The access to culture and different languages and whatnot, and that it would be all right being six o'clock on Monday, March 18th. We'll call it to order the regular Wendyski City Council meeting. Please start by joining me, joining us in the Pledge of Allegiance, led by Councilor Hal Colston. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. So first, first item on the agenda is agenda review. Just quickly, are there any requested changes to the agenda today? Hearing none, we will move to public comments. This is the time where any member of the public can make a comment about an item that is not on the agenda, so if there's anything else that you want to address today. We will move to the consent agenda. In our consent agenda for approval today, we have the City Council in Liquor Control Minutes of March 11, 2019, and payroll warrant for period February 24 to March 9, 2019. Are there any corrections, questions, or comments from Council? Any from the public? So I would entertain a motion to approve City Council in Liquor Control Minutes of March 11, 2019, and payroll warrant for February 24 to March 9, 2019. So moved. Second. Motion by Hal, second by Jim. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Next is our city update. Thank you. Just a couple updates tonight that we are holding our equity in diversity summit on April 6 at the senior center all day event. Invitations went out last week. Participants in that will be any people, not anyone, but people with formal and informal authority in the city to talk about our and our identity as a city who how we identified personally are unconscious bias and how we sit together as policy makers and leaders in the community and best represent all of our residents. So invited on that list are obviously all of you, our leadership team and some other staff from our team, the school trustees, anyone who sits on an appointed board or commission in Winooski. And then we have about 10 to 12 staff coming from the school as well or staff and students coming from the school. There are some students history as well, which will be for to see you all there. Downtown Winooski is going through a hiring process for their new executive director. The former council authorized about $53,000 of fund balance to help fund that executive director in the first year. They are down to two finalists and will be interviewing those two finalists this coming Thursday evening at seven o'clock. So I think you all are invited to participate in that and meet those two final candidates if you're interested. Heather has been working on wayfinding RFP as part of a state grant responses to that were due last Friday. We've received six proposals, which is great. So we're in the process of reviewing those and we'll make an award decision by the end of the month. The Myers Memorial Pool is officially out to bid. So let those bid documents last week. So bid opening is scheduled for April 10th to give contractors the time to review and respond. And we will be awarding contracts by early May. As you probably know, Burlington Airport is completing a master plan similar actually to our master plan that outlines their priorities, both capital and programming for the next couple of years and then ties those priorities to future funding requests from the FAA. I sit on their regional advisory committee for that process and their next meeting is March 26th at five at the airport. And that is a public meeting and anyone interested in kind of the future of the airport and where things are going are welcome to attend. And then some always leave the fun updates for the end, some community services updates. So our Summer Thrive program enrollment is now open. People can enroll here at City Hall on the website. Some of it goes from June 24th through the last week of July or the week that ends July 29th. We are partnering with an organization called Wicked Cool Kids to host April vacation camps and summer programming for youth in grades one through five. So that in April, that programming will focus on what's called Extreme Earth and Wicked Fab Physics Lab. So again, you can get more information on the website. And then in the summer, those summer camp offerings will be around LEGOs and a med school camp. So fun and exciting for our first through fifth graders. And then just a final reminder that the community garden plots are now available for registration. We have a few left that opened on Friday. So if people are interested in new community garden plots, encourage you to go to the website and sign up soon. Thank you. Next we have a reminder. Anything you've done in your role as counselor since our last meeting, or if there's an event that's on your radar in the community or just any community news you want to share as well. I will start down here with you, Mike, this time. I don't really have anything to report except for the pool. The pool has a new, they're going for a new grant, which I've been aware of. And they have until April 12th to raise $10,000 to get to the second hurdle. It has been on front porch form. And I suggest, or not suggest, but I think people should check it out. And they have the direction somehow to donate. Again, they're trying to raise $10,000 for April 12th to get to this around a million dollars. It's going to be spread out for communities. Anything to report? I do not have anything. That also is sometimes the answer. I had been really busy this last meeting, although I don't remember everything I've done. I have had meetings with each of the new counselors to kind of get you all up to speed on background information. I am having a meeting next week with Burlington Mayor Weinberger to just do an introductory relationship there as we work together with them on regional issues and the airport and stuff. If there's something that you want to, I don't know, if there's something on your mind that you want to make sure that I cover, please feel free to let me know. And that is it for now. Okay. So the Community Service Commission is meeting on March 7th. And they're going to cover, they're looking at their survey results to try to get a better handle on how they're doing and what's needed in terms of programming. And they're going to look at their scholarship policy. So that's it. Thank you. And the only thing now that is, that's not related to my thesis council, but did attend the JFK Fund Fair at the Winniesky School District on Friday. And it was an awesome event for kids and people in our community. So I just really wanted to take a moment to acknowledge this work the school did and putting that on and how great it is for our students to have access to that. Thank you. All right, we will move to our regular items now. Our first item on the agenda today is the appointment of Councillor Hal Colston as Deputy Mayor. Hal, you have the most seniority here. I love the knowledge and other relevant activities. So to make you mine. So. This is an appointment so no official vote is required. Are there any legal words that I have missed? I don't think so. I mean, I would recommend you vote on it. Okay. I think it's per our charter. It just says the Deputy Mayor shall be appointed from among you. I think to just come ourselves a vote would probably be useful. Safer. Safer. All right. I would entertain a motion to appoint Hal as our Deputy Mayor. I move to not second. Motion by Mike. Second by Jim. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries then. All right. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is Council seniority policy. So I saw. So we discussed this at our last meeting and I saw in the color sheet that there was a language update to signage posts or agenda posting. Yeah. So the only change that I've made since the last, since your last discussion on this was clarifying the language about where the agendas would be posted and allowing for additional meeting, the open meeting law requirements, but also allowing for additional posting. So it's on its article for section B. And just to be very specific, we are designating the following public places in the municipality is where we will post agendas. And that's at City Hall at the school district and at the library. So locations where that get a lot of foot traffic and a lot of different kinds of foot traffic across our community. And then we will also endeavor to post at TD bank and in the brand center. Were there any. Any other comments or concerns or things that any of you wanted to see added. I have a question. Why the TD bank is a busy spot for people or I mean. So a couple of reasons it is a busy spot. It's right downtown other than City Hall. It's a very busy location that's very centrally located right on the rotary. It's also where we as a city do our banking. So we are there every day to make deposits. So it's easy for us. And it is reflecting that it is the, the one of our local banks. Okay. Anything else from council. Any comments or questions from the public policy. Motion to approve the mayor and council procedures policy as is. Second. Motion by Jim second by how all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Our next item is to approve the conflict of interest policy, which we also reviewed at our last meeting. So again, so there are no changes to this policy from what was presented at your last meeting. So the policy is the policy that would, the former council council adopted and is based on the model policy written by the Montaliga cities in town. So their lawyers have crafted it with the state requirements in mind as well as our, and we have adopted this along in accordance with our local charter as well. Thank you. And I don't recall there being any requests for changes at the last meeting at this time. Any questions, comments from the public hearing none, I would entertain a motion to approve the conflict of interest policy. So second. Motion by Amy second by how all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. So I thought that time was going to work perfectly. I think you actually need to take about a minute and a half recess. All right, we will take a brief recess until six 15 when we will reconvene for our public hearing item. So just to tell you what's when we warn a public hearing or not supposed to start, we can start it after the time for which it was noticed, but we really shouldn't start it for before the time because people may be coming just for that purpose to get me back. I thought I had scheduled it perfectly. A public hearing has been noticed for the consideration of the new master plan being six 15 as was so noticed. I would like to open the public hearing. This is a time to take comment from the public on the master plan. I believe we also have some presentation occurring. That's correct. I will pass it to you first then. All