City Council

27 WEST ALLEN STREET WINOOSKI, VERMONT 05404 (802) 655-6410 CITY OF WINOOSKI (802) 655-6414 (fax) RAYMOND COFFEY INTERIM 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 Monday, October 3, 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 Minutes of 09/19/16 b. Approval: Payroll Warrant 9/11//16-9/24/16; Accounts Payable Warrant as of 09/292016 c. Delegate City Clerk to Accept Service of ACT 250 Application via email d. Formal Engagement Letter for Sullivan and Powers e. School MOU formal approval V. City Update VI. Agenda Review VII. Regular Items: a. Approval: Event Permit Festival of Pumpkins – Heather Carrington b. Approval: Grant Proposal – Vt. Community Foundation Small & Inspiring Grant – Paul Sarne c. Approval: Letter of Support for Upward Bound Program – Seth Leonard d. Discussion: MOU with Winooski Community Partnership – Heather Carrington e. Approval: Welcoming City Designation Resolution – Ray Coffey f. Discussion: City Hall/Police Department/Library Programming – Ray Coffey g. Discussion: FY16 Excess Fund Balance – Ray Coffey h. Approval: Airport Mitigation Committee Representative and Alternate – Seth Leonard i. Discussion: WHA Board Appointment – Seth Leonard 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 Councilor Sweeney. Members Present: October 3, 2016 Minutes Winooski City Council Mayor Seth Leonard Councilors: Robert Millar, Brian Sweeney, Brian Corrigan arrived at 6:05 p.m. Nicole Mace was absent Officers Present: Ray Coffey, Interim City Manager; Carol Barrett, City Clerk; Angela Aldieri, Staff Accountant, Rick Hebert, Police Chief; Kirstie Paschall, Interim Community Services Director. Others Present: Paul Sarne, Vista Colleen Sullivan, Vista; Tom Kingston, Graham Lebel, Phil Bickel, Sally Tipson, Karen Prosiak, Winooski Family Center/Howard Center; Corey Mack, Sr. Pat McKittrick, Bill Niquette, Frances Binder, Kyle Dodson, YMCA CEO; Sean McMannon, Winooski School District Supt.; Carol Jean Suitor, Ann Goering, Winooski Family Health; Betsy Cain, Howard Center; Anne Elston, Chuck Seleen, Vt. Dental Care; III. Public Comment: Corey Mack, Public Safety Committee – Said the committee is preparing a transportation alternative grant. We have implemented recommendations and it requires presenting to City Council. The Mayor said the channel is to have Peter contact Ray and you will be put on the agenda. Tom Kingston – read a statement concerning the inappropriate behavior by the Police Dept. You as the council should ultimately be responsible for the behavior of their employees. I want to leave you with a question to ponder. The role of the City Council is to rubber stamp this skew from managers or is it to set the direction your manager must follow. The Mayor thanked him for his time Graham Lebel – You all our elected to represent us the residents of Winooski not the Police Dept as far as I can tell. The City Council has done nothing to rain in the police. You have to do something about the situation. People are harassed all the time, they have a reputation. The Mayor said we absolutely can not use this language that makes people uncomfortable. The Mayor said he understands but please be respectful. Thank you for your comments. Sarah McGowan-Frieje - She would like to know what the pool situation is. She is very concerned and can’t stress how important is to have a pool in the City. Mr. Coffey said we should have in early November images and a budget presentation. Also, no decision has been made on how we fund the pool. IV. Consent Agenda MOTION by Councilor Sweeney seconded by Councilor Corrigan to approve the consent agenda as presented. Voted and passed 3-0. V. City Update -Mr. Coffey said we have heard a lot about the intersection of Main and W Spring St. traffic challenges. A couple of things to note was the closure of Malletts Bay Ave. had a significant impact on that intersection because it forced traffic around as opposed to being able to go out to Colchester by Malletts Bay Ave. The other impact was from the circulator work which impacted that intersection as well. With both projects done we are now seeing things come back to normal. We are going to be doing some tube (traffic) counting, and we should have some tubes out next week. This will give us an assessment of what the patterns are and look to a plan which could include a left arrow October 3, 2016 Minutes Winooski City Council -I attended an event last week to welcome Salvation Farms to the Winooski Community. They have landed their food processing at Hillside Park. This is a statewide gleaning program that does job training and then pulls that food into commodity offerings for largely institutional entities. I’m very excited to have them in Winooski. -I want to give the YMCA a shout out for 150th celebration this year. -The auditors were here last week for a preliminary meeting and they will be back on October 24. -I also want to reflect on some of the public comment. It would not be remise not to mention the recent happenings here surround the officer involved shooting. This is really difficult for this community. I think there is a lot of pain, there is a lot of anger and a lot of sadness. I think that’s really something we are well aware of. I want to give kudos to all parts of this conversation. I think our Police Officers are certainly doing what they can. Chief Hebert has been working to turn the curve and try to do more community policing. I want to say think you to the folks that were here protesting and to do it so respectfully and peacefully. The Mayor said a big thanks to staff and all the residents too. VI. Agenda Review – None VII. Regular Items a. Approval: Event Permit Festival of Pumpkins Mr. Coffey said there have been some changes to the event versus