City Council - Regular Meeting

do Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

We're getting there.

We're getting there.

Give me a ride to the airport at 3.50 in the morning. At what time? 3.50. No.

Let me consult my schedule.

I'm up. That's what I'm saying. That's why I'm asking. You know you're going to be up.

6.30. Good. Regina's good. All right. I am going to call the meeting of the Essex Junction City Council to order for Wednesday, May 27th. First item on the agenda is any agenda additions or changes. Regina, do you have any? None for me. Okay. I am going to remove business item 5D, which is the discussion about the historical marker, and that will come back to us at a later meeting, probably the June 10th meeting. And can I get a motion, or does anybody else have any other agenda additions or changes? Motion?

So moved. Second. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Okay, that's unanimous. Thank you, guys. All right, so next is the public to be heard. If there's anybody in the room or online that would like to be heard. I don't see anybody in the room. Just giving it a second online here. I'm not seeing any hands online. So we will... Move on to item 5A, which is interview and consideration of appointments to bike walk advisory, planning commission, and the moderator position. And I'm going to take the applicants in the order that they're on in the memo. And before we start with Robert Frederick for questions. the Bike Walk Advisory Committee. I'm just going to, for everyone that's interviewing, just give a quick disclaimer that we are going to have some more applicants that are not here and some for other committees. And so we're not going to do any appointments tonight. We're going to do those at our June 10th meeting. And so staff will get in touch with everybody post June 10th. But come on up, Robert.

If you could sit in front of the mic, please.

You want to just tell us your name and we do have your application. But if you want to give us a little bit of background as to why you're interested in joining the committee, that would be great.

Sure. Yeah. Hi, I'm Robert. I lived in Essex Junction for two years now. And I went to UVM. prior to living here and my senior capstone project that I did was with the bike walk advisory committee where we proposed some new areas to improve on connectivity and whatnot specifically Ivy Lane over by the Amtrak station and the North Street, Grove Street intersection. But anyway, since then, I've worked for btrans. And I've really become much more interested in more accessible transportation and stuff like that, which is something that I don't really do for my job necessarily, but it's got me to think a lot more about it. I'm an avid cyclist and an avid walker. So those are both things I care about a lot. I bike around the city and the surrounding areas weekly, roughly, and walk them even more. So it's just something that I really feel like I'd want to contribute more to.

Appreciate that. Any questions?

I'll just ask real quick. It seems kind of almost full circle for you to have come back here now after, or to come back to Essex. What, what caused you to settle here or what caused you to move into my girlfriend? She said, this is where I want to be. I understand that. Thanks. I was just, that was just curiosity.

Yeah, no, it's a, it's a great community. And, um, I've, I'm trying to find more ways that I can be involved in any way I can, and certainly in ways that I care the most about, and I feel like this is probably one of the better ways that I can contribute in a more meaningful way.

Fantastic. Thank you.

Anybody else have any questions?

Yeah. On that, any way I can help, in the off chance that you don't get this bike walk position, are you open to serving on other committees? We like to ask everybody this. Are you open to serving on other committees that you may not have thought of but we have? We just asked this if it's likely.

I didn't really think that. I don't know. I knew that BWAC existed, and I figured I'd apply to it. I mean, honestly, that was kind of as far as I got. I knew it was a group I've interacted with before. And my cohort of students got along pretty well with them, I felt like. And I'd like to be on the other side of it.

Great. Now that you're here, living here, do you have sort of a short list of things that are really on your mind in this topic area?

Yeah, I think I touched on that in the blurbs that I wrote out. There's definitely a barrier to entry for people who want to cycle around or walk around the city but don't necessarily know how to or feel like there's something that's a little afraid, a little scary and make them afraid of biking or walking, whether it be the tight streets and not a lot of protection from cars and stuff or even just going around tight corners. It's pretty scary. It's just a... black blob in the middle of the city. And it just kind of sections off certain parts that makes it more inaccessible for some people if they're afraid of crossing or something like that. And it was actually something we very briefly looked at, was improving crossing times or something like that. Because if you want to go from Lincoln Street all the way over to Park Street or something like that, you have to cross multiple lanes of traffic on one cycle. And then you have to wait for the whole cycle to go.

You don't make it all the way across.

But anyway, so yeah, for me it's really just trying to make it a more friendly network for people rather than trying to expand where people can bike and stuff. I think that's probably, to get more people to bike is, the easiest thing to do is just lower that barrier to entry as much as possible. So that's just what I've seen. I mean, personally, I feel pretty comfortable riding around in the streets in traffic and stuff. I know a lot of people don't. And I like to try to help that group of people as much as possible. Excellent. Thank you.

Any other questions?

No.

Okay. Thank you for coming over. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thanks.

And feel free to stay for the rest of the meeting, but also feel free to go enjoy the nice weather. Totally get it. We'll be in touch. Thanks. All right. So next up we've got Cheryl Hacker, and I see Cheryl is online. Hi, Cheryl.

Hi, everyone. Hold on. I'm just trying to get my camera on. Here we go. We can see you now. Okay, great. That was very close. Hi.

Nice to meet everyone. Nice to meet you. I don't know if you heard that, but maybe if you could just give us a quick, you know, state your name and a little bit of why you're interested in joining the Bike Walk Advisory Committee.

Sure. Yeah. So my name is Cheryl Hacker. My husband and I and now our two children have been here Well, my husband and I have been here in Essex Junction for three years. We have a three and a half year old and almost one year old. Before we lived here, we lived in Somerville, Massachusetts, but we moved up here to be closer to my husband's family who grew up here. And so it's nice being able to raise our two kids close to my husband's family and have family help. While we were in Somerville and also now, I think our primary way that we prefer to get around is by walking or biking. And so I think being able to also give back to the community and start to make more connections within the community is important to us as we grow our family. But I think the bike committee stood out to me just because I really enjoy biking and I really enjoy being able to make connections through bikes. Yeah, I'm an architect who work, I work in Winooski five days a week. And now that the weather's nice, I'd prefer to bike commute as much as possible, but with two kids, that's not, it's not the easiest option, but if I can do it once a week, that's a really nice way to commute and get exercise and be outside.

Questions for her?

I'm really curious about your bicycle ride from Essex Junction to, within the Essex Junction limits to, if you're going out 15 to the shared use path on College Parkway. I wonder if you can just speak to your experience to get maybe to that point.

Yeah. I would say, so I live in countryside, so I feel like we're at the far end of the city limits. And getting into five corners, I think is nice and easy, very straightforward. And then it almost immediately becomes a little more scary in five corners up the hill. And I am usually on the sidewalks, to be honest. I think the unfortunate thing is there also aren't a lot of pedestrians. So it makes me feel a little bit more comfortable being on a sidewalk. But I would say for all of 15, kind of, towards Susie Wilson, I'm on a sidewalk most of the time.

Which is... Less than ideal, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate it. I just wanted the insight, so I appreciate that. Thank you.

