on if we do have an emergency and need to leave immediately please go out one of the two doors here and out into the parking lot and gather out there if this area is blocked proceed out back through these doors and out to the main entrance go out the front pass the flag and then head over to the parking lot tom and i will be responsible agenda to bring that out into the regular meeting i have three suggestions i'm open to your ideas as well to make it for a five eight or seven and ideally just and rather do w ok that we're going to be moving now to right after we recognize the retiring staff and i have two two items to add to other business at the end making one related to  the request to meet with the s b b a and one a follow up to the wheeler conservation report and i have an item for other business as well a general discussion about the possibility of having a non binding referendum in the march vote on raising the smoking age in vermont to twenty one hear i didn't hear you we're like you didn't hear me clearly you know so ice for other business i wanted to have a general discussion about the possibility of a referendum item to raise the age to twenty one for smoking non binding in vermont ok thank you for your call ok any other ok their goals no but i would i would like to bring up  today's paper and i just have a couple of comments i'd like to share ok so that's the fourth and i do want to make clear to everyone that our chair is joining us via the telephone i am the acting teacher tonight  and this is a resolution whereas on september twenty fourth one thousand nine hundred seventy nine dollars began employment with recreation and parks in the city of south burlington and whereas on july first one nine hundred seventy the city of south burlington vermont formed the south burlington recreation and parks department for its citizens and whereas on september twenty fourth one thousand nine hundred seventy nine the south burlington recreation department appointed pyne to be the first full time administrative assistant and whereas for thirty eight years darla administered daily operations and performed routine clerical office and record keeping functions for the recreation and parks department and whereas throughout her career continued to support the court and nation of activities between all staff and other departments within the city and performed other tasks as needed and whereas darlin maintains communication with the public by letters phone calls email and in person with respect to department activities and supporting our state organization for my recreation and parks association and whereas darla maintained records including programs facilities registrations permits and data entry of information as an important team member for department and citizens now therefore that at the result that we the undersigned members of the south burlington city council on behalf of all officials employees and citizens of the city of south burlington to hear by express to dollar champagne our appreciation for her generous contributions of time knowledge and experience that she has given to the city of sulphur ellington and wish her the very best and her retirement let it be further resolved that a copy of this resolution be placed in the permanent records of the city of south for ellington and a copy be presented to darla on tuesday january sixteenth two thousand and eighteen at the meeting of the south burlington city council in the presence of her family friends and coworkers and i think she and now for care of public works department whereas in one thousand eight hundred nine karen began employment with the department of public works in the city of south burlington and where as for twenty nine years karen administered daily operations and performed routine clerical office and record keeping functions for the department of public works and where us throughout her career karen continued to support the court a nation of activities between all staff and other departments within the city and performed other tasks as needed and where as in addition to being the public face of the department's customer service karen also provided a special role to all her fellow public works employees in assisting them with both their daily professional and personal lives and where as karen maintained internal and external billing records personnel files ongoing department budgets and additionally was well ellington city council on behalf of all officials employees and citizens of the city of pearlington do here by express to our appreciation for her generous contributions of time and experience that she has given to the city of south burlington and wish her the very best in her retirement let it be further resolved that a copy of this resolution be placed in the permanent records of the city of south burlington and a copy be you there helen we're just letting you know we're letting the merrymakers make their way and they're being very quiet so i think we're going to continue but congratulations to you both last to celebrate and big shoes to fill ok we're going to move on now to item four a which was just added and this was originally item seventy from the consented genda the necessity resolution for barreling fact that they waste water facilities system improvement  as opposed to the person we have historically dealt with us the reason for some resubmission of the documents and for news of the action we're looking to take here tonight is to have the council endorse our language for the election in actually means comes fries with then the two point nine eight million dollars are roughly seven eight hundred thousand dollars of grants and loan forgiveness if you remember we kept coming the money in the payments and get reimbursed in the back and then they asked of us just a bond for the entire amount would be under saying that we're actually of the only need to borrow a smaller amount that's just the way they work so it's worth noting that if we borrowed the two point one over a ten year period zero interest that's two hundred ten thousand dollars a year which is less than what we paid to burlington to tre  so what in conjunction with the city attorney andrew bolt like we have prepared a resolution there's also the warning that's part of the annual budget and then the actual item as it would read on the ballot on the package that we prepared for you tonight and my understanding is it is necessary for the council to endorse this via the resolution and then take all the appropriate steps and i believe even from later in this evening tonight there will be more discussion about the actual language on the official ballot question roughly every thirty years and new sewer main be a gravity air force main which is pressurized if you're going uphill lifecycle of i don't know seventy five two hundred years or for shorter if you have an that is being serviced by another community yes ok and and i believe you had just said i just wanted to clarify that obviously and what i would believe is that the price to burlington would have been going up every so what is the cost to taxpayers for this will be so two point nine it represents the city share of this project or to larger undertaking involving work also with champlain water district  are basically they have two transmission mains running out of town they they run on essentially the north and south side of feral street while ripping the section of road up the base again to connect those two sections so the total project cost of about four million million of that is simply in watering the two two point nine any is the cities that represents the value of our work it doesn't represent the actual loan that will eventually have to repay it's the total value be going basically nor south underneath feral street ok over to a point just west of kind of right high school ok it's creating interconnectivity which results in more system real reliability in the event of a much and outage on mitchell project the cities that lead on the project just financially with with that with a bigger bigger part of it well i think over the residents understand that we are already paying money to have that part of the really new expenditures but just reallocating what we're spending now this is just this money will come from sewerage papers which is an enterprise from separate from the general tax base and however regardless of what you're borrowing for repeating what you answer to counter chinon is this simply connecting those lines to our sewer system or is there also an update that's going to be occurring at the part of the bay wastewater treatment plant just this project will speak will simply reroute the sewer the route the disconnect from burlington and sunny to borrow about not to be confused with the upgrade in expansion that's coming down in a few years of our live in the two are unrelated except for the fact that bartley bay has the hydraulic capacity officers i was interviewed for about twenty minutes for that article on the information i presented i think was was fairly positive none of it made its way into the article if you read the headline you can make an inference as to the maybe why it was in there  road and listen to the chamber of commerce talking about work for workforce issues remark how we need to attract was eight hundred people a year come live here to enter the workforce i just say if you're especially health care and it's probably all levels too and so you have that problem where you've got cost of housing cost of transportation lack of housing lack of the type of housing that you want you have professionals that line on phone i should say and these gentlemen that are going to report tonight and we had i think is good news for attention fund doing a great job but i will hold off on that until they make their presentation and there is an airport commission meeting later this week about the next time i attended the same as maybe a meeting i and apparently there are gay men was down or something and their faculties i think in the last year was asked to take up pretty significant pay cut and find some benefits so i think it is it's kind of a two fold piece we haven't got enough people going into the education system not only the don't stay here is we see at our university and so bills in the legislature relating to the airport an airport governance one is one is a pure study bill calling for a study the other is essentially what you had requested by way of city council  we have begun our dialogue at the staff level of about the the broad sustainability project that we want to engage in with the council over the next few months i think you'll see multiple areas that we're going to want to discuss with you from financial to services to energy conservation so on but that that has begun at the staff level reports from committee assignments and i believe that's time be brief we had a leadership meeting last committee meeting last week us thursday we're starting the process to review the general manager for the first time since his one year annual he's only been here a year now and then also at the board meeting this morning at seven thirty am we started to get the presentation from the next gen report on our fair analysis and they've looked at five different options to balance service improvements with ridership improvement versus revenue generation so nothing was set in stone nothing recommended yet they just started to speed the picture for what we're looking at with possible fare changes to g m t one of the alternatives is this very often discussed fare free model which is common in other parts of the country so we are looking at that but electric buses in the v w settlement we just also approval letter today strongly supporting the electric of the use of the money for electric buses and we are buying for electric buses so how big are they i don't know killing us so we just do this service or are they adding this to the fleet a little bit of both so i believe two are for some service improvements but most of them are replacement of older stock and a curiosity and they sold to other communities  and we do some of them i don't know who's been buying them so now i feel like i'm doing a terrible job as your representative but the other thing that i need to know is that we need an alternate to the g m t and kevin suggested that if any of the other councillors wanted to serve nobody responded to the announcements posted this summer so we still are looking for a south burlington alternate to be empty and if you are interested but i will look at it but the reason