 I'd like to move to amend an agenda that is the agenda Councillor Buscher with a short reading. Yes, President Wright, I'd like to move to amend and adopt the agenda as follows. Note correct motion for consent agenda item 3.05, communication from Susan Moulton, P.E., senior public works engineer regarding calendar year 2019 sidewalk program contract, authorization to increase contingency to approve adding 54,000 from the FY20 CIP budget to the contingency fund for the calendar year 2019 sidewalk program and to authorize the Director of Public Works to execute amendments to the contract with S.D. Ireland Brother Corp up to a maximum amount of 1.36 million including contingency subject to the city attorney approval per city attorney Blackwood. Note revised written material for consent agenda item 3.26, resolution approval of second agreement with Burlington Business Association regarding downtown parking and transportation management board of finance per assistant city attorney Hovstead. Note revised version of consent agenda item 3.29, resolution, authorization to execute quit claim deed for 61 Tracy Drive, Councillor Wright per city attorney office per Councillor Shannon. Note revised memo for consent agenda item 3.35, resolution upgrades to the city's parking access and revenue control system, add addendum to parks vendor contracts for the finance per assistant city attorney Hovstead. Move from the consent agenda item 3.34, resolution, authorization to initiate proceedings for the laying out of the Shelburne Street roundabout project and to set the time and place for the site visit and hearing to determine necessity and monetary damages if any at the times and places described in the attached citation slash notice board of finance and place it on the September 9th, 2019 regular city council deliberative agenda per city council president Wright. Add to the consent agenda item 3.36, communication, James Sherrod, stormwater program coordinator regarding authorization to execute easements with Vermont gas systems, Inc., 20 convent square and the George parcel 2628 convent square with the motion to approve and recommend that the city council authorize the mayor or his designee to accept easements in substantial conformity with the attached easements for both the George and Vermont gas systems parcels thereby allowing the department of public works to both access and conduct necessary outfall repairs subject to approval by the city attorney's office. Add to the consent agenda item 3.37, communication, dominant cloud president VLCT board of directors regarding VLCT annual business meeting voting delegates and procedure with the motion to designate Mayor Murrow Weinberger as the voting delegate for the city of Burlington at the 2019 annual business meeting. Add to the consent agenda item 3.36, communication, Charlie Baker, CCRPC regarding DPWBBA, partnership agreement, downtown parking and transportation management plan with the action to waive the reading except the communication and place it on file. Add to the consent agenda item 3.39, communication, Jeff Nick, chair, church street marketplace commission regarding appreciation of improving the public parking experience with the motion to waive the reading except the communication and place it on file. Add to the consent agenda item 3.40, communication, Sandy Tebow, executive director Katma regarding supportive of the partnership agreement between BBA and DPW with the motion to waive the reading except the communication and place it on file. Add to the consent agenda item 3.41, correspondence from slash 2, South Burlington regarding ELM zoning amendments with the motion to authorize President Wright to send the attached draft letter to the South Burlington City Council per city attorney Blackwood. Note revised version of this agenda item per city attorney Blackwood. Add to the consent agenda item 3.42, comments to the Burlington City Council 81219 by James Mark Lee with the motion to waive the reading except the communication and place it on file. Note corrected version of the agenda item 4.08, resolution opposing the basing of any nuclear weapon delivery system on the Vermont Air National Guard at Burlington International Airport, Counselors Hanson, Freeman, Tracy Pine per city attorney's office. Note revised version of the agenda item per Counselor Hanson. Note proposed amendments for this agenda item per Counselor Wright. Remove from the consent agenda item 3.33, resolution of appointment of E911 coordinator Counselor Wright and place it on the deliberative agenda as item 4.11 per Counselor Polino. Remove from the consent agenda item 3.26, resolution approval of second amendment with the Burlington Business Association regarding downtown parking and transportation, board of finance and place it on the deliberative agenda as item 4.12 per Counselor Hanson. Remove from the consent agenda item 3.35, resolution upgrades to the city's parking access and revenue control system and addendum to parks, vendor, contracts, board of finance and place it on the deliberative agenda as item 4.13 per Counselor Hanson. And I so move. Councillor Bushier, I think we just set a record for the longest amended agenda ever. Councillor Bushier has moved to amend the agenda as proposed, seconded by Councilor Roof. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of the agenda as amended, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The passage unanimously, we have our agenda. We are now going to move to item number 4.01, which is a report from Parks and Recreation Committee, Commission, excuse me. So thank you for bumping us up. Make sure everybody tonight, pull the microphones right in really close to you, whoever is speaking so that we can all hear you. Okay. Can you hear me? All right. My name is Vincent Pierce and I am as of last week the new chair of the Parks and Rec Commission. Congratulations. I have lived in Burlington since 2011 in Ward 2 and I've been on the commission for three years. So I've just started my second term. So thank you to all of you who have reappointed me. Okay. So thank you to everyone who reappointed me to this position. Last year on the commission, we had myself, Kaitlin Healy, Alex Ferrell, John Besange, Fauna Hurley and Nancy Kaplan and Lara Hale and Elliot Montrall. The final three people have left. The commission, Elliot Montrall, was our student representative. And last week, we welcomed two new commissioners, Andrea Todd, Ben Traverse and Owen Harris, who is a student at Burlington High School, who is our student representative. We meet monthly and met monthly last year, 11 times, taking July off. Typically, we meet on Pine Street, but this last year, we were really trying to make more of an effort to increase the accessibility to our meetings and we ended up meeting at multiple places around the city to try to encourage that, including at multiple parks and recreation facilities, like the Boathouse, down at the waterfront, Letty Arena, Miller Community Center, and the Old North End Community Center. Our report that we submitted to you highlights some of the more pressing issues that we dealt with last year, some of those being e-bikes on the bike path, the City Hall Park renovation, and a few others, and you can see those in the report that we submitted. We have a few on there that have kind of carried into this year that we expect to continue working on, and I suspect we will have a number of other issues that will be brought up that we're excited to be dealing with. One thing I did want to say was just to commend the professionalism of the parks and recreation staff over the last year. There have been some really contentious issues, as all of us know, and I was really impressed by the professionalism that the staff and Cindy showed. It's been really a pleasure working with them in the past year, and I know that I speak on behalf of all of my current and past commissioners when I say that they've been really forthcoming, and it's been great working with them. So I will pass it over to you if you have anything to add. Sure. I just want to again thank our outgoing Laura Hale and Nancy Kaplan. Nancy was on our board for a number of years and served as the chair for, I think, quite a few of those years. I'm not sure in total if maybe she was the chair for probably at least six years, and so just outstanding leadership and looking forward to working with Vincent. One of the things that Nancy and I started doing was meeting monthly prior to the meeting, and that really helped a lot with the communications with the commission, so I look forward to doing that with Vincent. And then our student reps have been really very involved in our commission, and it's been really a pleasure to have them on there, and so we're really looking forward to working with Owen. He's jumped right in. He's involved in every meeting, and it's a great opportunity for the students in our community to get a chance to step on to a commission and find out what that's like to be involved in their local government, and hopefully that's something they take with them wherever they end up as adults. So kudos to whoever got that started having the student reps. But again, the commission's been really great to work with. It's been really great support for our department and advocates along the way, but also good in challenging us when we bring things up that they want to have more discussion on. So that's where we are, and we're looking forward to this coming year ahead, and I don't know if anybody has any questions. All right. Thank you. Questions for either the Councilor Bush. So first of all, I was hoping that Nancy would have been here tonight because I didn't get a chance to go to the last meeting or just thank her for all her years of service. She was on the City Council, and then she transitioned to be on Parks and Rec and did a great job and had to navigate some really difficult times, smoking and all sorts of different issues. So anyways, so I'll have to, she lives in my ward, so I'll have to just walk over and thank her in person, but anyways. But publicly, I want to make sure that people know the dedication of people that step forward. I think people want to get involved and do a great job, but sometimes I think they're surprised at the amount of involvement and the amount of hours that actually it takes to be part of a community. I wanted to compliment you on the format. There are always different formats that departments present to the Council when they do an annual report, but I really found this nice to have the issue and then have the outcome. So I just wanted to thank you for that. And then the last thing I wanted to say is that as you were speaking about your student rep, I was just thinking that probably in Parks and Rec, it would probably make a lot of sense to have even more than one student rep like middle school, I mean because they're the people who use the parks and maybe, and I'm just in high school, I'm just thinking that hopefully there's a way to garner their input of what they find valuable in parks and how they'd like to see parks evolve. So anyways, thank you both. Appreciate the report. Thank you, Councillor Bushard. Councillor Tracy. Also thank you for the report and for your service. Also thank you to Cindy and your team for coming and having a great meeting with neighbors at Pomeroy Park the other day about ways we might address some issues in the park and then make some other improvements to that. So really appreciated that. I was recently down on the waterfront in the new park, which is very nice and I noticed that a couple elements of the marina that were promised as part of the public improvements are not yet open, meaning the public bathrooms that are supposed to be there as well as the public promenade and I'm wondering if you can give folks an idea as to when we might expect those to be open. Is it this season, is it next season, any updates would be helpful? Sure, actually we just had a meeting this afternoon, so perfect timing. So we got an update on that. So right now there is one portolette down there that's over by the marina offices that is available. The owners of the marina noted that if anybody asks, because people have been coming down, they're pointing them there. They're anticipating end of September that the building will be done, that will house the public restrooms. Okay, and then the public promenade piece, because that seemed like a really nice aspect of that design that made it a little bit more accessible to the public. I'll have to get back to you on that one. We didn't discuss that one at the meeting. The restrooms came up, but not the promenade. Okay, thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you, Councillor Tracy. Another Councillor Zhang. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you for the report and I will be trying to be very respectful and say what I want to say very respectfully, but also just know that it's not an attack or judgment or anything, but I really do value and appreciate the hard work you do every single day. One thing that I wanted to mention was also members of the commission. Some of them, such as Pierce, Harley, Hurley, I believe, Kaplan, their attendance on the meetings are perfect. And you included all of those in the report, perfect attendance. And I think it's important to highlight there are four almost never missed a meeting. I think that's great. Thank you for your service. The second thing that I wanted to talk about is about the issue about the e-bike in the greenway. So it seems that the outcome of your decision would be to put 15 miles per hour in certain places and 10 miles in some places. But I wanted to ask about how do you enforce if you see people going over 20 or 25, what will be the enforcement like? That's my first question. At this point, we're not planning any strict enforcement down there. Generally, it's so it's one that we have that speed limit. We're not looking to put officers down on the waterfront to enforce. The nice part about it is that, especially with e-bikes, a lot of them have monitors and we're hoping that people will look to see what speed they're going at, though I was thinking about myself the other day when I was racing to work. I do not have an e-bike, but it was a pretty good clip because I was running late and I thought to myself, I wonder how fast I'm going, knowing what our rules are. So really, as we talked about at the commission meeting, the concerns were on speed. And it's really not our e-bikes that are going fast out there. It's our folks on the road bikes that are trying to get in a fitness ride. And so how are we going to stop those that are out there getting a fitness ride? At this point, we're not planning on any sort of strict enforcement of it and hoping people will just follow that general guidelines for us as far as the 15 and the 10. If I may add, I know one thing that we discussed at the meeting, kind of piggybacking on what she mentioned was a lot of times people don't realize how fast they're going. So having kind of a suggested speed limit, there isn't a ton of signage down there. So any kind of sign catches someone's attention and might make them think twice about, OK, what am I doing? How fast am I going? And hopefully kind of fix that issue. Yeah, I mean, I think creating policies or ordinances, I think enforcing them, that's really what we need to focus on as well. I think it will be important maybe next year when you do a presentation to come with, this is what happened and these are the implementation that we put forward, maybe to just give people an idea. Because what we want is everyone to be safe and also feel safe. The second question that I had was specific to the scholarship that you are given. And I feel in this report you highlighted it's a robust. It's a big and you want to continue doing it. But I was just wondering if you have any data in terms of how many people are utilizing the services of the recreation department and also of those services, how many are residents, how many are not residents, and what are the numbers or percentage in terms of scholarship that are given? If you have any idea, it looks like you have a... I don't have all the numbers with me, but certainly something we can get to, because it's data that we've been reporting out on in our BTV stat reports. Yeah, so maybe next time too, it will be imperative to just include those because not only for us, but also for the community, it will be amazing. And lastly, I think I'll be passing on this one. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Jang. Anyone else for the chair of the commission or the director? Hearing none, oh. I just wanted to give a shout out to Laurie Oldberg who the reason that commission report is as it is, I wasn't really sure how is the commission report supposed to look like? And so Laurie sent me a resolution done in 2011 that said how you're supposed to write those reports. So thank you, Laurie, for helping us out in that. Good job, Laurie Oldberg. Thank you. And thank you, Director White. And thank you, Commissioner Pierce for your service. Appreciate it. Thank you. Good job. I'm going to recess this meeting of the city council to convene for the mayor to convene the city council with mayor presiding. Mr. Mayor, I think at 728. Great, thank you, President Wright. I will convene the city council with mayor presiding at 729 by my clock. And the first item on the agenda is the agenda. I welcome motion. Move to approve the agenda. Thank you, President Wright. Is there a second? Seconded by Councilor Jang. Discussion, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? We have an agenda. The next item is the consent agenda. I welcome motion to adopt the consent agenda. Thank you, Councilor Powell. Seconded by President Wright. Any discussion about the consent agenda? All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries unanimously. And that brings us to the two appointments that we have for tonight. So the first one is item 3.01. This is a appointment to the design advisory board for the term expiring June 30th, 2020. I would welcome the floor is open for any nominations. Councilor Roof. I'd like to nominate Eric Morrow, please. Excellent. Are there any additional nominations? Are there any additional nominations? Okay. I'm going to close the floor nominations. Is Eric Morrow here? Would he like to address the Council? Are any of the other applicants here? I'd like to speak to the Council. Welcome. Hello. My name is Bodu Set. I'm one of the applicants for the design advisory board. My name is Bodu Set. I'm one of the applicants for the design advisory board. I'm just here because I'm very passionate about the position. And I hope that you'll consider me for it. I passed my application along to Lori Olberg. So yeah, I'm not really sure how this works just yet, but yeah, thank you. Great. Thank you, Bo. And thank you for your interest in the position. I will, before closing the floor to nominations, just ask one more time. Seeing none, no additional nominations. We will ask for a show of hands, all those in favor of appointing Eric Morrow to the design advisory board, please raise your hand. Okay, congratulations, Eric. Thank you for, you know, Eric is someone who has been very involved in city issues for some time. It's exciting to have him taking on this new role. Congratulations, Bo. Thank you for your interest in your application. We are fortunate as a city to have multiple applications for almost every open board and commission seat. And very frequently, people are not appointed on there first time, but we do invite you to stay involved and consider applying again. Thank you for your interest. That brings us to 3.02, the development review board alternate position. This is also for term expiring on June 30th, 2020. Again, the floor is open for nominations. Councilor Busher. I'd like to nominate Sean McKenzie. Thank you, Councilor Busher. Are there any additional nominations? Are there any additional nominations? Are there any applicants who would like to, before we close the nominations, would like to speak to the board? Okay, we, again, I'll ask the councilor are there any additional nominations for the DAB, DRB alternate position? Seeing none, we'll close the floor to nominations and ask for a show of hands. Everyone in favor of appointing Sean McKenzie to the DRB alternate position, please raise your hand. Okay, excellent. Congratulations, Sean. Thank you for your interest. I want to say to the two other people who applied, thank you as well. Just repeat my encouragement to consider applying again in the future. These positions come up frequently and it is quite uncommon for people to be appointed on their first application. With that, President Wright, with no objection, we are adjourned as a city council mayor residing at 7.33 p.m. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I will now reconvene the regular meeting of the city council at 7.33. And we'll move back to the regular agenda. And item number two is the public forum. And so we'll open the public forum and I have a lot of people signed up. You'll have two minutes this evening to make your points to us. One other issue you want to talk to us about, all we ask will listen intently to your points of view respectfully and all we ask in return is that you are respectful in your comments and that there's no personalized comments but we certainly want to hear your passion on whatever issue you want to tell us about. With that, we'll open the public forum up and start with Bernie Carver to be followed by Lucy Gluck. Good evening, Mr. Carver, welcome. I live in Burlington and I recently read a book that I recommend to all of you if you haven't read it. It's called The Doomsday Machine, a confession of a nuclear war planner by Daniel Ellsberg. In the book, Mr. Ellsberg states that the Pentagon and other scientists have known since the mid 1980s that the nuclear war happened and almost certainly result in a nuclear winter and extinction of our species within a couple years and perhaps all life on earth. Most of the rest of the world has not done anything about that but followed stable and unstable leaders down the path of destruction, an exception being our brave state. If you read the resolution, we've stated numerous times that we don't want to play this game. The F-35 is a new aspect of this madness called tactical nuclear weapon and it's going to make nuclear war much more likely in various parts of the world. And the problem is that these planes don't work very well. Two of them have crashed recently or more recently than 737 Maxes. There are about twice as many 737 Maxes. The Pentagon says, oh, don't worry, they're okay, but we're supposed to welcome these planes over our city. This has kind of turned the role of the Defense Department on its head, in my opinion. They're supposed to protect us and these planes are not gonna protect us, they're gonna make our skies unsafe, our city unsafe, harm children and people that are trying to concentrate on complex tasks. Students, for example, the elderly who might be losing their hearing like me and anyway, I just wanna say the sound of freedom to me is elected representatives carrying out the wishes of their constituents. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kyver. Lucy Gluck is up next to be followed by Jim Sullivan. Good evening, Ms. Gluck, welcome. Thank you, I am Lucy Gluck, I live in the Old North End on Blodgett Street and I grew up in South Burlington right near the airport. So I mostly wanna say, I know we're all thinking about safety and thinking about how much we love Vermont and my questions tonight because I really want you to pass this resolution. I think when you do, hopefully, we'll have some good support for it tonight. You'll be joining the Vermont State Senate and Winnowskis City Council and South Burlington City Council saying we don't want any nuclear-capable weapons in the state. The issue about capability is you could say it's not gonna happen, it'll never happen. Unfortunately, it has happened before and it's classified information and we wouldn't know. So the fact that it's designed to carry nuclear weapons, the F-35, makes us, even without the nukes, it makes us a target, which is pretty frightening. But if the higher-ups decided that's what this plane needs to do, that's how they're gonna assign it and none of us, including all of you, would know that. And so I think at the time that Senator Leahy and Bernie Sanders decided that this was the right thing in terms of jobs and supporting our air guard, which we all believe in as well, they didn't understand that the nuclear capability was right on the front burner and now they know that and hopefully they're thinking about that. But you all can take the lead and I guess I would just ask you to think, what is it that we as citizens are responsible for in this moment and you as our caring and dedicated leaders, I'd really, really urge you to look at the details of the resolution, I'm sure you have, and to please pass it tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Clark. Jim Sullivan is up next to be followed by, please hold down the, no applause, please. Jim Sullivan, thank you. Good evening, welcome, followed by James Lees. Thanks, my name's Jim Sullivan, I'm a resident of the city of Burlington as well as a research analyst at the UVM Transportation Research Center. I guess I'm gonna change gears a little bit and just express my support and enthusiasm for continuing the FY20 agreement that the partnership that we've been able to establish with the help of the Burlington Business Association and helping the city advance its goals for transportation and parking in the downtown area. It's not only turned into an agreement that I think is helping the city get further into understanding what's happening in the downtown area with parking and how we can make the best decisions moving forward, but we've been lucky enough to be able to bring some budding transportation engineers into the mix and have them actually get some real world experience in turning that into more of a richer partnership with UVM and the city. Just wanted to say thanks and express my support. Thank you, Mr. Sullivan. James Lees is up next to be followed by Laurie Larson. Good evening, Mr. Lees, welcome. Good evening. So the best way to support our Vermont National Guard Airmen is to vote yes on the resolution to oppose the basing of nuclear bomb delivery vehicles at Burlington's airport. Here's why. The airport is in a city and the basing in a city would put our Vermont airmen in violation of the most basic rules of military law that prohibit wantonly harming or endangering civilians. Tens of thousands of civilians in cities and towns around the Burlington airport would become human shields for the nuclear bomb delivery vehicles. That would be a war crime. And that's not good for our airmen. And it would turn our civilian airport into a legitimate target for Russian and Chinese nuclear missiles. All the airport passengers and everyone living or working in the cities and towns surrounding the airport would be endangered. The basing of nuclear bomb delivery vehicles in any city violates the military law principle that they call distinction. Under military law, such nuclear bomb delivery vehicles must be based remote from populated areas. The decision to base nuclear bombers amidst three Vermont cities and four towns must be aborted under military law. The best way to support our Vermont airmen and to keep them properly within the law is for this council to vote yes on the resolution. Thank you very much. Laurie Larson is up next. Katie and Ms. Larson, welcome. I am Laurie Larson. I live in the Old North Inn. Make sure to have the microphone right close to you and talk loud. Thank you. So this is about the F-35, that massive weapons system designed to carry nuclear bombs, that huge contributor to climate change, that bulldozer of affordable housing, that infinite tax liability for Burlington residents needing to pay for sound mitigation for folks whose homes are no longer suitable for human residents, that welfare stream for defense contractors, that classic example of environmental racism, making the frontline communities where the highest percentage of people of color in Vermont live into a sacrifice zone, that robber of our unmolested peace that will retraumatize the traumatized and deafen the children while pushing up the cortisol levels of their grandparents. That specter of fear that is the reason for the Burlington airport's rating as a terrorist target catapulting to ground zero. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, our only hope lies in the ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarism. And he was silenced after he started connecting the dots between what poor people were losing and what rich warmongers were gaining. This is about the decision to support nuclear war or not. This is about the targeted individuals and families having the last image of their loved ones burned into their retinas before they vaporized to ash leaving only charred shadows on the stones. Hiroshima and Nagasaki never again. Dr. Helen Caldecott warned of the nuclear threat. The end of the world could still come next year. Please carry on Vermont's proud tradition of speaking out against nuclear war and terrorism. Pass this resolution. Thank you. Thank you. Up next is Julie Masuga to be followed by Gene Kennedy. I'm giving a statement on behalf of Roseanne Greco who could not be here tonight. My name is Roseanne Greco. I served on active duty in the Air Force for 30 years and retired as a full colonel. I was an intelligence officer and I specialized in nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons targeting. I was also a nuclear arms control negotiator. I don't know how to adequately convey the magnitude of the issue before us today. I've dealt with and planned for nuclear war for most of my career. That was my job. But I find in talking about nuclear weapons much less about nuclear war that people either don't believe it or they are too frightened by it to even talk about it. So thank you for talking about it. Ignoring this issue or pretending it can't happen is dangerously foolhardy. Admittedly, the prospect of having an all out nuclear war is remote but it is still a possibility. And should that happen, we face planetary annihilation. The other stark reality is that we are closer to nuclear war than we have been in the past 30 years. This is because of a reinvigorated push to modernize our nuclear weapons and make them more usable. The abrogation of nuclear weapons treaties, the increase in number of nuclear countries and increasing world tensions. Having the newest nuclear weapons system, the F-35 in Vermont has enormous implications and make no mistake, the F-35 is a nuclear weapons system. The Secretary of Defense announced that publicly in his 2018 nuclear posture review. Regardless of the assurances you may hear, I can share with you from my background in nuclear targeting that our enemies will assume that all new F-35s are nuclear weapons delivery systems and that as a result, all F-35 bases will be targeted. From a targeting's perspective, we are the target. The only thing that matters is what the enemy thinks. The other unimaginable aspect of having the F-35 base here is the possibility that the Vermont Air National Guard could one day be called upon to drop its nuclear payload on other parts of the world or even one day could become an instrument for igniting a worldwide holocaust. I cannot fathom how Vermonters would stomach that possibility. Any other assignment for the Vermont Air Guard is better than this. Thank you. Is it Masuga? Yes, thank you. Jean Kennedy is up next, we followed by Will Hurd. Good evening, Ms. Kennedy. Welcome. Thank you. Very glad to be here and to follow such an incredibly passionate of remarks. We just were lucky enough to hear. I do have some credentials to speak on this subject. I am a recipient of the Physicians for Social Responsibility Annual Peace Award, given to me by Helen Caldecott. I have toiled in this particular vineyard for decades. Some of you may know or may not know that Alan Arkin spent 10 years trying to uncover from the government, under the Freedom of Information Act, the location of nuclear weapons, nuclear waste dumps, and problem areas in the United States took him 10 years to do that under the Freedom of Information Act. There are many dangers that I want to speak about. I also know of accidents that have happened that have been kept from the public. As anyone who has worked on this issue knows that. For instance, there was a plane crash in North Carolina more than a decade ago and this carried nuclear bombs on this and it had five fail-safe devices. Four of them failed. The fifth one held. This was never told to the American people and the Carolinas would not exist had the fifth one not held. I also know that there's trouble in Portsmouth right now in the port in Portsmouth, New Hampshire from the Naval base that was there for years and Alan Arkin spent 10 years finding out that information of where the nuclear waste dumps and problems are in the United States and I have two children who are professors at the University of New Hampshire and Portsmouth is in big trouble. They have very high rates of cancer in children and they have ground pollution and no one actually knows how to get rid of this stuff. It will last far longer than probably we can imagine. So my last thought is that Vermont has always been for me the real bastion of values that we treasure in this country and I think it's up to us to have responsibility for caring for ourselves and our citizens. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Kennedy. Will Hurd is up next to be followed by Marguerite Edelman. Good evening, welcome. Hello, I'm Will Hurd. I live on Green Street. I've been a Burlington resident since 1992. I'm the one who's been calling and talking to you or leaving messages on your voicemail and thankfully I've gotten to speak to quite a few of you. I would like the Burlington City Council to pass a climate emergency declaration and what this is is this is something that 19 other cities have passed in the US and they're declaring that they're extremely worried about the future consequences of climate change to our biodiversity, to our livelihoods, to our children and what this climate emergency declaration would do it does several things. One is it just tells everybody that we are taking this issue seriously as a city and hopefully other cities will hear this and they will themselves declare a climate emergency. The other thing is it will also lay the groundwork for the city of Burlington to take further action on climate change. And another thing that it does is that it lets the people of Burlington voice their worries about climate change. There's a lot of people now they don't wanna have children because they're worried about climate change. They feel climate anxiety is like a new thing and I know that people in Burlington have this. So it gives a chance for the people of Burlington to just stand up and declare that they're very concerned and wanna take action about climate change. Bill McKibbin was on VPR the other day. He said that Burlington has warmed more than most other parts of the United States. So I hope you will consider this and in the future pass a climate emergency declaration. Thank you. Thank you very much. Marguerite Adelman is up next to be followed by Jackie Schultz. Good evening and welcome. Hi, my name is Marguerite Adelman. I'm a Winooski resident. So I'm your neighbor and the decisions that you make related to the F-35 tonight will affect me and my community. I worked on the Winooski resolution banning nuclear weapons in Vermont and I would hope tonight that the Burlington city council will join that group in denouncing nuclear weapons here in Vermont. I'm opposed for many, many reasons. Last year, as a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, we bought two Hibakasha, atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki to speak to high school students here in Chittenden County and at two universities. And the reception that they got was standing room only. The students were extremely moved because our history books don't really give them much information about what the effects of a nuclear war are. Those of us who are older, remember, duck and cover, but there haven't been many movies out recently like the day after or some of the other ones that really gave a graphic sense of what we're really dealing with when we talk about equipping F-35s in largely residential areas. In fact, Winooski is considered the most densely populated area in all of New England that we should really be concerned about bringing these to a civilian airport. We should be concerned about the noise. I'm partially deaf from birth and I expect my hearing is not going to get better over the next few years if the F-35s arrive. So I would definitely encourage everyone here tonight to vote for the resolution and to not allow nuclear weapons to come to Vermont. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Adelman. Jackie Schultz is up next to be followed by Marilyn Alex. Good evening, Ms. Schultz. Welcome. Thank you for an opportunity to speak. Can you hear me? Pull the microphone just down a little bit so there you go. I don't want to spit on it. Okay, let's see. I want to say that you are our first level of democracy. Our opinions should be so special to you when I think they are. And I think you are hearing great pleas tonight and I'm adding my voice to it. I'm very disappointed in our elected delegation to Washington in not protecting us more and some of the elected people in the state level and administrators who have not been sensitive to our feeling about the inappropriateness of the F-35 in our midst. And when I learned, well, I have to say first, I drive Heartbreak Parkway is what I go calling where all the affordable houses have been demolished. And I hope you will correct my impression, but I've heard that there have been bids let for commercial development of that property. The body isn't even cold. And I also think that insulating our houses on grants that may happen in two or three years, I wonder what happens between now and those two or three years. But as far as the nuclear possibility is like salt on the wound, really like salt on the wound, it's unthinkable. And I think that it's a complete militarization of our city and our state. And I'm totally against it. And I hope that you all are too. You are responsible for us at the local level for our very hearts and souls that we do not want this and we do not need this and we've had an estimate. We have comments that prove we mustn't have it. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Michelle. Marilyn Alex, to be followed by Andrew Simon. Good evening, welcome. Good evening, thank you. My name is Marilyn Alex. I currently live in Colchester on College Parkway, which is basically in the airport's backyard. I hear the air noise now from the F16s were here. I'm an eighth generation Vermonter. I grew up in Vermont. I grew up in South Burlington, listening to the airport traffic without any problem. Later years as a young adult, I moved out west and lived in Fallon, Nevada. I don't know if any of you are familiar with Fallon, Nevada, but there's a very large naval air station located there. The government has spent millions, if not billions of dollars on that area. And it has caused pods of cancer and you don't hear much about that area anymore, but I know that training still continues out there because they have a desert. It's a very large desert. And that's where, if you have to have not in my backyard, that's where the F-35 should be or in Utah or in some other arid place. We don't need any nuclear weapons or delivery systems in Vermont. I don't know how many of you chose to come to Vermont? Being a native remonter, I'm so proud of Vermont, but I'm so sad. I'm so sad to see what the possibility of things happening in our state. Why would you want to come to Vermont knowing that there were nuclear possibilities here and becoming a target? Our environment is critical to what Vermont stands for, for our health and well-being, for if not us, for our children and grandchildren. Please vote in favor of the resolution. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you, Ms. Alex. Andrew Simon is up next to be followed by Kara Montague. Good evening, Mr. Simon, and welcome. Good evening, President Wright. Thank you. I'm here to speak in favor of Councilor Hanson's resolution on nuclear basing at the airport. If you've been to a Passover Seder, you know that there's a moment in the traditional service where around the word dianoo, that's based around the word dianoo, dianoo means enough. The leader says if God had only brought the Hebrews out of bondage in Egypt, that would have been enough. And everyone at the table responds loudly, dianoo. This issue of the F-35 basing brings this traditional refrain to mind in a different way for me. If we knew only that children would be physically harmed and cognitively impaired by the noise of these jets, that would be enough to oppose their basing in our city. Enough, dianoo. If we knew only that 3,000 middle-class families would have their homes rendered unlivable or lose value in their homes or lose their homes entirely, that would be enough. Dianoo. If we knew only that the F-35 was a seriously flawed aircraft with a higher crash risk and toxic chemicals in the fuselage that create poison gas when burned, that would be enough. If we knew only that paradoxically, the Air National Guard will most likely lose jobs because of this new mission, that might be enough. And now we learn that the F-35 is an integral part of the new recklessly aggressive US nuclear posture that puts Burlington and the entire world at the mercy of a temperamental and narcissistic president. Is this not finally enough? Dianoo, dianoo, enough. Please vote yes on this resolution and send an unignorable message to everyone from our congressional delegation, the Air Force and our mayor, that we don't want this based here or anywhere. And with that, Mr. Simon Dianoo. Thank you. Kara Montague is up next to be followed by Charlie Messing. Good evening, welcome. Good evening. I say Kara Montague. I live in Winooski. I spoke here about a month ago. I'm gonna try and get through my words a little bit easier than last time. What would I like to say? I would like to thank the city council for approving a resolution last year, requesting the cancellation of the basing of the F-35s at the Burlington airport. I ask you to continue to fight for the majority of voters in Winooski, South Burlington and Burlington who do not want these plans at the airport. I continue to come to you with hope that you will continue to choose peace over war and quiet skies instead of the deafening roar of the nuclear capable F-35s. I'm taking the stance against the nuclear capable F-35s, not because it is easy, but because it is the right thing to do. I know that powerful people in moneyed interests have pushed to bring the F-35s to the Burlington airport. I also know that the majority of voters in Winooski have repeatedly said that they do not want them flying over their homes. And I know that they have lost heart that people will stand up to defend their health and safety. But I come to you because I have hope that you will do the right thing and approve this anti-nuclear bomber resolution. Excuse me. I know that given the way the basing decision was made that it will take work and effort and struggle to get the F-35s out of the airport, but I take courage from the facts. We are the majority. We know that the F-35s are too loud, too destructive and too harmful to our environment. And our families to have a home in Vermont. And I take courage from the democratic process in Vermont, where we regularly hold town meetings and welcome active participation. I value our communities, our environment, and our people. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Montague. Charlie Messing is up next. Be followed by Jean Hopkins. Mr. Messing, welcome. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. It's wonderful to see everybody. And I'm fully in support of the F-35, and I'm going to talk about something else. This is gonna be like a commercial in the middle of a show. It's totally irrelevant. But if I don't do this, no one else will. This is a picture of the Portland Lou. This is a 3D. I have, this is a 3D model. This is, I have the invoice. I have promo. I have a 3D model. This is what is being considered for the new park as our solution to the restroom problem. I know nuclear destruction is a lot more important than restrooms, and I feel bad about even having to say this, but I did this last year, and then I heard it brought up again. This thing weighs 2,000 pounds, and it costs $150,000. It is a toilet that costs $150,000. We need composting toilets, which only cost $1,000 each. We could use 10 of them. We could have a structure around it. It wouldn't even go into the lake. And we would, even with the structure and the labor, we would save $120,000. There's no way that one toilet is the solution for our restroom problem, our public restroom problem. So I have to say that because this should never be heard from again. The Portland Lou is not for us. And the F-35 is not for us. I really feel strongly about it. Strong enough to wear a red shirt, but I couldn't carry a sign in this at the same time. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Messing. Good timing. Jean Hopkins is up next. We follow by Stan Hills. Good evening, Ms. Hopkins. Welcome. Good evening. I'm Jean, and I live on the third floor of an apartment building up near the university. And when the F-35s flew off, there were four of them. There was just so much vibration within my body. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. And I said, I don't want this happening. But back to the resolution and back to Charlie Messing's idea, maybe the F-35s could become homeless for our homeless and toilets for where we need them. We've got to think of something else to do with them. Anyways, basically and simply, I'm here to say that thinking of the future for our children and I want it to be a nuclear-free future for them. Please pass this resolution tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Hopkins. Stan Hills is up next to be followed by Jennifer Decker. Good evening, Mr. Hills. Welcome. Hello, counselors, fellow Burlingtonians. My name's Stan Hills. I live here in Burlington. And I'm here to speak in favor of the resolution that four of you are co-sponsoring and hopefully all of you will co-sponsor before the night is over. 11 days ago on August 1st, President Trump, it pains me to call him President, unilaterally withdrew the United States from the Intermediate Nuclear Treaty. This is changing this as we speak. A new arms race has already started, making the world a much more dangerous place. And in my view, our nation is being run by madmen and we cannot and should not become complicitous. In 11 short days, the United States military has declared it will begin to develop new nuclear weapons and is already beginning plans to deploy them in Asia and in Europe. This is dangerous development which Russia and China have already said they would match. A new arms race is upon us. Let's not sugarcoat this. The F-35 is an intermediate weapons system. It doesn't have a very long range. From Burlington, it's basically tactically useless, but they are going to be deployed in Poland, Romania, and around China soon. In 2020, the Department of Defense plans to start making them nuclear capable. The famous, should I say, infamous doomsday clock which we all grew up with is now set at two minutes to midnight. It's the first time since 1953 that it's been that close. And last time in 1953, people were doing duck and cover drills. Scrapping the intermediate treaty means that there will be less time to think about and react to nuclear weapons. It makes the world a much more dangerous place. The B61-12 missile that will be carried by the F-35s will have four different settings from 0.3 to 50 kilotons. Hiroshima bomb was 15 kilotons. I guess I'm out of time, but do the right thing and pass this resolution. Cosponsor it and stand up for the citizens of Burlington and let Burlington and Vermont lead in the next nuclear freeze. Thank you, Mr. Hills. Jennifer Decker is up next to be followed by Kai Minkl-Force. Good evening, welcome. Hello, I was listening to the radio and heard the National Guard spokesman say that he understood citizen concerns. And I could tell it was a platitude because there was actually no response to the concerns that citizens have raised. So I too come to speak in support of the resolution banning the basing of nuclear capable planes here. Russia will no doubt target any and all nuclear delivery systems, whether or not any bombs are actually here. I can't remember if this point has been raised yet tonight, but it's a single-seater fighter. At what point in history has it ever before happened that a single individual is in charge of making a decision so disastrous to life on Earth? Frankly, we already know bombs were here in the past. A one megaton bomb detonated over or near the airport would kill 50 to 75,000 people and leave another 50,000 with severe injuries and burns, not to mention radiation exposure. It would destroy thousands of buildings and severely damage thousands more. The National Guard's mission is to support the pilots and F-35 aircraft and their ability to fly stealthily, penetrate enemy airspace undetected in a first strike or respond to an enemy's first strike. Is there any doubt with a mission like this that we would not be targeted? Our government has lied to us in the past about Iraq, about Vietnam, and our current president has had 12,000 lies or false statements documented. Can we really trust our fate and security to someone who left the Intermediate Nuclear Weapons Treaty? Personally, I like living in Vermont and I don't want it to be a nuclear target. Please vote for this resolution. Thank you, Ms. Decker. Kai McKell-Forley is up next. Good evening and welcome. Good evening, everyone. I had a remarks plan, but I actually saw something else in the agenda, so I'm gonna speak to two things. I'll try and split it roughly in half. First, I'm here to offer my support for the resolution regarding the nuclear delivery systems at the airport. I have a little credibility. I'm a former airline jet captain and all the issues that people have raised tonight. I feel for the noise, the pollution, everything that voters have brought to you in the past and now the most recent developments, the fact that this aircraft figures prominently in the nation's nuclear triad and also that we're gonna be on the hook for paying for mitigation efforts for noise. That hasn't been raised yet. That's my thing about the F-35. Now I'm just gonna speak real quickly to something on the consent agenda regarding CSWD and the city's contract to have Casella manage the city's biosolids, a.k.a. sewage sludge. I don't know how educated folks on the board are, but if you're not familiar, the state of Maine recently discovered that PFAS has been found in sewage sludge that's been spread all over farm fields and has contaminated, God knows how many acres in the state of Maine. The landfill in West Lebanon, New Hampshire has been studied and it's been discovered that the majority of the PFAS that passes through that landfill and ends up in the leachate ends up in, or I should say, that ends up in sludge. That sludge is then deposited on land and here in Chittenden County and in Burlington in particular, we send all of our sludge thanks to that contract with Casella to a poor community in upstate New York and I just think you need to be aware of the liability regarding PFAS and sending our toxic materials out of state. So I urge you to oppose that motion. Thank you very much. Charles Simpson is up next to be followed by Chanak Khan. Good evening, Mr. Simpson, welcome. Thank you very much. I came tonight wondering why the city doesn't have a public philosopher. And then I realized we do. I think this resolution on the F-35 is wonderfully detailed, historically accurate, very well researched, very convincing and I think that the information that's been presented by the public tonight has been eloquent, has risen to the level of public philosophy. And I would only add that if we had a public philosopher officially designated, that individual might say, well, let's begin with the most basic question. What does it mean to be human? And I think we'd have to say to be human is a condition in which adults care for their children, adults care for the children of the entire community. And we know from the F-35 that this is a squandering of the future for our children, for their higher, this $1.4 trillion program, the most expensive in all of military history is a squandering of the healthcare, the housing, the higher education, the mental health, the cognitive development of our children. And so we know this is inconsistent with some of the most basic ideas about what it means to be human. So I just wanna thank the sponsors of this resolution and I would urge you all to vote for it. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Janet Kahn is up next to be followed by Joanne Hunt. Good evening, Ms. Kahn. Welcome. Is that working? Is that working? They should both be. Good, thank you. So my name is Janet Kahn. I live at 240 Maple Street here in Burlington. Well, you will need to keep the microphone pulled very close to you and speak loud. You? Okay, so I am here also to speak in favor of the resolution and really to speak against the decision to ever even have considered bringing the F-35s here. So I'm looking around at you because you have the, I just wanna make sure that we're not operating as though we think this is already a done deal. This is still a very much alive decision. The decision to accept the F-35s was made without obviously sufficient information because we didn't, for instance, know that they were gonna be nuclear capable. We did not, for instance, know really what the decibel level was going to be. So I'm hoping that you are really hearing what people are saying and sitting there knowing that you can make whatever decision makes sense to you as you listen to this all. I wanna say two things, at least. One is that the notion that we would accept that the planes will arrive two years before the remediation for the additional 2,600 homes even begins is like a parody of government. I mean, you expect to see this on some sitcom or something. It's not something you really expect to see in your own government, in your own town. The remediation itself is kind of a ridiculous idea because it turns houses into semi bunkers by insulating them so much and it doesn't put domes over the yards. Do we tell the kids not to go out and play in the yards? I mean, it's not clear what the remediation really can accomplish in terms of safety for the kids. But the notion that we would accept the planes here years before we begin to create the conditions under which we've been told it would be safe, it's nuts. It's just hard for me to believe. So take that into account that you could at least say we're not taking them until we've taken care of everybody with our tax dollars which you should also consider as you plan to go to 100% assessment. I hope we will be calculating by what margin all our property values are going down. Thank you, Ms. Kahn. Thank you, Ms. Kahn. Joanne Hunt is up next to be followed by Genevieve Jacobs. Good evening, Ms. Hunt. Hi, I'm Joanne Hunt. I live in Burlington. I'm a nurse practitioner in Colchester. I really appreciate that you counselors are putting forth this recommendation. Sitting here and I may cry because on the way here I was listening to the news about the recent shootings, about the Endangered Species Act being gutted, about withdrawing from the missile bill and it stuns me that we are accepting the F-35 in this community. We often these days can't seem to get ourselves to make the right decision or to take something back and to say maybe we need to rethink this, maybe we were wrong. There are so many times in past history and in recent history where we now look back and think what were we thinking? And I would say that to you now, particularly regarding nuclear capabilities. After listening to everybody and what they're saying tonight, I just can't imagine how you would not support this. There are no reasons for it. And it's an opportunity for us to do the right thing. There are so many things right now where we just keep saying, why can't we just do the common sense thing? Well, we can. You can do that tonight. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Hunt. Genevieve Jacobs is up next to be followed by Lori Mace. Good evening, welcome. Thank you. And thank you for considering this proposal tonight. I'm in favor of the proposal. I'd like to share with you, I live in Burlington by the way. You need to keep the microphone really close to you and talk loud. All right. I would like to share with you a passage from Lewis Thomas, wonderful author, doctor, thinker, humanitarian. And I'm taking this from an essay that he wrote. So it's a little out of context, but here we go. The man on television, Sunday, midday, middle-aged and solid, nice looking chap, all the facts at his fingertips, more dependable looking than the high school principals, is talking about civilian defense, his responsibility in Washington. It can make an enormous difference, he is saying. Instead of the outright death of 80 million American citizens in 20 minutes, he says we can, by careful planning and practice, get that number down to only 40 million, maybe even 20. I'm gonna skip ahead here to the end of the essay, and this is the last essay that Dr. Lewis Thomas wrote before he died. If I were a young man of 16 or 17, and had to listen to that or read things like that, I would want to give up listening and reading. I would begin thinking up new kinds of sounds different from any music heard before, and I would be twisting and turning to rid myself of human language. The least we can do is give a resounding confirmation to our young people that we do care, and that we are doing the best we can to prevent this kind of madness. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Jacobs. Laurie Nace, to be followed by Bryn Martin. Good evening, and welcome. Good evening. Thank you for your time and listening to our comments. I'm here to talk about four items, 4.07 about the carbon offset. Can make sure the microphone is really close. Okay. I oppose 4.07 carbon offsets, selling our carbon offsets to other communities. I think it discourages these communities from coming up. It discourages other communities from doing their own work to offset carbon. I'm also here to speak up about the F-35s, but before that, 4.12 and 4.13, the parking items. I oppose these. I think we're going in the wrong direction if we're building more parking infrastructure rather than investing in public transportation. And additionally, there's a lot of requirements for commercial parking lots that are not needed, and that land could be used for more affordable housing. There are many reasons to look closer at those items. But I'd like to get back to the F-35s, and my community members here have spoken up about so many good things about it, but I want you to see a picture of my daughter who lives two blocks away from the airport. And this is Pepper. She's eight. She goes to Chamberlain School, and she'll be there for another three years. And she lives half time with her dad, who lives in that neighborhood. He can't afford to move. So she would be one of the kids that's there and suffering from the noise pollution. And I mean, it's outrageous right now when I hear the F-16s every time we're there. I mean, inside the school, it's outrageous that kids can't concentrate like that. So, I mean, it's in the air pollution, there's so many things that concern me, but mostly my daughter. And best case scenario is the noise and air pollution. All these other risks are just atrocious, but best case scenario, it's we know that noise and air pollution is terrible. So please consider that. Thank you, Ms. Nays. Bryn Martin is up next to be followed by Mark Benton. Good evening, Ms. Martin. Welcome. Thank you. I live in South Burlington, but I work in the Old North End at a childcare center called Robbins Nest. It is a multi-age center. So we have children from a couple of weeks old, all the way to five years old. And we stress with our older children that they should be there to watch out for the younger kids, to teach them, and to help them in the center to have a good time and enjoy themselves and learn. And so I am here today to speak for all of the children in my center. And just to remind you that when we make decisions, we have to be thinking about 20 years ahead, 40 years ahead, 50 years ahead, 60 years ahead. And so all of these people in the red shirts have so eloquently said so many reasons why we should not have the F-35s here. But as Laura also said, we should not be investing mass amounts of money in infrastructure that supports fossil fuels. We should be working to help public transportation in sustainable infrastructure. And we should not be investing in carbon offsets. We should be planting trees and having that boon be for the environment, not for someone else to be polluting. So please just think about everybody, especially the people that can't speak right now. Thank you, Ms. Martin. Mark Benton is up next to be followed by Natalie Brown. Good evening and welcome. Thank you. Glad to be here. I'm very thankful for all the words spoken in opposition of the F-35s capable of nuclear power and weaponization. But I am here to speak briefly on resolution 7.04, I believe it is, regarding the allocation of funds for the reserve of carbon offsets. After all, someone has to speak for the trees. And I don't believe Lorax is here. So fairly shortly put and scientifically put, we need to plant as many trees as humanly as possible. For the future, the alternative of naturally growing trees might not be a viable alternative. Thank you. Thank you very much. Natalie Brown is up next to be followed by Shane Caruth. Good evening, Ms. Brown, welcome. Hello. So I'm going to speak to three issues. I'll start in the sky, I'll go to the canopy, and then I'll hit the streets. So using the resolution language a bit around my support for the F-35 resolution, whereas we have a long history in this state of opposing nuclear weaponry in general, and certainly the siting of it here. And whereas I know with certainty Vermont is stepping into a major leadership role around green energy and sustainable practices for the well-being of our earth. And because I know with great certainty we love our children and we love the people of Vermont, that to me suggests that it is unimaginable that the F-35 be cited here, especially with nuclear capacity, and I would encourage you to sign on to that resolution, to the canopy. And this goes to part two of my comments about the F-35. We want to hold on to every capability for sequestering carbon that we can, and we don't want to let anybody off the hook for not doing their very best to lower their carbon footprint. So I think we are a state that treasures our trees, so let's find the money, let's not find it through offsets, let's find the money to plant more and hold on to all of the sequestering capacity that ours do and not give it away. Let other folks work on that in an innovative and imaginative way. Last but not least, hitting the streets. Again, we are in a climate emergency. Let's not build more capacity for cars. Let's get bike parking, let's get infrastructure for active and mass transit. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Brown. Shane Caruth is up next to be followed by Brian Cina. Good evening, welcome. Hello, my name is Shane Caruth and I'm from Williston, I'm a bit nervous, but I'll go ahead. This is from the website Pogo.org or Project on Government Oversight. It's called F-35, the most expensive weapons program in history. The F-35 program serves as the ideal case study to understand the military industrial congressional complex. The program encapsulates all the problems with the business of purchasing weapons in the United States. The F-35 has a needlessly complicated design that makes it expensive and difficult to operate and maintain. While this design makes it less effective in combat, it does facilitate subcontracts all over the country for no purpose other than showing up political support. The sheer size of the program provides many opportunities for officials involved in the program to travel through the revolving door between government and industry. There's a lot of great expert articles on Pogo.org about like the ridiculous contractual obligations to Lockheed Martin and as well as the ridiculous bureaucracy and the whole F-35 system overall. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Caruth, Brian Cina. Good evening, Representative Cina, welcome. Good evening, my name's Brian Cina. I've lived and worked in Burlington for 21 years. I'm a social worker, community organizer, activist, performance artist, former school commissioner and currently serving as a state representative for part of the city of Burlington. I'd like to start out my comments by expressing my appreciation to the members of Citizens Against Nuclear Bombers for their advocacy to resist the deployment of nuclear weapons delivery systems in Vermont as part of the F-35 program. As a state representative for people living in the flight path of these nuclear weapon delivery systems, I'm deeply concerned for the health and safety of my constituents, of all living beings and for the land within and beyond my district. I'm the lead sponsor of House Resolution 7, which was cosponsored by 27 other representatives from around the state. House Resolution 7 strongly opposes the basing of any nuclear weapon delivery systems in the state of Vermont. It is currently held up in committee, but its companion, Senate Resolution 5, passed the Vermont Senate on a roll call vote 22 to 7. I asked that the Burlington City Council follow the lead of the Vermont Senate and of the Winooski and South Burlington City Councils and express Burlington's strong opposition to the basing of any nuclear weapon delivery system in Vermont. I'm not gonna read all the reasons because many people have covered why this is a problem, but I do question, do we want Vermont to be the possible starting place for future nuclear wars? And what will happen when the deterrent of mutually assured destruction is removed and nuclear weapons can be used on a smaller scale? Tonight, the Burlington City Council has a chance to make a strong statement against nuclear proliferation. Some may say that this resolution is non-binding and that it will not stop the deployment of the F-35. However, this resolution represents the voice of the people and of a nuclear abolition movement that has spanned generations. As elected representatives of the people, it's important that we hear and amplify their voices every chance that we can in order to preserve our democracy at a time when it is increasingly threatened by the authoritarian forces that currently control our military. It is important in these trying times that we continue to maintain our resistance in every possible way. Please vote yes on the resolution before you this evening. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chiena. And our final speaker tonight is JF Carter Newbeezer. Evening, Mr. Newbeezer. Good evening, thanks for... I got your pronunciation that you made, Joe. Yeah, I just, I appreciate the chance to speak and I appreciate Councillor Hansen for bringing this topic and for all the activists and organizers who over the past couple of years, it's been obviously a struggle, you guys know better than anybody else. So I wanted to thank you all for your work. Make sure you're right on the microphone. Perfect, perfect. I did just want to say, I'm glad I'm the last speaker, it's kind of fitting, the way that we got folks like Jack Hansen on the council was folks like ourselves who care about these issues, spent three hours on Saturday. Please make sure you're addressing us up here. Absolutely, absolutely. And it's for everybody in the public as well. The way we did that was by knocking doors and if everybody here in this room who cares about these issues, who cares about making sure we're not greenwashing when we talk about carbon offsets, who makes sure that we're not at a local level encouraging and aiding the military industrial complex that we know does so much harm. If everybody in this room, whether it's like 50 or 60 at least who care about these issues in here, spent three hours every Saturday during the next election cycle, we could replace quite a number of city counselors. And we could also, in two years, replace the mayor's office as well. So I encourage all of you, in a few months when we start having these conversations to join the Progressive Coalition and let's oust some people who aren't representing this city. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Newby's area. Please, please be respectful, please be respectful. With that, we will close the public forum. And I just do wanna let channel 17 know that someone has contacted me and said that channel, the 317 feed is not coming through, okay? With that, we will move to the next item is the Consent Agenda, Councilor Busher. Yes, I'll move to wave the reading and adopt the Consent Agenda and take the actions indicated. Thank you, Councilor Busher. Second by Councilor Roof. Any discussion? Councilor Busher. There was a member of the public who spoke regarding the biosolids. Item that was on consent and I just wanted to acknowledge that. That was at the Board of Finance and we did talk about the impact of some of the that going into the landfill. And we really don't, Chittenden Solid Ways talked about looking at other initiatives to try to reduce those impacts. But at this point in time, we have no other really recourse. So I just wanted to make sure that the point of our process is to hear from the public first before we adopt the Consent Agenda. And there was that item but there's really nothing else we can do at this juncture. And I wanted to alert the rest of the Council that I moved that agenda item knowing full well what the member of the public said. So thank you. Thank you, Councilor Busher. Any further discussion on the Consent Agenda? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We have passed the Consent Agenda and taken the actions indicated. Thank you. And we are now going to recess the regular city council meeting and convene the local liquor control commission. Commissioner Roof. Thank you, President Wright. I'd like to move to adopt the agenda. Agenda's been moved by Commissioner Roof, seconded by Councillor, Commissioner Hanson. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of the agenda, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, we have a unanimous agreement for the agenda. At number two is the Consent Agenda, Commissioner Roof. I'd like to move to adopt the Consent Agenda, taking the actions as indicated. Motion made by Commissioner Roof, seconded by Commissioner Hanson. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We have passed the Consent Agenda. At number three on the deliberative agenda is at 3.01 first-class restaurant bar liquor license application for Berliax. Commissioner Roof. Thank you, President Wright. Move 3.01, move to approve the 2019-2020 first-class restaurant bar liquor license application for Berliax, 294 Woot North Winooski Avenue with the following conditions. All city permits need to be closed out, contingent upon fire-martial approval, and with all standard conditions. Move by Commissioner Roof, and seconded by Commissioner Hanson. Discussion? We'll go to Commissioner Tracy. Thank you, President Wright. So I oppose this motion at the license committee for a couple reasons. I think that the idea of mixing weapons and alcohol is not a good idea. I think that this council weighed in pretty strongly against the idea of having guns and bars, and while an ax is certainly not a gun, I think that the principle still stands that alcohol is volatile as are weapons, and when you combine the two, there is not enough that you can possibly do to mitigate every potential circumstance that could evolve from that. I understand that they have some safety protocols. However, for instance, when we discussed and talked about how they would monitor alcohol consumption, they said that they would cut them off, but that that was really relying upon the bartender being able to keep track, essentially. There wasn't a system in place to keep track of how much people are consuming. So because of some of these things, in addition to the fact that I heard from immediately adjacent neighbors around their concerns of having this right next to them in the neighborhood, I don't think that this is a good fit for the old North End, and I'll be opposing this. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Tracy. Commissioner Busher. Thank you. I also had concerns about mixing alcohol with this activity, and I brought this to a couple of other people to look at this. We don't really have a shooting range. We don't have an archery range, but I'm just, the alcohol and the activity of using something that could harm somebody is troubling, and I don't know if in a shooting range they sell alcohol, but it doesn't seem like a good mix. And so if indeed, if indeed there were some real safety in place to address some of the concerns that I have, I would be more inclined to support this. I don't want to target an activity that might be certainly fine, but it's the selling of alcohol with the activity that raises concerns. So President Wright, could the chair of the local control commission or the license committee perhaps speak more about the safeties in place? And I don't know whether the applicants here, if they could speak to this also. Thank you. Commissioner Roof. I am happy to speak to the application of discussion that we had at committee, but the operator is making himself available. So President Wright, if you'd like, I can speak or you can acknowledge anyone else. If you want to say something first, and then we'll hear from the owner of... I just want to highlight that this is not a bar where there are weapons. This is, you don't go into a bar and ask for one hour of time and then be coached through your bar experience. Here, you do do that. You'll be purchasing time slots. You go in with a coach, as I understand it. This is a far more controlled environment than any other bar that we license. And I have a few other points, but they may be better made by the operator. Okay. And please identify yourself. Thanks, Mike Garber, the owner of Early Acts. And you will need to pull the microphone in closer and speak loud. Okay. My name's Mike Garber, and I'm the owner of Early Acts. Okay. And if you'd like to address some of the issues you've heard and then if there's any questions, we'll... For sure. Of course, throwing axes right away seems like a dangerous activity. However, as Mr. Roof brought out, that's very much under a controlled environment. We're coaching each individual person as they're learning to throw the axe and then continuing to coach them through the hour session to make sure that they're doing it in a safe manner. The idea of including alcohol in the activity, I know there's a tendency to assume that it's more like a shooting range or like a bar where people are playing darts on supervised in the back of the bar, maybe. But this is much more in the line of a bowling alley. As far as the nature of the business, that people are paying for use of the lane and the alcohol is there as a refreshment, it's an option, not the point of the business. As far as limiting how much consumption, we have basically set the policy that we would only allow people to have one beer per hour session. Really, we're not so much interested in alcohol sales as providing one of the typical refreshments in Burlington seems like we're not interested in setting this up as a drinking establishment. It's more of a recreational establishment that offers beer as a possible. All right, questions for Commissioner Bushard. So thank you for explaining this, I appreciate that. So my understanding from what you said was that if I signed up for a session, you would teach me how to throw an axe and I could have one beer while I was learning how to do that. Well, usually you come in a group of three to eight people. So there's one target and there'd be four or five people looking on as each different person took their turn at the target. So no one would be actually drinking and throwing axe at the same time. They'd be standing in the back. If you've ever been to a bowling alley, you understand the idea of one person's up and the other people are sitting back and observing. So that's really the arrangement. So then that, so may I continue to ask? Yes, you may. So if it was one on one, I can see how you can control it. But if you've got a group, how would you be able to know that I didn't go out and get another drink and how could you, how would you know that? How would you be able to control that? I currently operate the escape room in Burlington and it operates on the same business model where people in a group of five or six people come in, maybe eight people, they come in, they come into the lobby and sometimes they are thirsty so they get a water or a soda. We don't have a liquor license at that establishment. Then they go into the experience which is in another part of the business. Once they go into the experience, they're in the experience for the hour. And when they come out, we take a group photo and they leave. That's really the same sort of trajectory of this kind of a business is people come into the lobby, they pay for their hour, they sign the waiver, if they want a refreshment, they get a refreshment, they go into the ax throwing area with a pretzel and a beer in hand maybe and they sit at the bench behind their target. The people that are gonna throw first will go up with the coach, learn how to stand, how to hold the ax, throw the ax at the target and then step back and then the next group comes up. So that's the way we would control it is that, I mean, I guess it's physically possible for someone to leave the group and go back to the bar but this isn't like an open environment where people are coming and going as they wish to be in a group. So the bartender isn't gonna have more than eight to maybe at the maximum there'd be 30 people in the establishment at a time because there's only four targets that have eight people each. So 32 people would be the maximum that would be there. So the bartender would be able to make sure that each group, everybody only had their one drink or less. So one last question. Okay, so thank you. Sure. So I'm sure that, I mean, I know the answer but I need you to tell me. You count the axes at the beginning and you count the axes at the end and nobody leaves with an ax, right? We don't give everyone an ax. The axes stick to the target. So I mean the axes are in the target range. So when people come into the range, just like not like exactly like a bowling ball because there's a rack of bowling balls that everyone gets to choose their own. The axes are part of the targets sort of equipment. So for two targets there's two axes and the staff would manage who has the axes at any given time. Yeah, so I get that. I just wanna make sure that there is, so I'm trying to protect the people in the establishment but I'm also trying to protect the people outside of the establishment. And so this is something, this is new ground for me and I want to make sure that I'm doing my job. That's why I'm asking you all these questions and I don't wanna preclude you from bringing an activity that people might really enjoy but I wanna make sure it's safe for them and for the rest of the public. So thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Bushier. Commissioner Jang. Thank you for being here. And looks like your bartender has a license to operate and looks like your proposal here, this is not about beer, this is about liquor. So basically you