 This is an audio test everybody in the room I want you to know you have a hot mic at the moment because we need to test the audio for channel 17 yeah Kim this one's going out to you Kim just give us a shout when you've got sound levels so we can turn them back down and let people speak their minds are they're gonna be new mics oh no I just I get really close because otherwise people reeseed from them and then they can't be heard the absence of president no dal may have a nomination for an acting president council Paul I would nominate council right to be acting council president second all in favor council right all right thank you first item on the agenda is the agenda councilor roof thank you I'll move to amend and adopt the agenda as follows note revised version and co-sponsors of consent agenda item five point four six resolution options for pet friendly deicing materials on Burlington sidewalks revised councillors roof Shannon right more no dal Mason Paul Dean and busher per council roof no communication regarding consent agenda item five point four seven through five point four nine per DFO Goodwin note revised version for consent agenda item five point four eight resolution authorization for reimbursement from public improvement bonds for school district capital improvements board of finance per DFO Goodwin no communication regarding consent agenda item five point five zero per DFO Goodwin no presentation presentation slides for agenda item six point zero two per COS low note updated PowerPoint presentation for agenda item six point zero one per CSM director Redmond thank you council roof are there any other amendments councilor busher yes so I would like to just further amend the item which is on consent five point four nine the authorization for reimbursement from public improvement bonds for the city ten year capital plan the current resolution says to bond for eight million and it should be to bond for nine million dollars that was just a transcription error thank you councilor busher we have that okay other amendments to the agenda seeing none all those in favor of approving the agenda as amended please say aye any opposed that's unanimous we have our agenda item number two is a communication from city attorney Blackwood regarding expected executive session returning Blackwood yes we'd like to talk to you about collective bargaining with the union and so this would be contract negotiations and we would look for a motion to go into executive session that found as the first motion that premature disclosure of the content of the city's position would put the city at a disadvantage thank you city attorney council Mason like to make that motion seconded by council roof any discussion all those in favor of the motion to go to executive session please say aye any opposed I actually think the first motion was that's right finding thank you councilor mason that's the finding and then councilor mason I'd like to make a motion that based on the finding we go into executive session second seconded by councilor busher any discussion seeing none all those in favor of moving into executive session please say aye any opposed so we will move into executive session and who will stay for the executive session city attorney Blackwood the mayor's office staff the city attorney and the CAO okay we'll wait to clear the room there will be no action taken correct so we will clear the room and come back and reconvene the meeting and hopefully we will be fairly close to seven thanks friday we had a take their seats please city councilors take their seats please okay we're going to reconvene the regular city council meeting coming out of executive session at seven sixteen would everyone please join with me and resend the pledge of allegiance okay we have already approved our agenda of course we've done the executive session and let me just say that I am the acting council president tonight because president no dell is under the weather she has contracted what so many people have around the building and the legislature and everywhere right now so if she's watching feel better president no dell and we'll we'll try to muddle through item number three on the agenda tonight is a report from the police commission and we do have the chair of the police commission here for the yearly report chairwoman longmore and commissioner heart if you would come up and join us for the report thanks for being here welcome and if you could make sure if everybody could make sure to pull the microphones in and speak right into the microphone thank you thank you you can hear me so I guess we thought maybe we'd start to and just thank you all for having us here and greetings everybody and I hope city council president no dell feels better have people had a chance to look at the report we thought maybe we might just open up with questions and then maybe do a couple highlights I'm sure counselors have read the report but maybe just give us a brief overview of it and then we'll take questions so a couple of highlights in terms of the police department a couple of highlights in the this is that we're six months late in presenting this so we apologize but in terms of the fiscal year that ended June 30th a couple of highlights the police department wrote a prep guide to the Vermont police academy entrance exam to help with diversity recruitment and hiring and also helped rewrite the format of the Vermont police academy entrance exam questions again to help with that so that's something we want to commend the police department on is really their efforts to recruit minority minorities and women in the hiring process and I think that's going very well and then in terms of the commission some of the highlights for our work is we convene poor for public forums in February and March of 2017 gathering public's concerns and comments about the fair and impartial policing policy and we presented that to the council in April of 2017 and then right now we are piloting the state police advisory commission model and we're going to present to the commission to the council in June 2018 on that as well so that's just those are the highlights of what we've been doing okay anything else or we'll go to questions all right Councillor Busher and then Councillor Hartnett so thank you very much for the report I thought it was as you said it's it's now six months into the next year but it was still very insightful you mentioned one of the things that I thought was noteworthy which was the work on the ability to the entrance exam and and opening that up for diverse members of the community I really think that is so important because we heard that there were some obstacles that really could be overcome so I'm glad that the police department was willing to work on that the other thing which I although I knew about community community stat I really didn't know about community stat and the way this report showed me some information and so for me kid stat and family stat or just I just hope that the members of the community know that kid stat and I'm going to read from your report addresses domestic violence and opioid use with the primary concern being the children impacted by such circumstances and so it's really good to know that that group is there focused on children and then with family stat you say a sub committee part and partner agencies looking at family situations impacted by a parent or parents long-term incarceration or death and so you know you look at the individual with the opioid crisis but I sometimes think that I I'm never sure if everybody is looked at and this seems to be a much more holistic approach and for me it was really important for me to get these sound bites of what really is going on behind the scenes so I thank you for educating me on this and and really want to appreciate the department's work on this effort so and in fact commissioner if you wanted to you could attend a calm stat I would reach out to chief del pozo if there's interested in seeing how one works we've been invited when it comes up in our meetings that it is something we could attend and I've attended right here as a matter of fact council hard night thank you thanks thanks for coming I just want to point out one thing and then kind of find out where we are on another the one thing I do want to point out is I've had numerous people come in and talk to me about the community policing effort that's going on in our city which is outstanding you know we have Burlington police officers on Sunday mornings getting out of their cruisers going into the new North and playing football with these kids and just relating to them on a level that's never been related to before I think that's it's obviously a huge success and it's really where we need to start right if we want to when we when we talk about issues in our city and differences between law enforcement and and and and these types of you know situations and families I think it's just amazing the work that they've done so I just want to acknowledge that but also have a question on as far as the the chiefs review and if either of you are on that task or or not I know there's three at least three commissioners working on the review for the police chief and I was working with I think Commissioner Berenberg on some of the outlining issues that were going to be covered and there was some important things that I think that need to be made public in it but I don't want to speak unless you are you guys on do you guys know where that review is right now and who you last year we did that in the springtime in May June yep that review took place so we haven't we haven't embarked on that but perhaps Commissioner Berenberg is working yet no good I know that's glad I just didn't want to overstep before I wanted to give you guys an opportunity first so that will be coming before us I believe in April or May but I think it's important to point out that this year's review is all gonna also going to include interviews from people that are in the public which is really kind of a neat concept right there it's us not going to be done by the Commission all right it's gonna be we're gonna go out into the public and we're actually going to be interviewing people that live in our neighborhoods and get their thoughts and I just I just think that's a great vision to have the work that this Commission has done along with this police force has been amazing and I applaud all the work that's going on and I and I really think that we're going in the right direction so again thanks thanks for all your work I want to piggyback on what you said about the community policing because I was at the bagel this weekend and I did get to see a police officer in uniform approaching young children and handing out stickers and I I thought that was terrific to see so they really are getting out in the community and I'm honored to be on the police Commission I think we have a great group with great leadership so I thank you and I agree with a lot of all the positive things that we can talk about and highlight and you know as many of you anybody who knows me knows that you know I also keep sort of a critical eye on things and I think that policing in general in the city and in the state and all over the