City Council

City of Winooski 27 West Allen Street Winooski Vermont 05404 Vermont’s Opportunity City 802 655 6410 winooskivt.gov Winooski City Council Meeting Monday, July 7, 2025 at 6 PM Attend in person: Winooski City Hall (27 W Allen St) Attend online: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84364849328 Attend by phone: 1 646 558 8656 Webinar ID: 843 6484 9328 Members Present: Mayor Kristine Lott; Deputy Mayor Thomas Renner; Councilor Aurora Hurd; Councilor Bryn Oakleaf and Councilor Charles Judge Officers Present: Elaine Wang, City Manager; John Audy, Fire Chief; Justin Huizenga, Police Chief; Paul Sarne, Communications Director; Jon Rauscher, Public Works Director; Angela Aldieri, Finance Director; Jenny Willingham, City Clerk; Adam Hoffnung-Warantz, Assistant City Clerk Others Present: Hannah Toof, Howard Center; Judy Lance; Connor Daley; Kim Hier; Thomas Locatell; Lucas Pelletier I. Call to Order at 6 PM II. Pledge of Allegiance led by Deputy Mayor Thomas Renner III. Agenda Review Minutes: None Motion: None IV. Public Comment Minutes: Lucas Pelletier made a public comment and had questions directed towards the City regarding EV infrastructure in the parking garage, and the status and plans for additional EV charging stations in the new parking garage connected to the Sugar House Hotel. He thanked the City Council for their work promoting businesses during construction and for their work with the new hotel project. In addition, he asked City Council about expanding space for the Farmer’s Market to encourage more people to visit the city despite the current construction. Lastly, Lucas mentioned a public safety concern and asked about the feasibility for the City to install more crossing signals for those coming into the city and creating more equity for non-drivers. The City Council and City Staff were able to answer questions related to the type of EV infrastructure currently in place as well as the next steps needed to include more in the downtown corridor. Thomas Locatell had a comment and questions about constructing a pavilion for Landry Park. He has plans for a structure he created and wanted to engage the City Council for some next steps to utilize existing foundations for the location of said pavilion. V. Consent Agenda A. Approval: City Council Minutes of June 25, 2025 B. Approval: Payroll Warrant June 8-June 21, 2025  City of Winooski 27 West Allen Street Winooski Vermont 05404 Vermont’s Opportunity City 802 655 6410 winooskivt.gov C. Approval: Accounts Payable Warrants June 26 and July 2, 2025 D. Approval: Sidewalk Permit Application - Tikka House - 24 Main Street (New, Conditional) E. Approval: Board Reappointments - Winooski Local Resources Advisory Board and Green Mountain Transit Board of Trustees - Elaine Wang, City Manager F. Approval: Resolution - Recognizing July as Disability Pride Month in Winooski G. Approval: Wolfsgart Winooski AirOut Event Permit Application Minutes: None Motion: Motion by Councilor Charles Judge. Seconded by Deputy Mayor Thomas Renner. Motion carried 4-0. VI. Council Reports Mayor Kristine Lott: The Finance Commission meeting will be at 6 PM on Tuesday, July 8 to review recommendations to the Small Business Loan Program. In addition, the Planning Commission has a meeting on Thursday, July 10 at 6:30 PM. Deputy Mayor Thomas Renner: The French Heritage Festival during the Farmer’s Market was great. The Deputy Mayor thanked all the vendors and staff who participated and noted that it is growing each year. Councilor Charles Judge: None Councilor Aurora Hurd: The Inclusion and Belonging Commission is still seeking new commissioners and invited interested individuals to reach out to the Commission. Councilor Bryn Oakleaf: The Infrastructure Commission did not meet in June and Councilor Oakleaf will not be attending the upcoming meeting. The Chittenden Solid Waste District annual meeting occurred during the Special City Council meeting on June 25 and was unable to attend. The next meeting will be on July 30 and people may attend either in-person or online. In addition, the Burlington-Winooski Bridge project is working on a job description for an outreach position which would allow a full-time employee to report to the project team for community outreach opportunities. VII. City Updates City Manager Elaine Wang gave the following updates: City Officials recently joined Nedde Real Estate, East Rise Credit Union, and project partners to celebrate the groundbreaking of the Sugar House Hotel in downtown Winooski. Progress continues with an expected opening of Summer 2026 – bringing 83 middle income housing rental opportunities to our city, over 50 new jobs to our local economy, and 276 new parking spaces in the brand new, three-level city garage. Visit nedderealestate.com to learn more. Homeowners in Winooski are invited to attend our Accessory Dwelling Unit Workshop on July 23rd. An ADU is a smaller, independent dwelling unit that is located on the same lot as an existing single-family home, duplex, or triplex – building them can offer an additional source of income and is an option to help address Vermont's housing crisis. During the workshop, homeowners will discover the benefits of ADUs and the process required to build them in Winooski, learn about Act 181 and the Vermont Housing Improvement Program which can provide funding to ADU projects, and hear from a panel of local ADU owners. A Zoom option is available, and the event will be recorded by Town Meeting TV for viewing later online if you can’t attend.  