Montpelier PEN: Issue #9 Review of the 3/22/23 City Council Meeting

Calendar of Upcoming Civic Engagement Opportunities

March 27 Planning Commission Meeting

5:30 PM Location: City Hall Council Chambers and Zoom

Join Zoom Meeting https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81634594707?pwd=dDJHZ3JRZ0xac2w5cWttVW1uTzhKdz09 Meeting ID: 816 3459 4707 Passcode: 037889

Phone in: +13126266799,,81634594707#,,,,*037889#

March 27 Social and Economic Justice (SEJAC) Meeting

8:00 AM - 9:00 AM Virtual meeting only

Join Zoom Meeting:: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89181167348?pwd=RjR1d2ZZR2FvOXJMa3JqV044eDkrdz09 Meeting ID: 891 8116 7348 Passcode: 592875

One tap mobile +16469313860,,89181167348# US or 19292056099,,89181167348# US (New York)

March 29 Homelessness Task Force

11:30 AM 

 Location: City Hall Council Chambers and Zoom

Join Zoom Meeting: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83840372000?pwd=S1FOR2N3MWVSbjVheVRsTzVxYU1IZz09 Meeting ID: 838 4037 2000 Passcode: 602528 

One tap mobile +16469313860,,83840372000# US or +19292056099,,83840372000# US (New York)

The 3/22/23 City Council Meeting

For those of you who missed the heavily attended 3/22/23 City Council meeting, here’s the Times Argus  article about it. 

Editor’s note: I will be away grandparenting until April 5, so may be unable to provide much in-depth analysis of events. I will, however, make a few quick comments about the 3/22/23 City Council Meeting.

1. Country Club Road Site: I continue to be impressed by the Public Engagement process being led by White + Burke, the City’s consultants on planning for the Country Club Road Site. They appear to me to be very accurately reflecting and attempting to balance the range and extent of the views of those members of the public who have attended their well-publicized meetings and filled out the rather daunting online survey.

 I hope that a broader range of the public will become more involved in the Spring stage of this planning process.

2. The Parker Advisors Report on Homelessness in Montpelier: In October when this effort was launched, I had high hopes for it and, as a member of the MHTF, I have often shared my comments and detailed suggestions to the Parker Advisors team, including when I reviewed and made substantive and detailed editorial comments on drafts shared with MHTF members over the two weeks preceding its submission. 

Overall, I believe that the 3 major initiatives proposed in this study would, if well-implemented, go a long way toward addressing the needs and challenges faced by perhaps 95% of the people in our area currently facing housing insecurity, primarily those who the report refers to as being episodically or acutely unhoused.

However, I continue to be concerned that these three almost self-evident initiatives will only succeed if they are actionable---which is to say that they are well-designed, adequately funded, and appropriately staffed and managed. 

• Yes, of course we need a city housing plan that prioritizes low-income housing; and Yes, the most logical entity to address this would be the Planning and Community Development Dept, but after a decade of obvious housing shortages at all levels, why hasn’t that department created such a plan already? And how will they ensure that it will be implemented in ways that will prioritize subsidized and other low-income housing? [Bill Fraser mentioned that the Department is, in fact, working on such a plan and expects it to be completed by July.]

• Yes, we need a centralized downtown Services Hub for people facing housing insecurity, something that has been obvious to most of us for several years, but has been stymied by an inability to answer the questions: how is this to be funded, staffed, managed and where located? I would ask how well has this report addressed these important questions in light of the fact, acknowledged by all, that come next winter neither the religious community nor Another Way are prepared to once again, respectively host and staff an Overnight Overflow Shelter for what is sure to be at least triple the number of homeless individuals as this past year?

• Yes, we need a systematic and sustained effort to destigmatize homelessness in our community, but the report’s suggestion that this could be coordinated by the Montpelier Homelessness Task Force (MHTF) is, frankly, unrealistic, at least as long as the majority of its members are already working in the trenches far beyond the call of duty and have no time or energy (or the right skillset) to coordinate such an ambitious effort. 

Moreover, I am concerned that there is little in this report that addresses the very people who present the greatest and most visible challenge to social service providers, our city government, city residents and themselves; these are individuals who are chronically unhoused and tend to suffer from one or more debilitating conditions like substance abuse disorders, physical and mental illnesses, PTSD, personal trauma, and so forth. 

Nor did the report appear to address the fact that this July 1, there will likely be almost 2000 individuals and families statewide who will no longer qualify for the under-funded state motel program and so will be completely without even that problematic temporary housing--- hundreds of people in our area will be among them. Where are they to go? 

