 I'm Molly, I am a steering committee member for this meeting. We just got agendas on the table, so please check them out. We're trying a bit of a new format for the meeting this month. We'll have our typical public forum with our elected representatives at the beginning. And then we're gonna try a round table with city commissioners. So that will start around 720. So it'll be a fun change of pace for this meeting. First, let me start off with some announcements though. These meetings are organized by a steering committee. So I'll point out the other steering committee members. Shelby Glass is from ward two, taking notes for us today. Charlie Junoni is running the camera. We have Roxanne from ward three and Chris from ward three as well. And Jess, who does the dinner is also on our steering committee. They miss anybody? Okay, great. We always welcome new people to join our steering committee. So if this seems like something you'd like to help out with, we'd welcome you to speak to any one of us to learn more about what it's like to volunteer. We're always looking for agenda suggestions. So please talk to one of us or shoot us an email to offer ideas. Our next meeting is on April 13th. It's always the second Thursday of every month at 6.30. All of our meetings are recorded. You can find them on CCTV's website or on YouTube. And we have now, we have social media now. So if that's your jam, check us out on Instagram and Facebook. We have a raffle tonight. So anyone who's still here at the end of the meeting will draw your name out of that blue box on the entrance table and you'll have a chance to win the prize. So go ahead and throw your name in that box if you haven't already and are planning on sticking it through the whole meeting. We're trying a new thing where we introduce everybody at the meeting to get to know each other and build a little community. We have a really wonderful crowd here tonight. So let's zip around the room and just introduce your name, the word you live in and maybe leave it at that for today. Go ahead. Hi, I'm Saru and I'm in Ward three. Hi, I'm Warren and Ward three. Hi, everyone. I'm Tana, Ward three. Your name and your word. I don't know what word. I guess it's Ward three. It's Wagner. I'm Jacob Ward three. Hi, I'm Lauren Ward three. I'm Roxanne Ward three. Chris Ward three. I'm Andy Montrell. I'm Ward six. I'm Julia Randall, also Ward six. Elena Yiddish, I'm in Ward two. Hello, my name is Kale. Hi, my name is Gage. Hi, my name is Adiba. I'm Cheney, I live in Ward three. Christine, I live in Ward three. Alyssa, Ward two. Erin, Ward three. Mark, Ward six. Shelby, Ward two. Jason, Ward three. Lucy, Ward three. Lee, visiting from Ward seven. Hello, my name is Troy. I am in Ward one. I am Brian, Ward three. Stephanie Sagrino Police Commission and Ward six. Milo Grant, Ward three. David, Ward three. Charlie Messing, three. Cheryl McGee, Ward three. Solvei, Overby, Ward two. Barbie, Alisa, Ward three. Jill Kroinski, Ward two. Nina McDonald, LaFound Street. Great, anyone I missed who wants to jump on it? Okay, great. Nice to meet everybody. It's great to have a great crowd. Does anyone on Zoom want to unmute and introduce themselves? We'll do it popcorn style. Hi, Emma, Ward three over on Front Street. Sure, Jean Bergman, Ward two. One second, we're having a little bit of audio issue here in the room. Great, Emma, could you introduce yourself? Yes, can you hear me now? Not quite. Okay. Is it on your end or I see my, I think I'm connected on my end. Just let me know if you want me to try again. We got it now. Okay, great. Hi, Emma, Ward three over on Front Street. Great, thank you. Jean, could you go ahead and introduce yourself again? Yeah, Jean Bergman, Ward two. Great, thank you. Anyone else on Zoom? I guess that's the only a fourth of folks. So, wonderful. Okay, we'll go straight into public forum. So anyone who would like to make an announcement, share a community event, anything that's on your mind, you're welcome to speak now and try to limit it to two minutes. Public service announcement. Saturday night, set your clocks forward. Daylight savings time starts this weekend. The Unitarian Universal Society of Burlington is the Sunday morning breakfasts for the community. And we could use some help if anybody wants to volunteer that morning to help us a little bit. Six months of working on this project has been great. Well, I'm here for the Council on Aging and the city is trying to figure out what older people feel is most important. So, come over and write it down if you like, it'll be easier to remember. And we wanna know what everybody, I mean, we'd mail something to everybody but that's not happened yet. We wanna know what people want from the city, how to make it better for the older people who are having trouble getting around. Thank you. I'm currently doing a project with Burlington City and Lake Semester students where this, which is by the way, a community-based learning program that's housed just a couple floors up. And so the students spend a lot of time over the course of their semester going around the city and learning about things. And anyways, I'm doing a semester-long project with them where we're finding things and people in the city who are making change and then we're making zines about them or that project or that initiative. So if you know of a person or an initiative that could benefit from having some sort of handout that explains what they do or tells a story about what they do, please get in touch with me. It'd be great to connect you with a thoughtful, engaged, possibility