 Board 7. That's what it is. Board 7. Every court member, work board is very good. Matt, work board 7 is good. I am. Yeah, work board 7. Yeah, I'm Laura, work board 7. Love, work board. Dean Hartman, work board. Sumahole, work board 7. Don't worry, work board 7. Love, work board 7. Love, work board. Love, work board. Chris Johnnell, work board 7, steering committee. Jeff O'Donnell, work board. Hi, Jen O'Donnell, work board, steering committee. Peter Ireland, work board. Hannah Carpino, CEDA. Courtney Landon, I'm a reporter with 7D. Jeff Clark, work board, steering committee. Excellent. Did we miss anybody? Oh, Jim, did you get it? Did we get Jim? Oh, I don't know. I don't know. With your mouth full, please. I'm sorry. I'm sitting on my seat. Yay. All right, thank you to everybody. And we do ask, this is the announcement time. If you have something going on in the neighborhood and announce, we just ask that you keep it to 30 seconds. Do we turn people's...ish? 30 seconds. Anybody have an announcement? I'll put this side if you're taking too much. No announcements? No? Okay, great. Well, then we can get started right away with Ms. Gail Barrow, who is presenting from the Heineberg Senior Center. You can either stand and use a microphone or you can sit and use one of our fancy new scenes. Whatever you prefer. Well, maybe I'll sit. Hello? Thank you very much. Thank you for letting me sit because you know between my glasses and the paper and the mic. I'm Gail Marrow. I was the former director at the Heineberg Senior Community Center on Heineberg Road. And for those who may not be familiar with that facility, it has been a center for seniors, opportunities since 1971. So we've been in the community a very long time. And I have to say that through the years, of course, as any private nonprofit goes, it has ebbs and flows of financial security or unsecurity. And we found ourselves last year in a period that was not financially sustainable. The senior center has always been funded privately. So we never had state money. We never had city money. We, until recently, about five years ago, we were getting United Way funding. Last year, the United Way dropped the funding of the Heineberg Senior Center. That kind of left us in a dilemma. What do we do? Beth Hammond is the executive director. And I am the board chair there now. After retiring as a director, I took a little break and then I came back as a board member. So we immediately called our city counselors. And I have to say, all of the city counselors who are not here were very receptive. And not only that said, what can we do? We really need to figure this out. The center is very active. It sees a lot of participants. There's a lot of good programs for people aged 50 and over. So I see a lot of people in this room who could access programs. I always said, my job there when I was a director was to create the center that I wanted to go to. And here I am. I am taking activities there now. That's what I'm saying. So we got together and we presented a proposal to city council, which was passed unanimously to study the situation at Heineberg and try to figure out a way to make this sustainable. I think what we didn't want, we didn't want to close the doors and say, well, it's been a good run, but it's a very active and vibrant center. We really wanted to keep it going. So the city council put together a committee and I want to read to you just the people that were on it, because we had really people who were invested in senior opportunities in our city and they really put a lot of hard work and time into making this committee work and figure out a way that we can continue on in a sustainable fashion. So here's where I'm great for that I'm sitting with a table. The members of the committee were Jane O'Dell, Dave Hartnett, Jesse Bridges from United Way, Sarah Carter from Burlington Parks and Recreation, Kirby Dunn from Home Share Vermont, Beth Hammond who is the Executive Director of the Heineberg Community Senior Center, myself, Gary Rogers from Burlington Parks and Recreation, Kelly Stodder from AARP, Cameron Siegel from Living Well. So the committee met all year and came forward to city council this past spring with the following recommendations, there's two. The recommendation regarding the long-term financial sustainability of the Heineberg Community Center, they found that it's currently not on a financially sustainable footing. We lost grant income and we were dipping into savings just to provide operations money as you all know that that's not sustainable. So the recommendation to city council was that the senior center enter into a partnership with the Burlington Parks and Recreation creating two campuses for senior programming in the city of Burlington, one of the Champlain Senior Center which is located at the core building which is the old St. Joseph School on Allen Street in Burlington. It's a great facility and the Heineberg Senior Center. The key elements of this partnership which would need to be further defined and specified which is the process that we're going through right now would be an understanding that the department the city department would manage the operations of the Heineberg Community Senior Center. The Heineberg Senior Center owns its own 501 C3 which means it's a non-profit status. That 501 C3 would maintain ownership of the building at 14 Heineberg Road. They would still be a board that represented that 501 C3 and would be responsible for building needs large building repairs. The Parks and Recreation and Waterfront Department would be responsible for the everyday operations including everyday cleaning of the toilets and all that kind of stuff. So that was the first recommendation that this committee gave to City Council. The second recommendation which is something that I'm really excited about because I really felt the need for this for a long time would be to create a Burlington Council on Aging and the goal and mission of that would be to raise awareness of the needs of the diverse group and bring greater focus to the coordination and services of programs for older residents in the city of Burlington. So the process right now how am I going to try? I'm good? 15 minutes. So the process now is we have money allocated from our city budget to maintain what we're doing right now until we can work out the details in the following months with Burlington Parks and Recreation and Waterfront so that we have a really good transition that we merge but the key thing is I think that people that attend the center and come to programs every day would not see any difference in their programming or in their meals or in their walking in the same staff that's there now. So that's our goal I think it creates long-term sustainability for this wonderful asset in the New North End of Burlington. So, any questions? Yes. Wait for a mic so that everyone can hear. Okay, we're on. My question is what is the relationship between Heineberg Senior Housing and the Heineberg Center? Thank you for asking that question because I think a lot of people do not understand that Heineberg Housing is a cathedral square property that is completely separate from the Heineberg Community Senior Center. The Heineberg Community Senior Center is a private nonprofit open to any one in our area 50 years of age and older. It has no connection to Heineberg Housing other than the fact that we're really good neighbors and we obviously see a lot of faults from the housing but we're completely separate. Thank you. Thank you for clarifying that because of the name Heineberg Heineberg. Any other questions about the future of the center or how that is going to be managed in the future? Great, yes. What will the source of funds be? The source I don't even have that good camera he said. What will the source of funds be? Right now the source of funds is through our city budget and we'll continue to do so. It will be funded by the city. However, I do want to say that obviously the budget for the year is greater than the 58,000 that the city does put in for the operations at Heineberg. So it will be up to the Parks Recreation Waterfront Department to raise money to fund the part that's not being funded by city taxes. But there's rental opportunities that got built in. There's opportunities for raising revenue aside from city money which they plan on doing. So for the programming will that start showing up in the Parks and Rec program? Yes, it will. We had plenty of time. Oh sure, I'd love to. Off the top of my head the number one program that people our age want is health and wellness programs. So to that end, we have at the center, we have Tai Chi yoga, bone builders jazzer-sized seniors. We have health clinics. We have food clinics. We have nutrition classes. Helping if I'm not going to end because that comes to the center frequently. But health and wellness is one area where we have a lot of good opportunities for seniors. Another one that is always at the top of people's requests are trips and recreational activities. Gatherings. I always throw this statistic out because I think it was mind-blowing for me when I heard this. Social isolation loneliness can have the same impact on your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Wow. That's what I said when I first heard that. How can we provide opportunities that people can participate in, build a community, and feel that they are engaged in our community and also giving back to the community because we also do service opportunities. So we're trying to look at it holistically. How can we keep older adults in our city active, vital, and feeling engaged in our community? Being part of something helps to combat that social isolation. Go ahead, Dave. Sorry, you first. Yeah, maybe it would also be helpful. I think an important role in this community play is when we talk about reaching the populations that we have recent, you know, Americans and seniors in their homes and bringing them in and learning their culture, learning our culture. Because we think there's a big void right here in the senior center. So maybe you can touch on that. We talk about that. The community is very focused on that. Exactly. Because, you know, there's a lot of older adults and there's a lot of older adults out here in our two boards. So having to visit a center either at Langerberg or Champlain doesn't mean that they don't have needs or wants or they don't want to be engaged in the community because they do. We know that one problem even out here is transportation. When we generate a council on aging, we can really take a look at these aspects that really prohibit people from getting out and being active in our community. Choosing to do the programs that they want. There's a lot of seniors that live that don't happen to go to a center and I think we want to make sure that we're looking at the whole community holistically and not just the people who happen to go to that center. And I think merging with the Burlington Park Recreation Waterfront is going to really help us to do that. Dave, did I touch on that? Yeah, absolutely. I think it was a cue all that we talked about. Yeah. I