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, November 7, 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: Liquor Control Minutes of Oct. 17, 2016 and City Council Minutes of Oct. 17 & Oct. 22, 2016 b. Approval: Payroll Warrant 10/09/16-10/22/16; Accounts Payable Warrant as of 11/04/2016 and subsequent to payout September V. Regular Items: a. Discussion: FY16 Unaudited Financial Outcomes – James Ticehurst b. Discussion: FY17 Quarter Financial Outcomes – James Ticehurst c. Approval: Reappoint Amy Houghton to DRB 2 Yrs. – John Audy d. Approval: Event Permit: Waking Windows 7 – Heather Carrington e. Discussion: Winooski Small Business Loan Program – Heather Carrington f. Approval: Resolution: Small Business Saturday – Heather Carrington g. Approval: Airport Noise Resolution – Ray Coffey h. Approval: Position Change Request for Wastewater Dept – Peter Wernsdorfer i. Approval: AFSCME Contract – Ray Coffey j. Discussion: Increase to Health Insurance Opt Out Value – Ray Coffey 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 Corrigan. Members Present: Mayor Seth Leonard Councilors: Brian Corrigan, Brian Sweeney, Nicole Mace, Robert Millar Officers Present: Ray Coffey, Interim City Manager; Carol Barrett, City Clerk; Angela Aldieri, Staff Accountant; John Audy, Code Enforcement Director; Heather Carrington, Community and Economic Development Director; Julie Hulburd, Human Resources Director. Peter Wernsdorfer, Public Works Director; Kirstie Paschall, Interim Community Services Director. James J. Ticehurst, City Treasurer; November 7, 2016 Agenda Winooski City Council Others Present: Christopher Curtis, Chester Aittaniemi, Maura O’Neill, WCP; Eileen Andreoli, Ali Fogel. III. Public Comment – None Councilor Corrgian said the pumpkin display was awesome and amazing. Christopher Curtis said he received a letter from Spinner Place concerning access to the Parking Garage. He said next semester it would cost him $1000.00 a semester to park in the parking garage. He said he needed a car because he is from Virginia and can not afford that monthly payment. Mr. Coffey said we never had a long term contract; it was done on a monthly basis. He said he is in contact with Diane Finnegan. IV. Consent Agenda MOTION by Councilor Mace seconded by Councilor Sweeney to approve the Liquor Control & City Council minutes of Oct. 17 and Oct. 22 as presented. Voted and passed 3-0-1. Councilor Corrigan abstained MOTION by Councilor Sweeney seconded by Councilor Mace to approve the Payroll Warrant, Accounts Payable Warrant and the subsequent to payout September as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. The Mayor stated that Item I will be a discussion and approval on December 5, 2016 a. Discussion: FY16 Unaudited Financial Outcomes Mr. Ticehurst updated the Mayor and Council on the FY16 Unaudited Financial Outcomes. He said all in all the FY16 will point out that you had an excellent operating year. The staff and City Manager have done a great job. We will add a reserve balance in the future which will state what has been assigned and what hasn’t been assigned. Councilor Mace asked about the operating surplus. He said there were vacancies in excess, turn over more than usual; pool closure and the need not to purchase a lot of salt. The excess source was also the parking ticket revenue and vehicle maintenance was also down. Mr. Coffey said we will bring back fund balance but we are having conversation with legal counsel. We will have a policy recommendation for December 5, with a fund balance line up with our budget conversation. See attached The Mayor said we are on task for the official audit for December 15. b. FY17 Quarter Financial Outcomes Mr. Ticehurst updated the Mayor and Council on the FY17 Quarter Financial Outcomes. He said we are well below benchmark in our expenses. Our revenues are coming in and the first quarter is doing very well. See attached. Mr. Coffey said kudos to the staff and appreciate Jim with these number and communicating with the department heads before it comes here. See attached. c. Approval: Reappoint Amy Houghton to DRB 2 years. Mr. Audy said Amy Houghton is currently serving as Vice Chair to the Board. She has a great perspective to the board. MOTION by Councilor Corrigan seconded by Councilor Millar to reappoint Amy Houghton to the DRB for a 2 year term. Voted and passed 4-0. d. Approval: Event Permit Waking Windows 7 Ms. Carrington is requesting approval for the Waking Windows 7 event to be held on Friday May 5th thru Sunday May 7th from 9:00 a.m. to 12 midnight. Ms. Fogel said there are no changes from last year. There will be road closure on Friday morning and no road closure on Sunday. It is pretty much the same art, music and food vendors in circle. The Mayor stated that Brian Eckert from 4 Qtrs. needs to be a part of this application. There was also discussion concerning road closures and this should fall back on staff for emergency access. The Mayor suggested tonight that there be a consideration of this that would include a secondary approval of all details. Mr. Corrigan asked if we have given any November 7, 2016 Agenda Winooski City Council consideration for when we do these events downtown that we have the circle being a little more accessible now that VTRANS operations were done. Do we have criteria in mind for how we are going to make this eligible? Mr. Coffey said now that we have had the pumpkin festival there, I think that was a very good trial having the event in that space. The improvements made the pedestrian access significantly safer and easier. I think with an event like this and of this