This week’s articles and commentaries in the local media related to homelessness, housing, and the opioid epidemic

VTDigger Commentary (3/23/23) by Anne N. Sosin, a public health researcher and practitioner and the interim executive director of the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition: Homelessness is a policy choice

VTDigger article (3/23/23):  With state poised to scale back motel housing, an alternative has yet to materialize  

VTDigger Commentary (3/23/23) by Chloe Leary, executive director of the Winston Prouty Center for Child and Family Development in Brattleboro: How are child development and housing related?  

VTDigger article (3/23/23): Vermont’s 2022 opioid deaths set a record for the 3rd straight year

For those of you who may not have read the following background piece on homelessness in Montpelier in PEN Issue # 8, here it is again: 

A Brief History of Homelessness in Montpelier (2012-2023)

As most of us know, homelessness in urban areas has been a national phenomenon for many years, but over the last decade or so and particularly since the COVID pandemic, the numbers of people experiencing homelessness nationally has increased enormously and spread very visibly to suburbs and rural areas (like Montpelier and the surrounding towns) where the cost of living, particularly housing, medical care and food, has risen far more than living wages. 

At least a decade ago, various Vermont state agencies and NGOs were noting a significant increase in homelessness in our state, and in 2013, then-Governor Shumlin signed a bill authorizing a five year Vermont Plan to End Homelessness. Unfortunately, most of the recommendations in that plan and in subsequent plans were never launched or, if they were, the funding for them was woefully inadequate. 

Meanwhile, by 2015 the most visible signs of increasing homelessness were beginning to be recognized in some of Vermont’s larger municipalities (e.g., Burlington, Brattleboro, and Rutland) and here in Montpelier a small number of concerned citizens, especially in the faith community, had begun to notice an increase in demand at the Food Pantry and to be aware that even in winter there were a number of people living outside (mostly in the woods, but also in nooks and crannies around town). In response to this latter situation, in 2017, Good Samaritan Haven established a state-funded 20-bed City winter emergency overnight shelter at Bethany Church.

By August 2019 growing awareness of the plight of people in Montpelier experiencing homelessness led to the City Council creating the Montpelier Homelessness Task Force (MHTF), which was charged by the City Council to provide a report that would include:

• Creative, collaboratively developed short-term ideas and/or solutions to improve conditions for people experiencing homelessness

• Policy recommendations and concrete ideas for longer-term structural and systems improvement that the City could implement, along with a preliminary budget and timeline for duration of work and implementation

Ideas and recommendations should be supported by data that includes:

• Information regarding the scope of homelessness in Montpelier and the needs of people experiencing homelessness in Montpelier

• The systems currently in place in our region to address homelessness

• The range of concerns, perceived barriers, and potential solutions identified by the community

• Existing strategies in other cities or states, recognizing that the location of our city requires solutions that are responsive to our changing seasons

Meeting diligently once a week for the next three months with a good deal of time spent in between by members and city staff, the MHTF was able to deliver a preliminary report to the Council 11/20/19. 

Then, in early spring 2020 COVID struck and nearly every factor that contributes to homelessness--- lack of affordable housing, poverty, cost and availability of medical care, food insecurity, mental illness, opioid epidemic and more--- was greatly exacerbated nationally, in the state, and in Montpelier. 

Most of the members of the HTF at that time were professionally involved with service delivery to people experiencing homelessness and related issues. As a result, over the next 3 years most of the time and energy of the MHTF were taken up with addressing immediate (very short-term) needs and challenges: winter overnight shelter, lockers for storage of belongings, daytime warming spaces, lack of 24/7 downtown public toilet facilities, issues around camping in  public parks, complaints from business owners about aggressive panhandling, the on-again-off-again state General Services motel voucher program, a variety of individual emergencies and even deaths, and finally the explosive controversy around the Guertin structure, ending with its May 2022 removal to the “stump dump.” 

By late 2021, it was clear to all---members of the MHTF, City staff, the City Council, members of the business community and many City residents--- that Montpelier was in the midst of “a perfect storm” related to homelessness and that the MHTF by itself lacked the capacity to deliver comprehensive, actionable short and longer term recommendations to the City about how to address this growing emergency.

As a result, the City Council, allocated roughly $25,000 in the FY 2022 budget for two reports to be done, the first of which (sometimes referred to as “the root causes” study) was to involve extensive interviews with people experiencing housing insecurity in our area and was intended to “foster greater understanding of the root causes of homelessness in our area and to help the Washington County Continuum of Care’s ongoing strategic planning into an actionable, fundable plan with concrete projects to address concrete needs.” This research was carried out in early winter 2022 and the report completed in May 2022. (See attached: Washington County Continuum of Care Homelessness Research Project.) 