that i asked is is when we sell off one of our old fire trucks years ago just some other young area and  just a quick assay i update we are an outsourced chief investment officer that's the platform we offer here and what that means is we do pretty much everything we come in with advice and we make recommendations and then once we decide on fiduciary with respect to all the manager changes we make underneath the hood so the hiring and firing of money managers over time so we take a full fiduciary responsibility for that so we'll see funds later on in the presentation each of those funds multiple managers and it's a very well diversified portfolio a couple of other updates we just received the award for that actually a national word about a month ago was presented from the fund intelligence two thousand and seventeen it was in assets under management snet continues to grow obviously it's growing with the market as well and new clients and new monies from existing clients and three hundred twenty five billion in total worldwide assets or a big company and we continue to grow  you what i'd like to do is take us through starting on page five and just provide a brief summary we spent quite a bit of time earlier today taking a bit of a deeper dive what i'll try to do is keep my comments summarize and i'll try to make sure i cover kind of all angles  thanks man or so on page five i think the chart that you see on the right hand side really helps sum up where and how we saw the performance of the overall plan we saw over fifteen percent in the calendar year two thousand and fifteen  target two thousand and seventeen and we're very happy with those results because we got there with a very broad broadly diversified portfolio and one that's globally diversified and of diversified amongst managers as well  for many years it was really a story of just u s equity performance and no place else it's kind of been a change in two thousand and seventeen as you see on the chart the broad globally diversified portfolio has been working non u equities have done quite well those international stocks both developed and emerging markets and across the fixed income space it wasn't just about traditional fixed income but areas like high yield and emerging market debt which are represented in the portfolio as well saw a very nice return for the year so i can just to summarize we're we've been very happy with the absolute returns and where we've been getting it in such a diversified manner page six really takes a step back and says where were we thinking as we enter two thousand and seventeen or what we're thinking what maybe was a surprise to us where did we feel like we've got things right the portfolio has really benefited from sci's view that we thought it would be another positive environment in two thousand and seventeen where were we were a bit surprised was just how strong the performance would have been and we thought that the u s political agenda us kind of  political scene would have set the stage for markets reacting to repeal and replace tax reform we thought two thousand and seventeen at the time of lection was also going to include some form of infrastructure or to air deregulation we really haven't seen all of that come to fruition with the exception of tax reform but that same time we've seen a broader global synchronization which has really kind of helped buoy the markets again we feel as we move into two thousand and eighteen  we are due for some volatility we think that it's been a very quiet year markets have kind of gone up rather steadily we expect more of a volatile market going forward our portfolios being as diversified as they are stand to benefit if we saw a little bit more volatility we think we'd smooth that ride out a little bit easier or better than some others based on kind of the way we're built so i think the other one last point is a lot of questions we've been getting from clients is that the markets feel very expensive right now we've kind of moved very fast to kind of such elevated levels part of what gives us a little bit of comfort while we certainly recognize that we have would argue that we are certainly do for a little bit of a sell off say a garden variety five percent ten percent sol off we think would be a healthy check to the marketplace but the low interest rate environment the low inflationary environment we think allows these valuations to be a little bit more on the elevated side until we start to see some surprises in things like inflation if we were to see interest rates move meaningfully higher in a rather quick fashion we'd be a little bit more concerned today we think the portfolio is well positioned and we're kind of we think the trend is our friend a little bit right now and we're going to continue to look at this portfolio we'll work with the committee to make some changes or as we see fit as we continue to move through the year but as it sits right now moving into two thousand and eighteen we're still comfortable with where the portfolio stands and he general i tried to summarize instead of going through all of the slides but any general questions that i can help answer will go through the numbers in the portfolio as well i think probably the only question of well one of the questions that i had asked today isn't and looking ahead to my becoming head of myself here but do you believe that with some of the changes we've had that are in there are now i'll address both the uk with the on the and the fix market with this but on the fixed market side do you feel that the as far is the fence raising the rates has already been taken into consideration and do you feel on the equity side  already seen i know what you're saying there that week we should be expecting at some point a correction and i mean i understand that but do you feel that it is everything has already been considered under the  changing tax code that is coming out shirt so is our ship of course on the fixed income side when we think about the fed they've been very consistent with the way that they've been communicating to the market there we would say we're pretty well priced and the expectation that we have which is not uncommon versus many of our other peers is that three to four interest rate hikes as we move through two thousand and thirteen is to be expected on the equity side tax reform is a is one that i think still is trying to be priced into the market right now you have from a tax rate standpoint a lot more clarity as companies in the earnings cycle again reporting earnings which is just kind of kicked off and will last a month and a half or so you're getting a little bit more clarity on what these companies think they'll be paying in two thousand and thirteen where we see some potential for some surprises potentially to the upside areas like a repatriation holiday a lot of these companies have all this cash parked overseas if they're able to bring that back to the u s with you know with a lower tax rate applied to it what are they going to do with what we continue to see right now what is an apple have in ireland like thirty below what is it of the well there's about two i have trillion dollars and that's really just using the top twenty companies that have all this cash apple's apple size in that is hundreds of billions of dollars incredible helen i just heard you and i i apologize they haven't made a specific point of asking if you have something to ask do you have what's the good news that i think everybody experienced in the previous year and i know you don't have a crystal ball if you did you'd be paid a lot more so but how do you believe that you  worse or higher geopolitical risk which we actually had less than you thought i mean it's a question i guess i understand that but to me right now in terms of watching the market that watching you know international  economies improve that there are these geopolitical risks out there and there are probably more maybe there are it seems like just from the media's point of view that there are more now than there have been in the past namely because of some missile activity you know the korean peninsula but on the other hand you have what seems to be greater stability in areas of the mideast where you know two thousand and twelve there was a lot of the so the fact that you know isis had taken over large swaths of syria shark cheap money around for a while the feds not going to raise interest rates too high there's going to be a ton of cash coming because of the tax breaks for the corporations of possible repatriation right the big question mark in my mind is like you know what what is a grace elections french elections had a very much bigger potential we thought that parade could have been much more disruptive than it actually was grace want to dance when we think about things that we know exist they don't actually come out of nowhere militant actual military action with north korea would certainly be one of the continued middle east texas tensions that you that you brought up or even just simply the u s political environment continue and you know if it were to see some kind of deterioration of any kind of progress or or general rhetoric we would you know it's those are the types of events that have the potential to spook investors they don't exactly come out of nowhere but you don't want to make wholesale changes to your portfolio as a result of  trying to protect from that type of event you know our well diversified portfolio we feel like we're giving us the opportunity to kind of be as reactionary as we can kind of under the hood the reason i say that is in areas like small cap back with me for instance where it can tend to ride a more volatile kind of roller coaster of returns it's been doing very very well as of late we've been a little bit more cautious you know our managers under the hood have been a little bit more cautious we've been willing to give up some in the very very good times knowing that it would protect us a downside so even though we sit here tonight and say we don't have any asset allocation changes we don't want to change how much equity we have underneath the hood we're being very active in trying to navigate each individual market place so just to kind of remind you of our manager of manager models allow us to do that as well tom did you have any the treasury market is in a bubble you could say equity bitcoin you could say a lot of places feel expensive for fully valued there really feels like there's not a great place to turn to that would deliver kind of true value again this is our idea of you know the fundamental backdrop for a lot of this is still intact in some of the material that we show tonight we say yes valuations are high  we still recognize though that this is a growing economy the earnings picture for a lot of these companies continues to improve until we see some to deterioration in the fundamental picture where hesitant to make massive changes or kind of try to buck that trend that we're seeing a lot of investors are still coming into equity markets even in this new year which is hard to believe but there is you know a lot of inflows still coming in and were hesitant to try to move against that at least here in january what would trigger chains sure specked meaningfully lower earnings expectations than what you know the market trying to look for a deterioration in the grow with the across the globe internationally as well as the u s maybe a little bit more of a deterioration in the labor market you know that's been something that's been notably  strong and it's been a little bit of a surprise the other thing too would be if inflationary pressures really start to kick in that's something that could spook some investors that would be if a flag for us for instance those are some you know broad inflation adjusted type area could you just expand on that a little how that might change percentage was what have you yes sure so there's a five percent allocation to something called the multi faceted room return from the fun is designed to kind of protect the portfolio or allow the portfolio to benefit if we saw some inflationary environments across kind of the marketplace today it's at a very low five percent and it hasn't really kept pace with the broad market but again we see that as a bit of an offset it's kind of our inflation hedge in the portfolio thankfully because it hasn't been doing well the rest of the portfolio equities have done well those areas like high yield in emerging markets that have benefited it sits on a very low level today that would be something