 23rd 2023. Thank you for joining us both in person and online for the Burlington City Council meeting. The time is 5.40. We have a quorum and we're going to begin with a public hearing so not everyone has quite arrived yet but we do have a quorum. We're going to begin our agenda this evening with item 1.01 which is a motion to adopt the agenda. Would somebody be willing to make that motion? Thank you Councillor Carpenter. Seconded by Councillor McGee. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Any opposed please say no. That gives us our agenda which I am going to get to myself. The second item on our agenda is the second public hearing regarding charter changes for the November 7th 2023 ballot. Would also like to add that Councillor Freeman is joining us via Zoom. Thanks so much for being here Councillor Freeman. We're going to open the public hearing but before we do I just wanted to make a note that as noted on board docs members of the public are welcome to speak for up to two minutes during the public hearing and the interest of allowing everyone to be heard. If you did speak at the January 17th public hearing please limit your comments to the charter changes that you didn't speak to at the first hearing. We've allotted 30 minutes for the public hearing and are going to try very hard to honor that time limit so that we can get on with the rest of our meeting. At the last public hearing as you may recall that was our only item on the agenda. For the benefit of the public just so for those who haven't perhaps been following it as closely the reason we do these public hearings is due to 17 VSA 2645 and that in part says that a charter change can be proposed by the legislative body of the municipality or by 5% of the voters. Among the other aspects of the statute is that the legislative body shall hold at least two public hearings prior to the meeting to vote on the charter proposals so this is the second of two such hearings. We'll open the public hearing at 7 I'm sorry at 5 544 and we have a couple of people in person who wish to speak. The first is Shanae Murray and Shanae you present please come please come and come to the table. Welcome and thanks for being here. Perfect I was here last week and I was planning to again make a comment in support of ranked choice voting but after hearing that you prefer me not to I'll restrain and just say that like with the 12-6 special election VPurg is planning a comprehensive and robust voter education program. I'm seeing my East District Councilor Mayor Brandt it's nice to see you again. We held a candidate training and are planning to do the same and I would just like to thank you all for being here and for taking the time to listen to the public and for your tireless work on so many of the pro-democracy charter change items on the back of the ballot and thanks so much. Thank you thanks for being here. The other person who wanted to speak who is here in person is actually not here right at this moment so I'll I'll go to the next speaker which are speakers that are that are joining us online and there is only one who asked to speak in the I believe there's only one who is asking to speak in the public hearing and that is Ken Kasella. Although I do see two people that have raised their hand and don't worry I see you and I will come back to you. Ken Kasella I found you and enabled your microphone if you'd like to speak now. Thank you very much for giving me a moment to speak you can hear me I trust. Yes we can hear you just great. Very good thank you. I just wanted to let you know I opposed the proposed control board and its current form and any oversight that we do have I think must include field professionals. Miss Hightower was quoted in Vermont Digger today I read it saying that this is no different than a financial audit but wouldn't it be prudent to have an accountant do a financial audit. The board of dental examiners for the state of Vermont has six dentists on the board and that seems logical to me. Policing is not romantic and it's not moonlight and mistletoe. Every day our police officers wear a bulletproof vest. Why because they they put their lives on the line serving our community every day. Your proposal your proposed panel will not know what it's like to respond to a domestic violence call or a shots fired incident law enforcement officers are clearly better educated to handle these and review the outcomes of these matters growing in police department is having a terrible time filling its ranks and retaining officers. We need training and compassionate personnel. This proposal discourages new hires. It is a noose that looms over them. It's a sign of distrust and it is the wrong action. When we need what we need now is our collective outstretched hand offering support and confidence in our police department. Legitimate oversight is a good thing but this charter change is not. It is short sighted and it's arrogant. It will do nothing to strengthen our police force that we so desperately need to keep our streets and our parks safe. Thank you very much. Thanks very much. There were two people actually there is one other person who did want to speak in the public hearing on charter changes and that is Sharon Busher. So Sharon I've enabled your microphone. If you wanted to speak during this part of the part of the meeting. Yes I did. Thank you. I want to speak to two topics. One is I was excited to see that the Vermont Supreme Court upheld the ruling that non citizen voters can vote in Montpelier and throughout the state and well that that wasn't the specific question but it really gives more credence to our ballot item so I was excited about that and support that charter change. The other thing that I wanted to mention does have to do with redistricting but I'm going to focus on the memo that Megan Tuttle sent to you for your agenda which is linked to the map the new map that was put forward and drawn and for consideration which is the 27 version one version two. In that communication Megan says that if this map is supported that the district needs to be one and two and three and eight and yet the deviations done quickly. She says because of deviations but she doesn't really give the percentages when doing that really quickly and consulting with Earhart Monca who I don't believe is going to be here tonight. The deviations are under 10% I think that it really is not a healthy thing to divide the Old North and awards two and three. I think they are have been a district for forever and I don't think a new map like this necessitates that combination and I wanted to speak against that. Thank you. Thanks very much Sharon. So before we go back into contours because there are two people who have asked to speak in contours. There are three people who have their hand up and I'm assuming online I'm assuming that you have your hand up to speak during the public hearing. So the first person that I see is Margaret Joyle and I've been I've enabled your microphone. Margaret if you wanted to speak now. Great. Can you hear me? Yes we can. Great. So my name is Margaret Joyle. I live in the five sisters neighborhood. I moved to Burlington in 1985. I raised my family here. I want to speak tonight about the community community control of the police. But I but I want to raise a separate issue connected to all that which is that I believe we in fact don't I and many of my members of my community don't trust our police force. We have seen things happen that are not acceptable. The discrimination against mental health survivors. Violence towards people of color in our city lies about funding and frankly absolute refusal to come to people's homes when really frightening things are happening at those homes. And I find that unacceptable in the deepest way. I would like to call for a consent decree. I'd like to pull in a Department of Justice. I'm sure there are many things wrong with the ballot item that need you know clarification and and cleaning up. And I think our legislature probably would be up for doing that. I think it's bad enough that we need to think about it. Asking the Department of Justice to come in. So that's what I wanted to say tonight. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. The next person who had raised their hand is Earhart Monke and Earhart. I've enabled your microphone and you should be able to speak now. Thank you President Paul. Can you hear me OK? We can hear you great. Great. Thanks. And sorry not to be there in person. We had an emergency in the apartment upstairs. And I do want to quickly speak to the Charter Change. The new information on the Charter Change. First to thank you for having V-27 drafted up by city staff. As you know I still support that. But in terms of the other two maps that were drawn up the tweak V-1 and V-2. Earhart I apologize. We do. We are really trying to limit people to speaking to the Charter Change. If they've already spoken to a Charter Change at the January 17th meeting to trying to limit their comments to other Charter Changes. If there are others that you wish to speak to. I just wanted to say that of the tweaks I would support V-2 if you can't support the V-27 map. So that was all I wanted to say. Thank you. All right. Thanks so much. Thank you. The other person who had raised their hand is Sam McGinty. And Sam I've enabled your microphone. You should be able to speak now if you'd like. Great. Can you hear me OK? Yes we can. Thank you so much for the record. My name is Sam McGinty. I'm the Democracy Advocate with V-PURG and Award Two Voter. I want to start off by sincerely thanking the council for being here today and spending the time tonight listening to voters' public comments. There's a lot of hard work on some of these pro-democracy reforms before you today. As you know V-PURG supports expanding ring choice voting and I could spend my time talking about how great it is but that's not why I'm here tonight. Instead I'd like to focus on how V-PURG is playing on helping advance the ring choice voting Charter Change before you. And if not more importantly how V-PURG is playing to educate voters who are using the system for the first time in the city council races. We're planning on working with voters, candidates in the city to help ensure that a successful election and that everyone has the information they need for town meeting day. With our robust membership in Burlington, organizing abilities and resources were well positioned to help advance this Charter Change proposal and make the voting experience for city council elections a success. As you know this isn't going to be new for all voters and voters in Warden 8th and the East District got a taste on the 12-6th election. By all indications it was a huge success. We have a strong arsenal of voter education materials that we use for that election including a Canada training. Councilor Brantz so good to see you here virtually. We partnered with a national organization and all three candidates attended that. We also did door-to-door canvassing, phone banking throughout the East District, leaf littered, did some paid education advertising and had staff posted polling locations throughout the day to help answer questions. We plan on doing all of these efforts and more ahead of the town meeting day vote so that all voters can feel prepared going into the ballot box to vote and working to help expand this to all future elections to make sure that elections in Burlington are improved and more functional throughout the city. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll go back to Contoy's. There's no one else who has their hand raised or anyone who wants to speak in the public hearing that is registered online although you're still welcome to do so. We have two speakers who wanted to speak in Contoy's that I hadn't called on. The first is Fareed and the second is Robert Bristow-Johnson. Fareed, welcome. So one of the objections that's been raised about the community oversight of police ballot items is that no other departments in the city is subjected to such standard but let's keep in mind that there's no other department in the city is empowered to take people's lives to cause permanent injury and to deprive us of our liberty either. If we're going to give this power to somebody who works for the city we should be asking for a much higher standard of conduct. When a firefighter was recorded on a camera pushing a man onto the street within 24 hours he announced resignation from the fire department. When we have police on camera beating up on civilians they got voted as the leader of the fraternal order of the police. How are we supposed to trust those people and if I don't know if you've looked into fraternal order of the police their parent organization it is a right-wing organization that supports white nationalism a big Trump supporter opposed Black Lives Matter it is opposed to everything that Burlington values. How are we supposed to trust our safety to people who hate us and hate our values. I want to echo Margaret's call for a Department of Justice consent decree I don't think this ballot item although I will be voting yes I don't think it goes far enough there's zero trust in the police department and people who are supposed to be holding them accountable are instead like enabling the kind of problematic behaviors that over time has caused the trust of the community to be lost thank you. Thank you very much we'll go to Robert Bristow-Johnson and then Chris Haseley. This is only quantity so I'm going to read it. So all of these gains that we want from ranked choice voting that's promised by ranked choice voting is more diverse candidates running and sometimes more diverse candidates elected we want to level the playing field between independent third party candidates and the major party candidates we want to level that playing field to do that we have to disincentive disincentivize tactical voting we don't we don't want people being forced to pick the lesser of evils and uh because they don't want to see the candidate that they hate the most elected all right in order to do that we have to avoid the spoiler effect that's where we get quantitative and material we can actually measure whether or not we avoid the spoiler effect and in order to do that we have to ensure that the candidate with consistent majority support the candidate that we like better if we like a better we like them better than b we like the candidate a better than c we like candidate a better than d we have to assure that that candidate is elected because all of this hinges on the consistent majority candidate being elected because if you do that and if you don't do that if a different candidate is elected then you're guaranteed to have a spoiled election it has to happen it turns out that the loser in the final round is the spoiler always when this failure happens this failure happened in 2009 here in this city it happened in alaska in august the special election in august and it had a different way this happened in minneapolis in 2021 now uh what happened here was uh montroll was preferred by 4064 voters in burlington they marked they said anti montroll is a better choice than bob kiss bob kiss was preferred over andy montroll 3476 voters 588 few voters yet bob kiss was elected in alaska uh 87 000 voters said that nick begich was a better choice 79 000 said mary peltola was a better choice yet mary peltola was elected now uh it's if that happens if that spoiler happens then you end up punishing a bunch of voters for their sincere choice you then have a problem with third party candidates running and in this town the third party is the republican party they i know they have to be able to be feel free to run a candidate without getting burned by siphoning votes from the democrats and having somebody else get then there are other all right i apologize um i i do know that you had intended to be at the first public hearing and would have been would have spoken i would have i understand that and so if you can wrap it up in the next 30 seconds that would be great 30 seconds the other issue this is what's getting this attention from the state government is that of precinct summability which is a component of process transparency that we need to keep elections honest and also to get election results on election night so you might have noticed that in alaska they didn't have a results until 15 days after the election main it was about eight days new york city was about seven days and it's not because computers are slow it's because you for here irv you have to get all of the ballot data individual ballot data into the same centralized computer in order to have tabulation now if you don't do that you don't have elections results timely also you have this perception of opaqueness and this is where it gets scary you might remember this quote i'd like you to find me 11,780 votes now what if this the secretary state was corrupt and they went twisted their little mustaches he will find some votes here find some votes there they would not match up with the city the certified results from each city and we would know that the results were fudged and that is getting the attention of the secretary state's office that's getting attention to the legislators so i'm just gonna end with this the fact that you with you removed the specific method from the charter and so that that method is defined at the ordinance level that was smart and rather than taking on the house government operations committee because they removed it for a reason thank you thanks so much chris you're next so i was going to talk about process and i'll start with the process that we're hearing tonight i think it's kind of wildly inappropriate to kind of change the rules of engagement such short notice in between the two forms here i had prepared as i believe others have a little more substantive comments with the expectation that we would have more than two minutes and to just suddenly change that it just it creates an unlevel playing field but despite that i just simply say that of the maps that were offered on the board docs for your consideration tonight i like the version to edit probably the best because i think it it achieves the the goal of unifying the king maple neighborhood i think many of you got the paperwork when i came in here the reality is i really would prefer some minor tweaks as one counselor put it last week the version 25 map that robert burstow johnson had put together i think does a better job unifying king maple but the other concern that i had is that i believe it's in the city ordinance the central peddling district or the central business district is western most boundary is defined as south union street so i was just thinking that you know from that reason maybe extending the border over to south union would be better and then running it down to south down to maple street um so that's what's in the packet again this is mr burstow johnson's work you all know who he is he's submitted a number of maps for consideration many of which have been vetted by the city uh and his math i think has been validated in nearly every uh occasion so i would hope that we could have a more substantive consideration tonight and not get hung up on the technicalities of whether or not this particular map has been drawn by the the city mapping specialist um but uh long and short of it is if that's not something the council is willing to consider as an incremental change i would say that i think the version two at it is probably the one that does the best job of balancing all of the statutory considerations along with the community values and here i am right down to the wire thank you chris um i'm just gonna give a uh give a minute or so for anyone who's here in con toys if they wish to speak during the public hearing you can just raise your hand and as well to the people that are online um if there's anyone else online who would like to speak during the public hearing that is not the public forum there will be another opportunity to speak during the public forum um and yes if you speak to one you can speak during the other um so i'll just give it a second here okay i'm so glad that i did because we have one more person who'd like to speak that's uh christopher erin felker i was hoping to have a little bit more time than the two minutes so i'll tailor these uh these comments down i'm going to start with redistricting i uh i appreciate the work that everybody's put in from city council including the ad hoc committee members who really listened i attended quite a few of the city's redistricting um meetings and the um the feedback that i've heard time and time again from all barlintonians was we don't like the gerrymandered look of ward eight great you guys did a good job it's fixed uh the second thing and this was very common we can't stand the district model we cannot stand the district model i see no change in that uh the third thing uh members as burlingtonians were saying they wanted to return to having two