City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Yep. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, the time is six o'clock. I will now call to order this meeting of the Winooski-Luker Control Board, and we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance led by Deputy Mayor Brent Oakley. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

thank you thank you man Eli appreciated seeing you looking for a flag wherever you are Jenny so on your agenda packet there are the liquor licenses I had reached out as well as the general manager to our director and And he recommended for liquor and lottery, he recommended having a hotel license in addition to the restaurant and hotel and first class. Yeah. For the other one. So staff has no concerns.

Great. This is nice to see. It means that, you know, the big construction project we've all been looking at for a while is getting closer to opening. So I know we're all excited for that. I don't have any questions. I do just want to give a reminder to these folks and any other people that currently have liquor licenses in the city or any type of other restaurant and license that if you have outdoor seating at your establishment, you have to make sure that you are still maintaining ADA compliance. That is essentially so that anybody can get maneuver around our city. So if your chairs and tables are blocking the sidewalk, it means that somebody may not be able to get by and that's not what any of us want. So just a reminder to everyone who holds that type of license. Any questions from council? We were just saying we're very happy to see this. It means the hotel is coming along. Is there anything that you wanted to add, or do you just want to be here in case we see what we're going to do?

I just want to be here and show support. Obviously, we're getting new faces, and we're really excited. This is going to be special for Winooski, for the state of Vermont, for everyone. That's it.

Thank you. Thank you. In that case, I'll seek a motion to approve this budget control board consent agenda.

So moved. Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Wonderful. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. All right.

So the time is 6.03. We will now move on to our Winooski City Council meeting. We'll start off with agenda review. There's one item I want to talk about in our agenda, item F tonight. My ask to you all is if we don't get to that by 830, I'd like to move it to a different night. It will be quite the conversation and I want to make sure that everybody's present, like physically, emotionally present for that. Also Eli's not here, so it might be nice for him to be physically with us as well.

I'm comfortable with that. Yeah.

Agreed. Perfect. I'll watch the clock, Elaine, but in case we get to 8.30 and we're not there, you and I can discuss it tomorrow when we look at the agenda. Other than that, I don't have any other changes or edits. Counselor, do you have anything?

For the consent agenda, but we can talk about it when we get to it.

Okay. In that case, we'll move to public comment. So this section of public comment is to discuss items that are not on tonight's agenda. If you would like to discuss something that is on tonight's agenda, I'll ask you to wait until that time. If you do want to discuss something during public comment, I'll ask that you come and sit at the table so that you can speak into the microphone so that everybody can hear you. State your name and address where you live. You'll direct your comments to city council. Staff may follow up if it's a question for staff, but we ask that you direct it to us and then we can get back to you later if need be. I'll ask you to keep your comments for two minutes if possible. And if you're attending online, just test your mic and camera a little bit before you go on. That said, I'll open up public comment. Anybody in the room that would like to speak during public comment, please come up to the table.

Hello, everyone. My name is Terry Zygmund. I live at 111 West Street.

You all know me.

I'm here. I actually have three comments. I'll try to keep it to two minutes, but we'll see. The first thing that I wanted to talk about was ADA compliance down in front of Don Worry. Thomas, I emailed you and Elaine both, I think, I don't know what day it was, but I emailed recently about it.

And Tara, you haven't stepped in yet, but I just did a... public announcement that people need to be making sure they're adhering to ADA compliance. But please continue to share. Sorry. Just coming from work. I just wanted to let you know that. Please continue.

So I sent an email to you both with some photos showing that it was out of compliance once again. I am an able-bodied person. I was able to get off of my bicycle and I could not push my bike through there because it was like a foot. away from the poll uh... i moved the barricades so that i could walk through with my bike the people that either work there or own it, I'm not sure. I think they just work there, came out. I explained that there's ADA compliance and all that. They said they were aware of it. They asked me if I wanted to move, if I wanted them to move the barricades back, and I explained that I didn't need them to because I was able-bodied and I could do it myself, but I was concerned for people that weren't and needed to go into the road with traffic and a very narrow street where people come whipping around that corner. Anyhow, so I guess the question I have about this is, are there any consequences for noncompliance? And if there are, when is the city going to exercise those consequences?

Thanks, Harry. It's a good question. I know Elaine is obviously copying those emails, and I know that she's been speaking with code enforcement. We try to work with businesses first as much as possible through different conversations. I think when we've seen stuff, if we're there, we've mentioned it. When it gets into code enforcement and the city doing something that's an operational matter on staff side, Elaine, I don't know if you have enough information to respond now or if you'd like to respond to Terry later.

I think it would be better to respond later.

Okay. I would truly appreciate a response because I did come and ask about this, just about the parameters of the outdoor seating that were given to them. Never got a reply about what those parameters were, so... Here I am again.

I appreciate it, Terry. Elaine and I have a meeting tomorrow. We'll talk about what's going to go forward. It's something that council has noticed and we've mentioned. Like I said, I just did a little announcement about it. Actually, I think the first time you wrote to us, I did an announcement that time as well. I'm trying to talk about it publicly as I can.

I appreciate that.

The mayor is asking them to do something.

I appreciate that. Along those lines, I had put a post on Front Porch Forum on behalf of Watt on the 29th of July, just letting people know that there was going to be a municipal infrastructure open house and the location and all that. Somebody named Zach Zillis replied to my post, and here's what he wrote. Hi, I'm a Winooski resident, but I'll be unable to make this event. I do have some feedback I wanted to share, however. I'm blind, and it can be a little tricky for me to find my way around town at times. When my street, West Canal, was paved, I reached out to the city and was told by Public Works that they would install some raised lines on the sidewalk in front of the large gray industrial building on the street where the sidewalk is no longer raised after recent construction, and this was never done. The sidewalk there used to be raised, but when the road was paved, the owner of the building asked that it no longer be raised so they could plow more easily. So to make it so someone could plow more easily, they no longer have ADA-compliant sidewalks. This was a bad decision if you ask me. However, I'm not the type of person who likes to take legal action, so I have not. The low sidewalk has made that area very dangerous for me to traverse, and I can find myself walking in the street instead of on the sidewalk. It would be great if the city of Winooski would take blind people into consideration in all of these projects, these new projects. When I was in Europe, it was great. They have these four little raised lines just about everywhere that are indicators to the blind which way the sidewalk goes. In train stations there, they even have those same race lines as paths around the train station, so you can find the ticket station and the train platform and everything. It'd be great if Winooski took us disabled people into consideration. Thanks, Zach. So I shared this with John Rauscher and Revy in the hope that it would be included in the comments for that meeting. last Wednesday, I believe it was. And I wanted to just share this with city council also on behalf of Zach, because this is the kind of stuff that I've been talking about. And with regard to Don Worry, formerly Mandarin, I've been asking about this for years. And I guess that brings me to my third comment that I would like to share during public comment. I received an email from Elaine this morning, thank you for the email, that the discussion around impact fees was going to be discussed this evening. I looked at the agenda last Friday when the email came out, didn't see anything on there about impact fees and assumed that I could work my normal workday and not have to attend this meeting. And lo and behold, there is something on there that I want to attend for. So here I am. It doesn't feel very transparent that this was buried, I guess, under part of Safe, Healthy, Connected People update. That's what you said this morning. It feels pretty opaque, to be honest, to use the glass term. And so I'm super disappointed about that. I know this isn't the time to talk about that. But as it relates to these other two items, I think it actually is important because I think that other members of the community besides me if they had known about this, and if I even had time to get something onto Front Porch Forum tonight to let people know to show up at this meeting when the Front Porch Forum comes out at five o'clock. Unfortunately, my post will be on tomorrow, so I'll be updating that. But it would be really nice, there was a lot of commotion on Front Porch Forum about the new ladder truck that we bought. That is definitely a safety item that the city we the taxpayers purchased. So I would just like to see a little bit more transparency around those kinds of things being included on the agenda. And I appreciate, I had spoken to Paul directly about including the agenda in the Front Porch Forum, and I appreciate that that's happening again. It would be really nice if items like this that are important to the public would be warned.

Thank you, Terry. I appreciate that. Thank you. Sorry if I went over. I appreciate you guys. Thank you. No, no. It's completely fine. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thanks. I'll tune in for the rest at . Sounds good.

It's a good way to do it, Terry. Thanks. Any other public comment in the room? Is there any public comment online? There's nobody online. Okay. All right, we'll move on to our consent agenda then. On tonight's consent agenda, we have approval city council minutes of July 13th, approval payroll warrant July 5th through July 18th, approval accounts payable warrant July 30th. So then we'll take item F out and make it our first regular item A. Other than that, I'll seek a motion for tonight's consent agenda then.

So moved. Second.

All those in favor? Aye. All right. Council reports. Eli, how about we start with you?

Well, first things, can you hear me? I don't have it. Yes, I can hear you. All right. Mine's a little long, so bear with me. All right. So this month's school construction commission was unfortunately canceled due to lack of quorum. That being said, we're going to get a good turnout for the municipal infrastructure open house that occurred on Wednesday, July 29th. I wanted to thank city staff, Wixie Alliance for Active Transportation, residents, and commissioners for showing up and giving their input to the comprehensive plan. Your feedback will be guiding documents. Well, your feedback will be guiding documents that our city will use over the next decade. Additionally, on July 16th, Deputy Mayor O'Keefe and I had wonderful conversations at our temporary library location. A few items that were brought up were related to housing and infrastructure. The main concerns and questions were regarding the role for housing. The main questions and interests were related to the addition of more affordable housing and the focus of more family-oriented housing. There was a focus for more single-family homes as well as townhouses, and brewed space was considered truly important for the folks who would shadow them. Regarding infrastructure, there was general excitement at the end of Main Street construction and praise for how it's coming together. There were questions and concerns regarding the upcoming bridge project, and it seems that folks are somewhat aware of the upcoming bridge street intersection and sidewalk extension project on East Main Street. I want to thank all the folks that we chatted with, and if you have any more questions, please reach out.

Thank you.

The Winooski Finance Commission met July 14th to discuss the payment agreement procedure, which governs the rules and responsibility for setting up payment plan for money owed to the city, such as parking tickets, property taxes, utility bills, and other approved charges. Payment plans are intended to help people who cannot pay the full amount right away without experiencing financial hardship while also protecting the city's financial interests. The next meeting of the Finance Commission, which was to be held on the primary election date of August 11th, will either be rescheduled or canceled, depending on the availability of the commissioners.

sure um so safe healthy connected met on the july 14th so just a day after our last council meeting we welcomed new commissioners and thanked our outgoing commissioners we reviewed updates to the comprehensive plan as it relates to the safe healthy connected people chapter that took up the bulk of the meeting and then a really exciting update from Ray that our Thrive Afterschool program has been awarded five stars. So that's a huge accomplishment and just really major kudos to everyone involved to attaining that. So thanks so much. And Housing Commission met on the 28th. We also welcomed our one new commissioner and hopefully we'll appoint another one tonight. We reviewed housing quality and code enforcement work with Chief Audie, had a chance to review some of the data, some of the major concerns and trends that come up, had a chance to look at the ESO data warehouse that's used now and answer questions relating to housing quality. review and frequency of inspections. And then another component of the meeting was reviewing recent updates to the zoning ordinance. I'm not gonna say the entire name, but the ULUDR.

Um, land use development regulations. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Um, and then we had a discussion approval for, um, additional lenders for the housing trust fund and, um, the group. voted to have our housing director explore additional partnerships with north country federal credit union the vermont federal credit union and community bank so more to come on that and the change in solid waste district met on july 29th There was an extensive executive session after which we came out and voted to approve lease equipment for optical sorting, which will help with improving the quality of the products that are sorted and that go out to market for sale. And additional meetings will be warned soon. I know that our safe, healthy, connected people meeting will be moved because that is currently or would typically be scheduled next Tuesday, which would be the night of the primary. So we will be adjusting that. But further updates will be through our standard city channels and notifications.

Thank you.

