City Council - Regular Meeting

I will now call to order this meeting of the Winooski Cannabis Control Board. We, well, this doesn't have a call. So, Jenny. Cannabis Control Board.

No, I'm not. That's Revy.

Oh, it's Revy. Revy, are you online?

That's me.

Yes, this is a renewal and staff won't have any concerns about it. And they were actually the first one in the city. So longer track record. Does the council have any questions?

No questions from me. I will note for folks who this isn't related to approving their application here, but they have been big supporters of downtown Winooski, so I just want to take the moment to thank them for all of their past support and appreciate them being good community partners there. Council, do you have any questions? No. All right. In that case, I will seek a motion to approve this application.

So moved. Seconded.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Wonderful. Time is 6-04. We will end the cannabis control board meeting, and we will move over to opening up the liquor control board meeting.

This one does have it.

I will, Deputy Mayor, I won't have you do it. We'll also do the Pledge of Allegiance, which I will leave. 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.

Okay.

Jenny.

Good evening. So this is just Council has already approved the third class license. The Department of Liquor and Lottery allows two payment options and six month intervals. So this is just a formality. Staff has no concerns.

Wonderful. I know that there are some council questions about this. I saw a lot of answers came in just before our meeting. So, councillors, I don't know if you have time to look over those answers yet or if you'd like to ask your questions now.

Actually, I don't think that I answered those questions by email, but I do have the answers, and I don't know that they're pertinent to the renewal, so I'm happy to send those offline.

Okay.

And I think because they touch on finances, I don't even know that they're necessarily appropriate to share publicly.

Sure. Deputy Mayor.

That's fine.

That's fine, okay. You can share those offline on the line. Oh, perfect. Any other questions?

No.

All right, in that case, I will seek a motion to approve the application.

So moved. Seconded.

All those in favor? Aye. Wonderful, thank you so much. Thank you. At 6.06, we will close the control board. At 6.06, we will open the Winooski City Council meeting. We're going to start off with agenda review. Councilors, do you have anything on tonight's agenda you would like to talk about, review, or change? No. All right. So we'll move on to public comment. The city of Woonoski encourages public comment during city council meetings. If you would like to give public comment, we'll ask you to sit up at the table, speak into the microphone clearly. Oh, just a moment. State your name and where you live. You will direct your comment to city council. Staff may follow up if appropriate, but if not, just direct those comments to us, please. I'll ask that you keep your comments to about two minutes. If you need a little more time, just let me know. If you're attending online, you can test your camera and mic before joining, just so that we can have that all squared away for you. We'll always start with attendees in the room, so do we have public comment in the room? Please come up.

Thank you. My name's Betsy Nolan. I live here in Winooski. And I am here today because earlier this summer, I got a parking ticket in downtown Winooski. It was totally my fault. I accidentally parked my friend's car instead of the car that I was driving. But I was totally willing to pay the ticket. In the week following it, I lost track of the ticket, knew in my head that I had a ticket to pay. 17 days after I got the ticket, I went online to pay the ticket and found that it had doubled. And I was really surprised because I think that a turnaround of less than 30 days to pay a ticket is not in line with the values that the city of Winooski seems to uphold. I am currently at a time in my life where I'm not on a shoestring budget, but I am a public school teacher and had a lot of debt when I got out of school and was on a shoestring budget for the first 20 years of my career. And even though $25 doesn't seem like a lot of money, I might not have had that in two weeks. And so I just wanted to come down here and say that I think that 30 days would be a more appropriate turnaround for someone to get a ticket and then also get the money together to pay the ticket. and that having it double at the 15-day mark or the 14-day mark just seems like it doesn't make a lot of sense. I also know because I have also gotten a parking ticket in Burlington. I believe in paying for parking just so we're clear. But I got a parking ticket while I was at work in Burlington because there's not enough parking in my parking lot, and so I had to park on the street, got out of work late. Anyway, yada, yada. But they do give you 30 days to pay a ticket in the city of Burlington, and it seems like that would be a more reasonable turnaround for the people of Winooski and the people outside of Winooski who are choosing to park in our city. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your comments.

Thank you for being here.

Is there any other public comment in the room? All right, let's see. Have a good day. There's nobody online. All right. So with that, we will move on to our consent agenda. On tonight's consent agenda, we have Approval of city council meeting minutes August 3rd and September 2nd. Look at control board minutes August 3rd. Payroll warrants of July 19th to August 1st, then August 2nd to August 15th, August 16th to the 29th. Accounts payable warrants August 26th and September 6th. Approval of the resolution for Hispanic Heritage Month. Approval of Chittenden County Regional Claiming Commission Committee corrected appointments. approval for the downtown Winooski letter of attestation, approval for the local resources advisory board reappointments, approval for an event permit for West River Street's block party, approval for external commission's representative quarterly report on the ATV, and discussion approval for a printing and mailing of the Justice of the Peace candidates on the back of the general election ballot to all active non-challenged US citizen voters.

Sorry, that should have, last one should have been more approval only, not discussion.

I did, I was, I saw, I was like, okay, well, that's okay. Deputy Mayor, I see you have your hand up.

I'm wondering if I need to abstain from the September 2nd meeting minutes.

Because you weren't there?

Correct.

I don't think you have to. Correct.

Okay.

But I appreciate the question. Any other questions on the consent agenda, council?

None.

All right. In that case, I will seek a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda.

So moved. Seconded.

All those in favor? Aye. Wonderful. We'll move on to council reports. Eli, let's start with you.

All right. So on August 27th, the Municipal Infrastructure Commission met and we had some wonderful conversations. We spent the majority of the meeting discussing infrastructure and what's been working and what hasn't been. The commission also was updated on the citywide traffic coming study that was conducted this summer. The city expects to receive the final report in the coming months. And lastly, we reviewed the DPW fiscal year 2027 priority list. If folks would like to read more about the Commission's discussions, the unofficial minutes are posted on the Winooski City website.

This is a hefty council update. On both August 5th and September 2nd, the Burlington Airport Commission met, and I want to remind folks that on September 21st, later this month, the team from the Burlington Airport Commission from the Burlington Airport will be here specifically to update Winooski residents. And also I have had a few Colchester residents reach out. And so neighboring residents are obviously welcome to attend as well. And the team from the airport will specifically be updating us around the sound mitigation work that they're doing. And so that is our next city council meeting on the 21st. The downtown Winooski board met on Wednesday, August 19th, and we are preparing for our next event, which will be this, nope, next Wednesday, September 16th, which is our annual Winooski Pride event. This is an event that is welcome to all. ages, families, everyone should come. New UVM students are obviously welcome to come. It's really amazing. We have DJs. Specs will be there distributing drinks. We have food. And so I will be there. It's one of my favorite events of the year, outside of maybe Halloween. So I highly, highly recommend that if everyone is around, you should come. Other things that I want to highlight were the Winooski School District held an amazing back-to-school barbecue that Councillor Goodrich, Councillor Ogilvie, and myself, and Elena, our amazing city manager, were there. And we were volunteering. And I just wanted to thank that partnership between us and the school district. We've had a pretty easy back-to-school. I have been a greeter there in the mornings, which has been really wonderful to see the kiddos and open the doors for them. Pre-K started today, which has been great. And then I want to give a big shout out to the Winooski Community Services Department. I joined them on Thursday, August 13th for a Landry Park cleanup. And Sidra, who's our... trails parks and trails steward has been doing an amazing job organizing these and She and I met and talked about potentially doing a bird walk Which I'm really excited about and so I just wanted to say that they're doing some amazing work And I'm super grateful for them and then this Saturday September 12th September 12th at 8 30 a.m. I'm organizing our newly what we're calling the Winooski cleanup crew and so we'll be meeting at 8 30 outside of Spex on 7 West Canal Street. This is the second time that we're doing this. It was so successful in the month of August that folks asked me to bring it back. I will be distributing latex gloves. I'll have garbage bags, buckets, et cetera. And so we do a loop around the circle, and then we sort of distribute off into neighborhoods as well. And so if folks are interested, I posted that on Front Porch Forum, or you can follow up with me directly. But it's just really about keeping our city clean, and it's just, you know, we pick up trash together, we meet neighbors, we connect. It's really wonderful. So thanks.

We're in.

I don't have really many updates. I want to thank the counselors for covering for me while I was away in August. And Safe Healthy Connected people for September has been canceled due to lack of agenda items. and Housing Commission has been canceled for the same reason. CSWD will meet at its regular time on the fourth Wednesday of the month at 6 p.m. at their offices in Williston or available online. And the agenda for that will be posted the week before the meeting.

Thank you.

The Finance Commission met August 18th. The First Order of Business was electing a new secretary, so thank you to Autumn Crabtree. The primary topic of the meeting was a discussion around the community outreach efforts for the economic vitality section of the comprehensive plan open house series. Since we had low turnout, limited public feedback for that section. The commission brainstormed some process improvements and ideas while recognizing the limitations the city has to actually implement those. And members suggested after the process is done, the city could debrief and reflect on what worked for outreach to reflect and improve future engagement. Their next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, September 15th, next Tuesday. And I covered the August Housing Commission meeting for Deputy Mayor Oakleaf. At the August 25th meeting, the Housing Commission received a presentation from the director of planning on the building typologies report and a presentation from the housing director on the fiscal year 2026 landlord survey. One of the primary takeaways of that survey is that Winooski's housing market or rental housing market appears to be less competitive than it was last year, suggesting some easing of market pressures compared to recent years. And then due to low attendance, the other items were postponed until a later meeting.

I don't actually have any updates because Planning Commission didn't really meet since we last met. So they will be meeting this Thursday, however, at 6.30. Planning Commission meets here in City Hall. You can also watch online. And as always, I encourage folks to attend Planning Commission meetings. There's a lot of work that gets done there that has to do with what our city looks like and what it will look like, which is very important to a lot of residents. So I encourage your attendance. Elaine, city updates.

Yes, thanks. Many thanks to everyone who did attend and provide feedback during the comprehensive plan open house series events of the summer that Councillor Goodrich was just speaking to. If you could not attend or are new to this process, the city of Winooski must readopt a municipal plan, which is a high-level plan that guides the city's future, by the end of 2027. The current plan, known as the Master Plan, is being updated and will be called the Comprehensive Plan. Community feedback is needed to guide the comprehensive plan, so if you haven't already, please take a moment to fill out a community survey by visiting WinooskiVT.gov slash plan. There is one survey per area of, per topic area, meaning land use goals and actions, meaning how does Winooski change and grow, municipal infrastructure, which you could translate to mean how does Winooski improve our water, sewer, storm water, transportation, and energy network. Economic vitality, translate that as how does Winooski maintain and or expand our economy. safe, healthy, connected people, or how does Winooski improve livability, parks, community programs, health, and safety? And for context, there is no survey for the housing section as that is being shaped by the ongoing Equitable Housing Needs Assessment process. Secondly, and lastly, road repair and resurfacing began today and will occur until September 18th. That road work includes Brisson Court, North Street, Cedar Street, Dufresne Drive, and Pine Grove Terrace. For details about this work, including the schedule, traffic impacts, parking restrictions, and driveway access, please visit WinooskiBT.gov slash news.

Thank you. All right, we'll move on to our regular items. Regular item A is discussion approval. Grant agreement with Vermont Community Development Program for pedestrian access to Casablanca Natural Area to reimburse Nettie Real Estate for eligible construction costs and related council actions needed. John.

