nine six six again that's eight zero two eight six two three six six if you've got questions we do a lot of city updates today as we turn into fall and remind folks that were nearing the election season so it's a great time to start paying attention to issues in gauging in things and encourage you to keep up that level of engagement questioning and learning as we move into the budget season into the winter as well so today we're going to cover a number of big things that of unfolded over the past couple  months in the city first off we want to make sure that you're staying up today on the big projects that people have voted in the bond votes in the last few months namely the main street reconstruction and also the meiers memorial pool revitalization project so  we'll be doing quick update some both of those items today and let you know where those things stand as we've promised to try to keep folks in gauge as you come in the budget season and have an idea of where those projects are falling in terms of financing opportunities and options and how you can help again continue to provide feedback to city councilman city government how we can best execute those pro those projects for you and the community we're also going to do an update on another issue that folks have paid a lot of attention to i think in our communit es all resident voting talk about the timeline that unfolded in regards to considering that issue and what may lie ahead in terms of process following the most recent vote to put the issue on a slightly different time track them as initially proposed and then i also want to alert folks about a housing series that's coming up in town and again a couple shows ago i think quite good to get in some of the details of the work that was being done by the housing commission want to make sure folks are aware of those conversations taking place as we've changed only over the past few years allowed for additional opportunities for development to take place in the community we also feel like it's really important to ensure that we've got a good strong housing policy in place as well that will help the community ensure  that we know who we are what we look like in terms of the capacity to continue to support our diversity through the through a rich and diverse housing stock as well first off i want to start tonight by just going through a few big updates in the city for folks who have followed when you ski received a somber announcement from one of our longest standing public servants and that's over fifty years klim bissonnette serve the city of new ski in number of different capacities from city councillor incredibly involved citizen mayor and most recently him and the house of representatives for the state of vermont can't say enough about the dedication claims been been known for through the years given so much the city of new ski steered the city through some very challenging times but also some exciting times oversaw the passage in creation of the state's largest redevelopment project in history and the downtown creation of the tift district or the tax finance district so is klym signs off from uphill year and moves on the next chapter of his life please take a moment cinema message thank him for all the work that he's done because it's folks like clim who have dedicated themselves so many years to the city of new ski that puts us in the exciting place we are and we we wouldn't be where we are without claiming that all of his dedication to the years so from the bottom my heart i know much of the community claim thanks for all that you've done through the years and we look seat or at least one writing so please continue to keep track of what's going on there as we approach the november elections one thing that's obviously very pervasive in a new city this time of year is the almighty pumpkins right  so as we approach the fall season one of the new skis richest traditions is the festival of pumpkins and we're very happy to say season's greeting is back doing that event again i really want to urge folks that that is a volunteer driven event and it's a volunteer driven event by residents who have been doing it a long time and have put a lot into that and you know they'll be quick to tell you it's always a need of new energy and new blood that hasn't maybe put their hands on the festival before so encourage folks to reach out you can reach out to me even if you like it mayor at when you ski vitti dot org happy to put you in touch with the folks who organize out of it that is a community powered event that takes a lot of volunteer time and effort and we are constantly in need of extra hands good backs for folks who don't mind cleaning scrubbing and helping with the pumpkins in addition to the pumpkin festival the festival pumpkins that will again be held in the circulator park we also recognize that once again it will be downtown and once again it's going to combine all those various events so hans a new ski is back on and we look forward to a great event and really exciting season that i think the new skis come to own in the area w to several and maybe plant the seed we've had several residents who have started block parties in their neighborhood and we're more than happy to support this is a city and i want to acknowledge our police department and their crew and her chief heber who have gone  and done a lot of the cooking for these they have a little budget that we put aside to do those types of outreach events so if you and your neighbors think the block party would be a good idea really encourage you to reach out to the city again visit w let us know what street you would be interested in potentially closing down or having the police come we set up a bouncy house streets coming up soon and we've done western aid for a number of years so great opportunity to engage neighbors cool environment for some great exchanges to take place in the cities really happy to support that type of activity so hope folks in their community will feel