that we would look at as a tool in our tool kit to maybe increase if we were to see some of those inflationary pressures creep in so again we feel like we have the right tools set up we feel like we're allocated well today to continue to benefit just like we have in two thousand and seventeen but we do stand ready to kind of make some changes if we see the market change for us and with that have to come back to the committee for those approved men's approvals are with that be something that you could nimbly to yes sure so there's threshold for when you have to come back here that's what we pay for right d a couple of times and actually had recommended it's in between meetings and we've done quarrels through emails and so forth self big more recently earlier this year we increased international because we know the  so you know two thousand and march ninth two thousand and nine was a dark time and my feeling was that you know there there seemed to be a lack of regulatory oversight previous to that time and in that thing that happened was not totally unanticipated there were some people that capitalized on that quite nicely for themselves because they saw what was breaking down so the question is i mean in light of the fact that congress passed these massive corporate tax cuts and also some you know personal tax cuts do you see any regulatory irregularities that could participate or be potentially harmful to the country or international you know scenario economically another precipitate another breakdown like we had you know with subprime mortgages per se but i worry about that that we shoot ourselves in the foot more often than somebody else so in that's the whole nature of capital markets right is that greed swells and then it bottoms is in the bubble pops right so what i want to know if you have an opinion about our own regulatory environment not being adequate enough at this point where we you know we naturally as when you talk about this topic we naturally look to kind of the financial sector as where you see that most right where and how strict are we being with the big banks to make sure that we're not kind of seeing the same type of behavior that we have seen in the past you know one thing that we look at today when we compare today versus say two thousand and nine when taking all of that into account is how much speculation or leverage is in the system you know and how much of the regulatory environment is facilitating that today those leverage levels are low nonexistent you know much lower we see the growth today is a much healthier more organic growth so again we kind of look for the backdrop to help kind of provide some clarity we don't have a perfect answer on what is the right regulation level or where exactly do we need to see it but when we think about what is being discussed in washington we look at that broader backdrop of where do we see speculative investing in the marketplace today is that providing unhealthy leverage in the system and do we have to kind of think more critically about that so i know was several months back that we had a resident to felt that we were too narrow that we only had a certain number of make it fun so whatever and i wanted that to the chest reiterated tonight for the record hope broad the rush is for two years on the investment areas ok the managers had a selective absolutely so why don't we just hit the numbers really briefly on page fourteen we have your all the funds you're invested in today which again are multiple monitors atop the value was at thirty three point five million at the end of december thirty first i got an update through yesterday it was at thirty four million four hundred forty six thousand tonight so we've had a nice run here so far in january within this strategy that we hire on your behalf we consciously evaluate backup managers sometimes will fire these managers there might be some sort of organizational change different investment philosophy and will make adjustments as necessary in a portfolio so again that's just one of the funds here and you can see it's very well diversified in the multiple manager approach for the nicest part is that when you do cut and the question on a manager whether you're hiring one or you are letting one go we have the information in here that talks about the reason why and what that's going to cover so again it was just that this was brought up and has been on several occasions and i think oh thank you so we're just past seven thirty and we have a public schedule that south burlington application for my community development program grant related to a proposed housing development sponsored by champlain housing champlain housing trust and we're partnering with snyder braverman on the construction of sixty affordable apartments in city center to ken's here to talk about that partnership that you know we're extremely excited about announcing our partnership with c h p champlain housing trust and housing from ron as you guys know you know a vital part of city center is creating an inclusive community that will include affordable and mixed income housing and we think the most effective way of delivering those housing units are through public private partnerships with nonprofit partners successfully done that as you guys know with  square and were kind of replicating that model with the champlain housing trust and housing for bond as you guys know affordable housing resources are incredibly scarce very competitive throughout the state and we appreciate everything that you guys have done to help support this and last year both cit staff kevin and his team and the entire city council including councilor and marie really kind of did everything that it was necessary to help support that dream from you know becoming a reality and we think we're well positioned again this year to make that happen and effectively bring these resources to south burlington to help make this project happen and enough to me to talk more about the details of the project but thank you again for your support yes thank you very much for support so the process that we're talking about now is sixty new apartments and we would be building that in a in a turnkey model with snyder braverman this is the third time we've done this turnkey type of a development and what that means is that snyder braverman will actually be getting all of the permits we'll be building the infrastructure we'll be building the actual apartment building to our specifications and then we will be purchasing it when it's complete we are requesting and we've done that two times previously and it's worked beautifully there are great builders it's and it's a really wonderful partnership it's been very  successful we are asking for six hundred twenty five thousand in of the c p grant that's federal c d g money that comes to the state and only municipalities are able to request that money from the state so we're asking that south burlington be the sponsor of that application that's six hundred twenty five thousand but it's a seventy million dollar project so we have many other sources as ken alluded to we're at applying for low income housing tax credits will be in front of the vermont housing finance agency in april with a request for those funds those are very competitive and actually on the twenty fourth of january we're in front of the vermont housing and conservation board with a big request for funding and that's directly coming from the bond financing that the state was able to allocate seeing the incredible need for affordable housing in the state allocated a thirty million dollars thirty five million dollars bond for the production of new housing this is one of the projects that they're considering for that funding and that we happening next week so it's a great way to bring those resources back to south burlington so early to has identified the sort of desperate need for affordable rental housing in south burlington as well as the chicken county area and this is in response to you know things like the afford it needs assessment that the city did back in two thousand and thirteen sort of a direct response to that identified need the way so it's sixty apartments we're doing a mix of one two some three bedroom and even some four bedroom apartments because we've really found that there's a need for larger units larger families we are targeting a broad range of incomes with those apartments including nine that will be specifically targeted to folks who are either experiencing or are at risk of homelessness so nine of those households we also on the other end will have eighteen of the apartments settled the more of that mid range that eighty percent to one hundred twenty percent of median income located on the northeast corner of garden and market and it will be a four story building four story building over parking so it's really very centrally located as you know city center is really an ideal location we're so excited to be able to bring affordable housing there so close to all the schools and all the services and jobs and the bus it's it's really a great location and this is in the new for of the form base code  zoning district so we're obviously along with paul and his staff becoming probably the next largest experts in the form base coat but that's going pretty well the piece are coming together terms of the design and how we all kind of feel about the direction of the project and how that kind of connects with the code we think that that's all going to work great we've been having regular meetings with ken and chris they'll be there they're taking the lead in getting the project through the permit in and it's their architect who's doing the design and we're we're having having some significant input into how the building is designed but they're taking the lead on that that's part of that turnkey model so the way that this application would work very much like with cathedral square we try to take on the administrative burden so that your staff doesn't have as much to do the town always retains that financial responsibility but we'll be right in the application will be responding to request for further information from the state will be taking the lead in any monitoring and reporting that's needed for the for the the grant the grant comes to the city as a grant and then we would be asking for it to be loaned into our new housing partnership that will own the property that's part of the model that we need to come into that project as alone as part of the tax credit structure for the low income housing tax credits so it'll actually be a zero percent thirty year deferred loan to the partnership from the city so we'll show up on the city's books in that way and it's likely that in thirty years we'll come and say we'd like to continue this is affordable housing would you extend that loan so that and if you plan to be property so you'll you'll always have access to whatever information you want so the way the process works you have a resolution that you're considering today the application is actually due on february sixth so i've been working away not i've got pretty good feeling about this but those resources are also very competitive so certainly not sure but i did see mr brit command if you come in for the hearing or for another item ok very good ok materials materials that are suggested and you know specifically materials that are prohibited by the plans that we're currently view reviewing have largely break on the facade as i've traveled around architects seem to like leave their presence you know yes it says and gives in quotes all over different counties and different states you see the same themes running through different new housing projects  s i would hope that you would be able to to instill in your design team something that would try to be a departure from the average that happens everywhere else yet i'm not going to name other designs that have seen because i don't want to be little them but yeah all i can say is that we went through one heck of a process with the trader joe's right they have been through two architects in that process i think so i would just and i know you'll probably end up doing a great job just keep that in mind that you know it's that bill is going to be there for a long time so some of the design themes that you're going to have are probably to be taken from other places and if you could just make it look interesting you know it would be  buildings which exactly what the form based code says doesn't have to be done right so you hlne you have something not according to the comment i