counselors per ward i don't see that um full reunification of the maple king neighborhood we're getting there ultimately uh with one minute left i don't like the map that you put forward and i'm telling members of the city to please vote against them so we can go back to the drawing board have a more equitable map for all of burlington for the next 10 years that being said i'm going to kick it over to rank choice voting um this experiment is fine i like the theory of how it can work well in our ward elections i don't like the idea of a centralized vote for exactly the same reasons that mr robert bristow johnson brought up two things i'd like to highlight uvm legislative research workshop has already cited that with rank choice voting individuals who english is not their first language if they have a g ed or a high school education they are much less likely to rank votes that being said who's just going to really be benefiting uh if voting is intimidating or confusing people ultimately less people will start to vote and that is a problem so on top of that the unit the centralization of the vote would cause people to lose confidence in that and that is something we should absolutely be avoiding right now i fully support making voting more accessible for everybody but i think that we need to make sure that we're weighing the unintended consequences and how that could have a negative outcome on what our total unified goals are thanks thank you do not see anyone else um online do not see anyone else in con toys going once going twice uh we will close the public hearing at 607 and uh with our thanks to all who have attended and spoken at these public hearings your your input has been very important to us we will move on to item number three on our agenda which is an update on the crisis response team um i understand that um that jackie corbally is joining us and don't know if you're going to be able to also um kathryn if you could just simply promote jackie and i'll i'll i'll turn the floor over to uh mayor weinberger great thank you prison paul um hopefully we can get jackie corbally promoted who will give the bulk of this presentation i'll start off with a couple remarks i've just done that i've just done okay great um so i we also have a um power point which i'm kathryn kathryn will bring up but basically this is a simple power point the first page is just a timeline and then the second page shows sort of what's next from here we just reached i'm happy to say tonight we've reached a significant milestone in this effort which really began um uh in many ways in april of of 21 um in my state of the city um we announced that we would attempt to set up a new mental health initiative um and the council budget in 21 um did approve $400,000 in funding for this um and for a and that funding was approved again as you know um in for a second time in the budget past in june of 22 the um stumbling block or a significant obstacle for some time that we've been working on for some time is a desire both for financial and programmatic reasons to have the um state of vermont fully um involved and partnered in this effort and uh we spent a good portion of the last legislative session uh discussing this with them and in november on november in um sorry in october of this year following up from those discussions they released a rfp uh that um provided the opportunity for substantial funding for um for this crisis response team um in when that rfp was posted at that point we brought on board jackie corbally who um many of you know worked for the city in the past she was a major part of our uh opioid crisis response effort from 2016 through um i believe uh into 2019 2020 maybe jackie can clarify that when she comes on um we she can't rejoin the city team as a consultant um uh or as a part-time employee on november first led the effort to submit a grant to the agency of um human services that was submitted on on november 14th and we did receive the formal notice last monday um that the uh this the state will has committed 667,252 dollars over the next two years which is basically a 50 sharing of the cost with the city of the anticipated costs of of this program um the state has also been quite engaged in through this period of uh in giving input on program design and implementation and um the person who's really heading up that work for the city is jackie and so at this point i'd like to turn it over to jackie to kind of share where we go from here um with this effort that everyone can hear me okay well jackie uh yeah thank you great great so um i think some of you know me some of you do not know me my name is jackie corbly i was hired as mayor weinberger stated back in november to really um move this initiative forward um as the mayor stated we submitted a rather vibrant rfp to the department of mental health uh back in november and recently as of january 17th found out that we were awarded um that money to move forward which i need to say is incredibly exciting i think the department of mental health is excited about this initiative um and we are incredibly excited about where this is going to go i think i first need to state that um we've really looked at this crisis team i know that it's being referred by a number of folks cahoots um we've started to call this the medically enhanced crisis team crisis response team and there's a reason for that um um there are a variety of response teams that exist within the howard center and we wanted to make sure that this team was able to stand out and it is unique in that there is a medical component to it and so we wanted to make sure we were really clear about what this team is called um we have received the grant uh we've been awaiting to to get the formal statement that we had the grant um we in the short time that i've been in the city are moving at light speed and i know that each and every one of you wanted this team this crisis team up and running months ago but i feel that given that we have finally got the award from the state um there is a lot of conversations um and we are doing a fair amount of dialoguing with the howard center um we're doing a fair amount of dialoguing with um a number of entities that are going to be part of this so i have moved now to the third uh the third slide i think the the timeline is pretty self-explanatory we're in the process right now of developing the mou and looking at the howard center to sign off i think most people know that they are critical in this initiative so that mou is being written and we are looking to get sign off um asap uh we are looking to come up with howard uh a target launch date and i know that everybody wants this as soon as possible and um nobody wants this sooner than those folks that this is going to serve so we understand time is of the essence um we are developing right now a triage process because as individuals call in we want to make sure and howard wants to make sure that the right crisis team is deployed um as many of you know we have street outreach we have first call um there are other grants that howard has gotten um awarded and we want to make sure that when this medically enhanced crisis team is deployed it's meeting the needs of those individuals it's meant to serve so we are in the process right now coming up with a triage to ensure that that is um that that happens in a timely manner uh we also are working on developing uh a no wrong door approach the last thing any of us want is for a consumer to call a phone number and find that it's the wrong number so we are developing a no wrong door approach whether you call the city whether you call howard the right team will be deployed in the right way in the most timely fashion um we are really sensitive to having a triage that meets the needs of the individuals that this is meant to serve because we all know that when you're in a crisis the last thing you want is to wait and so that is something that we are doing i i have to say that um i am incredibly proud of the individuals that are stepping up um this has been a short span of time i know it seems like a long time since this was decided but given the implementation of the IRFP where we are now we are moving at light speed and uh we are working hard and long to get this out the door ASXAP so um that's what i have um for you um at this point the goal is that i will be coming back to continue to update you um but this is where we are now so to summarize we put an RFP out the door we were awarded the RFP we're getting an MOU and a contract out the door we're working with our partners uh both at the Howard Center in the hospital and other community players uh we're developing a no wrong door approach and we're developing a triage approach that's a lot of work that is a lot but i am hopeful that we are going to get this out the door um ASXAP uh president paul the only thing i just added from my conversations uh with jackie just uh you know obviously there's there's seven staff members that are envisioned as being part of this team and the process to to hire all of them up could you know could be lengthy um one of the things being evaluated now is is there a way to uh using existing resources existing staff is there any way that that that timeline can be short circuited because uh you know the desire to get this started as soon as possible so that's one of the things you know again it's been just a week since the the formal notice the award um that's one of the the strategies that's being evaluated and that we would have more to update on next you know next at the next uh juncture okay thanks uh thanks mayor weinberger and thanks jackie uh if anybody can balance all of these things and get it done in record time it's you jackie uh so thanks so much for being here and your work on this um are there counselors who have questions or comments either to jackie or uh or to the mayor uh counselor carpenter thanks um and this may just be my own interest um i'm hopeful that those of us who are following it there's so much detail and i know you're working in lightspeed to get it done but it would be great to have a fuller update as you proceed just to understand it so we can explain it to community and i've just got a lot of questions like with how do you operate something like this 24 seven since we don't know when a crisis will arise and they could arise at all varied times of day and night um so i i don't think you need to answer any of this now i'm just suggesting that i think there's some of us who really would like to follow the details or and doesn't even need to necessarily be in person but in writing so we can answer some of those questions and kind of walk us through what happens when you call i mean tell us the protocols not specifically but you know walk us through what is what is this gonna look like and thank you thank you so much thanks counselor carpenter um i don't know if you wanted to speak to that or if there was anything you felt you could add either of you um i think that obviously uh as this gets more to the finish line and it gets ready to be um put out into the community before that happens absolutely one each and every one of you to know the protocol and what happens from the minute you pick up the phone and how do you end up being deployed which team gets deployed how did we come to that decision what's the time frame what are the hours that this team will be operational what's the vision absolutely those are all things that i think would be important to address as we work out more of this more of this plan in minutiae great thanks very much um we'll go to counselor McGee thank you president ball and thank you mayor wanberger and jackie for this update it's uh encouraging to hear that we are moving more quickly now than we have been in a number of months to to get this crisis response team operational um i think it's you know we've been having this conversation uh since before it was in the state of the city address and i know there are a number of members of the community myself included who are very um uh eager to to see this uh team operational so uh i appreciate the work that you're putting in jackie to make that a reality for us um at at a very um rapid pace um and i just want to echo what counselor carpenter said i've heard from a number of constituents who uh are also very eager to have someone else they can call uh if they notice that someone's experiencing mental health crisis or um struggling with substance use disorder so um to the extent that we can make clear that uh what exactly uh the no wrong door approach means i think for not just the council but um the broader public i think that will be important as well so i look forward to a a big public education campaign around that thank you thanks counselor mcgee are there any other counselors that uh wish to speak to this i them seeing none uh no other questions or comments will close out this item thanks so much jackie for being here and to the mayor for this sharing this good news with us uh we'll look forward to the next steps um in the hopefully in the very short i would say months to come but i don't want to do that i want to say days to come and hopefully soon um the time is now uh six uh 21 which means we are way ahead of uh time for the public forum and anything that's a deliberative item so we will move on to um the next item that we can which would be item number five climate emergency reports is there any counselor or the administration who wishes to offer a climate emergency report seeing oh uh great mayor one burger thanks president paul i just um for the climate emergency report i just um want to share here what we shared with the public um in a press conference uh two weeks ago which is that the brolin's electric department has announced their 2023 uh in green incentives for a whole range of electric powered products that will help brolin tonians move away from fossil fuels and towards electrified equipment um what was different about this year's uh event we've we've done this for a number of years now and there has been a huge increase in the adoption of cold climate heat pumps and electric vehicles in the time the bd has been offering these incentives which are some of the most generous local incentives anywhere in the country um what's different now and what i hope really kind of breaks through and brolin tonians here is that there has never been a better time to consider electric technology than right not right now and uh this may be a somewhat brief window um in in this way that right now people brolin tonians who are considering an electric vehicle can layer both local incentives with state incentives and federal incentives to make a purchase or a lease at the press conference we gave the example of a brolin tonian looking with moderate income looking to purchase a chevy bolt a 31 000 car that buyer right now could be eligible for three thousand dollars in local incentives four thousand dollars in state set state incentives and then seventy five hundred dollars in federal incentives which would you know you add all that up and it's it reduces the cost of the car by by half the reason why we're saying that this may not last forever you know there will be incentives offered by the federal government for a significant length of time it's a 10 year bill so these incentives are not going to go away but there are new rules being written that may make restrict choices and make depending on what car brolin tonian is interested in buying there may be less generous federal subsidies available some months down the road so if this is something you've been considering this is the way we're going to get to net zero as a community as if if brolin tonians and business owners make this change now is the time to take a look a lot more information on the on the bd website thank you president paul great thank you mayor wineburger we'll go to councillor bergman thank you president paul um last meeting we adopted on the consent agenda unanimously the funding of mass transit resolution i think it's really important that resolution was sent to our entire delegation both house and senate i had the opportunity to speak to speaker kowinsky um this past week and she expressed um that there was support for transit funding in the house and that they were going to uh to be working on this uh it's my experience that things don't happen in that house without people pushing it is why we passed the um the resolution and called for this council and our administration to be active in that so i guess that following up on that conversation that i had with the speaker who happens to be my um representative um i'm hoping that each and every member of this uh council will reach out to your representatives and um state senators and i also hope that the administration will follow this up i know that that is part that funding is part of the mayors uh vermont mayors um agenda um it is now i believe by the passage of that resolution part of the city's legislative agenda and it is it's critically important there are a lot of there's a lot of competition all you have to do is listen to vermont public radio as opposed to maybe television right now to uh to hear the um the competition that's out there for funding um interestingly enough the funding study that the regional planning commission did has um funding sources that are not being discussed in the media now that i'm not sure that that they're not being discussed in the legislature for other things but what that says to me is that there are some other um sources of funding that would not be in competition there is obviously a question as it relates to the governor's um commitment to raise public funds this so-called affordability agenda that sort of smacks up against that which is why we really need to have good caring people who care about the public fisc and about the affordability of our residents to be engaged in this and i just want to continue to double down on my advocacy and my um strong um request that the administration in particular take the lead in helping us do this thank you thanks very much thanks for that update counselor bergman are there any other counselors who have would like to offer a climate emergency report uh oh counselor counselor travers just briefly president paul i was excited to see that the uh parking reform network released a list of a number of communities that have been added to the list nationwide uh of cities with no parking mandates so san jose california angridge alaska gainsville florida uh bend orgin corvallis orgin tigard orgin and burlington vermont now on the list of cities with no parking mandates um the parking reform network parkingreform.org great resource where folks can see information on 200 plus communities around the country that have taken a similar move and was excited to see uh burlington highlighted on the map thank you thanks very much uh seeing no other counselors in the queue will go uh to items nine 10 11 um 9 10 and 11 at the end of our agenda and then if we have time we'll go back to the local control commission meeting which we can do prior to the public forum so uh that leaves us with item number eight which is committee reports are there counselors who wish to offer a committee report counselor barlow to be followed by counselor high tower mickey and bergman no my apologies go ahead go ahead thank you president paul the um transportation energy and utilities committee will be meeting tomorrow january 24th um and we'll be meeting at 645 pine street and on our agenda are uh we're getting an update on the south end transit oriented development and multimodal center planning excuse me um we're getting an update from car share vermont on their operations and we'll be discussing future agenda items and and meeting planning thank you great and what time is that oh sorry it's at 5 p.m. great uh so we'll go to counselor mickey and then bergman thank you president paul the public safety committee met uh last wednesday to discuss uh moving forward with some of the cna recommendations uh we have uh discussed a number of the department directives which uh many of the highest priority cna recommendations involved edits to department directives bpd staff have been working very hard to uh do work on those and as well as the police commission uh staff are working uh through the first quarter to have those department directives uh those amendments to the police commission for review not just by the commission but for review and comment from the public as well so um i think the hope is to have uh the first uh revisions to the police commission in february uh for their february meeting and i would encourage folks to keep an eye out for that and uh we'll do my best to advertise those as well so and hopefully our minutes will be posted uh in the days to come thank you thanks counselor mickey we'll go to counselor bergman um believe it or not the charter change committee um just met and one might say well why since we've got three charter changes on there we're done with