 Um, Facebook, I guess, or the CDo site. So, so maybe we do. I'll let you guys start the meeting or however, yeah, whatever you wish. Yeah, I mean, um, does anybody have anything they'd like to contribute to public forum? We technically have seven minutes left of public forum. But if not, I'm, I'm happy to move along to you guys doing your update. The question. Oh, go ahead. I was going to ask you, so. Are you aware of any further oak ledge activities coming up during the summer? I know Ben was on top of that Nate, but I wasn't able to find it. I don't know of any yet. Okay, so far it was we had the green up day now. Okay, I wonder about that if we knew anything about it. I saw someone from the neighborhood that was in the addition neighborhood on the south end here. I'm looking to start a block party. So, that matched with the other plans that were going on. So, I did want to say a word just just to recognize in passing I did this for the ward six NPA. It works in an extended version, but I wanted to just say a word in honor of Charles Simpson. Who died on May 3rd. And was a was a pretty exemplary public citizen and activist. Intellectual. Gardner and a lot of other things, but I feel like he'll be. He's leading a pretty big hole in in the fabric of the community. By his absence by his death. And. And I think he, he put a lot of his energy into the, this, this city and this. We lost you there, Andy. I think your mic stopped working. I'm still here. I should be still here. You can hear you again. Okay. I just think that I just want to honor him and, and note his passing and. I feel his absence. I, I, I miss him. That's all. Thank you, Andy. Does anyone else have anything for public forum. We want to move on to Tiff and Gabrielle. All right. I think you guys have the floor. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having us and thanks for being flexible in, in May. It just happened to fall on the night before the end of session and, and there was so much in flux anyway at that point. So we have a little bit, you know, more perspective, but, but I appreciate your flexibility. You know, in many respects, the, the session was as we had anticipated. Our, the focus really was on kind of three things, COVID relief and investments in infrastructure and social equity. But it was also really dramatically different from what we had anticipated to, because we had money, and we weren't arguing over thousands of dollars, we were arguing over millions of dollars. And that money enabled us, enabled the legislature to really look at some, make some strategic investments in things that we've long been talking about making investments in, but, but actually were able to commit to. And so when we were thinking about how to summarize the session for you all, we, this is how we were thinking about it. First, we thought we'd describe the major pieces of legislation that kind of fit into those three major categories. And then note some of the other bills. That were especially noteworthy and that we were able to outline issues that will be taken up by study groups over the summer that are unresolved. But we hope we'll make some progress. And, and then identify issues that each of us will pursue in the coming months, either, you know, within our kind of, with our committee hats on or, or just because of our personal interests. I'm assuming that sounds okay to you all. And I'm going to turn it over to Gabrielle to talk a little bit about COVID relief and the infrastructure investments that we've made. Thanks to. So, in terms of COVID relief, we know that so many have struggled with small businesses, folks with housing folks with pain bills. And so in terms of COVID relief there. Well, actually, let me backtrack. Typically, we're looking at like a three and a half to 3.8 billion dollar budget. And with all of the federal dollars coming in, we were, we were well over $7 billion. And so on the one hand, it's really important to recognize that the federal deficit is a real issue. On the other hand, with dollars coming to Vermont. If we can help for monitors. We're going to do so. So with that literally almost doubling of a budget. There were millions and millions of dollars given to grants and loans to small businesses that actually. Hadn't received federal assistance. There was quite a bit of relief for services for. New American communities, immigrant communities that were housing community supports, mental health supports, given how challenging this was with, with either people who had too much going on that they were juggling and struggling so much. Families working or that they were isolated on the other end of the spectrum. We added investments into Vermont farmers to families for food box program. We had, we added a $25 a week for unemployment insurance recipients. This only kicks in when the federal additional $300 a week goes away in September. We also have a rental assistance program. We reduced the unemployment tax burden. So the way our unemployment. Insurance program works is businesses have to pay in based off of how many times they have how many times they have someone basically become unemployed from their business. So thanks ski resorts. And it's also based off of what the previous 10 years looked like in terms of unemployment needs. So we, we recognize that 2020 was, you know, once hopefully in a century anomaly and reduced that unemployment tax burden from businesses. We made sure that healthcare was available for income eligible pregnant women and children regardless of immigration status if they're plucking apples, then maybe, you know, we should provide services to them. And the committee I serve in the transportation committee has a very large bill, which I'll move into in a moment. That provided a whole slew of ways to both reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as well as reduce how much it costs to drive to your job or to drive to daycare or to drive to check on your family. Those are sort of the highlights on COVID relief in terms of investing in infrastructure. I'm just going to read through this really quickly because it's mind, mind stopping. $150 million to expand high speed broadband throughout the state while here in Burlington Electric, we're fortunate, not Burlington Electric here in Burlington, we're fortunate to have Burlington telecom. Clearly trying to work from home and homeschool from home has been a real eye opener for many of our mentors in terms of the challenge with infrastructure. So $150 million to invest in that infrastructure. $115 million to protect Vermont's water. $40 million to develop new workforce and low income housing opportunities. $20 million into weatherization and efficiency upgrades. $150 million into reducing the state pension liability. And one of the things that Representative Gloomley and I heard repeatedly was the fact that many of our state infrastructure like IT systems were from the 80s. So a lot of times as legislators were like, well, why can't you do this? Why can't you do this report? Why can't you provide us this or this? They'll say, well, you know, our system is from the 1980s. And so we can't actually compare, contrast this or that quite easily. So we did invest $52 million into that. And there is actually a several year program to maintain and ensure that we're rebuilding that so that we can meet Vermonter's needs as effectively and as efficiently as possible. And so back to you, Tiff, for the social equity piece. Oh, you're on mute. I mean, how many years now have I been doing this and I still forget to unmute? Okay. In terms of social equity, I mean, there was a lot of activity, you know, the amount of money that was committed is not particularly significant. But there are, I think there, we've laid the groundwork for bigger appropriations maybe even next year. So two new positions were added to the Office of Racial Equity. You know, we've had one person who's been trying to respond to racial equity needs over the last year and a half. The House, sorry, the legislature also appropriated $150,000 to support BIPOC technical assistance and BIPOC driven technical assistance for BIPOC businesses in the States so that they may qualify for state contracts. And it's also a way of learning more about BIPOC businesses because the agency of Cromers has not traditionally had a or found ways to solicit contracts or proposals from BIPOC businesses. And the Office of Racial Equity provides immediate increased access to healthcare for income eligible pregnant women and children regardless of immigration status. I think that's one of the more important equity pieces of legislation that we passed, menstrual products were finally after I think it's been maybe 10 years trying, exempted from taxation. So I think that's one of the things that's been really important. Apology and a commitment to further legislative action that is going to be addressed in the coming session, created a health equity advisory committee, I mean, commission that relates to data collection and to providing grants to create programs that have disabilities or BIPOC or LGBTQ. And then finally H10 legalized campaign expenses that were related to candidates, a candidate to campaign such as childcare or elder care. Those are now eligible as campaign expenses. So I guess, Gabrielle, you were going to talk about major pieces of legislation that are noteworthy