student who can help tell your story. Hi, I'm Lucia. I work with the Committee on Temporary Shelter at COTS. We are in great need of people who wanna work with us for money. So if you know anyone looking for work, wants to do some very rewarding and very needed work, send them to COTS or take a look at our website, please. Anyone else interested in sharing something? Anyone on Zoom for Public Forum? Great, okay. Well, why don't we move into our hearing from our elected representatives? We can start with City Council, if that makes sense. We have Joe here in the room and Jean on line. So we'll have about 10 minutes for Q&A with City Council. I guess we'll just stand in the middle here. Hey, everybody, my name is Joe McGee. I am the City Councilor for Ward 3. Okay, is that better? Do you wanna move the camera, Charlie? Okay. I have a few updates and then I'll turn it over to Jean. I know we've got a decent number of folks to provide updates tonight, so I won't take up too much time. I have two resolutions coming to before the Council on Monday. The first is supporting the LGBTQIA community and condemning transphobia. For those who aren't aware, for a number of years we've had a group of folks plastering the New North End and in front of our schools with transphobic stickers. And at a time when transphobia is on the rise across the country, we have 378 bills moving in state legislatures, banning gender affirming care, banning drag queens and generally eroding the rights of the LGBTQIA community. So I would welcome folks showing up at the City Council meeting and speaking in support of that resolution. The second resolution I'm bringing is gonna be thanking city staff for the work that they did to stand up the extreme cold weather shelter at the Robert Miller Center when we had extreme cold the first weekend of February. It will also call for the state legislature to support harm reduction measures and enable organizations in this state to open an overdose prevention center. 2021 was the deadliest year that we've seen in terms of overdose fatalities. We had 217 Vermonters lost to overdose in 2021. All the data suggests that we're gonna see an even higher number for 2022. So with an increasingly unpredictable and dangerous drug supply in the state and across the country, it's incredibly important that we clear the wave for these measures that we know save lives. And so the city council will be supporting that on Monday and advocating for that Montpelier and would welcome folks to show up for that as well. And if you have any questions, I'll be around for a little while. So thank you. Go ahead, Jean. Okay, that was short, Joe. Let's see, we got a few things going on. First, the transportation, energy and utilities committee of the council is dealing this month with Burlington airport and in particular with aviation emissions. Anybody who lives around here understands the noise issues related to the F-35s, but the emissions impact is significant. And so is all of the emissions that are coming out of aviation. So we are trying to get a baseline on the emissions at the airport. And we'll be having this month, the meeting where the airport director, the airport director, Nick Longo is gonna be coming and giving a report. Hopefully we'll have an update on with actual numbers. We are also not this month, but we're also dealing with the questions related to biomass. I know that many, many folks are concerned about the burning of wood and its impact on carbon emissions. And we are looking to have a symposium that brings experts from what I'll say is are both sides of that issue so that we can get real scientific information and also baseline data. And that way the decisions that are made around McNeil are gonna be science-based and be based on a full picture. That will include economics as well as the environment. So, you know, stay tuned to that, but know that this is really important and anybody who has issues related to biomass should get ahold of me. And finally, and I've mentioned this, I believe here before the council is on record as calling for the legislature to sustainably fund mass transit. And anybody who is taking the bus knows that GMT is possibly gonna be probably likely unless there's a major change, going to be reinstituting fares. Maybe as early as July, there may be some legislative fixes that we'll hear about that would extend that. But there is a study by the Regional Planning Commission that would pump if a plan was adopted and there are several plans, the sufficient funds to fund mass transit around the state. And like many plans is sitting on a shelf and that's really a shame. So we, the council called on the mayor and his administration to lobby down in Montpelier. Perhaps we'll get some report on that as well. But folks who are concerned about transportation equity are concerned about emissions coming out of transportation. This is critically important. And the extent to which you've got a forum in the city's, the city council's transportation committee, you should use it and can contact me to further that. Barbie Alsott and myself are on a committee to study the reworking of Battery Street. Anybody who rides a bike and tries to get in the area of Battery Street up or down or across, anybody who's walking to the waterfront or up the hill or down the hill and has to get across people who are driving, this is something that we'll keep you posted on. But public engagement is going to be critically important so that we do this right. And it's an incredibly dynamic area with the Main Street