Calendar of Upcoming Civic Engagement Opportunities
April 11 Community Advisory Board (Community Justice Center)
6:00-7:30 PM Via Zoom
Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82275383552?pwd=NW95R2NHNENScjlMUXk1Q3F2YnhxQT09
Agenda includes Article Discussion: Police Brutality Is Not Always About Race
April 12 Social and Economic Justice Advisory Committee (SEJAC)
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM Virtual Meeting via Zoom
Agenda includes SEJAC-related updates from City Staff and discussion of long-term process and role for SEJAC with city staff
Zoom Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82844191234?pwd=YTZwOSswdS9VWXJxMFIxdTc1Y05h UT09 Meeting ID: 828 4419 1234 Passcode: 071412 One tap mobile: (312)-626-6799
April 12 Regular City Council Meeting City
6:30 PM Council Chambers, City Hall
See brief commentary below on some of the key issues in the agenda
Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81816524126?pwd=NTgwY2lxV1BsUVpWZE94bmZNZ2piZz09 Meeting ID: 818 1652 4126 Passcode: 735001 One tap mobile: (929)-205-6099
April 17 Development Review Board (DRB)
7:00 PM Council Chambers, City Hall
Agenda Link Nothing is yet posted here, but Zoom link, Agenda, and Agenda materials will be posted here at least 48 hours before the meeting.
The Agenda apparently will include consideration of a Zoning Application from 150 Main Street, LLC, the local group of health and wellness practitioners who have signed an option to purchase 3 buildings from the Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA).
April 19 Montpelier Public Restroom Committee
11:30 AM - 12:30 PM In person in the City Manger’s Conference Room and virtually on zoom.
Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83536775467?pwd=WWlGbkRRTTNweEY1RVFNcHZNVjZEZz09 Meeting ID: 835 3677 5467 Passcode: 528218 One tap mobile: (929)-205-6099
Minutes from March 22 Meeting (Very informative)
April 19 Montpelier Homelessness Task Force
11:30 AM - 12:30 PM City Council Chambers and virtually on zoom
(Not yet posted)
Preview of Key April 12 City Council Meeting Agenda Items
Homelessness Report Follow-up
The City Manager has submitted this response to the Parker Advisor’s Homelessness Needs Assessment and Action Plan Report. At the 4/12 City Council meeting, he will present to the City Council the recommendations that he and his staff have made in their “response” and will respond to questions about these recommendations from City Council members. Members of the public will also have an opportunity to comment or ask questions about the City Manager’s recommendations.
(Disclosure: I certainly plan to make some comments and I hope others will do so as well.)
In case you missed reading the commentary on the Parker Report and the brief history of Homelessness in Montpelier in PEN Issue #9 or would like to review it, here’s a link to it.
Rules of Conduct at Public Meetings and Group Norms
These two related items were postponed from the previous 3/23/23 City Council meeting. The “rules of conduct” govern the behavior of the public during public meetings, whereas the “group norms” govern the behavior of city council members toward each other.
It has been pointed out in the past that many city governments also include in their rules of conduct guidelines for public officials’ behavior toward members of the the public. I intend to raise this point once again during this meeting, suggesting that Montpelier should consider doing so as well. Just a quick internet search yielded Codes of Ethics and Conduct that include Conduct Guidelines for Elected and Appointed Officials’ Conduct: with Each Other in Public Meetings, with the Public in Public Meetings, and with City Staff. A number of City Councils have adopted these over the past 20 years or so, many with language that is so similar that it would appear there has been considerable sharing of such matters among municipalities in many states. Here are a few examples:
Evans Colorado (Adopted 2004) See p. 7 for Council Conduct with the Public
Sunnyvale, California See p.11-12 for Conduct with the Public in Public Meetings and in Unofficial Settings
Alexandria , Minnesota *Adopted 2020) See p. 7-8 for Mayor and Council Conduct with the Public andMayor and Council Conduct in Unofficial Settings
And here’s a bonus on Strategies for Managing Difficult Public Meetings and Hearings
from The Municipal Research and Services Center (MRSC) in Washington State
The Coversheet for the discussion of Rules of Conduct indicates that Mayor McCullough is proposing an amendment to the current rules of conduct that would change the rules for General Business and Appearances.
As almost anyone who has attended City Council meetings in person or via Zoom during the past several years will have observed, there has been persistent incivility on the part of a single member of the public (Stephen Whitaker), particularly during General Business and Appearances, which he regularly monopolizes to run through long, disorganized, and often repetitive lists of the failures of the City Manager, the Mayor, and the City Council in terms that are ad hominem, bordering on slander. This behavior led to the Council’s adoption of the so-called “two-minute rule” for public comments at its meetings and precipitated an ugly incident that culminated in this individual being removed forcibly from the Council Chambers by the Chief of Police. (If you missed any of this, here’s one of many articles that reported on this incident.)
Strategic Plan
Sandwiched in between the above discussions of Homelessness in Montpelier and Public Meeting Rules of Conduct will be one of the required periodic reviews of the City Council’s annual strategic plan. Although such reviews may feel tedious to the uninitiated, this will be a much-needed introduction to the strategic planning process for the two new and one almost new member of the City Council. And, it may also be an opportunity for members of the public to peer behind the bureaucratic curtains of such City Management processes and to ask (perhaps) naive questions that may actually illuminate certain matters for the new City Council members and the public in general.
Here are links to presentation slides for The Strategic Plan Review--Spring 2023, the disruptions report, and the FY22-23 Council Strategic Plan--Adopted Plan 10/22/22-
Other Portions of the Meeting that you may (or may not) find of interest:
General Business and Appearances: this usually occurs near the start of the meeting and is used by members of the public to make announcements or most often to speak about matters that are not otherwise on the agenda for that meeting. (Being present during this early agenda item will give members an opportunity to observe first-hand the behavior of Stephen Whitaker.)
Fireworks: this item is a fascinating and all-too rare example of an individual Montpelier resident requesting the City Council to put on its agenda an item that the resident will present. In this case it is a request that the City Council “consider discontinuing the use of fireworks for holiday celebrations.” Here are the materials provided by resident Karen Hanlon.
End of meeting reports by City Council members, the Mayor, the City Clerk, and the City Manager: these reports always come at the end of the meeting by which time most members of the public have left the meeting (in person and/or on Zoom). By and large, this is merely an opportunity for sharing non-critical information since doing so outside of Open Meetings runs the risk of violating State Open Meeting rules. However, it is also often used by the City Manager to comment on matters that were raised earlier in the meeting by members of the public. Doing so at this point affords the City Manager the opportunity to do so when there are few if any members of the public or press still around to hear, and, in my experience even if we are present, it isn’t clear that we are allowed to raise our hands to comment on these comments:(
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