Calendar of Upcoming Civic Engagement Opportunities
Feb 27 Unwittingly Homeless
6:30 PM Hayes Room, Kellogg Hubbard Library (KHL), Montpelier
The in-person session will be live-streamed by ORCA and recorded for later viewing.
This is the second presentation/discussion on homelessness being held at KHL this year, both with the support of the Montpelier Homelessness Task Force. Colby Lynch will describe how her life has changed, moving from a relatively comfortable, small-town life as a caregiver to becoming unhoused and living in a motel unit in Barre-Montpelier. Matt Vernon Whalan, a journalist who has spent years befriending and writing about unhoused people in Brattleboro, will share experiences from his work. It is hoped that by listening to these two presentations, residents of Montpelier will come to understand that every person who has become unhoused has their own unique story. What they all have in common is that they do not have housing and at present there is little hope of obtaining it.
Feb 27 Candidates Forums (sponsored by the Rotary Club)
12:30-2 PM Mayoral candidates
3 PM City Council candidates
City Hall (City Council Chambers) and live on ORCA Media.
Both events will be moderated by Cassandra Hemenway, Managing Editor of The Bridge.
(See The Bridge: Montpelier Rotary and the Bridge Present Candidate Forums Feb. 27)
Please note that write-in candidate Zack Hughes will also participate in this City Council forum. (See Commentary on Elections, below.)
March 1 Homelessness Task Force Meeting
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM City Manger’s Conference Room and Virtual Meeting via Zoom.
Join Zoom Meeting [Agenda and Zoom Invitation link not yet posted but should be available by 11:30 AM 2/27/23 here.]
Mayoral candidate Richard Sheir has formally requested that he be put on the agenda for this meeting.(See below FLASH: Richard Sheir in his Own Words on People Who are Homeless in Montpelier)
Ending March 3 Winter 2023 Country Club Road Site Survey
Reminder: Based on the community's input this fall, White + Burke, the city’s consultants for the Country Club Riad Site project, developed 3 test sketches showing a broad spectrum of possibilities for the two most community-identified uses: housing and recreation. This is an early opportunity for Montpelier residents to weigh in on how they think the City should create an optimized development plan that addresses these two community-identified primary priorities, as well as other priorities that have been identified such as natural resource preservation and outdoor winter recreation like cross-country skiing and sledding. https://polco.us/n/res/vote/montpelier-vt/winter-2023-country-club?
(See Commentary on Housing Development and Public Engagement, below)
Ending March 7 Early Voting
Reminder: For this year’s Town Meeting election, people wishing to vote early must request early voting/absentee ballots; they will not be sent out automatically, as has been the case since the pandemic began. Voters may obtain early voting/absentee ballots in any one of three ways: go to City Hall in person and get one; call the City Clerk’s office and request that they be sent one; or make that request on the following linked early/absentee ballot request form.
(See Commentary on Elections, below.)
March 9 Vermont College of Fine Arts Community Meeting
7PM at the VCFA College Hall Chapel (36 College St.)
(See Commentary on Housing Development and Public Engagement, below)
March 13 Public Hearing on Proposed 102-110 Northfield St. Project by Central Vermont Habitat for Humanity (CVHFH)
5:30PM Montpelier City Hall, Memorial Room
In-person only; no video recording will be made. Anyone needing special accommodations should contact Zachariah Watson, Executive Director, Central VT Habitat for Humanity zach@centralvermonthabitat.org.
CVHFH is hosting a public hearing to provide community members the opportunity to review and comment on the results of the feasibility study that was conducted for a Carbon Negative Affordable Housing Development to be located at 102-110 Northfield St. in Montpelier. They will review the concept design plans and results from the feasibility study as well as the cost estimate for the proposed project. They will also discuss possible next steps.You can see the official public notice on page 18 of the Feb. 22nd edition of the Montpelier Bridge here.
