Municipal Infrastructure Commission

2/24/2022 - Minutes I. Call to Order Members Present: Chris Page, Brian Borah, Jason Williams, Bryn Oakleaf, Peter Werndsdorver City Staff Present: Jon Rauscher Call to Order by: Bryn Oakleaf Meeting Start Time: 6:32 PM Minutes Recorded by: Chris Page II. Public Comment None III. Approve Previous Meeting Minutes Decision: Approved Motion by: Bryn Oakleaf Second: Chris Page IV. Department and City Updates Last meeting was back in December. Busy with Council on ’22 budgets; lots of presentations, etc. Town Meeting Day is March 1 st ! Main Street is still moving; biggest focus we have in Public Works. Outreach for ROW easements, each parcel along corridor (65 or so parcels). Construction and/or permanent easements. Design phase mostly complete, but probably one more visit to this commission before wrapping up. Next commission or April commission. Traffic Calming Manual: Stantech to provide next month. On our work plan, so Jon will be sharing for next meeting. Purpose is to document rules for implementing any sort of traffic calming (road narrowing, speed bumps, etc etc). Budget with Finance Commission meeting: Ideas for grant projects to submit to CCRPC for potential reward. LaFountain Street Scoping Study, Bike Master Plan; both submitted for potential grant applications, should hear back in next couple months. Most likely won’t start until about July, when new FY kicks in. Winooski in the News: Lot 7B, open lot next to CCV. Working with Nedde Real Estate in public- private partnership; Winooski would own parking garage component, Nedde would own hotel/housing components. Working hard on hotel piece right now, partnership with Hotel Vermont. More details to come. Ultimately Council will have to approve the design. Staffing fairly down, it has been a difficult winter. Peter: For the hotel; all that debris in treeline behind the hotel, has that been resolved?  Vermont. More details to come. Ultimately Council will have to approve the design. Staffing fairly down, it has been a difficult winter. Peter: For the hotel; all that debris in treeline behind the hotel, has that been resolved? Jon: Yes; archaeological and geotech has been conducted. Peter: Any chance we could get development folks to widen entrance, other work. Jon R.: Dave Marshall is on the project, will see what is feasible. Bryn: Reiterating that DPW is down-staffed, so may be some delays getting to all of the clearing, sidewalks, etc. Patience is encouraged. V. Council Updates Council has applicants for City Manager, going to initial review committee next week. Anticipating having those come to council the following week, presentations, and final review. A small applicant pool, but a promising one. The Centennial Celebrations, kick off within next week. 100 years of Winooski shwag, hats, scavenger hunts, tour of mill. Community-wide gathering to be delayed to June; hopefully will tie into other events around that time. Additional staff turnover; Heather Carington has announced departure, and we are currently hiring a new HR manager. The Mayor recommend that we do not have March meetings while new hires adjust, etc. Resume in early April (1 st or 2 nd week). Bryn attended airport commission last week. Burlington charter change was approved, which allows Winooski to have a seat at that commission. The Airport Commission was able to FAA approval for any homes 70dB or higher. Should help move things along faster with sound- proofing homes. Waking Windows moved to middle of May. Moving forward, tickets are selling. VI. New Member Introductions Bryan Borah: Wife and I moved to Winooski in August. An internal medicine physician, currently working in public health; officially CDC but working through VTDOH, state/federal. Hope to bring some related experience to the commission. Avid cycler but working mostly from home. Have loved Vermont and Winooski, excited to contribute. Bryn: Many cyclists in the community, great cycling commute! Welcome to Winooski! Emily Corely is our other new member. Her background is on the project management side, will have experience with that level of work, another technical person in the bunch. Hopefully she can join us in April! The rest of Commission members do introductions. VII. Select Commission Chair Select a chair and a vice chair… Chair first. Volunteer? What does role entail: Jon works with Chair and Council Liaison for schedule, lot of work setting up work plan for the year, then generally overseeing the meeting, guiding the discussion. Laura had been on committee for 7 years, Chair since the second meeting. Before pandemic hit, meetings were monthly. Moved to virtual and ad hoc meetings. Reaching a point where having a more established meeting schedule will be helpful. Easier to cancel. We could start with a 6-month rotation.  Select a chair and a vice chair… Chair first. Volunteer? What does role entail: Jon works with Chair and Council Liaison for schedule, lot of work setting up work plan for the year, then generally overseeing the meeting, guiding the discussion. Laura had been on committee for 7 years, Chair since the second meeting. Before pandemic hit, meetings were monthly. Moved to virtual and ad hoc meetings. Reaching a point where having a more established meeting schedule will be helpful. Easier to cancel. We could start with a 6-month rotation. Jason Williams volunteers for Chair position for first 6-month, is elected. Peter Wernsdorfer elected as Vice Chair, also 6-month term. VIII. New Member Orientation Give an overview of what we’re doing here, general focus of the group. Jon’s explanation: This group functions as an arm of the council, with Bryn as our liaison. Every year we set up a priorities work plan, covering the components covered in the Master Plan. Commissions have been re-formed to conform to the Master Plan’s work plan items and areas of focus. We set Municipal Infrastructure work plan items. Jon works with Chair to pick out policy-related stuff. A lot of MI work is done deep in the weeds, but high-level policy/priority thins are where we want commission focused. Jason: Jon brings things to us not looking for our professional perspective, but our input as