development trust are proposed to be used for the community development corporation budget so as part of the budget approval process staff requested the board of trustees allocate one hundred fifty thousand dollars trust revenue into the general fund for this up next on the agenda is public comment this is an opportunity for folks who are here tonight to address the council on something that's not on the agenda for anyone who would like to address the council at this point in time want to give the public and the council about some coming opportunities ballots are currently available at the city clerk's office so anyone interested in voting in advance of town meeting days for carrying office hours seven thirty to four thirty and vote here at city hall or call and we will mail you an absentee ballot a reminder to the community dinner where the mayor and i will do the city's f y twenty budget ballot presentation and schools will do their budget presentation  night at the o c c at five thirty and then we have to pretend meeting evening the night before monday the fourth presentation as normal at the school and that starts at six o'clock  simplify that presentation down to its essence and that is you have that on your table today there's a packet for anyone in the room who's interested there's a punch in the back table it will be on the website and it will be at the senior center at the library here at city hall and we're happy to give out additional copies to folks if they want them for other purposes those are all of our  before and i've talked to both of the mayoral candidates about how having a march eleventh city council meeting that will be the monday following town meeting day we are knowing that we have a lot on the agenda coming up in the next couple of months we really want to take some time to do a intentional orientation for the new council so it's not noticed yet but just as if i had to focus purse kegel and purposes want to share that we plan to do have post that orientation on march a couple other updates on things going on in the city on monday and i'm participating in an infrastructure roundtable with congressman welch to talk about infrastructure needs in the city and hopes  so that's a summit for leaders in the city to come together and talk about structural racism and conscious bias and how the community conversation about breaking down some barriers on monday we have a planning session with some key community leaders to help inform that discussion on the sets actually paul and others have been working with a group of students from the high school to put together some history and some data that will inform that conversation as well and those students will come and participate it's really significant when as we move that project forward additionally ran his team got the national recreation and parks association or one of ten communities that got this ten minute walk grant of forty thousand them the city has finally signed r m o u with downtown when you ski and are often running the implementation of that surety agreement that executive director posting has now closed and the board is meeting on thursday  interested in next tuesday february twenty eighth we're also hosting a black history month celebration of the o c c from eleven to three it's during school the kitchen week and a leash and her team have put together a whole series of events and kind of work stations to explore history and the history of african americans in vermont the history of structural reasons medical market famous people who have lived here contributed as well as exploring there was another additional me and i was a little before the planning question and public works that was with locomotion and they were coming up with a bunch of quick build project ideas for them to be implemented the spring and summer so i think they're going to about one hundred fifty police officer interviews in my career i would say aaron's interview was top five interviews i've sat in on his ability to articulate what community policing is why it's some poor and why he believes in it was incredibly impressive so i think he will bring a lot of a lot of energy to our community and really understands why policing the community is so interesting and exciting y any questions or want to want to get into any information that really the purpose of tonight's public hearing is to solicit input from the public on the plan itself and to determine if there's any direction you want to go with in public comments and then also  moving forward yes so the master plan is a is a statutory requirement for the municipality is that want to be eligible for certain state programs there's i'm going to get the numbers wrong here but i believe there's fourteen required there's twelve required elements and fourteen required goals that a plan needs to be consistent with the city when you see last did a full update of their master plan in i believe two thousand and four so this is the first comprehensive update that's occurred since then this particular plan we made a very conscious effort to align it with the city's strategic vision so that we have those same four prove a magic areas with economic vitality municipal infrastructure housing and six healthy connected people we also wanted to not overlook all the other work that has been going on over the last several years with the city and with the various other planning efforts so the transportation master plan th tomorrow revitalization plan the economic development plan part of the management plan all those other projects so we've incorporated all the work from those different planning documents into this plan as well so we're not really creating new goals or policies we're really referencing all those other documents to to use those as the guiding the guiding force for moving forward with this document it's really intended to be a road map for the future of the city it's it  has a statutory life of eight years so it will need to be updated probably in about six years we'll start looking at the next update to this plan additionally we solicited input from all the