 All right, good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us for an exciting announcement And now that you come in here, we do need you guys to quiet down So Thank you for joining us this exciting day. I am pleased to announce my appointment of Luke McGowan to be the next director of the community Economic Development Office and I will be We'll be bringing Luke's appointment to the City Council for confirmation Their upcoming June 3rd City Council meeting so next Monday. Let me share a little bit with you about why I think Luke is going to be an outstanding next director and then Give an opportunity for Luke to say a few words will take your questions Before diving into that. I do want to make sure I don't forget to thank David White For his double-duty service for what's gonna end up being a basically a six-month period of time David has been serving as both our interim Cedar director and The director of planning and zoning zoning a position He's been in for for many years and has done great work in this dual role and really Let's get us this through this transition to this this day I also want to note that today is David's birthday and We're kind of excited on his birthday to be announcing that we're gonna be able to believe him of the double-duty relatively soon Luke would start in July July 8th if approved So here here's why I think Luke's gonna be great. So first of all Luke grings a They're really kind of three big reasons and then I'll say a little bit more about each of them one Luke brings an outstanding balance of both public sector and private sector management experience He brings some important experience as a community organizer bringing diverse groups of people together and finally in His roles in recent years. He has Worked in roles that has him had him in a lot of contact with entrepreneurs and small businesses And I think he brings a lot of direct experience to that piece of Cedar's broad mission So to say just a little bit more about each of those. So what do I mean by his broad public and private sector? management experience so Luke Luke's career included serving as a community organizer for Barack Obama's 2008 campaign Moved around the country in a few different leadership roles within the campaign went from that to the White House where he served as vice president Joe Biden's speechwriter and Then moved into a position in the legislative affairs office essentially He was a legislative assistant essentially the deputy role there helping the Obama White House push forward As we all know an ambitious set of legislative proposals he left the White House and then went joined You know went join the the private sector in a pretty exciting way. He joined a friend who had a West Coast startup when it only had 10 employees. He was he was part of that initially very small team helped over several years that company grow to be Approximately 400 person organization when he left and it's continued to grow in a couple years since since he left the leadership team so You look look at all that and it's really I think well suited for this unique Cedar The community and economic development office. So we in this we expect Cedar to support both our Business community as well as our nonprofit and Community justice communities and Luke brings a rare quality of Having kind of served in all those in a number of those different roles I want to point out what he doesn't bring in he's not a developer. He has not been someone who has been You know working on big special projects that remains of course a big part of the Cedar Cedar Cedar mission and role We are attempting With this appointment and some restructuring that we are taking to the city council as part of this budget process to Try to add some capacity to the community economic development office so that the director can be focused on the broad Cedar mission and not drawn into the the day-to-day management of these high-profile special projects and That's You know part of why we Selected a director with the skill set Luke has You know clearly one of Burlington's deeply held values we deeply believe in the importance of inclusion and diversity we've been a Community that has embraced diversity for decades and really worked to become a more inclusive place I believe Luke's background as a as a community organizer working with a broad set of individuals and organizations will serve him well and in that piece of the job and then Finally and I'll let Luke say maybe a little bit more about this but the company that Luke wasn't just working in the business community in this role with the startup the company thumbtack actually had a mission of And focus really the business was to support entrepreneurs and small business businesses In getting their job done, and I think that perspective I'll let him speak to a little bit more, but it's gonna be very valuable in this role so with that I'd like to say Officially welcome Luke. We're excited to have you on the team and on the Cedar team and we're looking forward to Bring you to the City Council for confirmation next Monday. Thank you very much. Great Thank you mayor and thank you David and thank you to everybody who's here I You know first of all just want to say how grateful I am to have this opportunity to take this role I just met with the team the CEDO team and it's really inspiring to see a group of people Who are devoted to making the city that they live in a better place a more inclusive place a more just place And I am excited to join in their work and help support in their efforts To accomplish the goals that we've set forth for ourselves So the mayor just went through my kind of long and winding story, so I certainly won't bore you with that but I think this is a unique place and CEDO is a unique government entity that has Sort of a big mandate and touches a lot of different issues from social equity to economic development community justice to lead lead paint removal it kind of checks a lot of boxes and Though that creates challenges, you know from Funding and structuring of the department It also creates real opportunity and I think the history of CEDO Shows that it has the ability to sort of accomplish the goals that the people of Burlington want to see and want to see for their city And so I'm just so thrilled to have the opportunity to take the song and do my part to help So thank you and I'll open it up to questions So thank you again Can you just say a little bit more about just they know that what the attack is and yeah Businesses and entrepreneurs in there. Yeah, so thumbtack is a tech startup based in San Francisco So I joined a friend from college who started this company With the idea of fixing how we go about hiring local service providers So the really simple way to put it is if you have a leaky sink you can go on thumbtack Tell thumbtack what you're looking for and then within 24 hours thumbtack will share that request Within that work of plumbers who can then send price quotes on that job So within 24 hours you can select between plumbers who can do a job at a price And you can look at reviews and so on and so that was sort of what thumbtack came out of And when I joined we were just a few people working on this problem and By the end of my time there we had hundreds of thousands of small businesses around the country using thumbtack to find new customers And through that work. I really came to understand that especially small businesses So kind of the sole proprietors If you think of sort of contractors plumbers wedding photographers Caterers makeup artists really anyone you can think of if you're having a wedding kind of the folks you hire It's really hard, you know, there's a lot of challenges The big ones are finding new customers kind of getting your job done supporting yourself and your family through that job And cities and states and governments can make it easy or harder easier or harder for you to do that job And so I'm really passionate about figuring out. Well, how can a city like Burlington? Make it easy easier for small businesses like that To make a living and so I think that's a kind of powerful Opportunity for CEDO as a department to look at small businesses in Burlington and figure out how we can best