 Councilor Hightower. To adopt the agenda as follows, remove from the consent agenda item 5.40, resolution investment of unassigned fund balance to improve CD services and drive operational efficiencies per CEO Shad, per Councilor Paul. Add to the consent agenda item 5.41, communication gene beset regarding North Brunewski parking management, regarding Duke and PMP committee resolutions with the action to waive the reading except the communication place it on file. Add to the consent agenda item 4.5.42, communication Julie Marks, executive director, VSTRA, Inc. regarding encouraging the mayor to veto the short-term rental ordinance with the action to waive the reading except the communication place it on file. Add to the consent agenda item 5.43, communication Ron Jacobs asked me, 1343 president regarding current staffing at the temporary library branch in the new North End with action to waive the reading except the communication place it on file. Add to the consent agenda item 5.44, communication Diane Carles, regarding council action on mayor V2SDR with the action to waive the reading except the communication place it on file. Add to the consent agenda item 5.45, communication Michael Montay, CEO Sheldon Penn Housing Trust regarding North Brunewski Avenue parking management plan and bike lane installation with the action to waive the reading except the communication place it on file. Add to the consent agenda item 5.46, communication Kirsten Merriman Shapiro, city council stakeholder committee regarding North Brunewski Avenue parking management plan and bike lane installation with the action to waive the reading except the communication place it on file. Note proposed amendment to the agenda item 6.02, resolution North Brunewski Avenue parking management plan and bike lane installation two per councilor Brawler. Thank you, councilor Hightower. We have a motion on the agenda. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by councilor McGee. Any discussion? Okay, not seeing any. So we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of adopting the agenda, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. We have an agenda for this evening. Item number two is a communication from city attorney Dan Richardson regarding an update on bargaining. City attorney Richardson, before we go into motions regarding executive session, is there anything you'd like to offer in public session regarding this item? No, other than to simply say that, you know, as we go into collective bargaining agreements with our four unions, I may have to update the council from time to time because council is the body that signs off on these contracts ultimately. But, you know, a lot of this is just updates as to events that are confidential within the collective bargaining process itself. And this is simply keep the council up to date as allowed. And so that when you are presented with a final agreement, it doesn't simply come out of sort of thin air and so to give you sort of some of the pieces as they're going along but protected under the dome of confidentiality as allowed by both public meeting law as well as state statutes to deal with confidential labor negotiations. Great, thank you so much. Okay, so given that explanation, we have a two-part motion, first of which is a finding. Councillor McGee, can I come to you for a finding regarding executive session? Sure, I move that the council find that premature general public knowledge of information concerning the city's position and legal advice concerning such a position in regard to labor relations agreements with employees would clearly place the city at a substantial disadvantage when entering such negotiations. Okay, we have a motion on the finding. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Barlow. Any discussion? Okay, let's see any. So we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the finding, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. Now based on that finding, Councillor McGee. Based upon that finding, I move that the council go into executive session to receive confidential attorney client communications, one VSA section 313A1F in a labor relation agreement with employees with employee matters. One VSA section 313A1B. Thank you very much. We have a motion to go into executive session. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Paul. Any discussion? Okay, let's see any. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. So we will now go into executive session. Councillors, we will go down into the Bush or conference room for the executive session. We can use the doors behind the stage here. Councillor Shannon, you should have received a link for the executive session. So please join us using that link. And we will reconvene downstairs shortly with that members of the public who have come to attend the regular city council meeting. We will come back here, probably closer to 730. That's when we'll have the public comment period, which is next on our agenda after this. So we will go into that as close to 730. If you're in the room and are interested in signing up for public forum and have not done so yet, you may do so by signing up at the table over in the corner here and then handing your sheet to the city clerk. And they'll get that form to me. If you're participating remotely and would like to comment this evening, the way to sign up, if you have not already and if you already have signed up, there's no need to do so a second time. Also, if you're planning on coming in and commenting in person, please come and sign up in person. It helps to keep those different meetings or the different orders or groups separate because we do prioritize Burlington residents in person first ahead of Burlington residents commenting remotely. So just please keep that in mind, but if you are interested in signing up for the public forum, you may do so by going to BurlingtonVT.gov slash public forum or slash city council slash public forum. That's BurlingtonVT.gov slash city council slash public forum. So we'll be back with you in a little bit. For counselors, you just hit the push. This is like a major advance in technology for us. We've usually had to be so close to, well, you'll know when you come up to speak, it's sort of scary actually. Anyway, the Public Safety Committee is continuing to go through the CNA report. We have a meeting tomorrow night at 5.30 and it's completely virtual. If you look on that board docs, you'll get the link. And then we will have our last meeting to go over the CNA report with hopefully the goal of finishing the report in its entirety next Tuesday, which will be the 28th of March. Thanks. Okay, anyone, any other committee chairs with a committee report? Councilor Hanson. Thanks. The Transportation, Energy and Utilities Committee is gonna meet tomorrow night at 6 p.m. That'll be our final meeting as a committee before the new council comes in. Thanks. Excellent, any other chairs? Okay, not seeing any. So we will, we're a little ahead of 7.30, but we do have quite a few signups for public forum. So I'll go ahead and get into the public forum. Before we do so, if folks have not signed up but are wishing to speak, if you're here in person, the best way to sign up is to go over in the corner and fill out one of the sheets and then hand it to Lori Oberg, the city clerk. And then Lori will get it to me. If however you are participating remotely and you'd like to comment, the way to sign up is to go to burlingtonvt.gov slash city council slash public forum. And that'll take you to a fillable forum that then feeds into a spreadsheet. In terms of our process for the public forum, the way that we go is we'll do Burlington residents in person first. And those are folks who have listed a Burlington address for themselves on their form or on their online signup because then we go into Burlington residents participating remotely. We then transition to non-Burlington residents who are participating in person to be followed by non-Burlington residents who are participating remotely. In terms of the forum itself, folks will have two minutes this evening. We will, you'll either see, if you're in the room with us, there's a timer with lights that are available right in front of you at the speaker's table right here as well as a timer, a large clock here to give you your timing. If you're participating remotely, we will have a share screen with a timer there. When your time is up, I will tell you that your time is up and then continue to tell you that your time is up until you stop talking. So please respect the time limits. We do have quite a few folks who are wishing to speak this evening and it's important that we have and we also have a very full agenda, so just please respect the time limits this evening. In terms of the content of the forum itself, we ask that folks please not use profanity and that people do not engage in personal attacks and please stay focused on the issues that are facing our city, not personalities or personal attacks regarding how you feel about individuals here this evening. In terms of the actual process, I'll call off a few who are on decks just so that folks can know about that in terms of who's coming up next. And then the last thing is also, I would just ask for people to please maintain the decorum of the chamber. So whether you like what someone said or you don't like, just please refrain from cheering, booing, hissing, interrupting speakers, doing anything to prevent them from expressing their opinion or after they've spoken from don't engage with a speaker with whom you disagree and go after them, we've had some issues with that. So please, by all means, just maintain the decorum here. We have quite a few, again, quite a few folks and so it really helps to keep things running smoothly if folks just are respectful in those ways. So with that, we're gonna start off with folks who are Burlington residents, who are in-person and who have listed themselves as Burlington, affirmatively listed themselves as Burlington residents living in Burlington. So I will go to Amy Magyar to be followed by Charles D. Magaiso. Okay, don't start this first, I'm gonna test the microphone. It works, yay! My name is Amy Magyar and I'm asking you to consider supporting the mayor's veto to the ordinance passed recently for short-term rental. By supporting the mayor, you are still supporting regulating short-term rentals and collaborating with hosts to be a part of the solution to the housing shortage. We as hosts wanna help. We have offered many ways to help, including additional nightly fees to support the housing trust. We don't have to go back to a blank slate for the ordinance, but instead, go back to some of the suggestions Councilor Carpenter made, the Joint Committee and your Planning Department suggested. Thank you. On a lighter note, American Idol, The Amazing Race, Chicago Fire, Bob Love's Abashola, 100 Day Dream Home. These are all shows that Chip Mason has missed watching on Monday nights. But I have grown to know that even though Chip will no longer be sitting as a city council member, he most likely will be sneaking on to Zoom to watch every other Monday, because that's who he is. A dedicated citizen to Ward 5, as well as an advocate for the city of Burlington. Chip, your growth mindset, your even keel, your curiosity and open mind will be missed. It has so served you and your constituents. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Charles Magaiso to be followed by David Call. I just wanted to make sure we just had reserved time for a resolution. The only other thing would it be any short questions that have to do with the resolution itself. I just wanted to make sure that people understand that this is just a framework for a relationship between people. And we could speak up a little bit. And we'd be able to move forward in working with a relationship with the city of Burlington. And if there's any short questions at that time, we can answer them at that time. We appreciate the time and the effort that this takes in order to do. This resolution's been worked on for going on two years and the patience of the council people that have been involved in it. And I appreciate being a citizen in Burlington. I appreciate the work that has been done by the council people that'll be leaving the council. And I know it's been a hard couple of years for a lot of people and a lot of issues. And you've done well. Thank you. I have David Call to be followed by Christopher Aaron Felker. Hello. I've been two years since I've talked. I'm here to support the Elmwood homeless pod housing. I live on Elmwood Avenue. My only concern is I like to see accountability with the figures and the mathematics of the project and maybe a survey to go to the neighborhood so you can ask an honest opinion from all the residents on Elmwood Avenue. I am very supportive of this because homeless people have names too. And with the hotels shutting down and a lot of other issues that they have, we've got to give them a name. We've got to give them a safe place to be. And I have faith in the staff and the council here. And I have faith that the people in our community and our church communities will also help out too. It's hard being a senior citizen in Burlington and trying to figure out what needs to be repaired or what needs to get done in our city. And I have faith that this will be a good thing if we get the right people all lined up for all the committees and all the members of society, charitable organizations. And that's my wish. And I really want to thank everybody for working so hard on this because this is not a subject that just goes away very easily. And it comes from the heart, you know. Thank you so much. Thank you. Our next speaker is Christopher Aaron Felker to be followed by Jade Le. Good evening. My name is Christopher Aaron Felker. I'm chairman of the Burlington Republican Party. I'm here tonight to speak on agenda item 6.06. We do support the administration's plan to roll out this temporary pod housing to support our homeless community. However, we do not support the selection of 51 Elmwood Avenue as the spot of that proposed site. So I'm gonna touch base upon some of the unintended consequences of stationing this on Elmwood Avenue. I'm not sure if anybody on this council has actually reached out to members of the community, including the multiple parishes that are right in that area. I have. They've expressed concerns, including Joseph's house, which offers financial assistance to lower income for Monters, Burlingtonians, specifically in the Old North End. They have a finite number of resources and they are concerned that an influx of additional people in need into the neighborhood will limit severely their ability to continue to provide these resources, including helping Old North Enders pay their utility bills and their rent. There are concerns because that parking lot that we plan to use at 51 Elmwood Avenue is used for overflow parking on the weekends for parishioners at parishes. Parking is already limited in that area and sidewalks are difficult to navigate. So this will be another obstacle for people who are trying to celebrate the First Amendment rights to freedom of religion. Furthermore, Mackenzie House is in the area. I do support this pod plan, just not at 51 Elmwood Avenue. There are better places in the city. I urge this council and the administration to reconsider exploring Institute Avenue. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jade Le, or Lee, if you could just correct. And if anyone, if I pronounce the name wrong, please correct me. To be followed by Robert Bristow-Johnson. My name is Jade and I'm representing Fallham Restaurant on North Muskie Avenue. And I'm here because of, I think the item 6.02 parking on East Street. I'm here to ask for a reconsideration not to take away the parking spaces on East Street because not just us, but there's a lot of small business around the neighborhood. We've been there for almost 14, 15 years and after we saw a lot of small business open, not just from other people like other immigration owner like us. And it is so bad to see if we lose all the parking spaces and it kind of hurt the business. And we do have, I don't see a lot of bikers during the winter months and not a lot during the summer too. And it's just such a waste to take all the parking spaces away. We do have a lot of customer parking on the street to come in. There's not a lot of parking spaces on East Street. I'm here just to ask for the reconsideration not to take all the parking spaces away for the East Street. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Robert Bristow-Johnson to be followed by Diana Carlisle. Greetings. So this is for the nine of you who will be remaining. And I understand that last two weeks ago there was some discussion about the redistricting that's coming up, the ward redistricting. I just wanna remind us that because this BCA didn't have its act together, even though we were given a blank check by the state legislature to draw whatever map we wanted, we passed that by and we got a map that was drawn by somebody who doesn't live here. It's not a terrible map, but it has wards. And I just want to try to prevent us from repeating wards. And so I'm gonna talk about three technical things and I'm gonna, and one political thing. The technical things is if we go back to seven wards it is absolutely necessary that the West Old North and is gonna have to go into ward four or ward seven that can't be avoided. And that means people living in like Crowley Street or a convent square are gonna have to go up to the St. Mark's Church to vote or to the Miller Center to vote if they wanna vote in person. That's something you might wanna think about. If we go to eight wards, it is absolutely necessary that ward one has to be reduced in size. Ward one is one seventh of the city. If it's nice for a seven ward map, not so good for an eight ward map, you're gonna have to make hard decisions about who in ward one gets to move into ward two. That's probably where the fight's gonna be. Now, if we go to eight wards, there is a really interesting movement going on to do, instead of the student ward which everybody hates, I take responsibility for that, to do a downtown ward that might have the Buell Bradley District plus downtown plus the King Maple District. One thing, my biggest regret about the current map is a line down King Street. We shouldn't do that. Unfortunately, the state's putting a line down Maple Street. We shouldn't do that either. This neighborhood called Bob and Mill Apartments is really part of the King Maple Street neighborhood. We should include them together with the King Maple Street District. Last thing, this is political. Oh, crap. You're done, yep. All right, next speaker is Diana Carlisle to be followed by Dave King. I'm speaking in favor of the council to override the mayor's veto on the short-term rental regulation. The mayor wrote a long and thoughtful memorandum on why he did what he did and he's got a lot to think about there but I do feel that we could get, you could get lost in the weeds going through all of these different possibilities and nothing would come out of it for a long time. You've worked so hard two years discussing working on this and you have a pretty decent regulation in front of you which you passed and I think that it's worthy of passing again. So it's got owner occupancy which is crucial. It's got number of rooms defined. It's got registration and it's got inspection. The registration would start the process that Mayor Weinberger said was so important to gather data about short-term rentals and what they're doing to Burlington. I hear a lot of talk about ADUs, duplexes and how they fit in. I'm a little confused. I thought ADU ordinance was to provide longer-term housing with least impact on neighborhoods. I'm confused because putting them into the SDRs would do the opposite. It would take away long-term rental and would impact neighborhoods. So I don't get it but if you decide you wanna look at that you should spend some more time looking at what the impacts are on whom, what and how they will help and how they will end up. Let's see what else I have to say. I think that's about it. Well, one thing I would like you to take up. No, thank you very much. And on a bigger topic in the context. So your time is up. I just wanna say in the context of the world situation. I'm sorry, your time is up. I'm so grateful for everybody listening. Thank you. So your time is up. Thank you. All right, our next speaker is Dave King to be followed by Evelyn Creedy King. Hi, I'm here to urge the city council to override the veto's mayor of the short-term rental ordinance. My wife and I have owned a home in the old North End for 17 years and for 15 years we've had neighbors. And now there's a home across the street from us is been empty for the last two years except for a handful of weekends. There's another building that I walk by on my way home from work every day on South Union Street that has a giant duplex that could house many people. And there's a little Airbnb sign in the window and it's almost always empty on weekdays. Full disclosure, we have rented an Airbnb room in our home, a single room and I use Airbnb when I travel. But in Burlington, I think we need to think about what we want our legacy to be. Do we want to think about the interests of property owners and large corporations like Verbo and Airbnb? Or do we want to think about our young people and our low income people and their ability to live and work in Burlington? Thank you. Thank you, our next speaker is Evelyn Creedy King to be followed by Jodi Whalen. Hello, thank you for having me here. My name is Evelyn Creedy King and I'm here to ask you to override the mayor's vote to move forward on the restricting short term renting. I've lived in Burlington my whole life. I'm, my family's been here for many generations and there's an issue with young people leaving Vermont and part of that issue is because there's not enough housing. I want to raise my family here, I want to be here but that might not be a possibility with the rate we're going and how housing is becoming harder and harder to find. I've had multiple conversations with people within the last 24 hours who are hardworking in Burlington, make a good income and who have said they might not be able to have housing this summer. They cannot find it. With all of these properties being used for short term renting, I think that there's a way for us to find a solutions that way we can open up more housing for people and it's very important to me. And thank you very much for having me speak. Thank you. Next speaker is Jodi Whalen to be followed by Joanne Jastat, I'm having difficulty reading that Hi, I'm here as a resident just to show my support to the residents, business owners, community health center, feed Chittenden, Legal Aid, CVOEO and all of the service agencies that serve our most vulnerable community members in the North Manuski Corridor. I know I'm coming in late, a few years late to this conversation about the bike lane project and I think like many other Burlingtonians we're just kind of used to these projects coming and happening but as I've learned more about it I've been frankly quite shocked at the lack of allyship among the folks who are behind the project and the lack of listening and responding. We're a community that prides ourselves in listening to all members, listening to the most marginalized and here the few privileged are moving forward with a project when the many are saying no, you're going to affect my ability to get food, you're going to affect my ability to get healthcare, you're going to affect my ability to feed my family. I'm asking you all to do whatever you can to just stop this project. I know that Councillor Barlow has put forward a resolution for a compromise at the least do that but really the right thing to do is just to stop this one. Just stop it and listen with your hearts, with your ears and with your common sense to the people who are begging you, begging you to stop it. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Joanne Jastat and please correct me if I've misread your name to be followed by Abbott Stark. Joanne Jastat is close. So I have two buildings in Burlington. I work per time. I spend a lot of time with my kids and shuffling to multiple places they need to get to. I had to sort of take my work and take a step back from it during the pandemic to do a lot more childcare. And the fact that I have two Airbnbs, one unit in each of my buildings really helps offset the maintenance costs, the unexpected increases in taxes from last year. But really what those Airbnbs do is help me keep those rents low for folks that are in the building. So I don't have to rush and try to raise taxes because I had an $8,000 increase in property taxes because I have money coming in from those Airbnbs. And I'm fortunate that of the 95 people who contacted me recently for apartments, I have a couple openings that I have. I am gonna provide one of my open units to a section eight, a person who has a section eight voucher, which is great. But what happens if they end up not needing that voucher anymore? Do I have to then find somebody else who does take a voucher? What happens to in order to meet with the ordinance that says you have to have a section eight voucher in order to have one AirBnB unit? Some of my tenants have tried to get section eight vouchers and the lists are so long and they're not part of the categories where they qualify. So they're not able to get them. Am I supposed to then turn them out? Because I really do need the income from those AirBnbs just to make the numbers work. I'm not making a ton of money. I'm not wealthy. I'm just trying to make it work to have properties where I can provide a lot of good services for the folks that are in there. Not a slum lord, like I'm a really good property manager, but in order to make the numbers work, I need to have more income from one of the units in each of the buildings. That's just, where it is. Thanks. Thanks. Our next speaker is Abbott Stark to be followed by Jason Van Drish. Hey, I'm Abbott Stark from Word 3 and I agree that we've spent many years addressing STRs and the process has involved hours and hours of public form and community engagement, though I have heard from a couple of people here tonight for the first time and I just wanted to, I thought they did make good points. We do need young people living in Burlington and we need more affordable housing. As I said last time, there's a shortage of available section eight vouchers. It's a five year waiting list. So if we sustain the veto tonight and pass the carpenter amendment, that would allow for that true low income for short term rental trade, which would further enforce the creation of housing for young people, for lower income people. And aside from that, the people who are running the short term rentals are the economically disadvantaged. We wanna have a system here in Burlington of economic mobility through property ownership. We have these mega landlords. That is not who we're talking about here when we're talking about STRs. The data from Airbnb says that it is mostly women, it is mostly minorities and it is mostly low to middle income people who are doing the short term rentals in the first place. We have this huge economic divide in this country. We all know that's true and it's right there in front of us with the real estate. So if we wanna see more small-time landlords, more home ownership, we should support this counselor amendment to allow for people to get homes and to stay in their homes. Personal, and this is just, my personal story here in my last 15 seconds is that I was back in the rental market for the folks who haven't heard this before. And the only way that I was able to get a home here in Burlington was by having one STR in that house. So that's why I support the counselor amendment, the California amendment. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jason Van Dreish to be followed by Scotia Jordan. Thank you. As those of you who know me can probably imagine, I'm here to speak about Winooski Avenue and the bike lanes, although there's no shortage of interesting and juicy topics on the agenda for tonight. I'm very much in favor of moving ahead with making North Winooski Ave safer and more welcoming for people who are walking and biking. And I'm more than a little frustrated that the action that seems to be on the docket for tonight is to once again delay on a substantive fundamental change to how that street is set up. But I'm not gonna talk to the specifics of why I think that's the wrong choice because I think there's a bigger issue here. I wanna call attention to why structurally this seems to keep happening, why we repeatedly make plans for bringing our streets into the 21st century and then with some regularity fail to follow through on those plans. I think the reason is a fundamental imbalance in our decision-making process for these kinds of projects that structurally favors the opposition and disadvantages people who support those projects because the reality is that the support for bikeable streets in Burlington is diffuse. A majority of people in Burlington, if you ask them, would say yes, I want our streets to be safer for biking. But that support, it isn't to drop everything and fight like hell issue for much of anybody. The opposition though is very specific because for every street on which changes are proposed there's a small but very motivated and determined set of people who are very opposed to that change. So here's an idea for what a better process would look like. I would love to see a process where DPW presented a single slate each year of all of the projects that are going to change conditions for walking and biking on our streets and then had a single public involvement process and a single public vote for them. That would level the playing field and really represent how people in Burlington feel about these projects, thank you. Our next speaker is Scotia Jordan to be followed by Todd LeCroy. Thank you, I am here to represent a minority. I am here to represent older hardworking women who live downtown in Burlington. I have worked in this city my whole life practically. I am saddened to see that we are going to put a 30 pod homeless community downtown where looking over headlines I've seen no less than seven to eight very serious public safety issues that have occurred in encampments, including a murder. There is an elderly housing subject right next to where this is going. I support the pods. They can be at 51 Institute Road. There is a bus route there, there is parking. There is privacy for people who want to live that way and keep their dignity rather than fencing them in like caged animals and frightening older people in the Mackenzie House. There is a school district there, there is a church there. You are removing 78 paid parking spaces from the city which seems to have budget crisis on a daily basis. There is communities that come here from Plattsburgh in Canada. There will be limited parking for Jazz Fest. Church Street is a mess as it is, we need the income. We need to find a viable place for these folks to live. I suggest Pine Street. I suggest the Institute Road and I suggest you pay attention to the hardworking people in this town already and stop forgetting us. We have a voice and we want to be heard and we are tired of taxes and we are tired of being misrepresented and I am speaking for minorities that have small businesses in that area and I am speaking for children and I am speaking for women who don't feel safe in this town as it is now that we only have 58 police officers to guide and protect us. I am saddened at what this town has become. We can come together, we can find a solution for these people and thank you very much for listening to me. Thank you. Our next speaker is Todd LaCroix and then we're gonna transition to Burlington residents participating remotely which time I'll have Aaron Manganaro to be followed by Alex Twombly, among many others. Oh, I mean all the issues crashing in our world. Let me just try to sum it up in the little time I have. Oh, you took a minute away from the normal now. Okay, so my parents left me homeless so that they could run an Airbnb and then it was really expensive running around trying to help me. Oh yeah, did I also forget the part to mention where like the Burlington police tortured and abused me and left me for dead and you all ignored it and now you all pretend like you care about that? Well, continuing to put everything into the hands including our children's future to military people who've all for 20 years been trained in torture. Yes, for 20 years, our military has been training everybody in torture. You all want to avoid talking about it. Well, these are the people we're allowing to protect us and you know what, 20 years of history and especially the last 10 has proven they're not doing a very good job and you're all leaving your children out there and the band-aids aren't working and your disposable solutions for what you have deemed your children to be which is disposable in your disposable mindsets, in your disposable world is not working. It's falling apart. You people think that you can steal Venezuela's money, Russia's money, Afghanistan's money. You think that you can steal your children's future and not have consequences. Well, we're about to see all the consequences coming crashing down on all of us. Wake up and do something for your children, please. Your time is up. Something that matters. Your time is up. Your time is up. Our next speaker, we're gonna transition to Burlington residents who are participating remotely. So, as I said before, the first Burlington resident participating remotely will be Aaron Manganaro to be followed by Alex Twombly. I'll read off a couple more. Rabbi Jan Saltzman, Beth Sightler, Mark Hughes, Dan Bido, Kirsten Merriman-Chapiro, Joshua Katz. There's others to follow, so if you signed up, don't worry, we'll get there. We'll get to you. I've been going in the order that they were received. You'll see the timers up there on the screen. So, and I'll let folks know when I've enabled their mic. So, for our first speaker participating remotely, I'll go to Aaron Manganaro. And Aaron, I have enabled your microphone. Awesome, hopefully you guys can hear me. Yes, go ahead. Okay, so yeah, my name is Aaron Manganaro, and I am a Burlington resident. I'm asking the city council here to not override the mayor's veto on the short-term ordinance, I think his actions to veto the SDR ordinance shows good faith that our voice was heard and it's important to him and the community, that you all get this right. You know, we understand there's a housing crisis and do agree that some regulations should be put in place to help mitigate the ongoing issue, but this ordinance is not backed by data. It puts responsibility on the homeowner and as it's written, projects city authority into how we as homeowners manage our personal property. And that honestly is taking it too far. My wife and I moved to Burlington from the West Coast almost eight years ago and we specifically searched for a duplex to purchase. So we had the ability to host friends and our family for extended periods of time and then opening it up to an SDR when they're not here. The SDR allows us to give flexibility to leave our property for an extended period of time to be with family out West and all of which contributes to the Burlington's economy versus leaving that space unused. This ordinance would completely strip us of that flexibility and the original intent of purchasing our own home. Personally, as a homeowner in Burlington this past year, we've experienced a 34% increase in property taxes, a complete disruption in our daily lives and property due to the Shelburne Roundabout Project, a denial of adding an ADU to our property and now a new potential restrictions on how we choose to use our property. All while investing our own finances and blood, sweat and tears into completely restoring our 100 year old house that we love. It really shouldn't be that hard to live here. You know, we agree with the mayor that the fees and our taxes from SDRs could help support the housing trust. That's actually a long-term solution that could help our community for years to come versus the quick fix ordinance that you're proposing that is not backed by any data. Your time is up. Thank you. So I was not able to locate either Alex Twombly or Rabbi Jan Saltzman. So I'm gonna go to Beth Seitler. Oh, Cooper Siegel, okay. Well, no, that's not the name. Please, if you get on under the name that you're, if you could just please be on the name that you're signed up as that really helps in me finding folks and getting to them. So I'm gonna go to Beth Seitler. Beth, I've enabled your mic. Yes, thank you. I've lived almost 30 years on North Newsy Avenue. I'm also a patient and board member at CHCB. I'm asking you yet again to pause and study the North Newsy project a little more. I was at the recent difficult meeting when the PMP committee decided to vote against the proposal that Councillor Hansen is presenting today. That decision's not what's being brought forward to you. That's confusing to me, but I guess that's where we are. I support Councillor Barlow's amendment to the resolution. It will give us some time to make this work. We shouldn't be in a rush to get this done. We should be focused on getting it right. That's not obstructionism. That's how you consider complex needs and robust communities. There's been, I admit, good work to find a compromise. I know and agree that we have a bike, and agree that we need to have a biking corridor and it's important, I know it's wanted and I know we need better bike safety and I certainly appreciate the scaling back of the parking removal on my part of the street. But for the homes and the small businesses north of us, many of which, as you know, are BIPOC owned. There are very few secured options for parking. Hiring this along will hurt those businesses. I recently heard someone say, and hey, if it doesn't work, we can always go back. If it doesn't work, that means we've lost fragile, irreplaceable businesses on our street. That's not a good plan. In January, we submitted the petition of 150 of our neighbors expressing opposition to the change. You also received letters of concern for 15 businesses. Please understand this is not about parking or cars or bikes or not caring about climate change. It's about preserving important businesses and residents' needs. It's about agreeing that vulnerable neighborhoods shouldn't be harmed as we fight climate change. It's about the health of our community and it's about listening. Jan Saltzman, Jan Lee. Is this Jan Saltzman? I've enabled your microphone. If you're signed into the name Jan Lee, is that Jan Saltzman? Okay, not that person. So I'll keep moving. I'm gonna go to Mark Hughes next to be followed by Dan Bito and Kirsten Merriman Shapiro. Mark, I believe I've located you and have enabled your mic. