City Council - Regular Meeting

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We will get started in just a couple more minutes. We're waiting on a couple of counselors to make quorum before we begin. all right so with that i'm going to call to order the city council with mayor presiding on monday june 22nd 2026 pm at sorry at 602 pm it is also 2026. um first item for our meeting tonight is the agenda is there a motion on the agenda moved by councillor bergman is there a second second second by council barlow thank you any discussion on the agenda before we vote Seeing none, all in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. On to our next item, item 2.1, which, oh, let me open up my actual agenda here. Item 2.1, which is a necessity hearing for the reconnection of Bank and Cherry Street. CDS CD 23 parentheses 1 parentheses project. They give me this to use, so I promise I will use it. All right, so for our quick run of the show, as we get going here with our hearing, city staff and our project team experts will write an overview of the project and provide their testimony. City councilors will then be allowed an opportunity to ask questions of the staff and the project team. And then we'll have an opportunity for interested parties to ask questions following that testimony and provide any other additional testimony of their own. So with that, I think we're ready to turn over to our outside counsel, Christian Ashamis, who will begin with the presentation of evidence. Welcome. And we can't hear you yet. You want to turn on green means on.

There we go. Thank you. Turning it on helps. Good evening. My name is Kristen Seamus. I'm an attorney at Monahan so far, and I am assisting the city's Department of Public Works tonight with the presentation of evidence at the condemnation and compensation hearings for what's called the Great Street Reconnecting Bank and Cherry Streets Project, CDS CD 23-1. Tonight, you'll be asked to consider the necessity of this highway alteration project, particularly whether the public good, necessity, and convenience of the inhabitants of the city of Burlington required that this project proceed and that certain easement areas be condemned. As for condemnation, there's only one remaining property at issue, parcel seven at 20 Pine Street, owned by the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception Parish Charitable Trust. All other impacted property owners have granted easements to the city. The city requires temporary and permanent easements over 20 Pine Street. At the site visit you saw earlier tonight, City staff showed the areas that were impacted and the existing right of way for the city. So Vermont municipalities have several statutory options for condemning property. And I apologize because I know we went over this all just weeks ago. But for tonight's record, I want to go over it again. Because this is a municipal highway project, the city's authority lies in Title 19, which provides for laying out, discontinuing, reclassifying, and altering of municipal highways. So this is a highway alteration project. The city has submitted evidence that it's met all statutory requirements for condemnation. We'll ask that you make a finding that the public necessity and convenience of the inhabitants of the municipality require that this project proceed and that these easement areas be condemned. Necessity has a specific definition under 19 VSA section 7 which points to 19 BSA Section 501 of the State Highway Condemnation Statutes. That definition is a reasonable need that considers the greatest public good and the least inconvenience and expense to the condemning party and to the property owner. Necessity shall not be measured merely by expense or convenience to the condemning party. Necessity includes a reasonable need for the highway project in general as well as a reasonable need to take a particular property and to take it to the extent proposed. In determining necessity, consideration shall be given to the adequacy of other property and locations, quantity, kind, and extent of cultivated and agricultural land that may be taken or rendered unfit for use immediately and over the long term by the proposed taking, the effect upon home and homestead rights and the convenience of the owner of the land, the effect of the highway upon scenic and recreational values of the highway, the need to accommodate present and future utility installations within the highway corridor, THE NEED TO MITIGATE THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION AND THE EFFECT UPON TOWN GROUND LISTS AND REVENUES. SO DURING OUR PRESENTATION TONIGHT WE'LL FOCUS ON WHY THESE TAKINGS ARE NECESSARY UNDER THAT DEFINITION. WE'LL START WITH THE PRESENTATION FROM ISRAEL MAYNARD OF STANTEC.

ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU. SO, YEAH, PREPARED A BRIEF PRESENTATION TO GO OVER A LOT OF THE STUFF WE JUST DISCUSSED IN THE SITE VISIT. GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE PROJECT. some background history, as well as the actual easements we're looking for from the subject parcel.

Israel, would you pull the mic just a little bit closer to you, please? Thank you.

