 I don't get started Welcome everyone to the work floor and seven NPA meeting wanted to go over some of the ground rules and You know words we try to live by on our NPA listen to other speaking respect the agenda and process Share your opinion politely and treat people respectful, you know, the NPA is your NPA. So the most We get the most out of it when we put the most into it. So everyone have a good meeting We're gonna change it up a little bit and our new member of our steering committee Olivia Taylor is going to do introductions We'll have you say the word that you're from and But she'll start off by reading off names. I wanted to kind of tighten up this part of the little bit Hey everyone, I'm Olivia and I'm a member of Ward 7 I'm just going to go down the list of Panelists and attendees and ask everyone to just introduce themselves So Jeff Comstock Yes, Jeff Comstock Ward 7 steering committee and then anyone at the Miller Center Robert Bristow Johnson. I'm Ward 7. I happen to be on the redistricting committee. There's no one else here Okay, thank you Jeff Clark, you already went Carol Ode Carol Odey, and I am a state representative from District 6-1 Barber North End and Ali Yay, Ward 7 City Council Thank you Jim Hallway, I Don't see Jim. So I'll move on Oh, sorry Jim Hallway Ward 4 redistricting committee Sarah Carpenter Sarah Carpenter City Councilor Ward 4 Olivia or Muffy Millens. Oh, we can't hear you. It looks like we can't hear you We'll come back to you Al Volusiae Yes, Al Volusiae Ward 7 and Brigitte Bozak. Oh, you're on mute. Brigitte Bozak. Thank you Ward 4 Great Edward Murphy This is Edward Murphy speaking. Edward B. Ward 4 resident Evan Litwin. Hi, everyone. Evan Litwin Ward 4 and nice to see everyone Kendra Sellers Hi, Kendra Sellers Ward 4 and North District School Commissioner Thank you, Mark Farlow Hi, Mark Farlow Ward 4 and North District City Councilor Paul Constantino I actually had Tamara Sellers Constantino Ward 7 Matt Hurlbert Thanks, Olivia Matt Hurlbert Ward 7 and Stericadeep Robert Hooper Ward 4 state representative, but I'm over in the county committee meeting. So I'll just be monitoring the the video Thank you Sylvia Knight. I don't see you is Paul I was muted Ward 7 And I think Paul Buschner is the last one unless someone else Has not been called. Let me know We'll go back to Murphy too. Paul You're on mute. Bye, Murphy. Why don't you go ahead? Okay? Muckie Myerland's time of Ward 7 Olivia, we have a we have a new person with us here at the Miller Center Yes, you Myerland Ward 4 Peter's with us here at the Miller Center Great, and Paul I see you you are on video now Yes, Paul Buschner Ward 4 You've heard us out on him Great And then the last is I don't know if anyone from the the CEDO accounts would like to introduce themselves Hi, this is Bridget. Hi, this is Ethan. Thank you. I think we got everyone If you popped in while I was reading through please feel free to unmute yourself and introduce now. Otherwise, I'll pass it back to Jeff Thanks, Olivia We're going to open it up now to announcements if anyone has an announcement You could raise your hand or in the Miller Center that Jeff comes back now Sylvia, I see your hand up first Yeah May I go? Sure. I Wonder that people know that Can sell a waste management is proposing it has a permit the direct permit out to Change how they deal with leach it from the Waste the landfill up in Coventry and that could mean that You know depending on what method is used Macheter The permit asks that my senior be the site for an expanded wastewater treatment To take out to try to take out various toxins Priority Chemicals contaminants heavy metals PFAS and but Residual would go into Lewandowski River And that's not good news for us So I'm if anyone is interested I can I Don't know how to do this what we're doing now and send things so If there's someone who would who could send an email to others I can share that hearing information is going to be hearing tomorrow and Comment is open until November 8th. So it could be a toxic leach. It's coming our way Depending on the methods chosen That's all for now anyone else with an announcement I guess the steering committee does have an announcement that we're moving the next month meeting And it will be we're gonna be discussing with the head hot redistricting committee They had a meeting scheduled for the same day the 15th. So we're gonna look to see to and I'm sure that meeting and We'll be more about that to follow And perhaps we're gonna in our next steering committee We're gonna talk about moving the December meeting earlier. I know we've skipped December and past but perhaps moving into the 15th, but maybe the 22nd as well we're Contemplating having that be a public safety MPME so really dedicating that topic to the whole And no other announcements and Anyone else the hand We will go elected officials. We have 30 minutes on the calendar for you all City Council 10 school board 10 Legislature 10 is does that work for you all? Okay, so maybe a Two three minute update from each and we'll do 10 minutes lots with questions at the end of that 10 minutes Does that work? You can start off with City Council. I see see our carpenter first sir. Would you like the lead-off? sure We've had a pretty jam-packed month since our Last meeting And I'm supposing that you might follow it You know Fill in a lot of detail. I think one of the big meetings we had is that we were able To resolve the police head count Issue based on the recommendations from the CNA report, which is out And I encourage you to go look at it. It's very long and it's very detailed So I don't expect anyone to Know all the details, but there's there's a lot there Kind of related to the police head count Make sure that everybody understands that What is hiring and has been hiring and wants to hire? So that's just a word we need to get out there very Quickly and as broadly as we can in addition to the police officers. We have open positions for community support officers and We've I think hired four of those as well as three community service liaison and We've got authorization for another six of those. So please get that we're out We were also and I was grateful that we were able to approve the use of some of our federal funds for police Bonuses and mostly but we have recruitment bonuses. So hopefully that helping help us with our Hiring process You know, we really need to be focused on the many more details of our public safety plans and I hope we can Move on with that Again, we had a really jam packed month we approved of a Resolution to ask the city to pull together a house on it again primarily Public safety, that's critical. We needed to do that for some time and We need we need that ASAP that's really as we all know a fundamental problem within our public safety we had quite a meeting the other day on Sears Lane and Councillor Jane introduced a resolution or an amendment to resolution that help us come together with Programs and I think we're on a path We are not on a path to solving homelessness for any for sure and I say that loud and clear in the way No, I have the support of our reps here It is a fundamental problem that has been Need to say dumped on the city of Burlington and we desperately need help from the state and The feds to to get that resolved I know it's a priority, but we need to do better than we're doing And we are spending some of our other optimally We're gonna open a day station warming shelter, which means people have a place to go during the day To get off the streets if they truly are Without permanent housing and that would be real plus and then the library is going to kick in and help with storage of belongings And for now answer question Hello, Mark. Hello Okay. Thank you Sarah took some of my updates. Let me see what I have what was online that she didn't already talk about In addition to the resolution we passed Recruitment and retention and I'm raising the sworn officer cap And the mental health summit we also passed the resolution to increase the police commission's oversight responsibilities through our dischanges In so far as we can And we referred additional work to the Charter Change Committee to look at ways We may also strengthen that oversight responsibility The other thing I wanted to update on since our last NPA meeting was municipal consolidated collection proposal failed So the city will not be taking over your trash and compost services But we do expect to take this issue up again in the near future to likely Consider a hybrid consolidated collection model that would involve city collection of recycling And we would franchise out the collection of trash and compost of private haulers That still isn't on our agenda But I expect that it's likely that that might come about in November sometime We're about two-thirds of the way done with tax appeal hearings after doing that for September and October, so we're hoping that we I think we're gonna probably slip a week But we're hoping by the first weekend of December we can be finished with those and there's almost 600 of them So it's a lot of work We're making a lot of good progress and the last thing I wanted to mention is On Friday at 2 p.m. The city will be having a Ceremony to name our newest city park at 311 North Avenue behind Cambrian Rives so I'm planning on attending that as I'm sure others are and Excited to hear what the new name will be And I'll ask so long to Ali Yeah, thank you. Thank you And also Council cut button. Thank you. I think, you know, those were the main updates But I think it would be important also to let people know that North Avenue would be getting some pavement so because the city received one hundred seventy five thousand dollars grant from the agency of transportation e-trans and We believe that the beats will be here You know the fall of 2021 and the project probably start in the spring or summer of 2022 Which is which is an amazing Something great and about the police car, you know, it was 103. That's what the car previous year before the Defunding the police 74 police officers through attrition 30 percent Now, I think the console did come together and I want to personally take a concert So right a high for Definitely getting our rank and doing the right thing for the city And also I want to thank everyone that put around, you know, waiting until we receive the CNA update In order to make this is this is important decision I think this is a way forward. Let's just face our decision around evidence And I also want to thank the police officers for their hard work. This is challenging and hard time For being there, especially those at state. I don't know if I agree with You know using our pie here police officers to stay I think we have to own our mistake. I just bring them with this but now what's important is from You know, depending now we had an 87 police officers, which is just amazing This year's land like console commander just talked about I think the console again So I a high town did show again leadership just getting out of the rank and doing the right thing I think it is important for all of us to not only be Like protesting but we are called or elected to take the decision the right wonderful decision And I'm glad that we visited that side even even before this conversation because businesses were concerned Visiting taxpayers parents everybody was concerned about what's was going on right there The news media the police the fire department, but I'm glad that the mayor show also leadership and Cdl is right there to provide support and keep on helping those people to access so nine of them already got house Well, of them are considering it two of them got fractures to leave There are maybe three four or five people who do not have any information yet and about the mental health summit, I think it was Proposal from let's say the police commission, you know, which also I want to thank them also for being right there And so that just next time let's make sure