 I know some Councillors are going to be arriving. We have two Councillors joining us remotely this evening. We also have Councillors Freeman and McGee will be joining us remotely. So they're on Zoom right now. And we'll have other Councillors joining us in a little bit. But we do have a quorum and we do have some other business to attend to before we get to the mass mandate issue. That was a previously scheduled public informational hearing regarding the two items that are on the special election ballot for December 7th. So what we'll do is we'll just delve into those items first. It's really just providing just a basic explanation of what those items are. And we have folks who have worked on both of those issues here with us this evening to just share with us just some basic information about what is included in those bond items. So but before we get into that, we do need to adopt our agenda. So may I please have a motion on the agenda? I would move to adopt the agenda. Okay. We have a motion. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Jang. Any discussion? Okay. Hearing none, we'll go do a vote. All those in favour of our agenda, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously and we have our agenda. Brings us to the two public questions. The first of which is approval of general obligation bonds for city capital projects. We'll have Martha Keenan come up and present and share some information on what all is being asked of voters in that question. Welcome. Thank you very much. I appreciate to be here this evening. The general obligation bond is a request for $40 million to continue the 10-year capital plan, which we have just finished the first five years. These funds will be used to leverage our opportunities with both the American Rescue Plan and the Federal Infrastructure Bill. And then it also allows us to address areas that are not covered under those opportunities, such as facilities, fleet, parks, and IT. In particular, we have three fire trucks that are on this bond vote, and we have our public safety infrastructure, which is at end of life and is approximately $4.3 million. Overall, the city has for their general fund assets, they have a need of over $150 million. This $40 million bond is just 25% of that need, and we are looking at covering the balance through these other opportunities. $10 million of this bond will go towards looking at a solution for Memorial Auditorium, and the other will be balanced through different parts of our assets. So some of it will go in as the infrastructure bill was just signed, and we don't know how it's going to play out. We do have funding in here for next summer sidewalks and streets work. There is money for IT. There is for intersection improvement and bike infrastructure. An important part of this is that in order to take advantage of the opportunities that are coming our way, we need to have a local match in order to leverage for those dollars, and so this will provide that opportunity for us. There's money in here to provide that local match. It will go towards bridges and project management, our facilities, which have a lot of deferred maintenance, parks, and Memorial. So happy to answer any questions. Okay, great. Are there any comments or questions from Councillors? And I'll just note that Councillor Paul has also joined us remotely. Okay. Seeing none, thank you so much. Appreciate that presentation. We will now move into the next section, which is the next item, which is the revenue bond from Burlington Electric, and we'll have Darren Springer come up and share some information about what's included in that bond. Welcome. Good evening. Darren Springer, General Manager with Burlington Electric here to talk about the net zero energy revenue bond. The net zero energy revenue bond is a $20 million proposal that would significantly invest in reliability of our electric system and also in advancing our climate progress as a community towards our net zero energy goal. Our net zero energy goal is to by 2030 reduce and eventually eliminate fossil fuels and the transportation and the thermal sectors. We're already making progress towards that through a variety of programs and incentives and policies, including some that the Council has advanced related to buildings, and the revenue bond would invest in four key areas. First being the electric grid. We would have a $7 million investment focused primarily on reliability. On average, our customers see typically one outage per year, and typically the duration is an hour or less, which is a really strong reliability metric. When we survey our customers, they always tell us that reliability is a top priority, and so we want to continue to invest in our grid and keeping it reliable for our customers. In addition, we would invest another $5.3 million in the grid in order to accommodate new electric uses, things like electric vehicles, heat pumps, all the different programs that we have to support reducing fossil fuel use and switching to electric. We would begin to make grid upgrades to accommodate some of those new uses. We also would invest through the revenue bond, $3.9 million in technology systems. We have aging and in many cases end of life technology systems for financial and customer and meter data management. We're in the process of replacing those systems, and the revenue bond would support that effort. We also would invest $2.2 million in our electric generating facilities and maintenance of our electric generating facilities, including converting our gas turbine, which runs on oil and is a peaker plant that runs very rarely, converting that over to biodiesel so it would run on renewable fuel. And then lastly, we would make a capital investment in a variety of net zero energy technologies, particularly new EV charging around the community. We certainly want to support Burlington residents who need charging and also bring in travelers who are moving through Burlington to stop here and come shop and eat and spend in our community. And if we have charging, we can attract more businesses and tourists and others who might be coming through to use the charging. And we also would be making an investment in our infrastructure as well. We have an electric bucket truck that's planned as part of that. So those are the investments through the revenue bond. I would mention that we recently had our A3 rating from Moody's affirmed on our outstanding revenue bonds, which is a welcome development as we pursue this proposal will help keep our interest rates for the proposal low. We also have a shared with the community that investing in the revenue bond actually helps lower near term rate pressure. And over the long term, there is revenue return from the proposal that would help to pay for the debt service on the revenue bond. In addition to a maturity on an existing revenue bond capacity from which we can put towards repayment of this new revenue bond. So over the long term, there's very minimal rate pressure from this proposal. It helps us advance our progress and it also frees up liquidity so we can invest in further incentives for our customers. We've had a number of popular programs for heat pumps and EVs and electric lawn mowers, electric bikes. And through this proposal, we'll be able to support a continuation of strong incentives for our customers and help further reduce emissions. Glad to answer any questions. Okay, great. Are there any Councillor questions or comments? Not seeing any. Are there any questions from members of the public on any of these questions? Steve, yeah, would you just approach the mic, please? Yeah, if you could just move off to the side, we'll see which one of you has questions for. Some of my questions will be You've got two items. I think it'd be fair. I could address both of them, but not at the same time. Yeah, sure. Go ahead. If you could just ask all your questions at once and then we can have either Darren or Martha Culliff and answer your questions. I'm Steve Goodkine. I live in the New North End. Used to be the Public Works Director and City Engineer. As far as the BED bond is concerned, there's not so much trouble where it's in it. The system has to be improved. We want to do more on the way of energy conservation programs, but the one thing that's missing, and it's like the 10,000-pound gorilla in the room, this proposal does nothing to get rid of the McNeil plant. McNeil plant, and I think you all know this, wood burning plant not built to fight climate change, built to fight against the Arab oil embargoes. Wood and coal, whether you call them renewable or fossil fuels or whatever you want to call them, it's the same. For a pound or a calorie of energy created, whether you burn wood or coal, the CO2 footprint is the same, but it gets worse from there. When you take wood and you harvest wood, you remove one of the few things we have going for us to remove CO2 from the atmosphere over the next 20 or 30 years, so you're not only harvesting the wood and burning it, creating CO2, you're taking away what might help us fight in the next 20 or 30 years because that's what's important now, not 100 years, not 200 years, 30 years. You're taking that away, but on top of it all, the McNeil plant, as a wood burning energy plant, generating electricity, is 27% efficient. That's worse than any car, by worse than the leaf blowers you ban, worse than anything. So it's a triple, it's a trifecta. And to let this bond go forward and not take the opportunity now to say, let's make plants to close McNeil, let's phase it out. In fact, this bond, and the superintendent talked about it, they're going to sell more power from McNeil. That's what the future is. They're not closing it up, they're not phasing it out. They're going to keep our rates stable by selling power from McNeil. McNeil is filthy, not just dirty, it's filthy. CO2 from McNeil is 400 to 500,000 tons of CO2 per year. The proposal before you takes out 47,000 tons over the life of the project. I don't know what the life of the project is, but that's pittance. That's pittance. And to let this bond go forward, without some commitment that McNeil will be closed, phased out, maybe temporarily turned into natural gas, which I think could be done with a flick of a switch. We're kidding everybody, and not just kidding him. Is there a question in here? I would like to know what this project does for McNeil. Okay, thank you for that. Does it make McNeil not be the polluter that it is? Okay, thank you for that. And then what's your other, what was your other question? I'd like to keep the issues separate. I've got some questions about the capital boss, but I'll wait. Okay, Farron. To the opportunity to talk about McNeil. So the McNeil plant is a renewable energy plant, and it's, the data does not support the idea that it is a similar carbon profile to a fossil fuel plant, primarily because with biomass, you have to look at the life cycle of emissions. There is a sustainability component to harvesting that is missing from the analysis that was presented. That said, the McNeil plant is not a part of the revenue bond proposal. It is an important facility for us, and we are pursuing a district energy project that would improve the efficiency of the plant, but also provide a reduction in fossil fuel use in the community for thermal sector. But what I would say is, is that we've had some third party analysis done to look at the question of McNeil harvesting, and we have four foresters on staff who spend their time focusing on sustainable forestry practices at McNeil. The areas where we have wood supply in Vermont, upstate New York have actually added forest cover and carbon sequestration during the period of time that we've been harvesting. So there is a sustainability component here. Certainly if you were clear cutting forests, not regrowing, and using that for energy, that would have a negative implication from a climate standpoint. On the other hand, McNeil primarily uses wood residue that would otherwise be left over from logging operations, is able to utilize that for energy, and is able to support a sustainable land management for the forests that we harvest from. So I would differ with the assertion that it's a negative from a carbon standpoint. I would certainly differ that it is worse than natural gas. I think having McNeil as a renewable resource is far preferable to burning more natural gas in New England. The marginal fuel in the wintertime is natural gas. If you shut McNeil, you burn more natural gas on the regional grid. I think we need more renewables on the regional grid, not less, and so we're certainly supportive of continuing McNeil as part of a portfolio of resources within the electric sector. Thank you. Appreciate that. Were there any other questions on the revenue bond, so the the BED revenue bond? Any folks participating remotely with questions specifically on the revenue bond? We'll get into public forum on the MASC mandate separately from this. This is just in the public informational hearing. So you can indicate interest in asking a question by using the raise hand function. Okay. Not seeing any interest there, so we'll close that down and go into the other questions on the general obligation bond having to do with capital investments. Steve, did you want to come and ask your other question? And then if other will go to in-person questions on those. And again, just if you could keep any statements at the front end brief and get your question so that we can- Oh, this is truly more questions. Like, when I'm looking at the spreadsheet for the last 10-year capital plan, which is five years ago, and you look at the one for this time, it's very unclear whether we're doing a whole new set of projects or completing projects that didn't get completed with the monies from the first bond. And it's not even clear what happened to the money from the first 10-year plan, which was five years ago. So I'm just wondering if they can explain that what are we voting for? We're voting for the same program that didn't get finished? Something like sidewalks as an example or something connected as an example. The money was voted. What happened to that money? And is this new money funding something different? Are we funding things that didn't get done or is the money moved around and some things didn't get funded last time and now we're funding them? It's pretty confusing when you try and make sense of it. So if someone could answer that- Okay. Thank you for that question. Okay. Martha, would you be able to come back and answer that question, please? Great questions. Thank you. So on the sidewalks in the streets, we have a lot of deferred maintenance and we are still addressing it. So we found that our sustainable level of work for sidewalks and streets is higher than we have annual funding for. So this bond is paying for the sustainable level of work done on streets and sidewalks. The bike path was one of the major projects in the past five years. It is complete this year with the exception of the North Beach Overpass Bridge and the North Beach Overpass Bridge was not in the design for the original rehabilitation. So it is an addition to the plan, not something that didn't get