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yep, go ahead. I've got a couple of things going on in the background so I apologize. So thanks a lot. Good evening, City Council. Good evening, Mr. Chair. So I'm calling on behalf of the work that's happening over at 372 North Winooski in this place that we call the Richard Kemp Center. This is sitting there right on the corner for those who don't know. Used to be the old Sam's furniture store. I like to say that because I've only been in Vermont for 14 years and folks in Vermont usually say, hey, you remember where this was? So that's the project. It's, you know, it's a- Mark, I'm having a little difficulty hearing you. Science initiative. Can you hear me now? Yeah, it's a little muffled. Just trying to make sure we can all hear you in the room. Can you stop the timer? Okay, all right. Where did you, where did we leave off at? Did you hear the part about where the building is located? Yes. Okay, so I'll just pick up there and it's, you know, just joining in with what you have heard to be a course of folks that are calling out on this, this biking project. Which we were aware of, I was aware of, probably a couple of years ago I saw it coming, had no way of knowing that the Kim Center was going to be there and didn't really know, didn't really know. I didn't see this, because I always thought the project was a good idea, but I guess I didn't understand the impact that was going to cause it to these vulnerable communities. The Kim Center is, you know, programs and services being delivered buying for black and brown folks in these underserved communities. And there's just a whole laundry list of other organizations down there. So guys, I know what you're doing, I see what you're doing and I think it was a good idea until it wasn't anymore. And now it's really not. I think we just probably need to, you know, bring this thing to a halt and really talk it through instead of trying to ramrod it through. I mean, there's already a lot of disappointment about the Champlain Parkway and whether it presents as well, we won't go there. So think about it, maybe slow it down and- Thanks, your time is up. Let's see what we can do. So your time is up, Mark. Thank you. Next speaker, I do see Rabbi Jan Salzman. So Jan, I'm going to enable your mic. And I'm unmuted. Yep, I can hear you. Okay, great. Hi, Rabbi Jan Salzman. I live on the corner of Archibald and Germain. I am already having an inordinate amount of trouble finding parking in front of my house. If you go on Pomeroy Street, the parking now is on two sides of the street because you're not allowed to have your tires touch the ground and it's impossible to pass through there, especially in winter. I am a bicyclist. I walk everywhere, but I do not support removing parking places from my neighborhood. It's already pushing people to park on our street. And I'm 69 years old and there's going to be a come of time when I'm going to want to park closer to my house to bring my groceries into my house. Last night, I had to walk from the corner of Archibald and Germain all the way down Germain and halfway on Pomeroy before Willard. That's where the first parking space was available. So I totally support protecting bicyclists and pedestrians. It's an absolute top priority for me because I'm often on my bicycle or I am on my feet, but taking away parking space from this neighborhood is deadly. It also just encourages the city to think about North Manuski as merely a conduit into downtown. In fact, we are a vital neighborhood right here and we need our parking, our businesses need our parking. Dolan Mechanics needs its parking. Everybody needs the parking. So you've heard what I've said. I bless you for all the hard work that you are doing. I know that it is not an easy task. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Next speaker is, I'll read off a couple more. Dan Bito to be followed by Kirsten Merriman-Chapiro, Joshua Katz, Melissa, Graham Turk, and Sharon Busher. There are still a few others to follow on the Burlington resident side. So don't worry if I didn't call your name. I have Dan Bito next and let me just believe I've located you and enabled your microphone, Dan. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, go ahead. Okay, I'll start. So I don't believe that pods are a long-term solution to homelessness, but if this is the short-term approach, I want it in my neighborhood. I live right off of Elmwood Avenue and I want to address some of the concerns that opponents have brought up in this meeting. We do deal with crime in this neighborhood. I mean, we've had our bikes stolen in my apartment complex. We've had, you know, car break-ins and stuff like that. And let me tell you, money spent on police responses to that is wasted money because the police aren't helping us as the victims of crime. You know, the police aren't gonna buy us a new bike or, you know, get us a nice lock or anything. At best they're gonna ruin someone's life who stole from us out of desperation. I oppose that. I think that, you know, we need to have solutions such as giving people shelter, giving people a leg up from poverty that are gonna disincentivize them from the antisocial behavior or harmful behavior, right? And, you know, intuitively, I don't know that much about the different locations, but intuitively, you know, I'm a hardworking person of Burlington. A lot of my coworkers, some of whom are homeless, are hardworking people of Burlington. I chose to live downtown because it's where the amenities are. It's where you can get places without a car. It makes sense to put this downtown. And I would just say that people who are homeless need immediate support without preconditions or delays. I really would hate to see this proposal delayed because of the location. And finally, I think that the solutions to the loss of parking and business revenue actually give us opportunities to improve infrastructure in a way that will help everyone. So supporting public transportation, you know, really investing in that rail service that's gonna start up, you know, Burlington to New York. That's a great way to bring tourists into town. It also reduces sprawl, something which this Institute Road or Institute Avenue option does not do. And it will just in general make the city better both for low-income residents and homeless people as well as enriching the business and revenue aspects of town. So thanks. Thank you. Our next speaker is Kirsten Merriman Shapiro to be followed by Joshua Katz. Kirsten located you and have enabled your microphone. Good evening. Thank you for allowing me to speak to you tonight. I had the pleasure of serving on the stakeholder committee for the North-Woodersky Parking Management Plan. And over the past year, I participated in all six meetings. I listened to the concerns of the residents, the nonprofits and small businesses. I also engaged regularly with staff asking questions, providing information related to the development of the plan. Sadly in February, our committee found that the plan failed to meet the essential parking needs for residents, businesses and service providers and offered recommendations. Those recommendations should be viewed as supplemental to the previous studies. They were based on the current work of the consultant, took into account the additional feedback and consultation with the neighborhood regarding these impacts and the realities of potential mitigation. The recommendation does not say no to bikes. It simply recommends a pause on the removal parking until the additional efforts around shared off-street parking, transit and transportation demand management can mitigate these negative impacts on these entities. The two resolution does not take this into account and it dismisses the concerns raised by the community. I'd hope to slow approach would result in better collaborative outcomes for the community. As proposed, it will have negative impacts on the people accessing these social services as well as the residents and small businesses along the corridor, many of whom serve disabled and low-income people and people of color. I urge you to consider unintended consequences as well as intended consequences of supporting this resolution and unintended consequences to push more parking pressure onto the adjacent streets. But is it your intention to increase barriers for people who need healthcare, food and in-person support? Is it your intention to damage the affordability, vitality and diversity of this mixed use corridor? Is it your intention to create extra strain on the local businesses that work hard to be successful? Is it your intention to damage the social services when our social services have greatest demand to create additional burdens on them? Your time is up. Don't support the resolution tonight and it doesn't need to be your choice between the names of bicyclists, bicycle safety and then- Please respect the time limit. Our next speaker is, I was able to locate Alex Twombly who I could not locate earlier. So Alex, I'm gonna go to you next. I've enabled your mic. This is Alex Twombly. Oh, can you hear me? Sorry. Yes, go ahead. Okay. Yeah, this is Alex Twombly. I'm a resident on Elmwood Avenue and I live directly across from the parking lot, like probably like less than 40 feet from my front door. And I kind of just wanted to bring up that there really wasn't any community outreach done with the site selection for the pod encampment. Me and most people in my building did find out about this through news crews that had set up in front of our apartment two weeks ago. And they told us that it was going in like in early April. So it's just kind of my concern that this is being done like without input from the community at all, which I don't really think is a good idea because I feel like it could turn the community against the actual project. And obviously it just creates some safety concerns in the community and people living around it. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker going back into the queue is Joshua Katz to be followed by Melissa. Joshua have enabled your mic. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, go ahead. Great. Thank you for having me and allowing me to speak. My name is Josh Katz and I work at Katmah, the Chinan Area Transportation Management Association. We're the local TMA, looking at what you see work with a lot of businesses, institutions in Burlington. We were also a partner in the bike share agreement with Green Ride Bike Share. And we're really happy that the city is looking to move forward with that agreement and negotiate the contract for coming years. It's really key for us as a regional organization and as a region to continue to support that effort and support different ways of commuting and getting around town. So that's me speaking for Katmah on a personal level, on a different, on a couple of different matters. I'm a bike commuter who uses Winnieski Ave often to get to work, to get around town. I live on South Winnieski Ave in the south end and take that to work almost every day. And it's really crucial for me. I am someone who is very comfortable on a bike, grew up biking, but there's a lot of people who haven't. And if we really want to get people on bikes, this is really crucial to doing so. In addition, just touching on the minimum parking requirements, I think it's great that the city continues to eliminate these requirements and create stricter barriers to creating additional parking in Burlington as it has many harmful effects. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Melissa to be followed by Graham Turk and I'll read off a couple more after that. Sharon Buscher, Cara Greenblatt, Jean Bissette, Eliana Fox, Connor Smith, Richard Bragg. If you're still on, if you signed up, don't worry, still have a couple after that as well. Just want to give folks a sense if they're coming up. Melissa, I have enabled your mic. Can you hear me? Yes, go ahead. Hi, to echo an earlier speaker, stop this North Winooski taking away the parking and listen to people. I beg you to please think about the businesses like the Mahawi African market which just moved to a new location in the Old Salvation Army Building at 336 North Winooski. If there's little to no parking, what happens to the business? Customers come from all around Vermont to shop at the market. I spoke to my friend, Pat Bannerman earlier. She's the owner of the market. She asks you to please not take away the parking. This could literally cost her the business, her business. North Winooski is lined with small shops like Fohang, Jade talked earlier. Junctiques, Sanga Studios, Barry O'Bakery, Shinkustation, Taco Gordo, not even to mention nonprofits like the Community Health Center, One Arts, State Care, Outright Vermont, all of these small businesses and nonprofits. I bike, I love biking. I'm limited to wear and how I can bike. I cannot bike in the snow or the ice or the rain. It costs a lot more than just a bike to bike. Yes, you need money to fix a car too but you cannot take your kids to school, the doctors and then go to your job in Essex in January on your bike. No, our city should not be built for cars. No, the public should not be paying for people to have overnight parking. But currently that is the case and has been for decades. Taking this drastic measure is not going to fix that. Having a careful long-term plan that includes an increase in improvement to public transformation like buses in addition to bike lanes will fix that. I beg you to please reconsider this to my friend, Councillor Tracy. I know you're deep love in the environment, biking and the Old North End. Please do not let your last act as city councillor be something that will cause so much harm to our community. Thank you. Our next speaker, I couldn't locate Graham Turk. So I'm going to go to Sharon Bushard to be followed by Cara Greenblatt. Sharon, I've enabled your mic. Thank you. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank the councillors that are leaving the city council this evening. All three of you, two of you I served with and I wanted to just highlight my thoughts. Councillor Mason, I just wanted to thank you as a member of the Ordinance Committee. I really admired how you ran the meeting. You allowed the public to weigh in at public forum and then after each agenda item, it was inclusive and so important for anyone who is discussing the potential laws of our city. I know many residents appreciated that and also appreciate you. I didn't always agree with Councillor Mason's position but I always valued his input and respected him as a city councillor and most importantly as a person. Councillor Tracy, I've had some moments of laughter and some very serious moments. We've sat beside each other. One of the finest moments that I recall was when you and I were spent a summer together trying to draft some amendments to the zoning ordinance for city place and trying to reduce the height. We had proposed 10 stories as you might recall. That was very good collaboration. I really valued your input and you know, Councillor Tracy, we also didn't always agree but that didn't mean that you didn't broaden my horizons and that I didn't respect you and I'm glad that there's still been a thread of communication between you and I even though I haven't been on the council these last two years. So I want to wish all three of you the best as you transition from being on the council and becoming members of the community. Thank you again. Thank you. Next speaker is Cara Greenblatt to be followed by Jean Bissette. Cara, I've located you and have enabled your mic. Hi, can you hear me okay? Yep. Great, thank you. Good evening everyone. My name's Cara Greenblatt. I'm a resident of North Wenuski Avenue. I'm an avid biker and I'm very proud of the bike infrastructure in our community. I'm also a social worker for the Howard Center and I am required to have a car for my job as I drive clients to the health center, the food shelf and to other service providers in our community. I'll say upfront that a plan to remove any parking on North Wenuski Avenue is one that will cause unnecessary hardship for essential workers like myself as well as vulnerable populations living in our community. I say unnecessary hardship because there is already a northbound bike line one block over on North Union. Today I rode my bike to go grocery shopping at City Market. I rode south on North Wenuski Avenue to get there and I rode north on North Union to get home. I do not see how adding another bike lane and one by the way that goes against traffic is safer than maintaining the existing north and south lanes, both of which flow with traffic. As Beth Seitler mentioned earlier tonight, some neighbors and I collected 150 signatures in two hours of canvassing. Everyone that I spoke with minus one person signed the petition and expressed their shock and dismay about the pending removal of parking. Some were concerned that they would have to move out of their homes since they don't have enough off street parking designated for their units and businesses and nonprofits were very worried about losing customers and remaining viable as parking became even more competitive. It's so competitive in fact that on a given week night, my partner and I circled the block several times in order to find street parking that's within blocks of our house. Finally, I feel very strongly that any plan to remove parking spaces on North Wenuski prioritizes a privileged minority who don't need or depend upon cars over residents and essential workers like myself who live, work and receive vital services in this neighborhood. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jean Bissette, followed by Eliana Fox, Connor Smith, Richard Bragg, Jonathan Weber or Weber, Jack Gianno and Cooper Siegel. So Jean, I've located you and have enabled your mic. Hello, thanks. I'm also speaking in opposition to the plan to remove parking on North Wenuski Avenue. I'm a resident on North Wenuski Avenue as well, but I wanted to use my time today to read a statement from a colleague of mine at the University of Vermont. She's busy meeting a grant deadline. I can't be here to speak personally, but I think what she says is worthy of quoting. She says, I am Bindu Ponakar, an assistant professor at the Rubinstein School of the Environmental and Natural Resources. I have been working on environmental justice issues since 2007. While adding bike lanes in North Wenuski could help transition towards climate adaptation, it should be done in a procedurally just way. That is by making sure that the benefits and the difficulties and the inconveniences of such a transition are duly discussed with relevant community partners and transitions be made only after their concerns are met with relevant accommodations. We cannot add on to the environmental inequities that the disadvantaged communities already face and we need to engage them in finding apt solutions that also benefit them. Thank you. So she ends her remarks there and I'll speak briefly now for myself. Like I think Kara and Beth have mentioned, 15 small businesses, nonprofits and social services have signed letters strongly opposing the removal of parking on North Wenuski Avenue and several, I think perhaps half are BIPOC immigrant owned businesses. And if I'm not mistaken, the 15 signed letters include almost all of the BIPOC immigrant owned businesses on North Wenuski Avenue. So these neighbors and business owners as well as low income residents and the social services that feed and treat the health of vulnerable residents have vocalized opposition to this plan over and over again. Some have vocalized opposition since the plans inception three years ago. Others have only just learned about it recently because they weren't consulted originally. And so I think I wanted to just speak to Kirsten Miramot-Chapiro's note. So your time is up. Thank you. I was able to locate Graham Turk. So Graham, I'm gonna enable your mic. I'll come back to the other speakers after that, but Graham was one of the folks who weren't able to locate. Go ahead, Graham. Thank you, Chair Tracy. I just wanna say, it is the role of government to look beyond the immediate impacts of what a small group face, okay? In the meantime, while this plan has been delayed, we've seen the highest temperatures on record. It was recently 50 degrees above the average temperature in the Arctic last week. We've seen super storms, we've seen floods. This will continue if we don't take action. Someone had the comment earlier that we weren't, to look at only the privileged few that can bike in the city would be unjust. I find that preposterous because it's only the privileged few that have cars in the city. And the people who aren't even here tonight are the ones who might benefit from us investing in bike lanes to expand access to a sustainable and cheap mode of transportation. Gas right now is $5 a gallon. People can't overnight invest in electric vehicles and make the transition that I know this city in Burlington Electric and a lot of residents want. What you can do overnight is switch to biking. Okay, so that is something that the city can do fast. It can improve the cost of living by making that investment by signaling to people in Burlington that this is a safe mode that everybody can utilize, especially older residents with the advent of e-bikes and other things that we can do to make it safer. I spent some time in Stockholm, obviously a very different city than Burlington but a place where people have invested and bought in to bike infrastructure. Where 150,000 people commute every day by bike in a city that's just as cold with just as harsh temperatures as Burlington. So I think that it's really important we don't delay. You can spend years evaluating plans and you should not let perfect be the enemy of the good because we simply don't have enough time and we need to act fast. And so I urge you to take action to pass this plan. And yes, there will be immediate pain for those who are impacted directly by the removal of spots, but it's the people who can't even speak tonight that we should be thinking about for today and for the future. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Eliana Fox to be followed by Connor Smith. Eliana, I've located you and have enabled your mic. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes, go ahead. Great. I wanna express my support for the resolution relating to the North Manuski Avenue parking management plan and bike lane installation. I believe the resolution is a good compromise that will improve connectivity for people who bike while minimizing the removal of parking. With the addition of funding for transportation demand management, the resolution also provides support to organizations along the corridor. As we think about parking, it's important to consider both the goods that need to be delivered to businesses as well as the humans who may be unloading from a bus, Uber, Lyft, a taxi, a bike, walking on the sidewalk. Warehousing a private vehicle in that space only locks up the access point and doesn't allow for full access to move goods and people from the street to the sidewalk. I have a few other points I'd like to add in support of the resolution to implement connected bike lanes on North Manuski Avenue. Biking and walking in our city are not luxuries but necessary modes of transportation for many, including myself and my partner who only have one car, which means he drives to work and I bike or I walk. If Burlington prioritizes equity, let's not forget equitable access along our public right of way. Burlington has also committed to net zero energy roadmap that indicates by 2030, annual household vehicle miles traveled will be reduced by 15% due to alternative transportation options such as walking, biking and public transit. Prioritizing the Manuski Avenue corridor will help us address this goal by reducing vehicle miles traveled. Passing this resolution will help the Old North and thrive by providing more options to connect people to destinations. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Connor Smith to be followed by Richard Bragg. I'll read off a few more after that as well. Jonathan Weber, Jack Tiano, Cooper Siegel, Allie Kinney, Ben Traverse. So I'm gonna go to Connor Smith right now. Connor, I believe I've located you and have enabled your mic. Hi, yeah, I just wanted to support the Manuski Avenue bike lanes and the removal of certain parking spaces there. I was a part of the discussion two years ago when we first were talking about changes to Manuski Ave and they were very contentious and we heard very, very similar arguments against the changes that we've heard tonight. And we moved forward in certain parts of Manuski Avenue and we also came up with compromises in the form of a transportation, a parking management survey that took a look at this part of Manuski Avenue and it determined that we could remove certain parking spaces. And so it seems pretty clear that based on the discussion that we had two years ago, the plan that was put in place, the study that was done as a compromise that we should move forward the plan that was put in place. Burlington does a lot of planning, does a lot of studying contrary to what some people think here tonight. And it's time to do something. It's really not that radical. It's not nearly as radical as other cities across the world are doing with active transportation. We're talking about paint on a road. And it's just really disheartening to hear the pessimism here tonight, people that aren't willing to think out of the box and a little bit bigger and plan for the future. If we don't stop planning, if we don't stop the endless discussion and just start doing something for a change, nothing at all will get done. And we'll just keep on this track that we're going on. So I really hope that we move forward with this. It's the thing that we planned on doing two years ago. We did the study that we set out to do two years ago and it's done. It's said that we can move forward. So let's just do it. Thank you. And if folks can just please stay focused on the issues and not what other speakers say, I do have Rick Bragg next to be followed by Jonathan Weber. I think that's, I think this is it. Rick, I've enabled your mic. Looks like you need to unmute on your end. Yeah, sorry, can you hear me there? Okay. Yep, go ahead. I saw that. Thank you. Yeah. So I live off of, I live on Decatur Street right off of North, this is about the North, parking issue. I also want to say that I work at the Howard Center and I have also worked as an administrator for the Vermont Bicycle Pedestrian Coalition. Chair of the road is our big bumper sticker. If you've ever seen any of those. So that's, I'm a big advocate for biking. I've still biked along North Pudus Piav all year round through winter and summer. And that's my thing. I love biking and I love bike safety. Bike safety is the biggest due to me but I have to say that I am against this North Pudus Piav plan. I think what we have right now is a slow one-way shared space with cars, parking and shops, all along the street. I think this plan, it's kind of a treatment should be done for things like places like North, North Ave, Group 15, Shelburne Road but not North Pudus Piav. This is going to cause a lot of safety issues. People circling around, trying to find a parking spot, people trying to stop, people, I mean, this is just not thought out. This has not been thought out. This is not a good plan for this North Pudus Piav I'm against this plan. And again, I've worked as the administrator for the Vermont Bicycle Pedestrian Coalition and I'm a big advocate for bicycling all year round. And that's what I have to say. So thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jonathan Weber to be followed by Jack Tiano. Jonathan, I've enabled your mic. Thank you, President Tracy. Jonathan Weber here from Local Motion. Speaking tonight to encourage you to support the resolution for North Moosky Avenue as passed by the TUC. This allows us to move forward with making North Moosky Avenue safer for people biking. And the resolution also provides time and resources to help organizations adjust their parking needs. The Moosky Avenue quarter site was a lengthy process with extensive community engagement. The product of that was a recommendation for continuous bike lanes along Moosky Ave. That recommendation is based in countless city goals around encouraging higher rates of biking, creating opportunities for residents to get around by modes other than driving, which is something that's even more important today with gas prices where they are and our climate crisis worsening. A lot of the conversation here has focused on equity. So I want to just give a few relevant facts and some sense of data. Vehicle ownership is correlated with lower income that lower income folks tend to own cars at lower rates. The parking management plan study area has some of the highest percentages of households without cars in the county and in the city. Residents who are a black agent or identify as multiracial are more likely to get to work using modes other than drive. Let's also not forget that to address the climate crisis, the old saying we've got to think globally and act locally. This local act of installing bike infrastructure is part of our effort to reduce global impacts, which are most severe in the global South and in low income countries. So I encourage you to support the resolution as passed by the two. It represents a good compromise that gives organizations on the corridor time and resources to adjust their parking needs while still greatly improving bike connectivity and helping residents get around in a way that is affordable, safe and in line with our climate goals. Thanks. Next speaker is Jack Tiano to be followed by Cooper Siegel, Ali Kenny and Ben Traverse. Jack, I've enabled your microphone. Can you hear me? Yes. Great. So this is a subset of a much longer set of interconnected thoughts that I share with Councilor Shannon, but I wanted to speak to at least one of these tonight. So the limited resource that the city needs to economize to meet its goals is not money, but land. No amount of money can solve our infrastructure needs if we allocate our land inefficiently. So connecting this with agenda items 602 and 604, what is the real economy of a parking space? Parking is a support organ of the city's transportation system which has the purpose of moving people within the city. We can measure the performance of the system by several metrics, but let's pick the one of the most important, which is the number of people moved per hour or simply throughput. We can take that throughput and measure it against our most precious economic resource with the member's land, not money. What does a bike lane contribute to the throughput per square foot of land that it uses? And what about a parking space? Even without doing the math explicitly, you can immediately intuit the bike lane has a positive impact on throughput and the parking spot has a negative impact. The best case scenario for a parking space is that it's a piece of land that will always be storing a vehicle that is actively not doing anything. The more parking spaces we have in the city, the less efficient our transportation systems throughput per square foot is. Who subsidizes that cost for drivers? We must rapidly shift to a more carbon efficient transportation system. And we also must not waste land that we need to solve other problems like housing. We can expand our car share program, increase bus network and frequency, but radically shifting to active transportation is the most powerful tool we have to meet both of these goals. Not doing so is selling our future. Shifting our primary mode of transit will not be an easy process. And we must show empathy with the pain that comes with it along the way. We are already out of time. The climate crisis is not in the future. It is today. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Cooper Siegel to be followed by Allie Kenny and Ben Traverse. Cooper, I have enabled your mic. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hi, my name is Cooper Siegel and I am a resident of Elmwood Ave who also lives directly across from the Elmwood lot. We've heard from a lot of different people tonight. I think it's important to knowledge how few residents of our neighborhood are here tonight. The reality is that many people who live in our neighborhood do not even know that tonight's meeting is happening. And I would expect that many more do not even know about this proposal in the first place. Like others have mentioned tonight, there's been no communication whatsoever with the residents who live the closest to this lot. This is a huge decision that impacts a lot of people. And the fact that the residents haven't been considered here is really, really disappointing. We still have no information whatsoever and what the shelter will look like. And I think it is important that we have this information that our community has this information before this proposal goes through. There needs to be a second public forum on this issue and before there is the residents of our neighborhood need to know more about this plan. And there also needs to be an announcement made to our neighborhood next time a public forum is happening because people need to know that this is going on. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Allie Kenney to be followed by Ben Traverse. Allie, I've enabled your mic. Hey, yeah, I'm speaking this evening about the short-term rental ordinance. I'm speaking to express strong support for the mayor's veto and the carpenter amendment and really strongly urge you to not overturn the veto until the resolution is further considered to allow primary home owners to have short-term rental units. The restriction on primary home owners from not being allowed to create an ADU or rent a unit in their home is foolish. It's the opposite of progressive and instead in action, I believe, will actually cause the inverse of the desired effect of affordable living for Burlington and only allow opportunity for income to go to the wealthiest, which is out-of-state buyers and the few people that can own hotels. I think it's a false assumption that an ADU is in a primary home often made to support family members who will shift to long-term rental supply. They're often an intimate part of people's homes, people depend on this income, and we cannot assume that suddenly people with extra space will shift to long-term rentals. We're in a city with a high residential tax burden and a situation which we will likely need to fund a brand new high school with increasing taxes. We deserve, Vermonters, Burlingtonians deserve and need the opportunity to use their homes to supplement their incomes to pay these taxes so we can stay in Burlington. I have a story of my mother, we have property, we bought in 1947 on Appletree Point Road, $1,200 was the cost, my grandmother did it by working part-time at the post office. The taxes are $38,000 right now out of because of out-of-state buyers coming in and paying millions for homes in this area. If we cannot find ways to have short-term rental income, you will lose property owners that have owned property for 75 years because they cannot pay the taxes. We need to ensure that people can stay in their homes and get creative and find ways to have income instead of assuming that that will shift to long-term housing. Thank you. Next speaker is Ben Travers and then we'll transition back to in-person commenting. Ben, I've enabled your microphone. Thank you, this is Ben Travers. I'm sorry, I could not be there in person but nonetheless wanted to take an opportunity to thank Councillor Stromberg, Councillor Mason and Council President Tracy for your years of service to our city council. Council President Tracy, you admirably presided over this body during some of the most challenging years in our city's history and I thank you for your leadership. And on behalf of my family and our Ward 5 community, Councillor Mason, we're all grateful for you. You've heard it from your colleagues. Even at times of disagreement, they felt heard and respected by you. I suspect that hasn't always been a universally held feeling but nobody's perfect, right? I've always trusted you're thinking about each issue carefully, thoroughly and that you're working to do the right thing by our neighbors. You carried on a standard set by Bill Keough who very well may be tuned into this meeting. I hope both you and Bill will continue to tune in but wholly understand in respect if you don't. To all departing this council, your successors have big shoes to fill. I trust we'll all try our best. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is, we did have a Burlington resident late sign up. So I'm gonna go to them first and then we'll go into non-Burlington in-person. So Deb Ward-Lyons. Your time is up. Thank you. Our next speaker is Chief Richard Menard to be followed by Donna Tonyotti. And if you could just, is the mic on? Yes, I've asked Charlie to sit with me because when I get talking, is the green light on your mic, Chief? Okay, thank you. I've asked Charlie to come in, talk at some of them, I might be happy because when I get talking, I can't stop coughing. So this is just about the resolution of Burlington and Miss Iscoy. There was a five-person committee that was arranged with the help and the work with three other counselors from the city of Burlington. And we've worked on this, as I said earlier, about two years. And it all started by a frank conversation about a desire about having a land acknowledgement. First of all, the Habanakis we call Burlington, it was called Palatin, which means the place of the high crested wave. I won't go into the history of that right now, but what we came to was, was that we said, we can have a land acknowledgement, come in and have a prayer, do some other things that are culturally what we do. But at the end of the prayer, we go home, nothing's changed. And what we started to talk about was a better relationship. Charlie, can you speak up a little bit? A better relationship between Mrs. Coy, which this is their territory, which has been vetted by the state of Vermont as a recognized tribe. And to have a resolution that would be a framework for a relationship between the tribe and the city. It's not an us versus them issue. It's not trying to tell the city of Burlington, the citizens here, what they should be doing with us. It is a way of cooperation and communication between Mrs. Coy and the city of Burlington. So your time is up. I have, thank you very much. I'll have Donna Tonyotti to be followed by Kim Anderson. Thank you. I'm the community program facilitator for the Abnaki Nation of Mrs. Coy. And I hear with regards to the resolution for diversity and inclusion. And I wanna thank the council beforehand for adopting this resolution. It's the beginning of communication that is long overdue. And I wanna thank the council for opening the door to better communication between our peoples and the people of Burlington. Hopefully it will recommend and maintain a positive relationship in the future for generations to come because that's what we're all here about, generations to come. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Kim Anderson to be followed by Chol Dorr. Good evening. My name is Kim Anderson. I work at the community health centers of Burlington. I'm here tonight to clearly state we're not supportive of the Winooski Avenue resolution. The community health center stepped up when the city needed a low barrier shelter for homeless individuals. We stepped up when the city needed increased actress to opiate treatment. We stepped up when the city needed medical and mental health care for refugees fleeing from war-torn countries. And we stepped up when the city needed immediate testing and vaccination clinics throughout the COVID crisis. But now when we're asking for help from the city it's suddenly, it's a private business problem or it's a CH to be staff problem. This is the same business and the same staff who have provided life-saving care to your constituents without hesitation. This resolution is not a compromise. A compromise would be putting a pin in what's happened so far to really invest the time and energy to understand the needs in the neighborhood. It's been four years of a failed process. CHCB has been involved in every single meeting since the beginning. We've met with DPW, CCRPC, city counselors and even the mayor. Every step of the way our voice was ignored and as city leadership pushed through their agenda. Even when the stakeholder committee that took formed recommended differently. So the resolution will lock in a process that burdens residents, nonprofits and small businesses in the old North End to carry the cost of a bike lane without city investment to make for a plan to not make for a plan those affected. An amendment at least provides some assistance from DPW. That's better than nothing. So let me be clear. We're not asking for more parking. We support improved safety for cyclists and encourage able-bodied to choose cycling for transportation if it's reasonable. So your time is up. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Choldore to be followed by Eric Hanley. My name is, it's good? Yep. My name is Choldore. I'm the director of diversity, equity and inclusion of the community all centers of Burlington. Mr. Mayor, I'm profoundly grateful for your effort in making sure Burlington is livable, workable and a green city. Equally important, I'm speaking tonight on behalf of the community all center, our patient, our staff who are concerned about the Nozominski Avenue parking plan by the city of Burlington. There are a number of impact that are going to be brought by this change. Our patient will be driving around and around finding a place to park. When that happened, they might as well leave and that means their care is compromised. This will also lead to their appointment, being late to their appointment because they can't find parking. It also affect our ability as an organization to retain staff, employees and that also compromise the quality of the care we provide. Our new recently resettled former refugees and immigrant families come to the community all center seeking immediate help. Because they cannot find parking because biking is not a luxury for them, it's harder to provide care for them. Mr. May and this city council, these new immigrants relied on volunteers to drop them to their appointments. If parking become this an issue, it's very hard for community members to volunteer and help these new families. Imagine what will happen if that parking is enforced. Imagine what will happen to our role as a community health center for this great city. I am asking you to reconsider the resolution. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Eric Hanley to be followed by Robert Richard, or I'm sorry, I'm having difficulty reading it, but Eric Hanley first. Can you all hear me? Yes, go ahead. It's been two and a half years that we've been working on this for the short term rentals. I grew up in Burlington. I don't live in Burlington anymore. I've been a landlord here in Burlington for 30 years. And I do support the mayor's veto that he did on Friday. And I think it would be very hard to do the other one with just a section eight voucher. That would mean in my case, I have a duplex and I would have to get rid of my current tenant and get a section eight person in there. But I would like everybody to open their minds on the inclusionary zoning, make that just the same price as the section eight voucher. Section eight vouchers are very hard to get right now. It's very difficult. I just wanted to go on a couple of reasons why I support the mayor's veto. I keep hearing that there's no housing, new housing being developed in Burlington right now. And that's not true at all. I had a meeting with Mary O'Neill a couple of weeks ago in planning and zoning. Doug Nettie's building 99 rental units at the Chittenden Bank old site right now. Eric Farrell's next project out on North Avenue is 900 units right now. Then there's another project not many people know about across from the hospital that Frank Monturkovich is doing, 71 bedroom units is gonna be start pretty soon over there too. You know, we're a small group of people. We want to be regulated. You know, if we have to pay an extra fee, you know, and you know, that's what we'd like to do. Airbnb's are a nice alternative for families to come visit Burlington instead of paying expensive hotel rooms. Thank you and thank you for the outgoing counselors for your dedicated service. And the counselors that are staying, you guys have a tireless job and thank you for your service. The next speaker is Robert Richard or Pritchard. Please correct me. And then to be followed by Julie Marks. I'm Robert Richard. Abnaki Tribal Council for the Mississaquois-Sikoki tribe. And we are the only tribe in Vermont. The Nohigans and other groups are bands and we are the only recognized tribe in Vermont. And it's our feeling in our tribe that we don't want to be the eye in BIPOC as this is a label that people around the city and the news and everybody, legislators have all been using. A label, all these ethnic groups together and minimizes everybody's losses. We've all suffered indigities and losses. Some have lost more than others. And I just want to make sure that you try to refrain from using that label, BIPOC. And as this gentleman just said, there's 1,000 units getting ready to be built in Burlington. When you have a sewer plant that's failing, that's polluting our lake, well, shouldn't there be doing more upgrades to this plant before 1,000 more units be added onto this system? I mean, it just doesn't seem right. And I don't know if you saw in the paper last week, in the free press, all about the Abnaki and UVM getting $35,000 a year still from indigenous lands being sold. We haven't seen any of that money. I mean, what do they do with that? I mean, you could put pressure on UVM, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Julie Marks. Hey, thank you. There are a lot of big issues tonight and I'm gonna try to touch on all of them because they all personally affect me. Number one, short term rentals. Mayor Weinberger, I want to thank you for your veto. Thank you for listening to your constituents and hearing our concerns and recognizing that this policy would have created many unintended consequences and the city of Burlington, its residents, its businesses deserve a more long term solution to regulate short term rentals and we're willing to work with the city to continue to find that better solution. I think the fact that so many new ideas have come up so late in the game just speak to the fact that none of these ideas are fully vetted and we deserve to give it more time and do it right. So thank you for that opportunity for this council. Secondly, I own a property on Elmwood Avenue directly across the street from the proposed pods and it just strikes me as ironic that, you know, we can't tell you what to do with your land. So I'm about to get a new neighbor and I'm just trusting the city is going to have the right rules in place to mitigate the impacts much like we would hope the short term rental regulations would follow that vein of focusing on mitigating impacts rather than telling people how they can and cannot use their property. Lastly, on the Winooski, I also own a property on Winooski. Parking's tight, the driveway is so small. My tenants can only drive in forward. It's a one way street, so cars have to back out of the driveway to get back onto the street. The current parking lane is the only barrier to slow that car down out of the driveway if you're concerned about bike or safety. May I recommend a bike helmet law for college students at least. Thank you. So we're going to transition back to non Burlington residents who are participating remotely. You have a couple more there. Kelly Devine, I'm not able to locate you. So I'm going to go to Sibyl Kim. Sibyl, I've enabled your microphone. Sibyl, it looks like you're on mute. I'm sorry for this. I am a Waterbury homeowner. Wanted just to show my support for my Burlington short-term rental hosts. I feel they have a valid point that you should listen to. And the arguments mentioned by the mayor, all of them have very strong merits. That's it. Thank you. And that is our final speaker for this evening. Transition back into our agenda. Thank you everyone for coming out tonight and commenting on that. We will get into our agenda now. Continuing with the climate emergency reports, item number four. Does any councilor have a climate emergency report? Mayor Weinberger. Thank you, President Tracey. I just want to note that before we convene again to do another climate emergency report, there I believe will be two town hall meetings that my office is convening with two different, really quite interesting experts on the climate emergency. The first town meeting will be next week. And we will be having, is a town meeting with Saul Griffith. Saul Griffith, sorry, who is one of the co-founders of Rewiring America, really one of the countries leading experts on electrification and the key role that electrification as a strategy must play to meeting our climate goals. And then the following week, after realization day in the state of the city, we will be having a second town meeting with experts from MIT who have developed an interactive model for viewing the action that needs to take place over the next decade if we're going to meet the international goal of keeping warming below two degrees Celsius, six degrees Fahrenheit. And again, I saw this interactive model of the mayor's public officials meeting last fall and it's really, I think one of the best tools we have for just envisioning both the challenge in meeting our climate emergency goals, but also the viability of doing it if we take certain strategic decisions, specifically the electrification decisions. Both of these town meetings, I think will be an opportunity to understand better the role that Berlin-Tonians can play in leading the way towards electrification and moving away from the use of fossil fuels for our cars and buildings towards an achievable, really optimistic vision of the future. Thank you, mayor. Anyone else with a climate emergency report this evening? Okay, we will move to our next item then, the consent agenda. Councillor Stromberg may please have a motion on the consent agenda. I move to approve the consent agenda and take the actions indicated. So we have a motion on the consent agenda. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Mason. Any discussion? Okay, not seeing any. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. Before we get into the deliberative agenda, I want to take care of the local control commission meeting. So I will recess the Burlington City Council meeting at 9.07 and go into the local control meeting at 9.07. First item on that agenda is the agenda commissioner Mason. Oops. Thank you, President Tracy. I'd like to make a motion to adopt the agenda as presented. Thank you, a motion from Councillor Mason, seconded by Councillor Shannon. Any discussion? Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. Commissioner Mason may please have a motion on the consent agenda. Thank you, President Tracy. I would move to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated. We have a motion from Councillor Mason, seconded by Commissioner Shannon. Any discussion on the consent agenda? Okay, not seeing any. So we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of adopting the consent agenda, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That too carries unanimously. And that completes our business in that meeting. So we are adjourned at 9.07 and we will now go back to the Burlington regular city council meeting, which I'll reconvene at 9.08. Councillor Hanson. Yeah, I don't know if this is the right time to do this, but I was, I wanted to request that we move the Abonacci resolution to the top of the deliberative agenda, just given the length of some of the other items and the fact that we have the Chief and other members of the tribal council who have to travel back to Swanton tonight. I was hoping we could do that item first, if possible. Sure, so you are able to make a motion to amend the agenda once it's been approved. It does take a two thirds. So are you making such a motion? Yes, yes, please. This would be item 6.05, moving it to 6.01. Okay, thank you. Councillor Hanson. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Hightower. Any discussion? Okay. Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously and we'll start off with that item. Councillor Hanson. Thanks everyone, I appreciate that. I will move to waive the reading and adopt the resolution and ask for the floor back after a second. Move by Councillor Hanson. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Hightower. Councillor Hanson, you have the floor. Great, I'll speak briefly and then invite folks up to speak as well. But this resolution really comes out of well over a year of conversation with Council President Tracy, myself, incoming Councillor Jean Bergman, the Abinacian nation of Mrs. Skoy Chief Richard Menard, several Abinac residents of Burlington who have been leaders in advocating for improved relationships between state and local governments in Vermont and Abinacian people for decades and others as well. The idea behind this resolution is to try to begin to understand and acknowledge the impact that colonization has played in the role that the city of Burlington has played in that and how the original people living here have been impacted by this land being stolen, being settled and how the original people of this land have been treated in the time since colonization. I'll just read two of the resolve clauses from the resolution, be it for the resolve that to address the multi-generational damage that continues to negatively hinder the progress of the Vermont Abinacian community, the City Council recognizes that there needs to be in accounting to fully understand and acknowledge the taking of Vermont Abinacian land and resources without compensation in what is now Burlington and to understand the role and impact the city played in creating and perpetuating the harms caused to the Abinacian people and be it for the resolve that to accomplish this accounting, the City Council recognizes the pressing need for a study designated to research and organize what areas of need and what direct steps and programs must be initiated to reverse the course of the colonizing oppression of the Vermont Abinacian community. And I would just, before we invite others up to join the conversation, I would say that, you know, trust has been broken many times and what we're trying to do here is rebuild trust and really forge partnerships moving forward, which is a key reason why this resolution has the Missuscoy Tribal Council overseeing this process and study with funding and with offer of support coming from the city. So I'd love to invite the Abinacian nation of Missuscoy Chief Richard Menard and Burlington resident and citizen of the Nalhegan Band of the Cusick Abinacian Nation, Charlie Magaiso and I don't know if the other Tribal Council members were going to join as well, but you're all welcome to join if whoever would like to speak and thank you all for being here. Like I said, I've asked Charlie to speak for me because as you all know, I'm over the COVID but some of the side effects is reason I have it with my lungs. So I'm struggling just to be here, I guess. Charlie, would you please? My name is Charlie Delaney Magaiso. I was chair of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs when the legislation for state recognition of tribes came about. Like many issues that you have to deal with here at the city council, that was the same thing that we had to do through committees. At times it was difficult in terms of communication between people, but we persevered with that. What the council member Richard had said is true. Mrs. Coy, they've been vetted, they are a tribe state recognized and one of the things that had to do with that was come up with an accepted form of geographical territory. Each tribe or band that went for state recognition had to go through certain hoops, if you will, for lack of a better word, and jurisdiction of geography was one of them. And it had to be accepted by the state. It had to be accepted by the communities that were involved in that. The reason for this type of recognition was that they were mindful of what the Indigenous Permanent Forum at the UVM at the United Nations was doing at the time. And it allowed us to show through our family groups, through some genealogy, through other means, who we were as a people. And we had the authority to decide that. That ended the question of who was an Abenaki and who wasn't. And then it was up to the tribes in order to coalesce and decide on what was best for them in their geographical areas. And that's probably where we're here today at this point. It's been a mishmash across the state. If you ask most citizens in the state how many recognized bands or tribes are there, most people don't know. We're just getting that together in order to get something of who we are into a curriculum in the school systems and in the state history books. And this resolution is helpful to that. And as I presented before, it is not an us versus them in terms of cultures. History is history. People on different points of view are gonna have it in terms of their own culture in the way they see the world today. And that's what makes us all human beings. Can't change some things. It's not right or wrong. But what steps can we take forward in order to have something in place where communication between different cultures can persist, can come up with ideas that are workable for everybody. Most of us refer to other people who are not citizens of the tribes as the greater community. The people who live here today, the immigrants that have come here, our concept of our homeland, the Dakina, wasn't the same as the people that came here originally from Europe, obviously. We didn't think of borders, towns, places you can and cannot go. It was where we lived. And we all live here today. And this is an opportunity and order to find ways of going forward as a people together. We appreciate what Burlington Palatine has done in terms of reaching out to us, asking us what can work and what can't. And we came up with this resolution. I was here in 1995 when Bob Covell was mayor and I worked with Barbara Noffey, who was a counselor at the time. And the city of Burlington passed a resolution recognizing the Missus Goy tribal nation. And they did that with the spirit of knowing that there was an original peoples here, that we still exist, that we still have a tannable culture that goes on. That helped us on the road in terms of state recognition and was helpful on other petitions with the government. It put us on that road. And here we are today through state recognition. I want to emphasize that this isn't about a legal opening that is going to ask for specific legal rights that other citizens here don't have. The state of Vermont made it very clear and very narrow in terms of the recognition process about allowing us to live as a culture, allowing us to continue. But they also realized that there were still a lot of questions of how are we going to live with a greater community. Now, if you ask some Abenakis from some of the tribes, they're going to have strong opinions about some things that have happened, such as what Richard had expressed earlier as one example, one subject. But the state of Vermont realized that this is a process. And how do people, like a family, grow together? And we realized that this was the only way that this could be accomplished, but to find ways that were common. The state of Vermont made it clear they are in charge of high stakes gaming. That's not why we're here tonight. They also made it very clear that we don't have standing to ask for land. We're not here to ask for that tonight. We're not asking Burlington to do those things that legally they can't do, but realize that. But what we want is a better relationship with the city government in terms of being able to work with its departments, be it with the school district, maybe coming up with a better curriculum for Abenaki history, or the ability to put a Mrs. Kauai flag up at the school district building. Something simple, some things need to be worked on. But where do we start? This resolution that we've worked on is a basis and enables us in a positive way with Burlington and with the citizens in Burlington to do this. And that's what we're asking for tonight. I can't say anything else that I think would be relevant to try and pass this. This is a, you can look at it in different ways. This is good for the Abenakis. This is good for the citizens of Burlington. This is good for human rights. It's a step forward. Is it a complete answer? No, but it's a positive step in trying to find some of those answers. And we need the support of this council, this resolution to do that. We also recognize that a resolution is not an ordinance. It's not codified in a regulation of law in order to be enforced. But before we had nothing in terms of how to talk to different departments in the city of Burlington, how to communicate some of our concerns or some things that would be beneficial, not just for us, but for everybody here, and not just to be on the sideline, as it was referred to earlier, the I in BIPOC. I was glad to be asked to be on the BIPOC board when it started. And initially, our job was to get money out to the immediate minority businesses in Burlington that did not have a brick and mortar front, which is more easily serviced by the CEDO department. There's a lot of home businesses, as simple as somebody baking bread or cookies in their house or childcare or other things that have to do with minority status. And those were the people who couldn't do business readily right away. They're the ones who I believe suffered first before the brick and mortar businesses. And we did a good job. I thought of getting money out the door to some of these businesses. We had to come up with a curriculum of questionnaires that they had to answer. And it was difficult. We thought about a point system. And then we reneged on that because we saw ourselves doing the same thing that a greater culture does. Because I'm Abinacchi and I'm an original person from here. Should I be number one or two on the list? An immigrant from Africa, should they be number three or four? You see what we're doing? We had to try to pay attention to these things and to be fair about it. And I think we came up with a good system. We got the money out of the door. The greater work that had to be done with the businesses in Burlington through CEDO did. That happened. And it happened partially because of the diversity department that was formed here in Burlington. I think that's an important department that should be filled and supported in the future. They helped us in talking with them about what do you think about this resolution? We tried to talk with other people about it too. About people's feelings about it. How they felt that it would be an effective thing or not. Fear. How do we move forward from that? And the basis of it is that comes down to it whether it was helping through funding through a bike park board or being on an Abinacchi Tribal Council. It was, we're all human beings. That's the common denominator. And I think there's nothing in this resolution tonight that is gonna be a detriment to the city of Burlington to its officials here who have to decide it nor is it going to have a negative impact on the citizens of Burlington, the public or people who live in Vermont. And it's a step forward and it's a help. I got a phone call tonight from Brian Cena, the representative who was asking about this. Part of it is, and we're grateful that some funding came through. And one study that I suggested needed to be done so we could come up with a yardstick of numbers would be the impact of the uncompensated environment from