that we do not react. Let's just act as You know leaders of the city, but it is a great city and Happy for that one. Thank you Hey to help anyone have questions for our city counselors for today. See your hand first. Would you like to go? Thank you I'm not sure if this is a question that should be addressed to the mayor during his presentation But maybe what some of our city counselors can address it. I don't know if you can see it A lot of us got this in the mail the other day shows my age because it's they I think it's the ARP a action plan, but it's telling us that The city's been awarded 15 million dollars in federal funding from the Biden rescue plan and is asking us to fill out the Phyllis survey Of how we'd like to see the funds used for the city of Burlington I'd like to get somebody from the city to address I'm assuming this is postcard is accurate and assuming it's not spam There are two There's a ballot out now asking us two questions to approve Considerable bond funding Where's the link between the 15 million dollars from the from Washington and The request to issue municipal bonds, so what's the deal with 15 million dollars? Um, maybe I can go first. Yeah, and I think you know Let's say it was about 27 28 million that the city has received from the federal Fund, you know, and I think some of them was directly to the city and some of that was around 3 million It was about something that the people in student country has to share Basically, which would bring us to around seven twenty seven million dollars But the city has already allocated some of those funds to some like, you know, the police department is one um, the electric department is one um Just sit back and face this one, but these 15 millions you are right. This is not this is maybe what's remaining This is the wiggle room and the mayor is trying to find what the Uh, probably superintendent would want to do with that You know, uh, personally, I think as elected officials, we know Exactly where that money could be utilized For the best use of everyone, right? But i'm glad that he wanted to hear the perspective of the people And reason why it's important for anyone to definitely fill out that survey sending back to the mayor and from what i'm hearing The biggest item people want to see change or this money to be used is about homelessness What? Homelessness homelessness people who are unhoused who don't have housing Um, and i'm just gonna let you and i'm pretty sure about the bounce, right? But you're talking about we will receive also these about Items and the mayor I think can be here at seven, you know, soon to talk about this in details But both of them i'm like, thank you because it is um Some have strings some have not that the bond resolution we passed Does ask the city to look to see if there are federal funds that can be used But that's really in flock that we can't answer today and whether That money can be used for say streets of painting. So it's on the one end of the counselors, but um I think we still need to hear about the government and the other work needs to get done And can i'll just add very briefly that that survey, um Is um, one that everybody should fill out. I think there's about 1600 responses so far I mean in addition to multiple choice. There's some open-ended Boxes that you can fill in if you have additional input I would encourage people and I've heard from constituents that say well, I want to I want to ask about other things That's your opportunity to do that as well. So Everybody should fill it out and look for I posted about it on front porch farm. Maybe a little less than a week ago I saw it there mark and I completed it didn't take long at all. Can you are able to put it in other thoughts too? so yeah Then we're going to move on just um school board Uh, two questions. One is what was the event on friday afternoon on north avenue mark? Um, it is a park naming ceremony at 311 north avenue The park where I can't be honest At 3 p.m. That's 2 p.m 2 p.m. 2 p.m. Thank you But was it on the waterfront? No, I'm not exactly sure they say that there's parking at um liberty house Um, so I imagine it's part of the camber and just behind the camber and Right My other question is uh, I don't think that we have received this survey in the in word seven um I'm not it was at the end you know door by door Yes To mail I think I received mine yesterday and sometimes by friday. You should receive it check your mail Your front porch forum post uh post uh post on sunday or monday as well The survey is online Bridget got a mailing specific to her but not everybody was mailed a mailing Um, so if you want to get it you need to go online you get it um So I think that's I mean the and I think he was referring to the ballot such we should have gotten but You were not mailed the survey. You should try to search for an online Okay, online Thank you Yeah, so I think what I was referring to is what Bridget just showed us Yes, it's also a mailing that they sent it's about the survey and you know, uh, syria I can also find the survey online and send it to you. Yeah, that would be good. Yeah, and thank you for all your communication Thanks, thanks everybody. We'll move on to school board kendra. Welcome. Thanks for being here You're our school board representative tonight Thank you very much Things have been really busy at the schools this fall. It's nice to be at the running in person And uh, we do look forward to the vaccines being rolled out for our younger age groups of children very soon So that would be great The update to vhs vtc, which I have for you. We received um A status update at our facilities and finance meeting about a week ago from our consultants who are white and dark And it was regarding the three sites that we had kind of narrowed down our our Sites too, which it's actually really two sites in your mind probably the one site Which is our old high school has two potential areas to build the north and the south part of that that land And then the other site was the gateway block that includes the memorial auditorium So from that meeting our consultants presented Lot of statistics, but basically it boiled down to it's going to cost significantly more to build downtown And it would take longer in their estimation We do have documents that we posted with complete all those complete Information that we got and that's on our board doc system if anyone is interested, which is found on our vs dbt website The next Tuesday we have a school board meeting and we are going to be Looking at the recommendation that superintendent Tom plan again is bringing to us about which site That he and his team would recommend and we are hoping to vote at that school board meeting To which site we're going to move forward on to build my school So that's a that's a big big update and The growing school district office of equity is rolling out another series of equity based workshops that are open to everyone in the community I did post those to front porch forum and they're also on our website And I'll continue to use front porch forum to try to tell you guys when there's anything of interest to the community This is for bsd families students and community members So we encourage everybody to participate Right now the board is working to renew superintendent plan against contract and we're looking to renew it for three years We'll also be voting on that at the next Tuesday's school board meeting And We've been working really really hard to address What we see as the inequitable distribution of education dollars from the education fund At the state level and as we discussed in previous meetings, but for anyone who's new Our current funding formula uses weights So we use weights to adjust for educating students who need more resources. So for example our english language students or students in poverty Require extra resources So the state gives us some extra money for those students We get more money for high schoolers. For example, they cost more to educate than elementary school kids And those weights haven't been updated in 20 years So it's they're really outdated and so we're working To have them be adjusted and there was a report that was published jointly by UBM and Rutgers That used national data to kind of help us see what the model should be and that was presented to the legislature And the legislature now has a task force that is looking at how to implement this Their proposal is to separate ELL and to put it into categorical aid And this is a big concern for those of us that have been working on this project because We feel like it should be part of the education funding formula So there's a public comment Meeting that I just wanted to share to everyone who's interested in this issue We could really use voices for burling from Burlington. It is this Friday from 11 to 1 and If you like to sign up we have created a there's a nonprofit Site that you can go to to get to get more information and also there's a easy button to sign up You can send an email or if you'd like to testify everything's via zoom. You don't have to go in person And that website is www.cvtses.org So I'll say that again. It's cvtses.org If anyone is interested or you just reach out to me and I'm happy to answer any other questions that you may have So I think that's all the updates I have if anyone has any questions. I'm happy to answer them Just calm stop Hi. Hi Kendra. Uh, thank you. Um One of the Questions I've had right along about the per pupil waiting Study and the conversation is We're always hearing that students of poverty English language learners rural students You know and minority communities are lumped into this category of Mis-weighted, you know per pupil spending and the My basic question is as part of that conversation Has there ever been any discussion about what are the unique Characteristics of each of those student pools That might be different and could be addressed differently without Painting all of those categories with the same brush Thank you. So that's a really good question. And just so you know Each of those categories is looked at differently and is assigned a totally different weight And they they're the weights are supposed to be for the cost of educating that particular group So there's also a weight for small schools because they don't have the resources. For example, the large community has so there has The purpose of the weights is to do exactly that is to account for the different amount of money that it costs To educate and and be sure that every person in every different category has the same Opportunities for learning and being successful. So the weights are totally different for each category I hope that makes sense a bit. All right. Well, thank you. I I feel like that Distinction has kind of gotten lost in this conversation along the way Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for raising that. Yeah, there's definitely different different weights, and you know To your point They really should be looked at every couple years because Everything always changes in education every couple years. So The the point of it not being updated in over 20 just goes to show you then that these numbers really um are not They're not accurately reflecting the cost that we had to educate them and in particular for burlington because we educate ELL we have a high high population of ELL and kids living in poverty And so it is a big deal for us that those weights have not been been updated because we we believe that we're losing A fair portion of of money from education funding Formula from this from the state All right. Thank you. Kendra Yeah, absolutely. Thank you Kendra. And I'll move on to our state reps Carol Lody and Carol do you want to lead us off? You're muted to Carol. Sure First of all, thank you to Kendra, Martine and everybody else on the school board Who has been or who have been working so hard on this? um It was when I first walked into the legislature that I submitted bills