FLASH: 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, we will be holding an open community meeting at VCFA on Thursday, March 2nd at 7pm with the team who plans to purchase 3 of our 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.”
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.
Calendar of Upcoming Civic Engagement Opportunities
Feb 15-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.
Feb 22 Montpelier Public Restroom Committee Meeting
10:30 AM - 11:30 AM City Manger’s Conference Room and Virtual Meeting via Zoom.
Join Zoom Meeting https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82017473407?pwd=ZzZwZlZKQVJwTHFrS0d5blh6K2dVQT09 Meeting ID: 820 1747 3407 Passcode: 787493 One tap mobile: (929)-205-6099
Feb 22 Montpelier Homelessness Taskforce Special Meeting
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM City Manger’s Conference Room and Virtual Meeting via Zoom.
Join Zoom Meeting https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86287812907?pwd=TERnRXE2VUxqNmZEOXJBY04ydzRzdz09 Meeting ID: 862 8781 2907 Passcode: 190220 One tap mobile: (929)-205-6099
Feb 22 City Council Meeting
6:30 PM at City Hall (City Council Chambers) and on Zoom
Agenda materials and Zoom information not yet posted, but City Manager’s annual performance review is on the agenda item and will likely be carried out in Executive Session. (See commentary below.)
Feb 23 Times-Argus City Council Candidates Forum
6:30-8 PM on Comcast Channel 1085, orcamedia.net, and ORCA Media’s YouTube Channel
Feb 27 Candidates Forums
12:30-2 PM Mayoral candidates (sponsored by the Rotary Club)
3 PM City Council candidates
Both events will be moderated by Cassandra Hemenway, Managing Editor of The Bridge and
will be held at City Hall (City Council Chambers) and on live on ORCA Media
Commentary: City Manager’s Annual Performance Review
At the Feb 8 City Council meeting, after City Council President Jack McCullough announced that the City Manager’s performance review would be delayed until the next City Council meeting (2/22), I suggested that it would be helpful to the public to understand the process by which the City Manager’s performance evaluation is carried out, especially since there is currently no sitting Mayor to oversee this process, as has generally been the practice.
Apparently, as a result of this suggestion, the Feb 10 Weekly Report from the City Manager’s Office provided a fairly detailed explanation of that process, including the following:
City Manager’s Annual Review update: Reminder that the Council needs to conduct the Manager’s annual review in February. Please return your completed evaluation forms to Council President McCullough. This discussion has been moved to February 22nd. In response to questions about process, the City Council as a whole conducts the evaluation. The Mayor is a member of the Council so it makes no difference whether there is a sitting Mayor at this time. The Council has developed an evaluation questionnaire which was originally based on recommendations from the International City/County Managers Association (ICMA) and has been adjusted over the years for local use. A copy of the form is attached. Each Council member fills out the form and submits it to the Mayor or Council President. The City Manager submits a self review. The Mayor or Council President compiles the responses and shares the compilation with the full Council and Manager. In addition, the Council reviews the progress on their adopted Strategic Plan. All meet together to discuss the results of the questionnaire and to address any issues related to the Manager’s individual performance and the performance of the City government as a whole. As a requirement of the Manager’s professional credential, a 360 review must be conducted periodically. Those results are also shared with the Council.
While, the above public notice regarding the City Manager’s performance review is certainly a positive step toward greater transparency, it is doubtful that inclusion in the City Manager’s Weekly Report is a particularly effective way to make this information available to much of the public, especially less than 10 days before the evaluation is to take place.
Also, please note that this notice does not make clear whether or not members of the public are encouraged or even permitted to provide comments on the City Manager’s performance. It does, however, include two ambiguous sentences (which I have bold faced above), that may or may not imply that such public involvement is possible, depending on who is being asked to return evaluation forms---- City Council members or members of the general public?
And, if the general public is indeed permitted to submit evaluation forms for the City Manager’’s performance evaluation then how does one obtain them, as there does not seem to be a link to this form in the Weekly Report, despite the mention of a form being attached.
City Council Candidates
This year, there are only two City Council seats being contested:
District 2: Sal Alfano v. Merrick Modun for a 1-year term to complete Conor Casey’s 2-year term.
District 3 Timothy Heney v. Thomas M. Abdelnour for a 2-year term replacing Jennifer Morton who chose not to run for re-election after serving for a year and a half.
Where to find information about these City Council candidates
As of 2/17/23, the City Voter Guide contains candidate statements submitted for posting by three of the above four candidates for City Council.
