Everyone good?

Sir.

Okay.

Oh well, I'm gonna live dangerously and start at 558.

Good evening, council.

Uh today is Tuesday, February 3rd, 2026.

It is excuse me, thank you.

It is 559, and I will call this meeting uh regular meeting of the Barrie City Council to order.

Uh first item on the agenda, council is the adjustments to an approval of the agenda.

Uh because uh it just came to uh my attention, thank you, Councillor Spaulding, that the warrants were not included in the councillor's packet.

I had them because I signed them, uh, but they were not distributed to the entire council.

So I'm doing that now.

We're passing those around so you have the opportunity to look at those.

So I'm gonna pull that off of the consent agenda and I'm gonna move that down to item eight e on the agenda so that you have ample time uh to look at those.

Any other adjustments to the agenda, Mr.

Manager or City Council?

None for me, Mayor.

Okay, anything, yes.

I did send out that interim policy.

I is it something we want to just approve tonight, or do we need to add it to the agenda next week?

Well, could we if if there's no objection, we could add that under 8 F to the agenda?

I just had some concerns about that.

Okay, uh Mr.

Mayor, a friendly amendment, possibly since the chief is here to talk about his budget.

I'm wondering if we might do it before or after.

Sure, sure.

Why don't we do that?

Okay, I'll put that under 8A and I'll slide everything else down.

Is that okay?

Okay.

Nope, not at all.

Any other adjustments, council?

Hearing none, a motion to approve the agenda as amended would be in order.

So moved.

Thank you.

And moved and seconded.

Is there any do we I need to call those out for Cheryl?

Cheryl, can you hear that okay?

Oh, motion was made, I believe by I think it was Dearing and Hillgarter.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

If you want me to call those out, Cheryl, I'm I'm happy to do that.

Matter of fact, I will do that.

Thank you very much.

Not at all.

Uh any other discussion, council.

Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion is presented, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

And those opposed, thank you very much.

Uh under visitors and communications, is there anyone wishing to address the council regarding an item that is not on the agenda?

Okay.

Hearing and seeing no one, we will move on to the consent agenda.

Uh Council, you will be approving the minutes from the meeting of 1272.

Uh I don't Cheryl, did you have uh did you have any licenses and permits that we had to add under the consent agenda or were they all under liquor control?

I just had one under liquor.

Right, but only one under liquor.

None under none under the consent agenda.

Uh you'll be approving the PVR form 4155, which I believe you have all executed.

Uh and you will be authorizing the manager to execute contracts.

I don't believe do you have any contracts this week?

There are no contracts this week.

Uh motion would be in order.

Moved by Bergeron.

Second.

And seconded by Councilor Deering.

Thank you very much.

Is there any discussion?

Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion is presented, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

And those opposed.

Thank you very much.

Since we moved the uh approval of the city warrants to item AE on the agenda, it's time for the city clerk's report.

She said there wasn't in the other thing.

Oh, okay.

I'm sorry.

I missed that memo as well.

I apologize.

So under liquor and cannabis control board uh council, they are in session, and we have one item before us.

I believe that was a very social club, and it was a first class with a license that has been approved that has received the appropriate approval.

Is there a motion, please?

Moved.

I'm not even gonna try to guess at that point.

So I believe the motion was made by Councillor Gustin, seconded by Councillor Spaulding.

Is there any discussion, Council?

Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion is presented.

Please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

And those opposed.

Motion carries.

Thank you very much.

Liquor and cannabis control board is adjourned.

Trying to stall is your text in Frantic.

I was looking for that.

I saw yours.

Thank you, Mayor.

I was looking for um for our uh Jedi B committee member who I don't see on and I don't see here.

And I'm wondering if there was a um maybe a scheduling issue, but I will that's what I was trying to get in contact with.

But um, thank you.

Um let me pull up the updates uh for the council.

So uh budget survey um closed last week.

We had unfortunately only 191 responses, uh, which is way down from last year.

We will have the the results for you next week at next council's meeting.

Um, and so uh looking forward to to to uh letting to hearing what what the residents had and sharing that with the council as we continue uh budget deliberation uh deliberations.

Uh two from the BOR update.

Um I mentioned last week we were starting skate rentals this past weekend.

We did um we had two rentals on Sunday.

Uh so very excited to bring that service back to the BOR.

Um we um you know we have a range of children's sizes for uh at the BOR now.

Uh we're still accepting some donations if people have gently used skates.

Uh three dollars per rental.

Um so very very excited.

I know we hear uh a couple times every season about people who who aren't able to skate because they don't have skates, and now we're able to uh make it available to uh to those folks.

Um wanna just sort of give kudos to uh DPW crews for a really difficult couple of weeks of work.

Um they've been doing snow removal throughout the city.

They we had an overnight parking ban for snow removal um uh yesterday.

Um they continued that today.

Um you've if you've got your regroup messages, you you saw that they worked on several water leaks over the weekend, uh very, very long hours for that crew.

So uh just kudos to the uh the the teams that have been outwork that have been out working um to uh you know get snow removed and to fix these leaks.

This is a real difficult time of year uh for them.

They work in really difficult uh conditions.

Uh one item also on the DPW side, um, we had unfortunately an injury uh for a worker who had to uh who slipped on on heavy ice uh stepping out of the bobcat to remove a trash can that had been left in the sidewalk while he was doing his plow route.

Um so really encourage people if you have a city sidewalk to keep your your garbage cans this time of year on your driveway.

Don't keep them in the street, that's no good either.

Don't keep in the sidewalk if you want it plowed, timely manner, and certainly um we lost uh you know lost an employee for a couple weeks uh due to an injury because of that.

So just uh um you know keep those clear, those sidewalks clear, keep those uh those streets clear so we our crews can can do their job uh and do it uh safely.

Uh the overnight warming shelter is um has been going for close to two weeks straight.

Um they are open tonight.

Um they're gonna close Wednesday night and Thursday night uh and they will reopen Friday.

Um they'll be open from Friday, February 6th through Tuesday morning, February 10th.

Um they do need volunteers.

This is a volunteer run, the city coordinated but volunteer run uh shelter.

Um so uh Tess is looking for volunteers to take shifts uh every every night that they're gonna be open at the end of the week, so Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday night.

Um the shifts for people who are interested are there's three of them 7 p.m.

to 11 p.m.

11 p.m.

to 3 a.m.

and 3 a.m.

to 7 a.m.

So if you are interested in helping, um we encourage you to reach out to Tess Taylor.

Uh her number is 80252 7818.

Um they are also um accepting meal donations.

Um, and uh we if you're interested in donating a meal, um you have to prepare a meal for 15, which is the 12 guests plus the three volunteers.

Um they serve the meal right around 7 p.m.

Um so again if you're interested in in helping uh keep the shelter operating, um please contact tests.

Uh and then uh another longer update for the council.

I emailed you about this earlier this week, but want to make sure um you know members of the public were aware as we work on our CDBG round two applications.

Um so the hearing is coming up next week um here at the council for the applications.

As uh we've mentioned, we're uh having to we have two applications that we're submitting for round two, and this is a split of the north end gateway projects.

One application is the buyouts and the elevations, the other application is the acquisitions, and that was based on feedback that we received after our first round application.

Um we received some additional guidance from the state about the elevations uh that we were applying for.

Um this is you know, somewhat concerning guidance in terms of what it will mean for our projects, uh, and unfortunately has led to several property owners backing out of the elevations.

Uh and basically the the the guidance we had a question from an applicant about what would happen if they chose to sell their property um after the um the grant was completed.

And what we heard back is that um basically I'm gonna summarize any sale um of a multifamily rental that is elevated with these funds that occurs within five years would require ACCD approval.

Um that any multifamily rental that is elevated with these funds must remain a multifamily rental with affordable rents uh for a period of 20 years, regardless of ownership.

That sale of a property that's elevated with CDB GDR within 20 years of the grant close out, uh which could actually be 25 years from today, um would generate what's called program income that must be returned to ACCD, and I'll give an example of that in a second.

Um but basically the amount recovered would would would depend on how much the percentage of the total project cost that the elevation investment represents.

And then finally, any sale beyond the 20-year period would still be considered program income and ACCD may allow the city to retain any of those funds.

So what this practically means with a numerical example is if a property is worth 150,000 today, if they get an a $300,000 elevation grant through CDB GDR, and 10 years for from today, that property sells for 275,000.

Um if ACCD contributed all of that elevation grant, all of those $300,000, which in this case they would because we're not throwing in any any outside money.

Um ACCD would recover 100% of those sale proceeds.

Um and so that's the that was pretty jarring for some some people who had excuse me, that's a question.

Shouldn't it be based on what the value of the property was before it needed elevation, not current now?

Because I'm sure it's a I'm just looking at the homeowner, it's gonna be worth a lot less now than it was before the elevation.

That that may be what it should be based on, but that's not what ACCD said it will be based on.

Okay.

So and then we had a different sort of scenario.

If a home is worth 200,000 now and they received the same $300,000 elevation grant, um, and ACCD contributed only 150,000 of that, and the home sold for 600,000 in 10 years, ACCD would have contributed 50% of the project cost and would recover 50% of the sale price, so about $300,000.

So I agree with that.

It's it is a for people who um people who heard this who own properties in the north end and who were looking at elevations, that was pretty concerning.

Um and so we had, if you remember from our first round, we had nine elevations.

Um seven have already backed out.

Um so we're down to two elevations.

Um and so that's that's uh really sort of limiting the scale of our of our project.

For the other parts of the of the north end project, it doesn't really impact it, right?

A buyout, they're they're walking away from the property anyway, right?

So there's that doesn't matter what happens in the it's gonna be gone, it's gonna be floodplain level.

If it's an acquisition, if we're lucky to get that funded, also the property owners don't care because they're they're selling it, right?

They could they could care less what happens afterwards.

So it's really just on the elevation piece where this is a problem because those property owners are planning to, you know, they're trying to make an investment in the property to keep keep it safe from flooding.

They're not necessarily, you know, especially you know, many of these are multifamily rental properties.

Um they may not be wanting to be tied down to that for 20 years, right?

And if they do sell within 20 years, and the applic the grant being that large, it really sort of hurts the equity that they built into their home.

So frankly, I don't blame people who are having second thoughts and backing away, but it really does just wanted to let the council know that it has significantly reduced the scope of that part of the project.

And it may depend I I know one person has said that they're interested in proceeding.

Um, so we'll have at least one elevation, but it it may be down to just that because it's it's it's a lot for right.

It's it's hard to seeing these numbers is pretty pretty concerning.

It's it's hard to seeing these numbers is pretty pretty concerning, and we're asking people to to make sort of a 20-year decision right today.

And and and that's that's not easy.

So how long do they have until we submit the grant, obviously?

We have we have to have a pretty good sense by when we do the hearing.

So they really don't have that much time.

And that's why I reached out to everybody uh the end of last week.

Um and I mean concerns on several levels.

Um reappraisal to make the math easier, uh, if everyone agrees that a property is worth 150,000 today if it's flood damaged or flood compromised, and ACCD is going to invest 150,000.

I'll just make the math real easy.

So 150,000 value, 150,000 to elevate the property, ACCD and the homeowner each have a so to speak 50% share in the overall investment.

And yet ACCD is coming back and saying we want 100% of the sales proceeds in some cases.

You know, why couldn't it just be a simple, a simple simple throw at a formula, it seems like that would make the most sense.

In that case, it may.

Significant.

And most of the property values there are below that, right?

And so the the issue now is that because the values are low and because we're throwing so much added value, that the grant value is basically almost doubling it.

That's why most people are the math is not working in their favor when the when the sale happens, right?

So if and that's that's the problem.

It's it's a it's an issue of low low value today, high grant value added, and for them to make up overcome the value of the grant even in 10 years is is really difficult, right?

And so where does reappraisal come into this though?

That's it'll help them a little bit, but not exceedingly because um it's it's not gonna overcome basically the value of doubling the the grant will more than double most of these properties values, right?

Or or what's invested in them.

Yes.

I think the part I'm stuck on is why they're considering a sale program income at all.

This is a grant.

I understand that like there's a larger concept of investment and what up, but this is a grant to do activities not and and not framed as an investment or even a partnership or anything like that.

