City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, the time is 6:00. I will call to order uh this special uh meeting of the Wooki City Council. Uh we will start with the pledge of allegiance led by Deputy Mayor Bernian to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Um we will move on to agenda review. Any items uh on tonight's agenda that anyone would like to discuss or move? All right. Not seeing anything. Uh we will then move on to public comment. Uh this item of public comment is reserved for comments or questions um that do not have anything to do with uh the agenda tonight. There will be uh moments for you to ask uh questions or give comments during the agenda items. So, if you have something uh that isn't on the agenda, um if you were in person, you can just raise your hand or let me know that you'd like to speak. And if you are online, uh just there's nobody online. Okay. Seeing that you don't want to make a comment, uh we will move on to our regular items. Uh so tonight's meeting um is the intention of discussing uh our commissions, committees, and boards. Uh the item was uh brought up a few meetings ago uh by the deputy mayor after discussions that she and I had had um she drafted a fantastic memo. Um and we set today as our special meeting date. So um Deputy Mayor, I'll turn it over to you.

Thanks. Um, so back in March, um, I drafted a memo. It's attached here. Um, just kind of outlining a variety of commission related topics that have come up, um, throughout the past few years to be honest. Um and it felt that rather than addressing kind of topics as they arise, it may make sense to have a conversation where um we can think of things collectively and how they influence each other and that um and then also the effect effectiveness uh council's having with the commissions as it relates to achieving the goals in the comprehensive plan. um and a variety of elements that just relate to um attracting and retaining um commissioners as well. Um so we're not going to get to everything tonight, but um pulled out uh at least some of the key topics that seemed to be raising to the top for conversation. Um so that's how I uh recommended outlining the uh agenda today. So there's just a brief overview of and a little bit of background um for this first agenda item that we can discuss or um you know for table setting purposes and then from there moving into like more pathy topics of um council leaison expectations, commissioner compensation, uh background checks for applicants um seated commissioners um review of appointed representatives, so the regional um groups that that we have uh representatives to um non-resident participation and and then you know kind of looking at what's like are we operating with the best structure overall. So um

we depending on how long conversation goes we may be here a little bit or we may move things through things faster. Um I'm I'm really not sure kind of what to expect. Um but really just wanted to make sure that we weren't feeling pressured in amongst other agenda items um to move through things faster. So um that's that was essentially the vision and and goals for this evening are to at least work through some of the top items um that have been coming up and at least chart some next steps for review. everything's discussion only um for you know just meeting the our charter requirements but also just knowing that there will be other things like um questions that come up that we will need to do some more research on. So um

I will leave it at that for this item. Um, are there any like questions as it relates to kind of the background of commission's table setting that may help inform some of the next agenda items? And I'm not expecting that we are going to have this to discuss everything we may want to discuss on commissions tonight. Yeah,

we are welcome to be here till 10:00 if you would all like. I no that's not my desire for this evening but I think that getting a chunk of this conversation happened tonight and then depending on where we end this we can filter things into future agenda items or we can have another special meeting but I don't want you all to feel like we have to fix or solve or come up with answers for everything this evening. Should we move on? All right.

Okay. um city council lays on expectations. Um so we relatively recently looked at this document as uh we just had an election but I think it's um important for us to kind of look at again. Um I think you know up up until now well up until now and I'm sure into the future I think that all of you have done your role as a liaison to the commissions as I think we would all hope and expect you know when people have not been able to attend a meeting. I've seen that you've been covering your your commission meetings and that's fantastic. Um so we do want to make sure that there is always somebody on council there. Um, I won't read all of this document, I don't think, unless you'd like me to, Brent. But do want to kind of highlight these bullet points. Um, guide the commission work to ensure it is aligned with city council policy goals. Actively participate in all conversations and be prepared for the meetings. Assist the chair in developing the annual work plan for the commission and setting monthly agendas. inviting the commission's inclusion and belonging liaison. Bringing an equity lens into discussions in the council's equity worksheet at the outset of the new policy discussion. Support the commission's inclusion and be belonging liaison by sharing meeting notes for meetings the liaison cannot attend and checking in from time to time to ensure the liaison is up to speed on work of the commission. share relevant council activities and updates with the commission and share updates on the commission's work with council and the public. Support an annual master plan goals process check. So, you know, I think for the commissions to be successful, we want to make sure that we're hitting all of these bullet points. Um, you know, we aren't just showing up to commission to provide, you know, the

council update and to listen to the work that they're doing. we should be more involved in the process um in assisting the the commission chair. I know on some commissions that goes in some ways and other commissions in other ways, but um it's it's important to remember that I think the commissions help council. Um, so we should also be helping the commissions in turn. Um, and helping helping not just the members of the commission but the staff that oversees it. Um, Bren, anything you want to add? Sure. So, you want to open?

Um, I think you have um probably seen and reviewed um the city manager's memo that we'll go over in a little bit more depth later on. um just to hear some of the feedback from the city staff that are appointed um to the commissions. Um I think that there has been a range of experiences that city staff have from from the counselors just kind of depending on who's appointed to which commission um and previous counselor style. Um, so I think some things that may be helpful, um, maybe offering and we can talk about this kind of collectively of like, well, what does that look like? What does that mean? And and the division of where city staff should take a lead or council should take a lead. Um I I think this is mainly an opportunity to like clarify what what council liaison support looks like.

Um I think some things that are have happened intermittently is um council liaison updates. Um so that's kind of on page two here after the assignments. Um just offering basically after council meetings um basically a brief summary of what was discussed um some decision points and that then gets shared with Paul and the um city staff who's the lead um give an opportunity for any tweaks or edits and then that gets posted to the city communication channels and then council has an opportunity to post under their name their official government um account name on Front Porch Forum too. So like it's an additional communication point for the community um that they may not have a a touch point otherwise. Um that's something that I think was done more regularly uh in the past and is kind of um slid a little uh would just with council turnover and um and some counselors unable to attend meetings and uh not able to find a backup or didn't didn't happen to request a backup in time. Um, so again, just kind of want to offer opportunities to clarify like what the where where council should be providing support and where um it's more appropriate for city staff to be providing support.

Yeah, that's a good point, Bren. I mean, I know that's something that I frequently forget to do. Um, no.

Full disclosure, I did not know that this was an ask of us. And so I think to me, one of the things, sorry, one of the things that I know would be helpful is I was appointed at an off cycle. And so I don't believe that there is like a Wooki city counselor handbook or like on and I'm not trying to say this to make more t make more heavy lift for staff. I would honestly take this on um that would just be like roles and responsibilities of both city right we we had there's that um

PowerPoint and it talks about like you know when you speak to the media etc. and we went over it in March when the amazing councelor Oggovy joined. I think it would be helpful to have that readily available in you know in case there is a council member who joins at again during an off cycle

and in that document to have there be like if you sit as a city council leazison on a commission etc downtown Anuski board of directors like city council updates we send them to Jenny obviously for minutes we could be CCing Paul as well and then also you if we wanted to send a front porch forum, you know, or update front porch forum as soon as the meeting is done or right within a timely manner. Um, I think this is a genius idea, particularly as we've seen constituents and residents say that sometimes they they're not feeling as informed. Um, there this is a great route. There may be other, right? Not everyone is on front porch forum. There may be other ways, but I think this is um I just I think it's super smart.

Yeah. I mean, I definitely I've even thought that at times that we don't actually have like a solid council introduction to council anything like booklet or anything like that. And I think it's as typically, you know, like I know Christine had wanted to do something like that and then I want to do something like that. And I feel like for a variety of reasons like mayors have wanted to do it and then we fall into the role and realize we don't have time to create a handbook. Um

we actually used to have one. I inherited one, but the year that I came on, I think Christina and I discussed it and there was there seemed to be agreement that it didn't need to be a book and that we could send a document with links in it. But um yeah, and I feel like that's devolved a bit and become just the packet materials that goes with the organizational meeting. But Right. And I think we did a a light version of that when Alan Elsie came on

which like I think the light version was great. I mean it was more than I got when I joined for example. So I really thought we were doing a lot when when we put that email together Elaine. So and it's like you know yeah the information is here right like in this document that I sent like here it says like send these things to Paul. Did any of us like you know fully absorb that information? I know Bren did. I think it's also one of the things that I've noted and I've said this to councelor Ogleby is that when I first join when you first joined city council it feels like you're just

in a in a positive way like taking on a fire hose and now that I've been here for a while I'm like picking up on things and I'm much more I don't know what the right word is but I'm I'm like I'm truly just drinking from a water fountain right now and I know um and I tried to to like say this to him in the sense that like for the first six months I was just like grasping at straw right? Cuz it's it's you're just you're taking on a lot if you've never had this position. Um and so I don't doubt that I read this. I don't doubt that I was like I have to do this and put it on a to-do list somewhere. And then anyway, so but this feels like a pretty easy thing that we can continue to adopt. Yeah. So, thank you, Deputy Mayor. Paul, I see your hand is raised.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah. I just thought I'd note too, we have not, to everybody's point, you know, we have not really formalized the uh council leaison updates process, right? At one point it was pretty formalized and that was under Christine's direction, which was great. Uh it had some mixed results. I think Christine was very um was very invested in the mayor's updates. So those mayor's updates were happening uh after every council meeting and then basically the the origin of that story is that the um the liazison of faith were sort of an extension of that counselor's version um and yeah it definitely has had some like some differing um people's strengths have varied right there were some people who just there were a few councils who just didn't do them period but they were they were just not interested so um some of um we're doing on a regular basis which is great. The uh so you know basically I think because it's been sort of a per counselor um situation that's kind of what's led to it being a little more amorphous and not something that we've um structured or um laid out as like a t a serious to do task um if that makes sense. So, you know, this conversation definitely helps. I think we bring it back into the the forefront for all of you to sort of decide how you feel about them and then moving forward.

That's a good point, Paul. Um, how does everybody like does that feel like something that everybody wants to do, can do? Um, I wonder. Uh I think it's fine if it's like no I can't take on another thing like you were going to say something. Sorry.

Yeah. No. Um I wonder if instead of every meeting because I feel like there's there's a line between people feel like they're not getting enough information and so much information coming out that they're also not getting so much information. So if we had a post on front porch forum every other day, I mean or like every week about like these big updates if that might kind of become white noise. And I wonder if I don't I don't think there's necessarily a clear like every other month or every other meeting, but um I know I've attended some meetings um recently on the finance commission where the the bulk of the topic was just discussing updating the comprehensive plan

um which you know doesn't really translate as well to an update. Yeah, it's like a one or two sentence. This is what we worked on and I feel like that's more covered by the public warning of the the item. So that's just to say I don't I don't know if like a firm rule of every meeting should be an update but maybe like quarterly every other every substantive discuss it with the liaison and and come to a decision at the meeting if you should post that update something more nebulous

as we were kind of talking about this and Paul you kind of reminded me about the weekly updates that Christine used to do. I have just been doing monthly updates on front porch forum. So essentially taking the update that goes out in the newsletter and just sharing that there and then I usually share share on my own socials. I don't know if you've shared it on city socials. He's nodding so I think so. Um but I could revise some form of the mayor's update. Again, I'm not sure I do it weekly, but in that I could include updates from you all

if you didn't have like, you know, like if you had like some really big hefty meeting, like I think that would make sense for that to be like its own FPF update. But if it's just short things like you were saying, Elsie, that you, you know, want to get into the rhythm of doing it, I could do a short update and then have like a section from each of you with your commission updates. Or maybe we could break it up into the mayor's update once a month and then the counselor's update once a month. So then we'd put out two newsletters which would we could stagger them so you'd get like an update every other week. Obviously depending on the timing of the meetings. Yeah.

Yeah. My I I think I agree with where that conversation is going with that. Um the thing I was going to bring up is almost all of our commissions occur on the same day, same week. And if we all have an update within a week afterwards, it's going to be a bunch of one time from port from postings. I think it would be better if if it was structured differently where we had it more throughout the month, it might be better to have just like within a one week post something, but Paul usually times things. So yeah, now I'm learning about like how we currently how have we Well, they haven't been happening. Okay. which is part of why I wanted to make sure that we had an opportunity to discuss

what they since they haven't been happening. How valuable are they? Do we want to continue them? And do is the format that was done before the new council make sense? Um or does a new format Yeah. make more sense? So, I think this is really why we're having the conversation is is that like what what provides the most coordination and the best benefit for the community, I guess. Okay. Can I offer something? Yeah.

It feels like you probably already had this thought, but to state the obvious, the the uh the updates you're already writing for the council meeting to me feel like enough. Mhm. Even if it's sometimes it's a sentence and it um your constituents might appreciate just seeing, oh yeah, this is one of our my city councilors. I'm seeing their name on a regular even if it's just a sentence. And then having a cadence might help you too so that you're not have to not having to make a judgment call every time.

