comments from the public anything that's not covered on the agenda tonight first i want to brag a little bit last session the legislature approved back seventy nine of the governor signed the act i'm really one of the things presenting that act was the creation of a state ethics commission the act  also outlined who would who would appoint the five members of that list of that commission one of those appointees was the my human resource association i'm so they have appointed julie to that commission while i'm from all of the h r professionals in the state so  she's choosing to make a couple of interesting events coming up this wednesday september twentieth from two thirty to five at the sac will be the second annual financial wellness day for new americans and it's co sponsored by twenty first from seven to eight when you see peace initiative and the city will be having a candlelight vigil in rotary park in recognition of welcoming week and international day of peace which will be talking about later on your agenda so again we encourage all in the community come out and join us seven o'clock in rotary park on thursday as you heard me talking about a couple of times in the last couple months we are doing a lot of hiring in the city so our communications corner starts tomorrow we got about twenty five applicants a response that really stellar group of people went through to come out for hiring process and call siren flew to the top of that list so he will be starting officially as employee for those who don't know he has been with us for the last two years as the american or members are really said have him start tomorrow the leadership team will do the second round of interviews with our public works finalist on wednesday and hope to  have somebody appointed quickly our first round of interviews for the planning and zoning manager will be held on october second and then finals will go to the planning commission we do have three openings for equipment operators so those are individuals who work in our  the city for winter operations we are hoping to hire some more in the next couple of weeks but at this our planning accordingly if we are not able to do that and also to give them time to train up to get to know our systems  surplus flashing beacon from the rotary project applique work so we are going to install that at that intersection and we are starting to see some interest in redevelopment along that side of east dallas we want really want to make sure it's as pedestrian friendly as it can be at this point we water slipways water supply thing is underway we did four thousand feet next week and will continue through the next few weeks believe will be done by the end of the month we have made the water taps for the three forty eight in the three ninety ninety four projects on main street can see those big buildings going up this week only really want to take the public for their patience as its lanes were closed related to that work and finally i just want to let you know that me i am substantial things are not public works public safety rather than most substantial things to pass on to you all to the public was that there was some discussion in regards to our staffing structure in relation to the fire department that we're actually going to be talking about in more detail tonight so i will go to that and then there was also discussion around that was coming cities policy or walking city sanctuary cities policy that we had referred to the public safety commission and that is actually going in front of the public safety commission and the community services commission because it touches on aspects that relate to both of them in it's a good discussion within the commission meeting next steps myself and the chair of the commission are going to be reaching out t i decided to make this recommendation to the summary point of the recommendation is that the current code enforcement director job description is being amended to be the fire chief job description and the  conversations with lots of people because i think it achieves a couple of critical outcomes for us first one of my observations being here is we're actually doing something very innovative in the city of winning by organization suppression and fire prevention under the same organizational heading there are a lot of communities who are trying to do that to put building inspection health life safety activities with the fire department  i think that's an innovation we're already doing and we need to kind of double down on that especially with a part time fire department we are we do struggle of there with a time coverage secondly i think with the job descriptions as currently written there is some confusion about roles and responsibilities and clarifying these titles will improve that third i think that one of the challenges with having a part time fire chief who has another job is that the connection between chief still has done an amazing job but he is not in the city in city hall forty hours a week with the rest of the leadership team so that connection to human resources and finance and the other members of the leadership team is a challenge so to have the fire chief who is here who can make those connections and bring those resources back to the fire department will only strengthen those connections between the department and the rest of the city and i think we're doing the really good thing going on right now between the leadership team and everyone kind of seeing their expert roles but also seeing themselves as part of the team really want to increase those ties to the fire department finally there is organizational support that's needed for the fire department hat and freeing up some of john audience time to dedicate to professionalization and human resource it is and standard operating procedures of the fire department will only strengthen that group so that's my pozole john i here tonight if you'd like