okay thank you for that so I also just wanted to tell you I had a conversation that I had with Eileen Paltier from Down Street who couldn't be here tonight because I asked her we're both of these programs really important to Down Street and she said yes and she said although they obviously want the money for Taylor Street because it's come from them so far and it will come out of their development I'm sorry by Taylor Street do you mean what we're referring to as Christchurch the 75th the additional the part that's already approved but she said that home buying in Montpelier has been absolutely crazy this past year that they've never seen anything like it and I think this might be a slight exaggeration but she said a house goes on the market and people get there within five minutes and make an offer and the first time home buyers program has really made it possible for people of modest means to have a chance to buy a home in Montpelier because it's just so tight and the planning office did a survey of existing users of the program so this is a little bit old but in the survey 75% of the people said it was absolutely essential either absolutely essential to their ability to buy a home in Montpelier and for that other 25% I think maybe tweaks could be made so we're not giving money to people who absolutely don't need it the other thing Eileen said is which is kind of shocking is that the housing affordability situation in Montpelier has actually gotten worse in spite of everything that's been done because the demand is just so great and I wish I had cut out the article but there was when Asiana House and another business closed there was an article either in the bridge and one of the reasons cited was difficulty in finding employees and one of the reasons cited as difficulty for finding employees was lack of housing so I mean you all know where I'm coming from but I think it's really an important investment in Montpelier for a lot of reasons and I would urge you to fund it at a higher level thank you anyone else so looking at the lists that we have up there I don't want to understand all of those to necessarily be votes but as a place to start discussion so I mean if we were just counting up of X's X's it would seem that at least the Christ Church one has the most is that a fair assessment so it seems like that one would probably pretty much all in agreement Donna what's your half on that the amount that was listed here I was going to cut it in half so 10,000 yeah 10,000 but you wanted oh you didn't do first half and looks like you've got six for arts synergy half funding do you want to make a case for half the Christ Church well I wanted to give it something but I wanted to give other things something too to get them like the art project to me is really important that we start an art fund as a placeholder to build on so that's the other priorities is it safe to put an X for the full amount for the Christ Church line so I think we can put that one in got it I'm on it so that's 25 okay 20 actually we're on 9 so one hypothesis is that we can start from the top and work our way down another hypothesis is that we can go with there's a bunch of things that have 4 X's some even have 5 X's should we talk about it in that art synergy of just 6 oh did I miss that oh the half oh yeah okay so is everybody down with art synergy at at least half so we can safely which nods there okay so we're going to put our next one out parks so one of the things that's confusing to me about this here team is that the second line new parks part time position only had 2 X's but the full time position had 5 and that is illogical because the point of the way this was split up was that I'm going to get this wrong 20,000 well it just meant they wanted to go straight to the right time if you want it for the full time then you definitely have to work for that so is it true that if you put an X by the full time new parks position that you also are intending to put an X by basically you want to fund it at 55,000 rather than 30 and if assuming we're going in not knowing what other people's votes were we'd be saying well I'll go for the full thing but if there aren't enough votes for the full time position I would go for a half so I thought that was like a one you could vote one time and if you voted for the half if you voted for the half you wouldn't support funding the whole but if you voted for the whole you'd support either okay that was a different understanding than mine reading the situation but I understand what you're saying so is so I think that's a yes so I think that's a lot of people being very interested in this in the full time new parks positions is that correct so one hypothesis team is that if we go through this we might end up with where anybody's votes contingent on like well actually I'm just going to keep going let's talk about the facilities director there are five X's by that one so I feel that it may be more honest and budget impact wise to actually fund it at the full time level so this is one that I have less of a problem than others with just because I mean really that's what we're committing ourselves to the next council is not going to cut this position after somebody's been there for a quarter of a year they just didn't mind so that could happen I'm sorry just to be clear there was enough support of that anyway to go we're at 3.8 let's see isn't that the one we're looking at 4.3 cents and 4% okay is this one here at the bottom 3.8% I gotta tell you team my hope was to not get to 4 so the budget was 3.8% the tax rate would be almost 4 cents so 4.4% tax increase sorry what this is the budget increase 3.8% this is the tax rate almost 4.4 cents this is the percent of tax rate increase 4% right there so the total budget increase percentages lower than the tax rate percentage increase again I was hoping to not hit 4 well you can put it all in and start taking them out so those the things that we've just talked about are relatively big items the remainder might not actually make that much of a difference like mob killer live at 10,000 I'm trying to think what else has what else has mob killer live only has 3.5 votes sorry which one only has 3 mob killer live okay yep oh so we could interesting that's well do you want to talk about family care because that has 4 actually I need to go up there I have to write on this I'm not sure that this was the best solution here team you don't like your wife I don't know I'm not sure how I feel about it we can talk about it okay so what have we