TIF, with the development that's happening in the pit, with what is sure to be more waterfront development around the ferry docks, which are no longer really in operation so that they're prime for development, for the need for housing. All of that is going to be something that's gonna put a tremendous focus and need on Battery Street. And so this is the heart of our area. We need to be paying attention to that. Two last things. One is that the council is re-looking at its rules and we'll come back on the 27th with a rewrite of the rules. And one of them is the, one of the rules that there is being proposed is changes to the public forum. And that includes a limitation on the time for public forum. Anybody who has participated knows how important it is to get public input should be interested in that. The idea is to limit the amount of time dedicated to an hour and a half. I opposed that. It was in the Charter Change Committee. I voted against the rules on the basis of that. I don't know whether we have the votes to fix that, but anybody who is concerned that public forum is going to be lessened should come to the council and speak out. And anybody who actually supports keeping the, narrowing the amount of time, you should come and speak out too. This is, this really affects the way that people interact with city council. And then finally, although our two wards voted, and I think pretty significantly for the police oversight, we got a significant but insufficient number of votes to adopt that about 37% city-wide. I find that to be a very significant number of people who voted yes for a substantial change. As a result and a result of a city council resolution, there is going to be activity at the council around oversight and the Charter Change and Ordinance committees have been charged with doing that work. And currently on the chair of the Charter Change Committee, it's really important that folks not only pay attention to that, but are involved in it. If you care about community control of our police and about things being done well and right, you should look seriously at getting engaged with that. So yeah, that's enough for me. Thanks, Jean. I think we have time for one or two questions to our city councilors. If anyone would like, I see one from Chris. You have the microphone. Just wondering if we can get an update on the status of our resolution to rename the Shelburton Road Rotary in honor of Tony Reddington. And looking for that, Chris, to be on the next transportation committee meeting, which will be later in the month. Need to put that on. I don't know why it needed to get sent to the Duke, but it was better to be sent to the Duke than just buried as an acceptance place on file. So that's what we did. And we'll see what we can do to push that. And it would not hurt for people to call in the public forum at the Duke meeting and say, hey, how about some action on this? You don't need it for me, but I think it's really important for other folks on the committee to hear that, so. Great, thank you. Any questions on Zoom? Okay, we have one more question in the room, and then we'll move on to Dave's. I would like to counsel to get rid of the word homeless and use unhoused community instead. Is that possible? Sure. Thanks for that, David. That is language that I've worked into my own communications about housing and houselessness. And I certainly encourage others to consider that as well. Great. Okay, we'll move on to hearing from our state reps. We have a couple in the room and a couple on Zoom. So I don't know if you'd worked out between the four of you, who would like to go first? Can someone also tell us how much time we each have so that everyone gets a chance to go and has a fair amount? Yeah, great. How about we, can you hear me? Okay, do you want to stand here? So if you can sit here or stand here? How about we start off with three minutes each and Brian, do you want to get going? Wow, way to put me on the spot. Okay, let me set a timer. I see eye rolls. All right, let's see. Okay, go. So I'm going to focus on one topic today and it's about alternatives to incarceration. So in our choice on the corrections and institutions committee, and I will defer to him to talk about what the committee's been working on, but I would like to talk about what I think they need to be working on instead. Before the state goes and spends millions and millions more dollars studying the construction of another facility to incarcerate people in, we need to take a step back and consider alternatives to incarceration that would invest state money in consequences for criminal behavior that actually remediate and help people get better, not lead to further recidivism and further harm to people who are involved in the criminal justice system and to the workers in the criminal justice system. H438 is a bill that you can look up that has extensive findings talking about the cost of the current system and the harm that it causes. And it also refers to work in Norway where a new approach to incarceration led to a drastic reduction in recidivism and it points to work in New York City where alternative to incarceration programs are leading to better outcomes with a less amount of state resources spent. So what H438 does is it creates a working group that includes state officials, people with lived experience in the criminal justice system and with incarceration and workers who have experience in that system to explore a variety of things like the existing support services in place for people, the factors leading to criminal behavior, the