standing commissions and committees of the city to make sure that their folks were incorporated as well so we really and lots of public outreach you need in this process so we really wanted to make sure that we were using this document kind of to to solidify all the other planning  going on in the city and use that really was the basis for how we move forward thank you it's very helpful and the planning commission really led this this absolute yes yes the planning commission was was instrumental in the development of this great you know great study and research and planning into a single piece that really articulate where it is a community thanks to everyone thanks to you also for joining the team really dive in and get it done assume that one of the topics at the orientation would be orienting people to this process and why it's so important that we had discussed the importance of the new council really owning the planet and we could have had a few pretty rapid succession hearings and got it done but given the fact that this is a room that for the next eight years it's not important that the new council really understand the plan it takes and takes and are sure of it so so tonight i think it's an opportunity for members of the public to ask questions or provide input on the player does anyone counsel have anything to say at this point where maybe your last  since the presentation correct sticker since since the draft was completed by the planning commission and forwarded to council we have not mean changes to the document so it's it's exactly as it was presented the draft is available on the website there is a separate  separate page on the website for the master plan that that has not only the draft plan it has the comments that we received during during the current period and also includes links to all the referential documents that are included in the plan so the full regional commission for it so that would happen after it gets adopted for me by council about was accessibility entrance of the hotel for folks who may have mobility issues and it looks as though the barrier between the sidewalk and the building is still still make comments and responses to those comments from your first meeting the last meeting when you look at this and also it was apparent to me food comments from the planning commission at the end comments sixteen through twenty one relate to the planning commission's discussion i think in general they felt that it was it was a much improved design from what they had previously seen it was a few a few issues that i think it had had come up was i don't think anything that they provided comments on or let me start that over i don't think this is they mention anything that can't be overcome with some some simple design of things like go on street parking i think that can be incorporated as necessary to green space along the road i think that was more of a response to the documents that we presented to them more so than what the final design is going to look like the other item that i want to draw your attention to with the last comment thank you specifically about design guidelines and there are all there is some language in the design guidelines that was theirs and they were included with the original act fifty application these were in your agenda package at the last meeting as well and there are several references to maintaining right away along along the riverfront and maintaining view views to the river but i believe i can say my opinion guess i should back up to is the projection of the corner of the building and there was a concern about if that might block went into the into the the general area of the buildings or i wasn't sure if that was in response to the comment about trying to screen the powerlines into castlevania so it wasn't clear at that point but that was one of the other comics that came up but other other than otherwise the planning commission was  really really appreciating the work that was done and were very receptive to the design so just to be clear you're you've done every view of the design guidelines in your in your opinion this design anything like that so i'm comfortable that this isn't lax with the design rights when i think in terms of the community access to a relationship with the river locating this property down in this location and definitely are going to happen we're going to have a building on this foreigner there are going to be some you know barriers assisted with the construction of any building but i think that the fact that guests are going to be able to experience the river and was there discussion about the prior comment for tying to turn that lower roadway behind c c v in the parking garage i remember that had been one of the comments along the way our role here is to prove generally this design i mean so how locked in are we on you know it's going to be a yellow building these specific materials  need to go forward with the actually fifty permit application will include some of the specific design elements to at least be able to evaluate consistency with the design guidelines and any other permit conditions that have occurred prior  with prior amendments and so i believe there could be some room if you want to make the you know a little different or something like that i think as long as you're comfortable with the with the overall design and look tent yes i feel like some of those specifics could be worked out if we still need to for example parking along the street not wearing something that is not not necessarily relevant to the overall design per se but is something that could be could be worked out after but what's going to go forward to two the district commission will need to be fairly well dialed in to make sure again that it can be evaluated against the previously times now the vote tonight is really the approval of the concept of this development and approval as the of the design as is old you know my interpretation of what eric's role is to the extent that changes that really ministry you know he has the authority to approve those to leave it to the extent that anything is