City Council - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress.

I'm good.

You guys good? All right. I'm going to call the day August 26th. First item on our agenda. Changes? Regina?

None for me.

Council? Nothing for me. Okay, all right. We skip the approve the agenda, so we'll go right to public to be heard. Just tell us your name before you start talking, please.

Sure, my name is Jason Senecal. I grew up here in the Essex Junction area. I graduated Essex High School in 1996. And this week, first of all, I want to thank you for having me here today. Absolutely. And hosting us in this area for the Navy Week. We have Navy Week here. We brought a bunch of different communities within the Navy, medical, special warfare, small business program, and obviously recruiters into the area too. introduce Vermont to the Navy? And selfishly, I want to introduce the Navy to my home state. I loved growing up here. I loved it here. And I wish I could get back a heck of a lot more often. But obviously, it's not in the cards. But we've been having such a great week. We've gone to everything from business meetings to schools. And Essex High School has asked me to come on Friday. So that's going to be exciting, going back to the alma mater. Getting to see how it's changed. But even just driving around the city, it's fantastic how much this place has changed. I haven't been back in two or three years, and it's blown up in just the last two or three years. So it's been fantastic. But either way, we brought the Navy here to try and introduce everybody. Talk about business opportunities, even small businesses. There's tons of opportunity to get into the Department of Defense and get those contracts going. And then obviously, you know, things are ramping up around the world and we need people, good people to come and help us out. So we're here to answer any questions or discuss with people what our life is like and do what we can to introduce, again, Vermont to the Navy.

And you guys are going to be at the ribbon cutting at the fair on Friday at noon?

Yes. We've got tons of events. Most of it is down at the Burlington Waterfront. But being the hometown guy, I have family over in St. Johnsbury, so I'll be in St. Johnsbury and Montpelier tomorrow. We've got things going on at the... the history and heritage museum down in virgins talking about the the history of lake champlain the war of 1812 and the revolutionary war they're doing a very cool event where they're the naval history and heritage center is that the right term i think i'll have to look that up they're going to be out there and they have 3d models of the wrecks that are at the bottom of lake champlain they're going to be able to talk about those and show patrons what's going on down there so that's going to be pretty neat tomorrow down in virgins okay uh but we'll be all over and then again we'll be at the fair starting friday through the weekend and then on monday the navy's rock band is coming up and they're going to play a concert at the fair oh wow that'll be pretty neat nice that's awesome yep anybody

Just wanted to say Jason and I are old alum of the ROTC program that once existed at the high school, the 781st. So I haven't seen him probably, I graduated the year before. So it's good to see that you're doing well, and I appreciate you coming in. And you, sir.

Thank you for stopping in and saying hi, and look forward to seeing you Friday, and thank you for your service, both of you.

Thank you for your support.

Enjoy the rest of your night. Are you guys something? Okay.

Thank you. If anyone has questions, I'm happy to answer.

Not seeing any. Bethany is online, one of our other counselors.

Where are you stationed?

Right now I'm stationed just west of Seattle in a town called Silverdale, Washington. There's a submarine base up there, and I do training on the quality assurance program.

Excellent.

That's what I'm doing up there.

We're a Navy family, so I appreciate your work.

Thank you, sir.

Brian.

Thank you.

Okay. It's nice. Go enjoy the night. Thank you.

Have a fantastic rest of the evening. We'll see you guys later. Thank you.

See you Friday. One second. Bethany didn't have her phone. Oh, sorry. Okay. Yeah, sorry.

It's the delayed. Very quick, I promise. I just want to note that I am also from a Navy family, so thank you for your service. I will not be at the ribbon cutting, so I will sadly miss meeting you, but thank you so much for stopping by.

Of course, and thank you for your support.

Thanks, guys. Take care. Anybody else in the room for public comment? Come on up to the mic and just state your name before you start, please.

My name is Joe Carnaccia. I live on Pine Court, which is down the end of West Street. I thought... There was going to be a discussion on a possible traffic change at West Street Extension and West Street, but I don't see it on the agenda. Is that tonight?

It is. It's the agenda 5D. Right? Yeah, 5D. It's part of the Park Street Complete Street Improvements.

You can say your comment now if you want, or you can hang out and say it at that point.

It's up to you.