Actually, that'll be me. We're a thin staff here, so we cover for each other when we need to. Getting back to that note. One minute, please. All right, so there are two parts to this item. First, the grant agreement. I'm mostly reading from the cover sheet, so if you digested that and memorized it, you can meditate for a minute. So for the grant agreement, in 2019, the city issued a request for proposals to develop a parcel of land to the east and on the southern end of an Abenaki Way. The city selected Nettie Real Estate as development partner for that parcel. Part of the original development plan was to improve pedestrian access from Abenaki Way to the Casavant Natural Area. The state managed Vermont Community Development Program, or VCDP. That program funds such improvements on a competitive basis. The city can only access this grant money on a reimbursement basis. During City Council's December 5th, 2022nd meeting, City Council kept the city's contribution on financing or alternative funding for the garage portion of the overall development project at $11.6 million. The city has already met that commitment, so one might think of this grant as exceeding that amount. However, the city would not be able to get this grant money but for the development partner expending to construct the pedestrian access. So another way to look at it is that it is cost neutral to the city. Further, the pedestrian access is an improvement over what was imagined during the request for proposals. It's of a higher quality material and is ADA accessible now, handicap, just more, I can't remember the correct terminology for that, more accessible to people with mobility challenges. The draft grant agreement is in the council packet. Some of the details may change, but the pedestrian access is already constructed, so the details of what we would actually want to see in the ground are set. and not in question. The second part to this item is related council actions needed. Although these actions are technically within the grant agreement, it's best to be clear about these particular requirements. The source of the VCTP funds is the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Community Development Block Grant. HUD requires grantees, including sub-grantees, as the city would be in this case, to adopt certain actions. These are adopting a residential anti-displacement and relocation plan, and the adoption of a variety of policies and codes. They really do run the gamut of variety. The residential anti-displacement and relocation plan regarding that as noted in the packet, it commits the city to minimize displacement of people from their homes from the project and provide relocation assistance to all low to moderate income households displaced by activities assisted with those funds. No one was actually displaced by this project, so you can comfortably adopt the plan. All language in black in the draft provided in the packet was provided by VCDP, essentially replaced the blank with the word Winooski, things of that nature. Regarding the adoption of policies and codes, as also noted in the packet, this adoption would commit the city to detailed policies, again, a range of them. I'll list them, there's quite a number. Equal employment opportunity, fair housing, use of excessive force, federal lobbying, code of ethics related to procurement, drug-free workplace, subrecipient oversight monitoring, whistleblower protection, texting while driving, violence against women, and accessibility. All language, again, in black was provided by VCTP. So again, we made very minimal changes to that except to localize it to this community. Staff have no concerns about council adopting either the plan or these policies and codes. I did note to council in an email on Friday that I might have a modified motion for you based on an inquiry I had into the state. I don't actually have that definitive answer yet, and so the modification I would request of council, if you're inclined to adopt it, the motion overall otherwise, is to add, if necessary, at the end of the motion that I proposed in your packet. Does council have any questions?

Do you want both of the motions that you proposed? Yes. And do those need to be separate votes or is together fine?

Separate votes just for clarity.

So council will recall, gosh, I feel like three of our check-ins ago, I had spoken to you all about the first part of this ask. I just want to reiterate, Elaine came to me very cautiously saying, I know you had kind of said that we shouldn't give any more money, but this is how this really plays out. to a lot of talk with Elaine and Angela. I agree that we're not actually giving them any more money. This is a cost material to the city, and we wouldn't be able to access these grant funds, be it not for NITI constructing the bridge. So, which is why I had my conversations with you and referenced that it's something that I approve of, but now we're seeing it in front of us. So, if you do have further questions, I want to make sure that you get those answered now. Brian, I see your hand. Go ahead.

So just a clarifying question that it's truly cost neutral and not just non-labor related expenses that are being considered in that no expense to the city.

Labor expenses, so if I take your meaning that would be including any staff time related to administering the grant So we actually could request such funds to cover that time However, all the relevant staff are salaried. So in that sense it is cost neutral. It's not Really labor neutral or time neutral, but it is cost neutral to the city What's an estimate of time It's, my understanding is that it would be the time required to type in responses into the grant management system. Although we've given rights to the, one of the team members on the developer side to do that, so it might be minimal also on that side. It might just be restricted to the information that we have that they don't have. Most of the information required is information that they have as the developer.

Okay, so like less than five hours if our team were to do it and negligible to nothing if we're able to get the partners to complete that step for us?

That's my understanding, yes.

Okay, thank you for the clarification.

Thanks, Brenda. Any other questions?

Second question. When do we expect the bridge to fully open? Is it fully open?

That I'm not sure. I think it's complete, though. OK.

I was just curious if it was going to be this month or not. All right.

I will seek a motion to approve the city manager to execute the VCDP grant agreement for improvements related to pedestrian access to the Casablanca Natural Area, contingent on executing the agreement between the city and the Nettie Real Estate that ensures compliance with grant requirements. If needed. If needed. Yes.

Thank you. So moved. Seconded.

All those in favor. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Thank you.

And I will also seek a motion to adopt the residential anti, I'm sorry, before I move on. Is there any public comment? Okay. I seek a motion to adopt the residential anti-displacement and relocation plan and policies and codes as presented if needed.

So moved. Seconded.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Wonderful. Thank you very much. All right. Our next item is a discussion, the introduction to the non-union longevity bonus pay policy. Jesse?

I'm here. Made it back. All right. So this is a proposed longevity bonus policy for regular non-union employees who have reached the maximum step of their pay range. The person would provide an annual 1000 dollar bonus to employees who are at the top of their step for the preceding fiscal year and are no longer eligible for a step increase. Part time employees would receive a prorated amount. The intent is to recognize the continued value and experience of employees who have reached the top of their pay range to preserve that institutional knowledge and to provide some consistency with the longevity benefits that already exist in our union contracts. There'd be no financial impact in this current fiscal year. If council ultimately adopts the policy, the first payments would occur in fiscal year 28 and the funding would be incorporated into the individual departmental personnel budgets. Bring it forward now, so that if Council supports the policy, we can account for the cost appropriately as we develop the fiscal year 28 budget.

Awesome Thank you, Jesse. I don't know if this is intentional. I didn't realize it when we met, but coming right off of Labor Day, it's a nice thing to be talking about. I think we spoke fairly recently about trying to help our staff and make sure they feel appreciated and that we are providing for them in the best ways that we can. I forgot to ask you this the other day, Elaine, but how did you get to the $1,000, Jesse? And do you, is that the ask that you were hoping to do or were you hoping to ask for more and you brought it down to $1,000? Just kind of wondering the rationale there.

So the $1,000 was a pre-existing policy that the city had years ago that was removed well before my time. So that's what that's based off of. And it also comes close to what both the AFSCME and the Fraternal Worth Police Unions have in their contracts.

Thank you. Any other questions? Sorry, I can see you again in case you do. Please.

So this is open for discussion, meaning what is the next step after tonight?

So that I'll jump in just so the way the. The policy on written directives was written past several councils ago. Policies aren't supposed to be adopted the same night, which gives you all time to think about it if the public, and policies come to you meaning they affect the whole city as an organization. So it could be that members of the public have questions in the meantime once they've heard the information that's being presented at a meeting. So the next step, if you don't have questions and are otherwise in agreement, you can say so. Or if you'd like to see a change or have more questions you'd like us to look into, you can ask those. Otherwise, we would plan to bring back the item at the next meeting, the 21st, and hopefully have you adopt.

Thank you. No other council questions? Any questions from the public? No? Well, all right. You'll come up and state your name and where you live. And where I live?

Yeah. 10CC West Canal Street. I'd just be curious to find out when, it sounds like this is a policy or we're basing this off a policy of the past. I'd be curious when that policy was assessed and when it was removed. If it was assessed a long time ago, then it might garner a second look to see that it's keeping up with cost of living increases.

Thank you for that. I don't have that answer, but we can either get that to you or I don't know if there's something you can answer now.

Can I ask a piggyback question?

Sure. So this was my other thought. I love that you and I share a brain always. So my understanding is, I'm just going to use myself as an example. I'm a city employee. I reached the end of my pay scale. Does that then mean that I'm not getting a COLA increase and that this is in... In lieu of? Thank you. Thank you. Instead of? Yes. Is that what this is the thought of?

No. No.

That's what I thought. Okay. Go ahead, Josie.

So we've always, everyone's always going to get COLA each year. It's, we have a step program. So when the merit increases happen in July, it's a step and then COLA on top of it. Once they hit the end of the steps, there are no more steps for them to go to. So if they're still getting COLA, this would be a kind of way to soften that they're not getting a step increase.

Would counsel like this question asked or answered from Tim?

If you can answer it easily then yes.

I don't know when it was adopted and I don't know that anyone here does, but I will say that if we change that amount, we would have to revisit the union amounts as well and I'm reluctant to have that potentially more wide-ranging impact on the budget without much more thought around the full budget. but it's a fair point.

All right. Any other questions?

No, just thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Okay. All right. Unless this was... Oh, Deputy Mayor, go ahead.

I just want to add that this... I'm honestly a little surprised that we don't have this in place already. But, you know, better late than never, I guess. The longevity bonus is something that is fairly common from what I understand in municipal government and at least what I've seen at the state level and then with Chittenden Salt Waste District, they have something similar in place. So I don't know what research went into developing this, if other municipalities or the state was looked at. but it's not something that's unfamiliar to me.

Thank you. Okay. Next item, also a discussion, leave pool policy.

Oh, sorry.

Yeah.

Would council like to give some indication as to whether there's any questions or if you're generally inclined to support other than deputy mayor.

Okay. Unless somebody's harboring something.

I do want to be fully transparent. I have not had an opportunity to read the deputy mayor's questions, which I am deeply looking forward to. Not yours. I'm so sorry that I just assigned something.

Well, not all of them are mine.

Okay. So I deeply apologize, Deputy Mayor, that I assigned.

I haven't had a chance to read them either. Okay.

You're excited to read the questions. Thank you.

I'm excited to read the questions and not assign them to a member of council. But I feel confident. I'm so sorry about that.

Jesse, would you like to talk to us about the leaf pool policy?

Sure number 2 for the night. So the 2nd item is a proposed citywide leave pool policy. So we don't currently have a formal policy governing the donation and use use of accrued leave between employees. This proposal creates a consistent process for employees to voluntarily donate accrued leave to a shared pool, which can then be accessed by eligible employees who have exhausted their own leave and are experiencing a qualifying extended absence. The policy establishes the eligibility requirements, donation limits and approval process. So that this is administered consistently across the city. There's no anticipated new expenditure associated with the program. It uses lead hours that employees voluntarily donate and those hours are processed through our existing payroll system. Again, we're bringing this forward now to get council's feedback before returning with the policy for adoption at the next meeting.

Thanks, Jesse. I've seen these types of policies exist in other organizations that I've been in or associated with. My apprehension around these types of things always is... I think we should be trying to encourage people to use their leaves as much as possible from burnout and so many other things. So when we create a policy that enables a group of people who really like to help people to then help somebody else, I worry that they may not use their leave knowing they could help another person. get more leave. Not saying that's a reason not to approve this plan, but just if we do, that could be a consequence that we wouldn't necessarily be looking for. The other question I had was about, I forget how much leave people can carry over year to year. If an employee were to leave, I'm assuming we pay people out for the leave that they have remaining in their bank, This is another thing where I feel like if somebody left, I don't know, they found a job that was somehow greater than working for Winooski, decided to take that job, and they had donated leave, and then were like, oh shucks, I wish I had kept that so that I would have had that payout. Again, maybe not a reason why we wouldn't want this, but those are the kinds of things that could be created by a policy like this. So I just essentially want to make sure that if we institute something like this, that we're, like, directors of departments are still encouraging people to take their leave and use it for themselves so that we can make sure that everybody is thriving as best possible. You don't have to respond to that, Jesse.