It's just it's bizarre to me that they would come along 10 years later and say, I know you just sold your house, but we're taking all of the money.

Yeah.

And that's that's the part I'm not unfamiliar with program income and their definition of program.

You know, Nicholas and I have had those discussions as we've evaluated the project.

So it's not something I'm unfamiliar with, and I don't necessarily disagree with it.

But what I do disagree with is that generally, if in my world, if two partners each have a 50% investment, they share 50% in any proceeds and 50% in any losses.

So you know, again, I could I could I I could understand that formula because I wouldn't feel very good if someone who owned an investment property versus a single family residence received $300,000 and then two years later sold that property and pocketed that $300,000 when it could have gone.

You know, honestly, uh you know, I love a good grant, but I wouldn't feel good about that.

Yeah.

And and I don't think the state wants to feel about good about, you know, they don't want to feel that way either.

But again, their the their formula just doesn't make sense.

To say to a homeowner, okay, because we put 300,000 you know into your home, and granted, your home is worth 100,000 when we came up with our 300,000, they're giving them nothing.

They're not even giving them the 25% that they brought to the table, and that's where that's why that's where I certainly intend to push back.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, and the uh the other piece I think that's that's really important in the way ACCD communicated this to us is that their grant is their agreement is with the city.

Their agreement is not with the property owner.

So when they recover the money, they're coming to us to pay that check, right?

And so what we I've now had to involve right the city attorney about how do we do covenants, how do we do deed restrictions, how do we make sure that if somebody moves forward with this and they sell their house and they they understand the stakes, but they know that if they sell it within this period and they have to pay a pretty sizable check to ACCD, that it's coming out of their proceeds, not not city coffers, right?

Because that's that's the risk to the city is also that somebody walks away and and and ACC ACCD doesn't care about that.

They they're gonna come asking us for the money.

Um so there is an element, not just an element of risk to the homeowner now of figuring out do they want to roll the dice and lose all the equity in their home, possibly, but it's also you know, the is the city comfortable that if this property does sell within that time and ACCD comes knocking on our door, that we're gonna be able to turn over a check, right?

And so that's um that's that's a big part of it too, right?

That that I don't want to get lost in all of this.

It's a it's it's a roll of the dice for both the homeowner and the city in a way.

This is a mess.

Yep.

Well, you know, I mean, uh yeah, as you're talking, I'm thinking through all the different scenarios.

You mentioned the word equity.

Um, you know, what about the homeowner who doesn't really have any equity because of the flooding, they have a hundred thousand dollar mortgage, their home is worth a hundred thousand dollars, they don't have any equity.

The mortgage is theirs.

I mean, uh I I would absolutely argue that point, the mortgage is their liability, but they're still bringing a hundred thousand dollars in value.

So even if they sold that property for double the the initial investment, ACCD and the homeowner, the homeowner wouldn't even receive enough money to pay off their mortgage.

And in order to receive, as you're talking about the city attorney, I already know what the city attorney is gonna say.

He's gonna say you have to get the bank to subordinate in order to invest this money, the bank has to subordinate to ACCD.

So now you want the bank's hundred thousand dollar mortgage to be subordinate to ACCD.

The bank is gonna say no, I would.

And you know, and where does that leave the so they need a four?

I'm not disrespecting anybody at ACCD.

They are they are wonderful, wonderful working partners, but I don't know, I don't know that they've really fully considered all of the scenarios that exist here in Barrie City.

I mean, if we're a $300,000 elevation, like how many homes in the entire day of Barry City are worth more than $300,000.

And how many of them are in the north end and and likely that I mean you could also conceivably be paying out your 25 years, 30-year mortgage to the end of it and still not get any of it back.

You've just been putting money into a hole in that time.

If you see it, back in the 70s, HUD started a program like that with people get a house, but they sold it in the first 10, 15 years, data pay percentage back.

It was a form of percentage.

That's what they need to do.

Right.

And and yeah, so we'll stay tuned.

Yeah.

Yes.

Do you think they're trying to discourage the elevations because of the value of the property or those low value of the properties?

Would they rather do buyouts?

Is that what this is?

I mean, I I I don't know that I would necessarily use the word discourage.

I I think they're they're looking at all possibilities, and I think what they're concerned about is they, you know, these granted, these are grant funds, I understand that, but the way I've always thought about grants when the city gets them, I I always feel an incredible obligation when we receive a grant and Montpelier doesn't, or another community, I always feel this obligation to do the best we can with this money.

And I'm sure ACCD feels the same obligation.

So I think they're trying to, I think I'm guessing, I think they're trying to think through every scenario.

And I think the scenario they're a little stuck on is well, wait a minute, you know, this person doesn't have any options now.

We're going to give them options, we're gonna make an incredible investment, and then they're just gonna cash out five years.

You know, I understand that concern.

I I I agree with it, but I think the way they've structured the formula is it seems a little discouraging.

I wouldn't use that word yet, but um I was pretty discouraged when I got the manager's email.

Yeah, because I you know, trying to figure out a workaround, and and again, the only work around I can think of is to appeal to ACCD and say, look, it should be on a pro rata basis.

You know, if you got a 50-50 partner, you get 50% of the money.

Uh and you and you bear the risk of 50% of the loss as well.

So yeah.

Stay tuned.

Yep.

What else you got now that you ruined the money?

That was all right.

Starting to help you ruin my no, and so they you you're doing good work, Nicholas.

And I know we'll we'll get together in the coming days and we'll strategize.

And you know, like I said, ACCD has been they they were they were quick to understand when they put the condition on and said, hey, you need to have a lead developer by the end of March.

And we said, well, you know, and we push back and said, well, no, and this is why, and this is our this is what we'd like to do.

Um, you know, they they made an exception.

So I think this is a long, I I hope this is a long way from over.

Any other questions for the manager?

There's someone waiting to get in.

Oh, oh.

Oh, that might be Aurora.

I hope.

I don't know.

I think I may have Zoom user.

Booter out or something.

No, I think I may have not confirmed the date with her, which is my fault, but yes.

Just ask a brief phone.

Whenever we do it says Zoom user.

Yeah.

I saw it too.

It's never good.

May I just a brief date follow-up question manager?

Of course you can.

Uh manager, you had mentioned the hearing is on February 17th, but we don't currently have a meeting on that date.

Do we have it on the 10th?

Um, I'm sorry, the the hearing is on the 10th.

Thank you.

Yes, I may have misspoken.

It's on the 10th, and the applications are due the 27th.

Okay.

I had just confirmed something else on the 17th, so I was having a little bit of a okay, good.

So yeah, we are we meet on the 10th.

We are not going to be able to do that.

That's what I thought.

I just wanted to verbally contribute.

No worries.

No worries.

Uh okay, council.

If there's no objection, no other questions for the city manager, we will move on to new business.

I'm gonna just hold 8A in case Aurora joins us.

If Aurora does not um, you know, with an apologies.

We'll yeah, yeah, we'll just we'll just do that next week if that's okay.

Unless, like I said, I I don't know, Aurora, but if hey, I'm open to anything.

Uh I think next week will be fine.

I don't think there's even a meeting scheduled this year.

Next Thursday.

Oh, the next Thursday.

No, for the committee.

Oh, oh, next thing.

So we would get it in.

Yeah, we'd get in.

Yeah, so you're still good.

So nobody's gonna miss any meetings.

Okay, awesome.

We'll make sure that that gets you do have Aurora's email address.

Yeah, no, I don't know.

Awesome.

Okay, uh council, uh item 8B on the agenda is to approve the parks and rec committee charge.

Hi.

Oh, okay.

Rodaline and Josh, you you want to take hello.

How are you?

I'm well, how are you guys?

Fantastic, thank you.

Great.

Um, so Nicholas, I think you um put submitted this in um in the packet, right?

Should I put it on the screen or uh yeah, let me see if I can give you should be able to share.

I might have to uh turn my video off because I'm having some connectivity issues here.

Um so let me share the screen.

See that yes.

Perfect.

Okay.

Um so I am not going to read um all of this, but um I just wanted to um mention that um you know you guys are able to see some similarities with your um your city council uh strategic plan.

So um and I think they align with your your priorities and your goals.

Um so as we um reinvigorate the the Barrie City Parks and Rec um committee.

I thought it would be uh good to have a mission, vision statement values just kind of as a jumping point.

So um I showed the committee two options and uh you know we work together to combine the two.

So this is what we've come up with.

Um so um tonight we're we're asking for your approval and adoption of this proposed um mission, vision, values statement.

Um so uh I just want to say that um you know the the statements are are more than just words on this page.

Um it gives the committee uh a clear sense of um direction and help us uh guide on uh you know decision making, long-term planning, um, and how we're showing up for the community.

Um, but also you know, it also helps the the residents understand what their parts and the committee is here to do.

Um and again what um they can expect from us as a committee.

So the mission the mission um is really about what we're uh doing through our events and uh the involvement with the community.

Um, you know, we're we're focusing on um enriching lives, empowering the very uh residents and providing safe, welcoming parks, open spaces, recreation program.

Um so we highlighted for health community connection and um lifelong enjoyment.

Um so the core is really, you know, we're we're recognizing that the parks and rec committee um as uh an essential part of um you know helping with the quality of life here in Bay.

Um and the vision statement is uh kind of a look ahead and um describing um the the type of community that we're working towards.

Um you know it's uh it's a uh a vibrant uh wrong um so sustainable uh where everyone has access to quality um spaces.

Sorry, my phone is ringing.

Um so and um, you know, something that's uh really important to me is um the you know the building relationships uh that reflect the heart and pride and resiliency of our city, um, you know, for um us now and today and for generations to come.

And then the values just outlining um the um you know how we're serving the community and how we're going to um accomplish the things that we we want to focus on.

So um, so it's um you know we're we're doing a lot of we we want to promote community inclusion, um health and wellness, um community engagement especially, um and um partnership with um local organizations, which I I see you know, we we really have shared goals.

Um so that's that's what I have.

Josh, did you want to add anything else?

Thank you.

Any questions, council?

Mr.

Mayor?

Yes, I might add as the council weighs on to parks and rec.

These individuals did a wonderful job bringing this to fruition.

They really put a lot of uh really a lot of dedicated stuff into it.

Uh talked about things, they did some research, uh, as you can see with Rhoda Wayne's presentation, talking about the strategic plan.

Um really got a good group of people in the parks and rec group.

Um, and so I just really look forward to continuing to work with them and to see the work they're gonna continue to do for our city.

Thank you.

Motion would be in order, council.

So second.

It's moved by counselor Bergeron, seconded by Councillor Deering to approve the parks and rec committee charge as presented.

Is there any discussion?

Yes.

I just have one final.

I think this is a really superbly written and envisioned mission and vision and charge, and I think it should be a model for other committees.

So really well done.

Any other yes?

I have one small grammatical thing that drives me a little bit crazy.

So I'm hoping you'll bear with me.

Um in the first line of the mission, it says to enrich the lives and empower Barrie City residents by providing safe welcoming parks, open spaces, and recreation program.

So I think it should be either a recreation program or recreation programs.

Yep.

Yep.

So we actually did that on purpose to make sure you guys were writing it.

Okay, well, I I hope I get a gold star then or something.

Congratulations.

I love it.

Thank you so much for making that one small change.

And um, yeah, it's fantastic.

So I assume there's no objection from the committee.

We will be pluralizing recreation programs.

Okay.

Uh any other discussion.

Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion is presented, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

And those opposed.

Thank you again, folks.

Motion carries.

Well done.

Council, we're at 8C on the agenda.

This is the fiscal year 27 budget.

We are looking at the department's DPW, police department, and fire department.

So uh perfect.

Um so one of uh Chiefs and uh Christina, if you want to come on up to DPW.

Uh uh too much glare up here.

Okay.

So uh tonight we are reviewing, we're continuing the department reviews.

Um let Ms.

Coffee in.

Um so yeah, tonight we're continuing our department reviews uh with uh the the public safety uh divisions at the police department and uh fire and emergency medical services department.

Um so police department uh broadly consists of police services, which is what you consider your traditional uh what you most people think of, right?

With the police department, this is patrol investigations, uh community outreach through Brook.