Yeah. So you'll see, you may recall, like I recently posted the infrastructure one. Um, and there was a lot of content to that because I didn't post in January. So I was kind of combining meetings and then doing an intro for Eli, taking over the commission. Um, and then a lot of it, you know, folks need to hear a message more than one time for it to set in. So is it like, hey, remember like Main Street starting again? Go here for updates. you can register for newsletters because there's always going to be some person who forgot, doesn't remember, or doesn't, you know, needs to needs help navigating to where they can get more information again. So,

I while some information is repetitive, I think that's like the job of government is to make sure that it it is repetitive so that you're always catching that those few people that need the reminder or hearing it for the first time. Yeah. Um, I appreciate your comment as well. Um, I think members of the community may not I I mean, how many how many times have we heard at some of the um public comment sessions this past winter of like, I didn't know who my counselors were. Mhm.

Um unless they're coming to council, unless they're attending a commission meeting, and unless they meet us at um a public event, they they might not know who we are. So, I can see both sides of like let's do a combined council update. So, you have the mayor's one and then there's another one that has kind of the commission council updates, but I can also see and feel the benefit of it's it's nice to have the voice of

the counselor. So I think to me the most important thing is like offering updates um and the format I I think I'm and and you know some of the frequency a little bit more flexible on that but um I do think there's a lot of benefit to it.

Yeah, I'm not opposed to it. I just want to have it be something that one people feel they have time and ability to do and also I don't want to be something that we start and then it falls off. So I want to start with something that is realistic for people and if that is posting an update sending Paul the info posting an update to front port forum after every meeting that's great if it's something else but I think we should I'd also like to I ideally I'd like to just be doing one thing like I don't want it to be like Al doesn't have time to do that so

they're not going to do updates but Brent will do updates. It's like if we're going to be that, I'd rather us we focus it into one update from all of us. I agree that it's uniform. So, with that said, what does everybody feel like doing? Did you have something else you want to say? No, no. I take your point um that having everyone's name makes sense and even if it is just a small update and I I don't think it's that large of a lift. Okay. Okay. Would this be posting after every what how often we like what is

it be after every commission meeting? Commission meeting. Yep. And when there's joint meetings I think it's whoever's the host. There's usually a host. Yeah. Um, okay. Commission. So, I think that would be the group that that that would then be responsible. You I mean you can tag team with your counselor on draft. Well, you I I mean I'm from Porch Farm. You can't you can sign. It's not that sophisticated yet, but maybe it'll get there. We'll get there. Okay. I like it. You like that? It works. Yeah. Okay.

All right. So, So, it's just Paul an update. Yes. Okay, great. That um I do want to touch base on some other things that come up later in um the city manager's memo that are also included in in the bullet points above.

Okay. Um so assist the chair in developing the annual work plan. Um let me put my glasses on. Um equity lens to discussions not the inclusion and belonging. Um representatives ambassadors don't attend every commission meeting. They attend every other meeting. So, making sure, you know, kind of connecting with them, inviting to them to the meeting if they if they're able to make it. Um, but I there's some things that I did as uh when I was on the infrastructure commission

that I think helped alleviate and clarify the who's on first a little bit. Mhm. Um, and I'm I'm still honestly getting I've only had I I missed the Safe, Healthy, Connected meeting, so I haven't even met with that group yet. I've had one housing commission meeting and and then it was a joint one this past week. Um, but I think there's some things that are good practice depending on how things evolve after tonight. if commissions move forward. Um I think it's helpful to have counselors check in on quorum a week before.

So I and I'm going to share an anecdote on that. Um and I think it's easy for counselors to take that on and take that off of the city staff. Um so a few years ago uh there was an infrastructure commission and I mi made an aspirational invitation to um some local organizations to come and present. And so we had you know folks from three different groups presenting and showing up in person. Um, and we didn't have a quorum and it it was almost like we had more representatives than we had commissioners. And I've like it it was just it felt like a waste of time and it felt like I I felt really bad trying to coordinate, you know, folks to come and present to a fairly small group. I think the folks that were there got a lot out of it, but still like

in terms of like making sure the message is um received as broadly as possible. So after that I always kind of made sure to check in a week before starting on Monday or Tuesday and saying like let me know if you're going to be in person or not in line by Thursday. So we usually have uh infrastructure commission meetings like they're Thursday after. So then that basically gives us the opportunity to say like do we have an agenda? I check in with the chair and the council um the city staff assigned to the commission and check in with the chair propose even propose a draft agenda based on the previous meeting based on the work plan where we are in the year. Um also I think just because um well I'll stay with what I'm saying first before I move on to that other topic. Um, and then and then once we feel like we have enough to have a meeting for agenda,

then I check in and see if we have a quorum.

And that way, like if we don't have a quorum, then we're not scheduling a meeting. We're not even posting or announcing it. So it kind of helps city staff and all those domino effect and and try to avoid that as much as possible because we don't you know like if if it was just Thomas and I tonight man that would be a bummer like poor Steve you know we'd be outside enjoying the weather. Um, so it just I I try to frontload that as much as I can. And um, I do envision that as like one of the things that at least is within the bounds, at least how I interpret these bullet points of

how council can be helpful. Um but again like I I mean I Thomas has already mentioned like I don't know what's like that was something that I I felt was within the bounds of of the liaison purview but you know is that reasonable is that an expectation that is re that everybody else feels is reasonable. So I I um I don't think it's unreasonable. Um, you know, I I um I think my bigger and one of the reasons we're having this conversation is just my the overarching feelings

I have due to seeing what just happens in reality on the ground of the commissions. I find that no matter how engaged the counselor may be, if you have a commission that isn't very engaged, like I've been on a few commissions now, and the staff has always done a quorum check, and we don't always get a quorum, no matter how many times they've asked or said, "We're not going to have a quorum at this meeting. Uh, I guess we'll have the meeting anyway, or I guess we'll cancel the meeting." So, you know, this ties back to me kind of like the the overall bigger discussion about the commissions is, you know, like do we have people on there who are actually passionate about being on the commission?

Um, and have we set it up so that it can be that way? Um, you know, I think on, you know, I think infrastructure one, you you have such a passion for it, Bren, so I think that that helped. Um, but also I think maybe you know the the topics were very interesting and it was maybe easier to get people to show up. Um, so I'm not opposed to having counselors check on quorum if they all think that they can and I I don't I don't necessarily feel strongly about like everybody has to do that or or it shouldn't be done or or vice versa. But I do want to kind of preface it by even if y'all start checking in on quorum, I don't know that it's going to mean you're going to get a quorum. Um, yeah, I hear that. I think I also say this acknowledging that I have not been on city council that long, but I think it can start to set a precedent. And I think sometimes like I've seen um this I think it can also maybe help folks to like I know with inclusion and belonging like we set our dates obviously for the entire year and they do this for every commission but I think maybe just like a friendly reminder and maybe we do this with all of our commissions is to say like this is we're on the third Wednesday or for airport commission we're on the first Wednesday of every single month and So, I would maybe just like send a gentle reminder or nudge to commission members to say like friendly reminder if you haven't put this hold in your calendar, right? Like it might be because I know I would I don't want to speak for the table, but I think many of us probably live our lives by color-coded calendars. Um, and so, uh, you know, maybe it's just like that friendly reminder and saying that, you know, not everyone has such a busy schedule. We totally understand it. um being mindful of quorum, being mindful

of you know because I think for me it's one of those things that I have been in commission meetings where there you know we we don't know we're like texting people being like are you are you showing up right and that can be really frustrating and right or it's like I'm not getting an agenda until like 30 minutes before the start of the meeting and that is really hard because like you can't prepare and and so I think it's just the idea that understanding that like being a part of a commission is also like it is it is serious. We want to be mindful of people's times and respectful of people respectful of people's time. So,

I'd also like to, you know, like when I was um I don't know how Ray sent these invites, but I can't get them off my calendar. So, I still have the safe healthy connected people invite them. Uh I have and they still pop up. But like that was very helpful. I know for me, as you said, like many of us live by our calendars. So like when I was planning my life out, I could be like, "Okay, this is

even when you know it's like every second Wednesday, I feel like it's still good for it to be there." So like I would encourage um you know whoever it is that you know and again Ry handled it for safe healthy maybe you handled the infrastructure in terms of like who would own a calendar invite but I feel like if those could be sent out to commissioners for the you know they serve what twoear spans three year spans one to two year

for that time if a calendar invite was sent to them I think that one would help um and you know also So, I mean, I think similar to what you're saying about city council, when you come on to a commission, there's not a ton of like this is what it means to be a commissioner. You know, I think we should let commissioners know like it is expected that you show up to all of these meetings. Like this isn't you weren't appointed for uh if I can or want to experience. You're supposed to show up. If you're not going to show up, you should communicate with council and the staff leaison with council leison and staff leison on that you're not going to be at that meeting. Like

so I'm not saying you're wrong, Bren. I'm just saying like there's also like a lot of you signed up for this. You in theory want to do it. Like show us that that's your plan. And if not, like you can say this isn't for me. Find another commissioner.

Yeah. And I think it bleeds like there's there's so much intertwined in this conversation that then it bleeds into we've previous councils have like dismissed folks from commissions for lack of attendance. So does it make sense to start kind of taking more like better note of who is present and and like okay within the six month time if you've missed three meetings then it maybe this isn't the best fit for you.

Um so like we we have dismissed folks because of inability to to attend meetings before. Um, so I I just think that there are there are a number of different touch points of like how can we make commissions function better. Yeah. And I think one of them is if we can do a little bit more to try to guarantee a quorum. Yes. Even with infrastructure, we would have folks that cancel day of, but like making sure the alternates know that they're welcome and should attend. Um

and and so that's not like, oh, if you need me, but it's like no, no, no, like we want you to be there. Yeah. Um, and that also helps buffer if somebody if something comes up because we all have lives and and issues come up last minute all the time. But it's just an effort of like if we if it's one more thing that council can do to help commissions be successful is to look into and secure a quorum the week before. It it may it may go a long way. It may not be entirely successful, but it but it might be worth just trying. No. And I'm not against the email going out. I just want to preface like I think there's many other things about quorum that isn't just

agre somebody trying to remind folks to be there. Yeah, I agreed. Do folks feel good about sending out a quorum email?

Yep. Um, for I I I really do think calendar invites is an important part of this. I encourage all of us to check in with your staff leaison to the commission and see if they would like to be the person who sends that or if they would like you to do it. But I'd recommend that it goes out for every meeting for a year. Um, one other thing please before we um, you can bring up all the things you

I I think one other element to me uh, that integrates into the bullet points is supporting the agenda development.

So I I think it ties back to the work plan. Um, excuse me. It's collaborative with the city staff and with the chair. Um, I I would say like you just mentioned not getting an agenda um until it's late in the game. So even if you have an agenda and and links affiliated um you know before you and that's ready and been shared with Paul and like by all means there's nothing stopping council from sharing that before it gets posted you know publicly so folks

the commissioners have a little bit more time. So if you have that by Friday and coun the commission isn't meeting until Thursday, you can share it Friday, you know. So it just especially if there's like planning documents or scoping documents that are like 100 pages in length or like really technical and detail where it helps to have a little bit more time than not to review. Um, so that that's my only other thing is like I think I want to remove any uh or at least discuss um how much council engagement there can be with helping to set agendas. I have one question.

Yeah. Downtown Wooki board meetings are not open to the public, are they? No. They don't get noticed. get noticed cuz they're not through a public body because it's not a public body but I think they've always been fine if me if they're doing it in public like if somebody joined I don't think they're opposed to right and with downtown we're not um appointing right folks um to those seats to the board so um I mean this bridges into like some of those other conversations about um regional represent like regional groups and things where we don't have as much oversight of who is appointed to the body or not.

Right.

Yeah. Um yeah, Brent, you know, I mean, I think the difficulty in this topic, I think, is that obviously we're all volunteer members here at the end of the day. And keeping up with council work is already a lot. So then trying to come up with the full plan for the commission I think has historically been difficult for counselors to do. Um you know I think that I'm I'm assuming for a lot of commissions it mostly falls to the staff member actually who ends up doing all of that work. Um and you know this you know it brings up the the chair should really be actively engaging in that in that work and in building that um and you know I also volunteers but in at least for the city that's the only thing they're volunteering for if they have other things going on. That's that's different. But again, I would I don't want council members creating that for the commission. I can definitely assist help in conversations. I really think that the chair needs to be somebody who is driving what the commission is doing. And again, if they're not able to do that, then we need to look at different commissioners or different chairs who are willing to do the work. Um,

yeah. Can I chime in? So one of the things I'm kind of realizing as I'm starting this being a commission city council leazison is uh the setting of agendas is very much of I don't really know how to set it up because unfortunately I have to resol I mostly have to depend on city staff to tell me oh what is something that the city is doing because I don't always know if you know what DPW is focusing on for the next month.

Yeah. Um, and so then I think that pulls a lot of time from city staff to then help me get the commission ready to then formulate a uh agenda. And so I'm I'm curious how other folks have done it because I'm myself struggling trying to figure out how to go about this. Um, yeah. Didn't mean to let not let you finish. No, no, please go ahead. Uh, that is very common what you're experiencing. So, it isn't just because you're new. Yeah.