substantive right we would need to come back but i think it helps the voters understand the project i think it helps us move forward back to fifty permit i think it helps us just generally move the project plans for it to have both from you all tonight this concept additionally assuming the farm field passes in the community he also values this project there will be a number of other no emitting votes that you will need to take you'll need to subdivide the land you will need to enter into all the contractual agreements you'll need to authorize the debt so one vote tonight isn't saying this is all to this is definitely  says it's going to be very there is a lot there are a lot of other authorities who carry association with this project that the future council will have to act on it but i think it is important in my view that we  prepay that interest so that's that's really important to keep in mind that really maybe so but it's also important that that that's being bid on the engineering design that was approved by the former county which is the two pool i mean so so the the decision points for of thing but the building and the two pools are as originally designed and that's what's being final design now and will be bid out the only way that would change in the future is if the future councils came back and said go back and redesign this pool right now it's all the work done as far as been on the two pools and building structures and now we're cost associated with the design for this concrete points concrete some of the pictures of the bathroom and just some of the biggest finishes off the building as well and in the shade structure is included as part of each so that is one thing that if we do choose to pull that out will have to don't get to some of the federal regulations that come along with the right well thank you it's just he said this for us that's a huge benefit to our taxpayers really appreciate you're responding to call for creativity and turning over every rock you know thank you anybody have any questions are we going to make borings or anything do we know about soil conditions are we concerned at all about the strings should structure the way we're doing the design and the bidding is to try and understand the whole project is designed and engineered the way we're doing the bidding is to understand with each piece actually cost of those  above the baseline that we have to build to have that two pools structure that the council previously approved they're not out of the project we're just bidding them in a way so we understand what the real value of of their of those elements are so when we sit with the foundation and say here are our options how would you like to best partner on this we have real solid information to turn back to and certainly you know i think having a meeting in the next couple of weeks with construction starting late may early june so i think we've stayed generally stayed on on schedule to the extent these projects could hear to a rigid schedule because there are factors outside of our control but i think this definitely plays out what the next steps are and it's really going to be in the hands of the next council to make some of these key decisions about so i'm just going to introduce while policy setting out and and really the reason i'm up here is to point out that this really is the culmination of the work of this council in several councils before so this is decisions that were made about doing a marketing and branding initiative and about having a communications coordinator without whom we would most certainly not be previewing a website right now the funding for the site it's out and i also want to you know take a moment to say really anybody doesn't have want to stop it you know it's beautiful and really if you took the lead on this project and if it weren't for his knowledge of websites and the technology involved i really don't still a little bit of a work in progress so there's some stuff that needs to be put in stone just about ready with that when you speak of address so earlier in the meeting i sent you the link to your email if you if you feel like it friendly global navigation so you know it's it's like any other website that you know you have you mean advocation but there's a lot of really cool things that were integrated into it one of the first things i think i taken the top seven of the most requested services and made it really easy and notice that finding pay for parking is at the top of the book because most everything on the website is organized alphabetically put just so happened to be the very top the excited about the youtube link so right now it's linked to the to the chance the teen videos but there is there is some room there for us to do more you know have some marketing capabilities there to start which is really cool marketing videos and this is what the this is what the the search function looks like you can see if you just look at something like parking and it will come up with all of the different types of documents that are related to that it's mostly chronological and  gardens public speaking and one of the biggest benefits here is not going through another third party service or currently we're using meyer and if you know they've been great but kind of the second thing is the next alert see alert so we decided to carry that service over plus does offer an emergency alert system it's kind of a lot to integrate into ask three thousand people to sort of switch all of once so we decided to just stick with that we weren't grandfathered into nixon's free version which is great so no additional costs there but that you know just sort of links outside for people to sign up for those text messages housed models for each one of these agendas and stuff right now you know there's the you know some of the old ones that we pulled up but each one of the agenda items have been linked to the specific document related to that i don't know when you click on the so this is this is not the first of just can't stand that so just gives you if you go back so this will give you a sense of when it's