completed. We continue to have major deferred maintenance on all of our facilities. We have done major renovations on this building on 645 Pine. But just like our streets, the potholes never go away, the maintenance never goes away on buildings. So we continue to have more work to do. We have a lot of historic buildings and those cost more money to do. So we have those. In addition, we have evolved our plan and we now include the public infrastructure. So the police and fire radio system was not in the original plan and that is a large part of this. It's 4.3 million. As in last time, we had fire trucks. Fire trucks age. They are now older and we need to get three more. And so likely we will be every three or five years looking at replacing more fire trucks. That is an ongoing need as they age. So these are new projects. They're continuing projects and we're just trying to continue to address deferred maintenance and get to a proactive state on all of our capital. If you could just please come to the mic and ask that. Is the 10-year plan from five years ago, is that done though? I'm not clear on that. It was the first five years that we got funded. So we only funded the first five years of the 10-year plan and we are five years in. So we are now working on the second five years. And all of the capital plan is an evolution and a revolving thing so that there continues to be new projects and new repairs that need to be done on an ongoing basis. So we are doing it as a revolving program. We're calling 10-year plans a really five-year plans, is that it? So yes, so when we funded the 27.5 million, it was stated it was for five years. So but we proposed and showed to the public a 10-year but said we could only fund the first five years. Is this one a 10 or a five? This is actually a three-year because as we learned through our knowledge and doing this is that you can predict well for three years. Five years is really hard to predict because those last two years many things change in that time period. So we're trying to be more realistic and responsible by doing a three-year plan. Okay so this we don't have 10-year plans this is a three-year plan we're voting on. And it will continue to evolve and revolve at three years. Thank you. Are there any other questions on the general obligation bond from folks who are here in person? Okay seeing none I'll open that up to folks who are participating remotely. If you are attending remotely you can indicate your interest in asking a question about the general obligation bond just by using the raise hand function at the bottom. Anybody interested in asking a question? I will recognize you. Okay seeing none we'll go ahead and close that item as well just want to thank both of our presenters this evening for sharing that helpful information with voters. I just want to encourage folks to get their ballots in. If you have had any issues with your ballots in terms of receiving them please be in touch with the city clerk's office in order to sort those out. You can also take your ballots into your polling place on on I almost said town meeting day on December 7th which is when the special election will be held and polls will be open normal hours 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. as we do in elections so you can either you can vote in bring your ballots in in person at that time as well so you have a little bit of time here to get those ballots those ballots still in but just encourage people to please weigh in on these important questions that are before you. So having completed the two items on this particular meeting a motion to adjourn is in order. So we have a motion seconded by Councillor Chang. Any discussion? Okay hearing none we'll go to a vote all those in favour say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay that is unanimous and we are adjourned with our first meeting which was that informational hearing. We'll now move directly into our next meeting which is the special city council meeting regarding the masking ordinance. So I will call that meeting to order at 5.28 p.m. and the first item on the agenda for this meeting is the agenda. So I have is there a motion on the agenda? I move to adopt the agenda. Thank you we have a motion on the agenda. Is there a second? Councillor Barlow seconds any discussion? Okay hearing none we'll go to a vote all those in favour please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously and we now have our agenda brings us to item number two which is our public forum this evening. So as we've done in the past couple of meetings here we're going to be offering the opportunity for folks to comment both in person as well as remotely. We'll go ahead and but one of the things that is a little bit of a quirk in the way that we do things is that we do prioritize Burlington residents first both in terms of remote in terms of in person commenters and remote commenters so what we'll be doing is having in person commenters who are from Burlington commenting so we encourage folks to indicate on your sheets if you are a Burlington resident and those sheets are available over in the corner here so if you are interested in speaking this evening you may sign up for public forum by completing one of those sheets and then handing them over to the clerk's table over here and we'll be happy to they'll get those forms over to me. We will if you are however promoting participating remotely the way for you to sign up is to go to BurlingtonVT.gov slash city council which is one word slash public forum again one word and that'll take you to an online form that then feeds into a google sheet that that I then use to call on the folks who are participating remotely so I'll enable your mic when it's your turn remotely and so that's again BurlingtonVT.gov slash city council slash public forum so if you're interested in signing up to comment in person just go over here and then give your comments to the clerk's table. We do encourage folks in the setting to wear masks so please wear masks this evening the other piece is also that in terms of the comments themselves please direct all comments through the chair so it's not a time to engage in personal attacks please stay focused on the issue at hand which is the mask mandate and the policy that's being proposed it's not again not a time for personal attacks please also don't use profanity in your in any of your your speaking and we'll give folks two minutes this evening you will have you have the clock right back here and then there's also a light system with green indicating you have plenty of time left yellow signaling you have you're getting closer and then reds saying that your time is up once your time is up I will I'm asking you to please wrap up so please keep your comments to two minutes this evening really appreciate it if folks can just stay stay to that that time frame tonight and let's let's get let's hopefully have a productive conversation about this proposed masking ordinance so we'll go ahead and get started first with the folks who are in person so I have Christopher Aaron Felker to be followed by Amy Stevenson and if folks can just please speak right into the mics just because want to make sure that we can pick it up for folks who are participating remotely and so that folks here in person can hear it as well read this entire statement as my request prior no you're given two minutes just like everyone else stay around if you'd like to I can read it during the debate portion if you'd like to take testimony from another major political party that isn't represented in this room but is in this state so no you're I'm going to only give you two minutes like everyone else heard the chairman of the burlington republican party and I'm here tonight to speak in opposition to the Weinberger administration's proposed municipal mask mandate ordinance presented as item 3.01 on tonight's agenda we agreed to comply with mask mandates this past year due to the fact that COVID-19 is a novel virus and at the time there were no vaccines approved nor available to the public and no recognized treatments to this virus this is not where we are where we find ourselves as a city today today Vermont Chittenden County and Burlington are positioned as one of the most vaccinated states counties and cities in the entire united states we have abundant access to testing and treatments to cope with any potential infections for COVID-19 as we continue as a city to navigate through the worst pandemic to strike the globe in a hundred years it's important to note that our community has effectively reached the endemic stage of this and as such we should be encouraging individuals to assume personal responsibility for their own health choices while guaranteeing our city's promise to promote a culture of open access and accessibility for all who live work and visit our fine city there is no such thing as collective liberty all liberty is individual liberty as such I have and am willing to continue to advocate for individuals rights to exercise to exercise their rights to wear a mask just as much as I am going to exercise my right to advocate for them to not wear one the governor is on record stating that these are unnecessary in the entire GOP caucus in the house and senate here in Vermont are opposed these are warranted and unnecessary powers municipal mask mandates negatively impact our business community over the last 18 to 20 months we have seen that mask mandates harm businesses and result in more people shopping at online retailers we have also seen mask mandates decrease overall number of people who are comfortable patronizing our local restaurants our businesses are already battling labor shortages and staffing shortages and unnecessary overregulation will only contribute to more labor shortages the Vermont Republican Party has expressed unified written opposition to so-called vaccine passports as an affront to our civil liberties can you please and I have a complete agreement with these elective can you please wrap up effectively create an unacceptable and truly uncannable second class of citizen can you please get in there can you please administration push to grant mask mandates waivers for all businesses who utilize vaccine passports codified on your time is up can you please a precedent that businesses have the right to deny an area of public accommodation to anyone not willing to surrender their medical history furthermore the administration's push to endorse reckless institution intrusions is not based upon sound science as it fails completely to recognize the literally millions of Americans who have already achieved natural immunity from battling COVID and recovering municipal mask mandates are unenforceable mask theater and only serve to undermine our messaging efforts that efficacy of vaccines to fight and limit the negative impacts of COVID-19 in our society I am amenable to revisiting this issue in the future if and when these three criteria wrap up the governor declares a state of emergency UEM medical health center issues a statement of medical urgency and necessity the National Guard begins rebuilding that emergency field in your time is all a Yankee will do all you ask of him he will do nothing that you demand your time as such on behalf of my party the residents and visitors to the city of burlington I respectfully request that this council reject this proposed municipal mask mandate ordinance and it's associated with podium passports presented by this administration to the council this evening is unnecessary and incongruent with the principles of liberty that our nation holds dear thank you and god bless america please no applause our next speaker will be Amy Stevenson to be followed by jennifer more and again if folks could please stay to the two minutes and again we don't it's helpful if folks do not clap we're trying to create an environment where folks feel comfortable sharing their opinion so if we have a mentality where people of differing viewpoints feel like they're being cheered or jeered please just allow the speaker to speak and then let us move on to the next speaker if you could please go ahead first of all thank you for having a public forum and for serving on city council my name is Amy Stevenson I have a doctorate in microbiology and molecular genetics from the university of vermont despite real-world evidence from the past 20 months supporting the futility of mass and stopping the transmission of the airborne SARS-CoV-2 virus scared vermonters feel they have to do something and cling to the mass mandates the proposed mask rule in burlington is even more insidious though because it applies only to the unvaccinated and exempts persons entering public buildings who show proof of COVID-19 vaccination or what is commonly referred to as vaccine passports as you should know if you follow the science vaccinated individuals can get and transmit SARS-CoV-2 the current COVID-19 vaccines have also been shown to provide waning immune protection that disappears within months of becoming fully vaccinated hence the requirement for boosters in the uk and israel which are open with their data and tracking vaccinated versus unvaccinated cases in the vaccinated are now outnumbering cases in the unvaccinated in most age groups hospitalizations and deaths are also rising daily among the vaccinated an indication that the vaccines do not provide lasting protection from severe outcomes given these facts to privilege the vaccinated only as exempt from the mass mandate is both nonsensical and blatant discrimination against the unvaccinated this is especially true for those individuals who have had COVID and been shown to have lasting and robust natural immunity that stops transmission of the virus and is now confirmed by over 100 scientific studies this type of discrimination is deplorable and only serves to divide our already fractured community the city council needs to think long and hard on whether they want to be the ones who are personally responsible for manifesting discriminatory practices that divide burlington residents and create a two-tiered society of medical apartheid it needs to stop here say no to the mass mandate that will have no impact on endemic spread of COVID but will most definitely turn neighbor against neighbor and divide our already fragile community thank you please no applause please no applause our next speaker is jennifer more to be followed by jennifer hume my name is jennifer more i live in the new north end in ward seven hi mark hi le thanks for having me tonight i'm sorry the governor has failed and his responsibility to protect public health and has pushed this decision on to you i know you're not public health experts but i know that you're smart and you care about your communities or you would not be here tonight i'm speaking in favor of a mass mandate cases in vermont are higher than ever hospitalizations are higher than ever our icus are almost full the university of vermont medical center is canceling non-urgent surgeries and has asked fema for help to handle capacity in our hospitals before the thanksgiving break ia had to completely close because of covid cases in the school i have two