to hear from him directly and certainly if you have specific questions around these job descriptions i'm happy to answer them one final point these are the only two changes recommended there's no  money tied to these changes there is no the rest of the leadership team of the fire department will stay exactly as is with the same operational expectations this i i really hesitate to call this a reorganization i don't think it is i think it's really clarifying the roles responsibilities of two employees in summary in the job description show that as fire chief john i will be primarily responsible at executive level for operations of the fire department and obviously policy staffing budgeting and as battalion chief spittal will be primarily responsible it but responsible for operational readiness training off our context to previous problems staffing changes at the fire department and the commission really wanting to ensure there was comfortability around stability on through that ngo i think what was really a charade to a lot of the people who are leadership positions that will be implementing this i don't know it that this came from a place that on grounds that they were both really comfortable with was really assuring to the commission and i think one of the things that really made sense to a lot of commission members was that this provides that clarity of chain of command in the event of an incident and i'm sure john can get into a little bit more of some of the complications from going our current structure and  to that or when you know certain individuals arrive on scene at a fire so i don't know if john if you could dive into a little bit of that i think that was really helpful for the commission could be really just a cultural source yes first of all good evening you know the confusion still exists with the with the reordered that we previously did with my role here you know if i go on the fire calling in my piece seventeen as a other facilitated with the membership of the fire department it's even as we sit in our office if you will with the assistant fire marshal and the captain depending on how we rolled out for the day to the call i could be the director and the fire tone would go and i p seventeen on the truck again for for the individuals at that level it's not an issue but for some others looking at it even our legal aid partners it's a bit confusing so it clears that up you know chief spittles done an excellent job as you just said and you know if this happens we're fortunate to retain john  he has some store you know some institutional knowledge which is needed but his think it does allow us to cover more bases which is more clarity which is extremely important so think i'm like jesse was saying it throughout the discussions it really did like we feel like i mean this was strengthening that idea of one thing prevention and suppression under the same wheel house having a really clear structure of ocean setting that question so i think that's really innovative and this is i think also it just felt like it for at least for myself i don't know if i can say you know i'm not going to speak for the other commission members but it just made a lot of sense to me and i really appreciate all the thought that went into this idea it seemed really logical i guess w duties that just i mean how does how this is finding so what's currently proposed is with the hiring of a planning and zoning manager position which historically or i don't start the by the last couple of years john has either provided side of things that will shift away freeing up more of his time to focus on the operational executive level oversight at the fire department i think that had no piece to that is that's not time wasted in my opinion i interests those connections in your connections and then you know i do personally so i don't it's not i wasn't wasted time and i think we moved forward through that time which is important changed at all that is something the mayor's point that is something that we are looking at for the f y nineteen budget development but for half way eighteen is staying away the current has budgeted there with them to make the necessary h r changes i think you know again there is i think very significant added benefit to the fire department as a result of these changes but other than that it's working changes so it's   each month to talk about one strategic vision area in detail so this is the first of such a report out to have a member here presented by staff and so two things we want to accomplish tonight one is to provide you an update but also kind of to test this template to see if it works we thought it was the clearest way to kind of give you a snapshot and some details but certainly if you have recommendations about that tool moving forward we're open to hearing them but what you have in front of you is a quick snapshot of the actual spreadsheet that was adopted and a status column showing where our assessment of where we are in achieving these areas and then details on each of the different strategies outlined in the progress made  front of us just see very clearly laid out is a chart looking through it first the first four strategic priorities that were established by council and we have this color coded so you can see what's proceeding and why hasn't started yet what started but not proceeding well and you can see that we have made progress has planned on two of the i don't and have not yet started on two of the other items in terms of the ones that are proceeding we have created and are supporting a housing commission and we've established as we've discussed here council before a pretty well rounded group of housing experts so they're not starting from scratch and don't have to kind of be brought up to speed quite so much because we do have a very aggressive deadline coming back to you when housing rules in january so i think that i have a lot of confidence that this