can have liquor, you can have beer, you can, is it? It's just a first class license I believe it's just for beer. There's no liquor. And now you've been operating for how long now? We're not operating yet, we haven't opened yet. It's not even open yet? No. I thought that it was open but you wanted to add this segment to it. No. Okay, so is it possible maybe for a member of the committee to visit and to just have an idea of what, before we vote on this, are you open to that? Absolutely, we're in the construction phase right now but there's enough visible at this point to be able to understand the way people would interact with the space. So basically I know about bowling alleys, I know about beer but Axis is my first time hearing it and I want to see it before voting in it. Thank you for being here. Commissioner Freeman. Thank you. You are a commissioner. I thought you gave me a little look when I called you commissioner. No, that's perfect. Thank you. I'm curious about this as well about the aspect of the drinking with the Axis. I understand that it's similar to bowling in terms of it being a recreation but the degree of harm seems like it could be quite some bit more even if they are tiny Axis. How big are they again? Be something that you would use to split firewood like a little hatchet. Hatchets. That's what I thought. Okay, perfect, thank you. So in terms of, I imagine, so do you have to take out more insurance to cover that liability then? I'm curious if the city could be liable in any way around the safety of this and I'm curious about the insurance aspect. Yeah, sure. Although this is a new thing to Burlington, this has been a sport that's been developing over the past 10 or 12 years and the data that I've found in research is that it's not actually as dangerous as bowling, believe it or not. People go into a situation where they're holding an ax realizing that it's potentially dangerous and the number of injuries related to the participants is actually lower than bowling according to the research I've looked at. The number of injuries or the scale of injury? Because you could imagine that there would be greater amount of injuries in bowling but the degree of injury would perhaps be less. I just don't know, I don't know the statistics. No, I understand. No one has sustained an ax thrown at them kind of an injury as far as I've heard from any ax throwing range. The danger is more with staff in setting up the targets, they're using ladders and screw guns and so forth. So it's more like related to the construction of the targets. Sometimes people come in and ax stupidly and I've heard of one person trying to pretend they were shaving with an ax and cutting their face but these are not related to the activity, they're just related to people being unwise. As far as like statistics on the actual danger, I don't have anything with me to give you but basically I'm seeing that it's not as dangerous as people instantly perceive it might be because of the obvious nature of the activity people recognize that it's potentially dangerous so there's a lot more tendency to be careful. So the city is, I don't, there's no liability for the city, I guess, Attorney Blackwood, you might be able to speak. To that I understand it's a newer sport. So I'm a bit. City Attorney Blackwood? Thank you, there's no liability to the city just on the basis of being a licensing entity no matter what the idea is behind the activity. It's totally within the owner's control. Okay. Good, thank you, thank you Commissioner Freeman, Commissioner Roof. I think that this warrants some more conversation and seeing that Mr. Garber is willing, I'm gonna move to postpone this to allow for more discussion to happen outside of this forum and then we can bring this up at our next meeting on the 26th of this month. So I'll make that motion. Second. Moved by Commissioner Roof, seconded by Commissioner Busher. All those in favor of postponing this, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We have postponed action on this and I would just encourage any commissioners to let the chair of the License Committee know of any other questions you may wanna get answered if you can't attend the meeting. Thank you very much. Item 3.02 is first class restaurant bar liquor license application for Red Panda Commissioner Roof. 302, I'll move to approve the 2019-2020 first class restaurant bar liquor license application for Red Panda. As my internet goes down, Red Panda located at 161 Church Street with all standard conditions and other conditions as noted. Moved by Commissioner Roof, seconded by Commissioner Hansen. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Item 3.03, an outside consumption permit application Commissioner Roof. I'll move item 3.03 with no internet access. And the name of this, because I didn't say it because I wasn't sure about the pronunciation, it's Paizanos on Main Street. Move 3.03, Paizanos on Main Street with all conditions as noted. Moved by Commissioner Roof, seconded by Commissioner Hansen. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Item 3.04, Commissioner Roof. Move item 3.04. Oh, it's an outside consumption permit application 2019-2020 for Pizzeria, Verita, 156 St. Paul Street. I will make that motion to approve the application for Pizzeria, Verita at 156 St. Paul Street. Moved by Commissioner Roof, seconded by Commissioner Hansen. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Item 3.05, Outside Consumption Permit Application, Red Panda 161 Church Street, Commissioner Roof. I think I'll move 3.05, move to approve the 2019-2020 Outside Consumption Permit Application for Red Panda 161 Church with the following condition. And Encompass application needs to be submitted to DPW for consideration with it being part of the next license committee agenda for recommendation for approval to the full City Council. Moved by Commissioner Roof, seconded by Commissioner Hansen. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, that passes unanimously. Item 3.06, an Outside Consumption Permit Application for Shinjuku Station 260 North Street. I'll move 3.06, approval of 2019-2020 Outside Consumption Permit Application for Shinjuku Station 2260 North Street. Moved by Commissioner Roof, seconded by Commissioner Hansen. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Move to adjourn. So moved. Commissioner Roof, seconded by Commissioner Hansen. Any, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? We have adjourned and we have adjourned the Liquor Control Commission and we will reconvene the regular City Council meeting. Try to find where we are. And we will go to item 4.02, which is a presentation from Blaine Boland, Project Manager and John Valenti, Commercial Appraiser, Tyler Technologies, regarding the reappraisal project with a 10 minute presentation. Good evening. Hello, thank you for allowing the company to introduce themselves for this citywide reappraisal that we are undertaking. I think I've met most all the City Council members, but I want to let you know that I'm John Dickry, the Burlington Assessor, and we have hired Tyler Technologies to do the reappraisal for the City of Burlington. Blaine Boland is going to be the Project Manager and I'm going to let him speak in a few minutes. And John Valenti is the Commercial Appraiser for this project as well. So the last reappraisal that we had was in 2006, finished in 2006, so it's been a long time, and in 2018 we received a letter from the State Tax Department, which they mandated a citywide revaluation. And they mandated it for a good reason. It's time to reset values to market value and that's the object of this reappraisal is to bring properties to market value because that will create equity among property taxes. So without further ado, I'll hand the mic over and at the end of this presentation, we're happy to answer questions. Thanks. Great, I'll set. I think so, okay. Again, my name is Blaine Boland, I'm Project Manager with Tyler Technologies. What I'd like to do is real quickly give you a brief history if I will of Tyler, I'm not sure if you're familiar with Tyler Technologies. We're a mass appraisal firm, the appraisal and tax division of Tyler, we've been doing this for 75 years and Tyler is the oldest and largest mass appraisal firm in the United States. I've been a Project Manager for him tomorrow, will be 18 years. I worked in 12 different states on 40 some different projects and I had the opportunity to work on the last reassessment here in Burlington. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna talk about the PowerPoint, go through the PowerPoint, which basically it's gonna give you a brief overview of the process. This is what we've been hired to do, this is how our reassessment works, basically from start to finish. So what we have up here is a few names, Mark Fokers is the Vice President of Appraisal Operations, Derek Arnold is the Northeast Regional Manager, he's my direct, I report to him directly. There's me, Blaine Boland, I'm the Project Manager and David Boost for 20, 25 years is a commercial reviewer, that's his title, he will be here on site, boots on the ground, visiting every commercial property in the city. So reassessment goals basically, we're gonna implement new values for all the properties to reflect 100% of fair market value as of April 1st, 2021. We will meter exceed the standards of the Vermont Division of Property Evaluation and Review, meter exceeds the uniform standards of professional appraisal practices, which is use path, meter exceed the standard on mass appraisal, which is IAAO and target and optimize reappraisal methods and resources to focus on the appraisal needs while addressing the uniqueness of the Burlington community. So these are some reassessment fears, people talk about reassessments no matter where we are, where we work, these are their fears. Are you gonna pay more taxes? Will the government take the money and spend it? Discover unknown improvements and people are gonna be embarrassed by a messy house, we're gonna do an interior inspection, is that a fear for someone, it may be? Being away when the inspections occur, how is that gonna be handled if I can't be home? These are some of the fears. There are phases in a reassessment, it's a process. So the first process is you have to get the data. The data's gathered, it's data entered into the chemist system. We do analysis based on the sales for that area, for the city of Burlington, the various neighborhoods, and we will be able to determine the value for these properties by neighborhood. When that's all done, then we review all the values again. That's the valuation review. Then there's an informal hearing process, where the public will be informed and they will have an opportunity to come and talk to Tyler about their value. And we can discover some things we didn't know before, it's a possibility, and we can make some adjustments. Then there's final values that are mailed to the public, and Tyler will be involved in that process as well, and that's the formal hearing process. So again, we start with data collection, sketch validation. So every project, every place I work, the scope of service is a little bit different. The scope of service is here, is determined by, we're gonna do sketch verification, validation, and we're gonna mail a data mailer. So the city contracted with an outside source, I look about, I believe, the sketches from their current chemist system is gonna be sent to them. There's gonna be an overlay onto the orthographic photos here, and they can do what's called a chain finder and identify issues in the sketch that will prompt a site visit for Tyler to go to their property and do an inspection on the property. We'll be checking for exterior measurements. Now on the data mailer process, we're gonna mail all the residential property owners a data mailer that basically says, here's the data we have on record, and they are data elements that pertain to value. Property owners will have an opportunity to make recommendations on what they believe to be an error, and depending on the parameters between Tyler and the assessment office, that will spark an interior inspection, and we go to the property and inspect it and correct the data. So here's an example of the sketch validation. That as you can see on the left, there's something missing, and in this case, we're gonna have to go to the property and figure out what it is and make the correction. This is a snapshot of the data, the type of data elements that are currently on the city's website, and property owners will be directed to this website via the letter that we mail down, and give them an opportunity to go and view the data. Once we get all of that data, and it's data entered in the chemist system, then we have to do some analysis. It's sales analysis. These are the sales in this neighborhood, in the various neighborhood, we will be able to determine the values of what property's gonna be embalmed and sold for in those neighborhoods. Neighborhood delineation. Go back up for a moment, please. There we go, neighborhood delineation. So here it is. We do data analysis, sales validation, income and expense valuation, which pertains to commercial properties, which my esteemed colleague, John Valentae, will speak about. Neighborhood delineation. So we're gonna identify the current neighborhoods, and if those current neighborhoods need to be smaller or larger, and sales tell you that, what are properties being bought and sold for, and we can combine neighborhoods. Too many neighborhoods, you'll have a neighborhood where you don't have enough sales. If you don't have sales, how do you determine the value of the properties in that neighborhood if properties aren't selling? You can't do that. Then we do valuation modeling, so we take all the information and we do modeling. So here's an example of some data of analysis. It's in a chart form. Here's some sales analysis. A piece of information on the right-hand side, if I can go back please. I'll try to speak a little faster. It's part of the IAAO standards, where the median, me and the COD and the PRD have to meet certain parameters, statistical measures. It shows you right now where the IAAO standard for the median, which is the ASR stands for Assessment to Sale Ratio, needs to be between 90 and 110. Currently the city of Burlington is 0.77. It failed the state test. The COD, which is the coefficient of dispersion, talks about how the ratios are dispersed around the median, should be 15 or less, it's at 11.28, that past. The price-related differential, basically that is related to your lower end and higher end properties and how their value is compared to one another. You can undervalue high end properties or overvalue high end properties when you compare them to lower end properties. It needs between 98 and 103. It's at 103, right at the threshold, but it passed. And then you have a price-related bias, which is another form of PRD, if you will. It gives you a little bit better indication. It's not necessarily an IAAO standard, but it's something that they requested that we do here and we're gonna do that here. So it wasn't tested. So overall, nothing's bad here. It's not terrible. So USPAP defines market value as the most probable price which a property should bring in a competitive and open market, under all conditions, adequate to a fair sale, the buyer and the seller, each acting prudently and knowledgeably and assuming the price is not affected by undue stimulus. So basically you have a willing and knowledgeable seller and buyer, and that's how properties are bought and sold and that's the definition of market value. So a buyer-seller are typically motivated. Both parties are well-informed and well-advised in acting what they consider to be their best interests. There's unreasonable time that's allowed to be exposed to the market. Property that sets on the market and sells in a week may not be indicative of all the properties in the particular market or in the particular neighborhood. This has to do with sales validation. Payments made in terms of cash, US dollars or terms of financial arrangement comparable there too. Please make sure you stay right on that microphone. All right, we're losing you up here a little bit. Vermont defines fair market value. Generally speaking, property is appraised at fair market value. Fair market value is defined in 32 VSA 3481 is the following. The estimate of fair market value of the property is the price that the property would bring in the market when offered for sale and purchased by another. So I'm gonna read all that verbatim. It gives you an overview of the Vermont's definition of market value. April 1st is the assessment date. Market value is the most probable selling price of a property as of a specific date. Assessments must be between 95 and 100% of the median for all valid sales as of the data value. So again, the data value is April 1st, 2021. So we're gonna move on to commercial property. I'm gonna turn this over to John Valente and he's gonna speak a little bit more about commercial properties and commercial valuation process. Okay, and I did have this presentation now for 10 minutes and we're at 15 now. So I need to, it's gotta be fairly, gotta move it a lot fairly rapidly. I'll go quickly. My name is John Valente and I've been doing this for 40 years. The income approach is something that's done differently on commercial properties as opposed to residential properties. And really what it takes is it takes the income of a property in terms of its rental income, not its business income and capitalizes it or converts it to value. There's a form we're gonna be sending out in the next few weeks to all the commercial industrial property owners here in Burlington. We're gonna request that that form is filled out and it can be filled out either online or it can be filled out on a piece of paper and then returned to the assessor's office. The purpose of the form is to gather income and expense data and the reason why we need that data is it really reflects the true motivations and actions of a person who invests in commercial real estate. We really, when somebody buys a property of commercial nature, they're looking for how much rent rule they've received and what the return is they can get in the property. So that's the reason why this question is being asked. So we encourage folks to fill it out to most accurately and fairly represent the value of their property. What we intend to do is to do a site-specific appraisal which means to look at your own individual income and expense data when I arrive at the value for the property as opposed to taking a generic number like $15 a square foot, we'll look at the exact numbers or values on your specific property. Here's an example of data that we might collect on a property. You can see that the person might receive a total income of $800,000, have the vacancy and credit loss of $80,000 because they were losing money because tenants leave. They have a $300,000 amount of expenses. They're really netting about $419,000 which equates in this case to about $25 a square foot. What I often do with that is I chart that data to compare it among neighborhoods to see what rent rates are. This chart was done in 2003 and 2004 and it shows that rent rates on Church Street not surprisingly were at that time for office space around $25 a foot whereas in Burlington Square they were as low as $10 a foot. This is an example of an income approach. You can just go through it. So this particular property has 10,000 square feet at $25 a square foot, has a net income of $250,000. The capitalization rate that's been chosen here is about 10% as a return on investment. Therefore, the property is worth about $2.5 million. Thank you very much and I appreciate working for the city of Burlington and Blaine's gonna finish up. Thank you. I'll just make it quick and sweet. Basically, I already touched on all of this. So once the values are established, people are notified, we start the informal hearing process. There may or may not be changes based on what we hear from the public. Notices are mailed again and we start the formal appeal process. And that's pretty much it. All right, thank you very much for that presentation. We'll open it up now to the council. If there are any questions, questions for the team on the reappraisal process. Councilor Jang. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being quick and doing that second presentation. But I wanted to highlight one thing that Mr. Vakri here has done for me and also for my constituents because when we first heard that this is coming to Burlington, asked him a couple of questions and then he came all the way to the new North End. It was a big meeting and then explained in details. But still, there was one thing that I don't know how, it's still not clear. It seems that you guys won't be going in the homes to assess their values but you will be doing it from an office or it's a mix of both of them. How can you explain that to me, please? It will be a mix. So sadly enough, there's only, it costs money to do what we do. And it was decided that they would use sketches and a data manner to determine whether a property needed to have a site inspection. So your answer is, it's correct in that we are not visiting every residential property in the city. We will visit the property based on incorrect data on the data mailer. A data mailer will contain square foot, that number of bedrooms, bathrooms, finished basement, story heights, so on and things that can contribute to value. And if it falls out of the parameters and so much as the assessor's office says they have five bathrooms and they say I have two, it's always been five. We're gonna go to the property and verify that it's still five. Those are the properties we're gonna do an interior inspection on. I'll add to that that the assessor's office in Burlington has a fairly reliable set of data that they've been gathering over years. They have a really good billing permit process where they collect data and keep up on property data. So that was the belief that the data is fairly accurate here. But if it's incorrect, as Blaine says, the property owners will let us know that and then an inspection will be triggered. Yeah, as a follow up question, for example, I'm a homeowner and I've been doing a lot of remodeling, basically in my house, adding materials that have more value. But how would you know that if you don't come visit my home? How would you know the work that I haven't been doing? If there's been a permit, if you have to apply for a permit to do that type of remodeling, the assessor's office is gonna know you're doing remodeling and that'll flag your property for them to come and visit your property based on that permit. If it's the type of work you're doing where you do not have to get a permit and your data is accurate and your sketch is accurate, sadly, to say we won't know. That's an honest answer. Okay, thank you. You wanna add something, sir? I was gonna say the same thing. Our office is pretty active with our permit reviews. So we look at a large number of properties every year and we've been doing that continuously for a long time. And the statistics will show that there's pretty good uniformity among properties. And I know that there's a few that would be outliers that would not be so great, but we're gonna try to run tests and to determine those and then we'll try to make corrections to anything where we see, where the data doesn't line up. And lastly, how long the whole appraisal will take in terms of timeline? I can answer that. The new values are gonna be effective April 1st, 2021. And so for the tax bills in fiscal year 2021, 2022, that's when it'll be technically done, although there will still be a few outstanding property appeals and that's just part of the process. But from here through, we are gonna be, or this company will be very active as well as the assessor's office, where it's a collaboration. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Councillor Chang, any other questions? Hearing none, we thank you very much for that presentation. Look forward to working with you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Item 4.03 is an appointment to CCRPC alternate term expires June 30th, 2021. Is there a nomination? Is there Councillor Hansen? I'll nominate Jenna. Please make sure you use your microphone. I'll move to nominate Jenna Puglisi. Motion has been made. Are there any further nominations? I'll make sure to Busher. I mean, Councillor Busher, excuse me. Thank you. So I looked at the application of this individual who wants to get involved and it's wonderful. But for regional planning as an alternate, they're representing the city of Burlington and the person says I'd like to get to know better the ins and outs of Burlington. So I really questioned if someone representing the city of Burlington and regional planning would necessarily be able to do that well without having more expertise. And I oftentimes wonder when we get the opportunity to see these applications if indeed planning or somebody weighs in on whether or not someone is appropriate for that position. I've asked this before for other things with Chittin and Solid Waste District also. So President Wright, I really don't know how to go with this because I'm feeling uncomfortable with supporting this because I don't really know who in the city should be giving us feedback as to who is appropriate to serve in this capacity. Okay. Councillor Busher, who, anybody care to respond to that, Mr. Mayor? President Wright, my reaction to that, I mean, this is the body, this council is the one that determines whether or not someone is qualified and appropriate to serve in this capacity. I don't think it's someone the staff can really advise on. You've, this, you know, every few weeks this council makes determinations as to whether we want people, whether people have the right qualifications for serving. Certainly if the council determines that the experience between the one applicant is not consistent with what we wanna have in that position, I think the council has the ability to direct the, you know, pass the administration to re-advertise and seek additional candidates. And if that's what the council decides, we'd be happy to do it. Good point, Mr. Mayor. Anyone else? Councillor Hinn. I think that Councillor Busher raises a good point and then, unless somebody has a counter to that point, I would be in favor of re-advertising. And would you entertain such a motion President Wright? I would. I move to re-advertise. Councillor Shannon moves to re-advertise. Is there a second to that motion? Councillor Busher, are you seconding this? Yes. Councillor Busher seconds. And I don't know what's going on over there, but is there any discussion? Is there any discussion on the motion to re-advertise? Point of information. Point of information, Councillor Busher. Councillor Hansen put forward a name. Does that, does that just disappear because we moved to re-advertise or do we need to deal with that? I wasn't quite clear on that. City clerk's officer, city attorney, tell us if we re-advertised as the name that was being considered tonight, stay in the mix. You can certainly choose to do that. I'm sorry, could you repeat that? You can certainly choose to keep that name in the mix. Okay. Thank you, Councillor Busher. Councillor Jang, if people could stay in their seats, I'm getting, there's like a lot of going on over here and I'm trying to keep track of what's happening. Is anybody else in the queue? Councillor Jang. I just wanted to know if the person, the applicant is here. Is the applicant here? No, the applicant is not here. We have a motion to re-advertise. Is there any further discussion on the motion to re-advertise? Councillor Hansen. I felt based on the relevant experience of the applicant that they could serve as an alternate in this seat and were well qualified, having been the clerk of the Planning Commission and Stratton and working at Efficiency Vermont, I think they would bring a strong level of background and awareness to the Regional Planning Commission. Further discussion on the motion to re-advertise? Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion, please raise your hands. And those opposed to re-advertising raise your hands. The motion to re-advertise fails by a vote of seven to three, I believe. So now we are back to the name. Is there any further discussion on their names? All right, all those in favor of this appointment, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No votes are Councillor Busher and Councillor Shannon. And Councillor Hansen, could you repeat the name again? I don't have it right in front of me. Jenna Pugliese. That's why I actually don't see it. I'm not sure of the pronunciation. Pugliese, Pugliese. Thank you. Item 4.04 is an appointment for a fence viewer term expiring June 30th of 2020. Is there a motion or a nomination? Councillor Hansen. Nominate Shea Totten. Shea Totten has been nominated. Are there any further nominations? Hearing none, all those in favor of Shea Totten as the fence viewer, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes apparently unanimously. Item 4.05 is an appointment to the Green Mountain Transit Board alternate term expiring June 30th, 2022. Nominations, please. Councillor Hansen. I'll nominate Megan Polit, please. Repeat the name again, please. Megan Polit. Megan Polit has been nominated. Are there further nominations? Hearing none, all those in favor of the nomination of Megan Polit, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Congratulations to Megan Polit. Item number 4.06 is an indoor entertainment permit application for, guess what, Burley acts. Councillor Roof. A motion to postpone this piece as well until the meeting on the 26th of this month in line with the last conversation. Second. Motion to postpone by Councillor Roof. Seconded by Councillor Bushard. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of postponing action on this, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And could people please vote, because I'm hearing all those in favor of this motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. That passes unanimously. Item 4.07 is a resolution authorization to enter into a contract with urban offsets and for the creation of a reserve fund for revenue generated by the sale of carbon offsets. To support the city's tree and conservation programming, Councillor Paul. Thank you, President Wright. I'd waive the reading as for a second and a floor back after a second briefly. Seconded by Councillor Bushard. Councillor Paul. Thank you so much. So this resolution passed the Board of Finance unanimously a few weeks ago at a meeting in July. And what this is about is a, it's a carbon offset initiative, which is a relatively cutting edge and new approach in the area of urban forestry. It's an attempt to find alternative revenues beyond the property tax to support new tree plantings and support the community's environmental goals. You know, we all look for creative solutions and new approaches so that we don't raise property taxes but look to find other sources of revenue. And this is one potential source of revenue. We'd be working with a third party which is called Urban Offset. The city would sell offsets representing the carbon value of a small number of trees combined with many other offsets that are gathered by the company. And just so that everyone is aware, this is not a guarantee that the offsets, just like any asset or any issue that potentially has a market, there is no guarantee that the offsets would sell but Urban Offsets has had success with other communities in doing this across the country. And the resolution before the count that we have before us tonight would establish, and I think it's an important note, would establish a reserve fund to make sure that any new revenues that we do get would be used to plant more trees. In other words, this money would not just go into the general fund and be used for any purpose other than our environmental goal. So part of the reason that this is possible is that the parks team has found a way to plant many more trees at a reduced cost per tree. And another point I think which is very important is that even though there is no guarantee that the carbon offsets would be able to be sold, that would not influence the number of trees that are planted. This is just another way of looking to be able to supplement the amount of money that we pay annually. And the total amount that the city would, is hoping to collect over the next two years is $135,000. And I hope that the council will support, join me in supporting this resolution. Thanks very much. Thank you, Councilor Powell. Any discussion? Councilor Hanson. Thank you. So I'll be opposing this resolution. I think I understand the appeal of it. I think it could be seen as money coming into the city to allow us to do a good thing, which is planting trees. The problem is, is you can't have it both ways. So if you're selling the carbon offset, if you're selling that credit, you cannot say that you're the one supporting your environmental goals or doing the good thing. It's the buyer who has bought that privilege and that ability from you now. And they've done that in lieu of taking another action that they would have taken to meet their carbon mitigation goals. So you're actually displacing something else that they might have done otherwise. When instead, what I would argue is we should invest in, if we truly value this resource and the carbon uptake of trees, we should invest in that as a city and show that we prioritize that. As Councilor Powell has mentioned, this selling these offsets would not influence the number of trees that we plant. So it wouldn't result in us planting more trees, but it would result in us not being able to say that we've reduced carbon from those plantings because we would have sold that off. So I think rather than having an outside entity who values carbon reduction paying us to reduce carbon for them, I think we as a city should invest in what we see as this value. So I'll be opposing. Thank you, Councilor Hansen, Councilor Busher and then Councilor Powell. So I would like if they're willing, if Parks and Rec are willing to come up and speak to some of Councilor Hansen's concerns regarding the offsets. And I think it's important to note that in the sale of these, there are buyer restrictions. And so they would include that they would not be sold to any industry focused on firearms, explosives, ammunition, oil and gas, petrochemical manufacturing, tobacco and pharmaceuticals. I think that that's really important to note also. But I do think that Councilor Hansen does raise an issue as is often raised when we talk about any kind of offset. So I appreciate some comments regarding that. Thank you. Thank you and happy to respond. Brian Lowe, the Chief Innovation Officer. I'm joined here by VJ Komei, the city arborist and Olivia is calling up Sean Gaunier who's the CEO of Urban Offsets to make sure we can answer questions that Councilors might have. Please enter. We're, Councilor Mason is Chinese. Just get him online here first. Councilor Mason, are you there? That might be Sean Gaunier, the CEO. Sean, are you able to hear us? This is Brian. But it's really artifact, hard to hear. Thank you. So I was gonna do a quick kind of begin to respond to some of the questions that Councilor Bush had asked there. And I think the way to think about this is the carbon offsets, they offer a way to price the impact of greenhouse gases and they are a powerful tool that helps us address climate change. They're one of many different types of tools. They're important because they put a price on carbon pollution and they create incentives to reduce carbon pollution. I think this is particularly true in the context that we have here where the resolution before the Council creates a reserve fund that would force us to use any revenues that we generate from these offsets to plant more trees. And I think the point that Councilor Paul made is that we plan to use these revenues to plant additional trees in FY21 and beyond. There are serious property tax pressures in Burlington and so we're trying to find alternative revenue sources that would allow us to continue and sustain the pace of tree plantings that Parks is doing, which has increased significantly in the last couple of years. Thank you. Is there a specific question? Did you want him to respond? He just joined the call and so I wasn't sure if he heard the questions. If Councils have additional questions we can certainly ask Sean to respond as well. He just didn't hear the initial question. Okay. I think the question was in response to how the carbon offsets work and is it environmentally? I don't want to phrase this wrong, but really is it the environmentally beneficial thing to do? Yeah, just confirm. Okay, so that was for me. So carbon offsets are environmentally beneficial. They are used right to support some environmentally beneficial projects that wouldn't be able to make the market without the sale of carbon offsets. The offsets that we were looking at of providing to companies and universities that we would sell in support of Burlington's urban forest would be all verified and certified by the non-profit organizations. And they're a standard American carbon registry. Thanks. That said, there's often been problems in the past with carbon offsets showing up as not being real. So to cover that, what we as a company do is we offer a guarantee that if there's ever an offset that's proven to be gone bad in any of the deals and any of the contracts we have cities that we will replace it very of charge. Okay, further questions? Councilor Hansen. I have a comment, not a question. Okay. If others have questions first. Anyone with questions before we go back to Councilor Hansen? Councilor Paulino. So I'm unclear, is there a fee charge for the amount collected like percentage by your company? Is there a fee charged by percentage by your company? Is that the question? Right, I'm assuming it's not charitable work. Yeah, I mean, if you'd like to, I can also, I might be able to hear better, so I'm happy to answer. Yeah, this is getting a little awkward, so if you can answer, Brian. Yeah, I'm happy to take a shot at that. So the total value of the carbon offset is split between the city and the vendor. So in this case, urban offsets takes a percentage of the total value of the carbon offset and the city retains the percentage of the total value of the carbon offset. The Burlington Street trees represent a very small component of the larger package for urban offset cells, for carbon offsets, so we get a significant percentage of that larger package. I'll say Councilor Paulino. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Anyone? Councilor Freeman. Thank you. I have a follow-up question. I think 10 towards what Councilor Hansen was getting at, that's my main concern. And so just to sort of have a follow-up on this, my concern is that we're effectively enabling people with financial incentives to keep polluting instead of actually stopping them from polluting. And I just want to know if you can speak towards that aspect more in greater detail. I think there's still some questions around that aspect. Thank you. I think it's a question of how you look at carbon offset markets generally. I see that as a major stride forward in pricing the impact that these externalities, these negative externalities have on the environment. And so it creates incentives for people to change their behavior. Oftentimes, organization will try to take several steps to reduce its carbon emissions when it can no longer reduce those carbon emissions. It pays for the consequences of those carbon emissions in the form of offsets. I'll say Councilor Freeman. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Other questions? Hearing none, Councilor Hansen. So I think one of the key things we heard there from the phone is it's to support the ideal scenario for carbon offset is to support projects that wouldn't be able to occur without that payment. I do not believe that's the scenario that we're in in Burlington. I believe that we can find the funding in Burlington to plant the trees that we want to plant. So this is a project that still would happen even without this offset. And the buyer, if they don't go to us, they have to go somewhere else to meet their goals. So they either support another project that truly wouldn't have happened or they actually do it themselves. So I think the net outcome of this is not a win and especially in terms of Burlington, it's not like we've achieved carbon neutrality. I think we still have a long way to go. So it's strange that we would be selling offsets. If anything, I would think we would be looking at buying to get closer to our goals because we haven't yet met our climate goals. So I think we're on the wrong side when we're talking about selling at this point. Any other counselors? Councilor Roof. It's a clarifying question, resulting from a question that I got from a constituent earlier today. I did not have the answer. I think I know the answer but it might be good for others to hear. In this marketplace, there are buyers and sellers and we're talking about businesses who are in this situation, the buyer of these. Can you give a sense of what sort of companies or what sort of firms are doing the buying? The question that came in today assumed that those companies were all local and I did not have the answer. I now understand that's not the case but can give a better sense of what sort of purchasers or buyers are working in this or are participating in this marketplace. Yes, thank you. We've restricted the potential market of buyers pretty severely. We are looking at B corporations, universities, public entities, primarily. If we can't sell to those kind of entities, that would be like a Duke University, a major league soccer, entities that do create carbon emissions. We also have restrictions around certain types of industries as Councilor Busher alluded to and she read a long list there of different industries that are completely excluded from these carbon offsets. It is possible there could be local buyers as well but I can't guarantee which buyer. Sure. I think it was an interesting point that the constituent pointed out to me and I think it's a good one for others to consider. So this is not a way to let big oil companies off the hook in some way, shape, or form to pay off or push aside their carbon responsibilities. This is, we've controlled for that in a bunch of different ways. Is that accurate? Correct. We use a thing called NACS codes, N-A-I-C-S, they're American industry codes that allow us to exclude certain industries from being able to access these carbon offsets. Petrochemical would be one of those industries. Sorry. Can you answer? There's nothing around this that would prevent the city from pursuing it if we wanted to additional tree planting strategies or programs if we wanted to, correct? Nothing for this vote tonight that would prevent the city from doing more around its tree planting strategy or programs. Nothing. There's nothing. No, except to speak to Councillor Hanson's point about we're already doing this and there's enough money in the budget to do this. Keep in mind that we are now facing a significant impact from emerald ash borer in the city. It was founded shortly after I started this job. It's now closing in on us from all sides. That, the work to remove and replace all of the ash in the city over the next few years is above and beyond what we can do inside of our normal budget. So I see this funding as potentially our way through that dilemma to have that extra funding because it's gonna be significant. There's ash comprise about a little more than 10% of our current trees inventoryed in the city. There's about 1200 of them. We've already begun proactively planting where we can replanting new trees prior to having to remove the trees. But that removal of all of those trees, the remaining trees and grinding the stumps and replacing them in addition to the work we already do. And in addition to all the work that my crew and our program is continually taking on from the expansion of park spaces to new rain garden installations, it's all falling under our budget. So we're being stretched in many directions and the reality is that we're gonna need more funding. And if there's an opportunity to gain this funding from the outside, that'd be great. Thank you for that information. Thank you, Councilor Roof. Mr. Mayor. Thank you, President Wright. I appreciate the debate around this. We haven't, this is an innovation. We have not had a lot of decisions like this before. From my perspective, this boils down to a few pretty basic principles here. We are trying to sustain historically high amount of tree planting in this community, especially as we just heard from the city arborists in the face of a new threat against that tree canopy. We're attempting to do so in a way that does not impact already property tax burdened taxpayers and we've got a way that offers real potential to do that. And in the process, we have the opportunity to strengthen the nation efforts to put a price on carbon, which virtually every environmentalist would agree is a step in the right direction. The problem that we face as a globe is that we don't put a price on carbon and we're suffering from the ramifications of that. So from my perspective, this is a vote for trees. This is a vote to protect taxpayers. This is a vote to put a price on carbon and do something significant about global warming. The arguments against this have also returned to each of those on their head in a way that I think is pretty perverse and I hope the Council will not go along with that. All set, Mr. Mayor? All set. Councilor Freeman. Excuse me, President Wright. I just wanted to note that Councilor Mason has joined the meeting. He's been watching on TV and he has joined the meeting. All right, thank you, Councilor Shannon. Councilor Mason, welcome to the meeting. Is he there or can he? Jeff, are you there? Thank you, Councilor Mason. City Attorney Blackwood, he can join as long as he has been following the meeting, which he has been. As long as you can hear him and he can hear you. Okay, and we've established that, so he's with us. Councilor Freeman. Thank you. I hear the concern about the emerald ash borers and the concern around exceeding what our normal budget is already. I think there's this aspect of addressing the climate emergency that won't be within a normal budget. If that makes any sense, we're going to have to have a considerable investment in transition strategies that are, in my belief, are going to require significant public spending and really change the way that we address this crisis. And so I hear that concern, but when I hear companies and businesses like Duke and Major League Soccer getting in some way off the hook from making an investment on their own with the financial resources that they have, it's incredibly concerning. And it does not, in my estimation, address the underlying issue. And I do believe that we have the capacity to spend for this issue. It's an absolute imperative. It's part of creating a just transition around this emergency, so. Thank you very much. I mean, I think. That's why I'm voting no. Okay. I think my response to that would just be yes, we're gonna need to find and identify new revenue sources to address the dangers posed by climate change within Burlington. This is a step towards identifying some of those new revenue sources. I don't know for sure if Duke would be one of the ultimate parties that purchase these offsets, but what Duke is trying to do is get to net zero. There are gonna be certain costs or certain emissions that Duke has that it can't eliminate. And so it will buy offsets to offset the impact of those limited number of emissions. And so I think this is a good thing. They are pricing their pollution and they are using that in this hypothetical scenario to fund our tree planting efforts here in Burlington without impacting property taxpayers. Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Hanson, then I think we need to move to a vote. Yeah, I just wanted to clarify my position. I think we do need increased investment given the emerald ash borer. I think we should find that locally. And I would say that Duke isn't the only one with the goal of net zero. We have a goal of net zero in Burlington and we're gonna need to meet that goal through reducing our emissions and through uptaking carbon. And so I think it's the wrong move to sell off these emissions reductions when we still haven't met our own goals. Thank you, Councilor Hanson. We are ready for vote. And now with Councilor Mason on the line, we are going to need a roll call vote. So if the clerk will call the roll please. Councilor Bushard. Yes. Councilor Hanson. No. Councilor Jang. Yes. Councilor Paulino. No. Councilor Freeman. No. Councilor Mason. Councilor Paul. Yes. Councilor Roof. Yes. Councilor Shannon. Yes. Councilor Tracy. No. City Council President Wright. Yes. Seven ayes, four nays, one absent. That passes by a vote of seven to four. And we will now move on to item 4.0, 4.08, excuse me. Resolution opposing the basing of any nuclear weapon delivery system on the Vermont Air National Guard Base at Burlington International Airport. Who is moving this resolution? Councilor Hanson. Yeah, I'd like to move the resolution as revised and wave the reading. Oh, okay. Okay, we need a second. We need a second. Councilor Freeman seconds. Councilor Hanson, you have the floor back. Thank you. I wanted to thank everyone who came out tonight to speak on this issue and who stuck around for a couple of hours after that to be able to watch the debate and the conversation and the vote on this. I wanna thank folks who've been working for years and years on this issue. This resolution, I think folks brought up a lot of concerns with the F-35s, which I absolutely share. This resolution specifically focuses on the possibility of upgrades to the F-35s that would make them nuclear capable. So I'm hopeful that even counselors who have supported the F-35s may support them without the nuclear capabilities, will still support this resolution because of what it speaks to, which is this nuclear capabilities, which would have Burlington's airport hosting delivery systems for some of the most destructive weapons on the planet and also make us a potential target in the event of a war. This resolution is the product of months of meticulous word crafting by legal and military experts. It mirrors and builds upon language that passed through the Vermont State Senate, the Winooski City Council and the South Burlington City Council. I have to say, just right at the outset, I'm extremely hesitant to support any amendments to this resolution, particularly to the resolve clauses, which are short, they're concise and they convey a very specific message, as I said, that's been very carefully crafted. I know from speaking to other counselors that this resolution, as it stands now, should have the support to pass and so I hope that's what we can do here tonight, pass this resolution as currently written rather than make changes at the last moment that are not supported by the sponsors of this resolution. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Hanson. Councillor Shannon. I don't really want to speak to this yet, but just wanted to know if the maker could clarify there was a new version and if he could clarify what the changes were. Thank you, Councillor Shannon, for that clarification. Councillor Hanson, there were speaking of changes. There were changes made to the resolution actually today and if you could tell us what those changes were. Yeah, so there were changes, the changes were to add citations, which was the request of another city councillor. So there have been citations added into the resolution and at the request of a city councillor, one of the many whereas clauses was removed from the resolution. Again, this was the request of another councillor in an attempt to bring more folks along who did support the substance of the resolution and the resolved clauses, which is the action-oriented part of the resolution. The whereas clauses are laying out the case and the argument behind the resolution. So those were the changes that were made. Thank you, Councillor Hanson. Okay, anyone else want to speak on this? Anyone else? Councillor Shannon. I wanted to just say that I take the threat of having nuclear weapons based anywhere in Vermont very seriously and have tried to do my own due diligence to find out what the real threat is. I am 100% anti-nuke. My father was in the Navy in the Pacific during World War II and was on a reconnaissance mission in Nagasaki three days after they dropped the bomb. He used to send us newspaper clippings. He thought would be of interest to his daughters and he sent us a clipping in the 1980s, espousing a no-nukes position, which was quite a surprise to us because he was very much a World War II era Republican and conservative, but to our surprise he explained that he had been in Nagasaki and what he had seen and that he will forever be opposed to nuclear anything. We are at great risk today with the narcissist in chief who is withdrawing from anti-nuke treaties and the threat of a nuclear war I think is quite real. I wanted, in the process of looking into the relationship between nuclear weapons and the F-35s, the city council really doesn't control the basing decision and it has been advocated by our federal delegation to bring the F-35s here. And I asked Senator Sanders' office to respond to things that have been out in the public about the risk of having nuclear weapons on these aircraft. And I think that it was stated tonight that they had this position and they didn't know what we know now. This is, I want to briefly read an email that I received from David Weinstein at Senator Sanders' office in response to my questions. This was written February 14th of this year. And he says, according to Ethan Rosenkranz, senior analyst for national defense on the Senate Budget Committee, there are no plans to deploy nuclear weapons in Burlington. While the Air Force does not typically discuss where it stores nuclear weapons, it is widely believed that only two or three air bases in the continental US host operational B-61 nuclear bombs, the type that would eventually be compatible with the F-35. Rather, air-delivered tactical nuclear weapons like the B-61 are typically forward deployed in Europe or Asia. Some other general points relayed by Ethan, the F-35 is a short range fighter designed primarily to perform ground attack and air superiority missions. It is not a bomber. In 2014, Congress cut funding to make the F-35 nuclear capable, pushing the early estate to 2024. Even then, only certain blocks of the planes will be upgraded, even if the F-35 becomes nuclear capable, something Senator Sanders opposes. It does not mean all F-35s will carry nuclear weapons. The F-16, F-15, and F-18 are all nuclear capable. Very, very few have ever carried a nuclear weapon. Regarding Burlington, the mission of the 158th Fighter Wing has not changed. Only the plane is changing. The F-16s currently based here do not carry nuclear weapons, and there is no reason to believe the F-35 would either. There is simply no operational rationale to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on a short range fighter based on the border with Canada. Military bases hosting nuclear weapons have to go through an extensive nuclear certification process. Since BTV is a dual civilian military installation that is extremely unlikely, the base would require significant perimeter security improvements, and the construction of hardened weapons storage vaults, new hardened hangers, and nuclear handling facilities. This construction isn't happening, nor would it go unnoticed, and the USAF has not proposed any funding for it in a military construction appropriations bill. As far as we know, none of the pilots or maintainers at the V-Tang base have undergone the extensive training necessary to handle nuclear weapons control and delivery systems. Lastly, and to be absolutely clear, Senator Sanders doesn't just oppose basing nuclear weapons in Vermont, but he is an original cosponsor of a bill to completely cancel the F-35's nuclear mission and efforts to extend the life of the B-61 nuclear bomb. So I share that because I have received so many emails from so many people who are very scared about the things that they're hearing in terms of the level of threat of bringing a nuclear weapon to Vermont. And I do trust that Senator Sanders has information that the rest of us, including city counselors here, are not privy to. So I wanted to share that information. That is not to say that I do support the resolution, and I am opposed to anything that would potentially bring nuclear weapons to Burlington. So I will leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Shannon. I think with that, I am going to pass the gavel to you, Councillor Shannon, and I, as I am going to participate in the debate now and offer an amendment. Not until I call on you. Can we call? Like, we're gonna offer an amendment. Whatever you do, we decide to call on me. Can we call a recess? We can, sure. We can call a five-minute recess. Is there the purpose of the recess, Councillor Freeman, to discuss the action on the resolution thus far? Is that, I mean, to have some... Can we discuss it at that table, or is there a reason to go into recess? No, just to call a recess. To discuss the... I'm sorry, Attorney Blackwood, is there a qualification that I need to meet in order to call a recess? Is it at the discretion of the council? I don't... It's at the discretion of the chair, whether or not to recess the meeting. So if the chair believes they need more reason to decide, I think they're allowed to ask you for that. Not exactly sure of what. We can recess for five minutes. Okay, perfect, thank you. Councillors, please take your seats. I have President Wright in the queue. President Wright. Thank you, President Shannon. So I am offering this amendment, and this is not changing any of the resolve clause that are in the current... If this is adding to the resolve clauses at the end of this resolution. And I'm going to first lay out why I'm doing this. It goes along the same lines of what Councillor Shannon just said, actually. I have gotten many emails, not many, but I've gotten a number of emails, a number of phone messages, all saying please support this resolution and stop the F-35s from coming here. We also had it said in public forum in previous meetings about the Vermont Senate resolution, which was a mischaracterization a number of times, saying that the Vermont Senate passed a resolution to stop the F-35. And that is simply not accurate. I talked to senators while I was in the Capitol and I got a text from my senator today that says the resolution in the Senate was solely limited to expressing our view that we do not want nuclear weapons in Vermont. So not to try to stop the F-35 from coming here. So this resolution, I'm going to read it now, is we can state our sentiment, and I'm fine with that, and I'm supportive of that, saying that we don't want a nuclear mission in Burlington, but we're not stopping the F-35s. They're coming next month, and I think we need to be honest with people about that. We can express our sentiments, and we will in this resolution, but this is what the amendment is. After the resolve clauses that are already in the resolution, I add to that to say be it further resolved, that the city council recognizes that the Vermont Air National Guard's 158th fighter wing will receive the F-35A three F jets within approximately the next month. We understand that this resolution expressing strong opposition to any nuclear mission for these planes will have no impact on the arrival of the F-35A jets in September. We wish the men and women of our Vermont Air Guards successful and safe flights whenever the planes are flown, and be it further resolved that while we acknowledge the F-35A jets are coming in September, the Burlington City Council also understands how important noise mitigation efforts are, and we recognize the need to deal with this as quickly as possible. To that end, the council requests a report and update on these efforts from the Director of Aviation, Gene Richards, at our first meeting in October. Now that is something that we should be moving forward on and that we should be realistic about that the planes are coming. We should be expressing our that we do not want a nuclear mission. Let me just quote a few things in addition to that. In addition to what Councillor Shannon mentioned, I talked to Lieutenant Chelsea Clark, Second Lieutenant of the United States Air Force myself just in the last couple of days. She sent me a statement saying the Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs stated that Vermont is not getting a nuclear mission with the F-35s. Only units within nuclear mission will be given the hardware necessary to carry nuclear weapons. The F-35 station at Burlington International Airport will not have the hardware necessary for a nuclear mission. So I think that it is important that along with stating that we don't want a nuclear mission, that we are upfront and honest with people because again, I've heard it repeatedly, people thinking that if we pass this resolution, we can stop the F-35s and the F-35s are coming next month. So it's fine for us to make a statement about our feelings about the nuclear that we don't want a nuclear mission here. I'm supportive of that. But we also need to be upfront with people and not mislead people to think that by passing this resolution, and again, just as Councillor Shannon has, I've heard it many times, people urging me to do this because we need to stop the F-35s. This resolution's passage will not do that and we need to be upfront to people. I will add a couple of more comments from the Guard from the Air Force in regard to this. What variant of the F-35A will the Air National Guard 158th Fighter Wing in Burlington, Vermont receive? The 158th Fighter Wing will receive F-35A block 3F jets. Our 35A block 3F jets nuclear capable? No. Will the F-35A jets in Burlington, Vermont be nuclear capable? No. The Burlington jets will have the hardware, will not have the hardware necessary for the nuclear mission. Will the Air Force ever add hardware to the F-35s in Burlington, Vermont to make them nuclear capable? There are no plans to add the hardware necessary to make the Burlington, Vermont. I'm sorry, listen. Excuse me. That's not appropriate. We'd like to keep the decorum of the Council for this. And I'll add to that just that we all listen to you respectfully and I'd appreciate the same courtesy. Will the F-35 in Burlington, Vermont be nuclear capable and fitted with block 4 upgrades? No. Only units with a nuclear mission will be given the hardware necessary to carry nuclear weapons. The Burlington jets as they will be configured will not be nuclear capable. I asked them about the F-16s. The F-16s were similar in that nature in that they could have had hardware placed on them. They were here for many years and they never did carry nuclear weapons. So we can sit back and laugh and say they're lying to us. And that just falls into a pattern of what's going on in Washington. That we're gonna accuse, if we don't like what's being said, they're lying, you're lying, everybody's lying. And where are we if we just think everybody's lying? So the reality is the F-35s have been approved. Let me give you another example. This city council, and I didn't support this action, but this city council asked the Air Force, took an action to ask the Air Force, the Secretary of the Air Force, about a year and a half ago to replace the F-35 plane with a different plane, with a cargo plane or something like that. The Air Force did not do that. The Air Force moved forward with the F-35 despite the majority of the council asking them to do something different. This is not in the hands of the city council at this point. This is a decision that has been made. The F-35 planes are coming. They will be here next month, the first two. There will be two arriving each month after that until the numbers has arrived at, which I believe is 18. So again, I'm supportive of the resolution and sending the message that this resolution sends, but also in addition to make a factual statement so that we do not mislead people into thinking that the resolution is doing something that is really not capable of doing. And again, the same things were said of Vermont Senate resolution, and I've talked to senators and senators, not of my party who have made clear to me that in fact said to me, no, we understand that the Vermont Senate resolution had no impact on the arrival of the F-35 jets. So I hope that the council will pass this resolution, this amendment to the resolution, to add a factual statement, a simple factual statement, and also talk about the safety and successful missions of flying these planes, and also that we move forward on these noise mitigation efforts. Thank you. Did you make a motion? You know what, I need to move the amendment. I need to, I'd like to move the amendment. That you read. Yes. Okay, thank you. Is there a second to that amendment? Seconded by Councillor Roof. Discussion on the amendment. Councillor Tracy. I'd like to note that Councillor Pine has joined us on the phone, prior to Councillor Wright, right after the resolution he joined, he got on the line. And does Councillor Pine have the ability to, is he online or have the ability to hear everybody at the table? I think he can hear everybody, yeah. Is he just on the phone or is he watching online? I'm not sure. Councillor Pine, are you able to hear everybody at the table? Councillor Pine, can you hear everybody at the table? Councillor Pine, are you able to hear me? Okay. Did you have any comments or just wanted to? I'll come back on the comments one second. I just wanted to note that. Yeah, thank you. I just need to second together my thoughts. I just wanted to make sure we noted that prior to that. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Jang, you were in the queue to speak to the base resolution. Did you want to speak to the amendment? Yes, Acting President. I want to speak to the amendment. Floor is yours. Thank you, Acting President Shannon. First of all, I want to appreciate all the men and women that are here today. And I think you all look beautiful in red. You're beautiful. Just make sure that, like the requests that are being here, so we stay civil. We're going to have a wonderful conversation here. I want to speak to the amendment. And I do believe that this amendment completely is changing the substance of this resolution. The resolution is very clear. And I think Councillor Acting President Shannon in her remarks or what emails she did receive made it clear. Even if the F-35s currently don't have a delivery, nuclear delivery system, Roséa Greta did state here very clearly that they have the capacity to add it. I think that's very important. They have the capacity to add a nuclear delivery system in the F-35, like you're saying, F-35A3F. That's a fact. And this resolution is saying we don't want to have any, any airplane flying jets that have that capacity. That's what we opposed. This amendment from President Wright is completely changing the substance. Because we're not talking about a nuclear mission here. This resolution has nowhere where it mentioned nuclear mission, a nuclear delivery system. The second component of this amendment is very clear too. It is asking about the noise mitigation, which doesn't even need a resolution. We simply can request the airport director to come here and give us those noise mitigations. We can request it. The mayor can request it. And I think it doesn't have a place in here, in this resolution. Those components are facts. They clear reason why I am voting no on this amendment. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Jang. Councillor Paulino. So I would agree that the contents of the amendment are... Do you get a little closer to the mic? Are relevant. However, I do believe that it's in conflict, the spirit of Councillor Hanson's motion. So I would make a motion to postpone the consideration of the amendment for next council meeting so that it could be a separate resolution. I don't think we can postpone the amendment without postponing the resolution. So would you like to... I would, point of order. What is your point of order? Councillor Paulino, you can address me. Can an amendment to an amendment be postponed to the following meeting? You would like me to ask our parliamentarian? Correct. Attorney Blackwood, can we postpone an amendment while moving forward on a resolution? I don't see how you can do that. The amendment is directed towards the resolution itself. I think you could move to amend by pulling that out and putting it in making us and saying, I wanna bring it forward as a separate resolution. But I don't think you can postpone voting on the amendment when it's been made as an amendment to a resolution. Thank you. So I believe the parliamentarian has affirmed my position on that. Councillor Paulino, you still have the floor if you want it. I do. Having said that, I would ask for a motion to amend the amendment and insert a new paragraph or a new sentence. And that would be the third sentence on the first paragraph to read. The third sentence of the amendment? The third sentence of the amendment. Okay. To read, we hope that this resolution will have an impact on the nuclear capability of F-35A jets, period. On F-30, could you repeat it please? Yes. So third sentence, first paragraph of the proposed amendment before Council floor. To read, we hope that this resolution will have an impact on the nuclear capability of F-35A jets. Can you, do you have that in writing? Can you send it to the clerk? Sure. F-35HS, what is it? Oh, A3, I got it. Thank you. Point of information? Councilor Roof. Could the maker, could you request the maker to just remind the council where exactly this line is going? In the context of the resolution? Yes. Is it replacing anything? I just wanna know exactly where this is going to land. That would be helpful if you could read that in the context of the amendment. Sure, so. Read your amendment into it. So it'd be the third sentence of the first paragraph of the proposed amendment by Councilor Wright. So it would read after, we recognize that the planes are coming next month. We understand that this resolution expresses strong opposition to the nuclear mission for these planes will have no impact on the arrival of the jets in September. We do hope that this resolution will have an impact on the nuclear capability of the F-35A jets, period. And then we will continue. It was a proposed amendment to the amendment to insert. Yes, so it would continue, we wish. And there are no deletions in that, correct? It's just an insertion. Correct. Okay, and does the clerk have that yet? Or I'll give you a minute to get that so that we can put it up on the screen so that people can see. Is there a second? I just wanna wait to see it before. Okay, we can wait. I second the amendment to my amendment. Okay, so we have a second. President Wright. And I would like to speak to it. Okay, I think we can do that while we're waiting. Go ahead. Thank you, I'm fine with this amendment to this amendment. The message is still delivered here and I think it's fine to say that we hope that this will have an impact on the nuclear capability because again, I don't think the Air Force or the Air Guard will quarrel with that either because they are saying there will be no nuclear capability for the F-35s. So I think that's fine. So we have it up on the screen now. Is there discussion on the amendment to the amendment? And I'll remind counselors you cannot further amend. Councillor Busher. I don't wanna further amend. To me, I understand the intent but for me it fails because it says we hope that this resolution will have an impact on the nuclear capability of the F-35. Does that mean we want to make sure it has nuclear capability or not? So to me, it's missing the fact that we'll have an impact on eliminating the potential for nuclear, well, eliminating the ability for the nuclear, I don't know but I don't have the language but I just feel like it doesn't say specifically what side of the nuclear capability you're on, it just leaves it there. And I feel like it should say that you don't want, you want this to not allow a nuclear capability as opposed to just making that blanket statement. So for me that the amendment doesn't work. Thank you. Councillor Busher. If Councillor Paulino wants to refine the language, I think that that could be appropriate. You could withdraw and replace the language because I think your intention is a little bit different than what those words say but we can continue the discussion if counselors have further discussion. So further discussion. Councillor Paulino, are you refining your, okay. Councillor Freeman. Yeah, I agree with what Councillor Busher brought forward and but it sounds like Councillor Paulino is refining the amendment. So I just wanted to echo that. Makes sense to me. Thank you. President Wright. Councillor, acting President Shannon, I would like to make a motion to suspend our rules. It's 1030. Is there anything that is time sensitive that's left on here? Is the E911 coordinator? Mr. Mayor, do you know if there are things on the agenda that are time sensitive after this item? So we clearly still have a waste of time. President Wright, it would be important. I think that we make a decision on 4.12 and 4.13 tonight, the two parking related. 4.12 and 4.13. So I would make a motion to suspend our rules to complete this item that we are dealing with now 08 along with 4.12 and 4.13. Is there a second to that motion? Seconded by Councillor Roof. All in favor of suspending our rules as noted by President Wright, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That's unanimous. Do we have a new revision? Would you like to read it, Councillor Paulino? The new, so it would be a motion to insert this language to the amendment, to the amendment. We do hope that this resolution- This is a replacement of your amendment. You can't further amend. So this is replacement language for your amendment. We do hope that this resolution will eliminate the nuclear capability of the F-35A jets. Oh, so that's the old one that's up there. We do hope that this resolution will eliminate, okay. So I would make that motion. Okay, and you still are seconding that motion, President Wright. Is there further discussion on the amendment to the amendment? Seeing none, we're ready for a vote. Councillor Jang. Where is the amendment? It's right up on the floor. Gonna give people a minute just to read it. Okay, are we ready for a vote? All those in favor of the amendment to the amendment as presented on the screen, please say aye. Aye. Actually, we have councillors on the phone, so we need to do a roll call. Sorry. Councillor Bushor. Yes. Councillor Hanson. Councillor Jang. Councillor Paulino. Yes. Councillor Freeman. Councillor Mason. Yes. Councillor Paul. Yes. Councillor Pine. Ryan. Councillor Roof. Yes. Councillor Shan- Yes. Councillor Tracy. No. Council, Councilor Wright. Yes. Seven ayes, five nays. Okay, the motion passes. We are now on the amended amendment that was presented by Councillor President Wright. Yes, Councillor Freeman. Can I move to poll this amendment as a separate resolution? I thought that was what I, was a point of information. That was something I can move. I don't understand the motion that you're making, but you have conferred with, you want Attorney Blackwood to clarify or? I just wanted to make sure, based on the point of information that Councillor Paulino asked earlier, what I understood is that this, amendment can be pulled, you can make a motion to pull it as a separate resolution. Is that the correct term? The decision was actually, and Attorney Blackwood concurred that you cannot actually put that, to postpone that until the next meeting. No, not to postpone it, sorry, to divide the question, to create a separate resolution. To create a separate, to have a separate vote on the amendment. We are having a vote on the amendment now. At point of information, Attorney Blackwood, can you provide some clarity to, I just don't, I don't understand what. Attorney Blackwood, would you like to respond on whether we can make the amendment a separate resolution? I think someone could move to sever this portion of the resolution, into a separate resolution, yes. There are probably several different ways you could term that, how you do that. But I believe that you could make that motion. So the motion would be to, could you tell us how you think you could make that motion? I think there. Give us a sample language for the motion. Sure, I think there are probably a couple different ways you could do it. I think you could say, I'd like to divide the question and pull the amendment in as a separate question. How do we divide the amendment when it hasn't been amended into the resolution yet? Because it's not, the idea is to not have it be an amendment that it would be a resolution that stands on its own. That's, if you are to say, I'm going to divide the question and make that amendment to stand on its own. I'm not sure divide the question is exactly the right language to use, but it seems like that's one possibility. Probably a better one is just to say, I make a motion to move the amendment to be a separate resolution. So if there was a motion to make the amendment a separate resolution and we take a vote on that and that motion fails, then we continue to vote on the amendment as part of the resolution. If that motion passes, then we move on to voting on the resolution as presented and following that, we have a vote on the amendment. Is that correct? As a resolution. As a separate resolution. Correct. Okay. Councillor Freeman, you would like to make a motion to make the amendment a separate resolution. Is that correct? Point of information. Point of information. Councillor Jang, what is your point of information? My point of information is what you just stated is not clear to me. And I would like the city attorney to please explain the process in which we will be moving forward with the resolution that was brought by Jack Henson. City Attorney Blackwood, would you like to clarify? I think what would be helpful is first to have Councillor Freeman clarify what she wants to do and then I'll have Attorney Blackwood clarify that. So I just want to be clear. Councillor Freeman, are you making a motion to separate, to make the amendment a separate resolution? Yes. Rather than part of this? Yeah. That is your motion? Yes. And I'll wait on asking for a second until we have clarification from Attorney Blackwood. I believe you stated it correctly before. You would take, the vote would be on whether or not to sever the amendment and make it a separate resolution. If the vote is yes, then you sever that and you go back to the original resolution and vote on that original resolution and then vote on the proposed amendment as a second resolution. If the vote is no not to sever it, then you vote on whether to amend the original resolution with this amendment and if, and that either passes or fails. Okay. Is there, are there further questions that somebody wants to actually ask? Councillor Busher. In regards to what is being proposed, is that what you're saying? Yes. We can speak. Well, actually just, I want to get a second to debate the merits of it, but I want to make sure everybody is clear on procedurally what we're doing. Okay. So, Councillor Busher, do you have a procedural question? Yes, because I don't understand how something can become a resolution on its own. I understand dividing a question, but to have something that has no whereas, no anything just to become, pluck out of the air a resolution and have us vote separately on that does not make sense. And I want to bring us back to a very un, I'm sorry I'm going to bring us back to this, but when there was a resolution on the trees in City Hall Park, I tried to divide that and have it be separate and was told I couldn't do that. So this seems inconsistent for me in my memory of how we do business. And I don't understand. It opens a door for any one of us to introduce resolutions and this backdoor mechanism of introducing an amendment than having it be a standalone resolution. I don't support this and I won't be voting in support of this process. Thank you. I think Councillor Busher and I have a fairly long history here and I don't recall this ever being done before. So, Attorney Blackwood, I'll ask you if this is something that's at the discretion of the chair. I just don't think it's... I don't see how it's at your discretion. I think if someone wants to make that motion, you're on the merits of doing the motion or not. Okay, we will continue then and I'm going to ask for a second. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Hanson. Discussion on the amendment to separate out Councillor Wright's amendment as a separate resolution. Further discussion on that count. Councillor Wright. Do you want to go to? I agree with Councillor Busher and I clearly remember what Councillor Busher is referring to and her frustration at the time that the ruling came from advice from the city attorney from discussion with other councillors and a ruling by the council president that what she wanted to do was not in order and I think this is, it may be allowed as the city attorney has said but I think it really is a slippery slope to begin to go down to and I think that for at least me, whether this passes or not has some bearing on whether I would vote for this because I think the message, sending a message out without the accompanying message I think is wrong. So, I would urge defeat of this. Thank you President Wright. Councillor Paulino. So, I think I just want to make my intentions clear. I support dividing the question because I showed up to vote on a resolution that was made public. That was essentially a no nuclear capability or delivery systems in Vermont and by adding this other piece to it it sort of complicates things for me and I would like to, it's not because, it's because I would like a separate resolution that addresses the issues raised in that addition. That's all. It's not because I oppose the language, Councillor Wright, I think with my amendment I would support that but I'm also in favor of dividing. Councillor Hanson. I'll be supporting it. I feel similarly, I feel that this language kind of warps the intentions of the original resolution especially the language around reiterating reiterating the idea that this is a foregone conclusion and that they're coming in the context of a resolution that is urging that we don't have these nuclear capabilities and that we're taking a stance against that and making that case. I think it definitely complicates the resolution also the language around nuclear mission rather than nuclear weapons delivery system is a different message there. So I think it's good to look at the amendment as it was written which I do believe has enough support to pass and we can consider these other items separately. Councillor Roof. Thank you, Acting President Shannon. I'm fighting on two fronts here. I'm starting trying to get, I don't have much experience as Councillor Busher and even she is a little perturbed by this so I'm working on that front but I'm also just a little bit confused about the orientation of this conversation. We're talking about the darn F-35s here. If you read the resolution in its original form you look at the Rez clauses. We're talking about the F-35s and yes, the specifics of the language matter but let's just be forthright with the conversation. These amendments are directly related to the conversation that we're having. The amendment refers to this resolution so it's in reference to the rest of the resolution. I've been on the council now close to five years and I can't remember a time where there was a resolution that we just didn't want to vote on and we didn't vote on. I don't understand the approach. I'm working on trying to understand the approach but when a resolution is made typically if you support it, you vote yes and if you don't support it, you vote no and that's how a legislative body such as this typically functions and so I'm working, I'm trying to see what I think others may see much more clear. It's just, it's not hit me over the head here. This is a relatively fair, I think mostly factual amendment. It's been put forward like if you support it, vote yes, if you don't vote no and forward we go on to the next item. I will, I'll see what I'm gonna do, my goodness. Thank you, Councilor Roof. Councilor Freeman. To that point, I just, and sorry, I'm just trying to wrap my head around the concerns that you're bringing, Councilor Roof and also Councilor Busher. To me it is very important to divide the question. I think regardless of whether, and I have to default to the parliamentarian, I don't know, I'm not the final call and I'm sorry that this is under question and perhaps we should call a recess to have better clarity on it because I really think we should have clarity on what we're doing before we vote on it and the rules, I do, I really hear that. I think it is important, but I do wanna divide the question whether it's now or whether it's in the resolution. I don't think that this makes sense that it doesn't to me adhere to the integrity to the initial intent of the original resolution. I think it's just a different, dividing the question because it's a separate issue. I think it should be voted on separately. To me it just doesn't seem germane enough. I mean even the fact around the noise component is so essential. We are getting so many emails about that aspect in particular. It's fantastic. I do believe we should bring that issue forward. It does not need to be part of this resolution which is about the nuclear capacity of the F-35. Neither of these, it's just not germane to that the integrity and the core of the reason for the initial resolution. Further discussion on separating out this amendment as a separate resolution. Councilor Paul. Thank you, Acting President Shannon. I thought this was going to be rather straightforward this evening and it certainly is not at all straightforward. I can see about, I think there have been about 14 different sides to this argument and I probably agree with part of all of them. I feel as though the makers of the resolution put a lot of effort into it. I was the counselor who, counselor Hanson said remained nameless but I was the one that really pushed them to put citations in the resolution. I think it makes it better. And I was the one that asked for a resolve clause to be removed. And I don't disagree with the, with many of the facts, because they are facts that are in the amendments. I'm just not sure that that's a fair way if the city attorney says that they can be, stand on their own, if it is fair to the spirit of the resolution for them to be included. So I'll continue to think about that until my name comes up. Thank you very much. Anyone else? Council President Wright. This is not in any way a violation of the spirit of the resolution. The resolution stands with the main point that it wants to make about nuclear capability. Now, nuclear mission is directly tied to nuclear capability. As the said and what I read, there will be no nuclear capability because there is no nuclear mission. That is the fact. So it's trying to say that the nuclear mission is different, nuclear mission is, because there's no mission is why there is no nuclear capability and there's not expected to be any nuclear capability. There is no mission. This is again, allowing this, I think it was a mistake, this whole issue of separation. This is gonna put us into a whole another issue of turmoil of how to figure out how we turn this into a resolution because it really needs something like this should not be delayed and not voted on tonight. Counselors have, we have acted on issues like this throughout the years. This is not something new and different that somebody comes here and there's a resolution and somebody proposes an amendment that someone changes the resolution. The fact of the matter is, this doesn't even change the resolution. It simply adds some lines that state some facts that are clear facts. And I don't understand, quite frankly, why people are so upset about adding the facts to this particular resolution and still have a stand on the nuclear capability question that still passes. It to me, it says that you wanna pass something without saying the real facts without, while still letting people think that we're gonna stop the F-35s which people have said repeatedly to us, we're willing to pass this and then hope we can defeat this amendment after so that this can stand on its own and people can continue to think that we are going to stop something and mislead people into think we're gonna stop something when we aren't going to and we're not able to. Thank you, President Wright. Just to clarify, if this motion should pass, we will be taking this up immediately following the vote on the resolution. Councilor Jang. Yeah, I wanted to again, you know, bring us back together as to why we're here and until right now talking about this. And I think the whole purpose of this go back and forth, how, what process we should use, it's because of the amendments we have in front of us by Council President Wright are not factual. It completely changes the substance of the resolution that Jack brought here. I think that's why things are complicated in here. It's important. And again, I think we received here an amazing public forum statement from a colonel who's retired from the army. If you want, I can read just one specific paragraph. It is late. If it's already been read tonight, do we need to... Maybe, I mean, to remind people again that when we talk about facts, it's not what Bernie Sanders staff tell me, but I wanna really believe on someone who been in the army, that's those facts that I want. But instead of just a staff of a senator, or any other, many things, sometimes you don't even know what to believe really, because there are so many aspects of this. And I think the resolution that Jack brought, that's what we need to discuss. Anything that's not factual about it, let's take it away, move it separately and move forward. Thank you. Thank you. Council Paul. Thank you. So I have a question for the city attorney, if that's all right, or do you want me to ask you? What is it? I guess I'll ask you. I'm just trying to understand what the criteria is that in this particular case, it's okay to do what is being proposed. But in another case, it was not okay to do what is being proposed. And I just wanna make sure I understand why, because if we're gonna do this, then it may be a first, and I'd like to know why, how it is that we can do this, as opposed to other instances when others have requested, made similar requests. Thank you, Councilor Paul. Good question. Attorney Blackwood. Sure. In this case, when I look at the amendment put forth by President Wright, my reading of this is that it can stand alone, that this can be, if you just take out one of the word, the word further in the first sentence, it stands alone as a resolution. It has no wear abs clauses, but there's no rule that says you have to have wear abs clauses. You have to have resolve clauses, because that's what a resolution is. But my belief is that the rest of it can stand alone. And that's why it can be divided out the way that the proposal is. The Chair, of course, is the one who gets to rule on this, whether or not, and you obviously can disagree with me and go through an appeal process. But my reading of this is this looks to me as though it can stand alone as a resolution, and so that's what I am basing my opinion. You just told me that I did not have discretion on this. If I have discretion, I might do something different, but you told me that I did not have discretion when I asked you that question. Well, I'm sorry, because I probably misunderstood what your question was. It isn't that you have discretion, it is that somebody has made a motion. I've given you my parliamentary ruling. My ruling is merely advisory to the Chair and the body, and you can choose to disregard it in which case someone can appeal your ruling, your decision, and the body can make a decision on parliamentary matters. I'm really just your advisor on this, so I'm telling you what I come up with here. So I can, despite your advice, I can still rule that that motion is out of order. You can rule that motion out of order and then someone can move to appeal your ruling on the being out of order. I think that this matter is important to how the council functions, and it's more important than this vote tonight. It's important as to how we all work together on a regular basis, and for those of us that have a very long history here and have never seen anything like this done, I think that it is actually important that we establish how we're going to treat these situations. So for that reason, I will rule the motion out of order, and I imagine you may want to appeal that. If you do, Councillor Freeman, do you want to appeal that ruling? Yes. And there's been a motion to appeal my ruling that that motion is out of order. Is that a debatable? Yes. Yes, okay. And point of information. We're going to find, point of information? Yes. So you have the appeal, Carrie, it's a yes vote, is that correct? It's a double negatives. Right, right. It's a bit confusing. So that's a good question. I believe that you have moved to appeal my decision that this is out of order, and a yes vote means that it is in order. A yes vote is in support of Councillor Mason's appeal. Councillor Freeman, sorry. I do believe, oh, sorry. Are we still discussing whether it's debatable? Just quickly, you do need a second to it, and then it is debatable. Okay. Is there a second to Councillor Freeman's motion to appeal, seconded by Councillor Hanson? Is there? Can I have the floor? Debate. Yes, Councillor Freeman, I don't know why I'm doing that. It's late. I understand, that's totally fine. I did just want to, you know, the point about, you know, when I hear the concern about this is the way we've always done things, and, you know, we have a certain sort of way of doing business, and it has to follow, you know, the reason why we have Robert's Rules is that it's the authority of the law, that, you know, for our body. The only thing that concerns me is when I last appealed, the ruling of the council president that the resolution was out of order, one of the main arguments entered into the debate is, can that be done? I believe it was, that has never been done before. I don't think we should do it. But it is completely, I guess that part of the debate doesn't, it doesn't make sense, that doesn't seem logical to say just because we've never done it before, doesn't mean that it's not following Robert's Rules of Order and it is fair and, you know, appropriate and proper practice since we are illegal law making, you know, body that we, and so that's, I just have a lot of concern about bringing that rhetoric into the debate. Thank you. Point of order. Yes, Councillor Paulino. Thank you. So I just want to clarify, because I just asked Councillor Paul and I felt obviously I'm new, I do have the rules in front of me, so I'm reading them as I go, but I think I was confused. It seems like the question of first impression is dividing and sending it or creating a separate resolution, but we certainly can divide, right? And then just immediately proceeding after their take the vote on the second question once we divide it, if we divide it. The motion, So I just, We're not having a discussion about dividing the question. We are having a discussion about creating a separate resolution. If we were to get to vote on the resolution itself, we could at that time divide the question. So I was confused about that, so I just wanted, I think that as a new Councillor that was helpful to understand. Okay. Thank you. Council Buescher. Yes. So I'm not going to be supporting the motion to appeal the decision because in order to provide greater clarity to one Councillor who asked for that, what makes this different is that language was put forward that had a second, but we never voted on it. So it actually hasn't become part of any existing piece of legislation. And so that means for me and I appreciate the fact that it was never done before. That's not really any reason not to do it. And I agree. But having said that, what we are really contemplating is now to have any one of us propose an amendment that doesn't get voted on and then say, well, wait a minute, I want to move to divide and therefore I've now created a separate resolution with its own life. I think that is a very dangerous path to go down. I think that is out of order. I don't feel like that is something that I would want to support. So I am not going to support this action at all and I am not going to support the motion to appeal the decision of the chair. I think this is very different than dividing a question and having a piece of legislation that has been voted on by the council. This is language out there that's just there and it hasn't been incorporated at all. And so therefore I don't think it is deserving of being called a resolution that is being sponsored by this council. And I don't think it need, it should go forward in that manner. Thank you. No, no. Okay. Thank you. Councilor Wright, then Councilor Hanson. I believe this has been, we have a number of places we need to get to before we ever actually vote on this thing. People are waiting to see what we're going to do. I think we have beaten this one to death and I'm going to move that we call the question. There's a motion to call the question. Is there a second to the motion to call the question? Seeing no second, I will go to Councilor Hanson. So I don't have the full history and experience but I do think, I see, I think this is one example of when this makes sense and I think there could be other examples of when it makes sense where you have, you have a resolution that is supported by a number of counselors and you have additional language added as an amendment that is supported also by many counselors but that isn't necessarily so in line with the rest of the original resolution that they would be one resolution. Then I think that is a circumstance where you could look at the two items separately because they both have possibilities of moving forward but aren't necessarily seen as pairing together within one resolution. So I do think this plays a role. I don't see it as particularly dangerous and also I think it gets into a bit of shaky territory when we simply decide to disregard the advice of our legal counsel that seems a bit strange to me and I think that is something that could be a bit dangerous because in my mind that was kind of an external authority that we have to be able to weigh in in these situations and give that external advice that is kind of removed from the debate and the substance of what we're talking about and in this case we simply have disregarded that so that I'm not comfortable with. On both of those grounds I would appeal this decision. I will say that the chair's decision was based on the guidance of our parliamentarian and that is part of the process as well. Any further discussion or are we, Councilor Powell? Thank you. Regarding the question of the appealing the ruling and that is what we are on exclusively. So let's say I've been on the council long enough to be to have had a number of people that have been chair. I haven't always agreed with them. I've sometimes I've agreed with them, sometimes I haven't. I think it does set a bad precedent to be disagreeing, to try to overrule the chair unless something is completely egregious which I think in fairness to everyone I don't think anyone does things that are egregious and I don't believe that the decision of the chair is motivated by their particular feeling about the resolution. That's just my feeling. So I will not be voting in favor of overruling the decision. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Powell. Council Freeman. Can I call a very brief recess? Very brief. It is after 11 o'clock we have, I am not going to grant a recess at this point in time. Is there any further discussion? Before you do, I was listening very carefully to Councilor Busher's remarks and I believe that she has a point in looking at the reading Robert, looking at Robert's rules it says a motion to divide the main question cannot be made while an amendment to the main question is pending. That is not exactly the situation but I think it suggests that perhaps you are correct that you can't divide the question until you vote on the amendment. And so I apologize for confusing the situation here. It is late and I apologize that I was not thinking about it in those terms that Councilor Busher just put forward because I would have to change my ruling and say that my advice would be you need to vote on the amendment first and then you can move to divide the question if it is, if the main motion is amended. Thank you for continuing to look into that. And Councilor Freeman. May I pull my appeal? Yes, you may pull your appeal. Thank you very much. Can we have a brief recess? I think we need to move forward with this. If we want to have a discussion, let's have it in public. It is very late and we have several items still on the agenda. Okay. Thank you. We are now on the amendment. We have not yet voted on the amendment. Is there any discussion on Councilor Wright's amendment as amended? Yes, with Councilor Paulino's amendment, two Councilor Wright's amendment included. Seeing no discussion, I'll ask for the roll call vote on the amendment. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Councilor Freeman has a question. Point of information. Can it be amended once it's adopted into the resolution? Can that, is it now considered? Or if I want to make amendments on it, do I need to do that now? On the amendment. She can't amend the amendment. You may amend the amendment now, if you want. Or I could wait until it's into. You can amend the base resolution after it's amended. Is it added? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Perfect. I have the roll call vote on the amendment, please. Councilor Bushor. Yes. Councilor Hanson. Councilor Jang. No. Councilor Freeman. No. Councilor Mason. He has a delay. Yes. Thank you. Councilor Powell. Yes. Councilor Pine. I'm sorry. I just lost him just right now. I'm just trying to get him back on the line. Is that appropriate? Attorney Blackwood. Seems appropriate for you to give him just a second. Give him technology. Keep redialing while you do that. Can we continue with the roll call and come back to that? Councilor Roof. Yes. Acting City Council President Shannon. Yes. Councilor Tracy. No. Councilor Wright. Yes. I'm sorry, I can't reach him. We cannot reach Councilor Pine. So it will be 11 votes and the vote total. So seven ayes, four nays. Seven ayes, four nays, the motion passes. We are now on the resolution itself. Councilor Freeman, did you want to make an amendment to the resolution? I would like to move to divide the question and pull the amended, this amendment that was just, I'm not sure what the lines are, I apologize. That's okay. From the resolution. Yes, you'd like to vote on the two resolved clauses. And I apologize for doing it incorrectly. No problem. So the, what, Attorney Blackwood, could you tell me the procedure on dividing the question? There's been a motion to divide the question. Does that require a second and a vote? I'm not sure how you amend without debate, but there's a motion on the floor. It requires a second, seconded by Councilor Hanson. There is no debate on the motion. All of those in favor of dividing, oh, we need a roll call vote. Sorry, all those in favor of dividing the question. Councilor Bushar. Yes. Councilor Hanson. Councilor Jang. Yes. Paulino. Yes. Councilor Freeman. Yes. Councilor Mason. No. Councilor Paul. Yes. Councilor Pine. I still cannot get Councilor Pine on the line. Councilor Roof. No. Acting City Council President Shannon. No. Councilor Tracy. Yes. Councilor Wright. No. Seven ayes, four days. The motion to divide the question passes. There's, and we will move to the, we'll now vote on the language that excludes the, here, these are the two resolve clauses. It's the language we're now voting on excludes the two resolve clauses that President Wright introduced. Everyone clear on what we're voting for? Okay. So we can call the roll. Councilor Bushar. Yes. Councilor Hanson. Yeah. Councilor Jang. Yeah. Councilor Paulino. Councilor Freeman. Yes. Councilor Mason. Councilor Mason. Yes. Councilor Paul. Yes. Councilor Roof. Yes. Acting City Council President Shannon. Yes. Councilor Tracy. Yes. Councilor Wright. Yes. Thank you. We will now vote on Councilor Wright's amendments, which are two resolve clauses. Everybody know what we're voting on? Do I need to read this? Yes. Are they? Are they? Is it a separate? I think there's two resolve clauses together that we're voting on. Yes, Councilor Jang. What is your point of information? My point of information acting President Shannon is we're talking about voting on a resolution, not an amendment anymore. We just voted on the resolution. Yes. That was introduced. Now we're voting on these, well we voted on everything in the resolution, except for these two resolve clauses. So now we're voting just on the resolve clauses. It's not a separate resolution, it's just these two resolve clauses. No. I have point of information. I think we divided the question to have two different resolution. No, we just divided the question so that we vote separately on the resolve clauses. There's no separate resolution. That's what you wanted to know. That's what dividing the question means. There was a vote on dividing the question. The vote was affirmative. If you would like to, if you voted with the prevailing side, you can retract that. You can reconsider your motion to divide the question, but that is what dividing the question means. For the record, I don't throw up and eat it again. I already voted, we gotta move forward. Okay. Point of information. Yes, Councilor Freeman. When I asked about pulling the language to be a separate resolution, the term that I heard you use, that I heard Attorney Blackwood use was to divide the question. And so that's why I don't understand why dividing the question didn't make it a separate resolution because what I heard being said is that to create a separate resolution, the term and the phrasing I should use was divide the question. Attorney Blackwood, if you would like to clarify, dividing the question means we get to vote on them separately, but perhaps you have another way of explaining that. I don't have another way of explaining that. Dividing the question means you get to vote on them separately. I think if you want to say, I want a separate resolution, you have to somehow make that happen. But that's not what you've got in front