I love that we're all having long updates. I will do airport commission first. The next airport commission meeting is this Wednesday, August 5th at 4 PM. A reminder to everyone that meetings are open to the public. And I encourage anyone interested in airport operations, sound mitigation, or airport related issues to attend. You can attend both virtually and in person. Also, if folks are unable to attend, you can always send me any questions regarding sound mitigation or the Sound Mitigation Project for Jones Payne, who was the organizer and the folks behind that project. The next Winooski Inclusion and Belonging Commission will take place and meet on Thursday, August 13th at 6 p.m. If you're interested in helping to make Winooski a more equitable and inclusive community, we'd love to have you join us. And also remember that we are actively looking and recruiting for new members, so please reach out to me directly, or if you have questions, or you can also apply online. And then I am planning in my capacity as a city council member and in partnership with our amazing Winooski Garden Group on Saturday, August 8th, a Winooski cleanup day. This is inspired by some of the incredible work that's happening in Burlington with the BTV cleanup crew. Sue O'Brien and I two weeks ago when we were doing garden group, just noticed that there is some like small litter, trash, cigarette butts, and our incredible Department of Public Works can do like larger trash, right? Like that's the thing. But those things that sort of like get picked up by the wind and are hidden in corners can be harder for DPW. And also that's something that I think we as community members can really show up. And so it's in my capacity as a city council member. I also sit on the board of downtown Winooski. So it's a great way for us to show up for our local businesses and just to beautify our downtown even more. So we'll be meeting outside Scout at the top of the circle at 8.30 a.m. And we'll be cleaning up between 8.30 and 11. So even if you can join us for 30 minutes, we would welcome it. I will be providing latex gloves, garbage bags, everything. We'll have trash pickers as well. And so kids are welcome, bring anyone you want, and we'll sort of like disperse to different areas of the downtown and also sort of a wider range to different neighborhoods. And then finally, I want to give a deep and heartfelt thank you to Sarah and everyone who works so hard to set up, break down, and keep our downtown Winooski block parties and farmers markets running so smoothly. At the last block party, I helped Sarah to bring a 15-foot tent from the Winooski storage unit to... the Rotary Park, and I'm just so grateful to Sarah and to all of the volunteers and the staff. I think sometimes one of the greatest things about being a resident of Winooski is that you get to show up and experience these downtown Winooski block parties or farmer's market, but there's so much work that goes into it. I know that that work is not invisible, and so I just wanted to name that. I know Melissa, the amazing executive director of downtown Winooski, will be speaking later in this meeting. But it just takes an incredible amount of planning and behind the scenes, and so I just wanted to thank the staff, volunteers, vendors, musicians, and community members who help make downtown such a vibrant place to gather each week. And so that's it.

Thanks. The Planning Commission did not meet at their last meeting. That was canceled, so they will be meeting on August 13th. I don't know if this will be in your city updates, Elaine, but a reminder, there is an election coming up August 11th. You can vote at the Senior Center, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. sharp. Those doors will close at seven. There are lots of candidates for you all to research and look for. I believe they all have social media where you can find out more information about them. There's information now on the Secretary of State's website. I encourage every member of our community who's able to vote to vote on that day. This is quite literally when you pick the people who will represent you in Montpelier, and there are lots of repercussions to that. So it's very important to show up, circle those little

little ovals and before that just figure out who the best candidate is for you so again august 11th the senior center seven to seven yeah well i'll just follow that up because there was a bit i had on that which is to view the official warning for that election uh sample ballots and to register to vote you can visit wnuskivt.gov vote So the city of Winooski is also updating our master plan, now known as the comprehensive plan. This document serves as the guide for local government projects and budgeting for the community. If you're new to this concept, cities adopt a comprehensive plan every eight years. Winooski is due to adopt our next one in March of 2027 and need community voices informing it. To do this, we've been hosting, to get input for this, we've been hosting open house events throughout the summer. The final open house event will take place on Thursday, August 27th from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Winooski Senior Center. That's on Barlow Street. This event will focus on the safe, healthy, and connected area of the strategic vision, give feedback on how the city can improve its livability in terms of parks, community programming, public health, and public safety. Light refreshments will be provided. If you haven't been able to attend these events, we also welcome your feedback via our online forms. Those are available at WinooskiVT.gov slash plan. Speaking of events, we're hosting our quarterly Blood Drive at City Hall on Friday, August 14th from 12 to 4.30 p.m. Blood donations are at critical need, so please visit RedCrossBlood.org or call 1-800-RED-CROSS to schedule. Participants who donate during this event will receive a $20 Amazon gift card. Visit WinooskiVT.gov slash news to learn more. Couple more items here. So don't miss the Friendship Festival on Sunday, August 30. That's from 2 to 9 p.m. at the Winooski School District. This free, family-friendly event is designed to celebrate the people, cultures, and stories that make Winooski such a vibrant and welcoming community. Residents and visitors of all ages are invited to spend the day connecting with neighbors, enjoying local food, experiencing live performances, and participating in activities that bring people together, including a rice cook-off. For full event details, visit downtownwinooski.org slash friendship festival. And for information, this event is part of a larger community strengthening initiative supported through the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's Working Communities Challenge Program and the Vermont Community Foundation's Social Cohesion Grant in partnership with Downtown Winooski and the Winooski School District. And lastly, a gentle reminder that property tax and utility payments are due August 15th. Payments will be accepted as on time through Tuesday, August 18th, since City Hall is closed on Monday, August 17th, which would have been the normal due date. That's for the Bennington Valley Day holiday. Note that the payment has to be at City Hall by Tuesday, August 18th in order to be considered on time, meaning a postmark of August 18th would not be considered on time, assuming the payment is not actually also in City Hall by then. Make your payments online at WinooskiVT.gov slash pay or in person at Winooski City Hall. Payment plans, direct debit, and paperless billing are available. And that's finally it.

Thank you. Those are all good updates, so glad you have a lot. All right, we'll move on to our regular items with our new regular item approval commission appointments. Is there anything in particular you wanted to add?

Yes. So I would propose having our candidate for the Housing Commission move from an alternate seat to a full seat. We do have a commissioner that is needing to step down and is Said that she'd help us basically until we can find someone to fill the seat. So that would be my ask for counsel. Wonderful. He's here today. Would you like to introduce yourself or say anything? You don't have to.

My name is Sharon Kahn.

Sorry. If you're able to come up to the microphone. It's so good. Recording. Thank you.

My name is I am a resident of Anooskee for about two years. I live at 93 River Street. I look forward to serving with the commission.

Thank you.

Finally, that's what the commission needs. It is. Keep the commissions going. You look great. All right. At that point, I'll seek a motion to approve James Paradisus and Jaron Kahn, with Jaron being a full-time appointment as opposed to an alternate.

So moved. Seconded.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Wonderful.

Thank you. Congratulations.

All right, so.

I think we call it a full seat.

Sorry, what?

I think we call it a full seat.

Yeah, I never know . Okay, so discussion approval 111 Winooski Falls Way signed master plan application and Act 250 permit amendment application. Where are we? Doug.

Somebody's going to introduce and please invite Doug up here.

Yeah. Yeah, come on.

Thank you for... Doug, you want to write an interview?

You can go ahead. I just want to say thank you for seeing us on short notice.

The good news is we hope to open up the hotel September 21st. And the challenging news is Gael's going to be very mad at me if I don't have signage for his hotel by September 21st. So we're trying to get this accomplished very quickly. So thanks for... getting some agenda in Ravi. And I guess Ravi will share with you that Ravi, Liam Murphy, who was involved 22 years ago with the master of signage planning and redevelopment of downtown and everything. And Elaine and I and a few others got together and figure out a pathway to process for a lot 7D to get signage because it wasn't really contemplated 20 years ago to ever be developed. So Ravi has a pathway and we've presented some signage which we could talk about the aesthetics if you'd like, but I think I'll let Ravi take it from here.

Sure, yeah. The applicant is proposing a number of signs on the building, a number of wall signs, and I'm not sure what we're going to call it, a haunting sign or a marquee-type sign on the hotel portion of the building.

Do you want to see what we're talking about? Sure, yeah. Yeah, that'd be great. So we have a green porcashare with trees and grass. This is our porcashare, which is part of our structure. And so we have some... Thank you.

So Doug, I was reminded recently that I need to make sure that everyone's seeing the same thing. So I'm going to pull up what you sent in advance on the... Yeah, let me just show you two of the...

So we have a cafe on the first floor called Moss Cafe. You have a green room here, and underneath we have Moss there. And... and then we have a workforce workforce housing community drive so that package right here yep i like that me too and uh i'll show you one more at our very entrance after you After you park your car and you're heading into the hotel, this is under the porcashare. We have Sugar House right above. This is the porcashare, but this is our vestibule. And then on our glass door, we have treetops.

Okay, I was going to say, I thought I had some treetops.

Treetops is our restaurant on the eighth floor, and moss is our cafe downstairs. So that's our signage. Very good. Thank you.

So at this point for you, the review criteria that you used on the bottom of the second and top of the third page, so you would use that to determine whether the applicant's signage is in conformance with the downtown sign code.

Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate you bringing this to us. When Elaine and I met about it, I was like, oh gosh, what are you going to ask me? But it was fairly straightforward. I think it looks nice. I don't think it really like sticks out, you know, like we don't like to see in Vermont. It blends in with the building well. So I'm happy to move this forward. I think it would be strange to have a hotel with that many signs. I don't know what it is. I understand your desire to want to have a sign up there. Make it happen. It would be nice. Any questions from counselors? Eli, if you have questions, just either butt in or just wave and I'll pull you over.

I know that the memo, I think, outlined some considerations. I don't know if the zoning industry wants to walk through any of those.

Yeah, so I think this was something that the applicant and I had discussed that the signs that they were presenting did not fully conform with the sign code for the downtown area, specifically in regards to the placement and design of the primary and secondary wall signs. The sign code is very specific on the placement of those signs that it has to be located like at the top of the first floor ceiling and the bottom of the second floor. So there's a very narrow sign band and that is to preserve a walkability aesthetic that these signs are pedestrian oriented and pedestrian grain. And same with the size and placement of the sign on the top of the awning, that marquee type sign, the sugar house sign, lettering sign. That sign, it didn't really fill in a box in the sign code. And I think the applicant and I have had a number of discussions on what type of sign is this and how does it fall into the sign code. And in different vantage points that we looked at it, it didn't. meet those requirements regardless of how we looked at it. And so when looking at the regulations, the applicant and I saw that for multi-tenant projects, for multiple users projects, they are allowed latitude and flexibility to meet the signage needs that they have. And so that is listed in the sign code for a master sign plan allowance. And so that is what the applicant is here to ask you for today, is a certain amount of latitude because of the signage needs for their specific project as multi-tenant, multiple users, and multiple uses within a particular property.

Can I ask another question? I'm curious about the lighting of the signs. Which ones will be front lit, which ones will be back lit?

Generally, we don't have lighting for our signs. A lot of it's street lights and some of it's behind glass. Some of it's lit with our porcashire lights that are down.

For the most part, this is all facing Abenaki. or... Winooski Falls. Yeah, Winooski Falls. Is there anything that you're planning or anticipating on the Cassavant Park side?

No. Okay.

All right. I don't have any other questions.

Other than our little sign we'll make eventually say carriage rides and sleigh rides.

All right, so I will seek a motion to approve the 111 Winooski-Fallsway sign master plan as presented and approve the applicant to submit the Act 250 permit amendment application for the proposed .

Can I ask a quick question? Do we want to take public comment and see if there's any?

Yeah, that's a good idea. That's what you're here for, Brian. Is there any public comment on this item? In the building or online? Alright, not seeing any. I will continue with that motion.

So moved. Seconded.

All those in favor? Aye.

Aye.

Perfect. Thank you very much.

And I forgot to introduce you. If you like the building, this is the architect, Chris Bazzano. Great job. I told him I didn't want to talk.

Fair enough.

And he's missing dinner. Thank you.

All right. On to our next item. Discussion approval of the Downtown Winooski Memorandum of Understanding. Elaine and I believe Melissa.