Further information about all four candidates may be found in an article in the most recent print issue (Feb 8-21) of The Bridge and its online version: New Faces Guaranteed In Next City Council
Other opportunities to learn about these City Council candidates are the (poorly advertised) February 23 Times-Argus Candidates Forum and the February 27 City Council Candidate Forum to be moderated by Cassandra Hemenway, Managing Editor of The Bridge. (For details on both see calendar above.)
This year, two of the candidates for City Council are unopposed: Lauren Hierl who is running to be re-elected to a third 2-year term in District 1 and Pelin Kohn who in December was appointed by the City Council to serve as a District 2 Council member until Town Meeting Day (due to Conor Casey’s resignation to serve in the Vermont House) and is now running for the two-year term in District 2 that Jack McCullough has held for almost 5 years (but is now instead running for Mayor.)
Taking a Closer Look at City Council Elections
The above sources of information are fewer than in many past Town Meeting elections, partially because Richard Sheir will obviously not be doing his usual ORCA interviews of candidates since he is one of the candidates (for Mayor), but there are likely some other important factors for the dearth of information about candidates over the past several years, including the impact of the pandemic on door-to-door campaigning; and the lack of live-candidate forums like those that used to occur at the Montpelier Senior Activity Center (MSAC).
This paucity of candidate information is why last year (2022), when District 3 had four candidates running for two City Council seats, a small group of residents of District 2 partnered with the staff of Capital Area Neighborhoods (CAN) to hold a rather successful Zoom-based candidate forum, moderated by Tom McKone, retired Kellogg-Hubbard Head Librarian and now a writer for The Bridge. The goal had been to use learnings from this helpful candidate forum to do similar forums this year (2023) in districts where seats were being contested. Alas, CAN is no more, but that’s another story that PEN will address when there are less pressing Public Engagement issues before us.
Even more concerning than the relative lack of information about the candidates for City Council is that many voters don’t appear to understand Montpelier’s City Council-City Manager-Weak Mayor structure or the important role that the City Council is meant to play in this arrangement. Here are the bare facts about the City Council, as laid out on the City website:
The City Council is comprised of 6 councilors and the Mayor. The councilors represent the 3 electoral districts in the city and are elected for 2-year terms. The Mayor is elected by the entire city also for a term of 2 years. Elections for these seats occur during town meeting day which is the first Tuesday in March. The City Council is the legislative body of the community responsible for developing policies and ordinances that preserve and protect the health, safety, and welfare of all our residents.
And here is the far more detailed facts about the City Manager, as stated on the City website:
The City Manager is the chief administrative officer of the City. Appointed by the City Council, the City Manager is responsible for day-to-day operations of the city, advising the Council on public policy, and ensuring that their policies are carried out in a professional manner. The City Manager is responsible to the City Council for the administration of the affairs of the City including:
1) Ensures that all laws and ordinances are enforced
2) Exercises administrative control over all departments
3) Makes staff appointments and removals
4) Prepares the annual fiscal budgets submitted to the City Council for review and adoption prior to the annual meeting
5) Attends meetings of the City Council, takes part in the discussion, provides requested and relevant data, and makes recommendations for the determination of policy as the City Manager may deem expedient
6) Acts as purchasing agent for all City departments, except schools;
7) Set salaries and wages of all employees under the City Manager’s jurisdiction in accordance with fiscal budgets and personnel policies
8) Administers the personnel policies, job classifications, and pay plan and take final action on all personnel issues for positions under the Manager’s administrative control
9) Delegates responsibility for administrative duties to department heads and subordinate officers
10) Perform such other duties as may be prescribed by the Charter or required by the City Council.
In short, the City Manager runs the City. While it is true that the City Council sets policy and that technically the City Manager reports to them, in reality a City Manager who has been in that office for more than 25 years and during that time has trained dozens of new City Council members is rarely held accountable by that ever-changing body of ordinary residents. And although over these past 25 years, there have been occasions when more than one City Council member (including even a Mayor) have pushed back on something the City Manager has said or done, these occasions have been few and far between over the past five years.
So, this year as you consider candidates for City Council (and Mayor), we would urge you to assess (perhaps even ask them) whether they would be willing and able to press the City Manager with the tough questions that need to be addressed and to hold him accountable for results or the lack thereof from the various city departments that report to him (not to the Mayor or the City Council.)
Just to be clear, this is not meant to be a criticism of any individual, but rather as a plea for greater accountability and transparency in the way our City Council-City Manager-Weak Mayor governmental structure operates..
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