country is a pretty hot topic right now and I think that it's really important to look at things like data you know I have an organization called Kaleo and Burlington Police Department has been a wonderful partner in that in terms of bringing people together with the community one of the presentations that we had was about use of force and it's really important to look at that information because while there's a lot of really good work going on there are still concerns that I have and other people have about things like use of force when it comes to brown and black people so it's really important for us to highlight all the things I think Chief Delposal is doing an amazing job I personally admire a lot of the stuff that he's doing and I serve on the Attorney General's panel for racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile and criminal justice system big mouthful and one of the things that we'll be doing is a matter of fact we're creating a report right now that was like do a month ago and we'll be presenting it tomorrow night and in the report we will actually talk about Chief Delposal and the Burlington Police Department and some of the work that's been going on as a model for the rest of the state and I'm also interested in exploring the possibilities of helping Chief Delposal get a seat on the training council there's a Vermont criminal justice training council that like I think it's Rick got here is the chair of that that group and I know that Chief Delposal was interested in having a seat and I think that he's earned it and there's a lot of stuff that he's doing even the way that he thinks about policing he's he's open minded about new ideas he certainly hears us when we talk about concerns and stuff and I think that you know there's at least 79 police organizations I know we're just here about Burlington but you know we do we live in Burlington but we travel around the state so when I think about policing I think about it a lot of times in a statewide perspective and I just really want to like you know go on record is saying that a lot of what Chief Delposal is doing in the Burlington Police Department Chief Burke and I'm forgetting her Chief Deputy Chief Wright Chief Wright there a lot of what they're doing is it's going to be looked at and even recommended as a model so I just wanted to make sure that I said that as well thank you Councillor Tracy is up next be followed by Councillor Jang thank you very much for all your work and I just want to thank you for also lending a critical eye I want to speak to that a little bit I certainly appreciate the work that you've done around police accountability especially as it relates to addressing some of the racial profiling issues that we face in our community and one of the things that we had tasked you with doing was dealing with the state police advisory model and really analyzing how that might work and so I know that there's a report back that's supposed to come in June but I'm just wondering if you have any initial thoughts you know thinking about this as a sort of statewide model recognizing that Burlington is kind of has some different challenges some different trends and just different differences in relationship to the rest of the state and wondering if you have any thoughts on how well that's working and if you know we need to seek you know additional changes or if you're gonna we need the data at the end of that just to finally make those those those assessments so I just want to make sure I'm understanding your question is this related to like the fair and partial policing yeah yeah I mean I think we do have a lot of challenges and I think that you know again the you know statewide policy impacts local police departments hi Sarah and so I mean maybe just give me your question again I want to make sure I'm answering your question I'm speaking more to the state police advisory model that we that we had that we've been addressing and discussing really trying to think about what what looks like what's an appropriate oversight model for our police and you know we had talked about you know maybe trying to bring a commission of folks from historically marginalized communities to inform that work or taking an existing model and really bringing it into Burlington and so I'm just wondering you know what the commission's role has been in some of those conversations and where you're thinking is now that you know that we're a little bit removed from having sort of had those conversations right and so I think right now we're in the process of reviewing packets of complaints and so I think that each one of the commissioners is assigned to work with chief the three chiefs and to sit down and actually go through them I think that it's still you know that model while I'm encouraged that we're doing that I don't I can't I'm not sure I can really call it oversight and I can't really call it community oversight and I think we're moving in that direction and I think we need to continue to move in that direction I mean even if you look at something like the you know President Obama's recommendations on on 21st century policing oversight is in there and community oversight is in there and involving the community in all the different ways like even the way that Dave was explaining you know going out and interacting with the community is really important but I think that you know oversight and civilian oversight is something that doesn't just have to happen when there's a consent decree like in Detroit or something and we're certainly not Detroit but I think that citizen oversight hasn't really happened in Burlington or the state of Vermont not in the way that it could or to the level that it could but I but I can say that we're moving in that direction and I've sort of I sort of adopted a little thing and kind of you know had the okay it wasn't official or anything but I was doing something called a facilitated complaint process out of the CJC so as a commissioner I can receive complaints and people submitted complaints to me and I would bring in somebody from the Burlington Police Department and sit down with the person and just go through the complaint and talk about it that's not necessarily oversight but it's a step in that direction so I think we're moving in that direction and I just like for you know people in the city of Burlington and in the whole state of Vermont to not think of you know civilian oversight as a dirty word because there's a lot that can come out of it and in the processes that I've used you know people that have complaints a lot of times don't even necessarily understand their rights or responsibilities when they're interacting with police so it's been an opportunity to educate people and to you know sometimes even just help them a lot of times the people that the police departments are interacting with are people that have a lot of other needs or are marginalized or have a lot of other issues going on frankly and if we can figure out a way to you know while the police department can't be like human service workers we can connect them with services and help and through something like a facilitated complaint process or even real legit oversight there are positive outcomes it's not just about catching the police doing something wrong about coming together as a community and figuring out how we can all be safe and be protected equally. Thank you so much. Councillor Chang you have the floor next and just a reminder everyone the mics don't seem to be working great so make sure to everybody pull the mics in close. One two one two one two you hear me yes thank you president before I start I wanted to really say thank you so much Longmore and also Sharon Hart for your service this is amazing for the great work you do and I also want to you know just for us to think about also the two police officers that were killed on Saturday at Westerfield in Ohio during that line of duty and I believe that in Burlington it is very important for us to keep on selling our city because of the safety we have here. That's very important. I am just very impressed by your work in collecting data. The data collection at the city department police department is amazing and I think you need to keep on doing just that that's amazing but looking at the data I looked into the mental health calls that you receive and I was just wondering if it's the same people you know that you receive the call from or it's just it is just an increased challenge that we need to pay attention to. I think it might actually be both and I do think it's sort of a question that's probably better answered by you know senior leadership in the police department but I do think that there is a high number of calls that end up being classified as mental health calls and I think one of the things that one of the responses has been to try to work closely with a group of people that includes like Nami and I said no Nile Ward I'm sorry and some other people as a matter of fact they're even connected with Jim Letty and they have a project that they presented called the ride along project. And I think we're making some progress with that. I mean it was a little bit slow at first but so I guess my answer to your question is that yes there are a lot of mental health calls and it's something that is getting attention and people are trying to figure out ways to help officers be more equipped to deal with those kind of calls. The other thing that I would say to along the lines of just wellness and mental health is that something that has come up for me just in the process of learning about police work and getting to know police better is really a concern about officer wellness and I think that it's something that a lot of times it just it falls by the wayside and so it's something that I try to even remind myself about that we want that to be a priority and that and we're really concerned about officer wellness and I just you know I'd like I'd like us to make that more of a priority because I think when a police officer abuses his or her power something's going on and they're not well and there might have been something that could have happened before they got to that point so along the lines of mental health on every side we really need to be holding officer wellness as a priority. I have a couple of other questions but I'm just going to ask this one maybe before the second round and also one of them during in the data collection we saw also increase around calls for drug cell and was just wondering if when we talk about drugs marijuana is not included into it. Is that is that accurate or just recently I think I mean I don't know the I don't know the exact details of that she means a lawyer she well in terms of the data collection I would assume that any illegal drug was included in that data but we can follow up and and that's a great question that we can clarify for you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you councillor Jane councillor Moore you have the floor. Thank you acting president right I apologize that I'm late I'm I'm that council member that has a class that goes until seven so I'm pretty much always late these days and and I apologize that I haven't been to any commission meetings for