I don't even know where to begin. In 40 years, I've avoided probably two accidents a week. because of that that stop sign that people continue to go through if they go through it or they do stop and then go through it anyways with oncoming traffic thinking that they're not going to go straight into either Clems Drive the rest of West Street or Pine Court so Personally, this is my own opinion, I wouldn't recommend any changes because now the community and people traveling through there from other communities are so used to the traffic pattern. But I was just wondering now, they're making stop signs that have literally flashing lights around the perimeter. Just a thought. Yep. Just a thought, because I'm afraid if there's a traffic change now, that it's going to cause accidents to the people that are used to the way it's been for years. You know, I know a greater police presence would be perfect, but I know they're stretched thin, and I'd make it a point to personally thank them when they're there, but it's only like once or twice a year that I see them. Yeah, that's, you know.

Are you going to stick around for the conversation as well?

Yeah, I think I will.

Okay. So we'll talk about all this in more detail when we go through the actual agenda item. Sure. Is there something you want to say?

I can write to that.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Hang out. We'll get there. I promise. All right. Anybody else in the room? Anybody online? Okay. I'm not seeing any hands online. All right. So we will move on to agenda item 5A. I don't know why I was going B, but. Okay. Discussion and consideration of recommendation of a new deputy health officer, Brittany McGregor.

So we... have had a mutual relationship with the town and the city with our health officers, the health officer for the city acts as the deputy health officer for the town and vice versa. Sharon Kelly has been the health officer for the town of Essex for a very long time. Um, and she has retired, um, from her position at the town early August. She's, um, been able to stay on as health officer. through the end of August so that we can make this transition as the Department of Health only appoints these positions on the first of every month. So this recommendation is to appoint the new town health officer, Bethany McGregor, as the deputy health officer for the city beginning September 1. Um, this is the motion from the city council is a recommendation to, uh, the department of health as the commissioner of the department health is the actual person who makes these appointments.

Any questions, comments, concerns, pretty straightforward motions.

I have it. Uh, I moved that the city council recommend through the department of health, the appointment of Brittany McGregor as the deputy health officer for the city effective September one, 2026. Seconded. Yes.

Norm Russell.

All right. All in favor.

Okay.

That was unanimous. That passes. Congratulations, Brittany.

Nice reciprocal agreement.

Appreciate that. All right, next we got five B discussion and consideration of the city logo rollout update. And I see we have Ashley with us online.

Yep. Go for it, Ashley.

Good evening everybody. So tonight I'm just going to give a brief overview of what we've done so far with rolling out of the new logo. So we began rolling this out to everybody internally once we've received all of our templates. So this included things like our signature and our emails to our memos that you see in the packet to presentations that we started having um powerpoint presentations i should say uh in the council meetings uh so we really did a great job of putting that out to all of our staff and making sure that all of our staff have the tools that they need with the new logo on it We also had a staff gathering recently where we provided t-shirts, hats, or tote bags of the staff's choice at their gathering as a token of appreciation and as a way for us to get the new logo out to our staff to start wearing out in public. uh we then began slowly getting out our logo externally uh these things included some things like our community newsletter we um our august edition we had a new look with our logo uh font colors and a different uh look and feel to it than we had uh you'll notice on town tv or tell me tv we now have that logo branded on our uh that as well And then we really start changing over things like our social media and anywhere else that we're using the logo as a presence. In July, towards the end of July, actually, I started working with EcoPixel, who is our website provider. They are doing a slight redesign. I don't want to say redesign. It's more like a facelift to our website. We are going to be doing new colors obviously. The logo will be there and then we're making some slight tweaks to things such as the headers and how that drop down menu will look. We're also making slight changes to some of the pages such as pages that have a lot of sub pages. We're trying to make that layout a little better and so we're doing some slight changes. uh to the website but not some like complete overhaul like we did back in 2022 when i first came on board you'll notice a big difference i think more with the home pages than you will with the other pages but there will be a couple pages that will look slightly different um We also submitted our application for our .gov web address, and we have been approved for that. So EgoPixel is working with Open Approach to marry those two. We're looking also at moving all of our email addresses over to .gov as well. The goal really for the Essex Johnson .gov is to roll out the same time that we roll out the new changes to the website, because that's just a natural fit. Hopefully, we'll be able to add the .gov email addresses on that as well. We're still working out some timing on that with open approach, but hopefully all of that will roll out at the same time. But definitely, it's extension.gov and the new look will roll out around the same time. We have sent a quote request out to area sign companies asking for them to give me quotes on the entrance signs, the banners, the truck decals, and the railroad and main sign that you guys approved to make changes to. This has been a big ask. So they have asked, a couple of them have asked for me to give them a couple extra days to get that into me. I've gotten only one back so far. And so because it's such a big ask, I have given them a couple of more days to get that information back to us. They do know that, I did tell them in their request that the entrance sign is our top priority. So that's the one that we want them to get done first. Second would be the truck decals because Ricky's ordering some new trucks soon. And so we want to make sure we get the new logo on those trucks, followed by the banners and the railroad and main sign. So as soon as we get those in, we will start moving forward with that process of getting those signs and other items ordered. And finally, we've been working on some stuff for engagement activities. I will say we are working on a T-shirt design for you guys, as well as some stickers and a tablecloth that we will have for you for Meet Me on Main. The last really big piece I feel like for changeover will be our policy forms and ordinances. This is something that is going to take, I feel like, a little bit longer because I also want to make sure that those are formatted to be ADA compliant. If we're going in and making changes to those documents, we should also be making changes to make sure we're in ADA compliance. We don't have to be fully ADA compliant on our website until April of 2028. But it is something that we need to be discussing and start looking at because our PDFs, which is a big part of our website, is going to be one of our things that we'll have to really look at for ADA compliance. The majority of our website is already in ADA compliance. It's really the PDFs that we have to look at moving forward and what that is going to look like. And that is all that I have tonight and happy to answer any questions you guys have.