Yeah, so let's do a quick introduction here. Downtown Winooski is our designated downtown organization, which sounds a little clunky, but we're required to have one of some kind. It could be internal, it could be external by our downtown designation. The downtown designation comes with certain benefits that are helpful for community of our vibrancy. We're lucky to have a reliable partner in downtown Winooski, I would say. They have an independent board and they hire the executive director, which is Melissa, and she manages all their operations in a similar way that I do with the city. So yeah, the annual review of the MOU is our chance to look at how we're functioning together, if we have anything that we want to change. Melissa and I looked at it at the staff level. Her boards looked at it. Her board has some changes that suggest, which Melissa can go over. I think that, I mean, they are changes that I would recommend, but happy to discuss with council. There was one question from the council we got ahead of time that Melissa might be prepared to address. So, yeah.

So would you like to look at the MOU first or presentation? How would you like to? Okay, I'll just do the presentation. Presentation first?

Okay.

Hello, my name is Melissa Corbin and I am the executive director for downtown Winooski and thank you all so much for giving me the opportunity to speak with you today. I really appreciate it. I put together a couple of slides just to capture The overall organization, our budget, our strategic plan, our economic impact, some of those things, we don't need to go through every detail of every slide. They're linked to the agenda. And so anybody that wants to delve a little bit deeper, please do. But overall, our organization, our mission. is focused on economic vitality and supporting our community through inclusive events and marketing, collaboration, and advocacy. If there's one slide I am gonna read the words to, I think this one's important. We're a group of staff and volunteers working alongside collaborators, sponsors, and community members to make a vibrant, connected, and healthy place to live, visit, work, and do business. We're committed to bringing community together to build connections and achieve common goals and strive to have a focus on equity, access, and inclusion in all of our work. I promise I'll only read word for word a couple of the slides, so thank you for bearing with me. Next slide. Our organization is involved in various community groups, and we do our best to get involved where we can and provide resources that make the most sense where applicable. We try to get involved in as many things as possible through staff, board, and our city council liaison as well. So next slide. Our 2026 programming schedule this year, we're halfway through. So we did some winter wonderland activities January through March. Our farmers market started in the middle of May and that'll run till the end of October. And we have weekly farmers market events, or excuse me, monthly events that happen that have a focus on community service in May. Our French Heritage Day, which is always our best attended event. It was again this year, fantastic. Thank you for everyone that came out. Best Pooch was so much better weather-wise this year. Attendance was fantastic again, and thank you all who were judging that bad breath out there with those doggos. We appreciate it. We've got the Fiber Fair coming up, which has grown over the last few years and it's almost as popular as French Heritage Day. So we'll see 1,200 people there, the same as French Heritage Day, which is pretty awesome. And then we have our Youth Bender Day. This is our I believe it's our third year doing this. And we do have a nice grant from a bank that's supporting that, which is wonderful too. And then we've got our Halloween event that happens every year with our pumpkins, a thousand pumpkins. We do that in collaboration with city staff. And so we've got our Main Street completion celebration. We actually picked a date today, and we are hoping to be determined with speakers and everyone else, but we're thinking that that might happen on the 30th of September. But again, we need to make sure that the people that need to speak can have that date that's only a few hours old that we came up with that placeholder. We also might be incorporating a parade into that celebration and ribbon cutting event and details again are being worked out with a planning group, more to come on that in the next two or three weeks. Our block parties happen June through September, so we did our Juneteenth celebration, our block party in July, we've got the Friendship Festival as the city manager mentioned on August 30th, and then we've got our Pride event in September. so um we also uh partnered with the food shelf last year for the first time to do the turkey drive so we plan to do that again and as well as our holiday pop-up shop that is businesses around the downtown area hosting djs and local vendors selling their crafts so that's what we're doing in 2026 and the next slide is going to show you the money that we get in order to spend on all of that programming. So our overall budget is broken down in your bottom corner, and then I broke the pie out into percentages and dollar values so you can just get an overall sense of how we are supported. One thing I do want to point out that's different from this year than the year before, and it's a trend I think we should all be watching, and that's sponsorship dollars. So our sponsorship dollars are down $20,000 this year from the year before, which is making event execution challenging. You might have noted that there wasn't free food at the Juneteenth event. One of our city council members mentioned that that is of concern, and we do need to and want to address that. But the entity that gave us money for free food the past few years had to reduce their funding from 3,500 to only 1,500, and that $2,000 amount was the amount that we used for food in the past. So I think it's an important trend. We haven't lost any actual sponsors, which is fantastic. We've just, the amount that they're able to spend, we're seeing in their budgets are getting cut on marketing and sponsorship dollars. So it's really nice that we're not losing anyone. It's just the amounts are going down, and I think we just need to pay attention to that trend. So one of the things we're trying this year in order to offset that, having seen this trend happening starting six or eight months ago, we got approved through the Department of Liquor and Lottery to be a pool ticket nonprofit recipient. And so it's a pretty exciting program. There's $70 million worth of pool ticket revenue throughout the state that go to nonprofits annually. And so it can be quite lucrative. And so I'm cautiously optimistic but really excited about the potential to offset the sponsorship dollars with the pool ticket revenue. So our current partner right now that's registered with the Department of Liquor and Lottery is Four Quarters Brewing. And so every dollar that you spend on a pool ticket at Four Quarters will come back to downtown Winooski as a donation. It's 100%. So spread the word and get out there and support in that way if you can. And I want to be mindful of time, so the next, and I'm happy to take questions at the end or in the midst if you want to. This next slide just shows the variety of sponsors that we have had, and that's grown so much over the years. one or two when I started three or four years ago. So really excited to see, and this isn't just, this is outreach that's done by board members, by staff members, by council members, by community members. I mean, this is a network of things that are coming in our way and making those connections. It's really exciting to see that family grow. The next two slides just highlight our strategic plan. Again, I don't need to read every word, but there's five categories, and each year we look at the strategic plan and look at what we've accomplished, what we want to update, and what we want to change within these five categories. So it's stabilizing and increasing our organizational capacity. It's implementing systems and operations, ensuring sustainability and financial stability, strengthening mission programming, and evolving to represent Winooski's community. And so each year we look within those categories, look at what we have accomplished and what we want to look at for the year coming up. The next couple of slides, we don't need to spend too much time on, but I did want to mention that a significant amount of funding that comes into downtown Winooski comes from the state through their Downtown Vibrancy Fund. And so this is a slide that I do think is important to read. The Downtown Vibrancy Fund is intended to support designated downtown organizations' efforts to strengthen and improve the economic sustainability and vibrancy of Vermont downtowns through access to resources and capacity to help educate, guide, support, and partner with the municipalities, businesses, nonprofits, and community organizations. That is a mouthful, not my words. the state's vibrancy fund summary, but I think it's important to note we do receive $25,000 of funding from the state each year, and we had to lobby for that funding to get into the governor's budget, and we did that successfully as a downtown coalition four years ago, and we continue to have level funding, so it's important to note that it was a big success at the legislative level a few years back. So within the Downtown Vibrant's Need Fund, each year we execute a grant agreement. The next slide will just show this past year's grant agreement just ended on June 30th and we're in the midst of getting the FY27 grant agreement together and I'm sure that after the board meeting that we, after the grant agreement is executed, it probably will be the September board meeting, and then how you can bring back a report for what those goals will be. Mostly we'll be looking at working with the Department of Tourism to help them implement some of the goals that are part of their plan for the coming year. But this past year, we compiled We went to all of the designated downtown organizational websites, there's 24 of them. We looked at how all of those organizations supported businesses both in attracting businesses and then helping them get started up and then in supporting them in their operations. We took the best of all of those 24 sites and took the city's resources and the state's resources and national resources and tried our best to compile that into what we now have on our downtown Winooski website for support in that regard. The other piece was under the promotion aspect. That's in the next slide. We completed a full business directory of all of Winooski businesses in the past year and then worked with the Mosaic Campaign in supporting the gift card campaign and a lot of social content related to the Main Street promotional efforts. And then the final piece of the Vibrancy Fund this year was our design efforts to get banners installed around Rotary Park, which hopefully you have noticed. And so I am almost complete. I've got just two more things that I wanted to touch on, and then I'll take any questions about the MOU or the slideshow presentation. Some of these slides you'll see are left over from January of the 2026 presentation. I did want to note that there was two brand new city council members at that January presentation and it was like literally your first meeting. So I wanted to include some of those slides back in here again so that that didn't get lost because that was a lot of information that we hit you with at a very early time in your service. So these next two slides are just some highlights of what the business community is excited about and some things that they're concerned about. So excitement right now is really proactive engagement with a regular business support meeting that happens the second Tuesday of every month now. People are really excited about the hotel coming and the economic stimulation that that's gonna bring. The completion of Main Street construction is very exciting for everyone. The communication efforts for the construction impacts have been really well received and people have thought that that's been an excellent effort on the city's behalf. And I just have to say, personally, I think WSP, who's been doing a lot of that communication efforts in tandem with the city and Paul's efforts, they just do a really great job. So I think it's been a really positive experience in that regard. City Council is perceived to be receptive to community input and people are really excited about the progress that the public art policy is making. So those are things that people are excited about and then some of the concerns are things that are not anything different than anyone's heard before. some parking uh concerns there's a small subcommittee that's talking about some a proposal or a couple proposals to make to the city in the next 30 days or so so probably more to come on that and obviously people are you know apprehensive apprehensive about the bridge construction and what the impacts are going to be um and as we've talked about in the past the crosswalks and the flashing beacon requests but i've heard there's some positive uh movement on on that front so and So the last four slides are ones that I don't necessarily need to go over in detail, but they are broken down by the economic, the impact that we had from our events is the first slide, the attendance, statistics, and then the second slide would be the economic impact is kind of broken down into dollars generated by sales at the farmer's market, which last year was $345,000, which is pretty amazing. And $12,000 worth of free food redeemed through the food access programs that we run, which is really great. And then 87% of the money that we spent on event programming was spent on people that live and work in Vermont. And then the next slide is our community impact. And the last slide is the overall support, which I think this is a great slide to end on because it kind of wraps up Al's story about the tent. That 15 foot tent and moving that thing around and having the volunteer network that we have grown over the last few years is just really amazing to see the people that show up and are helping. Who's pitching in a truck, who's lugging the tent around, who's helping to direct traffic, hang signs, all the things that go into running an event. Sarah Brunkhorst, who is my colleague, does an absolutely fantastic job and runs the team of volunteers so perfectly. And so I've been really proud of watching those efforts grow over the years. So that's pretty much where I was going to leave it. And then if we want to talk about the MOU, there was three changes that downtown Winooski was proposing. And one concern was brought up about a proposal one of the proposed changes and I did some thinking over the last couple hours and kind of have a reaction to that. So, any questions or comments on the presentation before we talk MOU stuff?

Appreciate the presentation, Melissa. It's always nice to see just the growth that downtown Winooski has had since I joined the city council. I think from before that time, you've done so much great work. And I think it's worth just saying it for the community's perspective. I know that I think everyone, maybe you haven't heard this Eli, Downtown Winooski was in a very different position before you came on board, and you really put in a lot of effort to make it an organization that is running well, both financially and in the events that it does. So given how important these events are to our community, it's Downtown Winooski to me as a vital organization, so I thank you. for your work and Sarah as well. Every time I see Sarah, I don't know how she does it all. Isn't it amazing? She always has the biggest smile on her face too. She loves her job. And that's great. You know, I appreciate you bringing up the sponsorship piece. You know, I think, you know, for a variety of reasons, the past council voted to make sure that the city was helping downtown Winooski a little more because I think we recognize the many things that you are up against and every organization is seeing reduced sponsorship dollars and whatever form those come from. Great to hear that you've kept all of our sponsors, even if they're at lower amounts, because hopefully when things turn around, they'll still be there and then they can come back and give us more money. But also, it's amazing to see that slide of how many new sponsors are there. I remember quite literally when that slide was like the city, Onion City, and maybe four other entities. So it's great to just see you've grown that and you know whatever amount they donated that again those relationships that you can foster um so that's fantastic um i don't have anything else to say you know again just thank you we appreciate the work um and you know as again like i said this is a vital organization the main street's wrapping up but we all know that the bridge is um we'll be here before we know it. And I think that, you know, the work that you did with the business community as well as with our general community as well, you know, I think that people may have thought that eventually it would just impact businesses and that would kind of be it. But I think the community felt impacted when they were learning that the businesses were impacted as well. You know, most of our businesses are really closely tied to our community. So I think you're efforts and work and advocacy is going to be important as we move into the bridge reconstruction. Thank you. Any other comments? Allie, you're on the board.