the deadlines are passed but there are um a few items that are still in the in the um the committee's uh jurisdiction and uh review um and we are going to be so we listed them and we'll start uh some some research and uh have some substantive discussion in our next meeting which will be in march because after all there's no rush since charter changes are generally done in um march the the first is counselor compensation this is not a new issue it's an issue that you know um speaks to the openness and availability of uh our positions here to uh to a wider um public it is part of the democracy um reforms that some of which are on the the um the town meeting a ballot this time and so there's a there's a bit of work that needs to be done in terms of the research the the pays that are out there in in vermont and in comparable areas um what the impacts will be so that that's a conversation that we're looking to have um redistricting as I called it last week was is a swamp and one of the the problems is that it's a charter change and there has been a proposal to not remove the voters from the decision but to actually enable the voters to approve without then going to the legislature for the approval um of um our electoral districts in the city um it's an idea that we thought about bringing in conjunction with this redistricting I think that we were smart in not doing it it's complicated and confusing enough as we have it right now but that is still on our item and in our committee and we're looking I think to discuss this here in in march um so that you can get um a little bit more detail and we can uh get feedback and the last one is a relatively new item that also will need a lot of um research and discussion and that is participatory budgeting which is a an idea that has been floated out in a number of campaigns over the last uh few years in a lot of ways many years ago the NPAs had bigger pots of money that they dispensed and that was participatory budgeting and there are many municipalities in the in the world that um that do this Porto Alegre in Brazil was probably the most famous example but New York City also has a piece of it so that is another item that we will begin the the process of discussing and that will obviously need to have fine conversations with our fine CAO about this but um at the end of the day I think that people in America including Burlington want greater say in control and democracy um over their lives and their governments and the monies that they spend and this is a potential way that we can make that happen so more to come on that thank you great thanks thanks councillor Bergman we'll go to councillor Travers thank you uh councillor Brant's first meeting with the ordinance committee was a joint meeting with the planning commission uh where we reviewed proposed amendments to our inclusionary zoning ordinance to allow greater flexibility around bedroom bedroom mix and the size of of um excuse me affordable housing units uh the planning commission I know is taking that back up on its own and its meeting tomorrow and then the ordinance committee and planning commission will be having at least one or two additional joint meetings for the purpose of our reviewing that specific issue great thanks for that update uh seeing no other committee reports we'll move on to item nine which is city council general city affairs are there counselors who wish to offer comments on general city affairs councillor McGee thank you president paul uh I just wanted to know quickly that I will be doing a constituent coffee hour at nunions from 8 30 to 9 30 this coming Friday January 27th and uh welcome folks to attend that great thank you any others seeing none that will bring us to item number 10 which is council president updates the only update that I have is that on February 6th we're going to have a presentation from the Howard outreach team to inform us about their work and their insight into our community's challenges and successes on the street so more to come on that not sure exactly what time but that will hopefully be on our agenda for the 6th of February that will bring us to item number 11 which is updates from the mayor may your wine burger the floor is yours thank you president paul I I don't think of anything further shared this this time wow okay uh so of course the time that we we have more than enough time is the time that we have seems to have a little let's have less to say um that means that we can go to um uh we can go to the consent of the uh local control um committee or local control commission so I'm going to get that meeting up and then we can go through that agenda okay so the uh so we'll we'll recess the uh city council meeting at 640 and call to order the uh local control commission meeting at the same time um the first item on the agenda is item 1.01 which is a motion to adopt the agenda if there are a motion to adopt the agenda so moved thank you commissioner traver seconded by uh commit uh commissioner high tower any discussion on the motion seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed please say no we have our agenda and we have only one item on our deliberative agenda that is um item 2.01 a second class liquor license application for campus kitchen 273 coal chester avenue uh commissioner travers moved to approve the 2022 2023 second class liquor license application for campus kitchen 273 coal chester avenue with all standard conditions thank you commissioner travers uh seconded by uh commissioner high tower any discussion on the motion seeing none all those in favor of the motion is made by commissioner travers please say aye all right any opposed please say no uh that motion passes unanimously and with no other business on the agenda and seeing no objection we'll adjourn the local control commission meeting at uh 641 um i don't believe that we can go to the council with mayor presiding and is don't think that there is anything more that we can do until public forum which will start at 730 so with that we will recess the oh actually we we we adjourned the local control commission meeting we will now uh we will now go back to the city council meeting at 641 um and with that and no other business that we can that we can conduct until we get to public forum we will recess the council meeting until 730 which means we can move on to public forum thank you all for your patience we do have a couple of people that wish to speak in the public forum um and before we start just a couple of pieces of information if you're speaking in person the table in front of us has three lights green light will shine when you start speaking a second uh the yellow light will shine when you have 30 seconds left and then a red light will shine when your time is up um and all we ask is that you try to wrap up your comments um or wrap up your comments when the light and the sound indicate that your time is up so that we all give the same amount of time to everyone um we have a hybrid system for public forum so if you wish to speak in person there are forms that look like this that are right in the corner of the room you can fill one out and then uh give it to the clerk and um they will give it to me um and then we'll call on you in the order of Burlington residents will go first and then we will go to Burlington residents online if you wish to speak via zoom uh you can do so um and i actually need to get on zoom you need um you can uh you can you can do it in two ways the the easiest way is to go to BurlingtonVT.gov forward slash city council forward slash public forum and a form will come up if you complete the form your answers will come into a spreadsheet that's in front of me and then i'll be able to call on you um if you aren't able to access the form and just want to use the raise your hand raise hand function i'll recognize you as well um so the way we do this is Burlington residents in con toys will have first priority uh Burlington residents online will have second and then we will go back to con toys for non-burlington residents and then to non-burlington residents online and our only request is that it's easier for us to listen if you uh direct your comments to me as the chair and not to anyone else at this table um please do not personalize your comments um and uh there are a number of people we actually had them at the last council meeting a number of people who actually bring their children and watch this um watch council meetings with their kids and um that's part of their civic commitment to civic engagement it is helpful if you keep that in mind and use respectful language um i need to get on to zoom so that i can be able to call on people so give me a one moment here okay you should see me katherine thank you okay so with that uh there are two people who wish to speak from uh speak during public forum who are in con toys um the first is aspirin ovary and the next is todd lecroy welcome thanks for joining us all right thank you uh i'm here to talk i'm here to comment on three issues uh first off quickly uh issue 6.12 of rezoning i as a vm student i'm sure there is a lot of pressure on you guys from the uvm administration to allow this rezoning i sincerely hope you guys don't without without provide without some member random of understanding that uvm caps enrollment because otherwise the way uvm mistreats its students will not will continue and through overcrowding and no problems will be solved in the long run uh second off uh i want to talk oh sorry the next thing i want to talk about was issue 3.01 and with the mayor on the with the mayor presiding agenda and so i just wanted to address some lies that were being spread about lee morgan uh there are lies and accusations that lee morgan is some sort of lead organizer for the community for the community oversight board or proposition zero i am i am an organizer for community for the community oversight board and proposition zero this is just not true i added i'm sure lee is in support and i hope that lee is in in the cause or or whatever people would like to say but i added lee at 8 30 p.m on two last tuesday this is lee is not some central organizer and it's and i added lee to a group chat that's lee's entire capacity and it's kind of disgusting that there are lies like this being spread by certain city counselors about lee about lee morgan it's yeah i sincerely hope to say council i also can prove this i sincerely hope the city council repudates these lies and not and appoints them to the board to the parks and rec commission thank you so much have a great day thank you very much our next speaker is todd lecroy and then we'll go to burlington residents online welcome todd good evening hello i'm here to bother you again with a little more inconvenient truth artificial intelligence i keep hearing all about it well you know what i see everywhere i look artificial insanity and stupidity instead all i see you guys doing is running circles around the truth and calling it progress ruining your children's future and then get mad at them for complaining that you're denying them solutions you see here we are living in a culture where our children's number one cause of death is bullets and you people are just so distracted by causing another war in another country you have all this money for weapons but no money for the children no money for the starving homeless people in america but you got all this money to blow up russians and support nazis in another country and you don't even want to have the conversation after the disaster of the last 20 years of afghanistan and iraq and libya about how insane it is artificial insanity is what you guys are fucking doing excuse me artificial insanity because i don't see intelligence even amongst the people building a i so where is that taking us and you guys are about to weaponize all these things and call it progress when you don't have any solutions my whole life i have seen people promising solutions while at the same time working against them and our children's number one cause of death is bullets and all you want to do is spread more weapons around the world instead of create solutions that are real thank you so much todd uh we'll go to uh people who had requested that brilington residents who had asked to speak that are joining us via zoom uh the first is keith pilsbury and keith i have found you and uh enabled your microphone please go ahead thank you carat chairman paul can you hear me okay i can hear we can hear you great thank you i'm really coming to just to uh make sure that we we as a street right a wrong that we made ten years ago by not speaking up ten years ago we talked about wanting to be in a different warden than we were currently being assigned to and we didn't say anything we figured that somebody would else would do it for us and and as i said to some of my neighbors this weekend we need to right the wrong and someone that we made ten years ago and somebody said one of my neighbors said well the wrong that was made 50 years ago many of us on our street have been here for 30 to 50 years we are a very we're a small street we're totally surrounded by institutional space that is not residential and we would like to be close to our neighbors on new robinson parkway in and in ward six we would appreciate your consideration that we become part of a neighborhood that is more like our neighborhood uh we um we would like to be part of ward six i appreciate all the time and every you're putting into this and um i hope that that will become true in the end thank you very much chairman paul thanks so much keith uh our next speaker who wanted to join us online is Sharon busher and Sharon i have found you and enabled your microphone please go ahead yes hi good evening um i wanted to talk about council rules and the item was public forum it's kind of ironic since you had this hiatus to deal with the public forum but um and i understand really the the need to balance how you move through your agenda efficiently and get your job done and also accommodate the public and give them some idea when they will be able to address the council my only comment is that as i read it um you're proposing a one and a half hour time between six and seven thirty and my concern is that six o'clock although for all of you might seem late in the day i think for a lot of people that worked i i used to work at the hospital um that's that's tight um and i know people i mean i i now zoom in but um i wouldn't have been able to do that if i was working at the hospital i couldn't i couldn't work in emergency you know situations and zoom in so i'm hoping that maybe as you look at this you might tighten that window to six thirty to seven thirty giving the public an hour in which they know that that's when you'll open the public forum um and that tightens it and i think it gives a little more play for the people who are working during the day to actually attend uh if they want to in person um i really think the idea is to get the governing done but also to include the public in the process and i'm hoping you um can see the need to balance both thank you so much thank you for the suggestion uh Sharon um we will there is one more person who wish to speak online and that is maddie posig maddie i have found you and now you should be able to speak now uh thank you president maddie my apologies i disconnected you i think you could i think you can speak now please start my apologies please start again okay you can hear me yes yes yes okay i'll start again my name is maddie posig and i live in ward eight on hunger for terrorists i've been anxiously awaiting for redistricting ever since ward eight was created 10 years ago as a result of the information gathered by the ad hoc committee it is my understanding that fixing ward eight was a high priority had a fairly distribute the on-campus student population was also a high priority the map that the city council adopted in december most fairly distributes the on-campus students between wards one six and eight in addition that map moved several blocks of long-term residents that were adjacent toward eight into ward eight these moves achieve the goal of creating a ward eight that was more fairly balanced demographically with the map that you adopted in december no ward had more than 50 population of on-campus students with the introduction of the maps being presented tonight the on-campus student population in ward eight is double the population in ward one these maps do not achieve the goal of creating a better ward eight last week several speakers objected to the adopted map stating it would harm ward one these new maps harm ward eight a war that has faced challenges since since its inception 10 years ago i really don't understand how moving a few blocks from ward one into ward eight harms ward one i am asking you to not repeat the mistake tonight that was made 10 years ago and please vote for the map that you already approved it is the fairest compromise for all eight wards and again thank you for all your hard work on this difficult process thank you maddie uh there are no other people who have signed up to speak during the public forum i'm just going to check one more time online uh so with that we will close the public forum at 745 um we have already completed the local control commission um and uh we have one other meeting before we get to that um we can just we can move to adopt the consent agenda so this is item number six is there a motion to um uh on the consent agenda to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions actions as indicated so moved uh thank you councillor mcgee seconded by uh councillor carpenter all those in favor of the motion to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated please say aye aye any opposed please say no uh we have our consent agenda before we get to our deliberative agenda there is one more um meeting that we do have to address and that is the uh city council with mayor presiding uh the mayor presides interestingly enough the mayor presides over the city council with mayor presiding so i will hand the floor to uh mayor weinberger and we will re we will we will recess the council meeting at 746 to do so um thank you president paul um i will call into order the city council of mayor presiding at 747 and i'm going to call a short five minute recess okay i'm going to call the board uh the city council of mayor presiding back to order at 7 53 p.m and the first item on the agenda is the adoption of agenda of the agenda could have a motion regarding it second any discussion of the agenda seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed motion carries unanimously item number two is a motion to adopt the consent agenda and take the action indicated um uh can i have a uh motion um regarding the consent agenda uh motion to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated thank you president paul is there a second second by council brant any discussion seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed motion carries unanimously this brings us to 3.01 which is a parks and recreation commission for a term expiring June 30th 2023 and floor is open for nominations council jen thank you mr uh mr mayor i would like to nominate lee morrigan thank you council jen are there any additional nominations council shannon thank you mr mayor i nominate robert edder are there any additional nominations councillor travers nominate charlie glisserman um thank you uh councillor travers um are there any additional nominations uh thank you i wouldn't nominate and i'm happy to nominate joel banner barrett for this position thank you president paul are there any additional nominations okay seeing none we have um councillor freeman uh so sorry before we talk about the process here um are there any of the nominate nominees uh in the room that would like to speak to the um city council of mayor presiding uh welcome my name is lee morrigan um i am in ward seven and i wanted to come tonight to address um some concerns that has come to my attention that were raised and i'm going to be in front i'm going to be emotional um y'all they're going to get to see me cry because a lot of these concerns have hurt me deeply um but i uh respect you all enough to if there's a concern i would like to address it so um i think one one of the concerns that has come up is my uh ability to work in collaboration with folks um especially against party lines um you know uh the ability to work in collaboration is one of my core values um and unfortunately it has um something that has come at a personal cost i feel like i have a really good track record in burlington for collaboration um during one of my most passionate times in the city council which i will come back to i reached out um to the mayor in collaboration in an effort to reach uh peaceful resolution with sears lane at the eleventh hour i stayed here till like a 130 meeting and had a word with the mayor in an effort of reaching across the aisle that has come at a personal cost as you know not