empowered to reach out to us something like that up with your neighbors really encourage that and something we've seen take city did put in a panhandling ordinance that asked folks not to panhandle aggressively the a c l u or decided to flag that as potentially a policy that needed to be addressed from their perspective want to update folks that council did take the action of putting the ordinance change into motion to address that issue to ensure that we are providing a good environment for our community in terms of what residen experience you know operational and we came to the conclusion that really had no impact that it was not really being utilized to certainly discriminate against anybody but was was really just a backbone for addressing when folks maybe were approaching folks in regards to community members in regards to potential donations to different causes but wasn't being used in any kind of threatening manner employees to report that we have taken about addressing that on its issue in that forward having that date for folks as we round the corner on updating that ordinance when update you to that in march you voted to help us makes pretty significant upgrades to our wastewater treatment plant let you know that construction is under way with those big exciting announcement that something's done but we are in the process of beginning that waterworks or excuse me head works project that will help screen materials as they come into the waste water treatment plant along  life of that plant so kind of in the weeds municipal things are but a big deal for the community we also set the f y twenty budget schedule in the last council meeting so again this is a great opportunity in december and january to make sure that you're addressing council about what your priorities are what you think we should be focusing on financially anything that you have that you want to flag as a concern or want more information about you know it's challenging when we get to the first week in march and people express questions or concerns because at that point in time we've set the budget we've put forward so really encourage you to try to interject into that inject your thoughts opinions and concerns  as as far in advance as you can and that can be as simple as going to the city website and sharing a few brief sentences with city council in e mail again you can find all of our contact information and be sure to reach out share your thoughts focusing on an issue but you can come to any meeting in a way and and we meet every week in january it will probably actually also have an extra meeting in january leading up to approving a budget proposal in january and we're talking just a second really get into you know a bit more of an update on where the pool mainstreet issue are but this is also where those projects are really going to come to a head so to speak and we're working over the next couple months to find finalize the exact finance model that's going to be proposed to you in terms of a tax rate and what increase or impact they may have not just for this year but for subsequent years as well so we want to share that with the public make sure you understand as you walk into those polls which are voting on them voting for  and then i just want to bring up one more item that when you do go to the polls this year you'll be voting almost two years to the day in advance of our one hundredth anniversary in the city when you ski and over the next couple months we're go start engaging folks in regards to a legacy campaign to really ensure that we celebrate that one hundred year anniversary properly or you might call the hundred year anniversary of our independence from the culture esther but that's something that's forthcoming but w make make that known that when you see that seal which shows up sometimes behind me you'll see all my power point in a moment we've got one nine hundred twenty today and we're getting very close to that so we'll have a two year anniversary wind up or will be working to have a year long celebration to kick off because it will be just three short years away so now let's get into the main crux of our content today which again we're going to swing back and talk about a potential charter change that folks will hear more about over the coming months and also talk a little bit about those project updates that they're want to provide so first off i want to update folks on all resident voting in iraq and an issue that i think is really  really important to a lot of members of our community i think we all recognize that when you ski is the most diverse community by a great deal in the state of vermont over sixteen percent of our population was not born in the united states in many cases in kids that have either refugee status or are in the process of going through the the citizenship the steps to citizenship as such we have a number of residents that live in our community who are not able to vote in elections are not able to vote on things like whether or not we should establish a pool in our community whether who should spend money in destin revitalizing main street whether or not you know the municipal actually also process that we need to look at whether or not we should redefine what a qualified voter looks like in earlier this fall so late summer and august we're a timeline to pursue investigate whether we should put it on the ballot for a potential charter change commitment in that would have been up for a vote in november to change the definition of voter a new ski also means that we have to update our city charter the charter is really the document founds the community outlays what our government looks like it talks about how we can raise money spend money departmental creation and really sets forth the powers of the city have the residents have and the staff have and in a very general way it also defines how our politics works including who's a qualified voter that same charter is actually also relied upon by the school which their