Um, and that isn't what the commissions were originally designed for. They're supposed to be policy advisory to council. So, the agendas are supposed to come from council. However, you know, in my shorter time than Brennan, for example, um technically Thomas too, uh here it time here, you know, the way we were trying to do is to have the policies policy strategies and priorities during that time saying, "Oh, these are the things that we might want commission input on." Council saying it then, which is great. But some of those things like if you look at that list the last one there's maybe like one or two things for some of the commissions and so it's just not enough and so the rest of the time that is it becomes like we're staff will give an update and that hasn't felt like a great use of most people's time and I don't mean to jump ahead but since we are talking about the work plan um I think the I think it's a fair generalization that when the agenda is meaty people do come. So it is really about the feeling of relevance and it's it feels like to them that it's worth their time. So I think that's really what staff were focused on when we're trying to brainstorm alternatives to getting of course the community input that we all want and value as you know government in a democracy. Uh but also but not having to force it because that's what a lot of you are feeling a lot of the time historically and even right now.

Yeah. Is there a great question? Is there a place that uh we can easily find all members of commissions? It's online. I'm on the city website right now, I promise. But all members of commissions, their email addresses, their terms. I guess the only thing that isn't on the website is their emails. Correct. I also created a document that's linked in today's agenda that compiles everything.

Yes, you did. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Yes, you did. I had a free night in uh February that I worked on this. So, correct, there's um there's a representatives page um with the appointments uh and their terms, but email addresses are not um posted publicly um for obvious reasons, right? Um, so we would need to get those from the city staff. Um, or hopefully you are CCD on email. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think you're tapping into kind of the once again like the bigger commission picture, right? Like the agendas should be meaty. Everybody should feel like they are working on something that is valuable and worthwhile. and how do we make that happen?

I'm sorry, one more thing I forgot. So, the challenge that you're facing right now, I'm sure it's not news to you. Everybody feels it around the state, around the country. It's a it's a it's a perennial topic. Oh, we can't find people to serve on our commissions boards and and committees. So, part of it is like, yeah, you might find someone who has time and interest that today and um values public service. that is an increasingly rare combination of attributes. So again, this is why we're trying to find other ways I might feel um to get to the same goals as opposed to stick to the same format. But I'm not trying to jump ahead. Just uh giving some more context.

That was good. Thank you. So my just um my reason for bringing up the agendas is because that was highlighted um by staff as being something that they're frustrated by. Yeah. I have taken a collaborative approach y in infrastructure with um the chair and the city staff

um as a way to help uh alleviate some of the the uh mental load of coming up with agenda items um again just looking at what the work plan was and um what where we are in the um in the calendar year. Yeah. coming up to budget season, feedback opportunities, projects working, etc. Bren, how much of the agenda do you feel like you crafted by yourself? I would say I didn't It was all collaborative, so I would say I didn't craft any of it by myself.

That's right. I'm glad you said that because I was going to suggest um like to bridge that gap between staff feeling like they're doing it all and not wanting to assign too much to council would be to bring in the chair and have that premeating agenda discussion take place between those three. Um and that could be a way to to generate like future topics of like we there are two things we want to talk about. Could we punt that one to June? We have that is what we try to do every time, every month with every commission and a lot of times it does not happen at all that way. Britain's been the exception I think. I'll also say and it isn't the counselor, it's a lot of times it's the chair.

The chair. Yeah. Yeah. And and they're being paid even less than you. They're being paid nothing and you're being not being paid enough, but it's better than nothing. Yeah. I would say the challenge has been a strong chair that feels like they have I I think they're with monthly meetings or maybe every other monthly meetings depending on frequency like they they're I think some chairs don't feel like they have the confidence or understanding of their role to actually craft craft the agenda themselves.

Mhm. Yeah. I mean, I've seen many a chair election where the chair was just the last person to volunteer. So, I by no means think that the chairs also are in this role because they are, you know, agenda creation experts.

Uh Thomas, another point if I could. So I did attend an ICMA conference where there was a full panel that talked about citizenmies which you know we wouldn't use that word here necessary but the idea being like yes most people don't necessarily know what it's like to serve on a public body and don't understand enough about what the city government is doing to feel like they can do that. And one of the benefits of doing a, you know, like a city academy is that they tend to get commission volunteers out of that because then people like, oh, I'm interested or and or I know more now.

So that is something that's been on my agenda to explore with staff because I felt like those models were doable. That was not the 25 conference. That was the 2024 conference. So I haven't gotten to it yet, but um yeah. Yeah, it is part of that uh bandwidth challenge both for the public and for staff and for council. I think also for me when I first moved here I did not know anything about city council commissions and I came from New York City. I mean I was born and raised in Vermont but um where you know there's a lot to sort of like get involved with. And

so I think also the question and this is more rhetorical and I'm not seeking an answer in this moment but of like what right I'm thinking of green up day on Saturday where I would assume many of us on city on city council and maybe some city staffers won't be there. I'm elated for greenup day. Um, and so if you meet someone, a resident, a neighbor, a community member who just seems like really jazzed to be engaged in Wooki, it's feels like a perfect opportunity in the latter of engagement to say, "Have you ever thought about serving on a commission?" You know, right to sort of because I think the more that we talk about it obviously, the more that people will know, I had no idea that was an option or I only know about the DRB. I'd be really interested in I, you know,

um, so that's just a thing something that I want to put out into the world. I know I probably need to be a better ambassador regarding commissions and talking about them more since something that I promised to do on Green Up Day. Thank you. You're welcome, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, I mean I think um you know that collaborative approach I think is honestly you know probably the best way to get to an agenda. I completely recognize and have seen what you said, Elaine. Like I've seen staff email and then either nothing come back or just a Yeah, that looks good. Um

and then I also don't want to put something else on staff where we're saying, "All right, we need to have a collaborative agenda building session." So, I don't know how you and maybe you can you can share how you did it, Bren, but like So, I'm assuming staff has got to schedule some time to set for that. You've got to find time with the chair and you have to find time. We've done it by email, so it hasn't been a meeting. Okay. It's just been an email discussion. Yeah, I mean, that would be great. I can think of some commissions that would definitely probably need at least the first time. Yeah. a meeting to get that going. Yeah. You just ask from my experience.

No, no, no. I I was just trying I'm just trying to like Yeah. as we're thinking of proposing things we think we should do. I want to think about all of what's feasible and what the I mean because I think that's you know ultimately and you know you and I came to this realization once upon a time where we're like we have had very different commission experiences and you know that's as a result of many different things but it's like we were both seeing commissions in a very different way because of that.

Sure. Um, yeah. I mean, Eli, I appreciate your point. If you're like, how do I even build an agenda? How do I, how do I get the information from from staff? Um, you know, I've always, you know, there's been some things that we've talked about at this table that we've then said, "All right, this has got to go to a commission," which I think is fantastic when we do that, but we're, that can't be the only way that commissions get their work cuz we don't do it all the time. Um and also you know I I somewhat I think my ideal idea of the commissions is they are also which can be difficult. So well two two parts here. They are thinking of what they hear and see in the city and they're talking about it their commission and then they are you know presenting it to council or to the liaison who is sharing that

you know at the same time um if it's something we're not interested in it can feel a little demoralizing if they spend all this time talking about X and then we say that's so great thank you we're not going to do that. um which you know that is also you know elected government sometimes that happens but um if it happens too often I can see how that could bring morale down on a commission.

Um but it would also give them give them things to do and there would be occasions where it would be something that we haven't thought of and we do really like the idea. Um, which is why, you know, I kind of fall back to the I really think the chair more so than the council member should be driving the agenda. The council member is there liazing and contributing to make sure like if it's something entirely that we're never going to discuss, it doesn't happen. But I just don't see how every member of council, this council or future, is able to dedicate that much time into the process. you are.

Um, so I'm I'm trying to envision how this would look like because a lot of the time both the councelor and the chair will not have much information and I've never seen a scenario where the agenda they proposed an agenda item that the city staff isn't already working on because that would then cause a discrepancy between priority of the count commission and the priority of the city staff that have already determined their workload for the year kind of thing. Mhm.

And so I'm thinking in a situation where something comes up that's kind of oneoff, the chair wants to bring it up to the commission, but it's not being discussed. So I'm just trying to envision how this would look like if it's the chair bringing up the work. Um same with a counselor, which is why I think it it collaborative works, but it relies heavily on the staff to tell me, okay, this is what I'm working on. This is what I can this is what I need some input on kind of thing. So I'm trying to envision how it works. Yeah,

it's a good question, Ela. I don't think we quite know. I wonder um if

I mean I I think that would be great for like those months that you have something to talk about and the staff is like, "This is something that I want input on, but for those months that there is nothing and that would be the time to do it." And if this was more of a a a moderator role taking on of like a week and a half before the meeting polling and asking for topics, that would mean you'd sort of get like a backlog as well. So on those months that you're really slow, you could pull from that list and and you know, you you'd have a a wish list of items to get through. So I'm not necessarily overriding anything that staff are like this is something that I want, but I I think there are instances where there's nothing on the agenda and we have nothing to talk about. And so like a a mix of like still following staff lead if they have things that they want to take a priority but

like generating topics otherwise

sorry may go ahead um I'm not saying this happens every time but it has happened that then it is creating that frustration among the commissioners because it's something that there's what they're asking for requires staff time and it's not been resourced. So then where does that conversation go and where does that leave the commissioner that wanted to talk about it?

Yeah. You know, I mean, I know this isn't necessarily this point, but like I wonder if this is one of those things that, you know, if we moved to commissions meeting every other month as opposed to every month or being more, you know, like ad hoc called up when we have a specific proposal that we want them to look over, policy that we want them to look over before we were to implement that if that would help make the agendas more robust and give people the feeling like they, you know, if you're if you're looking at three staffled items that aren't, you know, actually super critical right now in, you know, the month of May and in June you do another staffled item that also isn't critical. Would it make more sense to just see all of those things all together in July and have like a heftier meeting?

Maybe. Probably not in July.

Well, sorry. I was I was thinking of months that we're in right now, but give say any month, you know, like does that help one make it easier for people to attend for an actual agenda to really be crafted? Um, and maybe it's even that, you know, I I'm on other boards where, you know, one month the executive board meets. So, I'm thinking like chair, council, or staff, you create the agenda, the next month is the meeting. Mhm.

So like could for the chair, council, and staff, you still have your monthly meeting that we've always had, but the full commission only has their meeting every other month. Can I suggest that we essentially close the conversation about agendas since you're talking about adjusting meeting structure? and we table that until we get to agenda item G. Sure, works for me. Yeah. Can I just ask a question now and then you can let it simmer.

Um, what is the point of the commissions? What is their purpose? And then that might be a useful touchtone for you to have Yes. voiced and be in agreement about as you make other decisions. Yeah, I agree. Um, okay. Um, so commissioner compensation, I know part of me thinks we should have moved G to the beginning of the meeting and then had the rest of the discussion since then as we started talking. I I did give you options.

You No, you did. I'm not saying they were wrong. I'm just saying now I'm thinking we should have done the opposite route. Uh, but let's talk about commissioning compensation. Um, so um do you would you mind giving a little bit of an intro on stipens and the um funding source for that? I know we've we've got the memo in front of us, but just for the record.

Yeah, of course. No problem. Uh yeah. So as far as I know, the first commission that's ever received a stipend is the inclusion and belonging commission. The equity director uh when they were when she was brought on, that was a an idea that came out of the 2019 equity summit that the community held uh that the city had held in collaboration with school students. Uh and it was it was pretty good representation that came out to that. So that was one of the I know there was a handful of ideas actually Ray was there I wasn't. So you might want to chime in here but uh one of the ideas that came out and so when the equity director was hired they um created that she created that or developed that structure and it was approved by council. So we applied to the Vermont Community Foundation for a grant. um that grant program has concluded at BCF and we've just run out of funds this year as we knew we would at the beginning as we were budgeting for this year. Um so they received $50 per meeting, their own meeting and then also any of the ones that they do are on the ambassadorship for early on. They also had a discussion about whether they should be compensated for other meetings that they're attending as an inclusion belonging commissioner and they thought they should and I told them just by the way there's a limited pool of money so you're just spending it down sooner if you say yes to that but they agreed as a body it made sense which you know I understand too and council agreed to that so that's reviewed in the memo that I sent um I think I at some point I don't know if it was always called this by yes I mean the former equity director, she might have referred to it as a pilot. I know that I I also called it that at some point uh with the idea that like why just this commission? Why not all of them? If the point is to in

broaden the the types of people that feel like they can attend that they're resourced to attend or valued to attend. Um yeah, and uh I think it's made the long list for um budget time, but I've never actually proposed it uh because it it it can be quite a jump if because we don't I don't think we would want to restrict who gets it necessarily. Um so it could be quite a jump to go from one commission to all of the commissions. Oh, also, um I think I said $50. So that's it's been 50 like around the region for years and years. I heard somebody at the community engagement advisory committee at the CCRPC say that and I was like, "Oh, yeah. I think I've heard that for a long time, too." And so the seek went to uh $75 to try and catch up a bit.