and we sent around on front porch forum our kind of graphic summary of the session and that we sent it out front porch forum and through our own e-mail list. And I can send a link to it so that you could post on the NPA Facebook page if you want that. I just realized that I hadn't said that before. So, all right, sorry, Gabrielle, I'll shut up now. Please never. Just making sure I'm not muted. So in terms of bills that were passed that are noteworthy, you know, what does noteworthy mean? You know, they're bills that were critically important to our health. That's all right, Gabrielle, due to the issuance, I definitely heard quite a bit regarding the need to reform our childcare system. We did pass House Bill 171, which basically works to make childcare more affordable, tries to remove barriers to access and ensure fair wages for providers. There's always more work that we can do in that area with I'm distinctly and acutely, you know, very connected to that need. House Bill 225 decriminalized the use of non-prescribed buprenorphine as a step before coming into medication-assisted treatment under the care of a doctor to basically try to get off of various types of prescription drugs and various drugs. And it was pretty striking to see the roll call vote on this. I mean, the level of support was pretty strong. I mean, it was amazing how many people have been touched and not touched, but impacted by this challenge throughout the state of Vermont. There's still more work to be done, but it was a small step forward. We did pass a bill, Senate Bill 20, that banned forever chemicals, like polyfluorohalcal substances, PFAS. These are found in like a ski wax, rugs and carpets, food packaging and fire extinguisher foam and firefighting personal protective equipment. And the reason why we highlight some of these is because there are examples of bills that are going in the other direction in other states. Another example was the ending transpanic defense, House Bill 128. 2020 was the most deadly year ever for transgender and gender non-conforming Americans. And essentially, basically what it says is if someone attacks another person and they say, I was so scared, the reason why I attacked that person was because they were of an identity that scared me. They cannot use that defense. It is not acceptable. It is not legal. I'm going to leave it there. We passed a multitude over 100 bills, which is a lot via Zoom in a session that I think generally the thought was all we would do was focus on COVID. But the need is there in the state and in our community. And the desire was there to actually do so much more. I just want to touch on the fact that we did hear quite a bit from constituents regarding pensions. And Tiff's going to talk about this in a moment. We also heard quite a bit in terms of what we do about people waiting factors in education. And Tiff will touch on that as well in terms of things that are going to be moving forward over the summer and then into the next year. Lots of other bills we touched on, but Q&A is more interesting. Yeah, so in terms of, you know, I don't know if it was a record, but it seemed as if we formed an awful lot of study committees, you know, punting resolution of certain issues to next year. And as a result, there's, you know, it's a really, there's a lot of heavy lifting that has to be done between now and January. If we truly are going to address pupil waiting and change that funding structure, the state worker and teacher pension issue, you know, we were finally able to come up with a group that was balanced between labor and management. And that group is going to be working over the summer. And whether I don't, you know, I don't know enough about, well, I guess where people are going to be coming from as they enter these negotiations, I think it's going to be hard. And I think that's, that is, as Gabrielle said, it's one of the issues that we heard most about from folks in our district. We, you know, there was a tax commission report that was released in January and it it didn't get a ton of press. We held a forum on it that featured the commissioners who participated in developing that report. And our hope is that the legislature will, particularly the Ways and Means Committee, will take up some of those recommendations. I think it's a multi-year process because you can't change everything all at once. And I think that some folks are waiting to see what the pupil waiting group will recommend and how that will impact the situation statewide. But I confess to being pretty frustrated by the fact that these were three people coming from, these commissioners, three people coming from very different perspectives. And they presented a unanimous, it came to a unanimous set of recommendations, some of which mirrored recommendations that have been made a decade before. And that, and I, I, I think a lot of the recommendations are, are, are interesting and, and good. I'm not a tax expert, but, but it, I, so I'm going to be following that. And Gabrielle and I keep asking it every turn that we can. So what about that tax commission report? We, there will be a public series of hearings on, well, okay, there's 600 more, 600 million more dollars in ARPA funding coming to the state. It's uncommitted. So what kinds of investments should we be making? And that we have not heard from leaders of the house when those will be, but we'll let everybody know. And I think kind of critical to those discussions is really what is actually possible given the rules that Treasury may have set for that money. So those are things that are, you know, brewing right now that were not resolved to the extent that some of us had hoped they'd be, but they, but we'll see where we are in, in the late fall when these commissions have to come up, or these study committees have to come up with their recommendations. Yeah. So ARPA, that's the American Rescue Plan, right? That's the money that was and I think I was a little confused by the term pupil waiting, but I think I understand. I was like, are they waiting in line? But I don't understand now what you're talking about. Mike, our school commissioner made reference to it, I think last time. And, you know, Burlington maybe tends to have a few more students that have extra support need, or extra instructional need for various reasons. And he was kind of excited to see maybe more that the state funding formula changing a little bit because of that, to kind of give us a little bit of a break on the continuous tax increases maybe. So that's, that's going to have to hold off until I guess I'm hearing the committee that's looking at it, that could at earliest be addressed in January though. Yeah. Yeah. Sort of, I mean, what, what, so what the task force is tasked with is to figure out how to implement that. Because clearly there are communities that may see a potential increase in what they have to pay in. And there are other communities and or, or the flip side is that they decrease some of the services or, you know, streamline some of the services that they have been providing. And then there are other communities like Burlington or more rural communities that will see, you know, on the flip side, an increase in support to, to make up that gap of what has been paid for thus far. So what the task force is supposed to do over the summer is figure out how, how do we actually implement this and what's the timeframe? Is it one to two to three years? And how do we roll that out in a way that is more feasible for school districts to incorporate? But ultimately, Joe, that is going to have to come back to the legislature. I mean, their report will end up having to come back to the legislature and be drafted into the form of a bill that is voted upon. So it will need ongoing and consistent support from constituents across Vermont. Maybe we should, I mean, Gabrielle, maybe we should just stop here and just, you know, invite questions from folks. I have a few questions. One, one question is about the thing that you brought up, Tiff, about the July 1st issue for people experiencing homelessness and what's going to happen to them and any of, whether any of this funding stream is actually pointed in, in the direction of providing some emergency relief for people who are now going to be kicked out of the motels and we're going to be back on the street. That's one question. Do you want me to do, do you want to, should we do it that way? And you can address those one by one? Sure. Yeah. I mean, I'm, and I'm, Gabrielle, I'm happy to take that one. This has been really concerning to our committee. I'm on House General Housing and Military Affairs Committee and something that we have been, I've been checking in regularly with folks at AHS about because the, the, yes, there is federal funding. This particular program is FEMA funded and there are folks who will no longer be eligible under FEMA criteria for that emergency housing. They might have access to another pot of money that is federal that is through the rental assistance program that's run through the agency of commerce. And that, that money also though has some, it has, it has, you know, some income eligibility caps. It, it, I'm really concerned about the 700 people who are going to be released to their communities without a guarantee of housing. And I know I've talked with a lot of different housing or organizations