settlement to the present in order to have those numbers to present it from a representative from Burlington such as Brian Cena into a bill to create in the future a trust for original peoples in Vermont for health, for education, for small business startup. There, the federal government came through with about $500 million in pandemic aid for the state of Vermont. And because of the programs and the outlay of it, the numbers that I saw was about 110 or 113 million dollars for minorities in the state of Vermont. That's everything from small businesses to foundations to nonprofits. And I think it would be a way to start something like that. This is what the resolution can enable in a positive way. It doesn't mandate that it will happen because the city of Burlington says it must happen. That's not what this vote is about. The vote is about creating a way to allow us to say we have a working relationship with the city of Burlington. We can talk to its representatives and see what we can come up with. This is primarily what it's about, what we didn't have before. I also realized that the other bands or tribes have understandings with the city of Burlington. We're not here to abdicate those understandings. As time goes on, I would hope that people will know more about our history, know more about the tribes that are involved today in the state of Vermont. But most of all, what I would like to see in the future is that when you say a tribe, it means all Habanaki. It means throughout the state. And this is something that I know Chief Menard is close to his heart on because as we all get older, it's not just about one tribe, but we think about our children, our grandchildren, where they are and what they need. And ultimately, this is what it's about. And I appreciate the time and the effort that the city council has to put in in these types of considerations. Again, lastly, I just wanna thank the three council members who have been very helpful in getting this together and us organizing this and coming up with something comprehensive that could be agreeable to. And I wanna thank them. Max, Jack, Brian Pine, who works for CEDO now. And also I want to thank the initiatives for the public things that have been talked about for Habanakis in the city of Burlington. Thank you, Mayor. Also, I want to congratulate Ali Dang on his affirmed election. Welcome. Thank you very much, appreciate it. So, did you have something you wanted to add? Is there anything you... I wanna thank you as well, you know, for the, you know, one little bit of communication I've had with you but and continue, we hopefully things will continue to get a little bit better for us, you know, so we can work together. That's all we wanna do to work together. Thank you. Thank you. I've been an educator in the Vermont public school systems for over 25 years. And in that time, I've worked with large immigrant populations, the Vietnamese, the Bosnian, the Burundi, Senegal. You name it, I've probably met children from all over the world from war-torn situations from situations we can't even imagine. And the one thing I learned from the children is it didn't matter what their experiences were or what had happened in the past, they were willing to sit down and communicate with each other and to make it a better world. And what we're asking is in this resolution to open those doors of communication so that things will improve both for our people and for the people of Burlington that everyone will begin to understand each other. I believe that what we do in this lifetime affects the next seven generations. This resolution, you are part of that decision-making which affects not only our next seven generations but your next seven generations. Let's open the door and have wonderful communication for the future. That's what we're asking. Thank you. Thank you. Yep, Councilor Hinton. Thank you all so much for your collaboration on this and for being here tonight to speak to it. And the other thing I forgot to say when I spoke earlier is just thank you to the mayor and the administration for including the funding for this and in the budget as well. Thanks. Thank you. If you could just stick around for just in case any questions come up from counselors, we'll be able to direct them towards you. Thanks again for sharing so much with us and being here and making the trip. I very much appreciate it. Are there any comments from counselors? Councilor Mason. Thank you, President Tracy. With your permission I'd like maybe some questions of the sponsors of the resolution. Sure, go ahead. So I've read this a few times and I have to admit in my 10 years this is a different process than one that has followed. I'm sort of typically we go through committee. Is there a reason that this is not being referred to REIB or some other committee? I've heard what this is supposed to be. I've read the resolution and I'm honestly quite confused about exactly the intent of the study. I don't fully understand the language about it not being a city work product yet the city is potentially supposed to be taking action on the work product. And I also don't really understand the budget. I appreciate there's been allocated up to 50 but it's not clear to me do we or is anyone presented with a budget in terms of what that $50,000 is for? Those are sort of not really questions about what's in the resolution but really more process questions and I'm not sure if the sponsor's able to address some of those but those are questions I don't know answers to. Councilor Hanson. Yeah, I can speak to it. So this would be overseen by an advisory committee which is I think that aspect I think is more typical of having an advisory committee that would oversee the commissioning, the conduction, the conducting of the study and that could request funds towards those ends from this up to $50,000 appropriation. I think what's different about this resolution is the advisory committee we are not, the city doesn't isn't choosing the advisory committee. It's the Missuscoy Tribal Council that is going to make those appointments to that advisory committee but the advisory committee, we've had conversations that that advisory committee may or may not include a representative from the city council or from the city but we're really putting this in the hands of the Missuscoy Tribal Council to oversee that and select the members of that advisory committee and the advisory committee would oversee the process and request funds as needed to conduct their work. Councilor Mason. All right, just as a follow up, there's a request to Catherine. I mean, I'm trying to figure out like who's, there's no city oversight of this. There's an independent, I respect an independent committee that has the ability to access up to $50,000 but again, where I'm scratching my head, that report which is what the 50K is going toward is not to be shared with the city unless the commission specifically authorizes it to be shared with the committee. But if I'm understanding the report, it's intended to address or provide opportunities for how we as a city could deal with the colonization and the negative impacts upon the tribe. Am I correct in understanding that? So I'm not, I guess, again, I'm wondering, we're spending $50,000, but we're not assured of the work product in order to address the deficiencies in the oppression. That doesn't make sense to me. Councilor, were you looking for a response, Councilor Mason? I'm not sure there is a response. I mean, I'm in favor of moving forward, but I'm struggling with, in essence, how the city is expected to be taking action on a report that it's not assured of receiving, that there's a disconnect for me in that. Okay. Councilor. Can I ask a different, is there a specific reason that that language wasn't, I mean, that's very specific language about it not being shared unless the committee, the advisory committee authorizes that. There may be some considerations that I'm not aware of as to why that was in there, but that gives me pause about exactly what we as a city are getting and expected to be taking action on. Councilor Hanson. Understood, yeah, the report would be, would belong to the abinaculation of Miss Escoy. And the conversations that we've had, and I'll let, if anyone wants to speak on this, please, please do, but the conversations that we had is that this report and this study would inform, you know, continued recommendations and partnerships back with the city in order to move forward. So I actually, yeah, I agree that the way it's written is a little strange in that regard, but I'd like to see if anyone has comment. My understanding is that the study and the report would be, you know, would be shared, but it does have it belonging to the abinaculation of Miss Escoy. Does anyone else wanna speak to, just the intention of, you know, at that end product of the study and the report, would the plan be to share that with the city? Yes, it would be, all our tribal meetings are public information, you know, there's nothing to hide anywhere, unless there's an executive session, like you guys go into yourself at times. I mean, so, at any point that you wanna see what we're doing, if we don't forward it to you, you can see what we're doing. I mean, we keep minutes of everything, of what's said, what we're planning on doing. We have no hidden agenda. Great, great, thanks. Yeah, and that's always been the conversation. I agree, the language is a little weird around that. I just was, it took a long time to get to consensus around the language and the resolution through this process, this collaborative process, so I was hesitant to make last minute changes when I first heard this concern, which I think was today or yesterday that I heard this concern, but my understanding is that we're all on the same page that, you know, the report would be shared with the city and the whole idea of it is to try to take action and move forward, you know, coming out of that. Talking about the money, some of the, you know, the cover song of our expense. Right, exactly, yeah, if folks didn't. It's designed as a collaboration with the city and its departments, you know, such as the example of education. An Abenaki speaker to come in to talk about history. Or write a curriculum with a school district. You know, things like that, working together is what it's going to accomplish. I am hopeful of going to the Gund Center at UVM to do such a studied report so that we can come up with a yardstick of money in order to have a representative, perhaps write a bill, you know, for the legislature. And that would be through us. That would not be asking the city of Burlington because you pass a resolution to say you back certain things in it. That's why this is collaborative. One reason why you might find it different in terms of the way that it's written is is that I had this question with the chief about this. And I said, you know, if you don't put down what you want, they're not gonna hear it and you're not gonna get it. So here's an opportunity to put down what you want and how it's gonna work with the city. But as the tribal council member said, Richard, everything's documented even on a council level, just like it is with yours. Nobody is going to be able to put certain amounts of monies in their pocket in order to do things. This is for a people. And this is the way it should and we want it to operate. Okay, I don't have anyone else? Councilor Mason. Sorry, I'm not sure what I had. Can I ask a point of information of the city attorney? My understanding is that this council cannot bind a future council either in terms of policy or financial commitment. I'm reading 40 lines 43 and 44 that imply that the council, the city shall cooperate if it requests additional research and studies, which there is a financial impact as well as, you know, working with legislative reps. I appreciate that maybe the sense of this council, but am I correct that that doesn't necessarily bind the city in the future? That's correct. I understood that language to be more aspirational and future-driven than an actual commitment to specifics because of the general tone or tenor of the language. As did I, just wanted to put that out. That would be my official. That was in my review of this, that's what I understood to be. Thank you. So I want to circle back to the question of other reports. I'm not sure I understood that there was consensus that it was going to be shared, in which case I would be offering an amendment to actually make explicit that. If that is problematic, then I won't make it, but I thought I heard agreement. So I will make the amendment that can be voted down. So in line, I would propose consistent with a conversation that was just had changing line 40 to strike out, or say, share with the Abinac-y people of Burlington and, and then I would strike out that, leaving in the city of Burlington and then strike out the remainder of lines 41 and 42 other than the and. The impact of that change is to be clear that the report and supporting documentation would be shared with the city of Burlington. So we have an amendment seconded by Councillor Shannon. It's their discussion. Councillor Freeman. Thank you. I was going to speak to this on the underlying, but it's an amendment now, so I'll speak to it very specifically. Thank you for bringing this up, Councillor Mason. I think for me, I like the language as is and I understand the perspective to change it. I do also think that if we think about a sort of analysis of power in this situation and the way we're building this forward, that to me the resolution and the intent of the resolution is to empower folks who have, who historically and literally have experienced the sort of this, this power dynamic of a colonizing imperialistic entity taking away immeasurable things. And so for me, and based on the intent, the intent is to be collaborative but I think that if we want to look at how power is sort of, sorry, it's a very esoteric way to look at this and sort of existential, but it's also literal. And I think if we want to recognize that that, and if I wanna recognize that then saying that those documents and that work will be shared with us as the city to collaborate in ways that it gives sort of power and control to determine what is helpful. And so you have these sort of, I'm sorry if this is a little bit confusing and also if folks disagree by all means, but to me that is why it makes more sense. It's about consent to me really. It's about getting to say we choose to continue collaborating in X way or Y way or this is what will be helpful and it sounds like the spirit is to be transparent and to continue that collaboration. But for me in this dynamic, I think agency is so important and I want, if folks wrote it in a way and I don't know because I wasn't there to write that exact language, but when I read that, that's what went off in my head was this is about agency and it's about looking at the historical way that sort of an abuse of power and this sort of colonial history has happened and really trying to reestablish healthier and consensual and really understanding what agency looks like in this space and being able to choose. And so to me that's why it's there and because there is an intent to collaborate, that's why this resolution was created. And so I understand it is both symbolic but it is also literal but I don't think there won't be an actual, I think the idea is to collaborate. So I think we will be able to partner as a city. So that's why I think the language works the way it is. I understand it and in symbolic way in a literal way and I think also it works in a functioning way. So that's why and by all means if there was a different intent there, I would be absolutely would want to welcome and hear that but that's how I read it just as like off the cuff. So thank you. Thank you. We're still on the amendment. Any further comments on the amendment? Councilor Paul. Thanks very much. I think that we're not for what is online 39 that I would find myself very much in agreement with Councilor Freeman. But I think it is important to note that the study will be the property of the abnaculation of Miss Iscoy. It's not our property. We are giving the money to you and whatever the product is that you develop is yours. I think what the intent of the amendment is just simply that if the intent of the entire resolution is for us to be working collaboratively that we'd be able to access the report as well and as much as anybody else can. Now if that's not your, if that's not what you think is appropriate, obviously I mean I would hope that you would say so and I would respect that and that would be the end of it. But I mean the end of, for me, the end of the amendment but that's my impression. I mean we don't own this report. If there is any sense of influence or power the power is with the person who owns the report has written the report, has control over the report, who writes it, where the information comes from. That to me is where that lies. So unless I hear otherwise I don't see a problem with the amendment. Thanks. Councilor Hanson. Yeah, I don't think the amendment is controversial or conflicting with anything we've said but if anyone wants to share thoughts about, this is yeah the amendment just to share their report with the city. Does anyone wanna share any thoughts on this? The reasoning for the wording of what you're bringing up had to do exactly with intention. The intention of that was for a way to try and establish a different kind of fund on a state level for us to be able to do that. If others entities own the report you know if it's going as this report would describe the environmental impact basically. If the city wanted to take that report and go and say to the Interior Department or to the federal government we want $50,000 to plant trees because of this. It's not if we're working under a budget that monies that were given to us it takes away from that. We have an express purpose in terms of ideas of how we wanna go forward and that is where the empowerment that I was talked about comes from. We didn't intend it to be in us versus them issue. We just didn't want monies or acknowledged reports to be used for other means outside of what Miss Iscoy would like it to do that would help its citizens that would help original peoples here in Burlington. That was the sole intent of it. Also, I don't think it's in it but you know what we even thought about? Okay, the $50,000 which department should hold that? Should it be the diversity and racial department? Should it be the treasurer's office? We feel like we don't have power over that necessarily I don't see that in the resolution. It also is based upon history and I'm not saying this in a bad way but I'm just telling you what's happened. I was on the NAACWAD, Native American Quarter Centennial Committee, the state level of the city and for Samuel D. Champlain coming down here the 400th anniversary of that and they asked us, well, you know, we'd like some Indians to participate. We were told that through this federal budget for our part in it, in order to put something on, we would have to collaborate with a way to do that. A written agenda and how that was gonna be paid for and they offered $150,000 and over the course of a year, down to the Quadra Centennial here in Burlington which did a good job of celebrating it, we ended up with zero. And six months after the event, the funding came through the city of Burlington for that which basically took over the original people's native's aspect of it and we weren't even told about it. Basically from federal funding got $30,000 and it went through the arts center here and so it made us feel like why are we here doing this? Why are we being asked to participate with a greater community and we're being treated this way? And it didn't feel good. So in order to come up with something that would be beneficial to original peoples here and to the city of Burlington, this time around we came up with such a resolution and that's just the short history of it. And I'm not saying that to denigrate the city of Burlington. I'm just saying what happened. Our experience from our point of view what happened and that part of it's over but I don't believe that an extra amendment or to change these lines is gonna make a difference. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Freeman. Thank you. I just was, I agree or I think that there, I won't support the amendment but it sounds like there's support for it regardless of whether the amendment goes through or not. I think that those examples are sort of what I was getting at is that and I mean this in a very sort of neutral way but people love to feel helpful. It's why in academia people talk about saviorism and the issues and advocacy with something like that. I love to feel helpful too. I think that wanting to be helpful and helping are just two different things and so when we are building ways to sort of move forward and move past harm that's why the aspect of agency and being able to own so that it's not just it's not just giving people sort of who are already in a position of power who are already sort of who are going to be in that position to feel like they're being helpful but as the examples just provided it wasn't actually helpful and so I think for me that's why I lean towards the language as it's written because it allows for more say and more agency from people who've been harmed and who have been impacted to say at every step of the way this is what is helpful to us now and to me that is so much about how we sort of repair harm whether it's historic or individual it's about looking at that agency at every step of the way so that's where I'm at on this but we probably want to move towards a vote soon but thank you. Yep, so anyone else on the amendment? Okay, if not, let's go to a vote. Will the city clerk please call the roll on the amendment? Councillor Barlow. Yes. Councillor Carpenter. Yes. Councillor Freeman. No. Councillor Hanson. No. Councillor Hightower. No. Councillor McGee. No. Councillor Mason. Councillor Paul. No. I'm sorry. Councillor Shannon. Yes. Councillor Strongberg. City Council President Tracy. No. Four ayes, seven ayes, one absent. Okay, thank you. Is there any further discussion on the underlying? Okay, not seeing any. Will the city clerk please call the roll? Councillor Barlow. Yes. Councillor Carpenter. Yes. Councillor Freeman. Yes. Councillor Hanson. Yes. Councillor Hightower. Yes. Councillor McGee. Yes. Councillor Mason. No. Councillor Paul. Yes. Councillor Shannon. Yes. Councillor Strongberg. Yes. City Council President Tracy. Yes, and Councillor Chang is rejoined. Councillor Chang, we're voting on the underlying resolution. The amendment. No, not the amendment, the underlying, the amendment failed. Okay. Yes. The resolution passes. Thank you very much for joining us this evening and sharing with us. Very much appreciate it and look forward to continued collaboration. Thank you. Thank you for your time. We look forward to this positive collaboration. Thank you. We will pick up with the agenda or continue with the agenda with item 6.01. Councillor Jang. Hi. Thank you so much. I would move to move agenda item 6.1, the declaration of inclusion for the city of Burlington. And as you know, probably the city of Burlington has already declared racism, declared inclusion and racism as well as public health emergency. But this one is a process from a community group that is called the Vermont Declaration of Inclusion and they have presented at least, I believe twice to the racial equity inclusion and belonging. Point of order. I think, was there a second? Sorry, there was not a second. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Shan. Thank you. Go ahead, Councillor Jang. Thank you. And 30 towns in the state of Vermont have adopted and begun to implement some version of the declaration of Vermont. Governor Scott, in fact, used the proclamation and designated to the second week of May as annual inclusion week of the city in Vermont. So there is a group, an organization, I believe, called the Vermont Declaration of Inclusion.org. People can find them online. And they also had an interview with VPR and Kona. Circus did invite them to talk about this further. They have spent and also worked with the administration to bring this forward. And this is no binding, no amount of money needed. And it is just that the city of Burlington will be joining all the town in declaring inclusion as a town and also for the state of Vermont. I do not need is, that's all. Thank you. Thank you. The floor is open. I'm not seeing any. So we'll go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. Brings us to the next item, the Councilor Mint who's supposed to introduce it went. Yeah, if you could just go grab them real quick. And for this item, I'm actually gonna pass the gavel. The gavel, I've only done it once before virtually, so. Great. So we're on item 6.02, Councilor Hanson, can I come to you for a motion? I move to waive the reading and adopt the resolution. Is there a second? Seconded by President Tracy. Would you like the floor back, Councilor Hanson? Not at this time. I don't know if we're starting with presentation. Yeah, please go ahead. We'd be happy to. Councilor Hightower. Yes, please. Great, thank you. For your time, I'm Chapin Spencer, Director of Public Works with me as city engineer, Nora Baldwin and joining us remotely as senior planner, Nicole Lush. And appreciate the time this evening to talk about this multi-year planning process on the Winnieski Avenue corridor. I wanna thank the many residents, businesses and nonprofits who've taken time to contribute their time, their perspective over the years. We've worked hard to listen, to seek understanding and to reconcile the various interests and the various city policy objectives along this corridor. We have worked hard to bring forward a fair account of the process and the options moving forward. And we have a short 10 slide presentation to summarize the council directed process of the parking management plan and the resolution brought forward to you tonight by the Transportation Energy and Utilities Committee. So with that, I'll ask senior planner Lush to share her screen and she will provide a brief overview of the project today. Thank you so much. I will try to keep this brief, but as Director Spencer said, thank you for having this tonight and thank you for everyone who's been involved along the way. So I wanna give a quick background to the parking management plan. This was a recommendation of the 2020 city council resolution related to the Winooski Avenue corridor study. It directed us to identify practical strategies for balancing parking supply and demand with a goal of meeting essential parking needs while freeing up space for bike lanes. This resolution also accepted the advisory committee's recommendation to retain green belts and instead remove one lane of parking to accommodate bike lanes in both directions north of Pearl Street. The parking management plan was overseen by a joint city council stakeholder committee was comprised of the three members of the Transportation Energy and Utilities Committee of City Council and four community members appointed by President Tracy and Mayor Weinberger. The committee met six times over roughly the last year with their most recent meeting in February. One of our big tasks along the way was to identify essential parking needs and to really understand demand. So what we heard along the way is that there are parking demands for residents notably south of North Street for the community health center visitors and employees in the northern section of the corridor and for visitors to businesses and nonprofits all along the corridor. We also heard that essential parking needs are to access social services, have residential parking within at least one block and ensure loading for businesses and visitors for businesses. Our outreach and engagement strategies for this part of the corridor work really centered around a web-based survey that gather 766 responses. In the end, we did wait and survey towards residents as opposed to visitors along the corridor. We advertised this and used translation assistance from ALB. We also directly mailed postcards to all of their addresses in the study area and all property owners. We used lawn signs as well. Both of those were in multiple languages. We also directly distributed flyers to businesses. This was managed by our partners at the CCRPC and we also had help from our committee members. The meetings themselves were all well attended by the community. RPC staff and DPW staff also led direct outreach to the BIPOC-owned businesses, especially in the northern section of the corridor and Director Spencer led direct outreach to property owners that had potential off-street parking opportunities that we were trying to explore. What we found along the way, we used a parking model to compile this information and also relate that to the survey and the feedback that we were getting directly. The study area is shown on the right here. It includes the entire corridor from Pearl Street all the way up to Riverside Avenue and also one block in either direction. We recognize that this study was done in the midst of a pandemic, but we did try to conduct it in a way that really minimized the impacts of the pandemic on this process. We used pre-pandemic parking counts. We used the community survey to really understand current trends in the midst of the pandemic and we supplemented that with national parking guidance that is based on specific land uses. Some of the things that we also heard tonight from others just reflects what some of the census data shows for this area. It has the region's lowest rates of vehicle ownership. This does increase with income levels. BIPOC residents commute more often by modes other than single occupancy vehicles. So they carpool or take transit more often whereas 88% of white residents drive alone. We also found that parking is most heavily occupied during the mid-morning hours and through mid evenings. The southernmost block though was nearly full and occupied at all times of day. So that's the block from Pearl Street to Grant Street. The parking study also found that without any changes to behaviors or any new parking management strategies approximately 50% of the affected vehicles that would result from this parking change could potentially still find parking within 600 feet of the corridor and that a 5% shift in parking rates could offset those impacts and this could include travel demand management strategies, increased rates of walking, biking and transit and longer term shifts away from vehicle ownership. This all led us towards parking management strategies that are outlined in detail in the draft parking management plan but they are all structured around time limited parking for the parking that does remain and this would generate turnover to balance out the different needs between employees, visitors and residents on the corridor. So I will turn it over to Director Spencer now to cover a little bit more of our more recent work. Thank you, Senior Panel Member Loesch. Let's see, the group, the advisory committee met six times as Nicole referenced, prior to the final meeting in February, I took the step based on reviewing public comment and the data to date and put forward a position that I'm bringing forward to you tonight, proposing phased implementation where the first phase would be implementing the project north of Union Street. In large part, one of the benefits of that is to reduce the parking impact from the 82 spaces down to 40 with maintaining the key goal of continuous bike facilities. At the end of a robust conversation at the committee level, the committee voted as members have noted tonight to find that the plan in their mind failed to meet the essential parking needs along the corridor. Their motion also requested transportation demand management, off street parking, transit improvements, a pilot and a new parking management plan. Next. So after that meeting, we had followed up on a variety of items that were included in that motion. One was to buy us more time. We have followed up with the agency of transportation and they have agreed if the city is so interested to delay the paving from 2022 to 2023 on that northern section. We also continued to talk about the potential phased option with stakeholders, counselors and others. We framed what we believe were attainable transit and transportation demand management improvements. We talked about how that the council initiative fund could support seed money for businesses and nonprofits on the corridor. And we talked to GMT about what it would take to make the city loop, which has two stops on that northern section of North Moneyski Avenue, fair free. We have continued direct conversations with property owners and businesses along the corridor about the off street parking options to date, we do not have any written agreements that have involved the city. And I don't believe there have been agreements between parties along the corridor. At least I have not heard of them yet, though we are continuing to work on a few that I believe are promising. At the two committee last week, Transportation Energy and Utilities Committee, they voted two to one in support of a resolution brought forward by the chair Hanson at that meeting. Incapsulating a number of these efforts here and advance that to the city council tonight, next. So just to summarize the parking adjustments that would be part of phase one, if the council is supportive of a phased approach, you'll see described here on the right. And that the plan in that northern block would propose to remove 39% of the existing spaces and to still keep a fair number of time limited spaces and accessible spaces so that we keep turnover for adjacent businesses and provide accessible spaces. To be clear, we would work more with the adjacent businesses and nonprofits and residents to bring forward a final recommendation to the DPW commission who's responsible for approving any change in regulation on the street next. So in summary, as you'll see, the key elements of the two resolution that are in your packet tonight are recommending delaying the implementation by a year, providing $15,000 of seed funding from the city council initiatives fund for transportation demand management, allocating up to $52,000 from the traffic fund to make at least the GMT city loop fare free in 2023. As many of you know, city staff and stakeholders are working to keep the entire transit system fare free, but that is still in flux right now for FY23. The resolution request city staff be available to help businesses and we are prepared to do that on the off street parking development. And it does make clear that the direction is to advance implementation of the bike lanes with paving in 2023 as part of the VTrans paving project. Lastly, it directs us or recommends that we do and we are fine to carry out additional work with the businesses and nonprofits and residents along the corridor with a special focus on BIPOC businesses to refine the parking regulations on the street on that northern section, but prior to the paving and striping project. And that's what we have for a summary for you. We're happy to answer questions. Thank you, Nicola and Chapin. Before I give it back to Councilor Hansen, are there any questions to the DPW staff? Go ahead, Councilor Dain. Thank you, Acting President Haikawa. Thank you for the presentation, Mr. Chapin. I was just wondering why we cannot make the paving happen this year and the striping another year. City Engineer Baldwin, do you wanna talk about the recessed markings and some of the benefits of coordinating? Yep, so the state of Vermont's specifications call for a durable thermal plastic type material and grinding of the road to recess those markings to make them more durable. And so that's the linkage here with paving in the permanence of it versus waiting till we have some resolution about what the best approach is. Okay, thank you. And about also the, I believe that this city council did vote in support of this long time ago, couple years ago or last year, right? And then there were, we also requested a traffic parking management plan. It seems you will continue to still find alternative for more partings, right? Now, what insurance do we have that since it did not go better last time, why should it go better if you try again? Yes, thank you, Councilor Jang. The effort to work with the adjacent businesses and property owners is still ongoing. Nothing has concluded in terms of us seeing that the process is done or that we're not willing to continue. There are many complicated issues to work through for the entities that are open to further conversation. We have heard from many entities that have said, we're not interested in shared parking. It's too complex for our operation. It doesn't work for us. We've respected that and continued to work with the entities that have shown interest. And we will continue to do so. We cannot guarantee as we are not the property owners or the business owners, we're not the entity seeking the parking or the entity that owns the land, but we understand we have a role here to play in facilitating those conversations and hopefully agreements. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions before I go back to Councilor Hansen? Great, thanks. Yeah, and thanks for the overview of the process. I've been involved with this since 2018. Before I got on Council, I was attending the meetings with the Project Advisory Committee process. There were hundreds of us that attended those meetings and that did result in unanimous approval from that committee and ultimately approval from this Council. But obviously here we are today, we're in a different place now than we were when we passed that. I guess I don't wanna repeat things that I've said throughout this process. I'll just highlight a couple of things that I think are maybe new that I wanna speak to. From an equity perspective, we had data in the parking committee that showed and the broader data around the lowest income people in Northwestern Vermont, when asked how they get around, 50% of them said they rely on bike, 25% transit and 25% driving. There was also the survey results because we conducted the survey in the neighborhood and with that, the lowest income people and this was excluding college students as well. So the data wasn't skewed in that way with students throwing off the income data. But the survey data that we conducted was pretty consistent with that broader data. It showed that 60% of the lowest income people biked, 20% transit and 20% drive. This shouldn't be, I feel like this narrative has been twisted a lot throughout the process but in reality this really shouldn't be a surprise because it is the cheapest way to get around. I mean we do now, currently we have fair free transit so transit is cheaper at the moment in that sense but historically biking is the cheapest way to get somewhere efficiently other than walking which is a lot slower. So I think it's important to center that data when we talk about equity and who is served by the current transportation and who we're trying to serve better moving forward. The other aspect that I just wanted to speak to briefly is around transportation demand management and I think the $15,000 to support transportation demand management is really meaningful and I wanna help people understand this because I've worked in transportation demand management and last year I oversaw a grant that was $25,000 so not dramatically different from this. With that grant using simple incentives, gift card incentives and just some education and support and accountability, we were able to get 100 commuters to switch from driving alone to sustainable transportation for six months. 98 of them completed the six months and the vast majority of those participants said that they were gonna continue that new behavior so TDM is effective. We've seen it time and time again. The entities that implement TDM are able to get people whether it's employees or residents, they're able to get the people coming to and from their location to switch modes by directing those TDM strategies. So it is effective and if we can free up we can get 100 people to stop driving alone for $25,000 even if we get half that that's more than the number of spaces that we're losing here. So I just want people to understand this, this $15,000 for TDM is a big deal and can really offset any of the negative impacts of the parking removal. Anything else I would say? I've probably said at previous meetings so I'll leave it there for now. Thanks. Councilor Carpenter, go ahead. I just have a question for Councilor Hanson if I can. You mentioned the surveys you did. Did you survey the customers of the community health center? Were they included in this? I would probably let the projects, we weren't involved as the parking management committee in the survey process. So maybe the team can actually speak to that but there were customers of many of the businesses that were surveyed. Senior Platter Loesch would you care to answer that one? The health center did help us advertise to the both their staff and their customers with flyers in the health center itself and they also included it in their email. It's either a newsletter or an email communication that goes out to their members and their staff as well. I guess I wasn't questioning their knowledge of the change but we're talking a lot about communities. Do you understand how people come and go to the health center? I mean, that's what, I guess what I'm, they're the biggest users of people coming in and out of the neighborhood. What were they surveyed to about how they commute to the health center? I don't think we got into that level of detail. We did have specific questions you know, that ask, let's say, why was someone visiting the corridor? And it might ask, were they visiting social services? And so it was, it was broad in that sense. We did not get down into being able to identify if they were specifically going to the health center and then being able to discern what mode of transportation they used to get there. Just one other comment. I know that you, there's reference to visitors to businesses. And I would just comment that visitors are customers of business is not necessarily visitors to businesses. I don't have anybody else in the queue. Mayor Weinberger followed by Council Shannon. Thank you, President Hightower. I appreciate the huge work by the city team, our partners and the major community effort that has gone into years of work leading up until tonight. And I think this is an important vote by this council. And I want to make clear before the vote that I fully support this proposal that's been brought forward and really see this as one of the most important votes we've had in years in making good on our commitment that we have given that we've had a variety of votes on over the last decade suggesting that we support the creation of dedicated bike lanes throughout the city, a network of dedicated bike lanes, a true new network, transportation network that will give our residents and visitors a new option for getting around the city and that will dramatically increase bike usage once we create that network. This is one of the most important implementation votes in years in actually seeing that through. We said we were committed to this in, I believe, 2015 when we for the first time passed a walk-byte plan. We specifically said we were committed to seeing a dedicated bike lane on this corridor in 2020, which has directly led to tonight. We also just months before that, committed to a net zero roadmap that committed to reducing miles traveled by Berlin Tonians by 15%. It is actually bringing into being corridors like this that are going to allow us to achieve that goal and create that new system. I want to speak to a couple of the concerns that were addressed tonight. One, to make it really clear there was some suggestion that what is being brought forward tonight is not a compromise. The basic numbers, I hope everyone's clear, really speak otherwise. The original proposal that came out of the multi-year process would have reduced the spaces along the quarter, the parking spaces along the quarter by 82 spaces. The city team worked hard to evaluate an alternative, listen carefully to the many folks who made the point that we would be only negatively impacting the bike options in a very modest way. And we could save half of those negative impacts to the loss of parking spaces by having the one right turn on the northbound route at Pearl Street or earlier, if people traveling north choose to turn earlier. And by making that one change, we're able to save basically half, more than half of the parking that was planned to be lost. Another important compromise represented here tonight is that the team has worked hard with the state to push back the actual implementation of the paving for the reasons that were discussed in answer to Councilor Jang's question by a year, giving all the impacted establishments another year of planning and collaboration with the city to try to prepare for this change. I really wanna thank the city team for working extremely hard on all aspects of this. I really thought the presentation tonight spoke to that, the detailed list of mitigation steps that have been brought forward that the city team that really is assembled here and some of our partners have worked on really speaks to how carefully and really how much this team cares about Burlington organizations and residents and wants to mitigate whatever trade-offs there are and making important change like this. And I think it's a really thoughtful list. And I know that Norm, shape and Nicole have all put significant personal energy into developing those plans, getting them to this point and we'll continue to put in considerable effort over the next year to see them implemented. And I guess that's a final point that I really wanna, I think is so important about this vote that I hope all counselors are conscious of as they vote here. We have, through those votes that I listed at the beginning and more, we have said to our talented city team, this is something we care about, this is something we wanna get done, go spend your days and nights and work to deliver this and get it done and do the work carefully, do it hard. And at the end of that multi-year process, the implicit commitment in that is that we're gonna stand behind that work and we're gonna make the tough choices acquired by our policy priorities and get something built, getting it done. I feel like we're kind of similar point to where we were after years of work on the City Hall Park Project, where there were some late suggestions that we shouldn't go through with it, that there are problems that should cause us to delay and we saw it through there and I think the whole city is very thankful for the improvements. I think that's what's gonna play out here as well. Let's see that's through, let's get this done. The negative impacts are not gonna be anywhere nearly as concerning as were suggested by some of the stakeholders tonight. We're gonna work to make sure that they're not and the benefits will be massive and will be felt for generations. Let's get this done tonight, thanks. Mayor, Councilor Shannon. I think that what we're hearing here tonight and I do appreciate the efforts on the part of a lot of people to try and find compromises to try and improve this project and I do see some improvements from when this originally came to us. However, we're also told that it didn't meet the bar. There was a committee that was created to review this, to help find those solutions, specifically finding solutions to meet essential parking needs. That was a very key goal. This committee was selected by Mayor Weinberger and President Tracy to very strong advocates for the project and the committee was selected to be biased in favor of the project. Despite that, the committee voted no on this because it didn't meet the goal. It didn't meet the goal of providing essential parking needs. So we also heard that low income folks drive less than people with more income. I can tell you as somebody who often loans my car to low income folks, even if they don't own a car, they will still drive to the doctors. We also heard that I think it was a stat about BIPOC folks who commute more often in other than single occupancy vehicles. That is probably true. That would just mean that, I mean, of course it's true, I don't mean to insinuate anything. But that could well just mean that they're traveling with many people in their car. So my question is, who does this harm? It harms outright Vermont, the Richard Kemp Center, the African Market, Fohang, CCTV, the Community Health Center, CHT, the residents, the families, the handicapped, healthcare employees, Taco Gordo, Barrio Bakery, workers generally, homeowners, tenants, refugees, and sick people. And who does this help? It helps bicyclists, I'm a bicyclist, and I'm a bicyclist who goes to many of the businesses in this area and also to the Community Health Center. But I couldn't have biked there because I was really sick. And I need parking, or I couldn't have gone there. So it doesn't really help bicyclists. Only the bicyclists who are single and healthy and not trying to get their child to the doctor while at the same time going to work and having to get back to work and coordinate the other schedule of other children. Does it really help the environment? I'd really question that. This is a few blocks that is not the most essential few blocks that is not the biggest obstacle to biking in this community. I strongly support the North Avenue bike lanes. I strongly supported the bike lanes on South Winooski Avenue in that section in front of City Market. This is not needed, and it's going to hurt so many people. It really is not equitable. It's ableist. It does not recognize the community needs. And I urge this council to think a little bit about this, to think really what the value of this particular bike lane is. It's just not that high. We have to weigh different things. I learned something today that I never knew about our carbon footprint. I listened to a woman, oh, I can't come up with her name, but she was actually a climate advisor to Obama, and she came to the sea change sessions at Hula. And I didn't go to that, but watching the video, I learned that the concept of our carbon footprint actually came out of BP oil. They want us all to have this climate guilt and to blame our small individual actions for climate change, when it's really much larger issues contributing to that. And I think we need to think about that. When we're thinking about that we're doing this and costing the community so much in the name of climate change, it was really going to make that difference. I think we would all be willing to make that sacrifice, but it just isn't. And people, these businesses are facing an existential problem. And I think it's real. I don't think that that's just alarmist. I don't think that it's actually gonna be okay. And in other cases, where we've put in bike lanes, I have said, I think it's gonna be okay. I don't think those alarms are real. But in this case, I am with all of the people that have come to us tonight that are going to be harmed by this action. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Shannon. President Tracy followed by Councillor Barlow. Thank you, Acting President Hightower. I think it's important at this point to take a step back and look at what division that we set forward with plan BTV walk bike. This identified it not as some optional corridor or some optional nice way to get around town if we wanted to create a network. This was an essential piece of connecting Burlington to Winooski and connecting downtown to the hub that is Winooski, Pearl, Battery and Main, a hub that we're still working on and that voters made a key decision to move forward with on town meeting day with the Main Street project. We need to place this in terms of the broader context of the connections that we're trying to create here. And while this is a compromise in the sense that we are not gonna have a bi-directional bike lane going in both directions on North Winooski because this resolution contemplates a much more scaled back project than was originally conceived, it still does create a flow between the northbound lane on North Union and the southbound lane on Winooski and a connection to the Riverside shared use path onwards to Winooski, which was something that we recognized that was a key lack or a key element that was missing from our network here. And that's what we're really talking about is creating a direct route. If there was another direct route, we wouldn't have spent as much time trying to figure out this corridor. There simply is not a more direct route if we wanna have a bike network here. And I think we absolutely need to have a network here. The patchwork approach that we've taken to this will not yield the carbon reduction goals that we've set in the climate, in the net zero roadmap. So what we're really thinking about here is it needs to be placed in a broader context. We can't look at this as in isolation. Sure, any one lane in isolation has a limited effect, but when you put it in the context of a broader network that has been intentionally developed over years, then you create a system. And that's exactly what we need to do. And we've known that we need to do for years if we're serious about climate. We seem to think that we're serious about climate because we put the climate emergency item at the beginning of our agenda. It's not the climate corner. It's not the climate update. It's the climate emergency. And during the climate emergency item, we always talk about things that are incredibly alarming, incredibly scary for us as a community and as a country, as a planet. Things that are terrifying and that will cause tremendous pain. So I certainly understand that there is a lot of localized concerns here. I understand it acutely as someone who lives right on the corridor or adjacent to the corridor and has existed in the neighborhood and represented the neighborhood for a long time. But we need to take a step back and look at the broader climate picture. What all of the science is telling us about our climate is that we are in an emergency and that we need to take drastic action. We also know that within the data that we have as a city that we're simply not making enough progress when it comes to reducing our carbon-related transportation. What we need to do is take a both and approach. Some people say, oh, just go to transit. Just use transit. No, yes, do transit. Absolutely do transit, but it can't be one thing in isolation or either or. It has to be a both and. It has to be a comprehensive, systematic approach to dealing with the climate crisis. We can't deal with these things in isolation or talking about it. I think that quite honestly, if I'm being transparent, I think that's one of the issues that is really flawed within the way that we've approached this is that we've looked at specific corridors in isolation and not looked at them much more broadly. I think that's gonna need to be a change that we make going forward if we wanna make real progress on transportation policy in service of reducing our carbon emissions as a city. Because we know we absolutely have to make progress. We know we're not making nearly enough progress. And we know that our systems are just simply not evolved. We cannot have the same infrastructure and expect people to behave differently just because we're telling them to. We need to create safe ways for people to get around. And that is another thing that I think has been lost in this conversation is the issue of safety. Someone should not have to place themselves at tremendous risk to safely get around on a bicycle in this city. They should be able to do so in a safe way. One of the reasons why we chose to focus on this corridor and why we've chosen to focus elsewhere as well has been because of the crash rates, because of the issues that we've seen here. I've had neighbors come to me and tell me I got hit on the corridor. I don't feel safe on the corridor. I would bike more, but I don't feel safe on the corridor. So I do think that that is something that absolutely has to pay attention to because we again cannot keep the infrastructure the same and expect it to become more safer or become safer on its own. So we absolutely have to prioritize safety. And then the other thing that I wanted to also address in addition to the figures that were shared in the presentation as well as from Councillor Hansen regarding equity, one of the other pieces is that we know that within the old spokes mobility audit that about a third of people in the neighborhood don't own cars. They simply do not own cars. They don't have the ability to get around. So I think that that absolutely has to be taken into account and a lot of the reason why they can't, why they don't have cars is because they simply can't afford them. That's an incredibly expensive way to get around having a single use vehicle and it's only getting more expensive. So we need to create alternatives for people so that they can. I think it's also important to that global context, to that back going back to that point about global context and even localized context is that we know that in terms of the climate crisis, folks that the people who are hit first and worst are marginalized folks and will continue to be so. We know that, we've seen that already and we'll continue to see that. That gap will continue to grow. We know that folks in the global South are gonna be who have not contributed nearly the amount of admissions to us because of the fact that they don't have these car-based systems are gonna suffer the brunt of these. So I think that if we're thinking about equity, we also have to put it in those contexts as well and think about the impacts that our decisions here regarding transportation policy are having not just on this extremely local level but also broadening out and understanding that the tremendous changes that we need to make in order to prioritize equity on a global scale as well. So I think that all of these things lead me to enthusiastically support the resolution. I think it is a crucial step if we're serious about tackling the climate crisis as a city. Point of order acting President Hightower. It's 1042, so we need a, I would move that we suspend the rules in order to complete our agenda items. Thank you, Councilor Mason. Is there a second? Seconded by Councilor Hanson. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Passes unanimously. We will continue our council agenda. Thank you, President Tracy, moving to Councilor Barlow followed by Councilor Jane. Thank you, Acting President Hightower. I've been against this resolution. I was against it in two, I was against the plan. I was a dissenting vote in the, I was in the majority on the the parking management plan committee and didn't vote to support. So I've heard a lot of the testimony that we've heard tonight from stakeholders along the corridor multiple times, but every time I hear it, it's impactful to me. I appreciate the work that's been done since the PMP meeting to find ways to lessen the impact of the proposed changes on these two blocks, especially grateful for having the extra time that's been asked for for V-trans to start their work to give more time to address those impacts. But I'm still having issues with supporting this. I appreciate all of the input and collaboration I've had over the last few days, trying to put together an amendment and thinking that if this was to pass tonight, it would be better to get something additional than get nothing at all. However, tonight I'm struck by some of the testimony and I find myself asking, well, what happens if after a year there are no additional off-street parking options? What's gonna happen to the stakeholders we've heard from? Community Health Center, Pathways Outright Vermont, Feeding Chittin' in the Kemp Center. I'm struggling with that. I'm not gonna bring it forward in amendment tonight. I don't think that it is worth, I don't think it's enough. I don't think it's enough because if we don't find the additional off-street parking, which is key to sort of unsticking a lot of the parking concerns along these two blocks of the corridor, then there will be harm done to these stakeholder groups. So I'm not bringing it forward in amendment tonight. I appreciate all the input that I received and I will not be supporting this resolution tonight. Thank you, Councillor Brallo, Councillor Dain. Thank you. Yes, so I feel like it would be better for me also to go back a little bit into time, the first time it was here. I think many people talk to me afterwards about the passion that I have spoken around, why we need to have these bike lanes in the city of Burlington, bike advocates. And I just wish that people should not be making decision because we want to connect because we had a plan in 2015, right? Connection, yes, but we can connect Wienersky and Burlington, but not with this corridor. They may be less direct, but still, it's doing the work, what is necessary. I do believe it's no longer about what we want. It's no longer about that, just like as the mayor alluded to. But it should be about how do we do what we want in collaboration with our partners, such as the Community Health Centre. They were with us every single day during the pandemic in so many also other issues in order to get things done. People rely on the services on that corridor in order to access basic services that they need to survive. And those people do not leave around just the old North End. They're in this Wienersky, they're in South Burlington, they knew North End, they all over the place and they cannot bike from their home of residents to the city using our unconnected bike lanes. Let's also not forget our efforts with Burlington Electric Department in intensifying people to buy, let's say, electric cars. Those cars need to be parked too. If we want to transform the whole city into an entire bike lane, we are not doing a service to us and our efforts. This, we need to find the balance. The balance, bike lane, yes, but not that corridor. Yeah, I will be proudly voting no today. Because 150 people replied on a survey in two hours. 15 organizations, that corridor sent us letters. People need their health, people need to eat, right? People need to dine and they need also to park. Let's not forget the elderlies that live among us. I am tired of hearing bifurc in everything that we try to do in the city. We should not be used because of this type of study. 29 people are not speaking for all new Americans that live here, that you started. 29 people, we make like 57% of the population growth in Chittenden County are composed of new Americans. And you cannot use 29 and just say, okay, we talked to buy a park. In association with ALV, enough is enough. It's gonna be an end pressing next two years, I'll be voting no, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Dang, Councillor Mickey. Thank you, Acting President Hightower. I just had a question for the DBW staff here. We heard recently that Green Mountain Transit is cutting service to a couple of the routes that intersect with the North Manuski Ave corridor. I'm curious if you all have interacted with them and if they're collaborating in this effort to expand service to that area. And if those efforts will hopefully be successful in this with the extension that we've been granted from VTRAINs. Thank you, Councillor McGee. I'll take a stab at that being commissioner of GMT. Thanks for your appointment to that board. Yes, GMT has operated fair free service during the pandemic. As the agency put together our FY23 budget, it is a challenge. And there is an effort at the state level to seek additional state support to enable fair free service to continue. The authority is looking at two specific service reductions in Burlington to balance the FY23 budget if we don't get additional support. One is the connection down Shelburne Road, which yes, it serves the Winnieski Corridor, but not the North Winnieski Corridor that we're talking about. And then the other one is North Avenue, who's, yes, it goes outbound on Union and then crosses Winnieski, so it nominally serves the corridor. And it would be shifting from 20 minute headways during rush hours to 30 minute headways. We are trying, there's a balance. If you create fair free service, you reduce revenue. So what we're trying to do is figure out how to solve two goals of the city. One is to provide high level of transit service and two, how to continue fair free. They do somewhat compete with one another. We're trying to find a way to maintain service and have fair free. We haven't found that solution yet, but I and other members of the board are still working on that. FY23. Great, thank you. Great, I thank you, Councillor McGee. I have Councillor Mason followed by Councillor Freeman. Thank you, Acting President Hightower. I had not planned on doing this, but Councillor Barlow just threw a curve ball. So I will move the Barlow amendment that was posted to Board Docks and asked for the floor back if there's a second. Seconded by Councillor Powell. Thank you, Acting President Hightower. So the Barlow amendment, which I appreciated the efforts that went, strike lines 56 to 58 and encourage or ask that DPW respectfully request DPW have a more active role, not just wait for the businesses to ask them in terms of identifying alternative parking spaces. And then there's a proposed insertion at the end that adds some reports back that from my read would afford this council an opportunity rather than simply launch this if it passes in a year from now, hope that parking has been identified to be more actively involved in solving the problem. So I would encourage my colleagues to join me. I also heard a number of the businesses who are here, representatives who oppose the resolution asking us to pass this amendment because it was better than just the resolution. So while I may not vote entirely consistent with what they're requesting, I believe this is a positive step forward and we have been asked by those who are in opposition to put this forward. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Mason. We have an amendment, which is the amendment on board docs listed as an amendment per Councillor Bailão now made per Councillor Mason. Councillor Freeman, did you still want the floor? Did you want to wait for the underlying? Go ahead, Councillor Anderson. Thanks. Is the amendment two separate amendments or just one with both? They were moved as one. Okay. If you want to separate, that's up to you. Okay. Well, yeah, I mean, I support the second amendment or the second resolve clause, but not the first. I think the city should really be focused on TDM and on efforts to move away from a car centric transportation system. I think that's the primary goal of this change to Northwood New Ski Avenue is to shift our system towards a more balanced system with other modes of transportation. So putting the city back into an active role of trying to increase parking access to me is undermining that goal. Whereas this other resolve clause is really focusing on actually reducing that on street parking demand and helping folks use other forms of transportation, which is that's the role I think the city should play. So I would, I guess when we get to the vote, I would like to divide that amendment. I think if you want to make that motion, it might be, but I'll go ahead and go to Councillor Mason first. Go ahead, Councillor Mason. Sorry. So to just respond to that statement, I'm not sure I see the DPW, those goals as being mutually exclusive. And I also would ask Councillor Hanson to maybe reconsider because DPW will be involved even if the amendment fails. It's just at the request of the businesses as opposed to taking the lead. So it's a semantical difference, I appreciate, but I don't see it a difference. And again, we heard from those affected that this was a request that they would like to, or something that they would like to see implemented. Thank you. Anyone else on the amendment? Go ahead, Councillor Shannon. I think we've already heard from DPW that they intend to help anybody who wants help. And as they said, we can't really make people who don't want our help access our help. I don't see, I appreciate that they do plan to do that. I did not hear people really saying that they thought that this was a solution. I did hear community health center say that they would appreciate the help, but I'm not sure that I kind of fear that this amendment allows people to hide behind what may be perceived as a solution, which is really not a solution at all. There's nothing here that actually says should they fail to find a solution that this doesn't go forward. It's going forward either way. And they've been working for some time to find solutions and I appreciate their diligence in doing so. I'm confident that they will continue to be diligent to do so. They're very good at that. So I am not supporting this amendment. Great, thank you, Councillor Shannon. Councillor Paul. So I, thank you. I seconded this amendment and know that there were a number of people that had input into this amendment. I think I'm supportive of it because I do think that rightfully so it puts the onus on the city to do work that in my opinion, we must do. I think the fact that there have been a number of people that have come forward and said that they had no idea what was going on until neighbors told them about it shows us that we need to do more. We need, and it does need to be on us to do the outreach in a meaningful way to support organizations and businesses and people who live along this corridor. And I think that spending the next year actively working with those entities in a way that builds bridges is the way to go. And I think that it is part of a just transition for these businesses, many of whom are struggling as it is and are looking for, are looking for support. They're looking for our support. There was a resident that wrote me today and said that the corridor between the food shelf and the health center is like a downtown for low income in the immigrant community. These real life impacts of a bike lane have been misunderstood and minimized. At the very least, the city needs to provide a mechanism for neighbors to get an equitable level of resources to manage a just transition. This would be a way for those businesses to have that lending hand that they don't have to go looking for, that we have to go looking for them. And I don't think that that's a bad thing. So that's why I'm supporting this amendment. It is rather critical to me in terms of being able to support the resolution, I think, is to know that the onus would be on the city. And my understanding when this resolution or when this amendment came forward initially was that the administration was supportive of it. So unless that's changed, and if it has, I'd like to know, but if it hasn't changed, then I would support the amendment. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor Powell. Any other councillors on the amendment? Oh, I've got Councillor Hanson, Councillor Shannon and Councillor Carpenter. Well, I was gonna move to divide, so maybe I should wait until the vote. Go ahead, Councillor Shannon. I don't think that if we pass this, that the onus is on the city to find a solution. I think that the onus may be on, I honestly am not clear what onus would be on the city with this, that is not already the intention of the city in terms of outreach. If no solution is found, it doesn't make a difference. So. Sorry, you're looking for a response. Was that a question or? Yeah, it looks like Councillor Powell would like to respond and I'd like to hear that. Go ahead, Councillor Powell. Thank you. I never said that the city has to find solutions. I never said that, and that's not what the amendment says. It says that the city will look to identify opportunities. We are not going to broker deals for people. We're not going to get involved in private property, you know, making agreements with private property on behalf of other entities. But what it said, what the resolution says right now is that a business has to seek us out. So they have to know that that exists. And that is not fair. That is not fair. That is not a just thing to do, I don't think. But what I do think is a just thing to do is to put that on the city. That we know who the businesses are. They may not know the services that we provide, but we know who they are. And what it is saying is that we will seek to identify opportunities for them. They can choose to take them or not take them. But the responsibility for at least making that outreach would be on us. And as I said, my understanding is that the administration is supportive of the amendment. And I think that that alone says a lot. We have a city government who's willing to do that work. So why would we want to say no? Thank you. Councillor Shannon, did that answer your question? Thank you. Councillor Carpenter followed by Councillor Tracy. Thanks. I guess I'm a little confused because for me and my willingness to support this is I'm taking literally actively work, which means that owners would be on the city to go out and try to find off-street parking options and to the degree possible, try to broker some deals. I mean, we do that in a lot of other economic areas where we're trying to promote business. And I think we owe it to that neighborhood to be really, really active. I mean, the Berlin Housing Authority has a 15,000 square foot lot with a garage on it. What's the opportunity there? Could we swap a garage with them? I mean, I think we have to be very proactive on this. We hire real estate consultants all the time. If we want, maybe we need one in that neighborhood to figure this out. So I'm just suggesting from my opinion and my support, I want us to be active. I don't want us to be, you know, somebody won't take, may not take a step on it, but if we're gonna solve this nut, we gotta be active. And I just wanna clarify that the intent is that'll happens before we remove the parking. You understand me? Is that, is that? I'm not sure who to respond. Yeah. That is the language of the, there's actively and prior to removing on-street parking. So I believe both of those questions are answered directly by the resolution. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Carpenter. Councillor Tracy followed, and we are moving into second round. So folks could wrap up their comment for the amendment. So Tracy followed by Yang and Barlow. Thank you, Acting President Hightower. I think that the amendment is already covered in the resolution, especially the first clause in the sense that there is much more specificity within the clauses regarding TDM as well as a proposed budget for how to undertake that work as well as an entity that actively does this work. So I think that it's already in, that this work is already in the resolution and that that will take place, that that work will take place. I think the other problem with the amendment, and I actually agree with Councillor Shannon here, but in the sense that the word that attempt, I think is problematic here because what qualifies as an attempt, what qualifies as success here, what happens if the attempt fails. So does that reopen this? Is this just an never-ending process? So I think it's just a very blunt instrument to address an issue. And I think that the more specific and targeted approach that's already in the resolution is a much better one. Councillor, thank you, Councillor, or President Tracy. Councillor Jane. Thank you, Acting President Hightower. I mean, I feel like DPW is really, really savvy if they haven't not yet found an alternative parking management system that really works, they will not find it. And also let's not forget that that corridor already has a bike lane, right? So for this, from my perspective, it's not cutting it for me. I will be voting no on the amendment. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Jane, Councillor Barlow. This is very strange that my amendment's been moved by someone else and now I'm sort of arguing against it. I'm not arguing against it, though, however. As Councillor Paul pointed out, there's been a lot of input into this amendment process. It's been going on since last Thursday, I think when I had discussions with Councillor Hanson and I've had numerous discussions with others here. The original language was much stronger and actually had the support of some of the stakeholders who we've heard tonight. And in the interest of building consensus, it's been weakened. One of the earlier versions had the phrase identify and secure and I was told no uncertain terms, it's not the city to secure parking arrangements for these businesses and nonprofits. And so that's been relaxed to just identify we had find at one point, but what we have now is attempt to identify. And again, I have full confidence that DPW will make best efforts to, if this resolution passes tonight, DPW make its best efforts to try to help stakeholders along these two blocks of North Muske Avenue. I keep on coming back though to this idea that as Director Spencer pointed out, there's been a lot of outreach already. There's more and even in conversations we had yesterday, there was sort of brainstorming we came up with yet another one and Councilor Carpenter alluded to that tonight. However, if we don't find any and we can't find off street parking options, then what? And then we're gonna, we're my, the part that still gives me discomfort is we will, even though they've made best efforts, even though we've tried to accommodate all the stakeholders on these two blocks, we'll still be installing the bike lanes and there will still be problems for those folks who are already finding parking. I've said this before, I'll say it again and I'll try to be short because I know we're second round and we're late. But I driven by that first block of North Muske Avenue a bunch of times since we've been having these parking management discussions in the parking is always full from Riverside to Archibald, just about any time, any point in the core business hours. And so if we can't find off street options, that's still gonna be, that's still gonna be a problem. And so although the language in its current form is attempt to identify, it's been through several iterations and my fear is that we won't be able to identify despite our attempts. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Barlow. I don't have anybody in the queue and then Councilor Hanson. Can I request a five minute recess? One, sorry, was that a point of order? Councilor Freeman or? I just had a question that sort of in terms of the... How about maybe you can get your question answered during the recess. Let's do five minutes to 11.15. Is that okay? Sure. Thank you. You'll get two for me. I don't know. I believe that he thought he said it in the morning because he thought it was a new question. I don't know if it was. Sure, sure. This was a freaking new ground. You're welcome. What happened? If it fails, this fails. But it's gonna pass. So I think it's better within, is it just, is it good enough? And that's the thing I... And maybe, no, I don't understand how to amend it. I don't understand how to amend it. Even if I, as amended, I don't understand how to amend it. I don't understand how to amend it. No, I agree. Yours too. Great. It's 11.15 if folks could return to their seats. Counselor Freeman, did you get your question answered or would you like to be next in the queue? Great. Then do we have anyone else in the queue for the amendment? Go ahead, Counselor Tracy. So after conferring with Counselors Mason and Paul, basically I'm willing to set aside the reservations I have about this in order to move the entire resolution forward. I don't think that it would pass if we didn't. And so I'm willing to support the amendment in hopes that we can pass the underlying resolution. Thank you, President Tracy. Any other thoughts on the amendment before we go to a vote? I'm not sure we have the city clerks. So I may just, can I go down the line? Is that okay? Laurie, do you mind calling the roll? Sure. Counselor Barlow? No. I'm sorry? No. Counselor Carpenter? Counselor Jang? No. Counselor Freeman? Yes. Counselor Hanson? Yes. Acting City Council President High Tower? Yes. Counselor McGee? Yes. Counselor Mason? Yes. Counselor Paul? Yes. Counselor Shannon? No. Counselor Stromberg? Yes. Counselor Tracy? Yes. Nine eyes, three nays. Great, thank you for that. We are now back to the underlying resolution. Do I have anyone in the queue? Counselor Shannon? And if we could keep it brief since we're on. Thank you, Acting President High Tower. I believe the Community Health Center referred to what we just did as putting lipstick on a pig. And if that is enough for people to not really listen to everything that we heard tonight, not really vote for environmental justice and make this vote, which there's no evidence that this vote helps the environment, not at all. It's gonna hurt a lot of people. And the actions of this council can bring vitality to our community and a lot of work has been done by progressive administrations of the past to vitalize the North Manuski Avenue quarter. We heard from Bruce Seifer, who emailed all of us. He worked for decades to build what's there. And he warned about what we're doing tonight. Anyone else in the queue? Go ahead, Counselor Jim. I think it's very sad that this resolution will pass because of an amendment. And especially when the same amendment is already embedded within the resolution, like just how President Tracy alluded to, exact the same language, it's there already. But you all see how we made just deals in order to pass a resolution that will definitely hurt the most vulnerable people that rely on those basic services to survive in the city, not even to mention the businesses. That's very sad. Thank you. Counselor Powell. Thank you. You know, I think it's unfortunate that, well, first of all, I think it's unfortunate that counselors, for whatever reason, desire to impugn the motives of other counselors. And that I think is unfortunate. But I also think it's unfortunate that there are two things that are at odds here. And I've heard from people who, an attempt to either put their position out there or to sway counselors, are allotting this vote as a debate between an unwavering commitment to the environment or to ensuring the needs of fledgling small businesses that are often minority owned, as well as nonprofits that serve historically vulnerable populations. And I think that we can do both. And I think that we can do it without using harsh epithets to draw lines when that really isn't what I don't think, I don't really think that's what any of us really want. I think that what we do want is to find solutions to help support our neighbors and to help support our commitment to the planet. I mean, we all voted, well, maybe it wasn't unanimous, I'm trying to remember, but I think we all did vote for the climate emergency declarations. And I think we all voted for the net zero energy roadmap. Maybe we didn't all, but it was an overwhelming majority. And we've also passed resolutions that are supporting people that are in historically vulnerable populations. We all feel that way. We all are trying to care for our neighbors and care for the environment. And I think that we can do both. And I don't agree with the fact that I do not agree that this amendment doesn't change things. I think this amendment does change things. It definitely puts the onus on the city, a responsibility that the administration is willingly taking to reach out to these businesses and to nonprofits in the area and to try to work on both transportation, demand management, but also in finding potentially being able to locate off-street parking for these businesses. And I do think that there are opportunities that exist. And I don't, it's so unfortunate when people have to use such direct language. I don't remember hearing anyone from the community health center say that an amendment is like putting lipstick on a pig. I was here for this entire meeting. I don't remember hearing those words said. What I do hear them saying was that it was better than what we had in the resolution. That is what I believe was said. And I think it is better than what was in the original resolution. So, you know, it's not perfect. And there are plenty of things that this council has passed that many people at this table have voted for who have acknowledged that it was not perfect. But I think this does go a long way in addressing the goals that we are trying collectively to address. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Pollard. I don't have anybody else in the queue. And then would it move us toward a vote? Would you mind calling the roll again? Councillor Barlow. No. Councillor Crawford. Councillor Jang. No. Councillor Freeman. Yes. Councillor Hanson. Yes. Acting City Council President Hightower. Yes. Councillor Mickey. Yes. Councillor Mason. Yes. Councillor Paul. Yes. Councillor Shannon. No. Councillor Strongberg. Yes. Councillor Tracy. Yes. Eight ayes, four nays. Thank you. That resolution passes and I will pass the gavel back. Thank you very much for all your work on this and all the continued efforts that are gonna come out of the resolution. Point of information. Councillor Jang. What's the tally of this vote? It was an eight to four. Thank you. With, do you know who voted which way? Okay. Okay, thank you. All right, so continuing on, still have quite a few items left on our agenda. So, and it's 11.25. So let's just please be mindful of airtime and just if someone has said something before, do appreciate the complexity of the issues we're dealing with. Next item is item 6.03, a veto of the, well, a potential veto override of the comprehensive development ordinance on short-term rentals. Councillor Shannon. I move to override the veto and of short, the short-term rental ordinance and ask for the floor back after a second. We have a motion as our second. Seconded by Councillor Hanson. You have the floor, Councillor Shannon. Thank you. I just want to go through kind of the reasons that the mayor gave us for his veto. He says, I am concerned that an unintended consequence of this restriction over time will be to worsen our housing supply shortage. The basis for this is that if we implement what we passed at the city council, the fewer ADUs will be built. And I would agree with the mayor if the ADUs were being built for housing, but they're not, they're being built, they are being built for the purpose of short-term rentals. There's no reason to believe that they would ever come online as long-term housing and we will be losing long-term housing units through conversions without it with either the carpenter amendment or with the status quo, our existing ordinance. In both cases, we will be losing long-term rental units. He says, by effectively prohibiting most STRs, we will be losing an opportunity to create an important new funding source for the housing trust fund. We can still, we're not eliminating STRs in the regulation that we passed and we can still tax STRs and we can still create that funding source but nobody had proposed it in any case. As written, the ordinance would project city authority into very intimate decisions by homeowners in how they manage their personal property. This is absurd. We have zoning that tells people what kind of windows they can put in, what kind of siding they can use, how tall the building can be, where it must be placed on the lot, what kind of insulation it must have. We are intimately involved in whatever building and use goes on in every single building in this city. We should, he says, we should have better data before taking an action which significantly and negatively impacts the lives of many Burlingtonians. I actually have more confidence in our city staff that provided lots of data to us and very long presentations. And if we needed more data, we had two years to get it. The housing summit addressed short-term rentals and there were several things that they said they were looking to get out of short-term rental regulation. Established standards for STRs regarding zoning and minimum housing. The ordinance that we passed did that. Encourage or require owner occupancy. The ordinance that we passed did that. Encourage partial unit short-term rentals rather than whole units. Only the ordinance that we passed does that. The status quo does not do that. The carpenter amendment does not do that. We will still have conversions of long-term units into short-term rentals with any solution other than the one that we passed, at least any solution that's on the table at this point in time. Different standards for different types of areas not one size fits all. That was never proposed. But something I think we certainly can consider in the future. Consider ways to limit number and location. Only the primary residence requirement really does that. Consider neighborhood impacts. Only the primary residence requirement does that. Consider ways short-term rentals might support affordable housing. Well, we can tax them and they are allowed in primary residences. We've also been told that we were going it alone, that we were going out on some limb, that no community really has done this. Burlington's way out there. We shouldn't be doing something that's untested. Other communities that have similar or stricter requirements requiring primary residency, which is the main difference between what we passed and the carpenter amendment or the status quo. Boulder requires primary residency. Portland, Oregon, Denver, New York, San Francisco, Honolulu, Providence, Rhode Island, Las Vegas, Santa Monica, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, and Somerville, Massachusetts. That's not an exhaustive list. Those are just some cities that I tried to look at what their ordinance says and they require this primary residence. I think that there seems to be a divide on this council. It's not often as the last vote would attest. It's not often that I'm aligning with the progressives on this council. And I have thought quite a bit about why it might be that it's kind of working out this way. And I think that one of the things is that I fear that this vote may divide along whether we live in dense multi-unit neighborhoods, multi-family neighborhoods, or single-family neighborhoods. And when we were talking about this ordinance originally, I was told by one member of this council that the problem in their neighborhood was this conversion of single-family homes because they live in a single-family home neighborhood. But the problem in the neighborhoods for those of us that live in multi-family home neighborhoods are multi-family homes. There isn't really a difference between one and the other. They're both problematic and it's problematic worldwide where communities are losing their housing to short-term rentals. And that includes where there is owner occupancy. I have been told by several people who have contacted us. I think that the people who are really engaged on this are mostly people who have an interest, a financial interest in pursuing short-term rentals either because they have them today, they're planning to add one or they'd like to have the option of having one in the future. And the people that we're not really hearing from are the people who don't really understand how this regulation affects their lives, how this regulation affects their ability to get housing. I've been told that the hundreds of units that are affected by this are inconsequential and we should focus on other things such as the overwhelming students in our neighborhoods that we need to build more housing. Well, yes, we do need to do all of those things but the most immediate impact that we can have is to make sure the housing that we have is used for housing, not for lodging. And we're losing hundreds of units here that we just came out with a statistic that Vermont is number one in vacancy. Well, the vacancy we know is not a available housing, it's that a lot of these housing units are sitting vacant a lot of the time. We can't afford that. We are in a housing crisis. We're gonna vote on putting pods in our downtown tonight. That's 30 units. But we're talking about sacrificing hundreds of units. This veto and this is something I don't think the public understands. This veto brings us back to exactly where we were when this was discussed at the Housing Summit, which is this is regulated by the city. Bed and breakfast require owner occupancy. We don't need a carpenter amendment in order to require owner occupancy. It's always been required. We have always regulated bed and breakfast. And the reason that if this should fail, I will choose our existing ordinance over some other version that provides owner occupancy is that with our current ordinance, there is a process by which people can appeal the decisions of a bed and breakfast going into the neighborhood. And with the other versions, including the one we passed, there is no way to appeal it. It is not even just by right. All you have to do is register. We made it easy for people to do it in a certain way. But if we're going to do that, I'm not giving that kind of privilege. I'm not giving it away so that housing units can be converted. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Shannon. Councillor Aitou. Thank you, President Tracy. I am supportive of the slightly more permissive STR version that the mayor referenced in his memorandum. Not for the same reasons I agree with a lot of what Councillor Shannon just said, but he urged us and I conceded to vote for this more restrictive version in January. And now we're frustrated because we complied. I'm frustrated, but you can't ask for something one month and then veto it the next. I can't vote for an amendment one month and then not support the resolution just because it's not the ordinance that I passed the ordinance committee or would have liked to pass through the city council. We cannot just go back and pass the ordinance version, also known as the carpenter amendment tonight or next week or next month. We have to restart the process because of our rules. I would rather pass this ordinance and try to amend it to be more permissive in the future. And I'm happy to go through the lengthy process of trying to add an additional STR fee. It's not a new idea. We proposed and debated that avenue in planning commission and the dozens of hosts and attending the planning commission vehemently, and I mean vehemently and rudely opposed it. I'm happy to try again. But this first, and then we start the year long process of getting the authority from the state to add the fee and maybe add owner occupied units. I would rather have our STR hosts as allies in that process who know that it's part of the package and trying to get that part across the finish line. Cause the other thing that I have to mention is everyone today was very kind and civil, but the frustration of when we started doing this was so strong. Folks who have investment homes who don't want their STR taken away. Folks who didn't want to pay the extra fees. Right now, the hundreds of STRs that are not allowed have had dozens of people come forward outraged that we would take away this non-right from them. At the same time, STRs have outpaced the vacancy rates in the city over the last three years. I'm sure it's diminished right now because of COVID, but it continues to chase our vacancy rate. The city isn't going to continue to not move forward on enforcement. We have to start enforcing this like we said many years ago. If we pass this policy, we have time to start enforcing this ordinance. We've got a little bit of buffer. If we don't, my understanding is we move forward on enforcing the current ordinance. And I would much rather have the ordinance that we're talking about today than to revert back to what we had when we started this process of trying to move forward to something other than bed and breakfast as a way to enforce this. I also have to pose any statements that we don't know and there are too many questions or not enough data or we're too divided on this, on how to manage STRs at all. The ordinance committee members, the wider council and the administration landed on a fairly narrow policy space. We're still arguing about the gap because we like to argue and also it does affect quite a few members in our community, it's worth arguing about. But right now we're talking about a difference of dozens of homes, not hundreds. There are a hundred different versions, literally all across the country and a hundred different versions of how we could have done it here in Burlington. And right now we're talking about two or three. This is not a wide policy gap. I think that's all I have. Thank you, President Tracey. Thank you. I have Councilor Hanson to be followed by Councilor Paul. Great, thanks. In the summer of 2019 at the Housing Summit, we collectively identified and found consensus around the need to regulate and restrict the conversion of long-term rental units into short-term rental units. We all agree that there's a housing crisis in Burlington. There's very little housing available. So much of it is expensive and poor quality. And we all agree that short-term rentals are making that problem worse by taking more rental units offline. We've spent two and a half years debating this and meanwhile more and more people are getting pushed out of this community and short-term rentals are remaining completely unregulated. After two and a half years, we got to a place that eight out of 12 Councilor supported. If we don't override this veto, this endless debate is gonna continue. We're gonna get back into the same points that we've debated over and over again. The Council already voted no on Councilor Carpenter's amendment. So we're basically rejecting something that had eight out of 12 support to try to force through something that was a 6-6 vote. That's just a recipe for continued debate. I think at the end of the day, the question tonight is are we willing to step up and take an action that's going to benefit the vast majority of Burlingtonians? Or are we just gonna keep kicking the can down the road, trying to find some perfect compromise that somehow doesn't impact those profiting from Airbnb. If we're serious about restricting short-term rentals, people who own investment properties in Burlington are going to make less money. That is one of the policy trade-offs that we're talking about and that we would have to make to do this unless we wanna restrict it another way. But I think this is the best way to restrict it. It's the one that found after all this time majority support. And from an equity perspective, it's the best way to divide that line. So I just think as a city government, we need to move forward. We can't just continue as it is. The housing crisis is bad. We have a chance to do something about it after two and a half years or we can just keep debating and keep allowing this issue to have a negative impact. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Hanson. Councillor Colle. Thank you, President Tracy. Over the past few weeks since we voted on this ordinance, I've had a lot of time, more so than I thought I was gonna have. I thought we would be discussing, have been discussing this two weeks ago. Had a lot of time to reflect on the vote and consider the impacts of both on our housing challenges, which we all agree there are housing challenges, our desire to find creative solutions to the affordability crisis. We know that we are also in an affordability crisis and to try to consider the impacts of the users, the providers and the economic consequences of this change. I recognize the impact that this has on our community and I'm very grateful to the number of people that have reached out to me and have reached out, I'm sure, to others to express their perspective on the ordinance and on the veto. The first thing that I did was I went to the city's housing action plan and I read up on the initiatives as they related to accessory dwelling units and STRs. And with respect to ADUs, the goal was to make it easier for people to build them, to offer more flexibility for families to age in place, to offset housing costs. That was one of the goals was to offset housing costs for homeowners and to also, as others have pointed out, to create additional neighborhood scale housing options throughout the city. So there were a lot of goals there. With respect to STRs, it was to implement new regulations for short-term rentals to help reduce the impacts on long-term housing availability and neighborhoods, but also to balance that with the economic benefit for burling Tonyans who are hosts. So there was a lot going on there. I think that the amendment that Councilor Carpenter, who, and others can disagree with me, but who arguably is the Councilor with the greatest amount of expertise in housing affordability and creating housing, having devoted her entire professional career to this and someone who continues to be sought out on the state level for her experience, she created a balance between offsetting housing costs, particularly given our high property taxes and other costs and balancing the economic benefits, allowing flexibility, while modestly creating housing options throughout the city. I thought that the amendment was a reasonable compromise and that's why I supported it. At the last meeting that we had on this issue, there were a lot of figures that were mentioned as reasons for supporting this ordinance, and they were figures that I found very compelling, compelling enough that I voted for it. After the Council meeting and in the last couple of weeks, when I had a chance to look at this in a deeper way and consult with other people who know a lot more about this than I do and to get the actual data, I found out that the current data doesn't prove the argument that some have been putting forward. Currently in Burlington in the first quarter of 2022, there are 221 active short-term rentals. That is a decline from 270 active rentals in the fourth quarter of 2021. So the number is not going up. 80% of these short-term rentals are entire homes, which includes ADUs, and 20% of them are private rooms within a home. Of all the rentals in the past year, in 2021, there were 280 total rentals. And I have the breakdown of how many were available for rent from one to 90 days, 90 to 180, and so on. What this data shows is that it bears out the testimony and the emails that I received, and I presumably others did too. We heard from a lot of hosts that their ADU or an apartment or the like is used some of the time to help them make ends meet. But a lot of the time it's used when they have a family member that's visiting or they have a family member that needs an independent dwelling for a variety of reasons. And the data is saying that 74% of short-term rentals are not available for long-term rental. So the vast majority of those, they're using them to balance their family's personal needs along with their financial needs. And that is a matter of equity, saving for their children, childcare costs, living expenses so that they can hold onto their home and some day, age and place. 