quite a while same reason so two things I really want to thank you commend you for the facilitated conversations you're having I mean it seems at this point it's kind of like an anecdotal story but it also sounds like it's something that's very Burlington and very Vermont because we are such a small community and we do yeah we do we do want to build those connections and we want to think about the wellness of everyone so I really appreciate that you're doing that and I also want to commend the use of force presentations that I went to quite a while back because they were so intense the one that I so I went to two of them one at the commission and one at the Kaleo meeting and I mean just you know we've had some trainings on racism just the intensity of a white guy from the police department he's not a police officer but he's the data guy doing the presentation to a group of people many of them people of color on use of force it's pretty intense he was willing to stop continually and ask people's questions people didn't have to hold questions to the end which I think might have been very difficult in that context he he really took his time and brought us through the data and and they were very open and explaining what we were looking at and I just really appreciated that and and it said a lot for we have working for us and that was Eric Fowler and unfortunately he's working for the NYPD now I think they scooped him up but he I agree with you 100% he did an amazing job and he really had his feet to the fire that day and he handled it really well he even did some follow-up afterwards because there were some really significant questions and so yeah I mean I think that that's something that even though sometimes it those are they they can produce difficult moments it's it's really important that we continue to do that it was really kind of amazing to see it made me really proud of us right thanks for being there too thank you counselor more and no apologies needed but thank you other questions from the council for the police commission all right thank you very much and again commissioners Longmore and Hart we appreciate your service on the police commission and with that we will hearing no objection will waive the reading accept the report and place that on file and we are a few minutes late so we will move right into item number four the public forum for tonight so we have just a few people lined up to speak but if anybody else in the audience wants to speak that hasn't turned in a sheet they're over here in the corner just fill it out and bring it over to the city clerk's office in the corner over here so we'll open the public forum up tonight with Sandy win to be followed by Mary Ann Ward you have three minutes and I think most of you know but there's a light system that you follow and we got some goodies coming from when which we always appreciate right and just yellow light goes off your time is winding down the red light goes off your time's up you know the drill good evening miss when thank you for coming welcome good evening I know you're all expecting my season a little mini lecture on why you should buy fair trade chocolates be patient that'll come first a couple of notes I want you to know that free trade is not free that is a myth and fair trade traditionally in the United States refers to protectionism it is used for new industries that want to grow and it creates walls to help them grow and it helps them not have to compete with other competitors fair trade is also a global term and it has a very different meaning on the global stage it refers to supply chains that are transparent and show respect for people in the environment what a novel idea so how much cheap stuff do we really need everything we buy from our clothes to our electronics to our flowers and our food and our chocolate have supply chains and oftentimes no supply chains are dirty little secrets ignorance can be bliss but I'm hoping that none of you want to be ignorant and all of you really do want to know now for the chocolate in 2019 the chocolate industry in the US will hit about 25 billion dollars in sales children forced labor and child labor child slave labor are in high demand consumers drive that demand when are we gonna say no more even our local schools have children going around the neighborhoods raising money for PTOs selling chocolate full of child labor that's not acceptable next time you go to an office and you see a bowl of chocolate and it has child labor in it say something I do and you can too together we can make the world a better place but it starts with each one of us demanding that the products we buy are fairly traded and on that note I wish you all a happy Valentine's Day and especially to the City of Brillington a fair trade town since 2009 take care thanks thank you miss win and thank you for the treats Mary Ann Ward is up next to be followed by Kit Andrews good evening miss Ward welcome hi I'm Mary Ann Ward from Ward 7 and I'm here to talk about my problems with Summit Street some years ago I was attending a regular Sunday meeting at Champlain College but I stopped going because the parking was a nightmare and it just wasn't worth it for me to go it's too frustrating so I stopped going the south end of Summit Street as you know is plastered with resident only parking signs and always completely free of parked cars why the signs residents on Summit Street don't have parking problems their high priced homes include driveways and garages public streets should not be for sale yet this administration and others have handed over this public street to private homeowners so so why is that could it be that because their homes are pricey they feel entitled to claim the street as their own is that why they petition the city to plaster the streets with the resident only parking signs with the support of this administration it seems to me that classism is thriving on Summit Street and it is having a negative effect impact on me I'm taking a class at UVM so I'm up there a couple of times a week it is enormously frustrating when I can't find parking on Summit Street and Summit Street is always completely empty I've learned the history of this long-standing problem from multiple sources seems it's a very hot political issue and no one dares rock the boat although many are frustrated about it I've also heard the city's lame excuses including that students are the problem and that is a safety issue among others this is one of the times that the students are not the problem and safety is nothing more than DPW's fallback excuse the obvious truth to me is that Summit Street residents DPW and the mayor who has the final authority are the problem I'm asking you to please solve this problem because I too deserve to live in a livable city thank you thank you Ms. Ward Kit Andrews to follow by our final speaker Steve Goodkind good evening Ms. Andrews welcome thank you in December I said I would present my sum up of the loss of BT to the public good as I continue let me be clear about who I'm speaking for myself my three-part sum up focuses on the city council on KBTL and on the mayor I covered part one in a piece called leadership this piece is called outreach there's one proven way to fight power with limited resources go door-to-door to every residence and business at least with a leaflet and better through canvassing in all my canvassing in words three four and eight one person wasn't sure that local ownership was better than corporate everyone else whether with Comcast or BT or even with no cable or Wi-Fi wanted local ownership but about 70% of them thought it was over we'd lost already why because they believe these statements the co-op bid is not financially viable and city bank will sue us to be hard and fast facts set in concrete it's not right in my view that so many burlingtonians the vast majority of whom wanted a locally owned BT were so extremely undereducated and miseducated I believe that if the KBTL side had done two citywide leaflets and canvas perhaps one-fifth of the residences and businesses enough counselors would have been won over by their educated and impassioned constituents that KBTL would have won the vote and even overridden of veto but let me tell you something we did not do a citywide leaflet not one we lack the resources I don't know the percentage reached by our targeted leaflets and canvas but it was small okay maybe we would have lost anyway but at least we would have educated the people to the greatest extent possible given the imbalance of power it's a crying shame that so few saw this educational piece and far fewer saw this wonderful little piece KBTL is the safest choice for Burlington myth the KBTL bid is risky fact KBTL is the safest bid the residents and business owners of Burlington deserve to hear our side to know of our confidence to buy and run BT with huge increasing benefit to our people for seven generations to come thank you thank you miss Andrews Steve good kind is up next welcome mr. good kind thank you and I second most of what kid just said I think you're finishing one more chapter tonight possibly of what is really going to turn up to be one of the more misguided and ill-conceived efforts in the city by selling Burlington telecom I think we look back in the future and others will look back and just wonder what the heck was going on here well I've said it before I think I do know what's going on and I hope in March there's going to be a change I think what the problem is it's all optics and no vision and this is my treat for you tonight if anyone like one of these bumper stickers I'll give you one a little bit later but that's what we're dealing with all optics and no vision here it's got to change and enough of this crap thank you thank you mr. good kind with that we that was the last speaker we will close the public forum and wraps up item number four we'll move into item number five which is the consent agenda for this evening is there a motion Councillor roof yes I'll move to amend and adopt the consent agenda taking the actions as indicated thank you Councillor roof seconded by Councillor Busher any discussion hearing none all those in favor of approving the consent agenda as indicated please say I I any opposed that passes unanimously we have approved the consent agenda and we'll move now to the deliberative agenda item number 6.01 presentation from Ron Redman the executive director of the Church Street marketplace regarding holiday recap mr. Redman and thank you for inviting us today we appreciate this I'd like to introduce Jenny Morse who's our marketing director and has been with us for four years four years feels like it's sometimes 10 because we do we do so much work together so and pull the mics right and because right they're not they don't seem to be working well tonight so next slide just very quickly to remind everybody who we are we we are a city department we manage a business improvement district there are over a thousand of them in the United States Burlington's Church Street was one of the first in the country our charter requires that we use non taxpayer dollars so for 35 years we've funded the marketplace entirely through the fees of the 30 property owners on Church