think the other funding to Peter a little bit too as far as funding we've talked about rentals and the hybrid centers and stuff like that. It's always about the money when it comes down to it. All these groups were fighting for the same funds, the same grants, the same everything. It was competing against each other and what we were doing, we were really ending up hurting all of us. And so this way by combining and coming into the city people don't have to be able to write grants for us and raise money for us and have the whole. We should be looking at this as a city-wide issue. It shouldn't be in North and South Bend. We should be looking at bringing it all together. This group not because I was part of it but this group did a lot of great work and I think we touched on a lot of areas that we hadn't talked about. And I think the other thing that we did which was very important to me and I talked about it early on was we brought the people that used the center in early. We kept them updated every step of the way. And we said to them anytime you hear something that you don't like or you don't think it's going to work we want to hear from you. And so it was very open. And I think this community got together and said okay this is what it's going to be like. Here it is. We were getting into it a long way by members that actually used the club now. I think that was very important and very helpful. And I think the culture at the senior center here on Honeberg Road is one of activism and volunteerism. And we have a lot of folks that come in and out all day long and really run most of the programs. It's an exercise program so it really is a good community. And I want to say something else that was really important. I forgot. You'll think of it. Yeah. I am curious are there any programs or ways that younger kids or kids or middle schoolers or teenagers are encouraged to come volunteer and participate? Because I know that's... Elementary school kids they have a great program in the second grade class at CPSM. They are called Grand Buddies or Grand Friends or is that right Diane? It's a great program that goes all the school year long. We have the culinary program from Burlington High School making things for all of our big male events. It's a... And I think the key is to keep programming and keep doing that more and more because there's nothing better than multi-gen programs. How would some private citizen make a donation towards Heineberg? There's a website Heineberg Senior Center Maybe Senior Center. Anyway, there is a donation link on our webpage. Or you can walk in. Thank you. Everything you've said so far is talking about serving the dear old seniors. Why don't we say that 20% of the budget will be made up by the seniors one way or another. Let them work. That's the one thing that will drag me out is a real need for me somewhere. So am I understanding that you would like to do some fundraising to benefit the senior center? Absolutely not. I want the seniors to work. I don't want to be considered a bunch of old folks that we feel we have to take care of and entertain, which is what you've defined. No, I completely agree because I think that any age people of any age have a contribution to this community. And that's always been the focus. In fact, that senior center would not run without people coming in and volunteering. At any age I completely agree. We have too much to give and to give back to our community to ever be thinking that you needed anyone to come in and take care of. That's just not the focus of the center. The website is Heineberg csc.org and there is a page that you can volunteer or donate. There's a bar. Thank you. Just to address Peter's issue we talked about there are still going to be opportunities we are going to be self fundraising and to access the budget ourselves. We'll do our general appeal letter we're going to hopefully have events at the Alps Club and bring the community involved. We're going to partner hopefully with Berkeley and start on to help raise some money across to the new owners of both those places. They want to get involved. You're actually right Peter because to me it's not only about them getting 20% and doing a share to me that's a step and seeing the quality of life. They're still producing they're giving and they have skin in the game and they feel good about that and they're proud about that they just don't sit back and imagine what appears they want to be part of it they want to have a say and so they still want to do the annual appeal they still want to do the broad sales they still want to do the Alps it's great that they want to participate and try to help raise funds so there is a percentage I'm not going to say it's 20% I want you to know there will be fundraising drives going on within the community itself and the 501C3 remains active and will be responsible for building repairs so there will be a need to raise money for that as well Two quick questions and I'm not sure if this is decided yet but is Beth going to be able to stay on as director because she said it's fabulous She is a fabulous director so this is the process Burlington Parks Recreation has to advertise that position legally for legal reasons they are very interested in keeping Beth and Terry Price as well so our hope is that they have to apply for the job accept it for the job and they want to stay on and I think all of those three things will work Okay we have two and a half minutes left Any last questions and a suggestion Can you talk a little bit about the senior the tickets for the senior males in the community? Sure I can and I want to say that that program is a part of age well so it is in fact I just used one today I went down to Rosie's in Middlebury so you go into the scheme of the center for age well, office and efforts and you get a form and then you can buy a restaurant ticket if you're over the age of 60 you can buy a ticket for five dollars which will enable you to go to the restaurants on their list for a meal and I went to Rosie's had a delightful lunch and I used my five dollar ticket but that is a program from age well but we also coordinate with the senior center and you can go in and get the application and you can actually buy tickets at the senior center I think it's Thursdays, one Thursday a month but call the center for more information 8-6-3-3-9-8 Alright that's all I do want to say thank you very much Erica for giving us the opportunity to let you know because this is a center that belongs to all of us in this community and I appreciate the opportunity to let you know what's happening so thank you very much Thank you Gail Next up we have Rachel Kennedy from Green Mountain Transit What else is doing this part? I'm probably over it While we're saying this I'm sure Erica mentioned this at the beginning but I do want to point out the bottom of the agenda is a very expensive new addition but if anyone's interested in getting time on the agenda maybe I have no idea how that happened so you put the link at the very bottom it's a very easy Google Doc so if you ever want time on the agenda it's a really easy way to do it I just want to point that out of course like commercials Okay can you all hear me? Okay so my name is Rachel Kennedy and I'm here from Green Mountain Transit I'm the senior transit planner I'm here to talk about you know I think we're all aware that on June 17th we changed the bus system on the agenda it says route changes that's a bit of a misnomer we didn't actually change the routes very much and in the new north end we didn't make any routing changes at all so the big changes are scheduling and the big changes that you'll see are we changed from route numbers to route colors so those are kind of the big changes that I'm going to discuss tonight we've got this big piece of a project that started in September of 2017 called Next Generation Transit what it is is basically GMT's been through a lot of changes in the past 10-15 years and there hasn't really been that take a step back do a comprehensive service analysis since then so we wanted to take this opportunity to get the best bang for your buck for your tax dollars basically so we're always with transit there's the balance how can we serve the most people and how can we serve people who need it the most so those are kind of the things that we consider when we're looking at making new changes so changes to every route to improve service attract new riders and better balance services with demand so we've been through quite a few public feedback sessions and you start out really big where the big ideas that we want to see and then you take those out and you get public feedback you come out with a more specific plan to have the implementation that happened on June 17th we did do a lot of research into what future improvements might you want and so in the beginning it was scenarios, scenario one, neutral funding scenario two, 5% increase, scenario three 10% increase okay sorry so what we need with the funding constraints that we're currently experiencing we are doing cost neutral service improvements so this is an entirely cost neutral service that we designed but we didn't want to lose all that research we had done into what are the big idea projects that might happen in the future so we've come up with these phases phase one is what happened on June 17th and we're working on the rural system changes now phase two is service enhancements additional service on existing routes so more service more of the time and then phase three is geographic expansion so based on global interest and feasibility studies in the future where might be add commuter routes or where might be add fixed route service in the future so this is our new system map the routing should look pretty similar but you see the big changes that we've switched from route numbers to route colors and the reason we did that is we had a pretty confusing service you know route 36 traveled on route 116 so we haven't changed commuters yet but similarly you know take bus 1 on route 2 after Williston now we're just going to say take the red line to Williston so what makes that look like so if you are standing this is an example of the red line it's going to say red line to Williston via DTC the DTC is now at the center of all of those routes so back to the concept across the lines so the old route 7 and the old route 1 is now the red line north gate to Williston by DTC we've got the old route 2 and route 6 blue line, S6 to Shelburne by DTC Wunewski and Pine Street we've combined the old south Burlington circulator with the college street shuttle now that one was a bit tricky because the college street shuttle used to be free so we introduced a fair free zone same routing no fair but it's going to run every half an hour instead of every 15 minutes so that's now the purple line the benefit there is that you can get to south Burlington without having to make a transfer you can have all these services at the airport from the waterfront without making a transfer we've kept the orange line which is the old Williston S6 pretty much the same we had originally proposed