what was proposed in the permit and Heather will brief us on it. Ms. Carrington said this years Season’s Greetings has proposed that the Festival of Pumpkins be moved to Rotary Park. The application for the event showed a road closing for a Harvest Festival on Winooski Falls Way. Based on the lack of staff capacity and organizational capacity at this time to pull together, that festival that has been pulled from the event We are really looking for permission to have the Festival of Pumpkins in Rotary Park. Mrs. Tipson said we do have a magic number in mind. We had 700 pumpkins in Smith Park which looked like quite the display and 700 pumpkins in the circulator not going to look quite as festive. We are upping our anticipation by a few hundred. It’s a very nice space. She said pumpkin carving will be held on October 22 and 23 at the Winooski Senior Center. We need a lot of help. She also said the Festival of Pumpkins will be held on October 29 & 30 not on Halloween itself. We will be setting up there on the 29th. The Mayor asked how the pumpkins are this year. Mrs. Tipson said they go out to Whitcomb’s in Essex and they said the pumpkin supply is good. This will be our 14th season. Councilor Millar asked about traffic control since we are getting in and out of the rotary. Mrs. Tipson said that has been considered between the City and our group itself. We will have folks helping with the crossing. Mrs. Carrington said we looked at the requirements, it doesn’t have to be specifically trained volunteers, just some equipment has to be there and because there are already crosswalks it will be a matter of corralling people and walking across with a stop sign. Mrs. Tipson said we are hoping to have signage as well to let motorist know the Festival is going on. Mrs. Tipson asked that parking be suspended from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. on Saturday. Mr. Coffey said we talked about it. I think at this point, we did some free parking last year and I think it was a decision that we came to sort of under address. At this point we are going to hold off on making an offering for this year until we can have a more thorough conversation about who were going to offer it to and when. We are looking at a number of opportunities available for people. Mrs. Tipson said she has an issue with that and she said we can chat later. MOTION by Councilor Corrigan seconded by Councilor Millar to approve the event permit for the Festival of Pumpkins as presented. Voted and passed 3-0. b. Approval: Grant Proposal – Vt. Community Foundation Small & Inspiring Grant Mr. Sarne said the Name of the Grant is Small & Inspiring Grant. The purpose of the grant is for the City of Winooski youth Photography Program. The Amount of the grant is $2000.00 and it is from the Vt. October 3, 2016 Minutes Winooski City Council Community Fund. This money will cover camera kits and storage cards. The program starts next week and the money will be available for the second semester. Mr. Sarne said he will be the facilitator and this will be during school hours. MOTION by Councilor Millar seconded by Councilor Corrigan to approve the grant proposal as presented. Voted and passed 3-0. See attached grant. c. Approval: Letter of Support for Upward Bound Program The Mayor said we have received a request for a letter of support for the Upward Bound Program at the University of Vermont. See attached. MOTION by Councilor Sweeney seconded by Councilor Millar to approve the Letter of Support for Upward Bound Program as presented. Voted and passed 3-0. d. Discussion: MOU with Winooski Community Partnership Mr. Coffey said Heather will join us tonight and Maura was not able to attend tonight’s meeting. Heather and Maura have been working on this MOU. To date we have not had a formal MOU between the City and WCP. Ms. Carrington said the draft that you are looking at has not gone before the WCP board it’s just the work that Maura and I have done with the assistance of Ray. We set up the draft to mirror the categories of the Main Street Four Point Approach, which is the Vermont Downtown Programs approach and they require that we have a non-profit downtown management organization in order to maintain are status as a designated downtown, so the Winooski Community Partnership is that. Maura and I are working very closely together. I think the draft is pretty straight forward. The piece that hasn’t been addressed in the MOU and has been discussed is the possibility of extending the WCP area of service to include the gateway districts and the reasoning behind that is because Winooski is such a small geographical area and our businesses are not just located in the downtown area they are located at the gateways and that has recently been designated as a neighborhood development area, so maintaining the same basic services, but throughout those districts as well. I would like your feedback. The Mayor said that we should help support a business organization that helps some businesses in town but because you are not inside the magic line it can not be helped or there’s implications that is not available in terms of resource to assist you. I think saying gateway district makes a lot of sense. Ms. Carrington said they have already been defined and have been accepted. The Mayor said the last piece is to insure that this doesn’t conflict with any specification of state downtown designation that the body be solely purposed for the downtown. Ms. Carrington said the neighborhood development areas are through the Vermont Downtown Programs. Councilor Millar asked where the boundaries are. She said it covers the central business district and then there is a little jag. It does include over to Mayo St then it jags to a building and then it’s