right. Well, thank you very much. Once again, I'm Eric. In County Regional Planning Commission to provide an overview of the Windows key master plan update. This is the second public hearing the second and two required public hearings that we are having. So following this hearing, if you so choose, you could adopt the master plan. Some of this will be a little bit of a recap from the orientation meeting last week, but more for the public hearing side. I just want to make sure I'm hitting these points again. The plan was last comprehensively updated in 2004. It's been updated several times since then, but they've all just kind of been re-adoptions of that for plans. So this is the first time since then that the master plan is undergoing a comprehensive update. This update, it was funded in part through the legal grant for state and without that, we wouldn't be here tonight having this hearing. I don't think it'll be the master plan will be required to be updated again in another eight years. It has an eight year lifespan at this point. And a lot of the input that we received and a lot of the information that went into this plan came from other documents, other studies that have been done, and input from the city's various board of authorities and commissions. So a lot of engagement was done to get to where we are in this planning process. So the purpose of the plan is really, the plan is intended to be a roadmap for future land use and development in the community. Really it's intended to provide the framework for quality of life, guidance on civic action, how to spend money, capital planning, things of that nature. So it's really intended to kind of guide the community for the future. As I mentioned, this is a high level document that's kind of incorporates multiple other planning studies and other efforts that have been occurring over the last five years within the community. So instead of trying to identify new policies and new goals and new actions, we incorporated those studies which really get into the finer detail of the community. So the transportation master plan, the housing needs assessment, the parking plan, things like that are really set for the basis of this document. The plan was developed. It's organized around the city's vision, the strategic vision statement that's behind you is really kind of the basis for how we established the content of the plan. And again, input from the various commissions and other bodies and drafting of the plan from the regional planning commission, working through the planning commission, moving forward. Back in June, we really started the update process very aggressively, meaning twice a month with the planning commission, working through each section of the plan to get to where we are today. So I mentioned it's organized, this master plan is organized around the vision statement. We did alter the strategic vision statement a little bit in two areas, in the economic vitality and in housing. So the vision statements that are on the screen are what's included in the master plan. So the change to the economic vitality is the strategic vision that's behind you includes the phrasing with a small-town feel after long-term vibrancy. So the planning commission had a lot of discussion about that and felt that they struggled with that a lot. So they wanted to just leave it at the long-term vibrancy. So that was the one change. They changed some of the wording around a bit. The current vision statement for housing reads, insure a mix of quality, affordable housing stock that maintains the character and aesthetics of our neighborhoods. That was amended to read as it is on the screen there, insure a mix of quality housing that maintains and enhances Winooski's unique sense of place and supports the needs of the entire community. So it still is in the same theme as the current vision statement, but the planning commission spent a lot of time discussing this because they felt that the update or this new language better represents the direction forward. So they did tweak it a little bit. And if the chair of the planning commission was here, he could elaborate on that a bit. I think it's important to note that at last year's priority setting session between the council and the leadership team, there was discussion about the strategic vision and whether we were at Smith, the strategic vision areas in the room at that strategy session and the decision was made then to ask the planning commission to take a look at the language and make a recommendation as part of the master plan, not have the council do it in advance of that master planning process. So it was something that, so looking at this and making sure it was still this statement from 2015 was still current with our values today was something that the council specifically asked the planning commission to do as part of this master planning process. So the plan itself, state statute requires specific items to be included. There's 12 elements that are required of a, there's 13 items listed. The last item, current analysis and data is included as one of those requirements, but if there's no current data, there's really nothing to update. A lot of times we rely on census data which gets updated fully every 10 years, but with some of their intermediate updates from the American Community Survey, sometimes the data is good, sometimes it's not. So it's, if there is good data, we will use it, but it's not always the best except for those 10 year census time stamps. Additionally, oh sorry, so here's a kind of crosswalk of how each of those elements aligns with the strategic vision areas that we've included in the plan. I realize it's a little difficult to read, but they are all included somewhere in the plan. Additionally, there are 14 goals that should be included in a municipal plan, in a master plan. The goals are not a requirement of state statute, however, if a municipality wants to get regional approval of their plan, regional approval through the Regional Planning Commission, then these goals need to be included in a master plan. So we are seeking that regional approval because it allows us to gain access to state funding, to other state programs, so it is kind of an important piece, so we are seeking that, and we are consistent with the state's goals. And here, again, is the crosswalk of where the plan aligns with all the state goals.  You guys are quick. Come up and join us. Michael Bryan is the chair of the plan commission. And I figured it would be 6.30 before you get to this. We're on time this time. Madame Mayor, you are right on time. It's good to see someone on top. So a few items in this plan that are new that are going to help guide some of the direction are there's information on river corridors, which is a new requirement based on some state guidelines, so we've incorporated language on river corridors. The phosphorus total maximum daily load is really geared to kind of helping with the health of Lake Champlain, so we have language related to the phosphorus TMDL in the plan. And the biggest component is the enhanced energy planning. The voluntary component that municipalities choose, they can include specific information related to energy that will give them substantial deference in front of the public utility commission. So we chose to include this language as an appendix in our plan so that if projects come forward related to energy development, we can have more standing and more say in that process. And really what that looks like, so the enhanced energy planning, like I said, gives more influence before the public utility commission. There's a lot of information specifically related to heating, electricity, and transportation and transportation, energy needs and energy targets and how to reduce those, that consumption of energy. So that's the direction that it's geared towards. And we included this and some of the discussion for including it was because we're already doing a lot of the things that we need to as a city to meet those goals. We have very dense development patterns. We have multimodal transportation. We have an electric fleet of vehicles that we use. So we're already doing a lot of these actions. So it just seemed like a natural step to include the enhanced energy planning in this document. Public engagement, this was another big part of the plan as among the various items, all of our planning commission meetings were open to the public and we met regularly, like I mentioned, every twice a month we met. There was postings on Frontport Forum and other social media. We participated in the little whiskey, the Halloween event. The planning commission held a public hearing and the council held a public hearing back in February as well for public comments. We also had an open public comment period that ran from November through December, early November through the end of December to solicit public comments, which we did get about 40 or 50 comments that we incorporated into the document as well. So there's a lot of editorial comments that came in which we addressed the RPC and their planning advisory committee provided comments as well. And I don't know, Regina, if you want to talk a little bit about that. Yeah, just to give a little bit of background in terms of how CCRPC does their plan review side of things. So we have a planning advisory committee that's planning some of the municipalities in the county. And they do the plan review on behalf of the board and they make a recommendation to the board ultimately for these plans, whether to approve them or not. We've had that process in place for probably more than five years now, I think, and it really creates a great peer review amongst the planners in trying to get these comprehensive plans to a better place all together and really allows for some coordination amongst municipalities as well. So they had some great feedback on the plan and the planning commission incorporated those comments that they had. And from this point on, essentially the CCRPC, once the city adopts it then it goes to the board to take a recommendation all up on their approval. Mike, do you have anything? Not really. Again, sorry, I was late. No, I think we did take the input. There was something more that we pushed back on planning advisory committee. We have where it was, it wasn't a big input anyway. We incorporated that. We got all the public comments. As Regina said, if you're not aware, this was a three or four year process to get this thing to where it is right now. There was a lot of different folks on the planning commission over those three or four years. So we got a lot of input. We got one of the different commissions in the city. Planning commission, housing commission. Community services commission. Sorry, Ray. So there was a lot of input in developing