Street we're not allowed to use city tax dollars both for operations and for brick repair major capital improvements nine-member commission we have more commissioners than staff and we treat our commissioners as as our guides they are our funders and and so we work really closely with our property owners and especially with our retailers we're on a kind of first name day-to-day basis with them you can see our staff there myself Jenny Becky Cassidy who's a consultant Jim Daley who manages our maintenance program and if you have a chance if you see Jim on the street or maintenance guys stop them they really like it when if you feel like what they're doing is is great they appreciate it so next slide our goal or our mission on Church Street is really three things and it really keep it simple we we strive to make things clean safe and fun so the clean part is the maintenance no removal the safe is our community policing program working very closely with BPD also we have a great connection with our street outreach program and of course the fun is creating an experience that's what we have right now that's the one thing that we can compete against whether it's online shopping or suburban shopping is we have a really great experience and we want to keep enhancing that every day so next up Jenny you want to talk about our customers yeah so while our mission is clean safe and fun everything that we do we try to you know support the many businesses that are on Church Street this gives you a breakdown we have 71 retail stores and 25 food and beverage businesses 75% are locally owned and these photos that you see are from a campaign that we did throughout the holiday season which is kind of what we're recapping here where we really tried to put the focus on emphasizing how many local businesses there were throughout the downtown Church Street is we have a 2% vacancy rate there are only two open storefronts at the moment so to go into the holiday season we asked our our businesses to give us some feedback this was from the stores only not restaurants but it was a great holiday season 29% said great 44% said good 18% average and 9% poor so this was feedback from 35 of our retailers which we feel is a pretty good sample size to see how people were doing overall and over 50% say that that that last quarter of the year is where sales are the strongest so it's a really important time for them as well as an important time you know for the downtown so we were glad to see that it went well great so on the next slide what we've been doing for years is we track sales so at the end of each year we ask our retailers were you up down or even and we've been doing this pretty consistently since about 2005 and these are just some sort of a series of dates rather than give you all that data I want to have you look at the last three bars or last four bars you can see starting in 2014 we started to see a little bit of slip and what we saw this year was a rebound so for 2017 we saw that more retailers were up this year versus 2016 we can attribute that to a number of things the weather in 2016 was tough we've also done a lot more work in terms of focusing our social media focusing our marketing programs and working closer with with our retailers so we were happy to see this number it was really really heartening during the holiday season we put a lot of emphasis on events that are free for the community we put on the annual Santa parade and the tree lighting show on Black Friday which brings thousands of people's downtown we have reindeer horse rides and you know a number of other events that we invite the community to lots of family oriented things to do during the holidays in terms of promotion this year we really saw a shift in where we put our advertising we did almost everything online through social media and a couple of other outlets we saw just a great response through those channels and this is a breakdown of impressions of you know number of of eyes number of times it was viewed so this is breaking down our social media platforms through our website email marketing and through Vermont Public Radio just want to make a quick note that our downtown is is beloved and we say this because when we look at our social media numbers versus of cities that sometimes are two three four ten times larger than we are on a per capita basis our numbers are very strong and our number one audience our number one customer is always a Burlingtonian and that's in that way it can be that way anytime of the year anybody we survey people on the street majority people in the street will be from the largest section of people will be from Burlington but we we do take this very seriously and I think that our social media is you can talk a little bit about this it's amazing what yeah we you know put as you have seen probably through the presentation I like to tell stories through photos and we we tried to always you know pictures worth a thousand words so we tell our story through photos it's showing the experience that you'll find on Church Street and so we were happy to see this was just one month of numbers which is it's pretty incredible so with the park mobile app that we have entered the city has introduced we had an opportunity to use it this year as a promotional tool and yes we partnered with DPW and the Burlington Business Association to do this the first park mobile promotion that we've done in the city we offered $3 off your parking session if you use the park mobile app and there was a series of codes the promo codes you would enter and it resulted in a 20% increase in new years there's new users of the app which was really exciting and it was very well received by both businesses on Church Street throughout the downtown as well as just Burlingtonians using the app we were able to gain some information that's on the next slide about where people were coming from based on the app and this had been provided by DPW that we included here tonight to show you about who who was visiting our city through throughout the holiday season that was using the app so why is this important why are we showing you this we have been doing this kind of work for probably a decade we've been capturing emails and postal codes and we want to know who's coming here and when are they coming here and so this data helps us determine that what you want is a healthy mix of locals and Vermonters and tourists you never want to have too many tourists you never want to have too many locals you know you sort of want to have a nice mix and I'm knocking on wood that we're in good shape it's always interesting to see these and it does shift from season to season but it stays about in this in this range again looking at Burlington being our most important audience so the next one is which was it was also consistent throughout this other promotion we did shop Burlington where if you made a purchase at a local store you were entered to rent to win a prize full of gift certificates from local stores and throughout that we were able to collect zip codes of shoppers which we also saw was mostly Burlingtonians and so the next slide we wanted to look also at the marketplace parking garage we know that that's during the holidays there was we all had concerns with the mall going through transition with construction starting with the garage at the mall being maybe a point of confusion for some people not sure if there was open or it was closed so we wanted to look at the data for December for the marketplace parking garage that is the most used garage in the city and probably one of the most highest used in New England or certainly in our region and what was heartening about this is that we saw an increase in the use of the garage that's a really good sign we were surprised at this number it was very very heartening again so the last couple of slides we want to talk a little bit about the the safe part of that safe clean and fun we have seen a real increase thank you this is a great great slide this slide shows three different indicators basically one is quality of life that's the green line the second line is property crime and the third line is violent crime now this is for D area this is for the downtown district and we we have been charting this data for many years this chart shows you 2012 to 2017 now the implementation of foot patrols we know has really helped both North Street and Church Street to very busy avenues and if you look at 2015 when foot patrols were really start to started to come on strong this is the calls for service for quality of life issues and this is things like you know we're familiar with you know disorderly conduct and etc it's really really good to see this drop look where we were at 2015 and where we are 2017 of course the property crime has remained pretty flat as has violent crime also very good signs so good information I want to thank you for funding providing additional funding for the police department your leadership has really made a difference and I think the police department are certainly good partners of ours and we work very closely together so and that's our presentation all right great thank you questions from the council council Busher so thank you there were some additional slides tonight well are those loaded up into board docs now will they be yes so I had a question so when you looked at overall sales compared to prior years where did that information come from did that come from were merchants solicited to offer that and were the numbers consistent each year or is there's is there a variable here is the denominator the same all the time or not it's always our it's always our retailers only and we asked them to tell us in January were they up down or even for the previous year how many real retailers respond to this about 54% 50 I think about 50% 50% tellers usually okay so it does vary then the number of so that so I guess you know I took statistics you know once and so I'm just trying to figure out if if we are really looking at the same numbers or if there's a variable here and what I'm hearing is there is a little bit of a variable there still is a message that I'm not trying to diminish the message but I'm trying to understand if this was always a constant number of people responding or whether there was a variable and I'm hearing there is a variable yes the number of people that respond do you believe that the businesses that that don't do well respond to these yes okay okay and I was happy when you you made a comment saying that you know most of of who shops here are Burlingtonians and yet and that was good for sustainability but it yet it yet it concerned me so when you showed the pie charts which showed that yes there's a chunk of Burlingtonians that we can depend on there really are an equal amount of people from surrounding communities and then other sections of the pie that are from elsewhere so because I would think we would if it was only us supporting us we're missing something but that's not really we would be in trouble yeah that's not really the case so okay thank you very much thank you thank you councillor busher other questions from the council councillor Jang thank you acting president round if you don't mind telling us how long you've