the central business district and a little bit of the Mill, Mayo St. and then the neighborhood designations are the same as the gateways. By including those it covers almost all of the businesses in Winooski. There is a couple that wouldn’t be covered like Chick’s Market. Councilor Corrigan asked where they came up with the $19,000.00 and what was it last year. Ms. Carrington said that is what they have already been paid for this year. The draft MOU is actually for next September. The amount was based on sidewalk fees, a percentage of parking and general fund. The Mayor said one item he had was the council provides a liaison to the group that is an acting board member. I don’t know if that needs to be mention in here, I believe it’s in their bylaws. Ms. Carrington said she would bring this up at the next meeting. Mr. Coffey said we intentionally set a one year time frame on this. We talked about doing it in sync with the downtown designation. Councilor Sweeney said he had no concerns but thanked him for adding operation bloom in there. e. Approval: Welcoming City Designation Resolution Mr. Coffey said we discussed this at the last meeting. The document in front of you tonight is the formal commitment to sign on to the Welcoming Cities Program. Mr. Coffey said Welcoming America is a National non-profit based out of the State of Georgia that does work around providing support for October 3, 2016 Minutes Winooski City Council communities who are resettling refugees. We will join about 70 other municipalities across the country. MOTION by Councilor Sweeney seconded by Councilor Millar to approve the Welcoming City Designation Resolution as presented. Voted and passed 3-0. f. Discussion: City Hall/Police Department/Library Programming Mr. Coffey introduced Asher & Sam from Vt. Integrated Architects. Mr. Coffey said the project was kicked off in the beginning of the year. We have been looking at this largely based on coming to the realization that we are adding staff and trying to grow our organization and we are kind of busting out the seams within the facility. We went out to bid landed on these guys based on their clear focus on community emphasis on engagement. Tonight will be an informational and were going to send council home with homework and bring this back on the 17th and review further. The Mayor asked what would be the preference here. Asher said we would like to have people ask questions when they want to. We are trying to cover a lot of material in a really short time. Sam and I have been working on this since the beginning. He said the RFP came out and asked us to do a space planning study and develop a space planning study and develop a space program. Sam also said they are very excited about this project. The City of Winooski has been an amazing partner. This is really about the people in the community Asher & Sam gave the following presentation. See attached. The Mayor said this building does not include the Public Works or the Fire Dept. There was some discussion on the structure of the OBCC and how would we get the people to get there if we have these buildings in front of it. It would be better to have it detached. Asher stated there are good reasons to have the programs co-located and that has been communicated to us strongly. He said the Police Dept can use the OBCC effectively. The question is do you keep or sell this property (City Hall), are we satisfying the programs that were put on the table in the beginning or is satisfying some other needs in your community. What happens when you start to shift some core programs in your downtown a little further from your downtown? What are the global consequences to that? .This is a lot of information to absorb maybe you all want to take some time and think about it and reconvene at a subsequent meeting to add to the list or the lessons learned, just talk through issues a little more. Mr. Coffey said we will take feed back from the Council but we will also take feedback from the community with those pros/cons list. Councilor Corrigan was a little taken back by the building differential; it gives a whole new perspective of this particular project. With this project you can see where it could be detrimental to the Community Center as far as accessibility, visibility and the programs that go on successfully. Councilor Sweeney, I just keep thinking about parking. Asher said there has been discussion about having access out to Hickok St. Councilor Sweeney asked what was the reaction of the Police Dept.’s space out back. Chief Hebert said it would be much more user friendly. This also gets us engaged with that side of the City. Carol Suitor asked if you could give us some idea of what the timeline is for this project. The Mayor said this is kind of the first step as to get a conceptual idea of what possibilities existed to do an assessment of this property. One thing that hasn’t been discussed is the cash flow doesn’t work at the OBCC. We are using reserves year after year at a rate that nobody should be comfortable with. We fully recognize that there is a need to do something and make a decision about what the future of that looks like. Mr. Coffey said there is no urgent point at which it works and then suddenly it doesn’t. We are at a point where we are running a program in a space that doesn’t allow it to do its work as safely or efficiently as probably what we should be doing here. I think with adding new staff the last few years and every time a position gets added the office shuffle ensues. We have one office here with 4 people in it 3 of which are full time. I also think the financing to be depending on the scheme that we move towards they are different financing mechanisms we may want to tap. Councilor Sweeney asked what