Yeah. Yeah. I you know I know you've been I feel like you you put it on the budget tool this year this past year didn't you? Yeah I was going to say I remember seeing a number um

yeah I mean I think that you know it's I think it would be nice to give all commissioners compensation if we could. Um I completely understand and obviously the grant funds helped as to why it was started where it was started but um I haven't heard any uh disagreement from any members of other commissions but uh you could I suppose see how somebody doing same very similar work would want also to be compensated for that work on a different commission. Um, if we if we changed how often they meet, it would be less money. But, uh, I yeah, I mean, I've I've I've been in support of of paying commissioners. You know, I would say this would be something we'd want to talk more about at budget season and see what that jump would be, but it's it's a lot of money when you're going from zero to to something uh completely different. So, um, I'm not against it. I completely understand it and we can all recognize that also $50 isn't enough. But I think that given city resources, I think I wouldn't want to propose anything more than $50.

Any other thoughts? Um, do we have a a number in mind of how much this would might cost? I did a back of a napkin calculation. And it looks like it would be like 4,500 per commission per year. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm not good at math, but time. So, it was an estimate. I think the uh budget tool for um FY27, you were estimating about 22. That was based on the actual attendance. Okay. roughly that we were seeing for commissions. Okay.

Um the number in the memo of like 4500 4,900 is perfect attendance by everybody at every meeting which is what like I think we'd want to budget for

and you know keep take savings if we have them but also we would hope that if we are paying people would would break down some barriers for people to show up to more meetings. Um so one thing I wanted to raise so we have some cost estimates um that that Angela offered and you know council had to consider this past budget cycle. Um I did suggest some additional nonmonetary

um benefits that there could be um you know indirect uh indirect benefits um rather than than cash. So um there would still be some cost considerations but that might be able to be absorbed in a different way. Um I I I'm by no means am I s saying that these are the best alternatives. Um, but just kind of offering some thinking outside the box of of costs of like

rather than, you know, $50 per meeting, does it make sense to offer um a voucher for a season a season voucher for the pool? Or does it make sense to like encourage some of the some attendance or some of the use of our facilities and services that that we have? like encourage folks to

utilize a gift card at the farmers market or you know to visit some of our businesses. So just again kind of thinking outside the box of rather than um $50 per meeting um across the board if if there were you know uh subsidized bus pass. You know, just again thinking thinking of some alternatives that that could be as valuable or more valuable in some ways.

Yeah, that is interesting, Brent. I mean, maybe it would be interesting to pull, you know, current commissioners, see what they would value more as an incentive. And it may just be cash. Cash is cash. Cash is cash. So, um, but like at the end of the day, you know, I don't know like folks needing to report the cash on their annual income earnings and I don't know how many people actually really that elevates it to a degree of care or concern, but you know, it would it would be reported on the W2. Yeah, it would be added.

Yeah. But also, I don't know that polling current commissioners would get us the answer that we're seeking because current commissioners outside of INB are not being compensated. And so, if we're putting an equity lens on this, it would be ideally pulling people outside of not to say that current commissioners aren't deserving of being compensated. They most certainly are.

And that it would not be, you know, helpful for them and their families and and their communities. But to think that there are people who are not serving, residents and community members who are not serving on current commissions potentially because the the lack of compensation, lack of of support, financial or otherwise. And so how do we ensure that their voices are being heard and at the table? Agreed.

Absolutely. And I also don't know logistically and I I think there's a nod to this in the memo like feasibility would depend um on uh you know on what the preference is. So and I again by no means it's just the beginning of a conversation not something where I'm saying this makes the most sense. There may be other um suggestions that you all have um as well, but just thinking of like in absence of monetary, we haven't been able to expand stipens to the rest of the commissions to date,

right? Is there something else that we could do that is is offers benefits to the community to encourage use of services um that would also be of interest to current as well as potential commissioners. So, it's a lot to think about. Sure. Ray, I saw you sne for you. Is there financial aid for the pool for uh Yeah. So for residents, we offer scholarships for season passes. I'll just I'll move the microphone toward you guys. It'll pick up the record. Let me just move it like this towards us.

Just if you need me to come closer. Yeah. So we offer scholarships for um residents for pool passes and then do all of our swim lessons uh free fork residents. So, I think at this point really the only the only reason you wouldn't be eligible for a scholarship is if you have another outstanding balance within our wreck management software um and are not currently on a payment plan. Thank you. Yeah, I was just thinking about, you know, people who aren't when we're talking about like trying to get folks who just aren't able to get onto a commission,

you know, if they're already able to get assistance with a pool pass. maybe not as interesting to them. However, there would be people who would be like, I wouldn't qualify for a scholarship. 50 bucks doesn't really make a difference, but doing getting a pool pass, that sounds really cool. I've never been like,

is the pool pass easier in terms of a financial standpoint or does that make it more complicated? Um it is a little more complicated because it is something that would still have to be reported as a taxable benefit um because it's foregone revenue to the city. Um so there is a tangible benefit that they're receiving that would need to be reported. Um we we have some other hurdles in this community with people who are not eligible to receive payments that um can they can't provide a taxpayer ID number.

So um if we start compensating we need to be very careful about that because they would now um have to forego compensation or or risk other things.

Yeah. Okay. That's a good one. What should you think about? Any other thoughts? I I there's so much to talk about, but compensation has come up a number of times and depending on the trajectory of um topic G, we may end up wanting to just revisit this um a little bit more. Yeah. No, I think we certainly will. Um yeah,

would compensation also include people who are a liaison for other organizations? We could discuss it. I would sometimes those other organizations provide compensation. So the airport does, the bridge committee does. I think CSWD doesn't advertise it, but I think they do

actually. Well, should have got me one of those commission. Um I mean I think yeah I mean like if it's bar any of those that provide um funds I think if we're going to talk about giving money to people who do work on behalf of council in some form we would want to include those people as well. I'm going to call a fivem minute recess. Okay. Or will come back at 7:21.

They're all juicy. Yeah. Should have moved G up. Should have what? Should have moved G up. Oh, y'all had a chance. Um, how are you? Good. How are you? Well, I returned. What? You said the office. Oh, no. Um, I've been checking my text cuz Liz is at the Liz is buying a truck right now and I've been waiting for her. But finally, literally, she just text me and she said, "We're buying a truck. It's going to be black." If it was anything other than silver or black, I'd be like, I've just been like wait I'm just been waiting forever. She went with her dad this weekend.

Toyota taco. Yeah. Nice. No, but I can't remember why. Too hot. Maybe. Oh, we got like um Sorry, I'm so hungry right now. We got um cinnamon like frozen cinnamon rolls from your house. Yeah. So those um things We went to dinner at water on Friday. Yeah. And then went to dinner at Pidge on Saturday. Nice.

I've been checking my text her

and then finally Did you get the belly from hospital? My what? Belly compos. I just was so off my schedule. I don't think anybody's watching right now, but I you guys at the mic are live in the live stream. Just so you know, my wife or the truck. Um, I almost rode your bike tonight, but I couldn't find my helmet and I was like, I'm not. You might want to Oh, yeah. Make sure everything's ready. Ready to go. Did it for me. Okay, good. I just My first job ever was in helmet advocacy. That's for sure. Of course it was.

Yeah. I'm so excited about that cuz they're like

I reach into my bag and allergy much I understand we may Why are those pressure? I love Costco.

I I just was like eating like fruit bars and Bren was like I got a value pack at Costco and I said I absolutely did. Happy Mayor. Can you rejoin the table? Did you say 21? I did. I I just want to make sure you get here on time. City manager. Yes. But I'll make sure you're seated. You're ready. I'm always ready. Well, she's always seated. Ready? Well, to be here is 7:21.

See, my timing was right. The time is 7:21. We are back from our brief break. Uh, we will now move on to item D, background checks for applicants and seated commissioners. We're muted apparently. Oh. Never mind. I didn't mute that. And our format is that we don't I didn't hear what you said, Paul, but I think you're saying something about us being muted. Maybe that was it. Thank you.

Um, all right. I just said uh the time is 7:21 and we have returned from our brief break. We'll move on to the next topic. Um, background checks uh for applicants and seated commissioners. Um this is something that we had talked about um already once and um we weren't previous commission previous council

previous Oh true yeah previous council um Alian do you want to give a little background? Sure. On the background. Um, so we had somebody apply who, you know, and staff, you know, I we I've never specified that this something we should do. Uh, the staff leaison uh was proactive and did a Google search and found something um a little of of concern and came to me and was like, "What's the process?" And I was like, "We don't have one. So we um we re recommended against appointing that person because we mostly because we thought it would be a distraction because it it wasn't necessarily directly conflicting but that's probably what prompted us to talk about it. You know in my 10 almost 10 years in local government like that's the first and only time ever we've ever come across something like that. So, and you know, uh, when I asked the few outlets that I could efficiently ask about that, nobody else does background checks either, but our concern, the the two examples that were the most obvious to us, which could happen, uh, is say somebody was convicted recently of um, sexual assault or violent assault. And I say recent because of course people can reform and you know but if it was recent and we often we do have some of the staff liaison are staffing the commission alone in this building on this floor

uh in in the evening. So that just seemed like we were introducing a potentially unsafe situation for a staff member and of course any other commissioner who happened to be there. But some of our commissions commissioners only attend virtually and so like the most obvious vulnerability would be to the staff leazison. The other situation is we do encourage and have had youth members and so if somebody was convicted of a crime against a child um that just seems like something we would not want to introduce

uh the opportunity to repeat um on our watch. So that's what prompted staff to recommend a policy. During that discussion, um Brenn brought up a good point which is it does create another barrier to participation when already there's not you're not having to filter candidates generally. You know, maybe we'll get one per seat if we're lucky. So it that was a concern and the last during that council meeting council rem essentially remanded that reviewing of the policy to the safe healthy connected people commission and the inclusion belonging commission. Uh to be fair I lost track of that a bit. So initially there was a work plan conflict but then um it could have been picked up somewhat recently but we just lost track of it. So, it has not been addressed by the other commissions yet to review.

Okay. Thank you for that. Um, yeah, when Elaine and I first discussed this um, you know, I I felt like I was in support, you know, after hearing um, the the reasons that Elaine just shared with us. Um, so I was in support of that going to council and and we discussed it. There, you know, were some some concerns. Um, and that's why we sent it to the commission. You know, I'm I'm looking at the one line here that I I was worried about as the convictions involving crimes of moral turpitude, just realizing how um up to interpretation that can be. So, that's why we wanted the commissions to to look at this. Um, as you know, as far as I'm concerned, I'd like for that to continue unless everybody else doesn't. Um, but I I understand that there are, you know, other municipalities don't do this. Um, I don't necessarily think that's a reason to say that we shouldn't do it. Um, you know, I know that, you know, for example, you know, Burlington has commissions. Each commission has multiple staff members. They happen, um, many of them actually happen during the workday. So, there's many people mulling about city hall. Um, so there's not the same concern that Owen just raised of, you know, an evening meeting with the staff member sitting here alone. Um, and again, the way that we we lined this out, um, and we want the commissions to look over is, you know, just because you have committed an offense doesn't mean that you can't serve on a commission. Um, so we wanted to to outline things that would 100% be disqualifying, which you see in section six. Um, if something fell outside of that, um, doesn't mean that you couldn't serve on the

commission at all. Um, and I think Ela, you had said that even, you know, in the the memo to council, you wouldn't necessarily even list, you know, everything that was found in the background check. you would just let us know if it was something disqualifying or if it was something that wasn't disqualifying or something along those lines. So, um yeah, those are those are my initial thoughts and also deputy mayor, I think, you know, one of the the concerns with it is that it could it could create barriers, but I think that because we wouldn't be turning away every type of conviction. You know, some somebody may not want to submit to a background check, but ultimately I don't think that should be a reason that we should be worried about somebody not serving on a commission. I think if we were if any background check turned up anything and we weren't considering them, I think that definitely would be a barrier to equality, but because we're not considering that, not as worried about about that aspect. And the applicant would be the person to cover the cost of the background check.

No, I would not expect that. Yeah, but it would council or we would have to um agree on the city paying, but that's not my what I would propose. Okay. So, I have a lot of feelings. Oh, actually it would be free because we were I'm just remembering the version that we proposed is the Vermont state level one which doesn't cost anything. Go ahead, Deputy Mayor.

Yeah. So, we want to make sure that folks that are participating in commissions feel safe and that um I also want to ensure that um we're being proactive where it makes sense. Um, I think that we have seen in the past few years how fear is used as a weapon

against marginalized communities. Um, I feel uneasy being the first in this instance. I think in cases where we do have a youth member, I'm probably more amanable to entertaining a background check there. Um, in in those limited cases, I I I think there's a sense of like, well, we're everybody that we are talking to is a reasonable person, but reasonable people won't always be in these seats.