Questions for Ashley?

Ashley, is there any idea at this point how far along the web, I don't want to call it a redesign, but the facelift is, and is there an expected completion date for that, or is it just kind of a process you're working through?

So we are hoping to have that by the end of September. So they have been working on the design right now. And we have, I think, a meeting on September 3rd, I believe, where he's going to start showing me what they've got so far. Obviously, it'll determine how quickly they're getting it done, but we're trying to get stuff pretty quickly in the next few weeks.

And then have you broken out the ask for signs and banners and truck decals to... You know like there's a couple of sign companies in the area and there's a couple of vinyl decal companies in the area that don't necessarily do signs but they excel in vehicle graphics. Are we breaking that out or are we just asking for a lump?

No, we're breaking everything out because mainly that's all been like the entrance signs and the lightful banners that was coming from the lot funds. The decals have been put into Ricky and Chelsea's budgets. And then the Meet Me on Main Street Railroad. sign with a completely different um thing so i've had them to give me quotes for everything separately just so that i we can if we need to do this at different time frames because it's going to be more than what we expected there's that option as well so um we can do this in pieces but i just that i did ask them and so i have sent it out to other companies other than just sign companies as well with your ask about the the automotive vehicle

Right, yeah. There's a great guy in Westford that does vehicle graphics, but he won't be able to ever do an entrance kind of thing. So I just wanted to make sure. And I figured, but I just wanted to ask. Thanks.

Bethany, any questions? Just got to read them. OK. Yep, sorry. I couldn't see you. You're in the far left corner there. Gotcha.

Yeah, no worries. I was going to ask where the funds for the signs were coming from. So you have pretty much answered that. I know you said we only got one quote in so far because it's a big ask. Do we have any idea, based on that one quote, what the overall cost will be at?

I looked at it, but I can't tell the number right off the top of my head just because we haven't got in enough to compare. There's three companies that I've had people that they've come back to me and said that they would like to put in or basically had extra questions because they're wanting to put in a quote for so far. And so I want to make sure that we're not. underselling. Got it.

No worries. Thank you. And three is a, that's also helpful. Thank you.

I will open it up for public comment if there is any questions for Ashley. Any in the room? None. All right. I am not seeing any hands online, so there's no motion with this. It's just a FYI, you got anything? I mean, I'm curious about T-shirts, but... Yeah, we heard at the last meeting about how the PCAB has T-shirts, and we're all a little jealous, so we are expecting... Oh, yeah, they're nice.

They're not even T-shirts.

They're polos. Hats. Like, do we have a trucker hat design competition coming?

Are you guys wanting to, like, I was assuming you guys want t-shirts so that you guys all have that. Is that, are you wanting polos? I mean, where can be flexible a little bit with things if there's a specific ask from the council? They just need to look different than the employee uniform.