The second report, as described in the RFP from the City Manager’s office was to build on the information of the root causes study and to “outline the unique circumstances of those living unhoused in Montpelier, programs and services that could be helpful in town for those living unhoused, and recommendations for needed programmatic and/or physical infrastructure to support those services.” This is the the Homelessness Needs Assessment and Action Plan Report (aka the Parker Advisor’s Report) that was presented to the City Council at their 3/22/23 meeting.

PEN FLASH: PROPOSED RULES OF CONDUCT AT PUBLIC MEETINGS TO BE DISCUSSED AT CITY COUNCIL MEETING (3/22/23)

In addition to other very important matters affecting the future of Montpelier, the proposed rules of conduct that are on the agenda could have a profound effect on our present and future. As a way of getting started to think about this, you are encouraged to read Tom McKone’s thoughtful and succinct Commentary  Whose free speech is threatened? - VTDigger

What Tom has written is actually germane to two agenda items (“Code of Conduct" and "Group Norms”) that will be taken up toward the end of this Wednesday’s (3/22) City Council (CC) meeting. 

Why both of these items and not just the Code of Conduct (governing the behavior of the public)?

A Code of Conduct certainly seems appropriate, if only because the outrageous, bullying behavior of one person cannot be allowed to infringe on the freedom of speech for the rest of us, which it may well do if the City Council adopts rigid and arbitrary rules like the “2 minute rule.” 

However, it is hoped that as the City Council and City Manager consider such a Code of Conduct (for members of the public attending meetings), that they also look in the mirror and consider the ways in which existing City Council procedures and behaviors (especially during public comment) and the entire set-up of the Council Chamber may work against many people exercising that right because they do not feel truly welcome at CC meetings or comfortable speaking there; e.g. ask yourselves (especially if you are a woman): "how do I feel when I speak to someone (especially a man in authority) who appears not to be actually listening to what I am saying or feeling and is just patronizing me?”)

So, as the City Council re-adopts its aspirational Group Norms for itself, it might want to think about extending them to include attending members of the public, not just the members of "the group” sitting up on the dais looking down on the rest of us. 

In other words, if City Council members aspire to treat each other with caring and respect and they wish the public to treat them similarly, then why not complete the circle and have City Council members treat members of the public more similarly? 

What might this look like?

- Start by tearing down the dais!

….and finding other ways to make the City Council Chambers more inviting and comfortable for a broad range of members of the public. (A child care area somewhere in City Hall, perhaps?)

- When a member of the public is speaking, look at their faces with genuine interest in what they are saying; do this consistently and try not to glance impatiently at your computers or cell phones or watches. 

- Respond to people’s comments and questions a bit more thoughtfully than just the rote “Thank you for your comments.” 

- Develop a helpful protocol for someone who has a multi-part question or perhaps several related questions. (A good teacher knows how to do this with students.)

- In the rare case that the Mayor or City Manager or a Council member actually responds to a speaker, allow that speaker a reasonable follow-up question, as long as it is not purely argumentative.

- Really encourage the public to submit written comments to the City Council and City Manager and provide them with appropriate and timely written responses. 

In fact, how about asking the Social and Economic Justice Advisory Committee (SEJAC) and/or the Community Justice Center to work with the City Council and City Manager's Office on these and other possible ways to show people that the City Council members and City staff truly value their input, not just tell them they can “contact us anytime they have a question,” an all too familiar refrain from the dais.

Calendar, Agenda, and Zoom Invitation

March 22 City Council Meeting 

6:30 PM City Hall, City Council Chambers and via Zoom

Join Zoom invitation link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82048636899?pwd=WUdNbTZ0QVFSeDV1TjJOb09NOGhldz09

 Meeting ID: 820 4863 6899 Passcode: 411837 One tap mobile: (312)-626-6799

The agenda for this City Council meeting is jam-packed with important issues and reports; see link to Agenda Items and Files. Note especially the Country Club Road Site Winter Stage Close Out and Spring Stage Launch and the Homelessness Needs Assessment and Action Plan Report

If you can’t attend in person or hang on via Zoom to the end of the meeting when the proposed rules of conduct will be discussed, you can always view the proceedings on Zoom through ORCA Media.

