City Council

Winooski City Council Meeting Monday, November 4, 2019 6:00 PM Claire Burke Council Chambers 27 West Allen Street Winooski, VT 05404 Mayor Kristine Lott - klott@winooskivt.gov Councilor Hal Colston - hcolston@winooskivt.gov Councilor Jim Duncan - jduncan@winooskivt.gov Councilor Amy Lafayette - alafayette@winooskivt.gov Councilor Mike Myers - mmyers@winooskivt.gov Jessie Baker, City Manager - jbaker@winooskivt.gov I. Call to Order II. Pledge of Allegiance III. Agenda Review IV. Public Comment V. Consent Agenda a. Approval: City Council and Liquor Control Minutes of October 29, 2019 b. Approval: Warrant ending 11/01/19 VI. Council Reports VII. City Updates VIII. Regular Items a. Discussion: Winooski Valley Park District – R Coffey b. Approval: Enter into Negotiations with Nedde Real Estate on a Development Agreement for the Sale and Redevelopment of Lot 7D (17 Abenaki Way) - J Baker c. Discussion: Treasurer’s Quarterly Report – FY20 Q1 – A Anastasi-Hill d. Approval: East Allen Recommendations –J Rauscher e. Discussion: Main Street Revitalization Update and Phasing – J Rauscher f. Introduction: Public Records Request Policy – E Vorwald g. Discussion: FY20 Policy Priorities and Strategy Update: Housing – H Carrington X. Adjourn MINUTES The Mayor called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. and the Pledge of Allegiance was led by Deputy Mayor Colston. Members Present: Mayor Kristine Lott Council Members: Hal Colston, James Duncan, Amy Lafayette, Michael Myers Officers Present: Jessie Baker, City Manager; Carol Barrett, City Clerk; Angela Aldieri, Finance Director; Ray Coffey, Community Services Director; John Rauscher, Public Works Director: Eric Vorwald, Planning and Zoning Director; Alex Anastasi-Hill, City Treasurer Others Present: John Ames, David Saladino, VHB; Dan Peck, VHB; Evan Detrick, VHB; Jason Charest, CCRPC; Jacob Dawson VT Digger; Nick Warner, WVPD Executive Director. III. Agenda Review The Mayor would like to add an item to the agenda. We all received a letter from the Office of the Attorney General regarding opiate litigation case and they are looking for an opt out due by November 22, 2019. We will not have another regular meeting before then, so I wanted to add this tonight at the end of the agenda. MOTION by Councilor Lafayette seconded by Councilor Colston to add item H. Approval: Opiate Litigation as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. IV. Public Comment Mr. John Ames states he lives in the 65 decibel line. I’m here to seek the support of the amendment that has been put onto the Memorandum of Understanding between, Burlington, So. Burlington and Winooski. The Mayor stated that is still in negotiations and we haven’t taken that up with the Council. He said one of many things suggested is the cancellation of the F35’s. I belong to the proponent of the F35’s. It’s unreasonable and unnecessary, violates military practice of code and putting citizens in arms way. I hope at that meeting you can amend the proposed Memorandum of Understanding. V. Consent Agenda MOTION by Councilor Myers seconded by Councilor Lafayette to approve the consent agenda as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. VI. Council Reports Councilor Duncan – He said his wife and daughter attended the open house at the Fire House. I want to say thank you to the Fire Dept. for hosting that. They were really involved and engaged with the kids. Councilor Colston – None Mayor Lott – None Councilor Lafayette – Jim and I had a meeting at the Winooski Housing Authority on Friday. We met with 7 or 8 seniors at the East Spring St. housing to let them know what we were up to as a Council. Some of the priorities that we are working on and received feedback from them. They asked us to come back on a quarterly basis. Councilor Myers – I would like to remind people now that we have turned the clocks back. It’s getting dark outside early and for people to use the crosswalks and try to dress in light colors. VII. City Updates • Congratulations to the Winooski/Burlington youth football team, which won the Northern Vermont Youth Football League Championship on Saturday, defeating South Burlington 26-12. • 2019/2020 Winter Parking Ban Reminder: Overnight street parking is prohibited during winter parking bans. o We encourage all residents to sign up for NIXLE alerts to get notices of these bans directly to your phone. To sign up, text “Winooski” to 888-7777. o Additionally, as a reminder, parking is prohibited Downtown from 2:30 am to 6:00 am from December 1st to March 31st. • VT Air National Guard has announced that they will conduct night operations starting tomorrow night through November 22nd. They are scheduled to be completed by 8:00 pm in the evening. Lt. Col. Marek has said that this allows them to maintain night tactical proficiency. • DRB meeting on November 5th for Main & Mansion Appeal • PC meeting rescheduled to November 7th with a brief walking tour of downtown to look at sidewalks and setbacks • CJC Summit: Last week Eli, Lt. Charkalis, and I participated in a regional Community Justice Summit. The Department of Corrections has asked Chittenden County to think about how this service is provided given that there are 5 CJCs in the county – more than any other county in the State. This may look like a consolidation of centers in the future. There was a strong preference articulated for community-based services even if administrative functions were centralized. • Angela and I met with Vermont Economic Progress Council staff and Board members today for their annual Site Visit Monitoring visit. We answered questions about our TIF district and gave them a tour of the area. We received general positive feedback. • Fire Open House this weekend! We would like to thank staff who made this event successful, and especially thank those who took the time to stop to pick-up important fire prevention information and look over our specialized trucks and equipment. • Events/Programs coming up: o Annual Run Your Can Off event will be held at Gilbrook Park on November 16, 2019 from 9 AM to 3 PM. The event is a trail run/food drive in support of the Winooski Food Shelf which is sponsored annually by the Long Trail Running Club. Donations can be made on a per loop or time based scale (for example one can of food per loop or one can per 15 minutes of running). o Reminder that the first Turkey bowl Community Flag Football game is scheduled for 1 PM on Saturday, November 23rd at Richards Park. o A two-day CPR/First Aid Class (instructed by our very own Jason Ziter) will be held on Tuesday, December 10th and Thursday, December 12th. Be on the lookout for registration information on our website and social media channels. o Also be on the lookout for upcoming registration for ▪ Chill youth snowboarding program ▪ Ski Cubs (a youth Nordic ski program in partnership with the Catamount Trail Association) ▪ Youth Basketball ▪ Indoor youth soccer ▪ An American Sign Language class will all be announced in the coming weeks. ▪ "Like" our Facebook page, or sign up for updates on the City website to stay informed as programs are announced. VII. Regular Items a. Discussion: Winooski Valley Park District – R Coffey Mr. Coffey introduced Nick Warner, WVPD, Executive Director. Mr. Coffey, said the Park District is a huge asset for us here as a department providing a lot of technical assistance around conservation, and conversation for having some more of our more sensitive properties. Also, a great sounding board when it comes to park management. Mr. Warner said this is our annual check-in with you. Winooski Valley Park District has 7 member towns, has been in existence since 1972. We own and manage 19 properties, 1750 acres across the 7 towns who are members. Winooski was one of our original charter members and the whole concept of our organization is we are both a non-profit and incorporated with municipalities, we both participate in State wide insurance and support programs as a Municipality and we also operate as a non-profit to bring resources. The whole concept of the agency is we function more efficiently and that we are able to combine resources and use a relatively small staff. Winooski Valley Park District is requesting a Fund Request: FY2020 Dues Requested: $16,450 FY2020 Dues Paid $5,000 FY2021 Dues Requested: $16,842 There was some discussion concerning the funding request for 2020. The Mayor said having this information for consider at budget time is very helpful. b. Approval: Enter into Negotiations with Nedde Real Estate on a Development Agreement for the Sale and Redevelopment of Lot 7D (17 Abenaki Way) – J Baker The City Manager invited Ms. Carrington, she has done the majority of the heavy lifting on the work to get us here. Its’ worth noting to the public that we did have an executive session on the RFP responses at your last meeting. Now, this is bringing forward a recommendation for you in public session. The City Manager gave the high level recommendation and if you have any detail questions Ms. Carrington can walk you through the process but this is what is being proposed. High level recommendation is to authorize the City Manager on behalf of the City to enter into negotiations with Nedde Real Estate for the redevelopment of Lot 7D or 17 Abenaki Way. They were one of the responders to the RFP that we had out on the streets since July and definitely bring the highest development potential to the site as well as realizing the community’s goals, building new parking infrastructure bringing a hotel to the City and creating additional Winooski based employment options for our residences. We believe this is the highest and best value proposal thus far for Lot 7D and ask for your permission to enter into negotiation. Whatever comes out of those negotiations would have to ultimately come you for approval. The Mayor put out for clarification we are referring to the plot of land that at the previous town meeting the voters approve the parking garage and with the intention to build a hotel. The original developer that we were talking too had shifted focus and so now we are looking at this new opportunity with the parking garage. MOTION by Councilor Colston seconded by Councilor Myers to approve the City Manager to enter into negotiations with Nedde for the redevelopment of Lot 7D as presented. Voted and passed 4- 0. c. Discussion: Treasurer’s Quarterly Report – FY20 Q1- A Anastasi-Hill Mr. Anastasia-Hill presented the following