City Council

27 WEST ALLEN STREET WINOOSKI, VERMONT 05404 (802) 655-6410 CITY OF WINOOSKI (802) 655-6414 (fax) JESSIE BAKER CITY MANAGER MAYOR SETH LEONARD COUNCILOR ERIC COVEY sleonard@winooskivt.org DEPUTY MAYOR BRIAN CORRIGAN CITY COUNCIL COUNCILOR NICOLE MACE COUNCILOR BRIAN SWEENEY bcorrigan@winooskivt.org Agenda Monday, July 17, 2017 6:00 P.M. CLAIRE BURKE COUNCIL CHAMBER I. Call to Order II. Pledge of Allegiance III. Agenda Review IV. Public Comment V. Consent Agenda a. Approval: City Council Minutes of June 19 & June 24, 2017 b. Approval: Payroll Warrants as of 06/04/17-06/17/17 & 06/18/17-07/01/17, Accounts Payable Warrant as of 06/29/17 & 07/17/17 & Subsequent to Payout for May c. Approval: Vehicle Use Policy VI. Public Hearing at 6:05 p.m. a. Approval: Zoning Ordinance Change – J Baker VII. City Update VIII. Council Reports IX. Regular Items a. Discussion: Sanctuary City – J Baker b. Approval: Airport Resolution – J Baker c. Introduction: Fee Ordinance Chapter - J Baker d. Approval: Vt. Dept. of Libraries Grant: VERSO Catalog Update- R Coffey e. Discussion: Housing Commission, Timeline, Options – J Baker f. Discussion: FY18 Policy & Strategy Priorities – J Baker g. Discussion: Treasurer’s Position Review – S Leonard X. Executive Session a. Discussion: Pending Litigation under 1 V.S.A. § 313(a) (1). XI. Adjourn MINUTES The Mayor called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. The Mayor would like to acknowledge that it has been a tough week in the City of Winooski. We have had an11 year old child pass away due to an accident near the water. We would like to acknowledge the pain that this family and our community is going through. I want to point out that we take a lot of pride in being a close-knit community that is very caring. I also want to thank the 1st Responders who have done unbelievable work in face of dangerous and challenging conditions. I want to thank you 1st Responders and the agencies who put their lives on the line who assisted us during the rescue. The Mayor asked for a moment of silence. The meeting began with the Pledge of Allegiance led by Deputy Mayor Brian Corrigan. Members Present: Mayor Seth Leonard Councilors: Brian Corrigan, Brian Sweeney, Nicole Mace, Eric Covey arrived at 6:20 p.m. Officers Present: Jessie Baker, City Manager; Carol Barrett, City Clerk; John Audy, Code Enforcement Director; Heather Carrington, Economic Development Director, Ray Coffey, Community Services Director; Paul Dreher, Zoning ; Scott McGivern, Lieutenant, Winooski Police Dept.; Amanda Perry, Librarian. Others Present Robert Millar, Maura O’Neill, Winooski Community Partnership; Faisal Gill, John & Mary Wilson, Steven Polli, Esther Lotz. III. Agenda Review The Mayor said we have an item that we need to change with everybody’s acceptance. Executive Session – We had discussion listed for Pending Litigation. The pending litigation matter is going to include executive session, which will be for discussion only after that it will actually result in an open meeting vote on that item we will need to take action related to the discussion. It will be subsequent to the Executive Session. Add Approval: to Executive Session – Pending Litigation Under 1 V.S.A. §313 (a)(1). IV. Public Comment – None V. Consent Agenda MOTION by Councilor Sweeney seconded by Councilor Mace to approve the consent agenda as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. VI. Public Hearing at 6:05 p.m. a. Approval: Zoning Ordinance Change The Mayor opened the public hearing at 6:07 p.m. for the purpose of approval of the zoning ordinance change. The City Manager invited our Zoning Administrator Paul Dreher. We did discuss this at our last council meeting and went through the specifics of the zoning changes being proposed. The Planning Commission has vetted them, the public hearing at the planning commission has taken place, and they have voted to move these specific changes on to you for consideration. Mr. Dreher said the following zoning changes are as followed: • Article II, Section 2.4 Addition of “use” categories to Land –Use Table. • Article IV, Section 4.4 (D & E) Design Review, Subsection D & E language removed and/or modified to remove reference to the Division of Historic Preservation (DHP). • Article IV, Section 4.9 Nonconforming Lots, Structures and Uses. Drives and Rights of Way (ROW) language added. • Appendix B, Part 4 General Provisions, Subsection 402 F (1) Revision of Bonus Story Energy requirements. See attached. The Mayor said at the last meeting one of the conversation points we had was in regards was to address affordable housing. There is a joint meeting with the planning commission in the works. He also said we are going to limit public comment. He is giving seven minutes in terms of time to address council on the issue, that is longer than we generally provide which is s 3 minute opportunity. Mr. Frank Kochman, Attorney, representing Chittenden Housing Corp which to orient you why I am here. Mr. Kochman handed out the following memorandum; re proposed change to unified land use regulations. See Attached. He said Chittenden Housing owns a 10 unit senior housing project next door to 110 E Spring St. I’m here to comment on only 1 item in the proposed amendments to the regulations and that is section 4.9 non-conforming lots, structures and uses, pre-existing drives and rights of way. Why I am here, is to get rid of the reference to Rights of Way. Mr. Kochman presented a summary of his concerns, which are safety, policy, legal & practical/political. Mr. Kochman objection to this is the specific section 4.9 dealing with ROW. If this is adopted you are going to wind up with a 36ºangle driveway leading on to E. Spring St. Cutting of the windows behind the 100 unit senior housing, with a 7’ elevated road 15’ away from the windows, and a fence on top of that or, we have been offered a lack of a fence and the dangers of cars falling off. This is our ultimate concern. I disclosed this up front because that is our bias. Our focus is not to make a DRB argument our focus is to make a policy argument. 