eliminating S6 but last year about a year and a half ago we started working with the S6 school district to provide student they would be in versus for student rides we saw ridership jump to 60% a lot of community outreach to keep that service and so we've kept it at slightly reduced hours students will still be able to ride it to high school during those hours and we're providing still those peak meter hours for people who need to take it to service to work the one we did end up eliminating was Williston 1B which had an average of four riders a day and while we really understand that for those four riders this was a very necessary service that's the balance we're talking about serving the most riders and the riders needed the most so in order to have the most efficient service we ended up eliminating Williston 1B so just a brief summary it's going to be 20 minute headways on the main trunk routes and again the main trunk routes are the red and blue lines the big X, the main ways of getting in and out of downtown Burlington it'll be half an hour service on the green line which is Winooski Pine Street the orange line and then the silver head limited service we've extended late night service on later service on almost all routes the last trip will leave the DTC at 11 o'clock so if you want to go out to dinner in Burlington you'll be kept up confident that wherever you're trying to get outside of downtown Burlington that last trip is going to leave at 11 o'clock we'll have dedicated Sunday service we used to have kind of funky routes that just kind of did what a lot of other routes did that didn't really make sense so now we're going to have dedicated service on all of these main routes on Sunday this says adjusted commuter times we actually decided to hold off on that and I'm going to do a little prompt if any of you ride a commuter service or are interested in doing it please you come to our website we're doing commuter surveys if we get enough responses and if it seems like we can capture more ridership without disadvantaged and current riders we will be trying to adjust commuter schedules in September with the implementation of the rural change service so again just an example red line to Williston via DTC so this is an example of how we've updated our bus mapping guides this is the old route 7 on the left the old route 1 on the right and you can see here that's now the red line we decided to add a lot more context so it's easier to kind of or am I on this bus schedule when the white fox comes now if you're new to transit one thing I do want to point out is that these are just time points we can't fit every stop in a bus mapping guide so we provide time points at the major stops and then if you're looking at a bus mapping guide and say I'm somewhere in here I'm not quite sure what the bus is going to come what you're going to want to do is look at this time point and look at this time point and you're just going to have to give yourself that 10 minute window when you think it's going to come in between those stops so this is what our bus mapping guide looks like we've already gotten a lot of feedback we're going to have an opportunity to make a lot of updates based on that feedback in September so again the biggest change and it's kind of just going to have to be a little bit of a switch of how you think about our transit system is that you can see the downtown transit center is now the center of the route rather than the terminus of a route so when you're looking at the map in order to orient yourself you know am I in, where am I and where do I want to go so I'm at the DTC okay and I want to go to Northgate nope okay I'm at the DTC this is what you're going to be looking at so that's kind of how you orient yourself in the new system so you might notice this funky little bit in the middle here since we've moved to consistent headway if I'm at the DTC I know that this bus is going to leave for Northgate 10 after the hour 30 after the hour and 50 after the hour so anytime all day pretty much until 6 o'clock this is when the bus is going to come 20 minutes so you kind of have to fill in the blank there but you know it's 12 o'clock when is the bus going to come the next bus is going to come at 12.15 so that's what that means some other really exciting things and again another big push of this is making the system easy to use and I know it seems a little counter-intuitive to throw all these changes but we really believe that the color line with that culture show happens once we kind of get some time the best way of presenting this information it's really going to make a lot more sense than it does currently one exciting kind of technological fix that we have now is real-time location app there's an app called transit and if you all want to download it T-R-A-N-S-I-T transit and with that it does trip planning so it knows where you are you put in where you want to go it's going to give you a couple different options where the bus is on the route which is really helpful if I'm going to stop it's pretty stressful, did I miss the bus am I going to have to wait 20 minutes now I'll be able to see when the next bus is coming the other thing, so this on the right is the transit app so you can see search line or destination gives you a couple different options we also have mobile ticketing right now we're not in the same app but shortly they will be in the same app so you'll be able to click that button right up top by whichever pass you would like all current passes are going to be viable in the system and then you just show it to your bus driver tap it and it's active, you have an hour to get to where you're going it works with any fare type and it also offers up a lot of new options for promoting transit are you having a conference in downtown Brillington and you want to give vouchers to all your conference attendees to ride transit to some event you'll be able to buy passes for them and push it out using text or using a link so that you can give passes to people using this program now we're not taking any cash fares away we're not removing any kind of ways that people currently pay for tickets we're only adding options this also means that if you're a person who doesn't carry cash, you don't have to remember to get those quarters or worth it a 5, 10, 20 dollar bill you just show it to the bus okay, buy your ticket, show it to the driver and you're good to go we're doing system change we also, the board voted to increase fares the last GMT cash fare increase was in 2005 we increased now it costs about 50 a ride instead of about 25 so discounted rate would be 75 cents versus it used to be 60 cents we reduced the monthly unlimited pass from 50 to 40 and we worked very closely with social service organizations to make sure that they're getting those 40 monthly passes to people who need them most 20 with reduced rate this is going to generate a projected $160,000 in additional fare revenue it might not make it might seem counterintuitive again at first that the one pass fare is going up and the monthly pass fare is going down but operationally monthly pass fares less when you're at the fare box less load time so we do want to incentivize people and help people purchase those one month passes it's better for their user it's better for us as an agency so if you have any feedback if you have tried out our new system or you're interested in trying out our new system we really, really want to hear from you we've got this great window where you've made a lot of change there's always going to be some good choices and probably some bad choices that you'll cover so we're really interested in hearing from you you can email us at feedback at ridejmt.com if you go to this ridejmt.com slash next gen website we've actually got our world changes up there now all the urban changes since they've been implemented if you click on any of the schedules there's links to the bus mapping guide there's descriptions of the changes and again since I'm the data analyst at my organization please do take those commuter surveys we're really trying to capture as many riders as we can with that any questions? we have one from Facebook live what is the last bus back from downtown? I think it's two years did you say 11? yeah so all of the buses leave the DTC at 11 I think the only exception to that is the pine street route 5 because those buses late night service on pine street it's just buses dead heading back so that can be I think the last one is at 1130 but I don't know off the top of my head I have a question I'm not sure if you're the person to address this or not so feel free to comment that a lot of people talk about frustrations that there isn't more service in the new north end and can you share with us a little bit about what the boundaries are or what the barriers are to getting more service out here? so there's two main things that go into if you have transit service or not the first is local interest is there demonstrated local interest your town has to pay 20% to leverage 80% federal funding and transit is expensive but if you feel strongly that you want your region to have more transit talk to your left board member reach out to your elected officials start that conversation that's a big way that routes happen there's that political pressure the other way is the FTA the federal transit authority has metrics that we need to meet for productivity so we need to look at is this route feasible is there enough demand for it to be feasible that involves a lot of studies but it is again very much the combination of those two things so just to be clear because I know nothing about this 80% when you say 80% federal funding does that mean the federal government actually basically is paying for and helping subsidize the public transit? correct I'm sure not in all cases but in Vermont okay so it's not just the fairer set it's actually a grant or whatever yeah so if your capture is actually relatively high system-wide I'm going to make up a number probably around 15% I'd say rural areas it might be more like 3% your capture is certainly it's definitely that that you contribute to the system that you're using I mean sorry two questions one comment number one as far as all the new changes and I think I think we've done a really good job bridging out with these new routes and getting out into some of the walls with all these changes and they look like that changes as far as information it's a big change you're going to red lines we're in Boston have we addressed language barrier issues and how we're going to get to the communities that are going to be able to understand these changes that depend on this for their jobs and this is going to be confusing I think for them at first like for anybody else but doubly confusing for the communities that you have language barriers I hope you guys have come up with a strategy to kind of educate everybody on how we're going to do that so you can same thing in the new north end I don't want to get into that particular issue tonight in neighborhoods but if you hear a lot of complaints from people that live out here that you're working