children in burlington schools and my husband teaches at cp smith my husband has been a close contact of covid cases four times already this school we are fully vaccinated but there is still risk vaccinated people transmit and catch covid i look today at the department of health website there have been 7600 breakthrough cases of covid in vermont 202 hospitalizations and 85 breakthrough covid deaths just in the state of vermont we have a high vast vaccination rate and that's fantastic but it's clear we need multi-layered mitigation strategies during this surge we're entering winter when most people are going to spend most of their time inside and if we do not protect ourselves and our communities right now then we are failing this is an opportunity for the city council and for the mayor to do what is best and to protect our burlington residents to keep our schools open to keep parents able to go to work i'm horrified by the people behind me that are cheering and and wishing for people to be sick and i'm just going to say that max because i'm not please please just stay focused on the issues you know it's really horrifying please stay focused on the issue the issue is that we do need to care for each other but this is not about me and this is not about you and whether you're vaccinated or not this is about making sure that we're taking care of our community and the way that we can do that is to protect you could please wrap up each other and can you please wrap up please issue a mask mandate it's it's really incredible can you please wrap up thank you all right thank you our next speaker is jennifer hume to be followed by monica brager i'm jennifer hume i'm a burlington resident uh masks do not work they may provide some protection in some cases when used properly they do not work at all when you walk into the coffee shop or the bar wearing the mask and then remove it once seated there are no studies that can support the argument that everyone wearing a mask will prevent or would have prevented the tragic loss of life that we saw during this pandemic although the methods of determining whether a death is actually due to govitt or not are highly questionable if we take the current number of 800 000 us covet deaths we have to admit we failed assuming our goal was to prevent deaths uh the goal seemed to be a moving target at times right we could have saved most of those lives if politicians and bureaucrats had implemented effective measures and policies that were directed at individuals who requested protection while leaving the rest of us free to exercise our inherent right to bodily autonomy to expose ourselves and our children to dirt and disease as we see fit to strengthen our bodies and our immune systems through immersion in germy activities that bring us joy denying human contact and fresh air to children and the elderly is abused there's no way around it vermont politicians and bureaucrats are guilty of child abuse and abuse of the elderly and other vulnerable groups and i say this because i love and care about our children not because i want to attack anyone individually if we want to prevent more covet deaths all vermonters who wish for the highest level of protection should be given that you wearing a mask while ordering your beer and then taking it off while you drink the beer with your tinder date is not going to prevent someone in fragile health from contracting covet no children should have to suffer eight hours a day of oxygen deprivation in hopes that they might prevent someone from getting coveted the science doesn't support it and basic human decency calls for protection to be given to all of those who request it 100 percent there are many well thought out and compassionate ways to protect those who want protection to the highest level mask mandates will only create further division in an already deeply divided community please wrap up we are all highly intelligent compassionate critical thinkers value the collective health of the community i believe the collective health so your time is up if you could please wrap up freedom and bodily autonomy i fear that oppressive scientific measures like masking and vaccinating children and mask mandates will turn this up can you please wrap up all of our trust in our elected officials and create situations where we are no longer able to work together for the coming please wrap up your time is up again no applause please no applause please can you please respect the request for no applause i'm trying to get through the speakers and move people along please respect that request monica breakers our next speaker to be followed by mike gonzalez my name is monica and i live in the old north end and i am opposed to mask mandates there have been 52 studies all available on the nih's website that find that ordinary masking does not reduce viral infection rates. Dr. Fauci in march 2020 observed that a mask's only real efficacy may be in making people feel a little better so wearing masks is not science there have been no studies that prove that masks stop the prevention and the spread of a viral infection science also shows us that vaccination does not prevent infection and has been showed in numerous studies that the rate of infection by vaccinated and unvaccinated has not been shown to be different so punishing people based on medical autonomy is not a is is a method of control and punishment not of public health i feel people should have the individual right if you feel comfortable and safer wearing a mask please do if you feel sick or unwell please stay home but people should not have to wear a mask if they do not need a mask if i'm healthy i should not have to wear a mask to go into a store to shop if i'm sick i should stay home thank you my next speaker will be mike gonzalez across the street at 125 saint paul street in burlington and i'm opposed to mask mandates um just speaking as an as your neighbor um i've lived here my entire life 32 years old and um what i see coming is your first it's just a mask mandate it's like yeah you know put your mask on it's not that hard i get it people do it but uh in the bigger scheme of things what i see next is once we allow a mask mandate uh and don't get me wrong this is a medical device you're using it for a medical reason um and osha hasn't completed any studies on the safety of masks um and there's been studies the largest in denmark um being proving master's don't work and the size of the virus is much smaller you can take a piece of your hair and put it through your mask and the piece of hair is 40 times bigger than the virus and so but anyway in the grand scheme of things you let you let this mask mandate go through what's next it's not going to work it hasn't worked we're at the most cases per day than we've ever been you know but after so once this mask doesn't work what's next is well we got a mandate vaccines and uh that's where we're headed and as an american i never thought we'd get to this point um and it scares me scares me i i'm part of the recovery community i i never even thought i would be here today except i see what's coming i see what's coming down the pipeline and i see what's going on in australia and i see it happening here they just rounded up aboriginal communities for not uh for not acquiescing to mandates and they're in uh quarantine camps right now and the last thing i'll see your time is up the last thing i'll say is 80 percent please wrap up yep the 80 percent of um the most vaccinated states had the biggest outbreak in the last two weeks that has ever been please and this is from the new york times and zero percent of the least vacancies had an outbreak in the last two weeks thank you please no applause please do not applaud okay i'm not i don't have any other burlington residents um who are in person i'm looking at the online sheet and not seeing any um burlington residents there the only person who is a burlington resident who signed up there was jennifer more who went um earlier in person so we'll transition to um non-burlington folks who are here in person to be followed by the folks who have signed up um who are not from burlington so um our next speaker will be matthew ennis to be followed by susan bowen my name is matthew ennis i live in just lean into the mic closer yeah my name is matthew ennis i live in winewski um that's urging you to please vote against this mass mandate i believe that something really terrible is happening in the world and in this country and here and i just want to say that dissenting science is real and everyone is just saying you know why don't you believe in science everything is conspiracy theory well there are other stories going on here gmo science by the industry which says says that gmo food and chemical food is safe and people can um challenge that and the telecommunications industry is saying the cell phones and cell towers and wi-fi is safe and now we're putting up thousands of satellites in space and i contend that people are getting sick from their food and people are getting sick from their cell phones and from the 5g and it doesn't affect everyone right away but this is in combined with what's going on with this virus which is a nasty virus for and some people have long-term effects i got this virus at the beginning of last year i was wiped out for a while and i recovered well and i'm lucky but i'm choosing not to get vaccinated i don't believe in this agenda and i feel like a second-class citizen already and i feel like your proposal mr mayor is going to make me more of a second-class citizen because i could be restricted from going into other places that and marty restricted from going into places and what's coming next and there's there's there's evidence that masks don't work really and i feel like it's a it's a method of compliance and i'm totally willing to be respectful of people and put one on when i go into place and and do that but i think mandating it is absolutely wrong thank you thank you again the next speaker will be susan bowen to be followed by um i just have alise i'm susan bowen and i live in shellburn and i used to shop in burlington all the time except two years ago there were masks required and i stopped coming here i just started coming here a couple weeks ago and it was really nice you go in a store people who feel comfortable wearing a mask wear them people who don't don't and i i love coming to burlington but it's gotten really stressful all again all of a sudden all again and and i think that in layman's terms um besides all the science and all that just i wear glasses and when i put on a mask my glasses fog up so i'm asking you where does your breath go and it's going out the sides and up the mask it's it's not it's not staying in the mask especially if you're wearing it for a really long time everything's equalizing so i guess think about it and i'm not going to be coming to burlington and i know a lot of my friends are not going to be coming to burlington because they have to wear a mask or just because it's stressful or because it's not safe um and that's what i have to say in my humble opinion and thanks for all being here and doing your work and i'm a jp in shelburn and i really don't want masks coming to shelburn because we we are comfortable there people are wearing people don't we're all happy and talking in line and we're good friends even though some people have different opinions about this so let us have our own opinions and leave you do your thing and and let america be america thank you our next please hold the applause our next speaker will be alise i am chi thank you for hearing me i wasn't sure you'd take someone outside of burlington i'm here to speak about the effects of a mask on three levels physical mental and economic i also would like to ask you a question since you are members of the government as it is my understanding that your primary role is to protect the liberties of the people of this state how is a mask mandate i would also like to say that uh there are huge physical consequences for wearing a mask as well as mental ones psychological psychiatric they're doing studies and finding that especially children are being greatly damaged by wearing masks and certainly people with COPD i would like to know who is going to pay me for this mandate we have not had unfunded mandates since the civil war got rid of slavery there has not been an unfunded mandate i would like to know who's going to be paying me it's well known that dog owners have stronger immune systems because dogs bring pathogens on their feet into the house giving their immune system a 30 greater strength toxicity of breathing your own bacterial load is great anaerobic bacteria is leading to more gum disease and dental cavities according to dentists masks are known to cause on doctors who wear surgical masks they're known to cause hypoxia loss of concentration deoxidization bacterial pneumonia and if you're over 35 years old after two hours of a surgical mask it begins to deplete the calcium levels in your bones masks dehumanize you they make you feel like you have nothing to say your time is up thank you for hearing me thank you our next speaker will be susanne harris to be followed by scott decker again please hold the applause my name is dr susie harris i'm a natural health physician and chiropractor in south berlington and i live in monoski thank you for listening to us today i think my main concern is that i just see such a diverse how do i want to say it everybody's different there's no one-size-fits-all and i've been super disappointed by the conversations that aren't being had about early prevention early treatment these informations are being suppressed i think that's weird um masks work they don't work i really don't care about the mask i care about the human right to choose how to walk your path for health and i care about all of you deeply i think we're all brothers and sisters trying to figure this out together my question to you would be when i think about this the most frustrating part for me is if you're going to mandate masks which i hope that you do not why is it just for the unvaccinated it's not just for the unvaccinated so everyone would have to wear a mask with this mandate and there was a choice to keep a fine if you don't wear one if people can actually have a criminal record for not wearing it not true okay well that makes me feel better i still don't want the mandate i feel people have the right to choose how to walk their health and if you have data i wonder if you do have data that can show me that we are doing better with how we've been doing masks and vaccines in vermont i'm not seeing that especially when i compare us to other states and other countries i'm just super disappointed um i hope that you uh take into consideration the human right and sovereignty over our bodies and if you choose to break into that barrier i hope you've looked at the data deeply yourself and not just your time is up quick reports from the cdc our next speaker is scott decker let's give please hold the applause i'm scott decker from south barlington uh given the two-minute limit uh which i didn't expect i'm going to be just reading i believe um to paraphrase