everyone's a fan of the mayor or people who reach out to him and i lost some friends because of that effort i have also worked with chief mirad in a spirit of collaboration he was also someone i went to in a matter that i will also that i will also touch back on because it is of concern of a legal matter i had and i reached out to the chief for his guidance because regardless of some things we disagree on there are parts of the chief that i quite like and that's not a popular statement and again that came at a personal cost and i have lost friends in support due to my spirit of collaboration with chief mirad i also am very dedicated to collective liberation and the bipod community that also has come in at a personal cost and i'm not going to go into detail see where do my notes go i have arrows going everywhere so you know i think a a very valid concern is i don't know if it was a year and a half ago is over a year ago i had an outburst at a meeting during a very passionate vote about sears lane um i think that is anyone who has a concern about my ability to work with others over that i think that's valid and i don't really want to i'm not going to like justify it given the chance i would handle that differently um i will point out that i've kind of taken that you know i i've kind of joked with with with some counselors i've discussed that that thing that i've at the very least i've now set myself a very public benchmark for the type of like um conduct i don't want to go back to and i've stuck to that you know in my life i've i've found that the best way to make amends is to not do something again and i haven't um that and i i don't think i've had an outburst like that even before that time but that was one time thing for me and since then i've i've not done that i've made some very conscious changes to how i carry myself in meetings and outside of meetings and i'm you know really proud of myself for that but yeah that is a valid concern for sure um let's see as as aspen had had mentioned i was i was actually really shocked to hear the concern that i'm i'm a key organizer with the community control board i'm i'm not an organizer at all um i know some of the people i support the measure and maybe that's what was confusing as i spoke in support of that at the public hearing but um i think aspen liked what i had to say and i sat down near them after and they tapped me on the shoulder and asked if they could add me to the group chat um so i mean i don't know you might even be able to see it on the on the footage from town meeting tv of when i plugged my number into their phone but that's you know that was tuesday i'm not an organizer with them at all much less a key organizer but you know honestly i don't understand if i was an organizer with them i don't want to understand why that is a concern um i i'm and i'm kind of only speaking to it i'm really only addressing it because i don't understand how that was constructed and i i guess i would i would ask you folks whoever like communicated that to you i mean was that just a mistake was that an intentional misinformation i guess i would just ask you to examine that because i don't understand how that could have come about um uh there was a concern that my motivations to getting on the parks and rec commission is based around um like a a hidden agenda or a plan to make um the parks a place for houses people to live um which which again kind of made me laugh because clearly whoever has that theory doesn't know me at all um a lot of you do know because i'm very open about it that i used to be houseless i used to have to camp on public lands and i can tell you as someone who used to have to camp on public lands it is not a good solution and it is never a solution that i would you know like push or advocate for for a solution to our our housing crisis in burlington you know the the sorry i need to interrupt you for just a moment we typically we don't have a formal two-minute limit on these but typically the statements by candidates uh are around that and so if you could wrap up quickly that'd be helpful can i have i can i can probably do this in like a minute and a half is that sure go for another it's just i'm sorry there's been so many concerns brought to me so i want to make sure i address them um but yeah that's not my agenda as someone who's camped on public lands i wouldn't advocate for that for somebody um i think to me the most disturbing one was a concern about a criminal charge i have where i was working on a documentary investigating the disappearance of a black firm honor and the lack of an investigation as part of that i was targeted in an abuse of power by a police department and a state's attorney i was exonerated the case was dismissed it didn't even make it to trial because i was protected under the first amendment right and the freedom of press so i'm like really hurt that that's brought up as a negative um and i'll just close with you know i think the timing of this was so frustrating for me because i'm currently working on mediating an issue in collaboration across party lines to diffuse a conflict before it escalates and while i was getting calls about concerns that were being raised i am putting in a lot of effort to deescalate a situation across party lines which some of you know because you're helping to advise me in it so the irony for me is very difficult but um and i'm i'm sad that i didn't get more time to talk to you about parks than i'm very passionate i have a lot of professional experience in stewardship i have a lot of passion for parks and i would be more than honored to serve burlington in a spirit of uh community and collaboration even with people who may be under a misunderstanding i'm totally happy to move forward and put this behind us so thanks thank you thanks for the extra time i appreciate it absolutely is there are there any other nominees that would like to come speak to the the state council of mayor presiding come on up joel i'm just basically just introducing myself to some of you who don't know me and some of you who do hello again to those who do my opinions are pretty much in the public record as a journalist um more than a decade of basically listening to many different points of view and trying to balance them to improve a discussion and um so that's that's devoid of any uh palace intrigue i'm sorry to say but that's what you see is what you get here um also um i am uh an amateur arborist and an amateur gardener um and um an amateur athlete so uh here's to parks and i hope you uh you're satisfied with whomever you vote into the position thank you thank you joel are there any other nominees who are here and would like to speak to the city council mayor presiding i'm not seeing i think catherine's checking to make sure none of them are online and we don't think so so um now let's uh to go through the process so um i think typically we've done the votes in the order that people are nominated um there will be council freeman is voting um remotely i believe can you confirm that councillor freeman and turn on your camera yes i'm here i'm voting okay um i believe it is it our rule that camera's beyond i mean i i don't feel that well mayor so i mean i could put my camera on but i'm literally like in a hoodie and just feel this casting but if you feel that the public really would benefit from seeing me at this moment all right okay i can certainly i was just trying to fair enough warning you i'm not i'm feeling a little bit under the weather okay i apologize understood councillor freeman i informal presence go ahead please turn that you i apologize i was just trying to follow what i believe our rules to be um go ahead um please don't feel obliged to keep it on councillor freeman so the um we have think twelve councillors voting is that right one two with the mayor one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve so as soon as someone gets to seven votes we will have a nominee so we'll we will have votes in the order of the nominations so the first um vote uh please raise your hand if you are supporting lee morgan okay one two three four five six seven um and the uh that is a majority of the body uh congratulations lee uh thank you for um your interest and good luck with your service on the on the parks uh commission and i do want to thank joel and the numerous other people who voted this is uh one of the more competitive seats we've had in some time and i would encourage people were not successful this time to consider applying again we frequently many of our long-standing and uh much appreciated commissioners um were not successful on their first application um with that uh i believe the business of the city council with mayor presiding is complete and i will turn the microphone back to you uh prison paul after adjourning at 8 10 p.m. great thank you mayor weinberger so we'll reconvene the city council at 8 10 um we have done all of the work that we can um with the exception of our deliberative agenda so there are six items on our deliberative agenda um we do we have posted time limits for each item and which we agree to by approving our agenda and we'll do our best to keep to those limits um the first item is item 7.01 which is an update on redistricting maps per city council action on january 17th um last week and just to recap for our community members who may have missed the first public hearing at the public hearing last week the council did make two requests of the independent mapping specialist the first was to review and analyze the map um that was um known as eight wards v 27 and a second request um was to uh come up with a map uh that joined the maple king neighborhood into one ward and incorporated brooksa avenue on both sides of the street into ward one um director megan tuttle is here um she and uh sarah morgan worked on the maps uh the population totals and there is a memo that's posted to board docs um all were done on friday evening and uh for this item i'll go to director tuttle if you can give us a brief presentation on the information um and then we'll go open it up to the council uh director tuttle thank you for being here you're welcome thank you um so i think that i hope that the memo helped summarize the three different maps that you have available to you in your packet in response to your motions from last week i'm happy to put them up on the screen if it would be helpful but um wanted to just start with an acknowledgement i think for those of you that know me know that i'm usually very intentional and careful with my words and the memo that was posted on friday night um left a little bit to be desired so i want to share a little bit more with you um just about kind of the process for us actually bringing forward maps in response to your requests from last week uh so the first map as um counselor as president paul indicated was our validation of the map eight wards v 27 so i'll just refer to that as v 27 from here out um we did look at the individual ward uh population counts and student counts for each of them and largely came to the same conclusion that the members of the public did with regard to the numbers for that map the piece of information for our purposes in order to complete this work for you that was missing from that that work that had been completed by members of the public and and from your vote was an indication on how you preferred the wards to be paired um in that map so i did want to speak to that just briefly to share information about kind of our process and um some of the considerations we made in preparing that aspect of this work for you um the first is just to give you a little bit of background on the boring stuff about the kind of technical details of how we put this together we haven't talked about this a whole lot in the process of preparing these maps but in addition to ensuring that the individual wards meet the overall 10 percent deviation we also just need to confirm that the districts do as well um this is easier to do because they're bigger and so that gives us more flexibility in terms of meeting an overall deviation um but in order for us to actually validate um what the numbers are for those deviations we needed to know how to pair the actual wards together into districts similarly in order to produce charter language for you so that you could potentially consider voting on any of these maps tonight we needed to know how to pair those wards into districts um this may seem like a really silly nuance but the way that our charter language is written is that it actually describes the outer boundaries of a district and then describes how that's divided into two wards instead of describing the outer boundary of every ward and then pairing them so um that sounds really nuancey but essentially that means that it has big implications for how we actually write the charter language for your consideration so we needed to know how to pair these words together in order to meet both of the kind of technical aspects of this map making process for your consideration tonight so that brought us to then how we approached that work I think as you all know from looking at this map that v-27's proposed approach to ward 8 is very different from our current ward 8 it's made up of portions of wards 1, 3, 5, 6, and 8 to comprise that proposed 8 and so it therefore affects portions of the east central and south districts due to the extent of that change and the fact that ward 8's proposed boundaries don't follow the recent history of other wards we actually found the most recent time we had similar wards shaped like that were actually in 1865 we weren't sure the intent of the pairing of the wards into districts wasn't clear to us just from a geographic perspective so we had to look at some of the other factors that you all have talked about through this process things like maintaining respect for historic neighborhood boundaries considering impact on certain communities of interest etc so that is where we went next in terms of thinking about how to make a recommendation to you about this pairing because we know that the king maple neighborhood was an area of concern in why these maps came back to us at this stage in the process we were really focused on how the ward district pairing might impact the king maple neighborhood and its outcome the good thing about the proposed ward 8 is that it does bring all of the king maple neighborhood into a single ward with ward 8 but because this ward spans all the way from the waterfront to campus the impact of which district it was paired with was significant if we paired that ward with ward 1 this meant that the king maple neighborhood would be part of a district that spanned all the way from bob and mill to the winewski bridge it would be a very big district and we were not sure if that was the intent of the council for the outcome of that neighborhood's pairing by by recommending pairing wards 3 and 8 together we know that the king maple neighborhood maintains a district pairing with other geographically proximate neighborhoods such as the downtown and the western portion of the old north end similarly I think there was a big trade-off that we had to consider in terms of how campus areas and the downtown areas were paired in a district configuration with the shape of ward 8 so similar to the the note I just made about king maple if we pair wards 1 and 8 together that moves the downtown into the east district where if we pair wards 3 and 8 together it maintains the downtown and the western old north end together in a central district the way that it does today I think there was a question or a concern that was raised about just the recommendation to pair wards 1 and 2 as the east district as impacting the eastern part of the old north end which it does again when we think about trade-offs this is one of those areas but we also know that because of the shape of ward 3 in this proposed map it does ward 3 does include more of the western portion of the old north end than ward 3 does today just one final thing then or I guess two the other piece was just not a lot of certainty in terms of the sort of cross issues of ward 8 being long and narrow east to west and ward 2 being long and narrow north to south in this proposed map if we pair wards 1 and 8 in this map it means that there is a essentially two block by three block section of the new ward 2 that would be completely surrounded on three of its sides by a different ward and district essentially those blocks between Winooski College Williams and Pearl would be surrounded by the east district while they would be part of the central district but we do also acknowledge that either way you pair ward 2 with either of its neighboring wards results in an area of the city that has more off-campus student population which I know is something that many people in that area were interested in and then the final piece was just thinking about the issue of the campus on campus population so this has been a major area of focus in terms of your map making we've typically talked about this at the ward level but in v-27 it did open up some questions about how you wanted to approach the campus population at the district level if you maintained a pairing of wards 1 and 8 you could largely maintain most of the campus population in the east district as it is today but we do have the issues on the western side of the city that we need to consider if we pair wards 1 and 2 and then wards 3 and 8 we can also recognize an opportunity to split more of our campus population not only among three wards but also three districts which I think is something that was just an interesting observation about that process so those are some of our considerations I think at the end of the day either the combination of ward 1 and 2 or ward 1 and 8 works from a deviation perspective and I apologize I think there was some wording in the memo that suggested otherwise that wasn't the intent as far as maps v1 and v2 then these were responsive to the other request to make minor modifications to your December map in order to address king maple and brooks avenue in both of these maps we took a similar approach to v27 in that we maintained the boundary between ward 1 and 2 along willard street all the way from riverside to pearl where our map differs is that instead of moving Harris-Millis into ward 6 we moved Harris-Millis into ward 1 to offset the population change around brooks avenue and again the approach here was to try to make as few changes as possible to the maps that you had previously approved in terms of how to address the king maple neighborhood the first approach then that we took was to largely move the boundary back to where it is today the boundary between ward 3 and ward 5 currently runs along king street up to st. paul street so this map simply makes that change to bring that boundary back the second option because i think we understood there may have been a greater interest in helping the bob and mill neighborhood become part of the downtown ward this takes a different approach in that it moves bob and mill and everything north into the downtown ward and addresses the population deviation by moving a block each into ward 5 and to ward 6 so happy to answer any other questions you might have about those but you do have charter language to correspond with each of these three maps if you're interested in considering any of them wonderful thanks thanks so much Megan for all your work on this we will go first to councillor bergman and then to councillor shannon well first i want to thank Megan for the work it's not an easy job and it was a last-minute job i want to thank you for correcting the error in drafting that your memo that stated that the deviations were a reason for one and one and two to be joined i'm glad because that removes that as an aspect and puts it back where it belongs which is a political conversation here as opposed to a pseudo-legal conversation so thank you for that and let me just turn if ever there was a reason why the districts don't work for me it was that conversation that we just had related to the pairing of them and we did get public comment tonight about the districts not being something that is wanted so it is still in my mind even though i don't know that i have the votes something that is a live political question because i i think that the conversation that we had raises another problem with that but let me just say that the the ward the 27 map is one that is closest to an historic breakdown of the old north end none of you were around when i represented ward 2 in 1986 and not on this council yeah lots of you were around none of you were here in this room when that happened and i can tell you that i represented a ward that went from my part of the the the ward which is by the boys and girls club as probably all of you know all the way to main street so it included the bradley and buell and hungerford area right we always had that and that was something maybe i don't know when it came but i