Um, and uh we have the emergency communications center, which is fancy way of saying dispatch, uh, and of course uh Dee and John uh who do the meters enforcement.

Uh that is also within the police department.

On the fire and emergency medical services department side, um, of course, our firefighters and EMTs, uh code enforcement is also uh in fire department as well as um technically our emergency management is is contained within fire as well.

Maybe maybe there we go.

Um the org chart just to give you a visual.

Uh this is the police department side.

Uh we have the chief, deputy chief, um patrol um with our uh three shifts, um, and uh we have mental health uh clinician there, then our support services, which includes the community outreach specialist, uh the investigations unit, uh emergency communications uh dispatch, as I mentioned, and meters enforcement.

Uh this is a 29.5 FTE uh department.

The point five is you'll see on the other side of the fire department is a split on the administrative assistant.

Uh so the here's some some data on the police side for this year.

Um we are uh averaging approximately 11,500 calls over a three-year period.

Um the budget in this uh department supports uh our obviously our people, 15 patrol officers, uh first line patrol supervisors, uh three detectives, um, one school resource officer, which we split uh we share the cost with the school district, uh the chief and the deputy chief, and that half administrative assistant position, as I mentioned.

Um Brooke also is funded here, and we have uh part-time officers as well.

This budget also includes now that we've presented to you uh about 47,000 to reinstitute the B's patrol program, um, which we heard as a priority of the city council during our kickoff meeting.

Um to get a little bit more granular into sort of the the different budget sections uh of this department.

Um this is the uh dispatch uh revenue, uh dispatch uh budget.

Uh you can see the revenue piece.

We actually get uh eight percent of the budget is funded through contracts.

We provide dispatch services uh to other communities, and so that supports this budget as well.

The remainder uh obviously supported by City of Barrie.

Um you can see there the calls for service that are you know they're they're high.

Um we had a little bit of a uh uh dip from last year from 24 to 25.

Um, but this is pretty pretty high volume um for the dispatch uh center as well.

That's a good question.

Have we seen an increase in revenue since we've upgraded this dispatch units?

We've I know the revenue's gone up.

It's not necessarily related to the units, but it's basically that we're we're offering more services to more departments.

So chief, I don't know if we added any more specific.

I know the the revenue goes up every year anyway because of the way there's escalators in the contract.

Um but we've we've uh I don't know if I'd attribute it directly to the investments, but it's certainly we're doing more more context.

It's not directly attributed to the investments right now.

It's it's based on so the formula is um there's a 1.25% of the overall operating budget that goes out to all the communities that have our services, and then on top of that, there's a per call uh formula that's used for those that use more than 500 calls.

So there are some volunteer fire departments that just pay the 1.25% of the uh overall budget and fees, and then there's some other uh agencies like Randolph PD, for instance, and the sheriff's department um that pay that, and then on top of that, excuse me, on top of that, they they pay a per call fee for their amount over that was based on the prior year.

Yeah, question so the first three lines 15 patrol officers, line patrol supervisor, then three detectives and one SRO.

I guess my first question do they overlap?

You actually have 15 patrol officers currently?

Currently we do not.

How many do we have currently?

Um we have I currently have three vacancies on paper.

I currently have three three uh vacancies, which would be attributed to the patrol division.

Okay.

Um back to the first question.

Do they overlap?

I mean, is a detective a patrol can they overlap, I guess.

Yes.

Yes, they do.

For instance, where it says where it says three detectives, two of those vacancies are in the detectives division now.

I only have one detective because patrol is the frontline, obviously, uh necessary face of the agency that needs to be out answering all the calls.

I mean I I I guess other uh I would think other um municipalities would do the same type of thing.

This is common.

Yes.

Because everybody's, you know, no matter what business you're in, you're lacking people.

Correct.

And we do have um, for instance, on school vacations, the SRO um will cover patrol, and oftentimes we have the detective pick up a shift um in patrol as well.

And that also includes you.

I mean correct.

Myself myself compliment, I see you doing patrol walk industry.

I've been to things where you were security, so myself and the deputy chief both pull shifts once in a while as well.

Is that um officer Eastman?

Is that yes?

Thank you.

Can I can I clarify?

You said there's 15 patrol officers, and you have three vacancies, but you only have two two are in detectives right now.

Okay.

Right.

But you have three overall vacancies.

Three overall vacancies.

Two detectives and that's on paper.

Okay.

And the reason the reason I say on paper is we have currently three in the academy.

Yep.

One is deployed.

So there's another four.

Okay.

But you have three vacancies that span different departments.

Okay.

Um can I ask one more question?

On that first uh slide, the mental health clinician.

I thought we didn't have a mental health clinical.

Yeah, we do not.

I'm sorry, that's that was an oversight on that org chart.

Um the funding, the Department of Health um Ixnade the funding on that.

Yeah, yeah.

I that's I remember that from last year.

So we only have the outreach community outreach specialists at this point, yes.

Yeah, okay.

Thanks.

Um the next piece is the um meters parking enforcement.

Uh this is a two uh two individuals.

Uh John and Dee uh make up this department.

Um and um they uh obviously enforce our our parking rules.

Uh you can see there, the the data on the the uh tickets um year to year, we had a reduction from 24 uh to 25 um three-year average still of around three thousand.

Um and then this is the the full just to give you the the full picture of the department's numbers um on the the first column has the proposed uh the second column has what was approved last year and then the percentage change.

Uh as you can see bottom line, we're keeping it pretty tidy here within five percent growth.

Um the proposed for the police department, which includes all the patrol, um is uh almost it's 2.9 million on the dispatch side, we're at 8.44.

Uh I'm sorry, 844,000 and meters enforcement uh just under 123,000 for total department wide budget of 3.8 million dollars.

Um so this includes um, as I mentioned, the increase 47,000 that we added to this budget um for the bees program.

Um but we also uh took some savings here.

We we had about 29,000 dollars, uh 28,000 in savings, um, which included some reductions in uh meter maintenance.

So for example, when we sell the seminary suite lot, we have less meters to maintain.

So we we those are the types of things that we take into account in our budget deliberations.

Um so uh you know, we did offset a large portion of the increase that we added um to the uh to to fund the bees program.

May I ask a uh brief question?

What um we saw the number of tickets.

I'm just curious what the dollar amount of that is and offsetting our uh meter folks.

Uh I think the revenue on the ticket side is do you can you pull that Christina?

But you probably can pull it faster than me.

I have the 2025 sheet.

I didn't print it out unfortunately, but I do have it here on my phone.

Um do you want the dollar event dollar amount of those tickets?

Um so out of the 2698 tickets that were issued, um that equated to 42,411.

Um late fees added were 36,000.

Yeah.

For for a grand for a grand total is 78,563,000.

However, um it's it's not as rosy as that.

With the payments that came in out of those tickets were $18,127.

And with the late fee payments, it totaled $23,825.

So historically, since I've been here, I've noticed that D generally writes about 40 to $50,000 worth of tickets, inclusive of our what we do for the winter parking ban.

But we're averaging collecting about 24,000 all sudden done.

Do we have a collection agency?

Well we we had we had actually discussed that at the budget congress doing some uh collections on that.

Um we did mention about putting those into an actual collection agency.

Yeah, and the other, I mean I would I would say the other part of what meters enforcement helps to do is to enforce parking permits.

So they were collecting a bunch of revenue, which I think is if you could pull that number, Christina, if you have a handy.

I don't I couldn't get it on mine, but um so they they even though the tickets don't come close to offsetting the cost, they also help us make sure that we can enforce permit revenue, which is which is far larger.

Yeah, budget is 25,000.

Yeah.

I mean I gotta be honest, the numbers that you said that those numbers were much higher than I expected.

So even recouping two-thirds of the of the money we spend on um fees everywhere.

Oh, sure.

I play a lot of parking chicken in Montpelier, and I don't ever try and bury.

Not worth it.

Um I guess I see and you had said you'd already a conversation about how finding a better way to collect on some of these unpaid tickets.

That that's feels like an untapped source of revenue to me.

Even if we could get another third back again, that would be how I I haven't gotten a ticket in a long time.

So I don't can you do you have to like send it in?

Can you pay it online?

Yes.

Okay.

You can pay it online.

Um I did I don't know.

So what's your plate number?

I actually would tell you and had tickets in Bears City because I taught karate on Main Street and they parked my car in front of karate studio, and every day I'd get a ticket.

But then they came to me and gave me a deal for a third of it and I paid it off.

That's run record.

Yeah.

You're contributing to this uh gap.

Back to the bees.

Um, how many bees do you expect to have?

Good question.

So what I what I did um with that to arrive at that number um is step one on the entry level scale.

I took that number and I had it for two individuals working 16 hours a week for a total of 32 hours.

So it would be 32 hours of coverage between two people.

Coincidentally, uh, we have two new witch interns that are with us right now that are both interested in in partaking in that.

And do you have bicycles?

We do have bicycles.

There are old bicycles.

Um pre-flood, well, it was actually after the first flood.

Um I I had spoke uh about getting some bicycles.

They had some bicycles in in their bike business downstairs that got flooded.

Yeah.

Nothing wrong with them, but they couldn't sell them.

So they were gonna uh fix up two of them uh you know, stripe them, do whatever they need to do and give them to us.

Um I haven't revisited that yet, but I I don't see it a problem as well.

But we won't be seeing you out on a tricycle then, right?

No, maybe a big wheel, but thanks, Chief.

Yes.

So uh back to recouping potentially some of the ticket fees.

Um would it be could we offer a program where you know if you have an outstanding ticket with the city of Barrie, if you want to if you pay 50% of that ticket, we'll wipe it clean.

And I say that as an opportunity to recoup any kind of funding as opposed to charging additional funding for collection agencies, and we may never see that at all.

Well, I know I I know number one, we already do have a collection agency that the city, if I'm mistaken that the that the city works with.

Okay.

So we do have a contract with them.

I also know um in our budget con Congress we were speaking when we were discussing this.

Um there is an opportunity.

Uh Cheryl had mentioned that there's uh a position in her office that can start looking at some of those.

Um, but at the end of the day, that's a lot of money sit left on the table.

Certainly.

Um so to answer your question, I I I suppose, yeah, we could we could have like some sort of amnesty deal where you pay a portion of it.

We we did look at um purchasing boots, but that those those were real expensive for the amount that you would need.

Um and then you gotta worry about damage.

And one of our one of our efforts also to sort of alleviate or ameliorate this issue of not getting collections is our changes with the winter parking ban, which instead of doing tickets is now an administrative fee.

So now everyone who is ticketed there, they won't get ticketed.

They'll have to just pay the fee, so we won't lose any of that revenue.

So that was another way to sort of get around that issue of of non-payment.

You chief, do we have a database of I mean it's all electronic, correct?

They're all entered into the Yes, that that uh spreadsheet that I brought up was from a program called ticket tracks.

Yeah.

Um D carries around a mini computer and everything goes right into the system, so it's all it's all tracked.

I mean, could we used to send out bills if you had a delinquent ticket?

Yes.

And I think that's where the late five.

I must have some.

No, because I get them because the issue is this we get a parking pass, but we get one.

And sometimes I have my truck, sometimes I have my car.

I have two vehicles.

So if I have the truck, I get to get it on a fairly frequent basis.

Um if I could look it up, if you that database could somehow be made public just to access, obviously, not to change.

You know, there may be folks who are in the same position on the case.

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure if that's a feature or not.

Um we have to I mean we used to, but years ago, uh if you didn't pay your ticket on time, you'd pretty much immediately get a you know, notice in the mail.

Um that doesn't happen anymore.

Cheap Morris who took all the money.

So the number tomorrow.

I I know I have some.

I know I I've got to have four or five.

So I've got to owe the city a hundred bucks or better.

We're getting that.

So we would surely No, but my point is I I don't know if we're I I don't think we're mailing and certainly even if we just said look again, that used to come out.

Um, you know, if you owe us over a hundred bucks, our policy is gonna be to boot you.

You know, we have the boot.

And so you know, here's a list.

But again, I don't think we're really following up at this point.

I understand being short officers and personnel and staff everywhere, that's sometimes difficult, but maybe maybe something like saying, hey, we're going to give the public access to even if it's a PDF and you just print off the list and say, we're gonna post this on the city webpage.