Um, I have concerns over, you know, just the one of the last agenda items we're talking about. Not everybody may have a tax ID. What happens if we start doing background checks?

You know, I I don't have I there's no way for me to anticipate all scenarios. Um I I want to from my position I I would want to encourage that safe healthy connected look at it. IMB still look at it as proposed. Um I I have a lot of reservations um about how this um can discourage the participation across the board. um that it can um just also give a false sense of uh security.

Can I say something? Go ahead.

Um I'm going to say something that's a little bit personal but also has public record which is that I am a kidnapping and sexual assault survivor. And I will never forget that one of the first things that the FBI agents who were investigating my crime said to me, which is that the person who kidnapped me had nothing that would stand out on a background check. And that when they did a background check on him, they said there was nothing that would stand out. Um, it was like a parking ticket or maybe like a a a driving enforcement something. And so I share this to say that I I really appreciate what deputy mayor um Oakleaf is saying here regarding like the weaponization of fear. I also have spent and like dedicated the majority of the past eight years of my life to ensuring that this world is made safer particularly for victims and survivors like myself and for so many other people in this world. And so I understand I don't I I believe I understand like where this is coming from. And also like I value Wookuski city staff so deeply and I value the commissioners of Wooki so deeply. And so if there are folks who are indicating that this would make them feel safer, I would million% want to be a part of that conversation and I'm grateful to be doing that. I also want to acknowledge that sometimes we can move through this world with an assumption of safety, right? Thinking that like this thing will I believe this thing makes me feel safer. Um I do that oftentimes and you know I think we all do that. And so I'm like very open to being a part of this conversation and I'm very grateful to do it both as a member of city council, both as a victim and a survivor. And I I love that we're doing it with such diligence and open conversation. I also would hope that I want to note that there's not really members of the public in the room right now and I would hope that as a city council lean on to inclusion and belonging, I think safe, healthy, and connected people would be a great person or a great commission as well. And so I look forward to talking to my commission

about this, not mine, but to the inclusion of belonging commission about this. Um, and so I just really want to commend folks because, and I think I said this when we first had this conversation as well, that like this is not an easy topic and it might make folks feel uncomfortable, but and there might be some discomfort here, but I'm just very grateful to members of city council, members of city staff, and members of commission for not running away from that and for just naming that. And I just really respect everyone and I just want to I'm deeply appreciative both to Deputy Mayor Oakleaf and to everyone who's really just holding that space and I'm just um both as an individual and a member of city council. I'm appreciative.

Thank you all. Um I deeply appreciate you sharing more of your story. Um to paint in some narrative here. I yeah, background checks aren't perfect, right? Um many upstanding citizens then do terrible terrible things. Um so I think yeah I I wouldn't want if we were to adopt this later that anyone would think that it is like a foolproof like you know this piece of paper that we got back tells us everything we need to know about somebody. I you know in the situation that did come up I think what that would have been shown. So I'd hate to I don't want to say

agreed like if it could show up then we'll know right if it doesn't that's a whole another scenario but if it's there and then we put them in the room. Um, back to your point about if there's a a youth liaison, um, Bren, I wonder, you know, a youth leazison could come on after a commission has already been kind of doing their work. So then we post background check everybody who is on that commission. Good point.

If the youth liaison is going to join, maybe we do. I don't think there necessarily anything wrong with that. Um but you would then have counselors who had entered not doing a background check then having to do one. Sorry commissioners. Um and would it be retroactive?

Yeah. I mean, I think originally we talked about, again, this was an old council, so doesn't necessarily matter, but we we talked about not doing it retroactively, just as those people had been in, you know, rooms alone with with staff and and, you know, nothing happened. Um, but, um, I I I wouldn't imagine we do it retroactively. I would think it would be something that we do for for new members. Um, yeah. This might be a crazy question because I don't actually know the answer, but do we do background checks as counselors? No. Okay. That's what I assumed. Um, public officials don't typically do background checks like our Yeah,

our background check is running for election. People can Google you. People can run a background check on you and publish those things. Um, we we did talk about this. I don't remember if it was just you and I or if it was all of us. been talking about it. Um, yeah, I think we we go through a different process. Um, so I think that would suffice. Yeah. Yes.

Um, I remember the last time we talked about this um expressing some interest in exploring other avenues to to make everyone feel safer in the room. Um, like a panic button, a check-in system with dispatch before staff leaves or at the end of a meeting. And I wonder if we should if if we can open that up and consider what other avenues we can explore safety before we come back to this. Yeah, that's a good point, Council Gage. I mean, I I would say even if we did have a background check policy, I think the exploration of of panic buttons and things like that might be worthwhile. Um, can I comment?

Yes. So after that meeting, staff did discuss that and we did not come up with anything else. Part of the challenge is that yeah, actually the PD is right here, but we have two people on at a time if we're lucky. Uh not if we're lucky. Sometimes it's one. Um and so if they're on a call, there isn't anyone that's going to be able to come necessarily or necessarily quickly. Also, it the nature of the interaction might not lend itself to calling the PD. So, it just that's why we didn't come up with a great other idea. If you have other ideas, we're open to hearing them because we did not come up with any good ones that felt um better than a background check.

Yeah. Okay. And I think I'm hearing we're still just wanting the same process of safe, healthy, and IMD to look this over. I wonder if it's possible for us to have a joint meeting or is that very difficult with like I like safe, healthy, inclusion, and belonging to have a joint meeting where we talk about this or is that nearly impossible? Yeah, commissions have no yeah okay just because we meet like every so often but um

I think that I would say and Ray can chime in for save healthy but I my feeling is that that would depend on INB because they I think they try to meet for an hour and a half generally and it the agenda has been very full lately so I don't okay I don't know if I'll discuss with our staff leison on and then we'll also check in with the staff lesson on a safe connected people and do you mind you thank you chair Yes. Thank you. And the chair obviously. Yes. Thank you. Great. Any other comments? Okay. Let's move to If you would include me on that. Yes. Thank you. Oh, of course.

I'm the leazison. I know. I know. I know. Let's move to E. Review of appointed representatives to regional and statewide groups. Trekking and information sharing and recruitment. This is your topic. This is my topic. Can you pull up that lovely graph that you have? Absolutely. Um can you maybe send it to Paul so he can uh it is the last link in the cover sheet if you're looking for it. I am looking for it. I've been looking for them. That's like the whole thing I didn't click on.

Oh, no. I was talking about that big thing that you created like the Google Drive. Yeah. Go go go back to the agenda. The cover sheet for this agenda item. I don't know what a cover sheet is. Um Oh, sorry. And then just scroll down all the way. Okay. Sorry. No, no, no. You're fine. Okay. So, um, we appoint members of the public or members of this board to serve on a variety of different uh organizations um to represent Wookski. Um, do you all have this? Yes.

I was trying to figure out what where's the link for that? Right here. Um, so the uh go to go to cover sheet for F and it's the last link in the cover sheet for item F. Yes. Here you go. And it's the last link. There you go. Appreciate it. Thank you. So, um, starting on and for the Is there any public? Well, there's not any public right now, but if you are watching this on YouTube or you are watching this later, um you can find this item in the memo

in the agenda under F and the cover sheet at the bot. The last link that is there is what we are all looking at. So, um you'll see lines 2 through 7 are all of our city commissions. Um there's some more down here as well, but those are kind of the main ones that we're I want to say primarily talking about this evening. Um then we have downtown Wanooki, which is, you know, a quasi internal situation. Um you know, I feel like we have been invited to their board. There's been changes of our relationship with Denver Wooki ever since a member of city council have been serving there. um primarily the fact that um we have a loted money towards the organization above and beyond what we had before. Um there's also um the development review board um which city council doesn't have a liaison to um but that is obviously very much a city type commission. um Wookski Housing Authority, uh the mayor, I um um a member of that board. Um what else is quasi and then the tree committee is on here similar to there it is

17.

The tree commission is on here um which I don't know really how often they meet or what their lines are. Um, but then there's all of these other these other commissions, I mean committees or boards. So, Chitten Solid Waste, Wookski Valley Parts District, the airport commission, Green Mountain Transit, Chitten County Regional Planning Commission, Time TV, Wookski Bridge Replacement Advisory Board, Champlain Waste District. Um, and then I just learned recently when I was uh at a at a DRB meeting that we also have a commissioner on um uh Champagne Housing Trust. Um, so there are there are actually commissioners who are out there that none of us really knew or somebody must have known, but none of us on council had really seemed to remember that there was an appointee to Champagne Housing Trust who represented us. So the reason I wanted to talk about this is we have these people out there uh some that we are trucking better than others um who are meant to represent Wooki meant to represent council. We put them there as our kind of eyes and ears and also I'm sure they vote so also as our voice.

But we don't necessarily I shouldn't say necessarily we don't have a solid mechanism for these people to consult with us inform us of what is happening ask us questions about what they are seeing. Um you know for some things like children solid waste district the deputy mayor serves over there. So we we hear about that. The airport commission, you serve over there, council of Turko, so we hear about that. Um, but these other commissions, we we don't. So I'm not saying this is happening, but in theory, a commissioner or committee person, whatever it may be they're appointed as, could be acting and saying and doing things that we would not agree with. Um, so I would like to come up with um a reporting structure

um that we can establish for these folks. I also have been approached um multiple times by somebody who's interested but also by Vermont needs of city and towns to remind me that we have an opioid set that they have an opioid settlement advisory committee and that we can have somebody um representing Wusi on that board. I haven't wanted to take applicants for that until we have the structure in place. Um my ideal would be that we would be getting a write up from them um after every meeting that would one tell us what happened, two tell us what is going to be talked about at the next meeting which would then enable us to if we see something that we need to flag and that we need to discuss as a council before they were to have that conversation. Um, you know, I know that, um, like the airport commission, for example, that you're on, council Turkos, they've had they've taken votes on, you know, um, things that are pretty charged in the community. Um, so those are things that we would want to know about to to influence um, and and tell our our representative what we we want. Um, and you know, again, we we are, you know, people are applying for these positions. We're picking people that we think would represent us well, but at the end of the day, this body here is the elected elected representatives of the residents of Wooki. So, we can't be seeding um votes at other organizations to people without us knowing what they're voting

on. Um, ideally I think in a perfect world we would all serve on these different boards. Um, that is not that is not what is going to happen or what I expect to happen from all of you. A lot of these meetings take place during the workday. Sometimes at 7:30 in the morning,

sometimes at 7:30 so before some people's work day, but you may not want to start your day that early. Um, so I, you know, I've said this throughout the night, you already all do so much work. I wouldn't also want you to feel like you have to go to a green transit meeting on Thursdays at 4 p.m. So, that is why we appoint people to this, but I I think it's important for us to remember um that the appointment isn't for them to be their own entity out there. I've talked a lot. Um, let me know if you agree, disagree. Um any suggestions you may have? Deputy mayor, take it away.

Um yeah, so having a surprise night off, I started thinking about this conversation um with that I had with the mayor about appointments and and just commission um structure, goals, um strengths, opportunities for improvement. And it kind of sent me into a little bit of a rabbit hole and I was like, you know, where does does any of this information actually live in one place anywhere and you'll see that there are a number of areas where I have question marks because I couldn't find the information like

quickly. Like it's not that it doesn't exist, but at least in the time frame, the few hours on a Tuesday evening that I dedicated to doing this, um I wasn't able to find it quickly enough to add it. So, it's not that it doesn't exist, I just didn't find it fast enough to include it in here. Um but it doing this exercise also highlighted like one the information isn't compiled and doesn't live everywhere and two just how many people are appointed that we really don't touch base with on a frequent basis

um across so many different topic areas. Um, so you know, this opportunity for an opioid settlement advisory committee also brought to light like how are we advertising opportunities for these appointments? Should they follow the same timeline as commissions? What if they're off our our ideal fiscal year commission cycle? How does that happen? I think we're trying to realign things for the airport commission at this point so that it is congruent with our city commissions, but there's so many more groups on this list that it it really may not be feasible to have everything nicely aligned with our with our own fiscal year appointments. So like and then that kind of leads to the conversation like okay well if a board is appointing in March do we advertise and solicit interest in January who's doing the interviews? Like it just kind of leads to a domino effect of questions. Um so it again this is just up for discussion. It's a it's a touch point of the landscape of commissions, committees, boards, advisory groups that exist um and some semblance of how many of folks are appointed. If it's a primary and an alternate, if it's just one person um and their terms, is it one year? Is it in some cases it's five years? Um, so that that's kind of along the lines of like what what makes sense as we think about the landscape of city commissions as well as the larger regional um commissions. What things should we be thinking about and how do we want to try to create some

structures where there's more cohesion on how we're coordinating with with everyone and communicating with everyone. So, I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Um, one thing I will say because this is on for discussion obviously I depending on what you all are thinking I I will likely like to bring this item at least alone in a future meeting so that we can vote on um a reporting structure.

