City Council

27 WEST ALLEN STREET WINOOSKI, VERMONT 05404 (802) 655-6410 CITY OF WINOOSKI (802) 655-6414 (fax) KATHERINE R. DECARREAU CITY MANAGER MAYOR SETH LEONARD COUNCILOR NICOLE MACE sleonard@winooskivt.org DEPUTY MAYOR BRIAN CORRIGAN CITY COUNCIL COUNCILOR ROBERT MILLAR COUNCILOR BRIAN SWEENEY bcorrigan@winooskivt.org Agenda Tuesday, June 28, 2016 6:00 p.m. Claire Burke Council Chambers I. Call To Order II. Pledge of Allegiance III. Public Comment IV. Consent Agenda a. Approval: City Council and Water/Wastewater and Liquor Control Minutes of June 20, 2016 b. Approval: Warrants as of June 27, 2016 c. Approval: Purchasing Policy V. City Update VI. Agenda Review VII. Regular Items: a. Approval: Letter of Support for Project Graduation – Seth Leonard b. Discussion: Interim City Manager – Seth Leonard c. Discussion/Approval: City Manager Search Procedure – Seth Leonard d. Approval: FY017 Tax Rate – K Decarreau e. Discussion/Approval: Fire Chief Job Description – K Decarreau f. Discussion: Strand Theater Project – K Decarreau i. Support for VT Downtown Sales Tax Reallocation ii. Authorize the Mayor to Sign a Development Agreement for Improvements to Public Infrastructure g. Approval: Support for VT Downtown Code Improvement Tax Credits for the Winooski Block VIII. Adjourn: MINUTES The meeting was called to order by the Mayor at 6:00 p.m. The meeting began with the Pledge of Allegiance led by Deputy Mayor Corrigan. Members Present: Mayor Seth Leonard Councilors: Brian Corrigan, Brian Sweeney, Nicole Mace, Robert Millar Officers Present: Katherine Decarreau, City Manager; Carol Barrett, City Clerk; Angela Aldieri, Staff Accountant; Ray Coffey, Community Services Director; Julie Hulburd, Human Resources Officer; Peter Wernsdorfer, Public Works Director; John Audy, Code Enforcement Director. June 28, 2016 Minutes Winooski City Council Others Present: Maura O’Neill, Winooski Community Partnership, John Spittle, Acting Fire Chief; Mike Antoniak, Firefighter; Jeff Hodgson, William Niquette, Terry Zigmund III. Public Comment: None IV. Consent Agenda: MOTION by Councilor Corrigan seconded by Councilor Millar to approve the consent agenda as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. V. City Update: The City Manager updated the circulator work and it continues on schedule. We are also finalizing our construction schedule. VI. Agenda Review: None VIII. Regular Items: a. Approval: Letter of Support for Project Graduation The Mayor said he received a letter of Support for Project Graduation. See letter attached. MOTION by Councilor Mace seconded by Councilor Corrigan to approve the letter of support for project graduation with a notation that they can use words of some support from us. Voted and passed 4-0. b. Discussion: Interim City Manager The Mayor said we have a process in our charter that spells out the interim basis such as an Acting City Manager as an option and the Council retains the right to consider an Interim City Manager. This item is on tonight for two purposes. 1 Is to give guidance to the Mayor to what he should begin negotiating with for potential Acting City Manager, right now Ray Coffey is Acting City Manager that is a designee by the City Manager and approved by the Council. Ray has been Acting City Manager for year and a half. There is interest and it makes a lot of logical sense to discuss the idea of potentially moving directly into an interim. If that is the will of the Council I would need to hear back from you and the need to discuss quickly in Executive Session and any financial considerations that I would be able to negotiate and work with our HR Manager, Julie. We will also need to bring back to you a plan for how this cascading impact or effect will be on the Departments. I think you need to see that before accepting and negotiating. What I’m looking for tonight is guidance on if I should continue you to pursue which is my recommendation as Interim status for the current Acting City Manager Ray Coffey. Councilor Mace asked if Ray is interested and subject to negotiations. The Mayor said Ray has consented to enter into negotiations. The Mayor also said he has reached out to Department Heads and has had conversations and made sure people were comfortable with that. Councilor Mace asked if there were any red flags. The Mayor said he came away with that as everyone was comfortable. He said Acting could be as long as 60 days and then there would have to be a separate process to pursue interim and that would be a secondary hiring process. The Mayor said the Charter is really clear so we won’t need a lot of assistance on this at this point. As we move on with this process we are going to be doing an extensive legal out reach. Councilor Corrigan said he sees no issue moving on to the interim portion of it. My concern is to make sure we can backfill. Councilor Millar’s concern is on the next level down the Department level with maintaining community service as much as possible. I suggest you might