indivisible with liberty and justice for all we will do for the public tongues this is not for to me for the public to address the council on any items that are not on tonight's jenga again the engine is in the back please make sure to sign in members of the public so first i wanted to thank the community for their patience with us as we don't out of the last three days but also huge thanks to our public works crew who were able to maintain our roads and sidewalks fairly effectively three hundred about three hundred hours in the last three days maintaining our city that's about twelve hours a day each for the over the holiday weekend so they put in a huge amount of work and i think it really shows i think they did a fairly good job and thank you for  residents to be patient as we dealt with thirty six hours for humiliation but kudos to the public works crew for all of their work similarly the fire department was here staffing the weekend as well as obviously the police department is always here in the fire department not pretty and guys will and when it will be clearing hydrants over the next couple of days to look residents would like to do some extra shoveling i'm sure they would appreciate that help as well  presented to public safety personnel police fire and dispatchers from across our shared communities on the work before us in the next couple of months so quickly was a good opportunity for our public safety professionals to learn more about that process and and it was very good no findings generally positive over outlook and come all together so good job to the crew for monitoring our grant dollars effectively and then lastly we have our first asked me in session this week that would just be to set ground rules and put a plan into place so on your february fourth agenda and you will see an executive session for us to talk around our shared goals that  city had all the store so big kudos to everybody you know it's a ton of work and the reality is you can make everybody happy in those situations just enough to happen but great communication and everything here so that works really well opportunity to pairs of mine here already so i think that's awesome which you freely admitted that not so the down time when you see the word has posted there is no job description application link for hiring a director position so if you know anybody who might be interested in applying for that position or have networks that you can put i you know that they are in the recruitment process you are pulling together a hiring team which will include a number of different individuals that are open to recruit business orders in their area as well as hopefully participation from a member of the city staff and other people within their network to participate in the robust hiring process directed by that hiring committee so i got a call from governor phil scott yesterday and  trying to continue to serve the residents of community different capacity but for your time in the city council we are really grateful no one best me takes from everybody up at this table in terms of time and sacrifice and it was a it was a pleasure  so first up is discussion of the on the budget so we put this meeting on your project calendar is an opportunity for you all you've heard from on from my and from me and from all the department heads about our f y twenty approve the bond resolution bond resolutions for the two capital projects and approved the placement of the options tax on the ballot as well so that's the overview and we're happy to answer any questions you and some of the resources you can put into some of the partner areas and appreciate the hard work goes into making that work and still providing great services to the community so thank you and then you know i think the thing that i haven't talked about publicly yet is getting you know this is the steps that we're taking to get salary alignment and ensuring that we are building a sustainable workplace here too is something that we i'm really proud of the work that with it into the ground you know six percent is the highest i've ever had to talk to people about i've never had to talk to people about us getting this motion and that's you know that's part of the deal this where there's just kind of been a collective shoulder shrug with the exception of one business owner had there's been a collective shoulder shrug of the other this makes sense especially when you can tell us what you're putting it towards and it's going towards that kind of infrastructure investment and they get that and there's no competition on the collection side of things you know the whole other businesses have a little pricing thing to figure out but you know we've talked to our ice one retailers and they've  community but we don't want to that we don't want staff to feel the pressure of us moving forward in this project means we need to scale back services for community that i hope you all are really proud of providing because i know i hear from a lot of community members how fantastic of a job although you had to be able to have a budget that comes in with these two important projects as well as maintaining local services and six percent is absolutely amazing i do think like you mentioned seth this is the the biggest number that's been put in front of the community in a while but we've also had conversations for a few years that this is something we're going to ha and why i think we've worked hard in the past to keep that keep prior budget increases under or around two percent so for us to be able to move these really important projects for a community while still ensuring that we're going to be trying to reach the same level that we have then that there will still be programs and opportunities available for when you see you there are community members is really a testament to a lot of hard work and a lot of ingenuity that it seems like from my perspective you've put it into the plan in this budget so thank you very much  this is my first budget process and what i really appreciate it was a very thorough well thought out presentation from all the departments it made it very clear to me that  what was proposed really ties into her teaching vision ultimately i believe a budget has of moral document and i think it really speaks to the values and wishes of our community so i think this see is facing some pretty financial some pretty significant financial hardships