group can do that with the appropriate structure so that has been set up and met for the first time at the end of elders so they had the general on our property and emergency information with me which made it easier for the landlords to respond to those is now the creator of all emergency reports and p d and code enforcement and fire department are all connected by a web based program so it's easier for them to share information and it's vastly improve the efficiency overall it's reduce the number of people touches three and it touches in addition commerce the inspections will begin by i hope they began by  this week and residential will follow in october so that is underway and we're looking forward to the results of that the two that have not been started yet are the update to form base code and that's very much at this point it's been discussed repeatedly through the planning commission but as a result of not having the housing bulls yet the planning commission has recommended that we hold off until we get a little bit further into the housing and as the housing portion of the municipal plan comes together there's an expectation that some of the needs for changes in four base code will reveal themselves that the other piece that we haven't done yet is streamlining and clarifying the permit process that again is something that's reliant upon us getting a new planning  processes in place now but as we shift staffing and as responsibilities shift and as we take another look at our regulations we want to make sure this is just always on our minds to be responsive to those looking to do projects and when you ski so we progressing some of them not as much as they are developing a revolving loan fund for code and life safety improvements that is another thing that's depending on completion of the firehouse data and hansing the home improvement loan program is something that i very much look forward to but i think that that will need to be revamped in response to that developing a welcome package for new residents is part of what will be assigned to our new communications coordinator and that should be over the course of this next  authority and a couple things that happened with that a current member of the one who's the housing authority board of directors is a member of the housing commission so that naturally creates a bridge in addition to that the city manager has met with them when you get housing authority leadership to build and strengthen our relationship so this will be ongoing consider us certified local government status this is base it's a status that is focused on promoting historic preservation for grants and access to technical assistance grants are available between five and ten thousand dollars program although there have been recent grants awarded thirty thousand dollars and one of the benefits of this is there are only fifteen certified local in the state so we have a high likelihood of winning these grants the downside of it is it's a fairly onerous set of requirements in order to get this so that's something that i'll be coming forward with you with more information on so that you partnering and we had a really positive meeting so the next steps were developed at the meeting and communication will be ongoing step also met with martin hahn the housing director of the house and conservation board to introduce and discuss the project in september of two thousand sixteen so we have kind of laid some groundwork there to be continued upcoming council rolls will include considering approval to pursue the certified local government does it nation as part of that considering approval of an ordinance to establish a historic preservation commission f y nineteen budget discussion and funding priorities aligned with the adopted policy priorities and strategies you'll be receiving recommendations from the counting commission and you participate meld into that and all the other pieces to it as well i think as it accurate to say that we will get as a housing commission will get sort of regular updates around the sort of the nature of the discussion or is the expectation that we won't necessarily get a formal report until the next time housing is up on the schedule for this type of a presentation i just want to make sure we're all on the same page around how that information is going to be circulated i think it can go either way i mean is it can be part i know sat will be at the housing commission meetings and so it can be part of the council or poor or if you prefer i can bring i guess what i think would be useful as a sceptic gives a really high level this is the discussion that we had and we're very excited on the state wide level that funds are being prioritized for the housing projects thirty million dollars for projects across the state is actually not much money and i think there's a real priority in the funding circles to make sure it's branded throughout the state he has a lot of affordable housing and i think we have a good story to tell about kind of following good money with good money and success with success we don't have a shovel different funding opportunities for such projects so essentially what we heard on a very preliminary level without a project that you are approved without any of that yet was we can make this project work it may become in the second round it might be too early on in the conception of the idea right now but i do have a question about the welcome packet and what the goal for distribution is so like i will we actually get there for residents there just for homeowners or for any renters coming in and we don't have any plan yet and that is something that's been discussed i believe for a long time here in the city and it's something that in my prior work i've had one for business owners for new homeowners for a wide variety of them for visitors so it's something that's been on my agenda as well but i think that we will wait until