about design and build perspective, something of this scale are you talking a year to design and two years to build. Asher said it would be 2 ½ years out minimum. October 3, 2016 Minutes Winooski City Council Sr. Pat was wondering if there is a place where there could be a food shelf. Mr. Coffey said we thought about it I think again as we start to look at that future there are a number of different possibilities on the table, the food shelf being one. We would explore when we get to that point. Sr. Pat asked about the shared space Mr. Coffey said the shared spaces could be a meeting space, utility room, spaces where multiply groups are accessing or that serve the whole building. The Mayor also said that VIA wasn’t the only company that bid for this endeavor. You were certainly selected and chosen for good reasons and those have been proven to be good reasons to base the decision on. I also want to commend the staff to for the way you handled this process, but I think regardless of what happens this process has been really positive and we really appreciate the time and thought that went into taking real public feedback and using it in a meaningful way. The Mayor said feel free to email with any question or concerns. The Mayor called for a 3 minute recess at 8:17 and the meeting reconvened at 8:20 p.m. g. Discussion: FY16 Excess Fund Balance Mr. Coffey said as we move towards closing off last FY16 we are ready to share a fund balance. I had hoped to come with a list of option or proposals for ways to leverage that. We don’t have that, so this will be brought back to you on the 17th. The remaining unassigned fund balance from FY016 is $394,412.27 that is a big number. There are a lot of drivers to this but the biggest were vacancies in Public Works; light winter and parking ticket overages were significant. Ms. Aldieri said we collected $190,000.00 in parking tickets last year on a budget of $75,000.00. Mr. Coffey said we are looking to find ways to minimize tickets that was the whole point of paid parking out of the gates. This is a huge driver of that overall fund balance. There are two pieces here that have been allocated out of the fund balance. There is the $20,000.00 that you agreed to bring forward into this budget year. There’s also $5000.00 for regional dispatch study also allocated for 7/18/16. There have been a lot of other pieces discussed here and there but nothing formally approved so we will be bringing it back on the 17th along with other thought we may leverage that funding. We have some questions based on a procedural standpoint based on a training we just had with VLCT about the mechanics. If we have to go outside of our usual process which is to sweep this into capital there maybe some mechanics that we need to address in terms of how this funding can get allocated, that may need to include a vote by the voters. We are still trying to get guidance on that. Some of these items are capital such as the fire truck, leverage for the project we discussed, portable radios, and tactical equipment. Those are just a few different thoughts for future. Here we are and we need to figure out a strategy to deal with this. We will bring back a list. The Mayor also said including in next weeks meeting, there will be a discussion around the search committee going to propose any adjustments to the City Managers pay scale and any potential expenses related to that. Councilor Millar said this is such a huge overage in parking. Mr. Coffey said we are going to have to find some number between $75,000.00 - $190,000.00 and that will still be a guess. We also need to look at the changes in the parking tickets fees that were adjusted this year. Councilor Corrigan said there was a discussion about 2 or 3 months ago about a capital expense piece that was for remote controls for downtown businesses for the parking meters. Ms. Aldieri said it was for the parking app. To help people do the parking app. Mr. Coffey thinks it would be important to look at for the future. h. Approval: Airport Mitigation Committee Representative and Alternate The Mayor said he and Ray attended a meeting with the airport and they are looking for representatives to represent the City of Winooski. I need nominations from the Council and the City Manager to sit on the Airport Mitigation Committee with the representative formally being the City Manager. We need to select a member of Council take on the role of representative. Council Millar nominated the Mayor. The Mayor said what we need to do is make sure we bring reports back on a regular basis so this body has a chance to weigh in. The Mayor said he accepts nominations for both Representative and alternate. MOTION by October 3, 2016 Minutes Winooski City Council Councilor Sweeney seconded by Councilor Corrigan to nominate the City Manager as primary and the Mayor as alternate to the Airport Sound Mitigation Committee as presented. Voted and passed 3-0. i. Discussion WHA Board Appointment The Mayor said we put this back to our Attorney and the response was if there is a Mayor in that City that the Mayor appoint the WHA board member. We can not pass this onto the select board but we can have conversation and feedback from the Council. He said he has not meant with any of the applicants. The Mayor said one thing that got pushed back was the 5 year term. This is also in the WHA charter. Councilor Millar would like stronger advocacy from the board and more active. I hope they are taking diversity as well. The Mayor said he plans on talking to each applicant. MOTION by Councilor Millar seconded by Councilor Corrigan to adjourn City Council meeting at 8:45 p.m. Voted and passed 3-0. ATTEST:___________________________ City Clerk October 3, 2016 Minutes Winooski City Council