and they're looking at a variety of ways to mitigate that that difficulty so what we had and we got news of that in the mid to previous years so an additional one percent it's one hundred eighty five thousand we sent an additional one percent we can absorb within the current budget you could add in a couple of thousand dollars ask us to do that for the final draft next time but i pretty confident we can absorb that within the within the six percent we talked about i think quite frankly just a good tory alliance for a minute what we really and i met with the executive director general manager from c c t v last week and i think quite we also recommended one of the things they're considering is a raise in hand and kind of what the trip reads but it decreases in the monthly consonance i'm thinking about those who regularly use the bus their value will go down or stay the same and our concern about that is a lot of our residents may not have the monthly testament to make at one time you know they may not be able to come up with fifty dollars at the beginning of the month and therefore pa as they go so we've asked mark to look at options that may support if they have to go with some kind of rate increase options to support our residents to realize that savings and actually i can also tell you that they will be coming to the state expense reduction in coverage for the city communities in in change the path the best balance here and quite frankly walked off about twenty five percent of the coverage with the system covered waltzing increasing our  some routes farther out in chinon county and we did talk with them and are concerned about that as some of our ms events are actually commuting out so commuting to jobs in essex and williston and our fear that those reductions could negatively impact that's totally unacceptable i hate to throw a neighbor under the bus like that so to speak but the idea that so many of the residents can benefit from that service in the region to benefit from the service and not have a contribution from this then we heard this is a priority to get it to hopefully get more boyce's to the table so our plan would be if this is budgets approved to come back you know those funds be available as of july first to come back to the council between march and july put together with the recommended plan and have the council approved that plan to use those funds and i think the things that we've heard an interest in are depending on who's elected and what they prefer buying technology for them so all can feel like they can participate we've talked about providing child care services so for example if we were to align our commission commissions to meet on the same night do we provide child care or meal support on that and we could also look at options to do that several you know if the commission structure stays the same you know quarterly provide that support or something like that those are really the three areas we've identified in our child care support technology support and supplementing the resources that people spend when they give of their time and therefore are at home having dinner with their having the discussion actively as a community in regards to affordable housing policies you can find ways to interject resources in the affordable housing trust fund but i would urge anybody who is in this room that re needs at this table after march to strongly consider depending on what the need may be how as a city we can dedicate some level of resources or more funding to support that affordable housing trust throw in but understood why we can't it's just reflecting the great work that's being done here that some of those things work there and we understand the preservation take place any other colleagues questions concerns from coun in their comments questions concern for the public while it is our intention it is very appropriate to indicate that in this language all our problems are in general obligations so if there is a default it does go back to the taxpayers but the plant the intent is to pay for these other should list how much money has to be coming from water funds but it was advised against by legal counsel since we are certain the amount that would be taken out  changes as it's reflected in the budget and some administrative changes that we've been tracking to change once they were that's real bit so you have before you track changes version and a clean version we actually do have one a significant changes you see here one are moving the water and waste water rate setting process and the thrive rate setting process to council resolution fee that i proposed for a change of use an existing structure from one permitted use to another permitted use were no other march modifications including demolition conversion or additions to the property which would require a building permit or proposed the intent of having this included was to really recognize print primarily our nonresidential construction that already exists like for example the new city block where there is individual suites where use might come and go so that we're not charging them the full new construction bridge of a commercial building after rereading this i felt like it was a bit confusing and with all the additional language to try to clarify it so what i'm proposing is that we shortened that that  option to just change or use an existing structure for one permitted use to another permitted use period and end it there to remove that last part of the language if there were any because i think the way it's written nobody would ever really be able to qualify for it because typically there's going to be some state permit that's needed because they're all public buildings so if there were any if there was any alterations to the building that would become new construction so we would catch it under the other permits that catch circumstances where there would be demolition correct yes so if an existing building were to have an addition put on it for example we would become new construction then we would we would look at it under the other zoning permits that we already have on on the books and is there any so this is the key section is there anything in the ordinance system you know that w see value of their being and singular of a document for transparency that individuals in the community can deliver to you but there are points where it does make sense from a point or process