believe that it well predated my coming on to the council so at least a a redistricting or more before before that so um the the pairing of ward 2 with ward 1 to create the east district is a severing of the the old north end and i have not thought that despite all the conversations that we were really engaged in quote unquote gerrymandering which i think this is previous i think is about the dilution of votes vis-a-vis certain people this case in the old north end is primarily working-class folks the severing of that connection to me smacks of gerrymandering i i think it's outrageous and um and therefore fundamentally wrong so i'm happy to have heard director tell say that you know there are reasons to match you know different wards together here and so it becomes back to us as a as a political process i want the old north end to have the integrity that we said i want the historic nature of ward two to be kept um intact i think this does for the uh the folks in ward eight what a lot of what they said they wanted they i mean before there were 80 percent or so that were on campus this and all the map that we have in front of us does this too but this map does it that's 49 percent just like word six um it's true that it's about twice the number of on-campus students as ward one ward one carries lots of off-campus students anybody who knows that who just ran for for election knows that and the bringing in of the buule street area into ward two who makes that adjustment in terms of off-campus students somewhat mitigated so I personally am in favor of the the new map if the districts are done right if we're going to have districts again I think it is prudent not to have districts but if we are to have districts then two in three and one in eight the nature of the district system is odd and you know the fact that it goes from the lake to the river is a you know is an issue that I think we we confront my my ward or our our ward wards two and three if they were together go from the lake to the river it's just a different part of the river that that you get to same thing with the new north end so I just want to let you know that I I think it will be a it would be a terrible decision of yours to to sever the old north end and I if if you decide to do that but if you don't then the um the ward the the 27 map is my favorite one or the one that I favor the tweak the tweak maps I think do our improvement over the existing ones but I would hope that we would move to the the version 27 with the wards two and three district if we maintain the districts and thank you for your indulgence thank you councillor bergman we'll go to councillor shannon and anyone else who wishes to speak go ahead thank you president paul now I have so many more questions in my head I just had like one simple question when I raised my hand which was for director tuttle and one of the last things you said was explaining the changes that you made in the king maple area and you referenced moving a block one block in ward five and one block in ward six and if you can clarify which map you were talking about and which blocks you were talking about moving because it's been a little bit hard to follow this this version we don't have the overlays and so I'm looking at them side by side I think I mostly know and the other thing we we don't have a reference here as to the status quo I have the one we adopted the two that you tweaked and made some changes in that area so if you could just clarify the five six and three I don't know if it would be easiest if somebody could make me a panelist I am on the zoom meeting and I could oh it looks like I can't share my screen one second okay so this is the current boundary between wards three and five in your district or in your wards today so ward three is in the red north of king street and ward five is to the south in brown up that was approved in December this is what happens to those ward boundaries so north of king street only between the basically the king street dock and up to champlain street stays in ward three but the two blocks then immediately to the east between south champlain and st paul also move into ward three from ward five the all right let's see here what's the best way to do this so this is now the boundary that you have been discussing in your public hearing the first version that we proposed just moves this boundary back to where it exists today along king street all the way to st paul street the version two takes the opposite approach here which is to move these two blocks back into ward five and this area into ward three and the one block that I mentioned moving into ward six is right here this is between church when you ski king and maple so that's the difference between those two maps great thank you that does explain it and then I had a question about what councillor Bergman was saying and president paul I don't know if you might allow councillor to Bergman to answer if he chooses but when you said I support the map before us there's three maps before us so some clarification on exactly what you were saying there would help and then it sounded like you liked the v-27 map and perhaps that's the map you were referring to as before us but I'm not sure if you like that map with the pairings but you don't like the map with the pairings one two and three eight and as far as the other maps I'm assuming that well I could find out by going into the depths of the meats and bounds charter change language but I think in the others the pairings all stay the same and so you don't object to the pairing staying the same you object to changing those pairings in v-27 if that's that's my understanding so if you can clarify I'd be happy to clarify I think taking number three first that is correct I do not object to the continued pairing of two and three and one and eight in the version that we adopted in December that's what we have currently I had that confirmed in reading of the meats and bounds and I'm gonna assume that that was correct my good friend counselor busher read that to me and I'm convinced that that is correct and I see nods so number three going to number question number one that is I would move I will move when we finish our conversation everybody gets a chance to to move the the version 27 map that we had I do not believe that that map has embedded in it the pairing of the of the the district the wards for districts and I think that it would be helpful to me before I move that to know sort of whether I'm boxing myself in in terms of that in terms of the votes um but my my intention will be to have that placed before us for our voting consideration to replace the the current map and with regard to the the tweaks that you know bring back fully Brooks Avenue and I think both sides as a king or is it Maple whatever that joining is I'm fully in favor of that you guys have heard me talk about not wanting to break up streets and us having the legal ability to do that so I think that makes lots of sense and if I I hope that I've answered all three of your questions yes thank you President Paul I am hoping that when motions are made they will be made with both the map with the map and the pairings together because I think it may be important to people and how they vote I I actually it made sense I read what director Tuttle said in terms of the pairings it made sense to me to pair them as suggested with the one two and the three eight I that looked like the more natural pairing to me because of of what she said with regards to just how the connections are made what you're surrounded by I will say that the historic boundaries of these wards are are not important to me I think that our task is changing those boundaries and there are people who will not like when they get moved into one ward and out of another and that's the unfortunate nature of our job people don't really like change and so they tend to be more supportive of the thing that keeps them where they are even if it moves somebody else that that being said my my preference has been the my preference has been the v-27 map because I think it's a it's a better map in terms of assuring that we have enough longer-term residents to get all the positions filled to not have too many freshmen and sophomores who are with certainty going to move and are unable to serve in these positions in any one ward and I guess I'm going to listen to the discussion I think that there's an improvement with the v-1 and v-2 maps as far as not dividing Brooks Ave which to me is the most egregious kind of um division on a neighborhood street that's a very small neighborhood street and it is and has in every way the sense of a neighborhood so that's one of the things that has bothered me most about the map that we approved between the v-1 and v-2 maps my preference would be the v-2 map and I'll leave it at that for now and listen to what others have to say one of the things that I'm weighing here is really what other people think I don't want us to reach a draw tonight and not not get anywhere so I'll listen to what others have to say thank you thank you Councillor Shannon before we go to Councillor Hightower I just wanted to alert the council you can check your email there is I had asked Attorney Sturtevin and whether or not she could give me motion language in advance should there be a desire to change from the approved map to another map and so you'll see in your email there is a motion it just simply says the xyz map you can fill that in if there are other changes other than this that relate to district boundaries then we'll have to work through that language that's not in this motion but just wanted to let you know and in fact yes the pairing does have to happen just also for the benefit of the public this is the last possible council meeting that we can vote on this anything further than this would necessitate a special meeting next week ballots must be delivered the wording of the ballots must be delivered by February 1st so this is our last meeting to be making this decision councilor hightower my comments will be more global maybe than some of the others which is to say well first of all I just have to also say thank you to make a title I know I'm biased because I was on the DRB and then when I joined council immediately went to ordinance but how lucky we are to have you as a director I think is just extremely evident in every dealing with you and so just a huge thank you both to this and to all of the work you do and then I have to say I was pretty discouraged with the original map that we voted on I think it's just a blow to the democratic process when we set out with certain goals and then we put out something that as I think I don't know if it's Chris or RBJ who pointed out but that meets none of the goals that we set out and so I'm happy to see three maps that I at least wouldn't ardently fight against in terms of at least accomplishing some of the goals that we set out to what council Bergman said I would rather see us also do away with districts but I think I think these are inoffensive maps which I think is a good place to get to by today I strongly appreciate the work of my democratic colleagues and doing tweaks to the map especially to get Brooks Ave into Ward 1 I think that creates for more consistency I still feel like Ward the boundary between Ward 8 and Ward 6 is weird and it's bothers me that it's not continuous on streets but I can let that go and I can let one thing go in the spirit of compromise so I wouldn't object to any of these maps I will let my counselors the other counselors work through which one we're going to end up with I do hope we end up with one of these three maps in particular and maybe maybe I will leave it at that as the I don't as somebody who for a long time was Ward 1 and Ward 8 used to NPA together so I feel like I have some affinity to Ward 8 although I know they didn't necessarily agree with me on the mapping over the last couple of weeks I know that Ward 1 and Ward 8 together wouldn't be the east district anymore it'd be more of a combination of east district and downtown I don't see that as problematic so I would defer to other counselors in terms of if they want to keep the 2, 3 or 1 and 8 pairing thank you thank you counselor hi tower are there other counselors who wish to speak to this item any of the maps we actually have four maps that are listed under under this there's the two city edit maps there's the approved map and then there is the v-27 counselor barlow thank you president paul I just want to reiterate what I said when we were discussing this at the last public hearing I'm extremely uncomfortable making significant changes to the maps after all the public process we had put into arriving at the approved map and I guess the other thing I would say is that I don't agree with the characterization that we didn't hit all of the any of the objectives I do think we've significantly changed the character of ward 8 it no longer has 70 some odd percent student on campus students and in the approved map we've added a significant number of stable longer term residents so I think we actually did achieve in some ways the objective of improving ward 8 and so I just want to reiterate that because many and you know in public and even on this council have stated that we didn't hit any of the objectives and I just don't see it that way my preference would be to stick with the approved map and to make some tweaks around the king maple neighborhood but I realized that probably doesn't have support here tonight but I'll just say it out loud in case I can get any traction with that that would be my preference so thank you thanks Councillor Barlow any other councillors who wish to speak to the maps and I know you wanted to make a motion so if oh I'm sorry actually it was Councillor Travers and then we can go back to Councillor Shannon and then Bergman thanks President Paul I just want to say I agree with and echo the comments of Councillor Barlow Councillor Barlow and I along with Councillors Hightower and McGee served on the working group here and spent a really significant amount of time looking at various maps partnering with Director Tuttle and Nancy Stetson and I want to echo Councillor Hightower's points as well we've said thank you many times over but can't say thank you enough for your office's work on these maps and while I deeply respect the comments and my colleagues and Councillor Hightower and in Councillor Bergman I agree with Councillor Barlow I don't think we're missing the mark on the original map the map that the council previously approved we've heard some public comments about the goals that were laid out by the ad hoc redistricting committee but if you go back and look at the written report of that ad hoc redistricting committee they identified three themes theme one Ward 8 is not working in its current configuration theme two residents are not in favour of the district system theme three the ward configuration must preserve neighbourhoods keep wards compact and provide equal representation we've heard some discussion about the Maple King neighbourhood and so on and I am a proponent of keeping that neighbourhood all together but it is not I should point out one of the themes that was identified by the ad hoc redistricting group the main theme that was addressed by that group theme one was addressing the ward 8 configuration and I certainly take exception to using the word gerrymander to refer to the map that was approved by this council I mean speaking very frankly here during this redistricting process two of our progressive colleagues left this council and if we wanted to gerrymander a map to favour one political party over the other we had every opportunity to do so but we have not done that we've continued to work hard with our progressive colleagues work hard with our independent colleagues we've continued to meet with neighbours and wards one and wards eight and ward six and across the city to try to come up with a map that best addresses concerns that best addresses again that theme one that was addressed which is the ward 8 configuration to me that's still the original map I completely respect why the residents of ward one and the folks that represent ward one don't love the map that they came up with I completely get that if I represented ward one I'd probably feel the same way but to me the original version is still the best bet so that would be the way I would go if the wind is blowing in the direction of folks not wanting the original map my preference would be the city edits version two if only because it does address the the maple king neighbourhood so thank you president paul thank you councillor traver so we'll go to councillor shannon and then to councillor bergman thank you president paul as I was trying to hold out the questions in my head I realized I forgot the most important thing that I did want to say which was a huge thank you to you director tuttle we I don't know if we could put more pressure on on you and your colleagues throughout this entire process I appreciate your patience your diligence your thoroughness and that you somehow got this completely unreasonable request done and I'm really sorry to do that to you at the same time I think it's out it is our duty this is a really important decision for us and as badly as I felt making that ask of our city staff I just really felt that this is critically important to get as right as we can councillor barlow just made mention of not supporting any major changes but supporting tweaks to the king maple neighbourhood and I think that that's largely what has been offered in particularly v2 and so I was interested to hear what councillor barlow's if that's councillor barlow's interpretation of those maps because I don't think we can make any new tweaks so if he's in favour of that I'd like to have a little clarity on exactly what that means because I think we're all on the assumption we are not going back and asking for more maps I'm really hoping that that is that is one thing we can reach consensus on here right off the bat secondly I think it would be my preference rather than going forward with the map I want if we could go forward with eliminating maps would kind of be my preference I don't think that's where councillor bergman was going so I'm offering that as a thought for you to consider I am not sure I'm necessarily ready to vote ye or nay on a specific map thank you thank you councillor shannon we'll go to councillor bergman councillor bergman if you mind I just have a parliamentary inquiry if you wouldn't mind my just would you mind so I just want to confirm President Paul if any amendment is presented and that amendment fails the original map has already been approved by this council and will proceed to the ballot correct so if so the original map is moving forward unless any amendment succeeds is that correct that is that is my understanding that is correct thank you we can verify that with attorney sturt event but I believe that that is correct we have already approved attorney sturt event we've already approved the approved map so in the absence of any amendment passing correct that is the approved map yes okay all right thank you yes is there anything else you wanted to add councillor attorney sturt event I'm sorry I do want to cut you off oh no okay all right so we'll go to councillor bergman thank you it's intriguing to try a process of elimination or something but I don't think it's all that fruitful so I appreciate the opportunity and the offer but I am going to move the version 27 map with the pairing of wards two and three and one and eight five and six and four and seven and maybe ask for the no I won't ask for the floor back I'll just see if we can move this and see what the votes are so thank you councillor bergman so my understanding is before we go to a second my my understanding is that you want to move to amend and place on the ballot the city council's charter change proposal regarding wards and boundaries as approved on December 12, 2022 to reflect boundaries and districts as delineated in eight wards v-27 with the amendment of pairing wards one and eight two and three five and six and four and seven subject to the final approval of the technical language by the city attorney's office yes and I thank president paul greatly for doing my job in making that that motion so I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll owe you on that one okay no worries is there a second to the motion seconded by councillor McGee so we'll go to just a discussion of the motion that is the long motion that has just been made are there councillors who wish to speak to the motion councillor hightower and then McGee I'll be voting for this and or any future amendments to what is currently on the table so I will be voting yes okay well we'll we'll just start with one map councillor McGee thank you president paul I am supportive of this map I think it accomplishes many of the goals that not just the ad hoc committee had