been working for just two you know four years 19 years 19 wow so what are now your hopes and dreams I think you know you made so much great accomplishments and what are the hopes and dream for the church street marketplace what are you looking forward to thank you thank you for asking that I think for us where our future lies is in a unified downtown as as we looked at this year we were concerned that we wouldn't have enough offerings for our consumer out there we're very competitive we we know we're competing with suburban shopping areas so what we decided to do is we added all the other merchants on the side streets in the rest of the downtown so rather than just presenting church tree merchants we presented the whole cadre of retailers throughout the downtown and the idea was that we want the consumer to stand there's a lot here there's a lot here for them and I think as we look forward we look at online shopping we look at that at that affecting our sales we feel that that having a unified downtown with more oxygen more things to talk about can only make us stronger we're also very grateful that when we can bring more downtown workers to our downtown and more downtown residents those two things can can be tremendous for keeping your downtown vital especially as we look at online shopping we we continue to offer a very high quality experience as long as we can keep things safe clean and fun and we're confident but we're also not going to rest on our laurels and we're going to keep working hard so there's other thoughts any other wisdom from sounds good okay thank you councilor jane I appreciate that councilor thank you councilor jane councilor tracy thank you president acting president right and thank you for your presentation one of the things that you know we hear about in terms of church street at least from you so my constituents is the issue of affordability on church street seeing a lot of high end specialty retail basically feeling like they're priced out of church street and also that's that high end specialty retail doesn't meet a lot of basic needs things like hardware it's been a conversation that's gone on for a long time are there things that other cities and other municipalities have done to really attract those kinds of businesses or do you not see that necessarily as your role like I guess I'm just really wondering how we get church street to be more affordable and accessible to people across the economic spectrum because this is really everybody's street and I think that everybody should be able to afford a shop there we're looking for ways that we can control it with our fees how can we make the cost of being a merchant on church street more sustainable and the fees are high and how how can we how can we do that that's one of the biggest challenges we have we have worked with some stores for example a hardware store has shown great interest in coming to our downtown and locating on a side street you know so we are sensitive to that we we want the downtown to be to have a broad range of services and again it's just that it's the affordability what happens it's a very popular successful downtown with property values that are high and so you know we have to kind of do that do that dance but we're we're with you you know we we would like to have more services and it is challenging all right thank you thank you councillor tracy other questions from the council councillor dean thank you acting president right just a question around you know there have been a lot of changes in terms of the way we pay for parking downtown including the new park park mobile app have were there any comments that came back to you about it be more difficult or easier to park downtown during the holiday season and how that affected customers and clients who are coming to to access downtown businesses and restaurants I think that through you know use of the app as that continues to grow and people get more comfortable using the app and as people get more comfortable talking about using the app that enhances the experience and makes it easier for people I didn't I you know anecdotally I haven't heard whether it was easier or harder to park downtown we do you know here angst about the closing of the Burlington Town Center garage which is why we were happy to see that usage of the marketplace garage was higher we will continue to try and push people towards Lake View and the College Street garage it is something that we're always trying to incorporate into the conversation when we can we are partnering with DPW and BBA again this week to do Valentine's promotion promo code love all week long so to come down for Valentine's Day so you know it's it's great to have that technology to continue to find innovative ways to talk about parking and try to make it more of a fun conversation instead of just the where am I going to park you know so and there's been a lot a lot of the private lots the small private lots around the city have been able to offer their own parking through a private firm and it is more expensive but it's it's an offering and that I think that has helped any kind of capacity that we can find again to make that experience a positive one so when somebody comes down that that parking is a big thing you know if we can help them through that thank you mr mayor thank you president right I really appreciate you coming and giving this presentation I thought the council the public would be interested to hear it to me there to the take-home messages to me from this presentation were two things that until seeing these numbers I had some concern about one I this was really the first season holiday season in which we really did not have you know more than two-thirds of the mall was no longer really part of the downtown and I certainly had some concern that would have a negative impact on the other businesses to see that 73% of the merchants report you know you know with the caveat that it is only the merchants responding to the survey but still 73% reporting good to great seasons I think does suggest that during this transition period when the mall is being transformed into this mixed-use neighborhood there's some real resilience in the downtown that should carry us through and when we get to the other side of this construction period I think there's a lot of reason to be hopeful that downtown will be stronger than ever similarly you know we've talked a lot in 2017 about public safety concerns in around church street and to see that the downtown merchants who have a very high stake in public safety being well handled that perceptions of public safety in the in the reality of public safety being in you know well then there are really few stakeholders that have as much at stake in public safety in the in the downtown as as the church street and surrounding merchants and to see that again a large majority over 70% feel that the foot patrols are are working and that they have basically positive and improving a view of public safety combined with the statistics that the calls for service are going down on those three measures is is encouraging and I think certainly as we head into budget season again and think about whether we want to be resourcing these additional foot patrols as we did in this year's budget I think it's quite validating to think that this is a strategy we should continue thank you yeah thank you mr mayor any other questions from the council if not thank you very much thank you for your time thanks for thank you for that report um with that we'll close out that item in that report and move on to item 6.02 a presentation from Noel McKay our CEDO director regarding city place Burlington progress update and efforts to support Macy's employees good evening miss mckay thank you good evening everyone um thank you for asking me here tonight I'm going to be covering um an update on kind of the progress and I focus mostly on section five of the development agreement which for which it focuses on the coordination and workforce development then also give you an update on the Macy's employees and how we're supporting them kind of during their transition so next slide um so we have been closely tracking all the commitments in the development agreement um and we'll kind of give you an update on on kind of the opportunities first for local firms um one of the section 5b talks about locally and regionally sourced materials products and services we're kind of in this early part of demolition and to date besides pc construction there's 27 local subcontractors that are in the area are providing services and another 18 local consulting firms and um Devin Wood estimates about 650 employees of those firms are working on the project and here's just a list of some of the local contractors that are working on the project and if you go to the next slide you can also see the services whether it's environmental or printing lighting design landscape architect so you can see the kind of range and that's all available on the website as well um also in the agreement is the best efforts to hire local residents um and in the development agreement the owner agrees to provide jobs for qualified and low to moderate income people and residents post notices of the job opportunities and participate in two job fairs so to date um the owner has hired pc construction which is a 60-plus year old local firm that is headquartered in bermont and is 100 percent employee-owned we have provided um pc and Devin Wood with a list of job posting places where they should we suggest that they should provide job posting listings that they might not think of out of their their normal realm so a lot of the partners that we work with we have um begun planning the first of the job fairs which will happen this spring and we've also helped um through the mayor's office facilitate builds for subcontractors to local firms so in terms of job training programs so the honor the owner is required to solicit and review proposals from community job training programs we have begun discussions with pc as the main general contractor for Devin Wood to really connect and support this effort but we heard last week that um a grant that we um put into the department of labor we received a sixty five thousand dollar grant by the department of labor that will most most of that will go to resource for job training programs um so we will be kind of working figuring out between resource and some of the other groups that do job training how best to meet the needs of pc and the project um and kind of work on those review proposals from those other areas for for Devin Wood to work on another part of it is really cooperation and coordination of the agreement and we have right now two different teams that are meeting we're touching base on a weekly basis the first is a design team so we have members of DPW um CEDO and Devin Wood's project management that are really looking at um meeting the deadlines around plans and designs for um the public improvements so we're all working together to try to make sure that we're coordinated in those efforts and we meet the timelines outlined in the development agreement we also have a communication team that includes um CEDO DPW Church Street Marketplace the Burlington