26% of those who have an STR are renting them short-term for 271 to 365 days. That is 74 units. And we don't know how many of them are actually renting them year round, literally 365 days a year. Probably not that many, but we don't know that. But let's say that even half of the 74, given the testimony that we've heard, how many would convert to a long-term rental if that was even possible for some of them? Of 74, maybe half, maybe not even half, maybe 10, it's a very small number. The current figures indicate that STRs make up just over 1% of the total rental housing. And of those, perhaps a few dozen are rented year round or close to it. So I continue, unfortunately, as Councilor Hightower has pointed out, I would love to be able to right now make an amendment to an override to try to get a seventh vote in support of Councilor Carpenter's amendment. But we can't do that tonight. Our rules don't allow it. I hope that we will consider revisiting this because I don't agree with the status quo. And I think that given the decline right now that we're seeing in short-term rentals, now is the ideal time to maybe look at some alternatives. I am not opposed to the idea of capping the number of STRs as a percentage of our rental units. I believe that STRs should be owner-occupied. And I am very much opposed to the speculative buying that is going on that is igniting our housing market and contributing to the soaring prices that people can't afford to live here. I don't think that this ordinance is balanced. I don't think that it strikes the middle ground. And I don't think that it meets the intent of the Housing Action Plan. I don't think that it is good best practice. And while I appreciate the fact that other communities have enacted more draconian approaches or similar to this ordinance, I would suggest that given the dynamics of our city, the number of STRs, which has not increased in the last year and a half, and the fact that we should be focusing our attention on broader housing solutions, I don't think this ordinance, I don't think that it is a sound decision based on data. To the contrary, the data proves out that a substantial shift to long-term rentals is probably not gonna happen. In fact, well, I'll say probably not gonna happen. In conclusion, what I would say is that I don't believe this ordinance is the way for Burlington to go. I think that we can do better and that we can address the abuses that I've mentioned. We can respect people for just trying to remain here who contribute to our economy. And I believe that we can find ways to use tax revenue to better expand our housing options as well as truly enacting a good policy such as addressing other housing problems that really truly need addressing. So I look forward to that discussion and I hope that we will have it and have it soon. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Paul. I have Councillor Mason to be followed by Mayor Weinberger. Thank you, President Tracy. I will be brief because it's almost midnight and thank you, Councillor Paul, for saying better than I could have. I will be voting to sustain the veto. My opposition to the restrictive nature of what past has not changed, nor has my support for, or unwavering support for the Carpenter Amendment. I don't think, I am disappointed in myself for three years of effort coming to this and I wished. I do think there was much effort to try and get to some compromise that was acceptable to more than six. Unfortunately, we failed in that attempt. I am confident with some new faces on this council and a newly constituted ordinance committee that if they were tasked with taking this up quickly after organization day that that can be done. And my hope would be that something could be back before this council well before the planning and zoning office was intending to actually enforce this, even if it got passed. So I'm not giving up on this council. I think you guys can achieve something and I don't think what's before us tonight is it. Thank you. Mayor Weinberger. Thank you, President Tracy. Appreciate the opportunity to say a couple words before this veto override vote. First of all, I want to be really clear why, I tried to be clear in the letter, but I'm responding to some of the comments tonight. I think it's been suggested and I don't appreciate it that somehow my position is being driven by the fact that I live in an area of the city that's not dense. My house is surrounded by multifamily. I'm in the only single family house on in the immediate area where I am. And what I'm, what is driving my position here is having fully engaged this, fully engaged all of the testimony that we've received. I've come to think that I was not correct in my initial take on the issue at stake here, the reason that I've narrowly sent this back and this has gone from being a important regulation for protecting against too many homes being converted over to short-term rentals. This is now actually, because it goes so far, much to the contrary of what I think in good faith, the supporters of the provision believe this has now become an anti-housing provision. This will not over time make us more affordable. It will make us less affordable. There may be some very limited, as Councilor Powell has just walked through the data, short-term gain from this very strict regulation where there may be some small number of units that are currently short-term rentals that will go back onto the long-term housing market. However, over time, this will become yet another barrier to the creation of housing in this community, yet another rule joining so many other rules that have been passed on bipartisan basis by this Council going back decades that makes it harder to build and harder to create homes in this community, not easier. Specifically, you know, even, from my perspective, we have begun to return that tide as a city government in recent years, and we have taken many steps on attempting to undo these problematic rules. We are, there's another one on the agenda for later tonight even that seeks to remove parking requirements that do serve as barriers to the creation of exactly what we're talking about here, small-scale housing citywide. We have just gone through an extensive process encouraging the creation of more ADUs, some of which, when they are created, some of the time will end up on the long-term housing market. We are gonna, if we provide this flexibility to owners, if that flexibility doesn't exist, less of them will be built. But moreover, where we need to go, and what I've been talking very publicly about for a long time, and what will be coming to the Council is attempts to make duplexes, triplexes, quads much more buildable in this city, citywide. And those projects will be challenging. This is going to remain a difficult community to make the numbers work, and to get those types of new homes created. This is, even regardless, by putting this limitation on how the properties can be used in place, there's no doubt in my mind that will be an additional barrier to those small-scale structures being built citywide. And, you know, let's be really frank about it. They're the only way to solve our homelessness problem, the only way to solve our housing crisis is to build our way out of it. We are not gonna get there with these more severe regulations around the edges. Where we can, we are going to need our build our way out of this if we're really gonna get this done. This will become another barrier to that happening. So, people voting to override the veto, that vote should not be seen from my perspective as in any way a pro-housing vote. It will not have that effect long-term. Finally, I just want to speak to the idea that this is going to result in a long delay as a result of the veto. Let's review, I think it's important to be clear on what we've done so far. What has passed so far has not been a zoning amendment. What the council voted on in February 22nd was an amendment to chapter 18. That amendment to chapter 18 with the provisions that I would support and that half the council already supported can be back in front of the council immediately, it could be back in front of us in three weeks the next time we have a working meeting. The zoning change, which does need to go through the planning commission, we are going to need to have that happen, that is a future action that has been dependent, that follows on the final council action. Regardless of the timing at this point, that will all need to go through the planning commission again before that zoning change is put in place. So, there is no material delay to, there need not be any material delay given the great areas of agreement about what we should regulate if the veto is sustained. Deep by far the most significant aspects, here I think I agree with a point made by councilor Hightower, we have large amounts of agreement about what should happen here. The city today is at significant risk of whole buildings being converted over from long-term rentals to short-term rentals. That, from my perspective as someone who played a role in the mayoral housing summits was the chief reason that short-term, that risk was the chief reason that short-term rentals was elevated as one of five issues to be concerned about coming out of there. I would certainly hope that if this veto is sustained, that risk which will be in place until this council takes further action in the wake of a veto would compel us to find a way to act on the huge areas of agreement that we have, not kind of hold hostage the change that is necessary because of this relatively narrow disagreement. I think that is, I could go on, but I shouldn't, I'll leave it there. Thank you, President Tristan. I'm sorry, Tara. And I'll keep it brief. I think it's just, I do want to say that to Councilor Paul's point, it's unfair to say whether people are voting for, and I do think that this is a vote for affordable housing and I think everybody who's voting for it is voting for affordable housing. I do think we have to build more housing, but at the same time, saying that this will stop more buildings, specifically of buildings that are only going to be made for short-term rentals and therefore if that is true, then they won't be affecting the long-term rental market. So I don't even think that's a fair argument. That being said, I obviously do support various types of compromises on this, but I think tonight I will definitely be voting to try to override the veto. Thank you. Councilor Shannon to be called by Mayor Weinberger and if we can, and Councilor Carpenter, and if we can just please be brief. I just want to address that the specter of whole buildings converting to short-term rentals if we don't take some other action soon. That would only happen if the building were owner occupied, met all of the conditional use requirements, was approved by the Development Review Board and was not appealed by neighbors. The reason we have been at risk of whole buildings converting to short-term rentals is because our regulations that are on the books have been ignored and not enforced. Since we voted on this ordinance, the existing laws have been being enforced and people have been getting notices of violation based on the old bed and breakfast rules, not our new rules. So we have rules on the books that do control this and control them well as long as we use them and we don't ignore them. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Shannon. I've got Mayor Weinberger and then Councilor Carpenter. Okay, just a really discreet point that I think I haven't been clear about. What I'm suggesting is that duplexes, ADUs, triplexes and quads will need to play a significant role in building our way out of the housing crisis. The provision that I've tried to be really clear about, the version of this ordinance that I would support would allow one of those units of those small multi-unit properties to be an STR. So the idea is that that would help these come into being not and not that every housing unit being created would just be for STR. I think again, even if we allow the flexibility of people at times being able to one year deciding to put their ADU on short-term rental, knowing, having that security, knowing that they can do that if they need to will lead to more ADUs being built and some of them will end up being long-term rentals at least during some part of their history. So this is important flexibility to give property owners if we want to actually see the creation of more small-scale structures that gets us out of this housing crisis as many other cities are turning to. Councilor Carpenter. Thanks, I'll be bringing a lot of folks, the mayor and Councilor Paul and others have said what I was going to say. I just want to repeat, if we sustain the veto, we can start in two weeks just doing this over again and because it's Chapter 18, it shouldn't be so painful a process. We've certainly talked about it. So in two weeks from now or whenever our first meeting is, let's get it figured out and go ahead. Okay, don't have anyone in the queue. Can we please go to a vote? Okay. Yes. A yes vote is to override. Yes. Okay, thank you. If you do not want to override, if you do not want to override the vote, no. Will the city clerk please call the roll. Councilor Barlow. No. Councilor Carpenter. No. Councilor Jang. No. Councilor Freeman. Yes. Councilor Hanson. Yes. Councilor Hightower. Yes. Councilor McGee. Yes. Councilor Mason. No. Councilor Paul. No. Councilor Shannon. Yes. Councilor Strongberg. Yes. City Councilor President Tracy. Yes. Seven ayes, five nays. The override fails. Brings us to our next item, which is item 6.04 and ordinance regarding parking minimum and maximum requirements. Councilor Mason. Thank you, President Tracy. I would move that we consider this a second reading, refer the amendment to the planning commission to correct any technical deficiencies, make any recommendation or opinion it considers appropriate, and thereafter to promptly submit the amendment to the full city council and ask for the floor back after a second. You have a motion. Is there a second? Seconded by Councilor Hanson. You have the floor. Councilor Mason. Thank you, President Tracy. I will be brief given the hour, but I do feel it appropriate to walk through a little bit of history given the volume of email that we all received today on this. As was alluded to in the last discussion, this, well, I'll start. The proposed amendments seek to expand the removal of parking minimums from the multimodal use parking district that we passed a few months ago to city-wide. As was alluded to in the discussion on the last topic, that this seeks to remove a barrier to the construction of new housing units, as the mayor just alluded to, the only way out of this crisis is to build and requiring parking, much less excessive parking, is an impediment. This amendment was introduced by Councilor Hanson in the fall of 2021 and referred to the Ordinance Committee. The intention was to fast track it, but with some pushback by certain members of the Ordinance Committee and the Planning Commission, it did go through more of a robust process. After a joint committee hearing with Planning Commission, the Planning Commission requested a specific referral of the amendment for their thorough review and discussion and the opportunity to provide comments. The Planning Commission did hold three public hearings specifically on these amendments on January 11th, 25th and February 8th and provided a markup of its changes and a memorandum expressing proposed changes to the TDM standards. The changes in that memo were discussed at the Ordinance Committee meetings on March 2nd and March 10th. The Planning Commission's specific objection related to imposing TDM requirements in the neighborhood and shared used parking districts and the potential negative impact on less than smaller scale developments. They sought, along with what had been at the time, encouraged by the Planning and Zoning Office to delay moving forward on the TDM until a TDM study that the Planning Office is planning on going forward later this year. At Ordinance Committee, that proposal was not supported, but rather the committee was receptive to modifying the applicability of the TDM standards for those smaller five to nine dwelling unit developments so as not to impede development. To be clear, because we got a lot of email today and we got so much email, I haven't even had time to process all the comments on parking minimums. I know there were a lot of people that I and probably the rest of us were hearing from the first time who had not been actively involved in the multiple hearings leading up. If this passes, this amendment goes to the Planning Commission for public hearing and for input. So everyone who's reached out, this is not their last bite at the apitol. Similarly, if it passes, or it will come back, excuse me, from the Planning Commission and the next council will be that council that actually votes whether to move forward. So with that, I know Megan Tuttle has been on this hearing for five and a half hours. If there are specific questions about any of the changes or if Megan feels the need to provide an overview, I would offer the floor to Megan, but I also respect that it's midnight. So Megan's on screen if people have questions for her. If not, that will conclude my comments. Thank you, Councilor Mason. Don't have anyone to queue. Councilor Hanson. I'll go very short, which is that I'm really glad we're moving forward on this. I think it's a really strong step forward on both housing and climate. And I wanna thank everyone that's worked on this. And I'm eager to move forward tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Hanson. Anyone else not see any? So we'll go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. Okay, will the city clerk please call the roll? Actually, nevermind, nevermind. Councilor, we're not on Zoom anymore. It's sorry if that happens. Just one no, Councilor Shannon. Okay, so the resolution carries, or the ordinance carries, I'm sorry. That brings us to our final deliberative item this evening, which is the resolution regarding the designation of 51 Elmwood Avenue as a sanction site for temporary emergency housing in the city. Councilor McGee. Thank you, President Tracey. I move that we waive the reading, adopt the resolution and ask for the floor back after a second. I have a motion from Councilor McGee. Is there a second? Seconded by Councilor Stromberg, you have the floor. Thank you. I will be brief. I think we've all received presentations on the city's initiative to end houselessness, and this shelter pod community at 51 Elmwood Ave is one of those components. I think this is a crucial step for us to take, especially as the state considers changes to the general assistance motel voucher program that has housed many of the folks who are experiencing houselessness in the state. Those changes could see some folks lose housing as soon as the end of June. So I think it's crucial for us to support this tonight and allow the city to continue this vital work of getting this community built and stood up by July 1st so that we can have these 30 shelter pods in place because it is crucial that we have this short-term emergency solution in place while we work on these longer-term solutions to ensure that we are fulfilling our goal of having housing as a human right here in Burlington. With that, I would like to invite Councilor Pine to answer a couple of questions from folks that we heard during the public forum. Sure, welcome, Director Pine. Yeah, but I'll try. There we go. You have to count to 13 votes if I was still Councilor, I think. Yeah. Thank you, sorry for bringing this item to you at this moment because I think you have a packed agenda and I hope that I can answer your questions and provide some background. If you want me to run through a few points around outreach and engagement, I think, is what you're hoping? Sure, yeah, if you could speak to the timeline and specifically around outreach to community members. Sure, the Council's action six weeks ago tonight, historic action allocating nearly $3 million of the city's ARPA funds to our initiative to end homelessness was followed by immediately getting to work on various city department staff looking at a range of different sites. The site criteria were basically prioritization was to use city owned sites. So we didn't have to deal with site control, buying and leasing property. So that was sort of a bottom line criteria. We also obviously wanted to be near utilities, easy access to infrastructure, make this a cost effective approach to providing emergency housing. And in addition, I think we felt that it's critical that folks have access to the core services that allow people to maintain a level of dignity and hopefully get the independence and self-sufficiency that everyone would hope for someone who's experiencing homelessness. Those criteria really led to just a few final sites on a list of 10. And in the end, the city owned parking lot in Elmwood Avenue, which houses, so how is it? It parks about 575 cars, was identified as meeting all of the criteria that was laid out. Once that decision process was concluded in the middle of March, we met, we actually early March, we met with the staff of the Burlington Business Association, knowing right away that this would raise perhaps some concerns among their members. We met with staff, we met with the chair of the Church Street Marketplace Commission, of course met with the director of the marketplace as well. To both explain this process, explain the criteria and hopefully get a chance to discuss and hear concerns. The mayor convened a meeting last week on the 15th with downtown business owners and property owners, followed the following day by a meeting at the DPW commission. We provided a presentation on the project, the commission debated it for about an hour. They finally voted four to one in favor of decommissioning Elmwood Avenue. CDNR committee, your committee met last week, got a presentation, discussed the project, and I think had a chance to ask questions, hopefully that was amid the satisfaction of the committee members. Obviously we're here tonight. We have requested and I think we'll be attending and presenting at the wards two and three NPA middle of next month. It should be noted that there's a zoning permit required here, so it's not as if this is attempting to circumvent zoning. However, there's also a pending zoning amendment, which I think creates a little bit of perhaps confusion because that amendment essentially is in recognition of the fact that when emergency structures like this are needed, right now we have a pretty cumbersome process and we're just seeking that that be made simpler, but that actually isn't going to necessarily impact this project because the timeframe for getting this project up and running by July 1st requires that we proceed with due haste and that really means filing a permit as soon as possible. So in a couple of other key items we reached out to each old north end and central district counselor as well as counselor-elect who will be joining you soon. We spoke with all the key parking leaseholders, not every single one because there's individuals and then there's leaseholders who lease multiple spaces. We spoke with those abutting property owners that we could actually reach. There isn't a butter to the north that is an LLC that lists all apartments in an LLC with the mailing address and a P.O. Box and Stowe. So it was actually really challenging to find that person. By the way, they did show up to the NPA or sorry, to the DPW meeting so we were able to connect with them as well. We're currently planning at least two community neighborhood meetings that one will be held at the adjacent property that is owned by the O'Brien family and that's in the Kenzie House, senior housing and the other will probably take place at the Unitarian Church. We have a date yet to be determined but that planning is underway. So we are committed to continuing to work with stakeholders. We do have this aggressive timeline of opening on July 1st and we today just put up a frequently asked questions document which is quite long but I think it tries to address all the issues we've been hearing from folks. It's been raised by some that the loss of parking and the revenue will be an impact to the city but it should be noted that all those people who lease spaces are getting parking spaces in the garage at Lakeview which is next to the former Macy's, the current BHS site. There's plenty of available parking within that complex and they will be paying the same lease fee that they were paying to be at Elmwood Avenue so there is no actual loss of revenue. This project is envisioned to be a three year project and that is actually should be pointed out. It's punctuated by 12 month interval reviews of what's working and what isn't and the desire is to really be able to respond more quickly than that but at the very least we'll do reviews every 12 months is the plan. There will be no project going forward. It will not open on July 1st if we can't figure out a really solid management plan and an organization to manage the project. So that's really critical. I wanna mention also that the Community Resource Center which folks may know is a daytime warming center which for the last few years has operated out of the VFW. Their lease is up, the VFW doesn't really, it's not part of their mission to do this and they've decided they don't want us to continue operating the Community Resource Center there. When I say us, it's actually CVOO that does it on behalf of the city. So that property, it needs to be viewed not as a Community Resource Center, it needs to be viewed as a former Community Resource Center in the next couple of months we're gonna lose that site. So we need to relocate that facility and we believe that co-locating Community Resource Center with the shelter pods makes a lot of sense for a lot of good reasons that I probably could go into if somebody wanted to hear that. Councilor McGee, you still on the floor? That's great, thank you, Director Pomey. Great, the floor is open. Councilor Shannon. Thank you to everybody who has worked so hard to bring this project to where it is now. I think that this is, it's a difficult decision for the community and unknowns are always scary and there's different visions as to how this, how this is gonna work, visions of both success and failure. I like the vision that, I like the vision that you have. I think that the vision is one of lifting people up of providing the resources that they need in helping them to stabilize their lives. Some of the things that we were really challenged by in Sears Lane are being addressed here. For one, this is a managed site. For two, it is actually when a managed site was proposed at Sears Lane, it was proposed at twice this size, which was really concerning. And it was proposed to, it wasn't going to be 24-7 where people could kind of live in a home 24-7. It was what had been proposed on Sears Lane was something where people get thrown out of housing during the day and that does not work well for the community or for the people trying to live some place. So I think that there, this gives me hope as well as concern. And I'm wondering what the, there's a lot of details still to work out with this. And I'm wondering if there are any more votes of the council. How do we assure, one thing I had mentioned to you today, Director Pine was, I think we really need a mental health counselor there. How do we assure that the resources that are needed are going to be there? That it will be, some of the details in terms of management and how this is going to be managed. We don't have, I mean, we had a great conversation today. So, you know, I hear what the vision is, but it's not really what the council is voting on tonight. And I also would ask that for the first year, those, I think we really should have a quarterly review. And I'm not sure what you're envisioning in that review, but I think that in the first few months, we're going to be learning at a rapid pace about what's working, what's not working. And it's not, it's definitely not something that can wait for a year. Thanks. I don't know if you can respond. Yep, of course. Director Pine. The, I think councilor Shannon's comment was one we really took to heart. We met earlier today. And the idea of having easy access to mental health counseling is one that we share that goal. I don't want to make promises we can't keep. So I don't know enough yet about the ability to ensure that that's going to be the case, that it will be available all the time, but we're going to strive for having access to clinical social workers on site, at least on a regular basis. I just don't know what those hours would look like. Director Shannon, what was that? The other, are there going to be any other votes of the council? Sorry, other votes. Well, I think the council's vote tonight is essentially a binding vote. It's not a permit vote. You're not voting on a permit per se. So you're voting really to sort of decide to use city property in this fashion, I believe, is how city attorney has explained it. But I'll let him explain it because he's far more eloquent at this than I am. I don't know about that, but the vote tonight is an authorization vote because it's a use of city-owned land. What the city council's being asked to do is to approve this use that's being proposed because it is for an extended, it's not simply a one day type of event, but there may be other votes as either funding is approved or not, but there won't be a second vote where there's a sort of plan put forward before the council because this is really the sole element that requires review, which is approval of the use. Councillor Shannon. Thank you. Just to clarify, there will be other votes on spending the funding and how that's going to be expended or no. Mayor Weinberger, did you want to answer that? I mean, the council already had a major vote on this and committed $3 million of funds to essentially about half of which were for the specific project. So I think that the authorization vote has already been made. Certainly, I think it counts or Shannon's point that there needs to be a lot of attention to the management oversight of this as we get it running is certainly the administration fully agrees with that. And I think certainly, as a follow-up to this could speak with council leaders about how best for the council to engage in that. I would think maybe the CDNR committee would be a natural partner for the administration for sort of ongoing discussions about how it's going. But I think this, from my sense, this is the last, at least barring some new issue arising, which is certainly possible. We're thinking this is the last major action by this council before this community opens. There are, there will be another vote as Director Pine suggested. There is going to be DRB votes from here. And there will be a vote on, I guess the council will have a vote on the zoning change as well, right? Yeah, however, the DRB, as I mentioned earlier, the DRB process is, it's kind of like a parallel process, I guess is the best way to think of it. We're not seeking to change zoning to allow it to happen, but we just acknowledge that responding to an emergency requires something a little more nimble than what we have in place now. So it's really, we're gonna go for the zoning permit anyway, just as a matter of course, it's better for all parties involved to get permits. So that's what we're doing, even though we theoretically could be waiting around for a zoning change to obviate the need for that, but I don't think that's, that's not the plan we're taking here. Now, if the council wants to play a role in reviewing a eventual plan for management and a arrangement with a manager, I think, you know, we wouldn't be opposed to that. I think that's a reasonable role and a request or condition even, yeah. All set, Councilor Shannon? Yes, thank you. I have Councilor Czeng to be followed by Councilors Mason and Hightower. Thank you, President Tracey, and thank you, Director Fine, for being here. And from my perspective, I feel like the timeline is very ambitious. This is going too fast. And from my perspective, I don't like it. I think when we put investment of this much money, we should be doing it very carefully and also doing it in collaboration with people who leave adjacent to that site. I understand there will be some community engagement, there are meetings happening to it. And what is more concerning to me is the fact that we have not even yet identified an RFP, basically, someone who will be managing this site. And also what is all of this means with, you know, substance use disorder that the city is trying to mitigate? I feel like we could have take at least, you know, a solid six months to just to plan, to think about it. And the pace in which this is going, it's scary. This is not a small issue. But the question that I have is, what do you mean by this is going to run only for three years? What does it mean? It means that we're putting on the site the infrastructure needed to provide electricity to each unit and plumbing that will only be needed to basically provide water and sewer to one building. So it'd be a shared facility where people have access to showers and bathrooms in one facility, but they'll have individual pods for sleeping. And those pods can be set up, and matter of fact, you all maybe asked to help set them up when they arrive. Not joking, because it's actually a great community project when they arrive, apparently. It doesn't take that long to put them up, but taking them down is pretty quick too. So the goal is that this not be a permanent facility, that this be in the interim over the next three years. There's significant investments. There's $150 million of federal dollars coming through the state, and we wanna make sure that as new housing gets created, we don't wait for that housing to be created. We're trying to respond to the need right now. And we're using this, and hopefully people view it as bridge housing, and that's how it'll be treated in terms of how it's programmed for providing support to folks to get in and get out, not to be long-term. So I'll send you the memo you sent to people. I have questions into it in blue and red, so you can respond. Sure. Thanks for being here, sir. Councilor Mason, pass. So I go to the Councilor Hightower to be followed by Councilor Barlow. I also feel like it's too late to ask you too many questions. I think just, if you have the answer this question readily available, great. If not, if you could just send it to us, which is, there's just been a lot of chatter about the cost of these per person. So if you could, if you have the answer, address the economies of scale, like why we chose 30. And I think you already addressed this to some extent with Councilor Shannon, but that there is more included in this than just putting up some pods. Sure, I think the number that the mayor mentioned is about half, so it's actually 1.4 million total is required to both purchase all the pods as well as the both the CRC, which is its own modular unit that will have its own bathroom facilities and will have its own food related facilities and will have a room for private sort of counseling type meetings and it will be a place for people to spend time and that's like the CRC now. So it's more than just 30 sleeping units and you have to also, of course, count the infrastructure which is being installed as well as the operation costs of paying for security and paying for staff and paying for the management. So it's an investment for sure, but it shouldn't be 30 units, X dollars divided by 30 units really isn't quite the math that would work. Right. And then could you just speak a little bit to what you already did in CDNR but some of like, I guess the longevity of some of whether it's the pods or some of the water infrastructure investments and so on that are being made on the plot. Sure, the pods themselves are gonna be pretty durable and able to be used elsewhere for other purposes. I'm not exactly certain if there are needs for emergencies that arise due to fires or floods or any other kind of emergency response that is needed, but we would be looking to our other partners to see whether there's a desire to perhaps, a range of smaller pod community elsewhere once the Elmwood Ave project is completed. The infrastructure, I mean, there's, I'll be honest, 20 years ago, our office when I worked at CDO in the day had a plan to try to bring the council along and the idea of converting that to housing at the time and this was 20 years ago. So it's not unlike, it's not, I think it's likely that the idea of this parking lot coming back for a redevelopment later for housing is something that we should be clear that it may come back, but so the infrastructure investments aren't entirely lost because there's gonna be some long-term commitment made to bringing that from something other than a surface parking lot. Thank you so much, Brian. Councillor Barlow, to be followed by Mayor Wembleger. Thank you, President Tracy. I want to, first of all, thank you for spending a half an hour with me answering my questions about this, and I am supportive of a pod community and I appreciate the need to move fast, but I'm a little concerned about making a siting decision before a more thorough public process. I know we've heard from adjacent property owners tonight who will be given an opportunity to get information but not necessarily give input at the NPA meeting, and as I shared with you this afternoon, I'm particularly concerned about the Church Street Marketplace Commission voting nine to nothing against the siting at this location and the BBA, Burlington Business Association, also expressing concern about the siting. It doesn't mean that I couldn't support it at this location, it just means that I would, what I'm saying is I want more process before I make that sort of decision and have those stakeholders who are affected the adjacent property owners and potentially the businesses on Church Street who have suffered in the last couple of years with downturns in business because of COVID and some of the behavioral issues behavioral and security issues we've seen on the marketplace. And so I'm not saying we would have those, I appreciate that this is gonna be managed, but I just would like a more robust public process before making the siting decision, not necessarily an elongated one that takes months and months, but at least gather input before we decide where we're gonna put this from those stakeholders. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Weinberger. Thank you, President Tracy. So first of all, I wanna say I'm very pleased that this, to be bringing this forward and have an administration initiative that is sponsored by Councilor McGee after some of the disagreements that we had last fall. This makes me hopeful that there is a lot of area of common ground for where we can be working together and moving forward on our housing challenges. From my sense, we've needed a facility like this for years and we urgently need one for this summer after all the challenges that we experienced last summer and we do need to be moving. We don't have the time for the deliberateness that we take on other long-term decisions, such as the ones we discussed earlier tonight and I fully support the team moving forward quickly. I do think Councilor Barlow's question about the site is a fair one and one that I've been speaking to a lot and speaking to down-home stakeholders over the last. Week, I certainly appreciate that in that unanimous vote from the churchy marketplace, there was a unanimous endorsement of the concept of having a shelter pod community like this. They were questioning only the location and there I think reasonable people can disagree as to whether a downtown location is better or worse from my perspective, the administration's perspective we have a long record of succeeding with facilities such as this in downtown locations and actually not only with downtown locations assisting the individuals that we're trying to help but actually also improving addressing some of the concerns that other downtown stakeholders have about behaviors and interactions having a facility like this near the downtown I actually think is going to be an additional positive resource on the downtown environment and climate and actually will help us make progress there. I say that in part given our experience that we've had with the low barrier shelter that was formerly on Winooski Avenue and the Day Station Community Resource Center that's currently housed on Winooski Avenue, those facilities have all succeeded in this downtown context and I expect this one will as well. Final point I just want to make is that I'm encouraged by the broad consensus that I've heard there are many people in the community who have been very supportive of what we're trying to do here. One criticism I've sometimes heard is our concern that this is just sort of a band-aid kind of solution and I guess if this was all that we were doing I could see that point but I do just want to remind everyone we're taking that this, the creation of this facility is happening in the broader context of us also making major new investments in our coordinated entry system to help ensure that chronically homeless people can be permanently housed in supportive housing settings. We are making new investments in our community service liaisons, have a new capacity to working with some of the population that might be needing the services at this site. We are currently out for an RFP with the crisis response team that this council has supported and that many community advocates support. We are close to announcing our new special assistant to homelessness and we are advancing on many fronts to achieve the goal of building 1,250 new homes including hundreds that are permanently affordable and dozens that serve the chronically homeless over the coming five years. So when you see it in this broader context I think this is one piece of a multi-pronged strategy with the city getting very serious about bringing an end to chronic homelessness over the coming years. Thank you, President Tracey. Thank you, Councilor Carpenter. Thanks, Mayor. I'll be really quick because I think that covered everything. I just, it is part of a package. It's an emergency solution that we need really quickly and I just think we just need to keep it in that context. I also am a little bit disturbed by the presumptions around the behaviors of some of the folks that will be living there. I think people unsupported, I'll just say, loose out there in the environment, that's when you have problems. When you give them an opportunity to lay their head down at night and get support that's how you start to manage behaviors. And so this is an attempt to do this in an emergency system. And I would argue this is probably not intended to be a quote community. It's a response that we need while we do all these other things. And I hope it goes away in three years to tell you the truth because we've done the other things. And on the site, I just have to say, downtown is a spot. Nobody's gonna want this, I'm not gonna say nobody. Many people won't want this. So I think you have to really look at your implementation, your management and go with that. Thank you, Councilor Carpenter. We're ready to go to vote. Okay. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. The record show there is one opposed, Councilor Barlow. That completes our deliberative agenda. We have a couple other items. There's city council general affairs. Any council are wishing to speak to general affairs. Councilor Paul. Goodness. I did wanna, it's late. Didn't wanna say, but a couple of parting words about the counselors for whom this is their last meeting, but if this is not the moment, I can certainly wait. Whatever you'd like to do. This is the moment. This is the moment? Yeah. All right, this is the moment. So, okay. Well, it's not every year that three counselors leave us. And I just would like to acknowledge the service of all three, particularly, but first, would like to acknowledge Jane, your service to Burlington on the city council. I'd like to thank you very much for the call that you made to me to ask me to work on the fossil fuel divestment resolution with you. It was a pleasure to do that. You wrote a really well researched resolution and you took the time, I think, in my humble opinion to do it right. We also got to serve on a committee together, which I valued your input and your voice. And then the last thing I also wanted to thank you for, Jane, is that I appreciated very much that you supported a colleague with your vote when they needed it most. I won't forget that moment. You know what that moment was and thank you. Thank you very much. It was a thoughtful and kind and collaborative thing to do. So, for those that have been on the council for a long period of time, like the other two that are leaving, it's hard to encapsulate 10 years of work, many of it behind the scenes. So much dedication and commitment to public service and all I can say, Max, is I remember when you started on the council and gosh, it doesn't seem like that was 10 years ago. Some years have flown by more quickly than others, I will say, the last two years have certainly had their challenges and I've been trying to think about how do you encapsulate 10 years? And so there were four things that I wanted to acknowledge and to thank you for. The first was your commitment to and to seeing that alternative transportation was really elevated during your tenure on the council. You gave it the attention that it deserves, mostly from your work on the bike walk master plan, among many other things that you did during your tenure. I also wanted to acknowledge your creativity in addressing environmental impacts. And I was thinking about this, I probably shouldn't say that every time I see a totter I'll think of you, but your work to bring that and make that an important aspect of Burlington life I think is incredibly important. The other thing I also wanted to express that you were an unwavering partner over the issues of substance use disorder and particularly overdose prevention sites. When many people did not see the value in those, you were the first to step up and say, yes, let's work on this, let's make this happen. And your work on Comstat, it was a pleasure to work with you on those and I will always value that. And then just last, I don't know that most people who watch council meetings have any idea how hard it is to do the work that you do and the good work that you did as council president under the most trying of circumstances all from one computer screen. You managed our meetings virtually and in person and both I still am not quite sure how you do it, but I wanted to thank you for all you have done to better our city. And as someone who represents part of the South End, I certainly will miss for many reasons having Chip on the council. When I think of Chip, I think about the words integrity, and honor, wisdom, collaboration, partnership, honesty and kindness. They all come to mind. Chip and I have not always agreed on everything, but there has always been an amazing level of respect and willingness to listen that I will miss a lot, particularly because of the fact that there aren't that many of us that are on the council that grew up in Burlington. And you and I both grew up here. We share a common bond in our desire to serve and give our best to this amazing city that we all call home. The last thing I just wanted to say, and I would imagine that Chip will probably say this, but I hope you won't mind if I do too, that serving on the city council is absolutely a family commitment. You give up a lot, but your family gives up a lot, and just want to acknowledge Rebecca and Amelia and Ella, who probably are very quietly thrilled about the fact that today is your last council meeting. Yes, I hope that this is the start of many new adventures, family vacations. You won't have to schedule them around council meetings, and won't that be fun, but you will be terribly missed. Thank you. Thank you so much for everything, and thank you to all three of you. Thank you very much. Councillor Mason. Thank you, President Tracy. I'm just feeling fortunate that today is not tomorrow because it's my wife's birthday, and I would have had a bit of an issue. It is my wife's birthday. Excuse me. It's only fitting that the last meeting, the three of us will participate in was one involving heated debate on each and every issue. Involving, competing policy goals, I don't think any of us was in the wrong. It's just a question of what we prioritized, and also feeling guilty about not being able to respond to the hundreds of emails that literally came in today. Working on a Monday with an agenda like this is nearly impossible. I want to use this brief time to really extend my thanks and appreciation, starting with the voters of Ward 5. It has been a pleasure and an honor to serve over the last 10 years and represent your interests before this body. I truly enjoyed getting to know many of you, who have reached out based on a preview or on an issue that concerns you, and feeling that I was effectively representing your interests here. I would like to thank my family and my children for the privilege, which really is what this is, the privilege of being away from them, and serving the city of Burlington. I started 10 years ago when my kids were much younger. They were eight and seven, and I sort of foolishly thought, I can do this. They were involved in lots of stuff, as was I, and I thought, I can do this. It's a meeting every other week, very doable, not yet realizing that, well, there was a caucus the night before the meeting, that that took away Sunday night, and then there was subcommittee meetings, that was another night, and then leave aside the special committees that you somehow get rubbed into, whether that's the retirement task force or the downtown code or the housing summit, where you seem to have 200 meetings over the course of two years, leaving aside NPA, community meetings, et cetera. This could be a full-time job, I mean, for those of us that try to do life, and this, it's a challenge, and concessions have to be made, and I know I've missed a lot of dinners and a lot of nights, and I thank my family for that. I would be remiss if I didn't thank the dedicated city staff that have made my job easy over the last 10 years. Lori and I have known each other for over 15 now, and I could spend 10 minutes, literally listing off everyone that I'm indebted to, who has made my job easier in serving. I wanna thank all of you, my colleagues and many who have come and gone over the last 10 years, for their commitment to the city and their constituents. I know we often disagree, but at the root of it, I still think we're all doing what we think is in the best interest of our constituents, and it's hard to challenge that. A special thank you to Southend counselors, counselors Paul and Shannon, first for your mentorship. I was a new person, not really knowing what was going on. Also for your collaboration on really all issues, Southend, I can't imagine having done this without both of you at my side. Counselor Paul, your work ethic and the attempts at collaboration are an inspiration. I don't know how you do it. One of the highlights of my service was sort of the community food drives and being able to do that hands-on work that you made happen. Counselor Shannon, you're, again tonight, I'm like, I don't like being on the other side of you. You are, fortunately over 10 years, we haven't often been on opposite sides, but your effective advocacy and also your ability to solicit public input and mount that on a moment's notice is just unbelievable to me. Mayor Weinberger, I thank you for, and I'm thankful for our friendship and the collaborative work and what we've accomplished over the last 10 years, including many issues that were a long time before some members here, the shared risk model on retirement where we move that needle after thinking we could never get that done, resolving the Burlington Telecom litigation. I mean, I never would have thought that possible. And moving forward on the countless number of ordinance changes and housing reforms that we have over the past 10 years, your eternal optimism has turned me around when I felt pretty defeated on many issues. I cannot imagine serving in this capacity with a different mayor. So thank you for that. This is, I'm 52, this is not the end. I'm not moving in, but it was a challenging last two years, I think for all of us. And I think that needs to be acknowledged. And I was feeling that enthusiasm for this, the challenges this faced were gone for me and it was at the right time to move on. I don't think this is the end of public service. I'm hoping to return to more of a direct service and actually try and get reward. I don't know what that is yet, but I'm looking forward to starting that. I don't, contrary to what Ben said, just to be clear, I have no intention of watching Channel 17 or on Zoom. And I will likely not be texting any of you in the meetings, which is not to say I may not reach out and may not try and encourage you one way or the other, but I will not intending on being as active of some of our other former colleagues. So with that, thank you to everyone. It has been a heck of a ride and I am still enthusiastic about the future of Burlington and what all of you are going to be doing or at least other than Councillor Stromberg and Tracy and myself. Thank you. Thanks, Councillor Mason. Anyone else on general city affairs? All right, we'll go to Councillor Shannon, go ahead. I know it's really late, I want to say goodbye for the microphone. I know it's really late and I'm sorry, but I want to say goodbye and thank you to the three of you and Councillor Stromberg, I appreciate the enthusiasm that you have always brought to this table. I am sorry that for all two years that you've served, it's been a pandemic and it's not been easy to get to know each other in the way that we all might have were it not a pandemic. Councillor Tracy, it has been an absolute pleasure to disagree with you over all of these years. There's nobody I'd rather disagree with. And by that, I know that you know, I totally mean that. For all of our disagreements, I feel like we really have had a very good relationship over the years. I appreciate all of your contributions. I appreciate, I'm really glad it was you who took over Council Presidency of Zoom because that would have overwhelmed a lot of us. So thank you for all of that. But Dorothy, I will miss you most of all, having Chip really as an ally on my side all these years. You know, every time, people tend to email both of us. And for as busy as Chip is, I can always count on him responding to that email first. In fact, he'll respond to the email that I've completely forgotten about. And he responds in such a professional and thorough way every time. I have to say, I feel a little bit inadequate, but always in admiration of you and in admiration of your family and my husband is really going to miss bonding with Rebecca on Monday nights. But thank you so much for all of the sacrifices that you have made to do this for the citizens of Burlington. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Shannon. Mayor Weinberger. Thank you, President Tracy. I'd like to add some brief remarks as well, thanking each of you. Councilor Stromberg, thank you for your service to this city and I wish you great luck in all that lies ahead of you in your long career ahead. And I hope that this is, I'm sure this will be an experience that serves you well at a time ahead. I did want to focus most of my remarks on Councillors, President Tracy and Councilor Mason, who I came into office with, we just passed the 10 year anniversary of the day. The three of us were elected for the first time. This is a photo from a few weeks later, I think down at the Echo Center the night before we were about to be sworn in, a celebration of the city. So it's always been one of my kind of favorite photos from the last year, 10 years somehow. That's Brian Oban, who was the fourth, who didn't quite make it through this last unbelievably challenging decade, one of the most challenging decades in the city's history. What I also find a little mystifying about this photo is how the two of you look exactly the same as you do today, whereas I'm barely recognizable there on the right. As Councillor Mason suggested, I can't quite imagine what it's gonna be like to serve in this role without the two of you being leaders on the Council. Max, our many disagreements have certainly been well-publicized and featured in a major campaign. But I do take pride in, and hope you do too, in that from recycling toasters to the climate emergency issues big and small and to bike lanes on Winooski Avenue, there are many things that we've agreed upon and worked to advance together and I'll miss that. Chip, I can't do, I don't wanna repeat the really beautiful words that both Karen and Joan shared and I won't do it as well. I will thank you too for your friendship. It's been an important part of my, making it through the last decade. I think the people of Burlington have benefited enormously from your commitment to the details of being a city councilor, your long service, diligent, painful-time service on the Ordinance Committee, the technical skill that you brought there as an attorney, but probably more importantly, your good nature and your goodwill towards all of that will be greatly missed by me and the people of Burlington. It's been a pleasure working with you all. Thank you, Mayor. Anyone else? Are we still, is there still time to make comment? Yep, go ahead. Still making comment. I really echo so many of the things that were said tonight. I'm sorry, I left, I'm not feeling a little under the weather, so I just headed out, but I did wanna jump back on and comment for the three of you and just in all different ways, but are all in many ways really wonderful and amazing colleagues. Councilor Mason, just again, I really, Sharon Buescher, I think former Councilor Buescher said it really well. I don't think we always agree, but yeah, you're just the way that you have been always so respectful and diligent. I feel like it's just created an environment where we can really kind of easily disagree and kind of talk about these, and not that disagreeing is always easy, but it's just, it's really incredible and I just really, I so appreciate that about you and it just look, the nostalgia of looking back on those old photos and I think just the amount of work that you've put in over the years and just hearing all the amazing things that people said about you, I really, I echo that and thank you for being just such an amazing person to work with through the time on Council. And sorry, it's getting really late. Jane, just, you're one of the first people that I knew in Burlington. It's been so amazing to just watch you come into yourself more as any of us do, but I'm just, I just so much remember the night that you got elected and I'm just so incredibly proud of you and continue to feel really proud of you and it's so amazing to watch you really shine in areas that are not, like in my wheelhouse especially on some of the climate stuff, you're just so brilliant and so smart and I think that you have been such an amazing colleague to so many people on the Council and have been willing to work with people and in ways and times when I feel like I have a stubbornness you have, I think, an openness and I think that really complements this work and complements the work differently and I'm sorry to not be there in person to give you a hug but I'm just so thankful to have worked with you and I always cry, I always cry and I can't see any of you which makes us feel even more silly but Max, just an amazing mentor, an amazing person one of my favorite people, oh no, I can see you this makes things a lot less weird. I just remember being so blown away the first few times coming to Council meetings and hearing you speak so passionately and so, and I felt eloquently about issues that I also care about, your willingness, I'm sorry, I just can't not cry at least your willingness to, I think, believe in me and me being able to be in the space before I was able to see that and was just extremely powerful and I think you've created space for a lot of people and really held it down for a long time and I was really glad to see you get to pass the gavel tonight and speak towards an issue that you've worked so hard on and kind of in your classic form and the work that you did during the pandemic to moderate these meetings that were during just like the most unbelievably confusing and stressful sort of circumstances and just being someone who I can always call and I know that you'll pick up the phone and I hope Vice versa has just been, it's hard to imagine what this experience is like without you. It's just defined so much of my experience of working on community policy in Burlington and working on the Council, but yeah, I really respect all of you so much, the three of you, thank you just so much and I'm bummed that I didn't hold it out for the last minute to get to congratulate you person but I really have a lot of love and respect for all of you so thank you. Thank you Councilor Freeman, anyone else? Councilor Schroenberg. Okay, thanks, I've been actually more quiet this evening, ironically since my last meeting, but yeah, I just, I do wanna echo a lot of the very uplifting sentiment and express my great appreciation for each and every one of you. I know that we have gone through the most and for me, this has just been the most intense part of my entire life and I'm sure that oddly enough, it's probably been that way for most of you and I just, I really appreciate moving through a lot of those issues together and I do appreciate the disagreements. I feel like I've learned the most in those moments from each and every one of you in different ways and I honestly, this has been an honor and privilege of a lifetime. I have never thought of being in a seat like this before this had happened and the Ward 8 voters spoke and here I am and I just can't believe it's actually coming to a close. It feels very unreal and I just, I am so grateful for this opportunity. It means the world to me and yeah, I just, wow. Thank you so much for everything. I know that it is a lot of the intensities of the world are not fading away anytime soon and I'm really proud that everyone's willing to dive in to the very difficult conversations and difficult moments because that's what I admire most about this group. So thank you so much. Good bye. Anyone else? Councilor Jayne? Yes, thank you. City Council on General City Affairs, right? Yep. Basically, thank you. Thank you, the three of you and I know that you will not just, you will stay involved in one way or the other. I know that. But I also want to say, Max Tracy, really thank you so much for being an amazing mentor and I came here not understanding how things work or anything, but you really took me into your wings. You know, show me the rope and I looked into you, but how to do better. And in one point when I understood, I'm like, no, I don't want to wanna be this guy. So I've become my own person. Yeah, so bold. And also, at the same time, so calm, you know, and also I learned a lot from you to tell you the truth. You know, Chip Mason really to tell you the truth. I know that you are very, you're hot. You have a big heart. You're a good guy. You're a great person. And I know that you have like, you have style. Not only, yes, you definitely have style. And your style is, you know, about how you conduct yourself with the people that you have tacked and also you're the most dressed city counselor, right? You look pretty good tonight. I know. But I won't allow Joe McGee to take it from you at all. So I told him, after Chip is gonna be me. But you know, thank you. And I feel like, you know, you are the most also fit city counselor. Yeah, you saw, you go to the gym or something like that, right? Yes, and the ordinance committee, I mean, I serve you, see you maybe one, three months. And then I left out, but I felt, I know that you have done so much in there. And very appreciative of you. Thank you, sir. Jen, yes, I know that you brought a lot of antigenism into this work, though. You know, sometimes things are very messy, but we can look at you and just see you smile and you bring it past to what matters, yes? And I remember also your hard work around maxing with UVM students. You're very new, but you had the courage to stand up and to do what's right. And I think everyone else followed. Amazing to be with you. And for the rest of you, two more years, thank you. Thanks, Councilor Jing. Anyone else? Mary Weinberger. Sorry, one last part of this tradition is we have plaques for each of you for your service and a particularly large one for you, President Trisha, I think, as having served as Council President and I'm just gonna hand them out now, very quick. Thank you very much. Yeah, you can rock this here, actually. If you flip a switch, it'll rock, actually. I guess that wasn't included in your council orientation. Sorry about that. I guess I'll say one of the things that people always say is that following either I'll be brief or a recognition of the lateness of the hour is never a brief statement. Something you realize entirely as Council President, but I just really appreciate the support that you all have given me as a council over this time. Even when it hasn't felt like that, even when I've gotten text messages and been in the middle of a meeting and been incredibly hurried and stressed, when I take a step back and I realize that where that's coming from and where all of you are coming from, it's about supporting this body and supporting the work of our city. And I think that that's really where I am leaving is just a sense of gratitude and taking a step back from this. I think one of the things that a councilor told me when I was leaving, when I was coming into the role is that you gotta leave things at Monday night or after Monday night. You can't hold grudges in this role and be successful. I tried to do that. I don't know how well I did that myself in this, but I think that that's good advice and that's where I am now. I feel very grateful for having served with all of you and bonded to all of you, honestly for having gone through what we've gone through in the last couple of years. I mean, we'll never forget it and being in it with all of you I think was an incredible support and I just appreciate that regardless of how absolutely difficult it was. And let me be clear, it was absolutely hell at points over the last couple of years, especially serving in this role and serving at the breakneck pace that we were at, at the intensity that we were at. The role in many ways I think shifted pretty fundamentally over the last two years. I think Councilor Mason touched on this and maybe others who have served a short time don't really know what it was like before and those who were here do and it has shifted dramatically. It's been one intense issue after another for years on end. And necessarily so, we're dealing with incredibly challenging situations across the board. Every topic I think has deserved the focus that we've given it. I think it's been an incredible effort to just work with all of you and I think as part of that though, I think well, I think there's a good piece of coming back and looking at all the things that you've accomplished and appreciating that and all the people who were involved and who helped you to have that success and who had that success with you. But I also think about all the work that we're leaving undone as a Council or as I leave the Council, but that you all will continue and those issues of climate, the climate crisis, the systemic racism of the opioid crisis are so many different things that we've worked on together over the years but still remain as yet unfinished in terms of our work. And I just really want to thank all of you for working on those issues with me and just know that I'll continue to pay attention and look forward to working with you in different capacities on those issues because the work certainly doesn't end. You know, we really have so much more to do as a community on these issues to really bring about just ends and to really build a better community. So I really appreciate all of you and look forward to seeing you on the other side. Thanks. No, no mayoral things. So at 1.16 a.m., we are adjourned.