PEN Tips: How to participate in Meetings of the Montpelier City Council and City Committees

Consistent with the State of Vermont Open Meeting Law, members of the public in Montpelier are afforded basically two kinds of opportunity to speak at any and all such meetings: 

• During an Agenda item (often called “General Business and Appearances”) that usually occurs near the start of the meeting and is often used by members of the public to speak about matters that are not otherwise on the agenda for that meeting. 
• During discussion of a matter that is on the agenda

The way both of these opportunities are generally managed in Montpelier is that members of the public who wish to speak on either of these occasions, must raise their hands (in person or via Zoom), be recognized by the chair, and make their comments completely and concisely; i.e. If they have more than one question or comment to make, they are supposed to do so at that time; they generally will not be allowed follow-up questions or comments even under the rare circumstances that they get a response from the chair or other member of the body. 

This is how “public participation” is managed in Montpelier “open meetings,” so prepare yourself. We recommend that ahead of the meeting, you write out your comments, time yourself reading them at an understandable rate, and edit them so you get it down to roughly two minutes. If you feel that what you have to say simply cannot be handled in that time frame, you should consider presenting a brief oral version of your statement at the meeting and emailing your full statement ahead of time to the appropriate committee staff to include in the agenda packet for members to read before the meeting and/or bring printed copies to be distributed at the meeting. Anyone choosing to go this route is free to email us for some further coaching on how to meet agenda packet deadlines.

Montpelier PEN: Issue #8 Homelessness in Montpelier

Calendar of Upcoming Civic Engagement Opportunities

March 21 Park’s Commission Meeting

6:00 PM Location: Council Chambers and Zoom

[Zoom link not yet available; after 3/19 look for it here or email aellsworth@montpelier-vt.org]

Agenda Topics include: Dogs in Hubbard Park & Bikes in Hubbard Park

March 22 Restroom Committee Meeting

11:30 AM - 12:30 PM Location: City Manager’s Conference Room and Zoom

Join Zoom invitation link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82958473252?pwd=OTE0T1lMeDU0QWJ4THVLOVVzRFlzdz09 Meeting ID: 829 5847 3252 Passcode: 319317 One tap mobile: (309)-205-3325

To learn what ideas this new committee has discussed about downtown public toilets : see minutes of its first meeting (2/1) and its most recent meeting (2/22)

March 22 City Council Meeting 

6:30 PM City Hall, City Council Chambers and via Zoom

Join Zoom invitation link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82048636899?pwd=WUdNbTZ0QVFSeDV1TjJOb09NOGhldz09

 Meeting ID: 820 4863 6899 Passcode: 411837 One tap mobile: (312)-626-6799

The agenda for this City Council meeting is jam-packed with important issues and reports; see link to Agenda Items and Files. Note especially the Country Club Road Site Winter Stage Close Out and Spring Stage Launch and the Homelessness Needs Assessment and Action Plan Report and see A Brief History of Homelessness in Montpelier, below.

A Brief History of Homelessness in Montpelier (2012-2023)

As most of us know, homelessness in urban areas has been a national phenomenon for many years, but over the last decade or so and particularly since the COVID pandemic, the numbers of people experiencing homelessness nationally has increased enormously and spread very visibly to suburbs and rural areas (like Montpelier and the surrounding towns) where the cost of living, particularly housing, medical care and food, has risen far more than living wages. 

At least a decade ago, various Vermont state agencies and NGOs were noting a significant increase in homelessness in our state, and in 2013, then-Governor Shumlin signed a bill authorizing a five year Vermont Plan to End Homelessness. Unfortunately, most of the recommendations in that plan and in subsequent plans were never launched or, if they were, the funding for them was woefully inadequate. 

Meanwhile, by 2015 the most visible signs of increasing homelessness were beginning to be recognized in some of Vermont’s larger municipalities (e.g., Burlington, Brattleboro, and Rutland) and here in Montpelier a small number of concerned citizens, especially in the faith community, had begun to notice an increase in demand at the Food Pantry and to be aware that even in winter there were a number of people living outside (mostly in the woods, but also in nooks and crannies around town). In response to this latter situation, in 2017, Good Samaritan Haven established a state-funded 20-bed City winter emergency overnight shelter at Bethany Church.