president biden we've been cooperative for a long time but our cooperation is wearing thin we have obeyed state mandates and used our best judgment for vermont to come out of the 2020 pandemic with flying collars among the best in the nation we've stayed home quarantined as needed gotten tested worn masks socially distanced gotten vaccinated got boosted basically done all that has been asked of us vermont is now the most vaccinated state in the country and brelinson may be the most vaccinated town in the us so what is our reward for doing everything we were told was the right thing to do further mandates now a draconian penalty is attached that we're not needed over the past 20 months for this population to comply how is it you do not trust your population to continue doing what we've been told are best practices for public health perhaps because they are not best practices in public health it's easy to find solid information in the most vaccinated countries and us states also have the highest rates of covet that's empirical data not up for dr's levine or fauci to interpret for us we also find that mask mandates have little positive effect during an outbreak but many long-term negative effects that the city government believes is their obligation to unilaterally impose health mandates on their constituents apparently with no background in public health and the now known negative results of mass masking masking and vaccination during a pandemic worldwide smacks of the world further declining into authority and authoritarianism town by town city by city these are not these are not the progressives i grew up with were once voted for these are not progressive values even as you choose not to wake up time is a wide reality of covet public health the time is a lot of constituents already have our next speaker is bill more again please hold the applause bill more mr mayor it's good to see you again hopefully next time in january in the halls appreciate the ability to speak as a non-resident i'm from johnson you stated earlier that there was not a criminal offense related to this that's simply not true under vermont statute all misdemeanors are criminally reportable and become part of a permanent record if you fail to pay the fines which i think are absolutely excessive you can be charged and cited for a true felony for failure to appear or failure to comply with the orders of the court so the end run of this thing excuse me the end run of this thing at $150 for the second offense can quickly rack up likelihood that people who are cited for this will have either issues with alcohol or drugs or mental health issues and will fail to comply simply because they have behavioral problems unrelated to covet is very high so it's highly discriminatory against them for particularly for the monetary issues but what i want to do is ask a direct question if the burlington police department are the only agents of the state and city able to enforce this what effect will that have on your current problems with a lack of policing and a lack of public safety on these streets late at night when these offenses are most likely to occur what will you do and what other agents of the city will you use to enforce this do you only intend to use the burlington police department sir so this is not a back and forth well i think i got my answer so i would add to that the addendum to that is simply this if i'm a proprietor sitting in my pizza joint and someone comes in finishes their pizza and sits and reads the paper and takes their mask off do i then get violated and cited as a proprietor for failure to enforce this regulation under state statute that is possible your time is up you're not precluding it in your role your time is up so therefore you have to move to the next speaker you have just made criminals out of the very people who are running the businesses and helping this community survive your time is up please do not please respect the that my ask that you not applaud i've asked repeatedly that you not applaud you continuing to do that and disrespect us does not make your point any better please just respect that ability i understand that but our next speaker is kelly divine to be followed by and sosen kelly is participating remotely our next speaker will be is kelly divine kelly i'm going to enable your microphone thank you council president tracy uh kelly divine speaking as the executive director and president of the burlington business association i wanted to share with the council that following our meeting with the mayor two weeks ago we do find that our the range of opinions on our members are quite divided on this question of mask mandates we do think it's important and pretty critical that that there be this exemption for the many businesses in burlington that already are actively screening for vaccination status those those are primarily maybe almost exclusively restaurants and bars i have a couple of questions i want to put before the council because folks have brought up the question of who where the authority lies to enforce this and our businesses are going to be the front line of implementing and enforcing this policy i'm wondering if the council has thought about any funding that may be available to support especially our small businesses that tend not to have staff who can actively work to either screen customers for vaccination status and or enforce mask mandates um i also have a question about for the council about what measures the city will take to make sure that all members of our community are aware of this change in policy and are kept up to date and educated about the importance of the policy um and finally um wondering about uh our critically understaffed public safety resources and whether they'll be diverted to enforcement of this policy while i do understand uh the council's approach and the mayor's approach and i do know that some businesses do see benefit in this policy i also have others who are very concerned about the health and well-being of their staff at a time when we're already short staff because some staff members find it difficult to uh nearly cumbersome to wear masks during their eight hour shift so i'm going to also consider all those points in their decision tonight thank you thank you our next speaker is ann sosen to be followed by jj vendett and i've located you and have enabled your microphone and it looks like you're muted okay okay i so i'm not seeing her on there so i'll keep us moving um our final speaker for this evening is jj vendett jj i've enabled your microphone good evening can you hear me okay yes uh thanks for letting me speak uh jj vendett a former resident of burlington uh ten years of strong and alevin middle sex i understand that the community and the nation at large is wanting us to do something more about covet uh these mask mandates are not that something i implore you to look at places that have no mask mandates like florida and how their case counts are going right now they're doing superbly i'm going to quote quickly from the new england journal of medallion may 20 sec 21st 2020 we know that wearing a mask outside of health care facilities offers little if any protection from infection public health authorities define a significant exposure to covet as face-to-face contact within six feet with a patient with symptomatic covet 19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes the chance of catching covet 19 from a passing interaction of public space is therefore minimal in many cases the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic from the new england journal of medicine this is not an effective way to combat covet it only promotes fear which causes disease and is only going to further harm our society as a whole people should have the ability to move our masks if they want to or not if they want to this is not effective and i would implore you to vote against this mask mandate thank you thank you please hold the applause so that completes our public forum for this evening so we will now go into our agenda itself our next item is the the ordinance itself the masking ordinance is there a motion on that council carpenter i would please use your mic but move the resolution as presented as presented on board docks okay would you like the floor back after a second not at this time okay thank you so we have a motion from council carpenter is there a second second seconded by councillor stromberg okay mayor weinberger were you looking to to offer some remarks thank you president tracy i would appreciate a chance to offer some opening remarks and then get into questions as quick as possible i certainly understand how to council may well have questions i know that everyone has been working as quickly as possible since the legislature gave the municipality this authority uh just a little over a week ago right before the holiday um and we've worked hard to bring forward um this ordinance tonight i want to particularly thank uh city attorney dan richerson and um meghan tuttle our coven 19 response leader for um the considerable effort they and and others have put into this um i i want to you know acknowledge the the strong uh statements we've heard tonight and i disagree with with many of them and would question um uh would not agree with many of the arguments were made but i i do um share the sense that we are at a challenging moment and um that there uh it is fair to uh say that there we are at a different point in this pandemic than before and we should think long and hard before we revert um back to the strategies from earlier times in the pandemic and the administration has attempted to do that and what we've brought forward and we've tried to we bring forward what we bring forward recognizes that burlington and shitton and county have made enormous progress with respect to coven 19 over the course of 2021 um by achieving some of the highest vaccination rates in the country um and uh it is very clear uh that those vaccinations are are lifesaving and i would encourage uh anyone who doubts that to to look at the uh the the clear data from the cdc that people who have been vaccinated are at this point um and it's a little bit lower now than it was during higher parts of the delta surge but at this point un unvaccinated individuals are five times more likely to become infected and they are 13 more like times more likely to die as a result of a coded COVID infection uh and so we should be i think proud and appreciative of how the community has rallied to get us to this point as well as the earlier steps the community took to keep burlington perhaps the safest city in the country throughout this pandemic um nonetheless we are in a moment where the virus is still creating local challenges that were in action we see those challenges at the hospital we see them in our schools we see them in the general rising levels of of transmission and the administration is proposing that the city council act immediately to require masks in public places pursuant to the new authority granted by the state last week i want to be even we've heard even some confusion in the in the public comments tonight so i want to be really clear that the proposed ordinance provides two options to organizations that are managing spaces that are generally accessible to the public that is what we are attempting to regulate with this proposed mask ordinances not publicly owned spaces alone but places that are generally accessible to the public the organization usually the businesses but in some cases we have nonprofits managing these spaces have two options for how they will meet this mandate they have the option either to require masks for all patrons and employees that are in that public space or alternatively to require patrons and employees to show proof of vaccination before entering if um a business or organization chooses that second option then max masks are not required in that space um it is critical um i think as we debate this that we um recognize that we are in a different place uh than we were previously and we want to want to be clear that about the objectives that the administration that there are multiple objectives the administration is trying to achieve with the mask ordinance as proposed the there are three we are attempting to uh decrease rates of transmission virus transmission um through through this ordinance and there's no doubt that masking and there's no doubt that uh additional vaccination does um decrease transmission secondly we are seeking to you see this as yet um another opportunity now a new authority that the city has to encourage even higher levels of vaccination and believe that the way we have proposed this um will achieve that and finally um we are proposing this in a way that is as targeted and uh strategic as possible and a way that minimizes the disruption and the negative impact um on the community as society really as we attempt to to recover from this long and grinding um pandemic since um final point i want to make at this point and uh look forward to you know again acknowledging the council's had a short time with this expected there could be well be need for back and forth the city attorney is able to speak to numerous elements of the ordinance i think can clarify things like is this a criminal versus a civil violation for failing to uh to file to meet this ordinance it is a it is a civil uh penalty even um the kind of payment question that was raised but the city attorney can speak further to that we also i i believe we do have megan tunnel the coven 19 response leader here uh available to answer questions um i want to be really clear that um i think it is important that this ordinance be adopted basically as presented um i will support a mass mandate that includes exemptions for businesses that affirmatively verify vaccination status of patrons and employees this is both uh i think the right thing a the um a stronger public health stance and it is one that is critically important for many of the organizations here in burlington and that's what we've heard um in the in the public forums and other engagement we've done over the last couple weeks widespread vaccination is by far the most effective intervention for controlling the virus and i think we'd be wrong to strip the provision out of this that um uh encourages more adoption of that intervention to propose ordinance furthers these efforts by creating a significant new incentive for businesses to limit uh access to their spaces to vaccinated individuals and for vision individuals to get vaccinated um should the council remove this exemption or make the ordinance more broad um i will not be able to support it tonight and and will not be you don't see a route for it to be um implemented quickly um final point i just i just want to make is this and i'll i i have heard concern um about the suggestion um has been made uh that um somehow it is a stronger public health effort to remove the vaccine exemption and i just really hope the council will um uh i will not move forward and act on that point i don't see how that could possibly be right there i don't think you'll find any public health official that will say that the risk of transmission