Well, I will because that's partly my job. First of all, I appreciate that you're saying that even if it's not necessarily going to affect your particular vote because I agree, it is important for people to take their vacation that the city has decided is important because it is. We don't want people to burn out and using your leave is partly the way to do that. I my sense from seeing the pattern of employees taking their leave is that The because we have this informal policy now that is not Inhibiting people from taking leave the ability to do that and I'm sure there are people who are making a good Choice for themselves by choosing not to donate leave. I will say I that the sick leave bank, which of course is only one type of way to donate, that doesn't accrue and it doesn't, or be on a certain level and it doesn't get paid out. So having that to donate is, I think that, generally the leave, so that doesn't necessarily harm the person as long as we're being judicious about how much they're giving and keeping some for themselves, which my impression is that most people, basically people are. There was one other point I was going to make. What was it? I've forgotten.

It's okay. Appreciate it. Appreciate that it's something you're also thinking about.

Oh, I'm sorry. I remember now. So the city as an organization is also a community. So it has a benefit that we are able to do something communal like this. Councilor, is there a question?

I saw a smile for me.

Is there a maximum that an individual can take from that shared bucket?

Jesse?

So we do not have a, uh, I wanna respond to the things we've discussed. So there is no current maximum for that, what they could take. There is a maximum that people can donate to the leaf pool as well. So I understand we wanna make sure we're encouraging people to take their time off. So that's why we put that in there. Um, and then when it comes to somebody who's donated, uh, or somebody who's, um, leaving and then they've decided to donate everything, we have that carved out in the policy as well about there's like a three month, um, period where. If they donate and then they leave, those hours will not be eligible in the lead pool. They won't be held in there for that reason. Okay.

Did you say my name? I said, let's see if Bryn has anything. I opened up my Zoom. Go ahead.

I would agree that I have not Had time to read through the responses since we get that just before the meeting. Um. Definitely number of questions related to this. I think, um, I 2nd, the mayor's concerns about encouraging folks to utilize their leave time. Um. I also get worried about the ability to donate comp time. I know that some people earn so much comp time that they never use any of their earned leave. Pretty much ever I've seen that, um, when I was a supervisor, um, at the state at the, um, agency of natural resources, um, where there's field staff and they, and just by way of. How the, um, staffing is and field seasons, um, some folks just earn so much that they literally never dip into their earned leave time. So I have some concerns around that being eligible for donation. Um, and then just tracking it. I. I feel like maybe it's straightforward. Um, I'm not sure if that'll be part of the. HR database that you're utilizing, or if it's just a rudimentary spreadsheet. So, um, just thinking of some of the questions of, like, if somebody donates and then. Leaves within 3 months, like, how is that part of the exit protocol? So, I know that some of this blends into procedures that. Council doesn't get to see, but, like, these are things that I think about when I. I'm trying to decide whether or not this makes sense for me to vote positive for. Um, I'll have to take time to read through the answers, um. And see if I have any more questions after that, I guess. Thanks.

Thanks.

We can't address the comp time questions that did make it into the Q and a, but Jesse, if you want to take that 1.

So comp time is capped like the other times that our staff does accrue.

Okay, I have a number of questions. I will echo what the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor said about concerns about policies like this leading to burnout and I would much rather that we ensure that everyone has the time that they need and we look at any time like PTO policies, anything like that that would allow for emergencies before we start borrowing from current employees to cover the need of other employees. I think in fields like this people take their work very seriously and it matters a lot and that kind of vocational martyrdom leads to people perhaps being more giving and more sacrificing than they need when we're already at a risk of a lot of people burning out. So in general I'm a little reticent about these. I also have concerns about vacation time being used as well as comp time because they think a sick leave pool is a lot more traditional. So I would be interested to know if there's a reasoning why this policy is perhaps more broad than a traditional leave pool policy that would only accept sick time.

We can discuss that internally and bring that back to you.

OK. Do you want to comment on what else is in it?

Finish and then yes. I have a few more if you'd like to dive in.

No, it's good.

OK. OK. Sorry, there were a lot of questions. I will own that. So I have not gotten through all the answers yet. The leave of absence, the language here says that employees may voluntarily donate accrued leave to a shared pool that can be used for eligible employees experiencing qualifying medical circumstances or other approved leaves of absence? That's pretty broad. And I think in the answers I'm seeing here, well, I don't know if you'd like to read that or if you'd like me to restate the explanation, but that's a pretty broad explanation of what other leaves of absence can be.

Do you want to just- So could you repeat your question?

Sure. Is there a reason why leave of absence, other leave of absence is so broadly stated in this?

So they're only eligible for a medical leave of absence and then anything that's federally declared disaster. Are you asking if we can tighten up the language around that?

Yep.

That's, yep. That's, yep. I think that would be a lot clearer because otherwise if it's broad, like if there's no rubric or internal guidelines for what that qualifies at, it could lead to it being inconsistently applied. So that's my concern. Okay. So this is currently an informal policy or an informal pool that exists. Do you know how many hours are currently in that pool?

I'll let Angela jump in on that one because I believe she tracks that.

Give me one second.

Angela, the amount of spreadsheets you must have saved in your files.

There are 167 hours in the pooled time off right now. Okay.

Thank you. So I have some concerns around the and I think the deputy mayor said this as well of questions of like when someone leaves if that if the you know they donate time and then they leave within three months if the sick time has no value and Somehow we end up in a deficit. I think that while that could be rare and unlikely to happen That's still a pretty large concern. So I'd like to have a little bit more of a thoughtful discussion on how that would be managed and

Jesse, I think you answered this question. You want to get to that?

I think I did. I'm trying to find my response. Give me just a moment. There's a lot of emails today.

So you had said, as for if the donated time was used and the employee leaves, we would put out a request for donation to cover the negative hours in the pool in the unlikely event that that should occur.

Okay, yes, that sounds like something I would have said.

Yes.

I have concerns with that situation in general, that we could be left with a negative pool, that other employees would be asked to donate to fill that. I'm pretty uncomfortable with that in general.

We have been administering this pool informally for almost five years now, just over five years. We have not had any incident where this pool has dropped a negative in that time.

Yeah, I think it's pretty unlikely, but I'm uncomfortable with the possibility. And I said a lot, so I'll just end on one note that this has been informally running now for like five years and there is like a healthy balance in here. I think codifying this makes it more official. I think it makes it more likely to be publicized and perhaps pressure to be put on employees to donate. And I think that while the intentions around this are probably wonderful and we should all help our coworkers and it's wonderful that people are willing to help, I'm uncomfortable with pressure being put on employees to donate to this pool. That's where I'll leave it.

Thank you. What's our current time off allowance for employees?

It depends on the employee type.

For a non-union employee.

Jesse, are they all the same?

They are not all the same.

No, I've done enough of these union contracts and other contracts where I know they're all different, but I can't remember.

The caps are the same. So non-union staff can earn up to 240 hours of CTO time and 80 hours of sick time and have a cap of 80 hours of comp time, which is mandatorily paid out on the last payroll of the fiscal year if it's still sitting there.

I just want to echo. Thank you. I just want to echo exactly what Councillor Goodrich said, which is the, and I hadn't thought about it in this way, but the fact of like relying on the community, relying on employees to provide a service. And I think of what I was told by either members of the city leadership and or I'm pointing to the mayor because it might have been the mayor where I have like rushed to want to do something in like mainly I think just as a neighbor and a member of the community but then someone has reminded me like you are a member of city council and you won't always be a member of city council therefore like you will not be in this role and so if you want to line stripe the streets someone won't always be there to do that in your role as city council And I think of it in the same sense of this. I'm pointing to Councilor Goodrich because she just said this. In the sense that if we adopt this policy, and hypothetically right now, we have a lot of employees who are like me. I don't take a ton of vacation. I don't have kids, et cetera, whatever. Not that people with kids take a ton of vacation. If they're incredibly giving or whatever, and a lot of people are donating. We see it being a success, etc. But then we will not always have this pool of employees. Then we are, in my opinion, potentially putting a bandaid on a fire hose or whatever. We're not solving for the problem hypothetically. And so that to me is just a thing that like, I'm also, I'm solely echoing what Councilor Goodrich said, but just the idea that like, why rely on the community to fix a need that clearly might, we might need to go back into the physical policy and say, do we need more paid time off? Do we need more sick time? Do we need more comp time? Versus saying like, I think it's really great that you want to go visit an adult in your life, but I just broke my leg and I actually need this. And so that's what was brought up to me, is that framing it in the sense of someone had said to me, we need to have this be a policy that city staff is doing versus city council, because we won't always have this makeup of city council. And I think about the same thing internally.

Thank you. Any comments from the public? Please, if you'll come up and state your name and where you live.

Tom Buckley from Hall Street. It's really more of a question, and I think you've touched on it, whether or not the policies are either the same for non-union versus union or whether or not it's consistent with union contracts that are in place. YOU KNOW, OR IS THERE A CHANCE FOR DISPARITY TO COME OUT OF THIS? OR EVEN NEGOTIATING LEVERAGE? I'M CURIOUS. THANK YOU, TOM.

I DON'T KNOW THAT ANSWER. I CAN SAY SOMETHING THAT'S EASY FOR STAFF, OTHERWISE WE CAN GET THAT TO YOU LATER.

YEAH, THAT WAS ACTUALLY RAISED BY COUNCIL BY E-MAIL, SO AS YOU'VE HEARD, THERE WAS A LOT OF VOLUME, SO THEY HAVEN'T GOTTEN A CHANCE TO ABSORB THAT YET. SO JESSE, YOU WANT TO ANSWER THAT?

I just want to make sure I'm understanding the question clearly. It's that concern about disparity between union members and non-union members for the leaf pool policy, correct?

Yeah, that's correct. Or if there's a disparity, is it in contention?

Okay, so the leaf pool policy would apply to every member of staff, not just union or non-union.

Okay. And the same policy for everybody, if you understand. Same pool. Yeah, same pool, but I mean the same policies as well.

Okay. Right, the union contracts are silent, so then the personnel policy, yeah, would apply. Thomas, if I could. Yes. So I'm curious, and I haven't, of course, talked to staff about this, so they might recommend against this for some good reason that I can't think of at the moment. But I am curious if council would entertain potentially adopting this on a temporary basis, so to speak, and then entertain a proposal during budget time about something different. And I don't know what is possible through the something different, but that's my question for you first right now.

Yeah, I mean, I think what I mean, I am deputy mayor. I know you haven't been able to look over the documents. You may have many other questions too, or any of us who haven't had a chance yet, but I think I'm hearing kind of like an overall desire for maybe looking at the leave policy in general as opposed to just the pool. I recognize also this has been happening, so it's usually good to have a policy for something that has been happening. So to me, I think I would be, I would like the idea of doing something temporary. My suggestion might be that maybe part of what won't be temporary is maybe we look at what our leave package looks like for staff. If we're looking to find, if it seems like some people are needing more time, that we have this leave pool so that people can get more time.

I'm mostly just trying to figure out the use cases for this and wrap my head around it, because I've never had this in any of my employers before. Is there a scenario that you could give me for this, why someone would use this instead of short-term disability or some other form of leave? Yeah. And the examples for it?

Jesse, you want to take that or do you want me to?

Sure, I can provide an example for that. So this would be to supplement to make them whole, as it were, to get to their regularly scheduled hours after they're already taking short-term disability. Say if they're on short-term disability, which is 24.6 hours per week of a 40-hour week, they've already exhausted all their vacation time, all their comp time, all their sick time, and every other time that we've given them, they have the eligibility to take from this to get them to 40 hours.

The use cases that we've seen are, uh, and sometimes it's like someone who's out for a very long time and they've served the city very well for a long time. And so we're wanting to, uh, treat them compassionately beyond what's legally required.

We have also seen people utilize it for FMLA for a family member where they themselves are not eligible for short-term disability. Um, and would be seeking pay to make themselves whole in an alternate manner.

And in your unofficial bucket you have right now, is it, has it just been sick time or has it been all buckets of time?