1. Safety- Mr. Kochman said he has Nate Hawes who is an engineer with Trudell Consulting. Mr. Hawes presented the following plans. Mr. Kochman said the impact of this particular ordinance would be; that there are 18 affected existing driveways in the City. Trudell did an aerial survey, which identifies all of them. I do not remember the exact numbers but he will show you what the angles are at which those driveways enter the respected streets, two of them are on cul-de-sac, and they do not matter too much. They are well below any safe standard. 16 existing driveways have sharp angles off access to the street. What you have on that aerial are 16 non cul-de-sac existing driveways that have acute angle ranges from 43ºto 81º. We think to have no lower limit on the angle of access you allow even for their driveway is ill advised. However, our key concern is for pre-existing ROW that are totally undeveloped, that is what is behind our building. It is a grassy slope with a fence across it that you authorized in 1997. A grassy slope for the last 50 years or so has been occasional sleepy access to the rear of their building and to our building because it is a ROW in common. There is no defined road it is just a 20’ wide deeded ROW, that is all that is there. The language that you are authorizing is the development of that ROW which has a 36ºangle to the street. Mr. Hawes showed them on the map where the ROW is, the angle of access to the street is prominently to the street is 36º. Mr. Kochman said, the second page is a summary from professional standards that apply to angles of access for driveways, these are nationally recognized. The ideal is a 90º perpendicular access that should be noting below 15ºor 28ºoff that 70ºthat you could go as low as 60º in certain circumstances. You can never get to 36º under anybody’s standards including VTRANS unless you are entering one way on a divided highway. Here you have two-way traffic on the access and two-way traffic on E Spring St. Which is not a minor street in the City of Winooski. You have a dangerous situation. Beyond that as a matter of policy, I am going to the second point. The background here are these folks already withdrew their application once because reasons that are unknown to me. Your Public Works, DRB and staff behind it really want this to happen. Despite the provision in the existing ordinance says; access is supposed to be approximately perpendicular, they authorized this in the face of this very same argument. Apparently, knowingly and they were told preliminarily by the environmental court they were going to lose, so it was withdrawn and took a political approach instead. They could not win under the laws, so now they are seeking to change the law. The Mayor asked if there were any other public comment on the proposed zoning changes. Councilor Mace asked Mr. Dreher what the process that was used to respond. Mr. Dreher said the Planning Commission took great pains, to not spot zoning. They looked at the broad picture of what is going on in Winooski and addressed non-conforming and the most generic way possible. Non-conforming lots, non-conforming ROW and non-conforming structure. We did not have a particular project in mind or any site-specific ideas about the non-conforming drive or ROW. Councilor Mace asked if this lot or the folks who are interested in developing this lot did not come to the Planning Commission with the change for the ordinance. Mr. Dreher said no. He believes that they were at the DRB, and this was before my time here. I think it was appealed and the proposal was withdrawn when it was in process. The Winooski Housing Authority and the applicant whose proposal per-say about the project. The Mayor said the interpretation of the decision was not specific to one property. When zoning is updated this will be an issue. Councilor Sweeney asked how you feel from a staff perspective in this specific instance. Mr. Dreher said coming from a Planning and design background, I understand from an engineering point of view. It can also be viewed problematic and count all the different impacts that go into design. I do not think in this specific case any hazards or dangers, I think it will slow down traffic. Mr. Kochman said he understands if you overtly spot zone then you have overtly spot zoned. My opposing counsel in litigation presented to the City Staff if not directed to the Planning Commission a proposal to have the same effect. Secondly, there is no stop sign near this outlet. There is a stop sign at the corner. The Planning Commission said specifically one of the members said they were not aware of any pre-existing ROW except this one; I made sure they were aware of it. He said from his perspective this is far from over. It would be nice to cut if off here, at best, this is spot zoning and the folks at 110 E. Spring St drive it. The Mayor gave feedback on this. There are situations that will inspire conversation. Mr. Polli said your Planning Commission has worked very diligently and I think you should respect the work they have done. The Public hearing closed at 6:30 p.m. VIII. City Update The City Manager gave the following updates: We will have an update from the Pool Committee in August. We would like to remind folks that the water below the hydro dam is very dangerous and we hope the community can focus on supporting the Muhina family.  • Ms. Baker stated that we mailed out the tax bills on Friday. For a home valued at $225,000, the tax bill this year will be $5,710.05 (or $75.60 more than last year’s bill at $5,634.45). • Ms. Baker thanked those who have completed the doodle poll. She also said after the Council’s conversations on housing and follow-up conversations at the Planning Commission, we suggest that both bodies meet to discuss the best ways forward. You will hear more about the plan later in the agenda. • Ms. Baker said Mike Bento (branding and marketing consultant) was here through 9th – 11th. He had a presence at the Farmers’ Market, did key stakeholder interviews, and we had a fantastic turnout and a good conversation at the community dinner on the 11th • Development/ Construction Updates She said Orchard Terrace final paving is complete. The Contractor will be in to address a few driveways. We are also digging the trench this week for the new VT gas line at the Waste Water Treatment Plant. • The following events will be going on in the City: Pedal and Paddle is this Sunday from 10 to 3. Winooski Wednesday is on August 2nd and we’ll have The High Breaks playing a high energy “surf rock” style of music. • Brand-new Car Seat Fitting Program which provides safe, appropriate, and proper car seat installation to caregivers who transport children in personal vehicles. This program is the product of a partnership between the City of Winooski and the State of Vermont Department of Health who provided the training and certification. Fittings are available free for anyone transporting children. Car seats (provided by a grant from the EvenFlo Company) will be made available to community members who need them, but fittings can be made with pre- purchased car seats so long as they meet the appropriate requirements. Call for an appointment. • Wednesday, July 19 at 6 PM at CCV, Colleen Sullivan will present her research, which includes the barriers to food access and the opportunities for growth within Winooski and Chittenden County. • We are also hiring for the following: Equipment Operators, Communications Coordinator, and a Public Works Director. VIII. Council Reports Councilor Mace – None Councilor Corrigan – None Mayor Leonard said the Planning Commission is moving forward with the Master Plan. We also want to acknowledge and bring in Public Works Commission and have a joint meeting. Councilor Sweeney said we are having discussions mainly around the pool. Councilor Covey said at the Public safety meeting they discussed the strategic goals. Whenever you look at the structure of a public body, there is an exciting opportunity to make sure between us as a body, our commissions as a body, city staff are all kind of on the same page. In the future to get, multiply members of different commission together in one place to discuss different areas of overlap. He also said we have two vacancies for alternates on the commission. The Mayor gave a public service announcement that he wants to encourage residence and citizens not to hesitate to reach out to City Officials, staff or your elected officials regarding programming facts about the City and the types of programming we have available in the community. It’s really important that we have public spaces where people can have conversations in the community. I also want to take the opportunity to just remind you that we have very responsive folks, both sitting here and who come to work every day in City Hall who can answer your question about programming and what’s going on with specific projects and can give you facts about accurate information going on. The Mayor said our first item is to consider the approval of the closed public hearing item for the Zoning Ordinance change. The Mayor also asked if there was any additional comments or questions, hearing none, he asked for a motion. MOTION by Councilor Corrigan seconded by Councilor Sweeney to approve the Zoning changes as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. See attached. IX. Regular Items a. Discussion: Sanctuary City The City Manager said we are responding to a Resolution that the Mayor and Council passed on November 21, 2016 asking us to look at setting up policies to become a Sanctuary City. What you have in front of you is a memo from myself and our leadership team as well as the City’s fair and impartial policing policy and State legislation that was just passed this session about that policy at the state level. See attached. The other document that was attached is a draft policy for your consideration. She said as we hash over these questions within our leadership team. Nationally there is not a unified definition of what a sanctuary is. Typically, it refers to cities that have certain policies around policing. The State required that Police Depts. adopt fair and impartial policing policies. We in the City of Winooski have done that to the extent that limits our ability on the municipal level to enforce State or federal law. It says that Police Officers will ask about immigration status only when it is directly connected to a criminal