Brian has specific asks.

We'll connect, Ashley. Okay, sounds great.

You guys send me your request and send me your t-shirt sizes and we will get things ordered.

Totally ignore them.

All right. Thanks, Ashley. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right. 5C, discussion and consideration of the new mission value goal statement update.

All right. We got Colleen.

Please join us at the table, Ms. Dwyer.

Okay.

you can go ahead and just talk through that if you want sure try and bring it up on the screen so the city under undertook this update to create a greater clarity and consistency across all departments And it was important for us to kind of look back when Raj, Regina, and I started working with VLT's Abundant Sun and the data that came out of that and showed what was working for the city employees and what wasn't. And so in order for us to move forward with a clear direction and strengthen our communication, be more mindful of diversity and inclusion. We began work with Tabitha Moore at Intentional Evolution and over the course of several months we met with each department individually and as a collective and came forth with these new mission values and goals. And so that is an anchor for us to move forward with uh, our work together as a city. So, um, I don't want to be presumptuous and just read to you what is up there, but, um, do you? Yeah.

And you, I'll just say that it's, um, it was a pretty helpful process. I, we didn't include in the packet the current, um, language or the... Former? Yeah, the former language. It's quite long. If anyone asked me what it was, it'd be very difficult to repeat it or say anything about it. And this... really seems to capture both from the staff perspective how we are working together internally and working with each other but also serving the city of essex junction and really those three phrases in the value statements stewardship collaboration and service with humanity was really like really came up from staff working collectively together and their thoughts about what's important to them and how they serve the city of Essex Junction. So I am pretty proud of this work. I think Tabitha really did an excellent job helping us through this, and I think it's exciting to have this.

And it felt like staff advocated for what they believe was best for serving the city. And so I think like stewardship was one of those strong values that was across the board, but meant something different to each department. So it was really nice to see like how collectively we work together, but had these different roles to service the community.

Anybody have any questions?

No, I mean, I'm really grateful that you carried it through, all of you. And I know how long it can take and how much work it is. I know how not everybody wants to participate in things like this. So yeah, really grateful. I think it came out great.

I think it's nice to see the work continue.

And yeah, I really appreciate the result, too, and the fact that it was collaborative and inclusive things. So thanks.

Exactly that.

Ditto. Collaborative and inclusive.

I think that was great. It was really... Bethany, good?

Yeah, having been through about two or three of these processes over the course of my professional career, I also just want to commend you for putting in the time and making it so, as they said, collaborative and at least outwardly seamless a process as possible. I'm sure I know for a fact that it can't have been seamless from the inside.

I guess I'm also curious, how do we Maybe you mentioned this, or maybe it was in here and I missed it. So I apologize if that's the case. How do we and when do we start to kind of get this out? Like, where is this going to be? You don't want to hit everybody over the head with it, obviously. Yeah. How can we?

Yeah, I think what we don't want it to be is just words. Right. And so part of the next process is working with TAPFA again to incorporate this in staff trainings with managers and supervisors into our evaluations so that it's kind of a living, breathing entity that we're carrying through our work every day.

Go ahead, Bethany.

Sorry, I was having trouble unmuting. And is there a need or desire to publicize the new mission and values? And if so, is there a public communications plan?

Yeah, it's interesting because this mission, value, goal statements lives ultimately in the personnel regulations. So it will come back to you again to formally get it into that document. It's different than the vision in the strategic plan that's sort of community-wide outward facing. But I think it's a good question about what exactly in terms of sort of outward facing what we do with this and how we start talking about it. And I think I can imagine it's sort of ultimately as we kind of really get it more streamlined into our system, you would maybe see it. show itself more in the work plans or it's almost like an intro to the work plans that show up in you know what comes to you guys um with the budget process and retreat process each year as a um kind of intro and that we're doing all of that work but we're doing it through this lens of serving the community in this way that might be kind of technically kind of where we put it and live outward facing. Um, but it's also just a great point that we could easily do a press release about it. We could get it out in the newsletter. Uh, so the community knows about it. Um, we can certainly be thinking about it.

Um, yeah, I'm, I mean, I realized that this is definitely like an inward, um, uh, process like for staff. I'm also thinking of it as like, you know, the, recent one just went through a, you know, revisit of their mission and values and everything. And part of the process was sharing it with like clients. So if, yeah, that's kind of where I'm coming from. If we're serving the residents, um, then, so I, I, I hear you lives in mostly internally, but if there is, I mean, including it in the newsletter even briefly, you know, may be worthwhile.