factors leading to recidivism and to come forward with a proposal for a way to close the women's facility CRCF in Chittenden County and replace it with a network of housing for people who are involved in the criminal justice system with wraparound services. And this would be housing from the least restrictive to the most restrictive so that people who are, I believe the number was 20 women have 10 years or more left to serve that they would still be in a secure residential facility versus a prison. And so the idea is that instead of creating prisons, we could be building housing and have housing for people whose freedom needs to be restricted due to their own safety or the safety of others versus using prisons as a method of punishment that makes problems worse and not better. And so before we move forward with spending more money on studying prisons, I would like for the committee to study alternatives to incarceration and take testimony in H438. So thanks for giving me time to focus on one idea. My timer is going off. That was three minutes. All right, thank you. Nice work, Ryan. Thank you. Should we stick with Zoom and have Emma go next? Sure. Thank you colleagues in the room. I'm gonna also do a timer as modeled by Brian. So I'm gonna focus mostly on the committee work that I've been a part of the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee. So we are advancing, we just voted on Friday an unemployment related bill that includes H55 and an element of H92. H92 is one of my bills I put forward this session. And the idea would be that it passed unanimously out of our committee. One would be to include basically all workers in traditional employment to be covered finally by unemployment. Non-profits who have three or less employees are currently exempt from the unemployment system. And most people probably don't even realize that if they work for a small nonprofit. But during the pandemic, a lot of these folks were prohibited from accessing pandemic unemployment relief. So this is an issue that the committee has had an eye on. And we've heard lots of testimony as a phase in as part of H55. But by 2025, I believe we will have all employers covered. So meaning that all employees will have access to unemployment finally in Vermont. And for H92, it includes a study to look at the concept of adding urgent and compelling reasons for people to be eligible for unemployment in Vermont. And this would include unexpected loss of childcare, helping a family member who's ill. And when people are red and therefore having to lose their jobs or leave their jobs, which is not voluntary, it's a force quit, if you will. So when people are ready to return to the workforce, they're able to access unemployment. So they have that economic security to return to work. So that bill will go to the house floor when we return next week. And I'll be reporting on that on behalf of my committee. We have a couple other things which I'm curious if folks have thoughts on to all this flag, we have bills will be moving out of commerce related to consumer protections or on biometric data. So this is all the data that we have of our physical characterizations or our bodies, our makeup, et cetera. And following suit of California and Illinois to sort of protect that as a consumer protection angle in Vermont. So that's a bill we're working on and we'll be voting out likely next week. So if you're interested in that information I'd love to, or that topic I'd love to hear. And also regulating earned wage services companies which are basically payroll advancement companies. They're unregulated in Vermont right now and there's about 10,000 or so users in Vermont that we've heard. And so we're trying to wrap our brains around the consumer protections needed for people Vermonters who use this service who get that payroll advancement to make sure there's protections around banking as well as people's labor rights around getting their paychecks and all those pieces. So this is also sort of new unchartered territory for Vermont. So if you use one of those I'd love to hear because I'm really curious to hear about from folks who are most impacted by this. The last couple of things I'll just quickly mention we're working on a workforce development bill soon. We did a massive bill on that last session but we're gonna hone in on some key things that have been working so far around healthcare workers mental healthcare workers as well. A lot of COVID money was moved to support tuition reduction as well as loan forgiveness for folks going into those really critical occupations but that money dries up when COVID money ends. So trying to really move forward how do we keep those investments going forward as well as looking at the educator workforce and for along those similar themes and continue to do some real significant investments in education including continuing the 802 opportunities program which if folks are not familiar is a grant program to help folks access our public colleges in Vermont to remove economic barriers as well as in our budget recommendation to appropriations tuition reduction within CCV tuition to really again help Vermonters get the education they need knowing that we have unfortunately one of the highest costing public college systems in the country and we're trying to figure out ways to chip away with that high cost that we are facing Vermonters with. So I'll just leave it at that if people would like to have more direct updates for me I have an email list that I tried to use that gives a lot of hyperlinks but I also try to post