is higher in a location where vaccination everyone in that location is vaccinated and masks are optional than they are than the risk of transmission in a space where vaccinations are optional and masks are required that is the choice that we have as local officials before us we the the state has certainly not granted us the authority to require um that all spaces be vaccinations so that is really the choice before us do you want optional in all spaces uh optional vaccinations and required masks or required vaccinations and uh optional masks i think clearly the latter with spaces that everyone in there has been vaccinated is is safer if the goal of the council uh is to reduce transmissions i really don't see any argument for why that exemption should be removed i hope the council will consider that thank you president tracy thank you mayor weiner please don't please do not interrupt us as we're deliberating uh city attorney richardson did you want to speak to some of the issues or questions that the mayor had referenced at this time before we get into deliberations i think the only question that um i wanted to uh address was the the question that came up in the public comments of the criminal criminal versus please do not interrupt him criminal versus civil distinction which is um so the way in which municipal ordinances work um municipalities do not have the power to impose felony um uh criminal um sanctions uh there are two choices there is criminal or civil um in this particular ordinance it has elected the drafted as a civil offense which is not a misdemeanor and it does not go to criminal court it goes to the judicial bureau you do have a right to contest um such a citation um but if you either don't or don't pay it doesn't transform into a criminal violation um it effectively becomes a it remains a civil violation and becomes a private well not private but a collections matter um rather than some sort of criminal penalty with uh the criminal enforcement or criminal tag attached to it and i simply want to clarify that that it uh that's the way vermont statutes are are set up um and that was a concern certainly in the legislature when they were debating the authority to authorize this whether cities or municipalities would go with uh criminal or civil um penalties and the city in drafting this or the administration in drafting this um you know elected to go with the civil route so it simply was a monetary fine rather than any type of criminal um sanction please do not interrupt us please do not interrupt us please do not interrupt us we are in our deliberations please do not please do not interrupt us during our deliberations no that's please do not interrupt us and please show respect our next speaker is please allow us to undergo our deliberations please allow us to have our deliberations i guess i would i would turn you richardson yeah i would i would simply add and i don't want to necessarily get into a back and forth that you know if you look at section one dash nine it does talk about turning it into a criminal but as it's been drafted in the specific ordinance this time it is a civil violation it remains in civil it does not give the option for criminal uh prosecution and it's our understanding there's a city that it would be handled as strictly a civil matter and that's a criminal element is a is an election that the city would have to make it's not one that's imposed by the judicial bureau thank you floor is now open for counselors count please do not interrupt us counselor jang thank you president tracy thank you mr mayor thank you dan for bringing this proposal in front of us maybe everybody can hear me um i think we all should understand that we live in very hard and certain times and i agree with some of the sentiments here that we need to come together as human as burlingtonians and together we can figure this is out and together we can win that's the only way please don't interrupt counselor jang and it doesn't matter where you stand on this issue i really thank all of those that speak up and do it also respectfully yes we may not be medical experts but we rely on the expertise of those who have the knowledge and expertise in order for us to make the decisions reason why i would like to invite someone um here her name is ansosin and she is a policy fellow at nelson a rocker fella center at dartmouth college sorry please don't interrupt counselor jang counselor jang yes what is your request um to invite someone she uh a policy fellow at the nelson a rocker fella center do you have questions for this individual i do make your decision yes i do have questions and i also want to hear from her ask a question in order for me to make my informed decision okay thank you counselor i will allow you to ask this person a question um the person in question and sosen is participating in the meeting remotely so i have enabled and i've enabled your microphone counselor jang what is your question for this public health professional i have several questions um um but the first one is basically what does she think about the exemptions as part of the ordinance in front of us exemptions specifically see thanks i would like to start by speaking if to the strengths of the proposal if permitted so if you could just please answer counselor jang's question and please keep your responses brief yes and maybe you can start with the strength of this proposal first thank you thank you um and thank you thank you for your leadership and bringing um this mask mandate forward um there are several things that i like about this proposal and think it's that it's a good way forward um for the city of burlington and it also that it offers a model for other parts of vermont and other cities across the us i think first one key strength is that the approach is data driven um it's linked to cdc guidance um it turns on and off automatically depending on transmission levels um and i think that this is really a model um for um for the state of vermont second i think the model as the policy that's proposed um is strong because it requires masking in all indoor settings that are open to that are open to the public and it's aligned with the current cdc recommendations um third um i appreciate that the policy makes reasonable accommodations in some settings based on vaccination status and i think that that is appropriate at the stage of the pandemic and recognizes the difficulties of implementing this across all settings um that said um i would advise the council that you consider limiting the exemption narrowly to those settings where masking is simply not feasible including restaurants bars and gyms i think we have substantial evidence um that transmission can occur readily in indoor settings even among vaccinated people um and the vaccination is highly protective against severe outcomes um including hospitalization and death but um at this time and with this level of community transmission it's simply not sufficient to prevent infections and transmission um so i think that the city will be well served by a policy that's designed to mask optimize masking across um all indoor settings thank you thank you councillor jane yes um thank you continue please continue thank you councillor jane thank you councillor councillor jane please continue okay um thank you so much and and i have another question and why should we limit limitations you know about these types of mandates um that are not medically recommended including in workplace in workplaces can you please repeat your question it's hard for it was hard for me to why should we limit these limitations about these types of mandates you know i'm not medically recommended yes so it is recommended the cdc guidance currently recommends masking in all indoor settings and that does um include um workplaces and masking is one um tool um that we want to use in addition to vaccination to control transmission and we see um substantial transmission in workplaces because people spend long periods of time in indoor settings that are often poorly ventilated together um and so this is one area where we should try um that we want to try to increase masking um as much as possible okay and the last question is around the nation do you have a specific state or county or city that is doing a great job in limiting transmission i would say that i would say that there are several models and i think that the proposal that um i would say that please please allow the person to answer councillor jane's question so i would say that there are several models and would also add that the model um please stop interrupting stop interrupting she's an expert that has been invited by a member of this council please allow please allow this continue please allow councillor jane to please allow please allow councillor jane to continue please allow councillor jane to continue stop interrupting please allow councillor jane to continue stop interrupting please allow councillor jane to continue councillor jane thank you president tracy and and i was just wondering if there are best practices around the nation that you have noticed and you would want to share with us i think that there are a couple of models and i'll add that i see the proposal that's coming from the mayor is one that will potentially serve as a model for other places as well the state of novata has a data-driven mask policy that is linked to cdc guidance and matrix and it turns transmission or it turns on and off automatically um is local change i would this debate area has a different model of data-driven policy i will also add that the city of boulder um has a data-driven model in place um and i really there are aspects of burlington's proposal that i think will be useful um to other places that are thinking about how to do this right now thank you all right thank you so much and for your time thank you for being here with us councillor shank i'd like to speak to members of the public i have been very sympathetic to people who don't want a mask mandate i think there are arguments on both sides of this issue and i want to share with you how you are making me feel right at this moment you are making me feel like you hate us like you hate people who want to mask mandate please allow councillor shannon to finish please allow please allow joan to finish please allow councillor shannon to finish i'm sorry i want to tell you please allow councillor shannon to finish i want to tell you that the outbursts are not helpful to me in persuading me please allow councillor shannon reasonable people please allow councillor shannon to finish i want to talk a little bit about what is standard practice in this room if councillors would like to speak to somebody before making their decision we are allowed to call upon someone and that is what councillor jang just did now i may agree with what that person says or disagree i may i may respect her credentials or not but we get to listen to the people that we feel will be helpful in to us in making this decision this is allowed councillor shannon it doesn't matter who she is it is the council president's job to keep order in this room and if people cannot respect the order in this room they can be removed from this room and that's appropriate you can watch it on tv we cannot have please allow councillor shannon to finish please allow councillor shannon to finish every issue every issue that's discussed in this room has the same set of rules that we're living by tonight and screaming and shouting at this council isn't likely to yield the result that you want and i will tell you there are people at this table actually on the other side of this table who when we first uh brought forward mass mandate there were many who had concerns about how a mass mandate is going to affect different people and this has become such a politically polarized issue that that it seems like it seems like you want to demonstrate to me one of the um arguments that i've heard that i have found to be persuasive on the side of not having a mask mandate is that we can all be responsible adults and we can all we can all determine for ourselves if we need to be masked or if we don't need to be masked people don't like mandates and clearly a lot of people in this room stop please stop please allow councillor shannon to finish you are making me every time you clap every time you yell i will tell you you're pushing me in the opposite direction you want me to go in please stop please stop please stop please allow councillor shannon to finish i am just sharing kind of human nature here we are polarizing each other and it's not helpful please allow councillor shannon to finish to me it's not respectful when people come we've asked people to mask because we're in close contact with each other i've had a lot of input from people who are vaccinated who go to the store wearing a mask who go into indoor spaces wearing a mask and they've asked me not to support a mask mandate for a whole variety of reasons but to me when you come into this room you're sitting in close proximity to people and and we have asked politely that people wear a mask and yet people seem to want to come here and to make a point that don't wear a mask that is not do not interrupt councillor shannon that is not showing me that we don't need a mask mandate it kind of shows me the opposite of that that we can't trust people to be adults please stop please stop please allow councillor shannon to finish president tracy yes councillor shannon i i think it is your choice it is very hard for us to have a civil debate which i look forward to having here with my colleagues i look forward to my colleagues getting the the expert information or non-expert information that they choose and i don't know how we do that with members of the public interrupting us and yelling at us all night long um so i will i will end my comments with that it was really my hope that some people could understand that we need to be able to have our debate and that not having our debate isn't really going to stop the result that you want please stop interrupting please stop interrupting please stop interrupting councillor our next speaker is councillor mason councillor mason go ahead thank you president tracy um may i ask some questions of the city attorney that were raised in public comment please sure go ahead uh city attorney richardson could you speak or somebody the administration to the enforcement piece there was a question raised about who would be issuing these potential civil violations would it be the police would it be incumbent on a proprietor i think it would be helpful for the public and the council to know given that there is a civil offense who will be administering that city attorney richardson sure i'd be happy to um it's our understanding that it would generally be the police that would issue these citations as they do most civil offenses but given that they are not criminal offenses that we're not talking about um the same type of criminal enforcement police usually do um you know just as we do zoning there there may be designated individuals city officials who would carry that authority to do the the citation but presently i think it it would fall to the police