I agree with you, Bethany. I think at the very least it's a press release. Once it's a little more, when you feel more comfortable that it's kind of complete, just saying that, you know, I mean, it's also part of the transition, right? So it's another nice milestone and kind of refresh. Yeah.

Awesome. Yeah, that all makes good sense. Any other questions from council?

All right. I can open it up for public comment. Risa?

Thank you. Does this cover us for the recent federal mandates in order for us to receive our grants?

Yes. Yay. Thank you.

Any other public comment online or in the room? All right. Not seeing any, and this is a non action item. So. Thank you, Colleen. Don't go anywhere. Don't go anywhere. Don't go anywhere. I mean, you could, okay. I mean, you could stay there if you want, but thank you.

Thanks.

All right. 5d discussion and consideration of park street, complete street improvements, bid authorization and ordinance amendment intro.

Okay.

That was a little mouthful.

So, um, As a reminder, we have had a couple of conversations about this Park Street parking and bike lane project. Most recently, on April 29, 2026, the council made a motion to move this preferred alternative forward. So we are now moving to implement that project. And there's 2 particular things in here. 1 is authorizing the bid to do the changes and restriping. And the other component of this is amendments to chapter 8 of the municipal ordinance that. really governs what goes on in our streets, and it's very, very specific in terms of where you can park, where you can't park, and all of those kinds of things. with ordinance amendments that comes with a public hearing process. And if following that public hearing you make amendments to the ordinance, then we do a second public hearing and so on and so forth until the ordinance language is how you would like to adopt it. There was a error in the memo that is in your packet in terms of when an ordinance change becomes effective. According with our city charter, ordinance changes become effective upon passage. And then there is a process for petitioning to change that vote. The recommendation here is to have a public hearing on these ordinance changes on Wednesday, September 9th. 630 as we were opening this ordinance we also have a recommendation in here for a stop sign on pine court as we got a request and looked at that from a safety perspective and the city engineer feels like a stop sign makes sense there It's relatively low cost, so we can implement that right away. So that's why that's in there. If there are more questions or concerns about that particular aspect, I can take those questions tonight and we can circle back on them. It's not imperative that we have the public hearing on September 9th. We can get some questions answered and bring it back before we warn the public hearing. That's fine.

Any questions, right?

Well, sort of things, there's sort of seems to be the three things going on here, right? One is that one is a bit under the striping. One is on the stop sign at pine court, right? And one is the ordinance change. And, uh, w we only need a public hearing to change the ordinance, not the other two, right?

You need an ordinance change to implement the sign, but sorry, sorry. the parking slash striping changes out there because they go hand in hand. You don't need an ordinance change in order to just authorize the contract to move forward with changing the striping.

But that makes sense. Okay.

Yeah. Just out of curiosity, is that scheduled for spring at this point?

We're hoping to get it done. We're not hoping to get it done. The bid authorizes that that work is getting done by October.

Okay, great. Sorry. I think I missed that. I apologize.

No, no problem.

Can I just have one point of clarification? When you spoke earlier, you said West Street and West Street Extension, right?

This was the comment.

We're talking about West Street and Pine Court.

Correct.

Past that intersection, down past where we installed the Neighborhood Watch sign for you a couple of years ago. Correct. Right. So there's no change to the West Street, West Street extension intersection proposed here.

Okay. I'm kind of curious what, I'm sorry, I'm just kind of wondering what good would a stop sign be on either side of Pine Court? It just doesn't make any sense to me.

I'm not an engineer, so I can't speak. My understanding is there was a request made for a stop sign to be added to that T intersection where Pine Court meets West Street extension. Pine Court does not meet. West Street, I'm sorry. So where Pine Court intersects with West Street.

Okay, which is further down towards the dead end?

Which is further past that, yes. So there was a request made for a stop sign to be added there. The city engineer feels like it's value added and easily achievable. And so the proposal before us tonight does not touch that intersection that you mentioned earlier, but is in fact through that intersection down onto the lower end of West street where it intersects with pine court.

It makes absolutely no sense to me. I'm just throwing it out there. The traffic is close to zero because you either live there or you missed the turn onto Route 15. It's like a giant cul-de-sac.