similar information on front porch forum. Thanks so much. Great, thank you. We'll move over into the room whichever one. All right, nope, that's loud. Good evening, everyone. I'm Jill Kroinski. I represent Chittenden 16 which is the old North End in downtown Burlington along with Kate Logan and I'm also the speaker of the house. So I don't sit on a committee but I play a big role in some of the biggest issues that we take on during the legislative session. And so we're continuing to work on key priorities that were a problem before the pandemic but just was made so much worse by it. So affordable housing is huge. And so there are two bills working through the process of the state house. The Senate is taking the lead on more of the bricks and mortar and zoning aspects of affordable housing. And we are taking the lead on more of the rental aspect. So how can we get more affordable rental units out there for families of all different income levels and what can we do to make it easier for people who are unhoused to be housed? And so those are two key bills working through the process. We also are working on two key priorities around increasing access to affordable childcare and a paid family medical leave insurance program. I know I've been talking to you all about paid family leave for years and this is our year to make it happen. The bill in the house has currently moved into the Ways of Means Committee and we know will be on the floor in the next coming weeks. The bill as it stands right now which will continue to evolve through the process is 12 weeks paid time off. And we made sure that the definition of family reflects our communities and how we define family now. And so I think that is a really important progress to make. We are advancing some pieces of legislation around climate change. The Affordable Heat Act is in the Senate and which is working its way over to the house. And we are working on a renewable energy standard bill as long as well as some other bills that we've talked about here at MPA, the Bottle Bill expanding recycling for the refund for other water, plastic bottles, wine bottles, really doing more to increase recycling in the state and some other bills in that arena. And then lastly, we have two bills that we're working on around mental health and substance abuse. I think Joe mentioned it earlier. We have a bill around prevention that picks up the work that we did last legislative session but the governor vetoed. And so we're taking that bill up again to increase access to Narcan to make it easier to get prescriptions for treatment and other things. And then the last one I wanna touch base on cause I know this is really important to Burlington is around funding for PCBs. And so we wanna make sure that we can have the school that matches our community and what the needs are and what our students deserve. So there's a conversation to ensure that we can get the funding for PCBs for Burlington but also in the greater conversation about school construction. And for me, I just think it's so painful that we're having these silo discussions about lead and PCBs and then just basic maintenance. And if we can have a more comprehensive strategy and how we approach that, I think that would be really beneficial for communities. So I have my town meeting update out. I will be putting it up on front porch forum and please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions or anything that I can do to help you with any issues. With that, I'll turn it over to Troy. Thank you. Hi, I'm Troy Hedrick. I split the Chittenden 15 district with Brian Chiena or I share it with him. We don't split it, we share it. And if you live between Pearl Street and North Street on this side of North Winooski, east of North Winooski, there's a kind of a peninsula that comes out and you'd be in our district. As Brian mentioned, I sit on the corrections and institutions committee that looks at corrections policies, some of the stuff that Brian was talking about and it'll be my job to make sure that we bring those conversations into the committee room so that we can start talking and gathering testimony on some of the ideas that Brian's bill has around reframing our approach to incarceration. We also, we've got the capital bill. The capital bill is what decides how much bonded, well, it's more than bonded money, I'll say more about that in a second right now, gets spent on facilities, including prisons. So the really kind of hot button topic in that conversation is, as Brian mentioned, whether or not we want to commit, you know, millions of dollars to tens of millions of dollars to the conversation around creating a new women's prison facility. I can have a much longer discussion kind of philosophically about where I stand on that and I'm happy to do that. I won't take up time to do that right now. Right now, the capital bill as recommended by the governor has continued money for design of that facility for fiscal year 24 and then a really big chunk of money. I think it's around 17 million in fiscal year 25 to start construction. So we have to have conversations about, you know, whether or not to spend that money in that way. Additionally, I have introduced a bill that is sitting with the education committee right now and to be fair, the education committee has some really big conversations that they need to have around school choice, around continuing meals for students in K through 12. So I don't know how much action this bill is gonna see, but it seeks to address the pretty significant stalemate we're at right now between the