of you. There was such a motion. It was the motion to make a separate resolution was not accepted by the chair. And so, Point of information. We did have a vote on dividing the question. Yes, Councillor Freeman. How do you, I don't, how should I proceed at this point? Because what I heard you, the Attorney Blackwood say is that in order to divide it into a separate resolution, I should use the phrasing to divide the question. So what can we have now an additional vote to create it into a separate resolution? That's what the intent was. That was the reason why I wanted to do that. I was utilizing the expertise in order to be able to do that with the correct phrasing. And I would really like to be able to move towards a motion to create that end, which is what I am asking to do. Councillor Freeman, that is not what I heard Attorney Blackwood say. She retracted her statement about creating a separate resolution and then explained that we could divide the question. Do you have anything further to add, Attorney Blackwood? I don't. Point of information. President Wright. So again, just to put this together, Councillor Freeman withdrew her appeal after City Attorney Blackwood clarified what her opinion was. Then Councillor Freeman withdrew her appeal and we then voted on the combined resolution. So we have voted already for the resolution with the amendment incorporated into it. We cannot now go back and do something different and create a new resolution. That is not what City Attorney Blackwood said at all. In any way, you withdrew what you were trying to do. You withdrew the appeal and dividing it means simply we now voted on this whole resolution. It's already passed with this amendment in it. You cannot now go back and create a new resolution because you withdrew the opportunity to do that and the City Attorney made clear that you were dividing it. We are going to vote. We've divided the question. We are in the middle of a vote. Is this debatable, Attorney Blackwood? We divided the question. We ended the discussion. We're just voting now. Okay. We're on the second part, which is the amendment, correct? Correct. That is what we're voting on. Is everyone clear that what we're voting on? Okay. I have a point of information. Point of information because I mean, I do believe that there we- You need to be called on. But you have to- Councillor Hanson, what is your point of information? So I'm unclear on then what we just voted on because Council President Wright said that we have already passed the resolution with the amendment. I had no intention of doing that. I thought we were specifically voting on the resolution without the amendment. Councillor Hanson, we did not vote on the amendments. We started the process of voting on the resolution that did include the amendments because we voted no on, we didn't vote no. It was deemed not in order by the chair to separate it out as a separate resolution which was supported by our parliamentarian. So now we are voting on just the question as it was divided. We're in the middle of a vote right now. So we have not yet voted on the amended language. Okay. Are we clear what we're voting on? Could you please call the roll? Councillor Bushard. Yes. Councillor Hanson. I'm yours. Councillor Jang. I'm sorry, but I don't know what I'm voting on right now. We are voting on this language and I will read it so that everybody is clear what we are voting on. I would like to request a recess because things have been very confusing to me. I would like to get some clarification as to where we are with not doing it on the floor. Okay. I would like to read what it is that we are voting on. We are voting on this language. Be it further resolved that the city council recognizes that the Vermont Air National Guard's 158th fighter wing will receive the F-35A3F jets within approximately the next month. We understand that this resolution, I have some language added in there. Cause this is the old language. Hang on one second. Is it there? I have a point of information. Yes. Thank you acting President Shannon. I think in view of the fact that even with all of the effort that you've put into making sure that you know exactly what we're voting on, even though it's, I think it might be a good idea to take a three minute break to make sure that if you're going to read it that we, that it be read exactly as it should be. And do we have, does the clerk have the language with the amendment that you can put up? That is correct. Okay. So this is the language that we are voting on. Be it further resolved, can everyone read that? I requested a recess five minutes ago. I'm wondering if this language clarifies, I understand that you want a recess cause you do not understand what you're voting on. If you read this language, this is what you are voting on. It's not the language that I'm talking about. Okay, that is what we are voting on, that language. No, I requested a recess acting president. Would you grant it or no? It's almost 11.30. This is an important issue acting president and I'm respectfully. I want you to understand what you're voting on. I will grant a recess for three minutes. Thank you. It's easy to get confused right now. That's why it's very smart. I just need to get you to a point. For whatever it's worth, I'm dying now. Weird thing. Is it okay? Yes. I'm sorry. It's just one thing. Chip? Yeah. Later a point about the mayor through to you. She wants one. She wants one. That's what they called it. It's not in my confidence. I don't know if Chip is still there. I'm having a stroke. I'm having a stroke. Oh my lord. We are going to, councilor Freeman, we don't have a way to, I appreciate the spirit of what you're asking for. We just don't have a way to do it right now. So we are going to continue with the roll call. Can we continue with the roll call? On the amendment. This is the language before you. Okay. It's juncture. Which is the amendment that was adopted into the resolution. The question was divided. We voted on the first part of this. We are now voting on the second part of the resolution. Councilor Busher. Yes. Councilor Hanson. No. Councilor Jang. No. Councilor Polino. Yes. Councilor Freeman. Councilor Mason. Councilor Paul. Yes. Councilor Pine, still absent. Yes. Councilor Roof. Yes. Acting President Shannon. Yes. Councilor Tracy. No. Councilor Wright. Yes. The motion passes. And it's all yours, President Wright. Thank you. Acting President Shannon. Great job. We have two items left to deal with and only two and it is 4.12 and 4.13. 4.12 is a resolution approval of the second amendment with Burlington Business Association regarding downtown parking and transportation management. This was consent agenda item 3.26. Councilor Busher. President Wright, I'm going to move to wave the reading and adopt the resolution. And after a second, I would like the floor back. Seconded by Councilor Roof. Councilor Busher, you have the floor back. So this was discussed this evening at the Board of Finance. And there is a memo that actually does an explanation of what is being proposed and why as many recall, there was a vote in March for the downtown improvement district, which did not get support needed. And so in order to continue to do business, there was a need to continue a relationship that had worked very well for us between the Department of Public Works and the Downtown Business Association. So this is to extend that relationship for one year, that it was a pilot relationship for one year. The funding for this comes from the assessment, the annual assessment that comes from the Downtown Improvement District. And included in the packet is a slate of work that was accomplished in FY19. And then in addition, there is FY20 work plan and deliverables. I know there must be some people here that stayed with us to speak to this. If there were some questions, I know that Councilor Hansen had asked to have this removed. And so I'll keep it brief since it's late, but it was unanimous at the Board of Finance to recommend approval by the Council. And as you know, Councilor Pine was not present at that meeting. Thank you, Councilor Bush, your discussion. Councilor Hansen. Yeah, just to briefly explain why I pulled that and I've been able to have some followup conversations with DPW. I appreciate there are some items in here around multimodal transportation and supporting alternative transportation. However, I don't feel that it goes far enough. I think we have 11 years left to radically transform our transportation system. And I think we need to be more aggressive at every opportunity to do that. And I'm excited to work on that. Unfortunately, I can't support this item because I don't feel that it moves quickly enough in that realm. Thank you, Councilor Hansen. Any further discussion? Mr. Mayor. Can Councilor Hansen clarify what his concern is about the other work, which is not, as was stated numerous times in the public forum, expanding the parking infrastructure, but is making that parking infrastructure better. What is the objection to that if those other elements of the scope are the cause of the concern? Councilor Hansen. Sure. I think for me, so I appreciate that it's not expanding. I think we're incredibly overbuilt in Burlington in terms of parking because of mandatory parking minimums. We have farmed too much parking and I agree that it is inefficient. A lot of it's private and inaccessible and it's not well understood where parking is available. So I think there's an issue of needing to actually reduce the amount of parking that we have in this transition. I think expanding parking, I would certainly oppose, but even working on improving car infrastructure, if that's the main focus, which in this case it is, I can't support it. I think when we're talking about transportation spending and resources and allocation and focus, it needs to be on non-car infrastructure rather than predominantly on improving the experience for those traveling by car, which encourages more folks to travel by car as we continue to cater to that mode of transport. All right, thank you, Councilor Hansen. Anyone else? Councilor Roof. I'll be supporting this. I agree with a lot of sentiments that Councilor Hansen has. I look at this as a way to improve the existing parking infrastructure in many different ways that we have. An inefficient parking system and infrastructure requires people to come downtown. They can't find parking and they start circling. We know that a significant portion of the traffic that we have in the downtown are folks looking for where to park. Not improving that system does not convince them to not drive. That is a problem we definitely have to solve for. This is not where we're solving for that. I don't see that as a reason to vote against this pragmatic and strategic way to improve our parking infrastructure, which will lead to less emissions in our city. Thank you, Councilor Roof. Councilor Polino. I would speak in favor of this. I've been to one of your meetings. I was very impressed by the level of care and thought that's being put into our parking system and renovating it. A lot of my constituents complain about parking and I think it's important to them that they continue the good work they're doing, specifically tracking how many open spaces there are and making paying for parking faster, which is something that I think if we didn't go through with this could be hindered. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Polino. Anyone else? Councilor Busher. I just wanted to say one thing. I think that when you look at this plan, you're looking also at the vitality of our downtown and some of this has to do with a free holiday parking and making stores downtown accessible. And I want the Council to acknowledge that not everyone is one certain age and not everyone bikes, that we have a diverse community who need transportation of varying types. And I think that this is a plan that is about a vibrant downtown, great customer service and a sustainable system. And I think those three things really speak to what we should be looking at. I appreciate the fact that this plan, this plan doesn't yell to me about certain things either, but overall it is a collaboration to make our downtown better and to help people navigate around it. So I think that I would hope that the majority of the Council would look at this and realize that there's something for everyone. There is some section on improving bicycle parking. There is something about TDM. So I think that there's a lot in here. So there is an acknowledgement that many of us get downtown in many different ways and they're trying to create efficiencies, but also remember to give our marketplace the customers it needs. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Bush. You're Councilor Jang. I think it's important to consider that this is specific to downtown parking alone, not in the neighborhoods. And also downtown is our business district. Not only residents of Burlington come here. People from all over Williston, South Burlington, they come here. And when they come to our city, we want them give them options where they can park. And try to tie it also into the way we're losing businesses, the way that people no longer come here, the way that maybe all the municipalities are trying to even create their new downtown. I think for those reasons, there are still a couple of things that I know that I want to understand better. There are questions about the agreement between BBA and the city that I want to understand better. But that won't hold me from voting to support this to move forward. And I can catch up on you. We're here, we're not going anywhere. For those reasons, I think it's important also these parkings are not only for cars run by gas. There are electric cars. When we talk about climate change also, let's look at it that way. My thoughts about Burlington district, the downtown, we should not consider it as any other neighborhood. We should make sure that we understand this is not for us, this is for people, tourists coming from Canada. People who don't buy from Canada to here. We want to give them the options that the city can give so that they can feel comfortable, they can come back and they can invest in our. So I will be voting this, but definitely will follow up with some other questions. And thank you for talking to me at Randolph today. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Chang, Councillor Shannon. Thank you, President Wright. I just wanted to note that what we're voting on does not increase the number of parking spaces. I think it might decrease parking spaces by creating parklets, but it does manage the parking so that people are burning less fossil fuel as they try to find the parking spaces. And it also deals with bike parking and other aspects of this that I do consider to be environmentally friendly. And for that reason, I will support it. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Shannon. Anyone else are we ready to vote? Councillor Hanson. Thank you. To me, this is about priorities. I understand what we're saying, that it will make it easier for folks to find parking. I understand that. I think with our transportation system, we have thus far prioritized the car so much above every other form of transportation and has caused immense problems. I think now what we should be prioritizing is making it easier for folks to be able to navigate through our city on other forms. We have a long way to go to get to a point where folks of all ages and backgrounds and levels feel comfortable traveling around the city, navigating the sidewalks in wheelchairs, navigating the sidewalks, who folks who are less sure-footed through the winter, and bike lanes, we still have quite a long way to go. None of the downhills leading into downtown have protected bike facilities. I think we need to make sure that we're getting other forms of transportation up to a baseline level and prioritizing that before focusing on improving the experience for folks who are driving in cars. That's what I would like to see and that's what I'm gonna continue to push for in other areas, but I don't see that happening within this. I think there are some elements that support other modes of transportation, but it's not the focus and I would like it to be the focus. Thank you, Councilor Hanson. We need to move toward a vote. Mr. Mayor. Thank you, President O'Rea. I apologize to have to try many again, but I just think it's patently unfair to the supporters of this resolution to suggest that this is about just making it more convenient for drivers. That is not what this program has been doing for years, is not what extending the contract will do. Even if you are only concerned about the impact of cars on climate, this is one of the most significant things that we can do in the city's role to reduce car emissions. I mean, it's not just that cars circling the block looking for parking can contribute materially. In some cities it's been estimated that 50% or more of the emissions being related to cars circling for parking. I think that's high for Burlington. I don't think that is what is going on here, but you know what does happen in Burlington? We have hundreds of people every day leave our garages, drive around the block every couple hours, and then go back in to take advantage of the two hour free parking system. And that has been the case for decades. This is an attempt to solve terrible inefficiencies like that. We have parking that goes unpaid for people gaming the system, leaving the garages late at night, early in the morning, on Sundays avoiding the way in which the city charges for parking. And that is essentially promoting exactly the kind of behavior that I think we've heard promotes more driving. So this is action that we should take. It's gonna bring down emissions. It's also gonna have lots of other benefits for the downtown and for our alternative transportation infrastructure. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And with that, we are ready to vote. All those in favor of this resolution, please raise your hands. No, CHIP is no longer on the phone. Councilor Jayne, we'll wait for you to sit. You're gonna have to be sitting. And those of, what do you think you're supposed to see, those opposed? So the two in the two opposition are Councilor Freeman and Councilor Hansen. So that I believe is a eight to two vote in favor. And with that, is that correct? City of Clerk's office. With that, we'll move to the final item of the night, 4.13 and 4.13 is a resolution regarding upgrades to the city's parking access and revenue central control system. Councilor Busher. Yes, President Wright. Yes, I'd like to move to waive the reading and adopt the resolution after a second. I'll take the floor back for just a minute. And this was consent item number 3.35. Seconded by Councilor Roof. Councilor Busher, you have the floor back. Thank you. Once again, this was brought forward at the Board of Finance tonight and there was a unanimous vote on this also, noting Councilor Pines absence. And it really talks about an upgrade to a system that we already have in place. The airport went first with the automated system for parking and then our downtown garages got it and there were some problems. So it's an upgrade going from parking soft to flex park and they're going to do that with no additional cost, which is always good. Part of that is also because in the original resolution there was a error and so the dollar amount remains the same even though what we had anticipated spending remains the same even though we are going to have to pay a little bit more, but we had already budgeted for that. I now made it really muddy and I apologize, but I'll now stop talking and if anyone from DPW wants to speak, that would be great. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Busher. Anyone want to address that? You need to use the microphone. So would you like more clarification? You still need to use the microphone. All right, eat it. There you go. There you go. Yeah, so to be clear on the money issue, the memo and the resolution that were approved last April had typos in them that were inconsistent with the contract that was actually attached to the memos and the contract is what was executed. So that is one of the housekeeping items in this resolution is it's actually there was a $78,000 delta. So our contract, so what we negotiated with our vendor is a no increase in what we contracted with them, which was inconsistent with what was asked of you to approve. So that's part of this resolution is to remedy that. And the other part is to allow us to go into a contract amendment with T2 to allow for this significant upgrade to the software, the brains that run the parking garages, that will allow much greater flexibility in how we've managed the parking garages and introduced new opportunities for how we work with parkers, programs we can offer just basically all around a way better piece of software and solve the problems that we've had. We could go into the weeds and talk about the problems we've had, but suffice it to say, this will solve them. And the critical, the big critical part is that they themselves recognize that the parking software is not suitable for our application and they're actually entering into support and stability, support and stability mode, which is their code for mothballing it. So that software that we just bought a year ago will be obsolete in five years and they're not adding any functionality like park mobile integration, reservation parking into it. So that's the story. All right, thank you, Councillor Tracy. So what assurance do we have that the same thing won't happen in a year? We have a performance bond. We haven't paid them a dime. So what does that mean? So a performance bond basically means if they don't deliver, we can sue them and not pay them and retract the money. And so how long do we estimate that this software would be operational? This, the new software or the old? Like, have they given a lifetime of service or are we gonna be on the hook for a couple years? The new software is on this flex platform, which is the same platform that the police are on. This is a known, very stable platform. We actually, we talked to Iowa City and we talked to Missoula, Missoula, Montana. And I actually went down to Harvard last week. Harvard has the same system installed and they're all happy with the install. They're basically happy with how they've been treated by T2. And although we've had a very challenged year with this parking software, T2's actually stepped up in the negotiations and they've worked really, we've been working with them for two months to negotiate the deal that we're talking about tonight. And they've been in good faith negotiating with us. So I have faith that we'll get through this and they'll service as well. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Councilor Tracy. Any furthers? Councilor Hanson. Yeah, I'll speak briefly as I pulled this one off too. This one I can support. I think it's an important update, if you will, or correction to past action taken and that makes sense, but I do wanna highlight once again, you know, this is a $2 million expenditure in once again, parking system, maintaining our parking system. And I would like to see us invest $2 million in alternatives. I understand we obviously gained direct revenue from parking and that's the counter argument, but I think the indirect benefits we gain from investing alternatives are also immense in terms of the health benefits, the safety benefits, reduced injuries and mortalities in terms of traffic fatalities. And the tourism that we bring by being a leader and the attention we gain. So I think once again, I'd just like to highlight that I feel that our spending and our focus on the transportation front really needs to start shifting in a drastic way and I'd like to see us putting a lot more dollars into alternatives to the car focus system that we have now. Thank you, Councillor Hanson. Councillor Jang. Thank you. So question, what is the annual revenue of parking fees that you collect on the yearly basis? You're taking an answer that better. I've been so in the weeds with fixing this challenge. I honestly, that's been better off. The on street meter revenue is around $2.3 million dollars a year and the garage and lot revenue is around $2.5 million dollars a year. So basically $6 million total? It's about $5 million a year total. So, and now the upgrade is not only for a specific location, but it will be throughout. This for all garages that would be marketplace, Lakeview and college though, as you saw in here, we had negotiated as well that the airport could benefit from the same negotiation that we have to expand this new system to the airport garage as well. With the same price, with just the two millions, you'll expand everywhere, okay. So now the old parking, the old system that you have, what do you do with that? So it's important to note that really what we're buying is a new software system, that the hardware system largely stays the same. It's the same company, same hardware system. They'll put a new card into the gates and the ticket spitters. So it really is a very small infrastructure change. It's mostly a software change. Okay, so it's not like those, we still have some meters that already put quarters alone. This is solely relative to the garages. This has nothing to do with the smart meters or the pay stations. This is only the garages. All garages. Do? Well, it's the marketplace garage and then the complex of garages, which is behind the Hilton, which is the College Street, Lakeview and Westlake garage. They all operate as a single unit. So there's practical purposes, there are two garages. And then the airport is an independent operation, but we wrap them into our deal with T2 to guarantee that they get the same deal we get because we need to be operating on the same system or the same city, and they don't want to be sun-setted in five years with a mothball product either. And they're getting hotels and, you know, so. And I think Max did ask this question, Councillor Tracy, like if you invest two million, so basically you won't need a new software for the next 10 years, 20 years? That's the general running time. We had the last software for 10 years, the price that we have that you discussed does include five years of support in their bid. And so we're guaranteed to have the support at that price for five years. Thank you, Councillor Jayne. Any other councillor? Hearing none, I think we're ready for the vote. All those in favor of the resolution, please raise your hand. And it looks like that's unanimous. Any opposed? That is unanimous, the pass is unanimous, Lee. And with that, mercifully, I think we need an motion to adjourn. Moved by Councillor Shannon, seconded by Councillor Roof. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. We are adjourned.