built out you'll see your agenda there and the documents will be linked by agenda item not currently hiring for this position this is a sample position and post here you can see all the job details and one of the biggest improvements here is the online application so if you wanted to you could download the job description and our employment and the other really great things that we've integrated is you know our current web site we have the current initiatives tab and with that helps us do that helps community members get to those items rather quickly we decided to sort integrate this this graphical layout for each one example you can see here most of these project pages will sort of look the same if your project contacts on top you sort of introduction in your product updates history there's all these really cool sort of little models that you can sort of  plug and play anywhere you want most notably the related documents and that is is pretty great so if you're looking at presentations you know as they've happened just integrate really nicely  q section is pretty excellent as well this was actually a surprise i there was lots of little things that we found as we were going through this process that were that were really great so if you're looking for a lot of these just basic questions it's a really nice layout to sort of but one of the coolest things i think that they've done is the translation instead of having to sort of a static thing in this google translate which it will follow you every single place you go on the website  on there is an influx of huge influx of interest in the community and from a ton of people from basically everywhere to get involved so we're trying to be thoughtful about how to intake that and i think this basic landing spot at least to get people started and start talking about the divisor committee is the best thing to do and we're looking at it as rolling as well just because it's supposed to be an open source and so the more people want to come on the advisory committee again but the pattern  notify me button and sign up for the service again and you will have to create an account to be able to do this the cool thing about having a camera is if you are a community member and you were perhaps looking for an employment opportunity to use the same account embed one of these updates there it looks it looks really getting it right about a meeting or about a commission test right after that is that that's a great question so technically yes the way that it i think it works as far as our collective work plan goes is that most of all of the city council and commission meetings there they're set out they have a regular schedule ready so instead of instead of sort of you know last minute putting them on the calendar every single time that they're sat very first special calendar events you  can we can set it up so that people can get this get this notifications but i think the regular notifications around regular meetings make too much to be able we're trying to be pretty thoughtful about the types of things that people can get a notification is on because i mean you know how available and that's the other thiel a big thing about this whole process and this website in general that's been the biggest upgrade is the redundancy sort of the day to get civic cost you know they have municipal websites in every single state they've really got this down to a science and i think a big part of the reason we chose them was because of that expertise and so the redundancy piece which was also a surprise as i was going through this process is it's pretty smart so they have really interesting is that the repeat things for you but not it's not aggressive they're just kind of really good about putting information where it means that people don't have to go hunting around exactly where it is which just to show you a couple of basic twelfth so yet you know building this out getting the information you know using these these f a q modules it all it all kind of just plays really nice i'm sure you wouldn't other quick page here with the police department department page to get all of this stuff that we brought in consolidated it just it just integrated so nicely lots of opportunities tracker much like see click fix it's it's a it's a product that's available through the asset management program that we use now next year so they're in a conversation it would be a third party module but it would be easy for folks to one one website and so i had i was a little skeptical going into it because i didn't think you know that anybody would be able to really provide something that was going to work and so for me to be pleasantly surprised and really really happy with that  f bringing other you know users folks who would be using or web site residence to do a round of testing just to get their thoughts and feedback somebody who hasn't had their eyes on a someone who's not super familiar with our city apply for thirty thousand dollars for the downtown transportation grant it requires a fifty fifty imagine what i would be applying for is the fabrication installation of way of finding signage so when the municipal planning grant that we wanted in every way was awarded in december we are doing the planning process and that's the r p that was just posted for planning are we buying signage this would be for the next step to actually do the fabrication including use of our men and the staff time and we pretty much could do entirely and in kind of match assuming a certain number of signs but we also have within our garage the ip and  streets ten thousand dollars each in the c h p for signage so we've got the match more than covered and i think what i would do is i would reach out directly and see you know how much in kind can we use i know that there's a preference for there to be some cash  you know with the addition potential addition of a new parking structure downtown it's not going to throw a brick wall at all into the recommendations are you feeling the timing of all of this will be  municipal planning for the plan and a downtown transportation grid for the