And again, it's not shaming.

It's just to make folks aware that we used to send notices out to you.

We don't send them anymore.

So if you've got four or five tickets, we're not reminding you that those went unpaid.

Just a thought.

I I also have something to add about uh amnesty.

If you do an amnesty program, do it for a week, you know, or five days or something.

So and just you know what, publicize the heck out of it ahead of time and say to people, this is your window.

And after that, we at that we put up the So I think we we double it after so many days, don't we?

Yeah, I'm not sure what the and then you put the PDF out there with everybody on it who didn't take advantage of get your, you know, yeah.

So you put the carrot and the stick out there and because it would be nice if we could get you know some of that money in in time to affect this year's budget, right?

Buy a couple of bikes.

Yeah, you never know.

Yeah, yeah.

Just saying, all right.

Oh, sorry.

Oh, nope, back to the next.

So is the for the um the increases for the police department and the dispatch, is that can you explain what the increases are for uh yeah, most of the most of it is is uh staffing, and most of it is contractual staffing, benefits, health.

Okay, um, pretty much that and um the a small piece of the the ad for the bees was 48, and the we took about um 28,000 off.

So that's that's you know, 20,000 is explained by that.

Okay, okay, thank you.

Okay, uh fire department.

Uh this is the org chart um on the fire side.

We have the chief, the deputy chief, uh the half administrative assistant, uh, and then we have uh four shifts of four uh on the floor, and uh then uh the uh code enforcement side, which is the fire marshal uh and the building inspector.

Uh we also have a call force, which how many chief on the call force at this moment?

Is it really one?

It's one, yeah.

So very minimal call force.

Um the uh call comparison, as you can see here, the vast majority of the calls that the department's responding to are on the EMS side about four to one.

Uh and so um you can see there that that's been uh pretty consistent ratio and and also growing uh number of calls.

Um the other piece is the overlapping calls have been increasing, uh an overlapping call is when um when two or more incidents occur at the same time uh and it it uh sort of dips into our our minimum staffing and forces overtime call-ins.

That's a question.

Um same question out of all the sixteen firefighters, how many do we have currently?

We're full staff.

Full staff.

Yes.

Um a question I should have asked before.

Well uh of all the calls.

Because you're both gonna get calls for the same type of person who's causing problems or OD and if you I mean, is there uh like what percentage of your calls go to those between both sides of the house?

Well, I guess I would think there'd be more well not to the police versus you, but when someone overdoses, they call the fire station more than the police or no.

We we both can so is that a big factor in your calls?

The number, the small amount of people who take a good percentage of the calls.

Because that's a money thing, you know, again.

Yeah, I mean it's we certainly um time of day, the weather, that all affects the volume of drug-related calls that we're seeing.

Um but typically uh uh when when the PD is responding and we're responding, we both have our our jobs that we're doing separate.

Um so I don't know if you're asking if there could be well I guess but do you have more calls because of drugs related than fire?

Uh 100%.

EMS calls are 80% of our our call volume.

And our number one call for service for EMS related calls are falls.

Or faults.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Could you elaborate a bit on that, Chief?

Um you say 80% are false.

Uh 80% of our annual call volume is EMS.

And of those, that 80%, our number one call reason is um for falls for amulet's calls.

Gotcha is false.

Falls.

Falls.

Somebody fell.

Yes, I'm not sure.

Sorry, I didn't call I apologize.

Yes.

Okay.

I thought it that way too at first.

Can I ask a follow-up question?

Um you because on the chart you have good intent and you also have faults.

What are false calls?

We report into a national database, and those are codes that they have pre-established.

It's not something that that we um uh that we have put into place.

Okay.

So a false call might be responded with with um with no incident found.

Um or I'm sorry, what was the other one about the good intent?

Um it may be uh a smoke detector activation uh from cooking.

Okay.

Okay.

Um other question about this, and this is for the um chief.

Is there do you have a breakdown of calls like this too?

Or is that harder to break down?

We we have call types, yes.

Yeah, yeah, you do.

Yeah, we we have a complete call type.

Um and I actually I know uh counselor Gustin got it.

Um I do an end-of-the-year review that has um part one offenses and part two offenses.

So for instance, if you want to know how many disorderly conduct cases we have, I could punch that in and extrapolate that data.

Um there is a margin of error in that data because oftentimes you'll it'll be reported as something, and not all cases will get that secondary call type.

Um, it goes back to the garbage in, garbage out.

You really have to intricately go through and change everything.

Um but yes, we can we can pull all those numbers out.

Could you just get something like the great?

I just I'm just interested what those calls are.

Yeah, that's it's actually um it's actually on our website.

Uh I I published it, it's under the trust and transparency uh page that that has all the statistics for the year.

Um not every single call, but I did the part one and part two offenses.

Okay.

I'm happily heading forward to counsel.

Right.

What what are the major so these are the majority of these calls are EMS?

Do you know what the majority of your calls are?

The majority of my calls?

Yeah.

Um it's it's everything.

Um we we have a lot of domestic disturbance calls, we have a lot of disorderly conduct calls.

Um we have a lot of uh you know quality, what I call quality of life calls.

Okay.

Cool.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Uh this is the code enforcement side review, uh, their annual summary from uh from 2025.

Um just uh Nick and Arthur doing a lot of a lot of work uh keeping up with with the inspections, the permit reviews.

Um they've been uh you continue to be busy after the floods feel like they're still busy from all of that.

Um and uh just just lot lot of uh boots on the ground with with both of them.

Um and um I think you know doing doing a great job of it.

Question?

Um do we know how many buildings um I know when we first did the flood recovery um the the last time we'll say uh we had a number of buildings that were red tagged and yellow tagged, and so do we have any other buildings left in the city that are red or yellow tagged that aren't tagged for for the occupancy or fully ready to go?

I think I think the ones that were left were the landslides, which were all bought out at this point.

Um can you think of any?

I can't think of any that are related to flood recovery.

Like anything that's not FEMA buyout or is there one on order?

There could be one or two where the the owners have chosen not to correct the deficiencies.

So for example, they haven't not only have they not even raised um the panel that was in the basement, right?

They haven't energized the panel and replaced the panel that was in the basement.

So I I I think there's there's a handful.

Yeah, I I think there's at least two that I can think of.

The the one that's by the old garage there in front of the um owned by Mr.

Ayers, is that the one that had the structural issue?

That might still be red tagged, but that's been a little bit more than that.

That's no salvation army.

Yeah, but they've been uninhabited for Packard as well.

Yeah.

Most of the ones that were inhabited and were red tagged ended up being the landslides, which are now um right all demolished.

So was there one still on River Street?

Uh there are a couple on River Street that I believe are in the process of being bought out.

Yeah.

But I don't know if they're I don't know if they're red tagged or just the band or or not just not inhabited at this point.

That's a good point.

Probably both.

Yeah, because the red tag wouldn't just be a result of the flood if it's not if it's not up to code and these likely are not, then while we may not formally, you know, physically red tag it, it's red tagged.

And by the way, uh both Nick and uh Mr.

Young, they do a great job.

Uh you know, they really do.

Under you know, under tough circumstances, and I know it's not always you know fun.

Nick did uh an inspection uh for Karen and I recently, and uh you know, just so professional, and it doesn't matter who you are.

Um we found out the hard way that you can't always buy smoke detectors on Amazon because if they're not if they're not approved for use in the United States, they look like exactly the same detector.

You really wouldn't know.

Doesn't say anywhere.

So I was just mad because I got ripped off for 400 bucks because I was dumb enough to buy and you know, Nick was great, and he said, you know, look, they probably work, you know.

They probably would detect a fire in the CO in Canada, but you know, Tom, they're they're they're not approved.

They've got to have that little U.S.

And uh I said, okay, Nick, not a problem.

And he said, but I'll give you seven days.

And it doesn't matter who you are, you know, like Nick said, this is a life safety issue.

You have seven days to get them all replaced, and of course we did.

Uh and then the rest of the things that he that he um noted in his report, like you know, a railing height or something like that.

He said, look, it it's 10 degrees below zero.

Get that stuff, you know.

That stuff I'm not as concerned about, but the life safety stuff.

Yeah, so like I said, it doesn't matter who you are.

Um in Nick does it politely, as does Arthur politely, professionally.

They're they're just a real credit to the city.

And uh, you know, I served with his dad here, and his dad would be very proud of him.

For sure.

That that office is operating if we if we compared it to the state of Vermont with their assistant uh fire marshals, they're operating in a 20-year employee, is their volumes that they're working at.

And and Nick's been in that office for three years, and Arthur's two, so yeah, can I ask a question about this?

Um when you say that I was and this may just be an impression that I had I had, but I think that when Nick came in, it really he is really took ownership of it and has been doing a really good job.

I don't know who was doing it before or if it was really being done as thoroughly.

But I wonder if we could have some data about since he started because are we getting less c less problems because he's been doing it for so long?

And I just would love to see those trends.

We can pull some trends.

Yeah, that would be great.

Um just so I mean if people are like, oh yeah, the inspector's coming and I gotta make sure I've got my stuff in order, yeah that would that's fantastic that he's doing his job.

So that would be great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And uh this is one budget section.

So this um this, if you if you saw in the packet, there's one expense side and it's all in it's all encompassed in one department, and the numbers here uh moving from just under three million to uh three point three uh million.

Um we have the vast majority of that you can see is increases in those personnel costs we talk about the the salary side, the fight, the the benefits, the payroll taxes, um, and we did do some offsets here um to some cyclical purchases of safety equipment, right?

So this is the benefit of we want to get to a point we talk about at the department head level of our budget's really helpful to have historical data, but it's also be nice to have a couple of out years to look at because we could show how some of those cycles move.

We don't have to buy some of the equipment year after year, and so we recognize some of those savings um this year.

But as you can see, it's um again, it's it's really on the the human side that it's being driven.

So um so then based on um what we shared with you tonight uh with these departments, um we have um some current budget numbers.

Um the the total general fund budget number that we're looking at now is fifteen point eight million dollars.

It's up slightly from last week.

Um, and it's about 7.5% up in ex uh so 7.37% increase in year-to-year expenses.

If we go back to that metric that we talked about last week as a percentage of the amount to be raised by taxes to support the general fund budget, it's up to 7.5%, um, which is an increase from last week.

I want to talk about that briefly.

Um that also includes the Washington County taxes, which we looked at the numbers again last week, and there's no reason why we shouldn't, you know, the the the Washington County taxes, we have to pay whether we want to or not.

So that's why we are including that number.

So um an apples to apples from last week to the the 6.6 would grow to 7.09, right?

Um if we add the Washington County taxes, that's how we get to the 7.50.

This also includes on top of um, you know, rebuilding the recreation department, um which was a council priority on top of um the B's, which was a council priority.

Um these numbers also now include the budget requests from last week that the council heard from the Aldrich Library, the ADC, and the Barrie partnership.

So this really is sort of an all-in number at this point.

Um that's that's part of the reason why everything went up from last week.

So just to if you don't mind give the opportunity uh the give the council an opportunity to uh offer feedback.

We we had three reports from three different organizations, the very partnership, uh BADC and the Aldrich.

Uh, you know, I thought, you know, first of all, in terms of their performance and how they enhance life in the city and the value that they bring, you know, I I really couldn't push back against anyone's anyone's budget and say, you know, this is something that I wouldn't support.

And I don't know if the rest of you, you know, I just want to give the manager clear direction going forward, because he mentioned, well, I took their budget requests and I worked them into the budget because I didn't hear anything different from the council.

So I just want to make sure that you know, or give the council the opportunity to offer that feedback if they feel differently, yes.

I I support all of those things, and I think um when I'm reading through this particular presentation, it's um I keep comparing it to the year that my husband and I put blow blown-in insulation in our walls.

Like it was a really really important thing to do, but gosh, it's sometimes like why am I spending this much money on this?

But it's important, you know.

The the I luckily haven't seen you, either one of you at my house, and that's a good thing, but we have to have a full team of um fire and police to keep our city safe.

And so I think the things that the partnership and the library and the BADC are the things that people see, the recreation department, the bees, those are the things that people see, and that's unfortunately the other part that I think we have to spend money on.