All right. Is that better? That's great. Thank you. So first, just here's the purpose and need, our purpose slide. So we're going to provide an overview of the project, including the purpose and need, the background, the design constraints that influence the design. And then we want to demonstrate the need for the temporary and permanent easements on parcel 7. So quick agenda is the the project overview our key considerations, and then the required easements So here's just a brief project overview, so this is the entire project corridor At this time where the project we're doing now is looking at just cherry Street And then the st. Paul and pine connection Bank streets future although it is shown on this graphic So why is this project happening? So this project is necessary for improving the safety, mobility, and functionality for all the users of this corridor. So this whole concept of the street redesign is just to reimagine the right-of-way to be more usable for everyone. And then it's also managing traffic congestion by restoring the grid street network. So that's the reconnection of St. Paul and Pine. Project history. So in 2016, the Burlington voters approved the TIF funding for the project. 2016 to 2018, the city developed plans for Bank and Cherry based on the Great Streets standards. In May of 2018, the city council approved the concept. And then also in 2016 to 2018, private developer for City Place advanced their design plans for the new streets of Pine and St. Paul. 2017 had a development review board approve the street design. 2018 there was a stall in the project due to funding. And then in 2023 the city was awarded grant funding so the project restarted. That funding included $12 million in congressionally directed spending as well as $22 million of raised grant. So 2023 to current was the updating the project design and then the right-of-way process, which brings us to where we are now, and then projecting out into the future. We have a September 30th obligation deadline for that grant funding, so that's coming right up. So just getting into what we need in the existing parcel we're talking about. So here's the existing conditions of the parcel. It does look a little bit different. As we noticed when we were out in the field today, this existing walkway is actually gone now. So is this walkway. That one is also gone. We will be talking about the catch basin. So that can be seen in the photo down here in the corner. And then also the pedestrian push button pole, which is also seen down here in this photo in the corner. And then of note also is that the existing sidewalk ends right at the right-of-way limit. So here's our proposed condition at the time of the right-of-way plans, which was to connect to those walkways, which are no longer there. We are connecting drainage. So the purpose of this drainage connection is to get this particular catch basin disconnected from the sewer system. So this will go into the storm drain instead of connecting to the sewer line in this area. Another permanent easement required for this pedestrian push button to get that moved It's currently right on the right-of-way line and and we're looking to move that into the right-of-way So that would be at this location in the proposed design Most of the the area of easement we're looking for is to set a project demarcation fence and this is to limit how far the contractor can can move on to the private property it will also set up tree protection fence and to make sure the contractors are not encroaching on those existing trees and give them the best chance for survival. This is necessary since reconstructing the sidewalk right on the right-of-way line requires form work and other excavation that will require the contractor to be slightly over the right-of-way line to make sure that's done to the highest standard. So this graphic is showing the easements. You can see this color is temporary. And then the greener color is the permanent. So as you can see, very little permanent easement required just for that catch basin itself and reconnecting that to the, getting that onto the drainage system instead of the combined system. And then that, a majority of that permanent easement is within an easement that's already been, that's already been acquired by the transit center. So that's it on the easements. Why are the easements required? So I kind of went through this as we were going through the easements, but without the easements, the interface between the existing walkway and the proposed sidewalks would be discontinuous and uneven. The temporary construction easements required for setting those concrete forms and then access for removing that pedestrian push button equipment. And then the permanent easement is to install and maintain the new pipe connection to that catch basin. So yeah, any questions?

Do you want to do, as we've done this with prior hearings, go one piece of testimony at a time and take questions? Sure, that's fine. Okay, great. So are there any questions from counselors? And if we could please drop the screen share so I can see. I think we have a few counselors online as well. Thank you. Questions from any city counselors on this first piece of evidence? We will get to interested parties in a minute. Okay. Can you use the mic, Councillor Berkman?

Whether it is after the interested party speaks or now, I would really like to have a more granular explanation from the city in terms of why the statutory objection is not valid. And it doesn't matter to me whether it's after them, it's before them. We're only quasi-judicial here. to the extent to, and I'm trying to read the statutes, but I've got to scroll through, so being that this is quasi-judicial, I would really appreciate... I'm happy to jump in now, and then I know... Any time that it's appropriate would be fine.

I can give you just a brief reason, and I know Attorney Franco's here and wants to address that too, which we can... But the statute, just to answer your question, the statute that he was referring to as to why you would have needed to have a citywide vote, that's an urban renewal statute. We are not proceeding under the urban renewal condemnation. That would have been a totally different process. We're proceeding under the highway condemnation, and there is no requirement or no restriction on religious land. It's only in a couple of limited situations. It's municipal buildings, it's urban renewal, and I believe it's housing authority that that language is included in the statute, but not for highway takings.

Thank you. And to the extent to which there is a rejoinder, I would appreciate a little back and forth there. Thank you.

Other questions from councillors on what we've heard so far? And a reminder, the counselor's online, just to raise your Zoom hands if you'd like to get in the queue. Okay. All right, Attorney Chemis, you can continue or with Israel or whoever else you would like to call next.

Do we want to allow other, and I might have missed it.

We can move to the next person to provide a testimony if you're ready to move on to the next person. And we will get to interested parties at the next step. and you can ask questions to anything that we present first. First, we're going, as I described before, first we're going with our city staff and experts for the team, and then we will go to interested parties to answer it, and we can ask any questions you'd like from what we've heard. Okay, thank you very much.

So I have online Matt Coburn, a VTrans right-of-way agent. Matt, are you there? I saw him. There he is. Good evening, Matt. Israel went through the easements. Do you have anything?

Can you hear me?

There you are, yeah. Do you have any more details you'd like to provide on any of those easements?

Not really, no. Israel did a great job explaining them. It sounds like we don't need the temporary install easements anymore because the walkways are gone. The construction easement is strictly to support the installation of the sidewalk, as Israel said. And the only permanent impact on the property is the work on the drainage. And that's actually kind of removing it off the property. So that's really all I would have to add to what was said. Thank you. There's only one easement that will have any effect on the property after the project is done. And... it's not even going to really have an effect on the property except for one pipe, so.

That easement's already under, I'm sorry, that catch basin is already subject to an easement, is that correct?

Yes, yes it is. Okay, thank you. But I guess the point I'm making and not well is that the actual long-term impact upon parcel seven is in the long-term minimal, except of course during the period of construction.

Thank you. And I apologize. I should have started with this, but could you state your position at V-Trans?

Oh, yes. I am a right-of-way agent four with the right-of-way section of V-Trans, and my major duties consist of assisting municipalities with the right-of-way phase of municipal transportation projects with federal funding.

And how long have you been at V-Trans?

I've been there now for 18-plus years, and I've been in my present position for 11 years.