primarily thank you and to be clear though these are city employees meaning we're not going to deputize the that is restore the issue of civil violation that is correct and that and that i we would not deputize people it would not be it would be uh strictly those who would carry the the city officials wonderful thank you um i think there was another question asked about you know how information not just if this were to be adopted but there are also potential changes you know how what this may not be to you um city attorney richardson how the city intends to get information and generate publicity you know about either the ordinance going into effect or changes to the ordinance sorry councilor mason the question is how are we going to make sure everybody knows yeah i think changes i mean we've developed over the course of the pandemic i think good communication um systems for commuting communicating especially with the the organizations that are going to be on the kind of front lines of this uh this that you know the the organizations and businesses that manage public spaces and we won't so we'll be we've already been in touch with them we've already had uh public forums we will be we have good email lists uh carl and azarawi the the head of our small bit our uh covid recovery um effort uh it has very good communication channels uh with with the uh with the organizations that are going to be responsible for for this as far as individuals we will certainly be continuing to communicate by email newsletter by press release by social media by you know certainly this is going to make it into traditional media as well so i i um i think there's a lot of attention to this and the word will get out and we will use that as as there are updates we will we will we will move quickly to disseminate the information about those updates as well if there are i will start one additional specific covid communication thing that i think is important is the city will be paying for uh signage um for the the uh the business please allow the mayor to continue for the businesses that will um be posting uh please stop the city will be helping to get signage up as well so we'll be clear to patrons um coming into these businesses what what the rules are there's a um separate signage for businesses that are pursuing the exemption then for uh businesses that um will um be having the the mask the mask option so i think we're gonna if there are other ideas about how we uh facilitate this happy to hear those thank you mayor i'm having a hoax about whether to make my statements because i'm not really sure i want to get the blowback then i'm going to get the blowback for making my statement but if that was the intent i'm not going to let you win um the reality is we have a very fragile system right now just today the hospital announced it's shutting down its icu other than cancer patients and the most intensive from my perspective to ignore pleas like that is not responsible cases are at their highest point we have rising hospitalizations rising deaths and the positivity rate is at serious i don't know how we as a body acting responsibly can simply turn a blind eye to the public health emergency and the fragility of the current system no one wants to wear a mask i don't want to wear it any more than those of you out there who aren't wearing a mask but i also respect or i believe you may have a different view that you know individual liberties at times have to be curtailed for public health reasons and we are at that point in time the shouting back and forth sitting on this side of the table it doesn't help i mean i can shake my head it makes me want to leave the room not vote on this but that that gives you the victory those who oppose this for reasons gives you the victory that you don't deserve by simply yelling at us this is the deliberative body and like it or not we have afforded the opportunity of the public to weigh in those comments are being taken into consideration along with other information that's the way our process works if you don't like it run for office and get on this side of the table please do that so i i respect that there are those you know who have a different view about the impact or whether max masks have any efficacy i've listened to what i believe our experts and they do and so from my perspective this is not a challenging vote this is a vote you know we have appropriate guardrails in the event that things change and i we all hope they do but asking us to put on a mask for a little while i'm doing it anyway and most of us are so i don't think it's a too big an ask and i will be supporting this resolution thank you thank you councillor mason i don't have any other councillors in the queue councillor stromper go ahead thanks um that was very well put i agree with a lot of what was said um the scary part about all of this is that we really just don't know what we don't know um today they found their first case of the omnicron i hope i'm pronouncing that right a couple of different versions there but of that variant in the united states so it's here it's going around that's inevitable we knew that was going to happen um i just we're talking about like 30 days with this resolution so every 30 days we'll check in and see um you know where we stand with it so i think as a community it's almost like an obvious choice like we've been doing it this far to be safe through the holidays while people are gathering inside um and air on the side of caution um i think that as the weather gets colder we're all inside anyway the gatherings are larger it's just to me it's like these 30 days are going to go by so quickly and we'll have so much more information we still don't even know the effects of Thanksgiving and gatherings like i have two younger sisters who had COVID and it hits close to home and i'm this is not speaking from anxiety this is me looking at the data and statistics and a lot of what you're looking at in some ways and i you know i just think that we should be more civil about this and just think of it as in in segments this isn't a forever thing we don't want this to be a forever thing this is going to loom throughout our lives if we don't really nip it now and i know i'm frustrated too i'm really frustrated on many fronts about this i would love to not have to wear a mask and be able to you know not have to limit everyone i'm seeing but i think you know it's these small things that are sacrifices and that's also the american way is making those sacrifices so like don't leave that part out of the conversation um and another thing too just out of respect for people who are working downtown in burlington a lot of people are are afraid because this is that peak shopping season and people are already starting to see the uptick of people going into their businesses um so i think we should just be realistic about this and know that this isn't a forever thing nobody here wants this to be a thing it's just we we do care about you and you care about our liberties you we care about each other it's just we need to really kind of hear each other out on this and not yell it necessarily um so i personally will be supporting this because of the way it's laid out and i very much appreciate um attorney richardson and the administration putting this forth um yeah that's all i have to say thank you okay i don't have counselor barlow uh thank you president tracy um i remain worried about the burden we're placing on businesses that are still struggling with staffing and service issues in this pandemic by adding additional requirements without additional government aid and stimulus that they received over the last year um we know that vaccination is our ticket out of the current situation and the unvaccinated are giving unnecessary fuel to the pandemic and represent a majority of the serious illness in the hospitalizations any policy we pass tonight should encourage and reward vaccination that's why i was glad to see that we have the exemption c that attempts to address as best we can the risks that the new masking restrictions will create for businesses as well as promoting the desired vaccination behavior um we already have businesses in burlington that are requiring vaccination um and they're operating successfully this way um so we should we should encourage more to do so um and i think it's important that we have this this particular uh provision in the in the resolution um also i think we should commit to ending this mandate as soon as possible not necessarily waiting the full balance of the 30 day cycles um if we do fall below the cc transmission classifications within jennon county um into the low and moderate levels um and i think the language in the resolution is currently written would allow us to do that through council and executive action so if we passed it tonight we should also continually revisit that as often as we can and get out of it as soon as we can so that's all i thank you thank you don't have anyone else and sorry i won nick you uh councilor mason go ahead just a quick question for the city attorney um city attorney richardson i i'm not understanding if this is on line 55 there's reference to part 103 i don't know if that's a typo or if i'm missing something the language says unless otherwise accepted in part 103 that that is a typo my original draft had the sections as point one 1.01 so so that should be corrected that would be i'm happy to make an amendment if you tell me what the is it section one or section 17-10 c okay so president tracy i'd like to propose an amendment on line 55 to change part 103 to section 17-10 c thank you we have a motion there's a second from councilor shannon did you want the floor back no okay any discussion on the amendment put forward by councilor mason to make a technical correction okay seeing none we'll go to a vote on that amendment all those in favor of adopting the amendment please say aye aye any opposed that carries unanimously and we are back to the underlying resolution as amended i have councilor shannon i have uh councilor hightower and then councilor shannon um great just wanted to also say that i'm supportive of this resolution um including as executive director of a burlington nonprofit business i think that this is actually extremely helpful in setting norms that my business is already trying to implement um also just want to thank councilor shannon for being the first to speak i think that's always a hard thing to do in rooms like this and appreciate oh sorry professor dang sorry to speak directly to the the room um apologies for that i think that's a difficult thing to do to both councilor dang and councilor shannon um and then i just also want to say that i'm appalled at some of the comments that were made i hate to lump everybody into the same bucket because i know that that's not fair either but um i don't even know how slavery came up in this but that was wild um and unfunding of policies and whatever else but um i was very uncomfortable in this room i would have never voted no to a mask mandate but i think i'm generally a compromiser certainly would have been open to hearing real concerns but the screams that made did not sound like real concerns thank you thank you i have councilor shannon next i'll pass for now okay i don't have anyone else in the queue councilor jane i wanted to speak specifically about the exemption c as part of the resolution which will allow businesses to require vaccination cards in order to allow students or patrons to enter their their buildings from my perspective and from what we have heard here uh from what i heard here today is basically it would bring some type of discrimination against those who are vaccinated and those who are not which i agree a little bit about around that aspect and there is no way for businesses to receive the amount of support necessary for them to be able to require patrons to show their cards we have a working shortage from the business owners we have heard it not once not twice and across all industries and also i don't know how can we a business owner can take a staff member let him outside in this cold weather to control vaccination cards and what about those who have been vaccinated and who no longer have their vaccination cards with them what are they going to do to get the services and the goods they need that the specific business is providing i've been to europe not long ago and i know firsthand that this is a policy they have they could not take my vaccination card from the united states had to go into groups to show them that this is what i have i do not have the digital one that you guys have it's complex the best way from my perspective is to keep this policy simple very simple anyone entering a business anyone entering a public building need to definitely wear a mask if we saying mask works i think this is the opportunity that berlington can show that we believe mask work we also believe on your liberty to choose to take the vaccine or to not take the vaccine and i would like to make an amendment taking that aspect of this resolution down if i have a second so we have a motion from councillor jane is so councillor jane to be clear you are wanting to strike subpoint c yes the exemption c and leave a and b leaving a and b yes okay all right is everybody clear on on what councillor jane is moving to amend not really it's just the leading line to 81 through 85 councillor jane are you able to please clarify i hear so this is deleting um there's the language c saying any person entering a business or a portion of a business located within a public building including but not limited to retail food or beverage gym theater or similar high traffic business which actively screens and limits who may enter its premises to only person with established proof of vaccination for the COVID-19 virus will not be obligated to wear a mask a face covering without the business but only to the extent of the person it actually screened and provides proof of vaccination that language from line 81 to 85 i would like to strike it as an amendment thank you so we have a motion are you clear now councillor yes thank you thank you is everybody clear on the amendment is there a second okay yeah i'm just wanting to make sure is there a second on that is there a second on that okay councillor jane the amendment fails for a lack of a second thank you president please thank you so our next so i have councillor carpenter to be followed by councillors mcgee and mason councillor carpenter just relative to that portion and i'm going to ask the city to clarify but as i read it and i understand it that would be a choice of a specific business to go the extra effort to hire staff for appoint staff to check vaccine cards it would it's not a general requirement it's just it's a specific like honey road across the road there made a business decision that they can attract more customers by having a vaccine requirement i personally think it won't be broad because it requires a lot of affirmative additional effort on the part of the business owner it would be good if more business owners do it but i would venture to say that most retail the grocery stores any big retail that cannot