but the goals that we've heard from the public time and again through various mpa conversations and discussions I've had with constituents I have heard over and over that this map is preferable and you know I guess I will leave it at that I have said ad nauseam how I feel about where we're at with the process so I won't believe her the point and I would also just like to echo the things that have been expressed for director title thank you thank you councillor McGee are there any other councillors who wish to speak to the motion before us before we would go to a vote and councillor freeman if you just want to use the raise hand function I'll I'm happy to recognize you president paul would it be okay for me to ask this is me oh I'm looking over here sorry like I was like oh my goodness yes of course I just wanted to make sure that I was clear on on the motion language and I don't know if attorneys Sturtivant could help me I know one part of the work that that our office was doing in preparation for tonight's meeting was making sure that you actually had resolution language that supported a map that you may ultimately vote on and I just wanted to make sure that the with appropriate technical corrections would be the language we need to make the switch in the ward pairing because the language you have for v-27 is describing the recommendation that we had offered so I just wanted to make sure that was clear thank you did you want to add anything to that attorney Sturtivant was there a go ahead I mean you could amend the the motion just to say the delineated in the that particular map 27 and with the correlating resolution subject to final approval of the technical language by the city attorney's office okay so we will with with the permission of the first and seconder we'll add that language to the yes yes that amendment is friendly to both of you correct okay thank you thanks for that clarification if there are no other Councillors who wish to speak to this since we have someone participating by zoom and doesn't appear as though this is going to be a unanimous vote Laurie if you could call the roll for us please no yes no yes okay so that motion fails we are back to at this point the approved map if there are other motions that others wish to make Councillor Hightower I don't actually I wasn't listening to the amendment that Councillor Tuttle suggested so I will make I wasn't either I will make the move to amend in place on the ballot the city council's charter change proposal regarding ward boundaries as approved on December 12th 2022 to reflect the boundaries as delineated in the version to map subject to final approval of the technical language by the city attorney's office and Kim I don't know if you I'm not sure Kim do we have to add the additional language since we are going with the since Councillor Hightower's motion is to go with the map the clarification that I offered was only because the proposed ward pairings that Councillor Bergman offered were different from what you have so I don't think that's relevant to this all right so a motion to amend in place the in place of the approved map city edits version two has been made and is there a second to that motion seconded by Councillor Shannon so we'll go to discussion on this motion are there Councillors who wish to add any at any comments to this discussion Councillor Barlow thank you President Paul since I neglected to thank director Tuttle I'd like to do so at this time as well what we've asked what we've asked of you is is really unreasonable so thank you for indulging us in that and I'd also like to address Councillors Councillor Shannon's comments earlier what what version one and version two take away are the stable residents from Ward 8 that were an essential part of fixing the ward 8 problem and so and so that is that is a significant change in my view so I will not be supporting this are there any other Councillors who wish thank you Councillor Barlow are there any other Councillors who wish to speak to the motion regarding City Edit V2 the map V2 okay well then I guess we will go to a vote don't know if this will be unanimous so I think we will do this by role Laurie if you could call the role please no yes yes yes yes yes the motion passes and with that we are we are done with redistricting Megan you've heard from so many of us you've got a huge fan club over here thank you so so much to you to Nancy to Sarah for all your efforts we've reached the end of the road and thank you again I'll gladly part ways with you here but I'll see you on many other things too we will now move on to item 7.02 which is a tobacco license application for campus kitchen for a motion on that can I go to Councillor Shannon move to approve the tobacco license application for campus kitchen thank you Councillor Shannon is there a second to that motion seconded by Councillor McGee all those in favor of the motion is made by Councillor Shannon please say aye aye aye any opposed please say no that motion passes unanimously which brings us to item 7.03 which is bless you bless you City Council rules and for this this is a discussion item that will come to us come with a motion as once we once we decide on what the motion will be and there are two options that are listed on board docs for an overview of the changes to our council rules I will go to one of the three members of the small working group and that being Councillor Hightower great thank you and I'm going to give a brief presentation on all of the changes just because I think we at least agreed as a working group that it was helpful for us to review the rules of our body so that we can follow them the first chapter on the presiding officer doesn't have many changes in it other than the president shall be elected not just by a majority of the body president but by a majority of the part of the body that's the only change we made each year at 7 p.m. on the first Monday in April we made no changes to the rest of section one we made no changes to section two for section three we just made some changes technical changes in accordance with changes to Vermont open meeting law make sure we're tying to that for committee Simon and rules we made a few clarifying changes as well as I just want to highlight some of the rules which is to codify that the council president shall serve as an ex officio member of all committees and may serve as voting member in the absence of an appointed committee member or as a result of a vacancy on the council the president shall appoint all ad hoc committees unless the council votes by majority of those present to designate the members things that are in committee cannot be taken up again in the council unless two-thirds of the council votes to take it up again a majority the council votes to take it up at a subsequent meeting not to happen one week no sooner than one week after the vote or the matter has been sitting in the committee for at least three city council meetings we removed the requirement that folks annually prepare a written mission statement to be submitted at the annual meeting of the city council and instead have added the requirement that committee chair shall prepare a brief report or supply the meetings of their committees meetings to the entire city council which is in line with what we discussed at our council retreat individual counselors and committees shall not assign a request significant assignments be carried out by city departments without receiving the endorsement from the entire council however city departments may bring items to the committee for consideration without endorsement we have added the requirement that if an ad hoc or standing committee member misses three or more meetings within a council year the president's council president may rescind the appointment and appoint another counselor to fill the vacancy so a lot of changes to that section section five is place and date of meetings and what a quorum consists of we didn't the biggest change that we made I think is changing it is this in the right thing I guess I should have gone off the notes but we assign specific times so we added up to 60 minutes for public forums five minutes for committee chairs and and formalize the priority given to burlington residents before non burlington residents we made no changes to section six which are the duties of the presiding officer for member responsibilities we clarified how nominations will happen as well as votes codified that when possible council shall submit questions to staff and presenters in advance of the meetings and that and the next section in section eight that amendments should be sent when possible in advance of the meeting and then in section we made no changes to section nine 10 or 11 and in section 12 or for city councilor absences we clarified that folks can join by electronic means consistent with vermont law but that the expectation is that members are expected to participate in person with rare exceptions and apparently that attendance records will be published annually and we made no changes to section 13 or section 14 in section 15 we changed the start times that work session or executive sessions shall not start before 5 p.m. as opposed to 6 p.m. we changed public forum from having a time certain of 7 30 to starting no earlier than 6 p.m. and no later than 7 30 p.m. and lasting for 60 minutes and we added councilor reflections on public comments on public forum excuse me and these comments must be in response to comments heard at the public forum and they will have no longer than one minute per counselor we made no changes to section 16 except to clarify that it could be board docs or other board management software considering our impending change we made no changes to section 17 18 19 20 or 21 thank you counselor high tower so as I said there are two options when it comes to emotion I would open the floor to the council for a discussion about our rules and then based on that perhaps we can come to a consensus as far as whether we wish to adopt what you've just heard or if more time is needed and we would then go and discuss this again at our February 6th meeting are there any counselors who wish to speak to any aspect of our rules counselor Bergman I'm not really prepared to make a decision on them I think that's a simple I mean whether it gets referred to the ordinance can be out to the charter change committee we are not going to be meeting until March whether if you feel a need to to speed things up I perhaps we could schedule another meeting to deal with this but it would not be my preference but at the very yeah I so I would like us to defer and and probably refer it to the to the charter change committee but I'm open to hearing more on that thank you if there are counselors who have suggestions over what we've just heard or wish to make them at a wish to make them after after this evening hopefully they will come forward and do so if there are things that we need to change or counselors who wish to make other changes is it the general consensus of the council that we need more time counselor Shannon I wouldn't mind it going to charter change to have another group of counselors kind of giving it a thorough once over was that a motion I didn't want to be so bold president oh let's be bold if it would if you're asking for it I will move to refer this to charter change for further review the motion is made to refer this to charter change it for further review is there a second I'd second it seconded by counselor Bergman is there any discussion on the motion counselor Barlow I believe when in our small group we had talked about our intent of having these rules adopted and in place before we set the next council in April and I'm wondering based on counselor Bergman's charter change schedule if that's a reasonable expectation counselor Bergman if my fellow committee members care to meet sooner than we had anticipated for the purpose of dealing with this I think the answer is yes okay thank you thank you that was that certainly was our hope these count the desire to redo some aspects of our council rules came as a result of our retreat that was back in May and it's taken us some time to get here but it would be great if we could move that forward if you are willing to make that change in calendar so if there is there any other are there any other other comments from counselors on the motion before us to refer this to charter change there is a second the second it was by counselor Bergman made by counselor Shannon seeing none all those in favor of the motion to refer this to charter change please say aye aye aye any opposed please say no so we will refer that to the charter change committee and we'll hope to have that back in it wasn't part of the motion but we'll hope to have that back sometime in March that will bring us to item 7.04 which is a resolution determination of the need for concise summary of charter change amendments on ballots and in the warning and for a motion on this I'll go to the chair of charter change which is counselor Bergman for a motion so I would move the resolution that is on board docs with the amendment on line 15 within the parentheses it's the third word it's as attached to say v3 1.22.23 gb proposed amendment that is just the language that we have that was posted early on board docs today that has the amendment that I offered in relationship to the all legal resident voting in local elections to clarify what legal residence means and okay counselor counselor Bergman can you just tell us on there are five attachments that are on this agenda item and can you just repeat which is the one the short form change proposal it would be the top one okay so it's the one town meeting day 23 v3 that was done today January 22 yes the second one is my email that sort of identifies it it was early in the morning I suspect that we will have another we'll have a further amendment or action on this but this gets us started okay so motion is made by counselor bergman to move the version the resolution and version 3 122 23 is there a second to that motion I guess okay a seconded by seconded by counselor McGee did you want the floor back counselor bergman I hope I don't need it except people saw I think my you know the proposed the email and the reasoning for it otherwise everything is as was proposed I think that the items are basically good although I think we'll hear a proposed amendment to to change it slightly okay thank you appropriate way to start okay thank you counselor bergman so is there an amendment to the concise line the concise language attachment are there yes from counselor counselor travers so we'll follow along here so I would move to amend counselor bergman's amendment to reflect instead of 122 23 the gb proposed amendment to reflect the attachment which is labeled qs one to three short form question charter change proposals town meeting day 23 bjt proposed amendment with gb amendment and if the initial mover of that amendment is friendly to it that would be my ask because it incorporates the amendment that we put forward in my in my motion and it just simply reorganizes and makes clear and the maker of the amendment can explain a little bit more the thinking behind that the answer is yes this is very friendly would that also be friendly to the seconder it is friendly to the seconder so since we do friendly amendments that would mean that this language that has been proposed as an amendment by counselor travers would now be added to the well not to the resolution but to the reference detachment did you want the floor back counselor travers sure if only to just briefly explain so i completely i have a point of information before you explain because i'm a little lost is there a document on here that incorporates both those amendments or do i need to look i need to combine to the answer is the very last document which says qs one two three short form and the end of it says bjt proposed amendments with gb so it's the last thing it was amended during our meeting it was it was added I should say onto the board onto board docs during our meeting so to my mind it made it most appropriate to be dealt with as an amendment to the main motion which is why it was there because it was nobody had a chance to see it but it's very friendly because it keeps the the change that I had proposed early this morning and it just reorganizes and then the the the ordering of the ballot and it then asks for some other changes that councilor travers can can explain but that I support does that answer your question nope so I'll just listen to what councilor travers has to say and see if I figure it out from there okay maybe maybe in the interest of you know making sure that we're all on the same page councilor travers if you can just show where those paragraphs go into the the proposed attachment that we've already which is the first item on this agenda item sure to be clear the version that was moved by councilor bergman incorporates all five of the proposed charter questions that are going to the town meeting day ballot the amendment to which councilor bergman is friendly modifies questions one to three as reflected in the document cues one to three short form question charter change proposals town meeting day 23 bjt proposed amendment with gb amendment and what this does is I completely agree with councilor bergman's addition to the proposed charter change short form question on legal resident voters and speaking to council bergman about it we thought that the order of this would make sense where that question would go first now in in the amendment to which councilor bergman is friendly then the second question would be that regarding the citing of polling places and what this amendment does is it it consolidates this issue into a single paragraph it clarifies that and I should say that the way that the short form question was written previously it indicated that the purpose of this change was to allow this is going to get complicated but but basically the goal here with the second question and I would defer to council bergman unless it's chair of the charter change committee was really the language around the location of polling places and the ability to cite two polling locations in the same place and so in consolidating this into a single paragraph here I think that it makes it clearer and then a constituent actually pointed out and question number three that it should be ranked choice voting r a n k e d as opposed to rank choice voting so that is the proposed amendment in question three thank you for clarifying that councillor shannon thank you I believe in this amendment in question two try to change qualifications of voters and citing of polling places that there is a typo it's right about in the middle of that paragraph and if you're looking at it on word you'll notice a little red line under the second two it says to two it says to two yes I think that a technical correction like that can be made without any kind of parliamentary procedure hopefully one would hope are there any other councillors who wish to speak to the actually you have yes we have we have done that we have already we have already voted on that so or we haven't voted it was friendly okay so we are on the resolution as presented and the short form question charter attachment as amended are there any councillors who wish to speak to the resolution or attachment seeing none we will go to a vote all those in favour of the resolution and proposed attachment resolution the resolution and the proposed short form concise language attachment please say I I yes no we've we have amended the we have amended the attachment we and so now we're voting on the the whole so we we didn't vote on a we we didn't vote on the amendments to one to three because it was friendly to the first and seconder we did not vote on that so that has been incorporated into the the short form question charter change proposal town meeting day 23 V3 1 22 23 so what we're voting on now is the resolution has drafted and the first item that is on this as amended I'm just making sure that councillor Shannon knows what we're voting on anytime that's all right why don't we why don't we take why don't we take okay because we can certainly take a couple of minutes okay that's all right that's all right okay so without further delay all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed please say no that motion passes and we have our ballot language which is great so that will move us on to item 7.05 which is excuse me yes there's another motion on 7.04 so we've we've dealt with the amendment to questions one to three but if it would be an order I would now like to offer another amendment to modify the language for questions four and five okay so just to clarify what we we had already gone we didn't make them there was no vote on the amendments that you had made councillor travers because they were friendly to the first and seconder so that never happened because we didn't need for it to happen