implementation and that's happened in a few other philmont communities as well so there are some of president tend to fall kind of good money after good money and frankly i've had that conversation with the stating that we put two hundred fifty thousand dollars with those see you when you see small business loan program and then afterwards build out the program guidelines and those were in place in two thousand and seventeen what we're looking at tonight are the first three dollars that have come through that process through a c u and the way that it works is opportunities credit union does the credit analysis and we have specifically we have a committee in place that specifically looks at it for a criteria to see which ones we think would meet the previously vacant commercial space improved previously deteriorated commercial spaces or properties create jobs or retain cabs assist the loan it will assist the business in complying with city code requirements as business types currently under represented or lacking in the city and desired by the community and also certified minority owned business or women owned businesses so those are the criteria that we use and we do have the small business loan committee that's made up of three staff  manager finance director and meeting manager and then two community members and we met a couple weeks ago now and look to review these three mounds and we are recommending approval of all three of the loans based on those criteria it's important to note that one point of this revolving was specifically to give people who have less access to traditional forms of credit access to that so when we're looking at loans that come through this program they will primarily be used to or three or higher risk loans so we know that going in and it's not the committee's concerned look at the risk of it's really to look at is it filling this niche that we're trying to fill and offering people acce be happy to walk you through the businesses and london introduce you to the business owners and that we're recommending for approval application number one and we are recommending approval for this ten i've actually been operating out of there since last june as a sub letter and then i took over the space in december as the primary turn it on the previous the previous tenant took everything with her so it was happen already a long sorry the long is going to be used for working capital primarily like i said we have pretty much all the things that we need there's a few items still but it's mostly just to keep us going during our ramp up period before we're really hitting the numbers and branch of projections and just to allow us to really grow the business so i don't know if you want to take it one by one and do approvals as we do the presentation or if you want to go through the presentations and was about six people for this one specific thing in the works and burlington location for another two days to say about people so this is one of the most popular don't have any school they are training facilities in state so they actually the state of our mobs has only approved three schools throughout the entire country that you can go to so opportunities one service in the correct price and we only recently started really giving out information to the community about this yeah we had it i don't know if you'll recall that we initially tried to set up a committee made up entirely of community members and did not get the response that i expected to meet with gap that we didn't get so we had to restructure the program i think really we started pushing it out early  one of our other hopes is that one of the best advertisement tools for this fund is successful business is making use of the fun and so the stories that we will hear if you b s local business owners i think will you know can't be what you can't see in put that vision in other entrepreneurs minds that this resources is he had available to them also i think it's important to note that the person who was our partner at opportunities credit union left community members there are two community there are two community members who are part of the committee i'm only one of them was able to attend a meeting that he actually works in the banking industry and he's out he perhaps a lot the table and actually i think public about the program within the application recommendation the other question facilities or even units in the firehouse for twenty two years twenty three years old their mod one of them off so we're down to two motives within the building so the dangers is one they're not reliable number two that could be emitting into the into the workspace so that's the heating one on there is a part and that sort of thing and we don't know it's all intertwined with the modems only gotten those controls and how they interact with twenty thirty year old technology the twenty to twenty three year old technology excuse me and we just don't know exactly what it's going t to get that kind of stood back up on its important piece that we want to keep going to we don't expect to spend five thousand dollars but to do that but this is a that the radio systems again you know there's i could talk all night about the infrastructure the radio systems you know centrally the dispatcher you just heard downstairs working on the council and when they push the button it goes through a series of  pieces of the infrastructure to open a pager that you and allow them to give us a message again this infrastructure i don't know all the history but it can tell you it is twenty five twenty six year old equipment we've had some pretty major failures and we do have backups so i don't want to paint a picture that we haven't been able to get to an emergency but it has sent staff scrambling leading the dispatchers to alert us of emergencies in order for us as chief officers to be able to convey once you communications back there's again several pieces of it that are in this building on the roof of the fire house and in the closet of the fire house and no one can say what's good and what's bad so this allows us to we've obviously made some