control it and is unwilling to put a paid staff member at the door won't exercise that i mean i was just in montreal and it where it actually is required it's a big commitment we're offering it as an option it is not a requirement that you check vaccines under this as i understand it unless i'm not understanding it otherwise everybody wears a mask and i think giving business is a choice if they want to do that extra mile is is a reasonable thing thank you councillor carpenter i have councillor mcgee to be followed by councillor mason thank you president tracy i uh i'm joining virtually tonight because i'm on the tail end of a breakthrough case myself so i'm certainly supportive of this uh this ordinance and um you know i think given what we're seeing with our hospital system um struggling to keep up with the number of covid cases we're seeing as we approach the peak of the cold and flu season as well which we didn't have last year i think it's vitally important that we're using all the tools that we have to make sure that our health care workers are able to keep up with the challenges that they're facing right now and you know given the new variant that we're seeing as well i don't think we know enough about that to say whether vaccines are sufficient protection against against that um so you know with that in mind i would like to make a motion to remove from uh line 81 excuse me line 82 um retail and theaters from uh 17-10 c exemptions excuse me exceptions uh removing retail and theater from subsection c okay i'll second it okay we have a second on this um just before we get into this discussion on that is everybody clear on what he is on what councillor mcgee is suggested it has proposed i think that that would include performers if there was no exemption for theater is that correct councillor mcgee i i think if we can see the mayor has uh would like to speak there so thank you uh sorry go ahead mayor um thank you for introducing councillor mcgee i i did just and maybe i'll let us see attorney um richardson speak to this and then i think the ordinance does contemplate the performers and athletes uh in a different section that's right in in uh section uh 17-10 a the definition of public building um it excludes specifically uh the portions of a theater gym or athletic arena where all of the individuals performing exercising or playing have been vaccinated and where there's either space physical barrier or ventilation system that separates them for the general public or audience so removing this language from the exemption would not affect that definition because they're excluded and i think the intent was that um those performers who you know were vaccinated were simply essentially separated by some type of space distancing barrier our ventilation system would be exempt from the mask mandate by definition of the rule the inclusion of theater later on was really for a theater where everyone in attendance was um uh screened for vaccination status thank you councillor shannon are you yes thank you that's very helpful does anyone else have any clarifying questions on what councillor mcgee is proposing or councillor barlow yes um i'm still unclear about whether or not we're removing are we removing gym from this ordinance councillor mcgee no no no just theater could you repeat the pieces that you'd like to remove it would just be retail and theater from line 82 okay thank you are you clear any councillor hightower yeah and then just a clarifying thing um because i think if we don't potentially remove the but not limited to then i am afraid this may not have much of an effect so i wonder if it was councillor mcgee's intent to strike uh if the city attorney could clarify that then i would uh include that as well attorney Richardson yeah yes uh councillor hightower is correct if you keep the language the three words um but not limited actually for not limited to um would uh by striking retail and theater it does raise a question or at least creates a gray area as to whether those two areas that have been removed are effectively removed from the general definition of businesses or portion of businesses so striking those additional four letters four words would i think um clarify that if the intent is to put retail and theater off the table of available businesses that would be available to seek this exemption okay are you does that clarify for you councillor hightower can we make that application yeah with that in mind i would move to strike but not limited to uh and as well as retail and theater from line 82 okay so that's an amendment to the amendment councillor mcgee thank you um is there a second to councillor mcgee's amendment to the amendment thank you councillor hightower seconds any discussion on that amendment to the amendment point of order i don't think that makes sense okay so if i understand the amendment it would now read any person entering a business or portion of a business located within a public building food and beverage gym no including food and beverage including food and beverage okay i still grammatically don't think that makes sense but i understand the intent i mean you're referring to a restaurant and a bar i don't know what what is a food and beverage business okay i'm not gonna uh sorry may have the floor after my point of information um what i would welcome some thought maybe from the maker if he's prepared as to why i didn't hear an explanation as to why sure what's the just or what's the objective behind this amendment councillor mcgee sure my intention with this is that uh with the increased community transmission we're seeing in the fact that uh vaccination does not uh does not fully stop transmission that with the holiday shopping season and a lot of our theaters reopening that those are places where folks are gathering and maybe larger numbers than than these other these other places and so i think at least while we are facing the uncertainty of this new variant the holiday shopping season and family gatherings i think it makes sense at least for this initial 30 day period for us to consider this these removals from this exemption so that is my intent behind this amendment excuse me thank you councillor mcgee councillor mason thank you president tracy i appreciate that explanation councillor mcgee but i'm i'm concerned that what i heard in the beginning and i'm not the expert who's been asked this question but what you're proposing is actually less safe from a public health perspective than requiring everyone to be vaccinated so i will not be supporting this amendment thank you is there further discussion on the amendment to the amendment council carpenter um i pretty well can understand retail i'm i don't understand what the definition of a theater it's i mean just in the sense that um is it the flin theater is it is it a movie theater i mean i that's a i don't know what a theater is and that's i'm so i'm asking that it's kind of clarifying would you like the city attorney to speak to that councillor yes okay thank you councillor city attorney richardson are you able to please speak to that definition of a theater sure right the the word theater is not defined um in this um and again these were just simply i think put out as as potential examples they were not intended as a either an exclusive or definitive list so um certainly i think what um what was potentially in mind was any of the uh theater options whether it be a live theater or a movie theater um or anything that would fit under it and it was just an example of a type of place where people might be brought indoors and by having the vaccination screening would be allowed in those uh areas not to not to be subject to a mask mandate okay thank you councillor carpenter you saw the floor um no i i think i'm fine with that understanding being mindful that we only have a small number of theaters in the city okay thank you for that um any further discussion councillor barlow to be followed by councillor jing uh yes i'm just trying to become clear on the amendment to the amendment is simply the including but not limited to language okay thank you yep any further discussion of the amendment to the amendment mayor weinberg thank you president tracy um i um i appreciate uh um i i'm open to this uh amendment i appreciate the spirit of trying to get it right and and get it consistent with uh um what we heard from uh uh the expert who called in um and sosen um that really uh this exemption is particularly important in the establishments that uh councillors mcgee's amendment leaves in and um if the council i don't really see it downside if a retailer wanted to do this again i think it would be a higher level of public health um but if the council feels that this is amendment that makes the council more comfortable with it i don't really have an objection i would ask there'd be consideration the the and i say that in part because i think it is the the establishments that are likely to pursue this exemption are bars restaurants and gymnasiums which are left in by the amendment um that said i have heard some interest from uh establishments i think are a little bit in a gray area in this the language currently which are convenience stores convenience stores are many of them offer uh uh i do have food being sold and consumed on site um i and i think we should i i would i would recommend um i think it important that uh it be clear that convenience stores are added to the list if uh the other changes to this definition are going to be removed thank you president racy thank you any further discussion from the amendment to the amendment councillor shannon um um thank you president tracy i just sent councillor magie some suggested language that i think accomplishes um what he's suggesting but maybe altered rather than the cut and paste it might work a little bit more smoothly um so my suggestion is any person entering a restaurant cafe cafeteria bar gym we could add dining establishment um which actively screens and limits who may enter into premises to only persons with established proof of vaccination all the rest is the same but um i think it gets at what councillor mason's concern is in terms of making the sentence flow properly sure so i've sent that by email and i'll leave it to councillor magie if he wants to make that technical adjustment to his amendment i think it accomplishes the same goal that he was trying to achieve right so i appreciate that we're not allowed to amend an amendment to the amendment so it is an amendment to the amendment right so we're we're on an amendment to the amendment so you can't do an amendment a fur you can't further amend councillor shannon so we have to vote on the amendment to the amendment at first in order to to further revise the amendment itself um you could come back with further clarifying language at that point i'm aware of the rule i'm just unclear as to i may have missed an amendment councillor magie has the only amendment i'm aware of what what was the further amendment he further amended councillor magie are you able to clarify what your amendment to the amendment was sure that the amendment to the amendment uh was the removal of very one sec but not limited to i'm sorry what can not limited to councillor magie can you please clarify that oh so the amendment to the amendment removes but not limited to i see are you clear now councillor shannon yes just as a procedural matter i might suggest that that council rather than amending amendments i might suggest that councillor magie reiterate his amendment if he if he thinks this language accomplishes what his amendments were trying to accomplish councillor magie will you reiterate again your amendment to the amendment or um right this is uh too many windows for me here um so i would like to amend my amendment to change that to unchartered territory from me here president tracy i'm not sure does it make sense for me to reiterate this or for us to amend the amendment and then can i clarify my original amendment i think that sure councillor councillor magie we need a can you please uh we're gonna let's take a brief recess just to to get this straight um because i'm not totally i would really appreciate if you can just um get your if we can take a five-minute recess and if you can just gather your thoughts so that we can get clear on this before we have to take a vote thank you we'll come back at 7 23 councillors please take your seats and if if folks want to continue to have conversations if you could please take them into the other room if you'd like to continue to have conversations please take them outside so we can continue if folks could please take any conversations outside so that we can continue our meeting let's get back into discussion on this thanks for taking a recess i think that um we should have clarity now councillor magie are you able to just speak to provide some clarity on what your amendment to the amendment is or so i want to clarify that the amendment affects lines 81 through 83 and removes a business or a portion of a business located within a public building including but not limited to and leaves in food and beverage adds in the word establishment bar or gym and then removes theater or similar high traffic business and then leaves on line 83 after that which actively screens and limits who may enters into its premises to only persons with established proof vaccination for the cove in 19 virus it leaves the rest of the subsection c the same thank you is that is that clear no kind of information yes yes so we are so i'm sorry it's hard for me to hear it i think it would be easier if it's in writing but are you saying that it we're now leaving in the including but not limited to i i just i don't i didn't really hear what you said so it removes business or a portion of a business located within a public building including but not limited to retail it leaves in food and beverage establishment bar or gym and removes theater or sorry removes theater or similar high traffic business and i think my question was because i understand councillor shannon this is some aspect of a version that you were interested as well does this in any way change the intent it's very it's just hard for me to absorb it verbally i think of what of the councillor riggy of your the amendment that you had sort of been looking to propose or do you feel that this isn't the same this effectively does the same thing i think it effectively does the same thing okay um okay that was my question on this and that i did actually have a question also for the mayor but i'm not sure do we want to uh actually i do want to ask that before we would vote on this i guess but if other people are in the queue and want to speak towards this that's fine i don't point out the back nation councillor shannon go ahead just to clarify the language is it i believe it is the language that was just circulated um is that yeah everybody should have it in their email um and if there's a difference from that if councillor mickey could point that out but i think it is the language that is just circulated to the council okay i see it now thank you for letting me know those thank you um sorry it's criticism tracy did you want me to um