So it intersects Pine Court on the other end, intersects with Clemens Drive.

Correct.

Yeah. So we're all talking, but just making sure we're all talking.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I just wanted to bring that clarification point.

I have no idea why a stop sign. I mean, how do you go about that? Do you do demographics with the rubbers in the road? Yeah.

The only thing we have in our packet that's noted is that this is the language. The city engineer reviewed the intersection in July and recommended a stop sign and painted stop bar due to limited sight distance at the intersection. That's the only info that I'm aware of, like, at a high level here. I'm not an engineer again.

No, I get it. I get it. I'm trying my best, but there's no blind spots there.

Yeah.

I would welcome anybody to just drive it at their convenience and there's no blind spots there. I thought this had to do with West Street and West Street Extension, which is like the number one stop sign that's blowing in our community.

Agreed.

That's why I mentioned it now in case you didn't want to hang out with the rest of the conversation.

I'm glad you did. That's why I didn't catch it on the agenda sheet.

No worries. That's out of my hands. Okay.

I just don't see, you know. I mean, I'd rather see an upgrade in the stop sign and West Street Extension to avoid all those accidents than a stop sign where I personally feel it's not even close to being needed.

Yeah.

I think what's going on, and I asked some questions to the manager about when the target, because it requires capital investment at West Street and West Street Extension, right, then we have a queue of capital projects, right? That's why it took some number of years to get to the sidewalks on West Street. Those were higher on the queue than your intersection. Sorry. My reaction to this proposal was exactly the same as yours. Why are we bothering to put a stop sign in here? It's not a busy intersection. We have a bigger problem a block and a half away. But A, this cost us $30 or something, right? The first stop sign. Whereas I agree, and I'm not an engineer either, but the intersection you're concerned about, I'm concerned about too, as it is. It's more of a problem, but it's also more of an expensive problem to fix. So we're working on it. But this was an easy fix.

I will say I live off of West Street. So it was my ADHD, can't ever sit home, so I drive that intersection tons. It's on my way to work. It's on my way home. I'm awake at just about anywhere. And I've lived off the street for 25 years now. I'm very familiar with it, but I just wanted to say this is not that.

I'm glad you clarified that.

I appreciate the comment.

To back up Tim, I grew up on Luber Drive, so I learned to drive through that intersection, and it was not literally until I knocked on doors in your neighborhoods for the seat that I realized that you had the right of way if you're going straight into your neighborhood. I did not know that. I agree this is a super confusing intersection and therefore dangerous for people Even someone who grew up in this town like myself.

I don't know why it's not a three-way.

What's that?

I don't know why it's not a three-way intersection.

I don't know why it's not a roundabout. Yes. I don't know why it's not a roundabout.

Oh, boy.

Stay tuned, I guess.

Stay tuned and happy to hang out if you want. All right. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else from the council before I open it up to some more public comment? Bethany, anything from you? Okay.

Raj?

Thank you, Marcus.

Thanks. I did because I did see that piece and this is what I wanted to talk about was this stops on because again, Whether you take a look at Google Maps and you look at it, you can see there is no difficulty seeing around that corner. I mean, there's no significant trees. There's no bushes. There's no other foliage or any other structure because most of the houses are set back off those properties. I then, okay, I'm not going to trust what's online. I'm going to go down there. And it's the same thing. There's nothing there. So I do not understand the reasoning. I would really like to see this justified more strongly as to why we need a stop sign there. Because I agree, the problem is the West Street extension, not Pine Court. So trying to understand what that difficulty is would really help me as a resident to understand what the decision-making process is that we're following in order to make these kinds of adjustments on the roadways here, because I don't think that there's justification to put a stop sign there at all.

Thanks, Marcus. I did know, I might have missed this in the, maybe it's just in this memo that we got. No, it isn't. There was supposed to be a full analysis.

Yeah, I'm just realizing that it's not in the packet and it was intended to be in the packet.

Okay. That may or may not help with some of this conversation. Yeah, because that's from the it's from Jeff. I'm assuming yes. Okay.

Yeah We can either Put the more information in your next packet you might put it in consent. Yeah, and I Or we can hold the public hearing and we'll have that more information for the public hearing. But really, it is not, the ordinance part of this is not so time sensitive that it's gonna be a problem if we have the public hearing, the second meeting in September instead of the first meeting in September.