Yeah, it makes me feel safer. Yeah.

Opportunity to separate cyclists and motor vehicles. Yeah.

Yeah, and then... Yeah, I mean, once you get past Susie Wilson, it's fine. Going down into Winooski is easy and much more fun than coming back up, but.

Oh, come on, where's the challenge? Yeah, Bill's on the way home.

Yeah, exactly.

Go ahead. I'll just ask the question I asked earlier, we kind of ask everyone if it's not there's not an opportunity for you on the bike walk committee. Are you open to any others? Or, you know, receiving a request?

Yeah, I'd be open to receiving a request. I think I think the interesting thing about the committees are just as it gives you an opportunity to get more engaged with the community, which is what I'm looking to do.

Yeah. Well, thanks for joining us, Cheryl. Appreciate it. Thank you. And we'll be in touch.

Thank you so much.

All right. Last on the list for Bike Walk is Ian Van Kirk. Join us at the mic, please. You heard the spiel, but... All right.

I'm Ian Van Kirk. I have I've lived in the Junction for 18 years. I put in for this committee specifically because my entire family, we're all avid runners. I have trained for three marathons on these streets. My 15-year-old just split VCM with her older sister. She has trained for several half marathons on these streets. 15, she's in high school, obviously. As a runner, cross-country, track, like they're all over the place. My wife has trained for four marathons over the years. We have participated in the various programs offered by Fleet Feet and different levels, including being instructors as well as students of them. So, you know, obviously with that kind of duration, the city being accessible and friendly to pedestrians and runners and bikers as well. We don't do as much of that. I mean, my teenagers would certainly bike around in the summer. But that's a big thing for us. And really, when we were house hunting, 18, 19 years ago, one of the appeals of staying in the junction, we were living with my wife's parents out in the town, but my wife worked here, and we just liked the size of the junction and being able to get to things without necessarily have to drive. We live over on Hiawatha Ave, so if we want to go to the fair, we walk. We have never driven to a Fourth of July celebration, whether it was at the park or at the fairgrounds. You know, so many things that we do here we can get to by foot, and that's a big thing for us.

Questions?

I appreciate the perspective of someone as a runner, so how do you find it getting around and training for marathons and running through the city? Do you experience any difficulties through that?

It is generally pretty good. I mean... Granted, not all of it's done in the city just because it's hard to get 20 miles in this space.

Just do circles. Absolutely.

Even doing circles, I end up in the town. I hear you. you know i when i was filling out the sections um i made a comment about areas of improvement and i was specifically thinking of the small lakes that develop on west street anytime there's more than a little bit of rain or if it freezes skating rinks um yeah i remember that when DPW tore up that section of sidewalk and I was like, ooh, maybe it'll be concrete and it'll have drainage. And they put down the same thing and it was in the same spot. You know, those are kind of the big challenges for me, especially spring, winter. We run at the edge a lot in the winter, but sometimes we run outside and It can be treacherous. Granted, it is winter, so you can't always avoid it, but there are certain areas where standing water freezes and it just becomes a much bigger problem. Either it's frozen or it's 33-degree slush, which isn't great for sneakers. That would be kind of my big thing. Perfect. Thank you.

what I mean you've touched on it already in you know the standing water are there any other you know areas that you areas of improvement or things you'd like to accomplish while you're on the committee there are a couple spots where even with

crosswalks getting across the street can be treacherous I'm thinking mainly West Street extension because that doesn't unlike the five corners it doesn't stop you don't have a full red all the way around for that crosswalk and people don't necessarily pay attention especially out of that intersection they don't pay attention other traffic people that aren't aren't in cars You know, there's that would be a big one and then Usually if I'm running up Park Street, I try to cross before I get to the five corners That usually isn't too bad but yeah, my main thing is the poor drainage in some areas and Also, for people that are out in the evening, the lighting is poor in a lot of areas. Down in Hiawatha, we've got a couple streetlights, basically at intersections. The rest of it's pretty dark.

Thank you.

Okay, the usual. Go ahead. If not, you've heard it a few times, if not selected for this committee for some reason, are you open to hearing from someone and a suggestion for another?

Yeah, I saw the announcement that the committees were open, so I kind of went through the list and had some level of interest in pretty much everything that was there, but this one basically, I connect you better because of

you know all the reasons i mentioned but i'm certainly open and doing other things and participating in other ways great thanks for thanks for doing it thank you appreciate it brian any questions all right thanks ian okay so next we've got the planning commission um is it kirsty hello sorry hello heard the spiel already, so I won't give you the spiel again. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you for having me. So I'm Kirstie. I've been in the Junction for nine years. Initially, when I first applied for the Planning Commission two years ago, I guess, I had actually technically applied for the Tree Committee and was asked the question that has been asked here tonight. If that's not available, are you interested in something else? And I said yes, and now here I am.

That same question.

Look how well it worked out. It worked out so well.

So you're enjoying your time on the Planning Commission. Anything in particular that you want to tell us about your highlights maybe with your time on the Planning Commission?

Yeah, so when I came in, we were, I think, partway through the TOD master plan process. So I sort of came in while that was partway. So that's how I got up to speed, which was really cool to be part of. And now, of course, we're transitioning into a comprehensive plan. And it's really cool to see how that and all of the other amendments that we're making to LDC and all that are going to come together into the comprehensive plan. I also had the chance to be part of the focus groups that were done last month ahead of the comprehensive plan process, which was very fun to be part of as well. So looking forward to bringing all that together and taking the next steps.

Tim? I don't. I'm... I'm thrilled that, will you consider a different committee worked out in this case? It does.

It's a great question, and I'm glad you guys asked. And since we keep dancing, Raj is thunder. Do you have any interest in any other potential committees if not appointed to planning commission? And feel free to say no, it's totally fine.

Well, I did apply for the Tree Committee back in the day because I used to work in government and no longer do. And I joke in my private life that I have to have government as a hobby. The results, that's a long way of saying that, yes.

That's relatable.

And what are you most excited about doing if you are reappointed to the Planning Commission?

I think just being able to be with the comprehensive plan process for, I don't think it'll be quite beginning to end in three years, but for most of that process, being able to take all the feedback we've been soliciting and turn it into our guiding principles and all that. I used to work in municipal government and I was not part of their comprehensive plans, but I got to see it from the outside. And so it's exciting to be part of it from the inside. Yeah.

Thank you. I love that you find this exciting. I'm always just shocked at how much detail goes into it, how much time goes into it, how complicated it can be. And I'm just in awe of anybody that finds it exciting. Not that I don't. I just know that my patient's level is there. And I very much appreciate it.

What Rod is saying is that's a good pitch to this group of dorks.

the art of it is really taking um something that is dry and technical and making it represent everything that we're hearing from all of our all the community members and making sure that like we all hear from our friends and neighbors all the time um so being able to synthesize that into an actual like piece of governance is i think very cool thank you thank you any other questions

All right. Thank you very much for joining us, and enjoy the rest of your night. Thank you, Mom. Thanks.