and pushed hard to get this weighting study and um It's it's um it's coming to a head now. So um Whatever you can do to uh to help Kendra and the school board get this, you know being Speaking to other state reps would be very helpful That's number one number two So today um this morning I was able to meet with a small group of people with Our congressional delegation We assume and we met with one office at a time and we met with everybody in the offices who um Have expertise in veterans affairs defense foreign policy and national security So what I um brought up was that We know we have the at 35s of this area and the federal government Provides a 90 percent match when we put up 10 percent to soundproof homes and buildings within a certain sound Area around the airport that is most impacted by sound But I requested today that they those offices do as much as they can to Push that area out to include more houses and more buildings so that more of those homes can be soundproofed and um, so That soundproofing also acts as weatherproofing and help will help with People with their utility bills and will help with climate um another thing I brought up was That Our city and other cities across the nation. So this is something cities have in common are Absolutely at a critical point regarding Mental illness and regarding How homelessness and that you know, we have people on streets and cities who are just Desperate to work for where they would go and I asked for any extra additional help or guidance they can give in terms of that issue then, um, I also talked to them about, um Sexual assault in the military in We in vermont are the only people who Where the legislature actually votes on who the action in general will be and, um In our the last election for adjutant general All the main platform of the current adjutant general was to deal with sexual assault in the military. So, um We are working with the adjutant general um Who's putting out reports to uh To make sure that um, we keep on top of this And I asked for whatever help they could give us in terms of research and so forth on that um We're actually making quite good progress in vermont, but of course it's not There's a lot still to do And then I brought up with senator lehi's office only the Need that we have to deal with our schools and other buildings In our states, but certainly brollington high school, which has a pcb problem as we all know and um, what What funding we may be able to get for that? Um, and um, I did uh Here that uh lehi center lake has met with epa administrators Uh to talk about money subsides for schools especially and Um, and we'll see what the budget ends up having in it We're hoping for uh, that it will have a 20 to 40 billion dollar pot of money for the states for that and then um Oh, there's another thing Well, oh nurses and And mental health care needs psychiatric nurses, but nurses are needed overall and we know if you've seen this in the paper, but um, I know I'm on that board of uvm and Uh, as soon as I got out of that board, I said why let's get more nurses educated and we found out that um Clinical placements for nurses is a stumbling block there. So There's more than one stumbling block there, but that's a huge stumbling block and the congressional delegation is aware of it and Is working on that so we could have more nurses We have our education institutions. So those are some of the things that we talked about this morning And I'm so glad to be here tonight And there's more going on and I'm working on water issues with sylvia I know you haven't heard from me just more recently, but it's not that I'm not Working on some of those issues that and I wanted to say Now there are some clean water issues that we have in our neighborhoods the three acre storm water permit the testing for Certain chemical sylvia that you're interested in and bridget the three acre storm water Those are things that could be put into the surveys that for what to do with 15 million dollars in burlington you know, they're 50 million is a lot. I think maybe we can get some funding set aside for some of those issues Thank you. Bob. I don't know. Bob's got a competing Meeting but he might not be here. He's on bob. Are you there? Oh Yeah, I'm back Just give us the time range Thank you carol carol. It'll hunt a lot of the stuff that's on my list too Particularly I spent yesterday and today At a meeting with the vets home board of trustees We've been talking about bringing some job opportunities to chitin in the county of the chitinage county general area and maybe opening up a vets home sub group in in burlington Richmond someplace in the county because there are a lot of veterans who are 65 and up here One of the things that's really impacting that decision and that Trail of jobs coming here is the fact that nursing and nurses aides and techs Really hard to come by so when carol talks about uvm and moving program standards forward We also need to talk to some degree about secretary of state and the nursing classifications and lpn Things like that and maybe move towards a situation where People can job share more and maybe make advantage of Positions that might open up more employment opportunities here A huge issue is the infrastructure bill if it ever gets passed As as with the other federal bills We get a much larger chunk than our population would normally I'll a lot to us so That's just like money in the bag for us and it's something that I think we definitely need From storm water to our bridges to our roads It's going to be a great thing I was going to write something a couple days ago because Everybody on my television from joe nameth to jj walker piping Medicare Advantage plans, which Uh, I think Are being really miss marketed And I I really want to warn people that they should take a really serious look at what they offer as opposed to what they expect They are heavily managed care There's nothing worse than getting a serious disease And finding your insurance company says oh, we don't cover that Um standard medicaid or medicare is a very good program Don't jump before you do your homework um On a city level, I'm very happy here to read some kind of resolution on the staffing of police department issue Uh, quite frankly, we don't need a lot more things that are dividing us and that seemed to be a big one Um caro, and I think I both Are going to come up against the heart deadline pretty soon for submission of legislative bills So if you have something in the back of your head that you want to talk about Uh that might get on the wall of some committee this year Reach out to us soon because Usually there are a lot of things going on and getting something in the hopper pretty quickly It is a A good thing I I can't emphasize enough what I think caro touched on Um The virus it has not gone away in case it's in many cases. It's worse than it was a year ago It's different. It's more virulent. It's more serious It's hitting people who have avoided vaccination a lot more than People who have gotten it, but it doesn't really care. I continue to urge people to Uh look at this seriously mask I'm kind of disappointed as somebody that Really went out on the front porch and praised governor scott and the commissioner of else for Doing what they really needed to do last year And it's it's disappointing to me that they're Well, the governor is the leader of the ship Um standing there basically saying I don't know why everybody's getting sick, but I'm not willing to to Create another emergency situation so we can put more control on things, but school nurses and teachers are really Demonstrating that a lot of kids are getting sick. Uh, this is our future I think caution is probably better than Anything else that we could use so it would be a good thing I think if the governor stepped up a lot of us are putting pressure on his office to Move off the dime on this. I'd love to hear your opinion But that coupled with the new school formula commission that's going to Do things going to have a big impact on What we do education wise here Talk to anybody, you know around the state and get them to advocate with their representatives to move this forward Because even though chicken county is heavily weighted in the legislature We can always use more help other places One of the things that Obviously enough we talked about at the vet's home meeting today was child care And I'm sorry to jump in we just were a little over time and we're cutting into the redistricting Um section is there anything burning that folks needed to To add or represented. Did you want to add anything particularly burning? Just I apologize to cut you off No, no, no, the last thing that I was going to mention was redistricting. So it's uh, It's about that serve as an introduction Well, thank you. Thank you, Evan before we go there. We have a question from the Miller center Ed Peter Peter. I'm sorry. Thank you. I understand that the city or somebody is doing Sophisticated sound monitoring in three locations in burlington. I hope the results of that test Will be used in how much we spend on soundproofing Thank you for the last word. What was spent on what on soundproofing soundproofing. So apparently There's uh, peter mentioned there's three locations in burlington where they're doing sound testing And he yeah, he's hoping that the the soundproofing money that carol spoke about will be Correlated with those test results I would urge you to get the results of those sound tests to our congressional delegations offices They can then work with the federal people who are in charge of drawing those maps Um representative od this actually quite a few people who comment about this topic regularly In the the new north end facebook group and some of those folks may be who Who is being referred to and it came up again today that that folks would like to see In your neck of the woods actually some Some assessment and monitoring there. So thank you for bringing that up Is there an email address that that you think would be the best email address for people to direct? Information like this too you say the congressional delegation if you go to The website for each of our our two senators and our congressmen We'll see it says Send an email and you can write down the information in there and um That way their office will can can get back to you and and Connect you with the right person in their offices if you don't get any response then please just I'll get it to me and I will get it to them Okay, thank you so much And you can call 202-224-2131 Get rid of all three of them Okay, I have a question for bob hooper Um So bob you did bring up the word redistricting, but I think that there was a little bit of confusion Um, I think that you're talking about state redistricting. Is that the case? Well, okay, I think I I can only be talking about city redistricting And so I think that if you have something to say about state redistricting now is the time Uh Critically in terms of basically How it works now and if the change is going to be disruptive All right, that's very brief Jeff back to you All right, um, we will move on to our next topic As we're already into it quite a bit with the time slot We're talking about the ad hoc redistricting committee that's been put together We have representatives of the committee and their alternates. I don't believe lee's here I think she had a conflict with tonight But we have jim hallway robber briscoe johnson jeff comstock and um, we're going to get started on You had a plenty meeting yesterday and um, could you let us know what occurred at that meeting and There are a series of meetings that you're getting public input and we wanted to give public input tonight as well so jim and Robert Yeah, jim start Sure, so yesterday's meeting was Intended to kind of figure out the process that our committee would do we have We have three public meetings that will occur The first will be november 1st And it'll be at country's auditorium 6 to 8 the