in Wooliston at all the box stores or South Burlington and they get out of work at 10 o'clock and they're saying they can't get to the new north end after work is that a fair statement if you're working at 10 o'clock at night in Wooliston or South Burlington the chances of you getting back home at the new north end are not good I have to pull out the last math and guide and go through it which we're very happy to do so a big part of our outreach was we had a tabling at the DTC we were just literally sitting at the DTC helping people way find through the new system we also have a program called Bus Buddies which is if you're interested but not quite sure how to use the transit system you can reach out to us and we'll match you with a volunteer if you figure out literally go with you on the bus so that it can be very intimidating the first time I rode public transit was after I had moved to a big city for grad school and I grew up in Vermont very scary how do I use the fare box how do I talk to a bus driver about where I need to go so I understand that there are a lot of barriers of introduction to transit use and so the Bus Buddy program is a good program that we have and again we are so willing to help you way find in any way that we can that you want us to reach out to you know we'd be thrilled to do this sort of presentation or a more informal tabling event yeah is there any way to find out how Burlington students connect with say the the Roots to Montpelier or Middlebury is there any form of connection between them at all yeah so we we co-authorize a Roots to Middlebury with ACTER we run the Montpelier link after Montpelier but I think more broadly speaking to your point the Vermont Agency of Transportation has launched an app called Go Vermont and they're actually the state bought this app that we now have called Transit and so they're trying to make all of Vermont's systems complimentary so I go to one place and I type in you know it knows where I am I type in where I'm going and it's going to say take the GMT bus here catch the RCT bus and take it down to here so we have about 30 seconds left do you want to have any closing comments I think we have a couple if we want to take one more question we really need to to respect the time of other folks who are coming to present so I appreciate you so just one more big push if you have any feedback you know please do email us take the commuter survey and I will just say if you want transit in your community ride the bus be loud and active in every way that you can get to the bus ALI runs up to Route 7 it takes too long to get to the bus you guys have done studies where it takes to get from Route 7 to somebody's house so we just want to remember that we want to be respectful of this time and that we're going to move on to the next thing everyone if you have something I'm sure our presenters are happy to speak to you out in the hallway or after the meeting and so next we have is it Miss Mary Danko are you next? yes Mary Danko from the library is going to give us a presentation actually I should just let that out do you want to hold it or do you want to sit I can hold it hello everybody I'm Mary Danko and I am the library director at the Fletcher Free Library and I am here tonight to ask you if you would fill out a survey we have been working on our strategic plan before I started in 2017 around 2016 the library went to all the different NPAs maybe we're at the one that they came to they had stakeholder meetings interviews and they came up with a strategic plan and we're working our way through it but we're at a point where we want to kind of look at it again and get input so we're hoping that you will fill out a survey I brought some paper surveys with me today but I'm hoping we can put the link on the minutes as well you're looking at the wrong person I'm all in if you do it online that's even easier for us because it goes digitally on to a spreadsheet and that's really all I have and I wanted to open it up to questions because it's better for me to find out from you what maybe you want to know if anybody has any questions I've noticed that you have a lot of great new programming at the library so congratulations on that and so what are you surveying? we are trying to survey what you think of the library what you like what we're doing and maybe what you would like to see so I'm really glad that you noticed that we were doing that because that was one of the things with this strategic plan is please increase your programming one of the things you may not see as much is we do a lot of outreach so we do come to all the senior centers in the area I'm trying to think of the ones we've come up with we come to Thayer house, we come to Heineberg we actually do a book discussion there we come to Birchwood we are coming now to different daycares and doing literacy story times there so we're trying to do a lot more outreach as well that's the other question are you doing the summer kids program? yes so this is a big time of year for libraries because we really try to engage students over the summer can you speak a little bit perfect summer is a big time for our library because does that sound better? there should be on counter wait for us for the library I love that it does feel a little awkward if I can say it summer is a big time for us at the library we really try and engage students during the summer I don't know if you've ever heard of the term summer slide often times if kids aren't engaged in any kind of reading or learning they can really have a big setback so we try and make it a lot of fun and we've actually expanded it's not just about summer reading anymore you may have encountered a child in your lifetime who says I hate to read and maybe it's because they have a particular learning challenge so we don't call it summer reading we call it summer challenge so we have different activities they can do some reading but there might be some math activities or some outdoor nature activities and as they do that they can enter a raffle to win this year we also have it for our teens and this year we have it for adults too so we're just rolling out an adult summer reading program and no we don't monitor what you read you can read any kind of tea tree that you want and if you come into the library you can fill out a little raffle ticket and you'll get entered into a raffle for a weekly reading question thank you I read recently somewhere that you're depending on volunteers to show those books how is that working for you it's working out great I just left a volunteer tonight when I came over they love if you love books it's like being a kid in a candy store and we don't monitor how many you show so sometimes people get lost in the shows and they're reading the books and that's wonderful so we find it's a win-win often times when people volunteer they leave with a stack of books you just serendipitously find something that you might not have seen before so it's a great program and we actually have it for our teens as well so if you're a teen and you want some volunteer experience you can volunteer at the young adult department how much training do you tend to give the volunteers to do that we do give them training we don't ask them to sing their ABCs but we do give them a lot of training and sometimes what we'll do is when people first show books we'll have them tip them this way so we can go back and check and it's just we I'm trying to remember how many I did we have over 100,000 items on our shelves and so what we pride ourselves is if somebody asks for a book we want to be able to laser in and get that book so it is important that they're in the right place so we work with folks to make sure that happens because if we can't find a book we don't sleep well at night another Facebook question can you explain some of the unusual items that can't be borrowed from the library oh yes of course so this is a newer thing for us it's called the library of now traditional things I would say we've always for a long time we've had tools we were actually one of the first libraries to do this type of collection so we've got shovels post-fold diggers yeah, rakes and tennis rackets and then recently we added all kinds of different things one of our more popular ones has been ukuleles so if you're not sure you want to buy a ukulele or we've got some drums you might want to try it first we have a metal detector maybe a relative's coming and you want to go down the beach and see some good things we have a lot of games we have giant games we have a giant Kinect 4 we have a giant Jenga we have a pasta maker we have a yarn winder and we would love your suggestions so we think that this is a very the library has that infrastructure for loaning things out so why buy something that you're just going to buy once and have it in your garage let's all share it as a community that we think we should have in the library we would love to get it I love that that's awesome good question too yes any other questions you said that you're in the process of building the next strategic plan can you give us any previews of the direction the library's hoping to head I think this survey is kind of we've got one more year left so we're kind of looking to see that we're still on the right track I don't you know I don't really have any good ideas yet I'm kind of holding up until I get all the surveys we've had a really good response so far you're the last NPA that I'm visiting so I hope you can bring it home with a lot of good survey responses so I'm trying to keep it open minded but we've been hearing a lot of good feedback and we just want to be open so here in the back row we hear very well that you say you're taking donations of that sort of stuff at a grain scale I want to get rid of so grain scale a grain scale? never mind but are you taking donations of things that people might for the non-traditional things check with us we would definitely entertain that idea why not I will make a plug we always stage book donations so many of you know that we have the friends of the clutch of 3D library which is our 501c3 supporting agency to the library and they do a ton of work I think last year they probably supported us with over $60,000 and a lot of the money that they made is through their book sales that happen two or three times a year but we also have stall sales which are right across from the circulation desk so we're always selling books there one more online is there any online survey we can utilize? yes it should be right when you go to our website there's a banner at the very top and it says please take our survey and the link is in the middle that's fine thank you is there ever any plans for satellite libraries on the south end so that's a really good question it's tough because I think we also get it from the south end as well and if we did that it would mean reallocating resources which would mean sort of stretch so it's something that we're always thinking about it would be great if somebody in their will left us a million dollars that would make it really easy so it's something that we think about I think the