support them Yeah, so I can say more We opened up see if y'all have any questions I don't live here now, but I will be moving and I'm gonna be looking around for a place to live And I'll be moving with my family and one-year-old son Luke has been elsewhere in Vermont for the last couple years. Yeah So originally moved to Vermont to be closer to family so my wife's family's in southern Vermont We live in the upper valley now And but we've always been visiting Burlington and loving it up here And it's a community that I'm kind of thrilled to have a chance to be a part of Can you kind of walk it through you've been doing in the last couple years it looks like plus one, you know, what was that? Yeah So last few years so I did a year at grad school at the Kennedy school Actually, I know there's a few Kennedy school graduates around here and see Eric back there That was a classmate of mine So I was there and then right afterwards. I Worked with a few different organizations including plus one, which is a nonprofit based in Montreal That connects artists and bands With causes and nonprofits of their choice that they want to support But I've also most recently been working with a group called mustard seed, which is a social and environmental impact investor That looks for sort of great Founders young companies that are starting to grow that have a mission to make the environment Better or to make it more So that's kind of the work I've been doing and also just setting up a business myself in Vermont and figuring out how to navigate Things here has been a real kind of learning opportunity for me, too I made this one for you on a bit of an unrelated note. You're aware of the allegations of racism against every non-transitive driver in the board in seven days Just your thoughts on that in the city council taking it up soon here Yeah, great time. So Yeah, I did become aware of that incident like many people in the community through email and social media over the holiday weekend We reached out to GMT this morning to Share our concerns about what we read. I certainly the allegations what happened and are quite troubling and I think need to be investigated and we're looking for GMT to Make a full accounting to the public of What their policies are what happened in this instance the best they can describe it? Usually they've been invited to present at the city council meeting next Next Monday, so I think by then we'll hear more from them. But I will say we did when we Were in touch with them this morning fine that they were had already begun an investigation process and we're already reaching out to the district to Just talk about what happened, so they are they are moving on Okay, so you had said your idea for this position will be more of the broader mission Yeah, that the directors have to focus on the day-to-day of the bigger projects I've seen what goes to the mall in a nice story about how that's still not happening What will your role be in that project? Do you cease to know being able to? Move along anyway Okay, great. Yeah, so the My vision for the position this position going forward is that certainly the director will have some engagement and Participation in these major special projects like the redevelopment of the former mall However We Will be presenting we had a conversation in the budget meeting last week and I expect my budget will Give the council a way to expand the capacity of CEDO to add an assistant director for community works is what we're calling it That would be the senior manager manager in the city most directly responsible for Working on projects like these public project pop these public private projects like like that project, but also just the purely city projects like Moran and Memorial Auditorium and that person I expect will be a real-estate professional and The proposal that we'll be taken to the council or the budget it will use a variety of sources that don't Require a greater draw on property taxes on Taxpayer so we're excited about this proposal something that's been in the works for for some time It was part of the strategic planning process begun by Noel McKay and And that Neil wonderville and he was in the interim role move forward as well and It goes beyond just what I described to you there But that's probably the most significant element of it in that I do think it is critical that the director be See this responsible for a lot right we have these major mature Social programs the CEDO is responsible for the lead program community justice center the we've added in the last couple years programs such as the early learning initiative and the My brother's keeper initiative We have a number of Small business support programs all of which CEDO Is responsible for managing and driving forward and then there's a big community engagement piece to CEDO as well And I do think certainly my experience the last seven years can't speak to before that But is that the director? it has been challenging to Perform those other roles that we expect of CEDO while While also keeping this high-profile intense high-risk City projects moving forward So that's a vision for the position if your question is what are we going to do to get that project going you know? We will continue to have lots of conversations about that and I think this will be a significant week for this You know by the end of the week we expect another Public update of some sort from developers from Brookfield they they happen to making some progress on a number of fronts They've made progress with their financing. They made progress with getting a project out to bid I think anyone who's ever been through a construction project knows that Going out to bid is a key moment a critical time and they've just been getting those bids back in recent weeks And we're looking for some kind of update from them on where that process leads them and how imminent construction is Thanks for that question So certainly at the beginning it's going to be about listening And so starting just with the large team that I just met everyone has especially people who have a lot of years of service They've got ideas and I'm looking forward to kind of hearing From everybody about their role what they've been working on maybe how things could be different So spending that time and then my next priorities and certainly we'll be moving forward at the same time is really hearing from the community Like the mayor was saying Cito really has a lot of touch points with Burlington, you know, kind of every nonprofit every small business every Person looking for affordable housing in some ways has kind of interaction with Cito. And so I really Think that at least in the first few months I'm gonna want to make a lot of progress towards hearing from the voices who need to be heard Before coming up with solutions On my own and that process is both talking to people who've always had a voice here, but also bringing in new voices And kind of jumping up that you know, you know, there's a lot of responsibilities in different areas I guess what's your experience do you think prepares you for you know to adjust the wide variety of things that you know Yeah, another good question So I think kind of in throughout my career starting as a community organizer on the Obama campaign It was kind of going from progressively in the beginning small groups and small places to Bigger groups in bigger places and figuring out what do diverse sets of communities have in common and figuring out where that common ground is And then continue that work In the White House and then at thumbtack I you know as I mentioned I was working with small businesses around the country and you wouldn't think kind of that first blush that You know Burlington plumber has a lot in common with a wedding photographer in Woodstock or San Francisco but actually If you kind of spend the time listening you can find that there are a lot of kind of overlapping issues of concern Thank you for that question All right. Great. Thank you. Thank you all for coming out and being part of this on short notice and You know again the next step in the process is the city council weigh-in on Monday there was a For optimistic about confirmation Yes, great. All right, I got that