really income is really important not just to be able to afford the address but also to live in a community where people can live together so i think for the library's city hall basically our city center go will hear a lot of blanchard and she is going to be giving us an overview of this new project that we're having some vision of meeting before starting thursday evening at seven and then saturday morning at ten am here i believe in this room to our meetings where residents can come and they can share their ideas and construct holders review existing conditions and material and look at different functions for a library and city hall that would be built in twenty twenty are open in twenty twenty it would look green circles are council actions and and or injuries taken for larger projects which this one while it's larger is more it's more specific to that to a smaller space so we don't have to go through a federal process fortunately for this project so this same process and right now this week is sort of the kickoff of our reach public outreach phase and then in february the architects will be you working with all of the information that they've collected to put together a purpose and need statement which the alternatives will then be tested against to be presented in march to the public once they've come up with a few viable options and to look at how a city hall and library can fit together look at what tents and spaces might be in each structure and look at how the site might be used so those are sort of the three schematic ideas that they'll be looking at and then in april and actually i should say they're doing something that we asked them to do specifically which is once they have presented to the public  take a single recommendation and presented the following tuesday so they'll be turning it around rather quickly and they're doing that in part because they need a lot of time to do a cost estimate for the council presentation so we can for they start the cust wanted to bring that generally put it out there and just get some feedback on it before beginning that phase so and april i mean you will have a whole concept for a library and a city just before in may with the city council meeting in april at that point they will begin more of the specific design for the building so once the council has selected a concept well we give preparing a public outreach for a november vote and the architects will begin moving the project forward in order to have it ready post a vote for asking me to sign a management at risk contract which will have a contractor on core to assist us with estimating and scheduling for the project and then they will have the opportunity as long as there is a good working relationship to also manage the construction phase of the project so that will be a competitive process that will be undertaking this month and we'll bring that to you hopefully by the end  f the middle of next month so so that takes us through to the beginning of construction and then we have i believe it's just under a year for construction the front page there's also a touch pitch on the last page of the other paper and we have a website up and we'll be adding things to this website to offer an opportunity for people to engage online that will begin right it the end of the first set of workshops we'll put the presentation up and ask for feedback as well as the same questions that people were asked during the presentations we have costars that will be ready on thursday trustees and others who are interested in this project to reach out to any networks that you may have or organizations that you may be involved in and to pass sign either social media or in newsletters or just you know  project so that people will be able to find it in social media and one of the and i want to give you a sense of what's happened and what's going to happen in terms of the big picture we have had a lot of i reach on a library and we've we've had it for many many years i have a feasibility study from two thousand and six that we used to apply for the tenth district as a nation we had another feasibility  twenty thirteen there were there was a library visioning process in twenty fifteen there have been mission statements both from the city hall and for the library we now have a site  the presentations we're going to see a lot of ideas but i think what the architects really want to know from the community you know what is there in today's library in today's city hall that's really special and that we really love and want to see in  tomorrow's spaces and then what to eat from somewhere else or just generally that we think should be in those spaces and then also what's very particular about tougher only ten that's really important and how purpose statement which we have on the website and will be sharing with the public and then just a list of some of the stakeholders and ideas about how we can talk about a work that we're starting in this week is so that at this point right here september third we can go with a clear vision to the community what the library would look like where it will be and also what  be for september third even though the state permit it would still be occurring over that time but starting september third we would have all of those visuals to present to the kids april starting  we have our city attorney here good evening i'm proposing to potential amendments this stems from something that our police chief brought forward to me which is what kind of boils down to is where our land development that ends up being a violation of nuisance ordinance so the amendments here and certainly the first one is the exception in now new d eight which is noise from a permitted use zoning district of the city's land of element regulations provided it complies with the regulations specific performance standards for that district and it's sort of a clean up and references to the noise performance standards in the land vehicles housing said noise in such a manner as to be plainly audible that a distance of fifty feet from the building structure for a vehicle from which the noise emanates shall be prima fashioned evidence of a nuisance and a violation of these regulations zoning minister has full authority to issue municipal tickets just as a police officer would be able to under than a nuisance ordinance so this would loop loop that in with the  r s and number two is shall be a violation of these regulations for any property owner to create or allow the creation noise in excess of the following state of the limits in the city during the hours of twelve and eight am twelve am and  decibel average number which is a forty five d b a based on one hour average measure that any point or the property on which noise emanates adjoins any property use for residential purposes and if it's commercial purposes to expand c seven which used to read persons keeping are and this is a violation of noise ordinance persons keeping or harboring any dog or cat but by frequent or long continued noise to serv comfort or repose of persons in the vicinity my recommended changes are that's by far the most broad language we have in the nuisance ordinance for any activity to provide a little bit more consistency with the rest in stitches to him and to persons keeping are harboring any dog or cat which by frequent or long continue noise on a reasonably disturbs the peace or health as language consistent with other sections of persons in the vicinity and is plainly audible between the hours of eight pm and six am those are a couple of thoughts about amendments the nuisance or announced to kind of help the police chief with some this item five at the bottom of page four of the current usage ordinance so the last paragraph of page four of the nuisance ordinance this is one of the noises from the following sources that shall be exempt from prohibition specified here and i just look at the the first sentence and i feel like we're already permitting by the city these activities through all the r s so i just i don't know if you if that's something you could stand on those events or activities conducted or by or permitted by the city early in development regulations permit that activity so it's already exempt i support your language changes but i just thought we were already covered with that term use since that's already an exempt activity activities that are permitted by us i felt like r l d r's permit that through our zoning but you're the lawyer yeah my reading of that that came up as part of the original legal opinion but my my general thought is that seems to be more of a vengeance oriented rather than i mean it events or activities my sense is the general sense that the general sense and that i read that to be you know parades  ok thank you it to me as a question yes i remember this application at the d or be quite clearly yeah i remember stating very clearly that i was afraid that the right property residence would be disturbed by the barking happy tails and lo and behold in the risk of plays so this does not surprise me at all but it's really good that i think you've done a good job trying to solve this from a regulation you have a comment about noisily to trash pickup and rule between the hours of eight and six am number eight and this is just a personal pet peeve of mine to me in a residential committee community right where you have single multi family homes in a strictly residential street i don't think any trash truck should be allowed in there before seven am and  i would love to propose that we change that to seven o'clock and i really don't care if it affects the schedules of some of the trash pickup people but i consider it to be a violation of my of peace and health when in the summer time when our windows are open for for nice sleeping during you know spring summer and fall weather i have to listen to a trash truck roaring down the the street and then operating its compressor and banging of the you know picking up stuff so i don't know if we have any residents friends of barrett's street that complain about this a lot in the summertime they say they come through a six am tries and it's really loud in night and i've i have voiced my complaints to the driver sometimes and also to a couple well it to at least one operator back this is back in the early two thousand when my children were small and one of them to sleep and i also wanted to sleep too so i would hope the city council could entertain possibly even change to to move that out an hour to seven am just because i mean you know you have to have a starting time for commercial enterprises with that have you know in services they have to happen within a residential area but you want to strike that balance between people who want to sleep past you know six o'clock in the morning you know we do have a large share of retirees that don't have to get up that early so that's just a consideration like has to think about and might be time to change that and to formalize it and then give residents the ability to complain to their carriers about it and tell them to stay out until seven am or later and that's  i've had a client that owns a business that goes home and he has sold it now to the next generation down on i'd be curious as to how this affects where they are required to take their refuse you know when they're going to the coventry or were wherever they have to take it and how that might affect their drop office well so cancer's a lot and we may all feel a certain way i think we have to be cognizant of how the businesses function as well and to find out maybe from them is there you know is the reason that it would be grossly unfair to us for seven o'clock starting and i will remind you that the second reading is a public hearing the sounds could be addressed at that time but i think a lot of times it's what we found on the council is that even when we have a public hearing scheduled some people are just totally on the we're going until we come to the  that i would hope that we would have enough notice out that people would that are involved in this with see that you know i'd really be interested to hear from you know residents in the city you have an opinion on this at that public hearing personally i've had a lot of interaction with people about noise both in the last neighborhood lived in and in the current neighborhood i mean i've gotten up at five o'clock in the morning and driven my car over to dorset farms to find the house that was across from my house where the two dogs park in the backyard were left alone in this yard in this house on bauer street