other thing that we think about is we have such a beautiful library I think the Carnegie Library that we have here in Burlington is one of the most beautiful buildings in the state and as well as the addition we continue to make it a real destination so that folks want to come there and really experience that whole library because the collection is amazing too as you might imagine we are the biggest library in the state of Vermont and we have over 240,000 visitors a year we're the busiest library in the state of Vermont as well alright thank you very much Mary thank you so much for the last presentation of the evening Mr. Tom Fleury and he is from the food show good evening everyone I'm used to standing behind this table monitoring the election process for ward 7 of the ward clerk it's nice to be able to do that with a microphone in my hand hopefully I won't take all of the extra coordinates but for you to stop me when the time is anyway I'm Tom Fleury and the hat that I'm wearing tonight is that of coordinator of the Northern Food Pantry and many other good things the pantry began through a deceptive practice on my part which was when I was another hat I once wore was the principal of CP Smith School right behind us and we've noticed that there was a lot of food insecurity among our families during vacation time, during the weekends, etc so we started distributing food to our families to protect their dignity and knapsacks and other areas so it was quietly and discreetly for the families that needed it especially during long breaks from school and then I thought that the North End would need something more than simply doing that on an informal basis at home school so I talked to Hanifords and asked them if they might be able to make some donations and they said well are you a 501C3 and I said no I thought I should be honest and then I said we can't give to you we'd love to but we need to make sure it goes to a 501C3 and I thought well actually schools are non-profit how about you donate to CP Smith School I hope Hanifords isn't watching tonight anyway no we're a legend now I hope so how about if you donate to CP Smith School CP Smith turns and donates to the North End food pantry and they said oh okay it just goes down on our form that it goes to a legit non-profit I said okay so the first donations actually came through me sort of finagling them through CP Smith and then donating them to the North End food pantry since then Hanifords has been very very generous with lots of perishable foods very good quality foods baked goods, produce vegetables, meat products a lot of things that families would struggle to buy on their own especially fruit and vegetables and Hanifords has been most generous so we've actually expanded over the six years that we've been open from Saturdays for one hour now we're open from 9 to 11 on Saturdays as well as 9 to 11 on Sundays and Hanifords literally gives us a truck load each day, each Saturday and each Sunday we're very grateful other people have donated money, canned goods and other congregations that have brought in donations Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts all sorts of things people, I was sitting at church on Good Friday at St. Mark's and a man walked up behind me very slowly and I thought he was going to ask me to leave and he actually put a $20 bill up by hand and whispered that's for the pantry and I thought maybe I should come here more often anyway people walk up and make donations they drop off of food lots of things and we have not only low overhead we have no overhead in terms of the fact that we are sponsored by the Odd Fellows and Rebecca's organization which is that very little non-descript building just north of Vestri's Market, people often wonder what it is and it used to be actually it began as a church and then became at the Odd Fellows and Rebecca's which is a service organization but like many others their demographics are changing their numbers are declining so in the short term we're pretty all set but in the long term I can see that we won't be probably having the Odd Fellows and Rebecca's continuing to be in existence and sponsoring us so we really will have to become our own 501C3 and perhaps find our own another house for us to hold the pantry but in the meantime we have lots of generous donations coming in the letter carriers of the we would like to contribute the donations that they pick up on the Saturday in May I think it usually comes right before Mother's Day when people leave out the little bags of food that the eight carriers of the North End decided that they want to bring it here to the North End and that's been a huge huge help for us the last three years and really sustains us for several months because that's all non-perishable food and we keep it in store and set it out as needed and have it available to people so we are grateful for that as well as the financial contributions that people have made that allow us to buy the things that people need that often don't get donated such as health care items, dog food, cat food people often you know shampoo things like that so we actually purchase a lot of items with the donations that we receive just a little bit about the demographics of people who have used delivery and who visit us as I get older I become a lot less judgmental than I noticed that it seems that there is a great need among lots of different people we have a lot of senior citizens who visit lots of single parents you know raising two or three kids most of them are workers who hold two or three jobs they're just not making enough to get by with high cost of housing and most are right in the area and how I know that they walk to the pantry which is actually a good location to walk to from a number of you know either housing developments or other places and so there are people who would certainly drive by and come in and that's great we don't ask people where they live or what their name is or what their income level is I think that's a lot of extra work and I think it would be a colossal waste of time and I think it would be undermining the dignity of a lot of people who stop by we really don't care if people access another pantry if they come they need it and they're happy to take it and I've noticed that very few people would be if I were to make a judgment you know people who might not need it as much as other people but people are very gracious about not taking too much of one item in order to save it for other people so it's a very redeeming of a thing as far as human nature is concerned I'd say just about everybody who stops by probably can use it we ask people to take not what you want but what you need and I would say with very few exceptions that's certainly the case many times people have to stop by with donations because they were that have been there to access the pantry in the past and they were new to a job that hadn't yet gotten a paycheck and when they get that first paycheck many times people have come back or sometimes people have come back and made a donation and said here I want to kind of give back to you as his way of sort of paying back something we didn't expect but we certainly appreciated very much so we keep going and I keep going very strongly thanks to the good folks of the north end and other places who donate and we have seen the numbers really tick up a lot especially during the summers when families experience a great deal of food insecurity and again we have many young families that come there are a lot of grandparents that come who have responsibility for the care of their grandchildren and others so it's a pretty widespread age group of people who access the pantry but we do notice that in the summers our numbers go up to about 50 to 60 on Saturday about 20 to 25 on Sundays when we first began it was 55, 10 people on a Saturday even open the first few on Sundays but the first few people who did come when the Sundays began it was really really slow but it's picking up it's pretty much word of mouth that people find out about it from the column that we write for the Burlington Community newspaper as well as word of mouth from friends and neighbors as well so again we're up to about 50 people on the average on Saturdays about 25 I'd say on Sundays which is a great increase over the last few years in fact I think it was just about a week ago that we actually hit the 10,000 mark for the last institute that opened and marked about 2,000 so the need goes up but we are fortunate with the donations that we're receiving and when we get it we put it out and distribute it and with the money when we get it we spend it and again we have no overhead there's a few of us that volunteer each week we've had students come by for community service projects for the high school or graduation challenge projects and stuff and they've been a big help too we keep going thanks to the generosity of good folks such as yourselves and are there to meet the need of all of our neighbors for sure thank you we've got a few minutes for questions no question about it we're going to try to do this we've been talking about it for the last few years and we want to do it November election day is a big day for the food shop right who comes with polls bring a can of food say Marks and Norris Center this year happens to be an off-election so we won't have a big November food drive right so I am organizing with community members and growing high school seniors for community service a big food drive on Halloween night so we're going to get out for a bunch of more we're going to ask people to leave it we'll get a bunch of volunteers the job-off place will be the Miller Center we'll supply pizza for all the high school kids and hopefully that will take up some of the void that will be left for November it will be kind of a fun event for everybody to participate so if you want to look out for more information there's no such thing as if you couldn't help we'll take all the help we can obviously we think it would be a fun night and we think it's a great way to bring some light to the Manchurian there's a lot of people from New York that don't even know that this exists so hard work that Tom has done it's out there so we think this would be a great way to kind of introduce everybody to the pantry out here and let people know what's going on so keep in mind to be posted on some updates but Halloween night big food drive in the New York then for the pantry thank you Tom thank you Tom for all the work that you have done it's been incredible what is a couple of items if someone wanted to donate what are a couple of items that you know that are really needed week after week after week one of the things that people just asked for so was the money that we got donated we just bought diapers and wipes shampoo, toothpaste, the health and care items one of the things that we just sort of started coming our way if you donate it we'll give it out clothes are huge now some people have expressed some reservations about giving it to the Sub-Engine Army or Goodwill so they said we'd like to just bring it here so we put it out and people just