Um, it has been all buckets of time. It's actually primarily been CTO that has been donated in the last year.

CTOs combine time off, meaning that it's any kind of leave. It's not specific.

Deputy Mayor, I see you have a question.

I was going to respond to the city manager's question about a temporary adoption of some language. I'll say that right now I'm not comfortable with that. um i think i just need to review the responses to the questions i think i would want to you know second a number of the counselors concerns i think counselor goodrich has made a good point about how broad the unofficial policy has been for a while I'm really not comfortable with comp time being one of the options for me. I would, based on that alone, I would vote no. If that is omitted, then I'm probably closer to a yes.

Yeah, I'm pretty uncomfortable with this being a temporary policy. It swings a little far out from current IRS guidance. I'm uncomfortable with comp and vacation time being, like, anything other than sick time being included. I think with some tweaking, I could be comfortable with the temporary policy, but as written, I'm not really...

Has anyone who's not comfortable stated here what could make them comfortable or are there other things that depending on the answers to your questions that might change you think?

I'm personally indifferent. whatever is adopted, but I'm curious to see what staff think on what they prefer.

I also lean on the air of indifference, but maybe I'm really sort of also on Team Goodrich because not that we're choosing teams here, but I just really Yeah, I would want to hear from the staff as well. By hear, obviously you are, you know, their representative, but I would want to know where they stand on this. But I'm, yeah, I'm in the camp of needing to hear more at this time.

And just for clarification, when you're saying staff, do you mean like Elaine, Jesse, and Angela, or do you mean like all of the staff?

No, I mean like all of the staff. Yeah, not leadership team, I mean all of the staff. Sorry, I think you meant clarification. Okay.

Just we so part of the policy and we're in directors is that we were supposed to circulate citywide policies to staff a certain number of days before they go to council and Jesse did not receive any comments. So that's one thing to note So that all that said barring any other comments, of course from council I What will probably happen is we will bring something back. We might ask clarification questions of individual members of council and then just see where that goes.

I have one more comment. It's interesting to hear there was no feedback received. However, I'm not sure how many people would really be comfortable responding to this if it wasn't anonymous. Because I do think that most people want to help their coworkers and love their coworkers and want to support their coworkers who might be in need. And while they might not be opposed to this existing, you know, as something they might not participate in, the invisible external pressures being applied to employees to donate their time is still something that I'm uncomfortable with. And I think if there was an anonymous survey, responses might be a little bit different.

Especially in such a small workplace where, as you said earlier, it's like a community. Thank you.

I appreciate council's interest in protecting staff from burnout.

It's very important to us, which I think we can thank you for helping us know what staff needs. Thanks for the discussion. Let's move on to our next item, discussion approval. Jesse, you're not going anywhere. Reserve request supplemental training budget.

It's me again. You're stuck with me now.

That's all right. We don't get to see you all the time, so this is great.

So this is a request to use $10,000 from the existing reserves to supplement the city's employee training and professional development budget for fiscal year 27. The city has a pool training budget, and over the last three years, we've seen increased use of those funds. This is the first year where the request has exceeded the amount budgeted, largely because there are some professional development opportunities this year that are particularly relevant to city operations and also geographically accessible. We're requesting 10,000 from reserves to take advantage of those opportunities this fiscal year. This would be a 1 time use of reserves and would not increase the ongoing training budget. Any changes to the training budget in future years would be addressed through the normal budget process. The goal is really simply to allow the city to make use of a limited 1 time opportunity to invest in employee training and professional development for this year.

Thank you, Jesse. So, again, you know, we're talking about ways that we can help our city employees here, which I will always advocate for, especially for something like this with training. I note some concerns from counselors about using reserve funds when we have so many asks reserves right now. I shouldn't say right now, this moment, but there are existing asks of reserves that we've had for a few years and things to consider. And also, obviously, we like to keep our reserves as healthy as we can. That said, thanks to A lot of the work that Angela has done, our reserves are quite healthy. And $10,000 out of those reserves isn't a huge ask. The city manager shared with me, usually they would rather be coming to us in a budget conversation and put this into the budget. That is quite a bit out at this point and this money is something that will be needed a little sooner than we do our budget process. I think that the ask is reasonable and the merit of it is something that I can definitely stand behind. Again, I think that this goes towards employee retention. making employees feel like they are valued and therefore ultimately helping with burnout as well. Again, not my favorite thing to see reserve asks, but that is why it's a reserve ask. That's what we have reserves for, to ask for things that are outside the budget year. Councillors, do you have any questions? Eli.

Yeah, I'm just having a hard time following along the spreadsheet. So I'm trying to figure out where the ask is coming from and that's actually about it. I support this. I just want to know where it's coming from.

Angela?

It would be coming out of the pool unassigned reserves.

Is that what fund is that a part of?

Is that part of the operating part of multiple funds? The only ones excluded from the pool reserves are the enterprise funds that have segmented reserves or anything that's specifically assigned or restricted. So it's in a few different places. All of them are city general fund dollars. They get aggregated together for financial reporting, but they are tracked in multiple funds.

And does the previous years that were contributed to it, I'm assuming the reserves that weren't, I'm assuming what the allocated funds from previous years weren't utilized, that they were put in this reserve fund and that's what we're poking into now? Or is it in addition to that? Does that make sense?

I'm not sure what the question you're asking is.

Based off of the quick, cover sheet, it sounds like previous year's contributions to this training material weren't utilized. But now this year it seems to be utilized much more heavily. Am I understanding that right?

That's not how the reserves get increased. It's overall from all of the funds if there's any left over that weren't used out of the budget.

Yeah, it's not specific training.

Right. It is true that this is the first year that the requests have exceeded the budget. So I think last year we came very close. The year before was less close. It's been increasing over the last four years or so. But I wouldn't say that therefore that amount went into the reserve, the amount that wasn't used. It's not dollar for dollar like that. It's fund-wide, funds-wide.

Yeah, okay.

Are you asking why we need the extra $10,000 this year and other years we didn't come close to spending the total amount? No, I'm just trying to follow the money.

I'm mostly just trying to figure out... So I understand where the fund's coming from now. I'm now trying to figure out if we are now... coming in the next couple of years where we're going to need to increase that amount for the budget because we're now. The training amount. Yes. Or have we not used the training for so many years in the past that we have built up the reserves that are like, oh, we actually have a nice reserve because we haven't used the funding for so many years and now we're using it.

So I'm smiling because I remember the first time I got told this by a local government official. The budget basically starts from zero every year, other than reserves that are actually technically left over. So we don't look at it line by line like that. It's, again, fund-wide. So I lost the first part of your question or your scenario.

Would we need to budget this additional $10,000? Oh, yes, right.

So it depends. That is in the Q&A if you want to look at that afterwards. But basically... In years past, because we haven't gotten up to the budget, Jesse has asked for training requests in April. So this is the first year I was like, oh, it's actually over. So that's prompting me to realize that we need to be asking in time for budgeting. So we'll be aiming to do that in the fall this year. So I don't know if it's going to increase. This year's opportunity is rather unusual, and I don't expect it to repeat exactly the same way again, but there might be other circumstances. I also did not foresee this opportunity, so there could be other things that I'm overlooking. Specifically this time, as Jesse was alluding to, there's a national conference that's happening nearby where we can drive a van full of relevant staff to it in one vehicle. And they would all benefit, and the programming would not suffer. That is a very unusual scenario that will not happen every year. Because the other departments are different, they wouldn't be able to do that again, because chances are those conferences are going to move elsewhere. But again, there might be other scenarios, which is why we're keeping it generic and we need that flexibility in that training line item to cover different kinds of opportunities that we don't always foresee.

So yeah, it is a really interesting opportunity. Normally we would send like one or two members because they'd have to fly or whatever. So this way there is an added benefit that so many more members of the department can go. Brynn, I see your hand.

Yeah, I had asked a number of the questions related to this agenda item that I'm also reviewing the responses to. So I'm going to try and keep my train of thought. So bear with me. The one thing I called out is the preliminary reserve tracking sheet and I know Angela responded to this in the questions that we provided ahead of time but there are things in there that may be worth just calling out right now that probably would be excluded or need to be updated or may fall off that sheet that's provided in the agenda packet If you don't feel comfortable doing that, then I understand too.

Excuse me. Sorry, I missed what the question was.

So the second item linked in the agenda is the reserve sheet. The reserve tracking sheet is dated June 30th, 2025. I noted in some of my comments ahead of this meeting that there were items in there that appeared as though they may need to fall off. Or need to be updated. I see in the. Response that an updated sheet cannot be provided because the 26 close is not ready yet. However, I am curious if there's anything that Angela or other staff could call out. As something that likely would fall off. of the reserve from recent discussions. If you want me to be more specific, I would say the, I'm curious about the regional dispatch item. I'm curious about the Champlain pedestrian bridge item, things of that nature. So there's updates staff wanna give there.

Gotcha.

So we've been spending that regional dispatch money on the fit up for downstairs. So like bread loaf when they did their work. So those funds have been being spent. I don't have the update to that number to tell you how much is remaining. The Champlain pedestrian bridge repair analysis, we did hire a firm to do work on analyzing the bridge and its need for replacement. So, those were all costs that had been previously approved by council. For use, I just haven't done the updates for everything here to determine how much of those reserves were spent.

Along the lines of what I was looking for, those are just a handful of examples. There might be other things that need updates. I would imagine.

One thing I will say from the potential unassigned balance that can come off is the RFB, which stands for rotating rectangular flashing beacons, because the state is going to pay for those as part of the bridge project. Yes.

That was the one I noticed. You won't be shocked to know that. Brenna, any follow up?

Yeah. So I'd say having that context is very helpful in getting me personally to a yes.

Understanding what the current asks are of or possible asks are of the reserve balance.

Yeah.

Angela, is there anything, or Elaine, is there anything else on the potential future assignments that you see that has fallen off?

No, but I should say that there might be things coming on. The one which is a complete unknown right now, which is why it's not even on here, although we could put it in with question marks like we have with other things. The Burlington-Winooski Bridge Projects is not even put out to bid yet. So we don't know what the contingency costs are actually going to be. And that is a very expensive project, of which we only have a small share that should be capped. But you don't know what's going to happen with these things. So that is something that I would do well, at least, that I am tracking as a possibility. Same thing with the Hood Street project, the crossing and or the sidewalk project that the city separately bonded for. Same with the garage elevator. So less likely with the garage elevators, my understanding. But there are other things that are not on this list that might someday be on this list.

And one of the things that is listed here does not have a dollar amount, so it's not factored into the totals that you see is the Main Street utility undergrounding. That is likely going to utilize assigned reserves for Main Street out of our capital budget. We have a meeting on Thursday to go through the project to date to ensure that we have sufficient funds set aside to cover that, but we believe that we are able to do so.

Thank you. Oh, any other questions?

Yeah, I'm a follow up question I have is. And I can't see if it was responded to directly in the questions I had or not just yet. I was curious why this dollar amount and not a lower dollar amount.

Yep, Jesse. Or Angela.

The documented training requests exceed the budget threshold by 8,000. We are requesting 10 for a buffer for things that are not specifically requested. So we've done some citywide trainings that cost money, mileage reimbursement for people going to meetings. Those things aren't necessarily requested in advance. So we added a $2,000 buffer on top of the requested trainings.

When are the per diem amounts updated? Is that calendar year along with the mileage reimbursement rates?

We follow IRS per diem. So whenever IRS changes the per diem amounts, including mileage, we adjust as well. So when they change mid-year, we also adjust.

Mid year being December.

So, sometimes they will change mileage reimbursement rates mid year. So I believe they just changed it in July.

Okay, and I believe the per diem rates change October. 1st.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Appreciate that.