charter refers back to it in terms of who is a qualified voter so changing their charter includes not just the vote of our residents which we would need to move the issue for but would also include the legislator or a legislative committee passing that item during the exploration process of potentially putting on november ballot i would just summarize summarize that there were a number of items and issues that were flagged i think the majority counsel felt were needed some more time to be worked through into that  wanted to give the community a bit more time to process the issue and have those thoughtful community conversations and engagement outreach so we essentially hit pause on the issue for right now decided  put on the november ballot but that does not mean that this issue is going into the background and we will be discussing it again in their first meeting in october and bringing this item back to say what is a reasonable time i would do we think we can how quickly we can move forward on an item like this the that is also consider of all those complexities that we ran into and trying to potentially put on the november ballot so this is an item that we're still very much looking for  people in the community input on and feedback and it's also an item that i think we really appreciate you taking time to engage your neighbors about have a conversation with people in community who it might affect who maybe would gain the right an opportunity to vote who might not otherwise so that's where the issue stands for right now i think it's a to be continued but want to make that really clear for folks so there's not confusion as to whether or not will be or will not be on the november ballot it will not be right now by city council action  so that's where that's being left at the moment so one thing you will find on the ballot in march is it is a budget that reflects debt service payment on two important projects  first is meyer's moral poor and the second being the revitalization of main street so it's a reminder of folks if i go back to the slide we initially looked at a couple different proposals in regards to the pool we had the original proposal which was a sort of all in what we think the the community wants in terms of a poor with all features all capabilities all capacity and that came in at three point nine million dollars and we had a three point five million dollar option that was sort of value engineering meaning there were some components of the pool that were taken out i wouldn't go so far as to call them luxury items but maybe additions that were absolutely critical to the operation the pool and then we had the reduced tax impact proposal which was the reduced tax proposal and in addition to going with that reduced tax proposal we open the door for a very set amount of funds to be raised by the pool committee so the value engineer proposal moving forward with the pool committee seeking ou r exact number doesn't come to mind but three hundred thousand plus dollars in terms of fund raising that they would be pursuing to provide the additional components related to the features that they thought were important during their scope and study so again a lot of thought and community energy when in this process and a lot of people gave feedback as to what was important to them and at the end of the day and balancing the two projects it was really kept the poor main street sort of separate for quite a while in terms of conversations but given now that they're both going to be impacting the same budget felt like it was it was import not to bifurcate those two conversations and start really blending them together and the concept of the same taxpayers going to be asked to pay for both projects right  so in light of that we elected to start with the scaled back pool and said let's leave a window then for fund raising to take place that could perhaps up the pool and i want to point out that we are talking excuse me not the reduced tax impact propos but the value engineering proposal that still left enough of those components there that ensure the long jetty the pool be operational so we passed that news along to the fundraising committee we look forward to seeing those efforts and activities and other several members of council who are going to be engaged in that but again if you need connection to the fundraising opportunities there has been postings on from port form reach out to the city will be happy to help be the spoken hub to get you in contact with those folks you know it's going to take more than bake sales  get the amount of funds that are being sought there so really looking for creative ideas to help raise some money to put some those components in there that we think would be helpful but from a baseline perspective decided not to put in a right away in the national proposal and then we also talked about the potential scaling mainstreet so as a reminder main street includes a number of different components to the war had utility upgrades on street parking storm water infrastructure bikepath  accommodation streetscape amenities so there were a number of layers to that project from a component perspective and it spanned the entire link to main street so in our instruction back again to staff on the financing we've asked for for this somewhat similar to the pool we've said what would it look like to stage this project we're going to look like to either stage it from a sectioning standpoint or o work standpoint maybe doing different layers of the work so we are waiting to hear back final numbers and a proposal on what that might look like an essentially again what we're talking about is potentially a long getting the length of the project but doing in a way that from a tax impact standpoint is a bit more sustainable on incremental increases versus asking for everything upfront you know when we look at just natural increases of cost to the city you know we're at about four percent or four cents on the tax rate of just naturally naturally