Thank you. All right.

That is it for appointment interviews for this round, and we'll be back again on the 10th to do some more.

I was supposed to interview you.

Yeah.

Oh, sorry.

Brutal.

Oh, sorry, Amanda. Clearly I cannot read my own writing. My apologies, Amanda. Come on up. For some reason, I read that is like June 10th. That's OK.

So sorry.

Thanks for joining us.

Yeah, happy to be here. So my name's Amanda Svensson. I work as a transportation engineer. And that has brought me to a lot of other planning commission meetings for like adjacent cities and towns. on, I guess, the other side of it. So I really want to find a way to participate in my own community and use my experience. I also have some experience in wastewater and facilities work, which I think the interdisciplinary side of things would also benefit in planning commission. um but i i've been living here for three years now and i i lived here when i was still going to uvm i graduated last year i took the bus a lot i walk around i run i bike i'm really into active transportation and i just hope to find a way to improve the community that's awesome thank you thank you questions on this side of the room just want to thank you for bringing us robert

And since Robert said he landed because of, you were here when you graduated?

Yeah, I lived here before I even graduated, so I was commuting to school, yeah. I dragged him here.

If you were here before the meeting started, you'd know this is not a competition.

I will say, unfortunately, my capstone project was in Randolph.

That's a pretty great community, too. But this is fabulous. You did very well. I don't have any questions.

Raj, ask his question. If you are not selected for the Planning Commission, would you consider a position for other open seats on something, for instance, a development review board or any number of other

Certainly, yeah. Well, the first two that are coming to mind is bike walk committee, because I bike and I walk, and I run. But I also like maybe recreation, because personally, I see it as there's a lot of the two sides of things and not a lot for the folks in the middle like me. But yeah, I'm open to pretty much anything.

Excellent.

Cool.

Thank you. Love it. Anybody else? Thank you.

Thank you all very much.

All right. Am I really done?

You are really done.

OK. All right. Sorry. OK. We're moving on to 5B, which is the fire department head brief to council.

OK. Hey, Chief.

So before the chief starts, I'm just going to say the chief mentions in here the rolling stock. So this has come up because the chief and the finance director and I talked about this last week. And I asked the chief to pause on moving forward with an RFQ for the fire truck that is slated for FY30. in the capital plan because at the moment we are underfunded for that truck. So we will be adding a specific rolling stock agenda item in June so that it's actually on the agenda and we can talk about that. And so that's it. Thank you.

Take it away.

Virginia is trying to bring me down a little bit.

Bring us back up. Bring us back up here.

Because I was not happy at all hearing about that. But we'll get there. Yeah, just to highlight where we are, again, look back. Right now, calendar year, our call volume for 2026 is significantly down from where we were in 2025. Right now about 20% lower than where we were last year at this time. So that's being reflected in our salary line. We're running a low budget on salaries. And our big line that's running ahead is our truck maintenance. So we allocate $25,000 a year to vehicle maintenance. We've already exceeded that. I want to say we're at $27,000. And a ladder truck goes in next week for another $5,000 repair. So we've got to replace an air conditioning unit on that apparatus. So we'll be running over on that line. Again, I expect that we'll be able to cover that with excess from salaries because we're running ahead there. um again as regina had stated um apparatus lead times um ever since covet and they haven't really recovered are up to like three years to to get fire trucks so to wait until you know that that hits fiscal 29 or 30 um we'd be looking at yet another three years down the road This apparatus we're looking to replace will be 20 years old. And again, we put a 20-year lifespan because once we hit that mark, again, we're looking into higher levels of maintenance. As it is with that apparatus recently, we had to have the primer repaired. That was done, and I believe the cab lift on that apparatus needs to be repaired, and we haven't had that addressed yet. So it's just very, very time consuming when we get into a lot of apparatus maintenance, because we've got to move these things there, we've got to get them back, and again, They're extremely costly. I don't think you can go into a shop for less than $1,000. That's what we see when these vehicles go up there. So we did have a committee put together and do some planning so that we could kind of get ahead of this lead time. That's why we're at a point where we're ready to go out for quote. But with funding that's not secured, basically we're in a holding pattern. So we will hold off to see how this gets addressed. We have quotes for the new command vehicle. And again, that was in question based on the shortfall in the rolling stock across all the line items. So we're waiting to hear on that as well. Looking ahead, staffing. Staffing still remains strong. We have two members that are leaving shortly, I think in the month of June. We have two new applicants. Both of those applicants, one of them comes to us with an EMS experience, the other with fire and EMS experience. So we did lose two, but we pick up two. always good to have new applicants that that come with experience so they know exactly what they're getting into we have a total of three members that are tied up with basic training for the military one's on deployment but it looks like now at the end of this summer we'll be back up to we'll have all three individuals back on the roster so that will help out as well Again, ongoing work at our training site. We've got some Connex boxes over at CVE up in the back. We continue to work on that as we get time. Most of that work is being done, a majority of the work is being done by us. So we continue to work on that to upgrade our training site. And again, I would expect that we would be 75 to 80% complete by the end of this calendar year. um so again the big thing was rolling stock um again we um that needs to be a priority um if we look at our rolling stock we are in the negative for the next 10 years with i think four or five of those years being negative in excess of a million dollars so It doesn't just impact the fire department, it impacts all the departments. And in fact, I don't believe the fire apparatus are in those numbers. They're in the rolling stock plan, but I don't think the cost of those apparatus are being rolled forward. You know, this fund was started, as you all know. Can I just interrupt for a second?

I thought this was going to be part of a discussion at another time, this particular topic. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, you can finish your sentence. No, I hate to interrupt.

We did warn this, and we already said that.

Yeah, I mean, I think if the intention here was to just kind of leave it to your brief, but if that's related to your brief, that's fine. But as Regina said, we are going to have a separate conversation about rolling stock, which we'll cover later. and certainly we hope you can join us for that conversation and whatnot. But definitely feel free to finish what you were.

No, I'll be done. Okay.

Any questions for the chief?

It sounds odd to have a 20% reduction. I can't imagine you know, but I'm curious if there's been, if there's some assumptions being made as to why. I mean, it's a great thing if people are getting less hurt and having less damage. It's awesome. I'm just curious if there's like.

We do occasionally get caught up in repetitive alarms. I mean, I can think back to Planet Fitness. You know, they get alarms in their HVAC systems. that continually go off. We respond. We find out that it's not a problem. Tell them to get their alarm company to come in and take a look at them. Again, They say their address, and you go down there multiple times. So it's things like that. The Spark, the new Hilton Hotel.

I was going to bring that up.

I think we went down there. We had to go down there at least a dozen times for various alarms. So, you know, they put the... They activated the system and continue to work on the building. So if you've got a smoke detector in the room and you're sanding a wall, the smoke detector's gonna go off.