Okay, no more questions. In that case, I will seek a motion to approve the use of $10,000 for the training reserve fund to support employee training and professional development opportunities.

So moved. Seconded.

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

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

The time is 7.19, I'm gonna call the five minute break. I'll discuss anything during that break and we will come back in five minutes.

Yeah.

I don't care.

It's not about privacy, it's about regulation. I'm Waller.

Oh, I know.

I mean, I know what that means. I just wanted to name it. And he figured out a way to just kind of do the most important things before the header collapsed on the door. So I think on the gable, that's going to work better. Yeah, how does the inside look?

Is it running wet? No, it's good. It's always been kind of freezing. But it's not, nothing's collapsed. We're already used to the water. Yeah, but I knew I'm going to go up there and pull up here. As long as you respect that. Yeah. I mean, I hate to get the relationship.

She mentioned one point. Yeah.

Not too bad, unless you're hungry. No, I don't think that.

But it works. It certainly works. But you've got to go on with the process.

But yeah, I heard that.

But the Dominican Republic, what? Go somewhere else.

It's your mom. You're traveling with her.

You know how to find it in math? 24. So I'm 24. What do you want in for all of our fruit snacks? What are the fruit snacks you got?

Welch's, baby.

Ooh.

What do we eat in that? I'm sorry.

It's just me and my coffee snack. Oh, absolutely. Thank you. I'm a soccer coach. I'm going to have a snack here.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm don't suffer well somebody else isn't no no we have suffered enough

Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm.

Oh, I'm trying to picture more of this.

Right now, I'm holding it. Was that when we did the penance? It was the first time, so it was scary.

You remember that one? Yeah, you can. You just got to do it. I don't think it's anything. No, no, no, no. I think we should.

Oh, my God.

That's probably why it's like this, because it's soccer.

They're cooking soccer.

All right, we are going to come back from our break.

Members of the public, if you'll bring your voices down. The time is 7.26. We've returned from our break, and we will move on to our final discussion, maybe approval of the night, boards, commissions, and commission structure. The Deputy Mayor, Primarily wrote this memo. I think I had started a draft and then you did your magic with it Which is why this is your item tonight. However, definitely there also isn't feeling too great tonight So I'm gonna try to kick off this conversation But this is something that she's been deeply invested in and we've all been talking about for a little bit and I've done some movement and need to continue to do some stuff. I think that Perfect way to lead, or maybe not to lead into this conversation, but a perfect way of setting the tone was what the Deputy Mayor had mentioned during their updates earlier in that two of the commissions that they serve on are not able to meet due to lack of quorum. I know that there have been some quorum situations on some of your other commissions as well. It seems that the only commission that we haven't had some quorum issues on is planning. And I think that's because it is statutorily required. So we have known for a while. This has been a discussion that council has been having for a while. The former mayor had some thoughts and ideas of what we should do. But at that time, we were dealing with a lot of other things. So it just wasn't something that we wanted to talk about in past councils. I'm assuming you all have been able to read over the document that the memo that the deputy mayor wrote up. Wonderful. Um, what would you like to add and.

Yeah, sure. Um, just by way of kind of table setting for, um, folks that haven't had a chance to read the memo or. We're watching this at a later time or kind of just coming into the conversation midway. Um. The commission structure and City manager and mayor can correct me, but, um, really formulated when the last, um, master plan was adopted and the structure and scheme around the various commissions really follow the chapters within the plan. Um. It makes a lot of sense as we're updating that to the comprehensive plan to also review. Um, how we are doing commission structures, um, what's working well, what we should keep. Um, areas for improvement, um, or things that just aren't really. Serving us the way we want them to, or the way that they were intended to, which is not a bad thing. Um, and it's, it's actually really beneficial to have these conversations to continue to improve over time. Um, and to gather community input commissioner input. Um, on on and staff input, especially for, um, what what makes sense for an evolution as we. Look to the next comprehensive plan, look to the next 8 years. Um, and see if there are other models that, um. We may want to pull from, um, or borrow entirely. Um, so. Quorum, um, definitely is challenge. Um, I think across commissions, um, I think it. you know, there's waves of where it's really good and really consistent. There are times where it's not quite as much when some folks have to step down or depart for various reasons, life challenges. But there's also other challenges of not having topics, actionable items, per se, for an agenda. I personally am Probably more broad leaning on what is valuable for an agenda. Um, and not everything has to be a discussion approval item. Um, but, uh, I know that it is. That there need to be clear stepping stones to getting towards an actionable item kind of like the way the planning commission works. So. Um, this is a rather lengthy memo. Um, but. Yeah, but also wanted to give some. Something to chew on, I guess it's, it tends to be helpful to have some context around the current state. Um, as well as just some ideas of what a future state might look like, and the pros and cons that relate to that. So, by no means is, um, are the. Proposals within this memo, um. Suggestions of what we will only review or discuss or what's viable. Um, it's just a means to start ideating on, um, other, uh, structures that that may be, um. Better suited as we look to these next 8 years with the comprehensive plan. So. I'll leave it at that, um, and kind of turn it back to the mayor for next steps.

Yeah, and I think that one thing that we have acknowledged but want to continue to acknowledge is a lot of this is trying to make sure that these bodies, one, are useful to the purpose that they were created for, but also that the people who are engaging in the process, the commissioners and staff and the council liaison, actually feel like their work is meaningful and that they are getting something out of it as well. Before I was on council, I was on a commission and did not always understand why the meeting was happening or that we were doing meaningful work. I think one time council had a policy that they had given the commission to look over. And that was great. Like we had something, a physical document that we were asked to give our feedback on and to provide changes to. And that was like the best time I think I spent on that commission in those two years. And another thing to note is every commission is different, right? So you could be sitting on a commission, or you could be a liaison to a commission and be like, what the heck are Thomas and Burton talking about? Our commission always has something to talk about. We always have everybody here. I love that for you, but that is the minority. But I do know that not every commission is the same. So I don't want to say that you could be having a very different experience to this. But I think overall what we're seeing is that we're not getting the best out of it for everybody. And a lot of folks, when they sign up and they do the interview process and they become a commissioner, they're doing that because they want to do something. They're not doing it because they Don't have a desire to help our city. They actually do want to help our city. So, um, we've, we've, as, as Bryn said, nothing that we've proposed in here is what Bryn or I are saying. We think you have to vote on and you think that has to happen, but they're just some, some thoughts that we've had. So we, um, have two Alternative models that we propose, of course, we don't have to do anything in theory. We could just leave everything the way it is and just. Hope that things will change, but. And I'll read these as you don't have them in front of you, nor does the public, but 2 alternatives. Alternative a, this alternative may initiate forums based on zoning districts, similar to the neighborhood wards that compromise that comprise those in our neighboring city. Burlington. Council liaisons would be appointed to one or more of those wards to host a recurring forum where community members were invited to gather to discuss an array of topics that will then be shared out as policy recommendations for council to consider. I'm not going to go over all of the challenges and everything. I'm just going to read over the ideas. The other alternative, this alternative proposes consolidating the existing advisory commissions into a single standing commission. The statutorily mandated groups, development review board and planning commission will remain as separate bodies. But under this model, finance, housing, inclusion, belonging, infrastructure, local resources advisory board, safe, healthy, connected people would become a single advisory commission. The ad hoc committee would remain separate. Rather than meeting according to subject matter each month, the newly established Policy Advisory Commission would meet at least quarterly or more frequently on an as-needed basis whenever council has policy work required in review. Depending on policy priorities, this may mean the group convenes monthly during busy periods or less frequently when fewer policy issues require commission input. In essence, the topic drives the meeting frequency similar to Vermont legislatively appointed summer study committees. So, and Brynn, jump in here, because we wrote this a while ago. But the way we're kind of thinking about these, and I'll start with B, because that's what I just most recently spoke about. It's kind of what I had just described, right? So sometimes we find that housing has got, we've come up with some idea that we want housing to look at. They're reviewing that. They're busy for, you know, two, three meetings. Then they kind of like go sleepy again. we're all talking, we have some infrastructure idea, the infrastructure committee is going to look at that, they're busy for two months, and then they go sleepy again. So this would pull all of those commissions together and say, you are council's advisory board now, instead of saying you're housing, you're finance, you're just everything. And when we have something that we need, that we would have had any one of those commissions look at this one ad hoc board, would look at any of those areas that we would like them to. Therefore, bringing this back to what Charter says these commissions for, which is their advisory bodies to Council, Council has to give them the work to advise us on. The other model with the zoning districts is kind of a little more open in that I think it would be, you know, kind of the way that the wards work. It's like a mini city council meeting in a way where, again, just one council member would go to this meeting or hear the concerns from the community in the hope that, you know, doing it with a smaller subset of residents, you could increase turnout, increase participation. And then the counselor, it would be on the counselor to take those recommendations and decide if they are things that would rise up to policy that this board would then discuss. So those are the two things that Bryn and I had thought of as alternatives to what we're doing. We had discussed previously that there are other things we can do. We can just keep it the same way it is, but we can maybe have folks meet less often. Personally, I think we need to do something different. I think I said when we had talked about maybe having committees meet every other month that that may not actually do anything, but it at least would help with the fact that every single month the committees or commission is trying to say, what are we going to talk about this month? But I'm not really sure that that is actually the change that is needed to make sure that the commissions are a thriving, successful body. Brent, anything else there?

Sure, um, I kind of jumped over it, but, um, at the bottom of page 2 of the memo, um, there's a section that says questions for discussion. Um, possible survey questions. So, these are kind of some framing questions, um. You know, while we are proposing some alternatives to chew on, um, again, by no means are these the only options, um, the guiding questions, uh, on, uh, the bottom of page 2. Relating to what's the intent of the commissions. And how they serve to improve the city, what aspects of serving on a commission work? Well, what changes would make commission service more engaging and meaningful? How should commissions best contribute to city governance? What additional roles commissions could play beyond their current advisory function? Um, the bullets kind of fell off there, but would you like to see commission work include that has not or does not seem to be included now? What does success look like and feel like. For you as a commissioner. And has your perspective on what commission work covers changed since being appointed? So, again, those are some potential questions, um, guiding questions to help inform. What council considers what additional alternatives frameworks models we might want to have. Those don't have to be the only questions, but, um, you know. We can kind of start by having that, like. What's our true north? What are our goals? What are metrics of success here? Um. Before we talk about the alternates, um, and and, uh, other models we may want to consider, um. We can kind of, uh, I don't, I guess I don't want to get ahead of some of those guiding questions and jump right into the solutions of counselor. Um, if other counselors feel like, uh, having that kind of true north discussion makes more sense.

And I think that the brain you can't see with there are some folks here. Well, I have some feelings might want to put you some comments. No, okay, but Appreciate you calling out the bullets Brent Brent and I frequently work on these memos at like midnight and 1 a.m. So sometimes Making sure the document looks perfect doesn't always happen, but our apologies there. I Yeah, I guess, you know, one thing I do think is important is whether there's quorums or not, there are existing commissioned members. So, you know, I would like for this list of questions that Bryn said for... um you all to take to your commissions to ask those questions at upcoming commission meeting there you go you have an agenda item um i think that could be really helpful to get their input one thing i will encourage as well and i forget which one of you we spoke about this too if you for something like like this item because it is where council is seeking these answers. If you don't have a quorum, maybe you could still have that meeting if other folks are all right with doing that. Because again, I think this work is important for how the commission is going to move forward. I've blabbed a lot. Brynn has blabbed a lot. I'd love to hear from every of you.