No, I have a question about the MOU, but anyone else has a question?

I have unrelated questions.

Unrelated questions?

Unrelated to the MOU.

Very much related to downtown. I'll do those, and then we'll talk about the MOU.

There are so many awesome things that downtown is doing. And just ditto to everything the mayor just said. So thank you for all that you and Sarah have done, and the board as well. since I don't have the pleasure of chatting with you very often, I'm going to bring up some idea-related things, and I will contain them so we don't go off on too much of a tangent.

Do you want me to write them down?

I can email them as a summary to you. It's up to you.

I'd rather have eye contact than listen, if that's okay.

I was thinking about the Turkey Drive, and I'm not sure if you connect with Winooski Wheels, or there's... a nationwide event called Cranksgiving, where there's a group of cyclists that basically will bike around the area, collect things on a shopping list, and then all of that collection gets weighed and then donated to the food shelf, and just thinking that could be a partnership opportunity with Winooska Wheels or the organizers of the Monday-Wednesday ride clubs. And I think there's a whole... press kit that can go along with that, that's just online and available. And a lot of co-promotion. It seems like some of the energy with the Old Spokes might have been doing some planning in Burlington, but it may be an opportunity for We New Ski Wheels to have our own partnership on that. So just an idea there.

Yeah, I love that idea.

I was thinking also about sponsorships being down. You've probably already explored other opportunities for in-kind donations, volunteering, co-promotions. So we're going to have a lot more businesses put traffic with the hotel and just kind of thinking of the number and just being at the farmers market yesterday and the number of folks that come out from out of town as well so just additional opportunities for folks that are already coming here for work or for you know just traveler things so co-promoting even kind of further afield not just you know to our residents I wanted to make sure that you feel are getting the support that you need so that the circle, the Rotary Park is in good, clean condition for events, for the block parties. Making sure the trash containers are empty and anything else that can be done ahead of time so that the experience of everyone on the day of the events is really positive. I know that those containers can fill up quickly. So just wanted to put a plug in that. Obviously planning for the bridge and opportunities, like one-time opportunities. I think that there may be some chances where there may be an opportunity to hold some events while some of that construction is happening that may not be feasible otherwise.

Like when the Rotary is totally closed.

Along those lines, yeah. And then... I want to make sure the downtown group is able to comment on the comprehensive plan and updates because it's all economic vitality is all wrapped in there. And then my last idea. is potential fundraising opportunity, but there's always logistics, so easier said than done. Folks love the centennial swag, and the downtown swag is also wonderful, so just thinking about if there's a mechanism to do to set up so folks, not low lift on your part and Sarah's part, but so folks can kind of go in and order swag throughout the year as they want to, you know, get a hoodie or a t-shirt or stickers.

Meaning like an online store? Yeah, an online store.

Yes.

We're almost there. There's a plug-in thing.

Wonderful.

There's an IT thing, but we're almost there.

Like I said, it's not easier said than done, but that's awesome.

Yeah, because we've got all the Winooski Strong merchandise as well. Because the downtown Winooski march is... But the Winooski Strong stuff is great.

There's a whole array. Right, there's a whole array. Which is really cool. There's options. Yes, there's a wide world of options.

And people would like to bring back the vintage shirt that they used to sell a few years ago. There's been a lot of desire for that Winooski shirt to come back, too. That's wonderful news. Yeah, so people are talking.

Yay, that's great. Well, let us know so we can also help. raise awareness and promote that too. So those were my, that was my idea section. So thank you. I love your idea section.

I like an idea section. Yeah. All right. Let's talk MOU. Anything you'd like to mention before we start talking?

I don't think so. I think the spirit was to, I think last year was when we really put a lot more detail into the MOU and we spent a lot of time analyzing different sections. And so I didn't anticipate that there was going to be much in the sense of change. And so the two things to note in Section A1 under Events Management, in Section A, before we had every single event that we had planned to host over the course of the year listed out and so my board suggested that we pull out that list of very specific events and with the spirit of us having the flexibility to adjust and change as programming needs might shift or happen throughout the year. And as we might see the sponsorship dollars impacting or affecting how we do events. So one of the things we talked about recently as a side example is just how much impact are we having for how much money we're getting? And is throwing an event for a block party that costs X amount of dollars, is that having enough of the impact that we wanna have? Or if we spent X dollars on a different type of event, would that have more impact? And so I think where the board was at as, it's the middle of the year, we haven't finished our event season. So we haven't done an analysis of what the 2026 event season looked like yet. And so it felt weird to be executing an MOU that listed out events that were going to be happening through into next calendar year when there hadn't been the debrief and discussion about what our program was going to look like in 27. So the intention wasn't to delete the events so that we wouldn't be providing that much programming. It was more to not have a list that if we didn't meet a specific one because of the analysis that would happen this fall, that we wouldn't be breaking the terms of the MOU. Does that make sense? So I think there was a concern from one city council member about us deleting that and I've been thinking about it. Could we put language in there that is something more like we will plan and execute a weekly farmers market through May and October. We'll work with the city to execute Halloween and Winooski and then leave something more generic like provide community events, celebrations throughout the summer and fall. Something along those lines that we have a little bit of flexibility. Obviously, the farmer's market and Halloween, there's no flexibility in there. But I think it was more the summer programming, just having the ability to rethink what those block parties are and possibly.

I completely appreciate why you would want to do that. My only concern is in 6.0, we call out that those specific events receive free parking. So I want to make sure that there's a way to know which events were supposed to be executing free parking for. Good catch. Especially because once their free parking didn't happen on one of those days and we were able to go back to the MOU and say the parking was supposed to be free. And then Jenny's office worked on getting folks refunds, I believe. So if we don't have that event to tie the free parking to in the MOU, I don't know how... we can make sure that we're guaranteeing the free parking so that staff can be trained on that. If the two of you think that you can maybe figure that out and not have it in the MOU, I'm happy. I would feel happy for that to move forward, but I do want to make sure, if the hope is still to provide free parking on those event days, that there's Yeah, that's a great point.

Yeah, I have a suggestion, which, of course, Melissa and I have not talked about yet. It feels like it would be good to get a written list once the board's decided what they're going to be for the year, which I assume happens in February, March-ish. And then the MOU would say, you know, list as distributed by what time, and then that would be the list that got the free parking.

Yep, that would totally work for me.

Any other questions from council?

Yes. I think, you know, the mayor raises a good point. I hadn't thought about that challenge, but definitely coordination is always helpful. And having being able to have that awareness mapped out as far ahead of time as possible just improves the communications as that often can be a challenge. I think I am uneasy about removing a list of events. I mean, there's no date tied to these events. And at the same time, I want to ensure that there's some flexibility built in. Um, so I think for me, I'd feel more comfortable if there was a commitment to, yes, the farmer's market, yes, the Halloween, um, event, but at least, um, two or three other events, key events, so that that is like, we know that these events will not be sacrificed. Um, I would feel better about that. Um, I don't want it to, you know, I don't, at the risk of like, I worry that it would then be interpreted as, you know, like the minimum need for satisfying expectations. I do think, like, I chatted with somebody at the market yesterday that used to help with planning Waking Windows, and he's also helped with Jazz Fest, and just said, like, it's been really difficult to kind of get some of those events going again, so it's not just Winooski that's seen some attendance, Wax and Wayne, but also, I think, in our neighboring towns too, and cities. I'd want to give room for new ideas and to shake it up. So I'm supportive of that. I think, to me, I just want to make sure that there's some additional core events and then room to say, in addition to these four events, we commit to doing these additional slate of events that I think I'd be comfortable with the city manager's suggestion, as decided by... you know, the end of February, 2027 and presented to council. So I, that's my area of comfort, but I know that I'm one voice.

I have a similar thought. A half baked idea I think would be, to include like the farmer's market will continue in the summer through the fall with X number of special events to be held at the farmer's market so that that would give flexibility for like Frontier to today, Best Pooch, Fiber Arts, but then if something needed to be moved or some new idea came along and they wanted to be, you know, you wanted to shift focus to that, that that would still give an outline that there would be a certain number of special farmers market events, like once a month or every other month, or just a certain number. As to calling out special events, I think that's wonderful as well. But I again wonder if there's a way to include just a caveat of, you know, Juneteenth pride and like three special events a year TBD by the schedule to be attached in you know, February or whatever it is And also like to make a note to deputy mayor that you may be one voice but one voice always matters and it's vital I

I think regarding the naming of events, I think it can be helpful because one of the things that I have really taken from being on city council is that these are all living, breathing documents. And so hypothetically, if we are all wiped out tomorrow, then how do we ensure there is institutional knowledge in the room? This is recorded, whatever. But how do we ensure that this is still whatever, viable. And so my thought is also that you could take out certain what feels maybe too concrete to the downtown Winooski organization and simply just say that you will plan X amount of summer block parties. And it doesn't, right, like maybe there's a year where Juneteenth doesn't feel like the right fit for Winooski. And so it doesn't have to be program specific and it could be more general operating and that might be helpful. I think we could also add in a line, or my proposal would be we could potentially add in a line or a caveat that simply says like, this is subject to change, right? Because of sponsorship dollars, because of the needs and desires and wants of the community, because of anything, whatever, because of construction. And so it could just be a little bit more flexible. So those are some of the thoughts that I had. May I go deeper into the MMU? I had also flagged the parking, but it seems like the mayor got me on there, and I love that. In section... uppercase B, lowercase B. There is something that mentions like an onboarding packet regarding responsibilities of the city. And so there's an addendum to be added that says that the function of the city council liaison is to serve information, et cetera. My question is, are there currently term limits for a city council liaison? And I don't know, okay, I'm seeing Deputy Mayor shake her head. Okay, that was just a question that I had. And then I'm going to section- Elections. Okay, that's what I thought, too, but I think... Okay, I think I... I'm sorry, what was that? It's tied to elections. And so I'm just wondering if it should be clearly stated. This is where, like, the lawyer in me comes out. I just think that, like, having it clearly stated that it's tied to elections, that city council members serve a two-year term or whatever. Although if we re-up this MOU, but anyway, that's for someone else. And then I have this somewhere. Um... My other question I guess is really, like in the broader senses, like how does downtown Winooski determine whether a program or event is successful? And then also how has downtown Winooski, like have you all ever surveyed, like ever conducted a community-wide survey, not just of Winooski residents, but as was mentioned, you know, from the deputy mayor earlier and the idea that obviously it's more than just Winooski residents and community who attend. And so to do something broader. And I'm wondering, like, has it ever been done? When was the last time that it was done? Are we able to see that? And then, yeah, what are the metrics of success currently for events?

So I'll answer that in two parts. So there is a rubric, is what they call it, that the board created, I think, a year before I came on board. it will be part of the onboarding package that I have learned that we need to create for new city council members. So I can share that outside of this meeting, but it's a very detailed lines of questions, and then it has values that are assigned in each of the, the impact areas, and then it spits out a number at the end. And it's very, very, very tangibly, the prior mayor, Seth Leonard, created it. So it's very, very, very detailed and based in a lot of form and code. So that's pretty informative. However, the inputs that go into that do not have not yet been community informed. And so that is a goal, but that has not been hit yet. So right now it's more anecdotal board members councilors, city staff have really been kind of informing it. It hasn't gone out in a broader way. I think slightly intentional in the sense that we were still trying to get a couple of years under our belt, right? Figuring out what we were doing, adjust things, add things. Now that we've had three years, I do feel like it's probably a really appropriate time to take stock. We've asked the questions of the business community when we've surveyed them. Have you seen an impact on Juneteenth? What percentage increase were your sales on that day? Same with Pride, all the events. So the business community has been surveyed on what's the economic impact and how do you feel from each of these events, and that has helped inform whether we continue to do something or not. But actually asking community members yet about how they feel, it hasn't gone to that level yet.