to find out where that noises coming from so clearly straight across like a speaker and you know it didn't ever happen again i'm not sure why but and i never spoke to the people but i was able then a phase of it did happen again i could call the police and tell them exactly the address it was coming from  i've also driven over to see the lane to confront the snyder construction crew at seven thirty am to tell them that they started building at six fifteen which was definitely not allowed by the existing ordinance and by the time i got upstairs to address the foreman in a very nice fashion heater is hands up and said the police were already here because somebody already complained so i got to let you know noise is a real problem with me noise when it's being generated when it should be generated is a real problem and i think it's a problem for everybody because it disturbs your quality of life maybe we've heard that theme here before earlier in the year for her the end of last year right so i'm really interested to know if if there's feedback from the community about these times whether we should shift them a little bit but you're but you're of a moment looks good to me so and to your point contractors that start early are subject to funds and sometimes it's just education that's that's all of this and you know and it's about how you approach it and approach it with a person the first time and just you know stick them about ordinances and some build it into their budget and they know that they're distance between happy tails and the property that is making a complaint here very good question i'm assuming it's over a couple hundred feet i'm not entirely sure  of the ok so you know i never envisioned that the commercial aspect would be affected i was always concerned about the residential because they didn't have the plane to the point for what the commercial would be there but looking at the practice that's there i could see why there would be a conflict but i just i want to say that i went online just to poke around other towns ordinances and what i found and i didn't find a lot but what i did find was that from the side property line from kennels and residences it was twenty five feet and from the rear lining was fifty feet so that was in california which is pretty strict generally in pretty sensitive to noise for regula so that entered into my thinking as well i really am sensitive though to what you said about how our land development regulations enter into conflict with  very regrettable i think it's a good product to people that come forward and submit applications and an r d r b as well as to have something that's that's workable with the universe that they look at death to bring in other considerations that are outside of that it just makes things a little bit more challenging so more philosophical question is this a quick fix go service long term i would certainly hope so you understand the truth that the numerous updates that we've done that a an ordinance update can be a relatively quick thing can be done within a month and you know it's on after the second close of the second reading in the public hearing them that it can be that it can be changed so i would like to think that if there are issues that come up with any of the  amendments that we don any of our ordinances that we can always come back and i'll be right back in front of you and say look we're seeing this issue we're having this unfortunate struggle considering you know a change or a tweak them that might be beneficial to generally be regulated and that was my question for my colleagues here is this worthy of the planning commissions attention to think about buffers between i believe what was going to go when planning staff about ways to design neighborhoods when there are concerns about noise putting garages between the home structure and the noisier source of n putting bedrooms on one side is supposed to another side i mean there are things that you can do to create buffers in our design regulations that i would think that might be a separate conversation from good dressing this i understand the stop gap measure when we have the current situation here that we are responsible for in a way against i don't think we should stop the stop gap  still a lot of space open there so i don't know that it's too late it's not i think it and i know they have a full plate there are other thoughts about that idea helen do you have any reaction to that idea well i have to say it's been very difficult for me to understand with anyone is that i'm not sure what you're proposing i am proposing that in addition to this amendment to our ordinance that we've asked the planning commission to consider development residential development and commercials of development where they are but to consider some land development regulations that would take into account the need for buffers so how how to design because i mean i think that  the other question and i i read through the ordinance but i wasn't certain where to look in the second amendment is this just things question and you know i included that language in there because it you know there may very well be in the future the planning commission has it as a as a priority to have some sort of different performance sound performance standards for you know the industrial open space where we allow you know commercial and industrial and residential ok so i think that really what leg first floor of the buildings being built in the city center would have to lose in their building design the kinds of noise mitigation that such a vehicle the term of mean encouraging a motorcycle so that's that's you know like radio stereo cd whatever it is you know music what about those vehicles that have had modified exhaust systems that are even louder than that and are there other provisions in other words is that deal with that or there's state ordinances for noise so let's take a motorcycle where the person has taken off the stock system putting through pipes which are extremely loud which could be very disturbing to residents if it's in a residential neighborhood when they write in there right out of there right through to me that's just as disruptive so as somebody driving through  very loud serial in their car there's no provision here for that anywhere in terms of being a public nuisance right right and in fact those vehicles if they were inspected at that minute they were stopping hardly fail because they didn't have the proper equipment or they'd had modified it within this probably a state inspection statute for you know the noise of a muffler or you know or would have supposed to do i don't know but i'm asking is this an opportunity to also have an ordinance about exhaust noises from vehicles so that they could be stopped by the police if deemed to be too loud and they could be ticketed that the motor vehicle are you know i don't i don't know that what you want or do you want to include the seventy i think we'd like to hear from people and potentially include the seven am you already have seventy in here seventy in am and here several times where there's a nine pm seven and another spots but the early wake up time was the difference between residential activity and commercial activity and so if we limit commercial activity to nine and seven and then the residential activity goes until ten since they live there so they can have a party until you i mean i for understood that ten to seven was the standard for a long time but residential to about dogs and cats a residential and i wouldn't true i see it i see it more as a party is not usually every it right oh very good so do we need to make of any kind of motion or anything here yes so i have recommended just a motion to warn to warn public hearing for a second reading of the nuisance ordinance as so just tossing around an e mail that i think you all received the earlier today how it was also copied on that just you know had something printed feel good discussion following up on the presentations from department managers at the meeting on the fourth and an action item that kevin and i had from that meeting was to put a variety of scenarios together for you to consider based on some of the conversation from that night so that's what we've done and we have with the additional scenario that helen proposed this week and we have five different scenarios for your consideration all going to your thoughts and comments  on that information right there just to remind the public we were presented with a proposed budget that would have an increase of three point four four percent and we were also presented with the estimated increase for the school budget which came in under one percent and i am curious i was not able to attend the school board meeting last week do we have an updated figure i believe it's one point seven four percent seven but i haven't seen anything since that doctor oh you have not heard now i think they meet tomorrow night that was last wednesday if not approved a budget this time yes but ok so the discussion based on the school board figure which is of course the bulk of our  budget for the whole city led this council to consider some real gaps that we found in our proposed budget which were to continue and we certainly hope that our gram list will increase next year but it was not a whopping increase this year but that this current proposed budget was not sustainable long term and that caused concern among the counselors and that is why we wanted we asked tom hubbard to run through some figures we picked some of the projects that we would like to reconsider and see how those numbers played out which he has provided us here on this piece of paper and i can just read through you know very briefly we can get into the specifics in our discussion but we were looking at the paving line for our roads our striping line for roads looking at air pack maintenance for our fire and mass their uniforms that was also for our fire they were winter jackets the un designated reserve which would i believe before the city center of the city center five years to ensure that there's there are no failures the other main inside and was the police cruiser and that's of course for the police one thing i did note in the minutes from of course ideally we would love to have all of his items but that would bring the city budget to over a five percent increase and we're trying to be very mindful of our taxpayers so this is where the hard part comes in you're all here for all right here we go bread and butter well i have a couple of comments  i hate seeing taxes rise above what we had anticipated or had hoped to keep it at three percent and but the reality and the hard reality of that is that it's not enough to run our city to the things we want the taxpayers need to be aware that the cost to run the city even if we just take into consideration the three contracts for our employees is for the year and along with the health insurance costs are rising dramatically we are also very strongly committed as a council and to the citizens of four market street and to see the reserve fund not funded for city center to me is just we're asking for a potential future problem and maybe not that far into the future one of the scenarios that we had asked for here and i believe helen you had asked for is to see if we had under scenario five if we funded the under signator reserve to the twenty one thousand and added back one hundred ten thousand for the city center reserve fund while that would bring us up about a percent more them up we are being proposed right now at the three point four four bring us up to four point three three we are staying within what i think is a i don't want to say a modest increase but we are staying with the the design that we wanted to have for city center and the commit w made to that some of the other areas i mean the the increase striping we may consider that piece in there but some of the other areas are clearly ones that our department heads came in knowing when they made their presentation to us that that was probably not going to happen that there were going to be cuts in their budget area and unfortunately there's some of the things we we have to look at the cruiser as chief work all said we can we can get away with out we're not going to be able to forever but you know we can and then while that might try to run and give us a little more  have more economic development once we have our second building i'm not such an ground broken on that for city center i think you know when you start to build it builds momentum so