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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - City Council - 07/27/1978CITY COUNCIL JULY 27, 1978 The South Burlington City Council held a meeting on Thursday, July 27, 1978 at 8:00 pm in the Conference Room, City Hall, 1175 Williston Road Members Present Paul Farrar, Chairman; Michael Flaherty, William Burgess, Martin Paulsen, Ken Jarvis Others Present William Szymanski, City Manager; Lubomir Dellin, Kay Neubert, Sidney Poger, William Schuele, Lowell Krassner, Fran Brock, Free Press; Joe Slakas, WJOY/WQCR Additions to agenda Signing of disbursement orders was added to the agenda. Discuss new directions in planning Mr. Farrar said they had met to respond to the Planning Commission's questions regarding the change in personnel. Mr. Jarvis asked if the joint meeting held by the Council and Commission in February had been productive and said that if it had been, perhaps the two groups should plan to meet regularly, maybe every 60 days, just for the purpose of talking with each other. He said he would like to see teamwork between the two groups. Mr. Paulsen said that he recently had made a strong recommendation to have as a regular item at the beginning of every agenda a place for the Commission to appear before them. He would like the Commission to do the same thing and said that sometimes they might meet for 5 minutes and sometimes 25 but this would leave an open door for discussion. Mr. Burgess said he would like to explain why he voted as he did. He said it was hard to vote for people who had never served before because that cast an unavoidable reflection on the people sitting in the chairs at the time and he assured everyone that he had no personal objections to anybody presently sitting it the positions they had been removed from. He said he would like to avoid the idea that there had been a particular reason for trying to remove someone and said he was not really dissatisfied with any personal action of a member of the Commission. Mr. Burgess said he was not sure the Council wanted to see a change in direction and that he had made his decision based on perceptions of a few visits to long and unproductive Commission meetings and a careful look at 14 months of those meetings. He felt some of the problems were that a communication problem exists and that there seems to be animosity between the Commission and Council which prevents them from getting their job done. He felt that this animosity was more on the part of the Commission than the Council. It seemed that the Council was always being told what it was doing wrong but there were very few suggestions as to how to improve the situation. An example of that was the Williston Road Task Force report, he said. When Mr. Paulsen brought it up the Commission told the Council that they had turned it over to them years ago and that the ball was in their court. He said the atmosphere at that time had been hostile and he had been unable to find anywhere in the records that the report had ever come out of the Commission. He said there had been a hassle over the Capital Budget and the implication had been that the Council was sitting in the way of progress. At budget time there had been the issue of hiring additional city hall staff and although he had favored that action, he had been unable to find anything in the Commission's presentation of the request to convince him that another person was needed. Mr. Burgess said he personally had trouble sometimes knowing where the Commission was heading and said the Council was in a position to assist them but that they were not being given an opportunity to do so. On the new Capital Budget the Council is working on, he said that input from the Commission would be very valuable since what goes into it will have a direct impact on the city and what it will look like in coming years. He felt the two groups should get together and have the Commission give the Council a formal, official update on where the city should be going and what actions should be taken to point it in that direction. Mr. Burgess also felt that perhaps the city was choosing the wrong issues to take stands on and he suggested that the Commission talk to the Council about cases which seem to have a good chance of ending up in court. Mr. Farrar said that might be illegal since once the hearing was closed no one had the right to further input or consultation about the decisions that would be made. Mr. Burgess replied that the Commission should at least get advice from the City Attorney on what night happen. Mr. Burgess saw two major problems which influenced his vote. One was the general dissatisfaction of some people in the city that their advice to the Commission is ignored and ignored without further feedback to them. He strongly recommended that professional opinions be considered by the Commission and that those professionals at least have the chance to explain their opinions before they are altered finally. He said that in one case the Council had unanimously recommended that a particular road not be private. This was a decision reinforcing the opinion of the City Engineer, a paid professional, who pointed out the hazards of such a road, but the Commission ignored the recommendation totally and did not even try to find out why the recommendation had been made. The most serious thing in his mind, however, was a lack of a businesslike approach to getting the business of the Commission done. He said there was much debate of things that could be accepted as recommendations of paid professionals and of foregone conclusions, and that while this itself did not bother him, he did object to being told that because of it the Commission was too busy to get its job dons. For all these reasons he voted for Mr. Jacob who is a long time resident of the city and seems to be in tune with the residents. He also seems to be a no- nonsense person. For the same reasons he voted for Mr. Draper, whom he felt would bring order and efficiency to the Commission. Mr. Draper has political experience in Burlington and a good reputation. Mr. Burgess reiterated that there was nothing vindictive or personal in his choices and he did not see the action as capricious and had nothing to gain by a switch in Commission members. Mr. Farrar thanked Mr. Burgess for the time he put into preparing a response to the question. He suggested that perhaps what the Council was saying