City Council

Winooski City Council Meeting Monday, December 6, 2021 at 6 PM Attend online: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82204469704 Attend by phone: 1 646 558 8656 Webinar ID: 822 0446 9704 Attend in-person: Winooski City Hall (27 West Allen Street, masks & 6' distancing required) Mayor Kristine Lott - klott@winooskivt.gov Councilor Hal Colston - hcolston@winooskivt.gov Councilor Jim Duncan - jduncan@winooskivt.gov Councilor Mike Myers - mmyers@winooskivt.gov Councilor Bryn Oakleaf – boakleaf@winooskivt.gov I. Call to Order II. Pledge of Allegiance III. Agenda Review IV. Public Comment V. Consent Agenda a. Approval: City Council Minutes of 11/15/2021 b. Approval: Accounts Payable Warrant as of 12/02/2021 and Payroll Warrant for periods 08/22/2021-11/13/2021 and 11/14/2021-11/27/2021. VI. Council Reports VII. City Updates VIII. Public Hearing– Mollys Way 6:15 pm a. Mollys Way Private Street (64 Lafountain Street) – J Rauscher b. Approval: Mollys Way (Private Street) – J Rauscher IX. Regular Items a. Approval: Event Permit – Waking Windows – H Carrington b. Discussion: Town Meeting TV Presentation c. Discussion: Consideration of Local Mask Mandate – W Harrison d. Discussion: FY23: Budget Presentation and General Government – W Harrison e. Approval: Winooski Small Business Loan Committee Appointment – H Carrington f. Discussion: Housing Discussion – K Lott, J Duncan g. Discussion/Approval: Pupil Weighting Study Task Force – K Lott X. Executive Session a. Executive Session Pursuant to 1 V.S.A. §313 (1) (F) confidential attorney-client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal services to the body. – Champlain Housing Trust – 32 Malletts Bay Avenue b. Executive Session Pursuant to 1 V.S.A. §313 (2) the negotiation of real estate purchase or lease options related to Lot 7D (Abenaki Way) XI. Adjourn  MINUTES The Mayor called the meeting to order at 6:01 pm. Deputy Mayor Colston led the Pledge of Allegiance. Members Present: Mayor Kristine Lott Councilors: Hal Colston, James Duncan, Michael Myers, Bryn Oakleaf Officers Present: Wendy Harrison, Interim City Manager; Janet Brouard, Sr. Asst City Clerk; Angela Aldieri, Finance Director; Heather Carrington, Community and Economic Development Officer; Paul Sarne, Communications Manager; Eric Vorwald, Planning & Zoning Manager; John Audy, Fire Chief, Jon Rauscher, Public Works Director; Yasamin Gordon, Equity Director. Others Present: Town Meeting TV; Ali Nagle, Waking Windows; Nicole Mace, WSD; Deac Decarreau, WHA; F Wallace; Charlie Glassberg; Felipe Hoyos; Amela; Elizabeth Woods; Hillary; Steven & Daisy Berbeco; Kevin Luimpkin; Meghan O’Rourke, Town Meeting TV; Michael Monte, CHT. III. Agenda Review – None IV. Public Comment – None V. Consent Agenda a. Approval: City Council Minutes of 11/15/2021 b. Approval: Accounts Payable Warrant as of 12/02/2021 and Payroll Warrant for periods 08/22/2021-11/13/2021 and 11/14/2021-11/27/2021. MOTION by Councilor Oakleaf seconded by Councilor Duncan to approve the Consent Agenda as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. VI. Council Reports Councilor Oakleaf – will attended the Municipal Infrastructure Meeting next week. If anyone has any topics they would like to see discussed, please send her way. She attended the “Shop Winooski” this past week. It was a great event. Councilor Duncan – attended the Housing Commission Meeting. They are looking to update housing quality issues. They are looking into potential uses for ARPA funds, possible grant programs for Housing improvement loans. He attended the Airport Commission Meeting regarding the noise monitoring system. He was specifically interested in getting some guidance on being able to look back at historical data. Mr. Longo said data will be provided to the Public on a weekly basis. Councilor Colston - Announced that he will be retiring from the Legislative Session in May and he will not be running again for another term on the Council. As of October 1, 2022 he will be heading to Aruba. He said it has been a great experience representing our city at the local level and at the State. They Mayor thanked him for his service to both the Legislature and the Council and wished him well. Mayor Lott - said she, Jim and staff met with GovHR to discuss the next steps and timeline for the new City Manager search. She will bring a formal update to the next meeting. VII. City Updates • Potential City Council candidates can pick up petition either at the City Clerk’s office or on line. Each petition requires 30 valid signatures, its best to get more to be safe. All petitions are due back to the Clerk’s office by Monday, January 24th. • Registration for Winter Recreation programs have started so now is the time to register if you’re interested. • City has been awarded Municipal Planning Grant to develop the Housing Equity Plan. That plan will build on the housing findings found in the Equity Report. It’s scheduled to be complete within the next couple of months. • The Parking ban is in effect for all of Downtown until March, 2022. The remainder of the city bans are as needed. You can sign up for alerts through Nixle. • People are already complying with the parking ban. The next item on the agenda is the Public Hearing. It was warned for 6:15pm and with it being 6:10, the Mayor called a 5 minutes