So I I support all of those things.

If you'll indulge me in just speaking frankly, I mean at times I I have so much respect um and value for our officers, our firefighters, our EMTs, I truly do.

Um but I think about if we could just eliminate knuckleheads in the city, we'd probably save half in each department.

And you know, that at times is so I wholeheartedly agree with you that it is it is so important to have those folks who are who are here to help.

And it's unfortunate that some people take advantage because you know, these are and especially when you get overlapping calls, Chief.

And I'm sure you could think easily of a couple dozen, three dozen examples of overlapping calls where um one was really unnecessary and one was absolutely necessary.

And you know, it's unfortunate that those things happen and costs us so much money.

I mean, but it's the same in every every urban municipality.

If you look at uh you know the costs of um police and fire, if you look at public safety and you look at that, we're no different than anyone else.

We're no different than Montpellier, we're no different than Burlington than South Burlington.

It it's unfortunately a trend everywhere.

Yes.

So I'm totally 100% behind police and fire.

Pretty much everyone that we've spoke to.

Uh two issues I have.

One is with a 91,000 dollar paycheck to have a liaison for the homeless.

Number two is the Aldrich Library.

I think that some of the questions I asked weren't answered 100% honestly.

I know they do have an apartment in Eastbury that they're not renovating because they had a bad tenant, which would bring in probably 15, 2,000 a month.

Um I did hear from St.

Monica's school that they had a problem.

Maybe they don't now, but they did as far as students going there.

Because I mean, you talk to the owner of uh Cornerstone, and he'll tell you stories about what's going on over there.

But I'm not blaming the people who run it.

Um I'm just saying I don't know their hours.

I mean, libraries, we have computers and people don't go to the library like they used to.

I think our library, and this is my opinion, is being used uh more for the less fortunate than it is for um students to go study.

And you know, I'm sure some people on this council probably don't like what I'm saying, but I'd like to know what Barry Towns doing tonight, because I think the Aldrich Library is going in front of them.

And I've spoken to a couple people on that committee.

Um so unless I am proven wrong, I'd like to hear more information on the Aldritch.

Yeah, but you're I mean, I think as far if you have questions, um, I mean, she invited you and said if you if you have questions, if you need more information, I mean, you you have an open invitation.

Um I can't say I've I've been exactly where you are.

Um, but my job is to ask questions, and sometimes they're uncomfortable questions.

Uh and I've asked the questions of the library.

Um I do go to the library.

I actually have my card, I take books out.

Um you know, so for me, the they bring a lot of the library brings a lot of value.

But but I understand that we're that you have questions.

You probably have many of the same questions that I've asked before, and I'd encourage you to get the answers.

And if you don't get the answers, that is a much different issue than then asking the questions.

There's no question that can't be asked when we're in budget deliberations as long as it's done respectfully.

I don't have an issue with any question any counselor may ask.

If if I may I can I can answer one of those questions without any prevarication, one thousand percent honestly.

There is not an apartment above the York branch.

I have personally No, no, it's an East Barry.

Yeah, that's the York branch is the East Barry.

I have personally physically been in those rooms.

There is nothing in, there's no kitchen, there's no like pieces of the floor.

It is not and cannot be an apartment without tens of ponds of tens of thousands of dollars worth of renovation that would not pay off for years and years and years to come, which would be a capital outlay that is just simply not.

I totally agree with you there.

I just some of the information I'm getting, maybe I guess is I mean, I ask them.

I did pull up their uh their 30 uh I'm sure uh D30 form that there's seven million dollars in a trust that they own for there's four of them.

I realize that.

Endowments endowment.

Which is a whole different thing.

But I do want to say without any slightest shred of doubt, there is not a department in the York branch of I have physically been in those rooms and walked around them.

So I have not.

But I'd encourage you to, you know, we've got plenty of time.

Get your answers.

And like I said, if if you don't get an answer, that's a different issue.

Yes.

I just would like to add that you have to get the answer, you know, from somebody, you know, get the answer that is unequipped with the case.

Well, it was the director who answered offered an invitation.

But yeah, and indeed, and then she could come, but you know, if she tells you something, I you know, if you come back and say, Well, she told me this and I don't believe it, that's another problem.

Um, and I I think it's your problem.

Um, not her problem.

So I that's just the caveat that I'm making.

I guess you know, I'm part of the group that's gonna say yes or no and funded.

So I just want to get you know the bottom of I mean, everybody wants more money, you know.

Of course, you know, and I just want to make sure the money's being utilized in the proper way.

And you you know, you cannot say without a doubt that I mean right now because it's 20 balls zero, but you in the summertime, if you didn't know Barry and you looked at the library and saw what was going on, the activity there, you'd have a lot of this, you know, same thoughts or doubts, you know.

And personally, no, no, I wouldn't.

Well, but that's I think I think this discussion might be one for another time.

I think so.

I'm just saying, don't lay things on other people.

My point is simply I heard the director extend an invitation to you and said, Look, if you want to come over and talk and and ask more questions, I heard the invitation extended.

If you take her up on it, like I said, ask any question respectfully and professionally you want to ask.

I mean, that is that is our job.

Yeah, it if you don't get well, you don't get proper answer.

So I just wanted to you know have my concerns as well, you know.

If I'm proven 100% wrong, I'll be the first, you know, it won't be the first one, but I just you know I hear things too.

And you you mentioned uh Tess's position.

Uh I was actually at the State House uh today to introduce the lieutenant governor.

Uh he was kicking off his campaign, and so I took that opportunity to visit with a few folks and have some conversations.

And I'm I I can't say I'm you know ready to declare victory, but I'm feeling pretty good about how they feel the more I explain the position, and the more I explain that if the state were funding that position, what what I would do if I were the state is I would require Tess to spend two days a week training people in other municipalities.

And I said, you know, take advantage of she's really good at what she does, and that that has really piqued their interest.

And they said, Well, would you be would you be willing to do that?

And I said, Well, um, the honest answer is no.

I would like her all to bury, but if it came down to you being able to fund the position and us having her service at least three days a week, I I guess I'd have to be okay with that.

And knowing Tess, Tess would probably still train people in other municipalities eight days a week, two day uh eight hours a day, two days a week, and still figure out a way to work those extra two days in some capacity in the city of Barrie.

So I'm feeling better about that position and our chances of getting that position funded by the state.

Yes.

Um to your concern about the library, I would encourage you to go to the library because there's a lot of stuff going on there.

Um there's I've walked in before waiting for a meeting to start, and there's Lego Club happening.

I've gone for a meeting and seen families coming and coming and going with their books and their kids and their happy.

I'm willing to see that.

So I think you should just go sometime and spend some time there.

I think you're well I gotta have to because I'm making accusations and I gotta kind of back up and go.

So I don't know that you made an accusation.

Well, that's how I that's sort of like a elected, because I'm you simply made a statement and you're doing your job.

It's okay.

Oh, I've got some questions you need to ask, no matter how uncomfortable they might be.

That's our job.

Yes.

Could I ask one follow-up question?

What what do what do we why do we pay Washington County taxes?

What does that go for?

Um the county, the the court, uh the courts, the sheriff's department.

Um the county functions.

Right.

But we don't we've always said that that we don't really function as a county except for the court system, right?

Yeah, it's basically it's it's an assessment for our it's our contribution towards it.

Yeah, okay.

Okay.

I just didn't know what they were.

Thank you.

Sure.

But don't get me now, you're gonna get me started.

No, I mean, why do some municipalities receive the state police will respond to some in the I mean this is a huge unfairness, but it's never gonna get corrected because there are, and I'm sure you'll correct me, Councillor Gustin.

263 municipalities in Vermont.

252.

252, thank you.

Because there are 252 municipalities in the state of Vermont.

Most of them receive their protection from directly from calling the Vermont State Police.

And yet, as a state taxpayer, I'm paying for the state police, and yet I also get to pay and and no complaints, I also get to pay through my property taxes for a local police department.

And I've never I'm like, why don't you charge the ones who use the state police?

Not a big deal.

Yeah.

But why don't you charge them something?

Charge them some sort of per capita fee to respond and then use that money to supplement the police departments and you know to the public safety departments and municipalities that are going it on their own.

So as long as we were getting off topic, not to go back with the library, but that's always been Berlin and Orange are using the library at no cost.

They have to pay a fee.

No, they pay.

Yeah, but that fee was but that I looked into that.

That fee has been in process for years.

Got another question to ask, I guess.

If if a resident from Berlin comes to the Alders, they have to pay a they have to buy a library card essentially.

So they've done that with people from honest city for 20, 30 years.

Okay, so how much money do you really frame back on the track?

No, they should be able to pay what we're paying.

So continue, Nicholas.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um so these are the numbers.

Um, like I said, the the you know, uh on the one side the numbers went up on the the positive, it includes everything that that we've heard, you know, people are interested in.

Um so there are pathways to that 5% target.

I I think you know, we're not you look at us, we're not panicked.

Um, you know, we think we can get there unless you're hiding it well.

Um but you know, one one really quick way is mayor alluded to it is um money from the state to fund the housing and homelessness liaison's on position.

Um, and that alone um would get us back down to 6.57%.

Um fund balance allocations.

Um we are our current budget assumes 100,000 already of the fund balance to help us keep the property tax rates low.

Um we Christina's finalizing the we're we're getting our final audits ready.

We should we not we should, we will by the next when I'm back uh and we dive deep deeper into these discussions in March.

Um we will know what those numbers are and we'll have a better sense of how much our fund balance can help support this.

And it's not looking horrible at this point, correct?

Okay, so we are so glimmer of hope there.

Yes, really, and part of that is we you know, we we've talked a little bit about this before that we're getting you know, the FEMA reimbursements have come in.

Our fund balance was depleted after the floods to basically prepay all the FEMA expenses as FENA FEMA money has come in that has helped replenish the fund balance.

Um chief mentioned he's got basically three rolling vacancies any given day.

Um, but we fund the we fully fund his staffing budget, that becomes a big basically a fund balance as well.

So we think it'll be healthy.

Now there's there's risks, obviously, with using fund balance that creates a cliff for the next year, but if we're trying to get down to this this number, it's a way to do it.

Um so just just as an example, we have 100,000 assumed already, an additional about 175,000 would get us right to that, right under that 5% target, right?

Um and then look the other way, and I'm I'm very clear, I'm not recommending this, but it's to revisit these investments in the budget.

I don't think it's wise to do it.

Um I think that um it's it's not it's it's I think there are the investments we're suggesting, and that the council has indicated our priorities, by the way, are not just council priorities, there are things that we care about on the staff level as well.

Um, and so it's an option.

We don't think we should take it.

Um I think that there's there's better ways to do it.

Um so again, no panic.

There's a lot of time between now and when we won this budget.

Um, and we'll have a little bit more information next week.

We'll talk with the about public works, we'll hear about the budget survey results, and um hopefully we'll get some really good direction about how to get you uh on a proposal in March that is um really reflective of where closer to where we want to be.

So that perfect was it?

Thank you.

Council, any questions?

Yes, so I I asked last week uh about getting a more detailed kind of idea about what Tess has been doing, you know, those the activities, just because you know, there are a lot of questions regarding that.

That she doesn't give us any reports, we get you know a report from Nicholas.

Um, but for a position that we're paying almost a hundred thousand dollars a year for, and we're you know, potentially, you know, there's some you know, questions regarding that.

It would be really helpful to have a detailed discussion if we're gonna talk about including or not including that in our budget about why you know it's important to have her in our budget.

Um because it seems, you know, there's folks that are very strongly for that.

Um and I think I personally haven't seen you know from this council seat a lot.

Um, and I'm not saying that she's not doing a lot, but it's just not something that we're you know, I don't want to say privy to, but it's not something that is reported on a lot as opposed to a lot of the other things that we're constantly talking about.

Yeah, she she's actually was here a couple weeks ago to talk, she's heading the um the situation table.

So she was here the last time she was here was a couple of weeks ago, maybe a month ago or so, to talk about all the really great work she's doing with that.

I know she did another report uh in the fall um as we were sort of gearing up for the warming season.

Um so she she has been here quite a bit.