So in the past, I have to believe in my previous iteration here that we've had conversations around repetitive, I'm not gonna, I don't know what the right word is. I'm gonna use the word nuisance, I don't know if it's the right word. Repetitive nuisance cause of properties and finding some way to kind of get some remuneration there. Is that, I don't know if that's still a conversation or is it just sort of one of those

again it's just uh you know again we don't have anybody full-time and that's that's another administrative task that that would have to be you know again managed so something we could look at but again there there are additional tasks that you know we do not have full-time people for so you know we're trying again our goal is to maintain this paid call status yeah

You mentioned that the vendors from which you buy the equipment have a three-year waiting list. And we're talking about purchasing it in three years. Talk to me a little bit about the mechanics of financing an order for one of these. Because it seems to me, if it's zero down and you get it in three years, that's exactly what you want. But that's probably not how it works, or you wouldn't be asking us for help?

No, that would be how it works, but I don't know that the city could commit to that contract without having that funding secured.

Okay.

All right. Thank you. In the past, we've had that funding in the rolling stock, and then we could take advantage of some of the manufacturers. If you were able to put 50% down at time of contract signing, they would give you a further discount on the price. So we were able to take advantage of some of that with past purchases.

Fair enough. So yeah, just trying to solve a problem that is that in, well, two problems. One, you think it's end of life is three years out. You think the order is three years out. But we don't have the money until three years out. So it seems like there's something to work with.

That's what we were looking for. That's why we had started the work, but I understand that, again, if we don't have the funding, then we can't really commit to a contract.

It's going to be a great discussion.

I don't want to delve any further into the discussion, but I wanted to understand the mechanics for my preparation. Thank you. Thank you.

Anything else? Council? Nothing. Okay. Thanks, Chief. You're welcome.

Have a good evening.

Enjoy your night.

Thank you.

all right next up we got 5c which is discussion and consideration of the engagement plan and we have ashley in person here with us Take it away.

All right. So what you guys have in front of you is a draft, a very initial draft of the comprehensive communication community engagement plan. This was something that was in our strategic plan. It's actually one of our action items under pillar six. is to develop this engagement plan. And so over the past year, I've been working on this, doing research, looking at other municipalities and organizations that have engagement plans to define what would be best for Essex Junction. So off of that, I based this off of kind of three components. And the first one is the framework, which defines really what our engagement purpose is. It describes how the city will engage with our community and kind of define some of those roles for the people who are actually doing the engagement process. That piece of the document is intended for the public and for the staff. The second part is the community engagement goals and actions, because of any plan that I do, I want us to continuously be improving. And so I want to have action items that we are doing to improve our engagement. So it outlines some steps for the staff to take to improve engagement and strengthen it over the next five years. It's supposed to be a guide for the staff and also for the public to view how we're improving our engagement. then the third and final is the toolkit it is more for just the staff and it is a way for them to have some procedures and tools and resources on how to develop an engagement plan to then move forward with their engagement within their project like i mentioned this is very initial draft we have had some people like ccrpc's outreach and engagement coordinator look at it and our economic mobility manager to look over this Some of those suggestions have been incorporated. Others I'm going to have to think about a little bit more on how we incorporate those. We also want some additional staff to look over this as well, especially with the toolkit piece, because that's something that all staff are going to be looking at. And so we want to make sure that we have them to look over it as well. At this time, there's no recommendation. It is just an opportunity for you guys to review it, see the direction that we're headed, and to get any feedback or comments from the council at this time.

Actually, this is a very impressive, I'll say first draft because it's the first time we're seeing it. So very impressive. first pass at this, at least as far as I'm concerned. And I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. I very much hope we get a couple more discussions around this because there's so much here that I've found myself sort of having a hard time focusing on this conversation. So I'm just putting that out there. I'm still trying to get my head around it. A couple initial thoughts, I guess, and I'm going to try to fumble through this a little bit. is that this feels more like it's almost topic or project-based engagement and kind of a roadmap for that. So we have this goal. We're going to define the goal. We're going to try to get some answers and complete the goal, complete the project. I'm curious how that relates to sort of building a relationship with the community where the feeling is bidirectionally that there's just more trust and communication back and forth. And one of the ways I noticed that is in terms of how we as a board were included in this. And so there's a few other ways, but I guess I'm curious about that. So this, again, this to me feels initially like it's very much topic or project based as opposed to The way I think, I'll speak for myself as an elected official, the way I think of it is looking for more of a community atmosphere where there's, like I said, more regular engagement. People feel like they have a stake in it. They feel engaged. They feel like their opinion is sought out and valued and all of that. So anyway, there's a place for them to go. So I don't know, is that a separate thing we're going to work on or is there a way to sort of achieve both?

I think it achieves both in a lot of ways. So obviously the work that we're doing on a daily basis needs to have a direction. And so that's part of this is we have to have a process for engagement. So it needs to be something that's consistent. It doesn't need to be something that's one-off. And not all engagement is always going to go through that big engagement process. It might be just informing. So that's why we have the spectrum in that. And so it's a way for us to be speaking the same language and be doing the same things at the same time. that builds trust. And so we have to have these processes almost in place to start building that trust. But also in there, in this, like I said, with my plan, I always want to have actions. And so with me, part of that action is deciding do we need a community engagement committee and what that might look like. So in my head, I have a lot of ways that that could have that intended purpose for that more two-way dialogue um and that's basically building those relationships we've got to build that's part of that's making that community network map where we're having those people that we know that are trusted and we're not just always asking them to give us feedback we're always having that relationship with them so i'm trying to build in those things within the action but it's not something that's immediate so the immediate thing is getting our policies and procedures in place so that we can then build upon that does that answer your question

I think it does. And I also just want to say that I understand that this is a process and that it's a living document and that things will change and this will build. I don't expect it to be everything all at once at the beginning.

My main question about this is there are a lot of great actions in here that excite me a lot. So I'm wondering what's the sort of timeline for implementing this process? engagement plan and some of the priorities you've identified.

So I think that that will be part of this is obviously the discussion with you guys and getting that where we feel comfortable with it. And then it will be building those into people's individual work plans. So a lot of this would be under my work plan, but it might fall into other people's work plans as well. And so how we build it in that and that does with capacity as well, so I can't say for sure like we're gonna be implementing the You know the the language access plan it's on my work plan right now is that language access plan for next year? But so there's some things already that's in the works But there's not something that I can say for sure that there are everything's going to be accomplished at this time point. Thank you

Yeah, Ashley, I was to riff a little bit on what Raj was asking. One of the things I noticed about was in the toolbox that you're trying to set up is the social media section. Is it still the plan to engage in Front Porch Forum, Facebook, Well, and next door, is that only the social media?

Those are the current tools that we have in place right now. It is not to say that we will not add additional tools as we need them and as we evolve. I think that there are other tools that we can be using for that toolbox. But at this point in time, there is not something set up for other people to use. So that's why this is very much what we've done or what we could do.