recess. VII. Public Hearing – Mollys Way 6:15 pm Mr. Rauscher opened the Public Hearing on the proposed naming of a private street located at 64 LaFountain Street. Mr. Rauscher said that a new private street has been constructed as part of the 9 unit planned residential development located at 64 LaFountain Street that is currently under construction. This street will remain private and not become a dedicated City right-of-way. The development owner is requesting that the private street be named “Molly’s Way”. According to the City of Winooski’s local ordinance Chapter 22 – Street and Sidewalks, Section 22.05, it states that the City Council will hold a public hearing for public and private street names. Mr. Rauscher said staff has reviewed and we have sent to attorney for their review and we recommend moving forward with the Council approval for the private street. MOTION by Councilor Colston seconded by Councilor Duncan to approve the naming of the private street located off 64 LaFountain Street as Molly’s Way as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. IX. Regular Items a. Approval: Event Permit: Waking Windows – H Carrington Ms. Carrington said staff has received an event permit application for the annual Waking Windows event to be held May 13th, 14th and 15th, 2022. This 3-day arts and music festival has been held annually for the last decade with a disruption for the COVID-19 pandemic, and draws thousands of visitors to the downtown. The event will take place in many businesses, as well as having outdoor staging on Winooski Falls Way and in Rotary Park. The event will require closure of Winooski Falls Way for Friday through Sunday. Ms. Carrington said that staff has discussed the event requirements and the sponsor will monitor the COVID trends and are aware that conditions may impact the event. At this time, staff recommends approval of the event permit. MOTION by Councilor Myers seconded by Councilor Oakleaf to approve the event permit for Waking Windows as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. b. Discussion: Town Meeting TV Presentation The Mayor said that the Representative of Town Meeting TV is not present at this time so we will Move on to item c. c. Discussion/Approval: Consideration of Local Mask Mandate – W Harrison Ms. Harrison said we are here tonight to consider and possibly adopt the Resolution to require mask use in public indoor places and limit the spread of COVID-19 with no explicit enforcement. The Vermont Legislature approved Act 1 in November to permit municipalities to adopt temporary rules requiring individuals to wear masks while infoords at public location to prevent and mitigate the spread of COVID -19 and protect the health and safety of its residents. Staff recommends the “non- enforcement” option. Ms. Harrison said the purpose of this rules is to promote consistency of expectations of mask-wearing and increased compliance, both of which can be addressed without legal enforcement. The rule is limited to a period of 45 days from adoption and the Council must meet during that period to vote to either rescind or extend the rule for an additional 30 days. Ms. Harrison said staff has discussed an outreach program that will be made available to residents who do not have access to resources. Draft plan is attached. We are also working with Downtown Winooski to keep the business community informed. There was some discussion from Council whether or not we have reached out to see what other communities are doing, but overall, in favor of this mandate. There were a couple of comments from the public, both in favor as well. MOTION by Councilor Colston seconded by Councilor Duncan to approve the Mask Mandate Resolution as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. d. Discussion: FY23: Budget Presentation and General Government – W Harrison Ms. Harrison presented a PowerPoint on the FY23 budget. She outlined the department schedule and timeline of presentations. She highlighted a few areas of where the majority of the tax dollars come from, what sources influence the budget and the expense percentages by each department. She also gave a brief overview of the Utility funds, Community Development Fund, Parking Fund and the TIF. The Mayor thanked Ms. Harrison and the Leadership Team for all their work to put this budget together. The Mayor called a 5-minute recess, to reconvene the meeting at 7:50pm. b. Discussion: Town Meeting TV Presentation The Mayor said Town Meeting TV provides live streaming of City Council meetings. Since the pandemic, they now provide hybrid meetings to allow for a live combination of in-person and remote participation. The Mayor introduced Meghan O’Rourke, Channel Director and Kevin Lumpkin, Winooski’s Representative to give an overview of the services they provide to the seven member municipalities. Ms. O’Rourke said TMTV has been extremely supportive throughout this last year in that they have supported over a thousand programs of which 445 were municipal meetings. They continually looking to increase their support to the communities. The Mayor thanked TMTV for their support. e. Approval Winooski Small Business Loan Committee Appointment – H Carrington Ms. Carrington said members have received an application from Forrest Wallace to be appointed to the resident seat on the