Back to the signature events, kind of hearing a desire for there to be some sort of events listed or amount of events listed, could we get where some folks are looking for and you get what you're looking for by just saying, organize, plan, implement, and maintain signature events in downtown Winooski annually, which may include, and then just list the existing events? So instead of saying that it will include it, these are the events that we're hoping to see. If you can't make them happen, then you can't make them happen for the reasons that you'll let us know, I'm sure.

Yeah, I think that could be totally fine also if we included the sentence that Al suggested about, so that it can be clear that it's not just us deciding we don't want to do it. It's directly tied to potential sponsorship or whatever wording we would use, but that it would be informed by reasons other than us just not feeling like we want to put something on, but something tied to resources or something like that, based on resource management or allocation or something like that. But I think that would be fine. I think the board was just looking for it to not be, we are going to do this list. So if we have some softness and flexibility in there, I think that's great.

I think that would give you the option to say, We didn't get this one for Pride this year that we're hoping, but we still want to do Pride, so we're going to add it to a farmer's market. But then it kind of tells you that we're hoping to see a Pride event, if you can make that happen.

Right, right. I understand that. Yeah.

I'm also wondering if there has been any discussion regarding currently you're an all-volunteer board and a working board, but if there's been a conversation ever before I'm trying to be cognizant of the fact that, as the mayor alluded to earlier, that right, that like Dan Towanewski has like, been a phoenix. And so when I ask this question, I want to be mindful of the history of . But if there's ever been a thought regarding, because to my knowledge, the board is not a working board in the sense that they are not a fundraising board. And you were the only person who was out there asking for sponsorship dollars. And so I guess my question is sort of twofold, is like, has there ever been a thought regarding changing the governance of the board? or the structure of the board to be more of a working board so that you have more support there and to expand the board as well. And then I guess my follow-up question is also, are you thinking and looking forward regarding sponsorship that you would have to completely remove a block party? For instance, we'll just use pride due to lack of sponsorship, or do you not feel like there would be a way to pivot and to say like, we're not going to have a DJ, we're not going to do anything. We could just like bring an amp and a, and a Spotify playlist and still show up for the community. Or do you feel like it's at a point where it's just like this, you know, sponsorship dollars is really, uh,

waiting and it's not there no i don't i don't feel like i don't feel that way at all i think it's i think juneteenth is probably a good example of we didn't hit the numbers that we needed to hit in order to run the event that we wanted to run but we still ran it we just didn't have the free food because the budget was too grand short so i The spirit is there and I think we've talked about, especially after the July block party, which the band was absolutely wonderful and the people that were there enjoyed it. I felt like it was too much money for the number of people that showed up. And so my feedback after the fact was, I think in July when it's summer months, it's a DJ for $400 and it's not a band for 12, like that. So no, I don't think the spirit is that we would want to cancel as much as it would be pivot and do it differently. Maybe the face painting and the bubbles don't happen, but the face painting does.

Yeah, fixing it up. I love that. Thank you so much.

Can I ask a public question? I would feel more comfortable if we're going to adjust language to say May so that any pivots come back to council for mutual agreement and approval. I do not feel comfortable just leaving May out there again with the, Awareness that we don't know what the next council may look like. Yeah, we don't know how long we'll be able to have you in this role Yeah, and these documents will survive after us us Yeah, so I I would just feel more comfortable if we changed in May to had some language that it is a mutually agreed upon change with council approval

What would that look like? So, you know, they're planning their summer events, for example. I mean, I think, unless you may be running this very differently now than in the past, you know, I think donations were still coming in, like, leading up to the event, right? Like, it's not like you had everything at the beginning of the year. So say you're coming up to an event and you say, you think, gonna have to change this or cancel this. would, when would you want them to be coming back to council to talk about changing or moving an event?

As early as possible. I guess it's like, you know the events best. Like, do you need to make a call 30 days before, 60 days before? When are you, I guess, let me ask you a different question. How early do you start promoting an event?

So 30 days before.

So I would say you probably would know at least 60 days before if you're going to start promoting that event or not.

Oh, for sure. But are we talking about the event of like a cancellation? I'm confused about what we're talking about. If we need to pivot things, I don't want to come to council and ask for approval to not have free food at Juneteenth, right?

No, I don't mean that. So this list, we're talking about whether or not to have a list in here.

Okay, so you mean things that would change outside of that?

Yeah, I'm not talking about within the event itself.

So it would only be like canceling something?

Yes, canceling or saying like, you know what? Things are not coming together for a July block party. The sponsors aren't there. The vendors aren't there. We're 60 days out and I need to let council know that like, We need to have a kind of a go-no-go, basically.

Okay. I have a question.

Yeah.

So, we're asking them to come to us with a go-no-go. Someone says I don't have the sponsors for whatever the event is. Are we then going to force them to do the event, even if they don't have the sponsors?

I'm just saying it's not necessarily going to be us.

Or any, well, sure, no line. The MLU happens every year, so I'm thinking it would likely be us. I just want to know what the ask is, I guess. Because I understand wanting to know what could change.

I'm trying to find a pathway for May, like your suggestion. And I think I am leaning more towards what Elsie suggested, so that there's some definitive events that will happen and some allowance for a minimum of other events. From me, the word may is too ambiguous. And so I was just, I was only trying to propose a pathway. No, I appreciate it.

I just want to understand, like, what would the ask end up being?

And it was a terrible suggestion and not really logistically feasible. So we worked through that.

Can I ask a clarifying question? Sure. Is the spirit, the themes, and making sure we hit the themes, for example, Juneteenth, Pride, French Heritage Day, etc., or is it number of events? Because if it's the spirit of the themes, writing that in would feel a lot more comfortable, I think, than four events to include these kinds of things. If the intention is to host community events around certain thematic, I think that that would be completely in agreement with Downtown Winooski and would meet be in alignment with what our goals are too. We would want to make sure that we're planning certain thematic events, but we might not be able to do a Rotary Park only Pride-related event to follow up on your example, and that we might need to shift that to a farmer's market one year or whatever.

The themes, I think, are what are important. Say Redstone comes in with 30 grand for Pride, and you're like, we're doing a whole week then, I guess. Yeah. I don't want to say we want one Pride event, because who knows what could happen, but the theming of it to me, I think many of these events have happened for many, many years, some of them have just happened for a few, but I think at this point, these are the core events that residents like and enjoy, and also that past councils have wanted. We didn't always do a Pride event, and I think we're all very happy that there's some form of Pride event that happens in Winooski. So, I wouldn't want to, and again, because things do change, I know that this Downtown Wonderski board and you also think that a Pride event is important, but again, you may not, so where are we to say we want to see four events when maybe Pride falls out and that's not one of the events anymore. So I think the theming is what's important to me, less so how many events. I'd love for all these events to happen, but again, if The world keeps changing and you get less sponsors as we go into next summer.

Could we say organize events annually which may include chunk subject to a schedule to be submitted by X date after you have your certain amount of planning and that should be approved by council? that gives the creativity of the options here it also leaves room if there's other things that pop up you know like the fiber fair is a relatively new thing if something else like sparks joy then that could be included and then we'd all have a date that would meet your planning needs because i i love the themes i also don't want to be telling you what the theme should be because you're also the one doing the market research and talking with the businesses so i think that should be a bit more of a give and take so

Which is why I think, like, I like May, even if we weren't having this, like, we're in Congress because it's like, yeah, Fiber Fair is great now. I don't know when people show up, but maybe nobody shows up. Everyone's like, Fiber was last year. And then Sarah figures out something else. They don't want you to keep throwing a Fiber Fair because we just thought that was a great idea at one point. Or Sarah thought it was a great idea at one point, let's be honest. Okay, Eli? You don't have to say anything, Eli.

No, yeah, I think I agree. I don't want to be dictating how they go about their celebrations. So I'm much more of a party of allowing the freedom to do what they think is best, but making sure council gets the themes that they want to bring up.

We've talked a lot. Is there any public comment on this item, either in the room or online? I'm not seeing anything in either place. Oh, I didn't notice anything. Elaine, is there anything you'd like to add before I might move this to a vote?

No.

OK.

I wouldn't override Melissa's opinion, so.

OK. Melissa, I know that this had been a board suggestion, so I don't know if you feel like you need to talk to your board and bring this back to us with the suggestions that we made, or if you think those suggestions would be okay with the board and we can vote on those today.

I think the board would trust me to feel empowered to say one way or another. I just want to say something funny before we finish this conversation. It just occurred to me, I added that list last year. Like that did not exist before. So it's the irony of this whole thing is like I added that in. It totally wasn't. So maybe we should go back to the MOU from the year before. See what that language was.

I didn't like that MOU either. For the record.

The one before? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I like the list. And for a variety of reasons. One, I think it... kind of shows our community what we're hoping to do. And two, I know you said you can figure out the parking thing, but I also like to have something concrete there too.

I think it would make everybody happy if we had the list and we just had caveat of the, to create some flexibility in there and then the board I think would have what they want and we would have clarity. And then if we put the piece of it being submitted, I would prefer that we give it a March end of March date just in case. I mean, we shoot for end of February, but end of March would be great. And then if themes change or things change, we could be having a lively conversation about that and enough time for us to adjust the programming ideas or needs.

Thank you. I know we've kind of talked our way in circles, and I was cause for some of that. So thank you for bearing with the discussion.

I'm just excited to have more people talking about downtown Winooski than just me and Sarah and Elaine.

I know that it does spark a lot of joy to say that again. So it's not something that I get to participate in very often, but yeah, it's fun to talk about.

It is fun to talk about.

I'll see if you can give me that language you said again.

So we keep everything, downtown Winooski annually, which may include the list, subject to a schedule to be submitted to council by March. End of March? End of March.

All right. So in that case, I will seek a motion to authorize the city manager to sign the FY27 MOU with downtown Winooski as presented with the change of May on item 1A after annually to say may include a list of events subject to a schedule to be submitted by our March 31st meeting. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Good work. Wonderful. Thank you. Good work.

All right. Is there anything else? Thank you for all the time. I didn't expect that. I said 10 minutes.

We are sorry for keeping you longer than you had planned.

No, I'm so happy for it. That's not what I meant. I'm just thrilled you took this much time to want to talk about the stuff that we do.

It's great. It's our economic vitality opportunity. You are an important organization to us.

Thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right, we will move on to our next item, discussion approval position descriptions for assistant fire marshal and career lieutenant. John and Jesse.

Jesse, are you joining online or online? Good evening.

Good evening. I'm going to let Jesse start, I think, if that was the plan.

I certainly can.

I certainly can. Yes? You want me to start?

Yeah.

All right. Sorry. No worries. Good evening. Yeah, so two position descriptions for assistant fire marshal and a career lieutenant. We provided some background with the assistant fire marshal, kind of the updated position replaces the existing dual role. the emphasis on the dual role of fire marshal and the fire captain classification, better reflects our operational needs, really puts in place a fire marshal, a dedicated assistant fire marshal, and really reflects what's currently happening. And on the career lieutenant, that is really us trying to shift. For years, these have all been dual role positions. They will continue to be dual role positions, but really defining and creating some more focal points, if you will. And the career lieutenants will be the first 24-hour coverage that you start to see. And again, what's driving that is the decline in on-call firefighters availability overnight. Obviously, we have 111 Weaver Street that's creating some more options for us. So this is really a shift in Very slow methodical shift if you will we still value and need that call You know that call element, but we need to react to the declining numbers And that's just proven in the data as far as the lack of response during certain hours No reflection on people's dedication just again the numbers numbers continue to decline and The benefits of such, again, on the assistant fire marshal allows us to continue our proactive approach in the community risk reduction field, expanding emphasis on inspection, code compliance, fire prevention, public education. It, again, really clarifies responsibility, improves accountability, recruitment, and Really important for me is succession planning. Whether it's the fire marshal or the fire chief, the organization should start to recognize that we need to find some up-and-coming leaders and get them on board. The reflection on a career lieutenant, again, the calls really allows us to have a focal point on daily operations. Today, because of vacation schedules, I was on the truck trying to be fire chief, fire marshal, duty officer. It really has someone that works for us full time. Again, allows us to recruit a certain level of people. You know, these numbers don't solve our response problems, but it absolutely puts someone there that can start to make decisions on our behalf and the residents' behalf. We continue to, again, value the call and our valued mutual aid partners. So, again, this is a slow, methodical change. The assistant fire marshal is a little easier, because that's a Monday through Friday position. Both of these positions, I expect to have internal, there is internal interest, so that's a really good thing. But as we hire the career lieutenant, there's work to be done. We are at a point where if we're pulling a lever like this, there's work to do on pay plans, and it just really starts to change some things. So there's a lot of work behind the scenes on behalf of Jesse and Angela and the manager of how this works.