Thank you, Matt. If you could stick around for any questions.

Absolutely.

Great. Are there any questions for Matt or the veterans portion of this. Seeing none from counselors we can move on to anyone you have next.

All right. We have Peter Pochop here but only to address the grant. I don't know if if anybody wants to hear about that or has questions about that we can call him. Otherwise I will go on to Corey Mems, the city staff.

Does anyone on council have any questions related to the grants or grant management portion of this? Seeing none, we can keep moving.

Thank you. Good evening, Corey. Could you state your name, please?

Yep. Corey Mems.

And your role with the city?

Senior public works engineer.

And your role with this project?

Project supervisor.

Thank you. So we've submitted into evidence the notice of hearing, the receipts indicating that the property owners and those interested in the properties received notice. We've submitted the tear sheet indicating the notice was published in the seven days newspaper. So I think you've got all of that into evidence. But could you, Corey, confirm that the notice was posted in the city clerk's office no less than 10 days prior to the hearing as required by 19 VSA section 709? Yes, it was. And did the city post it elsewhere as well?

You did. I am blanking. Sorry, I apologize.

Did they post it at 645 Pine Street in the library? Yes, we usually do three locations. Excellent. And you can confirm that the notice was also posted in the seven days? Yes, seven days. Thank you, and that you the staff sent notice by certified mail to those owning or interested in the parcels as well as to the Planning Commission? Yes. Excellent. Thank you very much. That's all I have. But stick around in case there's questions. All right.

Okay. Thank you, Corey. Anyone else to call at this point? No, I do not. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Any other questions by council before we move on to our next piece of the process? Then I'm going to move us on to our next piece of our process, which is where we allow interested parties to the project and the impacted parcels an opportunity to provide testimony and comments on the issue. This is testimony and comments. We'll first start with those in the room who are property owners or people holding interest in the affected parcels, and I assume by people also representing the folks who own those parcels. Is there anyone here to address? So Attorney John Franco, come on up so we can hear you on the mic, please.

Okay. If you're okay with that, I'll stay.

Good afternoon or good evening.

You want to turn on the mic so it's green. Is this small technology? It is new technology here, friends.

Sorry about that. There you are. Okay. The gentleman that was up with the first question, presentation there was a slide of a kind of an overview and it had superimposed on it the property boundary. Could we have that up? And I have some questions about that.

We'll work on pulling that up for you. Yep.

Let's see.

Just one minute. They're pulling it up for you. Yep.

Yep. Are you still able to share this, otherwise I have it here.

Oh, you got it, great.

That right here, yep, that's the one. Is it okay if I just go up there and point with my question?

Attorney Franco, do you mind saying that into the microphone just so that folks who may be watching online, including our counselors online, can hear what that question was, please?

Yes, the Jeopardy question was the significance between the solid orange line on St. Paul and the dotted orange line immediately to the left of that also on St. Paul.

Yes, so the solid orange line is the original right-of-way limit for St. Paul Street, and that dashed line represents an easement that the transit center has over that parcel.

Is it your understanding that the former CCTA actually acquired the dashed line the land between the solid line and the dotted line by eminent domain, maybe 10, 15, 20 years ago?

I have no knowledge on how that was acquired, but I know that there is an existing easement there.

So where the solid line was, was formerly the, formerly the property line of 20 Pine Street? Yes. Okay. And now what is depicted below, there appears to be, It appears to be St. Paul Street. That actually doesn't presently exist, does it? These right-of-way lines? Right here.

St. Paul Street?

Yeah.

Yeah, that road is currently under construction.

And when was St. Paul Street was really originally part of a grid in the downtown city? Is that your understanding?

What's that? Oh, yes, that right-of-way does exist now. The road doesn't exist, but the right-of-way does.

Okay, but St. Paul Street at some point in history, that section of St. Paul Street was discontinued.

If people could start to use the mics a little more clearly. I know you're having a conversation, but we have folks in for the record. Thank you so much.

Appreciate it. City Engineer Laura Wheelock, I'm here to answer the question. The city of Burlington does own St. Paul Street south of Cherry as city right-of-way. That was obtained a few years back from the property owner.

Was that obtained pursuant to a development agreement with what was then called City Place?

It was obtained by a global settlement with three parties.

Yeah, but I mean, okay, this was something that recently happened. Historically, at one, at back, historically, St. Paul Street was extended further south to, what is it, Bank Street?

Yes.

Okay, and is it your understanding that that was discontinued? And the mall was there and that was that was part of the urban renewal project the discontinuance of that Street and Pine Street All right, and so what this is doing is Resurrecting if you will a street grid that previously existed but was discontinued as far as for urban renewal Correct. All right That's all I have. Thank you

Thank you. And I know who you are, but do you mind, John, do you mind, for the record, just stating who you are representing here today?

John Franco, Spalding High School, graduate class of 1970. Currently attorney for the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception Charitable Trust, which are the owners of 20 Pine Street.

I appreciate that. Thank you, Attorney Franco.

Thank you.

Do you have any other questions for what has been presented so far?

I'm all set. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you so much. And now, anyone else in the room who is an interested party with impacted parcels who would like to provide testimony or ask questions who are in the room? I will then now go online, seeing no one in the room. If anyone is online and is an interested party, if they could please raise their Zoom hand. Seeing no one online, we will keep moving forward. So now we have an opportunity for any member of the community who will also have an opportunity to speak on the project's necessity. Is there anyone in the room who would like to address the council? OK. Anyone online who is a member of the community who would like to address us? OK. Seeing no one. Okay. Going to keep it moving. And now any responses from city staff or our team on anything that we heard from lines of questioning or other comments made so far?