to the Commission was that they should not be doing anything different, just do what they are doing faster and better. Mr. Paulsen said he supported Mr. Burgess' comments right down the line but said he did not have the detailed experience of implementing the city documents such as the Master Plan, Zoning Ordinance, and Subdivision Regulations, which he felt were complete and good documents, although quite old and in need of revision. He looked for input from the Commission on revisions. Mr. Farrar said the Council has received many recommendations for revisions and he felt the Commission has done its job as far as that went. Mr. Flaherty felt that much of what Mr. Burgess had said was true and he added that as boards change it tends to be hard for people to understand what the new people are doing, because they know them less well than the old ones. He felt there was no probelm with the direction the Commission was taking or what they were doing, but he felt that the boards should let each other know what they are doing, and when and how they are doing it. He said there needed to be better physical contact. Mr. Burgess added that he would not like people to think that any action he took was a directive to change the philosophy of the Commission. Mr. Farrar said that the Council seemed to be saying that it would like the Commission to think carefully before it ignored the recommendations of the Planner, Engineer, Water Department, or Fire Chief in their areas of expertise and that if those recommendations are going to be changed materially, the professionals should be told so that they can discuss it further. He also said that if the Commission had suggestions on the Capital Budget and what should be in it, they should not complain, but should come in early in the process and tell the Council how they feel about things. Sniping at the Council later in the process is not productive. Mr. Farrar asked Mr. Poger if he had answered the question of the Commission and was told that in February, at the joint meeting, the Council had come up with some very good suggestions for improving efficiency, most of which were taken. He said that everyone was in favor of going faster and better but he was not sure the question had been answered. He asked in what way the Council felt they could move faster and better and how they could set goals to improve communication. The problem was not that they needed better communication, it was how to get it. Mr. Lubomir Dellin expressed a wish that the other Council members would give as complete an explanation of their actions as Mr. Burgess had. He asked if there was a philosophical difference between the new and old members and if there was a change in direction, was it from the controlled growth (interim zoning approach) to something different? Mr. Farrar said that he had been very impressed by the 5 applicants for the two Commission seats and that under different circumstances he would have had no objection to voting for any of them. He said he knew the strengths and weaknesses of the sitting members and he felt their philosophies had been reasonably near his own, which is to plan for a reasonable amount of growth but not let the city grow at an uncontrolled rate. He said he felt the Commission had in the past year made great strides in improving their efficiency and their use of city staff. Mr. Jarvis said he possessed the least amount of currency on the Council but that there had been 5 very attractive candidates for the two jobs. He said he had requested that the two sitting members be interviewed because he was not familiar with them. He wanted to get away from the idea that they had been fired. He said their terms had expired and that as of then they became candidates, not commissioners. He refused to rubberstamp or automatically vote for an incumbent and said he felt other citizens had as much chance as the commissioners in the new appointments. Mr. Jarvis did not feel that he was voting against Mr. Wessel or Mr. Morency, but for the two candidates. He did not feel the vote told the Commission the Council was looking for a new direction and said people had to be realistic and realize that Boards do change members. Mr. Flaherty said he abstained from voting for Mr. Draper because he felt he had good qualities and he did not want to vote no but he has not lived here for a year yet and Mr. Flaherty was not sure he had a good grasp of the affairs of the community. He voted for Mr. Jacob because he felt he was a capable and talented person. He said that he felt David Morency had been very innovative and had contributed a lot to the Commission in the time he was on. Mr. Jarvis said that at the Monday meeting he had received the feeling that people felt the Council acted against their wishes in appointing two new members but he said he covered 80% of the city in his recent campaign and that he only received one phone call supportive of one commissioner in the 3 weeks during which the appointments were being discussed. He said there were no hidden motives in his vote. Mr. Schuele asked the Council how it interpreted the way the citizens felt and Mr. Burgess replied that if he had to depend on input from the citizens he would have to abstain on almost every vote. Mr. Flaherty added that it was not really possible to quantify public opinion. Mr. Krassner said that South Burlington was really very unlike the rest of Vermont and he wanted the Council to figure out a direction for the city to take that would make it more human. Mr. Farrar felt that direction was what was expressed in the city Master Plan. Mr. Farrar said that what he felt the Council was saying tonight was that they were not looking for a change in direction but that the appointment of new people reflected a feeling that these people were better able to carry out moving in the same direction than those who were currently sitting. Mr. Poger said that what that seemed to mean was that the Commission members were doing a good job and should keep up the work but that when they come up for reappointment, they will not be reappointed. He felt that when someone was not reappointed he was being given a message and he was not sure that what they were saying would be understood or accepted. Disbursement orders Disbursement orders were signed. The meeting was adjourned at 9:45 pm. Clerk Published by ClerkBase ©2019 by Clerkbase. No Claim to Original Government Works.