(See Commentary on Housing Development and Public Engagement, below)
Commentary: Housing Development and Public Engagement
PEN Issue #4 included the following FLASH news:
The Vermont College of Fine Arts has announced that it is withdrawing its Campus Master Plan/PUD application “after careful and deliberate consideration of community feedback.” They have stated further that “although the college is withdrawing from the DRB process, our goal is not to end the conversations with the community about our future plans.
To that end, VCFA will be holding an open community meeting at VCFA with the team that plans to purchase three of the campus buildings to begin that dialogue and provide Montpelier residents with the concrete information they need to help them share our excitement for the future of the campus.”
We appended this comment:
PEN applauds the decision of the VCFA Administration to withdraw its application to the Development Review Board (DRB) and instead engage directly with the community outside of the narrow legalistic confines of the City’s development review process. It is hoped that all parties will work together in good faith with the goal of achieving a win-win-win-win for the entire Montpelier community, for the College, for its current neighbors on College Hill, and for future neighbors who will be purchasing buildings on the campus.
(See latest article in The Bridge: Three VCFA Buildings Have a Buyer/College Withdraws DRB Application.)
Subsequently we received the following query from a PEN subscriber:
“Why does PEN support the withdrawal of the VCFA Master Plan? As I see it this is a loss for housing advocates. Housing will remain a conditional use subject to the whims of the neighborhood.”
We at PEN understand this concern about what many call NIMBYism (Not in My Back Yard), just as we understand the concern of community members that without “conditional uses,” housing and other property development may be subject exclusively to the business priorities of developers and property owners.
This is why PEN strongly encourages developers and property owners to meet early and often with neighbors (not just abutters) and the community at large to share their goals for a proposed development, to listen to the concerns raised by community members, to seek resolutions that will be win-wins; and to do so well before entering into any of the required permitting steps:
the Sketch Review, which the Zoning Administrator refers to as “informal” although it is anything but informal
the Final Application, which may or may not involve a Development Review Board (DRB) public hearing, as staff often may rule on permitted uses without having a public hearing before the DRB.
Appeals, which needless to say feature lawyers and can get ugly pretty quickly
Montpelier currently has a couple of excellent examples of where developers and property owners have elected to engage the public long before the required formal, often byzantine permitting steps above:
the public engagement effort regarding the Country Club Road Site, being led by White + Burke, the City’s consultants on the project. [See above Calendar: Winter 2023 Country Club Road Site Survey]
the multi-step public engagement effort being carried out by Central Vermont Habitat for Humanity for their proposed Northfield St. project. [See above Calendar: Public Hearing on Proposed 102-110 Northfield St. Project by Central Vermont Habitat for Humanity (CVHFH)]
It is to be regretted that the City government does not appear to encourage developers and property owners to make such public engagement efforts early and often. In fact, the previous Montpelier Community Development Specialist actively discouraged such efforts, claiming that the primary barrier to housing development in Montpelier was NIMBYism, a view that still seems to be held by others in City government who persistently cite “community interference” as a principal reason why developers aren’t much interested in Montpelier for their projects.
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Commentary: Elections
“A well-informed electorate is a prerequisite to a democracy.”
Thomas Jefferson didn’t write these exact words, as is often claimed, but they absolutely represent his beliefs about Democracy and about the necessity of having an informed electorate. Uninformed or misinformed or disinformed electorates have always been the source of poor or corrupt governments, despotism, and worse.
Yet, it isn’t at all clear that most voters in local elections like the upcoming Town Meeting elections in Montpelier are well-informed. How many Montpelier voters, for example, understand most of the 19 articles they are being asked to vote upon? What do most voters know about the various candidates running for offices or even understand the responsibilities of these offices or what capabilities holders of these offices will need to perform effectively? And, finally, what can the city government and the local media do to help voters become better informed than they are? This is one of the key challenges PEN is seeking to address. (See PEN Issue #3, PEN Issue #4, and the following two items below.)
Zack Hughes, Write-in Candidate for City Council for District 3
Voters should be aware that Zack Hughes is running as a write-in candidate for City Council for District 3 even though for some unexplained reason he was not included in the Feb 24 City Council Candidates Forum.