Agreed. as well as um adding the the opioid advisory committee. Um no matter what we talk about the rest of the commissions tonight and however long this conversation goes on, we will always be appointing people to these external entities that request us to do so. So, um don't be surprised to see this on an agenda soon. Um, any other thoughts or comments on this? No.

No. I like deputy mayors inside my brain. My thoughts and comments are basically that this feels unruly just in the way that it is um yeah it sort of feels like uh as a former domestic worker it sort of feels like the kids are in the playground and we just we don't know like they lost all their um like it's like when my dog goes outside he wears what we call a rave collar because like at night we can see them and it's like there's dogs out in the backyard they don't have their rave collars on.

Yes. And I think the thing for us is for me, I can't speak for us. I think the thing for me is um I would like to implement a reporting structure. And I would also like similar to item G on tonight's agenda would also like to know that like everyone who is out in the world representing the city of Wooki and the residents of Wooki and our community members and neighbors also has is values aligned with us. It does not mean that we all, you know, share a brain, but that when they're if they're voting, if they're in the room, um, that I think is important. And if some of these terms are five years, it means that potentially cast past council

appointed them. And so, um, even just like a check-in structure, right? So, like a reporting structure for sure, but even then just like a check-in structure of, you know, maybe like I would be more than happy to check in with some of these folks and just be like, "How is it going? What's working? Do you need support from us?" And um so that could be something too. Yeah. I mean, I would suggest in my reporting structure besides the written uh report that they would send to us um that they would also come to to council. You know, we can we can determine how often, but you know, at least once a year to, you know, have a discussion, hear their thoughts, hear what they're thinking. Genius, Mr. Mayor.

Cool. I didn't think you guys would disagree, but it's important to talk about. All righty. Thank you all. Item G, we don't have any members of the public. Yeah. I'll I'll double check here. Is it F?

No. Oh, item F. Yeah, sorry. Non-resident participation on city le commissions. So, um, this has been something that's come up every now and then. I don't know why I'm laughing. Oh, this is something that's come up every now and then where somebody will apply to a commission and they won't be a resident of Bonooki and the commission at some point will say, "Well, what does council think or does council allow this?" Or they won't ask and they'll just say no or they'll say yes. Um, many of the commissions do have somebody who doesn't live in the city appointed to them. Um, a a fantastic example is one of our commissions has somebody who works at an organization that is deeply tied to the city. They don't happen to live here, but I I think that their voice is is really important on um on that commission, for example. Um, and you know, I've I've been in um interviews with with potential commissioners and you know, the the after conversation has been, you know, oh, if somebody doesn't live here, they they shouldn't be on a commission or or vice versa. I do think this is probably something that city council should set as a rule across commission so that it's not different everywhere or at least so that they they know what they're doing. I don't even want to say it's different, but just so that there isn't that question anymore of can we do this, can we not do this? What does council want? Um, you know, I think that there I did an interview for a commission with somebody who didn't live in Wooki anymore, but had done their entire um, you know, K through through 12 schooling in Wooki.

you know, as far as I'm concerned, that person knows so much about this community, um maybe more than uh you know, some of us at this table or or somebody on the commission. So, to me, that person would be uh a very valued voice. Um you know, some some members of the commission didn't think so if they didn't live in Wooki. So, I do think that it's the there are still questions out there and it's something that I think that we should we should decide for the commissions.

And one thing I also want to raise as an as a additional item for discussion is a format where non-residents are allowed to be seated on commissions but may not have a voting seat on commissions. they're an advisory seat for their expertise, their background knowledge. Um, as you know, uh, city staff and the city manager mentioned in in the memo and item G, um, where it's difficult to recruit people with specialized knowledge or expertise. So I think there is benefit um to having non um resident voices participate in commissions. Um and also adding to the to the discussion of should it be an advisory position only

or should they be able to have a a voting role? I mean, it's all advisory at the end of the day, but I do think that some um commissioners that are residents of Wooki um feel it is inappropriate for non-resident commissioners to have a voting role.

Yes, I have heard that argument. Um, I will say with the difficulty that I think every commission has experienced in recruiting members that, you know, if somebody lives in Milton, but they love the city of Wooki. You know, they try to come here every time they're getting dinner, every time they're going out for drinks, they want to be in Wooki. and they happen to be, you know, a bridge architect and they're like, "Oh, wow. You have an infrastructure commission." Um, to I wouldn't have any problem with them being voting members because I think that their expertise in that area would lend their vote to having a lot of meaning. Um, if we were in a scenario where we had like Wooki residents banging down the doors of commissions wanting to participate and we were locking Wuski residents out of a commission because we had um non-resident members. You know, I I would say that residents should always take precedence, but if you either one don't have residents applying or bare is somebody with such unique expertise, um I would think that they should be a member of the commission. And I think once you're on, unless you're the alternate, you should be able to vote. And you could do, you know, I if we are filling multiple positions and one of them is the alternate position, I would say the the non resident always defaults to the alternate, even if they do have, you know, the amazing um

background experience. But if another Wooki resident who is great but maybe isn't that architect has also applied, they get the full position, the non-resident will get the alternate. But I think for admitting people to a commission, we we let them vote. because as you said it is all just advisory. Yeah, it's a it's a touchy subject and it has come up yeah uh a number of different times over the over the past few years of should we allow it and generally we've council has said yes but it's been at the commission level. It hasn't been a council

guideline um or directive for that matter um uh as to whether or not they can be appointed as whether or not they are allowed to have a voting role. So this is again just to have a have the open discussion of like what what do we feel is most appropriate and and an opportunity for feedback from the community on that.

Yeah, I would say like maybe there would be like like I could see maybe DRB you would say you know, if you're if you're just that resident from Milton, maybe DRB like isn't the commission for you. Um, if you are somebody who has like recently lived in Wooki, I think that could be somebody who would still be appointable to something like DRB. But, um, given what DRB has to discuss, I can see how the closest ties to residency would be important. thoughts, feelings, concerns.

Yeah. So, I think my personal preference is I don't like making a box because something will always end up being not great for it. We'll have scenario where we'll have someone who's not employed in Wooki or resident Wooki that it would be a great applicant. Um, but because we made this box, they can't become it. And so I'm much more of the idea of, you know, let the discretion of the commission make the initial decision and then council will also have the discretion of deciding, okay, is this person actually a good applicant or not. I know that people don't love that because it allows for things to change over time and interpretation to change.

Um, but I think it's it's more difficult to enforce, but it's easier to allow for people to, you know, contribute. Mhm. I think I get what you're saying. I think that's close to what we have now. Y and it's create and it's creating the confusion. The confusion aspect of it or is it is it tension or confusion, I guess, is the question.

Depending on which condition, but I'm I'm going just uh to stay positive with the confusion aspect. Um cuz that then I think it leaves it to oh we're you know we're not going to consider somebody who's not from who doesn't live in the ski and then you're not forwarding on to us to make that decision. It's being decided before then. So yeah, I mean I do I I do feel strongly that we need to make the decision for them to have the box can be looser like maybe we don't define what makes a Wooki resident or what could be considered as a Wooki resident um or your ties to Wooki.

Say I like the word ties are connected. Yeah. Um, and each commission can decide how close or far they want those ties to be. But I do I at least think that we should say state out of state and then there's complications over like stipend as well. I don't I don't know. I don't Yeah, if you're once you're on I think you're on. I don't know. It's I feel the same way about voting. If you're on it, you're on it. Um,

but I at least think we should make the decision at some point to tell the commissions either yes, non-residents are allowed or no, they're not allowed so that they're so that the confusion aspect at the very least is gone. Yeah. I guess I would love to hear more background about historical things that we've seen because I don't know about them. So I can't say for sure which way is good and I'm going have to go I don't know how we going to share that information but um it can help me decide.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean like just the like the the things that I shared when I first monologed to you all um like somebody being very qualified the the commission liking the person and them going to school in Wooki but no longer living here. They weren't sure what the rigs were and then they decided themselves that somebody who doesn't live in one he can't serve on a commission. So my ask would be that we at the very least don't leave that question up to each individual commission

cuz that commission chose that but another commission may not choose the same thing. So you could apply to three different commissions in Wooki for example. this one person who applied gets denied for this one reason that they don't live in Wooki, but the other commission says, "Oh, yeah, that doesn't matter to us. You can be on the commission." Um, the inconsistency of it. Yeah. It's inconsistency a bad thing. Yes.

Yes. I mean, does it end the world? No. But I think we should have uniformity across our governmental bodies. Can you I'll follow up your question with a question. Can you think of some scenarios where it like it might not it might be in our interest to have uh inconsistency between

I just think people like to people like to determine their own path for commissions. I think and maybe I won't say commissions, people like to determine their own path and sometimes a rule is helpful and sometimes a rule is unhelpful. And um I think if we add a bunch of guidelines and rules and regulations, it's eventually someone's going to feel turned away from it when they would have been a great applicant. And I know people don't love things being up to interpretation, up to commission, but it allows them the flexibility to do what is best for them. That's why I approach it that way. Okay.

I go ahead, please.

Deeply agree with you. I also think that what can be hard is it's like when you go to the airport and you're and you're like, well, this person over here let me check my bag last time and now I can't. And it's like, okay, cool. Well, that's not how it works. and I'm following the rules and I think hypothetically if someone's trying to join safe healthy connected people and they're like well my friend over here joined inclusion and belonging and they're the exact same as me and they don't live in Wooki but right and it's so I'm like as someone who also was like rules what um even though I love being on city council I love rules but I I hear you and I think right it's like we we particularly being in positions of power in a city like Wooki where like the more flexible that we are, the easier and more accessible that we make it for the residents of Wooki to be engaged civically, which I deeply agree. But I think that also if it's too flexible, then sometimes that non-uniformity can make it hard for people. But I hear you. Stuck hard rock place, whatever the cliche is. Deputy Mayor.

Um I guess I keep coming back to the discussion of um close ties to Wooki and there how to define that without it being nebulous and if we allow each commission to define that in of itself, aren't we just creating the same problem but just on a lower level of inconsistency? So, I I would say if someone from, you know, Addison County really wanted to join, um, but they didn't meet like they're not they're not a resident, they don't own a business, whatever. Um,

where where would we stop them? And and would we like is there is there a scenario where someone who does not have close ties to Wooki would actually earnestly want to serve on a commission in Wooki and do this time commitment? So does that requirement need to exist at all? I also wonder if it's for nefarious reasons, right? Like what if someone from Addison County is like wanting to put up a 19 million story skyscraper in Manuski and their close ties are that they like, you know, their grandfather was raised here. We're not going to ask for a birth certificate, right? I was thinking it's like there's a a member of this school staff and they work at the school but they live in Essex Junction or Under Hill or whatever and so they really want to be a part of safe healthy connected people because they love the students. That to me was like a close tie that I was considering thinking of. But then it's like what if you have someone who's like I want to develop Wookuski and again build like the Empire State Building here, but they obviously don't disclose that and then they get on the DRB and they're like Empire State Building.

I think what one thing is an application is like used to weed people like that out. So like what they're saying they want to serve and also then again going back to like a commission onboarding like regularly enforcing like conflict of interest policies and like the accountability that you know no scenario is perfect but I think you can stop someone coming in and trying to like change the planning commission and the city charter to allow something because they are a private developer because that's a conflict of interest. Smart. So I'm hearing you say that we have great structure already. And I guess I'm curious about what is our discretion to reject applicants

because anything we want. Exactly. Which is why I was kind of wondering isn't that a way for us to determine if an applicant has ties to a new ski or not is that we get to prove their appointment. Sure. Yes. But we don't see that applicant if the commission rejects somebody because they don't live in town. So there's like a couple steps. I think that's what I'm missing. Yeah. Yeah.

Which is kind of the leadup to like item G is on the agenda is at this point there's so much to talk about commissions and like what's working, what's not. There's all these pathy topics of like how do we want to deal with some of these things moving forward. We're just about to enter um the stage where we advertise for terms that are ending across all commissions. And that happens in in early May. Applications need to be in honestly middle end of May, but earlier the better because then we have to schedule interviews with the chair and with the city liaison. And then appointments need to be made by the second meeting of June so that they can start the first meeting of July. So there's there's that stage where like each of us are appointed to commissions and if there's four or five applicants and either everybody's interviewed or not everybody's interviewed depending on qualifications and then eventually somebody is selected and brought forward to council and it may or may not be on a consent agenda item. So not council doesn't see all applicants for all commissions

which complicates which is what mayor is talking about. I see. Yeah. Should we go to G to be continued? Yeah, I think we should move to G. All righty. Um Who wants to do their memo first in their lane? So, for this I almost wish we had a whiteboard cuz I don't want to do Oh, there's one right there. It's not big enough. Okay. Like I think I would need most of this white blank walls back here to just do a big SWAT analysis.

Oh, Jesus.