quarterly report. General Fund – The City’s General budget with first quarter actuals projects a surplus of $124,448 for the 2020 Fiscal Year. Enterprise Funds – Water Fund (Fund 201) projects a year end variance of $1,913 as a deficiency in water charges is covered by a surplus in loan proceeds covering expenditures pertaining to Hickok Street. Wastewater Fund (Fund 205) closed the 1st quarter with a projected reduction in fund balance of $186,797 as sewer services charges are currently forecasting a $171,143 deficit. Combined Parking Garage Fund (Fund 207) appears to be a concern with a projected deficit of $30,113 by fiscal year end but budgeted donations relating to the Abenaki Garage and parking fees under the MyWebGrocer contract have already been fully discounted. The projected deficit does not present a financial risk at this point. Community Services Program (Fund 400) between all programs is currently projecting a negative variance of $28,100. Community Justice Center (Fund 512) as of the first quarter of 2020 fiscal year has a positive annual variance of $21,394 due entirely to a reduction in budgeted employee hours. TIF Fund (Fund 600) is budgeted with a positive net fund variance of $71,249. Rental Registry Fund (Fund 702) is currently predicted to close fiscal year 2020 with a positive variance of $27,981 contributed almost entirely by lower salaries. Community & Economic Development Fund (Fund 805) is projected to close below budget by $2,210 as health insurance is conservatively budgeted. The City Manager said as the treasurer appropriately pointed out on the parking garage projection there is a significant revenue deficit projected in part due to MWG contract which is the first line of that budget. Under their parking agreement they have a right to essentially give back some spaces, but not on a permanent basis but on a month to month usage. They have exercised that option which is why youa re seeing a decreased revenue projection here. We are also working with them and they are working very hard to fully lease up their space which would result in them reupping their parking commitment. We are optimistic that this number won’t carry forward throught the whole year, but it is current based on the treaurer’s usage rates, it is what would be projected. d. Approval: East Allen Recommendations – J Rauscher The City Manager said we wanted to bring this back to you. We had an excellent discussion about the scoping study recommendations at a prior meeting. Since the scoping study is wrapping up and were trying to get down to tangible recommendations we wanted to bring back from what we heard from you all as direction. For final review and potential approval to be able to wrap up that scoping work. The city Manager said we have folks here from VHB, CCRPC. Mr. Rauscher said at the October 7 meeting we gave an overview of the East Allen Gateway. This basically goes from the circulator all the way to Roland Court. During that study we identified 3 main focus areas. Focus Area #1 East Allen Street and Cascade Way/Barlow Short-term: - Added call-out on the Southside of street for hatch area “or on-street parking” - Added a call-out for a rapid rectangular flash beacon (“RRFB:” at the Barlow/Cascade Way Intersection. Long-term: - Added call-out on the north and south side of street new green belt or “parking” Focus Area #2 East Allen and East Spring Street - Council endorsement of Alternative #1 – Signalized intersection - Alternative 2 (re-alignment of East spring) was endorsed by the Advisory Committee for additional exploration. The alternative promotes improved road network geometry, land-use opportunities and accommodates a potential traffic signal at Manseau Street (increased intersection-to-intersection distance). However, possible implementation of Alternative 2 requires numerous challenges including property acquisition and approval for a new railroad crossing. This alternative is also more costly than Alternative 1 ($2.4M v $1.1M, not including land acquisition costs) Focus Area #3 – Evaluation Matrix See attached for full text Discussion ensued concerning all three focus areas. The Mayor stated that we clearly endorsed Focus Area 1 and to include the I-89 interchange dual change and the grant request to improve Casavant be included. MOTION by Councilor Duncan seconded by Councilor Lafayette to approve Focus area 1 as presented, Focus area 2 the signalized intersection with the addition of the improvements to the entrance to Casavant park and approval of Focus area 3 both 3 and 4 lanes and section of the street including the I-89 interchange improvements. Voted and passed 4-0. e. Discussion: Main Street Revitalization Update and Phasing – J Rauscher Mr. Rauscher gave a progress update on the Main Street project. We would like to start some discussion on project scoping, as we start to get into the budget in the next couple of months. We want to go through the latest progress design to make sure that we are comfortable and finalizing this 60% set that we are going through, so when we present it back to you in December, we know we are on the right track and we can have a discussion about financing and next steps. Lengthy discussion ensued the phasing of the project. What