City of Winooski 27 West Allen Street Winooski Vermont 05404 Vermont’s Opportunity City 802 655 6410 winooskivt.gov We’re hosting a Blood Drive at the Senior Center on July 18th. Your donations help save lives – visit the news updates section on our website to make your appointment. All participants will receive a free Fandango movie ticket! VIII. Regular Items A. Discussion/Approval: Emergency Purchase Request for Security Cameras for Cascades Parking Garage - Elaine Wang, City Manager Minutes: Council first discussed this request during their May 5, 2025 meeting. At that meeting, Council asked for more information on the security camera approach compared to other approaches. More questions were relayed to staff by members of Council since that meeting. Most of these questions could be grouped into the categories of wanting a human-centered approach; whether there are better alternatives; cost; and other feedback. First, Fire Chief John Audy stressed that this item is being brought up again because, in his opinion, this is truly a matter of public health and safety. He made many comments about the City Staff being at risk when dealing with the challenges currently presented in the parking garage and was in support of the emergency purchase. Human-centered approach: As key Police Department partner Howard Center’s Community Outreach Team Lead, Hannah Toof explained, security cameras combined with the City’s Community Outreach contract for non-uniformed responses, is a human-centered approach. People in these situations (in low traffic areas, engaged in unsafe or unhealthy behavior, and/or unhoused) are among our most vulnerable community members. They are more likely to be assaulted, be robbed, and overdose without being helped in time, than people not in these situations. Security cameras will help us ensure the safety of this very vulnerable population. Another objective of the cameras is to be able to offer services to people in these situations, not to criminalize those using the emergency egresses inappropriately, as is evident in the enclosed Summary of Guidelines from the Police Chief. This is how we currently make use of security camera footage showing someone is somewhere they don’t need to be. It is also how we would make use of this security camera expansion. People in these situations do often turn down services. However, best practice is to build relationships with them over time and keep offering the services. Often people will accept services at some point when their circumstances change for the worse. If we don’t come across them, then we can’t offer them services. The Community Outreach team is in the best position to offer these services because they are kept up to date on the latest efforts, pilot programs, and services available, and have the skills and protocols for helping them access the best option for them available. City Council interjected to inquire about other alternatives instead of just utilizing a camera. Councilor Oakleaf asked about an alarm as a deterrent as well as if there are existing cameras already in place at the parking garage. City staff noted that while the garage does have security cameras, they do not exist in the stairwells, which is why the staff is requesting the emergency purchase. In addition, while there are alarms in the garage, they are constantly being replaced, with it being a long-term issue, and City Staff are unsure if they are helpful as a deterrent. Councilor Hurd also inquired about using sharp boxes in this location and the City Staff once again said it is a safety issue regarding cleaning and disposal of these sharp boxes. City Manager Wang did say  City of Winooski 27 West Allen Street Winooski Vermont 05404 Vermont’s Opportunity City 802 655 6410 winooskivt.gov this is something that can be looked at going forward as a possible additional support (potentially even using opioid settlement money to pay for this support). Whether there are better alternatives: The security camera approach would allow us to stop illicit behavior as early as possible, by alerting us when someone is in the emergency egresses (meaning stairwells, or emergency path by the west exit towards the Rotary) so we can visit them before their impacts increase. This protects the health and safety of users of the garage and those living and doing business in the building that wraps around the garage. There is no alternative that will achieve this result as effectively, and certainly not at this cost. As to whether there are better alternatives to help these individuals, we cannot help them at all if we don’t know who they are and what they are up against. Knowing who they are will help us connect them to services, and/or inform us as to what services to advocate for or to improve. We asked the Howard Center whether they could spend $90,000 in one-time funds that would specifically address this challenge, and they could not think of anything. As mentioned in the enclosed City Manager memo, many of us have discussed approaches and challenges with other municipalities over the last year, including Brattleboro, Barre City, City of St. Albans, and Burlington. This has also been a recurring topic for the last two years at the national city managers’ conference (ICMA). No one has solved this issue, several of them do use security cameras, and a few of them have recently added Community Outreach-like services, so Winooski in that last approach is further ahead than other communities in Vermont. One approach Burlington has used that Winooski hasn’t is foot