Hello, neighbors.
Last Saturday, the City Council held our annual Policy Strategies and Priorities retreat to meet with the staff Leadership Team and prioritize our goals for the year. We do this to stay on track with our shared community vision, focused on economic development, housing, municipal infrastructure, and safe/healthy/connected people (learn more at winooskivt.gov/vision). Doing so also helps us consider our resources, budgets, staff hours, and community engagements. I'm proud of the work we continue to do as a community. Since we can't do everything at once, these retreats help us to strategize and reasonably manage what we can handle from year to year. Aspects of established community priorities, the Master Plan, community listening sessions, direct engagement with residents, commission recommendations, and staff input all come into play during this process. An official priorities document will be finalized at an upcoming meeting and will be available to see on our website at winooskivt.gov/council.
After the weekend, we held our regular City Council meeting on Monday to discuss a handful of items. We heard from the Winooski Partnership for Prevention and Winooski School District students to learn more about substance abuse prevention and received an informative presentation on the dangers of flavored tobacco products. We also learned about their support for a bill in the Vermont Legislature to restrict these products and how they are commonly advertised to youth. The legislature could take this up next year.
We also received an update on the O’Brien Community Center (OCC). The City has been exploring a partnership with the Champlain Housing Trust to create a more vibrant, functional, and financially sustainable community center. Existing tenants of the building including Vermont Works for Women, Community Health Centers of Burlington/Vermont Dental, UVM Medical Center Physical Therapy, and Howard Center have expressed an interest in staying, and we remain committed to providing a space for the Winooski Memorial Library and our Community Services Department offices. The new vision for the O'Brien Community Center also prioritizes community gathering spaces for events. While there aren't any tangible decisions just yet, please know that the preliminary conversations, concepts, and considerations all emphasize keeping the OCC a community-focused hub for everyone to enjoy.
Later, the Council and community were introduced to Jazmine Hurley, our recently hired Housing Initiative Director. Jazmine brings her expertise and experiences to our community with a degree in macro-level social work and employment history as a housing navigator, researcher on childhood homelessness, and project coordinator for a substance use prevention team within a municipality. Jazmine's background in public service and policy work, coupled with her deep appreciation for our community, makes her a valuable addition to our housing initiative efforts and Leadership Team. Please join us in welcoming Jazmine. The Housing Initiative Director’s role is at the systems and policy level, not at the case management level. Jazmine is tasked with developing an annual work plan to “ensure a mix of quality housing that maintains and enhances Winooski’s unique sense of place and supports the needs of the entire community,” as stated in Winooski’s Master Plan. The work plan may include policy, research, and collaborations. She is consulting with housing organizations and people with a perspective on housing to inform the work plan. Anyone interested in shaping housing in Winooski is welcome to reach out to her at 802 655 6410 or jhurley@winooskivt.gov. For more info, visit winooskivt.gov/housing.
The meeting continued with an exciting small business loan approval for a brand new, minority/woman-owned business that will fill a storefront that has been vacant since 2018! If you're interested in learning more about this program, click here. or reach out to a representative at Opportunities Credit Union.
We also spent time during the meeting to set a public hearing for our June 5th meeting where we'll approve updates to the fees chapter of our municipal code - these changes include a new processing fee for sidewalk permits, fees for offering passport services at the City Clerk's Office, reducing the new dog license fee if you register mid-year, increasing the rental inspection fee, and adding in the Abeanki land use waiver we took up during the Centennial.
See you at the next meeting!
Mayor Kristine Lott
klott@winooskivt.gov / 802 766 1988