from my perspective if i was to look at this and say if we were to increase our budget i really am leaning towards scenario five i know it's high once the police but i'm looking and saying that the cost or what we have committed to poor city center and then i would hope that we would be able to be able to take a stronger look at our grand list and to literally work on that in bringing in revenue that is not going to be all given to the state that with state in our pockets so that we could  do this but i think i think we're short sighted if we don't fund the city center research because i think that is the commitment we have made to our downtown and to me that is so critically important there's nothing on here that we couldn't fund if we had the money i mean all of them are worthy of of what we can do some of them are safety issue for the and so on and so forth when you get to syria for your one zero one five because you've got a thirty five to serve three but to get to the total increase risk of five narrative doesn't include the previous four so unlike the other separate scenario think you had to just figure that out to so pat i i'm only open to rethink the drop in the city center reserve fund that tom brought to us at the last meeting because i understand new information about what we're looking at i mean we were talking at a rec center for some time but now we we've scaled back our plans a bit and we're looking at library city hall and we also have other information now that we know that i just i wasn't convinced that the eight sixty was still a realistic target amount based on our the new new information that we have of where we are today so i'm not opposed i to i'm fully committed to city center and i just see that we're now looking at a library in a city hall  rec center as much as it would be great fabulous i think that's been pushed off some and i'm just not sure that it's sixty still needed and that's why i'm i'm more inclined to support scenario one or two but that's what i think i'd like to do serial where  whole it does because it was brought down to eleven thousand so bringing it up by ten would bring it up to the two am i right tom so number three brings it all the way back to if he to scenario three and adds to the whole twenty one back in thank you all right thank you helen for making that clarification because it builds on me yeah right did you want to the extent that we hadn't had a hundred and ten thousand dollars the reserves but i guess i would have been more clear about th there will be times as city center gets built out that we don't have the to funds up front in other words we may have to front some of the funds the city center reserve fund city center research exactly and and while i hear what you're saying tom that you know the civic center at this time is not on the drawing board per say for various reasons it doesn't mean that we are still not going to need funds to front for certain projects before we physically have the we embarrassment back and correct that that's correct and and i think to i think if i hear what tom saying is that you still want to support this he said the reserve fund you're just not sure  that eight hundred sixty s the right number and i'm comfortable saying that if we didn't find it eight hundred sixty for a year and we funded it seven hundred fifty thousand for a year that i think we would be and you can weigh in on this it if you want as well i i think there's a there's a number of items in the general fund with that i feel strongly about them being supported and i think that for one year having less money and really until we determine what that right amount is in the city center reserve fund it it was based on a full build out of city center with all the public amenities that we envisioned and i think is as we're into one year now of of the tiff that i think we need to look at refining what what that number is and i'm not sure that it's seven hundred fifty and i'm not sure of the eight hundred sixty but i think it's something that we need to look at and i think that we've got a year that we can possibly be a little bit flexible with that number but hearing hearing that and since you're not there i agree with tom though i think the sixty was built off of a model that was developed several years ago when our expectations at that time were that tiff revenues were going to flow at a more rapid pace than we're experiencing right now and we wouldn't run into so many permanent problem homes and other issues i think is really time tom and i have talked about this it's time to come back to the council and revalidate what the expectations are for city center by way of public projects we are has on alluded to earlier going through a very  robust visioning project process for the library and i think i've heard universal support among members of the council about a library i think there are other potential public projects that we really have to test with you and bring up the reserve the other designated reserve to the twenty one thousand that i think that i would hope that we would all be committed to seeing that piece in there and it is a little higher than what we anticipated earlier but i think it is it's reality to show that we we don't want these things cut if we don't  own and for the benefit of the public that scenario three would include an increase in paving increases striping we would have we would have or the air pack meeting ends we would cover the uniform replacement we would fully fund the undesignated reserve and we would also mean tain that i t hardware tim i support keep the reserve at ten you know does a reserves that's thirty thousand is probably three point five five or something like that i'm not against the direction you're going since your keep it at that number and i think that's sensitive to the taxpayer the one thing i would interject and i only do this because i just heard kevin say you doesn't know where the so he said reserve funds should be should it be at sixty seven fifty or sixty i might encourage us and i fully am committed to city center but since we don't know what that number is and we're going to have a big important vote this november and also say the markets are making us our pension funding looking looking better for next year i'd support taking a little bit more from the city center reserve fund in order to fund the items in scenario one in two and three but keep the tax increase at three point four nine does that make sense what i just said so we would cut from seven fifty down to this higher thinks thirty thousand brings it to three point six four three what you're saying time is that we could pull some more from the city center reserve fund to add some items back in here replenish some to get the tax rate increase below three bright right i really h well use the word that pat used we need to keep the momentum that's why taking humas a possible temporary placement for the library saw that as an investment in city center as well anything that shows that we're trying to move into city center and to develop it i think is a positive and so taking i'm just going to follow that amount i think we just have to be very careful if i could just think justin could do more because i get a lot of complaints about the condition the road so i think i would strongly advocate for twenty five thousand dollars but the big question of the if the if the budget five seventy five already what's an extra ten or twenty five going to do on top of that was it actually quarter mile or ten of a mile or so that it would give us even more for our buck more bang for our buck because more projects would lower the overall cost per mile or cost however it's costed out just just so you all know where i stand the sweet spot for me was scenario two or three two or three were two or three were i said that three point eight was about my area but i i mean i know all about the i t replacements i hang on to my computer for a good long time i think we can eke it out one more year think taking money from the reserve fund to bolster up this year is not reality for our residents so that again i think it's not reality for taking work for taking the money if we were to take it from the research take even the reason if more than once or if we were to write more than one book we were to reduce it down and and there's several reasons behind it but certainly one of the ones is does prior that is where we're at it seems like a slow hanging fruit it's always easy to turn around and do that just as trevor said it's always easy to turn around and cut you again just put out there building off of what i said earlier if we were to take scenario three minus the i t that would be sixty two five and i know it's under three point eight nine percent i don't know the exact thousand in each here to make that work i don't know the year of the current codes i'm not sure i know they have winter coats these are replacements i think that the  expenses do that to to they have to be heat flame retardant and it also has the built in for the speakers fruit so that they can talk right from their turnout here this is turnout gear is what they wear at the fire this is what they can wear over turnout gear and in the ambulance i think but that this is we've already point eight nine to three point eight six is that it then this would only take it down to three point eight three we took the coats  four thank you you're reading my mind times i think this is the case we are fortunate to have members of the public here and you know that there are four members from the bike impaired committee but perhaps you also think about these other items to and please feel free to expand privacy and having security in our elections i think that that goes on to the computers you use routinely for city business and i don't know to what extent not upgrading  wrist violating some of the security you want i don't know the answer to it but i know it should be a concern that you can at least you know what you're going to give up i'll answer as an i t specialist but someone who works on a system that it's that separate from the hardware that once you are connected to the system the securities are there and will protect your hardware i mean if and actually i'm just kind of going along with what helen was just saying in terms of you know what you're currently looking at i actually just had a question and it's it's not one of the items on the list but it is a question that's occurred to me after reading the other paper and there was an item about sort of a and correct me if i'm wrong because i'm i'm not i may not be recalling this correctly but there was like one hundred twenty five thousand dollar deficit in the funds in in  the amount of money that was expected to come in from electrical inspections and fire inspection and that was a position i really questioned when that position was hired about whether or not the city could number one afford to have a full time position electrical inspector and second that you know then it becomes you know a retirement issue and everything that why couldn't  couldn't that position be contracted instead of being that a full time position because i think there's i mean it goes to the budget issues entirely in the you know why do we have this position in the city it doesn't seem to make sense to me when most cities don't have a position like that and having inspectors with so much power sometimes leads to you know increased costs for a lot of different things i'm not saying that this particular position has but you know inspectors can increase costs just because they say well you should do it because i said so as opposed to this is what the code requires so that was just a question i had kevin and tom are probably a better place with the numbers there is a deficit in that line item revenues depending on the amount of construction and sales and all go up and down every year we get far better service in this community from our in house inspectors than we would if we waited on the state they they apply their code as it's written you know make it up i think we're just we're but we are providing far better customer service with the inspectors in house and if you look over time at what between the two inspectors over the course of a number of years  the return on that investment is very positive so we can have down years and we will have down here but we also have very high up years too and the the revenue trend line there  exceeds the expense by a significant amount over time over time but when we're you know kind of facing having to cut other