size and scope, if we were to use that center park there would be contingency in place around control of the pedestrian crossing whether it be our staff or event staff. It will be dictated by the size and volume of the event. The Mayor said lets bring the whole thing back with inclusion of road closures, so that if somebody wants to review the package and have the opportunity to see the road closures. The Mayor would like to change the condition of the approval. Councilor Mace supports that. She said she has some concerns about the process. The last meeting we had a discussion around events under what criteria, what council would evaluate the event permit applications. Also, what types of conditions will the council approve for parking. I was surprised to see this application come, which is the biggest event that this city host before we’ve taken action on the above items. It gets caught in specifics rather than policy. We also had talked about having a conversation around event fees. I’m recognizing that are current ordinance has no ability for the City to collect any revenue from an event. I also understand that locking in dates is very important, and this seems really early this year. Ms. Fogel said it was in December she said we bring in a lot of National Acts that plan their tours now and that is our main goal. If we don’t have the dates locked in form them then it kind of makes it impossible to do. We also gather the sponsorship request before their fiscal year is over with. Ms. Fogel’s main goal today is to get the approval of the dates and happy to continue to meet with the City. Ms. Carrington said we are about to have a parking study in our hands which gives us so much more information and actually go out and speak to people with real numbers as opposed to just, wouldn’t this just be a really cool policy, being data driven rather than rushing the process. Ms. Fogel said the issue with parking last year was the last minute issue of us assuming that was free by many faults to then it not being free. Waking Windows is fine with paid parking in the City. The Mayor says he doesn’t think we can take a vote and I know this is a great event for the City and I fully expect to work through and have an approval. I think we need to have that process followed. Mr. Sweeney said are we putting this off because something wasn’t included in the packet. Councilor Corrigan said since no one has an issue with the date, which it doesn’t sound like we do, is there a reason why we can’t conditionally ok with dates only so she can move forward. MOTION by Councilor Corrigan seconded by Councilor Sweeney to conditionally approve the date for Waking Windows to be held on May 5 thru May 7, 2017 and to come back with full application. Voted and passed 4-0. Ms. Andreoli said this doesn’t have to do with the event, but are they considering putting hawk lights up at the pedestrian crossings. Mr. Coffey said the crosswalk grant that was being applied for did not include that crossing by McKee’s. Mr. Wernsdorfer said no he submitted that to VTRANS during the project and it was rejected by VTRANS. It didn’t meet the numbers they were looking for. e. Discussion: Winooski Small Business Loan Program Ms. Carrington presented the draft of the Winooski Small Business Loan Program Guidelines. See attached. In 2016 the City of Winooski allocated $250,000.00 for the purpose of establishing a small business revolving loan fund called the Winooski Small Business Loan Program There was an agreement made between the City of Winooski and Opportunities Credit Union for the City to deposit the funds to Opportunity Credit Union and for the Credit Union to service the program. The purpose for the Winooski Small Business Loan program is to assist Winooski Businesses in obtaining financing for a wide range of business needs including but not limited to equipment purchases, lease hold improvements and major repairs. The intention is to promote the long-term viability of Winooski based businesses. The Mayor gave a brief background on how the funds became; sale of lands, old community funds and can only be used for economic development. There was a lengthy discussion concerning the eligibility tiers, guidance, leverage funding. Where does the industrial park fit with in this? Councilor Corrigan has a small issue, you are segregating 2/3 of the City when your 50ft away from the gateway district. What are we sending for a message? Councilor Mace said we need distinction between in home business. f. Approval: Resolution Small Business Saturday The Mayor read the following Small Business Saturday Resolution: See attached. MOTION by Councilor Mace seconded Councilor Sweeney to approve the Resolution as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. November 7, 2016 Agenda Winooski City Council g. Approval: Airport Nosie Resolution Mr. Coffey said we brought this to you that last time and received good feed back. Seth and I have been working hard to get this to the point where it is. We wanted to bring it back for final review. One question that was brought up last time was the process for inclusion on the airport commission, that is actually contained in the City of Burlington Charter in terms of how that is dictated, that would require us working with Burlington to explore charter change. The Mayor said the concepts of this document and the language is the 4th or 5th meeting. Are there any questions or concerns of the follow up content? He said these marching orders are mostly for Ray and I. There are some joint things for us for communication and conversation will take place at these