consider trying to avoid the cascading water fall affect as much as possible assuming an Interim Department Head. It could have potential HR Issues. The Mayor said he would like to sit with the Department Heads and assess that and bring a plan back that would be included in the other considerations involved. The Mayor said in regards to a potential negotiation and the need to have some of that information remain confidential about what the final agreement will be this would be an opportunity for council to discuss in executive session. MOTION by Councilor Corrigan seconded by Councilor Sweeney to go into executive session to discuss the interim City Manager position and also invite Julie Hulburd, HR. The City Manager asked are you going to do it now or at the end of the meeting. The Mayor said we will delay this to the end of the meeting. c. Discussion/Approval: City Manager Search Procedure June 28, 2016 Minutes Winooski City Council The Mayor noted that we had a good exchange today regarding the process. There were a couple of suggested updates from a conversation between Julie and I that I want to point out. #1 the search committee as designated at this time is comprised of nine people and we have the option of a couple additional staff for the initial interviews. He said nine people and as many as eleven could be intimidating and we should build in language in the next draft that would offer the opportunity for the search committee to pair down that member to an interview group. The other thing that was brought was to make sure we formalize that fact that there needs to be a hiring train. You’re bringing in folks who might not have HR background. There are some things that legally you are allowed to ask and somethings you’re legally not. It would be good to add the time for a crash course for these folks. He also mentioned the schedule needs a little work. Councilor Mace likes the roll of the commission are playing. The Mayor said it would make sense to invite a representative from each commission. The Mayor also said the thing that changed from the last draft is that we had two division directors in the hiring crew as part of getting staff feed back. Because of some of the technical nature in the work the staff is doing I thought it would probably make a lot of sense to also include the option of brining in a few specialized staff members on during the interview process. Councilor Mace thought this was a very inclusive and thoughtful process. The Mayor said it would be very helpful if you would consider meeting for a quick final review and vote to approve this document with nominations of nominating committee the week of July 11. If we can get this process approved on the 11th that will save us a week to be able to reach out and do nominations and we might be able to approve a slate of folks for the search committee on the 18th. d. Approval: FY017 Tax Rate The City Manager said the voters approved a budget of $5,147,561.68 to be raised by taxes. The Grand List proved somewhat higher than we originally anticipated. What you have here are four options. See Attached. Ms. Aldieri said at the moment there are seven properties that have been appealed, two fall within the TIF district and would not impact the tax rate, one informational only, one has no change according to Assessor, one has a minimal change and there is one that has about a $500,000.00 discrepancy between our value and the value of the property owner is stating. The final property, the Assessor has not provided information as to the discrepancy between the values. The City Manager said given that what we usually do is we set a tax rate around how much of a reserve do we want to have for properties that either don’t pay taxes and go delinquent and for the collection reserve. We usually do ¼ or ½ %. Last years tax rate was 1.025 and we are suggesting we can live with ¼% easily. Councilor Millar mentioned the small part of the anticipated fund balance that we decided to use this year. The City Manager said you were using $20,000 of fund balance which we estimated that point to be a 1/3 of a cent. MOTION by Councilor Mace seconded by Councilor Corrigan to set the FY017 tax rate at $1.0325 as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. e. Discussion/Approval: Fire Chief Job Description The City Manager said the Fire Chief position was vacated when David retired and so you have before you and updated version. What we decided to do is to select a Fire Chief from the part-time force rather than hire a full-time Fire Chief. This position would be per diem, so an on-call is the standard for our personnel manual. There are extra hours built in for the Fire Chief planning meetings. It’s a 100% general fund. The Fire Chief functions as the operations manager which means that it is not a Dept Head that reports to Dept Head, so it reports into code enforcement and services the emergency service team. This would be under the guidance of John Audy. Councilor