I would just add that with the discussion of past urban renewals, just clarifying again that we are not proceeding under an urban renewal condemnation power. This is a highway alteration project and that's what was noticed for the hearing and there would have been completely different steps if this were an urban renewal project.

Thank you. And so with that, back to council. So we have now seen all the evidence or heard all the evidence been presented to us and heard from interested parties and the community have had an opportunity to be heard. So now we must determine if sufficient evidence has been provided for us to make a decision. So I will open it up for discussion by council.

Excuse me, are we going to have a discussion about the legal question?

The legal question?

Yeah, the statutory question that Councilman Bergman raised, because that was presented when I came out.

Well, we're now on to the point of the agenda where council can have that discussion. And we have moved through the section of asking questions of staff. But if there's a point of clarification amongst the deliberations of council, we can certainly go there. But now it's on to the council's deliberation. So, Councillor Bergman.

Sorry to interrupt you, Councillor Bergman. I just want to make sure that we haven't stopped an interested party from asking questions if they didn't understand that that was the time for them to ask that question.

That's exactly my point. I wanted to make a rebuttal about the statute.

Okay. Well, then let's back up. So let me be clear again that I had provided and will continue to provide now. We'll back up to interested parties for any testimony or questions you'd like to provide on the matter. So if you'd like to provide any more, come back up, Attorney Franco, and it's fine. We'll go back just to make sure we're being thorough.

Respectfully, we don't agree that the applicable statute is the highway statute that's been relied upon. We think the applicable statute is Chapter 85, which is the urban renewal statute. And the reason for this is this remains to be in the original urban renewal district. That district was never discontinued. In fact, it was extended under Mayor Clavel in 1990, and I was in the city attorney's office when that happened. to extend that district and to include parts of the waterfront. It's our position that this is, in fact, an urban renewal project. In fact, what it is is to reconstitute portions of these streets that were discontinued as part of the urban renewal project. And consequently, the bar of Section 3210B applies. And also, relatedly, it's our position that actually the recourse of the city under Section 3211B is actually to petition the court for determination of necessity, not to make its own determination of necessity as being done. I'm here tonight. And so that's our difference in the legal position. And we would also point out that there's been prior case law that says when there's a question about whether the general law applies, like, for example, with condemnation or use of the street and the urban renewal statute is involved, the urban renewal statute controls as the more specific statute. That was a case involving the city of Burlington in 1971 involving Vermont gas systems. So that's the other side of the argument here. And it's a bit of a metaphysical question, but it's an important one for the trust. Thank you.

Thank you, Attorney Franco. Anything else before we move back?

No, I've had my piece. Thank you.

Just to be clear. Thank you so much. Appreciate that. And now we will return to deliberations by counsel. So I'll open the floor. Counsel Bergman, would you like the floor?

Sure. I'm intrigued by having a legal argument here. But I think I'm going to pass on that and just say that that's something that I think is to be briefed. And it sounds like a purely legal argument based on the history. I think that the projects, that the evidence shows the necessity for the easements that we are looking for. So the really particular question and to the extent to which I am interested in moving forward, then I think that I will choose to decide that I will support the position of the city in terms of the legal question and allow us to keep moving forward on that. And perhaps there's a way to resolve this. I do see some indication there. I don't know if it is a satisfactory position for the city, which I will not make any comments on. But in terms of necessity for this project and the importance of this project, I think that the facts Support doing that. So that's my position. I do I was online for the last one So I haven't done these it for a long time and I hope that that is all I need to say on this Thanks.

Thank You council Berkman. Don't worry. We're very well seasoned now here So welcome to the deliberation. So again the reminder to the council where we're at in our process is to determine if enough evidence sufficient evidence has been provided to make a decision that is what we are now deliberating on and Any other comments by council? Seeing none, is anyone ready to make a motion? A reminder that in the memo prepared for us by city staff, there are two options. One is to either agree that we have received enough sufficient evidence and you can make a motion to close the hearing for us to move forward, or if you do not feel like we've received sufficient evidence, we can make a motion to continue the hearing and direct DPW at a future date to help us reconvene. Councillor Bergman.

I would put my mic on. I would move to approve the closing of the necessity hearing and to direct city staff to prepare written findings of fact, conclusions of law and order and to the extent to which this legal issue is appropriate to be addressed in that for it to be done but I'll leave it to the lawyers to decide that.

Thank you, Councillor Bergman. There's a motion on the floor. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Councillor Schachter. Thank you. Any further discussion on this motion? Okay, seeing none, I think we can try voice vote with people online. Does that remind me, colleagues? Do I have to call the roll, or can we do a voice vote online?

Call the roll.

Call the roll. We're going to call the roll. Thank you. Thank you, City Engineer. With that, will the clerk please call the roll?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Is that me? Yes. Yes.

Sarah, I think your mic's a little quiet. It is not you, but there you are.

Councillor Grant.

OK. Vote yes.

Councilor Sanchez-Parkinson.

Yes.

Councilor Schachter. Yes. Councilor Singh.

Yes.

Mayor Mulvaney-Stanek. Yes.

What's the tally? I'm sorry, Sarah. Thank you.

Nine ayes.

