 The meeting today is May 30th, 2023. Thank you for joining us for in the busher conference for those of us who are online for the special giving of the bonus to the council. The time is five oh seven. We'll begin our agenda this evening with item one, which is a motion to adopt the agenda. Is there a motion to adopt the agenda? I move. I thank you, Councillor Berthman, seconded by Councillor Carpenter. Is there any discussion on that motion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion to accept the budget. Would Dr. Agenda please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Moos, please say no. We have an agenda and I'll note that Councillors Hightower, Jiang, Grant and Shannon are all joining us via Zoom. Thanks so much for being here. We'll go to our next agenda item, which is item 2.01, the public forum. Normally we conduct public forum as we all know with a process of submitting forms either in person or online. And as this is a limited agenda and probably a limited public forum, there doesn't appear to be anyone in the Bush or conference room who's a member of the public. However, there may be people online. If there are people that are online joining us via Zoom and you wish to be recognized, we'll give you a second here to just simply raise your hand and then we'll call on you. So if there are any community members who wish to address the council public forum, now would be that you can just use the raised hand function. Once, going twice, we will close the public forum at 5.09 and move on to our deliberative agenda. The third item on our agenda is 3.01, which is Mellie et al versus the city of Burlington et al. The purpose of this agenda item is to vote on a settlement that has been reached between the parties for a brief update and just to give us an understanding of globally what we're voting on and then what the process is going forward. I'll turn to the Assistant City Attorney Chair, Colorin. Good afternoon, Councilors. As we have been discussing, there is a tentative settlement agreement here between the city and the Mellies. And for the reason that it is tentative, we advise that the contents of the settlement agreement remain confidential at this time because they are not final until the point that both parties have signed that tentative agreement that had been presented to the court and the court considers the stipulated settlement agreement. And if they accept it, at which time that would finalize the litigation. And still such time as it's finalized by the court, things could hypothetically change. We don't expect that to be the case, but they are sensitive. And so at this point we still would counsel you all to keep those terms of the stipulated agreement confidential and at which point they do become finalized, we can then release it to the public. It's also an exemption under the Public Records Act. You all are familiar with that, I think. And if someone from the public was to seek the tentative negotiated agreement at this point, it would be subject to an exemption of the Public Record Act because again, it isn't finalized by the court. And until that happens, we can't release it, but at which point it does become finalized, we will then be able to provide the public with a copy of the finalized agreement, which we intend to do. And I know that's the city's attention as well. So just wanted to let you all know that and see if there were any questions. Yes, thanks for that brief update. And certainly before we would go to a vote on this tentative settlement, if there are any questions from the council, now would be the time. And I'll also look on the screen in front of me, if there are any counselors who have any questions. I have one brief one, which is given the kind of nature of this given that there is going to probably be some further communications that we'll be making to the public. I would ask that the administration keep the council, in particular, a prize of everything that's going on very, very closely and also to the extent to which we can be able to be involved in any statements or communications that are being crafted, that we be involved in that. So that is a request that I am making because I think that it would be most appropriate if we are. Thank you, Council Bergman. We'll certainly keep the council a praise each step of the way as this works towards foundation. I will say as we discussed it, I will share this one element of the executive session, the agreement specifically calls for a statement worked out between the Mellie brothers and the mayor. So I think that's going to, I'm not sure it's going to be a lot of opportunity for consultation there, but I understand the interest. Thank you for noting that. And I do think it would be written to advise them and for us to be in, to the extent possible to be involved and I have a hard time seeing how that could not be possible, but we never know. So I appreciate a certain amount of flex on that, but really hope that we can do everything we can to make that happen. I hear you're saying Council Bergman. Thank you, I understand. Thanks so much, Council Bergman. Are there any other questions that we could go on motion? Okay, then C89 will go on motion and I will ask Council Bergman to make that motion. So I would be that time. I would move the acceptance of the tentative agreement pending further action by the court and that is in light of our conversations and executive session. Do