this plan. And then the last point on this is we started with a rough draft and then kind of polished the whole thing to match with the city's current branding and style guys. So I think that's kind of an exciting piece of all of this as well. And a lot of that was done in an effort to not only match but to make the plan easier for the community to digest and really engage with it and make it more of a useful document. It was kind of the intent of what we were trying to do going forward with some of the styles. And that reflected in the next slides and in your agenda packet there's a little bit more detail on this next part which is kind of the summaries of all the goals and objectives from each section. So I just have a few of those slides here to run through for folks to see. And we tried to lay this out as graphically as we could to try to identify kind of the higher level goals and objectives for each of the strategic vision areas. And in some cases they will overlap. So for example, I'm going to not remember which section it is, but I believe in the land use section we talk about maintaining and establishing a more dense urban forest, urban canopy. And we also talk about that in the infrastructure section. So there's a lot of cross cross-goal and cross-objective I think the various sections together. So these, like I said, these are just quick snaps of each of the sections to kind of get a sense of what it looks like and what information is included. But again, they're really intended to be more of the higher level goal and objective statements and then the detail that's going to support these statements is included in those various other studies and other documents. So municipal infrastructure, safe healthy connecting people and then housing. And then I'll just point out, I don't know if it helps to understand the format of the plan, but on these pages you'll see probably better in front of you than up here on the screen, but the other reference documents are right on the top and so the intent is that this is going to live online and those will all be live hyperlinks. So you can click direct to get more detail in those specific plans. So the next steps in the process or I guess how this kind of proceeded through is the Planning Commission reviewed and approved the plan back in January that was following their public hearing process and also development of the plan. So the plan was forwarded to council on January 10th. Council reviewed and scheduled the two public hearings the first of which was held in February and the second one which is being held tonight and then the next step the final step is adoption by sometime in April or sooner. Tonight would be great too, but you know, whenever April 21st is the deadline of the expiration of our current plan, so that's kind of the date that we're shooting for moving forward. Again first hearing was on the 19th of February when the county did not have anything to amend or change and I guess I should also point out that the plan that the version that was forwarded from the Planning Commission is still the same version that we've had going forward. There hasn't been any comments since Planning Commission forwarded the document to council that we needed to incorporate coming forward. So second hearing is tonight which we're obviously having. And then from there as I mentioned adoption on before April 21st so absolutely. Oh yeah and then to the Regional Planning Commission for approval once municipal approval occurs. So I'll pause there for any questions or comments on this one. We're going to touch upon but I believe you all received a copy of so. That was my question that I forgot to talk about the email. Yeah I was going to mention the if I can do that now or okay great. So an email was received on looks like this past weekend an email was received with several comments. Two comments related to the timeline that's included in the front of the document and I believe that was included in the packet that was in your agenda that one the first comment was related to identification of when CCB yeah when CCB was established in Winooski the other one was adding additional language to the to the TIF expiration about that it will also those monies will also go to the education and there was a third comment about there was a the comment was that there was a some surprise that there was not a statement regarding home ownership and I guess to address the comments I think the from the timeline comments we included some high points in the timeline of the plan more as just to showcase some highlights not to be an exhaustive list of everything that's happened in the city so I mean that's I think we could add those I don't know if it's necessary but they added if that was the preference of council regarding the housing comment however I think the plan does a good job of identifying home ownership there's a section actually in the plan related to home ownership in the housing section there's a lot of discussion of it we also back to the assessment which discuss home ownership and has some recommendations for home ownership I think also some of the actions that council has taken with the establishment of housing trust fund helped to support that home ownership component depending on how those funds will be allocated so I think we're addressing home ownership already so I don't feel that it needs to be to be addressed in any more detail in this document anyway I think we're already going down that road in other ways so but those would be my thoughts on those comments but that's really your decision of how to have them forward do you I haven't seen the comments so I I was not talking about that sorry about that on the bottom there the ABC I think it is very possible that the comments received were in reaction to the summary documents that were linked on the agenda and not the whole document that has this home ownership section in it so I think that a solution might if the council wanted to address that in the summary pages we could or just to highlight that chapter within the full document so on CCB I'm not sure what he's getting at if it's when they built a new facility or when they first were established here because if I remember right they were in the Champlain Mill before they moved into the new facility so I don't I think the intent here was it's a landmark right I mean there's a couple landmarks I won't mention on the timeline or the history too that I'd like to see as as you know I'm a big pool I'm a pro pool so the pool wasn't on that timeline and we'll just see as a public pool and only Essex has a public pool so there's no other public pool in the area that the CCB building is a landmark now I think that should have been mentioned or highlighted a little bit on the timeline or the history anyway the original pool is on the timeline oh did I miss it? it's part of a whole it's in the 1967 piece of it from the Model Cities program so I was more curious just if you would reinforce that you know the home ownership piece has been addressed to to the Desire and Commission and yes it has and that actually has been a big discussion through not only this process but when we did the zoning to rewrite it as well there was a whole discussion about home ownership versus you know non-owner occupied properties and certainly there is a concern that's aired in meetings that we have too much rental property and what's the right balance and keeping single family homes as single family homes or duplexes back to duplexes the biggest problem is that they allow single family home ownership in a temporary apartment to stop that happening and then you get into the issue of how do you enforce if if I put an accessory dwelling unit into my house I sell it to Eric and he decides to rent it as two units how do you enforce that so there's issues there's a huge discussion about trying to maintain our single family ownership homes we tried to do the best we could with what we had to work with so it certainly is certainly is incorporated in here and I believe the housing commission there you are there's no discussion the housing commission they're working on the housing trust on policy they have come out with wanting to put a lower version of that direct and doesn't the exact steps to take this is a higher level right that's a good point this is up here and then zoning has to fit into it so that's what we're trying to do so we recognize we have to do zoning kind of do it get a little bit backwards but that's okay but zoning has to have to be consistent with the municipal plan and I believe it is as far as I know are there any other questions for those of you who have only recently been exposed to this any other questions or areas of concern I just have a comment I want to appreciate the chair of the planning commission you Mike Brown it is all on the ball really appreciate the team because I think we have a next plan so I want to thank you for that well thank you Helen I've got to say that I started on the planning commission in 2015 and Tommy Murray was the chairperson at that time and that started the process so it's great to be the chair and get all the credits but I sit there and go I mean that's the reality of it so everyone on the planning commission like I said started with Tommy as the chairperson and as I said there had to been well you don't know Eric give you to this too absolutely we had at least two zoning administrators on this and we probably have had at least 10 or 12 members of the planning commission put into this service commission service commission service commission we're missing economic strategy whatever you call yourself heather you know so I mean it really you know when we started the commission system six years ago whatever it was to get more input this really really emphasizes how important that was and how well it is working that all these people are able to give input and we had meetings with each commission talk about what their goals are we tried to kind of window that down into what you see in this plan so thank you heather I appreciate those words but I do want to push any compliments over to the entire planning commission I'll just send you to understand information the branding the photography of it is really helpful also so just you know jump all done I should add too that you know when eric came on board he really got us to finish line so kudos to eric too and can't miss Regina who suffered through this for five years dealing with dealing with the planning commission at basically every meeting so thank you both I had a hiatus for one chin and county regional planning commission is very helpful to us in many ways I do I did want to ask a little so I would also like to third sorry it was a pleasure to read I enjoyed it because it was listed