patrols by private security. The City Manager did get a quote for such in 2023 from the same vendor they use, which came to $890 weekly to patrol 8 AM to 12 PM, weekdays only. This would be an ongoing cost and not allow us to be as promptly responsive with offering services as security cameras that we monitor 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Even assuming pricing has not increased since 2023, the security camera system would pay for itself in two years compared to this private security service. Cost: As mentioned in the May 5, 2025 coversheet, there are not recurring, ongoing operational costs for these security cameras. We have the same system now and have not had any recurring expenses associated with them. It is possible that the cameras will be damaged, but we have been assured by the vendor that they are tamper resistant and suitable for this use. In addition, our monitoring of the feeds means we could respond in time if someone tries to tamper with them. Other feedback: Stakeholders of the building that wraps around the garage for Spinner Place have been in touch about problematic behavior and how it affects them. • Student housing: Redstone manages Spinner Place, the 160-unit, 300-person student housing that occupies floors 2-7 of the building that wraps around the City-owned garage. Their emergency egresses are the same as that for the garage. Redstone has been in touch with staff several times over the years complaining about the unsafe and unsanitary conditions of the egresses. • Small businesses: o HKW Retail manages the commercial spaces on the ground floor of the wrap-around building. They were in touch May 7 of this year that their new tenant had urine seeping into their space from the opened wall cavity. o Bathroom: When we reopened the bus stop after COVID, two of them were in regular contact to  City of Winooski 27 West Allen Street Winooski Vermont 05404 Vermont’s Opportunity City 802 655 6410 winooskivt.gov complain about the smoke coming into their buildings over the shared walls. HallKeen Retail, their landlords, tried to work with contractors to shore up the airtightness of the units but were not successful. For this and other reasons, including the opportunity to overdose in the locked bathroom with no one noticing for some time, eventually locked the bathroom. Note that Burlington’s City Hall Park bathrooms have a similar issue, with Burlington Police Department frequently called there when someone has been inside for too long, and it being an overdose. For all these reasons, security cameras, paired with Community Outreach, are not a band-aid but a strategic use of $90,000, one time, towards the ends of: • Helping the individuals using the emergency egresses inappropriately • Having more information to inform our advocacy to address the systemic challenges faced by these individuals • Taking care of our obligation for broader public health and safety affecting hundreds of other community members • Safeguarding a very expensive piece of City-owned infrastructure, the garage. Additional comments from City Council made by Mayor Kristine Lott and Councilor Aurora Hurd appreciated a “people’s first approach”, and wanted to confirm that with the addition of the cameras if charges would be filed against any individual observed on camera. Police Chief Huizenga commented that the goal is not to criminalize people but provides an opportunity for community outreach and seeking alternatives to support those specific individuals. Public Comment made by Judy Lance noted that they do not want to see another financially unforeseen circumstance and inquired about whether the new parking garage at the Sugar House Hotel will have similar issues. City Staff commented that the new parking garage will not have stairwells; each garage floor will have their own entrances and will also have cameras on each garage floor. Motion: Motion to approve by Councilor Aurora Hurd and seconded by Councilor Charles Judge. Motion carries 4-0. B. Discussion/Approval: Set Fiscal Year 2026 Municipal Tax Rate - Angela Aldieri, Finance Director Minutes: The FY25 municipal tax rate was $0.7596. During the FY26 Budget process, a tax increase of 3.99% was predicted. The average property is estimated to be $414,000. If we use this average valuation for FY26 the taxes will increase $99.36 from last year or 3.16% increase. The City of Winooski has a locally voted exemption to property taxes for qualifying veterans for $40,000 of assessed property value. Per state statute a municipality shall assess a tax known as a local agreement rate to raise the amount of taxes foregone by this exemption. The list of qualified veterans is provided to the City annually in May by the Department of Veteran’s Affairs. There are fourteen properties approved to receive the veteran’s exemption for fiscal year 2026. Public comment was made by Judy Lance inquiring about the differences for Fiscal Year 2026 compared to Fiscal Year 2025 and was appreciative of the rate being less than initially estimated.  City of Winooski 27 West Allen Street Winooski Vermont 05404 Vermont’s Opportunity City 802 655 6410 winooskivt.gov Motion: Motion to approve by Councilor Aurora Hurd and seconded by Councilor Charles Judge. Motion carried 4-0. IX. Adjourn Minutes: None Motion: Motion to adjourn by Councilor Bryn Oakleaf and seconded by Councilor Charlies Judge. Motion unanimously passed. Meeting adjourned at 7:11 PM. Attest: ________________________________________ Adam Hoffnung-Warantz, Assistant City Clerk