I think um part of what I like to do is is is um a lot of Tess's hours are unusual.

She's she's she covers a lot of the shifts at the warming center herself, so I I try not to force her to come to the city council because she she's off often working evenings and strange hours, but um as an example of what I share today, the warming shelter has been going on for about two weeks straight, and she's been there just about every night.

Um, and she will be there the next couple of nights from Friday to Tuesday.

So I'm I'm more than happy to bring Tess in, but she I just want to dispel this notion.

She was here um the most recently, and I'll I'll figure out the date was was when we introduced her as the chair of the situation table, um, which is another really great task that she's taken on, and and I think um has been I know fire and police are both represented on that, and I know that we've been they I think both your deputies are your your designees on that.

And um you cross paths with her quite often, didn't yes, yeah.

We sent me.

We discussed she was the chair of the situation table.

It's like a month ago.

Yeah, so I know we talked about that, but yeah.

I I do want to add too, I mean we've been focusing a lot because we are in a two-week stretch.

I sent Tess home at 5 a.m.

this morning after she'd been up all night, so she could get two hours of sleep.

Um, because I was doing the three to seven a.m.

shift this morning.

Um so we're in deep in that right now, so we've been talking about it a lot, but we also saw Tess quite a lot over the summer in the spring, talking a lot about all of the parcel mapping of the city of Barrie for housing, which is the other half of the position.

She is the staff person to the housing task force that has been doing a lot of the work and outreach to um get the I can't believe I'm blanking the um AUD's um ADU, wow, sorry.

The ADU, it's very warm in this room.

The ADU um projects underway um and other things like that.

So that's we saw her quite a bit over the summer and have seen her for several um flood plan updates in regards to that.

So uh fair question, counselor.

So I mean I think if the city uh you know, we are we are hopeful.

Um I remain hopeful that the state is going to see the value as I do in in that position and the value in continuing to fund it.

Um but if they don't or things change, or even if things don't change, I I listen, I agree with you.

It's a fair question.

If we're going to be asked to fund what is essentially a new 100,000 position, I don't have any issue with you saying, Nicholas, I uh I just need some FaceTime.

I I need to know, I need to be able to tell my constituents, and I think uh we all need to be able to tell our constituents, well, this is why we're willing to invest this hundred thousand dollars in this new position.

It's a fair question.

So we'll look, I mean, we've got my god months yet before we have to warn.

We'll get, I mean, this has been a tough stretch for Tess.

Uh thank you to her and thank you to everyone who's helping her out because it has been with the weather, it's just been a tough stretch uh, you know, in terms of trying to keep people safe uh and housed uh here in the city and not just here in the city, uh everywhere.

But we will absolutely get her in to answer your questions.

It's a fair one.

Okay.

Anything else?

Uh counselor, would there um Hill Gardner?

Would there be any objection?

I had thrown um I had thrown that on um your request on AE.

Would would you mind Counselor Gussen if I flip them?

Because I'd I'd like to be able to send the chief off sooner rather than later.

Thank you, folks.

Thank you, Chief.

Appreciate it.

So uh Council Hill Gardner.

Well, um I sent around uh what a a draft interim um statement about um the uh Barry's policies, the policies that I exist and um the review that we were we were talking about last um and the reason for my sending this out is that I I really do think that we don't always communicate well with our constituents.

And the reason for my sending this out is that I I really do think that we don't always communicate well with our constituents.

I've had a number of people asking me about what you know what is what are the policies that Barry has about ICE.

And I thought that your response to Danielle I can't do the asking.

I'm Sarski.

It's a tough one.

I just say Danielle.

Yeah, did for Danielle, Danielle O, were really it was really good.

And I thought that needed to be shared more widely, which is one of the reasons why I'm proposing that we um use the an interim statement while the um while the policies are under review.

I understand.

So uh Chief, you're familiar, I copied, I made sure you were copied on the email uh you were as well, uh Mr.

Manager.

So, you know, again, uh these are matters that I discuss.

It's just a you know different position.

Uh so these are, you know, Nicholas and I probably tend to meet uh you know more often than um than he does with other individual counselors, and so you know, and our discussions are wide ranging, and this one came up.

Um, so as I said to Danielle, uh I'm not aware of any municipality in Vermont that is ever executed a 287 G agreement.

I mean, they're just it hasn't happened.

And so when I talked to Nicholas about it, I said, look, I'd really like you and Brad to handle this.

I know Danielle said, well, you know, bring it to to the you know, diversity and equity committee.

It's like, no, I'm not really comfortable doing that because I don't know what direct impacts if we said no, we're we're not going to ever execute a 287G um memorandum of understanding, even though we've never had one in front of us.

We've never we don't have one in front of us.

No one's ever asked us to execute one.

I didn't know if there were other, you know, when you start talking about um federal agreements, the way they intertwine the way they can affect other funding pockets or training opportunities.

And not only that, but 287G is not limited to immigration.

You it can be for sex trafficking, it could be for child exploitation, you know.

So a 287G could be, if we executed such an agreement, could be much more narrow in scope.

So uh I I'm not I I'm pushing back, but not really pushing back too hard.

I I'm just uh again when I penned that email, uh I certainly wouldn't have called it a temporary policy for the city.

Um so I I think it's probably best that we let the chief and and the manager, and as I explained to Danielle, with you know everything we have going on and the manager's impending uh absence, um I said, you know, I I I really don't anticipate that coming before the council in April.

Um and even if it did, it would ha if we if we were requested to execute uh 287G, it would have to be warned before the entire council.

And then if that happened, and that's a really big if, if that actually passed council, then it needs to go to the governor in consultation with the attorney general, and the governor and attorney general have to sign off.

So only because it it's um and I want to say this really respectfully, but it it's I almost feel like you're asking me to issue a policy on fire when nothing's burning.

Um you know, if if we had an impending, and believe me, I am in contact, I can't say every day, that wouldn't be honest, at least three times a week.

I am in contact with people in high places in terms of what is the level of ICE activity in Vermont, and I realize look, we're all concerned.

So everything I'm saying, if we learned anything from current events, everything I'm saying could get flipped on its head tomorrow.

But but today, but I can tell you that all of us, uh the three of us monitor federal activity, how many agents are deployed, is there a ramp up?

Um so I I I I just question the value in a temporary policy when the whole reason for having the chief and the manager look at it is because I don't want there to be unintended consequences to the city.

I entirely understand what you're saying.

Um I just point out that what the statement says is where we are now.

And it also says it's under review.

Right.

Um and that's the part that I think we need to communicate to people.

I mean, that those are the questions.

It's like what's the policy now?

What's going to happen?

And you know, just the, you know, even just the paragraph, Barry's not entered into and it's never been asked to enter into, as you just reiterated a 287G agreement with federal um authorities, and any such agreement would require full city council review, proper public notice, and authorization from the state of Vermont consistent with state law.

That doesn't change anything.

I mean, that is exactly what you just said.

And I'm what I'm asking is to is that we communicate that to people.

Um because that for one thing, it makes it easier for us as counselors to be able to point to stuff.

For me as a counselor, when somebody calls me up and says, What's the city's policy now?

What's happening?

If I can say, here's the interim, an interim statement, this is under review.

Um, and we'll keep you posted as things if things change or as things change.

Okay, I I guess maybe I I bristled a bit because you referred to it as a policy.

And it's not really a it's not really a policy, it's just a state of the city, so to speak.

You know, here's where we are, this is what statement on immigration.

This is what Danielle asked, this is how I responded.

And in good time, the chief and manager will you know report back.

I haven't, you know, elevated it in terms of priority because there's nothing in front of us.

I understand that too.

I just, you know, especially in this climate where there is an enormous amount of misinformation and disinformation and you know stuff getting spread on social media.

I just think it would be extremely helpful for the city to be clear about where we are and what the process of the city is.

Uh listen, I have no objection.

And if you want, I mean, I have no objection to that.

Um yeah, if you or any other counselor wants to say, well, hey, this is where we're at.

I mean, there was nothing.

Chief, did you see anything in the did the chief receive statement?

Yeah, did you see anything in the statement that was inaccurate?

No, I I didn't.

Okay.

Okay.

So I would like to point out um the and I I don't know if it who it who it actually went to, um, but the Vermont Criminal Justice Council sent a statement to the communities.

That's what what the document is called.

And they allegedly sent it to all the communities.

I don't I don't know if they sent it to boards or whoever.

Um that was in April of 2025.

They just resent it again.

I have a copy of that.

Um, it's also available on their website along with the fair and impartial policing policy, which every law enforcement agency in the state had to adopt, um, which outlines what we can and cannot do.

Um, and that's that's available in 13 languages on their website as well as they have a video for for sign language.

I have a copy of that here if anybody wants to see it.

I would like that.

Um again, I don't know who they sent it to.

I know I received a copy that said they sent it to all the communities.

Yeah.

Um so under under that fair and impartial policing policy, which we have to abide by, we cannot enforce civil immigration.

So we we just can't.

There are some in it's in that statement to the communities, some things that we are allowed to do, um, which the mayor alluded to with sex trafficking and those sorts of things.

Yeah.

So as far as that yeah, I don't have any objection to that being held out as hey, the state of the city.

You know, this is where we are.

And this is in listen, I understand it it's hard not to watch recent events and not be horrified.

Uh so I I understand the level of anxiety, but I also think it's important to react reasonably.

And like I said, that's why I sent it to Nicholas and the chief, is is I don't know the ramifications if a municipality were to say when there's not even one in front of us, under no uncertain terms would we ever execute a 287G or participate in Operation Stone Garden.

I don't know if immediately if they were training funds or other funds that that we would be cut off from.

I'm not actually asking you to No, I I didn't say you're not going to be able to do that.

I'm just asking you to communicate.

I'm just saying these are the things that I considered when I read Danielle's letter.

I just wanted to react to give the matter the seriousness it deserved and the consideration it deserved, but also react in a way that is in the best interest of the city.

So if you want to hold that, I don't have any objection to that.

Um if I may, I I appreciate the letter.

Um I appreciate that you put it into this.

It makes me feel better just knowing that you know, this is what we've done.

This is we have these policies in place already for fair and impartial policing, and and this is this is where we are right now.

Just because it makes me feel better knowing this than like wondering, like I I don't know what's gonna happen in the future.

So this is helpful, even though you know it might all change tomorrow.

Who knows?

But um, this is where we are, and I think that could be helpful for a lot of people.

I'm sorry.

And like I said, I mean, you know, everything that we do as counselors or I do as mayor is subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

So even if you want to share my response uh to Danielle with whoever uh you know, I I certainly wouldn't have any objection to that.

But one thing that I was I mean, what I'm sort of asking for is that the city put this on the website and that maybe Nicholas or you post it to front porch forums so that it's clear that it's not one member of council trying to do an end run or that this really is comes officially from the city.

This is officially where we are, and we are officially under review, and rather than um having it be something that you know having me forward your uh uh excellent response to Danielle to you know the seven people who've asked me about um I just think I think there's some real value in the city having some transparency, even if all you you know, even if all we're saying is this is what's in force now.

Right.

Well, nothing is enforced.

I want to haven't been asked to enforce, nor could we enforce federal immigration laws.

I don't think I don't think the chief would want to put himself in that position.

If we had an immigrant commit a horrendous act and barry and we have them in jail, I want to feel comfortable that when they come, ICE is gonna hand up you're gonna hand them over to ICE.

That's at happen.

We can't enforce immigration.

If he doesn't no, if this but if he does a horrendous act and barry, murder.

Okay, we arrest them, he's in jail.

And ICE comes because they're federal, and they say, Well, he he's on the list.

We know what he did here.

Hand them over.

I mean, uh I don't want to be a I don't want to be sanctuary city.

That's for the civil.

Well, you know, council, there's a lot of I'm not putting it in the middle of the case.

There's a lot of hypotheticals.

The situation you just described is so far above my pay grade.

Well, that that agent on the on the uh I simply have to say I don't know.

He thought that too.

I don't know once you are charged with a crime on the state level, whether the feds can come and take jurisdiction.

Like I said, that is so far above my pay grade.

I don't know.

Um that's why I'm thinking this is getting out of hidden way.