and the supporting documentation was there and clicking through to find those plans to read more detail and each of those steps about having to scroll through endless pages of it was I think a really good choice and I'm really appreciative of that I also did click through on to a couple of these pieces and I had one question on the energy plan because you touched on that a little bit and right at the beginning the goals are very specific and ambitious in terms of the energy efficiency goals for the city to meet within the next year or actually four years ago or in the next 15 years so I guess I'm kind of curious the overview that you gave was really around this gives a standing in the public utility commission to have a better say in public inciting a renewable resource energy development how do you see the goals that are articulated there around 25% weather like those really are those achievable here history of that development of that document that came up with those goals yeah why don't you take this I've been at the RBC game long enough so so for about three years now the regional planning commissions have been helping the state take these high level state goals and bring them down to the municipal level and the initial impetus of doing that was to give the municipalities more say in the public utility commission hearings and so this is a little bit more of an issue in the town's northeast kingdom and a couple of other places that are seeing big wind happen and super large solar farms and really struggling with whether they should have a say whether there should be a local and the state legislature agreed so long as the municipalities were agreeing to sort of align themselves with those no doubt very aggressive state goals towards more renewable energy and weatherization and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions the standards for actually aligning with those goals are they do have some wiggle room the idea is that everybody is trying to take better steps is trying to work towards that but the whole system is pretty aware that those are pretty aggressive goals and a lot of it in terms of meeting those goals are out of the hands of the local municipalities as an example the state goals but they are also certificates of public good for gas line extensions as well so there's a lot of things that need to be worked out but I think the really great benefit is that now we've got lots more municipalities doing what they can to do better in terms of energy renewable energies as well as reduction of energy and so I think we're in a good place but you asked this similar question that we're hearing from pretty much every municipality that are going through this process and the planning is really built on some models they're really sort of like looking through a glass ball and figuring out how to tell the future and we don't really know exactly how it's all going to work out but in this initial phase we're taking a couple steps with every plan going back to the data where we also see what else we can further meet them and I would just add to that I think a lot of the information that shows up in that energy plan it's fairly prescribed from the state so in order to get that to meet the the energy planning goals we have to include a lot of really detailed information and the state's really telling us what it is that we need to have so a lot of the tables that talk about the specific efficiency reductions for vehicles over the next you know, however many years is probably something we wouldn't normally include in a plan like this because that is really detailed but it's really coming from direction from the state on how we craft that document Are the questions from council before we open it to the public? Hi I'm sorry, go ahead I have a question for the city staff but one of the things that I noticed when I was reading through the visioning document is that some of these items have kind of already been accomplished so is there any ongoing master list that this could link to so that the public could know kind of the status of each of those visions? That's a really great question so in terms of the master plan one of the components that we have to include is an implementation program and part of that includes a check-in at least every 40 years from the Regional Planning Commission to see how we're doing so the intent from my perspective anyway is to track as much as possible how we are doing the plan when the RPC comes in to do that for your check-in we have something we can show to them but also so that we can report out to the community as well to show how we're progressing with implementing our plan and just to add to that I think one of the advantages of this plan and having a strong strategic vision statement and aligning the two and then aligning the shared work plan between the Council and staff is those regular check-ins and series of prioritization discussions will be a communications tool to the public as well about what we have accomplished what we're prioritizing for this year and then what are we prioritizing for future years we're also going to talk about a little start a conversation about how we align the commissions work to that so I think there will be a series of different kind of reporting mechanisms that you'll receive and the public will receive about that as a strategic plan always the intent I think of the Planning Commission and Council leadership that this not be a document that sits in a shelf but a very active document that we use to actually make decisions and guide staff's work, the commission's work and the Council's work ultimately so I'd like to open it to the public for questions or comments about the master plan and if you could please state your name before you speak I'm Alayne Etherny and I'm a manager for the Ministry of Partnership and Prevention and Steffi is one of our youth board members and we just wanted to make few comments if you simply wanted to the Council for including language about substance use prevention including a paragraph about our organization and the goals that we're working toward and I'm just going to kind of read it the Ministry of Partnership Prevention works on substance abuse prevention for education, policy and data sharing as an example they work to assist the community in reducing the amount of youth targeted alcohol and tobacco messages and thus reduce youth consumption of these substances there may be a role for the city either through zoning regulations or liquor licensing to help limit alcohol and tobacco advertising to youth and so we're particularly interested and excited about the inclusion of the last sentence because as you know almost two thirds of the U.S. reports seeing tobacco advertising all or most of the time when they visit convenience stores that do not sell gas and about one third of adults in shopping convenience stores two or three times a week and 70% shopping them at least weekly so in Manuski specifically almost 50% of students report seeing advertisements for tobacco and alcohol most of the time are all of us and there are three convenience stores on the way up from Manuski Circle to school so if that's where they're shopping then they're seeing them so research shows that placing restrictions on tobacco advertising and promotions at the point of sale really effective strategies for counteracting the industry's efforts to attract new curbs and recently put smokers and so we're looking at the survey Manuski read what they think about alcohol and tobacco advertising I was out of the holding place on the 5th doing that we don't have final results yet there are about 200 responses but so far many people believe that the establishments should have the right to advertise but are mixed on where they should be allowed to so it'll be interesting to see where that ends up but the majority of people said they would like to see less advertising for both tobacco and alcohol and so we're really interested in opening the conversation up to community members and residents to ask what level of advertisements and promotional materials for substance we want to see in our city and then work with the city to establish a policy perhaps limiting the amount and or location of advertising so we're interested in keeping you guys at the holding schedule sometime in the future perhaps with the planning commission discuss what a policy could look like and Stephanie just wanted to make a few comments from her perspective on advertising and he saved her at well I just want to tell you guys why there should be more advertising about why jewel and and these cigarettes are not good for teens since that jewel pot contains 20 cigarettes worth of both of nicotine and the altered cells function and from my experience I've seen a lot of teens using it and they advertise it themselves through social media and in Snapchat the video taken itself is jewels and other e-cigarettes and they will think that it is not a good result for the study it shows that it contains 18 there are unaware of of the chemicals inside of it which is very addictive and I just want to say that I just I recently talked to my friend before coming here and telling her why I came here to talk about and she was unaware of that she said why should I learn about it I'm never going to use it but it's bad for her and the advertising she could walk in and see the jewel and she would just take it she's not aware of that people don't really know what nicotine is how bad it is for them and teens always use it as a way to get out and they think it's bad for them once I heard a member of my class having a conversation with another student saying that nicotine is better than sugar it's not bad for you and the other student said yes it is bad for them and I think all this advertising saying that it contains nicotine doesn't say why nicotine is me it's students are unaware of that and I think that it is really bad for them and a lot of teens are using it nowadays because they think it's a better way of exposing tobacco in secrets and then the only other thing I wanted to bring your attention to and I have some pamphlets I can just give it to you so I can go on it but with S54 at the state level the only thing that we wanted to mention is that the bill includes it's the bill that establishes a system for taxing and regulating marijuana but it includes language that places where municipalities and residents are paid for and organize bad questions if they want to be allowed to retail in their communities so it sort of establishes a norm that retail would be allowed in cities and towns and so we see this as taking away local control and so we would be interested in talking to the planning commission and the city council to discuss what are possibilities what the bill went