Committee for a term to expire on 6/30/23. The Loan Committee interviewed Mr. Wallace and staff recommends his appointment. MOTION by Councilor Myers seconded by Councilor Oakleaf to approve Forest Wallace to the Winooski Small Business Loan Committee as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. f. Discussion: Housing Discussion – K Lott, J Duncan The Mayor said staff provided an update from last meeting regarding the progress on our goals in the Housing section for our Strategic Vision in the Master Plan and to further discuss the policy direction to be taken. She said we want to ensure a mix of quality housing that maintains and enhances Winooski’s unique sense of place and supports the needs of the entire community. The purpose of her memo was to add a little more to the picture on what’s happening on a broader scale to the housing industry in our area. We asked the Planning Commission to look into updating the incentives in the Form Based Code, Gateway Districts that could try and steer the development market in Winooski to meet more of our priorities. Deac Decarrreau, Executive Director from the Winooski Housing Authority was present and gave a brief summary of the challenges that they are currently facing. Vacancy rates are low, but the occupancy rate is currently around 36% when they have been close to 90%. She said there are a lot of factors that contribute to it; units available are efficiency ones, not seeing a lot of investment on family rentals, zoning issues limit their building capabilities and a lot of their properties are older and do not meet current code standards. The idea of giving better incentives was brought up to allow developers to build bigger and better units. Ms. Carrington said we cannot require specific bedroom units to be built but we can certainly incentify the need. Discussions continued with thoughts and ideas as to how to strategically move forward on this item. The Housing Commission will continue their efforts with coming up with an equitable solution for all. g. Discussion/Approval: Pupil Weighting Study Task Force – K Lott The Mayor said this item has had a lot of fast-moving pieces recently. In Vermont, education funding is based on the number of students in schools and students with higher needs like poverty and limited English proficiencies are counted at a rate higher than one, to provide adequate resources for those kids. These higher counts are called “weights”. The Legislature had UVM do a study to evaluate whether our weighting formula was equitable. That was called the Pupils Weighting Factor Report of 2019. The result of that report was that we are under funding the kids with higher needs or need additional resources. They created a task force to figure out how we can implement those recommendations. The task force is focusing on funding instead of a plan of implementations. The most recent recommendation that the Mayor has seen shows the acceptance on a number of weights except for funding for English language learners, which they want to treat differently using a separate funding mechanism that continues to under fund those students. This raises much concern with the school district. We think this is going to further reduce funding to Winooski students. Attached is a draft letter that we could sign on to alongside of Burlington who is also impacted and concerned with this issue as well? The Mayor said we need to ask the Legislature to implement the updated weights which were a recommendation of the original study and not consider the other pathways that is going to reduce support to our kids. MOTION by Councilor Colston seconded by Councilor Duncan to sign the attached letter regarding the Pupil Weighting Study Task force implementations as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. MOTION by Councilor Oakleaf seconded by Councilor Duncan to enter into Executive Session at 9:33 pm pursuant to 1 V.S.A. Section 313 (1) (F) confidential attorney-client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal services to the body – Champlain Housing Trust – 32 Mallett’s Bay Avenue and to invite Wendy Harrison, Heather Carrington, Jon Rauscher, Angela Aldieri and Michael Monte from Champlain Housing as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. MOTION by Councilor Oakleaf seconded by Councilor Myers to enter into Executive Session Pursuant to 1 V.S.A. Sections 313 (2) the negotiation of real estate purchase or lease options related to Lot 7D (Abenaki Way) as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. X. Executive Session a. Executive Session Pursuant to 1 V.S.A. Section 313 (1) (F) confidential attorney-client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal services to the body. b. Executive Session Pursuant to 1 V.S.A. Section 313 (2) the negotiation of real estate purchase or lease options related to Lot 7D (Abenaki Way) Reconvened to open session at 10:43pm MOTION by Councilor Myers seconded by Councilor Colston to authorize the Mayor to sign the settlement agreement for Lot 7D as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. XI. Adjourn MOTION by Councilor Myers seconded by Councilor Duncan to adjourn the City Council meeting at 10:44 pm as presented. Voted and passed 4-0. ATTEST: _____________________________________________ ` Sr. Asst City Clerk