we have a new brand and a communications course meter in position before we really come up with the specifics of what that will be i think a lot of the materials that will be part of that package will also be developed communications current leader so it could be things like parking maps explanations of how they use the parking meter you know i think a bunch of things will come together as well as the places that you can any other comments  as we've talked about before those are also under review by the attorney general's office and the fact that group in acted by the legislature we receive the chief received notification from the training council last week that they had released a new statewide mandated fair impartial policing policy and it was a requirement that obvious policies adopted by october first to come into compliance with federal legislation this is an advance of another fair and impartial policing policy that we anticipate coming out around july first going around january first so the language is here you can see in track changes how it's different from our current general i did also want to carry on that this is in parallel to the conversations as eric mentioned earlier that we're having around a lot of meetings city policy that's more that's more expansive broader than just a general orders under the police department sort of back conversation continues on while we were talking about this formally when you don't need to take action unless this is an order that the chief has the authority to give plan because we've talked about it local government of the year or official may not prohibit or in any way restrict any government entity or official from sending to receiving from the immigration naturalization service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status federal state or local government entity from doing any of the following with respect to information regarding the immigration status whether lawful or unlawful of any individual so the three things listed are sending such information to the requesting receiving such information from immigration and naturalization service i mean training the information and exchanging such information with any federal state or local government entity so that's what's covered under thirteen seventy three us code sixteen forty four speaks of communication between state and local government agencies immigration naturalization service and i will stand in any other provision of the state federal or local law or no state or local government entity may be prohibited or in any way restricted from sending to or receiving from immigration naturalization service information regarding the immigration adopted is that it danced on legal edge of municipalities per getting something that they couldn't prohibit under federal law so what the federal law says is that u s policies while you can encourage or have policies that support something you can't prohibit your employees from complying with other federal laws this is a new federal law has been on the books and there are some renewed interest in it really say that federal state or local no state or local government entity may be prohibited or in any way restricted from sending or receiving from the immigration and naturalization service so  to the first one the statute thirteen seventy three i believe the changes will be substantial i think this was an intermediate step to lead their own a lawsuit liability against this alexander state as a whole but my understanding is from the training council is that a more significant rewrite coming in could in considering state level policy that would you know kind of direct me as a pallies as opposed to me as pallies obligation to adopt our own i know that we've seen on the national stage lawsuits in regards to funding but have we seen any lawsuits in regards to probation of either state or municipal employees and federal law like have we seen anything that's case law around this because it really comes down to all something that the courts have to grapple with a lot of which is the states rights issue essentially and i'm just wondering if we've to know any of the context for the reason for the straight through there year that you have been given no no information this cars you know what why they struck bad or what you know what was driven to do that i just know you know the modifications were made by the training there presently you know and as far as you know the reason for that specific strike i have no independent information for you but you know does the trade council work with the attorney general ye guess i'm sorry to interrupt no action is needed tonight on this but i but it is it did as the chief and i received this information last week it did feel a little frustrating given the other conversations we've been having through the public safety commission about these policies so i think there is interest in southside in adopting them as it is a state requirement and certainly we want to be part of those conversations as they move forward to ensuring that what comes out of this process me our community's leaves but we didn't want to go through that without having come to you with it because we're having these very active member stations other issues other any other comments from  i know that nationally there are likely to be cities that will be there currently or just on friday there was a court decision in regards to funding specifically for chicago where  judge granted a temporary injunction saying that the department of justice and attorney general jeff sessions could not prohibit the disbursement of federal funds to chicago for refusal to cooperate with federal immigration policies so i think we are starting to see some national level case law careful and i think it's super board and critical we pay attention to that work and well and this is you know this seems like if you read through a lot of us policy through some