So I don't know but I I have no objection to you know to issuing that statement as long as it's clear that um we're not taking a stand at all because we haven't been asked to, and if we were to assist in any way with civil immigration, we would find ourselves on the other side of Vermont statute.

And we would subject our chief and participating officers to arrest.

So that ain't gonna happen.

Yes.

I just want to sort of clarify the conversation.

Um as we've discussed, this simply describes the sort of state of current play.

Yeah, it does not commit us to any specific action in the future other than the very last thing saying that we are continuing to review and monitor.

Um and I think it's a perfectly fair thing to issue um on the city's website from the city, because there are a lot of questions and a lot of people are wondering things right now, and this is a very straightforward simple statement of this is how it works right now, folks.

This is you know, it may not work this way in the future.

There, you know, there are things that may happen in the future, but right now this is this is the sort of interlocking pieces of what is already happening in Barry City.

So it it it purely simply states what does that.

I I agree that we don't want to make any blanket statements about what might happen in the future at this point.

Um but I think this is a perfectly straightforward thing to put up on the city's website under announcements or something like that.

Yeah.

Um any uh objections, council?

Okay.

And uh we'll get why don't you make any edits that you care to make?

Would you that be okay with you?

And uh allow the manager and the chief latitude to make any edits that they wish to make and uh we'll get it pushed up on the webpage.

I've said draft because it okay.

Council Gustin, all yours.

Uh no, we have to do those.

Yeah, okay.

Mayor, we haven't done the warrants yet.

Oh, that's right too.

I'm happy to continue to wait only.

Okay.

Uh council uh we'll move on to the case.

We'll make a copy.

Okay, yeah, that'll get a copy of that.

I'll make a copy and get it out to you once.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks, Chief.

So next up are the warrants.

We will be approving the week of 2426.

Motion would be in order.

So move.

Thank you.

Second, please.

Second.

Moved and seconded.

Is there any discussion?

Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion is presented.

Please signify by saying aye.

And those opposed.

I'm obstacing.

Your abstention is noted.

Thank you very much.

Okay, council.

We're at the flood resiliency plan update.

Councilor Gustin.

Yes, installing while I get my packet up.

There we go.

Okay.

And I'm gonna stall for a few more minutes before the manager gets the presentation.

Presentation ready.

We are continuing our march through updates to the flood resiliency plan.

Um tonight we're going to uh and I want to be I want to clarify a couple of things about when we say we're going to talk about the North End Master Plan.

Um, first of all, this is not a true master plan.

A true master plan is a very complicated, very long thing.

Think of master plan as a sort of general aspirational idea.

What we and what we should discuss tonight is what we want in a statement of our hopes for the north end.

I think is to put it as broadly as possible.

This is not in the technical planning sense a true master plan.

Um we are using that just to sort of uh signify that we want to think big about the north end and that we want to put a lot of the ideas that we have been discussing um as a council for some time now that residents have shared with us at multiple opportunities that have made it into other pieces of the flood resiliency plan.

So um what we're looking at uh tonight is to sort of have a very broad brainstorming kind of conversation um about about what we might want that to look like and how we might um get there.

This will be uh a longer process, um, but we are sort of kicking off the idea of how do we gather what we've already done, how do we seek out what we still need to do with council.

Did I vamp enough?

I think you did it.

I think you covered all of it.

So uh I don't know what what else is it for me to say, but we'll go through it.

Um so this is uh just what does the plan say, which Councilor Gustin covered.

Um, you know, this the North End is uh the hardest, one of the hardest hit areas in both 23 and 24.

Um and so we were you know the the idea here was to look for resident-centered resident input plan um that would guide sort of the the vision for the for the area in the future.

Um and and here the the as Councillor Gustin mentioned the the idea tonight is to create a series of shared ideas um with consensus um focused on that neighborhood.

Um we've done quite a bit of north end engagement um since the 2023 flood.

Um we've and actually not just North End, but but just citywide as well.

Um we had the flood recovery town hall um at the Bear Opera House, the part of the bury up um process um with uh V C R D.

Um we had a ward-based neighborhood meetings.

Um we had a specific North end forum right before um we were uh working on the CDBGDR applications.

Um we um actually uh another this is a test thing, test ran a resident survey um for North End for for flood recovery citywide.

Um and that was we we brought you know we brought that that back to the council as well.

So that was a way for for residents to give us information who didn't want to attend meetings.

Um and we've we've had a couple of shots at some money um to implement versions of that vision, and and that vision has ranged from you know, there's been sort of many iterations of it so far.

It started um with the the governor's visit to the city council where he sort of laid out a plan.

Um, and you know, I think conceptually speaking, right now, not speaking to the details, but the his the governor's plan specific you know conceptually talked about floodplain restoration through buyouts and dense housing, right?

And so while people could disagree specifically about where the dense housing was or or was not, um I think generally speaking, those two concepts made sense, right?

That we we we want to build floodplain there and we want to add housing and preserve housing.

Um we've had a couple of shots to do that.

One was through the EPA communities change grant, um, one was through CDBGDR round one, and now we're going through round two.

Um we haven't been successful.

Um, and and as I mentioned earlier today, round two just got a little bit tougher.

Um, but this is that that's been part of the challenge in this neighborhood, which is that part of that vision was hamstrung really by by some of the rules around federal money, and that's exhibit one was FEMA, which um really precluded us from from advancing any buyouts because it wouldn't have allowed for that second plank of the the broader vision of dense urban housing, right?

We would have given up all that land.

So had a couple of shots at it.

We've we've certainly talked a lot about about what uh good what a good vision might be.

Um the other piece, sort of to supplement what Councillor Gustin said is that there's a lot to build on.

Um and this is actually this index here actually builds on something that uh I know Councilor Gusin and the mayor and maybe somebody else on the council worked on tests, the um long-term redevelopment uh plan that was done for the CDBGDR round one application.

So I took this index directly from that because they did a good job of sort of compiling all these um these plans that exist today that we we wouldn't have to sort of um start from scratch.

Uh and I would argue we we would want to make sure are aligned, right?

So um anything that that sort of comes out of this process um would really be building on a lot of great work that's already um taken place.

Um and then yeah, just in terms of proposed next steps, um, you know, certainly uh even though we've done engagement, it's always good to have a pulse on what people um are thinking in the moment, those those visions and and goals can change.

Um certainly they might change, frankly, if we're not successful in round two, right?

That would be another opportunity, unfortunately, if we had it to get a sense of the community, because then we would have had um had a couple of of shots at money without success, and then we really need to maybe uh pivot at that point.

Um, as I mentioned earlier, reviewing existing plans, there's a lot to build off of.

We want to not only do we not only is there a lot of material already, but we want to make sure that it's aligned with with other plans that we have.

Um, and and then you know, uh agreeing to a sort of a general process for how we might get to a final document, right?

Is it is it surveys?

Is it you know what kind of engagement here at the council level?

Um, and and what does that, you know, forums after the fact, uh forums for people to react to documents.

So um just really open-ended tonight.

Uh, this is this had been a part of the plan that we hadn't really put a lot of uh meat on the bones for.

Um, so curious to to hear um what um what a good way to get to this this next step might be.

I would just add two.

Um the it doesn't have to be a standalone document as the as the manager just listed.

We have a lot of plans.

Yeah, we have a lot of studies.

It could be uh a new appendix to the redevelopment plan.

It could be a new appendix to the flood resiliency plan.

What what we're the what the goal, I think the hope for putting this in the flood plan was was to have one central place where we pull together a lot of the the hopes and dreams and ideas and brainstorming that we have done about the north end and sort of put it all together so that when we are looking at future grant opportunities beyond the CDBGDR, the next hazard mitigation, we can go back and say, here's our list for the north end, here's our wish list for the north end, it's in one place, we've all come together on it instead of sort of just sharing this nebulous vision, which I think is where we've been so far, which has been going okay so far, but we're at the point where we need to get it a little bit more together.

So that was it.

I think that was it.

So yeah.

And also, you know, what can we do now?

I mean, obviously we are going to be dependent on grant funds just because to move significantly forward.

Um but you know, there are things we can do now.

I mean, there are areas of the north end where there's still flood debris.

It's still there.

So, you know, there are other things that we can do as a city, you know, as a neighborhood, um, to at least make things better uh in the short term.

It may not, we may not have the money as a city to build housing on our own.

But we certainly have resources, we have trucks, so you know, again, we have to be careful about using the human resources that we have.

But we could have a green up day where we tell everybody, look, we want everybody on the north end.

We appreciate that you green up our city probably every week, but this particular weekend, we want you on the north end, we want the north end to look absolutely as good as it can possibly look.

And the city could provide some resources.

Um and then going forward, let's face it, we react to the to the grants that are out there.

Um, you know, we all know, and I'm sure the neighborhood knows, well, we certainly know what the priorities are.

The priorities there are housing and recovery.

But without grant funds, but if grant funds come along and they say, well, uh, you know, we're just doing the creation of green space.

Uh, we're not doing housing yet.

Well, then we may have to flip-flop a little bit and create some green space, waiting for the housing funds to materialize.

So uh, but I uh I I like what you suggested here, uh counselor.

Um I think we should absolutely do that.

But like you said, it doesn't have to be a big, we have a lot of plans.

But it at least, I mean, it could just be a brief statement to say this is what we're going to do in the short term with the resources that we do have.

We're gonna direct some of those resources in in this way towards the north end.

And we're gonna make sure that we're talking about the north end, and we're talking about activities in the north end, and we're doing that at least once a week at a council level.

So, like the flood mitigation plan, we don't let this fall off our, you know, we don't let this fall off our radar.

And then again, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but as far as the rest of it goes, we are at the mercy of available federal and state funding.

And anytime I use the word federal funding these days, uh, it doesn't give me a good feeling.

Yes.

Um, two things.

I wonder, um, I know we took we it says in here proposed next steps, develop a public engagement process to identify resident priorities.

I went on the walk with uh friends of the Winooski last year, and I uh was talking to a woman, and she said there's still you know uh a really big pile of dirt still in my on my street, and I wonder if there are other things like that that we could, you know, work, you know, after the winter to clean up and take care of for people, or if there's like bulky trash day for north end residents because they just keep like cleaning things out and needing uh a special uh event for them to be able to get rid of their stuff.

I I'm just spit on here.

I'm but that kind of stuff to help people who've been more impacted than others.

So absolutely.

It just time of year, plus the weather, it's kind of a little tough.

Yeah, no, I'm not suggesting.

That's why I'm looking forward for a lot of reasons.

That's why I'm looking forward to May.

Uh for a lot of reasons.

That's very optimistic.

Uh so well, so that we can, you know, once the snow clears, we can start and maybe one of our off Tuesdays.

Um, you know, one of us, I think I've how many of us?

Seven?

I have I got a vehicle we could probably squeeze seven in.

And seriously, yeah, in an on and off Tuesday, we we take a little ride around the north end, we stop, we get out, we walk the street a little bit, talk to residents, and and quite frankly, look for those piles of trash or piles of dirt to say, you know what, if we each call two or three of our friends, we could have this done on a Saturday morning.

Not a big deal.

So Jeff and I and uh Johnny Badeau did that when we were campaigning.

We went around and uh Johnny's would do it again, and I have a truck uh Ruthers, and um, you know, it's kind of funny because we I think when we only have one person actually come out and thank us.

But uh there's plenty of of that to work with.

Yeah, and that'd be a good start.

And I'm sure Johnny would be more than happy to uh because he has that big trailer that goes behind his truck.

You know, it's one thing about Barry, one thing that's always made me proud, it's never hard to get volunteers in Barry.

Right, you know, I mean, you don't always get 50, but it's not hard to get 10 or 12.

Really, all you have to do is ask.

Yes.

Well, and I may I I think green up cleanup is one piece, but I think there might be like a true green up.

Like, is there some like landscaping help that we can provide?

Because some of the some of the what we're seeing is flood debris is just lawns that have been scoured and haven't been replanted, or um, landscape pieces that just haven't been I know I I still drive down Berlin Street in that central place.

It's so hard to get all the silts out of that.

Like, can we like get the silts out of that kind of um getting it out, but also re-greening it and reaching out to some of our folks who like you don't want me on the front lines of that, but I will haul mud anywhere.