second will be at the miller center on november 17th 5 to 7 p.m. Uh, and the third one the location is yet to be announced, but that is December 6th So where the location will figure out the location so there are The sort thing that we have We've had two meetings actually the first The first was a presentation to be sure that the committee understood our charge which is to engage the community on A number of questions around the way that we vote whether uh questions such as As such as the Uh You know do we do we worry about preserving incumbency? Is that should that be a factor keeping the current number of wards keep districts Should areas large student population be Broken up or kept it and do a specific ward like had occurred a little previous time Keeping neighborhoods intact at large city counselors Um, even odd number of counselors Multiple representatives per ward those the sort of questions that we're hoping to hear thoughts on from the community our job then is to gather Both through the committee as a whole in those three public meetings Or individual wards can can find other methods to getting input as well so in the new north end We jumped on getting a a A survey out and available to people through um It's a it's a google form and it essentially That survey is the questions that we believe the city counselors are looking for input on It does not ask you questions like where would you like the lines to be drawn or that sort of thing that's The the line drawing and the actual decisions about these elements Are to be done After our committee has done our work so we We get we gather through the survey that um I've put the the link out on uh front porch forum and the facebook new north end Community page there The decision last night was to go with a standard survey that will So that'll be consistent across the city the In its draft form last night. We didn't we didn't conclude as to what this the survey would be That'll be in parallel to the content to the listening sessions if you will the public listening sessions That survey currently is about 15 pages. So There's a little bit of work to be done To kind of call that down to a reasonable size And that's I think I touched on everything. Can you think of anything else? uh, Robert Well, um, it probably should be noted that um, that I think that there's no chance that there will be a um, a redid I A new map Question for city for the city charter change on this coming Spring ballot, I think that that is just not going to happen. That was originally I think the plan of the city council informing the committee, but I I think that they were too optimistic in And uh, believing that we could you know collect the information and do the do what could happen In the shorter period of time because they really have to start acting to put that on the ballot in december and in january Uh to put it on the ballot Um I I would say that um There are some differing perspectives on on what can be done in terms of the um Uh in terms of collecting information because the the um the questions that we're asking Uh of people to weigh in on um are interlocked are interrelated and it doesn't necessarily Mean specifically where the lines fall, but one of the important questions is what people feel about Preserving neighborhoods are defining neighborhoods and how um how wards themselves are related to neighborhoods And um, so I want to say something about what I said last month Was it last month at the end people was it last month or two? So I said something based on some false Faulty information. Um, we didn't have I didn't have yet the specific Um, uh census data yet last month and I was um in conversation with um Our mapping specialist uh with the city and I misunderstood him Uh, I mean there the the the current Population shift is enough out of whack that we will have to redistrict that's Certain because we are More than 10 out of whack with some wards Namely ward one is a little bit more populous and ward seven is a little less Is a little not populous enough, but um, I Misunderstood him to think that the entire new north end was light And the fact is that the entire um wards four and ward seven together the north district Is still within 10 percent in fact it's a it's within five percent of being Exactly one quarter of the city Uh, and what that means is that it is still possible with um What would be either a four ward? Uh Map or an eight ward map. It is still possible to have um the uh old north end and the new north end to be distinctly uh, uh separate from each other Whereas if for if the new north end wasn't 10 uh one fourth of the city if like said let's say we were you know, uh one fifth of the city or 22 percent of the city that would Throw that out the window. There would just be no way that we're doing that and so I said something kind of rash that was uh, Not correct. It turns out. It was uh, I knew it was rash I said that probably ward seven would not exist as we know it all I can say now Is that if um, we have five wards or six wards or seven wards Then ward seven won't be the same as we know it, but The fact is we don't necessarily have to go that way because The uh the north district uh wards four and seven still comprise one quarter of the city and that's That's an important fact to know so I just wanted to clarify what I was said last month and I I don't think I'm going to say much more about it Because I don't want to put my foot in my mouth again So um and Jeff did you have some additional thoughts before we start listening to what people have for questions and answering those specifically? Yes, uh, thanks jim. Um, excuse me Earlier in october I participated in a league of women voters conference on Redistricting with uh tom little from this state districtings the legislative districting Workgroup and he had some interesting perspective on That 10% rule that not necessarily as hard and fast as is often discussed So it will be interesting to see how the You know the deviation from the population numbers plays out Later on in this process because um, apparently that 10% rule is not established in statute if I'm not in statute, you know, so So apparently so anyway the the juxt the the bottom line of of his perspective and the legislative Districting committee is through experience is that If municipalities implement sort of a larger plus or minus variance in those population factors for Reasons that uh The city supports that courts are very likely are unlikely to override those Experiences so there is a possibility down the road that however the city draws the maps that We apparently we do have some leniency in how those boundaries are drawn without Being shoehorned into that 10% rule so just Keep the perspective that there is some potential flexibility in how this turns out down the road That's right We're the data that we have right now is not Not the final data, but we're at 17 percent the legal counsel from the city on that particular point is That the farther you get from the 10 percent are under the more likely it is that you're you're putting yourself Your miss municipality out there for questions. So, um, if you do it um I mean all all indications are we're far enough that either we do or we don't and I think that the With 17 and less numbers significantly changed from a lot what the the presumption was in uh a month ago We were probably moving forward to that so there so I want to Put out I guess the other thing is is that um Aside from where the not how the numbers play out the idea of redistricting for those who aren't familiar Is to ensure that every in representative government every seat Represents roughly the same number of people and and so there's equity in In representative government, so that's what those percentages are about and if if if one ward were much much larger than They say another the smallest ward then Then you don't really have that equity. So that's the goal So I believe that some of the intent this Cycle is to engage us in in sort of a a broader conversation about you know, we've we've done The voting the way we have other than uh moving to an eighth district That all of our our dynamics have remained the same and then the question for you all is You know, we can we can preserve closely and do do some Recommend line adjustments Or we can go radically in a different direction and that's part of the the kind of conversation is And then the the last piece here is To remember that all of the work that that this committee is doing is advisory Informs whatever the next step is so it is quite possible. I think to robert was alluding to the idea that You might The community might Like two different elements like let's say we want an odd number of of counselors and You know, you can't make that work with an even number of counselors Per ward and you have you know, so those are sort of things that that will get sorted out later in the data But right now it's about engaging the the conversation So with that unless either robert or jeff would like to add it Really like to just hear what questions people have or thoughts people have With regard to the municipal redistricting If if I can if I can just add a little I I thought that the numbers were that ward one was 11 high from the mean and that ward seven Was nine percent almost 10 percent below the mean or below the ideal So I I thought that they were telling us that our our disparity was 21 percent and not 17 But I don't know I'll have to look at the numbers again Well, it's not moot if it was 17 we would not be forced by the courts On if we were plus if we were less than plus or minus 10 percent From the worst to the worst we might not be forced by the courts to redistrict But if we are if we do exceed that we may be forced by the courts to redistrict The other thing that I wanted to say though that about There that if we if the city Chooses to be incremental about it The mistake that I made last month was I said that it was impossible to be incremental about it Which was false. It is possible to be incremental about it It is possible to nudge the lines and to go on as we had before But it's not necessary. We don't have to do that and we maybe shouldn't do that That's all uh to be decided but The possibility of nudging the lines is there on namely a little bit of ward four would have to go into ward seven and a little bit of ward one would have to go into ward two And we'd be back within the easily within the 10 percent thing. That's all I want to say All right, so I'd like to hear from from the community some thoughts or questions from here anything Slow down slow down You know I often um You know, I heard the comments about that there would be um You know, perhaps four disc wards instead of eight And you know that sounded great to me because I the Division of the line of north ashram between ward four and seven I view the new north end as you know Both and um, you know, I've that so that sounded great to me that it would be one ward You know and not divided Could that come to be It certainly can be But if we're going to be consistent throughout the city, uh, then there would be three other large wards like that The with the rest of the city where the lines fall would be much more arbitrary Uh, I mean it could be anywhere, but with us in the new north end There's a bottleneck and and it's currently where the north district ends right now Uh, uh, uh, there wouldn't be much other way of drawing the lines Uh up in the new north end, but for the rest of the city, sir We could have a four and that was one of the plans offered eight years ago um, I think that uh, jones shannon was uh, uh, um Promoting that plan and You know, we could have four big wards and three Counselors each and that would be 12 counselors. That's a possibility But We don't have it so bad here at the miller center I I work also on the on on ward seven as a uh, as a poll worker and I used to be an inspector of election um But I once visited the ward three Uh, in fact, I