There you go. I love this. I was recently honored to attend the MIC, Municipal Infrastructure Commission meeting. Thank you, Councillor Ogilvie, for ensuring that I was there. We have some incredible MIC members in the room. And the last thing on the agenda for the evening was this very subject. And I would like to share with consent from everyone, also that meeting is public record, but some of the things that came out of that meeting, which is very pertinent to this discussion. And I can share my notes with anyone I can send them to all of council. I shared them with Councillor Ogilvie. But I think one of the things that I just sort of want to state is that one of the things that really came from that discussion is the effectiveness of commissions and what works and what doesn't. And one of the things that really came through was that infrastructure planning and finance seem to be the most robust and well-attended commissions. And the reason we thought, hypothetically, or folks in the room thought, was that because they seem to have I'm going to paraphrase here, but more policy assignments or because they're coming straight from city council or right that like finances assigned to budget and MEC is assigned to literally municipal infrastructure, et cetera. Whereas INB, inclusion and belonging and safe, healthy, connected people seem to be struggling because they're sort of like in the ether and there isn't really like a heft to them. Whereas it's, you know, safe, healthy, connected people and inclusion and belonging are more discreet. And there aren't really like actionable tasks assigned to them. I understand that right now the background policy track is a little bit different. But there's not really like abstract systemic goals. Finance and planning have non-negotiable deliverables. Others deal in ideas and feelings. It's hard to operationalize concepts like inclusion without clear action items. And obviously the attendance and retention like don't reflect the conditions and like the character of the members, but sort of something to really be thoughtful about or just to think about. We then talked about the advisory power problem. and how commission's input can often feel as if it's treated at the same level of random citizen who's on the street. Even with staff support and professional studies, scoping studies, traffic settings, whatever, outcomes can often, it can feel like, follow the mayor and or city council's preferences. Voted items rarely go to council. From commissions, it can feel like they rarely go to council. And when they do, council oftentimes can override them. Therefore, it can feel like folks on commissions, it's like, why are we here? Why are we doing this? What is it here for? It was then cited that the Burlington model can be cited as a contrast. Commissions have statutory power, votes then go to council on a consent agenda. The idea of something comes to a commission, there is extensive work that is done, commissions are trusted, And it's on a consent agenda versus saying, oh, this came from inclusion and belonging. They did all of this work. However, we're not going to take this. We're just actually going to say, no thanks, toss it, and completely override it and say we don't agree or et cetera. Commissions are chartered as policy-setting bodies, but they function as outreach groups. It seems as if staff are unsure whether to drive agendas or let commissions be self-direct. Charters haven't been updated, which I think is what Deputy Mayor was saying. There was a broader conversation regarding the siloing of inclusion and belonging and sort of like the DEI work as a whole and the idea of like does it make sense to silo INB or should it when we underwrite it's we understand and I sense as the city council liaison to INB that there are INB members on every commission but then does it still feel siloed and why not attempt to have it be truly included in every commission And so the idea that inclusion issues are usually policy and administrative and not inactive oppositions and that oftentimes INB members can come to commission meetings and they lack context. And so then they might not feel like their contributions are meaningful because they might think, oh, you know, Thinking from an inclusion space, have you thought about having this translated? Members of the commission are like, we definitely have. That's really thoughtful. But they are not in every single meeting, et cetera, because they're only coming every other month, et cetera. Integration into functioning commissions would be more effective with a standalone body, with the idea that everyone is going to be there. And then we did talk about the location-based commission proposal and dividing it into zoning or neighborhoods. And folks felt like Winooski already has segregation by neighborhood and location-based structure would most likely deepen that segregation. Crossword infrastructure, it doesn't map out neighborhood boundaries, right? So we're all using bridges and sidewalks and et cetera. And we might lose topic passionate members while gaining only community building value, which was great. And it serves a different goal where neighborhood cohesion and not really like the infrastructure governance. And then just the idea that there was some pretty strong support for time limited and task specific groups. And again, one of the things we talked about was that right now we're working on this background check policy. And rather than that sitting specifically with inclusion and belonging, could we stand up and ad hoc? We're going to do a background check policy commission for two months, et cetera. Task force is one of the things that someone had said. And the short-term focus attracts engaged citizens who maybe can't commit to an ongoing thing for whatever reason. There was a concern raised about the administrative burden that comes with assembling a new group, et cetera. Excuse me. And then someone had mentioned that we could have like a reserve group, which is sort of one of the things that is in this. Right. So you maybe have like a group of I'm going to be hyperbolic and say 30 people. Right. And it's like, cool, we're standing something up. These 30 people have shown interest, et cetera. And then I think the only thing that I'll just also know is just the idea that I think, and I've heard this before from residents as well as like the saying no problem, which is that city council staff and commissioners all like redirect rather than decline. And so sometimes what can happen is that you might have a resident come to a commission, come to a member of city council, come to city staff, And citizens get passed from commission to a member of city staff, to council, to the mayor, and a clear no is never directed or never said. And it creates this false hope and then disengagement when nothing actually happens. So it's like, oh, we're definitely gonna put a sidewalk there or a speed bump and it's coming, it's coming, it's coming. No one ever says a clear no. And I think sometimes folks maybe feel disengaged from engaging with the city because they're like, We have this at the MC meeting. Someone's been waiting seven years to get West Center Street line striped. And she's like, I've been waiting for seven years. When is this happening? You guys keep telling me it's coming, but it's not. And she's incredibly engaged, but doesn't sit on a commission. And I think there's sort of that, I don't know what the right term is there. And so just honest rejections with regions would maybe be... less damaging, could commissioners do that? Where does that come in? And then just talking about like city budget, et cetera. And then there was overall consensus to keep the commission structure. Like no, there was no appetite for a wholesale replacement, but thinking about this came up like an annual planning cycle, which would align with our fiscal year and not our calendar year. And that might be more helpful. You know, our budget build starts in October, December. And so then, Maybe doing that would be more helpful to commissions. And then talking about monthly meetings with flexibility to skip preferred over fixed bi-monthly schedules would be helpful. Unpredictable cancellations can frustrate residents who track meetings, which was totally talked about. And then I think I will end on a positive note, which is just that the positive case for commissions is that commissions create informed civic advocates who carry knowledge into the community. Members learn, again, this is from Mick, but to think about sidewalks and line striping and maintenance costs in ways that residents rarely do. And then it's taken out informally where folks are having conversations about Mick in coffee shops and bars and libraries. And so I think, and then one of the things that we had talked about, and John, I'm really grateful to John Rauscher who said this, is that you have someone who might join a commission, and particularly in municipal infrastructure, joins that commission, and is on that commission for six years. And when they joined, they may have been a part of a massive project like the bridge for instance, and then they move or something happens, they relocate and they never get to see that big project, that capital project in fruition. And so we were talking about like when we do like a bridge thing like inviting MIC members back to be like 10 years ago you did this. And that can be what's one of the things that's hard about commissions is that like you're doing very concrete, no pun intended, tangible work but you do not get to see that fruition. Whereas with downtown Winooski, it's like, we're having pride next week. And so sometimes I think that can be hard for commissioners. I will yield my time. Thank you.

Sure. I have not had this conversation yet with Finance Commission, which is the body that I sit on. But in the discussion at their last meeting about the comprehensive plan, a lot of these themes came up that some of the language to these are a little, um, not as approachable. So like inclusion of belongings, safe, healthy, and connected people, people might not really know what that means. What, like, why should they join? Like why, you know, should they stay invested? Um, and also having all of these areas be broken up, um, People might be more willing to engage if it was a variety of things, and they're just like, I'm passionate about my city, I want to come and advise. Whereas if you're asking them, are you passionate about infrastructure? Perhaps not right now. But having a broader body might lead to more input overall.

I appreciate that. Do I? You can say I'm having it. I have lots.

So... I personally like the commission and how it's set up. That being said, I do understand that we don't need to meet as often as we currently are. I believe a lot of the things that Councillor Turco said kind of what was highlighted also agrees with what I kind of believe that if you separate up my zoning, you're going to be segregating up the city even more, especially based off of single family home, mostly living and versus residential or versus urban living of multifamily units. So, and then I also think the advisory board that if we combine all of them together, it just kind of feels like a redundant city council in a way that they would just review everything that we're reviewing and, It would just feel duplicative. And so those are the initial thoughts that came to mind. So my own personal feeling right now is keeping the commission style. If there are need to discuss removing commissions, I think that is worthwhile to have. And if it's, are we actually meeting the goals of the commission? But I do like the style that we currently have. And I'm interested in, you know, limiting the amount of meetings that we have, you know, going to quarterly or something like that. But still keeping the core commission group.

I appreciate all of those comments. We, yeah, I think it seems that everybody, I didn't doubt this, I think we all think that there should be some sort of commission model, so glad to see you haven't changed there. Alternative A, at least some folks noted that they don't like that idea, which is totally fair. I understand that. Do... The current format of the commissions of being this advisory body to counsel on things, primarily on things that we've given them, I think... You know, when, I don't, actually the three of you haven't been able to see this, but like, for example, when we decided that we wanted to do a short-term rental policy, I know that the Housing Commission had significant discussions around that. So, you know, kind of like when you were like, I think it just might be like a mini council if we did like a big advisory body. I get what you're saying, but I do... think that's because you just haven't seen commissions working with actual policy that we want them to see yet that we are giving to them so we haven't done that um because we do kind of want them to be like that kind of is their purpose is to like go over stuff that you know like council we couldn't go over that housing policy like it would have just taken so much longer for us to do it than to ask for the commission to oversee it so that's kind of a lot of the role that they have taken on in the past is helping us in the work that we don't have time to do every other Monday kind of thing. So they can, in a way, serve as a committee council. And I don't think that's a bad thing. to really do that because i don't i'm trying to think of like a commission that we've given some like substantial work to recently yeah one of the things we hear so often is how overburdened the staff is is there a way to utilize commissions more like i'm just wondering like

Is there a way that we have citizens and residents who really want to do things? And I'm just thinking, it was unreal to sit in a meeting where you had people who were just, in a positive way, throwing things with Rauscher, with John. And I was like, this is incredible. Because similarly, in IMB meetings where It's so true that we're talking about, you can't tangibly hold inclusion and belonging, right? And yeah, and it was just like, I loved it. And I was like, I'm going to come to more McMeetings. And so I'm just wondering if there's a way, and I think if they met less, right? Like could Ryan, right? It's just the idea of like, could there be a way where... commissions are helpful and can maybe like alleviate some of the staff stuff. I even think like a commission, having like a downtown Winooski commission to help Melissa and Sarah or right where it's like you have residents who want to do things and the overarching thing that we're hearing from staff is that like there's not enough people, there's not enough time, they're overburdened, right? And it's like, I'm just wondering if there's something there.

Mick, also famously one of the well-attended commissions.

So... Yeah, I mean, there were three, four people there.

Yeah. Which is more than some. So, like, but, like, the Mick agenda frequently has been full, frequently has had quorum. There was a little... It was my fault. There was a little blip? Okay, well, I didn't know that, but I wasn't trying to call you out. But, like, um... So... Just as you say, like, or you're thinking, like, I don't think we should change anything. You are one of the commissions that frequently has some better consistency going forward. It was interesting that they said finance, because finance for a little bit was not the commission that had good attendance at all. So I think that was funny that Mick thought that they were one of the commissions that has had good work.

But wasn't that during, I think that's the point, is that if it's during budget season, finance is top notch. But then when it's slower,

Yeah, I've been to some pretty sparse finance commissions during budget season. You had said something that I wanted to get us to elaborate, and I don't remember anyone. Brynn, you've got your hand up.