investigation. If someone is accessing services or calling in a complaint or is just on the street there is not a need to ask about immigration status at that point. The challenge with changing at this time is that the State has passed legislation asking the State Counsel to look at that fair and impartial policing policy statewide and come back with a recommendation with changes by Jan. 2018. We already have a strong policy protecting all of our residents here in Winooski; we felt that it was more precedent to wait to see what the State did through the Statewide Counsel. We have a community that welcomes anyone who wants to live here peacefully and be productive members of our community. We do no ask about immigration status for anyone who accesses a program or arm of the government. There are two specific times when we do ask for immigration status. One is to meet our federal employment regulations and the other is a check box on the voter registration form. The final thing we want to bring to your attention is you have this policy conversation, is that we really believe that “words matter”. How we talk, about who we are and what our community’s values are is very important to both those who are here as well as those who might visit us and who are thinking about locating here. We also have seen in the last six months in the country, specific communities, specific populations target because of words and we are concerned about bringing attention to some of our residents that we may not want. I think that is a policy question for you all to whey in on. The draft Sanctuary City policy that you have in your packets that will in addition to the fair and impartial policing policy essentially codifying what we currently do. It is specifically talks about it chares us which is something we are currently doing, but is not codified anywhere of not using the term citizen. Therefore, when we refer to our residents or our visitors we refer to them as our residents and visitors without using the term citizen to refer to the citizens of Winooski. This is a very specific legal definition that we do not feel applies when we were talking about who can access police services, or housing or new program services. WE would love to hear your feedback. The Mayor said as a reminder when this was passed there was real and reported level of concern with the community regarding use of services and people feeling that they had an opportunity to approach the City without concern in regards to their status. We have had many conversations as a state, which is something that is different. WE have more definition in terms of what the results are. I think we did this the right way in order of the development of policy. Councilor Covey – said the absolutely #1 priority is that every single Winooski resident feels as comfortable and safe as possible calling our Police Dept. Having that fair impartial policing policy is very important to me. We have the most diverse community in the State of Vt. and the highest per capita of new American population. My personal values strongly support taking that moniker and making that public statement and that we are a Sanctuary City. The public statement creates public awareness. The other items that we want to call to your attention is we do have $864,000.00 of federal funding that we are managing in FY018. We also had a conversation in how other municipalities are addressing this issue in the state. We have seen two of the other big communities, Burlington and Montpelier and the state step back in their Sanctuary City definitions. Councilor Mace is interested in the funding implications, is that amount solely in federal funds devoted to policing? The City Manager said no. She said that under Vt. Law the school district is a separate entity from a City. Under Federal, law there is no appreciation for that distinction. I know the school district draws down millions of dollars in federal funds and we would be imperiled by any loss of funding. At what degree are we confident at pursuing Sanctuary City as a status and whether that is not going to affect the school district? I think that impact on families and children are far more important. The Mayor said the rule of funding at risk is limited to really the Justice Depts. funding and funds. The Mayor said we should have a more comprehensive review of that and look at those decisions. Councilor Mace asked if it is important that we use the words “Sanctuary City” or just rely on expectation and a policy that says, we as a City, are going to respond to you no matter what your status is. You are safe here, you’re welcome here and we do that in a number of ways which I think this memo lays out. In addition to the concerns that Mr. Covey sighted, I have concerns about loss of federal funds. Mr. Gill, Chairperson of the Attorney General task force on Sanctuary City stated the Attorney General’s Office put out a set of guidelines and draft policies. We did not use the word Sanctuary City, because there is no legal definition of Sanctuary City. I would urge you, as we did in the task force, not to use Sanctuary City because you are not proving Sanctuary. In my opinion, it is very dangerous. It creates a false sense of security. We put out a draft guideline for municipalities that want to adopt certain policies that do not enforce their law. I agree with you 100% language matters. The Mayor said we have the responsibility to the best of our ability within our powers in what we can do. There is some legwork