Yeah. Sorry, I'm so used to the other way. It's nine ayes and then four absent. Correct. Okay. Thank you very much. And with nine in favor and four absent, the motion carries. And I shall close the hearing. They gave me the gavel. I'm going to use it. And we will now move on to item 3.1, which is a compensation hearing for the reconnection of Bank and Cherry Street. CDS CD 23 parentheses one proceeds project. Now this run of show for our next piece of business here is city staff and the project team. Again, we'll provide an overview of the project and testimony. Then city counselors can ask questions, excuse me, of the staff and project team. And then we'll go have an opportunity for interested parties to do the same we did before. in terms of asking questions or providing additional testimony of their own. And we'll also then move on to seeing if we have enough evidence for this particular question. So with that, I will give it back to the attorney, Christian Seamus, and she will take this from here.

Yeah. Thank you very much. So moving on to the compensation portion. Section 712 of the municipal highway condemnation statutes requires the municipality pay damages to the impacted property owner as the legislative body determines reasonable. The definition of damages under Section 5012 is, I'm sorry to keep reading definitions to you, but it may be helpful. The value for the most reasonable use of the property or right in the property and of the business on the property and the direct and proximate decrease in the value of the remaining property or right in the property and the business on the property. The added value, if any, to the remaining property or right in the property which accrues directly to the owner of the property as a result of the taking or use as distinguished from the general public benefit shall be considered in the determination of damages. So we've submitted into evidence the offer letters and the waiver valuation submitted to the cathedral. for the temporary and permanent easements over their property at 20 Pine Street. You'll hear testimony from Corey Mims from the city and Jeff Blanchard, B-Trans right-of-way acquisition chief, as to the amount B-Trans sets for these easement values and that offers were sent to the property owners. Based on this testimony, we'll ask that the council make findings that the property owners should be paid damages as detailed on the waiver valuation forms. So, Corey, if you could just briefly join me here. If you could just state your name and position again, since this is a new hearing.

Corey Mims, senior public works engineer for the city of Burlington, project supervisor.

And could you confirm that offer letters were sent from the city out to the property owners?

Yes, offer letters were sent to all property owners.

Excellent, thank you very much. I am going to hopefully share my screen to pull up the waiver valuation. And I'm going to ask Jeff Blanchard, who is online, to join us.

excellent jeff are you there i am thank you for joining us could you please state your name and your position at vtrans yes i'm jeff blanchard i am the vtrans right-of-way acquisitions chief that oversees our legal documents team our negotiators and our property management team thank you and did you approve this waiver valuation that was prepared by the city I did.

Could you just walk us through, I guess, could you just describe what a waiver valuation is in general first?

I can. So a waiver valuation is used typically for less complicated projects to expedite getting a value for the easements that are needed versus doing an appraisal that takes sometimes several months. So, yeah, that's the simple term for it. And waiver evaluations were done for, I believe, all of the parcels here.

Thank you. And if you could just walk us through this waiver evaluation, and it's up to you. Would you like me to start on this page one or page two with the details?

Either or is fine. I can go from either one.

Okay. Let's maybe start with page two, just start with the details and then go broader.

Yeah. So basically this is a worksheet that was provided to me that I compare a variety of things for it. I make sure the acreage for the parcel matches what the true acreage is that the city assesses the property at. I also confirm the assessed value for what the city assesses the land value at. And then along with it, I make sure that the easements that are being requested match both what's on the detail sheet and what matches the valuation worksheet. So I'm making sure that the rights match each other along with the square footage that both of them equal, you know, they're both the same, not that there's no errors in that process. In turn, and this is kind of jumping towards the final end of it, Basically, once I know that all of the rights and the square footages match each other, both what's being requested, we take the total land value, we break it down per acre, and then break it down again to the price per square foot. And then each of the rights based off their square footage are then calculated to determine how much per square foot each parcel, each easement would get. Basically for temporary easements, because those go away after the completion of the project, those are valued at 10% of what the assessed value is. And then for permanent easements, it's 75% of the assessed value because we're not acquiring the property or not, there's no buying of it at full price. So we wouldn't pay the same price for, Permanent easement as we would for actually acquiring it Thank you, so can you Let me move up to this next page you can go through this Yeah, so this is just the more simpler version of the worksheet it's It's kind of an overview of what the worksheet accomplishes. So basically, in this sheet here, we're just confirming that the permanent easements match what's on the worksheet, which in this case was 80, I think it was 84 square feet. Sorry, I'm going to bring it up on my screen so I can see it a little better. Yeah, so it's 84 square feet for one permanent easement. And then the temporary easements total 1,077 square feet. So the 84 square foot permanent easement, the total value came out to $2,342.44. The temporary easements added together totaled $4,004.46, giving a total of $6,346.91. and rounded to kind of a general number of $6,380.

And my understanding the process is that the city prepared this and then sent it to you for review?

Correct.

And this is your signature of approval at the bottom?

It is.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Does the taking As far as you're aware, impact the highest and best use of the land or the most reasonable use in this case?

Not to my knowledge.

Okay. Thank you. That's all I have.

Thank you very much. We will move to questions from councillors on the evidence that has been presented so far on this piece of the agenda. And if we could drop the screen share just so I can see councillors online. Councillor Barlow.

Will we have an opportunity to hear from interested parties on this?