Um there we go, great.

I I only just added my first house plant.

So um it's I can help you with that.

I'm hanging in there with it.

Uh but we can go and and offer that kind of help.

And for some people it may be a really daunting task to reseed their lawn, but a couple of people could do it on a Saturday afternoon.

That there could be that kind of immediate work, but I appreciate the characterization of what's short-term versus what's long term and waiting for grant opportunities.

I think that's a useful split.

Just to show that we're coming together, not because someone's from ward three, someone's from ward one.

No, we're coming together as a city counselors to help.

Because if something happened to one of the other wards, I mean, you know, we'd I'd be more than happy to help out in that ward.

So I think that will show Barry needs to come together and North End is taking it.

I grew up there, and I mean it was all rough and tough, but it's taking it pretty hard.

Yes.

If I may sort of, as I've been listening and when we've been talking and thinking about other, I've been thinking of sort of three buckets of of longer term work.

I think there's a lot of short-term work, and if you have any ideas, I'd be happy to start collecting them and putting them together on a on a list.

But we're thinking about in three big buckets, infrastructure, which is some of the projects we've already talked about, the Willie Street Bridge, the Harrington Ave Trash Rack, and a couple of other things.

Housing, um, which encompasses both housing repair elevation and also what we talked about, which is the higher density rebuilding of housing.

And then the third is green space, which functions both as community space and functions as floodplain.

So those to me, those have been the three buckets as we've been thinking and talking specifically about the north end that if we can get the balance and the um the work in those right will make a significant investment.

We have been trying to do them in in big pieces.

Um I've been we're not using the word discouraged, but I've been a little frustrated with the ways that we have because um I noticed we also applied to hazard mitigation grants for the North End.

Um we've been continually declined for funding for North End.

And it's been frustrating that one of our you know, oldest and and most close-knit neighborhoods is sort of people don't want to people don't want to help it out.

There doesn't seem to be the funding to want to help it out.

I will just say that.

Um I think the more that we frankly, the more that we talk about it as a council, and the more that we keep making that argument, the better as well.

So anyway, that kind of meandered and I apologize.

But those are the three buckets I was thinking about.

And I I guess what I'm trying to say is I think there also has to be an advocacy piece for this, in which we have to keep saying to funders, you can't just say build greenfield new housing.

I get it, that is crucial and important, and we are pursuing that with all of our might as well, but we have to be able to help people stay in the neighborhoods in which they are and stay in the in the parts of the city where they are because otherwise where where are we even going?

Especially when Bernie Sanders sits on a porch in a north end promises that helps come in.

I had that conversation.

Yeah.

Uh anything else, council.

Okay, under upcoming business, uh, we've got some items coming up on the agenda that individual counselors had requested.

Um I gotta tell you, in February for me, it's uh between tax season, the legislature and and the city council, it's about all I can do to keep up.

Um, you know, like I said, we're you know, believe it or not, we're in February already.

I mean, January just went by in a blank, and soon we're gonna be a crossover day.

And yeah, really, counselor.

Uh and uh things happen quickly.

I I feel good about you know uh the legislative wants that we expressed uh to our lobbyists.

I feel I feel good about the direction the state is moving in with regard to that.

Like I said, I I I feel good about the state um funding Tesla's position.

Um because it and obviously though, you know, we have to share.

So we're gonna have to give something up, I suspect, to get that position funded, but I think I'm okay with that because anytime I get the opportunity to work with people in other municipalities, even though they may call me and say, hey Tom, can you come over and help me out with this?

I always bring something back.

I always learn something myself.

So um and plus it's the neighborly thing to do.

So um other than that, Councilman, if there's anything specific you'd like to see on the agenda, let me know.

Yes.

I have a couple things.

Um I wonder because we didn't have as uh many people respond to the survey.

Would it be helpful to have ward meetings?

Hey, funny you should ask.

Uh Counselor Bergeron and I, this is a useful moment to announce, are gonna have award meeting at the Aldrich Library on Saturday for award two residents who want to talk to us about the budget.

So we're gonna put that on forge forum and everything like that.

Council Berjon has been very patient with my schedule.

Can I digress for a moment?

What do you all make of that?

Of the like apathy.

I mean, I I was really surprised.

Oh, yeah, it's just a lot of sort of a just um are people disengaging?

Are they it really it really puzzled me because I thought, you know, we had advertised it.

We did it, we had three hundred and change last year, and we didn't even hit two.

I agree.

It's I just don't, you know, and I don't know.

I mean, in a way, and the reason I wonder, it's like, okay, do we need to work harder engaging people because are people getting are people getting frustrated, are people getting scared, or people getting to the point where they're just like, you know, I don't have any worry about their oil.

I'll add just a little more nuance to it, because I did look at the I I've started to compile the budget survey results, and 75% of respondents said that the quantity and quality of communication is good.

So it's it's I don't know.

I don't know what that is.

Stop selecting green.

Self-selecting groups are an answer, but um, and I don't think it's that people are like, oh no, these guys are doing a great job.

Everything's awesome.

Well, maybe it is.

What roads are you driving on?

Sorry.

Oh, I think a lot of it is that people are very busy and people are also very active on social media.

And I'm thankfully haven't been on social media in about six months.

Um, but I do hear a lot from folks um that they complain a lot on social media um and not necessarily in the right mediums.

Um and they feel that once they get that off their chest, um, then it's all well and good until something else arises.

Um and a lot of the folks they're not thinking budget.

I mean, they're thinking about paving, thinking about potholes.

Their oil tank.

But people are so busy trying to just put food on the table, trying to heat their houses, deal with their families, um, that it's difficult in order to coax them to do a survey, um, unless we're at their door saying, hey, do you want to do this?

And even then, they're probably busy trying to feed their family, or maybe you do it at the ward meetings.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah.

You can ask the questions that we were sort of asking.

Or hand it out when you get in there and say, okay, while we're here talking, would you need to plan to do it on your phone?

So if they were at a meeting and you just said, look, you know, surprise, I am gonna listen to you in a minute, but first we're gonna go through the budget survey.

Everyone pull out their phones, go to this link.

You know, I I I really don't know.

Like I said, it's like what like because I personally I think our I think the level of communication, the the frequency, the quality of it.

I think you know, I think honestly that we've raised that bar.

I think the regroup program has been fabulous, and I think we've actually you know, we've raised the bar.

I mean, we communicate through so many different forms of media.

I think when you think about the ward meeting that we had, um we I think there's a different group of people who will come to a ward meeting that might not do a survey.

So you might just get some different things.

No, I hey listen, I I would prefer to sit in front of someone and answer their questions than um, you know, then feel like I'm just pushing stuff out to them.

Um yeah, yes.

So with that, I know you just said it's closed.

Um can you uh maybe as a preface to asking my question, can you remind us why we picked the closing date we did and like what that would upset the avocate board?

Um it was to it was to make sure that we had enough time from when it closed to the next meeting to compile all the the results and the answers.

It's it's a very um it basically spits out a very unusable spreadsheet that we have to then sort and and categorize.

So it was just to give enough time to make sure that we could present the results by February um 10th.

Are we still committed to presenting the results on February 10th?

We can certainly delay it.

That'd be that'd be fine.

Um I mean I I have I I think I'll I'll I'm I'm close to to compiling much much of the data.

So I could certainly present a preliminary and we could reopen it.

That would be another option.

How much more work is that?

Yeah.

I mean, we well, you're gonna be um you know, you'll be on leave at a certain point.

And you know, and again, I love getting the communication, but I also believe that okay, when you need to respect it when someone is on leave, and I'm not going to say to Nicholas, well, get up earlier, you know, get up at five every morning for the next you know, for the first week of of your leave when you're you're trying to spend time with family and compile these numbers.

You know, again, I'm not we did a great job communicating it.

Um I'm not I I I wouldn't be I I wish people had just gotten it right the first time.

But you could just ask the questions.

Yeah, and that's that's kind of what I'm I'm either I'm thinking sort of two simultaneous things.

One is that what Jeff and I talked about is just asking, like just asking the questions in the meeting, but also I am wondering about the increased workload of possibly doing a separate parallel exactly the same survey that it's just the ward meetings.

That wouldn't interrupt the numbers gathering you've already done and would just be an ad to I wonder if like truly just hitting duplicate on the survey and then giving us a link that's if other counselors wanted to do ward meetings as well, we could gather, and then you have an in-person data set that is just parallel.

Oh, that that's that might not increase the workload, but might get it some of the same.

And what tell me again, yeah, when was your ward meeting?

Saturday at 1 p.m.

at the Aldrich Library.

Kill two birds.

Yeah, there you go.

Well, actually we were gonna do it, we had to reschedule because there was a genealogy program in the morning.

So Ruth here, round table.

Oh, I'm all set up tonight.

I uh won't be here next week.

I was supposed to be in Florida right now, but I postponed it to next Wednesday.

Oh, actually, I will be here.

So uh I retract that statement, I really well.

You can all you ever heard of Zoom?

I don't know.

It works, I like it.

It works in all 50 states, it's awesome.

We've councillor spawning.

I have not I have an engine.

Councilor Burger on.

I attended a meeting with the Barry basketball tournament committee last week.

Um Nick Copping and Keith Cushman came in.

Nick's working on a program that started in Massachusetts after the nightclub fire.

So people that are volunteering to work the tournament games are going to be taught crowd management.

Um he's using the basketball tournament as kind of a model, and then he's gonna reach out to other big events that rent the auditorium or the BOR and get you know volunteers from those groups to take this course, too.

So he's next doing a good job.

He's doing a excellent great job.

Councilor Gustin.

Uh I just want to briefly speak to the um how awesome neighbors are.

My furnace spent all last week trying to die while I was a thousand miles away.

Uh, and my amazing next door neighbor was on the phone with me constantly and going into my house and rebooting it and all rewiring my thermostat, which failed.

And anyway, it was an odyssey, but I am grateful that there are good people in Barrie City.

There definitely are.

Council Hill Gartner.

Um, I know we've talked a lot about the um warming um center at the overnight warm warming center, but I just want to um I had a Ernie and I took a shift.

We took one of the 11 o'clock to 3 a.m.

shift one time last week.

Um, and I just want to say it's really it's really wonderful to be able to help people out.

We're doing another one um that same 11 p.m.

to 3 a.m.

because it's not a very popular shift.

Um we're doing that also on Sunday.

But that you know, they've been running um end to end for a long time.

And so if you can help, I really do strongly recommend it.

Um it's it's pretty uplifting.

Thank you.

Councilor Deering.

Uh as you all should see in front of you.

I've uh dropped you two invitations from uh our Barry School system.

Uh the first one is our second annual BCEMS talent show.

That's gonna be on Thursday.

Last year, Adam Jacobs was running that.

Um this year, uh Garrett uh has taken that over.

Uh and then they're gonna be raising funds to support the school field trips fund and also the people's wealth and hellness uh health and wellness clinic.

Um so that should be a really amazing time.

That's on Thursday at 5 30 at Barrie City School.

Um, and then there's also the annual Bear Unified Union Art Show.

Um, that's gonna be February 17th is the opening reception that you're all invited to.

Uh it's 5 30 to 6 30.

Uh really encourage you all to go and check that stuff out.

Um so with that, I will pass.

Point out to Council Ruth here that it'll be at the Aldrich Public Library.

Thank you very much.

Your silent auction, do you've are you done?

I I'd uh donate a quick boob or something for stop by I'll talk to you about it tomorrow and we'll link up with BTO for about that.

And just to follow up on Councillor Hillgartner's remarks, there are a lot of ways you can you don't even have to be there physically.

There are 15 people who need to be uh fed, you know, different meals, different times.

So even if you're not able to be there physically and you can help feed uh 15 people, um, that's certainly appreciated as well.

Uh so with that council, uh oh, and lastly, I'll be meeting with uh uh the executive director of youth bills.

Uh so I'm gonna pitch a couple of ideas I have for the north end to him and see if maybe they could participate in that as well.

So with that, council, a motion.

Do you need a notion to adjourn would be in order?

So thank you.

All those in favor say aye.

We're all ready to go.

I suppose we are thank you tonight.

Oh, it's