By August 2019 growing awareness of the plight of people in Montpelier experiencing homelessness led to the City Council creating the Montpelier Homelessness Task Force (MHTF), which was charged by the City Council to provide a report that would include:

• Creative, collaboratively developed short-term ideas and/or solutions to improve conditions for people experiencing homelessness
• Policy recommendations and concrete ideas for longer-term structural and systems improvement that the City could implement, along with a preliminary budget and timeline for duration of work and implementation

Ideas and recommendations should be supported by data that includes:

• Information regarding the scope of homelessness in Montpelier and the needs of people experiencing homelessness in Montpelier
• The systems currently in place in our region to address homelessness
• The range of concerns, perceived barriers, and potential solutions identified by the community

• Existing strategies in other cities or states, recognizing that the location of our city requires solutions that are responsive to our changing seasons

Meeting diligently once a week for the next three months with a good deal of time spent in between by members and city staff, the MHTF was able to deliver a preliminary report to the Council 11/20/19. 

Then, in early spring 2020 COVID struck and nearly every factor that contributes to homelessness--- lack of affordable housing, poverty, cost and availability of medical care, food insecurity, mental illness, opioid epidemic and more--- was greatly exacerbated nationally, in the state, and in Montpelier. 

Most of the members of the HTF at that time were professionally involved with service delivery to people experiencing homelessness and related issues. As a result, over the next 3 years most of the time and energy of the MHTF were taken up with addressing immediate (very short-term) needs and challenges: winter overnight shelter, lockers for storage of belongings, daytime warming spaces, lack of 24/7 downtown public toilet facilities, issues around camping in  public parks, complaints from business owners about aggressive panhandling, the on-again-off-again state General Services motel voucher program, a variety of individual emergencies and even deaths, and finally the explosive controversy around the Guertin structure, ending with its May 2022 removal to the “stump dump.” 

By late 2021, it was clear to all---members of the MHTF, City staff, the City Council, members of the business community and many City residents--- that Montpelier was in the midst of “a perfect storm” related to homelessness and that the MHTF by itself lacked the capacity to deliver comprehensive, actionable short and longer term recommendations to the City about how to address this growing emergency.

As a result, the City Council, allocated roughly $25,000 in the FY 2022 budget for two reports to be done, the first of which (sometimes referred to as “the root causes” study) was to involve extensive interviews with people experiencing housing insecurity in our area and was intended to “foster greater understanding of the root causes of homelessness in our area and to help the Washington County Continuum of Care’s ongoing strategic planning into an actionable, fundable plan with concrete projects to address concrete needs.” This research was carried out in early winter 2022 and the report completed in May 2022 with the title: Washington County Continuum of Care Homelessness Research Project. (Anyone wishing to have this extensive report may request it from peterhkelman@yahoo.com.)

The second report, as described in the RFP from the City Manager’s office was to build on the information of the root causes study and to “outline the unique circumstances of those living unhoused in Montpelier, programs and services that could be helpful in town for those living unhoused, and recommendations for needed programmatic and/or physical infrastructure to support those services.” This is the the Homelessness Needs Assessment and Action Plan Report (aka the Parker Advisor’s Report) that will be presented to the City Council at their 3/22/23 meeting.

Anyone concerned about the homelessness situation in our area is encouraged to attend this Wednesday’s (3/22/23) City Council meeting to hear the presentation of the Homelessness Needs Assessment and Action Report and, if so moved, to ask questions and/or make comments about the recommendations in it. 

If you are unfamiliar with City Council procedures for public comment, see below: PEN Tips: How to participate in Meetings of the Montpelier City Council and City Committees

PEN Tips: How to participate in Meetings of the Montpelier City Council and City Committees

Consistent with the State of Vermont Open Meeting Law, members of the public in Montpelier are afforded basically two kinds of opportunity to speak at any and all such meetings: 

• During an Agenda item (often called “General Business and Appearances”) that usually occurs near the start of the meeting and is often used by members of the public to speak about matters that are not otherwise on the agenda for that meeting. 
• During discussion of a matter that is on the agenda

The way both of these opportunities are generally managed in Montpelier is that members of the public who wish to speak on either of these occasions, must raise their hands (in person or via Zoom), be recognized by the chair, and make their comments completely and concisely; i.e. If they have more than one question or comment to make, they are supposed to do so at that time; they generally will not be allowed follow-up questions or comments even under the rare circumstances that they get a response from the chair or other member of the body. 

This is how “public participation” is managed in Montpelier “open meetings,” so prepare yourself. We recommend that ahead of the meeting, you write out your comments, time yourself reading them at an understandable rate, and edit them so you get it down to roughly two minutes. If you feel that what you have to say simply cannot be handled in that time frame, you should consider presenting a brief oral version of your statement at the meeting and emailing your full statement ahead of time to the appropriate committee staff to include in the agenda packet for members to read before the meeting and/or bring printed copies to be distributed at the meeting. Anyone choosing to go this route is free to email us for some further coaching on how to meet agenda packet deadlines.