ask a further or did you want me to circle back um i don't have anyone else in the queue so if you do have another question you can go ahead right now i just had a quick question um mayor when you had mentioned the convenience store aspect can you um clarify what you were i guess i didn't understand if you were saying that you thought that that should be included in the food and above aspect or if it should be not included i think i just didn't really um process that i needed clarification mayor wandbert um thank you uh council freeman i yes uh i actually think i was confused and not an improperly um thinking that somehow uh with the amendment um that convenience stores would be excluded but they because the language um from council mickey would leave in food and beverage establishments uh that would capture convenience stores so i i i'm i'm withdrawing that concern i'm i'm satisfied with this uh i'm no objection to this uh this amendment right okay because i'm sorry so council freeman did you have another question yeah so i was trying to so basically you're looking to make sure that convenience stores could use the vaccine um aspect to be exempted is that correct am i understanding what you're saying yeah yes council freeman okay okay i'm not sure how likely that is i have heard the sure at least one convenience store operator express potential interest in this and again since i see that is only achieving a higher level of public health standard and reducing the chance of transmission in those i don't know why we would object to that in the you know maybe unlikely situation the convenience store owner wanted you know operator wanted to take that step so i support keeping that in there um as well as the others thank you for the clarification um i that is the all the points of information i did want to speak towards um the amendment itself but um i'm not sure is this a good time to go okay okay perfect thank you um i am supportive of this amendment um i think that um i could have seen reason to um uh as councilor jane had proposed to sort of strike this section as as a strike call um but i gather that um there isn't really a way forward with that i don't think that um that will work as a compromise um i think um like if i had my druthers i probably wouldn't um i hear what you're saying convenience stores for like to me it just doesn't seem um like really necessary to provide them provide an exemption i know that i'm probably on the further end of this section was um just given um the um major of my personal experience of the pandemic as a healthcare worker um i have a lot of apprehension about um lifting fast winners or any sort of any um ability for further community transmission because of um the way that that um i think so intensely impacts um that like the health and and well-being of um the sort of area that i um exist in um but i do see this um and it sounds like um based on um councillor comment um in the mayor's comments that it looks like this could be a way forward that's essentially a compromise which i think is actually given um the uh this meeting and and and what we're talking about in the nature of the meeting this far um would actually be pretty uh wonderful and um and i'm happy to support this amendment i'm happy that we um looks like we're moving towards a compromise um and i will yeah i will support the amendment um support the underline as well so uh thank you thank you councillor Freeman so we're still on the amendment to the amendment is there further discussion councillor shannon um just know to small grammatical error there should be an or before gym okay that can be yeah that's a that's a technical correction i'll allow that okay any further discussion on the amendment to the amendment folks clear ready to vote okay will the city clerk please call the roll councillor barlow yes councillor carpenter yes councillor jang yes councillor freeman yeah councillor hanson yes councillor high tower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor magie yes councillor shannon yes councillor stromberg yes city council president tracy yes 12 eyes okay so now we are back to the amendment as amended further discussion on that okay seeing none we're ready to go to vote okay will the city clerk please call the roll councillor barlow yes councillor carpenter yes councillor jang yes councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor high tower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor magie yes councillor shannon yes councillor stromberg yes city council president tracy yes 12 eyes okay so the amendment as amended carries and we are back to the underlying resolution now as amended i have councillor mason in the queue to be followed by councillor mason is passing so i see councillor shannon to be followed by councillor jane i'm sorry i had some notes that i'm trying to revive here i guess i'll wing it as i said in the beginning of this discussion i've had some reservations about this about this resolution about having a mask mandate and i say that as the person who i believe wrote the first mask mandate in the state back in may of 2020 and at that time got um some resistance on the details from people around this table who were concerned about how some people in our community might be affected by a mask mandate and i do think that um taking aside kind of some behavioral issues tonight there are people in our community still who have legitimate reservations about mask wearing and about a mask mandate um have in the process of determining what i would do tonight i've i've tried to talk to as many people as i could um i have talked to pathologist at the hospital i've talked to an an epidemiologist who who practices on the international you know throughout the world but from burlington i have talked with dr lehi who is an ethics and infectious disease expert at the hospital i listened in on the the mayor's facebook forum with dr steven lefler who's the president of the hospital i have reached out to store clerks uh masked and unmasked store clerks and friends and community members um and i've been surprised actually how many people have urged me not to go forward with the mask mandate and one of the biggest reasons was fear of backlash fear that it would have the the opposite effect of what we're trying to do and i really hope that that is not the case i thought it really interesting when i asked some store clerks who were not masked how they would feel about a mask mandate coming down and they both enthusiastically said yes we are ready and that kind of told me that there are there are people in our community who aren't masking because it's not required and they kind of need that to help them get back in the mask because honestly it's not that much fun for any of us um we have changed the culture since that first mask mandate and a lot of people i think kind of accept that we can either wear a mask or not wear a mask and people are doing what they're comfortable with the big thing for me that kind of pushed me to say this is what we need to do at this time is that the hospital the folks at the hospital are telling me that they are overwhelmed and that to me is the ultimate measure of whether or not this is necessary there's a lot of information that i think is um um it's uh there's an overemphasis on the number of cases in the community we have a lot of cases and covid isn't going anywhere we're going to be living with covid probably for the rest of our lives and at some point we're going to cross into a territory where we kind of accept this as it is endemic in our community but what we have always been striving to achieve is we wanted to flatten the curve we wanted to make sure that the hospital wasn't overwhelmed and what i'm told is that the hospital is currently overwhelmed not only by by covid but by other disease as well as um a staffing shortage but covid is a major contributor to why they're overwhelmed and those dealing not not everyone at the hospital but those dealing most closely with covid were were really clear that they need help from the community right now and that's what this is offering they were also really clear that vaccination and i quote is mammothly more important than masking masking in public places i don't want people to think that that really makes you safe most of of the covid that people are getting they're not picking it up in the supermarket or the retail store they're picking it up at family events at social gatherings where they're still not required to wear masks and we've never really been able to to get people to wear masks in those environments understandably so so when we're requiring masking in public places we are hitting a small portion of it what we're doing is we're stopping that chain maybe for if you're standing in line at the grocery store and everybody's wearing a mask you're probably not passing covid to that person you don't know in front of you who may then go home to their elder elderly grandparent or have a relative who's unvaccinated so you stop the chain right there but that's not where most of this is coming from and so i want to be mindful of that this is not a panacea and it's not something we can continue to do indefinitely so i i um i think that there may be some tweaks that we need um to do down the road i'm not going to make any amendments now but ultimately i think rather than um judging our success by community spread i think we should be judging our success by hospitalization rates and working with the hospital to set some standards by which we can say when when our hospitalization rate gets below this for covid then we can lift a mask mandate rather than having the community spread standard and i did get positive feedback from a hospital on that point but we can do that because we're reviewing this every 30 days and there may be maybe other tweaks as well so um i thank the mayor for bringing this forward um and i thank everybody at this table for for working together to come up with something that that works thank you councilor shannon and council jane thank you president tracy thank you mr mayor thank you attorney dan and i think i completely agree that i mean the way we need to measure success is to box in this virus and doing it putting a mask is part of it and i think as an elected official people are right no medical expertise no legal expertise and i want to talk to those two aspects one aspect that we have heard here today from an expert in the medical field very clear when we are enduring a pandemic we need to be proactive and also we need to limit limitations we limit them to the best of our abilities and be clear and consistent since this resolution came forward yesterday um automatically engage my constituents and it was clear they want something that's simple that's clear and to me the appendix exception c is not providing it i'll be supporting this but just because in 30 days we'll come back to the drawing table and reassess whether or not we've been successful or not to the medical uh legal side i think we have to also pay a particular attention about what we are about to do this language is very clear we are going to request vaccination passports the state did not ask us did not ask municipal ladies to bring mandates about vaccination the state was very specific and clear mask mandate inaction at the discussion of the municipalities but we went beyond that i don't want my city to be subject into legal battles here because there are people who are defensive there are people who want to see their freedom of expression so through that question before i vote this i want to reassurance from the city attorney knowing that this language when we talk about vaccination cards there are several types of vaccines that are available what are we talking about are we legally safe to move forward with this language in front of us thank you council jane is there anyone else i don't have anyone else in the queue the question oh sorry go ahead it's okay i i just understood i'm sorry i missed that i apologize go ahead attorney richardson so i understood from councillor jane the really two questions here one is um is this uh exemption legal and my opinion is yes uh what the state uh legislature and governor have given the city of burlington all cities all municipalities around vermont the authority to do is to create a mask mandate ordinance they didn't give us the authority to create a vaccine mandate ordinance but within the mask mandate the way the exemption works is it works as an ability to exclude and that is certainly fully within the power of the municipality to define how far they want to go with the mask mandate um what what businesses they want to cover and just as we've uh defined in here certain businesses that are are covered by the mask mandate and certain businesses that are not um so we can create an exemption to it and and what we've done is create and i shouldn't say we it's really the you the city um that would be approving this would be allowing uh certain businesses to exempt themselves from the mandate if they follow this alternative process of the vaccine screening no business is obligated to do it um every business would be doing it under their own um election and an authority to do so so i in my opinion we're on firm legal ground to do that and in fact businesses currently are screening certain businesses in town are doing that what we're simply doing is saying if you are doing that or you elect to do it as a business um you know you will not be required to be covered by the mask mandate as well um the second question as i understood was was about you know what what the level of proof of vaccination um and the the ordinance is is not is not defined what constitutes proof of uh vaccine uh what's i think evolved is a number of it leaves the businesses that choose to screen uh the option of what they choose to accept which is do they require the person to produce a vaccine card in person do they require you know is a picture of their vaccine card sufficient uh i think the ordinance leaves that to the businesses to determine as opposed to mandating this is the type of uh screening we want you to do because i think that that might push us a little bit further into a legally great area that might be open to the type of liability councillor jane has described uh but this leaves it to the businesses themselves to determine what is an effective uh vaccine proof of vaccination also councillor jane yes okay great sorry about that um are there others wishing to speak okay being none ready to go to a vote no will the city clerk please call the roll councillor barlow yes councillor carpenter yes councillor jane yes councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor high tower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor magie yes councillor shannon yes councillor stromberg yes city council president tracy yes 12 eyes the uh the resolution as amended carries um with by a unanimous vote that was our last item on the agenda so a motion to adjourn is in order moved by councillor jane seconded by councillor hanson any discussion seeing none all those in favor please say aye aye opposed see none we are adjourned at 748 thank you