into effect if it does and then look at different examples of policies such as maybe restricting retail within a certain distance of the school or something like that so that's what we had well thank you for coming to speak and to acknowledge that piece that's in the planning document it's great to have an organization like yours that's doing some of that research and for us we look forward to speaking with you thank you any other would anyone else like to ask questions or share comments on this on the planning recently six in the street first of all I'm saying this is a really positive thing, it's really exciting moving forward this is actually my first council meeting to be honest with you, I was surprised there weren't a lot of people here this is a big credit but first of all first question on the housing aspect of it I know there's some talk about accessory dwelling units, I was kind of wondering more, obviously this is an in-demand place to live it's very limited in terms of our square footage our accessory dwelling unit seems like a way to address this as the cottage housing that we put in which is like an accessory unit but what I was talking about is state law says that if you want a single family house or anyone else correct if I'm saying this incorrectly but my understanding is state law says if you want a single family residence you have the right to put an accessory dwelling unit in there so we can't stop that is that something we almost go through going forward well so the accessory dwelling unit I always look at it as an in-law apartment so it's met not as a rental unit but as you know if you were my kid you'd put me there and lock the door and let me out the problem is the next person they buy a single family house and they have a little one-bed apartment over on the side are they going to rent it or are they going to give it to their their parent like you did to me that's the problem and so we talk a lot about limiting uses to single family only in some of these residential districts but realize that we can't do that because you have to allow accessory units and then there's a definition of what that is but again that sometimes gets stretched so I just want to comment on the business development side I think it's really positive that we're looking to add more employers in the downtown if you look at the work play you can live here you can play here if I still think I would love to be able to work here there's not a lot of space for professionals that's a great thing to expand the downtown are there any other comments from the public seeing and hearing none I would bring it back to the council if there are additional questions or comments that need did I miss the advertising for ESA arrest that was a staff for that I think it's a good example that she was talking about because it kind of left me for I wanted to ask her that I don't recall it could be in the materials that she shared though yeah I was looking at it it's just e-cigarettes I think the e-cigarettes are more of a problem for the kids if there's more advertising for them so I'd be interested in looking into that a little bit jump ship where is rest council as it was the planning commission and zoning but I think that's something that has to be dealt with where should that fall ultimately it's going to end up with you folks but I'm not sure that zoning is the proper place to put that it's more of an ordinance I think I think folks think about it through potentially the liquor licensing and that role that the city council has could be a little bit imposed but I think you're right it feels a little cleaner that way yeah it's a little too specific for this specific specific for the municipal plan well the conclusion of urban forests in the municipal infrastructure and that does tie through to other areas of the plan and I don't want to try and re-hash the long discussions that have been had around the vision statement but I do note that natural resources don't appear in our vision statement at all yet we have significant investment in natural resources in each of these strategic areas and much of our natural resource areas are currently to be determined land use zones so I'm curious what the discussion that came to removing or non-including natural resources in our municipal infrastructure especially that we have these kind of unplanned areas that are largely our natural resource base so I'm not sure I'm going to address the fact that we have for example, Bill Brook his own business district Bill Brook is in the industrial district those are conversations that things that we left alone because they're conversations that are going to have to take place with the larger community and it's going to be an interesting conversation it's probably going to be there's going to be a lot of different opinions on it and so we decided to just leave things the way they were right now and not touch it in the municipal plan until we have a chance to have the appropriate community conversation about what we want to do with those areas is that answering your question that's a great piece of information so I wasn't advocating that we make land use determinations for those as more questioning, could we modify the vision statement to incorporate what a significant component is or would that be in the vision statement the vision statement was something that council did so that's you guys we're reflecting the vision statement as it exists today if you guys want to change the vision statement go for it I guess that confuses me a little bit though because Eric he said that you actually did adjust the vision statement as part of the municipal planning process in a couple of areas let's see how do I say this I don't know that it's necessarily I think updating the vision statement to include natural resources may be appropriate through a larger conversation I think because it wasn't included now we weren't looking to include new areas in the vision statement as we were going forward we were looking at how the current vision statement related to the goals and objectives that we're identifying for this planning that's not said that the vision statements can't more specifically reflect those components of natural resources we do include multiple goals and objectives around natural resources in the plan so we're not we're not overlooking it in the goal setting just it's not explicit in the vision statement as you've identified and I think again that was because it didn't exist there to begin with so we weren't looking to alter the vision statement in that regard to create a new vision just kind of tweak what was already there there was also a request from the council for the planning commission to look at the language of it and come up with kind of things specifically what the section was in the language but we had I shouldn't talk about pre-meetings we had to test specific language the small town field the council gave us a request to look at the language and tweak it as we thought fit and that's why otherwise we wouldn't have done anything to the vision statement so I would add to that the vision statement precedes it what's happened here as well they were doing the master plan they did those language tweaks I think if we wanted to as a body revisit the vision statement in a broader sense the right time to do that would be when we have that strategy step back in like main June when that occurs so we can talk about when we're getting to like the bigger part in there but that's a glad to call it out it's not something that I had caught when we could hear something there any other so this is an item that is on for discussion or approval what I'm hearing I think is general I haven't heard any large any calls for any role of vision beyond the strategic vision discussion which we can do later so with that so we don't have to approve this today but I would entertain a motion to approve the public hearing I'm sorry to approve the master plan so second motion by house second by Amy all those in favor please say aye motion carries and that also fluxes the public period on the master plan 2018 thank you back into our regular items on our agenda next up we have Champlain housing trust discharge of mortgage I'm here tonight with Amy Demetromats from Champlain housing trust and she's here to answer any historic questions about some of these but for the next two agenda items she'll be here to take questions so Amy so Amy is a role that Champlain housing trust just received a huge award and is very integral in our affordable housing priorities here in Winooski and our potential future OCC project as well so we work very closely with Amy and we're very thankful to have her here so I'm glad she's here so you all get to meet her face to face as well so for the first agenda item tonight the Champlain housing trust is requesting that the city of Winooski authorize the release and discharge of mortgage deeds on three properties 194 Thick Rock street 6 and 6 and a half Leclerre avenue and 136 Malletts Bay avenue the original mortgage federated all three of those properties but since then two of those mortgage deeds have been discharged and we believe that it is an oversight that the third wasn't so we're no longer carrying those on our books and the request here is to give to see a single mortgage charge that lists all three of those properties just to clarify the final disposition of those mortgage deeds I'm happy to take questions about that I gave you I believe also the original mortgage deed and a copy of the discharge for 6 Leclerre and 6 and a half Leclerre so obviously it was paid off to be discharged and we don't have it on our books we really do think it's just an oversight thanks for that clarification in fact this was a loan that was on three co-ops they were housing co-ops 25 30 years ago before my time and I've been on time the one on Malins Bay actually transferred that property to Habitat for Humanity and they built an owner occupied duplex there's two units there 6 and a half Leclerre we did some renovations there it's continuing to be affordable rental housing and the remaining one is 194 Hickok Street and we are there are two units there and we're looking to take down one unit and renovate the remaining unit and have that be a home ownership unit as well and the folks who had lived there for quite a long time just to spend a side who moved out into rental housing are actually going to apply to become a purchaser there so that's a pretty great story yeah isn't it the case one of the units is unoccupied anyway? yes so that we would have converted that to home ownership quite a while ago but there were no tenants there and we didn't want to displace them when as a potential household so we had left that empty in anticipation of being able to do this