we can do, but also get this out to the public safety commission. Councilor Covey said this should be two separate discussions. The policy itself and the how do we defer to the policy. The Mayor said we need to give clear guidance to the whole point of the Sanctuary City piece regardless of the policy. The rules and policy development around it are changeable regardless of whether you make this statement or not. The City Manager said she is hearing some interest in codifying our current practice and our accessibility as a City to all who want to access services. We are potentially veering away from the terminology but want to look at the AG’s report and any other resources that you find at your conference and think about what that policy document will look like and also involve the Public Safety Commission and funding. Councilor Covey said he is not comfortable with that discussion with not using the terminology and just focusing on the policy. What I do want is to continue to develop and work on this policy to achieve the objectives and go through that process. The Mayor said while in limbo we still need to make some kind of progress. Lt. Scott McGivern said we have a fair impartial policing policy. We as the Police Dept have adopted a community policing orientation, you see many more foot patrols and personally, I have met with the Bhutanese community and had an open discussion understanding their experience with law enforcement. It was an opportunity for us to present to them what our Police do here and the services we offer them so they have a better understanding and hopefully feel more comfortable calling us. I also met with some of the Somali elders a few years back to understand their culture. The Mayor said this is not reflective of you or anyone, we know that you’ve worked incredibly hard to be a Department that is really in tune with the Community and reaching out and being pro-active. Mr. Millar said involving the public safety commission is a good plan and increase the public engagement. I agree with Mr. Covey on the actual terminology of Sanctuary City it is such a part of the conversation. The Mayor said we are going to have to make a call on the terminology piece and bring back two options. Mr. Sweeney said in the policy, it might be appropriate to come up with having something that we will translate this policy into other language and get it into the hands of the people that would be able to read it. The Mayor stated that the education piece is important. I also want to thank you all for a great job, this is helpful information and context to the table. b. Approval: Airport Resolution The City Manager said the City has been participating in efforts with the airport for many years. She said this is a joint resolution that is before you tonight, which is also on the agenda in South Burlington. The other communities are Colchester, Essex, Williston and Shelburne are considering signing on as well. It is a lengthy resolution with lots of detail. See attached. The resolution is to explore the airport transitioning from a municipal airport to either a regional or a state run airport. The idea right now there is a few political decision makers in Burlington who are in charge of making decisions about an airport that doesn’t effects their residency to the same agree that effects in other communities. If it was to transition to a regional or state model, there are many examples of across the country, the neighborhoods are truly affected, we could be equally represented. This resolution also makes it very clear that the airport in general is an enormous community asset across Chittenden County and across VT. The Mayor said that our request have been unanswered, we are not getting any consideration, and we are not being dealt with in a respectful manner. We have reached an impasse of our availability to participate. We have been active in sound mitigation committee to the best of our ability and tried to participate in those types of efforts proactively. This resolution request is to look at the governing board, think about what that membership will look like, and have a discussion with a committee. Councilor Mace said there was a strategic plan for the airport in 2013 that recommended studying a regional governance model, no action has been taken to pursue that recommendation. This is a regional asset and has regional impact. We need to have a discussion around how we are going to make sure that is not a token process but an actual process. Councilor Mace also asked how this originated. The City Manager said the managers of all these communities have had conversations about this. It is only in front of So Burlington and Winooski. Other communities do not feel the physical impact that the way those two communities feel. The Governor’s office has been made aware of this discussion as well as the Mayor of Burlington and the airport. Mayor Leonard urges other communities to recognize the regional feedback and input for their community be part of the way decision are made. Mr. Gill and Mr. Millar urge the passage of this policy. MOTION by Councilor Covey seconded by Councilor Corrigan to approve the Airport resolution as presented. Voted and passed 5-0. c. Introduction: Fee Ordinance Chapter The City Manager said this is the official introduction of the Fee Ordinance and public hearing for the August meeting. We are here tonight to set the public hearing for August 7. There was some discussion concerning the fee schedule. Councilor Corrigan