Thanks, Chief. Jesse, did you want to add anything?

Yeah, I just want to add just a little bit more context about that currently kind of position. John's point about retention and recruitment, it's going to help us to be able to appeal to a different caliber of candidate, especially with 111 Weber Street being up and coming but not available yet. I've had in this past year, I've had a decline of over 500 some applications because our qualifications are rigid around being that five minute response time. And there's only so many people who are in that This will help us to get some better coverage that the city desperately needs.

Thanks, Jesse. You anticipated some of my questions already, but I'm glad that there's internal applicants who'd be interested. That's great. It speeds up the process too, so don't hate that. Do sorry, and you may have, I think you alluded to this, the career lieutenant with that person be primarily working in the hours when. Like, you're not on like, will they be covering like, those 9 hours?

Yeah, so that would be the start of 24 hour coverage. So, again. What I'm modeling this after is a two person crew. Obviously you need six people. I understand that's not gonna happen overnight, but it starts us in that process of there'd be two people here, I'm gonna say an eight to eight shift. So it's a 24 or 48 hour shift. And then the next two come on and then you have your fire marshal, you have your assistant fire marshal working Monday through Friday. You start to get some very consistent coverage. and the ability to really help the limited number of call. Just last night, we were out to a six-story building with one person on a truck. It's not safe. It's not effective. So we're... we're at a point where we need to address that. My commitment has always been to allow the data to kind of lead us into this. I think we've talked about this for four years. the red ribbon report that's out there if anyone wants it. There's indicators in there of job creep. Your fire chief's on the truck two days a week. Your fire marshal's on there. That's taking us from doing code enforcement, enforcing sidewalk stuff. It's just we've grown enough and the demand is enough where we start to really focus that.

Yeah, I mean, the city has grown and continues to grow. So the asks of code enforcement and we are starting to see them spill into here with the ask as well. So I know that the need is there and that you don't have enough people to cover all the code asks at the moment.

And there was a really good question internally that was asked of does this deplete our ability to do inspections? And what we've learned by having three inspectors is our system in our community really can't handle that level of inspections, if you will. It's very hard to manage that level given some of the changes. So it takes admin, we've got to pick up the admin piece. There's a lot of support pieces. So again, you end up with a lot of a lot of unintended job creep by trying to have that. But I am very confident that we can continue to do the level and then some of the inspections that we need to do in the city as a program's design.

That's great. Council, any questions?

Just as a follow-up, so digging into that last comment about the support pieces needed for the inspectors. Is there, and I'm sure knowing your community prevention priorities, these changes won't adversely impact the quality of homes and the condition of our rental units and commercial spaces. by having maybe an adjustment to the inspections?

No. In fact, I would say that having the number of inspectors we've had has created such a quantity of inspections, the quality has dropped just by virtue of how much follow-up there is. So there's a pace in which this needs to go for both the owners, the community, and our staff. And that's... It's hard for people to wrap around, but it gets chaotic at times when you have that many inspections. If they go out and do 30 units in a day, that's a lot. That's creating all the follow-up paperwork, all the follow-ups, re-inspection scheduling. There's just all these layers unintended by trying to do that many inspections.

We... Obviously the code enforcement is also managing certificates of occupancy and not just the regular inspections. I don't know what the trends are in sales and turnover right now for properties. It seems like at least some areas might be taking up again, but that's just probably seasonal.

So it's slowed way down sales, not just locally, nationally. In a clarifying point, certificates of occupancy are issued by zoning. Your certificates of fitness and closing building permits are done on our side of the house. So there is some crossover, but we're not holding up occupancy

um due to these changes okay i was thinking certificate of fitness so thank you for the clarification

Okay. In that case, I will seek a motion to approve the assistant fire marshal and career lieutenant position descriptions as presented.

So moved. Seconded.

All those in favor? Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Discussion approval position description for Thrive Program Assistant Director.

All right, thank you, thank you. I will say first and foremost, this is a presentation I was anticipating giving during the budget cycle, so I'm gonna own it and acknowledge that. I think obviously coming in off cycle and discussing new positions, new money is not typical. We are dealing with some atypical circumstances, one great, one not so great. So as we heard earlier, we did just get our five star designation from the state, which is fabulous and has some beneficial financial impact on the program. Sadly, not long after getting that news, I learned that our director is leaving her position. So we are on the hunt for a new director. Which, you know, Evelyn and I have been having these conversations about program structure and staffing structure over time. And again, looking towards the budget cycle for fiscal year 28 had been contemplating an assistant director position for a host of reasons. But just given that transition, given the turnover, and frankly the surprising news on the STARS front, we wanted to bring that forward. See what you all thought. So based on our math, and Angela is here and will definitely correct my math if I'm off. She is off to do. We're anticipating about a $14,500 impact in doing this. Some ways that we're trying to mitigate that cost for what is a new position is that we're viewing this assistant director role as basically an offsetting person in ratio. So we would drop a program assistant and have one fewer in the mix there. And this is a position that it would be deemed part-time, so 25 hours a week for the school year, which is about 40 weeks of the year, and then full-time for the summer months at this point, 10. I realize that's two weeks less than a full year, but we're factoring in school breaks as well, which typically leads to about two weeks of time off, more or less. As I mentioned in here, I think there's certainly some positive financial news on the Thrive front. Number one, we've really overperformed financially and I think have a path forward to continue that trend. And then with the five stars, have some influx of resources one time and ongoing into the program that'll be, I think, helpful as well in offsetting some of these costs. And then Lee brought up and added in, which I think is worth note too, this is not universal or not unique to our program or our department there is not a lot of opportunities for growth internally here we're a small organization and there's just not a lot of stepping stones to move along and so i think this is a really exciting addition as well thinking about some of those folks that have been program assistants for a number of years and maybe ready for that next step this could be a really exciting opportunity to add some some growth opportunities for staff within the program as well. Yeah, and then I think finally I'd just say, summer alone, we are running the program for 47 and a half hours a week. which obviously is more than a full-time position. So I think having some depth in a leadership role during the summer is really great. And I think by having this person really focused on the program development side of things, you know, are we making slime or building marshmallow towers? Do we have slime? Do we have marshmallows? Like some of those things that I think could be I mean, we say jokingly, having done it for a year, it is a lot. It's tedious. It's constant. And so I think adding someone who can really take on the mental load of thinking about that and let the director really focus on the requirements that are coming with the STAR certification, the communication with families, the subsidy maintenance for families. I think would be really valuable. I think one other thing, then I'll stop. Evelyn and I have talked a lot about over this year, I think one of the big pieces, and we actually made this adjustment in the director's position description before that went live, is the percentage of time that goes into supporting staff at Thrive, I think, we were sort of under anticipating. And we have a really diverse workforce there, which is fabulous and very much what we want, and is taking more time from the director to support and kind of guide those folks through training, make sure they're getting the things they need to be successful. So I think freeing up some time with the director as well would be really valuable in that regard.

Well, thank you, Ray. I think we want the program to succeed and thrive. I believe that's important to every member of council. Of course, outside of budget, discussion asks aren't always great. There's other departments and discussions that I think we've had that it's like we're waiting until budget season to talk about those things. So one question I have, so it looks like we're potentially offsetting some costs with the program assistant position. Is there somebody in that position right now?

So we have typically folks who will carry forward from the summer into the after school and then kind of, there's basically two cycles of the program. We have a few, I believe one position that we anticipate will be vacated based on just attrition moving from summer to after school. So I don't think it would be a position where we'd have to eliminate a person. The other thing I would just say there is that the way we kind of budget is not folks are scheduled for a certain number of hours to make sure that we have the right number of people in the program. We're not overstaffing. If we have more humans, we're basing our schedule based on the hours needed. And that's driven by ratios and kind of best practice in terms of managing kiddos.

Is getting rid of the program assistant going to make the level of care that that position would have done

more difficult or are there going to be things that you're going to have to change by not having that person there so we so when i say eliminating or replacing a program assistant we have at any given time six to eight program assistants that are employed so this is just one of those positions that would be basically supplanted by the assistant director it wouldn't be elimination of a position attack early. So I think actually, if anything, it would probably increase program quality because you have a higher caliber person in that role kind of serving as a leader alongside the director.

It might help clarify. Currently, we have a Thrive director and six to eight Thrive assistants. That's it.

Okay, perfect. Yeah, no, I definitely appreciate the different skill level that an assistant director would bring in. I just want to make sure. while they're figuring out marshmallows or slime, if there's somebody to help clean up the slime.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just maybe to say a few more words there, the program assistants typically are budgeted for 15 hours a week during the school year. And so this position being 25 hours a week during the school year gives some extra time before program starts to be kind of focusing on this stuff. And then during program hours, really be focused on

program delivery yeah okay great thank you other questions question yes i'm curious um will i think i know can anticipate the answer but will the adjustments here since it's all probably based on ratios it won't the quality of the person in the position won't necessarily enable an increase into capacity that we can intake?

Yeah, that's a good question. So I think we are typically staffed above required ratio, meaning that we have some capacity to grow still. I think, quite candidly, the ratios required by licensing and what is best practice and comfortable and having kiddos done it is a different number. And so we have typically had more staff than our license requires in order to improve program quality. But that also then gives us some flexibility to say we're not we're not teetering on the edge of ratio. And if we add one more kid, we've got to add another staff. We usually have some capacity, you know, family moves to town and has two kiddos that want to sign up, we can take those kids on without having to increase our staffing. So I think to answer your question, the capacity of the program to grow I think won't be increased, but wouldn't be any different than it is currently. And we do have some capacity to grow still.

I think two follow-up questions was if we have capacity to grow, and we're still within the comfort zone, best practice thresholds. Could that help offset the increase in the, that's being requested from the budget? If we do grow.

Yeah. I'd have to go back to do the math to see like what a typical after school kid brings in. It also depends a little bit on whether they're fee paying versus subsidy eligible because actually subsidy eligible kids bring more funds into the program by a fair bit. So I think potentially yes. I'd be reluctant to speculate on that. That's fine. I'm not asking you to. Yeah, we just don't know what our numbers look like.

Purely just asking, again, on the number side of things. licensing thresholds versus best practice thresholds, capacity, mechanisms to decrease the budget increase. And the follow up to that is, is there a wait list now? And how big is that wait list?

Yeah, so we are fortunate that we have not had a wait list for Thrive in a few years now. Our numbers have been growing steadily over the last two years in particular, which is great. And again, we haven't been up against a week list yet. So I think there's room for folks that want to sign up still.

Do we only serve Winooski residents, or do we serve folks from the surrounding area?

We're open to anyone from the surrounding area. I would say typically for after school, see almost exclusively kids from the Winooski school district. Summer, we've got a much broader mix of kiddos.

The same family that I was chatting with at the farmer's market also mentioned that child care is just a huge struggle. And so hence the capacity questions.

Just thinking retention as well as, you know, you mentioned we're small, there's not a ton of growth around. Are you, this might be too early of a question, but are you anticipating any increase that would be needed for the director of Thrive?

Seller increase? Angela, Jesse, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't believe so. At least not related to this position, I would say.

Related to the side track or not?

Like, there won't be compression?

Right.

No, there are different grades based on the scoring that we did for those before posting Evelyn's position. Yeah, so I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, Jesse, but I believe the director's at grade five and this position's at grade three. Oh, okay. That's right, yeah. So there's a little separation.

That's based off of the obligations we're requesting. That's at least eight seconds.

And then the program assistants, I believe, are grade two. So there's sort of a step up there.

Yeah, that's a progression. Okay. Any other questions? No. Eli?

No comments remain.