home ownership conversion thank you and thanks for joining us yeah so it sounds like what you're saying here is there's no money owed anyway there's a paperwork error and moving forward can gain us additional home ownership another single family home like some of that are there any questions or concerns from council about this item one more thing to add it's so this is being brought to you because the authority sits with you to dispose of property or assets so it's not something that we as staff can solely do it is something that requires your collective authority any questions public? motion to approve discharge of mortgage deed for Champlain Housing Trust second motion by Jim, second by Hal all those in favor please say aye motion carries thank you so our next item is Champlain Housing Trust VCDP loan extension so what we're looking for here is a five year extension of a loan to Champlain Housing Trust and this is originally funded through a Vermont community development program funding for affordable rental housing properties at 53 through 67 East Spring Street the mortgage note is currently due to mature in 2020 we are looking to do a five year extension of that to 2025 and the Champlain Housing Trust will have a five year extension and the custodian of the funds so we actually are standing for signatory authority in that but we're looking to extend that in order to work with other affordable housing partners that will also be extending the loan so it's VHFA funds yes so what is the not clear what the outcome is the need for the extension sure yeah so the property is actually at 53 through 67 East Spring Street is owned by a partnership we're the general managing partner and it includes this property as well as 1306 Ethan Allen avenue out of the fort which is in Colchester those two distinct properties are owned by one partnership the city of Gwinnowski the VHFA of the housing trust managed a rental rehab program on the half of the city of Gwinnowski and put in a $75,000 VCDP funded loan into this project to help the initial renovation that happened there we got a similar loan through the town of Colchester for the building out at the fort those buildings need renovation and we are working towards a refinancing time we requested the first mortgage holders the Vermont housing finance agency and we asked them to change the terms of that original loan of their first mortgage loan extend the term but also reduce the interest rate we do expect to be pulling the refinance together within the next two years so we'll likely come back and look for a change of the terms likely just an extension again the term is up but we asked the Vermont housing finance agency to return for five years all the other loans to line up with that same date end of term sorry that's a long explanation but unfortunately these things are very complicated as a matter of fact as was explained the loan here is not from the city of Gwinnowski it's in fact CHT is the signatory where the loan is on our books and it's been a little confusing to our auditors so I may in the future come back to ask that we clean that up and have some sort of a grant agreement directly or at least between the city of Gwinnowski and the Champlain Housing Trust because that piece has been missing from our financial records so I'm consulting with the attorney I'm sorry that I don't have that available right now but it's been it needs to get cleaned up in that way as well VCDP funds are community development that you might hear about otherwise Burlington is the only entitlement community in the state and the rest of the communities in the state can apply to the state for those funds but those applications need to come through a municipality they can't come through a partner nonprofit entity so hence why when this organization was first standing up this project they came to us in support of that and that may happen in the future with another project and you'll hear about some VCDP applications coming up but that's why the municipality goes in on those grant applications in part Thank you Any questions or concerns from council? Sounds like another paperwork situation Yes I have a question how does this impact the city that's a it's not bone denarning but it's not really so I'm wondering how does that impact the new scheme? The grant funding came through us so for us to be on board with it and working with our partner I think just makes the whole thing work better so that we're continuing in last step in partnership there's no penalties or anything that could affect the city we can't use this if they were to repay the loan we couldn't it wouldn't be our money to reuse for something and we can't extend the loan without authorization since we're administering the program on behalf of the city even though the note isn't our name and it'll be our signature on that extension we need authorization from the city I have one more so is it just the same we need the authorization on behalf of our partners what happens if those are partners don't oblige CHD for this loan we just need authorization from the city there's a similar loan with the town of Colchester and I'm going to be in front of their select board next week to ask for the same extension okay and recognizing that the refinancing is two years away probably does this extension while you're doing that refinancing increase the exposure of the property or any potential financial liabilities like does it make it more challenging or potentially burdensome to the property to persist as a partnership or is that pretty much equal whether it's a shorter term or a longer term it very much will benefit the project and the property because the first mortgage loan with BHFA has a high interest rate and the refinance with them or the change in terms with BHFA will impact the cash flow at the property we do the interest rate I would say this loan is a 0% deferred loan there's no payments being made on this loan that we're talking about with the city of Winooski so that's not going to change anything materially at all thank you any other questions from the council any questions or comments from the public in hearing none I would entertain a motion to approve Champlain Housing Trust VCDP loan extension so moved second Moshe Bahao second by Amy all those in favor please say aye aye motion carries thank you next item on the agenda is Main Street Vitalization Project final design engineering services agreement authorization so we have a a small project small so I have Evan Dietrich here from BHB he's the transportation engineering director that's right so Evan's been with the project since the beginning but tonight we're looking to authorize City Manager to sign the final design ESA for the Main Street project one other request is that if authorized we'd also like to authorize City to revise the ESA which is addressing the additional feedback which I'll get into later so the total ESA is $1,539,989 $189.81 so and that's broken up between three different funds general fund sewer fund and water fund so just to give an overview so this is sort of the next step from our concept design plans that are currently available this will provide preliminary engineering plans and then we'd be moving into final engineering plans for the entire length of the project the 4,000 linear feet from the New England Railroad Bridge all the way up to Colchester Line and it's for all phases of work so it's water resources streetscape, roadway, landscaping and underground utilities so regarding the authorization to revise ESA language so we have we've been working on this since mid-September big proposal so it's taken us a long time to kind of get here and get it in front of the council but we have USDA and DEC as funding partners now so those folks have to review the ESA as well so that's taken some time we've had the government shutdown issue unfortunately that's that pushed the schedule a little bit for us but at this point we're sort of finally on the same page as far as scope of work and you know the legalese within the agreement itself we may see some small tweaks in the language once some other DEC folks review it so that's why we're requesting you know some of those sort of legal comments modifications, things like that that we're allowed to kind of make those revisions so no revisions you know regarding scope and fee but we may have a couple weeks as we go through more layers with the DEC so that's kind of the agreement piece I guess I'll pause there if there's any questions on the agreement itself it's a big agreement and I think I have a question about that this is going to be the final engineer design so what we see on paper is going to go off the bit correct not quite that good right? no what's cause we're new I need to understand this because some of the designs I've seen I was trying to figure out parking main street have been for green spaces and then and we want all we want commercial space down main street for east down the street so how I guess I don't know if we need to revisit that so stepping back a little bit through background and you can correct me if I'm going to speak but with this project previous council has discussed a phased approach so where we were at before is that we are going to move forward with the infrastructure and underground you know the water and sewer and the road as one as a first phase and then come back to the second phase based on additional funding and so the way we're approaching this engineering you know the way that we approach the pool for example where we're dependent on funding we're saying like we are engineering this in such a way that we can pull pieces out of what we need be so are we putting ourselves in a position here where if we do decide that we need to phase this in a certain way we can do the engineering will support that or are we paying for full engineering that we cannot make adjustments to if needed so as we move into sort of preliminary design the idea is we would progress all scope of work on this streetscape at the end of that sort of preliminary design we kind of press pause especially on the streetscape portion and really focus on the water resources phase of work because that's where looking at you as funding we have a five year time frame to really get that piece of the project done first and that sort of project and we move into final design with the water resources piece trying to progress the bit documents and we would get to say bit documents and then we would be talking to the council on saying like okay do we do we want you to follow water resources project the whole length do we want to phase it to just do a portion this summer a portion next summer are there developments along the corridor that we want to that are lining up that we want to coordinate some