Calendar of Upcoming Civic Engagement Opportunities
City Council and City Committee Meetings
IMPORTANT NOTICE: The City website is being gradually reconfigured. Click here to learn the new way to find and use the Agenda Center, where you can preview and/or download City Council and all other City committee meeting Agendas (including Zoom links) and Agenda Packets (including both meeting Agendas and all submitted materials for items on them).
Unfortunately, it appears that this change in the way the new Agenda Center works, no longer provides unique URLs for Agendas or Agenda Packets. Instead one must preview the Agenda and/or Agenda Packet “inside" the Agenda Center and/or download them to one's desktop (or phone) as a document (very slowly in the case of large agenda packets, which means for most City Council, Development Review Board, and Design Review Committee meetings.)
This means that it is no longer possible for anyone to share these URLs with others or for any media outlet (including PEN) to provide their readers with unique URLs that go directly to browser-accessible meeting Agendas (which contain clickable Zoom links to meetings) or browser-accessible Agenda Packets (which means very large ones need to be downloaded onto one’s desktop or phone!)
It does seem as though fewer and fewer people have been attending meetings of late; while this may certainly be due to the advent of spring weather and school vacations, it may also be at least partially because the new Agenda Center has become an obstacle to doing so and, thus, a barrier to public engagement.
I have brought this entire matter to the attention of the appropriate staff in the City Manager’s Office in the hope that they can quickly find a way to generate unique URLs for Agendas and Agenda Packets.
Until they do so, the PEN calendar of upcoming City Council and other City committee meetings will be unable to provide unique URLS to Agendas and/or Agenda Packets.
May 1 Development Review Board (DRB) Meeting
7:00 PM City Council Chambers, City Hall
Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83338204128
Call In: (929) 205-6099 Meeting ID: 833 3820 4128
May 2 Montpelier Housing Committee Meeting
6:00 PM Memorial Room, City Hall
Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81608542478
Phone: 929-205-6099 Meeting ID: 816 0854 2478
May 2 Montpelier Transportation Infrastructure Committee
7:00 PM- 8:00 PM (no location listed, presumably Zoom only)
Zoom Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84513586903?pwd=R2Nod0FhL1hPbmdKdEJrZEdwU083dz09
Meeting ID: 845 1358 6903 Passcode: 924117 One tap mobile: (929)-205-6099
May 3 Montpelier Homelessness Task Force
(Listed as a Special Meeting)
11:30 AM-12:30 PM City Council Chambers, City Hall
Zoom Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86287812907?pwd=TERnRXE2VUxqNmZEOXJBY04ydzRzdz09
Meeting ID: 862 8781 2907 Passcode: 190220 One tap mobile: (929)-205-6099
Upcoming Meetings
(No Agenda information yet posted)
May 8 Planning Commission Meeting 5:30 PM
May 9 Historic Preservation Commission 7 PM
May 10 Regular City Council Meeting
Country Club Road Site Project
(CCRSP)
Spring CCRSP Public Engagement Meetings
The City is hosting important public engagement sessions to share three new concept plans for the Country Club Road Site Project (CCRSP) and to answer questions and listen to feedback from the public about these concept designs and the overall CCRSP master-planning process.
The first of these meetings was held on Saturday April 29 on-site; a video recording of this event will be posted sometime this week on ORCA Media.
The final two CCRSP public engagement sessions will be held May 3 and May 8, as detailed immediately below. If you’d like to attend any of the following meetings, RSVP here: https://polco.us/n/res/vote/montpelier-vt/rsvp-to-the-country-club.
May 3
5 PM-7 PM Hybrid meeting
City Hall Memorial Room and on Zoom
Zoom Meeting link : https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85974370297
Meeting ID: 859 7437 0297 Phone: 929-205-6099
May 8
12 PM-2 PM Remote only meeting
Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85188776794
Meeting ID: 851 8877 6794 Phone: 929-205-6099
Anyone who thinks they may not be able to attend any of these three sessions, is encouraged to read and look at the concept plans provided on the City web site: Montpelier Country Club Road Site Project Phase 1 Master Planning Spring Stage Concept Plans and/or watch a short video covering the same information.
Other Important CCRSP Public Engagement Opportunities
Complete the survey on the latest iteration of the Country Club Road Site project
This City-wide POLCO survey is designed to solicit public feedback on the three new concept designs and related issues. It will be available on the CCRSP page of the City website from May 1 to May 11. It is critically important that a wide range and large number of Montpelier residents and property owners respond to this survey because results will be used by the CCRSP Working Group to formulate a final proposal to the City Council. (See Commentary below.)