bet charlie there and they had lines coming out the door When we did not and so one of the disadvantages of large wards May be what happens in their polling places that's That's the flip side. That's all I wanted to say to can to weigh that against Carol, you had a question I wanted to say I haven't looked at the maps in the city things so but when when you have A big big area to cover and you're running for office It's very hard to hit all the houses and um, I know I knock on the doors of Almost every house And it's it takes me months So I just I would say for the city instead of three people having to run as a huge area You know cut the area up, but That in fact, I don't want to say what I think the solution should be I just want to say it's expensive and time-consuming to run in a large area. So please think about that We certainly are thinking about that Hi, um, this is actually maricela That's okay. I wanted to thank jenna robert for um your efforts on this committee because I think it was really It was nice to hear that the committees come together and decided to Provide a standardized Surveys that I think that Just ensure that we're hearing and everyone's being treated the same way and in learning the same I'm curious about this may be too early, but um, I'm curious about the formatting for the listening sessions um, you know, someone who doesn't have a ton of experience and how Like implications for changes Will there be some kind of sort of neutral presentation about You know informing people either before or at the listening session before people start getting their Um, opinions because I think you know, not everybody has the expertise or the experience in this that you'll do right so the the two key components are to to educate the community a little bit about what their Implications are so Right on the head there. Um So on the front end of a listening session will be a presentation That will be as Sort of neutral as possible without kind of influencing one way or another That's the goal on the presentations in the listening sessions on the survey the the survey again Uh We're looking at the questions to be sure that they really are not leading one way or another and Part of the intent of the survey is to give a little bit of information about what the question means and that sort of thing so but given that that uh We want to make sure that we do it a good job of presenting enough information so that people can speak With some good understanding But the predominant part of the meeting will be to be listening So you will really you wouldn't hear much from committee members. I mean, we really like to hear the different conversations that go along and really engage the community on on the thoughts back and forth and We certainly can answer questions like implications of full awards versus A larger number just as a representative odi mentioned that The smaller the number of awards the the the more difficult it is as a constituent to to reach your Your elected official or certainly in the campaigning it does if awards are too large that it sort of Precludes people who would with lesser means to be able to reach out to the entire work So though it's an example of somebody brings up a question or a point you could offer In thoughts that way But the predominant part is to capture in those two primary paths the survey And really we're aiming to get that out in paper form And electronic form So that we can get available to people who who may not be able to have electronic means Does that answer your question or your question? Yeah, no, I think it does. Thank you And I think it just prompts just another just point I wanted to make is if it's at all possible Because it does sound like those listening sessions aren't balancing act but providing opportunities for the public to to speak But if for those who might be interested in coming Prepared, you know and doing their homework if that survey or some other Information can be shared with the public prior to those events so that people who do want to look into it can Um, I think that would be great. Uh, it'd be really helpful to have that kind so that you're you're getting an informed public Go ahead, Jim So yeah the goal today was a deadline to get a Piece in the community newspaper formally known as North Avenue news, but now it goes to every every household in the city And we were hoping to have an educational piece in there So I'm not really sure if they were able to Home that down well enough. So we'll see what's in there the other option that That I provided is to do coffees, uh, you know, we're at the Um Either at the bagel or or somewhere else here in in the area where if you want to engage more Questions and that sort of thing so there'll be that so well But I do like to take your point that the more educational materials would get out there I'm robert or jeff was there anything that you wanted to add to the I I just wanted to say that that the the Um The fact is that the questions Um that people have and the and the there are competing Um properties are competing goals that we have in redistricting that sometimes they just can't all be Uh met and um And it is difficult to be specific About saying what these are in educating people without then getting You could say enough in the weeds that you might start be hinting at at a preference You know, and I and I'm been trying to steer clear of that But I I just I did feel that this thing about the the four ward versus and eight ward possibilities Um and that relationship with the old north end and the new north end that that's kind of a hard fact That I think that people should know about When they when they weigh in with their opinions And it is just simply it's one of the persons in the the legislative apportionment board This is the state redistricting board. Um, they compared it to squeezing a balloon and um It it is just simply Impossible to have a five ward map or a six ward map or a seven ward map And have the old north end and the new north end uh be in in in different wards um It is only with that the four ward and the eight ward map and I do believe that people should know that it advance Uh, uh, when they when they uh deal with the questions that's possibly a disagreement Within the committee about about that because it's uh, you know, it's a specific fact That's true, but it is also not neutral well, um Are there any other input or questions for um the group and if not, we'll move on to our next topic Thank you. Um for the members of the ad hoc committee for the work you've done and you will be doing We appreciate it. Um, we'll move on to our next topic The burlington capital plan. Um, I we mentioned earlier in the meeting about the ballots coming in So it's a timely topic to talk about. Um, that we'll all be voting on and I will pass it over to mayor Weinberger to um, give us the details on why we should vote yes on this ballot item Thank you for being here mayor Great. Thank you. Jeff. Um, you hearing me? Okay Yes, I'm good. Okay, great. Um, nice to be with you all tonight and um, I got to catch a bunch of those updates and uh, Saying how much is going on And I'm excited to be here tonight to talk to you about This special election, which of course, uh, if you've seen your ballot and most people got them in the last couple days There are two ballot uh questions and I um, there is the capital infrastructure bond and there is also a revenue bond for the Burlington Electric Department and I've got Presentations power points on both now. I'm going to start with the capital bond and uh, I've got my tpw vest on for this one and um It's uh, let me try it. It's okay if I share screen here It's not letting me do that. Is is that possible to uh, Give me that to be able to now. Okay, great. Um Here we go. Okay so this is entitled continuing the city's capital infrastructure plan because um, really this effort began, uh many years ago now in 2014 we set out to really create a 10-year capital plan for the city for the first time in very long time and um, we uh, went through a process lengthy process that resulted kind of culminated in the fall of 2016 with the voters weighing in on this and Approximately 78 percent of the voters supported that sustainable infrastructure plan back then and it was essentially the first five years Of this 10-year plan that was funded at the time What did we do with that? um 27 and a half million dollars in bonding as well as there were some other sources to that to that effort as well all told it it added up to approximately 50 million um, and but the general obligation bond went specifically into Uh, these are the highlights. So we we built more than 14 miles of sidewalks over Since 2016 which was about triple the rate of sidewalks Construction that we have been doing for many years before that we have installed bike lanes We didn't we didn't totally tailor this presentation for the the uh 47 mpa. I know the bike lanes aren't always the most uh popular idea, but the street the road works Is and we have um double the roads spending investment in the roads over the last five years the bike path has been nearly um completed Seven miles says on this slide the last mile is down an old much part But if you've been down there recently, you know that we're getting close to finishing that last mile There has been substantial interest investment in city buildings that have been neglected for a long time the IT Infrastructure in the city has been improved dramatically and We have also so Those are those are some of the highlights of of what we've done for the last five years It was always the plan that in About now we would be coming back for the next five years or the next several years of investment and the initial plan actually was to come back in in the fall of 2020 and that There was work that was started towards that and then the pandemic hit and has set this back here Which is one of the reasons for the timing the unusual timing of this bond. We've already essentially lost a year of momentum in what I see is a pretty significant Generational effort to change the trajectory of our infrastructure and address really decades of deferred maintenance in in a number of areas and As a result of that the that delay we already had it significant less investment this summer then in previous years You may have noticed that already by coming forward with this special election we Are avoid missing a second essentially a second year in a row of this significant investment and why The other reasons we're coming forward now. There's some we know there is a federal infrastructure bill that is being deliberated right now And hopefully we'll know soon What that passes? It'll be some months before the rules of this are Written and so we're in a significant period here where It's uncertain exactly what kind of assistance is going to be coming from the federal government Typically any infrastructure money coming from the federal government requires a local match often it's competitive By having local funds that are committed and available to move Quickly, we think we'll be able to secure a larger share Of those federal dollars If and when the infrastructure bill becomes available Another benefit of going now that is somewhat uncertain is we are still these historically low borrowing The kind of historically low borrowing rates that has gone on for many years now, but they're still guaranteed of course and With inflation pressures in the economy and uncertainty about the economy going forward This this seems this may prove to be a pretty opportune time to be able to act The Another point that Wait on me as deciding whether or not to go forward with the plan as expected is that I Just last time we checked in with a significant number of voters through a A survey for the FY 22 budget support for infrastructure Was again very strong as it has always been in recent years. Whatever we have Lots of support from one area of infrastructure or another This is