that, that work with unhoused folks to, you know, to see what you're planning, how are you, what kind of support are you getting from the state. And so far, there are a lot of, a lot of the advocates that I expected to be very critical are actually less worried than I thought they would, in part because there are, but because shelters are opening. And the whole reason that we went to motels was because we couldn't operate shelters that, that congregate housing wasn't safe. It is not going to pick up the entire slack. And we, I think that what COVID did is it really laid bare just how many people were actually unhoused. And, and it's the point in time count isn't, you know, isn't reliable. It's probably twice, twice that rate. So I've, I've spoken almost every day for the last three weeks to somebody at AHS or, or people in housing organizations to find out how things, because, you know, the idea that we're going to be giving out tents just is unacceptable to, to me. So the, my committee chair is, is, is talking with AHS every day as well. And they're, this is, I'm not really saying very much am I, because there's, I guess the people I thought would be most concerned are kind of holding their breath and think that with shelters and, and people's family options, they will be able, there, there won't be as many folks who will be without some kind of housing as was mentioned in the Digger article and in the Seven Days article. But, but I, you know, I'm, it's a moving target. And I, so I can let, I can let you all know what more I find out in the coming days. But it's, you know, I'm starting to get a lot of emails about it. And there was a brilliant high school student who wrote an op-ed in Vermont Digger that was one of the most, you know, wise, and compelling, you know, kicking the pants to the state that I've read. So when she runs for office, I'm going to definitely get behind her campaign. She's, anyway, it's a big problem. I mean, it's, it's scary prospect. I think, I think that they're getting a lot of heat right now from the press, which is great. And I am, I'm, I'm hopeful that we will be way more proactive than we have been in making sure that people get signed up for that other rental assistance, you know, that before they actually leave on July 1st. That said, there aren't a lot of apartments in, in places like Burlington. So, so. Well, thank you guys. It's pretty much time to wrap up on that segment. I want to make sure that the folks from Vermont Legal Aid and CDOEO get their scheduled time. Tiff and Gabrielle, I really look forward to getting to check out your sort of visual report you were talking about. And if you want to email that to me, I can put that up on Facebook right away. Thanks. I'm sorry that I talked so much. We were, we're glad to have you here for the update. Thank you. That, that graphic, I just want to say that that graphic summary was very well done. Thank you. Thank you for your work. Well, and we welcome any further questions on our, you know, our email addresses are on the web and, and we welcome your phone calls to if you want to follow up on stuff. Thank you. Thank you so much. So yeah, we're going to introduce Eric Fanning and Ryan Murphy for our housing segment. I don't know if you guys have talked about who might want to speak first or anything like that. We did not discuss that between us. I'm happy to go or I can let Ryan have the floor first. Either way, Ryan, do you have a preference? Yeah, if you want to, if you want to talk first about kind of like what the eviction moratorium is and the more, I don't know, technical legal aspects of moving forward, I'm happy to talk about the what supports and resources are available for people who are affected by it. Great. And just really quickly, once again, for those of you who weren't on when I introduced myself earlier, my name is Eric Fanning. I'm a staff attorney at Legal Services Vermont. LSV is Vermont Legal AIDS Partner Agency. So we work very closely with them. My colleagues, Rachel and Erica, who I believe were on the agenda for this evening, couldn't be here, but I'm with Legal Services Vermont doing mostly housing work. So I'm happy to talk with you all about the eviction moratorium and its winding down, which is the pretty big news in the housing world this week. I assume everyone on this call was familiar with the moratorium, but just as a sort of recap, the legislature passed a bill that was signed into law by the governor last May, which essentially imposed a stay or a pause on all residential eviction or what the law refers to as ejectment actions and foreclosures, residential foreclosures in the state until the end of what the law refers to as the end of the emergency period. This is a bit confusing. Folks tend to get that confused with the state of emergency. They are related, but the term emergency period was actually a term that was crafted as part of the moratorium statute. The news this week, of course, was that the governor declared an end to the state of emergency. This is significant in terms of the eviction moratorium because the length of the moratorium or the duration of its effect according to the statute is strictly tied to the state of emergency. For all cases involving evictions for reach of the rental agreement or what are sometimes called for cause evictions where the tenant is being evicted for breaking the lease, engaging in illegal activity, unsafe activity, threatening others, those cases can now proceed. The eviction moratorium law lifts the stay in those cases when the state of emergency is declared over, which went into effect on June 15. For all other cases, eviction cases involving non-payment of rent, no cause evictions, evictions where the landlord is selling the property and so they want the tenant to move out, which has been actually pretty, we've seen a huge spike in those kinds of cases in the last year, so lots of landlords want to sell their property partly in due to the pandemic, I suppose. Those cases can now move forward as of 30 days from the lifting of the state of emergency. So when you, the term emergency period as it's used in the law refers to 30 days after the governor declares an end to the state of emergency. So time-wise, what that essentially means is that eviction cases, all eviction cases statewide will no longer be stayed and can move forward after July 15. And that's a lot of cases. I don't have the exact amount or latest figures for you, but just in terms of the cases that have already been filed and are awaiting to be adjudicated, this was before and since the pandemic, there are hundreds and hundreds of cases, I think upwards of 600 eviction cases, just sitting in the courts right now throughout the state. Again, I don't have the latest figures on that, but that's the last I heard. And there will probably be a great deal that will be filed by landlords after July 15 when the moratorium is completely behind us. So, you know, where, you know, those of us who work in the housing realm and represent tenants are pretty concerned about this backlog of cases that is going to come, you know, basically up to the forefront again. And one thing that we've been trying to do is get in touch with as many tenants as possible and connect them with the rent relief that the representatives were, had mentioned earlier, the Rent Emergency Rental Assistance Program. We think if tenants can get access to this money, you know, it'll help resolve a lot of cases. The majority of eviction cases that are filed have to do with nonpayment of rent anyway. So, but now that the moratorium is coming to a close, it's just a matter of, you know, at least for us helping to get as many tenants connected with those emergency relief dollars that will hopefully help them stay in their homes. But that's essentially, you know, at least as far as the timeline goes, that's the news with regards to the moratorium. After, after July 15, you know, landlords will, you know, well, they were always able to file cases during the moratorium. That law didn't prevent a landlord from filing a court. It just prevented them from serving the lawsuit on the tenant in most cases. So, for those cases that the landlord had filed, what were prevented from serving on the defendant, the tenant, landlords will now have to go ahead to serve those cases. There were cases where court orders for possession had already been issued called rits of possession. Those will have to be reserved on tenants, but those will be going forward. And as I mentioned before, you know, a lot of landlords will be filing for the first time now that there's no law at least at the state level protecting tenants. Those were the main points I wanted to make, but I wanted to make sure there was plenty of time for questions. So, I'm happy to open it up. Great. Ryan, do you want to give sort of an overview? And then we can do a Q&A at the end? Yeah, I'm happy to talk. And then whatever, you know, is not covered between the two of us, I think can be good Q&A time. So, yeah, for everybody who wasn't here when we first started, my name is Ryan Murphy, and my pronouns are she, her, and hers. I am the statewide housing navigator at CBOEO's Housing Advocacy Program, which is a newer name for the umbrella of Vermont tenants, fair housing, and the mobile home program. If I understand correctly, there are not any mobile home parks in Ward 