completely take it like hotcakes kind of thing we haven't done books in the past especially kids books we like to put books in the hands of kids we used to have a little contest we haven't started it up this year but we had a little contest where I say to kids we'll kind of like a book sale in reverse we called it we'll give you a dime for taking the book and then if you come back and tell us about it we'll give you a quarter so that's a little extrinsic incentive to get kids books in kids hands and get them to read it and come back it also gives them something to carry out because a lot of kids come with their folks and they want to carry something too especially if they have a book in their hand in the summertime it probably accomplishes a lot of good academic good for them too but the north folks and the other communities that have donated have been super generous so all I do is just put it out on the shelf but it's you folks and others that come by every Saturday or Sunday or donate through the food drive in May or the one I think that's an excellent idea Dave for Halloween and whatever that just keeps it going like I said we have no overhead so it really is whatever we get we put out I'm wondering if you take donations from gardeners who maybe have a little extra actually that's a great question because yes we do there are a few people who have brought some in and we love it to get vegetables and fruits and families love those items because they tend to be pretty expensive at the store we don't have a quick turnaround time but whatever we don't pass out we drop off at a couple of places for people who bring to people who have a hard time getting out of their homes and then the rest we compost so nothing goes into the waste stream as far as throwing things out and I would say the Hanifers donations are very very good very good very knowable kinds of things that I always remind people of the difference between the sale date and the usage date are very very different and the quality of the food they've given to us has been very very good so I just wanted to say thank you for highlighting the stress that a lot of families face over the summer vacation in my day job I actually work in my anti-hunger organization so I'd be remiss if I don't also do a quick shout out summer meal site so now I've been running so I'll make sure that link goes out in the minutes as well thank you Hannah but if anyone goes to one month or there's a bunch of other places around the site probably it's the school food project which is the school food for a village school district so I would just quickly say I moved out to the North End most of my life and I would say that there have been a lot of misconceptions over the years about the North End being quote unquote wealthy but there's a huge need right in our own backyards and I would maintain that there always has been it's just that there's been kind of a kind of a kind of a an image created for the North End that may be true in some neighborhoods but the need has always been great and now it's even greater. How do more people help you? I'm sorry. How do more people help you? How could they volunteer at? I heard the high school students thank you for giving those volunteer hours on the program other people. Pretty much if we've had some people if I've been away and I need to go pick up the food at Hanifords they've done it so we have if people want to just kind of be on an on-call list it's not that labor intensive to actually pick it up at Hanifords and bring it and stock the shelves of the canned goods that are upstairs but mostly the help is just bringing the food or contributing whatever and that's been very very steady and actually has increased a lot so there's not a lot of work to actually do on the Saturdays and Sundays but we do have actually a few high school students now helping out but it's mostly the donations because the need is great in getting even more greater. Any last questions? We've got about a minute. Thank you very much. It's the red light. Is this the same one? I assume it's fine until it's not fine anymore. I think it goes out. So I think it comes fairly I'll get to it in three minutes to share. We'll say three minutes tonight because it's all three of you. I love it. Any questions? Yes, there will be questions and answers. And we've got our timer who wants to go first? Oh, I've got a blank in front of me. Three minutes is a long time I won't forget how to hear early. On the back table I have some cards I'm going to pick one up. On the back is fill out your legislative priorities for next time. I also spent the day writing something up today and my wife tells me that it's filled with run-on sentences and that's the way I talk English is not my primary language I'm going to open up your door which I plan to do in the summer and in the fall I might even have somebody with me. Quickly I have public service wise my arm hurts I got a boo boo somebody gave me my first shingle shot everybody should get one I have three friends that got shingles recently one on their side that I mentioned on TV and nobody wants this stuff go out and get the shots it's a great thing we're getting a lot of pushback I think on the two bills that didn't make it to the finish line this year and I think that's short-sighted on a lot of people's parts who are trying to make a little hate for themselves because of things that they wanted to have done that seemingly didn't get done this was a pretty productive legislative session I didn't invite any of you to come and talk about everything that did get done and I suppose that the two bills minimum wage and paid family leave will probably be first on the agenda next year that I think is one question I have is I do a lot of my stuff on Facebook and I don't know if a lot of people use Facebook so talk to me about that if you are not seeing the stuff that we're putting out so I'm Carol and with Bob we represent District 6-1 which is a far more important remember everybody get uncomfortably close to the microphone so I want to talk a little bit about clean water funding so my committee my committee Resources Fish and Wildlife Committee worked on the bill S96 the past and then the governor signed into law last week and it is all about how clean water funding would be distributed in the state and it is at least 20% of all clean water funding is going to be going to all watersheds throughout the state up to 5 million dollars in all 14 counties and the the new revenue that we added this year was is the new funding source is an increase in the rooms and meals tax and that is combined with the dedicated clean water fund revenue which is a sheet on unclaimed bottle deposits and a percentage of the property transfer tax so together the funding will reach 12 million dollars yearly beginning in 2021 we are already collecting the funding but by 2021 those three funds will be 12 million dollars yearly and clean water funding restores our natural environment it makes wildlife and plants thrive and vermoners will be held here it protects our brand you will be more likely to pay a premium for those products and it draws to our state it provides jobs to those who are cleaning up the waters so that the streams, rivers and lakes are drinkable, swimmable and fishable and it accomplishes that as I said throughout the state and this funding additional source comes closer to fulfilling the commitments Vermont aid to the EPA authorized by Act 64 which is a clean water act to clean up lakes, Champlain and lake and so vermoners have made significant investments over time to clean our waters and to protect them from aquatic invasive species to increase public access particularly in southern Vermont and to build state agency capacity both to implement new clean up policies and help farmers meet required agricultural practices and we in our city just passed the water bond last year so we would stop the overflow of water so it employs water cleanup funds employs vermoner and cleans up our waters and my time's up so that was a big success for us in this session I have a problem I can't turn it off I just want to say it's really cool to be here and to see these new magazines and to see Iarka holding a microphone and the other new Syrian committee members it was really nice and refreshing I apologize for being late we were at a joint city council school board meeting as well as Mr. Ding Mr. Wright we're there as well so I'm about to make it since we last spoke I'll start off by saying Bob and I still try to meet with folks second and fourth Saturdays about 8 to 10 you know depending on how many people we get so if you ever hear my point is if you ever hear anybody talk about the city issue what they want the legislature to handle you can tell them to come to Bagel every second and fourth we're there we have some private discussions and so since I last saw you guys 8 to 10 so we did give the MPAs the Bagel category the MPAs the full nine of money that was asked for they can set it in the right direction I think we do a lot of things that we all have been hearing you guys want to do so we fully support that there's been a lot of agenda items related to the police department as we've seen talking to the media one of the things that we did was establish the social committee which is pretty broad for the folks that are come up with reforms looking at accountability overview top down and since that I wrote my first evolution about adding social workers and so they remember that as well to the police department so they can actually respond to calls with the police officers in addition to that there's a resolution passed we'll get to have UDM reporting regularly about increasing housing for students so that we can get more students in UDM's campus and with the goal of hopefully moving them out of the departments of the currently in the neighborhoods and providing more housing for people that aren't students Bob mentioned the holding ground so I felt like I should touch a race I did meet with Bill Keehl that would be quick recently I think that long and short of it is we're looking at the bidding process and crunching numbers and they're going to do an update before the city council soon that will probably give us more concrete information but it sounds like they really just don't have the numbers they don't have a start date and that is their update you know it is a $225 million project and there are some unexpected delays I think because of the way the management projects change in January but the new people seem very very dedicated to make the project work financially they're considering all options you know condos senior housing so whatever that can make the project work they really want to build that project okay we are now opening it up for questions do I lose my microphone people? this one is good no I know I'm not allowed to give away my microphone so I can keep you people under control you guys will have to share one for a second until we get the battery changed can I just give you one more update because I know what you might ask yeah crosswalks committed by school starting school so