Yeah, I mean it. Um because I think there is a lot here and I I think you can gauge from the items we talked about um thus far as well as um the memo that I've drafted as well as the staff like and presented back in March as well as the staff memo that the city manager drafted and included. Um my before we dive in I again just a reminder that it's discussion only and I would caution that I would I would hope that any proposal or any um subset of suggestions are offered to the community to help provide feedback and input before a decision is made.

Yes. Um, I will hand it over to the city manager because I've also done plenty of talking.

Okay, sounds good. So, I did ask a question of council before. What is the purpose of the commissions from your point of view? From the charters, it seems that the goals that they have in common are that they're intended to advise city council on policy as aligned typically with the strategic vision areas of the what we're we have been calling the master plan will be called the comprehensive plan and that they are supposed to be representative of the community as a whole. So we feel that the challenges that a lot of them have been surfaced during this discussion are often um resulting in those goals not being met. So I don't know if you want me to get into detail about that. Happy to. But I'm going to just put that there as a conclusion. And I'm not claiming that our alternatives are um going to address all of those issues and also are as good as some of the benefits that they're currently serving. The designated body to consult can be very convenient. uh they're standing they you know the people who go all the time do have enough institutional knowledge to give us some input when there are available people with expertise who attend uh on those commissions they have been very help they can be very helpful but that just is not the norm so that's why we uh I feel like probably before my time but staff has been having this um very uh having this discussion with some feelings for my entire tenure here. And we actually consolidated somewhat around

an idea which again doesn't have to supersede council uh I'm sorry the commission structure and I certainly wouldn't propose that we do it from July 1. This was an idea that uh at some point I thought would be worth putting on a council policy priorities retreat agenda for staff to work on through this next fiscal year if it was of interest to council. But since we're having this meeting now, uh we're proposing these three possibilities. The quarterly topical form is really the one that we I think we're rather excited about. And for those of you who were at the community winter supper, that is really what we're evoking here. That was just such a slam dunk. People actually enjoyed going. It was an opportunity to educate as well as to get feedback. Like that's and a chance to create community, which is one of our uh findings from the equity audit that we're not um our community is essentially it's still segregated. we're not providing enough cross sub community opportunities to get to know one another. So that um is a good format for that. Those are kind of side benefits. Getting back to the primary uh apparently the primary goals of the of the bodies is like advising council on policy and being able to get that advice from a representative cross-section of the community. That's where we feel like we could get that and um through this like quarterly forum idea. Yeah, I think I'll leave it there. Um where to start?

you know, so I would sort kind of said it, you know, I think that uh the deputy mayor and I have had very differing opinions on commissions for some time. Um the former mayor and I had discussions about wanting to have this maybe not this exact discussion but wanting to do something around commissions because we were both starting to feel that um many of the commissions maybe weren't necessarily serving their purpose um for the reasons that we've stated tonight. light agenda items, commissioners not showing up, uh chairs who weren't engaged in chairing, um councilors who were doing a lot of work on on a commission to to make it successful. Uh city staff who was feeling uh they haven't necessarily said this, but I'm putting this word out there, kind of weighed down by the work that they had to do for each commission meeting. Um, and we never kind of came up with a with an approach we wanted to bring forward to council or nec specific changes, but I think that we recognize that some changes are necessary. Um, you know, I I said earlier I think if we're not going to wholly change up the commission structure in terms of merging commissions, eliminating commissions, adding commissions, I would at least think that maybe we want to change their cadence of how often they meet. Um, you know, I think that they can be very useful. I think there obviously people have signed up for them. They want to be helpful to the city um and to us, but

you know, I think many of us have sat in a commission meeting and we're like, was this worth everybody's time?

Um and I think that that's very important when we're doing anything is is it worth people's time all around? Um I think that we can make commissions worth people's time. I appreciate the example u the recommendations or um examples that staff provided um as a background for all of you. When Brenn and I were putting this together, we asked Elaine if um Elaine would speak with staff and get input, see if anybody could attend. And uh from those meetings that Elaine was able to have is where um her memo came from. Um because I think that staff are so integral in this, right? they they have been um the primary driver of the agendas and and whatever is going to go forward with commissions. Um there will be a staff component there as well. So wanted to make sure that we had their their input for this conversation. Um yeah, I'll leave it there for now. I' I'd love Britain if you would also like to um spiel for a little bit and then I think if uh rest of the counselors can give us your kind of initial thoughts on on how you think where you would like to see commissions going.

Thanks. Um I think a couple things for me on this. Um, so due to like when I when I moved to Anookki, I was on the environmental commission, which it no longer exists. Um, and helped support a green update um, back when the moose ran through town. Um and you know eventually I ended up paying just again a unique personality that I have a policy geek and when um meetings were online more frequently I was able to um you know be able to like listen in without necessarily being in person um and provide comment to the housing trust fund changes um and to safe, healthy, connected and um some of the um uh policing topics that were coming up. Um so I think for me um I was able to participate and engage in topics kind of as they and hear discussion. um I think is also the benefit of the commission format is to be able to hear what other people are thinking and saying where a forum like the open house forum that'll happen this coming Wednesday. It doesn't necessarily offer that opportunity to hear what other voices are are in the room. You can kind of talk to a representative and you know put a dot on a chart of what your preferences are. kind of see the general like high level like what are people's preferences but you don't have that discussion opportunity um and eventually as a counselor I I will listen and watch recordings so that I can hear the discussions and not just read the

minutes. So when it comes to a decision point for me, then I can hear some of the conversation that that was in the room as well as, you know, soliciting other feedback from um constituents. So I I think there is lots of room for improvement. I would caution about dissolving commissions other than the statutory ones entirely. Um I think having feedback from the current commissioners and chairs would be wise as well as the greater community. Um so you know council chair goes to your point like not just the seated representatives but those that are like you know Eli wasn't on a commission but you attended so many meetings ahead of time and you contributed so much

just by your comments and questions. So um you know thinking about those elements where like how can we alleviate some of the burden and the stress increase the value um for and and the purpose um and you know just also knowing that there's a delicate balance of um if meetings have you know if they move to an infrequent schedule will that continue to rem will that even be harder to get quum will that add another burden of trying to refresh people's memories of like right three months ago when we talked about this topic this is where we left off um so I I think there's pros and cons of of uh any direction that we go um I I do think that there's opport a wealth of opportunity for improvement um and that soliciting feed additional feedback and input would would just be something that I um I hope that we pursue.

Thank you, Dr. Okay,

I think all that's wonderful. Um to to dive a little bit deeper into the idea of changing the frequency of the meetings but keeping the same structure. I think going to every other month might make sense. I think turning a a standing commission into an ad hoc body runs the risk that and like just tapping that body whenever something comes up. you're like, "Okay, we're gonna, you know, finance is going going to go into hibernation until budget season or something." You run the risk of people disengaging from that committee that by the time you try and reactivate it, no one's there anymore. Um because people have moved or taken on other obligations or had a kid and and instead of having to commit like recruit for one or two alternate seats here and there as we're always doing,

having to start a whole new board. Um, and the other note of just in in playing with the the structure would be that a lot of times people join commissions to feel like they're a part of the community to feel like engaged and like meet other people in Manooki and learn all these things. If if it's dissolved to just be an ad hoc standing body, the people that are maybe not necessarily have that extreme interest and and passion or like subject knowledge that are looking to join this to grow that and then become a contributing member are not going to feel like they're getting the same thing out of the commission, which I think we want them to get things out of it as well as contribute.

So that's just my thought on the frequency. Thank you. I agree regarding frequency. I agree regarding going to once a month. I agree regarding making it ad hoc. Will and like the hybridation thing I think is such a good point. Sorry, you said I agree to making it once a month. Oh, it already is once a month. Oh, okay. Sorry. Every other every other That's what I meant. Sorry. Thank you. You guys at 30. No, no, I just wanted to make sure down what you want what you like correctly.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, and I think the the I don't know what recruitment has looked like in the past, and I'm not saying that recruitment for commissions is is not amazing. Um, but yeah, I I think one of the things that I would love to see is having a conversation with Let me back up. It makes so much sense to me that city staff is like burnt out regarding commissions because I I'll say this. When I first joined Safe Healthy Connected people, sorry Ray, if you're in the room, I did not know that it was on me to help to draft the agenda. And then I had a conversation with Bin and Bin was like, "Oh yeah, this is a part of our role." And I remember being like,

I had no idea. And I was so embarrassed. And I have not had a chance to see Ray in person and to like apologize and be accountable to that. And Ry, we could have a transformative justice process. I'd be very here for it. Um, but it I didn't know that and and so that makes a lot of sense. And anyway, so I just it makes so much sense that city staff is like we're trying to like run a city and commissions can be really difficult. And so I would I think for us as city council members to have a conversation with commissions at some point in time and to say like what's working for you, what isn't working, how can you help with recruitment, how do we get the word out? Um, and we don't need to completely overhaul it, but to hear from people who are serving right now and also, you know, when they go out into the community and they say, "I'm on inclusion and belonging, safe, healthy, and connected, etc., municipal infrastructure."

And if, you know, people are interested in it, what are the questions that they hear? Um, and so I think that would be, you know, we sort of do like a factf finding, feasibility study, whatever, unofficially. Um, and I think that could be helpful. Um, because I know, yeah, I I I just think how do we make commissions more accessible? And then also we don't need them to be 50 people, of course, but the more bodies that we have on them, I think the more helpful that it could be.

Um, Jan, you didn't completely pose the question, but I would like to address it. recruitment could likely be better. It's primarily city councilors do the recruitment for the commissions. Um and that was, you know, actually before Mayor Lot left, I was like, "And you will recruit."

Um you know, Paul makes some very nice social media posts that we can repost and things like that, but uh you know, after that it's it's primarily on this. I don't I don't know how much each commissioner honestly puts time into recruiting their their neighbors. I think that there could probably some more recruitment done on on that level as well. Um and also, you know, probably more that we could do, but uh yeah, so I did just want to address that. That's definitely a a part of a part of this, too. You might or maybe not. feelings.

Yeah, I I have feelings. The

So, one big thing that I've kind of noticed with the commission meetings, particularly with mun municipal infrastructure, is that it's usually feast or famine. Um it's, you know, you'll have long meetings, backto-back meetings that have lots of stuff to talk about, and then you get to the spring and you don't have anything to talk about. Um, and so I whatever ends up being decided and I think I'm I'm I like the idea of going, you know, once every two months ideas, I'm okay with that. Um, but there needs to be acknowledgement that that may jump up to once a month if if things come up that are lots of bigger items. Um cuz I know right now planning commission has changed their uh cadence to be a little quicker bidding on recent events.

Yeah, they they do that. They will do every week. I don't know if they they'll do every week in a month, but like definitely every other week depending on what's on their docket. Yep. Yeah. I guess I would have to understand how often people have struggled to fill agendas and commissions over a course of a year and see if that aligns with once every two months.

Um, and if it does, that sounds great. If it doesn't, then maybe this doesn't work for that commission. I wonder so circling back to something you said a little well a couple times tonight actually is how the work plan for some commissions just is not that clear or that strong. Does it make sense to dissolve a commission? And I I'm saying that also you've been ardently against

this. This is the thing like and this is why I'm caveating. I'm I'm saying this with a position that I I feel like there are improvements that we can make without dissolving commissions. And I am a person that believes like updates are valuable. It may not be actionable, but I think it's valuable because it gives an opportunity for folks to have a conversation, ask deeper questions that, you know, they're not attending these council meetings for

or they may not they they might have seen something in passing from a Main Street like weekly construction update, but there's not a lot of depth there, and they may not want to email somebody that they don't know and can't have a conversation with, then they may not hear back for two weeks. Yeah, I mean I think um you know I I don't necessarily um think that we should dissolve any of the commissions. Um I think that there are some commissions that probably need more assistance than others. Um, I think if we were to change if we were to do something like changing the meeting frequency having conversations with commission members to remind them that they signed up for this and in terms should be attending every single meeting. Um, if we do all of those steps, um, and we continue to see this consistent problem,

I would think, okay, well, maybe, you know, in a year we we have been another conversation about maybe that commission needs to be dissolved cuz there just isn't work for them or maybe they need to move to ad hoc for some commissions. Um, you know, Angela, you're just here, so I'm going to pick on you, but you know, finance could meet the two months before budget, go through budget season, and then they dissolve. Um, or safe healthy meets just before, you know, the the summer's going to start for a few months, meets through the summer, and then and then dissolves. Um, I think those are things we could look at further down the line. I think that I would like to give us the opportunity to try to create um a more engaging experience and also you know the commissions you know I a a lot of this I I've said in varying ways you know I I think a lot of this work needs to come from the commissioners here

you know they they signed up they applied they are engaged I They're not paid. It's I recognize it's a their work comes with barriers for sure. Um, you know, I I was on a board once and and the chair of the board said, you know, if you're just here for your resume, then you shouldn't be here. Um, and I I agree with that statement. you know, you've signed up to a policy advisory board to do the work of a policy advisory board and it's that's not easy and yes, I would love if we could pay you. I'd love if we could pay us uh more. Um, and you know, that will stop some people from doing it, but the people who have said, "Yes, I understand this isn't paid. Yes, I I know what the the requirements are." those people need to be engaged in making that a lively commission as well. Um, you know, I've seen commissions I've served on when I've subbed into a commission when a counselor has been, you know, on vacation or something. You know, there have been many times where a staff member has created an agenda. you know, we've got five things to talk about

and I only hear the staff member talking and the council member will, you know, kind of chime in to try to bring up some conversation. So,

you know, which is, you know, this is why we wanted to have this bigger conversation cuz there there are lots of things here, you know, it's not just that we don't have agendas. There are agendas sometimes and the conversation isn't isn't fruitful. Um so you know this this is something that you know we you've mentioned it we've all I think mentioned at this point commissioners need to be asked and engaged in and how they want to see what they think about changes uh that may come from us to the commissions. Um yeah I I I don't want to dissolve anything right now because I see that there are benefits in each of the commissions that we currently have. you know, they're, you know, just because they had, I don't know, 10 months of not that great work, but two months of really important work, again, I don't see that that's a dissolvement. It just might mean a different process for that particular commission.