We will do that next. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for staff or the city team that have presented so far on this piece of the agenda? Last call for that piece. Okay. Then we will move forward now to interested parties to the project and impacted parcels, an opportunity to provide both testimony and questions, just to be clear, and comments as needed. And we will first go to folks in the room. Would anyone like to address? Attorney Franco, come back up, please. I assume you're still representing the same entity. Okay. Just for the record. Thank you.

Could we have the... of the spreadsheet slide uh put up there back up there i'm sorry again put that back up there oh sorry it is now there we go thank you so that's the spreadsheet here we go yep My first question is, when these calculations were made, what was the value that these percentages were applied to? And the question is, is it the assessed value of $2,925,000, or was that discounted by the common level of appraisal of 81.76%?

It wouldn't be discounted. It would be actually adding that value in so the city basically The values aren't at 100%, so it's calculated with the 81.76% total value.

And that was a common level of appraisal for 2025?

It would have been, yes.

What's the common level of appraisal for 2026?

If you hold on just a minute, I can Google that. I think it's 79 something, but.

Well, does the assessor have a number?

I don't have it on the assessor's sheet that I have. I'm not sure if they're there that they can answer that.

Well, wouldn't you agree that since the compensation is being made in 2026 that we need to use the actual common level of appraisal for 2026, not for 2025?

It could be at the time that I reviewed this waiver valuation, the 2026 numbers were not out yet.

But we're now.

And I did calculate it, and it would only increase the total value by just roughly $500. Okay.

But we don't have that actual number in the presentation.

The common level of appraisal is 76.25. I wasn't testifying on 2026 numbers. I was testifying on when I approved this waiver at the time, which had the other value.

I know that, but my question is if we run your analysis through the actual common level appraisal for 2026, which is the year in which this compensation is going to be made, we would have a different number than the one you have here, correct?

The council could vote to add that new appraisal number in if they so choose. Thank you. I have that number if you would, the exact number if you would like it. Let me close out of the old one that I had. The new final compensation number, sorry, the Excel sheet is slow opening, would be a total of $6,850. Thank you. That's all I have.

Thank you. Thank you very much. You're welcome.

Is there anyone else in the room who is an interested party to this parcel? And we are limited to interested parties, not to general community. So last call in the room. And again, I'll look online. If you can just drop the screen share just for a minute, please, whoever's screen sharing, just to see if there's any interested parties online.

seeing none okay then i will just ask if city staff or our team have any responses to uh the instrument interested parties portion that we just heard i'll defer to city staff but i i feel like that's a reasonable ask for to use the the current day cla for that calculation so if it's okay with city staff then we would propose to use the value of six thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars

Thank you. And if that is it from city staff, then I will move now on to, um, asking the council, uh, now that we've seen all the evidence be presented at there's, um, if you feel we have enough information, uh, presented to us to determine, uh, that we have enough to make a decision at this point. So I'll open it up for discussion and deliberations by the council, council Barlow.

Um, and I am not a lawyer in full disclosure here, but so, If I tread into areas that are out of order, you'll have to let me know. But I have questions about the letter that was presented, the trust letter to city council outlining its condemnation objections, and specifically around the grounds for the opposition to this condemnation. And insofar as it's related to the compensation, I'm wondering if it would be in order to ask if the trust's willingness to give its consent based on the appeal before the environmental division of the Vermont Superior Court on a zoning violation, I believe, is in order to ask about, because it seems it would be germane to the discussion around compensation.

I'm going to phone a friend, Councillor Barlow, on this, because this is, I think, a question for our city attorney or attorney team. around whether we can do this in the public session or do this, I don't even know, but you heard the question from Councillor Barlow.

Well, the question I heard was whether we can ask about it. So, and I mean, you can certainly ask any question you want. I don't think it's inappropriate to ask, but I don't really know what the substantive question is.

Well, the substantive question is, I believe there is a cost associated with the ongoing litigation on this property, and I was wondering if Attorney Franco would be wanting to expound on that or not, as it's germane to the compensation the city's offering on this matter. And I know they're not connected, and that's why I sort of tread lightly here, but I think they are connected in the willingness of the, or I suspect they're connected in the willingness of

the parish trust to coming to terms with the city on this um that's a fair question i i don't i think technically speaking it's really not has to do does not have to do with actually what the compensation is but it's the transaction costs and the transaction costs that the trust has had to spend for the last five years in dealing with um frankly what we see is harassing and nitpicking by the by the uh the by uh by the zoning department and this latest Notice of violation involving trees that had to be removed in order to demolish the cathedral, which the Vermont Supreme Court said was a religious activity which was exempted under the Vermont Planning Act, under the Federal Civil Rights Act, and under the Federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. It should have been a no-brainer, but yet we're litigating that. What we want is peace. What we are interested in is a global settlement of peace. We are willing to say, look, we're not going to pursue this Drop the NOV, let's go home. That's it. I mean, and you're dealing with, by the way, you're dealing with a parish here that has, it's in the Old North End, it has a, it's membership is a lot of new Americans that don't have a lot of money to give to the church. The demands on the church's resources include homelessness, all the problems that affect particularly the Old North End in terms of poverty, in terms of homelessness, in terms of use, addiction, and fentanyl. And this has just been a colossal waste of time and money. And it's going to continue to be a colossal waste of time and money until we can reach a global settlement of this thing.

Thank you. And would it be in order for us as part of our... our settlement to ask that this be dismissed by the city with prejudice, or is that out of order?

