HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Bicycle & Pedestrian Committee - 07/10/2019Bike & Pedestrian Committee - Meeting Minutes
Wednesday, July 10, 2019 @ 5:30 pm
Meeting Location: South Burlington City Hall, Champlain Room
575 Dorset Street
Members Present: Dana Farr (Chair), Cathy Frank (Vice Chair), Shawn Goddard
(Clerk), Amanda Holland, Donna Leban, Bob Britt, Havaleh Gagne, Nic Anderson
Members Absent: Bill Wooden (Co-Clerk)
City Representative: Ashley Parker, Project Manager
Also Present: Coralee Holm (South Burlington Director of Community Engagement
& Innovations), Kevin Dorn (South Burlington City Manager), Sue Fletcher
Meeting documents are in the folder named: 7. July 2019 & updates can be found
in the Talking Points July 2019 document. For homework, see the Homework Report
2019.
Meeting began at: 5:30pm.
1. Dana welcomed everyone and gave directions on emergency evacuation
procedures.
2. Changes or additions to the agenda
■ Bob added - City ordinances
■ Bob added - Bike/Ped & DPW ride (added to DPW meeting
section)
3. Comments from the public not related to the agenda
■ Kevin Dorn - Spoke to the committee about a concerning email
that he saw from someone on the committee to Ashley. He
reminded us that Ashley is a liason, not a scribe or assistant to
the committee. She works for the City and for Kevin, not for the
committee. He reiterated that the city and he appreciates the
committees work, but that we all must maintain a sense of
professionalism and respect. She has limited bandwidth and a
lot of other responsibilities. We must respect that and ensure
that we try to maintain the highest level of professionalism and
respect.
1. Nic asked about a Liaison role definition. Coralee
reviewed this - Details under item #7 below.
4. Consideration of minutes from the previous meeting(s)
■ Cathy moved that we approve
■ Donna seconded
■ All were in favor
5. Discussion: Welcome new members
■ Havaleh Gagne
■ Nic Anderson
6. Discussion: Open Meeting Law - Ashley
■ Quorum = ½ committee +1 (currently that means 5 or more)
■ Any meeting/discussion that contains a quorum must be
announced/warned the Thursday before the meeting.
■ Minutes must be posted within 5 calendar days of the meeting
■ Public has the right to see all documents and attend any
meetings (w/a quorum).
■ Social media - can’t have these accounts because they can
facilitate group discussions.
1. Dana reported that we have a FB and Twitter account that
we don’t use. Cathy recommended that we delete these
entirely. We did not identify who would do this - added to
homework.
■ Email:
1. Can send FYI type of things to the full committee
2. If you’re communicating with a smaller work group (not
over the 50%+1) you can collaborate over email or meet
without the meetings being warned.
■ Ashley posted a video in the New Member Materials folder which
we should all watch.
7. Report & Discussion: Google drive, City website, etc… - Coralee Holm
■ Liaison role key points:
1. Ensures meeting & record keeping is consistent with laws
2. Serves as a communication link between committee &
city
3. Provide professional guidance, issue analysis, and
recommendations
4. Assist the committee with research, report preparation,
and correspondence that falls under the committee’s
annual work plan.
5. Assistance must fit within the liaison’s workload and time
available.
6. Present committee recommendations to City Council
7. Assist the committee in staying on track & focused
8. Maintain positive working relationship with committee
9. Liasons do not work for or at the direction of the
committee...they work with us.
■ Shawn asked that the Committee Leadership Workshop - May
2019 powerpoint document be shared with the committee.
Ashley will do that.
■ September 26th (Thursday) - All Committee Symposium
1. Area for exhibits/posters - showcase what we’re working
on.
a. They’ll give us a formatting template soon.
2. Speed briefing with the City Council
3. Work due prior to symposium:
a. Annual Report - due August 16th
b. Work plan for FY20 - due August 16th
4. Formal agenda will be coming out
■ Website:
1. Reminded us that our page on the City website is the only
place that we can officially share information.
2. We can add content to our page, but it has to be on our
page on the City website.
3. Cathy asked about making our page more prominent vs
having to access it through the Parks & Rec pages.
a. Coralee is very open to making updates - we
should work through Ashley
b. Articles/content can be posted on the front page -
just send it to her.
c. Images are not only allowed, but encouraged.
4. Nic is interested in working with Coralee to add some of
the content that he wants posted (along the lines of the
sample website he created)
5. Nic asked about a subdomain or alias (e.g.
southburlington/bike) that can be used to get to our
page.
a. Coralee will ask the vendor about that idea.
6. Bob asked about the Localmotion webpage.
a. That’s their website and it can link to our city
webpage, but it can’t be how we communicate
official committee business.
b. That webpage is also linked on the South
Burlington website
7. Donna asked about maps
a. There is a link for maps and we can add more as
we develop them.
8. Sue Fletcher said that she works with IT and web
programming and she struggled to find the committee
webpage.
a. She also suggested more content posted regularly -
the latest news posted on the front page is almost
a month old currently.
9. Dana asked about whether the site would be made more
mobile friendly.
a. That was the intention and the site is supposed to
be mobile friendly, but at this point we’re
somewhat limited to the specific vendor we have
contracted with.
i. Coralee is working with the company on
doing a revision to make it more user
friendly. Please provide her feedback so she
can include that in her discussions with the
vendor on the revision.