5, so that I can kind of leave off the table for right now. So, yeah, so I wanted to talk about, Eric mentioned the VWRAP or the Vermont Emergency Rental Assistance Program, which is quite a mouthful. We are one of the agencies that's providing technical support with the application, the way that the only way actually that tenants can access this application, and people who own mobile homes and rent the lots can also use the application. But the only way that people can access this application is online, so people need to go to vsha.org, click Renters Apply Here and begin applications that way. The challenge with that that you might expect is that a significant number of Vermonters do not have internet access, or if they do, they do not have computers, or if they have computers, the instructions are confusing, perhaps the browser isn't up to date, it's very difficult to do on a smartphone. People are having trouble uploading documentation, so there's, my point is there's been some significant technical issues when people are attempting to apply for it. The eligibility criteria are not always super clear, so all of that is to say if you have questions about the VWRAP application, and you know you're located in Chittenden County, you're definitely welcome to give CBOEO a call that goes for anyone at this meeting, friends, family. And I would also like to share that in addition to paying back rent that's due, this program can also pay for, there's a 12 month total benefit period, and it can also pay for rent moving forward. So there's a lot of people who've managed to stay on top of rent for the entirety of the pandemic, where they're caught up now and they, you know, they're current, but they're still experiencing really significant financial hardship because of that effort, or because of something else. But they can apply for rent to be paid three months in, at a time into the future. So it's 12 months total, if you want to apply for 12 months, you just have to reapply every three months, if that makes sense. It's a bit confusing, but you can also apply for utility assistance through this program. And then they are, they have reinstated the money to move program, which is something that was also going on this past fall. I was hoping to get some documentation about it before this meeting, but I didn't get it in time. But essentially, if somebody is moving out of one unit and into another for a good number of reasons, like including that the previous place wasn't affordable, or this new place is closer to their job, they can get security deposit first and last month's rent covered through it and possibly more. So that's all a really fantastic benefit. Anybody who is at or below 80% of the area median income should be eligible to apply. That income limit is is higher than a lot of people would think it is different in every county. But I would, you know, recommend anybody who hasn't who has some kind of a rears and hasn't applied for it yet should go ahead and apply with the eviction moratorium ending. Like a major concern is that people who've been behind on rent during this pandemic haven't had to deal with the threat of getting rid of possession because if the case can't be taken to court, then they can't be forced to leave their homes, right? But now that that's now that's a real possibility again. And so so one other like point that I just wanted to touch on is that that evictions and terminations do disproportionately affect renters who are members of protected classes in fair housing. And I feel like a lot of people are not as familiar with federal fair housing law, but we do we provide a lot of resources on that. So the federal protections are for race, color, national origin, religion, sex, family status, and disability status, including HIV status. And then additionally, Vermont housing law protects all of those classes, but also age and marital status, sexual orientation, receipt of public assistance, generally receipt of section eight is how I see that interpreted gender identity and then victims of abuse, sexual assault and stalking. And discrimination is like a lot more widespread than we want it to be. Unfortunately, I think people get termination notices often that are not completely kosher, so to speak. So just like I provide direct services for people who are at risk of losing their housing. I am definitely concerned about the end of this moratorium. So I am very much not a public speaker, if you can't tell the one thing I just wanted to share about that VRAP. And, you know, if you if somebody has a termination notice or they're looking for specific legal advice or representation, definitely should go to Vermont legal aid. We don't have attorneys on staff that is a misconception that people do have. But we do educate people about rights and responsibilities as a Vermont renter, so that people can advocate for themselves as successfully as possible. And we're also happy to help people like look over lease terms refer folks out to affordable housing providers. And yeah, so I'm going to let people ask questions. Thank you so much, Ryan. So yeah, we have about five minutes left if folks have questions for these two. If I could really quick just to piggyback off of what Ryan was saying. Yeah, absolutely. You know, our services at legal services, Vermont and Vermont legal aid are available for tenants who need help. And I'll just give a quick plug for how folks can get in touch with us. Our helpline number is 1-800-889-2047. Statewide number. And also we can receive and take some referrals on the internet at our free legal information website, which is vtlawhelp.org. And we're updating that regularly as, you know, new information comes to light about all kinds of COVID related things. We just updated it today to reflect the changes in the moratorium. And there's a lot of landlord tenant law and resources on there anyway. And so I just want to really quickly add and make sure you all were aware that that's how you or folks, you know, may be able to to reach us to get legal assistance. Thanks, Eric. Thanks for sharing that. I was actually going to drop my info into the Q&A or the chat if that's okay with everybody. I feel like sometimes it's hard for me to say things objectively over June. If you want to drop it into the chat, just I can make you a panel, I can make an attendee or into the Q&A and then you can drop it in there. Eric, how many of those 600 plus cases that are awaiting adjudication are for non-payment of rent? You know, that's a really good question. And I wish I had an exact answer for you. I would say that, I mean, I think it's safe to say that the majority of cases that do get filed just in general are for non-payment of rent. But it's also complicated because there could be multiple factors at play in the eviction too. A landlord could file a case not only for non-payment of rent, but, you know, for breach of the rental agreement as well, there were other things going on. So our hope is that, and also a no-cause eviction, there could be non-payment and we just want you to move anyway, you know, kind of eviction, which is legal under some circumstances. So it's a really hard question to answer. Andy, I wish I had an exact figure for you, but I mean, I think it's safe to say that non-payment of rent at least plays a factor, if not as the predominant factor in the majority of eviction cases that are filed. So there's at least the potential then for the VWRAP program that Ryan was talking about to intersect with these evictions, right? Yes, that's, and you know, one thing that we're trying to do at Legal Services, Vermont and Legal Aid, I mentioned briefly at the start, my little presentation is we've been trying to reach as many tenants as possible who could benefit from those funds. So that we can work with the tenant and the other side and the landlord or their council to apply, get the money, and settle the case in court based upon the receipt of those funds. We were able to do that with a lot of cases last year when the other program, known as the Rental Housing Stabilization Program, those funds were available last year. That was a different program, but the same purpose, right? To prevent homelessness and to keep folks in their homes. We were able to settle a lot of eviction cases that had already been filed in court just by getting tenants access to that money and getting landlords to agree to work with the tenants to get it. So we're hoping that this program is as successful. You know, Ryan brought up some really good points about some of the kinks in the system, which has been a barrier in terms of being able to move the process along, which is sort of concerning because now we do find ourselves in a situation where the end is in sight as far as the protection for renters. We need to work fast to be able to get folks access to that money before the stay is actually lifted in cases can actually proceed. That's one, that's something of great concern for us at Legal Services. Thanks you guys. I really appreciate both of you being here and I'll be sure to share that information, Ryan, also on our Ward 5 Facebook page so that people can find it easily. Yeah, I also wanted to put in a plug for, I think I got confused with like how I was supposed to put the stuff in the chat, but I wanted to just drop a plug. There's a lot of resources on cboe.org if you go to the website, which we're doing right now, and hover over services all the way to the right. There's housing advocacy, you can click fair housing, Vermont tenants, or mobile home program if you're interested in seeing that. Vermont tenants has a really fantastic, really great resource called the definitive guide to renting in Vermont. It's got form letters, it's kind of a basic primer about renters rights in Vermont. It's a crash course, essentially. So that's a really good place to start if you have like some pretty general questions. And then we also have the Thriving Communities Project, which I was trying to put a link to and that's thrivingcommunitiesbt.org. And this is a campaign that's being done by the Fair Housing Project. And I don't know as much about it because I work in my own little direct services world, but they also, they have some kind of more like resources for housing committee, they also have a blog, which is really interesting. So thanks for having me. Yeah, thank you so much for being here. I'm happy to put my information in the Q&A as well. Am I am I able to do that? I'm happy to have folks would like to. I'll make you an attendee and then you'll be able to put it in there. Thank you. Thanks, Leon. So it looks like we have Grace here from people for police accountability, sorry, for a discussion about community control of police charter change. Welcome, Grace. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much. Thank you for sharing some of your time with me this evening. I really appreciate it. Yeah, so I'm going to talk for 10 or 15 minutes. Not sure exactly how long I have, but hopefully that will be a little bit of time at the end for questions. You have 20 minutes. Oh, wonderful. So I'm going to give my spiel and then I'm going to share my screen at the end and that'll have some more contact information for us on there. Yeah, so hi everyone. My name is Grace Fial and I'm here today on behalf of people for police accountability just to talk to you about community control of police. So I'm going to talk a little bit about what community control of police is and what's in the actual proposal and where we are now in the campaign. And then you can ask some questions at the end. And I really want to encourage all of you and maybe folks, if there are any folks who are watching us on channel 317 or watching this at home to reach out to us and contact us if you have any questions at any point, we would love to connect with you. And our contact information can be found on our website, which is peopleforpoliceaccountability.com. So people for police accountability is a group of concerned community members who are organizing specifically around community control of police and the creation of an independent community control board with diverse membership and disciplinary and investigatory power over our police department. So our goal is to get community control of police on the ballot for the special election in November through the petition process. And I'm just here with you today to just make sure that you have the opportunity to make the most informed vote possible, right? So if you're going to vote, yes, we want that to be an informed yes. And if you're going to vote no, we want that to be an informed no. So we really just want to make sure that everyone is aware of this and everyone has the information that they need to make a decision about this. Because that's really what this is about, right, is being able to decide together if community control of police is what we want as a city. So community control of police is a proposal to change the city charter, right, which is basically like the constitution of our city and create an independent community control board with investigatory and disciplinary powers over our police department. So currently, if you experience unfair treatment or police violence or misconduct, you have to report that misconduct directly back to the police department, right, for them tasked with investigating themselves. And there is very little transparency into the investigation and adjudication of complaints of misconduct. And we also know, you know, based on personal experiences and based on data that the police department disproportionately pulls over arrests and uses force against black members of our community, black drivers are four times as likely to be pulled over and 366% more likely to be arrested. And almost all of the violent high profile use of force cases we've seen here involved someone who was black or someone who was experiencing a mental health crisis. So even though we pay the police to do their job, right, with our taxes and we grant them special authorities, we as residents as taxpayers, we don't actually have the ability to directly hold them accountable. So we fund the police department. And then we also have to pay for settlements and for buyouts of officers in use of force cases. But ultimately, none of us, not even city council, not even the mayor can directly hold police officers accountable. So the Community Control Board would be made up of to the extent possible, folks who are directly impacted by policing. So we're talking about BIPOC members of our community, we're talking about LGBTQ folks, folks who have experienced addiction, houselessness and mental health issues, among other other things. The board members would undergo extensive training and the board would have an independent investigatory office that would be responsible for receiving and investigating complaints of misconduct. And the board would also have input into hiring criteria for police officers and for the police chief. And then the board would review complaints and hold hearings and then discipline or remove police officers, including the chief. And then the board and its office would also be issuing regular public reports to allow for as much transparency as possible. So that was kind of a lot of a lot of information. I think just three things that I think are really important to understand about Community Control Police are that police officers would continue to have right to do process. So that right to do process is protected and maintained within this proposal. And the police department would still be able to investigate complaints that the board chooses to not take up so that could be lower level infractions like uniform violations, or tardiness, or things like that. Another thing that's really important to note is that the Community Control Board and its office are only conducting investigations when there has been a complaint of misconduct. So they're not searching around for things to investigate. They're only investigating based on a complaint that they receive. Additionally, this Community Control Board would not necessarily replace the current police commission. We feel that the police commission has an important role working with the police department to craft policies and directives and to have an overall advisory view of the department. So we don't envision the police commission turning into the Community Control Board. I think it's really important that the Community Control Board exists separately. It's really important that there be a body that is fully independent from the police department that has the ability to investigate and then adjudicate discipline. So across the country, there's over 150 different models of police oversight in cities of all different sizes and demographics. And the Burlington model is based on existing community oversight models. And our model also directly aligns with the criteria for effective oversight of police that was created by the ACLU of Vermont. So those two things are what we started with when we were creating this model. And we knew we needed to create a model that was specific to our community. And Community Control Police, this model, this proposal has had extensive input and support from community members and is supported by the ACLU of Vermont, the National Association of Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement, as well as local grassroots organizations like the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, Migrant Justice, the Women's Freedom and Justice Initiative, and the Battery Park Movement. So the process of changing our city starter is actually something that was initiated by City Council. So last summer, after the murder of George Floyd, we experienced one of the largest uprisings around racism and police violence in this country's history. And some of the largest protests around police violence here in Burlington. And in response to that, City Council unanimously passed the protesters in public safety resolution, and they passed the racial justice through economic and criminal justice resolution. And both of those resolutions tasked the City Council with exploring public safety alternatives. And the protesters in public safety resolution that through that resolution, the City Council requested that the Charter Change Committee review options for who makes and reviews police disciplinary decisions. And City Council actually passed community control police back in December. And then that was vetoed by Mayor Weinberger, which blocked community control police from being on the ballot during the March election. So our goal now is to get community control police on the ballot for the special election in November. And we're trying to do this