not need the floor back. Turning color in, is that a close-knit approximation of the written out response? We can just have it authorized the mayor to sign the tentative settlement agreement that would be appreciated. Yes, and would Mayor, let me read it directly to move to approve and authorize the mayor in conjunction with the city attorney's office to enter into a stipulated settlement agreement in a pending matter captioned belly at all versus the city of Burlington, Vermont at all. Thank you so much, Council Bergman. I just need a second motion. Seconded by Council Permanentary. Is there any further discussion on this meeting? Nunn will go to a vote. All those in favor, are you okay with that, by the way, with a long roll welcome? Is that it? All those in favor of the motion, if you could just say aye, please. And are there any opposed? So that motion passes and that motion passes unanimously. I am looking around to make sure that there are two, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, which means, oh, and we have one absent. That is Councilor Schreiber's. Thank you, thanks very much. So we will move on to the last item on agenda before we adjourn, which is item 4.01, on a communication regarding city place. And I did see senior director, Brian Pine, consultant David White, and Tim Samson, who is right behind me. Sorry, I apologize for here for this update. As this is a discussion regarding a contractual matter, there is an expected executive session. Before we go into the motions for executive session, we normally go to either the administration, city attorney, CAO. If you have any update that you can provide for the community in open session. Sure, I'm happy to be President Paul. This is an executive session, another executive session we've had many years about seeing place. The reason for this executive session is we want to update the council on where the project stands and with respect particularly to upcoming actions that the city is going to be taking. One of these actions you've already approved, which is we do intend to borrow $18.8 million for TIF investment later in the month of June. We, as we talked about last November, when the council approved development agreement so that the local partners could move forward and start putting concrete in the ground. Sorry. I think he got here after. Did he vote on that? He was a president. He got here right after. This isn't curly and I apologize for interrupting you. Please go ahead. So, councillors who are here, which I know is not everyone, will remember back in November when you approved the latest ARTA 2.0, our attorney, Tim Sampson, who you hear from tonight, said publicly and privately that it was likely that future amendments were going to be necessary and it's now been about eight or so months since that vote the project has evolved and there are some updates to it that we think should be reflected in the ARTA agreement and we think that should be done in advance of the bonding or the debt being incurred in later June. So no votes is anticipated tonight. What we are anticipating doing executive session is laying out the changes that are going to be necessary in the ARTA for the council and then we would come back and we take your input on that. Excuse me, come back and have a public vote on an updated agreement likely next Monday on that month. So that I think is my best summary of the plan. Great, thank you so much and again, my apologies, but I'm going to find myself out of work. I don't like my apologies. I thought there was a chance that I may have miscounted on the last item. So with that, thank you so much. With that, I'll go to Councilor Carpenter if you could please make a motion, the first motion regarding the executive secretary. I would move that the council find that premature general knowledge of the information concerning contract negotiations and attorney plant communications regarding city place, clearly place the city as standard as managed with such negotiations. Thank you, Councilor Carpenter. Is there a second to that? Thank you, Councilor McKee. Is there any discussion on the first motion? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion may translate out by Councilor Carpenter. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. Passes unanimously and with that we'll go to the second motion, Councilor Carpenter. I would move based upon that finding and move that the council go to executive session to receive confidential attorney plant communications and updates on contract negotiations regarding city place. One, DSA subsection 313A1A and F. Thank you, Councilor Carpenter. Seconded by Councilor McKee. Motion is made to go into executive session. Is there any discussion on that motion? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. That motion passes unanimously. So we will go into executive session that will come out of the executive session really for purposes of learning the meeting. There will be, as the mayor has said, no action taken when we return to open session. CAO Schad was, did everyone check my email? Did everyone get an email about, I assume, Link going into executive session? Chief of staff, we're not always at the meeting. Maybe it's the meeting. Yeah. We'll send it out right now. Okay, so to Councilor Jang Grant, Hightower, Shannon and Traverse, we will be sending you a link momentarily. You can stay on until you get that or get off and we'll...