Attend City Council meetings in May, June, & July at which the CCRSP Working Group will be: reporting results from the three Spring public engagement sessions and the POLCO survey; making their Phase I preliminary recommendations; and Phase II will be launched.
Commentary on the Country Club Road Site Project Public Engagement Process
Like so many important matters in our world today---global, national, state, and local---there is a great deal of conflicting information and opinion about the Country Club Road Site. Just in the last ten days, two articles appeared in the Times-Argus, presenting very different views about the process: “Design team ready to roll out refined plans for Country Club Road” (4/19/23) and Heney wants to pause planning for Country Club Road (4/27/23).
Indeed, at the first (4/29/23) of three public engagement sessions, even after Stephanie Clarke, (Vice-President at White + Burke and CCRSP Phase I Project Manager) had clearly explained Phase I of the master planning process (to date and moving forward) and made very clear the difference between master planning for a public project like this one and a private development project, there were still some in the audience who appeared to remain confused or perhaps unpersuaded of the importance of this public engagement phase of the master-planning process.
So, let me be clear when I stand on this matter.
I strongly support and admire the skill with which the Phase 1 process has been carried out thus far—very open and transparent two-way public engagement— while simultaneously carrying out certain key due diligence activities (e.g., geological, ecological, sociological).
I support the planned Spring public engagement process which will bring Phase 1 to a close, and which includes ballpark financials, which some people have suggested were missing from the process.
I also support the plans for Phase II which will include exactly what some critics are asking for: "essential data and information about the site, supporting infrastructure needs, and potential permitting requirements” and, in fact, much more.
And finally, I want to underscore what Stephanie Clarke pointed out at the 4/29/23 session: unlike developing a private project like Independence Green or Freedom Drive, this is a project to be built on public land purchased with public funds and so must engage the public openly and transparently or it will not be further supported by that tax-paying public.
When the public-private partnership aspects of the project begin, the development will be more like a private development with the public playing a less direct role.
Homelessness in Vermont
The End of the State’s Pandemic Era Motel Homeless Sheltering Program
The unthinkable is about to happen. Over the next two months (by June 30) more than 2000 people currently living in motels are going to be exited with no clear place for them to live.
Also, in case you missed reading earlier news accounts of this coming storm:
“Local Orgs Prep for 30% Increase in Homeless Population” in the April 19-May 2 issue of The Bridge.
“Senate advances 8.5 billion state budget that would end pandemic era motel program” from VTDigger (4/21/23)
This is a moment in which Public Engagement is absolutely required. Please consider sending an email to your representatives in the legislature and to the Governor letting them know that this is unacceptable. Here’s the letter I sent ten days ago to key senators and house members:
I hope I don’t need to tell you that the forced un-sheltering of more than 2000 people starting June 1 and going into high gear July 1 is unconscionable. Not only will this lead to deaths of our neighbors and community members, it will flood the streets of cities across the state with people who are homeless and desperate. This will cause confrontations with residents, visitors, and local police, which in Washington County alone will be terrible for business in downtown Montpelier, Barre, and Waterbury as well as the Berlin Mall.
The only responsible measure is to fully fund and support a transition plan, which includes sufficient funding both to keep people sheltered and to provide the bricks and mortar. I know you and other key legislators have been presented with such a plan by a coalition of more than a dozen housing and social services organizations from across the state: Bridges to Housing. However, this actionable and affordable plan cannot work if thousands of people are unsheltered; sheltering is the foundation on which permanent transitions are built.
FLASH: On Tuesday, May 2 @ 10 AM Brenda Siegel will hold a press conference addressing the need for the legislature and the Governor to provide adequate funding to make sure that no one is exited from motels without having another form of dignified shelter available.
BE THERE
Opportunities to learn about and gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be homeless
May 8 Barriers to Benefits: Everyday Hurdles to Getting Help
6:30 PM-8:00 PM at Kellogg-Hubbard Library, Main Street, Montpelier, VT
People with low income or lacking housing face a daunting variety of impediments to seeking and obtaining assistance. Indra J. Acharya, Consultant/Integrator for THRIVE, will facilitate a discussion with several unhoused people about the difficulties they encounter on a regular basis. These include problems connected with earning too much money, having excessive savings, no transportation, and/or an inability to apply online for help. These are compounded by the fact that each assistance program has its own limits and requirements.
This presentation comes from the Montpelier Homelessness Task Force and is supported by a THRIVE – Vermont Community Health Equity Partnership grant.
To protect participants’ privacy, no recording of the event will be made.
And finally, two thought-provoking articles related to homelessness: the first the story of an individual’s descent into homelessness; the second, an exploration of the structural factors by which many of us benefit from the poverty of others.
Homeless in the City Where He Was Once Mayor---NYTimes 4/28/23
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