through the petition process this time. So we're currently on our way to collecting about 2,000 signatures from registered Burlington voters so that all of us have a chance to vote on this and we can all decide as a city. So I'm going to share my screen now, if that's possible, and I'll just throw up our website and then our contact information so that you can reach out to us. Let's see if I can figure out how to do this. Yeah, and I'm happy to answer any questions that anyone has here. So Grace, you can sign the petition online. You don't have to physically sign a petition. Yeah, so we do need to collect physical signatures from folks. So signing the online petition, which you can find on our website. Signing the online petition is a great first step, but then we do need to go back and collect your in-person signature. So if you sign it online, we'll get in touch with you and we'll coordinate a way to get your signature in person. We're also going to be at the Juneteenth events this weekend. We'll have someone there canvassing and we're going to be knocking on doors for the next 10 weeks too. So hopefully, we might come to your house and knock on your door. You're muted. Yeah, sorry. I was just going to ask if anyone else had questions for Grace. This whole question of charter change, I mean, we just went through the presentation on eviction moratorium and our just cause eviction charter change didn't make it through the, as I understand it, didn't make it through the legislature this year or made it through and got vetoed. Is that right? Yeah, so I'm not sure about just cause. I'm not sure if they just ran out of time in the session and they're going to take it up next session or if they, if they didn't go through with it. But yeah, so that's the next step, right? So, you know, we're all going to vote on this and then it has to then go, you know, if we, if we all vote yes for this, then it has to go to the legislature and we'll wait for the legislature to then make a decision about it. Or if a majority of us vote yes. Yes, if a majority of us vote yes. Just a quick quick. Is this in essence unchanged from what was going through city council and was kind of pushed back on and vetoed? Yeah, so yeah, that's a really good question. So there are some some changes that were made. There were sort of some last minute changes that were made leading up to that vote. And after, you know, we, I hate, someone's trying to cut in there. Yeah, so after that, that veto was handed down, we were able to come back to the proposal and spend a little bit more time with it and go through. So we actually went through and looked at all the amendments that were made that night as well as some other suggestions from councilors and decided whether we wanted to keep those amendments or not since we had the option going this route. So if you actually, if you go to our website and then you go to the Action Network page, like go to like you're going to sign the petition. If you scroll down, you can see all of the amendments and there's explanations of why we chose to keep or not keep those amendments. Yeah, so you can you can see all the amendments that were made and that are our decision on whether to keep them or not. And some of them were, you know, small changes and some of them were, you know, a little bit more in depth, but should all be on there. Okay, sure. Thanks. Yeah. Anyone else? Any questions? All right. I don't see any hands. Grace, thank you so much. Thank you so much. And it looks like we already have Rob Goulding here from the Department of Public Works. So I guess we can just move along five minutes ahead of schedule if you're ready, Rob. Yeah, thank you for having us and I am joined by my colleague Lee Perry, the division director of maintenance at Public Works. And we just wanted to say thank you again for having us. You folks tend to have us every spring and we really appreciate the opportunity to tell you what we're working on. Hopefully we can do this in person soon. But you know, normally the big thing that we want to come in the spring and talk about is our construction season. We certainly want to touch on that. But because we have a consolidated collection study and effort really going strong underway, we had asked for time to do that as well. So we'll try to do everything as quickly as possible and hopefully leave time for any questions folks have. So with that, I'll start the presentation and share my screen and Lee will take over and talk about consolidated collection. Thanks, Rob. Can everybody see the screen? Okay, so we'll talk consolidated collection. For those of you that do not know what consolidated collection is, it's where the municipality contracts with one or more haulers to provide trash recycling and compost pickups. And in the city of Burlington, our study focuses on one to four residential units. Next slide. A little background, back in 2018, City Council passed a resolution directing DPW to explore a consolidated trash collection study. We partnered with the city of South Burlington and CSWD for that study. And in that study, it pointed out that a nationwide study of 461 cities and counties showed that 83% of these communities actually have consolidated collection where either the municipality collects the trash compost and recycling or they contract with a private hauler to collect all these waste streams. And our consultants report found the following benefits of consolidated collection, which is environmental. It'd be a reduction of two thirds vehicle miles traveled in neighborhoods in Burlington. Economic benefits would be residents can receive weekly trash recycling and compost collection for about what they pay for just trash and recycling right now or just trash and compost. And quality of life, less trucks means less noise, less traffic, safer neighborhoods. We have a lot of dense neighborhoods in the city, a lot of on-street parking, big trucks going up and down those streets, a lot of kids around. If you can lessen the amount of trucks on those streets, it definitely makes for a safer environment. Next slide. Possible scenarios going forward. So as a city, we need to decide if we should consolidate services or not. And if yes, what are the options? Consulting services and putting out the bid private haulers to serve franchise zones, that would be the franchise study we had done. The municipal option where the city provides all consolidated services, administrative customer service functions, billing, a franchise model with a city bid, similar to the franchise, but the city retains the right to bid against private haulers on certain franchise routes or districts. And then a fourth option is a hybrid option where the city would continue to collect the recycling as we do now, bolster our staff, and then franchise out the trash and organics to private haulers. And this slide shows a chart of the cost comparison between a fully franchise model and the municipal model. And this is based off of weekly trash recycling and organics pickup. We have three options, a zero opt-out, 15% opt-out, and a 25% opt-out for each model. As you can see, the monthly prices on the zero percent opt-out are relatively close. And as participation decreases, prices increase, and the municipal option is a little more expensive than the franchise model. And that is due to heavy capital investment that we'd have to put up to start a division that is fully municipally operated. We'd have to buy property, build a new building, invest in trucks, a great amount of employees. So that's why municipal options tend to be more expensive than the franchise. So DPW staff recommendations. We had a recent public works commission meeting last night, and DPW came out with a recommendation of its hybrid option to the public works commission. And that hybrid option being the one where the city continues to pick up recycling and franchises the trash and organics. In DPW, we cited this model achieves all the goals of a fully consolidated collection system with a significantly smaller upfront resource investment, you know, financial and human capital, which is what I was just referring to with the investment in property, buildings, and equipment. And this option was well received by the public works commission and voted five to one to support the recommended hybrid option. So our next steps is kind of a layout of what's coming up, you know, we have evaluated the scenarios and presented our recommendation. Next we go to the transportation energy and utilities committee meeting on Tuesday. And hopefully we'll get their support. And then, you know, we'll go to the council in July. And we will do our presentation. Our consultant will do the franchise study presentation that they developed. And we'll hopefully hear back from the council within the month. And your feedback is always welcome. We've been doing a big push media push to get this information out there to get the public involved because we really want them to be heard. You know, after the city council meeting, we're going to take another six months. We're recommending six months to do further scenarios for service levels, opt out levels. And that's where the public input is really going to be important. We need to know what kind of service the public wants, whether it's every other week, weekly, bi-weekly, organics. I mean, there's a lot of scenarios and