Business Association and Devin Wood um we've been meeting and we touch base every week um that kind of work has included the outreach and meetings we did with local businesses um we also have done several construction updates to local businesses and on the website at the the CEDO BTV mall redevelopment process we have a construction update um section there that provides updates on major construction kind of information so at the end of the year when all the information around the the parking garage being open what was open or what wasn't all the information is there and we'll also be doing a front porch form posting soon just so everyone knows where that information is and we'll be that's where we'll be providing the updates there we're also looking at again how do we continue to coordinate we have a checklist for all of the development agreement elements outlined the city has reviewed it and it's been sent to Devin Wood and we'll sit down and go through to make sure we're all in agreement as to what we need when and just to make sure that if any changes are needed by either side we have a process to do that so we're on top of that um the encumbrance um that work has been um done which is the public right-of-way work so we're doing that um construction information that's the information so we're communicating kind of the construction updates the pre-construction survey has been done we have held the two meetings that are required in the development agreement but I think we're going to have much more many more as time goes on just to check in um a hotline has been established and we are working on how do we coordinate those services um also we um in the development agreement CEDA will be receiving two payments over two years of fifty thousand dollars um to really help businesses be resilient during construction um that fifty thousand comes when the foundation work I believe is started but we kind of got ahead of it um so we had an RFP for that work we received last week five proposals the picture on your right is the most creative of the proposals that we received um in terms of packaging we will be working with um the Burlington Association the church street marketplace to review those and have those ready um so that when when we um we're all ready to go when we get the funding we're also working together on a budget for that fifty thousand um fully so some of the other ideas have been um small grant program for local businesses to implement some of the the one-on-one that comes out of the consultant work um looking at printing for parking some of the printing for the parking and pedestrian maps that we're developing things like increased lighting and signage and pedestrian walkways for safety and also support of those job fairs um the communication team has also been working on again the communication piece um and you'll see that we put a map together um for uh pedestrian and um city parking so people know that we can park we're hoping to be able to put this in a kind of a smaller scale um so that the um local businesses can pass that out for both their employees and um their customers um we timed the upgrades to the lake view garage so that that garage was fully um up and operational when the Burlington City Market um came down um or or closed um we have moved the agreement I think is 300 parking spaces but we've accommodated 375 um leases from the from the parking garage and we worked closely with Devin Wood over the holiday to keep the former mall garage open through first night so we've been working together on that and that um that map is up on the website as well so people can access it and there's other sections of the development agreement again this is only one um we are working with all the other departments to make sure that we're coordinated and we're tracking all the different aspects um and we are just wanting to make sure that we're all in alignment regarding kind of timelines because often DPW is working on one portion CEDA is working in on another BED might be involved and so we want to make sure that we're all on the same page because this is a really um large project for the city and we want to make sure we're coordinated um so that's kind of the end for the updates on the the um most of section five for the development agreement what we've been working on um and in terms of Macy's closing you know that in January Macy's decided to close its Burlington store um it's one of about a hundred nationwide that they've closed we have been working on the mayor's office and CEDA has been working with the Department of Labor to respond um the Department of Labor did their rapid response teams on the sixth and eighth of February for employees and that really provides them assistance as to what's available for them for the department the Department of Labor and how they can access and we've also been working um on planning a local job fair on February 21st we now um I think that says 35 employers that was as of Friday but as of today we've got 49 employers signed up um and it will be from three to six at the holiday end um and we will be working to get the word out and make sure that people know um kind of when this is all right thank you for that report um questions from the council all right there are no questions you know where to reach me if you have any we do thank you director McKay for that report mr mayor did you want to I just quickly wanted to thank Noel for our hard work on uh I think it's came through the CEDA team has really been working very hard to um take on their responsibilities at the beginning of this construction period and uh and to do everything the city can to um bring some resources to bear to uh help with the Macy's employees during this difficult disruptive time in their lives so I want to thank uh Noel and her whole team absolutely thank you mr mayor with that we will move to item 6.03 and President O'Dell will be joining us on the phone for this item Councillor Mason will be is contacting here right now while we work with that this is a resolution I will be turning to Councillor Paul to move this resolution on Burlington telecom and the issue of carried interest but first I would like to say we have two memos two legal memos from our legal staff Piper memos and if there are no if there's no objection from the city council we would I I would move that I would release these publicly and put them on board docks right now and I think our our legal council is fine with that if my understanding is correct that that's right so on hearing no objections we'll we'll do that and those will be made public now and put on board docks right now and with that I will President O'Dell you're with us thank you President O'Dell we hope you are feeling better soon uh and with that I'll turn to Councillor Paul okay thank you acting can you hear me no okay sorry um so anyway as I was saying thank you acting president right um so I'd like to move the resolution wave the reading ask for the floor back after a second please motion has been moved by Councillor Paul and seconded by Councillor Hartnett Councillor Paul you have the floor great thank you very much so uh as the council will remember in late January we adopted a resolution establishing a process to address um the the issue of the city having a care the right to a carried interest in the new Burlington Telecom undershers communications ownership and at that meeting we took public input um the second phase of the resolution that we approved was to vote on whether or not to pursue a membership interest purchase agreement um with Champlain Broadband which is the name that Shers is going under um the LLC um for its work on Burlington Telecom and that we would then be requesting that the public service sorry the public utility commission um would approve such an option um the action on this resolution that we're voting on tonight is whether we want is um whether we want to explore this agreement and direct our legal council to pursue or to seek approval um from the PUC on the carried interest um the resolution doesn't obligate us to any percentage or dollar amount in the new entity that's something that we will do later this year after public input and further review which was again part of the resolution that we approved in January um and as this is the second step in the process that we agreed to in January um hope that it will receive unanimous support thank you very much thank you Councillor Paul President Odell did you want to weigh in are you with us President Odell did you want to weigh in president okay all right thanks I want to make sure I offered that to you um any other councilor who would like to weigh in on this resolution Councillor Busher I just want to say absolutely all right thank you Councillor Busher brevity that's Councillor Shannon thank you um I want to say that I am supporting this really only to foster more community discussion about this I'm I'm quite unsure that this is the right direction for Burlington to go in I think we have to consider um what other options that we have because we could invest this money in any number of things if the goal it seems that the goal of investing the money here is maybe to make more money though that's not completely clear that that's a good way to do that um also to have a voice at the table with a um board seat but the decision making capacity of that board is not completely clear um so as we move forward and we'll have a lot of time to decide what we really want to do with this I hope that we'll also be thinking about the other options um where we might invest these funds the community certainly has a lot of needs um we have talked you know endlessly about our housing needs in this community um there are programs that have been cut because every year the federal government um gives us less grant money it seems than the year before there's many programs we've done historically that we stopped doing because we didn't have the money to do it and I don't think that we should just assume that we're going to reinvest the money in this venture and that that's necessarily beneficial or to kid ourselves that this somehow means that we still own our telecom because it does not so those those are my thoughts and I just wanted to I will support this so that that can discussion can continue um but I don't want it to be indicative of future support necessarily thank you thank you councillor shannon councillor hartnett I just want to follow up with councillor shannon's comment about we all have plenty of time because someone kind of lay out the timeline and one this is to me because I'm a little confused I've heard two different timelines and city attorney blackwood or excuse me yes the right now what we our next step is to file a petition with the public utility commission for approval of the sale and why we're asking you to give us the direction to move forward is because we're going to include in that a request for the public utility commission to approve the city having a care carried interest in burlington telecom so so that's the immediate issue right before you sorry I'm getting a correction that it's to approve the agreement that allows that to to occur and basically says that we can do that um so