Um, and some of them, I mean, are maybe they don't go to, if we do decide later when we're doing votes, like to every other month, maybe infrastructure doesn't do that. Maybe infrastructure's got enough going on. uh that they meet every single month or maybe it's safe hug be connected um that we'll learn from those conversations but I really think that the commissioners are going to need to engage on this conversation and providing us feedback um because I think what I'm hearing like from the majority of us is we've seen more of the the downsides of of the commission um makeup than than the good sides. And you know I you know Bren I keep bringing this to you had incredible success on infrastructure but I really do think that was because a lot of the work that you did.

Yeah. and um which like you know not was great and I think it was fantastic and a lot of good work was done there but um that was only because you're able to do it but you know that wasn't the commission itself functioning I don't believe um yeah yes you certainly can

just a note about um commissioners needing to engage because they committed to it. I just want to remind us that the number the the type of person who can come to a night meeting once a month for no pay is very unrepresentative proportion of the community.

Something to grapple with. Uh the other point is uh it's kind of cosmetic and yet not the inclusion belonging commission structure currently is that they do their own commission every other month and then the other month they're in the ambassador. So if some of the other commissions are meeting every other month, not all of them if they are meeting every it just again it's like council created it they can change it but I mention it because I don't haven't come up with a better idea and even that is cause it causes some difficulties for their continuity for their ability to get through agendas that are important.

Yeah. But again, it was put in there because of equity. Like why should they have to go to twice as many meetings, right, as everyone else except planning? Um, so or DRB sometimes. But yeah, just a couple of other considerations as you continue the conversation. Thank you. Thank you for that point. Right. Yeah. And I don't know if every other month is is kind of like the perfect fix, right? I I kind of threw that out there earlier cuz I was just like, "All right, if we're not seeing a lot of agenda in each meeting, then maybe we can cluster it, but doesn't mean that that's right." And as I said also like sometimes you have a lot of agenda and still not a lot of conversation. So yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I think Bin um really summarized it before, there's really pros and cons to any of these models. So, it's just what are you? Yeah, it does make sense to me to like take a year of active listening without changing a whole lot and maybe nothing just to make sure, you know, being deliberate about it before you make changes. If I can ask a question.

Um, thinking ahead to the comprehensive plan, um, is there anything that we would want to have decided ahead of time? I I don't anticipate there being anything but at the same time I wanted to pose the question. So now so like if we need to be thinking about trying to capture something or something that may a question that we may or may not need to address before we get to a point where we're adopting the comprehensive plan.

Would you want compensation decision for a comprehensive plan? Uh, no. I wouldn't I would not expect that a plan would have something like that in it. But the um the one I'm not able to think of I feel like I'm going to be missing vast swaths of possibility to answer that question. The one thing I can think of is if the goal areas were going to change then maybe the commissions would change accordingly. Mhm. But Revy and I went into this and I think we checked with council too at the time like this is supposed to be uh a light consult or efficient targeted consult version because everything is still so relevant. So I don't even anticipate the areas changing.

Okay. Yeah. I again not without knowing and wanting to just have on our timeline of like we want to adopt the comprehens comprehensive plan by this time. We want to have feedback from the community on potential changes by this time and just like being able to have that that Gant chart in our head of like when we need to work backwards from Actually, I think it would be the other way around. You would want the comprehensive plan to drive what you do with the commissions. Chicken and the egg. Yeah, I kind of see it as a both hand. I mean, it certainly could be that that's my bias. See what you both mean. Yeah. So we

can I ask more questions because I'm trying Yeah. Sorry if I No, please. It's getting late. Um the So we I I guess I'm trying to think of examples of have we had scenarios where a staff liaison didn't come up or approve every single agenda item? Is there a scenario where the commission chair brought an agenda item up or the counselor brought it up? Because I'm I'm I'm looking at it always through municipal infrastructure because it's

it's very hard for that to happen in our case because predominantly the work has already been determined for the year. So anything that's new, it's often not really discussed. That's why I'm trying to envision how this works out

plan. Yep. and the strategies and priorities um are basically what are influencing conversation and the budget. So as you head into budget season kind of seeing like do we really want to advocate for more line striping from council like there was only $20,000 for FY26 and that's that's just not enough. And do we want to advise that as they approach the budget conversation that we get some fresh paint, new carpet for city hall? You know, the things like that that just like wouldn't that's not necessarily a work plan item, but kind of comes up as like, hey, we're heading into budget season.

What's coming to mind? And like here's the vast array of work plan things and the like unmet needs like what within that area of like do we have a desire to move something ahead or to have council consider moving something ahead of something else. So I see those as topic potential topic areas. Okay. I agree question. No, actually no more. That was good. Thank No, thank you. That was good.

And you know, I have seen you didn't ask, but I have seen where a staff leaison has reached out to the chair and the counselor and said that they couldn't think of something for the month and the chair and the counselor haven't proposed anything. So, in which case it's okay to say there are no agenda items. There's insufficient agenda items. And we did that in February. We met in January. We didn't meet in February. Y and that's okay. That's okay. Um, do you have any questions?

No. No. I think just thinking on that that it like circling back to just like the simplest solution of making some of them every other month makes sense because it removes the the pressure to create fluff agenda items that might not need to be don't merit conversation

and I think we can think of ways and I I completely hear the concern of like if we went to every other month well then would people disengage more and you know I still think maybe on you know the like I had said earlier like staff the chair and the counselor meet on the month that they're not meeting to try to come up with a good agenda and that can be via email or zoom it doesn't have to be an inerson meeting um but maybe the council leaison on that month where they don't meet still sends an email to everyone saying hey here are my council updates okay

um staff member would say here are my you know one email here are my staff updates so that. So those members are still getting outreach and still being connected in some way and then getting together all together the next month. Okay. Um we do have an opportunity to hear from a resident from a different community. Do you want

We do. I was going to say I was going to say that. Um yeah, I you know you you have been listening to our conversation tonight. Um uh you're a fellow elected member in a different town. I don't know if there was anything any musings you may want to share with us as as you've been here with us. Um if there are, I would just have you come up to the microphone.

Just move the mic. Hi, Betsy Pereé. Uh, Milton, Vermont. Um, just was elected to select board, but I bring to the select board a very unique um perspective because I had been serving on three commissions

and uh CSWD kind of a committee commission. And um I was only on for a short amount of time, but during this short time I was elected chair of the planning commission, vice chair of the recreation commission, and treasurer of the conservation commission. And it was basically one of the things that I found as being a commissioner was we were busy and as chair I mean I was working with the planning and zoning staff to develop the agenda. Um so there was no problem with that and as vice chair um would work with the chair and staff um and we would share the agendas with the commissioners before the meeting before they were warned so everybody had a chance. So but all of our commissions um everybody's very engaged um and uh there's actually waiting lists now for um yeah but but the reason why is because I've shown a political path to the select board through commissions. So it's become people are sort of seeing this because none of the select board members really in the past ever sort of took the commission route.

Interesting.

But one of the things that I noticed as a commissioner was weirdly weren't dealing with any of the very kind of important projects. So in recreation commission we were not really talking about the the construction of a recreation center. Um that's been in the works in discussion since the late 80s. And and then I sort of noticed because I was attending select board meetings that they had the consultant talking about the feasibility study and as the commission we never even saw it or talked about it. So I was like wait a second it's like the select board is where kind of the decisions are being made. Um, and so that's part of the reason I decided to kind of make the move to the select board because it's like the council. I mean, I don't know if it's the same, but you know, because you're making decisions based on your capital improvement plan, the budget, all of those sorts of things. So, what we're grappling with is um when you have a waiting list, um what's the process? Because it used to be when there was a vacancy, it it would just get filled because there'd be somebody waiting in the wings, but it was just sort of you just filled the seat. And um they would come to us, they would do a very basic application form, come to the select board and just, you know, hey, so what do you want to serve? I like trees. I like to hike, you know. Um and so, but now on our planning commission, we're going to have three vacancies. I created a vacancy. Somebody moved out of Milton and somebody who served for 16 years is coming off and we've got eight people. Um

I'm so sorry. 16 years.

Yeah. he just kept getting that's the other thing that kind of we're looking at is you can express interest to be reappointed but should there be term limits I mean maybe yes maybe no um so that's something of interest we don't have sort of the liaison from kind of the select board too and as a former commissioner one of the things is once you're appointed like you never have any sort of re relationship with the select board again like there's know kind of that feedback loop that you all were talking about. And so I would be having lunch with the chair of the the select board and I'd be like, "So, you know, the commission uh the the planet whichever commission, you know, is talking about this." He's like, "Wait, what are you guys talking about?" Um, that doesn't really align with what we're talking about. And so, so I'm going to be making a presentation to our select board um about kind of what I think we should do. And some of it is based on what you're doing, but some of the problems you're having are not the same problems we're having.

Um but I found kind of the time that I've spent here so helpful because it is in a way flagging potential problems down the road that we might face. Um, but I think the the connectivity and kind of the reporting back and sort of the role of a select board serving on and kind of making sure that you're always aligned. The other thing is um I didn't even realize we had some of these regional um ones and like I'm at the last meeting approving somebody on a fiber works thing. Oh wow. for Northwest Vermont

and I'm like I had to Google like what it is and then who are the people and I'm like this isn't even on our website like and so I made a suggestion to our town manager because you guys at least list but we don't even list you know that I'm on the CSWD and all that kind of stuff. So it's just been really interesting um just hearing and coming going to your website and sort of just seeing how you do things um because I learned so much from it. But you guys are definitely on the right track. Um, we have in our charter like our um, kind of the bylaws for each commission, which to be fair, if you go look at them, they're all woofy out of date, so don't look at that part of it. But um but we do have a whole section about attendance and if you miss you know um x% per year or per quarter um that the chair will recommend to the council to the our select board that um there's a conversation and you could lose your seat.

Um so you know we need to update all of our bylaws. Um, but I'm we do have one commission that it's sort of like the treading water commission. Um, and all the members have been on a really long time and they're all wonderful community members, but they're not moving anything forward. And so, you know, there's discussions of do we dissolve it? Do we um kind of appoint new people? Do we, you know, so we're a lot of the same Well, thank you very much for sharing. Thank you for letting me um kind of be here and take notes. We love civic engagement.

Open your policy. Thank you.

Okay. Um so everything tonight was obviously just discussion. Um I think we have lots to reflect on and think about here. Um, as I said, I'm at least going to bring forward one thing for a meeting coming up. I think what we've really identified is we would like to find a way to start getting feedback from existing commissioners and the public about a variety of these different topics, but commission strategy in general. Um, so I think we'll have to start thinking about how do we get that feedback. Um, you know, in what form, what way? Google form, Microsoft form. Um,

yeah, an agenda item. Another agenda item. Um, we have meetings to talk about, other meetings. Talk about other meetings. I think you're welcome. I think if there's any other thoughts that you all have that come up from this, if you'll um email um You've got a long run ahead of you. forum. Yeah, for if you if you'll email me, I'll share them with the the deputy mayor um and the deputy mayor and I should probably touch base soon to talk about this a little more. Um any other thoughts?

I just want to say thank you. Obviously, I can't control the weather, but it was a gorgeous evening. You all sacrificed. Uh, you could have us serurped the agenda, went to item G, dissolved everything, and then we would have been out in the sunshine. So, you did make that joke earlier. I I but I I mean I in the five plus years that I've been on council, we haven't had a dedicated discussion like this about commissions. So, I think it's past due. there's just and there's so much we didn't even talk about as well, but I I think we got to a lot of the like really key topics that have been coming up

um recently. So, I I just want to say thanks for the open discussion and again the sacrificing time. Um we've got a we've got a run of Monday meetings here and I that does not escape me. So, yes, as we multiple times talked about taking staff time, we have staff here. So, thank you. Yeah, thank you for initiating it. Um, okay. Um, time is 8:56. I will look for a motion to adjourn this meeting. Second. All those in favor? I Thank you so much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you.