you see the posts are up the cutouts are done but there's Mr. Gang and he actually there's Mr. Gang who inquired about this but there was delay in ordering the parts of the crosswalk but they're committed to being in before school starts thank you thank you Franklin I'll hold on a moment we're already on the installation to cut in can I get a volunteer to run the microphone can you do it for me this battery and then okay who's got questions other than me I'm going to let everybody else go first I have questions I don't know if this has done the city council or not but I'm really interested in the zoning process for accessory dwelling units and I know that there was a study done and it was presented I believe to CEDO is there someone from CEDO starting do you know anything about the presentation that was given to CEDO about the accessory dwelling units CEDO gave a presentation about the ADUs at the housing summit thank you and CEDO gave a presentation about accessory dwelling units Ian and Jacob Jacob stood up and I have the notes from it there should also be some literature available on that at some point is there going to be needing to be zoning changes or design review changes are you talking about like tiny houses no any house basement or the top of your house no and it could be completely separate I mean there's different so I'll make it personal I have a home we really need to make sure we're on ice when we're talking so everybody can hear this is just a personal story I have a home in the New York then my daughter would like to buy my house at some point but she'd like to build me a smaller home in the backyard so she can always keep an eye on but it's a great way to free up housing in Burlington and it's a really good way for older people to stay in their community and still be part of the family in which they've always been but there's a lot of restrictions on that which I understand and I get that but right now the restrictions would prevent me from doing that from building my backyard I can give you a kind of answer but I'll wait for the mic so the housing summit was to kind of look at what people were had to say about the ADUs or at least that section of it was and people could give feedback like that and a lot of the feedback was that zoning changes are needed because the laws are pretty strict so I think that's sort of like the first step of that process I think changes could come based on the outcome so at some point will it go to city council? I could not tell you that I'd like the city council to be on the lookout for that because I think it's a way for us to get more housing in Burlington to take care of the need for people staying in the community I'll skip to staying in my backyard It is an issue that we're really, really aware of I did ask the CO housing Jillian about that and my understanding is the next step is to take everything from the summit to the public input that they got to sort of formulate what the next step is I was surprised that there wasn't there are some people who are concerned but I would say most councilors are actually in support of that I think the councilors are in support of that I get that there's issues that people in residential areas might have some issues with but but the thing is it's a good way for it's a home sharing program but you get to have your own space I attended the house and the whole idea was to open up for comment and then that's just the beginning I'm glad you're asking the question and I'm sure there are ways for you to put your input in the city at the very beginning and I had a meeting with Bill Ward to talk to him about it because I'm struggling with some delving issues with my own home as well ultimately it will go to city council because the rules and regulations are put in place by city council and other sort of legislative body they decide what the rules are so I believe what Bill said I asked him why should I not get every one of my neighbors over this some of these ridiculous fees and rules and stuff and he said just give us some time we just voted to combine the departments make rules we're going to start doing this stuff and we have to kind of figure it out and I said I will give you six months and then I'm calling you back but ultimately to your question yes the city council will be voting on it and I think just quickly just an intent here was that this is an issue and I'm looking to city councilors when they see it coming across to really take a look at it can I come in? you can if you turn the microphone can you hear me? so I think before even the housing summit this issue came to the council and it was spearheaded by a woman named Kimberly Dool Kermi Dunn Kermi Dunn she came just maybe six months before even death before the housing summit and it sounded like she was waiting for a grant she applied for a grant to the stake of the month were you together? she got the grant you see you have even more information than me but what I'm glad that the mayor included that aspect in the housing summit so overall after the presentation it received way great support from the council and rest reassured because I want to bring my dad and I know my friend right here will want to get his dad outside next to him so it's beneficial not only about just getting the elders next to Don but also about climate change instead of building a house over there how about we just had it but I think what she was presenting about was very specific to a cashing a building into an existing building but not creating another building within the same property but I think Kimberly Dunn need to come here to the council and make the same presentation if it's possible I would actually like to have our state legislators address this as well because I thought that it was just the city rules that were overly burdensome but what Bill informed me of is actually most of the regulations about plot size other than like low residential low density residential well whatever a lot of the regulations actually come down from the state so like Act 250 and those other things are really the basis and that Burlington doesn't actually that the more burdensome rules are actually from the state that was what I was that's what I understand I don't think so on your individual property when you get into talking about the development existing then Act 250 kicks in over a certain area of use over a certain area I know you really are going to make out but for individual lots like what Gail was talking about putting something in her backyard it's not an Act 250 concern well I just used Act 250 as an example but he said that most of the regulations come down from the state Incorporated the area like the city of Burlington which has its own charter system and its own basically our system of government basically says the legislature holds all power except for the power that it deems to municipalities and in Burlington it's chartered and the power is deemed I don't think that's an issue here so you would say that the majority of things that need to be changed and addressed are at the city level and not at the state level I would agree with that that's where it's on the ground maybe the city the city could be pretty in the same room he said and she said further to that point is there anything that the state legislature is doing currently to try to increase housing stock so that we don't have the supply and demand issue and kind of help out with that stuff yes the part of funding for the property transfer tax goes to affordable housing and has for years and something that we are doing that is to improve housing stock is to look at building codes throughout the state Burlington does a super job with its code enforcement here and being sure that rental units are safe and so forth but that isn't true in the rest of the state and the committee that I'm on which deals with natural resources is looking at strict building codes as people live in houses so that they are energy efficient and so that renters and people who live in the houses can be sure what their energy and electric costs are and that way they are sure over time of how much they have to spend on housing and hope it is that they would spend less on on those costs which are are bound to increase and to spend a little bit more on the housing itself as they build it so no deregulation just taxes and more regulation is what I, that's what I heard today well here's an interesting story I met with a developer who when he was turning a floor 20 units of housing he was building 20 units of housing and assets on top of some commercial space and he was very upset that he had to meet stretched building codes and his architect was very upset and he went through the process of building those 20 units and it cost him a little bit more to build those units but he also pays all the heat for those units and each from thermostat and the most the biggest deal he had this past year was in January and it was for something like $500 for 20 units and he said he was, well of course they are on top of another heated floor of commercial space but they have solar on the top and because of the way it's insulated the windows the solar on the top and everything else that's gone into the building, the structure of building codes he is absolutely thrilled that he had to follow those instructions now because it's good for the tenants and it's good for him and it's good for the environment and there are affordable units actually there did you have a hand up? the solution to Yale's problem though build yourself on those tiny houses back into your garage, put the door down throw away the key since we're talking about housing I'm curious if the counselors can speak to you on what the value is of having low density residential zones in Burlington at all member of the microphone so low density neighborhoods definitely contributing to the quality of life because there are more less housing, there are less businesses but I think what we need to focus on is to build make sure that our neighborhoods are vibrant, in some cases our neighborhoods are beautiful and welcoming I am not opposed to making sure that part of the city to include densities that are a little bit higher but here in the Noon of End compared to for example South End, anything that we add will not contribute to the quality of life or what makes our part of town special and I think the city has been working proactively to change zone to change codes in allowing businesses in allowing dancing clubs in allowing many different things but I think they are specifically in some places but the quality of life we have here I think personally I would want to keep it that way and there are also other benefits in making sure that people don't transform the the field of the environment for example on the street how it feels like all the buildings have almost the same height I don't want to also see developers to try to change try to transport them but there are existing neighborhoods where I think there are opportunities for learning to be able to be changed in order for us to kind of build and I think specifically in Ward 1 and Ward 8 