portion of Main Street do we start on? Planting of trees, will be laying brick or will it be a stamped concrete, parking etc. Concerns were the businesses on Main Street. Ms. Carrington said that she went to each individual business to discuss the project. We will have ongoing conversation communicating with the businesses. The Mayor called for a 2 minute recess and the meeting reconvened at 8:11 p.m. f. Introduction: Public Records Request Policy – E Vorwald Mr. Vorwald is introducing a draft Public Records Policy. State statute identifies a process and information related to specific request for public records. However we don’t have anything specifically locally that helps staff and the public figure out how to navigate that process. This is a draft policy that is based off guidance from the VLCT on some language to establish the policy. This has been reviewed by our staff and legal counsel as well to provide comments. The draft incorporates all those comments. There are three separate pieces to this policy: Public Records Request Forms Inspection of Public Records Protection of Public Records Request for Inspection The Mayor asked where this differs from State Statute. Mr. Vorwald said primarily we don’t. Statute is pretty clear of what you can and cannot do. Instead of going to statute this is a more concise policy that we can use more easily. Councilor Duncan would like to see us default to providing transmission and copies in the format that they are in. I don’t want something that is electronic to be received in a paper form. I want it to default to open electronic access to records where possible. The City Manager said there is a difference between a land record production and a copy of an invoice that is a public records request and somewhere in the translation of those 2 things and the fee ordinance we used the land record value for all production of materials. The Mayor is curious why we would charge for staff time. The City Managers interpretation of that at the state level, especially in smaller communities. To be transparent and make records available and if your spending 4 hours of a day producing a public record especially for part-time folks that becomes those hours that you’re not providing to your community as some kind of service provision and being transparent. It’s a twofold purpose. One is a way to recoup some revenue stream to a community so they can maintain a service level. It can be a way to narrow down information request. Discussion ensued concerning the records request. The City Manager said I think we are taking about 2 different things. This is a good conversation and I think before we move forward to a public hearing I think we need to clarify some things and give you more guidance about your options moving forward. We do need to separate the land records. We owe you more information about the difference potentially between land records that become legal documents versus using invoices for our Attorney’s. Those are two different records request. g. Discussion: FY20 Policy Priorities and Strategy Update: Housing – H Carrington Ms. Carrington said per the Council adopted 2019-2020 Policy Priorities and Strategies and the accompanying monitoring plan, we present the second goal update on Housing. You will find a chart of the adopted strategies, a narrative of the updates, as well as action the Council can expect over the next few months. - Housing Trust Fund- Establish Policies and Procedures - Fully utilize Fire House and data to inform housing discussion and operations - Implement Champlain Housing Trust pre-development agreement She said the Housing trust fund should be up and running by January 1, 2020. h. Approval: Opioid Litigation The Mayor said we received an email today from the Attorney General’s Office. The Attorney General is recommending municipalities to participate in and that we add this to today’s agenda because it’s an opt out scenario and the opt out has to be submitted by November 22, 2019 and we won’t have a regular meeting before then. This is a decision we would need to make tonight. The goal of this class action suit is to recover money to help fight the opioids epidemic, provide prevention and treatment services going forward and change defendant’s practices. A class action is set up to maximize negotiating power. There is no guarantee that there will be a settlement. If there is a settlement, there is an allocation set up sort of per capita and Chittenden County would receive a certain amount to be distributed. We would be notice of a potential settlement and have the opportunity online to approve or decline the settlement would be complete 75% approval by the participating municipalities in the class action. Participating in this class action suit doesn’t mean we can’t participate in other suits on the same topic. What we’re deciding tonight is if we want to opt out of this or we would like to participate. MOTION by Councilor Myers seconded by Councilor Duncan to approve opting in the opiate litigation as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. MOTION by Councilor Lafayette seconded by Councilor Colston to adjourn the City Council meeting at 8:43 p.m. ATTEST: __________________________ City Clerk