work with them and that final design piece is where we be talking about how are we how are we going to bid this project where it makes the most sense so to answer your question there's a lot of room for how we 66 foot right away so in concept plans we have identified based on community feedback we want parking but we want to also accommodate an uphill bike lane the tradeoff is we're going to do potentially a share shared bike lane and the drive lane down there's still a lot of room to kind of how do we cut out that 66 foot right away accommodate all modes accommodate wider streetscape because we are only at concept level plans right now we still have a long ways to go to get to that final design phase so what's really cool worries me about trying to rent commercial space out and not have any parking for those commercial spaces I mean we kind of seen that on the road a little bit when it first when Halking where that Halking building came around it took a long time for those for street side parking and that's what concerns me about trying to make sure those buildings get utilized fully with the concept drawn into the bump out and I'm not sure if that will work and like I said being new under the council trying to figure out these before we go and spend all this money and not be able to take certain aspects out or put aspects in and I think that's a real that should be a concern for any person thinking about coming here to build or rent space for business aspects and for each other projects what we would end up doing is at the end of plenary design come to the council this is an update of where rat solicit feedback and if you want to run it through public works commission we get additional feedback and then back to drawing board incorporate that into say a final design package come back again and say here's what we have for final design what do you think we get in discussions for okay let's start strategizing how we want to bid the project you know for potentially summer 2020 construction so you'll I guess by my mind you'll see the project and have feedback and drive some of those you know design elements is this funding for just preliminary design or for a complete design so this will go basically all the way up to bid documents so this will get us to a package that we can put on the street and put out to bid it will give us the permits to put out to bid you know for preliminary design and final design so it's basically a package that's ready that we can put out the street to contractors can I say something about this and correct me if I'm wrong not an engineer I think one of one of the reasons we are doing this all together as all all phases in essentially is there are so many things to coordinate in the ground between the water wastewater storm water underground utilities and the streetscape and how narrow the road is going to be and where the side what's going to sit versus the green belt you really the plant the engineering for that all needs to happen at once to take each other into consideration once that happens though there's nothing to say we have to move forward with a phase of it so we can engineer it and then decide to move forward with the water phase we can preliminary engineer all of it then decide to move and know where things are going and then decide to move forward with engineering for a piece of it and the preliminary engineering of the streetscape in a second phase but knowing that both are taken into consideration and engineering like that doesn't really go old it's not like a cost estimate that can go old as as the design right as the economy changes if we're doing the second phase like that well just here we we're already paying for that design now so is that going to cost more money to do that second phase of design that's what I'm trying to get at are you saying the final for the final streetscape you know we're paying for it now and we want to so this isn't a down payment this is just a contract of we will pay these rates for this work as we get to them so we're basically to get preliminary time council as we go and I will say so the mirror pointed out too we modeled the financials for this project is a phased approach right now because on the general fund side that's where we have some issues trying to get that budget to work so we really we phase it to get to that TIF expiration date because we've modeled some of that TIF funding to pay for the streetscape so as Jesse mentioned too we have to kind of design the whole project because there's you know for example in the street you know we'll do water sewer but there's places where we have to bury say telecom across the street to make connections so we have to kind of know that whole design in order to you know put those you know pieces in that that makes sense to do now so we're going to take it straight like a couple of years later so we want it's kind of a master plan we need to know the entire quarter so that we're sort of putting those pieces in appropriately can you talk about the timeline so ideally ideally our target is to start construction next summer with those water resources pieces and that's mainly to maintain the scheduled USDA for the funding and just to be clear next summer is 2020 yeah correct no no we're not there I think with preliminary design are we looking at the idea would be to get through this preliminary design phase of all the parts of the project this calendar year and perhaps as late as late summer or fall be done with that then do the pause as John said and then decide where we want to go from there about what it is we want to get built next summer but the goal would be to get something built starting in 2020 construction season sorry when would you have to finish final design in order to start to have things at the bidding time for summer 2020 start well ideally you'd like to bid around this time of the year or maybe a little earlier right before all the contractors start to mobilize and get their work ready they're bidding over late winter period so ideally that first piece the final design is done around this time next year for that construction bids at the I would just like say as some background and I think Jesse mentioned this before that is a project we've voted on many times and we will keep voting on so there is you guys are stepping in to continue work that's already been started but I wanted to acknowledge that for three of us up here this is like a huge project with a lot of new information to it and we are like we are right now talking about committing a significant amount of money at one point to keep the ball rolling forward John's point like we have more to weigh in on this and keep learning about it but I do want to acknowledge that like any questions that you have right now are concerns or anything that are more than welcome I was remembering back it's kind of not a here nor there but that this meeting last year when it was your first two meetings we were making the decision whether to go out to bond for this project and you were brand new on the council meeting like so 23 million dollars what do you think and you guys ask great questions and I remember that it was new sets of eyes, new perspective and the things that we're in the weeds on is super helpful weeds I'm just what I want to see with all this work is the 1.5 million is it not we have to go backwards and start over on something from some of the background from the background I've heard from some of the residents it's a streetscape that was my main concern I think the utility portion of it it's a done deal I think that's going to make it look really nice I understand I'm starting to get paternalia through all of it at once I'm just concerned that if we have to start tweaking it it's going to start costing taxpayers more money and that's my message questions and it's a big proposal and I will say we're cognizant that even over the life of this project we change what we're trying to set up is we bring the curb lines in to accommodate the form based code zoning to give those building frontages some space we're not necessarily standing like that so what we're installing is mainly striping there will be bump outs and things to accommodate pedestrian crossings like mid block crossings but within that right of way we can pretty much if we want to change a bike down the parking or change parking to a bike lane we can do that with paint we're trying to build that those kind of season who knows what the transportation networks going to look like 20, 50 years the other thing too is this going to tie into the underpass to Colchester with the sidewalks because I know that's on appeal right now so how's that all fitting together with this study of urban engineering as well so it is a lot because you may have had more discussion we've been talking with V-Trans of course the exit 16 is a project they have all kinds of plans so we're talking to the V-Trans project manager about what their plan is for that and right now the project's blend together perfectly fine it will be seamless to go right through there's actually at this end there isn't too much of a change close to the Colchester line from what's going on now with the interchange reconfiguration that doesn't really change much so our project would still mesh into that one of our big concerns has been traffic control they may be going to construction potentially at the same time we're going to construction and you can imagine what kind of havoc that's going to rain on traffic in this area so one of the things that's most important to me anyway what the V-Trans project manager about is what are we going to do to maintain traffic you know you're going to have to warn people on the interstate that exit 16 may not be a great option at this time and that sort of information campaign in addition to I think if the state decides not to move forward with that project for whatever reason although I don't think that's going to happen at this point I think we would be trying to work with the state and Colchester to at a minimum continue a sidewalk up to Shaw's that's something we've heard repeatedly and it's not technically on our property we don't have say over that but I think we would be strongly advocating that with these improvements we continue at least some of those streetscape improvements through the interpass I agree because there's a lot of people that walk up that way John do you have any update on underground and cost sharing negotiations we haven't we're kind of as we've been negotiating this with all the mainly been on an engineering basis so the next step with final design is to start those cost share negotiations with sort of business development folks and really get into the weeds with the final once we get into final design because that's where they'll