something that time again, Brawland-Tonians have shown they want to improve and change and get better at which I think Um, to me makes a lot of sense given the role that public infrastructure plays in our quality of life in and our economy Um, and and how clear it is that our aging infrastructure is in need of investment Um, sorry There we go Um What what will this 40 million dollar bonds Support if if it is approved there are um A number of major areas and I'll let me get down to This this breakdown. I think it's a little clearer here. Here's what we're planning. There is substantial investment Um in in streets and sidewalks At this level it continues we would continue for the next three years to Be at these rates of triple the amount of sidewalk investment We've done historically double the amount of road investment that we've done historically and really continue to Get those make critical assets back on a sustainable trajectory He um In the fleet Section down lower the 2.2 million there is for our The great majority of that is for three new fire engines Um, we have replaced two fire engines over the last several years This would get this would have essentially five sixths of the fire of the fire truck fleet Well resourced again, um, whereas if we don't do this we the the fire trucks are four of them are currently nearing the end of their life the other public safety infrastructure investment there is um Has to do with the radio systems that we use that our police and our firefighters used to communicate from any corner of berlington This is actually something that you've been a decade into this job. I wasn't solely clear about before We started playing for this uh, this effort um, we maintain our own system of signal towers and repeaters and um without that there is uh, no way for public safety Communications to happen reliably and we need to make this investment. So there's another critical critical piece. Um, there We think it brought it is responsible for a number of bridges. We have about 25 major buildings and then 40 smaller buildings that were responsible for All of which i'm many of which have years of deferred maintenance And then the final way i'm gonna I would like to speak to this. I think there's this is um any area that As i've been talking with people about what is in this package that was approved by the council nearly unanimously and sent to the voters is a Is 10 million dollars reserved? for memorial auditorium and this, um is flexible dollars In that we what this would ensure is that finally the city um takes the size of action with with memorial auditorium and brings resolution to this uh, this this building that has been so so under invested in for Decades that is actually currently closed and not usable He Would give this city the ability if uh, if the school district Were to choose the downtown site as where I wanted to put a new high school to allow the city to be a partner in that Um, I think there's very, you know real set possibility. That's not going to happen and what this 10 million dollar would do is you would um allow us to At the very least, um Prefer the structural integrity of the building and have the dollars to do that It is really getting to the point now where if we don't make investment soon We will uh, we risk um the building coming down and us sort of losing the choice of what happens in the future On that this would give us the funds to preserve the structural integrity We'll take future action by the city council before A further plan of memorial auditorium is this community That is um, sorry a couple more slides here to make some a couple more significant points and then i'll try to Pause for for some questions one. I just want to make sure it's clear to folks that we are As we always do working hard to secure um As much other funds as possible before coming to property taxpayers for the the final piece of the general obligation bonding What this shows is that this 40 million dollar plan Is one piece of approximately 150 million dollar plan that We are in the process of implementing over the next three years We have a lot of the the other dollars come from the federal government here And are committed already in terms of federal transportation projects Specifically the Champlain Parkway the shelter roundabout shoulder road roundabout project, which is underway in the really aren't enterprise project We one Part of the bond proceeds I didn't focus on before is that about three and a half million Of that 40 million is to for the local matching dollars Of those federal projects and so It is exciting that we have Such a significant amount of federal money that is committed to come this way in the coming years There is a small local match that is part of that and that is That is part of what you're leveraging with the yes vote on this bond the other You can see we're also potentially Something that will be in in your up for Europe, but as well as to use market dollars for some some other Infrastructure investment that's another possible source and then you can see these are some some of the other sources that the city can access Um for for these other investments as the bonding is that the last piece We see I think I'm almost Here this slide is a little bit confusing and I won't take you all the way into the weeds of it But I show here to try to address. I think the biggest question that I've heard About this rightly about this effort, which is How can we um, uh, you know Uh Moreau people say, okay. I know how important I agree local the municipal infrastructure is critical um, however, we also have a major community crisis really in that We don't currently have a permanent high school and the Uh, there's a plan coming um for that and and how you know, what have you done to prepare for that? and what We have um, and I think it's a totally fair question the right question young people's minds we have four years, um been um Trying to find really the first times in the city's history a way for both the city and the school district to be able to make necessary infrastructure investments capital investments And to do so in a way where both All aspects of these critical infrastructure is met and We do not put too great of a burden on the community and on taxpayers and that that conversation led in 2018 to for the first time having a A debt management policy and really an agreement between the school district and the city um about about cumulative borrowing overlapping borrowing and um this plan that uh, I just talked to you about is consistent with that and and Is is a proposal that keeps us within the these limits that are Kind of established by our credor rating agency for what it what what what is a responsible amount of total borrowing um that communities should take on it and We wrote the policy to keep us at the double a rating and we Which is of critical importance from my perspective and that we've worked very hard until last decade to get back from the edge of Jump on status to a double a rating and I mean achieve that has already locked in literally tens of millions of dollars in savings for Taxpayers and rate payers going forward and we don't want to jeopardize that so the the policy Um is a policy about what is responsible borrowing? We are so one thing to know about this is you can go yet confident that the city is staying within those metrics another thing to be confident in is that Two other points more than half of the overall borrowing capacity is being reserved for the school district To pursue their borrowing needs and more than and and that there is substantial additional capacity that is available Above and beyond the 70 million dollars that the school district already had planned and secured voter approval for For the high school, which is critical because we all know that the That the initial plan with the high school is not working out and that we are now facing the need for a new high school Substantially more expensive new construction and Again, what people can be confident in is that there is substantial additional capacity within this these responsible borrowing metrics for for the plan when it comes back, which You know, I know we had tendron earlier The my expectation is that the school district will be coming back with a plan either in the in the spring or a year from now What is the I'll stop after this. What is the total cost? What should you be expecting if you vote yes on this and this is Something I hope is very much on people's minds as you have the the ballot in front of you You're deciding whether or not to vote yes The average price there is some impact and we have to be Explicit about that the there is no There's no way to deliver a change in our our infrastructure The no way to continue with this historic investment we're making in infrastructure without some tax impact I think that impact is a lot less than sometimes people expect it will be the average price home now after the reappraisal is $380,000 in Burlington, believe it or not and Um, the cost of this $40 million plan when fully drawn down will be a a maximum of About $13 a month or $160 a year will take us several years to draw down the funds and get to that point so you can see on this graph it kind of maxes out in Just a year 25 and then the cost goes down from there And that year the average Burlington or I think the starting immediate Burlington home Property owner household would pay about $13 a month for this plan and That is um, I know I know that is this significant commitment is certainly significant On top of all of the other property taxes and state and federal taxes they were responsible for um, and I I think everyone has to reach their own Conclusion about whether this is This is worth it I guess when I when I look at it and I look at all my tax bills to me This is about the best government value that you get for $13 a month Is to have this high quality public infrastructure that Has such a big role again in our quality of life and in in our in places to significant role in our economy so with that why don't I I'm going to stop sharing and I do have another power point for the The revenue bond with the Burlington electric department, but I think there may be more questions about this than anything else so I would pause here and Maybe jeff you can tell me when we have like five minutes left and I'll try to do a quick rundown then of We do have about five minutes left But um, we did have um Darren springer last month to give us a great update on the bond. So I think we're covered on that topic You're great. Um, and I want to go over to questions. Um, urgent. I don't know if I see you first Um, man, thank you. I have one quick question and a two very quick questions. One is what is the acronym? P. I. F. Stand form On your chart is an except t. I. F. Oh great. Yeah, um tax increment financing and so this is on the chart that show different sources of funding um, and That is this state economic development program that uh, the city of Burlington has used to Really much the progress that we made on the waterfront over the last Um, 30 years through the waterfront waterfront uh tax increment financing district and then we also have a downtown tax increment financing district as well and and I can't so tell me again why why you ask those so those are We are paying for substantial amount of downtown waterfront infrastructure from those sources, which are Uh, essentially this state economic development program is a great opportunity for municipalities that it those are separate funds and and separate efforts from this kind of core infrastructure Effort that is in this fund I just wanted to be clear. My second question was The breakdown for taxpayers over I think 10 years you the chart that you gave that was that's only for the 40 million dollar general obligation funds for for infrastructure It it it it is not Uh, it doesn't include the one for electricity infrastructure and it's probably not including The eventual