we're really pushing for them to show up these meetings. Email, as you can see here, there's a link to the website for background and materials of all the meetings we've been to. Public comment available at commission and to email comments to DPW communications at brellingtonbt.gov or you can call myself directly, E6-39094 and contact me with any questions you may have and I'll do my best to answer them for you. I'm wondering if the steering committee has a preference if we pause here to see if there are specific questions about that or if we should just keep moving through to our construction update on projects. I have a question, operational question about the recycler crew. It might be co-related and I might just be dead wrong on this here, but have we been sending the trucks out with one operator in them lately or are they back to a crew of two? We've never had a crew of two. It's always been one recycler per truck since it started back in the early 90s. So what we're proposing in the hybrid option that we recommended to the commission is having two drivers per truck. Recently, I'm sure as everybody has seen and knows during the pandemic, everybody's working from home. A lot of people stayed at home. They're ordering more packages from Amazon, a lot of online shopping and it's actually increased the tonnage that we take in by over 28 tons a month over last year's total. So they've been working hard and it's... Yeah, no kidding. I've seen the guy that does our area out to past five, six o'clock sometimes. So we're probably at the end of the route, I hope, but I've been wondering about why he was getting delayed and he has to run the stuff in more often. Yeah, they're dumping twice. They can only make one dump a day and then the MRF closes at 3.30. So they usually have to come in at six in the morning to get out there early to dump, then start their route at seven. I mean, I guess that makes the point that we're certainly... We're not wasting time because they're getting plenty of material by having a dedicated driver on that. And anecdotally, I've seen a lot of my neighbors who have the trash collection also getting compost in the past year. It's just a convenience thing. I've always hauled it into the CSWD previously on Burlington, Pine Street, and more recently, it's probably South Burlington most of the time. But I'm kind of wondering about the special waste collection and stuff like that, if everyone in town is not running in their own items anymore, whether they would be... I guess it's up to the CSWD whether they might change the operation down there on Pine to be different than just the compost. Yeah, I don't think you're going to see a change in that anytime soon, just because of the constraints of the lot and the size and the irregular traffic patterns off of Pine Street through that parking lot in there. Okay, one can hope, yeah. I'll run the batteries over to Will's Dinner South Burlington. Okay, cool. Thanks. Thanks for taking sick questions from me. You're welcome. I can keep moving on unless anybody wanted to jump in with questions about consolidated collection recycling or really anything lead manages. I'll keep moving here and stop me if we go long, but I'm going to try to shoot very quickly here. Construction is a big part of what we do. You just heard about another major part of what DPW does. We manage quite a bit, especially as it relates to construction and maintenance. I'm not going to run down the numbers here, but a couple of quick highlights just so you can understand what we manage generally in the right of way. And that faces up against our resources and essentially how we make resource decisions. And I always try to address that up front because I know we can never do quite enough. There's always more to do and anybody's sidewalk, the road on anybody's commute is always, what you want focused on and understandably so. So we just like to point out a couple of key constraints here and we'll talk more about that rather briefly. We are kind of at the tail end of implementing the sustainable infrastructure plan. Big bond vote that voters voted on in 2016 passed overwhelmingly by the city, which allowed DPW, gave us really the resources to do a couple important things to bring our infrastructure closer to 20% standards, which is just an aggregate tripling the normal sidewalk reconstruction that would have happened over the same four-year period, nearly doubled paving and paved about 20% of the city over that four-year period after 2016. And really for the first time in recent memory, put an emphasis on drinking water mains, fixing them before they break. We've done quite a bit and have a little bit more before that money runs out. But speaking of that money, we are at the end of that 2016 bond funding to sustain the enhanced level of work we've done over the last four years. More funding will be necessary if that's the level of work the city wants to see. Mayor and council recently had that conversation and allocated us additional money for sidewalks. We always have plans in place to pivot to a more robust list if funding is available. We do have a baseline level of investment that we make into the city and then as funds become available, we look to use those in the most responsible way. And I'd like to just point out this is a community conversation. It's a conversation you hopefully should be having with us through your secret fixed complaints, through your calls to us, through emails, conversations you should be having with the city councilors if you prefer one approach over another in terms of how your dollars are being used. So with that said, we're always looking at other ways to implement capital projects. We partner with the state and or use federal money. Anytime that's available, just know that that money often takes a little bit longer to be spent because of different level of experience that has on us. Won't run down this whole kind of sheet of talking points we've got in front of us. I do want to point out sidewalk reconstruction. On the right, we've done quite a bit over this four-year period. I'll just point out that last bullet on your screen kind of shows you some of the proximate sidewalks. We'll be able to invest resources in your neighborhood. So just know that these are basically short-run segments this year given the level of resources we do have in the sidewalk program. There will be multiple segments on home av starting at about 130 home av and moving east. Again, these are multiple short-run segments so it won't be the entire sidewalk. We're trying to stretch every dollar as far as possible and working on the worst of the worst sidewalks. You can see a couple other sidewalk segments by 230 and 249 St. Paul. We're Howard in 19 Dunder and that is generally the list we have this year. There are always issues as they arise for safety, repair, safety issues that you will also work on in a spot up fashion. I do want to just point out we do have a sidewalk assessment inventory underway just in case folks ever want to know how we make our list. One of the ways we do that is through extensive data collection and we did this last in I think 2015. It's recommended to do every five to seven years or so which is to reassess your sidewalk network. We have a mechanical trailer being pushed by one of our consultants across every mile of sidewalk. That's going to collect data on every crack and crevice. It's going to allow us to make better decisions but with that we do field visits by our engineers and we get reports daily by the folks on these team who are out there every day looking at the city roads and sidewalks. We put a lot of human capital in-house, a lot of your human capital from reports we get from you on C-Click Vicks we try to match that with the data that we're collecting every few years to assess every mile of every sidewalk in the city. We overlay some data on top of that such as proximity to schools, proximity to senior centers, proximity to heavily trafficked parts of the city and we try to make the best resource decisions we can make. So there's a timeline it's essentially unfolding throughout this year it's going to help us inform our 2022 list and future lists. Paving is a challenged year for us. I've mentioned that we paved about 20% of the city over the last four-year stretch. We have hit a bump with funding this year kind of we're expecting kind of related to COVID pricing for contractors materials and such. Some unqualified bids back on paving, some high bids. We couldn't accept a direct paving list. We are doing some paving under our water team this year based on a variety of projects going on on various streets around the city. St. Paul Street most approximate I think to this board in Maple was on the list and right now I just have to share that that's in flux. We're going to try to see if there are other opportunities to go back out for bid this year or somehow fit the work into existing contract. We'll hear from us if streets that you live on are near going to be paved. Just we'll touch on really quickly in 2018 much like in 2016 with the sustainable infrastructure plan the city voted in overwhelming favor for the clean water resiliency plan which was to upgrade modernize and fix an aged wastewater stormwater system especially challenged in 2018 which you may recall from some unfortunate but but necessary headlines to