Corrigan said we need to correct an error on the job description an remove “be”. Councilor Sweeney asked what kind of shift is this going to cause in code enforcement with dual roles and obviously adding a lot of responsibility to John. The City Manager said this would be best at least in the interim is to find a contracted position for Planning/Zoning and bring that in as a contractor for a year. The City Manager said this gives John Audy the authority to supervise this position. My recommendation is not to extend the interim but go ahead and make this decision so this Dept. can move forward. Mr. Antoniak said he needs to understand the Fire chief per diem is someone who lives within the City of Winooski, is that what we are proposing. The Mayor said he doesn’t see a specific qualification in terms of residency stand point. The City Manager said there is no position being offered right now. You have to approve the job description and then we get into the process. The process in there is an internal posting and then the process begins, nothing can begin until you approve this. Councilor Mace said there is nothing that requires the Fire Chief to be a resident of Winooski. The City Manager said there is not. Mr. Antoniak has concerns about the direction the Fire Dept is going to move in. The Mayor said the only thing the Council approves is the purpose and the source of funding after that we ask staff to work the details. The City Manager said this is a management prerogative on how we define on how a Fire Chief is going to function with in this City. This allows us to move forward. Mr. Spittle said we are looking for finalization The Mayor said thank you for the investment to the Dept and the City. From our perspective we look at the position description as one of June 28, 2016 Minutes Winooski City Council the reasons were not approving a larger restructuring at this point and time which I think it’s something that was discussed at the commission level. This description gets the Chief position up and running. Mr. Spittle said we are looking for some way to move forward. The City Manager said the position was actually building inspector position and the vast majority of the day time responsibility was building inspection. This really is taking the building inspection out of that and this is what remains. There isn’t a huge amount of change in the actual Fire Chief position. MOTION by Councilor Mace seconded by Councilor Sweeney to approve the Fire Chief Job description as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. The Mayor called for a 2 minute recess at 6:50 p.m. The meeting reconvened at 6:52 p.m. f. Discussion: Strand Theater Project Mr. Niquette outlined the Strand Project. He said they have received approval through the DRB for design elevation, public infrastructure, approve project pending the approval, and public infrastructure development known as 70 Main St. LLC. See attached. He said the purple line is the expansion south 20ft of street scape being captured and reused. We are going to narrow it down and create more public space. The purple section by the train track we will increase the curb line. Mr. Niquette said there are two impacts: 1- a communication tower which we will provide room on the roof and relocate, 2 is the police backing out of the garage. He said for the Police to have the same level of service we need to relocate and reconfigure the air handling units and rebuild the curb. He said Dave Marshall, engineer has proposed in the plans something which provides an equivalent level of service and the development agreement goes on to say, there will be final details. The last piece of information there is currently a retaining wall here. When the City bought this property there is an agreement in the land records that makes the City responsible for the care and maintenance of that wall. We have effectively said that we intend to give up and forgive any on going obligation of that. We would incorporate that wall into our building form going forward. This would relieve that obligation of the City and we’ve agreed that we would effectively give this parcel the benefit of an easement saying that we would consent now and in the future two buildings built on a zero lot line to match our building. So we’ve prepared this building so that someone can build immediately up to it. So these are the impacts of the City in both directions. Mr. Niquette explained the trucks entering and backing in off Main St. He said Mr. Marshall uses a truck turning software to basically show that 53ft loaded trailer would be able to move in both directions. Mr. Hodgson explained the streetscape, the loading dock, and dropping people off to the Strand. Everything left of the property line is recessed into the first floor of the building. He also stated the different paving types, trees that are on the state list that can take pollution, city environments and deliveries. He also explained the sub-base. Mr. Niquette