asked about the bonding in the Public Works, that it does not appear to be in the fee schedule. The City Manager said we did a lot of research on what other communities around us do. The cost to get a permit to excavate a street is most typically sewer line repair going to your house. There was a suggestion instead of a per foot cost; we historically had a construction bond. In both cases the concept is when the work is done the public street is protected, so you have a private contractor doing work on the street and you protect that asset. Historically the City has done it with a per foot dollar amount which allows us to recoup dollars in which to maintain and improve the street in the future. She said what we have learned in the research in doing the background for this is other communities do not do this. Because of that administration burden and because of what our surrounding communities are currently doing the decision was made to maintain the per square footage cost that we currently have. We are right in the middle of the pack of what other communities charge. Councilor Mace questioned the Community Services Program; she said anything that is not listed in the ordinance would be set by Resolution. The City Manager said the language exist in other parts of the ordinance. Our intent would be to come back to you quarterly, or bi-annually with a resolution of fees with the program. The Mayor said he would like to benchmark this and do a review in six months. If there is any feedback that comes back through, we can have a discussion. The City Manager said it would be appropriate to review it with the budget submission. Councilor Sweeney Introduced the Fee Ordinance. The public hearing will be on August 7, 2017. d. Approval: Vt. Dept of Libraries Grant: VERSO Catalog Update Mrs. Perry is requesting approval of a Grant from VERSO Catalog Update. She said the Vt. Dept of Librarians has contract with Auto Graphics to provide an integrated library system call VERSO. The dept. is offering eligible public libraries financial assistance to migrate to VERSO. The grant is providing funding to cover the cost of migrating library data to VERSO and the first year of service. She said right now the library uses library world online catalog. She said the Dept. of Libraries is promising from what she has seen. She said this would be a huge timesaving. See attached Grant. MOTION by Councilor Corrigan seconded by Councilor Mace to approve the VERSO Migration Project grants as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. e. Discussion: Housing Commission, Timeline, Options The City Manager said this is an ongoing conversation and there is no action needed tonight. She also said we were asked to do three things: 1. Outline options to address the councils concerns about housing needs in Winooski 2. Create a timeline implementation 3. Recruiting volunteers for housing commission Attached is our work product and this has been shared by the Planning Commission and discussed at their meeting last week. Ms. Carrington summarized the three items. See attached. She said Winooski is far out performing other municipalities in the County as a whole. With that being said, we have so much development coming into the City it’s really important we take a proactive approach to dealing with affordable housing in the future because this can change very quickly in a small community. Right now, we have over a 100 units slated to come in to the City. She said she has reached out to the developers to ask them what their price range was going to be and the price range currently would be a median of $1200.00 for 1 bedroom and $1600.00 for 2 bedroom, which actually reduces the median rent currently being asked in the city. She also said we are lower than the surrounding communities are. Councilor Mace asked what is meant by “target”. Is that a hope, or is that we are going to be driving development to meet targets in terms of approval of these projects. Ms. Carrington said So. Burlington set explicit targets by 2025 and then what they will do with those targets it to use zoning to incentivize and use different funding to incentivize so this is a variety of ways you go about doing that. It is a commitment. The City Manager said zoning is a very powerful tool as an incentive, zoning also establishes a set of rules at which point we have to administer those rules. I do not want to give the false assumption if we have targets and having zoning in place and we are not meeting a target, we cannot start approving projects. Legally we cannot do that. If the projects meet the zoning, we have to approve them through the process. What it does mean is we can use those targets to inform how big of an incentive into the zoning code, what financial tools do we leverage, loan programs, different partnership with Champlain Trust etc. or do we seek out State or Federal Funds. She also said this is why the cycle of master planning and zoning re-writes are important. Ms. Carrington said there was concern about concentrating poverty raised at the last meeting. She said concentrating poverty is defined by a rate of 40% or more individuals living below the federal poverty rate in a single census tract. The City of Winooski is made up of only two census tracts. Tract 24 currently has a 30.9% poverty rate and tract 25has a 22.4% poverty rate. She said there is a regional crisis in affordable housing. One municipality certainly can take a stand and be proactive about creating affordable housing, but