talked about we need to either mic this or have the camera or something there you go okay great alright so what have we talked about I just need to like I need to just mark this off visually so we've talked about this one and we've talked about this one and this one new parks position we talked about that we talked about this anything else is that right correct but I think it's fair to say that full funding is off the table for arts energy because almost every yeah five people said yay to half funding actually I'm just going to leave it yeah no we've so we've decided something about that so we have to talk about it mark it you said half down below okay you wait to hear the fourth vote on something and you won't give it unless you get here okay well the next one that has the highest amount is the family care well maybe some of those amounts can't be half maybe they have to be more adjusted we looked at family care and developed a policy this year and funding next I would also just point out the city doesn't have paid like parental leave either so we've used vacation time but there's no like actual parent leave so like if you have if you have a baby or adopt or you grow your family or you're dealing with caring for a loved one you have to use your other time it's not like some organizations actually offer like a separate kind of leave paid family leave as opposed to using your vacation or sick time you just don't pay all of this well we don't pay she's right that we don't right you use your leave time so it depends on who so if you are a woman and you give birth then you do get disability pay whatever is allowed for that period of time and then you can supplement that with your leave time if you're not if you're taking paternal leave or if you have adoptive leave then you have to use your leave time or if you have a sick person you're allowed the 12 weeks and we can use sick time correct and we allow you to use sick time and most people have pretty high sick time it's a broader conversation to me which is why I didn't put an X on there because it's something I think I had asked about it a while ago but there have been so many other things but it's something that a lot of people have approached me about and asked does the city offer this and you can most other unfortunately employers around in the United States that's not a separate kind of leave it's just you can use whatever you've accrued actually I'm supportive of this idea I didn't put an X next to it because I was under the impression that your committee the social and economic justice committee was going to consider what it would take to provide childcare at meetings and I don't know have you got a chance to discuss that or is that even on your no we're sort of in flux a little bit right now so we're trying to navigate just a new committee and sort of what that looks like it's actually on the council agenda for next week to talk about about the charge I wanted to be a bigger conversation with the city though about what the city is doing like generally with regard to like fostering family growth and development and as an employer you know how we can better support that but isn't that something that comes up at contract time for those employees that the specific line item I would see applying to members of the public who wanted to come or maybe employees in the case of anybody here had children they would make sure they had them watched while they were spending their time in a meeting late hours with us so I see it as a bit of a pilot if you want to take my eggs off it and wait till June 30th 2020 to actually have anything allotted to this I think this would be a good trial period other cities if schools are closed in the area they provide childcare for all their employees during those days so I think this is pretty modest in comparison to a proposal like that but I think it sends a message that we actually do support civic engagement of people coming out to these meetings you can hear the crickets right now but maybe it would result in higher turnout I'm supportive of it but I just want to have a discussion about what we're actually going to do when I feel like we haven't thought, we haven't taken the time to develop this a little bit more so I just happen to look up and see what other cities Pittsburgh actually offers this but it's offered for a limited number of meetings at up to 20 city-sponsored community meetings per year such as budget meetings or public hearings they also offer it for employees, city employees when there are snow days but so there are templates that exist so I maybe I should add an accent I misinterpreted, I thought you were speaking for council members only so like if a council member had a childcare-related issue but if it's open to everyone but it could be something for anybody who was attending the meetings yes okay that changes I would put an X for that I didn't understand it that way but I would put an X for that and with the cap of 2000 I mean it is also just $2,000 $2,000 and FY 2020s we have a little time to figure out some details before we even start spending right probably grants that it takes somewhere here so quick I understand it's not like tomorrow I want to move to talking about Montpelier live we have three and a half votes I would want to suggest it looks like Donna has done a partial amount for Montpelier live I think they asked for $10,000 I thought the request was fairly reasonable but I want to throw a partial amount on the table there I can get behind a partial amount I understand it's been level-funded for about 20 years that's right almost since its inception the DID the DID changed and we did bump it up it was a flat 20 and then they went up to 22 to cover some costs that were essentially recharging them so we'll sort of pay you and you pay us back but I think it was for that specific purpose I think it was to pay their parking and their copy or fee or something can we just make the point they think they're doing a lot for one staffer who's not working 40 hours a week and getting those extra hours would make a big difference I'm on the board there's a lot of emails flying back and forth on that board so with Dan having a newborn kid and everything he's got a lot of pressure you went the full 10 what would it take five the only reason that I didn't include that as a priority it just I'm feeling a little like there's a lot of overlap between things and I think Montclair Alive does the thing that we all want our city to do and to have but I'm struggling with is there