also explained that there will be public and private space, a roof top terrace which would be shared amongst the tenants. Again the building has a number of entry points. Councilor Corrigan asked if he could give some clarity to the definition to the light industrial portion of this. Mr. Niquette said the Zoning Ordinance that was in effect at the time “1981” that we applied doesn’t have a good use for a brewery so we have been thinking about a brew pub or some kind of distillery of a use that would be a restaurant that would also have items that are being produced on premises for sale in a retail environment and the closest thing that was in that Zoning Ordinance to allow that use to happen was light industrial. The way it was defined in that Ordinance would not allow to permit you to have people looking in there who aren’t serving food. The idea was to basically allow that first floor space to be a number of different things and not just walking in and being a straight up restaurant. The Mayor asked if he could talk about the infrastructure piece pertaining to the two path ways. Mr. Niquette said there are two existing path ways and effectively would like to add a 3rd cross walk in accordance with ADA requirements. The Mayor asked if anyone had any other questions in terms of infrastructure that you want to see. Maura O’Neill, Director of Community Partnership said she has to leave so she wanted to quickly address the sales tax allocation. The WCP is very excited about this project. We really feel this will drive traffic up to that end of circle and we think this will bring more business to Winooski in general. It will also populate our restaurants and other businesses in town. The WCP will be writing a letter in support for sales tax re-allocation and we fully support this project. Mr. Niquette asked if there were any questions about landscape design or public improvements. The Mayor said we have a very good understanding about the proposed project. Councilor Corrigan asked what was the discussion about putting trees in the ground versus a pot and or fixture. Mr. Hodgson said we are trying to keep this space open and flexible. We have trees right along West Allen in tree grates. We see this as becoming a populated active streetscape area. Anytime you have something raised it is another obstruction. The June 28, 2016 Minutes Winooski City Council plant material doesn’t do well in raised planters. Mr. Niquette said there are a series of storm water vaults under the sidewalk that we could install. i. Support for VT Downtown Sales Tax Reallocation The City Manager said there are two documents that we need approval on tonight. One is the Vt. Downtown Sales Tax Reallocation and Development Agreement which we have been working with and will send it to the Attorneys. If we can get the terms and conditions correct. We will send this through Paul, frank & Collins. We are not asking for it be signed tonight just you’re okay with terms and conditions and that should there be no major changes to it we would authorize the Mayor to sign. Councilor Corrigan asked for background on the Downtown Sales Tax. The City Manager said it allows the City to retain or to be awarded the amount of sales tax that the building spends getting built, so all of the sales tax that the developer spends buying all of their stuff can actually get reallocated back to the City and the City can use it for public infrastructure in this case they can use it to do the City’s public infrastructure. She said we have used it on a number of projects and it works well. Mr. Niquette explained the sales tax allocation history of using this money. We are asking for your support. Mr. Niquette also said we are seeking your support for a different application across the street at the Winooski Block. Those are two separate applications and that particular application is for code improvement and does not require the city to apply but they do encourage municipal letter of support. It’s competing effectively for the same pot of money. ii. Authorize the Mayor to sign a Development Agreement for Improvements to Public Infrastructure The Mayor opened up the discussion on the items for the development agreement in terms of process. The City Manager said we’ve been at this for 6 or 7 months now. Mr. Niquette said the intention was to bring these things together in one place and easy in the future and you’re not trying to shuffle the minutes. The idea of having one agreement that says this is everything and that the two parties need to talk to one another. Although it can be unwieldly in one sense and in the future I think it will help make clear on what everybody intended. Councilor Mace said she had some questions about Police Resources (3 C). The proposal it to have in your lease a provision that would require operator of the performance space published their schedule or calendar of events so that the City can determine whether we need to increase police presents for a particular