so that's why I went to a vote on the overall on the overall however if that isn't if there is an additional amendment that you wish to make then my apologies we weren't ready for a vote so I guess we need to go back so as a point of order I'm sure that you can get there from here but how about if we make the proper parliamentary steps to do that yes thank you why don't we do that so if the parliamentarian needs a couple of minutes we can we can give you five and we just move to reconsider I'd like to move to reconsider motion is made okay you're all way ahead of me motion is made to reconsider by councillor Shannon just need to be able to reflect this in the minutes and that was seconded by councillor Freeman is that correct yes okay so there's a motion the motion is to reconsider the vote that we just took um and is there any discussion on that motion seeing none yes councillor Ber... councillor councillor jang is to say thank you councillor Freeman for pointing that out thank you that's it okay any other comments on from councillors on the motion seeing none we will go to a vote all those in favor of the motion to reconsider please say aye aye aye aye any opposed please say no we are back to where we started a few minutes ago councillor travers you have another amendment yeah uh thank you president ball and so just by means of explanation here again there are five short form questions to the ballot on our five proposed charter changes I had spoken to councillor Bergman before the meeting with respect to questions one two three and understood that he would be friendly to that amendment which is why I broke it out that way have not had an opportunity to speak to councillor Bergman and a number of our colleagues here with respect to this motion which would now be with respect to questions four and five and so I would move to amend the language short form language for questions four and five to reflect the language incorporated in the attachment cues four to five short form question charter change proposals town meeting day 23 BJT proposed amendment and would ask for the floor back upon a second okay so my understanding is normally I would go and ask the first and seconder if this was friendly I still in the interest of following that procedure we should ask if that this this amendment is friendly to the maker and the seconder it is not I actually haven't read it so I'm just seeing that it's posted now it was posted on 919 I've obviously been talking a lot so so the answer is no all right so it is this item if you you're going to need to refresh board docs in order to see this I think it's fair to say that a number of us haven't read this and in the interest of being able to do that we'll take a 10 minute recess and everyone will have the chance to read this this language so we will reconvene at 10 at 940 promptly and hopefully everyone has had a chance to read the amendment this is q 4 to 5 short form short form charter charter change I can't read the whole thing okay this is q's 4 to 5 short form question charter change proposals town meeting day so I apologize I'm now I'm forgetting when we when we took the break we had not you had not had a chance to really introduce that did you want to did you want to speak to that Councillor Travers so and just to be clear Madam President the basis for my not accepting this as friendly was that I hadn't read it and I have had a chance to read it and I find it to be friendly okay that's thank you is that friendly to the seconder it is then per our per our procedure we do not need to take a vote on that we will incorporate that into the attachment is everyone clear on what is being changed and perhaps Councillor Travers you could detail that yeah thank you President Paul first and foremost I want to thank our city attorney's office that has been working tirelessly short staffed to keep that office running at an incredibly high level including in assisting the Charter Change Committee including in dealing with with five questions that will be placed on the ballot to amend our charter two of those questions questions four and five will be presented to a vote to voters in a way that I don't think Burlington voters are as familiar with which is the petition process provided for under state statutes 17 vsa 2645 we've discussed it a bit in the public hearing here but that petition process allows for proposals to amend the Charter to be placed on the ballot if the petition is signed by at least five percent of voters of the city of Burlington we need to hold two public hearings on the matter as we have today in our first public hearing on January 17th and under state statute the city council does not have the authority to revise a charter proposal made by petition and given the difference between these two questions from the process that was gone through for the first three questions on the ballot and again given that this is a process that voters are unfamiliar with there's some introductory language to questions four and five that I thought was important for voters to have in hand there's then I should say there are no amendments suggested for question five which is the charter change regarding what's referred to as proposition zero there is some additional language that's added to question four and I thought that was necessary because the breadth of this proposed charter change which using its own language stands up a new independent department of the city comprised not only of an independent community police department control board but also provides that control board the authority to establish and maintain an investigative office an office that can employ a director an office that may hire other staff or consultants including independent legal council given that the charter change has language in there about this office needing to be funded with adequate appropriation I thought it necessary to provide voters an opportunity to understand that this isn't simply another volunteer board and commission you know we have a volunteer police commission they do excellent work and and many of our volunteer boards and commissions probably should be compensated more for the work that they do but but this is taking a step further in really establishing a new office and thought it important that voters have additional information along those lines and also the fact that the first thing that this proposed charter change does is it does completely strike through and remove the language on the chief's authority to remove a member for cause and it replaces it with language around the independent community control board so this language reflects I think more accurately the the breadth of this measure and that's the reason for the amendment thank you councillor travers I do want to I did want to also just make sure that everyone was aware that Attorney Pellerin has just let me know just to make sure that we're all aware that there actually are six questions that will be on the ballot the sixth question is the one that we discussed a few minutes to go on redistricting so there will be six total and the short language for that was approved in the other resolution just so we're all clear on that so we're right now what we're talking about is five but there is a there is a sixth that will also appear on the ballot are there thank you very much for that overview councillor travers are there any questions on what we have now by friendly amendment approved which is the short form the short form question charter change proposals town meeting day 23 versus version 3 that have added questions one through three and questions four and five and the resolution that we would also be voting on councillor shannon I have an additional amendment if this is an appropriate time for it yes it would be okay my understanding is we now have the councillor travers's amendment has essentially been adopted so that's what's on the floor so it's an amendment to that and it adds the following language which has been sent to you and I'm not sure if it was put up on board docs and I will read the language and I don't know if people want another recess to consider it but I will read it I want to add this language because having served on the charter change committee that considered something very similar to what's being proposed now I know that the makeup of the board was something we spent a tremendous amount of time on it was very integral to the entire concept of of what this board essentially is and so I want that language to to be reflected in the charter change because I think it's I think it's important and I don't so anyway the the language is to the extent possible the board shall include members who are black indigenous or other people of color members who have lived experience with houselessness mental health conditions sex work domestic violence substance use disorder and or arrest or conviction records members who have experience working with an organization that supports black indigenous or other people of color and members who are affiliated with an organization in the field of civil rights mental health youth advocacy lgbtq advocacy or alcohol and other substance use no member shall ever have been employed by a law enforcement agency thank you councillor shannon before we go to a second I just want to make sure I understand this is not posted on board docs so is there do you have did you set were you able to send that to I sent it to everybody including lori the mayor all right I have not checked my email so my apologies yeah I'm missing it I don't believe I've seen oh yes I do see this now okay so that has not been posted to board docs is I'm sorry what someone sent it to me okay so why don't we take a why don't we why don't we why don't we take a a five minute break here we will get that posted councillor shannon has been posted to board docs it is listed as additional short form language for q4 thank you lori for doing that councillor shannon you've made a motion and now that it has been posted and people have had a little bit of time to take a look at it we'll need a second to that amendment second seconded by councillor barlow so we'll go to a discussion on this amendment are there any councillors who wish to offer comments on this on this amendment councillor bergman so don't need it to be friendly because you have a second it's not friendly there's a lot in the in the proposal and we could and it's all important but this is aspirational it does not do the service of a short form the every every voting booth right the kiosks are going to have the long form this people can read it it's going to be there so i see this is really a way to just make things more complicated for folks and on the ballot and it is not what the short form is meant to do I think this is politically motivated more than anything myself thank you councillor bergman we'll go to councillor high tower to be followed by councillor barlow I maybe don't agree with this or don't I won't put those sentiments behind it but I do think that will be the I think that it made a lot of sense to add more language so that folks really knew what they were voting on because there is a lot to the proposal I think that this is a good part of the proposal but it does it because it's not really binding to the city I think it's additional language that won't necessarily change anyone's mind so I think it just gives folks more to read so I'd rather we stick with the language that we have hope that folks actually read it and vote on that then add non-binding language thank you councillor high tower we'll go to councillor barlow thank you president paul I do think the short form language is important to keep it concise so people you know don't get lost in all the words but one one of the things I've consistently heard about this particular ballot item is the and the thing that's most controversial or one of the things that's very controversial about it is that people that don't have law enforcement experience can participate on this board and I think as we heard from a public comment or tonight that was in issue so so I'm supporting putting this on I think it's important for voters to have this information thank you councillor barlow we'll go to councillor shannon thank you I just want to point out that this language is binding because what it says is to the extent possible the board shall it doesn't say the board should or the board may it says the board shall so I believe this is more than aspirational language I believe that we are instructing the committee who selects people for the board that if they have candidate A who meets these criteria and there's a lot of different criteria that could be met versus candidate B who doesn't that the board shall include the members that meet the criteria I also think that this was I mean there's some things here you can like and other things maybe you don't like and depending on who you are you may like different ones or others but this is key to the intentions of the creation of this committee is who the committee is who is the oversight or control provided by is absolutely essential I know some people have suggested that I change this language but this is just a direct quote from the amendment I think it would be discriminatory and cherry picking for me to change the language or only to highlight you know no member shall have been employed by a law enforcement agency I'm not trying to highlight any particular thing and that's why I thought it was important to keep it in its entirety so that people would understand what the intention is thank you Thank you Councillor Shannon we'll go to Councillor Hightower and then perhaps we can go to a vote I agree with Councillor Barlow that probably the controversial part of that is the no law enforcement but I believe we already voted to add that to the language with the amendment we just passed in Councillor Traversa's amendment and so I would say we've put in the controversial bit so folks know what they're voting on and I'm not again I'm not sure that the rest of the language is that controversial and or so I would I have not changed my mind although I appreciate Councillor Barlow's point I think it's already been addressed yes Councillor Shannon then we'll go to Councillor Carpenter and Jiang and I was trying to quickly reference what Councillor Travers had put forward to see because I thought that I had seen that language um but I'm happy to remove that language if it's already in there because that's redundant and we certainly don't need redundancy in a short form question so okay and I see it there so if it's friendly to myself and the seconder I will remove that last set a sentence due to redundancy I think I think we're I think we're all set with Councillor Shannon's consideration on this Councillor Barlow is that okay with you great we'll go to Councillor Carpenter to be followed by Councillor Jiang thanks I just offline had a discussion I remember the first year we set out automatically set out balance we did in fact include the whole form of our charter changes and this is a very long one that was my ask but in conversation with CEO Shad we did agree that I feel it's very necessary that as a supplement so to speak that we have clear instructors not on the ballot but with the ballot about where we get information and hopefully the city website will be organized well enough that it will be simple for people to go to one place and get the long form thank you Councillor Carpenter we'll go to Councillor Jiang thank you president and I would not be supporting this because I think my colleagues talked extensively about it because from my perspective this is the fact that I do the extent possible meaning that we are not serious if you're serious the board shall and it's a binding it will be part of it and I think also the other argument is right after we vote on this there are BIPOC organization that would be taking these ballot items to try to translate them and make them available in public voting places and these are expensive you know and confusing at the same time from my perspective this is not a good amendment to have right now thank you thank you very much Councillor Jiang Councillor Freeman thank you sorry I was just sort of thinking out loud about this as we go along I guess I'm a little bit confused because we do already have the line about never having been employed by a law enforcement agency which seems to be succinct because none of the other aspects actually preclude someone from having other types of experience with law enforcement like you can have experienced houselessness but have like be a lawyer or you can have experience you can have been done sex work or have mental health engines or whatever other components people are looking for I guess maybe because it doesn't proactively say that to an extent possible and I don't remember exactly what people were looking for except for it sounded like they want people who have specifically maybe worked in law enforcement and I think that is already in there the line succinctly that people have not worked in law enforcement agency so I don't feel like it is I don't feel like we're hiding or obscuring anything by not including it in the short form and then certainly this language itself can be exact can be accessed in the long form and there is this just sort of odd tenor to the conversation that feels sort of bizarrely like sort of oddly like discriminatory and and weird and sort of like we have sort of in the charter change language ask people to have you know sort of called certain aspects of political and social identity but it certainly doesn't preclude maybe some of the other aspects of their identity or their professional life and so if the issue is really around not having people who have worked in law enforcement agencies that is already in the short form language so it's odd this is just odd to me and I don't think I will not be supporting it and and I I was thinking out loud a little bit so I hope that was cohesive enough but and maybe Councillor Barlow or Councillor Chen can speak towards exactly what they were proactively looking for on the border they feel that members of the community that have reached out to them other than the fact that people work have worked in law enforcement because I don't think any of these identities preclude any other aspect of someone being on the board it simply precludes that one thing that is is actually limited in the language which is in the short form language so I I don't think it would make sense to put this in the short form thank you Thank you Councillor Freeman just just so you're aware because we will go to a vote on this after the line about no member shall be have been employed by a law enforcement agency that I that was removed because that I that were that wording is actually already in the the short form that we already approved as friendly from Councillor Travers to to be added earlier so right just so you're just so you know what we're what we're voting on we're not voting on that line we're voting on the rest of it no no and I think that's that's the point is that it's already in what we will have approved so that it doesn't so the additional aspect even without the employed by law enforcement agency doesn't make sense to me I hope that made sense okay all right thank you thanks so much Councillor Shannon and then let's try to go to a vote thank you I included the law enforcement piece only to make it whole to explain what the goals were for people serving on this board so I wouldn't say that that was the most important part to me I know that Councillor Barlow did make that comment but that was not that was not my comment I just wanted people to know in whole what the goals were for this board and I think Councillor Jang also raised a very good point about translation and so I wanted to be sure that the long form was being translated not just the okay so so does everybody get the long form in the mail translate oh you have to request the other okay good thank you we have a motion on the floor to include the language that is under additional short form language for Q4 so we all know what we're voting on we're voting on the language that was submitted by Councillor Shannon and seconded by Councillor Barlow that does not include the very last line last sentence that has been removed with that we'll go to a vote and try to do this by by a show of hands all those in favour of the motion please say aye or let's raise our hand please raise your hand that is Councillor Barlow and Councillor Shannon all those opposed please raise your hand all right so that motion fails and the we'll go with the the aye votes the aye votes were Councillor Shannon and Barlow we are now back to the we are now back to the resolution and the short form the short form charter question proposal meeting day 23 version 3 1 22 23 as amended are there any other amendments seeing none and not hearing from any others at the table who wish to make a comment we will go to a vote all