are other other entities other groups other organizations I think the council just recently even approved you know one group forming a 501C3 that does similar things and so it just it seems like there are other funding options out there and I want the city to support Montclair Alive but I also feel like the city is putting lots of money in other places that do similar type things and I feel like Montclair Alive does it best and so I would like to fund Montclair Alive at the fuller rate but I just feel like there are so many other places that are requesting city funds that are kind of to me duplicating efforts and allocating funds to organizations that do similar things and so I just I don't I don't feel like I know enough about like how all of these other things tie in because Montclair Alive seems to put on all these other things but then these other organizations are contributing and so if the money is coming from the city like why isn't it all just going to Montclair Alive? So I I'll try to answer that Montclair Alive was formed by the city to be and they are designated downtown promotion entity and so we have they are the ones who are charged for example with managing the downtown improvement district funds and those sorts of things and put on events doesn't mean they're exclusive somebody else wants to put on a downtown event and they can although they usually coordinate with Montclair Alive and they communicate with us they're basically our partner for downtown sustainability it's not just events it's a lot of the other things that they do to try to they work on things though the Montclair Foundation that you refer to we have actually never put money into that they are formed to get fundraising and specifically for project so for example the downtown Montclair Alive could go to the foundation to seek funding to build to put in benches or to put in a statue or something like that so they could work in tandem with one another but it doesn't mean that they're exclusive and we have the Montclair Development Corporation which is really intended to implement the economic development strategic plan and in fact when it was set up it was set up that I think five of the board members were appointed by the city council and four by Montclair Alive so there would be there would be a coordination between groups so that there was not you know they weren't stepping on each other's toes and I think that's worked pretty successfully and I don't know who else might be in that mix so I'm not sure you should pick whatever funding level but I do think Montclair Alive has certainly been a worthwhile partner and you're right they've been level funded for a long time with the exception of the DID that does give them but they don't use that specifically do not use that for any staff operating costs that all goes to like advertising for downtown or specific you know we get a budget for DID money and approve it each year and it doesn't include their overhead they're not allowed to use DID money appropriate we've never allowed them the council but they could put it in their budget when they were here before I was amazed they had no administrative cause attached to DID and I think that had been the expectation of at least the prior council when DID went in was it was going to be a direct investment to the downtown since the downtown you know the downtown businesses and buildings are taxed that extra money so it wasn't you know we're just going to I think there was some concern amongst the cities in the downtown that you're going to raise the taxes on our buildings and it's just going to pay for more city staff even though they're not really city staff so the commitment was it's going to be we will give you a direct budget for how that money's used and it will be marketing money and that kind of stuff so I'm not saying what's right or wrong I'm trying to explain what happened I'm just sort of thinking along the lines of why not build it us give you extra money to do the DID I think you should be part of that if you your version is just a little bit different than mine here if you add an X to the monthly or live line I want to see if that increases the 3.8 of course that's good so team I'm in a place where like how should I say this when we put all of our X's up there that's sort of like our initial thoughts right and then some things might have got like more votes than or more X's I should say than perhaps we individually voted for right so I don't know if you have a cap but my hope is to keep it below 4 around 3.5 was kind of my goal and so while I have an X next to Montpelier live I I mean I might just erase it because I yeah because that that is also a goal that I have and if that's but knowing that we could build it into DID well and the other pieces also like we mentioned earlier taking those community enhancements funds and giving them to Montpelier live and saying if you think the best use of this is more staff time versus an event or whatever yeah right I don't know is there going to be any regulatory or statutory reason we can't do that no I don't think so but you know they still have to fund raise I mean the cost for example of July 3rd I mean our $3,000 whatever is it you know a pittance compared to the money they raised so if they choose to use that for staff that's $3,000 they've got to raise from that event elsewhere I don't know about the winter or the whatever they used it for this year that was just something that's been in there and I think they have had a little bit of discretion on how they use that but I mean I think I would be more comfortable with doing that can I ask a question okay so Dan's hours are going up 5 a week that doesn't necessarily secure them you might have to stay at 30 hours a week right I mean that would be a decision of the board I don't know how they're planning to finance you know I don't know that the $20,000 that we give them funds him now I think but I'm not that familiar with their budget so how about I could maybe do 5 now and then find 5 from DID would that put 5 under it's still 3.9 so are you talking about budget when you say 3.9 you're talking about budget or tax rate she's talking about budget the deadline just be sure because they are different numbers yeah right because we're at 4.9 so the 3.9 we haven't taken out 3.9 is the budget this is the number of cents on the tax rate and that's the percent of the tax rate so we're at just under 4.5 cents and a 4.1 percent tax increase so the way you count it we are over 4 well I depends which