No. In that case, I will seek a motion to approve the Thrive Program Assistant Director position description as presented.

So moved. Second.

All those in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Wonderful.

Thanks, Ryan. Awesome. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You went from safety to slime, but they are all important.

That is city government. All right, discussion, strategic vision, goal, updates. There's a lot of stuff listed here, so you know who you are.

There are, yes. I'm going to go just in the order I happen to write them down. And sorry, Ray, about having you leave, because I'm going to have you go first. In the invitation to do highlights only, actually, did you have anything before I call it grubby for impact fee?

I was going to just make mention of some of the books. Go ahead, please. That was here. Bear with me as I pull that one up. Yeah, I mean, I think certainly overall things are moving along well. A couple areas where things are slower, but for reasons that are... I think articulated here at Bryan Center, namely. But on the parks front, just wanted to highlight Sidra and her work. Sidra Hoffman is our new parks and trails steward, which Council very generously gave the community, also supported as a new position. And it has been fabulous. The amount of things that we've been able to sort of begin to work on, I think at a very kind of surface level, you'll see more weed pulls, volunteer events, just basic maintenance happening in the parks. The dang trees growing in the fence at the tennis court, how many times have I walked by those? And just to have somebody now who can really go out and put some eyes on and focus there has been fantastic. But I think, too, behind the scenes, some of the longer term planning work, we're talking about e-bike and e-moto policy for parts. We're talking about trail safety and getting folks in to give us some assessments on some spaces that we have some concern about. trail signage starting to look at a tool for park quality assessments annually some wetland delineation work so there's a lot of things behind the scenes that before there was just not a desk to land it on consistently and cinder has been fabulous so i just wanted to kind of highlight some of those things And then, crossing my fingers and knocking all the wood, at long last, hopefully next week, we are anticipating that the walls of the pavilion at Landry are going to get razed. We have been waiting. Local developers have generously been willing to support that. But we've been sort of at the mercy of their schedule, so they're going to bring some equipment in and help lift those up. determined and I think Eli kind of weighed in on this too that the sort of barn raising style that I had in my brain as we realized how big those pieces were probably was not safe so so anyhow stay tuned for that but hopefully that next week will be that will be happening that's great if I can chime in quickly um

For whatever entities are helping to support that, please let us know so that we can formally give some acknowledgement there. Yes. Yes.

Absolutely. Yes.

I also just want to note and highlight I'm maybe president of the Sidra fan club. Sidra organized an amazing Japanese knotweed pulling, weeding on the river walk and it was so wonderful. I was there, Councillor Ogilvie was there to just like meet neighbors. It was also so methodical in the way I just showed up with like covered head to toe because I don't know what an introduced species was. But there was a truck, there were tarps, we were just going, it was incredible. We got so much done and we're in need of more mesh, so please give us your mesh. And then maybe like a week or two later, not even, we did the same thing in Memorial Park. And Sidra just showed up, told us what to do. I gained some new knowledge about how to weed whack. And it was just really wonderful. And when I go, I obviously am going because I want to support the city. But I'm also just like, it's really great to be out in community. And I know that we're really trying to do some work around Memorial Park. And so... I know that when you had made that ask during budget season, I personally could like not see the vision because I'm not, you know, in the rec department. But I'm just so grateful that you made that ask. I'm so grateful that she's on this team. And I, as a community member, have been able to just like been and be in her orbit. And I'm so glad that she's here. And I've just personally have learned a lot from her. And I think she's wonderful. So thank you.

Yeah, it's... definitely noticeable, especially when there's emails that come in complaining about something and then it gets taken care of. So it's great to have somebody who can do that.

Anything else? Yeah, credit Ray for that strategy too. I didn't know if we could find someone for a job like that, but he knew that there would be a good pool and he was right.

As somebody that's done that job, there's lots of folks that want to do that job. I know you've only mentioned briefly, and if the mayor will entertain the ask. I guess I don't know what it is. Fair enough. Status and updates on the O'Brien Center.

Yeah, Elaine can chime in too. I mean, I think not a ton has moved there at a high level. We are continuing to work on fundraising. It's continuing to go slowly. Yeah. We have a meeting in two weeks. I was just wondering when that was. A community meeting, which hopefully we'll get some updates there. I will say on the more kind of brass tacks side, I mean, we were picking out furniture types for the library, so we were really down to that sort of granular level of design, meeting with some vendors last week, Nate and I. So I think on the planning side, we're continuing to move ahead in good faith, but on the fundraising side, it continues to be slow.

And maybe at a later opportunity or by email, you can refresh my memory, Council's memory, around our policies on accepting donations the process for making sure that that is followed appropriately?

Yeah. I mean, the fundraising campaign is being managed through CHT. OK. So that's their policy. All right. So it's outside of that. Yeah, it's outside the city channels. Good to know.

Great.

They have very much accepted donations. Good to know.

Anybody in the community is interested. All right. Indeed.

Thank you for the reminder.

Generally, donations, fundraising drives need to be approved by council. So that's the high level of that.

Yeah.

All right. I did say impact fee, but actually I'm going to have John come up first because he gets up way too early in the morning. Sure.

That's not good. I don't like getting up early. Sure.

Thank you. I'll try to be brief. So a couple of ours, recruitment, retention, I think I spoke about. You know, to paint that picture with the Elm Call folks, we're at three part-time officers, two certified firefighters, and we have currently three that we're doing an in-house counting class with. So we're hopeful that we get them into their first steps. And then probably most exciting is we have four interviews on Wednesday. Nice. So we're very excited about that, obviously. And then on the planning for fire and EMS delivery models, I think a big thing I want to keep in front of council is the RFP that will go out for EMS services. I would like to acknowledge the president of the St. Mike's Rescue, fire rescue, Pete Soon is here tonight. So I want to acknowledge him being here tonight. So that will go out. Obviously, there's budgetary impacts with that. It's just we've really tried to, with the help of the managers, trying to get things lined up with... The latter came, 111. And then just below that is July 1. Our dispatchers downstairs took over both fire and EMS. So that was a big lift. Again, several years of that discussion. Several years of joint consolidated dispatching. But we were able to bring it local as kind of an alternative. And I want to just acknowledge St. Mike's um our dispatchers colchester police um dispatching you know there's a lot of collaboration because st mike's goes to both communities and how does our dispatcher and their dispatcher know when they're gone when they're in so there's a lot of you know efforts um and All that seamless on July 1 when we switched over and I'm not hearing any big issues. We are seeing the data we need to see as far as call volume here in the new ski starting to understand our daytime staff goes if it's a 2nd, 3rd. last week it was the sixth ambulance that was here in the city um so it does happen and it is although we're not providing patient care we are putting someone a familiar face to the patient's side and that's super important so kudos to folks that are that made that happen and continue to invest in that thank you thank you john thanks all right now ruby thanks impact fee

Robbie did the heavy lift on this, so I want to give him the time to talk about it.

Just before Robbie comes up, is there any public comment on anything we've talked about up until now? I'm not seeing anything online. Thank you.

OK. So impact fees. Impact fees generally are tools that we can use to offset costs that are that are due to an added impact from development. So impact fees are based off of a calculation and it is used for a particular capital item. And it's a fee that's taken during the issuance of a zoning permit or a subdivision permit for a new, typically a new unit, a new dwelling unit. And so going through the list of the limitations, it can only be used for a specific capital item, so a sidewalk or a fire truck. It can't be used for day-to-day general operations. Whatever we collect for that particular capital item, it has to be used within six years of the date of the fee collected. If they're not used, they have to be refunded to the individuals who paid for the impact fee. And crucially, the capital item the impact fee is tied to must be necessary to provide a higher level of service for the municipality that's expected to need that higher level of service. So, for example, for a Hypothetical, if we have a green field and we were expecting hypothetically like 500 new units and it was going to put stress on an intersection, then an impact fee hypothetically could be levied to improve that intersection because it needs to be an improved level of service for that increase in development and the impact of that development on the roadways. So anticipated level of service can be used, can be calculated based on population growth, household growth, or peak hour trip ends. So with all of that in mind, I reached out to CCRBC for guidance on impact fees and how they've guided other municipalities on impact fees. Looking at other capital improvement plans from other municipalities, typically impact fees are assessed for multi-million dollar capital items. And it's very much tied to a new development or to of population growth or development. So considering this and talking to CCRPC more in detail, we were looking at particular improvements we were considering for City Hall and for Fire Station and we were wondering could an impact be offset this. We weren't really able to find a connection between a higher increase in capacity with the work that we were looking to do in both locations. Alongside that, the ticket item for those improvements is significantly smaller than what impact these are typically collected for. CCRBC basically said that this use isn't really worth the squeeze. That the amount of work that you're putting to collect that impact fee, even if you do expect a higher increase in capacity from that capital item, it's not going to be worthwhile for the administration aspect of it. um so that's impact fees from like a general level looking at this particular context um i think john rashford can probably provide more specific context uh whisky did do an impact fee study six years ago um looking into transportation impact fees and how that could be collected and how that could be used for particular capital improvements, sidewalks, and whether that was worthwhile to pursue at that time.

Thank you. I know that we've been talking about for a long time. Years. And that was something that the Deputy Mayor specifically talked about, so I'll turn it over to you after. I do appreciate the research that you put into this, and I appreciate your memo. I'm not forming a thought here. But I know that community members are concerned with the growth that we have in the city, and even from people who support the growth and want the growth, but realizing that there are impacts in the community as a result of that growth. So I appreciate the conclusion that you came to with the research you did. I do just, you know, I toy with the fact in my mind where folks are like, seeing repercussions and wanting us to do something about it and thinking about how, yes, money can only be used on specific items or on capital items. But then I think, yeah, there's probably a lot of capital projects we could use the money on. I don't think we could come up with something in six years that we could use the fees from an impact fee on. I'm glad to get the update. I don't know. Have any commissions looked at this at all? I think the answer is no, but has planning looked at it? No.

I think the key piece is not just what we have that's on our capital plan. It's making sure that it is tied to increased growth. that we are anticipating for that particular improvement, and whether when we do the calculation, because we can't do the calculation in-house, we'd have to hire someone to do the calculation for that specific impact fee, and whether the calculation pans out and actually aligns with the cost of that capital item for the growth that we are expecting. Alongside all of this is determining whether the benefit is shared across the entire city or whether it only benefits a small portion. Because if the benefit only affects or improves a small portion, then only that small portion would pay the impact fee. It has to be directly proportional to who's getting the impact. and who's getting the benefit from it. So it wouldn't be shared depending on what the capital item is that you're looking to fund.

Yeah, I think just as our city grows and the reality that the most available growth will be vertical growth, And then thinking about increased stress on our roads and sidewalks. Lime striping, one of my favorite topics. Traffic calming, another favorite topic. And just trying to mitigate the adverse effects impacts of that growth. I think Angela's noted on many occasions that the grand list only adds, you know, per dollar, a grand list growth only adds so much to the tax base, but that's, we've had several conversations in our retreats that that doesn't, is anywhere, will not meet the offset for community services and capital improvements that we know will be on the way, that are needed anyway, but with the additional stress will be on the way. Just it's disheartening from what I've heard from the community and just from one constituent tonight that it's really disheartening that there isn't a clear pathway and mechanism to try and mitigate that overall tax increase.

Eli.

There's supposed to be a question. So actually, I didn't know impact fees had a six-year deadline in terms to spend the money. But I'm curious if, for example, a location is developed, could the developer impact fee be applied to a different street for their sidewalk? Or does it have to be directly on their road? I was curious how flexible the impact these could be on the location.

it it really depends on what the capital item is so if it's going to be a benefit for the entire municipality then any new unit added to over time would have to pay for the impact fee for that city-wide benefit if it's going to be localized particular location then any unit in that particular location would have to pay the impact fee for that benefit in that location. It just depends on the capital item and the benefit of that capital item to the entire city.

Okay.

Does that kind of answer your question? Kind of, yeah.