those in favour of the motion please say aye all right all right all right all right any opposed please say no the motion passes unanimously we have our short language that will be seen on the ballot on town meeting day which brings us to a public hearing item 7.05 a public hearing regarding waterfront Burlington Waterfront Tax Increment Financing District a substantial change request before we get to the public hearing know that Director Brian Pine of CEDO and our consultant David G White are present and have worked extensively on this change request would ask that you provide a brief background on this item and then we will go to the public hearing thank you for being here and patiently waiting for us thank you very much I'm Brian Pine the director of the Community and Economic Development Office with me tonight is David White our consultant and we'll both say just a few remarks to get this kicked off tonight we're providing to the council and to the public a overview of the materials that we will be submitting to the Vermont Economic Progress Council also known as VEPSI so you'll hear me say VEPSI a few times for a deadline coming up on February 3rd that deadline is the last possible date for us as a city to submit the materials to VEPSI before the legislatively mandated deadline to issue bonds coming up in June June 30th so just to repeat this is the last possible opportunity to submit these materials to VEPSI the legislation that authorized the extension of the Waterfront TIF district for the three city place or Burlington Town Center parcels as they were once called beyond the 2025 expiration of the rest of the Waterfront TIF district to 2035 requires that the city submit a construction contract by the developer of not less than $50 million with a completion guarantee that is really the central purpose of the proposed application to VEPSI I should note that the term that VEPSI requires us to use is a substantial change request so that's what the voters and that's what the public and the council has seen or will see when they look at this but really just to clarify that's a the project itself the terms of the project that were agreed to in the ARTA the amended and restated development agreement known as ARTA 2.0 last November is exactly what it's all the same there's nothing different that's what's a little misleading about the terms substantial change but I just wanted to note that additionally VEPSI requires that the city submit materials not just in addition or I should say in addition to the contract and the completion guarantee that show that the financial plan is both feasible and viable that the district holds together from a financial standpoint this requires that we submit this material by the third and VEPSI will hold a public hearing and the board will deliberate on March 30th however they have 60 days to issue a decision we fully hope and expect that they will issue one sooner David will now explain the details and the assumptions that are key to the city's financing plans that VEPSI will be reviewing I just want to also note that Al Senecaal and Patrick O'Brien from city place partners are here but they're not here to make any comments they're just here with us tonight so here we go yours it suffered great thank you Brian again for the record I'm David White President of White and real estate advisors and consultants of the city on the Waterfront TIF district and other aspects so relative to the application to VEPSI which has been to a large degree my responsibility to coordinate all that and bring the pieces together I'm going to give you a quick overview of what that entails so you may recall that back in 2016 this council and the voters approved bonding and related costs for the BTC project and the three properties involved of $21,830,000 maximum now some of that has already been spent over the intervening years on related costs and other aspects but the majority of it the vast majority of it has not been we've been waiting for a viable project the application that we will be submitting or we're proposing that you authorize the submission of shows a bonding up to a maximum of $18,840,000 so it's within that $21,000,000 maximum and in addition to that related costs and I'll get to a little bit more detail on that for just in just a moment the TIF construction contract we have been provided by Cityplace Partners the developer that's as we all know now under construction with the project their phase one of the project they've supplied us with a contract a construction contract that's just a hair under $60,000,000 if I recall correctly it's 59,750,000 so we're in excess of that minimum threshold now ultimately they expect the full project to be closer to $180,000,000 in costs with all the development phase two of the project which would be built on where the remaining portion of them all is that fronts on Church Street as well as the LL Bean Building while we have no detailed estimates internally where we are guesstimating that it will likely be at least $80,000,000 in additional construction costs but construction costs are not the same thing as value and assessed value is what drives the ability of the city to be able to repay the bonding through the TIF process working with John Vickery the city assessor he has guesstimated a range of possible values depending upon all a number of variables about how the project may come out in the we are taking kind of a middle ground and using a figure for about $120,000,000 compared to the $180,000 of cost about $120,000,000 of value assessed value upon completion and that's what we're using to drive the cash flow and projections for the ability of the city to repay debt phase two again we have no value of that at this time we don't have detailed plans and so forth but we're guesstimating that will hit about $55,000,000 to $60,000,000 in that range but I want to be clear we're not relying on phase two for the ability to repay the debt it's in what we're proposing to show to Vepsi because it's the full picture of where we expect this to go but we are not relying on that for the debt service now phase one which we are relying on we believe can support about $16,000,000 in debt that's what the projection show and that's what we are at the present time estimating we will ultimately bring back to the city council but I want to be clear that tonight we're not asking you to actually authorize issuance of the bond or a final bonding amount we will come back to you later for that we've got a couple of more months before that decision needs to be made but we've got a cap of $18,840,000 and a current estimate of excuse me $18,840,000 and a current estimate of $16,000,000 of what we'll actually propose now related costs are those costs that are involved with managing the TIF district and previously for this piece of the TIF district for the BTC piece 903,000 was authorized by the city council and by the voters and by VEPSI the way in which was authorized by the voters though gives the city council the authority to change that to increase that budget within the context of as long as it's within the limit of the $21,000,000 and so part of what we are looking for you to do tonight is to authorize as part of this application the numbers are in the materials that were supplied 195,000 of that are actually prior costs that have been accrued but not yet reimbursed to the city and there's about a million 370 that would be future costs the final thing I want to say is that important for the public to understand and I know the city councils already aware of this is that the the TIF funds are not just the only money coming in they are likely to be the minority of money coming in that we this the city has already obtained through the good work of the retired senator Leahy a $12,000,000 earmark to rebuild Cherry Street all the way from battery to South Muskie Avenue and a piece of the TIF money will be used for the required local match for those dollars so about $3 million dollars out of the 16 that we guesstimate we're going to be coming back to you to propose the about $3 million of that will go directly to leverage an additional $12 million in addition to that the city has applied for what's called a reconnecting communities grant that will help do pay for the reconnection through St. Paul and Pine Streets the streets that were cut off during the urban renewal area and the reconstruction of Bank Street and the city applied for about $15 million of that but at the present time we don't think we're going to need the full 15 we think we're going to need about 10 of that and we'll need additional matching money that what most of which would also come from the TIF so that's the quick summation but again a reminder we're not looking for approval of precise bond amount just the authorization to go to VEPC with this application at this time thank you very much thank you to Director Pine and thank you David for that overview we're here for a public public hearing so we will open the public hearing at 10.20 I'm going to look online and see if there are any one who wishes if there is anyone that's online who wishes to speak during the public hearing just use the raise hand function don't know if if you if the if either of the two of you wish to offer any comments at this time do you want to say that do you want to say that up here okay thank you very much it doesn't appear so there's anyone online who wishes to speak during the public hearing so we'll close the public hearing at 10.21 and we will go to the final item on our agenda which is 7.06 that's the waterfront tiff district application to VEPC for financing of public improvements associated with city place Burlington and we'll go to Councillor Barlow for a motion I thank you President Paul I move to approve the city's proposed substantial change request to VEPC for its waterfront tiff district and authorized City Council President Karen Paul and Chief Administrative Officer Catherine Shad to submit an attached submit the attached formal request letter thank you Councillor Barlow is there a second to that motion seconded by Councillor Carpenter are there any comments or questions from the council with regard to the motion Councillor Carpenter this is specific but remind me this will cover the reconstruction of Cherry Street from Battery to South Winooski the that portion of the project will primarily be covered by the congressionally directed spending the rest of the public infrastructure will be reconnecting Pine Street from Bank to Cherry and the improvements on Bank Street and then reconnecting St. Paul from Bank to Cherry but the end result will repair cherry it will be the sidewalks in particular absolutely my friends at Cathedral Square would like an answer to that you will there will be new sidewalks at this project absolutely thank you Councillor Carpenter are there any other councillors who wish to Councillor Bergman to be followed followed by Councillor Chang just recently the mayor's office released something on the the audit on the waterfront Tiff district and so I am just trying to see if there is any connections in terms of the monies that are going to be transferred back into the Tiff and this project or just I mean I don't like they're us talking about you know like one waterfront Tiff but we've got all these things they're not all connected so maybe you can just connect some dots since more some money is going back into the Tiff how does it relate to all of this sure we I think I'm going to attempt to respond and then obviously if the mayor has more to add I think that'd be helpful I would just say that the as you know the audit looked at at past practices past performance past accounting and so the subject of the audit is the is the the past if you will and this is certainly looking prospectively the reimbursement to the waterfront Tiff is from a project viability standpoint just gives the waterfront Tiff more resources essentially to meet the obligations that the city has already incurred from past bond issuances for the waterfront Tiff so it doesn't have any negative effect at all would you say that it would have it'll have a positive effect essentially yeah putting money back into the Tiff does mean we can you know continue to meet the debt obligations that are already in place for projects like the the bike path and waterfront access north and and other improvements thanks if I just may add one detail to that which is that the in the cash flow which you've been provided with I worked as a starting point with the the fund balance that the the state auditor came up with so we're accepting the state auditors number and working from there thank you councillor bergman we'll go to councillor chang and then to councillor hightower I think my question was asked by councillor bergman along those lines and just reassurance I think that's what we all deserve now and also to remind councillor director pine that there is no past it's all connected we are here and we'll continue to pay for the mistake of the past so it's all connected and especially when we even have now an a a a a consultant right I mean I want reassurance that we are covered on this one before we try to move forward on a vote from your perspective sure the it's a great question I think it gives us a chance to describe the the consultants scope of services and David can add perhaps if there's more detail needed but that the work that David and his firm are doing is is really think of it as the development work that is necessary to put together an application to get through the Vermont Economic Progress Council to then go and be able to issue the bonds so it's not really the same as the internal procedures around managing and accounting for both expenses and revenues that is the city's responsibility David the consulting firm doesn't play a role in that but I would add that CAO Shad recognized immediately upon arrival that the capital accounting systems of the city needed some upgrading and brought on media cap pretty much right away to bring their expertise managing TIF districts all across the country to the city and so the the improvements which even the auditor noted are in place now to prevent future accounting mistakes from recurring yeah so my question is the the city's own auditor did prescribe some strategies and recommendations so Mr. David White does not have any correlation with that does not even look at those and he just look into the development okay so as director pine said my work is to look at moving forward but I do connect I absolutely agree the past is an important part and connected integratively with where we are and that's the key element the reason why I chimed in a moment ago regarding the the beginning point for my projections I developed the projections personally I did that work personally but I started with the number that the state auditor determined was the correct fund balance for the district anything that led up to that I've not been involved with but the CAO shad and municap the consultant on the operational side as opposed to the development side which is my piece they've been working on that together and my understanding but again I'm not involved in that earlier piece is that they now have procedures in place to address the issues that have been raised but I want to assure you that I've worked from the numbers that the state auditor determined and that's what's reflected in what we're seeking approval for tonight for submission to VEPC all right thank you thank you councillor jang we'll go to councillor Hightower and then possibly a vote so that we don't have to extend our extend our rules sorry that's okay take your time I unfortunately have the similar line of questions that I think is councillor Bergman and councillor jang which is we started with the cash that the auditor says is on hand but did we change our accounting method processes to make sure that the next year accounting is now in line with our updated ICC who should have nodding her head yes so I'll take that and then the second question that I had was I know that Mayor Weinberger disagreed with a component of the audit that had to do with the legislators and I just don't know if that is an ongoing dispute that is audit related that that is accounting related that we're looking to settle and if so if we're how we're adjusting for the risk of that dispute being not settled in our favor and needing to account for it later I'd be happy to answer that question it is let me start by saying that question I think is completely separate from the matter at hand for this reason that the the audit it basically says there's a lot in the audit there are many findings and there's a lot in there but the kind of biggest financial kind of immediate impacts are that there is a transfer back to the TIFT district strengthening of the TIFT district of more than a million dollars and so that is additional funds that are in in the that will be in the TIFT district when we make these adjustments that will and it's that that David White is saying he's based the future projections off of the disagreement regarding the question of whether the city whether further money is owed to the education fund is not a TIFT district question it's a question of whether the I believe whether the general fund would be responsible for up to close to 200,000 dollars of additional payments and there the dispute if you will at least the disagreement is that there's an ongoing process involving and really our main objection there is the auditor characterized what has happened there as errors where by the city when in fact the discrepancies there are largely due to the state's software and the way that interacts with the city's property tax system and we've had awareness of this since the audit process has been going on and there's been an effort to work with the state and the private contractor that's responsible for the software to get these ironed out part of that is ongoing and so really our main objection was to the characterization of these city errors and we think it's premature to say exactly where this is all going to kind of sugar off because there is still work ongoing there's a smaller subset of that that has to do with a ongoing dispute about the way in which a specific garage was taxed all that to say is so there is a possibility a very significant possibility that there will be an additional payment that will need to be made by the city to the ed fund it will not impact the waterfront tiff calculations or the the projections that we're working off of and further just to degree just want to reemphasize that the vote being made tonight is to submit this application not to make any kind of financial commitments around the what what new commitments the tiff district is taking on so to agree there's still further time for that thanks that's still I think helpful context for understanding this application thank you thank you councillor high tower councillor travers thank you president paul just very briefly here a number of my colleagues understandably given the news of the day have questions about the waterfront tiff district but I want to take an opportunity here to really express how excited I am about the work that's underway downtown to thank the team that's here further ongoing commitment to our community I will enthusiastically be supporting this request of FC tonight to secure the public improvements associated with this project and looking forward I look forward to continuing to do whatever I can within reason to continue to assist this project and seeing it through to completion thank you thank you very much councillor travers seeing no other comments I'm sorry did you want it I'm sorry go ahead I just want to highlight something that I I believe I'm pretty sure isn't the memo I hope it landed in there almost positive the district for the rest of the district not these parcels ends in 2025 and beginning in that year that fiscal year the general fund revenue increases by 750,000 annually beginning then so it's a it's a good news in terms of forecasting ahead it is a little bit down the road but it is something beneficial about the whole nature of the TIF it does grow the grand list to provide support for all the general fund services that and that we rely on thanks it'll be here before we know it with that and seeing no other comments for the council from the council will go to a vote all those in favor of the motion is made by councillor Barlow and seconded by councillor Carpenter please say aye aye aye aye any opposed please say no that motion passes unanimously with our thanks to both of you and support for the project moving forward that completes our deliberative agenda and with that I'll entertain a motion to adjourn our meeting so moved by councillor McGee and seconded by councillor Brant Brant all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed please say no we are adjourned at 1035 thank you for joining us this evening our next meeting will be on February 6th