Indicators Report, Page 31 Energy- “Electric rates vary greatly and don’t tell you very much” . Is this statement appropriate? Electric bill (and gas bill and water bill) are calculated: usage x rate=cost. When either rate or usage changes, it is reflected in my bill and that is very meaningful to me. Further from experience in a large VT company’s location study, I can say that electric rates and their projections were very important. I recommend that (1) the quoted sentence be deleted and (2) that electric rates (as well as natural gas and maybe heating oil) be measured as the key indicators that they are.

The Working Lands Indicators are missing from the indicator list in the back.

1.Table of Contents and page 15. Lane Use Should there be a goal #2?

2.Page 18 Housing-How will we measure if housing is safe and decent as stated in the goal?

3.Page 18 Housing- Is it appropriate that this goal should this goal be limited to diverse neighborhoods only? For example, what about “marginal” trailer parks, etc. that are in ?

4.Page 25 Transportation-Do the indicators clearly respond to the goal where the key point of the goal seems to be “ Provide…….mobility choices.

5.Page 31 Energy- “Electric rates vary greatly and don’t tell you very much” . Is this statement appropriate? Electric bill (and gas bill and water bill) are calculated: usage x rate=cost. When either rate or usage changes it is reflected in my bill and that is very meaningful to me. Further from experience in a large VT company’s location study, I can say that electric rates and their projections were very important. I recommend that (1) the quoted sentence be deleted and (2) that electric rates (as well as natural gas and maybe heating oil) be measured as the key indicators that they are.

6.Page 35 Stormwater -Is there a way to measure “affordably and effectively” as stated in the goal?

7.Page 40 Hazard Mitigation. It seems that indicators for this goal should directly address the goal and track (1) loss of life and (2) loss of propery loss within the region. This would measure directly the overall results of the strategies implemented to reduce losses.

8.Page 42-43 Employment- To measure “Retain Existing employers and jobs”, it seems like ther should be two additional key indicators:
(1)the number of existing employers and jobs that leave the region.
(2)the number of jobs in the region in absolute terms over time.

9.Page 49 Entrepreneurship- Shouldn’t the first key indicator read “number of new business filings each year by local owners”

10.Page 47 Employee Clusters - Do we expect change in the location quotients as measure of success? What might we expect?

11.Page 50 Economic Diversity – Are we for change on these relationships from year to year?

12.Page 57. A complex goal with many measurements/indicators. It would be helpful to simplify and clarify where possible.

13.Page 80-82 Health- Sub Goals seems to need a statement of what the sub-goal is so that we can relate the indicators to the goal.Maybe it is just organization, but more work seems appropriate.

14.Page 53 Household Financial Security- The Goal is basically “Income minus Expenses”. The best fit indicator is as stated on page 55 “Combined Housing + transportation Costs as a proportion of area median income”. It would be an even better indicator if there was a way to add food, health care and the likes to the housing and transportation costs.

In my opinion, there has been a lot of improvement this round, but the challenge of authoring and editing a group document is apparent. In a couple of areas, I really got bogged down and pretty much “gave up”. I also think that more work could be done to make sure the key indicators are really “key” and respond specifically stated goal. Quite a few of the key indicators would seem to be more appropriate under “Other/supporting indicators”.

Just some points of clarification:
Subgoal 1 : Public Water Supply. At one point the Village of Jericho had its own municipal water supply, now the utility is served by The CWD. The Jericho-Underhill district district serves the Underhill Flats/Riverside ( Jericho ) area and has its own supply in 2 holding tanks.
Scenic and Recreational Resources/supporting indicators/performance measures:
The Mobbs area in Jericho is a mapped recreation resource with a management plan in place.

A quick piece of feedback on the indicators, realizing they're a work in progress. p. 15 mentions "State Designated Smart Growth Program Areas." This is not a state designation. It seems like shorthand for the state designations that do exist: growth centers, new town centers, designated villages and downtowns. Using "Smart Growth Program Areas" as shorthand muddies the waters by introducing a new term, when there is already so much confusion around the state designations. I'd be very reluctant to use this phrase and would be glad to work with you on coming up with something else for the next round.

Sub-Goal 2 Water Quality:
On p. 68 [of the 4.5.12 draft], there are three indicators related to phosphorus in Lake Champlain:

-Burlington Bay, Mallets Bay, Inland Sea annual mean TP concentration
- Main lake annual mean TP concentration
- Mean TP loading rates to Lake Champlain from Winooski, Lamoille, and LaPlatte River.

With the possible exception of the TP loading from the LaPlatte River (entirely within Chitt. Co.), I don't think these are very good indicators for Chittenden County, simply because a lot of the area draining to the lake regions and the Winooski and Lamoille Rivers are not in the county and it is impossible to sort out how much of the P is attributable in or out of the county. So even if we did a fantastic job in the county, these indicators may not change at all because of what's coming in from outside the county. Add to that the very long lag times in these indicators in response to any land-based management activities. So, I would strongly suggest that these be dropped from the list or at least heavily qualified as secondary indicators (I know they're "cheap" to get because DEC and.or the LCBP are already generating them).

On a more positive note, I would suggest adding an indicator - number of beach closures (for bacteria). This indicator would likely be geographically appropriate (Burlington beaches, for example, would be primarily influenced by very local tribs and stormwater) and short-lived enough to be pretty responsive to management improvement
- e.g., the reopening of Blanchard Beach at Oakledge Park in Burlington. Number of beach closures has been used as an indicator elsewhere in the US and the data for CC beaches should be reasonably easy to get.

Is there any place to add an indicator which might help promote, increase and track telecommuting. I see two significant areas where we could reduce carbon emissions and travel congestion - support systems to help employers adopt effective telecommuting plans, and development shared office spaces which could be used by multiple employers to house employees closer to their homes, even within walking distance.

"Will there be the capacity to do primary data collection?"

(SC 1.25.12)

General comments:There almost needs to be an entire definition section. It would help all of us and other laypeople who will review this later, not all are familiar with all the metrics and how the indicators are collected and definitions such as “new structure."

Can the implementation money be used for collecting new data?