Fair enough. Yeah, so this is a long one. platforms that are, and certainly I think that Facebook and Front Porch Forum overlap our demographic very well, but things like Instagram and TikTok, one of which I'm on and one of which I'm not personally, are going to, well, you can guess by my age. which is exactly the point. I think it would be, I would suggest it would be worthwhile to investigate things like Hootsuite or other things that would help you. I mean, I often am complimenting you behind your back for the graphics-based things that you're putting out on social media, which would look great in other social media platforms that we're not posting on. So there's that. And secondly, I agree with Raja's impression that this seems project-based. One of the ways that I think that we could do a better job of communicating is emergency-based, right? So like when Public Works is a Is forced to it to for it for to clean out the sewers and push water into people's bathrooms, right? So is there any is there? Is there Time to add is it would it be worthwhile to consider ways to be more to have emergency reaction communication? portions in this project plan I

And I don't want to say no, but I feel like we're talking two different things right now. So you're talking a lot about a communication, things that we do in ways that we communicate with the public. And while that's part of this engagement plan, it's not necessarily, we're not doing emergency communications in the engagement plan. It's more part of a communication strategy. So I don't want us to like, as I mentioned in here, there's communication engagement. They go hand in hand, but they're two separate things. And so I want to make sure that we do make note of that. But yes, there are other things that we can do, obviously, to build upon our communication strategy. And part of that is, though, just in that informed section of the engagement plan. So I just want to make that clarification.

Now, that's a fair point that I'm talking about communication here. But that said, it requires good engagement when we F that up in order to respond to that. So that's why. I think we would all agree that that's related and we could do better.

Yeah. Thanks.

Anything else? I don't have anything. I'll wait to see how it, yeah, there's a lot. So I think where it sits right now is good. I'm good. Just the process a little bit as I continue to absorb it.

Yeah, I'm going to, before I come back to you, I echo all those. And maybe the next time we come back around, Maybe some examples. I don't know what I'm thinking out loud here, but just reading through this, it was a lot. And I'm just wondering how many other people are thinking, what does this mean? In reality, what does this mean? And so I'm a visual person, so kind of seeing something played out and how that would play out would be helpful.

And you're saying it played out for the toolkit. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Yep.

Raj?

No, I think that's, I think that's, yeah, I think, sorry, go ahead.

Just, I can give you some examples right now, just so you know. So, you're right, this really is, for the most part, it is project-based, how we would sort of work through the whole process and the toolkit. So, two good examples of projects that have actually had a communications plan associated with it. is connect the junction and I forget if it's the strategic plan or we have one right now for the comprehensive plan. And a similar process to this toolkit process created then that plan that you see. So it's sort of very laid out in terms of all the different actions that will be taken to talk about those project-based things. So those are just two examples where we've essentially done this level of stuff already. This is really just bringing some clear guidance to it so that other departments know how to use it as well.

No, just two or three things really quick. So I brought up the project thing. I can completely see how this will operate sort of on a continuum and just be constantly improving. And I can see where that improvement opportunity is built into this as a whole document. So I appreciate that. I am very curious of the feedback from, I don't know what this new position is at CCRPC, because it's not how I originally was. You know what I mean. I'm curious about that feedback, because it's really important to me that we're working extra hard to meet and to find and to make sure we're hearing from people that are very often overlooked. So I'm very curious of what the feedback was from that group. But I see pieces of it in here, and I'm very much appreciative. So I'll be looking for more of that the next one or two times we talk about it. I'd be very curious to hear how that how we're going to reach people. We've got the language project in here. I think that's long overdue. I'm really excited for it. But there are so many other things. I'm curious about the funding model. Does this mean... And we don't have to have answers right now, but should we be thinking of this in terms of an overall chunk of money in the administrative budget? Are we going to start to be thinking about this as $5,000 to $10,000 for each department? Is it going to be more like, well, we know in the work plan this year that wastewater and public works will have these big projects, and we're going to budget for them. We won't have to budget for it. So I'm just kind of curious how that's going to look, not tonight. And the only other thing is sort of what Bethany was saying. I think the communication has improved over the past year in a number of ways. I think we've used infographics really well. I think we've gotten the word out. The work around Park Street and Pearl Street, those two little projects, the comprehensive plan, focus groups, I think there's been so much improvement in how that's all played out that I'm very much appreciative. So I would almost say I'd be great to have this on the agenda every month until we're done, just to get it out the door hopefully by the end of the summer. I think the more time we spend kind of reviewing this as a group, I think we'll get our heads around it. I think there's probably not a lot for us in here to make big decisions on anyway. Yeah. So anyway, that's it.

I think it'll be too, you know, part of our discussion for the retreat is about this engagement. And so we're really, with the idea with the retreat, is more about how you guys want to engage with the community. Because that's something that you guys have to kind of do. I can say, okay, we're going to do all these scheduled things, but if you guys can't do that, that doesn't work for everybody and that's just a waste of time. And so I want to make sure that that is incorporated in this in some way. What that looks like, I don't know for sure right at the moment. But is there any, I guess for me, with that feedback on possibly putting it on the agenda every month, do you guys want to do this by the different sections? Do we want to dive deeper into these? It's coming back to you guys. Obviously, I can do the feedback that I get from the staff that I've incorporated from. our other regional partners. But I want to make sure that the direction I'm going is also the direction you guys want me to go.

Since I said it, I'll respond to that. I think the next step would probably be hearing what those two stakeholders had for review or had for response. And considering that every one of us said this was a lot to go through and we're still getting our heads around it, some variation of that might not to speak for you all.

I would also say to that point that we're all sort of saying it's a lot to wrap our head around. If there's guiding questions about specific feedback you're looking for, that might also be helpful for future discussions.

very much broke this down by role and kind of was trying to find because we're a city council i was trying to find what our where we played a part in this and so that's what i'm mostly concentrating on because um yeah that's who that's who we were concerned about yeah largely you know so how how does my role as a politician my role as a city councilor work into this and i'm so

Which I feel like where you guys' role really is the first two sections. So really defining who we are and what success looks like and our roles. And I really feel like the second part is making sure that we're progressing. And so we're completely improving our engagement and what that looks like. And if there's any specific actionable items that you guys are looking for to improve engagement, that that's being incorporated in there as well.

I'm going to open it up for public comment and just see if anybody in the public read through this and has some comments. There's nobody in the room, so I'm looking online. If anybody has any comments, please raise your hand. Not seeing any. Bring it back here. Any last comments for Ash?

looking quiet so thank you appreciate all the work all right so next is supposed to be 5d which is the Chittenden solid waste district budget and I do see that

We have Beth, but I believe we're still waiting for Sarah. So unless there are any objections, I will just go to what should be a two-minute conversation. And hopefully, Sarah will join us in that interim. Everybody OK with that? All right. So we're going to go to the discussion and consideration of the voting delegate for the Vermont Leagues of Cities and Towns special meeting. Regina is this you want to take this one?