have a better idea of what the cost is so I was noticing that the original estimate was 1.85 million for engineering and it looks like you're going to be coming in under that one just curious how we got that reduction and two we anticipated that it could over time go up to that 1.85 or do we really feel strong that it's going to remain the proposal that you have now the 1.8 was in our was a percentage of construction sort of a rough ass hey this is what you should budget for as they got more into the scope of the project they were able to define it a little bit better and it's gotten lower which is always better so yeah we if we move forward this is a not to exceed contract so without some kind of change order approval from the council we couldn't exceed that amount so no surprises no surprises it's totally start construction and there's always surprises but on the engineering side and John in your memo you mentioned that you're dedicating city staff time to people here taking on a city staff to reduce costs sure so mainly utility coordination work so we built that relationship the city engineers done an amazing job reaching out to the different utilities and working through some of the engineering and routing options so we feel that's something we can take on and kind of reduce the burden from each piece so they don't have to sit through hours of utility coordination meetings so that's one way we're trying to you know try to keep the proposal or questions or comments questions or to be determined yeah I mean so we our plan is to to begin water resources construction in 2020 next summer the streetscape portion you know that could be phase it could go all as one some of it depends on funding so that that one is really we'll have to once we get into more design phase we'll have a better idea schedule is this construction to go year round or is this a build season is it going to happen in the winter or I think it's to be determined yeah I wouldn't really recommend that we do anything in the winter potentially some underground utilities could be you know you work around snow banks and it's just not a it's very slow going if you try to do it so probably a winter shutdown any other questions from council well if v-trains I haven't seen any plans for that are they going to have a bike path going down a little bit of a highway and would the city consider with the engineering considered to incorporate a bike path connected to the Colchester v-trains instead of I don't know if it's a bike a green belt bike path or is it going to be a wider sidewalk paved for pedestrians and for bike traffic would that be something that we can incorporate or draw to so I know the plans that the path that cuts through kind of melds into our streetscape it does now initially I think there's only one as far as the Whitcomb driveway and we said well wait a minute we have these bike lanes that we want to connect to so they in our prior coordination with them they've amended their plan to show the extension of I think it's bike lanes that comes from that multi-use path now that will connect to our bike lanes so we've actively worked with them to make the facility consistent all the way through so bicyclists will have a place to go yeah I think the hard part for us so we do have 66 feet to kind of cut up the way we want to and we've gone through sort of this we've gone through a public process of you know tanning feedback on what community wants to see for that it's hard to fit it's a 66 feet because it's you're taking away from something else so you're taking away from you know sidewalk furniture zone parking so I don't see that as an option on mean street I don't know I don't believe that was looked at as as a design option bike lanes both ways? No you're saying a multi-use path I'm just trying to think of again parking commercial space even people like there's a lot going on main street especially if we have a lot of commercial space that's eventually going to be there we looked at that early on one of the options was to have a multi-use path that would go right up the road off of one of the sides but it really ate into a large part of the sidewalk and it reduced some of the parking and it was not really well in the public meetings and I don't know what's happening you know the solution that eventually we did come up with I think makes a lot of sense we have the shared lane going downhill when the bicyclists can go faster and can ride with traffic in the downhill traffic lane but then uphill you have a separate dedicated lane for bicyclists and that's in addition to the sidewalks on both sides so you have pedestrians off the cartway you have the bikes going with the cars downhill and then a separate bike lane going uphill with parking with parking generally speaking yes that's right thank you so again I'm not hearing any great concerns I don't want to contain a motion to approve under revitalization final design engineering this is agreement authorization so moved second motion by house second by Jim I motion carries thank you for your time thank you now I'll put John on the spot and just say if you guys ever want to learn more about the design he loves to dig it please but seriously if anyone does want to kind of get more of a background on that feel free I'm always available thanks John so next up we have approval Hickock Street water main replacement final design engineering services agreement obviously and DEC step two loan fund so this is for final design of the Hickock Street water main so we are looking this project we're looking to construct this summer so we've sort of fast-tracked this one to get into final design just to give you a quick idea of schedule we are looking to advertise this project in May contract award in June and start construction in July so this proposal would be to get to sort of final design big documents from here to last project the other piece of this is we are looking to submit the step it's actually step three financing for the drinking water state revolving loan fund so that's how we'd be financing this design portion and the reason we're just to kind of give it an overview SRF there's three steps that you apply for so there's a planning step when you're just kind of concept phase when you're in sort of this final design phase and then step three for construction we're fast-tracking the step three because there's a 30% construction subsidy available right now it's first come first serve so we want to take advantage of that if possible so that's why we're we're skipping to step three application and what we're looking to do is get reimbursement of this design phase work within that step three application so fingers crossed if we do get it in and hopefully there's some subsidy funding that will help support the project ends of clarifying


Next question is from preacher man Joe. Are there any benefits in adding bands or chains on the big three or Any other workouts or is it too much over training? This is one of the most I love doing that It's one of the most effective Ways to augment or change your training to produce better results one of the most effective by far now Does it cause more damage? Not really chains.  I don't feel like I over train. I see faster results strength athletes have been using bands and chains forever, I know the Soviets use them way back and People just get Strong doing them and now why why is it so what's so different about it, right? I remember when I was younger and I saw people using chains I thought just put a weight on the bar. What's the difference? Why would you I thought they were just trying to look cool, right? Changes the strength curve It does I mean when you lower a weight the the links hit the ground so the weight gets lighter as you get higher with your Squad or whatever though the links come off the ground it gets heavier and it matches your body's strength curve Yeah, the bottom of a squat you're weaker than you are at the top So what if we had a weight that was heavier at the top and lighter at the bottom which that's so people know It really changes that exercise because traditionally the squats the opposite Yeah, it doesn't get harder as you get it's the same Yes, the same actually gets easier as you get to the top and it's easier for you to lock out because the weight Gets easier as you get towards the end when you have the chains the opposite is happening So it really changes that exercise. So that's how I look at this is it's almost like hey If I've been doing squats for let's say three or four weeks back loaded Same same everything pretty much as far and a similar load. That's a nice way to kind of change it up It's almost like changing the exercise and the same thing goes like as if you would cycle in and out of exercises Is you wouldn't want to do chains and then never not do chains It's one of those things that you have that's a that's a tool and use it in your workouts Intermittently and then pull it out and I think there's great benefits to it I mean in terms of treating these types of lifts like a skill I think it's one of those beneficial tools, especially when you start to naturally kind of find that limitation load wise and to be able to introduce this and Have that sort of bridge between you know that next leap in terms of load It's nice to be able to get a bit more weight on the bar and be able to You know work through that or less weight and make it You know add that extra bit of resistance. So you have to kind of fight that extra bit So I think it's a nice kind of intermediary type of Device and tool and something to include if you really are trying to progress forward and something that is your goal Especially if you're a strength athlete, of course, this is something to consider But you're an average person. I mean if you're just kind of hitting a wall And you need you know to try a new technique I think this is definitely beneficial in that regard. Yeah, it's one of my favorites It's absolutely one of my favorites and when I do it and I do it right. It's like I get great results every time So if if you're still in your beginning stages of training Focus on technique and form a lot of stuff once you get to your you know Intermediate levels and you want to test new things start with bands chains are much more complicated Require and they do beat up the body a little more and then watch how it feels it feels good It's one of the weird things about it You put a band on a bench press and you can feed and if you and what's that? What's it called that the thing that mark Bell sells it sells that goes over your arms and slingshot slingshots very similar Yeah, you know as you go down the weight gets easier and as you go up it gets heavier very similar to resistance bands It's just a very convenient same same kind of concept