short of having a regional approach, that will not solve the problem for the whole county. It is important that we are part of these regional discussions. Ms. Carrington presented the implementation and timeline for looking at the Winooski housing needs assessment and dealing with affordable housing in Winooski. See attached. The City Manager said the timelines established here are the recommendations of staff or the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission reviewed their portion of zoning items. This will be used as the work plan that the housing commission will be charged with staff and Planning Commission Mr. Sweeney asked what it means to eliminate off street parking requirements to allow the market to determine parking demand. Mr. Dreher said it is an involved discussion. The biggest inhibitors to development of affordable housing is the additional cost of required parking spaces. As an example: City lights, which is inhabited, his cost to the underground parking spaces within the building were $30,000.00 per space. If you are requiring a new development 1.5 parking space per unit, you are immediately tacking on $7000.00 to $25,000.00 per unit cost amortized over the lifetime of financing the building, which adds on to a potential chunk of rent. When we originally wrote form base code, we dropped the requirements +.75 cars per unit. We actually recommended no required cars per unit allowing the market to determine that. There was a lot of hesitancy about that. Councilor Mace is interested in breaking out the census data for the median income. The Mayor is very impressed with the work done and I would like to compliment, Paul, Heather and Jessie. f. Discussion: FY018 Policy and Strategy Priorities The City Manager shared the FY018 Policy and Strategy Priorities. See attached. We have not received any feedback on this draft document, whether something is significantly missing or incorrect. Since this was a product of 3 ½ hours of work on Saturday, this is an opportunity to provide feedback that you have been mulling over, or if you wanted to add or change anything in this document. If not I would like to bring it back for approval on August 7, 2017. If there are any recommendations or charges, you can email it to me. The Mayor said he really understands and sees what the focus is going to be. The City Manager said she is going to bring this document back to you for approval and bring the monitoring plan back for discussion and that can be approved at the following meeting. g. Discussion: Treasurer’ Position Review The Mayor said the Winooski City Charter provides that the City Council shall appoint a Treasurer annually. The City Charter provides the basic framework of the Treasurer position through a number of designated duties and responsibilities. The Treasurer position, as it is currently configured, was created three years ago to create an independent position that reports directly to City Council on financial operations. The position description created three years ago expanded the duties of the Treasurer outside of the Charter framework and created addition duties for the position. The Council has appointed the Treasurer position for the past two years without a review of the position. With the presentation of this memorandum, I am recommending that Council consider a full review of the Treasurer position and how it is working three years after the position was redefined. The review would include: • Reviewing Charter Roles and Responsibilities for the position • Review current Treasurer tasks, responsibilities, and projects • Analyze how the position, as currently configured, fits into City Operations and consider whether the current model is optimal • Provide a recommendation of potential updates to the position description and review with the current one • Discuss appointment process. At this time, an interim appointment is available to allow for the work reference above to proceed between now and the middle of September 2017. I would like to see those things reviewed and opened backup, start reviewing task, operations of the City. Councilor Mace would also like to review how many hours a week is anticipated. Are we realistic in our expectations of this position? The City Manager said this maybe a project where some municipal system help through the VLCT could be requested. They do small consulting projects like this. It might be a resource to call on. X. Executive Session a. Discussion: Pending Litigation under 1V.S.A. § 313 (a) (1) MOTION by Councilor Mace seconded by Councilor Covey to go into executive session at 8:30 p.m. for the purposes of discussing pending legal litigation under 1 V.S.A. § 313 (a) (1) that could involve either personnel matters or could also put the City at a significantly disadvantage to be discussed publicly. Voted and passed 4-0. The meeting reconvened at 8:35 p.m. to approve an action this evening. We are proposing to enter into a settlement agreement in regards to in the case identified by the court as Isaac Sage vs. City of Winooski through its Police Dept. Jason Nokes, in both his individual capacities and its docket #216CV116. The City will go on record as agreeing to a settlement agreement. MOTION by Councilor Corrigan seconded by Councilor Mace to approve the settlement agreement as proposed. Voted and passed 4-0. MOTION by Councilor Sweeney seconded by Councilor Covey to adjourn City Council meeting at 8:36 p.m. Voted and passed 4-0. ATTEST:___________________________ City Clerk