city of Burlington and the University of Vermont as the University of Vermont seeks to build more housing. The worry is that more housing means we'll just continue to over enroll or increase enrollment to the point that then lands on these communities as those students leave campus after their first two years and seek housing in what is, by any objective measure, a housing crisis right now. So this bill seeks to put a cap on enrollment while we have the conversations that the speaker was just talking about, about how we're gonna address housing and that's what that, so my biggest hope there is that we can continue that conversation and to continue to shed some light on the University's impact on the surrounding neighborhoods. Great, thank you. I think we have time for one or two questions. So Lucy got her hand up, pronto. Hi, Lucy Gluck in word three. Thank you for all your great work, all of you and city council too, thank you so much. I was really glad that there's just so many important issues, but I'm glad that Jean raised the issue about the free buses because working with houseless people, they're not able to speak up, but all of us who use the bus and many of my clients who depend critically on the bus to get to the doctor, the grocery store, to their friends, to their doctors. It just feels like, how much money would it be? We don't know, I'm not asking that question, but to just fund the buses indefinitely for free, I think would make a huge difference in terms of keeping people riding the buses, keeping it easy to get on the bus for free. I've been writing to Sarah Coffey because I was told that she would be a good person to write to, and then I wrote to her and said, hello, did you get this? And I gave her email out to a lot of people to write to her, and she's not in this room, I don't think, am I sending it the right way? And what's the timing on the budget on this and when it would be decided around putting some more money into the buses? Absolutely, I'm happy to take that question. So Representative Sarah Coffey is the chair of the House Transportation Committee and she represents Guilford down in Southern Wyndham County. And so this conversation is taking place in the transportation bill, the annual T-bill. And there is a discussion about a path forward that would create a mechanism where people would give people the option, if you could pay, you can pay, or if you can't, you can't. And they're trying to figure out how the logistics of that works. And so that's where the conversation is right now. I think we all agree that this is something we saw was helpful in the pandemic and we want to find a way to keep a path forward. So that's where it is right now. And if you have other feedback or questions, please don't hesitate just to send it to me too. We're constantly talking about the bill as it develops and we're getting close to the time where we're gonna have a vote to vote it out. So that's where I believe the conversation is right now in that committee. Great. Do we have any questions on Zoom? Don't see any on Zoom. Any more in the room? We can take at least one more. Yeah. Hi, I'm Olivia. I think I'm in Ward 2. I just have a very quick question, which is would funding the buses indefinitely also include funding paratransit indefinitely? Or would you look at those as two separate systems? Paratransit. So paratransit is a system like it's SSTA is another name. So right now that's also free because the buses are free. So if the buses were free indefinitely would paratransit be free indefinitely? And paratransit is a system that folks with disabilities or other challenges that can't take the public buses use. So I don't know that answer off the top of my head. So let me get your email address or your contact information so I can get back to you. We typically try to do things consistently. Across the board, but if there are other ways that payments come in through state funds or federal funds, sometimes I don't know. So let me find out and get back to you, okay? Unless someone else on the crew here knows the answer to that. I think that I could be wrong. I have clients who take SSTA and I think some of them Medicaid might cover some of those services, but I'm not sure. So Jill, I think we should look into it more. I don't know what people are saying in the room. I thought if someone could translate it for us. So Liz, go ahead. Hi, so I used to manage the ADA program for Green Mountain Transit and you have to provide to ADA customers when they're eligible, what you're providing to the general public. So by law, section 504 and ADA law would have to be free. Thank you, Liz. Great. Okay, with that, I'm afraid we need to go onto the school board. So thank you very much for attending. That's great to see you. So Jeannie, you're up. I'm not afraid. It's just, there's always so much to talk about. I'll try and be really short. Big announcement is the corrective action plan was approved by the EPA and the Vermont Department of Environmental Protection to abate PCBs at the old BHSBTC campus. And on next Wednesday, which is the 15th at 345, they're having a groundbreaking ceremony to say goodbye to the old buildings, but technically there's not gonna be any ground broken yet. Demolition is a ways off. They have to get all the bad stuff out there before they do any of the shaking up of the place. One of the main things, I just wanna give a big update about work the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee has been doing. It's been almost two years work around vetting, rewriting, reviewing