Unless we end up with the second public hearing and it puts off the student. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the stop sign's supposed to be on Pine, not on West Street, right? Correct, yes. I'm also, I mean, I'm comfortable with putting in a consent and having a public hearing and then pulling it if we don't like it, getting the public hearing scheduled. And if we get feedback we don't agree with it, we'll just pull it and we'll just keep off the go. And I am kind of curious about the nature of like, what was the process? Somebody just kind of said, I'm not loving this. I just don't know. And then now we're putting a stop sign in and how that works. I'm not as familiar as I should be, because I wasn't involved in the traffic calming thing. I do have some questions, but I'm also totally open to the fact that this was handled in the background, and the engineer thinks it's... I could go either way, but I think the consent idea, schedule the public hearings...

I can just add generally that if we get a question or a concern about a safety issue, we take a look at it. If we feel that it is a true safety concern and we can address it and it's relatively low cost and we can just move forward on that, we try our best to just proactively do those things. If it is a bigger... if it is a problem that requires a bigger fix, then it goes through a different pathway through the capital project and or if it is more fully a traffic calming project, which is not just strictly a safety project, then that does have a new pathway. We did not look at this request as a traffic calming request. We looked at it as safety And this is our recommendation on moving forward on addressing it.

And Clems, just 100 yards up, as it meets West, has a stop sign on it.

Clems has a stop sign, yes. But Pine at Clems does not. So the other end.

It's just a U, isn't it?

Yeah, it's a, well, it's a L, like a 45, right? So you come down, you turn the corner, intersects with Clems. There's not a stop sign at that end either. But, yeah, there is a stop sign at Clems and West.

That kind of makes sense to me that there wouldn't be down there. Anyway, I'm just thinking of it as a sister intersection to. Yeah. A lot of hand movements there.

Brian, go ahead.

Okay, so I don't have a strong opinion about whether we put a stop sign at Pine Court or not. I tend to defer to the engineer's expertise, and also it's not a lot of money, as we talked about. I don't think it's actually $30. It's probably like $200, but whatever, right?

$30 in paying for the stop sign.

Yes. That said, my concern is one that Raj sort of expressed, is that I do not want to delay the Park Street project. would it therefore make sense to pull the stop sign out of the motions that we do for this and we have motions for the parking ordinances and for the contract for the striping and then we deal with the Pine Court thing separately since it seems like there's some concern about the process which was undergone in order to authorize that $200 expense.

Uh, I mean, I'm open to that thought. I mean, I guess I kind of, my instinct is similar. Like if we have the, if we hold the public hearing and we, we get the information in the next packet and we're like, yeah, this doesn't make sense. Then we can at least move forward with approving the on street or the parking change to coincide with the parking strip, the striping that's happening and then just remove the pine court.

At that point.

Yeah.

Okay. So we still have that option. Yeah, yeah. I'm just saying, why don't we just do it now? Then there's no possibility of them competing.

Because then if we decide we're going to do it, we'd have to do another, right? Yeah, this feels more efficient. Yeah, we'd have to do another public hearing, correct me if I'm wrong, if we decide we want to do Pine Court.

Yeah, I think you'd, I think... If we move forward with both of these ordinance changes, we warn the public hearing, we have the public hearing on both. If you pull the Pine Court stop sign out of it, you do have to have a second public hearing because you've amended what you put forward to the public. If we keep the stop sign out now and choose to put the stop sign in and do an ordinance change later, we have to do the same thing. Half a dozen here, half a dozen there. Yeah.

If you guys think it's fine, then fine. A public hearing is like not a full meeting. It's an agenda in a meeting. Yeah, exactly. So you can have two public hearings on different topics in the same meeting, right? No. No.

It's all wrapped up in the same ordinance. Yeah. So if we leave it in and we like the report and there's no negative feedback that we feel like we have to act on, we just approve it and we're done.

Yeah.

If we decide to pull it, then we have a second one.

At a subsequent meeting.

At a subsequent meeting. Erring on the side of the engineer probably to due diligence, it's a legitimate concern and all of that, and there's a sister stop sign at the same kind of intersection just up the road, it feels more efficient to just leave it in and pull it at risk of complete disagreement with the engineer and overwhelming negative feedback from public. which is the only thing that's going to change your mind on doing it at that point. So, but again, same result, two meetings, but this way we're keeping things moving.