10. Bob asked about reporting a maintenance issue - he
asked for the # of characters that can be entered to be
expanded (currently very restrictive in “Location of the
Issue” & “Tell us what the issue is”). Coralee will look into
that.
a. Nic mentioned that the field labeled “Name” isn’t
clear - please change to “Your Name”
11. Coralee mentioned that the city has invested in a
company called Laserfiche to manage the committee and
city documentation and the intention is to have all
content (minutes, permits, all city documents) available
digitally.
a. They are scanning in all of the City documents.
b. Link to this new site
c. Bike/ped minutes page
■ Coralee reported that the City is developing a new Google Drive
space as well as a new system for digital document storage.
1. Will be the repository for all committee documents
2. NOT to be used as a forum for discussion or for the
committee to collectively edit/create a document.
a. Example: Can’t create a meeting agenda on the
Google Drive & have a quorum building it on the
drive space.
i. Technically if we only have a small # (e.g. 3
members) we can do this, but it’s easy to
slip and have documents that we collectively
work on.
ii. Talking points is an example of a broad
collaboration that technically violates the
rules.
b. Best practice is for it to be used as a repository
only
3. Example of how the City envisions this working is the City
Council Agendas & Minutes page.
4. Shawn asked for a flow chart or high-level visualization
that allows people to better understand how all this fits
together.
5. Amanda asked about a system/tools that we can use so
that everyone has visibility to current status, which
actions have been closed, which are still due, etc.
6. Committee all had a lot of questions and definitely wants
more work/guidance on this.
■ The committee and Coralee discussed the need for us to copy
Ashley on committee communications to other City staff.
1. This includes articles, images, or other updates for the
website.
2. This includes scheduling of meetings, reporting of issues,
or other committee requests.
3. This also includes submissions to The Other Paper.
4. If the communication is not committee business, Ashley
doesn’t have to be copied.
a. Ashley will inform us if we’re “over sharing” with
her.
8. Report & Discussion: Updates from the City - Ashley
■ Ben is still looking for leader & sweeper for the SOBU Family
Bike rides. Please email him if anyone has availability.
1. It would be great to have Bike/Ped representation on all
the rides if possible.
2. August 4th - Shawn & Bob
3. August 18th -
4. September 1st - Havelah &...
5. September 15th - Bob & Nic
■ Ilona Blanchard is still working on the I89 bike/ped bridge Grant
and needs a recommendation letter from the Bike/Ped
Committee - Cathy volunteered.
1. Bob moved to have Cathy write the letter on behalf of the
committee
2. Amanda seconded
3. All approved
■ Ashley reminded us to use the Consensus App to interface with
the City.
1. Feedback to Coralee
a. How do we setup to get notifications when new
questions are posted?
b. If the response choices are too many words the
text goes off the screen rather than wrapping.
i. Coralee asked for feedback of this kind on
future issues/suggestions.
1. Must be email to Coralee - no current
option for feedback in the App
ii. Coralee also wants our input on new
questions related to bike/ped
2. Nic suggested some of the questions raised more
questions, so drilling down on the answers or asking more
precise questions that lead to actionable answers on the
first round.
3. Cathy asked about the personal information required -
seems like it’s too much. Coralee reported that these
“asks” have been updated to reduce the personal info
they ask for.
■ New logo developed for Penny For Paths projects
1. Nic asked where does #SOBU get us? Should work within
Twitter and Facebook.
2. Committee agreed the logo looks great
a. Wanted to be able to add to the logo for specific
applications, like:
i. Coming soon…
ii. Paid for by…
9. Report & Discussion: Annual Work Plan & Report - Bill & Shawn
■ Shawn is putting this together - needs input from committee
members on work done in the 1st-half of this year that should
be included.
■ Plan to present the draft at next month’s meeting & then it
needs to be submitted to the City 2 days after (not a lot of time
to revise)
10. City Ordinances (added) - Bob
■ New parking ordinance
■ New traffic ordinance
11.Updates: Ongoing Committee Work
■ NOTE - Cathy suggested that our agendas are always too long
and suggested we take this section out of the official agenda
unless there’s a specific topic that requires an update.
1. Dana said that this was added because the committee
was running out of time so they placed it on the agenda.
Hasn’t worked great.
2. Shawn asked about elevating anything that needs
discussion to an actual agenda item & leaving it off if not.
3. Ashley reported that other committees call this section
Member & Staff Reports.
a. They spend very little time on this section.
b. Review: Homework Review - Dana
c. Update: P4P Project Updates - Ashley
d. Update: Policy and Safety Recommendations Update - Bob
e. Update: Monthly DPW meeting - Bob & Shawn
■ Notes from the July meeting posted
f. Update: CCRPC Update - Amanda & Donna
g. Update: Interim Zoning - Amanda & Donna
h. Update: DRB Update - Cathy & Shawn
i. Update: General Business - Dana
12. Elections: Election of new officers:
■ Can do a 1yr rotation - we have to do annual elections anyway,
so there’s always the opportunity to step down even if we don’t
do a formal rotation.
■ Dana nominated Shawn as Chair, Nic seconded - All in favor
■ Bob nominated Cathy as Vice Chair, Dana seconded - All in favor
■ Shawn nominated Bill as Clerk, Dana seconded - All in favor
13. Ashley reviewed homework for next meeting - Not done
■ Homework/actions pulled together after the meeting from the
minutes.
14. Confirmation that the next bike/ped meeting is Wednesday, August 14
■ Cathy won’t be able to attend
■ Bob won’t be able to attend
15. Adjourned @ 8:15pm