policies through what people call an equity lens. I know that's a very subjective term and putting it into a concrete format has resulted in over a year, I think it was four different trainings with the board. We developed a racial equity tool that is basically a guide that says, have you done this, this and this? If you haven't, go back. If you have, go on to the next step as far as revising and writing policies with the idea, with the idea obviously of improving things, but I hope I don't have to explain. We know that systemic racism exists in our public school systems and it's the only way to really eradicate white supremacy is by looking at all of these different policies and saying, how is that baked in and how can we, I don't know, using that metaphor turn out an upside down cake or something, like get it out of there, start over or improve on what is there. How am I doing on time? Great. Any questions? Yeah, any questions for the school board? Don't be scared. Not, okay. Wow, thanks. Thank you. Wonderful. Okay, well, we are right on time to move on to our next agenda item, which is around table discussions with city commissioners. So we thought it'd be fun to shake up the format of our meetings and have a chance to really meet with commissioners that we haven't really given commissioners much time at these meetings at least as long as I've been attending. So we've invited a whole suite of different commissioners to join us. And we thought what we would do is have two commissions represented at each table and there'll be four tables and we'll have 15 minute sessions with each table for small group discussions. So we have Andy, maybe when I say your name, you could stand up so we know who's with us. So we have Andy Montrell and Julia Randall from the Planning Commission. Great. So I think if your table could be over here, if you could relocate to the front of the room, we'll have the Planning Commission along with the Parks and Rec Commission and we have Aaron Keach with us. Thanks for coming. So Aaron, if you could join them at that table, that'd be great. We have the Public Works Commission. Solvig Overby has joined us from Public Works and Chris, our very own Chris is going to represent the Church Street Marketplace. So maybe if those two commissions could be in the back corner, we'll start off there. We have the Burlington Council on Aging. So we have Charlie Messing and Brian Pine here with us and you're already in the back corner of that section. That's great. So you guys can be over there and we've paired you up with the Library Commission. So we have Amy Mellonkamp. Are you able to, are you here? Oh, Amy, great. So if you could join them back there. And then finally, we have the Police Commission with Stephanie Siguino. Great. And the Fire Commission with Ashley Bond and Jake Perkinson. Are Ashley and Jake here? Oh, great, wonderful. So if you could be maybe in the, right here in the middle of the front, that would be great. So yeah, before we get started, we wanted to just give you kind of an overview of commission work and I'll turn it over to Chris. Chris, if you can make your way to the front. We wanted to kind of highlight what the work of the commissions do and that they are community boards that people are welcome to join, are welcome to apply to join. And Chris can give you an overview of what that process is like and what the timeline is. And Andy has agreed to fill in anything I might forget. So yeah, Burlington as the city council is governing the city, but we have a number of citizen oversight commissions that oversee the various departments here. And we also have some ad hoc commissions as well to deal with different things that come up. For example, the ad hoc committee on reappraisal, the ad hoc committee on redistricting, but typically most of the city departments have a corresponding commission to provide oversight of their operations. And the terms on the commissions vary from one to three years depending on which specific commission you may be applying for. The commissioners are appointed by the city council, some of them by the city council with the mayor presiding. Applications generally come out I think in the spring, if you're interested in April, May and for the due date, but the council generally makes their appointments in June and the commissioners take office in July generally. So Andy or any of the other commissioners want to add anything to this if I forget anything? All right. All right, I will pass this back to Molly. Great, thanks Chris. So the idea is that folks are welcome to have any kind of discussion that they want to have with the commissioners, but things that we were thinking if you need question inspiration was what do they do on the commission? What does it mean to serve? How much time does it take? What impact does the commission have on the department work? What project is before the commission right now that NPA members would be able to contribute ideas to or feedback on what's an exciting thing they've been able to work on so far in the commission and what do they, what do you wish everyone knew about the work of commissions? So we apologize to the folks on Zoom. We didn't, we couldn't figure out a seamless way to make this format work on Zoom. So I'm afraid we'll have to say goodbye to you. And with that folks, please find a group to chat with and I'll let you know when 15 minutes are up and you can circulate to the next table. So go. Hey everyone. I'm afraid that was 15 minutes. So I'd encourage you to wrap up your thoughts and circle onto a new table.