event. I’m less clear about is, it assumes the parties are going to come to an agreement. It also talks about a mutually agreeable level of security required to insure public safety. It sounds like the City is going to provide that level of security and is that exclusive of the obligation of the operator’s performance to provide their own security. I’m assuming there are two levels here; this is really directed at the City. Mr. Niquette said we want some acknowledgment beyond some breaking of a City Ordinance and everybody agrees that we are going to have a way of knowing what these things are in advance. This was the principal idea. The City Manager said there is nothing in this agreement that says you can’t pass an ordinance or pass a fee or do anything else you want to do. All this says is it guarantees that there will be communication between who ever the operator is and the Police Force and we will be able to make good decisions. What happens is the result of all of that is it can be done under your purview anywhere in the City and shouldn’t be limited to this site or exempted from this site. Mr. Niquette said this is not to limit the City to normal power. The Mayor said these are the things we are aware of that could pop up and acknowledge that we would expect you guys as the ownership of the building to play a part in those discussions too. The Mayor said he has a number of detailed questions; under (3 e) there is an extra shall. When the operating license comes up he wants to see us work together to offer parking to ticket buyers at the time of online purchase. I think that is really important. Councilor Mace is concerned about the capacity of the Police and Fire Departments to keep up with the development and demands on the City and that there are avenues for us to talk about how to ensure that we have adequate Police and Fire and we have a way to allocate resources to those departments. Mr. Niquette said we have engaged conversations on multiply occasions to include the Chief. There are problems that can be solved to pay for someone’s overtime and there are problems that can’t be solved that way because everybody is maxed out. The City Manager said this project also pays a great deal of taxes. What we also find is that with Waking Windows in particular is there is no way a Police Dept. can do the kind of security that they can hire to come in because that is all they do is concert security. The Mayor said one thing to consider and ask about is there is a pretty important period in the middle of this section that separates the announcement of the events calendar which I think it is good being included in the lease. The second provision of this, thus and why should also be included in the lease agreement. He suggested that we double check that legal language and insure that we don’t need to repeat the fact that it be included in the lease. The City Manager said that we will make it very clear that the entire paragraph has conditions for the lease. The Mayor said the biggest piece was the covenant regarding the use of the garage. It says that the City won’t lease spaces at night that you are already leasing. Mr. Niquette June 28, 2016 Minutes Winooski City Council said this is part of the agreement we spent the most time on because it was challenging. Councilor Millar said he doesn’t have too many concerns with this but is curious about how are you going to make office space work. Mr. Niquette said the best example we have is our agreement is in place with the VFW and we’ve permitted through the City process a two level parking structure. It would be constructed immediately to the north of the railroad tracks and where the location of the Veteran’s Memorial is now. We proposed to move that Memorial in a spot on the other side of the tank and re- landscape that whole area and make it more accessible for folks and to effectively park on row of cars from Main St and another level which you would access from Maple St. that represents a 60 car solution a part of a multi site strategy. He said we have other discussion ongoing and we have purchased the Winooski block from Russell Niquette and he owns two other parcels on East Allen St. It would make sense to assemble the whole block in some organized fashion. We have only the capacity to get people voluntarily to sell. We’ve put four parcels out of a potential six together already. We are looking at how to use that particular land and also talking with Banknorth about the potential of some shared access through their parking lot. If we moved forward with this it would go through the normal permitting process. The City Manager said this is part of the DRB conditions so this can’t go forward and can’t get a permit unless it has demonstrated that it has the lot to John. The Mayor said we are accepting a philosophical approach that recognizes the private solution. We are signing up to be active in that conversation about is there a way not just focus on the Strand