meetings. We will be setting up meetings to discuss the noise pieces for example; with the airport as soon as possible. I think its fair that we follow up with these items. We will continue to operate on the noise mitigation committee and will talk to folks about on ground sound. This resolution gives us the courage to carry those items out. He said we need to correct the date on the Resolution. Councilor Millar said we received an email from George Cross which raised a valid point, in terms of the effectiveness of passing this tonight. Would it fall into a new cycle that’s going to be focused on? Councilor Millar said should we give guidance to City staff or to the press, we don’t typically do that. The Mayor said historically what we’ve done is copy the entities that have a stake in it. I don’t know that the press has been copied on. Mr. Coffey said, not as a standard, when it comes to a resolution, not that he is aware of. I don’t disagree with that sentiment. I guess my read of this is definitely more of an operational and to move into that level of intervention versus a public outreach strategy. I could certainly ask Paul to think through this more. The Mayor said we made mention of the partnership with the Burlington International Airport, VTANG, VT Army Guard to share information and we also referenced similar entities that we reference. We call upon folks to continue discussions and interactions. I received feed back that the USAF should be added to that list of entities. Councilor Sweeney feels that it’s valid with the approval someone could make that conditional change and update that. We will make that adjustment during the process. Ms. Andreoli said at the last meeting I asked for inclusion of a whereas stating that federal agencies agree that noise in excess of 65 dnl standards is not suitable for residential use. I see it didn’t get in here. Was it possibly inadvertently omitted or was it not decided to be included? The Mayor said the decision was to sort of stay away from the exact language around the F35 science because that can move potentially and the impact might be arguing for not having anything to do with the 65 dnl’s but could have to do with night time flying I also think that it’s substantially covered where it explicitly called out or not when we make reference to funding of programs that provide mitigation or other means. She said she has one other point that has been requested of the City by several people and that is having to do with the airport commission and trying to allow Winooski’s CCTV coverage to be used to fill those once monthly meetings at the airport because of how were trying to get a seat on that commission, it’s a public meeting that is not being recorded for public use and the meetings are at 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon during the week and its very hard for the public to attend those kind of meetings. Apparently Winooski has not used up all its allocation of CCTV meetings. I know this has been asked of you and I believe asked of Ray before. Has there been any discussion of that? The Mayor said we haven’t and if that request came to me imbedded in something then I apologize if I missed it but it’s actually not an idea that I floated around in my head before. Mr. Coffey said this is the first I’ve heard of this suggestion. We will take a look and see what our coverage is. The Mayor read the following resolution. See attached. MOTION Councilor Millar seconded by Councilor Sweeney to approve the Airport Noise Resolution as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. h. Approval: Position Change Request for Wastewater Dept. Mr. Coffey said the treatment facility staffing levels needed to be adjusted. We are here tonight asking to essentially add two of the Asst. Chief Operators positions versus one and to leave the Wastewater Operator position vacant to allow us to leverage those funds towards that higher position. I think it brings in a higher level of knowledge and experience and lets us free up John Choate a bit more and who spends a lot of time right now as the Chief Operator in the plant. It gives him a lot more time to start looking at the proactive measures to help us deal with the permitting coming down, but also look at our capital needs and infrastructure around water and wastewater which I think are pretty significant. Councilor Corrigan’s appreciates the functionality of the option that you place before us. My concern is when we finally know what we need for an individual to fill the role that were vacating currently. What happens to that other position? Mr. Wernsdorfer said the Wastewater Operator position would remain vacant. What we are expecting based on our discussion with folks from the state, more than likely the permit and the up grades in the plant will be fore stringent permitting and will ask for additional personnel requirements in it and I expect they will force us back into funding that operations position but that’s at least 2 years away. Right now my main concern is being able to have somebody back up John who is November 7, 2016 Agenda Winooski City Council able to make process control decisions. He said John needs someone to step in and make process control decisions. The Mayor said to Brian’s point we don’t know from a long term perspective what exactly the results are going to require for us to do from our staff. Mr. Coffey said the Asst. Chief Operator Position is a position that you have previously approved so it’s not a new job description. I just wanted to come back and talk about what this looks like from a process perspective