Well, I do want to inform the Council of procedurally where the enforcement matter currently stands, which is that it is pending in court, as Attorney Franco has noted. And according to Attorney Sturdivant, there is a meeting that she has with Attorney Franco the day after tomorrow to see if they can resolve the matter. Attorney Sturdivant has submitted a proposed settlement agreement to Attorney Franco, is my understanding, has not received a substantive response as of yet. And if the matter isn't resolved, there is a status conference with the court on July 6th.

Thank you, City Attorney Brown. Councilor Barlow, do you have further...

Well, I just didn't know whether it was within our right to ask that the city dismiss with prejudice the appeal. It's in the second bullet. The trust will give its written consent if and only if the city notice a violation against the trust Now on appeal before the Environmental Division of the Vermont Superior Court, Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception Charitable Trust docket number 26-M-28 is dismissed by the city with prejudice. And I'm wondering if we could, in addition to the compensation, also ask that this be dismissed. And I don't know the answer to that.

Right. So, Councilor Barlow, I'm going to go again to City Attorney Brown to see if we can add, if this can be added to the motion or the

decision-making tonight so I'm a little I think that as a city councillor you can make a motion and other councillors can vote on it whether to as I understand what you're suggesting make dismissal of the enforcement action essentially part of the compensation. Since I have the mic, I guess I'll just say that I, don't think this is if you're looking to me for whether the city attorney's office endorses that approach I'm not prepared to say yes because I'm not the attorney that's directly working on this and also I would add that I think that DPI director Ward should be consulted about this as well that is my opinion, but procedurally I think that you can make a motion and you can all vote on it, but ultimately your decisions tonight are to close the hearing and basically to decide that the compensation that's been recommended now with the amendment that's already been made, right, to the compensation amount, whether you're gonna accept that and close the hearing and direct staff to prepare the order, the compensation order, or you do have the option also, if you want more evidence, to continue this, the compensation hearing.

Thank you, City Attorney Brown. So we are on the compensation question, and I see the City Engineer would like to add, I think, probably additional context, perhaps, on the question for Council Barlow.

City Engineer Wheelock, just for clarity, we did explore this challenge as we were aware of it during our offers of compensation. We do not believe that any sort of settlement beyond what is in the waiver valuation will be grant eligible. So as you guys consider what you want for compensation, there is the portion that is related to the highway, related to what the project needs that is eligible. Anything else the city offers outside of that is our own direct compensation.

Thank you, City Engineer Wheelock. Council Merlo, you have the floor.

I guess it's open to discussion, but I would like to move that we, in addition to the amended payment amount, we also direct our legal team to ask that the case be dismissed as outlined in the letter from the trust attorney.

Councillor Butler, are you making a motion at this point? Yes, I am. Can you restate the motion, please?

Well, the motion is to, I guess, make the... I would look to the attorney for the language on the settlement amount, I guess. And then in addition to that, we also... We instruct that the city, and I'm not sure what the mechanism is for doing this, but I would expect it's... It's whatever legal team we have working on this would drop the violation against the trust for the zoning violation for the removal of the trees.

So, Council Breller has made a two-part motion. First, to approve an amount of, and correct me if I'm wrong, Attorney Seamus, of $6,850 for compensation related to this hearing, and to add to a second motion for the city to dismiss, well, sorry, for the city to, is the right verb, dismiss? I'm looking at my attorneys here.

Yes, I think that's what the request is, to dismiss the enforcement action.

In the Environmental Division of the Vermont Superior Court for the matter that we've discussed.

So there's a two-part motion. Yes.

That is a two-part motion. Is there a second on that motion? Okay, without a second, then the motion fails. Thank you, Councillor Barlow. Fair enough. Back to deliberations by Councillor Bergman.

So I am uncomfortable dismissing a case when I haven't heard from the attorneys and the linkage of it where I understand it in sort of the big global terms when we get into this framework I'm uncomfortable with. it may be appropriate. And I think that we've got a city council meeting coming up next week, and we hear litigation in the executive session all the time. It sounds like an appropriate place to do that. And I think that although I'm very comfortable with the new number, that unless I hear that there is an absolute necessity for us to set the compensation tonight, I would rather we move, you know, we approve a motion to continue the compensation until next week and then be able to sort of deal with it all together. It may be totally appropriate to dismiss it. It may With all due respect to my, I'm not a member of the bar anymore, so my colleague of the bar, former colleague of the bar, Attorney Franco, I may not think that it's the appropriate thing to do. I hear what's being said and always when we engage in the dismissal of actions, we need to be able to understand the bigger context in which it sits. And as a former enforcement attorney, I take that pretty seriously. So, yeah, that's the nature of this. And so I would move to continue the compensation hearing to the council's June 29th, 2026 meeting so that we can do that.

Thank you, Council of Urban. There's a motion to continue the conversation hearing until next Monday, which is June 29, 2026, which is the next council meeting. Is there a second? Second. Second by Councilor Singh. Thank you. Any further discussion on the motion on the floor? Oh, Councilor Singh.

Thank you, Mayor. I agree with my fellow Councillor, Councillor Bergman, in seeing how these things are tied together. Sitting at this table, I don't know if I have enough information to make a good determination on the compensation, even though city staff has provided a lot of great information here. But again, I think we do need more information. So I appreciate the motion on the floor.

Thank you, Councillor Singh. Councillor Schachter.

Thank you. I just had a quick clarification question. If in the motion language we need to specify our interest in receiving more information about the case that's referenced in the letter from the trust, if we need to make that explicit in the motion or not prior to making our decision?