The circumstances that led to Zack not being on the ballot are regrettable and they raise questions about whether aspects of our local elections system may inadvertently discriminate against and thus discourage participation by people with disabilities, lower-incomes, full-time jobs, families with young children, and under-represented groups in general. For example, are petition requirements to run for office even necessary? Are they well understood by all? Are they fair and equitable? Do they, for example, violate the rights of people with disabilities and, if so, what should be done to make sure this does not happen again?
Demystifying the Articles on the Ballot
As usual, a number of the Articles on this year’s Town Meeting elections ballot are written in ways that make them difficult for the average voter to understand, primarily Articles 5, 6, and 14-16. And, as usual, the Montpelier City Manager has attempted to explain these “Key Ballot Items” in the pre-election Issue of The Bridge (February 22-March 7 Issue A Message from City Hall: Annual Voting on March 7 and More).
Unfortunately, the explanations provided for Articles 5 & 6 are completely opaque. They do not tell voters why the Montpelier and Barre City Councils and the CVPSA Board are making these requests, so unless a voter was privy to the arcane discussions of this matter at various City Council meetings over the past couple of years, they would have no idea what this is all about or why they might vote for or against these two Articles.
Moreover, with respect to Article 14, even with wording improvements made by the City Council at my suggestion, without further explanation this article is likely to be misunderstood by many voters who, I predict, may very well vote it down because they have the impression that it would otherwise approve the expenditure of $600,000 (or possibly more) for a Confluence Park effort that they oppose at this time of critical infrastructure needs and rising taxes.
So, just to be absolutely clear: Articles 14-16 do not authorize any new funding; they simply reword funding Articles that the voters already approved (2022 Town Meeting elections). If any of these Articles are voted down, the authorization to borrow the sums passed in 2022 will still be in force.
Why, then are voters being asked to approve these reworded Articles? The explanations given by the City Manager for Articles 15 & 16 are perfectly understandable; by changing loan terms from 20 to 30 years, the city has been able to qualify for low-interest financing. However, the explanation for Article 14 that it “provides greater flexibility for the use of the funds within the listed projects” at the very least lacks transparency and for some may be a red flag due to their concerns about Confluence Park.
To address situations like this in the future, Council member Cary Brown has suggested that the city should avoid “packing” multiple unrelated items into a single bond Article, so that voters have the opportunity to separately approve or disapprove each of these large funding items. To be fair, it was the City Council, not the City Manager, who in the 2022 Town Meeting elections combined Confluence Park funding with infrastructure funding into a single $1.85 million bond Article.
Finally, at the City Council’s January 25 meeting at which they were being asked to approve the wording of the the Articles on the ballot, I made the following comments:
Let me say at the outset that I believe it is possible to write Articles on a ballot in language that is legally sound and yet understandable by the vast majority of the public aka: plain language. As examples of this, I would cite the four articles submitted by the Montpelier Roxbury School District: Articles 8,9,12, and 13, which I’d suggest be used as models for the City to use in the future.
Let me just add that lawyers are not known for writing in plain English, so that it is best practice for a municipality to have such Articles written for them by appropriate skilled communications specialists (who know how to write in plain language) and to then have them vetted by counsel to be sure they are legally sound.
Several Council members agreed with me that in future the language of ballot articles (and other government communications) should be made as clear and plain as possible within limits imposed by legally required language.
Councilor Dona Bate observed that prior to the pandemic written explanations of complicated ballot Articles have been posted at the polling place and this could be done for these three Articles. I reminded the City Council and City Clerk about this at the Council’s latest February 22 meeting, but it wasn’t clear that there were any plans to do so, and if so, who would write such explanations. I also suggested that in light of early voting, any such explanations should be posted in whatever media outlets the City Manager’s office uses to communicate with the wider public.
FLASH: Richard Sheir in his Own Words on People Who are Homeless in Montpelier
From Front Porch Forum issue 6782, Feb 24, 2023 Rethinking Failing Homeless Policies
I would ask readers of PEN: Is this the kind of person you’d really want to represent Montpelier as our Mayor?
Next Issue of PEN: The Challenges of Homelessness in Montpelier
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