Yes, so the LCT is having a special meeting normally The annual meeting for VLCT which is the one time of year that we assign a voting delegate is in the fall associated with the town fair but they are holding a special meeting. And so we need a vote. Well, it'd be nice if we have a voting delegate. We don't absolutely have to have one. But if we would like to participate, we need a voting delegate. who is available at that time. I'm trying to find it.

Yeah, me too.

3 o'clock on Monday, June 22nd.

Where, though?

Virtual. You can do it virtual? Yeah. Okay. I can also do that.

Yeah, I'll be in Texas, but I'll be able to do it.

Josh Strauss?

Who wants to thumb wrestle?

Arm wrestle? Thumb wrestle. So I'm happy to not do it. So right there, I'm out. OK. Cool. All right. It's the two of you. But what's the plan for are we going to have a chance to? The things they're voting on, the questions they're voting on seem to be on the website. Are we going to provide any guidance at some point for our? Is that something you would do, Regina? Or is that something we would do? How is that going to work? I don't remember how we do this.

Yeah. I think on years past when they include their whole policy agenda, which is only every other year that they do that, we do try to have a talk about that a little bit before the person goes and votes. VLCT does all of this work through committee and they put a lot of work into it by the time it gets to the town meeting or annual meeting, sorry, town fair. It's as if it's like 9 30 at night. So, but because this is June 22nd, we can take a look at this and see if there's something worthy of discussion and we can have that on the agenda on June 10th if folks want that before the actual meeting.

I haven't honestly looked at the questions.

I just pulled it up. It's like adopting the meeting governing rules, reviewing proposed articles of incorporation, authorizing the board of directors to incorporate and proposed by-law changes. Seems pretty ministerial.

Yeah. I would propose that we ask Regina to review these for anything of concern and then recommend a pathway forward.

Sounds pretty good to me.

That's fine. Like whether we need to bother, not bother, like whether we need to put it on the agenda.

Right, exactly, yeah. So if there's nothing of significance, then she can get with whoever's the delegate to just say, hey, we're good.

And if there's anything you're not, yeah, just put it out to an email.

Perfectly job. Manager's discretion. Yep.

If it, I mean, I know, you know, you've I said I could do it. If it helps, this stuff is part of, I review bylaws for my job too.

I'm happy to defer to your expertise. That way you can enjoy Texas.

I mean, right off the bat, the first thing is whether VLCT would incorporate for the purposes of offering health insurance to members. What's the impact likely to be on any kind of dues that we pay? I mean, that's the question. So it's sort of like, what is their impact and what are the potential benefits? That's really much. So that's kind of right off. That's a curiosity.

I think it's just another offering.

It's no big deal. I would move that Bethany Clark serve as our voting member for the VLCT town fair.

Second.

Special meeting?

Special meeting. Sorry. Brian had a second.

Okay, all in favor? Aye. All right, that's unanimous. Congratulations.

Nice job, Bethany.

Yay. Another unpaid position there.

Good job. We're reviewing them for my job right now, actually. I do too, but I'm not jumping into that water.

All right, we're going to go back. backwards because I see Sarah's with us now. Hi, Sarah.

Hi, thank you so much.

No, you're good. Like you're two minutes late, but we had a five minute item. And so we just plowed ahead. So feel free to take it away from here.

Thank you very much. I do appreciate your time and hopefully, you know, to see

Again, thank you very much for your time.

I'm Sarah Rees. I'm the Executive Director for the Chittenden Solid Waste District, and we are here to present to you our fiscal 27 budget. And so we are a municipality that was formed in 1987 by the General Assembly for the benefit of our member municipalities to manage the waste that is generated in Chittenden County. And this particular we are talking about kind of who we are and where we receive our revenue. And hopefully you can see, I've got three different things here. Are you seeing a pie chart? Okay, well, thank you. So this is to show that we do not receive any of our revenue directly from you by form of property taxes. So we receive our revenue from user fees, It's usually a tax on trash and selling recycling and compost. And again, we are asking for your vote. Each city and town has one vote, and the votes are not weighted by population. So as Extension has the same vote weight as Huntington, as Burlington, as Lansing. And we are also generally asked how we're doing. And we are focusing our attention And our efforts on the column number three, so that amount of material that is landfilled and that chunk that really could have been diverted. So we're focusing a lot of our outreach, our education, communications on the green bar, which represents food scraps. That is one of the highest amounts of individualized materials that are disposed that really could be turned into better use. I do also want to address something you may have seen in the news or heard about. We are, as you may recall, we are in the midst of building a new materials recycling facility in Williston. And we had just finished our draft budget. We presented it to our finance committee. And not long after, we were the victim of a significant phishing scam. That scam caused about $3 million in payments that were destined for our construction partner, to be diverted to a fraudster. This has put a significant wrench in the works as far as our budget, and luckily the project continued on. Our construction partner, REARC, has been amazing, but that did cause us to have to go back and reconfigure our budget. It is an ongoing investigation. We are fully cooperating with law enforcement. Our board is also conducting their own internal review, which I anticipate will be wrapped up within about another month. We will share with you with our municipal members lessons learned that comes out of that review. Any safeguards that we would recommend that you take, learn from our issue and our incident. One thing I want to make sure that you're aware of, though, is that we are not expecting you all to bear the burden of closing that gap in the project funding. We, again, reconfigured our budget. We took another look at our revenues, our expenses. We are deferring capital that we'd hoped to get to next year aside from the MRF. And we are likely to take out a short-term loan to bridge that gap. I think I'm anticipating budgeting that the recovery to kind of get us back to where we thought we were going to be starting at fiscal 27 27 and 28. I think it's going to take us a couple of years to rebuild our reserve funds in particular. It may take to 30 or 31, but it shouldn't take longer than that to build back up. And this is kind of what I mean. This is a very, very busy slide. I do apologize for that. The key lines are the top three and then the very bottom one. So the top three, those are the Top one is the revenue. So our budget, which we're voting on, we're expecting revenue of $19,255,200. We are budgeting expenses in the amount of $16,136,738. And then any income left over from operations will be dedicated to the materials recycling facility construction project. We've also been asked by other communities where that leaves our reserve funds. And so that's what that bottom line on this slide shows you, where we expect our reserves to end up at the end of fiscal 27 at just under $2 million. We're starting out fiscal 26, really it's at the 12.4. The 8 that you see on that fiscal 26, that's where we have coded the $3 million loss. So we're really starting out at the 12.4. And the project will get us down to just below two. We are taking that from the unrestricted reserves. So anything that's restricted is not being touched. That includes the community cleanup fund. So those are the funds that each of our member cities and towns has to do local projects. And we definitely encourage you to use that. And our board wanted to make sure that that remained intact. This is just a visual pictorial representation of where the revenue comes from. Tipping fees are what our customers pay directly to us. So what you would pay in a drop-off center or at the compost facility or the materials recycling facility. The sale of those materials, sale of compost, recycling, local color paint. And the fall waste management fee is a tax that the haulers pay at the country landfill or at the transfer station for trash that is being disposed at the landfill. So that is paid directly by haulers. The expenses pie chart has not really looked much different in the past several years. Payroll about 40%, materials management 45%, and that's the fees that we pay directly to haulers to move material from our drop-off centers to landfill or materials out to market. A quick comparison this year to next year. You'll see the revenue change is up about 11%. Material sale increased. That is is up even though the expected average commodity rate is lower. That is representing a change in the contract with the operator of the recycling facility. We have not determined yet who will be that operator next year, but it is likely that that contract will change significantly, which will result in more material sales revenue to the district. Our expenses, we are budgeting essentially a level of funding for expenses. You can see where the decreases mainly lived, administration, promotion, education, professional fees, travel and training, and some equipment and fleet. Anything that was safety-related is not included in those decreases. Projecting fee increases in the original draft budget. So this is not related to the fraud incidents. So these were included in our recommendation. The two that are most notable, I think, is for the drop-off centers. So we are implementing what's called a fill-to-use fee or a gate fee of $1 per vehicle. And that has been designed to allow our drop-off centers to start to generate needed capital funding because the new recycling facility will not be able to contribute to the overall district capital fund. They need all of its revenues to pay its debt service, its operating fee, and its own capital reserve. So the drop-off centers, the compost facility, they need to start to generate a sustainable way to be able to make necessary improvements to these facilities over time. And we asked our customers, our drop-off center customers, for their input. And the top two options were this facility use fee or gate fee or adding a dollar to a bag of trash. And we went with the gate fee or the facility use fee because it captures folks who may only use the drop-off center once or twice a year versus putting all of the burden onto our regular trash customers or folks who depending on the season of their life, maybe generating more trash than they need to. I mean, you know, bags of diapers need to be paid for. So it would be an unfair burden on those folks versus capturing something from everyone. The cell waste management fee, again, that tax on trash, that is applied to haulers, and that's spread out across all of the tons that they generate and that they charge the customers. If there's any increase to you as an individual customer of a hauler, it should be minimal. If you're seeing any large increases that are being pinned to these increases, you may want to ask your hauler about that. And we do ask that our cities and towns please approve our district budget. I know I ran through a lot of that information very, very quickly. So I welcome your questions or any comments you may have.