Yeah, I... REALLY APPRECIATE ALL THE PERSPECTIVES AND FEEDBACK, THE EXTENSIVE SUMMARY. I ALSO SEE SO MUCH POTENTIAL FROM THESE COMMISSIONS, BUT I ALSO KNOW THAT THERE'S A LOT OF RESISTANCE, RELUCTANCE THAT ASKING Commissioners to do that without compensation is a problem. Asking, um, our. We would we would need to have staff be comfortable putting more responsibility on counselors. Um, and. We have an election every year, so we never know from 1 year to the next necessarily. Who's going to be in the seat? There's not there's some. likelihood but there's not a guarantee on that front so like i have always felt very comfortable setting agendas and working with the chair to set agendas and identifying what resources i want linked to those agendas but not every counselor that has i've worked with over the years is being comfortable with that and not every staff person for their commission is comfortable with that for various reasons um not saying they're invalid reasons. So there's always context there. And I I do see that there's there's a lot of potential to do more. There's a lot of potential to have more ownership over items, feel more participatory in those how those items evolve. But I I mean, I Getting from where we are to that state has a number of challenges. Not that they can't be overcome, but they are absolutely present. So I want to say that. I also want to note the alternate A. Uh, really value and appreciate the feedback on that as far. Um, I think. On that basis alone, I would advocate that we actually just. Drop alternate a from consideration. Uh, I think. The intent was to provide again something to chew on and something that may look to a model nearby that that works for another municipality. But I think we have to right size things to our community and we're a very small footprint. Um, and our population, um, you know, as, as you noted counselor, you know, everybody moves across the 1 mile. Yeah, 1 square mile, uh, pretty readily pretty frequently. So, having words. It really doesn't. Makes sense and I wouldn't want to perpetuate any, um. Feelings that, uh. 1 1 word is is. Less valuable in any way than a different word. I don't know. I wouldn't want any unintentional consequences, um, or perceptions from that. So I would advocate that we basically just drop alternate a, um. And propose a, you know, a couple of different options for folks that you want. Um, lastly, I do recognize that there are a lot of folks from the commission from at least the mid commission and from what in the room. Um. I know we can't compel you to share your thoughts, but. given your time and longevity with our MIT Commission and with what, you know, it really is always valuable to hear from folks directly. So to the extent you're comfortable, we would absolutely welcome that. But if not, tonight's not the night. We will be sending out more requests for information.

I mean, it's up to you. I don't have a subpoena.

I'm Michelle Metzler. I'm the chair of MIC, and I live on North Street. I feel like I'm being deposed. This is very uncomfortable. I think that... Al really summarized the conversation quite well that we had and a lot of my feelings. I think it's obvious that commissions need to change in some way. I tend to personally think that like a whole let's create an entire new system ends up being more energy than it's worth and that making changes when we're talking about a city that that tends to be more effective to work with adjusting what we've got, especially because counselors turn over so frequently. I feel like it's hard to implement a whole scale change that's going to require follow through over a long time when we don't have consistent commission members, we don't have consistent council members. So I would personally favor more of adjusting what we already have, but I don't think what we're currently doing is working clearly.

I appreciate that. Thank you. You're released from the sand. I'd like to talk more about the advisory council over an outreach group, seeing as it was brought up in that discussion. I think that that outreach role is something that Elaine and I have discussed a lot, and I think staff as well. And I've encouraged members on the planning commission to kind of see themselves as outreach representatives. I think that is an important part of the role because as a commission member you are receiving more information than the general member of the public who isn't on any board or commission. you have an interest in that area, maybe some expertise in that area. So you kind of naturally fall into a good spokesperson for what is happening within that field. So I do... And again, that's not how it's written in statute, but I do think it kind of is a natural place where a commissioner would fall, just alone on the fact that, again, you're interested in it, you're hearing about it, and I think later in your thing, you said they talk about it at coffee shops. They talk about it at libraries. That is outreach, actually. You are doing that, whether you realize it or not. But I also think that it can supplement that advisory role because, again, council likely will not, like any council likely will not have some new policy for a commission to oversee in this existing model or in a future model as well. So like the in between times, like that outreach role is something that I think could give commissioners the feeling like they have a purpose in the commission. Now, I think we would want to, if you all agree that you think that that is part of their role, I think we'd want to write that somewhere so that when somebody's applying for a new commission spot, they can say, oh, this is also something I would have to do, because maybe they're not interested in that, right? Like, you can be a policy wonk, but the idea of speaking to somebody can absolutely terrify you. So, you'd be like, great for commission, but not great for outreach, so maybe you wouldn't apply for that position anymore. or maybe you'd want to learn how to do outreach. But I think that it would be kind of foolish on council to not want to amplify our voices through commission members in getting information out, I think. I can't count the conversations that we've had about how do we reach more people? How do we let people know this is going on? Well, we've got five-plus commissions with five-ish people on each one of them. That amplifies the message that the city is trying to get out so much more. So I think that... It's the advisory or outreach. I think it's both. But we'd love to know what the four of you think. Yeah.

Yeah. So I tried to sell this idea at the meeting, and I couldn't sell it.

Which is interesting because in their comments they then say that they're doing outreach with all respect to you. Something a little different.

So I grew up in Huntington. My family was very involved in a lot of committees that Huntington have. The weird thing about those committees is they almost ran completely standalone from anything the Select Board would ever do. And they were completely ran by the chair, and they would discuss things. And the Select Board almost would never attend. They rarely attend. But then the Energy Committee would go to the Select Board and say what they've been doing. And what's weird that I've noticed in our commissions is it's much more of a top-down approach of the city says things, the city is planning things, and then we tell the commission, discuss this, and then we'll bring it back. Which is very different than I think I'm used to. And so I was trying to sell this idea to Nick, but they didn't like it yet. But that is what I think would work well, and allowing them to have the freedom of discussing. That being said, that's completely different to how it's currently done, and maybe the commissioners don't like that at all.

Well, I mean, I will... And again, each commission has its own lore in a way, but two of the commissions that I've served on, there had been somewhat of an understanding that the chair would come up with an agenda, share that agenda with the staff liaison and the council liaison. That's how it had kind of been formatted on Safe Healthy when I was on Safe Healthy. What frequently happened, I saw when I was on the commission is Ray just created an agenda, and then when I became a counselor, I saw that that's kind of how it was, and the different chairs were like, oh, I'm not sure. So I said to Brandon and Elaine, I would love for the... chair to be helping create the agenda like to me that makes sense to me if you want to be the chair of the commission is probably for a reason i think a lot of times it's because you're the only person who says i'll be the chair um but yeah i don't hate that model i mean i think i'd like to continue having council liaisons and staff liaisons but i like the idea of the commission coming up with work i think what can The frustrating, and I've had this conversation with some staff, is if the commission wanted to talk about work that staff or council couldn't put into motion, that could be very frustrating for the commission. I think you alleviate that by the chair works with staff in creating the agenda, so they don't create an agenda item build a dome over the city for Mick. If staff says, we don't have money to build a dome over the city. Well, that's not going to be something that the commission is going to talk about for an hour and then get upset when they can't do it. So I think like, and again, when I joined the commission, like that's what I was thinking. I thought I was going to join and we're going to come up with ideas and we talk about them and hash them out. on, not on every commission, but on many commissions. That's just, that hasn't been the case yet, but I like the idea. Yeah.

I like that idea. I do think that one of the problems right now is trying to get consistent attendance, trying to get a quorum, trying to fill vacancies. I've been a part of two commissions now where it's been a very reluctant appointment to these roles. So I think still if there was a way to... streamline or maybe combine some of these commissions or draw them down, we might have a more willing chair step forward than trying to maintain six passionate, consistent chairs who want to bring agenda items forward.

Yeah, that's a good point, right? Like, out of five people, you have to hope that one of those people has the time and desire to be a chair. Ideally a secretary. I don't know how many of the commissions have a secretary, but somebody else would want to do that. So you're looking for two positions out of five people. That's kind of hard. Which is why the combining of the commissions was so intriguing to me. 30 might be too many, but I was thinking like 10, 15, like enough. You don't want to have too many people that some people get locked out of talking, but you also want enough people that they can do the work. But if you have a larger pool that maybe like, yeah, there will be the likelihood of like an actual chair, an actual vice chair who. And again, there's nothing, like, I want to caveat this with, like, where many of us are working, like, 9 to 5 or 8 to 7s or whatever it is. Like, you're doing a lot of work in your life, and then you're trying to help your city as well. But, like, maybe creating an agenda is too much for most people. But, like, there might be somebody that they could, but it's probably easier to find that in a larger group of people. So, we'll see.

I think a lot of this work is cyclical. Like if we're talking about budget decisions, if we're talking about just annual or biannual, every five year reviewing of policies, those things come up naturally anyway. So some of the commissions that have less frequent work, if they could be rolled into Maybe not 1 master advisory body, but at least. Fewer individual than they would still have consistent work.

So we have done ad hoc committees that have I don't. Since I've been on council, I think the only 1 was for our birthday. And I heard that that went very well. And I think it was because there was, like, a specific target for people to work on. And, again, I wasn't on it, but I heard that it was really well attended and that they have, like, that vigor for the work. So we didn't put that in this document, but it is another approach that definitely places do and we have done.

Reiterating what you just said, but more clearly. Me, or I'll see the suggestion that was just so whether it be, or were you there.

Uh, yeah, I'm also working on a long work day on a short week that already feels like I can watch the recording, but I think what I had said, I'll go back and watch the recording. We have. We have had ad hoc committees in the city that have worked well before. So the idea of creating ad hoc committees for specific projects or policy ideas. I think could give people that, like, tangible work that they're, they're looking to. that some folks are looking to work on can be successful. The only worry I would have with doing that is like if we did find ourself in a period where we're like, oh gosh, we have all these things we want people to review. We've got to spin up all these ad hoc committees. Sorry? You never know.

Sorry, I literally just said when does that happen. I'm not trying to vote. I just, but I agree, you never know.

So I'm curious, while we're kind of talking about some ideation of various structures, it's been mentioned a couple of times potentially paring down the number of commissions. I'm curious how folks feel about combining some of the commissions. So combining Stay Healthy Connected, INB, And maybe finance or or not, and then combining housing and planning. And I know planning is required.

Well, because planning statutorily is required to be at some.

Yes, I understand that. Scooping 2 meetings a month, or have had 2 meetings a month. Um, so does the statute dictate how many people can be on the planning commission.

I don't know. I don't think so.

We're to absorb housing into planning.

Okay. Sorry, I thought you meant, like, call it housing and planning or something.

No.

Yeah, I mean, the folks who are on housing and are on planning, I feel like I frequently hear, oh, well, I would have applied for planning, but there wasn't a space, or I would have applied for housing, but there wasn't a space. So, yeah, I mean, in the past, like, well, I don't know if we talked about it at the table, like, I feel like Christine had kind of, Christine, the former mayor, had kind of started this conversation, and I found that She found that nobody wanted their commission to go away. If there were other commissions that we're going to stay, this is a different group of people. So I'm not sure.

Yeah, no, that's fair at night. Another observation I've had. Is that many of the commissions seem to really enjoy when we have joint meetings?

I think they all enjoy that. Yeah, I mean, I definitely think that's another format we could look at is what commissions do we combine instead of creating just one or two commissions.

If I may, could that be a good question to add to the memorandum so we can send it out? I think asking the commissioners what commission would be best combined together.

Yeah, no, I mean, I think, you know, whenever we, I'm not trying to end this conversation, but when we get to the end of this conversation, I think what will be, my suggestion will be, We're removing the current alternative A. We're going to add standalone ad hocs. We can add combining commissions and anything else that we might discuss as we go along here. Sorry. I have to take notes. Can't talk at the same time. OK. Public, any thoughts as we continue going on over here? No? I haven't checked to see if anybody signed in online in a little bit. Elaine, as we've had this conversation, has anything come to mind on a staff end that you would like to share?

No. Several things have come to mind, but I'd like to see what sugars off before I spew them forth.

Sure. Sure. Sounds good. Okay. Does anybody so talking of combining commissions, the deputy mayor proposed some combinations to folks like those combinations? Do you have other thoughts or ideas? Do you want to say them again?