immediate pieces downstairs this allows us to take the pieces that are on the roof of the firehouse and  as i can tell you when that stuff fails it's no fun being on the other side of it and then lastly is our exhaust system diesel trucks we've all been at the firehouse when they start not a single component that we can put into the existing system to make it work no one really wants to touch something that was installed that long ago and you know try to make sure that the system is going to point eight million in restricted or assigned balances reading going after it across the spread sheet at the bottom at the end of f y eighteen the six hundred thirty three thousand available  unassigned operating covered government dollars so with the assignments we made over the last now seven months and including this capital request we would have a remaining f such a lot of requests it is part of the modernization and upkeep of our fire department these systems have not been touched for decades and johnstone admirable job trying to kind of bubble gum them along and we're to our community members is of poor importance system there is one component of that is the motor that makes the big three hundred and that's about eleven hundred dollars to replace we did that replacement last year and then last two months i've been working with a local contractor who components of it not being able to get all the components from so over this period of time we fully expected to be able to put another motor on it and try to learn to sing along right on we we did not expect  when i say it's been offline we have been trying to do mom kind of it works for two weeks order her and we've exhausted those options were to her to like a very expensive control they have no documentation very preventative maintenance on it so again with a new system for me and my watch will come with a preventive maintenance of the components you know we want to remove all it's also important just to the next council to really understand you know what the options are in terms of using these u nbalances i think you know there's one time expenses an emergency basis makes sense and to the extent there's a need for an infusion contribution to have a trust fund for example or take there's policy choices associated with how those resources get deployed so i want to encourage the next council to have conversation a since i've been here we have not done that we've kept the balance you know with the council's blessing we've kept the balance for of those grant matches more emergency requests or things that are really you know we've looked at as really goes one time and cost that we don't necessarily need to raise property taxes for but the one time expense will leverage other funds or we'll address an emergency or whatnot so you can actually see the below the balances here to use the playground match the pool communications you'll this conversation about spending down the prior years and assign rundowns around the same time we were doing the budget and it became this sort of year exercise in terms of funding different projects  for the future in the region of the body and i do think from my perspective philosophically moving away from oh gosh we need to spend this money is it could be right so i think that just puts the city in a place where we're spending money for the sake of not only trying to further those goals but trying to find creative ways to finance those so i think that's something that i just i'm proud of what i call i hope i think there's a lot of sort of foreshadowing here too from our department we do have survey results and focus group responses for rex survey so we're expecting those results ready for public consumption soon we have some draft recommendations and hand scholarship policy we've been working hard on so we're hoping to have ready for council of the next month or been exciting and i think we're making good progress there and then i think again just we talked about earlier but the national reckon program i think is a huge deal for us as a way to further that goal of creating an open space plan i think that would if it was something we were going to do speech so i am at the last board meeting the board passed an unanimous motion with this language here in the upshot of that motion is that any dispatch we at the borders make a commitment that any dispatcher at the point where our community transitions from self operating the service to providing the service at the regional level any dispatcher who wants the job fills out an application and passes a background check will be hired so it's a commitment to our current employees to keep them engaged to keep their minds at the table to keep their expertise at the table we believe we need all of them to move through this transition so we don't think that we will get them all i think there will be some attrition for right reasons we wanted to put out there very clearly that our intent isn't to do this without that our intent is to do do this with great question good catch so burlington actually isn't served by this program at all to buy this week outreach program and all the are served by the street outreach program which was also operated under howard center also reports up through the same so often in these twenty cases i think the reality is they were probably in crisis in another community and their outreach to outreach worker followed went with them to other locations but technically this creating setting aside time and space to focus on the things that we say we care about matters because then we here in the community hears what's happening i'm excited to see the financial waiver process th you know that this might be my last time at the table here tonight i did just want to say that it has been one of the biggest arms of my life to serve on the city council to get to work and meet and know you all and to all the staff that do such amazing things in your city regardless of whether i'm here after march it has been such a pleasure to get to know you to work with you and to know that our city will be in great hands with forward so thank you