we've had advanced seven key areas that we are focusing on just a quick progress updates these are your rate payer dollars that go for funding this. All of the wastewater treatment plant work is now complete as of this prior spring so we expect a lot of significant impact on the wastewater treatment plants during these kind of funky 21st century high intensity storms we get. We do expect progress we can't promise 100 success but we expect it. Disinfection systems are completely upgraded computer controls at main plant completely replaced. We have a pump station replacement on the flim you may have seen underway underway for quite a bit more of the summer hopefully that's going okay on the traffic control and we'd love to know your your experiences there. We have miles of sewer and storm pipe that just came back to bid and we have quite a few green stormwater infrastructure projects in ward six underway or about to be underway and in ward four about to be underway. I'll just touch quickly home av may have some water main work later this summer we'll know more as the contract unfolds. I'm happy to talk more about that if anybody lives around there but you will receive a letter if you're directly impacted and while we're at the end of the funding for water mains this year you know that's part of that community conversation that we should have about the level of investment the public expects in our water mains. I know Shelbert Street Roundabout team came to you a few months ago I'll just share we have a better estimate of work of when work is going to start and that's in mid july for folks who weren't here a few months ago or who need some more background this is pretty much the reconstruction of Shelbert Street at Locust where a new roundabout single lane roundabout is going to be installed a lot of subterranean work is going to proceed that to make sure our utilities are are in good shape and out of the way and stormwater infrastructure is upgraded it's going to be a pretty extensive project it'll last for two years it's mostly managed by the state however we're a primary partner on the technical and the outreach side you can see some outreach information on the screen you can certainly circulate that as needed there will be a public meeting on july 1st uh postcards are going out digital advertising is happening so we hope to see you there if you have interest in knowing more about the project and certainly this meeting will be more about those impacts homeowners and computers may have to uh on and off for about two years and i'll just leave this on screen for a minute or two before I end and these are some resources we encourage you to check out our construction portal has a map and a list view of all the projects we're working on so if you ever see something going on I want to know what that is that's a place to check if you ever want to know if anything's planned on your street for the year it's a great place to check I encourage you to use c-click fix call or email us if you have any of those sidewalk or paving concerns you want us to look into we are on bt alert which is a real-time rapid uh text and email alert system for urgent issues like boil water advisories major road construction uh snow bands beach closures and more and that's my direct contact information if anybody wants wants to reach out and like I said always happy to circulate any of this um since we tried to breeze through thank you so much for your time and we're then welcome to answer any questions you have if there's time great yeah we have um about five minutes left if folks have questions let me know but I think I saw your sidewalk crew it there's a couple of guys in reflective vest pushing pushing what looked like a a kid stroller and I think that explains some things for me I think it's a pet trailer to be honest but but uh maybe they've upgraded and it's a kid stroller but that's it I gotta figure out what those guys were doing then okay oh maybe maybe there's another one and I just haven't seen that one but that's that's what we're doing we're using uh well it's a pet trailer it looks a little bit like a kid trailer it'll uh it'll traverse every um generally every inch of sidewalk we have so look for that they're like the google car if you see them we're on google maps yeah I saw them on north avenue today doing that any potholes well yeah you know if you have any questions about street maintenance or anything like that I I oversee that department as well snow plowing there's a little like a little hot fill job you could do down there on bricks there's like a very small area that needs to be resurfaced the length of bricks or we uh we we try to to regrade that every every so often it's that's a tough street with portions of it still have an asphalt underneath that gravel so there's nowhere for the water to grow go and that's why we keep getting potholes and I tried compacting it one year with a big roller and I broke the water main so we don't compact it anymore no I mean I guess in this very far south end area along pine Ferguson maybe Flynn you know we did have disruption from the water work and maybe the storm pipe work and you know I don't know when that's gonna be like fully repaved it's unfortunate because some of those areas had already just been paved but then the water work had to come in and take them back up you know so I don't know where those fit into the plan Ferguson is on our short-term list and we um it's one of those streets that we had hope to get to earlier um this year it's just a really difficult year for bid for for capital funding on the paving side and for bids um as I mentioned our bids came back normally we get a you know we may even know better than I do but normally I think we get about three or four qualified contractors maybe more this year if I understand we may have only gotten one or two and or two and one was uh I don't exactly know I didn't submit a qualified bid so we really only have one bid and if I understand it was just high and we can't accept that so yeah so that's a long way of saying Ferguson is is on the short-term list um and you know in the right in the right uh situation I would imagine it would be on next year's list but I certainly can promise these things I mean it's not Pine Street two years ago after the winter bad but it's like um the water work did leave some seams and stuff that if we can't get to the full pave you know maybe there's some patchwork that can be done there's a couple of you know along like they came into this really narrow cut and they did a narrow paving over it and that it's just sort of sagging in different in different irregular ways and you know I don't know how much patch could help but if you submit a c-click fix you know someone can go look at it we can determine if it was you know water project or maybe another company that did some utility work um it would be kept on record and we can find that out and if it was yeah w we can address it before fall we usually try to get out there and especially this year with not a lot of paving we try to be a little more proactive in the fall just before we shut construction down go out we have a little terrifying uh a scarifier that goes on our little piece of machinery skid steer and we'll go out and grind bad areas and repave them before winter you know and it helps us on the pothole situation as well yeah great yeah I'll get some photos I'll take I'll do an assessment with my bike you can save us on some sidewalk work too we usually find all the bad spots during sidewalk planning season so well thank you both so much for being here tonight um thanks for having us thank you very much and uh you know next time we'll at least partially be in person and you know we'll be we'll be in touch about you have no idea where but no we'll figure it out well let us know I think our our building is hosted you folks in the past and we can always yeah see if there's uh I don't know of anything we're occurring at this time so we'd love to if we can love to offer space whenever you need it well that would be like my 25th question but I remember when you someone from your office reached out about I don't think related to this particular presentation but something future you know at the bottom of the mails it says our offices closed we're all at home and I wondered of how quickly that was changing with the you know things things opening up whether the conference room there would end up being an option in another month or two yeah great question um the city uh staff is slowly starting to head back to the office and I think right after July 4th we'll all anticipate being back so um we'll be back I I think all the guidelines or you know many of the restrictive guidelines around city buildings and conference rooms will slowly be relaxing if not quickly so I would imagine it could be an option if I recall Andy and I might have been in contact right before COVID kind of hit in March last year and I think we were going to try to get you folks to conference room and then COVID happened so unfortunately we all wound up at home but yeah you should you should definitely reach out to us if you need a space and we can see what's available thanks a lot yeah great thank you so much that's really helpful well have a lovely summer evening everyone thank you for being here thank you Gillian be careful the mosquitoes are now out