and the reason behind it. The Mayor asked if there was a financial compact on this. Mr. Coffey said there is minimal or no impact at all Councilor Mace asked what it means in terms of the work that needs to be accomplished if your taking 11/2 positions down to one. Ms. Aldieri said it was a position that was a part-time position work 80 hours and it was to rotate weekend shifts so that one person wasn’t working every single day of the week Council Mace said the Asst. Chief Operator position will be responsible for the duties of the current vacant position plus assisting with the permitting and planning process. Mr. Coffey said they will have responsibilities that mimic our current Asst. Chief Operator which I would say are at a level above our current Wastewater Operator which we would leave vacant. There are more management responsibilities with in the plant. Councilor Mace asked who they are managing if there is no operator. It’s the operations in the plant. Mr. Wernsdorfer said the issue with the operator is that it’s entry level position and we bring people in without licensure. We have an extensive training process that goes with that and that takes about a year. Councilor Sweeney asked about hiring for this position. Is there a qualified pool of candidates with the proper licensure? Mr. Wernsdorfer said there is considerably a bigger pool of candidates at the higher licensure than there is at the 1 or a 2 level MOTION by Councilor Corrigan seconded by Councilor Millar to approve the Vacancy/Position change request at Wastewater Treatment as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. See attached. i. Approval: AFSCME Contract The Mayor stated in the beginning of the meeting that we are going to change this item from approval to a discussion. This is a brand new contract for everybody today and there is no pressure for a motion. Mr. Coffey said this is a contract that when I started in July was 98% there. Mr. Coffey said we are at a point from staff perspective where we feel comfortable with where we landed. He also said if there are particular pieces that we want to discuss that are material in nature I’m going to recommend that we go into executive session because this is still an active contract negotiation with AFSCME. We are at a point where we feel very comfortable with this. One thing we did want to bring up that is the E02 Wastewater the Equipment Operator Maintenance Tech that was included in the packet did not have the funding sources; this is not a material change. For the EO2 Wastewater the funding source and the expenditure source, both are 50% wastewater and 50% stormwater. The Maintenance Tech Wastewater E02 is 70% wastewater and 30% stormwater, that’s where the dollars are coming from the positions descriptions are negotiated. Councilor Mace asked if that was typical in these negotiations. Mr. Wernsdorfer said not it’s not. The Mayor said he has an item or 2 that are executive session. Councilor Mace asked is it appropriate to discuss by how much the salary increased, because we got the bridge but we have nothing to compare it to. The Mayor asked what the financial impact is. Ms. Aldierei said it was in the amount that was approved by Council for the budget for FY017. There wasn’t a pay scale previously. The Mayor asked have we had legal involvement regarding these negotiations from the City’s legal counsel. Mr. Wernsdorfer said yes. Ms. Hulburd said it was a final check. The Mayor asked did our attorney review it and did we break any laws here and is a valid contract or did we ask for a qualitive review of the contract. Ms. Hulburd said we asked our Attorney to go through the entire contract and that did happen and I don’t recall there being any issues. There were suggestions that were made and implemented. MOTION by Councilor Mace seconded by Councilor Sweeney to move into executive session for the purpose of discussing the AFSCME contract. Councilor Millar said why not wait and finish the last item and then go into executive session. Councilor Mace withdrew her motion. The Mayor said we will suspend item and bring back at the end of the meeting. j. Discussion: Increase to Health Insurance Opt Out Value Mr. Coffey would like feedback on this topic. Our personnel manual has a $1200.00 optout for anyone that does not take are health insurance. I’m very much interested at looking at revisiting that number and bumping it up to $5200.00 option per year. The incentives that were offering are not attractive to anyone to take the optout. If we had one additional person take the optout at that increased level it would more than cover the other numbers of employees who are currently taking the optout. I think from a financial perspective there is some value there. If this is something that you would be interested in entertaining I will continue to work on it. I think it’s a valid move. Ms. Aldieri said the single person is $431.00 per November 7, 2016 Agenda Winooski City Council month; 2 person is $872.00 per month and family is $1579.00 per month. Councilor Mace would like to know the % of the premium that represents. The Mayor said to bring the detailed memo back to us on December 5. MOTION by Councilor Mace seconded by Councilor Sweeney to go into executive session to discuss the AFSCME contract and to include Julie Hulburd and Peter Wernsdorfer to join us into executive session at 8:30 p.m. Voted and passed 4-0. MOTION by Councilor Millar seconded by Councilor Mace to adjourn the meeting at 8:55 p.m. Voted and passed 4-0. ATTEST:_______________________________ City Clerk November 7, 2016 Agenda Winooski City Council