Sure, so. 1 option could be absorb housing into planning. So, maybe combining is a little confusing of a term to use for that, but really just. Um, so absorbing, um, housing into planning, it's really like a sub commission of planning anyway. Um, so that would be that potential grouping another. might be to unite the safe, healthy, connected people group with the inclusion belonging group with finance group and leave infrastructure separate, or safe, healthy, connected people, IMB, are united into one combined group and finance and infrastructure are united into one group.

Yeah, I would see finance and infrastructure joining each other. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, I will say that I think when we had originally created INB, we had created it as a commission on its own because we wanted to give it kind of that gravitas and the importance that we wanted it to have in being its own commission that said from, Stories I've heard over time. I don't know if it. Has served the folks well there to have that on off on off and. I've seen it in different commissions, either the ones that I've served on as a counselor, or 1, I've just been like, filling in for someone who's sick. And I do agree, like, the commissioner frequently is like, I don't really know what you all talked about last last month and I don't so I don't really understand what you're talking about this month. So they haven't been able to like fully weigh in. So I actually don't think that we are serving them in the same way that we had hoped we would. That said, I do think it makes sense for them to pair with Safe Healthy, but then do we continue to send an IMB commissioner every other month to one of these other commissions? To me, I almost wonder if on each commission someone is brought on as the INB member and is interviewed by, you know, the current staff liaison and other members of council to look for what the INB commission would have been looking for. And that way, there is a permanent INB voice on the commission without having to jockey back and forth to their own. Sorry, the eyebrows mean you can talk.

No, I love it. I just want to name that. It worries me that having, like, if on city council there was, right, like, you are a designated mayor. Brandon is a designated deputy mayor. If I was designated the IMB city councilor, it then feels like it absolves the four of you to have an IMB lens.

Yeah.

And so I don't, like... I remember, like, I was devastated when council member heard left, but I also was like, oh, I can't wait to be on. And I know, like, I've had multiple conversations with. Current and former members of the most frustrating thing is, is that it's like that policy, right? That like. Folks at INB want to help make our city more inclusive, right? And I have said this before. Winooski is the most diverse city in the state. We are not the most inclusive. But it's very hard to make any city inclusive because you have to redo a charter and we have Dylan's Law and all this stuff and whatever, right? And so... I think then it worries me. I love the idea, but I think then to me, it's the, the, the hope would be like, if I'm either a chair and or the city council liaison, I'm meeting with a new member and saying, and even during an interview, right. It's like, how are we instilling? Like, these are the values of our city. These are the values of this commission. if you don't believe, if you don't have an equity lens, if you're not thinking about language justice, if you're not thinking about undocumented folks, if you're not thinking about immigrant justice, then are you open to your brain being stretched? We're not saying that you're not welcome on this commission, but are you open to your brain being stretched? And are you open to being in those spaces with your neighbors and having these conversations? That to me is the idea of like, I deeply agree, and a person at MIC said this, like the siloing of it I think makes it seem like inclusion and belonging only happens over here. It doesn't happen on finance, it doesn't happen on housing, it doesn't happen on DRB, which is where we need it most in this city and MIC, everywhere. But anyway, I'm like getting riled up in a positive way because I'm just like the hill I will die on forever is that inclusion and belonging should be everywhere.

Yeah. I mean, I definitely, I hear what you're saying and agree too. I think it's like, it's like, that's the constant, like every, like companies face that, right? Like you have a DEI director or whatever you may have, like, is that the only person who has to care? Well, hopefully that's not the company ethos. And like that person is helping the company realize its positions, but also like that one person has a lot that falls on them too. So, um, Yeah, yeah.

Awesome. I love that. Thank you very much. I think some of that comes back to consistent onboarding, which has been part of this conversation as well, that perhaps there is an orientation, maybe a once a year, you know, mandatory, as much as any other of the commission meetings are mandatory, mega meeting where everyone comes together and, like, the focus is that, but adding some sort of consistent, adding the INB to like more consistent onboarding and regular check-ins at meeting instead of having it be sort of a floating body because as well as the INB commissioners not really know what the commissions are working on, I've had a similar issue where the commissioner is like, and what is like your role? You're just kind of, not here, but sort of here. So I think it goes both ways that the IMB commissioners maybe are not participating as much and then people don't know as much to ask them or include them.

Right. Yeah. Okay. Brynn doesn't know I'm looking at her. I'm thinking we're Reaching a good point.

What are next steps?

Yeah, so I think our next steps are, so I'd like for the questions on page two, if you all agree, I think that it would make sense for the next agenda item on your commissions that makes sense for these items to go to commissioners. I think before that happens, though, Bryn or I, both of us, should edit this memo to remove the current first alternative and add in what we had discussed, the ad hocs and then the combined. Oh, sorry. What Bryn had proposed, housing and planning, INB and safe... Healthy and Finance and Infrastructure. Would you all be comfortable if that's what Brenda and I put into the memo, is the combined commissions?

Sorry, could you say that one more time?

Housing and Planning. Mm-hmm. INB and Safe, Healthy. Mm-hmm. Finance and Infrastructure.

Sorry.

What?

Local Resources Advisory Board. Is that?

I don't really know whether you.

Are you then potentially planning housing? Maybe ad hoc as well.

I'm not sure that they can be combined. Yeah. Once we have the, so we, yeah.

Local resources you mean? Yeah. Oh, okay. For a second I thought you meant all of them. Yeah, I don't, I think that they have to be separate.

I'm not sure we, yeah, if you. Well, okay, yeah. Could I ask or make a suggestion?

Please.

Ask counsel to approve that unless it's otherwise not legal into what you're proposing in the survey. And then also leave a or other combo and let the commissioners fill in the blank if they don't agree with those particular combinations. Or other combo. Okay.

Yeah, page 5 has recommended action. So, direct the mayor to work with city manager to draft. A communications plan to gather survey based as well as round table format feedback. from current and former commissioners on their experience and suggested adjustments. The mayor may utilize the language access funds allocated for FY27 to facilitate gathering feedback from a broader audience that may have barriers to participating in the current commission model. Following the compilation of feedback, mayor will coordinate with city council and the city manager to set. A possible to possibly set a special meeting to review the responses and discuss, um, the. Above stated problem statement, um, decision structure for next steps. Possible alternatives presented beyond what we've discussed this far. Um, and if there's coalescence and community support, then making a decision, um, on the future model that gets adopted from there.

Thank you. I did. No, and see that, however, I was proposing something a little different. I was, I just think. at this point i don't feel ready to move further than asking the commissions for their feedback right now i just with what i'm currently thinking kind of some of the feedback from that mick had pre-provided which this was nice to hear i'm thinking maybe getting feedback directly from the commissions first is where i would just like to start and then once we have that looking over what they say and then determining what our next steps would be. They may be the same next steps that we propose in the memo, but I'd like to have a memo from just the commission feedback that we provide to a wider audience. Maybe not a memo, but it would be more of like a guide. Yeah.

Okay, so for some clarifying questions on that. Shall for next steps. Shall we revise or make updates to the memo? For the next council meeting on the 21st. And then our, I would guess a follow up question is. Can councilors commit to adding this as an agenda item to their next soonest commission meeting?

Yes, please ask a question.

A question that I have is when we send this to our commissioners, not our, when we send this to commissioners, rather than saying we would suggest combining planning and housing, can we ask all commissioners, even current, former, past, whatever, and just say, like, we are considering combining commissions. Do you have suggestions of what we combine? Rather than telling them what to combine, can we ask them what we think could be combined?

I think Elaine has, I like what Elaine has suggested of adding or another combo. Okay. So just, wild, I mean, maybe not wild, but like, If, like, combining safe, healthy, and infrastructure, for example, I don't necessarily know that I think that makes sense. Why not? I mean, anything could make sense, but...

Someone could write you a paragraph and you could change your mind.

Yeah, no, that's very true. Somebody could write a paragraph and change my mind. One, because I think that their work pairs better with INB. I think that they... I was just saying that if the two commissions that struggle to have recurring members present were to join, would attendance continue to be a recurring issue?

I believe that's what the resident in the room was saying.

Yeah, that's an interesting point.

I think, sorry, one more on that too, is if we're talking about different combinations, instead of suggesting them, being like you as a commissioner who's already demonstrated your ability to show up and have an expertise, would you be interested in serving on if we suddenly lumped in this other thing into your charge? So I think opening it up and broadly asking rather than suggesting these are the pairs that we think of. Yeah, instead of saying we're thinking of smooshing you with this other commission, be like, this is the situation we're at. This is the general conversation we're at. What would you propose and what would you be interested in serving on if they changed?

Because I think that's where if we say inclusion and belonging belongs everywhere, inclusion and belonging in finance Our budget is a moral document. Our budget is where we show our values. That's exactly where inclusion and belonging should be. Or municipal infrastructure, which is where how do we have the most inclusive municipal infrastructure to ensure that people with mobility who are using assisted mobility devices or parents with strollers, et cetera, you know, like all of those things, right? So to me, it's like, sure, IMB and Save All the Connected People might be along the same, like... subject matter, but those people who want to be on those committees because they are so dedicated to what their discussion topics should be in rooms with people who are like, I want to talk about blank walls and gentle infill.

Which is why we have an IMB person go to every commission.

But if they're only there every other month, they have no idea what's happening.

Cool. Okay. I think. Any other thoughts about what Brenna and I should include in the memo?

Excess gratitude. This is a wonderful memo and a wonderful discussion.

Okay. So Brenna and I will change this memo up so that you'll have it available to show to your commissions when you go to them. We'll try to do that. We'll try to do that by the end of the week. I'm looking at my schedule.

I can say by next Wednesday, but I can't say by the end of this week.

Okay. I think that's fine. We're doing this work. We don't have a date where it needs to be completed.

Is there an objective to have this competition done by? Which I haven't.

So, well, I want to leave that somewhat loose, because if your next agenda for next month is full, I don't want to push it. So then it would be November instead of October, right? Or if you have an October that's empty, you can talk about an October kind of thing. I mean, ideally, I think you talk about as soon as you can. So I don't want to say a specific date, because I know it will vary for all of you. Bryn?

I think thinking broadly of how it fits in to. I, I tend to work best when I work backwards. So, I think ultimately. A decision would be made by the time the next comprehensive plan is adopted in my opinion, or at least before. next may which is around the time we start to solicit commissioners for the next fiscal year so whichever comes sooner may help inform how the stepping stones of how we we get to a point where we feel like we need to make a decision or we carry on for another year potentially

Keep in mind that in March you might look different and how much effort you all put into understanding.

I think I'll look the same March as I do right now.

It's possible, I'm just saying. You never know. And it took you all a lot of effort to understand the way things are now. So keep that in mind.

That's a very good point. I think we can... I think we can start to firm some stuff up before March. I don't know we'll come to where we're voting on stuff yet and seeing changes, but I think we can get pretty darn close. I would hope. Yeah. That's a wonderful point. Okay. I don't, there's nothing to vote on here, I don't think, legally.

I mean, you could just say you're going to ask commissions for input based on a memo that you and the deputy mayor will finalize.

Brent, is there anything you want to add before I do that?

No, I think that makes sense for me for next steps. Aiming for an updated memo as soon as possible, but no later than the middle of next week.

Yeah, I have a very busy week. Okay, so I will seek a motion. As to seek input from. Existing commissions on. the discussion that we've had tonight that will be guided by the memo that the deputy mayor and I will provide to council no later than next Wednesday.

Second it?

All those in favor? Aye. Wonderful. I thank you all very much, truly. This is some of, outside of our budget work, I think this is some of the most important work that we're focusing on. So thank you. The time, and thank you all as well for being here. The time is 841. I will seek a motion to close tonight's city council meeting. A motion made by the Deputy Mayor.

Seconded.

All those in favor? Aye. Wonderful. Have a good night everybody.