residents/citizens. Peter: One of the things I worked on was pedestrian access and bike safety. Ten years of trying to push that forward, a lot of it connected with Winooski Bridge reconstruction, various studies about that. A necessity in town, glad we’ll have somebody else pushing that. Brian Borah: Not necessarily identify as a cyclist but do bike to work daily and have a passion for it. Have limited experience working with communities this way. Jon: Prioritization of Biking Master Plan, can drive improvements down the road. A lot of what we hear from Commissions informs grants, other topics to move forward. Bryn: Frequently hears, “what is the commission’s perspective on that?” Really important work, heartbeat of the community. Receive info, provide feedback, but also opportunity to be a driver for priorities. Previously had been more tapped into Planning Commission and Finance, but seeing that there are quite a few projects covered by the MIC. Between City projects and VTRANS, there’s quite a bit that will be coming into play at the same time. Commissions have a lot of influence, for sure. Jon: RE: Bridge…. We own with Burlington 50-50, in very early stage talks with VTRANS right now to use federal dollars to replace bridge. Concept design for the bridge has been put together. Two multi-use paths on either side of the bridge, widening roadway. VTRANS likely to lead project, very recent development (last week). Burlington DPW is on-board with getting the funding and making the project happen. Bryn: Definitely some projects… Main Street Revitalization, VTRANS paving/marking, water main work. Double-diamond interchange in Colchester is also an interesting thought. Jay: We often hear “where are the trees?” when reviewing designs. We do need more of them. Bryn: Tree Commission is separate subcommittee to the Chris: Explains purpose of tree commission, Tree City USA.  Bryn: Tree Commission is separate subcommittee to the Chris: Explains purpose of tree commission, Tree City USA. Jon: Tree City USA requires hitting a certain amount of annual investment by City. Tree Committee is not a formal group. Peter: The City Manager in 2013, and the mayor, had this idea about citizen-driven gov’t, and that priority established these commissions. The voice of the community is expressed through the different commissions, especially DRB. Good way to participate and inform and have a part in government. Bryn: All meeting agendas and meeting notes are posted online, so that could be a good way to get caught up on some of what we’ve been working on recently. We could send links to Master Plan, Work Plan, and Priorities List… main framework for agenda and focus of our conversations. Jon: Always feel free to shoot an e-mail. IX. Energy Efficiency Goals Follow-up Good discussions with CCRPC folks re: how to get started on this discussion. They also recommended looking at Montpelier’s energy plan. CCRPC contact has also been sending along a lot of grant opportunities (i.e. charging stations), chasing grants on energy efficiency. Bryn: Energy Management Assessment (EMA tool). More of a survey, serves as a stake in the ground and provides incremental steps on where to go next, which this committee can help with. Very helpful as a starting point. City has approved budget so DPW can pursue getting an EMA. Jason: I called several years ago to see if I could install solar panels but heard that Winooski doesn’t allow solar panels within 18” of a roof seam. Are there things that we could be doing or looking at that would provide more opportunities/enhance efficiency? Jon: In planning commission, they are reviewing how to improve incentives in Form-Based Code, could be a way to get an incentive into the ordinance. E.g, Development X meet an efficiency goal, meets approval for other component. Bryn: Preliminary revisions to FBC sent along, public comment period opening up in next 2 wks. Between now and when we meet again, members of this committee should certainly look at and provide public comment to. Peter: What’s the technical basis of that rule (18” rule seam)? No one quite knows. Bryn: Lack of State level for residential standards (vs commercial bldgs, which do tend to comply well). Ensuring that various codes are being met at individual homes. This commission could make recommendations to the planning commission and bring that up to council to vote. Bryn: Master Plan and Priorities; particularly mention as having “renewables” as a goal for this year. Pretty obvious we will not meet that goal this year. What we can do that feels like an accomplishment is getting some baseline energy use data, get an assessment, and identify grants to pursue. This is achievable, can be done by June. VIC Community Program, April 1 launch. Trying to figure out who at City will be point person. Not targeted for municipal folks, but homeowners.  year. Pretty obvious we will not meet that goal this year. What we can do that feels like an accomplishment is getting some baseline energy use data, get an assessment, and identify grants to pursue. This is achievable, can be done by June. VIC Community Program, April 1 launch. Trying to figure out who at City will be point person. Not targeted for municipal folks, but homeowners. Bryn: Coworkers of mine are running and operating the program. They select 2-3 municipalities a year to provide targeted community efforts/focuses. This year Winooski is one of the two that were selected… a Communities program, add’l focus and support systems around outreach and engagement. Heather was tasked as being a point; with her departure, might be good to have a joint meeting between commissions. Jason: Also I see a connection with the FAA as mentioned before; soundproofing tends to improve insulation, building efficiency. Bryn: Still trying to get this fully squared up; outreach system from Airport Commission hasn’t been pulled together just yet. Obviously, we have VT Gas customers, and they manage their own home performance projects for their customers; weird nexus with provider vs outside efficiency check. Jason: I agree with standing meeting, otherwise gets too nebulous. X. Adjourn Motion by: Peter Wernsdorfer Second: Chris Page Meeting End Time: 7:37 PM