Hi, Sarah. Thank you, Adam. Just a couple quick questions. Are you now carrying fraud insurance?

We had insurance. It was not nearly adequate to the incident. And that is something that we are recommending our members take a look at. We are insured by the LCT, as I think you may also be, or at least many of our members are. And the level of insurance was very, very, very minimal. They have recommended that we add supplemental insurance policy. And I think if you were to look at your own coverage and ask them about it, they would also say you need to get a supplemental insurance policy. So in our budget for next year, we do have money for that supplemental insurance policy. But we did have it. It just was not asked.

OK. And so just the only other question I had is this is the top eight questions i get when anybody asks me about how solid waste works around here and people here thought i was joking earlier but folks who pay to to turn in their food scraps and now that we'll be paying to turn in leaves and and carbon waste wonder if there's a way for those CSWD members to get a five gallon pail of compost a year or some kind of, I mean I brought this up every year, I've been a counselor, but some kind of return because the optics are basically that we're paying to bring this material then CSWD is using it to then bring in revenue and I can understand that but I think you would be shocked to know how often I don't talk about trash much but when I do this comes up and it's especially for gardeners I think they're just sort of like well I pay a lot of money to get food scraps picked up and it's the right thing to do

Yes. So thank you for that question, and I'm glad you asked it. And that is a program that, frankly, we were hoping to implement in this upcoming year. And we were unable to implement it this upcoming year, but it is on the horizon. So we're trying to figure out what's the best way to do that, because we do want to share some of the material that we produce. It's great material. And so we do feel that it's a benefit that other COMPASS programs across the country do provide. So we think that it is something that we want to make sure that we do well. We have been talking about doing something like this for several years, frankly. And again, we want to make sure that it's fair and it's accessible. It is definitely high on our list of a program to develop. So I would say in the next year to two years that we will have something like that in place. So yeah.

Um, to sort of to Raj's first question, what other, or have, are there other safeguards and, or new policies that you've put in place since the fraud incident? And if you, you know, I know that your board is still going through a process. So if that's, you know, to come, then I understand.

Yeah. And, and, and it is like once that report is, is, is available, um, whatever we can share. My intent is to basically develop basically a one-page or a one-page report and say, here's what we have learned and are learning and would recommend that you do too. However, the unfortunate thing is that our processes were basically followed and these folks are getting better and better and better. So I think the biggest thing that I would say that we are making sure that we do is it's not just double checking, it's triple checking. It's verification, verification, verification. As much as, and this wasn't part of it, but as much as, I don't know, you feel like two factor authentication, I have always hated it. It is my best friend now. So things of those nature, right? They're there for very good reason. But we did a... network you know scan we went through we had our um our internet service provider you know look at all of our systems there was no breach um it was an unfortunately very lucky strike for someone um but where there are other recommendations that can come out to you we will provide them because we we do not want this to happen to anybody else um so yes that that will be forthcoming Susan and Leah, like I said, I think the board's report will be ready within about a month. And again, I will develop that, the one pager. And I'm happy to come back and talk to the council again if that's something that you would like. And yeah, it's still developing, but we do plan to be as open about it as we need to be. We didn't hide this incident. We went on TV, much to the secret of law enforcement, but we went on TV and said, this has happened. Guard yourselves and take it seriously and don't be ashamed because it's happening everywhere. I can't tell you how many stories I've heard.

I see it every day as a real estate attorney. We've gotten to the point where we don't wire. We will wire to trust funds of other attorneys, but we absolutely don't wire to third parties. I mean, it's really unfortunate that that's the situation that we've gotten to when we're in 2026, and that's how everybody wants is their fast cash. But I think cutting the good old check is the easiest way to avoid this, unfortunately.

Correct. And I will say that is something that we, never thought we really needed to have in our contracts was the physical method of payment. We have the terms of payment, you know, net 30, net 15. We will be saying we're paying you by check. And we are walking those checks over to REARC every month, believe me, because we, you know, and they've been, again, wonderful, wonderful partners. But you're exactly right. Wires are, they're great until they are not in this case. Okay.

Brian? All good? All right. Mike, do you want to add anything?

No. I think Sarah's doing a great job. I rushed over here. I was surprised she made it over here before I did. Because we were both at the thing. No, the only thing I would say is, actually, I swung by the MRF today. Quite a building. It is huge. And it was busy. And I'm very excited about it. But yeah, that's about it.

Thanks, Mike. I will open it up to the public if there's anybody online who has any questions or comments for Sarah. Please raise your hand. I am... Not seeing any, so I think anybody want to take on the motion?

I motion to approve the Chittenden Solid Waste District's fiscal year 2027 budget as presented by district staff.