number we're at 3.9 4.5 or 4.1 piece of data you want most people look at the tax rate hold on the 4 yeah you're saying to cut from 25 to 10 maybe I'll argue that I can also put that there well there's a first half and a second half you reached 25 you reached 25 so there's no no X next to this one so it's only 25 and not right this is actually the column this one right here that's being added that's the request so so Donna has made a suggestion that we look at reducing arts energy because when I said half of the 25 that was listed there I was thinking closer to 10 to 12 I thought 25 was half of their ass though right I know but when I put half I meant half of the 25 I got you okay so you want to fund it as like three quarters one quarter yeah in my pieces anyway I just rounded off to 10 yeah so half of the 12 and a half she rounded it down just like month of your life what is the tax rate increase if we're at 10 well as I recall our our tax revenue is roughly 10 million dollars so every 10,000 is a 10% yeah it's more like about nine almost 10 yeah but we can look we're our arts energy so you want to put that at 10,000 you said hire the facilities well she just wanted to see what it was well and it's less than four yeah the facilities directly part of what I thought and you know I I did not put an X on starting it right at the beginning of the year and part of the reason for that was because of my appetite for other things but which we haven't even talked about I just threw that in because well I tried it I was just looking at this go ahead John I think it's a worthy thing to do if we have the person start on July 1st will the person will the project and the work be sufficiently lashed out to usefully have the person working full time starting July 1st as opposed to say January 1st so I don't know that I can speak terribly specifically to this but I Kate and I were talking about this last night and and she left to eat dinner so I'll just say what I think she would say which is yes if someone starts July 1st there are projects that they can start working on right away not least figuring out the 10 year net zero plan and from her point of view and from my point of view the earlier we really start on that plan the better so I would strongly for July 1st Kate I was surprised by all the support for the new parks position in addition to the full time parks position in addition to the new trees position in my mind having a full time trees position potentially freeze up some of the current parks folks to be doing more parks like they those over the years can be used back and forth as is needed and I understand the parks director saying that they need more but the city managers recommendation was not for that so I was surprised that there was as much support for the full time position as there was I was also surprised by that I I think even I guess I would be more interested I mean I didn't vote for that at all but I would be more interested in like a part time position there and see how it goes and see if that person is in fact overwhelmed and needs more time and we can reevaluate that I would rather take smaller steps in that role I see we need somebody just the war let alone the park needs a full time person without this emergency or disagree a couple of thoughts I have about that are in part of the discussion someone and I don't even remember who it was said well we're not going to have any more total acres of parkland in 10 years I suggested that that was a possibility than we do now I don't think people on the council mostly want that I think people on the council mostly want to actually have more parkland but it's not happening in the next year necessarily so I think we can potentially live with not adding that full time position this year the other part of the other thing that that Jeff said that that I understood what he was saying and I'm not sure everyone else caught was that he said that they've made they've made more progress than he thought they might on hazard trees and I believe from other things I've heard that that's because the new tree person they've hired is a certified arborist with years of experience climbing trees and so they've been able to do things with trees that they haven't been able to in previous years and what they've done what we learned when we did the tour of the parks and the trees is that a lot of what they've had to do to do hazard trees is to hire a tree service to use a crane to go up and and that's they're not limited to only doing that now for some of the trees so Jack did I hear you say that you'd be willing to go with the part time I would go for half instead of full but Jeff is retiring he said June 2019 this June so he's been doing the job of two people and so he his salary is already there so one full time we'll just begin to replace him yeah I mean I'd be interested to see how that plays out yeah that's good well he certainly there's no question about Jeff's work ethic but we don't know how somebody else is going to work or how efficient they're going to work or what things they'll get involved in or not as you can see our team supported the tree position and not not necessarily the the additional parks again feeling it could be stepped up over time and let's see because they would be going from two to three this year and see how that worked and if that was unnecessary then going from three to four but obviously it's on the list because you all had expressed an interest in it and something Jeff said I had another question about something Jeff said where he said that he's got roughly a thousand working hours left before his retirement date and he has booked 960 hours of comp time presumably that might mean that he could work another week and then stay home for the rest of his time and draw his pay which he's not going to do but say he gets to the his retirement date and he hasn't drawn down any of that comp time does he just lose that or does he get paid for it? I don't have the answers to that question that was typically in the department head positions comp time is not incompensable that's what I assume and it's usually only cap to 40 which is why but I wasn't familiar we'll see I don't know what the arrangements are with him well just in terms of new park development I don't know that we've actually planned for the property that we purchased the last remaining structure across the way but if we do want to turn that into a park or you know I just I appreciate that for right now maybe a part time would make sense and I'm not sa