things in order to keep that position i still question why it's full time city position and you're good to go you're contracting out a question of becomes a direct conflict with our contracts or union contracts so our ability to simply contract out for a service is limited when it's when it's a bargain and work let's just put it that way not it sounds appealing and there maybe we a way to do it but it's a challenge in the public sector to contract out for a service that is bargaining unit work  o have a year where it isn't but i have to i have to agree since we've had our inspectors we have really had a tremendous amount of money that we have been able to allocate into budgets as a result of having the inspections done locally and so well i hear what you're saying and i would love to make up that twenty five i think please head to head years and and just to follow up on pat's comments so i believe eighty five thought that one twenty five is in fire inspection and that that was just we hit four hundred seventy five a couple years in a row four hundred seventy five we don't thousand dollars which is huge and in fire inspection for one person right it is amazing and the idea was at the time i believe kevin you can correct me if i'm wrong was that when we brought the electrical inspector on we were hopeful that that person could also assist terry with the fire inspection but what we found out is that that person is one hundred percent busy with just electrical inspection and not bringing in the revenues that fire inspection brings in but that was part of the idea as well behind bringing bring on the electrical inspector that we hoped at the time we could cross train but the that done is fire inspection and revenue which we're just trying to bring in line with what the development growth is within the city so that we don't have a false revenue figure that we have to balance out at the end of the so we reduce both  to a more realistic number and i think it's important to say that that a budget deficit is different than a prize deficit if you consider them as an enterprise being more than paid for and for themselves the enterprise is self perpetuating it doesn't come from tax dollars it comes the revenues generated by it's not even a department necessarily activity it's an enterprise within a department so it's like a it's like an entrepreneurship kind of project within a department that self sustains itself so it's not your dollar that's paying for  neighborhood this connecting with the burlington wastewater treatment facility i'm bringing it lining it into connecting it to our wastewater treatment facility that won't cost you a dime that comes from the enterprise funds with its own fees its own rate structure its own its separate from the taxpayer dollars is separate from the general fund that's funded by taxpayer dollars to say so i don't support that in tax increase i'm just telling you now ok ok i will just say ideally it would not be three point four percent i think that given the forecasted school budget and given that we've had a lean year in our grand list revenues i think that we have to face our responsibilities and cover  the basic necessities to make sure that we are not to too far into the muscle and i think to donna laban's point that we don't see it i think that the paving in the striping is something that residents jussi i hear it i hear it when it's not done to people satisfaction and i think that we we need to pay heed to that need of the taxpayer to see whether taxpayer dollars are going  and to not have our and as it needed reserve means that come a rainy day in the leaky roof happens we have no cushion and that is a real concern to me as well the air pack maintenance is a safety issue i think the understanding that we got from the initial presentation was that will find the money somewhere if we need it let's make it clear to the taxpayers why we're asking them for two thousand five hundred more dollars still talk about it is time for us to break and i think we're all going to enjoy it we'll thank you for coming out have some lines on the road hopefully now it's all right are you ready charlie right very good so i'm calling january sixteenth two thousand eight hundred south burlington city council meeting back into order after a five minute plus break and we are now looking at her approval of warning for two thousand and eighteen annual city meeting and that is our city attorney is no longer here but we do have it in our packets we have just  coming up march sixth and so also there's also a note for the public information hearing on march sixth as well which is which is standard so therefore items are the election the city officers and city councillors approval of the city million two hundred and two thousand one hundred and seventy four dollars so it's fifteen with a fifteen to zero to fifteen to the number to be fifteen to zero to one i'm sorry he fifteen million two hundred seventy two thousand one hundred and seventy four dollars ok ok good catch my there's magic go for thing here under our right we're going to now learn to item number fifteen consider approval of application to remand downtown or if we have our both intended to support existing villages downtowns new town centers that kind of thing tear one are the base the baseline designations we have what's called a new town center it is to support  development in communities that don't have a historic downtown such as ourselves the second level designations include this neighborhood development area and some other ones the intent of the neighborhood development area is to once you demonstrated that you have certain a certain level of regulations in your community that you've demonstrated that you're taking care of all the walkable communities and smart growth and all that kind of thing that certain types of projects can be exempted from back to fifty as a benefit and as a requirement on those projects they're called priority housing projects they have to meet a affordability standard at the state level  so we have in the purple crosshatch behind you here the blue is our new town center of the purple crosshatch which covers all the blue and a little bit more of that and then the loop is our neighbor our current neighborhood development area and what is being proposed is to add this parcel here the neighborhood development areas can extend up to one quarter mile from the distance of your new town center if you so choose as long as you can demonstrate that it's connected or and under our regulations is here this yellow property here so the orange shares are t four that's our four story building district school here and here is our transitional district we call it teeth three type of development that's allowed in an area similar to what you've seen built in the last five years over on the east end of market  street the sort of row housing type things or single family homes transition between a single family home neighborhood and the rest so this is and again as i said of the plan dumont park under construction now there is a recently just received a wetland approval to do that crossing there's also a planned path connection right in here that is on a different map that would create eventually a walking path between this neighborhood and sand remote drive so that folks can get over to the healthy living and trader joe's in the whole city center area as i said this is really this designation creates a win win for both the property owner and the city if the win for the property owner is that they get a cap on their wastewater fees if it's gets this designation and they do not have to go through to fifty the win for the city is that and the community is that in order to be become a what's called priority housing project the project needs to be need a standard of twenty percent of the housing units have to be affordable to those earning eighty percent of median income or less which is a more significant threshold than what we have in our inclusionary quality and so we've been we've had several conversations the property owner they're interested in pursuing this and it's as i said appears to us to be a significant win win for housing that would otherwise be built but not necessarily as if it were the only how would it be accessed it would be access to a street right here there's a right of way that has or just when i was living in clue before it was not included before because initially the city proposed to have the neighborhood develop an area exactly match the new town  center we didn't want to just assume make jump forward and assume the reason we have these other tag on this is that actually we changed the boundaries of our original new town center so we were just a little bit conservative in the way we went about it to  so there would be two pedestrian accesses eventually one would be to the north actually three one to the north one through the park and i'd be street and one to the west the western one won't a brief discussion about and i believe it was over a year ago that i sent to you and kathy and some language regarding sound buffers when you have a residential area abutting an industrial or commercial area how the land development regulations can ensure that noise coming from whatever activity would  ordinance and the happy tails business on heinsberg road and this seems to me since it's a budding the san remo drive which is a commercial area that that would also be an area where we want to be sensitive to how those new you know housing develop that new housing development would be would ensure that that quality of life for those residents would be compatible with whatever activities going on in the commercial properties drive is any of this possible to tackle before moving ahead with with the project and the initial platzman it's certainly something we can communicate with the property owner in this case it's it seems that it might be a little bit of the reverse of the happy tails where the commercial activity already exists there what the property owner of the of the folks doing the development to you know be aware that there could be noise nearby and in that they may want to think about things like where to put the where the garage rebuffing whatever it is but that would be a optional thing on the part of the applicant as long as they're meeting our regulations but certainly we do on a regular basis communicate with applicants about what our neighborhood circumstance that they should be aware of work in the council do and i should probably know this i say this a little bit with guilt for this council to to move forward an initiative to take up the planning commission is doing a joint meeting with the d r v very similar to this in a couple weeks time so certainly scheduling one with the planning commission to share this idea and any others that are that are relevant would be great specially as both groups ramp up to work on the work plans for next year over the next couple months because we want our commercial areas and our residential areas to be desirable places to settle right and to thrive and so i  looking for ways to ensure that that happens and that we and we can avoid conflicts that we can minimize the conflicts that megan so when i was in the d or b i mean i watched them and participated in lots of like nuance negotiations between applicants and the butter's right so that and usually one person in the other had an objection right and so then it was the usually that they met offline and a some sort of you know landscaping solution whatever it might be so it depends upon which side wanted what right so in some cases it's you know the noise buffering is a consideration for a lot of times just aesthetic screening right in this case you're screening commercial activities from residential right so you don't want to have to look into a place where they do body work on cars a lot of cars and you know pieces of cars and pieces broken off of cars right and stuff like that or something else that's going  so those going to go shit in the air be quite often i've seen that so it depends on if they're feeling who whose side they're they're on that point so but that's visual and i think that the discussion tonight with us a looking at the oral factor right in this case i mean because of the particular source from the animals right but the vast majority of things are trucks like garbage trucks are right right right with the best authority are usually is that a visual screenings  because i figured what it could would commercial care about another commercial business right but i