incurred costs to do the same business that we did last year and that's things like health insurance coal cost of goods just increasing  so we want to be mindful that if we're also including capital projects that include another two percent four percent and we're not quoting percentages just yet will be getting there very soon that we're we're taking that into account that the taxpayers are going to get you know a bill that says four to six percent even if we do this in the most scaled back manner so with that recognize that initially if we did all went all in full speed on both projects we were probably looking at eighteen plus percent over the first two years in terms of the impact on the tax rate which i think you know while there was no formal vote in terms of in terms of the exact funding methods that we're going to end up using the exact funding schedule that we're going up using i think everybody fell on council i think it's reflective to say that that was a hard increase to pass along to taxpayers so we are looking we're looking at the fact that both mainstreamers poor bones or bonds were passed by voters so we are we are also moving forward as a result of that work in the redevelopment of of main street on also coming up with housing primer which i'll speak about here now but just to wrap up that conversation on meyers morrow pool and main street please just recognize that you know if you are in favor of those projects the votes that got us started were the bond votes that gave us authorization to take out debt really the next votes that occur on this is number one will be asking taxpayers to service that debt with an additional burden on the tax rate that's going to be a reality so you'll hear us talk about the budget this year and we'll talk about what what portion of that budget is going towards addressing those the debt to ensure that those projects happen but in addition to that too we also have exhilarating thems like the creation of a one percent sales tax which never had but most around the communities actually do so we are looking at implementing that as part of the part of how we're going to fund the debt on main street are going to service that debt we recognize that with the creation of infrastructure on main street we also are increasing the opportunity that properties get redeveloped and that there be additional investment when you skewer an exciting time where people do want to build where they do want to open businesses here people do want to live in our community and as such that demand has created activity and part of the part of the balancing act with that is ensuring yes we love that new activity love those not to the community but we also want to ensure that we're remaining affordable so we put together a housing commission work which i breezed through these goals last time in terms of encouraging the development of affordable housing opportunities for a broad range of income levels fostering mix of housing types to serve the needs of different family compositions household types promoting quality housing that safe and we asked that goals be developed by that group and that group came back with very prescribed goals with fifteen percent of new units serving under eighty percent of the area median income making sure that we have tools available to reach balancing goals is that next discussion which i want to bring up next and the proposals that are coming for the next few months and what we're looking at from a policy perspective the three key ones i think you're going to hear quite a bit a lot quite a bit about prior to the end of this calendar year the first is a replacement ordinance that would require replacement of housing units as if redevelopment property occurs where there are current residential units so basically if you were to tear down a building that had ten housing units in there a replacement ordinance might say hey you need to build to at least ten units in the property as you redevelop it there's also a housing trust  component to the policy mix it's being discussed a housing trust fund can be used by the city to inject funds into types of deals that may be created fordable housing opportunities that might otherwise have a hard financial time and then inclusionary zoning which my guide what type of development takes place and what type of incomes the development serves and units that are available so most importantly today i want to point out that there's a number of important housing are housing sessions coming up for the community and we've posted these and the first one occurred last night or the twenty fourth of september which was we looked at the replacement ordinance and trust fund i thems initially the second one is tuesday october the nights from six to eight pm and keep keep no i'm pretty sure that's going to be held at the community center it might be at city hall but to say the ninth of two thousand and eighteen between six and eight pm they're going to  look at the broader in impact of inclusionary zoning replacing ordinances and how we might balance those policies and then finally the housing commission on the twenty second of october from sixty is also going to have and meeting on the same topics again so we're going to continue to focus beakers on informing our community about these policies is we consider them and consider putting them in place as a reaction to some of the investment we're making infrastructure that we know might spur additional development lots to keep track of hope folks staying gages use that website that the city has to reach us ask questions go to the primary resource on some of these really complex issues great to talk to your neighbors remember we have a professional  and counselors who spent a lot of time here a to help answer any questions you might have about these or other projects in the city thanks very much for joining us for another session of in the world of a new ski america seth leonard will look forward to seeing him for the next show