very expensive bond for our high school That's right. This the 13th dollars a month a month that that chart was for this 40 million dollar core infrastructure stable infrastructure Investments and this is for the yes the sidewalks and streets and the Municipal buildings and the matching funds the federal dollars that the bdb bond I mean the good news there. I'm sure you heard this from Darren last month is The bdb bond is is has no impact on your property taxes that is a bond paid for out of the branch electric department revenues And that is an unusual bond in that you can vote for it with the confidence that there is Very little pressure on you basically no pressure on your electric bills for voting. Yes for five years. Actually It's a little complicated. Maybe we have a time for but actually It uses your electric costs over the over the next year and has zero Upward pressure for the first five years and very modest pressures after that and part that's because what we're going to pay for with that bond Bill create new revenues for the branch electric department and those new revenues From people switching over from gasoline vehicles to electric vehicles switching over from fossil fuel burning heat to Electric heat those new revenues will pay for a lot of that bond plus we're retiring and get there So people can vote for that one That one is you can really confident that that it's going to do good things for the world and this community and have Be very little new dollars out of your your pocket Yeah Thanks, thanks so much jeff. Um Well, I'll try to keep it quick. I thank you very good for your last question. That was very helpful for me as well um, so the first question I have really is about um, the memorial Fund the 10 million dollars Which is 25 of the bond which I noticed was the last item listed on your slide And you mentioned the school again um And so it's been made pretty clear that that's not the ideal location From by by both the folks who have come in and done the assessment And the school board has come out and said it's going to be more expensive to put it down So when we're being asked to consider all these expenses I wonder if you want to clarify your comments about The potential to use memorial for the high school And how you see this fits into the bond conversations tonight Yeah, very thank you for that. I do appreciate the opportunity to try to be as clear as possible about this. Um the I think it's urgent that we allocate if if I don't want to be the mayor that after Decades have been lacked um Presides over this building like literally falling down and there's increasing risk That that could that could happen We have reached the point where we need to make Stantial investment in the building or Or we're going to lose it as a building and This 10 million dollars would Certainly give us the funds to make urgent urgent repairs That preserves the structural integrity of the building and What we do it also gives us some dollars beyond that to do Really bring it back to life as an important downtown building There are a number of options for that and that was my point in raising it as a school possibility before I agree with you It's down unlikely that that is what the decision That is I think this is a decision that's going to be made Point soon by the district and it sounds increasingly unlikely that that will be where it is um what But if somehow that changed this would be funds available for that if that is not what what happens We there will be further community process uh and decision by the The council after community input about what we are going to do with the future of that building and this 10 million dollars would give us The ability to both preserve the building make sure that It doesn't fall down and give us the ability to bring it back Back to life and something that don't be choose So, um That's why it's included. I think it We're reaching the end of the time we have to make a decision about that and I when we have pole brawling tonions In the past they made it very clear something like 80 percent of brawling tonions in the survey we did a couple years ago Wanted to keep the building and wanted us to find a way to return it to something like its historic use This gives us the ability to to make good on those desires Okay, thanks, and then the last thing I just Wanted to ask is you know, some folks have brought up concerns about the growth of the general obligation debt particularly It's it's doubled and over doubled since you took office and it's now Last at 162 million for folks who are concerned about the general obligation debt And where we're at and where we're going. What what would you say to them? Yeah, no, I appreciate that chance. I would I would raise again them with the point I was trying to make with that kind of complicated graph there we We we've been very intentional about uh creating a policy to ensure that we don't borrow too much From the perspective, what is the responsible level of total borrowing from the city and the school district combined And what what movies does looks at that from a couple different perspectives from from what is The amount of borrowing you're doing relative to your revenues and what is the amount of borrowing that you're doing relative to the The total size of your tax base and both metrics the plan Has this within the in the AA rating that which is as high a rating as we've ever had historically And this was just tested again recently moody's did another evaluation Our annual review And they know that both the school district and the city are coming forward with additional borrowing and a reaffirmed our AA rating And uh, essentially complimented the man the debt management. So, um that that increase it is true And we are investing and I see that and I know that I can kind of sound alarming that there's been a doubling in debt what uh the I see it as Because we're being so intentional about it and because it is part of our overall Uh financial I actually think it is a is a part of being physically responsible Is that we are is taking care of the assets and the properties that you're responsible before and we weren't doing that before Now we're okay. Thank you. I want to just defer to mr. Comstocks cards there. Thank you Appreciate your answer. I'm sorry. I couldn't see you there. Jeff. I already we're all a team trying to manage virtual and in person Okay, thank you everybody. It's been nice to be with you Thanks, mayor. Um, now we'll move on our last topic is good group with my and Tina Brian welcome Let's just Looking for a little bit to introduce you. Brian serves as a Vermont house representative for chitin six form um He and rightman's file as well as a community organizer and activist and he co-founded is good Isham street gardening and other optimistic doings and neighborhood organization. So I know that when you presented this to other employees, they suggested you do it's other so You have the floor Brian. Thank you. Thank you. I'm just going to jump right in and get moving along here So can everyone see that? we've got Yes, um, I'm going to present to you tonight about a proposed pilot project that Came up to the work of is good, but first I'm going to talk with you about what is is good So is good means isham street gardening and other optimistic doings so, um We came up with this idea of a neighborhood outreach worker program And it would be a community development program grounded in transformative justice that will cultivate public safety Design by the other storage pop mute yourself. This feels like a legislature right now So a community development program Luckily, that's all you said um community development program Grounded in transformative justice that will cultivate public safety by building relationships improving access to social healthcare and economic resources And growing community competency and manage quality of life issues And this is inspired by lessons learned through the work of his book Um, these are some pictures here of our work. These are a butterfly visiting the butterfly Plants that we put in you can see a neighbor working with the uvm staff person building garden And you can see college students eating kale from a green belt garden while they play basketball um So I'm going to tell you a little bit about what is good is and I may not be able to say a lot about The neighborhood outreach worker program in nine minutes, but I can give you a little Idea of what that is and you can always talk more later. So ighting street Um garden another often you often stick doings is a mutual aid and community building project that has transformed ighting street Over the past 12 years or so from being one of the worst streets in burlington To being a model for how neighbors can improve their quality life You can see here some neighbors gathered with uvm staff at Gardening story you can see in another picture mayor weinberger with department head to the city Coming to visit us in our early years And listening to our vision and to your credit i think you may have left mayor weinberger After this meeting the city repaved our street put in bumpouts had the city arborist meet with us put in trees And has been a partner with us since In in working with us to improve infrastructure in a way that meets Our vision of creating sort of green streets So The roots of this good basically there were three neighbors me my neighbor phil Who is older gentleman and my neighbor sam who was a college student Started gardening the green belts in front of our house uvm staffed about us and told us we could get a grant because we have student-neighbor partnership And we started gardening our rebuilds with neighbors Um over time including others from burlington health and rehab tenants landlords college students artists activists business owners Engaging all these different neighbors in creating a vision Um and here is the we had a visioning event early on and here was our five phase vision Um the five phase action plan we would establish gardens and bumpouts on one side of isan street And phase two would be to do the other side of the street. So you have one street. That's completely guarded We're close to finishing phase three which is extending the gardens down hickock street So that isan street and hickock street From loomis to north union is a guardian walkway And we're laying down the foundation now for phase four where we would connect existing rebuild gardens on boot brush Bustle and charles street with isham and hickock Creating a garden walkway that extends from north union to north willard And we want to work with the city to create gardening on the corner of pomeray park designed by our neighbors And phase five which we are also starting to plant the seeds of Is to work with other community gardens around the city and come up with a plant that we slowly link gardens So that the entire city is a network of garden walkways um And there's more to say about that but I think we'll say exactly for the spring when it's time to organize around phase five so We've had a lot of economic and social support It's uh, we have the residents of isham street Hickock green loomis willard and boot Staff from uvm and staff from berlin health and rehab Students from uvm students and staff from upward bound Students had grants from uvm from the american association of retired people New england grassroots environmental fund and most recently cito grants to do this work So through our We had unintended consequences. We were doing this just because it felt good and made our street feel better Connected it made things more beautiful. But through the organization around gardening and the deeds We improved we not only improved the physical and social environments Crime rates dropped significantly compared to surrounding streets And you can see here some pictures of um, some various neighbors upward bound students with growing To health and rehab residents and you can see the partnership that exists