and look at our global parking means in the city and find potential for a resolution. Councilor Mace said we have a parking study that is potentially happening. The City Manager said the proposals are due back on Friday so we will be selecting a vendor to lead that study. The Mayor said it’s not just for proposed development it is also for potentially existing as well. The Mayor asked if the bus stop was in any way impacted. The City Manager said not where it is now. The Mayor said there might be some consideration for the potential taxi and vendor registration and fees and there might be some consideration in this agreement for the idea of some assistance with that should there need to be a checkpoint. Councilor Mace said she had a concern about municipal use of performance space (3A). It talks about using the performance space for the use of high school graduation and parties agree to cooperate. Who is the party with respect to the school district being a separately municipality and the city not being able to enter into an agreement on behalf of the school district. Mr. Niquette said Deac thought that the school district was a likely beneficiary of this nature and they should be included. The goal here as to say were trying to strike a balance between the facts the facility likely is going to be available, let’s says a 150 days out of the year for the City to use for one function or another. The City Manager said there is a very specific legal issue though, because the school district is independent and we can not sign a contract that allows them to do something with out them being a party to the contract. Councilor Mace said this needs to be flagged and have the Attorney’s look at this. Councilor Sweeney said he has concerns about the parking near the VFW. The City Manager said this is a DRB issue. This was approved before the new code went into effect. Mr. Niquette said we spent a considerable amount of money on computer modeling whether or not the parking would obstruct the view of the tank for the benefit of the Veteran’s. The Mayor asked if there were any other concerns in the development agreement. The City Manager said the other thing we haven’t talked about even though you saw some trees. I don’t think the number of trees in the new plan equals the number of trees in the old plan, so the development agreement just going on record covers that every tree that gets cut down will be replaced including the public space. The Mayor said we have discussed the agreement and documentation and we’ve been provided a resolution. He said we need to strike “either” in the resolution and Mr. Audy said it is not 66 Main St. that it still should read 62-70 Main St. MOTION by Councilor Corrigan seconded by Councilor Millar to approve the authorization of the Resolution of the Winooski City Council authorizing the Applicant of the Vermont Sales Tax Re-Allocation relating to the re-development of the property at 66 Main St. the MOTION was amended to remove the word “either” in two locations and adjust the address to read 62-70 Main St. as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. The City Manager said for the purpose of her understanding from rivet other than the school district and the clarification under police resources that the lease modified both of those sentences and not just the first, unless our Attorney’s find something in the language. MOTION by Councilor Mace seconded by Millar to authorize the Mayor to sign the development agreement and public infrastructure subject to the changes that we discussed this evening in review of our attorney’s. Voted and passed 4-0. Mr. Niquette thanked the Mayor and Council for their support. g. Approval: Support for Vt. Downtown Code Improvement Tax Credits for the Winooski Block June 28, 2016 Minutes Winooski City Council The City Manager said we have inspected the block and there is significant amount of work to be done to meet code and there is an allowance for historic restoration to get money from the State toward meeting that code requirement. All this letter does is authorize the Mayor to sign the support for Redstone applying for that and outlines how important that block is to bring back another 40 to 50 years of life. For record that building has a delinquent tax bill and that would get settled at the time of purchase. MOTION by Councilor Corrigan seconded by Councilor Sweeney to authorize the Mayor to sign a letter of support for Vt. Downtown Code Improvement Tax Credits for the Winooski Block as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. MOTION by Councilor Corrigan seconded by Councilor Millar to go into executive session at 9:03 p.m. to discuss the proposed Interim City Manager and that no other business will take place. Voted and passed 4-0. MOTION by Councilor Millar seconded by Councilor Corrigan to adjourn Executive session at 9:18 p.m. Voted and passed 4-0. ATTEST;___________________________ City Clerk June 28, 2016 Minutes Winooski City Council