never thought that it would be a mental health counseling or some sort of a you know medical type thing that but i was concerned about you know the fifty homes that would be in the vicinity that would have to listen to dogs barking all the time because i've driven by doggie day care every day of the way to and from it it's very noisy here and so that's why they had the the condition that they couldn't use a loud speaker saying you know call you know they had to use hand you know units on their belts or whatever and try to have some sort of sound absorbing you know materials on them and they've been i don't know how i guess it didn't sound like it didn't work out as well as it could to have it so it's not looming over a neighborhood so i think it's twelve feet and then another twelve feet for the third in the four story and there needs to be a vegetated buffer of about on the on the the t for property if i think ten or twelve feet something like that do you think it is feasible that the properties that are adjacent to the new india area that you want it could someday be turned into resid the form based code does not prioritize between housing or commercial ribbit izard of space you know with setbacks and things like that too is about the same amount as base with wires as they have over a blackberry were i would say there's somewhat businesses in a couple watts rate when they're given the right price great something else replaces it and we're going to see that happening here lou it's twenty years or so so i think there are any other pressing questions if not i think see if we could arrange some type of a joint meeting with them to talk about economic development and how the council and in city government can be supportive of local businesses particularly in the you know as they transition hopefully in the city center julie beatty their executive director said they'd be happy and their board will be very happy to me with the council and so i just wanted to ask you quickly about your thoughts on timing i suggested sometime in late  february but maybe you want to wait till after the election before what what is your thinking about that a and b would you like it to be a special meeting where it was really kind of like a round table thing a special council meeting but dedicated to that issue or do you want it to be you know the traditional half hour here with you in a scheduled meeting oh i think these special meeting a separate special meeting i think there would be better for there can be more items on here but the tax the tax issue is in here it's the phone fifth bullet now i kind of didn't want frankly to have the so we would we were thinking about sending something like this out with a car a copy a sober life you know some handy information is this what you're looking for  i really i mean it's up to you i'm i'm believe me i'm perfectly happy to not not take on another task and send letters out to new residents but i that we still came and i do think that as opposed to paying penalties and interest if it's not just a friendly reminder it's a helpful reminder discussion soon yes or on a on an upcoming gender what action would you like to take now reservations about her to do it and i think that i think that we need to understand what the restrictions are that already already replace because there are already restrictions of exist on the property right if the restrictions are adequate this is a request that maybe some other people besides me received from a school board member asking whether we would entertain the possibility of adding to our ballot a non binding vote to raise the smoking age in the state of vermont to twenty one is my understanding burlington is doing this it's also my understanding that the house passed this legislation last year but the senate had  wo senators that basically block it i don't know why as you probably know there is a i love this word plethora of evidence about the harm that cigarette smoking does to he was beings either by primarily smoking or by saying i have some and we currently have new legislation that i don't know if it's been signed by the governor that restricts recreational marijuana to age twenty one we also have legislation that predates to sale of alcoholic beverages to nobody under the age of twenty one so it probably is a good idea and there's probably data behind this that shows that it makes it harder for young people to get tobacco products if it's denied to people under twenty one it's still points within our city or within you know either the whole state of vermont so i think of the logic is that the survey data shows that vermont vermont's older population a smokes at a rate lower than the national average but that our young population spokes at a higher rate than the rest of the nation so i think that epidemiologists will probably tell you that if you make it harder for young people to tame the tobacco products that you could bring the rate down the civil war so there were so the question is we have two things that we could discuss and we don't have to play with us tonight live we have to we have to make a decision about whether we want to add something to our ballot that is in probably burned into is to demonstrate to montpelier that there is public will to set this is aged twenty one to make the products unavailable to people under twenty one especially people that are eight hundred seventeen  right so i do i think that and and that's so having an ongoing round of referendum lets the city president speak on this subject to montpelier although it'll be too late for the for this legislative season if we do it  in november but still it i think it's going to be a long process to to get through this to get something through the senate but even on that point if we have the marginal action i almost feel like it's too late for this legislative session anyway so you vendor would still be alive for this right writes year right right i mean so we're you know it was it was an idea that was that was put out there i think it's a good idea there are several states that have already undertaken and passed this legislation hole y it was the last one i believe that  california and if we're going to also have this law on the books so i would like to see some data which shows from those from their experience that it did actually bring down their the rate of smoking among their teenagers so so i'll look into that because it was in the free press today and it would appear as though the state is interested in potentially doing a statewide toll registry and that the only other community that have been mentioned that has one obviously is one of the only thing i'd like to put out there is if this is something that in time we decide to do and i know we've thrown it out on the table at various things i i'm going to be selfish enough to say that i would like to see it something that we control ourselves they are and we work with the owners of the buildings so that we don't come up with something that the state mandates that we have that may not fit south burlington for example we have in many instances much newer housing than they have even in burlington for if you take a look at the apartments that they have someone and we could work with squalor as we seem to see in some of the others so the stories today in the paper were were quite interesting on people not getting things resolved i would not want to see a state wide registry i think that would take away from our it over so i think we should have more control of what we do here purses that night think we've shown that with our stormwater and everything else that we are leaders and that type of area and that when the time comes that we would like to have a registry to have it something that we can we can control we can sustain we can fund ourselves without i don't want to say more money going to montreal here but basically more money going to montpelier ok and and maybe for things that don't apply to us here that's  so so that begs a lot of questions right so first of all burlington already does this every rental unit is registered the landlord pays a fee every in any only for that for every unit not new construction new construction get five landlord that has lots of properties that are in disrepair and how unfortunately how little power it seems like the city has to force this landlord to make the corrections now the landlords got a lot of negative press and sometimes that can be just as effective right unfair that has completed sort of two percent vacancy in a situation which is now actually like three or four percent which is it's getting better right you know these things so bad bad press can can you know depress somebodies ability to i agree with everything you just said i just said we also need to put in this conversation this is a public safety thing these rental units some of them are not safe and the digital tragedy that propelled the creation of the registry as far as i recollect my friend amy miner actually knew or she died in  hundred eight because that unit next to her created carbon monoxide in a poisoned her unit so my understanding is since that and that is propelled a lot of the inspections and more rigorous application of central standards in burlington so maybe this is a very least right and we already know that the fire department watches craigslist in the they watch other forms of you know media that advertise rental units in the city and call people and say you need to have a hard wired interconnected smoke detectors in your unit if you're going to venting you know so the question is if there are really watching to us like we should ask the question can we how can we implement a registry and then start very small w fire inspections let's say but at the same time if the person is there for fire especially know it is some other state violations then they could be right up in you know issue a citation the landlord where they have to make these other corrections and something like that it was it was really disgusting and but they were they were told that they had to call their local health officer then they found that there really wasn't a lot of health officer or if there was the health officer said i don't only they want to keep it you know in the forefront and talk about especially if the state decides that they are going to do anything with us because you know i'm not one to say that we have to have this and by a week from friday but i'm also looking and saying i think it's it's worthwhile to talk about considering that the state is looking to take this  know but our fordable housing trust committee have any interest in looking at this when they're talking about regulations and we're in the housing committee yeah yes i can pass it on to them i can also check with  you know our own representative head as chair of the committee that would have jurisdiction over this and i know what what might be happening there so i can retire i don't like i don't like the idea of asking the housing committee well i have an open mind on this i really want to hear from baff i'd love to know from justin and from paul and from ray what their thoughts are on this and i know that can't be done in a fifteen minute conversation so i'm not saying next week or next month or so but it may be useful to me to hear what the concerns and questions and where staff comes in on this topic but to me if the fire department is already looking right for new rentals or people that are renting houses out that because they bought something they lived there they moved up they moved out and they're renting it for the first time if they're already taking an interest in it then there's the ability to build for inspection register the property get it on the bork's and understand right and then maybe from there we can insure a way into other safety considerations there are a lot of i mean i don't want to go into the details of the safety issues in the house that my son rented on these terrorists but there were quite a few but i was not the renter i was not on the lease i could not make any complaints and i could not convince my son to raise the complaints either because he was a college student right and they just don't they don't really understand so you know it's a it's a quality of life issue for people that are renting and there are lots of properties in the city there are just fun sure they're fine you know and the rent is fair or whatever the market price price fair is but there are probably some on the edges that are not in those are the ones that i want landlords to fix period i think that we'