because it is very close to our educational institutions but Ward 4, Ward 7 I definitely want to keep it low density so that people can breathe the air and we just get to know each other and we can do that I did think of another example I have something that they did out here in the New York and the DMV that is now they sold extra land for $1 and that's the land that the houses built on over at the shopping center the ones that are $1,500 for a one bedroom are those the documents? that's how much they are the ones that are listed currently available are $1,500 for a one bedroom the state did sell the land for $1 so that it would make it possible for the development right at the shopping center the idea that people wouldn't need a car and that they well assuming they can afford that kind of grant which most people normal people can't I'm not sure that that was super helpful and so that's what I think the concern is is that energy is being put into building structures that aren't actually helpful for the people who live here and for the people who need it and for the lost apartments that regular folks making regular wages cannot afford and so it's great to say that well there's a building going up on Patchin Road but if it's too grand for a two bedroom that's not good housing stock that's more stock for people who don't need the help so that's the frustration is that focus is being put that don't actually benefit Romington residents unfortunately so I think your question is just a great and wonderful question and I think it is imperative for example to be for us when we come together but at least that we can be productive and kind of move forward I think the question is great all the questions are great but let's facilitate it in a way that you allow people who need to respond to respond effectively and maybe help follow up questions we can so that this will be mindful of our time being here just when it comes to that thank you so does anyone have another question that I see not related to housing can I just to run of course so the pushback I think is about parking if you have an accessory drawing in does it require you or do you have a parking spot on that land so it's going to happen if you park on the street so with that in terms of traffic obviously you probably talked about the quality of life issues you buy a house, 30 year mortgage it's a quiet neighborhood and then now it's at the UNAM top of them top of their VMBs they can serve ready and can search for it so there's how to do it responsibly you know how to create the vibrancy of more faves I think should be our goal to make more of that not make it look like this kind of street but you know bring a couple really nice restaurants and they'll walk up the hand of the project that's the pushback I think terrific what are some goals for the new north end for the coming year new budget what are some things that we can expect or some things that you guys know in fact to do north end I mean I think we definitely personally I think you know the representation that we receive that we are provided for our constituents is incredible and I think sometimes people really misunderstand the role of the city council and to me the role of the city council is nothing other than making sure that the concerns of your constituents are being met are being addressed and I think you know one of them was this new north end all the NPAs with specific hours you know we worked on couple of initiatives in making sure that we get the funding and I think you know that conversation led to now all the NPAs who received that funding and I think for the first time the new north end especially north avenue has never been put into BTB thinking about the BTB pair that we now have our own BTB court enforcement that now not I would like what you say currently learning will be changed to allow businesses to come in and I think that did not exist before and in terms of also our representation is also we are a neighborhood word it's more they were one of the people who live here and I think our push was more how to be more mindful to people who are paying taxes here and I think that you know the mayor did tell us the taxes won't go up but unfortunately you will see at least a little bit which I voted against and I think if you look just drive around especially in word 7 which I do most of the time I just drive around see the condition of our streets see the condition of our sidewalks and also in making sure that those we work directly with with the appropriate departments to come look at it and fix it so one example James Avenue is doing great New York Street is doing wonderful Eton Island Parkway is doing great and I think at the same time also all the projects all the needs that are here that the city and the city departments are working on you know but in terms of like big picture things I think we just been there and advocating for what we really need now if people step up and say what we want is to have a pool then we will get together and make sure we will have a pool next time there was some talks about having a library you know here but with the time also we did find out that including a library with the new building of high school won't be a good idea and I think from the library perspective they want people to come for more circulation of the project and I think they get it now but what are all the things that really people here do need and I think one of them is transportation and soon you've left from us but soon you will be receiving a presentation from Q&T I already did I think all of those are happening because there are people who are keeping eye of what the neighborhoods need and pushing that need to get us Franklin so I mean I'm not going to take any credit for it but you know about the community dinners that is being organized by the neighborhood group community dinner group so that will pick back up after a lady bites stocks in the summer the Burlington Wildways is going to do a trail from all the way to the Lewinsky Valley Park District down through the Ethan Allen Park you know they are going to label it that's going to be September I think that's pretty exciting that will bring the goal I think is to try the long term goal of the Burlington Wildways and other outdoorsy areas that Burlington has and so to label them clearly and so then in the future you know if you're at the airport and you come to Burlington like you'll get this map but the first trail they're doing is right here to the North End including the interrail and hopefully is to bring more traffic to the interrail and vice versa and that's really exciting they're a nonprofit group seeing that parks is trying to do the arms forest public input process to figure out what they can do with that there's the leady park renovation possible pump track I don't think any of those will be in the next year but other than that I think that you know Cambridge Rise is still in our area and that's changing I hear a lot of different things that there's still some projects in there that there was for example a more local food based grocery store was an option I heard and then office buildings that could be something that would attract a different market for magnified businesses catering to that so that's still an option other than that I think that my goal in the next year is to keep bringing resolutions talking to people and ADU is a great idea and I'd love to see that come to fruition the next year the accessory drawing needs so that's something that it's on everybody's mind thank you I want to think you had a few minutes to share your goals and your hopes for the future so in our last five minutes make sure that everyone's questions if they have one that they have the opportunity to ask it and if we don't have another question and you want to continue to share on that then we can do that does anyone have any further questions especially the state our state legislature state legislators we've been pummeling our city councilors with questions I don't want to hear about it we have a second thank you so I think one important aspect also is safety in the new government we like that we don't have a lot of crimes something and I think when we talk about safety that's not forget important our own ambulance here I think all of those are not things that just come to life I think there were a lot of compromising and un-focusing and finally we will be putting that under our guidance for the city to have that move I think that's another important thing that we talk about thank you that's something that you know it's going to cost $600,000 six people is that the annuals six million positions and so it's going to be a 20-20 dollar as a result of union contractors and that's something that I think it's our job to convince everybody who doesn't live in the north end that we need it to live out here and you see the ambulances and you see how much they respond to start on get it and the last thing I will just say quickly is that I think we have an opportunity of a lifetime in this VHS thing and we just left the meeting and starting July they're going to start having monthly public meetings and they're looking for info that they need once a week for a very long time to figure out how to build the best what they really want to do is a high school that they also are willing to build us our neighborhood you know they're considering a gym that would be open much like this one here to be used for white clubs but a library that's open for summer and off hours and possibly partnership but a conference room that could be used for meetings sometimes we have trouble finding a place to meet because both here so I'm sure they'll be just look out for it monthly meetings the VHS involved it will be completed in 2024 about two minutes I don't need that much I'm excited to hear about the ambulance thing because when the mayor first started to run that was one of the things that I brought up to and the ambulance comes out here a lot why don't we have one out here and we got one excited to fire us on man so I got my ambulance but nobody to run now I'm happy to do that but one of the things that I pushed was the fire company to tell me how many runs they made and how severe the cases were that they came up and I think as we age here heart attacks and other issues that are that short window of recreates are probably more significant I'd love to see that information absolutely and I think you brought up a great point because last concert meeting not this one two concert meetings ago we did receive a presentation the commission the fire station and that was specifically my question the data that they provided was just very long and you will see right how many calls and I requested for them to collect it down because I wanted to see what type of calls were there for and also where do you get most of the calls is it in the south end is it in the center and I think to be able to tell our story better they haven't had that information available so it shouldn't be that difficult to grab 45 seconds I have no microphone all right we're done get out of here I I I I I I I I I I I I I I