between people from all different backgrounds who live in the neighborhood United in our effort to garden and to do good things with so um in 2014 the bernistan police department wrote a grant of us Um, that would bring the knowledge and skills developed through the uskin program to other neighborhoods struggling with quality of life issues Um, and we didn't get the grant Um, we've continued our work since though with funding from other partners Um, especially cito and uvm And uh through the pandemic the office of student community relations at uvm who's our main Access point to uvm and it's good with support from cito We continue to bring neighbors together in creative ways to improve quality of life and to promote public safety as we face tremendous loss of community 11 neighbors died of relative health and rehab early on in the pandemic and another neighbor committed suicide for our kids herself That april and You can see here We've made these signs sending love to try to send messages to the remaining people who were stuck in the rehab In the rehab center in the early days of the pandemic and you can see here a year later um, we you know As we were kind of beginning to come out from isolation we uh, uh, be the band play um Here on the street corner and your neighbors came out of your portraits and interacted with masks at any distance. So, um Existing mutual aid projects like this could expand it and build new roles and new mutual aid projects formed To address the failure of our society to take care of all people And as the gaps in the social safety that widened we caught those and felt the cracks and we took care of each other So i'm going to talk a little bit more about mutually in burlington These are just uh, this is a snapshot of what I could think of there may be more than I missed So you have a group like this good where we share tools and plans and help each other garden and learn from each other And also help each other remove furniture shovel snow, etc You have the people's kitchen and people's farm stand which has the thousands of people throughout the pandemic in our city You have food not cops who feeds Unhoused people every single day downtown at the parking garage. You have cop watch who has helped people Um, um, sort of whole police accountable In the absence of community control police the racial justice line has a A sort of a bypass support network when people Experience hate crimes and hate incidents that is forming migrant justice Is micro workers helping each other the workers center workers helping each other the old north mv July every single day We get an email of requests of needs and people step up and donate money and items to help their neighbors Um, these groups have grown and filled the gaps during the pandemic And they need to be considered moving forward as we reimagine public safety And uh, I future public safety net Burlington. Um, I viewed as a just transition from a carceral state to regenerative states They're using force against each other. We try to um, take care of each other better And I'm not going to read this whole slide right now because I only have two minutes This is just a snapshot of the current public safety system of parent Burlington This is just this may not be everything, but I mapped this out just for my own memory As a someone who works in many of these pieces And I and when we think about the public the system of care that we have and mutual aid networks We need to integrate them and then we look at what we're not doing yet And that's where the idea of the neighborhood outreach worker program came from because you can't rely We cannot rely on volunteers like myself to um do hours and hours of unpaid labor In the absence of the government take care of the people we need new programs To do the work to do some of this work. And so the neighborhood outreach worker program Highlight project. Um, we're suggesting it starts in our neighborhood. Um But we think this needs to happen in every neighborhood around the city eventually where the neighborhood comes up with an idea for how to Um, create a peer support program where you pay neighbors to do work To improve quality of life and public safety. So in our neighborhood here, um, Those issues would be noise disturbances tardies disorderly conduct fighting fireworks fires littering and vandalism And what we're suggesting is that we hire students and other residents to work in teams As outreach workers in the neighborhood and I have a lot of detail about that in here about one minute left So i'm not going to go through it all today, but i'll like but i'll slick I'll share a slideshow with you and if we uh people could always talk with me more later Um, but i'll say a little bit in the remaining minute that um that we have judeys here That people could read them that were proposing for the team in our neighborhood Wait at the home that team accountable to the community um, and how it fits into a public safety system where um Perhaps neighborhood outreach workers can work with the community support liaisons of the police department to respond to 911 calls either in the moment or afterwards For quality of life issues that would create a new mobile crisis program Um combining EMTs and crisis workers like hoots in oregon to answer level two leaving the police to focus on level one Which is what we really need them for um, and uh And um, I guess i'll just i do i have some numbers of stuff or numbers people So estimated a cost of a program like this um that you can look at on your own time and Mobile funding sources for example a uvm a lot of 100,000 a year for policing But our police aren't doing that because it's overtime work and they're already working to build the gaps of Of their existing duties. So we're suggesting maybe that could be redirected to this kind of a program to take pressure off the police and to um Champlain to provide somebody cito to city to build it in the budget um And these are just two quotes to end with From the two co-founders. So you have bill hammerslock since our first block party in 2010 the culture of the street and above You can see if the change is palpable students say hello to each other. They say hello to us. We talk their sharing going on and um And then a quote for me the key is to inspire someone to be something greater to unlock our optimistic doings Start with just acknowledging people who live around you. They notice what you do too So become a role model invite people in and ask for their ideas and so In closing, um, I won't be talking with anyone in burlington Not just the people in my ward or neighborhood about how we can work together to take care of each other better Thank you. Right and that was great. Um, thank you for doing that. And um, sorry for the time constraint Um, were there any quick questions before we go? I'd like to stop presenting and we could see all my hands at third There are no hands, but I do feel like he just got to the exciting interesting part when we had to cut it. So um Brian, what's the best way for folks to connect to you if they would like to Continue talking to you about that That's what it connect would be to come down to, um Isham street on sunday at 11 a.m. And you can help us plant bulbs We're bringing the whole neighborhood together to plant bolts as a symbol of the extension of The gardens down booth and russell and charles and then we're going to have a pumpkin We're going to decorate pumpkins and have a contest So you come down and see it in person and talk with us and then people can't do that because I know some people Basically cannot come down and do that Or if you're just doing the plans like like your church into the leaven or something, um, you could email me you could Send me a note by passenger pigeon you could Text me I can I can provide my baby. I'll provide an email And we'll start there. So put my phone. I'm already like way behind on messages. So, um You can actually find me really easily if you google me. So like I can't hide So if you really want a problem, uh one question for neighborhoods like uh hours that are quite different from Your war area Where we don't have a lot of college students necessarily living You know, what what does that mean for funding for student neighborhood? partnerships in different areas of the city and also We do have a lot of families and folks with kids in the school district Um, so I wonder is that part of the Um plan at all to connect to the school district I think each neighborhood needs to be empowered to design programs that meet the needs of this neighborhood by the people who live there and I've only lived in This I looked on the street for 22 years and I lived on pine street and king for one year So I never lived in the new north end. So it's not I don't it's not my place To tell the new north end what your program should be. But what I would say is that it should be designed Very start small and then link it together Maybe look at the neighborhood and look at streets and look at what are the natural neighborhoods that exist And people organizing within a few blocks of each other and then linking it would be the way to go And then you can assess um, you know, even though we have a lot of college students When we had a meeting in the park in pomerick park there were Lots of families who lived along that beltway with small children in the school system So we had elders. We had babies. We had college students. We had people my age and I'm not going to say all day I'm like we had a wide range of ages um, so I think You know, you'd be surprised when you talk to your neighbors who lives around you I met a woman who lived here 22 years. So I had it met the other day. Um, so, you know, it's um I would just say it starts on the micro level Street by street and block by block and sort of development by development But um, I think as people assess around the city will work for their neighborhood Then we can talk about the funding But honestly, I think the funding should be coming from the state like I think this um, that we need to look at where state money goes now and um, and try to slowly but surely invest more money and Program like this that will help build Um, and it helps with the social determinants of health ultimately and the whole presentation we can do that By improving the social determinants of health, we will take pressure off the more expensive preventions in society like jails and hospitals And we we can save money by spending more on gardens and on Brian brother and on building relationships with each other Brian, can we squeeze in Steve Hamlin? I'm sorry. You didn't have much time to go through that, but do you have a website where we can see those slides that you had to went through? I don't know website where you can see them, but I will email them to the fba And my understanding is the fba does post things, right? somewhere Yeah, we could post it on um the city's um, mpa cdo website. I would imagine. Yeah, and and you'll notice that As I get the presentation it keeps changing because every time I talk to people and they tell me their ideas I leave it in so you'll know you'll you can watch the progression as it's been presented in different mpa's And I expect that will continue to happen. There's some people I haven't spoken with yet who have a lot to offer On a list and if you want to if you want to spend some time sharing your ideas outside the meeting I'm happy to hear All right. Thank you everybody. Um, great meeting Brian, thank you again and again, um, we're looking for new steering committee members as well who welcome to livia Great job today with introductions but thanks for participating and um If you'd like to become a member of the steering committee, let us know Great resource. So as I mentioned, Brian is the city's website right at the top is mpa is under search And then you can get to information on our mpa or ideas for presentations How you can get those ideas too. So thanks everybody for the time