Kind of an example I didn't come up with to be like, oh, let's do this. So I'm just going to throw examples and tell me how far I'm going. So if we, for example, want to redo all the clouds they have for infrastructure upgrades, and we know it's going to be a needed update in the next 10 years, but at the same time, the gateway is being allowed to be completely redesigned and allowed for more density, Could we set an impact fund for Malice Bay Ave because we foresee more need for sidewalks, sewer, water type of thing? Would that be an appropriate use of impact fees?

I mean, it just depends on how we do the calculation and whether we're projecting growth on Nolte Bay Avenue, how much growth we're projecting, and whether it's what we're... Again, John, you can probably speak more to this, but about upsizing our lines in order to... increase the capacity for our lines for the benefit of that particular area for that growth. It just depends. Yeah, go ahead.

Sorry, I see Angela. Angela's probably going to say the same thing I was going to say too. So for water and sewer specifically, we do have an expansion fee that developers pay for the additional capacity that they will need for our water distribution system, water supply, and treatment plants. So, we do have a fund set up if we are, say, replacing water and we need to add additional capacity and we get larger diameter, we can use those funds to support that on the water sewer side. And one thing on that transportation side that Robbie mentioned earlier, So say, for example, Mount Bay. If we did, say, reconstruct that street, you could not use an impact fee to replace existing sidewalk. So impact fees are only if you're filling a gap for sidewalk locations. for Main Street is the additional width of sidewalk that we're adding, because now we're going a little bit wider. And, you know, potentially the bike lane paint, if you're using, if you're looking at the peak trips, not in vehicles, but just all users, which is something you probably have to do when you see, because you can't really just rely on vehicle trips. Okay, so I think I'm understanding how

complex this would be. For each, let's say hypothetically there was three distinct impact fees, three developments that were coming in, three distinct needs, these timelines were perhaps staggered. You know, one's coming in in October, okay, so how much commingling of these, of the fees could be allowed? Is the third party that is required to track these fees, would that have to be distinct for each one? Is there any How difficult would it be to collect small fees and combine them into one cohesive vision? We want to upgrade sidewalks on Mallets Bay. There's three distinct developments coming in on Mallets Bay. Could we pool that? Is that making sense, my question? Yeah.

On the, I can speak to the collection side. I think that the monitoring and evaluation side, I think Angela can probably speak more to on how we track it. But on the collection side, it would just be noted in our zoning permit applications They just say, like, impact fee or impact fee for, like, Mallet's Bay expansion or something like that. And then I would have some sort of map that shows which properties are subject to the impact fee. Or maybe if it's citywide, then it would be a citywide map showing, like, the impact fee affects the entire city. And then I would collect the impact fee with the zoning permit fee. So in order to pay off the entire zoning permit fee, you've got to pay the impact fee as well. And I collect zoning fees when I receive a complete application. Okay. So I would receive the fees accordingly and then Angela would then track it. And so the tracking part is on Angela to make sure that each of the lines are separated and how we collect it and those lines are consistent over time.

Okay.

Right?

Steve, can you show Angela so she's nodding?

Angela is nodding.

Thanks, Angela. So each individual fee is, in fact, its own timeline, its own project, its own budget, its own third-party tracking, its own reporting.

Yes, because each one is a unique calculation.

And it's not tracked by a third party. We track it in-house.

And we might break that department if we did that.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions, thoughts, comments?

Has there been any discussion at the State House on impact fee reform?

Not that I'm aware of, no.

Have other municipalities struggled with uncovering these opportunities and executing them?

It's a good question because I feel like when I read the, you know, I follow the weeklies in Vermont about once a week. And they always cover municipalities because we're a relatively accessible way to get news. Anyway, the point is I feel like impact fees come up quite often. I don't hear anyone complaining about them. They're just like, oh, wouldn't this be a good idea? And that's kind of where I came into this conversation. it's like, yeah, it makes sense. But like, you know, you're seeing the limitations of how it's written are, they make it very hard for a place like Winooski to take advantage of. So I don't know if that's happening elsewhere, but if it's something that you wanted to look into, that would be a good option for your legislative agenda that you adopt generally in December or January.

From what I'm aware, this is how impact fees are generally assessed. Because for planning and zoning, there has to be a rational nexus between the fee that you're assessing and where it's going towards. And it has to be directly proportional. So it seems pretty standardized in terms of zoning nationwide. This is how you typically would do impact fees. There's an impact, and that impact has to have a connection, and the fee that's collected has to be connected to what exactly that impact is, and it has to be proportionally distributed.

Yeah, the commentary along those lines is that if we want housing, creating more challenges to development is probably not going to be viewed very kindly.

I guess it all depends on who's the eye of the boulder there.

Yes.

Do you notice Do any of you know, I guess, how much support CCRPC offers by way of navigating impact fees, if any?

So they support with impact fee studies. They helped us out when we did the impact fee study six years ago through the Unified Planning Work Program. from the FHWA. It comes at a discount for transportation-specific impact fee calculations. If it's anything non-transportation related, then we'd have to pay the full fee. And a CCRPC could help manage that project. That would be done by a consultant. But we would still be responsible for paying for that consultant to do the impact fee calculation.

OK. I may have other questions, but I'll leave it there for now.

Any comments from members of the public? All right.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ruby. So that's it for the Safe, Healthy, Connected People highlights. Does counsel have any questions about anything else on there? All right, I'm going to text Justin that he can stand down then. Next we'll have housing, please.

Hello.

all right so this is the final update for last fiscal year which i feel like is always hard because i feel like when i go retro actively the time between when i have the end of it now i feel like a lot of stuff always happens You can ask questions about the new stuff, but the update is that quarter Okay, so for all of the policies They're mostly all proceeding as planned Changes from last time I changed equitable equitable housing needs assessment from proceeding slower to proceeding as planned and since I would say it's on track now. Armory lot proceeding slower than planned, but still proceeding, and then PLANS REVIEW HAS BEEN NOT PROCEEDING. SO A FEW JUST QUICK HIGHLIGHTS. SO HOUSING AND PLANNING COMMISSIONS HAVE BEEN MEETING AND DISCUSSED TOPICS INCLUDING BUILDING TYPOLOGIES, INFILL HOUSING AND PRIORITY HOUSING INCENTIVES, WHICH WERE THEN PASSED THROUGH PLANNING COMMISSION AND THEN APPROVED BY COUNCIL. For the housing needs assessment, we've moved through into the community engagement phase and 10 stakeholder interviews have all been completed over the past few months with members of our project advisory committee. The PAC, as we're calling it, are community leaders and liaisons, kind of in each group that's represented in the project. Rezan is actually one of our PAC members for youth. So she was there and we did our first focus group in May up at the high school. And we had six youth who came and talked about personal experience with housing in Winooski. And we're feeling very positively about the next six focus groups that have and continue to be happening through this next fiscal year. Let's see, so for the armory, we continue those efforts. First project design was denied by the DRB and the resubmittal was approved. Phase two environmental testing was completed in late 2025 and the final report was issued in January. which recommended a corrective action plan specifically for soil management. The project's environmental consultant is finalizing the draft cap and will submit it to Vermont DEC for review and approval this week. The CAP approval is expected by the end of next month. And then contractually, we've also executed addendums for purchase and sale with the guard and option agreement with CHT since we're past our previous sale date. For short-term rentals, well, I was going to say we're in a new license year, but no, not on this. We ended the year with only one property out of compliance, and it was just fiscal, so it wasn't code, which is good. And I will say we were notified of the first property complaint that was specifically related to a short-term rental. CONCERNING AN ELECTRICAL ISSUE, AND CODE ENFORCEMENT STAFF LOOPED ME INTO THAT VERY QUICKLY, AND YEAH, WHICH I FEEL LIKE WAS A GREAT, BECAUSE WE HAVEN'T HAD ANY SPECIFIC PROPERTY COMPLAINTS ABOUT SHORTAGE RENTALS. That's to be continued. And as you all know, City Council voted to keep the cap at 50 for non owner occupied short term rentals. And our total number of licenses at the end of last year were 54. Let's see. For the airport, I will say the only update is that there will be a presentation on the noise mitigation program at the September 21st meeting. So if anyone's interested, they can come listen to those exciting updates. And then the cash funding, which is Chittenden Accountable Community for Health or something, which is funding through UVM Health Network, that I worked with a few members of the school district to apply to last year. I got the update that all $20,000 of those funds were used within the past just one school year. And they were primarily used, I'm working on getting a little bit more specific data But they were primarily used on security deposits, back rent payments, and past due utilities for families, specifically with vouchers. And Jenny Davis, who works at the school, said specifically it helped prevent eviction for folks who had vouchers. So they're grateful for that. But obviously not a great sign that it was used so quickly.

I guess one thing that may be worth mentioning that I think you are on the

The project made for is searching for a new executive director for the Winooski Housing Authority.

That didn't happen until after July 1st.

Fair. But yes, that's great. But the knowledge of, right? Yes, yeah.

So that's something that will be coming ahead this fiscal year. And then also not retroactive but forward-looking is just some potential attention on abandoned, vacant, blighted properties. And just seeing what we can do to make those utilized again. I noticed some work on Main Street. Is it Cross Street again?

Stevens?

Stevens, yeah. So exciting to see some heavy equipment over there.

Could be heavier.

True, yes.

It's a start. But it is, no, it's definitely welcome.

It's a start.

As Main Street came to a close, a lot of the staff was like, it'd be nice if it all looked roughly similar.

Thank you. It's exciting to have... Some more insider knowledge now that I'm on the Housing Commission. I appreciate it. I know.

And the Woonoski Housing Authority ED, the retirement was announced for March of 27, is that right? April? Yeah.

Just for everyone's awareness. Yeah, I think the hope is that there will be a few months of overlap. And they are doing a national search for that. So they have started kind of some community engagement. I think that there's plans for broader engagement as well.

housing authority no but it is an intrigue to us jasmine is on the board yeah searching for an ed but um our discussion here isn't because we oversee them in any way no just representation on the board cool thank you jasmine thank you thank you

Up next, we have cross-cutting, and we're going to start with equity, just to highlight there. Angela and Jasmine both worked on this. I'm going to have Angela talk briefly about it.

Sure. One of the things that we encountered with focus groups when Yasmeen was here on staff was the members of our community can't complete our onboarding process for accounts payable. They don't have tax IDs or they don't have bank accounts.

Sorry, so Yasmeen Gordon was our equity director five years ago. Yes.

So we took some time when we wanted to go out and do focus groups again to do some surveys with partner agencies who do focus group work and figure out a path for being able to compensate every member who participates in a focus group regardless of their ability to be able to complete that paperwork. So we have some now flexible payment procedures that account for those barriers so that they can get those appropriate financial controls through having a cash custodian who receives signatures to show that somebody has received their payment for participating in the focus study. And we are manually tracking all compensation to ensure that we do not trigger any tax ramifications from the IRS. But we wanted to make sure that everybody who was participating was being compensated and not just those completely taxed people.

There was some effort involved on Angela's part to make this possible, so I appreciate her commitment to equity and making that possible. And Jasmine for advocating for the people that she knew we needed to hear from for the Equitable Housing Needs Assessment that led to this breakthrough.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

And the creativity, Angela. It was some research too. How can we do this? And then regarding cross-cutting six with parking, we haven't had any luck getting any volume of new leases in the parking garage. Even since this quarter update from last fiscal year, once we did the direct mailing to landlords, I don't think we got any new inquiries. So my next step is to follow up more personally with the bigger landlords in the hope of shaking a few out. And I don't have anything to highlight for economic vitality for that quarter. Any questions from council on goal updates?

I haven't read your email yet, so I'm sure there might be more information in there, because I had asked Elaine about the parking garage. It's a stress I know you're carrying, and as we get closer, it's a stress I'm starting to feel as well. I know you're working on it. Please let us know how we can help. That may not be anything. I wish I knew.

I wish I had an idea, yes.

Just continue to keep us updated as we get closer to that. Yep. Thanks.

All right.

All right. Thanks. Well, it's 8.42.

That's it. All right. Well, I had said if we were, I would only start this discussion at 8.30. I was sticking to that. So any comments from members of the public? All right, with that, then, I will seek a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting.

So moved. Seconded.

All those in favor? Aye.

Aye.

All right, everybody, thank you so much. Staff, thank you. Thank you. Have a good night, everybody.