of the use of resources sections a lot of what it's saying and the intended impact of what it's saying then is completely washed away by update on what exactly that way you know is it what the scenario anticipate is is it that i asked wants to know about the specific immigration status of an individual or you you know which is we're not going to go staff resources we're not going to ask about immigration status but then there's this and bright red language you know letters except we have exactly so i think you know understanding that this is an interim measure it also sort of flies in the face of the resolution we just passed earlier it would be helpful to get just a little bit more clarity for the purposes of explaining to people ninety two hundred from our capital reserves to buy a new system we are recommending we buy not the lowest bidder but go with what's called more current thank you because that is that that is the current system used by our partners in the regional dispatch conversation so as we line up our systems and our staff being used to working with but i do have and i do have a personal knowledge of it because i was the one responsible for going into audio of the system in retrieving the information through for cord as far as the system records all radio traffic both police and fire it records all the phone lines except for one they're coming in and out of the police department so again that this system that we had was fairly antiquated it was over fifteen years old and it did record all phone lines and radio transmissions at the police department the ability to provide copies of the nine one one calls for a successful prosecution court is a big it is a big aspect the nine one one system when people call the nine one one centers they get transferred to us so the nine one one seven is we'll have the very initial phone call but then when it's transferred to us all that information is on our system so that's what we retreat for court and that's often time they get more detailed information from the callers and and it's just need to need to capture that also the fact that we can review radio transmissions before during and system and be able to hear what they said and really keep things moving along at a at a pace so that we can successfully resolve it's going on but the chief speaks of the strand of element plan that it did include money to move the communications tower because a proposed height of the building would have interfered with the proper reception the plan also called to replace the recording device since it was not capable of working from such a mall location on the strand project is currently on hold and since the all new unit is no longer functioning we need to request the capital funds for this replacement this new replacement recording system is a combination of software and hardware it is a standalone unit capable of recording up to ten channels and with two terabytes of storage it also comes with a one year maintenance and more n t plan for the anticipation of lifespan for acorn is ten plus years the same device is currently being used by the state police colchester police cell burlington and the state p s a p centers it is capable of being moved to a consolidated dispatch center and that's the seri it is cloud  based the new device also allows dispatchers to play back radio and phone calls work station from the information this played into effect on a call i handled a couple weeks ago it was a rescue call for a woman having difficulty breathing and they gave us a vocation in one of the apartment buildings here we went knocked on the door nobody answered we're able to get inside nobody's home and it just we're supposed to be gone for female and everything in the apartment looked male so we had to go back to the nine one one center they really listen to the call and figured out they sent us to the right now i'm wrong apartment so right building wrong apartment so you know the ability to do that by the time we reached o wait it was a good five ten minutes before we were directed to where we need to be where this way a car comes through the dispatcher could tell him hey you know this isn't seeming right they can immediately get back into it and listen to see if there was a number transposed or you know something misheard just to allow for a more efficient and safer response for people there the big thing with the system again is the is the court i mean we we provide a lot of discovery material through through this information and right now i have to submit a letter explaining that our system has failed we don't have this available to us and you know we're working on you know being able to provide this to the courts again for you well for a successful prosecution visualizes schools so that's our proposal yeah and you did a really good job there i think that mapping can be used as a data tool for analysis and can really assist us and can clearly communicate what our needs are so i'm hoping that we can have support in doing that we don't currently have that software internally and nor the expertise to do that ourselves and what i'm asking you to prove is and application for twenty thousand dollars with a six thousand dollar match and i would come back with a request for funds from the c d c fund balance for that we have over one hundred forty thousand dollars that we kind of laughed and said welcome back to you for some of this as needed i'm so i'm hoping that you prove this application intentionally did that to think about being able to leverage against other opportunities that presented itself as well as you know i know there is some concern about using that budget to fund operations until the tip expires so how do we use it strategically and not and just to let you know we're ahead of schedule with our economic development strategic plan so we should be coming in i think probably about three four months before the deadline i'm with down