Two unless we approve, unless, right, then we have just the one.

Right, but again, erring on that. If we all go that way. Assuming that there's been due diligence done, then. Yeah.

So I will entertain, I mean, there are two motions anyways. One is for the striping. So.

Do you want both of them or you want to hold on one? You want to hold on the second one and have a little more discussion?

Brian, I think our goals here are the same. I'm not sure. I agree with you that getting there that way is faster, but, but, um, if you guys do then, whatever, then, then certainly it's faster to get there with four votes over mine then, then for me to pull it out and lose.

Well, so let's go, we'll, we'll run the motion and we'll see how it goes.

Uh, I moved that the city council authorized the city manager to enter into a contract with K five marking LLC for $19,673 and 50 cents. for the Park Street Complete Street Improvements Project?

Just do one at a time. Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay, that's unanimous.

I move that the City Council warn a public hearing for September 9th, 2026 at 6.30 p.m. to consider amendments to Chapter 8 of the Municipal Code related to on-street parking on Park Street, bicycle lane provisions, and a stop sign at Pine Court and West Street.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Any nays? Okay, unanimous. Thank you, folks. We'll see you all here again September 9th. All right, we have two executive sessions as our next two agenda items, so we're gonna go to the consent items now. We're gonna go to the consent agenda. Anyone want to?

I make a motion to approve consent.

Second. Seconded.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. All right, that one's unanimous as well. Councilmember comments and city manager report. Regina?

Our fire department has had three structure fires over the last month, so just want to really appreciate all of their service and coming to the table and helping with those serious safety concerns our community so I really appreciate that also just want to say that this is always a good reminder make sure your smoke detectors are working make sure you got your fire extinguishers charged up and practice fire safety as as best as possible We have the fair coming up, so it's very exciting to be welcoming all kinds of neighbors into the community for the next 10 days. And so thanks everybody for your patience with the traffic that comes along with it. Also, we have Meet Me on Main happening for three Saturdays again this year. So looking forward to that.

First one is I think the 19th of September.

Yeah, first one is Saturday, September 19th, and then the two subsequent Saturdays directly after that. I think that's it.

Raja, anything?

I'll just take a minute to say it was the first day of school. So patience is appreciated. A reminder, the speed limit's 25. It would be a nice thing. And Public Works seems to have gotten all of the roadways painted in time and all the crosswalks done. So hats off to them again. And so just wanted to say, falls in the air. It's a great time to be out. There's tons of kids walking, so pay attention as you drive.

Brian, anything? All right, I'm gonna take the opportunity to mention or remind folks that tax day is coming up, both for the IRS and for us here. Yeah, get to pay them both on the same day is nice. And we are going to do, the city council is doing a snack and school supply drive to benefit Essex Chips upstairs. So donations there are boxes out at to Lincoln right now if you want to drop stuff off but the big push day is going to be September 15th, which is when taxes are due and We want you to stop by pay your taxes and say hi to the City Council be here as well Answering any questions or just to say hi So as I mentioned earlier, we do have two executive sessions. We are not coming back with any decisions after that. So you guys are free to go enjoy the rest of your evening. Tomorrow's supposed to be rainy, so go check out what's set up at the fair already. All right, I will take the motions.

I move that the city council make the specific finding that premature disclosure of the contractual matters would place the city at a substantial disadvantage. I move that the city council enter into executive session to discuss a personnel contract pursuant to 1VSA313A1A and 1VSA313A3 to include the city council, city manager, and HR director.

Can you get a second? Second. You guys can arm wrestle. Okay. All in favor? Aye.

Aye. All right. Did Beth name?

Aye. Sorry, I couldn't get a ton. It's all good. It's all good.

I just didn't want to have to do a roll call.

Gotcha. All right. Thank you. That's unanimous. Enjoy your night, guys.

Did we do both?

Two more. Sorry. I move that the city council make the specific finding that premature disclosure of the confidential attorney client communications regarding probable litigation would place the city at a substantial disadvantage i move that the city council enter into executive session to discuss confidential attorney client communications regarding probable litigation pursuant to one vsa 313 a1e and one vsa 313 a1f to include city council and city manager second

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you. All right. That was unanimous.

Is there a third? No. Or six?

All right. Now everyone's free to go. Enjoy your night.

I don't know if that would, does it happen to you? It counts in my world.

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