I am not comfortable with tying them formally in the motion. I think that we should have an executive session to get an update on litigation and this be the subject. Maybe there's other litigation that we would be talking about, but therefore we do that because I appreciate the desire to have peace, right? But I think that unlike the international situation, we can parse these out and then proceed. And functionally, I don't think it makes a difference. We'll get that information, and then we'll be able to figure out does it make sense to dismiss that case on its merits to the extent to which, and I guess this would be a question related to this, we can get opinions on the litigation costs that are implicit in the trust position, whether that's in public session or private session is a question that I would like to know. Because there are litigation costs associated with the lack of a settlement So that would be important for us to hear whether we hear it publicly or not is the question.

Thank you, Council Bergman. Councilor Schachter, you do have the floor. I'm going to go to City Attorney Brown just briefly and then back to you.

I just want to follow up Attorney Bergman's point and be clear on the record that if it's appropriate or if there's a statutory basis, to have some portion of this discussion in executive session that would need to be scheduled. But I also want to be clear that the resolution of the compensation hearing, if it's continued, would need to be scheduled as another public meeting of the special public meeting of the city council with mayor presiding.

Thank you, City Attorney Brown. Attorney Shamus, do you have anything you want to add before I go back to Councillor Schachter?

I do, if that's okay. Just another option. If you feel like you have enough information about the company, what we're asking is the value of this strip of land. That's all we're coming before you asking for, and I understand that there are other issues. But even if you decided tonight that you had enough information and closed the hearing tonight, You don't have to issue a decision on this for 60 days. You can deliberate. It needs to be recorded within 60 days. So there's ongoing settlement discussions. And rather than potentially tie these together in a compensation hearing, I would suggest keeping these as separate issues You can continue the settlement discussions. If during the 60-day period this settles, you can then just void this hearing, or not void the hearing, but void the decision. There'll be no need to issue it because they'll have signed the easement. It feels like that keeping these things separate rather than tying them together might make sense.

So a recommendation, as I understand it, would be that we could potentially close the hearing. Don't worry, I'll give you the floor, City Engineer. We could close the hearing and take 60 days to deliberate, but now I'm seeing our City Engineer. So City Engineer, Wheelock, yes.

YES, HI AGAIN. IT IS IMPORTANT, IT WAS PRESENTED ACTUALLY UNDER THE PREVIOUS HEARING, SO WE'RE GOING TO RESTATE IT IN THIS HEARING, THAT OUR GRANT FUNDING DOES HAVE SOME TIMELINES AND SOME PRESSURES AS IT RELATES TO SETTLING EASEMENTS ON CHERRY STREET. OUR CONGRESSIONALLY DIRECTED SPENDING NEEDS TO HAVE A RIGHT-OF-WAY OBLIGATION, WHICH IS A MILESTONE WITH V-TRANS, RECORDED AND APPROVED WITH FEDERAL HIGHWAY BY MIDDLE OF SEPTEMBER, WHICH ESSENTIALLY MEANS BY THE END OF JULY WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO HAVE ACTUALLY A DECISION From the City Council a decision from the City Council is a milestone that allows us To submit this to them and then they can issue a conditional right-of-way finding It still allows an appeal period to occur on either of the two hearings, but we are a little bit pressured with our timeline Because of one of our funding sources

Thank you, City Engineer Wheeloff. Okay. All right, friends, but Councilor Schachter has the floor. I want to remind folks we have a motion which has been made and seconded to continue the compensation hearing to the Council's June 29, 2026 meeting. That's all we have on the floor at the moment. So back to Councilor Schachter.

Just one other quick question. And Engineer Wheelock, I know you mentioned that with the proposal on the table by Attorney Seamus, is it cleaner from the grant funding standpoint to focus on the compensation hearing today with an acknowledgement that there may be further discussion to be had on this separate but potentially somehow related issue? Is that cleaner from a grant standpoint versus just postponing this until June 29th?

from the grant perspective the motion that city staff provided in your memo is sufficient for us to come back and continue our conversation at that future date and time which still allows us to meet the timeline of our obligation and you can choose to close the hearing at that point and then either render a decision that night or hopefully within 30 days of that okay so just to

Be clear from the grant perspective whether we close the compensation hearing tonight or not Either motion is okay from the grant funding standpoint, correct? Okay.

Thank you Okay, thank you Councilor Schechter again Our motion on the floor is to continue the compensation hearing to the council's meeting on June 29th Would be with mayor presiding obviously on 20 June 29 2026 further discussion on the motion. I Okay, then I'm going to call the question, and we're going to call the roll.

Sarah, please.

Thank you.

Councillor Barlow?

Yes.

Councillor Bergman? Yes. Councillor Broderick?

Yes.

Councillor Carpenter? Yes. Councillor Grant?

Yes.

Councillor Sanchez-Parkinson?

She may not be online.

Councillor Schachter? Yes. Councillor Singh?

Yes.

Mayor Mulvaney-Stanek? Yes.

I was totaling along the way, Sarah. You can go ahead and read the total. That's fine.

Thank you. Total ayes, eight. Total nays, zero. Total absent, five.

Thank you. So with a vote of 8-0-5, the motion carries. We will continue this on June 29th, 2026 for the compensation hearing. And with that, we have no more business. Thank you. So with that, I will adjourn. The City Council may are presiding at 7-11 p.m. Thank you very much.