the interim report everything is going rather swimmingly great the f y nineteen budget cycle of the biggest change here that we're recommending it's to consider it a comprehensive municipal budget in the winter with the general fund budget as opposed to doing in the general in the winter and then the special revenue funds over the course of the spring we think the advantage to that of to the council is that as you make budgetary decisions many of those decisions cross funding streams and so to make those decisions decisions comprehensively that with the full financial picture in mind we think there's a benefit to that they're also quite frankly free up some time in the spring to to focus efforts on larger policy conversation it certainly will be a heavy lift especially in this first year as we are kind of get used to it so in order to facilitate that process into and i have tried to lay out a really clear plan of what would happen absolutely require some grouping together of budgets so what you have in the memo is our recommendation of how those different budgets would be grouped together so for example the night that we would present to you the governor general government budget which is in this think about the shared goals and the shared allocation of resources we can't do that so we don't like how we would group them additionally we want to be very intentional about how we give you materials to process their fears and be a lot of information coming all at once so our intention is at the december first meeting in december we would hand you a complete budget book of all of the post budgets as well as background or formation  council process what does staff need to do on the backend over the next couple of months so you have that in your memo as  list as compared to building permits it's on the permits that have been issued and do that estimate to set before we actually even start talking about need areas for cats and we didn't just improve the fee ordinance we also talked about revisiting that regularly and had a conversation about revisiting that at this time of the year to see if we want to make adjustments before a budget process started i was making assumption that we didn't want to reopen those considering those were just adopted two months ago but if we want to do have we certainly can as well  sure that the fees charged are in line with the costs and what we're trying to incentivize and we've had a conversation about doing that in october of every year before a budget was presented so that we were making that decision outside of trying to raise fees to balance a budget i was making the assumption that we didn't want to reopen that conversation this year because we just adopted in july that we would start that process next year but if you want to re fee structure we should do that in october as well hear that and understand that and we will and that's why we have this meeting scheduled to very systematically walk through those permits i will just calving that the way that the structure in vermont worst about approving budgets and setting a tax rate is as you know on the on at town meeting today what's voted on is the amount of money will raise and that's voted the month before the grand list is set so in actuality setting the tax rate is a mathematical equation between what the voters approved to spend and one of the enlisted so they're i'm not sure we're ever going to get away from that being a perfect math equation but we certainly can present to you the best information that we possibly have in beginning of december of what that we anticipate that will be and again why we're trying to be very systematic about it this year is to ensure that what we bring to you is as close as possible but we can't guarantee a tax rate guidance on october second yes it's so interesting you bring that up because that was my question to you of course i had not i have not heard that previously i think that it specifically references nonprofit some just subjecting  nonprofit organizations that receive government financial support to open meeting in public records laws that's the one you're talking about yes yeah and i don't like a moral basis i pretty strongly disagree with on just me personally individually i know how strapped so many nonprofits are and they also operate in a under really different circumstance that are not obligated to the public in the same way that we are as a public is a really big and dense document so i would appreciate as a matter of process having the opportunity to come back october second so that i'm sure we all likely there you know walked opportunity to go through a look at a lot of these very specific s i understand that but i said really resonated with me that it's worth all the to it's our obligation right to make decisions of you know the city of where you see where those dollars are going to then decide the naturals we're individually not in any relation to my role in the secretary of state's office so i'm happy to reach out to the league and see whether a conversation was around that at the policy setting committee where the other so i guess i would be curious to hear from our staff here on what the view where he was he police department is and i'd be curious to hear why they think that that is something that's there's never heard that before so i don't feel one way or the other right now because i just don't really have any information  after all public safety public health and local regulatory and budgetary concerns are adequately addressed as a relief yes i mean i don't know who gets to decide whether something's been adequately  addressed but it does they do mention education at some point their law enforcement issues and any discussion of marijuana legalization identifying and addressing its impacts on cities towns and villages including those on school populations for effect but there's nothing really that says fines need to be directed