that's really that's really what we're looking at right now and then once um we file that petition the public utility commission will take a period of time and do a process and end up with issuing a certificate of public good and after that certificate of public good is issued we will do a closing of the sale with with shores with champlain broadband and um from the time of that closing we have one year to decide whether or not we are going to invest uh in the new champlain broadband and that's given the fact that public public service board says it's okay for us to do so right I mean there is a possibility from what I'm hearing is that they might say sorry city of Burlington we are not going to give you that opportunity they may not approve that that portion of the application I think that's a possibility I also think it's a possibility that they're going to put off their decision on that until we have a firm commitment on what we're asking for specifically sure so I think we're it's a little unknown what we're going to get from the public utility commission if we knew for example that that there was no interest at the city council level to support going forward with carried interest we we would tell the public utility commission that now and have that not be part of the equation well I think for me personally I think it's important that we do have a carried interest yeah is would it be prudent to uh go to the public service board with a number of what we'd like that to be would that would that enhance our chances more I think clarity on the position would be beneficial as soon as we have it yes but it it doesn't appear that we will know that in time for our application for the CPG okay thanks thank you Councillor Hartnett uh Councillor Mason well thank you acting president right um I will somewhat echo the comments of Councillor Shannon I appreciate or you know understand the purpose of during this is really twofold um for the governance piece but I think we have to be mindful that you know we are one board member if we elect the seven and a half percent of a seven member board so it's not as if we will have really you know we'll be in the room but we won't have you know much power of persuasion um on the board and certainly as a very minority member of an LLC we will have you know little to no say um as a member the second piece is because of the potential financial return and I think as we've discussed ad nauseam you know the the business plan is not for any distributions um to be made nor is it to sell this entity so from a financial return this this could be who knows if there ever will be a return so I'm I'm looking forward as we have this conversation which I hope we would have a discussion of if we not roll over the five million you know what uses will we put those dollars to to me that's a piece that I'd like to know before making this decision and the second um I'd like to see the terms of the operating agreement you know we're sort of operating a little bit in a vacuum in terms of what exactly the rights and privileges of our five percent or whatever the percent is excuse me the 16 percent um will be so that's a piece that I'd also like to see before we make this affirmative decision as to roll it over um and I also think you know this will afford us an opportunity to engage the public because I I have heard you know certainly from those who supported the co-op um a strong desire to roll over but I think that's been a discussion that has been lacking in specificity specificity up to this point um so I think it's incumbent on all of us to sort of bring the public a little bit more up to speed in terms of what you know what we're rolling over what that looks like um and what the potential is um with that investment thank you so I I should say I will be supporting this because as I understand this in the absence of doing this we can't roll over and I don't I'm not prepared I'm not there yet but I'd like to have a longer discussion and by voting yes I think I'm we're enabling that conversation to be had thank you thank you councillor mason I think that's right and I think councillor paul made that clear in her introductory remarks um and that's agreed to by its attorneys right that we we need to take this this action in order to have any possibility of having a carried interest correct thank you um other questions by councillor busher may I may I have a second shot at yes you may thank you so when um when I hear people say that um that a carried interest will yield no financial gain does beg the question why would anybody want any part of a share in burlington telecom if there was no financial gain and I understand in the short term there wouldn't be but in the long term when people project that this entity will be a hundred million dollars um that money isn't all going to go back into reinvesting in it there will be some profit sharing from this investment and so to me I think that there is there will be some benefit how we use that money also is something that I think is is what what restrictions on the use of that money if if there is some money coming back to the community is really important for us to understand too um so I'm trying to figure this all out when we say a shared why are you shaking your head because I think I'm missing I'm missing the the point of all of this um I keep thinking there will be no financial gain that does not really make sense to me and and so I understand in the short term there's a reinvestment in in the in the entity but in the long term so any kind of investment you don't look at short term gains you have to look over the long term at least that's what I've always been advised so when you're giving us information back I would really like to understand that better response from our attorneys I think that there's just not a set amount there's not a we can't say with any certainty what the what that will look like at the moment and we do know that the short term plan as has been discussed is that the money is going to be reinvested back into the business I don't think it's that people aren't saying there wouldn't be value or that there couldn't be a distribution in the future I think it's that we we don't have control over that distribution the timing of that distribution and when it will occur thank you thank you councillor busher I knew we were not getting away with one word response from councillor busher um councillor haranett yeah I just want to I think be mindful the fact that you know to think that we wouldn't benefit long term finance I hope we do and it's not like if we don't then we have a five million dollar windfall right I think we better remember where the 17 million dollars came from and I hear councillor shannon talk about the great needs that we have in this city and I can appreciate that but there's also a need to return some of this money to the taxpayers and so it's not like this is money that uh you know oh now we've gotten in and we can go out and spend it wherever we want I I would like to see if we did recoup five million and possibly even more than five million or close to 17 million dollars that we might see a little reduction in our taxes here in the city overall to be honest with you before we start spending this money because I think our first obligation is to the taxpayers of Burlington so I would hope that would also always be on the table and for me uh reinvesting uh is that's probably my number one reason and why I talk to the people in the new north end and why I chose to go this route and I I think we owe it to the taxpayers of Burlington to get as much money as we can get back for them and so I hope we always keep that front and center thanks thank you councillor hearton that mr mayor and then councillor shannon thank you councillor right person right um I just I did want to share my my views on this I appreciate the concerns raised by councillors mason and shannon and and I think those are um real uh concerns that um I think it's a good thing that we have an extended period of time to sort through those you know to weigh those considerations and others in the months ahead um I definitely strongly support us taking this step tonight of uh indicating uh approving this motion of giving an indication to the attorneys that um we are likely to want a carried interest I think this is a right that we worked hard to secure through the negotiation period and it would be you know pretty much you know it would be a mistake I think to um at this point surrender that if somehow an argument emerges that the council does not want to move forward with a carried interest in the future we've had assurances that you know that could be a a decision made at a future date my own personal feeling at this point is that we are very likely I'm very likely to support at least the seven and a half percent carried interest to get us a seat on the board that that too being an important um uh right that we negotiated for in in the agreement and one that I I don't I don't fully at this point share the view that will be uh I think that'll be an important seat I think will be one where um the city may actually find over time that has an outsized uh uh voice at that table even if the percentage of worship is relatively low I think I think the future Brawlington telecom directors will be um reluctant to take a position contrary to the city's position even if they have a large city ownership so I think this is a very meaningful right that we've negotiated to secure and we um uh it will ease the transition from BT what it's been in its history up until now into this new entity and uh while I certainly agree that you know I think we should be clear-eyed that there is no um predictability of what the return will be by becoming you know an owner in a private concern um I certainly um at this point in our deliberations over this feel that it's likely to be quite a a safe investment that if it is approved by the regulators is is likely over time to secure some kind of return you know significant meaningful return to the people of Brawington my understanding what what we were uh councilor busher kind of shaking our heads about is I the money that will flow back in the form of future dividends will not be restricted in monies it will be quite flexible money which will be um I think uh you know something that future councils will uh and you know administrations will appreciate so um I think to go beyond seven and a half percent of investment is I think is another important debate and I'm not there yet uh that we want to maximize we may I think we likely do want to reserve some of the net sales proceeds to address some of the cash needs like the pension liability that will be coming out of this so I think there's a lot quite a bit of debate to have in the future I don't think we have to have that all tonight I do strongly support us taking the step of indicating we um would like that carried interest uh coming out of tonight's uh meeting thanks thank you for that guidance mr mayor councilor shannon um thank you I I just wanted to clarify that um actually returning the money to taxpayers was on my mind when I made my statement and I failed to say it but I do think that that that's a fair consideration as well and that we can't assume that an investment in a competitive risky um business entity is necessarily going to yield more money to the taxpayers um but I I uh yes I don't want to uh exclude the taxpayers from this benefit certainly councilor hartnett was reading your mind councilor shannon um anyone else ha ha ha ha ha always is any any other councilor hearing none um all those oh i'm sorry councilor mason councilor nodell asked me to dial her back in okay so bear with she she wants to weigh in she she i'm sorry she was having problems or wants to vote yes she would um bear with me one suck okay president o'dell you're with us Yes. Okay. Um, seeing no more comments or questions from the council, all those in favor of approving this resolution, please say aye. Any opposed? That resolution passes. Oh, I'm sorry. I missed. Councilor Jang, you, you're voting no. Is that correct? So you're turning black, but we have to do a roll call if there's one. Okay. So with that, we will ask the clerk's office to call the roll. Councillor Hartnett. Yes. Councillor Nodell. President Nodell. Thank you. Councilor. We got you. Councilor Dean. Aye. Councilor Shannon. Councilor Bushor. Yes. Councilor Tracy. Yes. Councilor Moore. Yes. Acting city council president right. Yes. Councilor Mason. Yes. Councilor Paul. Yes. Councilor Jing. No. Councilor Ruth. Yes. 11 ayes. One nay. That resolution passes by a vote of 11 to one. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. And that concludes that item 6.3 and we will move on to item number seven, which is committee reports. Any committee chair would like to give us a report. Councilor Dean. Yes. The local control subcommittee meeting and licensed committee will be held here at City Hall tomorrow afternoon at 4.45. Thank you, Chair Mendean. Other chairs, Councilor Tracy. Next license committee meeting will be on February 27th at 5.30 down at DPW. Thank you. No. Sorry. Two. Sorry. Apologize. Thank you for that correction. We got you. Okay. Thank you, Councillor Tracy. Other chairs who wish to give us a report. All right. Seeing none, we'll close that item out and move on to item number eight, city councillors on general city affairs. Councillor Paul. And then Tracy. Thanks for acting president. Right. Just wanted to explain there was an item that was supposed to be on tonight's agenda that we actually did not amend the agenda to include. And that is the resolution honoring Tony Palmerlow. As we all know, we all mourn the lot, the passing of Tony Palmerlow this couple of days ago. The family could not be here this evening. They have a private event this evening before the funeral tomorrow. And so because of that, we wanted to make sure that the family could be here and we will do the resolution at our next council meeting, even though it's in March or actually in actually February, if we have our meeting next week. But we will we will do it at the next meeting. Hopefully at that time, the family can be here to join us in honoring his memory and all that he gave to Burlington. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor Paul. Councillor Tracy. Thank you, acting president. Right. I just wanted to speak to some pretty scary stuff that's been happening in Burlington and also just thank the administration for the strong statement against the white supremacists that have been unfortunately continuing to show their presence in Burlington. While it is with greater frequency, I don't think that we should ever condone this and ever really normalize this. This is not normal. This shouldn't be happening in our community. And I want to pledge myself to working with the administration and other councillors to have any sort of response. I think we need to absolutely have a united front on this to say that these folks are not welcome in our community. And not only that, but I think we're really good at responding to this, both on the political level and as a community. But I think we can't let this distract from some of our other work that's really more positive or more proactive work. We react well. I think we need to do a better job of continuing to really do the proactive stuff that we need to dismantle structural racism and white supremacy in our community. So I just want to state that commitment and just thank the administration for their strong statement against those those folks who showed up on Saturday. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor Tracy. Councillor Jang is up next. Yeah, so I wanted to raise one just for us to remember, take the time to remember George Kutryard. Kutryard, that passed. He had we had the funeral on Friday at the UU church and George was a long time working person for the city. He worked for so long for your state marketplace and then for DPW. And then he, I mean, struggled a lot with an illness that really struck him and also tracks his family. And now we believe that he found peace. I'm just glad that at the funeral, there was so many public people working at DPW that showed up and that also made strong statement about his contribution to the greatness of the city. Thank you, DPW for showing up and showing up strongly. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Jang. Councilor Mason, just briefly. Thank you acting president right on our consent agenda in case anyone didn't see it was a proposed ordinance change relating to suspension of the certificate of compliance landlord tenant issues, given that it's been such a topic of discussion on the council. I just wanted to bring it to everyone's attention and advise you to reach out to a member of the ordinance committee with any comments in advance. We do not have our next scheduled hearing, but I expect we'll take it up in the near future. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Mason, other councillors. Councillor Bush here. Thank you. So I wanted to just pick up where Councillor Tracy left off about affordability downtown. Panera leaving downtown, I think is a really big loss also because they were an affordable, healthy option for food, not fast food, but really decent food. So I think that I really worry about what Church Street might look like in the future and I am concerned about about certain losses that we've had so far and Macy's the loss of a department store, even though a number of people don't people shop online, even though the most probably less electronic person on the council. I shop online all the time, too, but I like to go down to stores. And I think that if Macy's leaves, then we have no department store, which I think is really an issue. The last thing I wanted to mention was last Tuesday on February 6th, there was a meeting in Ward One that was regional planning talking about the Winooski Bridge and the replacement of that bridge. And I went to that meeting and the options were incredibly insightful. There will still be four lanes, but they mentioned this proposal, which I just can't wait. It's called a slide and they build a bridge beside the bridge and then they demolish the bridge and then they slide the new bridge in place right over where the old bridge was. And if indeed that proposal and don't don't hold your breath, because this is probably 10 years out, but if that proposal moves forward, the community will get involved and it will be educational. And I hope I'm alive to see this because I want to watch this happen. So there's a lot to be, I don't know. But anyways, but but it's just, you know, the way money trickles down, you know, it's probably going to be 20, 30 years out. But anyways, it's a great option because that bridge is so important. I mean, it will sever us from every place else. If we didn't have that link to other communities. So I just wanted to report briefly. I could go on forever, but all of you want to leave, so I won't. So anyways, that's it. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilor Buscher. We were rooting for you to make it. You're looking pretty good, Councilor Buscher. Other city councilors who wished to weigh in. OK, with that, we will close that item out. And item number nine is City Council President Update. President O'Dell, of course, we wish her hope she's feeling better, wish her well. And Councillor Paul alluded a few minutes ago to the fact that the February 20th meeting potentially may not happen. We don't know that. I know President O'Dell is working on that and we'll find out in the next days here. But I'll just say that three weeks from tomorrow is Election Day, Town Meeting Day, March 6th. And we urge everybody to please come out and vote. Whatever ward you live in. Let's have this be a record turnout in the city, however you're voting, whoever you're voting for, whatever issue. We have a mayor's race. We have city council races. We have a school budget and we have advisory questions on the ballot. And there are a lot of reasons to come out and vote. So let's let's make this a great election and a great turnout. With that, I will turn it over to Mayor Weinberger. Thank you, President Wright. Much the same thing was on my mind that Election Day is three weeks from tomorrow. But early voting begins sooner. It will begin by this Wednesday. The ballots will be here and anyone who wants to vote during when City Hall is open can do so. Also, this time for the second time on Town Meeting Day, first time during mayoral election, there will be same day voter registration. And it is something that our Clerk Treasurer's Office has worked hard to accommodate. And the last thing I want to mention, President Wright, is just something that happened since the last time the council met. The council took action last time to approve the agreements with Champlain College and the University of Vermont and the approval of a ballot item. And it will be ballot item number three regarding this institutional bond that will have UVM and Champlain College taking responsibility for $6 million of bonding that we will have available to us as a city to invest in the infrastructure plan. And after the council vote, UVM's Board of Trustees did approve the agreements as well. And these agreements have been executed pending voter approval. And while we, it is something that I hope the council will be active in making people aware of and educating the voters on in the weeks ahead. And I think this is an important opportunity for the city to move forward on its infrastructure goals. And just final point, it is unclear. I have talked with President O'Dell about the meeting next week. And we've agreed that unless there are time sensitive issues that need to be addressed on the 20th, it may be possible that meeting may not take place. The uncertainty, of course, is we do not have another scheduled council meeting until March 12th. So we'll be monitoring whether there's anything that requires action in advance of that. But it is possible there will be no council meeting next Tuesday. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And glad to hear that you are interested in that town meeting day election coming up in three weeks. With that, I'll take a motion to adjourn. Moved by Councilor Hartnett and seconded by Councilor Roof. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We are adjourned. Thank you.