Second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Did you vote? No. Okay. All right. Any nays? Nay. So that motion passes 4-1. Thank you, Sarah. Appreciate it. Thanks, Mike, for your participation and sitting on the board. Appreciate it. The rest of your night, guys. Have a good evening. Thank you.

Likewise.

All right. So that is going to take us to now what is 5F, discussion and consideration of an executive session to discuss attorney-client communication and litigation. Anybody have the motion that they would like to?

Are we coming back?

We are not coming back.

Do you want to do the other things?

Oh, yeah. Sorry. Yeah. I don't know. Apparently, I'm in. This is my first rodeo.

I'll be here to support you.

Thank you. Appreciate it. This is our VP, man. He's sleeping over there.

I was trying to find the motion.

He's sleeping.

I got the motion.

Yeah, I have the motion right in front of me. We'll go to consent items first, and then we'll come back to the executive session motion.

I move we approve the consent agenda. I'll second.

All in favor?

Aye.

All right. That's unanimous. Council member comments and city manager report. Regina?

OK. So this Saturday is a very busy Saturday in the city of Essex Junction. All very exciting things. We have Pride Fest at Maple Street Park. We have the 1920s theme party associated with the 100th anniversary of Brown Elm happening this Saturday. Girls on the Run is happening at CDE. great event and track and field invitational at the high school so there'll be a lot of folks around and lots of exciting stuff happening so if folks have not seen it yet your reappraisal letters are coming in the mail and it is really important that you take a look at that right away I would not delay And if you believe that there is something that is not right you should Make sure that you're talking with catalysts and to do that. You're going to call the town assessing office By June 11th is the deadline they're doing Appointments with folks in the first and second week of June so That information and more is just posted on the city's website today. And I think that's it.

I just piggyback off that and say we've had many discussions around this table about the mail system or lack thereof. So these values, the reappraisal is also online. So to Regina's point, I'm assuming there's a link to the town site which has all of the info.

It's a very easy search.

Yeah, exactly. So if you haven't got your mail and you're patiently waiting and so eager to look, Look online, and your mail will catch up probably in December. Yep, go on.

So I, unfortunately, am sad to say that I missed the parade this year, and I'm going to miss probably the coming weekend. I'll be away both weekends. But I did have feedback from my neighborhood about the parade route change. And well, generally speaking, I heard good things about the parade, always. Our neighborhood, Warner, Villa, Edgewood, Grandview, Brooks, We're pretty disappointed in the change because it took away a very large stretch of viewing area down Pearl that a lot of folks with a lot of elderly parents or others that are sort of accessibility challenged count on. I received a lot of that feedback after we made the decision, after we supported the decision to change the route and some of it, frankly, after the parade. But it's just something that I'll try to remember to bring up. I don't know what, I'm saying this and I don't know what accessibility options were made available. I don't know any of that. For instance, a lot of folks would bring elderly parents just outside the neighborhood and just pass. I guess, frankly, over in front of what's now the hotel, which isn't a far walk or something. But then getting further down or into Five Corners when you can't quite park down there, it's just further. So I'm not saying it's the right or wrong thing. I'm just saying there were quite a few people from my neighborhood that were taken by surprise and disappointed. And some of them decided that it wasn't something they could go deal with. I'm talking about a very few people, I understand. But it did make me curious. accommodations are made. And had I had a lot of that feedback a lot sooner, I probably would have brought it up with the committee, just out of curiosity. Just something, I think, to think about. I'll try to pass that on, try to pass more detailed feedback on and see what's possible for next year.

I mean, to the point about the parade, I also heard that feedback. Yeah, I also heard that feedback, and I heard it slightly the day of our discussion from a couple people. I also think in terms of the parade, the change to incorporate food trucks was great, but... There was no advertisement of that, and I do feel that was a missed opportunity. There was one person, and I know because I live streamed the parade, so I have access to some of the account. A couple of vendors who reached out and were like, hey, can I set up a table? And we're told yes, but if that was an opportunity, I think it should have been made public because we could have had something closer to meet me on main, but I don't think that people knew this was an opportunity until a couple of days before the parade.

Yes, I will hold build up on there because I was fortunate enough to be in what will probably be my last Memorial day parade for a number of years. And it was 37 minutes from the time we left the fairgrounds to the time we went in the VFW gate. And it felt short, but also dumping off into the VFW provided them some good support for their chicken barbecue. So I would say that the word used in the packet was a pilot for the year. But it was a good event. There were a ton of people this way. And in years past, there was some spacing and there was only one brief space at the top that you came up Pearl Street. And then into the shopping plaza they had blocked off with bulldozers and EJRP buses and whatnot. So I didn't get to, because I was driving in it, so I didn't get to see a lot of the semantics of what happened or how it kind of but uh it felt differently different in years past but it was very well attended uh and so i'm i'm grateful for the opportunity i think it's a good event for this area yeah i will say that i heard from folks that operate businesses in uh quality bake shop and um and they were thankful for the fact that there was the ability to access that that

shopping center as it hasn't been in the past um i think that a lot of it is communication right it's if we maybe had a little bit more of a lead time to say to folks like you can park at post office square or you can park it at the shopping plaza or whatever and and sit there um and maybe a little bit more communication about road closures and when those are happening because i myself got stuck

and the road closures and had to finagle that.

That was a suggestion that one of my neighbors made. He's like, you know, maybe if they blocked off sort of where they have the impromptu car show tonight, then it makes it So these are things that I can do. I'll make sure to try to find the folks in the committee and just send an email and say, you know, happy to talk to them more.

There was no shortage of parade goers.

Me and my mom.

There were no shortage of parade goers parked in the shopping complexes.

Well, yeah, but that gets hinky if they're not familiar. Yeah. Okay.

But overall, it was a good event.

I think the further, I always sit by Bernal, and it was really packed down here. We got beautiful weather for it. It was great. It was nice.

What a nice day of the weekend.

I did some dancing around viewers to make sure I live streamed the parade and not random kids. We just kept like, they wanted candy. They kept coming in front of me.

Great event. Brian, anything? Nope. Bethany, anything else?

Tim?

No. Okay. I think we're good to go to executive session.

I think we are.

I move that the city council enter into executive session to discuss confidential attorney-client communications regarding possible litigation pursuant to... Do I have to read this one? Yes. One VSA and three A1E and one VSA... 3-1-3-A-1-F to include the city council and city manager.

Do we need the first one? We need the first motion, too. Ah, okay. Go right up to the top.

I move also that the city council make the specific finding that premature disclosure of the financial attorney-client communications regarding a potential litigation would place the city at a substantial disadvantage.

I'll second those motions.

All in favor?

Aye. Aye. All right, that's unanimous. thank you everyone um as we kind of alluded to earlier before i jumped different items here we will not be returning so everyone please go enjoy the rest of your night which is going to be one of the nicest nights that we're going to have for a while here so yeah and thanks for

Hmm.